The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-29 00:00:00

instruction is polluted, the morals of the people deterio-
rated, the nation agitated, and your Majesty's empire in
danger of being convulsed. The tithes have been the
price of blood in Ireland ; and it will be well with the
Clergy if they shall he able t, extricate themselves from
their present situation without some signal expression of
the Divine displeasure.
To the political effects of the system it is not
my province to call your Majesty's attention. The
enlightened men who n-w compose your Majesty's
Government must be sensible, how unreasonable and
foolish it were to expect trarquillity in Ireland, or in
any country enjoying a popular constitution, when public
property, to the amount of several millions per annum, is
monopolised by the Clergy of some twenty-fifth part of the
whole population.
The idea of paying the Priests is one of those paltry
expedients which have so long ruined the Churches of
Ireland, and is utterly impracticable in the present state of
religious parties in your Majesty's dominions. All your
Majesty's subjects who regard the authority of the word
of God must oppose a measure which makes no difference
btween the idle and the diligent, the faithful and the
ftlse, and which is so degrading to the clerical chai acre"
that it uniformly ends in binding a worthless and ineffi-
cient Clergy upon the necks of the people. The Roman
Catholic Clergy also are too careful of their influence to
degra le themselves in the opinion of the people, by becom-
ing political int rcenaries and stipendiaries of state; and
even though they were thus b night over, the matter were
fir from being settled. when a number of your Majesty's
faithful Protestant subjects are prep-lull at the expense of
their lives, were it necessary, to uphold the authority of
God, and deliver the Christian Church from the oppression
of a hireling Clergy, who have too long " through
covetousness, with feigned words, made merchandise" of
the souls and bodies of your Majesty's unhappy people of
Ireland.

There is no alternative which the Legislature can safely
adopt but to restore the ordinance of God. Let the whek
of the temporalities, as the sees shall be vacated by death,
be transferred to your Majesty's Exchequer—the proceeds
employed to dimixish the national burdens. and thus vir-
tually put into the pockets of the people ; and then, accord-
ing to the law of God, let all parties be allowed to pay
their Clergy in the manner they find convenient. As a
provision for the much-oppressed poor of this country is
navy indispensable, and as part of the tithes was originally
intended for that purpose, the whole of them, under the
Composition Act, should immediately be converted into a
poor rate, and the present Incumbents paid an equivalant
from the Exchequer; and thus, by a most popular mea-
sure, your Majesty's Government would remove a most
fruitful source of discontent, and, without disturbing the
vested rights of the Clergy, settle the question of the
temporalities for ever. . _

The numerous and immense advantages resulting from
this measure to the Church and the nation, must be ap-
parent to your Majesty's Government. The Church
would not be, overthrown hut established, and the patro-
nage only transferred from your Majesty's Chancellor
to the pimple, whose personal interest and local know-
ledge render them the on!y persons cap tole of exercising
it, and whose liberality never fails to a faithful and dili-
gent Clergy. The source of the abuses in the Church
would then be removed, and the way cleared for the gene-
ral union of all sound Protestant Dissenters ; and the
faithful Clergy of all denominations, no longer corrupted by
political ambition on the one hand, or degraded by infe-
riority on the other, could unite, on fair and honourable
terms, in a great and generous effort, for the religious in-
struction of all classes of the people, till ignorance and
crime, infidelity and sedition, should be banished from the
land, and ," truth meet with mercy and righteousness, and
peace kiss each other," in every district of your Majesty's
extensive empire.
Happily at the present moment, a number of circum-
stances favour the change, and all classes of your Majesty's
subjects are prepared to support this great nrtional me ,sure.
The working Protestant clergy, who are honestly la-
lyiuring for the salvation of the piople, are " ready" to
use the language of one sf those faithful men, " to sup-
port any thing which can be proved right from the word
of God." Oppressed in common with the people, and
while they faithfully discharge their duty, with little
chance of preferment, they have the mortification to find
their influence destrmed and their usefulness limited, by
the odium attached to these accursed tithes of wliiiih they
receive so scanty a portion ; and any change would at once
raise their reputation in the public estimation, and better
their temporal condition. A working curate, for instance,
who receives 751. a year, e-bile his non resident rector
exacts, perhaps, a thousand from the parish, would him-
self become the rector with a greatly increased salary.

