real-the fright in the glen-the fits-the visions-the journeythe adventure with the fool-his employment-the priest's mode of performing the miracle-his character-that of a habitual drinkerthe substance of the conversation-the cutting of the handkerchief -in fact it is, in every sense of the word, a true story.

(To be continued.)

SEVENTY-TWO.

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF CHURCH PROPERTY.
INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

to the editor of the chRISTIAN EXAMINER.

MR. EXAMINER-As your work purports to be the Church of Ireland Magazine, and to be conducted by members of the establishment, I have been on the look out for some defence, to appear in your pages, against the attacks that are daily made upon her discipline and her property. Perhaps, Sir, you may despise such assaults as puny, though incessant; and the pert and conceited observations of the London Liberal, or the rancorous denunciations of the Dublin Romish press, may be considered as beneath your notice. But if these be your feelings, I humbly conceive you are mistaken, for it cannot be wise or safe to let the enemies of the Established Church sway public opinion, without opposition or refutation; and ecclesiastical as well as military leaders should ever bear in mind, that there is extreme danger in despising an enemy, so far as to rest secure against his assault. I perceive, Sir, that two grounds of attack have been lately adopted, one against the property, another against the discipline and character of the Church. In the following papers* I purpose to attempt a defence against those who would assail her property-desiring to leave to some other correspondent the task of defending her on the other ground. And here, before I go farther, I must say that I am not one of those who deem all reform unnecessary or uncalled for-I am not of their party who would so far assimilate the Churches of England and Rome, as to say that because one assumes to herself infallibility, so the other should be considered as never in the wrong. No-I am free to allow that reforms, large and deep are wanting, but I cannot hail with pleasure the prospect of Liberals and Romanists being our reformers, nor anticipate any wholesome change as likely to be effected by a man of weak head and warm imagination-who with rank enough to be respected, honesty enough to be trusted, piety enough to be esteemed, is yet so shallow as to be guided, when he thinks he leads, so ignorant as to go wrong when he thinks he has found truth, and so irrational as to argue from particulars to universals, and charge that upon a class, which ought only to be predicated of an individual.

This paper was written immediately after the Lay Synod in Cork held its sittings.

VOL. IX.

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If such men have influence enough to call together public meetings, I confess, Sir, I cannot expect good to follow from such deliberations, nor can I congratulate the worthy promoters on the applause they have obtained, or the allies they have got to back them; neither do I suppose their own consciences are quite comfortable under this applause they have gained, or this company they have got into; and, perhaps, the injudicious rashness is already repented of, which has found its first footsteps hailed by the ca Ira of the Radical and the Jesuit. At all events, with my whole soul, I trust that no minister of the Established Church, will be found, either by his presence or his pen, sanctioning such ways and means of reform. Such have neither right or reason to come forward; they have entered the ministry as purchasers with notice, and united themselves to the Church, as she now is, for better for worse. More especially I would warn Curates; with them it would be both bad taste and bad feeling, to take any part in such matters-by so doing, they would at once proclaim to the world, that they entered the Church for worldly ends: my deserts, are not appreciated—my talents are not rewarded. These are the motives which will ever be attributed to the reforming Curate, and he may be pitied for disconcerted egotism, while neither esteemed for his disinterested patriotism, or admired for his self-denying Christianity.

Before I proceed then to the main object of the following letter, I would request of the reader to consider before he approves, or wishes God's speed to those measures of external, sudden, and perhaps, violent reform, which are being agitated; whether he has not observed a consistent, and, day after day, progressive improvement in the Established Church, for the last twenty years; and, whether any church in Christendom can at present exhibit a state of more actual efficiency, or more prospective amelioration; and, whether seeing things going on still from good to better, it is not more consistent with all experience and all prudence, to look forward to this unrevolutionary reform, which is more to be prized and more valued, because under the management of cool heads and experienced hands.

