Sermons. 303 he rushed to the real lesson, the practical principle underlying the Divine word. Sometimes from a text he would draw as from a quiver a whole shower of arrows, which he shot home to the heart and conscience. Still there was nothing morbid and no cant of a higher strain of sentiment than he was likely to find in his school. His mind was alive to the most subtle phases of historic criticism then popular in Germany--he did not always seem to think that the truth of the narrative on which he commented had much to do with the reason of its presence in Holy Scripture. The volume of sermons which contains his celebrated discourse on the Interpretation of Scripture consists of strong, masculine treatment of nearly all the most difficult historical puzzles and perplexing passages of Scripture, and he revealed great moral power in his method of lifting them above pettifogging objections, of disdaining frivolous assault on their value, by driving their practical lesson home on the world, the Church, the school, the home. We see perpetually emerging his strong passion for the theory of the relation between the Church and the State, nay, rather the Divine union and ultimate identity of the two. We owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. W. E. Forster for her able discharge of her filial task, and believe that this attractive edition of her father's sermons will prevent the present generation from losing the memory of one of the noblest, holiest, purest, healthiest teachers of the present century. -The Fight of Faith. Sermons Preached on various Occasions. By the Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A. Second Edition. (Henry S. King and Co.) The sheer intellectual force, and fearless human breadth and sympathy of Mr. Brooke, will always secure for his productions a respectful and appreciating perusal. He has always oscillated between the religious preacher and the social or literary lecturer, and, as indicated in this volume, the latter increasingly predominates over the former. We do not mean that the topics selected are exceptional. The religious teacher cannot advance too far into any domain of life. No distinction is more pernicious than that between things secular and things sacred. We refer rather to the spirit that imbues the preaching, and the motives whereby it is enforced. Let inquiries of the things of common life be but rested upon the great evangelical principles of Christianity, and we approach our ideal of what preaching should be. It is in the nearer approach to the level of the social reformer that we think Mr. Brooke's preaching deteriorates. Every volume of Mr. Brooke's is full of strong, manly, cogent thoughts and things, as also of earnest religious meanings, and this is no exception. We only urge that Christ crucified' is still the wisdom and the power of God,' even when dealing with the most transient forms of modern thought and life. - The Life of Christian Consecration. Sermons preached at Leicester. By ALEXANDER MACKENNAL, B.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.) The characteristics which commended Mr. Mackennal's former volume of sermons will bespeak favour for this-a broad human sympathy, an independent and unconventional method, spiritual penetration, and cogent, practical application. Mr. Mackennal never soars into the imaginative or rhetorical domain of the orator, but he is always fresh in form and weighty in matter, and produces effects of a much higher religious value than mere oratory can. He walks firmly the common levels of religious life, and touches wisely and with the hand of a master its common experiences. While the friends at Leicester whom he has left will specially value this volume as a memorial of the able teacher they have lost, its wise, holy, and important lessons will commend it strongly to all who value the healthy nurture of the religious life. Here are thirteen discourses of which any Church might well be proud. Faith in God. Sermons. By the late Rev. JAMES HAMILTON, M.A., Cockpen. Edited by Rev. WILLIAM SCRYMGEOUR, Glasgow. (T. and T. Clark.) Mr. Hamilton was a Free Church minister at Cockpen, who died at a comparatively early age, and from Mr. Scrymgeour's memoir would seem to have been conscientious and devout, and to have had considerable independence and strength of thought. The sermons themselves evince this, although they scarcely justify the superlative eulogies of his biographer. Perhaps we can scarcely judge the preacher from the sermons, which seem to be only summaries of what was spoken. As they are, however, they are far above the average of printed sermons.—— Week-day Evening Addresses. Delivered in Manchester. By ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. (Macmillan and Co.) Eighteen short sermons charged with the emotional and religious power which gives Dr. Maclaren his pre-eminent place among living preachers. Every sentence tells. The whole man preaches, and his preachings touch and lift all that is best in -The Gospel of Forgiveness. A Series of Discourses. By ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D. (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black.) We very gladly welcome an additional volume of discourses culled from the manuscripts of the late Dr. Candlish. As we have read them, our admiration has been kindled afresh at the virile force, the acute perception, the skilful use, the practical cogent purpose of the preacher. Every sentence has a meaning ; every section is carefully and skilfully built into the structure of the sernon; every thought rests on a profound philosophy of Christ's mediatorial work. We may, on some minor points, differ from the conceptions of Dr. Candlish, but the broad outlines of his Evangelical faith are, we think, irrefragable if the New Testament is to be accepted as our authority for the meaning of Christ's mission. The sermons are in every way masterly. us. -Sermons et Homélies. Par ERNEST DHOMBRES, Pasteur de l'Église Réformée de Paris. Première et Deuxième Séries. Paris: Grossart. Monsieur Dhombres is senior pastor of the central Protestant parish of Paris, to which belong the churches of the Oratoire du Louvre and SaintEsprit. These two series of sermons are marked by lucidity of style, by fidelity to the great truths of the gospel, and by devout earnestness of address. As models of chaste and elegant composition, they will afford to English readers an admirable study of the French language. Those who desire to obtain a glimpse of religious life and teaching across the Channel will find these volumes full of suggestive interest. THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. QUARTERLY OCTOBER 1, 1878. ART. I.