Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/56

 Church are now what they were described by Dean Swift to be in his time—namely, country gentlemen in black coats. But they are much better men than they were in his time. Dr. Fitzgerald, the present Bishop of Killaloe, has thus described them:—

Let us take this account of the Episcopal Protestant clergy by one of the heads of their own body as an impartial character of the Church of which he is a distinguished ornament.

But let us also take from another representative of the Irish Church what, in his opinion, are the requisites for the clergy of an Established Church:—

Now, one should have thought that, for a 'National Clergy' who profess to be the followers of Christ, the condition that 'the poor shall have the Gospel preached to them,' would be one of the claims of the