The most weighty consideration we have reserved for the last. It is said, and with truth, that there are some laymen who conscientiously remain layinen, and yet are known by experience to be well fitted for holding Tutorships and College Offices, which Fellows can alone hold. The clerical restriction,' says Professor Vaughan, 'has prevented some from devoting themselves to literary and scientific pursuits, who may have had a real call to such occupations, without feeling any such call to “preach the gospel" as ordination presupposes.'-Evidence quoted in Oxf. Univ. Rep. p. 161. That this argument holds as well against the Marriage restriction as that of Holy Orders is plain, and if allowed as good against the latter, it can hardly be resisted when brought against the former. But we will not dwell upon that point. What we have to say is this: first, that the permission of a certain number of lay-fellows does not meet the difficulty at all; and secondly, that it can be otherwise met very fully. Let us suppose a College with twelve Fellows-three Fellowships are made tenable by laymen. After a short time these three Fellowships become filled up by, say, two professional men, living in London, and one gentleman with no special occupation, living, perhaps, in Oxford, and using his College, according to his tastes, as a club or a shooting-box. Then arises the difficulty in question: a junior Fellow is found to be fitted for a literary life, but has not a call to preach the gospel '-is he helped by the three lay-fellowships? Not in the least; and so he is equally 'prevented from devoting himself to literary and scientific pursuits.' But fruitless as this plan is, there is another which will meet the difficulty and this is the plan which was recommended by the Oxford Tutors' Association-viz.: ' to grant to the Visitor ' of each College a limited power of dispensation, with a view to the service of the College.' Thus would no principle be violated, and every purpose effected. effected. Wherever any measures in the direction of lay-fellowships beyond this recommendation have been adopted, we count them to be an evil--an evil fraught with much future danger and harm to the Church and to the University, and wherever the question is still untouched, we hope that nothing further than this suggestion will be admitted. In point of learning alone, the advantage derived from clerical Fellowships are incalculable. 'It was because he had first been a studious Fellow of Corpus,' writes Mr. Burgon, ‘that Hooker was enabled, long after, to write his Ecclesiastical Polity at Bishopsbourne, in Kent. Sanderson made himself a ripe scholar while he was a Fellow of Lincoln; else bad the world never seen 1 Reports, p. 120. When did the splendid Divinity which is dated from Boothby-Pannell. Hammond become a theologian, if not in the ten years during which he was a Fellow of Magdalen? Bull depended upon an annual excursion to the University for those stores of sacred learning which enabled him to become the champion of the Faith. Butler went straight from Oriel to deliver his immortal Sermons at the Rolls' Chapel in London.'1 Has Theology ceased to be a study ? and is it true that there is no longer any need of a body of learned clergy? Is it not rather the case that the Colonial Church has been created within your memory and mine? that the demand for Clergymen, at home and abroad, is greater than ever was known before? that fresh avenues of labour are opening in every quarter? and that the amount of hard work which devolves on an incumbent does for the most part so effectually deprive him of the opportunities of study, that our only remaining chance of possessing a learned Clergy seems to spring out of the fact that these time-honoured institutions afford a temporary shelter for students in theology, before they are called out into the field of active exertion? If a foundation for such Students was deemed requisite in the days of Edward II., what is there to warrant the belief that such a foundation needs not to be retained in all its integrity now?' 2 The Cambridge University Commissioners declare themselves 'inclined to recommend only such a relaxation in the existing 'law of some of the Colleges as would allow of a reasonable in'terval of time before a newly-elected Fellow should be required 'to enter into Holy Orders, or vacate his Fellowship:' and this period they fix at five, six or seven years from the M.A. Degree. The Oxford Tutors' Association does not think 'uniformity in this respect a thing necessary or desirable; and, 'except in such cases of dispensations as are above specified, 'sees no reason for interfering with the regulations laid down by different Founders on the subject.' If any change is to be made, we hope that a greater regard will be paid to the expressed opinions of the Oxford Tutors' Association and the Cambridge University Commissioners than to a recommendation of the late Oxford University Commission, singularly unfitted as that body was to approach the present question with temper and moderation. And should any attempt be unhappily made to force upon Colleges a change which they have not asked for, and to which they are conscientiously opposed, we trust that they will use that method-that only method-of defence, which the University Bill of 1854 has left to a united body of Head and Fellows. 2 Letter to Endemus and Ecdemus, p. 12. 2 Ib. p. 11. Reports, p. 122, 174 ART. VI.-1. Third and Final Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners, appointed November 10, A.D. 1852, to inquire into the State and Condition of the Cathedral and Collegiate Churches in England and Wales. With an Appendix. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, 25th May, 1855. 2. Additional Cathedrals. A Letter, written at the request of a Member of the Cathedral Commission on the Question of what existing Churches would be available as Cathedrals in case of the Erection of additional Sees. By GEO. GILBERT SCOTT, Architect. London: J. H. Parker, Strand. 