Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/62

54 Restoration. The more comprehensive, the more free, the more impartial is our study of any or every branch of Ecclesiastical History, the more will it be in accordance with the spirit and with the letter of the Church of England.

Secondly, I cannot forbear to notice the special advantages vouchsafed to all of us in this place as members of this great University. Its libraries enable us to pursue our cross-examination of ancient witnesses, our reproduction of ancient scenes and events through all the appliances of antiquarian and artistic knowledge. Its peculiar mixture of various characters and callings, students and studies, invites us to that fusion of lay and clerical, of modern and ancient, of common and sacred, which is so vital to a full understanding of our subject, yet which would be so easily lost in institutions more purely theological, more strictly professional. But, besides all this, the very place itself is teeming with history, if not of the more universal Church, yet of the Church of our own country, to which, sooner or later, our studies must be turned.

In those studies, I trust that we shall find that "Alfred the Great, our first Founder," did well to plant his seat of learning beside the venerable shrine of St. Frideswide. We shall be the better able to comprehend Duns Scotus and the schoolmen, as we stand in the ancient quadrangle of Merton, or listen to the dim traditions of