The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-29 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 29, 1863.

Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE'S motion comes before the
house again this evening. 'Whatever result may
attend the present discussion, the ultimate issue of '
the Irish Church Question is one upon which we
can entertain no doubt whatsoever. "In the endless
list of public wrongs," said the Times of Saturday,
in its leading article, " there is none that surpasses
the Irish Church Establishment," an opinion in
which all who ponder over some of the " great '
facts" brought forward by Mr. OSBORNE in his ad-
mirable speech on Friday evening will very heartily
concur. Mr. BERNAL OsBoRNE, on that evening,
was in his happiest vein. For a gallant,
dashing onslaught upon the foe he is perhaps
unequalled at the present moment in the House
of Commons. The peculiar merits of his very cha-
racteristic eloquence are prominently displayed in
the discourse in question, but that discourse has
higher claims on the public attention. As art '
Irish landlord he speaks of the peculiar grievances
of the Irish people. As a member of the Church
Establishment he speaks of the especial wrongs com-
mitted by the establishment of that Church in Ire-
land. Among the numerous examples with which
the speech abounds, Mr. OSBORNE mentions the
ease of a friend of his own, who had been ap-
pointed, with an income of £5OO a year,
to a living containing five individuals I A
relation consoled the bewildered clergyman with
the suggestion that when he absented himself for
a holiday he could take his congregation along
with him ! Apart from the laughter which could
not fail to follow Mr. OSBORNE'S very amusing
mode of employing the reductio ad absurdum,
very serious reflections must be forced upon every
thinking mind that peruses a chronicle of so much
injustice—a chronicle of moneys " wrung from the
hard hands of peasants," from a proverbially im-
poverished race, to be lavished with a pro-
digal extravagance upon men who have no-
thing to do! "In Lisronagh, very near which
I myself reside," said Mr. OSBORNE, " the
living is £206, and one policeman attends the
Church!" It has been argued that if the Church
Revenues were equally divided they would only
allow £2OO a-year far each Minister, which is little
enough for an educated gentleman, but then very
properly adds Mr. OSBORNE, "If the gentleman
does not earn it he has no right to it." And how
can he earn it in a country where the people are of
a religion different to that which the Government im-
poses upon them. The discussion in the house will
bring many facts under pubiic consideration with
which the majority of the people of this country are
wholly unacquainted. The English people have a
keen appreciation of tyranny and injustice on the part ,
of Austria and Russia. They can feel a deep sympathy
with wrong and oppression in Italy and Poland, bat
nearer home they are disposed to be, for a time at
least,in
creetutous as to the possible existence of such
evile.
We say advisedly, for a time, for there is in
the heart
of •
Rearts of the British people an inherent
love of truth and justice which ultimately makes
itself felt. A. good.
cause will inevitably triumph.
We do not expect
very much apparent benefit
from the motion now before the house, but as we said
at the beginning of these
remarks, we entertain
whatever of the ultimate
not the slightest doubt
result of the Irish Church question.
Reform
will come to that, as it does to
every injustice.
That venerable abuse will give way,
-14 e so many
of its venerable predecessors. Again and again,
in these columns, as the readers of The Sun are
well aware, we have advocated, with untiring
confidence and consistency, many an apparently
hopeless cause, based upon truth and justice.
Again and again we have witnessed the tardy
but inevitable triumph of those principles, when
the forlorn hope has been swelled by the adhe-
sion of the entire army, and veherneat opponents
have come over to the winning side. It was so with
Reform in Parliament, with Catholic Emancipation,
with the Corn Laws, with a multitude of less im-
portant measures, and it will be so with the Irish
Caureh and with many other similar abuses. Re-
form wiil come. Ina country of professed religious
toleration, in a country where truth and justice are
dearer to men than their lives, in a country where
the press is a fourth estate, and the power of the
people a reality, it is quite impossible that any
scheme of legislation so unfair, so unreasonable,
ar du, unjust can be for a moment tolerated when
once its fail iniquity is recognised. For his