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IRISH CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT.

O F * S I R J O H N GRAY, M.P.

£n fjis S p m t ) , D E L I V E R E D I N T H E H O U S E O F COMMONS O N A P R I L 10, 1866, / ' V E X A M IN E D BY THE REV.

ALFRED T. LEE, M.A., LL.D.

o f Ch r i s t ’s c o l l e g e , Ca m b r i d g e , R E C T O R O F A H O G H I L L A N D R U R A L D E A N , D I O C E S E O F C O N N O R , A N D H O N .

S E C .

 .
“ Justus videtur qui prim us est in causa suâ, sed venit socius ejus et iuvestigabit eum.” — P r o y .

xviii.

17.

“ I believe th a t w ith respect to w hat some have proposed, viz., th e destruc­ tion of the P rotestant Church in Ireland, there could be no worse, or more fatal measure sanctioned by Parliam ent.” —E a r l R u s s e l l .

ScconU L itton.

RIV IN G TON S, üonîion, anti Camíivítíge.

HODGES AND SM ITH , îDubltn.

1866.

Price One Shilling.


* GT I.

B E R T A N D R I V I N G T O N , P R I N T E R S , s r .

j o h n ’s s q u a r e , L O N D O N .

S i r J o h n G r a y having referred in his speech to some statements of the Author of tftcse remarks in a former publication, he was induced to examine that speech more particularly than he would other­ wise have done.
He thus became acquainted with the many mis-statements and inaccuracies with which it abounds, and which it is the object of this pamphlet to point out.

.

REMARKS, fyc.

T he recent Speech of Sir Jolm Gray on the Irish Opening to- Church question has been reprinted in a pamphlet form by the Roman Catholic National Association, for the purpose of more extensive circulation.
It bears a motto taken from a leader of The Times, which, prefixed to the speech in its revised form, implies that by it a death-blow has been given to Those on whose minds any the Irish Church.
lingering doubt may remain “ of the anomaly or the failure of the Irish Church,”— who still perversely think with Burke, that th at Church “ is a great link towards preserving the connexion between England and Ireland,”— “ are recommended once fo r all to peruse the speech of Sir John G ray.” It is presumed that after the perusal of th at matchless oration, all doubts will cease, all difficulties will be removed : the oracle has spoken, we have but to carry out its behests.
Such is the estimate which the friends and coad­ jutors of Sir John Gray have formed of his recent speech.

And however much his own native modesty and good sense may incline him to repudiate such a 6 REMARKS ON position, yet since he has accepted the leadership of this movement in the House of Commons against the Irish Church, he will not complain if we proceed to scrutinize somewhat closely the statem ents and deductions with which that speech abounds.
The abolition W hatever other result this speech of Sir John Gray Church1 lsl* may have, one thing at least is clear from it.

Delenda aimed at.

egt Qarf]iag0) fs the motto which the party he repre­ sents have chosen for themselves.

Nothing but the unconditional abolition of the Established Church in Ireland will satisfy them.

“ W e are fully deter­ mined never to let this question rest until Church ascendancy is abolished, and until perfect religious equality is established in Ireland.” (P.

6.)
6.)

In other words, the object of the present movement is to make Rome, by the abolition of the Established Church, supreme in Ireland, in all questions, poli­ tical as well as religious.
The speech of Sir John Gray is an echo of the Resolution passed at the the Dublin Meeting of December, 1864, when Roman Catholic Bishops, with Archbishop Cullen at their head, “ demanded the disendowment of the Established C hurch,” as a condition without which ‘ ‘ unity of sentim ent and of action for national objects can never prevail in Ireland.” It is evident, then, that no removal of any ano­ malies which may exist in the Irish Church, no measure of reform which will render her more efficient, will satisfy Sir John Gray and those who act with him.
The State Church is “ a failu re” and “ a blunder,” and “ its abolition must take place.” This is his language throughout his speech.

To supply pretexts for bringing tliis about, is its great aim.

sir John Gray’s àgàhÎst 'the Irish Church.

Sir John Gray accordingly proceeds to draw up bis indictment against the Irish Church as follows :—■ SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 7 The Established Church in Ireland should be abolished forthwith 1.
Because she has miserably failed in winning over the Roman Catholic population, and has shamefully failed in holding her own.

2.

Because of the misdeeds of her Bishops and Clergy in ages past.

3.

Because “ the penal laws were established in Ireland for the establishment and m ainte­ nance of the Church.” 4.

Because her revenues are excessive for the work she has to do.
We trust to be able to show that Sir John Gray has, to use his own language, “ miserably failed” in proving any one of these points to be true.

Let us examine them in detail— I.
Taking for his authority Sir William Petty, sir w. Petty’s ' seconded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir respecting the John Gray states th at the respective numbers of ^uiatbn Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland in 1672 Ireland in 1672 “ were as follows :— Roman Catholics, 800,000, and and, adds 800,000 Protestants o f all denominations Sir John Gray, “ according to the computation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if the proportion represented by these figures had continued unaltered to the present time, the number of Protestants would now stand at 2,400,000.” Assuming this as the basis of his reasoning, he proceeds to argue that because the Church population of Ireland in 1861 the Church has was only 700,000, “ therefore miserably failed in winning over the Roman Catholic population, and has as shamefully failed in holding its own.” A very satisfactory conclusion no doubt for Sir John Gray’s purpose, but unfortunately not a correct one.
Had Sir John Gray, instead of trusting to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s com- 8 REMARKS ON putation, (which, although correct for the purpose for which lie used it, was quite incorrect as used by Sir John Gray,) examined Sir William P etty’s work for himself, he would have found th at he expressly states 1 “ that the number of Conformists or Church­ men was 100,000 that the other English P rotest­ ants were “ Presbyterians, Independents, Anabap­ tists, and Q uakers;” and th at the Scotch Presby­ terians alone numbered 100,000. .
In Sir W illiam P etty ’s time, then, there were in Relative in- Church popu- Ireland eight Roman Catholics to one Protestant In 1861 the numbers were 4,500,000 the'n^asregards Churchman.

In 1672 the Pres- both Roman to 700,000, or about 6A to 1. .

Catholics and byterians and English Dissenters were, as regards Dissenters.

Churchmen, 2 to 1 ; in 1861, the Churchmen of Ire ­ land were to the Protestant Dissenters of all denomi­ nations as 7 to 6.
In the two centuries, then, which have elapsed since Sir William P etty ’s time, the Church has not only held its own as regards the Roman Catholics, but has considerably increased in proportion.

As regards Protestant Dissent, the pro­ gress of the Church has been singularly great ; whereas in 1672 there were twice as many Dissenters as Churchmen in Ireland, in 1861, the Churchmen not only equalled the number of Dissenters, but num ­ bered 100,000 above them 2 !
We think nothing more is required to show that in Ireland the Church has not “ miserably failed in winning over the Roman Catholic population,” and has not “ as shamefully foiled in holding its own.” 1 See “ The Political Analysis of Ireland,” p. 9, ed.

1719 ; and compare Hallam’s “ Constitutional H istory,” iii.

403, note.

2 In 1790 Wolfe Tone reckoned the Churchmen of Ireland as a tenth of the population.

(See Sir G. C. Lewis, “ Irish Church In 1801 they were between an eighth and Question, ’ p.
349.)

a ninth- SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

9 But not content with the general condition of Ireland, Sir John Gray proceeds to illustrate his case by referring “ to what has been called the Protestant N orth,” viz., the now flourishing P ro­ vince of Ulster.
He begins by assuring us “ that every broad acre within its limits was confiscated, that every Roman Catholic proprietor in Ulster was driven from his house and from his lands,” that there was “ a general expulsion of Roman Catholics,” and that thus it was attempted “ to stamp out Roman Catholicism ” from the province.

Unfortunately for Sir John Gray, the facts of history tell a very different story from th at which he has pictured here.
There was no general expulsion of Roman Catho­ lics from Ulster ; and the circumstances under which the plantation took place were any thing but favour­ able to the progress of the Church, and have ever since proved its greatest hindrance in that pro­ vince.

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.

decreased in At the time of the plantation of Ulster “ the Religious state unreformed counties” composing it were inhabited-'isoi"’Thf almost entirely by Roman Catholics, “ the incum -9hurch not .
bents were Popish priests, instituted by Bishops th a t province, authorized from R om e3.” The defeat of the two great native chieftains, the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, was followed by a forfeiture of their estates.

this m anner 500,000 acres were escheated to the Crown.

At the plantation they were divided amongst “ 104 English and Scots undertakers, 56 servitors, and 286 natives,” and according to Carte (“ Life of Ormond,” vol.
i. p. 15), great consideration was shown “ to the old Irish In 3 See Sir John Duvies’s Historical Tracts, p. 241, ed.

1787.

10 REMARKS ON chieftains ancl inhabitants,” and “ great indulgence was used to them, amongst whom were not excepted even such Irish as had been engaged in Tyrone’s rebellion, and were still discontented enough in their minds, in hopes to gain them by such an act of confidence and favour.
Their under-tenants too, ancl servants were allowed to be o f their own country and religion, being exempted from the oath o f supremacy, which those of the other planters were obliged to So far, then, from the Roman Catholics take.” being expelled from U lster at the plantation, they were encouraged by special exemption to rem ain; the part they had taken in the last rebellion was forgiven, they were exempted from the oath of supremacy, they were allowed the exercise of their own religion, and the Roman Catholics who received grants of land were nearly twice as numerous as the English and Scotch planters put together, whilst the great bulk of the lower classes were altogether Roman Catholics.
So th at at the time of the planta­ tion it is probable that, as regards numbers at least, the English and Scotch of U lster were as “ two little flocks of kids,” whilst the Roman Catholics “ filled the country.” And this view of the case is confirmed by the fact, that, a few years after the plantation in 1641, the Roman Catholics of U lster rose in successful rebellion against the Government ; and the means they then adopted for strengthening their position may throw some light upon the cause of the subsequent enactments of the penal law, as well as upon the hindrances which prevented the increase of Churchmen in Ulster.
W e read in the official report of Mr. Rowley Lascelles, “ Liber Mu- nerum H ibem iæ ,” vol.

i. p. 71, “ th at upon the repulse of Sir Phelim O’Nial from the Castle of Augher, he ordered all the British Protestants in SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 11 i i 1 1 1 • / ' N i , .
1 j • in remembered, is only one \ of 1641, during which it its increase, three adjacent parishes to be put to the sw ord” A slaughter of « Protestants i u rather summary, though scarcely Christian, mode oi u iste r. Plan- securing the predominance of Roman Catholics this, be it Ulster : and incident of the Rebellion is calculated by a Roman Catholic authority that Indeed, their object 150,000 Protestants perished \ was to extirpate them all.
We can scarcely wonder, then, that Protestants did not rapidly increase in Ulster, or that the Government afterwards deemed it necessary to enact penal laws for their security.

of the C hurch; liar difficulties 4 In 1645 a book was published at Frankfort with the title “ Disputatio Apologetica de jure regni apud Hibernos : supe­ riorurn perm issu.
Auctore C. Mahony, Hiberno, artium et Sacræ Theologiæ Magistro.” This champion of the Papacy thus meekly exhorts his co-religionists in Ireland “ to fear God and “ Ja m interfecistis centum quinquaginta honour the k in g :’* millia his quatuor vel quinque annis ab anno scilicet 1641 usque ad hunc annum 1645 in quo hæc scribo, u t ipsi adversarii in suis scriptis demugientes palam fatentur et vos non diffi- temini : et ego plures hæreticos hostes occisos fuisse credo, et utinam omnes !
R e s t â t u t c æ t e b o s o c c i d a t i s .
” Can we wonder th at when an Irish Roman Catholic priest thus delibe­ rately in cold blood, permissu superiorum, addressed his brother Romanists in Ireland, and endeavoured by the remembrance of the awful success of the massacre of 1641, when 150,000 Protestants were slaughtered, to stimulate them to extermi­ nate those who had escaped,—th at under circumstances such as these, the few Protestants who remained mindful of the spirit which had animated the murderers of their parents and near relatives resolved that, whilst power still remained with them, they would enact stern and repressive measures which should ef­ fectually prevent such dangers in future ?
They did not, indeed, exterminate the Romanists when they had the power, as the Romanists strove to exterminate them, but they enacted penal laws, severe and terrible no doubt if carried out to the letter, but unhappily rendered necessary by the fierce and persecuting spirit of those against whom they were enacted, and who by no other measures could have been kept either in seeming alle­ giance to their Sovereign or at peace with their fellow-subjects.
12 REMARKS ON Moreover, Sir John Gray, though calling atten­ tion to the “ large Protestant im portation,” forgets to notice that, “ owing to the vicinity of Scotland to Ulster, as well as to the hardiness and enterprise of its natives, the principal part o f the settlers came from that kingdom5.” So that the Churchmen of the plantation were in reality few, and the Presbyterian immigration, by dividing the Protestants of Ireland amongst themselves, greatly hindered the progress of the Church ; and thus, in the vigorous language of Professor Goldwin Smith, “ the settlement of the Scotch Presbyterians in the North brought another element into the already boiling and overflowing cauldron of Ecclesiastical discord6.” The Church, then, has had to contend with peculiar difficulties in U lster.
It was not till the reign of Jam es I. th a t the Reformed Church began to obtain a footing there, for Queen Elizabeth never appointed to any of the northern Bishoprics ; and no sooner, through the exertion of Archbishop Bram hall, had the Church in some measure established herself there, than, the to use Sir John Gray.’s own phrase, Roman Catholics, by the Rebellion of 1641, endea­ voured “ to stamp it out,” and since th at period have hindered its increase to the utmost of their power.
5 Reid’s “ H istory of Presbyterians in Ireland,” vol.

i. p. 78.

