The Welshman

ITHE IRISH CHURCH. I ADDRESS OF THE REFORM ASSOCJATIO.X TO I THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND, SCOT- LAND, AND WALES. BROTHER REFORMERS—Upon looking to the state of public opinion in different portions of the empire, we find one vital question, with regard to which considera- ble differences exist amongst men, who, upon all other points, are bound together by the same liberal feelings— the same thirst for improvement—the same honest and ardent desire to exercise the powers restored to the peo- ple of England by the Reform Bill for the common in- terest of their common country. This question is the reform of the Irish Church and when we reflect on the obscurity so long thrown, studiously, around it-the ca- lumnies and misrepresentations with which the advo- cates of changes, however indispensable, are assailed— and the acrimony that characterises all the discussions respecting them—we do not wonder that some miscon- ception should have prevailed upon a subject, in which every religious man must feel the deepest interest, while few possess the data which alone can give to that inter- est a beneficial direction. These data we shall attempt to supply in the following pages, which will contain au answer to three distinct queries:— First—What is the Irish Church ? Secondly—What right has the Legislature to deal with the ecclesiastical lfuiiii, which, since the Reformation, has been appropriated to the Irish Church ? Thirdly—In what manner is the Church of Ireland to be dealt with under the Government Bill ? Under the first of these heads we shall give a succinct account of the Irish Church ;-its establishment in Ire- land ;-the laws, and grants of money by which the le- gislature has sought to support itits actual revenues —the number of the clergytheir duties ;-and the scale upon which they are remunerated for them, as compared with the Protestant population in Ireland, and the revenues of the church in other countries. Under the second head, we shall demonstrate the right of the Legislature to deal with all trust, or corporate property, whether ecclesiastical or lay, in whatever mode the interests of the community may require. Under the third, we shall endeavour to show that the degree of interference contemplated by the Bill which Lord Melbourne's Government has introduced is of the very mildest kind, and barely sufficient to reconcile the Catholic population of Ireland to the existence of that tithe-fund, which it is most essential to preserve, if not for the exclusive benefit of the Establishment, for those purposes of moral and religious education, to which it is intended that the surplus* should henceforward be ap- plied. FIRST, TH EV, What is the Irish Church ? How was it planted in Ireland? How has it been maintained f How comes it that seven millions of the population are uoff hostile to its existence f" The Irish Church, as the term is at present used, tumins simply the Protestant, Episcopal, Establishment I* Ireland, similar to our own "in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government" (as expressed by the 5th Article of the Act of Union), meant, like our own, to comprehend the great mass of the Irish population en- dowed, like our own, for that end, and upon that plea, with the funds possessed by the Catholic Church at a time when the congregation of the Faithful was one and indivisible but differing from our own, in the fact that it has never comprehended the bulk of the population, but has continued, from its introduction up to the pre- sent hour, the religion not of the majority, but of a small minority, of the Irish people. The causes, which have led to results so different in countries so nearly similar, may easily be pointed out, and we shall enumerate a few of them, premising that, as Protestants, we hold them to be wholly unconnected with the relative tiuth, or merits, of the two religions. In England, the seed of the Reformation Iwas sown in a country prepared and willing to receive it. The doc- trines of WicUiffe had paved the way for those of Lu- ther, and the rejection of the Papal power by Henry VIII. merely consummated what the Constitutions of Claren- don had begun. In Ireland, from the conquest, jin 1168, to 1546, the whole influence of the Crown was eruployerl to enhance the authority of the Papal See. It was upon a Papal Bull that the King's title rested—it was by a fift from Rome that Ireland was held Excommunica- tion was a weapon employed against the King's enemies, at a time when, amongst the more civilised communi- ties of Europe, it had fallen into contempt. It was, in xhort, one of the many anomalies of the British rule in Ireland that, up to the very last moment, the people were taught to obey and to reverencejthat power which the Reformation called upon them to. contemn and ab- jure. But this was not all. Ireland,! though nominally conquered, never had been identified with the British empire. The conquest itself was a pitrtialconquest. The authority of England was confined to the English pale. The laws of England were granted onlyjvto thelXormao settlers and their descendants, and to the Five Sects, or Families, with which they first contracted alliances. All the rest of the native population was esteemed aliens, or enemies. Down to the reign of Elizabeth, tiieylcould neither sue, nor be sued, in any court of law and as late as 1607, under James I., an Irishman might be killed with impunity, if it could be proved that he was what was then termed mere Irish, and not one of the Five Bloods. Exclusion from the rights and pr vileges of Englishmen was then, as it too long continued, the prin- ciple of our Government. All the institutions of the Irish were denounced, yet their desire, often ardently expressed, to be received under the" protection ef the English law, was rejected. They were condemned to exist as a distinct and degraded race, with whom inter- marriage was pollution, and to conform with whose cus- toms was declared by the Statute of Kilkenny, in 1367, to be a crime equivalent to high treason itself. We have thought it necessary to dwell upon these facts, because they contain the germ of much that fol- lowed. The Reformation only widened the breach which cruel and impolitic laws had created. It added another distinction to the distinctions which existed before; it converted the war of races into a war of creeds. Espou- sed by the higher clergy, whose interests had always been identified with those of England*, and by the set- tlerit of the pale, it became, on that very account, an ob- ject of suspicion to the parochial clergy, and to their Irish flocks.-Tliel rejected it. We think that in doing 10 they closed their ears to the voice of truth but how much was wanting in Ireland which endeared that truth to ourselves? If there be one thing that Ctended more than another to open the hearts of 1rotestatits to the doctrines of the Reformation, it was the privilege of praying to God in their native tongue. That privilege was denied the Irish. The Liturgy was never transla- ted. It has never been translated, up to the present day. The people were told, of two strange languages, to choose the one least familiar to them, and which, in lieu of he- ing endeared by old associations, was the symbol of little ,else than humiliation and conquest. Then, the clergy sent to replace the old Catholic priesthood were strangely and culpably negligent. The only proof of their zeal was the destruction, by armed bands, of churches, which, they said, had been polluted by the Mass. In place of those great and good men who founded Protestantism in Scotland, in Germany, and amongst ourselves, Ireland was given in prey to the refuse of the English Church. We witill no stronger evidence upon this point than that ef contemporary Protestant writers, such as Spenser- men who saw with indignation the excesses which they have recorded-and we ask, whether it was by instru- ments such as these that a great moral revolution could be accomplished ? Whether, if the Reformation had been entrusted to similar hands elsewhere, it would have produced the rich harvest which has sprung from the Cibours of Latimer and of Hidley, of Calvin, of Me!Mc- 4hon, and of Knox? In Ireland, penal enactments took the place of that Tational conviction which was all-powerful amongst our- selves. Without taking one single step for the conver- sion of the people, the Irish Legislature proceeded to lay the foundations of that system of coercion which has since been worked out with cruel, though fruitless, perseve- rance. The country wns treated as a Protestant country, though Catholic in all but