.MOITAXIAXA SI

bevisogy pwettel A rotstobom,noeliW iting doogoreli mort leo ed to 9908 be an under statement, as some might yet come in. This, of course, includes congregations, which meet in school-rooms and other places, as well as those which meet

Monthly Retrospecti qolau. 114 merit

in churches, strictly so called. The number of churches connected with the Establish ment is nearly 14,000. It thus follows that dissent has supplied England and Wales with a larger number of buildings erected exclusively for public worship (not includ ing preaching stations), than the Establish ment has done. * bor? to tima ed

odt anib DISSENT IN ENGLAND COMEZO anT Mann is 20,133, which he acknowledges to Some of our readers will remember that au committee of the House of Commons wasti appointed last session, to consider the law of church-rates, and the difference of practice which exists in various parts of the country in the assessment and levy of such rates" in England. The committee has separated without coming to any report. The evidence has, however, been published in a large blue book, containing about 800 pages. Independently of the immediate question for which the committee was ap pointed, the propriety or impropriety of levying church-rates, a and on which they could not agree as to the formation of a report, there are some interesting facts on the extent of English Dissent. For these we are indebted principally, if not exclusively, to the evidence of Mr Edward Baines of Leeds. In a document which he laids upon the table, there is the following estimate of the Nonconformist churches in England and Wales, drawn up, as he says, with great pains to obtain accuracy:Jadi bns

1

Number of
Chapels.
4450

2572

1943

1662

597

778

415

77

330

Wesleyan Methodist Association

322

Methodist New Connection.........

281

Free Church of Scotland,

T

61

Mr Baines added, that he supposed the churches of the Establishment about the same, or rather indeed fewer, than Dissenting chapels.

In addition to churches or chapels, by which he means buildings appropriated exclusively for public worship, he puts down "the number of preaching stations in villages, having either school-rooms or hiredrooms." These amount to 7472. According to this calculation, the number of churches and preaching stations is 19,812. That this statement is beneath the truth, is ascertained from the authority of the Registrar-General, who furnished Mr Baines with the number of dissenting congregations in England and Wales, from which returns were received at last census. The total amount returned to Mr Horace

A very instructive fact came out in the course of examination, serving to show the manner, in which statistics have been too often manufactured to subserve the purposes of an Establishment. About twenty years ago, the late Mr O'Connell moved for some ecclesiastical returns. These were all destroyed in 1834, by the fire in the House of Commons, with the exception of those for the county of Lancaster. According to this return, furnished by the ministers of the different denominations, the aggregate number claimed for the different forms of Dissent was 281,889. As the total population of Lancaster was 1,052,859, the number of Dis senters was subtracted from this, and the residue was claimed as the undoubted children of the Church. The like process, we remember, was adopted by the late Dr Cleland, in his religious statistics of Glas gow. Get returns from dissenting ministers of their flocks, add them all up, subtract this sum from the aggregate population, and thus by a method as accurate as it is easy, you arrive at the number of persons who claim connection with the national Church. Mr Baines, in reply to this statement of Sir Robert H. Inglis, regarding the Lancaster returns, presents returns of 1843. And what is the general result, for we do not wish to load our pages any more with figures? The Dissenters have nearly three times more churches, and nearly five times more sittings, than the Establishment in Lancaster. A general impression is given, that of the persons who attend public worship, in England, five parts attend the churches of the Establishment, and four parts attend the Dissenting churches,-the Establishment preponderating in the agricultural, and Dissent in the manufacturing districts. The Establishment in England' is thus much stronger than it is in Scotland. In Scotland not more than one-third of the church-going population are connected with the Establishment; the rest worship in Dissenting churches. And had we a national parliament sitting in Edinburgh, the sepa

C

ration of church and state, north the Tweed, It is possible for religious societies to sustain would not cost us much trouble.