0 “ Irish H istory and Irish Character,” p. 100.

Carte, in his “ Life of Ormond,” vol.
i. p. 68, confirms this, “ The Clergy of the Established Church,” says he, “ were endangered on one hand by an infinite number of obstinate Recusants (as almost all the old natives were), and on the other by a shoal of factious and irregular Puritans, brought by Sir H ugh Montgomery and other planters out of Scotland, who kept up their Scottish discipline and way of worship, offered daily insults to the Established Church government, and treated the rites of ad­ ministering the Sacrament with insufferable contempt.” SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.
13 in Ulster And yet, notwithstanding all these difficulties, the in 1861 was number of Protestants 947,067, whilst the Roman Catholics only numbered 966,613; the members of the Church being 391,315, and the Presbyterians 503,835 7, and, be it remem­ bered, Sir William Petty in 1672 estimated the Roman Catholics at eight times the number of Church Protestants in Ireland, and that if this pro­ portion had been maintained in Ulster, the Roman Catholic population of th at province should now number 3,130,520, instead of 966,613.
We can scarcely then allow with Sir John Gray, that the Roman Catholics of Ulster have greatly increased since the time of the plantation, since they now number but two and a half to one of the Church population, instead of eight to one.

In his remarks on the relative increase of Roman Catholics to Protestants in Ulster, Sir John Gray has altogether omitted to notice the great Protestant emigration from Ireland during the eighteenth cen­ tury.
This emigration seems to have taken place almost constantly from the northern ports.
Primate Boulter in 1728, writing to the Duke of Newcastle, says, “ We have hundreds of families removing out of the north to America.” And again, “ There are now seven ships at Belfast that are carrying off about 1000 passengers th ith er.” In the years 1771, 1772, and 1773, from the northern ports of Belfast, Derry, Ne wry, Lam e, and Portrusli, 28,600 emi­ grated, being an annual average of 9533 (see Newenham’s “ Inquiry,” p. 59), and it was calcu­ lated that during fifty years of the last century the average annual emigration to America and the W est 7 Outside Ulster, in 1861, the number of Presbyterians in the other three provinces was 19,456, and of Churchmen 14 REMARKS ON Indies, was 4000, so that in that period 200,000 had emigrated to the British plantations, chiefly all Protestants.
We are told “ the (Roman) Catholics never went, they seemed not only tied to the country, but almost to the parish in which their ancestors lived.” (Arthur Young’s “ Tour in Ire ­ land,” ii.

30.)
In the seventeenth century, also, when Lord Clarendon retired from the Irish Govern­ ment, 1500 Protestant families left Ireland with him, which was equivalent to an exodus of 75,000 Protestants, and previous to 1834 there was also a great Protestant emigration from Ferm anagh, Ty­ rone, and Donegal (all in Ulster) ; and a large number of Protestant families “ who had three, four, and five sons or daughters approaching to m aturity, considered it prudent to sell their lands, emigrate, and purchase double or treble the quantity in a new country.” The following observations of Newenliam’s (“ In ­ quiry into the Population of Ireland,” 1805) will throw further light upon this subject.
H e tells us, in page 315, th at “ in the Province of U lster the Protestants have greatly increased, but whether their increase has exceeded th at of the Boman Catholics, may, I think, be very safely doubted.” “ H ad not the Roman Catholics rapidly gained ground on the Protestants in most parts of the Provinces of Leinster, M unster, and Connaught, there certainly would have been room for no inconsiderable degree of surprise.
Experience has proved that religious sects, instead of being exterminated, have for the most part been extended by persecution.

A knowledge of human nature, and of the peculiar discipline of the Church of Rome, will leave no doubt on our minds th a t the Roman Catholic religion is, o f all others, the most likely to thrive in a state o f proscription ; and a little SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

15 (P.

316.)
15 (P.

316.)

reflection on the history of Ireland will convince ns that the circumstances of th at country have been peculiarly favourable to the extension of the perse­ cuted religion.” It should also be re­ membered that Sir William Petty in 1672 estimated the Roman Catholics in the country parts of Ireland to the Protestants as 20 to 1, although the whole number of Roman Catholics to Protestants in his time was as 8 to 3.
The rate of increase of popula­ tion also in Ireland from 1695 to 1841 was far more rapid than in any other country in Europe, especially amongst the lower orders, who were chiefly Roman Catholics.

For the cause of this see “ M althus on Population,” vol.

i. p. 470, and Newenliam’s “ Inquiry,” pp.

314— 319.

Sir John Gray constantly speaks of “ the State The Irish C hurch” as being imported into Ireland.
This is Sported fit is indeed true if referred to the introduction of Ro- of^fand^1' manism into Ireland in 1172, by Henry II., when a canon of the Synod of Cashel declared th at “ all Divine matters shall for the future, in all parts of Ireland, be regulated after the model of Holy Church, in accordance with the observance o f the Anglican Church;” but it is quite contrary to historical fact if applied to the Irish Reformed Church, in which sense only Sir John Gray seems to use it.
At the Reformation no new Church was imported into Ire ­ In Queen Elizabeth’s reign, all the Roman land.

Catholic Bishops (with the exception of two) con­ formed.

Then the Irish Church in Synod reformed herself.


The Bishops who had been ordained by Roman Catholic prelates, on their becoming P ro­ testants, handed on the succession to Protestant Bishops, whom they consecrated as vacancies occurred in the Episcopate, and the Irish Church after the Reformation thus remained the same body 1 6 REMARKS ON corporate as before the Reformation— reformed in­ deed, but its corporate identity unaltered.
It is the fashion with some persons, who have an object in view in so doing, to speak of “ the Church of E n g ­ land in Ireland,” but no such body ever existed or does exist.

The Established Church is the old Catholic Church of Ireland, and the present Roman communion was “ im ported” into th at country in the latter pai’t of the sixteenth century from Italy and Spain.
A characteristic attem pt to get over this acknow­ ledged difficulty is made in the “ Edinburgh Review ” for April, 1866, by adopting the ultram ontane doc­ trine, that since the Pope has power to confer Orders, therefore the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops and Clergy possess them.
But the writer of this article has altogether missed the point in dispute— it is not whether the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops have Orders, but whether the present Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is the old Church of the country, I t is a well- the Church of St. Patrick, or not.

known fact, which no amount of sophistry can hide, th at none of the present Roman Catholic Bishops can trace their succession to the primitive Irish Church.

Romish Orders they may have.

Irish Orders they have not.


Not having these Orders, on all true principles of Catholic antiquity, they are into sees already occupied by lawful intruders Bishops of the old Irish Church 8.

Sir John Gray does not consider it creditable th at the increase of Churchmen of Ireland from 1 0 7 per cent, of the population in 1834 to 13-4 per cent, in 1861 (for th at is the real relative increase) should 8 For full particulars see “ Palmer on the Church,” vol.

i. pp.

422—437.
i. pp.

422—437.

Relative increase of Churchmen ii Ireland since 1834.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.
17 be mentioned as a proof that the Church is in­ creasing its hold on this country, although be con­ siders it quite creditable to himself to endeavour to show by percentages, that “ the Church has most signally failed in holding her own,” or “ winning over Roman Catholics to her fold.” But if this point be carefully examined, it will be found that between the years 1834 and 1861 the hold of the Roman Catholic Church on the Irish people has gradually been lessening, whilst that of the Church has been as gradually increasing.
During that period the Census Commissioners of 1861 inform us that the Roman Catholic population diminished in every diocese in Ireland except two (Dublin and Connor), whilst in twenty-one out of the thirty-two Irish dioceses the percentage of the members of the Established Church to the general population, has risen, has remained stationary in two, and has diminished (notwithstanding the large losses which they sustained, in common with the Roman Catholics, from famine and emigration) only in nine.
In the united Dioceses of Down and Connor the Church popu­ lation between 1834 and 1861 absolutely increased by 16,817, whilst in the same time the Roman Catholic population of th at Diocese decreased by 14,472, and the Presbyterian population by 38,180; and, be it remembered, this increase took place at a time when the population of the whole Diocese was diminished by 1 6 ,2 0 0 9.
Can it then be said that the Established Church has lost its power of ex­ pansion, or that it is not capable of holding its own in the affections of the people ?

Spenser’s II.

Spenser, Sir John Gray tells us, gives us but îrSTch^h!

9 See Preface to Report of the Down and Connor Diocesan Conference of 1863.

P eter Lom­ bard’s account of Roman Ca­ tholic Bishops and Clergy ; also Archbishop Bram hall’s.
18 REMARKS ON a doleful account of the “ imported Bishops and C lergy10.” B ut Sir John Gray needs to be re- 10 Of the Irish Clergymen who in their days “ flocked to Eome to obtain mitres and benefices in Ireland,” Peter Lom­ bard, titular Archbishop of Armagh, and Domestic Chaplain and Private Secretary to Pope Clement V III., who died at Rome a .d .

1626, gives us the following graphic description.

We commend it to the special study of Sir John Gray.
“ They are,” says he, “ of the very vilest classes of our people ; men who obtain preferment by every species of low cunning, drivelling sycophancy and hypocrisy.
They come carry­ ing their shoes and stockings in their hands, over Alps and Apennines, illotis pedibus, on 'pretence o f persecution or of pil­ grimage to Rome, from the most barbarous parts of Ireland— ignorant, clownish, vile fellows, whose manners are utterly disgusting to all who see them, from their base servility and uncouthness of garb and address.
W hen they arrive in Rome, they do not employ themselves in learning, but pass their days in scheming amongst each other, how they may obtain bulls of presentation to livings and preferments at home ; and as soon as they succeed in obtaining a title to a benefice, they run back to Ireland, commence a lawsuit for possession, in virtue of the briefs obtained at Rome, and having finally succeeded, after a scandalous litigation, instead of attending their Dioceses, they travel into Spain, France, and Germany, on pretence o f persecu­ tion at home ; and their whole study consists in soliciting pen­ sions from the foreign Courts, to enable them forsooth to live abroad on a footing of grandeur suitable to the Episcopal dignity, which they have obtained by sycophancy, intriguing, and adulation.
This is extremely prejudicial to our country, and disgraceful to us in foreign parts, as well as disgusting to our own (Roman) Catholic nobility at home ; because their Bishops are appointed without any regard to the elections or recommendations of our gentry or clergy, but against the express desire of both.”— Peter Lombard, “ Commentarius de Regno Hiberniæ,” p. 296.

Livon.

1632, quoted by King, “ Irish Church H istory,” vol.

iii.

p. 909.
iii.

p. 909.

And this practice had been of long continuance, for Stanihurst, an eminent Romanist forty years before, tells us, “ that it was actually growing into a proverbial habit with the people of Rome, whenever they met with any Irish beggar, to accost him with this facetious little SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 19 minded that the Bishops and Clergy to whom Spenser referred, were not imported, but were of true native growth.
The Bishops and Clergy of his day were many of them men who had conformed, not because they heartily accepted the Reformation, but in order that they might keep their revenues whilst they in­ jured the Church as much as lay in their power, both by their scandalous lives and by the manner in which they wasted and misused its revenues.
Spenser him ­ self tells us of all the Irish Priests, which now enjoy the Church livings, that “ they are in a manner mere laymen, saving that they have taken Holy Orders, but otherwise they do go and live like laymen ; follow all kind of husbandry, and other worldly affairs, as other Irishmen do,” and then he proceeds to add that although they grossly neglected their duty, and “ did neither read Scripture nor preach to the people, nor administer the Communion,” yet one thing they did— “ but baptism they d o ”— and so little had they renounced their old customs, that they still used the Romish ceremonies in administer­ “ They christen yet after the ing that sacrament.
Popish fashion,” which is conclusive as to the religion in which the Clergy to which Spenser referred had been educated ; for no one brought ' up in the Reformed F aith would ever think of It is christening “ after the Popish fashion1.” O question, ‘ Well, good sir, have you come to look Bishopric ?

