Tithes are directed to be paid, so soon, that is, as circumstances will admit of it, and payment to the priest is also enjoined, both under the most awful sanction that human imagination can conceive. And yet we Saxons are to be coolly told, that the Roman Catholic priests in Ireland depend for their maintenance upon voluntary contributions; we are to be persuaded that they repudiate the idea of an alliance of Church and State! But Mr. O'Connell has much the same notion of voluntary contribution as he has of freedom of election. The vote of an Irish freeholder is freely tendered, in view of the death's head and cross bones,-and his ecclesiastical dues are voluntarily surrendered, lest awful denunciations be dealed out against him.

THE IRISH CHURCH BILL.

AFTER ejecting Sir Robert Peel from office upon this very point; after all the boasting speeches of themselves and accomplices on this vital question, involving the principle of encroachment on the church of Ireland to all future time; after all their vain and simulated promises, the expectations they have held out to a deluded nation; after twisting their scheme every way, and writhing themselves in every posture, the government is obliged fairly to abandon the appropriation clause, and resort to a mode of dealing with the Irish church, difficult in practice, but, if possible, still more unprincipled. The present bill, like that on which the House of Lords passed sentence last year, commutes tithe into a rent-charge, to be paid by the owner of the property of the first inheritance. But there is to be no delay. It operates from the hour in which it shall have received the sanction of the legislature. The mischief begins instanter, a mischief awfully aggravated in all its details, and ominous of ruin to the Irish branch of the church of England. The landlords are to be benefited at the expense of the Establishment, for the contemplated rent-charge is to fall short by 30 per cent. of the tithe hitherto legally due, if not always brought to account. But the crowning feature of the measure, and one most characteristic of its framers, is that there is to be a further deduction of 10 per cent. as the lives of the existing clergy drop in, which will be left to the trusteeship of the Roman Catholic priest, under the thin delusive pretence of providing mental aliment for the poor of all persuasions. The revenue, of which it is proposed to despoil the Irish church, is to be applied in promoting the falsely called national system of education. But the national schools (so called) have become, under the auspices of the priests, almost exclusively Roman Catholic; and it follows that Protestants are, in point of fact, excluded from their benefits. By the precious amendment of their original scheme of spoliation, our ministers

are not content with filching 30 per cent. from the already impoverished protestant clergy. The new appropriation clause requires 40 per cent. to feed the ravenous maw of papistical spoliation. Nay, the rejected bill was not intended to come into operation until after a period of forty-three years, whereas the present sets to work at once, defrauding every cure of the Establishment, from the archbishopric of Armagh to the most meagre vicarage (as the lives fall in), of ten pounds out of every hundred pounds per annum. It just amounts to this, that instead of the Church finding herself plundered of 30,000l. per annum at the end of forty-three years, the government has the effrontery to transfer directly from the protestant ecclesiastical exchequer 50,000l. per annum into the hands of her sworn and bitter enemies. What the protestant clergy are robbed of, goes to perpetuate a species of religion inimical to all national independence, peculiarly opposed to the insular policy of the British empire, and repugnant to the word of God, which it corrupts by substituting many false mediators for the one single name by which alone all men are saved; and while the process of depredation is precipitated, the sum mulcted from the Establishment for objects that involve her eventual overthrow is greatly increased. Under what insidious cover would our ministry fain perpetrate their wickedness? It appears that by the 28th of Henry VIII., a law confirmed by certain acts of Elizabeth and William III., the incumbent of each parish in Ireland was obligated to keep a school for the good bringing up of the youths of the realm; that is, as is most obviously implied, if not expressed, not merely with the view of spreading the knowledge of the English language, but for the manifest and intelligible purpose of inculcating amongst an alien people English feelings and English sympathies; and more especially and above all was this statute enacted, that the christian faith might be more readily diffused amongst a benighted and idolatrous population. What resemblance our governors, by the grace of Daniel O'Connell, can discern between such admirable objects, and the fatal consequences involved in their iniquitous bill, it passes our wits to discover. The protestant clergy to be sure will have to be at the cost of these schools, but the popish priests are to superintend them. Instead of making Englishmen of the poorer classes in Ireland, the obvious tendency of this bill is, to estrange them from this country; to affect their allegiance to the queen of England, and to ground upon the basis of education itself the hatred of the lower Irish for us Saxons. And worse than all, so far from extending the knowledge of the reformed religion, the funds derived from this fresh plunder of the church of God are to be appropriated according as the popish priest-at once the treasurer, the auditor, and the teacher-shall please to direct; namely, to instructions from a mutilated Bible, and in the

traditions of an unhallowed faith. Again we ask, what is the conformation of that eye which can discover a resemblance between things so directly opposite? We confess that we are surprised to find an administration constituted like that of Lords Melbourne, Russell, and Co. not keeping clear of any reference to the era of the Reformation. However, it is manifest they cannot avoid rubbing themselves against the subject of ecclesiastical taxation, as if to gratify a certain pruriency of holy confiscation, that seems to infect the very lifeblood of their government. Yet bad as were the provisions of the bill under consideration, they are far from coming up to the mark contemplated and insisted upon by the rampant faction in Ireland.

