these be the real life of a great school of philosophy and science, will not be sufficient in fact for its establishment; that they will not work to their ultimate end, which is the attainment and propagation of truth, unless surrounded by influences of a different sort, which have no pretension indeed to be the essence of a University, but are conservative of that essence. The Church does not think much of any "wisdom," which is not "desursum,” that is, revealed; nor unless, as the Apostle proceeds, it is "primum quidem pudica, deinde pacifica." These may be called the three vital principles of the Christian student, faith, chastity, love; because their contraries, viz., unbelief or heresy, impurity, and enmity, are just the three great sins against God, ourselves, and our neighbour, which are the death of the soul:-now, these are also just the three imputations which I have been bringing against the incidental action of what may be called the Professorial system.

And lastly, obvious as are the deficiencies of that system, as obvious surely is its remedy, as far as human nature admits of one. I have been saying that regularity, rule, respect for others, the eye of friends and acquaintances, the absence from temptation, external restraints generally, are of first importance in protecting us against ourselves. When a boy leaves his home, when a peasant leaves his country, his faith and morals are in great danger, both because he is in the world, and also because he is among strangers. The remedy, then, of the perils which a University presents to the student, is to create within it those, or better

homes, "altera Trojæ Pergama," such as than those, which he has left behind. Small communities must be set up within its precincts, where his better thoughts will find countenance, and his good resolutions

support; where his waywardness will be restrained, his heedlessness forewarned, and his prospective deviations anticipated. Here, too, his diligence will be steadily stimulated; he will be kept up to his aim; his progress will be ascertained, and his week's work, like a labourer's, measured. It is not easy for a young man to determine for himself whether he has mastered what he has been taught; a careful catechetical training, and a jealous scrutiny into his power of expressing himself and of turning his knowledge to account, will be necessary, if he is really to profit from the able Professors whom he is attending; and all this he will gain from the College Tutor.

Moreover, it has always been considered the wisdom of lawgivers and founders, to find a safe outlet for natural impulses and sentiments, which are sure to be found in their subjects, and which are hurtful only in excess; and to direct, and moderate, and variously influence what they cannot extinguish. The story is familiarly told, when a politician was advocating violently repressive measures upon some national crisis, of a dissentient friend who was present, proceeding to fasten down the lid of the kettle, which was hissing on his fire, and to stop up its spout. Here, in like manner, the subdivision of the members of a University, while it breaks up the larger combination of parties, and makes them more manageable, answers also the purposes of providing a safe channel for national, or provincial, or political feeling, and for a rivalry which is wholesome when it is not inordinate. These small societies, pitted, as it were, one against another, give scope to the exertion of an honourable emulation; and this, while it is a stimulus on the literary exertions of their respective members, is changed from a personal and selfish feeling, into a desire for the reputation of the body.

Patriotic sentiment, too, here finds its home; one college has a preponderance of members from one race or district, another from another; the "Nations" no longer fight on the academic scene, like the elements in chaos; they are submitted to a salutary organization; and the love of country, without being less intense, becomes purer, and more civilized, and more religious.

My object at present is not to prove what I have been saying, either by argument or from history, but to suggest views to the reader which he will pursue for himself. It may be said that small bodies may fall into a state of decay or irregularity, as well as large. It is true; but that is not the question; but whether in themselves smaller bodies of students are not easier to manage on the long run, than large ones. I should not like to do either, but, if I must choose between the two, I would rather drive four-in-hand, than the fifty wild cows which were harnessed to the travelling wagon of the Tartars.

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CHAPTER XVI.

THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES.

ABELARD.

WE

E can have few more apposite illustrations of at once the strength and weakness of what may be called the University principle, of what it can do and what it cannot, of its power to collect students, and its impotence to preserve and edify them, than the history of the celebrated Abelard. His name is closely associated with the commencement of the University of Paris; and in his popularity and in his reverses, in the criticisms of John of Salisbury on his method, and the protest of St. Bernard against his teaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a University professes in its essence, and what it needs for its "integrity." It is not to be supposed, that I am prepared to show this here, as fully as it might be shown; but it is a subject so pertinent to the general object of these Essays, that it may be useful to devote even a few pages to it.

The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on, do but repeat the one message from above which they have ever uttered, since the tongues of fire attested the coming of the Paraclete; still, as time goes on, they utter it with greater force and precision, under diverse forms, with fuller luminousness, and a richer ministration of thought, statement, and argument. They meet the varying wants, and encounter the special resistance of each successive

age; and, though prescient of coming errors and their remedy long before, they cautiously reserve their new enunciation of the old Truth, till it is imperatively demanded. And, as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmises arise, and rumours spread, of what is said in council, and is in course of preparation, and secrets perhaps get wind, true in substance or in direction, though

distorted in detail; so too, before the Church speaks, one d

or other of her forward children speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate to a certain point what she is about to say or enjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it error instead of truth, and risks his own faith in the process. Indeed, this is actually one source, or rather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of some misshapen, huge, and grotesque foreshadow of true statements which are to come. Speaking under correction, I would apply this remark to the heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may be considered a reaction from existing errors, and an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuccessful, to meet them with those divinely-appointed correctives which the Church alone can apply, and which she will actually apply, when the proper moment comes. The Gnostics boasted of their intellectual proficiency before the time of St. Irenæus, St. Athanasius, and St. Augustine; yet, when these doctors made their appearance, I suppose they were examples of that knowledge, true and deep, which the Gnostics professed. Apollinaris anticipated the work of St Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and became a heresiarch in consequence; and, to come down to the present times, we may conceive that writers, who have impatiently fallen away from the Church, because she would not adopt their views, would have found, had they but trusted her, and waited, that she knew how to profit by them, though she never could have need to borrow