Spencer, and Bain or Darwin, and Tyler and Lubbock, and hold keen debate on these in club or wine party, or essay society, and drawing inferences fair or unfair from what they have read, question whether there is or is not adequate evidence for the existence of God and a supra-sensual world, and for the distinction between mind and matter, and for a supernatural origin of religion and morality, and for the credibility of the early patriarchal history of the Book of Genesis, or the miraculous element in the gospel narrative. And then there is another large section, numbering perhaps between 400 and 500, who are more or less interested in religious matters, widely divergent in opinion, often intolerant, sometimes inconsistent, yet for the most part earnest and devout; some delighting in elaborate ceremonialism, others engaging themselves in evangelistic labours; many of them members of various associations for devotional, missionary, or philanthropic purposes, thankful for theological guidance and instruction, and glad to talk over their difficulties with any sympathising senior. Nor, alas! in addition to all these classes, is there wanting in such a mixed society the class of the idle and vicious.

The same diversified tendencies are found among the graduates, some being wholly immersed in literary and scientific study, and standing aloof from all theological questions; others jealous of any theological or clerical influence, and whatever their private opinions may be, looking upon a secular system of education as the only practicable and desirable form to be adopted by colleges in the future. A very scanty number, hardly I should say amounting to half-a-dozen, has professedly given up the name of Christian. And besides all these groups, there is a very considerable body of tutors and lecturers who are anxious to do their educational work in a definitely religious spirit, who are sincerely anxious for the religious welfare of their pupils, thirty or forty of whom meet together every term for common counsel and discussion on points which may help them in their work, and for common worship; who so far as their influence is concerned would resist all attempts to introduce a purely secular system. The picture of university life is not, as some would draw it, wholly dark: it has its bright lights as well as its shadows. The Oxford of to-day is not wholly given up to rationalism and infidelity. It retains no small elements of a living and sincere Christianity. There are weekly celebrations of Holy Communion in six or seven of the college chapels: it is no unusual thing for meetings of religious societies to have an attendance of eighty or one hundred undergraduates. Four colleges have missionary societies of their own members. The newly-founded college in Oxford conducted on the most avowedly religious system, stands already fourth in the whole university in regard of the number of its undergraduates.

In the university, as in all society, there are perils threatening Christian faith and practice. The true way to endeavour to meet them is not by laying the blame upon Acts of Parliament, or the new ordinances of colleges, nor by unreasoning tirades against natural science or Biblical criticism, but by Christian argument and Christian evidence in books, and, as I venture to urge, most strongly in sermons delivered in college chapels. A strong resistance ought to be offered to the attempt now vigorously made to reduce the present number of clerical fellowships. Public opinion of Churchmen ought to be brought to bear upon such colleges as have hitherto been negligent to fulfil their plain legal obligation to provide

sufficient religious instruction, and further to consider the wants of their theological students. A great opportunity is now open to Christian teachers in the universities. In view of the vast range of subjects studied, a pressing duty lies upon them, if I may quote words of Dr Westcott spoken at a Church Congress three years ago, "to bring within the scope of theology new thoughts and modes of thinking which have not yet been co-ordinated with the faith, and to do so by lifting them up to a region above all personal conflicts or interests." As preachers, if they will set before them the actual wants of the undergraduates, they may render them most valuable service by helping them amid the strife of controversy, and they will find a most loyal and affectionate response to their efforts. And by personal influence and example they can confirm their teaching. If one of the most grievous hindrances to the attempt to inspire religious principles and habits of life into undergraduates is the habitual absence of their instructors from the common public worship of Prayer and Holy Communion in chapel, so also the example of manly, sincere piety, free from the extravagance or ostentation of partisanship, will silently work its results, and add weight to the teaching of the pulpit or the lecture-room. And those who are thus fighting the battle of faith within the precincts of the universities may fairly claim to be sustained from without by the cordial sympathy and support of Christian parents, and all lovers of our old academic institutions, and not to be chilled by distrust and suspicion, which serve only to paralyse their efforts and sadden their hearts.

ADDRESS.

The REV. W. A. SPOONER, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford.

