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In the first place, then, we shall define the institution from its own authentic documents :- "The Univsrsity of Cambridge is a society of students in all and every of the liberal arts and sciences, incorporated (43 Elizabeth, c. 29) by the name of The Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars, of the University of Cambridge. This commonwealth is the union of seventeen Colleges, or societies devoted to the study of learning and knowledge, and for the better service of the Church and State. Each College is a body corporate, bound by its own statutes, but is likewise controlled by the paramount laws of the University. The present University statutes were given by Queen Elizabeth in the 12th year of her reign. Each of the seventeen Colleges furnishes members both for the executive and legislative branches of its government. In this assembly, which holds its meetings in the Senate House, all Masters of Arts, Doctors of Divinity, Law and Physic, may vote, who have their names enrolled on its books a sufficient time. The present eligible voters, amount to about 3500.

The executive officers of the University are a Chancellor, High Steward, Vice-Chancellor, Commissary, Public Orator, Assessors, two Proctors annually elected, Librarian, Registrary, two Taxors, two Scrutators, two Moderators, two Esquire Beadles, the University Printer, Library Keepers, Under Library Keepers, School Keeper, and Marshal.

There are ten different orders of persons in each of these seventeen colleges:-1. Heads of Colleges generally: these are Doctors of Divinity. There are but three exceptions in the seventeen colleges. In these they may be only Doctors in Civil Law or Physic. The head of King's College is called Provost; the head of Queen's College is called President, the heads of all the others, Masters.

2. Fellows. These are generally Doctors of Divinity, of Civil Law, or Physic; Bachelors of Divinity; Masters or Bachelors of Arts; Bachelors of Incivil Law or Physic. In all these there are 430 Fellowships.

3. Noblemen Graduates; Doctors in the several Faculties; Bachelors in Divinity and Masters or Bachelors of Arts, Civil Law, or Physic. For the purpose of being members of the Senate, many of them keep their names on the Boards at the expense of from £2 to £4 per annum.

4. Ten Year Men. These are allowed to become Bachelors of Divinity without graduating in the Arts at all, provided their names are kept ten years on the Boards, and that two of these ten years have been spent for the greater part in the University.

5. Bachelors in the Civil Law and Physic.

6. Bachelors of Arts, who are in statu pupillari, and pay for tuition, whether resident or not, together with certain other conditions.

7. Fellow - Commoners, generally younger sons of the Nobility, or young men of fortune, who have the privilege of dining at the Fellows' table, whence the appellation originated.

8. Scholars-foundation members of their respective colleges, and who enjoy various advantages-having their commons paid for, their chambers rent free, specific stipends, &c. &c.

9. Pensioners, who form the great body of the students, who pay for their commons, chambers, &c. and who enjoy generally no pecuniary advantages from their respective colleges.

10. Sizars are generally students of limited means. They usually have their commons free, and receive several emoluments.

The terms or sessions of the University are three per annum. Commencement Day is always July 1st. The candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts must have resided ten terms, or the major part of such terms. The term in which he enters, and that in which he takes the degree, are both counted in the ten.

But strange to tell, “the University confers no degree whatever, unless the candidate has previously snbscribed a declaration that he is bona fide a member of the Church of England, as by law established."

the inauguration visit. The Doctor's
"
grace before meat," written in old
Latin and recited at table, which I
recollect to have read in the London
Times during that grand pageant, did
far less honor to his practical theology
than did the Bridgewater Treatise to
his theoretic.

The arbors for that grand display and the tents were only being in extremis when I entered Trinity College and its library. In this splendid collection of choice works of many ages, I saw much to interest me had I a year or two to spend in it. But a mere glance of the eye over its extensive shelves and well assorted folios was all that I could allot to it. A peep through Sir Isaac Newton's antique telescope, through which he surveyed the heavens, gave me more pleasure than any thing I saw in Trinity College. To handle, to ex

"In conferring the degree of Doctor of Divinity, it must appear that the candidate has been a Bachelor of Divinity of five years standing, or a Master of Arts of twelve years stand-plore, to peep through this homely ing."

Of the seventeen colleges of the University of Cambridge, that of St. Peter is the oldest. It was founded A.D. 1257; and the most recent is Downing College, founded September 22, 1800. Of the whole number of colleges, thirteen were founded by the Church of Rome, and but four by the Church of England. Of these, the first in point of age and standing is Trinity College, founded in 1546. I was, therefore, most curious and interested to examine its details. The justly celebrated "Rev. William Whewell, D. D.” appointed in 1841, is Master of this College-the celebrated author of that which I have long regarded the best of the "Bridgewater Treatises." His argument from general physics, or from cosmical arrangements of the material universe, is the fullest and most convincing argument of the seven treatises in proof of the being and perfections of God as developed in material nature. The Queen, and her illustrious consort, the Prince Regent, sojourned as the guests of Dr. Whewell during

telescope, handled and used by him who taught the mechanics of the universe, and who demonstrated its fundamental laws, was the richest feast I enjoyed at Cambridge.

