§ LORD MONTEAGLEpresented a petition from the Rev. Dr. Thorpe, complaining of the refusal by the Bishop of London, to authorize the appointment of an Irish clergyman as curate of Belgrave Chapel. In introducing the subject, he expressed his deep regret at the necessity he was under of remarking on the conduct of any right rev. Prelate. If the objections urged by the right rev. Prelate in this case against the appointment sought for had rested on spiritual grounds, nothing would have induced him to bring the matter under the notice of Parliament. As the objection taken was purely secular, and one on which a lay Peer was just as competent to form a judgment as any of the right rev. Bench, he had willingly consented to present this petition to the House. It came from a 678 gentleman with whom he had the honour of being but slightly acquainted, the minister and proprietor of a proprietor chapel near Belgrave Square, called Belgrave Chapel, in which he had officiated during thirty years. In the year 1846 the rev. gentleman was desirous of leaving this country for the purpose of spending two months on the Continent. He was desirous of appointing an additional curate to officiate during his absence; and, although he did not conceive himself either by law or usage bound to name to the Bishop of London the gentleman whom he intended to appoint as a curate, still, out of respect to his diocesan, he felt it necessary to communicate his name; describing him, at the same time, as a clergyman perfectly qualified for the curacy, and offering to submit his testimonials to the right rev. Prelate, if he desired it. This communication brought an answer from the right rev. Prelate, which was set forth in the petition. It was dated 20th July, 1846, and was couched in the following extraordinary terms:—" If Mr. —(naming him), who, I suppose, is an Irish clergyman, has been allowed to officiate in any English diocese, I am ready to admit him into mine; but, if not, I shall be under the necessity of declining to do so." Now this letter taken by itself, amounted to a general declaration on the part of the right rev. Prelate, that if a curate proposed to be appointed to a London parish were an Irish clergyman, and had not been previously admitted to discharge his functions in any other English diocese, the Bishop of London would refuse to admit him. If the objection had been taken on the ground of insufficiency in doctrine, morals, or knowledge, he should have said that upon all these points the Bishop was the proper judge; and he (Lord Monteagle) would have refused to present a petition complaining of such a decision. But the point now raised, and this in the year 1847, was not the disqualification of an individual on account of insufficient doctrine, morals, or learning, but his disqualification because he was an Irish clergyman. In calling the most serious attention of the House to this petition, he did not view the question as one concerning merely their petitioner and his diocesan; but one affecting the character, the feelings, and the interests of the whole body of the Irish clergy, as secured by the Act of Union. It was on this account that he recommended it to their Lordships' consideration. He must pause to ask what was meant by 679 an "Irish clergyman?" Did it mean Irish by birth, or Irish by education, or by the circumstance of having received holy order in Ireland? He recognised neither Irish clergymen nor English clergymen; he knew them both only as clergymen of the Established Church of the United Kingdom. He did not recognise, neither did he admit the right of any man to recognise, such distinctions; and least of all when drawn for the purpose of establishing an invidious, unjust, and, he would add, an illegal inferiority. Such distinctions, he must say, were not only invidious, but at the present moment were most peculiarly inapplicable. When their Lordships considered the state of the Irish Church in past and present times, there never was a moment in which the clergy of Ireland were more entitled to respect and gratitude. At an earlier period the Irish Church had been considered a sort of appanage, out of which young English clergymen were to claim the richest and highest endowments. But better examples were also to be found. Even in times less pure than our own, the Church in Ireland, however, had not only been made the mode of making provision for the clergy of this country, but it had been connected with some of the most glorious and dignified names that belonged to the United Church of the two countries, or with the Christian Church of the world. He did not regret that the episcopal bench of Ireland had so often been distinguished by the appointment of so many Englishmen, when he remembered that even before the Union the Church of Ireland had derived from the Church of England men whose character and attainments shed upon it the highest lustre; and that the Irish branch of the Establishment had been adorned by the pious eloquence of the English Jeremy Taylor, as well as by the learning and faith of the Irish Usher; by the meek devotion of the English Bedell, as well as by the imaginative philosophy of the Irish Berkeley. The most reverend Prelate whose turn of duty brought him to attend the services of their Lordships' House this year, who was second only to the ecclesiastical head of the Church in Ireland, was an Englishman. He did not regret the appointment of his most reverend Friend (the Archbishop of Dublin); on the contrary, he rejoiced and triumphed in it. It strengthened his argument. But if the Master of Albion Hall was held deservedly 680 fit to be Archbishop of Dublin, an Irishman could not as such be unfitted to be a curate in Belgrave Square. As a distinguished man in the Irish House of Commons, Sir Boyle Roche, once said, "A bargain should not be made in which the mutuality was all upon one side." In vain might he examine the English Church for the promotion of any eminent Irish divine. He did not now stop to complain of this; but he did complain that there