The Irish Episcopalians are actively reorganizing their Church. A clerical
conference, elected on the old diocesan plan, has arranged a plan of clerical representation, while a lay conference
elected by "universal suffrage," i.e., by all nude Protestant Episcopalians, has decided that the lay representation shall be double the clerical, but that the Orders shall vote separately. We have commented on that resolve—which, though suggested by the clergy, will diminish their power—elsewhere, but must add here that these conferences are only preliminary to the General Synod, a kind of Constituent Assembly in which the two Orders will make the final constitution. That Synod may repair the blunder which we feel sure the clergy have committed, by fusing the two Orders into one " Council of the Irish Church ;" and if it is wise, it will do so. Lay supremacy is indispensable, but we do not want to see it entirely unmodified by clerical influence, as it will be if the Lay House is to be the House of Commons.
