PRAYER FOR COLLEGES,
A
PREMIUM ESSAY,
WVRITTEN FOR
"THE SOOIETY FOR TIlE PROMOTION OF COLLEGIATE AND
THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION AT TH E WEST.?
BY
W. S. TYLER,
PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN AMIIbEST COLLEGE.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY, 80 WALL STREET.








PRAYER FOR COLLEGES,
A
PREMIUM ESSAY,
WRITTEN FOR
"THE SO3IETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF COLLEGIATE ND
THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION AT THE WEST."'
W. S. TYLER,
PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN AMHERST COLLEGE.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY, 80 WALL STREET.
1859.




LFROM THE NINTH REPORT OF THE SOCIETY-1852.]
PREMIUM OFFERED.
A benevolent individual, deeply impressed with the importance of multiplying
the number of educated and evangelical ministers of the Gospel, in order to meet
the pressing and growing wants of our country and of the world, has placed at the
disposal of the Society for the promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at
the West, the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars, to be given to the author of the
best Essay on "PRAYER FOR COLLEGES."
The writer is expected to set forth the importance of the subject, especially as
relates to the conversion of young men in a course of education and the consequent
increase of candidates for the sacred ministry. Also the encouragemnents derived
not only from the divinely appointed relations of prayer to the conversion of mer
but also from the signal answers to prayer for this specific object furnished by numerous revivals of religion in Colleges. Then, by way of inference, the obligations of
rnstructors to labor unceasingly for the conversion and sanctification of those under
their training, and of pious young men in Colleges to co-operate in this work-together with the obligations of Boards of Trust, to whom the church in an important
sense, commits the sacred interests of Christian education.'
Committee of Award.-Rev. Prof. Ralph Emerson, D. D., of Andover The4!ioglcal Seminary; Rev. E. N. Kirk, Boston, Mass., and Rev. L. F. Dirnmick,:-DD..
Newburyport, Mass.
PREMIUM AWARDED.
Newbueryport, June 28th, 1854.
aThe Committee for awarding the prize ($150) "To the author of the best AEssiy.
on Prayer for Colleges," have received and examined thirty-two manuscripts. iMany
of the Essays are written with ability, and several appear well worthy of publickiUn.
The one best adapted, in thejudgment of the Committee, to accomplish the purr: t,
of the donor, is found to have been written by Prof. W. S. Tyler of Amherst ColEega
An earlier decision has been prevented by the absence of one member of l:hl
Committee for a considerable period from the country, and by other unavoidab;0
ircumstances.
In behalf of the Committee,
RALPH EMERSON C(hairmami
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by M. W. DODD,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.




TYLER'S
PRIZE ESSAY ON PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
CHEAP EDITION.
In order to give the widest possible circulation of this admirable Essay, arrangements have been made by the Society for issuing the work (216 pp. 12mo.) in three different styles. It will
be furnished for Cash at cost, in quantities of 50 copies and over,
at the following rates, viz.:
Paper Covers at.............$10 00 per hundred,
Flexible  Cloth do. at........ 15 00   "               "
Full bound in Cloth,........ 20 00   "                 "
Orders may be addressed to
IVISON & PHINNEY,
48 & 50 Walker Street, near Broadway, N. Y.
OPINTIOiNS OF TXIE PRIESS_
"This very able and interesting prize  Tyler lays open the importance of colessay is not confined to the single topic  leges, and the necessity of prayer for
of prayer for colleges, but is so ex- them, are profoundly impressive and
panded as to comprehend a variety of affecting.  We importune our officers
topics bearing, however, on the prin- and teachers, our trustees and patrons,
cipal subject. It is excellent in style  to read and practise the valuable truths
and matter, and cannot fail, we should  contained in the book of Mr. Tyler."think, to interest the reader and stir Southern Mlethodist Quarterly.
up his mind to duty."-Presbyterian.
" It seems to us to be characterized
" It is a work of great ability, con- by great thoroughness and earnestness.
ceived and written in a spirit admira- It was certainly a very suitable subbly consonant with the subject. It has ject to be written upon, and we can
a preliminary essay on prayer in gen- hardly conceive how it could have
eral, which presents the argument in  been more felicitously or impressively
its behalf with great strength, discre- treated."-Puritan, Recorder.
tion and candor."-N. Y. Evangelist.
" The whole subject is discussed
" This is a most able and important    The whole subject is discussed
carefully, and if the book is read genwvork, and will, doubtless, prove a most erally, as we trust it will be, it will
timely and efficient agency in sancti- tend to create a sympathy between the
fling the educational institutions of Chlistian public and our literary instiour country."-Eva-ngel. Lutheran.  tutioens, which is at the present time
" Its circulation among the people of very desirable."-Congreg(ltionalist.
God would greatly encourage them to
pray for Collegres. No pastor canl af  " It is emphatically a book for the
ford to be without this work." —Chris-  times, and is admirably executel in all
teian 3jirror.                       respects. and its universal cilrculation
would do more than any thing else we
"It is well worthy of the transcend- can think of at this moment to adent cause which it advocates. The  vance all the interests of religion and
power, the pathos, with which Mr. humanity."-CongregatioLnal Herald.




'Prayer and Pains can accomplish any thing."
ELLIOTT.
"I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for any thing, but at
some time, in some shape —probably the last I should have devised —
it came."                                             JUDSON.
" The man who would show to common minds the connection between colleges and the interests of the church, would be a benefactor
to his species."                                     DWIGHT.
" The Schools of the Prophets are there; is it not a more extensive
benefit to sweeten the fountain than to purify a particular stream e"
WYE-LEY




PREFACE.
THE subject of this Essay divides itself into two parts
— prayer in general, and prayer for colleges.  The
first three chapters are devoted to the former; the
latter fills the remaining chapters.
It may perhaps be thought that the discussion of
the subject of prayer in general is too extended, if not
quite superfluous. But in the opinion of the writer,
the weak point of the church in our day lies just here;
and it would be of little avail to present colleges, or
any other object of prayer, in all its magnitude and importance, unless Christians in general can be brought
up to a higher appreciation of the efficacy of prayer,
and to a more vigorous appliance of it as the most
potent of Heaven's appointed means for the salvation
Af men.




Vi                  PREFACE.
Others may deem some apology necessary for the
extent and miscellaneousness of the second part of the
discussion. Possibly some of the topics may appear
too secular to be introduced at all into a treatise on
Prayer for Colleges. In answer to this, the author
would only plead the fact, that so much is written and
said in our day to mislead and prejudice the public
mind in reference to colleges, and his conviction,
which he shares in common with Dr. Dwight, that
Christians in the common walks of life are still far
from a right understanding of the real character, merits and relations of colleges to the church and the
community.  In this view, he has aimed to furnish a
kind of Manuat or Epitome of the services which the
college has rendered, not only to the cause of learning
and religion, but also to human progress and human
happiness.
If the Essay has any merit, it consists in the simplicity, directness and earnestness with which it labors
to show to "common minds," 1st, the duty and the
power of believing prayer, and the peculiar necessity of
more faith and prayer in our day; 2dly, the indissoluble
connection between colleges and all the great interests




PREFACE.                  Vii
of the church, the country and mankind; and 3dly,
the sacred obligations, primarily of the officers and students, and those immediately concerned; but secondarily, of all who have an interest at the throne of
grace, to bring this great power to bear on this most
important point.
At the same time, it is hoped that the educated
Christian men of the country, and Christian ministers
especially, will find not a little in this Essay to " stir
up their pure minds by way of remembrance;" and
the writer is deeply sensible that its power to do good
will depend very much on the manner in which it is
received, sustained and enforced by those whose experience attests, and whose life illustrates the value of a
college education.  For himself, he claims to have
written only what he believes with all his heart, and
what he knows from his own observation and experience. The beloved College with which it has been
his happiness to be connected, either as a pupil or as a
teacher, for nearly twenty-five years, was founded in
faith and prayer; and those numerous and powerful
revivals of religion, which have so conspicuously marked
its whole history, have followed almost visibly in the




Vii1                 PREFACE.
train of the special prayers of those who have been
connected with it, or concerned for it. If there is any
thing in this Essay that is adapted to be useful, it is
the fruit of prayer; and if it should prove, in any
measure, subservient to the cause of learning and religion, it will be through the divine blessing, in answer
to the prayers of the many devoted men whose hearts
are already enlisted in this sacred cause.
W. S. TYLER.
AxImRST, November 20th, 1854.




PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
CHAPTER I.
The Duty of Prayer-Recognized by all forms of Religion, and sometimes practised
even by Infidels-Homer, Socrates, Thomas Paine-Results from the nature of
Man, from his circumstances, and from his relations to God-Pericles and Demosthenes-Taught by the Word and the Spirit of God-The dictate of common
Humanity-The Offspring and Expression of Christian love-Martyn.
PRAYER, in its most comprehensive signification, is
" the offering up of our desires to God."  In a more
restricted sense, it is asking the favor of God for ourselves, or for others. It is not only an unspeakable
privilege, but an imperative duty, imposed on every
human being by the law of his existence, by the
necessary relations which subsist between him as a
dependent, needy creature, and  God as his infinite
Creator, bountiful Benefactor, and compassionate
Father. It is a duty which he owes, not only to
himself and to his Maker, but also to his fellow-men,
imposed upon him not merely by the instincts and
intuitions of his nature, but by the dictates of reason
and the law of universal benevolence. It is made




8            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
still more imperative on Christians by the revealed
will and direct command of God-being placed in
their hands as a sacred trust and a mighty engine of
power, which they are as sacredly bound to employ
for its proper purposes, as any other trust whether of
talent, or property, or influence.
Prayer is recognized as a duty and a privilege by
every form of religion that has ever existed in any
part of the world. The most degraded Hottentot
prays to his Fetische, though it be no better than a
snake or a stick of wood. The Hindoo, of whatever
rank or caste, bows in adoration before his ugly idol,
confesses his sins, and deprecates the displeasure of a
thing which cannot harm him-implores the favor of
a thing which is impotent to help its worshippers.
The polished Greeks and Romans, with purer taste
though with little better reason, offered their supplications with their sacrifices in the presence of those
sculptured forms of beauty and grandeur, which embodied their highest conceptions of human excellence,
deified and exalted to the skies. Some heathen poets
and philosophers have set forth no unworthy sentiments respecting prayer. IHomer represents Prayers
as Jove's daughters, lame, wrinkled and slant-eyed,
that is, feeble and deformed in themselves, but mighty
as messengers and mediators between earth and
heaven; and as an illustration of the power of prayer,
we see in the Iliad the wasting pestilence fall thick
and terrible as the arrows of a god on the Grecian
host, in answer to the supplications of the injured
priest of Apollo, and at the intercession of the same




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               9
priest, when righted and appeased, the shafts of the
destroyer cease to rain upon the people. Socrates rebuked those who did not look to God in prayer for
guidance and assistance, as setting the weakness and
ignorance of men above the wisdom and power of
God; and God was, in his view, better pleased
with the spiritual homage of the truly pious, than
with the most costly sacrifices of the wicked. Infidels
pray, despite their infidelity, when they are suddenly
brought into circumstances of trial and danger.
Thomas Paine, when in peril of shipwreck, called
loudly on God to have mercy on him; and men who
denied the divine existence, have been so oppressed
by a felt want of divine teaching, that they have
poured out their supplications into the blank and
drear vacuity by which they were surrounded.
No age, no nation, no religion has ever existed
without prayer; and it may well be doubted, whether
any individual has ever lived to mature age, who has
not, at some time or other, in some way or other,
offered prayer. The very universality of its prevalence proves it to be the dictate of nature. The
foundation for prayer is laid in the very nature of
things, in the relations that exist between God and
his creatures. It results necessarily from God's greatness and goodness, and man's weakness and wants.
Man's owh moral and spiritual nature bids him
pray-pray for himself, and also for others. He is
but a child, and he must needs run to his Father for
sympathy, support and assistance. He is ignorant of
what none but God can teach him. He is weak, and
I1 4




10           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
God alone can strengthen him. He is guilty, and
God alone can forgive him. He is miserable, and God
only can comfort him. He has his peculiar individual
wants and trials, which he would fain unbosom to none
but a sympathizing, all wise and all merciful Father.
He has also interests and necessities in common with
his friends, and neighbors and fellow-men, which their
united wisdom and power are utterly insufficient
to provide for. Mankind are, in fact, but one great
family of children-gathered on the footstool of the
Most High, sitting, as it were, continually at his feet;
and surely it were most unnatural, it were passing
strange, if they had no questions to propose to their
Father in Heaven, no counsel to seek at his lips, no
favor to ask at his hands, no delight in looking up
into his face, and reading there the expressions of his
complacency and parental love.  The impulse to
prayer is, like filial affection, almost an instinct in
the breast of man; the duty of prayer, like filial
duty, is perceived, as it were, by intuition.
And the circumstances in which we are placed,
are eminently adapted to call this instinct and intuition into active exercise. For the voice of external
nature unites with that of our own souls in exhorting
us to prayer. The heavens over our heads bid us
look up to One who is higher than we; and the
stars in the silent night whisper of One who made
us, and who, though far above us, yet bends an ear to
our requests. The earth beneath our feet invites us
to adore the goodness that has oversprf ad its surface
with fruits and flowers and every pleasant thing; and




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             11
yet the same earth bids us tremble before the awful
power and justice that has made it, within, a portentous magazine of heaving forces and ever-living
fires. The elements around us, whether, in tranquillity
or in commotion, teach us our dependence, our impotence, our nothingness before God, and call on us, now
in gentle tones, and now in a voice of thunder, to
praise him who scatters the gifts of his beneficence in
the rain and the sunshine; to pray to him who rides
upon the whirlwind and directs the storm. We are
not only children, but children surrounded by elements
which we cannot control-dwelling in a world of wonders, which we cannot comprehend-encompassed by
a universe, whose grandeur and vastness are quite
overpowering to our feeble faculties; and we must be
strangely perverse and depraved, if we do not cry to
our Father for instruction and for help. If we listen
to the teachings of nature, there is no lesson which
she will teach us in more commanding or more inviting tones, than the duty of prayer. The world in
which we live is a temple built expressly for worship,
and man is the only conscious intelligent worshipper.
Nor is the duty, the necessity, of prayer less
obvious, when we direct our attention to human
society and human affairs in their manifold relations.
There too we soon find ourselves looking up to heights
which we cannot scale-trembling on the verge of
depths which we cannot fathom-moving amid elements and forces which we can neither comprehend
nor control. A few steps in any direction carry us
beyond the boundary which separates the known




12           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
from the unknown, the practicable from the impracti.
cable, the human from the Divine. There is no subject so simple that we can know it fully, no enterprise so easy that we can accomplish it independently.
Man is bound by a thousand links to his fellow-man;
and the entire chain with all its links is suspended on
the will of God. How blind then must that man be
who does not pray —pray for himself, and also for
others!
The future is an unfathomable abyss-who can
penetrate its unknown depths? No man can foresee
the issue of a single day, or secure with certainty the
desired result of the smallest undertaking. Shall not
every man then pray to Him who sees the end from
the beginning, and who holds the future, not less than
the present, in his all comprehensive grasp?
The human heart also is an abyss-who can
fathom it? Who can know all the depths and windings of his own heart? Who can trace or imagine
the countless mazes of the many hearts, whose interests and affections are bound up with his ownwhose secret purposes and intentions may most deeply
concern him? The human will is an element of incalculable tendencies and forces-who can control it
in its stormy rage? who descry its secret workings,
and gathering energies in its seeming tranquillity?
And a community, a nation, a world of such hearts
and wills, or even an assemblage of them, for whatever purpose gathered-who can sway them at his
sovereign pleasure, and guide them with absolute
certainty in right channels and to good results? None




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              13
but He who can command the winds of heaven, and
they shall obey him.
That man then is a fool who enters upon any undertaking, involving any important interest, whether
his own exclusively, or of a more general nature, without prayer to the Being who holds the hearts and wills
of individuals, communities and nations-as he does
the winds and waves, and all the elements of nature —
in the hollow of his hand.  So sensible of this were
the greatest statesmen and orators of heathen antiquity —such for instance as Pericles and Demosthenes-that they often commenced and concluded
their speeches with a prayer. The very language of
all nations reflects a dim consciousness of the duty and
necessity of prayer: for what are all the salutations
and other forms of address, especially in the glowing
East, but disguised forms of prayer-prayer for that
richest blessing, peace, on our friends and neighbors;
and what are all the hails and farewells, the adieus
and good-byes, even of the colder occidental nations, but
the language of prayer-though too often uttered by
thoughtless lips and with unconscious hearts.
Now, if such be the necessity, such the obvious
duty of prayer in worldly enterprises and temporal interests, how are both the necessity and the duty magnified, when the soul's immortal welfare is at stake!
Who can make his own salvation sure-who secure
the salvation of his friends and neighbors, and fellowcitizens and fellow-men?  Who can foresee the issues
and provide for the destinies of eternity? It is high
as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell;




14            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
what canst thou know?-the measure thereof is
longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. No
sooner does a sinner become truly anxious for his soul,
than he begins to pray, though he never prayed before.
Never was there a Christian, who watched for souls as
one that must give account-who felt that he was intrusted with the care of immortal beings whose weal
or woe for eternity was suspended on his influencenever was there such a Christian that did not give
himself to prayer.
Just in proportion as one appreciates the value and
estimates the hazard of eternal interests, just in the
same proportion will he be instant in prayer. The
teachings of nature, the promptings of intuition, the
yearnings of his own soul, though he had no other
instruction, would constrain him to call on God, for
wisdom, which no earthly friend can impart, for help,
which no created arm can give.
But we are not shut up to the light of nature to
teach us the duty of prayer.  We have the more sure
word of revelation.  God speaks from above as well as
from within and around us, and calls us to prayer. It
is his will as communicated to us from the lively oriacles, that in all things, by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, we should make our requests known to
God; that we should cast all our cares, however
trifling, upon hinm who careth for us, and commend all
our interests, however precious, like our souls at death,
into his hands who waiteth to receive them; that we
should pray for our fellow-men of all classes and conditions, whether more or less closely connected with us,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               15
but more earnestly and importunately as they are more
related or intrusted to us, and as their station is higher
and their influence more widely extended.
The duty of prayer is inculcated in the Scriptures,
not only by precept, but by example. The patriarchs
wrestled with God in prayer, and prevailed. The
prophets leaned cn prayer as the sceptre of their
power.  The apostles and primitive Christians were
strong in and by prayer. Jesus not only gave his disciples a formula of daily prayer, but set them an example of habitual prayerfulness.  When about to perform some especial duty, or encounter some peculiar
trial, he would sometimes spend the whole night in
prayer. Throughout the Bible, prayer is not only the
breath of spiritual life, but the staff of spiritual
strength, the weapon of spiritual warfare, the engine
of miraculous power, the channel of temporal and
spiritual blessings, the medium of all heavenly gifts
and divine communications.
Nor is it in the Bible only that God-the Christian's God-teaches men to pray. He writes the lesson in their hearts by his Holy Spirit; and then it is
said of every new born soul, as of Saul of Tarsus:
Behold, he prayeth. Prayer is pre-eminently characteristic of him that is born of the Spirit. The heathen
pray, but prayer with them is a blind instinct; with
the Christian, it is an intelligent principle. With
them, it is a dictate of nature; with him, it is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The unregenerate man
may pray; but before regeneration prayer is a reluctant duty, or.a felt necessity; after conversion, it




16           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
is a delightful privilege, a supreme pleasure, a ruling
passion. Then he delights in it, as a way of access to
God, and communion with him. Then he relies on it,
as a channel for the communication of all needed good
things, of all temporal and spiritual gifts. Then he
uses it diligently and joyfully, as a means of his own
growth in grace and progressive sanctification. Then
also he learns to pray, not merely for himself, but also
for others-for his friends, his acquaintances, his fellow-citizens, and his fellow-men, for the kingdom of
God and the cause of the Redeemer. He prays for the
sanctification of his Christian brethren, even as for his
own. He bears impenitent sinners on the arms of
prayer and faith to a pardoning and life-giving Saviour,
as men brought their sick and their dead to the same
sympathizing and almighty Friend, when he tabernacled in the flesh. He rests on prayer as his own
solace and support under affliction, leans on it as a
sure prop and pillar of the Church in the day of her
adversity, and applies it as the only lever which can
lift up this fallen world once more into the light of
God's countenance.
Take prayer from the Bible, and you take away
not only the essence of the devotional books, but the
substance and the life of the doctrinal and historical
portions of the Scriptures; and vital Christianity is
gone-there is only. the semblance of religion left.
Take away prayer from the human soul, and you
have removed its best solace, its only sure support.
Take away prayer from the world, and you shut out
from it the light of Heaven, cut it loose from the




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              17
throne of God, and leave it to wander in perpetual
night, a cold and barren, "a forsaken and fatherless
world." Take away prayer from the Christian, and
you have robbed him of the pilgrim's staff-from the
Christian minister, and you-have taken from him the
shepherd's crook,-from the Christian family, and you
have closed against them the door of access to their
Father's house.
Prayer for our fellow-men is the dictate of common
humanity.  The irreligious man-the skeptic evencannot look upon a suffering friend or neighbor without a spontaneous desire for his relief, cannot bend
over the couch of a dying fellow-mortal without an outgoing wish for his recovery. Such a wish gushes forth
yet more freely from the Christian's heart, but in his
breast it is no longer mere desire, it is transformed into
prayer, and he pours it out in a tide of glowing emotions, and, if circumstances allow, of fervid words too,
into the ear of a prayer-hearing God. It were inhuman, as well as unchristian, for him not to do so. If
he does not do it, how dwelleth the love of man-not
now to speak of love to God-in his bosom?  And is
it less inhuman for him to look upon a fellow-sinner,
who is vexed with the cruel malady of sin, and ready
to die a spiritual and eternal death, and offer no prayer
for his salvation? When a word, a breath may be all
that is needful to save him from the untold agonies of
the death that never dies, shall that word, that breath
be withheld?
What would you think of the humanity, to say
nothing of the Christianity, of the man who, in the




18           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
days of our Saviour's incarnation, when he went through
the cities and villages of Palestine healing all manner
of sickness and all manner of diseases among the people, would not lend a helping hand or raise an encouraging voice even, to bring the blind and the lame, the
palsied and the possessed, the dying and the dead, into
his sacred and life-giving presence?  And yet tliou
art the man, if thou dost habitually pass by thy unconverted friends and neighbors, and not lift up one
silent prayer for their conversion. Nay, thou wouldst
charge thyself with even greater inhumanity than his,
were thine eyes opened to discern spiritual things as
they are, inasmuch as the health and life of the soul
are infinitely more precious than those of the body, and
Jesus is ever present, and ever waiting to be gracious
to afflicted souls.
If we saw an uninterrupted succession of our fellowmen defiling in chains before our eyes, and then dropping, one after another, into a dungeon of unknown
depth and hopeless gloom, and knew that petitionsearnest and importunate petitions alone —could break
their chains and secure their deliverance, what heart
so obdurate as not to join in such petitions? And
where is our compassion, where our fellow-feeling for
our fellow-men-to say nothing here of sympathy with
God and Jesus Christ-if we do not offer up earnest
and unceasing prayers for a whole race of human beings,
the greater part of whom are still the bondslaves of
Satan, and are falling, one every second, into the dungeon of unending despair!  Oh that the eyes of
men-of Christian men-might be opened to see, and




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               19
their hearts to feel, the inhumanity with which they
are chargeable, in withholding that manner and that
measure of prayer which is the indispensable means of
a world's salvation! And would that it might be
given them fully to understand, what a priceless opportunity and what inexhaustible resources for world-wide
charity and divine philanthropy are put into their
hands when they are permitted to pray for a spiritually
diseased and dying world!
Prayer for others is the natural and almost necessary expression of Christian love. Love to God, love
to Christ, love to the souls for whom Christ died, all
demand from every Christian a life of' prayer.
Love to God is essentially filial love corresponding
to that parental affection-the fulness of a father's
with the tenderness of a mother's love-which the
universal Parent bears towards all his children. Or
rather it should be a more than filial love answering to
that more than parental affection which the Christian's
God and Father cherishes towards those who are not
only the creatures of his power, but the children of
his grace, and who are the objects at once of his infinite benevolence and of his divine complacency.
Now nothing is more characteristic of affectionate parents, than a willingness to give their children any
thing that is really for their good-nor is any thing
more characteristic of dutiful children, than the delightful confidence with which they ask their parents
for any thing and every thing of which they feel the
need. Behold then our Heavenly Father standing
with his hands ever full of the richest gifts, his heart
2




20           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES
ever longing to lavish them on his children, and his
lips ever saying to them: Ask what I shall give thee!
And say what could be more unfilial to such a Father,
than to ask no favors at his hands? what more grateful
to his parental heart, or more becoming the winning
attitude in which he stands, than that we should be
as ready and delighted to ask, as he is to give?  Especially, when we have been undutiful and even prodigal sons, and our Father stands waiting to forgive our
wanderings and to rejoice over our return, shall we not
return to him with earnest, and if need be, importunate prayers, that he will restore us not only to his
favor but also to-his image? And having been thus
forgiven and restored by his matchless grace, so long as
there remains an ingrate and a rebel among all the
family of man-the proper family of God on earth —
shall we not pour forth our intercessions in behalf of
that wayward child, and never cease to pray that
God's name may be hallowed, and his kingdom come,
and his will be done, till he is adored on earth as in
heaven!
Behold also Christ-who sustains towards his disciples the relation at once of a master and elder
brother, and who deserves in return a half-filial, halffraternal love from them-behold him standing at the
door of human hearts and knocking for admission, his
locks wet with the dew of the morning, his feet bedewed with precious blood, one hand laden with blessings which he has purchased for them at infinite expense, and the other pointing to heaven, where it is
his desire that they should be for ever with him. And




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               21
tell me, can Christians who bear his name and bear
his likeness, behold this moving spectacle and not pray
day and night, that he may see of the travail of his
soul and be satisfied; that he may have the heathen
for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for a possession? Will they not spend the breath of
their mouth for that which cost him the life-blood of
his heart? Can the children of God be willing that
their heavenly Father should always be disowned by
the greater part of his family? Can the disciples of
Christ be content, that their Lord and Master should
be always despised and rejected of men?  "It were
hell to me," says Martyn, "if he were to be always
thus dishonored." Will Christians suffer the souls
which Christ hath bought with his own blood, to be
lost, if they can hinder it by their prayers? Nay, if
they have any proper sympathy with Christ, if they
have aught of the spirit of apostles, martyrs, and missionaries of whatever age, the very thought of such a
continual waste of his precious blood, and such perpetual dishonor to his holy name, would so fill them
with sadness that their burdened souls could find relief
only by unbosoming their sorrows in unceasing prayer
to their heavenly Father and their divine Redeemer.




CHAPTER II.
The Power of Prayer-The Incidental Benefits of Prayer in its Natural Effect on
the Soul-But these pre-suppose a Belief in its Direct Efficacy-The Westminster Assembly-Prayer is Asking, that we may Receive-The Instincts of the
Lower Animals unerring-Much more the Soul's Instinctive Belief, that God will
hear Prayer-Various ways in which Divine Veracity is pledged to do so-How
this Pledge has been fulfilled in Sacred History-Prayer always a Ruling Power
in the History of the Church and the World-An Elementary Force in the Constitution and Course of Nature-A Fixed Fact and an Established Law in the
Economy of Providence and Grace-Its power not impaired, but destined to be
most prevalent in the Last Days of the Church.
IN the foregoing chapter, we have endeavored to show
that prayer is a duty both of natural and revealed
religion; being, as it were, an instinct of the soul, and
a dictate of nature and of common humanity as well
as of Christian piety.
We wish now to proceed one step further and demonstrate, that it is a  great spiritual force  in  the
world, and  a  mighty  controlling power in  the divine
government. And in so saying we refer not to its incidental effects in quickening, purifying, and elevating
the  soul of man.   Such  an  influence  it does indeed
exert in many ways; and it is an influence, whose
power and  importance  can  hardly be over-estimated.
Prayer, in its very nature, directs the thoughts towards
the highest, greatest, and purest objects, and thus
tends to elevate, enlarge and purify the soul. Prayer
fixes the affections and desires on the noblest and best




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                23
ends, and by the very act of expressing those desires
(according to a well-known law of the mind), increases
them. It fastens the eye of the mind in a steadfast
gaze on the image and glory of God, till that image
is daguerreotyped, as it were, on the soul; nay, till
the soul itself is " changed into the same image, from
glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Prayer
brings the mind into such a state of desire and yet
of dependence, of patient waiting and yet of earnest
longing, as prepares it to prize, enjoy and profit by the
blessing, when, in answer to prayer, it is bestowed..
Intercessory prayer for our Christian brethren and our
fellow-men, strengthens our love for them, cultivates
charity and patience in our feelings towards them, and
prepares us to relieve their wants, and comfort their
sorrows. Most of all, prayer brings man into the felt
presence of his Maker, and in that presence, if any
where, the sinner will learn to abhor himself and
repent in dust and ashes-there, if any where, the
Christian will cleanse himself from  all filthiness of
the flesh and the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear
of the Lord.
When one already believes in its direct efficacy,
these incidental benefits are all so many auxiliary and
powerful inducements to " be instant in prayer." And
it is a striking illustration of the divine benevolence,
which should call forth devout gratitude, that in this,
as in so many other (we might perhaps say all other)
divine arrangements, the greater good involves the less,
and the path of duty leads to unsought, unexpected,
incidental blessings.
2




24            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
But these incidental effects presuppose a direct
efficacy as the basis on which they rest. Remove this,
and the entire superstructure falls to the ground.
Without a sincere and heartfelt faith in the efficacy
of prayer to procure actual blessings from God-without a deep conviction that God hears us when we pray,
and really grants us the good things we need because
we ask for them-prayer does not bring us into the
presence of God,-does not take hold of his outstretched
hand, and therefore does not lift us up to his throne,does not bring down his promised Spirit, and therefore
does not hallow our bodies as his temple, or purify
our hearts as his inner sanctuary,-does not fasten the
desires on all that is brightest and best in heaven as a
proper object of expectation and desire, which we can
secure by asking, and therefore does not either add intensity to such expectations and desires, or open any
practicable way for their realization. Just so far as
our faith fails to lay hold on the promised blessings as
really to be obtained by asking, just so far prayer will
fail to prepare our hearts to receive them; and just in
proportion as we discredit the direct efficacy of prayer,
just in the same proportion we impair its incidental
benefits.
Indeed prayer, without any expectation or belief
that God will hear or answer it, is not prayer; it wants
the essential element of prayer, and deserves not the
name. It may be called meditation; it may be considered in some sense as communion with God; it may
even be regarded as a species of worship; but it resembles more the dreamy, misty, transcendental contem



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               25
plation of the Boodhist, than the real personal access
of the Christian (with his petition as it were in hand,
and his mouth full of arguments) into the presence
of a heavenly Father, and a sympathizing, incarnate
Redeemer. Prayer without a petition addressed to
some one who is accustomed to hear and to grant such
petitions, and' that with some expectation or hope that
it may be granted, is an absurdity, a contradiction in
terms. Nay, is not the very name and form and attitude of prayer a mockery, if it neither has, nor can
have, nor is expected to have, any real and proper influence in obtaining blessings at the hand of God?
Imagine (if the idea is not too preposterous even
for the imagination to frame a conception of it) Abraham pleading for Sodom, not with any expectation of
saving the devoted city, not with any hope of exerting
the slightest influence on the mind and will of Jeho-ah, but simply for the sake of the reflex influence of
the interview on his own character, or the personal
pleasure and profit of talking with the King of kings!
Conceive (if it is possible to conceive of a thing so absurd and ridiculous) of a man getting up a petition to
some fellow-man-a sovereign or some other civil
ruler-not with any expectation that it will be granted, not with any belief that such petitions ever are
granted, or have any influen.ce with the ruler, but simply for the sake of the purifying and elevating effect
which the process of getting up the petition will exert
on the mind of the petitioner, or as a mere contrivance
for awakening distinct thoughts and lively emotions
touching the sovereign, and cheating himself into the
2




