loan, upon terms so usurious that nothing but strong necessity on the part of the borrowers should have induced them to accede to, or the bad security offered for the repayment could have justified the lender in having the conscience to exact;—and what, after all, was that, but calling on the Protestants of the empire to relieve the disaffected and dishonest Papists of Ireland from the payment of a just debt, which like stout rogues they had sworn never to discharge; what was it but making the Protestants of the empire help the Irish Government out of a scrape, into which their own weak unsteady measures had brought them: and thus stands Ireland at the close of the year 1833, with respect to the tithe question.

By the new Ecclesiastical Reform Bill, passed last session, the landed property of Ireland is for ever discharged from the burden of church cess. We congratulate the country in being relieved from this vexatious and unjust impost; but we deem that the government not only took a bad way, but a bad time, for effecting the relief. Surely a government who deemed that the existing law should be respected, ought to have withheld concession of any sort from a people who sood out in resistance to what the legislature declared to be legal-as resisters of the law, they should have had no indulgence from the legislature; the abolishing of church-cess, in favor of the passive resisters of tithe, was but a bonus given to rebels---a premium bestowed on lawlessness. But we have objected, and do still object, not only to the time, but mode of relieving the landed property of Ireland from the payment of church cess. We allude especially to the most important means of providing for the uses to which parish cess was applied, namely, the appropriation of the revenues of the suppressed bishoprics. We never could understand why it was that government did not rather curtail, according to a proportionate scale, the income of the twenty-two existing bishops, than totally suppress ten out of the number. There is reason to believe that the Irish bishops would have made a great, and to them severe, sacrifice of their income, rather than see this dangerous curtailment of their number take effect. And when Ireland has, year after year, to lament the encreasing number of her absentees, we cannot see what ground of expediency the originators and supporters of that measure had, save the pleasing of the Popish hierarchy, for thus getting rid for ever of ten of Ireland's most useful resident nobility. The system has already began to work; the Archbishop of Cashel has removed to Waterford. The town of Cashel, which perhaps wanted a resident nobleman or gentleman of fortune, as much as any other place in Ireland, is deprived in future of a person capable of spending seven thousand a year. This may be a matter of much congratulation to priests, and no doubt there are pestilent bigots amongst them, who would rather see the poor of the vicinity of Cashel unemployed, and its tradesmen starving in its streets, than be subject to the offensive presence of a Pro

testant prelate. But we who remember the residence of Dr. Broderick in Cashel, and recollect how liberal he was in his charities, how munificent to many, how considerate for all, cannot but lament that from such a vicinity and from such a people the possibility should be taken of again enjoying the presence of a bishop like him. The relief from church cess, even suppose it was a compliment paid, as due to the loyalty, obedience, and gratitude of the Roman Catholic landholders, would be a poor compensation, even to them, for the removal from their vicinity of such a nobleman as Doctor Broderick.

But this is only an economical view of the question. Surely, in a spiritual and ecclesiastical sense, this measure also was injurious. For what has been one of the evils of the Irish Church? what one of the evils of the English Church? Certainly that prelates have been placed above their duty: that the distance between them and their clergy was too great; and that, in the height and remoteness of their station, they were but too apt to overlook, rather than oversee their dioceses. The Church wanted the preaching prelates of good old Latimer's school; men who would preach about, like him; ride about, like him, and see with their own eyes, and hear with their own ears, and who would say to their clergy, as the active general would say to his officers, "I don't want you to go before me, but I call on you to come along with me.' Such were the prelates we wanted for the Church militant here in Ireland; and it would have been most desirable that their existing numbers should be increased: and while they ought to have incomes and patronage sufficient to maintain the true respectability of their station, the overplus might have been withdrawn that seemed to encourage that distance, and heedlessness, and irresponsibility which should belong only to the creatures and followers of the Roman Pontiff. Moderate Dissenters were looking forward to some such change as this, as one of the means, under God, of healing schism, and comprehending, within the bounds of an Orthodox Church, those who were consentaneous in doctrine, and warm with the love of souls. But, alas! this ground of probable union has been renounced, and we are to have twelve LORD Bishops, who must have good constitutions indeed; sharp eyes, and long ears, if they travel as they should do, hear and see, and preach, as they should do, over the wide extent of their magnified dioceses. And here, as honest and fearless CHRISTIAN EXAMINERS, we must, before withdrawing from this subject, remark, that certain of our bishops have, by their frequent absence from their sees, given too much room to the Church's detractors to hold, that as those dioceses have done so often and so well without the residence of a bishop, they can continue to dispense with their presence altogether. Surely they have said, or they may have said, that a prelate who has been away for business, or pleasure, or health, twenty months in two years, may bid good bye to his see for ever. Now our opinion is, that such events, whether

