effectively discussed, and quite impossible that the discussion should result in legislation.

The number of those who signed the petition must be compared, as Mr. Gladstone justly remarked, not with that of Convocation at large, but with that of the much smaller body of men who hold or have held headships, professorships, fellowships, or tutorships, and have thus not merely possessed the academical franchise, but been really connected with the University. It must also be regarded, as Mr. Gladstone emphatically avowed, not merely as a stationary quantity, but as indicative of a growing feeling in the University; in which, twenty years ago, probably not a tenth of the number would have been found ready to sign a similar petition. And further, the number of clerical signatures must be estimated as having been obtained in the face of a hostile feeling on the part of the clergy generally, falling little short of professional terrorism, which vents itself in the gravest imputations against teachers of Christianity, convicted, by their own act, of believing that reason and conscience, when left unfettered by political tests, will bear free witness to Christian truth.

It has been said that the petitioners ought to have applied in the first instance to the University: and that they were guilty of a breach of academical loyalty in going at once to Parliament for relief. No one can feel more strongly than the writer of these pages, no one, when there was occasion, has more earnestly asserted the expediency of keeping the great places of national education independent of the political government of

the country and of the influences by which, especially under the system of Party, that government is controlled. No one can be more sensible of the evils which arose, both to the University and the nation, when Oxford, the common heritage of Englishmen, became, through unhappy accidents, the miserable tool of the Jacobite faction; and which would again arise if ever she should be made the tool of a similar faction again. But as regards the present question, it is to be observed, in the first place, that these tests were, in fact, imposed from without by the arbitrary exercise of a political power which was then vested in the Crown and exerted through Chancellors nominated by the Sovereign, but which has now passed into the hands of the Legislature, and carried with it the responsibility for the maintenance of the tests. In the second place, it is to be observed that to the University, in the proper sense of the term, it is idle to apply, since she is not a free agent in the matter. The great majority of Convocation consists of clergymen not resident in the University, nor much touched by academical needs or sympathies, who come on theɛe occasions to vote-and can be little blamed for voting -with a single eye to the objects and interests, necessarily and perhaps rightly paramount in their minds, of the clerical profession. To ask such a Convocation to repeal religious tests would seem rather like an act of ironical mockery, especially if the inevitable refusal were to be followed by an appeal to Parliament, than like a tribute of allegiance and respect.

What is it that actually takes place when these questions are brought before us in Convocation? The term before last, the Council proposed a petition against Mr. Bouverie's bill for enabling colleges, if they thought fit, to admit candidates to fellowships without tests of religious opinion. When Convocation assembled it was evident that the members really engaged in the work of the University, to whom arguments founded on the claims of academical industry and the expediency of extending the benefits of the University, might have been addressed with some hope of success, and with not a few of whom such arguments did in fact prevail, were swamped by clergymen having only clerical objects and interests, whom such arguments would not only have failed to move, but perhaps have hardened in their determination. It was therefore of little consequence, that, by a strained construction (as many thought) of the medieval statute forbidding us to speak in English, we were denied liberty of debate, and compelled to agree not only to the prayer of the petition, but to a whole string of what appeared to opponents very questionable reasons, without discussion and in the lump.

Parliament has already taken the subject in hand. It has interposed so far as to abolish the tests at Matriculation, and on the Bachelor's degree, and thus to save us for the future from the crime (for it deserves no milder name) of oppressing and corrupting, for political purposes, the consciences of boys. But this measure of relief, in favour of which not only a regard for morality, but almost the voice of decency

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and humanity might seem to plead, was opposed by the clerical party in the University, and by the allies of that party in the House of Commons. Much more would the same party oppose and defeat any further measure of emancipation, if it were brought forward within the University in the manner which our opponents prescribe.

We are not guilty then of any disrespect towards the University, or of any want of regard for her real independence, in making our appeal to statesmen for her emancipation from restrictions which we sincerely believe to be injurious to her utility and greatness as a national place of "religion, learning, and education."

The statesmen to whom the appeal will be made will not be those who are indifferent to the first of these three objects. On the contrary, some of the arguments to be tendered are such as no statesman could entirely appreciate who had not grasped the truth, which is as much one of political philosophy as of Revelation, that religion is the foundation of society. At the same time, to entertain any proposal of change a man must, no doubt, be so far a liberal as to be willing to submit all human institutions (from the number of which religious restrictions imposed by the Legislature, or by the Crown, will scarcely be excepted) to the test of reason and morality; and to believe it possible, at least, that the progress of society, continued through all the ages, may not have been arrested for ever at the exact point at which the present generation stands. And, in the same way, it is

of course idle to plead for liberty of any kind to a man who has made up his mind, on grounds supposed to be above reason and conscience, that all desire of liberty is rebellious wickedness, and that the prevalence of such a desire is a sign that the nations are given over to the Spirit of Evil, and that the world is drawing towards its end.

There are two questions at issue, in principle distinct from each other, which it is necessary to a right understanding of the subject, and the fairest course towards our opponents, to discuss separately, though they are intimately connected together, and may perhaps practically run into one. The first question re

lates to the maintenance of the existing tests. The second question relates to the confinement of the Universities, or at least of their higher honours, franchises, and emoluments, to the members of the Established Church. The system of exclusion might be maintained in full force with less stringent tests than the present, or indeed without any tests at all. England and Spain are now, it is believed, the only countries in which the Universities are not free. In Spain, besides the general security given by the penal suppression of all religions but that established by the State, each candidate for admission is, or was till lately, required to produce a certificate from a priest. Such a certificate, if demanded of every candidate for the higher degrees, or for a fellowship in the University of Oxford, would fully serve the purpose of exclusion: and it might be given by the priest without putting any actual test of doctrine, from his