No layman, except Earl de Grey, supported the principle of
the Bill ; but it found unexpected defenders on the Episcopal Bench. The Archbishop of York declared it unjust to admit Nonconform- ists to the Universities, and then refuse them the rewards due to their toil and learning ; the Bishop of Oxford would vote for the Bill,—first, because it was inevitable ; and secondly, because the
• pious Dissenters who, under it, would enter the Universities, would be allies against the Freethinker; while the Bishop of Exeter boldly grappled with Lord Salisbury's argument. He held that the tests aided the Freethinkers, by creating an impres- sion among all the young men who, in an age of speculation, were arguing out these subjects, that their teachers were not telling them what they believed, that they were tongue-tied by the tests. " A most unhealthy reserve is practised where there ought to be entire frankness of speech." That is, as we have always contended, the very root of the matter. No man who has serious doubts will ever take them to an orthodox clergyman, because he con- siders him pledged by his gown to a particular line of argument, and the effect of the tests is precisely the same as the effect of the profession. The undergraduates, therefore, fight out all such questions among themselves without help, and with precisely the result Lord Salisbury fears,—namely, that the best and bravest minds quit Christianity. The Church loses men, as Dr. Temple says, worth all her endowments put together.
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