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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14th. AFTERNOON MEETING.

PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAND.

BY THE REV. W. C. PLUNKET.

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PERMIT me to preface the few remarks which I have this day to offer by an expression of the sincere gratification which it gives me, an Irish Clergyman, to find that a Committee of English Churchmen have resolved, without solicitation, to set apart so much of the valuable time of this Congress to the discussion of questions affecting the welfare of the Church in Ireland. I am sure that I express not only my own feelings, but those of my fellow-churchmen in Ireland, when I say, that we cordially grasp the proffered hand of brotherly friendship, and earnestly pray that the proceedings of this day may be the means, under God, of further cementing that godly union which ought to subsist-more especially at the present time-between all who serve a common Master, and belong to a common Church.

Let me further add, that in the preparation of this paper, I have taken for granted that such a spirit of reciprocal good-will among the several members of our United Church does really exist, and I have therefore avoided any discussion of questions upon which I assume that we are all agreed.

Had I, for example, been compelled to meet the enemies of our Church by defensive arguments, I might have felt it necessary to discuss the abstract question of a State Church, or the more special relations of such a Church to the case of Ireland. I might have thought myself bound to prove the purity of the ancient Church of Ireland, and the lineal succession by which the present Church can trace her descent from that unpolluted origin; or I might have deemed it expedient to examine the question of the temporalities of that Church, and her indefeasible right to the proprietorship of her own emoluments. These, and the many complicated questions which arise from them, I might have considered it my duty to review, were it not for the one simple reason already stated—namely, that I assume, at the very outset of my remarks, that those whom I address are friends, and do not require an elaborate argument to convince them of claims which they are themselves willing not only to admit, but also, if necessary, to defend.

While, however, I thus gladly express my confidence in the good-will of my English fellow-churchmen, I cannot but feel that (owing to a cause which shall be presently mentioned) the most serious misgivings respecting the Church in Ireland may possibly exist at this very moment in the minds of many of her best friends. That such feelings ought not to be regarded as unnatural, I am ready to confess; but that there is nothing in them, or in the source from which they have sprung, to cause the remotest anxiety to any friend of our United Church, I am, thank God, equally prepared to prove, and it is with a view to reassure my English brethren upon this point that I stand before you to-day.

And now, before I proceed to examine the nature of the misgivings to which I have just referred, I feel that I am bound, in the first place, to state as fully and as fairly as I can the cause from which they have taken their rise.

THE CENSUS.

That cause is undoubtedly to be found in the following apparently startling fact, that, according to the returns of the religious census of 1861 for Ireland, it appears that the Church-population in that country has suffered a decrease during the last thirty years of at least 100,000 souls.

The particulars of this decrease may be more accurately stated as follows:-According to the corrected summary of the Religious Census Report of 1834, the number of persons returned as members of the Established Church in Ireland amounted to 853,160. According to the latest official Census report of 1861 the number of persons similarly returned amounted to 691,509. A comparison of these two returns shows a decrease of 161,651.

In the Report of the Census Commissioners for 1834, we find, however, the following remark:

"It is observable that the census of the members of the Established Church includes a considerable number of Wesleyan Methodists, who, although attending religious service in other places of worship, consider themselves to be in connection with the Established Church, and wished to be classed as members of that body. We do not report the particular number of these persons, but that it is considerable, especially in some districts, will appear from an inspection of the number of their places of worship enumerated in our reports, and the average number of persons attending divine service in each."

Now, this large body of Methodists, not (so far as I can learn) from any decrease of their former good-will towards the Church, but from the arrangements of the Census Commissioners, have, in the returns for 1861, been classed under a separate head. From these returns it appears that their present numbers amount to 45,390. Were we, therefore, even to suppose that their numbers had not been diminished since 1831, it would follow that the decrease of the Church-population ought to be estimated at no more than 116,161. But it is incredible that the causes which have led to the recent decrease in the population of Ireland generally, should not have affected the Methodist body in common with other religious denominations, and therefore, in order to form a fair estimate, we should calculate their numbers in 1834 as having at least borne the same proportion to the Church population that they do now. Such a calculation would divide the 853,160 persons returned in 1834 as members of the Established Church into 52,551 Methodists and 800,609 Churchmen, and would consequently reduce the decrease of the Church population during the interval between the two censuses to 109,100.

