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PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL 
 SEMINARY 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED, BY INVITATION OF 
 THE DIRECTORS, ON THE OCCASION OF 
 THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 OF THE SEMINARY IN ALEXANDER 
 HALL, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES BEATTY ALEXANDER, LL.D. 
 
 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AND WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON COLLEGE 
 
 MAY THE SIXTH, MCMXII 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE SEMINARY 
 1912 
 
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 THE TROW PRESS 
 NEW YORK 
 
PRINCETON IN ITS EARLY 
 ENVIRONMENT AND WORK. 
 
 Henri Rochefort has said that after men 
 become fit for nothing else they write reminis- 
 cences. 
 
 When the invitation came to me to deliver 
 one of the addresses on this memorable occa- 
 sion, I, with the sensitiveness natural to men of 
 my years, was tempted to think, from the sub- 
 ject assigned to me, that the committee per- 
 haps imagined me a contemporary of the 
 fathers of this institution, and hence able to 
 speak from personal knowledge of its early 
 days. The committee would not have been 
 far wrong, if this had been their impression. 
 It so happens that I spent a portion of every 
 year from 1850 to 1859, in the kindly hospi- 
 tality of the old Alexander house, and like most 
 early impressions, the recollections of that time 
 are most vivid. 
 
 Dr. Archibald Alexander died in October, 
 1 85 1, and I do not recall him. 
 
 Owing to the limitations of time, portions of this address were omitted. 
 
 3 
 
I well remember being taken as a little boy 
 to see Dr. Hodge in the house across the 
 campus, and being told not to forget that I was 
 to meet one of the great scholars of the age. 
 
 At the period I have mentioned, the only 
 buildings on the campus were what is now 
 called Alexander Hall, the Miller Chapel, and 
 the old Library. It was a great source of in- 
 terest to me to visit a little museum, on the first 
 floor of the Seminary. It contained a few 
 shells from the South Seas, and copper coins. 
 There were also some beads, which I under- 
 stood were the costume of dusky converts be- 
 fore they adopted the traditional garb of civil- 
 ization. There were, moreover, certain idols 
 in the cases, which, in my early innocence, I 
 supposed might occasionally, in moments of 
 backsliding be worshiped by the students, 
 but later learned that they had been sent home 
 by missionaries, after being discarded by their 
 disciples, very much as the Indian braves of 
 the day sent home to their lodges the scalps of 
 the conquered. 
 
 Above all, I remember the current of life 
 which flowed through the house. The family 
 then consisted of Joseph Addison Alexander, 
 and his two brothers, William and Archibald, 
 and their sister, Janetta. Hardly a day passed 
 4 
 
without a visit from some returning graduate 
 or eminent personage from abroad, and there 
 were frequent calls from the other members of 
 the faculty. I remember the intense interest 
 shown in the work of every graduate, and the 
 eagerness with which all news of the alumni 
 was sought. The early Professors always kept 
 their hands on their former students, where- 
 ever they might be, the hands of sympathy, of 
 imagination, of Christian love. I have since 
 thought, that this interest bound the graduates 
 very closely to their Alma Mater. 
 
 Of course, I recall Dr. Addison Alexander 
 and all his well known peculiarities. In a few 
 lessons he sought to make me a great Oriental 
 scholar, but I clearly proved that the mantle 
 of Elijah had not fallen on Elisha. 
 
 Before leaving these personal reminiscences, 
 let me say that I have had great pleasure in 
 sending to the Seminary Library the English 
 Bible which Dr. Archibald Alexander used 
 daily for over thirty years. It contains the 
 entry of the births and baptism of his children 
 in his own handwriting. In the cover. Dr. 
 Alexander pasted several verses, which form 
 the best possible clue to his character. They 
 are as follows: " To love Him with all the 
 heart and with all the soul and with all the 
 
strength is more than all whole burnt offerings 
 and sacrifices." " I dwell with Him that is of 
 a contrite and humble spirit." " But to do 
 good and to communicate forget not." " The 
 Lord is nigh unto them which are of a broken 
 heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." 
 Well may it have been said of him by his 
 biographer that at the time of his call to 
 Princeton •* no man of eminence could think 
 more humbly of himself." From the worn 
 appearance of portions of the book, it would 
 seem that the Psalms and the major prophets 
 were the most frequently read. I have also 
 sent to the Library an ancient Hebrew Old 
 Testament, used daily by Dr. James Waddel 
 Alexander, and another read by Joseph Addi- 
 son Alexander from 1828 until his death. 
 
