Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/123

 churches existed. This is no longer the case: but much still requires to be made known. We want (as has been suggested) accurate statistical reports of our existing churches, and of the needs of our population. A layman who has any leisure, would be most usefully employed in collecting and making public these facts. It is a debt of justice to acknowledge the great service which has been rendered, not to Scotland only but to England, by the labours of one Glasgow layman, Mr. Collins. His pamphlet, called "Statistics of Glasgow Church Accommodation," has done more probably towards making known the dreadful state of irreligion in which the neglected thousands of our town population are actually lying, than any other work. He has refuted the confident assertions, that the dissenters do for the poor what the Church does for the rich; and that the poor are excluded from the house of God only because they will not come: he has laid bare the monstrous features of the case, by a plain statement of facts. Such a book (modified of course in many particulars) is necessary before we can rightly estimate the state of Birmingham or Liverpool, and even of large parts of London. We want to know how many families in each street or district regularly attend any church—how many go sometimes—how many never—and then, how many are in conscious separation from the church? thus we could calculate the actual numbers who are deserted by