the name. The funds of the Catholic Church were transferred by act of Parliament to the Ministers of the new creed, and an Establishment founded upon a scale befitting a nation, although but a fraction of that nation was included within its pale. History tells us how this experiment has succeeded, and how dearly we have expiated the original sin of con- ceiving that an Establishment could be maintained which did not rest upon the belief of the majority of the people. In all the dissensions and disturbances which distracted Ireland the claims of that Establishment have been mixed up. They It ive served to perpetuate the old distinctions of Englishry and Irishry amongst her popu- lation—they have stood as a harrier between the two eountrjes, rendering any identification of their interests impossible, and forbidding even any kindly approximation of feeling. They have added bitterness to political ani- mosities, and infused a more deadly spirit into political feuds. I a vain have we endeavoured (to use the words of an eloquent writer) by one of those daring fictions, in which law leaves poetry far behind it,' to deny the Catholic,, a legal existence-in vain have we striven to ertigh them by penal laws—they constitute the great mass of the Irish people. Out of a population of less than 8,000,000,6,427,712 belong to this proscribed creed. There are but 852,064 Episcopalian Protestants in all, of whom same 80,000, at the least, as Wesleyan Methodists, are dissenters, to a certain extent, from the Church and it is for the benefit of these 852,064 souls that an Establish- ment is kept up, which ought to provide spiritual instruc- tion for a whole people ;-endowecl with funds amply suf- ficient to provide,.it;-ft-uniled upon the supposition that a time would come when it would so provide it: but now weakening, undermining, destroying the influence of Protestantism itself, by the irritation which its own claims are necessarily exeiting;-Cont.-ibuting nothing to the moral and religious education of four-fifths of the people, but constantly coming into collision with them by j its demands, and by the scenes of violence and bloodshed, to which the attempt to enforce these demads has, un- fortunately, led! These are harsh truths, but they must be told ;-they niu-t be heard ;-they must be weighed 1 —they must be reflected upon by all sincere Protestant Jleformers (for it is to them that these pages are ad- dressed), before they give an opinion upon the Bill in- troducedby Lord Melbourne's Cabinet, for the better regulation Mid distribution of ecclesiastical revenues in Ireland." If that Bill be not indispensable, it is unjust. If there be not evils that demand the interference of the Legislature, that interference is inexcusable. Call it spoliation—call it sacrilege—call it what You will—we TIthm were introduced into Ireland by the synod of Cashel, and I it was always supposed that this departure from the simpler usages of the Primitive Irish Church was the connecting link l>et\*e«n the I fciyher Lierly and the No-rtnau invaders. will neither defend nor palliate it, from the moment that it is shown to us that it can possibly be avoided. We I rest on this our sole justification, and we seek that justi- fication in a dispassionate view of the state of the Irish population, and of that of the Irish Church. The population of Ireland, according to the Returns I made hy the Commissioners of Public liititruction. Amounts to 7,943,940 souls. Of these 6,427,712 are Catholics 642,550 are Presbyterians 21,808 are Quakers, Baptists, or other Protestant Dissenters and 852,064 are Protestant Episcopalians, or Members of the E t-t- blished Church. Among tliese, however, are included the whole body of the Wesleyan Methodists, whose numbers we can only infer from the following facts:— 852,061 Episcopalians support 1,534 places of worship —that is, there is one church for each 55o souls. 6,427,712 Catholics support 8,105 places of wonhip;- that is, one church or chapel to each 3,053 souls. 642,336 Presbyterians support 452 places of worship ;— that is, one church to each 1,421 souls. The average of the three sects will give 2,002 souls to each place of worship; while 403 places of worship are assigned to the 21,808 Protestant Dissenters not inclu- ded in the census of the Presbyterians; thus allotting one church to each ten families, or 51 souls. If, in lieu of this, we take, not 2,002, or 1,421, or 556 individuals, but 300 men, women, and children, as the average congregation by which each chapel is supported, we sltall have a body of 120,900 Dissenters (including the Wesleyans), in lieu of the 21,808 enumerated by the Re- port; and this will leave 752,972 Episcopalians, as the total number of Protestants included, bona fide, within the pale of the Established Church. For the benefit of these 752,972 members of the Estab- lishment, Ireland has been divided into four Ecclesiasti- cal Provinces—Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and TUdru. Armagh contains ten Dioceses Dublin, five Cashel, eleven Tuam, six. In Armagh (we speak of the Province), there are 502 benefices; in Dublin, 311; in Cashel, 469; in Tuam, 103; making a total of 1,385 benefices, amongst which the 2,318 parishes of Ireland are very unequally and ano- malously distributed. We know not upon what princi- ple many of the larger benefices, which are called Unions," have been formed. There are 478 of the unions in all, and in 87 of them it does not appear that contiguity has been thought a necessary condition of the alliance, althougli one cati hardly see how it can be dis- pensed with, where parishes are united for the avowed purpose of receiving, in common, the benefit of religious instruction. Thus, in the Union of Kilcooly, we find ten parishes thrown together, one of which is six miles, and a second ten miles, from the rest. In the Union of Ballymakill, which consists of nine parishes, one is twenty seven miles from the church. In the Union of Burnchurch, which is composed of fourteen parishes, three of them are stated by the Com- missioners to be nt opposite extremities of the county of Kilkenny, many miles from each other, and from the body of the Union." We fear that it is less the spirit of Christianity, or the desire to facilitate the religious instruction of the people, that has presided over the formation of these Unions, than the wish to provide for some favoured incumbent, towards whose wants the Catholic population, in the more distant parishes, have thus been compelled to con- tribute. We think them wrong in principle, and mis- chievous in practice. They would not have been endured in England or Scotland. Is it surprising that, in Ire- land, they should have been the cause of excitement and complaint? What would the people of Scotland say, if, for the benefit of the 100,000, or 120,000 Episcopalians, who reside amongst them, the Presbyterian parishes were to be formed into Unions, varying in extent not according to the wants of the Presbyterian population, but of the Episcopalian clergyman ;—eking out, at once, his consregation and his income, by throwing in half a dozen Episcopalians in the small parish, and all the tiends, without a single Episcopalian in the large parish? Would it not be the bounden duty of a Legislature fairly representing the interests of the people of Scotland, to put an end to such a monstrous system ? To denounce it as an unnatural system,—an unholy system,—a system which no Christian country can be warranted in uphold- ing? Well did the late Attorney-General for Ireland (Mr. Sergeant Perrin), than whom an honester man, and a better Protestant does not exist, exclaim—" Will English members persevere for ever in the same unjust and reckless course,—and can they say they do so for conscience—for religion's sake? I call upon those who do say so-I call upon those distinguished men to pause —to reflect upon their own words, and upon the course they are pursuing. They may oppose the resolution- they may baffle, and possibly defeat, by so doing, their political opponents; but let them not allege conscience and religion as their motive. Ihey may call it policy- they may call it wisdom, if they please-but let them not desecrate conscience, let them not profane the name of religion in such a cause." We shall explain elsewhere in what manner the Go- vernment purposes to remedy the vice inherent in this system, by securing to the inhabitants of each Union, a competent provision for the performance of divine ser- vice, yet restoring to the Catholic majority a large por- tion of that fund which their own industry contributes to produce. But it is not to