the Christian Church; out of which arose the custom in some places of fasting for forty hours, in imitation of the forty days of Christ's temptation; and this period, being at length extended to forty days, was the original of the quadragesimal fast of Lent.* The discussion of this point of difference was conducted between Polycarp and Anicetus, without any violation of the bond of Christian fellowship; each being well assured that a mere external point of discipline was not of sufficient importance to interrupt the peace of the Church. Neither was there any breach of charity in the renewal of the controversy, about A. D. 171, between Melito and Apollinaris. It has been seen, however, that Victor proceeded so far as to renounce communion with the Asiatic Churches, who refused to conform to the Romish custom. In this act may be traced the earliest instance of an assumed authority in the Bishops of Rome; and it was resisted by the energies of united Christendom. The conduct of Irenæus upon the occasion has already been noticed; and that of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, will be the subject of future consideration. In another case of excommunication, Victor proceeded with much greater justice. One Theodotus, a cobbler, was an active disseminator, if not the original proposer, of the doctrine of the simple humanity of Christ; and he was accordingly cut off by the Bishop from all intercourse with the Church. This act is adduced in a fragment from an early writer, probably the presbyter Caius (ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V. 28.), in reply to a charge against Victor of attachment to the Montanist cause. Indeed, with the exception of the single instance of his presumptuous bearing in the Cathedra Petri, arising from a temper naturally hot and violent, he seems to have lent his willing aid to the furtherance of genuine Christianity. Jerome speaks of some small† volumes, which he had written, on religious subjects; but some letters, still extant, which are ascribed to him, are unquestionably spurious. He presided over the Church of Rome during the early part of the reign of Severus; and died, by martyrdom, in the thirteenth year of his episcopate. He was succeeded by Zephyrinus, in the year 193. During the reigns of Commodus and Severus, flourished also RHODON: an Asiatic by birth, but educated at Rome; where he was instructed by Tatian in the knowledge of the Scriptures (Jerome de Vir. Ill. § 37.). He wrote several works; of which the most important was a Treatise against Marcion, in which he exposed the contradictory tenets of his followers, and thence inferred the inconsistency of the doctrines they professed. It appears, also, that he had conversed with one Apelles, a disciple of this dissentient body; whose ignorance did not well accord with his age and apparent sanctity, and whose opinions were so ridiculous as scarcely to merit a Irenaeus ap. Εuseb. V. 23. Τινὲς καὶ περὶ τοῦ νηστεύειν διαφόρως παρέλαβον. οἱ μὲν γὰρ μίαν μόνην ἡμέραν ενήστευαν, οἱ δὲ δύο, οἱ δὲ καὶ πλείονας, οἱ δὲ τεσσαρά κοντα ὥρας μόνας ἡμερινὰς καὶ νυκτέρινας, ὥραν ἀντὶ ἡμέρας νηστεύοντες. + Chron. p. 191. Mediocria de religione volumina. From a comparison with the work de Vir. Ill. §. 24. it is evident that the epithet regards the size, not the merit, of the volumes; as might otherwise be supposed. + Ap. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. V. 23. Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ παρ' ἑαυτοῖς ἀσύμφωνοι γεγόνασιν, ἀσυστάτου γνώμης αντιποιούμενοι. serious confutation. His work was inscribed to one Callistion; and, as far as may be collected from the few detached fragments preserved by Eusebius, was written with great spirit and perspicuity. He also composed a Treatise on the Hexaemeron; and probably a supple mentary volume to a work of Tatian. He certainly alludes to a book of "Quæstions," compiled by his preceptor, in which he had promised an explanation of the obscure passages of Scripture; and intimates a design of furnishing a solution of these Quæstions, which the author himself did not perhaps live to accomplish. There are some fragments of a work against the Montanists still extant in Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. V. 16, 17.), of which Rhodon is also supposed by Jerome (Vir. Ill. §. 39.) to be the author. It is sufficiently clear, however, that they belong to some later writer; whose name, since he has not mentioned it, was probably unknown to the historian. At the same time, Jerome is not justly accused of inconsistency, in assigning the same pieces, in the following chapter, to Apollonius; since the volume to which he there alludes, was not the same from which Eusebius has quoted, though it recorded the same fact.