Diocesan Church Building Society in the kingdom, but of having carried that blessed work to an extent unapproached by any other individual. He built forty-seven more churches during his episcopate of twenty years than had been erected since the first formation of the see in 1541, extending over a period of three centuries. What share Lancashire had in this stupendous effort we may gather from this fact, that whilst its population was increasing without a parallel, Church accommodation more than kept pace with it for more than twenty years. Upon the authority of Dr. Rushton, vicar of Blackburn, and higher authority upon this subject cannot be adduced, Church accommodation exceeded the increase of population in the Hundred of West Derby and Salford by two per cent., and in the Hundred of Blackburn six per cent., while the multiplication of the clergy was in a much higher ratio. It is only just to say that the Church Pastoral Aid Society, and the Society for Providing Additional Curates, materially contributed to this beneficial result.

I venture to make this broad and general statement, that the Church upon the whole, taking the county generally, furnishes now as large a spiritual provision as it did sometime after the commencement of the present century. I say not as large as in 1775. Then the Church had accommodation for most of the population. But in the succeeding twenty-five years the state of things was very different. Take a few facts out of numbers that might be adduced in favour of this general statement. The county town in 1801 had 9,010 people and three churches, it has now 15,000 people with five churches, maintaining the same proportion. Preston at the Guild in 1782 had 6,000 people, and two churches; but in 1801 it had 12,174 with the same churches, giving more than 6,000 to one church. In 1861, it had 83,000 people, but still with twelve churches and two licensed rooms, which it has at present, it furnishes substantially the same spiritual provision that it had at the commencement of the present century. With respect to Liverpool, I find from a valuable pamphlet by our excellent friend Dr. Hume, that it has, in proportion to the population, exactly the same amount of church accommodation that it had a century ago. There is, however, this difference, that while 15 per cent. was the provision made by the Church for the population of Liverpool, when it was almost wholly Church of England in profession, it has now the same amount, while one-seventh of its population consists of imported Romanists. It is very noteworthy that while Liverpool stands below Manchester, its twin sister in church accommodation, it had a larger number of persons in attendance at its services on the Religious Census Sunday.

With respect to the township of Manchester, church accommodation is but slightly less than it was at the beginning of the century, and we have thus been gradually gaining upon that appalling spiritual destitution which had accumulated in 1821. If we were to institute a comparison between 1821 and 1861, not only this city, but the whole county would present an immense improvement. When, however, I say that the church has made as large a provision for her members as at the commencement of the century, I make it, as I said before, as a general statement, and by no means intending to say, that throughout the county there is the same number of churches. I speak of a provision that cannot be tabulated, yet which it would be a capital mistake to omit. We had not at the period so often referred to the same staff of

District Visitors and Scripture Readers, the same troop of Sunday Helpers, and Schoolmasters and Mistresses. We had not the same amount of living agency, and the churches then in existence were not made so available, and did not furnish the same number of services, If, however, we made our statement applicable to the number of churches at the close of the French war, even with respect to the number of edifices, the present day would bear a most favourable comparison. The apathy in church building continued much beyond the settlement of European Peace. But while in the first decade of the century there was not one church built for every 50,000 people, in the fifth decade there was a church built for every 3,200; and while at the former period 22 per cent. was added to the population, and literally nothing done to supply their spiritual wants, in the latter period there was an excess of 9 per cent. of church accommodation above the increase of the population throughout the whole county.

