The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-19 00:00:00

The Irish Church Establshment—Facts or
Fiction ?

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,---The small book compiled by the Rev. A.
Lee in defence of the Irish Church Establishment,
and printed and circulated by the Church Institu-
tion, under the title of " Facts respecting the pre-
sent State of the Church in Ireland," will probably
form a kind of brief for Church advocates in Par-
liament. Part of it has appeared in the Times, in
Dr. Lee's reply to the letter of Mr. Aubrey de
Vere. As I believe that compilation contains very
erroneous views, unfit to be advertised as "Facts "
by one who, though an Englishman, writes in the
name of the Irish Clergy, I venture to offer a few
remarks upon the leading " statements" which Dr.
Lee advances :
I. The assertion that " the Established Church
is the old Catholic Church of Ireland," and that it
is " the same in doctrine, discipline, and govern-
ment as the church founded by St. Patrick," is not
believed to be true by Irishmen in general. The
greatest of modern Irishmen, Edmund Burke, did
not believe it, for he wrote, in his tracts on the
Popery Laws—" It is proper to recollect that this
religion (the Roman Catholic) which is so perse-
cuted in its members, is the old religion of the coun-
try, and the once-established religion of the State."
(Burke's works, vol. ix., p. 367). The English in-
vaders in 1172 did not introduce a new church into
Ireland, but cherished the old one which they found
there, and which, 20 years before, as is proved by
the Dells Synod, at which Cardinal Paparo assisted,
was in full communion with Rome.
11. The assertion of Dr. Lee that " The Estab-
lished Church is the rightful possessor of the tithes
of Ireland" is in one sense a truism, for the Angli-
can clergy do legally, at present, receive tithe rent-
charge ; but if it be implied that the Anglican clergy
were and are morally entitled to claim the tithes of
Ireland as their inalienable property, then the state-
ment is untrue ; for tithes are not to be regarded as
a benefit " to the actual holders of the endowments,"
as Archbishop Whately well remarks, but as a bene-
fit "to the community for.whose sake -tney were
botowed." And as " the eonintunity, for whose
sake" tithes were originally bestowed in Ireland,
was the whole Irish nation, and not any part of it,
it is not difficult to perceive the inference to which
Archbishop Whately's premises inevitably lead.
111. " The Church of England and the Church
of Ireland were," says Dr. Lee, " ecclesiastically one
before the Union." This is not a fact. The two
churches had separate Canons, and their unity, or
rather agreement, was merely, as one of those
Canons states, an agreement " in the profession of
the same Christian religion," and "in the confes-
sion, of the same Christian faith and the doctrine of
the sacraments." The Scotch and American Epis-
copal churches have the same agreement, but no
ecclesiastical unity.
IV. " The temporalities of the Church in Ire-
land," so far from being, as Dr. Lee states, "placed
on the same footing as those of the Church in
England by the Act of Union," are not so much
as mentioned in that act. Lord Plunket, in refe-
rence to that article of the act which concerns
the union of the churches, asks :—" Was there
anything in that article which identified the
temporal possessions of the Church of Ire-
land with those of the Church of England ? There
was nothing of the kind. The Irish tempo-
ralities were altogether distinct from those of
the Church -of England." Archbishop Whately,
also, when asked before the House of Lords in
1832—" Does not the tithe in England stand upon
a very different footing from that in Ireland ?" gave
an affirmative reply.
V. "The attack on the Church in Ireland" need
not be considered by Dr. Lee as " virtually an
attack on the Church in England also." That
attack is only made on the monopoly of temporal
endowments and the ascendancy at present enjoyed
by the Church of the minority. The existing
ecclesiastical settlement of Ireland could only
have been maintained by the armed power of
England. What did Archbishop Whately say
about coercion regarding religion-? " Christ him-
self (wrote Richard Whately in 182 G) has ex-
pressly renounced all secular authority and for-
bidden all coercion in the cause of His religion."
VI. " The Church in Ireland has," notwithstanding
Mr. Lee's assertion to the contrary, very consider-
ably. " lost ground since the census of 1834." The
members of the Established Church have, indeed,
obtained a relative numerical advantage to a small
extent over Roman Catholics, owing to the fact that
the severity—aL_thp_ chirpy---on
the poorer classes, the Roman Catholics. But the
United Church has lost ground to an enormous
extent as respects Protestant Dissenters ; for while
Anglicans have, since 1834, introduced themselves
into only five parishes wherein they had no footing
in that year, Presbyterians have introduced them-
selves into G 23 new parishes, and " other Protestant
Dissenters" into 526 parishes in which they had no
residence in 1834—(Census of Ireland, 1861, p. 36.)
VII. Dr. Lee, alarmed at the incontrovertible
fact that 199 parishes in Ireland had not a single
Anglican inhabitant in 1861, labours to point out
" the difference between a benefice and a parish
in Ireland," where unions are very common. But,
admitting that there is only one parochial clergy-
man without a single parishioners of his own faith,
the significant fact remains, that these 199 parishes,
most of which, if in England, would have a rector,
and each of which (except a few which are impro-
priate) pays for one, contain 98,017 Roman Catho-
lics, being an average to each parish of 492 indivi-
duals, which is far higher than the average Anglican
population of the benefices in Ireland.
VIII. Mr. Lee expresses an opinion (perhaps
intended to do duty as a " fact") that it is unfair
to speak of the gross population as less under the
care of the Established clergy in Ireland than in
England. It may be true that many of the Irish
clergy treat all their parishioners as under their
care, but the attitude of the flock towards the
legal shepherd differs widely in the two countries ;
for, in England, Dissenters occasionally use parish
churches, and accept the ministrations of parish
ministers, but in Ireland Roman Catholics never
do so. In fact Romanists cannot even enter an
Anglican church to join in the funeral service,
without incurring the risk of ecclesiastical censure
and punishment.
IX. As to the " necessity of maintaining the
parochial system" in Ireland "in all its integ-
rity," Archbishop Whately was of a very dif-
ferent opinion from Mr. Lee. In his " Notes on
Tithes in Ireland," the Archbishop mentioned a
plan (proposed by the Hon. Mr. Baring in 1835)
which would have entirely destroyed the paro-
chial system, for it recommended the vesting of
all church endowments in a Board of Commis-
sioners, who should have " the power (on the de-
mise of each incumbent) to re-distribute the re-
venues according to the wants of the congregations
in each district, instead of adhering to the mere ter-
ritorial divisions. This appeared to me (continued
his Grace) a most important improvement, consi
dering how unequally the Protestant population o
Ireland is distributed."