26            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
belief, or the fancy, that he has thus made his way
into the royal presence! None but a maniac could
ever thus delude himself in mere worldly relations.
But let him have a petition to present for an object on
which his heart is set, let him come into the actual
presence of a great and good prince, and plead his cause
with all the eloquence of truth and earnestness, and
see the face of his sovereign, beaming with wisdom and
complacency on him, and hear his voice granting the
request, or if not granting it, expressing his sympathy
and approbation in language that is as cheering as an
affirmative answer; and then indeed he will experience all the benefits of appearing before the king, of
breathing the atmosphere of the court, and of conversing with superior excellence. Even so he who
prays-fully believing that God waits to hear and says,
What is thy petition, and what is thy request-he will
come into the presence of the King of kings, and even
though his particular request should not be granted,
he will go away awed and purified from that presence,
his very person ennobled by such communion, and his
face shining with light from heaven. It was in just
this way that the Westminster Assembly of Divines
were elevated, and almost inspired, to indite that remarkable answer to the question, " What is God?"
in the catechism. To define God! how extremely
difficult! how utterly impossible! It were to comaprehend the Infinite in the finite. The grandeur of
the subject lifted them above themselves. But they
felt the need of special divine illumination.  They believed in the efficacy of prayer.  They rose to ask for




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               27
divine teaching, and felt themselves transported almost
into the presence of the infinite Spirit.  And no
sooner did they look up than light from the Throne
beanied upon their understandings aiid their heart s.
No sooner did he who led their devotions-the younilest of the number-open his mouth to speak unto
God, than it was filled by God himself; and the first
words that he uttered were an invocation to the Deity,
which they pronounced by acclamation to comprise the
answer they sought, and which is probably the best
answer to that great question that was ever compassed
in words of merely human wisdom.
Such then is prayer.  It is literally aslking that we:may receive.  It recognizes God as one who hears
prayer, and who invites and commands all men to pray
with the expectation of being heard, —who says to
every believing Christian, nay, to every humble and
penitent sinner: Ask what I shall give thee-and
whose veracity is therefore pledged to grant us our requests if we ask what is agreeable to his will. And it
is just this pledge of the divine veracity on which
rests the assurance that God will hear and answer
prayer.
God has actually given such a pledge. He has
given it in a great variety of forms and ways.  He 1- 
given it in all the ways in which he has invited m.ci
to pray, and encouraged the hope that prayer will not
be unavailing. He has given it in his works and in his
word. He has written it in the soul of man as well
as on the pages of the Bible. He has repeated it in
times and ways without number, now in inarticulate




28            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
sighs from within the soul, now in loud voices from external nature-at one time by the mouth of prophets
and apostles and all his faithful ministers, at another
by the secret whispers of his Holy Spirit. And will
he prove false to his word, so solemnly plighted, so
often and so distinctly repeated?
The instincts of the lower animals, the appetences
of plants even, are unerring. They never mislead or
disappoint the humblest of God's creatures. The pale
and delicate plant, that grows in a dark cell, bends
its stalk and stretches out its leaves towards the narrow grated window, andfinds the light which it seeks.
And shall the feeble andt humble soul that lives in the
prison of this world, grope for the light of heaven,
reach after it, long for it, pray for it, and no light be
given it? The slender and flexible vine sends forth
its tendrils for some arbor or trellis, shrub or tree, about
which they may twine and gain support; and it finds
just the support it needs. Shall the penitent and believing, soul, then, not find the support which it almost
instinctively seeks in God, which it almost necessarily
hopes to lay hold of by prayer, and prayer alone? All
animals are formed with a physical structure adapted
to breathing and seeing, and when, in accordance with
the unconscious impulses of their nature, they expand
their lungs, though it be for the first time, they
breathe in the vital air; when they open their eyes,
they see the pleasant light of the sun.  In like manner, all mankind are made with a spiritual nature,
which, more or less strongly and distinctly, impels
them to pray, and that with the hope of receiving the




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              29
things for which they pray (for the belief that prayer
will be heard and answered is as instinctive and universal as is the impulse which prompts to prayer).
Now, shall this higher spiritual impulse alone disappoint and deceive? Shall this alone prove delusive,
and find no corresponding objective reality? Shall
the soul expand its desires towards God, and inhale no
breath from heaven? Shall the soul lift up its prayer
for special divine teaching, and no light from heaven
greet those longing eyes? The Lord satisfieth the
desire of every living thing with food suited to its
nature and necessities; and when his children open
their hearts and wait for him to fill them, shall they
be sent away empty? Or if they ask of him a fish,
will he give them a serpent; or if they ask an egg,
will he give them a scorpion? When they ask of him
substantial and satisfying food, will he give them only
vapor and moonshine, and all such transcendental
stuff as dreams are made of, or bid them be content
with the intrinsic satisfaction of asking, and the incidental benefits of coming before him with their requests?
It is with sorrow and shame that we resort to such
arguments, and dwell on them so long to prove a
point, which, to the simple, unsophisticated and believing spirit, must be so clear and plain in the light
of Scripture and experience. But ours is a day of
philosophy and speculation, rather than simple faith.
There is now a strong propensity to sink the supernatural and special in the natural and ordinary; to
reduce even miracles and prophecies to the sway of




30           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
law and the rank of common events; to resolve all the
phenomena of the objective creation and the very existence and agency of the Creator into the subjective
qualities and workings of the human soul. And while
the pantheistic school of philosophers have thus made
God the creature of the human mind, instead of the
human mind the creature of God, and the rationalists
have reduced the inspiration of the Scriptures to a
level with the imaginations of the poet and the intuitions of the philosopher, evangelical Christians are in
danger of divesting prayer of its most sacred and divine prerogatives, and expecting its chief benefits as
the natural result of the operations of their own souls,
rather than as a free gift direct from the throne of the
3Most Htigh. In such an age, we feel constrained to
remind believers as well as unbelievers, that God never
proves false to the lowest instinct of his humblest
creatures; and it is quite incredible that he should
disappoint the higher instincts or intuitions which he
has wrought into the souls of men. He has impressed
on the human heart every where an intuitive conviction of his existence and providence and moral government; and he does exist, not merely as the co-eternal
soul of the world, but as a provident Father and righteous moral Governor of the universe. He has led all
men in all nations and ages to expect a supernatural
revelation, and to believe in a special divine inspiration
as an essential characteristic of such a revelation;
and in the fulness of times he gave the world the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, bearing all
the marks of an extraordinary and infallible inspira



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               31
tion. In like manner, he has prompted men every
where to pray, with the expectation of receiving in return that for which they pray; and who that is a believer in the divine existence and in revelation,-who
that recognizes the veracity of God wherever and however plighted to any of his creature~, can doubt that
he will fully redeem his pledge to hear prayer?
With our confidence in the divine veracity thus
established, let us now proceed to consider, with some
care, what God has said in his Word touching the
efficacy of prayer. Nature teaches us to expect that
prayer will be heard; the Scriptures assure us that it
will be. In how many places and how many ways is
the veracity of God pledged directly or indirectly in
his WVord, that he will hear and answer prayer! In
how many passages of Holy Writ-passages almost
without number-is the certain efficacy and great
power of prayer asserted or implied?  It is implied in
the innumerable invitations and commands to pray;
to pray always with all prayer and supplication,-to
pray without ceasing, and never faint, —of which the
Bible is full; for what are such invitations and commands but hypocrisy and mockery, if prayer is of no
avail to secure the blessings for which we ask? It is
yet more forcibly inculcated in the severe rebukes
which are often administered to those who cast off fear
and restrain prayer, and who say: " WVhat profit shall
we have, if we -pray unto him?"  It is clearly taught
in those numerous passages which impute our destitution of spiritual blessings not to God's unwillingness
to hear prayer, but to our not offering prayer, or not




32            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
offering it aright: "Ye are not straitened in me; ye
are straitened in your own bowels. Ye have not, because ye ask not; ye ask and receive not, because ye
ask amiss." It is expressly declared in passages not a
few, where it is the direct object of the sacred writer
to insist on the' efficacy of prayer: "The effectual,
fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much."
"The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him,
to all that call upon him in truth."  "He will fulfil
the desire of them that fear him; he also will hear
their cry, and save them." It is contained in many
great and precious promises, addressed directly to those
who offer prayer: "Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye sI1all find; knock, and it shall bet opened
unto you.'"  Tie reasonableness of the doctrine is
argued, and tr.j appeal is made to our own willingness, as parents, to grant the requests of our children,
feeble and imperfect as our own parental love is, in
comparison with that of the infinite and universal Parent: " If ye then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how. much more shall your
Father who is in heaven give good things to them
that ask him?"  Nay, reference is even made to the
power of importunate entreaties to move the hearts
and wills of the sefish and the unjust, in order to set
forth the certainty that the prayers of his children will
not be unheeded by him who cannot be unjust, and
whose nature is love.  Most frequently and most powerfully is the doctrine taught in that most efficacious
of all ways of teaching, by example. Time would fail
us to enumerate a small fraction only of the many,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              33
ltany instances on record, in which God has heard his
servants when they have cried unto him, and sent
them the very blessing which they needed, and for
which they prayed. There is no kind or degree of
blessing, great or small, temporal or spiritual, which
has not been borne on the wings of prayer from heaven
to earth. There is no time or place, or form or manner of prayer, private or public, by day or by night, in
the house of God or at the family altar, on the housetop or by the sea-shore, for one's self or for one's friends
and neighbors, or for the church, or for the world, that
has not been heard and answered. From the intercession of Abraham for the cities of the plain, as recorded
in the book of Genesis, to the unceasing prayers of the
whole church in the Acts of the Apostles, what is the
history of the Old Testament and of the New, but a
record of life and death, of blessing and' cursing, suspended on the prayers of God's people?
The course of nature, the vicissitudes of the seasons, the power of the winds and waves, and all the
elements, have been directed and controlled by prayer.
Prayer saved the lives of shipwrecked mariners, brought
up the rebellious, but penitent prophet, from the bottom of the sea, as from the depths of hell; called
down fire from heaven to consume the offering on the
altar of the living God; spread famine and pestilence
over the guilty land, and in due time stayed their
ravages; shut up the windows of heaven that it might
not rain for long years of drought, and then opened
them again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth
yielded her increase. The destruction or preservation
2*




34           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
of cities, the victory or defeat of armies, the rise and
fall of nations, as well as the life and death of individuals, were suspended on prayer.  Prayer carried
back the shadow on the dial ten degrees, and added
fifteen years to the good king's life. Prayer stood betweeri the living and the dead, and stayed the destroyer's march through the camp of Israel. Again, prayer
sent forth the destroyer into the camp of the enemies
of Israel, and one night extinguished the whole army;
in the morning, they were all dead corpses. Prayer
fed the hungry and clothed the naked, and comforted
the widow and blessed the fatherless, and healed the
sick and raised the dead. Prayer saved Nineveh from
destruction, and would have saved Sodorn, had there
been in it ten righteous persons. Prayer averted or
delayed many a threatened evil from the chosen people
of God, and delivered them from the hand of many an
oppressor; and brought them back from their captivity
in Babylon, and rebuilt their temple, and would have
saved them from the final extinction of their national
existence, if they had but united in humble and penitent deprecation of divine justice. Prayer shut the
mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, opened
the doors of prisons, and, knocking off their chains,
bade the prisoners go free.
The prosperity of true religion, the edification of
the church, and the conversion of sinners, have always
and every where been connected with, and proportioned.
to, the prayers of the faithful.  " Lord, revive thy
work," was the prayer of prophets and ancient saints;
and the Lord revived his work, and lifted upon them




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               35
the light of his countenance; and he that went forth
weeping, bearing precious seed, came again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. The apostles
and primitive Christians waited at Jerusalem, and
pleaded in united, earnest and importunate prayer the
promised gift of the Holy Spirit, which alone could
endue them with power for their work; and while
they were yet all with one accord in one place, the
promise was fulfilled; the rushing, mighty wind, which
symbolized the heavenly influence, filled the house;
the cloven tongues, like as of fire, which were so significant at once of the purifying and the miraculous
power of the Spirit, sat upon each of them: and the
same day, there were added unto them about three
thousand converts from the unbelieving and lately persecuting multitude. And as they afterwards continued
instant in prayer and Christian communion, " the
Lord added to them daily of such as should be saved."
Prayer and the ministry of the Word were the combined instrumentalities on which the apostles relied
for the upbuilding of the church and the salvation of
souls; the preached Word as the means of reaching
the hearts and consciences of men; the prayer as the
means of bringing down the blessing of God, without
which even the good seed sown by the apostles could
yield no increase. Prayer and a holy life and conversation were also the main resources on which common
Christians depended for their own progressive sanctification and the conviction and conversion of their unbelieving neighbors; these were the weapons of their
warfare, and the pillars of their strength; these the




36           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
vital breath of their souls, and the daily business of
their lives.
Prayer then has ever been a ruling power in the
history of the church and of the world, as that history
has been written by the finger of God himself. He
has promised to hear prayer, and he has fulfilled the
promise. He has pledged himself in every possible
way to grant the requests of his people, and he has
fully redeemed the pledge. He has taken great pains
so to speak, by repeated promises and renewed
pledges, by solemn asseverations and cogent arguments, and earnest appeals and forcible illustrations,
and unquestionable facts to encourage men to prayer;
and he has taken no less pains not to disappoint the
hopes and expectations he has thus raised. He has
ever been saying, " Ask what I shall give thee," and
ever been giving, what men have truly and properly
asked. He has invited his people to command himhe has permitted them to reason and expostulate and
wrestle with him, as it were, in prayer; and so far
from being displeased with their boldness, when they
have said, " I will not let thee go without a blessing,"
he has rewarded the boldest confidence with the richest
gifts. Jacob wrestled with God till the break of day,
and then received the name of Israel, because, " as a
prince, he had power with God, and prevailed;" and
the people of God's choice and covenant and grace,
have ever since not only borne his better than royal
name, but inherited his more than princely power.
They are still God's spiritual Israel-they still have
power with God, and prevail. They still have access




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              37
to him who is the Angel of the Covenant, and influence with him, who is not only Head of the church,
but Head over all things to the church, and has all
power on earth and in heaven. They still move the
arm that moves and governs the Universe.
Prayer may well be said to rule in the kingdom of
nature, the kingdom of providence, and the kingdom
grace, for it has influence with him who is king in all
these kingdoms. It touches and sways the sceptre
of the King of kings, the Lord of heaven and earth.
It was so settled in the counsels of eternity. It was
God's eternal purpose to bestow rich and manifold
blessings on mankind, but it was his eternal purpose
also to confer them only in answer to prayer. His
truth has long been pledged in his word, by many
precious promises, to do great things for his people;
but he will yet be "inquired" of by his people to do
for them these very things which he has thus explicitly promised. Prayer thus enters, as it were,
into the very plan and structure of the universe. It
is, if we may so speak, one of the elementary principles, or forces, in the original constitution of things
-not less so than light, or heat, or gravitation, or
electricity. It is an invisible, intangible principle.;
but so are they. It cannot be weighed or measured;
neither can they. The material world was made for
moral ends, and moral elements enter, as it were, into
its composition-moral forces mould, so to speak, its
masses, direct its movements, and control the course of
events. And among these prayer is perhaps the chief.
The frame of nature was so constituted at the




38           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
first, or, (if any prefer another mode of conceiving
and representing the same essential truth), its course
is so directed, that it always harmonizes and falls in
with the fervent, effectual prayers of righteous men;
and when the sun sheds its quickening beams, or
the rain descends in fertilizing showers, or drought, or
famine, or pestilence is averted in accordance with the
united and believing prayers of a prostrate church
and nation, there is every reason to believe that the
prayers are as efficacious and as essential to the results,
as the natural causes; and the efficacy of both is
alike provided for in the nature of things-alike contemplated and involved in the plans of Him who
worketh all things according to the counsel of His
own will. He would as soon give the rain (in such a
case) without the clouds, or the electric fluid, au without the prayers of his people. To dispense with either
the material, or the moral instrumentality, were alike
to sever the established order of sequences, and violate
the ordinances of Heaven.
Still more palpably does prayer enter into the
economy of divine Providence and divine grace. The
efficacy of prayer is one of the great fixed facts and
established laws of God's providential and moral
government, which he will no more supersede or dispense with, than he will contravene the laws of his own
existence and agency, or the free moral agency of his intelligent creatures. Prayer and pains go hand in hand
in the accomplishment of the greatest events in human
life; and what God hath thus joined together, man
cannot put asunder  Prayer and medicines,-prayer




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               39
and means,-are often seen to co-operate marvellously
in the cure of diseases, whether in the natural body
or the body politic: and who can say, that the means
are any more essential, or the medicines any more effective, than the prayers? Prayer enters as an essential
element into the happiness of the individual, the
well-being of the community, and the prosperity of
the nation. So it was in the history of the Israelites,-so it was in the history of the Pilgrim
Fathers of New England.  Mather's Magnalia is a
record and testimony to the effica~cy of prayer, scarcely
less striking than the historical books of the Bible.
Famine and pestilence, and war and captivity were
averted; health and plenty, and liberty and peace,
were secured in almost visible answers to prayer.
And though it is less manifest, the truth is no less
real in our own day, and if our prayers were equally
importunate, and our faith equally strong, we should
see no less convincing demonstrations of the power of
prayer in averting social and civil evils, and in procuring national and providential blessings-we should
see, almost as with the bodily eye, prayer taking hold
of the arm of Providence, and that arm, in consequence, laid bare and stretched out in all the great
events of our national history, so that we could no
more doubt that prayer is a great power among the
nations, than we could disbelieve the doctrine of an
overruling Providence, or the existence of the law of
gravitation.
Above all, prayer is a great power in the church
and in the hearts of men. Prayer brings down the




40            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
Spirit of God to enlighten the darkness of nature, to
convince the world of sin, to lead sinners to repentance, and the remission of their sins; to dwell in the
church, and in the hearts of all true believers. Here,
above all, the power of God is linked to the weakness
of men; the riches of God waits for the requests of
men; the sovereignty of God invites the commands
of men. Here is the point to which all the designs of
nature and Providence tend; towards which all material elements and forces converge; in which all historical events culminate.  The material was made for
the spiritual; the world was made, and is preserved
for the church; and if' prayer is a controlling force in
the former, it is doubly so in the latter.  God in
Christ reigns in nature and Providence for the benefit
of the church; and if all the resources of his wisdom
and power wait on prayer in his natural and providential government, it is chiefly intended to subserve and
to illustrate the greater riches and resources of his
grace, in doing for the church exceeding abundantly
above what they can ask or even think. The history
of Israel in the Old Testament was a type of the
Christian church in the New Testament; and even
the miraculous power of prayer and faith in the primitive church was symbolic of the more enduring, and
in some respects, more important spiritual energies that
still reside in the prayers of the Christian church.
So far from considering the law of prayer to be
repealed, or its power diminished, we should expect its
mightiest energies to be developed, and its most marvellous triumphs displayed in these latter days, on




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              41
which the ends of the world are come. So the Scriptures teach.  They forbid us to look upon prophets
and apostles as men of a different nature from ourselves, so exalted above meaner mortals as to be no
examples for us. They tell us that even Elias was a
man of like passions with ourselves, and they tell us
this for the express purpose of encouraging us to hope
for like answers to our prayers.  While we stand wondering at the miracles of the apostles, and, with the
polytheistic Lycaonians, are almost ready to offer sacrifices to them, as to superior beings, they take pains to
assure us that they are ordinary men, and that this is
only the power of God intrusted to them in answer to
prayer.
The promises of Christ to hear prayer are expressly extended to the end of the world; and as all
the past victories of the church have been triumphs of
prayer, so we cannot doubt the final and decisive victory of the Captain of our salvation over the powers
of darkness (as the result of which Satan will be
bound a thousand years), will be a more impressive
demonstration than has ever yet been seen, of the
moral omnipotence of prayer.  The leaders and
captains of the Lord's host in that day will pray to
the Lord Jehovah, and their hands will be stayed up
by the faith and prayer of the priests of the people;
and the enemies of Israel and Israel's God will meet
with an irrecoverable overthrow. The prophets of that
day will pray to the God of grace, and the heavens
will be opened, and the Spirit will descend in copious
showers, and righteousness shall flow as a river, and




42           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
salvation as the waves of the sea. The apostles of
that day will pray to the Head of the church, who is
also IHead over all things, and the morally impotent
man shall walk and leap for joy, and the spiritually
blind shall see, and the dead in trespasses and sins
shall rise to a new and holy life. The whole church
of that day shall be with one accord in every part of
the world waiting and praying for the promised Spirit'
for the world's conversion, and (though no audible
sound may be heard, and no rushing mighty wind
shake the places in which they are assembled) the
Spirit shall take possession of their hearts, and fill the',-hole earth, and (though no visible appearance of,oven tongues, like as of fire, may be seen) the hearts
of men shall glow with holy love, and their tongues
shall speak an unknown language, even the language
of heaven. Then will be realized and consummated
all and more than all that the soul of man has longed
for, and the course of nature has typified, and the interpositions of Providence have promised, and the
Scriptures have recorded or predicted, of the mighty
power of prayer.
But that consummation, so devoutly to be wished,
is inseparably connected in the purpose and promise
of God (and therefore in the essential constitution of
things and the necessary course of events), inseparably
connected with the effectual, fervent prayers of his
people. Effectual fervent prayer, together with the
corresponding exertions which cannot fail to accompany such prayer-effectual prayer and faithful preaching by the ministry —fervent prayer and holy living in




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               43
the church-these are the appointed means of which
that consummation is the certain result; these the necessary antecedent, of which that is the infallible consequent; these the indispensable condition, without
which that can no more be accomplished than an effect
can be produced without a cause. As well might
there be vegetation without rain or sunshine, as well
might there be reaping without sowing, and wealth
without industry or health, and strength without activity, as the revival of religion, the salvation of souls,
and the conversion of the world, without the required
measure of prayer, as well as efforts and sacrifices on
the part of Christians and Christian ministers. The
promises of God all rest on this express condition. On
this condition, and this only, is his veracity pledged
for the bestowment of the promised blessings. We
have his promissory note, signed with his own hand, his
solemn bond sealed with his own seal in the presence
of many witnesses.  But it is conditional, and without
the performance of the conditions on our part, it binds
him no more than so much blank paper.
Under such circumstances, to impute to him the
failure of the promised blessings, or entertain the
slightest question of his veracity in any the remotest
corner of our hearts, is to charge him with our own
unfaithfulness. Nay, "let God be true, and every
man a liar."  "We receive not, because we ask not,
or we ask amiss, that we may consume it on our lusts."
Shall we still. further add insult to injury by making
him a liar, and holding him responsible for our own
sins? Let us first bring all the tithes into the store3




44           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
house. Then he invites and commands us to prove
himr, to put his veracity to the test, and see if he will not
open the windows of heaven and pour us out a  blessing,
such that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
What a fearful responsibility is devolved on us, in
that we are now intrusted with theo power of prayer!
Was ever such a privilege, such a possession, such a
power, placed in the hands of mortal men?  And
was ever property so undervalued, in our day at
least; was ever privilege so slighted and abused;
was ever power so wasted, neglected and despised?
Perhaps nothing so illustrates and enforces Wie duty
of prayer as the power of prayer. What riglt have
we to leave unappropriated and unapplied, a power
which God has appointed for the salvation of men,
which Christians in former ages have wielded with such
magnificent effect, and which God and man, heaven
and earth, now wait to see us put forth for the world's
redemption? The question, which at the close of the
previous chapter pressed with such weight upon the
consciences of professed Christians, here returns with
double emphasis: What "inhumanity to man," and
what want of sympathy with God and Christ, are
chargeable upon us, if after all that has been done and
suffered and sacrificed by God the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, to open the way for the efficacy
of prayer, and the salvation of men, we fail to offer
the effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous man in
such manner and measure, as alone, according tb the
divine plan, can render these sufferings and sacrifices
efficacious!




CHAPTER III.
Believing Prayer the great Desideratum of the Church in our Day-" When the Son
of Man cometh, shall he find Faith on the Earth P "-Too much occasion to ask
this pathetic question now-The Promise of our Lord unlimited in its terms: " All
things whatsoever ye shall ask in Prayer, believing, ye shall receive "-To be
taken with certain obvious Limitations-With these Limitations, the promise
verified, not only to Apostles, but to Common Christians, according to their Faith
-The Power of Miracles only symbolic of the Perpetual Power of Faith and
Prayer in the Spiritual World-But this power not usually appropriated, or even
aspired to by the Church now-Exceptions-But these only prove the rule-The
Church has many Wants, but wants nothL';E so much as a revival of the primitive
spirit of Faith and Prayer.
IN the parable of the unjust judge, which is designed
to teach that "men ought always to pray and not to
faint," after the most convincing demonstration that
God will interpose in behalf of his  " elect, who cry day
and night unto him," our Lord -concludes with this
searching inquiry: "Nevertheless "-notwithstanding
the irresistible evidence, the absolute certainty of this
interposition-" NEVERTHELESS, when the Son of Man
cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" Of all the
touching and pathetic appeals that fell from the lips
of him, who spake as never man spake, none is more
touching, none more pathetic, than this, unless it be
the severe, yet tender reproof, which he addressed to
his disciples, when amid his agony in the garden, he
returned, and found them sleeping: "What! could
ye not watch with me one hour?" And it may per



46            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES,
haps be doubted, whether it was not even more trying
to the Saviour's heart-a heart which craved not only
the steadfast affection, but the unwavering confidence
of his disciples-to know that his word would be so
generally discredited by his disciples in later times,
than it was to find himself forsaken by his immediate
followers in that hour of brief, though peculiar trial.
Nothing so offends man, nothing so dishonors God, as
to question his veracity. And if Jesus, who is both
God and man, cannot be honored by the implicit -confidence, as well as the supreme love of those for whom
he died, nothing else on earth is of any value to him,
and he loses the very object for which he came into
the world.
And yet how many are there in our day that are
willing to take him at his word, and expect the fulfilment of his promise in regard to prayer, in its obvious
intent, as he uttered it with his own lips, and left it on
record in his gospel?
The promise, as we read it in the gospels, is absolute and unlimited: " All things whatsoever ye shall
ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive;" or, as it is
in another Evangelist: " What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and
ye shall have them." Of course this, like all the other
promises and precepts of the gospel (which are usually
expressed in singularly bold and unguarded language),
must be taken with such limitations as are necessarily
involved in the nature of the case.  The prayer must
be real prayer, the faith must be genuine and wellgrounded faith, and the objects must be proper objects




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                47
of desire; or, as the Apostle John defines them,
"things according to the will of God." For this is
only saying that the faith must be such faith as the
disciples of Christ might be expected to exercise, the
prayer such prayer as they would be likely to offer,
and the objects such objects as they would naturally
and reasonably desire, under the divine teaching of his
Word and Spirit.  Without such limitations, the
promise was not fulfilled to the very chief of the apostles. With these necessary and obvious limitations,
it was literally and gloriously fulfilled to the entire
body of the primitive disciples. And in their undoubting reliance on this promise, in their habitual
use of this divine weapon, lay the secret of their
strength, and the certainty of their triumph. By this
they wrought those signs and wonders which struck
the senses of the multitude; and by this they achieved
those greater miracles of moral power, and saving
mercy, which subdued the hearts of the people.
With the same, or similar limitations,-that is,
such as grow obviously and necessarily out of the nature of the case, and the circumstances of the times,the promise is just as real, just as literal, just as reliable, just as full of truth and power now, as it ever
was. All things whatsover that we ask in real prayer,
and genuine, well-grounded faith, according to the will
of God, we shall receive. In other words, whatever we
ask under the divine teaching and influence of the
truth and the Spirit of Christ, will surely be granted.
The promise is not obsolete, its power is not extinguished, or even impaired.  There is nothing ia its
8




48           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
terms to limit it to the apostles or the primitive
church; neither is there in the nature of the case.
Inspiration has indeed ceased, but spiritual illumination may, and often does, and should every where, take
its place. Signs and wonders have come to an end,
but moral miracles may be, and should be of every-day
occurrence. We cannot be supernaturally inspired to
utter a word which shall, with infallible certainty, be
followed by the exertion of a supernatural power; but
we can be divinely moved to the use of means, which
we are authorized confidently to expect will be accompanied by a divine energy; we can be taught by the
Spirit of God to offer prayers, which we may be sure
God will answer, by granting our requests. " Delight
thyself in the Lord, and he will" still "give thee the
desires of thy heart." " Have faith in God," live in
habitual sympathy and communion with him, and
mountains of difficulty and opposition shall be removed
out of the way. " If ye abide in me, and my words
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be
done unto you." The time may be delayed, the manner may be unexpected, but sooner or later, in some
form or other, the answer is sure to come. Not a tear
of sacred sorrow, not a breath of holy desire, poured
out in prayer to God, will ever be lost; but, in God's
own best time and way, it will be wafted back again
in clouds of mercy, and fall in showers of blessing on
you and those for whom you pray.
The manner may be different now from what it
was in the Old Testament or in the New; but the
principle, the spirit, the power is the same. We can



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               49
nrpt talk with God face to face like Abraham, nor open
and shut the heavens like Elijah; nor heal the sick,
and raise the dead, like Peter and John and Paul.
But our importunate intercessions may save many a
Sodom  from temporal and eternal destruction; and
our oft-repeated supplications, bowing ourselves low in
the dust seven times before the Lord, though at the
seventh time the only favorable sign shall be a cloud
no bigger than a man's hand, may brine down copious
showers of spiritual, aye, and temporal blessings, on
the parched places of the earth; and our prayer of
faith may heal the sick, and the Lord shall even raise
up those who are quite dead in trespasses and sins.
The most marvellous displays of divine power that
ever attended on the word of prophets and apostles are
but the symbols of the moral and spiritual power of
believing prayer in our age, and only shadows of still
greater and. better things that are to come in the last
days.
Thus sure is the word of promise to us and our
children; thus mighty is the power of prayer in our
day; nevertheless, as the Son of Mlan looks down upon
the churches, does he find faith on the earth? Alas!
ours is an unbelieving age; an age of skepticism in
the world, and feeble faith in the church, and therefore of weakness in all high moral and spiritual enterprises. So far from leaning on the promise of Christ
as our staff, and wielding it as the weapon of our spiritual power, we generally regard it as obsolete, meant
only for apostles, or, at most, the primitive Christians,
and of use now only to be hung up among other an3




50           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
tiquities of the church, like rusty pieces of antiquated
armor, in proof that " there were giants in those days."
True, we meet with now and then a poor widow
who trusts the promise of God in little and great
things, and never doubts that all will be well with her
and her fatherless children.  And according to her
faith, so it is unto her. Her cruse of oil is never
empty, her barrel of meal never fails. Never a want
of her life is left unsupplied, never a desire of her
heart but is sooner or later gratified, even as never a
doubt clouds her belief that the Lord will provide.
Here and there " a mother in Israel," too, takes God
at his word, and labors and prays for individual after
individual in her class, and for one class after another
in her Sabbath-school, till every individual of every
class that has passed under her instructions is hopefully converted; and when at length, full of years and
of labors, she ceases from her work, she has the unspeakable happiness not only of seeing her own children
walking in the truth, and filling stations of eminent
usefulness, but of knowing that her spiritual children
are multiplied and scattered, like good seed, broadcast
over the land.  Sometimes a Mary Lyon is raised up
with faith enough to found Holyoke Seminary, in the
face of an unbelieving church and a sneering world,
and with prayer enough to secure a special revival of
religion in it every year of her life. The secret of
those wonderful revivals was never understood till
after her death, when they were found, in almost every
instance, to have been preceded by special seasons of
persevering secret prayer. She was as remarkable for




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               51
faith and prayer as she was for benevolence and untiring energy; she expected great things, she attempted
great things, and, with the blessing of Heaven, she accomplished great things for the education of her sex
and the redemption of mankind.  And not a tew of
that class of women, of whom Paul speaks with honor,
as " caring for the things of the Lord," but whom the
world seldom names except in terms of reproach, will
be found to have " their names written in heaven," as
those who, while they blessed mankind by their selfdenying charities, have "had power with God, and
prevailed" in believing prayer.
Now and then a layman in the church, as he follows his daily occupation, makes a business also of conversing on personal religion with those who fall in his
way, and are associated with him, and at the same
time bears them on the arms of faith and prayer continually; and though his life, like his MIaster's, is
short, his reward, like his, is great, and he goes up to
cast at his Redeemer's feet a crown jewelled with
scores, perhaps hundreds, of precious souls. Now and
then a young man in college believes in the efficacy of
prayer and corresponding effort for the conversion of
his classmates and companions in study, and he does
more good in college than most educated men do in a
long life.
Now and then a minister of the gospel enlters i Lo
the very spirit of the Redeemer's promise. He does
not surpass his ministerial brethren, perhaps is inferior
to many of them, in talents and literary attainments.
But he baptizes every sermon with prayer, and leavens




5;2           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
every conversation with faith. He " goeth forth and
weepeth, bearing precious seed;" every kernel seems
to fall on good ground, and all the ground is moistened
with the dews and rains of heaven; and ever and anon,
he " comes again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves
with him." But he is regarded as a kind of prodigy, that
hardly belongs to this world; at best, as a miracle and
all anomaly in the present age; and he is looked on not
only with wonder for his success, but with some doubts
of his orthodoxy, and not a few fears for his audacity.
His people, who have learned from their pastor to be
" strong in fTith, giving glory to God," are a sort of
oasis in the desert, wet habitually with copious dews,
like Gideon's fleece, while all is dry around them.
They enjoy a perpetual revival, while others, only on
rare occasions, catch their spirit of believing prayer,
and share in their spiritual blessings.  As they are
honored with the constant presence of the Spirit of
God here, so hereafter such a minister and his people
will shine together "Cas the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever."
The late venerable Dr. Judson was a rare example
of close approximation to apostolic faith and power.
Not satisfied with translating the Scriptures into the;lbnouagte of the Burmans, he was intent on preachling
tlhe (ospel with his own lips where no one else would
plncetrate.  The jungles of the Karens rose up and
called him blessed, and the wilderness blossomed before him as the rose.  He was pre-enminently a man
of prayer, and in a good old age, he bore this testimony
to the faithfulness of a prayer-hearing and covenant



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               53
keeping God: "I never was deeply interested in any
object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for any
thing, but it came; at some time-no matter at how
distant a day —somehow, in some shape, probably the
last I should have devised, it came."'," And yet even
Judson was " frightened" at the seeming audacity of
such an assertion, and hardly knew whether the weakness or the boldness of his faith were the more deserving of reproof.
In short, all these sketches (which we have drawn
from real life, though only in two or three instances
have we mentioned names) are so manifestly exceptions, that they only prove the rule.  They demonstrate the power of a primitive faith, but they also
mark by contrast the feebleness of an unbelieving and
degenerate age. Faith is the exception, the rule is
unbelief. We can only touch upon a few of the leading facts that substantiate this proposition. Nor need
we. It stands proved and confessed in the very wonder with which we look back upon the faith of the
primitive church as purely miraculous, and in the mingled distrust and amazement with which we regard
the like faith in those exceptional cases which do
occur in modern times, as deluded enthusiasm, or at
best unwarranted presumption.  We do not even
aspire to such honor and power with God, but frankly
and freely disavow all right and title to it.
The members of the primitive church, "all with
one accord in one place," waited in earnest, importu* M[emoir by Dr. Wayland, vol. ii., p. 37.




