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 Gentlemen, 
 
 By Section 32 of the " Universities of Oxford 
 and Cambridge Act, 1877" it is provided that the 
 Commissioners appointed under that Act shall, in the 
 case of any College in Oxford, give notice of any 
 changes that they propose to make in the Statutes of 
 the College, to the Visitor of the College which will 
 be affected by such changes. 
 
 By the courtesy of the Oxford University Com- 
 missioners I have received a preliminary intimation, 
 at an earlier date than the Act requires, and with a 
 view of preparing me for the consideration of the 
 official notice which I may expect to receive hereafter, 
 under the provisions of that Section. 
 
 The proposed changes which have been communi- 
 cated to me, and on which I should be thankful for 
 your opinion, concern the relation of the Bishop of 
 Lincoln to your College as successor and representative 
 of its two Founders, occupants of the See of Lincoln 
 in the 15th century. Bishop Fleming and Bishop 
 Rotherham ; and as Visitor of the College. 
 
 The Bishop of Lincoln has held the office of Visitor 
 since its foundation. Even so lately as the year 1855, 
 in page 7 of the Revised Code of the Statutes, approved
 
 by the University Commissioners appointed by Parlia- 
 ment, are the following words declaring that the 
 Bishop of Lincoln shall be perpetual Visitor of the 
 College : — " Statuimus quod Episcopus Lincolniensis, 
 pro tempore existens, Patronus Collegii nostri et 
 Visitator exislat et nvncupetur in perpetuum.'^ 
 
 Bishop Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln a.d. 1420-1431, 
 one of the two Founders of Lincoln College, endowed 
 it with the Rectorship and Seven Fellowships. 
 
 Bishop Rotherham, the other Founder of the 
 College, and Bishop of Lincoln 1472-1480 — endowed 
 it with Five more Fellowships. The Venerable 
 Edward Darby, Archdeacon of Stow, in the Diocese 
 of Lincoln, founded Three more Fellowships in the 
 College, A.D. 1536 ; and it was provided that the 
 appointment to one of the Fellowships should be 
 vested for ever in the Bishop of Lincoln ; as the 
 revised Code of the Statutes of 1855 expresses it 
 (p. 4), " e quibus unum per Domimim Episcopum 
 Lincolniensem in perpetuwn nominari statittum estJ^ 
 
 Such are the provisions of the Statutes of Lincoln 
 College with regard to the Visitor of the College, and 
 to one of the Fellowships founded and endowed by 
 two Bishops of Lincoln and an Archdeacon of that 
 Diocese. 
 
 I am now informed that it is proposed to do two 
 things —
 
 (1) To remove the Bishop of Lincoln from the 
 office of the Visitor of your College ; and to confer 
 that office on the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 (2) To deprive the Bishop of Lincoln of the right 
 to appoint to the said Fellowship. 
 
 These alterations, I am told, are not intended to 
 to take effect while I occupy the See of Lincoln, but 
 to come into operation at the next avoidance of it. 
 
 This, therefore, is not a personal question. Indeed, 
 under no circumstances could I regard it as such. 
 
 I am also informed that these changes are in 
 accordance with the wishes and recommendations of 
 three pey^sons who have been chosen by the Governing 
 Body of your College, under clause 36 of the Lniver- 
 sities Act of 1877, as " Commissioners •to represent 
 the College in relation to the making of Statutes for 
 the College." 
 
 Id is right that this should be known ; because as 
 the present Lord Chancellor is Chairman of the Oxford 
 University Commission it might perhaps have been 
 thought by some who do not know him, that Lord 
 Selborne had exercised his influence as such to 
 transfer the office of Visitor from the Bishop of 
 Lincoln to himself. 
 
 I confess that I do not feel any satisfaction in 
 hearing that the future destinies of our ancient and 
 noble foundations, such as the Colleges of our two 
 great Universities, are dependent, in a considerable 
 degree, on opinions and feelings of three individuals 
 in each College, who may be excellent men, but who,
 
 as far as I know, are anonymous and irresponsible, 
 and happen for the time being to be in favour with 
 those who constitute " the Governing Body " for the 
 time being, and who now, in the case of Lincoln 
 College, are not more than eleven persons. 
 
 Everything of importance connected with these 
 Institutions ought, I conceive, to be made publicly 
 known before it is resolved upon, so that the members 
 of them may not be taken by surprise, and not hear 
 of it for the first time when it is too late to act. 
 
 It is for this reason that I address this letter 
 to you. 
 
 I appeal from an unknown Triumvirate to all the 
 Members of Lincoln College, who are deeply interested 
 in its welfare, and have a right to be informed what 
 changes in its constitution are now contemplated. 
 