Next to Trinity College, I was most interested in the gorgeous display of regal pride in King's Church, the richest edifice of its size in Great Britain. All I can say of it here is, that it is after the architectural style and splendour of what is called Woolsey's Hall, in Hampton Court Palace. I had the curiosity to ascend its long winding stairs, and even to place myself on its loftiest summit-a leaden seat on its comb-that I might survey the whole town of Cambridge and all the surrounding country. I sat there alone for almost half an hour, in contemplation not only of the University in its seventeen colleges, covering so great an area-not merely in surveying the city and its environs, but in casting a few thoughts over its connections with the past and future history of England, and with the world that now is, and that which is to come.

How circumscribed is human vision, said I to myself, not only as respects the objects of the scenes around me, but as respects those which the mind itself surveys! How indistinct those in the remoter part of the few miles which I now survey, compared with those immediately around this splendid edifice! How little did the Roman Catholic founders of thirteen of these seventeen colleges, with all their church infallibility, imagine, when founding them and lavishing on them their gold and their silver, that these very colleges should be alienated from their church and converted into mighty engines to demolish her ancient infallibility and omnipotency! Such, however, is the fact. The Papal schools and colleges, abbeys, priories, monasteries, convents, glebes, parsonages, &c. &c., have all been not only escheated from her dominion, but have become battering rams and engines of demolition against her grossest superstition and most palpable abominations. Still these institutions are so combined with evils to man, are so much in league with the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life-so hostile to the letter and the spirit of Bible Christianity, that a man must be as spiritually blind as a bat at noon, if he do not see that the hierarchy which these institutions sustain is as worthy of repudiation and annihilation as that which has been, in its outward and political form, denounced and demolished by him that founded Trinity College,- (how ridiculous and blasphemous the name)—the first of the Protestant series of institutions added to, and allied with the Papal colleges baptized into mere Protestantism or reformed Popery.

May not the time come, continued I to myself, when these schools, and the languages, sciences, and arts which they teach, will be redeemed from their servility to a corrupt and corrupting hierarchy, which, like an incubus, oppresses the energies of a

great and mighty nation, and holds it as much in abeyance to all that is animal and sensual in fallen humanity, as that hierarchy which, some three centuries since, it reprobated, condemned, and almost unanimously renounced!!

But to return from my musings to the University of Cambridge. From the archives of the University, we learned that the Professors derive their annual salaries from various sources, ancient stipends and modern stipends, paid out of the privy purse, or by government. We could not, however, accurately ascertain the aggregate amount of the salaries from all sources. Compared with American Professors, they are, however, liberally rewarded.

The matriculation fees of new students are paid on the second day in each term on the registering of their names. The fees are as diverse as the rank of the student. Noblemen pay £16; a Fellow-Commoner, £12; a Pensioner, £5 10; and the very Sizer himself pays £1 5s. On these, however, there is a government tax and the fees of registry.

The tuition is paid quarterly, at the following rates:-A Nobleman pays £10; Fellow-Commoner, £5; Pensioner, £2 10s. ; a Sizer, 15 shillings per quarter.

To these are added room rent, attendance, coals, laundress' bills, assessed taxes, and college payments, amounting together to £25. Tuition and these accommodations amount to £35. The cost of boarding for 25 weeks, which is the average time of boarding in college during the three terms per annum, at 16 shillings per week, and the laundress' bill of £5 8s., make the annual expenses Cambridge over £100 per annum. This is a fair average of all the seventeen colleges composing the University. Every member of the University pays also six shillings for the annual purchase of books for the public library.

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Degrees are not confined to literary buildings are:-The University Limerit. "The University sometimes confers degrees without either examination or residence, on such individuals of mature age as are illustrious-not, indeed, merely on account of birth, but for services rendered the state or to literature." Thus in America the degree of L.L.D. has been conferred on several distinguished statesmen, without any literary merit whatsoever. But so sworn to the English hierarchy is the University, that she confers no honors on any man, no matter how great his merit or learning, unless he be a bona fide member of the Church of England.

