The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-06 00:00:00

LANCASHIRE.

Lancashire is so large and so populous a county, that
everything belonging to it is necessarily on a great and
splendid scale. Thus at Liverpool there are seventeen
dissenting places of worship, including those of the Welsh
Methodists ; at Manchester there are ten also, including a
Welsh chapel. At Blackburn, Bolton, Chorley, Darwin,
Hindley, Horwick, Preston, Warrington, Wigan, and
Wymond Houses, there are two dissenting meeting-houses
in each town; whilst at Bury and Oldham there are four
each, and at Salford three. The total number of dissenting
meeting-houses in Lancashire is 138. At first sight this
appears to present an aspect of a most successful character,
but we must go into the details of Lancashire dissent, and
we shall then find it less flourishing.
The county of Lancashire covers an area of 1,766 square
miles ; it contains 499 parishes townships, &c. ; it has
289,166 inhabited houses, and the enormous number of
23,604 uninhabited, besides 3,831 erecting ; and it contains
a population of 1,667,064, being 90,000 souls more than in
in Middlesex, including the metropolis. Dissent un-
doubtedly existed in the seventeenth century in Lancashire,
but only at Darwin and Oldham. During the eighteenth
century only thirty meeting-houses were built ; whilst the
nineteenth century, since the great increase of manufacturers
and of a poor manufacturing population, has witnessed the
erection of 106 dissenting places of worshirt. Of these, ten
' have been built within the last five years.
" The Lancashire Congregational Union (says its histo-
rian) is among the oldest and most efficient county associa-
tions in the kingdom. It was first organised at Bolton, in

June, 1786; but-it took its present name and form at Man
chester, in September, 1806. Since that period twenty-one
churches (read meeting-houses) have been assisted, which
are now contributing to its support, and aiding the general
progress of religion in the world. It has at the present time
about one hundred and fifty stations and out-stations, at
which there are about 1,200 communicants, and not less than
10,000 hearers. It enjoys the services of about 900 Sunday-
school teachers, who instruct more than 6,000 scholars. The
county is divided into four districts, Liverpool, Preston,
Blackburn, and 'Manchester, to each of which arc local
officers. Richard Roberts Esq., of Manchester, is the
general treasurer, and the Rev. Dr. Raffles, of Liverpool,
the secretary. Its income for 1839 was £1,522 17s. 2d. In
accounting for the remarkable progress of Independency in
Lancashire, the seminary first established by R. Spear, Esq.,
at Manchester, and afterwards continued at Blackburn,
under Dr. Fletcher, Mr. 'Wardlaw, &c., should not he for-
gotten. "The Lancashire Independent College' is now
rising at Withington, within three miles of Manchester,
which will cost £25,000, nearly four-fifths of which sum
have been already subscribed !"
Thus writes the chronicler of Dissent, who has been
assisted by " A Brief History of the Rise and Progress of
the Lancashire Congregational Union," by Mr. Slate. Un-
doubtedly these sums look large when compared to those
raised in other counties, but when £1,522 17s. 2d. are sub-
scribed by 138 congregations, it is easy to see that on an
average each congregation only subscribes £ll 10s.
The wealth of some of the dissenting manufacturers in
Lancashire is also indubitable ; and it is a fact that the
strongholds of Wesleyan Methodism and .Romanism are
also in this county. The Methodists at Manchester and its
environs were the first to set the example of raising the
enormous funds collected at the centenary meetings. Nor
are the funds in the Church of England in Lancashire a whit
behind-hand in their noble and pious support of our national
Protestant Episcopal Church. The efforts which have been
made, and are still making in Liverpool and Manchester,
are worthy of this noble county.
The county of Lancaster contains some of the most cele-
brated of the dissenting ministers of the present day, though
there are no less than forty-two meeting-houses without
pastors, and twelve only supplied with beardless students.
Thus, out of 138 Lancashire meeting-houses, only 84 have
pastors. This is a decisive and unanswerable proof, not-
withstanding the eulogies pronounced on the Lancashire
Indenendents by their historian, that Independency, though
very prosperous in the large towns and cities, is at a dis-
count in the less populate and rural districts. Of the
truth of this statement there cannot be a better proof than
this—that at Blackburn, Bolton, Bury, Chorley, Darwin,
Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Oldham, and Preston, out
of 48 ministers and meeting-houses, there are but seven
without pastors. Whilst at small places, such as Belham,
Blakeley, Belthorn, Golborne, Middleton, Patricroft, and
'Wharton, where the congregations can raise but small sala-
ries for their ministers, they are all vacant. At Belmont,
Droylsden, Four-lane Ends, Great Harwood, Heaton Mersey,
Harporley, Huyton, Ramsgrove, Todmorden, and Wymond
Houses, the dissenters do not even think of having fixed
pastors, but are taught by itinerants, or by students. And
these facts alone ought to open the eyes of dissenters them-
selves to the truth, that the voluntary principle never would,
and never could, supply the whole of this country with the
means of Christian worship ; since, at the present moment,
thousands of districts are wholly neglected by dissent, and
thousands of others are most imperfectly supplied.
Indeed, this seems to have been partly felt by the mem-
bers of the Lancashire Dissenting Union, for the report of
that society for 1840 concludes as follows :
" We have been niggard and scanty in the supply of those
means which the great end we have proposed to ourselves,
viz., the evangelisation of the county, required, in order to
its accomplishment : and the work has been impeded, and
the efforts of the workmen, in various ways and instances,
curtailed and crippled by our parsimony. We are challenged
to show to the world that the voluntary principle in religion
is, of itself, sufficiently powerful and expansive to furnish
the means of the world's conversion. Let us do this first
within the limits of our own county—for if we fail in this,
what ground of hope is there for the world ?"
The report of the same " Union" for 1841 thus opens :
" It is always with mingled feelings that we proceed to the
discharge of the duty which thus annually devolves upon us,
of reporting the state of the several stations and itinerancies.
There is so much over which to mourn, mingled with that
which ought to awaken gratitude and joy, that we scarcely
know whether to employ the language_ of congratulation or
condolence—whether to erect the Ebenezer or utter the
lamentation—whether to thank God and take courage,' or,
with emotions verging on despondency, to say; who hath
believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed?' "
A correspondent has transmitted to the Gazette some ob-
servations on Congregationalism in Lancashire, compiled
from Slate's " History of the Lancashire Congregational
Union." The following table is not without interest :

Population, 1841.

Average Congregation.

Proportion per Cent

Members.