THE question at first hearing seems to be one of the simplest kind, but questions of fact are proverbially difficult to decide, and there appear to me to be two special points which add peculiar difficulty to the determining of this particular question; first, the legislation has been so recent that it is exceedingly difficult to determine as yet what its effects will be; and, secondly, it is exceedingly hard to distinguish between the effects of legislation and effects due to other causes. It is very hard to disentangle this question. How much of the supposed or real religious infidelity of our universities is due to the effect of the passing of the Tests Act? from the question-How much is due to the tide of feeling which has been sweeping, not only over England, but over the whole of Europe? For I suppose that few will doubt that this time has been one of unusual religious excitement, an age probably such as has scarcely occurred since the great religious revolution of the sixteenth century, and, in the case of our English Universities, any strong tide of feeling that sweeps over the country is sure to be reproduced and even exaggerated. This is eminently the case with regard to this question of religious speculation. If we look anywhere about us, we shall see how rife religious speculation is. The very existence of such Congresses as this-almost all the discussions in which you have been engaged this weekbear testimony to the fundamental questions which are everywhere being discussed, and to the eagerness with which the people of England are looking for an answer to them. Now, if this is the spirit of the time, it is only natural that it should find an echo in our universities, and not only natural, but even desirable, for where can such questions be

more properly discussed than in the comparative peace and quiet of a university? I feel sure that Oxford would be failing in its proper function if, while these questions affecting the highest interests of religion were being discussed elsewhere, Oxford should be silent upon them. I am thankful to say that this is not the case. The interest in all religious questions felt throughout the country has not failed to produce its effect on Oxford. I do not mean to say that it is desirable these questions should be forced upon the attention of those who are brought to us for instruction, and who, we might hope, would never be disturbed by them; but I think the passing of the Tests Act has tended to diminish the virulence of any religious feeling, and detract from its amount in this way-while, before this Act came into operation men often signed, when young, declarations of belief to which they only half assented, and then, finding themselves in a false position, made declarations of disbelief, in which they only half believed; now, there is removed from those who are in doubt any feeling of having placed themselves in a false position, and so long as their doubts continue they desist from pressing them upon the attention of those with whom they are brought into contact. Then, again, a spirit of chivalry was often excited in the minds of young men in favour of those who seemed to have suffered loss by the deprivation of positions to which their talents otherwise entitled them, by the honest avowal of their convictions. This often created a falsely sentimental feeling in favour of disbelief; but with the abolition of tests this feeling has, to a great extent, disappeared, so that I think all those accounts which represent the whole of Oxford as given up to disbelief in Christianity have been exaggerated or mistaken. Still, there are no doubt dangers to be faced, but if faced they will speedily disappear. It has been already pointed out to you that the Tests Act has provided for the religious education in colleges of those who are sent to colleges. No doubt if those giving instruction are themselves uninterested in religious questions, such religious education is likely to be of comparatively little value, but the remedy rests with the parents of those who send their sons to college. If they would insist [as the law has given them a perfect right, and by giving them the right has imposed upon them a duty to do] that their sons shall receive that education in the principles of the Church of England which they themselves so greatly value, then you may be quite sure that the colleges will not commit suicide by depriving themselves of their best customers. There is another danger on which I would say a word; it may seem fanciful, but I think it is real. There seems to be a danger of a system of denominational colleges arising within our universities. To a certain extent our colleges have always been denominational-I mean denominational within the limits of the Church of England. Some of them were founded to promote particular views or lines of thought. Christ Church, for instance, was founded in the days of the Reformation, to promote the interests of the Reformation and the new learning. St John's, we know, was greatly enlarged to give weight in the university to the principles which Archbishop Laud wished to inculcate; and in more recent times colleges have been to a considerable extent denominational in this way, that people in choosing them have naturally chosen those where the form of religion with which they most strongly sympathise was most largely taught. Most people know that for many years Wadham was the favourite home of Low Churchmen, and Exeter the chief resort of High Churchmen. Balliol, if I might style Scotchmen a denomination, was chiefly addicted to that denomination. While such a principle of natural selection as this is desirable, and I hope will long continue, it would be a great disaster if any distinctively denominational system were introduced. Keble College, with which in many ways I sympathise very much, bas set the example of being the first distinctively denominational college founded in Oxford. I trust the example thus set will not greatly spread-that colleges will not drift into the hands of different denominations-that some colleges will not become the homes of free thought, while others are chosen solely by those who wish for the maintenance of the principles of the Church of England. I can imagine few greater evils than this would be to the universities, and to England at large, for it is the fact that hitherto England has escaped that great danger, into which so many foreign nations have drifted, of being divided into two widely severed and mutually repellent

camps, one consisting of all those who believe anything, the other consisting of those who believe nothing. The best hope for our escape from this danger is that within the limits of our universities, questions, even of the deepest moment in religion, should be freely discussed, that those who believe should leaven those who disbelieve, and then we may well hope that the record of moderation which England has hitherto shown will not less in the future be handed down to our descendants.

DISCUSSION.

The REV. A. M. W. CHRISTOPHER, M. A.

