have in any degree enabled me to encourage, to elevate, to help forward, any one of those whom I am here privileged to address, the leisure has not been unprofitably squandered, the sympathies have not been lavished away. The success of this and the other kindred associations of our young men is to me a subject of the deepest thankfulness to the great Head of the Church. My connection with you as one of your fellow labourers I regard as one of the happiest privileges of my public life. Here we have seriousness without gloom, earnestness without fanaticism, reason without rationalism. We honour Church and State, the truth and the freedom which belong to the charter of both; loyalty to our Sovereign and love to our God are offered here as the genuine homage of true Irish hearts. Go on in this spirit, with that wise moderation which is the privilege of conscious strength, like the gentle messenger of Noah, with a mouth for the olive branch, a heart for the ark, a wing for heaven. And finally, remember that the reformed faith which we profess is the restored Christianity, the pure and primitive religion of the one and only gospel of our Lord and Saviour. A copy of this lecture was sent to Mr. Gladstone. It was thus acknowledged: Being myself (writes that distinguished statesman) much more than an admirer, almost a worshipper of Bishop Butler, I cannot avail myself of your very kind permission to leave your gift unacknowledged by letter, but I must express along with my thanks the vivid pleasure with which I learn that you have been applying your distinguished abilities to the study and elucidation of a writer perhaps better calculated than any other in our language to supply us with safeguards against the peculiar dangers of the age. During this period of enforced leisure we find Napier travelling down to Oxford in the summer of 1862 to attend the Church Congress then being held in that city. He spoke on this occasion upon the best means of promoting the legitimate influence of the Church in the House of Commons; to effect this object he strongly urged the necessity of lay co-operation in the working of the parochial system, and of a more systematic method of holding conferences so as to collect opinion on the different questions which arose in connection with the working of the Church system. Napier appears to have been a constant attendant at these Church Congresses, and was always when present appointed to take a prominent part in the discussions that ensued. In the autumn of 1864 we find him at Bristol, speaking upon his favourite subject, the mutual relations of the Church in England and Ireland. He warmly advocated the claims of the Irish Church, and deprecated her treatment as an inferior by the Church of England. You must drop that Church of England,' he cried, which is always grating on my ears. I protest against it. There is no such church. There is the Church of Christ in England, there is the Church of England and Ireland-the United Church-the one National Church of the realm.' The following year he was at Norwich, when he maintained that the Committee of the Privy Council, then being warmly assailed by the Ritualists, from its mixed constitution of judges and prelates, was a most perfect tribunal for deciding appeals from the Ecclesiastical Courts. He was, however, careful to state that such Committee could only deal with Church doctrine so far as it had been established by law. It had, he said, no jurisdiction to declare doctrine nor to establish it by law. Its province was jus dicere, non jus dare. In 1867 the Church Congress was held at Wolverhampton, and there Napier advocated an inquiry into the causes which prevented Nonconformists from entering the Church, with the object if possible of removing the difficulty. On this occasion he also strenuously recommended the Church to busy herself so as to bring the working-man who had been recently emancipated by the Reform Bill within her influence. The last appearance of Napier at these meetings was in the autumn of 1868, when the Church Congress was held in Dublin. The subject of his paper was how to increase the efficiency of church service? Many of his suggestions have since been adopted. He advocated the omission of the Litany at morning service when the Communion was administered, the administering of the Communion as a separate and distinct service, the preaching of shorter sermons, a greater attention to be paid by all curates to the clear enunciation of their words, a more careful selection of the hymns, and the rejection of all innovations calculated to offend a congregation. It was on this occasion that Lord Derby, at the special request of Napier, consented to become a vice-president; though, wrote his lordship, I must acknowledge that I have not a very high opinion of the practical utility of Church Congresses in general, but as a friend to the Irish branch of our establishment I will not withhold my name if it be desired to have it on the list of vice-presidents.' R CHAPTER VII. ECCLESIASTICAL. My soul aches To know when two authorities are up, Coriolanus, act iii. sc. 1. He that would do right to religion cannot take a more effectual course than by reconciling it with the happiness of mankind.-Tillotson. 6 It was evident, from the frequent attacks made upon the Irish Church by the bringing forward of hostile motions in the House of Commons, that the next popular cry' with which the Liberals would appeal to the country in the hope of strengthening their party and of healing the divisions in their ranks, would be that of the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland. Already by speeches and pamphlets the public were being made familiar with the views of certain of the more prominent Liberals upon the subject-how infamous it was that the Church of the minority should occupy the power and position of the Church of the majority; how the population to which she appealed was little more than half a |