’ ” (See King, p.

913.)
for a 1 On this point see especially Jeremy Taylor’s Sermon at the funeral of Archbishop Bramhall, who tells us “ that at the Reformation the Popish Bishops and Priests seemed to conform, and did so that, keeping their Bishoprics, they might enrich their kindred and dilapidate the revenues of the Church, which by pretended offices, false informations, fee farms at contempt- B 2 20 REMARKS ON the taking fruits else evident, then, th at Spenser refers, not to Bishops and Clergy “ im ported” from England, as Sir John to nominally Gray would have us believe, but reformed Clergy, who, whilst conforming for the tithes and offerings, and sake “ of gathering what their they may of liv in g s;” and having renounced one faith without heartily accepting another, fell into licentious and evil living, a scandal to the Church to which they unworthily belonged, a grievous hindrance to her gaining the affections of the people, and a m ark for the finger of scorn to point at, when the enemies of the Irish Church in future generations should re­ proach her for a scandal she did not create, and taunt her for a weakness which for the time she had not the power to remove.
Yet while Sir John Gray was amusing the House of Commons with an account of the evil and careless lives of the Romish Clergy who had nominally con­ formed ; it is to be regretted th at he did not also acquaint them with the manner of living of those Roman Ecclesiastics who at th at time represented the Church of Rome in Ireland.
He would have had to make no abstruse search for his information, for in the conclusion of the very same letter of Arch­ bishop Bram hall to Laud, which Sir John Gray quotes from Bishop M ant’s History, he would find th at after he had described the sad state of the Church in his day, he adds :— “ I t is some comfort to see the Romish Eccle­ siastics cannot laugh at us, who come behind none in ible rents, and ungodly alienations, were made low as poverty itself, and unfit to minister to the needs of them th a t served the altar, or the noblest purposes of religion.”— Bramhall’s Works, vol.
i. p. 59.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.
21 point o f disunion and scandal2 Spenser had before given this sad picture :— whilst of the laity ‘ ‘ The fault which I find in religion is but one ; but the same is universal throughout all that country, that is, they be all Papists by profession, but in the same so blindly and brutishly informed (for the most part), that not one amongst a hundred knowetli any ground of religion, or any article of his faith—but can perhaps say his Paternoster, or his Ave Maria, without any knowledge or understanding what one word thereof m eaneth.” How was it possible for the Reformed Faith to make much progress amongst a people such as this ?
After three centuries of in­ struction by Roman Catholic Bishops and Clergy, Spenser tells us that throughout the country the people remained “ blindly and brutishly informed.” For three centuries the Reformed F aith has now been established in Ireland, and how different is the result; and yet we have been warned that, should it be withdrawn, civilization in the remote districts of the country would disappear in its train.
This is the language of Major Woodward, formerly Inspector of Prisons in Ireland, an officer well qualified to judge of such m atters :— “ I must feel as a public officer, whose duties call him into close contact with the Established Clergy throughout the most remote, and by other of the higher classes of deserted parts of the kingdom, and declare in common justice, that were it not for the 2 See Collier’s “ Church History,” viii.

75, and Cox (“ History of Ireland,” vol.

ii.


p. 54) tells us th at “ the Popish clergy were so debauched and ignorant th a t the bitterest sarcasm that ever was put upon the Protestants, was by an Irishman, who said ‘ th at the King’s priests were as bad as the Pope’s priests.’ ” Amidst such a generation, it would have been difficult indeed for religion of any kind to have made much progress.
22 REMARKS ON residence, and moral and political influence of tlie parochial Clergy, every trace o f refinement and civiliza­ tion would disappear V ’ By way of giving point to an extract from Mo- sheim, Sir John Gray tells us th at the summary he there gives of the penal laws is from “ the Church historian whose Ecclesiastical History is the tex t­ book in Trinity College, Dublin, for divinity stu­ dents.” It turns out upon examination th at the extract referred to was not written by Mosheim, and th at the book itself is not used as a text-book for divinity students at Trinity College, D ublin4.
.

h .

_ L _ _ 0 _ Sir Jo hn Gray is careful to observe th a t it is su-John Gray’s quotations from no Roman Catholic authority th a t he quotes, examined';6™ but fr°m “ Mosheim, the Church historian, whose I have compared description I will mve you,” &c. shown to he very different _ an edition of Mosheim, published m lbiib, witn from the In the an eJition by Soames, published in 1848. ongmai.
former edition the passages referred to do not occur at all ; but they do occur in Soames’s edition of Mosheim, and they are the work, not of Mosheim, but of his editor, Soames.

Mosheim’s authority (whatever it may be worth) cannot therefore be quoted for the statem ent there made.

An editor may make a statem ent and annex it to the original author, which the author himself would have wholly repudiated.
Mosheim, therefore, is in no sense responsible for the passages which Sir John Gray quoted to the House of Commons as his.

He never wrote them, nor did they appear in any edition of his work till years after his death.

Mosheim died in 1755.

Soames’s edition was first published in 1841.

I t will be well to examine a little more closely 3 See “ Essays on the Irish Church,” Parker, p. 259.

4 I t was, but has been withdrawn for some years.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

23 into this matter.


Our doing so will tend to show that here wTe have an example of what has been well called “ the iniquity of quotation.” It will be necessary for us to give the passage as quoted by Sir John Gray, and as it actually appears in the addition of Soames to Mosheim.

Mosheim’s work ends at page 381 of the fourth volume, then comes a continuation of the history by Soames.

The first quotation is taken from chap.

ii.


p. 424 ; and this chapter, be it observed, is marked th at Mosheim is not re- with an asterisk to show sponsible for it.

The two versions are as follows :— S i r J o h n G r a y ’s .

S o a m e s ’s .

“ The Irish Romanists had been reduced by various confis­ cations and by intolerant sta­ tutes, to protect a new race of proprietors, to a state of ab­ ject vassalage and degrada­ tion.

In the reign of James I. the whole Province of Ulster was confiscated.
When Crom­ well’s power was consolidated by victory, the native Irish re­ ceived orders to remove into Connaught, and were forbidden to repass the Shannon under pain of death.

Their estates were divided amongst the con­ querors, as were those of every one who had been engaged in the rebellion, or who had acted as a partisan of the exiled royal family.
In Ireland there were circumstances that pre­ vented the gradual amalgama­ tion of the pillaged and the pillagers.” “ The Irish Romanists had been reduced, by various acts of confiscation and of intoler­ ance to protect the new pro­ prietors, to a state of abject vassalage and degradation.

In the reign of James, &c. .

.

.

exiled royal family .

.

.
In these transactions, however cruel and shameful they may be thought, or may really be, there is nothing worse than E n ­ gland underwent after the N or­ man conquest, or than has been undergone by other conquered countries ; but in Ireland there were circumstances th at pre­ vented the gradual amalgama­ tion of the pillaged and the pillagers : the form er were, perhaps, universally Romanists, hence divided from those who had been made rich at their expense, by an inveterate reli­ gious prejudice, and furnished REMARKS ON with a priesthood o f their own, directed by a compact hierarchy, which not only kept alive an religious party enthusiastic spirit, hut also pertinacious claims to the forfeited estates.
The new proprietors were then never at ease as to the firm ness o f their possessions, and their legislation showed i t ” Now it will be observed th at Sir John Gray disingenuously begins his quotation by altering Soames’s words, “ by various acts of confiscation and of intolerance to protect the new proprietors,” into “ by various confiscations, and by intolerant to protect a new race of proprietors,” statutes which conveys a very different meaning, and this, too, in a revised edition “ issued by the National Association of Ireland.” B ut as Sir John Gray proceeds further, he waxes bolder; and as he quotes the passage “ In Ireland there were circumstances that prevented the gradual amalgamation of the pillaged and pillagers,” it comes immediately after the words “ a partisan of the royal family,”— no indication being given th at there is any omission between the two sentences.
Yet in the original there are twenty-five lines intervening between this last sentence and the one to which he has joined it ; and, instead of being a complete sen­ tence in itself, it is only a portion of a long sentence beginning with these remarkable words, which give quite a different meaning to th at which Sir John Gray would have them convey :— “ In these transactions, however cruel and shame­ ful they may be thought, or may really be, there is nothing worse than England underwent after the SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.
25 % Norman conquest, or than has been undergone by other conquered countries,” &c. Out of this long sentence Sir John Gray has picked sixteen words, which were preceded by the word ‘ but, ’ which he has omitted, and thus gives the sentence a totally different turn from that which the author intended.
We would venture to recom­ mend Sir John Gray, when in future he quotes to the House of Commons what he calls “ C hurch” historians to the prejudice of the Church, first of all to make sure that the historian he quotes from is a Churchman, which Mosheim was not, but a German Lutheran Divine; and, secondly, we would advise him not to trust to quotations th at may be supplied him, but to examine them for himself, for we are sure that had he done so in this case he never would have been led to ascribe to an author what he never wrote, or mutilate a passage which his editor has added on his own responsibility, and which forms no part of the original history whatever.
But this is not the only passage from the pseudo- Moslieim with which Sir John Gray favoured the House.

He boldly told them that “ Mosheim goes on to say,” what again Mosheim never said, or never wrote.
This extract is taken from the same volume, two pages after the former ; and although Sir John Gray is careful to tell us that he will not quote from any Roman Catholic authority, yet this very passage which he quotes respecting the penal laws, rests on the authority pf Charles Butler, the well-known Roman Catholic barrister, to whom Soames refers as the authority for the statem ent which Sir John Gray quotes.
And here again we have to complain of the sup- pressio veri on Sir John G ray’s part, which is also in this case a plain suggestio fa lsi.
The concluding 26 REMARKS ON words of the last paragraph quoted from Soames are as follows :— “ These with other such measures, designed for extermination, reduced the Romanists to such a pitiable situation, that common feelings of humanity came to their relief, and a general spirit o f connivance teas excited among the Protestant popidation, ivliicli made much o f the penal code little else than a dead letter.” W ill it be credited th at Sir John Gray has placed a full stop after the word “ relief,” thus ending his quotation in the middle of a sentence, and has omitted all the words which follow in italics, and which show, however severe the wording of the penal code may have been, it was altogether m itigated in its actual working by the kindness of the P ro ­ testant population, “ which made it little else than a dead letter !
” After this, all th at follows in the speech of Sir John Gray respecting the penal code will have little weight with readers of ordinary judgm ent and dis­ crimination.
But before we proceed to consider the proofs th at Sir John Gray gives for his statem ent th at the Church is directly responsible for the worst portion of the penal code, we have a few remarks to make on a passage which he quotes from Archdeacon W ordsworth,— “ Second Series of Sermons on the Irish Church,”— which, with his usual accuracy, Sir John Gray calls “ an abridged edition, published to meet what is called the crisis, even since this notice was placed on the books :” the sermons being in fact a new series, preached last February before the U ni­ versity of Cambridge, and not “ an abridged edition of the first series, published to meet the crisis.” It will be instructive to consider what Dr. Words- Q uotation from Archdeacon W ordsworth also examined, and found incorrect.
SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 27 worth really said, and what Sir John Gray makes him say :— S i r J o h n G r a y ’s V e r s i o n .

“ The Reformation has not been rejected by Ireland, for it has never been fairly offered to The Reformation Ireland.

has not failed in Ireland.

.

.

.

B ut those persons failed who managed its concerns in Ire­ land.

England failed, morally failed, in her duty to God’s Truth and to Ireland at that time.

.

.

.
.

.

.

To serve her own worldly interest she was untrue to God, to Ireland, and to her­ self.

She made severe but abortive Irish Roman Catholics, which made them more obstinate, but she did little them by to win milder measures.” laws against D r .

W o r d s w o r t h ’s .

“ The Reformation has not been rejected by Ireland, for it has never been fairly offered to Ireland.

The Reformation has not The failed in Ireland.

Reformation was a restoration o f God's Truth.


God's Truth lias not failed, and cannot fa il.

B ut those persons failed who managed its concerns in Ire­ land.

England failed, misera­ bly failed, in her duty to God’s T ruth to Ireland at that time.

England had been the fir s t to introduce Homanism into Ire ­ land in the twelfth century,fo r the sake o f her own temporal aggrandizement.
A n d we have shown, that at the Reformation in the sixteenth century, E n ­ gland, icho had the chief rule in Ireland, denied to Ireland the use o f God's Word, and o f Public Prayer in the Irish language.

England, Protes­ the tant England, practice o f Papal Pome, and refused to the people o f Ireland the Scriptures and a Liturgy in their own mother tongue.
imitated “ In order to promote— as she fondly imagined— her own po­ litical interests, she proscribed the use o f the Irish language in the worship o f God.

