LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 
 Class 
 
 Vue^V^Ld.. 
 
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW BUILDINGS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 AND THE 
 
 INAUGURATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REVEREND PROFESSOR FRANCIS BROWN 
 
 AS 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE FACULTY 
 
 NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 1908 
 
 700 PARK AVENUE 
 NEW YORK 
 
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 i __ 
 
 THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW BUILDINGS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 AND THE 
 
 
 
 INAUGURATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REVEREND PROFESSOR FRANCIS BROWN 
 
 AS 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE FACULTY 
 
 NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 1908 
 
 700 PARK AVENUE 
 NEW YORK 
 

 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. PAGE 
 
 THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE, ... 5 
 
 II. 
 THE INAUGURATION SERVICE, 10 
 
 III. 
 THE INVITED GUESTS, 16 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE BUILDING COMMIT- 
 TEE BY THE REVEREND PROFESSOR GEORGE WILLIAM 
 KNOX, D.D., LL.D., 19 
 
 V. 
 
 THE CHARGE TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT BY THE 
 
 REVEREND CHARLES H. PARKHURST, D.D., . 23 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY THE REVEREND PRESIDENT 
 
 FRANCIS BROWN, Ph. D. , D. D. , D. Litt. , LL. D. , . 30 
 
 180933 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 i. 
 
 THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE 
 
 By appointment of the Board of Directors, the Corner 
 Stone of the new buildings of the Union Theological Seminary 
 on Morningside Heights was laid on the afternoon of 
 Tuesday, November seventeenth, 1908, at half after three 
 o'clock. 
 
 Through the courtesy of the authorities of the Teachers' 
 College, the procession formed in rooms provided in the 
 Horace Mann School, at the northeast corner of Broadway 
 and i2oth Street, and marched across the street to the site of 
 the Entrance Tower, on the northwest corner, where a plat- 
 form and tent had been erected for the accommodation of the 
 invited guests. 
 
 The order of the procession was as follows: 
 
 i. The Students of the Seminary. 
 
 2. The Student Choir, followed by Dr. Gerrit Smith, the 
 
 Musical Director. 
 3. The Faculty of the Seminary. 
 4. The Directors of the Seminary. 
 5. The representatives of other institutions. 
 6. The officiating persons. 
 
 On the arrival of the head of the procession at the site, 
 the students formed a double file, through which the rest of 
 the procession marched to the seats reserved for them upon 
 the platform, where the other invited guests not alumni of 
 the Seminary were already awaiting them. The alumni 
 occupied a space reserved to the south of the platform. After 
 the invited guests were seated the student body, with the 
 choir, took their places to the east of the platform. 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 The service was opened with Prayer by the Reverend 
 William R. Richards, D.D., of the Board of Directors, who 
 spoke as follows: 
 
 " O GOD our Heavenly Father, who art in all ages the 
 refuge and dwelling place of Thy people, we beseech Thee so 
 to direct us in all our doings here, that our works, begun, 
 continued and ended in Thee may be to Thy glory. 
 
 "We beseech Thee to look with favour upon this house 
 which we would build for the worship of Thy name, and the 
 diligent study of Thy word. While it is building, we pray 
 Thee graciously to protect those who labour upon its walls, 
 that they may be shielded from harm, and do their work with 
 fidelity. When this house is builded, we pray that it may 
 long stand here a faithful witness to Thee, and to further the 
 progress of Thy Kingdom upon earth. 
 
 "May Thy servants, not forgetful of the faith once 
 delivered to the saints, receive also large gifts of that Spirit 
 which guideth into all truth. Embolden those who teach 
 here, that they may not shun to declare all Thy counsel. 
 Quicken the minds of those who learn here, that they may 
 gain a faith which they can proclaim with the accents of per- 
 sonal conviction, and for the persuasion and salvation of men. 
 Above all, grant that this house may ever stand for the union 
 and fellowship of all who love the name of our Lord Jesus. 
 
 " We give Thee thanks for all those who, having served Thee 
 by their devotion to this great school, are now fallen asleep. 
 May their names be freshly remembered among us. May their 
 example encourage us with a like devotion to carry forward what- 
 ever they have well begun; and we humbly beg Thee in Thy 
 good time to gather us all with them in the better home above. 
 
 " We ask all in the name of Him who is the foundation 
 and chief Corner Stone, our Saviour Jesus Christ. AMEN." 
 
 At the conclusion of the prayer, the congregation joined 
 with Dr. Richards in repeating the Lord's Prayer: 
 
 "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy 
 Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as 
 it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And for- 
 give us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us 
 not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ; For thine is the 
 kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen!" 
 
Mr. John Crosby Brown, President of the Board of 
 Directors, then introduced the Reverend George William 
 Knox, D.D., LL.D., a member of the Building Committee, 
 who made an address on behalf of the Committee, in which 
 he gave a brief account of the history which had led to the 
 removal of the Seminary, and paid a tribute to those whose 
 generous gifts had made the removal possible. 
 
 At Mr. Brown's request, the Reverend David R. Frazer, 
 D.D., of the Board of Directors, then read the following list 
 of articles deposited in the Corner Stone: 
 
 CONTENTS OF THE CORNER STONE. 
 
 i. The Old Testament in Hebrew. 
 2. The New Testament in Greek. 
 3. The Bible in English. 
 
 4. Dr. Prentiss' "Fifty Years of Union Theological 
 Seminary." 
 
 5. Dr. Prentiss' "Another Decade in the History of 
 Union Theological Seminary." 
 
 6. A brief sketch of the history of the Seminary during 
 Dr. Hall's administration, including the circumstances attend- 
 ing the selection of the new site for the Seminary, and a state- 
 ment of the relation to this undertaking of D. Willis James, 
 Esquire, late Vice-President of the Board of Directors, pre- 
 pared by Dr. William Adams Brown. 
 
 7. The Annual Catalogues of the Seminary from 1898 to 
 1907 inclusive. 
 
 8. The General Catalogue of the Seminary 1836-1908. 
 9. Reports of the Union Settlement. 
 
 10. The Constitution and Laws of the Union Theological 
 Seminary, with Amendments to November, 1905, and with 
 the Preamble and Act of Incorporation. 
 
 n. Extracts from the Minutes of the Board of Directors 
 containing the action by which the terms of subscription for 
 Directors and Professors were changed to their present form. 
 
8 
 
 i2. The " Programme of a Competition for the Selection 
 of an Architect and the Procuring of a General Plan " for the 
 New Buildings. 
 
 13. The Programmes of this day's exercises. 
 
 14. The Address delivered by the Reverend George 
 William Knox, D.D., LL.D., on behalf of the Building Com- 
 mittee, at the Laying of this Corner Stone. 
 
 The Corner Stone, situated at the northwest corner of 
 i2oth Street and Broadway, was then laid by John Crosby 
 Brown, LL.D., President of the Board of Directors. Before 
 laying the Stone, Mr. Brown made the following statement: 
 
 "As the representative of the Board of Directors, I 
 have been requested to lay the Corner Stone of this group of 
 buildings, the future home of the Union Theological Seminary, 
 an institution founded in 1836 by godly men ' to prepare young 
 men for the service of Christ in the work of the ministry.' 
 Sharing with the Founders the belief that for all enduring 
 religious work * other foundation can no man lay than that is 
 laid, which is Jesus Christ,' the Directors set apart this Stone 
 as the symbol of the spiritual foundation upon which this 
 Seminary rests." 
 
 After the laying of the Corner Stone the Student Choir sang 
 the Hymn: 
 
 "GOD THE LORD A KING REMAINETH" 
 
 I III 
 
 God, the Lord, a King remaineth, Lord, the water-floods have lifted, 
 
 Robed in His own glorious light ; Ocean floods have lift their roar ; 
 
 God hath robed Him, and He reigneth ; Now they pause where they have drifted, 
 
 He hath girded Him with might. Now they burst upon the shore. 
 
 Alleluia ! Alleluia ! 
 
 God is King in depth and height. For the ocean's sounding store. 
 
 II IV 
 
 In her everlasting station Lord, the words Thy lips are telling 
 
 Earth is poised, to swerve no more ; Are the perfect verity : 
 
 Thou hast laid Thy throne's foundation Of Thine high eternal dwelling 
 
 From all time where thought can soar. Holiness shall inmate be. 
 
 Alleluia ! Alleluia ! 
 
 Lord, Thou art for evermore. Pure is all that dwells with Thee. 
 
 REV. JOHN KEBLE 
 
9 
 
 The exercises were concluded by the Benediction, which 
 was pronounced by the Reverend Henry M. Sanders, D.D., 
 of the Board of Directors: 
 
 " Now the God of Peace, that brought again from the 
 dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 
 through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you 
 perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you 
 that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; 
 to whom be glory for ever and ever. AMEN." 
 
 At the close of the service the procession returned to the 
 rooms of the Horace Mann School in the order in which it 
 came. 
 
 At half past six the visiting representatives of other 
 institutions were entertained at Dinner at the University Club 
 by the Board of Directors. 
 
II. 
 
 THE INAUGURATION SERVICE 
 
 The Inauguration of the Reverend Francis Brown, Ph.D., 
 D.D., D.Litt, LL.D., as President of the Faculty of the Union 
 Theological Seminary took place on Tuesday evening, Novem- 
 ber i yth, 1908, at half after eight o'clock. Owing to the 
 large number of alumni and friends who accepted the invitation 
 of the Directors to be present at the services it was impossible 
 to accommodate in the Adams Chapel those who desired to 
 attend. The service was therefore held in the Madison 
 Avenue Presbyterian Church, on the corner of 73d Street and 
 Madison Avenue, which had been courteously placed at the 
 disposal of the Seminary authorities by the Board of Trustees. 
 
 The procession formed in the Chapel on 73d Street and 
 entered the Church in the following order: 
 
 i. The Ushers. 
 
 2. The Seminary Choir. 
 
 3. The Directors of the Seminary. 
 
 4. The representatives of other institutions. 
 
 5. The Faculty of the Seminary. 
 
 6. The officiating persons. 
 
 While the procession was forming an organ voluntary was 
 played by Dr. Gerrit Smith, the Musical Director of the 
 Seminary. 
 
 The service opened with the Hymn, "The Church's One 
 Foundation," which was sung by the Choir as a processional. 
 
