"the men of the world." Each man who lives for himself, and covets and obtains wealth and power and the gratification of his selfish ambition, is one of whom Bonaparte was the leader and pattern. His motto was Excelsior, and his ceaseless aim was self-exaltation. A thirst for dominion ever burnt within him, a thirst which nothing could quench. He gratified it in a higher degree than almost any other of the sons of men; yet still it consumed him, and he died with dreams of conquest and of glory filling his whole soul. And if you covet wealth and power for selfish objects, you follow in the track of Napoleon. "He had no element of character which others do not possess. He is not to be gazed at as a miracle. He was a manifestation of our own nature. He teaches us on a large scale what thousands teach on a narrow one." He died defeated, frustrated, and an exile. Yet, unless that thirst could have been quenched or taken away, he would have deserved pity no less had he died an autocrat. His broken heart may speak more plainly; but not the fullest success could have rendered him less the object of compassion. Between the boastful conqueror on his throne, and the captive exile on his death-bed, the only difference is in outward circumstances; the disease which ruined him was the same in his prosperity and in his downfall. An archangel, looking beyond those outward circumstances, would pity the delusion, as much in the conqueror as in the captive. And so, now, the substantial thing, the reality, is the disease, and not this or that phase of it. You follow him, perhaps, at an immense distance, vainly imagining that a millionth part of the wealth and power which he enjoyed would richly content you. But if you are really following him,if you have the same burning thirst, the same heart-disease, you may reckon on the same fate. If apparent success be permitted you, you will still have to cry out with Solomon, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit!" but if, as in Napoleon's case, Vaulting ambition overleaps itself, your error will be more seen, and your fate more pitied; yet the difference will be more in outside show than in substantial reality. The practical lesson to all "men of the world," from the merchant craving after gain to the conqueror at the head of his armies, is the same: "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live." CLERICAL EDUCATION AT CAMBRIDGE AND OXFORD. OUR readers may probably have heard that it is in contemplation to found a college, upon a scale of considerable magnitude, for the education of young men for the ministry in the church of England. A large sum has been offered by one munificent subscriber; and various sites have been proposed for the new institution in the neighbourhood of London or in one or other of our universities. It has been more publicly announced that the bishop of Exeter is prepared to endow a theological college, in connection with his own cathedral, with the sum of ten thousand pounds, on condition that the new dean, Dr. Ellicott, shall undertake the management of it. We cannot but regard the selection of such a head for the proposed institution as a proof that the venerable prelate, in his extreme old age, has adopted more moderate, and, as we, of course, who have been so long in conflict with him, think, more sound and scriptural views than those against which Mr. Gorham had to contend; and so far, each of these projects will commend itself, though still perhaps in different degrees, to the favourable consideration of sound-hearted churchmen. That there are serious objections to the education of the young clergy in colleges exclusively theological, we feel strongly. We are afraid of a forced and hot-house school of discipline of any kind; most of all when it professes to be a discipline of piety. We distrust the vigour which has never been assailed, and the opinions, however strongly rooted they may seem, which have stood no conflicts. Dr. Vaughan has stated the question fairly, in the last of those four sermons, preached before the university, to which we have already called attention: "And shall I be pardoned if I presume to say here how important I deem it that clerical education, so far as it consists in learning, should be carried on in our universities rather than in smaller and more special training fields? We do not want-which is the very best that can be hoped from such methods to see one man's mind stamped whole upon a section of the clergy. The freer intercourse, which a university offers, of mind with mind; the larger choice and mutual correction of instructors; not to mention the ampler gifts of learning and ability which such a place affords in its teachers, are invaluable aids in the study of a true theology. Other systems may have their advantages-I doubt not that it will be so-in peculiar cases; there are men for whom the temptations of college life have been too strong, and who need to be taken aside from it to learn truth, and to practise duty in what is for them a safer atmosphere; but the university, in my opinion, would prove herself most unfaithful to the work with which God has entrusted her, if she allowed it to be said that her best students must turn elsewhere for their theology, because she refused to them either opportunities of instruction, or a stimulus to their use." But this is only one side of the question. If we ask what is the theological training at either university, the answer is very discouraging. Cambridge is at present the great theological school of the church of England. Of the three hundred candidates ordained on Trinity Sunday last, rather more than one half were Cambridge men. Oxford sent one fourth; and the remaining fourth was supplied by Durham and the provincial theological colleges; with the exception of a few literates, that is, self-taught or privately educated persons. The only theological instruction which Cambridge affords to undergraduates is confined to the Greek Testament, and, in some colleges, Paley's Evidences. We should be ashamed to say anything of the sermons in college chapels, if we were obliged to pass a judgment on them from some specimens which have recently been published. Of course, they vary much; and some, no doubt, are excellent; but these, we fear, are rather the exception than the rule. The Theological Examination is now held a few weeks after the Bachelor's degrees have been conferred. It was established some twenty years ago, and was at first voluntary. It retains the name; but now that all the bishops insist on their candidates for orders producing a certificate that they have passed its ordeal, the name is no longer appropriate. It has become a serious addition to the studies of Cambridge men intended for the ministry, and a more serious addition to the expense. For a large proportion of those Cambridge undergraduates who are