*r«r>;^c-c^C^>. 
 
 54.^ y 
 
 , - „ _t^ V ■■■: 
 
 
 ^\i 
 
 «*!■■' -I ,. ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^<: <^ 
 
 ;^v:.. 
 
 
 ^-- <v,.C c ' 
 
 
 «7-(. c«sr <^^ i^ 
 
 << cccc «^ 
 
 .recce ^ac:.f 
 
 <s: <■ ^c. c< 
 
 
 
 « "CtC «- 4C 
 
 

 
 LIBRA RY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 U N I VER.SITY 
 
 Of 1 LLI NOIS
 
 '^
 
 QUEEN'S COLLEGE, LONDON. 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. & RIGHT REV. 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, 
 
 IN REPLY TO THE ARTICLE 
 
 IN 
 
 No. CLXXII. OF THE QUARTERLY REVIEW, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 QUEEN'S COLLEGE, LONDON. 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A. 
 
 CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 I'niNTF.D BY SAVII.L AND EDWARDS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 
 COVEN r GARDEN.
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I am very unwilling to intrude upon your lordship 
 at any time ; 1 am especially loth to do so at this time, 
 when your lordship's thoughts must be occupied with ques- 
 tions deeply affecting the interests and prospects of the 
 English Church. But as a bishop must be always anxious 
 that no fiilse or mischievous teaching should go on in his 
 diocese, so I conceive that a moment like the present is one 
 in which he would be most feelingly alive to the existence of 
 any wrong influence which he could prevent, or even to any 
 suspicions of such influence in the public mind. It is not 
 that I may add to your lordship's manifold causes of trouble, 
 but in the hope of diminishing some of them, that I venture 
 to address you on the subject of an article which has ap- 
 peared in the last number of the Quarterly Review. 
 
 This article is headed ' Queen's College, London.' It 
 purports to be a notice of several books, especially of certain 
 Introductory Lectures, which were delivered in Harley-street 
 about two years ago. The institution called Queen's College 
 is intended for the education of young ladies generally— 
 
 B 2
 
 of governesses especially. The reviewer approves of its 
 object, and thinks its mechanical arrangements creditable. 
 He makes no complaint of the professors generally; the 
 majorit}' of them he seems to think are doing their work 
 well. But he selects passages from the Introductory Lec- 
 tures of four of the clerical professors, which prove, he inti- 
 mates, that their influence is anything but salutary. From 
 some of these passages he deduces inferences unfavourable 
 to the orthodoxy of the writers ; all of them, he believes, in- 
 dicate a tone of feeling which must produce very evil efiects 
 if it is imparted to their pupils. 
 
 I, my lord, am one of these clerical professors. The ex- 
 tracts from which the most offensive conclusions are drawn 
 are found in my Lectures. I gave the lecture which laid 
 down the plan upon which the college would be conducted; 
 I opened the theological course. I also wrote the preface 
 to the volume which is reviewed. I explained, indeed, 
 in that preface, that the sentiments of the particular writers 
 had not been altered or remoulded to suit the notions of the 
 editor ; but if 1 had considered any of those sentiments dan- 
 gerous, I was bound to state my conviction to the writers, 
 and I am quite sure that they would have been only too ready 
 to make the changes or omissions which I might have 
 suggested. I am, therefore, responsible for my colleagues 
 as well as for myself. 
 
 My lord, I am very thankful that a popular Review has 
 thought that the offences of professors in a college established 
 for young women must be serious offences, and deserving of 
 serious animadversion. It is a good sign that so much import- 
 ance should be attached to the right or wrong management of 
 an institution which might, which probably a few years ago 
 would, have been treated with mere levity and contempt.
 
 Neither then nor now should we look for any such treatment 
 from your lordship. You must have known always — every 
 new year must deepen the conviction — that a good or Lad 
 discipline bestowed upon the wives or mothers of English- 
 men, must be felt ultimately by the whole church, and the 
 whole of society. On such a ground, were there no other, 
 I might bespeak your lordship's earnest attention to the 
 education of Queen's College. But thei*e is another and 
 more obvious reason for troubling your lordship with the 
 present letter. I am not only a teacher once a week in 
 Queen's College — I am a teacher nearly every day in the 
 week in King's College. By the appointment and under the 
 direction of the council of which your lordship is chair- 
 man, I am directing the studies of the members of the general 
 department of that college in English literature and history, 
 and the studies of those who belong to the theological de- 
 partment in ecclesiastical history. It cannot be sup^josed 
 that I change my tone and habit of speaking when I go from 
 Harley-street to the Strand. If I am giving false and mis- 
 chievous instruction in one place, I certainly shall in the 
 other. If I am doing what in me lies to corrupt the minds 
 of those who will be hereafter English wives and mothers, I 
 shall also be doing what in me lies to corrupt the minds of 
 those who will be hereafter English citizens and clergymen. 
 Your lordship has therefore the most direct interest in attend- 
 ing to the evidence upon which so awful a charge rests. 
 
 My lord, there are some persons I know who would ex- 
 claim, when they read the article in the Quarterly Review, * Let 
 us have some more definite charges against these professors : 
 mere inferences and arguments about tones and tendencies may 
 lead to the most unfair and unrighteous decisions.' Un- 
 doubtedly they may ; I think I shall be able to show your
 
 lordship that undoubtedly they will, if the cognizance of these 
 tones and tendencies is left to mere anonymous tribunals. But 
 however difficult it may be to form a quite fair opinion upon 
 such charges, it is useless and absurd to demur to the 
 charges themselves. Every one will try to arrive at a con- 
 clusion, not merely respecting the words of a teacher, but 
 respecting the spirit of his words — respecting his inward 
 mind and intention. I would respectfully ask your lordship 
 to consider the passages which the Quarterly reviewer has 
 produced out of our Lectures, and which I shall quote one 
 by one, just as he has quoted them, with this especial view. 
 I do not ask that I may not be condemned if they are found 
 to contain no tangible, palpable heresy; I ask that they may 
 be weighed and considered with all the additional disad- 
 vantage which they may derive from the comments of the 
 reviewer, and I beg your lordship, having done so, to pass 
 judgment — of course, upon the direct words which are pre- 
 sented to you, but also — upon their purport, and ujjon the 
 probable character of the teaching of which they are pro- 
 duced as instances. Two remarks only I would make, that 
 our case may be fairly tried. The first is, that an introductory 
 lecture, while it is in some respects the best fitted to exhibit 
 the general objects and character of the professor, and is 
 published for that reason, yet, being addressed to a general 
 audience, may be expected to be more superficial and more 
 ornate than his lectures to his ordinary class will be. Next, 
 I would submit to your lordship, that, as the passages which 
 the reviewer has produced have been carefully culled out of 
 a volume consisting of more than 350 pages, by a writer who 
 does not conceal his purpose of presenting all that he con- 
 ceives most disadvantageous to our character, and nothing 
 
 ,UIUC J 
 
 i f
 
 of the opposite kind {Quarterly Review, No. 172, p, 38'2), it 
 is fair to assume that little very offensive remains behind. 
 We shall not be treated, I do not say kindly — we do not beg 
 for kindness — but justly, if it is said of our accuser — 
 
 ' This lionest creature doubtless 
 Sees and knows more, much, more than he unfolds.' 
 
 If his picked passages do not convict us of the crimes 
 which he wishes to bring home to us, it is not likely that the 
 context of these passages would be more damnatory. I say 
 this, however, my lord, merely to avoid the constructions of 
 persons who will not read these lectures, and who habitually 
 give reviewers credit for the good faith which they deny to 
 authors. If your lordship had time to peruse the whole of 
 the lectures from which these sentences are taken, I should 
 be far better pleased. 
 
 The first charge which is brought against us is founded 
 upon the following passage of my lecture at the opening of 
 the college : — 
 
 * This is our plan, which we have adopted, because we think it is the 
 best; not because we wish to escape from difficulties which another 
 might have involved. We do not ask you not to suspect us of wrong 
 rehgious sentiments because we profess only to teach the Bible. If 
 you have not confidence in us on other grounds, you will be very foolish 
 to give it us on that ground. We may teach anything we please under 
 the name and cover of the Holy Book ; we shall teach whatever we 
 think necessary for the illustration of it, without asking who are hearing 
 us, or what their previous conclusions on the subject may be. We 
 cannot please all. God forbid that we should make it our object to 
 please any. 
 
 ' I make this remark in reference to one department of the College ; 
 it appHes equally to all. The teacher in every department, if he does 
 his duty, will admonish his pupils, that they are not to make fasliion, 
 or public opinion, their rule ; that they are not to draw or play, or to 
 study Arithmetic, or Language, or Literature, or History, in order to 
 shine or be admired ; that if these are their ends, they will not be
 
 8 
 
 sincere in their work, or do it well. If you teacL them otherwise at 
 homo, we shall try to counteract your influence ; we must coimteract it 
 BO far as our lessons are honest. But if we preach this doctrine, we 
 should conform to it. We must not, by our acts, confess that public 
 opinion is our master, aud that we are its slaves. Colleges for men and 
 women in a great city exist to testify that Opinion is not the God they 
 ought to worship. All hints from those who send their children to us, 
 or even from lookers-on, may do us good ; just as much good, or more, 
 when they are ill-natured, as when they are civil. We have asked a 
 body of Ladies* to become visitors of our College ; they have kindly 
 promised to communicate between the teachers of it, and the guardians 
 of its pupils. If they ever chance to hear anything favourable of us 
 they may keep it to themselves ; all complaints and censures we should 
 wish to be informed of. But we do not promise to shape our course 
 according to the suggestions we shall receive; we shall be glad to 
 improve our practice every day, not to alter our principle. We have 
 considered it, and mean, with God's help, to act upon it. And if any 
 one should tell me, * Such notions are absurd ; if the world agrees to 
 avail itself of your lessons, it will demand your homage ; it will insist 
 upon your following its maxims' — I shall not attempt to combat an 
 opinion grounded, it would appear, upon a knowledge of English 
 Society, to which I make no pretension ; I shall merely answer, ' If 
 this College cannot stand upon the condition of its teachers continuing 
 to be honest men, by all means let it fall.' ' 
 
 Upon this passage the reviewer remarks : — 
 
 ' In reply to this observation, we may remind Mr. Maurice that 
 almost every form of error has been taught by ' honest men,' if by 
 honesty is meant a firm conviction that they were teaching truth ; so 
 that the mere honesty of the Professor is no security at all ; and if 
 error ever does come to be taught by them, public opinion wiU have a 
 perfect right to step in and insist, not on the teacher altering his 
 behef, or advocating doctrines he does not hold, but on the teacher 
 himself being changed. Mr. Maurice's mode of reasoning would be 
 all very well if this were a mere private establishment. Had he and 
 his colleagues simply agreed among themselves to open classes, and 
 give lectures in a house of their own, they would have been at full 
 liberty to say, ' Such and such are our views and doctrines — come to 
 
 * Among these ladies we have the high honour and privilege of 
 reckoning one whose life has been devoted to earnest and successful 
 oflbrts for the instruction of both sexes and aU ages — Mrs. Marcet.
 
 us 01* not, as you please ;' and parents must then have judged for them- 
 selves, and acted on their own responsibility. But Queen's College is 
 a public institution, supported by public subscriptions,* incorporated, 
 — as they take care to tell us in every prospectus — by Royal Charter, 
 and bearing its name by Royal permission ; going forth, therefore, to 
 the world with the highest sanction in the reahn.' 
 
