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 IRISH CHURCH QUESTION
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 lEISH CHURCH QUESTION. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON MARCH 19, 1869, 
 
 RIGHT HON. JOHN T. BALL, LL.D. 
 
 Pffmkr for t^e Itnihrsifg of ^ttbltit. 
 
 {CORRECTED.) 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX. 
 
 HonUoiT, 
 RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE; 
 
 TEINITT STREET, 
 
 eCamtiri^igc. 
 Dublin: HODGES, FOSTER, & Co. 
 1869. 
 
 UIGH STEEET, 
 
 ©xfortr. 
 
 Price One SJiilling.
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON MARCH 19, 1869, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EIGHT H0:N. JOHN T. BALL, LL.D. 
 
 P^fmkr for t^c Itni&trsitg oi ^itblin. 
 
 (CURHJiCTED.) 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX. 
 
 HonKon, 
 EIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE ; 
 
 HIGH STllEET, I TRINITY STREET, 
 
 ©ifort. I CCambritjgc. 
 Dublin: HODGES, POSTER, & Co. 
 18C9.
 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 Mr. Speaker, 
 
 There are in Ireland three great religious 
 denominations — the Protestant Episcopalian, the 
 Eoman Catholic, and the Presbyterian. These 
 three denominations are so pre-eminent, not only 
 in comparison with others, but intrinsically in 
 themselves, in numbers, in intellectual cultivation, 
 in social power and influence, as to induce the 
 Dean of Westminster to view them as three 
 Churches co-extensive with three nations, English 
 Scotch and Irish in their origin, inhabiting the 
 same country. 
 
 Of these three Churches one only, the Protestant 
 Episcopalian Church, possesses separate property 
 derived from public sources. The Presbyterian 
 Church derives an income from an annual grant 
 out of the revenues of the Imperial Treasury. 
 The Roman Catholic Clmrch has no income of any 
 kind from property derived from public sources 
 or from any contribution by the Imperial Govern- 
 ment ; but it does receive some pecuniary as- 
 
 A 2 
 
 19<:35-2D
 
 4 SPEECH. 
 
 sistance bestowed by tlie State towards the in- 
 struction and education of its Clergy. 
 
 Sir, I do not agree \nth the right hon. gentleman 
 at the head of the Government, when he says that 
 the grants to the Presbyterian Church and to the 
 Roman Catholic College of Maynooth are connected 
 with and designed to aid the maintenance of the 
 Established Church in Ireland. I cannot accept 
 his description of them as buttresses of that Church. 
 Such expressions may have either of two meanings. 
 They may mean that this is the only rational ground 
 upon which a statesman could support these grants, 
 or that historically, as a matter of fact, this was the 
 ground upon which statesmen have given and sup- 
 ported them. I take issue in reference to both 
 meanings ; I controvert them both. I say that the 
 grants to Maynooth and to the Presbyterian Church 
 were made, not for this object, but in order, in the 
 case of the former, to improve the education of the 
 Roman Catholic Clergy ; in the case of the latter to 
 improve the social condition of the Presbyterian 
 Clergy ; by these means in both to elevate the 
 standard of religious instruction ; and I say, further, 
 that no reason such as that which has been assigned 
 by the right hon. gentleman, was given by the states- 
 men who originally proposed or since increased these 
 grants. 
 
 Sir, the annual payment to the Presbyterians 
 popularly known as the Pegium Donum, owes its 
 origin to King WilHam III., who originally j&xed it 
 as a charge on the Customs of Belfast. That 
 monarch was not animated in the shghtest degree 
 by the motive of raising up a protection for the
 
 SPEECH. 5 
 
 Protestant Episcopalian Churcli. He had, indeed, 
 no special leaning to Episcopacy, and abandoned it 
 witli little reluctance in Scotland. He gave the 
 grant, first, because in the contest between himself 
 and James, the Presbyterians had adhered to him ; 
 and secondly, because educated on the Continent, 
 and not much versed in our theological divisions, he 
 had little preference for one system of Protes- 
 tantism rather than another, and thought it was the 
 duty of the nation to be on terms of alliance with all. 
 The grant has been increased since the Union, and 
 brought to its present amount by gradual accessions : 
 but the interest of the Established Church was 
 neither the real motive for the increase nor put 
 forward as the reason. 
 
 The grant to the College of Maynooth was 
 made by the Irish Parliament about five years 
 before the Union. What grounds were assigned 
 for the grant ? The Irish Roman Catholic Clergy 
 had up to that time ;been principally educated 
 abroad. Mr. Pitt, Lord Castlereagh, and the 
 Government of that day, feared that if this 
 continued, they would during their education be 
 exposed to the influence of Hepublican principles 
 then prevalent on the Continent. To avert this, 
 and provide the means of their education at home, 
 the College of Maynooth was founded. "Well, if such 
 was its origin, what, let us inquire, were the motives 
 for its increase ? In 1813 the grant was increased, 
 and what reasons were assigned for so doing ? Cer- 
 tainly no such reason as the necessity for protecting 
 the Established Church. Tlie grant was described 
 as a legacy bequeathed by the Irish Parliament along
 
 6 SPEECH. 
 
 with the Union: just as in 1812 Mr. Perceval ex- 
 plained his view to be that Great Britain was bound 
 to it with the Union, adding that as the Irish Par- 
 liament had given the grant it was the duty of the 
 Imperial Parliament to continue it. I now come to 
 1845, the last time when the question was before 
 the House. On that occasion the abstract prin- 
 ciples on which the Maynooth Grant ought to be 
 maintained were developed, not only by that great 
 statesman, Sir Hobert Peel, who brought forward 
 the measure, but also by the right lion, gentleman 
 who is now at the head of Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment. Sir Robert Peel laid down precisely the 
 same principles which I have just remarked ought 
 to animate the House in dealing with these grants ; 
 viz. that they should be given in a large and gene- 
 rous spirit of confidence, for the improvement of 
 the education of the Roman Catholic Clergy and 
 the elevation of their social position. The right 
 lion, gentleman the present Prime Minister himself 
 took a prominent part on that occasion, and sup- 
 ported an increase of the pre\4ous annual allowance. 
 He resigned office rather than, as a Minister of 
 the Crown, bring forward the bill, in order that he 
 might act in a more free and unfettered manner 
 than he could have done if he had remained in office. 
 I have read with great care the speech which the 
 right hon. gentleman delivered on that occasion, 
 and it appears to me to indicate a conviction in the 
 right hon. gentleman's mind that the passing of 
 that measure would be attended mtli another great 
 result, and that it would be impossible to bring 
 forward again in the parliament of England a mere
 
 SPEECH. 7 
 
 religious objection to the endowment of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 Sir, I take leave to add to the summary which 
 I have given of the origin of the Regium Donum and 
 Maynooth Grant, a word upon the mode in which 
 the Established Church in Ireland derives its 
 separate property. The right of the Protestant 
 EjDiscopal Church to the tithe and land in Ireland 
 arises from, and is founded upon, an Act of Par- 
 liament. It is a vulgar error to suppose that an Act 
 was passed in direct words, saying in effect that we 
 transfer from a religious body certain property — 
 such religious body known as the Roman Catholic 
 Church — to another religious body known as the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. That is not the 
 frame of the Act — the second of Elizabeth — to 
 which I refer. In effect it may have done this ; 
 but the mode of proceeding was by providing 
 that the holders of benefices should conform to 
 the Liturgy of the Prayer Book of the Church of 
 England, and by obliging all lay persons to attend 
 church every Sunday, when the service of the 
 Church of England was performed. The result 
 has been that the obligation of conforming to the 
 Liturgy has existed from that hour to the present. 
 The incumbents of benefices must necessarily be 
 members of the Church of England, holding the 
 same doctrine as that Church. 
 
 A word, sir, also, on the amount of the property 
 of the Established Church in Ireland. Takino- it 
 from all sources it amounts to between 600,000/. 
 and 700,000/. a year. The right lion, gentleman 
 at the head of the Government seemed in liis
 
 8 SPEECH. 
 
 statement to imply tliat tlie Churcli Commissioners 
 had underrated it wlien tliey estimated it at 
 616,000Z. But tlie mode in which they arrived 
 at that sum was by subtracting from the tithe 
 rent-charge the expenses of collection and the actual 
 poor-rate which in 1866 was, according to the laws 
 in force in Ireland, deducted by the landlords of 
 Ireland from the incumbents. In the same report 
 of the Commissioners you will find on the face of 
 it that if you take the income without the deduc- 
 tion, estimating it, if I may so express it, as it 
 comes from the soil, and include lands in actual pos- 
 session of the incumbents, their estimate amounts to 
 about 700,000Z. a year. This income provides re- 
 ligious ministration for nearly 700,000 members in 
 communion with the Establishment, spread over an 
 area of about twenty millions of acres, and also 
 maintains the fabrics of the churches, and supplies 
 every requisite of divine service. 
 
 Sir, the Bill of Her Majesty's Government de- 
 prives the Protestant Episcopal Churcli of this 
 property, terminates the grant for the Presbyterian 
 Clergy, and v*dthdraws all pecuniary assistance from 
 the College of Maynooth. It affirms, in unqualified 
 terms, as the principle of your ecclesiastical ar- 
 rangements in Ireland, that no religious system 
 shall receive any endowment whatever from public 
 sources ; that each and all shall henceforth depend 
 and subsist exclusively upon voluntary contributions. 
 
 Before proceeding to consider the wisdom of 
 this policy, I must express dissatisfaction with the 
 way in which one part of the Bill has been intro- 
 duced to the notice of hon. members — I mean that
 
 SPEECH. y 
 
 part of it which relates to the preservation of vested 
 Hfe interests. I do not mean to contend that the 
 Government have in so many words said, " We are 
 acting with great generosity in deahng with these 
 interests as we propose to do," bnt I do say 
 that they have not, as expHcitly as they ought, 
 acknowledged that in preserving vested life interests 
 they were doing nothing more than a simple act of 
 justice. I challenge any lion, gentleman to adduce 
 one sentence from any jurist or from any historian 
 or statesman of authority relating to life interests, 
 such as those with which this bill deals, that does not 
 speak of them as being as sacred and as inviolable 
 as the fee-simple which any individual proprietor in 
 this House possesses. And while challenging a 
 contrary authority, I shall cite in support of what 
 I affirm, one whose writings are eminently charac- 
 terized by a philosophic and expanded spirit, — 
 Mackintosh, — who, when discussing the propriety 
 of the conduct of Henry YIII. with respect to the 
 monasteries, and under what circumstances property 
 such as theirs might be dealt with, laid down that 
 " the sacredness of the life estates is an essential 
 condition of such a measure." It is, I s^j, a pre- 
 liminary without which, except on pain of violating 
 the first and plainest duty of a just ruler, you cannot 
 move. 
 
 I divest, then, the discussion on which I am enter- 
 ing of all further consideration of the life interests 
 of existing incumbents. I concede to you not the 
 slightest acknowledgment of generosity on the 
 ground of any provisions made for those wlio hold 
 them, whether that be by strict legal proprietary
 
 10 SPEECH. 
 
 ownership, or, as in the case of the Presbyterian 
 ministers and the professors and officers at May- 
 nooth, upon a reasonable expectation of continuance 
 by ParHamentary action — and I assert that your bill 
 errs in the principle which it adopts, and fails in the 
 adjustments of existing relations requisite for the 
 introduction of that principle. 
 
 Sir, the principle involved in this bill is the prin- 
 ciple of voluntaryism ; by which I mean that the 
 State declares it has no connexion with any Church 
 or other religious organization, either in the way of 
 control or encouragement; that no endowment or 
 pecuniary assistance derived from public sources 
 shall remain with any Church or religious organi- 
 zation; that each and all must be self-governed 
 and self-maintained. 
 
 Sir, it appears to me that the question which the 
 House must at the end of this debate answer, is not 
 merely whether the question of the Irish Church 
 demands to be dealt with by express legislation, but 
 whether in dealing with it we are prepared to introduce 
 the principle of voluntaryism as the guide for our eccle- 
 siastical arrans^ements. True the bill is confined to 
 Ireland, and its advocates limit their observations to 
 Ireland; but can the consequences of the adoption 
 of the principle of the bill be confined to Ireland ? 
 Consider the motives which induce you to review 
 your ecclesiastical arrangements in that country ; 
 compare the position of your own Church Establish- 
 ment and of the Scotch Church Establishment mth 
 the Irish Establishment. You allege as the motive 
 for interfering in Ireland that a large majority of the 
 population dissent from and are discontented with
 
 SPEECH. 11 
 
 tlie existence of tlie Established Cliurcli, that its 
 social position and endowed wealth are both objects 
 of jealousy to their sensitive pride. It appears to 
 me that it is not merely because there is a majority 
 — if the majority were reckoned by thousands you 
 would not act — it is because the dissenting portion 
 of the community amounts to a large number — to 
 more than four millions. If that be considered a 
 sufficient justification for such a measure as the pre- 
 sent, let me ask how can we avoid reviewing our 
 ecclesiastical establishments in Scotland and in 
 England ? What is the position of Scotland in this 
 respect ? We have an endowed Church there and a 
 Free Church, nearly equal in numbers — in addition 
 we have another Church of Presbyterians severed 
 from both, and lastly a dissenting Church of Episco- 
 palians. I am not aware there is more content in all 
 the dissenting Churches of Scotland with the en- 
 dowments of the Kirk, than there is amongst the 
 Roman Catholic and dissenting bodies in Ireland in 
 regard to the endowments of the Established 
 Church. Look, then, at Wales. There the dis- 
 senters greatly preponderate. If so, why does not 
 the reason on which you justify tliis legislation in 
 regard to Ireland equally apply to Wales ? Lastly, 
 come to the endowed Church in England. The 
 Establishment, no doubt, represents a majority; but 
 the minority of Nonconformists is very large in 
 number and very powerful in action. Its members 
 seem to me animated by a stronger feeling of an- 
 tagonism, and to manifest that antagonism by much 
 more active measures against the Church, than the 
 Roman .Catholics in Ireland. Dealing with a mino-
 
 1 2 SPEECH. 
 
 rity not very mucli inferior in numbers to the majo- 
 rity, how are you to answer its demand of respect 
 for conscientious scruples, and removal of social 
 inequalities connected with religion, if you concede 
 these as your motives of action ? Indeed, for myself, 
 I cannot understand how the principle of religious 
 equality is at all aJBTected by comparative numbers ; 
 or if it be a right, on what ground a denomination 
 of one million or one hundred thousand is not as 
 much entitled to it as one of four millions. 
 
