THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSITY TESTS' BILL. T HE fate of
Mr. Coleridge's Bill in the House of Lords is a favourable omen for its passing at no very distant date. That it should have reached the Lords at all is a cheer- ing sign, for it shows that Lord Derby dared not make a party question of it in the Commons. But the manner in which it was debated was still more satisfactory, and the division list, in one respect at least, most satisfactory of all. Argument against the Bill there was literally none, unless an appeal ad misericordiam not to meddle with the Universities again so soon can be dignified by that name. All that the Duke of Marlborough could find to say was, that if you abolished University tests you would be unjust to legislate against Ritualism, as if there were any connection between defin- ing the doctrines or practices of the Church of England, and extending certain advantages to those who professedly are not Anglicans. We should have thought that the argument, if anything, told the other way, and that there would be less harm in narrowing the bounds of the Church, if you did not also deprive the men so excluded of valuable educational privileges. But neither this, nor the analogy he afterwards attempted to draw from the Conscience Clause, could have been seriously meant as arguments ; and after all, it mattered very little what was said by a man who had a safe majority behind him. The Bishop of Peterborough, after repeating in a weaker form than usual the old contention that the Universities are not national, asserted, unless he is misreported, that the test excluded only those who reject the essence of Christianity—a statement which is entirely inappli- cable to Cambridge, of which the Bishop doubtless knows very little; and so far as it is true of Oxford, of which he knows a great deal, is strongly in favour of the Bill. It is an old argument against tests that they are valueless against the un- scrupulous; and if what is supposed to be a strict Church of England test is considered by its supporters not to exclude con- scientious Dissenters, of what possible use can it be ? Is it worth while to retain a system which is felt as a great burden by many, and unnecessarily (according to Dr. Jenne) keeps many more from the Universities, in order to persecute a few Socinians and Jews, or that rare creature the conscientious Atheist ? No other prelate spoke against the Bill, not even the Bishop of Oxford, although oratorical instinct must have told him that the course of the debate was strongly in its favour ; and only four voted against it, while the Bishops of London and Chester voted in its favour. No better evidence is wanted that the Church is not endangered by the abolition of tests. The Bishop of London is the chief, at least in rank, of that party in the Church which seeks to make it national in effect as well as in theory, and would be as zealous as any Tory peer to resist anymeasure calculated to impair its influence. The Bishop of Chester was for seventeen years a Theological Professor at Oxford, and was engaged in tuition for many years before that ; if he is not well qualified by experience to judge 'what effect this measure would have on Oxford and on the Church of England, who is qualified ? Nor has any imputa- tion ever been cast upon his judgment, or upon the sincerity of his attachment to the Church ; on the contrary, he was conspicuous in the Council at Oxford for sound practical sense and absence of partizan spirit, and he is High Churchman enough to have been bitterly abused by the extreme Evangelical party in his diocese.
Lord Carnarvon may have had some ground for desiring that this question should stand over for a reformed Parlia- ment, Lord Russell was more certainly right in wishing that all the changes requisite for widening the Universities should be made together. It is obviously better to legislate on a ques- tion as a whole, and not piecemeal, if it be practicable ; and it is unsatisfactory that an expiring power should attempt to bind its successor. But in the interests of the Church of England it is a pity that Lord Derby did not for once resolve to defy his Oxford supporters, instead of putting this question off for a new Parliament, whose temper on such matters it is impossible to foresee. The full and free admission of all to University privileges would be a double advantage to the Church, both in increasing her direct influence and in con- ciliating her enemies. Dissenters coming into a soeiety where the leaders and teachers are Churchmen feel very quickly the spell of higher culture and broader religious views, and if they do not conform, become at least friendly to the Church. So strongly is this felt, even at present, when com- paratively few go to the Universities of which they cannot enjoy the full privileges, that the Roman Catholic priests, though they and their creed have a far stronger hold over their disciples than Baptist ministers, for instance, can possess, set their faces against Roman Catholic youth being sent to Oxford or Cambridge. As with nations, so with sects, mutual ignorance has a great deal to do with mutual feelings of hostility, and better acquaintance is sure to make them better friends. Moreover, the enmity which at present subsists between the Church and the Dissent- ers is to a great extent artificial, the result of many years of warfare, and does not arise from fundamental and irreconcil- able differences. If it were not for old grievances, the Pro- testant Dissenters might at almost any moment be reunited to the Church, which would then be virtually one with the nation. The blind friends of the Church feel that this is true, but impute the continued alienation of the Dissenters to their obstinate hatred, instead of perceiving that the Church, while changing its real position and requirements, has retained its old attitude of menace and exclusiveness. They seem to fancy that the enor- mous growth in the influence of the Church during the last thirty years, has been caused by the nation becoming obedient to her authority, and that they have nothing to do but let the tide run. But, in truth, the Church has entirely changed its character as men awoke once more to a real interest in religion, and has become more compre- hensive than ever before, something like what it might have been made after the Restoration, had prudence and moderation prevailed