they are now falsely credited. The open gallery would give them the opportunity of judging of the merits of painters hitherto unknown to them, and they would have a chance of proving by their annual exhibition that they were not only the best painters but also the best critics, and that they had a fair claim to guide the public taste in Art. We believe that under such circumstances the Royal Academy would rise to the occasion, and that its exhibitions would excel any hitherto seen. Without, however, such a filtering gallery as we have suggested it will always be believed that many a good picture is born to blush unseen;' and the Royal Academy would best consult its own credit and the interests of art and of artists, either by obtaining space to hang every painting sent to it, or else by becoming a close corporation like the water-colour societies. In its present condition it is 'a delusion and a snare.' We must repeat once more that no gallery where criticism is allowed to interfere with the admission of any picture can really be accepted as affording justice to all schools of art. New attempts at conveying ideas and facts through painting are constantly being made, old methods are frequently imitated or caricatured. There is generally some good and some evil at the bottom of each of these efforts, but all in their turn are over-praised by one set of critics and denounced by another. How few great artists have been appreciated by the critics when their best pictures were painted; how many who enjoyed a considerable reputation have since sunk to their proper level! The art-critics are as a rule most fallible guides; sometimes obstinate from ignorance, sometimes mad with too much learning, and frequently so anxious to exhibit their own æsthetic faculties and fine writing as practically to ignore the subjects of which they treat. Public opinion is in the long run the safest test of artistic merit. The public must take its time in hearing the evidence and arguments on both sides, but in the end its verdict will be sounder and fairer than that given by any expert. It is to public opinion that the artist must look for lasting fame, and it is to public opinion and not to councils and cliques that we wish him to have the opportunity of appealing. T. VILLIERS LISTER. A CENSUS OF RELIGIONS. WHETHER we regard a people merely in their secular capacity, as partners in a great association for promoting the stability, the opulence, the peaceful glory of a state; or view them in their loftier character as subjects of a higher kingdom-swift and momentary travellers towards a never-ending destiny; in either aspect the degree and the direction of religious sentiment in a community are subjects of the weightiest import-in the one case to the temporal guardians of a nation-to its spiritual teachers in the other. Statesmen-aware to what a great extent the liberty or bondage, industry or indolence, prosperity or poverty of any people, are the fruits of its religious creed, and knowing also how extensively religious feelings tinge political opinions-find an accurate acquaintance with the various degrees and forms in which religious sentiment is manifested indispensable to a correct appreciation either of the country's actual condition or of its prospective tendency, and equally essential to enable them to legislate with safety upon questions where religious principles or prejudices are inextricably involved.' A more appropriate introduction to our subject will not easily be found than the above extract from the second page of Mr. Horace Mann's Report to the Registrar-General upon the accommodation for religious worship in 1851. Having read it, it is hard to conceive that any question should be raised as to the principle involved, or as to the expediency of adopting the most direct and efficient means for obtaining the desired information upon the religion of the nation. In our neglect of a Religious Census we stand nearly, if not quite, alone amidst civilised nations. England is unfavourably distinguished, not only from foreign countries, but from an important portion of the United Kingdom. Ireland has a Religious Census— why should England be deprived of the advantage which a knowledge of the religion of the people brings to their good government? The Irish Census Act provides that an account in writing be taken of the religious profession of every person; but this item of information is omitted from the list of requisites to be answered in the English schedule. Why is the system pursued on this side of the Irish Channel different from that pursued on the other? The importance of the question has only come into prominence within the last thirty years, and its investigation need not therefore carry our retrospect beyond that period. The Census Bill of 1850 gave the Secretary of State power to issue questions referring, not alone to the numbers, ages, and occupations of the people, but also to such further particulars' as might seem to him advisable, and the Registrar-General was disposed to adopt as an interpretation of 'further particulars' the collection of intelligence as to the number, varieties, and capabilities' of the religious and scholastic institutions of the country. The House of Peers, however, raised an objection to the proposed inquiry in connection with the penal sections of the Act, and the objection being confirmed by the law officers of the Crown, the proposed extension of the inquiry under statutory obligation was relinquished. It was intended that the deficiencies of the Census Act of 1850 should be supplied in the Census Act of 1860, and the Bill was accordingly presented to the House of Commons with a provision for obtaining the religious profession, as well as the age, sex, and occupation of every individual. This provision was opposed by the Nonconformists, and its omission was moved by Mr. Edward Baines, the respected member for Leeds, in a speech embodying all the arguments that ingenuity and imagination could suggest. He was answered by Sir George C. Lewis, the then Home Secretary. Sir George began by showing that all presumptions were in favour of a Religious Census-an accessory and assistance to good government which had found place in the general practice of civilised states; and he gave reasons for believing that the difficulties which were apprehended would disappear in the face of a well-organised system of enumeration. Sir George Lewis, with a warmth unusual in him, contemptuously spurned the insinuation that the Religious Census would be perverted into a means of oppression through undue influence; he reproved the inconsistency with which the several sects protested against the record of their religious profession in the national census, while their very protests were made with an ostentatious display of their nonconformity; but he concluded by withdrawing the provision for the record of a Religious Profession. The same subserviency to Dissent was exhibited by the Government in 1870. The introduction of a return of