、 LINES ON NEW COLLEGE CHAPEL, OXFORD. HAIL, sacred pile! to thee my footsteps bend Pour'd through thy storied panes, and converse hold And, deck'd with solemn pomp, each holy rite. Hail, holy pile! oft may I visit thee, Until at length my soul be call'd to quit Thy choral songs repeat with angel choirs above. Each of the painted windows bears the legend—" Orate pro Gul. de Wykham istius Collegii fundatore." IRISH TITHES. MR. EDITOR, I have not been able to procure the Parliamentary Paper, of which the following abstract is copied from a provincial print: "TITHE COMPOSITIONS.-From a paper laid before parliament it appears that, in 1,497 parishes, advantage has been taken of the Irish Tithe Composition Act; that the sum compounded for in those parishes is 433,904l. 6s. 14d.; of which 65,935l. 1s. 43d. is held by lay impropriators, 357,6681. 9s. 1d. by ecclesiastical persons, and 10,300l. 15s. 74d. by persons not coming under either of these designations." If this abstract is correct, it exhibits an extraordinary view of the enormous wealth which the Irish Church is supposed to receive from tithes. It is said, that 1,497 parishes have entered into the composition; and, as Ireland contains but 2,293 parishes, it follows, that fifteen out of twenty-three parishes, or nearly two-thirds of the whole, have compounded, and that, therefore, the measure cannot be very unpopular, that the claims of the Clergy cannot be very exorbitant, nor the prejudices of the people quite insuperable. The total sum paid by these 1,497 parishes is 433,9041. 6s. 13d., i. e. the sum paid on the average, by each parish, is less than 2831. 1s., of which the Clergy receive the total sum of 357,668l. 9s. 1d., or something less than 2391. from each parish on account of tithes. Such is their wealth! The cultivated surface of Ireland, according to the Report on Emigration, is 12,125,280 acres, and each of the 2,293 parishes, into which Ireland is distributed, contains, on the average, 5,287 acres in a state of cultivation; and, as the Clergy receive from each of these parishes 2391., the actual amount of the composition is a fraction more than 103d. by the acre. Such is the rapacity of the Clergy! If, in the remaining 796 parishes, which have not entered into composition, and which contain 4,210,641 acres, the sum paid is twice the amount of the sums paid by the lands under composition, or 1s. 9§d. for every acre, the Clergy of these parishes will receive, on account of tithes, 377,2031.: and the gross sum received by the whole body of the Irish Clergy, for the tithes of 2,293 parishes, will be 734,8717., which is less than 1s. 24d. by the acre. Such is the extortion of the Clergy! The whole sum might be collected at the rate of less than 2s. a year on each of the 7,734,000 inhabitants of Ireland, and it does not amount to one half of the duties payable to the Excise in Ireland upon the consumption of whisky, which, in the year ending January 5, 1815, amounted to 1,575,5561. See the very curious and interesting Inquiry into the Influence of the Excessive Use of Spirituous Liquors in promoting Crime, Disease, and Poverty, in Ireland, and into the Causes which have tended to render Malt Liquor the more general Drink of the labouring Classes in England. Longman. 1830. It is, nevertheless, the assertion of an "Observer," who would fain have given an "answer" to Arehdeacon Lyall's Charge, and who, no doubt, believes, and wishes others to believe, his assertion, that the Tithes of the Irish Church "amount to about 3,000,000l." This is the assertion;-what is the proof? At this rate, the tithes, collected from the whole cultivated surface of Ireland, would be little less than five shillings an acre: but in 1,497 out of 2,293 parishes, and upon 7,914,639 out of 12,125,280 acres, the sum of 357,6681. 9s. 1d. is the whole sum paid by composition to the Clergy, at the rate of less than 11d. an acre. To complete the sum of 3,000,000l., it will be necessary to collect, from the remaining 796 parishes, the sum of 2,442,331l. 10s. 11d., at the rate of 11s. 7d. on 4,210,641 acres. Credat Judæus! The wisdom of the nineteenth century requires that an end should be put to this delusion, in respect to Irish Tithes. The effect of the committees in the two Houses of Parliament has been, to acquit the Irish Clergy of the charge of rapacity and extortion, and to establish their character for moderation beyond dispute: and it is due to the ignorance of the people, that they should be delivered from the effects of their own misconceptions, and of the misrepresentations of the priests and demagogues. The extent to which the Composition Act has been carried clearly proves, that there is no unwillingness on the part of the payers, or the receivers, of tithes, to settle their own differences; and the proposed abolition or extinction of tithe involves this dilemma, that it must be injurious to the Church, or it cannot be satisfactory to the people. It is admitted that, if tithe has any meaning, it means the tenth part of the produce of the soil. Is then the value of this tenth part more or less than is actually paid under the Composition Act? If the sum paid is under the fair value, what is the grievance of which the peasant complains, or how will he be relieved by the demand, merely under another name, of