year, a cheerful little collapse of an author's publishing-house in the States, where a talk of 45 per cent. royalty to authors soon became a question of paying 45 cents on the dollar?

We would advise Mr. Caine to study such cases before embarking on his new enterprise. His friends on the Council of the Authors' Society have apparently some suspicion of them, for although, according to their account, the bulk of publishers are little less than extortioners (and they publish these opinions in insultingly worded paragraphs every month in their organ), yet they never talk of starting publishing on the lines of their extraordinary figures, and their authors are yet without the 33 per cent. they advocate.

There is no body of men who could combine as easily as publishers; their limited number and peculiar trade offer every facility for a union. Fortunately for the Society of Authors and their clientèle, they are conservative and reticent beings, but much goading may make them turn, and when they do combine, it is not impossible that they will be in a position to dictate exactly what terms they please both to authors and booksellers. Up to now the only result of the extravagant terms urged by the Authors' Society has been to turn their attention to the reissuing of non-copyright books.

These they are producing in immense quantities, much to the detriment of the modern author, and it cannot but be said that such reprint material is of a higher class, and infinitely superior in tone to much of the modern fiction put on the book-market.

The British Museum Library offers them a reserve which will keep them busy for many years, or at least until the modern author is rid of the inflated opinion the Society has given him of himself, and has returned to a more reasonable state of mind.

In conclusion, it would be well not to forget that not one novel in ten pays expenses, and only about one in twenty pays well. The publisher, it must be remembered, finds capital for the failures as well as for the successes; and although we seldom see an edition of less than 10,000 given in an 'Authors' Society' example, yet the average sale of a six-shilling novel (of nine out of ten) is between three and four hundred copies.

T. WERNER LAURIE.

THE RELIGION OF THE UNDERGRADUATE

I

A REPLY FROM CAMBRIDGE

If the allegations that were made in an article entitled 'The Religion of the Undergraduate,' in the October number of this Review, respecting the prevalence of agnosticism at Cambridge, and the favourable conditions under which it is said to flourish there, are well founded, Churchmen, and indeed Christians generally, have cause to deplore the unfortunate condition into which one of our greatest educational institutions has drifted. The gravity of the charges which are laid at the door of the University and college authorities, no less than the vast importance of the subject to many who are, or who shortly will be, resident in the University, induces the present writer-himself a graduate of but few years' standing-in making some reply to the writer of the article in question, to utter a protest against the representations which have been made.

If agnosticism is the prevalent attitude towards religion at Cambridge, and if the Dons are largely responsible, both personally and by their legislation, for its spread and increase; if, moreover, this agnosticism is directly encouraged by two institutions established by the collective wisdom of the University, it is certainly time that an effort were made to persuade the Senate to inquire into, and if possible to amend, the present condition of things. Oxford, we are told, viewed at least from the standpoint of Cuddesdon, is in a similar plight; but the writer of this article intends to confine his remarks exclusively to the University of Cambridge, with which alone he can claim to be personally acquainted.

In considering the question of the prevalence of agnosticism at Cambridge we are confronted by the not inconsiderable difficulty of being without any definite and tangible information on the subject; we have no religious census to furnish us with statistics, and even if we had it is more than doubtful if the figures would represent at all accurately the actual state of religious thought at Cambridge; but the experience of the present writer, such as it is, of University life does not bear out the pessimistic utterances of Mr. Deane, and, despite the fact that it is highly undesirable simply to pit the ipse

dixit of one writer against that of another, a better mode of procedure does not in this case appear. It is unfortunate, in the present writer's judgment, that some definition was not given of the kind of agnosticism which is said to be so prevalent at Cambridge, and for the growth of which the Dons are held so largely responsible. There are, it will be readily admitted, two very different states of mind designated by the single term; there is the sincere agnosticism, born of earnest and profound thought, an agnosticism that is often an unwilling conviction, and there is, to quote from an article contributed to this Review in 1889 by the then Bishop of Peterborough,

...

an agnosticism which is simply the cowardly escaping from the pain and difficulty of contemplating and trying to solve the terrible problems of life by the help of the convenient phrase 'I don't know,' which very often means 'I don't care.' . . . There is, I fear (the Bishop continues), a very large amount of this kind of agnosticism amongst the more youthful professors of that philosophy, and, indeed, amongst a large number of easy-going, comfortable men of the world, as they call themselves, who find agnosticism a pleasant shelter from the trouble of thought and the pain of effort and self-denial.'

That there must necessarily be some agnosticism of the former kind wherever religious and philosophical questions secure any considerable amount of thought one is prepared to admit. We may possibly deplore, but we can hardly censure, the existence of this state of mind, praise and blame being alike unmeaning when predicated of a sincere opinion; but this is not the agnosticism that indulges in cheap scoffs at religion or in 'silly jests and flippant profanity concerning the creed of the Church.' The latter kind of agnosticism, however, to which reference has been made, is just the kind that jeers for the sake of jeering, and proclaims its noisy existence on every possible occasion; 2 and this, we gather, is the particular type that is said to be omnipresent at Cambridge. From the ordinary experience of college life which the present writer possesses he most emphatically denies that this easy-going agnosticism' is more prevalent in the University than in other spheres of life; he believes that it is infinitely less in vogue at Cambridge than, say, in the army or navy, or among those engaged in the multifarious professions and occupations in the City and elsewhere. It is, of course, true, of this age especially, that there are to quote a well-known phrase-'chatterers in our clubs and drawing-rooms and free-thinkers who have yet to learn to think,' and it is only to be expected that some of this class should exist at our Universities; but to imply that the kind of agnosticism of which these are the professors is especially prevalent at Cambridge, and that its growth is directly encouraged by the collective wisdom 1 Nineteenth Century, March 1889.

