"The debate and division was perand their friends have subscribed haps the most important that has £592. These figures speak for them- ever taken place on the subject. selves:

clothing clubs, to which the scholars [

Italian Mission in England.-A Church of England mission to Italians resident in the metropolis has been opened with the sanction and approval of the Bishop of London,

who has nominated Rev. P. Leonini

to conduct it. It is said that there are 20,000 Italians residing in the metropolis. An effort will be made to secure one of the city churches for the use of the mission, but no arrangements have yet been completed.

Frangelical Continental Society. -This Society held a meeting April 10th. The Secretary made the following statement as to the objects of the Society:

First of all, there was the fullest House that ever divided on the question-five hundred and fifty-one, including tellers; we believe that on no previous Church-Rate debate have more than five hundred members

been present. This was felt to be strength of both sides of the House a great party division, on which the would be pretty well tested, and on which the cohesion and influence of

the Liberal party greatly depended."

Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Sir G. Grey, Sir G. C. Lewis, Sir C. Wood, Right Hon. Mr. Gibson, Mr. Cardwell, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, Lord Alfred Hervey, Hon. A. Kinnaird, etc., voted with the majority; and the Right Hon. W. Gladstone, Sir R. Peel, Mr. Fred"The Society did not send out erick Peel, Mr. Pope Hennessy, a missions to the Continent, but assist-leading man among the ultramoned Protestant Missionary Societies in tanes of Ireland, were among the France, Belgium, and Italy. There minority. The Irish Catholic memwere ninety laborers in connection bers, for the most part, did not vote. with the Society in Italy, including ministers, evangelists, schoolmasters, and mistresses. There were also twenty in connection with the Vaudois Church, eleven at Nice, and five at Geneva. The design of the meeting was to excite the sympathies of British Christians with the objects of the Society. In connection with the Evangelical Society of France and Geneva, there were about one hundred and ten agents laboring in France, besides forty-five students in the School of Theology at Geneva. About thirty-four agents were laboring in connection with the Evangelical Society of Belgium."

Quakers.-England and Ireland had about 70,000 Quakers in 1690; now they number about 26,000. In the last 50 years, there have been among them 2,400 more births than deaths.

Roman Catholics in Great Britain. -Priests, 1,342; chapels, 993; monasteries, 47; convents, 155; colleges, 12. The last year, the diocese of Worcester received 31 new priests; Hexham, 8; England, 100; Scotland, 11. In Westminster, 6 new monasteries, and 31 new chapels; convents. In Liverpool, 9 new convents.

new

The Church-Rate Question.-The House of Commons has once more Religious Statistics of Ireland.— voted in favor of the abolition of The Irish Times estimates the preChurch-rates, two hundred and sent population of Ireland at 5,950,eighty-one voting for, and two hun- 000 souls, and adds: "From various dred and sixty-six against the bill. causes emigration has chiefly taken The London Patriot has the follow-place among the Roman Catholic ing remarks on the vote: portion of the people, and the num

ber of those who profess the Roman number 88 ministers, 103 churches, Catholic creed has annually dimin- 9,500 members; in Ireland, 500 minished. On the fairest calculation, it isters, 650 churches, 57,000 memwould appear that, of the 5,950,000, bers; the Reformed Presbyterian not more than 3,450,000 are Roman in Ireland, 45 ministers, 55 churches, Catholics, the remaining 2,500,000 4,000 members; the Presbyterian being Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Church of Victoria, 137 ministers, Methodists, etc., all classed under 150 churches, 57,000 members. the name of Protestant."