 The Reverend Lewis Lampman, D.D., of the Board of 
 Directors then led the audience in the repetition of the Lord's 
 Prayer, after which the Choir sang the anthem, "To God 
 Eternal the Heavens Utter Glory." 
 
 10 
 
11 
 
 The following Scripture Lesson was then read by the 
 Reverend James M. Ludlow, D. D., of the Board of Directors: 
 
 Philippians II : 1-18. 
 
 "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any 
 comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels 
 and mercies, 
 
 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same 
 love, being of one accord, of one mind. 
 
 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in 
 lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 
 
 Look not every man on his own things, but every man 
 also on the things of others. 
 
 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 
 
 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to 
 be equal with God: 
 
 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the 
 form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 
 
 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, 
 and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 
 
 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given 
 him a name which is above every other name: 
 
 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things 
 in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 
 
 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
 Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 
 
 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as 
 in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, 
 work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 
 
 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do 
 of his good pleasure. 
 
 Do all things without murmurings and disputings; 
 
 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, 
 without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, 
 among whom ye shine as lights in the world; 
 
 Holding forth the word of life ; that I may rejoice in the day 
 of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. 
 
 Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of 
 your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. 
 
 For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me." 
 
12 
 
 The President of the Board of Directors, John Crosby 
 Brown, LL.D., then made the following statement on behalf 
 of the Board: 
 
 "On the i2th of May, 1908, the Board of Directors of the 
 Union Theological Seminary, by unanimous vote, elected the 
 Reverend Francis Brown, Ph.D., D.D., D.Litt., LL.D., to 
 the Presidency of the Faculty, a position made vacant by the 
 sad death of the Reverend Doctor Charles Cuthbert Hall. A 
 graduate of Dartmouth College in 1870; a teacher in Pitts- 
 burgh, Pennsylvania, from 1870 to 1872; a tutor in Dartmouth 
 College from 1872 to 1874; a student in the Union Theo- 
 logical Seminary in the old building in University Place from 
 1874 to 1877; a Fellow of the Seminary, studying in Berlin, 
 from 1877 to 1879; an Instructor in Biblical Philology from 
 1879 to 1881; an Associate Professor in the old building in 
 University Place and in our present quarters from 1881 to 
 1891; the Davenport Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate 
 Languages since 1891, a Chair which he will continue to 
 occupy in the future; the Director of the American School of 
 Oriental Study and Research in Jerusalem in the year 1907- 
 1908; holding honorary degrees from his Alma Mater, Hamil- 
 ton College, Williams College, and from leading universities 
 in this country and abroad, Yale, the University of^Glasgow, 
 and the University of Oxford; connected with this institution 
 from his early days and acquainted with its history and ideals 
 as few other men are, Dr. Brown is eminently fitted to fill the 
 position for which he has been chosen. A scholar of estab- 
 lished reputation, an acceptable preacher possessing the con- 
 fidence of the different religious bodies, and, above all, a man 
 of simple, earnest faith, the Directors of this Seminary have 
 the greatest pleasure and confidence in entrusting to him its 
 care and oversight. 
 
 "As Dr. Brown has already, as a member of the Board, 
 made the declaration required by the Constitution of the 
 
13 
 
 Seminary, it only remains for me to present him to this 
 audience as President of the Faculty, entitled to discharge all 
 the duties of that responsible office." 
 
 Prayer was then offered by the Reverend David Ruddach 
 Frazer, D.D., of the Board of Directors, as follows: 
 
 "ALMIGHTY GOD, our Heavenly Father, with joyful hearts 
 we tender Thee thanks for the favours Thou hast been pleased 
 to lavish upon an institution which we all love and to which 
 many of us owe a debt which can never be repaid. 
 
 "We thank Thee for help vouchsafed in the early days to 
 that little company of godly men and women who, by Thy 
 grace, laid the foundation of our school, deep and broad, in 
 faith and prayer, upon those great, regnant principles which 
 have stood the test of time and of trial. 
 
 "We thank Thee for those wise and faithful men who 
 have sat in our seats of council and who, by their foresight, 
 loyalty and generosity have made present developments a 
 possibility. 
 
 "We thank Thee for the long line of godly scholars who 
 have filled our chairs of instruction and who, by their ability 
 and fidelity have trained that goodly company which has gone 
 hence, to proclaim, in this land and also in the uttermost 
 parts of the earth, the unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 
 " We thank Thee for a glorious past, for the vigour of the 
 present and for the hopes we are permitted to cherish for the 
 future. 
 
 "But, in this glad hour, for the gatherings of this day, 
 for that which our eyes have seen and our; ears have heard 
 and for all that these gatherings import, we would offer 
 renewed praises to Thy great and holy Name. 
 
 "In Thy good favour Thou hast sent a measure of pros- 
 perity which makes our present place of habitation too strait 
 for the successful prosecution of the great work to which 
 Thou art calling our Seminary. We thank Thee for the 
 blessed necessity and also for the generosity of those who 
 made possible the laying of the Corner Stone of a larger and 
 a fully equipped home for the school of the Prophets. 
 
 "Thank God for the work of this afternoon. 
 
 "As we gather again to-night we are not unmindful of the 
 fact that in Thine infinite wisdom, and we know in Thy love, 
 
14 
 
 Thou hast greatly bereaved us by taking to Thyself our 
 honoured and beloved leader; a man of God trained in our 
 school and a choice man of such sweet spirit that he won the 
 hearts of all who knew him. We thank Thee for the gift of 
 such a man; we thank Thee for his life and life work; we 
 sorrow for our loss, but, realizing that Thou dost never make 
 a mistake and dost not withhold the Crown when Thou seest 
 Thy servants are made meet for their coronation, we bow in 
 Thy presence saying, even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in 
 Thy sight. 
 
 " But the great work goes on although the workman enters 
 into rest. Though Moses dies Thou dost raise up Joshua to 
 lead the host. 
 
 " And we thank Thee, our Father, for the signal token of 
 that divine favor which has never failed our school, which 
 enables us to-night, after a unanimous selection and election, 
 to invest with the supreme dignity, authority and respon- 
 sibility of our Seminary another of her sons. 
 
 " And as we here place him in this position of influence we 
 commend him to Thee and to the word of Thy grace. We 
 humbly pray that his life and health may be precious in Thy 
 sight; that the Spirit of the living God may lead him into all 
 truth and that the all-sufficient grace may be so abundantly 
 bestowed upon him that his administration may add to the 
 glory of Thy name through the advancement of the best 
 interests of Union Theological Seminary. 
 
 "And to that great and holy name, Father, Son and 
 Spirit, one God over all blessed and blessing forever, be all 
 the praise, through Jesus Christ our Lord and our Hope our 
 strength and our only Redeemer. AMEN!" 
 
 Mr. John Crosby Brown then spoke as follows: 
 
 " It is the custom of this Board to appoint one of its own 
 members to deliver on its behalf, a Charge to a newly 
 appointed President or Professor. I, therefore, call upon the 
 Reverend Doctor Charles H. Parkhurst, to deliver this 
 Charge." 
 
 The Charge to the President-elect was then delivered by 
 the Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., LL.D., of the 
 
15 
 
 Board of Directors, after which the Reverend President 
 Francis Brown delivered the Inaugural Address on the theme, 
 " Theology as the Servant of Religion." 
 
 At the conclusion of the Inaugural Address the Hymn 
 " Light of the World, We Hail Thee," was sung by the Choir 
 and the Congregation: 
 
 I. 
 
 Light of the world, we hail Thee, 
 
 Flushing the eastern skies ; 
 Never shall darkness veil Thee 
 
 Again from human eyes ; 
 Too long, alas ! withholden, 
 
 Now spread from shore to shore ; 
 Thy light, so glad and golden, 
 
 Shall set on earth no more. 
 
 II. 
 
 Light of the world, Thy beauty 
 
 Steals into every heart, 
 And glorifies with duty 
 
 Life's poorest, humblest part ; 
 Thou robest in Thy splendor 
 
 The simple ways of men, 
 And helpest them to render 
 
 Light back to Thee again. 
 
 III. 
 
 Light of the world, before Thee 
 
 Our spirits prostrate fall ; 
 We worship, we adore Thee, 
 
 Thou Light, the Life of all ; 
 With Thee is no forgetting 
 
 Of all Thine hand hath made ; 
 Thy rising hath no setting, 
 
 Thy sunshine hath no shade. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Light of the world, illumine 
 
 This darkened land of Thine, 
 Till everything that's human 
 
 Be filled with what's Divine ; 
 Till every tongue and nation, 
 
 From sin's dominion free, 
 Rise in the new creation 
 
 Which springs from Love and Thee. 
 REV. J. S. B. MONSELL 
 
 The Reverend Stephen W. Dana, D.D., of the Board of 
 Directors then offered Prayer and pronounced the Benediction. 
 
 The service concluded with the singing of the Recessional, 
 "Rejoice, ye pure in Heart," by the Choir, during which the 
 procession retired from the Church. 
 
 At the conclusion of the service, a large number of friends 
 and of invited guests attended an informal reception tendered 
 to President and Mrs. Brown at the Seminary, 700 Park 
 Avenue. 
 
III. 
 