the Unions, unfortunately, that the disproportion between the Protestant Church and the wants of the Protestant population is confined; it pervades every part of the Establishment, in a greater or less degree, from the mighty ecclesiastical staff, which is kept up for the purposes of Episcopal superintendence, and the deans and chapters without cure of souls, down to the 895 parishes without 50 Protestant3, the 496 pa- rishes without 20 Protestants, and the 155 parishes with- out either Protestants, or clergymen, or church For instance :-there are in Ireland two archbishops, and ten bishops, with revenues amounting to £ 151,127 a year, which are not to be touched by the present Bill. The number of Episcopalian Protestants, as we have proved, does not exceed 752,972. The diocese of London alone, in England, contains a population of 1,749,501 souls, of whom one million, at least, belong to the Es- 1 tablished Church. Why this disparity ? If ten bishons. and two archbishops, are required to watch over a flock of 752,972 souls, why not subdivide the metropolis into a similar number of bishoprics, instead of entailing so fear- ful a responsibility on one individual ? You might have a Bishop of Paddington, and a Bishop of Mary-la-bonne, as you have a Bishop of Cashel, and a Bishop of Cork. If they are not required-if one Bishop can do the duty as efficiently as ten, why assign to the Irish bishoprics a revenue of X151,127 in land, with a probable increase of some twelve or fifteen thousand pounds a year, when ex- isting leases fall in an increase by which the gross in- come of the Archbishopric of Armagh alone will be raised in the course of five years, from X17,669 to £ 23,930. Then, again, look to the dignities and prebends of the Irish Church; we mean without taking account of the benefices with cure of souls, which are occasionally at- tached to them. The gross amount of their revenues is £ 40,323. The Report states ninety-four of those digni- ties to be mere sinecure offices, save and except the duty of preaching occasionally in their respective cathe- dral churches." In seventy-five instances, the returns made to the Commissioners by the individuals them- selves, state that they have "no duties whatever to per- form." Yet for these no duties" the Dean of Raphoe receives £1,491 per annum the Precentor of Lismore, £ 448 and the Archdeacon of Meath, £723. Others are not equally fortunate in this ecclesiastical lottery, some receiving only X90, others X60, othei s X30. But, in all, the remuneration is totally independent of the work to be performed, or of the population which, if there be any reason in Church Establishments, ought to benefit by that work. The Dean of Raphoe, with his income of XI,491, does just as little for it, in as far as the Christian utility of the Church to ivhicli he belongs is concerned, as the Dean of Ross, who receives only X91 or, to state the case more courteously, the labours of the Dean of Ross are just as indispensable as those of the Dean of Raphoe—neither of them having, according to their own return, any spiritual duty whatever to perform. So it is, too frequently, with the parochial benefices themselves,—not from the fault of the clergy, but from the vice inherent in a system, the first principle of which was to form an establishment without any regard to the creed of the majority of the population. Those close and touching ties which unite in England and Scotland the clergyman with his flock are everywhere wanting. There are 41 benefices in Ireland, even as the benefices are now constituted, in which there is not a single Episcopalian Protestant. There are 99 benefices in which thete are not 20 Protestants. There are 12-1 benefices in which the number varies from 20 to 50. In these 2tH benefices, in many of whidi the family of the rector, his children, his servants, his wife, with, perhaps, a few occasional policemen, constitute the whole of the congregation,— how is it possible for the clergyman, however good his intentions, or unexceptionable his conduct, to surmount that feeling which pervades the great mass of the Ca- tholic population around him, namely, that he lives at their expense-that he is the representative of a system founded upon their depression, and that, without the possibility of deriving from him any spiritual instruction or aid, he engrosses a fund which would be sufficient, if distributed as it is distributed in every other part of the world, to diffuse the blessings of education over the whole mass of the population ? These feelings, and they are feelings which are inhe- rent in human nature itself, are greatly enhanced by the disproportion which exists between the parochial endow- ments and the duties to be performed. We annex a table of seven benefices taken from different parts of Ire- land, and containing, in all, sixty-two Protestants, in which there is no church, and no resident clergyman, whi'e the parochial income from tithes amounts to £2888 annually. Itesidenl Tithes. Protestants Clergy. Church. £ s. d. z Modeliifo (Union) 4 I 0 (io oo Seskeinane 3 0 0 335 0 0 Clenne 17 0 0 5,19 19 0 Effin 10 0 0 320 0 0 Gilberstown. 8 0 0 250 0 0 Mnhoonagh S 0 0 500 0 0 12 0 (I 484 12 0 We have another table before us of 50 parishes, the united revenues of which are XII,897, while the whole Protestant flock consists of 527 individuals and, as if to aggravate the evil of such a state of things, in these 50 parishes there are 1,2 without a resident clergyman, and 41 without a church. In the diocese of Eialy, th? population of which amounts to 98,363, there are only 1.246 members of the Established Cliurch, to whose exclusive benefit tire Tithe Composition, amounting to X7,969, is appropriated in addition to which the diocese has received X5,670 in Parliamentary grants, and X4,320 in loans. The ex- pense, therefore, of imparting spiritual instruction to tht 1,246 Episcopalians, is about Xi; 7s. 6d. for each man. woman, and child belonging to the Establishment, and yet, so inefficiently is this duty performed, that out oi seventeen benefices there are ten in which the incum bent is non-resident, and five in which divine service is not performed at all. In the bishopric ofCloyne there are eight parishes, the tithe composition of which amounts to X4,860 per ann., while the number of Episcopalian Protestants is precisely 173. The cost, therefore, of each member of the Estab- ment is £28 a man. Members of the Tithe Established Church. Composit;on. Killatty 13 jfc-lOO BaIJyhea I:) 400 Templeracarigny 27 498 Ballyvourney 30 500 Ardagh 14 600 Whitechurch 20 7-,44 Mogeesha 19 809 Clonfriest 35 869 173 jg4,8fi0 In the whole province of Tuam, containing six dio- ceses, and 275 parishes, with 1,234,336 inhabitants, and an ecclesiastical revenue of £ 60,000, the members of the Establishment, including the Wesleyans, amount only to 44,599. The Presbyterians, and other Protestant Dis senters, are 1,169; while the Catholics alone are 1,188,5(if —thus constituting 28 parts out of 29 of the whole popu lation, while the provision intended for the religious in- duction of the 29 parts is engrossed, and absorbed, by the one. We might multiply instances, ad infinitum, to prove that everything in the Church of Ireland is anomalous and arbitrary that there is no proportion between it. duties and its revenues; no connecting link between the clergyman and his nominal flock did we not feel it to be unnecessary after the facts which we have already ad- duced. We, therefore, proceed at once to two other points, with which we shall close this branch of our in- quiry first, the effect produced by so lavish an expendi. ture in disseminating Protestantism and, secondly, a comparison between the cost of the Church Establish- ment in Ireland, and the Church Establishment in Scot- land, where Protestantism is no hot-house nursling, but a plant of a vigorous and hardy growth. The precise amount of Church revenues in Ireland was long unknown. Like the course of the Niger, there was a mystery about it, and vain were the efforts of suc- cessive adventurers to explore it to its source. Sir Henry Parnell, Sir John Newport, Mr. Hume, and Mr. Ward, all failed in forming an accurate estimate of its resources, and, even now, the Government calculations vary to the extent of many thousand pounds. The value of the Bishops' lands, and glebes, has never been ascer- tained with any sort of precision. The estimate of what has been termed Minister's money, is nothing more than ,a guess and there are doubts as to the income of the prebends, and other dignities, respecting which there are great discrepancies in the Parliamentary Returns. We give, therefore, Lord Morpeth's estimate of X807,533 gross revenue, and X744,926 nett-as the most correct account, merely because it is the most recent. L-CORPORATIONS SOLE. I I Gross. Nett. 1. The annual Revenue of the continuing and suppressed, as appears by the Report of the 1<:C-1 clesiastical Revenue Coirmis- je. I. d. je. I. d. tionert.amountsto. 