Having made these observations, I proceed to my object of defending the Established Church of the United Kingdoms of England and Ireland, from the accusations that have been made against her. 1st-That her wealth is overgrown. 2dly-That it has been directed from its ancient and legitimate channels. This overgrown and usurped wealth, says the liberal economist, should be applied to meet the exigencies of the State: this usurped and overgrown wealth, say the Romish priest and demagogue, was, when we enjoyed it, consecrated to far different purposes; for from it we supported the poor, we built edifices, we maintained public and gratuitous hospitality; therefore, the wealth should be returned, and re-directed to flow in its ancient and legitimate channels.

Now, I consider, Mr. Examiner, that if able to show that this wealth is not excessive, however, it may be unequally divided, (and what wealth on earth is equally divided?) I think I shall suf

ficiently answer the liberal political economist. And if I can set forth that the Established Church has not now one-fourth of the wealth, or means of acquiring income, that the Church of Rome had when it was the Establishment, I think I shall have sufficiently proved that the Protestant ministry, out of that fourth, cannot be justly called on to do actually what Popery was bound to, but never effectually performed; but which wealth, on the contrary, it most wantonly and wickedly misapplied. To this purpose, I now enter on a brief historical sketch of Church Revenues from the earliest period to the present time; and, in timine, desire to disclaim for the Church of which I am a member, all Divine right to tithes; and agree with Blackstone, that all property stands on the same foundationsthat all once belonged to lay proprietors-that church property, though not founded on Divine law, yet, as ratified by the voluntary act of man, is placed on a footing equally secure with all other, and is sanctioned and secured by the laws of the land.

The Church, born in poverty, and cradled amidst persecution, for three hundred years had no real property, nor had its ministers any income but what they received from the weekly contributions of the faithful. The periodical collections made for this purpose, were called sportule, a word taken from the daily donations of food made by the old Romans to their clients and dependants. The allowance to each minister was called a mensura, and it was divided and allotted by the bishop, who drew the funds out of the common stock. As the number of the faithful increased, it was found that the ecclesiastical funds were proportionally enlarged, so much so, that in Cyprian's time, from an expression of that Father, it may be gathered, that the donations of the faithful amounted to more than a tenth of their goods. Until the accession of Constantine to the imperial throne, no Christians were allowed to possess immoveable property; but when he established the Church on the ruins of Paganism, it was permitted and encouraged to acquire property, and receive donations and legacies of lands, and tenements.Julian the Apostate, desirous to restore Paganism, reversed the decrees of Constantine; for he scoffingly insisted, that the perfection of the Christian religion consisted in its poverty. But the Christian Emperors who succeeded him reinstated the Church in her new rights; and it would appear that ecclesiastics were neither slow nor idle in taking advantage of their privileges; as we find Chrysostom and Jerome acknowledging and lamenting, that while the Church had become more powerful and rich, it had also become less virtuous. Chysostom at large deplores the avaricious practices of bishops and other churchmen in his day, who, having acquired lands and fixed wealth, too often abandoned their spiritual occupations and pastoral duties, to sell their corn and wine; and such, he deplored, as being too often seen pleading for their properties at the bar, or looking after their increase in the markets.

When church property thus became large, men were found to love it much; bishops, also, were apt to misapply it so far to their own use, that it was necessary to take the distribution and application

out of their hands, and to vest it in the care of functionaries, called Economists; but as these officers were appointed by the bishops, it still appeared that they had too much interest in their actions; and a regular partition of property took place, by which the revenues were divided into four shares, of which the bishop took one-the inferior clergy another-to the support of the poor, another was applied-and another was allocated for the construction and repair of churches and hospitals. In this way church property continued until the overthrow of the western half of the Roman empire by the barbarians. Tithes were neither claimed nor wanted, for the Church was rich enough, though many of the later Fathers began to lay claim to them as of Divine right; and Augustine and Ambrose desired in this respect to place on the same footing the Levitical and Christian institutions.

