Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/5

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the various topics of political interest which have engaged the attention of the public during the past year, not one has excited stronger feelings, or has been argued with more acrimony, than that relating to the admission of Dissenters to the universities. No proposed innovation has, on the one hand, been viewed with more alarm by a large portion of the friends of our constitution in Church and State, nor, on the other, has any been more eagerly urged forward, both by those, whom we may fairly believe to be honest advocates of improvements in our existing institutions with a view to their preservation, and those, who now no longer conceal that their ultimate object, and not distant hope, is to destroy those institutions altogether.

It could hardly be expected that the discussion under these circumstances should not exhibit more heat than reason. Accordingly, on both sides