 Sir, it is the nature of a principle of action capable 
 of universal application, when once adopted, to pro- 
 pagate itself and grow and expand progressively. 
 There is also a tendency in legislation to persevere 
 in any direction once approved. Place any portion 
 of the kingdom under any peculiar system, it will 
 generally be found that this portion will desire the 
 extended introduction of what has been imposed upon 
 itself. I fear, therefore, that if this Bill shall pass, 
 little support will be given from Scotland and less 
 from Ireland to Establishments any where. In- 
 deed, I see already in Ulster indications that those 
 whom you are now despoiling of what they believe 
 their rights, will endeavour to bring others into the 
 same position in which they find themselves placed. 
 Do not, then, imagine that you can confine 3'our 
 views to Ireland. Every where this is a period of 
 transition, and the future must depend upon the 
 principles you now adopt, and in which your ex- 
 ample will inevitably educate the public mind. 
 
 Sir, at various times various plans have been put 
 forward in reference to our ecclesiastical arransfe- 
 ments in Ireland, but until the resolutions of last
 
 SPEECH. Id 
 
 year in no instance was the voluntary system sug- 
 gested. In 1800 Mr. Pitt introduced into the Act 
 of Union a declaration that the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church of Ireland was to continue one in 
 doctrine, discipline, and government with the Church 
 of England. Mr. Pitt, however, proposed to ac- 
 company this declaration with other measures. One 
 was Roman Catholic emancipation, and the other was 
 the endowment of the Roman Catholic Clergy and 
 the elevation of their social status. Policy similar to 
 Mr. Pitt's was advocated by Lord Francis Egerton in 
 1825, when supported by a large number, including 
 some of the most eminent members, the noble lord 
 induced this House, by a considerable majority, to 
 declare that the State ought to make some contribu- 
 tion towards the maintenance of the religious teachers 
 of the Roman Catholics in Ireland. Again in 1845 
 Sir R. Peel came forward in reference to the College 
 of Maynooth, confirming, supporting, and by the 
 weight of his great authority endeavouring to fix 
 on the mind of the public principles in harmony 
 with the policy originated by Mr. Pitt. And not 
 only has no measure adopting the voluntary system 
 ever until last year been proposed to Parliament, but 
 until then this policy could not adduce in its support 
 the name of any one worthy to be called a states- 
 man, with the brilliant exception, I admit, of the 
 President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Bright), or 
 cite the name of a single great writer as its advo- 
 cate. And when the right hon. gentleman at the 
 head of the Government comes forward and an- 
 nounces this novel policy, we are led to inquire when 
 he himself first gave his adhesion to it as the
 
 14 SPEECH. 
 
 true mode of adjusting our ecclesiastical arrange- 
 ments. Sir, tlie right hon. gentleman in liis Auto- 
 biography, a work characterized by all the eminence, 
 and let me freely say the peculiarities of his genius, 
 has given us a thread to guide us through the 
 labyrinth of his political movements, and referred to 
 his conduct in 1845 on the Maynooth Grant as the 
 crisis of his political opinions, and to his speech on 
 that occasion as an exposition of a change in them. 
 Now having read that speech carefully, I think it 
 points in the direction of endowment of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, and not of the voluntary system. 
 If that was not so, what was meant by telling the 
 House, " I do not say that this grant virtually decides 
 upon the payment of the Roman Catholic priests of 
 Ireland by the State ; but I do not deny that it dis- 
 poses of the religious objections to such a project"? 
 Sir, I have said that the voluntary system has 
 no great name but that of the right honourable 
 gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to 
 support it, along with the members of the Govern- 
 ment who have since followed him in upholding this 
 policy. It is equally remarkable that there is not a 
 single European nation that has adopted it. Europe 
 is at the head of the civilization of the world. It 
 contains great varieties of government, of religion ; 
 it contains Protestant States, Roman Catholic States, 
 free States, despotic States ; but in not one have you 
 the voluntary system established or recognized. Now 
 when a totally new line of policy is proposed for 
 adoption, it is no immaterial fact that all the weight 
 of statesmanlike authority and the practice of all 
 the most civilized Governments are against it.
 
 SPEECH. 15 
 
 Sir, tlie objections to the voluntary system have 
 been so often stated, that I shall sum them up 
 briefly. The voluntary system fails in securing either 
 universality or permanence of religious ministration ; 
 and inevitably leads to a deterioration in the quality 
 of the instruction given by that ministration. It 
 fails, I say, to secure universality of spiritual care ; 
 for, as every one knows, each teacher under that 
 system confines his attention to his own congregation, 
 and consequently the mass of ignorance, and vice, 
 and irreligion, which belongs to none, must remain 
 neglected and unnoticed. It fails to secure perma- 
 nence, because in periods of religious coldness and 
 depression the voluntary system, which depends for 
 its success upon the fervour of its supporters, grows 
 with them cold, apathetic, and inefficient. The more 
 man needs, the less he seeks, the rehgious teacher. 
 Missions are supported not by those who receive but 
 those who send them. Voluntaryism too deteriorates 
 the quality of the instruction given, because it makes 
 the teacher dependent on those whom he instructs, 
 and obliged by the exigency of his position to reduce 
 his tone of thought to their level, rather than to 
 raise theirs to his. Able as the ministers whom it 
 produces often are, very few of them are charac- 
 terized either by independence of spirit or elevation 
 of thought. 
 
 If the voluntary system is objectionable on these 
 abstract grounds, it is peculiarly objectionable when 
 you propose to apply it to an old country. We are 
 all creatures of habit. Every man is influenced by 
 the circumstances of the country in which he is 
 born, the system under which he lives, the character
 
 16 SPEECH. 
 
 of the social life about him. The inhabitants of the 
 old European kingdoms are not brought up accus- 
 tomed to meet the demands of ministers who give 
 religious instruction in return for voluntary contri- 
 butions. They have no organization for such a pur- 
 pose ; their habits are not trained to it. These general 
 difficulties in the way of a successful working of the 
 system apply to Ireland in common with other coun- 
 tries. There are some peculiar to itself. What is 
 the acknowledged tendency of the voluntary system ? 
 What do its advocates claim as a merit ? That it 
 increases religious fervour. Why that is another 
 way of saying that it magnifies theological distinc- 
 tions, that it increases denominational differences, 
 that it makes every sect an aggressor against its 
 neighbouring sect, upon the subject of religion. To 
 my mind the amount of theological strife and con- 
 troversy which already exists in Ireland is among, 
 not its advantages, but its misfortunes. The Govern- 
 ment are about to intensify it. I agree with Arch- 
 bishop Whately, when he said, " introduce the 
 voluntary system in Ireland, and you will have two 
 great religious camps, with clerical sentinels pacing 
 to and fro between them to prevent their followers 
 straying from either to the other." Again, there is 
 a second reason why the voluntary system is pecu- 
 liarly unsuitable for Ireland. One of its calamities 
 is an irremediable calamity ; I refer to absenteeism. 
 From that country is withdrawn the social influence 
 of many large landed proprietors, and their incomes 
 are expended by them elsewhere. Good landlords 
 these absentee proprietors are ; admirable managers 
 of their own estates ; but by no means equally ready
 
 SPEECH. 17 
 
 to contribute to objects of general bounty and benevo- 
 lence. Tliis absenteeism, I say, pre-eminently unfits 
 Ireland for the introduction of the voluntary system. 
 At present the tithe rent-charge operates as a sort 
 of indirect tax upon the absentees, and by providing 
 for a resident clergyman, in some degree, affords 
 compensation to the country. You take that away. 
 It will go to increase the wealth of the absentees ; 
 and in vain will you call upon them for an equivalent 
 of voluntary contribution for the purposes of a re- 
 ligious instruction which they personally obtain else- 
 where. Terminate the Establishment, and you lose the 
 stipend of a resident gentleman in every parish ; you 
 lose the power of forcing the absentees through him 
 to make some return to the soil, from which they 
 extract so much, and for which they do so little. 
 
 Sir, we have been told in this debate of the 
 success of the voluntary system in the Colonies. 
 But is it certain that there is in any colony a 
 purely voluntary system successful ? In Canada, 
 for example, the Church at this moment possesses 
 very considerable endowments. First, the capi- 
 talization of the life estates of the clergy, under 
 the colonial statute (from which the idea of the 
 present policy was borrowed), realized, owing to 
 peculiar local circumstances, a considerable property, 
 not for the individuals, but the whole clergy. This 
 property is now funded, and, owing to the high rate 
 of interest in Canada, produces a considerable income. 
 Again, in another particular, which has been by 
 many overlooked, the Canadian Church is not 
 altogether dependent on the voluntary system. 
 The Clergy Reserves Act was not the only Act
 
 18 SPEECH. 
 
 in Canada dealing with the Cliurcli. An Act of 
 George III. enabled tlie Crown to empower the 
 Governor to found rectories and endow them 
 with land and property quite apart from the Clergy 
 Reserves. These rectories, or the property belong- 
 ing to them, were never taken fi^om the Church. At 
 the date of Lord Durham's report there were fifty- 
 seven such rectories, the entire number of clergy 
 at present in Canada being about four hundred ; 
 how many more of these rectories were after- 
 wards created I do not know. The property of 
 these rectories has turned out valuable. Then 
 other circumstances also contributed to the success 
 of this plan in Canada. Previous to the passing of 
 the measure, there had been meetings for some years 
 in anticipation of it. No one, indeed, who had read 
 Lord Durham's report, which was issued long before 
 the Act secularizing the Reserves passed, could fail 
 to see that at some period or other the Clergy 
 Reserves would be dealt with. In anticipation, there- 
 fore, synods and meetings were held, by means of 
 which voluntary contributions had been raised and 
 accumulated for the benefit of the Church. From 
 these various causes, the Canadian Church at this 
 moment is not in the position to which you seek to 
 reduce the Irish Church — namely, a Church depen- 
 dent solely on the voluntary system. Then as to the 
 colony of Victoria, I find in the Act regulating the 
 Civil Service of that colony that 50,000/. a year 
 forms a fund for public worship. Last year the 
 Colonial Office made a return to this House of the 
 incomes of the colonial bishops, and it appears that 
 the Bishop of Melbourne is paid £1000/. a year out
 
 SPEECH. 19 
 
 of this Public Worship Fund. The same return 
 shows that other AustraUan bishops receive an 
 income from similar public sources. Therefore the 
 Australian is not a system of entire and pure volun- 
 taryism; and, if it were, I am not prepared, after 
 having made inquiries of persons who have resided 
 there, to point to the state of religion and the 
 state of the ministers of religion in that colony, as 
 an example for any country to follow. I admit that 
 the United States of America afford an example of 
 a perfectly voluntary system ; but what is the con- 
 dition of religion under it ? I refer to Mr. Hepworth 
 Dixon's account of the social condition of the 
 country to answer that question. (Dissent from the 
 Ministerial benches.) Well, if Mr. Dixon be rejected 
 as an authority, refer me to any of weight which 
 views the religious condition of that country as 
 satisfactory. But it may be said why refer to 
 foreign countries when there is an example of a 
 voluntary system at home ? The Roman Catholic 
 Church is wholly maintained by voluntary con- 
 tributions, without the slightest assistance from 
 public sources. Living in habits of intimacy with 
 Roman Catholics in Ireland, I shall take the 
 liberty of speaking with perfect freedom on this 
 question. No man who knows me will imagine 
 that in what I say I, mean any disrespect to Roman 
 Catholics or to the ministers of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. And accordingly, using the liberty I 
 have claimed, I say that some matters con- 
 nected with that Church are not satisfactory, 
 and originate, in my opinion, in its state of de- 
 pendence upon the voluntary system. Exemplary 
 
 B 2
 
 20 SPEECH. 
 
 as are the Roman Catholic Clergy in Ireland, 
 and zealous in the discharge of their duty, yet it 
 is true that they are taken from a class of society 
 to which I consider that the supply of religious 
 instructors ought not to be confined. The religious 
 teachers of a nation should represent every class ; 
 they should be on intimate and equal terms with 
 every class. But among the parochial Roman 
 Catholic Clergy of Ireland there are few of birth, 
 or station, or high education. In the monastic 
 orders, indeed, I have known several of high birth 
 and station, and some possessing considerable pro- 
 perty. Now what is the reason of this ? I go 
 abroad, and take the case of North Germany. I 
 find there, among the Roman Cathohc Clergy, many 
 persons of family and education, and it is the same 
 in other Continental countries. Then how are we 
 to account for the different state of things in 
 Ireland ? Sir, the reason is obvious, persons of 
 refined habits and culture reluctantly accept a 
 position which compels them to exact small and 
 minute payments from humble persons. In every 
 Church I believe this feeling prevails. In every 
 Church I believe that the class of persons entering 
 the ministry will deteriorate the moment they are 
 forced to exchange the independence of endowment 
 for subsistence on bounty, and in order to extract that 
 bounty, must descend to a subserviency of thought 
 and opinion, often even to arts and practices, which 
 an eminent French writer has not hesitated to cha- 
 racterize as a system of ecclesiastical mendicancy. 
 