unavoidable or not, only prove the necessity of coadjutors, or suffragan bishops; and we are tempted to think that if such a deputy should necessarily be appointed in any diocese, with a remuneration equal to one third of the episcopal funds, during the absence of its bishop, the welfare of the Church would be promoted, and we should see much less of episcopal absenteeism. It is to be hoped some future arrangement will be made, whereby our comparatively idle and numerous deans and archdeacons will be made responsible and efficient ecclesiastical functionaries, doing the work of suffragans and coadjutors in our enlarged dioceses.

Another great public act, affecting our Church, has passed the legislature this year, well intended, no doubt, by the ministry, in order to supply to the Irish clergy the means of support which their vacillating policy deprived them of. Perhaps, also, this parliamentary loan was intended to prepare the minds of the clergy for a future dependence on the treasury. The clergy, by strong necessity, have been obliged to take advantage of this suspicious bonus, and while with much misgiving they have stretched forth a reluctant hand, they confess that their poverty and not their will consents. Whether this money is ever to be reclaimed from them, or whether they will ever be enabled to repay it, time only can tell. The Papists say it never shall be repaid; and it remains to be seen whether a ministry which lives upon shifts, and reposes on measures of versatile expediency, will ever risk the consequences of enabling the clergy to enforce the payment of the tithes due by the people. Our opinion is, that payment never will be enforced, and that some commutation of tithe property will be carried into effect next session of Parliament, which will, we trust, for ever remove the necessity of the Protestant clergy in Ireland coming into collision with the Roman Catholic people. If a commutation of landed for tithe property could be brought about-if the many thousand acres of crown lands which are now in the possession of, or are now being reclaimed by the state-if the Curragh of Kildare and other great commonages of Ireland were applied to Church purposes, or if the 600,000 plantation acres of Church lands could be again virtually restored to the Church, so as that their entire rents would be made available to the support of the bishops and clergy; or if this were found impracticable-if the landed proprietors of Ireland, (and it is no matter whether this proprietary consisted of fee-simple, profitable, leasehold, or mortgage,) were made to assign over to the Ecclesiastical Board a certain number of acres, or a certain rent-charge, recoverable over their whole property, equal in yearly value to the tithe income for which their properties are now under composition: these would be commutations most desirable for the clergy, and beneficial to the country, and a good exchange would be made for both parties.

But if the clergy are to be made mere pensioners on the Treasury, supported by an annual grant from that Parliament

where O'Connell and his tail can form a coalition with the Radical and Dissenting interests of England; then, indeed, as a vote can feed them, so a vote may starve: and the independence, nay the existence of the Church may be despaired of, and we may say its days are numbered. And so, consequently, are the days of the connexion between both countries. For we firmly hold, that on the existence of the Church of Ireland depends the union, and more than the union between the two islands. The priests and agitators know this well, and therefore it is that they would drive away the Protestant clergy. Their expulsion is but the means to arrive at an important end. The Protestant clergy (and we desire to include our orthodox dissenting brethren in this view) have been mainly instrumental in nourishing and upholding the loyalty of the Protestant yeomanry and tradesmen of Ireland; and if these men are, by a Popish conspiracy, now deprived of their natural watchmen and counsellors, of what earthly consequence is it to them the maintaining a connexion which, while it lasted, allowed them to be deprived of all that made that connexion worth fighting for, namely, their civil and religious immunities, their own protection, and that of their clergy.

