'The actual morning attendance at dissenting Sunday-Schools was 40,641, at the church schools 3,396, or in the proportion of twelve to one. In the afternoon, the dissenters' schools were attended by 57,243, the church schools by 6,002, or more than nine to one, giving an average proportion of eleven to one in favour of dissenting schools.'
It may be objected that as there were probably many churches in which only one service was held, the deduction, from the average of three services, may be unfair. Well, let it be noticed that the maximum number attending the churches is in the morning, when it amounts to 18,128; and that the maximum number attending the dissenting chapels is in the evening, when it amounts to 128,216; hence the ratio of the maximum attendance at dissenting chapels (evening service) to the maximum attendance at the churches (morning service) is seven to one. But leaving out of account for the moment the relative proportions of Church and Dissent, as indicated by these returns, what do they tell us of the absolute number of persons attached to the Church, as compared with the population? Instead of taking the average attendance at three services, we will, as before, take the number present at the most numerously attended, namely, the morning service; and if we add to that number one-fourth to represent absentees, we shall have a total of 22,660 souls. This, in a population of 431,000, would amount to rather more than one in nineteen of church-goers.
But let us now turn to the official census of 1851. We have not the slightest wish to impeach the general accuracy of the facts and figures given in Mr. Horace Mann's masterly report. But the condition of Wales is very peculiar, and the general rules laid down by that eminent statistician for classifying and formulating the immense mass of figures with which he had to deal, while fair enough, no doubt, to the normal state of society in England, may not have been equally applicable to a country in so exceptional a state as Wales.
That a serious error has crept in somewhere into the returns, as respects the Principality, is obvious from this one fact. The number of sittings provided by the Church of England is stated to be 301,807, and the number of the worshipping population of the same church on the 31st of March, 1851, is stated to be 138,719. Now Mr. Mann shows that the proportion per cent. of attendants to sittings in the Established Church, throughout all England and Wales, is only thirty-three; whereas by the above showing, the proportion of attendants to sittings in Wales alone is 40 per cent. We venture to say, that no man competently acquainted with Wales, knowing, as every such man must know, the miserably meagre attendance at hundreds of churches in that country, would for an instant believe that the churches are occupied in the proportion of 40 per cent. of attendants to sittings. Let us, however, take the figures given to us in the census. The population of Wales, including Monmouthshire, in 1851, was 1,188,914. The total number of places of worship was 4,006, which was distributed thus:
PLACES OF WORSHIP.
| Of the places of worship— | ||
| The Established Church furnished | 1,180 | |
| Nonconformists | 2,826 | |
| 4,006 | ||
| Of the sittings (including estimates for defective return)— | ||
| Established Church furnished | 301,897, or | |
| 30 per cent. | ||
| Nonconformists | 692,239, or | |
| 70 per cent. | ||
It appears thus, that the Church had provided sittings for only 25 per cent. of the population, while the Nonconformists had provided sittings for nearly 59 per cent.
But how about attendance? According to Table B. of the Census of Religious Worship, the greatest number by very far of attendants at the services of the Established Church on the Census Sunday was in the morning. The number was 100,953. If we add one-fourth to this number for the absentees, we have 126,191, which represents 10·6 per cent., not quite one in nine of the population.
But these facts, sufficiently remarkable as they are in themselves, give really but an imperfect impression of the real magnitude of the anomaly which exists in Wales. An Established Church is presumably a national Church, and rests its claim to being established on the ground of its being national. Above all, it ought to be par excellence the poor man's Church, as some of the friends of the English Establishment are wont to allege, with what truth we pause not now to inquire, that theirs is. But in Wales the Church is not only not national, but it is anti-national; and the whole policy of its rulers for at least a hundred and fifty years has been inspired by a prejudice as stupid as it was mean against, the Welsh nationality and language. At present, of the small remnant of the population which still remains within its pale, by far the larger part are either English immigrants into Wales, or that portion of the Welsh people which have become Anglified in their feelings and tastes; and instead of being the poor man's Church, that of Wales is emphatically and almost exclusively the rich man's Church. There are scores, we might safely say hundreds of churches, in which, if the clergyman's family and the squire's family, and their few dependents and parasites were removed, there would be absolutely no congregation at all.