The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-24 00:00:00

TIIE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 24, 18G8.

IHE IRISH CHURCH REPORT.

It is unnecessary to discuss the recommendations
of the Irish Church Commissioners as if their adop-

tion were possible, inasmuch as they all proceed
upon the supposition that the Irish Church is to
be maintained; but the report may serve a useful
purpose in showing those who advocate the dis-
establishment of the Church precisely what it is

that they have got to do. The word " Church "
is one of those which introduces real obscurity

into all discussions by its apparent plainness. The
report just issued enables us to affix to it a per-
fectly definite meaning in relation to the disestab-
lishment and disendowment of the Irish Church.
First of all, it enables us to answer with pre-
cision the question—What is the Irish Church ?

The answer is, the Irish Church is a general name
for the aggregate of the following establishments :
two archbishoprics, ten bishoprics, thirty cor-

porations of deans and chapters, twelve minor cor-
porations or quasi-corporate bodies connected with
cathedrtls, thirty-two deaneries, thirty-three arch-
deaconries, and 1,500 incumbencies. There are,
moreover, 500 stipendiary curates. The annual

net revenues of these bodies amount in all to

£581,000, of which £364,000 arise from tithe-
rent charges, £204,000 from land, and the remain-
ing £13,000 from stock in the Funds, &c. Of this
amount nearly a fifth, or £113,000, belongs to the

Irish Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Besides this
the term " Irish Church " denotes the fact that a

certain proportion of the bishops have seats in the
House of Lords, and that there exist ecclesiastical
courts which are, in the full sense of the words,
courts of law having coercive jurisdiction upon
certain matters over all persons in Ireland, the

Roman Catholics and Presbyterians as well as the
Protestant Episcopalians. If the bishops were de-
prival of their seats in the House of Lords, if the
ecclesiastical courts were abolished, if all the cor-

porations, aggregate and sole, enumerated above,
were dissolved, and if the property now enjoyed

by them were applied to other purposes, the Irish
Church would be completely disestablished and
disendowed. It would have ceased to exist except
as a voluntary association for religious purposes.
The report of the Commissioners incidentally
throws great light upon the nature of such a pro-
cess:, and shows how it not only may be, but to a
very considerable extent actually has already been,
performed. A short clause in an Act of Parlia-
ment would put an end to the presence of the Irish
bishops in the House of Lords and to the coercive
jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, and with
regard to the various benefices the report of the
Commissioners furnishes abundant precedents as

........_____. _
to the manner in which both disendowment and
disestablishment may be effected. In this point of