 You will see at once, my lord, what the reviewer imputes 
 to me as the intent or hidden meaning of this passage. He 
 feels himself bound to ' remind ' me, that * almost every form 
 of error has been taught by honest men, if by honesty is 
 meant,' &c. Of course, he wishes his readers to understand 
 that this is a fact which I am especially prone to forget — that 
 I understand by truth only sincerity of conviction. This is 
 the inference which he deduces from the words of my lecture. 
 Now, then, we shall have an opportunity of testing his 
 capacity for arriving at the tone, or tendency, or intent of 
 the language which he criticises. I am very thankful, indeed, 
 that at the outset of the inquiry we should have so satis- 
 factory a one. 
 
 I was afraid that those who heard me should put confidence 
 in our theological teaching, because I professed to teach the 
 Bible. I said, I might teach anything I pleased under the cover 
 of the Holy Book. I expressly warned them that I might im- 
 part error, not only while I was putting forth my own convic- 
 tions, but while I was professing to comment upon the word 
 of truth. I besought them to examine in other ways whether 
 we were competent to teach their children or not, before 
 
 * The reviewer here introduces a note, in which he informs his 
 readers that the fees of the pupils are paid to the professors; that out 
 of this sum the professors, in 1848, presented £'100 to the parent 
 Society; that this was purely gratuitous, and is not to be looked for 
 again. An absolutely false statement. The professors regularly pay £20 
 per cent, on all the fees they receive to the Governesses' Benevolent 
 Society.
 
 10 
 
 they trusted their children to us. Why did I do this ? Be- 
 cause, my lord, I knew that some who might hear or read 
 my lecture would say, * This is liberal ; he meets us on a 
 common ground ; he does not insist upon creeds or cate- 
 chisms ; he lectures us out of the book which all Christians 
 receive.' This might be said — I had every reason to believe 
 it was likely to be said. And I knew that if people came to 
 me with that impression, I should be cheating them. I might 
 not be teaching them out of the Creed or the Catechism ; 
 but 1 should be teaching them the things which the Creed 
 and the Catechism had taught me. I have solemnly declared 
 that I find what they teach in the Scriptures. I know that 
 I have arrived at more apprehension of the Scriptures 
 through their help, than by any other help whatever. I, 
 therefore, was bound to tell my hearers and readers, not to 
 give me any credit on the score of my only teaching the 
 Bible; but to consider what I was — what my position bound 
 me to ; and if that did not satisfy them, and they thought it 
 worth the trouble, to look into the books which I had written, 
 that they might see whether I attached less importance to 
 the Creed and the Catechism than other people did — whether 
 there was not reason to suspect that I put a somewhat 
 stricter meaning on them than many did. I was bound to 
 set them upon making this inquiry beforehand ; because 1 
 went on to tell them, for myself and for my colleagues, that 
 when they had once done so, they must take us for better for 
 worse ; that we could not change our principles and modes 
 of acting to please them ; that we believed we should be 
 utterly unfaithful to our trust, and utterly dishonest men, if we 
 did so. It is because I took up this ground, my lord, that 
 the reviewer thinks it necessary to remind me, that almost 
 every form of error has been taught by honest men.
 
 11 
 
 But this passage of his article is too valuable to be at 
 once dismissed. He has tried to arrive at a knowledge of 
 my tone of thinking. I shall take the liberty of examining 
 for a moment into his. See, my lord, what a notion he has 
 of the obligations of an English clergyman. If we had 
 opened ' a private establishment,' we might have taught 
 what we liked. Could we, indeed ? What ! — we, who have 
 declared solemnly that we hold such and such things to be 
 true, and such and such things to be false ! — we may teach 
 anything we please in ' a house of our own !' It makes all 
 the difference that we are in a public establishment — that we 
 are under the operation of a charter — that we have been 
 permitted to call ourselves Queen's College. What difference, 
 my lord ? We are responsible to God ; we, who are clergy- 
 men in your lordship's diocese, are responsible to you. I 
 am responsible to you in a double character. I hojje to show 
 you before I close, that the whole college, instead of shrink- 
 ing from the same responsibility, seeks it. But the reviewer 
 means, if he means anything which bears upon my words, 
 that we are responsible to the public, and that, because we 
 are not a private establishment, we must adajat our teaching 
 to the notions of the public. Now, precisely the objection 
 which we make to ' private establishments' is, that they do 
 adapt their teaching to the notions and tastes of those on 
 whom they are dependent for support; for that reason we 
 say they teach, and must teach, badly. Precisely what we 
 hold, that we are pledged to by our name, is, that we will not 
 give such instruction to the Queen's subjects as our pupils 
 prescribe, or their parents prescribe, or the reviewers and 
 newspapers which guide their parents, prescribe. For if we 
 do so, we know, my lord, that we shall give instruction which 
 is false and mischievous, and that God will require the souls
 
 12 
 
 of those whom vfe have sacrificed to the tastes of other 
 
 masters than Him, at our hands. Therefore, I said, my 
 
 lord — and I say again — if our college can only stand 
 
 upon this condition, it stands upon the condition of our 
 
 not being honest men, and therefore, by all means, let 
 
 it fall. 
 
 I pass to the next charge : — 
 
 • "We ahall merely throw out a few paasing observations ; to do more 
 would be stepping beyond ourproAnnce, which is to invite the attention 
 of higher censors. But this we must say, with deep regret, that we 
 think no critic can fail to detect in this volume traces of a school of so- 
 called Tlieology, which seems to be gaining ground among us — a sort of 
 modified Pantheism and Latitudinarianism — a system of not bringing 
 rehgion into everything, but of considering everything as more or less 
 inherently religious, which is near akin to — and in its results will be 
 found to be so — abnegating the proper idea of religion.' 
 
 My lord, the object of the reviewer is to invite the ' atten- 
 tion of higher censors' to this accusation. That is my object 
 also. I solemnly conjure your lordship to look carefully, 
 earnestly, severely, into the evidence which the anonymous 
 critic has produced to convict us — of modified Pantheism 
 and Latitudinarianism. I thank God, my lord, that your lord- 
 ship knows what these words mean, that they will not be to 
 you mere idle phrases which a man may cast at his neighbour 
 just when he pleases, but the signs of very portentous 
 realities, upon which the history of every age in the church 
 has thrown light. Yet I doubt whether even your lordship, 
 though you may know much more of the import of these words 
 than we, with our smattering of theological knowledge, know 
 of them, can quite as much feel the bitterness of this charge 
 — the intense bitterness of it — as some of us, your lordship's 
 juniors, feel it. For, my lord, it is this very Pantheism 
 with which we, in our time, have to wrestle, which we feel is 
 assaulting us on all sides, — assaulting us — let me say it at
 
 13 
 
 once boldly — nowhere more than in the phraseology and 
 habits of thinliing of that religious fashionable world, of 
 which this reviewer is the spokesman, and by the maxims 
 of which he would have us regulate our thoughts and our 
 education. My lord, I can say for myself, and with as much 
 confidence for those colleagues whom the reviewer has 
 assailed, that if there is one object which we have especially 
 kept before us in all our public discourses, in all our attempts 
 to instruct the young of either sex, it is to encounter that 
 disease which we know to be the disease of the time, — 
 that which we are sure is floating in the air, and will 
 infect every heart that is not protected against it by 
 a far mightier power than ours. To be the instruments 
 in God's hands for keeping from it a few of that sex whose 
 influence must tell most powerfully upon ours — this, I 
 am certain, has been the especial aim which the clerical 
 lecturers at Queen's College have proposed to themselves. 
 How have we attempted to accomplish this aim ? In the 
 first place, my lord, we have asserted a distinct and 
 substantive position for Theology. We have refused to 
 identify the words theology and religion, because we wished it 
 to be understood that we considered the revelation of a 
 living, personal God to man as altogether distinct from the 
 mere feelings and instincts in the minds of men respecting 
 God. We have perceived a continual tendency in the 
 religious public to confound these things together, to put 
 the experiences, emotions, sentiments of their souls, in place 
 of the objects which God presents to our faith. A mere 
 violent dogmatical resistance to this tendency we have not 
 found to be efiectual ; those who merely oppose dry 
 authoritative propositions to the subjectivity of their pupils, 
 find it too much for them ; the female mind, especially, if.
 
 u 
 
 through desire of guidance, it yields for awhile to decrees, 
 soon creates some image for itself to worship, and com- 
 pels its teacher to sanction and legalize the idolatry. Our 
 second great desire, therefore, has been to present the 
 Revelation of God to those who learn fiom us, as the Bible 
 presents it, in a living history, to set forth Him to them as 
 the Bible sets Him forth, livingly, personally; not as an 
 abstraction; not by those words and names which the religious 
 fashion of our day recognises; such as 'the Deity,' ' the Divinity,' 
 ' Omnipotence,' ' Providence.' In these phrases, when they 
 are substituted for that name which we ask may be hallowed, 
 we see the germ of all Pantheism ; whoever habitually, and by 
 preference, resorts to them, is clearly a Pantheist in posse^ 
 if not in esse. For surely, my lord, such phrases awaken 
 no reverence ; they suggest the thought of a natural, not of 
 a moral being : of a power, not of righteousness. There is 
 no sense of evil which meets them in the conscience, there 
 is no unsatisfied yearning which responds to them in the 
 heart. And yet, as your lordship knows well, such phrases 
 occur continually in the most religious writings of our day, 
 and are cheerfully adopted by those who not only do not 
 suspect themselves, but who habitually accuse others of 
 ' modified Pantheism.' 
 
