omission of the redemption clauses; to the having recourse to the consolidated fund, and the perpetuity fund, which would be unnecessary if four-fifths were substituted for three-fifths; and to the deduction of twenty per cent to be given to the landlords, a sum which must come essentially out of the pockets of the clergy, while no attempt had been made to show how the landlords, a class more interested than any other in the welfare of Ireland, came to be entitled to this increase of their incomes. The duke of Richmond was strongly influenced by dread of the misery which the clergy would have to undergo, abandoned to be persecuted by the agitators who, with religious liberty on their lips, hated the Protestant religion, and particularly the parochial clergymen, because, by their preaching and example, they had great influence in extending that religion. -The earl of Ripon, on the other hand, while he admitted that the condition of the clergy would be sufficiently painful, said, there might be circumstances in which it would become still worse; and he did not think those persons reasoned justly who proceeded on the miserable plight to which the rejection of the bill would reduce the clergy, looking to the sufferings and privations which they were compelled to endure, and the dangers with which they were surrounded, even to the loss of life, under the present system. In proportion to what they suffered, was it binding on the honour and common charity of the house, to deal tenderly with their interests, and not aggravate their distress, by laying hold of their VOL. LXXVI.

property for the mere sake of giving twenty per cent to the landlords, a boon which, it appeared, they had, if not suggested, at least voted in their own favour.

On the division, the bill was thrown out by a majority of sixtyseven, there being for the second reading, 122, consisting of 51 peers present, and 71 proxies; and against it 189, consisting of 85 peers present, and 104 proxies.

Besides these measures, a bill was brought in and passed, to amend and extend the Irish temporalities act of the preceding session. Under that act, the church cess was to be done away with, and the purposes to which it had been applied were to be provided for by the ecclesiastical commissioners, from the monies which the act placed at their disposal. The act, however, had not passed before Easter; and it contained no clause, making it retrospective in relation to vestry cess. The consequence was, that the vestry cess for 1833 remained unpaid, and the commissioners were unable to meet the demands of the present and previous year, amounting to 80,000l. or 90,000l. It was expected, however, that in the course of the present year, they would be in possession of upwards of 107,000l.; and it was, therefore, proposed that the treasury should, in the mean time, advance to the ecclesiastical commissioners a loan of 100,000l. on the security of the church property. Lord Althorp, having stated that he was more confident than ever that the money already advanced to the Irish clergy would be repaid, Mr. O'Connell expressed his regret at

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such a declaration, for that repayment could not be effected without violence, and they would get more blood than money, if they attempted to enforce it. In his hatred of every thing which had the appearance of a payment into the hands of dignitaries of the established church, even though for the benefit of all religions, he seemed to disregard the plainest

claims of charity and decorum; at least, he was reported on this occasion to have said, that he objected to parishes being taxed for the purpose of putting into a coffin the remains of a person who had gone naked all his life, and to the provision for destitute children, as being merely another form of the system of foundling hospitals.

Dissenters formed a numerous body, possessing, in many instances, great respectability, wealth, and influence Thinking that the very fact of the existence of an established church, supported as a national institution, and represented by its dignitaries in the highest branch of the legislature, stamped them, as religionists, with a mark of inferiority, it was not wonderful that they employed the power, with which they were now invested, to bring down the established church to the same level on which they themselves stood; annihilate all the rights, powers, and privileges which belonged to its members; and, by depriving it of all support from the funds of the state, convert it into a self-constituted religious community. The occasion was the more favourable for the enterprise, in consequence of the unsettled and uncertain state in which all things now were, and the hopes held out by a ministry who seemed to find concession to all sturdy beggars the easiest mode of leading a quiet life. In many places the Dissenters could turn the fate of an election; it was they alone who returned Mr. Rice for Cambridge, in opposition Sir Edward Sugden. Principles, too, which formerly would have been propounded as matters of speculation, had now become the subject of daily discussion, glibly and dogmatically laid down in parliament as the ground work of practical legislation, and countenanced, to a certain extent, by the house of Commons itself. Papists detested the doctrines of the Protestant church; but no less did Dissenters, though they might not quarrel with the doc

trines of the thirty-nine articles, detest the liturgy of the church of England; and, in their eyes, its episcopalian form of government was an abominable and unchristian corruption. Why, then, should those who were not of the church of England, be burthened with. tithes and church rates for its support, any more than the Catholics of Ireland for the support of the reformed religion to which they did not belong? Methodists and Presbyterians differed widely from Catholics; but Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists all differed widely from the episcopal church of England. The Catholic of Cork or Clonmel, no longer paid church cess to maintain the Protestant altars; why then should similar imposts be laid on the dissenters of Halifax or Huddersfield, to maintain the dignity of the episcopal mitre? This was an abuse; the reform act was valuable only as a means of removing abuses; whoever, therefore, refused to relieve dissenters from the necessity of supporting a church which they did not acknowledge, was an enemy of reform, an oppressor of the people, and a secret plotter against the new constitution.

The next step was unavoidable, or rather it was implied in the principle that Dissenters should pay nothing on account of the church. As the established church was still the church of an overwhelming majority of Englishmen, Dissenters could not admit that this fact should be an element in the question; for, in that case, their demands were at an end. They were compelled to say, that if the majority chose to have a church holding certain

doctrines, and governed by a particular ecclesiastical constitution, they were entitled, no doubt, to do so, for toleration should be universal; but they ought to enjoy it exclusively at their own expense. This, again, necessarily led to the adoption of the principle that there ought to be no established church; that the state should show no particular favour to any particular creed; that the public purse ought either to supply equally the means of religious instruction to all the various denominations into which Christianity should be split down, or to none that as every man was at liberty to join that sect whose doctrines and government he thought best, so each religious body ought to support all the expenses of its own worship; and that any connexion between the state and a church, led only to corruption in the latter, while it implied, in its very nature, tyranny in the former, by compelling one man to pay for the religion of another, in opposition equally to reason and scripture. Dissenters might sincerely hold that the established church was unsound in its doctrine, corrupt in its practice, and God-dishonouring in its government. It was right that they should tolerate even such a nuisance, though to the pollution of their own purer and more apostolic atmosphere; but why should they be taxed in order to support it? In accordance with these views, various petitions were presented to parliament in the beginning of the session, complaining of the burthen of the church of England, and praying for a separation of church and state, that is, for the abolition of the

established and national church, leaving its members to maintain their place as they best could, as a voluntary association, like other religionists. Nor did they want for supporters in parliament. To those, whose expression of such opinions was that of an honest belief, were added all who looked merely at the rich prize which might be gained in church property, if the church were destroyed; all who openly professed that no religion should be established, because they privately thought that any religion was a mockery; all who wished to use the spirit of innovation as a political engine, gradually undermining old political institutions; all who found it prudent from their own political situation to prate the popular jargon about "reform, and "civil and religious liberty." These petitions did not lead to any practical result, except that of producing a strong expression of opinion of an opposite kind, and calling forth hosts of petitions praying parliament to preserve the church inviolate. The movement was premature; the country was not yet sufficiently prepared to acquiesce in such demands, and put itself in a posture of defence, before the attack could be arranged. So far, likewise, ministers fulfilled their declarations to listen to no proposition for the destruction of the church; and Lord Grey, and the best of his colleagues would have stood by that resolution; but no such proposition was made; and the failure to make it, especially towards the end of the session, arose not from any dread of the victorious and unbending firmness