rally admitted to be presumptive evidence of some defect in its organization; or of a want of efficiency or due attention in those who govern and conduct it. We have now, for the first time, a very complete and authentic statement of the present numbers of the members of the Established Church and of other religious denominations in Ireland. For the purpose of comparison we want only similar evidence from former periods; and, with this view, we will bring together such scattered materials as we have been able to collect.

Our earliest authority is Sir William Petty, who, in the reign of Charles II., estimates the Protestants as being to the Roman Catholics in the proportion of three to eight. This proportion nearly coincides with the estimate made about 1733 by Maule, Bishop of Dromore, who, as we are told by Anderson in his History of Commerce,' calculated that there were at least 2,000,000 people in all Ireland, of which there are very near 600,000 Protestants, and somewhat above 1,400,000 Papists, or near 2 Papists to 1 Protestant,' which would make the latter to the former in the proportion of 3 to 7. This estimate is supported by the returns made by the hearth-money collectors, in 1732 and 1733, of the number of Protestant and Popish 'families in the several counties and provinces of Ireland,' and which gave the following census for the four civil provinces :

According to this statement Protestants were to Roman Catholics in the proportion of 3 to 8. An estimate still more favourable to Protestantism was advanced by Burke, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ossory, in his Hibernia Dominicana;' in which, while making the total population, in 1731, 2,010,331, or nearly the same as Bishop Maule, he divides them differently; making the Protestants 700,563, and the Roman Catholics 1,309,768, being in the proportion of about 3 to 5. Thus the least exaggerated of these estimates of the number of Protestants a century ago makes them to the Catholics as 3 to 8. The proportion which they now bear is only 3 to 123.

6

It appears from Smith's History of Cork,' that in 1732 there were, in the county of Cork, of Protestants 40,686, of Roman Catholics 223,737, being about 1 to 5.

In the dioceses of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross, which are almost

identical with the limits of the county, there were, in 1834, 56,675 Protestants, and 734,694 Roman Catholics, being about 1 to 13.

6

It appears from Tighe's History of Kilkenny,' that in 1731 the total population of that county was 42, 108, of whom 5238 were Protestants and 36,870 Roman Catholics, being as 1 to 6. In 1834, in the diocese of Ossory, which is almost identical with the limits of the county of Kilkenny, we find 12,477 Protestants and 209,848 Roman Catholics, being as 1 to 16. It appears from the report of a Parliamentary committee, that in 1731 the Protestants in Mayo were to the Roman Catholics in that county as 1 to 12. In 1834 they are only as 1 to 30. The population of the diocese of Cloyne, in 1731, as returned by -the Protestant bishop to the Lords' committee on the state of Popery, was as follows:-Protestants 14,200, Roman Catholics 80,500. In 1834, the Protestants in the same diocese were only 14,075, while the Roman Catholics have increased to 2. 328,402.

We alluded, in a previous Number, to a return of the population in 1731, quoted by Mr Ward in his speech in May, 1834, of benefices in the diocese of Ossory, and which, as compared with the present population, exhibits a decrease of the Protestant population. We find also a return, of the same date, quoted by Mason in his Parochial Survey, from Fiddown in the same diocese, which gives a population of 1739 persons, of whom 300 were Protestants. In 1834, in the parish of Fiddown, were 4428 persons, of whom 568 were Protestants; in the union, 6219, of whom 608 were Protestants-exhibiting, whether we take the larger or smaller division, a diminished proportion of Protestants to Roman Catholics, as compared with the return of 1731.

Approaching nearer to the present time, we find quoted by Wakefield, in his elaborate work on Ireland, an abstract of returns made in 1766 by the several parish ministers and curates, and preserved in the Record Office in Dublin. It exhibits the numbers of families, Protestant and Papist, in 27 dioceses, and in numerous parishes respecting which it is not stated to what diocese they belong. In several instances the returns do not include every parish in the diocese, but from 17 dioceses the returns are complete; and these we will exhibit in the following table, showing the proportion then borne by Protestants to Catholics, and also that of the present time, as collected from the census given in the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction.

