The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-10 00:00:00

THE CENSUS BILL.

There is something said in a certain book of these
who compassed sea and land to make one proselyte,
only to make him worse than before. A zeal of
this kind seems to have infected all sorts of Chris-

tians in our times, so great is the anxiety to count
up to a good figure, and so much less the interest
taken in the religious quality of the individual
Christian. Just now the approaching Census is
the battle-ground between the Established Church
and all other denominations. In the last Census
it is quite clear, from the vociferous protest raised
by all Churchmen and the excessive satisfaction of
the Dissenters, that the latter had stolen a march
on the Church of England, and by some trick of
practical arithmetic had swelled the returns from
their Meeting-houses at he expense of the Church.
The latter, which is always a most faithful expo-
nent of the English character, and which does its
spiritual business much as the War-office did
the Crimean war, and much as we are doing the
public works of this metropolis, was caught
napping on that occasion, but had ever since resolved
to make up for her neglect. The returns have been
pulled to pieces in a thousand ways, and, if we have
not ourselves joined the sport, it is that, with all
due respect to the Registrar-General and his staff,
we don't attach the value some people do to religious
statistics. One result of the controversy is, that in
the Census Bill now before Parliament it is proposed
to provide against close packed chapels and deserted
churches, monster revivals, and rainy days, by
putting to every man the question point blank,
" What is your religious persuasion ?" So the ques-
tion stands, and the effect of this very small formula
on the Dissenting body is as if they had been
pricked by Ithuriel's spear. They are in utter dis-
may at what we are bound to conclude will be the
detection of their real paucity. On the contrary,
Churchmen are preparing to sing Io triumphe over
the rout of their antagonists. For our part, we can
scarcely conceive the mind of the man who could
propose to put such a question to everybody when
we think who and what " everybody" is. Unless
the answers be almost universally true the return
will be worthless, and if they be true the answers,
in this metropolis at least, will be that generally
the religious profession is nil.
It is impossible to doubt that these zealots are
battling to swell up their respective numbers
from those amphibious classes which have really
no profession at all. The degree of success in
this questionable enterprise must depend much
on accident ; but, be it much or little, it seems
to us equally worthless. What if it should
appear on the face of the answers to such a ques-
tion that three-fourths of the metropolitan popula-
tion were Church people ? The only moral would
be that the Church had neglected its duty, or that
professed Churchmanship was just good for no-
thing, or that these halt-million Churchmen might
be left to take care of themselves. It certainly
could be no matter of boast to the Church that it
allowed its members to remain such as they cer-
tainly are. The Church can win no glory from the
names of those who consider Churchmanship a
sufficient excuse for neglecting every religious duty,
and often every moral duty as well. For the Church
to insist on the proposed question, is to accept the
position of a refuge for the destitute, to be content
with a mere mob, and to depend on an army great
only on paper. We see no conclusion of any prac-
tical importance that the Church could engraft on
any return, were it of the most paradoxical cha-
racter. We all know there is work enough to be
done, and no specification of numbers can add to
this fact. If anybody wishes to be an Apostle to
the Gentiles, or, as we now call it, a missionary to
the heathen, he need not wait to learn half a
dozen languages, or spend a fortune at a college, or
purchase an outfit, or cross one or two oceans, or
run the risk of being eaten by savages. He has only
to walk a couple of miles in any direction in this
metropolis, or, if that be too much, go to the
nearest mews or back lane, and he will find plenty
of stray sheep whom no pastor ever sought out,
with whose hearts no man of God ever communed,
who have, indeed, heard of the Church, and have
been baptized—nay, married and churched in its
fabrics, but who know about as much of its faith as
if they were the intended objects of the projected
mission to Central Africa. Why should Church-
' men be compassing sea and land to make proselytes
and to swell muster-rolls, when they seem utterly
indifferent to the personal results for which they
are making themselves responsible ? On the other
hand, why should Dissenters be anxious to conceal
the well-known fact that the most neglected masses
of our population are nominally Church people ?
In the face of the opposition that has been or-
ganised, and which showed itself last night in the
Commons, it is impossible that the question can
stand, and this metropolis is to be spared the dis-
tressing scrutiny into its religious professions or
convictions. But cannot both Church people and
Dissenters find some worthier occupation than to
run up a beggarly account of empty
_souls against
one another. Ten thousand men in buckram can
do no good to any church. But fir_st and foremost
it is evident that the great masses of our population
have to be made Christian at all in the most general
sense. They are in the condition of the " sheep
without a shepherd" that we read of, who assembled
everywhere in thousands, and were taught in the
most general
way the nature and spirit of the
kingdom of Heaven. We have only to look
back to the last ten years to see the utter
worthlessness of the cleverest controversial
ockeyship. We forget the precise proportion

of Church people and Dissenters ;:tablished
by the last census, if, indeed, we ever - thought
it worth while to inquire, but it hes not
led to a single practical result. No doubt, it has
appeared in Episcopal charges and Nonconformist
magazines; but, except in the torrid zone of pole-
mics, the whole question is utterly unknown. On
the contrary, had a tenth part of the zeal lavished
on this worthless controversy been employed in
searching out ignorance, misery, and recklessness,
and addressing to them the simplest truths and
persuasions, at all events a few souls would have
been saved, and there would be something to show
for it. As these religious interrogatories of the
approaching Census are to be either given up or
considerably modified, perhaps Church people and
Dissenters may now shake hands over their ten
years' quarrel, and admit. that a. figure in a sum is
not quite so important as actually raising the con-
dition of the people in the scale both of time aml
ternity. Even if they cannot go quite hand in
hand, there is work enough for both of them, and
they need not interfere one with another-7 tines.