temper of the place, renders this impracti- of the religion and liberty of this country. cable, as a last resource the plan might be In the times of the Reformation, during adopted which has apparently succeeded at the civil war, and, above all, in the struggle Cambridge. No test should be required on to save the ark of civil and religious freematriculation; and no test previously to a dom towards the close of the reign of degree, except that the candidate is a bond Charles II., the genius of that house was fide member of the Church of England. An felt as a potent influence in public affairs. engagement night be added to withdraw from the University on ceasing to hold the doctrines of the Church of England, and a tribunal created to decide on any imputed breach of this engagement. To decide such questions by giouara, by judicial acts performed by a deliberative assembly, is revolutionary. It is an imitation of the worst practices of the worst democracies. Under such an arrangement, no one would be necessarily excluded from the studies or the honors of the place. A Dissenter, or a Roman Catholic, if he thought fit to comply with the usages, and receive the instruction of his College, might pass his examination, and be enrolled in a class, and obtain an under-graduate's prize. But he would be excluded from a degree, and therefore from the government, and, generally speaking, from the emoluments of the University. The sincerity of a graduate's declaration must be left to his own conscience; but, if he broke his engagement of conformity, the proposed tribunal would afford a remedy, which it will soon be found that Convocation does not. LORD JOHN RUSSELR. From the British Quarterly Review. Lord John Russell inherits most of the higher qualities belonging to his ancestors. In capacity, and in general culture, he is greater than the greatest of them. What he has done as an author, is overshadowed and forgotten by reason of the much greater prominence which he has obtained in the public eye as a statesman. His writings, however, warrant the conclusion, that, had he chosen to steer his course at a distance from the vortex of politics, and given himself to comparative ease and quietude as a man of letters, he might have risen to eminence in that department. His 'Essay on the English Constitution,'-the production of his early life, gave unequivocal token of the taste and capacity which might have led to such distinction. His 'Life of Lord William Russell' exhibited the same varied knowledge, the same disciplined intellect, and the same literary apitude, but all in a higher tone of maturity. His 'Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht,' relate to a section of modern history which interested men previously to the outbreak of the French Revolution, but which seemed to drop at once from their thoughts as that astounding event and its consequences began to develope themselves. The subject, accordingly, was not well chosen, except for persons of calm and aristocratic taste, more disposed to meditate on the repose and tameness of the past, than This article is from the pen of Dr. Vaughan. to sympathize with the onwardness and -ED. energy of the present. But the execution of the work evinced a large acquaintance with European affairs subsequent to the death of Louis XIV., much political sagacity, and that greater command of language which comes as the natural result of greater practice in composition. His lordship's subsequent essays on the causes of the French Revolution may be regarded as a supplementary chapter to the preceding work. It shows that the philosophy, the literature, and the state of society generally in France, which propelled affairs towards the crisis of the Revolution, were not only topics about which the author had read considerably, but matters on which he had bestowed some patient reflection. In respect to literature, however, as in respect to some other things, his lordship's] It would have been, as we assuredly think, achievements would have been more con- much better for him, and much better for ventional than natural; more correct than his country, had there been more decision profound; evincing more of the caution in his denunciation of some abuses; and which avoids great mistakes, than of the had his commendation of some great prinboldness which strikes out a new path. He ciples been more frequent and more earnest might have improved somewhat on the-such as would have carried more manifest school of Addison and Pope, but, in regard heart along with it. Of course, if it were to style, he would have been moulded by well that his lordship should have spoken it, and in regard to compass of thought, he more strongly on such occasions, it would would never have ventured far in advance have been well if his policy in relation to of it. With a considerable portion of the such matters had evinced greater promptiprogressive spirit, he would not have failed tude and greater vigor. But if he has not to unite a stately worship of the old land- conformed himself strictly to our moral marks. In all his voyaging, he would have standard at such times, we can believe that resembled those early mariners, who, want- he has been obedient to his own. ing the compass, were distrustful of the frail bark beneath them, and always made their way within sight of land-men. who might have continued to navigate the old world, but could never have signalized themselves as discoverers of the new. To touch on religion, in its relation to a living statesman, may be to enter upon delicate ground. But Lord John Russell has not scrupled to favor the world with some expression of his views on that subject, and it cannot be amiss to scrutinize what is thus submitted to scrutiny. His lordship's views concerning the different sections