54           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
nate and believing prayer, till they were endued with
power for the arduous work of saving a world wholly
given up to idolatry. Where is such a prayer-meeting
to be found now-a-days —aU with one accord in one
place?  And where is such waiting seen-waiting for
the providence and the Spirit of God, not to do their
work for them, but to work in and by them, and give
them a power which nothing could gainsay or resist?
There is enough waiting for divine sovereignty to do
its own work without human agency, and there is
much running of human agency without being divinely
commissioned or empowered. But where is that beautiful union of waiting and running, and that harmonious co-operation of human instrumentality and
divine efficiency, which so marked and energized and
blessed the primitive church?
The seven deacons of the church at Jerusalem
were all "men full of faith and the Holy Ghost."
WVhere now is the church that is blessed with such a
deaconry, or even such a ministry?  Nay, too many
churches now-a-days do not even aspire to the possession of such officers. They do not ask in reference to
a minister even, " Is he a man of piety and prayer?
is he full of faith and the Holy Ghost?" but, " Is he
a smart man? is he a good speaker? has he a fine
voice and manner and person? will he sell the pews,
and build up the society?" They cannot be expected
to pray, certainly not in public; it is for this very
purpose that they hire their minister. If they go to
the prayer-meeting, it is only on condition that the
minister shall do all the praying as well as all the talk



A PREMWIUl  ESSAY.            55
ing. If they desire to see conversions in the house of
God, they expect them to be the results of their pastor's preaching and not of their prayers. How unlike
the lay-ministry, "the royal priesthood," that made
up the primitive church, who, while permitted to remain at Jerusalem, prayed without ceasing, and when
scattered by persecution, went every where preaching
the word! Even the missionary concert has degenerated very nmuch into a lecture-room for the communication of missionary intelligence, and the conversion of
the world is to be accomplished by machinery, and
money and men, rather than by the power of God sent
down from heaven in answer to prayer.
Ministers themselves fall in with the current, and
wear themselves out in the preparation of polished sermons, with too little prayer for the presence of that
Spirit who alone can give power to a sermon, either in
the composition or the delivery. Colleges and Theological Seminaries are strongly tempted to meet the
popular demand with a corresponding supply, and
bend their energies too exclusively to the education of
accomplished scholars and eloquent orators for the pulpit, perchance for mere secular employments, while
the heart, the seat of all life and power, is comparatively neglected.
When the church and the ministry are so secularized in matters properly religious, it is hardly to be
expected that they will carry much of the power of
prayer or vital godliness into political and public affairs. Their weapons are too often not spiritual,
imighty through God, but carnal, and all too weak to




56            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
pull down the strongholds of corruption and oppression
in high places. Not that they send too many petitions
to their civil rulers, but they carry too few to the
throne of Him  who ruleth on earth and in heaven.
Not that they vote or agitate too much. Far from it.
It is their sacred duty to vote. Agitation is essential
to the purity, nay, to the vitality of the moral and
political atmosphere. But they rely too much on voting and agitating, too little on unceasing prayer in
private and in public, in the family, in the social circle, and in the house of God.
We say these things in sorrow, not in anger, nor
in the spirit of censoriousness. Croaking, like birds
of evil omen, is our utter abhorrence.  But we are
painfully convinced of the truth and necessity of what
we have said, therefore have we spoken. The house
of God, the prayer-meeting, the closets, and the consciences of Christians, do they not all bear witness to
a sad dereliction of duty in this respect? We need
more money and more men, we need more activity and
more benevolence, we need better teachers and better
preachers; but we need nothing so much as a revival
of the primnlitive spirit of faith and prayer in the
churches. We need to be converted, and become as
little children, in the simplicity of our trust and confidence.  Then should we know the meaning of Christian " bravery," of Christian "gladness and single.
ness of heart."  Faith is courage. Faith is power,
and want of faith is weakness. It is so in every thing.
It is emphatically so in religion. Christians can be
strong only in faith and prayer.  If weak here, the




A PREMIUM ESSAY..57
right arm  of their strength is broken, and they can
expect nothing but shameful discomfiture in the end
of all their enterprises.  Unless Christians can be
stirred up, and that speedily, to more earnest, constant and believing prayer for the church, the country
and the world, and especially for our colleges; in
which, as we shall now endeavor to show, the hopes of
the church, the country and the world, all centre;
worldliness and ungodliness will continue to come in
like a flood, sweeping away the dearest interests of
men for this life, and their brightest hopes for the next,
till at length, in answer to the supplications of a more
prayerful and believing age, the Spirit of God shall
lift up a standard against them.  God will never
honor those that will not honor him; and he will
never repeal that great law of his spiritual kingdom:
" BE IT UNTO THEE ACCORDING TO THY FAITH."
3'




CHAPTER IN.
Colleges-Their Origin, Design, and History-English in their Germ, but American
in their Development-The College not a University-More like Eton, Rugby,
and the German Gymnasia-An Educational Institntion-Self-educated Men con.
scious of their Deficiencies-Franklin, Washington, Clay-College Studies —ColE
lege Officers-Students discipline each other-Rise and Progress of American
Colleges-College Education the established Policy of the American People-An
essential Element in American Society-Educates the Leading Minds-The right
Age-A sort of Family Organization-Parental Government and Inflduence-Colleges are Permanent Foundations, and tend to perpetuate an Educated Ministry,
Magistracy, &c.-The Keystone of our Educational System, and the Cornerstone of our Institutions-The enlightened Christian and Patriot cannot but pray
for these Foundations of Many Generations.
OUR educational, like our political and religious institutions, were derived, though not servilely copied, from
those of the mother country; and the former, not
less than the latter, were coeval with our national existence. It is a striking characteristic of American
history, that it cannot, like that of the nations of the
Old World, be traced back to an obscure and barbarous antiquity. Born and nurtured beneath the bright
light of Christianity and modern civilization, it has,
from the first, been "known and read of all men;"
and from the first, it has been a history of law and
order, of light and knowledge, of well-organized and
well-sustained literary, as well as political and religious
institutions.
Our system of college education is English in its




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               59
germ, but American in its development.  Like the
American people, it has cast off the bondage of prescription and the unbending rigidity of English institutions, and put on a flexibility suited to the altered
circumstances of a young nation in a new world. It
has not, however, cut loose from the past. It has not
broken away from all respect for time-honored usages
and pursuits. At once conservative and progressive
in its spirit, it strives to preserve a due medium between a bigoted attachment to all that is old, and an
indiscriminate passion for all that is new. Not less
scientific than classical in its course of studies, it aims
to engraft the science of the moderns on the wisdom
of the ancients. Its anchor takes firm hold on the
past, but its sails are set, and its prow directed to a
more brilliant future.
An American college is not a university, still less a
mere foundation in a university, as in England.  It
resembles more nearly the preparatory schools, such as
Eton and Rugby, in the British Isles, and the Gymnasia on the continent. Yet it differs in so many respects
firom any European institution, that it has sometimes
been pronounced unique and peculiar to America. It
has even been called an Americanism.
The place which the college holds among all the
means of public instruction at home, is not less broadly
and definitely marked. Quite distinct from the common school on the one hand, and from the professional
seminary on the other, though sustaining important
relations to both, the college is intended to lay a broad
foundation in a thoroughly disciplined mind for all




60           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
liberal culture, for all high attainments and achieve.
ments. Its principal aim is to develope and discipline
the faculties, to call them into strenuous exercise, and
impart to them  a healthy tone, and train them for
energetic, yet well balanced action; to give strength,
beauty, and symmetry to the intellectual and moral
powers: in a word, to educate the whole man. College
is properly and pre-eminently an educational institution. And so thoroughly is this fact wrought into the
consciousness of the community, that, in common par.
lance, an educated man is a man that has received a
college education.
We have, indeed, had our self-educated men, and
some of them have acted a very distinguished part in
the history of our country; but as a general fact, selfeducated men are uneducated, or half-educated at the
best. They usually betray, if not a want of discipline
and knowledge, at least a want of symmetry and completeness. They are not safe guides. They generally
prove inadequate to trying emergencies; and the
wisest and best men of this class have been among the
foremost to recognize the necessity, and to aid in the
advancement, of college education.  The sagacious
Franklin, with the good sense which was characteristic
of him, drew up a project for the foundation of a college, in which he strongly recommended the study of
the ancient languages for all the students, and insists
on it for those who intend to engage in the learned
professions.
"The Father of his Country" was a self-made
man; but he felt the deficiency, and had recourse to




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                61
a graduate of Columbia College (Alexander iEamilton)
in the preparation of his most important State Papers.
In his own writings, he often showed a want of that
minute accuracy which belongs to a thoroughly educated man, so that President Sparks, with or without
sufficient reason, felt under the necessity of sometimes
correcting his language, when he edited his correspondence. And with the magnanimity and public spirit
for which he was so remarkable, he bore testimony to
the value of the literary advantages which he did not
enjoy, by laying the foundation of a college in his native State, which honors, while it is honored by, the
name of Washington.-:*
The distinguished orator and statesman of Kentucky was a self-taught man.  But bitterly did he deplore his limited opportunities for early education.
Especially in some of his severe conflicts with John
Randolph on the floor of Congress, when taunted by
him on the incorrect use of a word, Henry Clay would
acknowledge, with tears, the disadvantage which he
suffered, owing to the want of that liberal education
which his antagonist had enjoyed.
The excellence of classical studies can hardly be
better expressed than in the language of Franklin, in
the project above mentioned: " When youth are told
that the great men whose lives and actions they read
in history spoke two of the best languages that ever
were, the most expressive, copious, beautiful, and that
the finest writings, the most correct compositions, the
* Washington College, Lexington, Va., was originally endowed by
Washington with stock, which yields about $2500 annually.




62           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
most perfect productions of wit and wisdom, are in
those languages which have endured for ages, and will
endure while there are men; that no translation can
do them justice, or give the pleasure found in reading
the originals; that those languages contain all science; that one of them is become almost universal,
being the language of learned men in all countries;
and that to understand them is a distinguished ornament,-they may be made thereby desirous of learning
those languages, and their industry sharpened in the
acquisition of them." 
Besides classical studies (which are thus warmly
and justly commended by Franklin), and the study of
their own vernacular tongue, together with perhaps
one or two of the other modern languages, young men
in college apply themselves chiefly to the study of
mathematics and physical and mental science, which,
while they are admirably adapted to discipline the intellectual powers, are also designed to make the student acquainted with himself and the world he lives
in; and so with that infinite Being-the highest of all
the objects of knowledge-who is the Maker both of
man and of the universe, and the original Author of all
the science that pertains to both.
Their teachers also are expected to be men of
thorough academical education, who have themselves
travelled over all the road, and are able to point the
way to others; who are themselves the embodiment
of literature and science, and the patterns of that
* See Appendix to Sparks' Life of Franklin.




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              63
liberal culture which results from such studies; whose
large acquaintance with the productions of men in
every age, and with the works of God, has raised them
above the low prejudices of time and place, carried
them beyond the narrow bounds of what is merely
local and temporary, and planted their feet in the vast
open field of comprehensive wisdom, and on the solid
basis of immutable truth; but who are yet men, with
lively human sympathies, and fresh youthful feelings,
-old heads on young shoulders; who will delight to
take young men by the hand, and go over the whole
field of knowledge with them, as if it were as new to
them as it is to their pupils; and to work out with
them anew, or rather set them to working out, each
one for himself, under their guidance, the great problems of life and of the universe.
Aside from the direct influence of the best studies
pursued under the best masters, students in college
derive from their intercourse and communion with each
other an invaluable discipline. Proceeding from all
classes in society, and all parts of the country, bringing together their divers talents, tastes, habits and attainments, and acting and reacting upon one another
by constant contact and collision during four years,
and those among the most plastic and decisive years
of their lives, they of necessity lose their idiosyncracies
and provincial peculiarities and narrow prejudices in a
broad, genial and liberal humanity; they rub off their
sharp corners and projecting asperities., and are reduced to a more rounded symmetry and polished
emoothness; they are brought down from their vanity




64            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and self-conceit, or brought up from their self-distrust
and timidity, and each one finds the proper level of
his own talents and attainments,-as shapeless opaque
substances, dissolved in a fluid, assume forms of order
and beauty; as the very stones of the brook are worn
by each other, and by the running water, to rotundity
and polish.
Receiving students from all ranks and conditions,
and sending them out again into all the professions,
and the higher walks of life, the college, like the
ocean, forms a connecting link among the fountains of
influence, and a medium of communication and circulation between them and the streams. Not a section
of the country, but pours into it larger or smaller tributary streams.  Scarce a city or village, scarce a
church or school, but receives back more or less abundant showers of refreshing influence. Planted by our
fathers in the wilderness side by side with republican
liberty and primitive Christianity, college education
has grown with their growth, and strengthened with
their strength, till now like three stately trees, of different formu and kind, of separate life and organization,
yet lending each to each mutual support, borrowing
each from the others an added beauty, and each essential to the perfection, if not to the very existence, of
the others; they have struck their blended roots deep
into every acre of our soil, and spread their interlaced
branches wide over all the land, and men of every class
and condition sit beneath their common shade, and eat
in abundance of their diverse, yet wholesome fruit.
Harvard College was founded in 1638, only eigh



A PREMIUM ESSAY.                65
teen years after the first landing on Plymouth Rock;
when Boston was a small village of not more than
twenty or thirty houses, and when only twenty-five
towns had begun to be settled in Massachusetts.  It
was one of the first things our Pilgrim Fathers thought
of, and, as Cotton Mather well says, "it was the best
thing they ever thought of:"  It was ever after cherished and provided for as a child, not only by appropriations firom the Legislature, but by voluntary contributions of money or produce from the poorest of the
people.  Its constitution forms a part of the constitution of the State, and its life and history are inseparable from  those of the Commonwealth for nearly two
hundred years, during the greater part of which time
it furnished nearly all the ministers and magistrates
of old Massachusetts.  It rendered the same service
also to Connecticut, and the other New England colonies, till (feeling the necessity for a similar institution
which should stand in the same near and intimate relation to their own organic life, to their own political
and religious history) a few clergymen marked the
commencement of a new century by founding Yale College in 1700, bringing a selection of books from their
private libraries-forty volumes in all-saying, " These
books we give for the founding of a college in Connecticut."  William  and Mary College, in Virginia, was
established a few years earlier than Yale.
The middle of the eighteenth century was marked
again by the establishment of the three oldest and
most important institutions of the Middle State; the
College of New Jersey, founded at Princeton, in 1746,




66           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and honored alike by its venerable line of presidents
and its illustrious catalogue of graduates; Columbia
College, founded at New York, in 1754, and then
called King's College, though it educated something
better than kings or courtiers; and the University of
Pennsylvania, established one year later, in the city of
Philadelphia. The middle of the last hayf of the
same century was also characterized by the founding
of Brown University in Rhode Island, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Dickinson College at Carlisle,
in Pennsylvania; Hampden Sydney College in Virginia, Charleston College in Charleston, South Carolina; and the University of Georgia, at Athens: the
first two established a little before, and the others just
after, the war of the Revolution. The close of the
century was signalized by the appearance, in rapid
succession, of a whole galaxy of stars in our literary
firmament; the Universities of Vermont and North
Carolina in 1791, Williams College in 1793, Bowdoin
in 1794, Union College in 1795, Middlebury in 1800,
and Jefferson College and the Universities of Ohio and
South Carolina in 1802.
A season of less activity ensued; a sort of lull between the political impulse communicated by the
Revolution, and the new religious life which was imparted by missions and revivals in 1820; though, during this interval, Hamilton College was founded in
1812, and the University of Virginia in 1814. About
the year 1820, commenced a new era in the history of
colleges (of which we shall speak more particularly in
another chapter), during which new  colleges, from




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                 67
Amherst in the East, to Iowa College in the far West,
have risen upon the country with such rapidity," and
in such numbers, that specifications would be tedious,
till we have already more than a hundred and twenty
such institutions,-one or.more in every State, under
the instruction of six hundred teachers, and comprising
an aggregate of more than ten thousand students.
Next to her political organization, we find each
State looking out for a college, as if it was the light
of her eyes, or the right arm of her strength. The
colleges, like the churches of America, are for the most
part separate from the organization of the State, and
independent of its direct control.  But they are for
that reason none the less an essential part of our complex social, political and religious system.  Nay, the
people  love  their colleges, just as they do their
churches, all the more because they are the offspring,
not of government patronage, but of their own freewill offerings and voluntary sacrifices. Hence, the inhabitants of every State want a college, which they
can call their own, as every body politic wants its own
eyes or hands. Nay, every section, as well as every
sect, wants its own college, that it may not only be
within reach of their sons, but within sight of their own
eyes, and more or less under their own control. This
is doubtless carrying the matter to an excess. But
even this has its good results. The sight of a college
is one, and that no despicable means of educating the
surrounding community.  At least it shows that colUpon an average, one for every year of the present century.
4




68            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
leges are rooted in the hearts of the people. They
have been assailed by demagogues and radical reformers; and there have been times when it seemed as if
public sentiment would yield to the clamor. But true
to the spirit of their fakters and the history of the
country, the American people have always, ere long, returned to their first love, like the needle to the polestar; and never was the system of collegiate education
more strongly grounded in public confidence and affection than at this moment.  It will be modified to suit
the change of circumstances; it will be enlarged to
meet the growing demands of the age; but it will not
be abandoned,-it cannot be abolished.  It has become a fixed fact.  It is the settled policy of the
country. The college is an essential element in our
present social organization, even as it has been in all
our past private and public history.
Remove the colleges, and you take down the whole
fabric of our social, political and religious history.
Extinguish the colleges, and you put out the eyes
both of the church and of the State. Take away the
colleges, and you leave education, politics and religion
without competent guides; the school, the church and
the State, all without a suitable head.
It is a prime characteristic of college education
that it has to do with the leading minds of the community and the country; those who, by their talents
and attainments, are destined to exert a controlling influence. Here is the hiding of its power. It teaches
the teachers, and preaches to the preachers, antd governs the governors. The ten thousand young men in




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              69
American colleges are but a small portion of the youth
of America, but they will soon fill the larger part of
the posts of honor and power in the church and in the
State; and by their personal and official standing, as
well as by the tongue, the pen and the press, they
will exercise a commanding influence in society and in
public affairs. Martin Luther's teacher at Eisenach
never entered the school-room without taking off his
hat, and bowing to his scholars. When his colleagues
expressed their astonishment at his extreme condescension, he replied: " There are among these youth
those whom God will one day raise to the rank of burgomasters, chancellors, doctors and magistrates." With
far more reason might every man who enters or looks
upon an American college, bare his head, and bow low
before the assembled guides and rulers of the next
generation.
Again (and this is the second secret of its power),
the college takes these leading minds at an age when
they may yet be moulded to truth and goodness,
though they will soon be stiffened and hardened past
any essential alteration; takes them in the last period
of youth, and gives them the last touch of their education, properly so called, before their entrance upon
manhood; receives them into its bosom to live as well
as study under the care of professors, who stand in the
double relation of teachers and parents, and exerts
upon them the two-fold influence of the school and
the family circle. Alexander the Great said: " Philip
gave me life, Aristotle taught me how to live well."
We would not place the professor before the parent, or




70            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
the college above the family, which is nature's own
school, and in which the parent should be also the
teacher, and not only give life, but guide to a life of
wisdom and virtue. But next to home and the family
circle, the college does most to shape the character of
those who will so soon be the ruling spirits in every
department of social and public life.
A third fact worthy of notice in regard to the influence of colleges is, that they are permanent foundations, and so give permanence to the institutions,
whether of society, of government, or of education,
which they control and supply.
The ministry cannot perpetuate itself. The magistracy cannot educate its own successors, and so perpetuate itself. The inferior departments of education
cannot train their own men, and so sustain themselves. But let the college be well supported, and it
will sustain, supply and perpetuate them all. It is
at once the key-stone of the educational system, and
the corner-stone of our civil and religious institutions.
And for this very reason, it is liable to be depreciated
by unobserving and unreflecting minds.  The keystone of the arch is too high up, too far removed from
common observation, to be readily seen and appreciated. To a careless and superficial view, the arch
might seem to be complete without it; but take it
out, or never put it in, and the arch will not stand.
The foundation stones of the temple lie too deep to be
seen by common eyes, but the architect sees them
buried deep in the ground, and no wise man will build
a house without solid and enduring foundations; no




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              71
Christian will forget, that "except the Lord build the
house, they labor in vain that build it;" no intelligent
American citizen, who prays for any thing, can fail to
pray that the foundations may be so laid in our colleges as not only themselves to last for many generations, but also to sustain and perpetuate all our republican and Christian institutions to the end of time.
4




CHAPTER V.
Colleges and Popular Education-Parts of one System-Must rise or fall togetherProved by Facts-By the Nature of the Case-Men of Collegiate Discipline the
best Teachers in any School-Needed to train Teachers of Common Schools-To
prepare Text-books-To direct Popular Education-Engineers-Light-houses and
Observatories-Early Settlers of Massachusetts-Free Colleges-Revivals in Common Schools taught by College Students-The Common School Question to be
settled in the Colleges-The Jesuits-A Teaching Order-Austria-Poland-America-Must be met with their own Weapons.
THE  intimate  and  essential relation  which  subsists
between colleges and the whole scheme of popular
education, is not well understood; still less is it duly
appreciated. Ignorant men have even indulged a suspicion that there is a necessary antagonism between
the education of the few in colleges and the education
of the masses in common schools; and designing demagogues have not been slow to foster this popular prejudice, and take advantage of it for their own selfish
aggrandizement. But the whole history of education
in our country shows, that so far from being antagonistic to each other, colleges and common schools form
different and essential parts of one and the same great
system, which must live or die, rise or fall, flourish or
decay together. Facts prove that where colleges are
best sustained, there common schools are most fos



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               73
tered; that the States and sections where the standard
of collegiate education is most elevated, are the very
States and sections where the standard of teachers and
pupils in the common schools is the highest; that the
success and usefulness of common schools is exactly
proportioned to the popularity and prosperity of colleges, and that whatever is done for or against the one
is sure to react with equal force and with similar results
upon the other.
In the nature of things, the facts could not well be
otherwise. Education, as well as every other living
thing, must have a head, as well as hands and feet.
Common schools and academies, select schools and
high schools, and all the lower seminaries, must have
not only scholars, but teachers, and committees, and
guardians, and examiners, and text-books, and apparatus, and all suitable means and appliances, not only to
keep them up to their present standard, but to carry.them forward in a constant progress towards perfection. And the men who are to do all this must be
thoroughly educated men, disciplined in all their faculties, and masters of all literature and science; well
acquainted with their own minds, and the minds of
others, as well as with the structure of the human body
and the constitution of the universe.
So far reaching and universal are the relations of
things, that no one thing can be fully known without
a knowledge of a multitude of other things.  Hence,
in order to teach any thing to the best advantage, the
teacher needs to know not merely that particular thing,
but every thing else to which it stands related. The
4




74           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
best method of teaching a child his alphabet is a question involving profound principles of philology, as well
as mental philosophy. None but a profound scholar
and philosopher is qualified to make a spelling-book.
Webster studied and improved on his spelling-book,
after he had finished the best dictionary of the English
language, and had placed himself in the very foremost
rank of English philologists. A good reading-book
can be prepared only by a man of correct taste, wide
acquaintance with literature and finished classical
education. No man can make a good English grammar who knows only the English language. The best
English grammars, not to say all the improvements in
the method of teaching English grammar, have been
made by profound classical scholars, availing themselves, too, of the labors of still more learned men, still
more profoundly versed in comparative philology.
The best text-books in the natural sciences for the
use of schools and academies have been prepared by
the professors and teachers of natural science in college; and well they may have been, for they require
an extensive acquaintance with both natural and mental philosophy.
The same principles apply to teachers, not less than
authors of text-books. Other things being equal, the
more a man knows of every thing, the better he can
teach any thing; and the more thorough and complete
the discipline of his own mind, the better he can impart even a little discipline to the mind of another.
A well educated man will give the best education to a
child. A gentleman of high classical discipline and




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               75
attainments is the best teacher of young ladies in the
solid branches.  And a genuine scholar, philosopher,
sage, who has not lost his common sense and his sympathy with the young, —old in wisdom, but young
in feeling and affection,-would be the best teacher
of any, even the simplest and humblest branch of
learning.
We do not, indeed, expect all the teachers in our
common schools to be men of college education, or
even women of equivalent attainments; but we do affirm that, other things being equal, the more they
know the better they will teach in any sphere; and
that in proportion as the teachers in our common
schools advance towards the standard of a full collegiate education, common schools themselves will advance in substantial excellence and usefulness. And
they who are to sit in judgment on both teachers and
text-books, they who are to give shape and direction
to the public schools of a town, of a State, of a nation,
must be men of thoroughly disciplined minds and extensive attainments, who can look out over the whole
field of knowledge, and see every thing, not only in its
immediate bearings, but in its ultimate tendencies and
results.
The friends of common schools jealous of colleges!
It is most irrational and absurd; nay, it is suicidal.
As well might the travelling public be jealous of scientific schools for the education of engineers! The system of public schools must be under the control of
well trained, skilful and faithful engineers, or the road
will be wrongly laid and badly constructed, and the




76            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
train will be perpetually running off the track.  As
well might common sailors look with a suspicious eye
upon the astronomical observatories that adorn our
cities, or the light-houses that line our coasts.  Our
gallant public school marine must have its observatories and its light-houses, or, bravely as it has sailed
out of port, it will ere long encounter head-winds and
unforeseen currents, and be dashed, an utter wreck, on
all unknown shore; or, what is scarcely less deplorable, drift helmless and helpless, without compass,
chart or nautical almanac, at the mercy of the winds
and waves.
The entire system  of education, as it has come
down to us from a wise and godly ancestry, is one organic body, having a head as well as a trunk and
lower members, animated from head to foot with the
same life, and pervaded from the heart to the extremities by the same vital energies. The first literary institution which the early settlers of Massachusetts
founded higher than common schools was a college.
Eleven years after, it was ordered by the General
Court, that''when any town shall increase to the
number of one hundred families, they shall set up a
grammar schlool, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university." Thus, within thirty years after the landing
of the Pilgrims, they had laid the foundations of our
entire educational system, with its three grades of
schools, essentially as they now exist. And they nurtured and cherished the whole system as a whole,
watching and caring for it in every part; and their




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              77
sons, if they would have it live and thrive, must foster it with the same impartial and comprehensive
wisdom.
The State'should extend not its direct governmental control, but its sustaining and fostering hand,
alike to the higher and the lower seminaries, and give us
not only free common and high schools, but free academies and colleges, where rich and poor shall meet together at "the upper and the nether springs," and
mutually know and educate each other, with no aristocracy but that of talent and learning; no distinctions of rank and standing, but those of wisdom and
goodness.
The Church, through her ministers and members,
should lend a helping hand at every stage of the process, and not only extend to it the patronage of her
sons and daughters (none too rich to patronise the
common schools, and none too poor to be represented
in the colleges), but bestow on it also the richer blessing
of her prayers, and infuse into it the purifying and
life-giving influence of her principles and spirit. The
providence of God has given her in a great measure
the control of the colleges of our land, and thus (if
she did but know it) the indirect control of academies
and common schools. The religious influence which
college students exert, as teachers of common schools,
during their college course, is beyond calculation.
The greater part of those who teach in this way are
young men of devoted piety, who avail themselves of
this as the only practicable method of realizing the
fondest desire of their hearts, which is to be educated




78           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
for the Christian ministry. How many precious revivals of religion have originated in the faithful labors
of such teachers in common schools, and have spread,
not only through the school, but through the whole
community! How many more would thus originate
if all who go forth from our colleges, from year to
year, to spend a term in the instruction of common
schools, were imbued with the full spirit of revivals,
of the gospel ministry, and of Christian missions!
And if all our educated men who have any thing to
do with common schools, were men who reverence the
Bible, and love and obey its sacred truths, how much
could they do, directly or indirectly, to leaven with the
same holy sentiments the entire rising generation I It
is in the colleges, after all, that the common school
question, with all its momentous bearings on the
church and the State, is to be mainly decided. Let
then those who love the church and the State,-let
those who seek the good of the rising generation, pray
that all the young men in our colleges may be imbued
with the truth of God and the love of Christ, and
what the church cannot do directly (owing to the popular jealousy of sectarianism, and of the union of church
and State), these young men will do for her; they will
leaven every department of public and private education, not with the creeds and formularies of a sect,
but with the vital spirit of a common Protestant Christianity.
It was in just this way that those world-renowned
educators and conquerors, the Jesuits, recovered the
larger part of Europe to the papacy, when it seemed lost




A PREMIUM  ESSAY.                79
for ever. They seized upon the higher departments
of education, both private and public, and from  these
fountains, whether in universities or courts, or the
families of the great, their influence flowed naturally
and necessarily down through the inferior schools and
the lower classes, till at length it pervaded all the
channels of thought and feeling and action. At some
periods of their history, the Jesuits have had under
their control nearly six hundred colleges, scattered
from China to the British Isles, through almost every
nation on the globe.  This most energetic and effective,-this almost omnipresent and all-powerful order,
has ever been, not so much a preaching or a priestly,
as a tcacling order; an order of professors and governors, and scholars and teachers, who have made it their
business to educate the leading minds, and through
them  to  guide and govern  communities and  nations. Austria herself was at one time essentially
Protestant.  "Not one in thirty of the population
adhered to papacy, and, for nearly a generation,
scarcely a man was found to enter the Romish priesthood."  But the Jesuits went forth; they marched
directly to the fountains; " they obtained a controlling
influence in the universities, and in a single generation
Austria was lost to the Reformation, and regained to
the papal hierarchy.":
Very similar is the history of the Reformation in
Poland.  In the sixteenth century, the Polish Diet
was a Protestant body, and exerted its influence for
e Ranke's I-istory of the Popes, as cited by Prof. Sturtevant be.
fore the West. Coil. Soc.