151,127 12 4. 128,808 8 3 N. B.—The principal sources of this revenue arise from rents reserved by leases, and annual renewal of fines; but the true amount of episcopal revenue is even greater than is above stated, as it appears, from the Commis- sioners' Report, that there are 213 tenant* under the sees, hold- Ing for terms of 21 years. where the annual renewal flues are not included .I.nue income arising from? Glebe Lands, amounts, annually,\ to.  92,000 e I 80,000 0 0 (deducting the re- served rents, and expences of col- lection. 3. The Income arising from Minister's money, amount., an. nu.ily. t 30,000 0 0 9,500 0 0 4. The income arl- deducting 5 per sing from Ecciesiasti- cent. for collec- cal Tithe Composition tion. is ,e;)55,OOO 0 0 of which there belongs to Archbishops and Bishops, and to Cor- porations aggregate, held either in their own hands, or let to tenants at reserved rents -,C23,218 8 51 131,781 M 7 505,192 12 10 I Ideducting 5 per ic-ent. for collec- Ition. J6784,909 6 11 U'723,496 1 1 I The difference between this sum and jfffiS.OOO, the gross amount I of tithe composition belonging to those Corporations, is enjoyed, at present, by the lessees, under existing leases. II.—CORPORATIONS AGGREGATE. I Gross. Nett. I.-The Income belonging to e & d. £ #. d. Deanl and Chapters, asc mmoni e*tate,amountato 1,042 11 £ 928 0 2 2.-The Income arising from estate. belonging to Deans and Chapters, is 11,055 14 7 10,502 18 10 3.-The Incoin? arising from estates of Minor Canons and Vi- 10,525 19 5 9,q99 13 7 cars Choral, is 10,525 19 5 9,999 13 7 807,533 12 4 1^744920 13 7 In addition to this large permanent income, the Irish Church has received from Parliament grants of money for the building of churches and glebe-houses, to the amount of more than £ 930,000, according to a table prepared by Mr. Spring Rice. From 1801 to 1807 £4,615 a year was voted. In 1808 and 1809 9,230 From 1810 to 1816 55,384 1817 to 1821 27,692 In 1822 and 1823 9,230 Total £ 595,377, in addition to which • £ 33(5,881 were granted for glebe-houses alone. There have been grants for the purposes of Protestant education during the same period, (we mean since 1801), purposes for which the revenues of the clergy were in- disputably liable, had the provisions of the law respecting tenths, and first fruits, been duly enforced-to the amount of £ \,378,369- viz.: Charter Schools £ 1.105,869 Association for discountenancing Vice 101,991 Kildare Place Society 170,509 Total 369 There have been loans for glebes, and churches, to the amount of 324,623/. more—which loans in many in- stances, have not been repaid so that, in point of fact, without taking into account the 640,000/. advanced last year, or the 360,000/. to be advanced this year, if the Go- vernment Bill be carried, to cover the arrears of Tithe, or the expenditure for the army and the police, which has amounted to one million annually (although it would not be difficult to show how closely this formidable item in our national charges is connected with the claims of the Church), England has disbursed, since the Union, a sum of X2,298,369 for the support of the Protestant Es- tablishment m Ireland, that Establishment possessing, during the whole of that period, in lands, glebes, and tithes, an independent, and, with the exception of the last five years, a well-paid income of £ 807,533. It cannot be denied that the effort has been enormous —the liberality of our Legislature indisputable-its zeal beyond all praise! But what has been the result ? We will give it in liord Morpeth's words. The result has been a constantly decreasing Protestant population, with a Church revenue as constantly upon the increase. The number of Protestants to Catholics at the two different epochs of 1834 and 1766, appears to have been as follows: 1766. 1834. Protestants. Catholics. Protetttantt. Catholics. Armagh 1 li 1 14 J)rry 1 2-3 1 14 Down and Connor 10 2 2-3 10 4 Dromore 10 6 10 7 Raphoe 1 1? 1 21 Kildar 1 3? I 84 Kilmore Ardagh.. 1 42 1 II Calne 1 9 1 30 Cork and Ross I 1 6 1 9 Cloyne 1 8 J 23 Klphin 1 10 1 18 Kilialoe 1 9 1 181 Killala 1 0 1 Tuam 1 9 1 46 The same fact was proved by Mr. Ward in his speech of May, last year, by an analysis of the population in 37 parishes of the diocese of Ossory, in 1731 and 1831, a table of which we insert:— TOTAL POPULATION. In 1731 16,487 Protestants 1,935 In 1831 64,225 1,453 _1- .L. '&1 'I..e 11. so mat, wnne me toiai population quadrupled in 100 years, the numberof Protestants fell off by one-fifth, not as compared with the whole population, but as compared with their own numbers in 1731. What are we to argue from this, except that there is something so radically, and irremediably, wrong in the present constitution of the Irish Establishment, that all attempts to uphold it serve only to make its weakness more apparent, and to prove the necessity of applying vigorous remedies, if we wish that it should ever realise the object of its constitution. Compare it with any other Establishment, and we shall see in what the error con- sists, for neither in Catholic Belgium, nor in Protestant Scotland, in both of which countries the Establishment is the Church of the majority, is there any comparison be- tween the scaie, upon which the Clergy are remunerated and that adopted in I i-elarid, where their services, however valuable, are confined to a mere fraction of the population. In Belgium, for instance, where there is a Catholic population of four millions, the whole provision for the Archbishop of Malices and the Are JBishopi who perform in conjunction with him the duties of Episcopal superin- tendence, together with the Vicars, Canons, and other Dignitaries, the Colleges attached to each bishopric, and the repair of the Cathedral and other churches, amounts to 434,800 francs, or about £ 11,000. For the Parochial Clergy, in the nine provinces composing the Belgium monarchy, a sum of 2,828,100 francs is allotted, which is equivalent to about < £ 115,000; so that the whole expense of an Establishment for four millions of people does not exceed £1:30,000, in which sum the provision for Church rates is included. This is the first article upon the Bel. gium Ecclesiastical Budget. What is the second? A provision for the Clergy of a small protestant minority, to whom 80,000 francs are assigned, as a proof of the kindly feeling with which they are regarded by their Catholic fellow-countrymen. But what would the feel- ings of these Catholics be, if, because they have a Pro- estant Sovereign upon the throne, an attempt were nacle to appropriate the whole Ecclesiastical Fund to the Protestant Minority, and to refuse all participation in it to the Catholics ? Look at Ireland, and we have the answer. And now let us turn to Scotland. 111 what country tie the duties of the Christian Ministry more faithfully performed ? Where are the Chrgy, as a body, more look- ed up to, respected, and beloved ? and what is the cost If this most efficieut, and praiseworthy, and truly Chris- tian Establishment—an establi -imerit, be it recollected, in which, although there are neither Archbishops nor Bishops to repress them, sinecures are unknown. Non- residence is unknown—Pluralities are unknown—where the pastor is content to live by the flock which he tends, and claims no remuneration where no services are per- formed ? The present population of Scotland amounts to two millions and a half, of whom 1,600,000, at the Iast, are members of the Estab!ished Presbyterian Church. The whole cost of this church, including the Parliamentary grant of XI 1,430 per annum, the object of which is to augment to £1;jO and £200, respectively, the stipends of those livings, which do not produce that sum, does not exceed £ "269,000 a year: so that the spiritual instruc- tion of the whole Scotch people averages exactly 3s. 4d. per head. Now mark the difference. In Sco land we have 1,600,000 members of the Esta- tablishment, with an expenditure of < £ 269,000. In Ire- land we have7;,¡2,972 members of the Establishment, with an expenditure of X807,53.3. In Scotland the spiritual instruction of each member of the F,t- Tnetit costs three shillingsarid fourpence. In Ireland the spiritual instruction of each member of the bstaoiialuueiit C ISt8 21s. 5d. In Scotland, the ratio of remuneration is nearly