No. 53. MAY 30, 1816.

On the University of Virginia.

OUR state legislature has announced its purpose or wish to establish a seminary of learning upon a large scale, with the title of THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. Such an idea, so presented to our view, cannot fail to excite a lively interest in every reflecting and patriotic mind. How far the institution shall prove a blessing to society, must greatly depend on the wisdom of those who have the charge of settling its cardinal principles, and enacting the rules by which it is to be conducted. The subject is a very extensive and awfully solemn one. While I entertain no doubt that it does and will employ the best heads of which we can boast, I shall use my right as a citizen to express my opinion upon one solitary point; I mean the religious aspect of the university.

I lay it down as a truth of the first importance, a truth which no length of time can render obsolete, that the fear of God is the foundation of all human dignity and welfare. The whole history of mankind illus trates this position. In proportion as the fear of God prevails, individuals and social bodies are virtuous, free, and happy in proportion as it is despised and discarded, men are fitted by their vices to become slaves, and actually sink into degradation and ruin. It is insinuated, and even asserted not unfrequently in our day, that knowledge alone, or what may be called the diffusion of intellectual light, will be sufficient for the preservation of our national liberties and prosperi ty. In my judgment, no assertion can be more false, no doctrine more deleterious in its tendency. Try this pretended maxim by the recent instance of the French revolution. Never had any people cultivated literature, the sciences, and the arts, more successfully than the French; nor could any country vie with theirs the model of taste and fashion to the civilized world. But what was their condition in regard to religion and

morals? They had exchanged the corrupt dogmas and childish ceremonials handed down to them by their fathers, not for the heavenly lamp of divine revelation, but for the folly and licentiousness of infidel'ty. The book which God has giyen us they trampled under their feet, as a fable; and dismissed his fear from their hearts, as a contemptible and antiquated superstition. Their own proud reason, teeming with the reveries of a visionary philosophy, they made their idol; and to no other divinity in the universe would they condescend to pay their homage. Thus prepared for their -civil emancipation, they resolved and proclaimed it; and speedily swept away their old monarchy and all its appendages with the besom of destruction. France became a republic. By their example and their energies, her millions of sages were to spread the blessings of truth, liberty, and happiness, to the remotest limits of the earth. But how has the mighty explosion terminated? After being convinced, within a few years, by their own enormous crimes and misèries, that they were incapable of governing themselves; after abandoning, of their own accord, their boasted republicanism, and flying from mutual violence to crouch at the feet of a ruthless and arbitrary despot; after disgracing themselves forever as the deceivers, plunderers, and butchers of every nation within their reach; themselves sustaining, all the while, an infinitude of sufferings, and the loss of oceans of blood; the French people are at this moment reduced, by foreign power, under their ancient line of kings, little more free, and not at all more happy, than they were thirty years ago. The history stands recorded in terrific lustre, and is as full of instruction as of horror. The sum of the lessons which it inculcates, and which it behooves us deeply to feel and acknowledge, is that liberty cannot exist without morals, and that the only firm basis of morality is religious principle.

If these things are so; if man is very much the creature of education; and if, moreover, after this

fleeting life, we are all to pass into a state of endless joy or sorrow, according to the deeds which we have done here; the inference is irresistible, that every system of instruction, whether large or small, should recognise religion as its first concern. The more extended the influence of any seminary may be in the formation of character, and in giving the tone to public sentiment and manners, so much the more necessary is it that in such seminary religion be received and honoured. In applying these maxims to the university of Virginia, I trust my readers will not understand me to mean by religion the little peculiarities of sects and parties; but the grand doctrines and precepts of our common Christianity, in opposition to infidelity and atheism. Under these impressions, I think the following rules should be adopted as sacred and unalterable.

Every professor, or other teacher, in the universi ty, from the highest to the lowest, should be required, before his entrance into office, solemnly to avow his belief in the existence of one all-perfect God, the Creator and moral Governor of the world; in the divine authority of the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as a revelation from God, the infallible standard of faith and of practice; in the trinity of persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in the universal proneness of our fallen nature to transgression rather than to righteousness; in our restoration to the favour of God only through the merits and atoning sacrifice of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; in the work of the Spirit of God upon our hearts, by which we are turned from sin to holiness; and in the judgment to come, when the whole human race shall stand before the tribunal of God, awaiting from his hands the retribution of everlasting life or everlasting punishment, according as they have obeyed or disobeyed his known commandments.

Every professor, or other teacher, should be subjected to dismission from office on proof of his having

written or spoken any thing in opposition to the above confession, or to any part of it. And the same penalty should be annexed to his being found guilty of any immoral conduct, and especially to his persisting in such immorality.

It should be made the duty of some professor, say the professor of moral science, to deliver, within the course of every session, a series of lectures on the evidences of religion, natural and revealed; and these lectures all the students should be bound to attend. Such discourses, without being numerous or tedious, might be exceedingly useful in fortifying the minds of the young against the assaults of infidelity.

Solemn prayer to Almighty God should be performed every morning and evening by the professors in the hall of the university, accompanied with the reading of a portion of the scriptures. And every student hould be required to attend these exercises.

The students should be obliged to resort to the public worship of God, if practicable, every sabbath, with a decent and respectful behaviour; and to abstain, throughout this most important day, from worldly studies, and all other pursuits which tend to violate its sacred character.

Every student should be bound to have in his possession a copy of the holy scriptures, ready at all times to be exhibited on demand.

The students should be made liable to expulsion for malignant or contemptuous language, uttered either by writing or speech, against God, his word, his sacraments, or any of the essential doctrines of religion. And in the laws established for regulating the moral deportment of students, profane swearing, cursing, and every other mode of taking the name of God in vain, should be marked as crimes of a high grade, and punished accordingly.

These rules are proposed as an outline of the religious system which I wish to see introduced. I feel no anxiety about the particular forms of expression

which have dropped from my pen; but I should painfully dread the consequences of any departure from the substance. The adoption or rejection of such a system in the contemplated university will, in a very great measure, decide the question, whether Virginia chooses to occupy the standing of a Christian community or not. Full well am I aware how strongly the current of a godless philosophy bears against the sentiments which I have advanced. Infidels, and the poor dupes of infidel vanities, will sneeringly fling this humble paper aside, if it happen to meet their eyes. They will repeat their traditionary cant about bigotry and fanaticism; and ask, what religion has to do with liberal education, just as they ask what it has to do with civil government. We know what it is that the champions of scepticism and irreligion are aiming to accomplish. They labour covertly to exclude the fear of God first from one department of human life, and then from another, until they get it banished, if possible, from the world altogether. They displace the bible from our rudimental schools. They discountenance piety and discipline in our public seminaries. They frown upon religion in our legislative assembly. Take it as they may, I will declare that I glory in the sneers of such men, as I glory in the gospel which I love; that blessed gospel without whose gracious influence this earth would be a land of idle dreams and shadows, or rather a desert overwhelmed with wickedness, misery, and despair.

Some of my friends and neighbours exhort me to rejoice in the prospect of this splendid university. I wish and intend to cherish the best hopes respecting it that I can; and when I shall see the rules which I have suggested, or something equal to them in amount, realized, then, and not till then, will I rejoice and be glad with all my heart. For the God of truth has pronounced that "he will honour those who honour him; and that they who despise him shall be lightly esteemed."