commencement of the present century would thus be at least 2,700,000. The matter does not, however, rest even here. These estimates are purely conjectural; but since the writer first turned his attention to the subject, a valuable piece of positive evidence has fallen in his way. It is a Parliamentary return obtained by Mr. Bright last year, which professes to show the number of places of worship licensed under the Toleration Act. It is very imperfect in its earlier tables, but those since 1800 seem to be tolerably complete. Comparing the number of places licensed during each of the last five decennial periods with the number of existing buildings returned to Mr. Mann as opened in each, we get the following remarkable results:—{19} Ten years Places Still in Still in ending licensed. existence. existence (per cent.) 1810 5,460 1,169 21 1820 10,161 1,905 18 1830 10,585 2,865 27 1840 7,422 4,199 56 1850 5,810 4,397 75 39,438 14,535 This is a comparison which cannot fail to startle the editor of the _Patriot_, and to shake the nerves of the Society for the Liberation of Religion. It proves beyond the possibility of cavil that the enormous and constantly increasing growth which Mr. Mann’s tables assign to modern Dissent is “a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.” It shows, moreover (which is the matter more immediately in hand), that barely two in seven (21/75ths) of the Dissenting places of worship which were in existence in 1801, are still remaining. The number of such places was not 3,701, as Mr. Mann states, but between 13,000 and 14,000; and the estimate of sittings first made, after every conceivable allowance for increase of average capacity, and other sources of error, is thus greatly under rather than over the mark. The Dissenting increase may, therefore, be safely taken at 2,758,309 sittings instead of 4,013,408; and if it be distributed according to the proportion of places licensed, matters will stand thus:— Ten years ending 1811 381,875 ,, „ 1821 710,664 ,, „ 1831 740,319 ,, „ 1841 519,097 ,, „ 1851 406,354