It would be uncandid not to state that Mr. Mann admits this estimate to be open to some objection. His words are:—“It is probable that an inference as to the position of affairs in former times can be drawn from the dates of existing buildings with more correctness in the ease of the Church of England, as the edifices are more permanent and less likely to change hands than are the buildings used by the dissenters. Still there is a possibility that too great an amount of accommodation has been ascribed to the earlier periods.” The tables are, therefore, to be taken with a “certain degree of qualification from this cause.” With respect to the Nonconformists, he observes in a note:—“In 1801, according to the estimate from dates, * * * the Dissenters had only 3,701 buildings. This, however, is scarcely probable, and seems to prove that many Dissenters’ buildings, existing in former years, have since become disused, or have been replaced by others. As so much depends upon the extent to which this disuse and substitution have prevailed, these calculations, in the absence of any facts upon those points, must necessarily be open to some doubts.” Now, it may be taken for granted that no one reading these very mild qualifications would suppose that they were intended to cover any serious error. Everybody would conclude that the mere fact of Mr. Mann’s tables appearing in a grave public document was a guarantee that they were in the main correct. Indeed, the suspicion that they were not perfectly trustworthy never seemed to have entered into anyone’s head. The Society for the Liberation of Religion lost no time in issuing a manifesto grounded upon them, and the dissenting prints have dwelt on them with great emphasis. Thus the _Patriot_, some time ago, declared, with a sort of oath, that “as surely as the morrow’s sun would rise,” so surely would Dissent be in a majority at the next census. On the faith of these tables, too, Mr. Hadfield announced, at the close of last session, that a spirit was growing up which would not much longer tolerate such an abomination as a religious establishment; and Mr. Gurney, in his sermon at the consecration of the Bishops of Gloucester and Christchurch, admitted that Dissent was gaining ground.