agent, not the clergyman, who is the hero or the victim against whom both priests and tenants are combined. And even in the midst of a proposal for considerable changes in their condition, Bishop Moriarty, the most highly educated, and one of the most highly esteemed of the Roman prelates, bears the testimony already cited to their beneficial influence, the possible loss of which he candidly laments, at the same time that he advocates their withdrawal. (III.) What, it may be asked, are the practical results of this historical summary ? These are far too large, far too complicated, to be entered upon here. Yet three special remarks may be made, as directly flowing from what has been said, and two general reflections. (1.) Each element in the Irish ecclesiastical life ought to be developed in the natural channels indicated by its own separate characteristics. What the law might do beneficially is indicated by what history has already done. What statesmen might hope, is indicated by what they have already attained. What statesmen might avoid, is indicated by what they have already abandoned. When experiments are said to have been tried in Ireland and failed, it has been truly and justly asked, 'What experiments?' The wars of Elizabeth? The curse of Cromwell? The terrific penal laws of Anne? Or the system of moderation and conciliation begun in 1828, and already producing fruits of civilisation and peace, such as almost counterbalance the whole previous disorder of Irish history. Each of the three elements must be regarded as what it is historically, and as nothing more. The Roman Catholic system has been the form adopted by the aboriginal Celtic race, and as such it has for the last sixty years received a large amount of endowment and recognition. On the expediency of this policy the opinion of eminent statesmen has attained a unanimity so rare and so striking as to compel attention even from the most reluctant. We have the declarations of Burke, Pitt, Peel, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Cornwallis, Lord Grenville; the Duke of Wellington, Sir Francis Burdett, Henry Drummond, Sir George Lewis, Arnold, Whately, Senior, Sydney 8 myself with the elaborate argument of Mr. Ludlow in the Contemporary Review, December, 1868; and the short but decisive appeal of Mr. Goldwin Smith (Irish Character and Irish History, p. 132). Endowment and recog- Roman Smith to say nothing of the two most illustrious living names of the Whig party, and of all those who have declared, within the last year, their belief that this is the course which their own unbiassed convictions would have led them to adopt. It was formally adopted in 1825 by the House of Commons, by a majority of 43, in a resolution which has never been cancelled. It is justified not only by the precedents of Ireland, already cited, but by the still more direct examples of Malta and Canada. It is the policy adopted towards, and accepted by, the Roman Catholic Church in every other country in Europe. It is the only policy which even professes to satisfy the claims of justice. The demand for the destruction of a rival, without advantage to ourselves, may be vengeance, but it is not justice-may be the savage war-cry of the ancient Gibeonites,9 but is not the legitimate claim of a Christian State or of a civilised Church. It is the only policy which would tend to remove one of the most dangerous temptations of the present Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland, by making them independent of the popular prejudices and disaffection of those to whom, by the present wretched system of fees and lotteries, they have to look for their daily maintenance and support. It is a policy which, by the nature of the case, is not less just or less wise now than it was fifty or twenty or two years ago. The only impediment which it has to overcome is the same bigotry and prejudice which resisted the Roman Catholic Relief Act, the Test and Corporation Act, the Maynooth grant, and which, in each of those cases, was, by the determination of the leaders of public opinion, steadily met and over come. The Esta- Church the (2.) The Church of England is the Church of the English settlers. It is not the national Church of Ireland, any more than it is the national Church of India. But the bishops and clergy of Ireland, as much as the bishops and clergy of India, are prelates and ministers of the the English national Church of England, deriving from its laws, settlers. from its government, from its authority, the same advantages that are derived by the clergy of the mother country, however much the difference of circumstances may justify the loss of particular privileges which belong to the Englishman at home, but not to the Englishman abroad. The vast area comprised in the 'unions' of Irish parishes is already more like to the vast area of an English clergyman's district in India or the colonies, than to the compact structure of a rural parish in England. The accumulation of see upon see, and of parish upon parish, has already been an accommodation to the actual facts of the case. Any other changes in the same direction would be but carrying out a principle already admitted. The English Church in Ireland has always exercised, and will always exercise, an influence far beyond the pale; but it has done so not so much in virtue of its Irish as of its English qualities. It can only be separated from the Church of England, of which it is an integral portion, either by a series of penal laws, or by a complete and absolute disruption from within. Such a separation, whatever advantages it may bring with it, will cut off from it whatever have hitherto been its redeeming characteristics. Any new Constitution must be forced upon it, either by legal enactment or by the pressure of circumstances. As no Protestant could claim the separation of the Irish Catholic Church from the see of Rome, so no Catholic could claim the separation of the Irish Protestant Church from the Crown and laws of England. Equality in rank, in precedence, in legal rights, and, if it be possible, in wealth, is a legitimate object of ambition for either community. But the destruction of the internal constitution of