80            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
the protection of persecuted Protestants in other countries. Luther's works were printed at Cracow; and
in other cities of Poland, presses in great numbers
were employed in printing Protestant books, which
could not be printed elsewhere. But in an evil hour,
a Protestant king, chosen by a Protestant Diet, appointed a Jesuit minister of public instruction. He
filled the professors' chairs in the universities and
higher seminaries with the members of his own order.
The scale was soon turned, and the doctrines of the
Reformation never again recovered the ascendency.
"Fas est et ab hoste doceri."  We may well learn
a lesson of worldly wisdom from  these consummate
masters. And the lesson which their history teaches
is this: educate the leading minds, and the rest will
be sure to follow in their train; get possession of the
colleges, and you can control popular education and
public opinion as you will. It is these same Jesuits,
armed with the same policy, with whom the Protestant
Christians of America have to contend for the mastery
of the New World. And the only way to conquer
them is to meet them with their own weapons, to anticipate and surpass them in their own mode of warfare; to seize upon the prominent points, and establish
the higher seminaries, and educate the controlling
spirits of the community. Allow them to secure the
colleges, male and female, and form the leading minds
of a single generation, and they will not only appropriate the public-school fund to the support of their
own schools, and gather into them the children of Protestant families, but they will gradually insinuate their




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               81
teachers into Protestant sehools and Protestant families; and then the victory will be theirs. And when
the Jesuits conquer and govern America, it will be
America no longer.  With the truth, she will have
lost her liberty and her glory for ever.
40Q




OHAPTER VI.
Colleges and the Literature of the Country, or the Power ot the Pen and the PressContributions of the Officers to Lite5rature and Science-The Edwardses, Davies,
Dwight, &c.-Libraries and Lecture-room~ the homes of Men of Letters-The
Minds of Students fruitful in new and grand Ideas-Bacon, Milton-Theological
Literature of the Puritans the Fruit of Classical Scholarship-Bates, Howe, Owen,
Cudworth-English Science and Philosophy-Newton-British Poets and Essayists-French Literature and Port Royal-The Press divides with the Pulpit tho
Power over the Public Mind —Educated Men alone can give this Power a right Direction-Oxford Tracts-Infidel Literature-Temperance, Liberty and Humanity.
THE obligations -of literature and science to our colleges  are  too  obvious  to  require  extended  remark.
Literature  and  science  are, so  to  speak, at once the
labor and the wages, the seed and the harvest, the
capital stock and the dividend, of these institutions.
The  officers, while  they teach  others, must study
themselves.   And  not content with  the  attainments
and discoveries of their predecessors, they are ambitious
to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge. Not
confining their view to their immediate pupils, they
labor for the diffusion of learning through the community. The libraries and the lecture-rooms of the professors are so many centres of attraction,which draw in men
of leisure and taste, who make the college their home,
and literature their profession. To specify the contributions that have been made by the presidents and
fellows, the professors and resident graduates in the
colleges and universities of Europe, or even of America,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              83
during the present and the previous century, were to
enumerate no small portion of the books that have
appeared, especially in the more profound and useful
branches —were to write in no small measure the history of these branches during this period.
The students, too, do not all converse with learned
men, and breathe the atmosphere of libraries and
books four years, to no purpose. The natural excitability of youth, the fermentation produced by bringing
together so many youthful minds, the high excitement
resulting in these minds from the rapid influx of new
and grand ideas,-all conspire to render the soil and
the very atmosphere of a college quickening and prolific,
far beyond the knowledge or the conceptioneof those
who are not acquainted with the facts. Not a few of
those great works which have revolutionized the opinions, and changed the history of mankind, have been
projected by university students.  During the four
years which Lord Bacon spent in the university of
Cambridge, he had already formed a distinct idea of
the defects of the Aristotelian system of philosophy,
and conceived the outline of that gigantic plan for
" the Instauration of the Sciences," which has rendered
his name immortal, and converted philosophy from a
barren wilderness into a fruitful field. Such novel and
noble ideas, Mr. Hallam observes, "are most congenial to the sanguine spirit of youth, and to its ignorance of the extent of labor it undertakes;" and the
university furnishes just the stimulus and just the nutrimient that are needed to excite and sustain the
youthful energies in such undertakings.




84           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
Milton remained in the university for only a part
of the regular course, and left it without much partiality for its methods of study and discipline. Yet he
forged in the university the very arms which he turned
against it; and there, in a thoroughly disciplined
mind, and highly cultivated taste, as well as abundant
classical learning, he laid the foundation of his great
works. The " Paradise Lost" is hung all over with
the trophies of classical scholarship, and affords a
splendid illustration of the use which original genius
and puritanical piety can make of a complete academic
education. The theological literature of the Puritans
generally, and, indeed, all the theological literature of
that ag —the age of Hooker and Barrow and Taylor,
of Bates and Howe, and Owen and Cudworth,-was
the product of minds thoroughly trained in the universities, and furnishes a bright example of the value
of classical scholarship, sanctified and consecrated to
the service of religion. The theological writers of our
own country, who have so honored the country in the
eyes of the world, have been men who learned in college to unite the study of human learning with the
wisdom which cometh down from above. Chauncey,
Mather, the two Edwardses, Dwight, Davies, Witherspoon, Appleton, and others, whom we might name,
were not only alumni, but presidents of American colleges.
The fathers of English science and philosophy,
from Bacon and Newton and Locke, to Stewart and
Whewell and Buckland; from the Novum Organum
and the Principia to the Bridgewater Treatises, and




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                85
the History of the Inductive Sciences,-have spent
years, and many of them lived and died, at the universities. "Newton was nurtured in academic discipline,
a fellow in Trinity College, Cambridge, and a professor
of mathematics. He passed fifteen years of his life in
the cloisters of a college, and solved the problem of
the universe from a turret over Trinity gateway.":
The British essayists, and even the novelists, for
the most part, and still more generally the poets of
Great Britain, wandered in their youth on the banks
of the Cam and the Isis, and ever after drew water
from those classic streams. Not to indulge in further
specifications, the greater part, and by far the better
part, of English, including American literature, has
been the fruit directly or indirectly of college labors
and studies, of tastes, habits and acquirements formed
in the university. Some of the finest verses of Racine
were meditated while, a boy at school, he wandered in
the woods of Port Royal.  The Letters and the
Thoughts of Pascal, pregnant with human genius and
divine wisdom, were composed in the same sacred
retreat.
Now and then a Shakspeare has arisen with such
transcendent genius as to supersede the necessity of
the ordinary training; who has acquired the needful
discipline and resources by observation and reflection,
and sent out his plays to the world boasting that he
"never blotted a line." But his best friend, and most
ardent admirer, has been constrained to respond:
* Mr. Everett on behalf of the Colleges of Massachusetts.




86            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
"Would God, he had blotted a thousand."  Some of
the most impure and lawless effusions of the poetic
and romantic muse' have proceeded from men who, like
Byron and Shelley, could not brook the restraints of
college law, or had no relish for the pursuits of college
life, and were even expelled from the university. A
still lower and baser class of books, the yellow-covered
literature of the day, savors rather of the bar-room,
the brothel and the prison, than the university. The
schools are all guiltless of their sins. Their authors
never saw the inside of a college.
The question, who shall furnish the country with
reading, with books and pamphlets, and magazines,
with quarterlies and monthlies, and weeklies and dailies, is a question of incalculable moment. It is almost equivalent to the question, what shall be the
prevailing thoughts and sentiments, character and
spirit of the people. In an age and country like ours,
where every body reads, able and eloquent writers form
almost the atmosphere in which the whole community
live and move and have their being. The pulpit was
once the throne whence the people derived, ex cathedra, their doctrines and duties. The press is now the
oracle of multitudes who seldom or never hear the
preacher's voice, and it divides the sovereignty with
the pulpit over the minds of church-goers and Christians.  Hoe's rotary press will now  throw  off an
amount of work in an hour which a week could not accomplish with the common hand-press. While the mechanical efficiency of the press has thus been magnified
a hundredfold, its moral power has been increasing in the




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               87
same astonishing ratio. Now the question, who shall
wield this mighty moral engine (a question which is to
decide in a great measure the character and destiny
of the present and coming generations for time and
eternity), is itself to be decided, to a great extent, in
the colleges.
Say what you will of a growing distance between
colleges and the public mind; admit all that can be
said of the increasing influence of a new class of popular writers, who have never seen the inside of a college,
and who have got their education in the streets and
market-places of the city, if not even in worse places
than these; concede all on this point that the truth will
justify, still the educated men of the country, if sufficiently numerous, and able, and well educated, can,
and will, control the literature of the country. At all
events, if they cannot control it, and, with the blessing
of God, give it a right direction, no human power can.
We are shut up to this resource. This is our only
hope. If we would preserve or cherish a literature
truthful, earnest and pure, that shall bless the present
generation, and honor the country in the eyes of the
world in future ages, we must make pure, and keep
pure, the colleges, as the only fountains from which
such a literature can flow.
Let the colleges of-our land be given up to the sole
inspiration of pagan muses, and a corrupting and degrading heathen literature will dishonor and defile the
land. Let Jesuitism and Popery, open or disguised,
establish their reign in the universities, and the Oxford
Tracts, with their effete superstitions and defunct




88            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
ceremonials and Jesuitical ethics, will overspread the
country, like the flies and the locusts of Egypt.
Again, let skepticism, whether in the guise of soaring
transcendentalism, or in the form of grovelling infidelity, seat itself in the professors' chairs, and a darkness, that can be felt, damp, chilly and penetrating,
will settle down upon us, or a plague, loathsome as
that of the frogs, will come into our houses and to our
very hearths. If the moral atmosphere of the college
be pure, and the standard of piety high,-if truth and
temperance, justice, liberty and humanity be the
reigning ideas of the institution, the young men who
go forth from it will, for the most part, range themselves on the right side in the great conflict of principles that is now going on, and their pens will fight
battles and win triumphs more glorious than were ever
won by the sword. If, on the other hand, error and
intemperance, injustice and oppression, be suffered to
reign and riot in these halls of learning, the same
spirits of darkness will fly abroad over the community,
armed with the pen and the press, making havoc with
the bodies and the souls of men, and revelling in the
sighs and tears, and blood of oppressed humanity.




CHAlSPTER VII.
Colleges in their relation to the Business of Life and the Affairs of State-The intrinsic Value of Educated Men-Knowledge  is Power-Intelligence and. Virtue the
Wealth of the Community-Speculative and Scientific Men the Creators of Material Wealth-Authors of Useful Inventions and Discoveries-Chemistry and Agriculture and Manufactures-Science and the Steamship, tile Rail-car and the Magnetic Telegraph-Bacon, Newton and Locke-Watt and Fulton-Professor Morse
— No Progress without Science-Science saves Time and misdirected Effort-Most
useful in an enterprising Age-Sociology the study of our Age-Our Country's
Mission to perfect and apply the Science-English Statesmen trained in the Universities-The Founders of our REepublic, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, JeffersonEarly Magistrates of New England Graduates of Harvard, Yale, Nassau Hall and
Columbia Colleges-University Students Revolutionary in Despotisms, and Conservative in England and America-Influence of Colleges at once Conservative
and Progressive, Classical and Christian-Friendly to the Union, but hostile to
perpetual Annexation, Manifest Destiny, &c.-These Popular Heresies can be corrected only by thBa.lessing of God on our Colleges.
WHAT have colleges to do with politics and the business of life? What possible connection is there between the brown studies of the cloister and the noise
and stir of the work-a-day world, which is the abode
of ordinary men, women and children?  Is there not
a natural and necessary antagonism between the speculative theories of the scholar and the practical denlands of business, which has passed into a proverb,
and rendered the very names of scholar and scholastic
a by-word-a synonym  with the grossest ignorance
and incapacity in the common affairs of every-day life?
In one word, of what use are colleges in an age and
country so practical and enterprising as ours?




90           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
We might ask, if literature and science have no
intrinsic value,-if wisdom and goodness are not of
themselves useful, —if the very presence of educated
men is not a blessing to the community,-if they do
not, by their example and influence, promote intelligence, good order and good morals, —and if these are
not the true wealth and power of any people? If
knowledge is power, and virtue is wealth, then are
not educated Christian men among the most productive classes in society?
But we will not insist on this view. We choose
rather to meet the question, just as it is asked, with
reference to mere material wealth, and the lowest
practical utility. Is there, then, a natural antagonism between theory and practice? between science
and art? between study and action? between the
past and the future? Is not theory rather the mother
of practical wisdom, and science the fountain of improvenlent in the arts? and study the very basis of
the most effective action? and the past the nursery and
school, —nay, the parent and teacher of the future?
The men who, in every age, have been on the largest
scale practical and useful men, —those who have been
the creators of material wealth and prosperity,-have
been men of science and speculation. They may not
have been understood or appreciated in their own day,
b}t after ages have looked back to them as the men
whose discoveries and inventions have revolutionized
business, politics, society, and the whole history of
mankind. Alchemy, in tile middle ages, gave birth to
chemistry; and chemistry is now the teacher of agri



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               91
culture and manufactures.  Science was born in the
cloister, and nursed in the laboratory and cabinet;
but now she drives the steamship and rail-car, and
carries the news from one extremity of the land to the
other with the speed of the lightning. Now she is
the counsellor of kings and commanders, the prime
minister of princely merchants, the guiding agent,
and yet the obedient servant of manufacturers; the
fairy-like favorite of those most independent of all
lords, —the lords of the soil; and the presiding genius
in every department of business.
Who have ever contributed more largely to the
means and materials of human prosperity and progress
than those sons of the English universities, Bacon,
Newton, and Locke? Watt and Fulton, though not
themselves men of academical education, associated
familiarly with such men, and derived from them the
principles of science which they applied in the development of the steam-engine and steam navigation.
Professor Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph,
was not only a college graduate and professor, but
made his great experiments within the walls of a university. The farmer, who would know how to multiply his crops without increasing the number of his
acres, has only to inquire of Professor Liebig in his
laboratory; and the navigator, who would double the
number of his voyages in a given time, and so double
his profits, without adding to his expenses, need but
consult Lieutenant Maury in his study.
Two centuries ago, there might have been some
plausibility in the charge, that science was unpractical
5




92            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and unfruitful; though even then she was the author,of all the progress that was made; even then she was
slowly elaborating those elements and processes which
are now most fruitful in practical results. But in this
nineteenth century, when every department of life is
teeming with the fruits of science in its infinitely
various applications, such a complaint is preposterous.
It is, however, no uncommon thing for men to forget
their benefactors in the very enjoyment of their benefactions; to feel quite independent of the fountain,
because of the very richness and copiousness of the
draughts which they drink from the stream. Thus
infidelity "abstracts the coin of heaven,"-the truths
of revelation, "and stamps them with the image and
superscription of reason." And thus, too, the excessive utilitarianism of our age denies her obligations to
literary and scientific institutions, while, at the same
time, she is rioting in the wealth and luxury which
literature and science are pouring into her lap. Let
the fountain be dried up, and they would soon, though
too late, discover and deplore their error.  Cut off
business from science, and there is an end of progress;
and where progress ends, a retrograde movement almost
certainly begins. Separate the future from the past,
and it settles down into a tame, dull, stationary present; nay, it soon sinks back into a dark, cold, dead
and dismal past, in which there is no life, and from
which there is no resurrection.  The men who are
most thoroughly masters of all past attainments, are,
of all men, the best prepared, and the most likely,
with equal original genius, to strike out new and use



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               93
ful inventions. And the men of the greatest original
and inventive genius, of all men, most need the wisdom
of past ages, and the knowledge of the present, to guard
them against a useless waste of their powers. What
an untold amount of time and money, of ingenuity
and effort, have such men wasted on perpetual motion,
" squaring the circle," and the like insoluble problems,
the impossibility of which every college student knows
to a demonstration?  Who can calculate the contributions which they would have added to the sum total
of the means of human progress and happiness, if their
genius had been guided by sound science; for such
men, of all others, are most capable of turning all
knowledge to a good practical account. An inventive,
enterprising, progressive age and nation, of all others,
most requires, and can profit most, by the knowledge
of antiquity, and the discipline of classical studies. A
utilitarian age and nation should be the last to discard
or undervalue colleges, since they furnish at once the
antidote to excessive utilitarianism, and the guide to
true utility. They are at once the repositories of ancient wisdom, and the laboratories of modern science.
The votaries of either must go on pilgrimage to the
same shrine; and if in the pursuit of the one, they
become enamored of the other also, and go away with
a more impartial and liberal culture than they sought,
the result will be happy for themselves and for the
country.
What we have said of business, applies with double
emphasis to politics, or the art of government. Government, or politics, or, to use a still more generic




94           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
term, sociology, is just beginning to assume the form
of a science second in difficulty, dignity and importance, only to that of theology. A wide observation
of facts, and a profound study of principles alone, can
bring it to perfection; these alone can prevent it from
being perverted into a crude mass of speculative notions and popular caprices, which, undergoing the
process of fermentation and spontaneous combustion,
may wrap the world in the flames of a vast political
and social conflagration, or, enveloping the nations in
poisonous gases and mephitic vapors, may involve them
in a slower, but not less dreadful destruction. History
and philosophy are the natural and necessary handmaids of this new science; the torch-bearers of her
progress, to shed on her adventurous and difficult path
all the light they can gather from ransacking the ages
and nations that are past, on the one hand, and, on
the other, all that they can bring up from the deep recesses of human nature. Men of extensive knowledge
and deep thought are needful to develope and mature
the science. And then men of thoroughly disciplined
minds and comprehensive views, and well-balanced
character, are needed to apply the science to the actual
perfecting of society and government. This is the
great work of our age, and it is especially the mission,
-the political mission, of our country.
The political philosophers and practical statesmen
of such an age and such a country, cannot dispense
with the experience of the past, and the wisdom of
antiquity. Still less can they dispense with the personal discipline and mental balance, the moderation




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              95
and self-control, which are usually the result only of a
thorough education. England has set a noble exam
ple in this regard. The eminent statesmen who have
guided her safely through the many terrible storms of
her long voyage, and brought her so near to the haven
of a well-regulated liberty, imbibed the spirit of freedom and moderation from the study of the ancient republics in the universities. The ablest of these statesmen were, in their youth, the foremost scholars in the
universities.  " Take the Cambridge calendar," says
Macaulay, in one of his speeches in Parliament,-" take
the Cambridge calendar, or take the Oxford calendar,
for two hundred years; look at the church, the parliament, or the bar, and it has always been the case
that the men who were first in the competition of the
schools, have been the first in the competition of life."
The founders of our own republic, too, astonished
the world by their boldness, and yet by their wisdom,
because, though born and bred in this Western wilderness, they evinced in their writings so perfect an
acquaintance with the political history and philosophy
of ancient times. The Federalist, and the State papers of that day generally, are models in their kind,
and present a standing illustration of the use which
republican statesmen can make of the experience of
ancient nations, even while they take the longest strides
in improving the frame of civil government.  The
writers of the Federalist, who also bore a prominent
part in framing the Constitution of the United States
-Hamilton, Madison and Jay-were alumni of Columbia College, and the College of New Jersey.  The
5




96           PRAYER FOR OOLLEGES.
author of the Declaration of Independence was a
member of Hampden Sydney College, and its advocate
on the floor of Congress was a graduate of Harvard
University. The multitudes from this and other lands
who go on pilgrimage to the tomb at Monticello, read
there the inscription: " Thomas Jefferson, Author of
the Declaration of Independence, and Founder of the
University of Virginia." The inscription was penned
by himself, and placed there by his own direction.
He knew that knowledge is the handmaid of Liberty,
and he wished to be remembered not only among the
fathers of republics, but among the founders of universities.
The Pilgrim Fathers of New England deemed an
educated magistracy next to, and in connection with,
an educated ministry, of indispensable necessity to the
well-being of the church and the state; and it was
with this twofold view, that they established Harvard
University at the very commencement of their colonial
history, building it on the borders of that unbroken
wilderness which still covered the New World. In
the early history of the colonies, the magistrates and
ministers were, for the most part, ripe scholars from
the English universities, especially Cambridge, and
they could not feel that their social and political organization was complete, till New England also had its
university at Cambridge.
The civil and political history of New England and
the Middle States for half a century before and after
the Revolution, may almost be read in the large capitals which distinguish the governors and judges, the




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                97
senators and representatives in Congress, on the catalogues of Harvard, Yale, Nassau Hall and Columbia
Colleges.  Let those who doubt the practical utility
of colleges, or the political capacity of college-educated
men, examine these catalogues. We should like to
put those demagogues, who would fain create a prejudice against colleges in the public mind, to the study
of those triennials (if, indeed, they are capable of mastering the easy Latin in which they are composed).
Few books would teach them  sounder doctrines; few
furnish them  brighter examples.  Yale College has
educated four of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, three members of the Convention for
frnaminog the Constitution of the United States, one
Vice-President, four 4udges of the Supreme Court of
the United States, seven members of the Cabinet,
thirty-nine United States Senators, one hundred and
thirty-nine Representatives in Congress, four Foreign
Ministers, twenty-two Governors, eighteen LieutenantGovernors, and eighty Judges of the Supreme Court
in different States; thirteen Presidents of Medical Societies, thirty-six Presidents of Colleges, and one hundred and five Professors.  The College of New Jersey
has furnished one President, two Vice-Presidenth four
Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States,
fifteen Judges of Supreme Courts in the several States.
twenty Governors of States, six members of the Cabinet at Washington, and one hundred and twenty
members of Congress. Harvard College has graduated
two Presidents of the United States, one Vice-President, and Governors, Lieutenant-Governorts, Secreta5




98             PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
ries, &c., &c., too numerous to  mention.  Of the
thirty-five thousand graduates" that have been sent
out from American Colleges, nearly two hundred have
been Governors, more than five hundred Representatives in Congress, one hundred and thirty Senators of
the United States, and nearly four hundred Judges of
Supreme Courts.
Self-taught men have filled at times the highest
places in our national and State governments; and
this fact marks at once the strict equality and the
elevating tendency of our political system. But the
men who have given shape and character to our institutions have been, to a very great extent, men of
liberal education.   Classical studies are peculiarly
fitted to fbrm  republican statesmen.  They exert at
once a stimulating and a moderating, an emancipating
and a conservative influence.  Hence the remarkable,
and, at first view, apparently inexplicable fact, that on
the European continent the members of the universities are generally revolutionary and republican in their
tendencies,t while in England and America, where a
large measure of freedom already exists, they are usually conservative,-very seldom  radical in their politics. Classical literature, and, indeed, the living and
breathing literature of the world,-the literature which
men will not let die, — is all saturated with the spirit
of liberty.  It is, in no small measure, the undying
* This calculation was made in 1846. The number has of course
greatly increased since, but the proportion remains about the same.
f See, for example, Flagg's Venice, on the part which the profetssors and students of the universities took in the Revolutions of 1848.




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                99
voice of the heroes and martyrs of freedom and humanity, sounding along down the ages of the past, and
pouring its swelling and stirring notes into the ear of
the present. But while this voice stirs the souls of
youthful statesmen to their lowest depths, it also warns
and awes, softens and subdues them. While it invites and commands them to strike for liberty and humanity,-strike at all wrong and oppression, and abuse
of power, it also bids them. beware of violence and excess as the bane of free States.
With this exciting, and, at the same time, restraining influence of the ancient classics, the divine
te.achings of the Bible harmonize, building the just
and equal rights of all mankind upon the firm foundation of the immutable law of God, and making them
free indeed, with the largest liberty, yet forbidding
them by the most sacred sanctions to use their liberty
as a cloak of licentiousness.  If all the youth, who are
to be the rulers and guides of our country in the next
generation, could but be brought under such an influence,
democratic, yet obedient to law, progressive, yet conservative, classical, and at the same time Christian,
then might we live and die in the confident assurance
that our liberties would be safe, our institutions perpetual.  The mere bringing together of so many of
the future statesmen and lawgivers of our country
from diffeient sections, and educating them together,
tends to perpetuate the Union.  Statesmen who have
been educated, and educated together in the same institutions and the same classes, will be slow to rend
asunder a Union, which is cemented by so many social




100           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
ties and sacred recollections, as well as so many
bonds of common interest.  Christian scholars are not
likely to be the men who will pamper the national
pride and ambition on the gross and fatal, though
popular fallacies, of military glory, " manifest destiny,"
and " our country right or wrong," till the moral sense
of the people is blinded, and their unbounded appetite.can be sated only by universal annexation.  If this
national appetite, which grows with what it feeds
upon, is ever to be restrained,-if these dangerous political heresies are ever to be corrected,-it must be
done at those fountains of public instruction, where
our youthful politicians imbibe the political and moral
sentiments that govern their lives, and shape the destinies of the country; and that, as we believe, in answer to the prayers of those who love at once their
country and their God.  And if we ever despair of
the republic, it is only when, and because, we see how
little prayer is offered, and with how little reliance on
its efficacy, even by Christian patriots, for those who
are, and those who are soon to be, the rulers of this
great nation.




CHAPTER VIII.
Colleges and the Churches-Remark of Dr. Dwight-Himself a Demonstration of its
Truth-Schools and Colleges owe their Origin to the Church-Christianity
friendly to Learning-Paul a distinguished Scholar-Theological Schools at Jerusalem, Alexandria, &c.-Religious Origin of European Universities-Oxford, Cambridge, &c.-Of American Colleges, Harvard, Yale, &c.-Infidelity and State Policy
unsuccessful in their attempts to build Colleges-Universities of Virginia and
South Carolina-Girard College-Wonderful success of the Voluntary Principle
and the Christian Spirit in such Enterprises-What Colleges have done in return
for the Church-Indirectly through Christian Schools-A Christian Press-Christian Rulers and Professional Men-Directly in an Educated Ministry-Proportion
of Ministers to whole Number of Graduates in different Colleges at different
times-The Reformation sprung from the Universities-Methodism-Missions —.
Revivals-The Oxford Heresy-The Unitarian Defection-The Fountain and the
Stream.
DR. DWIGHT is said to have remarked to a clerical
friend, that the man who would show to common minds
the connection between colleges  and  the interests of the
church, would be a benefactor to  his species.   It were
sufficient to point to Dr. Dwight himself in proof of
this connection. Behold in himse~f, we might well respond, the very demonstration which he asked. Behold  it  in  his own life and writings, which present so
fine a model of the Christian scholar and theological
writer, popularizing and vitalizing theology, corroborating revelation by the light of nature and human reason, illustrating the truth of God by the literature and
science, and history of men; and thus commanding
for it the assent and obedience of the loftiest intellects,




102           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
while, at the same time, he commended it to the understanding and affections of the humblest minds 7
Behold it in his commanding personal and official influence over his pupils, whereby he convinced the
skeptical, and reclaimed the vicious, and quickened
the dull, and elevated the grovelling; whereby he
transformed the creed and the conduct, the morals
and the religion, of Yale College, making it a school
of Christ instead of a school of infildelity,-and wherein,
though dead, he yet liveth, and speaketh with mighty
power to the children and the children's children of
those who enjoyed his instructions. If one president
of one college could accomplish so much for " the interests of the church," what might nqt be done by all
the officers of all the colleges of America, if they were
clothed with his spirit and power!
But let us look a little more extensively into the
origin and history of colleges, that we may see what
has actually been their relation to the interests of the
"church.
Schools and colleges, wherever they exist, almost
without exception, owe their origin to the church.
Christianity is, in its very nature, friendly to learning.
It is a religion not of forms and of ceremonies, but of
the mind and heart. It saves mlen, not by outward
means and appliances, but by the inward workings of
the truth and the Spirit of God in their souls.
Knowledge is, therefore, essential to holiness and salvation. Its ministry is a teaching and preaching ministry, not a mere officiating and manipulating priesthood.  Its sacred books contain not only the most




A PREMIUM EssAY.                103
stirringc truths, and the most commandingc motives;
but the cihoicest specimens of history, poetry and phiIs),-p,)hy, the world has ever seen; and those, too,
originally communicated in a foreign language, and
for this reason, as well as many others, requiring prolonged study and extensive knowledge, in order to their
full understanding and appreciation. Christianity produces an inquiring, observing, thinking and intelligent
laity.  It demands a reading, studying, reflecting and
learned ministry.
The first ministers of the gospel were taught immediately by Christ, and were, moreover, constantly
under the especial divine teaching of the Holy Spirit.
They, therefore, stood in little need of human learning.
Yet one of the apostles, and one who exceeded all the
others in his labors and usefulness, was taught in the
best Jewish and Gentile schools of Jerusalem  and
Tarsus.  And no sooner were the miraculous gifts,
which signalized the first establishment of Christianity,
withdrawn, than the churches began to found colleges
and theological schools at Jerusalem  and Alexandria,
and the other principal cities, for the especial purpose
of raising up a pious and learned ministry, who should
be able not only to preach the truth to its friends, but
also to defend it fiom  the assaults of its adversaries.
And though, duringr the middle ages, learning every
wcerec sufferied a disastrous eclipse, yet, what light there
las, shone firomr the schools in the monasteries, which
were established by such enlightened and pious princes
as Charlemagne and Alfred, chiefly for the elevation
of the clergy, and which gradually grew up into uni



104            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
versities. As this eclipse passed off slowly, and universities began to appear in Italy, in France, in Englandcl they were established and fostered by the church,
and chiefly for the better education of the clergy.
Oxford and Cambridge were founded, and in the course
of time enriched with princely endowments for this express purpose. Zeal for religion conspired with love
of learning, and college after college was added to
those ancient and venerable universities, chiefly for the
charitable education of intelligent young men for the
service of the church.
The "necessity for a well-educated ministry of the
gospel has never been so generally and powerfully felt
any where else as in our own country;, and this feeling
has been the leading motive in the establishment of
by far the larger part of American colleges.  " Dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches,
when our ministers shall lie in the dust "-such is the
lanuagte in which the founders of Harvard College
describe their own motives in that far-seeing and selfdenying enterprise, which they undertook just as soon
as they hadl provided comfortable houses for themselves, and selected convenient places for the worship
of God.  And sixty years later, Cotton Mather says:
"' Ou  fathers saw that without a college to train an
able and learned ministry, the church in New England
nijst have been less than a business of an agte, -Ilmust
soon have coi-me to nothing." " Pro Christo et Ecclesia'
-Jobr Christ and thle Church-is to this day the motto
of Harvard College, though sadly fallen, alas! from the
truth as it is in Jestus.




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              105
Yale College, as we have already mentioned, was
founded by ministers. It was also founded chiefly for
the education of ministers for the colony of Connecticut. It originated, as they tell us, in their sincere regard and zeal for upholding the Protestant religion by
a succession of learned and orthodox men.
" Princeton College was fowuded by the Synod of
New York for the purpose of supplying the church
with learned and able preachers of the Word."  And
its paramount religious design and spirit are well expressed in the language of President Witherspoon:
"Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the
cross of Christ; cursed be all that learning that is not
coincident with the cross of Christ; cursed be all that
learning that is not subservient to the cross of Christ."' Dartmouth College was originated in the warmest spirit, and established in the most elevated principles of Christian piety."
Amherst College grew  out of a charity school,
which was established for the education of indigent
young men for the ministerial and the missionary
work. It was born of the prayers, and baptized with
the tears, of holy men; and, as in the early history of
Harvard, the colonists contributed of their deep poverty,
" one bringing a piece of cotton stuff, valued at nine
shillings; another, a pewter pot of the same value;
a third, a fiuit-dish, a spoon, and a large and small
salt-cellar;" so, in the founding of Amherst College.
the friends of learning and religion in the vicinity
brought in the materials, and built up the walls with
their own hands- while those at a distance gave in




106          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
money, or the fruit of their labors, whatever they could
spare, which might conduce to the endowment of the
institution, and the maintenance of its officers and
students.  Such self-denials and sacrifices, as were
made by the founders of these, and, indeed, most of
our colleges, could have proceeded only from religious
motives,-only from kearts overflowing with love to
Christ and his church. Amherst College was one of
the earliest institutions that grew up under the'influence of the foreign missionary enterprise, and the new
impulse which was thus given to all benevolent efforts;
and it is, in its character and history a type of a new class
of colleges which have sprung up, particularly in the
new States, and which may be called emphatically,
both as regards their origin and influence, Missionary
Colleges.
" Western Reserve College was founded by domestic missionaries, and designed to furnish pastors for the
infant churches on the Reserve. Illinois College originated in the union of two independent movements;
the one emanating fioun Homle Missionary operations in
Illinois, the other from a Society of Inquiry respecting
Miissions at Yale College. The site of Wabash College
was dedicated to God in prayer by its founders kneeling upon the snow in the primeval forest. Marietta
College was founded mainly to meet demands for competent teachers and ministers of the gospel."
In fact, nearly all of those institutions which have
lived and prospered, and exerted a decided influence,
even in our literary and political history, were established by evangelical Christians; and have been




A PREMIUM  ESSAY.               107
taught, for the most part, by evangelical ministers,
with a direct and special reference to supplying these'churches, and the country and the -world, with a learned
and pious evangelical ministry. Institution.s established by worldly men, for mere worldly objects, have
not prospered. Infidelity or irreligion, or no religion,
may have founded them, but it could not sustain
them; and it has been found necessary to transfer
them to the hands of religious guardians and teachers,
in order to save them from utter extinction. They
have been planned by the wisdom of political sages,
and fostered by the wealth and power of the State,
but they could not be well managed and governed
without the sanctions of religion.  They kavQ not won
the confidence of parents and guardians, for even irreligious parents do not generally want their children
educated in infidelity or impiety; and Christianity,
though hated in itself, has been welcomed as a necessary means; though excluded by statutes and constitutions, it has, sooner or later, been admitted to a
practical and controlling influence. The history of the
University of Virginia, the University of South Carolina, Transylvania University, Dickinson College, Girard College, and, to some extent, Harvard College,
had we time to give it, would furnish a satisfactory
demonstration of these statements.  Baptists and Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians,:-all
* Much the larger number by these last-named denominations.
Of the 120 colleges in the United States, 13 are Baptist, 13 Methodist
and Episcopalian, and the rest, for the most part, under Congregational and Presbyterian influence.




