The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

i• The Times asserted on Saturday that the House abso-
lately "shrieked" with laughter, when Lord Morpeth, in
the course of his masterly exposition of the new Tithe Bill,
mentioned the sum of five pounds as the addition which
would be made to the stipend of a clergyman of the Esta-
blishment, who would have to step over the border of his
own benefice to administer spiritual consolation to a mem-
ber of his Church destitute of any other pastoral assistance.
The assertion was perfectly true, except that all the enjoy-
ment derivable from that very elegant exertion of the- vocal
powers, was limited to the " sections" of the moderate
Tories, led by Sir Robert Peel, and to the ultras under the
command of Sir Henry Harding°. Five Pounds per an-
num is, no doubt, disproportioned, beyond all reasonable
calculation, as ccmpensation for the spiritual cure of a
single individual. In that point of view it is ludicrous
in the highest degree : for if we a were to pay a
similar sum for the spiritual cure of six millions and a half
of Catholics, for instance, the national treasury would be
charged with an addition to its present annual expenditure
of about thirty millions and a half sterling, which we very
much-suspect John 8011 would be but little disposed to
pay. We believe that in France twenty-five millions of
people are spiritually taken care of at the moderate rate
of about half a farthing of our money per head ; that in
Spain, Italy, and Austria, the charge is about one half--
penny per head, and that in all other parts of the Conti-
nent the charge is less than it is even in France, for the
religious superintendence of each individual composing their
general population. No doubt, therefore, the payment of
such a sum as five pounds for the spiritual cure of the
otherwise deserted Protestant in Ireland, is enor-
mous beyond all example. It is not to be reasoned
against. It is a fit subject for caricature for
laughter for the load burst— the wild shriek, if
you will ;- foil', in this case, if ever the adage were
correct, it is most unquestionable, that " ridicule
is the test of truth." Now we should like very much to
know at which angle of the.oral aperture that smile would
begin with which Sir Henry and his militant companions
would receive the declaration, if such a declaration had
been made by Lord Morpeth, that five pounds sterling
happen, by a very remarkable coincidence, to be the exact
sum which eight millions of people in Ireland pay for each
of that favoured class of their community who choose to
attend the services of the Established Church? Would
they laugh at such a piece of intelligence ? Would they
shriek at it ? We apprehend they would dance the Der-
vish step, so intolerable would be the sense of their incre-
dulity. Now as these gentlemen are of a mirthful race,
and we really desire to afford them some little amusement,
in return for the broadsides which we are sometimes obliged
to-pour upon their ranks, we shall proceed to demonstrate
the truth of the proposition which we have just hypothe-
tically announced. _ " Demonstration" here is a mathematical
term, and therefore we must proceed step by step in
the process. If the Shriekers will turn to pages 134, 135
(a) in the Report of the Instruction_ Commissioners, they
will find that the members of the Established Church re-
siding within the parish of Clenfecle, in the diocese and
province of Armagh—the diocese, too, of an Archbishop—
are stated" to be 1;740 ; that they have one Church ; that
in the summer time they have service twice on the Sunday,
and that the average attendance at both the services througfi-
out the year is 200—not 260, be it observed, at each ser-
vice separately, but at both combined. It may be pleaded
in excuse, that there are peculiar circumstances connected
with that parish, such as that, in !het, it is only a part of a
more ancient parochial division, and that the ecclesiastical
edifice is not. well situated for the district to which it is now
appropriated. We admit the plea, and pass on to pages
144, 143 (a), where we find the members of the Established
Church in part of Erriglekeero,gue, same diocese, enume-
rated at 1,039. They have one church, and one ser-
vice on all Sundays and holidays, and the average at-
tendance is 130. It may be said that Erriglekeerogue
is only a part of a parish, and that perhaps it might be in-
convenleat to some of that most religious, most favoured
gentry, to go a quarter of a mile to hear service in a hand-
some building. We shall admit these pleas, though we can.-
not avoid remarking, as an accidental circumstance, the
strange contrast-exhibited by the unestablished religionists
of the sane parish—the Catholics, Tor instance, who are
set down at 3,736 persons in all, of whom the averane at-
tendance at their own services is stated at 2,334. Of this
latter number, 600 hear mass on every Sunday and festival
at Altnamuskan—" an altar in the open air !!" What
Al the Shrickers say to that ? The Catholic people of
that district have for centuries paid the tenth part of their
miserable lot of oats and flax and potatoes, in money, to
the " established" incumbent of the parish. They are com-
pelled to sustain, for the convenience of 130 persons, out of
a population consisting in the whole of 7,097 individuals,
a resident rector and a well-built church ; and yet of
that seven thousand there are, if we may judge from
the average, at least twelve hundred individuals so
utterly destitute of ecclesiastical proteetioa from the State,
that if they go forth upon the Sabbath to put up their
prayers in common to the God of all Nature, they have no
cushion to kneel upon but the bare rock, no pew but the
fissure in that rock, no temple but the mountain, no roof
to shield them from the inclemency of the weather but the
sky ! What say the &Tickers to that ? It may, however,
he pleaded by way of apology for this most religious,. most
civilized nation under the sun, that those houseless wor-
shippers of the Deity are only Catholics, mere Irish ; we
admit the plea. It is strictly conformable to law, to pre-
cedent, to practice, to every thing that can make the plea
irresistible in this land of- toleration and freedom, and we
pass on to the next page. Let us look at the parish of
Kildress, still in the diocese of the Archbishop—nay, of the.
