refer. It appears from them, that the gross annual value of all the Church property belonging to ecclesiastical persons in Ireland, before the deduction of 25 per cent. from the tithes, was 827,8867., and that the net value was 701,4127.; that is to say, not one half of the sum stated in the Christian Witness. And this property, which has, since the time at which these reports were made, been reduced by taking off one-fourth from the amount of the tithes, is divided, not among 850 individuals, but among 2240; averaging, not 16787., but 2531. to each person. Under the arrangements which have been made by the Church Temporalities Act, as the Lord Primate explained in his Charge for the year 1845, (a source of information which will be allowed to be somewhat more authentic than the anonymous statement in the Christian Witness,) the average net income of the prelates "will but little exceed that of the judges of the courts of law;" and "the whole property of the parochial clergy, were it divided in equal shares amongst them all, would not produce for each of them 2001. a-year." As to "sinecures," the Act of Parliament just referred to has provided effectually for the entire extinction of the few which are as yet unabolished. So much for the first paragraph, which describes Ireland as "the very Goshen of ecclesiastical establishments, presenting the paradisaic sight of a close conjunction between golden mines and ecclesiastical sinecures."

The next statement in the Christian Witness is equally unfounded. "Even the boundless domain of Popery shows no case of 850 men possessing in bishops' lands and glebes one eighteenth part of the soil, and claiming, in addition, one-tenth of the produce of the remainder, which supports between eight and nine millions of people!" Now, so far from the tithe-rent-charge being in amount "one-tenth of the produce," it is not one hundredth. The value of the gross annual produce of the soil of Ireland is estimated to be 41,216,9017. The total amount of tithe-rent-charge payable to ecclesiastical persons is 401,1147.; that is, less than a tenth of the "tenth of the produce." This statement, therefore, is a tenfold exaggeration of the fact! As to the value of the landed property belonging to the Irish Church, its amount, according to the Reports of the Commissioners before referred to, is 226,1407. Whereas, the annual rental of Ireland, as estimated by the valuators under the Poor Law, is 13,738,9671. Instead, then, of holding "an eighteenth part of the soil," yielding them, as the readers of the Christian Witness are of course led to infer, a rental equal to an eighteenth part of the rental of all Ireland, the Church's landed property does not yield to its ecclesiastical owners more than a sixtieth of the rental of the whole country.

The third statement put forward in the Christian Witness has reference to an individual prelate. "Let us take an instance; a Bishop of Clogher, who, having been tutor to Lord Westmoreland, went over to Ireland without a shilling, and continued in his bishopric only some eight years, at the end of which he died, worth between 300,000l. and 400,000l." A reference to the First Report of the aforesaid Commissioners, will show that the gross revenues of the see of Clogher were, before the late reduction of tithe property,

10,3717., and their net value was 8,6681. So that, supposing this pennyless adventurer from England to have entered on the possession of the see without being put to any expense, (which is impossible,) and supposing him to have subsisted without paying a penny for the support of himself and his family, (which is impossible,) and sup posing him to have laid by the whole of the net income of the see, 8,6687., for eight years, at compound interest, even with the assistance of all these incredible suppositions, can the readers of the Christian Witness believe that the bishopric produced to his legatees a sum of between 300,000l. and 400,000l.? If Bishop Porter died worth so large a sum, it evidently was not the sole growth of the See of Clogher.

I have now, I trust, made sufficiently apparent the falseness and exaggeration of the statements again put forward concerning the Irish Church by the organ of the Congregational Union.

I am, your obedient servant,

AN M.A. OF TRIN. COL., Dublin.