 My regret is not diminished when I come to 
 examine the only recommendations of the three 
 Collegiate Commissioners which have been communi- 
 cated to me, and which I have just specified, and to 
 be told the reasons alleged in favour of those recom- 
 mendations. 
 
 The ofiice of Visitor to your College has been held 
 by Bishops of Lincoln for more than four hundred 
 years. It is now proposed that they should be deprived 
 of it, and that it should be conferred on the Lord 
 Chancellor. 
 
 If no great and certain good can be proved to be a 
 consequence of such a transfer as this, then I venture 
 to think that it ought not to be made.
 
 It is equivalent to a censure on the Founders, who 
 gave their benefactions on certain conditions, one of 
 which was that their successor in the See of Lincoln 
 should be Visitor ; and it is tantamount to a con- 
 demnation of the practice of the College since its 
 foundation. 
 
 To sever the connexion between Lincoln College 
 and the See and Cathedral of Lincoln — a connexion 
 prescribed and constituted by the Bishops of Lincoln 
 to whom its foundation and endowments are due — 
 and to snap asunder the chain of continuity which has 
 existed for four hundred years, seems — I confess, to 
 me, to be an act of reckless innovation, shewing a 
 miserable lack of that spirit of gratitude, reverence, 
 and affection, which is one of the noblest elements of 
 our nature spiritualized by grace, and a deplorable 
 absence of that imaginative faculty which dignifies 
 humanity, and ennobles our English Listitutions, by 
 associating them with past ages, and with the memories 
 of many centuries ; and it appears to be characteristic 
 of that puerile fickleness and feebleness and capricious 
 love of change which is one of the surest signs of 
 intellectual poverty and spiritual sterility, and one 
 of the plainest tokens of national degeneracy and 
 degradation. 
 
 I was therefore anxious to hear the causes which 
 appeared to the three Representatives of your College 
 to require and justify this innovation. 
 
 The reason assigned is this, that " the functions of 
 Visitor being chiefly judicial, it is expedient that they
 
 8 
 
 should be vested in a person having the qualifications 
 which accompany high judicial office," such as the 
 Lord Chancellor of England. 
 
 I have held the office of Visitor of Lincoln College 
 and of two other Colleges, for nearly twelve years ; 
 and I do not hesitate to say that the office of a Visitor 
 of a College is, not " chiefly judicial," but it is also 
 ecclesiastical, and spiritual ; and that to transfer that 
 office from a Bishop to a Lay Functionary (who may 
 perhaps, hereafter, be not a member of the Church of 
 England, or even a believer in Christianity) will be 
 found, when examined, to savour somewhat of the 
 spirit of Erastianism, and perhaps not to be conducive 
 to that, which constitutes the principal value of a 
 College, its moral and religious character. 
 
 That the office of Visitor of your own College is 
 Ecclesiastical and Spiritual is evident from the history 
 of the Chapel in which you all have worshipped. 
 
 Tour Chapel owes its existence to a Bishop of 
 Lincoln, Dr. John Williams. It was consecrated on 
 Thursday, Sept. 25, 1631, by a Commission from him 
 to Dr. Eichard Corbet, Bishop of Oxford, who made a 
 public declaration in the inner quadrangle of your 
 College, to the effect " that though Lincoln College is 
 situated in the Univeisity and County of Oxford, 
 yet it is notoriously recognized as belonging to 
 the ordinary Jurisdiction of the Bishops of Lincoln, 
 and that he, the Bishop of Oxford, has always been
 
 anxious not to seem to invade the limits of their 
 jurisdiction.""'' 
 
 It is now proposed to transfer this Episcopal 
 authority to the Lord Chancellor, the chairman of the 
 Oxford Commission. I can hardly suppose that the 
 Lord Chancellor himself will sanction such a proposal. 
 
 So recently as the years 1871 (in the 34 Vic, chap. 
 26, sect. 6) the Legislature acknowledged the power 
 of the Visitor to authorize religious services in the 
 Chapel of the Colleges where he is Visitor. 
 
 Consequently, as Visitor of three Colleges, I have 
 exercised the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Spiritual 
 Ordinary of those Colleges, with regard to the religious 
 Services in their Chapels. 
 
 In the present year I have had severaj communi- 
 cations for this purpose with my much revered friend, 
 the Provost of King's College, Cambridge, of which, 
 as Bishop of Lincoln, I am Visitor. 
 
 The preservation of this authority in Episcopal 
 hands is, I conceive, a safeguard for the due order of 
 those Services. 
 
 Some of you perhaps may be cognizant of a 
 College where a dangerous and heretical alteration in 
 the religious Services of the College Chapel — one 
 which would have been injurious to the faith of the 
 Undergraduates worshipping in it — was averted by 
 the vigilance of the Episcopal Visitor of the College, 
 
 * " Etiamsi dictum Collegium in Universitate et Comitatu Oxon. situm sit, 
 tamen ad orclinariani jurisdidionein Episcoporiivi Lincoln, pertinere notorie 
 dignoscitur. " Such were the Bishop of Oxford's words.
 
