Ireland, as now by law established, be united into one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called 'The United Church of England and Ireland,' and that the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the said United Church shall be and shall remain in full force for ever, as the same is now established for this Church of England: and that the continuance and preservation of the said United Church of England and Ireland shall be deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamental part of the union."

Such are the successive steps by which the intercommunion between the Churches in Ireland and England was originated and has been from time to time maintained.

REVENUES OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAND.

The total rent charge of Ireland is, in exact terms, £401,114, or, in round numbers, £400,000 a year.

The whole of the rent charge is paid by the landlords of Ireland, in the proportion of £370,000 by Protestant landlords, and £30,000 by Roman Catholic landlords.

The whole produce of Ireland is 40 millions a year, whilst the whole of the tithe rent charge amounts to only about 100th part of the produce.

The net parochial income of the clergy is £370,000, and there are 1,530 parochial incumbents, giving, after deducting £49,200 for salaries of curates, an average of £210 to each incumbent.

The number of curates is 688, which gives an average to each clergyman (incumbents and curates) of £166. 16s. a year.

It is to be especially remarked that the Church in Ireland owes the greater part of her parochial endowments and much of her episcopal revenues to the piety and munificence of her prelates since the Reformation.

Primate Boulter left £30,000 for the augmentation of rural benefices and for the purchase of glebes for the clergy. (Mant. ii., 565.) Archbishop Bramhall almost re-established the Church in Ireland; and the late primate, Lord J. G. Beresford, in addition to rebuilding his cathedral at the expense of £30,000 from his own private fortune, gave £2,000 a year to the support of poor clergymen in his diocese, without counting his innumerable contributions to charitable purposes.

The gross income of the Irish Church in 1834 was £865,525

1861

From which deduct income of Eccles. Commiss....

580,418
140,000

For the parochial clergy in the gross...... £440,418

Churches:

Since the Union, 944 Churches have been built in Ireland.

The total number of Churches in Ireland is 1,530.

CENSUS OF 1834 AND 1861.

There was no census of the population of Ireland in 1834, but the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of religious and other instruction in Ireland "compiled a census by classifying, according to their different religious persuasions, the persons returned in the books of the last general census, taken in the year 1831, and computing from thence the corresponding numbers for the year 1834, in those parishes in which no satisfactory original census was tendered and received." ("Abstract of the Report of the Commisioners," p. 10, by W. T. Hamilton, Esq., one of the Commissioners.)

It thus appears that the census of 1834 was at the best only an approximation to the truth, and was founded on no satisfactory data.

1861

In 1834 the Established Church population (exclusive of Methodists, numbered at 40,000 .

812,964

691,509

In 1834 the Roman Catholics numbered 80 per cent of the population; in 1861, but 77 per cent. In 1834 the Established Church numbered but 10 per cent of the population; in 1861 nearly 12 per cent.

In 1834 there were 131 members of the Established Church to every 100 Roman Catholics. In 1861 there were 15 members of the Established Church to every 100 Roman Catholics.

No agrarian outrage for the last twenty years can in any way be connected with the revenues of the existing Established Church in Ireland.

Two-thirds of the tenants of church lands have bought out their farms which they held in fee-simple, having paid the purchase money

to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. That money is funded, and the income is applied to the benefit of the Church-so that really there is no grievance attaching to the Roman Catholics in connexion with the Church.

These facts I desire to leave to your calm and thoughtful consideration. They show that the Church in Ireland was, in ages before the Act of Union, one in doctrine, discipline, and government with the Church in England—that the revenues of the Church, instead of being excessive, are scarcely sufficient for the decent maintenance of her existing clergy, without making any provision for future necessities that the members of the Church in Ireland have of late years increased, and not diminished in proportion to the other religious bodies which surround her; and if Churchmen in England will but show a warm and loving sympathy for her in her difficulties and her trials, if they will but take such an interest in her ecclesiastical appointments as they do in those of the colonies, and show that they indeed believe that "if one member suffers all the members suffer with it,” I am fully persuaded the Church in Ireland will once again become a praise on the earth, and deserve the title which, in days of old, she justly wore when her missionary sons overspread the world, that of the "Isle of Saints."

DISCUSSION.

The PRESIDENT read a letter from the Right Hon. Joseph Napier, regretting his inability to attend, and commending the Irish Church to the sympathies of the Congress.

