The Synods held by the Disestablished Church of Ireland are
none of them encouraging, but some of them very much the reverse. At Ardagh the Bishop of Kihnore has been telling a most dismal tale of the indifference of the landowners to the welfare of the Church. Out of the 112 appeals for help he has had answers only to seven. In a parish in the diocese of Elphin the whole sum that could be collected was 1,16 a year. To one nobleman who
£2,000 a year he had sent an appeal without receiving any reply. The total sum provided by the diocese was about 2,6,000, so that the band of poverty, said the Bishop, was literally knocking at the door. The Bishop "thought it strange that men rolling in wealth, living in the very lap of luxury, with all the comforts of life as well as all its pomp, should look on passively and see clergymen putting forth all their energies among their own tenants, and struggling with adversity and want, and yet not stretch out a hand to help them." Not at all strange surely, if it be trim that it is so hard for those "who trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of God." It is not a bad lesson for the Irish Church to learn, that it is the support of the poor and not of the rich that gives life to a Church. In all societies, while culture descends, faith ascends.
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