The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-01 00:00:00

IHE IRISH CHURCH.

(From the Times'.)
An old poet gives vent to a fervent wish that he
had been a singing bird, or even the twig on which
the bird perched, because in that case he would have
satisfied his duty and his religion in the simplest and
easiest manner, without a doubt or the chance of a
mistake. But one need not go quite so far in search
of the sweet elements of simplicity and confidence.
How easy and delightful it must be to be simply a
Protestant, and nothing else in the world, or simply
a good Catholic, simply an Orangeman, or even
simply a lawyer or a Bishop ! Astatesman must look
now and then with an envious eye on the happy
man who has nothing to do but perch on the wool-
sack, or on the still happier man who alter-
nates Te Deums for his own side with denunciatory
psalms for the other. It is so pleasant to move is
a groove and have everything made easy. You
have only to recognise your own folks, who, in
the main, will be of the same mind as yourself, and
to regard all the rest of the world, with all their
supposed interests and all their pretended rights, as
just so many outsiders, barbarians, shadows, or
whatever you please to fancy them. The Lord
Chancellor has embodied this natural aspiration iu
a most charming historical picture, which is enough
to make one grieve that one's lot is cast in this
dreary, muddled, dull, nineteenth century. What
would one not give to possess a castle, with a
I score or two stout young men from England or
Scotland, waging war with wild Irishmen, marry-
ing their pretty daughters, and incurring thereby
the censures of Government and the clergy !
If one could only regard a Papist as a
wild beast, as undoubtedly Papists have
done Protestants in their day, it would
save a world of perplexity, and enable one
to go to bed every night with a good conscience.
But it is hardly possible in these days of locomo-
tion, and fusion, and confusion. A man cannot even
read a debate—we defy any one to read the three
days' debate in the Leirds'—without finding him-
self shifting from one body into another, like a wan-
dering spirit, and compelled to feel sometimes as an
Englishman, sometimes as an Irishman, sometimes
as an established institution, sometimes as a pariah,
a squatter, or a tramp, without a right or a claim
except on the forbearance of the stronger. Of course,
we are all Great Britons now—at least, we are told
we are, and we ought to feel it, but it is evident
we have not yet come to it iu fact. As units of the
thirty millions inhabiting these hies, and forming
altogether the chief and governing community of
this great Empire, we are bound from time to tithe
to strike a balance which will represent the character
and policy of this Empire. But it is not every-
body that can strike a balance of this sort, or do
the sum in any fashion. Perhaps half-a-dozen men
have done it at Westminster during the last week,
but we fear that is the outside. The rest have saved
themselves headaches and heartaches by crediting
themselves with the right to put their feet on the
necks and their hands into the pockets of all who
do not absolutely and entirely agree with them.
The House of Lords is the refuge of these sweet
and simple instincts, for a Peer, be he lay or be he
cleric, stands for nobody but himself, and has no
occasion to divide himself into a general delegation
of the heterogeneous British constituency. A Peer
is a Peer, and nothing else, unless he wishes it.
his political theory may be simple. Foreigners--
,we have to beg pardon for alluding to the fact
that there are nations besides our own—a-sea to
say that the Englishman thought the world, and
Heaven too, made for himself. Lord Cairns has
; arrived at an even more comfortable conviction,
I and has now proved to the satisfaction of a most
respectable and enlightened jury that not only was
I England made for the Englishman, but that Ire-
land was thrown into the bargain, as a crowning
mercy. All the notions of right, of property, of
sacrelnes, of perpetual appropriation, were made
for him, and are as totally inapplicable to an Irish
Papist as to a cat or dog. An Irish Papist ought
to feel no grievance in the establishment of a sys-
tent which he thinks deally error, and which
thinks the same, or worse, of him, because he
is simply nobody, nothing at all. He has not
even the sorry satisfaction of counting six Irish
Papists to one English Protestant, for there is n)
comparison between them. The good Protestant,
on the contrary, may take his stand and claim
the homage of all creation. Everything must wait
his pleasure, bide his convenience, and serve his
turn, whatever happens to other people. Lord
Cairns describes this privilege as it bears on the
present case. The good Protestant may not suffer
any gap or suspense in his arrangements. He must
have his clergyman instanter--his bishop without a
second's delay. Both must be paid instantly in
full. Even for six months he must not be put off
with half a clergyman, or made to share with the
next parish, or forced to be content with a poor
creature ready to accept a temporary engagement.
If he has a child to be confirmed or a son to be or-
dained, he is not to be insulted with the services
of a " colonial," or any Episcopal volunteer. He
must have the right man, the right thing, in
the right place, and at the right time. He or
his great-grandfather bought the land on the full
understanding that a clergyman of his own sort
was to make his appearance as regularly as the
clock strikes 12, and he has a quarrel with the en-

tire human race if there is the least hitch in the

matter. Perhaps not half-a-dozen ever attended,
perhaps, as is too often the case, the chief land-
owner is the most uniform non-attendant; still, re-
ligion, like moral excellence, is apt to be desicl,Tateel
when lost sight of. But the smallest break is fatal
to the system. The proposition before the Lords
was, that the train—that is, the regular course of
Church patronage—should be just shunted into
a quiet siding and taken good care of till we had
decided what to do with it. But it was not to be
thought of. The smallest interruption or deviation
would be sure to smash up the Irish Church for
ever.

It is usual to charge the Irish with simpli-
city of belief, oneness of sentiment, and selfish-
ness of purpose. Au Irishman, it is supposed,
can only imagine the case of an Irishman or the
rights of an Irishman, and we have had a good
many extracts from the speeches and pamphlets of
Irish bishops and priests, and their English con-
verts running a race with them. Well, certainly
the Irishman, and the Irish Papist especially, is a
very one-sided being. But why is it always ne-
cessary to be one-sided in dealing with one-sided
folks ? The Bishop of Oxford outdoes the unfor-
tunate objects of his censure. Besides withholding
from them churches, parsonages, tithes, and glebes,
not to speak of seats in the Lords', he will not even
allow them the possession of St. Patrick. The
Apostle of Ireland, it seems, was a good Protestant,
if not himself, yet by inheritance from his father
and his grandfather, and, it is to be presumed,
like all Irishmen, a hater of England and in-
subordinate to all authority. But we don't
know much about a man who died fif-
teen hundred years ago, while the _Romans
were still masters of this island. Nor, if ever so
much were known about St. Patrick and his family,
could the private life of the saint's grandmother
become an important element in a question of pro-
perty this day. This is not a question to take one
back to the origin of history ; nor is it a question
of history at all. The Government of this country,
in common with all the Governments that are, that
have been, that ever will be, has ever held itself at
liberty to deal with matters of church establish-
ment and endowment with a view to the common
welfare. In so doing it has observed principles
and rules very different from those applied to
private property. Not only the bishops whG
may possibly know better, but the Lord Chan-
cellor, who certainly ought to know better,
assume, what is contrary to universal usage and
faCt, that the State is as restricted and fettered in
dealing with the one kind of property and rights as
the other ; in fact, that they are substantially ho-
mogeneous. Whether we look abroad or at home,
we find another rule established, consistently acted
upon, and receiving continual development. There
is no use in blinking the fact, even if we may not
like it and fear that worse may happen. It is vain,
then, to dive into the centuries, and to reproduce
a state of things that we know not, and could not
even understand, in quest of rights long since uni-