To serve her own worldly ends, she was untrue to God, to Ireland, and She made severe but abortive laws against to herself.
28 REMARKS ON Irish Roman Catholics, which made them more obstinate, but she did little to win them by milder measures to a purer fa ith .” It will be observed that, in quoting Dr. W ords­ worth, Sir John Gray has omitted all reference to the hindrances which originally beset the Refor­ mation in Ireland, and has left out altogether the last four words, thus ending his quotation in the It is needless to comment middle of a sentence.

further upon the fairness of quotations such as this.

III.
III.

But, not content with thus exaggerating by His assertion code wasPCnal garbled and inaccurate quotations the practical effect of the penal code, which we are told by one of the amiued.

The most liberal of modern writers the Irish Rom anists t h e penaïcode had drawn upon themselves “ by the danger in ofKUkenny^6 which they had brought the empire and the proscrip- Opi'nbn of Ed ^on they had drawn up under Jam es I I .
5, ” mund Burke Sir John Gray endeavours to throw the whole blame enactment upon the Reformed Church in on th e pom t. o£ Ireland, asserts th at the Acts which compose it were framed by its Bishops, were procured by its influence, and were passed in its interests ; in other words, that the Irish Church and it alone is responsible for the spirit which produced the penal code, and th at therefore it was impossible th at th at Church could be successful in Ireland or could ever be submitted to by the Irish people.
Such is Sir John Gray’s account of the origin of the penal code ; but history tells a different tale.

It ascribes the origin of that spirit which culmi­ nated in the enactment of the penal laws to a Church indeed, but not to the Reformed Church, but to the Irish Church when most under the in- J Goldwin Smith’s “ Irish History and Irish Character,” p. 125.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

29 the From fluence and most swayed by the Church of Rome.
Who was it, then, th at first set the example in Ireland of enacting penal laws ?

From whom did the E n g ­ lish Government first learn the lesson of oppressing and grinding down the native Irish by penal enact­ ments, to induce them to accept the religion of their Irish Roman Catholic conquerors ?

Bishops, acting under the direct influence of the Court of Rome.

The Statute of Kilkenny, the seed the future penal code may be from which all said to have sprung, was enacted in a .

d .
d .

1367, to compel the Irish to adopt English manners and to obey English laws.

It declared alliance with the Irish by marriage, gossipred, fostering, &c., to be high treason, and we know what high treason meant in those days,— death without mercy, death amidst I t made it penal to present the bitterest tortures.
an Irishm an to an ecclesiastical benefice, or to receive him into a monastery or any other religious house, to entertain an Irish bard or minstrel, or to admit an Irish horse to graze on the pasture of an E nglishm an6 !

Three Archbishops’ and five Bishops’ names are attached to the concluding section of this fearful act ; and they pledged themselves to denounce the spiritual sentence of excommunication against all violators of i t 7.
The Church thus made herself a party to this act, by sanctioning by spiritual cen- 6 Compare with this the words of Sir John Gray, at p. 19, “ The penalty of high treason consisted at that time of the mild process of hanging and disembowelling, and this was the process suggested by ‘the Church’ for the reformation of Irish priests.” 7 See Dr. Todd’s “ S. Patrick,” p. 284, and Phelan’s “ Policy of the Church of Home in Ireland,” ii.

111.
111.

I t is well to notice, as Dr. Todd reminds us (p. 236), th a t “ the statute of Kilkenny was only the re-enactment, with more stringent penalties, of a series of older statutes framed in the same spirit.” 30 REMARKS ON sures its provisions.
The Irish Bishops not only as peers of Parliam ent took part in its actual enact­ ment, but they also cut off from the Church by spiri­ tual censures all who should violate its provisions ; and therefore, as Dr. Todd most justly observes :— “ Rome m ust be considered to have been as fully responsible as England for the great political m is­ take of erecting the unhappy wall of distinction between the native Irish, ‘ the king’s Irish rebels ’ as they were called, and the Anglo-Norman colonists of the Pale.
“ We read of no remonstrance or protest having been made against this unjust oppression of the natives by the Bishops of th a t day, whether they were I t is present or not at the Convention of Kilkenny.

evident th at they were all in the English interest, and th at the English interest was supported also by the Court of R om e8.” 8 The tru th of this statem ent is strongly confirmed by a curious document, entitled, “ Querimonia Magnatum H iberniœ,” dated a .

d .
d .

1318, being the complaint of the nobles of Ireland to Pope John X X II.

I t is given at length in K ing’s “ Irish Church H istory,” vol.

iii.

pp.

1119— 1139.

We find from it th at the whole power of the Irish Prelates, in concert with the English Government and the Court of Eome, was employed to crush down and if possible exterminate the native Irish.

We can give but one extract, strongly recommending our readers to study the document for themselves.
After speaking of “ the miserable condition to which the Pope of Eome has reduced us,” they proceed to say, “ I t is not merely their lay and secular persons, but even some of the religious among them too, who are assert­ ing the heretical doctrine th a t it is no more sin to h ill an Irish ­ man than a single dog, or any other brute animal.
And in confirmation of this heretical assertion, some of their monks audaciously affirm, th a t if it were to happen to them, a s i t o f t e n d o e s h a p p e n , th a t they should kill an Irishman, they would not for this refrain from the celebration of Mass even for a single day.

And accordingly what they preach in word is un­ hesitatingly and shamelessly put in practice in their deeds, by the monks of the Cistercian order of Granard, in the Diocese of SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.
31 If, then, Irish Roman Catholic Bishops first taught the lesson to the English Government of the ne­ cessity of keeping down “ the mere Irish ” by penal enactm ent9, if they approved and sanctioned such proceedings by “ fulminating sentences of excommu­ nication and other censures of Holy Church ” (which are the very words of the statute) against the native Irish who violated it *, can we wonder if after the Reformation the same method was pursued by the Government,— in some cases, it may be, with the consent of the Episcopate,— which in ages past the Armagh, and all of the monks of the same order belonging to such in the Diocese of Down.
For making their appearance publicly in arms, they invade and slaughter the Irish people, and yet celebrate tlieir Masses noticithstanding.” And a little further on the native Irish thus speak of their oppression, “ We have towards each other a kind of natural hatred, arising out of the unmerciful and long-continued slaughter that has been going on of one another’s fathers, brothers, nephews, and other friends and near kinsmen ; so th a t we never shall be able, as long as we and our children live, to entertain any kind of inclination for friendship with one another.” Be it remembered th at this happy state of things occurred when all the Irish were o f one religion, not under “ an odious and hateful Protestant ascen­ dancy,” but under the mild and equitable rule of a thoroughly Roman Catholic Government and Church.
I t is evident, then, th at penal laws of a far more fearful kind were enacted and in full force in Ireland ages before the Reformation, than have ever been enacted or put into practice there since.

9 Lalor, Roman Catholic Vicar-General of Dublin and Kildare, was tried and convicted in 1606, for violating the Statute of Præmunire, 16 Rie.

I I. c. 5.
I I. c. 5.

O’Conor, a Roman Catholic historian, says of this trial, “ Lalor was first prosecuted, not persecuted, on the Catholic Statute of Præmunire, enacted in the Catholic reign of Richard I I. for the security of a Catholic State.” So th at penal laws existed in Ireland when the people were of one faith, and th a t faith the faith of Rome.

1 For proofs of how universally prevalent the influence of the Church of Rome was in every part of Ireland at this time, see K ing’s “ Church History,” vol.

ii.
ii.

p. 661.

32 REMARKS ON prelates of the Romish Church had sanctioned by the full weight of their spiritual as well as personal authority ?

And the view here taken of the true origin of the penal code is supported by the unprejudiced testi­ mony of Edm und Burke, the bitterest opponent the penal laws ever had.

He tells us that the spirit which engendered the penal laws had existed in the country centuries before the Reformation of the “ The Statutes of Kilkenny show2, ” said Church.
he, “ th at the spirit of the Popery laws, and some even o f their actual provisions, as applied between Englishry and Irishry, have existed in that harassed country before the words Protestant and Papist were heard of in the w o rld ;” and ju st before he says, “ the spirit of these proceedings did not com­ mence at th at æra (the Reformation), nor was religion o f any hind their primary object ; what was done was not in the spirit o f a contest beticeen tivo religious The origin of factions, but between two adverse nations.” And code^poUticai, afterwards tells us th at all the penal laws made TheStlte^ami a^ er ^ ie Revolution, “ were manifestly the effects not the Church, of national hatred and scorn toward a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon r and were not at all afraid to provoke;” and again, “ from what I have observed, it is pride, arrogance, and a spirit of domination^ and not a bigoted spirit o f religion, that has c a u s e d and kept up these oppres­ sive statutes.” Such is the im partial testimony of Edm und Burke concerning the origin and con­ tinuance of the penal code, a testimony not easily to be impeached or ignored.
W hatever, then, Sir John Gray may say, the origin of the penal code It was enacted, not was not religious, but political.

r blt 2 “ Burke’s W orks,” vol.

iii.

p. 320.

Bohn’s Edition, 1855.

SIR JOHN GRAY'S SPEECH 33 to exalt the Established Church, but to crush down It was an evil and humble a conquered people.

spirit and one much to be repudiated and deplored, but it was the spirit of the times.
The one political panacea of those days for all the evils of Ireland was the firm establishment of the English interest there.

To the accomplishment of this great object all the powers of the State were bent.

Such laws were passed as were thought likely to forward it, such Episcopal appointments were made as would best encourage it.

The high places of the Irish Church wrere filled by a succession of Englishmen sent over for the express purpose of strengthening the English interest.
Strange indeed would it have been if they had not imbibed the spirit of the times, or had refused to take their proper share as Privy Councillors those statutes in wThich the Government deemed necessary for the safety of the realm.
H ad they not done so, they wTould have been denounced as enemies of their country, and unworthy of the positions they held ; and because they did what no doubt they considered to be their imperative duty, Sir John Gray would make the Church whose Bishops they were to be responsible for the worst provisions of the penal code, which was enacted, not in one year or in one reign, but in a series of years and in many reigns ; each act of which was initiated in the Irish House of Commons, in wThich no Bishops or Clergy ever sat ; which was revised before being introduced into the Lower House, by the English Privy Coun­ cil, in which the Irish Bishops had no voice ; and which, when passed by both Houses of Parliament, still required the consent of the Sovereign through the Lord Lieutenant, without which not one of these penal statutes could have become law.
framing 34 REMARKS ON Truly the State, and not the Church, “ is directly and specifically answerable ” for the provisions of the Sir John Gray, indeed, may think penal code.

otherwise ; and if he has not succeeded in proving his point, it is certainly not his will, but his proofs that have been wanting.

• .

• .

v î i • -i • i two Archbishops thought fit to bring against her ?
And what are the weighty and cogent proofs on Examination the strength of which Sir John Gray brings this GrayVproofs church thArch grave charge against the Reformed Church ?

W hat bishop Marsh’s are the documents by which he attem pts to substan- letter.

S tatutes of 1697.
PH- tiate the accusation which, m his place m Jrarlia- Meeting ater‘ ment as a responsible member of the Legislature, he Two Ussher’sh0PRp has (one of which Sir Downham’s letters of John Gray, with for constituted authority which has always distinguished him, calls “ the confession of the criminal him self” ) ; a resolution agreed to at a meeting at the Prim ate’s house at Drogheda, which he dignifies by the name of “ an act of Convocation,” and calls the assembly “ a council of the Church,” which titles it would be equally correct to apply to the annual meeting of the Bishops at Lam beth on Ascension D ay ; and a Sermon preached by a Bishop of Derry, in Christ Church Cathedral, before the Lord D eputy3.
respect th at Two Letters, a Resolution, and a Sermon, form then the staple of the proofs which Sir John Gray adduces to demonstrate that the penal code was “ established in Ireland for the establishment and maintenance of the Church.” Let us examine these documents, pregnant with I t may be somewhat such great results, in turn.

tedious to do so, but surely the investigation will bring with it its own reward.

3 “ Ussher’s Works,” vol.

i. p. 74.


SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 35 The first is a letter from Archbishop Marsh to his friend Dr. Smith, an extract from which is given in Bp.

M ant’s “ Church H istory,” vol.

ii.

p. 72.
- In The date of that letter is October 13, 1697. it Archbishop Marsh says, “ The weight of business to prepare Bills to be passed into Acts of Parliament for the Church, which nobody but Churchmen will mind, hath lain and still does lie heavy upon me, insomuch that for four months past I have not been time from able to command almost a m inute’s public business.” Now in the Parliament which sat in 1697 there were only seventeen statutes passed ; of these only three bore any reference to Roman Catholics.
The first was intended, not for “ the maintenance of the Church,” but for the safety of the realm, as the pre­ amble expressly recites : “ W hereas, it is known, that the rebellions in this kingdom have been contrived, promoted, and carried on by Popish Archbishops, Bishops, Jesuits, and other Ecclesiastical persons of the Romish Clergy, and forasmuch as the peace and public safety o f this kingdom is in danger, by the great number of the said Archbishops, Bishops, Jesuits, friars, and other regular Romish Clergy now residing here, and settling in fraternities and societies contrary to law .
.

