3 o6 RELIGION 



has been asked by the two great bureaus which exist for promoting the welfare of the deaf, 

 the American Volta Bureau, and the English National Bureau, to take up the question of 

 the prevention of deafness. The requests came within a few weeks of each other, and were 

 entirely unconnected. Only one conclusion can be drawn from this coincidence, i.e. that 

 the time is ripe for the consideration of this large and important subject." In response to 

 this request Dr. Kerr Love has given a series of lectures in London on the subject of the 

 prevention of deafness, and the same subject has been dealt with in two articles by Mr. 

 Macleod Yearsley in the Lancet (July 20 and 27, 1912). (F. G. BARNES.) 



RELIGION 



CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND ANGLICAN COMMUNION 



Welsh Church Commission. The Royal Commission appointed in 1906 to " inquire 

 into the origin, nature, amount and application of the temporalities, endowments and 

 other properties of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire, and into the 

 provision made and work done by the churches of all denominations in Wales and 

 Monmouthshire for the spiritual welfare of the people and the extent to which the 

 people avail themselves of such provision," did not report until December 1910. It 

 then presented majority and minority reports. The former was signed by seven of the 

 nine Commissioners, five of whom gave a qualified adhesion to some of the opinions of 

 their colleagues. The Commission received a mass of evidence as to the finances and 

 the numerical following of the Church as compared with the Nonconformist bodies. 

 The statistics presented on behalf of the Church showed that the actual number of 

 communions made at Easter rose from 134,000 in 1905-06 to 144,000 in 1908-09 and 

 that the total number of persons upon all the Welsh communicant rolls was, in the latter 

 year, 193,000. These returns were based upon lists for each parish, with the name and 

 address of each communicant. The Nonconformist lists of " full members " gave the 

 Congregationalists 175,000, the Calvinistic Methodists 170,000, the Baptists 143,000, 

 the Wesleyans 40,000 and the smaller Protestant denominations 19,000 among them. 

 Other figures prepared on behalf of the Church showed that in every diocese in Wales 

 there had for many years past been a constant and substantial increase in infant bap- 

 tisms, confirmations, and Sunday-school scholars, and that in most cases the numbers 

 had grown in a larger proportion than the population, the inference being that the 

 Church was expanding by conversions from Nonconformity. In the diocese of Bangor, 

 where the population decreased, the Church communicants increased. The Commis- 

 sion found that the Church in Wales provided 1,546 churches and mission-rooms, with 

 seating accommodation for 458,917. The officiating clergy numbered 1,597968 in- 

 cumbents, 561 curates and 68 others. There were 2,393 English services, 1,103 Welsh 

 services, and 228 bilingual services every Sunday. The seating accommodation pro- 

 vided by the Church in Wales was 22.8 per cent of the population, a fraction above the 

 percentage for England and Wales together. The accommodation in the Nonconform- 

 ist places of worship provided for more than double the total of Nonconformist adherents; 

 the chapel-building debt of the Calvinistic Methodists amounted in 1906 to 668,000, 

 and of the Congregationalists to 318,000. On the other hand the Church accommoda- 

 tion failed to keep pace with the increase of the population. Between 1831 and 1006 

 the population increased 91 per cent, but Church sittings by only 71 per cent. Resident 

 clergy, however, grew by in per cent and regular Sunday services by 176 per cent. 

 Much controversy arose as to the accuracy of the figures presented on the one side or 

 the other, but in the end it appeared to be clear that the Church of England was numeri- 

 cally the largest single religious body in Wales. The Commission found the total gross 

 endowments of benefices in Wales in 1906 to be 242,669. (A Parliamentary Return is- 

 sued in November 1912 showed it to be then 260,037.) Of this sum 135,980 is income 

 of endowments believed to have been in existence in 1703; 37,344 is income derived 

 from Queen Anne's Bounty; 49,669 is income derived from the Eucharistical Com- 

 missioners; 19,672 comes from private gifts since 1703. In 1905-06 voluntary con- 

 tributions were 48,972 towards clerical stipends; 62,261 for church expenses or church 

 maintenance; 68,853 f r church building and burial grounds. 



