effect of disabusing the minds of some who have been misled by the unscrupulous arts of the enemies of our country and our Church. In this hope it is published, and offered as a small contribution to the work in which English Constitutionalists are engaged under your able leadership. That you may succeed in handing down to posterity the great inheritance we have received from our forefathers, and may deserve the thanks of our children, as well as of good men among ourselves, is the earnest wish of all good citizens and good Christians.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

W. R. BOWDITCH.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THIS series of papers was prepared for delivery as Lectures in reply to the attacks of Liberationists upon the Church. Several have been delivered, and have been reported in a necessarily imperfect form in the newspapers. Many persons have expressed a wish to have them published that they might be generally circulated. In accordance with that wish they are now published, in the hope that they may be, in some measure, directly useful, and still more that they may lead to research and thought: to rejection of what is false, though plausible and pretentious, and love of and adherence to what is true and good.

WHO PAYS THE TITHE?

WHO pays the tithe? Liberationists are either ignorant of the true answer to this question, or they knowingly answer it falsely. The former is the milder supposition, and from their opposition among themselves appears to be the true one. I will adopt that, and will proceed to place fact against their error. Some Liberationists say that "tithe is wrung from a starving peasantry;" others that "it is not paid by the landlord,” without affirming who does pay it; others that "it is paid by the tenant, the consumer," and so on.

In opposition to these statements political economists and common sense say that tithe is paid by the landlords. Which of the statements is true? We will see.

Authorities for our position that tithe is paid by the landlords :

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.'

Malthus, Political Economy.'

McCulloch, 'Political Economy.'

J. P. Scrope, Political Economy.'

J. S. Mill, Political Economy,' and 'England and Ireland,' 1868.

Cyclopedia of Political, &c., Knowledge.

6

Sir G. C. Lewis, The Irish Church Question.'

Bayldon, 'On Rents and Tillages.'

Stephens, 'Book of the Farm.'

The Imperial Parliament, Tithe Commutation Acts.'

Archbishop Whately, 'Lectures on Political Economy.'

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These are the highest authorities we have, living or dead, upon the subjects of which they treat.

Persons against our position that tithe is paid by the landlords :

Mr. Williams, a lecturer of the Liberation Society.
Mr. Mason Jones, a lecturer of the Liberation Society.
Mr. Miall, proprietor of the Nonconformist' newspaper.
Serjeant Armstrong, M.P. for Sligo.

Mr. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. for South Lancashire.

I will first give the statements of Liberationists. That "tithe is wrung from a starving peasantry," I myself took down from the lips of a Mr. Mason Jones, whom the Liberation Society sent to Wakefield, March 6th, 1868, to lecture against the "Irish Church." He used the expression several times, and others took down the words as well as I. Mistake, therefore, is impossible. I however quote two equivalent expressions from what he said upon that occasion, as it was reported in one of the Wakefield newspapers of the following day :

"Lord Abercorn was quoted to prove an improvement in the state of trade. What had that to do with his statement about the robbery of a starving peasantry."

Again, speaking of the famine, he said, “The Irish clergy were not ashamed to draw their incomes from a miserably starving people."

In the proceedings after the lecture, a gentleman publicly charged the lecturer with using the terms I have quoted. "He (the lecturer) had repeated twice that every shilling had been wrung from a starving peasantry.”

This has since been repeated in effect by the chief teacher of error among the Liberationists. In the 'Nonconformist' of April 8, 1868, Mr. E. Miall is reported to have said at Bradford, on Thursday, April 2:-" In a few words it may be described as a provision made for the spiritual instruction of the rich at the expense of the poor-(applause)—the rich