of his ‘Project for the Advancement of Religion,’ he had said ’that five parts out of six of the people are absolutely hindered from hearing divine service, particularly here in London, where a single minister with one or two curates has the care sometimes of about 20,000 souls incumbent on him.’[971] A resolution was carried in the House of Commons (May 1711), that fifty new churches were necessary within the bills of mortality, and 350,000_l._ were granted for the purpose, ’which was a very popular thing.’[972] Of the proposed fifty, twelve were built; the money for which was raised by a duty on coal—­2_s._ per chaldron from 1716 to 1720, and 3_s._ from 1720 to 1724.[973] After this exertion the work of church-building seems to have pretty nearly ended for the century.  Towards the middle of it, the bishops complained in their Charges that there was no spirit for building churches, and that the occasional briefs issued for the purpose brought in very little.[974] Fifty years later the question had again become too serious to be overlooked, and with the revival of deeper religion in the Church, there was little likelihood of its being allowed to rest.  In large towns, the disproportion between the population and the number and size of churches had become so great ’that not a tenth of the inhabitants could be received into them were they so disposed.’[975] A return made in 1811 showed that in a thousand large parishes in different parts of the kingdom there was church accommodation for only a seventh part of their aggregate population.[976] Parliament granted a million for the erection of new churches, and large subscriptions were raised by the societies.  But Polwhele, writing in 1819, said there were two large London parishes, with a joint population of above 120,000, which kept their village churches with room for not more than 200; and that in 1812, Dr. Middleton tried in vain to build a new church for St. Pancras, where the population was 100,000, and the church would only accommodate 300.[977] These facts seem almost incredible; probably the writer from whom they are quoted overlooked subsidiary chapels attached to the parish church.  It is, however, very clear that in London and many of the large towns no energetic efforts had for a long time been made to meet necessities of very crying urgency.

Bishop Beveridge, writing in the first years of the last century, lamented that ’daily prayers are shamefully neglected all the kingdom over; there being very few places where they have public prayers upon the week days, except perhaps on Wednesdays and Fridays.’[978] But in towns this order of the Church was far more carefully observed in Queen Anne’s reign, and for some little time afterwards, than it has been since, at all events until a very recent date.  Archbishop Sancroft, in his circular letter of 1688 to the bishops of his province, had specially urged the public performance of the daily office ’in all market and other great towns,’ and as far