 10 
 
 When Bishop Colenso was at Oxford in 1874, and 
 was invited to preach there, I exercised that authority 
 by a monition to the effect that he was not to be 
 allowed to preach in the Chapels of the Colleges of 
 which I am Visitor. 
 
 In the year 1870 I was requested as Visitor 
 by the Governing Body of your College to concur in 
 a proposed alteoxttion of the original Statutes of the 
 College, confirmed in 1855 by Parliament, which 
 provided that the Rector of the College should be in 
 Holy Orders. 
 
 The reason which I then gave for dissenting from 
 xhat proposal was as follows : — 
 
 " The Founders of your College designed that 
 it should be a religious Society ; and for the 
 maintenance of its religious character, it is, I think, 
 very important that the Head of the College should 
 (as required by the Statutes) be qualified to preach 
 the Word of God, and to administer the Holy Com- 
 munion to those Students who are committed to his 
 charge, and of whom he will have to give an account 
 hereafter ; and that he should thus be reminded of his 
 own sacred duties towards them. And I should not 
 be discharging my duty aright, as Visitor of the 
 College, to its Founders and Benefactors, and to 
 the College itself, and to those Parents who send their 
 sons to be educated there, if I were to give my assent 
 to a proposal which, in my judgement, would have a
 
 11 
 
 manifest tendency to impair the character of the 
 College as a place of Christian Education." 
 
 Subsequent reflexion has confirmed me in the 
 opinions which I then expressed, and I should feel 
 much regret if I had complied with that request, and 
 had given my consent to that proposal. 
 
 However, in this matter, the Visitor of a College 
 will be powerless for the future. 
 
 Whether the abolition of his functions in that 
 respect will be good for the College, will be seen 
 hereafter. 
 
 I am thankful to the Commissioners for affording 
 me an opportunity of stating publicly my reasons 
 against the removal of Bishops of Lincoln from the 
 office of Visitor of the College founded and endowed 
 by their predecessors 
 
 As to the Fellowship of which they are patrons, 
 and of which it is proposed now to deprive them, 
 that was assigned to them as a grateful and graceful 
 recognition of the services rendered to the College by 
 Bishops of Lincoln and an Archdeacon of the Diocese, 
 in founding the College and endowing fifteen Fellow- 
 ships in it. Such graceful gratitude for the generous 
 actions of good men in past ages, appears to have little 
 charms for the present times. I fear that the extinc- 
 tion of it will not encourage benefactions to our public 
 institutions. The present age will not commend 
 itself to the gratitude of posterity by ingratitude 
 for the past.
 
 12 
 
 Of this also I am sure, that, in making an appoint- 
 ment to that Fellowship, the Bishop of Lincoln would 
 be guided exclusively by considerations of what would 
 best promote the due reward of merit, and would be 
 conducive to the welfare of the College, as a seminary 
 of sound Learning and religious Education. 
 
 It is, I venture to think, of great importance that 
 care should be taken, especially at the present time, 
 to secure the personal presence and influence of men 
 eminent for learning, piety, and holiness, as resident 
 Fellows in our Colleges. 
 
 In our zeal for the advancement of secular Know- 
 ledge alone we are, I think, too prone to forget the 
 national uses of our Colleges, as schools of Christian 
 training for the service of the Church and Kealm. 
 
 The future welfare of England depends mainly on 
 the religious as well as the intellectual character and 
 attainments of the rising generation, especially in the 
 higher classes. And that character will derive its 
 power for good or evil from the temper and tone of 
 the Colleges in our Universities, as to Christian faith 
 and morals, and Christian worship. The importance, 
 therefore, of the present work of the University 
 Commission under the Act of 1877 cannot be over- 
 ated. 
 
 The future destinies of our Colleges and Univer- 
 sities, and of the English Nation as affected by them, 
 are in their hands.
 
 13 
 
 I have thought it incumbent on me, under a sense 
 of a solemn responsibility, and in discharge of a sacred 
 duty, to call your attention to two proposed changes 
 — which have come to my knowledge, and concern 
 your own College, by way of specimen — and to invite 
 your attention to them, and a declaration of your own 
 sentiments upon them. 
 
 Other important changes are now in contemplation, 
 and deserve the careful consideration of all who are 
 interested in the welfare of our ancient Colleges, and 
 in the education of those who will exercise a powerful 
 influence on the future weal of the Church and Nation. 
 
 Let me therefore express an earnest hope that 
 they may receive that attention, — before it is too 
 late. 
 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful Servant, 
 
 C. LINCOLN.
 
 «•» 
 
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