 Let me now turn to the subject assigned to 
 me. Let us consider for a moment the con- 
 dition of the country at the time of the foun- 
 dation of the Seminary. In 181 1, the people 
 were preparing for the expected war with 
 England. The things common to a new 
 country characterized American life. Travel- 
 ing facilities were poor. There was not a 
 steamboat west of New York City. Trans- 
 portation between Princeton and Philadelphia 
 was by coach. In these days of the railway, 
 6 
 
bicycle, motor, telegraph, telephone, photo- 
 graph, and electricity in all its forms, one can 
 hardly imagine the primitive character of 
 our national life. 
 
 The educational advantages in the country 
 were far from what they are today. Harvard, 
 Yale, Princeton, and some lesser colleges set 
 the standard, but the school facilities were 
 limited, and the teaching inferior. The moral- 
 ity of the people was characterized by the 
 laxness of a new land, and strange sects sprang 
 up, "Halcyon," "New Light," and the like, 
 due in a large degree to a lack of religious 
 training. 
 
 Sharing in the general educational and 
 moral depression, theological education was 
 at a low ebb. Ministers were being prepared 
 either by private instructors, or by what they 
 could pick up in their college courses. This 
 condition is indicated in " The Brief Account 
 of the Rise, etc. of the Seminary," published 
 in 1822. It states that the founders deeply 
 lamented the want of such an institution, and 
 saw with much pain the extreme disadvantage 
 under which their candidates for the ministry 
 labored, in pursuing their theological studies. 
 They saw young men with very small previous 
 acquirements in literature and science, after 
 7 
 
devoting only twelve or eighteen months, and 
 in some instances much less, to the study of 
 theology, and even for that short time almost 
 wholly without suitable help, taking on them- 
 selves the most weighty and responsible of all 
 offices. 
 
 But in spite of the gloomy outlook, intellec- 
 tual, moral, and spiritual life was beginning to 
 revive. 
 
 Something vital happens before the green 
 blade appears. Although at the beginning of 
 the last century there seemed little hope of im- 
 provement, the first decade of the nineteenth 
 century showed a marvelous renaissance, of 
 which the foundation of the Seminary forms a 
 part. 
 
 There was a reaction proceeding in Europe 
 from eighteenth century infidelity. W. G. 
 Ward in his recently published Life of 
 Newman says that this reaction was heralded 
 in 1802 by Chateaubriand's Genie du Chris- 
 tianisme. 
 
 The great idea of Christian Foreign Missions 
 was born at the Haystack meeting in 1806. 
 The temperance movement began in Morean, 
 New York, in 1 806, when a society was formed 
 pledging its members to drink rum only on 
 special occasions. The first missionary society 
 8 
 
was founded in 1806. Twenty-four benevo- 
 lent societies, the first growth of the immense 
 charities of our own day, were incorporated 
 in the first decade. The New Jersey Bible 
 Society was founded in 181 5, and shortly 
 afterwards the American Bible Society. 
 
 The life manifested in these agencies, so 
 new and so startling, is also to be remarked 
 in the Government. The appearance of Clay, 
 Calhoun, Webster, Cheves and Lowndes, at 
 Washington, revealed a determination to end 
 the humiliating trade difficulties with France 
 and England by an aggressive war. 
 
 With this new spirit so manifest in the 
 political and social life of the country, the 
 Church awakened to its responsibilities and 
 opportunities as it had not done before. The 
 leadership in thought as well as in action fell 
 upon men unprepared by education to bear 
 them. As a response to the call of the time, 
 loud and insistent, Princeton Seminary was 
 born. The men who promoted it appreciated 
 that on the one hand an ignorant ministry is 
 a national misfortune, and that on the other, a 
 cultivated, educated ministry is a national 
 blessing. Therefore, the organization of this 
 Seminary was not only a religious, but a 
 patriotic service. 
 
