Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/71

 the abolition of a few bishoprics, or the paring down of a few benefices, but that they lie against its very existence; against the principle of making a public provision in Ireland for the clergy of the small minority, so long as the clergy of the large majority is left wholly destitute of aid from the public funds. No improvements in the internal economy of the Established Church, in the distribution of its revenues, or the discipline of its clergy, tend to lessen the sense of grievance arising from this source. The effect of the preference in question is that the whole body of the Catholics in Ireland are more or less alienated from the Government—the author of their wrong—and are filled with jealousy and ill-will towards the more favoured Protestants. … All the ecclesiastical grievances of Ireland arise from what is termed the connexion between Church and State, which gives to our ecclesiastical society exclusive civil rights and privileges. The great principle which ought to serve as the basis of legislation in all ecclesiastical matters, is that the State is no judge of the truth of creeds. In proportion as this principle has been violated, all ecclesiastical legislation has. been mischievous and oppressive.

There can be no doubt that, if we were to hear of such a state of things in a foreign country, we should sympathise with those who were 'more or less alienated from the Government.'

But if six-eighths of the tithe rent-charge were employed in building churches, in purchasing glebes and glebe houses for the Catholic clergy, and furnishing a better income to the poorer ministers of the Catholic Church, some 300,000l. a year would be saved to the Irish farmer, and he would then willingly submit to the loss of the custom and the charity of