Having, however, made these necessary deductions, and having shown that the decrease of the Irish Church population is less by at least one-third than what the bare census returns would represent it to be, the startling fact yet stares us in the face, that during the last thirty years the Church in Ireland has suffered a decrease of 109,100 souls--in other words, of about one-seventh, or thirteen per cent of her original population

This is the fact which has caused that perplexity and disappointment among English Churchmen to which reference has been already made. I have stated it as fairly and unreservedly as I possibly can; let me now proceed to examine the several misgivings to which it may have given rise.

CHURCH POPULATION.

I. The first of these misgivings which I shall notice concerns the Church-population, and may be described as a fear lest the Church should have been losing ground numerically in Ireland.

I can well suppose such a misgiving suggesting itself to the mind of one of my English brethren as follows:

"Was it not the case thirty years ago that the members of the Established Church in Ireland were but a small body in comparison with the whole population of that country, and must not this decrease in their numbers have greatly aggravated their numerical disproportion, giving thereby an additional force to the complaints of those who describe the State Church in Ireland as the Church of the minority?"

Now, when we remember the manner in which the results of the late census were first represented by certain organs of public opinion in England, we cannot, I think, regard such a train of thought as I have just described with any very great surprise.

Perhaps I shall best explain my meaning, and at the same time divest my assertion of any tinge of party spirit, if I quote the opinion of a leading Roman Catholic journal in support of what I have said.

In the Tablet of May 9, 1863, we find the writer of a leading article censuring his Roman Catholic fellow-journalists in the following remarkable words:

"We see," says the writer, "that Mr. Lefroy, M.P. for Dublin University, has moved for returns relative to the number of Roman Catholics and members of the Established Church in Ireland, and we have no doubt that he has been moved to do so by the use to which Mr. Dillwyn's returns have been put." He then proceeds to explain his meaning, by adding that the decrease of the Church population, as reported in these Returns, had been "treated by various Catholic writers, who omitted all reference to the fact that the total population and the Roman Catholic population had decreased in a still greater ratio, as a proof that the Established Church was losing ground in Ireland."

Does not this rebuke tell with a strange force against certain journals representing professedly Protestant principles, who made the very same use of Mr. Dillwyn's returns, dwelling in the most vivid terms upon the decrease of the Church population, and omitting altogether any reference to the simultaneous loss sustained by the Roman Catholics and Dissenters of Ireland during the very same period? It is not my province to inquire how far such an omission was intentional. My present purpose is to calculate not so much its purpose as its effect. And I would put the question to any candid mind, Whether such one-sided statements were not eminently fitted to convey the impression described by the writer in the Tablet, namely, "that the Church had been losing ground in Ireland."

But has the Church been losing ground in Ireland? I will answer this question by a simple statement of facts.

The whole population of Ireland, in 1834, amounted to 7,954,160. In 1861, it was reduced to 5,798,233; showing a total decrease of 2,155,927, or about 27 per cent. of its original amount.

The Roman Catholic population, in 1834, was 6,436,060; in 1861 it was 4,505,414, showing a decrease of 1,930,646, or nearly 30 per cent.

The Presbyterian population, in 1834, was 643,058; in 1861 it was 523,300; showing a decrease of 119,758, or nearly 19 per cent. The Church population, in 1834, was (as already calculated) 800,609, in 1861 it was 691,509; showing a decrease of 109,100, or not much more than 13 per cent.

