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 L I B RARY 
 
 O F THE 
 
 U N I V ERS ITY 
 
 or 1 LLl NOIS
 
 THE UWIYEESITY SERMON 
 
 AND 
 
 COLLEGE SEE VICES. 
 
 A LETTEE 
 
 ADDEESSED TO 
 
 THE VICE-CHANCELLOR, 
 
 CHARLES WALDEGRAVE SANDFORD, M.A., 
 
 SENIOR CENSOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD; 
 CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON ; AND LATE WHITEHALL PREACHER. 
 
 JOHN HENEY and JAMES PAEKER. 
 1865.
 
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 Mt dear Mr. Yice- Chancellor, 
 
 The Memorial on the subject of the University 
 Sermons which I sent you the other day would have 
 received a larger number of signatures, had it been 
 expressed in more general terms. Few of those to 
 whom I have spoken think our present arrangement 
 respecting the hours of University Sermons and of 
 College Services perfect. Most think a change de- 
 sirable, but they are unable to decide what this 
 change should be. Our chief difficulty arises from 
 the fact that St. Mary's is a Parish Church, and is 
 required for a Parish Service as well as for the Uni- 
 versity Sermons. The Yice- Chancellor, I believe, has 
 power to fix the time of the University Sermons. 
 This of course he would be unwilling to exercise, so 
 as to interfere with the Parochial Service, but I am 
 sure an arrangement might without much difficulty 
 be effected, which would satisfy the requii'ements both 
 of the University and of the Parish. 
 
 So far as this question concerns the University 
 alone, there are three classes of persons whose inter- 
 ests should especially be considered. First and chiefly, 
 the Undergraduates who are not accustomed to attend 
 the University Sermon ; secondly, the Undergraduates 
 who have lately addressed memorials to the Autho- 
 rities in their several Colleges praying for a weekly 
 Communion; and last, but not least, the College 
 Servants. I do not mention the Tutors; for it is 
 not their convenience, as they themselves would be 
 the first to acknowledge, that ought specially to be 
 consulted, but the good of those who are committed 
 to their care. A Tutor's pupils are his parish, and as 
 an ordinary parish miuister in the arrangement of the 
 Sunday Services does not consider what is agreeable 
 to himself, but what is most conducive to the interests
 
 of his parishioners, so it is not for us to object to any 
 scheme that may be proposed, that it would deprive 
 us of our morninp^ or afternoon walk, but to reflect 
 whether it will help our pupils to observe Sunday 
 better than many of them now observe it. 
 
 I have spoken of the Undergraduates whose habit 
 it is not to attend the University Sermon, as the per- 
 sons whose interests should first be consulted, and for 
 this reason among others, that they form the vast 
 majority. That such is the case is evident from the 
 fact that it is only to hear some well-known preacher 
 that the University Church is filled ; and, when filled, 
 it contains at most four hundred Undergraduates, 
 whereas there are fifteen or sixteen hundred now in 
 residence. Besides, our first thought surely should 
 be in this, as in all other matters, how best to take 
 care of those who either cannot or will not take care 
 of themselves. Those who have been brought up in 
 religious households, and have been loyal to the prin- 
 ciples of their early training, may with safety be left 
 to themselves. Whatever change we may make in the 
 Services, they are not likely to spend Sunday badly. 
 The persons whom we wish to influence are those 
 who never attend the University Sermon, and who 
 consequently, except in those Societies where College 
 Sermons are preached, never hear a word of warning 
 or advice addressed to them from the pulpit, from 
 the day they enter the University to the day they 
 leave it. By our present system they are left with 
 nothing given them to occupy their thoughts from 
 nine, or at the latest ten o'clock, in the morning, 
 when the Morning Service is over, till four o'clock, or 
 even later in the afternoon, when the Evening Service 
 begins. No wonder that Sunday is in some Colleges 
 a favourite day for breakfast parties and luncheons, 
 and for idling in the College quadrangles. A heavy 
 responsibility surely rests witn College Authorities, 
 who having in their hands the arrangement of the 
 Sunday Services in their several Societies, see such 
 men pass before them Sunday after Sunday as they
 
 leave the College Chapel, but in spite of the example 
 which you in Exeter College have set us, let the 
 golden opportunity slip of giving a few words of 
 counsel to them from the pulpit. We are accus- 
 tomed to preach to others of wasted opportunities : do 
 we in this matter make the most of our own ? 
 
 It is urged that sermons are provided by the Uni- 
 versity, which it is the duty of all Undergraduates to 
 attend. But, it may be answered, the Statute re- 
 specting attendance at the University Sermon is ob- 
 solete. It cannot be enforced. There is not room in 
 St. Mary's, still less in Christ Church Cathedral, for 
 a fourth part of the residents. A Proctor who at- 
 tempted to enforce the Statute would have to fine for 
 non-attendance not only Undergraduates, but Tutors, 
 Professors, and Heads of Colleges. In fact the Statute 
 was framed at a time when University and College 
 discipline was a very different thing from what it now 
 is. The Undergraduates were j^ounger. More im- 
 portance was attached to the "hearing of sermons," 
 as there were then few printed books, and sermons 
 were the principal vehicle of religious instruction. To 
 restore the state of things contemplated by the Statute 
 is an impossibility. Moreover the University Seraion 
 is in many cases a stately essay, uninteresting and un- 
 intelligible to Undergraduates of the class of which I 
 am speaking, dealing it may be with deep doctrines of 
 theology, about which they know nothing, or with 
 questions of controversy, of which, fortunately for 
 them, they have never heard before. What is wanted 
 for such men is a practical sermon preached to them 
 in their College Chapel by a person whom they know, 
 and who knows them, and who can therefore speak to 
 them with effect of their special temptations and short- 
 comings. Of course sermons will not of themselves 
 make men better ; they will not of themselves raise up 
 the spirit of prayer in their hearts, or breathe warmth 
 and life into their devotions: yet may they do something 
 to soften the callous, to awaken the thoughtless and 
 indifferent, to stir us all to live up to the pleadings of
 
