of expulsion from the college is also appointed by the statutes for any of the fellows of the college who shall refuse to be ordained Priests, at the termination of seven years, after they shall have taken the degree of Master of Arts.

As the expressions in the cases of heresy and secular profession are almost identical, the expulsion of an heretical member from the college must follow the same rule with the expulsion of a fellow from the college, when he refuses to enter into Priest's Orders. But the lay fellow is merely required to relinquish his share in the college endowments, if he does not choose to enter into the clerical profession, and he always retains his right to vote for members of parliament as a Master of Arts of his own college, at the University elections.

In like manner, the heretical member can merely be excluded from the college endowments, and his right to vote for the representatives of the University in parliament cannot possibly be in the slightest degree affected by this ancient Elizabethan statute: he may therefore always remain a member of the general society of the college, but he cannot be a member of the endowed portion of the college, if the college authorities should exercise the full rigour of their power against him, by the letter of the ancient statutes.

At the present day, however, public opinion would be more likely to declare itself in favour of the martyr than of the inquisitors under such an obnoxious law, and most persons, who are admitted as scholars or fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, hold whatever sentiments they may consider right, entirely independent of the ancient college statutes. Indeed the majority of the scholars have probably never read the college statutes, and may not wish to read them.

The principal duties of the scholars consist in reading the lessons in the daily services of the Church of England, in the college chapel, on which occasion one of the chaplains of the college reads all the prayers.

The audience, frequently consisting of large numbers of students, seldom attend to the service read, and their presence is only enforced by constant punishments and admonitions, and it is found that by far the largest quantity of college punishments are inflicted on the absentees from the chapel services.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the college authorities appear to have been generally contented with the daily attendance of the students at an early morning chapel, and as the hour appointed for this service was five o'clock, this ancient rule might have been allowed to become obsolete, from its own impracticability. Afterwards, however, an evening service was introduced into

the college chapels, possibly by the college authorities, and on the return of the Episcopalian party to power, in 1660, the Act of Uniformity was soon passed, in 1662, which declared:

"That no form or order of common prayers, administration of the sacraments, rites, or ceremonies, should be openly used in any church, chapel, or other public place of or in any college or hall in either of the universities, the colleges of Westminster, Winchester, or Eton, or any of them, other than what was prescribed and appointed to be used in or by the book of Common Prayer."

The use of shorter forms of prayer in the colleges is, however, now recommended by the Dean of Ely, as more advantageous to the cause of religion and good order; and the Dean most sincerely observes, that "those persons who have been most intimately concerned with the superintendence of young men at the University, will be best able to appreciate the painful measures which are not unfrequently necessary to secure regularity of attendance.” In his opinion, "the substitution of a shorter service would remedy many evils of a very embarrassing and distressing nature."

The ostensible object for which the antiquated plan of compulsory attendance at prayers, in the college chapel, has been maintained, is to provide the means of forcing religion upon the notice of the students, an idea which justly belongs to the Elizabethan system of ecclesiastical tyranny, when the last Royal statutes were framed, and when persons of different religious persuasions were compelled to attend the services of the Church of England in their parish church.

Sermons are hardly ever preached in the college chapels, at Cambridge, and the ordinary services of these chapels, even when most decorously performed, are described by the Bishop of St. David's, as remarkable for their chilling languor, their general taciturnity, and their want of almost all the signs of a social worship. Many of the students in a large college are unacquainted with each other, and their inattention to the service is so manifest, that the same learned Bishop declares, that as far as his means of observation extend, the daily service of the college chapel is not a religious service at all, with an immense majority of the congregation, and that to the remaining few, it is the least impressive and edifying that can be conceived.

Indeed, the utter unsuitableness of this compulsory system of attendance at chapel prayers, in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, for the promotion of a religious education, is so obvious, that it has attracted the attention of a learned foreigner, Professor Huber, of Marburg, who has recently published an ela

borate German work on the English Universities. In the second volume of his critical remarks on the Universities, Professor Huber expresses his conviction, that the real result of the daily compulsory system of attendance at divine service in the college chapels is directly the contrary of what was intended, although that attendance is enforced by a severe college police, exercising constant control over the students, in the support of the literal meaning of the statutes, which ordain the attendance of the members of the college on these religious forms. The most frequent punishments, continues the Professor, which are inflicted in the colleges, were awarded in the last century for the absence of the students from chapel, and for disorderly conduct during service time.