.

which said Romish Clergy do not only en­ deavour to withdraw His Majesty’s subjects from their obedience, but do daily stir rip and move sedition and rebellion, to the great hazard of the ruin and desolation of the kingdom, for the prevention of all which His Majesty,” &c. Now in this Act there is not a word about the Church.

It was an Act, not for the maintenance of the Church, but for the defence of the State.
It was a political measure, intended to prevent the c 2 36 REMARKS ON spread of sedition and rebellion.

The provisions are chiefly taken from a previous English Act of 3 Jam es I. c. 5, “ An Act to prevent and avoid dangers which grow by Popish recusants and from the English Act 25 Car.

II.
c. 2, “ for pre­ venting dangers which may happen from Popish recusants,” and it was an extension of the English Acts 1 W m. and Mary, c. 9, and c. 15, “ for the removing Papists and reputed Papists,” and “ for the better securing the Government by disarming Papists and reputed Papists.” The second Act of the Parliam ent of 1697 was “ to confirm the articles made at the surrender of the City of Lim erick,” and the third was “ to pre­ vent Protestants from intermarrying with P ap ists”— an Act which we should have thought would have been highly gratifying to the Romish Bishops, since they are never tired of denouncing such marriages and of fulminating censures against them.
Such are the statutes by adducing which Sir John Gray labours through four pages of his printed speech to prove that the Irish Church “ framed by the hands of her Bishops the worst of these penal laws.” We leave it to our readers to judge how much they serve his purpose ; and although, more suo, lie speaks of Bishop Mant as describing Archbishop M arsh as “ the framer of these penal laws,” when he only speaks of him as a framer of one particular Bill, viz.
th a t respecting the marriage of Protestants with Papists, we do not think th a t any impartial person will be surprised that the State enacted these laws, or th a t the Church acquiesced in them, when, “ in the course of little more than fifty years, the Church of Ireland and her members, after having been afflicted by the most bitter sufferings, had been by a merciful Providence twice rescued SIB JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 37 from utter destruction and annihilation as the na­ tional Church, and th at the authors of those dis­ tresses and dangers had been the Popish hierarchy and Clergy.” (Mant, vol.
ii.

pp.

75, 76.)

The second letter to which Sir John Gray refers, is one from Primate .Boulter to the Duke of New­ castle, dated March 7, 17 2 7 4.

Being at th at time the chief of the Lords Justices, it became his duty, in the absence of Lord Carteret, the Lord Lieutenant, to communicate to the Duke of Newcastle the several drafts of Bills passed by the Irish Privy Council.
The letter, which is a very long one, contains a summary of these bills, which were mostly for the regulation of the internal affairs of the Church, viz.

1.

For the better maintenance of Curates.

2.

To enable the Clergy to reside.

3.

To encourage benefactors to increase our poor livings.

4.

To repeal a clause in a former Bill, about the real union and division of parishes.

5.

For the encouragement of tillage.

6.


Lastly, a Bill for regulating the admission of barristers, &c. We should have thought th at credit rather than blame was due to the Prim ate, for having thus in­ dustriously busied himself in preparing Bills for pro­ moting the greater efficiency of the Church.
Of all the six Bills referred to, one only relates to the Roman Catholics ; and the phrase in Boulter’s letter, “ the Bills we have been preparing,”— which Sir John Gray would have us believe implies that the P ri­ mate had taken an active part in framing a part of the penal code,— refers to the Bills above mentioned, 4 See Boulter’s Letters, vol.

i. pp.

179— 183.

Archbishop Ussher and the toleration of Popery.


38 REMARKS ON which (with one exception) have nothing to do with the Romanists or their religion.
The one exception— “ The Six Clerks’ Act ” — was not a new statute, but re-enactm ent with amendments of a former statute,— 10 W illiam III., c. 13. the So much for the proofs Sir John Gray gives for his statement, th at these Prim ates framed “ the worst portions of the penal code V ’ We come now briefly to consider Sir John G ray’s remarks against Archbishop Ussher and his brethren, for their protest against the toleration of Popery.
Lord Falkland, then Lord Deputy, driven by the necessities of his situation, “ to provide for the m ain­ tenance of the King’s arm y,” called “ an assembly of the n atio n ” at Dublin Castle, with the design of introducing a more public toleration of the Romish religion.

This toleration was to be purchased by a liberal subsidy from the Roman Catholic party to the Crown.
Archbishop Ussher and his brethren 5 The following kind and tolerant words of Archbishop Bramhall show what the true spirit was, which pervaded the “ No kingdom,” says he, “ is Irish Episcopate at th a t time.

destitute of necessary remedies for its own conservation.

I f all were of my mind, as I believe many are, I could wish th at all seditious opinions and over-rigorous statutes, with the memory of them, were buried together in perpetual oblivion.
I hold him scarce a good Christian th a t would not cast on one spade of earth towards their interment.

Pardon this digression, if it be one.

Cruelty is a symptom of schism.”— Works, vol.

i. p. 126.

And in a subsequent passage Archbishop Bramhall enables us to judge of the extreme mildness with which the penal laws were executed in his time : “ In all th at tim e (from a .

d .
d .

1633 to 1641) let him name one Roman Catholic th a t suffered death or imprisonment, or so much as a pecuniary mulct of twelve pence for his religion under any penal statute.”— Works, vol.

ii.

p. 124.
SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 39 strongly opposed what they termed “ the setting up religion for sale.” Twelve of the Irish Bishops out of twenty-two (not “ the whole body of prelates,” as Sir John Gray has it) met at the Prim ate’s house at Drogheda, on November 26, 16266, and drew up “ The judgments of divers of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland concerning the Toleration of Religion,” in which they strongly protested against the proposed indulgence, which Cox the historian designates as “ a gross and scandalous proposal7.” Nor was it received with much favour in England ; for the House of Commons there drew up a remon­ strance to the King to this effect8 : “ That the Popish religion was publicly professed in every part of Ireland : and that monasteries and nunneries were there newly erected, and replenished with votaries of both sexes, which would be of evil consequence unless seasonably repressed.” And yet forsooth Sir John Gray would have it believed that the Irish Bishops were responsible for all the agitation against Popery, when at the very time the English House of Commons wTas petitioning the Crown to take measures for preventing its further spread in Ireland !
Moreover, be it remarked, that “ the newly erected monasteries and nunneries, re­ plenished with votaries of both sexes,” does not look very much as if Popery wras so greatly persecuted, even in that age when the true principles of tolera­ tion were so little understood, and rarely practised.

• See Elrington’s “ Life of Ussher,” Works, i. p. 74.

7 Cox, ii.

43.
7 Cox, ii.

43.

8 Nor can this be much wondered at, when we remember that the Pope excommunicated and denounced the Sovereigns of England in 1570, 1580, 1587, 1600, 1606, and 1626, and excited the chieftains and people of Ireland to rise up in revolt against them.

(See Wordsworth’s Sermons, 2nd Series, p.

51.)

40 REMARKS ON There seems to have been some little haziness in Sir John G ray’s mind about the sermon preached in Dublin respecting the judgment of the Bishops.
He tells us th at “ one of the prelates preached” it, — but he does not mention his name ; and then he adds, “ He went to Christ Church, where the Lord Deputy attended service on the succeeding Sunday.” W hat “ the succeeding Sunday” means, it is difficult to understand.
As we read it in Sir John Gray’s speech, it would seem to mean the Sunday after “ the general council of the C hurch” held in the Prim ate’s house at Drogheda ; but this took place on the 26th this sermon was not of November, 1626, and preached till April 23,1627.

We gather from other sources, th at the unknown, “ he” who went to Christ Church, and preached, was Downham, Bishop of Derry.
W hat induced Sir John Gray to use the phrase “ succeeding Sunday,” we cannot imagine, unless he wished to imply th at the Bishops at once set to work to stir up the people, as he insinuates a few lines further on ; but this was certainly not the case, for they suffered five months to elapse before they took any public steps in the m atter.
And here Sir John Gray spends a vast amount of indignation on the want of tolerance of the Irish bishops of those days, without for a moment con­ sidering what were the prevailing sentiments of even the most liberal and enlightened poets and philo­ sophers of that age on this subject.

Milton, so far in advance of his day in matters of this sort, in his “ Essay on Toleration,” expressly excepts the Ro­ John manists on the ground of their idolatry9.

5 See “ M ilton’s Prose Works,” Bohn’s edition, vol.

ii.
ii.

p. 514, where he says, “ Having shown, then, th at Popery, as being idolatrous, is not to be tolerated either in public or in private, it Toleration in the 17th cen­ tury.

Effect of persecution of Protestants abroad on enactors of the penal code.

Testimony of Prof. Goldvvin Smith.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

41 Locke, in lois “ Letter on Toleration10,” also expressly excepted those who were adherents of the Papacy, when urging its extension in other directions.
And what were the sentiments of the general public may be gathered from a pamphlet published at the time, and quoted by Hallam in his “ Constitutional H istory1.” “ To strive for toleration,” says the author, “ is to contend against all government.

It will come to this—whether there shall be a government in the Church or not ?
but if there be a government, there must be laws ; if there be laws, there must be penalties annexed to the violation of those laws ; otherwise the government is precarious and at every m an’s mercy ; that is, it is none at all.” Surely it is unreasonable to expect, th at at the beginning of the seventeenth century the political principles of the Irish bishops should be in advance of those who lived at its close.
Toleration of Romanism in those days would have been univer­ sally regarded as an encouragement of Popery and a blow to Protestantism ; this was a feeling shared in both by Clergy and laity, by statesmen and philosophers, by English as well as by Irish Pro­ testants ; and it is small wonder that, in accord­ ance with the temper of the times, the Irish Bishops, when the Lord Deputy, driven by the exigencies of state, proposed a toleration—which, however, was to - be purchased— strenuously protested against i t 2. must be our thought how to remove it and hinder the growth thereof.” 10 See Locke’s Works, vol.
ii.

p. 261, 262.

Folio ed.

1759.

1 Yol.

iii.

p. 171, note.
p. 171, note.

2 As Sir John Gray seems to have ransacked the pages of Bishop M in t for instances of the intolerance of the Irish Bishops, it is unfortunate th at the noble and successful stand which they made against the Government when the arbitrary Bill against the liberties of the subject was brought forward in 42 REMARKS ON Nor should it be forgotten, th at the fearful per­ secution of Protestants by Romanists abroad had a strong influence in forwarding the enactment of laws of repression at home.
“ Men were still living,” says Professor Goldwin Sm ith,— whose authority Sir John Gray will gladly accept,— “ at the time when the worst of the ‘ penal ’ laws were enacted, who remem­ their childhood the bered among the events of atrocities committed by the Piedmontese (Roman) Catholics on the Protestants of Savoy.

The R e­ vocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Dragonnades, the Expulsion of the French Protestants, were yet fresh in the minds of men.
Not only so, but an Irish ecclesiastic who had been in Spain might, when beset by informers and treated as a Pariah by the professors of the dominant creed, still have reason to feel th at his lot was more tolerable than 1697, escaped his notice.

He will find full particulars of this transaction in “ M ant’s Church H istory,” vol.

ii.

pp.

78— 86.
ii.

pp.

78— 86.

The language of Archbishop King, then Bishop of Derry, in a letter to Bishop Burnet on this Bill, is so tolerant and Christian th a t it will surprise many who have formed their opinion of the Irish Bishops of K ing W illiam’s reign from the description given of them by Sir John Gray :— “ I profess I never heard an argument for the Bill, but the title ; and all the excuse th at was made for the abominable things in it was, th at it was never designed to be executed.
B u t we have too many such laws already, and ivith God's help shall never have any more, as long as I or my friends can help it.
I f we measure our temper by our laws, I think we are little short of the Inquisition ; but if by the execution of them, I doubt we shall seem as indifferent in m atters of religion as our neighbours of Holland ; whereas soft laws and strict execution are what wisdom and interest would recommend to us ; and till we see some better use made of those we have than has been hitherto, I think we ought to leave no man in terrorem ” And yet we are told it was the Bishops th at are responsible for the worst portions of the penal code.
SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 43 the lot of the heretics, who were even then exposed to the fangs of the Inquisition, and in danger of being dragged by it to the stake.
The last perse­ cuting act against Irish and English Catholics had been passed, and a reaction of feeling towards toleration had commenced before Autos da Fé had ceased to be celebrated with public pomp, and recorded with pious satisfaction3.” The expiring cries of their Protestant brethren abroad, victims to the intolerance of the Papal sys­ tem, were still ringing loudly in the ears of our legislators when they enacted the laws which form the penal code ; and the Inquisitors of Rome, and not the Bishops of the Irish Church, are really re­ sponsible for the severities it contained—intolerant and hateful no doubt in themselves, but rendered necessary for a time by the persecuting spirit of the Church of those who suffered from them, which had twice attempted to extirpate the Protestants of Ire ­ land, and whose principles, being still unaltered, compelled the Government of the day to adopt measures which should effectually prevent a third and similar attem pt being made with success.
Light indeed, at the worst, were the sufferings of the Irish Romanists, when compared with those endured by the victims of the Inquisition ; and thankful may they be, that the persecuting flame then kindled by the torches of the Vatican, only scorched, but did not consume, the Romanists of Ireland.

