forest. Far to the south, under a burning a sun, and in distant seas, British planters occupied the Western Indies. But the colonists had now little in common with those stern and singlehearted Puritans who were the pioneers of the American empire. With growing wealth and civilization sprung up their concomitant vices; and the influences to encourage them were many, to check them, feeble. Generally morals were corrupted by the taint of slavery; by the insolence engendered by isolation among inferior races; and by the absence of all real religious organization. The planters lived among droves of human beings, brought up to live and die without a God, or a hope; among savages whom they despised and with whom they kept no faith; and under a church which included America within the diocese of London, and sent to her shores the most worthless or ignorant of her clergy. In the French and Spanish colonies morals were perhaps worse; but the Catholic organization of the Church of Rome was everywhere apparent in religious institutions, and in the many missionaries she sent forth to preach and to convert. Thinking over these things, Berkeley resolved that, so far as in him lay, they should continue no longer. He wished to see the Church of England a living and spreading influence in America, no longer administered by a bishop in London, and by the refuse of Oxford and Cambridge; but, self-governing in a native episcopate and clergy, no longer a feeble exotic, but a vigorous growth to take root downward, and bring good fruit upward. He wished, beside the colonists, to gather within her shade the wretched hordes of slavery, and those wild races who daily prayed to the Great Spirit,' as they gazed on the majesty of nature. If this great end could be attained, he justly thought, that a national colonial church, linked to the Church of England by the tie of common doctrines and discipline, and forming a perpetual bond for the jarring elements of colonial society, would be at once a benefit to the empire, a blessing to America, and a triumph to religion. Few, we apprehend, will dispute the propriety of these views, or not regret that the advantages of a coherent religious organization,-with a well-defined social status, with a disciplined and subordinated hierarchy,with the elements of development embodied in a large staff of missionaries, and, in the name of a common faith, establishing a point of union for the colonial, the Indian, and the African races, were not early secured for America. But Berkeley was too wise a man not to anticipate much opposition to any project in that direction, or to expect for it a speedy or brilliant accomplishment. He well knew that he would have to encounter the English dislike to speculative measures, the antagonism of vested

His Scheme of Church Education for America.

89

interests in the Church of England, the apathy or distrust of a Parliament led by Walpole, the detraction which carps at genius it cannot comprehend. He knew further that the only chance of rooting the church deeply in America was to establish an efficient body of colonial clergy, and to connect with it a powerful corps of native American missionaries. The end, therefore, was only to be reached by slow degrees, and after a long lapse of time; and with true penetration he saw the means in a fitting system of education. Could proper colleges be founded, in which a sufficient number of the colonial youth might be brought up for the ministry, and could seminaries for rearing native American missionaries be united to them, he thought the germ of the church for which he longed might be sown, and would grow in strength. But all depended on the beginnings of the system,upon the first planting of the sacred nursery. He resolved to establish the first College himself; to become its President, and to collect there a few friends as its Fellows; and, far away under other suns, and amidst unknown races, to dedicate his genius and devote his life to the task of sowing the seed of the church.

In 1724 he received from the Duke of Grafton the rich preferment of the Deanery of Derry. A story is told that Lord Galway objected to the appointment because the Sermons on Passive Obedience' were Jacobite in principle; and that Berkeley's pupil, Samuel Molyneux, the son of Locke's distinguished friend, having influence with the future Queen Caroline, refuted the charge by giving her the book to read, and presented to her the eminent author. But neither dignity nor riches stayed Berkeley for an instant from endeavouring to mature the noble plan he had formed. For about three years he had been carefully studying American society, seeking for a site for his intended college, and thinking on the most likely source for its endowment. At length his scheme was developed in a short prospectus published about the close of 1725. It is a remarkable monument of piety, sagacity, and self-devotion. After glancing at the inefficiency of the church in the colonies, at the want of clergy, and the absence of all attempts to convert the slave and savage races, and contrasting with it the energy of the Church of Rome, it cautiously sketches the scheme of a real Colonial Church of England, to be fed by a ministry from colonial colleges, and supported by missionaries of American Indians. The first of these seats of learning and religion was to be founded by charter in the Islands of Bermuda, and to be named the College of St. Paul's. The funds for its endowment were to amount only to twenty thousand pounds, and were to be raised from the sale of some Crown lands in St. Christopher's Island. The foundation

was to consist of a president at one hundred, and nine fellows at forty pounds each per annum. The first president was to be George Berkeley, Dean of Derry; three of the Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, had agreed to become his associates, and the tale of sacred colonists was certain of completion. In the wilds of the Atlantic, among a rude and ignorant population, and far away from troops of friends' and admirers, Berkeley was thus ready to spend his life in a noble cause, and to forego for it wealth, titles, and estimation. He was content if, like the old Greek colonist, who bore away to distant lands a spark of the hallowed flame that fed his native altars, he could kindle for a growing empire and future generations some rays of that living faith which blessed the English Church.

