world to an outward, political unity. But Christianity taught that all men are brothers. By the doctrine of sin it brought all to the same level, while by the doctrine of a Saviour it built up a spiritual unity through Christ. While other faiths are ethnic, Christianity is truly catholic, and from the first emphasized its mission as the religion of mankind. It inculcated humility, love, mercy; and enforced equality before a higher power. Starting in the lowest ranks of society, its progress though gradual was firm, and ere long crowned heads bowed in submission to its decrees.

Not only did the teachings of Christianity thus promote in directly the development of popular rights, but also the expounders of it made direct application of the doctrines to political facts. At a time when Europe was quaking with political commotions, Thomas Aquinas declared that government belongs to the domain of human regulation; that therefore the right to make laws belongs to the people, and that in a good government all must have a share. St. Bonaventura preached the right of resistence, and maintained that political power ought not to be unlimited. True, indeed, the Church herself, adopting the traditions of the Roman Empire, sought supremacy in matters temporal as well as spiritual, and many utterances of her representatives had no other aim than to prepare the way for papal usurpation; yet none the less did she help to mold general opinion in favor of the rights of the people and we must not forget that it was on the estates of the Church that the serfs of medieval Europe first began to be set free.

The organization of the Church, moreover, was founded in principles of freedom. At first the voice of the people was supreme in all matters connected with ecclesiastical discipline and government. It was from the lower orders of society. that the ranks of the priesthood were mainly recruited, and promotion in offices was through merit. By the institution of councils the Church furnished the type of a representative body, and foreshadowed the most stable form of national political organization.

Thus Christianity, while elevating men through character and life, has done more to advance the cause of civil rights than any other agency. While we grant to the Germanic race the

high honor of having been commissioned by Providence to work out in its institutions and to transmit to humanity the idea of individual liberty, to Christianity the world is indebted for giving to this principle of freedom the highest impulse to development, a rational basis, and a principle of control. Tried at the bar of the Teutonic conscience the religion of peace said to the bold, liberty-loving warrior,-"Love thy neighbor as thyself." Christianity checked the bold spirit of independence by a regard for the rights of others; and in these two elements is laid the foundation of stable, free institutions.

ARTICLE IV.-THE CHARTER OF CONNECTICUT AND

THE CHARTER OF YALE COLLEGE.

II.

THERE remain the anonymous pamphlets, which cannot be considered as heavy artillery. The guns came too late into the field, and are old and rusty and were long ago condemned. It is necessary to understand the situation. Two measures of President Clap's administration caused much irritation. One was the formation of a college-church and congregation or religious society in the college. This Dr. Woolsey thinks has proved wise and it agreed with the practice in Harvard and the British universities, and such church and congregation have been continued ever since. The other measure was unwise. That was an order of the corporation, that the Rev. Mr. Noyes, one of the fellows and pastor of the first church in New Haven, appear and be examined by them, for the purpose of inquiring into the soundness of his faith. This order Mr. Noyes resisted and refused to submit to, and the proceeding was abandoned. The corporation has no right to remove a member for his opinions. It has the right, for unfaithfulness to his trust, "for any misdemeanor, unfaithfulness, default or incapacity." The law deals with acts and failures or inability to act, not with opinions. The power has never needed to be and has never been exercised.

In 1753 the General Assembly resolved, that to "one principal end in erecting the college," it was requisite that the students "should have the best instruction in divinity, and the best patterns of preaching set before them. And that the settling of a learned, pious and orthodox professor of divinity in the college would greatly tend to promote that good end." At the request of the corporation President Clap performed the duties of a professor of divinity until a professsor should be procured, preaching in the college hall on Sunday, and the president and the students were withdrawn from attendance on divine service at the first church in New Haven, under the

charge of the Rev. Mr. Noyes. In 1754 President Clap published his tract on "The Religious Constitution of Colleges," mainly or in a great measure to vindicate this formation of a separate religious society in the college. In 1755, Rev. Naphtali Daggett, afterwards president, was selectd as professor of divinity, and the next year was inducted into office. Soon after the church members in college were formed into a college church.

President Stiles says, the resolute, firm, unyielding character of President Clap "rendered the latter part of his presidency uncomfortable." Dr. Woolsey states that "a cloud came over the latter years of President Clap's collegiate life, in consequence of enmity to the government of the college without its walls, and insubordination within." "He felt alarmed lest the old laud-marks should be removed. He therefore strove to guard the college from the intrusion of what he conceived to be error by making it a separate religious society, and by subjecting its fellows and instructors to a more rigorous test. This circumstance, together with a certain inflexibility of purpose and a rigor in administration exposed him to much obloquy without the college, from a party who seem to have industriously fomented disorders within its walls." He resigned his office in July, 1766, and died in the January following. "President Clap's administration," says Dr. Woolsey, "was marked by a gradual growth and improvement in the college. Its number of students amounted at the close of his office to one hundred and seventy. New buildings were erected, which still subsist. [Of these were South Middle College, the best building in the colony," "ædes hæc nitida et splendida, Aula Connecticuttensis," being named, and the oldest chapel then with a steeple, afterwards the Atheneum.] Some additions were made to the permanent funds. The laws were remodeled. The "charter was amended and improved" (Woolsey's Hist. Dis. 28, 29, 30, 114; 2 Trumbull, 327, 518, 519, 522, as to the pamphlet war and Dr. Gale).

A few years after (after and not before) the act of 1745, or forty years before the act of 1792 (which would be in 1752), it is said, a movement began for the introduction of laymen into the corporation, and was almost continuous during that period.

A pretty slow movement! If its force may be judged from its rate of progress, it must have been for a long time feeble. The difficulty was that while the plan finally adopted of an alliance with the State by the addition of the governor and lieutenantgovernor, and six senior assistants, civilians of mature experience, to the corporation, was wise, and might much earlier have been wisely adopted, that on the one hand attempts were made to introduce laymen, in violation of the charter and the rights of the college, and on the other hand there was for a long time. a want of the spirit of conciliation and a disposition to rest contentedly on the chartered rights of the college. Attacks tended to produce at least passive resistance.

To prevent misapprehension it may be well to quote what the late Prof. Kingsley has said as to the state of religious opinion in the colony as late as the American Revolution: "All who had separated from the Congregationalists were, at that time, but a small proportion of the population" (Kingsley's Hist. Dis., Note I).

We are not much in the habit of reading pamphlets to which the writers do not venture to give the voucher of their names. They may make history picturesque but often render it less authentic. In 1755 an anonymous pamphlet was published, since attributed to Dr. Benjamin Gale, an eccentric and disputatious physician of Killingworth, Connecticut, unfriendly to the government of the college, and, as alleged, to the faith of the founders. It appears that it is stated in this pamphlet that at the election of President Clap as rector, in 1739, several of the trustees voted for a layman, Daniel Edwards, of the class of 1720. If this were so the college records are the proper evidence of it, but show no trace of it.

It does not appear to be stated who the trustees were, nor any of them who so voted, or from whom the information was received, or whether it was derived from report. It is not pretended that Dr. Gale had or could have any personal knowledge on the subject. The amount of it all is that sixteen years after the election, Dr. Gale says anonymously, that he has heard that at that election several votes were cast for Mr. Edwards. It is said that Dr. Gale was related by marriage to Jared Elliot, a trustee, having married his daughter, and that Mr. Elliot pro