religion.' The document from which these quotations are made happens to be defective in that portion where the bishop describes the course he adopted since the times that his Maty signified his expresse pleasure that the censures of the church shuld be by us [the bishops] practised against recusants.' But enough remains to show that Bishop Ram, when his mild manner failed to cause recusants 'to repair unto ther parish church on daies' prescribed by law, adopted stronger remedies which required the aid of the sheriff. The culprits in that officer's custody 'I caused,' says the bishop, to be brought before me, hoping then that my p'suasion and reasons, together with ther apparent and p'sent danger, would make them relent. Myself p'vailing nothing with them, I entrated ther landlord, Sr Henry Wallop, to try what he cold doe wth them, but all in vaine. This done, I singled them out one by one, and offered each of them this favour, to give them any reasonable time to bethink themselves, upon these conditions :-First, that they wold repair to ther curat's house twist or thrist a week and heare our service privately in his chamber read unto them. Next, that they wold putt me in good security for the delivery of ther bodies unto the sheriff, at the end of the time to be granted, if they conformed not themselves. But they iumped all in one answere as if they had knowen beforehand what offer I wold tender unto them, and had bene catechised by some priest what answere to mak, viz.: that they were resolved to live and dy in that religion, and that they knew that they must be emprisoned at the leugh [sic], and therefore (said they) as good now as hereafter.'

Bishop Ram failed to convert the Roman Catholics of Wexford, but succeeded in acquiring a consider. able estate in that county, which his

descendants still enjoy. The present representative of the Ram family has recently become a Roman Catholic, and probably would relish, as little as the Wexford men of old, his ancestor's remedies for obstinate Romanism-the sheriff's prison and the curate's service. But the confiscations which followed the troubles of 1641 and 1688, and the penal legislation which contravened the Glamorgan and Limerick treaties, proved more effective than the persuasions and reasonings of bishops and curates. The laws which made it almost an impossibility for a Romanist to retain an acre of property, succeeded in converting, to at least a nominal Protestantism, the landlords of Ireland. The relaxation of those penal laws, their gradual abrogation, and finally the Incumbered Estates Act, have resulted in making them Roman Catholic again to a certain extent. Forty-two per cent. of Irish landed proprietors were returned as Roman Catholic by the Census Commissioners of 1861.

In spite, however, of the penal laws, the Irish people managed to preserve their numerical superiority over the Anglicans, and to maintain their ancient church in close communion with Rome, from whence, as S. Patrick was there consecrated a bishop, it may be said to have been derived. The Reformation, no doubt, deprived them of their ancient endowments, and for some years caused irregularities in the succession of their bishops, who were compelled for a time to receive consecration in Italy or Spain. But the life of a church does not consist in lands or tithes and as it was no new thing in the Irish Church to admit prelates of foreign consecration, the continuous descent of the Irish hierarchy from S. Patrick was not much affected. Indeed, anciently, Irish bishops were, during a considerable period,

tholic dignitaries of all kinds, no matter what may be their labours, learning, or loyalty, are devoid of every title and every emolument which the Government can withhold. The Irish people are now endeavouring to alter, through parliament, this state of things, and they ask that the Anglican clergy shall be deprived of their ascendancy and titular supremacy in Ireland, and maintained by other funds than the ancient endowments, which they seek to have applied, not to the use of Roman Catholic clergymen, but to educational or other purposes of general, not sectarian, utility. As well as can be discovered from their published statements, they seem to propose that the Imperial Government should pay the clergy of the United Church out of the general revenues of the United Kingdom.

It would be difficult to prove such demands to be, in themselves, contrary to right reason, or to point out any injury which would necessarily befall either religion or the State in consequence of removing the titular ascendancy of the Anglican clergy in Ireland, and rearranging their remuneration upon a congregational instead of a parochial basis. It is absurdly objected that the English parochial system is so nearly identical with the Irish, that both must stand or fall together, and the number of benefices in England and Wales, with an average population less than 200, is, with ridiculous effrontery, alleged to parallel the case of the Irish benefices which have an Anglican population of a similarly small number, but which have, besides what is dishonestly ignored in the