 But if we follow the Bible history, we must look upon the 
 revelation of God in a Man as that which makes all the 
 events that went before it intelligible, and as the basis of all 
 that follow it. To bring forth this truth in its fulness, we 
 have considered, my lord, our next great duty as Christian 
 teachers. We could not, we conceived, do this if we 
 merely spoke of the incarnation as part of a scheme of 
 Divinity ; if it is that, it must be more ; it must be the very 
 ground of human life and human history. That it has not
 
 15 
 
 been presented to men or women in that way, was the cause, 
 we conceive, that history in the eighteenth century became 
 so irreligious, and is the cause that history in the nineteenth 
 century has become religious without becoming Christian — 
 that which is written with a professedly religious purjDose con- 
 sisting merely of commentaries upon facts, and inferences from 
 them, as if the facts could not be trusted to speak for them- 
 selves, and of judgments — often most unrighteous judgments 
 — upon our fellow men in different ages — that which is written 
 by philosophers recognising fully and emphatically the worth 
 of all religious feelings and sentiments, but regarding them 
 merely as the jnoducts of the human mind, and as belonging 
 to particular ages. How utterly powerless the first of these 
 classes of works, my lord, are to counteract what is wrong 
 in the latter, — how much that wrong is strengthened by all 
 attempts to suppress facts, or to call names, I believe every 
 one who has anything to do with the youth of this time 
 must be aware. How' much the plain, manful proclamation 
 of the Son of God and the Son of man, as the real king and 
 centre of human society, does explain the facts, does help 
 those who make it to do justice to the imperfect views of 
 different ages, while they feel most keenly their corruption 
 and wrong; to deal more fairly with the convictions of indi- 
 viduals, than the most tolerant of modern philosophers, 
 while they protest more strongly against their denials and 
 their sins than the most self-righteous pharisee, I am sure 
 we shall one day, my lord, discover, if male or female educa- 
 tion is to become really Christian education, if it is not to 
 be a means of separating the present from the past, and the 
 future from both. At all events, my lord, this has been our 
 purpose, which we have distinctly, deliberately set before 
 ourselves, however imperfectly we may have attained it.
 
 16 
 
 But this faith, ray lord, cannot be merely exhibited in our 
 teaching of history. If the Son of God has indeed taken 
 the nature of man, we must, I conceive, attach a significance 
 to all the thoughts and acts of men which otherwise would 
 not belong to them. We find that in our old English educa- 
 tion, great prominence is given to the study of heathen books. 
 AVhether that prominence is too great I do not now inquire ; 
 but I cannot believe that Christian men would have established 
 and sanctioned, from generation to generation, that study, 
 unless they had seen in it something which belonged to our 
 character as Christians. Without copying a practice which 
 would not be serviceable to female education, we may adopt 
 the principle on which it is founded. We may declare that 
 all human utterances have a very solemn meaning, because 
 man is a spiritual being, endued with spiritual powers, and 
 intended for a spiritual kingdom. In doing so, are we 
 falling into the intellectual worship of our time ? No, ray 
 lord, we are taking what seems to us the one successful 
 method of counteracting it. That worship, we believe, has 
 been promoted — very greatly promoted — by the language in 
 which religious men have spoken of the soul, glorifying 
 a word, which, as your lordship knows so well, is not often 
 used in the New Testament, is commonly identified with 
 animal life, is certainly opposed by St. Paul to that which is 
 spiritual. My lord, I do not think religious teachers know 
 the miseries which they sometimes cause by their careless- 
 ness of Scripture example in reference to this word, and the 
 ideas which it imports. They tell young men and women to 
 think of their souls, when, surely, the Bible would tell them to 
 think of God. The soul is for a time identified in their minds 
 with the conscience, or rather, -with the mere sense of evil 
 in the conscience. So long it seems to them the centre of
 
 17 
 
 all corruption and depravity. But they lose their more 
 lively impressions on this subject; they go forth — their 
 parents send them forth — to receive the cultivation of schools 
 or colleges. They find capacities in their souls of which 
 they never dreamed : they read books which call forth those 
 capacities, and which show them that men living a thousand 
 years ago have been conscious of the same, and have exhi- 
 bited them. They regarded the soul before as an object of 
 morbid contemplation ; they begin to regard it as an object 
 of worship). Parents are struck with the extraordinary 
 revolution ; they are terrified by it, as they well may be ; 
 
 ' Miranturque novas frondcs et non' — 
 
 My lord, can I finish the quotation? Are they not sua 
 poma? Can they deny that they have sown the seed of 
 which these are the natural fruits? Can they fairly say, 'you 
 masters of schools and colleges have perverted the minds 
 of our children, have made them into infidels ?' Did not 
 they fail to speak the truth at first, to give their children 
 that information respecting their own spiritual condition, as 
 children of God, which would have enabled them to bear 
 the discovery that now bursts upon them and overwhelms 
 them ? But, whether it be so or not, the duty of us, who are 
 teachers of schools or colleges, is not less clear. We are 
 bound in the sight of God to tell them what we believe to 
 be true. We are not to hide from them the fact that there 
 are such powers, or to prevent them from seeing how they 
 have manifested themselves in the books of these or of 
 former days. We are to tell them that these powers are 
 there, because God created man in his image, that they can 
 be truly exercised only when man claims his position as a 
 creature restored in the image of the Son. On this principle 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 we have thought it our business to make literature, not a 
 plaything for holiday afternoons, but^a serious work, which 
 those who enter upon it at all are to enter upon as persons 
 who arc studying in God's sight. In an article, the first in 
 this number of the Quarterly Review, on Giacomo Lcopardi, 
 the eflects of the opposite course to this upon a man of 
 high genius, are pointed out with wonderful power and truth. 
 There are passages in that melancholy and noble biography 
 which express the very spirit we desire to embody in our 
 teaching at Queen's College. 
 
 What I have said about the loose phraseology which the 
 * religious public' sanctions on the very highest subjects, 
 leads to the next aim of our instructions. 
 
 Latitudinaiianism is associated by the reviewer with 
 'modified Pantheism.' We have felt the connexion, my 
 lord. We have felt that vagueness in thought and vague- 
 ness in expression are closely, inseparably connected. We 
 have felt that both kinds of vagueness have increased, and 
 are increasing; and that education, if it is good for anything, 
 ought to diminish them. Therefore, my lord, we have 
 thought that the study of words — of language — was one of 
 the most important and necessary of all studies. We have 
 believed, as our fathers believed before us, that it is a 
 peculiarly sacred study — that without it no other can be 
 pursued successfully — that theology, especially, becomes 
 feeble and incoherent if it has not this ally. Females, it 
 seemed to us, had been most unfairly robbed of this precious 
 culture; therefore, they were exposed more than others to all 
 assaults of sophistry and Latitudinarianism ; therefore, what 
 was deepest and most precious in their minds had not been 
 awakened ; therefore, they especially were liable to become 
 frivolous in their daily occupations — frivolous in their
 
 19 
 
 literature — frivolous in their science — frivolous in their 
 religion. We arc certain, from the noble examples in our 
 own and other days, that this is no necessary condition of 
 their minds — that if they yield to it, we are chiefly to 
 blame. As we have desired to counteract it in our 
 lessons respecting theology, and words, and literature, so 
 also we have felt that precisely the same effort must be 
 carried into the teaching of physical sciences and of accom- 
 plishments. We dare not separate these pursuits from 
 the othere in our course. If truth is not to be sought, if 
 God is not to be honoured, in them, they ought not to be 
 a part of the discipline of Christian women. But how is 
 truth to be sought, how is God to be honoured in them ? 
 Not, surely, by some artificial and irreverent introduction of 
 religious phrases and topics into them, but by inculcating 
 the unifoi'm habitual belief that this universe is God's, that 
 all our powers and faculties of every kind are God's ; that 
 He wills us to know the laws of His universe; that the 
 knowledge of them is to be sought in the same humble, 
 self-suspecting, patient temper, which is required for attaining 
 the knowledge of himself, and of his inmost mind ; that He 
 makes known the seci^ets of his creation to those who in 
 this spirit inquire after them ; that we hold every energy and 
 capacity as a trust from Him ; that it is a violation of His 
 commands to engage in any study, as if it were not a godly 
 study, to do any work which we cannot do earnestly and 
 with our hearts. 
 
 My lord, it is very easy to make a statement of our 
 views, like that which I have just made. The question is 
 whether it is borne out by our practice. The chief means by 
 which I propose at present to try that question is by pro- 
 ducing the passages upon which the Quarterly reviewer has 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 grounded the charges of ' modified Pantheism and Latitu- 
 dinarianism.* I say boldly that each one of these passages 
 is consistent with the account I have given ; docs indicate 
 pi'ecisely the tone which I have said pervades these Lectures. 
 I say as confidently that not one of those passages — even 
 severed from its context, much more viewed in its context — 
 could receive the colouring which the Reviewer has given it, 
 except from a reader who had a very considerable amount 
 of 'modified Pantheism and Latitudinarianism' in his own 
 mind. I proceed to the evidence. 
 
 The first passages bearing upon the subject are two which 
 the reviewer has taken from my lecture at the opening of 
 the college, and from a lecture of my valued friend, Mr. 
 Strettellj^on the English language. 
 
 Mine is as follows: — 
 
 * "We look upon all tlie studies of whicli I have spoken as religious ; 
 aU as concerned with the life and acts of a spiritual creature ; not to be 
 contemplated out of their relation to such a creature. We look upon 
 .them all as tending to the cultivation of reverent feeling ; all as tending 
 to lead the pupils from shadows and semblances to realities.' 
 
 This is the ground for the charge that * we abnegate the 
 proper idea of religion,' because ' we consider everything as 
 more or less inherently religious.' I ask your lordship first 
 to reflect upon what I have said upon this subject, then 
 to compare it with the reviewer's theory of m}- intention; 
 lastly to recollect that these words immediately precede 
 his quotation — 'The last subject in our list is theology. 
 We would have avoided a hard word if we could ; but if we 
 had substituted religion for theology we should have misre- 
 presented our whole scheme;' and that these immediately 
 follow his quotation — ' By theology we mean something 
 special and definite ; we mean what the word expresses, that 
 which is directly concerned with God and His relation to
 
 21 
 
 man.' I do not complain of the omission of these words by 
 my critic. Those wliich he has quoted are sufficiently 
 intelligible. But it proves that the reviewer does not 
 admit the distinction between theology and religion; that the 
 last phrase, with all its subjective associations, stands in his 
 mind in place of that, which in my judgment, expresses what 
 is definite and special — a direct relation of God to man. I 
 leave your lordship to judge on whose side is the modified 
 Pantheism, 
 
 This is the extract from Mr. Strettell : — 
 
 ' Do not think it strauge if I touch upon higher and hoUer subjects j 
 for I want j'ou to perceive that the study of language has a distinctly 
 rehgious element : we all want you to . feel that if your course here is 
 to be one not merely of instruction but of education, there is not one of 
 the subjects in which you are instructed which must not, more or less 
 directlyj bear upon rehgion.' 
 
 Mr. Strettell has here embodied in what seem to me very 
 clear and beautiful words, the spirit which characterised 
 the whole of our old English education. The sacredness 
 of language — the religious element in language — is precisely 
 that which justifies the importance given to philological 
 training in our schools and universities. To the neglect of 
 that philological training, to the notion that it is to be pre- 
 served for some lower or secondary end, I believe we owe the 
 loose theology of our young men. Mr. Strettell wishes to save 
 our young women from that danger. The reviewer ridicules 
 and denounces the attempt. Which, my lord, is fighting the 
 battle of Latitudinarianism ? Which is seeking for the old 
 paths ? Which is defending a deviation from them } 
 
 The next passage is drawn from my Lecture on Theology. 
 