The Rev. Canon M'NEILE, D.D., said the harmony which should characterise a meeting like theirs could only be maintained by one of two conditions-a condition of universal perfection which gave no occasion for forbearance, or a condition of mutual forbearance which made allowances for the infirmity of others. It was needless to say that they were not in a state of universal perfection, and it ought to be needless to ask such a meeting as that to continue in a state of mutual forbearance. It needed but a glance back at the last session of parliament to observe that a combined assault was being organised against the united Church-an assault by Romanists and Voluntaryists, who very naturally assaulted first what they considered to be the weakest part of the Established Church. But the principles upon which this assault had been made upon the Church in Ireland were transferable, and there never was a case in which the old and often quoted passage of

Proximus ardet Ucalegon

would more truly apply. The objections which had been urged might be classified under two heads; the one rested upon existing abuses, and the other upon alleged inefficiency. It was asserted by the first class that there existed anomalies ìn the present administration of the Church in Ireland. Without entering into the details, suffice it to say, these charges pointed out sinecures with absentee clergymen; considerable populations without any endowment, &c. Magnifying these and other abuses, it was argued that the property, or a large portion of it, of the Church in Ireland, being so abused, should be withdrawn. To answer this, it would be necessary to accept the premises of the objection, but deny the legitimacy of the conclusions. Abuses, no doubt, existed, and the sooner they were removed the better. (Applause.) The legislature, as the trustees for the Church property in Ireland, had not only the power, but the legitimate right to make any alterations in adjustment or re-adjustment, or transfers, in the appropriation of that property within the church, which to their combined wisdom should seem best calculated to promote the objects for which that property was originally intended and devoted. But--and here he appealed to the good sense

and honesty of the people of England-he did not think that the legislature had any right to alienate that property, or any portion of it, from the purpose for which it was originally given. He hoped the heads of the Church in Ireland, aided by the bishops in this country, would not wait to have reforms forced upon them by hostile hands, but that they would originate voluntarily, wisely, and patiently, such a re-arrangement, and re-adjustment, and transfer of the existing funds in Ireland as should deprive the church's enemies of the handles they now so readily seized. (Applause.) The second class of objectors urged inefficiencyproved inefficiency-saying that, after an experiment of 300 years, the Church in Ireland had been found incompetent to bring the Roman Catholics of the country within her pale; and that, being proved a failure, she ought to be abolished. In his humble judgment, no such experiment had ever been fairly, truly, and honestly made by the Church as established in Ireland. For some reason or other, it had never been the avowed object of the English government that such an experiment should be made. (Applause.) From the time of the Reformation downwards the men appointed to govern the Church in Ireland had been as a rule nothing more than convenient politicians, rather than conscientious clergymen or zealous Christians. (Loud cheers.) Of course there had been bright exceptions, but they had only tended to make the rule the more conspicuous. When such men as Usher and King made a real attempt to carry the Reformation throughout the country and win the Roman Catholics to the Church, they were politely checked by my lord deputy, and instructions were received from the Castle that the object of the English government was to keep things quiet. There must be men who would keep up the king's supremacy, but there was no desire on the part of the government to have men at the head of the Church who really wished to forward the Reformation in the land. In their own time the Irish Church had risen from her sleep under the government of Archbishop Magee, put on her beautiful garments, girded up her loins to her work, was preaching the gospel more zealously, and educating the youth of the country in the Holy Scriptures. Here again the English Government interposed, destroyed ten of their bishoprics, and superseded their spiritual education society by a society whose avowed foundation was the absence of what was called the vital defect of its predecessor, which was that every child in all the schools who could read should read the Word of God. (Applause.) But, again, the objection implies, as the ground of it, that the proper object and duty of the Church in Ireland, in which she is alleged to have failed, is to win the Roman Catholics within her pale. Are those who urge it sincere in this? If so, we cordially agree with them, and this is indeed the gist of the whole question. What is the church in Ireland for? If it were avowedly and exclusively for a minority, and if the majority had saving Christianity without it, he, for one, thought the sooner it was abolished the better. Yet these were the weak grounds on which many defended it. But, on the contrary, if the object of the Church were to Christianise the country, a country which, without it, must remain unchristianised-or anti-Christianthen to say that it did not succeed was a good reason for strengthening its hands, and no reason at all for withdrawing support. Was Romanism, then, saving Christianity or was it not? Wheresoever and among whomsoever this might still be an open question, it had ceased to be so among them. As members of the Church of England they had come deliberately to the conclusion-and many of them had given it a solemn attestation upon oath-that some of the peculiarities of Romanism were "fond things, vainly invented, grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God;" that others were "repugnant to the custom of the primitive church"; that others of those distinguishing peculiarities were "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits;" and that the leading practice of the whole system, without which it must cease to be, was "an idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians." Can that which is so described, and, as they all agreed, rightly so described, for all this was in the Prayer Book, can that be saving Christianity? If Romanism were saving Christianity, then withdraw the Church of Ireland; but if Romanism were anti-Christian, then sustain it. (Loud applause.)

