Thus it will be seen that the excess of accommodation over attendance is 9,593,382. That is, on the average, the places of worship at all services are only half full. This is not a result occasioned by extraordinary defects in any particular bodies, but is more or less common to all. We give a few examples, showing the extent to which various religious bodies make use of the accommodation provided by them respectively. The excess of accommodation over attendance, then, is a general feature, and is very suggestive; but we will leave this matter for the present, and recur again to the comparative strength of the Established and non-established churches. We will, first of all, give a table, showing the comparative accommodation provided by each; then another showing the comparative attendance of each. This result confirms our previous calculation that the Church of England has a slight excess of accommodation over other churches. Let us now see the second comparison : The apparent excess of attendants over sittings in the morning, among the Roman Catholics, is explained by the fact, that they generally have several services for different persons at that period of the day. In the aggregate, then, the non-established churches of England and Wales are frequented by a majority of 310,964 over those attending the State Church; a fact which for ever condemus the assumption that the Established religion is the religion of the majority. We imagine this is the only plea by which its perpetuation amongst us has ever been sought to be vindicated. It is now generally understood that the only circumstance which can render the investment of a particular sect with a monopoly of political privileges and national secular support at all tolerable, not to say plausible, is the adherence to it of the great majority of the people. To our mind this argument is as shallow as the shallowest by which the theory of a State Church was ever supported. In religious competition, as we have before urged, majorities have no sanctity, and, therefore, should command no homage. It is as real a wrong done to truth and to God, to place onc single, earnest, striving soul, in a great public disadvantage, when his inspiration might revive the life of the whole Church, and his wisdom expose its corrupting errors, as it would be to exterminate a whole tribe of honest heretics, or put a community to death for consciencesake. If there were only one Dissenter in these realms, the present, or any similar establishment, would be, on the one side, a consecrated iniquity; on the other, a blackened and degraded religion. But, when it is known that this gorgeous and inflated institution is maintained in defiance of the protests of more than one-half of the whole people, most of whom regard its revenues as a robbery, and its political power as despotism, who will appear as its apologist, and in what words shall its conservation be recommended? If even the prestige of numbers could not render it righteous, in what terms must its character be described when the weight of numbers is in the scale of its condemnation? But we have not yet made out the whole account against this gigantic imposition. It will be found that in the large towns-where the intelligence of the people is more exalted and more general-the Church of England may be almost said to be at a discount; whilst in rural districts, and more particularly in agricultural counties, popular ignorance, and the subserviency of the working classes to the power of priest and squire, give a dominion, we cannot say glorious and benignant, to the Establishment. This point has been frequently urged on Home Missionary platforms, and it now stands fully confirmed by the indisputable statistics of Mr. Mann's admirable Report. We will give just one short table in illustration of the fact we have just mentioned, and by which the prevalence of Dissent in large towns will be strikingly exhibited. It will be understood that we give the actual attendances on Sunday, March 30, 1851 : Leeds 8,558 25,862 6,846 Total Attendances ..." 161,806 273,384 111,578 Here, then, we see a majority of 111,578 (or nearly one-third of the whole attendances) going away, in these six towns, from the Church established by law, seeking their spiritual instruction in temples on which the light of royal approbation falls not, and where the splendid pomp of a legalized ritual is not displayed. And we might have extended our list much farther. We might have included in the above table, without at all compromising the general result, the following other large towns:-Ashton-under-Lyne, Blackburn, Bolton, Bury, Carlisle, Coventry, Derby, Devonport, Dudley, Gateshead, Huddersfield, Leicester, Liverpool (where the Catholics alone are almost equal to the Church of England), Macclesfield, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Oldham, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, Sheffield, South Shields, Stockport, Stoke-upon-Trent, Wakefield, Wolverhampton, and York. In all these towns-the most influential in the kingdomthe comparison would have shown a general result, fully in accordance with that exhibited in the table. In this calculation we have not included any of the metropolitan boroughs, nor any of the Welsh districts, though, as to the latter, we might have shown that Wales has three Protestant Dissenters to one Churchman; whilst of the former, a majority may be claimed for Dissent in Finsbury, Southwark, and Tower Hamlets. We give one other short table, which will more clearly illustrate, and more fully confirm, our position. It exhibits the relative number of attendants, in the several districts of England and Wales, on Sunday, March 30, 1851; and, for the better perception of the force of these figures, they are arranged in four different classes, showing the strength of the Church of England, of Protestant Dissenters, of Roman Catholics, and of other bodies. REGISTRATION DIVISIONS Population, 1851. Number of Attendants belonging to Church ENGLAND & WALES. 