equal for if the stipends are larger in some of the larger towns, it is because there are heavier duties for the clergymen to perform. In Ireland, the ratio of remuneration is entirely inde- pendent of the duty, and varies, in the most unequal, and capricious manner, from X28 per head (as in the eight parishes of the Bishopric of Cloyne), and X6" 1 10s. per head, (as in the union of Paleroan, where there are only four Protestants, and C270 in tithes), to a very trifling and inadequate stipend, which may be found in parts of Armagh, although in other parts of the same province, the remuneration of the clergyman appears to be -El 5s. (Donoughmore), £ *2 (Creggan), £ 2 4s. (Dunleer), and even X4 per head (Sermon-feckan). In Scotland, two-thirds of the population actually be- long to the Establishment, and all once did. In Ireland, the Protestant Episcopalian population constitutes about one-tenth of the whole population, and the proportion varies from 10 to 17 (as in Armagh), to 10 to 58 (Dublin), 0 to 188 (Cashel), and 10 to 259, as in Tuam, where all the anomalies of the system are most deeply and painfully felt. May we not find in these facts at once an expl nation of the failure of the experiment of a Protestant Establish- ment in Ireland, and of its success elsewhere ? Must we not, as reasonable men, and as Christians, draw from them an inference, that, in the course which we have pursued hitherto, we have been warring, not only against nature, but against the will of God! That it is not by penal laws, by compulsion, or by money that the interests of Protestantism can be advanced: but by diffusing sound and rational principles amongst the people-by rendering accessible to them the blessings of education, and thus imparting to them some share in the advantages of that fund, from which, as now distributed, they derive nei- ther instruction nor relief. This I rings us to our SECOND QUERY, lf,hat right has the Legislature to deal with the Ecclesiastical Fund, which, since the Reformation, has been appropriated to the Irish Church ? The very fact that it was so appropriated constitutes the right and the reply, The Reformation put an end. not merely to the Papal authority, but to all idea of pre- scription in the property of the Church. It was a re- forming of the ecclesiastical institutions of the country according to the wants, and spirit, of that age, sanc- tioned, undertaken, and worked out, by the three branch- es of the Legislature in Parliament assembled. The right to do what they did has never been disputed. Upon what ground can it be disputed now ? Why is a proper- ty, which, 300 years ago, was held to be a trust property, and dealt with as such by Parliament, a property, which was wrested from its ancient possessors, the Catholic clergy, and applied,-justly and wisely applied—to objects more congenial to the wishes of the nation, and better calculated to promote its spiritual good, to be designated now as private property, over which Parliament can exercise no legitimate control, without endangering the title to all other property, and sapping the foundations of civil society itself? The fact is, that, in all cases of Corporate Reforms there are two questions to be decided—the question of expediency, and the question of right, and these have been purposely confounded in the case of the Irish Church. Those, who could not deny the expediency, have denied the right, by way of strengthening a weak position and when forced to concede the right, they throw themselves back upon the expediency as a corps de reserve. These are the constant tactics of the Conservative party, and more peculiarly of Sir Robert Peel. We shall take a plainer, and an honester course. We say that we have proved the expediency of such a change in the application of the ecclesiastical fund in Ireland, as may reconcile our Catholic fellow sub:ects to its existence, and we now af- firm the right. tills right rests upon the distinction, which Bacon, Macintosh, llallam, Senior, and all our best constitu- tional writers, have recognised between corporate pro- perty and private property, rendering a power of revi- sion and control as indispensable in the one case, s ait is undesirable and unnecessary in the other. Property," says Macintosh (that is, private property), "is, indeed, in some senses, created by an act of the public will; but it is by one of those fundamental acts which constitute society. Theory proves it to be essential to the social state. Experience proves that it has, in some degree, existed in every age, and nation, of the world. But those public acts which form and endow corporations, are sub- sequent and subordinate. They are only ordinary expe- dients of legislation. The property of individuals is estabiished on a general principle, which seems coeval with society itself. But bodies are instruments fabri- cated by the legislator fora specific purpose, which ought to be preserved while they are beneficial, amended when they are impaired, and rejected when they become use- less, or injurious.Uacintosh's Vindicae, Section 1. Hallam tells us-" I cannot do such violence to all common notions on the subject, as to attach an equal inviolability to private and corporate property. The laws 01 hereditary succession, and of testamentary disposition, constitute a vital distinction between them. In the one case, ownership is limited by existence in the other, so to limit it would be a deprivation of existing right. While, therefore, all infringements upon the privileges of individuals are to be avcided, and held justifiable only by the strongest motives of public expediency, I cannot but admit the right of the Legislature, to new mould, and regulate, the former, in all that does not involve existing interests, upon far slighter grounds of convenience." Now we beg our readers to work out this idea, and when they hear of sprliation-ivhen they are told of Church robbery, to inquire who are the spoliators, and who the persons robbed ? If you confiscate a man's es- tate, or deny to him the right of disposing of it after death, you deprive him of that, which is part and parcel of his present ownership, whether acquired by purchase, or descent. You take from him a thing susceptible of valuation you rob his children of that which ought, in the course of nature, to be theirs; and, by destroying confidence in the justice of the Legislature, yon deprive the community of security and peace. liut, when a Corporation is concerned, even though that corporation be the Church, who are the parties in- jured, if you respect existing rights ? Is it the clergy ? No. Their claims are guaranteed. The bishops ? No. They remain bishops for life. The owners of ad vowsons? No. Their rights are to be bought up. The King ? No. His consent has been obtained. The children, or heirs, of existing clergymen ? No. Benefices are not trans- mitted by inheritance—or bishoprics by will. Who is the sufferer then ? The country ? It is to secure the- tranquillity of the country, and as the only possible mode of securing it, that the change takes place. Religion ? Protestantism? Truth? No! once more—and No! a thousand times! Never will we, as Protestants, admit that the cause of Protestantism can he injured by educa- ting the Irish people! Never will we believe that the power which they are about to acquire, of comparing the two religions, can be a disadvantage to that which we hold to be the religion of truth We think with Mr. fluxton-a sincere Protestant, if ever there was one, and an upright and honest man—that Protestantism will, for the first time, meet Catholicism on fair terms in Ireland, when it has lost a portion of these worldly endowments, the very excess of which has indisposed the bulk of the community against it, and driven them to cling with re- doubled tenacity to their ancient creed. Is this an (un- reasonable supposition ? Look to the facts. Look to the gradual decrease of Protestantism, in proportion as the Church Establishment has gradually increased in wealth. There has been no such falling off amongst the Presby- terians of the North, who receive from Parliament a small, but competent, provision. Why ? Because it is a provision calculated fairly upon their wants. It excites no jealousy-it causes no complaints. But there is some- thing so preposterous in the arrangement by which the funds intended for the religious instruction of the whole community are appropriated, exclusively to a sect, to which not one-tenth part of the community belongs, that we can perfectly understand the feelings excited by such partiality in the bosom of every Catholic. It is an insult as well as