say that the moment there was a good Government "and ecclesiastical equality, they would have order in Ireland." Those who bear in mind these plain utterances of English ecclesiastics, lawyers, and statesmen will not take very deep offence because Irish ecclesiastics, who have not had the advantage of having studied polite literature in Trinity College, Dublin, call a spade a spade. The gist of the declaration of the Roman Catholic episcopate is more important than its style. It repeats in 1867 what was resolved on in the years 1801, 1805, 1837, 1841, and 1843, namely, that the Irish Roman Catholic clergy will not receive a State endowment, and that they think "that by appropriating the ecclesiastical property of Ireland for the benefit of the poor, the legislature would realize one of the purposes for which it was originally intended, and to which it was applied in Catholic times."

Yet in spite of the foregoing declarations, the Bishop of Ossory thinks that Roman Catholic laymen and clergymen do not really consider the Establishment to be a grievance at all. He quotes an alleged resolution of the "Tenant Right Society of the County of Meath, and asserts that it "is to be received, therefore, as the unanimous testimony of the Roman Catholic priests of the county of Meath. They" -so continues the bishop-"with one voice distinctly and pointedly discourage the agitation against the Established Church, as one got up for party purposes, and calculated to injure, not to serve, the occupants of the soil, and to produce disastrous effects upon our social system!" With great truthfulness the bishop confesses that people "will be slow to admit the great importance of this resolution," and will "suspect there is something behind which we do not see."* And such suspicions are well founded. The resolution, dwelt on at such length by Bishop O'Brien, simply represents "the unanimous testimony" of three Roman Catholic priests, who, at a very small adjourned meeting, took on themselves to speak in the name of the Tenant Right Society of Meath, and of the absent Roman Catholic bishop, clergy, and laity. They probably got soundly rated for their pains.

It has been also argued, that Irishmen do not care for disestablishment, because they have not held a series of tumultuous monster meetings to petition Parliament on the subject. But the premises, if granted, will not warrant the conclusion. Irishmen may, as some with sorrow allege, have lost faith in the virtue of any Irish appeals, however just, to the justice of a British Parliament. Petitions have been too often made in vain. Or Irishmen may hesitate to multiply popular demonstrations while the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended,

"The Case of the Established Church in Ireland." By James Thomas O'Brien, D.D., Bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin. London. 1867. Pp. 41-42.

and an Orange administration holds martial law in terrorem over their heads. The premises, however, may be denied. Roman Catholic non-electors, as well as electors, have pretty loudly expressed their sentiments at public meetings, and by signing numerous petitions to Parliament. The petitions are, of course, respectfully worded, and the language used at those meetings calls for no particular remark. It is just the kind of language which is natural to be employed by men who think and speak on exciting topics.. It is not remarkably violent, and the most violent epithets proceed from the least respectable of the speakers. It might be easy to collect some very violent, and even disloyal phrases, from the orations of low-class Roman Catholic agitators. But it would be difficult to cull phrases exceeding in ill taste and offensiveness those which, unhappily, have been employed by high-class Church defenders-even beneficed clergymen and Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin-who, despite of their sacred calling, talk freely of kicking the Crown into the Boyne, and prophesy, before approving audiences, of riot and bloodshed.

But the promoters of disestablishment in Ireland are not confined to Roman Catholic peers, bishops, squires, lawyers, and laymen of every degree. The Protestant promoters of disestablishment deserve not to be ignored. Three hundred and thirty members of the House of Commons voted for Mr. Gladstone's resolution, "that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an Establishment." Of those three hundred and thirty, nearly three hundred were Protestants. In fact, a majority of the English members, the Scotch members, and the Irish members voted for disestablishment. It is notorious that the vast preponderance of members for English, and Scotch, and Irish constituencies are Protestants. There is not a Roman Catholic constituency in Great Britain, and only thirty of the one hundred and five Irish members are Roman Catholics. There is no occasion to insult the understanding of any reader by proving at length that English or Scotch members, who voted for Mr. Gladstone, do not merit the description given to them by an Ulster representative, and are not "atheists," or "Jesuits," or "meekminded Churchmen, beguiled by unscrupulous politicians." But it is worth while to inquire into the character and social status of the twenty-eight Irish Protestant members who voted for disestablishment. Their votes and opinions will not be thought of any great value, if they shall be found to be persons of the adventurous class, with no material stake in the country, of inferior social standing, and hostile to the religion established in Ireland. On the other hand, if they shall be found to belong to the higher grades of society, members of the Church, rich in lands and money, then it must be con

fessed that their opinions and votes are entitled to the greater respect. It happens that scarcely a single Presbyterian, or Methodist, or Protestant Dissenter of any other denomination, is to be found among these twenty-eight members. They are, almost to a man, members of the Established Church. Of five only can it be predicated with any colour of truth that their professional advancement at all depends on their political success; and of these gentlemen four are lawyers; the fifth is a journalist. Then come three merchants or manufacturers of great reputed wealth. There are no grounds for supposing that any of these eight gentlemen are hostile to the established religion. One of them is the son of a late rector in the Establishment. The brother-in-law of another is a dignitary in the Church. A third is well known for the practical and beneficent interest he takes in Church work. The lawyers may undoubtedly be supposed likely to obtain office under any Government formed by Mr. Gladstone; but their talents are of recognised merit. Men who have been Attorneys-General, or Solicitors-General, or the Queen's Serjeants-at-Law, cannot be ranked in the common herd of mere political adventurers. But there are twenty of the twenty-eight members who, from their rank and wealth combined, ought to be above suspicion of corrupt motives. These twenty are all large landed proprietors, or sons of large landed proprietors. They comprise six squires of broad acres, nearly connected by birth or marriage with the aristocracy, and fourteen gentlemen who are either sons, or sonsin-law, or brothers of peers. Six of the fourteen are sons, brothers, or sons-in-law of lords, and eight others stand in the same relation to earls, or marquises, or dukes. It would perhaps be difficult to select twenty members in the House of Commons better entitled, from their rank, wealth, and connections, to be considered impartial judges of the great Irish question. But, besides the majority in the House of Commons, consisting of 330 members, mostly Anglicans, the minority in the Lords, consisting of 124 peers, who either voted or paired in favour of the Suspensory Bill, and who are also Anglicans for the most part, must be taken into consideration. It must be remembered, moreover, that nearly 300 clergymen of the united Church have publicly come forward, in spite of the obloquy and unpopularity to which they thereby exposed themselves, and have declared that they "are deeply convinced that to maintain the present Established Church in Ireland as the National Church of the country is an injustice which legitimately offends the majority of the Irish people." An attempt was made to disparage this clerical petition, by describing those who signed it as "clergymen unattached." More than half of them, however, are parochial clergymen, 120 being incumbents, including two deans, fifty rectors,