 9 
 
It is remarkable that the founders of the 
 Seminary made it independent of any college 
 already in existence. It would have been easy 
 to graft it upon Nassau Hall. Indeed, in 1805, 
 the College of New Jersey showed considerable 
 uneasiness at the project of a separate semi- 
 nary, for the trustees sent a communication 
 to the Assembly setting forth, that the college 
 was founded with a particular view to furnish- 
 ing men for the ministry, that the trustees were 
 devoted to this object, and that an opportunity 
 was afforded by the college for the study of 
 divinity. This exhibits the change which has 
 taken place in public sentiment, when the 
 object of so many universities and colleges 
 now is to secularize learning. 
 
 The plan for the Seminary adopted by the 
 Assembly of 181 1 described the kind of men 
 it was desirous of supplying to the Church in 
 words which might well have been written by 
 John Calvin. The author was Ashbel Green. 
 '• It is to form men for the Gospel Ministry, 
 who shall truly believe and cordially love, and 
 therefore endeavor to propagate and defend 
 that system of religious belief and practice 
 which is set forth in the Confession of Faith, 
 and thus to extend the influence of true evan- 
 gelical piety and gospel order. " 
 10 
 
This Seminary has been called "the Home 
 of Calvinism." To-day no thinking man should 
 be ashamed of the title. Any institution might 
 be proud to furnish to the Church men whose 
 ideas of liberty and justice, whose zeal and love 
 for men, whose scholarship and power are char- 
 acteristic of the school of Calvin. 
 
 Calvin had died two hundred years before 
 this Seminary was founded, but just as his 
 theology had persisted, so did his views of an 
 educated Protestant clergy continue to in- 
 fluence the Presbyterians of the world. He 
 had a fine jealousy as to the character and 
 competence of his professors. He was himself 
 professor of theology. His theological grad- 
 uates were described by a French bishop 
 as •* modest, grave, with the name of Jesus 
 Christ on their lips." He made Bossuet and 
 Massilon possible. On his return from Ge- 
 neva, John Knox copied Calvin's methods of 
 education, and these ideas were brought here 
 by our Scotch and Scotch-Irish and Puritan 
 ancestors. 
 
 Michelet said of Calvin's disciples : " If in 
 any part of Europe blood and torture were 
 required, a man to be burnt or broken on the 
 wheel, that man was at Geneva ready to de- 
 part, giving thanks to God and singing Psalms 
 II 
 
to him." If it be thought that this is an ex- 
 cessive estimate of the character and heroism 
 of the present day Presbyterian minister, let 
 me quote from the report of the famine and 
 cholera of 1900 in Gugerat made by Sir Fred- 
 eric Lely, one of India's greatest administra- 
 tors. He says : " There was Milligan, Pres- 
 byterian missionary, who, when he heard that 
 the district was in sore need of strong men, 
 volunteered to help and was put in charge of 
 a thousand persons on whom cholera had al- 
 ready taken hold on a relief work. There was 
 Mawhinney, also a Presbyterian missionary, 
 who also took a similar trust in the adjoining 
 native state of Sunth. Each of them took up 
 his abode among the people in a hut like their 
 own; he restored order and cleanliness; he in- 
 stilled some of his own courage; and then 
 each within a month of the other was stricken 
 with the disease from which he had saved 
 others, and died the death of a Christian." 
 Such men have always been among the grad- 
 uates of this Seminary. 
 
 The early professors here seem to have 
 been imbued with Calvin's ideals and with his 
 spirit, in that he is described as a man of in- 
 vincible calm, of balanced speech, gentle to- 
 ward weakness, severe toward vice, severest 
 
of all toward himself. Beza in his dedication 
 of Calvin's •' Petits Traictes " to the Duchess of 
 Ferrara declares that Calvin was of such integ- 
 rity of conscience, that he fled from all vain 
 subtle sophistries, and all ambitious ostenta- 
 tion, and never sought anything but the pure 
 and simple truth. 
 
 It is evident from the writings of the first 
 professors that they had Calvin's character 
 and work in mind, as they attempted their 
 important task. Dr. Miller in his inaugural 
 address pointed out that witnesses for the 
 truth in the dark ages were all friends of 
 sound learning, and he closed by saying: 
 "Wickliffe, Luther and Calvin are all gone, but 
 the Kingdom of Christ did not die with them. 
 It still lives and it will live forever." Dr. 
 Alexander wrote shortly after to a friend : 
 '• We go on here upon our old moderate plan, 
 teaching the doctrines of Calvinism, but not 
 disposed to consider every man a heretic who 
 differs in some few points from us." Earlier, 
 in the stirring circular issued by the General 
 Assembly in 1816 in aid of the Seminary, ref- 
 erence is made to Calvin, as one of those 
 who have done more for the illustration and 
 defence of the common salvation, than hosts of 
 unlettered, though pious, ministers. Truly, to 
 13 
 
use Comtes' aphorism, " The living are dom- 
 inated by the dead." 
 