either Church is not needed for the satisfaction of the other. Nor is it the natural policy of a Liberal Government to promote the extinction of the more enlightened minority of a Church which can ill afford to lose whatever elements of liberality or progress it now contains. (3.) Of the third Church it is not needed to say more than has been already implied. What has been said of the Irish Catholic Church applies to the Irish Presbyterian Church with the necessary modification of the two Presbyterian cases. But it is impossible not to express a hope Church. that the aspirations of Ussher and Newcome for a The union with the more cordial union between the two Protestant Churches might at last be realised, and that the closer homogeneousness which in some important respects exists between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians of Ireland, might lead to that closer intercourse and intercommunion between the Church of England and its Nonconforming and Presbyterian brethren, which on a former occasion I ventured to suggest as one of the most easy, most salutary, and most necessary reforms in the existing relations of the English State and the English Church. by the Finally, this leads us to the general remark that the example of Ireland, if in some respects a warning to England, is in other respects a model. Nowhere, as we have seen, Conciliation has the Church of England had such opportunities Imperial for conciliating its two chief rivals; nowhere is there such a field for attempting the kind of conciliation which, in England, would be equally desirable, but in some respects more difficult. Government In the graveyard of the Protestant cathedral of Tuam there stands the stem of the ancient sculptured cross of the original church. In the precincts of the Roman Catholic cathedral there stands its pedestal. The two fragments cannot be exclusively appropriated by either church. Neither can be expected to relinquish what each prizes, and what each has been the means of preserving. Neither would be so ungenerous as to wish to destroy what the other possesses, merely because the one has lost it. What all good Protestant Churchmen, what all good Catholics, of Tuam naturally wish for this ancient cross, is what every wise statesman, every true Christian, would wish for the religion of which that cross is the symbol, namely, a neutral ground, a mutual truce, by which the two parts shall at last be joined, as the emblem of peace, not as the landmark of division. That neutral ground, that mutual truce, has hitherto been found in the pacifying influence, in the general control of the Imperial Government; in the progress of mixed national education; in the silent influences of resident gentry, whether Irish or English. It has been boldly but truly said by a distinguished Churchman, who would else appear to have approached this controversy from a different side, that in these high matters the State has shown itself more Christian than the Church. If this be so in the questions of general policy most crying for solution, it certainly would seem not to be the moment to choose for severing any of the Irish Churches from these 'more Christian' influences. It has been said, with all the weight belonging to the calm judgment of the eminent statesman who uttered the maxim, that in Ireland, far more than in England, 'improvement and civilisation must descend from above; they will not 'rise spontaneously from the inward workings of the commu'nity.' 2 If this be so in secular matters, it is surely still more 6 1 Dean Alford's Essays, p. 65. Preface to Sir G. C. Lewis's Disturbances in Ireland. true in ecclesiastical matters, where the spontaneous working even of that highly gifted community too certainly needs all the stimulus which a more vigorous race and a more impartial Government can give it, for the development of its natural resources. of com. 4. It is sometimes said that the day for compromise is past. It may be much more truly said that nothing but compromises have been proposed, or can in the present state of Inevitability the empire be accepted. The advance of civilisation, promises. which forbids the total destruction of institutions, such as was common two hundred years ago—the framework of the Constitution, which has already admitted concessions on all sides that cannot be revoked-the pledges made to each other and to the country by the two political parties—above all, the complexity of the three religious elements which have been here set forth-exclude the adoption of any measure that is not in some degree a compromise. It is a choice, not between destruction and reform, but between various kinds of reform. Amongst these the selection may be difficult, but such a discriminating selection is the work to which this nation is called, It may be obstructed by the passions of contending parties, by the vehemence of popular prejudice; but let us not say that it is beyond the reach of English statesmanship and Irish patriotism. It is hard to believe that the best remedies are in themselves too late; or to surrender the hope that to the chiefs who guide the fortunes of the State, the very seriousness and delicacy of the enterprise will be its best recommendation. Let us conclude by an illustration from the life of the early Irish saint on whose character we dwelt at the opening of this address. There was a question in the sixth century as to the privileges and endowments of the Bards, the ancient spiritual hierarchy of Ireland. There were various charges brought against them. One was their disproportionate number. Every one of the first rank had thirty followers, every one of the second rank fifteen in his train; so that a third of the population were dependent upon them. Another complaint was that they quartered themselves on their neighbours from the 1st of November to the 1st of May. A third was that they demanded the gold brooch in the king's mantle. Convention of Drumceat. For these reasons Aedh or Hugh, the son of Ainmin, convoked the Convention of Drumceat,3 and proposed a total extirpation of the whole order. 3 It is now called Daisy Hill, or the Mullagh, near Newtown Limavady, county Derry.-(Reeves' Adamnan, p. 37.) |