students on Saturday evenings, when the president is present." The fifth inquiry was: "Whether the Holy Scriptures be daily read in the hall, and how often expounded?" It was answered, "that the Scriptures are read in the hall, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, when the president is present, and once a week expounded by the president.” Previous to 1708, the practice of obliging the undergraduates to read portions of the Scriptures from Latin or English into Greek, at morning or evening service, had been discontinued. On the accession of President Leverett, this "ancient and laudable practice was revived." In an official report of the regular exercises of the students, in 1726, "Wollebius's Divinity" and "Ames's Medulla" have a conspicuous place.*

Let the reader now compare this system of religious instruction with that of Yale College, as stated above, and he will see they are the same, with very few and immaterial variations. This is what might have been expected. All the trustees, with the exception of the Rev. Mr. Buckingham of Saybrook, were graduates of Harvard. They evidently retained a strong regard for their Alma Mater, and in bringing into operation their new college, were disposed to make Harvard their pattern, as far as circumstances would permit. It is an important fact illustrative of their feelings towards the older seminary, that they established no general laws, or very few, for the government of the students, for more than forty years after the founding of the college. The rector and tutors were referred to the laws and usages of Harvard College for their guide. Here is no evidence of disaffection, no indication of a feeling of opposition to the college at Cambridge. The trustees adopted a system with which they were familiar, in which they had themselves been educated; and they appear to have thought, that there was no way in which they could so effectually recommend the rising institution to the public, as by copying after one, in which there was such general confidence.

In the theological course, adopted first at Cambridge, and afterwards in the college of Connecticut, we see nothing very peculiar. Is not the Scotch Confession the ground of all theological instruction, in the universities of Scotland; and the thirtynine articles in the universities of England? The church catechism is, we believe, taught, if not in the universities, in the

great schools of the kingdom, in some portions of each in Latin, and in others, perhaps, in Greek. Among the first regulations made by the trustees of William and Mary College in Virginia, was this, that in the grammar school attached to the college all the scholars should learn the church catechism, in the English language, and that those who were more advanced in their studies should learn it in Latin.* It was likewise ordered, that on Saturdays and holydays, lessons should be set in Castalio's Dialogues, or Buchanan's version of the Psalms, or some other book of religious instruction, approved of at least by the president and master, to be recited in the morning on Mondays, and days next after the holydays. In New England the Westminster catechism was the undisputed standard of orthodoxy; and Ames and Wollebius were considered two of the most able expounders of the same system. The Assembly's catechism in Latin, we believe, has been recited likewise in the college of New Jersey.

That there was in 1700 some opposition in Boston to Harvard, is clearly proved by what President Quincy has published. But that this opposition took a decided form in Connecticut is without proof. The strongest testimony to this point adduced by President Quincy is found in an extract of a letter from the Rev. Moses Noyes of Lyme, to Judge Sewall, in 1723. He says "it was a wrong step when the trustees, by the assistance of great men, removed the college from Saybrook, and a worse, when they put in Mr. Cutler for rector. The first mov

ers for a college in Connecticut alleged this as a reason, because the college at Cambridge was under the tutelage of latitudinarians; but how well they mended, the event sadly manifests." That the language of the disaffected in Boston should be repeated to some extent in Connecticut, when the establishment of the new college was in agitation, was a matter of course. But the testimony of Mr. Noyes ought to be received with some

* Curabit etiam ludi-magister, ut Catechismum Anglicanum linguâ vulgari omnes addiscant; provectiores etiam in Linguâ Latinâ.

† Diebus Saturni et profestis, lectio præscribatur sacra ex Castalionis Dialogis aut Buchanani Psalmorum Paraphrasi, aut quocunque alio libro pio, a præside et ludimagistro saltem comprobato, quæ diebus Lunæ et post festa mane reddatur. Vol. II. p. 462.

grains of abatement. Mr. Noyes lived in the neighborhood of Saybrook, was himself one of the trustees, and had at first opposed the removal of the college from that town. Having been defeated in his efforts, and having reluctantly given his assent to the proposed measure, in this letter to Judge Sewall, he evidently wrote with the feelings produced by recent disappointment. The real disposition of the original trustees towards Harvard is to be looked for rather in their treatment of Judge Sewall and Secretary Addington, which was barely civil, and in the uniform regard which they manifested to that institution. In 1725, the trustees, Mr. Noyes being absent, by a unanimous vote invited the Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth, Hollis Professor of Divinity in Harvard College, to the office of rector; and as he declined the place, private negotiations were immediately commenced with Mr. Henry Flynt, a tutor in the same college, to induce him to become rector of Yale. This attempt was likewise unsuccessful. These proceedings show, how little real apprehension there was then at New-Haven, Mr. Noyes's letter notwithstanding, about the theology of the "latitudinarians" at Cambridge. One half of the original trustees were in the board, at the time Mr. Cutler was elected rector; and three of the number, at the election of Professor Wigglesworth.

