tly excited on religious subjects. If you adopt the
voluntary system, the public mind will always be so excited. For every
preacher, knowing that his bread depends on his popularity, seasons his
doctrine high, and practises every art for the purpose of obtaining an
ascendency over his hearers. But when the Government pays the minister
of religion, he has no pressing motive to inflame the zeal of his
congregation. He will probably go through his duties in a somewhat
perfunctory manner. His power will not be very formidable; and, such
as it is, it will be employed in support of that order of things under
which he finds himself so comfortable. Now, Sir, it is not necessary to
inquire whether Mr Hume's doctrine be sound or unsound. For, sound or
unsound, it furnishes no ground on which you can rest the defence of
the institution which we are now considering. It is evident that by
establishing in Ireland the Church of the minority in connection with
the State, you have produced, in the very highest degree, all those
evils which Mr Hume considered as inseparable from the voluntary system.
You may go all over the world without finding another country where
religious differences take a form so dangerous to the peace of society;
where the common people are so much under the influence of their
priests; or where the priests who teach the common people are so
completely estranged from the civil Government.

And now, Sir, I will sum up what I have said. For what end does the
Church of Ireland exist? Is that end the instruction and solace of the
great body of the people? You must admit that the Church of Ireland has
not attained that end. Is the end which you have in view the conversion
of the great body of the people from the Roman Catholic religion to a
purer form of Christianity? You must admit that the Church of Ireland
has not attained that end. Or do you propose to yourselves the end
contemplated by Mr Hume, the peace and security of civil society? You
must admit that the Church of Ireland has not attained that end. In
the name of common sense, then, tell us what good end this Church has
attained; or suffer us to conclude, as I am forced to conclude, that it
is emphatically a bad institution.

It does not, I know, necessarily follow that, because an institution
is bad, it is therefore to be immediately destroyed. Sometimes a bad
institution takes a strong hold on the hearts of mankind, intertwines
its roots with the very found