should be on the part of any Englishman a disposition to draw an invidious and disparaging line between the inhabitants of two countries which ought to be in all respects united, and to say that an Irishman should not be allowed to enter freely and honourably wherever an Englishman would be received. This miserable spirit of exclusion had been manifested on other occasions. He could not but feel that with respect to appointments in other professions besides the Church, Irishmen had just reason to complain. He could not forget that one of the most eminent men who had ever sat in either House of Parliament—a man whose noble and masculine eloquence would live as long as the records of English Parliamentary proceedings were permitted to endure—he could not forget that the present Lord Plunkett, on his appointment of Master of the Rolls in this country, had been opposed by a wretched professional cabal, on the sole ground of his being an Irishman. Now, he regretted that his noble and learned Friend had not braved the paltry prejudice, and had not overcome it, as his force of character and dignity of mind and pre-eminent abilities would have enabled him to do. But the clamour had been allowed to triumph. Yet who was the person who had been appointed to the office of Lord Chancellor in Ireland on the first vacancy which had afterwards taken place? Why, it was Sir Anthony Hart, an excellent and able lawyer, no doubt, but a member of that very English bar which had refused to recognise the appointment of Lord Plunkett to the office of Master of the Rolls in England. Now, he again begged to repeat that he was far from objecting to the appointment of Englishmen to office in Ireland; on the contrary, he wished to see the most competent persons appointed to office in either country without any reference to the particular part of the empire in which they might have been born. He would earnestly warn their Lordships against the imminent danger of drawing a distinction between 681 the two branches of the Established Church, even if it were assumed or conceded that a distinction between the inhabitants of the two countries were justifiable in any other case. He believed there was no safety for the Church in Ireland for one hour, if the Protestant Episcopal Church of England and Ireland, as it was termed in the Act of Union, were not considered one and indivisible in the two countries, No statesman could defend the Irish branch of the Church for one single moment if they were to regard it as a separate establishment. Its strength consisted in its union with the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country; and anything that shook that union would seriously endanger its stability. How, he would ask, could its stability be more endangered than by drawing a line of invidious distinction which would recognise the two Churches as separate establishments? The Fifth Article of the Act of Union provided that, "The Churches of England and Ireland, as now by law established, be hereafter united in one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called the United Church of England and Ireland." Now, he should observe, that if there ever was a time in which they would be justified in drawing a distinction between two Churches so united, the present was not that time; for if any Church had ever entitled itself to general respect and admiration, it was the Church of Ireland at the present day—a Church which had shaken off the ancient dross arising from her peculiar position in a country professing a faith different from her own, and which had become reformed and improved in a manner seldom or never paralleled. Nor was this all; the exertions made of late by the members and ministers of the Church of Ireland to meet the fearful exigency which had overtaken that country, entitled them to public gratitude, if civil services were ever entitled to that gratitude. He had no hesitation in saying, that the position in which the ministers of the Church of Ireland had lately placed themselves, had not only commanded the admiration of their friends, but had reconciled to them some of their most bitter political and religious opponents. He had himself seen the priest and the clergyman working together for good, and he had seen Roman Catholics, who in remote districts had few, if any beside, to look up to; he had seen them respect and venerate in the Protestant minister of religion, not their spiritual guide, which he could not 682 be, but their firmest support, their parent, and their friend. He had stated at the outset that if the objection taken to the licensing of Irish clergymen was one of an ecclesiastical character, he should not have alluded to the subject. But it might be supposed possible that it was not to Ireland as a place of birth, but as a place of education, that the right rev. Prelate had objected. He found that such could not be the nature of the objection taken by the right rev. Prelate, as he had himself expressed an opinion in writing to the effect that the course of study pursued in the University of Dublin, as a theological school, far surpassed the course in Oxford and in Cambridge, and that he earnestly desired to see that very Irish system substituted for the course pursued in the English Universities. In conclusion, he wished to observe, that if in the remarks he had just made, a single word had dropped from him inconsistent with the highest respect for the right rev. Prelate and for his order, he wished it unsaid, and he begged leave to apologize for his indiscretion. But the subject was one of the highest importance. It involved the first principles of justice; it likewise involved the interests, the feelings, and the character of the clergymen of Ireland. He therefore deemed it his duty humbly but firmly to beg of their Lordships, and to demand from the public, that no right, or dignity, or authority belonging to the branch of the Established Church in this country should be withheld from the corresponding branch in Ireland, or from the humblest of its members.
