rife in Oxford, should have been moulded into a novel form by the peculiar spirit of the place, that sort of religious aristocratical chivalry so catching to young men, to students, and to members of the aristocracy, and still more, by the revival of the spirit of the Nonjurors in two or three zealous and able men, who have given a systematic character to the whole. The very same causes produced the same result after the Reformation in the growth and spread of Jesuitism. No man can doubt the piety of Loyola and many of his followers; yet, what Christian, in England at least, can doubt that, as Jesuitism, it was not of God; that it was grounded on falsehood, and strove to propagate falsehood? So, again, the Puritans led to the Nonjurors; zealous, many of them, and pious, but narrow-minded in the last degree, fierce, and slanderous; and, even when they were opposing that which was very wrong, meeting it with something as wrong or worse. Kenn, and Hickes, and Dodwell, and Leslie, are now historical characters; we can see their party in its beginning, middle, and end, and it bears on it all the marks of an heresy and of a faction whose success would have obstructed good, and preserved or restored evil. Whenever you see the present party acting as a party, they are just like the Nonjurors, busy, turbulent, and narrow-minded; with no great or good objects, but something that is at best fantastic, and generally mischievous. That many of these men, as of the Nonjurors and of the Jesuits, are far better than their cause and principles I readily allow; but their cause is ever one and the a violent striving for forms and positive institutions, which, ever since Christ's Gospel has been preached, has been always wrong, - wrong, as the predominant mark of a party; because there has always been a greater good which needed to be upheld, and a greater evil which needed to be combated, even when what they upheld was good, and what they combated was bad. And if this same spirit infected the early Church also, as from the circumstances of the times and the position of the Church it was exceedingly likely to do, if it infected all the eminent ecclesiastical leaders whose power and influence it was so eminently fitted to promote, if they by their credit, (in many respects most deserved,) persuaded the Church to adopt it, shall we dignify their error by the specious name of the " Consent of Antiquity," and call it an 66 Apostolical Tradition," and think that it should guide us in the interpretation of Scripture; when we see distinctly

same

in the Scripture itself that this very same spirit was uniformly opposed to our Lord and His Apostles, and when it is one of the commonest sophisms which History exposes, that the principle of error which a great truth had dislodged, should disguise itself in the outward form, and borrow the nomenclature of the system which had defeated it; and then assert that its nature is changed, and that the truth no longer condemns it, but approves it? "If we had lived in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers in the blood of the Prophets." "Paul rightly condemned trusting to circumcision, but baptism is quite another thing." Whereas all the Newmanite language about baptism might be, and probably was, used by the Jews and Judaizers about circumcision; the error in both is the same; i. e. the teaching that an outward bodily act can have a tendency to remove moral evil; or rather, the teaching that God is pleased to act upon the spirit through the body, in a way agreeable to none of the known laws of our constitution; a doctrine which our Lord's language about meats not defiling a man, "because the do not go into the heart, but into the belly," puts down in every possible form under which it may attempt to veil itself.

CLXXVII. *TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ.

Rugby, March 4, 1838.

You have my most hearty congratulations on your success in the Examination, which I believe few will more rejoice at than I do. I cannot regret you being bracketed with another man; for, judging by my own feelings about you, his friends would have been much grieved if he had been below you; and when two men do so well, there ought, according to my notions, to be neither a better nor a worse of them. Thank you much for your kindness in sending the Class paper, and for your Declamation, which I like very much. How glad shall I be to see you when your Medal Examination is over, and when, the preparation for life being ended, you will begin to think of life, its actual self. May it be to us both, my dear Vaughan, that true life which begins and has no end in God. My wife and the children fully share in our joy on your account, and join in kindest remembrances.

CLXXVIII.

TO THE EARL OF BURLINGTON.

(Chancellor of the University of London.)

Rugby, March 17, 1838.

I fear that I may be too late in offering the following sug

X gestions, but I had not observed the progress of the Committees,

till I found by the reports, which I received this morning, that a resolution had been passed, but not yet, I believe, confirmed, to adopt the recommendation of the Vice-Chancellor, that the examinations should be conducted entirely through the medium of printed papers. I think that is a point on which the experience of Oxford, entirely confirmed in my judgment by my own experience here, is well deserving of consideration, because we habitually use and know the value of printed papers, and we know also the advantages to be derived from a vivâ voce examination, of which Cambridge has made no trial. I think that these advantages are much too great to be relinquished by us altogether.

