The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-27 00:00:00

IRISH CHURCH MISSIONS.

(From the Irish Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.)
DUBLIN, Jan. 25.

The Society for Church Missions in Ireland has met with
a damaging exposure. The Rev. George Webster, rector of
St. Nicholas, Cork, and chancellor of the diocese, in a lec-
ture which he delivered in his church, eharged the society
with "bribing its supposed converts." A correspondence
ensued between him and the Rev. H. C. Eade, the secretary
of the society, which throws much light on the way converts
are made in Ireland. " The terrible fact," says Mr. Webster,
addressing Mr. Eade, " with which you have to grapple is,
that under your society a Roman Catholic child receives
his bed and breakfast—he is housed and clothed—on the
express condition that he listens to Protestant teaching,
and attends a Protestant place of worship." Mr. Eade's
reply is worthy of Jacobar or Sanchez, or any casuist of the
Sorbonne : "The attraction lies in the teaching, and not
in the food"--a remark which every one acquainted with
the comparative affection which children manifest for their
catechism and their breakfast will appreciate. lle also
admits that in some cases the children " believed at first
they were doing wrong"—ln other words, the heresy was
swallowed with the viands provided, and the integrity of
the child was destroyed in the effort to save its soul through
its stomach. Mr. Webster observes upon this that it is
wholly unworthy of Protestantism to make the poverty of
the Roman Catholics an occasion for outbidding or over-
reaching the heads of the Roman Catholic Church—and
therefore "as long as you tempt Roman Catholics, by a re-
gular fixed system of relief, to prefer the interests of this
world to the interests of the world to coma, so long must I
feel myself bound to make every protest in illy power against
the Irish Church Mission Society." He then notices the
speech of the Bishop of Oxford, and expresses his sor-
row to find that his lordship was misinformed.
He would see cause to change his mind if he
was acquainted with the facts which ho Mr. Webster,
and many other clergymen could have furnished.
He was deeply grieved to see that many other Englishman
had fallen into the same mistake, and had taken up the
notion that the Irish Church Mission is really doing a good
work in Ireland. His only comfort was, that so much of
the machinery of this society is worked by Enghohmeu,
that when in a few years they discover the mischief they
I have done, and the very imperfect grounds upon which they
continue to believe they were working with success, they
will not have to charge the Irish clergy with being the
cause of their mistake. Mr. Webster then proceeds to make
the following startling diecourses :—" If it were necessary,
I could give instances where the ordained agents of the
Irish Church missions paid Protestants to pretend they
were Roman Catholics at your controversial meetings, and
at these meetings to call those very ordained agents the
hardest names. I could tell you of a school of which it was
reported that there were eighty Roman Catholics in attend-
ance, when the fact was, not a single Roman Catholic
ever entered the place, except some five or six
wretched children who were sent from Dublin by the Irish
Church Mission Society. I could tell you of a scene I once
witnessed at the same establishment, where on it Sunday
teeming large quantities of ;geed wore givet), to Itoman

PRICE ...... ...4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

Catholics for learning a verse of Holy Sci ipture, and where
these same people went away cursing the Protestants, and
cursing the very persons who gave them bread and taught
them the verse. I could tell you of agents who were known
to be charged with drunkenness and other vices, who entered
in their report that they were persecuted when they merely
got into broils in their drunkenness, and who were, in spite
of the remonstrances of the parish clergyman, retained in
their offices. I could tell you of a report made by one
ordained agent that he had made fourteen convicts from
Romanism in a certain locality, and who had to acknow-
ledge, when I inquired closely into the matter, that these
fourteen persons did not belong at all to that locality;
that they had been brought there by this agent himself
from distant places, and lodged in a school-house, and then
represented as converts from the locality, where they had
been supported for a few weeks. These and many other
facts I could repeat; and there are multitudes of clergymen
in Ireland who are able to bear similar testimony from their
own experience. But I should prefer to confine our present
controversy to the one grand objection—the charge of what I
must call bribery ; which I define to be the giving of any
temporary relief to our fellow-creature for the purpose of
tempting him to do what his conscience condemns." Mr.
Webster then proceeds to observe that multitudes of the
supporters of the society in England would never, ho was
quite sure, give their money for the purpose of bribery ; and
that it may be for this reason the society is so careful to
inform the English people that all the money collected in
England is devoted to the " missionary" part of the
work. "Be this as it may," he adds, "it is a remarkable
fact that the society loses no opportunity of declaring
that ' not one shilling of the money collected in England
is devoted to the purchase of food or clothes;' but nearly
all the money collected in Ireland is devoted to this purpose;"
and he concludes by truly observing, "In the long run I
believe it will be discovered that the Irish Church Mission
Society has done irreparable mischief to the Church in Ire-
land." These are bold and sweeping statements, certainly;
and coming from such a respectable and well-informed quar-
ter, will have immense weight if they cannot be clearly and
unquestionably refuted—which I doubt. The Chancellor of
Cork is not a man to make such charges lightly, and his
exposures must, in any case, do a large amount of good.