Religious Professions into the Census Bill of 1870 was again opposed by Mr. Baines, and Lord Palmerston surrendered to the political pressure of the Dissenters in these words: 'We have deferred to their feelings, but we cannot assent to their reasons.' The House of Lords subsequently inserted a provision for taking a Census of Religions, but the clause was struck out by the Commons before they passed the Bill at the close of the Session on the 8th of August. There was little reason to expect that the Census Bill of 1880 would require a return of religious professions. The Liberation Society had issued its prohibition, and the Government of Mr. Gladstone were too considerate for the wishes of their Nonconformist friends to offend them by a discovery of truths vitally connected with the science of legislation, but dreaded for their exposure of statistical delusions. The Census Bills which (had they been earlier laid before the Commons would have provoked discussion) were prudently kept back till the last days of the Session, and the brief debate which then ensued was on the side of the Government confined to the assertion of two most inadequate objections to a Religious Census. First, that the expense of the census would be increased. Secondly, that the publication of the census would be delayed. To the first objection it may be replied that the cost of an additional column to the form of return, and the consequent labour of filling it up, would be infinitesimally small compared with the whole cost of the census, and not for a moment to be weighed against the national utility of the information it would convey. To the second, the reply would be that a decennial census is not like a weather forecast, whose virtue vanishes with every hour of delay in its publication, and that assuming the very problematical result of an appreciable delay, that delay would not impair the utility of the return for any practical purpose. The complete indictment of a Religious Census is conspicuously set forth in the Nonconformist of the 29th of July, 1880, which reprints what it describes as the excellent epitome of objections published in a separate form by the Liberation Society.' This document, important as expressing the principles, convictions, and arguments of the Liberation Society, of the eminent Nonconformists who are members of the House of Commons, and of their ably conducted journal, shall be given in extenso. OBJECTIONS TO A CENSUS OF RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 1. The inquiry is unwarrantable. What right have Government officials to question us about our religious, any more than about our political professions? The only place where they can be legitimately elicited is in the polling booth. 2. The inquiry is absurd, or unreasonable. How can every hotel-keeper, every lodging-house keeper, every master, and every head of a hospital, or prison, or poor-house, make a truthful return of the religious profession of every living person' who happens to have slept under a certain roof on a particular night? The inquiry would in many cases be resented as an impertinence, and if the facts were guessed at, instead of ascertained, they would frequently be, not facts, but fictions. It would be unjust to householders and inmates alike. 3. The result would be misleading, because of the ambiguity of the inquiry. What is 'religious profession'? Is it what a man believes, or only what he professes, or what he says that he professes? Or if it means, what religious body does he belong to, what is belonging to a religious body? Then there are many persons who cannot really define their religious profession, and why should they be obliged to attempt to do so, or be punished if they refuse to make the attempt? 4. The return would be incomplete, because it is well known that a large number of persons would, on conscientious grounds, feel bound to refuse the information sought for, and many would refuse on other grounds. And if the enumerators attempted to supply it, they would inevitably blunder. 5. The return would prove fallacious and grossly misleading. Large masses of the people make no religious profession; but, because they will not like to acknowledge the fact, they will reply, Church of England.' The effect would be to produce the impression that the Church of England has a far greater body of adherents than all the other religious bodies have, and that is the object of the suggested Religious Census. It is wished to use what would be really inaccurate, and in many cases dishonest returns, for a political purpose. 6. The inquiry would lead to coercion and sectarian rivalry, and would occasion great bitterness of feeling. Many of the Established clergy and their adherents would use all their influence to induce their dependents and the poor to return themselves as Churchmen, and numbers of persons would be too ignorant or too weak to resist such pressure. That pur 7. The inquiry would be contrary to the true purpose of a census. pose is to obtain statistics which are likely to be accurate, and to ascertain facts which can be verified, and not opinions or professions which are necessarily vague and ambiguous, or unascertainable. A census of the population ought to be taken with the good will of the population: whereas such a Religious Census as is suggested would excite anger and resistance, and make the census odious to a large class of the people. And now what are these objections worth? They shall be answered seriatim. 1. A government is warranted in requiring for the public advantage information which it may be irksome for individuals to give; but since a declaration of religious profession would necessarily be voluntary and uncontroverted, it could not involve any infringement of conscientious scruple. 2. Every householder could ask, and every adult inmate of every tenement could reply to, the question which concerns his religious profession. Parents would be responsible for their children. 3. The object of the inquiry is to ascertain every man's account of his religious profession if he has any. It is impossible to believe that men would wantonly and aimlessly misrepresent their profession, and still more to imagine that either intentional or casual errors could be so many as to affect the essential purpose of the inquiry. 4. A refusal on conscientious or capricious grounds to answer the inquiry might leave the return incomplete numerically as regards the entire population, but complete and exact as an exposition of the relative proportions of the several denominations. 5. If masses of the people choose to describe their religious profession as that of the Church of England, it would be the height of tyranny to preclude their doing so. The objection foretells that the effect (of the inquiry) would be to produce an impression that the Church of England has a far greater body of adherents than all the other bodies have.' The prophecy is probably correct, and we have it here confessed that the objection of the Liberation Society to a |