SIR, Though the most unlookedfor controversy, in which the Bishop of Ferns has judged it necessary to engage with the Earl of Mountcashel, is perhaps not yet concluded, the time seems to have arrived, in which it should be noticed in a periodical miscellany which so ably advocates the interests of our civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The main topics of that controversy have been sufficiently discussed, and a judgment may even now, I conceive, be satisfactorily formed concerning the expediency of the interposition by which it has been provoked. I am accordingly induced to offer to you such reflections as it has suggested to one sufficiently acquainted with the state of the Established Church in Ireland, sincerely attached to its true interest, and truly solicitous for its utmost attainable efficiency. That at such a time, and from such a quarter, a vehement attack should be made on the actual administration of our part of the Established Church of England and Ireland, is, indeed, fitted to suggest reflections, extending far beyond the topics immediately agitated in the controversy.

Two years only have passed away since the religious public was gratified with a quick succession of reports, announcing numerous instances of persons who had become sensible of the duty of throwing off a mass of superstitious idolatry, and attaching themselves to the genuine truths of Christianity. Some spell, by which the moral genius of Ireland had been bound, seemed to have been suddenly broken, and the stupor which it had created to be rapidly yielding to the animating influences of religious freedom. A talisman had indeed been found; and that talisman was the written word of God. Some local circumstances rendered this important movement first conspicuous, and, throughout, more considerable in Cavan; but the agency by which it was effected appeared to have been spread through almost every part of Ireland, and especially through those in which the religion

of Rome had exercised its benumbing and degrading influences with the least control. Among the mountains of Leitrim, a Roman Catholic peasantry was found to be eager in attendance on expositions of the sacred writings, and open to the conviction which they offered to their minds. In various other parts of Connaught, the peculiar region of Irish popery, the announcement of the existence of a written word, which seemed to have been carefully withheld from the knowledge of the people, was hailed with an admiring curiosity. In Munster, besides many scattered instances of conversion occurring in various places, one parish, that of Askeaton, in the diocese of Limerick, exhibited an almost uncontested triumph of religious liberty. If the capital and its vicinity exhibited less decisive indications of the influence of religious truth, it should be recollected, that in the capital all the violence of political and ecclesiastical faction had been concentrated. If the Protestant counties of Ulster could not boast of as much success in enlightening the minds of Roman Catholics as the almost Popish counties of Connaught, it should be remembered, that there the congregations of Protestants were sufficiently numerous to occupy a large share of the attention of the clergy; that in those counties the abuses of Popery were much checked and restrained by the predominance of the Protestant population; and that Protestants, where they were strong in number, felt themselves disposed to array themselves in opposition to a party, elsewhere overwhelming. To every reflecting mind, however, it was apparent that a time had at length arrived, in which it might be reasonably hoped that the truth of religion should spread its salutary influence over the land.

These most important occurrences* were traced to their principle; and it was ascertained that they received an adequate and satisfactory explanation from the natural operation of societies, which had been, during

many years, actively employed in diffusing a religious education among the lower classes of the people. But where had these religious societies themselves their origin? In that association, one of the original triumvirate of which was an old and steady member of the Established Church, and the measures of which have been, from its commencement to the present day, constantly directed and supported by the clergy of the Establishment. The formation and success of such a society naturally gave occasion to the formation of others, in which laymen exercised a predominating influence; but the parent society, the Association for Discountenancing Vice, was the creature of the Established Clergy; and this society, aided at length by the liberality of the government, has embraced all the various objects of education, and of the diffusion of the sacred writings and of religious tracts, which its off spring have variously pursued. To the clergy of the Establishment, then, may this fair promise of religious improvement be most justly ascribed. They gave the original impulse, and they have, from the beginning, continued their best exertions, being at the same time active in conducting, within their respective parishes, the operations of the other societies. To realize the promised reformation, it was contended by worldly politicians that all political disqualifications should be removed from Roman Catholics, that they might not be retained in their present communion by a proud punctilio. These disqualifications have since been removed; and, though we trust that the good seed of the word of truth has been too widely, and too carefully sown, to be now destroyed by the blighting influence of political excitement, yet to a superficial observer, the religious reformation of Ireland is effectually restrained. But whatever may be the religious result of the great change, which has been recently made in the government, whether it shall indeed remove out of the way the impediment of worldly pride, or, as seems much more probable, oppose to religion the additional impediment of worldly policy; to the Established Church, it must yet

be acknowledged, is the cause of the Protestant religion in Ireland primarily indebted for all which has been effected for its advancement, and for all the good which may yet be effected, when the unfavourable influences at present operating shall have lost their power.

