During the civil wars, the diminishing influences indicated in the reverse of this statement were at work with an intensity unequalled in any other period of our modern history, so that there can be no doubt that our then "unhappy divisions" did most materially retard the numerical increase of the population, as well as the progress of science and the useful arts. Such is the inevitable consequence of war: of civil war in a tenfold degree. And our parish register books, all of which I doubt not show similar facts, place this in the most unfavourable light; for, through the spread of nonconformity, the unsettled state of the times, and the substitution during the protectorate of the registration of births which might or might not be communicated to the elected parish register, for that of baptisms which the parish priest would both celebrate and register, the names of very many of those born into the world would be altogether omitted from these records. It may be interesting to show the effects of some of these causes by the subjoined extracts from the registers themselves, which I transcribe from the _Chronicon Mirabile_ of the late Sir Cuthbert Sharpe.--(Vide pp. 17. 18. 22. 23. 70. 121. and 156.)
_Staindrop, Durham._--"1644. From this time to 1646, through want of a Minister, and carelessness of ye Cleark, during ye wars, much of ye Register is lost, only here and there a name registered."
"1652. June 14. Mem. From this time till August there was noe Minister, soe that ye children were carried to other parishes to be baptized."
_St. Helen's Aukland, Durham_, A.D. 1633.--"Mr. John Vaux, our minister, was suspended.... Mr. Robert Cowper, of Durham, served in his place, and left out divers christenings unrecorded, and regestered others disorderly."
_Gainford, Durham._--"Courteous Reader, this is to let thee understand that many children were left unrecorded or redgestered, but the reason and cause was this; some would and some would not, being of a fickle condition, as the time was then; this being their end and aim, to save a groate from the poor Clarke, so they would rather have them unredgestered--but now ... it is their design to have them redgestered."
_Lowestoft, Suffolk_, 1644 ... "For some time following there was in this Town neither Minister nor Clarke, but the inhabitants were inforced to procure now one and then another to baptize their children, by which means there was no Register kept, only those few hereafter mentioned weare by myself baptized in those intervalls when I enjoyed my freedom."