 ' If then I am asked to acknowledge that all peoples, however Httle 
 they know of the Bible, may have had a iloligion or a Theology, I 
 acknowledge it instantly ; if I am told that this Religion or Theology
 
 22 
 
 had very much to do with the stars, the Earth, the seasons, the phe- 
 nomena of Nature, and its rc<^kr course, I say. Nothing is more- 
 certain ; if I am told that these diflercnt thoufi;ht8 of men arc worthy 
 of tlic deepest study, I have not the sHghtest wish to dissent. And if, 
 further, any one hk es to call this llehgion or Theology Natural, though 
 I think the phrase is not perhaps the best, or at least requires some 
 further explanations, I shoidd yet not strongly object. But if it is said 
 that there was no revelation contained or implied in this Theology, I 
 should consider the very facts to which I have alluded as all leading to 
 the opposite conclusion.' 
 
 My lord, I am quite aware that the formal distinction of 
 ' natural and revealed religion,' is one which received the 
 sanction of writers in the last century, to whom I bow with 
 the profoundest reverence ; to whom I feel a gratitude which 
 I cannot easily express. As that distinction — though not 
 older, I believe, or much older than that century — has come 
 down to our own, and has become one of our theological 
 commonplaces, I feel that 1 am acting boldly in throwing it 
 aside, even though it be for the purpose of returning to a 
 more ancient form of speech, resting, I believe, on still 
 higher authority. Why have I been guilty of that boldness ? 
 Precisely from my dread — my nervous dread, it may 
 te — of Pantheism, Precisely, because I do see in the 
 kind of force which is given to the word Nature, in our 
 phrase, * natural theology,' the germ of much Pantheism. 
 Precisely, because I believe if Butler and his great con- 
 temporaries had been called to encounter the kind of 
 infidelity which we are called to encounter, they would have 
 deliberated long before they set their stamp ujjon a method 
 which certainly has led many into a notion that we do by 
 searcliing find out God in Nature, and then into a very fear- 
 ful confusion of God with Nature. I believe, my lord, that 
 no man has taught me more than Butler himself to reject 
 his own phrase. No one has shown me that God, even
 
 23 
 
 our God, the Righteous Ruler, the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, is speaking to us, revealing himself to us in 
 the whole economy of the natural world. Yet I could 
 not fairly have justified my language, in a general lecture, 
 by a deduction from the writings of him or any other 
 man, when it was at variance, I knew, with their ordi- 
 nary usage. I felt that it stood upon deeper ground. I 
 might have defended it abundantly by quotations from the 
 most eminent teachers of the church in different ages. How 
 I did defend it, your lordship will understand from the fol- 
 lowing passage occurring in the next page to that which the 
 reviewer has quoted. 
 
 ' St. Paiil tells us expressly, in tlie first chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Romans, ' That which may be known of God is manifest in them, 
 for God hath shown or revealed it to them. For the invisible things 
 of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
 stood by the things that are visible, even his eternal power and God- 
 head.' And the Psalmist had said long before, * There is no speech nor 
 language where their voice is not heard.' ' 
 
 I have vindicated myself, my lord, from a charge of presump- 
 tion, to which I felt that I was open. I must now refer to 
 the charges of the reviewer. 
 
 • According to the view given in this lecture (see the whole passage, 
 pp. 248 — 252, 1 beseech your lordship to see it) the difference between 
 the rehgion of the heathen and that of the christian consists not in 
 the one being true and the other false, but only in the greater imfold- 
 ing of truth in the one case than in the other ; and the grand object 
 in both alike is, an ignorant creature to be taught, not a guilty creature 
 to be reconciled.' 
 
 My lord, my difference with the reviewer consists in this 
 point simply, that I adhere to the language of the first 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, (which I have quoted,) 
 and that he rejects it. I use the words emjihatically, I ask 
 your lordship to weigh them. St. Paul says that God did
 
 24 
 
 manifest His power and godhead to the heathen, in the 
 things that are seen. His power and godhead, I conceive, 
 are true, not false. St. Paul goes on to explain that the 
 falsehood of the religion of the heathen consisted in their 
 not liking to retain that God in their knowledge, who so 
 revealed Himself, — in their worshipping Him after the like- 
 ness of four-footed beasts and creeping things; in their 
 worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator. 
 Therefore he says, ' They were given over to a reprobate 
 mind.' Here was sin, here was the need of forgiveness 
 and reconciliation. And because I adhere too strictly, too 
 severely, it may be, to this apostolic language and teach- 
 ing, because I speak of God as revealing Himself in nature, 
 and as revealing Himself perfectly in His only begotten 
 Son, as the Redeemer and Reconciler, instead of speaking 
 of a Chi'istian religion — a phrase much more palatable to 
 the natiu'al heart and to the pride of intellect — a phrase 
 infinitely more in favour with Pantheists, modified and un- 
 modified — the reviewer intimates that T do not look upon 
 the Gospel as proclaiming the reconciliation of guilty 
 creatures to God ! I will make no comments, I leave them 
 to your lordship. 
 
 Next, a passage is quoted from a lecture of Mr. Nicolay's, 
 to show * how sacred truth is mixed up with scientific know- 
 ledge ; or, rather, how their relative position and compara- 
 tive value are confounded.' 
 
 The passage stands thus: — 
 
 ' Tlie observation so recently made in this place— that the ancients 
 obtained their scientific knowledge by process of reasoning without 
 observation — while it was held to account for their errors, was in some 
 degree considered as to their credit. I shoidd be the last to question 
 or perhaps to limit, the mental powers of the giants of those days ; 
 but I must ever consider the insufficient rcsiJt of their laboui's in
 
 25 
 
 this, as in all other things, aa an illustration of that of which St. Paul 
 speaks, when he says : — ' In the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom 
 knew not God:' — the simple practical method of observation wanting, 
 they were as far from truth in many things, as if they had wanted that 
 wisdom for which we admire and venerate them.' 
 
 One is anxious to know what meaning the reviewer put 
 upon these words, which can bear out his charge. Did he 
 suppose that Mr. Nicolay meant that the knowledge of God 
 is attained by sensible observation, and that the ancients 
 wanted it because they did not employ the method of 
 sensible observation? That would have been a blas- 
 phemous statement, and also a nonsensical one ; for so far 
 as the ancients were idolaters, they used their senses as 
 a means of attaining divine knowledge more than we do. 
 But it would not have been confounding scientific know- 
 ledge and sacred truth. It would have heen simply setting 
 both aside. No school of scientific men — Christians or 
 Pantheists — could have tolerated it. The reviewer, there- 
 fore, did not suppose this to be the purpose of the lecturer. 
 But if it was not this, it must have been just the opposite of 
 this. The lecturer knew that the father of experimental 
 philosophy had started ,from the principle that we must 
 stoop to Nature, in order to conquer her — that we must 
 divest ourselves of anticipations and preconceptions, that 
 we may receive that which she teaches us of herself. 
 Now, that which Bacon laid down as the method by 
 which all sound physical knowledge must be attained, 
 Mr. Nicolay believed had been laid down sixteen centuries 
 before, as the method by which all spiritual knowledge 
 must be attained. Because the philosophers of old had 
 trusted to their own reasoings, the lecturer says that, though 
 giants, they missed divine, as well as physical wisdom. 
 Does the reviewer mean to deny that these philosophers
 
 26 
 
 failed to attain the knowledge of physics, because they could 
 not give up their wisdom and become little children ? Then 
 he is at issue, not with Mr. Nicolay, but with Lord Bacon. 
 Docs he mean to deny that they failed to attain the know- 
 ledge of God, because they would not give up their wisdom, 
 and become as little children? Then he is at issue, not with 
 Mr. Nicolay, but with St. Paul. Or does he mean that the 
 foundations of our faith are not as fixed and real as the 
 foundations of the physical universe? Then it is idle for 
 him to talk of ' sacred truth.' Truth is with him that which 
 he, the Quarterly revieiver, troweth. 
 
 Once again, my lord, I come under the reviewer's lash, 
 and on the following ground : 
 
 ' Every doctrine wliicli lias been a solace to the poor, or strength 
 to the martyr ; -which explains how men are imited to God, and to 
 each other; which sets forth the mystery of the Divine name — ^\'ill 
 assiircdly come forth, not in some detached text or difficult inference, 
 but as apart of the revelation, or as its ground, or as its consummation.' 
 
 On this the reviewer remarks — 
 
 • "Wc do not suppose that this reverend gentleman denies or doubts 
 the personality of the incarnate Son of God ; but we think that one 
 who did might be apt to use very much the same sort of language.' 
 
 My lord, I beseech your lordship's attention to this 
 comment. The reviewer says, * we do not suppose this reve- 
 rend gentleman doubts or denies the personality of the 
 Incarnate Son of God ;' that is to say, ' w^e do not suppose' 
 (the ordinary reviewing form, for * we strongly suspect') that 
 the reverend gentleman is a deliberate liar, one who doubts 
 or denies that upon which he habitually professes to rest all 
 his teaching and all his hopes.' My lord, I do not complain 
 of this language as personally insulting. I wish to dismiss 
 all personal considerations from my mind. I quite admit 
 the reviewer's right to think of me with as much contempt as
 
 27 
 
 he pleases. I do not require that he should have looked into 
 any book of mine before he threw out such a hint. If he did 
 look into any, he is welcome to say, if he likes : * This book 
 does not mean what it pretends. It talks of a personal Christ 
 as the only ground upon which the individual soul or the 
 Church can rest. That is not what it signifies, but some- 
 thing altogether different and opposite.' I do not protest 
 against such language for myself. But, my lord, I do say 
 that such language is a very gross insult to the order 
 of which I am a member. I do say, that no Christian 
 and no gentleman has a right to make such an insin- 
 uation, anonymously, against a clergyman, if he is not 
 prepared to stand forth in his own person, and, throwing 
 off the cowardly phraseology of ' we do not suppose,' and 
 ' the reverend gentleman,' to say before the Bishop — ' I 
 charge this particular priest in your diocese with pretending 
 to hold, and with not holding, that article of the Christian faith 
 upon which all the rest depend.' Surely, my lord, such a 
 course is due to you and the diocese, and to the Colleges, in 
 which I must be practising a system of habitual deception. 
 
