30., we read, notwithstanding, of "any _chapel_ for the religious
worship of persons dissenting from the United Church of England and
Ireland."

C.H.
St. Catharine's Hall, Cambridge.


_Chapels_ (No. 20. p. 333., and No. 23. p. 371.).--The opinion of the
"BARRISTER" that this term had come into use as a designation of
dissenting places of worship from no "idea of either assistance or
opposition to the Church of England," but only as a supposed means of
security to the property, is probably correct. Yet it is likely
different reasons may have had weight in different places.

However, he is mistaken in "believing that we must date the adoption of
that term from about" forty years ago. I am seventy-six years old, and I
can bear testimony, that from my infancy it was the term universally
employed in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, and, I think
probable, in the more northern counties. In common speech, it was used
as the word of discrimination from the Methodist places of worship,
which bore the name of _Meeting-houses_, or, more generally, _Meetings_.
But within the period (forty years) assigned by your learned
correspondent, I think that I have observed the habit to have
extensively obtained of applying the term _Chapels_ to the latter class
of places.

I have abundant evidence of the general use of the term for dissenting
buildings, back to the seventeenth century. From my early life, I
remember the current opinion to have been that _Chapel_ was the word in