-The Universities and the Renaissance. (2.) History of the University of Cambridge. By J. BASS (4.) Die Deutschen Universitäten im Mittelalter. Von ZARNCKE. (5.) Histoire de l'Université de Paris. Par J. B. L. CRÉVIER. Paris. 1761. (6.) The English Universities. By V. A. HUBER. Translated by F. W. NEWMAN. London. 1843. (7.) Munimenta Academica. By H. ANSTEY. Rolls Series. 1858. (8.) Athena Oxonienses and History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford. By ANTONY A. WOOD. London: 1813, and Oxford: 1792. (9.) The Renaissance in Italy: Age of the Despots. By J. A. SYMONDS. London. 1875. (10.) The Oxford Reformers. By F. SEEBOHM. Second Edition. London. 1869. (11.) Reformatoren vor der Reformation. Von K. ULLMANN. 1841. (12.) Erasmi Epistola. Lugd. Bat. 1706, fol. (13.) Epistola Obscurorum Virorum. In imp. Ald. Minut. Venet. 1517 ? Ar the present moment, when the members of our two great universities are anxiously awaiting the reports of the Commissioners, and when the cry is ever for reform, it may not be amiss to point out somewhat of the work which these universities have accomplished in old time. The faults of the modern academic system are not those of the Oxford and Cambridge of the Middle Age. In the old colleges, as they then were, the believers in the endowment of research' can find no cause for censure. Striking and unhappy is the contrast between the old and the new state of things. In the Middle Age the universities were, so to say, the mirrors in which was reflected every changing phase in the development of European culture; their influence may be traced in whatever was good and whatever bad in the science, the philosophy, the religion, of the Middle Age. Now it is far otherwise, and it is well that there are scholars like Mr. Bass Mullinger who may remind us of the glories of the past history of these once noble institutions. In the earlier half of the fifteenth century, when the distant thunders of the approaching struggle were threatening from the walls of Constantinople and the city on the Arno, from the mountains of Bohemia and the lowland homes of the Westphalian Mystics, those High Schools, which were to be the scenes of the hottest conflicts in the coming time, might be seen in every part of civilized Europe. If the universities had not advanced in knowledge or energy since their birth in the fantastic enthusiasm of the twelfth century, they had vastly increased in numbers. The three great schools of that brilliant age had quickly been followed by a host of imitators. The thirteenth century had seen Padua and Naples, Salamanca and Coimbra, Montpellier and Toulouse, Oxford and Cambridge, follow in the steps of Paris, Bologna, and Salerno. In the next age Germany, who now justly boasts the nearest approach to the ideal university, came at length to the fore. Prague and Vienna, Heidelberg, Erfurt, and Cologne, formed no mean contingent to the ranks of the academies; and, founded in the same century, Pavia, Ferrara, Rome, Pisa, Palermo, Valladolid, Orleans, and Angers, showed that the Romance countries had not yet yielded the pre-eminence to their Teutonic rivals. The fifteenth century was even more productive of universities. In the earlier part fall the dates of the founding of Leipzig, Greifswald, Rostock, and Würzburg, of Louvain and Aix, Turin and Parma and Valencia ; and later on arose Pesth and Freiburg, Upsala and Copenhagen, Basel and Tübingen, Catania and Saragoza. At the time immediately before the Renaissance, or rather before the conventional date which has been chosen to represent the breaking-forth into life of germs long fertilizing in the social and mental soil of Europe, there were some forty universities, of which by far the greater number were situated Early English Education. 307 in the Romance-speaking countries. These institutions occupied a widely different position from that of the modern university. In the present day, especially in England, there is at least as much learning to be met with outside the universities as within them; in the fifteenth century there was no learning but what they possessed. Now, a thorough education may be obtained without once setting foot within a university: then, almost all education centered itself within academic precincts. A glance at the educational appliances of England in the fifteenth century will serve to show the importance of the universities. There were three ways in which a man might have his son educated' without sending him to the university. He might place him in the house of a great lord or a high ecclesiastic, where he would enjoy the same instruction as a score of other boys, all collected for the same purpose. This was the course usually adopted by noblemen and gentlemen of high family, who wished their sons to develope into courtiers and good swordsmen, and would rather see them hang than study letters.' Letters were for the rustic: a gentleman should know how to blow the horn nicely, to hunt skilfully, and elegantly carry and train a hawk.' Besides these accomplishments, the 'yonker of account' was taught the barest rudiments of grammar and how to read and write, though he seldom put his knowledge of these abstruse arts to a practical test. Of languages, except sometimes a smattering of a peculiar jargon which the monks had dignified with the name of Latin, he was entirely ignorant. Sir Thomas Bulleyn was reported to be the only nobleman at the court of Henry VIII. who was qualified by his knowledge of French to be sent on a foreign embassy. Such was the varnish--it can scarcely be called education-which was given to the sons of the rich and noble. A second mode of teaching was by the help of a private tutor; but this, like the first, was restricted to the richer classes, and afforded pretty nearly the same results as the training at a great house. The third course was sending the boy to a school, either to one attached to a cathedral or monastery or to a grammar-school. * The teaching was much the same at both, save a preponderance of church music in the former. Almost the only subject of instruction, besides the said music, was Latin. The boys were taught to parse with the help of Priscian and Donatus, *Grammar-schools were few and of slight importance before the Renaissance. Probably Winchester (where Grocyn studied before he came to Oxford) was the only grammar-school that did any considerable work before 1450. Cf. Furnivall, Forewords to the Babees Book' (E. E. T. Society), and Anstey, 'Munimenta Academica,' vol. i. Introduction. (Rolls Series.) |