Primate of all Ireland. Here is a parish especially well taken
care of—it has a churcla'a rector, and a curate, both of whom
are resident in a comfortable glebe-house, with the usual
pleasant appendages of gardens and farms. These two gentle-
men cannot, however, afford time to perform on Sundays
and festivals more than one service, which service is usually
attended by 120 persons in summer, and by 76 in winter,
out of an established population of 1,338 persons! What
will the Shrickers say to that? Killishal, in the same dio-
cese, has 458 of the fortunate " established," a Church of
course, a glebe-house, a rector, and a curate, -both resi-
dent, one service, and just sixty auditors of their sermons,
and examples of the zeal with which they execute their du-
ties. Killyman, its neighbour, has the advantage of a re-
sident rector and curate, a glebe-house, a Church, and ono
service, 3,499 persons, of whom 400 on the average attend
on the Sundays. Loughall (p. 130 a), has the peculiar
happiness of being the abode of a rector and two curates,
of - 2,933 established—three hundred attend Church.
We apprehend that—from these data,—which we
have taken at random from the Report, and from others
which we shall take care to produce from the same autho-
rity to-morrow, we shall be entitled to draw this conclusion
—that for every thousand of the Irish people " established
by law" in their religion, less than due hundred usually
attend their service. We believe it will be found, on a
careful examination of the Report, that of the 800,000 of
the " Established" throughout Ireland, about. 100,000, on
the average, grace the Churches by their presence on Sun-
days and Festivals ; and as the total revenue of the Estab-
lishment may be taken to be about 500,0001., it follows
that for each individual who goes to a particular Church in
Ireland the country actually pays the sum of five pounds
sterling ! wherefore, the demonstration is evident. Now,
what will the shriekers say to that ? We promise them
abundance of this sort of (mum:mt.—Morning Chronicle .
As Lord John Russell announced on Friday night that
the Bill relative to the Established Church in Ireland will
not be read a Second time till the Municipal Corporations
Bill shall have been disposed of—we suppose we may take
it for granted that the Bill is not quite prepared. If this
be so, the few observations we think it necessarth to make
now may possibly save cur Ministers from writing them-
selves down as of the character and capacity of which-Lord
Morpeth has declared them to be. The most glaring mis-
take in the Bill (supposing such a measure to be worthy of
serious treatment) is to be found in the principle upon
which it professes to proceed with regard to its spiritual
schedule A. In this schedule are to be put all parishes
which did not, according to the census of 1831, contain
more than fifty Protestants. The reason of fixing upon
the census of 1831 as the guide was rather darkly sha-
dowed out by Lord Morpeth. He said that it had been
hinted that there might be danger in proceeding upon a nu-
merical standard. In the House of Commons, we believe,
Lord Stanley was the first to make this suggestion, and, if
our recollection fail us not, Mr. O'Connell admitted the
suggestion to be well worthy of consideration. In neither
case, however, was the nature of the danger clearly ex-
plained. But this is no time for mincing matters. The
meaning was, that if a numerical scale be adopted, tl e
Protestants will stand the best possible chance- of being
murdered, until their numbers are reduced below the point
at which legislative reformation is to begin. The " tail"
may wince, as in the House they have winced, at hints of
the fact ; but it must be told, and plesin& told. We are
well aware of the old trick by which it is sought to evade
this admitted danger. It is said—" Oh, you cast a refl:e.
tion on the whole body of Catholics—you suppose it to bo
a tenet of the Catholic religion that they shall murder Pro-
testants." The persons who hold this language must le
, actuated by some base motive, because they cannot fill
to know that what they say is false. No Christian man
has ever said or insinuated anything of the kind : but
no man, whether infidel or believer--whether Protto tint
or Catholic—who has read the history of Ireland, will
doubt that the murder of a Protestant parson, and the
wanton atrocity of beating out Ids brains with stones
afterwards, has occurred not once, but often. Nor will
, any person, much less any number of persons, deny
that the respectable part of the Catholic community hold
such enormities in as utter abhorrence as the- PrOtess