108           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
the evangelical Protestant sects, have their prosperous
literary institutions in almost every State of the
Union; but infidelity has yet to make its first successful enterprise of this sort; and State policy, State
patronage, exclusive of religious influence, cannot show
a single flourishing college from the Atlantic and tle
Great Lakes to the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.
These are remarkable facts, especially when considered in connection with the voluntary system, and
the entire civil and religious liberty of the American
people. A wealthy and powerful establishment,-a
church wedded to the State, and enriched by State
patronage through successive centuries, we might well
suppose, could secure such results. A rich and lordly
hierarchy, lording it over the consciences and the
estates of the whole people, we should think, might build
religious colleges by scores in every part of the country,
or might subsidize existing literary institutions, and
make them subservient to their views of religion. But
that the free voluntary movements of so many different
denominations of Christians should have reared a hundred and twenty colleges in different parts of these
United States,-many of them in the very infancy of
the States, or Provinces, and all within little more
than two hundred years after the first settlement of
the country; and furnished them with such a succession of learned and pious teachers, and brought
them so completely under the controlling influence of
a practical Christianity,-this is truly remarkable.
It shows that Christianity, with all its divisions and
corruptions, still possesses a vital energy, and is still




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              109
guided and guarded by Him who has all wisdom and
all power. It shows that the church is still self-denying in her spirit, and far-reaching in her plans; for
nothing but self-denying charity, and far-reaching sagacity, will plant colleges in a new country, when
there is a present demand for the necessaries of life,
rather than for high mental culture. It shows that
there is a natural and mutual affinity between religion
and learning; that each alternately seeks the alliance
and support of the other, while both are left to the
freest action and development.  It shows that the
American people are imbued with a deep, practical
conviction that the college was in its origin, and is in
its nature, a religious institution; and must be so,
if it would realize its proper literary and political
ends.  Above all, it proves, as we cannot but believe, and would acknowledge with devout gratitude,
that the providence of God has watched over our beloved country in all its history, and guarded it against
the dangers to which a youthful and free people are
most exposed, as if he intended, in spite of adverse
agencies, to preserve this goodly land as a heritage for
himself.
The college, then, is the daughter of the church,
cherished by her with all a mother's love and care, and
self-denial. Has the daughter done any thing in return for the mother?  Surely she were an unnatural
child if she has made no return of filial love and service to her, to whom she owes all that she has, and all
that she is, even to her very existence.
Is it nothing to the church that the system of




110           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
popular education, the preparation of text-books, the
examination and direction of teachers, and, to so great
an extent, the education of the teachers themselves, is
in the hands of men who have been trained by Christian scholars in Christian colleges? Is it a small
thing for the church, that colleges established by herself, and conducted by her ablest and best men, give
tone, in so great a measure, to the literature of the
country, and control the reading of the people, not
only in books of history and philosophy, and poetry
and belles-lettres, but in those magazines and newspapers, which now occupy more and more the pens of
our most thoughtfill, learned and elegant writers?
Is it of little or no consequence to the church that
men educated at Christian colleges have, to so great
an extent, filled the office of presidents, and governors,
and judges, and other civil magistrates in our country,
and are also extending their influence every day more
widely among the people through the popularization
of learning, and those countless applications of science
to common life, which are pouring wealth into the
bosom  of the church for her enterprises of benevolence?  Is it nothing to the church, that so many of
our lawyers and physicians, and other men of influence
in the community, have been taught in college to recognize the divine origin of Christianity, to respect the
institutions of religion, and to carry more or lessy of
Christian principles and a Christian spirit with t]heni
into the higher walks of life?
These are somle of the indirect contributions of colleges to the church.  Now let us look at somle more




A PREMIU3I ESSAY.              11l
direct returns of revenue which she has received from
her investments in colleges. Let us see how well they
accomplish the more immediate and more prominent
object, which the church contemplated in their establishment.
The ministry of this country has been an educated
ministry from the first. The earliest ministers in the
colonies were of course educated abroad; but soon
there rose up schools of the prophets in the wilderness, and the churches looked, nor looked in vain, to
Harvard, and Yale, and Nassau Hall, for pastors to
feed them  with knowledge and understanding.  A
minister without a thorough college education would
scarcely have been tolerated among the Pilgrim Fathers, or their descendants for a hundred years after
them. Sects have since sprung up, that for a time
eschewed learning, and listened to rant from the pulpit, while they looked in vain for inspiration. But as
they have grown older and wiser, even these sects have
fallen in with the spirit of the country and the age,
and now they, too, demand a learned, as well as pious
ministry; now they yield to none in their zeal and
liberality for the establishment of colleges and theological seminaries.
The clerical, far beyond either of the other so-called
learzced proqfessions, is actually composed of men of
thorough classical education.  Half-educated fledglings are fluttering and tumbling into the practice of
law and medicine more frequently now, perhaps, than
at any former period of our history.  But never before
was there a smaller relative proportion of uneducated




112           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
clergymen; never before was the standard of clerical
education and attainment so high, and so imperative
on all who would enter the sacred office.
It never has been, and is never likely to be, the
doctrine of the churches in America, that ministers
can be qualified to interpret the sacred oracles without
a thorough knowledge of the original languages, or
that they can teach the wisdom of God to their fellowmen without being masters of human knowledge.
Nor have the churches looked in vain to the colleges for well-educated ministers.  More than half of
the graduates of Harvard College, for the first sixty
years of its existence, became. ministers of the gospel.
Nearly three fourths of the graduates of Yale College,
for the first twelve years, entered the ministry; and a
little less than half during the first thirty years. Almost one half of the alumni of the College of New
Jersey became ministers, during the twenty-eight years
which preceded  the American Revolution.  As a
country grows older, education becomes more widely
diffused, and a smaller proportion of the alumni of the
older colleges enter the ministry.  But the sacred
office has enlisted the talents and learning of from one
fifth to one fourth of the entire number of the alumni
of these three oldest and most venerable of American
colleges, forming an aggregate of nearly four thousand
ordained pastors.
Of the eight hundred graduates of Middlebury,
and the nine hundred and sixty of Amherst College,
nearly one half have devoted themselves to the sacred
office. Of the first one hundred and thirteen gradu



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               113
ates of Marietta College, sixty-five, or considerably
more than half, have become ministers. Of the first
sixty-five graduates of Wabash College, forty-five, or
more than two thirds, have chosen the same good
work.  At Illinois College, forty-five out of the first
ninety-four a:lumni, have given themselves to the work
of the ministry.
Of the thirty-five thousand graduates from American colleges previous to 1846G as many as eight or nine
thousand-nearly one fourth, were preachers of the
everlasting gospel. And the other three fourths were
educated with them, heard the same lectures and sermons, studied the same text-books of human and divine wisdom, occupied the same rooms, sat in the
same seats, walked arm in arm through the same
fields and groves,-were, almost of necessity, imbued
with more or less of the same spirit, and went out to
exert a scarcely less important influence upon the interests of the church and the world. So far from being
a matter of regret, it affords occasion for devout gratitude, that so many have been educated in so favorable
circumstances for the other learned professions, and for
stations of influence in society. Who can tell how
different their character and influence would have
been had they been uneducated, or educated in antichristian or un-christian institutions?
Not a few of those new measures and grand movements, which have most seriously affected the church,
have had their origin, directly or indirectly, in colleges
and universities.  The faith and practice of the early
Christian church, almost from the time of the apostles




114           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and their immediate successors, were greatly modified,
-were almost modelled by the schools of philosophy
and theology at Alexandria and Antioch, at Edessa
and Rome, and Carthage.  The strange mixture of
truth and error which prevailed in the middle ages was
concocted in the schools and libraries of the monasteries, and thence it went forth diffusing life and death
throughout Christendom.
The Reformers,-those before the Peformation, as
well as the Reformers usually so called,-Wickliffe and
IIuss, and Reuchlin and Erasmus, Luther and' Melancthon, and Bucer and Calvin, and Tyndale and Bilney,
and Latimer and Knox, were men trained in the universities, and thus prepared by the providence, as well as the
grace of God, for the work which they were destined
to accomplish. It was while they were students in
the university that new light dawned upon their souls,
and the Greek Testament, accompanied in several instances by the Latin translation of Erasmus, was, to
most of them, the source from which the new light
shone. The larger part of them were afterwards professors in the universities, and from these fortresses of
learning and influence they hurled their missiles at
the corruptions of the papal church; from these centres of illumination, they scattered light over the dark
nations.  The Universities of Prague and TWittenbcrg,
of Basle Can'd Lautsanne, of Oxford and Cambridge,
of Strasburg and St. Andrcws, were the birth-pltaces
of the eeforrnation.":n
* In proof of this, see D'Aubigne's History of the Reformlatlon,
every where, but especially in his fifth volume.




A PREMIUM  ESSAY.             115
MfTethodism, which may well be called a second
Reformation, which not only gave birth to a new and
most efficient Christian organization, —a sort of Protestant society of Jesus,-but infused new life and spirituality into the other denominations of evangelical
Christians; Methodism took its rise, received its name,
and began its conquests in the University of Oxford.
Wesley was for ten years a fellow of Lincoln College,
and resisted all the importunities of his friends to leave
his fellowship for a curacy, saying, that he could do
more for the cause of Christ and the good of men by
remaining at Oxford: "the schools of the prophets
were there; and was it not a more extensive benefit
to sweeten the fountain, than to purify a particular
stream?"  Among the young men who were intimately associated with Wesley at Oxford were Hervey,
the author of those " Meditations" which have aided
so many in the cultivation of a heavenly mind; and
Whitefield, whose apostolic labors and seraphic eloquence awakened the sleeping Christians of two hemispheres, and led a multitude of lost sinners home to
God.
Cambridge was the alma mater of Claudius Buch.nan, the author of the " Star in the East," and
one of the pioneers in the work of missions to India,
and of translating the Scriptures into the vernacular
tongues of that great peninsula; also of Henry Martyn, the " Senior Wrangler"' of the University; the
disputer with Persian Moollahs, and the translator of
* The highest academical honor.
6




116          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
the New Testament into Persian, whose highl scholarship and devoted piety, so harmoniously united, entitle
him perhaps to the name of the model missionary.
And in and through the same university, " good Dr.
Simeon," who gave Martyn the first impulse to a missionary life, long continued to send forth an influence
which has leavened a vast number of the ablest
preachers -and leading members of the Established
Church with his own pure faith and active piety.
Nor in enumerating the sources from which a new
spiritual life went forth over Great Britain, and thus
over Protestant Christendom in the eighteenth century,
should we forget to mention the academy or college for
the education of dissenting ministers, which was founded
by Dr. Watts and Dr. Doddridge, and in which the
author of the " Rise and Progress" was also a tutor.
American missions to the heathen had their birth
in a little circle of devoted young men, whose prayers
have hallowed the rooms, and the very fields about
Williams College, and whose example has blessed the
nations in every quarter of the globe.  The precise locality where Samuel J. Mills and his associates consecrated themselves to a missionary life, we are happy
to learn, has been recently identified, and it is to be
purchased and set apart as a perpetual memorial of
that sacred epoch in the history of the church. A
higher monument would mark this place, were monuments any measure of the importance of the events
which they commemorate, than rises from any battlefield in the New or the Old World; and Christians,
if they had the spirit of Christ and of Christian mis



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               117
sions, would go on pilgrimages, not to Bunker's Hill,
or Waterloo, but to " the Haystack," near Williams
College.  The sacred flame, which first began to burn
there, has been kept alive on the same and similar altars. American missionaries have not only been graduates of American colleges, but, with few exceptions,
they consecrated themselves to the missionary work,
while they dwelt in college walls. Facts show that
very few decide to become missionaries after leaving
college.  "From  Dartmouth College have gone out
twenty-four missionaries to foreign countries; front
Amherst, so recently established, thirty-six; from Williams, thirty-three; from Middlebury, twenty-four." *
The colleges stand in a no less sacred relation to the
cause of Home 3Missions. In 1850, Amherst had as
many as fifty home missionaries in the field.
The men for all our benevolent enterprises must
come from the colleges, and will carry through life
very much of the character and spirit they had when
in college.  Students give more money for benevolent
objects, in proportion to their means, than almost any
other community.  This may not be so with all colleges and higher seminaries, but we know it is so in
more than one. We have seen the poor student throw
his last quarter into the contribution box, saying (with
a siublime faith, not perhaps to be imitated by all, but
worthy of universal admiration), "There is all the
money I have in the world. I will have that safe."
But money is the smallest contribution which is
* Dr. Park's Address before the Western College Society. The
number of missionaries from Amherst is now (1854) about 50.




118           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
made by. students in college to the cause of Christian
charity.  They have first given themselves to the
Lord and to his work, wherever and whatever it may
be. With a faith, like that of Abraham, they have
been willing to leave their country, not knowing
whither they go, while with a love, like that of Christ
they have offered up themselves on the altar of reconciliation between God and their fellow-men.
The commencement of the new era of benevolence,
-the era of Missionary and Bible, and Tract and Education Societies-was marked by the establishment of
an unusual number, we might almost say, a new kind
of colleges; and they in turn have sustained and furthered the various forms of associated benevolence,
with unwonted zeal and devotion. At the same time
(to their honor be it said, as well as in truth and justice), some of the older institutions have caught not a
little of the new spirit, and lavished the accumulated
treasures of their wisdom and their influence in the
support of those.moral and religious enterprises which
are the glory of the age.
Those revivals of religion, which so illustrate and
bless our times, have prevailed in colleges with greater
frequency and power than in any other communities;
and who can calculate the good influences, direct and
indirect, which revivals in colleges have exerted on'the
churches?  How many ministers and mnagistrates,
professional men and men of influence, have tihere bt;en
born into the kingdom of Christ; and how many more
X e-converted, so that, like Peter, they could strengthen
their brethren?  How many, while members of col



A PREMIUM ESSAY.              119
lege, have caught the spirit of revivals and of missions,
and carried it home to the church to which they belong, and with the characteristic ardor and strength of
young men in a course of education, diffused it through
the place of their nativity? And when such men
have been settled in the ministry, their own churches
have been revival churches, and missionary churches;
the life of the communities around them, and the light
of this dark world. It has been estimated that one
revival of religion, which took place in Yale College,
under the presidency of Dr. Dwight, raised up ministers who were instrumental of the conversion of fifty
thousand souls in one generation.
Thus, it appears that marked eras in the history
of the church have usually been marked eras in the
history of colleges, from the establishment of the first
seminary in the early Christian church to the foundation of the last college in our western wilderness.
The progress of the churches has been registered, so to
speak, and their attainments have been secured and
perpetuated by the colleges, while, in turn, every new
wave of thought, and tide of feeling in the colleges,
has had its corresponding wave and tide in the
churches.  The stream  will not permanently rise
higher than the fountain. The fountain determines
the quality, as well as the height of the stream. The
college and the church are alternately or mutually
fountain and stream.  More frequently the impulse
originates in the college. It was so in the Reformation.  It was so with the Oxford heresy.  The Unitarian defection in New England originated perhaps
6




120           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
with the churches, or rather with their pastors, but it
has been perpetuated by Harvard College. The tide
rose in the churches till it burst open the gates and
inundated the college, but now it has turned, and is
flowing back, more gradually, but not less powerfully,
and even more effectively, from the college into the
churches and the community. Let all our colleges become like Harvard, and Unitarianism would overflow
the country. Or let them become such schools of infidelity as Jefferson and Girard would fain have established; and, unless they are abandoned and their gates
closed, the next generation will forsake the religion of
their fathers, and the churches will be deserted by the
people. Or let our ministers and men of influence be
uneducated, or half educated, and errors and heresies
will spring up like thorns and briers in a neglected
field; for it is men who are untaught in history (especially the history of doctrines), and undisciplined in
their mental and moral faculties, whose minds have
been the hot-beds of theological error in every age of
the church. To pray for the colleges, then, is to pray
for the churches, for an educated and devoted ministry,-for a pure and Protestant Christianity,-for
foreign and home missions,-for evangelical revivals
of religion; in a word, for churches, that shall live
and work, and propagate a sound faith, lively hope
and impartial charity through the w@2ld.




CHAPTER IX.
College Life-Its Temptations and Dangers-Its Moral and Religious AdvantagesThe College a unique Community-Its essential Characteristics —A Community
of Young Men-Four years together, from Seventeen to Twenty-one-Constant
Contact with their Teachers-Subjects of Investigation-Pecitation-Morning and
Evening Prayers-Public Worship and Preaching on the Sabbath-Influence on
each other-College Friendships-Enticenlents of Sinners-Counsels and Prayers
of Pious Friends and of the Cllhurch-Fewer Dangers and'more Safeguards than
ill most other Communities-liabits of Industry-System-i-Eniployment of Time
-Christian Teachers-Pious Students-Facilities for Religious Imrnprovement-Decisive Period-Samne Facilities fruitful either of Good or Evil-Possibility and Importance of turning them all to Good —Prayer for immediate Conversion of Students.
THE college is a unique community.  It has sentiments and usages, not to say a law and a dialect,
peculiar to  itself.   These  peculiarities  are  partly  traditional, and therefore  somewhat arbitrary, and  partly
the natural result of the elements of which  it is  composed, and the manner in which it is organized.
The essential characteristics of college, as they result naturally from its elements and organization, are,
that it is a community of young men at that age
when their character is most susceptible of being
formed and established, living by themselves, though
under the constant oversight and influence of their
teachers, and engaged during an entire period of four
years in such studies as are adapted to discipline their
minds  and  form   their  habits  for  future   usefulness.
Four years, from  seventeen to  twenty-one  (for that is
6




122          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
perhaps about the average age), spent in such pursuits,
and under such circumstances, must contribute largely
to the formation of their whole character, intellectual,
social, moral and religious. Quick to perceive, bold to
think and reason, yet easy to be persuaded and influenced, their minds and hearts are open to teachers
whom they respect; and those teachers are in direct
public communication with them. some three or four
hours of every day, besides frequent private interviews
-of a more personal and confidential nature. Their instructors comrmune with them on the most delightful
and ennobling subjects. They introduce them to the
familiar acquaintance of the historians and poets, and
orators and philosophers of antiquity; the heroes and
martyrs of ancient history, the wisest and best men of
every country and every age. They lead them  back
to the secret springs of nature, and explore with them
the arcana of mathematical and physical science. They
conduct them to the deeper springs and remoter arcana of their own spiritual being, and teach them, in
the knowledge of themselves, to lay the foundations of
all knowledge. They teach them to look through nature and man to the God of mail and nature; and not
only do they teach this in the recitation-room, but
every morning and every evening, as well as twice
every Sabbath, they lead them to the lively oracles of
the only living and true God, and go with them directly into the presence-of Him, in whom are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And never
was there an audience more attentive to an able and
eloquent preacher, or more susceptible of impressio,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               123
from'solenln and weighty truth; never a congregation
more easily and entirely swayed by the truth and the
Spirit of God, like the waving corn by every wind of
heaven, than is a congregation of college students in a
season of unusual religious interest.
The minds and hearts of students are peculiarly
turned to each other, as wax to the seal.  And they
are in perpetual contact, acting and reacting each
upon the other, from week to week, and month to
month, term  after term, and year after year.  There
is no community like college for the propagation of
influence; like so many particles of a fluid, if one is at
rest, all are at rest-if one moves, all are on the move:
impulses are communicated without delay or resistance,
and motion is simultaneous through the whole body.
At the same time, there is no community where iimpressions are deeper, influences more permanent, attachments more enduring. There are no friendships
like college friendships.  MIany a David and a Jonathan have there had their hearts knit together, like
the heart of one man, in mutual, equal, disinterested
love, which death could not sever. The name of classmate and room-mate grows more and more sacred, as
other attachments fade away, and we draw near to the
end of all earthly connections. Those who have been
members of the same division, or the samne literary society, however widely separated, and however different
their lot, will never forget each other, —will watch and
follow each other through all the vicissitudes of life to
the very borders of the grave. Hence it is that those
reunions, which bring together college acquaintance




124           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and friends at commencement, are so delightful; and
to none more delightful than to those who have outlived other connections and attachments, and stand
trembling, almost alone, on the borders of eternity.
Hence, also, the peculiar importance of his fiiendships
to the character and happiness of the young man in
college, and the special necessity of being on his guard
in the choice of his companions.  His ardent and susceptible nature is easily, quickly attached; and yet an
attachment which thus springs up in a day, if strengthened by fiur years' association, will grow into a part
of himself, and become a permanent element in his
character and his very being.
In such a cormmunity, where influence is so easily
propagated, and yet so lasting in its effects, temlptation must, of course, have peculiar power. The ardent
and inexperienced youth, when he first enters college,
is exposed to a fiery trial.  He will be sure to meet
with the enticements of sinners, for in the best colleges, as in the best towns, there are bad young men,
and sin and misery always love company, because they
always need it, that they may escape, if possible, from
their wicked and wretched selves. He will be tempted
to idleness, and idleness every where is the parent of
vice.  Hie will be tempted to eating and carousing,
and card-playing, and blasphemy of sacred things, not
all at once, but as fast as he can bear the shock.; and
in some colleges, he will be enticed to the perpetration
of vices that are yet more fatal than any of these, to
the body and the soul. He needs, therefore, to come
armed with the counsels and prayers of his friends,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              125
and the church of God. He needs to be followed up
by those counsels and prayers, by the watch and care
of pious students, and by the frequent warnings and
earnest supplications of faithful teachers. He needs
most of all, and best of all, the safeguard of religious
principle and experience; to begin with it, if possible,
but if he comes to college without it, to seek it for
himself, and have it sought for him by others, with all,
and more than all, the assiduity with which they
guard his intellectual training; with all, and more
than all, the zeal and perseverance with which evil
companions and wicked spirits will entice him to sin.
And after all that is done for him, he will go astray,
and be lost for time and eternity, unless the grace of
God restrain his wayward will, and win and conquer
his depraved heart. Those who have stood long on
these watch-towers know well the dangers of the coast,
and cannot bu4 raise a warning voice,-cannot but
point to breakers along a shore, which they have seen
thickly strewn with wrecks of the proudest ships and
the*most precious cargoes.
Do any of our readers say, if this is so, it is not
good to send a young man to college? But where are
not the young in danger?  Where else can anxious
parents send their sons, and feel that they are exposed
to fewer temptations?  Where else, indeed, will they
find so small a proportion of profane and licentious
youth, and those under so many daily, and almost
hourly restraints upon their evil propensities? Where
else so many young men, who are truly pious, and
who will exert on those sons a truly Christian influ



126           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
ence? What other community is there where revivals
are so frequent, conversions so numerous, professors of
religion so much in the ascendency, moral and religious
influences so constantly brought to bear on every incllvidual?  In one word, where is the city or town, or
neighborhood-we might almost ask, where is the
family, in which there are so many helps to virtue and
piety, as in our best colleges?
College life tends directly to habits of industry,
regularity and system; and these constitute the strongest barriers against dissipation; these cast up a broad
and open highway to every virtue. Every day has its
proper occupations, almost every hour brings its assigned duties. Thrice every day the bell summons the
student to meet his instructor in public recitation;
twice to appear before God in the sanctuary for public
worship. The morning prayer-bell forbids late rising;
the morning recitation almost forbids late carousing and
deep drinking the night before; and at no hour of the
day, can he wander very far from his duty without being called back by that faithful monitor.  The studies
are not only occupying and engrossing, but interesting
and instructive. While they discipline the mind, they
also enlighten the conscience, and purify the heart,
and inculcate by precept and example sacred lessons
of wisdom and duty. The instructors are men of high
moral and Christian excellence, who cannot forget often
to remind them, that,the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding; and that though they have all knowledge,
and could speak with the tongues of men and angels,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               127
and are destitute of holy love, they are nothing. Very
mlany of the students, also-in not a few colleges, the
majority-are young men of Christian principle and
Christian spirit, who aspire to the office of anibassadors of Christ, and who, even in college, are nobly
ambitious to turn many to righteousness.  Such opportunities for Christian communion and social prayer,
and mutual encouragement in the divine life; so many
facilities for the cultivation of virtue and piety in those
who have the good seed already implanted in their
hearts, and so many helps and inducements to com1mence a religious life in those who have not,-are
scarcely to be found any where else.
These causes conspire to render college, notwithstanding its temptations and dangers,, a comparatively
safe place for young men. We are persuaded that parents, who are obliged to send their sons from home,
can hardly send theln to a safer place.  It is far safer
than the city or large village.  Boys are ruined by
being sent to college, but theyr are ruined in far greater
number and proportion by being sent away to business.
One in four (we state it on the authority of a'mayor
of one of our great cities), one in four of the young
men who go from the country into the city to engage
in business, make shipwreck, not merely of business
prospects, but of character and happiness. Not one in
ten of those who enter college so degrade and destroy
themselves; and a large part of these were effectually
corrupted before they left home.
The same causes, however, conspire also to render
the college course a great crisis in a young man's life.




128            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
If, in spite of such powerful influences for good, he
does leave college a votary of Bacchus or Venus, he is
in great danger of remaining such through life.  If he
is not converted in college, or, at least, so deeply impressed with religious convictions and purposes as ere
long to take a decided stand as a Christian,-  there is
a fearful probability that he will live and die an unconverted man. If he ever decides to become a minister, in
all probability it will be in college. If he devotes himself to the missionary work, he will probably do it in college. Few who fail to make that decision as early as the
college course, ever stand on missionary ground.  HIis
standard of piety in college will be likely to be his standard of piety through life. Not but that he who is a devoted Christian in college will grow in knowledge and in
grace in the seminary and in the ministry; but if he
is not a devoted Christian in college, he will not be in
the  seminary, in  the  ministry, or any where else.
Such is the uniform testimony which comes back to
college in letters from  the theological seminary and
from the parsonage.  Such is the observation and experience of those who have paid particular attention to
the subject; and such we might expect to be the
general fact from  the nature of the case: for those
who can withstand such a concentration of good influences as are brought to bear fbr so many years on the
students in the colleges of New England at so early,
* Those who have sown the good seed in students' hearts, " weeping" all the way through their college course, are sometimes (expe.
1ience would justify us in saying not unfiequently) rejoiced at hear
ing, that it has sprung up soon after they left college.




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               129
so susceptible and so critical a period of their lives,
must incur a fearful amount of guilt, and contract a
dreadful power of resistance.  How earnest and importunate, then, should be the prayers of all the friends
of learning and religion for the conversion of young
men in college! How should pious parents especially
wrestle with the Angel of the Covenant for the immediate conversion of their sons, saying, I cannot, —will
not let thee go, except thou bestow this great blessing.
The very circumstances that prove temptations or
hindrances to some, may, and do become helps and encouragements to others.  Wherever there are peculiar
facilities for evil, there also there are, or may be, peculiar facilities for good.  Good and evil both dwell in
the same hearts, appeal to the same natural susceptibilities, spread according to the same general laws, are
propagated by the same agencies and instrumentalities. The same agency that is mighty to do evil, may
be made mighty to do good. The channel in which
evil flows most easily, may be made to flow full and
strong with good.  This is a universal law, and nowhere is it more strikingly verified than in college.
In some institutions, sometimes, every engine of power
seems to be employed for evil purposes. Every channel seems to be filled with evil influences. In others,
good and evil are strangely mixed, and almost evenly
balanced.  In some colleges, at some times, at least,
good seems to be entirely in the ascendency.  Literature, science, society, conversation,-intellectual, social and moral influence,-all tend towards virtue
and piety, heaven and God.  The perpetuation of
6~,;



130           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
this, or something like this, is all that is necessary
to make colleges a heaven on earth; a heaven of
knowledge, a heaven of love, a heaven of holiness
and a heaven of happiness.  Such an appropriation
of all the peculiarities of college life, of all the enginery of college power, of all the channels of college
influence to Christ and his church, —such a sanctification of all the young men with all the powers and susceptibilities of their nature, and all the facilities afforded by their circumstances and relations, that they
may be holiness to the Lord,-such is the consummation towards which officers and pious students, and
friends of education and friends of religion, should all
look. It is for this that they should labor in the use
of all possible and suitable means. It is for this that we
invite their earnest, believing and persevering prayers.