THE News of the Churches says: SCOTLAND. The Endowment Fund "In Dumfriesshire, and in the Upper for the Established Church, to raise ward of Lanarkshire, God has been the necessitous district (guoad sacra) working marvelously by his Spirit. churches to parish churches now Mr. Hammond, an American Presbyamounts to half a million: it was terian student of divinity, has been the favorite project of the late Dr. the chief human agent employed in Robertson, whose Memorial Fund, the work. His pointed and practical by the ladies of the Church of Scot- addresses in the town of Dumfries land, is now in rapid progress. By produced a powerful impression; this fund, 42 churches and 8 par- and during most of the past month ishes, at an expense of £170,000, there have been large public union have been secured. Dr. Robertson's prayer-meetings in one or other of the scheme, in addition, has already sub-churches in the town-the operascriptions to the amount of £156,000; it is proposed to increase it to £200,000.

tions of the Spirit having in this, as in most other cases, burst the bonds of sectarian feeling." Mr. Hammond is a graduate of Williams College, and was a member of the Union Theological Seminary in New York.

The Cardross Case.-Lord Terviswoode has decided, that the civil courts have the right to investigate alleged irregularities of ecclesiastical WALES.-The Wesleyan Methoprocedure, with a view of reducing dists have increased in two years or annulling ecclesiastical sentences. 4,549, now numbering 16,388. The The Free Church maintains, that Baptist churches have increased these sentences being purely ecclesi- 10,000. The Independents, 33,724. astical, can not be revised by the The total increase in the different decivil courts. The whole Free Church nominations is estimated at 100,000. case is thus again reopened. Large meetings have been held in Edinburgh and Glasgow in reference to

the matter.

FRANCE. A new census of France is about to be taken. The following figures show the comparative increase THE United Presbyterian Church of population for the last forty years: In 1821 it was 30,461,875; in 1831, reports 536 congregations, 161,669 communicants (an increase of 4,622); 32,569,223; in 1836, 33,540,910; 124 students; £192,461 raised, of in 1841, 34,230,178; in 1851, 35,which £44,377 are for missionary and 783,170; and in 1856, 36,039,364. benevolent uses. The Church of Scotland has 1,173 ministers, 1,208 AN interesting document has lately churches; the Free Church, 797 been published in Paris, giving the ministers, 875 churches; the Re- number of individuals in France at formed Presbyterian Church, 87 min- the date of the last census (1856), isters, 90 churches, 10,000 members. who were engaged, directly or indirectly, in various professions and trades, from which they derived their

THE Presbyterians in England

support. The returns include not are rapidly increasing. The establish only adults, but also children, and ment of Les Petites Sœurs des are thus classed: Agriculture, 19,- Pauvres de Paris, which was at064,071; Manufactures, 10,690,961; tended in 1844 by two women occuCommerce, 1,652,331; Professions, pying a single room, now possesses 1,462,144; Clergy of all persuasions, thirty convents and twenty-five mil142,705; Persons without any trade lions of property. The "Sisters of or profession, 3,241,457. A com- the Holy Union" of Cambrai, started parison between the population re- only a very few years ago, and they turns of 1851 and 1856 shows a sen- have now one hundred and thirty sible diminution in the number of houses of their order in France and persons engaged in agricultural labor, Belgium. and an increase in the class following manufacturing pursuits. During the preceding year (1856) the receipts from the octroi in Paris were 54 millions of francs, being an increase of 21 millions of francs in ten years; and the total receipts of the metropolis in the same year amounted to 110,306,124 francs; while the expenditure during the same period was 97,720,544 francs.-Athenæum.

The trial and condemnation of the Abbé Mallett at Douai for the abduc tion and conversion of a family of Jewish girls, has produced a painful impression as to the morals of the Catholic convents in France. The oldest girl, seduced by Mallett as well from her virtue as from her religion, was used by him as an instrument to obtain possession of the other sisters; and the better to accomplish his purpose, the girls were carried about from convent to convent, and had their names frequently changed, in order that their parents should lose trace of them. The Bishop of Cambrai, when appealed to by the brother, made the same reply as that made by the Pope when the father of the Mortara boy demanded his son, Non possumus-we can do nothing. Fortunately there is jus tice in France. The Abbé Mallett was condemned to six years' solitary confinement.