 THE INVITED GUESTS 
 
 The following representatives of other institutions were 
 present: Harvard University, the Rev. Dean William Wallace 
 Fenn, D.D., and the Rev. Professor Edward C. Moore, 
 Ph.D., D.D. ; Yale University, President Arthur T. Hadley, 
 LL.D., and the Rev. Professor Ambrose W. Vernon, D.D. ; 
 Washington and Lee University, President George H. Denny, 
 Ph.D., LL.D.; Columbia University, Dean John W. Burgess, 
 Ph.D., LL.D., James H. Canfield, LL.D., D.Litt., Professor 
 Herbert G. Lord, M. A., and the Rev. Raymond C. Knox, B.D. ; 
 Rutgers College, the Rev. Professor William I. Chamberlain, 
 Ph.D.; Dartmouth College, Charles F. Mathewson, LL.B., 
 and Professor Julius Arthur Brown, A.M., B.Sc. ; Dickinson 
 College, the Rev. President George E. Eeed, S.T.D., LL.D. ; 
 the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in America, 
 at New Brunswick, N. J., the Rev. President J. Preston 
 Searle, D.D., the Rev. Professor John H. Raven, D.D., and 
 the Rev. Professor Edward Payson Johnson, D.D. ; Williams 
 College, Professor Richard A. Rice, M.A.,; Andover Theo- 
 logical Seminary, the Rev. Dean J. Winthrop Platner, D.D., 
 and the Rev. Professor William R. Arnold, Ph.D.; Princeton 
 Theological Seminary, the Rev. Professor Charles R. Erdman, 
 M.A. ; Allegheny College, the Rev. President William Henry 
 Crawford, D.D. ; Bangor Theological Seminary, the Rev. 
 President David N. Beach, D.D. ; General Theological Semi- 
 nary, the Very Rev. Dean Wilford L. Robbins, D.D., LL.D., 
 and the Rev. Professor John C. Roper, D.D., L.H.D. ; 
 Colgate University and Hamilton Theological Seminary, the 
 Rev. Dean Sylvester Burnham, D.D. ; University of Pittsburgh, 
 the Rev. Chancellor Samuel B. McCormick, D.D., LL.D.; 
 
 16 
 

 17 
 
 Trinity College, Professor Winifred R. Martin, LL.D. ; 
 Western Theological Seminary, the Rev. Professor D. Schley 
 Schaff, D. D. ; Western Reserve University, the Rev. President 
 Charles F. Thwing, S.T.D., LL.D.; Illinois College, the 
 Rev. Thomas W. Smith, D.D. ; New York University, the 
 Rev. Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken, D.D., LL.D., and 
 Professor John H. MacCracken, Ph.D., LL.D.; Wesleyan 
 University, Professor Andrew C. Armstrong, Ph.D.; Oberlin 
 College, the Rev. President Henry Churchill King, D.D. ; 
 Hartford Theological Seminary, the Rev. Professor Edwin K. 
 Mitchell, D. D. ; Alfred University, the Rev. Professor Arthur 
 E. Main, D.D. ; Alfred Theological Seminary, the Rev. 
 Professor William C. Whitford, D.D. ; Mount Holyoke College, 
 President Mary E. Woolley, Litt.D., L.H.D. ; Knox College, 
 the Rev. President Thomas McClelland, D.D. ; University of 
 Michigan, Henry W. Hubbard, M.S. ; Ohio Wesleyan Univer- 
 sity, the Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D. ; Meadville Theo- 
 logical School, the Rev. George Henry Badger; Mount Union 
 College, the Rev. President William H. McMaster, D.D. ; 
 The College of the City of New York, Professor Henry P. 
 Johnston, Ph.D.; Lawrence University, the Rev. President 
 Samuel Plantz, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D.; University of Rochester, 
 the Hon. Theron G. Strong; Tufts College, the Rev. Frank 
 O. Hall, D.D., S.T.D. ; Chicago Theological Seminary, the 
 Rev. Professor Ralph H. Ferris, B.D. ; the Divinity School 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Professor 
 Joseph C. Ayer, Jr. , Ph. D. , and Professor J. Allan Montgomery, 
 Ph.D. ; Vassar College, the Rev. President James M. Taylor, 
 D.D., LL.D.; Drew Theological Seminary, the Rev. President 
 Henry A. Buttz, D.D., LL.D., and the Rev. Professor 
 Robert W. Rogers, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D.; Howard University, 
 the Rev. President Wilbur P. Thirkield, D.D., LL.D.; 
 Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, the Rev. Princi- 
 pal Hollis B. Frissell, D.D., LL.D.; Boston University, the 
 Rev. President William E. Huntington, Ph.D., S.T.D., LL.D. ; 
 
18 
 
 Atlanta University, the Rev. President Edward T. Ware; 
 Normal College, New York City, President George S. Davis, 
 LL.D. ; German Theological Seminary of Newark, the Rev. 
 Professor Charles T. Hock, Ph.D.; Syracuse University, the 
 Rev. Professor Charles F. Sitterly, Ph.D., S.T.D. ; Johns 
 Hopkins University, the Rev. Dean Edward H. Griffin, D.D., 
 LL.D.; Radcliff College, Miss Elizabeth Briggs, M.A. ; Bryn 
 Mawr College, Professor George A. Barton, Ph.D.; Coe 
 College, the Rev. Edward R. Burkhalter, D.D., LL.D. ; Drake 
 University, President Hill M. Bell, LL.D.; Huron College, 
 the Rev. President Calvin H. French, D.D. ; Temple Univer- 
 sity, the Rev. Dean John Gordon, D.D. ; the Jewish Theolog- 
 ical Seminary of America, President Solomon Schechter, 
 Litt.D. ; Carroll College, the Rev. President Wilbur O. Currier, 
 D.D. ; the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of 
 Teaching, President Henry S. Pritchett, Ph.D., LL.D., Sc.D. ; 
 Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, President 
 Cyrus Adler, LL.D. 
 
 Courteous messages of regret were received from other 
 institutions. 
 
IV. 
 
 ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE BUILD- 
 ING COMMITTEE 
 
 BY THE REVEREND PROFESSOR 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM KNOX, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 The CORNER STONE which we lay to-day bears the dates 
 1836 and 1908, which mark the beginning of the Seminary's 
 life and the year in which this group of buildings is begun. 
 Two sets of buildings have preceded this the first, at Number 
 9 University Place, was dedicated on December 12, 1836, and 
 the second, at Number 700 Park Avenue, was dedicated on 
 December 9, 1884. On that day President Hitchcock in his 
 Dedicatory Address remarked: "The present location is 
 apparently for many decades, if not for all time." Even from 
 his prescience the immediate development of the Seminary 
 was hidden. In 1884 the names of seven Professors and of 
 one Instructor were on the Faculty page: the work of the 
 students followed a prescribed curriculum, and three lecture 
 rooms for three classes sufficed. 
 
 Almost immediately a development of the plans and pur- 
 poses of the Seminary ensued. During the distinguished 
 administration of the Reverend President Thomas S. Hastings, 
 D.D., LL.D., there were changes both in the internal economy 
 and external relations of the Seminary which were epoch 
 making, so that the Union Seminary was no longer the repre- 
 sentative of a single denomination of Christians nor was it 
 merely the teacher of a prescribed curriculum. This develop- 
 ment on both sides was continued during the administration 
 of our lamented friend, brother and leader, President Charles 
 Cuthbert Hall, D.D., LL.D. On the one side the teaching 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 force has been enlarged so that there are now eleven Professor- 
 ships, two Associate Professors, one Assistant Professor, four 
 Instructors and three Lecturers. The curriculum has been 
 enriched and the work of the students is elective so that they 
 may choose the courses which will fit them for the department 
 of Christian work to which they devote their lives. 
 
 During the same period the Seminary carried out the further 
 purpose of the Founders who desired to establish an institu- 
 tion free from " ecclesiastical domination." Independence 
 at great cost was achieved under the Presidency of Dr. 
 Hastings, and its full realization came under Dr. Hall. Four 
 denominations have members on the teaching force and three 
 in the Board of Directors, so that the Seminary to-day is in 
 fact what its name indicates. More than twenty denominations 
 of Christians have students within its halls. 
 
 The development in things spiritual and intellectual has 
 been first and the growth in things material second, but vain 
 is the first without the last. During the last administration 
 the material resources of the Seminary have been greatly 
 increased. Four new Professorships have been added and 
 beginnings have been made in the endowment of two Lecture- 
 ships. It is not surprising that in less than three decades the 
 Seminary buildings are outgrown; the Library is inadequate; 
 the Lecture rooms are too few; the Dormitory overflows. 
 
 Once more we lay the Corner Stone of buildings which we 
 trust will be adequate not only to the needs of the immediate 
 future but for many years to come. The buildings as sanctioned 
 by the Board of Trustees will comprise : a Dormitory on Broad- 
 way, from i2ist Street to i22d; a Library on Broadway, from 
 i2ist Street on the south to the entrance tower on the corner 
 of i2oth Street; an Administration Building on i2oth Street; 
 a Memorial Chapel on Claremont Avenue; a residence for the 
 the President of the Faculty on the corner of i2oth Street and 
 Claremont Avenue, and an Apartment House for the Professors 
 on i22d Street. 
 
21 
 
 The situation chosen by the Board of Directors indicates 
 the relation of the Seminary to the Universities. There 
 is no organic connection, but there are mutual confidence, 
 esteem and help. From the beginning the Seminary has 
 sustained peculiarly intimate relations with New York Uni- 
 versity and with Columbia University. These continue 
 unbroken and the change in our situation indicates no 
 alteration in our historic attitude. The Seminary maintains 
 its independence, its cordial esteem for both Universities, 
 and acknowledges its lasting obligations to each, obligations 
 which the future will increase beyond any possibility of 
 repayment. 
 
 And yet the Seminary is convinced that it, too, has gifts 
 for the University. The munificent givers of this land and 
 these buildings have confidence that sound learning aids re- 
 ligion and that the religious convictions which find expression 
 here are of profound importance for the University. Without 
 suspicion but with friendship, without fear but with hope, 
 Seminary and University shall in the future, as in the past, 
 continue their careers of mutual help and profit. 
 
 This land, from i2oth Street to 1226. Street, and from 
 Broadway to Claremont Avenue, is the gift of the beloved 
 and lamented D. Willis James, who long served the institution 
 as Director and Vice-President of its Board. The group of 
 buildings (excepting the Apartment House for the Professors) 
 is provided for by gifts received during the last three years. 
 As Mr. James refused to permit his gifts to be associated 
 with himself during life, so two other givers will not allow me 
 to divulge their names. By far the larger part in addition 
 to the land is from Mr. James and his widow, constituting 
 the greatest gift ever made to the cause of religious educa- 
 tion. Mrs. James erects the chapel as a Memorial to her 
 husband, and most appropriate is it that his name should be 
 associated with that sacred edifice, for with him the spiritual 
 was first, the material was only its instrument. 
 
22 
 
 It was characteristic of the largeness of vision of Mr. 
 James that he did not wish future Boards of Directors to be 
 hampered by conditions annexed to gifts, and his own were 
 completely free. In all this in gifts, in liberality of spirit, 
 in devotion to true religion, Mr. James is representative of the 
 noble band of laymen who established and who have main- 
 tained this Seminary. Inseparably associated with him in 
 loving memory are the names of Haines, and Halsey, and 
 Butler, and Dodge father and son, and Brown father and 
 son, and McAlpin, and Jesup, and Marquand, and Morgan, 
 and many others who have given munificently for endowment, 
 equipment and maintenance. 
 
