church on its own property, have been first satisfied-upon the appropriation of which, as well as upon the time when those fair claims shall have been fully satisfied, it will be for parliament, Lord Althorp tells us, to decide; for he frankly tells us, that, as it is unnecessary to consider it now-he does not risk the bill, by mooting, for the present, this desperate principle-that its surplus revenues will soon endow a Popish establishment, and that our proscribed rectories, to which the appointment of a Protestant rector has been suspended a soft and soothing term-will, soon be permanently filled by, in its civil, as well as ecclesiastical sense, the Roman Catholic Rector of Rath and the other rectors of the people.

Nothing, short of a political convulsion, which would shake the kingdom to its very centre, could overturn, by a single shock, a fabrick so deeply founded and widely ramified as our ecclesiastical establishment. The first shock, however, in its execution, has surprised even the miners; and, in prostrating nearly half of our episcopal palaces, and mulcting the establishment in nearly a fourth of its revenues, has worked to the delight and satisfaction" of Mr. O'Connell himself. These are his own words drawn from him in an unguarded moment, by amazement at the sweeping range of this bill. But, while we confine our view to what is immediate and palpable, we take but a partial and inadequate view, indeed, of the ruinous effects of this measure. It has shaken the establishment to its very foundation and introduced into it a principle of decomposition and ruin. The clause which empowers the commissioners, to suspend the reappointment of parochial clergy, to parishes in which duty has not been done for three years; when combined with the power of dissolving unions, and changing bounds of parishes, if liberally interpreted and actively worked by the commissioners and demagogues, will effect the extinction of the Protestant church in all country parishes where there is not a resident gentry. And that this clause will be so interpreted and worked, the spirit and tendency of the age, and still more, Lord Althorp's concise description of the commissioners, may convince us. It is true, that for the present at least, the

commissioners must be Protestant; but, to use Lord Althorp's indefinite and equivocal expression," though Protestant, they will be as independent as possible." Independent of whom, or of what? Not of parliament, which is to audit their accounts, and control their proceedings; but of the church, though they are members of it. To give meaning to the vague and guarded phraseology of a diplomatic communication to give any force to the word though, we must view this sentence as announcing, that although the commissioners are Protestant, yet care will be taken that they shall be such as are perfectly independent, not only of ecclesiastical influence, that might be quite proper, but of what would be styled church prejudice, also. In fact, that they shall be of that mongrel breed, between truckling, lukewarm, nominal protestantism and political popery; or even such Protestants as he, of whom one of our representatives truly said, "that in candour to members of the Roman Catholic religion, he must allow, that the honorable member exceeded them all, in the bitterness of his invective, against clergy of his own persuasion." Such men will not have a quick eye, or a tender conscience, to perceive the necessity for a christian pastor and christian ordinances, in a parish, where there are but a few souls to be saved or lost. They will feel but little remorse, at withholding from a scattered flock of poor Protestants, who cannot afford to subscribe towards the building of a church-for such subscription is rendered, by the bill, an essential preliminary-the shepherd, who would stand between these few sheep in the wilderness and the prowling wolf of persecuting popery. By the clause empowering to dissolve unions, they can, when so disposed, lop off all the parishes which would come under the suspension clause from the centre parish, or corps of the union which contains the Protestant population, the Church, and perhaps a village.

The demagogues and rabble will give their aid to the Commissioners, and it will be powerful, in reducing the estab lishment to its minimum of cost and extent. And we are convinced, that this bill puts the most powerful weapon which government has yet bestowed, into the hands of priests, demagogues, and rabble, to prevent conversions from

Popery to cause the assassination of many of our Clergy-and to drive out of the country, if not murder, our poorer Protestants.

Let us suppose a parish, in which there are but a few, or no Protestants; and which the Romanists expect will, on the death of its present incumbent, be subjected to the pruning knife of the ecclesiastical commissioners. Did ever spendthrift heir, watch, with more anxious solicitude, for the death of a covetous and hated relative, who stood between him and wealth, than the poorer Roman Catholics will look for the death of this "brotherless hermit, the last of his race," and with whom is to disappear for ever the badge of their humiliation and slavery; as one of our agitation representatives, with a very Irish name, which we are afraid to attempt either to articulate or spell, designates the Church establishment. There is nobody, at all acquainted with the sanguine and inaccurate minds of our peasantry, who will not at once, allow, that in the day of their triumph, it will be difficult indeed, to persuade them, that, with the minister, the tithe which he claimed will not die also. And let them be persuaded that they are beneficially interested in his deathlet their persuasion be combined with religious bigotry and radical feeling, and we know enough of our countrymen to compel us to fear, that there is no parish, so circumstanced, in which there will not be many persons, not merely who long for, but who are ready, on any exciting occasion, to accelerate the desired event. We are convinced, that the clause which docks the entail of many of our sees and parishes, will expose, in such instances, their present occupiers to the murderous arm. And it is in sober earnest, that we would petition our legislators to enact, as its antidote, "That it shall be compulsory upon the proper authorities, to appoint a successor, to any ecclesiastical person, who shall fall by the hand of violence; anything in the present act notwithstanding."

