of TRUTH. Well do we remember the effect of Newman's sermons on many minds soon after their publication. They were deemed so striking, original, suggestive: and so indeed they were. But it was simply because an intellect at once acute and imaginative was weaving for itself the web in which it was to be itself entangled. That which has been surveyed on every side by so many millions, throughout eighteen centuries, will never cease to yield rich fruit to study pursued with uprightness, humility, and prayer; but the aspects of divine truth which are the surest and the most necessary will always be those which are also the broadest, the oldest, and the most familiar amongst Christians.

But, after all, the "Plain Commentary," though not very well designated by its chosen title, is a book to be read, with a little caution, and along with other expositions, but then with real pleasure and godly instruction. If its accents are such as to remind us sometimes of other ages than those of the Apostles or of the Reformation, yet those others are the ages of Augustin and of Anselm.

ART. II.—CHURCH STATISTICS.

Census of the United States, 1850. Journal of General Convention, 1856. Journals of Diocesan Convention, 1858.

THE very mention of statistics, to a certain class of minds, brings up visions of dry, meaningless, worthless tables of fig ures; the unsightly skeletons of what unimaginative intellects delight in and call facts. The sharpest weapons of sarcasm and almost contempt, are sometimes edged with jokes upon men and upon societies who make it their business to note the "how many" of existences and of deeds, and the "times when" of events; the arithmeticians to whom the numeration table is the most interesting of studies. And yet, the dictionaries being our witness, Statistics are a science; nay more,

they are a "part of municipal philosophy." Governments, civil and ecclesiastical, have expended largely of their means and their energies, in ascertaining and classifying and recording all the facts that might exhibit, in comprehensive forms, the past, the present, and the prospective resources of the nations or communities under their care. They have deemed the lessons of profit and loss thus to be learned, as valuable to them as any which the merchant might deduce from his journal and his ledger, would be to him in shaping the movements of his own expanding or contracting business. They have felt that if the knowledge which each man and each child of active intellect is ever gathering as to his own immediate neighborhood, could be brought, as it were, to a common focus, where all might learn, if not in detail, yet in summary, what individuals have separately acquired, the general results would be as interesting and valuable to the mass as were the particulars to those whom they more immediately concerned.

The Holy Scriptures themselves, especially of the Old Testament, abound in what we might call statistical data. Look, for example, at the genealogies of the antediluvian patriarchs, and of the sons of Noah, in the Book of Genesis. See how minute is the census of the flocks and herds of Job, both before and after his afflictions. Observe the accuracy and completeness of the enumerations in the Book of Numbers, of Joshua, and in the other historical books of the Jewish Scriptures. Indeed, if the Jewish Rabbins and Hengstenberg are good authority, we may find in the number of verses in the Psalms, and in the number of repetitions of the several names of the Deity, lessons of most profound significance. Nor is this regard for statistics confined to the Old Testament. How vivid is that picture of the feeding of the five thousand, when we see them grouped by the Evangelists into ranks and companies of hundreds and of fifties. Who would exchange.

for

any generalities, that "number of the names together," the one hundred and twenty disciples gathered in an upper room at Jerusalem? Or who does not rejoice that it is written of the first fruits of the Pentecostal harvest, "The same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls"?

How delightful it is to be told of the prosperity of the infant Church at Jerusalem, after a very brief interval, "many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand." And, not to extend this line of thought, how remarkable is it that in the most poetical book of the New Testament, the book that lights up the imagination with the most soothing, the most cheering, the most beautiful, the most sublime visions of the land that is very far off and of the world that is to come, there is a constant recurrence to dates, to fixed periods, to measurements, to the numbers of the celestial choirs, and of the armies of heaven! There, at least, imagination and fact, poetry and statistics, go hand in hand, to guide, to instruct, to elevate the minds and the hearts of God's children, in all ages of the Church.

