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to me shone in them. But it was certain to me before I went to
Oxford, and manifest in my first acquaintance with it, that very few
academicians could be said to believe them. Of the young men, not one
in five seemed to have any religious convictions at all: the elder
residents seldom or never showed sympathy with the doctrines that
pervade that formula. I felt from my first day there, that the system
of compulsory subscription was hollow, false, and wholly evil.

Oxford is a pleasant place for making friends,--friends of all sorts
that young men wish. One who is above envy and scorns servility,--who
can praise and delight in all the good qualities of his equals in
age, and does not desire to set himself above them, or to vie with his
superiors in rank,--may have more than enough of friends, for pleasure
and for profit. So certainly had I; yet no one of my equals gained
any ascendancy over me, nor perhaps could I have looked up to any for
advice. In some the intellect, in others the religious qualities, were
as yet insufficiently developed: in part also I wanted discrimination,
and did not well pick out the profounder minds of my acquaintance.
However, on my very first residence in College, I received a useful
lesson from another freshman,--a grave and thoughtful person, older
(I imagine) than most youths in their first term. Some readers may
be amused, as well as surprized, when I name the delicate question
on which I got into discussion with my fellow freshman. I had learned
from Evangelical books, that there is a _twofold_ imputation to every
saint,--not of the "sufferings" only, but also of the "righteousness"
of Christ. They alleged that, while the sufferings of Jesus are a
compensation for the guilt of the believer and make him innocent, yet
this suffices not to give him a title to heavenly glory; for which
he must over and above be invested in active righteousness, by all
Christ's good works being made over to him. My new friend contested
the latter part of the doctrine. Admitting fully that guilt is atoned
for by the sufferings of the Saviour, he yet maintained, there was no
farther imputation of Christ's active service as if it had been our
service. After a rather sharp controversy, I was sent back to study
the matter for myself, especially in the third and fourth chapters of
the Epistle to the Romans; and some weeks after, freely avowed to him
that I was convinced. Such was my first effort at independent tho