IRELAND.
The following correspondence between the Irish Prelates of "the 'United Church of England and Ireland" and the chief of the English Prelates of the same United Church appeared in the Dublin Evening Packet of Saturday. "To Ms Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
"We, the undersigned Archbishops and Bishops of the United Church of England and Ireland, have seen in the public faints a document entitled
An humble address of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Eng- land, and commencing with the following words— May it please your Ma- jesty, we, the Archbishops and undersigned Bishops of the Church of Eng- land, approach your Majesty,' &c. It is with much regret, and not without apprehension, that we have observed the title by which your Grace and the Archbishop of York, together with the Suffragan Bishops of the two provin- ces under your jurisdiction, have designated yourselves in addressing our Sovereign; a title which, we beg permission to say, is unknown to the law of the land, and which im_ports a virtual denial of the fifth article of Union between England and keland. Your Grace is aware that, by the statute 39th and 40th George III. c. 67, it is enacted, That the Churches of Eng- land and Ireland, as now by law established, be united into one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called the United Church of England and Ireland.' The titlepage of our Book of Common Prayer, and the form of Ordaining Priests, bear their solemn testimony to the incorporation of the two Churches into one, and to the designation by which that one Church is to be known. " We have painfully felt that, of late years, as well in legislating on ec- clesiastical affairs as on many public occasions, a disposition has been mani- fested to regard the Irish provinces of the United Church as if they did not form an integral portion of the one Church of the nation. We are consci- ous that the Irish branch of the Church is peculiarly exposed to the attacks of its enemies ; and we are on that account the more apprehensive of any step being taken which has a tendency, even in appearance, to dissociate our provinces and bishoprics from that great community with which it is our happiness, and, we hope, our safety, to be identified. We therefore not unnaturally fear the effect which may be produced by a movement on the part of our English brethren against a common adversary, in which they have not only acted without any concert or communication with us, but have styled themselves by a name which would seem to intimate that they are Prelates of a separate Church from ours, and wish to appear so before her Majesty. "We beg to assure your Grace that, in submitting this statement to your consideration, we are not actuated by any wounded feeling of disappoint- ment or of dissatisfaction ; but we deem that we owe it to the Church in which we bear office, to guard, as far as is in our power, against a separation being made between the component parts of the National Church, which were most solemnly and authoritatively united together in one. We confi- dently hope that the form of designation employed in your address was adopted inadvertently, and not from a design to disclaim a connexion with the provinces of Armagh and Dublin. And we trust that we may reckon on having the aid, the sympathy, and the prayers of the Archbishops and Bi- shops of the provinces of Canterbury and York in whatever difficulties and dangers may yet await our portion of the Church. "We would respectfully request of your Grace to communicate this ex- pression of our sentiments to the several Prelates who signed the address to her Majesty. (Signed) "John G. Armagh, Rd. Dublin, Thos. S. Meath, J. Xilmore
Elphin and Ardagh, R. Derry and Raphoe Ludlow Rillake and clanfart,.. Thos. Tuam, &c., J. T. Ossory and Ferns, Iiobt. Cashel, &c., James Cork and Cloyne, Rob. Down and Connor, Wm. Limerick Ardfert and Aghadoe." "Addington, Croydon, _Dec. 31, 1860. "My Lord Archbishop—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of a letter, signed by your Grace, by the Archbishop of Dublin, and by all the Irish Bishops, referring to the recent address of the English bench to her Majesty, in which they were styled the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England.'
"I am anxious to assure your Grace, and my. other Right Reverend' brethren in Ireland, that this designation did not originate in any desire to. represent ourselves as a separate body, but was employed solely because in the present instance the movement of the common adversary' was imme- diately directed against ourselves.
"It did not appear to any of the Bishops whom I had the opportunity of consulting, that we could properly invite the Irish Bishops to complain of an aggression which only affected the Church in England. "At the same time, I am ready, for my own part., to acknowledge that the document would have been more correctly worded if it had been written in the name of the English Archbishops and Bishops of the United Church of. England and Ireland. It would have been better to have indicted an inhar- monious sentence than to have given ground for the apprehensions expressed in your Grace's letter. "I will take an early opportunity of communicating the letter to my episcopal brethren, who at present are dispersed in their various dioceses. But I can venture to say, in their behalf, that we all consider the Irish_ branch of the United Church to be so closely identified with our own, that it one member suffers the other cannot fail to suffer with it ; and that in all cases where coeperation is desirable or practicable, we shall be ready to act. with your Grace and the other Irish Prelates as an united body. "I remain, my Lord Archbishop, your Grace's faithful servant, "J. B. CA-NTT:AR.
"His Grace the Archbishop of Armagh."
The papers have published the following declaration by Irish Members of Parliament against any reenactment of religious disabilities- " We, the undersigned, deem it our duty at the present juncture to declare our unalterable attachment to the principles of civil and religious liberty,. and our determination to oppose by every constitutional means any measure- tending to interfere by legislative enactment with the discipline or doctrine' of any portion of the Queen's subjects.
(Signed by "M. J. Blake, Castlereagh, M. E. Corbally, W. Sharman Crawford, J. T. Devereux, W. Fagan, J. Fagan, R. M. Fox, H. Grattan, J. Greene, 11.. Keatinge, C. Lawless, W. Torrens M'Cullagh, N. V. Maher, W. Monsen, T. Meagher, G. IL Moore J. O'Brien, T. O'Brien' M. O'Connell, J. O'Connell, A. O'Flaherty, The O'Gorman Mahon, G. Ouseley Higgins, M,
Power, N. Power, E. Burke Roche, J. Reynolds, J. Sadleir, Scully, J. H. Talbot."
The friends of Mr. John O'Connell in Limerick are endeavouring to get up a "testimonial" to him, in the shape of a sum of money to enable- him to retain his seat in Parliament. If they meet with no more sym- pathy than is shown by Mr. G. H. Moore, the Member for Mayo County, the testimonial will not be magnificent. Mr. Moore writes, from Mor- rison's Hotel, on the 7th January-
" Dear Sir—I have, just received a parcel of letters from the country,, which have been lying there for some time to my address. Amongst them I find a letter from you inviting me to a kind of conference or preliminary meeting in Dublin ; and another from a friend, directing my attention to a report in the Freeman's Journal, by which I find that a speech of mine, de- livered at a Mayo meeting, has been subjected to your uncivil criticism, as. well as to the excruciating ordeal of your disparaging praise. To the one- and the other I bow with equal resignation; but I cannot permit you to as- sert, with impunity, that I have sneered at the memory of that great and good man whose name you bear. The rights of our country and the liber- ties of our religion would be but ill defended by a sneer cast upon the glori- ous advocate by whom that country was so long served and that religion id- deemed from bondage ; and, had I been guilty of such an act, and upon such-. an occasion' I should have deserved deeper censure than the poverty of your
vocabulary has enabled you to use Take my advice, my 'dear Sir„ and leave your father's memory alone—it can take care of itself. It is far too great to be affected by a sneer of mine, were I capable of uttering such. O'Connell has left behind him the memory of an illustrious Irishman,. a memory which I verily believe that Irishmen of every party are inclined to treat with respect. Have better faith in your father's glory, and less confi- dence in the virtue of such assistance as your own petulant advocacy can supply With regard to the preliminary meeting in Dublin, to which you are so good as to invite me, I think it right to remind you, that the penal measures. which are about to inaugurate the Parliamentary session of 1851 are likely to apply peculiarly, perhaps exclusively, to the English Catholics ; and that any measures that may be resolved upon, without their concurrence, would be necessarily imperfect, and possibly injurious to the cause which I believe you to have sincerely at heart."
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