Education.-Of 310,289 soldiers, only 192,873 can read and write. In all France there are only 4,225 booksellers, of whom only 165 are in the rural communes. Out of 2,250,000 boys, 475,000 go to no school; and of 2,593,000 girls, 533,000. Out of 1,000 criminals, 786 can neither read nor write. Improvement is imperative, and has been so strongly felt by the Government to be so, that the Minister of Public Instruction has offered a first prize of 1,200 francs, and seven inferior ones, to the best The dependence of the French papers sent in by schoolmasters in Church on Rome is growing more answer to this pointed question: slight. The Emperor has it in "What are the wants of primary his Own hands. He virtually instruction in a rural commune, in chooses all the bishops and archthe three-fold point of view of the bishops; he even names the cardischool, the scholars, and the mas- nals; and all the clergy are in his ter"? The papers were to be given pay. The archbishops, 15, receive in on the 3d of February. This, to- from $2,000 to $10,000; 64 bishops gether with the rising of the minimum salary of schoolmasters to 600 francs, which decision benefits 4,405 of them, and sundry pecuniary reliefs given to above 2,000 schools, shows a solicitude called for by a crying evil.

Some of the French Monasteries

from $3,000 to $5,000; 669 canons, from $320 to $480; 3,124 parish priests about $300; 29,971 priests of dependent churches, from $200 to $500; 8,053 curates, (vicars,) from $60 to $100. There are in France 208 seminaries for priests, with 27,290 pupils. A million and a half

of francs are annually expended for church building by the State. The monasteries and nunneries are also supported by the State; they can not receive by will from any one source over 10,000 francs, nor that without express permission, nor can any one leave them more than one fourth of his property. There are 600 cloisters for men, with 9,136 monks; 2,000 for women, with 40,391 nuns; in the cloisters are 1,547 seminaries, with 5,178 brothers, and 23,359 sisters. Among the Orders, 712 are enlisted in benevolent works, with 922 monks and 10,189 nuns; the other 333, with 2,039 monks and 6,845 nuns, are devoted merely to spiritual exercises. There are now in France 6 vacant bishoprics, which the Emperor does not fill, because the Pope would not confirm the election.

The Diocesan Chapter of Troyes contradicts the report that the late Bishop Coeurs had listened to proposals from the Government to be made Patriarch of a Gallican church, in case of the separation of France from Rome.

with alarm. He then reminds his subordinates that such offenses are, by law, punishable by imprisonment for three months or two years, or by banishment from the empire. He says significantly, that present circumstances prove the wisdom of such enactments, adding, "It is time that the laws should vindicate their authority."

The Archbishop of Lyons, Cardinal de Bonald, had published a haughty pamphlet against the imposition of a stamp upon pastoral letters treating of political matters. He pronounces the imposition of the stamp humiliating and not to be submitted to by the Bishops. The Siècle says of it: "We affirm, with all the energy of our conviction and of our faith, that no government is possible in presence of this clerical omnipotence, which pretends to speak, to act, and to direct in the name of God. Any government which would wish to keep erect in the face of those clerical factions will be placed in the alternative either of humiliating itself before them, or of humbling them before it; either it must submit to their law, or they must submit to its injunctions."