The University of Cambridge, by large and liberal prizes, does much to stimulate ambition and to elicit talent. Prizes on foundations of legacies for the purpose, for the encouragement of literature, free and open to competition for the whole University, amount to upwards of £1500. Threefourths of this sum are given for classics and English compositions-the remainder for mathematics. Besides this sum there are some £700 per annum given by each of the seventeen colleges. Two-thirds of this sum is given for the encouragement of classic literature.

Connected with and under the supervision of one of the colleges, is a grammar school, called from its founder, the Perse Free Grammar School. The age of admission is ten years. The term of continuance may be to the age of eighteen years. The scholars all pay ten shillings entrance and twenty shillings per annum. Other scholars than "free scholars" are now admitted, and scholars educated here for three years are to be admitted (cæteris paribus) before all others to fellowships and scholarships in Caius College.

I have time and space only to note the public buildings, at which I merely glanced, not having time to visit them in detail. The public

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brary, the University Press, the Fitz-
william Museum; the donation of
Viscount Fitzwilliam, a splendid col-
lection of Books, Paintings, Drawings
and Engravings; besides, for its erec-
tion and preservation, the gift of some
half million of dollars ;—the Mesman
Museum, holding 248 Paintings and
33 Drawings and Prints; the Cam-
bridge Observatory, in which are a
Transit Instrument, of ten feet focal
length by Dollond; a Mural Circle,
eight feet diameter, and an Equa-
torial, of five feet in length; also, a
magnificent telescope, of nearly twelve
inches aperture, and twenty feet in
length, made in Paris, and presented
by the Duke of Northumberland, &c.
&c. ; the Anatomical Museum, the
Geological Museum, and the Mineralo-
gical Museum. To these we may
add the Botanic Garden, of some four
acres ; of each of which I cannot, of
course, speak particularly. Such is
a meagre outline of this grand national
institution. But of its great utility
to the cause of humanity and religion,
I cannot speak with much confidence,
and shall therefore say nothing. One
thing, the disproportion between the
outlay and the revenue of good ac-
cruing, is most striking and obvious
to the most superficial observer. It
is all told when I state, that, on de-
scending from the roof of King's
Church, and on entering into that
room in which worship was per-
formed, all the remainder being un-
occupied space, with golden roof and
marble floor of some 200 feet long,
I found but one hundred and twenty
persons only, each having its richly
gilded psalter, prayer-book, and can-
dlestick. An organ, a gilded pulpit,
and a golden eagle with a Bible on
its back, completed its furniture.
Here were expended one million of
dollars and more for the accommoda-
tion of but one hundred and twenty
persons; and, from all I could learn,
these seats are seldom filled with any
kind of worshippers, professional or

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One

in the moral constitution of humanity,
and the mechanism of nature.
who possesses the fundamental idea
of a Supreme Divinity with infinite
power, need not suffer it to fade from
his soul for want of living and authen-
tic documents. He can find no excuse
in the paucity or obscurity of the
evidence. It blazes in creation,
which has in all its provinces and
fields the stamp of superhuman intel-
ligence-the impress of designing
mind-the signature of Divine and
eternal power-the strong grasp and
stately march of pervading and con-
trolling law-the deep glow of fervent
and comprehensive benevolence. All
this is undeniable. But what a strange
conclusion has been founded upon
such premises. It has been assumed
that the things which are made, the
visible harmonies of creation, origi-

I.-IN the opening of St. Paul's profound argument contained in his letter to Rome, we find the following remarkable passage :"I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; tonated in the minds of the men spoken the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse: because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."-Chap. i.

1. The invisible things, viz. eternal power and Godhead, may be apprehended by the spirit-may be understood and believed, from the visible appearances of nature-the evidence of creation. The great proposition is within the confirmation, both within and without, being manifest

of-the conception of Godhead. This
is a deplorable assumption, neither
sustained by Revelation nor by rea-
son-not to be found in this context,
nor gathered in any other legitimate
field of fact or observation. The
transgressors whose guilt and punish-
ment is painted here in such dread
and vivid colouring, received the
truth concerning God by the inherit-
ance of tradition. It was intellectual
and moral property derived from
their Fathers in marvellous and a-
bounding testimonies.
It was a
spiritual estate which had descended
in a long line through ages and
generations.

They had the idea in its unity and glory as the keystone of moral life, and the anchor of immortal hope. They likewise had the proofs and confirmations of Divine personality and power in the archives of naturethe splendid documents of audible and visible illustration. The realized wisdom of God-the perfect adaptation of means to an end, and of agencies to a result was so manifold and multiform, that plausible excuse was impossible. God had shown them a

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