We are not, however, over-sanguine. Our hopes are entirely built upon the presumption, that Ministers will abide by the proposition which they have advanced, and reason honestly from their own principles. That they will do so, as far as it may be expedient, that is, profitable, we can have no doubt. But we cannot calculate that they will be carried very far by their abstract love of truth and justice, where other men's interests alone are concerned; and we very much fear that the clergy must even put up with their losses; while the advantages derivable from the new principle will be solely confined to the fortunate in

ventors.

Proceed we now to another feature of the Bill. The property of the Irish clergy is to be subjected to a graduated income-tax, varying according to the value of the preferment, from five to fifteen per cent! If any thing could be regarded as iniquitous towards a body whom it would seem to be the object of the Government to proscribe, assuredly this may. It is, in the first place, partial in its operation. It violates that principle, which in no other instance has any British Minister ever yet intentionally departed from,namely, that taxation should be even ly distributed, and not press with any peculiar severity upon one class more than upon another. Here, where the object is one of general utility, the clergy are compelled to bear the whole of the burden!

not be held, the proposition, of the perfect indifferency of the State respecting matters of religion, cannot be maintained, and, therefore, the practice of taxing a particular body for the support of a system which, if maintained at all, ought to be maintained at the expense, as it is maintained for the benefit, of the community at large, is vicious in principle, and cannot be defended.

But, perhaps, it may be said, that the keeping up a system of divine worship is not a general object; that the clergy are the only persons whom it particularly concerns, and that, as such, they should support it at their own charges! If this be said, and if this be insisted on, we give up the question. But let it be held in mind, the State cannot hold this language, without formally abandoning a form of national religion, without, in almost express terms, saying to the community," You may worship God as you please, or you need not worship him at all, if you do not like it. We will give you neither instruction nor advice upon the subject; follow the bent of your own inclination, and be, as it listeth you, fanatics or atheists." Now, if this language may

But, perhaps, the tax is imposed upon those who are exempted from other taxes? No. The clergy bear their full share of all other public taxes; from no one of the burdens rendered necessary by the exigencies of the State, do they experience the least exemption !

Perhaps, then, they are better able to bear it than others-they may have been less affected by the fluctuations of the times? Alas! alas! what bitter, what insulting mockery! Against them, and, as yet, against them almost alone, have those outrages been directed, which have rendered property valueless, and life insecure, in Ireland! And it is while they are the victims of a system of oppression in one country, which has driven them from their homes, and the objects of commiseration in another, in which funds have been charitably raised for the relief of their misery; it is while the hand of calamity is thus heavy upon them, and they are compelled to appear as mendicants if they would avoid starvation, that the Finance Minister comes forward, and avows his intention of compelling them to bear an enormous and a disproportioned share of the public burdens! The iniquity did not require this aggravation! Nor is there, we are persuaded, a humane or reflecting mind in the country which will not be revolted by it. Truly there is now an end to the benefit of clergy; unless it be deemed a benefit to belong to a class against whom outrage the most brutal may be perpetrated with impunity, and only be regarded as furnishing an excuse for injustice!

During the last session a bill was passed, by which a tax of fifteen per cent was imposed on all livings, for the benefit of the landlords! The gentry are thus enabled to put into their own pockets so much of the property of the Church, as a kind of

