By 921 votes to 43 the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland adopted in Belfast on Friday week a memorial against the Home Rule Bill. The Moderator, Dr. Macaulay, defended the introduction of the subject into the Church Court on the ground that Home Rule lay altogether outside the sphere of ordinary politics. The vast majority of their members held that the British Government, which covenanted with them in return for the payment of their taxes to secure them the rights of British citizenship, now proposed to place them under a Government in which they could not hope to have any controlling influence, and at the mercy of a party who, if true to their creed, would endeavour by every means to wear down the Protestants, filch away their rights and privileges, and try to drive them out of the country. An amendment charging the framers of the memorial with inti- midation and intolerance having been rejected, the resolution was carried by the overwhelming majority stated above.
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