Again, the inquiry will probably satisfy the reader that the anti-Church legislation of the day ought to proceed no further. It is easy to assign the cause which in the first instance gave it birth. Most statesmen, it may be presumed, will be ready to adopt, with regard to the multifarious sects of modern Christianity, the last clause, at least, of Gibbon’s famous dictum respecting the ancient religions of Pagan Rome—“to the people equally true, to the philosopher equally false, to the magistrate equally useful.” Persons who profess with sincerity almost any form of Christian doctrine are comparatively easy to govern; they throw but a light burden upon the poor-rate and they cost nothing at all in the shape of police. A statesman, then, might dislike Dissent, but what was he to say to a state of things like that revealed in the Census report? The Church, according to Mr. Mann’s tables, could not, by dint of the utmost exertions she is ever likely to put forth, find accommodation for half the souls who are year by year added to the population. On the other hand the Dissenters, who are far less wealthy, and have few endowments, provide without difficulty and without fuss more than twice the amount of new accommodation supplied by the Church. The irresistible inference in the mind of a mere statesman would be that Dissent ought to be aided and encouraged. But if it turns out that the facts are precisely the reverse of what has been represented—if in reality Dissent is making no progress, while the Church is providing new accommodation sufficient for the whole of the new population—why should the Legislature go out of its path to foster mere religious discord, and to impede the spread of what the country has, after all, long since recognised as the “more excellent way.” Why, for instance, should Churchrates be abolished? If they were right in 1831, when there were more Dissenters and fewer Churchmen, why are they wrong now? If Parliament has conferred upon parishes, _as a boon_, the right to tax themselves (if a majority of the ratepayers think fit) for the purpose of building and maintaining public baths, museums, and libraries, why should parishes now be deprived of a right which they possessed before there was a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a budget—before the Norman set foot upon our shores, or there was a House of Commons worthy of the name—the right to tax themselves in order to maintain edifices which may be museums second in interest to none, and which may have been centres of enlightenment long before the days of Caxton and Guttenberg?