 The gift of Mr. James is the latest, not the last, mani- 
 festation of the disposition of the laymen of New York who, 
 in this city given over to commerce, value wealth because of 
 the opportunity it gives for the service of their fellows, who, 
 in an age which is called materialistic, put the things of the 
 Spirit first and who believe that religion is a permanent and 
 necessary element in the life of humanity and that its scientific 
 study is promotive of its best growth and highest influence. 
 
 These buildings will help to realize the prophetic vision of 
 the Founders of the institution who hoped " with the blessing 
 of God to enlist in the service of Christ and in the work of the 
 ministry, genius, talent, enlightened piety and missionary zeal; 
 and to qualify many for the labors and management of the 
 various religious institutions, seminaries of learning and enter- 
 prises of benevolence, which characterize the present times." 
 
 Should they prove inadequate, it will not be because of a 
 lack of generosity, since every request has been gladly met, nor 
 will it be from the want of prolonged and minute consideration, 
 nor from any failure of architectural skill; but if it prove that 
 these buildings are also to "have their day and cease to be," 
 it will be because the Seminary, by the good providence of 
 God, in the future as in the past surpasses the most sanguine 
 expectations of its enthusiastic benefactors and sons. 
 
V. 
 CHARGE TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT 
 
 BY THE REVEREND 
 
 CHARLES H. PARKHURST, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS 
 
 It is With a modest kind of pleasure that I have assumed 
 to undertake the service to which at the impulse of friendship 
 you have personally invited me. While your own long experi- 
 ence in the Seminary forbids my interpreting with much 
 literalness the term by which this article of our evening pro- 
 gramme is designated, yet the occasion is one in which my 
 simple words may venture to graze close along the edge of 
 your new field of responsibility and to set forth with distinct 
 brevity some of the required features of the institution of 
 which you now become a kind of personal embodiment. 
 
 It is to be noted as a pleasant preliminary that you are 
 the unanimous and the unhesitating choice of all those whose 
 voice is technically authoritative in the premises, saying 
 nothing of a very large outlying constituency. You are 
 enthroned in the general confidence. The fidelity of your 
 prolonged service; your appreciation of the immanent genius 
 of the institution; the reserved progressiveness of your 
 scholarly thought; and your personal experience of things 
 which outreach the power of words to tell and even of thought 
 to fashion, all of this combines to constitute the present 
 hour a point of glad and confident outlook. 
 
 But there is more in the occasion than that. The atten- 
 tion of the Christian world is coming more and more to 
 center itself upon this Seminary. The foundation that is laid 
 for it in the scholarly fortitude and Christian graces that have 
 
 23 
 
24 
 
 played their role here in years gone by; the chivalry evinced 
 by it at a crisis in its history which tested its nerve and multi- 
 plied its power; its rich sympathy with the world-wide inter- 
 ests of the Kingdom of Christ, which has won for it not only 
 a national but an international regard; not to speak of those 
 more material evidences of strength and facilities for effective- 
 ness, that have accrued to it through the beneficent devotion of 
 the living and of the dead ; such are some of the considerations 
 that unite to create for Union Seminary a position of marked 
 conspicuity and to impress it commandingly upon the attention 
 of an observant Christian world. The position upon which 
 you enter must certainly fascinate and stimulate you by its op- 
 portunities, even while it humiliates you by its responsibilities. 
 
 As this school of Christian learning sustains a concrete 
 relation to the particular times in which it exists, it will be in 
 point to notice two special difficulties which your graduates 
 will have to encounter upon entering their field of service. 
 The first of these is the sensuousness of our age, induced by 
 its exceptional prosperity. The prevalent consciousness of 
 men is a consciousness of things. The aristocracy of the 
 hour is an aristocracy not of birth, nor of culture, nor of 
 refinement, but an aristocracy of wealth. While there is 
 poverty, of course, the mass of people are immensely com- 
 fortable, and are thus condemned to a benumbing experience 
 of carnal satisfaction. Whatever of splendor there may be in 
 the upper firmament is eclipsed by the liberal sunshine that 
 abounds down here nearer the ground. The things which eye 
 hath not seen nor ear heard do not count conspicuously 
 among the assets of Christian proprietorship. Every preacher 
 and pastor realizes how numerous and beautiful are the excep- 
 tions to which this characterization does not apply, but he 
 also knows that that is the general tone of the environment 
 within which his work has to be done. 
 
 It is an influence that it is not easy to stand up against. 
 While the ministry is doing something to purify the atmosphere 
 
25 
 
 the likelihood is that the atmosphere will do something 
 to infect the ministry; and the ability that it will have to 
 resist such infection and to tell upon the community with 
 spiritualizing effect will depend very considerably upon the 
 atmosphere which it respires during the final three years of 
 equipment for apostolic work. Such an institution is not 
 primarily scholastic, but inspirational. The fundamental 
 educational work is supposed to be accomplished in students 
 before they come here. I am not urging that Union Seminary 
 should be a kind of Protestant monastery, for while it ought 
 to stand in close touch with heaven its touch with earth 
 should be equally close. I mean only that learning previously 
 acquired should be taken and be here transmuted into the 
 power of Gospel effect. Learning per se is unregenerate and 
 requires conversion and sanctification. Mental discipline is 
 in this institution a condition of matriculation. Such disci- 
 pline is presumed. That datum you will take and shape and 
 spiritualize into adaptedness to ministerial service. So that 
 while not treating with neglect any other department of quali- 
 fying effort obligatory upon the Seminary, you will feel that 
 all such secondary endeavor is without justification, save as 
 you have so brought and held your students in conscious 
 touch with influences personal and divine, and have so taken 
 them from time to time up into a high mount of spiritual 
 observation, that they will be able to say to the peoples, bye 
 and bye, "we speak that we know, and testify that we 
 have seen," and be able to translate the discovered secrets of 
 the heart of God into the vocabulary of common thinking. 
 
 The second embarrassment from which the pulpit is at 
 present made to suffer and which the young men now to be 
 under your presidential charge will distinctly experience as 
 soon as they commence addressing themselves to thoughtful 
 congregations, is the prevailing unsettled state of doctrinal 
 opinion. And a serious part of the work to be accomplished 
 by yourself and by those associated with you in the Faculty 
 
26 
 
 will be to familiarize your students with the situation which, 
 as preachers, they will have to confront, and to adjust them 
 to it. 
 
 The era is a critical one and not easily dealt with. The 
 church is having to recede from certain positions which it had 
 previously treated and advertised as essential ; the natural 
 result is a disturbance of the confidence of those whose con- 
 currence the pulpit is anxious to secure and to hold. The 
 church has known too many things that were not so. 
 
 Then again, while people do not resent truth, they will not 
 accept it in the form in which it used to be presented, and 
 whether we are or are not pleased with their attitude there is 
 no way for us but to accommodate ourselves to it. Chris- 
 tianity that can be phrased is not a kind of pabulum that 
 excites either the intellectual or the moral appetite of current 
 church-goers. Their demand is for truth that has been 
 wrought out in the personal experience of those who attempt 
 to present it. Words do not count any longer except as they 
 are realized to be the minting of personality, thought and 
 person so interfused that there is no discoverable cleavage 
 line between the two. A thousand and one details that might 
 without violence be wrought into homiletical address are 
 regarded with as much indifference as though they were 
 minutiae of chemistry, astronomy, anthropology. People are 
 still vital, very vital, and show themselves such if vitally dealt 
 with; and sanctified vitality personally incarnate is the kind of 
 product that will have to be turned out here if it is to tte of 
 a sort to match the type of thought, attitude of mind, and 
 temper of spirit, that your students are going to be brought 
 face to face with outside. 
 
 In view of this prevalent unsettledment of doctrinal opinion 
 the demand imposed upon such an institution as this is espe- 
 cially urgent that it should be distinguished not so much for 
 the multiplicity of the doctrines which it promulgates as for 
 the confident definiteness with which it promulgates them. 
 
27 
 
 The Seminary must know what it stands for, and the church 
 and general public must know what it stands for also. It is 
 better to be thoroughly persuaded of an error than not to be 
 thoroughly persuaded. Temperamental indecision, the habit 
 of not being quite certain, a tendency to expatiate on positions 
 abandoned rather than on positions maintained, any symptoms 
 of that negative quality of mind that finds satisfaction in con- 
 verting the convictions of people into interrogations and in 
 that way propagating a spirit of doctrinal incertitude could 
 never work greater mischief than just at the present time, 
 when the sentiment is so generally prevalent that a good deal 
 of what has been believed is a mistake, that nothing can be 
 certainly known and that there is in that no especial occasion 
 for regret, inasmuch as doctrines are supposedly in no imme- 
 diate way relevant to life. No individual, no school of learning, 
 secular or religious, can do permanent work in the world of 
 character, service and event, that is not distinctly constructive 
 in its entire impulse, and that is not understood to be thus 
 constructive; and the Trustees of Union Seminary, anxious 
 that the institution should not only be inspired by that type of 
 impulse, but that it should be recognized throughout the 
 church as being so inspired, would never have called you to 
 the position of trust which you are now going to occupy, save 
 as your progressiveness was recognized by them, and under- 
 stood by the public at large, to be tempered by a spirit of 
 judicious conservatism; always in pursuit of broader ground, 
 but intelligently and experimentally confident of the solidity 
 of the ground that you are already upon. 
 
 In view of the breadth of your own thought and of the 
 clear realization which you have that the reality of Christianity 
 is a profound reality and essentially distinct from a host of 
 contingencies by which, in the course of the centuries, it has 
 become embarrassingly overlaid, it must be to you a source of 
 large satisfaction that this Seminary is to such degree released 
 from objective trammels; that it is not itself distinctly 
 
28 
 
 mortgaged to any specific fraternity of faith ; that without being 
 antagonistic to any type of evangelical persuasion, it com- 
 prises within itself the fundamental genius of all such types ; 
 that it is its comprehensive purpose simply to make its stu- 
 dents spiritually, enthusiastically and persuasively Christian, 
 establishing them thus in a position from which they can 
 readily step off upon any line of denominational service to 
 which God, chance, or personal idiosyncrasy may invite them. 
 
