GENERAL HISTORY. 



[77 



so generally kno^vn as tlie great 

 deficiency existing in the places of 

 public worship belonging to the 

 established church, he might rest 

 on the ground of public notoriety; 

 but for the sake of a clear illus- 

 tration of the subject, he would 

 take the liberty of referring to 

 the accounts laid upon the table 

 of the House. The parliamen- 

 tary account No. 1 gives a rela- 

 tion of those parishes, containing 

 at least 2,000 persons, in which 

 the places of worship are insuffi- 

 cient to accommodate one half of 

 the inhabitants. They show that 

 in the diocese of London there 

 were eighty parishes of that de- 

 scription, containing 930,337 

 souls, and giving an average of 

 1 1 ,629 to a parish ; in that of 

 Winchester the average was 8,789 

 to a parish ; and in that of Ches- 

 ter 8,195. He had himself ex- 

 tracted a list of 27 parishes in 

 which the deficiency was most 

 enormous, the excess of the means 

 of accommodation in the churches 

 exceeding 20,000 in each. It was 

 not necessary, in his opinion, that 

 the church should be suificiently 

 large absolutely to contain the 

 whole of the inhabitants of a pa- 

 rish at the same time : a large 

 deduction must be made for in- 

 fants, and for those who were in- 

 capacitated by age, sickness, and 

 other avocations. He should 

 therefore conceive, that a parish 

 might be considered as not inade- 

 quately supplied if the church 

 could contain one third of the in- 

 habitants at the same time ; and 

 it would be obviously desirable 

 to provide in the bill for the per- 

 formance of three services on 

 every Sunday and the more im- 

 portant festivals. 



From the returns on the table 

 it appeared that the deficiency 

 was greatest in the district of 

 London, lying in the diocese of 

 London and Winchester, and in 

 those of Chester and York ; and 

 the Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 undertook to make a comparison 

 of the defective accommodation 

 of the churches in these districts. 

 He then proceeded to state the 

 outline of the remedial measure 

 which he had it in his contempla- 

 tion to submit to parhament. He 

 intended to propose a grant to 

 the extent of one million sterling, 

 to be raised by an issue of exche- 

 quer bills, and applied as occasion 

 might require, under the direction 

 of commissioners appointed by 

 the Crown, in a manner analogous 

 to the operations of the parlia- 

 mentary commission established 

 last year to give encouragement 

 to pubhc works. The distribution 

 of this grant would require, at 

 least, four or five years ; and the 

 sums raised in each might either, 

 if parliament should think fit, be 

 made good in the succeeding 

 years respectively, or in one total 

 sum at the close of the period 

 when the whole should have been 

 issued. The public bounty ought 

 only to be given in aid of a fair 

 exertion on the part of the dis- 

 trict : where the commissioners 

 were convinced of the inability of 

 the district to complete the un- 

 dertaking of itself, they would 

 interfere, but rather with a view 

 to assist, than to support the 

 whole charge. In many parishes, 

 not only the population was too 

 numerous, but the extent too 

 great for the pastoral care of one 

 incumbent. On both these ac- 

 counts it might be thought de- 

 sirable 