When the northern hordes broke in on the empire, the unbelieving Goth, Vandal, Frank, and Saxon, possessed themselves of the rights and revenues of churchmen; and all property of this sort was for a time overturned. But when Christianity, as it soon did, began to exert her influence on those rude conquerors-when churchmen brought the terrors of the other world to bear on the bloodstained, but awakened consciences of the princes, the counts, and the thanes-the overturned altars were again erected, property in double measure was again acquired by those who served them; and on this occasion the Church did not forget to reassert the Divine right of tithe. But still ecclesiastical property was in a very unsettled state each feudal lord erected on his own fief, a church for the use of his Franklins and serfs-he appointed his own clerk, and the bounds of the manor were the same as that of the parish. He also applotted such portions of land, or of predial produce, as pleased him, for the support of the priest; and often the landowner took back what portion he pleased, one part, or two, or three, for the support, as was pretended, of the poor; but too. often these portions were reinfeoffed to the patron and his heirs; and sometimes no portion of predial income remained to the parson, and all his support was derived from the altarage, or fees received at the church, for rites there performed. Moreover, inasmuch as baronial property was constantly varying, from confiscations and other modes of transfer, so the bounds of parishes became indistinct, and thereby landowners assumed a liberty of choice, as to what church and what clergyman they might pay their dues, and still the title to the tithes remained in the landed proprietors; and the clergy, who now asserted, as matter of doctrine, that tithes belonged to the Church, by Divine right; yet found it necessary to purchase the tenure of tithes from the lay-men, and such a bargain was called redeeming the tithes-redimere decimas. In such a state was church property, when Charlemagne on the Continent, and Ethelwolf in England, made the payment of tithes imperative and legal.

In Ireland at the period of the English conquest, it would appear that though tithes were known and payable to certain abbeys-for Cambrensis specifies them in grants made by Strongbow to certain

monastics, and also complains of certain Irish chieftains who had seized on church lands, and only left to the clergy tithes and offerings; and alludes to tithes as of old standing in the country-yet until the synod of Cashel, in 1172, they were voluntary, and did not form an essential part of the income of the clergy, who were possessed of large tracts of the best lands in the island, under the name of Patrick's ridges and termon lands, which were managed by peculiar officers, called comorbans and erenachs, who partook of a sort of middle condition between the lay and clerical character, and were functionaries peculiar to Ireland. The synod of Cashel, under the direction of the Pope, and the support of the English, ordered that tithes should be paid out of every sort of predial property; and the synod held in Dublin, under Archbishop Comyn, 1186, provided, "that tithes should be paid to mother churches out of provisions, hay, the young of animals, flax, wool, gardens, orchards, and out of all things that grow and renew; under pain of anathema :" "A plentiful and sweeping commentary on the third decree of the synod of Cashel in favour of the clergy," says Dr. Lanigan.

In such a state was Church property when the regular clergy or monastics interfered between the parochial or secular clergy and the laity-to exert an unbounded influence on the one, and rob the other of their just rights and emoluments. To St. Anthony the Hermit is attributed the first invention of monkery. Following his example, thousands retired from common life, to people the deserts of Syria and Egypt, with communities, living according to a fixed rule, and devoting themselves to a life of prayer and poverty, and manual labour. Athanasius, coming to Rome, and having published there his Life of St. Anthony, many in the west embraced their retired manner of life. These monks, living in communities under the direction and controul of their abbots and bishops, were not priests— they laboured for their livelihood, and their leisure hours they devoted to reading the Scriptures. Jerome, in his writings, plainly makes a distinction between a priest and a monk. In his letter to the monk Rusticus, he says-" Live after that manner that you may prove yourself worthy to be a cleric; and if for this purpose the people or the bishop cast their eyes on you, be ready to show that you are worthy of their selection." The first way in which monks acquired wealth, over and above what they gained by their labour, was, that considered as holy men, the common people gave them alms in order to obtain their prayers. After this, a priest was allowed to remain in each monastery, and to set up an altar there, and to it the laity resorted, as specially holy, and there they paid their altar fees and offerings; and as the mass of a monastery was now considered very efficacious, not only for the living, but the dead—as the popes, who began to see what advantage monkery was to the increase of their power, had now permitted not only one altar but

* For a very satisfactory account of ancient Irish ecclesiastical property, see "Appendix xiii. to Stuart's History of Armagh," a truly valuable work.