Here are two or three of the questions, put, it will be
remembered, without notice, to a youth a little over twenty,
confronted by a number of solemn divines in white neckerchiefs.
"Will you explain the mode in which you conceive the sacred writers
to have been influenced?"
"Do you believe a statement because it is in the Bible, or merely
because it is true?"
"You are aware that there are two great parties on this question,
one of which maintains that the inspiration of the Scriptures
differs in kind from that of other books: the other that the
difference is one only of degree. To which of these parties do you
attach yourself?"
"Are you conscious of any divergence from the views expounded by the
Principal in this introductory lecture?"
At a meeting of the council, on the 13th February, 1852, it was
resolved that our opinions were "incompatible" with the "retention
of our position as students". This resolution was sent to us with
another to the effect that at the next meeting of the council "such
measures" would be taken "as may be thought advisable". At this
meeting my father, together with the father of one of my colleagues
attended, and asked that our moral character should be placed above
suspicion; that the opinions for which we had been condemned should
be explicitly stated, and that we should be furnished with a copy of
the creed by which we were judged.
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