The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

GOVEENMENT AND ADMINISTEATION. 481
Out of thirty-one bishops connected with English sees onlj' twenty-four
have a seat in the House of Lords, though all alike are " Lords " by courtesy.
Xor are the seven bishops of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, and the two
;;rchbishops and ten bishops of the Church of Ireland, admitted to the House
of Lords. There are also sixty-two colonial and eleven missionary bishops
in connection with the Church of England.
In Scotland the Established Church is Presbyterian in principle, and is governed
by Kirk Sessions, Presbyteries,
Synods, and the General Assembly,
which consists of both clerical and
lay deputies from each of the pres-
byteries, and representatives from
the universities and royal burghs.
This Church, since 1843, has ceased
to be the Church of the majority,
for in that year the enforcement of
an obnoxious patronage act, since
repealed, led to the formation of
a Free Church, whose adherents
are nearly as numerous as those of
the mother Church.
Foremost amongst Dissenting
bodies are the Wesleyan Methodists,
the Independents or Congregation-
alists, the Baptists, and (in Wales)
the Calvinistic Methodists. Not
very numerous, but influential
through wealth, education, and
cohesion, are the Quakers.
It is only during the last fifty
years that full political rights have
been granted to Roman Catholics
and Jews—to the former in 1832,
to the latter in 1858. The Jews
-DiSTRIEVTION OF THE EoMAN CaTHOLICS.
113 nzi
Over lu per cent. 5 to lu per cci I'uder u per cent.
are nearly all to be found in the large towns, four-fifths of them living in
London.* The number of Roman Catholics has very much increased in the
course of the century, t In the reign of Queen Elizabeth they are said to have
constituted one- third of the total population, but in 1699 they had dwindled
down to an insignificant fraction. These were the times of penal enactments,
and although after 1787 the laws were not very rigorously enforced, and an
* Kumler of Jews ia Great Britaio (1877), .51,250, of whom 3S,880 live in London. Jews in Ireland
(1S71), 258.
t Roman Cutholica in England, 1699, 27,696; 1767, 67,916; 1845, 284,300; 1851, 758,800; 1861,
927,500; 1880, 1,120,000.