We are acquiring from various sources, a valuable collection of facts on the ecclesiastical condition of Great Britain. They are weapons which shall yet be wielded with advantage. Two important conclusions are drawn from these returns. First,

their own worship on the Voluntary principle. And Second, The hardship of church rates is very extensive, as pressing upon a large number of persons who support their own religious ordinances, and who, for the most part, do not belong to the more wealthy classes.

AGITATION AGAINST MAYNOOTH.

A STRONG under-current is setting in against the Maynooth Endowment, and preparations are making for a campaign, during the next session of Parliament. It will be as well, therefore, for us to be furbishing up our weapons, and getting our armour in readiness. It is frequently stated, that the support of Maynooth College was one of the stipulations made when Ireland was united to Great Britain; and though it may have been a foolish enough bargain, and probably had better never been made, yet a community must keep faith, and not break covenants, because experience has proved them to be injurious. Unfortunately, or rather very fortunately, it turns out, when the facts are correctly expiscated, that this famous article of union, anent the permanent endowment of Maynooth College, is as great a legend as the obligation which, it was said, rested upon the East India Company to support the temple of Juggernaut, with its hideous atrocities and abominations. The first annual grant to this Romish college was made by the Irish Parliament in 1795; and its continuance was only pledged by the Act of Union for a term of 21 years. The obligation thus ceased in 1821. The political object, moreover, for which this endowment was granted, has signally failed. We use the word political advisedly, for it is not possible, as honest men, that a parliament, consisting entirely of Episcopalian Protestants, could vote away the public funds, in order to encourage the superstitions and idolatries of Rome. It was supposed, that the Irish priests, repairing to the Continent to receive their education, would become tainted with revolutionary principles, during their necessary absence, and would return the friends of anarchy and the foes of the British constitution. Let us keep the students at home; let us furnish them, at our expense, with the means of education in their own country, and thus we shall free them from the temptations of continental politics, secure their allegiance by the grateful recollection of benefits enjoyed, and they will form an admirable spiritual police, in teaching the people to obey the laws and honour the king. Such was the argument. Never was a greater mistake committed. Sinful expedients, by an unerring law of retribution, never fail at last to recoil upon the heads of their projectors. It was a sad blunder. The Irish priests of former days, who had received their education upon the Continent, were, for the most part, loyal and peaceable subjects. They belonged rather to the liberal school of Popery. They had the feelings of scholars, and used the language of gentlemen, when they expressed their ideas. But the Maynooth students have proved fierce, fanatical, and disloyal. Intensely vulgar they are in appearance, in word, and in action. The mark of a scholar is not upon them, and of the courtesies of civilised speech they are profoundly ignorant. It has been their incessant object to sow the seeds of dissension in that unhappy land; and they have not hesitated, in their inflammatory addresses to their debased and uneducated

audiences, to stir up the worst passions of our nature against their fellowsubjects, at the very time too, when we were feeding them by millions. No lies were too gross, and under their training the moral feeling of Ireland has become so debauched, that it is difficult to get at the truth in anything. The endowment of Maynooth has thus proved a delusion and a snare; and there it stands, a miserable monument of statesmanship, and an irrefragable proof of the silliness of those who still expect to govern Ireland, and reduce it to peace and good order, through the intervention of the Romish priests. Nor must the fact be overlooked, that full proof has recently been given that Roman Catholics are able enough to support their own theological institutions. They will not receive the blessings of literature and science in the Queen's Colleges, which have recently been established in Ireland with such remarkable munificence. What is the reason of this? It is because a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian might sit in the same bench with a Roman Catholic, as is the case in our Scottish universities, and study together Virgil and Locke, Euclid and Newton, without quarrelling about the doctrine of transubstantiation, or the immaculate conception of the Virgin. An Irish Catholic university is to be instituted, where the mathematics will be taught, without danger of Galileo and Primate Cullen getting into an awkward collision, as to the motion of the earth round the sun. We read of large sums pouring into the treasury; upwards of a thousand pounds were received last month, in about three weeks; and the most cheering accounts are published of the readiness of Roman Catholics, in all parts of the world to further so noble a scheme. Now, our argument is this, that if a Roman Catholic university, where all branches of knowledge are taught, can be built and supported by voluntary contributions, there can be no great difficulty in raising about thirty thousand pounds annually for Maynooth College, where students receive merely a theological education. Why not put this college upon the same footing as Stonyhurst and other colleges of their own, which make no demand upon the public purse? The Irish Catholics have now learned the value of their own resources for educational purposes; and though the national endowment of Maynooth were withdrawn to-morrow by an act of Parliament, there is no good reason to fear that the students would again be reduced to the miserable condition of lying three in a bed, an extremity so pathetically described by Macaulay, and for the removal of which he implored that an additional sum should be bestowed from the imperial exchequer. It is very proper that each student should have a bed for himself; but we have a strong conviction that the beds of divinity students should not be dependent upon the national funds, to which persons of all shades of religious opinion contribute.

