the minds of Protestants, that the Roman clergy has not resigned its pretensions to the temporalities of the Established Church. J. K. L. labours to remove this suspicion; and to prove his sincerity, he gives an argument against tithes which the Association has voted to be demonstrative. Your Excellency may judge from the subjoined remarks, whether those who still doubt, should at once be .called incredulous.

"The following passage is copied from a Roman Catholic Journal (Dublin Evening Post, Nov. 5, 1822): On Sunday last, the induction of the Rev. P. Mac Namara to the Roman Catholic deanery of the diocese (Limerick), took place in St. John's Chapel, before the most crowded assembly ever witnessed within the walls of that edifice. The Right Rev. Doctors Tuohy and Mac Mahon attended in full canonicals. A very appropriate sermon was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Griffiths, wherein he forcibly animadverted upon the modern levelling system, directed against church dignities and property. He passed a handsome and well-merited encomium upon the new Dean, and then proceeded to read the Bulls which were directed to the R. C. Bishops of Limerick, Cloyne, and Cork, charging these dignitaries, or any of them, to see them duly ex ecuted, by the canonical induction of the above very reverend gentleman.w.

This article might give rise to various conjectures; but whatever may be doubtful inference, thus far is certain, that the reverend preacher and his dignified auditory do not agree with J. K. L. in their notions of church property. 64

“There is still another, and a more weighty, circumstance. The Roman Church has added to the commandments of God, six others, as of equal authority. Of these Commandments of the Church,' one is to pay tithes to our pastors. So the precept stood in the earlier editions of the Roman Catholic catechism; in the twentieth edition (year 1817) it is modified into to contribute to the support of our pastors; but in the twenty-second edition (year 1819) the original words have re-appeared. It is obvious, my Lord, from this fact, that the question of tythes has occupied, very lately, and very seriously, the attention of the titular hierarchy of Ireland. Whatever determination they may avow upon the subject, there must remain, for the government and the public, matter of grave and anxious consideration. If the command, to pay tithes, has proceeded from the supreme authority of the Church of Rome, it can be repealed or modified by no lower authority. The renunciatory statements and arguments of J. K. L. will, in this case, only confirm suspicions of a still more distressing nature, against the religion and policy of the body to which he belongs.' If, on the contrary, it should appear, that this and the other 'commandments of the church' have issued only from the titular bishops of Ireland, a new source of embarrasment will be opened. These commandments bind, under pain of mortal sin, a kind of sin, as it is taught, 'which brings everlasting death and damnation on the immortal

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soul.' Who will not pause to consider of these things; and who' when he has considered, can say that he is satisfied? A power over the conscience, armed in all the terrors of that awful Being who proclaims himself a jealous God, is assumed by a few private men; and the matter of obligation may be changed at pleasure, silently and suddenly, according to the greater or less moderation of individuals, perhaps according to the exigencies of a controversy, or the speculations of secular ambition.

"Thus far, my Lord, I have considered J. K. L. as a member of an artful and domineering Hierarchy. Henceforward he appears in another and more humble character- -as the cheap, perhaps the unconscious, instrument of a political faction. In this capacity, he is put forward as the author of 'an Essay on Tithes,' which the leaders of that faction have styled unanswerable. Great advantages are expected from the singular-the almost miraculous-phenomenon, of a Papal bishop protesting against the temporal claims of popery. After four centuries of possession--after three centuries more of attempts at recovery that 'grey iniquity,' the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland is seized with the pangs of conscience; she confesses, by the mouth of a favourite son, that the ecclesiastical revenues in this country are derived from fraud, from treason and hard heartedness to the poor; in the agony of her contrition, she turns king's evidence, and supplicates for judgment upon her intrusive successor. This confession, it is hoped, will be generally edifying; and accordingly, the production of J. K. L. is destined, as we are informed, for circulation in England.

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"The arguments of J. K. L.-or confessions of Mother Church, are of a novel nature, as we are told by high authority ---their exordium is certainly in a novel style... The Viceroy of a British Sovereign is called upon to acknowledge that tithes should have always been odious in this country;--and the argument employed is that they are historically connected with the introduction of British power: he is informed that the history of Irish misfortunes may be dated from the day of their establishment, that is, from the first act of the British dynasty; and, in conclusion, he receives a warning, or a threat, or a prophecy, that while they continue, there will be no peace or concord in Ireland.

DECLAN then gives a concise account of the origin of the Irish Church establishment, which we regret that we have not space to introduce.

The following note to one of the passages here omitted of Declan's pamphlet, is particularly worth attention.

Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britannia, vol. i. There is not, in this, or in any other ancient document relative to the church of Ireland, the least allusion to a distribution of the tithe, between the bishops, the poor, and the parochial clergy. The bishops were supported by the estates of their sees: the poor had their portion

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in the bounty of the Abbeys, they were stript of it by Henry the Eighth, and have since received no compensation. J. K. L. was afraid to assert, directly, that this distribution was made in Ireland; but he insinuates it, though not with much dexterity. He says it was done by Charlemagne; and what he says may be true, but it is nothing to the purpose-had he said so of Henry the Second, it would have been to the purpose, but it would not have been true. "In page 30, J. K. L. says that the church possesses domains, which, if ascertained and valued, might appear more than sufficient for her support.' Here again the writer has condescended to be a borrower. The scheme of supporting the church from her own domains, has been proposed of late by various writers. The projectors are not agreed as to the details of the plan, but the outline is, that the see-lands should be let at their full value-that the increase of revenue should be distributed among the parochial clergy, and the tithes sold for the good of the public. This has not been an idle speculation. The survey of the episcopal estates has already commenced, and of five, which have been examined, the report is as follows:

The Primacy would produce £140,000 a year.