 Voluntaryism then, I repeat, has nothing to 
 recommend it any where, is peculiarly unsuited
 
 SPEECH. 21 
 
 to Ireland, and if introduced as the principle of 
 ecclesiastical arrangement there, will spread its in- 
 fluence against all your other religious establish- 
 ments. And it is, I own, this last consideration, 
 this danger to the Church in England, which I 
 believe imminent, that in my judgment makes the 
 question now before the House of enormous magni- 
 tude, and the measure which has been proposed 
 by the Government, the most important in its conse- 
 quences of any that since the Union have been sub- 
 mitted to the Imperial Parliament. 
 
 Sir, I am of the number of those who attribute to 
 the incorporation of religious influence with civil 
 government, which is known as the union of Church 
 and State, in no small degree the glory and the 
 greatness of England. This it is which has infused 
 into the public service the feeling that power is a 
 trust, the exercise of power a duty, and that in 
 respect of both there arises a responsibility to 
 the great Author and Founder of society. • I need 
 not remind the House how tliis subject has been 
 treated, and, like every other subject which he 
 touched, exhausted by my great countryman, Burke, 
 — how he has pictured the Commonwealth and 
 all the offices within it thus consecrated by a sacred 
 dedication, and likened the English Constitution to 
 the Temple at Jerusalem, described by antiquity 
 as at once a citadel and a shrine, the fortress 
 of national power and the abode of national 
 religion. Nor was it with unequal step that the 
 right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister 
 followed in the same direction, nor with less glowing 
 language has ho in treatises which will long outlive
 
 22 SPEECH. 
 
 the ephemeral breath of the Hps, pictured the effect of 
 this union of Church and State upon your social con- 
 dition. I refer to them not in any spirit of reproach. 
 He is unable longer to realize the vision of his youth. 
 Beautiful but still a phantom, the utmost he can 
 give the parting illusion is the homage of his 
 respect. And therefore, restraining the rudeness of 
 his followers, he exclaimed in the debates of last 
 Session, 
 
 " You do it wrong, being so majestical, 
 To offer it tlie sIioav of violence!" 
 
 Sir, in some such spirit, with some such thoughts, 
 the Roman general of old entered that same august 
 Temple, which furnished the magnificent image 
 I have just cited to illustrate the union of the 
 religious and civil element in Government, and, in 
 the language of the ancient historian, beheld all 
 void — " nubem et inania arcana." Unseen by him 
 the Divinity within; unrecognized that awful pre- 
 sence. ' Was it therefore the less real ? 
 
 Sir, if we are to have an alliance of religion with 
 the supreme governing authority, it is plain that the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church affords the only means. 
 Both Roman Catholics and Presbyterians repudiate 
 the Royal Supremacy; and I must add that I do 
 not understand with what reason those who forbid 
 their own Churches to enter into alliance with 
 the State — who do not endure that the patronage 
 of their benefices should be at all distributed by the 
 Crown, that their internal government should be 
 regulated by Parliamentary interference, — I say I do 
 not understand how they complain because the Pro- 
 testant Episcopal Church, which does allow, and
 
 SPEECH. 23 
 
 not only consistently with, but as part of its tenets 
 and system adopts State control, is united witli tlie 
 State. This seems to me a matter independent of 
 tlie relative numbers of the religious bodies — a 
 matter respecting which the State, if it is to have a 
 State religion at all, has no choice; for, I repeat, 
 there is no Church or creed other than the Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Church with which the State can 
 have relations of government and patronage. 
 
 Still less, sir, do I understand how the mainte- 
 nance of an Established Church is inconsistent with a 
 liberal and generous policy to other creeds and 
 Churches. On the contrary, no Church can afford to 
 entertain enlightened and enlarged views in the same 
 degree as an Established. Every other is involved in a 
 struggle for the retention or acquisition of followers. 
 Every other has to draw a sharp and clearly- defined 
 line of demarcation to separate its territories from 
 those of others. And if we come to the conduct 
 and opinions of the advocates of Establishments, 
 I ask when have sentiments more enlarged and more 
 generous towards those who dissent from us been 
 uttered than by that great advocate of Establish- 
 ments whom I have already cited, Burke, whose 
 whole writings are a protest against religious intole- 
 rance of any kind ; and who, I need not remind the 
 House, has declared that, in subordination to the 
 legal Establishments as they stand, the three 
 religions prevalent in England, Ireland, and Scot- 
 land, should be all countenanced and protected ? 
 
 Sir, I now come to consider the Bill which we are 
 called upon to read a second time. No man can 
 deny that it leads to an enoi^mous change — a change
 
 24 SPEECH. 
 
 wliich must affect tlie whole social condition of 
 Ireland; whicli (to confine attention for the present 
 to one element of that condition) utterly alters 
 the position of the members, both ecclesiastical and 
 lay, of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Well, if 
 that be so, in what spirit should such a change be 
 effected? Earl Russell has answered that question. 
 " When " — says that distinguished statesman in his 
 letter to the Secretary for Ireland — " when a great 
 establishment like the Church is to be disendowed, 
 there are many considerations which enforce care, 
 forbearance, and tenderness." Is that the spu-it in 
 which the pro\4sions of this bill have been con- 
 ceived? Let us see the amount still left with 
 the Church. AYliat has been done for her to 
 mitigate or soften the doom which you inflict? 
 I put aside the preservation of life interests. In 
 dealing with them you have done nothing but 
 what rigid duty demanded, and even that duty, 
 at least in the case of the curates, you have dis- 
 charged harshly. But what have you given the 
 institution, the ftitm^e clergy and laity who are 
 to compose it ? The churches ! Yes, and 3"ou will 
 find by a return of the Ecclesiastical Commission- 
 ers, printed in the Appendix of the Church Com- 
 mission Report, that within no great number 
 of years upwards of 600,0007. of private money 
 have been expended on those churches, irrespective 
 of the grants of the Commissioners, and irrespective 
 of the restoration of St. Patrick's Cathedral ; and if 
 you add' that confessedly those churches are un- 
 marketable for any purj^oses whatever, we can 
 estimate the extent of 4he bountv and beneficence
 
 SPEECH. 
 
 25 
 
 displayed in this gift. The glebe-liouses! How are 
 they dealt with ? I cei^tainly last year understood 
 the Prime Minister to promise them. In a speech 
 characterized by great ability and enlarged views 
 which the right lion, gentleman the President of the 
 Board of Trade made at Birmingham there is a decla- 
 ration tending exactly in the same direction as that 
 in which I understood the right hon. gentleman at 
 the head of the Government to go, viz. that as an act 
 of generosity these houses and their curtilages were 
 to be given. But how do you now proceed to deal 
 with them? A house, as every one knows, lasts only 
 a certain period, requires to be perpetually renewed 
 or rebuilt. What is the result? The charges on the 
 glebe-houses in Ireland are found on examination to 
 be — on the bishops' houses, 32,594/. ; on the digni- 
 taries' houses, 600/.; on the glebe-houses of the 
 beneficed clergy, 198,781/.; the total charge being 
 232,335/. Pay that, and you shall have the houses. 
 And what am I to pay that for ? The Church Com- 
 missioners were unable to ascertain separately the 
 value of the houses and curtilages, and for this 
 reason, they were obliged to take the valuation in 
 whatever form it existed in the poor-law documents 
 and receipts; occasionally the Poor-law Commis- 
 sioners value the house and garden, occasionally 
 they value the house, garden, and demesne ; at other 
 times they value the entire farm, the house and 
 garden, altogether. We therefore could not sepa- 
 rate them. Now what is the entire value of all 
 houses, curtilages, demesnes, and farms that are 
 in the hands of ecclesiastics of tlie Established 
 C'hurch in Ireland ? TUc poor-law valuation of
 
 26 SPEECH. 
 
 the whole is about 50,000/. gross, from wliicli, if 
 we deduct the poor-rate, the county cess, and 
 other charges, there remains 32,000/. a year. 
 The right hon. gentleman does not propose to give 
 us this 32,000/. a year for the 232,335/. No such 
 thing. He proposes merely to give us the house 
 and what he terms the curtilage around it. I have 
 no doubt whatever that what he proposes to give us 
 for that sum, could be bought in the market for the 
 same amount. Where is the generosity in giving 
 that for which you take an equivalent? Well, but 
 there is a third matter put forward as an instance of 
 the large spirit that characterizes this measure, and 
 . on which the right hon. gentleman the Secretary for 
 Ireland dwelt vdth emphasis last night. " We leave 
 3'ou," say the Prime Minister and the Secretary 
 for Ireland, " the private endowments. See how 
 generous that is. You remember that Henry YIII., 
 founder as he was of the Reformation, did not 
 do that. He made no distinction whatever between 
 the endowments that came from private and those 
 that came fi^om public sources. We, not following 
 in the footsteps of Henry, are willing to leave you the 
 private endowments." But how are they left? Why 
 the most rigid legal test is apphed to them, and they 
 must be dealt with according to the strict rules of 
 the Court of Chancery. And how do you fm^ther 
 quahfy, restrain, and abridge the gift ? You 
 refuse to include in it private endowments prior to 
 1660. What is the reason for the assignment of that 
 date ? I must say it is entirely a new discovery 
 to me, and I may be supposed to have some know- 
 ledge on the subject of the relation of the Church
 
 SPEECH. 2/ 
 
 of Ireland to the doctrines and discipline of tlie 
 English Church, but to me it is entirely novel that 
 the Church of Ireland first became in harmony and 
 sympathy and union with the Church of England on 
 the accession of Charles II. The right hon. gentle- 
 man says, that previous to that time the Ai^ticles in 
 Ireland differed from those in England. It is per- 
 fectly true that in 1615, in the reign of James I., 
 Ussher, who was then Professor of Divinity in Dublin 
 College, drew up articles containing the doctrine of 
 predestination more strongly and explicitly expressed 
 than in the English Articles. Archbishop Ussher 
 always asserted that those Articles did not differ 
 from the English Articles ; that they merely 
 stated more plainly the doctrine of the English 
 Church. If by that he meant that he stated 
 doctrines reconcilable with the English Articles he 
 was right. But if he meant that the English Church 
 allowed no other, he was wrong : because the English 
 Articles were drawn with the design of embracing 
 as well the opinions of Calvin and Augustine as the 
 opinions of the opposite school of theology. But it 
 is not true that you could not then, or cannot now, 
 be a member of the Church of England and hold 
 every Article that Ussher held. But, putting aside 
 their theology, what are the facts about these 
 Articles historically? When Strafford came to 
 Ireland he opened a correspondence with Arch- 
 bishop Laud about them. The result of that 
 correspondence with Laud, whose views were 
 directly opposed to those of Ussher, was that Straf- 
 ford ol)jectcd to the Articles, and in 1634, mainly by 
 the influence of Archbisliop, then Bishop, Bramhall,
 
 28 SPEECH. 
 
 a canon was passed declaring tliat tlie Articles of 
 the Cliurcli of England were tlie Articles of the 
 Church of Ireland, and from that day to the Sub- 
 scription Act of 1865, not the Thu^ty-nine Articles, 
 but the canon of 1634 was subscribed by every 
 person ordained to Irish orders. Why is 1660 to be 
 adopted as the date, whilst 1634, even if you proceed 
 according to the result of this theological inquiry, is 
 in point of history and of fact the date of the 
 adoption of the precise form of the English Articles? 
 But let me ask, why should such an inquiry be made 
 at all? Where mil it lead you? By the 13th of 
 Elizabeth, as has been pointed out by the Dean of 
 Westminster, it is provided in England that clergy- 
 men not episcopally ordained shall be admitted to 
 benefices in the English Church on subscribing not 
 the entire but a portion of the Articles, and. prior to 
 the reign of Charles II. Presbyterians held by virtue of 
 this statute benefices in the Chm^ch of England. Are 
 you prepared to adopt the principle that the Church 
 of England exists only from the reign of Charles II.? 
 
 " Quam temere iu nosmet legem sancimus iniquam." 
 
 But, sir, I am not disposed, no matter what the date 
 fixed, to allow that the gift of private endowments 
 is any thing on our part demanding an acknowledg- 
 ment. There is not the shghtest doubt that there 
 have been vast private endowments in Ireland ; but 
 how are they to be proved ? Where are the deeds ? 
 There is no register of deeds in Ireland before the 
 reign of Queen Anne. The records of the ecclesiastical 
 registries are ill-kept and seldom preserved. How, 
 theuj are you to enter into an inquiry on this subject?
 
