Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-09-09

rkost Church Ntenbers Fl Pr o,ortion In
 New Mexico-tsemarkab1e Tncrease.
 A large quarto volume, containing t,no statistics Of churches in tle United States, has just been added to the pub 1ished reports Of tho census of 1890 It gives tic returns of 14S distinct de- nominations and 156 independent or qanizations, with total of 20,612, S06 cornmunieants, or members. Only one religious body is omitted in the enumera- tion. No list of tho number of worship CTS at the Chinese temples was obtain able, for noDe is kept, the assumption be- ing that every Ghinamap who has not actually departed from his ancestral re- ligion is included among them.
 Great as are the number and variety of denominations, all except about per cent of the total of members belonged ill 1890 to 2G denominations only Ill fiye of the denominational families alone were over 11,000, 900 communi- cants out of the whole number of 20,- 000, ,000 and over. They are thus emu merated:
 Catholic .... 6, 257 ,871 Presbyterian. 1.27s 332 Methodist 4, 5s9 9934 Lutheran ... ], ,2231 072 Baptist ...,... a7l2.46S
 It appears, therefore, that of the total church membership about seven -tenths were Catholics, Methodists and Baptists combined and about three-tenths Cath olics alone About four-sevenths of the Protestant membership were Methodists and Baptists alone, or, in round fig ures, 5000, 900 out of If, 900, 000 Tn the number of their organizations, or churches and congregations, both the Methodists and Baptists far exceeded the Roman Catholics, the explanation being that the Catholic parishes are much greater on the average. some of them containing as many as II, 900 communicants.
 About one-half of the Roman Catho- lies were in the 124 cities of a popula- tion of 25,000 and upward, where the proportionate representation of the two others is comparatively small. Even the Episcopalians, of whom there were only 540, 509 i'll the whole Union, exceeded the Baptists in their urban membership and came not far short of the Metho- dists, nearly one half of their communi- cants also being in the cities. More than three-quarters of the Jews and of the German Evangelical Protestants were in the cities, and nearly one-half of the Unitarians.
 Proportionately to the population the number of religious communicants was greater in the cities than in the country In the f24 cities containing an aggre- gate population of 13, 989, 568 there were 5, ,S02, ,018 communicants, or in every 264 inhabitants ill the country there was only to 3.04. The greatest num- bef was in New York, 556, 954. This city takes the lead also in the value of it's church property, nearly $55, 1000, 900, but Philadelphia has the first place in the number of church edifices, 664, or 130 more than New York. Philadelphia therefore rather than Brooklyn is en- titled to be called tie City of Churches. It has 1 church edifce for every 1,577 population to Broozlyn's 1 to 2,105. Chicago comes third, 1 to 2,200, and New York fourth, 1 to ?, 83S. Propor- tionately to the population the number of communicants was somewhat moro in the smaller cities than the greater. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Brooklyn have nearly one-third of the population of the 124 cities, but censid- erably less than third of the communi- cants
 In the Union, New Mexico, which is strongly Roman Catholic, had the great est number of eommunieants proportion ately to the population, or 68. S5 per cent. Next came Utah, the seat of Mormon ism, with 61. 62 per cent; then Arizona, largely Catholic, with 45.24 per cent. Among the states South Carolina, q Baptist stronghold, had most communi- cants approximately or Al IT per cent. Rhode Island came next, with 42. S4, and then followed North Carolina, an- other Baptist stronghold, 42. 35; Massa- chusetts, 42. II, and Connecticut, 4. 45. The percentage for the other states and territories ranged from 32.S S4 for Penn sylvania down to 7.93 for Oklahoma. In New York it was 36ai.
 The returns of the Protestant de- nominations show the very remarkable increase since 1880 of 3,895, 12e, or 4205 per cent, though meantime the increase ill population was only 24. 86 per cent. Comparative statistics as to the Roman Catholics were not obtain able, but presumably their rate of in- prpaga rn11S1 bavp eyraa1ad grnatlV that of the general population.
 From the great mass of the statistics of the report many figures can be select ed for interesting discussion hereafter. New York Sun.
 4 Valuable Otter.