CHAPTER X.
Revivals and Conversions in College-More frequent than in other CommunitiesStatistics of Yale, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Amherst, Illinois, Marietta, Wittemburg-Edwards, Hopkins, and other distinguished men converted in CollegeNumber of Conversions in College equal to half the number of Alumni, who have
become Ministers-One fourth of the Individuals who enter the Ministry converted
in College —Number of Professors of Religion and Candidates for the Ministry now
in several Colleges-Proportion to the whole number of Students-Need of more
frequent and powerful Revivals-Revivals in harmony with the Nature of Man,
with the Spirit of the Age, with the Constitution, and Circumstances of Young
Men in College-Scenes witnessed during Revivals in College-Henry LymanBela B. Edwards-A Revival every year for every Class, as it enters-Every
thing else in College periodical, why not Revivals?-Favorable to Study-Every
thing attended to in its Season, and by Rule, why not Revivals?-Why only one
third, or less, Professors of Religion, and one sixth Ministers?-Mount Holyoke
Seminary.
THERE are very few churches in which revivals and
conversions have been so frequent and so numerous;
there are very few communities in which so large a
proportion of the population, especially of the young
men, are  professors  of religion, as in  the  colleges  of
New England and the Northern States. This has already been asserted or implied in former chapters. So
important a fact, if it be a fact, is worthy of more particular consideration; and, if it be doubted, it admits
of a ready and ample substantiation.  In the space
of ninety-six years, beginning with the great revival of
1741, and ending in 1837, there were twenty revivals
in Yale College, in fourteen of which five hundred stu



132           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
dents were hopefully converted; and during the last
twenty-five years of this same period, there were thirteen
special revivals, or one every two years, besides several
other seasons of more than usual religious interest. Indeed, for thirty years previous to 1848, revivals occurred
in Yale College, on an average, about once in two
years; and in one of these revivals, there were a hundred hopeful conversions. What church has enjoyed
as many revivals in the same time? Among the subjects of the revivals in Yale College were Evarts, Cornelius, Nevins, Hopkins, Edwards, and perhaps Dwight
and Bellamy; and a multitude of Christian soldiers,
only inferior to those greater leaders of the sacramental
host. Who can calculate the influence of so many revivals in which such men were, from time to time,
brought into the kingdom of God and the ministry of
reconciliation!
In Dartmouth College, in the space of sixty-five
years, nine extensive revivals of religion were enjoyed;
the converts in six of these numbered one hundred and
seventy; and among them were distinguished ministers, leading missionaries, presidents and professors in
colleges and theological seminaries, and other men of
high standing and influence in the church and the
State. Middlebury College has been blessed in forty
years with ten revivals,-some of them of great power.
During the first twenty-five years of its history, every
class but one was permitted to share in a religious
awakening, and some classes received three or four
such visits of mercy while in college.
No class has ever yet left Amherst College without




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              133
witnessing a powerful revival of religion, and scarce a
year has passed without some special interest in the
church, and more or less conversions.  During the
thirty years of its existence, there have been from two
hundred and fifty to three hundred hopeful conversions. Of these converts, more than one hundred have
been ministers, fifteen have been missionaries, twentyeight officers of colleges and theological seminaries;
and several were young men of genius and great promise, who died before entering upon a profession.
Their names, were we allowed to specify some of them,
would illustrate, even more than their number, the unspeakable value of a revival in college. We can only
mention among those who, we trust, are now in heaven,
such names as those of Prof. Bela B. Edwards, Prof.
William  A. Peabody, Story Hebard of the Syrian
Mission, Timothy Dwight, who had devoted himself
to the cause of missions, but died before leaving the
country; Rev. George P. Smith of Worcester, Rev.
Amos Bullard of Barre, Rev. William Bradford Homer,
— names precious in the records of young American
ministers. All but one of these were tutors in Amherst
College.
In the first twelve years of the history of Amherst
College, there -were four revivals; in Illinois College,
six in the first eighteen years; in Marietta College,
seven in fifteen years; in Wabash College, nine in
fourteen years; and no class has passed through its
collegiate course there without having witnessed from
one to four revivals.  Similar to these has been the




134          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
history of all those missionary colleges which are under
the patronage of the Western College Society.
" Facts seem to authorize the opinion," says the
Fifth Report of the Society, " that the number of conversions which have occurred in the whole history of
Yale College would nearly equal one half of the whole
number of its graduates who have entered the ministry." In Amherst College, the number of conversions
is known to bear a still larger proportion to the number of ministers, the whole number of conversions having been at least two hundred and fifty, and the whole
number of ministers four hundred and thirty-five. For
a period of twenty-two years in Middlebury College,
one half of the pious graduates are believed to have
been converted while in connection with college.
"From  some investigations that have been made, it
would seem that the number of hopeful conversions
among the youth of the colleges aided by the Western
College Society is full one half of the whole number
who have devoted themselves to the ministry.  It
would not follow from this, however, that one half of
the latter number was actually composed of those particular individuals."
This suggests another question, which deserves,
and has received the attentive consideration of officers
in college, and others, who are interested in this subject,-namely, what proportion of the individuals who
have actually entered the ministry, were hopefully converted in college?  The writer has recently examined
the triennial catalogue of Amherst College, marking
the names of all that are known to have commenced




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                135
their Christian life in college. Of the four hundred
and thirty-five who have entered the ministry, one
hundred have thus been identified as having been
hopefully converted in college; and it cannot be
doubted that were it possible, after the lapse of thirty
years, to identify the entire number, they would be
found to compose one fourth of all who have entered
the ministry. It does not appear that investigations
have been made covering the whole history of other
colleges, and relating to this particular question. But
during limited periods, about the same ratio has been
found to hold in several other colleges. About one
fourth of all the alumni of Williams College, who entered the ministry during a period of twenty-five years,
were converted in college. The same is true of all the
alumni of Dartmouth College, who entered the ministry from twenty-nine classes, commencing with 1809.
During the presidency of Dr. Bates at Middlebury,
about one fifth of the alumni who became ministers
were considered as fruits of revivals in colleges; and it
is believed that the proportion was still greater, before
the Education Society sent large numbers into every
class.
Another question of great interest, is the number
of professors of religion, and of candidates for the
ministry.  The present state* of eleven.colleges in:New England is exhibited in the following table,t which
is the result of recent correspondence between the So* February, 1853.
t Prepared by the Sec. of the Am Educ. Soc.




136              PRAYER  FOR COLLEGES.
ciety of Inquiry in Amherst College and similar societies in other institutions.
Students.  Professors of Preparing for
Ecligion.  the Ministry.
Bowdoin College,.. 152          37
Waterville College,.        86         46          18
University of Vermont,. 123         30          25
Middlebury College,          60         35          17
Amherst College,..      187        113          77
Williams College,.      207        106          71
Brown University,. 243          80          35
Harvard College,..   319           30
Yale College,..   446         130          70
Wesleyau University,.   103         78          35
Dartmouth College,.. 237          60
2163        745        348
If the blanks, which occur under the head " Preparing for the Ministry," were filled, it would doubtless
add some fifty to the number. By this table, it appears that about one third of the young men connected
with our colleges are professors of religion, and a little
more than one half of these, or one sixth of the whole,
are preparing for the ministry.
The ratio of professors of religion to the whole
number of students in Amherst College, has always
been more than half,-now it is three fifths; sometimes it has been two thirds. Often nearly all the
members of the upper classes are professors of religion;
at the present time,':: all but two of the Senior Class
are hopefully pious. And by far the larger part of the
professors of religion have always been studying with a
view to preach the gospel.
* 1863.




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              137
In Western Reserve College, the ratio of pious students at different times has varied from two thirds to
four fifths.  In Wabash College, of five hundred and
seventy-one students that had been connected with all
the delartments previous to 1848, two hundred and
twenty were either pious when they entered, or became so after joining the college; and of the fifty-two
who had been graduated, thirty-nine were hopefully
pious. Of the one hundred graduates of Marietta Collece, previous to 184S, sixty were hopefully pious
when they entered, twenty-three were hopefully converted in college, and only seventeen graduated without hope in Christ. In 1848, there were in Knox
College (the college proper) fifty-two attending members; of these, thirty-eight were professors of religion;
and of the two classes that had then graduated, all but
one were professors of religion, and were either preparing for the ministry, or engaged in teaching.
Now what other communities are there in which
revivals of religion occur so frequently, where so large
a proportion are hopefully pious, and where so large a
proportion of those who remain only four years, become
hopefully pious during their stay? Certainly not at
the West, under the eaves of our Western colleges.
No, not even in the East, in the vicinity of the colleges of New England.  Let the comparison be carefully made between the colleges of New England and
the best religious societies in New England, and the
result will speak volumes for the religious character
and influence of the colleges. Let the comparison be
made between the young men in other communities




138           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and the young men in college, and the contrast will
be still more striking. This is no ground of boasting.
But it does show the comparative safety of our colleges, and the wisdom of sending our sons to them, if
we would see them converted.  It is occasion for devout thanksgiving to God, that while his wise providence has intrusted these institutions to such hands,
his grace has infused such a sanctifying power into
these fountains of influence.  And it calls for earnest
prayer to the Author of all good, that these sacred influences may be perpetuated and increased, till these
fountains shall send forth none but pure streams.
And as an essential means to this end, revivals of
religion of still greater frequency and power should be
an especial object of prayer and effort. Revivals are
in accordance with the analogy of nature, which has
its seasons of revivification and rapid growth followed
by seasons of ripening fruit and maturing strength.
They are in harmony with the nature of man, who requires alternate seasons of activity and repose; of stirring labor and excitement on the one hand, and on the
other, of tranquil enjoyment and sober reflection; each
in turn preparing the body and the mind for the other,
and both in their due season imparting health and
vigor to the system, and conspiring to produce the
largest possible results.  Revivals accord especially
with the habits and spirit of the present age, which is
an age of excitement, of division of labor, of associated feeling and action, of concentrated effort, and hurried enterprise and rapid locomotion; and religion, if it
is to keep pace at all with business or pleasure, or sin,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              139
must fall in more or less with the movements of men
and things. Revivals of religion are peculiarly adapted
to the constitution and the circumstances of young
men in college, —with their quick impulses and lively
sympathies, their love of excitement and activity, —
the exciting and engrossing nature of their pursuits
also, and the peculiar force of their temptations. Occupation and excitement are to them a necessity.  If
they are not, at particular times, specially excited by
the thoughts of religion, they will be always engrossed,
if not by something hurtful, at least by something not
so useful, not so important, not so essential to their
temporal and eternal well-being. They are remarkably
susceptible on this great subject.  Serious thoughts,
anxious inquiry and earnest prayer spread through a
community of college students with the rapidity and
the power of an electric shock. Every eye is open,
every ear attentive, every conscience awake, every heart
alive to  this one-engrossing interest.  Dissipation
ceases, amusement is forgotten, the ball-ground and
gymnasium  even are forsaken, silence reigns through
the rooms and halls, broken only by the voice of prayer.
Now and then perhaps a number band together for
rioting and uproar, possibly to make sport of sacred
things.  But it is like the revelling of Belshazzar and
his court over the sacred vessels of the house of the
Lord; they see a handwriting on the wall, and their
knees smite together: the next day, they are found
penitent and believing before the cross, and in a few
years they are preaching the gospel in the far West,
or publishing the glad tidings of salvation to the more
7




140           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
remote nations of the East; or perhaps dying a martyr's death among the savages in some tropical isle.:
Another company preferring a more respectable way
of' ridiculing serious things, invite a tutor t to hold a
meeting with therum. He complies with their invitation, and those who came to mock, remain to pray.
Scenes like these send a new thrill of wonder and joy
through the whole community. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
All seem to be pressing into it; and in the course of
two or three weeks, the conversions are counted by
scores. -Then the intense excitement gradually subsides. But the impressions are permanent; the fruit
remains.  Under proper instruction, and watch and
care, the converts in college are found to hold out as
well as any other congregation. Oh, if we could but
take our Christian readers with us from room to room,
and hall to hall, when such events are occurring, and
let them witness with their own eyes these thrilling
scenes, and sympathize in their own hearts with these
marvellous transformations; or could we place them
on some high vantage-ground, where they could not
only take in at a glance the whole literary community,
whether retired within their closets, or gathered in little circles for prayer and religious conference, or assembled in the house of God on the Sabbath, but
where they could also catch a glimpse of the future
history of those converted youths, and trace the results
of one such season of religious interest, then they could
not withhold their prayers for revivals in colleges.
* Henry Lyman.        f Bela B. Edwards




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               141
Revivals of religion are not yet so frequent, or so
pure or powerful, even in college, as it is greatly to be
desired they should be. Why should not a revival
occur every year, that every class, as it enters, may
also enter the school of Christ; and as it advances
from year to year in the college course, may receive a
fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, and so all their
studies be pursued in his illuminating presence, and
holiness to the Lord be written on every hall, on the
door of every room, and at the entrance to every
heart? Then would they indeed know all things which
it chiefly concerns them to know, having received an
unction from the Holy One.
Every thing else in college is periodical. This is
one of the most striking characteristics of college life.
Why, then, should not special attention to the subject
of personal religion be periodical? Classes enter and
leave every year. Why should they not be converted
every year? Why should this not be distinctly contemlplated, expressly aimed at, and specially provided
for, like all the other regular exercises and arrangemelats of the institution? This would not be inconsistent with the design of such institutions, or conflict
with the studies or literary attainments of the student.
On the contrary, it would harmonize with that design;
nay, more, it is due to that design: for colleges in
their original plan and intention were meant to be religious institutions. And it would greatly further the
advancement of students in learning; for the principles and spirit of true religion are the surest guide,
the strongest stimulus to the right use of time, to the




142           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
best improvement of talents and opportunities, and to
the most successful prosecution of all useful knowledge; insomuch, that not only theologians and reformers, but philosophers and scholars have indorsed
the maxim: "Bene orasse est bene studuisse;"-to
have prayed well, is to have studied well.
Such a systematic attention to the subject of personal religion would fall in not only with the design,
but with the general arrangements of a college. Every
thing else there is done by rule and system; every
thing else has its allotted time and place.  Why
should not the earliest suitable time, and the first
proper place-why should not the best time and the
best place in every year be given to the greatest and
best object, which, when assigned its proper time and
place, furthers every other right aim, and secures every
true interest?  The whole economy of Nature and
Providence is regulated by times and seasons. Why
should it not be so with religion? There is a time to
sow, and a time to reap; and these in Nature are annual. Why should it not be so in the church and the
college?  Why should any church entertain a prejudice against systematic and periodical efforts to secure
the revival of religion and the salvation of souls, while
they have a time and a place, a period and a system,
for every thing else that they do, and do to any purpose?  Above all, why should this prejudice be harbored in college, which involves-which may almost
be said to consist in-a series of periodical action an(d
repose, and in which, from its earliest establishment, it
has always been intended that religion should hold the




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              143
first place?  Why, we ask again, should not every
year witness a revival in college, and every class, as it
enters on a new stadium, receive a fresh anointing
from on high? Why should any class graduate, we
do not say without a revival, but without having witnessed as many revivals as they have spent years in
college? Why should any individual leave these
schools of the church unconverted? Why should only
one third of the members of college in New England
-only one third upon an average, and far less in many
colleges-be professors of religion; and why should
only one half of these professors of religion-only one
sixth of the whole number of the students-devote
themselves to the ministry of the everlasting gospel?
Is this the highest consummation that can be conceived as possible? this the largest result that can be
made real, in institutions founded by the church for
the express purpose of raising up ministers of the gospel? Is it not-after all that we have said in the
way of congratulation and thanksgiving-is it not a
sad falling below the proper standard of such institutions, a melancholy failure to accomplish their highest
and best end?  Must it be so of necessity, and for
ever? When other professions are full to overflowing,
and men cannot be found to supply our own churches
in New England, still less to preach the gospel to the
destitute in the new settlements and among the far-off
heathen; when the world is one vast open field that
invites the sickle, and the harvest (and such a harvest!
a harvest of immortal souls, which angels would gladly
gather) is perishing for want of laborers, —must five
7




144           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
sixths of the alumni of New England colleges devote
their energies to secular pursuits? It is incredible on
the face of it. From the nature of the case, we know
there is, there must be more power in the instructions
and example of college officers, in the prayers and efforts of the Christian church, in the gospel and grace
of God, than has yet been brought to bear on the con.version of young men in college. And facts show that
larger results have been realized when greater and
more direct efforts have been made for this express
purpose. At Mount Holyoke, and some other female
seminaries, where this is made a direct object of prayer
and effort early in the year, revivals occur every year,
and nearly all the new pupils are hopefully converted.
In some of the missionary colleges of the WVest, revivals have occurred almost every year. In a still larger
number, more or less conversions occur every year near
the beginning of the course.
When young men first leave home and parents
and friends, and enter strangers on college life, they
are naturally thoughtful and serious; they feel the
need of divine teaching and assistance, and almost
spontaneously cry unto God, "Our Father, be thou
the guide of our youth." Under these circumstances,
if they were taken under the especial watch and care
of the officers and pious students, and kindly warned
and entreated, and led by the hand of Christian friendship, and compassed about with an atmosphere of
prayer; and if, at the same time, they were borne on
the arms of faith and prayer by the whole church,who can doubt that a revival would occur every year,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              145
and almost the whole class be converted at the commencement of the college course.  How different then
wGuld be the spirit and the result of all their studies,
and how different a place would college then be; how
much more a realization of the beau ideal of a Christian college, than even the most favored of all these
favored institutions now is.
The possibility of realizing such a result by more
prayer and effort will receive further confirmation, as
we proceed, in our next chapter, to speak of the improvement that has already taken place in the spiritual
condition of our colleges, since they have been made a
subject of special prayer by the churches.
7




CHAPTER XI.
Concert of Prayer for Colleges-More frequent Revivals of Religion attendant on increased Prayer in the Churches-Increase of Italics in the Triennials-State of
Religion in Yale College the last half of the last Century-In 1783-In 1795-At
the close of the Century-Compared with 1820, 1831, &c.-Dartmouth CollegeThe year 1820 a new Era in History of Colleges-New Colleges-Concert of Prayer
-Its Origin and Results-Answers to Prayer-Revivals for the most part soon
after the Concert-M-ore Prayer likely to be followed with still more glorious Results-Special Necessity for Prayer at the present Time-Diminished Supply of
Ministers for a few years past-Causes-Increased Demand-Extreme ExigencyFearful Responsibility-Prayer to the Lord of the Harvest.
THE religious history of American colleges during the
present century, especially when contrasted with the
latter part of the previous century, is full of instruction, and full of encouragements to prayer on the part
of all the friends of learning and religion. We get
some idea of the change that has been going on during
this period, by simply looking over the triennial catalogues of the colleges, and noticing the gradual increase,
of italics, which mark the names of ministers, from
the latter part of the eighteenth century down to the
middle of the nineteenth.  Compare, for instance, the
last decade of the eighteenth  century on  the'Yale  triennial with the ten  years from   1.83-0  to 1840, or from
1840 to 1850, on the same triennial.  A  comparison
of all the triennials that extend over the last quarter
of the last century with the triennials of the colleges




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                147
that have originated in the quarter of a century just
past, would furnish a still more striking contrast.
But when we inquire more particularly into the
relative frequency of revivals, and the proportion of
professors of religion, we are surprised and delighted
with the improvement. Take, for instance, some facts
in the religious history of Yale College. Through all
the last half of the last century, only three revivals are
recorded. It was a period of declension in the churches
also, and of infidelity and immorality in the country,
when the disastrous effects of our own Revolutionary
War (we mean, of course, the moral and religious effects), and still more of the French Revolution, infected, like a plague, all classes of the people. In the
first twenty years of the nineteenth century, there were
four revivals; in the next sixteen years, there were
nine; and from  1820 to 1848, there was, upon an
average, about one in every two years.
In 1795, only eleven under-graduates are known
to have been professors of religion; about four years
after, the number was reduced to four or five; and at
one communion, only a single under-graduate was
present, the others being out of town. A surviving
member of the class of 1783,: remembers only three
professors of religion in the class of 1782, and only
three or four each in several of the preceding classes.
In his own class, which was blessed with a revival,
there were eleven.  In the darkest time, just at the
close of the century, there was only about one profes* The venerable Rev. Payson Williston, of Easthampton, Mass.




148           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
sor of religion to a class! The state of things was no
better, however, in the churches. A young man who
belonged to the church in that day was almost a miracle.  Even after the remarkable revival in 1802,
when, out of two hundred and sixty students, about
one third were hopefully converted, the number of professed Christians in all the classes was again reduced
to fifteen.
But with 1820 begins a new era in Yale College.
From  that time, there was a revival of more or less
power every year for five years; and the college
church has never again sunk so low in numbers or
strength. The year 1831 was a memorable year in
the history of revivals, both in colleges and churches.
There were revivals in nineteen colleges; the greatest
number (and some of them the most powerful) that
have ever been known. As a natural consequence of
revivals in the churches, an unusual proportion of those
who entered college in 1832 were hopefully pious;
fifty out of ninety in the Freshman Class of Yale College; and one of the professors, in a letter written at
the time, speaks of it as a striking fact, and a new era
in the history of literary institutions.
Similar facts might be stated in regard to other
colleges. About one fourth of the graduates of Dartmouth College became ministers from 1790 to 1800,
and only one fifth from 1800 to 1810; but between
1810 and 1830, the proportion increased to one third.
The year 1820, which we have already spoken of
as marking a transition in the religious history of Yale
College, introduces a new era in the history of colleges




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              149
generally, and particularly of revivals in colleges. It
was about this time, that an increased interest in the
education of ministers and missionaries led to the
establishment of colleges in more rapid succession, and
with more express reference to this object; Waterville College and Western University in 1820, Amherst College and Columbia (D. C.) in 1821, Miami
University in 1824, Western Reserve in 1828, Illinois College in 1830, Wabash in 1832, Marietta in
1833, &c.
It was also about this time that the Concert of
Prayer for Colleges began to be observed. The origin
and some of the results of this important movement
are given as follows, by the Secretary of the Western
College Society.
" Origin of the Concert.-This was a spirit of supplication among Christians in behalf of colleges and
theological semiries, created by statistical information in respect to them, published from time to time
in the Annual Reports of the American Education
Society. A concert of prayer was first established to
be observed every Sabbath morning. Frequent and
powerful revivals of religion in colleges followed, which
seemed very much like answers to the supplications
offered at these seasons of prayer. The children of
God were encouraged to persevere, and finally, in consequence of a circular issued, with the knowledge and
approbation of the directors of the American Education Society, the last Thursday of February, 1823,
was set apart by many of the friends of Zion as'a
season of fasting and special prayer, that God will pour




150           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
out his Spirit on the colleges of our country the present
year more powerfully than ever before.'
"Aznswers to Prayer.-Subsequent to the establishment of the Sabbath Morning Concert, the Spirit
of God was poured out, and cheering results witnessed.
From 1820 to 1823 inclusive, there were revivals in
fourteen different institutions; in 1.824 and 1825, in
five different colleges; in 1826, in six; in 1827, in
four; in 1828, in five; and in 1831, in nineteen colleges, resulting in the hopeful conversion of between
three hundred and fifty and four hundred students.
In one of the colleges, the revival commenced on the
very day of the concert. In 1832, some few institutions were blessed with the effusions of the Spirit; and
also in 1833. A larger number were blessed with revivals in 1834, and no less than eighteen in 1835;
and between one and two hundred students were
brought hopefully into the kingdom of Christ. It has
been estimated that fifteen hundred students were
made the hopeful subjects of grace in thirty-six different colleges, from 1820 to 1835 inclusive."
If any thing could make still more apparent the
connection between this Concert of Prayer and the
frequent revivals of religion that have occurred in our
colleges since its appointment, it is the additional fact
that these revivals have nearly all occurred during the
winter term in which the concert is observed, and for
the most part shortly after its observance. That is,
perhaps, the most favorable season of the year for special attention to personal religion in colleges, as it is
also in churches.  There is also no doubt a natural




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              151
tendency in such a concert to produce such results.
When the eyes of the whole church are directed simultaneously towards the young men in our institutions
of learning, it would be strange if they did not turn
their thoughts towards themselves and each other;
and if their teachers did not feel deeply their responsibilities in regard to them, and warn and entreat them
tenderly, not only publicly, but in private; and if
pious parents and friends did not pray for them, and
write to them  with peculiar pathos and power,-thus
producing a concentration of interest which it would
seem must burn upon the most seared conscience, and
warm  the coldest heart.  And God, who loves united
prayer, and also works by all suitable means, has heard
the prayer of his people, and made use of these favorable circumstances, and given efficacy to his Word,
which is usually preached with unusual pungency at
such times; and the consequence is, that that Winter
Ternm, and more especially the last few weeks of it, have
been the birth season of hundreds and thousands of
young men in college, who are now ministers of the
gospel and teachers of youth, and missionaries of the
cross and men of influence in every department of life,
in almost every portion of the world. Could the concert be observed by all the churches; observed with
earnest and believing prayer not only, but also with fasting (for this kind goeth not out but with prayer and
l/sUsting), we might hope for far more glorious results.
And if our colleges were also remembered every Sabbath
in the prayers of the sanctuary, and every morning and
evening in the prayers of pious families,-remembered




152          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
with that particularity and tenderness, and importunity
and faith which their peculiar character and standing
denmands from the whole church, and which the providence and the Spirit of God have so conspicuously sanctioned and encouraged,-we might hope that the good
influence would not only be felt every year, but be diffused and prolonged through the year; thus preventing
apostasy and inconsistency, sustaining a more uniform,
as well as more elevated standard of piety, and bringing into the ministry whole classes and colleges of such
holy men as God could consistently own and bless in
the speedy conversion of the whole world to himself.
We cannot conclude this chapter without adverting to some facts, which, at the present time, are fitted
to awaken special anxiety, and which conspire with
the encouraging circumstances, of which we have
spoken, to call for special earnestness in prayer.  For
a few years past, there has been a serious decline in
the number of those who have entered the ministry.
The highest numbers furnished by the principal Theological Seminaries in New England and New York in
any one year since 1820 was in 1838, when it reached
one hundred and sixty-eight.  From that time there
was a regular decrease, till, in 1843, it fell below one
hundredl; and with the exception of a single year, it
never rose above one hundred between that time and
1850.  The number of students connected with the
Thleological Seminaries of New England alone was one
IunDdred and twenty-five less in 1852 than in 1840.
If we pause a moment to inquire into the causes
Df this decrease, we shall find in them increased occa



A PREMIUMI ESSAY.             153
sion for prayerful solicitude, though the responsibility
does not attach solely, or even chiefly, to the colleges.
It is not owing to a decrease of college students.  On
the contrary, the number of undergraduates in the
colleges of New England was greater by two hundred
and five in 1852 than in 1840. Moreover, during this
period, not a few new colleges have come into active
operation in the West and in other parts of the
country.
Neither is it because the colleges have ceased to be
blessed with special outpourings of the Spirit. On the
contrary, in the new colleges of the West, at least,
the period of decline now under consideration, and
which comprises the larger portion of their history,
has been marked by numerous revivals. In addition
to those already alluded to, four revivals occurred in
Knox College in the space of six years, ending in 1852.
A precious work of grace was enjoyed at Illinois College in 1853, and another in the early part of 1854.
About the same time, Marietta College was blessed
with one of the most powerful revivals known in its
history. And in 1852, the revivals in our colleges
generally were more numerous and powerful, than in
any year since 1820, with the exception of 1831, resulting in the hopeful conversion of not much less
than three hundred young men connected with some
fifteen institutions.
The decrease of candidates for the ministry may be
referred mainly to two general causes; viz., the comparative unfrequency of revivals in the churches, and
perhaps, also, in some of the older colleges; and the
7V:




154           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
prevalence of a worldly spirit, turning away young men
from the toils and sacrifices of the ministry to the
numberless and tempting fields of enterprise that open
on every hand. The effect is seen, in the first place,
in the unusually small proportion of pious students that
are brought into colleges from the churches. In 1832,
fifty out of ninety who entered the Freshman Class in
Yale College were professedly pious. For two or three
years past, pious students have numbered less than
one third of the class. Never in the history of Amherst College has a class entered with so small a ratio
of professed Christians as the class of 1850, though, it
should be added, that there has since been an increase
to nearly the usual ratio.  In Dartmouth College, the
proportion of professors of religion has probably never
been smaller than at present; certainly it is much
smaller than it was fifteen or twenty years acgo.
In the second place, the operation of these causes
is seen in the fact, that in most of our colleges, and
probably in all, a smaller proportion of pious students
enter the ministry than in former years. Probably
there is no college in New England, where so large a
proportion* of the pious students enter the ministry
as in Amherst College.  Yet in Amherst College,
whereas it was formerly a rare thing for a pious young
man to engage in any secular calling, —so rare as to occasion remark and surprise,-now it is by no means so
rare or remarkable.
We have spoken of these causes as two. The cause,
after all, is radically one, namely, the prevalence of
a worldly and self-seeking, instead of a self-denying




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              155
and Christian spirit; and the remedy is one, namely,
larger measures of divine influence.  Nothing else will
make the churches more reasonable in their demands,
and more generous in their treatment of the ministry;
ready, in a word, to remove every needless toil and
trial from the sacred office. Nothing else can dispose
and prepare unconverted, or even converted young
men, whether in the college or in the community, to
bear cheerfully the crushing weight of labors and responsibilities that devolve on the ministry under the
most favorable circumstances.  Only He, who made
man, can make an able and faithful minister of the
gospel. The residue of the Spirit is with God, and he
will bestow it only in answer to the prayers of those
who love Zion.
If we turn now from the supply of ministers to the
demand for them, we find that while the former has
been diminishing, the latter has been constantly and
rapidly increasing, in consequence of the vast extension
of our national domain, the unparalleled increase of
population, the organization of new States and the
multiplication of churches, together with the wide
fields opened to missionary effort in all parts of the
world. Since the annual supply of ministers began to
decrease, a million square miles have been added to
our national territory, five to the number of States,
and seven millions to our population. Emigration has
been pouring its hundreds of thousands-enough to
form a new State-every year into our country; and
these, for the most part, wedded to one of two great
and growing forms of fatal error,-the Celtic races to




156          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
popery and the Teutonic races to infidelity.  The
former are establishing colleges and seminaries at
every commanding point, and summoning all their
energies to gain, through timid or corrupt politicians,
the control of our common schools. The latter are
holding conventions, lifting up their voice in high
places, and seizing on the mighty enginery of the
press. And both are, at this moment, marching with
unprecedented boldness to possess themselves of the
sovereignty in the great cities, both on the Atlantic
coast and on the great rivers of the West, threatening
to trample down in their march the Bible, the Sabbath
and our most sacred institutions. Our field is literally
the world. Not only is the world open, and the harvest every where ripe for the labors of foreign missionaries, but all nations, from the Emerald Isle on the
West to the Celestial Empire on the East, are flocking
to our own shores. Europe looks with mingled wonder
and fear on our free institutions, our growing political
and moral power; and while despots watch for our
fall, the masses wait for our national intervention, or
at least look with unutterable hopes and longings for
our social, moral and religious influence. Asia and
Africa, too, hang on America their chief hopes for
knowledge and liberty and eternal life.
The concurrence of these facts, this diminution of
supply on the one hand, and increase of demand on
the other, has produced an exigency, which is universally acknowledged and felt, and which brings from all
our missionary boards, and from all our ecclesiastical
organizations, loud and earnest calls for men. Every




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             157
number of our missionary journals comes laden with
the cry, "Give us men; where are the men to be
found who will carry the bread of life to the millions
that are perishing with hunger?" And the cry that
thus reaches the readers of these journals, is only a
faint echo of the many and loud voices that call from.
the North and the South and the East and the West,
"Come over and help us! "
Never was there a time when so many men, and
such wise and holy men, were needed for ministers and
missionaries, and teachers and rulers, and every other
post of influence. Never especially was there a time
when there was such an imperative demand for a numerous, learned and godly ministry.  Never did such
encouragements and such necessities melcet and press
with such combined force on the consciences and the
hearts of all who seek the prosperity of Zion. And at
such a time, that there should be a decrease instead
of an increase in the number of candidates for the
ministry; and when we look from the wasting streams
to the fountains, that we should find the supply failing
there; that at such a time, revivals should be fewer
and less powerful, and the number of professors of religion falling off; and a smaller proportion of these even
should be preparing for the ministry, not only in the
churches but in the colleges, which were established
for the very purpose, above all others, of meeting just
this want with a steady and permanent supply;-is it
not alarmlin, and deplorable to the last degree? Does
it not roll a fearful responsibility on the guardiians
und teachers, on the patrons and pious students, on




158           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
ministers and Christians, on all who have any connection with or concern for our colleges or our churches,
a fearful responsibility touching the present religious
state of these institutions?  When the wants of our
country and the cries of the struggling nations,when the church and the world,-when humanity and
religion, —when the providence and Word and Spirit
of God,-when every thing that can speak and every
thing that hath breath, is calling upon our colleges, as
with an audible voice, to go forward; to train and
send forth the captains who shall lead on the sacramental host of the Lord's anointed to the conquest of
the world for learning and piety, for heaven and God,
-must there be a backward movement in the very
van of the army,-a failure of duty and of resources
in the very citadel of the Holy City? Where will the
responsibility of such a dereliction fall? or, rather,
where will it not fall? Who will be free from a share
in the guilt? Who that has any sympathy with
Christ can fail to go to him at once, and plead before
him the very argument which he himself has put into
our mouths: The harvest truly is great, and the laborers are few; thou Lord of the harvest, send forth
laborers into the harvest; and to this end, pour out
thy Spirit in speedy and copious effusions on the young
men in our colleges, who need only a new heart to fit
them for this work; who are already far advanced in
their intellectual training, and who alone can be irmmediately prepared to meet this immediate and pressing necessity. Thou who didst feed the fainting multitudes inM the wilderness with the few loaves and the




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                159
few small fishes, pity the untold multitudes of fainting
souls who are ready to perish in the deserts of heathenism,-nay, in the very cities and villages of this Christian land, —to perish for ever, because there is none to
break uvto them the bread of eternal life.