 SPEECH. 29 
 
 You have no means but by statements of cotempo- 
 raries or historians, of which the account of Bram- 
 hall's munificence by Jeremy Taylor in his funeral 
 sermon affords an illustrative example. Yet by the 
 provisions of this bill all claims to private endow- 
 ments are to be put to the strictest legal proof. I 
 endeavoured in the Church Commission to ascertain 
 as far as I could what private endowments there 
 were capable of being proved by deeds in Ireland, 
 and what is the result ? In table thirty-three of the 
 Appendix to the Commissioners' Report you mil find 
 the annual income from private endowments. It 
 amounts to 6340Z. These are recent endowments 
 only, under the acts of George lY., William lY., and 
 Yictoria. In table thirty-four you will find the gifts 
 of several bishops. But with these exceptions we 
 were totally unable to obtain legal proof — that is, 
 proof by deed — of private endowments. 
 
 Consider now the provisions applying to the Laity, 
 as distinguished from those in reference to the Church 
 of which they are a constituent portion. You propose 
 that they shall henceforth support their Clergy ; that 
 they shall immediately find 232,000Z. to purchase for 
 them their glebes and houses of residence ; that they 
 shall keep the fabrics of the churches in repair, and 
 find church requisites, demands which together now 
 cost about 60,000/. a year; and, while imposing 
 these new burdens, you demand that the land-owners 
 shall forthwith redeem within a specified period the 
 tithe rent-charge. Under such circumstances, surely 
 liberality to those subjected to such new liabilities 
 might have been expected. So far from being liberal, 
 you are not even just. The landlord in Ireland, on
 
 30 SPEECH. 
 
 paying the tithe rent-charge, is entitled to deduct 
 from the clergyman the frill poundage of the poor- 
 rate. I have ascertained the amount of this poundage 
 for the year 1866, and out of the gross amount of 
 the tithe rent-charge paid in that year to the incum- 
 bents, how much was deducted for poor-rate ? Those 
 ignorant of Irish taxation will hear with surprise 
 19,000/. The gross rent-charge from which this 
 was deducted is 367,000/. So that the landlords 
 have been accustomed to have a proportion of nearly 
 one-twentieth of the poor-rate paid for them by the 
 clergy. But when you come to deal with this matter 
 in the Bill you ignore this circumstance altogether, 
 and you charge them upon the whole gross amount 
 of rent-charo'e without the slisrhtest deduction for 
 poor-rate. Now mark. If you were to attempt to 
 sell this property in the open market to me or any 
 one else, I would buy it at so much less, and with a 
 deduction of one-twentieth part of the price. Then 
 again, the arrangements for lending money to the 
 land-owners press severely on this generation. They 
 must pay back principal as weU as interest, in order 
 to hand down an unincumbered estate to the future ; 
 while the relief and assistance to the county rates, 
 from the ultimate destination of the surplus of the 
 Church property, must necessarily be remote, and 
 can never benefit those on whom at once fall the 
 immediate demands of this period of transition. If 
 a benefit was to be conferred upon the land, it would 
 have been better to give it at once, and let the pre- 
 sent landlords, who must found a new provision for 
 their Church, receive the pecuniary advantage which 
 would assist them to do so.
 
 SPEECH. 31 
 
 I now come to tlie scheme for capitalizing tlie life 
 estates, on which the right honourable gentleman relies 
 to create and maintain a new ecclesiastical organi- 
 zation. The plan is that you give, or rather ask the 
 Clergy to give, their life estates for the capitalized 
 value of their incomes, which is to be handed over 
 to the central representative Church body. But you 
 do not furnish the Church body with any pecuniary 
 guarantee from the State — you do not give them an 
 independent fund at the back of the capitalized value 
 to make the security perfect — you calculate the 
 amount with mathematical accuracy and by the rigid 
 rules of an actuary or notary. If your calculation is 
 correct, the life interests of the Clergy will exactly ex- 
 haust the fund ; if it should turn out to be incorrect — 
 and let me tell you that the Clergy are not remark- 
 able for the brevity of their existence — if that should 
 happen, the whole capitalized value would be gone, 
 and the longest livers of the Clergy would be left 
 without the slightest means for their support. The 
 whole of this might have been ob\dated had you 
 placed at the back of this fund a large and sub- 
 stantial sum by way of guarantee for the permanence 
 of the interests and for the security of the Church 
 Body in its engagements. 
 
 Sir, I do not enter into the clauses relating to the 
 future constitution and self-government of the 
 Church, or the clauses in reference to the poAvers 
 enabling future endowments from private sources, 
 all of which appear to me not sufficiently affirming 
 and enabling, because I understood the right lion, 
 gentleman at the head of the Government, and the 
 right hon. Secretary for Ireland, whose courtesy and
 
 32 SPEECH. 
 
 fairness in addressing the House last night I desire, 
 on the part of the Church, to acknowledge — to have 
 invited suggestions in committee in reference to 
 these portions of the measure. But one matter con- 
 nected with this part of the subject I cannot leave 
 unnoticed. I ask in what position do you place the 
 Sovereign by this scheme ? Observe, you do not 
 repeal the Acts of Henry and Elizabeth, and the 
 whole code asserting the Royal Supremacy. In the 
 language of those Acts Her Majesty continues and is 
 the supreme head on earth of the whole Church of 
 Ireland; enjoys the title, and the whole state, 
 authority, and jurisdiction of that title. But you 
 retain nothing except the title and the nominal 
 pre-eminence, for all power is terminated. You pro- 
 claim, indeed, her authority, but withdraw the 
 subjects of it, and " place a barren sceptre in her 
 hand." Yes, there is one power you do allow 
 her, the power of recognizing and incorporating 
 the Church body, if you can come to an agree- 
 ment with that body. That and that alone is 
 preserved. 
 
 Sir, I now ask what will be the effects of this bill 
 upon the social and rehgious state and condition of 
 the people of Ireland ? I desire to look at this 
 question impartially, and to answer it fairly. So 
 looking, so answering, I feel bound to say that I 
 feel grave doubts whether the new Protestant 
 Episcopal Church of Ireland will be successfully 
 organized. I doubt, unless the provisions of the 
 Bill be greatly altered, whether that Church will 
 be adequately endowed. I also doubt whether the 
 Presbyterian Church will be adequately endowed
 
 SPEECH. 33 
 
 and sustained on the voluntary system, and for 
 this reason, that even as that Church is now 
 circumstanced, and receiving a large income from 
 an annual Parliamentary grant, they have made 
 repeated demands for increased assistance from 
 the State. Lastly, I doubt whether the Eoyal 
 College of Maynooth will be continued in the pecu- 
 niary position in which it ought to be. And 
 why do I doubt ? The sum which the right 
 hon. gentleman estimates for Maynooth is about 
 400,000/. The interest of that in the funds will be 
 12,000/. Up to 1845 the sum voted for Maynooth 
 was 9000/. What was the condition of Maynooth in 
 1845 ? In that year Sir Robert Peel read a petition 
 signed by twenty-two Roman Catholic bishops, con- 
 taining the following statements : — First, that the 
 professors were inadequately paid; second, that 
 there was a debt on the college of 4600/. ; third, that 
 they were obliged to send away their students for a 
 considerable portion of the year, as they were unable 
 to maintain them ; fourthly, that they were obliged 
 to send out the students only half-educated, to enter 
 on the work of the priesthood; and, fifthly, that 
 there was an insufiicient supply of clergymen for the 
 Roman Catholic Church. You had then Maynooth 
 under the voluntary system assisted with 9000/. a 
 year from Government. What will take place now 
 under the voluntary system, with a greatly increased 
 population, an increased demand for ministers, and a 
 higher standard of education, and but 12,000/. a year 
 from public sources ? Why, you are at this moment 
 obliged to admit that Maynooth, with its present 
 endowment of 26,000/. a year, is in debt to the 
 
 c
 
 '64i SPEECH. 
 
 Board of Works. I mil go further. From all I 
 hear, I believe that the standard of education in 
 Maynooth requires to be improved and elevated, 
 and that an increased, not a diminished endowment 
 is what the circumstances of that college demand. 
 
 I say, therefore, that your scheme, your new 
 policy, is a policy that will fail in the instance of 
 every one of the religious bodies to which it is ap- 
 plied. I say it is singularly ungenerous to every 
 system, and every creed ; and when I say this, I am 
 reminded of a test which has been more than once 
 suggested for philosophical principles. Do they 
 breathe of what is elevating, of what is generous, of 
 what is libera], or are they restricted, harsh, and 
 severe ? I propose this test to you as still more un- 
 erringly applicable to political measures; and I 
 pronounce of the Bill — nil geuerosum, nil niagnificum 
 sajnt — nothing is constructed, nothing is raised, 
 nothing is benefited; all is proscribed, despoiled, 
 degraded. 
 
 Sir, if this be so, if this be a just description of the 
 present measure, was not the right hon. gentleman 
 the member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) 
 justified in asserting that the inevitable result must 
 be universal discontent ? The Clergy of every de- 
 nomination will be discontented, because the sources 
 of emolument have been taken from them. The 
 laity will be discontented, because new and addi- 
 tional burdens are imposed upon them. Increased 
 religious differences will spread. Increased bitterness 
 of feeling in respect of them w411 spread. I know a 
 little of theology, and there is one maxim held by 
 every ecclesiastic, no matter what his Church, and
 
 SPEECH. 35 
 
 that is, that the withdrawal of property once con- 
 secrated to rehgious uses for secular purposes or 
 persons is utterly unjustifiable. I am not aware of 
 an exception ; from the day when Archbishop "VYhit- 
 gift told Queen Elizabeth that the recipients of eccle- 
 siastical property were the eagles in the fable who 
 carried home a prize with a burning coal within it 
 to consume their nests, to the last pastoral in which 
 Pope Pius denounces the sacrilegious conduct of the 
 Governments of the Continent in spoliating Church 
 property. But in truth are these views peculiar to 
 ecclesiastics ? Not at all. Let any man examine the 
 discussion by Sir James Mackintosh in his history 
 as to the conduct of Henry the Eighth towards the 
 monasteries, and consider the views of that philo- 
 sophic wi'iter, and he will see how difl&ctilt it is to 
 reconcile with any theory of the rights of property 
 the appropriation by the State of what has been 
 once dedicated to the maintenance of religious ser- 
 vices. Even Henry in his confiscations paid homage 
 to principles which he found fixed in the public 
 mind, and on the face of every one of his statutes 
 represents that the monasteries had voluntarily sur- 
 rendered their houses and lands. Nay, so conscious 
 are the framers of the present bill of the force of this 
 objection to it, that they select their distribution of 
 the surplus with a view to mitigate it : charity and 
 the relief of suffering and affliction having in them- 
 selves somewhat of a religious character. 
 
 Sir, I repeat that there will be universal discon- 
 tent. True, the Roman Catholic Clergy for the 
 moment arc appeased — and Avhy ? not for benefits to 
 tliemselves, but because their rival is dethroned. 
 
 c 2
 
 36 SPEECH. 
 
 And do you imagine tliat you can found permanent 
 gratitude and friendship on sucli feelings ? No ; 
 not twelve months will elapse before you learn that 
 they attribute to your respect for Scotch and Eng- 
 lish Nonconformist opinion the fall of the Establish- 
 ment, but to your enmity to their Church the secular 
 destination of its property when it had fallen. 
 
 Sir, the care of lunatics, the maintenance and 
 reformation of juvenile thieves and misdoers, the 
 relief of persons afflicted with unavoidable suffering 
 — all these are undoubtedly excellent objects, but 
 there is one evil consequence which follows large 
 endowments of this character not raised by taxation, 
 and that is, that the demand increases with the sup- 
 ply ; and as we have now two great reformatories 
 for male and four great reformatories for female 
 juvenile offenders, presided over by Roman Catholic 
 ecclesiastics and religious ladies, I believe that in 
 the future you will have these institutions fourfold 
 multiplied and increased. So as to all the other 
 charitable objects. They will increase in number, in 
 extent, in expense. The county rates will remain 
 as high and as oppressive as ever. 
 
 Sir, I believe that this measure will give a great 
 shock to the feelings of the community in respect of 
 property. The reverence for its sacred inviolability 
 which every wise statesman fosters as an instrument 
 of government, is rudely touched. I am aware that 
 distinctions are drawn between private property and 
 property public in its object audits' sources. I know 
 that Sh' James Mackintosh is of opinion that when 
 the State changes its religion, there being no rever- 
 sion reserved by the donor expectant on that con-
 
 SPEECH. 37 
 
 tingency, tlie State may confer the old endowments 
 on tlie new creed. I know that Earl Eussell, follow- 
 ing Hallam, says that the individual has an heir who 
 cannot without injustice be defrauded ; but corpora- 
 tions have no heir, and the succession may be inter- 
 cepted. I doubt that any one in this House when 
 he hears these distinctions, and they are all that 
 the ablest thinkers have produced, is quite satisfied 
 with them. But what if you are satisfied ? AYliat 
 if all this be so ? Has the Irish farmer or peasant 
 read Mackintosh, Earl Russell, or Hallam ? No — ■ 
 and if he had, your theories are for him immeasu- 
 rably too subtle. The facts suffice him. The Pro- 
 testant Church acquired its property by the Act of 
 Elizabeth, by the grants of James and Charles ; the 
 Protestant landlord acquired his by the Act of Settle- 
 ment, by the patents of the same James and the 
 same Charles. A breath made both, and a breath 
 can unmake both. 
 
