that which he doth know, and that which is given him to see and feel in his purest moments. The communications of God to the soul in its best states belong to those states; they are not deposits of memory, and they will not re-appear at the order of the will. The most effective preaching is not from the boldest mind, but from the most trembling and self-distrustful spirit that yet is forced by its vivid sense of God to overcome the trembling and the self-distrust. And no one who is without this deep confidence in the impulses which the spirit of God can impart to all the springs of life has the calling of a Preacher.

Yet do not be continually laying over again your religious foundations, as if you were in doubt whether or not God had already laid them for us all-and suggesting the doubt to others. Let your metaphysical or psychological knowledge appear rather in the precision, and illuminating clearness, of your affirmative statements, than in the exhibition of analytical processes. If you really believe that faith in God is a natural growth in every healthy heart and mind, assume it heartily, proceed unhesitatingly, and build upon it; but do not, on the vain supposition that you are going down to the roots-for we are rooted in God-lay bare its merely logical aspects, to leave only the intellectual impression that, after all, it is a matter of doubtful disputation. As preachers of religion, take for granted the great data of faith as largely as you know that they are deeply rooted in yourselves, and believe that they are deeply rooted in mankind, and leaving the argumentation that ripens no spiritual fruit, nor touches its germ, with living growths go on unto perfection.

To all of us alike, whatever be our place in God's Church, one thing, and one thing only, is needful-to love God with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul, and all our strength, and our neighbour as ourselves; but it will be for you to make men feel that this is no light thing, that to love God with all the heart is to know the spiritual passion of gratitude for loving-kindness, of self-devotion to goodness; that to love God with all the mind is to know the passion for truth that is the enthusiasm and science, the passion for beauty that moves the poet and the artist, when all truth and beauty are regarded as the self-revealing of God; that to love God with all the soul is to know the saints' consecration to holiness-the saints' penitential self-knowledge in the light of the heavenly presence— the saints' abhorrence of sin-the saints' agony of desire to save a sinner's soul-and that to love God with all the strength is the test of all the other loves-the passion for Reality, for Spirit, and for Truth, that makes Worship a living offering, and keeps the majesty of the Will behind every spiritual desire to force it forwards to its end, through every colder hour stedfast to that which we know to be good and from God, when we are aglow.

Those of you whose years of preparation are not yet run, we hope to welcome here again in health and strength of spirit. For the months in which you are free to choose your own mental food, and yet cannot return to us unaffected by what you choose, I have only one earnest word of advice-avoid, as far as possible, all second and third-rate literatures. Read in this your seed-time the works of genius themselves,

rather than criticisms and literary histories. It will affect your whole position. It will give you the modesty, the depth, the raciness, the weight of those who have sought the great thinkers on their own ground, who know the great poets in their own music, and it will save you from one of the growing offences of our day, the easiness, the confidence, the sharplydefined deliverances of those whose impressions and judgments are all at second hand.

To those of you with whom the season of silent preparation expires to-day, who henceforth are to prove what you are before the world, your best friends here, with whom towards you I am not worthy to take rank, will have another opportunity of speaking tender and solemn words. I will therefore only add now, that it will be a delight to all of us, the purest reward of those to whom you owe most, if we can watch your course with eyes of pride and joy. We pray God for you that He will make you a blessing to mankind, that you will make such an offering of yourselves in His service that He can use the sacrifice, and do the work of His spirit through you!

K

VIII. The Place of a Science of Theology

amongst University Studies.

BY CHARLES BARNES UPTON, B.Sc.*

IT

T is sometimes said that institutions as well as individuals have their allotted term of years, and pass through a cycle of changes analogous to that of human existence, displaying in turn the sanguine enthusiasm of youth, the effective vigour of manhood, the quiet and conservative respectability of declining years, which again yields to the more rapid advance of decay and dissolution. Even nations, we are told, are not exempt from this inevitable law. They enjoy but a longer lease of being; in them, as in the men and women who compose them, the life-blood flows at length more sluggishly, the intellect and the imagination wax dull, the energies relax, and they pass into the background of history, while nations younger in civilisation, and instinct with a newer life, press forward into prominence. The experience of the past, indeed, lends some confirmation to this assumption; yet when we study more carefully the causes which initiate and accelerate the decline and fall both of peoples and of institutions, we are led to see that these causes may be removed or lessened to an almost unlimited extent.

* An Address delivered at the Opening of the Session, October, 1875, by the Rev. C. B. Upton, B.Sc., Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy.

There may, no doubt, be physiological reasons for the ultimate decay of every mighty nation, and every institution may be destined at length to become so unsuited to its environment that all reason for its existence may pass away. Still, it is manifest that the empires of the past have not declined so much by reason of unavoidable exhaustion of nature as in consequence of certain moral ailments, which might have been escaped or cured; so that from the fate of Egypt and Assyria, of Greece and Rome, we have no sufficient grounds for predicting the downfall of modern states. The causes which dragged down these earlier kingdoms may likewise degrade our fatherland from her exalted position; but if her sons and daughters cherish the higher life of wisdom, rectitude and love, who shall set limits to the continuance of her prosperity? And when we turn to institutions, we find that, while some are intended merely to achieve a temporary purpose, others are established to perform a certain function, to satisfy a constant need, to be a perennial spring of beneficent influence on society. Such are the great educational institutions-the institutions which, in England and other lands, keep alive the flame of culture, and kindle in many souls a divine torch. These institutions, if animated by a spirit of genuine freedom, and an ardent love of truth, may live on from age to age, ever fresh and ever young, constantly gathering up from every field of knowledge the ripe results of investigation, co-ordinating and digesting them, and thus providing the soundest and most satisfying nourishment for the successive generations of students who represent the constantly-advancing stages