Proportion of Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

It has latterly become as essential a part of the system to conceal the number of followers of the Irish Protestant church, as the amount of its revenues. When the last census was taken, it had been easy to ascertain the respective proportions of Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and other Dissenters; but government, for obvious reasons, declined making such classification. The witnesses examined by parliamentary committees in 1825, evinced much diversity of opinion. Mr. O’Connell thought the Protestants of all sects did not exceed a million. Mr. Leslie Foster supposed them to amount to 1,270,000. Mr. Mason, who had spent much time in enquiries of this nature, calculated the proportion of Catholics to Protestants as 3⅙ to 1, which estimate he founded on returns from 300 parishes, or about one-eighth of the whole number. Another account, which professes to be founded on the best information, gives the following estimate:—The census made the population amount to 6,800,000; if divided into fourteenths, it was estimated one-fourteenth belonged to the established church, or 490,000 souls; Presbyterians, and other Dissenters, formed another fourteenth; so that there remained 5,820,000 Catholics. The population has since increased to at least eight millions; and, supposing the proportion continues the same, there are now 571,428 Episcopalians, an equal number of Dissenting Protestants, and 6,857,143 Catholics.

If to the Catholics and Dissenting Protestants of Ireland we add the vast body of Separatists in England, we shall find that together they form an overwhelming majority of the population of the two kingdoms; and that, therefore, the existing Protestant establishment, having only a minority of the people attached to its communion, is not, according to the maxim of Paley, entitled to the support and protection of government. One writer makes the excess of non-conformists over the conformists, in both countries, to amount to four millions; but as there is no certain data whereby this question can be accurately decided, we decline offering an opinion on the precise numerical snperiority.

How, in Ireland, the followers of the established church have come to bear so small a proportion, and of the church of Rome so large a one, can only be accounted for by the observation of a celebrated writer, that you may persecute a doctrine up to any number of adherents; and the converse—pamper it down to any number. The selfish and intolerant spirit which so long swayed the destinies of the sister kingdom, by drawing a broad line of distinction betwixt the dominant and proscribed faith, rendered defection from the latter next to impossible. A sense of common injustice cemented more strongly the bonds of union among the Catholics, and gave to their civil disabilities the semblance of a martyrdom, which no one, by apostacy, could escape, without suspicion of being influenced by sordid considerations. Hence, a close and indignant sentiment was fostered, sufficient not only to withstand the claims of the reformed worship, but the influence of property, and the coercive power of authority. Fidelity to the religion of their fathers was identified with fidelity to their countrymen; and no one could secede, without being exposed to the double opprobrium of national treachery and selfish hypocrisy. It follows, that the sectarian missionaries, spread through Ireland, have had little success among the Catholics, and the proselytes they have made have been chiefly picked up in the less guarded folds of the established pastors.

The Catholic religion, however, has not only kept its relative position, but has actually gained ground; for, during the last half century, the proportion of Protestants has declined. In 1766, the Protestants formed nearly one-half the population; in 1822, they formed only one-seventh; while the Catholics had more than quadrupled from 1766 to 1822, the Protestants had scarcely doubled. This striking fact will be more evident from the following statement, drawn up partly from parliamentary returns, and partly from the estimate of Dr. Beaufort, and other well-informed individuals.

The increase of Protestants from 1792 to 1822 is chiefly ascribed to the exertions of the Methodists. It affords a striking illustration of the efficacy of tithes, and large ecclesiastical endowments, in promoting religion; for it is clear, from the above, that the state worship has declined, in spite of its enormous emoluments. Those who are zealous for the promotion of religion, ought not to defend either the Irish or English establishment; for, under both branches of the united church, the number of their members has relatively decreased. Pure Christianity, indeed, can never flourish under the auspices of wealth and power; its precepts and origin are in perfect contrast to the titles, pomps, and vanities of the world. It has no connexion with bishops, nor courts, nor palaces; it was cradled in indigence; it flourished from persecution, it denounced the cant of hypocrites, and never allied itself with the Scribes and Pharisees of authority. They may, indeed, baptize state religions under the name of Christianity, but it has little to do with them; they are only heathen institutions, and their followers more the disciples of Mahomet than of Jesus Christ.

