the subject, represent tithes as diminishing by one-tenth the fertility of land. Now, it is certain, that land is of various degrees of fertility; that one quality of land is by much more than one-tenth more fertile than another. But has it ever yet been contended that this disadvantage under which the inferior land lies, is a tax upon industry? No. Simply because there was no Church Establishment to be subverted by such a misrepresentation. The land which is thus comparatively unproductive will not be cultivated, until prices rise to a height that will remunerate the farmer. It is the same with land subject to tithe. Both causes may retard cultivation; and so far, leave industry unemployed. But neither can be truly said to tax industry. Industry is not exerted upon the land, until its exertion may put it beyond the tax. The industry that is thus called into action is amply remunerated. The farmer cannot complain when he is enabled to pay the wages of labour, and to realize the profits of stock. And the public cannot complain when they get what they want, at the price for which they are willing to procure it. When men talk of tithe as a tax upon industry, it would be very well if they remembered that the productions of the earth are a bounty upon industry; that although they may plant and water, it is God that gives the increase. If this truth was more strongly imprinted upon their minds, we should hear less of an objection that savours so much of impiety and ingratitude. A tax upon industry! Why it is just such language might expect to hear, if they were themselves the creators of the productions of the earth, and were indebted for nothing to the goodness of Providence! A seed is deposited in the ground; it is returned fiftyfold; and those upon whom the beneficence of God thus overflows, think it a hard thing to be asked to contribute a tithe of what he has himself given them to his service! Truly may it be said, "the ox knowest his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know; my people do not consider." We shall not at present stop to indite a homily upon this; but, if the objec tors to whom we have alluded would only imagine what they themselves would think of individuals who might have received from some great ma n a favour, similar to that for which they must feel themselves indebted to the great Creator, and yet who refused to acknowledge it, by making some small returns for his service; appropriating greedily, and without thanks; and giving grudgingly, and of necessity; in a word, cramming, while they blasphemed the feeder; they would have some faint idea of what may be justly thought of their own language when they complain of tithe as a tax upon industry! But we well know, that a consideration such as this will only provoke the sneers of the utilitarians. Upon them we urge it not. Against such antagonists we rest satisfied with having proved that tithe is no tax upon industry; a position which they may deny, and they may mystify; but which they will find it difficult to disturb, unless they can shew that there is a tax upon industry where there is no industry to be taxed; or where the growers are renumerated by existing prices where any industry is exerted. It has been said that tithes are an obstacle to improvement; and, in some few instances, they may be so considered. We are, therefore, desirous to see adopted any reasonable and practicable modification of the system by which the objection might be removed. We are sure that, ultimately, it must be for the benefit of the clergy as well as of the laity, that the country should be improved; that two blades of grass should be made to grow where but one grew before; and we are satisfied, that no serious objection would be made to any proposal for abating or moderating the imposition of tithes, in any cases where it could be clearly shewn, or for any length of time during which it could be clearly proved, that they would be an obstacle to improvement. The cases, however, are but few in which a relief from tithe would encourage enterprise; and, therefore, the cases can be but few in which the burden of them discourages cultivation. But, be this as it may, we meet the objection fairly, by proposing a remedy. Thus we test the sincerity of our opponents; to whom, indeed, we do less than justice, if they are not more tender of their objection than we are even of tithe, or if they would wish to see the grievance which they complain of redressed,when it may, hereafter, operate as a lever for the overthrow of an offensive system. When an objection is a pretext, and not a cause, it must be something very different from truth and reason, that can prevail against it. When it is said that taxes are paid by the landlord, it must not be supposed, that they fall upon the individual commonly so called, but only that they are taken from a fund which is denominated rent, in contradistinction to the funds which supply the profits of stock, and the wages of labour. The landlord has no more right to the tenth, which he merely hands over to the party, whether lay or clerical, for whose benefit it has been reserved, than he has to any other property of which he might be the trustee; or than his tenants have to the sums which they have stipulated to pay him, as considerations for their respective farms. And yet, even by a respectable writer in the Quarterly Review, the matter has been thus misrepresented. Tithes have been represented as a grievance upon the landlord, from which he ought to be relieved! (vol. xliv, page 37), as if he had received a grant of the land tithe-free; or took no care to be indemnified for its amount when he made the purchase! For if he gave for nine-tenths the price of the whole, he was a fool. And if he claims a dominion over the whole, having purchased but nine-tenths, he is a knave. In neither case can he call for the protection of the legislature, which should not countenance his knavery, and cannot prevent his infatuation. No. It