IV.
IV.

We come now to consider the remarks of Sir sirJohnGray’s John Gray respecting the revenue of the Irish Church, the^evenues of He begins by telling us that the subject has been ^hurch^ their so mystified, “ he will not say wilfully m isrepre-truecoucUtio11- 3 Goldwin Smith’s “ Irish History and Irish Character,” pp.

128, 129.
128, 129.

44 REMARKS ON sented,” th at “ it is impossible without a good deal of investigation to arrive at an accurate conclu­ sion.” W hen Sir John Gray thus more than hints at “ m ystification” and “ m isrepresentation” in others, it is to be expected that when he gives “ a good deal of investigation” to the subject himself, he will produce a clear and lucid statem ent of the actual facts of the case.
We venture to assert, that any one who has had the courage to wade through the eight weary pages of Sir John G ray’s speech in which he “ investigates” this subject, will arise from his task far more mystified than when he commenced it ; for instead of elucidating it, Sir John Gray, whether intentionally or not we will not say, has only succeeded in enshrouding it in greater darkness than ever.
And yet, in truth, there need be no difficulty in ascertaining all th at it is needful to know respecting the revenues and present position of the Irish Church.

For many years she has been made to pass through a fiery ordeal, from which it is impossible th at any public body administered by human hands could come out unscathed.

No weak point in her system has been discovered, no anomaly been shown to exist, but immediately it has been sounded trum pet- tongued through the land.
The revenues of the Irish Church have been investigated again and again, and volumes of blue-books record the results of the labours of Royal Commissioners.

The value of every Bishopric and living, the rental of every acre of glebe, the religious population of every parish, has been ascertained, and catalogued, and com­ mented upon, and every supposed defect th a t could be found has been found, and exposed to the full glare of public criticism and censure.
There is not a single sinecure even in lay patronage (which the SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 45 law has refused to abolish), or plurality (which will expire at the death of the present Incumbent), or parish of small Church population (an anomaly we admit, but an anomaly inherent in all Churches which have adopted the parochial system), which has not been seized upon and exhibited as speci­ mens of the true state of the Irish Church ; and the public have been asked to judge and condemn her on the ex parte statement of those who hope to suc­ ceed to her position as soon as they have succeeded in displacing her.
But there is little fear of the English public being deceived by the force or cogency of arguments such as Sir John Gray has brought forward.
the Irish Church to be dis-established, and Protestantism vir­ tually withdrawn from three out of the four provinces of Ireland, they will require proofs that such an extreme measure is not fraught with great danger to the State as well as to the Church, and will be slow to accede to claims which they know from past experience may be only the precursor of greater and more dangerous demands.
Before they permit It has been the object of Sir John Gray to show that the returns respecting the revenues of the Irish Church are so involved, th at the actual income of its Bishops and Clergy can with difficulty be ascertained.

He says, “ Dr. Lee, ‘ the Dean of Connor V repre- 4 A reference to any Irish Church Directory would have enabled Sir John Gray to discover th at the Dean of Connor is Dr. Bull, and not Dr. Lee, who is simply a Rector in the diocese of Connor.
This mis-statement, which is repeated four times in what purports to be a revised edition, “ issued in a permanent form,” may serve as a specimen of the pains th at have been taken to secure accuracy of statement throughout, as well as the orthography of the name of the “ author of the Fairy Queen,” who is invariably designated as the poet Spencer.
46 REMARKS ON sents the net income of the beneficed Clergy at <£393,833 ; Lord Dufferin the income at £420,000 (but £480,000 was the real sum mentioned by Lord Dufferin, see Times Report, March 17, 1866), and Archbishop Trench at £586,427.” E ach of these statem ents is absolutely correct according to the re­ turns of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
Dr. Lee was speaking of the net income of the beneficed Clergy alone, Lord Dufferin of the net income of the Bishops and Clergy together, and the Archbishop of Dublin of their gross income.

To prevent, as far as may be, misapprehension for the future, it may be well once again to repeat what the actual income of the Irish Church really is, as nearly as it can be ascertained.

The gross annual income of the Irish Bishoprics is £80,059, the net, £ 5 5 ,1 1 0 5.
The gross income of the 1510 The benefices is £506,368, the net, £393,833.

gross annual income of the Ecclesiastical Commis­ sion is £111,937 a year, their net income about £ 9 1 ,3 5 9 6.

To obtain the actual available yearly income of the Irish Church, it will be necessary Indeed, a fatality seems to pursue every attem pt at accuracy made by Sir John Gray.

The very title-page of his printed speech contains two mis-statements.
I t is said to have been debated in the House of Commons on April 11th, 1866 ; the debate, however, took place on April 10th.

Again, the inquiring reader would look in vain for the motto attached to this speech in The Times of April 12th ; it appeared in th a t of April 11th.

6 The annual cost of collection is £4000 : this reduces the actual net income of the Bishops to £51,110.

Charge of 1864.
Charge of 1864.

See Prim ate’s 0 This is obtained by deducting Ministers’ Money £12,600 ayear, Augmentation of Livings, £6000, Disappropriated Tithes, £1978, Total £20,578 from the gross income.

These items are all included in the income of the benefices as returned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 47 to add to the net income of the benefices, the salaries of the curates of livings of £300 a year and upwards : these number about 310, and allowing an average income of £85 to each, this would amount to £26,350.

There are also several curates paid by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who were formerly paid by vestries, as well as the curates of suspended benefices and a few vicars choral : the sums thus paid amount to £4100 a year.
The total net income, therefore, of the Bishops and Clergy of the Irish Church is £479,393 a year, without deducting costs of collection, poor-rates, income-tax, or building charges on livings under £300 a year.
I t is esti­ mated that these charges amount to £29,321 a income to y e a r7, which would £450,072 per annum, and if to this the net income of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners be added, the reduce the net jense of the public, which, for a time indeed, has 4been partially successful, but which needs only to be exposed to rebound with terrible force on those who have countenanced its use.
The Ecclesiastical parish, the same Commis­ sioners defined to be “ the Parochial Benefice, or ter­ ritorial extent comprised within each cure of souls.” Of these there are 1510 in Ireland, as returned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ; and of these 1510 there is only one benefice properly so called which does not contain several members of the Established Church.
We will give one instance, out of many, to illus­ trate the difference th at exists between a “ civil” and an “ Ecclesiastical ” parish in Ireland.

The Ecclesiastical parish or benefice of St. P a - c a s e o f s t .
trick, Wexford, is a union containing the following wtiford.’ 48 REMARKS ON glebes of tlie Irish Church are the corporate pro­ perty of th at Church, they belong to the Church and not to the State ; and if the Church were abo­ lished as an Establishm ent to-morrow, they would remain without a legal claimant.

The State would have to provide some one on whom to bestow them.
I t is indeed the proper province of the State to adjust from time to time the property of the Church within itself, so as to secure the greatest amount of efficiency possible, but it has no right whatever to take away the property of the Church and apply it to other purposes.
This would not be reform, but spoliation— the act, not of a guardian of all public rights, but of an invader of all corporate privileges— an act which would at once establish a state of chronic discontent amongst the Protestants of Ire ­ land, and endanger the stability of all the religious endfíw®AIí>fsJ lf the empire.

gross annual income of the Ecclesiastical Commis-., sion is i l l 1,937 a year, their net income about ,£91,3596.
To obtain the actual available yearly income of the Irish Church, it will be necessary Indeed, a fatality seems to pursue every attem pt at accuracy made by Sir John Gray.

The very title-page of his printed speech contains two mis-statements.

I t is said to have been debated in the House of Commons on April 11th, 1866 ; the debate, however, took place on April 10th.
Again, the inquiring reader would look in vain for the motto attached to this speech in The Times of April 12th ; it appeared in th a t of April 11th.

5 The annual cost of collection is £4000 : this reduces the See Prim ate’s actual net income of the Bishops to £51,110.

Charge of 1864.

6 This is obtained by deducting Ministers’ Money £12,600 ayear, Augmentation of Livings, £6000, Disappropriated Tithes, £1978, Total £20,578 from the gross income.
These items are all included in the income of the benefices as returned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

49 To take first tlie statem ent of the Census Com- civu parishes, missioners, that there are 2428 civil parishes in Ireland.
The p h r a s e c i v i l parishes” is not, as Sir John Gray says, “ a new phrase specially adopted for drawing a distinction between the bene­ fices and parishes, which used to be called in other tim es,the benefices of pluralists,” insinuating there­ by .that Churchmen have adopted it for their own private purposes,— but is a phrase which has been for more than thirty years in use, and was introduced by the Commissioners of Public Instruc­ tion in 1834, who defined civil parishes to be “ districts comprising one or more parishes, or parts of parishes, according to the civil divisions prevailing in counties fo r the purpose o f grand jury assessments.” To treat, then, these civil divisions as a parish in the Ecclesiastical sense of the word, is a delusion and a sham, an attem pt to impose on the common sense of the public, which, for a time indeed, has been partially successful, but which needs only to be exposed to rebound with terrible force on those who have countenanced its use.
The Ecclesiastical parish, the same Commis­ sioners defined to be “ the Parochial Benefice, or ter­ ritorial extent comprised within each cure of souls.” Of these there are 1510 in Ireland, as returned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ; and of these 1510 there is only one benefice properly so called which does not contain several members of the Established Church.
We will give one instance, out of many, to illus­ trate the difference that exists between a “ civil” and an “ Ecclesiastical ” parish in Ireland.

The Ecclesiastical parish or benefice of St. Pa-case of st. trick, Wexford, is a union containing the following w^ford’ 50 REMARKS ON 13.

St. Peter.

2.

Mandlinstown.

5.

Kildavin.

7.

St. M ary’s.

8.

St. Iberius.

civil parishes8 : — 1.

Drinagh.

3.

Kerlogue.

4.

Archandrisk.

6.

9.

Eathaspeck.

St. John.

10.

St. Bridget.

11.

St. Selskar.

12.


14.

St. Michael of St. Tullogue.

Feaght.

15.

Carrig.

16.

St. Patrick.

This one ecclesiastical benefice contains no less than sixteen civil parishes.

Several of them are of very small extent.

St. Tullogue’s (or, as it is called by the Census Commissioners, St. Doologe’s) contains 40 square yards, St. M ary’s 100, and St. Iberius’s and St. Selskar’s 200 each.
These sixteen parishes are under the care of one incumbent, whose net income is ,£315 a year, and two curates.

Sir John Gray, being partial to minute calculation, will have no difficulty in dis­ covering th at this “ bloated” pluralist receives an average of net income of ,4'19 a year from “ this plurality of parishes yielding tithes to the incum­ bent.” This one instance will suffice to show the difference between a civil and an ecclesiastical parish in Ire ­ land.
So th at whilst there are 2428 civil parishes, there are only 1510 parochial benefices ; in other words, 1510 parish clergymen, assisted by curates paid by themselves, have the spiritual charge of these 2428 “ civil divisions” into which Ireland is divided, the average net income of these incumbents being £245 a year each.
Moreover, Sir John Gray, in endeavouring to give “ a very sad upset,” as he terms it, to an argument of the Prim ate, has only succeeded in showing how greatly he has himself gone astray.

H e first of all * See Charles, “ Irish Church Directory for 1866,” p. 121.

SIR JOHN GRAY'S SPEECH.

51 fathers on the Primate an argument which his Grace never used, and then proceeds ingeniously to de­ molish it.