 And why is not this the course which the reviewer 
 has taken ? Look at his words, my lord, and you will 
 see. He does not really think he is bringing any very 
 tremendous accusation against me. He speaks of my 
 denying or doubting the personality of the Son of God 
 in just as off-hand a manner as he might speak of my 
 doubting whether there were one Homer or many Homers 
 — whether the stories of Prince Arthur do or not belong to 
 authentic history. The hint comes out in a kind of paren- 
 thesis; it is appended to a passage which did not offer the 
 remotest excuse for it. The reviewer says at the end of the 
 article, that he hopes wc shall take his remarks in the kindly
 
 23 
 
 spirit in which they are offered. Evidently he does not 
 suppose that he has departed from the most graceful courtesy 
 of tone and expression. Yes, my lord, and this, it seems to 
 me, is the inevitable effect of the habit of mind which I 
 have traced throughout this article. He does not build 
 everything upon the personality of the Son of God. It is a 
 doctrine which it is right and proper to hold, which offers a 
 convenient excuse for attacking others. But the reviewer 
 does not feel that a theologian who denies our Lord's per- 
 sonality is doing just what a physician does who denies the 
 circulation of the blood, or an astronomer who denies gravi- 
 tation, that the first is just as much taking away the ground 
 from Humanity as the second is destroying the relation 
 between the parts of the human body, as the third is destroy- 
 ing* the order of Nature. This is what I believe; this is 
 what makes the accusation seem to me so fearful. But we 
 liave no right to apply our maxims to him ; he surveys 
 the whole subject from a different point of view. I should 
 say, as I said before, fi-om that point of view which would 
 be taken by a ' modified Pantheist or Latitudinarian.' For 
 he objects, your lordship will perceive, to my statement 
 that the name of God is the great subject of revelation. 
 That assertion which occurs so continually in Scripture in 
 these very words, has something in it which offends him ; still 
 more the idea that the name of God, of the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost, the name in which we are baptized, 
 comes out, * not in some detached text or difficult inference, 
 but as the ground and consummation' of the whole divine 
 history; or, that this name 'is the great solace to the poor, 
 and the strength to the martyr.' Such sentences seem to 
 him almost without meaning. Why? just because, though 
 he is not aware of it, ho is yielding to the tendency of the
 
 29 
 
 age — the tendency into which every one will assuredly fall 
 who fancies himself furthest from it, and therefore does not 
 watch and struggle against it ; the tendency to look upon 
 Him whom we worship as a floating essence rather than 
 a living person ; the tendency to shrink from the fact, how- 
 ever he may assert the dogma, that the Word, who is with 
 God and is God, has been made flesh and dwelt among us. 
 
 This difference, my lord, is, in fact, the great one between 
 us and the reviewer. It makes all we write unintelligible 
 and disagreeable to him. He cannot bear to be reminded — 
 by the use of phrases which belong to Scripture, or to th * 
 Church, in what he calls ' a lower sense' — that this truth is 
 at the root of all human thought and language. It 
 distresses him ; and I fear we must go on to distress him 
 more and more. Not willingly j not because, as he seems 
 to think, we invent phrases, or intentionally give them a 
 different force from that which they bear in the minds of 
 those who never associate or compare the different senses 
 of the words which they use ; but because the phrases do 
 come before us, and before our pupils, in a multitude of 
 different positions and applications, and because we cannot 
 dismiss them, by merely saying, ' They mean this here, 
 and that there.'' 
 
 We know by experience that those who are honestly 
 studying cannot be satisfied with such an interjDretation of 
 ambiguous and many-sided expressions. They will know 
 how their different uses are related to each other. And if 
 we are not willing or able to show that there is a highest 
 meaning in the light of which the others are intelligible, 
 they will infallibly reduce the higher meaning under the 
 lower. If we will not employ the real Incarnation to 
 illustrate the notions and dreams of an Incarnation which
 
 30 
 
 have been current in the world, we are certain that it will be 
 taken as one of these notions or dreams. No policy, there- 
 fore, my lord, I apprehend, can be so miserable as that 
 which tries to keep religious phrases safe by denying their 
 connexion with human thoughts and deeds. No method 
 can be so honest as that which uses them, and the truths 
 they express, to explain and harmonize what would be 
 otherwise inexplicable and incoherent in those thoughts 
 and deeds. 
 
 In the next passage, the reviewer gathers together a 
 number of half sentences and detached words, to prove 
 that the teachers in Queen's College, Mr. Strettell and Mr. 
 Kingslcy especially, speak much ' of the spiritual nature 
 of man, and of the way in which the spirit in us all is to 
 be trained; and that to this end much inherent efficacy is attri- 
 buted to human studies and human means; while very little 
 indeed is said about the Holy Spirit, by whose agency and 
 blessing alone these means are to be made effectual.' My 
 lord, all the force of this passage lies in one adjective. ' Much 
 inherent efficacy is attributed to human studies and human 
 means.' I simply and broadly deny this assertion, and defy 
 the reviewer to prove it out of any lecture in the volume. 1 
 affirm that no ' inherent' efficacy is attributed to any human 
 studies or human means ; that all are again and again de- 
 clared to be instruments and means by which God acts upon 
 His creatures, and which are therefore, and therefore only, 
 available, because he has made this creature a spiritual 
 creature, because He intends it to be the subject of a 
 spiritual inliuence and a spiritual operation. And I 
 maintain, my lord, again, that the reviewer, implicitly 
 denying that man is a spiritual creature, is himself the 
 propagator of that dreadful heresy which he imputes to my
 
 31 
 
 colleagues, with the same carelessness with which he in- 
 sinuated that I was a denier of the incarnation. * The Spirit,' 
 says St. Paul, ' beareth witness with our spirit.' In that 
 memorable passage in the Epistle to the Corinthians, he 
 carefully distinguishes between the Spirit of God and the 
 spirit of man that is in us. Your lordship knows, from the 
 history of theology, how all-important the preservation of 
 this distinction is, and how impossible it is to retain one 
 truth except we also retain the other. 1 need not remind 
 your lordship what fearful fanaticism has arisen from the 
 identification of the acts and operations of the divine, in-* 
 dwelling Spirit, with those of the human. Again, what fearful 
 coldness, what terrible denial of all communion between 
 earth and heaven, has resulted from the reaction against 
 that fanaticism. Where lies the remedy ? Surely, my 
 lord, in an education entirely grounded upon the idea of 
 man's relation to God, of the Spirit being given to the child, 
 to sanctify it and guide it into all truth; surely in an attempt 
 with fear and awe to enforce that fact, not in one of our 
 lessons, but in all of them. For making this effort humbly, 
 reverently, consistently, two colleagues of mine in this 
 work are charged by the reviewer with extreme profane- 
 ness. Like all his other accusations, this comes out in 
 inuendoes; but they are inuendoes that ordained clergymen 
 are deliberately teaching young women to make light of 
 Scripture, and of the truths contained in it. The ground 
 for them is discovered in the following passages: — 
 
 ' Words arc not then, we may conclude, arbitrary things, as some 
 suppose, to be eliosen or laid aside as we please or as we can, but living 
 powers, expressive, in some measure, of the very nature of things them- 
 selves. Depend upon it, there is a reason why every word that wc use 
 
 is as it is Surely they come from Him who is Himself the 
 
 Word, ' by whom all things are made,' from whom man derives all
 
 32 
 
 the light and knowledge he possesses. Take care, then, how you deal 
 with words ; they are sacred things, not lightly to be scattered abroad, 
 not without the greatest danger to be perverted. They are not vain, 
 that is, empty Ihings; 'they axe spirit and they are life.' ' — p. 1G2. 
 Eev. A. B. Strettell. 
 
 * You cannot compose a rope of sand, or a round globe of square 
 stones ; and my excellent friend Mr. Strettell will tell you, in his 
 lectures on grammar, that words are just as stubborn and intractable 
 materials as sand or stone ; that we cannot alter their meaning or value 
 a single shade, for they derive that meaning from a higher fountain 
 than the soul of man — from the Word of God, the fount of utterance, 
 who inspires all true and noble thought and speech — who vindicated 
 language as His own gift, and not man's invention, in that miracle of 
 the day of Pentecost.' — p. 30. Rev. Charles Kingsley. 
 
 The reviewer declares that ' this ajjplication of one of 
 
 the titles of our Saviour is a truly heinous lapse,' and the 
 
 quotation from St. John ' worse than absurd.' He goes on 
 
 to say — 
 
 * Most certainly when our Lord said, ' the words that I speak unto 
 you, they are spirit and thoy are life,' he meant the truths contained 
 in those words ; and to attribute that power to the mere vocables them- 
 selves, placed in any varying collocation, to exj^ress the thoughts of 
 common men, is something, to our mind, bordering on the profane. 
 The deduction from the miracle recorded in Acts, ch. ii., may or not be 
 original. It entirely exhibits — if we at all understand Professor 
 Kingsley — a portentous specimen of audacity in trampling on the 
 plainest rules of criticism and common sense. I^o High-Dutch peda- 
 gogue ever vented more pompous smoke.' — p. 377. 
 
 A truly heinous lapse, to say that words come from Him 
 
 who is Himself the Word, by whom all things are made, that 
 
 they derive their meaning from a higher source than the soul 
 
 of man — from the Word of God, the fountain of utterance ! 
 
 Alas ! my lord, what heinous lapses the prophets of the Old 
 
 Testament, the Apostles of the New, have committed. Have 
 
 they not denounced those who thought that their words were 
 
 their own, that none was lord over them ? Have they not 
 
 denounced those who spoke a word out of their own hearts, 
 
 instead of referring all to Him, from whom, as Mr. Strettell
 
 33 
 
 has said, man derives all the light and kncvledge that he 
 possesses ? What ! does this reviewer really believe that 
 the Spirit of God used language without a purpose — that 
 the divine Logos is only a chance name, for which any 
 other might be substituted? Will he dare to say this, 
 and then pretend that he believes in the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures? 
 
 For mark, my lord, the effect of his denying that all words, 
 all human utterances, should be traced to this source, and 
 are turned to a bad account when they are not traced to it. 
 The effect is, that he cannot give any sacred or holy mean- 
 ing to the words of Scripture ; he is obliged to reduce them 
 into inanities j he is obliged to say that thej/ have no power 
 and no life. There cannot be a better test of his method 
 and of ours. He wishes us to look at Scripture phrases 
 apart from all other associations ; and that he may do so, 
 he must empty them of their reality. The clear and awful 
 language of St. John s Gosjicl is paraphrased into the phrase 
 of some lady's diary, or pocket-book, 'a title of our Saviour.' 
 We, feeling the intense truthfulness and depth of the Scrip- 
 ture language, wish to make it the guide of all our thoughts 
 and expressions : therefore he is religious, and we are pro- 
 fane ! 
 