is every whit as false, to maintain that tithe is paid by the landlord, as that it is paid by the consumer. It constituted a lien upon the land before the proprietor came into possession, the liquidation of which should precede rent, which ought to commence only when that lien had been satisfied. So that nothing could be more equitable, than to make the owners of all lands which paid a rent, accountable for the tithe; for the tithe ought to be considered as in their hands, from the very moment that rent began to be exacted. The landlord has no right, to appropriate any portion of the residuum above the profits of stock and the wages of labour to his own purposes, until he satisfies those who have previous claims; and as such, the law recognises the claims of the individuals who may be denominated ecclesiastical landlords; whose rights were secured to them, at the time when the lay proprietors came into possession of the fee, and which cannot be violated, without a fatal departure from the principle, by the maintenance of which can property of every other description alone be protected. The lay landlords, therefore, in paying tithes, pay nothing that may be called their own, and, therefore, as far as they are concerned, tithes are no grievance. But, Irish tithes, who can stand up for them, are they not altogether indefensible? There, a people professing one religion, are compelled to support the ministers of those who profess another! A little patience, gentle reader. We are no advocates of what is indefensible; but, we have, we confess, as yet to learn, that such an epithet is fairly applicable to the Church of Ireland. Indeed, if there be any party who 1833.] Tithes. Ireland. There is a monopoly esta- That The grievance, therefore, of which the agitators complain is, that a sum derived from English capital is received and spent amongst themselves! It is curious that they do not make the increase of rent, which has also been the consequence of the trade with England, a ground of complaint. Perhaps it is because it would be less palpably unreasonable so to do. For rent is often spent out of the country; tithe seldom or never. Rent contributes to the encouragement of absentees; tithes to that of a resident gentry. The landlord is often felt as an oppressor; the clergyman generally as a benefactor to his neighbourhood. Indeed, we have reason to believe that the poor people themselves are at length beginning to be sensible of this. It has been reported to us, upon authority by which we have never been deceived, that the peasantry in the county of Kilkenny, where the hostility against tithe raged fiercest, are at length fully sensible of the folly of banishing the clergy from their homes. The labourers feel, that, whatever the farmers and landowners may have gained by withholding the tithe, they have been no gainers by the loss of employment, or the absence of that kindliness and those courtesies which they always experienced from the clergy of the Established Church. Let any unprejudiced man go into the neighbourhood of Dr Hamilton, or Dr Butler, and witness the keen regret with which the majority of even their Roman Catholic parishioners regard their absence, let him witness the charities which have been suspended, the good works which have been interrupted, the civilizing influences which have been withdrawn, and he will be able to form some estimate of the mischief which has been done by that malignant system of combination which has driven these respected gentlemen, and numbers like them, from their several spheres of activity and benevolence. We verily believe that this system could not be consumers. Nor can it be said that the people of England are sufferers by being thus burdened with the support of the Church of Ireland. In whatever degree the export trade has a tendency to raise the price of corn in Ireland, it must have a similar tendency to lower it in England. If new lands are called into cultivation in the one case, old lands must be thrown out of cultivation in the other. So that while the surplus fund for the payment of rent and tithe in the one country is increased, in the other it either does not increase, or diminishes; and, consequently, the people have less to pay in one direction, the more they have to pay in the other. The value of their own produce is diminished in proportion as that of Irish produce is increased; and by how much the amount of the whole falls short of what it would be if they were the sole cultivators, by so much must they be considered gainers. The English only purchase Irish produce because it is cheaper than their own; and while they have the benefit of this cheapness, they should not grudge those to whom they are indebted for it, the benefit of their custom. Neither do they. They are wise enough to know what, in this respect at least, is their true interest. maintained, were it not that the poor people have now no adequate protection against it. ITS SANCTIONS HAVE NOW BECOME MORE TERRIBLE THAN THOSE OF THE LAWS OF THE LAND! And Cap tain Rock is feared and obeyed, while the enactments of the nominal legislature are regarded as little more than so much waste paper! In the preceding paragraphs we have admitted, for argument sake, that it is unjust to call upon people, professing one form of religion, to contribute to the maintenance of the religious teachers of those of another; and we have been satisfied with shewing, that, in point of fact, such an objection is unfounded-that no such demand is, in reality, made. But even if we were unable to shew, as we trust we have shewn, upon their own principles, that the complaints of the Agitators are without any basis in truth, we could not for a moment admit that it is unjust to expect of dissenters of every denomination to contribute to the maintenance of that Church which is by law established; because, to admit such a principle would be to strike at the very foundation of an Established Church. vent or retard the performance