We will now proceed to show that tins is the case.


the 199 civû Sir John Gray says (p. 27), “ The Prim ate, i û The 1 9 9civil discussing the subject of civil parishes, uses a re- John Gray8" markable passage with reference to parishes which are returned by the Census Commis- p>ment.

sioners as not having any Church Protestant residing in them .” The Primate does nothing of the sort.
His Grace, in the passage alluded to (see Charge of 1864, p. 14), is referring, not to the 199 civil parishes without Church population, but to the 2428 civil parishes in general; and he tells us that “ under this term are included a variety of districts of very different kinds.” His Grace then proceeds to show that one of them is only forty yards square, that another is covered by a brewery, a third by a com- mill, that others are ancient cliapelries in parishes, others extra-parocliial districts, others were town lands, others granges, or reputed parishes without cure of souls— all this with reference to civil parishes in general, and nothing whatever in reference to the 199 parishes ; yet all the strength of Sir John G ray’s argument in this part of his speech depends on his supposition that the Primate was speaking of the 199 parishes, and without it this part of his argu­ ment is absolutely worthless, and falls at once to the ground.
Neither is Sir John more fortunate in his subse- “ Them ythical quent assertion, that the parishes of St. Doologes in s t John off Ferns, and St. John’s and St. Dominick in Cork, stDomïnick'!

‘ ‘ are fanciful pictures of parishes drawn by h is Cork- G race,” which “ he has shown to be mythical.” Having examined the speech of Sir John Gray thus far, we acknowledge our inability to discover what d 2 Rev.

Philip Dwyer’s state­ m ent of 18 be­ nefices without Churcli population examined.
Only one bene­ fice, properly so called, w ith­ out resident Churchmen.

5 2 REMARKS ON he would, or would not, consider mythical ; but if he refers to the Census Report of 1801, he will find th at the parish of St. Doologes, although only 40 yards square, is any thing but a myth, for it con­ tains 239 inhabitants, and his own highly valued authority, Dr. Brady, informs us in his “ Records of Cork,” th at in 1858 the Rev.

J .
J .

M. Reeves was presented to the vicarage of St. John of Jerusalem in th at city, and that the rectory of St. Dominick is one of the parishes forming the corps of the Chancellorship of Cork 9.

We certainly never before heard of rectors or vicars of “ m yths.” But Sir John Gray has also summoned the Rev.
Philip Dwyer as a witness on his behalf, and has quoted passages from a pamphlet lately published by him to show th at there are eighteen benefices in the Irish Church in which there are no members of the Church.

W e fear th at upon examination this witness will also fail to prove the point for which Sir John Gray has cited him.
The assertion made by the Prim ate and Dr. Lee was to the effect that there was only one benefice in Ireland which did not contain members of the Church, using the word benefice in the sense assigned to it, as quoted above, by the Census Commissioners, viz., The parochial benefice or territorial extent comprised within each cure o f souls.” Of the eighteen so-called benefices referred to by Mr. Dwyer, twelve are dignities without cure o f souls, four are sinecure rectories in private patronage, also without cure o f souls, but in each case with vicarages endowed and resident Clergy.
Of the remaining two, one is a dignity suspended by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the other is a parish in which nine members of the Church are found.

9 Vol.

i. pp.

279.

300.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 53 The assertion, we believe, has never been made, that there are no sinecures in the Irish Church.

Those in Crown or Ecclesiastical patronage have been abolished, or will be at the next vacancy, but those in lay patronage are specially protected by the Church Temporalities Act (3 & 4 Wm.
IV., c. 37, sec.

116), which gives power to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to suspend parishes under certain conditions, but which did not extend that power to benefices in lay patronage.

If, then, some anomalies, such as those mentioned by Mr. Dwyer, still exist in the Irish Church, they are not Clmrch abuses, but merely concessions to lay rights of property.
Take, for example, the first instance mentioned by Sir John Gray, “ of a benefice with a net annual income of 5001, and more, in which there is no Church Protestant.” This is the living of O’Mullad, I t is a sinecure rectory in the Diocese of Killaloe.

in the gift of Lord Leconfield.

It is a union of eight parishes, the rectorial tithes of which belong to the Eector presented by the lay patron.
But these eight civil parishes contain a Church popu­ lation of 183 souls, and their spiritual wants are supplied by the vicars of these very parishes, the rectorial tithes of which go to make up the sinecure rectory of the union.

So th at this is a mere instance of a sinecure without any duties attached; and instead of there being no Church Protestant in the district from which these rectorial tithes are drawn, there are 183.
As to the next batch “ of five benefices whose net income is from .£'200 to £300 per annum, without any Church population.” The first is the Deanery of Armagh, value £296 per annum, with no cure of souls.

The Rector of Armagh has the cure, and the parish contained in 1861 no less than 54 REMARKS ON 3573 members of the Church.

The second is the Treasurersliip of Christ Chnrcli, Dublin, value £200 10s.

8d., without cure of souls.


The three others are sinecure rectories, such as O’Mullad, with Vicars having the cure of souls.

The Church population of these three vicarages is 517.

So much for these five benefices, as Sir John Gray tells us, “ one in the Archdiocese of Armagh, one in the Archdiocese of Dublin, and three in the Diocese of Killaloe,” without any Church population.
As regards the seven benefices whose net income is between £100 and £200 a year, without any Church population, one is the Prebend of St. An­ drew’s, Down, of which the Rectory of Inch con­ stitutes the corps, the tithes of which form the income of the prebendary.

The Church population of this parish in 1861 was 800.

The second is a prebend, value £112 per annum, with a vicarage containing a Church population of 27.
The third is the Chancellorship of Christ Church, Dublin, value £199, without cure of souls.

The fourth is a dignity without cure of souls, with vicarage attached, having a Church population of 178.

The fifth is a dignity without cure of souls ; the sixth a pre- centorship suspended by the Ecclesiastical Com­ the seventh a rectory also suspended missioners ; by the Commissioners.
W ith respect to the five benefices from £100 and under without any Church population, four are petty dignities without cure of souls, and so are no benefices at all, and one is a sinecure rectory, with a vicarage containing several members of the Church.

Thus we see upon examination, th at the efforts of Sir John Gray to contradict the statem ents of the Primate aad Dr. Lee, that there is only one benefice in Ireland which has no Church population, have SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

55 entirely failed.
55 entirely failed.

The statements quoted from Mr. Dwyer’s pamphlet only tend to show that there are certain sinecure rectories and dignities, amounting in the whole of Ireland to but eighteen, from which the Incumbents draw a certain income, but prove absolutely nothing respecting the number of bene­ fices in Ireland without Church population ; for we have shown that these eighteen so-called benefices without Church population contain no less than 5284 members of the Church.
Sir John Gray has asserted th at the statement of the Primate in his Charge is incorrect.

To show the correctness of his statement, the Primate has given the names of all the 199 civil parishes referred to, together with those of the benefices of which they form part '.
If there are more benefices in Ireland than one without any Church population, it would be easy for Sir John Gray to name them ; and hav­ ing charged others with inaccuracy on this subject, it would be well that he should substantiate his charge by producing the evidence on which it is founded.
We should wonder very much,— if at this stage of sir John Gray’s our inquiry it was possible for us to wonder at any arithmetic^1 thing Sir John Gray might say,— that he should have condescended to use such a mode of computation as ,What would he has adopted with regard “ to the cost of religious èon-cctV ministrations to the Protestant population of Ire ­ It will be well to examine it a little closely, land.” for it is a veritable curiosity, rarely to be met with, if ever, in the annals of arithmetic.
1 The Primate, it is to be observed, mentions three benefices suspended or in course of suspension, in which there are no members of the Church :— Aglishdrinagh (suspended), Killenemer (suspended), Monamintra (to be suspended on next vacancy).

When a parish is suspended, the income is transferred to the I t is then a benefice only in name.

Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
56 REMARKS ON Knowing th at in any Church which has adopted the parochial system, there m ust be certain in­ equalities in the population of the several parishes, he first selects a certain number of parishes from all parts of Ireland ; he then discovers what the total revenues of these parishes are ; he then deducts the families of the Clergyman and Sexton 2 ; takes the gross incomes of the parishes instead of the net, adds to these “ their fair share of Episcopal charges ” (he is careful not to tell us what he considers their fair share to be), and having thus made up a pretty little lump sum, by adding to the parochial revenues the Church population, he and deducting from arrives at a conclusion which draws ‘ ‘ loud cheers from his admirers in the House of Commons, who are evidently convinced th at what he says is a correct statem ent of the case !
Fortunately, Sir John Gray has given us the opportunity in one instance of testing the accuracy of his calculation.

Archdeacon Hincks having put together all the benefices in Ireland whose Church population is less than twenty-five, finds th at their number is 114, or about a thirteenth part of all the Irish benefices.

Archdeacon Hincks gives us the net income as ascertained from Captain Stackpoole’s return.

Sir John Gray rejoices in his own calcula­ tion of their gross income.
Archdeacon Hincks tells us that the net income of these benefices is .£18,735, and even allowing 25 per cent, for the difference between the net and gross income— an estimate which to think correct, although Sir John Gray seems 2 Forgetting th a t the sexton’s salary comes out of a tax paid by the clergy, and that, therefore, when considering the cost of each family in the parish, in all fairness the sexton’s should not be deducted.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.


57 Mr. Dwyer puts the difference at only 20 per cent.

— this would make their gross income amount to £23,419.

Sir John Gray, however, having “ given to these 114 benefices, in addition to the gross in­ come, their fa ir proportion o f the Episcopal charges,” now makes “ the total cost to the public” of these 114 benefices to be £36,365.
We thus ascertain what Sir John Gray considers to be a fair sum to allow for the Episcopal supervision of these 114 benefices, viz., £12,946 a year— a sum considerably larger than the net annual income of the Bishops of Meath, Killaloe, Down, and Cork, and nearly equal to four times the gross income of the latter see.
Truly, Sir John Gray must greatly appreciate the benefits of Episcopal supervision, when he estimates it at so high a rate ; and strange it is th at whilst so doing, he is at the same time endeavouring to de­ prive the members of his own communion of such inestimable benefits.

Were the Irish Bishops re­ munerated at the rate Sir John Gray allows for the 114 benefices above referred to, they would receive over £171,000 a year, instead of £55,110, as at present.
We are forced then to admit that the accuracy of Sir John G ray’s calculations is not such as enables us to put faith in the conclusions he draws from them.

They will not bear examination, even though said to be given “ on the authority of eminent divines of the Established Church.” W e should be glad to know what “ eminent divines of the Established Church ” ever made such calculations as those with which Sir John Gray astounded, if he did not convince, the House of Commons.
And yet, even supposing all that Sir John Gray said on this head to be true, what does it prove ?

Granted for a moment for the sake of argument that 58 REMARKS ON in a small portion of the Irish benefices,— one in thirteen,— the income is out of proportion to the work (though this could scarcely be asserted, as the net income of the 114 incumbents only averages .£164 6s.

lOd.
lOd.

a year), is this any reason whatever why the Irish Church should be disendowed and the revenues confiscated to some secular purpose ?

If it were true, it might be an argument in favour of a redis­ tribution of revenues, in order to produce a greater amount of efficiency, but it would be no argument at all in favour of total abolition.

Does Sir John Gray expect to find any institution the working of which is committed to human hands free from im ­ perfection ?
and even if every existing anomaly in the Irish Church were removed to-morrow, would he be a whit the better satisfied with her position than he is now ?

W e trow not.

The object Sir John Gray and his coadjutors have in view is, not the improvement of the Irish Church—th at is the last thing they wish for— but its total and entire de­ struction as the Established Religion of th at country.
And to forward this object Sir John Gray has not hesitated to use language which, to all who are acquainted with the subject, would only provoke a smile, so palpably contrary is it to the real facts of the case, were it not that they are saddened by the thought that there are many who, whilst themselves ignorant of how m atters really stand, will believe, without examination and without a scruple, the most exaggerated and unfounded statem ents th at can be made against the Church in Ireland.
That Church, if Sir John Gray is to be believed, “ is the root of all the evils of that country ” (p. 35), “ it is the root of the Education difficulty,” “ it is at the root of the land question,” it is “ the root of all the evils which the Roman Catholics of Ireland have Sir John Gray’s copious sum­ mary of Irish Church abominations.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH.

59 suffered ” (p. 36).

The Church is the cause of “ famine, of pestilence, and of emigration ” (p. 12).
The Church it was “ that planted Ulster to maintain Protestant ascendancy” (p. 12).

The Church it was “ that imprisoned Roman Catholics in Connaught ” (p. 12).

To establish and maintain the Church “ it was that the penal code was established ” (p. 16).

She is “ directly and specifically answerable for some of its worst features ” (p. 17) ; her Bishops framed them, and through their influence they were passed into law.
The Bishops of 1615 are made respon­ the prelates of the sible for law passed in 1703; 17tli century for statutes enacted in the 18th.

