XII. Retrospect and Prospect.

BY JAMES DRUMMOND, LL.D.*

HERE are two circumstances which give a special

THERE

character to the occasion on which we are assembled. At the close of the Session on which we are entering to-day the College will have completed its first century, and it begins its hundredth year with a change of the first magnitude in the teaching arrangements. The venerable Chief who, during nearly half the period of its existence, has laid upon it the stamp of his genius, has handed on his duties to men who, though not untried, are younger by a whole generation, and take upon them for the first time the full burden of their responsibility. And, believe me, that responsibility is very deeply felt. Even if we had ever been influenced by a taste for rash innovation, we are now past the age when it could. seduce us by its charm, though we shall never, I trust, be too old to learn, or to adopt such modifications as may be necessary, amid surrounding changes, to adapt the College more perfectly to the principles upon which it is founded, and the aims which it has in view. And as regards the execution of our task, while we can only work with such abilities as have been bestowed upon us, our ideal at least can hardly be allowed to droop when

An Address at the Opening of the Session, October 6, 1885, by the Rev. James Drummond, LL.D., Principal.

we remember that this College has numbered among its teaching staff such men as Dr. Barnes, John Dalton, Charles Wellbeloved, John Kenrick, F. W. Newman, J. G. Robberds, William Gaskell, Dr. G. Vance Smith, Russell Martineau, J. J. Tayler, Dr. Martineau, and others who might be mentioned, were not the list too long for a complete enumeration. Such names as these represent scientific, philosophical, scholarly and literary attainments, a noble conscientiousness, a loftiness of religious power, and a sweetness of spiritual character, of which any institution may be proud; and, if anything can be calculated at once to inspire and to humble us, it is the sacred memories that cluster around this home of faith and freedom, a home small and insignificant in the eyes of the world, but great in the integrity of its purpose and the purity of its consecration. It is our hope and our prayer that this inheritance which is committed to us may never be impaired by any pettiness in ourselves, but that through self-forgetting devotion to our work we may rise to the simple dignity of Christian service, and, though with less splendid gifts than some who have been before us, yet with no less fidelity of will, we may guard the interests which are for a time entrusted to us; and if the welfare of the College can be promoted by the co-operation of men who, while possessing very diverse aptitudes and tastes, are yet united in the most complete brotherly affection, then we may reasonably hope that the future will at least reflect some of the happiest lights and fairest tints of the past.

Although it has been necessary on more than one occasion in recent years to defend the fundamental principle on which our College rests against friendly

misunderstanding or hostile attack, we cannot help reverting to the same subject for a few moments at this crisis in our history, when we naturally seek to bring together the experiences of the past in order to shape from them our ideal for the time to come. It is not, however, my purpose at present to defend once more our principle of free teaching and free learning in Theology, but only to enunciate and explain it, and point out the fact that it was fully and deliberately adopted at the very inception of our undertaking. Nothing can be more unwarranted than the insinuation that it has been lately introduced into the management of the College; rather is it a novelty to hear of any opposition to it among those who ought to have inherited a more robust and manly faith. We are spiritually descended from men who knew how to suffer for holding unpopular convictions, and who believed that the truth of God could make its way most securely when it appealed with nothing but its own divine power to the reason and conscience of mankind. They saw that it was vain to drive in disciples with whips and hold them to Christianity by nets and fetters, and, in the humility born of their communion with God, they were too conscious of the fallibility of human judgments to set up their own conclusions as a standard to which all others must conform. How well do I myself remember listening, as a boy, to many an exhortation to allow no ecclesiastical barrier to be interposed between the soul and God, but to seek for truth fearlessly, honourably and humbly, in the certainty that we should surely find; and though, as I grew older, there was much in Unitarian preaching which seemed to me defective, yet

this appeal, so generous, so trustful, so large in hope, commanded my full assent, and was a compensation for a failure, as I sometimes thought, to apprehend the darker aspects of human life, the horror of inward sinfulness, and the need of a divine transforming power, and a consequent externality in the way of regarding Christ, his person and his mission. The characters nurtured in this freedom were, generally speaking, distinguished by a noble simplicity and devoutness, by a high ethical standard, and by a fine appreciation of human rights, and an aversion to intolerance and oppression; and room was left open for an expansive growth in whatever direction the Spirit of God might lead. Nor even at that time was this call to liberty a new watchword, but it had been handed down from older generations, who in fierce and troubled times won for us those sacred privileges which ought to be dearer to us than life. To go no farther back, I need only mention the truthful mind of Priestley pursuing its calm way through rational and scientific investigation, and, if we may cross to our kindred in America, Dr. Channing's noble assertion of the inalienable right of the human soul to commune for itself with the Spirit of Truth, and his summons to a life loftier and broader than any sectarian limits. Such men were leading the way towards something larger than ecclesiastical Christendom could offer, and had grasped the very principle of Paul's spiritual gospel-" Prove all things, hold fast that which is good;" "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;" "Not the letter, but the spirit;" not knowledge, but love; not Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, but Jesus Christ.

The men who founded our College in Manchester

nearly a century ago were penetrated by these sentiments. The national seats of learning rested on that principle of exclusiveness which has been so disastrous to the religious history of England, and handed over to the grasp of faction the tattered shreds of Christ's seamless robe. Nonconformists were obliged to provide for their own interests, and to found academies where their youth might receive the education which was denied to them at Oxford and Cambridge. Considering the weakness of human nature, nothing could have been more natural than to say, since others exclude us, let us exclude them; let us spend no money for the benefit of people of whose doctrines we disapprove, but let our College be purely denominational, and guarded from orthodox or heretical intrusion by appropriate tests. Many Nonconformist colleges, accordingly, have been founded on this basis, and are administered for avowedly sectarian ends. But it is nobler to reason thus: we complain of being excluded on account of honest differences of opinion; therefore let us never exclude on account of such differences: we are injured in being refused the full rights of citizenship; therefore, though we should never be recognised as part and parcel of the, nation, let us prove that we are so by the width of our aims, by our public spirit, and by founding our College on a basis on which a national institution ought to rest: we are satisfied that in other quarters truth is impeded and the progress of mankind hampered by the principles of intolerance, and by chaining up in dogmatic bonds the energies of thought and the aspirations of the spirit; therefore we will have no such restrictions, but step forth from the narrow enclosures of party thought, and

Р