CERTAIN MAN had long accustomed himself to eat out of the same trough with a beast, and being rebuked for such unclean feeding, he replied that he did not object to it, and that by long-established custom he had acquired a right to eat in that fashion, for his fathers had so fed before him for many generations. As there was no other way of curing him of his degrading habit, his friends began to remove the trough, whereat he struggled and raved like a madman, calling them robbers and villains, and many other bad names. Meanwhile the beast at the other end of the trough patiently submitted to lose its provender.
FACT.
tate support of religion, by tithes and other forced payments, is the trough. The Irish Church feeds out of the same trough with the Church which it is wont to call the Romish beast, only it stands at the fullest end of it. The beast only gets a few handfuls of Maynooth Grant, but the Irish clergy are fed with tithes to the full. We want to see Protestants act like men who have faith in God and their own doctrines, and then they will maintain their own religion voluntarily; but, alas! it seems as if nothing but force will get them away from the degradation of state pay. How true it is that slavery deprives many men of the desire to be free! Wait a little, and when the trough is broken altogether, perhaps the man will play the man. Let every true Protestant help to deliver the Irish Church from her present; condition; and may God defend the right.
No. 33.—From C. H. SPURGEON'S "Sword and Trowel," published monthly, price 3d.; post free, 4d.
Tracts, 6d. per 100; post free for 8 stamps.—Passmore and Alabaster, 18, Paternoster Row.
CERTAIN MAN had long accustomed himself to eat out of the same trough with a beast, and being rebuked for such unclean feeding, he replied that he did not object to it, and that by long-established custom he had acquired a right to eat in that fashion, for his fathers had so fed before him for many generations. As there was no other way of curing him of his degrading habit, his friends began to remove the trough, whereat he struggled and raved like a madman, calling them robbers and villains, and many other bad names. Meanwhile the beast at the other end of the trough patiently submitted to lose its provender.
tate support of religion, by tithes and other forced payments, is the trough. The Irish Church feeds out of the same trough with the Church which it is wont to call the Romish beast, only it stands at the fullest end of it. The beast only gets a few handfuls of Maynooth Grant, but the Irish clergy are fed with tithes to the full. We want to see Protestants act like men who have faith in God and their own doctrines, and then they will maintain their own religion voluntarily; but, alas! it seems as if nothing but force will get them away from the degradation of state pay. How true it is that slavery deprives many men of the desire to be free! Wait a little, and when the trough is broken altogether, perhaps the man will play the man. Let every true Protestant help to deliver the Irish Church from her present; condition; and may God defend the right.
