Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850. Excerpt: ... same time, two thousand six hundred and eighteen, leaving a net gain of only seventy-seven, which would show an average of one member to every five preachers. The General Association of Vermont, which embraces the Congregational churches of that State, has in its connection, one hundred and ninety-three churches and one hundred and sixty-seven preachers, fifty-nine ministers without charge, and twentynine churches without ministers. The total number of communicants is eighteen thousand four hundred and thirty-five, or about ninety-five to each church. Gain during the year, by profession, as well as upon letters of dismission from other churches, seven hundred and four. Loss, by death and otherwise, six hundred and sixty-three; leaving a net gain of only thirty-one, or one to between five and six preachers. By the returns of the Maine Conference, which embraces the Congregational churches of that State, we learn that for six successive years there was an aggregate reduction of nearly one thousand members; but last year there was a net gain of one hundred and nine. What number of preachers there are in the bounds of the Conference is not stated. I have not at hand any general statistics of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. I am sure, however, that in no Diocese is there a more laborious and unremitted attention to the interests of the parishes by the Bishop, nor a more thorough investigation of the condition of each, than in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. And yet from the Journal of the last Convention, it appears that, according to the best information that could then be obtained, there were in the Diocese one hundred and forty-eight churches and one hundred and fortyfour clergymen; the whole number of communicants at the beginning of the...
