Dissent has _not_ improved its position, and the Church has not lost position since 1831; on the contrary, the Church has gained, and Dissent has lost, ground since that year. Finally, as churches, save only where there is an excess of accommodation as compared with the population, are at least as well attended as dissenting places of worship, the charge of comparative inefficiency which has been so rashly brought against the clergy proves to be utterly without foundation. Here, then, the present inquiry might be brought to a close; and yet it would be palpably unfair to the Church to rest the case upon a mere comparison of the additional sittings supplied by her rivals and by herself. A new church, generally speaking, means a very different thing from a new meeting-house. It means a substantially built and even highly-decorative structure, the freehold of which is the property of the community to which it belongs; it means decent and becoming furniture for the performance of divine service; provision for a properly educated minister in perpetuity; service performed at least twice every Sunday, or even twice every day; a house for the resident minister; a day-school, or rather a group of day-schools; and a host of other benevolent and educational agencies. If the establishment of the day-school be taken as a criterion how far the parochial machinery has been completed, the following table from the report of the Educational Census will be instructive:— DAY SCHOOLS SUPPORTED BY RELIGIOUS BODIES. Founded before Church Schools. Dissenting Schools. Total. 1801 709 57 766 1811 350 60 410 1821 756 123 879 1831 897 124 1,021 1841 2,002 415 2,417 1855 3,448 1,156 4,604 Not stated 409 89 498 8,571 2,024 10,595 What, on the other hand, is the status of a majority of the 20,390 buildings returned to the Census office as “chapels” may be guessed from the fact that the total number of professional dissenting ministers of every description in 1851 was only 8,658.