compensation for the trouble which they may have, by becoming responsible for the payment of tithes. It was, we believe, imagined by the Government, that this subduction from the incomes of the clergy would not be much more than that to which they were already exposed, from bad debts and the expenses of collection. But it does not appear that the expenses of collection are likely to be much diminished under the new system; and it is yet to be seen, whether they will not be quite as great sufferers as ever from bad debts. We have frequently heard it said, that the poor used always, before this accursed system of combination began to take effect, to pay their dues with more regularity and cheerfulness than the wealthy proprietors. But, be this as it may, their property was taxed by an act passed in the last year, fifteen per cent; and all livings over twelve hundred a-year, will be taxed by the present bill fifteen per cent more! That is, within two years, Government will have caused, with respect to one class of preferments,a depreciation of Church property, to the amount of THIRTY PER CENT! This, by positive enactments! In addition to that depreciation which must be the natural consequence of the insecurity to which it is exposed, and the peculiar manner in which it would seem marked out for spoliation! Now, this we believe to be perfectly unprecedented in the history of taxation! And, from what has been already said, it will be felt, that it could not have come upon the poor Irish clergy at a time when they were less prepared to meet it. They never had, at best, any thing more than a life interest in their little preferments. Of these they became possessed, in most instances, late in life; and, even if their incomes were well paid, they would have found it difficult, in addition to making a becoming appearance in the world, to lay up any provision for their families. Many of them, we believe, endeavoured to effect insurances, which would, if they had been enabled to keep them up, do something towards securing against want those whom they might leave behind them! But the state of penury to which they have been reduced has rendered it impossible

for a great majority of them to pay the premiums as they became due; so that the advantages which had been purchased, as they thought, by many privations and sacrifices, must be lost, and their wives and children exposed, in case of their death, to utter beggary, unless something be speedily done for them, more than they can do for themselves! Indeed, Lord Althorp, they are not, just at present, the individuals upon whom you should impose additional taxes. It would be more consistent with British humanity to come forward with a proposition for their benefit, and to rescue them and their children from a calamity which was not caused by any fault of theirs, than to grind them down by exorbitant exactions! Come, let your better nature prevail. Let the tax be commuted for a largess. Let the attention of Parliament be called to their deplorable condition. Let its benevolence be interested by their long suffering, their helplessness, and their destitution. And even the enemies of the Church will, for once, join in good offices towards the af flicted clergy; more especially, as you may assure them, that, whatever may be done for their immediate relief, ample care has been taken in other parts of the Bill, that their race shall soon be extinct in Ireland!

We have, hitherto, considered the operation of the new measure, not as it is likely to affect the spiritual interests of the Church, or to impair its moral efficiency, (these are topics to which we shall advert by and by,) but as it is calculated to work injury to society at large, by the principles which it involves, or the practices which it sanctions. Let us advert, with the same view, to the contemplated curtailment of the Irish Hierarchy, and see whether that curtailment is likely to be productive of good or evil.

We will consider the Bishops as so many private gentlemen subsisting upon their own estates; (putting, for a moment, their spiritual character entirely out of the question ;) and, we ask, is there any good reason why their property should be confiscated, rather than the property of any other private gentlemen, to answer purposes which equally concern the rest of the community? We

can see none. They stand upon an equal footing with all other land proprietors; and their rights should be similarly protected. This is not the case of a tax, which has been levied by the Government for the payment of civil or military services; the receivers of which are considered, strictly, in the light of stipendiaries, and their remuneration regulated by a Co quantum meruit" consideration of work done, or to be done. The clergy are the holders of corporate property, which is as little to be confounded with the money that goes into the Treasury, as any other private property in the Kingdom;-and the fact of their giving their services, in virtue of their spiritual calling for the moral and religious instruction of the community, no more involves them in a liability to be classed with the mere paid servants of the State, than the fact of Howard's choosing to devote himself to a life of philanthropy, would justify any one in considering his private inheritance as a salary paid him by the Government for his labour of love! Is it because they are useful in a public capacity, that their rights are not to be protected in a private? Is it because they are more than private gentlemen in one respect, that they should be considered less in another? This, truly, is strange logic, and stranger policy! A logic, which far transcends that homely thing called the wisdom of our ancestors! A policy, with which neither Bacon, nor Somers, nor Burke, nor Pitt, were acquainted!

But, perhaps, the clergy have not been as useful as other private gentlemen, according to their means; they have been more frequently absentees; less charitable; worse landlords;-will the proscription in which they are now involved be justified by any such allegations as these? We trow not; because none such could be supported. They are, notoriously, better landlords, more charitable, less frequently absentees, than proprietors of any other class, and deserving of praise rather than blame, for the exactness and fidelity with which they discharge all their duties as citizens and subjects.

diminish, by a single one, that portion of the aristocracy, upon which alone they can confidently calculate in the struggle which is about to ensue ? The Irish clergy, and particularly the Bishops, are, in spirit, in principles, by education, by habit, from duty, devoted to a connexion with England. By it they are determined to stand;-with it they know they must fall. And yet, they are the very class selected as unworthy, any longer, the favour, or even the protection, of the British Government; and who are reputed as useless branches, fit only to be cut down, and cast into the fire! Was ever exhibited such culpable blindness to the signs of the times! Was ever political stubbornness or stupidity, more like a kind of judicial infatuation!