“ The fanaticism of the Bishops and Clergy stirred up the mob of Dublin to control the Government ” (p. 21) ; the same Bishops and Clergy it was th at “ deprived younger brethren of their birthright,” and “ mothers In a word, the of their right of dow er” (p. 22).
Church is “ a fatal experiment,” “ a failure,” “ a b lu n der” (p. 7), “ an old wrong,” “ an old abuse,” “ an old injustice ” (p. 6), it maintains “ an odious and hateful ascendancy,” it has “ produced heart­ burning, sorrow, and misery,” and its continuance ‘ ‘ is insulting to Ireland and dishonouring to the English nation ” (p. 7).
Now, although such language may be pardoned in the almost maiden speech of an orator of barely three months’ Parliamentary experience, we scarcely think that it will advance the cause which he has so much at heart with calm and sober-minded men.
Such a violent tirade of abuse against a Church which, to say the least, has during the last three centuries maintained in Ireland the true, primitive, and Scriptural faith, and prevented that country from being delivered over both politically and re­ ligiously into the hands of Rome, and which, at the 60 REMARKS ON present day, is daily increasing in vigour and effi­ ciency in every department of its organization ; may be acceptable to a few who hate the Irish Church with an unreasoning hatred, but which will only cause statesmen of wisdom and experience to pause, before they commit themselves to the support of a movement, founded on the jealousy with which Rome ever regards a national Church brought into [close proximity to her ; conducted by an unholy things •alliance between religionists who, else save their m utual dislike of the Established Church of these realms, regard one another with intensest aversion ; and which, if successful, can only end in making Rome the arbiter of the future destinies of Ireland, and sever the link which now binds in closest connexion the interests both of Church and State in both kingdoms.
in all Warnings of Jtetesmen-sfr EarÍRuíeií’ anxi°us Veteran statesmen of the Liberal party, taught ^ ie hitter experience of thirty years ago, and av°i<l a contest which is sure to be bitter, and which, if unsuccessful, may, as in former years, effectually exclude their party from office, have uttered their warning voices, but will probably utter them in vain.

Young and impetuous Ireland is not likely to be restrained by the sober advice of old and experienced England.
The speeches of Sir John Gray and of the O’Donoghue are as music to its ears, compared with which the well-weighed sentences of Sir George Grey and E arl Russell, or even of Mr. Gladstone, fall with a discordant sound.

Yet there may be some who yet will take heed to them, and therefore we repeat them here.

Sir George Grey, in his speech 011 the Irish Church on March 28, 1865, said 3— s Hansard, 3 Series, vol.

elxxviii.

pp.

399—402.

SIR JOHN GRxVY’s SPEECH.


G1 I t is not of recent creation ; it rests upon"!

And shortly afterwards, “ W hat we have to deal with is the existing state I have stated my opinion on the abstract of things.

question.

But am I at liberty to press th at opinion without reference to all the consequences it might entail ?

I think, on the contrary, we must look to the practical result of such an opinion if it were reduced to practice.
We have the Irish Protestant Church established as an existing institution in Ireland.

the prescription of centuries ; and, to use the expres­ sion of a distinguished Roman Catholic layman, it is rooted in our institutions.

The firm belief o f the Government is, that it could not be subverted without the horrors that attend revolu­ revolution, with all tion.” (Hear, hear.)

/ in the same speech, “ W hat then is the practical grievance ?
We have in Ireland an Established Church, resting upon long unbroken prescription.

It is all very well to say, ‘ Give us religious equality, and there will be reli­ gious harm ony;’ but we must bear in mind that this branch of the Church of England and Ireland is very dear to a large body of Protestants in Ireland, and they would not give it up without a struggle.

(Hear, hear.)

.

.

.

Side by side with them is the Roman Catholic Church, unendowed, but the Church of the great mass of the people.
No one will deny that that Church enjoys the greatest possible amount of freedom ; it is subject to no control from the State ; no exercise of intolerance towards it can be ^.alleged.

.

.

.

As a m atter of feeling, no doubt, there is a grievance.

I am not surprised at discontent existing from the cause I have mentioned, and I should be glad to redress it.
B u t it is impossible to do so without producing evils o f fa r greater magnitude than those which noiv exist, and without involving the 02 REMARKS ON country in dissensions which would he totally subversive o f peace and progress.” (Hear.)
And E arl Russell, whose parliamentary experience extends over half a century, and whom no one can accuse of overdue partiality to the Irish Church, has given his decided opinion with regard to the attem pted abolition of th at Church, in terms which we would recommend to the thoughtful considera­ tion of all those who desire the abolition of the Established Church in Ireland.
'resp ect to what some have proposed, viz., “ I believe,” said the noble L o rd 4, “ th at with the I | destruction of the Protestant Church in Ireland,/ there coidd he no ivorse or more fa ta l measure sanctioned I believe th at it would be politically by Parliament.
injurious, because I believe th a t many of the most loyal in Ireland, many of those the most attached to the connexion with this country, would be alienated by the destruction of th at Church to which they are I believe that, in a religious point fondly attached.
of view, it would be the commencement o f a religious war— th at there would be th a t which does not the most violent and vehe­ at present prevail, ment attack upon the Roman Catholic Church, and that the Roman Catholics themselves woidd be the f i s t to complain o f the destruction o f the Protestant Church.” 1 "r And no later than the debate on E arl Grey’s motion last March, E arl Russell declared th at his noble friend’s proposition “ instead of remedying the evil, would increase it to a very great extent,” and “ would create more religious discontent, more heart-burning, and more division than we have ever seen in Ire ­ land.” In the opinion, then, even of Liberal statesmen, an 4 Hansard, 3 Series, vol.
cvii.

p. 158.

SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 68 attack on the endowments of the Irish Church is an unwise and ill-judged measure— a measure which may not unfitly be styled “ the commencement of a religious war,” and which in the end will recoil with tenfold force on the Roman Catholics themselves who have instigated it.
But lest any such imagine th at an excuse for such The Irish an agitation may be found in the belief that the the cause of Established Church is “ the root of all the evils ofTetu^ny'rf' Ireland,” and that its abolition would at once re- Thf,TahIet move all the causes of Irish discontent— as Sir John Gray would fain make us believe— we will produce a witness whose testimony is unimpeachable, and whose authority on such a question must needs be great, viz., that of the leading Roman Catholic organ, The Tablet5:— to this.
“ The wound of Ireland is, th at whereas the great majority of the population of Ireland are Roman Catholics, such a large proportion o f the soil o f Ireland belongs to Protestants ; and that Protestants form such a large portion of those classes which, by supe­ rior wealth and superior advantages, are raised in social station above the rest.

.

.

.
We are convinced, and on evidence than which demonstration could scarcely be more conclusive, that if the Legislature were to con­ fiscate to-morrow every acre of land, and every shilling of tithe rent-charge now belonging to the Protestant Church Establishm ent in Ireland, and were to deprive the Protestant Bishops and Clergy of every legal privilege which they now possess by virtue of their belonging to the State Church, they would not have abated the Irish grievance or cured the Irish disease ; they ivould have only caused a change in 5 Quoted by Lord Dufferin in his “ Contributions to an In ­ quiry into the State of Ireland,” note, p. 12.
64 REMARKS ON the form o f words by which the complaints o f those ivlio feel aggrieved fin d expression.”— January 27, 1866.

We feel that after sueh a very decided opinion from such an authority as this, it would be worse than useless to add any observations of our own.

ch- ascendancy, Tli<3 term “ Protestant ascendancy” has been ably whatsis it now?

and skilfully used by Sir John Gray throughout his Church strong speech for his own purposes.
H e knows how hateful expression is in the ears of many, and lie l “ to revive and intensify its meaning.

endeavours defenders.

B ut we have good hope th at statesmen and poli­ ticians in general are not thus to be misled.

The real question is not what Protestant ascendancy was in times past, but what it is now ?

Sir John Gray uses the expression as if they were one and the same thing, when they are wholly different things.
In the time of the Penal Laws indeed, or even before Roman Catholic Em ancipation was granted, when the whole power of the Government was used to make the Church politically useful as an instrum ent to govern Ireland by, there m ight have been some force in talking of “ Protestant ascendancy,” but no one can now say th at the Establishm ent of the Church in any way interferes with the full, free, and perfect toleration of the exercise of the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion.
The Established Church in no way interferes with the Roman Catholic, as an individual or as a citizen ; but it does interfere with, and it does prevent the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland ; and in its preventing this the secret of their con- • tinuous and persevering endeavours to remove it lies.
All real grievances have long since been re­ moved, and till we are prepared to hand over Ireland politically, as well as religiously, to the control of SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH G5 the Roman Catholic Priesthood, we must maintain the Established Church in the position it now holds in Ireland.

For no sooner will it be seen that real danger menaces the Irish Church than the country will be stirred to its very depths.
All seems calm, and quiet, and slumbering now, because Englishmen have become accustomed to annual motions on the state of the Irish Church, as they have been to annual motions for a long series of years on the ballot.
B ut should any Government propose the House of Commons a measure seriously to contemplating the abolition of the Irish Church, and to use the recent earnest words of the Arch­ bishop of Dublin, “ should the overthrow of the Church as an Establishm ent be attempted, it would reveal secrets of power and elements of strength, of which statesmen little dream .” I t is too often for­ gotten that Irish Churchmen really love their Church, and are determined not to suffer he?
to be displaced from the position she lias held for centuries, without a stern, an arduous, and a step-by-step contested struggle.

I t is not long since that Lord Houghton reminded the House of Lords, that, “ according to historic analogy, the Church had ever gone with the la n d ;” and Churchmen, be it remembered, still possess nearly eight-ninths of the soil of Ireland.

It may be we are entering on a contest the issue of which no one can at present foresee.
But we may be sure, that whatever else happens, the Irish Church will not cease to be the Established Church of Ire­ land, without a struggle and a convulsion such as this country has not passed through since the Revolu­ tion.

Sir Jolin Gray concludes by asking the House Tins 6 6 REMARKS ON i t .

j n .

, 1 t .. .. ™ v c r periai question, “ to deal with his motion not simply as an Irish T and should be .
t r e a t e d a s s u c h , question, but as an im perial question, as one afltect- b íe íu lo f the™ inS ^lic interests of England, hardly less than it greatest poiiti- affects the interests of Ireland.” eal difficulty, We are heartily glad th at at last we have some and requires consummate statesm anship common standing-ground with Sir John Cxray.

Removal'of' Much as we differ from him on other points, we aumjmiics easy, cordially agree with him in this.
There can be no would involve doubt th at the disestablishment of the Irish Church htthdE™abHshf is a question which deeply concerns the interests of the whole Empire, which cannot be treated as a ments.

mere Irish m atter, but which involves points of the greatest magnitude, both as regards the Church and the Constitution of England.

The two countries have been united into one united Kingdom, the two Parliam ents into one united Legislature, the two establishments into one united Church.
Sever the union in any single case, and you do much towards I t may seem severing it in the other cases also.

an easy m atter to a Parliam entary legislator of the short experience of Sir John C ray to effect by the sudden wrench of a vindictive Act of Parlia­ ment the dissolution of a union cemented by the steady growth of centuries.
He may talk in preten­ tious language of the determination of those whose organ he for the time is— vice poor Mr. Dillwyn, who after much hard and ill-requited work in the cause has been most unceremoniously ordered to the rear— “ never to let the question rest until Church ascendancy is abolished, and until perfect religious equality is established in Ire la n d ;” but older, and wiser, and more experienced men will tell him, (even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, now for a time so popular with the A nti-Irish-Church party, for his supposed sympathy with their views,) th at however SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH 67 easy it may be to prove to those who wish to believe it, in an elaborately prepared and carefully digested speech, by one who has learnt the art of agitation under the wing of his great master, O’Connell, and, ore rotundo, declares after the manner of th at great demagogue, th a t “ the Irish Church is the root of all the evils of that country,” that “ we no sooner come to look upon this question practically, than we light upon a whole nest of problems of the utmost political difficulty6,” and th at in attempting to spoliate the Irish Church, Liberal ministry after Liberal ministry has been expelled from office, and should they attem pt a similar policy would be again ; that to effect such a step nothing less than a revolu­ tion would be required ; that it involves a modifica­ tion of the Acts of Union, a revision of all the statutable relations between the two branches of the United Church, a
 transformation of many social and educational institutions, intimately interwoven with the daily life of the community ; that its effects are not those which appear on the surface, but enter into the minutiæ of a nation’s religion; and that when considered in all its aspects, a political change of wider influence could scarcely be imagined ; that to approach the consideration of it in a legislative point of view, requires consummate statesmanship, intim ate acquaintance with the subject in all its many bearings and varied details, a wise moderation, and a large experience ; and that with all these qualities combined, the subject is after all a most difficult and delicate one ; and that whilst with com­ parative ease, if a real inclination to do so existed, the removal of the few remaining anomalies which c Speech of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, March, 1805.
6 8 REMARKS ON SIR JOHN GRAY’S SPEECH injure the efficiency of the Irish Church could be effected, “ nothing short of a convulsion tear­ ing up both Establishm ents by the roots, could accomplish its overthrow 7.” Mr. Justice Shee, “ The Irish Church, its H istory and Statistics,” 2nd edition, p. 24.

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