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would be likely to yield interesting results, not having been published as yet. Doubtless no two denominations would be likely to feel in smaller measure the effects of immigration than the Congregational and the Disciples of Christ. There were of the former in 1880, 384,332; in 1890 there were 512,771. Here is a gain of 128,439, or a little more than 33 per cent. The Disciples of Christ, a native denomination of pretty vigorous growth in the West and the Southwest and the border States of the South, Congregational in polity, Baptist in mode of baptism, and advocating as a leading principle the restoration of the "lost unity of believers and so of the Church of Christ "—the Disciples of Christ have added to their numbers in ten years upward of 291,000, if their somewhat uncertain returns for 1880 be accepted as a basis for comparison. The census gives them 641,000, against 350,000 in 1880. This is a gain of more than 83 per cent.

The total of communicants of the denominations passed in review, according to the census, is 12,487,382. The same denominations had in 1880, 9,739,760. The consequent gain is 2,747,622, or 28.21 per cent. This-taking no account of the obvious mistakes in the Catholic returns for 1880, which robs that church of its just share of prosperity-is 3.35 per cent higher than the growth of the population for the same period. In the census returns yet to be published, the Baptist, Protestant Episcopal, and some other churches may be expected to show a heavy percentage of gain; while a few other bodies have scarcely more than held their own. It seems likely that the percentage above given will be increased rather than diminished, when the census is completed.

One of the most striking results of the census will be its revelations concerning the value of the property held for the use of worshippers. Returns are made of the value of edifices, their furniture, and the lots on which they stand. For the Roman Catholic church, which has 10,221 organizations, or churches, chapels, and stations, the value of church property is given at $118,381,516. The various Lutheran bodies, with 8,427 organizations, have $34,218,234 thus invested; the three Reformed churches-Dutch, German, and Christian -$18,744,242; the two bodies of Jews, $9,754,275; the four branches of Friends, $4,451,334; and the various Presbyterian bodies nearly $95,000,000. The returns for about a hundred denominations, with some of the largest not included, make the enormous aggregate of $463,000,000, representing about 88,000 organizations or congregations, a considerable portion of which worship in halls, school-houses,

or private houses. This vast sum, which is sure to attract the attention of those economists who believe that church property ought not to be exempt from taxation, does not include parsonages or any other church property than that used for worship; nor does it take account of buildings occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association, or theological seminaries, or church schools, or orphan asylums, etc.

The financial side of Christianity and other forms of religion represented among us has never been studied by competent observers. It is a subject of vast proportions and of corresponding importance. The census will place at the disposal of those who are willing to interest themselves in the matter a mass of information which has never been given before, except by a few of the churches. It is to be hoped that the scope of the inquiry may be enlarged in the next census, so as to include other property owned and used for religious purposes, and, if possible, the amounts raised in the census year for church expenses, the support of missions (home and foreign), and for definitely religious objects. Religion is not a mere matter of sentiment, or of spiritual exercise, or of moral instruction; it has a material side which is of great importance to society and the state.

HENRY K. CARROLL.

WRITERS AND SUBJECTS IN THE JUNE FORUM.

THOMAS FRANCIS BAYARD (Democratic Duty and Opportunity) was born at Wilmington, Del., in 1828, and educated at Flushing, L. I. After a few years of mercantile life in New York and Philadelphia, he studied law in Wilmington and was admitted to practice in 1851. In 1869 he succeeded his father in the Senate, where he remained until 1884, when he became Secretary of State under President Cleveland.

GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR (Reasons for Republican Control) was born in . Concord, Mass., in 1826, graduated from Harvard College in 1846, and from the Harvard Law School in 1849. He served in the House of Representatives from 1868 to 1876, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1876. Since that time he has occupied a conspicuous place among the Republican leaders in the Senate. He has written considerably on political and kindred topics for the magazines.

S. WEIR MITCHELL (A New Poet), born in Philadelphia in 1829, was graduated at the Jefferson Medical College in 1850. He has won distinction as a specialist in nervous diseases, as a writer on medical science, and as a contributor of fiction and articles of a literary character to the leading popular magazines. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and several other scientific societies. He takes a keen interest in literary as well as scientific affairs.

E. O. LEECH (The Fall of Silver and its Causes) was born in Washington, D. C., about forty-two years ago. He was graduated from the National University of Washington, and entered the service of the Mint Bureau about 1873. He is now at the head of the bureau. He has frequently appeared in the House before the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, and is regarded as authority on all matters pertaining to coinage.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT (Education for Women at Yale), born in Norwich. Conn., in 1828, after graduating from Yale, in 1849, studied theology for three years and then taught there until 1855, when he studied for two years at Bonn and Berlin. In 1858 he became professor of sacred literature and NewTestament Greek in Yale Theological Seminary. In 1886 he was made president of Yale.