This last source of trouble does not, however, exist, to any material extent, at the present day: it is the fashion for the students to conduct themselves in an orderly manner during the reading of the prayers, and college testimonials would be probably refused to any young men who persisted in disorderly conduct in the chapel; but the attendance of the students is frequently an act of self denial, and in the case of Roman Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews, it is necessarily, in many instances, a mere formality.

Whatever other changes may be effected in the chapel system, those young gentlemen who do not belong to the Church of England ought certainly not to be compelled to attend a service in which they cannot conscientiously join, and which they might even consider as a religious test, if the general system of inattention had not almost secularized this ancient religious service, and converted it into a portion of college discipline, to ascertain whether the students are constantly in residence at Cambridge.

When the celebrated petition of the sixty-three heroic members of the Senate of the University of Cambridge was presented to the House of Lords, in 1834, praying for the abrogation of religious tests on lay degrees, the petitioners declared their belief, as Protestant Christians, "that no system of civil or ecclesiastical polity was ever so devised by the wisdom of man, as not to require, from time to time, some modification, from the change of external circumstances, or the progress of opinion." These words illustrate admirably the plain state of the case; the ancient Universities are still governed by laws which belong to a bygone age; their forms, their oaths, and their declarations are not at all in harmony with the modern institutions of the reign of Queen Victoria, and the want of a thorough reform is the source of serious pecuniary loss to the Universities themselves, as numerous highly respectable Dissenters and Roman Catholics

still decline to trust their dearest earthly hopes to be led away from what they regard as a proper respect for the religious faith in which they have been educated.

Some concessions may be easily made on both sides, and as a commencement, perhaps none will be more acceptable than the extension of the degree of Bachelor of Arts, as the wellearned reward of scientific or literary merit at Cambridge; but at this point of academical education, the Church of England may require to be protected, and we should recommend that the provisions of the celebrated act of the 9th Geo. IV. chap. 17, for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, should be nearly followed in the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and that the form of the University test which is thus worded, "I, A. B., do declare, that I am a bona fide member of the Church of England, as it is by law established," should be changed into the following declaration, which is modified in order to admit Professor Sylvester, a Jewish gentleman, who was Second Wrangler in 1837, to his degree of Bachelor of Arts in Cambridge.

"I, A. B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare, that I will never exercise any power, authority, or influence, which I may possess, by virtue of the degree of Bachelor of Arts, to injure or weaken the Protestant Church, as it is by law established in England, or to disturb the said Church, or the Bishops and clergy of the said Church, in the possession of any rights or privileges, to which such Church, or the said Bishops and clergy, are, or may be by law entitled.”

At the same time, we should rejoice if the excellent advice formerly offered by the learned Bishop of St. David's, to the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, were adopted into an Act of Parliament, that the daily services of the college chapels should be discontinued, and that in their place, a weekly service should be established, with sermons, so as to afford the opportunity of real religious instruction to the young men who are members of the Church of England in that form to which they are most accustomed at home. In the opinion of the Bishop, the attendance of the students at these services in the college chapels ought to be purely voluntary, and the number present would of course be proportioned to the interest excited by the services there performed, and the sermons there preached.

So great is the desire for listening to sermons, at present, in Cambridge, that it is expected that a preaching room will shortly be built in the fellows' garden, within the walls of Trinity College, for the students who may wish to attend there.

Dissenters, who have hitherto gone to Cambridge, are de

scribed by the Bishop of St. David's, as belonging to that part of the students, "which includes the quiet, the temperate, the thoughtful, the industrious, those who feel the value of their time, and the dignity of their pursuits. Such dissenters," continues the learned prelate, "we have had, and have now among us-I wish we had more of them: I should think the advantage of their presence cheaply purchased by any share in our endowments, which if all were thrown open to competition, they would be able to obtain."*

At the time when the Bishop wrote these words, he was himself a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and he had then been for several years a tutor of the same college; but his bold declaration of liberal opinions on this subject obliged him to resign his college tutorship, and he has been subsequently rewarded for his moral courage, and his distinguished talents, with the far higher dignity of an episcopal mitre, and a seat in the House of Lords.

J. H.

* Letter on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degrees. Cambridge, 1834.