To simplify the review of this plan, let us consider but one of the dioceses, suppose the Primacy. If the Primate were allowed 12,000l. a year, he would, under all the circumstances, be very handsomely treated. There would then remain 128,000l. a year, to be distributed among his clergy, that is, to each rector, more than 2,000l. this is a commutation of tithe, to which the clergy can have but little objection.

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But the estates would not produce the estimated sum, unless they were put under proper management. Is it meant that the same sums are not produced at present? that the wealth of which they speak, is as the ore of an unwrought mine? The only meaning is, that the tenants of the sees have an interest under their respective landlords, to the full amount of the difference between the value of the lands, and the sums paid to the bishops. When the survey has been completed, and on the same liberal scale that has been used for the five sees above mentioned, this difference will will be found not less than a million. That is, it will be found that the lay gentry and farmers of Ireland have an interest-and from the nature of a bishop's lease, a perpetual one, amounting to a million annually, in the present mode of letting church lands-This interest is to be destroyed by the project under consideration-destroyed for the good of the public. But who, in the name of wonder, is this public, for the improvement of whose condition so much anxiety is evinced.

"But to complete the plan, the tithes are to be sold, if so, the purchasers will become tithe owners, and will naturally strive to profit by their bargains; how then are the farmers to be relieved? The proprietor of the soil, however, 'should be allowed a preference, as a purchaser of tithe; and he can improve the condition of his people. Very true, and if he be so disposed, he may improve it under the present system-he has only to remit to his tenantry the amount of the tithe. But he wishes to improve his estate, as well as his tenantry. That is, he wishes to increase his rent-roll; the improvement of the tenantry will be an after consideration"." DECLAN then proceeds.

"Such, my Lord, as accurately as can be described in a small compass, is the history of the origin of our church establishment. It will be important to keep in mind, that the act, from which it is dated, is the very first act of the English dynasty. All property, in this country, is the creation of some English king; and the first property so created, is that of the church. When the synod of Cashel was held, none of the native landholders had as yet been ejected; but, since that time, every foot of Irish territory has been frequently forfeited to the crown. The Norman and English knights, as they successively came into possession, and the Irish chieftains, as they were re-admitted under a new tenure, received their princely portions, with a reservation of this original grant. However the present landlords may have acquired their properties, the acquisition extended only to the nine-tenths of the produce, and their title to it, when traced to the source, originates in the bounty of the crown of England. The title of the church, to its share, is prior in time, and equal in authority......

J. K. L. has received the thanks, and his reasonings the sanction, of the Catholic Association,' a body, which, as it is said, contains many able lawyers, and represents the mature judgments of six millions of people..

.....

"The arguments of J. K. L. may be reduced to these two heads:

"That, in general, a Christian Church cannot have a just title to permanent property.

"That the Church of Ireland, in particular, lost all title, at the time of the Reformation.

He then examines the Popish Bishop's argument given in our 196th page and exposes his gross errors. And yet this argument was, it seems, described by Mr. O'Connell, as "one of the most felicitous compositions" ever given to the public.

In the course of his answer to this argument, DECLAN observes.

* See Mr. O'Driscoll, Mr. Wakefield, the Edinburgh Review, and the tract on the Consumption of Wealth by the Clergy.

"There is yet another instance of the felicity of his calculations. Judea, as it seems to Grotius and to J. K. L., was never rich in agriculture; hence we are expected to infer, that the portion of the priesthood was comparitively a small one. It never occured to J. K. L., that the less men have, the worse they can afford to part with the tenth of it. Besides, the priests had the tithe of all encrease, and if they obtained but little in corn, the deficiency was supplied from the flocks and herds.

"This, in an ordinary writer, might be considered as an error of inadvertence; but to J. K. L. it appears so happy a point, that he urges it a second time. He says (page 36), that at the time of the Reformation, the value of tithes was small, owing to the state of devastation and ruin to which the country was reduced by the .civil wars. It continued so for a considerable time. Cattle, not crops was the produce of Ireland.' Here the answer is obviously the same as in the former case; the clergy had the tithe both of cattle and of crops; and their condition must be compared, not with that of their own order in other times, but with that of the lay gentry in their own times. . . . .

"In the preceding quotation, the last sentence was broken off abruptly. It was cruel to dismember such felicity of composi tion,'-it would be downright Vandalism not to re-unite the scattered beauties. The whole sentence is as follows:- Cattle, not crops, was the produce of Ireland, and the Irish Commons, by a wise vote, secured their grazing land from the inroads of the parson; had they foreseen the future state of the country, when by tillage she was to be rendered the granary of the empire, would they have assigned the tithe of this immense produce with all her princely domains to the church? I should suppose not, unless British wisdom and British justice designated other qualities than they do now.' Were this passage intended for irony, it would have some pretensions to the character of felicitous; as a specimen of serious argument, one does not know what character to give it. At a time when cattle, not crops, was the produce of Ireland, then it was that the clergy who had a right to the tithe of both, were limited. to the tithe of crops only-that is, to the tithe of nothing, according to J. K. L. The limitation, it seems, was a wise one-in one sense, it might be called wise; if the intention had been to annihilate the clerical order, the means promised well. But what, after all, is human wisdom? The Irish Commons did not forsee the increase of tillage; if they had, they would have robbed the clergy of the corn-tithe also...

"And now it is time to turn from the felicities of this writer's manner, and attend to the graver concerns of his argument. The paragraph first quoted (page 19,) in which the Levitical is contrasted with the Christian priesthood, is pronounced, by Mr. O'Connell, to demonstrate the weakness and insufficiency of the title to tithes, as derived from divine right.' If such were the design of J. K. L., he might have spared your Excellency much

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