The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-23 00:00:00

The Rev. GENTLEMAN acknowledged this toast in a
speech of considerable length. He said he had been in-
duced to become a Mason from a favourable opinion con-
ceived of the institution. He had not been deceived ; it
it was founded upon the purest principles of piety and vir-
tue ; and, as a relaxation from the more important duties
to which, as a Clergyman of the Church of England, he
he had been called, he could assure the brethren that the
more he learned of its principles the more he admired it.
Brother the Rev. P. BLAIR expressed his thanks for the
honour done him ; although he was not a member of a lodge
in England, he had lately been master of one in Ireland, which
numbered nearly five hundred members ; many of these
freemasons were amongst the poorest of that unfortunate
country, but he was proud to say that they understood
what genuine masonry was, for he could assure the bre-
thren he was then addressing, that during the time he be-
longed to that lodge, and it was not a short time, that amid
the most appalling poverty and distress, not one member
had been concerned in the many outrages and crimes that
have been perpetrated in Ireland.
" John Crossley, Esq., of Scaitcliffe, Past Provincial
Grand Master for the Eastern Division of Lancashire."
" The Past Grand Officers."
The SENIOR GRAND WARDEN, in a speech of great
elegance, then proposed " The Health of the Chairman ;"
the company answered the call by rising unanimously to do
honour to the toast, and it was accompanied with full ma-
sonic honours.
The DEPUTY PROVINCIAL GRAND MASTER thanked
the members most cordially for the kind manner in which
they had been pleased to notice him ; he congratulated
them on the numerous attendance 'this day, and on the una-
nimity which bad prevailed among them during the time
they had been engaged m transacting the necessary busi-
ness of the craft in the morning. He could assure them he
had not accepted the high appointment he held without
great consideration on his own part ; nor without the ear-
nest advice and solicitation of some of the oldest and. most
respectable freemasons in the county. Being himself a ma-
son many years, he trusted his brethren would not accuse
him of arrogance if he presumed to know something of its
duties. The present, however, was neither the time nor place
to speak of those duties ; it might suffice if he urged them
when they returned to their several lodges, to put in prac-
tice those excellent rules and regulations of the Royal craft
which they knew so well how to do. They might rely upon
his endeavours to promote the best interests of the Society,
and his opinion was, that by a very frequent recurrence to
the constitutions of the fraternity, the Society would conti-
nue to flourish by its increasing utility.
" The Provincial Grand Secretary, Brother Threlfall,
and the rest of the Provincial Grand Officers."
• Brother THRELFALL returned thanks for the honour done

him, and in a neat speech, chiefly relating to the duties of
his office, took occasion to notice the charity fund about to
be established for the relief of poor and distressed masons ;
he paid a high compliment to the Chairman for the able
manner in which he had introduced and supported this great
measure of benevolence.
" The Provincial Grand Stewards, and thanks to them
for their valuable services."
Brother GREENHOW returned thanks in a very able and
energetic speech.
" The Boroughreeves and Constables of Manchester and
Salford, and our best thanks to them and their predecessors,
for their kindness to our Society on all occasions."
The members retired about eleven o'clock.

THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION.

( From the Morning Chronicle.)

[The Times having begun, with renewed virulence, its
Tory howlings about. the " spoliation" of Irish Church
property, comprised in the very moderate measure pro-
posed by the Government, it may not be amiss to revert
to the sentiments expressed by this precious journal, when
it was enlisted on the Liberal side. The following is an
example of its former lucubrations on the subject. It will
be observed, that its arguments went to destroy the Irish
Church Establishment altogether, as indefensible upon any
legitimate grounds, or at most to leave it with one.rixth of
its present revenues. Let the public reflect upon. this ex-
tract, and then judge of the degree of baseness that is con-
tained in the course which it is now pursuing.]
(From the Times.)
- - - - -

The point in dispute with regard to the Irish Church
question is pretty nearly this—whether the whole revenue
of the Irish Church shall, in its new form of a land tax, be
appropriated in perpetuum to the Protestant Established
clergy, administering to the spiritual wants of about one-
sixth of the gross population of Ireland ; or whether Par-
liament shall assert the right of determining the revenue to
be bestowed upon the clergy, according to the amount of
duty performed by them—that is, according to the portion
of the people who appertain to the communion of the Esta-
blished Church ? It were a fruitless task, at this time of
day, to argue such a question in detail. He who de-
nies the right of Parliament to deal with revenues so
circumstanced as with national property, must hold that
the temporalities of the Church were established exclusively
for the personal enjoyment of the clergy, that a Christian laity
constitutes no necessary member of a Christian Church, and
that a province, nay, a kingdom, which contains not a single
Protestant congregation, is bound, nevertheless, to throw
away for ever an enormous mass of property upon Pro-
testant ministers, who have no souls under their spiritual
guidance, or, in other words, who discharge no clerical func-
tions ; while the demands of charity, of moral education,
and of spiritual instruction for the great body of the people,
are left altogether unprovided for. But here we take leave
of a topic on which the country most deeply interested has
with one voice declared itself. Ireland—Episcopalean and
Protestant Dissenter, Catholic Ireland—these three form-
ing the entire nation—have resolved on a re-adjustment of
the whole system of Church property, and reduced the Le-
gislature to a single course. The very abstract argument
whereon the Church of England has ever been defended as
a national Church—namely, that of its embracing the ma-
jority of the nation—that argument, when applied to Ire-
land, cuts away the nationality of the Irish Church, and re-
probates the everlasting and total absorption of the only
fund which has at any time been appropriated to religious
ends and uses in that country, by a clergy administerzug to
one-sixth of the people, as utterly unjustifiable and revolt-
ing.—Times, May 279 1834.

A QUEER CUSTOMER.—On Monday evening last
a large ox, belonging to Mr. Bower, deliberately walked into
the shop of Mr. Lief, pawnbroker. The shopmen, being
very busy at the time, could not immediately attend to their
new customer ; he, therefore, walked forward into the next
room (viz., the sale room), where, after inspecting the
various articles of wearing apparel, guns, watches, jewellery,
&c., and not finding anything to suit him, he turned himself
round, upset the counter, tore down the shelves, broke the
table and chairs, put out the gas, and then walked back
again into the street in the same orderly manner as he had
entered, but withoUt leaving his address. Mr. Bower very
properly went to ascertain the damage, and sent workmen
to repair it.—Sheffeld Mercury.
•