 Let me now briefly allude to the intellectual 
 life of the Seminary during this early period. 
 It is difficult in this age of specialization to 
 realize all that the first professors did. By 
 them the plan of the theological curriculum 
 was developed into substantially what it 
 is to-day. They themselves taught every 
 branch of the theological encyclopedia. In 
 the revival of 1 815, the professors threw them- 
 selves into the work with all their heart. 
 They preached frequently in Princeton and in 
 the neighboring towns. Their sermons might 
 serve as examples to those whose ideas of 
 evangelistic preaching do not include the fun- 
 damental principles of Calvinistic theology. 
 Dr. Alexander was not content to teach 
 simply a system of doctrine. He aimed to 
 send out warriors of the Cross. To this end, 
 he studied the religions of heathenism, and 
 the erroneous faiths of every age, and he 
 knew what should be said to refute their doc- 
 trines. A fresh examination of the literature 
 relating to Dr. Alexander, and of the books 
 which he wrote convinces me that too much 
 stress has been laid on his sweetness of 
 character, great piety and spiritual common 
 14 
 
sense, and too little on his profound and 
 varied learning, marvelous for the place and 
 time. 
 
 It is hardly fitting for me to say too much 
 about my grandfather and his sons, but too 
 much cannot be said of Dr. Samuel Miller, 
 who united patience, learning and eloquence 
 with all the social and courtly graces and the 
 most fervent piety. He came to Princeton 
 the year after Dr. Archibald Alexander, and 
 found the curriculum created and the means 
 for maintaining the religious life of the stu- 
 dents perfected. He was of inestimable use in 
 forming the manners and bearing of future 
 ministers. Perhaps his example and precepts 
 extend to the present day. I often reread his 
 book on Public Prayer, full of good sense 
 and of a quiet and appropriate humor. It 
 was fortunate for the infant institution that its 
 two heads should be so different in type : Dr. 
 Miller, with his long training of city life as 
 Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in 
 New York, brought to the Seminary the ex- 
 perience of the metropolitan pulpit, and Dr. 
 Alexander, whose great characteristic was a 
 tender regard for the feelings of others, a 
 ripe scholarship and the simplicity which is 
 characteristic of most profound thinkers. 
 IS 
 
Thomas Chalmers said : " The Heraldry of 
 an Institution of Learning is its Alumni." 
 And perhaps Dr. Alexander's and Dr. Miller's 
 greatest contribution to the Seminary was 
 an early appreciation of Charles Hodge. As a 
 student, he developed into a man of massive 
 learning, sound exegesis and great skill as a 
 teacher. I am glad to allude to the intimate 
 personal friends of my father, his sons, Archi- 
 bald Alexander Hodge, who by the flame of 
 his genius made even the darkest theology 
 glow with an almost supernatural light, and 
 Casper Wistar Hodge, who with the modesty 
 and reserve of a great scholar, made the New 
 Testament new in another sense to successive 
 classes of faithful and admiring students. 
 
 Just as a faculty may be judged by the stu- 
 dents, the product of their training, so the trend 
 of thought in the Seminary's life may be 
 judged by the contributions of its faculty to 
 the current literature of the day. The Biblical 
 Repertory begun in 1828, gives a good idea of 
 Princeton's thought, as developed during the 
 sixteen preceding years, for it is fair to assume 
 that it contained the ripe result of the profess- 
 ors various studies during that period. I call 
 your attention to a few subjects on which they 
 wrote in the earlier numbers. Dr. Miller wrote 
 16 
 