an injustice-a mockery, as well as a wrong! But, shall we be told, though you have proved the right of the State to deal with corporate property in ge- neral, you have not brought the principle home to the Church. Is the Church a corporation ? What is it, if it be!not? Upon what plea do the clergy hold their property but in virtue of A public trust ? It is the fia- lary of prayer," as Grattan somewhere says, "and not the gift of God independent of the duty." The mode of their payment is indifferent to the question. It may be in lands, or money, or tithes. A territorial pension is no more property, than a pecuniarv pension. The clergy are merely entrusted with the administration of those lands, out of which their pensions are paid and it is for the State to determine, when existing interests lapse, whether the trusts ought to be continued, or not. This principle is admitted by Paley, by Warburton, by Bishop Watson, all high ecclesiastical authors, and by the present Bishop of London*, as it was by Lord Bacon 200 years before. They all hold Church property to be a public fund, distributed, at the discretion of the State, for public services, to be rendered by a public body. Had it not been so, the Catholic clergy would stil! be in pos- session of it. There could have been no transfer at the period of the Reformation. The title of the Protestant Church rests upon an Act of Parliament, and upon nothing else, or better. The plea for that Act, was the old plea, !the saltis publicn— the public good! This was its sole end, and object. The question is, has that been attained ? Can. it ever be at- tained in Ireland under the present system? If unat- tainable, why is the system to be upheld ? But, say some, what becomes of Church property, if you take it from the clergy? Why, it reverts to the State By the State it was granted, and by the State it may he resumed, from the moment that it is proved that the expectations under which it was granted, have not been realized. The Catholics have no claim upon it, as a provision for their own clergy. Their title was ex- tinguished in the sixteenth century. The State might regrant it to them, if it thought proper so to do; but the question is a separate question, and foreign to the pre- sent discussion, no such plan being contemplated by the Government. The real obligation contracted by the State, upon a resumption of Church property, is to em- ploy the fund so resumed in a manner more generally beneficial than that in which it is now employed: to impart to the whole community some share in its advan- tages. We do not mean to limit, by this, the abstract right of disposal. We meant simply that there is a moral obligation, or rather a moral responsibility, that attach- es to all those who call for the new distribution of a fund, which is supposed by a large class of their fellow. countrymen to be devoted now to the promotion of reli. gious instruction, and which imposes upon them the duty ot watching most vigilantly over the new applica- tion of it, in the good resulting from which their own justification must consist. This principle applies to all trust property as well as to that of the Church. If the Legislature interfere with the municipal institutions of the country, it most show that, in disturbing existing rights, its object is to render those institutions more generally useful to admit all to a participation in their advantages to secure the ut- most possible extent of good, that a better application of the corporation funds will admit of. If the ancient Charters of the Universities are disturb- ed, the same plea must be made good, or the change will be repugnant to the good sense and good feelings of the country. It must he shown that these charters establish hateful distinctions; that they tend to perpe- tuate differences which the law no longer recognises: and that it will be for the advantage of the community at large to eradicate the seeds of rivality now sown in the breasts of our children, by enabling the sons of consci- entious Dissenters, and of conscientious Churchmen, to meet upon terms of equality in the national seminaries of education, as they meet subsequently in the Legisla- ture, and in the varied business of life, where merit, and not the Thirty-nine Articles, arc the only admitted dis* tinctions. Even so is it-and in a still stronger degree—when Church property is the subject of interference. The higher the duties are, to which that property is presumed to be devoted, the more sacred are its claims upon those who interfere with it, the deeper the obligation which they contract, to assign it a more beneficial application. 1 hat Lord Melbourne's Government has lightly or wantonly interfered with the Irish Church, no one w3.ll venture to assert, who is aware of the fearful events by which this measure has been forced upon them the long series of suffering and of disturbance which the at- tempt to uphold the inordinate endowment of that Church has entailed upon Ireland the blood which has been shed in the assertion of her claims the hopeless- ness, without a military occupation of the country by an army twice as strong as that which is now maintained there, of ever again enforcing them Let those who doubt this recollect that eleven lives were sacrificed at Rathcormac to secure to a Protestant Clergyman four pounds and some few shillings of tithe. Let them recol- lect that in the month of April last the Rev. T. Locke, another Protestant Clergyman, was compelled to employ, for ten whole weeks, a force consisting of several armed policemen, about sixty rank and file of the Sitli regiment, and thirty bailiffs, in order to collect a small portion of the tithes then due to him in the parish of Newcastle. Seven distraints having been effected, with the loss of several lives, and at considerable expense to the Govern- ment, without the example having served to any practi- cal purpose," (we borrow the words from a letter writ- ten by Mr. Locke himself,) the Rev. Gentleman pro- posed that a considerable force should be encamped in a central and commanding situation, there to remain until the arrears were collected." Government not having thought proper to comply with this request, the troops were withdrawn, after seventy days of harassing, but fruitless, labour. In the autumn additional aid was granted sixty men were again placed under the orders of Mr. Locke, and so continued, from the 22d October until the 11th of December following. They were out every day during this period, collecting some days X8, some days X20, some days as much as £.50 and £ 60; but never obtaining any money without a distraint being effected, and leaving, at the end of their tithe campaign, as it has been most justly termed, X500 still due, which they saw no chance or possibility of recovering. Well might Mr. Sheil say of this unhappy and unholy system—" that it had cost England millions of her trea- sure, and Ireland torrents of her blood." To persevere in it is no longer possible. The question is, whether the remedy which the present Cabinet proposes to apply to it is the best? And this brings us to our THIRD AND LAST QUERY. Iii what manner iqfithe Church of Ire. land to be dealt with under the Govetnmcnt Bill?" The first, the undisguised, the^udeniable object of this Bill, is to make a provision—bpt a superabundant provision, but a competent, and cvfp an ample provision for the religious instruction of the.wembers of the Esta- blished Church in Ireland nor is it until this is provided for that any surplus, or any claims on the part of the Catholics upon that surplus will be admitted to exist. "To many who have judged Lord Morpeth's Bill with- out reading it, or upon the faith of a Tory analysis, this will be a startling assertion; but it is the fact, and we will prove it. The Bill sets out by certain provisions for the conver- sion of the tithe compositions, as they now exist, under what are termed Mr. (iotilburn's Act, and Lord Stanley's Act, into a rent charge, payable by the landlord, in lieu of the occupying tenant. The nature of these provisions it is needless here to explain there is little difference between the two par- ties respecting them and what there is relates not to principle, but to detail. It is not until we come to the 58th clause that we find any mention made of a new appropriation but by this it is enacted, that in every parish which appears by the Report of the Commissioners not to contain fifty members of the Establishment, upon the death of the present incumbent no new appointment shall take place, until the Lord Lieutenant in Council shall think fit so to direct. It is supposed that