view, the recommendations of the Commissioners,
made in the interest of the Church itself, are highly
interesting. They recommend, in the interests of
the Church, that, " with the exception of eight, all
the existing corporations of deans and chapters be
dissolved, and the deaneries and other dignities
connected with them suppressed." They recom-
mend a similar course with respect to all the minor
corporations or quasi-corporate bodies. They also
recommend that the twelve existing dioceses should
be reduced to eight by consolidating four of them
with the eight others. With regard to the incum-
bencies, they propose that the existing powers of
uniting and suspending parishes should be ex-
tended, and that the funds of the united and sus-
pended parishes should be paid over to the Ecclesi-
astical Commissioners, to be by them applied to
ecclesiastical purposes. In other words, the Com-
missioners themselves propose to disendow and dis-
establish utterly three-fourths of the chapters of
the Irish Church, one-third of the bishops' sees,
and an indefinite number of parishes. The diffe-
rence between this and a disendowment and a dis-
establishment of the whole Church is only a ques-
tion of degree and of the application of funds. It
may, of course, be said that the manner in which
the funds are to be applied makes the whole diffe-
rence. But this is not our point. We insist
merely on the fact that the proposals of the Com-
missioners show us how the work is to be done,
and what is its extent. With a precedent for the
disestablishment of four bishoprics out of twelve,
it will he no difficult matter to provide a goo 1
working meAsure, for the abolition of the other
eight, and for making provision for the protection
of existing interests. The report, indeed, shows
us how convenient for such a purpose the machinery
already in existence and in operation to a limited
extent woul'l be. The Irish Ecclesiastical Com-
missioners are already in possession of nearly a
fifth of the revenues of the existing Church, and
the various proposals of the Commissioners tend
to increase that proportion. Whenever they pro-
pcise the abolition of an existing corporation, ag-
gregate or sole, they further propose that its funds
should be vested in the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners. The funds which they receive at present
are applied to a variety of purposes which, speak-
ing generally, may be said to be those which in
the present state of things are supplied in England
by church rates. For instance, they pay for re-
pairs and " parochial requisites," such as church
furniture, parish clerks, sextons, and organists.
After meeting these expenses and the expenses of
management, the surplus is appropriated to the
augmentation of small benefices and to building
and enlarging churches.
Here, then, we have a hand ready to distribute
all the endowments of the Irish Church. There
could be no difficulty in vesting in the Commission
(whose constitution, however, would require to be
remodelled) the whole of the property of which
they now manage one-fifth. They might be autho-
rised to hold such parts of it (the fabrics of the
churches, for instance) as were to be reserved for
the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in
trust to permit them to be so used. The remainder
subject to existing life interests, which the incum-
bent should be enabled, if he chose, to sell accord-
ing to a fixed scale, might by degrees be capitalised
and applied to any useful purpose of a secular
kind. Such matters as " parochial requisites " and
repairs ought clearly to be provided for in a volun-
tary Church by voluntary contributions.
The arrangements required for disposing of the
property of the Irish Church would be easy
enough. Nothing, indeed, would be required be-
yond an extension of the precedents already estab-
lished for its rearrangement. The erection of a
body which would inherit what was left of the en-
dowments of the 1,500 and odd corporations which
would have to be dissolved would be a more deli-
cate task. It ought not, however, to be one of in-
superable difficulty. A corporation aggregate
might be formed by Act of Parliament, to be called
the Irish Protestant Episcopal Church, which
should be bound to conduct its affairs upon the
principles of the Church of England as by law
established. The existing bishops and incumbents
might be the first set of corporators, and the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners might hold for their
benefit and that of their successors such parts of
the present endowment as they might be allowed
to retain. It is obvious, however, to any one who
will consider the subject fairly that the conditions
on which so large an amount of property could be
entrusted to any body corporate whatever must be
rigidly defined by law, and in particular that the
law must decide whether any and what judicial
and legislative power should be conceded to the
corporation over its own members and doctrines.
Upon this point no doubt fierce disputes will arise,
but they must be met and dealt with as well as may
be, for the settlement of the questions which they
will involve in some way or other is altogether
inevitable. Of course, if the Irish clergy chose to
throw up everything—if they were ready to give
up all right to their houses, their churches, and
their cathedrals, and to set up for themselves as an
independent voluntary religious association—they
would have a perfect right to do so, and to make
their own rules and settle their own affairs in their
own way ; but if they wish to keep any part of
their present endowments, if they wish to preserve
their churches and houses, and their more recent
money endowments, their acceptance of a legal
constitution is an indispensable condition precedent.
Dissolve the 1,500 existing ecclesiastical corpora-
lions, and there would still be individuals called
bishops and clergymen who would individually be

entitled to compensation, but there -would be no
body corporate known to the law and called the
Church of Ireland, nor could the ex corporators
form themselves into such a body by any amount
of meetings and votes unless they received power
to do so from Parliament. If, however, this diffi-
culty is overcome, the rest will be easy. The
Ecclesiastical Commissioners could hold the en-
dowments of the existing bodies, make compensa-
tion to vested interests, and apply the surplus as it
arose to such purposes as might be determined on.
—Pall Mall Gazette.

