Ireland ought to be reduced. This resolution, as Mr. May observes, not only asserted the principle of appropriation, but disturbed the recent settlement of the ecclesiastical establishment in Ireland. Mr. May adds, with truth, that it was fraught with political difficulties. The announcement of it had, in fact, brought to a head the schism in the Government, between those Ministers whose hearts were still with Reform, and those whose sympathies as aristocrats and great landowners had for some time been passing from the side of Reform to that of reaction. The Cabinet was in convulsions. When Mr. Grote, who seconded Mr. Ward's motion, had sat down, Lord Althorp rose and said, that since the seconder commenced his speech circumstances had come to his knowledge which induced him to move, that the further debate on the subject should be adjourned to the Monday following. He excused himself at the time from stating what those circumstances were. They proved to be the resignation of Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earl of Ripon. The embarrassment of Ministers was immediately increased by a personal declaration of the King against innovations in the Church, in reply to an address of the Irish bishops and clergy.

But Mr. Ward's motion, though it was lost, was not ineffectual. It was got rid of only at the price of appointing a commission to inquire into the revenues and duties of the Church, and general state of religious instruction in Ireland; points on which there had previously been no certain information, and therefore no solid standing-ground for the reformers in debate. The inquiries of this commission place the facts beyond doubt.* Out of a population of 7,943,940 persons, there were 852,064 members of the Establishment, 6,427,712 Roman Catholics, 642,356 Presbyterians, and 21,808 Protestant Dissenters of other denominations. The State Church embraced little more than a tenth of the people. Her revenues amounted to 865,5251. In 151 parishes there was not a single Protestant; in 194 there were less than ten; in 198 less than twenty; and in 850 parishes there were less than fifty.

Strengthened by this disclosure, the Whigs ventured to insist on the principle of appropriation as a part of all measures for the commutation of tithes. The government of Sir Robert Peel was thrown out upon the appropriation question in 1835. But when the Whigs attempted to give effect to their own principle, they found that the resistance had grown too powerful; and the Lords felt their hands sufficiently strengthened by the numbers of their party in the House of Commons, and the growing ascendency of the conservative spirit in the country, * Erskine May, vol. ii. p. 486.

to stand firmly in the breach, and save the venerable establishment of Ireland from spoliation. The Whigs at last were compelled to pass a measure for the commutation of tithes in Ireland, without introducing the principle which they had declared, in terms rather indiscreetly dogmatic, to be inseparable from all such measures.

At a later period the question was taken up by Mr. Edward Miall, from the voluntary point of view. Mr. Miall, in 1856, moved three resolutions in the House of Commons in favour of the impartial disendowment of all sects in Ireland. His arguments against the continuance of the Irish Church Establishment were put with great force, and were perfectly conclusive. But his opponents had a better answer than arguments at their command: on a division the ayes were 95, the noes were 165. It is highly creditable to Mr. Miall's powers as an advocate, and a remarkable proof of the undeniable justice of his cause, that he should have been beaten by less than two to one; for this was but a few years after the Papal Aggression, and about the time when Mr. Chambers was moving his Nunneries Bill in overflowing houses, in the midst of enthusiastic applause. It was about the time when one who knew the temper of the House of Commons well said that, if Catholic emancipation were then to be proposed to the House, it would be rejected by a majority of one hundred.

The speech of Mr. Ward deserves a higher praise than that which is conveyed by Mr. Erskine May's phrase, "singular ability." It was really a very memorable pleading for a great cause. To the argument which always presents itself, though under various rhetorical disguises, that the religion of the majority of the Irish people is not the true religion, and that therefore principle requires us to treat it and its professors with injustice, Mr. Ward replied in these fine words:

"If I am told that this religion is not the true religion, and that we ought not to sacrifice to political expediency the sacred interests of truth, I again deny the fact. I say that with truth, as legislators, we have nothing to do. We have to look to civil utility alone, as the basis of connexion between the Church and the State; and if we once wander from this strong ground, there is no predicting the consequences which must ensue. Who is to be judge of the truth, except One to whom in this world there can be no appeal? Where is the source of truth, except in that sacred volume from which in all times-ay, even down to the present day-the most opposite conclusions have been drawn, upon points of doctrine at least, by the wisest, the most virtuous, and the most conscientious of mankind? Look at the consequences, again, of adopting this principle. If we maintain

the established religion to be the only true religion, the State must follow up this doctrine. It must enact test-laws for its protection. It must put down all who reject it. Sir, it was in the name of truth that the Spanish Inquisition was established; and Louis XIV. was never more intimately convinced of the truth of his religion than when he desolated the fairest provinces of France, in its name, by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. These were the effects of maintaining the established religion to be the true religion in Catholic countries. But let us not forget, Protestants as we are, that it was in the name of truth that Ireland was cursed with the penal laws. Sir, I have no wish to dwell upon this hateful topic; but when I see-and I do not use the term irreverently-how, in this case at least, the sins of the fathers have been visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation; when I see what a plentiful crop of strife, of disorganisation, and of blood, has been borne by the seed sown in 1704, when the attempt was made to degrade and brutalise the whole Catholic population by a series of legislative enactments, I feel that there cannot be a man in the assembly which I am now addressing who would ever again consent to sully the pages of our statute-book by unjust and partial laws, enacted in the name of truth.'

