To the Right Hon. the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Hon. and Right Hon. the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled.

MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

At the close of the last Session of Parliament, Sir George Grey, Bart., the Home Secretary for England, is reported to have said, THAT THE IRISH CHURCH WAS UNJUSTIFIABLE IN ITS ESTABLISHMENT, AND INDEFENSIBLE IN ITS CONTINUANCE."

The following "Tract for the Times," may throw some light on the statement of the Right Hon. Gentleman, and show that the Apostolic Church of St. John, "the Mother Church of Northern Europe," was not "unjustifiable in its establishment, nor indefensible in its continuance."

I have the honour to be, with great respect,
My Lords and Gentlemen,

Your very humble and obedient Servant,

RICHARD MURRAY, D. D.

Dean and Vicar-General of Ardagh.

Deanery House, Edgeworth Town,

March 1, 1849.

THE IRISH CHURCH.

SIR,

LETTER I.

(To the Editor of the Record.)

As you were so good in those excellent articles on the Irish Church, which have lately appeared in your valuable paper, to quote my work as an authority on the subject, I would venture to suggest the propriety of your calling the attention of the Protestant people of England to a few facts, relative to a remoter period of the Irish Church's history than that from which you have commenced your observations. This, I conceive, may greatly tend to show more clearly its claims on the sympathy and support of the members of the English part of the United Church.

You have indeed been most fortunate in the time chosen for bringing the subject before the British public, as in all probability, from the observations made by the Home Secretary of England, and the Secretary for Ireland, at the close of the last session of Parliament, measures may be proposed in the approaching session that will peril the very existence of the Irish Church, and therefore I consider it especially necessary, that the people of England should be made acquainted with the origin and history of

B

"that blessed but now deeply injured and persecuted Church of St. John, in Ireland."

May I beg, then to remark, in the commencement of this letter, that what Dr. Johnson says of Leland's History of Ireland is more applicable to your case than to his. "Dr. Leland (says Dr. Johnson) begins his History of Ireland too late (the twelfth century); the ages which deserve our exact inquiry are those times (for such they were) when Ireland was the school of the west, the quiet habitation of sanctity and literature. If you could give a history, though imperfect, of the Irish nation, from its conversion to Christianity to the invasion from England, you would amplify knowledge with new views and new objects."

From the second, then, to the twelfth century we find Ireland independent, both in Church and State, of any foreign potentate whatsoever, and possessing a considerable share of those benefits, which result from industry, laws, and literature; with perhaps as much tranquillity, public and private, as was enjoyed by Greece in its most brilliant period. During the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and part of the ninth century, she was (in the language of Dr. Johnson, as already quoted), the "school of the west, the quiet habitation of sanctity and literature." Her mitred missionaries were the honoured instruments in the hand of God of evangelizing the greater part of Saxon England, and the entire of Scotland; and, not content with this, she extended the "cords of her tent over almost every part of the Continent of Europe.

Let the reader stand in imagination on the top of Mount St. Gothard, where her house of refuge still remains, and looking to the north, and to the south, to the east and to the west, he will be able to trace,

with the map of Europe in his hand, the footsteps of the Irish missionaries through France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, imparting to the inhabitants of these extensive regions the blessings of pure Christianity and moral civilization.

Her seminaries and her churches at home during the same period were the asylums of learned men from all parts of the Continent of Europe. King's sons were among her honourable pupils. In Great Britain the colleges and churches of Iona, Malmesbury, Lindisfarne, with many others; and on the Continent of Europe, Lieuxers, Strasburg, and Fontains in France; Sekingen, Cologne, Limmat, Zurich, Tuggen, Arbon, Dissentes, St. Gaul, Würzburg, and Salzburg, in Germany and Switzerland; and Pavia, Tarentum, Lucca, and Bobbio in Italy-all proclaim the same truth, that Ireland was the focus from which the light of Divine truth was shed over the greater part of the Continent of Europe.

"We find also," says Mosheim," Irish divines discharging with the highest reputation and applause the functions of doctors in France, Germany, and Italy, both during this (the eighth) and the following century."

"It was not a doubtful ray of science and superstition," as the infidel historian of the Roman empire remarks," that those missionaries diffused over the northern regions; superstition, on the contrary, found them her most determined foes."

"Next to the Church of Jerusalem," says the Hon. and Rev. Arthur Percival, chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty, "the Mother of all Churches, the Church of Ireland, may claim a greater share in the conversion of the world, than any other in Christendom."