 As the reviewer is incapable of doing any justice to the 
 language of holy writ, we need not complain how grievously 
 he misrepresents the utterances of poor fallible men. In 
 order to convict Mr. Strettell of profaneness, he says, * he 
 attributes power to mere vocables placed in any varying 
 collocation.' Now your lordship must see that Mr. Strettell 
 never said this, or anything like this, but just the opposite of 
 it. To turn the words into mere vocables is simply, according 
 to Mr. Strettell, to exhaust the power out of them ; that when 
 
 u
 
 34 
 
 it is gone, when tlic life has departed and the mere husk 
 remains, all that he has said about them will cease to be true, 
 is a simple, self-evident proposition, to which he would 
 assent, I conceive, quite as readily as his critic. 
 
 The reviewer desires to know whether Mr. Kingsley's inter- 
 pretation of the '2nd chajiter of the Acts is original or not. 
 'Whether it is or not, no High-Dutch pedagogue ever 
 vented more pompous smoke.' Though, as a dweller in 
 London, I am familiar with smoke generally, I am not cer- 
 tain that I am acquainted with that particular species of it 
 which is called 'pompous' smoke. 1 may therefore have en- 
 countered it unawares where I should least have looked for 
 it. Certainly I have met with this interpretation of Mr. 
 Kingsley's before, and not in the book of any high or low 
 Dutch pedagogue. If the reviewer wishes to see the original 
 of it, I would respectfully refer him to the choice of lessons, 
 in our Prayer-book, for Whit Monday. He will there find 
 that the passage from the Old Testament which is taken 
 to illustrate one ])art of the meaning of the Pentecostal 
 day is the beginning of the 11th chapter of Genesis — that 
 which refers to the confusion of tongues at the Tower of 
 Babel. That this passage has something to do with human 
 language has generally been admitted. The reviewer may, 
 of course, dissent from the common opinion; but he will 
 then, I believe, be himself entitled to that praise of originality 
 which he has too generously bestowed upon Mr. Kingsley. 
 It has also, I believe, my loi*d, been the ordinary opinion of 
 divines that the sin of the Tower of Babel consisted in some 
 rebellion against the will and purpose of God, in men claim- 
 ing to be independent of him. The church appears to teach 
 us that when the Sjiirit of God descended in cloven tongues 
 upon the apostles, and enabled them to s])cak as he gave
 
 35 
 
 them utterance, a society was established which depended 
 upon him instead of upon brick walls. She seems to wish 
 that we should compare the symbols of the one event and of 
 the other, and reflect how much all division begins in claiming 
 a right over our own words — all unity, in acknowledging that 
 there is a higher Power who speaketh in us. But, of course, 
 the church like Mr. Kingsley appears to the reviewer to have 
 vented pompous smoke. How can he have any different 
 opinion, when it is evident that he wishes to destroy any con- 
 nexion between the miracle of Pentecost, as well as the other 
 facts of the Bible, and our own lives and times } Whereas it is 
 the object of the church to set forth that miracle as the sign of 
 the commencement of a kingdom of which there shall be no end 
 — a kingdom whose members receive the same Spirit in their 
 baptism which Avas bestowed ujDon the three thousand to whom 
 St. Peter preached. But let him look well to what will come 
 of this temper of mind ; let him see whether, if he ridicule 
 those who assert that the truth which was established at 
 Pentecost by that miracle is a perpetual and abiding 
 truth, he does not drive young men and young women to 
 seek for a renewal of the mere sign — whether, in his effort 
 to get rid of what he calls mysticism, he does not introduce 
 a frantic fanaticism. I venture to think, my lord, that it is 
 only by acting upon the principle which Mr. Kingsley has 
 announced, in our education, that we can look to avert either 
 such fanaticism or the dreariest rationalism. 
 
 Once more the reviewer returns to me. What he says is 
 so important as disclosing his own feelings and those of the 
 fashionable religious public which he represents, about the 
 human beings in whom we are taught by our Catechism 
 that the Spirit of God dwells, that I must give my own 
 sentence, with all his wit ajipended to it: — 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 ' Words arc as mucli subjects of expcrimout as gases ; the words 
 wliieh we speak every hour, when we come to examiue them, what 
 wonderful secrets do they tell! How much self-knowledge may be 
 gained by the most impetfect meditation npon their roots and growth ! 
 Children are especially delighted by this exercise. Their faces become 
 brighter, freer, fuller of deep meaning, as they engage in it ; awful 
 truths seem to be shining into them and out of them. And they find 
 that the words which they speak are not to be trifled with; a lie 
 becomes a more serious thing to them ; they not only know from 
 your teaching, but in a measure feel for themselves, what it is.' — 
 pp. 18, 19. Prof. Maiirice. 
 
 ' Certain roimd chubby faces of our acquaintance present themselves, 
 to our mind's eye, bright enough in their own way, but in which our 
 Professor would find it difficult to conjure up the ' deep meaning' of 
 which ho speaks ; and true and ingenuous as they are, we suspect no 
 amount of grammatical exercise, nor any nor all of the teaching at 
 Queen's College could ever cause ' awful truths' to ' shine out' of those 
 laiighing eyes. As for a lie appearing a more serious offence to a child 
 because it has ' imperfectly meditated' on the roots of the vocables in 
 which the lie is told — if this be so, there can be no doubt that we 
 might safely dismiss all our so-caUed books of Ethics, and substitute at 
 once the Etymological Dictionary.' — p. 378. 
 
 My lord, I am perfectly willing to be the victim of this 
 humour ; it is satisfactory to see a gentleman, apparently 
 not of much natural vivacity, able to make himself lively 
 by my help. But I must tell him plainly, that though I 
 am a very fair subject for his jests, little children are not; 
 that if he does not regard them, with their chubby faces, as 
 awfid beings, God does ; that if awful truths do not shine 
 to him out of their laughing eyes, they are there, never- 
 theless ; and that it is at their peril, and at our peril, if we do 
 not confess them. Words seem to him nothing awful ; children 
 seem to him nothing awful ; education seems to him nothing 
 awful. We are to teach our children a little religion, and a 
 little grammar, and a little arithmetic, and a little music ; 
 but we are not to recognise in them anything more than 
 chubby faces and laughing eyes. May God, in His mercy,
 
 37 
 
 keep us, and keep our land, from such grovelling views. 
 May the teachers of our children, whether they are 
 called profane, or pantheistic, or anything else, by the 
 fashionable religious world, be men who have not, in the 
 19th century of the Christian era, a lower faith than the 
 pagan satirist, Avho said ' Puerum reverere.'' 
 
 The rest of the article is directed against Mr. Kingsley's 
 mode of teaching composition and history. I am grieved to 
 say, my lord, for the sake of the College, that these animad- 
 versions, so far as the future is concerned, do not affect us. 
 Mr. Kingsley has found it impossible to give lectures in 
 London, and we have been deprived of instructions which 
 would have done more to elevate the minds and characters 
 of our pupils than almost any which it is possible for them 
 to receive. But as the reviewer discovers in Mr. Kingsley 
 * leanings which require to be watched ;' as T trust and hope 
 that he is right in believing that some of the spirit which his 
 lectures embody is to be found among us ; and as 1 appre- 
 hend, for the reasons I have already given, that there are 
 few subjects upon which good teaching is so desirable, 
 or bad teaching so hurtful, as on those of composition and 
 history ; I think I am not in the least exempted from the duty 
 of meeting any charges against one whom we should count 
 it a great happiness to welcome among us again. 
 
 As Mr. Kingsley does not belong to your lordship's dio- 
 cese, and may not be known to you personally, and as I feel 
 how much unfair discredit both he and my other colleagues 
 may be suffering from their accidental connexion with me, I 
 am thankful that I am able to call a particularly unexcep- 
 tionable witness in his favour. In the January number of 
 the English Reviev is an article of some length, on his * Saint's 
 Tragedy.' That I have no very strong personal motive for
 
 38 
 
 calling your lordship's attention to it, a glance at the Review 
 will satisfy you. I am described in it as an insolent, ])rag- 
 niatical coxcomb, with whom Mr. Kingsley is earnestly 
 advised to have as little intercourse as possible. But the 
 writer — evidently a jierson of much ability, and with a keen 
 perception of what is beautiful in character and composition 
 — speaks of Mr. Kingsley's play with equal respect for its 
 poetical power and its moral purpose. He claims his genius 
 for the service of the church, and conjures him not to 
 devote it to the service of any party. This admirable 
 advice, my lord, jVJk. Kingsley has followed, both in the 
 Tragedy which is the subject of the reviewer's panegyric, 
 and in some Village Sermons, which are especially remark- 
 able for their homely sinewy English, for tlieir acquaintance 
 with the peasant life and habits of England, for their 
 abhorrence of all shadowy abstractions, for their procla- 
 mation of God as a living, personal, present r*uler; for the 
 prominence they give to the facts of incarnation and redemp- 
 tion ; for an unusually earnest assertion of the personality of 
 the spirit of evil. 
 
 The approbation of the English Review, and these qualities 
 which apjiear on the surface of his sermons, would scarcely 
 prepare one to expect that the particular 'leaning' of Mr. 
 Kingsley would be to ' Germanism.' Those who know him 
 will be still more startled to find that one whom they have 
 always looked upon as vehemently practical, as devoted to 
 the wellbeing of poor men, in their simplest and most out- 
 ward works, as loving no statements which have not the 
 test of being directly applicable to their hearts, should be 
 associated, for good or for evil, with a habit of mind 
 which, at all events, awakens in the English public 
 notions of whatever is abstract, misty, impalpable. No
 
 39 
 
 charge is so easily made as this ; no one is so convenient as 
 suggesting a thousand dark apprehensions, which are far 
 more terrible because they are not expressed; no one is 
 therefore so regular and acknowledged a means of diffusing 
 suspicion of a teacher or a preacher. But it is not often 
 that there is such an opportunity as the Quarterly reviewer 
 has afforded us of questioning the opprobrious epithet, 
 and comparing it with the acts of the person to whom it is 
 applied. 
 
 There is a proverb, my lord, which I find continually 
 quoted in religious newspapers, and which serves as an 
 excuse for using any little fragment of club gossip as a 
 ' sign of the times,' or for making a brother an offender for a 
 word. It is that ' if you throw up a straw, you may tell 
 which w^ay the wind blows.' Now, the Quarterly reviewer in 
 this case has ' thrown up a straw ' for the purpose of proving 
 Mr. Kingsley a Germaniser. He has skilfully constructed 
 a passage out of three pages of his lecture on composition, 
 inserting everything which struck hira as quaint or unusual 
 in Mr. Kingsley's illustrations or mode of writing, without 
 the relief of the ordinary discourse in the midst of which 
 it occurs. 
 
