16 MAY 1868, Page 3

Mr. Coleridge's Bill for abolishing tests at Oxford and Cam..

bridge was adjourned on Wednesday without a division. We have analyzed the arguments elsewhere, but the debate was remark- able for the debut of a man likely to be heard of again pretty often. Mr. Winterbotham,—a Chancery barrister, we believe,—and Member for Stroud, made one of the most successful maiden speeches of late years, showing to a most attentive House that the policy of exclusiveness compelled Dissenters to accept an unlearned clergy ; and forced Dissenting congregations into one narrow groove, the pursuit of wealth. He argued that religious differences would be diminished, not increased, by community of culture ; and asked whether infidelity was most to be dreaded from Protestant Dis- senters, or " from Fellows and Bishops who had taken all tests ?" whether the Romanist movement bad arisen among Nonconformistp, or in Oxford among clergymen who had swallowed all tests ?