15 FEBRUARY 1868, Page 2

It is with some surprise that we see, after Dr.

Wood's abdica- tion in Mr. Lowe's favour expressly on the ground of his sound doctrine on the questions of Education and the Irish Church, that Mr. Lowe is to the last extreme guarded in his advice on the latter point. He says :—" I view the revenues of the so-called Church of Ireland as the property of the State, the appropriation of which may properly be changed, with a due respect to vested interests ; and the Church itself as an unjust institution, irritating to Ireland, and discreditable to us in the eyes of foreign nations. I wish to preserve mixed education in Ireland intact." This is consistent with any mode of appropriating the Irish Church pro- perty,—for example, the endowment of the Roman Church. Are Dr. Wood's supporters satisfied with this, as we should be ? If so, they have indeed refrained their souls, and kept them low.