A. C. BENSON (The Training of Boys at Eton) is one of the masters at Eton, the celebrated English school. The careful study which he has given to the systems which prevail in the leading boys' schools of England, and his experience as a teacher, make him an authority on the subject which he treats.

JOHN B. MOORE (Needed Reform in Naturalization) was born in Delaware in 1860, educated at the University of Virginia, and admitted to the Bar in 1883. In 1885 he was appointed to a position in the Department of State, and in the following year was made Third Assistant Secretary of State. This office he held till 1891, when he was elected professor of international law in Columbia College. Mr. Moore is the author of several legal works, including a treatise on extradition, and he is an associate of the Institute of International Law.

WILBUR OLIN ATWATER (What the Coming Man Will Eat) was born in 1844, in Johnsburg, N. Y., graduated as A. B. at Wesleyan in 1865 and as Ph. D. at Yale in 1869, studied in the universities of Leipsic and Berlin and elsewhere in Europe, and has been professor of chemistry in Wesleyan University since 1873. He was director of the first Agricultural Experiment Station in the United States, the work of which was done in 1875-77 in the chemical laboratory of Wesleyan, and he was made director of the Office of Experiment Stations, organized in 1888 as a central bureau in connection with the United States Department of Agriculture. He is also director of the Storrs (Connecticut) Agricultural Experiment Station.

HENRY C. ADAMS (The Slaughter of Railway Employees) was graduated at Iowa College in 1874, and four years later received the degree of doctor of philosophy from Johns Hopkins University. He was lecturer in Cornell and Johns Hopkins universities in 1880, and also in the University of Michigan in 1881. From 1882 to 1887 he directed the department of political economy in Cornell as well as at the University of Michigan, where in 1887 he assumed the professorship of political economy and finance, which he still holds. In 1888 he was made statistician to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the following year took charge of the department of transportation in the Eleventh Census. He is the author of "Public Debts: An Essay in the Science of Finance," and other works.

JOHN KNOWLES PAINE (Shall We Have Endowed Opera?) was born in Portland, Me., in 1839. His musical education was completed in Berlin. In 1862 he became instructor in music at Harvard, and in 1876 was given a full professorship, which he still retains. He has composed an oratorio, a mass, and a large number of other compositions. He is at present at work on a grand opera. He stands in the first rank among American composers.

WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE (Impending Paganism in New England), born in Winchendon, Mass., in 1858, was graduated at Harvard in 1859 and at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1861. In 1885 he was elected president and professor of moral philosophy at Bowdoin College. The college has prospered greatly under his ministrations, and he has won a high reputation as an educator. He has contributed articles to the leading reviews.

HENRY K. CARROLL (What the Census of Churches Shows) was born in Dennisville, N. J., 1848. He was the founder and editor of the "Havre Republican," at Havre de Grace, Md., in 1868; assistant editor of "The Methodist," 1869; assistant editor of "Hearth and Home," 1870; religious editor of "The Independent" in 1876, of which he is now the religious and political editor. He was appointed special agent of the Eleventh Census in 1889. He received the degree of LL.D. from Syracuse University in 1885.

The Forum.

JULY, 1892.

NECESSITY FOR UNIFORM STATE LAWS.

AMERICANS with slight knowledge of Asiatic castes sometimes describe Brahmins as rule-burdened animals. Oriental politeness restrains Brahmins from making retort that no men are bound by a larger number or greater variety of rules, properly called laws, than the self-styled free men of the American Commonwealth. No impartial American jurist can fail to admit that our law is complex, diverse, and bulky. What are the causes of these qualities in our law? Do these qualities constitute defects in law? If they do, what remedy, if any, is available by us?

The American Revolution was preeminently a conservative revolution. Its leaders, while aiming to destroy the political sovereignty of Great Britain in America, were no less intent upon preserving the English laws regulating private rights in America. Succeeding as those leaders did in securing both objects, America inherited a body of laws. This inherited body of English laws was complex. Sufficient evidence for proof will be suggested by the single fact that when the English colonies in America emerged from the colonial condition into that of independence, the laws by which they were governed consisted, first, of the common law of England, so far as they had tacitly adopted it as suited to their condition; secondly, of the statutes of England or of Great Britain amendatory of the common law, which they in like manner adopted; and, thirdly, of the colonial statutes. This inherited body of English laws was also diverse. The causes which, as early as 1776, had produced this result may be discovered in the varying social, economic, and political conditions of England and America and of

Copyright, 1891, by the Forum Publishing Company.

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