and about thirty vicars, while more than thirty are curates. The other half is made up of Fellows and Tutors of Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, and Divinity Lecturers and Professors, and the head or assistant masters of great public schools. The head masters of Harrow, Rugby, and Haleybury, and the assistant masters of Eton and Winchester, have indeed no parochial status in the Established Church, and may be termed "unattached;" but their influence as educators is not to be despised. Upon the whole, it must be confessed that the promoters of disestablishment, so far from being made up of Roman Catholics and Ritualistic Anglicans, and rabid Protestant Dissenters, are, in reality, for the greater part composed of sober and thoughtful members of the English Church, who have not the remotest idea of overturning the Establishment in England, or upsetting the Constitution, or damaging the regalia, or committing any of those atrocious crimes which are industriously, but gratuitously, laid to their charge.

Purity of motive on the part of those who are anxious for disestablishment in Ireland, is not sufficient of itself to prove disestablishment to be just. Let us calmly and dispassionately consider, on its merits, the assertion which is put forward-namely, that "the present Established Church in Ireland, as the national Church of that country, is an injustice which legitimately offends the majority of the Irish people." When thus nakedly stated, this proposition commands immediate assent. An institution claiming to be national, and monopolizing in that character all the national endowments, yet affording the benefit of them to only one-eighth of the people, is manifestly unjust. A Church numbering less than 700,000 out of 5,793,967 souls, can only become national by ignoring the five millions. That an Establishment of such a kind should not be a grievance to the five millions who are ignored, is incredible, unless we suppose the millions to be degraded to such a condition as to be incapable of understanding the insult. And under no possible conditions can such an Establishment fail to be "an injustice which legitimately offends the majority." An injustice of any kind must legitimately offend those who suffer the infliction; but an injustice which comes in the garb of religion is doubly offensive. The Establishment in Ireland, if proved to be an injustice to the Irish people, is thereby proved to be one which also legitimately offends the English people, in whose name the injustice is continued. Mr. Morison says that "the clergy of the Established Church, and the English proprietary of the country, by the very conditions of their existence, were in a manner compelled to misinform and mislead English public opinion as to the real state of matters in Ireland." And certainly the naked truth concerning the Irish Establishment, as an institution claiming

to be national, and monopolizing national revenues, yet limiting their use to a fraction of the people, is very seldom allowed to reach the English public without important additions, excuses, and palliations, to render the injustice less revolting and offensive. The facts are sometimes boldly and unscrupulously denied. There is one very common argument which appeals to devout Anglicans to uphold the Establishment for the sake of the Church which is established. This argument prevails with many who refuse to see that true religion cannot be promoted by an unrighteous Establishment. It is vain to say that Roman Catholics are in error, and that Anglicans are in the truth. It is not right to do evil that good may come. To confiscate the revenues of an idolatrous worship in order to endow orthodoxy, is robbery under the guise of religion. To appropriate the riches of Hindoo temples to maintain the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta, would be an unchristian and immoral act. And to take forcibly Roman Catholic revenues and therewith teach true doctrine is just as unchristian. But then it is said, and said unfortunately too often and too offensively, by those whose rank lends a double sting to the insult, that Romanist doctrines are not only theologically false, but also politically dangerous, and opposed to good government; and that, therefore, it is necessary to deprive them of their religious endowments. Now it is true, according to the belief of Anglicans, that the peculiar tenets of Roman Catholics are unsound, and that their reference to Rome as their Supreme Court of Appeal in ecclesiastical matters is suggestive of a double allegiance, which might lead to foreign interference in temporal affairs. But it is notorious that Anglicans do not believe Roman doctrines to be so utterly unsound and so terribly dangerous as to require the suppression of the Roman Catholic religion and the deprivation of their ecclesiastical revenues. The State does not now treat Roman Catholics as disloyal and traitorous, and would not now strip them of the Church property of Ireland if that property had descended to them. To justify the present ecclesiastical settlement in Ireland on the ground that Roman Catholics are disloyal, is as contrary to all received maxims in modern policy as the spoliation of their Church on the ground of its doctrinal corruption was contrary to the fundamental principles of Christianity. But there are some who say that the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland was not despoiled of its revenues, because the Irish Church was originally anti-Romish, was invested with its temporalities by Henry II., as an English Church, was converted to Protestantism under Elizabeth, and, therefore, is now entitled, as the ancient corporation in possession, to all the ancient revenues, on the double grounds of identity in doctrine with the Church of St. Patrick, and undoubted succession of its episcopate from that anti-papal missionary. This extraordinary argument, which it was supposed no one of reputation would venture to offer to any