 There is something that I am sure you must find intensely 
 stimulating in the thought that you stand at the educational 
 head of an institution that is devoted to, and fascinated by, 
 only the great things of our holy faith, that the prime thought 
 of the Seminary gathers about what Christianity is in its 
 innermost, and that the lines of enquiry here to be pursued 
 are those which in devout modesty press their way as closely 
 as they may to the foot of the Great White Throne and to the 
 foot of the blood-stained cross. It must bring to you seasons 
 of great exaltation of mind that the school over which you 
 are to preside is filling the eyes of your students with visions, 
 and the hearts of your students with the thrill of brightening 
 experience, and that from this center of prevailing power 
 they are to go forth to all parts of our own country, not only, 
 but to all quarters of the globe, fertilizing the soil of the 
 world's thought and life with the treasures of enrichment 
 that in your Seminary they have been accumulating. 
 
 I do not say this because it has not been matter of your 
 own devout meditation, but in order that those outside of 
 yourself and outside of this institution may meditate upon it 
 and stimulatingly realize with you the significance of the hour 
 and the far reach of the occasion; for the secular mind only 
 imperfectly surmises what a perennial and universal fountain 
 of power such a Seminary is when its springs connect with 
 eternal sources of supply. 
 
 It remains only to remind you and one another of the 
 peculiar advantage that is made yours, not only by the spirit 
 
Of 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 : ' 
 
 29 
 
 which has pervaded this Seminary in remoter years, but by 
 the strength and peculiar quality of the administration that 
 immediately preceded yours and whose close, premature as 
 it seemed to us, brought surprise and sorrow to the hearts 
 of us all. If I may be allowed a word of reference to myself: 
 When I was invited to the pastorate of the Madison Square 
 Church, almost the most difficult element entering into the 
 problem which that invitation put before me was the fact that 
 I should be obliged to succeed Dr. Adams. "And what can 
 the man do that cometh after the king ? " The answer which 
 this hesitancy of mine elicited from the members of that con- 
 gregation was that there was no man that I could find less 
 difficulty in succeeding than Dr. Adams; that under his strong 
 and beneficent administration of the church all of its elements 
 had been wrought and vitalized into that condition of harmony 
 which afforded the most perfect and grateful preparation 
 possible for whomsoever might venture to stand in his place. 
 The same is to be said of the spirit that was diffused here 
 under the presidency of Dr. Hall, a spirit not of compromise 
 but of reconciliation, wherein the contradictory elements that 
 in foregoing years have sometimes haunted the dreams of the 
 Presbyterian communion, have by the magic touch of God's 
 spirit as evinced through Dr. Hall transmuted antagonism 
 into sympathy, and done very much not only toward bringing 
 the Seminary itself to a higher tone of life, but to establish it 
 in the loving confidence of all who love our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. Receive then from us all, through me, our 
 most earnest and affectionate congratulations as you enter 
 into this rich heritage of responsibility and of opportunity, 
 and every sympathy from about you and the divine power 
 from above you combine to work in you confidence and 
 strength. 
 
VI. 
 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 THEOLOGY AS THE SERVANT OF 
 RELIGION 
 
 BY THE REVEREND PRESIDENT 
 
 FRANCIS BROWN, Ph.D., D.D., D.LITT., LL.D. 
 
 Mr. President, Members of the Board of Directors, Colleagues 
 in the Faculty, Alumni, Students, Honourable Guests, Friends 
 of the Union Theological Seminary : 
 
 In an obvious sense, the service of this afternoon, with all 
 its brevity, overshadows the service of this evening. Institu- 
 tions are more than men. We have a succession of Professors 
 and Presidents, but we do not often make a move so significant 
 as that which was instituted to-day. The advancing tide ran 
 far up the beach this afternoon. Now it recedes, and we wait 
 a little for the next advance. This evening no new element 
 is introduced into our Seminary life. You are asked to take 
 part in a simple readjustment of our force. 
 
 This readjustment is, of course, serious enough for me. It 
 involves grave personal responsibilities. And for all of us the 
 hour is solemnized by the event which has led to it. When 
 Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall died, a life of beauty and of in- 
 fluence, apart and notable, went out of our sight. He was so 
 pure-minded, so eager, so idealistic; his hopes were so large; 
 he was so appreciative of scholarship and, even more, of per- 
 sonality; he was so sympathetic and responsive, so ready in 
 utterance and so deep in feeling, so refined in culture and so 
 untiring in ministry, that he touched lives closely and widely. 
 
 30 
 
31 
 
 We have lost him from among us. He cannot be replaced, 
 and he will not be forgotten. He has left his impress on his 
 office and, beyond his office, we give thanks for the world-wide 
 service he was enabled to render to God and men, although 
 it cost us him. 
 
 If to watch duty nobly done could equip one for like duties, 
 I should not lack qualification. There have been four Presi- 
 dents of this Faculty since the revival of the office in 1873, and 
 I have had the privilege of knowing them all. The dignity 
 and standing with which Dr. Adams invested everything he 
 undertook, his firm grasp, his easy movement among great 
 men and large affairs, his broad 1 judgment, his gifts at presiding 
 and representation, his ripe experience, his thoughtful kind- 
 ness clothe my picture of him with royalty. Dr. Hitchcock 
 made his mark by incisiveness of thought and vivid picturesque- 
 ness of language the expression of studies that were deep 
 and varied, reflection that was tinged with solemnity, and a 
 temperament rich, intense, and chastened. I recall especially 
 his sense of the social crisis, and his prophetic challenge to 
 careless wealth. As for Dr. Hastings, if I had asked him he 
 would not have let me say what I must say of him. He was 
 our helmsman in stormy times. As we rode out the storm we 
 came to know his courage and his poise, his insight and his 
 decision, his statesmanlike estimate of the necessary and the 
 possible, his unfailing good sense, his loyalty to his trust, his 
 high minded chivalry, his skill in administration, his immov- 
 ability, like granite, as to principle, his gracious suavity in 
 the modes of intercourse with men. We rejoice that he is 
 still spared to us and still at work with us, and if we make a 
 hero of him, to his face, it is not simply because he has lived 
 many years, but because his life among us bears, indelibly, 
 the heroic stamp. 
 
 If personal words force their way to my lips you will 
 pardon it to one more than half whose life the maturer and 
 richer half has been spent in association with the men of 
 
32 
 
 this Seminary. I am permitted, still, to retain my place upon 
 the teaching staff. While I am introduced to these new duties 
 by the cordial unanimity of the Board of Directors, and wel- 
 comed in them with warmth and responsiveness by the students, 
 and sustained under the thought of them by messages that 
 bring tears to one's eyes from generations of the alumni the 
 affectionate heartiness of my brothers in the Faculty assures 
 me that we still belong together in that rare fellowship, more 
 intimate and delightful, I am sure, than is often permitted to 
 so large a group of men where appreciation, and consider- 
 ateness, and the esteeming of others better than themselves 
 are characteristic features of daily life. They do not regard 
 me as set apart from them, but only as designated, for the time, 
 for special functions in which I may represent them, as still one 
 of them. 
 
 My own particular department, that of the Old Testament, 
 is an exacting one if a man will take the measure of it and 
 I could not retain it under the new conditions if it were not 
 for the abundant labours of my associates in it, for whose 
 readiness to assume fresh responsibilities I am glad to express 
 my thanks in public. The Professorship came to me as an 
 inheritance from my honoured teacher and beloved friend, Dr. 
 Briggs. I owe to him a personal debt which I can never pay, 
 and which, indeed, I have long ceased to regard under the 
 aspect of a debtor's obligation, or any other commercial figure. 
 This is not the time for enlargement on the intimate side of 
 my relations with him. But if the Davenport Professorship 
 has been of worth for this Seminary and for Biblical Scholar- 
 ship, it is because he made it so. When the record of his 
 life, devoted to this Seminary and to Christian learning in 
 many fields, is finally made up, his brave championship of 
 Christian freedom, maintained at painful cost, his establish- 
 ment of the Biblical departments of this Seminary on a strong 
 foundation, and his prolonged services to constructive Biblical 
 scholarship, crowned by his profound and far-reaching studies 
 
33 
 
 in Christian Irenics, and the simplicity of his Christian faith 
 and life, will entitle him to a place among the few really great 
 theologians whom this country has produced. 
 
 It would be easy and congenial to me, and doubtless, from 
 the point of view of competence, wholly wise, if I were to 
 take my specific theme to-night from this, my own familiar 
 department. It bristles with topics of interest, which I should 
 be glad to discuss. But the occasion forces a somewhat wider 
 range. The President of our Faculty is not simply a Pro- 
 fessor. He is representative of all the Professors. Each one 
 of us is a specialist, more or less distinctly, in his chosen 
 field. Each knows much that the rest do not know. We 
 divide our labour. But we are united in certain great 
 interests. Our special fields are, as we conceive them, related 
 to these* great and central interests of our work, and thus we 
 find our harmony. 
 
 I am emboldened to try to make of this occasion an 
 opportunity for a kind of confession of our common faith 
 not a complete creed, of course, but a brief statement of 
 working principles. I do this without apprising my colleagues 
 beforehand of what I mean to say, and I must, of course, 
 take all the risks involved. In any case I assume the whole 
 responsibility, and if they feel that I flagrantly misrepresent 
 them they are at liberty to rise in their places and confute 
 me or, which is more like them, to take me quietly and 
 kindly, but frankly, to task, at the first private opportunity. 
 
 I am emboldened, and indeed constrained, to make this 
 venture, by the significance of this day. 
 
 Dr. Hall was inaugurated on the 8th of February, 1898, 
 and took for the subject of his Inaugural Address, as some 
 here will remember, "The Expansion of the Seminary." He 
 dwelt on four lines of development, possible and desirable: 
 the Academic or scholarly line, the University Extension 
 line, the line of Social Service, and the line of Spiritual Power. 
 
34 
 
 We have made some advance since then. We cannot 
 claim to have realized all he hoped for. Much remains only 
 an ideal. But we cherish the ideal, and, while he was yet 
 with us, we were enabled to go in some directions even 
 beyond what he could then discern. The long history of this 
 Seminary has been one of progress and hope. The faith of 
 our founders was prophetic. I remember a half hour spent 
 with the last survivor of them,* when he was more than 
 ninety-five, and misunderstandings and discouragements were 
 rife about the Seminary, and the spirit of an ancient seer 
 possessed him, and he described with serene assurance, bear- 
 ing the tone of triumph, the effectiveness and influence which 
 he foresaw. 
 
