with regard to the University of Oxford, that it would be desirable that a certain number of fellows should be required to take holy orders. I do not know whether the regulations of the colleges can so far supersede the evident intentions of the Test Act as to enable them to carry out anything of the kind; but if they are not absolutely compelled to render it necessary for a certain number of their fellows to take holy orders, I cannot conceive how in the long run they can do it. Except in the case of a college wholly devoted to the Church of England, like Keble College, it will altogether depend upon the temporary mind of the college whether such a rule will be passed; and then what will become of the religious teaching? You who live in England cannot be aware of the full nature of our conflict in Ireland with a tremendous enemy-an enemy well armed at all points and perfectly unscrupulous in carrying out her ends-the Church of Rome. How far scepticism has penetrated amongst the higher classes of Romanists in Ireland I cannot say, because the line of demarcation between Protestant and Roman Catholic is becoming more marked every day, and intercourse between them on these subjects seems to have utterly ceased. We are therefore perfectly in the dark as to what is working in the minds of educated Roman Catholics; but I greatly fear that that wave of scepticism which began in France and Germany, and after a long interval has passed over England, will at length reach Ireland; and then perhaps we shall find ourselves face to face with an enemy which we shall not be able to meet, not having taken any effectual measures to do so. In conclusion, I am going to say something which will probably be very unpopular, but you will pardon me on account of my age-it is as to the prevalence of these debating and discussing societies in the Universities. I confess I think that undergraduates are at college for the purpose of learning, and not for the purpose of settling by anticipation questions of enormous consequence, to decide on which involves an amount of information, and requires a maturity of judgment which it is utterly impossible for boys between eighteen and three-and-twenty to possess. If there is to be safety for the future, there must be some principle of authority in the University with regard to these matters; and I fear that principle of authority is shaken by the prevalence of debate amongst young men.

The REV. V. H. STANTON.

As a resident fellow in the University of Cambridge, I am thankful to be allowed to say a few words on this subject. I take a very different view of the general condition of things, and the general effect of legislation, from that represented by Dr Perowne. He has said that these Acts have been terribly potential for evil. I agree entirely with what has been said by the representatives of the University of Oxford, that they could not have had any evil effect in themselves. It is not on any Act that the condition of a University can depend. It must depend on the general state of the country, and the general condition of thought. So long as the classes who send their sons to the University desire that they shall be religiously educated, we who desire the religious education of those sons will carry it out. So long as the Church of England looks for the great body of her ministers to the Universities, we shall be able to provide a theological training for them. It must plainly be the case. Let us consider both lines of change which have taken place-first, as affecting the governing body at large by changing the

body of voters through the abolition of tests; secondly, the influence on the management of colleges both by the abolition of tests and the diminution of clerical fellowships. Does anybody, I would ask, believe that Jews, Mohammedans, or infidels of any kind, can influence our councils, while they are a small minority in the nation, and especially while they are in a small minority among those who go to the Universities? When Jews, Mohammedans, and infidels are the main body of the nation, that will be the case; but until then, the Universities will be religious just as any other body in England is religious. Again, even supposing a large proportion of the fellows of a college were at any time sceptical, so long as a large number of men come to the Universities wishing for a theological training, the authorities in the college (as has been observed by Mr Spooner) will be forced to provide religious instruction for them, for the sake of keeping up their college. Therefore it is a very great pity for us so entirely to look to the wrong cause as to think that it is legislation that does everything, whereas it is to the general condition of the nation, and the general spiritual efficiency of the Church, that we must look for the change we want. Now, what is really the case? According to the testimony of all the speakers, there has been a great improvement in the condition of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It is very important that this united testimony should go forth to the country, because the impression that has got about is an exceedingly false one, and it is one of those prophecies which are likely to fulfil themselves. Therefore, I say, be hopeful: be courageous, as every Christian man and woman should be, and then we shall succeed far more than we shall if these doleful prophecies are uttered. At the present time there is in Cambridge a really great religious movement, which I would venture to compare with the last religious movement in Oxford, though I think it is a wiser movement, and one likely to be of a more efficient character. We have among the number of our professors of divinity men capable of influencing the very highest intellects, and of sending forth pupils who will influence the world as much as the disciples of Newman and Pusey did. All those old institutions which were started by the great Evangelical revival which flowed forth from Cambridge, and which was the first tide of reawakening in the English Church, are in full efficiency, and have enormously increased in efficiency within the last few years; and, in addition to these, there are new elements of a very valuable kind. There is, for instance, the Cambridge University Church Society, though I would not have mentioned it, because I am intimately connected with it, unless I had been requested to say something about it. It is of this character-it consists of communicants of the Church of England who are members of the University, who join together in devotional services, and discuss questions such as those which are brought before Church Congresses, for the sake of stimulating men to undertake Christian work in after-life, and also for the purpose of abolishing the differences between Churchmen, and teaching them to look to their Church instead of to any party in it as their centre of union. By this means some men have had their views very much enlarged, and I believe their efficiency in future life will be greatly increased. It has also been a channel for the most intelligent Christians in the University for exercising their influence on those excellent, pious, and zealous young men who are often deficient in wisdom and knowledge of the general state of thought.