2 Of sincere agnosticism the present writer would only speak in terms of respect; the 'fashionable' or pseudo-agnosticism earns the censure which is surely due to all spurious articles.

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of the University, is, in the present writer's judgment, to do that body a very grave injustice. If, then, as we have suggested-and on this point there will probably be little difference of opinion-the agnostic spirit is the spirit of the age, and as such pervades conditions of life where the influence of the Dons is as unfelt as their very existence is unknown, it is only reasonable to attribute whatever of this spirit may exist at our Universities to the general wave of thought that is at present passing over Christendom rather than to any particular influence in the University itself.

We now propose to deal briefly with the direct encouragement to agnosticism which the University of Cambridge is supposed to give by the system of compulsory chapels, and by the use of Paley's Evidences in the Little-Go.

Without entering upon the larger question as to the wisdom or unwisdom of compelling those who are members of the Church of England to attend the services of their Church, we most strongly dissent from the contention that, by the compulsory chapel system, Cambridge men are trained to look upon the worship of God as an 'obnoxious duty.' There is in the Church itself a compulsory chapel system,' to which in this connection it is useful to call attention. All priests and deacons are to say daily Morning and Evening Prayer, either privately or openly, not being let by sickness, or some urgent cause; and the curate that ministereth in every parish church or chapel, being at home and not being otherwise reasonably hindered, shall say the same in the church or chapel where he ministereth. 3 The italics are mine. Thus in no uncertain voice does the Church compel' those who have entered her ministry to perform her solemn offices. Are we, then, to be told that the Church trains her clergy to look upon the worship of God as an obnoxious duty? The writer is, of course, aware that in the present state of discipline in the Church no pains and penalties follow the breach of this rule; but this, he submits, does not affect the argument, since the Church, in what may be termed the articles of her constitution, adopts the compulsory principle by placing her ministers under a direct obligation to perform specific acts of worship. Again, from the present writer's personal experience at the largest and perhaps not the least important college at Cambridge, absence from chapel is not treated as a purely secular offence; the compulsory chapel system, though possibly open to objections in theory, is found in practice to work not inadequately if administered, as is generally the case, by a courteous and Christian executive. It is impossible also to join in the wholesale condemnation of the manner in which the chapel services are conducted. Perhaps the present writer was particularly fortunate in his visits to college chapels, but the services did not appear to him to be performed in a slovenly and perfunctory manner. It is, no doubt, true that an The rubrics at the commencement of the Book of Common Prayer.

advanced ritual finds no place in the conduct of the services, but it is as difficult to see why the undergraduate who is really in earnest is driven to attend the Holy Communion at one or other of the churches in the town as it is to understand why those who hold openair prayer meetings on the Backs at Cambridge should be summarily described as led by a 'misguided enthusiasm.'

Passing to the use of Paley's Evidences in the Little-Go-the second direct encouragement to agnosticism-we learn that the effect produced by the study of this work on the more thoughtful freshman' is that he decides that the Christian Faith is logically unsound. Our attention is advisedly directed to 'the more thoughtful freshman,' as the average undergraduate, we are told, derives no harm from the book. Surely the more thoughtful freshman with whom alone -Mr. Deane being witness-we are concerned would be the very first person to ascertain the circumstances under which the book was written, and the class of sceptics to whom the arguments were addressed; and it is difficult to imagine a thoughtful reader of Paley's Evidences-with the frequent references to Hume-mistaking the volume for a modern handbook of Christian apologetics. In making these observations no opinion is expressed as to the value of the book in question, the only contention being that it is incorrect to assert that the University is directly encouraging agnosticism by examining candidates in this work. There may, of course, be instances in which a study of Paley's Evidences has been followed by an abandonment of the Christian Faith; but might not this occur even after the study of Mason's Faith of the Gospel? When men examine, possibly for the first time seriously, the grounds of their Faith-even with a view to strengthening the foundation—it not unfrequently happens that the result is contrary to their expectation. An objection on this score may be made to the study of any religious work; points of difficulty suggest themselves and questions call for an answer, while the line of thought suggested by an eminently Christian book may lead the reader to the ultimate abandonment of some of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian Faith.

An attempt has now been made, within the limits of this article, to show that of the agnosticism which exists at Cambridge the sincere type is that which, from the nature of things, necessarily accompanies, in a greater or less degree, the careful study and discussion of religious and philosophical questions by men of unfettered opinions, whether in the University or in the world; while the insincere or flippant type is simply a part of the general wave of indifference to religion which is just now manifesting itself in every quarter, though, in the present writer's opinion, considerably less at Cambridge than in other spheres of life. Hence on a priori grounds it would seem to be unnecessary to look for an exciting cause in the particular action of the Dons, while an examination of the alleged causes peculiar to the