 We have some advantages which he could not anticipate. 
 I allude here, specifically, to the resumption by the Seminary 
 of its chartered freedom in respect of ecclesiastical and con- 
 fessional obligation, and the removal to the new site, with all 
 that this involves and promises. Neither of these things was 
 dreamed of ten years ago. 
 
 Now the removal of bonds and the widening of opportunity 
 always must quicken the conscience of serious men. These 
 are great gifts that have come to us. We are impelled to ask 
 questions of ourselves. How are we going to justify these 
 gifts? How shall we justify our freedom? How shall we 
 justify this great expenditure for land and buildings? The 
 men who have worked our freedom have wrought daringly 
 and nobly. The benefactors who have given freely have the 
 reward of the generous soul. The chief of them,f who fell on 
 sleep last year, was a man of proved sagacity also. Was his 
 sagacity at fault in this? And if not, why not? By what 
 right do we enter into the enjoyment of these privileges? 
 What account are we prepared to give of our stewardship? 
 
 We cannot justify ourselves by any negative formula, by 
 trying to prove that our freedom does not mean license, or 
 that our ampler equipment will not lessen our zeal for good 
 
 * Charles Butler, LL.D., a member of the Board of Directors, 1836-1897; its Vice- 
 President, 1841-1870, and its President, 1870-1897; died December isth, 1897. 
 
 t D. Willis James, a member of the Board of Directors, 1867-1907, and its Vice-President 
 1898-1907 ; died September 13, 1907. 
 
35 
 
 things. We must justify ourselves and our benefactors by 
 something of positive value to the life of men. As the 
 formula of this value I suggest " Theology as the Servant 
 of Religion." It will give us a theme for brief development. 
 I trust it may stand for the programme of the Seminary. 
 
 " Religion " has been made sometimes to consist in institu- 
 tions, and acts of worship, performances of some kind. 
 Others have meant by it solely the inner relation of the soul 
 with the superhuman. I cannot catalogue the definitions. It 
 will answer, for our purpose, to understand by " religion" 
 those living convictions and experiences of God which 
 determine conduct, together with the conduct which is so 
 determined. 
 
 By "theology" I mean the objective study and ordered 
 statement of those convictions and experiences of God which 
 are presented by religion, together with the enunciation of its 
 rules of conduct. 
 
 And what I desire to say is that theological study and 
 statement are distinctly related to religion, and that they are 
 so not only in the sense that they derive their material from 
 it, but also iu the sense that they are subsidiary to religion, 
 and that in this latter fact is to be found the justification of 
 the freedom and the enlarged facilities of the Seminary. 
 
 A. i. This is an institution of religion. It was founded 
 by religious men, with a religious purpose. We are set to 
 promote religion. The men we send out are supposed to 
 know religion. They may not be experts in all things; some 
 of them may not be experts in anything else; but they will 
 not be easily forgiven if they do not shew some first-hand 
 acquaintance with religion. 
 
 The fruit of religion is character. It is the religious char- 
 acter that gives us our concern. And religious character is 
 not mere flawlessness; it it not a static phenomenon; it is 
 dynamic; a thing of peace and calm, but also a thing of 
 
36 
 
 power. Character is informed by principle and energized by 
 purpose, and wrought into life. We do not care for religion 
 that is not manifest in living character. 
 
 The great issue that faces our modern world is, as we see 
 it, the issue between two conceptions and ideals of life, 
 antagonistic and mutually exclusive. The difference between 
 them is the difference between self-assertion and self-devotion, 
 between faith in goodness without regard to present personal 
 advantage and the resolve of personal advantage and satisfac- 
 tion at any cost. One opens windows into heaven, the other 
 lifts neither hand nor eye above the earth. And, on the earth, 
 one grasps and the other offers. One is bent on getting and 
 the other on giving. One seeks to use, and the other to be of 
 use. One is predatory and the other benevolent. One sees 
 antagonisms and the other opportunities. Strength and skill 
 to fight men are the chief virtues on one side. Eagerness to 
 serve men is the vital breath of the other. Both can shew 
 force, and virility and concentrated purpose. Both have 
 fascination for mankind. The one appeals to the instinct of 
 snatching, at whatever cost to the rest, and the other to the 
 authority of sacrifice for the sake of the rest. 
 
 These two principles of life are opposed to each other. 
 In actual society we do not usually find them quite unmixed. 
 The predatory are often kind and affectionate in certain spheres 
 and relations. The helpful are self-respecting, industrious, 
 independent, seeking their own maintenance, and in many 
 things, their own benefit, and that of those who belong to 
 them. But the, question is, What is the ultimate aim, the 
 controlling desire, the dominating and determining purpose 
 of the life ? Underneath all names and professions, under- 
 neath all conventions and all veneerings, the ultimate principles 
 work in perpetual conflict, for one is godless and its name is 
 selfishness, and the name of the other is love. 
 
 Now we are committed, with all our energy, to the latter 
 of these two. We do not offer ourselves as models far from 
 
37 
 
 it. We are ashamed of ourselves in view of the splendid pos- 
 sibilities of the life of love, while we exhibit so little of them. 
 But in all sincerity, and without reserve, we desire to throw 
 ourselves upon that side, and devote ourselves to that end. 
 The prevalence of the self-assertive spirit means perpetual 
 warfare, violence, brutality, ugly things. We desire fellow- 
 ship, harmony, considerateness, co-operation, the growth and 
 fruitage of human life. We think the development of the 
 serviceable character is a great public benefit, and that insti- 
 tutions which promote it are of public use. The inspiration 
 and power for this life we find in our religion. It seems to us 
 that without religion the world is dark and the efforts of men 
 lack permanent incentive and hope. 
 
 We do indeed desire to clasp hands with all those who are 
 doing the works which we regard as pertaining to the practical 
 religious life, whether or not they profess religion, and what- 
 ever their opinions as to the reality of religion. We remember 
 that our Master rebuked zealous disciples who forbade a healer 
 of demoniacs because he was not of their company. We 
 ourselves feel rebuked when we see the unselfish services 
 rendered by those who do not share our faith and cannot find 
 reality in our creeds. We need every aid in casting out the 
 demons of our time. But we say, frankly, that we get our 
 inspiration and power from our religion. We should not all 
 agree with Matthew Arnold's account of religion as "morality 
 touched by emotion," but we all believe that morality needs 
 to be touched by emotion. And this touch, which gives it 
 endurance and fire, and organizes it about a central purpose, 
 we gain from our religion. W T e believe in God. From the 
 distortions and moral tragedies of the world we resort to God, 
 and come back reinforced for life in the world. We desire to 
 know more of fellowship with God, and its joy. And we greatly 
 believe in its power to set right the common life. It is religion 
 that turns ethics into righteousness. If its morality has been 
 sometimes narrow, and its emotion fierce, it is only because 
 
38 
 
 humanity, even religious humanity, is a dull scholar, and 
 learns its best lessons slowly. Give religion time, and it will 
 build its road wide enough and offer its gifts with genial hand. 
 Religion is more than social ethics, but without social ethics 
 it is devitalized. " He that loveth not his brother, whom he 
 hath seen, cannot love God, whom he hath not seen." It 
 rears hospitals as well as churches, and trains the nurse's 
 fingers. It plants the social settlement and supports it. It 
 inspires benevolence and respect for people. It may even 
 induce forgetfulness of the rules for one's own life, in the 
 claims of other lives. Thus conduct becomes the expression 
 of religion, according to the word of the practical apostle: 
 "Pure religion and undefiled, before our God and Father, is 
 this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and 
 to keep himself unspotted from the world." 
 
 2. It is the Christian religion in which we find this reno- 
 vating social force. The spirit of serviceable love is embodied 
 for us in Jesus, whom we call the Christ, and we are Christians 
 Christ's men with heart and soul. 
 
 We recognize this spirit with gladness in other religions 
 which do not call themselves Christian, and would reject the 
 name. It is a delight to find common ground with these. We 
 desire to enlarge it to its utmost limits. Love must teach us 
 to see the good, everywhere. We have to acknowledge, with 
 confusion of face, how often the Christian name has been dis- 
 graced by attitudes of hate, and acts of cruelty, which 
 were barbarous and wicked how faithless Christianity has 
 often been to its own character, and persecuted where it 
 should have loved and cherished. We are trying to learn 
 our lesson better. In this we are obeying, also, a social 
 demand. The common elements in religion vindicate them- 
 selves when all religion is challenged. The fruits of religion 
 are not confined to trees with the Christian label. And 
 it was our Master, again, who said, "By their fruits ye 
 shall know them." We Christians have no monopoly of 
 
39 
 
 goodness, nor have we exhausted the meaning of the religious 
 life. 
 
 But, in fact, we get our standard and our inspiration from 
 Jesus Christ. By his character we are willing to stand or fall. 
 His purpose of life we desire to make our own. And this is 
 our answer to those who regard our ideal as weak, emas- 
 culated, unfit for world-wide realization, an object, at best, 
 for patronizing contempt and who feel no enthusiasm at the 
 figure of Jesus, who think Him feeble a negative character 
 without force or promise. We find in the absorbing purpose 
 of His life a strength both finer and more tenacious than the 
 arrogance of self-assertion a nobility that towers above the 
 ambition of any man. Jesus Christ is not a weakling, but a 
 magnificent type of manhood, too strong to be merely self- 
 assertive, too strong to care about His rights and claims 
 strong to conceive the greatest, strong to dare and endure, 
 strong to believe and to hope unto the very end. In his pur- 
 pose lies, for us, the redemption of mankind individually and 
 socially, the conquest of the beast in men, the renovation of 
 the peoples, the prevalence of justice, and of the qualities 
 which are more delicate and more controlling than justice 
 humanity, thoughtfulness, kindness and love the establish- 
 ment of the divine upon the earth. 
 
 We speak of the divine and we call Jesus the Christ, bor- 
 rowing the old Jewish term of Anointed One in its Greek dress, 
 to express the idea of His sacred commission from God. 
 
