Catholic Church, became the property of the Established Protestant Church, and (with the exception of a short interval during the Protectorate) have so remained up to the present day. The ministers of the Presbyterian communion, however, although their Church was established in Scotland, were not in Ireland assisted by any public endowment (except during the period just mentioned) until the beginning of this century, when an annual stipend was granted to them by the government, under the name of Regium Donum. The Roman Catholic Church receives no aid from any public fund for any religious purpose, except a small annual grant towards the maintenance of a college at Maynooth for the education of the priesthood. The Baptists, Quakers, Independents, and other Protestant dissenting sects are, as in England, wholly unassisted by public money. The State has thus followed three distinct lines of policy with respect to the different religious persuasions of Ireland. It has endowed the clergy of the communion of Protestants professing the Thirty-nine Articles with the tithes and bishops' lands, has given it certain civil privileges, and has made it an Established Church; it has secured to the ministers of the Presbyterian communion an annual grant, unaccompanied however with any civil privileges, and has thus made it simply an endowed church; while to the other Protestant Dissenters, and to the Roman Catholics, it has afforded no aid, and has left their clergy to be maintained solely on the voluntary principle.

The evils arising from the existing arrangement of ecclesiatical affairs in Ireland, as briefly described in the above statement, may be reduced to two general heads.

In the first place, the Roman Catholics, who are the large majority, feel aggrieved that the State, having an ecclesiastical endowment at its disposition, should bestow it on the clergy of a small minority of the Irish community. In this manner, not only is the Church of the minority supported, while that of the majority is left unsupported, but that of the rich minority is supported, while that of the poor majority is left unsupported. This grievance is commonly stated to be, that Roman Catholics are compelled to contribute, by the payment of tithes, to the support of a church from the creed of which they differ. Now, in fact, the Roman Catholics, although they may pay the tithe, contribute nothing; inasmuch as in Ireland tithe is in the nature not of a tax, but of a reserved rent, which never belonged either to the landlord or the tenant. But the sense of ill-treatment in this respect by the State on the part of the Roman Catholics is well-founded, although they may express it incorrectly: the true ground of complaint is, that the State, having a certain endowment for ecclesiastical purposes at its disposal, selects one religious persuasion as the object of its favour, and that one the persuasion of only a tenth part of the community. It is ever to be remembered, in discussing the ecclesiastical state of Ireland, that the objections of the Roman Catholics to the Established Church of that country are not of more or less; that they would not be removed by the abolition of a few bishoprics, or the paring down of a few benefices, but that they lie against its very existence, against the principle of making a public provision in Ireland for the clergy of the small minority, so long as the clergy of the large majority is left wholly destitute of aid from

public funds. No improvements in the internal economy of the Established Church, in the distribution of its revenues, or the discipline of its clergy, tend to lessen the sense of grievance arising from this source; the objection is of principle, not of degree, and nothing short of perfect equality in the treatment of all religious sects will satisfy the persons whose discontentment springs from this source. The effect of the preference in question is, that the whole body of Roman Catholics in Ireland are more or less alienated from the government, the author of their wrong, and are filled with jealousy and ill-will towards the more favoured Protestants. This feeling is the stronger as the Roman Catholics are the more numerous sect in Ireland, and have therefore the better claim on the consideration of the government. In England, where their number is insignificant as compared with that of the entire population, they defer to those superior claims for public support which the clergy of the Established Church are so fond of resting on the numerical preponderance of their persuasion; but in Ireland, six and a half millions out of eight millions naturally feel that they have at least as good a right as any other sect to any endowment for ecclesiastical purposes which may be at the command of the state.

The second evil in the state of the Established Church in Ireland is, that even if the principle of bestowing the state endowment on the Episcopalian Protestants is admitted, yet the existing provision is on too large a scale, and is otherwise unsuited to the peculiar circumstances of the members of this persuasion in Ireland. According to the ecclesiastical constitution as well of England as of Ireland, the country is divided

into certain districts called parishes, the boundaries of which have remained unchanged for a very long period, and at any rate have not been materially altered since the Reformation. In each of these the incumbent has the cure of souls (as it is termed); that is, he is bound to attend to the spiritual wants of all the persons dwelling within its limits, and to perform Divine Service in the parish church: and, as a remuneration for the performance of these duties, he is entitled by law to receive during his incumbency the tithes accruing in his parish, either wholly or such part of them as may not belong to lay rectors, or may not be appropriate to ecclesiastics not having the cure of souls. Now it will be observed, that, according to this system, the cure of souls has reference solely to area or territorial extent, and is altogether independent of population; so that if these divisions were originally unequal in respect of the number of souls to be cured, or if the population increases and thus requires additional care, or if it diminishes and thus requires less care, they are altogether unsuited to the actual wants of the people. This unchanging territorial division, in fact, establishes a maximum and a minimum for the Church Establishment; a maximum, inasmuch as it says, that however great may be the increase of population, or however large the number of the parishioners, the provision for the spiritual wants of the parishioners shall not be increased; a minimum, inasmuch as it says, that however great may be the diminution of population, or however small the number of the parishioners, the provision for their spiritual wants shall not be diminished. The mischievous operation of the first of these principles has been fully experienced in the large towns and the

manufacturing districts of England, where, notwithstanding the vast increase of population, the church provision for the cure of souls seems substantially the same as it was in the reign of Elizabeth. The mischievous operation of the second of these principles is largely developed in Ireland, where there are, as has been already stated, forty-one benefices, in which there is no member of the Established Church, and many others in which the number is much smaller than could be conveniently attended to by a single minister. The manifest absurdity of assigning a separate Protestant clergyman to small parishes in which there was no church, and not more than two or three Protestants, has led in Ireland to the practice of forming unions of parishes, and assigning them as one benefice to a single clergyman. It is much to be regretted that these unions were often formed with a view rather to the interests of the clergyman than of the parishioners: but if this principle of union had been judiciously acted on, it might have prevented all the abuses which have arisen from the disproportion between payment and duty now existing, and it might have removed all ground of complaint, so far as the objection arises from the internal economy of the Irish Established Church.

It is possible that there may be some foundation for the opinion of those who think that the number of

* Speaking of Madely, in Shropshire, Southey says (Life of Wesley, vol. ii. p. 369): "It is a populous village, in which there were extensive collieries and iron works, and the character of the inhabitants was in consequence what, to the reproach and curse of England, it generally is wherever mines or manufactures of any kind have brought together a crowded population."-That is, because the church establishment is arranged by acres, not by souls, an increase of population beyond the ordinary means of religious instruction is followed by immorality.