At Cambridge on Friday week the Senate carried the pro-
posed changes in the statutes relating to Divinity Degrees. By these changes the limitation of the B.D. and D.D. degrees to priests in the Church of England is abolished. At the same time it is made clear that the Regius and the Lady Margaret Professors of Divinity must be in priest's orders of the Church of England. At Oxford on Tuesday Convocation rejected similar reforms by large majorities. The first statute, providing that examiners in the school of theology need not be in priest's orders of the Church of England, was rejected by a majority of 426. The second statute, abolishing the limitation of the B.D. and D.D. degrees to Anglican priests, was rejected by a majority of 429. We congratulate Cam- bridge University on its most sensible decision, and greatly regret the unfortunate vote at Oxford. Theology has every- thing to gain by recognition of the fact that it is a subject of universal intellectual interest. To restrict the honours of the study to a section is in our opinion a policy of obscurantism. To bring in the question of the Establishment is only a con- fusion of the issue. Nonconformist theologians may justly be indignant at the exclusiveness of Oxford, and the material result will be that the study of theology at Cambridge will prosper at the expense of Oxford.
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