 The relation with God is fundamental to our Christian re- 
 ligion because its practical purpose is God's purpose, and ex- 
 presses the inmost desire of God. This is the very life of God. 
 By taking part in this life we share the life of God, and glorify 
 Him. And there is no other way of doing it. We may take 
 refuge from the uncompromising demands of the spiritual life 
 in the passive enjoyment of communion with God. We may 
 revel in great truths about Him. We may rest in His care for 
 us. But we do not really know Him, nor have fellowship with 
 
40 
 
 Him, until we put ourselves at the service of His human 
 children, at whose service He puts Himself. And if we seem 
 to speak too freely about God, as if we were in His confidence, 
 and were forgetting the reserve which befits our utterance 
 about His majestic being, we can only say that our spirits have 
 gone to school to Jesus Christ, that this seems to us His 
 deepest revelation, that this attitude toward life, this purpose 
 in life, finds a thrill of response in our souls which does not 
 permit us to doubt that it is the highest that human thought 
 can conceive, and that our God must embody for us this high- 
 est conception of our thought, or He ceases to be our God, 
 and that Jesus attests like faith toward His God that His 
 God and our God are one and the same. 
 
 More than this. Our age is chary of metaphysics in its 
 religion; but, the more we dwell on the matter and see with 
 what self-abandonment He devoted himself to men in the ful- 
 filment of His thought of life as self-devotion, and with what 
 superb assurance He declared that this was the temper of God, 
 the more necessary it seems to us, from the ethical side, to 
 insist on the peculiar relationship between Him and God which 
 the Christian centuries have argued from the metaphysical 
 side in a way which has somewhat lost the ear of the present 
 generation. It would be rash to say that this hearing may not 
 be regained hereafter. In the meantime we make the same 
 great connection, in practical effect, when we avow that Jesus 
 is the very revelation of God's character, and God's purpose 
 that "God was in Christ", and that as we bow in reverence 
 before our Lord Jesus Christ, we are worshipping God, in Him. 
 
 Thus then our standard is imposed upon us, and our pur- 
 pose is set for us with all the splendid authority of perfect 
 righteousness. We have often failed to attain it. We have 
 frittered away much of our life. We are to blame for our 
 failure and our waste. Jesus brings to us also a message of 
 forgiveness from God, and of strength for a new life through 
 His Spirit. When we are led to adopt His plan, there is the 
 
41 
 
 beginning of the new life. Only the beginning, but still the 
 beginning. The beginning is not to us the whole Gospel, nor 
 the chief part of the Gospel. But it is so great the contrast 
 between the serviceable life and the selfish one is so wide and 
 the joy of active self-surrender to the noblest is so uplifting, 
 that we cannot wonder at the stress that has been laid upon 
 it, and the space devoted to it in historic expositions of the 
 Christian faith. It is, however, only the beginning. It is 
 elementary. It is merely the introduction to the long life of 
 love and service which is the main thing for us all. It is the 
 fulfilment of this one end in life to which Jesus brings us in 
 His life and death, removing the hindrances, establishing us 
 in such relations with God, and possessing us with such eager- 
 ness to reproduce the life of God, that we must accomplish 
 His desire and join Him in the great work of redeeming and 
 restoring His world of men. 
 
 3. We are also Protestant Christians. This term is very 
 dear to many. It has a sacred history of nearly four hundred 
 years. If we had to choose a name afresh we probably should 
 not select exactly this. It is too negative. Opposition to 
 other Christians, even those from whom we seriously differ 
 an attitude of perpetual protest does not express what is 
 most characteristic in our faith and our purpose. The recog- 
 nition of our own need of reformation in many things enables 
 us to do some justice to the reforming forces within the great 
 parent church of the West, and the dormant energies of life 
 which we hope to see waking up within the historic Oriental 
 churches, still so largely slumbering. We desire with each 
 of them, wherever we can touch them, all the fellowship 
 they will permit us to have. We are glad of what they 
 achieve in the common work. It is our achievement, 
 achieved for our cause, though not by us. We desire to 
 share with them, and to have them share with us, those 
 treasures which each of us has in any larger measure than the 
 other. We believe that we shall, some day. Each time we 
 
42 
 
 say the Creed we avow our belief " in the Holy Catholic 
 Church." 
 
 But we ourselves are Protestants. That is the line of our 
 heritage. That is the type of our choice. That is the main 
 sphere of our life. That is the mode in which we find it most 
 clearly possible to serve our generation in the knowledge of 
 God. And all the while we acknowledge that we know in 
 part, and we prophesy in part, and we have no doubt that 
 when that which is perfect shall come, that which is in part 
 will be done away. 
 
 B. But we are more than an institution of religion. A 
 church or a synagogue would be that. We are an institution 
 of theological knowledge and our specific function is the 
 application of theology to religion. 
 
 In the exposition of our religious faith and purpose 
 already given, which we hope may from the social standpoint 
 justify our privileges to some degree, the simple principles of 
 our theology have been already involved, and in part 
 expressed. 
 
 i. We do not regard theology as identical with religion. 
 Theology is an exercise of the intellect, like all scientific 
 processes. It takes the materials furnished it by religion, and 
 seeks to classify and relate them. It is a high exercise of the 
 intellect. But it is not the same thing with the convictions 
 and experiences and modes of life which supply its phe- 
 nomena, and in which religion consists. Religion lives within 
 these phenomena throws them out as its manifestation. 
 Theology observes the phenomena from without, and con- 
 structs its theory of religion by generalizing from them. The 
 theologian must have sympathy with his phenomena, to under- 
 stand them, and the true theologian must therefore be himself 
 a man of religion; but he is not practicing religion in the act 
 of observing the religious phenomena, or accepting them as 
 genuine, or stating them as true. 
 
43 
 
 2. Theology, except in some very few primary thoughts, 
 is not even absolutely essential to religion. "He that cometh 
 to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of 
 them that diligently seek Him " but how slender that belief 
 may sometimes be! and how luxuriant may sometimes be the 
 life-product of a man whose lips can hardly shape themselves 
 to stammer out the briefest " Credo ! " 
 
 Religion, if we must compare them, is a great deal more 
 important than theology. And what glorious hope and cheer 
 there is in this, when we are struggling to understand the great 
 verities by which some men simply live ! 
 
 In a reaction from the claim of theology to determine and 
 to measure religion, a claim by which the bruised reed has 
 been often broken, and the smoking flax quenched, to the 
 grief of God, it has grown popular to declare that religion 
 is independent of theology altogether, or at least to decry the 
 teaching of theology as not helpful to religion. 
 
 3. Against these extremes, both superficial, perhaps 
 equally so, we maintain that theology is not useless to religion, 
 but serves it, and that theology is not identical with religion, 
 nor in any extended sense its absolute condition, but is, again, 
 its helpful servant. 
 
 Theology is the servant of religion by helping to define it, 
 by distinguishing it from counterfeits, and separating it from 
 non-essential accretions. It is the servant of religion by in- 
 terpreting it, aiding religion to understand itself, making it 
 intelligent, and giving it a larger appeal to intelligence. It 
 is the servant of religion by increasing the range of religion, 
 the vast sweep of truth which theology contemplates widening 
 the field of religion and heightening its grandeur. It is the 
 servant of religion by energizing it, supplying it with fresh 
 motive and stimulus, acting upon it as positive opinion always 
 tends to pass over into action. It gives rational assurance of 
 the realities on which religion feeds. I hint only at aspects 
 of its service, I do not exhaust them. 
 
44 
 
 Theology has possibilities of usefulness to religion, how- 
 ever it is studied. As far as it is true, it has them in the 
 capacity of a University discipline. It shares the majestic 
 value of all truth. It is a tonic and a rich furniture for the 
 mind. Like natural and historical science, with which it has 
 methods and data in common, and even more than these, it 
 has the right to claim the attention due great knowledge from 
 a self-respecting mind. Like philosophy, with which also it 
 has data and methods in common, and even more than this, 
 it is an education in the potencies of the unseen. It is a bar- 
 rier to the materialistic life. It is a reminder of eternal 
 values. We are glad to teach any theology we know to any 
 capable student, whatever purpose he has in knowing it. 
 
 But our privileges are not justified by the abstract value 
 of theology as a branch of human learning. At most, this 
 might vindicate the University Faculty of theology, as a group 
 of Professors of the theory of religion. 
 
 This Seminary was founded, and exists, in the interests of 
 practical religion, for the uses of a practical ministry, and it 
 is theological to this end. I shall not be misunderstood as I 
 say this. The practical ministry cannot afford to limit itself 
 to those aspects of theology whose practical application is 
 obvious and direct. Part of the shallowness of the ministry 
 is due to this limitation of the uses of theology. We con- 
 template, not something less than a full, scientific study of 
 theology, but something more. All the mass of scientific 
 detail, all the rigour of scientific method, all the thoroughness 
 of scientific induction, all the insistence upon facts and the 
 unwearying search for all the facts, and the refusal to go 
 beyond the facts, with which the laboratory has made us 
 familiar, belong in our study of theological truth. There is no 
 easy road to that truth. The self-denying patience of Huxley 
 and Darwin are demanded in this field also. The humility of 
 those who see truth extending, vastly, on every side of them, 
 belongs here also. It is an exacting pursuit. All who engage 
 
45 
 
 in it, seriously, must share in its processes, as well as its re- 
 sults. We cannot give our men results in nice packets and send 
 them out to cure the world with our medicines. What they get 
 in that way will always be a borrowed theology, and not their 
 own. We can lead them toward our results, but they must 
 walk the path themselves, and learn how to possess their own 
 souls. It is only the man who will share our search to whom 
 the truth of God can come with the dazzling magnificence of 
 discovery, as it sometimes comes to us. It is only through 
 this earnest rigour of the process that theology can fulfil its 
 service to religion. 
 
 It takes rank with study for every great profession, which 
 has always practice in view law, medicine, teaching, applied 
 science, for example. We may venture to call theology an 
 applied science, which must be a thorough science before 
 it can be fruitfully applied. We feel bound to treat it as a 
 serious object of our own study. No pains are too great to be 
 devoted to its mastery. It is a part of our obligation to make 
 such contributions to it as we may. The study of languages, 
 of events and of beliefs may sometimes deal with matters of 
 long ago, but it need not therefore be dead learning, and 
 ought not to be. It is part of our duty to keep it alive by 
 fresh investigation and re-statements, as we see new things, 
 or see the old things in new relations. If we neglected or 
 undervalued close scholarly work on our own part we should 
 do our science a great wrong. 
 
