23 OCTOBER 1886, Page 3

The opening of Mansfield College—or, rather, of the institu- tion

which is to be Mansfield College—at Oxford, on Monday, is an event of some importance. The College is intended to educate Nonconformist divines, and its establishment is a formal confession that for them, as for all others who teach, human learning is a good thing. Fifty years ago, the most active Nonconformists, though they would not have blankly rejected that idea, as one of their most respected ministers is said to have done, would have thought in their hearts that to desire learning as an aid to their ministry was to trust, in some degree at all events, to the arm of flesh. The spread of education, the opening of the Universities, the example of Scotch Presbyterianism, and the subtle influence of an age which respects culture, have nearly killed out that prejudice ; and it is now creditable, though not indispensable, for a Nonconformist preacher to be an instructed divine. That change will lead the way to another, which is rapidly approaching,—the Churches will be divided by opinions only, and not, as of old, and, indeed, at present, by .opinions plus class-feeling. That the change will be good for the ministry we have no doubt whatever, and also for their congregations ; but we have a lingering doubt whether it will be equally good for the body of the people. The Bunyans have been very close to them. In every communion but that of Rome, the " snare " of an educated clergy is a wish to live among and to address the respectables, who best understand them, and the residuum sometimes get no sympathetic teaching at all. As they want it most, that is a distinct loss to the country, not wholly made up, though it is greatly lessened, by the establishment of mission churches.