of a bounden duty? And if such be the case with those whose inclinations may be said to be favourable, what may not be apprehended from those whose dispositions are decidedly adverse? To place a Church upon such a footing, would resemble the folly of building a house upon sand. When the winds rose, and the rains fell, and the floods came, they would beat upon that church, and it would fall, and great would be the fall of it. It may be allowed that it certainly would be impracticable thus to procure a sufficient support for any system of national religion; but that no such system ought to be established; that religion, like every thing else, should be left to find its own level, and depend, altogether, for its countenance or its rejection, upon the common sense and the natural honesty of mankind. This is the view of the subject which we know is taken by the great majority of those who are loudest in their denunciations against tithes, and who, in objecting against them, may be consi dered as only carrying into effect one of their engines of hostility against the Church Establishment. But it would, surely, be more manly, as well as more fair and rational, to object to the Establishment in the first instance, and then, if the objec tions should be considered sound, proceed to the abolition of tithe; than begin by seeking for such abolition, although tithe may be the only practicable mode of ensuring a sufficient maintenance for such an Establishment, should the allegations of its defamers prove unfounded. In this latter case it might, perchance, be found that punishment rather hastily anticipated conviction;—and thus, while the trial of the Establishment only served to evince its truth and its purity, it would be attended, contemporaneously, with such a confiscation of its revenues as must ensure its downfall and its degradation. Dissent is not a privilege, but an indulgence. To say that those who disapprove of the religion adopted by the state, are to be exempted from any share of the expenses attending its maintenance, is to proclaim a bounty upon dissent, which must render it impossible, in the long run, to uphold any form of national religion. Thus, a toleration of error would proceed to the extent of an intolerance of truth; and the only mode of faith for which no sufficient provision could be made, which might at the same time secure its purity and its permanency, would be that very one which might be judged most agreeable to the precepts and maxims of Holy Scripture. For, to what purpose is any form of divine worship established, if every individual is at the same time told that he is at liberty to use his own discretion in contributing or not contributing his stipend for its support, just as he thinks proper? Even of those who approve of it, how many will contribute, when they may refuse? In how many will coldness, indifference, caprice, operate to pre But, to advert for a moment (for we cannot afford space to discuss it at any length) to the notion that no particular mode of faith should be established, because men will be led, naturally, to approve of, and to adopt that which is the best, it may be admitted, that if the assertion were Tithes. 1833.] true, the advice were good; as, on the other hand, it cannot be denied, that the advice is not good if the assertion be unfounded. 66 bitation and a name.' Instead of We are not here discussing the This maxim of the free traders in Christianity would be just, if men were as much alive to their eternal, as they are to their temporal, interests. When men are in want of corn, wine, oil, or any other necessaries or conveniencies, their wants are the parents of skill and enterprise, which soon enable them to procure what they desire. But, the more they stand in need of religion, the less they are conscious of that need; and, consequently, if the most important concern is not to be entirely neglected, there is a necessity for taking, in that respect, some better care of them than they are likely to take of themselves. The very passions, prejudices, interests, and attachments, which cause them to take excellent precaution for their well-being in the present world, are most adverse to their well-being in the world to come. And, therefore, no wise legislators either ever have, or ever will act upon the principle of leaving religion to find its own level, by not establishing any particular church, or, by removing the muniments and abolishing the privileges of one that has been established; even as the Hollanders will not act upon the principle of suffering the sea to find its natural level, by the removal of those mounds and barriers by which alone they have been hitherto protected from its inundation. On the contrary, wise legislators have always admitted that they never could secure the social and political, until they had done what in them lay to secure the moral and religious well-being of the people. Man must be regarded in his relation to God, before the duties can be defined, or the rules laid down, which should determine his conduct in relation to man. In this country, the government have been so fully sensible of this, that the Church has been, from the very earliest period, incorporated with the state, and the leading truths of our religious belief made, as it were, the corner-stones of our civil polity. Religion, which else had been an "airy nothing," a rhapsody of a local hawords," thus obtained " 66 But, as surely as a knowledge of our duty towards God is necessary to the performance of our duty towards man, as surely as there is no security that a community will contain good citizens, unless it also contain good Christians, so surely is it a duty incumbent upon princes and governors to provide the means of religious instruction for those over whom they are appointed to preside; and whatever may be the varieties of opinion which it may be expedient to permit amongst their subjects, no one, unless by his own choice, or through his own fault, should be |