Abuses it

A church, which, within the last thirty years of its existence, had so unequivocally demonstrated its efficiency, might well be supposed to be secure from the animadversions of persons professing to be its sincere friends. Could that establishment be justly described as inefficient, which had so surprised the world by the successful issue of its long-continued exertions, that the worldly and incredulous politician represented as a chimera fit only to amuse a dreaming visionary, an expectation of final success authorized by actual occurrences as apparent as the sun at noon-day? must have, because it is composed of fallible and erring men; but that, whatever these abuses may have been, they have not destroyed or considerably weakened its efficiency, has been recently proved to the world with an evidence, which those only who close their minds against conviction can fail to perceive. In truth, every man who has had an opportunity of comparing the present character of the Established Church in Ireland, with that which belonged to it thirty years from the present time, must be sensible of a most important improvement, which within that interval has been silently and spontaneously accomplished. The young clergyman of the present day is avowedly zealous in the cause of that religion, of which he has become a minister, and familiarly acquainted with its various topics of discussion; he devotes himself to the discharge of the duties of his sacred office, regarding them, not as burdens attached to a profession, which he had chosen as genteel, but as objects worthy of engrossing his attention, and constituting his best and surest gratification. The aged, too, have caught from the young an ardour which, in their earlier days, might have been characterized as belonging only to enthusiasts. The language of the pulpit has ac

cordingly experienced a general change and improvement. The merely moral essay of a former time is now rarely addressed to a congregation; the duties of men are recommended and enforced by considerations deduced from the promises and threatenings of the gospel; and the doctrine of the atonement wrought for mankind by a suffering Redeemer, is continually presented to the minds of Christians, as the great charter of human salvation. The Church is, accordingly, no longer considered as a refuge for those who wanted either the energy or the ability necessary for the successful prosecution of any other profession. Young men of talents and of industry devote themselves to it, as to a profession in which talents may be usefully exercised, and industry must be exerted; and long and laborious preparation is now made for the examinations, by which the qualifications of candidates for the sacred function are carefully ascertained.

Such is the present character of that church, which the self-constituted synod of Cork has judged to require reformation deep and important, that it may be rendered adequate to the office of an establishment of Christian ministers. Let me now call your attention to the circumstances of the time in which this synod has been convened.

In the last session of Parliament a law had been enacted, which the leading minister of the House of Commons, by whom it was introduced, acknowledged to be a measure breaking in upon the constitution, and justified only by pleading the hard necessity by which it had been extorted from a Protestant government. Into the consideration of that necessity I will not now enter. The breach has been made, and a retrospect would be unavailing. But I am authorized by the language of the minister in stating, that the Protestant church of England and Ireland had by that enactment received a dangerous and alarming shock, since a breach had been confessedly made in that part of the constitution by which chiefly it had been secured. If, indeed, I had not this authority for the statement, I might abundantly justify it by the events which have already succeeded the enactment of a law, by which peace and harmony were to

be established among all the various denominations of his Majesty's subjects. Intimidation has proceeded, without interruption, in its course. Why should it not? The great victory which had been achieved over the constitution, was felt to be a pledge of success in every future enterprise. The determination of assailing and overthrowing the establishment of the Protestant church, as a national nuisance, has been publicly avowed; and, as if to destroy its only remaining protection, a new association has been announced for rescinding the Union, and thus destroying the integrity of the empire, as the former association had succeeded in violating the integrity of the constitution.

