The 1851 religious census--a useless experiment?

The 1851 Religious Census was unique in so far as no body of the state up to that time or subsequently had dared to use tools of counting to encroach on what was, and still is, held to be the private domain of attendance at public worship. Nor has the government of any country in recent times found it desirable or expedient to probe into such a matter. Certain countries today make it obligatory for citizens to declare their religious allegiance at the time of taking a census, as was the case in Ireland in 1834. In Germany at the present time a question on religious affiliation is needed for the distribution of church taxes, and in Canada a question has been included since 1871 for no clearly defined end as of December 1967. The rise of religious sociology since the end of Second World War has precipitated a renewed interest in the size and social composition of church congregations, but such surveys as have been carried out on the Continent and in England have all been executed by voluntary agencies, usually by the denominations concerned and then on a very limited scale. No attempt has been made to engage in so mammoth a task as to cover every church and chapel on a given Sunday in one country. That the 1851 Religious Census has never been repeated is sufficient evidence in itself to show that the experiment had limited success. Both with respect to the immediate reception that the census received from certain quarters, and from results after it was taken on March 30, 1851, it became apparent that it did not yield the kind of information that it was intended to produce.