ire to possess seats of
learning, which are, not only more Christian, but more philosophical in
their construction, and larger and deeper in their provisions?

But this, of course, is to assume that Theology _is_ a science, and an
important one: so I will throw my argument into a more exact form. I say,
then, that if a University be, from the nature of the case, a place of
instruction, where universal knowledge is professed, and if in a certain
University, so called, the subject of Religion is excluded, one of two
conclusions is inevitable,--either, on the one hand, that the province of
Religion is very barren of real knowledge, or, on the other hand, that in
such University one special and important branch of knowledge is omitted.
I say, the advocate of such an institution must say _this_, or he must say
_that_; he must own, either that little or nothing is known about the
Supreme Being, or that his seat of learning calls itself what it is not.
This is the thesis which I lay down, and on which I shall insist as the
subject of this Discourse. I repeat, such a compromise between religious
parties, as is involved in the establishment of a University which makes
no religious profession, implies that those parties severally
consider,--not indeed that their own respective opinions are trifles in a
moral and practical point of view--of course not; but certainly as much as
this, that they are not knowledge. Did they in their hearts believe that
their private views of religion, whatever they are, were absolutely and
objectively true, it is inconceivable that they would so insult them as to
consent to their omission in an Institution which is bound, from the
nature of the case--from its very idea and its name--to make a profession of
all sorts of knowledge whatever.

2.

I think this will be found to be no matter of words. I allow then fully,
that, when men combine together for any common object, they are obliged,
as a matter of course, in order to secure the advantages accruing from
united action, to sacrifice many of their private opinions and wishes, and
to drop the minor differences, as they are commonly called, which exist
between man and man. No two persons perhaps are to be found, however
intimate, however congenial in tastes and judgments, however eager to have
one heart and one soul, but must deny themselves, for the sake of each
other, much which they like or desire, if they are to live together
happily. Compro