RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. 317 



religious teaching and the exorcise of religious worship were lielJ 

 as essential to civilisation and general well-being by tlic ])('()j)le of 

 Australia. That writer was hardly the best authority on Australian 

 matters in a general wa_y ; but the figures given may be taken as bearing 

 out his opinions in this instance. "The peo])le/' he further said, 

 "are fond of building churches, and of having them in their villages," 

 and here he was again accurate in his observation. The (piestion of 

 church attendance, of course, is another question. The mere filling 

 up an entry in a census form may show the nominal position of the 

 Churches ; but it does not throw any definite light on the estimation 

 in which religion is practically held. In 1892 we find that ;j.'j7,781 

 persons were retuimed as attending the services of their respective 

 denominations, being in the proportion of oO'-i per cent, of those 

 returned as nominal church adherents in the previous year's census. 

 Twenty-four years ago, with a population of 502,861, the church 

 attendance was 172,320, or about o4- per cent. With a little more than 

 twice the population, therefore, the falling off has been something like 

 4 per cent. ; which means that, proportionately speaking, aliout !• l-,000 

 persons less than in 1871 are in the habit of attending the church 

 services of their respective denominations. It is noteworthy that the 

 only body in which the attendance is up to 100 per cent, of nominal 

 membership is the Salvation Army. The Wesleyan Methodists come 

 next in proportion with 57 per cent. ; then come the Congregational 

 body with 48, the Baptists and " other Wesleyans " with 43 each, the 

 Roman Catholic with 38, the Presbyterian with 28, and the Church of 

 England with 16, all in round figures. This way of looking at the 

 subject may serve to indicate the respective influence of each denomina- 

 tion on its own adherents ; but it is not absolutely conclusive in itself 

 until the actual numbers of each denomination are given. These show 

 a church attendance of members of the Roman Catholic Church of 

 112,474; Church of England, 83,630; Wesleyan Methodist, 51,415; 

 Salvation Army, 45,765, the number of enrolled members being 10,312 ; 

 Presbyterian, 32,215 ; Cougregationalist, 12,025 ; other ]\Ietliodists, 

 10,020 ; Baptist, 5,903 ; and other denominations, 4,32.5. It should 

 be mentioned that these figures, however, only relate to adult attend- 

 ances, and the returns from Sunday schools show that the total figures 

 for chui-ch attendance would reach 476,000 if these were included. 

 There are some other considerations to be reckoned with before arriving 

 at final conclusions on these figures. One is that the po])ulation in many 

 districts of the Colony is so scattered that attendance at church services 

 is in some cases extremely difficult, and in others impossible. Another 

 point is that the average in New South Wales is much higher than in 

 England, where these adverse conditions do not exist. The supply of 

 clergymen and the number of church buildings must also be included in 

 the calculation. The former shows a general average of 1,031 persons 

 to each clergyman, and the latter something like 4,885 churches, or 

 school buildings so used, for the whole denominational population, 

 providing seating accommodation for 448,492 persons. 



The figures of the different denominations have fluctuated with the 

 growth of population as time went on. By the census returns it would 

 appear that about fourteen persons in every twenty belong to one or 

 other of the Protestant bodies (about ten in twenty being of the 