It may be permitted me to mention with brevity two interesting incidents in connection with ecclesiastical matters in this city. Few persons who hear me will be prepared to receive the statement, that between 1851 and 1861 the population of Manchester proper actually decreased through the substitution of palatial warehouses for inhabited houses, The population of Manchester proper decreased from 187,009 to 185,000. Yet, while there was a decrease of 2,000, four churches were consecrated, two rooms licensed, and eight clergymen allocated amid a population that had declined. The other incident is this: the increase of the population of Manchester, in its widest sense, was 58,700 during the same decade. But what was the provision made to meet that increase of population? Fifteen churches were consecrated, eight schools licensed (the names of all of which I have before me), and thirty-four clergymen were appointed, giving a place of worship for every 2,550 people, and a clergyman for every 1,750, a fact, I should think, to be unexampled in any other large town in the kingdom. I have heard with regret and surprise that some persons on the platform believe me to mean that this was the provision made for the general wants of the whole population of Manchester. Nothing could be more foreign either to my intention or the scope of my remarks. This, of course, solely and exclusively applies to what the Church has done to meet the increase of population within the given period, I regret to be obliged to say that Salford has not participated in this improvement, as no church has been built in that borough for something like seventeen years, while the population has vastly augmented. In Hulme also, and in parts of Ancoats, though much has been done within the last few years, more still remains to be done. The same remark applies to some of the towns adjacent to Manchester, but which it would be invidious in me, as a Manchester clergyman, to name; but the wants of these and many other places call for the unceasing exertions and liberal contributions of all thoughtful and intelligent laymen.

While the Church, moreover, throughout the country, has been providing for her adult members, she has not neglected the rising generation. While she has obeyed her Lord's positive command to "Feed his sheep," she has not ignored his prior loving injunction to "Feed his lambs." 84 per cent. of school accommodation, and 76 per cent. of scholars receiving daily instruction throughout the kingdom are in schools belonging to the Church of England. The facts

recently published by the Rev. William Kennedy, her Majesty's school inspector, as to the number of schools inspected, will show that the Church of England, in Lancashire, is not behind other parts of the kingdom. Thus the Church is doing its work in the present day, in a more complete manner than at any former period. As Lord Derby asserted last week, at Liverpool, in his admirable speech, education fifty years ago was in a most deplorable condition; except the Grammar and Dames Schools, our towns possessed no other means of instruction for the masses. Now, it would be very difficult to find a Church without its commodious rooms and a staff of efficient teachers. The clergy, moreover, as a body, have advanced with the age, and have caught the spirit of activity and energy which characterises the times in which they live. Many of them do an amount of work which their predecessors, fifty years ago, would have pronounced suicidal.

My aim has been, in the limited time at my disposal, to show that there has been a real and solid growth of the church in this influential and important county. It has formed no part of my design to show what has yet to be done. This will doubtless be dealt with by my successor, who will show the necessity of maintaining the spirit for Church Extension, and of making a still larger provision for the populous parts of the county. A far-seeing politician, in one of his masterly speeches some time ago, describing the position and principles of the Church of England, combats the objection sometimes made that the Church has lost the large towns. His reply was that the Church had never lost them, because she had never had them. And he declares that it is reserved for the Church to achieve its great future triumphs there. I am disposed somewhat to modify that statement, and to assert that the Church has not now to win her great triumphs in our large towns, but has, in a great measure, won them already. Never at any preceding period did the Church exert a wider influence; never had she a faster and firmer hold on the affections of the people. She has almost outlived opposition, and her influence is felt among all classes. That body of extreme Nonconformists who have banded themselves avowedly to dismember Church and State, and to confiscate Church property, cannot hold a meeting in any of our large towns but it rather tends to strengthen than to weaken the Church, and the blow levelled at her recoils on themselves. The tide of popular feeling has very strongly set in in her favour, and all that her members have to do is to provide additional sanctuaries for the growing population, and send forth pastors replenished with soundness of doctrine, and adorned with innocency of life, and it will then be found that every storm of opposition, and every wind of false doctrine, will only root her more deeply in the affections and confidence of the large-hearted, clear-headed, intelligent, religious people of Lancashire.

GROWTH OF THE CHURCH IN LANCASHIRE.

BY THE REV. A. HUME, D.C.L., LL.D.