this clause will apply to 864 parishes, including several now forming parts of unions" (the objects and nature of which unions we have else- where explained), and a great outcry has been raised by some zealous Protestants against the injustice of depriving these parishes of their spiritual food when the numbers of the congregation perhaps only fall shcrt by two or three, or by one, of the number requiied by the Bill to entitle the living to subsist. The answer to this is very simple. The line must be drawn somewhere, and it has been thought unjust to take a lower standard than 50 Protestants (not 50 families, but 50 individuals) as a fit number to constitute an inde- pendent incumbency, in a country where the great mass of the population is Catholic, at whose expense the living is to be kept up. But does it follow that where there are not fifty Episcopalian Protestants no provision is to be made for the forty-nine? Does the Bill enact that where there are thirty, or twenty, or even ten Protestants, they are to be abandoned by the State ? By no means. Their wants are provided for in every imaginable case. By the 61st clause, in every parish where there is now a church or chapel and a resident officiating minister, how small soever the number of Protestants may be, a separate curate is to be appointed for their instruction, the only difference being that, as curate, he will receive a stipend of from £75 to X150 per annum, while, as rector, under the pre- sent system, he might receive, for precisely the same amount of duty, £ 500 or < £ 1,000. By the 60th clause,' in parishes where there are less than fifty Protestants, but no church or resident clergy- man, the cure of souls is to be committed to the minister of an adjoining parish, who will receive an addition to his stipend for undertaking it, varying in amount from £10 to £50. But where adequate provision cannot by such means be conveniently made, a stpa) ate curate is to be appoint- ed there also, and provided for out of the general fund. By the sixty-second clause, where there is no Pro- testant in a parish, the sum of £5 is to be allotted to the minister of an adjoining parish, in acknowledgment of his spiritual authority, and to maintain the principle dis- tinctly laid down by Lord Morpeth-namely, that there shall be no portion of the State's dominions without the pale of the State's religion. By the 70th clause, a power is given to rTFssolve unions; and, by the 77th clause, the income of a benefice may be reduced, upon the death of the present incumbent, where such income appears to be disproportionate to the ec- clesiastical duties; but in no case can any such reduction take place unless the income exceed < £ 300, nor can it ever be reduced below < £ 300, provided the number of the Protestant parishioners be more than fifty. Now £ 300 is the maximum of remuneration amongst the Presbyterians in the North of Ireland. £;OO is the average standard of remuneration throughout the whole of Scotland and we see no reasonable ground upon which the Church of the minority can claim a higher scale of recompence for the care of their scanty flocks than is assigned to the Presbyterian Clergy, who, for thr; most part, have numerous congregations, for the faith- ful and laborious discharge of all the duties of the Chris- tian ministry. We see not how Christianity can suffer by it, or the influence of religion be impaired. But mark by what precautions even this concession is guard- ed in this much calumniated Bill The reduction is not Extract from Charpr, to take- place at all, unless the Lord Lieutenant in Council, upon a report from the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners, with whom the Bishop of the diocese is, in all cases, associated, shall decide that the income of the parish is disproportionate to the duty I and, Whenever the spiritual wants of the parish increase, the same Com- missioners are directed, by clause 84, especially to report the fact, in order that the Lord Lieutenant mav make immediate provision for the case, either bv assigning a larger Income to the incumbent, or by removing the suspension, if the parish should be amongst the number of the parishes suspended in consequence of the absence of a Protestant population. Again, by clause 74, places of worship are to be pro- vided for Protestant worship, where there Are none now. By clause 83, compensation is to be given for ildvowsons coming under the operation of the act, in all cases where they are not vested In the Crown or the Bishops, when they may fairly be regarded as public property. In a word, every precaution has been taken that can bring the change which must necessarily be effected in the present distribution of ecclesiastical revenues in Ireland into harmony with the strictest justice, the most scrupulous regard for the rights of property, and the sincerest de- sire to ensure to the Church of England in that country a stability which nothing else can give to her, by nar- rowing her claims to those Timits within which they will he cheerfully supplied-we mean the legitimate wants of the Protestant population. It is only when these claims are provided for to the full extent that a Protestant Lord Lieutenant, in con. junction with five Ecclesiastical Commissioners (all Pro- testants likewise,) shall deem just and expedient, that a surplus can arise, to be applied to the moral and re- lig-ious instruction of all classes of the people of Ireland, without distinction of religious persuasion Not a Pro- testant will be deprived, for the sake of creating tbit surplus, of access to the ritei of his religion. It must proceed entirely from a better distribution of the fundi now in existence, and from the suppression of admitted sinecures. Still it may be estimated at X80,000 and X80,000 in a country rich in natural talent, like Ireland, but destitute of all means of national education may do incalculable good. There are some who say, tiowevert that this education should be strictly Protestant. The bar to this is the fact, that a conscientious Catholic (and there are six millions and a half of them in Ireland,) rather than give his children a Protestant education, wil, give them no education at all. The experiment has been tried already. It has been persevered in for fifty years, and it has failed most signally. It was tried be- fore the Union ;—it has been tried since tlielunion-liun dred of thousands of pounds have been wasted upon it j -Calitolic education was proscribed, for seventy years, as rigorously as the education of a slave is proscribed in South Carolina now we prohibited it at home ;-w. declared those who sought it abroad guilty of a misprU sioCJ of treason but never did we succeed in compelling the people of Ireland to submit to that system of Drose- lytism, under the cloak of education, which it was our object to force upon them, or to allow their children to be taught to abjure and despise that creed which, under all their sufferings, had been the consolation of their parenti. The time has come when these feelings must be re- spected. The British Legislature has felt this. Lord Stanley introduced into Ireland, in 1832, a system of education, which, studiously avoiding those doctrinal points upon which the Protestants and Catholics are at variance, confines the religious instruction given in the schools to the great moral truths, in which all Christian* agree, leaving to the parents the duty of training the minds of their children at home in those peculiar tenets of Christianity which distinguish the sect to which they themselves belong. This system, adopted by the mo*t enlightened nations of the continent, and more peculiarly by Prussia, where a million and a half of children are, at this very moment reaping the benefit of the mild and tolerant principles upon which it is founded, has worked well in Ireland. It has already overcome a host of pre- judices, although it has had to contend with every species of misrepresentation and calumny. By the re- port for the year ending March, 1835, which ?is y now be- fore us, it appears that 1106 schools are already in operation, under ihe new Act, which are attended by 145,521 children. Grants have been made towards the establishment of 191 additional school-houses, calculated to receive 39,831 children; and it is most gratifying to observe, that, amongst the signatures attached to the applications made to the Commissioners for assistance are to be found the names of 140 Clergymen of the Esta. blished Church, together with those of 180 Presbyteriaa Clergymen, 1397 Roman Catholic Clergymen, 6915 Pro- testant laymen, and 8630 Catholic laymen, all, for