RELIGION. In England and Wales, in Scot land, and in Ireland, different churches are dominant: in the first, the Protestant Episcopal; in the second, the Presbyterian; and in the third, the Catholic. In the first two the respective churches are the established State churches. The Protestant Episcopal Church was also the es tablished Church of Ireland from 1801 until dis establishment in 1871. The religious reformation of the sixteenth century was received differently, and followed different courses in each of the three political divisions. In England and Wales the Church maintained its organization unbroken, simply severing its connection with Rome. The movement in Scotland was more radical, necessi tating a new organization. In Ireland the native Irish element remained loyal to Rome, only the limited English population revolting. But while the respective churches which the Reformation left in power in the three kingdoms are still the predominant organizations, their majorities have been reduced, and the present religious status differs much from that of the earlier time.
The changes have been most marked in Eng land and Wales. From the first there were Dis senters from the State Church; and the Presby terians, Congregationalists (or Independents), and Baptists date from this early period. Just prior to the rise of Cromwell the Dissenters had apparently secured considerable power; but the attempt to make the Presbyterian Church the established Church (1648) failed. Of course the Puritan, or virtually the Dissenting, element were dominant during Cromwell's revolution and rule. In the reaction following this reformation the ranks of the Dissenters were much reduced, and it. was not until the religious revival of the next century that they again began to become prominent. In 1700 it was estimated that the Dissenters numbered less than one-twentieth of the English population. In the eighteenth cen tury a sort of religious indifference settled over the country, from which it was aroused by the ardent enthusiasm and the simple faith that characterized the preaching of Wesley and his Methodist following. Wesley himself remained a member of the State Church, and desired that his followers should not be separated from it; but divergence from the Established Church was carried too far for this to be possible, and after his death the Methodists became organized (1795) as a separate body. The spirit of the
movement was taken up, in a degree, by other bodies, and the older dissenting churches, par ticularly the Congregationalists, enjoyed a con siderable growth in membership. In the course of time there were a number of divisions within the Methodist Church, but the Wesleyan Metho dists, with a little over half of the entire Methodist following, are stronger than any other dissenting Church. In the absence of any re ligious census, the strength of the different ele ments is estimated upon some such basis as the percentage of marriages celebrated according to the rites of the different bodies.
In 1899, in England and Wales. the Episcopal rites were used in 67.8 per cent. of the mar riages, the Catholic rites in 4.1 per cent., while the cereinonies in the registered places of other denominations numbered 12.4 per cent., and the civil marriages amounted to 15 per cent. It is estimated that the number of people not in the Established, Catholic, or Jewish churches, and who are therefore presumably Dissenters in sympathy, is considerably over one-fifth of the total population. After the Methodists, the Con gregationalists and the Baptists respectively are strongest, the Presbyterians following with a much smaller number, the members of this Church being most numerous in the northern counties of England. The Dissenters are strongly predominant in the northern counties of Wales, and attempts have been made to secure the dis establishment of the Episcopal Church within Wales. The Catholic Church had remained quite small in England and Wales until the influx of the Irish in the famine years from 1845 on. More recently the Catholics have secured many converts from the Established Church. In 1900 their number was estimated at about 1,500,000. The Church of England is not composed of homo geneous elements. On the contrary, on account of its latitudinarian policy, widely diverse fac tions are retained within its organization. Since about 1850 the High Church element, represent ing a reactionary movement toward a greater ceremonial, has become predominant, while the Broad Church movement, which stands especially for a more liberal theology, has also grown at the expense of the old Low Church.