If the increase in Great Britain be proportionally smaller, this need
not cause surprise, in view of that vast development of energy in the
Established Church which is really due to the reflex action of
Methodism itself; that Church, with all the old advantages of wealth
and prestige and connexion with the universities and grammar schools
which she possessed in the days of her comparative supine-ness, with
her clergy roll of 23,000, and her many voluntary workers, having in
twenty-seven years almost doubled the number of her elementary
schools, largely attended by Methodist children. But the indirect
influence of Methodism is such as cannot be represented in our
returns; figures cannot show us the true spiritual status of a
Church. The total cost of the maintenance of our work in all its
branches can be estimated; and so able an authority as the Rev. Dr.
H. J. Pope stated it at from L1,500,000 to L1,750,000 pounds
annually, a sum more than equal to a dividend on fifty millions of
consols; but it is impossible to compute the profit to the human race
from that expenditure and the work it maintains.
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