d
church to inflict ignorance as a punishment on those dissenting from it.
If intended as a vindictive visitation, it is a very fearful one, and
reminds us painfully of those tyrants who used to extinguish the eyes of
rebellious subjects. And if designed as a reformatory process, we
question its efficiency. The zero of ignorance is unbelief, and its
_minus_ scale marks errors. You cannot make dissenters so ignorant
thereby to make them Christians; and, even though you made them savages,
they might still remain seceders. However, this was the policy of the
English establishment in the days of Doddridge. By withholding education
from dissenters, they sought either to reclaim them, or to be revenged
upon them; and had this policy succeeded, the dissenting pulpits would
soon have been filled with fanatics, and the pews with superstitious
sectaries. But, much to their honor, the Nonconformists taxed themselves
heavily in order to procure elsewhere the light which Oxford and
Cambridge refused. Academies were opened in various places, and, among
others selected for the office of tutor, his talents recommended Mr.
Doddridge. A large house was taken in the town of Northampton, and the
business of instruction had begun, when Dr. Reynolds, the diocesan
chancellor, instituted a prosecution, in the ecclesiastical courts, on
the ground that the Academy was not licensed by the bishop. The affair
gave Dr. Doddridge much trouble, but he had a powerful friend in the
Earl of Halifax. That nobleman represented the matter to King George the
Second, and conformably to his own declaration, "That in his reign there
should be no persecution for conscience' sake," his majesty sent a
message to Dr. Reynolds, which put an end to the process.

Freed from this peril, the institution advanced in a career of
uninterrupted prosperity. Not only was it the resort of aspirants to the
dissenting ministry, but wealthy dissenters were glad to secure its
advantages for sons whom they were training to business or to the
learned professions. And latterly, attracted by the reputation of its
head, pupils came from Scotland and from Holland; and, in one case at
least, we find a clergyman of the Church of England selecting it as the
best seminary for a son whom he designed for the established ministry.
Among our own compatriots educated there, we find the names of the Earl
of Dunmore, Ferguson of Kilkerran, Professor Gilbert Robinson, and
another Edinburgh professo