Mr. Coleridge on Wednesday addressed his constituents at Exeter in
a speech of extraordinary brilliancy and power. He denounced the Irish Church as the church of a minority "forced upon a whole people by external power," a symbol of ascendancy such as does not exist in Scotland, India, or any colony ; asked if the Queen's supremacy was endangered in New Zealand, where no establishment had ever existed, or Jamaica, where it had just been abolished ; and declared that there "could be no more sure means of raising a feeling against the Church of England than contending that the maintenance of an unjust anomaly was a con- sequence of her existence." He was not, however, prepared to change the Irish Church into a richly endowed Free Church, and should demand that if she received three-fifths of her endowments she "must retain the present safeguards for toleration," must agree, that is, we presume, to abide by lay interpretations of her creed and rubric. Politicians will do well to note that remark, for their will be a furious fight over that point,—though its settlement is, we imagine, foreordained. The Nonconformists will not establish such a precedent as Mr. Coleridge desires, and the Irish Church cannot be abolished without their aid.
Previous page
