to a considerable number of schools throughout the country. In spite of this determined opposition on the part of the Protestant community, the Government with equal resolution persevered in their scheme, steadily refusing the slightest concession; so that for a considerable time the schools receiving State assistance were, almost without exception, under Roman Catholic patronage. In the course of some years, however, the Presbyterians, after some explanations, decided on connecting their schools with the National Board-an example which was soon followed by most of the other Protestant Dissenting bodies. By degrees, too, as vacancies on the episcopal bench and in other influential posts in the Church were filled up by adherents to the new system (and to such the patronage of the Crown was for a long time rigidly confined), their influence was exerted with some effect in its favour among the clergy at large: but it was not till a new generation had arisen, unfettered by previous associations, unaffected by past controversies, and free from the smarting sensations of harsh and hostile treatment, that the question came to be generally considered on its own merits. The result has been that, while many of the younger race of the clergy have felt themselves at liberty to accept the system, as perhaps on the whole the best adapted to the circumstances of the country; and while many others have come to a different conclusion; the controversy has lost much of the angry heat and bitterness with which it was at first conducted and there appears a pretty general acquiescence in the apostolic principle, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." It is a singular circumstance, that substantially the same ques

tion is now being raised with regard to education in England-the Committee of Council appearing desirous of imposing the non-intervention principle (through the medium of what are called the CONSCIENCE CLAUSES) on all Church schools applying for public aid and still more singular, that, simultaneously with the decline of the opposition to the national system on the side of the Protestants in Ireland, an energetic effort to overthrow it is now being made by the Roman Catholic clergy. The restriction which it places on the full development of their distinctive doctrines and ceremonies in the schools, and the control exercised over them by a mixed Board, have become distasteful; and they now declare for a denominational system. It remains to be seen whether the cherished scheme of successive Governments for the last thirty years, and to which their whole policy in Ireland may be said to have been subordinated, will now be abandoned to satisfy the new requirements of a restless and ever-encroaching hierarchy.

65. Turning now from external topics-from those public events with which the Church has been more or less mixed up a few observations may be added as to her internal history and the movements of religious opinion among her members. Although the influence of Wesleyan Methodism had not been altogether unfelt by her in the preceding century; and somewhat of its warmth had been diffused through the chilly atmosphere which hung around her during that period of religious stagnation; it was of too fitful and irregular a character; and too little connected with the Church itself, to have more than a partial and indirect effect. It was not so, however, with the next remarkable phase of thought

and feeling, of which Scott, Newton, and Venn, were the chief exponents in England; and Roe, Caulfield, Matthias, and others, in Ireland. This, being a movement within the Church, was much more influential among Church people in Ireland; and, for the first quarter of the present century, "Evangelical views" (in the restricted application of the term) were the prevailing characteristic of religious society-pushed by the bolder spirits to supralapsarianism and antinomianism; diluted by the more timid into the Baxterian theory of preterition; but held, in some shape or other, by almost all who thought or spoke of religion at all. Narrow and exclusive, however, as this system of theology was, it embodied some great truths which had previously been too much obscured; and produced much genuine though somewhat speculative and ostentatious piety: but unhappily the strong re-action from the formal and ethical teaching of the last century led to a proportionate exaggeration of the doctrinal and subjective elements of religion. Religion was now held to consist chiefly in right views and warm feelings; and religious worship mainly in preaching and hearing "the Gospel :" prayer, and praise, and even the Sacraments themselves, being looked on as little more than accessories of the Sermon. The result was too generally to be seen in slovenly churches; careless and mutilated services; baptisms hurriedly and irreverently administered in vestry rooms or private houses; infrequent communions, and other similar laxities.

A marked change has, however, taken place in these respects during the last thirty years. The great Church movement which then commenced in England, did not indeed find an immediate or ge

neral response in Ireland. The prevailing bent of the religious mind had been so long and so decidedly in the opposite direction, that it was only by degrees, and to a moderate extent, that the influence of the new school made itself felt. To those standing at one extreme, any approach even to the centre will appear to be an advance to the opposite side; and hence every movement towards the assertion of distinctive Church principles, and the observance of the outward proprieties of worship, was suspected by those who were in every-day contact with Romanism in its strongest development: nor was this feeling diminished by the fact that so many in England really overpassed the via media, and crossed "from Oxford to Rome." Nevertheless, truth will carry its own weight in the long run: and what was really true and sound in the movement in question has gradually leavened the minds of the thoughtful and enquiring. The more extreme Calvinistic views have fallen into almost universal disrepute; and, though a majority of the Irish clergy, and perhaps laity also, would probably still rank themselves as "Evangelicals," their Evangelicalism is in general of a moderate type; not inconsistent with a belief in the universality of the Atonement, in the reality of Sacramental grace, and in the necessity to salvation of holiness of life and practice. On the other hand, there is a considerable and increasing number of what may be relatively termed High Churchmen; although extreme views and practices in that direction are rare. The Broad Church party possesses some representatives influential both from character and learning; but the modern school of Rationalists is as yet at least unknown: nor is it probable that, among a people of strong imaginations and warm

affections, its cold, negative, and irreverent theology will make much way. On the whole; since the dying out of the education controversy, there is, among the different sections of the Irish clergy, much less of party feeling, and much less of extreme opinions in any direction, than is commonly to be found among their brethren in England; and whenever the just and reasonable claims of this branch of the Church is conceded by the revival of her Convocation, (or better still, by an adequate representation in a general synod of the united Church) there is good reason to expect that moderation, prudence, and a genuine zeal for the advancement of religion, will mark her counsels.

In no respect has the progress of Church feeling manifested itself more evidently than by the increase of churches, and the improvement which has taken place both in the general condition of the fabrics, and in the conduct of divine service. Much is, of course, due to the operations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners but as that body rarely builds or improves a church without stipulating for a considerable local subscription, a good criterion is thus furnished of the interest and liberality of the members of the Church. The amount of such subscriptions for the year 1862 was £14,842,-for 1864, £10,764; and since the establishment of the Commission no less a sum has been received by it for these purposes than £120,000. There is now scarcely such a thing in Ireland as a dilapidated or disreputable church; scarcely one in which improvements to a greater or less extent have not been effected within the last twenty years; scarcely one unprovided with all the requisites for the simple but decent performance of divine worship; and, it is not too much to add, scarcely one.