or on Sabbath evenings. Not fewer than sixteen Gaelic Preachers, and five who labour in the Orkney and Shetland Isles, are assisted by the Union *." The Report of 1836, mentions" twenty-three most devoted and faithful labourers' in this field; and states, "Since the General Meeting the Committee have distributed among twenty-one churches the sum of 2791.-to aid newly opened stations and for Itinerancies in the Lowlands, 3057.—and for the propagation of the Gospel in the Highlands and Islands, 596l.”

Rev. T. Scales, of Leeds, attended the meeting of the "Union" in May 1836, and says, "This important and highly useful seminary (the Glasgow Theological Institution) is flourishing under the care of its most excellent and disinterested Tutors.-There are fourteen students under the care of the Committee, besides four or five missionary students, some of the London Missionary Society's, and several other young men, some of them from English churches, making in all about thirty, who are enjoying the benefit of Mr. Ewing's and Dr. Wardlaw's Lectures. I could not refrain from expressing my admiration of their generosity and disinterestedness, that two such men, of whom any University in the kingdom might glory as their Humanity and Divinity Professors, should give their inestimable services to the Glasgow Theological Academy without fee or reward t."

Baptists. This body is laborious, zealously and liberally promoting the knowledge of Christ; supporting, as reported in the Edinburgh Almanack for 1838, twenty-five missionaries, under the Committee of an Institution denominated the "Baptist Home Missionary Society for Scotland."

Roman Catholics. Romanism has had some adherents in Scotland from the time of the Reformation, and considerable zeal and activity now prevail to gain converts. Their sixty-six congregations are governed by five bishops, still retaining the style assumed from them by the prelates of the English Episcopacy, of "Right Reverend :" three of them are called "Vicars Apostolic," and the other two are "Coadjutors." They have a Seminary at "Blairs, near Aberdeen, established in 1829, for the Education of young men designed for the Roman Catholic Priesthood: the number of students in 1836 was 421." * Cong. Mag. 1831. + Ibid. 1836. Edinb. Alm. 1838.

CHAP. VI.

Section I. The Church of Ireland.

Dignitaries of the Irish Church-Mr. Adam's statistics-Spiritual desolation of Ireland - Testimony of Mr. Riland—of Archdeacon Glover-Report of Ecclesiastical Commissioners-Ecclesiastical statistics analized-Review of the religious statistics-Ecclesiastical Unions of Parishes-Illustrative cases-Diocese of Emly -Cases in Monaghan county- Mr. Sergeant Perrin's appeal-Lord J. Russell's examples-Revenues of the Prelates-Of Deans and Chapters-Of parochial benefices-Total revenues-Riot and bloodshed in collecting Tithes-Slaughter at Rathcormac-Expenses of soldiery and police in Ireland-Neglect of the Native Irish-Irish Home Missions-Lord Mountcashel's Church Reform MeetingEvangelical Controversy at Dublin-Clerical persecution of Rev. E. Nixon-Irish Evangelical Societies in England.

Ireland, by the "Act of Union," passed in 1800, was incorporated with the kingdom of Great Britain: and by the fifth Article of that Act, the religious establishment of that country was conjoined with the English hierarchy, as the "United Church of England and Ireland." The following is a list of its principal dignitaries at that period :

Mr. Adain states, "In Ireland there are about 2,246 parishes, of which 293 are in the gift of the crown, 367 in that of laymen, 21 in that of Trinity College, 1,470 in that of the bishops. The Archbishop of Dublin presents to 144 livings, the Bishop of Ferns to 171, the Bishop of Cloyne to 106, and the Bishop of Kildare to 131. Yet the members of the Church in Ireland are comparatively few, not being supposed to exceed 400,000, whereas her revenues are immense *."