The BISHOP of LONDONsaid: My Lords, I shall trouble your Lordships with only a few observations in reply to the speech of my noble Friend; but by those few observations I hope to be able to satisfy your Lordships, that in the course I have pursued in reference to the matter of this petition, I have not been guilty of any intentional disrespect towards the Irish branch of the Established Church. I must, in the first place, return thanks to my noble Friend for the manner in which he brought the petition under your Lordships' notice. Not a word that fell from him was calculated to give me the slightest pain, except in so far as his remarks showed that he had been led to think that I did not do justice to the Church in his country. My Lords, no person is more ready than I am to do justice to the merits and claims of that Church; and I fully participate in the feelings of respect and sympathy 683 which my noble Friend has expressed, for that meritorious and unhappily now suffering branch of the Church of the United Kingdom. I believe that no panegyric can be too high for the conduct of the Protestant clergy in Ireland, and pre-eminently for their conduct during the last few months. Your Lordships must not suppose that the regulation to which the petition refers is a regulation adopted by me within the last few months, or even within the last few years. It is a regulation that has been in operation for the last twenty-three years; and yet this is the first time that any complaint with respect to it has been made. When I was Bishop of Chester, I certainly found it necessary to discourage the influx of Irish clergymen into that diocese. I discouraged it on more grounds than one; and two of those grounds in particular appeared to me to be valid. In the first place, I did not think it right that young men educated for the service of the Church in Ireland, and ordained for that service, should take an early opportunity of quitting that Church, especially considering the difficulties which surrounded it, and should come over to England to seek for other and less irksome duties. I conceive that, far from being guilty of any disrespect towards the Irish branch of our Church, I was showing my sincere regard for it by discouraging the emigration of her young and active clergymen from a field of ministerial duty in which all the energies of her best, and wisest, and holiest servants were urgently required. Another circumstance which influenced me in the course I took, with respect to candidates for ordination, was my knowledge of the state of theological education in the University of Dublin at that time—an education which has since been greatly improved, and which now deserves the highest praise—as well as my knowledge of the practice prevailing among young men engaged in business of going over to that university from England, passing a short time there, and then obtaining their degrees, and returning to this country with a view to obtain those situations in the Church here, to which young men, educated in the English universities, at considerable expense, naturally looked forward, and to which they might be considered more fairly entitled. I therefore thought it my duty to discourage the immigration of Irish clergymen into my diocese. The rule, however, was at no time rigidly adhered to, and I never refused to 684 license Irish clergymen when I was satisfied that there was any good reason for their coming over to this country. I believe there are at the present moment in this diocese nearly, if not quite, as many Irish clergymen whom I have licensed, as there are Irish clergymen to whom I have refused licenses. It is a remarkable fact, that, although this regulation has been generally known for the last twenty-three years, I never heard a word of remonstrance or expostulation upon the subject from any of the Prelates who adorn the Irish bench. Now, I must say that if Dr. Thorpe, who is a clergyman in my diocese, and who is bound by his canonical vows to respect me as his bishop—I must say that if he thought he had any reason to complain of any regulation of mine, as imposing any restrictions on his countrymen, inconvenient to himself and injurious to the Irish Church—he ought, in my opinion, to have laid his grievance in the first instance before the Primate of that branch of our United Church. And I have no hesitation in saying, that if that eminent and admirable person had thought fit to express an opinion to me that the regulation in question was inconsistent with those bonds of friendly and intimate connexion which should unite the two branches of the Established Church, I should at once have acquiesced in that opinion. But what did Dr. Thorpe do? Why, instead of referring to me, or to the Primate of the Irish Church, in a