These are not selected they are all the dioceses contained in the abstract, of which the returns, with respect to families, were complete; and it is remarkable that in every instance a comparison with the returns of the present time shows that the increase of Protestants in Ireland has not kept pace with that of Roman Catholics. Censuses of later date, and of single benefices, or even parishes, still tell the same tale. In 1785 the population of Slane and Rathbenny, in Meath, according to the census of a Roman Catholic priest, was as follows:-Protestants 230, Roman Catholics 3560; in 1834, Protestants 228, Roman Catholics 4417. We will give the censuses of some other parishes quoted by Wakefield, Newenham, and Mason, with the dates of each, and compare them with those of 1834.

Such

Attempts were made somewhat later to ascertain the proportion of Protestants and Catholics; and they still exhibited a result more favourable to the former than exists at present. an attempt was made by the Rev. E. Groves during the progress of the census of 1813; and, he says, in an account which he published, the conclusion he found himself authorized to draw 'was as follows::

Now, the present proportion of these, for each province, are respectively, Armagh, 1 to 13; Dublin, 1 to 5; Cashel, 1 to 18; Tuam, 1 to 26; Ireland, I to 41.

A little earlier, Newenham, in his Enquiry into the Progress ' and Magnitude of the Population of Ireland,' observes, that in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, Roman Catholics are to Protestants as 9 to 1. In the provinces of Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, of which the limits coincide nearly with the above, they are now as 13 to 1. A passage in a letter from Mr Shaw Mason to Lord Whitworth, then Lord-lieutenant, indicates an increase of Catholics, and a decrease of Protestants, during the last 20 years, and in the most Protestant part of Ireland. He says, that from returns, furnished by the Established clergy, from above 200 parishes, containing a population of about 750,000, it appears, that in one of the parishes of the dioceses of Down and Connor, there is neither Protestant of the Established Church 'nor Roman Catholic; and in three other parishes of the same diocese there is not a single Roman Catholic.' There was then one parish without a Protestant of the Established Church; and four parishes without a Roman Catholic. How stands the case at present? No parish, or even portion of a parish, without a Roman Catholic; and seven parishes, or parts of parishes, included in different benefices, in which there is no member of the Established Church.

We have little confidence in the statistics of the last century, and cannot consider the censuses of that period entitled to implicit belief. But it is remarkable that, with respect to the comparative increase of Protestants and Catholics, these various statements, at different periods, and occasionally from opposite source all point the same way; all tend to show that, in former times testants were more numerous in Ireland, compared with C.

than they are at present. To such a mass of concurrent testimocy we, therefore, cannot refuse a credit which we might reasonanly be unwilling to give to any one of these statements singly. We must not however overlook the possible influence of such circumstances as the greater poverty of the Catholic population, which may render them less able to emigrate; the recklessness by which such poverty is often accompanied; and the encouragement said to be given to improvident marriages, with a view to increase the fees of the Catholle clergy on marriages and baptisms. These circumstances may perhaps, in some degree, account for the Catholle population being now more numerous, compared with Protestants, than at a former period. But these considerations are very insufficient to explain the difference which appears to exist. They will not militate against the conclusion, that Protestantism in Ireland has been progressively dwindling under the pressure of its vast and costly establishment. When we view these ominous tokens of decline, in addition to all the woes, the heart-burnings, the turbulence, the unchristian feuds of that long ill-governed and ungovernable land, we cannot hesitate to acknow ledge the failure; and to add, in the words so lately uttered by Sir Robert Peel, you say, and you say with truth, that the Irish Church has not hitherto succeeded in effecting the great objects for which it was established.'

And yet this failing Church has not languished from the diminution of its temporalities, and the denial of needful support. Let it not be supposed that its temporal condition is one of lapse from pristine splendour, and that it is languishing from neglect of the due application of pecuniary aid. We find that there are 210 benefices in which there is no church. But let it be told, that of the 1338 churches now in Ireland, 474 have been erected since the year 1800, by means of Parliamentary aid, at the expense of L.445,180; and 134 in the eighteenth century, by the same means, for L.61,580-making a total of 608 churches. at the expense of L.506,760.

There are still 535 benefices without glebe-houses, yet 480 glebe-houses have been built since the commencement of the present century, at the gross expense of L.336,881; and a previous sum of L.16,775 seems to have been expended in a similar manner in the erection of 163 glebe-houses in the course of the previous century. Glebe lands have been purchased within the last fifty years at an expense of L.61,484; and 127 glebes, of which the extent is estimated at above 3500 acres, thus added to the property of the Church. It appears then, that, during the past and present century, and principally within the last thirty years, L.920,900 has been applied to the service of the Established Church in Ireland, in addition to its annual revenues.