a review of Cook on the Invalidity of Presby- 
 terian Ordination, and on certain extremes in 
 pursuing the temperance cause, which recalls 
 the fact, that in one of his first letters af- 
 ter arriving in Princeton, he offered to send 
 Mrs. Green, through President Ashbel Green 
 some very good claret. Another subject was 
 "Use of Liturgies," another "Thoughts on 
 Evangelizing the World," and in 1821 he 
 published his "Letters on Unitarianism." The 
 following were contributed by Dr. Alexander : 
 " The Bible a Key to the Phenomena of the 
 Natural World," "Priesthood of Christ," 
 " Pelagianism," "Inability of Sinners," "Chris- 
 tian Baptism," " Organization of the Presbyter- 
 ian Church," " Character of the Genuine Theo- 
 logian," "Articles of the Synod of Dort," 
 " The Foundation of Opinions and the Pur- 
 suit of Truth," " Melancthon on Sin," " Cate- 
 chism of the Council of Trent," " English Dis- 
 senters," "Evidences of a New Heart," "The 
 Scottish Seceders," "Woods on Depravity," 
 " Synington on the Atonement," " Practical 
 View of Regeneration." His books on the 
 Canon, Moral Science and Religious Experi- 
 ence, will not be forgotten. It is not necessary 
 in the presence of such an audience to com- 
 ment on the breadth and depth of these topics. 
 17 
 
If there were time here to-day, we might 
 leave the beaten tracks of those days and 
 hear the voices of the early professors 
 speaking through their students in quiet vil- 
 lages and lonely hamlets, on frontiers and in 
 the wilderness, in foreign lands and at home. 
 The memory of these men is not preserved 
 on any stone or monument, nor is it best kept 
 alive even in the Seminary so beloved by 
 them, but in the truth which they implanted 
 in ministers' lives and handed on by them to 
 homes widely scattered, to burdened, toiling, 
 sinning men and women, to whom it meant 
 pardon, peace and eternal hope, to children 
 whose plastic lives were moulded ; to the 
 heathen world, to whom it came as the shin- 
 ing of the Star of Bethlehem. In these 
 things are indelibly written the testimony of 
 the Church and of the world to the founders 
 of this Seminary. 
 
 No one who has studied the history of 
 this great school can fail to be impressed by 
 the sincere fidelity to the principles of its 
 founders, which has been manifested to those 
 who succeeded them. There are many who 
 do not agree with these principles, but they 
 must be constrained to admire this tenacity 
 and constancy, considering the atmosphere of 
 i8 
 
unstable equilibrium in which the theological 
 world lives and moves. 
 
 In visiting the graveyard here, I sometimes 
 think that even if all other records were to be 
 destroyed, a history of Princeton and its insti- 
 tutions might almost be reconstructed from 
 the inscriptions on those venerable tombs — 
 the tombs of presidents, professors and other 
 benefactors who did loyal service to the Sem- 
 inary and to the University. 
 
 There is one group of graves which I can- 
 not look upon without personal emotion and 
 unspeakable sorrow at the loss of those, all of 
 whom loved Princeton, and of some who had 
 for this institution a paternal as well as a filial 
 affection. It is a comfort and encouragement 
 to turn to this Seminary — a living monument, 
 in which I trust my family may claim a share. 
 
 One does not have to be a professional the- 
 ologian to be aware that the kind of thought 
 for which Princeton Seminary has always 
 stood most firmly is now attacked persistently 
 from many quarters. Voices come to us from 
 across the sea and are raised here at home 
 telling us that the sun is fast setting upon the 
 old faith, and that the doctrines taught here 
 will pass away like those of the Athenian and 
 Roman schools. It may be said that in our 
 19 
 
own country the seminary stands in a some- 
 what isolated position. Isolation has been the 
 portion of the exponents of truth in all ages. 
 Although not an expert in these things, I ven- 
 ture to predict that if the sort of theology 
 which is taught here should die, and if its en- 
 emies should grant it decent burial, like the 
 Lord of Life Himself, it will have a trium- 
 phant resurrection. 
 
 Yet even if these sinister prophecies of the 
 foes of Princeton theology should be fulfilled 
 to the uttermost, if this Seminary should per- 
 ish amid the ruins of its great traditions, I 
 should wish that its remains might be marked 
 and made memorable by a Cross. For it is 
 the Cross which has been the inspiration of its 
 founders and their successors, even as it is the 
 hope and the glory of this passing world. 
 For the Gospel which it teaches is an uncon- 
 querable force. The Cross which it uplifts is 
 the world's greatest power. And by the Gos- 
 pel of the Cross, this Seminary will stand in 
 spite of attack, in spite of any storm of criti- 
 cism or unbelief until its work is done, and 
 God comes to take the talent given to our 
 fathers, from whom we have received it with its 
 increase, to the praise of His eternal glory. 
 
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