over bigotry and revenge. Within comparatively few years the High-Church party have Uttempted by judicial proceedings to drive out the Low, the Low Church have re- taliated on the High, and both in concert have striven to expel the Liberals ; but all alike have failed, greatly to, the general advantage. Though, in theory, the formularies of the Church are as binding as ever, yet in practice, thanks partly to their great length and complexity, partly to their real ambiguity, judicial decisions have sanctioned widely different interpretations of them, -and Erasmus's advice, to reduce the necessary creed to a minimum, has virtually been carried out. The Church of England can comprehend all Christians who, one the one hand, do not submit themselves to Rome, and, on the other hand, do not regard episcopal go- vernment as positively wrong ; and it does practically compre- hend nearly all who were not born in allegiance to some other sect. People have learned to consider acceptance of the formularies as a clumsy way of expressing membership of the Church of England, and not to trouble themselves about every proposition in them. It has often been pointed out that retaining tests when they have lost their strict meaning has an immoral tendency ; but it is also impolitic, since a test is a visible challenge to all who were not born members of the Church. Were the Protestant Dissenters not compelled to proclaim themselves such, a far greater number would quietly be absorbed into the Church, especially among the higher classes, who feel its social superiority. Experience shows that many of those who put themselves in contact with, the Church at the Universities, even under present con- ditions, do, in fact, conform, and it is certain that a larger number would do so, if it were not -made a point of honour for them to retain the profession of their original creed. It is difficult to understand how zealous Churchmen fail to see the advantage that a bold and generous course would give to their side, how men can in the same breath assert the absolute truth of their creed, and confess to abject fear lest the slightest adverse influence should prevail over it. But many, every day an increasing number, are learning to see that in this, as in all things, justice and courage are expedient as well as right. We believe that the day may yet come when the Church of England will embrace all except the comparatively few Roman Catholics, the still fewer total disbelievers in the Divinity of Christ, and the trifling residuum of impracticable fanatics. If that day were to dawn to-morrow, we should still be sorry to see the Universities exclude all but Churchmen from their privileges ; but the evil would be very small, not greater perhaps than the harm of ',excluding aliens from Parliament. But while the Church and the nation are not one, while the Establishment and the Dissenters are to each other in the attitude, we do not say in the temper, of a tyrannical sovereign and rebellious subjects, it is of real importance that the Univer- sities, the chief seats of the highest education, should be truly national. It is not denied that the Creed of the Universities should change with that of the nation ; one of the arguments in favour of limiting them to Anglicans is, that the Church of Eng- land inherited them at the Reformation. So long as the State refused officially to recognize any other creeds, even though it tolerated them, it was reasonable enough that the national centres of education should remain limited to those professing the one legal creed ; but now it can no longer be said that the nation is exclusively Anglican. All sects alike are admitted to all national privileges except this one, and justice as well as expediency requires that this distinction also should perish. In truth, the distinction has perished in principle ; the admis- sion of Dissenters to all but governing privileges implies their right to share the Universities, and it is as reasonable that the body which governs a mass of students comprising Dissenters should itself not exclude Dissenters, as that all sects should be free to enter Parliament. The alarmist language of the Duke of Marlborough, about the bad social effects of a mixture of religions opinions is simply puerile. The Bishops of Salis- bury and Carlisle sit on the same bench and come from the same University. Professors Pusey and Jowett are endowed by the same College. Messrs. Mansel and Maurice are both clergymen, both University professors. If such differences exist already within the Church, little more can be added. Outward peace on religious questions means one of two things,— indifference, or suppression of all opinion by external authority. England has never been vivarently N waiiiniQus, t least since the Reformation, as just before the great Puritan outburst, in which Throne and Church perished together. • Nor has the outcry that all education will thereby be secularized much more meaning. When it was pro- posed at Oxford to give men degrees for honours in one of the non-classical schools, without the necessity of passing the final classical school, the Conservatives used strong lan- guage about the infinite value of classical training, concealing entirely the fact that all the classical learning to be surren- dered in the case before them was a cram knowledge of frag- ments of two classical authors. In the same way, they talk now as if the special theology of the Church of England was the main subject of University-education. It is a pity Lord Camperdown, who took a first-class but four years ago, did not state to the House exactly the amount of theology he was taught at Balliol or examined upon in the schools. Similarly, they confound religion in general with distinctive Anglican- ism, and a late Head, of a College was not ashamed to assume' that with the abolition of tests Atheism would grow powerful in Oxford. He ought to know that there is no place in Eng- land where religious influences of very diverse kinds are so active, where the religious controversies which are stirring English society to the centre are so keenly felt. Cambridge may be more peaceful, but it is hardly less alive to all these questions. Religion has too strong a hold upon this genera- tion to need the artificial support of tests, and truth is not so - tender a plant as to die if ekposed to the air.
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