a higher payment, than that which now offends him? Or, what will be his satisfaction, if, under the pretence of relief, he finds no other alteration of his condition, except the transformation of a manageable tithing-man into an uncompromising tax-gatherer? Hitherto his passions have been excited against the Church; what will hereafter be his feelings toward the State? And while no cause of offence is removed, no pecuniary demand abated,-while the agreement, which is now a voluntary composition, is hereafter to be a compulsory imposition,—may not his sensitive and susceptible mind be prone to the conception, and open to the insinuation, of other grievances, and stimulated to the sense of new wrongs, and new modes of redress? Will he be content if he shall think, that the legislature has deceived him, increasing the burden which it professed to reduce ? They are words of truth and wisdom which are delivered in the first Report of the House of Commons upon the Irish Tithes : "Your Committee are deeply impressed with the danger, which must threaten the whole frame of society, if a combination against a legal impost be permitted ultimately to triumph over the provisions of the law. They cannot but feel how small is the step from successful resistance to tithe to resistance to rent and taxes; and how great is the temptation held out by the experience of such success in one case to a similar opposition to the payment of other pecuniary demands. "If the sanctity of the law be systematically violated, if the proof be once afforded that turbulence leads directly to relief, and that popular combination is sufficiently powerful to overbear legitimate authority, the most effectual security of its property is shaken, the framework of government and society is disorganized, and a state of confusion and anarchy must ensue. "Your Committee have too much reason to apprehend, that the general success which has hitherto attended the resistance to tithe, has already given proof of its tendency to produce this effect. Not only is the opposition to that species of property rapidly extending, not only has the same cessation taken place in the payment of the layimpropriations, the resistance to which cannot rest upon the same religious scruples which have been urged with respect to ecclesiastical tithes; but intimidation and violence of a similar character have, in some few instances, been manifested against the recovery of the landlord's rent." Nevertheless, the abolition or extinction of tithes has been proposed, and the proposition has been hailed with cheers not the most wise or judicious. And why is the abolition of tithes proposed? Because the title to the property is weak, or because the exaction of the value is unjust? No; but because those who are not unwilling to pay the composition, to which they have agreed, have been intimidated, and even despoiled and murdered, and they who resist the demand have received at least the encouragement of impunity. But if tithes are to be commuted at the alleged will of the multitude, at the demand of a combined faction, is it certain that any other charge, imposed in lieu of tithes, will not be equally unpopular, and that the legislature may not be quickly required to revise its own unsatisfactory measure? And will not a precedent be established, upon which the legislature may be solicited to settle rents as well as tithes, and to fix the value of lands as well as the value of impropriations? The payment of rents has already been resisted; combinations to settle the amount have already been formed. The objections of the priests to tithes are easily understood; but, if there be any class of people who should speak with more than ordinary caution on the subject of tithes, and the rights of the Protestant Clergy, it is the class of Irish landlords, many of whose estates consist of the forfeited lands, which they have received within a comparatively recent period, subject to this burden; and many of whom must be aware, that in the rent which is paid for the land, more is exacted than is reasonably due for the rent and the tithe together. When the alleged enormity of the tithes is exposed, the real enormity of the rents will not be concealed. There is no conceivable proportion between rent at three guineas and tithes at one shilling an acre; or between one thousand pounds as the rent of a farm of 700 acres, of which the tithe is thirty-five pounds. No man would, of course, suspect the Irish landlords of wishing to profit by the spoils of the Church, or of having any but the purest and most public motives in recommending the commutation of tithes. But if, under the new system, "the compensation to the Church is to amount to no more than the sum which is at present received, after the expenses of collecting are deducted, the consequence will be, that the difference between the gross amount of tithes now claimed, and the net amount received, will go as a bonus to the land." This is reported in the Morning Herald, March 9, 1832, to be the admission of the |