The votaries of _Iscariotism_, or the “cheap and nasty” in religion, will perhaps turn this fact to account, and abuse Churchmen for lavishing such large sums of money on a few buildings, while there is so much spiritual destitution calling for relief. They will perhaps say, “Look what an amount of spiritual agency the Dissenters bring to bear for half the sum you expend; and, after all, the Dissenters ‘get more out of’ their buildings than Churchmen.” At first sight, Mr. Mann’s tables appear to justify this assertion; but here, as in every other respect, they only mislead. According to Table 16 there were on the Census Sunday 190 services in every 100 dissenting places of worship; whereas, there were only 171 in the same number of churches. But if this table be any criterion, it would appear that the machinery of Dissent is, by comparison, more efficient in the rural districts than in the towns; for while the Non-conformists opened their town buildings on the average 2.10 times, and the Churchmen 2.06 times, they opened their country buildings 1.84 times and the Churchmen only 1.64 times. Yet it must be obvious that the proportion of country congregations which possess a regular ministry must be very small, the greater part of the 8,658 professional Dissenting preachers being required for the towns. The fact is, the majority of country meeting-houses are served by non-professional persons. As soon as the morning service is over in the towns, a swarm of “Spiritual Bashi-Bazooks,” issue forth, who, for the rest of the day, play the more ambitious, if not more edifying, _rôle_ of preacher. The sort of congregations to which they minister may be gathered from a comparison of the number of meeting-houses and the number of sittings open at the different periods of the day:— Meeting Houses (open). Sittings (open). Morning 11,875 3,645,875 Afternoon 11,338 2,506,116 Evening 15,619 3,983,725