London, Friday, July 16, ...
A Parliamentary Return relative to the Clergy of Ireland *was printed towards the close of the last session ; having been rendered necessary, we suppose, by the dispute be- tween Mr. PLUNK ETT and other minembers, on the question of non-resident incumbents. Towards settling the ques. tion between the champion of the Irish Church and his adveraranes, much depends on the sense in which we employ the wotd '" non_reaiAence." Mr. PLUNKXTT, for instance, alleges rather stilfly, that the clerical non-residents of Ireland do not amount to more atan about thirty per- sons. Now we have just had time to looki over the returns fTom the four aTchiepiscopal dioceses, and from the two sufilagAn sees next in succession, and there we have reckoned between 70 and 80 absentees-exclusive of cases where the livings are " very small"-where glebe-houses are only " building"-where age and infirmity incapaci- tate, and therefore excuse the absent clergyman, and so forth. Mr. PLUNI{ETT, however, we shall be told, confines the term "nou-residenit to the case of what he calls " culpable "absence," or' in military parlance, ':absence without "leave." We disagree totaUy with the Right Hon. Gen- tleman. In our minds, when the general state of the Church of Ireland is consideed, and a complaint brought forward of the lamentable frequency of non-residence, it is no excuse whatever to say that the non-resident has a faculty from the Primate, or a privilege from any superior authority, to shirk his parochial duty. Such a pretext only aggravates the evil, because it would go to prove that the Bench of Bishops were parties to the corruption of tne Church Establishment of Ireland. Nor is it a more plausi- ble defence to say, that a clergyman having two parisbes cannot reside in both: for, once admitting that the parish which pays tithe has a right to the services of him who receives the tithe, the difficulty of dwelling in two places is nothing more than an argument against plurali- ties-against a man's undertaking duties which it is phy- sically impracticable to perform. But the truth is, that the Church of Irelantd stands on a footing, altogether unsupported by any known theory, political, moral, or religious. How far any conceivable modjflcation of a church, exacting its emoluments from the bulk of a nation whom it does not repay by even the shadow of those benefits for which every Christian church ought to be instituted, can ever be made an instrument of good to Ireland, we shall not now discuss. It is, we know, asserted, that the more the residence of the Irish clergy is enforced, the greater the irritation that will be excited among the people-we mean the Catholic peo- ple-who look at them rather as engines of exaction than of instruetion. And although this ma-xim has been laid down by a Catholic, and must therefore be estimated with all the qualification belonging to the judgmelnt of an ac- knowledged enemy, we may assure ourselves that there exists inl the popular mind of Ireland, a strong predisposi- tion on which to rest it, or Bishop Doyi,E woud not have stated his belief with so much easy confidence. At the samc time, we cordially disclaim for ourselves, any parti- cipation in the sentiment of that gentleman, from which an iference disrespectful to the personal charRcters of the Irish clergy might be drawn; tor we are well persuaded that the vice is inherent in the system, and that the most earnest advocates for the purification of it are to be found amongst that clergy. LONDON, FR/DAY,JULY 16, 182L