machinery enabling it from age to age to teach with certainty and authority, not only these primary truths, but many others deduced therefrom; while Canterbury, without utterly rejecting the tradition of the Church, deems that the surest test and touchstone of the truth of her teaching is the written record of Christ's words and works, which has descended to us from the apostolic age; and Geneva (including in the term all forms of dissent) breaks with the Christian past altogether, and trusts solely to the guidance of the record. Nevertheless, -putting prejudice and the odium theologicum aside,-is it not clear that the points of agreement here are really more fundamental than the points of difference? Can the students of geology pretend that the first principles of that science, if science it may be called, are settled with a corresponding definiteness and certainty? Yet geology can be taught without difficulty in university lecture-rooms to students attached to various systems; and so can chemistry, and physiology, and other sciences, in which many of the deepest problems are still surrounded with uncertainty, and variously solved. Why then cannot theology be so taught? It is not, as has been shown, on account of its greater uncertainty; it is simply because of its transcendent influence over the heart and life of man. avows that he has no à priori theory of the inspiration of the Gospels, and finds the actual facts of their mutual relation, their inter-dependence, their variations, in minor matters even their discrepancies, entirely incompatible with some of the theories which have been most confidently propounded as essential parts or conditions precedent of Christian belief. But no man can hold more firmly the perfect truthfulness of each Evangelist; no one is more entirely persuaded of the deep harmony between them, the substantial unity of representation which lies beneath the diversity of outward form and colouring. No man more firmly believes than M. de Pressensé that the four Gospels, separately and together, are the casket divinely given to the Church, in which its one inestimable treasure, the life-giving knowledge of the Saviour, is enshrined. Those who seek that treasure there, under the teaching of the same Spirit who prompted the Evangelists to write, and who so controlled and directed their labour that its results should be adequate to all the demands of the Divine purpose in their ministry, will never fail to find all which their real need requires. In the words with which, as M. de Pressensé believes, St. John's Gospel in its earliest form concluded, "These things are written that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through his name." He who believes that the Gospels were so given for such an end, has good reason also to be assured that the Giver did not suffer any error to find place in them which could interfere with the attainment of the end for which He gave them. We want no other doctrine of inspiration than this: it is for honest examination of the Gospels themselves to show what were the objects and the nature, and what were the divinely appointed limits, of that special work of the Spirit in the Apostles and their companions, of which our Gospels are the result. He who believes, indeed, will not be in haste to admit contradictions even in unimportant points; but he will be still more afraid to accept evasive interpretations, or complicated and artificial hypotheses, for the sake of avoiding an honest recognition of the existence here and there of a real difficulty, insoluble in our present state of knowledge. Without accepting his conclusions always in detail, we cordially and thankfully acknowledge that M. de Pressensé has shown English theologians in what spirit every question connected with the criticism and harmony of the Gospels should be treated. He has written on the greatest of all subjects, and has written with a simplicity of intention to instruct, with a ripeness of ability and learning and Christian wisdom, and a largeness of apprehension, well worthy to be devoted to the illustration of so great and sacred a theme. EDWARD T. VAUGHAN. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN IRELAND. IT University Education in Ireland. By WILLIAM K. SULLIVAN, Pro- University Education in Ireland. By J. E. CAIRNES, Professor of Freedom of Education, what it means. By JAMES LOWRY WHITTLE, T is of no slight importance that members of the Church of England should form a just estimate of the merits of the Irish University question, which has now entered upon a critical phase; and with the aid of the very able pamphlet, the title of which stands at the head of this article, we propose to examine briefly what the issues raised really are, so that our readers may better comprehend in what way it is desirable that they should be settled. The position of affairs is this: the institution known as the Catholic University of Ireland is seeking from Government, not as formerly, a charter conferring on it a corporate character, and recognising its right to confer degrees upon its students, but simply facilities enabling those whom it has trained to obtain, upon examination before a properly constituted public examining body, public degrees and certificates in arts, science, medicine, and law, which shall place them on an equal footing, in starting for the race of life, with the graduates of other universities. The authorities of the Catholic University consider that they have a strong case. Since the design of the institution was first taken up, in 1850, the Irish Roman Catholics, one of the poorest populations in Europe, have raised and applied the sum of £130,000 to found and support the university.