The Sun. — 1844-06-12 (London, England)

STANDARD.—Mr. Ward last night entertained the ljElowe of Ammons with about the tenth, and questionless the stupides+, rehearsal of his appropriation speech. The nuisance of such persons as Mr. Ward in the world is a grievous one, but it must, like other nuisances, be patiently submitted to. Every society, every club, every family, almost every individual, has the affliction of a bore ; and why should the House 'of Commons want Mr. Ward? While he lasts in Parliament, the Irish Church temporalities must be annually served up; and we must, therefore, resign ourselves Ito the affliction. There are in Ireland, as we believe, about two millions of Protestants, of whom more than one-half are members of the United Church of England and Ireland. These more than one million of Episcopalians save secured to them by law, and guaranteed by an international treaty, a property equal to about that of two English noblemen, say the Duke of Bedford and the ?Marquis of Westminster, if the Irish Church property is quite equal to the revenues of these two peers, which we doubt. The property thus belonging to the Episcopalian Protestants of Ireland, instead of being applied to personal objects, is, under terms of the law, distributed among some 2,000 gentlemen, dispersed over the country—generally men of high education and of the purest morals, whose duty it is to preach to such as will hear them those Gospel truths- which five-sixths of the people of the whole United Kingdom hold to be necessary to man's everlasting happiness. This duty, it is confessed, the gentlemen in question, with a few rare exceptions, discharge with fidelity and zeal. The possession of the property to which we refer by the Irish Protestant Episcopalians, and the sacred use to which it is applied, constitute the grievance with which Mr. Ward and his like have been wearying the public ear for twenty-five years, and for this grievance they propose spoiliation as a remedy; and this remedy • is proper enough, for rebbery and theft are in fact the_ only remedies for the possession by others of property which one covets. There is, as our readers have learned from ten or eleven wearisome repetitions of it, but little argtunent in Mr. Ward's annual speech, and that little it curiously unhappy. The ex, Mexican attache holds that the Church Establishment in Ireland is offensive to Roman Catholics, because most of the former clergy, and even some of our own day, indulge in the habits of laymen, and have disregarded or disregard their spiritual functions. But every man of observation must see that this conduct imputed to the clergy—how unsatisfactory soever it may be to zealous Protestants—can -constitute to Roman Catholics no grievance whatever. What does it concern them whether Dives de Lacy, who keeps forty hunters, &c., in his stable, writes Baronet or Archdeacon after his name, wears a blue coat or * black one ? In fact, the rich and worldly clergymen whom Mr. Ward cites—and with more truth of words than honesty of purpose cites—as scandals to the Church, were, by his own confession, exceedingly liberal persons, highly popular with the priests .and Roman Catholics of their neighbourhood. Mr. Ward. must confess, moreover, that the age of the Church'slukewarmness and worldliness was never disturbed by the compliints of Roman Catholics. The life of an Irish clergyman, which no office would now insure, was as insurable fifty years ago as that of any other man ; and it is very certain that the clergymen, the murder of so many of whom has frightened the insurance offices, were not the keepers of hunters, or the amassers of wealth, but the poor, humble, painstaking laborious ministers of the Gospel. Bow Is ill Mr. Ward reconcile this indisputable fact with his pretence, that it is the ease -and luxury of the Irish clergy which renders their Church Zlgrievance to Roman Catholics? No, it is not for having eptbn his post before but for unseasonably awakening now, that the robber would knock. the watchman on the head. Mr. Ward's attack, whether he understands it as such or not, is but part of the same system under which so many poor and zealous ministers havee been murdered; a system ei:c.cted against the datornin g qlesst colm against the property of the Church ;a