„ .
Your Majesty's Protestant subjects also, members of the
Established Church, are now becoming sensible that the
s;,iritual efficiency of the Church lik,s been too long sacri-
ficed to the political ascendancy of their party; and now
that the political privileges of al parties are equal, they
are aware that to maintain the present system were to yield
themselves the prey of a number of selfish Clergy, who,
without Framoting their spiritual welfare, expose them to
the contempt of their fell,,w-subjects ; but having no ob-
ject hut the establishment of the truth, they are confident
that, with an active Clergy and a Church delivered from
abuses, they would speedily acquire that a,cehdancy, or
r..ther a far nohler ascendancy than that which all the
power of the British Government has failed to obtain for
them.

Your Majesty's Pre,byterian subjects of the north, too,
are beginning to feel ashamed of havin4 suff,:ed their
Clergy to be paid by the regium donum, which is consi-
dered by others a bribe for their silence, and as investing
them with the character of politic:a mercenaries, while
by honestly maintaining the truth of God, they would re-
ceive a much larger sum as their due share of the public
property, deliver their country from a flagrant grievance,
remove the principal barrier which divides the two great
bodies of Protestants, and vindicating their character as
honest men, be enabled much more effectively to extend
the influence of truth among the population of Ireland.
In short, were your Majesty's Government to restore
the divine law respecting the provision for the Clergy, all
the goo,i and enlighten, d men of the E.tablit,hed Church—
the whole body of the Dissenters of England—all the Ro-
man Catholics and Presbyterians of Ireland—the people
of Scotland to a man—all, indeed, who fear God and love
their country, would rally round your Majesty's throne in
support of the measure.
' -

Should your Majesty's Government, however, unhappily
determine otherwise, and resolve to maintain the present
system of the temporalities with all its cunsequ,nt cor-
ruptions, your Majesty's throne, I am in duty bound to de-
clare, would then be placed in direct opposition to that of
the Divine Redeemer ; and all your Majesty's faithful sub-
jocts, who regard the threatenings and predictions sf
Revelation, watch the events which are taking pla..e On
the continent, or observe on the principles of cause and
effect the curi eat of public opinion in this country, feel
reason to apprehend a result which, as your Majesty's
dutiful and affectionate subjects, they would unfeignedly
deplore, and labour by alt means to avert. 1 fervently
pray God that your Majesty and your Majesty's Govern-
ment may be endowed with wisdom and strength from on
high to devise and execute those decided measures which
the condition of this part of your Majesty's empire so
urgently demands.
But whatever be the issue of the present deeply-inte-
resting state of public feelitu, as it is by the faithful drcia-
ration of his word that the Divine Redeemer conducts thel
administration ot his kingdom, and prepares nations for
judgment or for mercy, I feel it my duty, as the humblest
Minister of the Protestant Church, to lotlg,:; my protest in
support of the scriptural principle of the provision
for the Clergy, in opposition to the oppressive and iniqui •
tons system now by law established : and should such a
case as that of the unhappy Going again occur, or blood
be otherwise shed in Ireland—which may God in
mercy avert—in the presence of your Majesty and the
whole nation I sidemnly declare, that it lays an the heads
of those Clergy who shall support the present unscriptural
system, and thereby bring reproach upon the Gospel of
Salvation, and betray the truth, with which, as professed
Ministers of Christ, they have heed entrusted.
I earnestly pray God that your must gracious Majesty
may long reign over a free, an enlightened, and Christian
people, while I have the happiness to remain,
Your Majesty's ni,ost dutiful and loyal subject,
T. TULLY CRYIIBACE
Limerick, Jan. 10, 1831.

BONAPARTE'S well known sneer at us as a
6' nation of shopligepere would be but too well founded, if
it be true, as is currently reported, that a number of per-
sons of high rank are about to embark in a coach-making
establishment.

STAFFORDSHIRE INCENDIARIES.—"The
five men apprehended at Swindon, on the charge of setting
tire to the corn-ricks, were, it is said, sworn in special
constables on the morning of the day the fire subsequently
occurred!

DROMORE REFORM MEETING.—Reform is
going forward admirably in the North. Parishes and vil-
lages are preparing petitions. Dromore about to follow
the example set to it in other places, mid is to meet 011
Thursday to petition for Reform, Retrenchment, a Revi-
sion of the Grand Jury LawsTithes.—.Northern Whig. , and a modification of the