Mr. HENRY HOARE said he had been supposed to be an extreme party man, but those who had used that expression little knew that his sympathies ran strongly with Wesleyan Methodism. (Loud laughter.) He did not believe Wesley would have been so schismatic if he had lived in the days of such bishops as now filled the office, and one of whom (the Bishop of Oxford) had just entered the room. (Applause.) Those who inquired impartially into early history would admit that there were in those days bishops, not in the sense that a pastor of a

parish was called a bishop, but in the sense of a man at the head, not of the Church, but of those who ministered in that Church, giving them their orders, it would be for lay co-operators to prove the necessity of having bishops now. It was the same with the Church as if our Saviour had just left the earth (for the intermediate period of eighteen centuries made no difference); time was as nothing to those who were in the apostolic succession, one succeeding another by the laying on of hands, which had been the constant case of the Church. He had had infinite pleasure in listening to the two papers which had been read, and he was much pleased in following Mr. Lee in his remarks, because he had seen the practical results of the working of the gentleman's ministry. (Applause.)

The Ven. ARCHDEACON STOPFORD (Meath) said he was bound to return his grateful thanks to the committee for having permitted the Irish Church to be one of the subjects for the discussion of the Congress. In that fine hall, in which the question of cheap bread had been often discussed, it was meet that they should consider how best to supply the bread of life. When often asked why it was that the Church in Ireland was not more successful, he was bound to reply that many influences had contributed to that result from the time of the Reformation. The Reformation appeared in England under very favourable circumstances. With the exception of two, all the bishops embraced its principles. The efforts of Rome failed to produce the schism they desired. But in Ireland two nations had long been contending for the mastery; and when religious strife came to be engrafted upon national antipathies and hostilities, then the evil became almost too great for men to remedy, and, he grieved to say, that for ages the legislation of the Government party was such as to keep up and increase the strife. If asked why Ireland had always been a difficulty, and was still a difficulty, this fact he had mentioned answered the question. In Archbishop Usher's time, things began to look hopeful. He had but sixty-five ministers, but they were spoken of as being of the most encouraging kind. In the rebellion of 1641, the Church and all was swept away; and the Church did not particularly revive under Oliver Cromwell. (Cheers and laughter.) A very evil state of things had arisen in the middle of the eighteenth century. There were then 77 incumbents in the diocese of Meath; but of those only 21 were resident. The remedy for this deplorable state of things was applied not by Act of Parliament, but by Irish prelates, and completed by Ireland's great primate-Beresford. (Applause.) From 1822 that prelate resolved that no faculty to hold two livings should ever be given. The consequence was, that now there was scarcely one pluralist remaining in Ireland. There were now 108 churches, 88 glebes and houses, where in the middle of the last century there were but 24. Out of 102 incumbents 96 were resident; of those who were non-resident, five of them had medical certificates, and one was the bishop's chaplain. To show them that the Irish were not always coming to the English for help, he would just mention that, eleven years ago, the Irish Church Missions proposed to him to establish a mission in his parish. After working for two years it failed, and he and his people took up the work for themselves, and for the last nine years they had worked a diocesan mission to Roman Catholics, for which they had never sought any help except from the people within their own diocese. The Act of Union related only to the externals of the Church, and not to anything in which its true communion existed. He had often heard his own brethren talk of it doubtfully, as if, at the time of the Union in 1800, the Irish had tried to thrust themselves under the English skirts, as if they never could stand alone, and it was a very doubtful matter whether the English had not been too generous in allowing the Irish to do so. (Loud laughter and applause.)

The EARL OF HARROWBY said that he could not pretend to give any details additional to those which had been so amply furnished by the preceding speakers. Nothing, in fact, was left for an Englishman to do. But, as being called upon to express that sympathy for which their Irish brethren had asked, it was not in vain that it had been said that the English and Irish Churches were one, and must stand or fall together. He hoped they would not be tempted, for the sake of the fancied security of our own Church, to throw overboard what some still considered the weaker portion of the United Church. But it was not merely as an expression of general sympathy that he appeared on the platform to take part in the proceedings, but from a feeling of special interest which had been created in his own mind from seeing something of the working of the Irish Church. When so much doubt had been raised from time to time upon the assertions which had been made as to the progress of reformation in Ireland, he thought it