of religion in this country, present one very material phase of his own character. The course of his policy also, has been much influenced by those views. The last chapter in the second volume of the Memoirs of Affairs in Europe,' is occupied with a view of the state of religion With regard to that one quality of a statesman, without which every other must be untrustworthy, we deem Lord John Russell to be above fair impeachment. We believe him to be an honest man. No amount of popular misconception, no strength of party invective, has sufficed to produce in us the slightest misgiving in regard to his strict political integrity. We are glad to know that the gentlemen among the frequenters in England during the former half of the of St. Stephen's of whom so much cannot eighteenth century. This retrospect embe said, need no further instruction on that braces remarks on the condition of the point. All parties of that description have church of England during that interval, and had proof enough that his lordship is not a on the rise, progress, and character of man to their purpose. He does not touch methodism. According to the showing of the unclean thing. In some instances he his lordship, the great belligerent churchhas drawn the line between the conventional men of those times, whose shades are made and the absolute in political morality, at a to pass in succession before his readers, were point which we should not ourselves have men so intent on their particular controchosen. But the distinction made, we versies, as to have left the body of the nation doubt not, has commended itself, upon the in a wretched condition of ignorance, imwhole, to his own moral judgment. The morality, and irreligion. But the remedy casuistry of some state questions may be for this neglect, as supplied by the zeal of simple enough. Their justice or injustice methodism, is regarded as being on the may be seen at a glance. But the greater whole worse than the disease. The labors number of such questions are not of that of Whitfield and Wesley are described as order. In general, the wheat and the tares producing a kind of paroxysm, the immedigrow up strangely together, so that many an ate effects of which were rather injuriou honest man-ay, and many a wise man, than beneficial, while it was sure of being too-may be led to the conclusion, that to followed by lassitude, and by great moral root out one without destroying the other and religious mischief. Some passages are would be found impossible. Leaving all given, which are meant to exhibit the more fair space open to difference of judgment favorable view of that great religious movefrom this cause, we believe that the char-ment, and of the character of the extraoracter left to posterity by Lord John Russell dinary men by whom it was originated and will be, in respect to integrity, of a high sustained; but the unfavorable greatly preorder. ponderates, and the general conclusion is to instruction, to the cultivation of high as we have stated it. comparative moral feeling, and to the influIt is to be regretted, that a writer possess-ence of those elevating affections which ing the candor and discernment of Lord John have respect to the Infinite and the Eternal. Russell, should have deemed himself safe, What philosophy has ever raised the on a subject of this nature, in trusting to mind of the rude multitudes of men after such guides as Southey's 'Life of Wesley,' this manner? What established church and Nightingale's Portraiture of Method- has ever so done, except as it has become ism.' Still more is it to be regretted that a preacher of doctrines, and has been anihis own mind should have performed its mated by a feeling, which we fear his lordoffice so feebly in regard to the materials ship would be too ready to describe as which even those writers, together with the very methodistical? facts coming within his own observation, must have supplied. We should have been happy to have seen him distinguish, in the spirit of a high Christian philosophy, between the wisdom and the folly, the good and the evil, of the great moral revolution which was assuredly brought about among the people of this country by the labors of those said Methodists. In short, we do not mean to conceal that we have long regarded the tone of would-be philosophy, in which some classes of men in this country are wont to express themselves concerning the religion of all persons who appear to be more in earnest on that subject than themselves, with no small measure of dissatisfaction. The shallowness which frequently assumes the air of wisdom on such occasions, is to us very pitiable. The ample candor often evinced by such persons in favor of those who are enemies of religion or of those who profess it in some of its most corrupt forms, stands in singular contrast with the want of such kindly discrimination, when evangelical piety is the matter to be judged. The philosophy which fails to see a preponderance of good even in methodism, is not a sound philosophy. It argues great want of perception, or of humane feeling, when the lesser evil is allowed to prevent men from perceiving its relation to a great We see the errors, and some other faults of graver import, which belong to the earlier history of methodism, no less clearly than his lordship has seen them; but we see the truth and the goodness that were in it, as greatly outweighing their opposites. We regard that memorable outbreak against the heartless formalism, and the low profligacy of the times, not only as having given a new moral and religious character to the English people, but as having extended its leaven of improvement to classes far above the multitude. By elevating the poor, it has done much towards shaming the rich into better conduct. If er good. our courts