That the beaten nation always deserves to suffer is a maxim which nothing but a distorted view of Scripture will propound. Berlin is not many degrees above Paris in morality; and France, despite the character given of her in her filthy novels, is certainly not without home life and deep pure home affections.
All that we can say is that we, believing in God's providence, are very sure that, however strangely things may seem to turn out, the course of this world is ordered by Him.
Art. VI.—Religious Tests and National Universities. By F. A. Paley, M.A. Williams and Norgate, 1871.
(2.) Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on University Tests.
Owing to the energy with which Her Majesty's Government have pushed through its earlier stages, the identical Universities Tests Bill which was so adroitly shelved last year by the resolution of the Marquis of Salisbury, we may confidently anticipate that, before these pages reach the public, every hindrance which kept men from the enjoyment of prizes which they had fairly won, and from posts of honour and usefulness which they were well qualified to fill, simply and solely because they were Nonconformists, will be swept away for ever. It would be gratifying if as reasonable a hope could be entertained that the far more stringent and objectionable religious test which is a practical bar to the enjoyment of half the fellowships of Oxford and Cambridge, not only to Nonconformists, but to all such as cannot say they believe in their hearts that they are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost, and called, according to the Will of Our Lord Jesus Christ to His ministry, as defined by the Church of England, would be as speedily removed from the threshold of offices which in no way require, and, practically, are seldom associated with the exercise of this professedly divinely imposed ministry. The progress of events may discredit our hopes or our fears, but this need not prevent a review of the struggle for the abolition of those tests at the universities which are obnoxious to Nonconformists alone, as though it were a thing of the past; nor a prospective glance at the clerical test which is obnoxious to all conscientious laymen who object to give in their adhesion to a complex creed, and hesitate to assume functions which are imposed by the Majesty of Heaven, but defined by the Majesty of Britain. This is the point upon which we must next concentrate our forces.
In the course of a few years it will, no doubt, be a source of wonder that religious disabilities should have been retained at the universities so long after they have been removed from almost all civil and municipal offices throughout the realm. This wonder will certainly not be lessened by an enquiry into the nature of the offices they are supposed to guard, or the value of the emoluments which attach to those offices. That any man otherwise qualified to explain the laws which govern the physical forces of light and heat, or the principles of comparative anatomy, should be cut off from a professorship in these sciences, because he will not conform to a liturgy containing the Athanasian Creed, can never appear less absurd by the lapse of time. A fellowship at one of our colleges, is, as Mr. Paley correctly defines it, wholly and absolutely a sinecure. No duties whatever are required as a condition of its tenure. Fellowships are held by gentlemen who are absent from, as well as by those who are resident at their colleges, and if the residents in any way promote the discipline or education of the students in those colleges, they have extra payment for such services altogether apart from their incomes as fellows. The word 'sinecure,' however, as applied to a fellowship, loses much, if not all the odium usually attached to that term from the fact that fellows are elected absolutely according to their merit as scholars, as that merit is proved by success in the university and college examinations. It seems strange that one-half of the nation should have been so long content to be excluded from participation in the prizes of pure scholarship, when the possession of these, unlike the enjoyment of livings and benefices, involved no duties either lay or cleric. That creed or conformity should be required of those whose sole duty was to enjoy an income of £300 per annum is ridiculous, unless we adopt the theory that the disabilities were meant to be punitive in their character. The same remarks apply to the yet more lucrative headships of colleges. Nor can it be supposed that exclusion from these rewards of learning by a religious test was submitted to because the rewards were insignificant in amount, either singly or in the aggregate. Mr. Paley estimates the gross annual revenue of the two universities and their colleges at half a million of money, £50,000 of which goes to the heads of forty colleges and halls, while 730 fellows enjoy average incomes of not less than £300 a year. Thirty years' residence at Cambridge has given Mr. Paley the right to speak with some authority in these matters, but we think he has understated the amount of these emoluments. We should not be surprised if, at no distant day, a commission of enquiry should reveal, that the gross revenue of these institutions, calculated on the real value of their rapidly increasing property, is double the sum named. The apathy of other sects in not urging more determinedly their claims to have the prizes of the university course open to them, when the course itself is open to all comers, is not to be accounted for on the ground that they can afford to despise those prizes. The explanation lies in the fact that the injustice done them has never till lately assumed a practical and tangible form. The indifference of the English to theoretical grievances is proverbial, and a conjunction of circumstances has tended to mask the character of the injustice.