CHAPTER XII.
Responsibilities of Guardians and Teachers, Pious Strudeits and Pious ParentsTrustees-The Legislative Power-Charge of Funds-General Oversight-A Religious Society-Responsibility for the Religious State of Colleges-Power of Appointment-IDuty to appoint Christian Teachers-Faculty-The Executive Power
-Immediate Charge and Principal Responsibility-Scholars-Christians-Oppor-.
tunities for Christian Influence-Recitations-Prayers-Dr. Dwight-PreachingRevivals-Personal Conversation with Students-Prayer-Due to Themselves,
to their Pupils, to the Design and IIistory of Colleges, to the Church, to Mankind
and to God-Pious Students-Some Advantages even over the Officars-Examplo
-Power to do Evil-Power to do Good-Brainerd-Taylor-True DistinctionPious Parents-Influence over Sons ill Vacation-Power of Prayer-Facts -Revival in Amherst College-Converts subjects of Special Prayer-Children of the
Covenant.
THE  responsibility  for our  colleges  rests  primarily on
those who have the charge of them. These are the
trustees and the faculty, who are invested the one with
the legislative, the other with the executive power.
The former control the funds, enact the laws, and appoint the teachers; the latter execute the laws, administer the government, and impart the instruction.
The trustees are the sole legal representatives of
the college. In law, therefore, and in the eye of the
State, the sole responsibility is theirs. And the highest moral responsibility  devolves  ultimately  on  those
who have the supreme power.
The  trustees  are  invested  with  the exclusive  disposal of the funds. It is their duty, therefore, to see
that these funds be neither wasted nor perverted; that




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              161
they be faithfully applied, if special donations, to the
purpose for which they were originally given, or, if
general funds, to the object for which the college was
established.  This is not a responsibility to be lightly
esteemed, or carelessly undertaken, especially as our
colleges grow older and richer, and, as with the lapse
of time, the sacred purpose for which most of them
were founded is liable to be forgotten, or overlooked.
Such a trust can be properly discharged only by men
of enlightened minds and tender consciences, familiar
with the history of American colleges, and imbued
with the spirit of their pious founders; skilled in the
management of funds, and scrupulously upright in the
administration of them; men who will study and carry
out the intentions of the fathers, or founders, with the
same sacred honor and integrity with which they would
execute the last will and testament of a beloved
friend; who will watch over the interests of the institution committed to their care with all, and more than
all, the wakeful solicitude with which they would
cherish the welfare of orphan children commended to
their guardianship by the last accents of parental love.
The colleges are the adopted children of "parents passed
into the skies," and the trustees are their guardians.
The trustees are charged with the general oversight
of colleges.  They are, therefore, properly responsible for its general character and state, whether as
it regards literature, morals or religion.  To this end,
they nmust be qualified to judge of all those great interests; and not only competent, but disposed to devise suitable ways and means for their advancement




162            PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
They should be intelligent men-themselves, for the
most part, of collegiate education; acquainted by personal experience, not only with literature and science,
but with college life. They should be Christian men,
men of experimental piety and Christian benevolence;
who will give religion that first place in their hearts,
and, so far as in them lies, in the institution, to which
it is, in its own nature, entitled, and which it has received in all the early history of American colleges.
The college is, in its origin, essentially a religious institution; and it is the first duty, the paramount obligation of the trustees, to see that it answers, in this
respect, its original intention. The trustees of Yale
College early claimed that colleges are, in their nature,
religious societies; that the corporation, as the head
of such a society, are so far forth an ecclesiastical body;
and accordingly, by their own authority, they constituted the first church in the college, and installed the
professor of divinity its first pastor. Whatever may
be thought of such a claim, the trustees of our colleges
are certainly bound, in view of such facts, to feel a peculiar responsibility for the religious character of the
institutions under their care; to know what their religious state is, and see that it is what it should be, so
far as their corporate action can make and keep it so.
Above all, it is incumbent on them to watch and pray,
that nothing be suffered to hinder or impair those divine influences, which have been the prosperity and
glory of American colleges, and which, from these
fountains, have flowed in such copious streams over
the American churches and the American people.




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               163
Unless they come up to this standard, we see not how
they can be morally guiltless 6f a serious breach of
trust.
But it is in the exercise of the appointing power,
that the trustees exert the most direct and decisive influence over the college. And this brings us to the
consideration of the collateral question, what sort of
men should compose the faculty, on whom  devolves
the immediate government and instruction.
They must of course be learned men, disciplined in
mind, cultivated in taste, thoroughly trained in all the
branches of literature and science, and especially masLers of the department *to which they devote themselves; apt to teach also, sound in their principles,
correct in their habits; so far as possible, model teachers and model men. This is a thing of such obvious
and acknowledged necessity, that it will be looked to
as a matter of course. An instructor in college without distinguished literary attainments and an unblemished moral character, would be immediately pronounced unfit for his office; and the college, whose
president and professors should be deficient in these
intellectual and moral qualifications, would soon be
destitute also of pupils and patrons.
But is their religious character and influence less
important?  Is religion so unimportant in itself, and
so irrelevant to the design of a college, that genuine
piety should not be deemed an essential qualification
of a college officer; that he should be appointed to
the office without once raising the question, whether
he is a Christian, and be suffered to make his mark on
8




164           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
hundreds of leading minds, hundreds of immortal
spirits, without any inquiry whether it is a Christian
impress? Not in a Christian country, which owes its
unexampled prosperity to the Christian religion.  Not
by the Christian church, whose members hang all their
hopes for this life and the next on that religion. Not
in Christian colleges, which were founded by holy men
chiefly for sacred purposes.
The officers of college may be all that we have
above supposed, in their intellectual and moral qualifications, and yet be radically unfit for their office.
They must be Christians, and th'at not merely by profession  and  creed, but practically, experimentally,
heartily Christian; eminently holy and devoted men,
full of love to Christ and all for whom Christ died,whose hearts shall be in lively sympathy with revivals,
Christian missions, and every enterprise of benevolence; and whose learning, all baptized in a purer
fount, shall all be consecrated to the cause of charity,
humanity and God. The want of such a Christian
spirit is, in reality, and should be esteemed, a disqualification for the office, less glaring perhaps, but not less
essential and fatal, than the want of learning or the
want of a good moral character.  We are well aware
that when religions considerations are allowed to interfere with the claims of a candidate otherwise well
qualified for a professorship, there are always enough
to raise the cry of " sectarianism,"  " proscription,"
"C religious test," &c.  But if we have taken the right
view of the design and history of American colleges,
religious considerations ought to have, not only some,




A PREMIUM ESSA Y.            165
but paramount influence in such appointments. Few,
if any, of those who make the outcry against "'religious tests," would exclude them altogether. Would
they consider a Hume or a Gibbon a suitable candidate
for the historical professorship in an English university
or an American college? But why not? He would
probably distance all competitors in his mastery of the
facts and the philosophy of history. Would they be
accessory to the appointment of a Voltaire or a Condorcet to the chair of ethical and political philosophy?
But why not? These were men of brilliant talents
and vast erudition. Why then complain, if the trustees of a college founded by Christian men, and primarily for a Christian object, should refuse to elect to
the professorship of Natural Science, or of Ancient
Languages, —to say nothing of Divinity, —a man, however well qualified in other respects, who can see no
footsteps of a personal Creator in the material universe,
or who can find no traces of a divine Redeemer in the
Scriptures? The truth is, our colleges are foundations " sacred to Christ and his church," and to place
upon them an incumbent who does not hold the truth
and the Spirit of Christ, is to desecrate them. They
are religious institutions, and to secularize them is to
pervert them. So it would have seemed in the eyes
of the founders; and men who will not exercise the
responsible functions of the appointing power on the
same principles, have no right to accept the office of
trustee in such institutions.
We are now prepared to consider the duties and
responsibilities of the faculty. Supposing them to be




166           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
such men as we have described, what opportunities
will they have for exerting a Christian influence?
As officers of instruction, they come in direct daily
contact with the students; and every day will bring
with it some opportunity of saying or doing something
that will have an important bearing on their religious
character and their eternal destiny. It will be of very
little use for them to lug in their preaching or their
moralizing as a matter of official duty, when they have
no heart for the work.  But if the heart is ever full
of Christian truth, and ever warm with holy love, it
will not want frequent opportunities to pour itself out
in those words spoken in season, which are like apples
of gold in pictures of silver.
The daily studies of the class-room will often suggest a religious lesson, that may be dropped by the
way. The classic author may illustrate by resemblance
or by contrast the doctrine or the language of the sacred page.  The scientific treatise may raise the
thoughts to the infinite Author of all science. The
weekly Bible exercise, which, we are happy to know,
exists in so many colleges, affords an opportunity of
rendering learning subservient to religion; which the
Christian teacher will seize with avidity, and improve
with a zeal tempered by wisdom,-which will be remembered, and remembered with respect and pleasure by his pupils, perhaps long after he has ceased
from his labors. The morning and evening prayer,
formal and heartless as it sometimes is, need not be
so, and will not be so, if the officers, as in turn they
officiate at the altar, will give it their thoughts, and




A PREMIUM ESSAY.                167
prepare their hearts for it, as they prepare their minds
for the daily lessons, and throw their whole souls into
it at all times, as they sometimes do in seasons of special religious interest. Such prayers as Dr. Dwight
poured forth in the chapel of Yale College, when in
the agony of his spirit he wrestled with God, as well
as struggled with men for the victory over error and
sin —such prayers as we have heard, all the year
round, and year after year, from the honored and beloved president of Amherst College-such prayers
never fall powerless on the ear of man or God; never
fail to carry the whole assembly of worshippers, with a
wise and sacred violence, into the very presence of their
Maker.
Many college officers are also preachers of the gospel. It is desirable that they should be. There is no
better discipline for the mind, as well as the heart of
the teacher, than the study of theology. The sacred
science is the centre of all the other sciences, and the
Sacred Writings are the fountain of a literature that
is higher, richer, purer than any other. It is well in
many respects (though not perhaps best in every respect) that the professors should all take part in the
preaching to the students on the Sabbath. It turns
their attention to the spiritual interests of their pupils,
and obliges them all to share directly in the responsibility, as of their literary proficiency, so of their immortal well-being. Here, again, complaint is often
made of the college chapel as containing the worst
possible audience for preachers. But the fault is in
the preachers more than in the hearers. Good preach8




168           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
ers find good audiences every where, and nowhere
better than in the college chapel. The college is the
last place in the world to go to with scientific dissertations, or literary essays, or poetical prettinesses. Such
sermons will of course raise an army of critics, like the
sowing of dragons' teeth.  But manly, truthful and
earnest appeals to their understanding, their consciences and their hearts, students will hear, will respect, will feel, will remember, will profit by, as surely
and as abundantly as any audience in Christendom.
The opportunity to preach to such an audience is a
sacred privilege, which the college officer cannot too
highly prize; a priceless talent, for the improvement
of which he must give a solemn account.
Revivals of' religion should be an object of special
prayer and labor with the officers of colleges.  Revivals are so adapted, as we have already said, to the
nature and relations of young men in college, that
there is very little hope of maintaining in them even
an ordinary standard of piety and a tolerable state of
religion, without frequent seasons of special religious
interest; and these cannot be expected to occur unless
they are specially contemplated, earnestly desired, confidenily expected, and perseveringly sought by suitable
prayer and effort. A revival every four years is the
very lowest standard that will meet at all the necessities of the case, that every class, at least, may reap the
fruits of one of those hallowed seasons.  A  revival
every year is what is manifestly needed to bring every
class at once under the controlling influence of religious
principle, and to keep the standard high and rising




A PREMIUMI ESSAY.               169
from the beginning to the end of the course.  And we
do believe if the officers of college would plan for it,
and toil for it, and pray for it, and look for it, as they
do for other and inferior ends; and if the united prayers of the church might also go up for it, this exceedingly desirable result might, be attained. " Be it unto
thee according to thy faith," is the language which the
providence and the Spirit, as well as the Word of God,
utters almost with an audible voice to all who seek his
face, but most emphatically to those who watch and
pray for the spiritual welfare of students in college.
It were good economy in the government of the students to labor for frequent revivals.  Such a college,
as we have described, would govern itself. There is
no dissipation, no vice, no call for discipline, in time
of revival, and for some time after. The presence of
God is too visible, too awful for such profanation.
The moral power of truth and holiness is too clearly
seen and too deeply felt. Let such seasons become so
frequent that their influence shall continue, and, so to
speak, overlap each other, and the college will be an
easily governed community, well ordered and beautiful
in itself, as well as a school of discipline and preparation for heaven.
Personal conversation of the officers with the students on the subject of personal religion is an important means of good, not only in revivals, but at all
seasons.  Why should students go away from Christian colleges, where the teachers are all, or nearly all,
professed Christians, and many of them Christian ministers, and where revivals occur every few years, and
8




170           PRAYER FOR COLLE/ES.
complain that not one of those teachers has ever said
a word to them personally on that great subject, which
is the chief concern of every human being, which is the
most essential element in every student's education?
Direct intercourse and intercommunion of officers
with students is much more frequent now than it was
in the days of our fathers, when students must take
off their hats if they came in sight of a college officer;
and when, of course, they shunned the sight of an
officer, as the children and youth of the parish, for a
similar reason, dreaded the visits of the parson. The
consequence is (and this is one of the most encouraging aspects of the times in regard to colleges), that the
faculty and the students no longer constitute two parties, as they then did, with opposing interests and hostile
feelings. It is a great safeguard to individual students, also, to feel that this and that officer cherish a
personal regard for them. Nothing makes a young
man more reckless than to feel that he has no friends
in the community where he dwells; none to care for
him, none to be specially gratified if he does well, and
none to be deeply grieved if he acts an unworthy part.
In one college, where perhaps personal intercourse
is carried as far, or ftarther, than in any other, there is
no member of college who is not invited to the house
of some officer every year in his college course.  Visits
to students at their rooms, also, are not mere formal
calls of police officers to spy out their quarters, but,
often at least, friendly visits and pleasant conversations, which not unfrequently take a religious turn.
Some system is also observed in these visits and con



A PREMIUM ESSAY.               171
Versations, and such'a division of labor is made as to
extend themn to all the students.  The result is believed to be most happy, not only in the religious state
of the collere, but in its government, and in all the
relations of of-ficers and students. And the only regret
of the officers is, that they do not find more time fol
such intercourse, and have not the heart to turn it
oftener to a good religious account.
Above all, college officers should be men of prayer,
above other men, for they hold a post of greater responsibility than most; above all other things, for prayer
is the most important of' all their duties, and, in some
sense, comprehensive of all.  For to pray well is not
only to study well, as the Reformers thought, but to
teach well and preach well, and govern well and guide
well the minds and hearts intrusted to their charge.
Every public exercise, literary as well as religious,
should be preceded by prayer, as milch as those of a
pastor, and for the same reason; every such exercise
is forming characters for time and for eternity, and, if
guided by wisdom and blessed by grace from on high,
may contribute much to form them for usefulness here
and happiness hereafter.  Every place-the study, the
recitation-room, the laboratory and the library, not
less than the closet and tihe chapel-should be bp1tized with prayer.  They slhould pray not only  r thlle
whole college, but for classes, and sections and individuals.  This will awaken increased interest in such individuals, and not only secure greater faithfulness, but
lead naturally to a more felicitous use of all suitable
opportunities and means for doing them good. They




172           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
should watch for souls, and pray with and for them  as
those that must give account; for never had any class
of men greater facilities for doing this with such a reasonable prospect of a happy result than college officers: and they cannot escape the responsibility of
using or neglecting the ten talents that are thus put
into their hands.  They owe it to themselves, for
nothing will so fit them for the best performance of
their literary as well as their religious duties; nothing
will contribute so much to their honor and happiness
here, or make them  shine so brightly as stars of the
first magnitude in the firmament for ever.  They
owe it to their character as Christian  men; to
their profession, many of them, as Christian ministers, and to their office as Christian teachers in Christian institutions.  They owe it to their pupils, who
look to their instructions and example as an illustration of what is most worthy to be pursued; and to
the parents of those pupils, who, in intrusting them
to their care, wish them to be taught, first of all, the
things that are most excellent, and who desire nothing
so much as that their children may be found walking
in the truth.  They owe it to the college system,
which was chiefly intended for religious purposes; to
the history of American colleges, which has been to so
grecat an extent a history of the labors of wise and good
men, owned and blessed by the providence and grace
c.f God; to the halls and rooms which they occupy,
or visit, and the very ground on which they tread,all of which have been hallowed by the prayers of ministers and missionaries, and holy men, and by the




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              173
more sacred presence of the Divine Spirit. Are there
not some rooms in all our colleges, and all the rooms
in some of them, where the stone would cry out of the
wall at the profanation, and the beam out of the timber would answer it, if they were ever desecrated to
unholy revelry, or even to mere secular pursuits and
selfish gratifications? They owe it to the church,
which looks to them for a learned and godly ministry;
to the Commonwealth and the country, which depend
on them for wise and pious rulers; to the present age,
which hangs on its educated men its only earthly hope
of deliverance from the peculiar errors and dangers by
which it is beset; to the cause of truth and righteousness, and liberty and humanity, which will roll on in
safibty to complete triumph, or be stopped in its victorious career, or be thrown off the safe track, according to the wisdom or the folly, the faithfulness or the
unfaithfulness, of those engineers and conductors who
are now under the training of the officers of college.
They owe it to mankind, whose destinies, for time and
eternity, are intrusted, under God, in so large a measure to their keeping. They owe it, above all, to God,
whose they are and whom they serve, who has put them
in this high post of trust and influence, and endowed
them with the qualifications for it; who, by his wonder-working providence, has thrown the whole educational system so entirely into the hands of Christian
men and Christian ministers; and who, in his more
wonderful grace, has shown so much readiness to cooperate with them by his Spirit in the discharge of
their responsible duties. They stand on holy ground,




174          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and the Lord, out of the burning bush, calls on them
to put their shoes from off their feet, and receive, with
holy awe and obedient will, his commission for the redemption of his chosen people.  They stand at the
fountain-head, and all who dwell along the banks, or
drink from the waters, will hold them responsible for
the streams. They possess the citadel in the city of
God, and earth and heaven expect them to do their duty.
In conclusion of this chapter, we cannot but advert to the concurrent responsibility of pious students
in college, and also of pious parents and friends. In
some respects, pious students have the advantage, even
over the officers, in opportunities of doing good to their
fellow-students, as individuals. They are on the same
level with those whom they would benefit, and in constant contact with them. Like the professedly pious
brothers and sisters in a family, their example has even
more power, perhaps, than that of the parents. They
are literally known and read by the whole community,
and whether they will or not, they cannot but exert
an influence.  The unchristian life of one professor of
religion may raise doubts in many a mind, as to the
reality of experimental piety. On the other hand, the
silent example of one manifestly sincere, consistent,
every-day Christian, has been like an anchor, that has
held many a doubting and tempest-tossed soul around
him  to a belief of the truth as it is in Jesus.  We
shudder when we remember the incalculable mischief
that has been done by a talented and accomplished,
but ungodly youth, as he has gone through college
scattering firebrands, arrows and death, while other




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             175
young aninds, as inflammable as gunpowder, stand
thick around him. Again, it thrills us with delight to
recall the career of one and another young man of remarkable piety, whose heart was full of love to the
souls of men, whose closet burned with a perpetual fire
on the altar, whose room, at all times a Bethel, became, in seasons of revival, emphatically the house of
God and the gate of heaven; whose lips, always ready
to speak for Christ and his cause, at such seasons overflowed with impassioned and resistless eloquence;- and
whose life, a pattern of faithfulness in every duty, was
clothed with marvellous power to persuade men and to
please God. Many a revival in college has seemed to
turn on the influence of one such pious student.
What power would there not be then in a college
church made up of such young Christians?  What
Freshman Class could withstand the power of such a
church, when it first came under their influence?
Oh, how can Christian students come into the places
and occupy the rooms of such men —men, who in college, like David Brainerd and James Brainerd Taylor,
and many others whom we have known, have turned
many to righteousness-without seeing and feeling
deeply that here is a distinction far above ordinary college distinctions, far above all worldly greatness, tc
shine like them in usefulness on earth and in glory
above the stars? Alas! that such a field of usefillness should be overlooked by so many young men
who might do more good in it than most men do in
all their lives; and at the salve time, by the very process of clltivating it, might most effectually prepare




176           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
themselves for further labor in whatever field the Lord
of the harvest may assign them. What more beautiful spectacle can there be on earth, than youth devoted
to God, and learning joined in holy wedlock to religion! And what study can there be more worthy of
a Christian student than to consummate such a union!
Pious parents, while they labor for the conversion
or the increasing sanctification of their own sons, may,
and do, exert no inconsiderable influence on the religionus state of college.  Their personal influence on
their sons during the vacation may have an important
bearing not only on their character, but also on the
salvation of others; may thwart all the good influences of the previous term, or may seal all the literary
and social, as well as moral and religious impressions,
which faithful teachers are at so much pains to make.
The letters of a godly mother or a pious sister, freighted
with wisdom and love, are fraught also with moral
power to touch and soften the hardest heart, and
thence often to reach the hearts of others.
But the chief reliance of pious friends at a distance
must be on the power of prayer. However separated
by distance, they can meet their sons, if pious, every
morning and evening at a common mercy-seat; and
if not pious, they can reach them at any time
through a presence which they cannot escape, and
a power which they cannot resist; not only meet, or
reach them, but lay their hands, as it were, upon
them, and leave a blessing on their heads. What an
unspeakable privilege! What a blessed medium of
approach and influence over those far away! Nor is




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              177
this fancy or enthusiasm. Facts go beyond imagination in regard to this very power, as it has been exerted
on the members of college, especially in times of revival. After one of those happy seasons, of which
there have been so many at Amherst College, President tHitchcock addressed a letter to the parents of the
converts, and found to his surprise (no, we will not say
surprise, for he seems to have expected it, but to his
wonder and delight) that irk a majority of cases parents
and friends at home had felt an unusual solicitude for
these very youth.  Even though they had heard
nothing of their state of mind, and knew nothing of
the state of religious feeling in college, still they were
waiting with unutterable longings, or with confident
expectations, Go hear of the conversion of their impenitent children.
Another very interesting fact, which was developed
in this revival, and which has been found to be equally
true of many others, is, that a very large proportion
of the converts were " children of the covenant; " a fact
full of encouragement to parents, who dedicate their
children from infancy to the Lord in the ordinance of
baptism, but which also illustrates forcibly the responsibility of parents for the salvation of their children.
Of 63 who were admitted to the church in Yale College, as fruits of the revival of 1802, all but eight were
" children of the covenant." Of 22 who were received
to the communion after that of 1808, every individual
had been baptized in infancy; and of 70 who professed
religion after the revival of 1831, all but ten were
the children of pious parents.  If pious parents would
8:




178           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
but watch for the souls of their sons in college as
they care and toil for their worldly prosperity; if the
church would but do her duty to the baptized children of the church, who are members of college, what
a redeeming and sanctifying element would, by this
means alone, be infused into our literary institutions I
But we must devote another chapter to the responsibility of the church and its ministers.




CIAPTER XIII.
Duty of the Church and the Minislry to the Colleges-The Church the Mother of the
Colleges-The Ministers their Sons in a double sense-Not Secular Institutions-Western College Society —Paramount Duty of Ministers to root Colleges
in the Confidence of the Churches and the Common People-College Foundations
-The Young Men of the Church-A Blessing to the Churches to educate them
-Southampton, Westhampton-True idea of an Education Society-Comprekenive-The Whole Cause one-A Fundamental Object-Large Funds necessity for Charitable Aid-The Prayers of the Church-A Treasure laid up in Heaven-Cannot be squandered or perverted.
THE church cannot roll off all responsibility for the religious state  of colleges upon  college  officers.   She
could not, if she would; and we are sure she would
not, if she could. She is the mother of the colleges,
and she cannot but endow them with more or less of
her property, and follow them with her blessing and
her prayers. And the ministers in turn are (many of
them in a double sense) the sons of the colleges. Most
of them received their education there; very many of
them  were spiritually born there. 
The impression has sometimes prevailed (though
the providence of God and the remonstrances of enlightened men have done much of late to remove that
impression), that colleges are secular institutions, and,
as such, have no special claim on the charities or the
prayers of the church. But they were not so esteemed
by our Pilgrim  Fathers, who planted  Harvard College




180          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
in the midst of the churches, and watered it with their
prayers and tears; and lavished on it their treasures
too,-the riches of their poverty and liberality,-as
they gave for no other object of Christian charity.
They were not so considered by those ministers who
endowed Yale College with the choicest gifts from
their libraries, and, in that very act, consecrated a
perpetual union between learning and religion. They
were not so viewed by those who, with pious and, for
the most part, clerical hands, founded the College of
New Jersey and Dartmouth College, and the other institutions that sprung up in all sections of the country
during the transition period, in which the political
power was passing from the Mother Country to the
Colonies and the United States. They have not been
so regarded by those wise and holy men who have
built so many colleges in the old and the new States
during the last quarter of a century. The whole history of colleges proves that they have not been, and
were never intended to be, secular institutions. They
always have been Christian schools, —a sort of religious
society; and if they are to live and prosper, they must
still continue to enjoy the patronage and the prayers,
they must still be more or less directly under the
watch and care of the Christian church and the Christian ministry. The Western College Society has done
good service in bringing this question distinctly before
the Christian public, and establishing this principle)
on the solid basis of historical facts and incontrovertible arguments; and this Society is as strictly a religious society, and as well entitled to be heard from




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              181
the pulpit on the Sabbath, and to share, in the subscriptions of the church, or the contributions of the
sanctuary, as the Education Society, the Tract Society, or the Missionary Society itself. The institutions which it represents are in no small measure the
executive power and active agency,-the controlling
head and the laboring hand of them all. All the
money that can be poured into the treasuries of these
societies is worthless and powerless, unless the colleges
furnish the men. And ministers of the gospel could
hardly render a more important service to the churches
and the cause of benevolence at this moment than by
preaching, in connection with the claims of this Society, or at their pleasure, on the indissoluble connection between the pecuniary, literary and religious condition of colleges and the permanent prosperity of the
churches. IMinisters, as educated men, see the mutual
relations of learning and religion more clearly, and feel
them more deeply, than the great majority of their
people can. But by instructing them, line upon line,
on the subject, they may bring their people up to
some near approximation to their own just conceptions.
And this is the paramount duty which the clergy owe
to the higher seminaries of learning; to endeavor to
wipe away from them the twofold prejudice, that they
are secular establishments, on the one hand, and on
the other, that they are aristocratic institutions; and
so to root them in the confidence of Christians and the
common people, that no heresiarch or demagogue can
ever again hope to gain popularity, or even toleration,
in assailing them.




182           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
There is a select, but growing class of church mem~
bers, whose wealth, combined with intelligence and
liberality, fits them peculiarly to be the patrons of
literary institutions,-by the endowment of professorships, the building of libraries, the establishment of
prizes and other foundations, which shall furnish the
material of education for this and future generations.
It requires more than ordinary faith, or sagacity and
mental enlargement, to found and endow colleges for
generations yet unborn, as it does to establish political
institutions, or plant orchards and shade-trees, for the
benefit of after ages. But such men live when others
die and are forgotten; live in the good they do, and
in the memory of a grateful posterity. If any man is
to be envied, it is he who has the means and the heart
thus to enlarge and perpetuate fountains of holy influence in a dark and sinful world; who will teach and
preach in all coming ages through an uninterrupted
series of learned and pious professors, or speak to the
leading minds of many generations from the books,
and the very shelves and walls of a college library," that shrine where," as Lord Bacon says, " all the
relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, aild
without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed."
It is not men of large wealth only, however, who
may enjoy the luxury of doing good permanently, —— of
perpetuating their influence through college endowments.  Men in ordinary circumstances can combine
to found a scholarship. A church can fill an alcove,
and a Christian, of no great resources, can fill a shelf




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             183
in the library. An association or presbytery can endow
a professorship. A denomination can rear an academy
or a college in some new section, where nothing but
corn or cotton would grow of itself for many a year,
but where it will soon be needed; and the very sight
of it will help to make Christian scholars and Christian
ministers.
But the churches can contribute to the colleges a
richer gift than money. They can send to them their
sons, especially their pious sons, to be educated for the
gospel ministry; those church members who have the
ability, educating their own sons, and taking pains to
educate them for this self-denying work, instead of
takling pains to keep them at home that they may
make money; and the church, as a body, seeking out
their young men who are poor, but pious and promising, and encouraging and aiding them not to look for
the easiest or the fattest place, but, at whatever sacrifice of worldly prospects, to prepare themselves for future usefulness by a public education. In so doing,
as benevolence is always twice blessed, they would
bless the college and bless themselves.
A college can have no more desirable members, no
more useful element introduced into it, than young men
of this class. They aid in its government by their good
example. They teach lessons scarcely less valuable,
and with scarcely less power, than those which are inculcated from the professor's chair. Their habits of
industry, economy, fidelity and piety speak, with more
than the eloquence of words, to every eye that sees




184           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
them, and act upon the whole community like the
little leaven, that leavens the whole lump.
The church, in turn, is blessed in the very selfdenial of parting with them, in the very act of seeking
them out and setting them on towards a higher sphere
of duty and usefulness; in the whole process of encouraging and sustaining them  while they get their
education.  It is blessed, also, in the reflex influence
which they exert upon it, as they return, from term to
term, with enlarging powers and increasing knowledge
and growing piety, to mingle with them  at their
homes and firesides; to aid them in their meetings
for prayer and conference, and to give new life to education, temperance, revivals, missions and every good
cause. Such a connecting link between a Christian
church and a truly Christian college is often an unspeakable blessing to that church and the whole community. And as, in the course of time, several such
men go forth from the same church, and settle in the
ministry, or engage in teaching, or labor in enterprises
of charity and benevolence, they become links not only
between the church and the college, but between that
church and not a few other fountains of good influence, which not only water their own field, or valley,
but, like all " the streams of love," "flow back where
they begin."
This is a point which demands attention in our
day.  WVe are in danger of depending too exclusively
on those great societies which constitute the machinery
of benevolence; and when we have contributed to
them, we are apt to think our duty is done. It is not




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              185
enough to contribute to the funds of an Education Society-indeed it is of no use to contribute to themunless men can be found, or furnished, for the society
to educate.  And if this first point is to be overlooked,
our Education Societies will soon have no material to
work uplon, and our MIissionary Societies no men to
work with, and our colleges must do the best they can
with unconverted students, and our churches, for aught
we can see, must talke up with unconverted ministers,
or no ministers at all.
Wvhere is the church, that will again set the example, and where are the churches that will follow the
example, which was so well set in former times by the
churches in Southampton and Westhampton, but
which, we fear, is not now very well followed even
there; and make -a business, not of manufacturing
cotton fabrics, but of manufacturing something better
-educated men, and ministers of the gospel?  Such
a community would be intelligent, virtuous and prosperous, by the natural reaction of its educational and
benevolent enterprises.  Such a community would
deserve a premium far higher than was ever awarded
at any "'  orld's Fair," and they would get it at a
vastly grander exhibition, which will one day be made
when the inhabitants of more than one "world" will
be assembled, and a more than royal personage will
preside at the distribution of more than royal prizes.
But over and above all private efforts of individual
Christians and separate churches, there seems to be a
necessity for some public association, which shall take
its place among the other accredited representatives




186           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
of the cause of benevolence, which shall periodically
present the whole subject of collegiate education, and
especially education for the ministry, to the consideration and support of the whole church; and systematically apply their contributions where they are most
needed, and will most effectually subserve the cause.
Associated effort is the order of the day, and union is
strength. Every benevolent object now has its society
to represent it, and to watch over its interests. And
surely none can be more important, none more indispensable, than collegiate education, especially as related to the Christian ministry.  It is essential to the
success of all the others, as the means are indispensable to the accomplishment of the end-as the laborers
are necessary to the ingathering of the harvest.  It
underlies all the others, as the foundation underlies
and supports the superstructure.  Unless this go forward, all other enterprises of Christian benevolence
are at a stand, since money and means, of whatever
kind, and to whatever amount, are powerless without
Men.
It is a cause not only of fundamental importance,
but of great magnitude; wide in its bearings, farreaching in its results, requiring much wisdom in its
management, and vast resources for the achievement
of its ends.  Few  have any just conception of the
whole expense of collegiate education, and that for
the sinmple reason, that all our colleges afford it for
half, or less than half its actual cost; in other words,
collegiate education is from one half to three quarters
gratuitous. If the students were charged the whole




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              187
co0t, including grounds, buildings, libraries and apparatus, as well as the support of the officers and other
current expenses, tuition would be swelled to so enormous a figure, as to exclude all but the sons of the
most wealthy, and quite to appal even them.  If, on
the other hand, tuition could be entirely free in all our
colleges, the privileges of a public education would be
brought within the reach of not a few, who now feel
themselves to be precluded.  If provision were still
further made, by scholarships, and prizes at the disposal of the colleges, for the entire necessary expenses
of all truly meritorious and highly promising young
men who desire a collegiate education, the benefits
would be still more widely extended, and. they would
not be corfined to the individuals, but would be' felt in
every nook and corner of society. If these scholarships
were not expressly limited in their application to candidates for the ministry, they would tend to increase
the mnlber of ministers, since we might hope, that
many of the incumbents, if not pious when placed
upon the foundation, would become so during their
education.  MIany and many a young man have we
known, who longed for an education, but knew no way
to secure the cherished desire of his heart, because
there are no charitable foundations in most of our
colleges, except for pious young men who are preparing for the ministry.  Many such become discouraged,
turn aside to some more accessible walk of life, and
*are lost to learning, lost to all hope of preaching the
gospel. Others struggle along through poverty and
difficulty, and by the providence and grace of God,
9