X. The " present revenues of the Church in Ire-
land" are, according to Mr. Lee, not sufficient to
remunerate the clergy for " the work they have
to do." He states, or rather understates, those
revenues in a somewhat uncandid manner. He
says they may be calculated " with some degree of
certainty" by aid of recent parliamentary returns,
that is, those of Captain. Stacpoole and Sir F.
Hey gate. Mr. Lee then quotes the net incomes
of bishops and clergy, as if those incomes made
up the revenue of the Church. It happens, how-
ever, that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, when
they estimated " the aggregate amount of the re-
venue of the Established Church (whether derived
from land, rent-charge, or any other source) at the
sum of £586,428 Bs. Id., omitted the sums which
they themselves receive out of the see estates for
church purposes. In calculuting the gross
revenue they also wholly omitted the value of
the see houses and glebe houses, and in valuing
the glebe lands they adopted a rate of valua-
tion lower in many instances than even the
poor law valuation, which is well known to be

HAYMARKET THEATRE.—Their Royal Highnesses
the Prince and Princess of Wales, accompanied by Prince
Hohenlohe,,and attended by the Hon. Mrs. Stoner and
Colonel Se el honoured the Haymarket Theatre will'
their presence on Saturday evening, to witness the Per:
formance of " The Overland Route," and "Box and Cox.'
THE PRINCE OF WALES'S HARRIERS.—The harriero
met on Tuesday last at General Wood's, at Littleton •
There was a very large field. Plenty of hares were found
on General Wood's farm, where they had some veil
pretty runs. A brace was found on Mr. Freeman's farm,
which afforded some good sport, considering the state of
the weather.
A resolution has been introduced into the United
States Congress to grant a pension to a Mr. A. Zegler, of
Illinois, who sent his seven sons to fight the battles of the
Union. We trust the pension will be granted.
Mrs. Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, reached
Atlanta on Feb. 17, and left on Sunday morning's train for,
Macon, whither she goes as the guest of General Howl
Cobb for a short time. She was accompanied by one child,
the other two being at this time in Canada. 'The
Intelligeneer states that she is in good health, though
much grieved at the painful confinement of heir husband.
General Scott (says the Pensacola Observer of
27th ult.) made a brief visit to the Pensacola Navy Yard on •
Tuesday last. We regret to learn that his feeble health
prevented his mingling with the people or receiving any
one aboard except the officials.
The widow of ex-President Tyler is before the
Supreme Court in Brooklyn, New York, endeavouring to
establish the will of her mother, Mrs. Gardner, which her
brother, David L. Gardner, is trying to set aside as
invalid. Most of the property was bequeathed to
Tyler.