Ireland, in a religious point of view, presents, to the eye of an intelligent observer, a picture the most appalling, especially when surveyed by the light of the Christian Scriptures. While crafty statesmen and ambitious ecclesiastics have been grasping for power and wealth in Ireland, that fine country has, in every part, exhibited frightful scenes of misery and destitution, and the neglected people have sunk into ignorance and superstition, committing the most fearful crimes against their supposed oppressors. These various evils calling loudly for redress, many have made the case of Ireland a subject of diligent inquiry. Clergymen, however, who will be least suspected of exaggeration, have stated the injuries of Ireland in a most impressive manner; and they shall bear testimony here. Mr. Riland gives the following representation, from a "high church writer in the English division of the United Kingdom," in his "Christian Survey of the country in 1829:" "that from the time of the conquest of Ireland, down to this hour, the Church of England, established in that country, has entirely neglected to preach to nearly two-fifths of the population; and while in Wales and in Scotland care was taken that the clergy should preach in Welch and in Gaelic, no such object was attempted in Ireland. There certainly is no parallel to this iniquity to be found in the papal church; and it is a wonder how any clergyman of the Church of England, particularly in Ireland, can venture to say one word against papal abomination, until he has protested publicly against this barefaced violation of common honesty in his own church. The clergy, however, though they have done no duty, have not omitted to exact the pay to which they were entitled only for service performed: they have exacted, with

Religious World, by Rev. Robert Adam, A.M., p. 204, 1824.

a rigour in the ecclesiastical courts unknown to the King's courts, the last penny of their real or assumed rights, from the starving population; while many parishes have been without incumbents, without houses for their residence, or churches in which they can preach *.”

Disorders so dreadful, arising from the "tithe system," continuing to inflame the Catholic population of Ireland, the reformed Parliament appointed "Commissioners of Inquiry concerning Ecclesiastical Revenue and Patronage," and "Public Instruction." Their "Reports" having been printed by order of the House of Commons, in 1833 and 1835; in the mean time an Act was passed, Aug. 14, 1833, for the extinction of ten of the bishoprics in Ireland, as the several prelates should die. Still but few of the ecclesiastical evils were removed, and the public demanded a reform in the Church of Ireland: but most of the clergy in England deprecated any appropriation of the misapplied revenues, even for the purposes of educating the injured people of that country.

Archdeacon Glover, in a letter to Dr. Pellew, Dean of Norwich, declining to attend a meeting, in May, 1835, “to address His Majesty to preserve the church temporalities," says, "The established Church of Ireland is an anomaly to which the whole Christian world supplies no parallel. Unions of eight or ten or even more parishes consolidated to make up one rich living; that living without either church, or manse, or Protestant congregation; its incumbent enjoying, through a tithe agent, its large emoluments, and those emoluments wrung from a population, who never behold the face of their minister, or hear from his lips one word of exhortation. In every other part of his dominions, His Majesty accepts and acknowledges as the established faith, that form of worship which is most agreeable to the consciences of the great majority of his subjects. He accepts and acknowledges Presbyterianism in Scotland and Catholicism in Canada, and exercises the greatest caution in interfering with even the debasing and cruel superstitions of the Mahometaus or Hindoos in India. But in Ireland we are not content to force upon her an establishment

* Ecclesiæ Decus et Tutamen, by Rev. John Riland, A. M., p. 75, 76.

which is the hereditary aversion of six-sevenths of her inhabitants, but we persevere in presenting this establishment to her view under the most forbidding and repulsive form. If conversion be our object, can any means more unlikely be adopted-can any project be marked by a more signal failure? Has not the present system been pursued long enough to answer every purpose of experiment? It has gone on for about three hundred years, and that wretched country, so far from becoming more Protestant, or more reconciled to their yoke of spiritual hondage, has gone on in one unvaried course of discontent, rebellion, and bloodshed,- -a burden instead of a benefit to Great Britain; and that Gospel, which should have been the harbinger of peace, has been used as the source and watchword of the most savage barbarities, and the most relentless discord. If the experiment of controlling the conscience by brute force, or overawing it by a splendid and gorgeous hierarchy, although in support of truth, could be justified by any testimony of its utility, it might then be some reason why we should not abandon it as hopeless: but the very contrary is the notorious and admitted fact *."

The "Commissioners of Public Instruction," in their First Report, presented to Parliament in June, 1835, state the following particulars :

Considerable omissions of Dissenters are known to have been made this will appear certain, from the statement regarding the diocese of Clogher, where, under the head of "Other Protestant Dissenters," and their "places of wor

* Page 15, 16.