Middlesbro' & Stockton Gazette and General Advertiser. — 1868-10-23 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

VIII. to that of William and Mary, the Protestant religion was forced upon the Irish people by political conquest and not by reformation, and tithes were taken from the Romish and given to the Protestant Church. The lecturer then showed that the churches built since the Reformation, and the glebe lands attached to therm were not the private gifts of the " piety of our ancestors," as was so frequently asserted, but were, in a great measure, built by grants from the "Board of first Fruits "—from moneys lent by them on the security of rates—and from parochial assessments. And, besides this, during the first twenty-five years of the present century, • sum of not less than £749,541 3s ed was voted by the House of Commons for Irish Church purposes. The lecturer then pointed out how tithes could no longer be collected, and Parliament was obliged to interfere, and passed the Tithe Commutation Act, and made it a rent charge upon the land, on the same pi inciple as more recently poor rates have been compounded for, and paid directly by the landlord, through he receives it back again in the form of increased rent. The lecturer then referred to some of the different ways of collecting the tithes, and showed how murders were committed and blood shed—men shot down by the tithe collector when they resisted the . demand—police murdered by the mon, and some i of the clergy also. He stated that the House of Commons voted one million sterling ii lieu of tithes Wit cts could not be collected. After this, the lecturer et tered on the subject of the recent report of the Royal t =mission on the Irish Church, and pointed out some of the atrocious iniquities and jobbery in the letting of bishop's lands in Ireland, and then referred to the statements so often made by "church defence" lecturers, viz:—That if the church he disestablished and disendowed Popery will gain possession of all the churches and glebes, and as one of them lately declared at Beverley, Papists will shout, "I am monarch of all I survey." The lecturer most effectually disposed of Ibis nonsense, stating that he did not believe that they believed such stuff themselves. The cry of "No Popery" was raised to terrify "old women." He went on to -• that he bad been in the eamiacry tor many years, he had known many Independent and Baptist _Asters in his time, but he never knew one who went over to Rome. He had els° known various bodies of the Wesleyans, but he never knew one of them turn a Roman Catholic. But who could count the number of clergymen and ladies, seidents and laymen, who had gone over to the Pope. The church establishment seemed one huge manufactory for the making of Roman Catholics. The lecturer stated, also, that because he had such an unconquerable hatred to the spirit and system of popery that he wished to see the Irish Church disestablished and disendowed. He believed that Popery would never have had half the influence over the minds of the Irish that it had, but for the Established Church in Ireland. The lecturer then concluded by showing that during the first three centuries of the Christian era when religion was free, what wondrous successes it achieved—how the Church of Christ flourished in spiritual beauty and holiness; but as soon as it became fettered by State bonds, and began to wear the State livery, its glory departed, and the history of establishments can tell the rest.—Me Hal ph Dixon occupied the chair.—A vote of thanks to the lecturer was moved by Mr T. Braithwaite, seconded by Councillor R. F. Craggs, of Ayton Hall, for the very instructiveand interesting way its which he had discussed a deeply and interesting question. It was carried by acclamation.