in love, and in good
works, could only last for a season; but, even when the light was to pass
away from them, the sister islands were destined, not to forfeit, but to
transmit it together. The time came when the neighbouring continental
country was in turn to hold the mission which they had exercised so long
and well; and when to it they made over their honourable office, faithful
to the alliance of two hundred years, they made it a joint act. Alcuin was
the pupil both of the English and of the Irish schools; and when
Charlemagne would revive science and letters in his own France, it was
Alcuin, the representative both of the Saxon and the Celt, who was the
chief of those who went forth to supply the need of the great Emperor.
Such was the foundation of the School of Paris, from which, in the course
of centuries, sprang the famous University, the glory of the middle ages.

* * * * *

The past never returns; the course of events, old in its texture, is ever
new in its colouring and fashion. England and Ireland are not what they
once were, but Rome is where it was, and St. Peter is the same: his zeal,
his charity, his mission, his gifts are all the same. He of old made the
two islands one by giving them joint work of teaching; and now surely he
is giving us a like mission, and we shall become one again, while we
zealously and lovingly fulfil it.

Discourse II.

Theology A Branch Of Knowledge.

There were two questions, to which I drew your attention, Gentlemen, in
the beginning of my first Discourse, as being of especial importance and
interest at this time: first, whether it is consistent with the idea of
University teaching to exclude Theology from a place among the sciences
which it embraces; next, whether it is consistent with that idea to make
the useful arts and sciences its direct and principal concern, to the
neglect of those liberal studies and exercises of mind, in which it has
heretofore been considered mainly to consist. These are the questions
which will form the subject of what I have to lay before you, and I shall
now enter upon the former of the two.

1.

It is the fashion just now, as you very well know, to erect so-called
Universities, without making any provision in them at all for Theological
chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both here and in England. Such a
procedure, though defended by writers of the generatio