 ' Prose tlien is higlicst. To write a perfect prose must be your 
 ultimate object in attending tbese Icctvires ; but we must walk before 
 we can run, and walk with leading-strings before we can walk alone ; 
 and sucli leading-strings arc verse and rliyme. Some tradition of tkis 
 is still kept up in tbe practice of making boys write Latin and Greek 
 verses at scliool, wliick is of real service to tke intellect, even when 
 most carelessly employed, and which, when earnestly carried out, is 
 one great cause of the public scliool and college man's superiority in 
 
 style to most self-educated authors Practice in versification 
 
 might be imnecessary if we were all horn world-geniuses ; so would 
 practice in dancing — if every lady had the figure of a Venus, and the 
 Garden of Eden for a playground Sui'cly when you recol- 
 lect the long drudgery at Greek and Latin verses which is required
 
 40 
 
 of evory liii^hly educated man, and tlie liipli importance wliidi has 
 attached to them for centuries in the opinion of Enghshmen, you cannot 
 think that I am too exigent in asking you for a few sets of Enghsh 
 versos. Beh'eve me, that you ought to find their beneficial effect in 
 producing. &?■ I said before, a measured, dehberato style of expression, 
 a habit of calling up clear and distinct images on all subjects, a power 
 of condensing and arranging your thoughts, such as no practice in 
 prose themes can ever give.' — pp. 35, 3C, 41. 
 
 The reviewer has done what he could to prevent his 
 reader from discovering the lecturer's aim in this passage. 
 He has failed through desire to prove too much. He was 
 anxious to found a new charge against us ; so he betrayed 
 the secret that Mr. Kingsley is defending in these sentences — 
 the very sentences which are chosen to convict him of Ger- 
 manism, — the public school practice of writing Latin verses! 
 What an unfortunate augury ! Tlie straw takes quite the 
 wrong direction ! Judging from it, the wind does not blow 
 either from Germany or towards it ! For your lordship knows 
 that this practice is emphatically a part of our old English 
 education, — that part which the German education has cast 
 aside, that part which all supporters of German education 
 would especially ridicule. 
 
 The revie\ver of course is at liberty to object to Mr. 
 
 Kingsley's application of this plan. He shall state the 
 
 grounds of his objection. 
 
 ' As to the Greek and Latin verses of boys — without entering on the 
 question as to the amoimt of benefit derived from this exercise, we 
 may fearlessly assert that there is no danger in it — not one boy in ten 
 will pen a Latin verse after he leaves school — not one boy at all will be 
 allured away by the fascination of that employment from the duties of 
 active life. But may not dabbling in English rhyme prove more 
 attractive? Is fostering and encouraging this equally safe? It is not 
 perhaps impossible tluit some real poetry may be produced, but how 
 many poor, meagre, halting verses will there be, not to speak of liigh- 
 rtown nonsense or silly doggerel ? And will the weaker sisters always 
 discover that they are not ' born world-geniuses' ? We need hardly 
 say that merely to while away a rainy afternoon, or to sharpen the wits
 
 41 
 
 of young folks at a holiday party, we have no objection to all trying 
 their hand at rhyme. ^^Tiat we do object to is making it snch a primary, 
 essential, grave piece of business — preceding, if not superseding, plain 
 matter-of-fact, Mork-day prose. With respect to one class of the 
 jnipils especially, it may fairly be asked whether a certificate of pro- 
 ficiency in the Walkerian Science would be considered as aiw recom- 
 mendation for a governess ? — Would even a page of the Book of Beauty 
 be to a sensible mother an overawing document ? And since prose is 
 the higher attainment, and doubtless many will never reach so far, are 
 we prepared to place our children under the care of one who has 
 stopped short at the poetry ?' 
 
 The riddle about the Walkerian Science and the Book of 
 Beauty I have, after much straining of my faculties, been 
 obliged to give up. If it means that governesses in the 
 present day are very likely to occupy themselves with such 
 trash as the Book of Beauty, and that one great object of 
 Mr. Kingsley, and of all our teachings, is to give them good 
 books as a substitute for it, he asserts a truth upon which I 
 may have to say a few words presently. His argument 
 respecting holiday afternoons, and the mischief of making 
 poetry ' such a grave piece of business,' is as remarkable for 
 the classical language in which it is conveyed as for its in- 
 herent worth. All teachers, I believe, have discovered that 
 to cure a boy or girl of a mere knack of writing — of what the 
 reviewer calls ' dabbling,' — you should teach them that there 
 are rules and laws appertaining to the subject with which 
 they are trifling; as the reviewer would say, that it is a grave 
 piece of business. This is Mr. Kingsley's method ; what the 
 reviewer's is, he does not clearly point out. He protests 
 against the setting of poetry above prose, which is just the 
 thing that Mr. Kingsley also protests against. He, a poet, 
 informs his pupils that versification is only a means of ac- 
 quiring the power of writing plain prose. He may be right 
 or wrong ; but if he is wrong, it is not because he has tried 
 to make girls sentimental, but because he has (ried to prevent
 
 42 
 
 them from becoming so ; it is not because he has introduced 
 
 German novehies, but because he had offered too loyal an 
 
 allegiance to the maxims upon which he and his fathers 
 
 were trained. 
 
 The*last attack of the reviewer is so serious, that at the 
 
 risk of quite wearying your lordship's patience, I must quote 
 
 it at length, with the passage by which it is supported. I 
 
 have carefully preserved the Italics of the review. The words 
 
 to which they draw attention do remarkably exhibit the 
 
 characteristics — the peculiarly anti-German characteristics — 
 
 of Mr. Kingsley's mind. 
 
 ' It is, iucleed, in reference to this class — tlie young governesses elect 
 — tliat we are most concerned to have so much fault to find with the 
 quality of the teacihing at Queen's College — not only because of the 
 wide difl'usion which error imbibed by them is likely to obtain, but 
 because they are the least able to protect themselves from it, or we 
 should rather say, their friends are the least likely to afford them pro- 
 tection. The parents of other pupils may have leisure, and be properly 
 qualified to watch and judge the instruction which their children are 
 taking m, and if dissatisfied they have other means at command for 
 securing a suitable education. But the more himible class, absorbed 
 by the cares of providing for their families, perhaps but imperfectly^ edu- 
 cated themselves, cannot, moreover, afibrd to be rigidly particular about 
 tuition obtained at a much cheaper rate than any they could find else- 
 where, and will be apt to shut their eyes and absolve themselves from 
 an inquiry which might prove so inconvenient in its results. For these 
 young pci'sons, therefore, we call in extraneous aid ; and in addition to 
 the protest we have already entered on their behalf, we must take the 
 liberty to complain of a tone of dreamy, unhealthy sentimentalism pervad- 
 ing a portion of the professorial ' utterances.' If there is any class of 
 the comnumity especially in danger of falling into such a snare, and to 
 whom the consequences may prove especially pernicious, it is this. For 
 Avhat is the position of a governess ? Educated for her vocation Air 
 beyond what her circumstances would otherwise have permitted, and 
 consequently above her natural connexions — her mind more cidtivated, 
 lier manners more refiued — she probably may find their society imcon- 
 genial, and if affection be not weakened, at least pleasant intercourse 
 may be marred and confidence checked. Not only so — she is also 
 separated from thorn, ami tlu-owu among those whose minds and
 
 manners assimilate miicb. more with licr own — who have, besides, the 
 cliarm which birth and breeding may give them in her eyes : but towards 
 wliom her afleetious must not go forth, with wliom she can form no 
 histing tics, in whom she dare take no special interest. If ever poor mortal 
 needed to have the imagination kept under control, and plain practical 
 common sense largely developed, as a safeguard alike for her feelings 
 and her conduct, it is the governess. But — not to recur to the 'earnest 
 carrying out' of the art of discipline and sonneteering — how will such 
 teaching as the following effect this end? The Rev. Charles Kiugsley 
 thus delivers himself concerning the ' true sjm'ihial Histori/ of Eng- 
 land : ' — 
 
 ' ' That I call a histor}^ — not of one class of offices or events, but of 
 the hving human souls of EngUsh men and English women — and there- 
 fore one most adapted to the mind of woman ; one which will call into 
 fullest exercise lier blessed faculty of sympathy — that pure and tender 
 heart of flesh, which teaches her always to find her highest interest in 
 mankind, simply as mankind : to see the Divine most completely in the 
 human ; to prefer the incarnate to the disemhodied, the personal to the 
 abstract — the pathetic to the intellectual ; to see, and truly, in the most 
 common tale of village love or sorrow, a mystery deeper and more divine 
 than lies in all the theories of 2)oliticians or the fixed ideas of the sage. 
 
 ' ' Such a course of history would quicken women's inborn personal 
 interest m the actors of this hfe drama, and be c[uickened by it in return, 
 as indeed it ought : for it is thus that God intended woman to look 
 instinctively at the world. Would to God that she would teach us men 
 to look at it thus likewise ! [Teach instinct!} Would to God that she 
 woidd in these days claim and fulfill to the uttermost her vocation as 
 the priestess of charity ! that woman's heart would help to deliver man 
 from bondage to his own tyrannous and all-too-exclusive brain ! — from 
 oiu' idolatry of mere dead laws and printed books — from our daily sin 
 of looking at men, not as our struggling and suffering brothers, but as 
 mere symbols of certain formula;, incarnations of sets of opinions, 
 wheels in some iron liberty-grinding or Clmstianity-spinning -machine, 
 which we miscall society, or civilization, or, worst misnomer of all, the 
 Church ! 
 
 ' ' This I take to be one of the highest aims of woman — to preach 
 charity, love, and brotherhood : but in this nineteenth century, hunting 
 everywhere for law and organization, refusing loj^alty to anything which 
 cannot range itself under its theories, she will never get a hearing till 
 
 her knowledge of the past becomes more organized and methodic 
 
 I claim, therefore, as necessary for the education of the future, that 
 \\oman should be initiated into the thoughts and feelings of her country- 
 niuii in ever}^ ago, from the wildest legends of the jiast to the most 
 palpable naturalism of the present; and tliat not merely in clironulogical
 
 44 
 
 order — sometimes not in chronological order at all; but in a true 
 spiritual sequence ; that, knowing the hearts of many, she may in after 
 life be able to comfort the hearts of all 
 
 ' ' But once more, we must and will by God's help try to realize the 
 purpoge of this College, by boldJy facing the facts of the age, and of 
 our own office. And therefore w'e shall not shrink from the task, how- 
 ever delicate and difficult, of speaking to our hearers as to women. Our 
 teaching must be no sexless, heartless abstraction. We must try to 
 make all which we tell them bear on the great purpose of imfolding to 
 woman hor own calling in all ages — her especial calling in this one. 
 We miist incite them to realize the chivalrous belief of our old fore- 
 fathers among their Saxon forests, that something Divine dwelt in the 
 comisels of women: but, on the other hand, we must continually remind 
 them that they will attain that d'nnnc histlnct, not by renouncing their 
 sex, but by fulfilling it ; by becoming true women, and not bad imita- 
 tions of men ; by educating their heads for the sake of their hearts, not 
 their hearts for the sake of their heads ; by claiming woman's divine 
 vocation, as the priestess of purity, of beauty, and of love; by educating 
 themselves to become, with God's blessing, worthy wives and mothers 
 of a mighty nation of workers, in an age when the voice of the ever- 
 working God is proclaiming, through the thunder of falling dynasties 
 and crumbling idols, ' He that will not work, neither shall he eat.' ' 
 On English Literature. {Lect. pp. 58-66.) 
 
