4,233 4,729 5,082 4,530 Massachusetts... .... New York.... 4,235 4,722 6,930 5,556 8,819 9,738 12,072 800 740 1,500 1,606 1,886 2,563 2,726 3,623 5,781 Virginia... 3,000 3,500 3,297 640 900 1,150 933 869 1,337 1,164 2,450 116 ...... Totals...... 9,790 8,697 22,778 17,409 31,482 136,416 $45,930 To try any ratio with the above figures for 1820, would be of no use, for with Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia omitted, no reliance can be placed on the total. In 1832, however, nearly all are given, and the absence of two or three will probably not more than make up for the fact that the Church year (1832) is two years later than the year of the census (1830). We find, then, that in 1832 there was I communicant to every 408 of the total population; and in 1841, this had improved to I in *See Report Com. State of the Church, 1826. Official summary. every 307: a very great and satisfactory improvement. Let us tabularise the figures: From this it will be seen, that, while on the clergy basis it seemed that our ratio to the population had not gained since 1850, the basis of communicants shows a steady gain in the ratio to population-a gain of from 1 in 289 in 1850, to 1 in 145 in the year 1880. And there are no sudden jumps in the statistics anywhere. Gradual but steady gain is found to be the law. Let us now turn to the total of contributions reported. At first these were very imperfectly given, and only gradually have they approached a completeness not yet reached. But as they are our only figures, we shall do our best with them; comparing them with the number of communicants. In the General Convention summaries this item of contributions does not appear very early. The Church Almanac (our next best authority) gives the total for 1853 as $566,065.94, and the communicants for that year as 98,358. This would give an average, to each communicant, of $5.75 a year. In 1860 the total contributions stood at $1,870,914.98; which, with 146,588 communicants, gives an average of $12.76. In 1870 the total contributions were $5,002,721.88; communicants, 218,315; average from each communicant, $22.91. In 1880 the "hard times" have told, evidently, upon the totals, which are $6,727,043.37, with 344,789 communicants; an average of $19.51 from each. The triennial totals, as given in the General Convention Journals-each sum representing the gross contributions for three years-are as follows: And lastly, as the most important external item of Church growth-the fountain from which vitality flows forth to all the rest-let us look at the rate of increase in our Episcopate. TABLE VII. Let us now tabularise this in proportion to the total population, omitting, however, the "Retired" and the "Foreign Missionary" Bishops, as having no direct bearing upon the home work. We thus find that we had The fact is that we have not as many Bishops in proportion to population as we had in the year 1800, when there were only seven States which had Bishops at all, and the nine others, and all the territory outside, were entirely without! This startling fact is carefully commended to those wonderfully wise gentlemen among us, who think that we are multiplying Bishops too rapidly! But notwithstanding the insufficiency of both Bishops and Clergy, the figures as to Communicants and Contributions prove, incontestably, that the Church is steadily gaining upon even the marvellous growth of our American population; and that Churchmen themselves are becoming more and more liberal with their worldly goods, in fair proportion to their numbers. J. H. HOPKINS. BISHOP LITTLEJOHN ON THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. The Christian Ministry at the Close of the Nineteenth Century. By the Rt. Rev. A. N. LITTLEJOHN, D.D., LL.D. The Bishop Paddock Lectures, 1884. New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1884. THE HE Bishop of Long Island is to be congratulated on his choice of a subject for the Paddock Lectures; and the Church at large is to be congratulated upon having such an all-important subject as the Christian Ministry treated by one whose reputation is even greater abroad than it is at home. Surely if there be one subject which, in view of the rapid disintegration of faith going on, within the Church, and the avowed hostility of unbelief in the world without, is more pressing than another in a religious point of view, it is the Christian Ministry. The ministry is indeed (as presented in the introductory lecture) "at the bar of criticism." Nor is the judgment, as it would appear, only that of men, but, as the eventful character of the age would seem to indicate, it is a judgment at the hands of the Heavenly Judge as well. Society has changed, and with it the relations of the ministry, in almost every particular, have changed also. It is not now, as we are so well told, with the Christian ministry as in ages past. There was a time when the Christian priesthood was the great moral and intellectual force of the world; it had committed to its care not only the souls but also the bodies and the social wants of men. It was a necessity of the times that they who had the faculties needed for so great a task should assume the guidance of rude and only partially amalgamated races in their exodus from barbarism.. They were the |