EVERYTHING with regard to the work of God at our Universities depends, so far as human effort is concerned, upon the believing and united prayers of God's people throughout the country; and I think we have made wonderful progress within the last hundred years. I have in my possession a pamphlet by the celebrated George Whitfield, remonstrating with the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford of that day against the iniquity of expelling six of the best men of St Edmund's Hall for no other offence than that of meeting for extempore prayer; and Whitfield says that as judgment had begun at the house of God, he hopes the University will go on and expel men for extempore swearing, which was much more common than extempore prayer. What a contrast to that is the present state of things! Not very long ago at Cambridge, when Mr S. A. Blackwood went down to give an address at the Town Hall, there were not many undergraduates present at first, because the men had not come from the boats; but when they came up from the boats (I have the testimony of a fellow of a college, who, I am sure, would not exaggerate), there were not less than 800 undergraduates assembled to hear him. We could not, perhaps, get such an assembly at Oxford gathered together for the same purpose; but I may just mention that last term I wished a number of my friends to hear an earnest address on holiness and entire devotion to the service of Jesus Christ, and the only thing I could do to secure this was to get them to make use of the short time between the end of morning chapel at 8.30 and the morning lectures at 10. I asked every man who had been introduced to me to breakfast, and we had 126 men who listened with the most earnest attention to this address on holiness and entire devotion to the service of Christ. As I looked down three long tables of undergraduates, I did not see one face that was not interested more or less. Then I may tell you that a number of undergraduates come together every Saturday evening at my own rectory for the purpose of prayer and exposition of the Word of God. There were Greek Testament classes held after the evening service on Sundays by Mr Burgon and Mr Barlow. There is every reason to trust and pray that God will bless those who are endeavouring to bring His truth to the hearts of undergraduates. I was very thankful to learn that at Cambridge Professors Lightfoot and Westcott can be seen on certain evenings in the week by any undergraduates who have doubts and difficulties. Some years ago I became acquainted with a number of earnest undergraduates who were more or less shaken in faith; but they had not given up their belief in the truth that God answers prayer. One of them, who became a first-classman, told me that his faith was shaken to the foundation; but nevertheless at their meetings they always began with prayer, and afterwards went into all the difficulties suggested to their minds, and the best answers they could obtain. As a matter of fact, every mmber of that

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society is now a faithful and valuable clergyman of the Church of England, except one, who died before he realised his purpose of obtaining ordination. Of that society three are first-classmen, and ten are second-classmen; most of them are incumbents, and those who are not ought to be. It is another encouraging fact that whereas in former days it used to be thought a sin for a layman to preach, I was invited to Cambridge some time ago when Bishop Harold Browne was Bishop of Ely, to address the Cambridge Undergraduates' Open-air Mission; and I found in the afternoon, when men are usually taking their exercise, a large number of undergraduates gathered together at a meeting, with the Bishop in the chair; and I there learnt that there were open-air services held in the market-place and other open spaces in Cambridge with the sanction of the Bishop and the Proctors of the University, and the encouragement of certain incumbents. At those services many of these University men preached the gospel to all who would hear it; undergraduates began the service with singing, and then preached with all their hearts Jesus to those who gathered round them.

The VEN. ARCHDEACON REICHEL.

I SHOULD have preferred being a hearer to being a speaker at this meeting, but it has been thought by some members of the Congress that it would be as well to hear a voice from the sister University of Dublin. What that University has suffered from recent legislation cannot, I am sure, be uninteresting to an English Congress, seeing that many of the English clergy, some of whom occupy most influential positions in the Church, have taken their degree in Dublin. I know comparatively little of the inner life of that University at the present moment, because I have long ceased to be a resident there, although a member of the Council. That body cannot interfere with the divinity faculty as such; it has no share in the appointment of professors of divinity, nor can it model the course of religious instruction which may be given in the divinity school. The present state of things in the University of Dublin, caused by the introduction and passing of Mr Fawcett's Act in 1873, is that all tests are swept away with regard to the holding of any office of emolument, except in the case of the Regius Professor of Divinity, Archbishop King's Divinity Lecturer, and the Professorship of Biblical Greek. This last professorship is now vacant, and perhaps may be never filled up; therefore there are at present only two offices in the University of Dublin which involve any recognition of Christianity, and the appointment to these offices is made by the Provost and seven senior Fellows of Trinity College, in whom has been vested, up to last November, the whole government, not merely of the College, but also of the University, which is distinct from the college, although the fact has been forgotten by many members of the University. This state of things is a very serious peril, as it seems to me. I am not going to speak ill of my own University; but I fear that the tendency of things there is not merely to free thought in the meaning of unshackled thought, but to free thought in the sense of invitation to scepticism-not free thought in the shape of inquiry, but free thought in the shape of doubt. This one fact, I think, will confirm my fear-for the last seven years not a single Fellow of Trinity College has taken holy orders; and it has become a serious question how, in the future, when the present fellows in holy orders are dead, the services in the college chapel will be carried on. It has been hinted,