The chrysalis, as described by the preacher
of a University sermon, "never, in his wildest moments, dreamed of
being a butterfly"; but the public schoolboy of the last century
sometimes came up in what he conceived to be gorgeous attire. "I
observe, in the first place, that you no sooner shake off the
authority of the birch but you affect to distinguish yourselves from
your dirty school-fellows by a new drugget, a pair of prim ruffles, a
new bob-wig, and a brazen-hilted sword." As soon as they arrived in
Oxford, these youths were hospitably received "amongst a parcel of
honest, merry fellows, who think themselves obliged, in honour and
common civility, to make you DAMNABLE DRUNK, and carry you, as they
call it, a CORPSE to bed." When this period of jollity is ended, the
freshman must declare his views. He must see that he is in the
fashion; "and let your declarations be, that you are CHURCHMEN, and
that you believe as the CHURCH believes. For instance, you have
subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles; but never venture to explain the
sense in which you subscribed them, because there are various senses;
so many, indeed, that scarce two men understand them in the same, and
no TRUE CHURCHMAN in that which the words bear, and in that which
they were written."
This is pretty plain speaking, and Terrae Filius enforces, by an
historical example, the dangers of even political freethought. In
1714 the Constitution Club kept King George's birthday.
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