17,927,609 | 2,971,258 3,110,782 249,389 24,793 ||6,356,222|| But our readers will feel the fatigue of these investigations. Statistics are proverbially dry, and the illustration of great principles which they afford does not suffice to make them pleasant. If every school-boy had to calculate the number of stones in every raisin, and the number of raisins in every sweetmeat given him, before he was allowed to taste it, verily plum-puddings and plum-cakes would soon go out of fashion. We have been picking' the raisins till our head aches, and even now have not made the cake! What shall we do? If our readers have counted the stones as we have picked them, they will support our proposition to adjourn the undertaking till next month, by which time we shall hope to have not only cleansed the fruit of - statistics, but mixed it up with the flower of our principles, and baked it into sweet solidity by the fire of conscientious and spirited reflection. The Preachers A Modern Tale. PART I. In one of those large commercial towns of England which some consider the head-springs of British prosperity, and where multitudes of enterprising men are constantly ascending and descending on the ladder of fortune, the families of the Rigorhoods and Fluxibles had played a successful part, and won the game of life. They had left their town residences, and retired into one of the most beautiful of the suburban districts, to spend the leisure of their days. To your social sage, who studies domestic problems, in order to ascertain what stages the world has reached, and what still clogs the chariot-wheels of true progress, the household incidents of these families may be of some service. Mr. Rigorhood was a veritable Scotchman, and there was much of the Caledonian in his form, spirit, and brogue. They say that it is characteristic of the North Britons never to forget number one;' perhaps this is a libel on our Northern neighbours, although, it must be confessed, that in the case of Mr. R. the I was ever supreme. His physique was somewhat imposing. He stood above the average height, with a broad chest, brawny limbs, and a big head. Your phrenologist, in handling that cranium of his, would say that it indicated a large predominance of the intellectual over both the animal and the moral. There was evidently a fine calculating machine under the bony roof above his shoulders. Though his chest was broad, he had more brains than heart. We never liked his eye; we could never meet it in our glance, not because of its strong flash, but because it seemed to roll beneath us-look inwards or askance, not at us. It only peeped at you from under its projecting and shaggy brow. In social talk, we like eyes to meet glances and mingle fires. Mr. Fluxible was a very different man. He was a native of Somersetshire. He was thick set, of florid complexion, and with a considerable dash of the amiable in his constitution. He was evidently on good terms with himself and with all mankind. He lived in the sunshine of his own good nature; never wrestled with any great problem; neither the Bible nor the universe gave him any doubts. Marriage had connected these two very dissimilar men together. Rigorhood had married the sister of Fluxible, and she partook largely of the attributes of her brother, and supplemented many of those heart qualities of which her husband was manifestly deficient. In some respects, however, there was a correspondence between these two men. They had both come, green and penniless youths, to the town about the same time; and both, by perseverance and frugality, had amassed a considerable amount of wealth. Rigorhood had made his fortune as a baker; the other as a draper. Earnest, and, we hope, honest venders were they of the two great necessaries of our physical being-food and raiment.' Both were religious men in their way; they were regular in their attendance at their respective places of worship; members of the church, and morning and evening read some portion of holy writ, and offered prayer in their domestic circles. They had both large families; Fluxible had seven children, and often did the good little man, blending a little of his small wit with his piety, congratulate his partner on that number, stating that it was the biblical symbol of perfection.' Mr. Rigorhood was the honoured father of two amiable and intelligent daughters, and of a son, of whom we shall have to speak not a little hereafter. These families, though united by tender relationships, living on |