comparison-a Roman Catholic population of more than 1,000 in each benefice. It is also insinuated that a revolution will follow upon any further change; as if, forsooth, it would make any real difference to the country that a Roman Catholic bishop, rector, or dean should have in Ireland a legal right to the title of his office, and that landlords should remit tithe rent-charge to Her Majesty's collectors instead of to clerical incumbents. Again, it is essential' (so it is gravely arguedt) to the maintenance of the Church in Ireland that the parochial system should be preserved in all its integrity.' It is notorious, however, that the parochial system in all its integrity' has long ago departed from Ireland. What parochial system can exist, for instance, in those 199 Irish parishes where there is not a single inhabitant professing Anglicanism; or in those 575 parishes where Roman Catholics are numerous enough, but where the Church population, including parsons, parish clerks, sextons, and their families, varies from one to twenty Anglicans? The parochial system in all its integrity' ceased in such parishes when the churches were abandoned by the inhabitants, and when the tithes were appropriated by the State to the use of the Anglican Church in other localities. But Lord Primate Beresford, who, ' in a social point of view,'§ values highly the importance of having a large body of educated gentlemen, such as the clergy of the Established Church, spread over the face of a country so divested as Ireland is of a resident gentry,' maintains that if any diminution were made in

10.

the incomes of these clerical squires, the Church itself would be extinguished. He concedes that, as a missionary church, the Anglican ministry has no place in Ireland, because the number of clergymen is not more than sufficient for the pastoral care and instruction of the members of the Established Church,' and adds, their incomes have been pared down to the lowest sum compatible with the existence of the Church in this country.' His Grace is perhaps of more expensive habits than some of his ecclesiastical ancestors, the Irish bishops in former time, who had but three milch kine allowed them, and when one was dry the parish did change her for another.' But even if the Irish Protestants, who form the richer portion of the population, were so deficient in their duty as not to maintain their own pastors, it is unlikely that Government would suffer the Anglican clergy to subside into poverty. Roman Catholics themselves would object to such a calamity as that. For it would be truly a calamity to Roman Catholics if the present Anglican ministers, educated gentlemen as they are, were replaced by a pauper clergy, of little education, dependent upon fanaticism for their support, and upon the Irish Church Missions, or some equally ultraProtestant society, for promotion. Roman Catholics do not desire the introduction of Exeter Hall bishops into Ireland, and therefore do not want to overthrow the Anglican Church or pauperise its ministers, but merely to remove Anglican clerical ascendancy, and alter the temporal arrangements on which that ascendancy is based.

For the sake of true religion, as well as good government, the removal of what are called Irish Church Temporalities is much de

sired by earnest men who would fain see the United Church of England and Ireland more efficient and less odious to the Irish people. It seems unjust and destructive of the true vitality of that Church in Ireland, that a system should any longer continue, under which, in many dioceses one-half, in others two-thirds, of all the Anglican benefices have an average population of only 70 or 80 Protestants, and over 2,000 Roman Catholics per benefice. The diocese of Lismore, for instance, contains 44 benefices altogether, of which 29 are composed of 49 parishes, and are inhabited by 1,435 Anglicans, 123 Dissenters, and 69,743 Roman Catholics. In other words, each of these benefices has, on an average, 49 Anglican, 4 Dissenting, and 2,404 Roman Catholic inhabitants. The average endowment of each of those livings is 252l. 19s. 9d. per annum. Cloyne diocese has, in all, 80 benefices, of which 64 are made up of 87 parishes, and each of these benefices has an average population of 56 Anglicans, 3 Dissenters, and 1,915 Roman Catholics. The average annual value of each of these Cloyne livings is 411. 138. 3d. Livings of this description are not confined to the south of Ireland; for even in Armagh diocese there are 22 benefices, made up of 41 parishes, containing on an average 74 Anglicans, 10 Dissenters, and 1,611 Roman Catholics, and having an average endowment of 335%. 118. 10d. per annum per benefice. Not to multiply details of separate dioceses, there are in the 22 dioceses presided over by the Archbishop of Dublin and the six Bishops of Meath, Tuam, Ossory, Cork, Limerick, and Killaloe, no less than 951 parishes, forming 531 benefices, in which benefices the average Church popu.