wasted ; for, What is not used in making bricks
for a monument to be erected to his memory,
shall be conscientiously made into chaff'." While
we cannot help laughing at the " chaff" the critic
mixes with his remarks, we are sensible of the pain
it must give to Mr. Gould. But Mr. Moon very
happily carries out what he proposed, and brings
home to all of us the necessity of great care in com-
position, and the knowledge that, even then, we
are certain to be found tripping. When we see our
critics and our teachers —men held to be autho-
rities ou our language, making not only blunders,
but gross blunders, we feel that we, who have to
write so hastily and:so much, cannot fail to err griev-
ously. All would be benefited by carefully reading
this book; for the author's method of teaching consists
in exposing error in the highest places, and in
showing the faulty construction of sentences in such
common usage as to pass for good English. This he
does amusingly, so that while he brings the lesson
home, he entices his readers to go on. Mr. Gould
will probably reply by publishing his letters to
the Ildwal ant then we will have Mr.
Moon's own errors exposed. Poor Mr. Gould was,
however, caught in a false position, for he had com-
mitted himself to a high opinion of Mr. Moon's cri-
ticisms and knowledge of English. He had then to
commence by unsaying what he had said, a recan-
tation which, under the circumstances, was at least
suspicious. The book is a small volume of less than
250 pages, and will, we have little doubt, excite even
more interest on the other side of the Atlantic than
on this.

ViIAT GEORGE WILKES GOT FOR RE-
CONCILING GRANT AND BUTLER.

George Wilkes, the well-known editor and pro-
prietor of the Spirit, has come out in his journa
with a defence, headed " Political Blackguards,"
against the attacks made on him for his share in
the reconciliation between Generals Grant and
Butler. It appears that while Grant has been de-

nounced as a " butcher," and Butler as a " spoon
thief," Wilkes has been styled " umpire of dog
fights," and " the greatest gambler in the coun-
try." Replying to the attacks, Mr. Wilkes says :
" The editor of the Spirit of the Times acquires his
position among gentlemen by being himself a gen-
tleman by education, language, and deportment.
He never tells a lie, either in his paper or out of it,
and being in nobody's debt, and having at the
same time a reasonable reputation for ability, it is
fair to presume that no man outranks him in this
country. For these and similar reasons he is al-
ways treated by General Grant and others of the
like standing as an equal ; and for the same reasons
the personal respect which he has earned for him-
self with a large majority of the United States'
Senate, secured for him the proper compliment of
a seat on the floor of their chamber, which has been
so enviously alluded to. As to his having used the
floor of the Senate ' to bet on the verdict of Sena-
tors,' the statement is utterly false, and was known
to be so by the writer of it. It is true that we bat ou
impeachment when home at our hotel, as did many
others in Washington of much higher mark than of
the Gazette; and we have quite recently bet, and
right smartly, too—aye, and are ready to bet much
more—that Grant will beat Seymour in the fall
election. If this makes us a gambler, why then we
are one ; but we never made a bet against a faro-
bank or other public game ; have rarely bet upon
a horse race or other sporting affair, and have not,
during the last twenty years, played at cards a
dozm times, when there was a cent at stake. As
for dog-fighting and cock-fighting, we have seen
but one each of these events in our lives, and have
constantly reprobated the former, and never per-
mitted it to be reported in our columns. As for
prize-fighting, we merely give it the same notice as
do all the other papers—with this difference, how-
ever, that our reports are the only intelligible ac-
counts of such affairs that are ever published. We,
in short, simply publish a high-toned sporting
paper, devoted in the main to the interests of the
turf and manly out-door sports ; and when we say
it is conducted with a literary chasteness and ability
which have secured for it an honoured place upon
the family centre-table of the most refined American
society, we only state what is well known to thousands
upon thousands of the best people of this land." We
may here mention the advice Mr. Wilkes gives to a
subscriber who desires to back Grant's election for
$5,000, but wishes so cunningly to hedge so as under
any circumstances to secure a gain. If Mr. Wilkes
" knows how" his best plan is to do it himself. His
advice to his friend is not to hedge at all, as he con-
siders the result nearly as sure as possible, but if the
subscriber insists he suggests an investment of $lOO
in Confederate Bonds. "He can secure about
$lO,OOO worth of them for about the sum we name,
and if Seymour and Blair should be elected, they
would soon be worth fifty cents on the dollar." As
there is plenty of this paper in the London market
the hint may be worth something on this side.—
Anglo-American 7imes.