But, we earnestly ask, what can the Government mean? Is this a season during which they ought to

Let us now consider the Bishoprics in another, and still strictly secular point of view, as rewards for lettered men of respectable character, whose merits are their only recommendation; as so many prizes in the lottery of life, which are open to the aspirations of all ranks and conditions of the community. And we ask, what can the community at large gain by doing them away? .Will any individual consider himself better off, because his son or his son-in-law, or his nephew, or some near connexion, has ten chances less than he had before of attaining through merit to rank and station? Who was the late Archbishop of Dublin? The son of an humble man. Who is the present? A respectable Oxford Professor, who is indebted altogether to his talents and character for his preferment. Who is the present Archbishop of Cashel ? One who may be described in the same words. Who is the present Bishop of Cork? One who may be described in the same words, except that the scene of his collegiate distinction was Dublin, and not Oxford. Who is the present Bishop of Cloyne? The great astronomer, Brinkley, who is better known throughout Europe than in these countries, and who owes his preferment solely to his literary attainments. Who is the present Bishop of Limerick? The accomplished and amiable Dr Jebb, the refined and elegant author of “Sacred Literature," and other works

which will perpetuate his name long after his Bishoprick is extinguished. Who is the present Bishop of Down? Dr Mant, a man truly worthy the vocation to which he has been called, and to which he was recommended solely by his professional qualifications. Who is the present Bishop of Ferns? Dr Elrington; the son of a stage-player, who died and left his mother an early and a friendless widow, when he was a helpless little child. She struggled hard to give him education, of which he failed not to profit; for the boy was apt, and of a vigorous and energetic character; and when his school-days were over, he very soon distinguished himself in the Dublin University, of which, we believe, he became a fellow be fore he was one-and-twenty years of age. From that period, his life has been one of continued prosperity, and, we may add, of indefatigable labour; and when, late in life, he attained the station which he now holds, who could not envy the feelings with which such a mother must look upon such a son,-or such a son upon such a mother. The old lady is, we believe, still alive; and if widowed cares, and early maternal solicitude, could be adequately rewarded and recompensed upon earth, that reward is hers in the palace of Ferns, where she is surrounded by the children and the grandchildren of him for whom, in loneliness and destitution, she oftentimes prayed and toiled, at a time when she could have little anticipated his present elevation!

But, my Lord Bishop of Ferns, we have not yet done with you. We are about to do you a violence, but you must bear it. The subject absolutely requires that the truth should be told. Let the reader, then, under stand that this man, whose promotion we have just described, has been the stay and the support of his suffering clergy. His diocese is that in which the notorious Dr Doyle resides, by whose pastoral instructions the peasantry have been peculiarly incited to withhold their tithes; and we may very well suppose that the clergy of Ferns have not been the least sufferers at the present appalling crisis. But they are blessed in a Bishop, who seems to have consi

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CCVII.

dered himself but a steward,for their benefit, of his possessions; and by whom their wants have been supplied with an unsparing liberality, which commands their gratitude and admiration ;—a liberality equally delicate and munificent; of which the most shrinkingly sensitive may partake, without any painful consciousness of humiliation. Let one instance suffice to exemplify the almost daily benefactions of this generous and large-hearted Prelate. The wife of one of his clergy was lately confined of her fourteenth child. She was attended by a benevolent physician, who saw the penury to which the family were reduced, and did what in him lay to relieve it. A paragraph in the newspaper, inserted by his contrivance, announcing the birth of the fourteenth child, met the eye of the Bishop of Ferns, who immediately despatched a special messenger with a letter containing an enclosure of a fifty-pound note, with his compliments for "the young stranger!" Is such a man unworthy of the rank which he holds, or the property he possesses? And he would hold no rank, if there were not Bishoprics in the Church;-and he possesses no other than Church property. May the blessing of God descend upon him and his, for ever and ever!

