which, judging from facts that are before us, this church has to retard the secular prosperity of nations.

"Probably there is no country in which the effects of the Catholic and reformed religions, upon the temporal career of communities, may be more fairly tested than in Switzerland. Of twenty-two cantons, ten are in the majority of the population Catholic, eight Protestant, and the remaining four are mixed in nearly equal proportions of Protestants and Catholics. Those cantons in which the Catholic faith prevails are wholly pastoral in their pursuits, possessing no commerce or manufacturing industry beyond the rude products of domestic labour. Of the mixed cantons, three (Appenzell, St. Gall, and Aargau) are engaged in the manufacture of cotton; and it is a remarkable feature in the industry of these, that the Catholic portion of their population is wholly addicted to agricultural, and the Protestant section to commercial pursuits. All the eight Protestant cantons are more or less engaged in manufactures. Nor must we omit to add, which every traveller in Switzerland will have seen, that in the education of the people, and the cleanliness of the towns, the commodiousness of the inns, and the quality of the roads, the Protestant cantons possess a great superiority over their Catholic neighbours; whilst such is the difference in the value of land, that an estate in Friburg, a Catholic canton, possessing a richer soil than that of Berne, from which it is divided only by a rivulet, is worth one-third less than the same extent of property in the latter Protestant district.

"Such are the circumstances, as we find them, in comparing one portion of the Swiss territory with another. The facts are still more striking if we view them in relation to the states immediately around them.

"Switzerland being an inland district, far removed from the sea, is compelled to resort to Havre, Genoa, or Frankfort, for the supply of the raw materials of her industry, which are transported by land three, four, or five hundred miles through Catholic states, for the purpose of fabrication, and the goods are afterwards reconveyed to the same ports for exportation to America or the Levant; where, notwithstanding this heavy

Lombardy, and the works at Venice; to say nothing of the mercantile and maritime enterprises of the Venetians, the Genoese, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, which cannot be considered as exclusively attributable to monopolies. Moreover it is doubtful whether the most active and industrious part of the population in Western Europe did not adopt the reformed faith, because they were also the most enlightened: whether their prosperity and their religious opinions were not joint effects of the same cause. Nevertheless it can scarcely be denied that the general view taken in the above passage justifies the opinion that the reformed is more favourable than the unreformed faith to the causes of secular prosperity, viz., energy, industry, independence of mind, and the desire and aptitude for self-government.

It is on these grounds, and because existing rights ought not to be disturbed without a strong and manifest reason for the change, that we would abstain from abrogating the present Protestant church establishment in Ireland. But while we gave the preference to the Protestant clergy on the ground of actual possession, we would at the same time provide that the establishment should be reduced to a scale commensurate with the wants of the Protestant population. So long as the penal laws were in force, and government held that every Irishman either was or ought to be a Protestant, it was quite consistent to maintain a Protestant establishment which should be sufficient for the wants of the entire population; but now that this principle is abandoned, and it is admitted that an Irishman may legally be a Roman Catholic, there can be no excuse for not reducing the state provision for the Protestants to

a level with their actual, not their possible numbers. The best mode of bringing about this result seems to be that all the annual proceeds of church property in Ireland, whether tithes, ministers' money, or bishops' lands, should be drawn into a common fund, and that the management of the property and the collection of its annual proceeds should be transferred to lay persons, appointed either by dioceses or some other more convenient division, and subject to the general superintendence of the ecclesiastical commissioners. The most desirable course would be, if Protestants of all denominations, who accept the doctrine of the Trinity, were, as in Prussia, united in one communion, and placed under one system of church government. But as this would probably be impracticable (at least for the present) in Ireland, it becomes necessary to find some means of providing for the worship of the Protestants of the Thirty-nine Articles apart from other Trinitarian Protestants. The difficulty of making such a provision on an economical footing is much enhanced by the fact already noticed, that the Protestants of the Established Church are thinly scattered over nearly the entire surface of Ireland. Under these circumstances it is impossible that one minister should be able to provide for the spiritual wants of as many persons as if they were collected within a small area; but the number of clergymen required for the 852,000 Episcopalian Protestants might be considerably reduced if a congregational instead of a territorial system was adopted, and if as many persons were assigned to each minister as could conveniently attend the church or churches at which he would officiate *. In this manner we should

* A change similar to that recommended in the text has been brought

Lombardy, and the works at Venice; to say nothing of the mercantile and maritime enterprises of the Venetians, the Genoese, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, which cannot be considered as exclusively attributable to monopolies. Moreover it is doubtful whether the most active and industrious part of the population in Western Europe did not adopt the reformed faith, because they were also the most enlightened: whether their prosperity and their religious opinions were not joint effects of the same cause. Nevertheless it can scarcely be denied that the general view taken in the above passage justifies the opinion that the reformed is more favourable than the unreformed faith to the causes of secular prosperity, viz., energy, industry, independence of mind, and the desire and aptitude for self-government.

It is on these grounds, and because existing rights ought not to be disturbed without a strong and manifest reason for the change, that we would abstain from abrogating the present Protestant church establishment in Ireland. But while we gave the preference to the Protestant clergy on the ground of actual possession, we would at the same time provide that the establishment should be reduced to a scale commensurate with the wants of the Protestant population. So long as the penal laws were in force, and government held that every Irishman either was or ought to be a Protestant, it was quite consistent to maintain a Protestant establishment which should be sufficient for the wants of the entire population; but now that this principle is abandoned, and it is admitted that an Irishman may legally be a Roman Catholic, there can be no excuse for not reducing the state provision for the Protestants to

a year, (the amount of the Regium Donum,) and as the Presbyterians are only about 200,000 fewer than the Episcopalian Protestants, it may be reasonably expected that between tithes and bishops' lands the surplus, after the lives of the present sinecure or nearly sinecure incumbents, would not be inconsiderable. This surplus we should propose first to devote to the endowment of the Presbyterian Church: whatever remained might, according to the ministerial project, be employed for purposes of education. The best

course, indeed, would be, if as in Prussia (where education is not considered a secular purpose) the provision for religious teachers, places of worship, and schools, was made from the same fund.

Having thus briefly explained the principle of reform which ought in our opinion to be followed with respect to the Established Church of Ireland and its endowment, we proceed to trace the evils which flow from the maintenance of the Roman Catholic Church of that country by means of the voluntary system.

Preferring, as we do in general, the principle of endowment to the voluntary system, for the maintenance of religious as well as other teachers, we must begin by admitting that some objections have been strongly urged against the latter method, to which we do not consider it as justly liable. The principal of these is, the argument so much pressed by Dr. Chalmers in his work on Endowments, that society, if left to itself, will never provide sufficient means for religious worship, especially in those places where there is the greatest need of it*. He particularly instances the case of the United States; and after speaking of the desertion of

* See also Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, book vi., ch. 10.