The number of churches is the same as in the general table, but the number of sittings is less by 158,198. The discrepancy, however, is soon explained. The average capacity of the larger town churches is 577 sittings, or 200 above the general average, while that of the country churches is 312, or only 65 less; and, while as many as 1,294 new buildings of the former class have been erected, the number of the latter class has only been 1,404. On Mr. Mann’s own showing, therefore, his principle is erroneous, and his Table 13 has cheated the Church of nearly 160,000 sittings. But this is by no means the whole of the injustice of which he has been guilty. Not merely have there been more churches built in large towns than is consistent with maintaining the old average on the country at large, but the new structures both in town and country are of far greater dimensions than those anciently erected. An Englishman is not naturally fond of large communities of any kind. He has a passion for privacy; and his pet phrases are “snug,” “nice little,” “not numerous, but select.” This feeling breaks out in everything. Take the matter of lodging. Abroad, many families club together, and occupy a mansion. The plan has been tried in this country; but it meets with little success. Most men would regard themselves as “flats” indeed, if they put up with a floor when they could get a house; and working men regard model lodging-houses as little better than barracks, or, as they still term them, “bastiles.” So in ecclesiastical arrangements, John Bull, looking upon the parish as but an extension of the family, cannot have it too little for his taste. Abroad, the parish is regarded more in the light of a city within a city; and hence parochial churches on the continent were always less numerous and far larger than was anciently the case in this country. Even when we had large churches they were not fitted up for many worshippers—size being regarded more a matter of dignity than of practical utility. London, before the Great Fire, with its vast cathedral, and its hundred and ten parish churches; or Norwich, with its spacious minster, and its forty churches, fairly represent the true English idea. In modern times, however, we are forced to act differently. The sudden increase of population, and the utter unpreparedness of the Church to grapple with the difficulty, have produced an emergency of which our forefathers had no experience. We adopt the continental custom from sheer necessity, just as in London a third of the population are obliged, though much against their will, to live in lodgings. We build our churches large because that is the cheapest mode of supplying our immediate wants. The two systems may be well illustrated by contrasting Norwich, with its 41 churches and 17,000 sittings, with Manchester, which has 32 churches and 44,000 sittings; or by comparing the City with its 73 churches and 42,000 sittings with the