But why do we mention these things? Not for the purpose of beseeching Lord Althorp not to lay sacrilegious hands upon property thus doubly consecrated ;-consecrated in its destination, and consecrated in its employment. Well we know that any such supplication must be of none effect. No. But for the purpose of shewing the laity the advantages, even in a temporal point of view, of these Bishoprics, and the folly of supposing that they can be gainers by doing them away. Suppose any ten of the great estates in the kingdom, instead of being, as they are, entailed as family inheritances, were thrown open to adventurous competition, and might become the property, for life, of enterprising individuals from the humbler classes, who should be thought best deserving of them; would that be, or would it not be, an advantage? Precisely such an advantage they now possess, and they are about to 2 U

throw it away! The Bishoprics are so many estates, to the enjoyment of which they and theirs may attain, by evincing those qualifications which may prove them worthy of such a distinction. It has been shewn, without going beyond the limits of the Irish Church, or of the present time, in how many instances humble individuals have been raised to the Episcopal bench; and how largely the honours in the Church have been distributed, for the reward of merit and the encouragement of learning. Nor is the profession of a clergyman the only one that is benefited by such a system. Every distinguished individual who is thus provided for may be considered as one withdrawn from competition in some of the other professions, which are thus less crowded by able men, and their advantages in consequence compara tively augmented. What should have prevented Bishop Jebb from being, like his admirable brother, one of the Judges in Ireland? Or any of the other individuals whom we have enumerated, from attaining equal eminence in any other walk of life to which they might have chosen to devote themselves? Nothing. They possess the talents, the industry, and the character, which must almost certainly have commanded success; and their advancement must have been at least as rapid had they gone to the bar, or practised medicine, or entered the army, as it has been since they entered into holy orders. The very individuals, therefore, by whom they are at present decried and persecuted, may be wholly indebted to the rank and station which they have attained in the courses which they have severally pursued, to the absence of antagonists by whom they might have been easily distanced; that absence having been owing to engagements which would never have been entered into if there had not been such a thing as a liberally endowed Established Church. We consider, therefore, the provision that has been made for the maintenance of the clergy, not only a benefit to those for whom it has been especially provided, but also a relief to those who enter into other professions, where their progress must be so much more free and un

impeded than it would be if so large a draught of talent and energy as belongs confessedly to the class of individuals to whom we have alluded, had not been diverted into another channel, and thereby prevented from contending with them.

We come now to by far the most important consideration suggested by the new Bill,-namely, the manner in which it is likely to affect the spiritualities of the Church Establishment. In the first place, the feeling of general insecurity to which the present measure gives rise, must have a very pernicious influence; as well in causing many to decline the services of the ministry, as in embarrassing and distracting the minds of those who had previously engaged in them; who are thus prevented from giving that entire and singleminded attention to the duties of their sacred calling, which may be pronounced absolutely necessary for the accomplishment of any considerable measure of clerical utility. They feel like men stationed upon a citadel that has been undermined, and who know not how soon the match may be applied and the train fired that is to bury them in ruins!

In the next place, the seizure of Church property by the Government, and the assumption of the principle, that it may be converted to the service of the State, puts the clergy into a position essentially different from that which they had previously occupied, and makes their subsistence, and therefore their existence, dependant upon the character or the circumstances of the Minister of the day. That regular supply of able and learned men, who, under Divine Providence, have made the Church of England what it is, can no longer be expected. Learning requires leisure; and leisure requires a settled competency, which can be cal culated upon only as long as the property of the Church is "dovetailed and interwoven" with the mass of other private property, and thus put beyond the reach of an unprincipled Minister, or a rapacious Parliament. We may, therefore, set it down that the axe has been laid to the root of clerical utility in the Church of England. Henceforth she will be known by what she was, not by what she is. Her worthies will