The Sun.
London, England, 1831-09-02 00:00:00

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of Chatieery ii CilAi', of charitable bequeete; at-
cot dine to which, that tribunal, if it holds the tes•
tator's intention unfit to be executed, carries the
bequest into effect by doing what it presumes to
come next in his wishes, though sometimes very fat
from them. It might be difficult, indeed, to prove
that a Norman Baron, who, not quite easy about his
future prospects, took comfort in his last hours from
the an icipation of daily masses for his soul, would
have been better satisfied," Mr. Shell referred Mr.
Stanley to the pamphlet of Mr. S nior. What M .
Senior said on time subject is this —" Vertlowments,
it must be remembered, are for the benefit not of
the Clergy, but of the people. To maintain tiue
they ought to be supported after they have ceased
to be useful, is to maintain that car ancestors had
the power to decide how the property of their re-
tnotest successors should be administered; it is to
maintain that the successive generatiene of mankind
have not a successive right to the enjoyment of the
:roil; it is to maintain, in short, that the land be-)
longs not to the living, but to the dead. , . . .
.. It limy, perhaps, be worth remarking., thee the pre-
.. ee - ',cut state of things, though it s'voulti not be
• rime natural or more just, 'if our ancestors had
designed it, was not in fret designed by them
They never meant the Clergy to be of (toe religion
and the people of another. The proportion of Pro-
testants to Roman Catholics has much diminished
since they appropriated to the Protestant Church the
Catholic endowments; and there is reason to bt. lieve
that it has diminished principally mn consequence of
that appropriation ; but they fully expected the re-
verse. The effects of intolerance had not thee been
Found out. They believed, and they had what ap•
. reared to be the testimony of expeelence in their
favour, that by changing the religious establishments
a Government could change the religion of its
people, and that the short way to convect the Irish
Catholics was to appoint Protestant :Nlinisters and
Bishops, and make over to them the tithe.; and
church lands. We cannot plead their authority for
maintaining a state of things of which they never
contemplated the existence." nr. Senior would
pay the priesthood of both Churches out of the en-
dowments now monopelieed by one, and he asks—
" 'Who believes that in the present state of feeling
:f1 Ireland or England, the spectacle et an endow-
ment without a people, and a people without an en-
dowment, will be tolerated much longer ? The
time has passed when things can be defended, not
because they ought to exist, but because they do
exist." Mr. Stanley speaks in the conventional
jargon of the Aristocracy, when he says that the
Church has the same right to its property that indi-
viduals have to their estates. The Aristocracy ar
Interested in disseminating this jargete because the
estates of the Church are, in a great measure, their
estates. The question with theta is not what woule
benefit religion, or what would keep time country,
quiet, but how shall we continue to possess the
lands and tithes of the Church ? The very defects of
the Church, considered with reference to it•
object, are what endear it to them, Now and
then will come some sham scheme of preventing
pluralities, by preventing the holding livings more
than thirty-five miles distant; but the beauty of the
Church is its sinecures and enormous livings. Against
all attempts to reform the Church in such a way as to
render it more in accordance with its object—the in-
struction of the people—time aristocracy will fight
to the last. They will contend for the sacredness
of Church property, because they have thetnselve-
nearly all of it. Ail these mystificutions, however,
will not avail; the people understand the question,
and will not suffer themselves to be driven front
their point. When Mr. Stanley states the income
(al Derry at 12,0001. a year, he merely states, that
rbrough a system of abuse the Bishops of Derr
have joined with them a number of individuals ie
the proprietorship of the Church estates. The fol-
lowing extract from the Dublin Evening Post of
August 25, will show what the income of Derry
might be :
" An obstacle of a very formidable nature on the part
of the Bishops, against the appropriation of part of the
revenues of the diocese of Derry to the relief of the poorer
Clergy, lis the most natural thing in nature. Why, the
;ands belonging to the Ordinary of Derry, if sold by public
rant, at the Chambers of Master Henn, at the Inns-quay
Dublin, like other esta'es disposed of under a decree of the
High Court of Chancery. would fetch, upon the authority
of a very competent witness, Mr. Wakefield, a round
sum, which would produce a revenue of 200,000/. a year.
