On the twenty-sixth of March, a special meeting of the vestry is held, to pass unanimously, three resolutions, to enable the vestrymen to charge the rates with £19,000, for building Trinity and this church; they appeal again to the Church Commissioners for _a nominal grant_ “_to establish the validity of their proceedings_;” and, considering the good and pious object, for which the application is made, the commissioners relent, and grant _one hundred pounds_. After much difficulty £19,000, is at length borrowed. But one Assurance Office, of high respectability, refused to have anything to do with this loan, even after the lawyers had put the parish to the expense of £32 17_s._ 10_d._ on account of it; £103 3_s._ being the amount of two other bills “for negotiating” this loan. {157} But this sum was not enough to carry on the church account; another £1000 had to be borrowed of the banker, on the fourteenth of December, 1847; and above £100 interest was paid on that sum before the loan was returned. Some time after this, the committee report that the subscriptions for All Saint’s Church amount to £1,635 2_s._ 10_d._; and that the cost of the building has been £7,434 18_s._ 2_d._ This church is built in the early pointed style, and its internal fittings and decorations are exceedingly plain. It is capable of holding 1,500 persons; 600 free seats, and 900 appropriated, or pew sittings. The amount of church-rate, _collected_ for nine years, ending April, 1852, was £20,574 3_s._ 8_d._ Of this there was “balance in hand of £1,607 15_s._ 2_d._;” but a debt of £14,500 was owing for churches which had been built. This debt is bearing interest at the rate of four-and-a-half per cent; and £900 is paid off annually. So that these four churches will have cost the rate-payers of Paddington upwards of £40,000, over and above all the sums given by the Church Commissioners, Metropolitan Committee, bishop and lessees, all Parliamentary provision of the sites, and all private subscriptions; and this sum of money, with upwards of £10,000 paid for St Mary’s, and the church-yard, will have been raised by “_compulsory levy_,” from rate-payers of all denominations; while the receipts of “the rectorial and other lands” are quietly pocketed by the rector and his lessees! But I have heard rate-payers told, as a great consolation, “that the churches of Paddington cost nothing in comparison to the churches of Marylebone.” This however, may not be very consoling to those who know the cost of the following:— Wesleyan Metropolitan Chapels, which have been recently built. “Poplar chapel is of the decorative style, 105 feet long, by 60 feet wide; is built of Kentish Rag Stone, with Caen Stone dressings; will seat 1,500 persons; and cost about £4,000.