and baronial halls are not the We have felt constrained to make these homes of that factious selfishness, of that observations, because the remarks of Lord everlasting frivolity, or that infidel licen-John Russell on this subject are opposed to tiousness, which prevailed in them during the distinctive truths of evangelical religion, the greater part of the last century, we as certainly as to some peculiarities which owe this improvement in high places, to have been grafted on those truths by methimprovement which began much lower odism. Christianity, in his view, does not down. The regeneration which took place seem to include any thing of the supernatural. among the lowest, contributed to enforce a The religion of a Christian, on the theory moral reformation upon the highest. The of his lordship, is to consist in the purely pulpit of methodism, moreover, has had its natural influence of revealed wisdom on the favorable influence on all other pulpits. susceptibilities of the mind. The church Thus the character of methodism has giv-of England is regarded as adapted, in an en a strong impress--an impress greatly eminent degree, to sustain this sober kind for the better, to our national character. of goodness, while all sects are in danger We deny not that it had its extravagances of verging upon extravagance. -we deny not that it has them still; but Puritanism, that 'gloomy vortex which what is the chaff to the wheat? Admit- was to attract so many of the manliest ting nearly all that may be alleged against spirits'* of the seventeenth century, his it, it has been the means of disposing mil-lordship has estimated more justly. The lions of our people, who would otherwise reason of this distinction is obvious. Puhave passed their life in sheer worldliness, or in the lowest vice, to give themselves # Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1844, p. 396. ritanism was allied with far higher intel- candor, will, we trust, be disposed to place lectual qualities than methodism. It stood the most charitable construction on reprein a more manifest relation to the progress sentations which may seem to them to be of freedom and of society. Distance, moreover, has greatly reduced the apparent amount of its faults; while the soul which it infused into English history during the thirty or forty years which preceded the Restoration, is such as no remoteness of time can obliterate or obscure. greatly wanting in charity. Such truly Christian magnanimity would do them honor, and would be the best refutation of some of the most plausible charges often preferred against them. justice, and partly because to persecute such people would be a very impolitic as well as a very troublesome course of proceeding. But in all cases, the most competent judge in regard to points of theology and matters of religion generally, must be such assemblies as are convened nightly at St. Stephen's, and the best religion for the people must be that which has been so provided for them. Whatever shall find entrance otherwise than by that door, must be at best of an inferior quality, and, to a large extent, of a nature to do harm rather than good. With such views of religion and of religious parties, it is natural that Lord John It is observable, also, that the sober, the Russell should be a steady adherent to the properly descended nonconformists of the principle of church establishments. In his last century, obtain respectful treatment at view, institutions of that nature may afford the hands of his lordship. They were no all the necessary means of religion to a peobrawlers. They were men of unimpeached ple, and may preclude, in the greatest deloyalty. They were proud to lend their gree practicable, whatever tends to the aid to whigs and protestants-church- deterioration of religion. It is proper that men though they were-against tories and separatists of every grade should be tolerapapists. Their leaders were men known ted, partly because toleration is founded in by their theological and general learning. They were the correspondents and friends of dignitaries and prelates. In all their proceedings there were the signs of modera tion. The sight of them, especially on one of those occasions when they availed themselves of their privilege to be presented at court, and to address the throne, was as a kind of proem to all that could follow from that quarter. A courtier on a levee day, was hardly more careful about his costume and appendages than was the eminent nonconformist divine of that period. The threecornered hat, the neatly powdered and largely projecting wig, the coat without the encumbrance of a collar, with its straight front, exhibiting its long row of large buttons on one side, and of finely worked button-holes on the other, the waistcoat descending so low as almost to serve the purposes of waistcoat and apron, and the nicely disposed buckles at the knees and in the shoes,all were in keeping with that calm and intelligent physiognomy, with that attention to all the lesser courtesies of life, and with the generally stately bearing which distinguished our Annesleys and Doddridges a century since. Much less of a disposition to appreciate the orderly, the established, and the aristocratic, than is observable in Lord John Russell, would have sufficed systematically forgotten. The class of perto mark the wide difference between such men and the conductors of a Methodist love-feast or revival-meeting. But here we are strictly at issue with his lordship, both as to the nature of the religion which the church of England was instituted to inculcate, and as to the manner in which she has performed her office in that respect. The most distinguished churchmen of the eighteenth century, such as Hurd and Warburton, Clarke and Hoadley, to whom so much honor