the first time, uniting in the great work of national improve. ment and consenting, for the first time, to impart, in common, to their children, the elements of that know. ledge which may teach them hereafter to live together in peace and harmony, undivided by sectarian prejudices, the citizens of one country, acknowledging one God, on* King, and one Law. The Commissioners anticipate the happiest results from the gradual extension of this system throughout Ireland, nor is it easy to over-estimate its importance in promoting, in that neglected country, the work of civill. sation and peace. The Report proves how strictly the moral instruction of the children is attended to, and traces out the exact line where the duties of the master cease, and those of the parents commence In the national Schools (it says) the importance of religion is constantly impressed upon the minds of the children, through works calcu- lated to promote good principles, and fill the heart with a love of religion, but which are so compiled as not to clash with the doctrines of any particular class of Christians." Now, is it possible that Protestantism can have any- thing to apprehend from a system thus conducted f Is it for us to fear -the diffusion of knowledge among the I people ? Is it for us to dread the consequences of in- quiry ? God forbid We hold, on the contrary, that a more effectual mode of advancing the interests of Pro- t testantism, rightly understood, was never yet adopted. The more deeply we are persuaded of the truth of our own creed, the more profound becomes our conviction I that, in applying to the education of our Catholic fellow-countrymen those funds which are not required tosupptythe&ona??wantsof the Established Church in Ireland (and it is to none but these that l,or C Mor- | peth's Bill applies,) the Government and the House of Commons have rendered to Protestantism an inestima. ) ble service, by freeing it from those shackles which have ) hitherto impeded its progress. The days of compulsory proselytism have passed. If there are conversions now, I they must be operated by conviction only. Political pri- vileges allotted to the one sect stand in the way of this conviction, by the jealousy and rivality which they una- I voidably engender. The greater the privileges, th. greater the animosity between the ruling sect and those at whose expense it is supported. Diminish those pri. I vileges-take population as the basis of the Estabi isli- ment, and work as the only standard of remuneration II and you remove every just cause of complaint on the part of those who do not belong to it. What is there, then, to prevent the voice of truth from becoming all- powerful ? And if truth and Protestantism be, as we believe, synonymous, what more effectual mode of disse- minating Protestantism can be suggested ? Such is the object of Lord Morpeth's Bill—such the aenttmentf of a very large portion of those by whom it has been supported. It is with these sentiments that a majority of the reforming members of the House of Commons have consented lo purchase, with a million of the people's money, the consent of the otner branch of the legis- lature to this new appropriation of Church property In Ireland without which they see no hope of terminating the evils by which that country has been so long distracted. And for what is this mil- lion required ? To preserve the Protestant clergy from actual star- vation Victims of a system which no power can uphold-unable to collect their legal dues-consigned to destitution in the midst of nominal plenty, they have subsisted, for the last four year., upon the national bounty. They are, at this moment, as much stipendiaries. as much public servants, paid out of the public Treasury, as they are in France or in Belgium, where there is an ecclesiastical budget, as there iis a budget for the army, or for the civil service. eUO,Ooo have been already advanced for the arrears of tithe unpaid durin* the years 1831, 1832, and 1833: ^400,000 more are required to cover the arrears of the current year; and, unless the people of England and Scotland are prepared to risk a civil war for the enforcement of claims which a majority of the present House of Commons has pro- nounced to be indefensible, a similar demand will be made upoa them annually, as long as the present system is persevered In. If tithes were resisted In 1831, what will they be in 1833, wh.. one branch of the Legislature has pronounced by a solemn Resolu- tion, That no measure upon the subject of tithes In Ireland cam lead to a satisfactory or final adjustment, which does not embodytha principle of a new appropriation )'" It was this Resolution that drove Sir R. Peel from power, as a resolution involving a similar principle had driven Lord Stanley from power in the preceding session. It was this resolution that conveyed the calm, the delibe- rate, and we believe the Irrevocable answer of the Commons of Eng. land to that appeal which the King was advised, to make In the r inontn ot inoveinoer last to the sense of his people) It is upon this Resolution that the Bill brought in by Lord Melbourne's Cabinet If founded. Of the care, the tenderness, the anxiety, with which the < interests of Protestantism are watched over in that Bill, as well u of the stern necessity upon which the measure Is founded, the country may judge by the facts contained in the preceding pages. We be. lieve it to be a coni prom ise-open, like all compromises, to many objections, but affording a reasonable prospect of bringing one of the most difficult and dangerous questions that can agitate a country, divided like our own into a great variety of shades of religion opinion, to a speedy and amiacable adjustment. Acquiesced in by the Catholics, to whom, if we look to the numerical proportions of < the population alone, a scanty meed of justice has been done by it, shall it be rejected by that minority, to which four-fifths of the tr Church property are still secured I Will the people of England J ft people of Eng an sanction this rejection I We do not believe it; and when we art -e". threatened with an appeal to them, we say we do not fear it. We know our fellow countrymen to be a reflecting people and those 1 must be little aware of the sentiments which prevail amongst them. ] who conceive that where a palpable misapplication of a great national fund has begn made apparent to them, it will be allowed to remain unredressed, because disguised under the cloak of religion. S If, therefore, there be injustice In appropriating to 7M.M2 Pro. f testant Episcopalians a fund originally intended for the benefit of the whole population of Ireland If there be injustice in Yithhoelding 1^ from six millions and a half of Catholics all participation in this t fund, a large share of which is produced by their labour; if the mo. V nopoly now enjoyed by the Established Church have a tendency to produce jealousy and hatred without laxity and supinenesa 0 amongst its own members—and we hold that these facts have been r proved beyond the power of doubt or contradiction—we have little & apprehension that such a system will meet with the support of aa <«T a enlightened people. They will feel that the spiritual interests of the r a Church are best promoted, not by upholding enormous temporalities.* but by removing the present disproportion between the remuneration r. and the duties of the Clergy. They will not accuse their Catholie h I'?llow.countrymen of disaffection because, they are writhing under < a a sense of perpdllal injustice nor will they think that, in redre&sing L  proved abuses, they are injuring an Establishment for whose just I t( claims it is impossible to leel too deep a consideration. It is JUS. "h TICK alone that I. wanting in Ireland. Itis?usTtcs that the Ca-  tholi?s ask. It is .t?TteK that the Government of Lord Melbourne. J 3! and the majority which ha? borne that Government triumphantly ■I rii through the reœot struggle in the House of Commons, seek at the t ii hands of the people of Great Britain. Strong In the facts of their 1 case, and In the integrity of their own Intentions, they throw them- € I 6C selves upon that tribunal, from which in this country there is no t tl appeal 1 convinced that, amongst their judges, all those who reflect, < will approve; and that the more the grounds upon which they hare d proceeded are known, and sifted, and weighed, the more certain tht? iM Sf are that judgment will be given in their favour. f 8, Ocvefattd.row, Sept. 4, )8M.  Printed and published, for the Proprietors, by J. L. URICSTOCKK, m 81 at his Printingst>Sce, »itua»e ia Lamwas.streef, Catmartfeeu, I 11