 ' How would our readers like to I'eceive into their families as a 
 governess, one who had been taught to feel such an interest in ' tales 
 of village love,' — who is prepared to take a ' personal interest in the 
 actors' of the domestic 'life-drama,' — to offer them her 'sjmpathy,' not 
 as events properly and naturally call it forth, but as her chief vocation 
 and highest duty — and to expect that ' sometliing di%-ine ' is to be attri^ 
 buted to her ' counsels ? ' 
 
 I have some difficulty, my lord, in answering this last 
 question. It must depend very much on who ' our readers' 
 are. If they are assumed to be all of tlie same mind and dis- 
 position with the writer, the reply is easy. Those who see 
 only in their children round chubby faces and laughing 
 eyes, are not at all likely to wish for a governess such as Mr. 
 Kingsley's discipline would form. One who can teach Pin- 
 nock's catechisms to their daughters, who can drill them to 
 ])lay on the piano for six or seven hours a-day, so effectually 
 getting rid of any superfluous laughter from their eyes, of any
 
 45 
 
 vulgar chubbiness from their faces, one who can go through 
 a routine of lessons, hateful to herself, hateful to her pupils, 
 producing hatred between them, would be far more suitable 
 for such a reader. It is easy for him to procure already what 
 he wants ; we do not undertake to provide him. Not for 
 his own sake and for his children's sake only, are we 
 determined, with God's help, that he shall seek elsewhere 
 than at Queen's College for ladies of this description, but 
 quite as much for the sake of that most unhappy and most 
 injured class over which the admirable Institution that 
 called us into existence watches. My lord, we are con- 
 vinced that it is because parents have had such a low view 
 of the dignity of their children, that they have had such a low 
 view of the dignity of their governesses. We feel that we 
 cannot do anything to raise the one, unless we also raise the 
 other. If children do not want to know the sjiiritual history 
 of their country ; if it is enough for them to learn the dates of 
 kings' Hiigns out of 'Pinnock's Catechism,' then it is enough 
 also for the governess to be a person who toils through that 
 catechism, who commits those dates to memory, then it is 
 not at all safe or desirable that either her intellect or her 
 imagination should be cultivated. But let not the reviewer 
 imagine that because he has taken this precaution, her ima- 
 gination and intellect will not seek to cultivate themselves, 
 and that in the most morbid and dangerous manner. She 
 will take revenge for the barrenness of heart, to which upon 
 this miserable calculation you have consigned her, by read- 
 ing 'Books of Beauty,' and all the wretched stuff of the 
 English or the French Minerva press; or if the exertions of 
 the morning have been too great for even these tasks in the 
 evening, then the study of dress or the most petty occupa- 
 tions will supply their jdace. Does the reviewer reallv
 
 46 
 
 think that the dangers at which he darkly hints, the danger of 
 all foolish fancies about actual persons with whom she may he 
 brought into contact, will be averted by her ignorance of 
 the simple, honest, truthful records of womanly life and 
 feeling which Mr. Kingsley would have presented her with ? 
 Surely, those who feel that they have an interest in the soil 
 to which they belong, in its domestic life, in its civil life, in 
 its Church, are rather more likely to dwell amidst persons 
 possessing the accidents of birth and breeding, to which 
 the critic somewhat coarsely refers, with female self-respect, 
 without vain or selfish ambition. The part of this article 
 which refers to ourselves and our ill-doings, I can easily 
 tolerate, the part which refers to these poor women 
 makes my blood boil. Thank God, my lord, there are 
 English men and English women who do not wish that 
 the governess's society should always have occasion for 
 exercising its mournful and necessary charity, who do look 
 forward to a time when all the daughters of this land, of 
 whatever order and degree, shall feel that they have a share 
 in its spiritual history, and that they may, in the lowliest occu- 
 pations, without ever aspiring to be more than women, 
 more than teachers, themselves contribute precious pages 
 to it. To them and to their sympathies our college make 
 its appeal. 
 
 My lord, I have now concluded my unpleasant task. The 
 duty which remains is to express my concuiTcnce with the 
 Quarterly Reviewer in one part of his observations, the part 
 which he seems to have thought would be least acceptable to 
 us. He says that our constitution is a bad one, that no 
 body of teachers should be responsible only to themselves. 
 He is quite right. We had found out the defect before he 
 told us of it. He seems to acknowledge that our position,
 
 47 
 
 with reference to the Governesses Institution made it in 
 evitable. The moment that certain movements in the 
 governesses' committee led us to think that that connexion 
 might, at some time or other, be dissolved, we began to 
 consider how we might improve our government, how 
 wc might get rid of that irresponsible authority, to which 
 the reviewer supposes we cleave so fondly. His scheme of 
 a council naturally suggested itself to us. What we are 
 anxious for, my lord, is, that the council should be composed, 
 not of persons who shall be chiefly financiers, and who, from 
 their other occupations, will not be able to take practical 
 cognizance of our proceedings, or be competent to do so ; but 
 of men acquainted with different branches of education, who 
 can see whether we are going right, and can admonish, 
 coerce, or dismiss us, if we go wrong. I can give your 
 lordship one proof, I think it will be a satisfactory one, that 
 i we are sincere in this wish. There is, as your lordshiji 
 ! knows, a prelate residing in Harley Street, who is honoured 
 i by all members of the English Church, but whose name is! 
 I especially dear to all those who have had any connexion 
 i with King's College. If, for the sake of promoting the cause 
 of female education, and of keeping us in the right way 
 1 he would consent to be the chairman of the council, I know 
 that there is not one of our body who would not rejoice to 
 place himself under his immediate inspection and govern- 
 ment. We should then, with some courage, ask your lordship 
 to be our Visitor. 
 
 Does it seem to your lordship that this profession is 
 inconsistent with the lofty tone which the reviewer says I 
 took respecting our irresponsibility, in my lecture at the 
 opening of the College .? I apprehend, that there never 
 were two statements more entirely in harmony. I said
 
 48 
 
 tliat we would not follow tiie caprices of the j)iiblic ; that 
 we could not, as honest men, hold ourselves responsible to 
 it, or to those who guide it. We never dreamed that we 
 could hide ourselves from its oversight, or escape its sus- 
 picions; we never wished to be free from either; we did 
 believe, that in God's strength we could withstand its 
 maxims, and decrees, and fashions; we desired that we 
 might perish before we yielded to them. I have stated 
 some considerations in this letter which have strengthened 
 and rivetted that resolution. A writer, who evidently is a 
 very fair — a very advantageous — specimen of the tone of 
 thinking which prevails in our religious clubs and coteries, 
 has set forth, in one of the ablest of our journals, his 
 views of what our Education ought to be ; his objections 
 to that which it is, or he fancies it is. Every one of those 
 views if acted out would, it seems to me, prevent us clergy- 
 men from fulfilling the obligations under which our office 
 lays us; every one of those objections implies a theory of 
 education which I believe never can be the foundation of a 
 sound practical discipline for Englishmen or English 
 women. Now, my lord, the Bishops of this land are, I 
 conceive, its proper and ajipointcd protectors against the 
 loose floating opinion of the time, whether that which 
 pervades its ordinary or its religious circles. They are 
 bound to observe that opinion — to see of what it is the 
 index. But they are the witnesses for that which is per- 
 manent; for that which connects past, present, and future. 
 To base education upon that permanent foundation, to 
 make it not the creature of temporary feelings and notions 
 was, if I have interpreted our King's College maxim rightly, 
 to object of yourself and of those who established that Insti- 
 tution. They were determined to show that instruction,
 
 49 
 
 though it may vary its modes in each age, rests always upon 
 the same principle ; that it appeals to man as a spiritual 
 being, that it starts from the acknowledgment of God as the 
 real Teacher, of us as his agents and ministers. To many this 
 proclamation may have had a merely negative sound. A 
 different one seemed to have been put forth by others. This 
 was a convenient watchword for opposing them. But your 
 lordship never could have so regarded it; you never ex- 
 pected us, the teachers in the College, so to regard it. We 
 had no business with the maxims of other men ; we were 
 not to bring watchwords into the lecture-room. If we con- 
 fessed your doctrine to be true, we were to teach in con- 
 formity with it, whatever our special function might be. It 
 has seemed to me, the more I have considered it, that your 
 doctrine is a sound one, and that it gives the teacher a 
 power of dealing freely and honestly with the facts of 
 history, with the utterances of men, with the word of God, 
 which no other could give. But I felt, my lord, from 
 the first, that if we follow this course calmly and man- 
 fully, we must prepare ourselves for the assaults of all who 
 wish education and the Church to have a local and tem- 
 porary character. Every school and party must seek, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, to give them that character; 
 schools and parties must complain of us, and impute to us 
 the very sins which we are most struggling against in our- 
 selves and our pupils, if we do not adopt their shibboleths 
 and technicalities, if we find the words which the Scripture 
 and the forms of the Church supply us with, more satis- 
 factory, more intelligible, more comprehensive, than their 
 interpretations of them. Yet though it is inevitable that we 
 should incur the denunciation or the contempt of these 
 parties and of their organs — though any scheme for propi- 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 tiating them must involve a perilous tampering with truth or 
 a failure in our trust, yet every person who entertains a 
 reasonable suspicion of himself, must be aware how great 
 the temptation is to cultivate a proud, self-willed indifference 
 to other men's judgments, instead of a righteous determina- 
 tion not to hearken unto them more than unto God. 
 
 In submitting the method of our teaching at Queen's Col- 
 lege to your lordship's cognizance, (mine, at King's College, 
 is open to it already), I hope we are doing what we can 
 to avoid this great error. We have no right whatever to any 
 personal indulgence from your lordship — we should not 
 avail ourselves of it if we had. We appeal to you in your 
 episcopal — I was going to have said in your judicial — cha- 
 racter. If I recal the word, it is because I regard the relation 
 of a Father as far above the office of a Judge ; not because I 
 wish to avoid, for myself, or for any institution to which I 
 belong, the strictest investigation which you can institute — 
 the severest sentence which, after puch an investigation, you 
 think fit to pronounce. 
 
 My Lord, I have the honour to be, 
 With great respect, 
 Your Lordship's obedient and grateful servant, 
 
 F. D. MAURICE.
 
 1
 
 > J>?>_JBt 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i?^^^ 
 
 
 >'■ Jl^ '■■• » > ^ ■-> > ■•■• > %-= 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^dlW■>^^ 
 
 
 
 >rt> J^ *-- -^ -