It was in 1845, that the endowment of Maynooth College was transferred to the Consolidated Fund, and became no longer subject to the annual votes and discussions of the House of Commons. It was also enlarged at the same time. This scheme of Sir Robert Peel was strenuously opposed by the country at large. It cost Macaulay his election. It was carried at last only by two votes; and had it not been for the inconsistency of some of our very liberal politicians, it would have been cast out by the House. Now, if this support of Maynooth is to be continued, it must be brought back to its former position, and placed every year under the eye and control of Parliament. No good reason can be assigned, why this Popish endowment should be placed upon a different footing from that of the Presbyterian Regium Donum in Ireland. But we must aim at the utter extinction of this grant, and of all other grants

of public money for religious purposes. The paltry English Regium Donum is doomed, and something could be said in favour of its continuance (for it was originally a royal gift, not a parliamentary one, and perhaps inferentially it is a royal gift still), which cannot be said of either the Popish or the Presbyterian grants in Ireland. Let us demand that these and ́all similar grants for religious purposes be withdrawn, at once and for ever.

A Protestant Alliance is now in course of organisation, with the Earl of Shaftesbury (Lord Ashley) at its head. Its object is twofold: The withdrawment of the Maynooth endowment; and the promotion of religious freedom in **Papal countries. It will embrace all parties who are opposed to the endowment of Popery, though they may hold different opinions, as to the propriety of state, support being afforded to what is believed to be the truth of God. There will, no doubt, be a diversity of sentiment among the Voluntary Dissenters, whether they should join this Protestant league or not. Much may be said upon both sides, and, for our own part, we do not here express an opinion. Certain it is, that recent events have convinced no small number of Dissenters, that a church which systematically is opposed to civil and religious freedom, which no oaths can bind, and which owes no allegiance except to a foreign priest, should be looked at from a different point of view than a Protestant church. Besides, we see no want of logic, no lack of consistency, in a Voluntary addressing the Legislature in the following terms :—“I am opposed to all religious endowments, but more especially to the endowment of Popery." This is not making Parliament the judge of what is right and wrong. It is the man instructing Parliament what he thinks is right and wrong, and that his religious convictions should be respected. And if the objection be presented, that a Roman Catholic could address the Legislature in similar terms, we reply most assuredly, Give him the same privilege as ourselves. Let him go to Parliament and say, "I am opposed to all religious endowments, but more especially to the endowment of Protestantism." And if Parliament should reply, that it cannot judge between the two contending parties, we would rejoin, "Put an end to this incessant perplexity, this perpetual clashing of opinions, this civil and religious war, by withdrawing endowments from all sects. Make them all equal, by giving nothing to any." And our object should be to place Parliament in this predicament, until they are compelled to cut the knot, set free an imprisoned church, and remove the load of oppression. The Maynooth agitation is hopeful. We shall be disappointed, if good does not come out of it.

Printed by THOMAS MURRAY, of 2, Arniston Place, and WILLIAM GIBB, of 12, Queen Street, at the Printing Office of MURRAY and GIBB, North-East Thistle Street Lane, and Published by WILLIAM Oliphant, of 21, Buccleuch Place, at his Shop,, South Bridge, Edinburgh, on the 26th of November 1851.