OF ESTABLISHED CHURCHES there are 25 in Kensington, giving 30,020 seats, or an average of 1250 each; and of this number, 10,883, or rather more than one-third, are free.
Of NONCONFORMING CHAPELS and other places, such as rooms or halls, 25, furnishing accommodation for 15,550, of which 5370 are free seats.
The ROMAN CATHOLICS have four churches, which are the foremost of that persuasion in London. The Pro-Cathedral provides 1100 seats, inclusive of 150 free; the Oratory 1200, 200 being free; the Church of the Carmelite Friars 800, none free; and that of St. Francis 500, none free.
There is one NON-SECTARIAN CHURCH, the Talbot Tabernacle, with 800 sittings, 200 of them free; and two Non-Sectarian Halls, with space together for 400.
The FOLLOWERS OF SWEDENBORG have one Chapel, with accommodation for 1000, no seats being definitely free.
Thus it will be seen that all the denominations together supply 49,070 seats, more than three-fifths of which are found by the Church of England; 15,550 by Protestant Nonconformists; and the remainder 3500 by Roman Catholics.
The numbers allotted to English Nonconformity stand as follows:—_Baptists_, 7450; _Congregational_, 2600; _Wesleyan Methodists_, 2250; _Primitive Methodists_, 300; _Scotch Presbyterian_, 600; _Plymouth Brethren_, 150; _Non-Sectarian_, 1200; _Swedenborgians_, 1000, =15,550.
The Established Church is, therefore, relatively strong in Kensington; and when we consider that the whole of this Church accommodation, with a single exception or two, has been provided by voluntary effort, and without the slightest pecuniary aid or benefit from the State, it must be accepted as a striking evidence of the popularity of that Church.
The principal parish Church, now just completed and about to be opened at a cost of but little under £40,000, is built entirely upon the voluntary principle. We have only heard of one instance in all this mass of property in which a helping hand has been extended, even by the Bishop of London’s Fund, and then only to the extent of about £2000. West London Churchmen have been deemed capable of doing their own work, and have been left to do it, and certainly they have done and are doing it.
It is also to be observed that the different ecclesiastical schools in the Church, by mere dint of rivalry, have done comparatively little in this great work. There are three or four decidedly Ritualistic Churches; two or three High Church; two Broad Church, which affects doctrine chiefly; and all the others are really and truly Evangelical Churches, and varying but very slightly, if any thing, in form and ceremony. Church extension may, therefore, be regarded as a genuine and earnest out-come of English protestant Churchmanship, prompted by higher motives than those connected with Ecclesiastical disputes.