There is another argument equally familiar in reference to other questions as well as this, founded on the insuperable prejudice which the representatives of practical wisdom are pleased to say the English people entertain against any large measure of reason and justice, and on the consequent inutility of attempting to pass any such measure. To this also Mr. Ward made a fine reply.

"If I am told that the people of England are not prepared for the adoption of such principles as these, and that, at all events, it is useless to moot them here, because they will never receive the sanction of another branch of the legislature, I once more deny the fact. The people of England are prepared for the adoption of the principles of justice, and of religious toleration, to the fullest extent of the terms; and as to the other branch of the legislature, we have nothing to do with it. We ought neither to court nor to fear its opposition. Let this House but discharge its own duties honestly; let it place itself in the van of public opinion, instead of lagging tardily behind; let it, above all, redeem the pledge which it has so recently and so solemnly given, to remove all just cause of complaint in Ireland, and to promote all well-considered measures of improvement,'—and I will venture to predict that its influence will be irresistible. Sir, the path of duty—I had almost said the path * Ward's speech on the Church of Ireland, 1834,-Hansard, vol. xxiii. p. 1395.

us.

of honour, when I looked to our late address,-lies open before Time has worn away those obstacles which Mr. Pitt was unable to surmount; and that vision of conciliation and of peace (I use his own words, and most remarkable words they are) which he saw in the distance, but which he was unable to realise, is now within our grasp. Let this House, by its vote of to-night, calmly and deliberately, but firmly, resolve to enter on this path-the path of duty and the path of honour, and so far am I from apprehending that the people of England will ever desert us in the attempt to assert what I believe to be the cause of true religion, of just and equal rights, that I am convinced that every honest heart will be with us, and that the blessings of millions will cheer us on our way.'

With the second branch of the objection, founded on the certainty of resistance in the House of Lords, Mr. Ward deals in the only possible manner, by saying that it was for the House of Commons to look to their own duty, and leave the Lords to look to theirs. But, of course, he could not suppose that this obstacle was to be overcome by the same appeals to good sense and good feeling which he might hope would vanquish prejudice, if prejudice there were, in the body of the people. He must have known too well that if a bill embodying his resolutions had passed the House of Commons, it would have encountered in the House of Lords an opposition not to be overcome by reason, not to be softened by the influences of generosity and justice, the opposition of a privileged class, bent with singleness of heart upon maintaining every outwork, political or ecclesiastical, which protected or could be imagined to protect the citadel of their own order. The obstructive action of the House of Lords is represented by political optimists as a check upon the passions of the people. Unfortunately, it has usually been the embodiment of passions somewhat less generous of

its own.

The history of the Irish Church Establishment may be summed up in three words. It has always been the Church of the invader. This, its paramount characteristic, or, to speak more correctly, the essence of its being, it has steadily preserved, notwithstanding revolutions which have completely changed and in fact inverted its character as a spiritual institution.

The conquest of Ireland by the Anglo-Normans was like the Norman conquest of England, a mixed enterprise, partly military and partly ecclesiastical; partly a conquest, and partly a crusade. The Norman lust of territory in both cases received the spiritual sanction and assistance of the Church of Rome, on the condition of its subserving the Roman lust of ecclesiastical *On the Church of Ireland, 1834, ut supra.

dominion. Hildebrand blest the sword which, together with the independence of the Saxon nation, was to destroy the independence of their national Church. Adrian blest the sword which, besides reducing Ireland beneath the rule of the northern crown, was to reduce the ancient Brito-Celtic church of the Irish people beneath the rule of the holy Roman See. The reforming synod of Cashel, held under the authority of the conqueror of Ireland, was the counterpart of the synod of Winchester, held under the authority of the conqueror of England. The synod of Cashel affected to abolish throughout Ireland the schismatic customs and habits of the national Church, and to introduce in their place the perfect order and complete ceremonial of Rome. But the decrees of this synod were confined in their practical effect to the circle of territory held by the conqueror's arms; and as that circle narrowed, from the internal dissensions of its defenders, and the feebleness of the support lent to them by the government at home, Ireland relapsed into the ecclesiastical irregularities as well as into the barbarism of the Celtic tribes. The Roman Church of the Anglo-Norman pale was, as might have been expected from its essential connexion with a very inhuman conquest, and with the fierce antipathies of a dominant race, the least spiritual, the hardest, the worst of all the feudal churches. Its clergy, drawn, as in after times, from the least worthy part of the order in England, were more adventurers than priests. Its bishops were turbulent feudatories, noted for their outrageous acts of oppression, for their political intrigues, and for their scandalous quarrels and conflicts with each other. It may be confidently said, during those ages, to have done much more harm than good to religion. Among the fatal consequences," says Leland, "of excluding the natives from the pale of English law, blindness and bigotry proved the natural concomitants of a disquieted, uncivilised, and dissolute course of living. And the irregularities in the ecclesiastical constitution of Ireland, naturally resulting from the odious and absurd distinction of its inhabitants, contributed in no small degree to confirm the people in the grossest ignorance, and of consequence in the meanest superstition. In the dioceses where law and civility were most prevalent, the prelates found it impossible to extend their pastoral care or jurisdiction to the districts occupied by the old natives. Their synods were held (as the records express it) inter Anglicos; the Irish clergy, when summoned to obey their ordinary, were refractory and contumacious, and were excluded from the assemblies, where they claimed a right to be present as assessors and coadjutors. In the districts more remote from the seat of English government, where war and confusion chiefly raged, the appointment

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