Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/84

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78
Letter to the Rt. Hon. C. Fortescue, M.P.

vide for the number of bishops to be maintained, and the mode of their election or appointment: those bishops would have no precedence, they would be, like The Most Rev. Archbishop Crolly and The Right Rev. Bishop Denvir,[1] known only to the Secretary of State and the 'London Gazette' by their names, and not by their jurisdictions. To the members of their own Church each would assume his ecclesiastical title; Archbishop Trench would be Archbishop of Dublin to his own communion; Archbishop Cullen would assume a similar title in addressing the faithful of his own Church.

A fair division of the rent-charge in lieu of tithes would give about six-eighths to the Roman Catholic, about one-eighth to the Protestant Episcopal, and less than an eighth to the Presbyterian Church. Questions would no doubt arise respecting the property in glebe lands. Lord Cairns contends that many of these glebe lands were forfeited to the State, and were granted to the Protestant Church by the Act of 1662. Mr. Hallam remarks that many of these lands had belonged to the Church, and had fallen into lay hands during the confusion of the Civil War. These are questions for Commissions to investigate in the first instance, and for Parliament in the last resort to decide.

On the subject of Education, I shall content myself with very few words. The plan at present in operation was devised by Lord Monteagle; it was put in

  1. London Gazette, 1845.