The VEN. ARCHDEACON EMERY.

As representing the University of Cambridge, through having been resident in it since I left a public school in 1843 practically to the present moment, I am glad to be allowed to say two or three words. From my going up to Cambridge, and certainly from the time of taking my degree in 1847, I have been very intimately connected with most of the religious movements in Cambridge, and I was promoted to the archdeaconry of Ely, not from a living but from being a tutor in a college where Dr Perowne was a fellow-tutor. It seems to me that I may act as moderator between Dr Perowne and Mr Stanton. Dr Perowne represents the strong feeling of many University men of long experience; Mr Stanton is a young and able representative of the newly-developed religious life in Cambridge. Both are right. I feel with Dr Perowne that certain evils have resulted, and more may possibly result, from past legislation; but I agree with Mr Stanton that, on the whole, we need not fear; that there has been a vast advance in religious feeling-in religious feeling founded upon reasonable evidence and open discussion of Christian faith, and that, therefore, even though we have lost, as it were, the protection of the old state of things, we need not despair as to the religious condition of the University of Cambridge; nor, as we have heard from Mr Ince, of the religious condition of the University of Oxford. We may not like-I did not like, I confess-the new Act of Parliament doing away with the tests; I did not like the doing away with the distinct Church of England character of the University; but I maintain now that that Act of Parliament, which did away with the tests, did not do away with the religious basis of education in the University, the preamble being in order to promote more religion in the University. And I do not think it has done away even with the distinctively Church of England character of the University, because where we have college chapels, there, as a rule, the Church of England service, and that only, is to be used; and except where our students have special objections, it would seem the college authorities have full power to give them distinct religious and Church education. There has been, within my knowledge, since the year 1843, a marvellous development of religious feeling, as evidenced amongst other things by better services and more frequent celebrations of the Holy Communion. We have prayer meetings and religious associations in full operation; we have the Church Society mentioned by Mr Stanton, and we have this remarkable fact the Theological Faculty coming together from quarter to quarter, or even oftener, to consider the subjects of theology, and see how best to bring them to bear upon the religious education of the University. Then three years ago a Mission was held under Bishop Harold Browne; we determined at first to have it only for the town and not to interfere at all with the University, but the colleges so pressed the matter that I was obliged to send to London for extra missioners to go into the colleges, with the full leave of the fellows and tutors, and hold special meetings for the undergraduates. I cannot find that on the whole our students are refusing to take holy orders on account of religious difficulties. There are other reasons for it. Our religious differences have a great deal to do with it, and I think the unsettlement of the position of the Church of England as by law established has some effect upon it, in addition to which the opening of the Civil Service and other services for our young men has had its influence. But I think the wave of indifference has passed away, and more of the able young men of the University are coming forward to take holy orders. If Mr Stanton were to speak again he might say with truth that there is a complete revolution of feeling in Trinity College, and that many of our best men there are preparing for the ministry of our Church. It seems to me that, of late, we have been forced to think more and decide more distinctly upon a religious basis as to our doings in the University-the eternal distinction between light and darkness is becoming more clearly manifested. I hope what has been told us by Mr Ince will go throughout the country from this Congress. He has come to the Congress from a sense of duty, and at much self-denial, to state his opinion that the gloomy view which the Bishop of Oxford unfortunately put forward is not based upon the fullest evi

dence; and he speaks as having been a resident for many years in Oxford, and thoroughly knowing the feeling of the University. My own view is, that the wave of doubt is receding from our Universities, and that there is a distinct increase of religious life founded upon thoughtful consideration of the evidences of Christianity; and therefore I leave this subject, thanking God on the whole for the progress we are making, and not a bit fearing for the future, even though we have lost the protection we formerly had.

HOW FAR HAS RECENT LEGISLATION PRACTICALLY AFFECTED RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN OUR HIGHER SCHOOLS?

