iesthood
held in Ireland at this period, compared with that which the favoured
clergy of the Established Church held in England, is curious and
significant. Macaulay says of the latter: "A young levite--such was the
phrase then in use--might be had for his board, a small garret, and ten
pounds a year; and might not only perform his own professional
functions, but might also save the expenses of a gardener or a groom.
Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he
curried the coach-horses. He cast up the farrier's bills. He walked ten
miles with a message or a parcel. He was permitted to dine with the
family, but he was expected to content himself with the plainest
fare--till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great
part of which he had been excluded."[519]

In Ireland there were few learned men in the Established Church, and
even Usher seems to have been painfully indifferent to the necessity of
superior education, as well as regular ordination, for his clergy. In
1623 Dr. Blair was invited to Ireland by Lord Clannaboy, to take the
living of Bangor, vacated by the death of the Rev. John Gibson, "sence
Reformacione from Popary the first Deane of Down." Dr. Blair objected
both to episcopal government and to use the English Liturgy; yet he
"procured a free and safe entry to the holy ministry," which, according
to his own account, was accomplished thus. His patron, Lord Clannaboy,
informed "the Bishop Echlin how opposite I was to episcopacy and their
liturgy, and had the influence to procure my admission on easy and
honorable terms." At his interview with the Bishop, it was arranged that
Dr. Blair was to receive ordination from Mr. Cunningham and the
neighbouring clergy, and the Bishop was "to come in among them in no
other relation than a presbyter." These are the Bishop's own words; and
his reason for ordaining at all was: "I must ordain you, else neither I
nor you can answer the law nor brook the land." In 1627 Blair had an
interview with Archbishop Usher, and he says "they were not so far from
agreeing as he feared." "He admitted that all those things [episcopacy
and a form of prayer] ought to have been removed, but the constitution
and laws of the place and time would not permit that to be done." A few
years later Mr. John Livingstone thus relates his experience on similar
subjects. He had been appointed also by Lord Clannaboy to the parish of
Killinchy; and, "because it was ne