designed for holy orders are the sons of clergymen who can ill afford the already heavy cost of a university career. Those who are unacquainted with the Cambridge system will be surprised to learn, that for this important examination the university affords to undergraduates no assistance or facilities whatever. No lectures are given by the college tutors to prepare them for it. They must read up the subjects for themselves, how they can, and when they can; and we believe that, pressed as they are with other studies, they generally contrive to scramble through them in the short interval between the Bachelor's examination in January and the May term, at the beginning of which the voluntary takes place. It is no unusual thing to obtain a private tutor, at an additional expense, for this last ordeal. Yet, after all, the results are very unsatisfactory. At the Easter examination of the present year, about one hundred Bachelors succeeded in passing the examination; of these, not one of the "commencing Bachelors" attained to the honor of a first class, two were in - the second, and only one in the third. Of "middle Bachelors" that is, of gentlemen who had postponed their appearance several months longer, and, we may suppose, prosecuted their divinity studies at an additional cost of time and money—one only obtained the first class, seven were in the second, and three in the third; and on the other hand, it is rumoured that a very large number were rejected altogether, as not sufficiently qualified; these will have to present themselves again, or to forego the ministry of the church of England. Now, that a university which sends out thirty to forty Wranglers, and nearly as many first class men in classics, every year, should not find one commencing Bachelor qualified for a first class in theology, reflects, of course, on some party a great disgrace. Upon whom does it rest? Chiefly, we believe, on the university itself; and this we know is the opinion of many of its most learned members. It is so easy to carp at an examination paper, that we are extremely unwilling to enter into any details. But we cannot say less than this: that having in view the circumstances under which the examination is held, and the total want of previous assistance on the part of the colleges, the examination is in some respects far too difficult, and in others vexatious. We go further: the difficulties and vexations are of a kind which are altogether needless; they are mere obstructions; and if the student surmounts them, all the praise he deserves is that of displaying a sort of unusual mental agility. He has shown himself a theological Blondin; and his exploits, as he will find to his cost when he enters on the grave duties of his profession, were learned and practised at a cost utterly disproportionate to their value. On the paper, for instance, in a recent examination on "the Liturgy," consisting of thirteen questions, the tenth is this:"Explain the terms, Rubric, Quinquagesima Sunday, Octave, Reading, Saying, Singing, Vigil, Dominica in albis, Rogation days, Chrism, Chrisom." But what if the commencing Bachelor should know nothing in the world about any one of these grave matters-or what if he should know all about them? Is this theology? Are these things worthy of a university in which reformers once taught, and Whitgift and Cartwright once disputed? The next question is one which we should be ashamed to propose to a well-educated candidate for confirmation; it might be very proper for the children in a national school: "Write out the Collect for Easter Day, and illustrate it from Scripture." This is a mere exercise of memory. What if the. candidate should have forgotten the Collect? Is it expected that a Cambridge Bachelor shall commit the Collects, one and all, to memory? The paper on "The Reformation in England" contains the following question, one of six: "Mention some of the books which were precursors of the Refor mation. Make observations on the 'Bishop's book,' and Pole's book 'De Unitate Ecclesiæ."" But what kind of observations, and what sort of books? and of what importance were these books, any of them, or all of them, and more particularly Pole's book, De Unitate Ecclesiæ ?-or of what importance was Pole himself, except as a hinderer and slanderer of the Reformation? The cousin of queen Mary, the prompter of her cruelties, her evil genius through life, in death her companion to that awful judgment-seat to which they passed on the same day to confront the martyrs who stood waiting to arraign them before that dread tribunal! It is easy, we think, to perceive that questions such as these can only harass and annoy. Young men, sensible young men, will direct their reading, by an instinct, to the few great points, whether of science or theology; they will not waste their time and distract their minds with trifles; and if so, we wish them joy of the Cambridge voluntary. We are anxious to avoid details, but we must protest against the method of examination pursued on the Thirty-nine Articles. It is more properly an examination on Professor Harold Brown's book on the Thirty-nine Articles; and the ground of our protest we cannot express better than in the words of Dr. Vaughan, already quoted: "It is a resolute endeavour to stamp one man's mind whole upon a section of the clergy." The Articles are the common property of the church; and we should equally object, were any other expositor (whose views might be in more exact accordance with our own on some not unimportant points of doctrine) substituted for Professor Harold Brown. What would be thought, in these days, of an examination on the Greek Testament, in which the candidates were given to understand that the Commentaries of Thomas Scott on the one hand, or of D'Oyly and Mant on the other, were the sources to which their reading must be directed, and in accordance with which their views of a doubtful passage must be fashioned? Who would not protest against it? Nor do we quite like the tone of the questions on "the Liturgy." In one of them the candidate is required to shew the futility of the objections, made by the nonconformists at the Savoy conference, to certain expressions in the Marriage, Burial, and other services. This is not so easily done. Many, if not most of the passages objected to, are in themselves objectionable. They are felt by the great body of the clergy, who have had long experience, to be a constant source of disquiet to many honest minds. They are the blots which disfigure our Book of Common Prayer. They might have been conceded without the slightest inconvenience; and the trouble they have never ceased to give, and the mischief they have done, we can regard only as a wholesome rebuke to the pride of obstinacy; and a caution, descending from age to age, against the repetition of similar transgressions against the law of charity. |