case which he called an intolerable assumption of authority, he brings me before your Lordships by means of a petition, which has not been read to you, but which indulges in far stronger language than any which my noble Friend has thought proper to employ. I believe that the fact of my not having refused to license any Irish clergyman who showed good cause for his being licensed, is sufficient to exonerate me from the charge of having intended to cast even a shadow of disrespect on the Irish branch of the United Church—a branch for which I entertain the most cordial esteem and regard. If anything else were necessary to show that I did not mean any disrespect to that branch of the Church, I might state that I have conferred some of the most valuable and important livings in my gift on Irish clergymen, and that I have given to an Irish clergyman one of the dignities of St. Paul's Cathedral. I must observe that the conduct of Dr. Thorpe towards me, as his diocesan, had 685 not been of a kind to render it a matter of obligation with roe to show him any particular favour. When Dr. Thorpe proposed to me the licensing of the clergyman referred to, I wrote the letter which the noble Lord has read. I afterwards found there were reasons which made it not improbable that I might without difficulty license that clergyman, and I told him that he might at all events go and officiate in Dr. Thorpe's chapel, and that when Dr. Thorpe returned from the Continent it would be time enough for me to determine about the licensing. Dr. Thorpe then wrote his letter charging me with an assumption of power, sotting me at defiance, and threatening me with an appeal to your Lordships. I felt, under the circumstances, that I could not consistently with what was due to my own authority, license the clergyman in question for Dr. Thorpe's proprietary chapel; but, from information I afterwards received, I told that clergyman that I would be ready to license him to any other curacy. He did not, however, accept the offer, although he thanked me for having made it. Since that time I have licensed Irish clergymen. But the general regulation alluded to continues, and will continue, for the reasons I have stated to your Lordships. I beg leave once more to declare that nothing could be further from my mind than an intention to show any disrespect to the Irish Church. On the contrary, I entertain a deep attachment and regard towards that Church, while I feel unwilling to take from it any of its ministers, well knowing, as I do, that the number of those ministers is already too small, and that the difficulties they have to contend with have of late been greatly increased. My Lords, I now beg leave to thank you for the kindness with which you have heard me. I believe I have done nothing unlawful. I have acted under a regulation made public during the last twenty-three years, and on that regulation I shall, with the blessing of God, continue to act, until some competent authority shall have declared it to be illegal.
The EARL of CLANCARTYcould say without fear of contradiction, that the Irish clergymen generally were distinguished for all those qualities the possession of which was necessary to constitute Christian ministers. He deprecated the system of exclusion, which under the statutes of some English institutions prevailed, with regard to the admission of Irishmen. Such a 686 system of exclusion in any respect, particularly in a case like that then under consideration, was most inexpedient, and particularly at a time like the present, when everything ought to be done to unite the two countries more closely; and he regretted that such a distinction should be drawn or persevered in as the right rev. Prelate opposite had stated. He lamented that any distinction of race should be brought forward in such matters. Any Englishman who had ever visited Ireland could bear testimony to the manner in which he was received there, whether filling any office in the Church, the State, or the Law. Now, though others had filled situations of various kinds in Ireland, no Irishmen were promoted to similar offices in England or Scotland. Though this distinction of race was most reprehensible in all matters, it become particularly so in those connected with the Church.
The EARL of MOUNTCASHELsaid, he was gratified to perceive from the speech of the right rev. Prelate that he had nothing to urge condemnatory of the character of the Rev. Dr. Thorpe — a gentleman whom he esteemed most highly for his great talents and elevated character. He concurred fully in the prayer of the petition, as it was clear that if all the Prelates of the kingdom were to adopt a similar system of exclusion as that followed by the right rev. Prelate, Irish clergymen would be kept out of England altogether.