 But the final end of it all is religion. And this is true of 
 every department of theology. The old divisions of theological 
 science are breaking down, and their names have grown in- 
 adequate. I shall use them now for illustrative purposes 
 merely: 
 
 /. The desire of this Seminary to make theology tell for 
 religion is expressed in its Practical Department, so called. 
 This is the point of application. This is its region of contact 
 with life. Here belong the theory of preaching, the purpose 
 
46 
 
 of preaching, and how to preach. Here belong the organiza- 
 tion of the church, the theory of the pastor and his training, 
 and the conduct of worship, prayer, voice-culture and music. 
 Here comes the recognition of the field as the world, and the 
 imperative of missions, and the acknowledgment that the 
 theory of missions, which means sharing the best one has, is 
 not a theory of localities, but that the obligation is the same 
 at home and abroad. In all this, like every great practical 
 enterprise there is demand not only for scientific thoroughness 
 but also for the creative imagination of an art, and the 
 development of technical skill. To the wide effectiveness of 
 this department belong other things in which we have made 
 some small beginnings. We hope to extend them greatly. 
 We desire to train all forces that make for religion. Teachers 
 in Bible Classes, organizers and Superintendents of schools 
 for such study, all who have to do with education in matters 
 of religion, belong to our rightful constituency here. The 
 Preamble to our Constitution, a document of broad vision, 
 which is our Charter in things spiritual, as our Act of Incor- 
 poration is our Charter in law, emphasizes the interest of our 
 Founders in all "social benevolent efforts," and contemplates 
 "a wholesome practical training in works of benevolence." 
 More and more we are realizing such a desire. The Social 
 Settlement may be called a branch of our Practical Depart- 
 ment, the Christian Associations Young Men's and Young 
 Women's send to us and draw from us. There are six 
 Young Men's Christian Association Secretaries in our present 
 Junior Class. 
 
 This is not for boasting. We do far too little. We do, as 
 yet, imperfectly, what we try to do. I sincerely hope that 
 other Seminaries do more, and do better. But I hope you will 
 believe that this Seminary is in some degree alive to its prac- 
 tical obligations. 
 
 It is perhaps not proper to do more than allude to our sense 
 of personal duty in this matter, which impels us teachers and 
 
47 
 
 students to become, ourselves, agents in the spread of 
 practical religion, by word, and pen, and life. It is not an 
 accident, nor a whim, that one of our newest foundations, 
 established by a man* whose death we are still mourning over, 
 a man of marked business sense, and business success, as 
 well as wide interests in philanthropy and in culture, who 
 some years before gave the Union Settlement its permanent 
 home, requires its incumbent to spend half of each academic 
 year in the direct service of religion among those who are in 
 training for all kinds of human leadership. 
 
 In these ways the Seminary is trying to justify its privileges 
 by advancing the Kingdom of God, which is the reign of love. 
 
 77. It is the desire of this Seminary to learn and teach the 
 truths of God in systematized form, for the invigorating of 
 religion. One aspect of this work is the arrangement of 
 positive truth as a connected system, for the satisfaction and 
 peace of the mind that deals with it. Another is the inquiry 
 into its ultimate grounds and its defense from unjust attack. 
 Another is the consideration of Christian conduct, its laws and 
 its range, involving the message of Christianity to Society, 
 and the considering of all questions of social ethics. Another 
 is the examination of the public creeds and confessions of 
 faith, to determine the exact measure of their agreement and 
 their dissent. Its sequel is the consideration of the way of 
 lessening or removing the divergences, and making the agree- 
 ments effective. These processes condition not only growth 
 in knowledge but also growth in religion. They enable men to 
 meet religious crises intelligently. They explain faith so that 
 reason need not blink at it. They enrich experience by giving 
 the mind a share in it. A meagre theology tends to an ema- 
 ciated religion. Religion claims all life, and theology estab- 
 lishes the claim. 
 
 ///. It is the desire of this Seminary to discern and pro- 
 claim the lessons of Christian History the history of life and 
 the history of thought. The first lesson is the need of studying 
 
 * Morris K. Jesup, LL.D., a member of the Board of Directors, 1883-1908, and its Viee- 
 President, 1907-1908, who died January 2ad, 1908. 
 
48 
 
 all theology by the methods and in the light of history. 
 The content of history needs to be studied also. Acumen in 
 this helps religion to understand what is permanent and what 
 is transient, to maintain its courage and face its future with 
 frankness and an undaunted mind. It knits the religious 
 centuries together and establishes the continuity of religious 
 experience and belief. It begets temperate judgments and 
 the faculty of seeing truth under many disguises. It fosters 
 sympathy and a genial faith. It testifies of God's Spirit, 
 working, without haste or alarm, through the confusions of 
 men. It shows dogma in the making, and tests formulas by 
 their origin, their fitness and their power. It fills each age 
 with divine life and predisposes us to acknowledge the divine 
 life in our own age. It is a merciless discriminator of the 
 unreal from the real, and makes the theology of every genera- 
 tion a minister to the religion of to-day. It teaches unity in 
 diversity, and comprehensiveness, and, with a hundred 
 tongues, proclaims the simplicity of the Gospel, and the value 
 of every form that conserves it. 
 
 IV. It is the desire of this Seminary to make connection, 
 and keep it, with the primary sources of theology, for the sake 
 of a living religion. 
 
 We believe that the ultimate source of theology is God, 
 who reveals His will in human hearts. He reveals Himself, 
 we humbly believe, in our hearts, as in yours but not in 
 yours, or ours, first of all. There have been beginnings of 
 revelation, whose originality makes them most significant. 
 There were first revelations, in the souls and minds of good 
 men, and some of these are recorded in our Bible. There 
 was a revelation in Jesus, the Christ. This is recorded in 
 our Bible. Here we can still make close connections with 
 God. All that renders the Bible intelligible, and its contents 
 real, all that gives it a human place, and entwines it with 
 human life, is important to religion. Its original languages 
 are of prime value, and its versions, which the people read. 
 
49 
 
 We see, with gladness, how much the Bible has in common 
 with other books. We cannot shut our eyes, and no longer 
 desire to shut our eyes to much that is imperfect and perish- 
 able in the Bible. This relates it more intimately to humanity. 
 But it has to do with the shell, and not the kernel. The Bible 
 remains the splendidly original expression of experiences of 
 God which are fresh and are fundamental. They can be 
 reproduced they are reproduced every day but they cannot 
 be re-originated. Therefore schools of theology will always 
 go back to the Bible, and methods of Bible study will always 
 be of vital consequence. 
 
 For the purest water you go back to the spring, if you can 
 reach it. You must dip carefully and with judgment. Rough 
 scooping may bring you leaves that were floating idly on the 
 top, these quench no thirst, or stir up sand that rests 
 quietly at the bottom, harmless, and even purifying, till you 
 try to drink it. It does not cleanse the spring to deny that 
 these things are there. These things belong to the nature of 
 the spring, a hollow in the common ground, and open to the 
 sky. But, with these things in it, it is still the water of the 
 spring that gives refreshment and life. 
 
 I have tried thus to indicate the range of theological study, 
 and its use for religion. No one person can master it all. 
 That is a human limitation. But everyone ready for it by 
 previous training, and willing to take the time and make the 
 effort, can grasp the essential features of it all, and get 
 facility in some part of it so as really to promote religion. 
 
 We go, I think, to the verge of the permissible in encour- 
 aging specialization. Ample specialization is open for specific 
 lines of work; and in training for the ministry at large all the 
 specialization that is consistent with the design of preparing 
 broadly for the ministry, with its demands on knowledge and 
 on capacity. 
 
50 
 
 We desire to strengthen all our great Departments, 
 extensively and intensively; we have not yet adequate 
 endowments for them all. And if any one can shew us other 
 lines of study and training that promise effectiveness in 
 religious teaching and living, we shall be glad to undertake 
 them as fast as means are provided. 
 
 I have said so much about this Seminary, because I know 
 it, and belong to it now more than ever and because I 
 honestly believe that in making theology the active servant of 
 religion it is worth to the community all it has cost, and will 
 cost, and a great deal more. 
 
 But, indeed, this is no private doctrine. It must be com- 
 mended to all who care for theology. In this view theology 
 becomes a matter of great human interest. Those are very 
 wrong who exalt human concerns even religious concerns 
 at the expense of theological knowledge. The difficulty with 
 those who depreciate theological knowledge, from the side of 
 religion, is that they have too feeble a notion of religion. If 
 theology belonged to a monkish cell or to a shady Academy, 
 where men simply think and talk, they might ignore it, in the 
 tussle of the world. But it is the servant of religion, and 
 religion is big enough to use it all, and need it all. 
 
 I know religion has sometimes had power without much 
 human teaching. I know there is a teaching from God not 
 dependent on the schools. But the great problems of religion 
 as human society shews them now, cannot be solved by igno- 
 rant piety. They are tremendous problems. Religion must 
 rise to them and equip itself for them. It sees much suffer- 
 ing in the world, much cruelty and much hardness; igno- 
 rance and blundering; social grievances which are crimes; lives 
 from which the clouds of passion and vice shut out the sun- 
 light; stifling corners never swept pure by the winds of 
 heaven ; arbitrary hindrances to progress ; progress misnamed ; 
 bitterness; pathetic zeal for trifles; lack of ideals and 
 
51 
 
 stumbling pursuit of ideals when they are not quite lacking; 
 distortion of values ; stolid indifference ; absorption in things; 
 lack of reverence ; lack of the sense of God ; lack of the sense 
 of brotherhood. 
 
 Religion proposes to change all that, to conquer sin, and 
 remove evil, and establish righteousness. Thousands of 
 voices deny its power to do so, thousands laugh at its 
 attempts. They call it an idle dream. It is rather a vision 
 of that which is to be. But, between, there is a hard struggle 
 and a long struggle. It will take trained leadership. The 
 Seminary stands for trained leadership in religion. It belongs 
 wholly to religion. It calls men to get ready for the great 
 business of making religion real in life. It does not disguise 
 the obstacles. It turns them into a summons. 
 
 It wants men of fibre and courage. It wants men who 
 believe that God will prevail, and are eager to cast in their 
 lot with Him. It wants men capable of loyalty to Jesus. It 
 offers its men, not softness and shelter, but accoutrement, 
 ammunition, drill, a plan of campaign, a battlefield, a watch- 
 word, a Commander. In them, and with them, and with 
 Him, it dares its part in the redemption of the world. 
 
 We pray for the reproduction of the spirit and purpose of 
 Jesus Christ in all the people on the earth. And if God will 
 use us, of this Seminary, in our freedom and our larger home, 
 to help Him in doing some share of what we pray for, we 
 shall be grateful to Him, all our lives long.