is done by Lord John Russell, are poor expositors of the theology set forth in the articles of the established church. By some of these men the husks of orthodoxy were retained, and hot wars were carried on in defence of them. By others, the articles of faith most open to objection on the ground of mystery, when not openly impugned, were skilfully neutralized, or sons adverted to had come into the church of the reformers, but were too much the worshippers of the reputable ever to have The parties, then, adhering to the old been themselves reformers. They were school of dissent, have no reason to com- men who enjoyed their literary leisure, and plain of any thing said concerning them by set a great value on the stateliness and the his lordship. And the more recent seceders means of indulgence which their position from the established church, who have not afforded them, and for the most part died been mentioned with the same degree of rich. They scarcely seemed to be aware VOL. V.-No. III. 24 that there had ever been such persons as Latimer and Hooper, Ridley and Bradford; and nothing would seem to have been farther from the thoughts of these comfortable dignitaries, than the duty of conforming themselves to that example of piety, of zeal, and of obedience to the stern demand of principle, which is so observable in the history of those justly venerated fathers of the English church. good dispensation comes as so much accident and exception-the not-good comes as a matter of course, and as the rule. In stating thus much, we only state, we presume, what every pious churchman will be prepared to admit and deplore. Lord John Russell views the church of England as the best adapted agency for giving a scriptural religion to the people, and therefore is a churchman. We, on the Would Lord John Russell only bestow as contrary, are obliged to regard that instimuch attention on the devotional works of tution in a different light, and therefore are the reformers of the sixteenth century, as nonconformists. We judge of it by its he has given to the literary productions of average, and not by its occasional fruits, the great churchmen of the eighteenth, he and so judged we find it wanting. Instead would, perhaps, be surprised to find how of being the best conservator of real piety, much of affinity there is, both in the doc- it has been itself conserved, in great part, trines taught and in the spirit of the teach- by infusions of that nature which have ers, between the reformation from the super- come to it from without. We are little stitions of Romanism in the former age, inclined to dispute about the shape of and the reformation from the mere forms of a cap, or the color of a vesture-greatly protestantism in the latter. In both cases, too much time and temper have been exthe great doctrine was justification by faith, pended in such debates-but on these and the regeneration of the heart, not weightier matters we have our grave conmerely by a natural influence of divine truth, clusions. The mission of the church is a but by means of a divine power superadded spiritual mission, and that can never be reto that truth. In a word, their religion was alized under the mastery of a power which such as is denoted by the term evangelical; is for the most part worldly. Nor is that and the new religious feeling which has all-to give power and supremacy to a been diffused through this country since system in which the worldly predominates, the rise of methodism, is, in nearly all that must be to disparage, to impede, and to is distinctive of it, a revival of the piety of imperil, the spiritual as existing elsewhere. the elder puritans, and of the still older pro- We are in our state of separation, not that testant reformers. we should be chiefly employed in pulling down the frame-work of our neighbor's church, but that we may build up men in the intelligence and piety which we regard as belonging properly to all churches. We are satisfied that this revived piety is, in its substance, the piety inculcated in the New Testament; and it is this persuasion, especially, which prevents us from sympathizing with Lord John Russell in his zealous churchmanship. We see, or think we see, many things in the church of England to which dispassionate and reflecting men may well take exception such as relate to the manner in which its revenue is obtained, to the inequalities which mark the distribution of that revenue, and to the fact that property and position, derived in so great a measure from the nation at large, should be restricted, by a multitude of obsolete and unnecessary provisions, to no more than a section of it. But we must be permitted to say, that our great exception to the church of England relates to its failure as a religious institute. It does not inculcate, speaking generally, the religion set forth in its own articles, and still less the religion set forth in the book from which those articles are said to be derived. Whenever this is done, the It is scarcely necessary to observe, that in holding these opinions concerning religious sects and religious establishments, Lord John Russell is not singular. They are the opinions of the great majority of our statesmen, whether whig or tory. If some believe more than his lordship in regard to Christianity, many believe less. Lord John Russell is a more sincere man-a man of more faith in the positive truth and goodness of things, than most of his contemporaries holding a similar position. But this susceptibility in him has been effected peculiarly by circumstances. We think we may venture to say, that his character as a statesman has been formed by these two influences,-by this particular temperament, and by the circumstances which have acted upon it. His lordship is descended from a line of nobles. |