 Sir, it is for these reasons I oppose this bill; .no 
 message of peace, conciliation, agreement of classes 
 and creeds ; rather the source and fountain of new 
 discontent, dissatisfaction, disunion ; the beginning 
 and the precedent of extended social change. But, 
 while I so oppose it, I desire to disclaim any want of 
 sympathy with my Roman Catholic and Presbyterian 
 brethren. I disclaim any, even the slightest, dis- 
 respect to their systems of religion. I believe the 
 maintenance of an Established Church consistent 
 with the most liberal appreciation of their claims. 
 I derive assurance for that belief when I find it shared 
 ])y every great statesman of the past. Yes ; ours is 
 no new policy, born of the exigency of the moment.
 
 o8 SPEECH. 
 
 The marvellous wisdom of Burke, the presiding and 
 commanding genius of Pitt, the vast political ex- 
 perience and sagacity of Peel, have alike sanctioned 
 it. Supported by their authority, feeling confident 
 that the principles by them transmitted are as just 
 as they are expedient, we defend the institutions 
 which they upheld, and refuse to abandon the most 
 sacred and venerable of them all in the hour of its 
 danger and its need.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 The net annual produce and value of the entire property of 
 the Established Church in Ireland, including the houses of 
 residence and the lands in the occupation of ecclesiastical 
 persons, is stated in amended tables annexed to the Report of 
 the Established Church (Ireland) Commissioners (Appendix, 
 page 249), to be as follows : — ■ 
 
 1. From all sources, except houses of residence and lands in 
 
 the occupation of ecclesiastical persons .... £584,688 
 
 2. Annual value of houses of residence and lands in the occu- 
 
 pation of ecclesiastical persons ..... 32,152 
 
 £616,840 
 
 Item 1 in this calculation is ascertained by deducting-, 
 from the gross amount of tithe rent-charge payable by all the 
 tithe payers, the poundage which the law allows the tithe 
 payer to deduct from the ecclesiastical incumbent, and hi. per 
 cent, for the expense of collection; and by deducting from 
 the rents of lands received by ecclesiastical persons the 
 deduction for poor-rates which the law allows every tenant 
 to make from his landlord, and by also allowing bl. per cent, as 
 receiver's fees for collection. A tithe payer is allowed in 
 Ireland to deduct from every pound which he pays the clergy- 
 man the full 2:)oundage of the poor-rate struck. Thus if tlie 
 rate happens to be 5.^. in the pound, he may deduct 5*'. out of 
 every pound he is paying. A tenant deducts from his land- 
 lord not more than half the rate. The ffross amount of tithe
 
 40 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 rent-charge payable to ecclesiastical owners (including the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners) appears to be about 404,637^. 
 a year; from which, in the year 1866, the deduction by the 
 tithe payers in respect of poor-rates, came to about 21,025(?. 
 The gross rental of all lands belonging to the same owners, 
 which are let to tenants, is about in round numbers 220,000^. 
 a year; the deductions for poor-rate, so far as reported, were 
 above 4000/. a year. The income from other sources — such 
 as, government stock arising from investments by the Eccle- 
 siastical Commissioners of the price received from the sale of 
 perpetuities to the tenants of Church lands, grants from private 
 bounty of government stock, or annuities charged on lands, and 
 such annual payments as the lay impropriators are bound to pay 
 for the discharge of spiritual duties in the impropriate parishes 
 • — amount to about 15,530/. a year. The value of the houses 
 of residence, and demesnes, and glebes, in the hands of ecclesi- 
 astical incumbents (including Bishops) is, according to the 
 Tenement valuation for Ireland (a valuation by public autho- 
 rity for purposes of local taxation), about 50,237/. a year; 
 the poor-rate and other local assessments paid for these was in 
 1866 about 18,086/., leaving the net value 32,151/., which is, 
 however, subject to building charges secured by mortgages of 
 the benefices, or other securities on them, of 232,335/. The 
 proportion of this value which belongs to parochial incumbents 
 is, gross, 45,226/. ; net, 28,143/. : and the proportion of build- 
 ing charge payable in respect of this is 198,781/.^ 
 
 The revenues of the Church are received by (1) the Bishops ; 
 (2) Cathedral Dignitaries; (3) Cathedral Corporations; (4) 
 Beneficed Clergy; (5) Ecclesiastical Commissioners. There 
 are two Archbishoprics, ten suffragan Bishoprics, 1518 
 benefices with incumbents, including in this term perpetual 
 curacies, thirty corporations of Deans and Chapters, twelve 
 minor Cathedral Corporations, thirty-two Deans and thirty- 
 three Archdeacons. Charging the ecclesiastical persons with 
 the value of their glebes, demesnes, and houses of residence, 
 the annual net revenues enjoyed by these different classes of 
 ecclesiastical owners may be stated as follows : — 
 
 ' See tables annexed to the Church Commissioners' Report, i., ii., iii., 
 iv., v., vii., and Schedule xi., p. 601, and in the Appendix to it, Table xl., 
 and Return U, p. 134.
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 41 
 
 Archbishoprics and Bishoprics ...... 
 
 Beneficed Tncumhents, after allowing for actual payments in 
 1866 to Curates, and making an allowance for the rent of 
 a house, when there is no glebe-house .... 
 
 Corporate property of capitular bodies ..... 
 
 Income received by Ecclesiastical Commissioners . 
 
 £58,000 
 
 367,279 
 
 19,546 
 
 113,662 
 
 Besides the benefices, there are ninety parishes suspended 
 under the provisions of the Church Temporalities' Acts; the 
 emoluments of which are part of the income of the Eccle- 
 siastical Commissioners, who provide by payment of curates 
 or neighbouring clergymen for their spiritual care; and 
 sixty-four parishes impropriate without vicar or endowed 
 curate. 
 
 The entire number of members of the Established Church, 
 according to the Census of 1861, was 693,357 ; and the entire 
 area of Ireland, with which the parochial system is co-exten- 
 sive, comprises 20,701,346 acres. 
 
 Of the benefices with incumbents there are 300 under 
 100/. a year net, 420 have 100/. and not 200/., 355 have 200/. 
 and not 300/. a year, and the remainder, 440, are above that 
 amount, only nineteen exceeding 900/. a year, and none 
 exceeding 1100/. a year. 
 
 The same benefices classified according to Church poj)ula- 
 tion ascertained by the Census of 1861 are as follows : — 
 
 Upwards of 
 KiOO. 
 
 500 and 
 not 1000. 
 
 200 and 
 under 500. 
 
 100 and 
 under 200. 
 
 40 and 
 under 100. 
 
 20 and 
 under 40. 
 
 Under 20. 
 
 181. 
 
 217. 
 
 340. 
 
 251. 
 
 288. 
 
 110. 
 
 91. 
 
 It is to be observed that this statement of the Church 
 population is given by the benefices with parishes or districts 
 annexed, and not by parishes. The number of parishes is 
 according to the Ordnance Survey, 2428; whereas the number 
 of benefices is 1518. The former represent the original eccle- 
 siastical divisions of the country, and are now mere geogra- 
 phical distinctions. The latter are of course the real existing 
 ecclesiasti(;al divisions, under the parochial system of the 
 Established Church, and it is these, and not the old parishes, 
 which should be considered when estimating the extent of 
 work and care allotted to each individual incumbent. In
 
 42 APPENDIX 11. 
 
 the system of the Roman Catholic Church as now constituted, 
 the number of parochial divisions adopted bears a proportion 
 to the original number of parishes even less than in the 
 Established Church ; the number being, according" to Thomas 
 Directory for 1868, about 1070. But the niimber of curates 
 in the Roman Catholic Church is greater than in the Esta- 
 blished. The difference in the two systems of Ecclesiastical 
 arrangement may be attributed, partly to the Roman Catholic 
 Church being obliged by its dependence on voluntary con- 
 tributions, in order to obtain sufficient sujiport for its parish 
 priests, to enlarge the areas from which they respectively 
 derive it, and partly to the difference in character of the two 
 religions; the Protestant fostering a spirit of independence, 
 and a desire for freedom from control, which display them- 
 selves in the subdivision of the country into a number of 
 small independent benefices ; the Roman Catholic a spirit of 
 submission and obedience, which renders its Clergy not reluc- 
 tant to accept the more subordinate position of curates. 
 
 II. 
 
 So little, prior to the Resolutions of last year, had any indi- 
 cation appeared in favour of the Voluntary system from the 
 leaders of the Whig party, that Earl Russell and Earl Grey 
 {)nag\s pares quam similes) — who, by long services, public and 
 parliamentary influence, intimate acquaintance with all the 
 traditions of policy adopted by the party, are justly entitled to 
 be considered its Chiefs — both, so late as the sj)riug of 1868, 
 express opinions unfavourable to it. 
 
 Earl Russell, on February 3, 1868, in his first letter to Mr. 
 Chichester Fortescue, says, " The destruction of the Protestant 
 Church in Ireland, the withdrawal of the grant to IMaynooth 
 and of the Regium Donum to the Presbyterians of the North, 
 together with a refusal of all subsidies by the State towards 
 the building of Roman Catholic churches, and furnishing 
 glebes and incomes to the Catholic Clergy, would be a misfor-
 
 APPENDIX II. 43 
 
 tune for Ireland. It would manifestly check civilization and 
 arrest the progress of society in the rural parts of Ireland " 
 (p. m). 
 
 Earl Grey on March 26th, 1868, in his letter to Mr. 
 Bright, says, — 
 
 " There are a very large number of persons in tliis country, of whom I 
 acknowledge myself to be one, who consider it of infinite importance to 
 the highest welfiire of a nation that by some means or other a large 
 fixed income, not merely depending on the voluntary contributions of the 
 passing hour, should be available for the religious instruction of the 
 people. I regard it as a palpable and dangerous fallacy to affirm that 
 those who require religious instruction and consolation ought to pay for 
 it, and that the support of the ministers of religion ought to be left to bo 
 provided for by the voluntary contributions of their flocks." 
 
 The elaborate treatise on the Irish Church question of Sir 
 George Cornewall Lewis (another Chief of the Whig party) 
 is also opposed to the Voluntary system. He is particularly 
 successful in distinguishing between objections to Volun- 
 taryism founded on its not furnishing a sufficient supply of 
 religious ministration, and those which are founded on its 
 furnishing a supply inferior in quality. The former he does 
 not adopt : " Our objection," he says, " to the Voluntary 
 system is not that it does not provide sufficient religion, 
 but that it provides a dad religion V He then, to establish 
 this proposition, enters on a line of reasoning based both on 
 the facts of history and the tendencies of human nature, the 
 result of which may be summed up in a sentence, viz. that 
 Voluntaryism tends to foster in Roman Catholic countries 
 superstition, in Protestant countries fanaticism, in both 
 priestcraft. 
 
 Lord Brougham, also, another great name among Liberal 
 leaders, so late as 1861, in his Essay on the British Con- 
 stitution sums up the question of an establishment in its 
 favour, and gives as his decision, "That upon the whole 
 there result greater mischiefs from having no establishment 
 at all, and that the balance is sensibly in favour of such an 
 institution."
 
 44 APPENDIX III. 
 
 III. 
 
 The only portion of Church property secularized in Canada 
 were tlie " Clerg-y Reserves.''' These Reserves were not the 
 exclusive property of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The 
 Act 31 Geo. III. c. 31, which set apart for relig-ious uses 
 one-seventh of all waste lands disposed of by the Crown, 
 gave them to the " Protestant Clerg-y ;" and the word " Pro- 
 testanf was ultimately held to include all denominations 
 of Protestants. There were in Canada two other descriptions 
 of ecclesiastical property, one belonging" to the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church and the other to the Roman Catholic Church, 
 and neither were interfered with. The former was property 
 which had been annexed to certain rectories created by Sir 
 John Colborne under statutable powers enabling the Crown 
 to authorize the Governor to constitute in every township or 
 parish thereafter formed one or more rectory or parsonage, 
 according to the Establishment of the Church of England. 
 Lord Durham, in his Report, states that fifty-seven' had been 
 created ; and these and their emoluments were left with the 
 Church. The latter is property which the Roman Catholic 
 Church in Lower Canada (principally consisting of French 
 settlers) retains. The Articles of the capitulation of Montreal 
 had stipulated for the free exercise of " the Catholic Apostolic 
 Roman Religion/^ the treaty of Paris, 1763, had also guaran- 
 teed the French Canadians the liberty of " the Catholic Reli- 
 gion/'' and either as a consequence supposed to be involved in 
 this concession, or from policy, as Mr. Croker [Quarterly 
 Review, No. 151, p. 261) seems to think, the Act 14 Geo. III. 
 c. 83, gave the Roman Catholic clergy their accustomed dues 
 and rights with respect to such persons as professed that 
 religion. 
 
 The secularization of the Reserves was effected by a local 
 Act (Dec. IS, 1854), which, after preserving all life interests, 
 gave the proceeds of the Reserves, when sold, to the munici- 
 
 ^ Sir Francis Plincks, in a tract on Canada publislied recently, says only 
 forty-four of the fifty-seven were perfectly completed, p. 13.
 
