The Bishop of Down and Connor has been endeavouring to
pro- cure signatures from the clergy of his diocese to a petition against the Irish Church Reform Bill ; and we have no doubt he has been gene- rally successful ; but he seems to have met with a very independent person in Dr. Ilineks, Rector of Kihhileagh, who has published a re- markably well-written reply to the Bishop's note requesting Ids sig- nature to the petition, and which appears in the excellent Belfast paper, the Northern Whig. One of the allegations in the petition was, that the bill would effect "an immediate extermination of the worship and of the members of the United Church, from a large number of parishes in the country; the subsequent extermination of them from many others ;" &c. Dr.- Hincks thus disposes of these unfounded assertions-
." No parish in which divina worship has heea heretofore pc:formed. according to the rites or our Church, will cease to have it permemeil tiler', either Muni:diced y ■■;- ; spectively ; and jul no parish. whether making part of a unimi or not, in service has not limn heretofore performed, wilt tint Protestant iteetbitair s !, • • A worse silualion,wilit respect to Preir e.1;131,11;ly clot tending divine set vi,-■•
booting parish. than they have been hit Ite:to. I h.tv,.. iuuulee, nO i,,.■ that, so ram as the laity °roar Church are canzerned, tee changes to be 1.11.e..!;:•.: proposed measure, when carried id:, complete ereectilon by the , eumbeneies, will be changes for the better. ThLt jEtroe:tial (BM rids to be ,t.. the carrot each clergymae, where they differ hom the existing urdoas, it at nut: compact, and better situated with respect to the Church. or other place where vi Lit performed; and if the duty be performed by a Curate, at 1.31. or latin.a year, in juice of a Rector, at live or ten times as great an income; or, tf, as will sometimes happen, it be pet formed by a Curate paid by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in plaee of a Curate paid by an absentee Rector ; it may, nevertheless, be as well perrorruNt as it is now. It appears, too, that under the present system. there are tiRe.seeen parishes. eontalniog upwards of :;030 inhabitants belonging to the Established Church, for whose religious instruction there is no provision Nhateeer Made. Ender the prOpOsed sy Stern, these 300ti individuals will Ire provided with places Of %%instill) within reasonable dis- tance, to which they will have a right to resort, and with clergymen on whom they will have a claim for religious instruction. In some, no doubt. of these parishes, new places of worihip will be opened ; and Protestant ministers will be located, where none have been hitherto known, ht all this, I can see nothing of the ' extermination of Protestant worship, and of Protestants themselves,' of which your Lordship's petition complains."
Dr. Hincks contends, that the clergy are the salaried servants of the State; and he thinks that the income of the existing incumbents should be maintained entire, but that on their decease the State may deal with the Church revenues as it thinks right. He complains of Lord Stan- ley's measure, and of Lord Morpeth's, on account of their violation of the bargain entered into by the State with the Clergy on their appoint- ment ; and says thet the effect of both these measures will be to dimi- nieli the clergy in Protestant districts, because the Rectors will be seriously helmet!, :shed by them. In this part of his letter, Dr. Ilineks
seems to forget that horse and foot have in vain heen used to collect the income a the Irish Clergy; that the Clergy team been living for two years on grants of the public motley; mid that they must now be that kfel for what they can get.
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