The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-03-02 00:00:00

DEAN STANLEY AT OXFORD. .

On Sunday afternoon the Very Rev. the Dean of 1
Westminster preached before the Oxford University.
The Heads of Houses were all in their places, the I
undergraduates' gallery was filled to overflowing, and
the seats devoted to the general public and the aisles
were crowded to excess.
The Dean selected for his text the let, 2nd, and 31,1
verses of the 31th chapter of Ezekiel. In the course of
an admirable sermon he pointed out the different im-
pressions produced by the different portions of the Bible
in various ages, and remarked that at the time when the
Lessons were originally selected from the Old Testament
for the public ger, ices of our Church, the femme chapter
from which the words of the text were taken was alto-
gether omitted, but in the new selection no chapter
was received with more cordial and unanimous approval.
He explained how far we could hope to reanimate
doctrines and beliefs of the past, and said that prayers
and praises, decrees and confessions of all the Churches
were old indeed, written in other times, and derived
their shape and colour from places, things, and persons
long since passed away, but we gave life to the words
of the past.
He next dwelt on the institutions of the present and
past ages, and observed that the Monarchy, the Con-
stitution, the Church, and the laws of England were,
as in no other country, the relics of the far-distant past,
and those dry, venerable, and antique forms still tived
and moved in our stirring times. Among other insti-
tutions, there was this University, which had just
attained the thousandth year of its long existence, and
since its establishment colleges had added to it fresh
elements of life, notwithstanding the shocks of the
Reformation, revolutions, civil discord, and theological
strife. He asked what had kept it alive up to the
present time but the renewing influences of the coun-
try and of the higher world. The breath of Divine
Providence had been allowed to breathe freely over us.
The universities of Catholic Italy and Spain had faded
away, but the universities of Protestant Germany,
Holland, Scotland. and England, still flourished and
abounded. None others had progressed as thew had
done. Every separate college with its complex
associations and endearments, every tutorship, fellow-
ship, and headship, which, with its own peculiar
powers, influences, wholesome encouragement, and
warning every branch of study, and every form of
academic life, had come down to us as an instrumentrof
our education, of our civilization, and our regeneration.
Thee, were the bone which gab, required the breath oi

God to breathainto them the spirit of truth, energy,.
and pure emotion, to make them live for another
thousand years as they had had lived for the past
thousand.. . . . . .

lie next pointed out the immense power which was
still exercised over all such institughins by individuals,
and observed that it had been said that the influence
of individuals of the present age had been greatly
diminished, and in a certain limited sense it was true,
but for practical purposes it remained almost the same
as ever, and there were in our day men who were
masters of the present, and controllers of the future
generations. Such men they had known, some of
whom were living still, and others had passed away in
the fulness of a venerable age, or a martyr's death in
the for off island of the south.
Ile then alluded to the changes which had taken
place in the University of Oxford by throwing it open
to persons of all religious creeds, and said it was no
longer a battleAeld of religious factions. In conclusionthe
appealed to the manly, upright, independent, in-
dustrious, modest, and reverential spirit of the rising
generation in this University to lift themselves to the
level of their great nation, and inherit the bright in-
spiring future.