PAPERS.

The REV. CANON CORNISH.

RELIGIOUS instruction, direct and indirect, as conveyed by the lesson of the schoolroom, the services of the chapel, the occasional address of the master in public, the passing word in private, by the general infusion of a Christian spirit into the secular teaching, and by other influences which might be named, which inform the minds and touch the consciences of the young-how far have these been affected (some of them in the nature of things cannot be) by recent legislation?

This is our question. And let me first say, that just thirty-five years prior to the Royal Commission of 1862, which was the first step to legislation, a great reform of our schools had been begun. Of this reform, Dr Arnold who, in 1827, had been made head master of Rugby, is regarded as the pioneer and representative. He was aided in his efforts by the increased earnestness of the age; and other able men in other schools were fired by his example. Now it was not so much that they devoted more time to religious teaching than the grammar schools had done before; but that they breathed their own spirit on what had frequently been the dry bones of the school instruction, and they became instinct with life. The formularies of faith and the Bible itself were perhaps not more studied than before; but the school was made in tone and feeling more religious. In the blue books of the Royal Commission, we may almost say that, the daily life of nine of our greatest and so-called public schools-" Votiva veluti descripta tabellâ "-stands revealed; and what was reported of them, might also have been reported of many of our well-conducted grammar schools. And of those nine schools, I would say, that the aim of all, in the particular view of our present subject, was the same, to make religion practically influential on the minds and lives of boys. It might be, indeed it was more easily attainable in some than in others; e.g., religious instruction was more completely conveyed in those which had a chapel than in those which had not; in boarding-schools, than in day schools, because in the former the boys were more entirely members of the same family, citizens of the same community. And yet I must here remark, that when one reads in these books, as in Merchant Tailors' School, of boys being prepared by the head master for Confirmation, and

receiving their first Communion in the chapel where he officiated, one sees what could be done even in a day school, without a chapel. Again, in others, where the boys were boarders and worshipped in the same chapel, the same use of the agencies which were available was not made by all. Sermons, e.g., as a means of moulding the characters of boys, meeting their special difficulties, helping them in their special trials, were much more relied on at Harrow and Rugby, than at Eton. Different masters estimated their power differently, both on the teachers and the taught. At Eton the then head master did not care to occupy the pulpit often himself, or to see it occupied at all by the assistant masters. And, on the other hand, the head master of Harrow, who always preached once on Sunday, says in his evidence-"To the assistant masters themselves, I am convinced it is of the greatest importance to have an opportunity periodically of appealing to the consciences of the boys." I speak of this simply as illustrating the general variety of English life; for I have neither the means nor the wish to compare the character of boys, as they were affected by the schools in which they were respectively educated. We trace the same law of variety when we see that in some schools there was a good deal of work on Sunday to keep boys out of mischief; in others, almost none, that they might feel it to be a day of rest. Again, some schools had one weekly religious lesson, besides that of Sunday; some, two; some, weekly questions; and at Winchester there was a daily reading of a few verses in the Greek Testament, the effect of which was so strongly felt by Dr Moberly, that he remarks-"Our young men, especially in Oxford, are distinguished by a strongly-marked religious character."

And indeed I believe that the moral and religious condition of our public and large grammar schools in 1860 justified the combined feeling of pride and thankfulness with which thoughtful Englishmen regarded them. Boys were not better theologians, it may be, than of old; but their religious principles were stronger, their sense of duty more strict, their reverence for what was "true, pure, and of good report," greater than it once had been.

Then came our own epoch, marked, as its enemies would call it, by a spirit of restlessness and suspicion, not satisfied with things as they were, and not quite sure what it wanted; determined, as its friends would say, to demand of every institution what amount of work it was doing. First came inquiry, and then reform, or as some would say, a revolution.

Our public and grammar schools were assailed on what I may call social and intellectual grounds. The social reformer said, These schools were founded for the good of the whole nation, not for a part only. Why, then, should they be practically, if not legally, confined to members of the National Church? Why should boys be required to join in the prayers, or be taught the formularies of a Church in which they do not believe? Why should the masters of these schools be clergymen why should its trustees be Churchmen?

Then, too, our age is an intellectual age. If some of its representative men believe in anything, they believe in knowledge. There was a pathos as well as a sarcasm in the words-" We must educate our masters ;" and when it was asked, how, the cry of the loudest, if not of the most numerous, seemed to say-"Why, in a more complete and universal acquaintance with the three R's." This was to do it all. "These be thy gods,