But it may be useful to look a little more closely at the theological course in the college of Connecticut, so particularly noticed by President Quincy, and compare it with that of the college at Cambridge. The trustees of the former directed that the students should recite the Assembly's Catechism memoriter in Latin. In the latter, every class was practised every year, and every week of the college course in catechetical divinity. The catechism was recited by the Freshmen in Greek, and without doubt memoriter. What more probable, than that the "Catechism of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster was the catechism in question. This catechism was in the highest repute in Massachusetts, as well as in Connecticut, was universally taught in families; and if " catechetical divinity" made a part of the college course, what other manual would have been adopted in preference to that of the Westminster divines? We have now before us a copy of the Assembly's Catechism, in Greek and Latin, which was used in several successive classes in Yale College. What other catechism in Greek was there, which could have been used at Harvard? Yale College, then, in using this catechism, imitated

Harvard. At Harvard, the catechism was recited by the Freshmen in Greek, at Yale, by all classes in Latin; a difference, the importance and ground of which, we will not undertake to de

termine.

At Yale, "Ames's Theological Theses" were recited; at Harvard," Ames's System of Divinity." "Ames's Medulla" is meant in both cases. It seems, that at Harvard, previous to 1723, Wollebius had been called in as an auxiliary to Ames. In Yale College, about the same time, the " Compendium Theologiæ Christiana" of Wollebius was a text-book; proving, what before, perhaps, was sufficiently evident, that the course of studies in the latter institution was regularly conformed to that of the former. At Yale, the students heard explanations of "Ames's Cases of Conscience;" at Harvard, they gave an account of "their proficiency and experience in practical and spiritual truths," were required "to attend God's ordinances, and be examined on their profiting." The actual process in the two cases was probably nearly the same. We can see here, however, no indications of any " stricter form" in Connecticut, than in Massachusetts. As to reading and expounding the Scriptures, and repeating sermons, the course in the two colleges was the same. Why "the college in Connecticut began to be deemed by the stricter sect of Calvinists the stronghold of their opinions" does not appear. If in Harvard, a " catholic and liberal spirit" was " its vital principle and distinguishing characteristic," and we are not now questioning the fact,-what proof has been yet presented, that the same spirit did not exist in Yale ?-If in Harvard there was no "form of sound words," no" creed," no " catechism," no "medulla theologiæ” “established as a standard of religious faith, to which every one, entering on an office of government and instruction, was required to swear and subscribe, and, at the hazard of perjury and hypocrisy, under the combined temptations of loss of place, of caste and of bread, at stated periods to renew his oath and subscription,”—neither was there at Yale. If the regulations of Harvard show no 66 shackle for the human soul," neither do the regulations of Yale show any such thing there. If "the first constitution of Harvard College, established in 1642, in enumerating the powers granted and the objects proposed to be attained by its foundation, makes use of these simple and memorable terms:" "To make and establish all such orders, statutes and constitutions, as they shall see necessary for the instituting,

SECOND SERIES, VOL. VI. NO. I.

17

guiding and furthering of the said college, and the several members thereof, from time to time, in piety, morality and learning;" the first charter of Yale College authorizes the establishment of a school," wherein youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences, who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for public employments both in church and civil state." If there is proof of a "catholic spirit" in the one case, why not in the other?

But perhaps at Yale, in elections, inquiry was made as to the belief of individual candidates. How was it at Harvard? In 1737, when the Rev. Mr. Holyoke of Marblehead was a candidate for the Presidency, Governor Belcher is related* to have inquired of the Rev. John Barnard: "Can you vouch for Mr. Holyoke's Calvinistic principles ?" To which question Mr. Barnard replied: "If more than thirty years intimacy, and more than twenty years living with him, and scores of times hearing him preach can lead me into the knowledge of a man's principles, I think Mr. Holyoke as orthodox a Calvinist as any man; though I look upon him as too much of a gentleman, and of too catholic a temper to cram his principles down another man's throat." "Then," said his excellency, "I believe he must be the man." And accordingly he was the man, and was elected in both boards unanimously. We suppose, that in the selection of the ten clergymen who composed the first board of trustees in Yale College, satisfactory evidence was required that each individual was 66 as orthodox a Calvinist as any man,” and that all, or most, of this board were not of as "catholic a temper" as President Holyoke we have no reason to believe. The Rev. Timothy Woodbridge of Hartford, one of the first trustees, certainly sympathized with the party in Boston, considered as liberal by President Quincy, and there is no ground for the supposition, that he was singular in this respect. The board, as a body, is indirectly represented by Mr. Noyes, soon after, as consisting of "Latitudinarians," like those who had the direction of the college at Cambridge. If suspicion of a man's orthodoxy is sufficient to prove him of a " catholic spirit," the President and Fellows of Yale College have strong support of this kind; since from the time Mr. Noyes wrote his letter to Judge Sewall in 1723, and perhaps from a much earlier period, there has never been a day, when that body have not lain under the imputa

* Vol. II. p. 7.