tongues and the antagonism of passions, out of whose turmoil they rose up in their present shape. As they stand, and with their actual associations, they are the bulwarks of free and manly religion—based on the truths of the Gospel and rich with the science of the human heart. To borrow the eloquent words of one of the speakers at your late Convention,[1] they are "the landmarks of the Church. The Jewish landmarks secured merely the possession of a few roods of land to an individual for a short term of years; but these are the landmarks of the Church, the landmarks of a heavenly inheritance, and of everlasting possession."
Such is, I venture to affirm, the value of fixity in our existing formularies as the regulating and moderating influence of the "Reformed Church" in England and in Ireland, apart from any questions relative to the practical re-arrangement or augmentation of the services. With these the Committee has by its appointment nothing to do, and they shall not, therefore, occupy our attention except to invite one word of passing apprehension lest the perils of the changes involved in the powers entrusted to that body may embarrass and delay the Church in turning to the work of devotional compilation.
My anxieties are at this moment for Ireland, and not for England. The Church of Ireland lies before my eyes outraged and despoiled by the imperial legislature. Her old conditions of civil life have been violently swept away. Her future career is all her own, to shape out under all the disadvantages of universal unsettlement. How far is this revolution a call to her to recast those title deeds, which she has hitherto shared with her English sister, in exclusive conformity with the supposed requirements of her own internal condition; or how far, on the other side, to throw herself in loving confidence upon the bosom of that sister, believing in and confessing her affection, recognising her power and
- ↑ Dr. Romney Robinson.
