nt, and by the violence
of an ecclesiastical faction which is bent on persecution without having
the miserable excuse of fanaticism. Nor is it only the University of
Edinburgh that is in danger. In pleading for that University, I plead
for all the great academical institutions of Scotland. The fate of all
depends on the event of this debate; and, in the name of all, I demand
the attention of every man who loves either learning or religious
liberty.

The first question which we have to consider is, whether the principles
of the bill be sound. I believe that they are sound; and I am quite
confident that nobody who sits on the Treasury Bench will venture to
pronounce them unsound. It does not lie in the mouths of the Ministers
to say that literary instruction and scientific instruction are
inseparably connected with religious instruction. It is not for them to
rail against Godless Colleges. It is not for them to talk with horror of
the danger of suffering young men to listen to the lectures of an Arian
professor of Botany or of a Popish professor of Chemistry. They are
themselves at this moment setting up in Ireland a system exactly
resembling the system which we wish to set up in Scotland. Only a few
hours have elapsed since they were themselves labouring to prove that,
in a country in which a large proportion of those who require a liberal
education are dissenters from the Established Church, it is desirable
that there should be schools without theological tests. The right
honourable Baronet at the head of the Government proposes that in the
new colleges which he is establishing at Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and
Galway, the professorships shall be open to men of every creed: and
he has strenuously defended that part of his plan against attacks from
opposite quarters, against the attacks of zealous members of the Church
of England, and of zealous members of the Church of Rome. Only the day
before yesterday the honourable Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir
Thomas Acland.) ventured to suggest a test as unobjectionable as a test
could well be. He would merely have required the professors to declare
their general belief in the divine authority of the Old and New
Testaments. But even this amendment the First Lord of the Treasury
resisted, and I think quite rightly. He told us that it was quite
unnecessary to institute an inquisition into the religious opinions of
people whose business was merely to teach secular knowledge,