THE subject of the growth of the Church in Lancashire may be viewed in several aspects, according to the precise object which the speaker or writer has in view. I prefer to examine it in a comparison of numbers; partly because strict examinations of this kind are rare, while popular statements upon mere presumptive evidence are

numerous. It is, besides, a mode of investigation with which I am somewhat familiar. An examination of numbers has the great advantage, also, of affording materials for the formation of opinion, by providing a sure basis for numerous important deductions.

In the figures which I am about to lay before you, I do not, of course, pretend to absolute accuracy; for even an official census is not free from occasional mistakes. But I can honestly state that I have sought the best sources of information, and have taken great care in the examination and arrangement of the facts.

(a) THE COUNTY AS A WHOLE.

Let us first examine the county as a whole, and thus obtain what is called in mathematics "a first approximation" to its actual state, both past and present. And here we are reminded that its modern history is essentially distinct from its more ancient history. For a long period, the Church lived, but scarcely progressed; and the increments of population were so small as to present no feature of much significance. The first important data that we possess in church matters are to be found in Bishop Gastrell's 66 Notitia," ," which has been ably edited by the Rev. Canon Raines; but, while it affords us definite information respecting churches, we have indefinite information only respecting the population of the time. Practically, therefore, we must commence at 1801, a period sufficiently remote to include some of the greatest changes that the county has ever witnessed, while it lies wholly within the region of definite materials. It extends over two average generations of men; yet many of the aged move among us who witnessed the condition of society in the close of the last century. The annexed table exhibits the following facts:-1. The population of the county at each of the decennial periods. 2. Its increase stated in per centages. 3. The number of churches at each decennial period. 4. Their increase given in per centages. And 5. The number of individuals to each church throughout the county: -

During the first 30 years, the population increased 891 per cent, the churches 20; during the second 30 years, the population increased 82, and the churches 82. Thus, during half the period under review, we have kept pace with the population in the matter of providing churches; but sometimes the one moved a little faster, and sometimes the other.

Suppose we regard the number of churches existing in 1801 as no

more than sufficient for the wants of the population, we may then go on to compare the successive increments of population with the corresponding additions of churches. In that case we have, during the six decennial periods, the following facts :

TAB. II. INCREMENTS OF POPULATION AND CHURCHES.

In 1801 673,486,-251 churches,-1 for every 2,683.

[Two points here require a moment's notice. The first is that the progress of a church is not to be measured by the number of its new religious edifices; though that is undoubtedly one important element of consideration, In a new country like Australia, or in a newly peopled territory like some of the Western States of America, new churches and chapels are required for new communities, who are more than a practical Sabbath-day's journey from any place of worship. But in a settled country, which has possessed an ecclesiastical framework for centuries, not a single building may necessarily be called for; though a considerable increase may take place in population, in Church feeling, or in practical godliness. In our midland shires, for instance, and in agricultural counties and districts everywhere, an increase of the flock entails more labour on the shepherd, but does not necessarily call for an enlargement of the fold. Very frequently, indeed, it is found more in accordance with our ecclesiastical arrangement to add a little to the accommodation of the old church than to organise a separate worshipping community. In the reasonings of dissenters there is frequently the implied premiss that the progress of Christianity is in direct proportion to the number of new sites even for old chapels; but as the premises are false, the conclusion

cannot be true.

It

The second point which requires notice is the comparative size of our churches and chapels. If we take the Census of Religious Worship of 1851, we find that the average accommodation in English churches was 377, and in chapels belonging to other religious communities 240 ;-both of which numbers are surprisingly small, and almost incredible to the inhabitants of our Lancashire towns. appears from the same document, that the Lancashire churches, including chapels and rooms licensed for divine service, had an average accommodation of 725; and from the numbers given in the Diocesan Calendars for Manchester and Chester respectively, it would appear that the average accommodation of the churches proper, in 1861, was not less than 850. This affords us a still nearer approach to the religious provision of the present time; for it gives us, in round numbers, nearly half a million of sittings for two millions and a half of population.]