 APPENDIX III. 45 
 
 palities. It contained a clause winch enabled the " Governor- 
 General^ with consent of the parties and bodies severally in- 
 terested, to commute with said parties the stipend to which 
 each was entitled for life, for the value thereof/^ 
 
 The Bishops and Clergy (with one exception) all commuted, 
 and the capitalized value was paid over in each diocese to an 
 incorporated Church Society; which, in return, guaranteed to 
 the Clergy their full stipends during their lives and while 
 serving in the diocese where they were resident, when effecting 
 the commutation. In a paper read by Mr. Gilson, formerly 
 an Archdeacon in the Canadian Church, before the Church 
 Congress in Dublin (October, 1868), it is stated that the 
 whole amount thus received by all the diocesan incorporated 
 Church Societies was 275,851(?. British citrrency. 
 
 This sum has been preserved as a fund for the Church ; and 
 its income applied towards maintaining the Clergy without 
 infringing upon the capital. But several circumstances com- 
 bined to enable this result to be obtained. (1) Money bears a 
 very high rate of interest in Canada. The Clergy Reserves' 
 Act itself values it at Gl. per cent. (2) The rectories of Sir 
 John Colborne Avere not touched. (3) Voluntary contributions 
 and gifts had, previous to, and in expectation of the seculariza- 
 tion of the Reserves, been collected. And, lastly, the Keserves, 
 while in the hands of the Clergy, had not realized their proper 
 value ; the Clergy, not having the requisite capital and skill 
 to reclaim and improve them, and being unable to find tenants 
 for them who had such resources, as of course it was more pro- 
 fitable to obtain a grant in fee of the neighbouring waste 
 from the Government than to rent the Reserves for a termi- 
 nable tenure. 
 
 In the colony of Victoria the Constitution Act, 19 Vic. (1855), 
 provided a sum of 1] 2,750^. a year for the Civil List, of which 
 50,000i?. is thereby given as a Public Worship Fund. Accord- 
 ing to a return of the Colonial Office to the House of Commons, 
 presented May 12th, 18G8, the Bishop of Melbourne receives 
 1000/. a year from this fund. The Bishop of Sydney derives 
 IbOOl. a year from a Public "Worship Fund granted by the 
 local Constitution Act, 18 & 19 Vic. c. 54, and 500/. a year 
 from glebe-lands, secured by Act of the Colonial Legislature 
 to the Bishop and his successors for ever. The Bishops of
 
 46 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay receive, the first 4000/. a year, 
 the other two each 3000/. a year, and the Bishop of Ceylon 
 2000/. a year; all from the colonial revenues. The Clergy to 
 the number of thirty- two senior and forty- five junior chaplains 
 in the diocese of Calcutta, of nineteen senior and twenty-one 
 junior chaplains in the diocese of Madras, and of fourteen 
 senior and fourteen junior chaplains in the diocese of Bombay, 
 receive stipends from the colonial revenues. 
 
 In others of the colonies the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 is maintained partly by endowments from private bounty, 
 partly by pew-rents, and partly by voluntary annual sub- 
 scriptions; but in none of these upon an extensive scale. 
 
 lY. 
 
 The statement (at page 19) in reference to the religious 
 condition of the United States has been since controverted. 
 I add, therefore, some additional remarks. 
 
 By the official census of 1860, it appears that the entire 
 population was 31,443,321 ; that the niimber of churches 
 was 54,009, capable of containing 18,974,576 persons, and 
 averaging, as the official report states, one to every 584 indi- 
 viduals '. But as Mr. Jennings * in his able work remarks, 
 " something more than the means for the outward observance 
 of religion is needed to show the full working of the volun- 
 tary principle.^'' The result of this further test will be seen 
 by some extracts from his treatise. " In the older towns,'''' he 
 
 ^ See statistics of the United States in 1860, compiled from the original 
 returns, and being the final exhibit of the eighth census, under the direc- 
 tion of the Secretary of the Interior. Washington Government Printing 
 Office. 1866. 
 
 "' Eighty years of Republican Government in the United States, by 
 Louis J. Jennings. London. John Murray, Albemarle-street. 1868. 
 There seems no reason for supposing that Mr. Jennings, from theological 
 bias, has coloured his statements. On the contrary, he appears to be 
 not favourable to the union of Church and State : and at the close of 
 his chapter on the Voluntary principle in religion, controverts Lord 
 Brougham's objections to it, and sums up, " The Voluntary sj'stem in 
 America works well for the people, but ill, in many cases, for tlie teacher."
 
 APPENDIX IV. 47 
 
 says, "every denomination is rich enough to maintain its 
 ministers in comfortable circumstances ; but in scantily-popu- 
 lated rural districts, as in new settlements, religion starves^' 
 (p. 198). 
 Again, at p. 195 lie says, — 
 
 '"Ministers of the gospel,' said Cotton Mather, 'would have a poor 
 time of it, if they must rely on a free contribution of the people for 
 their maintenance.' And they have ' a poor time of it,' as a rule, 
 except in large cities or rich parishes. Very many ministers of the 
 Baptist persuasion receive no salaries at all, and earn a living how 
 they can. The average salary of ministers of all denominations is esti- 
 mated to be ahovit 400 dollars a year. The average in the Episcopal 
 Church is 350 dollars. The Episcopal Bishop of New York ^ is said to he 
 the highest paid religious functionary in the country, and he receives 6000 
 dollars a year. 'No men amongst us,' says Dr. Belcher, 'work harder, 
 no professional men are so poorly paid for their work. Financially they 
 rank upon an average below school teachers.' Sometimes a popular 
 preacher in a large town Avill draw so great a throng of listeners, that it 
 is Avorth while to let the pews by auction, and thus a considerable 
 income is secured. But such cases are rare, and the Clergy in nine cases 
 out often are badly off. The consequence is that the reservoir of ministers 
 of the gospel is the poorer class of artizans, and even in flourishing cities 
 men of the rudest education are sometimes found in charge of large 
 congregations." 
 
 Mr. Jennings refers in corroboration of his statements to 
 Baird^s Religion in America and Belcher^s Religious Denomi- 
 nations in the United States (Philadelphia, 1854). 
 
 With respect to the moral and intellectual standard of 
 religious teaching ]\Ir. Jennings says, — 
 
 " Perhaps in no country in the world is the pulpit used for hustings' pur- 
 poses so systematically with the general encouragement of public ap- 
 proval as in America. The Almighty is constantly exhorted to compass 
 tlie return of the popular candidate, and the misery and discomfiture of 
 his rival. The morning sermon in some churches is a diffuse essay upon 
 the events of the day, in which the Divine approval is announced of 
 certain political opinions. New England preachers address their hearers, 
 in a time of excitement, as if from the stump. The Chaplain in Congress, 
 during 1865-67, prayed daily against the President, ' that he might be 
 liunibled and cast down,' and that his own i)arty might be covered with 
 
 * In the late debate Sir Roundell Palmer showed that the Episcopal 
 Church at New York retains a large landed eiulownient, from a grant of 
 George III.
 
 48 APPENDIX V. 
 
 great glory. The best known preacher in America gains his notoriety 
 solely by the freedom with which he discusses on Sunday morning from a 
 text of Scripture the acts of public men, and the turn affairs are likely to 
 take. There is probably no good reason why it should not be so ; but 
 there is certainly no reason why the fact should be denied. Religion will 
 always influence the course of human affairs, and in America it will 
 interfere in politics all the more energetically, because it is not in any 
 way dependent upon the State, but is free to speak openly and without 
 fear of losing its allowance. The preaclier accommodates himself to the 
 taste and wishes of his congregation, and if they demand from him 
 matter which would be more suitable in the columns of the Sunday news- 
 paper, they will have the article, or turn him out and elect another man 
 willing to supply it." 
 
 V. 
 
 The Free Church iu Scotland has been cited by Mr. Bright 
 as an instance of the triumphant success of the vohmtary 
 princi2:)le. To say nothing- of the peculiar circumstances of 
 that secession, and the difference pointed out by Sir Rouudell 
 Palmer between a religious body voluntarily^ and with all the 
 zeal which accompanies an act prompted by religious con- 
 viction retiring, and one against its will deprived of its 
 property and position — is it certain that this instance is 
 clearly decisive in favour of Voluntaryism ? If any man 
 pre-eminently deserves to be designated the head and moving 
 source of this secession ; if any man more than another was 
 instrumental in whatever success it has attained — that man 
 was Dr. Chalmers, and what does he say ? 
 
 " I can afford to say no more than that my hopes of an extended 
 Christianity from the efforts of Voluntaryism alone have not been bright- 
 ened by my experience since the disruption. We had better not say too 
 much on the pretensions or the powers of Voluntaryism, till we have 
 made some progress in reclaiming the wastes of ignorance, and ii'religion, 
 and profligacy, which so overspread our land ; or till we see whether the 
 congregational selfishness which so predominates every where, can be pre- 
 vailed on to make larger sacrifices for the Christian good of our general 
 population ^" 
 
 ^ See Life by Dr. Hanna, vol. iv., p. 488.
 
 APPENDIX VII. 49 
 
 VI. 
 
 According' to the statements of his biographer, Bishop 
 Doyle, one of the most distinguished men who have ever 
 taken orders in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, may 
 be cited in support of the opinions expressed (at page 20) 
 as to the effect of the Voluntary system upon the Roman 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 " In Lis ' Essay on the Catholic Claims,' Dr. Doyle alludes to the motives 
 which induced him to prefer the cloister to the mission : ' Indeed as a 
 clergyman,' he writes, ' I feel sensibly the evils which arise fi"om a kind 
 of eleemosynary support ; it was one of the motives which disposed me, 
 at an early period, to prefer a collegiate to a missionary life ; and to the 
 present hour it is one which deeply weighs upon my mind ; it is one of 
 the many misfortunes of my native land, which often cause me in silence 
 and solitude to wish I were banished from her shores, and restored to that 
 exile in which I spent my youth ! ' " — Fitz-Patrich's Life of Bishop Doyle, 
 vol. i. 12. 
 
 Again, in the same work there appears an incidental 
 illustration of the operation of the Voluntary system in 
 limiting the supply of Clergy, and so lessening the leisure of 
 each for mental cultivation. 
 
 " He (Bishop Doyle) was averse to theatrical elocution, and, except on 
 rare occasions, to elaborate compositions ; for in a country circumstanced 
 as Ireland — where the priest, supported by the voluntary system, depends 
 for subsistence on the beneficence of his flock — he saw the number of the 
 priests shoukl of necessity be limited, and if the priest spent a large por- 
 tion of his time in the composition of his sermons, he could not discharge 
 the other various and onerous duties which devolved upon him." — Life, 
 vol. i. 61. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The policy of concurrent endowment is indicated in one of 
 Mr. Pittas speeches (31 Jan. 1799) : in which, after observing 
 that after the Union many of the objections to the participa- 
 tion by the Roman Catholics of the privileges granted to 
 
 D
 
 50 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 members of the established religion would be removed, he 
 proceeds, 
 
 " How far, in addition to this great and leading consideration, it may 
 be also wise and practicable to accompany the measure by some mode of 
 relieving the lower orders from the pressure of tithes, which in many in- 
 stances operate as a great practical evil, or to make, under proper regu- 
 lations, and without breaking in on the security of the present Protestant 
 establishment, an effectual provision for the Catholic Clergy, it is not now 
 necessarj' to discuss. It is sufficient to say, that these and all other sub- 
 ordinate points connected with the same subject, are more likely to be 
 permanently and satisfactorily settled by an united legislature than by 
 any local ari'angements." 
 
 The secret history of the period has now appeared, and 
 there is no doubt that private communications going" much 
 beyond these cautious public declarations and amounting 
 to engagements for endowment were given by the Irish 
 government with the sanction of Mr. Pitt. The late Knight 
 of Kerry, in his letter to Sir Eobert Peel in 1845, says, 
 
 " I hold in mj' hands a confidential letter from Lord Castlereagh, dated 
 22nd June, 1802, recognizing the pledges given at the Union to the 
 Roman Catholics of Ireland, for which they gave valuable consideration 
 in their support of that measure, and fui'ther instructing me to endeavour 
 to reconcile the heads of their hierarchy to a delay in the performance of 
 the engagements made to them by Mr. Pitt's ministry for the endowment 
 of their Church." 
 
 Lord Castlereagh, in a speech in the House of Commons 
 (20 May, 1810), says, 
 
 " Upon the ecclesiastical part of the aiTangement, Lord Castlereagh was 
 authorized in the year 1799 to communicate with the Roman Catholic 
 Clergy. It was distinctly understood that the consideration of the politi- 
 cal claims of the Catholics must remain for the consideration of the Im- 
 perial Parliament ; but the expediency of making some provision for their 
 Clergy was so generally recognized, even by those who were averse to con- 
 cessions of a political nature, that a communication was officially opened 
 with the hea.ds of their Clergy upon this subject." 
 
 The origin of this policy of an establishment with concur- 
 rent endowment of other religious sy.stems, is generally 
 attributed to Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh, but in tnith 
 it had previously been not indistinctly suggested by Mr. 
 Burke. To cite one of several passages to this effect in his
 
 APPENDIX VI J. 51 
 
 writing's, he says in his letter to William Smith (afterwards 
 Baron Smith), 
 
 " My humble and decided opmion is, that all the three religious, preva- 
 lent more or less in various parts of these islands, ought all, in subordina- 
 tion to the legal estahlishments, as they stand in the several conntries, to 
 be all countenanced, protected, and cherished ; and that in Ireland particu- 
 larly the Roman Catholic religion should be upheld in high respect and 
 veneration, and should be, in its place, provided with all the means of 
 making it a blessing to the people who profess it ; that it ought to be 
 cherished as a good (though not as the most preferable good, if a choice 
 was now to be made), and not tolerated as an inevitable evil." 
 