* Four Faculties have been organized,-those of Theology, Medicine, Philosophy and * Professor Sullivan, p. 23. Letters (corresponding to the " Arts" of an English university), and Science. Evening classes have been opened, colleges and grammar schools in different parts of Ireland have been affiliated, and the professorial lectures have been quite as well attended as there was any reason to expect, considering that, except in the medical school, the course of instruction did not terminate in the well-understood distinction of a degree. Considerable progress has been made in the formation of a library, and of scientific collections. Nor has any one ever pretended that the Irish Roman Catholics have not been, as a people, as nearly unanimous as the nature of the human mind admits on this question, or that they have not worked earnestly for the realization of the design. The "dissentient element," such as it is, shall be duly taken into account presently. Such being the case, it is not easy to see on what ground-so much having been already effected by private enterprise-the very moderate claim above described, as made on behalf of their students, should be denied to the authorities of the university by the English Government. But there are other parties in the educational field, whose position and interests must be understood before we can gain an adequate conception of the difficulties which beset the question. These are 1, The University of Dublin, commonly known as Trinity College; 2, the Presbyterians in Ulster; 3, the teaching body of the Queen's Colleges of Cork and Galway, together with their friends and sympathizers. As to the University of Dublin, which represents the Irish Established Church, it is much to its credit that it has preserved an absolute silence in this controversy. The Presbyterians, burning with traditionary hatred towards the Celtic Irish, and satisfied themselves with the operation of the Queen's College and University, since they have ingeniously contrived to adapt the Belfast Queen's College to the purposes of a training college for young men preparing for the Presbyterian ministry, and to procure the appointment on its staff of men in whom they have full confidence, are endeavouring to deter the Government from the desired concession, upon the ostensible plea that general liberty of conscience is better promoted by conducting the higher education on the principle embodied in the Queen's Colleges than any other. An Irish Presbyterian arguing for general liberty of conscience! The cheat is too apparent, and Mr. Sullivan tears off the mask at once, by proving (p. 14) that when the scheme of the Queen's Colleges was first started, the Presbyterians were vehemently opposed to it, and have only changed their views and their tactics since they have "modified that system to suit themselves." The learned professors at Cork and Galway, or some of them, are staunch opponents of the concession. And this too is surely natural enough. Are they not put where they are to "lift up their voice in the wilderness;" to eradicate that pestilent notion of nationality which still haunts the Irish brain; to fight against "Ultramontanism," and pro virili parte to extinguish it; to win the Irish people, by the persuasive eloquence of their lectures and by their general enlightenment, from the ways of an excessive religious faith? And now, when a very gradual increase in the number of their students from year to year entices them to acquiesce in the flattering delusion that all these great enterprises will be one day crowned with success, must it not be truly disappointing to those missionaries of enlightenment to see a backsliding Government coquetting with "Ultramontanism," and actually proposing to satisfy the wishes of the great discontented majority, rather than waste any more time in carrying out the views of a small, fervently loyal, but most insignificant minority of the Irish people? Accordingly, Professor Cairnes of Galway has written a pamphlet, the object of which is to show that the Government are taking a retrograde step; that there is no real demand for any extended facilities of university education; and that that dreadful " Ultramontanism," and Dr. Cullen, will be the sole gainers. The friends of, and sympathizers with, the Queen's Colleges come last, of whom the number in Ireland is so small, and so much confined to the official class, that, did they stand alone, their sentiments would hardly be worth examining. Of this Irish "dissentient element,”—dissentient from the habitual feelings and hopes of ninetynine hundredths of their countrymen and co-religionists, and therefore politically valueless and powerless, is Mr. Whittle, a Roman Catholic barrister, educated at Trinity. Professor Sullivan has described with such admirable moderation and clearness the position held in Ireland by the small class to which Mr. Whittle belongs, that we cannot do better than quote the passage : "Catholic judges and barristers form a large and influential element of our legal society; and if lawyers as a whole occupy the first intellectual position in society, how much greater influence, comparatively, must Catholic lawyers exert on the formation of opinion in Catholic society. We have seen that the majority of Catholic barristers have been educated in Trinity College. The education which a Catholic could receive there, is not likely to develop those higher qualities in which our new society is so deficient. I have already stated that Trinity College could not perform the functions of an educational brain for our intermediate education. It is, if possible, still less adapted to perform the function of intellectual centre for Catholic society. Is the intellectual life which it transmits to Catholic society through its Catholic students, in harmony with the moral and religious constitution of that society? It could not be. The Catholic student of Trinity College is an intellectual pauper, admitted by sufferance to its halls. He is offered the mental food prepared for its true students, whose constitution it suits, whose minds thrive upon it, and who become self-reliant men-whose |