26 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT. 



should be accessible to all comers, without distinction 

 of creed or country, riches or poverty. 



Do not suppose, however, that I am sanguine 

 enough to expect much to come of any poor efforts of 

 mine. If your annals take any notice of my incum- 

 bency, I shall probably go down to posterity as the 

 Eector who was always beaten. But if they add, as I 

 think they will, that my defeats became victories in 

 the hands of my successors, I shall be well content. 



The scenes are shifting in the great theatre of the 

 world. The act which commenced with the Protestant 

 Eeformation is nearly played out, and a wider and a 

 deeper change than that effected three centuries ago 

 a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the 

 extremes of which are represented by the intellectual 

 heirs of John of Leyden and of Ignatius Loyola, rather 

 than by those of Luther and of Leo is waiting to 

 come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those who 

 have good eyes. Men are beginning, once more, to 

 awake to the fact that matters of belief and of specu- 

 lation are of absolutely infinite practical importance ; 

 and are drawing off from that sunny country " where 

 it is always afternoon " the sleepy hollow of broad 

 indifferentism to range themselves under their 

 natural banners. Change is in the air. It is whirling 

 feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric orbits, and 

 filling the steadiest with a sense of insecurity. It 

 insists on reopening all questions and asking all insti- 

 tutions, however venerable, by what right they exist, 

 and whether they are, or are not, in harmony with the 