When all the Papists of Ireland are armed-which arming is the great end and aim of all Whitefeet and Whiteboy organization, and so far Captain Rock has been very successful in almost every portion of Popish Ireland-and when the Protestant clergy are abolished, and the Protestant yeomanry are disarmed, and are all either expatriated or disaffected, what has O'Connell to do but lift up his voice and the union is dissolved? What has the fiercer Papist, that will rise on the shoulders of O'Connell, to do, but to lift his sword, cut the painter, and the separation of the two islands is effected at once and for ever.

Surely the British government are not so insane as to intend the abolition of the Established Church in Ireland. No. We rest assured that the most able men in the ministry are anxious to uphold it; but so as that there may be no further collision between the clergy and the Roman Catholic people. And may not some measure be adopted that will effect this desirable end? Most anxiously should every friend to British connexion, and the true prosperity of Ireland, pray that it may speedily be brought about. There is one other measure which we anxiously desire to see brought into operation, and that is, a provision which will not only contemplate the support of the aged and infirm, but also employment for our able-bodied and idle population, who are starving in a country where there is so much to be done, and where there are so many hands to do it; but where those who have capital are disinclined to employ these hands in improving their country and increasing its capabilities. We know that a Board is now sitting in Dublin, occupied in collecting information on this subject; but we have reason to suspect that some, if not most of its ablest and influential members are prejudiced against a compulsory provision for the

poor. Acquainted better with England than Ireland, they may, as detesting the misapplication of poor funds in a system that groans under the accumulated abuses of three centuries, argue against the use from the abuse, and maintain that as the English system has only increased the evil which it was intended to check, so the same results must follow in Ireland: yes, certainly, if the very same system, with all its abuses on its head, were naturalized in Ireland. But where is the necessity for this?— What are able men good for, if, learning by English experience, they are not able to pick the good out of the mass of evil-if they cannot file off the encumbering rust, and produce for Ireland the bright and working metal. Of this one circumstance all may rest assured, that Ireland without a poor law cannot be in a much worse state than she is, and that England, in spite of a poor law, has been surprisingly prosperous: nay more, we are quite aware that England is suffering most unjustly the effects of the unprovided-for pauperism of Ireland, and that this inroad of Irish wretchedness cannot be tolerated much longer. Of this, also, we are quite certain, that were our able-bodied poor employed in increasing the productive capabilities of Ireland; the capital so expended would nourish itself, industry would be promoted; agitation would be neutralized; our agriculture would be improved; our wastes made productive, and our fisheries become a source of food and plenty. To be sure, if Doctor Doyle's plan of a poor law was carried into operation, and if the landowners were made to pay what the landholder had the power of expending, then, indeed, would the Protestant proprietor be left at the mercy of the Popish farmer and tradesman-then, indeed, would that consummation, so long and devoutly wished for, come to pass-the priest getting his hand into the Protestant gentry's pocket-and soon a transfer of property would take place, ample as a Popish bishop could wish, and that without a formal repeal of the act of settlement.

But this is not our plan for managing the fund to be applied towards raising the condition of the poor in Ireland. We hold, that all that have property in Ireland should be made to contribute towards making that property more secure, more available, more saleable, and more productive. We hold, that not only the landlord, but the fundlord-not only he who is nominally in possession, but he who has a beneficial interest in landed propertynot only he who holds the fee, but also he who has the profitable lease, or the freehold, or the mortgage, or the judgment affecting a property-should be made to bear his proportionate share of the burden. Every one who knows any thing of Ireland must be aware how deeply the landed proprietors of Ireland are in debt, and that, if their respective creditors were at once to enforce payment, there would be a mighty transfer of property all over the country. This state of things, arising, as it did, in the first instance, from the long sustained extravagance of the Irish gentry, was confirmed and aggravated by that most unjust and ruinous

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