THE DISESTABLISHED IRISH CHURCH.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Your correspondent "A Broad-Church Dissenter" is quite mistaken in thinking that the Charter which the Church of Ireland is to receive from the Crown will in any degree diminish its freedom, or bring it under the control of the State. The Charter has nothing to do with doctrine or discipline. It is not to be issued to the Church, but to the so-called representative body of the Church ; this is not the General Synod, but only a Board of Trustees, with large powers over the finance of the Church, but no powers at all in matters of patronage, or what is usually called Church govern- ment. It is to represent the Church in all dealings with the State, in the sense in which a man may be represented in court by his solicitor, but not in the sense in which Parliament represents the nation ; in that sense the Church will be represented by the General Synod. The Charter only defines the powers and the constitution of the representative body. The bishops are to be all members of it, and the clergy and laity are to elect members of it separately. Consequently it debars the Church from abolishing the order either of bishops or of clergy ; but there is really no restriction except this on the self-government of the Church.—I am, Sir, &a.,
JOSEPH JOHN IIURPHY.
Old Forge, Dunmurry, county Antrim, May 24, 1870.
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