*

the Roman Church, the pretended "successor of St. Peter," has been nominated to his patriarchate, in different instances, even by an Arian emperor. If the succession at Rome be unimpaired by a proceeding in which the hand of heresy meddled thus effectively, much less may we doubt the lawfulness of a succession, such as that of the Irish Church, in which, as vacancies occurred, subsequently to the Reformation, they were filled by prelates of the Reformed faith, selected by an even more than due exercise of secular influence, on the part of the Reformed Catholic monarchs of England.

Besides the different kinds of Church pro- Ministers' Money in perty already noticed in this article, there is Ireland, another of more limited amount existing in some what? places in Ireland, (although unknown in England,) and called Ministers' Money. It is collected only in the following eight cities and corporate towns, viz., Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Clonmel, and Kinsale; and it consists of a rate upon houses of one shilling in the pound of the yearly value, which, however, cannot, for this purpose, be estimated at a higher sum than £60 per annum. It was granted in the year 1665, on the settlement of

• See Dr. O'Conor's Columbanus ad Hibernos, No. 1, for instances. He notices, for example, (at p. 51.) the case of Pope Symmachus, nominated A.D. 503, by the Arian Emperor Theodoric.

the country at the Restoration, as a substitute for the more ancient mode of supporting the clergy, which it was probably found difficult to readjust after the long disorders of the civil wars. Its temporary abolition by James II. was one of the measures adopted by that monarch for the ruin of the Church. The entire property, at present, amounts to about £15,000 a year; and this sum forms almost the sole provision for the clergy in those towns where it is levied. Moreover, as what were called tithes were but a part of the rent of the soil, paid for the soil, to those who were part-owners of it, so ministers' money is a house-rent, payable by voluntary covenant, on the part of those who choose to become occupants of premises in the towns and cities aforesaid; and payable at the present day, not to entitle the several holders of such premises to any spiritual services or instruction from the clergy owning such rents, or to involve such clergymen in any peculiar obligations to the tenants paying the same, individually, whether submitting to their ministrations or no, but to entitle the tenants in question to the occupation of these holdings in honesty, and with a due regard to the rights of the proprietors, lay and clerical, to whom they belong. A violent agitation (on a small scale) has however existed for many years, to procure the confiscation of this

notion of

property, in favour of a class of men, whose honesty and good faith are sufficiently illustrated in the principle freely set forth by them, as the basis of their operations, viz., "that it were a An original violation of their conscience to pay a charge conscience. created in favour of a Protestant clergyman, although the property concerned may have been purchased by them subject to the charge in question ;"* or in other words, that they may voluntarily incur an obligation, which it would be against their consciences to discharge, and afterwards reconcile the conflicting duties by adopting the course most profitable to their temporal interests.

sent amount

Ireland.

Of the actual amount of property belonging of the preto the Irish Church at present, the following of Church brief summary is extracted from the able speech, property in on this subject, of Mr. G. A. Hamilton, member for the University of Dublin, in the course of the debate in the House of Commons, of July 10, 1849, as reported in the Morning Herald.

Incomes of

"The property of the Irish Church," said the learned gentleman, "might be considered as divided between the the paroparochial clergy, the dignitaries, and the bishoprics. In chial clergy. the evidence given by Mr. Quin, he found this statement of the income of the parochial clergy at the present time :

* For a fuller and more instructive statement of this application of the rule of No faith with heretics," see the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal for October, 1848, No. 99, pp. 146, 147. See also pp. 157, 158, ib., and more in the numbers following.

Gross income

Revenues of

dignitaries of Ireland.

66

£453,094

369,660

63,244

...

306,416

56,708

£249,708

Taking the number of benefices at 1445, the sum of £249,708, divided amongst them, would give an average for each benefice of £172 16s. 2d.; but dividing the amount [of nett income available for support of both rectors and curates, viz., £306,416,] by the real number of clergymen, 2165, the amount of salary for each [incumbent and curate thus reduced to a level,] would be only £141 10s. 7d."

As to the property belonging to the dignitaries of the Irish Church, Mr. Hamilton goes on to say, that

"The gross incomes of the deans, archdeacons, prethe Church bends, and deans and chapters in Ireland, were only about £23,000, and their nett incomes were only about £21,000. The gross incomes of the Irish bishops amounted to £44,523, and their nett incomes to £40,553, giving an average income to each bishop of £4055. Now he did not think that was an excessive sum, when he remembered that these bishops had to support the position of noblemen, and that the nett incomes of the English bishops amounted to £5930. The nett incomes of the two Irish archbishops amounted to

£15,808, so that the total sum annually received by the Irish bishops and archbishops was £56,361."

not" estab

of being

The question of little or much is however of The Church small consequence, and need not be enlarged on lished" for here; nor is it one that can properly concern the purpose the House of Commons either, as at present plundered. constituted, any more than the revenues of the titular archbishop of Dublin, or of any Romish hospital, or fraternity, or Methodist college, or "Baptist" missionary society. For however the national establishment of the Church's faith may involve the idea of a peculiar claim to protection and countenance for her from the government of the state, it cannot surely stand, with any rational mind, as a ground for her being pre-eminently a mark for oppression and plunder, such as no other religious community in the realm is expected to endure.

among

With regard to the notion of the equalization Levelling of clerical income, hinted at in the foregoing clerks destatement, however properly and usefully such a precated. consideration might be introduced into the view of the case put forth by Mr. Hamilton, the idea is of course one which no judicious friend of the Church will ever desire to see realized and considering how much has been said by wellmeaning men within the Church's pale, and by meddling and mischievous men without, con