The circumstances referred to will in a few short years become hard to understand unless we seize the present moment to record them. On the one hand Nonconformists had not yet recovered from the repeated blows dealt upon them by the legislature—blows of which the Act of Uniformity may be taken as a striking example. Content to be tolerated and glad to be hidden, finding neither social comfort nor encouragement in the pursuit of the liberal professions, they sought in commerce a fair field and no favour, and entered on this avocation with an energy which has not a little tended to establish our national importance. At the present time we claim free entrance to the offices and emoluments of our universities, because they are national institutions, but to a dissenter a few years ago the very term national conveyed the idea of exclusion, as it still does in such phrases as 'National Church' and 'National School.' Nonconformists had almost learned to regard themselves as aliens, for so the legislature had taught them to consider themselves. The idea of demanding equal privileges with all other subjects of the Crown, had scarcely entered their thoughts. Hence the universities were regarded by them, as were also the army, navy, and the bar, as inhospitable places where they would be slighted and ignored.
On the other hand the universities them selves had, at the commencement of the present century, fallen from their high estate, and become corrupt, servile, and dead to all the higher aims which should distinguish institutions for learning and education. At that period a very narrow stream of conventional scholarship ran through a very wide meadow of mediocrity, which it never overflowed or irrigated. The modicum of knowledge required of the οἱ πολλοι was contemptible, and every arrangement seemed to be based on the principle of letting through as easily as possible those who could afford to pay, and rendering the course of study of the studious as useless as the nature of study would permit. At the time when Gunning was the repository of university gossip, it is evident that both university and colleges were dishonest in their distribution of both honours and emoluments; they were willing to set the university stamp of education upon men whose only claim to be considered educated consisted in their being able to bear the lavish expenditure of college life. From this depth of degradation the universities have been slowly extricating themselves, while during the same period Nonconformity has been relieving itself from civil disabilities, and increasing in wealth and influence. The two circles, which were once far apart, have by synchronous enlargement at length cut one another. Despite every discouragement, Dissenters began to send their sons to the ancient universities, especially to that of Cambridge. Of those sent up a large proportion were men of great ability. Messrs. Stirling, Aldis, Wilkins, and Hartog—and during the present year Dr. Hopkinson—and many others, obtained the highest places in the competitive examination. These men were no doubt consciously fighting the battle of liberty of conscience in general, and of their co-religionists in particular. The stimulus afforded to their competitors by the prizes incident to a high place in the tripos lists was, in their case, substituted by a desire to break down a system of injustice which oppressed their several sects, and the nobler impulse produced the noblest results. From the time of the triumph of such men the question assumed a new character. The injustice had ceased to be theoretical, and appealed for redress to every right-minded man in language which could neither be misunderstood nor disregarded. The tacit eloquence of unrewarded merit addressed itself most powerfully to the most influential quarters. However averse to self-reform the governing bodies at the universities might be, since they were composed of men who had climbed to their present dignity by the arduous path of study, these could not be altogether without sympathy for men of like ability. Hence the party for the abolition of tests within the universities has wonderfully augmented of late years, and, as is natural, numbers as its own the men of the greatest talent. These tests which had been regarded as the heavy armour of defence began so to gall that they are now looked upon as more cumbersome than useful. Whatever might be the necessity for the maintenance of tests, the incidental evil that men of such industry and acquirement should fail of their appropriate rewards could not but be deplored by all generous minds. Henceforth candid enquirers began to ask what were the uses of tests which were to counterbalance these palpably bad results? and men not celebrated for candour saw the necessity of finding some arguments in their favour.
Attention having been imperatively called to the question of tests, their abolition became certain. Besides the direct injustice done, it was soon perceived that tests inflicted indirect injury upon the whole body of Nonconformists, upon the universities themselves, and on the nation at large. Religion, discredited by her uncharitable janizaries, longed to repudiate them, and both religion and morality discarded safeguards which could exclude the man who was so loyal to the God of truth that he would not violate His truth in the slightest particular, but could include any infidel, provided he were not only infidel to his God, but also to his own conscience.