The Address of the Bishop of Poitiers (M. Pie) to his clergy, "on the charges brought against the Sove- PROTESTANTISM.-The Emperor on reign Pontiff and the French clergy Easter Sunday gave 2,000 francs to a in the pamphlet called Rome, la Protestant church in Biarritz. There France, et l'Italie,' by M. Lagueron- are in Paris thirty Protestant places nière," was published in the Monde, of worship, in which are held sixtyof which it fills nearly six columns. eight Sunday and twenty-one week. For this Address, the Bishop was day services, of which the French condemned "for an abuse of authori- Reformed Church gives nineteen, the ty," by the Council of State. In the Lutherans fourteen, the Free ChurchAddress he compared the Emperor to es nineteen, the Methodist six, the Pontius Pilate. The Minister of Jus- Baptist two, the various English tice addressed a circular to the Pro-churches eighteen, and the German curator of the Imperial Courts, in the eleven. To these churches are atcourse of which he intimates that he tached fifty-six Protestant dayhas been made aware that the clergy schools, and between thirty and are in the habit of criticising the pol- forty Sunday-schools. The Free icy of the Government in their ser- Churches have two asylums for the mons. These criticisms tend to cre- aged, one for the blind, one for orate distrust and reprobation of the phans; deaconesses take charge of Emperor's action; some outrage even thirty or more invalids, besides sick his person (comparing him to Pilate), children, penitent women, and variwhile others fill weak consciences ous other cases. A preparatory the

ological school, and two or three The receipts of the Society amount to seminaries for our youths, the Pro- 91,283f., and its expenses to 84,443f, testant Academy, and a few schools but a previous debt gives a deficit of for young ladies, together with two 41,000f The Society publishes no excellent normal schools for teach- controversial tracts; it has printed ers, secure a good education for the seven new tracts, and four volumes youth of the higher classes. Eleven this year.

religious journals (three of which

are rationalistic) are published in THE Société Evangélique held its Paris; and ten Protestant book-twenty-eighth anniversary. Paris, sellers thrive, where, thirty years and thirty villages around, are evanago, a solitary one found it difficult gelized by its agents. The churches even to vegetate." in the Haute-Vienne and the Yonne are being consolidated. Some of the THE Central Protestant Society places of worship and schools are still has 70 missionaries, 118 places of closed, however, under the law of public worship, and 50 stations. Its 1852. Its receipts have been 157,441£, Preparatory school has educated 80 and its expenses, 131,787f. But a pupils, of whom 24 are now minis- previous debt still leaves 15,000f. deters. The Evangelical Society is em- ficit. ploying 80 missionaries. Receipts, 116,849 francs; expenses, 142,220 francs. It is now in its fifteenth year.

THE Missionary Society met for its thirty-sixth annual festival. Its spheres of labor comprise fourteen stations in South Africa, which are in a prosperous state; China, to which it has sent two missionaries; two more are on the eve of their departure for Hayti, whither as Baptists they have joined the English Society, which sends them out under its auspices. The receipts have been 166,608 francs; and expenses, 167,186 francs.

THE Protestant Bible Society held its forty-first anniversary. It is the oldest of the Societies. Its supplies extend beyond the frontier to the colonies. 16,575 copies of the Scriptures have been thus circulated during the year. Its receipts are 45,305f, and its expenses, 42,950f.

ITALY.-In Italy there are 264 bishops and archbishops; in all the rest of Europe, 314. The whole Roman Catholic world is divided into 1,007 bishoprics, viz., 681 in Europe, 128 in Asia, 29 in Africa, 146 in America, and 23 in Australia.

Population of Italy.-The followTHE French and Foreign Bible So-ing is at present the population of ciety has sold, during its twenty- the kingdom of Italy: Piedmont, eighth year, 91,877 Bibles and Testaments; its receipts have been 64,290 francs, and expenses 61,291 francs. To the 91,877 copies of the Scripture sold by this Society, must be added 87,200 sold by the French agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

THE Paris Tract Society has in its thirty-ninth year sold 200,000 copies of its excellent Almanac, circulated 1,500,000 of its different publications.

3,815,637 inhabitants; Sardinia (the Island), 573,115; Lombardy, 2,771,647; Modena, 609,139; Parma, 508,784; Tuscany, 1,779,338; The Legations, the Marches, and Umbria, 1,960,360; Naples, 6,843,965; Sicily, 2,231,020; total, 21,093,005 inhabit

ants.

Population of Rome.-The popu lation of the "Eternal City" is about one hundred and seventy-five thou sand, divided into fifty-four parishes,