In a parish circumstanced as we have described, we may rest assured that no efforts will be omitted, by priest or people, which intimidation, petty persecution, and open violence can supply, to convert or expel the few heartless and dispirited Protestants, in order that the parish may be purged from the here

tic's foot, and no unholy ground left on which to rear a church, or justify the introduction of a Protestant minister by the Commissioners. And Protestant emigration does not require this stimulus. It is progressing with awful rapidity, as a statement in our last number proves. As to converts from Popery, the suspension clause, in its operation, is absolutely penal against them. Who that feels it, now, too hard for flesh and blood to bear the finger of scorn, the brand of infamy, and the more substantial injuries to property and even person, which seldom fail to light upon an apostate from the religion of the people, would, then, dare, in addition to all these, to brave the tenfold bitterness of hatred and virulence, which he would be sure to draw upon him, for entailing upon the parish the curse, of a succession of Protestant pastors?

But how should such parishes be disposed of? Could church reform tolerate the abomination of Pluralists and Sinecurists? Certainly not. Provided, that by the former be understood incumbents of two parishes, either supplying adequate maintenance, or both, however small in value, with cure of souls; and by the latter, clerical gentlemen at large, and not clergymen who are filling important posts, where it is desirable to retain them, as curates of towns, villages, large parishes requiring additional care, or where the rector is superannuated; or parishes, whose tithe is impropriate, or wholly disproportioned to the labour. All these may be remunerated, in the most simple manner, by presentation to an adjoining benefice, which is either a non-cure, or with but little duty, and which they are always near at hand to discharge. We do not, however, by any means admit, that the residence of a pious clergyman, conferring on the parish every benefit which it is in a capacity for receiving, and always present to elicit and foster any aspirations after a higher moral state, is not an adequate performance of duty on his part, and the best possible compensation to the parish for the tithe, which it must pay, whether there be or be not an incumbent. That such a man were a benefit to every parish in the kingdom, Dr. Adam Smith's reasoning demonstrates, in a political point of view; and the bible proves (passim)

in a religious. Church reformers, whe ther at anti-tithe meetings, or in Par liament, clamoured much about curates, for whom the professed deep commisseration, and who, to their honor be it said, never reverberated the cry. Lord Althorp's measure forgets that there are such men in existence" vacuus cantat coram latrone viator." While it extinguishes sees, and confiscates Bishops' lands-while it taxes cures and suspends non-cures; it leaves curacies as it found them, and deplored curates unreformed, still "passing rich on forty pounds a-year." But why do we say leaves them? It throws the majority wholly out of employment, by suddenly depriving the incumbents of large benefices, in which, generally, the curates are to be found, of one-third of their income. Thus compelling them to dismiss their curates, now, perhaps, grown grey in the unremunerated service of the church, and with a prospect of preferment, or even employment, diminished in the same ratio as the parishes and cures. Would it not be a salutary reform in their condition, if their income were no longer a tax upon the incumbent; and consequently, its amount and even their appointment at all, however much required, dependent upon his pecuniary resources? but if, when ever the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for in this government appointed presbytery, the episcopal office is vested see need for a curate, that they shall present him to the nearest vacant noncure. Curates forgotten in a Church Reform bill, indicates a design to confiscate, rather than improve. And when we hear professions, of repect and commiseration for the clergy-of love for the church, and zeal for its security; and yet while the clergy are dying of atrophy, or spinning out the spider thread of a protracted existence, from the scant produce of charity sermons, public subscriptions, and private alms, see no measure brought forward for their present relief; as if like cha meleons, they could live on air, or, like beggars, on charity; and, as to the future, see not a single redeeming clause not a single benefit conferred by a bill, which, deals liberally in confisca tions, taxings, and extinctions-when we are thus forced to contrast honied professions with unfeeling and unjust acts, we deem it no breach of charity to say, as did the aged patriarch to a

deceiver of olden time: "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau."

