Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/63

 Let us now pause to consider for a moment the state of facts. The Episcopal Protestant clergymen, we will admit, are learned, kind, charitable, well fitted to be the members of a society of gentlemen of education and property. But, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that not more than an eighth, sometimes a tenth or a twentieth of the ^population listen to their religious teaching. Surely this is an unsatisfactory state of things.

If, for instance, the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Sweden amounted to only one eighth of the population, but had possession of the whole of the funds allotted by the State to religious instruction, there is no doubt we should wonder at so strange an anomaly, and should heartily sympathise with the Swedish Protestants who claimed a different distribution of the Church revenues.

But what is the obstacle? Let us first listen to Lord Cairns, who would stop us in limine with an insuperable objection to an appropriation of the revenues of the Protestant Church of Ireland to any other Church or any secular purpose. After speaking of the Act of Settlement of 1662, and the glebe lands, and some parts of the tithe rent charge, Lord Cairns goes on to say, 'With regard to the title of the other portion of the rent-charge, it may well be rested on what in this country has always been considered the best title to any property, the title of prescription.' Now, in respect to a settled state of affairs, there can be no doubt that prescription is an excellent title; still, even in a settled state of affairs, there may be exceptions.