 The (Quarterly Review (vol. exxvi., p. 559), asserts 
 that this policy, thus inaugurated, has been ever since 
 either openly advocated or secretly approved by every states- 
 man of eminence. It certainly has had the open support 
 of Lord Castlereag-h, Lord Sidmouth, Mr, Canning-, and Mr. 
 Croker ; it is indicated, if not fully developed, in the speeches 
 of Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone on the Maynooth 
 question in 1845; again in a speech of the Earl of Mayo 
 in the debates on the state of L'eland in 1868, and still more 
 recently in a speech of Sir John Pakington. The views of 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis, of Earl Russell, and of Earl 
 Grey, adopt the principles of concurrent endowment, but 
 propose means to carry them out, which neither Mr. Pitt 
 nor Mr. Bui-ke ever contemplated; these three authorities 
 being prepared for that purpose to interfere with the property 
 of the Established Church. 
 
 Among those who have advocated the policy of Mr. Pitt, 
 I am not aware of any speaker or writer who has expressed 
 himself so strongly as a prelate of the Irish Church, Arch- 
 bishop Whately. 
 
 " The Archbishop (says Mr. Senior) has been reading my journal. The 
 picture of the priests, he sai(^s melancholy, but, I fear, faithful. And we, 
 the English people, are answerable for much of their perversion. When 
 Lord Granville was congratulated on the approach of Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion — a measure which he had always supported — he refused to rejoice in 
 it. ' You are not going to pay the priests,' he said, ' and therefore you 
 will do more harm than good by giving them mouth-pieces in Parliament.' 
 A priest solely dependent on his flock is, in fact, retained Ijy them to give 
 the sanction of religion to the conduct, whatever it be, which the majority 
 choose to adopt." 
 
 D 2
 
 52 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 " The great merit of Mrs. Stowe's ' Dred ' is the clearness with which 
 this is exemplified in the Slave States. What can he more unchristian 
 than slavery ? nnless, indeed, it be assassination. And yet a whole Clergy 
 of different denominations, agreeing in nothing hut that they are main- 
 tained on the Voluntary system, combine to support slavery ! " — Senior's 
 Journals in Ireland, vol. ii., p. 129. 
 
 Again at page 293, vol. ii., of Mr. Senior^s Journal, oceiirs 
 the following remarkable conversation between an Italian 
 gentleman who is designated by the letter C, ]\Ir. Senior, 
 and the Archbishop. 
 
 " ' Ireland,' said Mr. C, ' has lost the sympathy of Italy. We thought 
 that the Irish were, like ourselves, an oppressed nation, struggling for 
 freedom. We now find that they are quarrelling with England, not for 
 the purpose of freeing the people, but of enslaving them ; for the 
 pui-pose of planting the foot of the Priest still more firmly on the necks of 
 his flock, the foot of the Bishop stiU more firmly on the neck of the Priest, 
 and the foot of the Pope stiU more firmly on the neck of the Bishop. We 
 find that they would sacrifice to abject Ulti'amontanism eveiy thing that 
 gives dignity or strength to human nature. 
 
 " ' I deplore,' I said, ' the Ultramontanism of the Priests as much as they 
 do ; but both the extent of their influence, and the evil purpose for which 
 they employ it, are mainly our fault. By depri\ang the Eoman Catholic 
 Church in Ireland of its endowment, by throwing the priests on the people 
 for their support, by forcing them to earn a livelihood by means of 
 squabbling for fees, and by means of enflaming the passions, and aggi*a- 
 vating the prejudices, of their flocks, we have excluded aU gentlemen from the 
 priesthood ; we have given them a detestable moral and political education; 
 we have enabled the Pope to destroy all the old liberties of the Irish 
 Eoman Catholic Church ; we have made the priests the slaves of the Pope, 
 and the dependents of the peasant.' 
 
 " ' But,' said Mr. C, ' they have refused an endowment.' 
 
 " ' It was never offered to them,' said the Archbishop. 
 
 " ' They were asked,' said Mr. C, ' if they would take one, and thej- 
 said "No!"' 
 
 " ' Of course they did,' said the Ai'chbishop. ' If I were to go into a 
 ball-room and say, " Let every young lady who wishes for a husband hold 
 up her hand," how many hands would be heli up ? 
 
 " ' Give them an endowment ; vest in Commissioners a portion of the 
 National Debt, to be apportioned among the parish priests ; let each priest 
 know the dividend to which he is entitled, and Jioio he is to draw for it, 
 and pi'otect it in its enjoyment from the arbitrary tyranny of his bishop; 
 and you will find him no more bound \iy his former refusal, than one of 
 my young ladies would feel that not holding up her hand had bound her 
 to celibacy. 
 
 " ' To do this,' he continued, ' would be not merely an act of policy, but
 
 APPENDIX VIII. 53 
 
 of bare justice. It would be paying Roman Catholic priests with Eoman 
 Catholic money. The taxes are a portion of each man's income, which the 
 State takes from him, in order to render to him certain services which it 
 can perform for him better than he can do for himself. Among these, one 
 of the most important is the maintenance of religion and of religious 
 education. This service the State does not render to the Roman Catholics, 
 and so far it defrauds them ! ' " 
 
 In the "Essays on the Irish Chnrch/'' Mr. Byrne (the Dean 
 of Cloufert), in a paper characterized by a high degree of 
 philosophic thought^ has advocated concurrent endowment. 
 He observes that establishment by no means implies exclusive 
 endowment ; and so far from this, it may, in order to make 
 the system complete, require to be supplemented by the 
 endowment of other religious systems ; and that the support 
 of these several systems in this manner can impose no greater 
 pecuniary burden upon the country than the support of the 
 same by the voluntary system. 
 
 It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the weight of 
 opinion in favour of this policy, it has only upon one occasion 
 been submitted to Parliament in the form of a definite 
 proposal. This was in 1825, when Lord Francis Egerton, 
 then Gower (afterwards Lord Ellesmere) , moved in the House 
 of Commons a resolution " that it was expedient provision 
 should be made by law towards the maintenance of the secular 
 Roman Catholic Clergy exercising religious functions in 
 Ireland.^^ The division was 205 for, 162 against; givino- 
 a majority of 43 for the resolution. 
 
 yiii. 
 
 The first proposal for the College of Maynooth was made 
 by Burke to Mr. Pitt. The College was, in its original 
 constitution, open to lay students; and it is singular that 
 an opposition to the scheme came from Roman Catholics, 
 who objected to the exclusion of Protestants — " such exclusion 
 (as is stated in a petition to the Irish Parliament numerously 
 signed by Roman Catholics) tending to prevent that harmony, 
 union, and friendly intercourse through life which might
 
 54 APPENDIX X. 
 
 be thus early cemented between the youth of different reli- 
 g-ious persuasions, the happy effects of which had been felt by 
 the permission of having- the Catholic youth educated in the 
 University of Dublin'," 
 
 IX. 
 
 The entire passage in Mr. Gladstone's speech to which 
 allusion is made at page 14 is as follows : — 
 
 " Failing then, Sir, to discover any principle so grounded, both in the 
 convictions and in the constitution of the country, as to warrant the 
 legislatm-e in pursuing a course of exchision with reference to the Irish 
 Roman Catholics, and in pursuing it by the rejection of this Bill (the Bill 
 for increasing the Grant to Maynooth), I must next proceed to avow my 
 impression that the boon, to which I for one have thus agreed, is a very 
 great boon. I think it important, most of all important, with regard to 
 the principles which it involves. I am very far indeed from saying that it 
 virtually decides upon the payment of the Eoman Catholic priests of 
 Ireland by the State ; but I do not deny that it disposes of the religious 
 objections to such a project." — Hansard, Lxxix. 548. 
 
 X. 
 
 The statement, that after the fate of the Irish Church is 
 decided, the religious Establishments in England and Scot- 
 land cannot escape parliamentary examination and revision 
 for any long period, does not rest on mere speculation or 
 reasoning ; it is openly avowed by the advocates for the over- 
 throw of the Irish Establishment. 
 
 Dr. Andrews, the Vice-President of the Queen's College, 
 Belfast, in a pamphlet which forms one of the ablest con- 
 tributions on the Liberal side to the examination of the 
 question, says, — 
 
 ' Irish Parliamentary Debates, xv. 21, and (Quarterly Mevieic, Ixxvi. 
 267.
 
 APPENDIX X. 55 
 
 " To declare that the fall of the Irish branch will not affect the stability 
 of the Church of England is manifestly absurd. The arguments adduced 
 in support of this paradoxical assertion will carry weight with none 
 except those who ai'e willing to be deceived. We are told it is a most 
 serious grievance that one man in Ireland should have his clerical bill 
 paid by the public ; another a part of his bill ; while six other men have 
 to pay their own. It is no grievance whatever, we are assured, and 
 nobody complains of it, that five men in England are so lucky as to have 
 their bills paid, while three others are left to shift for themselves. But 
 there are stratagems in political as well as in actual warfare ; and to lull 
 the defenders of an ancient stronghold into false security by pacific assu- 
 rances is the usual precursor of an intended attack." 
 
 Mr. Goldwin Smith in like manner has asserted that " in 
 Ireland the great question of Church and State will probably 
 be first raised with effect, and receive its most rational solu- 
 tion ^' (Irish History, p. 197). 
 
 Earl Russell also has expressed his opinion that the intro- 
 duction of the voluntary principle in Ireland will lead to 
 similar action in respect of the English Establishment : — 
 
 " With respect to the voluntary principle, I think that it is liable to 
 insuperable objections. I do not think, in the fii'st place, that it would 
 pi'omote the great object of establishing peace and harmony between 
 various classes and denominations of joeople. Although the successors of 
 the Protestant Clergy would lose their stipends by law, I do not think 
 they would lose their zeal for the Protestant religion any more than is the 
 case now with the Catholic Clergy. I believe, on the contrary, that the 
 Clergy of the two denominations would contend more fiercely than they 
 do now ; and that is one main reason why I object to the voluntary prin- 
 ciple. Also, I see no little danger in the proposition lately made by the 
 honourable member for Montrose. If the voluntary principle were 
 adopted in regard to Ireland, I do not see how we could long refuse an 
 inquiry into the number of Dissenters in the United Kingdom, and 
 the utility of the Church Establishment altogether." — Hansard, 3 Ser. 
 Lxxii. 718. 
 
 Mr. Buckle, in his History/ of Civilization in England, 
 vol. i., p. 385, note, appears to think that the fall of the 
 English Establishment is not remote. 
 
 " According to a paper found in one of the chests of William III., the 
 proportion in England of Conformists to Non-conformists was as 22| to 1. 
 Eighty-four years after the death of William the Dissenters instead of 
 comprising only a twenty-third, were estimated at one-fourth of the whole 
 community. (Bishop Watson's Life, vol. i., p. 246.) Since this the move- 
 ment has been uninterrupted ; and the returns recently published by
 
 66 APPENDIX XII. 
 
 Government disclose the startling fact, that on Sunday, March 31, 1851, 
 the members of the Church of England who attended morning service 
 only exceeded by one-half the Independents, Baptists, and Methodists, 
 ■who attended at theii- own places of worship. If this rate of decline con- 
 tinues, it will be impossible for the Church of England to survive another 
 centui-y the attacks of her enemies." 
 
 XI. 
 
 The allusion by Burke in Ids " Letter to a Noble Lord/^ 
 which is referred to at page 21^ is to the description in Tacitus^ 
 " Templum in modum arcis." The historical incident referred 
 to at page 22 is in the same writer. 
 
 " Romanorum primus Cn. Pompeius Judseos domnit ; tem- 
 plumque jure victorise ingressus est. Inde vulgatum nulla 
 intus Deum effigie, vacuam sedem et inania arcana ^." 
 
 XII. 
 
 The reasoning of Earl Russell and Hallam to which allusion 
 is madcj is contained in the following passages. 
 
 Earl Russell,, in the preface to a publication of his speech 
 moving for an Irish Church Commission, June 24, 1867, after 
 adverting to the proposition of Lord Derbj, that the Irish 
 Church has as much right to its property as the Duke of 
 Bedford to Covent Garden and Woburn Abbey, proceeds, — 
 
 "If this objection is meant to place the right of the present Archbishop 
 of Dublin during his life, and that of the present Duke of Bedford during 
 his life, to property formerly held by the Roman Catholic Church on the 
 same footing, I fully admit the right. But who are the heirs .? The heir 
 of the Duke of Bedford is known to the law, and will succeed as of course. 
 The heir of the Bishops and Clergy of the Church in Ireland is the State. 
 If the State chooses to dispose of the property in a different manner from 
 its present appropriation, it has a fuU right to do so. If the State main- 
 tains the present appropriation, the heir of the Archbishop of Dublin is 
 the man who, after a careful education, has embraced the clerical profes- 
 
 « Tac. Hist. V. 9.
 
