CHAPTER XXVIII.

MR. BURGON'S ACCOUNT OF THE SAD STATE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY-CONFIRMED BY THE BISHOP OF OXFORD.— APPEAL OF THE HULSEAN LECTURER IN THE LAST GENERATION TO THE AUTHORITIES AT CAMBRIDGE-NOT UNATTENDED BY SUCCESS.

AMONGST the causes of the advance of Infidelity is the sad state of the Universities-specially that of Oxford, which has been recently described by a resident member.

Mr. Burgon is a Fellow of Oriel, and Vicar of S. Mary-the-Virgin, the church which was occupied by John Henry Newman before he left us. Mr. Burgon is also Gresham Lecturer in Divinity, and a constant resident in Oxford. Consequently he is well acquainted with the state of things at that University, and whatever he publishes as coming within his own knowledge we are bound to receive as truth. It is therefore, with the greatest pain and alarm that we read the following statement:— "In most of the Colleges of Oxford at this instant the religious education of the Undergraduates is neglected altogether. The mischief, I repeat, begins here. We are omitting

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to lay foundations. Quite impossible is it that sacred science can ever flourish in a place where the necessary elements of Christian knowledge are withheld. The men are placed at a grievous disadvantage. They have in fact nothing to build upon. But unhappily they are worse off yet. They do not fail in the meantime to contract doubts, and to communicate to one another lessons of unbelief-unbelief, however, which they are unable to present in any intelligible shape. Men are heard to say that they do not know what to believe; believe nothing; wish they could believe; hope that they shall be able to believe some day. Their familiar associates hold the same language. Not a few have come to me and freely avowed, that though they entered Oxford with the intention of qualifying themselves for the ministry, they have found it impossible to persevere in their intention. The Lecturer (to speak plainly, the Lecturer,) [i.e., the Lecturer in their own College,] and J. S. Mill, and Herbert Spencer, have proved 'too many' for them."

This appears to me the most painful statement which I have heard for many a day-and I fear it is unanswerable. It is not enough for any to say that they do not agree with all of Mr. Burgon's opinions. For what he says is simply a statement of facts which he knows from his own experience-what undergraduates "come to him"

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and tell him. It is not possible to gainsay the facts which he states, and what does his statement amount to? First, it amounts to this—I will quote Mr. Burgon's words-"that the flower of the youth of England. . . . unlearn at Oxford the lessons of piety which were taught them at home; unfortified by religious teaching, they are for three or four years perplexed and harassed by miserable doubts, which are freely insinuated in the Philosophy' lectures and elsewhere: to emerge at last from the atmosphere of unreasoning unbelief, which is just now prevalent, with a darkened conscience, a ruined hope, a shipwrecked Faith." (P. 43.) When we consider that the young men trained at the University are, as Mr. Burgon says, "the flower of the youth of England," the men who, in the course of ten or twenty years, will be occupying the posts of highest influence in Parliament, and in the country generally, how fearful it is to think that the destinies of our country will be placed in the hands of men who have been so trained that "they know not what to believe; believe nothing; wish they could believe," but cannot. They have been so perplexed and harassed by the education which they receive at Oxford that their faith is shipwrecked, their hope ruined, their conscience darkened. An University, which was founded and endowed by the piety of our forefathers, for the

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express purpose of educating the youth of England in the Christian faith, is thus degraded to the worst uses of scepticism and unbelief.

Nor is this the worst. warranted patriotism to

It is no boast of un

say that England, by reason of her colonies and intercourse with all parts of the world, is the most influential promulgator of opinions and principles of any nation in the world. If, therefore, the educated classes in England are thus infected with Infidelity, is it not clear that the taint of corruption will be spread over the habitable globe, that the progress of the Gospel will be checked, and in its place doubt and unbelief, and all the moral evils resulting therefrom, will obtain the ascendancy? Thus the very object of God's merciful dispensation will be frustrated or greatly retarded.

Who are responsible for this sad state of things? I do not like to mention names. We must look back some ten or fifteen years, and inquire who were the most influential men at that period. Is it too late to hope that the perhaps unconscious promoters of these fearful changes may yet repent of the evil they have caused, and use their endeavour to remedy the intellectual and spiritual ruin? They thought, no doubt, that they were combating against bigotry, narrow-mindedness, intolerance, exclusiveness, and so forth. They little thought that their influence would be the means

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of un-Christianizing the University—and destroying many souls. Do they not see their grievous error, and desire to make amends? or has the doom of the unpardonable sin fallen on them?

Mr. Burgon traces the present state of wretched scepticism at the University to two causes-the very general discontinuance of the systematic instruction of the students in Holy Scripture, and the virtual substitution of a sceptical philosophy. Now all this has been brought about in the present generation. I remember, when I myself was an undergraduate some half century ago, there were divinity lectures in each college, at which all the students were expected to attend, and all who went up for degrees were required to pass an examination in divinity. If it be said that no very great proficiency was expected, yet the fact of Christianity being recognized as a sine qua non in the course of education, had the effect of impressing on the minds of the undergraduates its paramount necessity. Besides it must not be forgotten that the lectures of divinity professors, Dr. Burton, Bishop Lloyd, and others, afforded an admirable course of instruction to those who were studying for Holy Orders. Now all this, or the greater part, has been done away with; systematic religious instruction has been set aside; and what has been substituted in its place? Philosophy-a Philosophy not based on religion, but