In these circumstances, it might have been expected that every sincere Protestant, of whatever denomination, but more especially of the established church, would be disposed to befriend and protect that church, which had so recently and so notoriously afforded the most satisfactory proofs of its efficiency. It certainly was not anticipated, that a nobleman, who had been so lately numbered among the zealous defenders of a Protestant constitution, should stand forward to the public as the leader of a party of reformers, urging the most serious accusations against the administration of the established church, and calling for important changes in its arrangements, as indispensably necessary for enabling it to discharge the functions of a religious establishment. To that nobleman, indeed, and to the gentlemen whom he selected as favourable to his views, it seemed that the increased danger to which the church is now exposed, deprived as it has been of the special protection of the constitution, is a reason why they should arraign it before the legislature of the empire, as requiring, by its manifold abuses, to be corrected by a legislative interposition. To justify such a consideration of the actual circumstances of the church, it would, however, have been necessary, that the abuses of the establishment were so great, and so numerous and pervading, that it was incapable of maintaining itself in its actual circumstances, and that it must therefore be subjected to some considerable modifications. Could such

an opinion be justly formed concerning a church, which but two years before appeared to have actually begun the great work of the religious reformation of Ireland? If abuses, notwithstanding, existed, requiring reformation, ought it not to have been considered, whether they were so great and so extensive as to require a legislative inquisition? Ought not enquiry to have been made, whether the establishment is not actually in a progress of spontaneous reformation, in which such abuses must be rapidly diminished?

It is manifest that an ecclesiastical establishment cannot be subjected to a legislative inquisition in a popular government, without exposing it to. two very distinct dangers-one from the depredations of the radical spoliator, the other from the schemes of the exclusive sectary. The former will readily join in the cry of religious reformation, in the hope that some opportunity may present itself for plundering the property of the church; the latter will bring into hazard the endowments of the church, in the hope that whatever may be suffered to remain, may be appropriated to the support of men who will inculcate his peculiar doctrines. will be gratified by the event. The radical, who cares not for the doctrines of the church, will have seized on some portion of its revenues; and the sectary, if he has impoverished the establishment, will at least have the satisfaction of reflecting, that he has ejected those who differed from himself.

Both

In the present case it has happened, most fortunately for the admonition of the public, that a circumstance occurred, which indicated, at the very time, the danger to be apprehended from the spoliator. A Mr Bennett, though not one of the individuals selected to compose the meeting over which the Earl of Mountcashel presided, offered himself for admission, and was received. The French have a maxim, that he who excuses himself, accuses himself. Mr Bennett thought it necessary to excuse himself from the supposed imputation of being a radical, contained in resolutions manifestly prepared before a meeting at which his presence had not been expected. Whatever may be thought of the application of the

The

maxim in the case of this gentleman, much cannot be thought of his vindication, since he acknowledged himself to be a liberal, in the broadest sense of the word." This most latitudinary liberal is, of course, a decided enemy to tithes, by which the parochial clergy are chiefly maintained. While, therefore, he heartily concurred in all the censures which had been uttered against the clergy of the established church, aggravating them by a case known to himself, which he did not specify, and in regard to which he is consequently safe from reply, he earnestly insisted on bringing under the consideration of the meeting his favourite measure of the abolition of tithes. meeting, he remarked, was manifestly disinclined to meddle with church property. This disinclination, however, he had not been led to attribute to any determination of maintaining the property of the establishment. It is, indeed, remarkable that no anxiety of this kind is expressed in the resolutions then submitted to consideration, and afterwards adopted; for it is merely said, that it was not their object to diminish, in any degree, the revenues belonging to the church. The resolution, in which these words occur, afterwards adds, as their reason, that they were well aware of the disastrous consequences which must attend any attempt to disturb the rights of church property; a consideration which would have been equally applicable to the property of any other considerable corporation. Mr Bennett appears to have understood this resolution in this most neutral sense, and accordingly told the meeting, that the cause of their disinclination to meddle with the property of the church, was, that the consideration of it might "have the effect of shutting out from their minds those other points that had been so ably descanted on." Disregarding, in the eagerness of plunder, this prudential caution, he boldly hazards the project; the speech of this broadest liberal is received with approbation and applause by the reformers of the church; and the resolutions were unanimously adopted, the meeting having acquiesced in the sentiments of Mr Bennett, and the neutrality of the questionable resolution not affording a reason suffi