Throughout this bill, we detect machiavelian policy, which inspires a still deeper distrust of the honesty, than even of the judgment of its framers, Divide et impera, pervades it. This is a principle which ever governs with personal, not patriotic feeling; and which makes selfish interests, and not the hap piness of the people, its prime object. Throughout the bill, we discover a studied concern to isolate the Churchto separate her, as far as is possible, from all her lay connections, that the death wound may be aimed at the marked deer, uninterrupted by those, who are somewhat longer, to survive her. We confess, that humanly speaking, we depended for the safety of the Church, less upon the honesty and justice of a whig government, than upon her close and intimate connection with the lay property of the country, through the medium of Bishops' leases, impropriate tithe, and lay patronage. Lord Althorp has discovered, that all these interests could be, for the present, conciliated, and thus detached from the cause of the Church; by partial legislation, and by trampling upon vested rights-but not their rights. Cerberus has had a sop for every mouth. Bishops' tenants were ready to make common cause with the church; in the very natural fear, that if their landlords' were plundered, the spoiler might refuse to renew their leases. These are promised, as the price of their acquiescence, leases for ever, at six, instead of seven and a half year's purchase of their beneficial interest. This will for a time, and that is sufficient, lull all those, who in difficult and complicated matters, spare themselves the labour of thought, and take it for granted, that what is promised as a benefit, is in reality, such. We shall therefore, probably, hear but few complaints and protests against the plunder of the church from this quarter, unless from those few, who may pause to consider, whether the difference be tween a lease for ever, and a lease enjoyed by their predecessors, as in most instances, for some hundred years-for comparatively few leases have ever been run out by the Bishops and with as little prospect of disturbance to themselves, is sufficient to compensate the sacrifice of a third beneficial interest.

while the ecclesiastical commissioners, who are to relieve the Bishops from the burden of their episcopal consciences, are to determine, when a parish requires, and when it does not require, spiritual care; the lay patron may appoint, indiscriminately, and without controul, to his parishes, whether they be with cure of souls, or whether they be non cures. We confess, that if, on the one hand, we cannot but admire this paternal solicitude to keep our Bishops pure, we cannot, on the other hand, but reprobate this total disregard of the best interests of the lay patrons. Surely they have souls as well as Bishops; and should not be left in the way of temptation. Indeed, this partial omission of so palpable a duty, has almost convinced us, that we have here but the first act, and not, as might be supposed, the whole tragedy; and that before the denouement, which, as the critics observe of our tragedies, generally covers the stage with dead, some touching scenes will be enacted.

These three great interests being thus disposed of, and, for the present, put to sleep, by the lullaby of nurse with "the great teeth," and "the great claws," whom we remember as the bugbear of the nursery. If still, the gentry of Ireland were disposed to murmur at the robbery of clerical sons, and brothers, and other relatives; though all cannot, of course, be satisfied, an agrarian law could not effect that, the present proprietors would grumble-yet doubtless, many will, by being relieved, at the expense of the clergy, from their portion of the charge for building and repairing their respective parish churches, and providing in them, things necessary for the due celebration of divine service. Thus has the bill removed from the Church every connecting stone, and separated every buttress, that it may be assailed, and fall alone. Even the parasitick plants which crept from obscurity along its walls, and which fed upon, and were enriched by its bounty, have fallen away before the tempest shock; and, by their secession in its hour of need, have left it doubly desolate-at once exposed and unsupported. And now, it stands isolated and deserted; a lofty tower, venerable through age, and hallowed by the most sacred and tender, associations:-a monument of our

country's buried greatness: a cemetery of her piety and virtue : an index of the spirit of the age: and furnishing to the contemplative mind, in its rise and its decline, a gloomy, but useful and impressive contrast between the religious reform of the sixteenth century, and the infidel reform of modern times.

Our Secretary, in supporting this bill, furnishes us with a fine specimen of Whig honesty, and of the "vis consequentia" of the reasoning which, is thought sufficient for modern times.Having by "a gift, blinded the eyes" of the collateral interests, he comes to the principals. He argues, that the clergy will not murmur against the bill, because they frequently requested of him, that he would tax them, and not injure their successors." Now, that he has complied with one part of their request that he has taxed them," and that to the hearts content of the most voracious publican, or the most ardent aspirant after taxation, we do not, indeed cannot, in the face of the present bill, deny. If he has complied also with the second branch of their request-if he has "not injured their successors;" it is only by strangling their successors in the birth, and thus, leaving them no successors to injure. Now, however blind Mr. Stanley may be to the fact, we apprehend that this was the very event which these generous and disinterested men deprecated, and were willing, even by personal sacrifices, to avert.

Mr. Stanley not only cheers the bill, but also, what we should call the indecent and unparliamentary acclamation, with which a measure of such grave importance has been all but passed, without deliberation, upon its announcement. He calls upon the house and country, to join in his “Io triumphe," and to hail the proceedings of that night "as a specimen of the way in which great questions will be treated by a Reformed Parliament." We doubt not that his appeal will be felt and answered. But by whom?Is this sample of reformed legislation calculated to cheer the fundholder, of whom some reformer, in a flight of eloquence may say, if indeed he has read the classics, which we know, that some of our brewing, and milling, and baking legislators-some of what we do not, but one of them docs call, the six