1854. THE Cathedral Commission, having had its tenure of office enlarged for that purpose, has presented a third and final Report, signed by the whole staff, with the one notable exception of Lord Blandford. Within the few days which have elapsed since the publication of the Blue Book, its recommendations have had the honour of being snarled at by the Examiner, in a diatribe remarkable for its superabundance of bile, and of being quizzed by the Times, in an article equally conspicuous for deficiency of logic. From all these circumstances, our readers will pretty safely combine the inference that the document embodies that renewed appreciation of cathedral institutions which is, assuredly, in despite of amateur and noble statesmanship and of popularity-hunting journalism-slowly (it may be) but surely, making its way in the public mind. It will be observed that the present report is the third issued by the Commission; the two Blue Books of last year having contained the first, with its gigantic appendix. The second, it seems, was entirely devoted to one special object, Dr. Walker's noble offer to found the bishopric needed by Cornwall, at his living of S. Columb, a proposal which, we are happy to say, met with the cordial approbation of the Commissioners, no less than of both houses of the Convocation of Canterbury. The former, indeed, as we see, considered it so important as to forestall in favour of this scheme the ordinary course of its final report. Of this offer we shall have to speak more fully when we come to consider the references made to it in the present document. The Report begins with a briefly emphatic recapitulation of the orignal purpose of a cathedral church,' both at the period when the term signified simply The Bishop living together with his associated Clergy; maintaining the constant worship of Almighty God; educating the young in the faith of Christ; and sending forth Preachers of the Gospel into all parts of the Diocese.-Cathedral Commission: Third and Final Report, p. vi. and as it was at a later date adapted to the 'altered circumstances of the Church,' after the parochial system had grown into shape, and the cathedral had become the spiritual metropolis, or mother-church of the diocese.' The Commissioners then refer to the downward course of these old institutions when the term allowed for absence in the year became the term prescribed for residence,' and canons have thus become less capable ' of united action, less sensible of corporate responsibility, and 'less available to the Bishop, as his council of advisers.' The mighty measure of Cathedral reform, as understood in 1835, is then taken up, epitomized and left behind in two paragraphs, not filling eight completed lines. Sic transit, &c.-a quotation which we leave to the most noble the Marquis of Blandford to finish, if he can find time from his ponderous statistics to cultivate the lighter studies of the Gradus ad Parnassum. We now arrive at the first recommendations, not of 1835 but of 1855, which we quote: We have come to the conclusion, that the full efficiency of the Cathedral bodies cannot be secured, without a return to the spirit of the ancient rule with respect to residence. We therefore humbly recommend to Your Majesty, that (so long at least as the present suspension of Canonries shall last)— "Every Dean and Canon Residentiary hereafter appointed shall reside at his Cathedral Church for nine months in every year." In the process of framing the Cathedral Statutes in accordance with this rule, we propose to recommend that such limitations be introduced as will allow the time spent in diocesan or professional duties annexed to a Canonry, to be reckoned as part of the term of residence.'-P. vii. To this recommendation the article immediately following is a necessary corollary: "That hereafter, in every Cathedral Church where the offices of Precentor, Chancellor, Treasurer, or Subdean exist, the Dean and Canons Residentiary, with the assistance of the Minor Canons, be responsible for the fulfilment of the duties belonging to those offices, each person having his allotted share; and that hereafter no other persons be appointed to those offices."'-P. vii. We are glad to observe that the Commissioners state that their conviction of the necessity of enforcing long terms of residence is confirmed by the suggestions of several Bishops and Chapters, portions of which are cited in an appendix. The two names which first appear in juxtaposition are the Bishop of Exeter and the Bishop of Hereford. Of non-episcopal recommendations the earliest is that of the Dean of Bristol, who Bind the members of the Chapter by compulsory residence to the neighbourhood of the Cathedral, and the Chapter will 'become something more than a mere name;' 'it will be then 'impossible,' Dr. Elliott continues, that the demands of the says, interests committed to their charge be not more justly appreci'ated and more readily met than they are now.' Two members of the Commission record their dissent from the proposed enactment of residence. The first is Mr. Montagu Villiers, who bases his objection on the grounds, inter alia, that the plan proposed is confessedly a return to the old Cathedral principles,' and that it will certainly lead to a demand for an 'immediate change in the social position of the heads of the 'Church.' Euge Mr. Villiers. These objections are at least characteristic; and we leave them to be refuted, not by the consentient voice of the Christian Church, but by the more enlightened judgments of Archbishop Sumner, Bishop Hampden, and Dean Elliott. The other dissentient is one whom we are surprised and sorry to see in such a juxtaposition-the learned and excellent Dr. Wordsworth. No doubt so large a measure of reform as that which is embraced in the recommendation above quoted, cannot be brought into working order without half a hundred particular and exceptional difficulties crossing the path of reformation. Possibly, too (though this is very dangerous ground to tread), several of these difficulties may point to the necessity of either some fixed rule or of some fixed tribunal of dispensation. But still the fundamental principle surely remains untouched, that the members of a capitular body have the same obligation of residence incumbent upon them in respect to their corporate cure, which is incumbent upon the persona of a parochial cure in respect of his personal cure. And unquestionably, to advance another step, residence continuing three quarters of the year, with a 'long vacation' of three months, and the liberal allowance, moreover, which the Commission admits, of spiritual duties in the diocese being taken in commutation for physical presence at the Cathedral itself, is a sufficiently lenient interpretation of that residence. Again, it must never be forgotten that the suggested proposition is purely prospective, and in reference to dignitaries who accept stalls under the new constitution, or to those who have been appointed since the issuing of the Commission, and who, it will be recollected, were by a special Act of Parliament to be subject to any regulations it might lay down. Their case, of course, involves no grievance, for they took the preferment with their eyes open. All these circumstances therefore considered, we think that Dr. Wordsworth would have acted better on behalf of the interests which all Churchmen know he has so deeply and warmly at heart, by signing the recommendation of his brother Commissioners, as a starting point, reserving, we need not add, to himself such explanations as he might think necessary in the future working out of the scheme. However, as his |