Another very remarkable expression of the present temper of the Independent dissenters has lately been called forth by the appointment of the General Fast. In Ireland, as far as we have been able to ascertain, the day was observed with great solemnity by all other denominations. Of the Independent dissenters there, we cannot speak with the same confidence, though we have heard nothing to the contrary. But they are a very small and uninfluential body in that country, and do not appear to be increasing either in numbers or importance.*

In this country, the organ of the Independents, the Christian Witness, has made the Fast a Church and State question, and the following notices to correspondents from the cover of the number for March, will probably surprise even those who are familiar with the style and temper of that production:

6

"T. R-n.-Words are the safeguards of things. Loose language has ofttimes been worked up into cruel fetters. Those who hold so strongly by national sins,' would do well to bottom their own doctrine, and to inquire whither it leads them. There are few subjects on which there is so much unreflecting babble. We will be grateful to T. R-n if he will help us to separate the idea of national sin from that of a national mind, a national will, a national rule derived from Heaven, and a national conscience; and how we are to escape from being carried into the conclusion of a national religion-a

national church.

"F. Richards.-Yes; the National Fasts of Europe have been, to a

* From the "Congregational Year Book" for 1847, it appears that in Ireland there are but thirty-seven Independent ministers, of whom eighteen are employed by the Irish Evangelical Society, and four appear to have no pastoral charge. How inexplicable is the enmity which the Independents in this country feel towards the Protestant Church in Ireland. What they can expect to gain by its destruction, it is impossible to conjecture.

fearful extent, impious mockeries. They are founded on the Church and State principle, and one of its most hideous manifestations.

"R. S. K.-We would, had not time and space prevented. Privy Councils are the very last bodies we should call upon to expound the dark pages of the Book of Providence, and we resent their dictation of our devotions. We cannot reconcile perfect liberty of conscience with royal commands' to nations to 'fast and humble' themselves for manifold sins and provocations' which are not specified. Granting the right of governments to ordain fasts, the want of such specification is a serious omission; for Gentile reason and Jewish Scripture alike teach that special punishment is the consequence of special sin. For the sore punishment,' the heavy judgment,' we are referred to the potato blight; but not a word is said about the character of the sins. Looking carefully at our country and its people's history for the last year or two, we are able to discover no new national crime, and no special aggravation of those evils with which, as a people, we have been always chargeable. Whether we look at home or abroad, never did England, as a nation, stand so well as at this moment. Again, it is somewhat strange, that if the cry of guilt has ascended from Great Britain, the bolt of vengeance should have fallen upon the poorest parts of poor Ireland. This accords not with our readings of Revelation. It would, we think, have been only reasonable that the Privy Council, before issuing its charges' and commands,' had given the public a little more light upon this matter. It is a grave act to call on a great nation to engage in a religious service, as they tender the favour of Almighty God, and would avoid his wrath and indignation; and upon pain of such punishment as may be justly inflicted on all such as contemn and neglect the performance of so religious and necessary a duty. Strange jumble! Lamentable outrage on both reason and religion! The prophet of the Privy Council, of course, is not known; but we set very lightly by his inspiration. • Wrath and indignation!' Who commissioned him to expound the counsels of Heaven? We had hoped the day of these arrogant impieties had passed away. But in addition to the wrath of Heaven, recusants are menaced with the wrath of the British Crown. Pain of such punishment as may be justly inflicted!' Justly inflicted!' This, we think, will not amount to much. But we deprecate the holding of such language to the British people in the year 1847. It would be in harmony with a pure despotism, where the tyrant is the head of the Church, and where that Church is co-extensive with the nation; but in Great Britain, where Dissent constitutes so vast a portion of the entire community, it is intolerable, and ought forthwith to become the subject of remonstrance, to prevent its future recurrence."

People who can write in such a spirit, and so grossly misrepresent the meaning of such a document, at such a moment, do not seem very well qualified to discuss religious questions.

INDEX TO VOL. XXXI.

ORIGINAL PAPERS, CORRESPONDENCE, &c.

Version of the Epistles of St. Igna- Rome, the Christmas Holidays in,

M. N. D. on Apocalyptic Interpreta- Special Fund for the Spiritual Exi-

REVIEWS.