Meeting Houses. Sittings. Average Sittings.
Large town districts 1,337 258,220 193 each.
Residue of country 2,634 781,218 330 „

The late Mr. Hume’s emphatic appreciation of a certain “modest assurance” as a means towards getting through life will be remembered. How the lamented sage would have envied the courage of Mr. Mann in putting his name to a document embodying these statements! It is really much the same as if the Astronomer Royal had presented to Parliament an elaborate calculation, signed with his proper name, in which he proved the diameter of the earth to be 25,000 miles, and its circumference 8,000! Seriously, the very least one might have expected from a public servant performing an important official duty would have been to abandon calculations which he must have observed led to nonsensical consequences; and not to put forth statements which, while they involved a gross libel upon the most venerable institution in the country, were calculated to prove, as they have proved, so fatally misleading. These very Tables 6 and 14 are of great importance. We are constantly hearing that the great towns monopolise the intelligence of the age, and that it is they which are to govern the country. What then, has been the verdict of the great towns on the question—Church versus Dissent? According to these tables, the Church, in the large towns, has provided only 747,027 sittings to meet an increase in the population of 5,621,096 souls. Dissent, in the meantime, has furnished 1,873,305, or more than twice as many. The Church’s increase is not two-thirds the number of sittings she originally possessed; the increase of Dissent is more than sevenfold! If these figures were only correct, it would hardly be possible to conceive a more complete condemnation of the Church’s system; if they are not—and there is no reason to think that Dissent has materially altered its position in the large towns since 1801—it is impossible to imagine a more scandalous or a more gratuitous calumny.

Mr. Mann’s formula proving utterly untrustworthy, the question arises, are there any data on which a substantially correct notion of the number of Dissenting sittings in 1801 may be arrived at? To the writer, it appears that there are. Thus, from the statistics of the different Wesleyan bodies appended to Mr. Mann’s report, it would appear that the old and new Connections in 1801 had at least 100,000 members. It would further appear, that for every member the Wesleyans have about four sittings, so that in 1801 the Wesleyans must have had at least 400,000 sittings. The next question is, what proportion did the Wesleyans bear to the aggregate Nonconformity of 1801? At present, the Wesleyan sects have about 11/24ths of the entire number of Dissenting sittings; but their ratio of progress has confessedly been double that of their fellow Nonconformists. Mr. Mann’s process of calculating from dates, unsatisfactory as it is in other respects, may, perhaps, be allowed to decide how much of the entire Dissenting accommodation of 1801 was possessed by the Wesleyan bodies. According to table 17, the old and new Connections had between them only 165,000 sittings, out of the 881,240. It has been shown, however, that they had, in reality, not less than 400,000; and, raising the sittings belonging to the other sects in the same proportion, we get a total of 2,136,339. This result receives complete corroboration from Mr. Mann’s own returns. First of all, it is clear that meeting-houses which have remained in existence half a century must be buildings of some importance. Dissenting places of worship are of two classes—those which have regular congregations and a regular ministry attached to them, and those which are merely temporary preaching stations. The number of these latter will surprise the reader. Mr. Edward Baines, in his evidence before the Churchrates Committee, estimated that no fewer than 7,360 of the 19,000 which he supposed belonged to “the three denominations” were of this description. The total number of mere preaching stations, however, may be easily ascertained. It may be safely assumed that all places which have a regular ministry are opened both on Sunday mornings and on Sunday afternoons or evenings. The total number of this class in 1851 was only 10,583; so that each would represent an average of 462 sittings. Now, as the number of Dissenting places of worship which date back to 1801 cannot be less, even if calculated on Mr. Mann’s principle, than 3900, the number of sittings in that year must have been upwards of 1,800,000. But it would be a great fallacy to suppose that even first-class Dissenting congregations are exempt from the tendency to decay and disappear. If Nottingham may be taken as a fair example, it would seem that not two-thirds of the regularly organised congregations existing in 1801 survive to this day. The total number of sittings at the commencement of the present century would thus be at least 2,700,000.

The matter does not, however, rest even here. These estimates are purely conjectural; but since the writer first turned his attention to the subject, a valuable piece of positive evidence has fallen in his way. It is a Parliamentary return obtained by Mr. Bright last year, which professes to show the number of places of worship licensed under the Toleration Act. It is very imperfect in its earlier tables, but those since 1800 seem to be tolerably complete. Comparing the number of places licensed during each of the last five decennial periods with the number of existing buildings returned to Mr. Mann as opened in each, we get the following remarkable results:—[19]

Ten years ending Places licensed. Still in existence. Still in existence (per cent.)
1810 5,460 1,169 21
1820 10,161 1,905 18
1830 10,585 2,865 27
1840 7,422 4,199 56
1850 5,810 4,397 75
39,438 14,535

This is a comparison which cannot fail to startle the editor of the Patriot, and to shake the nerves of the Society for the Liberation of Religion. It proves beyond the possibility of cavil that the enormous and constantly increasing growth which Mr. Mann’s tables assign to modern Dissent is “a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.” It shows, moreover (which is the matter more immediately in hand), that barely two in seven (21/75ths) of the Dissenting places of worship which were in existence in 1801, are still remaining. The number of such places was not 3,701, as Mr. Mann states, but between 13,000 and 14,000; and the estimate of sittings first made, after every conceivable allowance for increase of average capacity, and other sources of error, is thus greatly under rather than over the mark. The Dissenting increase may, therefore, be safely taken at 2,758,309 sittings instead of 4,013,408; and if it be distributed according to the proportion of places licensed, matters will stand thus:—

Ten years ending 1811 381,875
,, „ 1821 710,664
,, „ 1831 740,319
,, „ 1841 519,097
,, „ 1851 406,354

If it be objected that the average capacity of Dissenting buildings has increased of late years, there are two answers—first, there is no evidence of such increase to any material extent; and, secondly, that there is an antagonistic influence at work, which would counterbalance such increase if it existed. It must be clear that the number of “causes” which annually collapse becomes greater in the same ratio as the congregations themselves increase. Thus, almost the same number of places were licensed in the ten years ending 1810 as in the same period ending 1850; but the number of places discontinued out of 13,000 would obviously be less than the number discontinued out of, say 18,500; so that unless the new Dissenting meeting-houses are larger nowadays than was formerly the case, the amount of sittings attributed to the latter periods is too large, rather than too small.

We have now materials for the reconstruction of our table:—

Population.

Church Sittings.

Dissenting Sittings.

Total Sittings.

1801

8,892,536

3,024,615

2,136,339

5,160,954

Subsequent decennial increase:—

1811

1,271,720

55,250

381,875

437,125

1821

1,835,930

96,900

710,664

807,564

1831

1,896,561

276,250

740,319

1,016,569

1841

2,017,351

667,250

519,097

1,186,347

1851

2,013,161

1,197,650

406,354

1,604,004

Total Increase

9,035,073

2,293,300

2,758,309

5,051,609

Total

17,927,609

5,317,915

4,894,648

10,212,583