 our higher nature. "What is required for the ordinary 
 Undergraduate is a service at an hour that would 
 raake his Oxford Sunday more like a Sunday else- 
 where — a service which would keep up the recollection 
 of the church of his home, and put an end to the idle 
 lounging in which he often now spends it, from 
 having the obligatory duties of the day over at so 
 early an hour. 
 
 The persons whose interests should next be taken 
 into account are the Undergraduates who have 
 asked for an opportunity of receiving the Holy Com- 
 munion weekly. This service should be a separate 
 service. There probably are many Undergraduates who 
 make it a rule never to turn their backs on the Lord's 
 Table, but who nevertheless might feel a reluctance 
 to attend more than once, or at most twice a month. 
 This rule they would be tempted to break, unless the 
 Holy Communion were ordinarily a separate service. 
 It should also be the earliest service in the day. 
 Many of those who have petitioned for a weekly Com- 
 munion, ask that it should be an early service; and 
 without staying to discuss the ground of their request, 
 we ought if possible to grant what they ask. We 
 should also, I think, consult the feelings of those who 
 might hesitate to cross in their surplices a crowded 
 quadrangle in the middle of the day. It is not simply 
 want of moral courage which might produce this 
 hesitation, but the dislike of appearing to be better 
 than their companions, or of tacitly rebuking their 
 friends whom they might have to pass on their way 
 to the College Chapel. If, then, the Holy Communion 
 and Morning Prayer are to be separate services, and 
 both are to be over before the University Sermon, it 
 is evident that to enable us to attend all three con- 
 veniently the University Sermon should be at a later 
 hour than 10,30 a.m. 
 
 Lastly, there remain the College Servants. In some 
 of the Colleges, according to our present arrangements, 
 it is impossible for the Servants to go to church on 
 Sunday. In fact, Sunday is found by them, in some
 
 Colleges, to be one of the busiest days in the week. 
 For this reason, if for no other, the Morning Service 
 should be held at a later hour than it is at present, 
 that it would thus bring breakfast parties to an end, 
 and set College Servants free in time to attend their 
 parish church. 
 
 The arrangement to which these remarks point 
 is — Holy Communion at 8 a.m. : Morning Prayer at 
 10, when a College Sermon might occasionally be 
 preached : the Morning Universit}^ Sermon at 12. 
 
 If College Authorities would undertake to provide 
 a College Sermon, the Afternoon University Sermon 
 might be abolished : or, in its place, an Evening Ser- 
 mon might be substituted, to be preached in Christ 
 Church Cathedral, with the consent of the Dean and 
 Chapter, St. Mary's Church being wanted in the even- 
 ing for the Parish Service. An Evening University 
 Sermon possibly would not be popular with the Se- 
 nior Members of the University ; but the numbers of 
 Undergraduates that attend the Evening Service in 
 the parish churches of Oxford, and the numbers that 
 attend the Evening Lenten Services, seem to shew 
 that an Evening Sermon, if of a practical character, 
 would be popular with them. 
 
 The need of some change in the arrangement of 
 the Morning Services has been present to my thoughts 
 for several years. It has been brought home to me 
 more forcibly, it may be, than to others, because I live 
 in a large quadrangle, containing nearly a hundred 
 sets of rooms, all, except my own, occupied by Under- 
 graduates. I cannot but feel, ho \y ever, that for the 
 success of this proposal it would have been better that 
 it had been advocated by a member of another Society. 
 I know the objection that will be brought against it. 
 It will be said by some that it is a plan to sacrifice 
 the interests of the University to the special interests 
 of Christ Church. This, however, is not the case. 
 Christ Church is not the only Society in which there 
 are Undergraduates who do not attend the University 
 Sermon. The fact that in the University Church
 
 8 
 
 there is accommodation provided for no more than 
 one-fourth of the Undergraduates proves this. Neither, 
 on the other hand, is Christ Church the only Society 
 in which there are Undergraduates who have asked 
 for the opportunity of receiving the Holy Communion 
 weekly. Before long, I hope, the Holy Communion 
 will be administered weekly in every College. 
 
 In the hope of bringing this subject before the 
 notice of the University, I should be glad if you 
 would allow me to publish this letter. I trust that 
 Members of Congregation will consider the question 
 carefully and impartially, not regarding their own 
 convenience, nor the interests of their own Society 
 alone, nor the interests of any class exclusively, but 
 the general good of the whole community. 
 Believe me to be 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 CHARLES WALDEGEAYE SANDFOED. 
 
 Nov. 20, 18G5. 
 
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