 APPENDIX XII. 57 
 
 sion, and has so distinguished himself by his morals, his orthodoxy, and 
 his learning, as to attract the preference of the First Lord of the Treasury, 
 and obtain the favour of the Crown. But every man in Ireland — nay, 
 every man in England and Scotland — may, upon these terms, look forward 
 to be the heir of the Ai'chbishop of Dublin. In other words, the nation 
 at large are the heii's of the present holders of Church property in 
 Ireland." 
 
 The reasoning of Hallam is as follows : — 
 
 " I cannot, until some broad principle is made more obvious than it 
 ever has yet been, do such violence to all common notions on this subject 
 as to attach an equal inviolability to private and corporate property. The 
 law of hereditary succession, as ancient and universal as that of property 
 itself — the law of testamentary disposition, the complement of the former, 
 so long established in most countries as to seem a national right — have 
 invested the individual possessor of the soil with such a fictitious immor- 
 tality, such anticipated enjoyment, as it were, of futurity, that his per- 
 petual ownership could not be limited to his own existence, without what 
 he would justly feel as a real deprivation of property. Nor are the expec- 
 tations of childi'en or other heirs less real possessions, which it is a hard- 
 ship, if not even absolute wrong, to defeat. But in estates held, as we 
 call it, in mortmain, there is no intercommunity, no natural privity of 
 interest, between the present possessor and those who may succeed him ; 
 and as the former cannot have any pretext for complaint, if his own right 
 being preserved, the Legislature should alter the course of transmission 
 after his decease, so neither is any hardship sustained by them, unless 
 their succession has been already designated or rendered probable." 
 
 Without here entering- into the question how far this line 
 of reasoning aifords satisfactory grounds on which to rest the 
 abstract right of the State to deal with corporate or quasi- 
 corporate property, whether lay or ecclesiastical, it may be 
 observed in reference to the present measure, that it is very 
 difficult to distinguish the claim of the Irish curates, perpetual 
 and stipendiary, from the claim of Earl Russell's expectant 
 heir of the individual. It is true no one curate has a right 
 to expect any particular Bishopric or preferment. But surely 
 the whole body of the 500 curates now in orders in the Irish 
 Church, a large proportion of whom are young men, have a sj^es 
 successionis to all its Bishoprics and emoluments ; nay, more, 
 a certainty of succession incapable of being defeated under the 
 ecclesiastical system upon the faith of whose continuance 
 they, after an expensive education, selected their profession 
 and have discharged its arduous duties, except by a large
 
 58 APPENDIX XII. 
 
 enough number of others hereafter entering upon the same 
 profession to fill all those offices and being preferred before 
 them. And most unquestionably their case is distinctly 
 within the qualification of Mr. Hallam^ excepting from his 
 principle the cases of those whose succession to property of 
 the corporate character has been already designated or rendered 
 probable. 
 
 In connexion with the views of Earl Russell and Mr. 
 Hallam, those of Sir James Mackintosh in reference to the 
 same subject deserve attention and comparison. After stating 
 that all the property of the monasteries and other religious 
 houses was vested in the king. Sir James Mackintosh pro- 
 ceeds, — 
 
 " It may be a fit moment to pause here, in order calmly and shortly to 
 review some of the weighty questions which were involved in this measure. 
 There is no need of animadverting upon the means by which it was 
 eiFected, though we must agree to the affirmation of a great man, ' that an 
 end which has no means but such as are bad, is a bad end.' But the 
 general question may be best considered, keeping out of view any of 
 those attendant misdeeds which excite a very honest indignation, but 
 which disturb the operation of the judgment. Property is legal posses- 
 sion. Whoever exercises a certain power over any outward thing in a 
 manner which, by the laws of the country, entitles him to an exclusive 
 enjoyment of it, is deemed a proprietor. But property which is generally 
 deemed to be the incentive to industry, the guardian of order, the 
 preserver of internal quiet, the channel of friendly intercourse between 
 men and nations, and in a higher point of view, as aiFording leisure for 
 the pursuit of knowledge, means for the exercise of generosity, occasions 
 for the returns of gratitude ; as being one of the ties which join succeed- 
 ing generations, strengthening domestic discipline, and keeping up the 
 affections of kindred ; above all, because it is the principle to which all 
 men adapt theu- plans of life, and on the faith of whose permanency 
 every human action is performed ; is an institution of so high and tran- 
 scendent a nature, that every government which does not protect it, nay, 
 that does not rigorously punish its infraction, must be guilty of a viola- 
 tion of the first duties of just rulers. The common feelings of human 
 nature have applied to it the epithets of sacred and inviolable. Property 
 varies in the extent of the powers which it confers according to the 
 various laws of different States. Its duration, its descent, its acquisition, 
 its alienation, depend solely upon these laws. But all laws consider what 
 is held or transmitted agreeably to their rules as alike possessing the 
 character of inviolable sacredness. 
 
 " The Clergy, though for brevity sometimes called a corporation, were 
 rather an order in the State composed of many corporations. Theu' share
 
 APPENDIX XII. 59 
 
 of tlie national wealtli was immense, consisting of land devised by pious 
 men, and of a tenth part of the produce of the soil set apart by the 
 customary law of Europe, for the support of the parochial clergy. Each 
 clergyman had only in this case an estate for life, to which, during its 
 continuance, the essential attribute of inviolable possession was as firmly 
 annexed by law as if it had been perpetual. The corporate body was 
 supposed to endure till it was abolished in some of the forms previously 
 and specially provided for by law. 
 
 " For one case, however, of considerable perplexity, there was neither 
 law nor precedent to light the way. Whenever the supreme power 
 deemed itself bound to change the Established Church, or even materially 
 to alter the distribution of its revenues, a question necessarily arose con- 
 cerning the moral boundaries of legislative authority in such cases. It 
 was not indeed about a legal boundary, for no specific limit can be assigned 
 to its right of exacting obedience within the national territory. The question 
 was what governments could do morally and righteously, what it is right 
 for them to do, and what they would be enjoined to do by a just superior, 
 if such a personage could be found among their fellow-men .'' At first it 
 may seem that the lands should be restored to the heirs of the original 
 grantor ; but no provisions for such a reversion was made in the grant. 
 No expectation of its occurrence was entei'tained by their descendants, no 
 habit or plan of life had been formed on the probability of it. The grantors 
 or founders had left their property to certain bodies under the guardian 
 power of the commonwealth, without the reserve of any remainder to 
 those who, after the lapse of centui'ies, might prove themselves to be their 
 representatives. It appeared therefore meet and righteous, that in this 
 new case, after the expiration of the estates for life the property granted 
 for a purpose no longer deemed good or the best should be applied by the 
 legislature to other purposes which they considered as better. But the 
 sacredness of the life estates is an essential condition of the justice of 
 such measures. No man thinks an annuity for life less inviolable during 
 his life than a portion of land granted to him and his heirs for ever. 
 That estate might, indeed, be forfeited by a misperformance of duty ; but 
 perfect good faith is in such a case more indispensable than in most others. 
 Fraud can convey no title ; false pretences justify no acts. There were 
 gross abuses in the monasteries, but it was not for their offences that the 
 monastic communities fell. The most commendable api^lication of their 
 revenues, would have been to purposes as like those for which they were 
 granted as the changes in religious opinion would allow. These were 
 religious instruction and learned education. Some faint efforts were made 
 to apply part in the foundation of new bishoprics ; but this was only to 
 cover the profusion with which the produce of rapine was lavished on 
 courtiers and noblemen, to purchase their support of the confiscations, 
 and to ensure their zeal, and that of their descendants, against the resto- 
 ration of popery '." 
 
 ' History of England, ii. 218.
 
 60 APPENDIX XIII. 
 
 From the principles expounded in this discussion the present 
 Irish Church Bill derives little support. It confiscates eccle- 
 siastical property, and withdraws parliamentary grants to 
 which lengthened continuance had given somewhat of the 
 stability and certainty of the revenues of property, not for 
 any abuses or offences of the persons or institutions ejftfcjtled 
 to them ; and it apjjlies the proceeds of the former to relieve 
 the county rates, from the expense of lunatic asylums and 
 reformatories for juvenile offenders, a purpose which differs 
 little in its nature from conferring them '^'^on courtiers and 
 noblemen,'''' and saves the amount of the latter to the general 
 taxation of the country — " covering the profusion with which 
 the first is lavished^" and the selfish parsimony by which the 
 latter is saved, with ^^a faint effort^" to do something for 
 charity by allowing an insignificant proportion to go in pro- 
 viding nurses for the sick, and homes for the dumb. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The observation at page 31 that the clauses relating to the 
 formation of a New Church are not sufficiently enabling — 
 clause 19 of the Bill merely removing legislative prohibitions 
 on the meeting of Synods — will be best illustrated by a com- 
 parison with the provisions for these purposes in the laws of 
 some of the Colonies. In Canada, by 19 & 20 Vic. ch. 121, 
 the Bishops, Clergy, and laity may meet in their several 
 dioceses and frame constitutions and make regulations for 
 enforcing discipline ; and frame a constitution and regulations 
 for the general management and good government of the 
 Church. In Victoria, by the statute 18 Vic, No. 45, any 
 Bishop may convene an assembly of the licensed Clergy and 
 laity of his diocese, and every regulation of such assembly 
 relating to Church affairs as defined, is made binding on the 
 members of the Church in the diocese, the Clergy and laity 
 voting separately. 
 
 In one particular, the legislation in these two Colonies 
 differs materially. In Canada there is no provision preserving
 
 APPENDIX XIII. 61 
 
 either patronage or ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Crown. 
 In Victoria it is provided that no regulation should affect any 
 right of appeal to her Majesty in Council^ or to the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury _, or the Metropolitan of the Province 
 without their consent previously obtained; nor unless con- 
 firmed by a subsequent order of the Archbishop of Canterlnuy; 
 and also that no regulation should be valid which would alter 
 or be at variance with the authorized standards of faith and 
 doctrine of the United Church of England and Ireland, or 
 alter the subscriptions and declarations required for the con- 
 secration of Bishops or ordination of the Clergy. It is also 
 provided that neither the right of appointing Bishops, nor 
 any other prerogative of her Majesty (save the advowson of 
 Victoria), were to be affected. 
 
 What statute law effected for Victoria, has been attained in 
 Canada by the Provincial Synod passing- resolutions, which 
 adopted the Canon of Scripture set forth by the Church of 
 England, the Book of Common Prayer, and Thirty-nine 
 Articles, and Church government by Bishops, Priests and 
 Deacons ; and declared that the Queen is rightfully possessed 
 of the chief government and supremacy over all persons 
 within her dominions, whether ecclesiastical or civil. 
 
 In connexion with the same subject, the legislation of the 
 State of New York is deserving of attention. By the 35th 
 article of the Constitution of 1777, all such parts of the 
 Common Law and Statutes as might be construed to establish 
 or maintain any particular denomination of Christians or their 
 ministers, were repealed ; but no grants of lands or charters 
 made by the authority of the King or his predecessors were to 
 be affected. By an Act passed 6th April, 1781, after reciting 
 that the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession 
 without discrimination or preference had been ordained, and 
 that many charitable persons were prevented from contributing 
 to the support of religion for want of proper persons to take 
 charge of their pious donations, and that many estates pur- 
 chased and given to the support of religious societies, rest in 
 private hands, to the great insecurity of the societies for 
 whose benefit they were purchased or given, and that it was 
 the duty of all free and virtuous governments to encourage
 
 62 APPENDIX XIII. 
 
 virtue and religion, and to enable every relig-ious denomina- 
 tion for the decent and honourable support of Divine worship, 
 it is provided that all religious denominations in the State 
 might appoint trustees, who should be a body corporate for 
 the purpose of taking care of the temporalities of their respec- 
 tive congregations. In 1795, an Act specially for the Pro- 
 testant Episcopal Church was passed, which after reciting that 
 the Act of 1784 exposed this Church to difficulties, provides 
 in effect that each vestry constituted as thereby defined, should 
 form a body corporate. These Acts have been followed by 
 various other Acts both of a general character as to all religious 
 denominations, and of a special character as to particular de- 
 nominations. In these, limitations are imposed on the amount 
 of property which may be held for the benefit of religion. The 
 last Act relating to the Protestant Episcopal Church bears 
 date 9th May, 1868, and pro\'ides that not less than six male 
 persons of full age, belonging to any Church or Congregation 
 in communion with the Protestant Episcopal Church, not 
 already incorporated, may meet at any time at the usual place 
 of public worship of such Church or congregation, for the 
 purpose of incorporating themselves. It defines the qualifica- 
 tion to vote, viz. belonging to the congregation and baptism 
 or confirmation in the Church Episcopal, or receiving the 
 communion, or purchase, or ownership, or hire of a pew in the 
 Church, or contribution to its support for twelve months ; and 
 empowers the majority to determine the name or title of the 
 Church or congregation; to provide for the annual election of 
 two Churchwardens and not less than four, nor more than 
 eight Vestrymen, who with the Rector (if there be one) are to 
 form a vestry, and be trustees of such Church or congregation, 
 and they and their successors are to be a corporation by the 
 title chosen. Other statutes meet the special cases of other 
 religious bodies with similar or analogous provisions. The 
 proceedings of the meetings to incorporate are in all cases to 
 be certified under the hands and seals of the persons appointed 
 by the respective Acts, to the clerk of the county in which 
 the Church, &c., is situate, and by him to be recorded.
 
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