From the above statement it would appear that in the general decrease of population which has thinned the ranks of the three great religious bodies which form the mass of the Irish population, the Roman Catholics have suffered the most, and the Church the least. The result is, that there has been a large relative increase in the Church population, which may in round numbers be expressed very nearly as follows

Such is the simple statement by which I desire to answer the question, "Has the Church in Ireland, numerically, been losing ground?" Even were I obliged to give a less favourable answer, I would hope that my English fellow-churchmen would not consider such a result as affording an argument for the condemnation of that Church. I trust that I am not alone in believing that its claims stand upon higher and more sacred grounds, and ought not therefore (as has been well said) to be judged by the "rule of three." I trust that my English friends also see that if a numerical standand were only once admitted as the test of a Church Establishment in Ireland, it would, ere long, be found applicable not only to Wales, but even to other portions of the United Kingdom. This, however, is just one of the questions upon which, at the outset, I took for granted that we were all agreed. I shall not, therefore, enlarge upon it. Enough for me if I have proved my present point-if I have shown that the Census returns at least show no reason why the obsolete question of a State-Church minority should be now revived-seeing that so far from the Church in Ireland having numerically lost ground during the last thirty years, it has on the contrary gained by a considerable relative increase.

CHURCH REVENUES.

II. I have now to consider a second misgiving which may have been suggested by the results of the late Census Returns. This misgiving concerns the Church-emoluments, and may be described as occurring to the mind of the English Churchman in the following manner:

"Was it not, thirty years ago, generally believed that the revenues of the Church in Ireland were far in excess of the duties entrusted to

her charge; and must not the decrease which has since taken place in the Church population have greatly aggravated this disproportion, and thereby given a fresh sting to the taunts of those who reproach our whole establishment with the charge of superfluous wealth?"

Such a misgiving is, I admit, no less natural than the one which has just been noticed. I trust, however, that I shall be able just as easily to remove it. Let me endeavour to do so, as in the former instance, by an appeal to facts.

The decrease which the Church-population of Ireland suffered during the period which intervened between the census of 1834 and that of 1861 amounted (as has been already admitted) to no less than thirteen per cent of its original numbers. But before we admit that the work of the Church has thereby become disproportioned to her income, let us ask whether the income of the Church has suffered no similar decrease during the same interval?

The answer to such a question is a very simple one. The gross income of the Church in Ireland (according to a statement in the Times newspaper) amounted, in 1834, to £865,525.* In 1861 (according to the same authority) it was no more than £580,418. In other words, during the period to which our inquiry relates, the Church-income suffered a decrease of £285,107, or of 32 per cent.

From the above statement it appears that, during the twenty-seven years referred to, the Church-income has suffered a decrease of 19 per cent more than the Church-population, and that, consequently, the argument derivable from a review of that interval is one which should persuade us to augment rather than despoil the revenues of the Church.

I feel, however, that there is yet another form in which this financial difficulty respecting our Church may present itself to a thoughtful mind, and it may be thus expressed:-"Allowing that the Church-revenues have been thus impoverished during the last thirty years, may not the incomes of the clergy be even still considered as in excess of their labour?"

Before I answer this question, let me, in the first place, freely admit the fact, that in Ireland as in England there do exist individual cases of overpaid sinecurism within our Church. Such exceptional abuses are inseparable from all earthly institutions. They should not be defended or retained, but rather reformed. Such isolated instances do not, however, affect the general question which I have to answer-namely, Are the incomes of the Irish clergy in excess of their labours? Let me ask your forbearance while I reply to this question, by once again appealing to a few prominent facts.

The average income of an Irish incumbent is £210 per annum, out of which sum he may have to pay a curate. The average number of his flock in a town parish is 1,590; in a rural parish it is 376. These 376 parishioners have to be tended in a district of the average are of 20 square miles. Add to these labours the manifest duty of endeavouring to bring back into the fold of the Church the Roman Catholics of the parish-straying sheep, no doubt, yet still a portion of the flock-and let me ask, does £210 per annum appear to be an unreasonable proportion of income to labour?

Let me, however, compare it with the state of things in England;

*The Times, of April 30, 1863.