At a meeting of the inhabitants of the united parishes of Kilcomen and Robin, held at the Roman Catholic church of St. Michael, Roundfort, on the 7th of May, it was resolved, that, "Considering the principles by which the present administration were brought into power, and their own repeated declarations since they came into power, we have no hesitation in declaring, that they have abandoned their principles, and have, on this occasion, forfeited their claims to the support of the liberal representation of the people, by abandoning the appropriation clause; and we pray the representatives of the people, who are advocates for the total annihilation of tithes, and a fair and useful system of education, to oppose this bill." We needed not this resolution to convince us, that nothing short of the total extinction of tithes, so far as they are applicable to the reformed church in Ireland, will ever satisfy the Roman Catholic priesthood in that country. O'Connell, who is their leader, has over and over again protested as much. "The people of Ireland join me," he not long since exclaimed, "in this contemptuous disclaimer of longer supporting out of our means that protestant church. So long as any pecuniary ascendancy, so long as any power remains to a protestant minister to put his hands into the pockets of the catholics, so long dissension, dissatisfaction, and turmoil shall reign paramount in Ireland."

Surely this single declaration of the member for all Ireland ought to have taught ministers a little caution; they ought to have begun to doubt whether their line of policy can be exactly that which Englishmen in their position, who would do their duty to king and country, should follow. To transfer an idea of military to civil prudence, we should have thought they would have known how critical it is to make an alteration of your disposition in the face of a determined enemy. But no; in this particular they turn a deaf ear to the voice of their task-master. They will go their own destructive course; they will stick to their own opinion, despite the reiterated assertions of those men who are their main support in the lower house, and the indignant warnings of the most valuable portion-the natural strength of

the British empire-the vast majority of the peers-of all educated, professional, and intellectual men,-of the leading landed gentry, the opulent merchants and manufacturers, the substantial yeomanry, and the actual majority of the English members of the House of Commons. If ministers, fancying themselves more sagacious at once than their adherents and their opponents, will persist in urging on the country to ruin, we have at least left us the stern consolation that the hour of retribution will, sooner or later, arrive. We conceive it must be at hand, since they have done very near as much mischief as they can do to a constitution so robust as that of England. Soured in temper, often disappointed by the frustration of their ends, and again more disappointed by their very attainment, in some incautious moment it is likely they will incur the displeasure of the junto, upon whom they have rendered their government dependent. Then, indeed, they will feel perierunt tempora longi servitii, and may protest with the Satirist,

"Non est Romano cuiquam locus hic, ubi regnat

Daniel O'Connell !"

May God, in mercy to this land, favoured heretofore beyond all the kingdoms of the earth, expedite that happy consumma

tion!

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND POOR DEPRIVED OF THEIR

SABBATH.

SINCE our last Number the Bishop of Exeter has drawn the attention of the Christian community, by certain observations in that house to which he is so great an ornament, to the crying evil of the Church of England poor being prohibited, because their misfortunes may have reduced them to a workhouse, from attending places of public worship. This climax to the paupers' suffering in this world-this last drop of gall in their cup of bitterness, is spared such inmates of the workhouse, as happen to be members of dissenting congregations. If such an exception

* PAUPERS' ATTENDANCE AT CHAPELS.-Copy of order relative to paupers in Worcester union workhouse, presented to the House of Lords, agreeably to order of May 26:

"Worcester Union Workhouse, May 24, 1837. "Sir,-In compliance with an order of the House of Lords, I enclose a copy of an order made by the Board of Guardians of the Worcester poor law union, made 16th March, 1837.-I am, Sir, most respectfully yours,

"WILLIAM THOMASON, "Clerk to the Board of Guardians."

"T. W. Birch, Esq. Parliament Office. WORCESTER POOR LAW UNION.-At a Board of Guardians, held 16th March, 1837, it was ordered as follows:-That Elizabeth Gorway be

be not to put a premium upon infidelity and schism amongst the lower classes, we know not what is. Such a mark of distinction and favour holds out to every pauper a strong inducement to abandon the Establishment, and join some sect. It was contended, that the only difference between divine service, as performed in a workhouse, and in a church, consisted in a less or greater degree of pomp and circumstance. Never was there a greater mistake. The service performed by a chaplain in a workhouse cannot be called public worship. Public worship infers and implies individuals joining in divine service with the parochial congregation to which they belong. "The great object" (to quote the words of the Bishop of Exeter) "why paupers should attend their parish churches was, that they might return thanks with their superiors to their common God and Father." The excellent prelate truly and wisely defined that great object. In the house of God the humblest pauper stands on an equality with the proudest noble in the land. The decayed sensibility that habit hath induced, is repaired by that very circumstance. His heart is opened, and, in consequence, the understanding is more readily convinced, and the will more easily persuaded. The intrinsic value of a discourse delivered in the poor man's workhouse and the poor man's church may be the same, but the impression on an individual, who is so unfortunate as to require parochial relief, must be very different. In the one case his attendance is constrained, in the other he brings his disposition to the service. He experiences the warmth, the consolation, the virtuous energy which every act of true devotion communicates to the heart. These effects are not merely heightened, they are induced by consent and sympathy. The pauper who unites with his pastor and the squire in acts of social homage to their common Maker, insensibly learns to love his neighbour, the twin precept whereon hangs "all the law and the prophets." Can this benevolence penetrate the dark atmosphere of a prison workhouse? No, the wretched man looks around him, and abhors his miserable equality. Wife, children, and all familiar faces, are far away; and he obstinately closes every avenue whereby the voice of the preacher might reach the recesses of his bosom's solitude. The effect of this in the offices of religion is utterly to destroy their religious quality; to rob them of that which gives to them their life, their spirituality, their nature. It is impossible, we think, to add another consideration which can be equal or second to that we have adduced; but we may suggest to our readers a motive not to let this sub

allowed to attend Pump-street chapel (of which society she is a member), on Sundays; and that the governor allow such paupers as are members of dissenting churches to attend their own places of worship on Sabbath days, so long as they return in correct time to the house.