6

The problem, however, was to obtain the charter and the money. Berkeley had previously applied to Swift, who had written to Carteret in his behalf. The letter of the Dean strives in vain to hide in cynicism the admiration he felt for the heroic projector. This absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and power,' he says, will break his heart if his deanery 'be not taken from him. Therefore, either let your Excellency 'use such persuasions as will keep one of the first men of this 'kingdom for learning and virtue quiet at home, or assist him by 'your credit to compass his romantic design. We do not know the result of this application; but though the scheme was just such as would have recommended itself to the brilliant and able statesman, he was no longer in favour with Walpole. In 1725, Berkeley tried another channel to men in power. He had, in Italy, made the acquaintance of the Abbé Gaultier. This personage formed one of a coterie of foreign men of letters, in whose conversation George the First used to try and forget the 'bad Latin' of Sir Robert and Townshend, and steal an hour from his pipe and the Duchess of Kendal. Through Gaultier, Berkeley's scheme was brought before the King. We must leave it to fancy to describe how those harsh German features must have stared at a proposal which involved such noble self-devotion. But George the First appreciated the design and its author, and enjoined Walpole to speed the pious undertaking.' As we may suppose, it found little favour in the eyes of that able, cautious, but narrow-minded minister. To one whose whole statecraft was quieta non movere; who was mighty in means, but small in conception; and whose genius was peculiarly sober and practical, the plan appeared chimerical, and perhaps dangerous. It might tend to weaken the bond between the Colonies and the State, and would certainly give trouble, and trench on vested rights; and even if it promoted religion, Sir Robert 'cared for none of these

Failure of his great Project.

91

things. Since, however, the King wished it, he carried the grant through the House of Commons-not, we believe, without a secret resolution to frustrate it-and, on this occasion, Berkeley wrote in rapture that only two voices disapproved of his project, ' and that even these seemed in shame at recording their oppo'sition.'

Before, however, the charter was obtained, the death of George the First cast fresh obstacles in his way. Again he exclaims, j'ai la mer à boire. But neither the difficulty of getting the new Sovereign to comply with his request, nor the strong tie to home and country which he had recently formed in a happy marriage, deterred him from fulfilling his noble purpose. Everything at last was ready, and in September, 1728, with his young wife, two or three friends, and his library, he set sail for Newport, in Rhode Island. Here he intended to purchase the lands which were to endow St. Paul's College, and to secure its President and Fellows in their scanty stipend. His last recorded act, on leaving Ireland, was secretly to send a sum of money to a destitute relation. But Berkeley's design was not fated to succeed. Sir Robert Walpole had never approved of it, and was not sorry for an opportunity of defeating it. The lands in St. Christopher's Island were sold for ninety thousand pounds; and he appropriated the money to the dowry of the Princess Royal, and to establishing Protestant settlers in Georgia. Berkeley remained about three years in suspense. At length he wrote to the Bishop of London for particulars of the delay. He was informed by him of what had occurred; and that upon applying to Sir Robert in his behalf, he gave the ambiguous answer, that if he was asked as a minister, 'the money should be paid when convenient; but that his advice 'as a friend was, that Dr. Berkeley should not wait for it.' Cruelly disappointed, Berkeley determined to return. Before he left Rhode Island, he distributed his library among its clergy, and large alms among its poor. His letters to Prior during his absence mark his interest in the colony; in the success of the Church of England there, which all sects allow to be the 'second best; and in the growth of our common Christianity throughout America. But they do not allude to Alciphron, which he composed at this period, and which we account his most solid title to fame, nor yet to the affectionate respect which met him everywhere in the colony. A writer in the Times of 1856 gives us this information, and tells us how, after a century and a quarter, his name there is still a pleasing reminiscence; and how the place where he wrote his great ethical work is still pointed out to the traveller from home.

On his return to England in 1732, he published Alciphron.

It was carped at by Bolingbroke-then fretting at his political ostracism as 'in parts hard to be understood; and loudly assailed by Hoadley, who most absurdly termed it an attempt 'to make nonsense essential to religion.' But the admirable clearness of the majority of the dialogues, and the general felicity of its language, secured for the work ample reputation, and for the author a renewal of acquaintance with Queen Caroline. It would seem that Hoadley's view of it had been presented to her Majesty through Mrs. Clayton, and that this, coupled with the prevalent antipathy to Berkeley's idealism, had prejudiced the Queen against him. Certainly, in the metaphysical circle which surrounded Caroline's tea-table, and in which Clarke at this time held a prominent place, Berkeley was not likely to find favour or justice. A philosopher who had made abstract space and time' the high priori road' to prove the being of a God, was not the man to praise one who had driven away these abstractions from thought, and who, by Clarke's own confession, was 'unanswerable.' It is not impossible that, at these royal causeries, learned envy may have detracted from Berkeley's genius, and characterised as senseless what it could not refute. But Sherlock, afterwards Bishop of London, who had already broken a lance with Collins, and who, therefore, was fully able to appreciate an attack upon freethinking,' was resolved to disabuse the Queen. He gave her a copy of Alciphron, and asked her if the author could be a mere enthusiast. Her Majesty had an intellect able to appreciate the genius and power of the argument, and the beauty and simplicity of the style; and immediately made Berkeley one of her most favoured guests. We are told that at the philosophic discussions which she delighted to encourage, and in which she took no contemptible part, Berkeley and Sherlock were ever found ranged against Clarke and Hoadley.

But the Queen was resolved to reward Berkeley as his worth and genius deserved. In that age of profligate promotion and Walpolian jobbing in every other department of the State, it is pleasing to think that her love of philosophy generally raised eminent divines to high places in the Church. It is no small title to good men's praise that she conferred bishoprics upon the authors of the Analogy and Alciphron. It is said that she had got Berkeley appointed to the Deanery of Down, and that the King's letter had been made out for the purpose; but that, as this had been done without the knowledge of the Lord Lieutenant, his Excellency was so much offended that the appointment was cancelled. But, however this may be, the Queen's favour followed Berkeley; and on the 17th of March, 1734, entirely