Our own branch of the Church of the Redeemer, in our own day, has given sufficient evidence that it appreciates the value to itself of its own statistics. Although in a confederation so extensive and so exceedingly diverse in the habits and views of the members of the confederacy, it has been, and still is, no easy matter to secure any thing like perfect accuracy, or even general uniformity, in the reports from which statistical tables are to be drawn; yet there is a gradual and very manifest approach to fullness and correctness, especially in the returns made to our General Conventions. The tables in the Journal for 1856, when compared, for example, with those for 1838, present a most gratifying contrast. Yet there has been only a beginning made as to what ought to be, and might easily be, done in this respect. When the several almanacs for 1857 were published, just before the last General Convention Journal appeared, there were found the most remarkable discrepancies as to some of the reports from the several Dioceses. Vermont, for instance, was said by the Journal, to have 1929 communicants. The E. K. S. Almanac gave 1382; the Church Almanac 1417; and Swords' Almanac 2015 as the number; the highest being fifty per cent more than the lowest. Michigan had 1962 in the Journal; one almanac gave 1059, another 1220, while a third protested that it could get no reliable information. Florida varied from 386 to 515, and its clergy were variously stated at from 7 to 12.

Wisconsin varied from 1172, in the General Convention Journal, to 1682 in two of the almanacs. In only ten out of the thirty-one Dioceses, did these authorities harmonize even as to the easily ascertainable particular of communicants; and the aggregates varied by about 5000, more than four per cent on the number in the Journal.

To one who will take the pains to compare the Journals of the Diocesan Conventions, this will be a matter of no surprise. We have before us the Journals for 1858, with the exception of Florida, (for which we must use the Journal for Dec. 1857.) Of these there are very few from which one could condense a Diocesan summary without more labor and time than any one, but the Diocesan Secretary himself, might be expected to bestow. Indeed, no one, secretary or other person, can make a full report when so many of the parochial clergy and of the wardens of vacant parishes fail in what our canons make their imperative duty, in reporting to the Diocesan Convention. One of the most systematic and satisfactory journals in this particu lar, is perhaps that of Western New-York; and yet, in that thoroughly organized Diocese, there were 21 out of 142 Parishes, from which no numbers were reported. Little Rhode Island had last June not a vacant parish, and yet the reported aggregate of its communicants is made imperfect and unsatisfactory, because one of its largest parishes (Trinity, Newport) is omitted. The Journal of Connecticut is beautifully "got up," and its tables are in most respects complete; yet if one would know from the Journal how many are the parishes or the clergy in that prosperous Diocese, he must count for himself. In Pennsylvania, the aggregate of communicants is summed up with the omission of 33 parishes; several of them very large and important parishes; and this aggregate is given on page 151, less by 540, than that in the footing of the table. The Journal of Maryland is exceedingly defective. There are none of the usual tables or summaries. There appear to have been reports from only about 116 out of 167 parishes; and the only approximation to the number of the communicants is to be made by adding up several columns in a statement made by the Missionary Committee. Virginia presents in its Journal

still less that is satisfactory. So important a particular as the number of candidates for the ministry can not be ascertained. The Committee on Parochial Reports give the number of confirmations 625, while the figures as given by the Bishops, are 714. The communicants are set down at 6129, while footings of the Treasurer, in the appendix, add 810 to that number; and a comparison of a few of the Parochial Reports shows, that in most cases, the Treasurer has given only the white communicants. North-Carolina has no tables; but the Committee on the State of the Church give a summary of the reports. South-Carolina has an abstract of the parochial reports; but there is no summary given in this or in most of the Southern States, of the black communicants, separately from the whites, and our impression is, that in South-Carolina and Louisiana, the former exceed the latter. In Mississippi, there is a wide discrepancy between the numbers in the tables and those in the report of the Committee on the State of the Church; and even in the former, which seem the most complete, only 30 parishes out of 38, report any communicants. In Texas, as might be expected where they have no Bishop, only 15 parishes out of 23, report their communicante, and the Secretary disclaims all responsibility for the discrepancies between his summary and that of the Committee. Tennessee has no tabular statement, but gives us a summary which appears to embrace returns from the whole Diocese. Michigan has a Journal of almost faultless typography, but no summary.

We have made mention of these particulars, because they will give some idea of the great difficulty in obtaining full and reliable statistics of the general Church, and because we would respectfully call the attention of those concerned, to what ought to be done in order to have their reports as complete as possible, for the ensuing General Convention. The Journals of Western New-York, of Ohio, of Connecticut, and of Rhode Island are perhaps, on the whole, the best models to be fol lowed. The Secretary of the great Diocese of New-York states that from 64 parishes there are no reports! and of the 205 reports received, we have only a summary instead of a full set of tables. It is a Diocese able to pay for the necessary