Little more than one-fourteenth of the population of Ireland belongs to the state religion, yet the teachers of this fraction of the community claim one-tenth of the produce that feeds the whole eight millions! Surely if church property was intended for the maintenance of religion, it was intended for the religion of the people, not for an insignificant minority of them.

But the misappropriation of ecclesiastical wealth is far from being the extent of the injustice sustained by the Irish and their real pastors. The important statute of the Session of 1829 was, no doubt, a great boon to the aristocracy and gentry, by qualifying them for seats in parliament and civil offices; still, as various penal statutes in force against the priesthood were left unrepealed by the Catholic Relief Act, they continue to sustain great hardship and opprobrium. Some of the penal acts remaining in force are very unjust and even cruel in their provisions: for instance, if a Catholic priest from inadvertency or misinformation marry two Protestants, or, a Protestant and Catholic, he is liable to a penalty of £500, or, according to a decision of an Orange Chief Justice, he is liable to suffer death. The clergy are not allowed to officiate in any place with steeple or bells; they are prohibited from appearing abroad in the costume of their order; they cannot be guardians, nor receive the personal endowment of any Catholic chapel, school-house, or other pious or charitable foundation. If they do not disclose the secrets of auricular confession, which their religious tenets prohibit them from disclosing, they are liable to imprisonment; if a Jesuit enter the kingdom he may be banished for life, and any person entering such religious order is guilty of a misdemeanor. No Catholic in Ireland is allowed for his defence to have arms in his house, unless he have a freehold of £10 a-year or £300 personal property. In Cork, Drogheda, and other cities and towns they continue to be ineligible to be members of the municipal corporations of those places. And, though a Catholic is liable to parish cess, he is disabled from voting at vestries on questions relating to repairs of churches. Lastly, no Catholic of the United Kingdom is eligible to the offices of Lord Chancellor, Keeper or Commissioner of the Great Seal, Lord-lieutenant, Deputy or Governor of Ireland, or High Commissioner in Scotland; nor to any office in the ecclesiastical courts; in the universities; the colleges of Eton, Westminster, and Winchester.

The Catholic clergy are in number between 2000 and 3000, constantly residing among their flocks and ministering to their spiritual comforts. From the absence of any permanent provision for maintenance, and the general poverty of their followers, they live in indigence and hardship. Their chief dependence is on fees for burials, marriages, and christenings, gifts on confessions, and bequests for the celebration of masses for the repose of the dead. Hence they have seldom the means of comfortable subsistence, are often without a decent place for religious worship, are overpowered by calls for religious exertion, live in misery, and die at last without ever tasting those emoluments which formerly belonged to their church, and are now showered on the Jocelyns, Warburtons, Plunkets, Beresfords, Magees, Trenches and Knoxes, of the Establishment.

Although Dissenters are equally with Catholics separatists from the establishment, they have been much more favourably treated by government and the legislature. The ministers of the Presbyterians, the Seceders, and Protestant Dissenters, are in fact so many pastors paid by the State receiving annually large sums for their maintenance from the Irish civil list and from grants by parliament. The Regium Donum was granted by William III. in the year 1690, to the Presbyterians; it first amounted to £1200, and was augmented by George III. in 1784, to £2200 per annum. In 1792, by authority of the King’s letter, £5000 was charged on the civil list to be annually paid to Protestant Dissenting ministers, and £500 more to that class of Dissenters denominated Seceders. The annual grant from parliament to the Dissenters commenced in the session of 1804. It first amounted to £4,160, and ever since has been gradually augmenting: in 1816, it amounted to £12,228, in 1825, to £13,894, and in 1831, the sum of £14,860 was voted. The total amount of the annual sums which have been paid to the ministers of the three denominations of Dissenters in Ireland, by payments out of the civil list, and by grants out of public taxes, is £751,452: 10: 11/4.

So it is plain the Irish Dissenters have been receiving tribute from the State, if not in tithes, in something else. How they reconcile this provision with their doctrinal profession of the independence of their pastors of all secular interference and support we cannot affirm. There has been some discussion among them, we know, on this very point, and we shall be curious to learn whether profit or principle will triumph.