1st. The exercise of extempore translation is the only thing in our system of education, which enables a young man to express himself fluently and in good language without premeditation. Wherever it is attended to, it is an exercise of exceeding value; it is, in fact, one of the best possible modes of instruction in English composition, because the constant comparison with the different idioms of the languages, from which you are translating, shows you in the most lively manner the peculiar excellences and defects of our own; and if men are tried by written papers only, one great and most valuable talent, that of readiness, and the very useful habit of retaining presence of mind, so as to be able to avail one's self without nervousness of all one's knowledge, and to express it at once by word of mouth, are never tried at all.

2d. Nothing can equal a vivâ voce examination for trying a candidate's knowledge in the contents of a long history or of a philosophical treatise. I have known men examined for two hours together vivâ voce in Aristotle, and they have been thus tried more completely than could be done by printed papers; for a man's answers suggest continually further questions; you can at once probe his weak points; and, where you find him strong, you can give him an opportunity of doing himself justice, by bringing him out especially on those very points.

3d. Time is saved, and thereby weariness and exhaustion

of mind to both parties. A man can speak faster than he can write, and he is relieved by the variety of the exercise.

4th. The éclat of a vivâ voce examination is not to be despised. When a clever man goes into the schools at Oxford, the room is filled with hearers of all ranks in the University. His powers are not merely taken on trust from the report of the examiners; they are witnessed by the University at large, and their peculiar character is seen and appreciated also. I have known the eloquence of a man's translations from the poets and orators and historians, and the clearness and neatness of his answers in his philosophical examination, long and generally remembered, with a distinctness of impression very different from that produced by the mere knowledge that he is in the first class. And in London, the advantages of such a public vivâ voce examination would be greater of course than anywhere else, because the audience might be larger and more mixed.

5th. Presence of mind is a quality which deserves to be encouraged nervousness is a defect which men feel painfully in many instances through life. Education should surely

attach some reward to a valuable quality which may be acquired in great measure by early practice, and should impose some penalty or some loss on the want of it. Now, if you have printed papers, you effectually save a man from suffering too much from his nervousness; but if you have printed papers only, you do not, I think, encourage as you should do the ex'cellence of presence of mind, and the power of making our knowledge available on the instant.

6th. It is an error to suppose that no exact judgment of a man can be formed from a vivâ voce examination. Like all other things, such an examination requires some attention and some practice on the part of those who conduct it; but all who have had much experience in it are well aware that, combined with an examination on paper, it is entirely satisfactory. In fact, either system, of papers, or of vivâ voce examination, if practised exclusively, does but half try the men. Each calls forth faculties which the other does not reach equally.

As it is not in my power to be present at the next meetings of the University, I have ventured to say thus much by letter. I trust that I shall not be thought presumptuous in having done so.

CLXXIX. *TO DR. GREENHILL.

Rugby, May 15, 1838.

I have been lately writing and preaching two sermons on the subject of prophecy, embodying some views which you may perhaps have heard from me six years since, for they have been long in my mind, although I never put them out fully in writing. I have some thoughts of publishing them now, in Oxford, with something of a Preface, developing the notions more fully. But, ere I do this, as I have never found anything satisfactory on the subject, I wish to learn from one who admires and knows pretty thoroughly, the writings both of the early Christian writers and of those of the Church of England, what he would recommend, as containing a good view of the nature and interpretation of prophecy. This I know you can learn from Pusey, and I should be much obliged to you to ask him; nor should I object to your saying that you are asking for me; only you need not say anything of my intended publication, which indeed is a very hypothetical intention after all. I wish sincerely to read what Pusey, and those who think with him, consider as good on any subject; on this particular one I do not know that their views would differ from mine. My small respect for those writers whom Pusey admires has been purely the result of experience: whenever I have read them, I have found them wanting. I should be very honestly glad to find some one amongst them who would give me the knowledge which I want.

We are all tolerably well, but the weather is almost painful to me; it seems to inflict such suffering on all nature.

CLXXX. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Rugby, May 18, 1838.

The first volume of Rome will be out on Wednesday, and you will receive your copy, I hope, immediately. I ask for your congratulations on the termination of this part of my labors, whatever may be the merits or success of the book. One object of publishing it in separate volumes is, that the sensible criticisms on the first may be of use to its successors. I hope that I shall have some such, and I shall receive them very thankfully. I want hints as to points which require examination, for I may pass over things through pure ignorance, because I may know nothing about them; but as to the great