We never can heat, into the heads of our English contem-
poraries, that it is not the actual revenues alone of th,
Bishops that should be taken into calculation, when we
ore talking of Church property in Ireland, but the bene-
licial interests which other persons derive under the
Bishops. The Primate, it is true, may have only 30,0001.
a year from the See of Armagh ; but we will venture to
sey, that if the public resumed possession of these lands,
and sold them for the benefit of the poor Clergy, they
would he sufficient to supply 100/. a year additional to
every Curate in Ireland. The Times says it would be
goad for the Church if she perceived the necessity of a
timely reformation. 'the Times talcs of the Church as an
individual. governed, as individuals generally are, with a
view to their own interests. But the Church is a huge Cor
poration, having twenty or thirty tolerably sized Corpora-
lions, called Riskoprics in her belly, and a multitude of mi-
muter Corporations, known technically and legally by the
',tame of Parsons (every Parson being by law ecclesiastical, a
Cneparation in himself—that is to say, a usufructuary.)
The Church, therefore, cannot he supposed to be influenced
as an individual; and, as to a distinct body politic, it can
lay no claim to the title, since its voice was stopped in
Convocation. In short, the Church of England in Ire-
;and, as well as the Anglican Church in its native home,
is the only Christian community which has no voice as a
body—which never meets in Synod or in any other way,
to consult for its interests, spiritual or temparal—which,
as a Church, in this regard, is a cupid tnortuuni, cont•
pared to the Calvinists, Methodists, Quakers, Moravians,
Baptists, Socinians (not to speak of the Catholics), all of
which have their Conferences, their Meetings, and their
Councils. The Church of England has no Council. It is
useless, therefore, to address that Church in the language
of reason or remonstrance, as to its own interests, fur it has
no general organ. It cannot deliberate—it cannot decide.
The consequence of this is, that except in so far as per•
sonal or peculiar interests are concerned, it has no esprit
dri corps. It is—or, rather, the people who enj y them
are—very nervous on the subject of their temporalities.
But a Church of England Parson may enjoy, and even
teach almost any opinion be pleases. lie may he a
sort of bastard Calvinist, with that tenting fellow Irving
—be may he an Unitarian with the eloquent M, ntgomery.
en an Arminian with John Wesley. In short, it is im-
possible to say what the doctrines of the Church of
England really are. Now this very absence of consociality
in opinion, arising, no doubt, from ' the liberty of prophe-
sying,' which is the birth-right of every Protestant, and
uncontrouled and unregulated by a deliberative body,
renders the Church of -England more indifferent to all
spiritual interests, and intent only on the personal Virres,
as Captain Dalgetty calls them. To these they will stick
as long as they can, ' each for himself and God for them
all.' Hence the folly of speaking to their sense or un-
derstanding. You cannot convince the Man of Clogher
that he ought to give away 6,0001. a year, the half of
him income, to the poor Curates of his diocese. He says,
it is his, and he will keep it as long as he can, and he
hopes as long as he lives. Now we must say that it is
very natural upon the part of his Right Reverence, who
Las a large family and splendid establishment to support.
As to yielding, therefore, it is out of the question—if
there be a Reform, it must be exacted by a due course of
law and legislation."
The estates of the Bishops of Ireland exceed a
million of English acres. They are under leases for
twenty-one years, annually renewed on payment of
fines from a fifth to a seventh of the improved rent.
Though Bishops occasionally run their lives against
the lives of their tenants, there is no disguising the
fact, that Church lands under lease are viewed in a
different light from other lands wider lease. Were
a young Bishop, with the prospect of a long life, to
run it against all his tenants, in the hope of making
a number of estates to his children arid kindred, we
have no doubt that he would be removed out of this
troublesome world by the tenants, as an oppressor.
Mr. Senior proposes a compromise. " Arrange-
ments (he thinks) might easily be made with the
eteoants for the surrender of their terms in a certain
'deuce
of the land, on the fee-simple in the red.
'Aence being re-leased to them:)—
Morning,Chronicle.
. A very important alteration
in the twenty-third
'clause of the Ref6ffiti3ill was announced last night
by Lord Althory, whom we are glad to tied again
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