188          PRAYE.. FOR COLLEGES.
despite the neglect of men, find their way into the
ministry at last, though too often with bodily health
and mental education both impaired by their excessive
exertions.  The colleges should be provided. with the
means of educating sucIL young men. Still more important is it, that they should be more amply furnished
with the means of aiding indigent and pious young
men in an education expressly for the ministry; for
scholarships, prizes and appropriations within the gift
of the college are more acceptable to the young men
than any other form  of charitable aid, and it is believed may be made to exert quite as elevating an influence on the character and attainments.
And this cause, we cannot but add, is one.
Whether it builds new colleges in the far West, or
adds to the educational facilities in the older colleges
of the East,-whether it founds libraries or endows
professorships, or establishes scholarships or distributes
the charities of the churches in direct appropriations to
beneficiaries,-it is one and the same sacred enterprise,
seeking, though in different ways, the same high and
holy end. The American Education Society h1-a. done
a noble work in having, to so large an extent, for a
long course of years supplied the deficiency of charitable foundations in our colleges designed for the benefit
of young men having the ministry in view. This aid,
as supplemental to what could be received-by means
of college endowments-in the shape of reduced cost
of instruction, was indispensable to these young men
in order to the completion of a thorough course of
study.  Blot out the history of that Society, and you




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               189
put out the light in the candlestick of one third of our
churches-send back to the farm, or the shop or the
counter, one third of those self-denying men who are
making the Western wilderness bud and blossom as
the rose-and call home one third of those who have
planted the banner of the cross on distant heathen
shores. And you cast a still darker cloud over the
future; for at this moment, one half of those who are
preparing to enter the ministerial and the missionary
work in our principal theological seminaries, are known
to be beneficiaries of the Education Society.  We
believe that the golden age of the educational enterprise, in its largest sense, is yet to come; that educational facilities will yet be multiplied a hundredfold,
and that a far better education will be afforded to a
far greater number of needy and worthy candidates
for the ministry in years to come, than have ever been
educated in any former year of the history of the
church.  The discussion of the question, whether the
requisite provisions for this work shall be made through
separate and independent organizations, or through a
single one, so comprehensive in its object as to embrace within its scope all that is essential, directly or
indirectly, to the best possible education of the greatest possible number of able and faithful ministers of
the gospel, comes not within the scope of this Essay.
It is alike true, that just in proportion as permanent
provisions are secured, the necessity for those which
are temporary is diminished, and that, in proportion as
permanent provisions fail to meet the demands of tho




190           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
church, the urgency of motive to provide temporary
supplies is increased.
The agency which the American Education Society had in establishing the Concert of Prayer for
colleges, deserves a very high place in the list of its
beneficent operations. It has done a blessed work in
calling the attention of the churches, from year to
year, to the importance of revivals in seminaries of
learning. And its influence has been eminently salutary in securing the resort to such institutions of large
numbers of youth already pious. This is auxiliary
influence of great value and power.  But it is questionable, after all, whether undue reliance has not been
placed upon this temporary and negative, or, at most,
partial and inadequate plan of correcting evil at our
colleges, as if the most that could be done was to purify streams flowing from fountains necessarily corrupt.
The true and great idea undoubtedly is to have all arrangements and appointments such that, with God's
blessing, the fountains themselves may be kept pure,
and consequently in all their outflowings carry a holy
and happy influence over society. This idea should
never be forgotten by the friends of learning and religion. It should be kept ever present, ever proulinent
in the view of the churches and their ministers.  And
in all the various ways both of separate and associated
action of which we have already spoken,-by giving
their money and by giving their best young men,they may contribute not a little to a consummation so
devoutly to be wished.
But there is a still richer gift with which the fee



A PREMIUM ESSAY.             191
blest church, or the poorest Christian, can endow a
college; and which is, after all, a more precious legacy
than princely affluence can bestow. It is the legacy
of their prayers. The vast funds of Harvard College
have been perverted to the propagation of errors which
the godly founders of the college would have contemplated with utter abhorrence. But their prayers are
a fund, intrusted to no human keeping, which can
neither be squandered nor perverted; and these prayers, we believe, will yet bring back the recreant child,
with her rich dowry, to the faith of the Fathers.
Amherst College was passing rich in the faith and
prayers of its pious founders, even while it was struggling with poverty; and now  it may be doubted
whether she is not richer in the prayers of a Graves
than in the munificence of a Williston.
There is a foundation in Amherst College given on
such terms, that one half of the income is liable to be
called for from year to year, in all coming time, by the
founder or his representative.  It is a noble foundation for the college, while, at the same time, it is perhaps a surer provision for the future emergencies of his
own famnily, than the wealth and sagacity of one of
"c the solid men of Boston" could in any other way
establish. Even such a foundation may we all establish by our prayers for colleges; a firm foundation for
the permanent prosperity of those institutions, and, at
the same time, a sure provision for ourselves and our
children after us, laid up in GCod's treasury against the
wants and evils that we know not how soon may come
upon us, or upon those who are near and dear to us.
9




192           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
A "treasure" of prayers, "laid up in heaven!" that
is the true riches for ourselves,-that is the best
inheritance for our children,-that is extensive power
and enduring influence in the church and the world!
It will last as long as the throne of God shall endure;
it will have influence with him who inhabits eternity,
and governs the universe. Who that has any enlightened self-love, any intelligent regard for his own
children and children's children,-any benevolent or
prudent forecast for the well-being of posterity, —who
that has the'opportunity, will not make an investment
which is so easily made, and yet promises such sure
and rich returns? And who that has any right understanding of the inseparable connection between learning and religion, and the indispensable necessity of
Christian colleges to all the great interests of the
church and the State, the country and the world, time
and eternity; who that believes knowledge to be
power,-power to do good on the largest scale, but
power also to do evil beyond all calculation; who that
has any rational love of country or commonwealth, of
mankind or God,-will not do all that prayer can do
to lay broad and deep in the education of all classes,
but especially of the leading minds in society, the
foundations of these many and various interests?




CHAPTER XIV.
Recapitulation-Motives to Prayer in General —Prayer for Colleges —Time and
Manner of Prayer.
WHAT an accumulation of various and weighty motives presses upon us; enough, it would seem, to induce every man to pray for every right and desirable
object; enough, especially, to constrain every American Christian to pray for American colleges! Let us
recapitulate the leading considerations, which have been
urged in the foregoing chapters, that we may bring
their collected force to bear upon our consciences and
our hearts.
1. Inducements to prayer in general.
Prayer is a duty.  Our nature prompts and impels
us to pray. Our circumstances command and invite us
to pray.  Pagans and Mohammedans would rise up
against us, and condemn us, if we did not pray.  The
Bible commands, exhorts, and entreats us to pray. Patriarchs, prophets and apostles were men of prayer;
and our Lord himself taught us both by precept and
example to live a life of prayer.  The Holy Spirit
teaches us to pray, and makes intercession for us, excitin(g within us emotions that cannot be repressed, and
yet cannot be fully uttered. We owe it to our Heavenly
Father, who waits to receive our requests. We owe it
9




194          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
to our divine Redeemer, who has opened the door of access, and stands ready to introduce us. We owe it to our
gracious Helper, who takes us, as it were, by the hand,
and leads us to the door, and brings us near the throne,
and even puts our petitions into our hearts and mouths,
that we may speak acceptable words in the ear of the
King. We owe it to our fellow-men, whose wants are
many, whose necessities are greater than ours, but who
know of no such way of access; who feel that they
have no such liberty of petition, who, while we draw
near to our Father with filial confidence, stand without in cruel poverty, in hopeless misery, in mute despair, but their imploring eyes and their whole aspect
and condition send after us the touching cry, " Pray
for us! "
Prayer is a privilege.  We owe it not only to
our fellow-men and our God, but also to ourselves.
It is an unspeakable honor and pleasure to draw near
to the King of kings with petitions for ourselves; and
it is perhaps a greater honor and pleasure to be intrusted and commissioned, so to speak, to present before him the wants and requests of others.
He is so condescending and kind, yet so wise and
good, that it fills our whole souls with delight to see
his face and hear his voice, and be for a season in his
presence. Moreover, we are sure to receive rich gifts
and great blessings from him. HIe has even promised
to give us every thing we ask for; or, if we ask for
any thing that is not best for us, to give us something
better. Indeed, we never get any thing that is really
good without asking it of him.  We get things in




A PREMIUMI ESSAY.             195
other ways, and from other sources, but they never do
us any good.
Prayer is a rich talent with which he has intrusted
us; a great power which he has put into our hands,which he expects us to use to the best possible advantage, and for the improvement of which we must soon
give account.  We have no more right to neglect this
talent, or this power, than we have to neglect our
bodily health and strength, or waste our property or
time, or bury our talents or influence.  Nay, it is our
best talent, our greatest power, our miglhtiest engine of
influence; and not to use it any where, where it might
do great good, is to be delinquent in a most important
duty, to betray a most sacred trust. Here is an engine of immense moral power. It is God's appointed
instrumentality for the salvation of men and the renovation of the world.' It has been used in times past
by patriarchs and prophets, and apostles and martyrs,
and the sacramental host of the Lord's anointed, with
the grandest and most beneficent results. Its use now
devolves on us.  In the nature of the case, we alonethe church of God now on the earth-can use it. The
world is looking on, waiting, suffering, groaning, dying
for its energies to be employed for their redemption.
God also looks and waits for us to wield the engine
that is to save the world,-to take hold of the power
that moves the universe. And now are we at liberty
to sit still and do notlling, or to take hold of such a
power languidly and apply it just as much, or just as
little, as we please?  Can there be any greater guilt
than to waste such a talent, to let such a power, under




196           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
such circumstances, lie useless? When God says to
his people, " Ask what I shall give you; demand of
me now that great blessing upon the church and the
world," can there be a greater insult offered to his infinite majesty than to ask nothing?
Prayer is the great desideratum of our age.  The
church in past ages, in her best ages at least, has been
poor in this world's goods, but rich in faith and prayer;
weak in worldly power and resources, but mighty in
prayer.  The church in our day is in danger of reversing the order.  She is growing rich in worldly possessions, but poor, we fear, in prayer; strong in human
wisdom  and might, but weak in faith and the power
of God. We have got up some machinery of our own;
very good so far as it goes, very beautifiul in its organiz;ation and grand in its proportions, but utterly destitute of any moving power in itself; and yet, alas for
hunman wisdom in its best estate! we are so absorbed
and delighted with the goodly mechanism, that we are
in danger of forgetting the moving power.  We have
built the engine and filled it with wood and water,
and look on to see it move; but where, alas! is the
fire from heaven, that alone can put it in motion! AVe
have stretched the telegraphic wires around the globe;
but where is the electric fluid, that can, not only bear
the glatd tidings of salvation to the ear of the distant
heathen, but send it throbbing and thrilling througluI
the inmost fibres of his heart?  When, in answer to
the united and believing prayers of the whole church,
the Spirit of God descends, like a rushing mighty
wind, like an irresistible sacred fire from  heaven,



A PREMIIU  ESSAY.              197
then, and not till then, some good will come of all our
voluntary associations and institutions of learning and
pecuniary contributions.
Let us not, however, speak uncharitcably.  There
is doubtless much prayer offered by the church in our
day, and lmuch good has resulted from our literary and
charitable institutions. But how much less than if the
breath of life and the Spirit of the living God lhad
been more effectually breathed into them in answer to
the effectual fervent prayers of Christians! Let the
church be tempted to lay her head in fond dalliance
on the lap of worldly wisdom, or wealth or greatness,
anti in blind forgetfulness or careless neglect of prayer,
and she will soon be shorn of her strength and delivered into the hands of her enemies.
2. Special inducements to pray for coleges.
Our Lord has commanded it.  Amonog the few
special objects of prayer which Jesus enjoined upon his
disciples, was the raising up and sending forth of preachers of the gospel.  As he lifted up his eyes on the
multitudes that flocked to hear him, and saw the field
already ripe for the harvest, he turned to his discip)les,
and said, "The harvest truly is great, and the laborers are few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest."
Here is our authority.  Here, too, is our motive; it is
the command of Jesus, who is our master and our
friend, and who would fain be the master and friend
of all mankind; who has died for our redemption,
and died also for theirs; who waits to see the travail
of his soul in their conversion, but who cannot see it,
hunmanly speaking -nay, according to the divine plan




198          rRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
and purpose cannot see it, except through the education and commission of an adequate number of suitably
qualified ministers of the gospel. And this in our day
can be realized only by the blessing of God and the
outpouring of his Spirit on our colleges. As we love
Christ, then, or the souls for whom Christ died; as we
would honor and obey him ourselves, or see him honored
and obeyed by others, we must pray for his blessing on
our colleges.
They need our prayers. The oyicers need them,they feel that they need them.  They are oppressed
with the weight of their responsibilities; not, indeed,
all of them, —not any of them perhaps at all times,
never any of them probably as they should be, —but
somne of them, sometimes at least, are oppressed withl
the weight of their responsibilities, and ready to cry
out, " Who is sufficient for these things?"  A crisis
comes in the finances of a college, in the government
and instruction, in the social habits and moral character of the young men, or in their religious condition
and eternal destiny; when they feel that more than
human wisdom, and a greater than human power, is
needful to give the right direction to so many young
minds, in whom are bound up so many precious interests, and who are destined to exert so wide and so powerful an influence. Then their first recourse is to God
in prayer; and if they could whisper in the ears of
Christians every where what they most desire from
them, it would be, in the words of the apostle, "Brethren, pray for us." Especially on the recurrence of the
day set apart by the churches to be observed annually
as a day of united prayer for colleges, when the tem



A PREMIUM ESSAY.                199
poral and eternal welfare of so many of their pupils is
brought to a crisis, —whcn the prosperity of the college, the interests of the church and the well-being of
the community are so deeply involved,-when all these
mromentous interests are concentrated, as it were, in a
point, and suspended on a few short weeks, when a
few days even may turn the scale and decide the question,-then, with unutterable longrings, do they wish
that all the churches, and all who know how to pray,
would pray for colleges.
Next to the rulers of the State and the nation, no
class of men have a stronger claim  on the prayers of
the church than the officers of our colleges. And, in
one respect, their claim is prior even to that of civil
rulers.  The education of civil rulers themselves is, for
the most part, intrusted to their hands.
The students need our prayers,-peculiarly need
them.  They are at a peculiarly susceptible and critical age.  They are placed in peculiarly trying circumstances. Consciously or unconsciously, they are passing
the most important four years of their existence,-deciding questions for themselves which it never will be
in their power to decide again; exerting an influence
on others, which they will never have the opportunity
to exert any where else.  Young men are "strong;"
and now they are to decide the question, whether they
shall be strong, to do good, or strong to do evil.  College life abounds in helps and in hindrances to moral
excellence; and now they are to determine, by their
own fiee choice, whether the hindrances shall prevail
over the helps, or the helps triumph over the hin



200           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
drances.  The pious students need our prayers, that
they may be living epistles of Christ, where so many
eyes are constantly reading them  that will not read
the written Word of God; and that when they go
forth into the world, they may go, not mere "professors of religion," not ordinary Christians and commonplace ministers, but eminently holy and wise to win
souls. The irreligious students need our prayers, that
they may escape the many temptations incident to
youth and college life; that they may not make shipwreck of themselves and many others for time and
eternity; that they may not go out into the world
educated and accomplished enemies of God and ministers of sin, but may be fitted by converting and sanctifying grace to serve God in their generation.
We should pray for colleges because they deserve
our prayers. They are not all that they should bethey are not all that they will be. They are constantly rising in the standard of scholarship.  They
have made no inconsiderable advances in piety in the
course of half a century. There is still room for progress in both these respects. Perhaps they may gradually be still more popularized and conformed to the
peculiar demands of the country and the age, without
sacrificing any of those essential excellencies which
have come down from past generations.
But as they have been and are, they have filled
their pllace well, and acted well their part. They have
done honor to themselves, and shed lustre on our country,-on the Church and the State, on our politics
and history, and literature and religion.  The names




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             201
of their presidents and professors not only shine as a
crown of glory on the brow of the colleges, but, like a
necklace of pearls, encircle and adorn our common
country. What a list of presidents is that which
adorns the catalogue of Harvard, —from a Dunster
and a Chauncey to an Everett and a Sparks! What
a row of presidents lie buried in the graveyard at
Princeton! What names in our theological literature, or the theological literature of the world, are
brighter than those of Mather and Witherspoon, and
Edwards and Davies, and)iwight and Appleton! Posterity will delight to honor not a few of those who now
preside over our colleges as scarcely less conspicuous
in the history of science and philology. We dare not
enter upon the endless task of enumerating the professors, and their contributions to classical and polite
literature, to ethical and political, physical and metaphysical philosophy. And we can only allude to the
alumni of the colleges, who constitute the brightest
constellations in our literary and political firmament,
-the lights of American history, and the guiding
stars which wise men of the Old World have seen in
their Eastern homes, and are following Westward to
the birthplace of political and religious freedom.
Nor are we less proud or less delighted when we
think how many of these honored names are " names
written in heaven;" how many of these brilliant constellations in our literary and political heavens will
shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the
stars for ever and ever.  Be it ours to pray that such
stars shall never cease to rise from our colleges, to il9:




202          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
lumine the churches, and to shed lustre on the country
in the sight of men and angels.
We should pray for colleges because they were
founded by the church, and the church is committed
and pledged to sustain them. They were founded in
faith and prayer; and they can stand on no other
foundation.  Money cannot make them  prosperous.
They may even die of plethora. The State cannot
sustain them; they will perish in her cold embrace.
They cannot rely on the patronage of the great, or the
favor of the people. These would not always stand by
them if they could, and could not sustain them even
if they would. The church-we have said it repeatedly, but we can hardly say it too often-the church
is their mother; and will a mother cast off her daughters without a dowry, or send them away without her
prayers?  We owe it to the history of American colleges; we owe it, also, to the credit and consistency
of the American churches, that no alienation or separation be ever allowed to arise between them.
We owe it especially to those wise and holy men
who, from year to year and generation to generation,
in weakness and poverty, with much self-denial and
many sacrifices, planted these institutions, and watered
them  with their prayers and tears.  Should the
churches and their ministers in our day cease to pray
for the colleges, we might well believe that the spirits
of the many ministers and Christians, who wept and
prayed, and toiled over their foundations, could not
rest in their heavenly spheres, but would come down
to haunt us in our dreams; and we may be sure they




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             203
will rise up in the judgment and testify against us for
our unfaithfulness to the sacred trust which they so
solemnly, and at so much expense, bequeathed to us.
We seem to see ourselves compassed about by a great
cloud of witnesses, who bend from their thrones in
heaven, who hover around these seats, sacred to learning and religion, and beseech us to remember them in
our supplications.  The fathers of Harvard are there
with drooping wing and melancholy aspect; and in
plaintive tones, they call upon the Christians of Massachusetts and of New England never to cease praying
for that apostate, but still beloved college, till it is
once more true to its motto-again sacred " to Christ
and the church."  Those " eleven ministers," and not
a few other worthies of the Old Connecticut Colony,
are there. Their wing droops not. Joy beams- from
their eyes, and speaks in the very tones of their voices;
but they rejoice with trembling, and warn the officers
and pious students, the patrons and friends of the college, all the patrons and friends of learning and religion, not to forget that Yale College was founded in
prayer; and prayer alone can sustain it-prayer alone
can secure the ends of its establishment.
Time would fail us to enumerate other groups as
they pass in long line and regular succession before
us,-the founders and early benefactors of Nassau Hall
and Dartmouth, and Middlebury and Williams and
Amherst. And yet we must pause here, and indulge
a moment the memory of our hearts, for these are famitliar forms and faces.  Those ministers and deacons,
arnd private Christians of " Old Hampshire County,"




204          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
how have we seen and heard them pray with strong
crying and tears, as they deliberated on the ways and
means, and labored on the foundations of a Charity
School for the glory of God in the education of Christian ministers and missionaries. And shall its officers
and pious students, shall its guardians and patrons
and friends in the vicinity and the Commonwealth,
shall the friends of education and religion any where,
ever forget to pray for Amherst College? If we do,
"let our right hand forget its cunning, and our tongue
cleave to the roof of our mouth."
Again, the procession passes on. The representatives of still more recent colleges, founded many of
them in the New States, come into view. Among
them, home missionaries hold a prominent place.
Weary and wayworn, poorly clad, but covered with the
wounds and scars of their glorious warfare, which
adorn them more than imperial purple, they draw near
and tell us how, as they laid the foundations of these
institutions, they kneeled down on the ground, perchance on the snow, and dedicated them to the service
of the living God,-the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost.
And now, having passed in single file before us,
these departed worthies all gather around us again,
and hover over us a great cloud of witnesses, and implore us by all that is sacred in their memories, as well
all that is precious in the ark of God, always and every
where to pray for the colleges.
We should pray for. colleges because we owe them
a debt of gratitude, which can be paid in no other




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              205
way. It is a dictate of nature that we should pray
for our benefactors.  And the colleges are the common
benefactors-the munificent* benefactors, too —of all
classes of men in almost every relation, whether of this
life only, or also of that which is to come.
They contribute largely to the material wealth of
the country; and that not merely in the various economical applications of science, but in the general intelligence, right principles and good influences, which, emanating from these centres, diffuse themselves through
society. For knowledge is wealth, good order and good
morals are wealth; and a well-educated man, especially if he be also an enlightened Christian, is a mine
of wealth in any community.
But we are indebted to them not only for money,
-if that were all, the debt might be paid in money.
We are indebted to them for great and good men,
and, what in our day is second only to such men, -for
great and good books. Our colleges stand, as it were,
behind the press, and directly or indirectly control its
issues, which are now so prolific of good or evil. They
underlie all our systems of education, government and
religion; the foundations on which they rest,-the
quarry on, and with which they are built,-the deep
fountains from which all these wells and streams are
perennially supplied. They furnish our schools with
teachers, the churches with ministers, the State and
nation with magistrates. As citizens, we are indebted
to them, in large measure, for our ablest statesmen,our Adamses and Jeffersons, and Hamiltons and Madisons, and Jays and Calhouns, and Websters; and,




206           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
through these, for our Declaration of Independence.
our Constitution and our Union; for the establishment and preservation of our peculiar republican and
federal institutions.  As Christians, we are indebted
to them for our ablest divines and preachers; and,
through these, for the defence and propagation of a
pure Protestant Christianity, and the general prevalence of truth, order and piety in the churches. As
the friends of liberty, humanity and progress, we owe
to our own colleges and the universities of Europe the
ever-glorious Reformation, the English Bible and worship in the vernacular tongue,-the literature and
theology of the Puritans, —the rise of Methodism and
renewed spirituality in the Protestant churches; and,
in one word, the greater part of those politico-religious
reforms which have emancipated the human mind
from the thraldom of ages.  As Christian philanthropists, as those who love the souls of men, we cannot
but feel under immense obligations to American colleges for the first impulse and the steady support
which they have given to revivals of religion and Christian missions, which have refreshed the parched places
of Israel, and watered even the deserts of heathenism;
and which already-when their influence has but just
begun-have brought such a multitude of souls from
every continent and island home to their heavenly
Father's house, to go no more out for ever. Oh, how
many lights would be put out on earth,-lights in the
church, lights in the State and lights in the comlmunity,-and how many stars would fall, like Lucifer,
firom lheIavetn, if meroly those who have been converted




A PREMIUM ESSAY.               207
in college, together with those saved through their instl-imentMality, were blotted from the book of life.
We should pray for colleges because we are still
depe-ndent on them  for the same services; and, if we
are instant in prayer, we may hope for yet 9riclhe blessings fri'om them in time to come.  The colleges must
continue to be in future, what they always have been,
the keystones of our educational system, and the
foundation stones of our social, political, and religious
institutions.  And if these fountains of influencewhich, it must be confessed, is still a mixed influence,
sending forth not a little that is evil with far more
that is good-if they could be wholly purified, and
send forthi none but streams of truth and righteousness; if all who go forth friom them could but go forth,
not only with thoroughly disciplined and richly stored
minds, but also with renewed and sanctified hearts,
filll of love to God and man, how would they water all
the City of God, and turn the very desert into the
garden of the Lord!
We should pray for colleges because they are in
themselves an exceedingly interesting subject of prayer.
Look at the students simply as so many young men
gathered, we might almost say, selected from all parts
of the country, the chosen representatives of so many
thousand families; young men of superior talents and
aspiring aims, full of life and hope, overflowing with
sympathy and warm affections; their minds andl
hearts throbbing and swelling with new truths, new
thoughts and new emotions; their whole souls budding and blossoming in youth and beauty, and their




208           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
characters rapidly forming, in the Spring-time of life,
for a harvest of no ordinary glory, or no common
shame! With ten thousand such youth before us, so
soon to go forth into the world and take possession of
its high places of power and influence, may we not
well adopt the apostle's reason, and say, "We will
pray for you, young men, because ye are stropny?"
WVe should pray for colleges because, in so doing,
we pray for every thing else.  In the present members
of our colleges, we have the future teachers anti rulers
of our nation,-the professional men and men of influence of the coming generation, —the rising hope of our
country, the church and the world.  In praying for
them, therefore, we pray for our country in its magistrates, for the church in its ministers, for the world in
its missionaries, for every good cause in its future
agents and representatives,-for all the streams of influence in their fountain and source. If prayer is the
lever that is to raise this fallen world, here, in our colleges, is the place to apply it. If prayer is the engine
that is to put in motion the whole train of redeeming
influences, here is the point to which it should be attached. If prayer is the conductor, which is to convey
divine influences from heaven to earth, these are the
summits where especially it should be set up, and
whence those influences will spread, like the electric
fluid, through all the ranks and departments of society.
3. We feel constrained to say a few words, in conclusion, touching the timze and manner of prayer for colleges.
We should at all events pray for them once a year,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.              209
at each return of the annual concert of prayer. This
tile churches have volunteered to do, and this at least
the colleges have a right to expect. And oh, if Christians did but know what eventful issues for thenmselves
and their children, for the Commonwealth and the
country, for the church and the world, are crowded
within the twelve hours of that single day, they would
all, with one heart, spend that day in prayer for colleges. And if in so doing they should faint, or fall
asleep, would they not hear their Lord saying to them,
as to the disciples in Gethselane, " What! could ye
not watch with me one hour?"  The whole church
with one accord in prayer for that one thing, the conversion of young men in college! with what irresistible
power would the very thought stir the inmost soul of
the most careless student, and how surely would this
natural influence be met and accompanied in the same
youthful hearts by a mightier supernatural influence
brought down from heaven by the united " prayers of
the whole church unto God!" Will not ministers, who
do know the unspeakable interest and importance of
this concert, preach on the subject, and endeavor to
bring their churches all up to its constant and faithful
observance?
A monthly concert of prayer for this express object
would not be more than the object deserves; and but
for the fear of lmultiplying such occasions so as to impair the power and interest of them all, we would
make the proposal.  WVe may, at least, be permitted
to suggest the inquiry, whether there can be any more
proper subject for at least one prayer in each of the




210           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
monthly concerts that are now observed, than those
literary institutions, which alone can furnish suitable
mcen to take the lead in every enterprise of benevolence
and reform?
Are not colleges entitled, also, to a distinct remembrance in the public worship of the sanctuary 9 Should
the minister of the gospel, Sabbath after Sabbath,
pass without a word of recognition the very institutions
in which he himself, and nearly all who, like him,
minister at the altar in other churches, gained their
preparation of mind-perchance of heart also-to lead
in the devotions of the sanctuary? Is it not the duty
of ministers thus publicly to attest before the people
their convictions of the intimate connection between
the colleges and the interests of the church, and thus,
by example, teach them to pray for literary institutions?  Aside from the direct efficacy of such public
prayers, they would tend indirectly to remove popular
prejudice, to strengthen the confidence and deepen
the interest of common minds in colleges, and to induce a larger number of young men of suitable talents
to seek an education for the gospel ministry.
{May we not also ask for the colleges an interest in
the prayers of intelligent and pious families at the
family altar? Those parents who have sons in college
cannot but remember them and, we trust, their fellowstudents also, with the tenderest solicitude, every
morning and evening.  Others cannot feel their personal interest; but, if they obey the golden rule, or if
they pray for objects according to their intrinsic merits
or their relative importance, will they not often pray,




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             211
in the family and in the closet, for the outpouring of
the Spirit on the thousands of young men in our colleges?
WTe should pray for colleges now,-in this eventful
age of the world, when God is overturning obstacles
and opening all nations to the spread of the gospel;
when Europe is crying in piteous tones for help, and
Ethiopia is stretching forth her hands unto the Lord;
and even China is waking from her sleep of ages, and
feeling after the true God, if haply she might find
him;-in this interesting crisis of our country's destiny, when vast hordes of Celtic papists and Teutonic
infidels are invading it on the East, and pagans from
China are beginning to land on our Western coast;
and the question is not whether we can conquer them
in battle, but whether we can take them in with our
po)ullation, and assimilate them to our own political
and religious institutions; and when the still more
momentous question is to be decided (decided, too, by
our public, and, for the most part, by our educated
men), whether this boasted land of liberty shall take
the lead, by precept and example, in " breaking every
yoke," or shall become the most unblushing and the
most powerful propagandist of slavery on the face of
the earth;-in the new and strange position of the
missionary enterprise, when the home and the foreign
fields have met on our own shores, and it is all white
for the harvest, but when neither the Home nor the
Foreign Missionary Society can find the laborers they
want for the cultivation of any part of it;-in the
present state of the churches and the colleges, when
10




212           PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
after having advanced for years in the frequency of revivals and the number of conversions, they have commenced a retrograde movement, whereby there is a
constant decrease of the ministers just when there is
the most urgent demand for a great and constant increase. At such a crisis, with what weight and power
does the command of our Saviour fall upon our ears:
" The harvest truly is great, and the laborers are few;
pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he
will send forth laborers into his harvest."
And now as to the manner of prayer, we should
endeavor to pray with all the characteristics of prevailing prayer,-" the effectual fervent prayer of the
righteous man, which availeth much."
First of all, we must have a sincere desire for the
blessing which we ask; for to ask for that blessing
while we do not really desire it, is a mockery and insult.
Moreover, our desires should be intelligent and fervent,
springing from and proportioned to a just appreciation
of the transcendent importance of the object.
We should be importunate and persevering in our
supplications. We should not merely ask but seek,
not merely seek but knock, till the door of heavenly
mercy is thrown open before us. We expect by importunity and perseverance to prevail with our friends
and neighbors, with strangers, with our fellow-men
generally, even with those that " fear not God, nor regard men." And "will not God hear his own elect
who cry day and night unto him, though he bear long
with them? I tell you he will hear them speedily."
We must pray expecting to receive the blessing for




A PREMIUM ESSAY.             213
which we pray; for without faith, it is impossible to
please him; and in this matter, as in every thing else
for which we pray and labor, it will be just according
to our faith. In some things that we ask for ourselves
for the present life, we may well be in doubt, for we
do not know whether they are for our good, or agreeable to his will; but in asking for spiritual blessings for
ourselves or others, there is no room for doubt. In regard to colleges especially, God has already revealed
his will, and shown most unequivocally his willingness
to bless them in answer to the prayers of his people.
"And if we ask any thing according to his will, he
heafeth us. And if we know that he heareth us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions
that we desired of him."
But this faith must be accompanied with deep humility, like that of the centurion, who, though clothed
with authority by the Romans, and pronounced worthy
by the elders of the Jews, did not deem himself worthy
that Jesus of Nazareth should come under his roof;
like that of Abraham, who, while he intercedes for
Sodom like an angel, or a friend of the Most High,
acknowledges that he is but dust and ashes; like that
of Jacob, who, in one breath, says, " I will not let
thee go except thou bless me;" and in another adds,
"I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies."
Humility and penitence naturally lead to fasting,
and fasting adds not a little to the efficacy of prayer.
If we would cast out the evil spirit from our colleges,
that the Holy Spirit may enter in and dwell there, we




214          PRAYER FOR COLLEGES.
must not forget that "this kind goeth not forth but
by prayer and fasting."
Finally, the ultimate aim and end of all our prayers should be not that we may be gratified, or even
that the common interests of learning and religion may
be advanced, but that " God in all things may be
glorified through Jesus Christ." Who that loves the
Saviour, and longs to have him " see of the travail of
his soul and be satisfied," would not delight, above all
things, to see him honored by the cordial love and service of all the young men in our colleges; and who
that has the spirit of those holy men of old, who spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, will not unite
in the prayers which patriarchs and prophets have so
often and so effectually offered: " What wilt thou do
unto thy great name. Do thou it for tzy name's sake.
O Lord, hear; 0 Lord, forgive; 0 Lord, hearken and
do: defer not, for thy city and thy people are called
by thy name."
THE END.