378.711
KP8 3
YALE COLLEGE. TWO SERMONS
by
Noah Porter

THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY
ITY OF
OF THE
REGENTS
MNIBUK
MIN
NESOTA
CLASS 378.781
BOOK KP83

THE OLD CHAPEL
AND
THE NEW.
Yale College, June 18, 1876.
NEW HAVEN:
JUDD & WHITE.
1876.
YALE COLLEGE.
TWO SERMONS:
I.
ON LEAVING THE OLD CHAPEL.
II.
ON ENTERING THE NEW.
BY NOAH PORTER, PRESIDENT.
NEW HAVEN :
JUDD &
WHITE.
1876.
DEC 22 128
Yalis
378,771
KP83
I. THE OLD CHAPEL.
PSALM xlviii, 9: WE HAVE THOUGHT OF THY LOVING-KINDNESS, O GOD, IN THE
MIDST OF THY TEMPLE.
IT was on the 17th of November, 1824, that this edifice was
set apart as a place of public worship. On this occasion a
sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Fitch, Professor of
Divinity, from ii Chron., vi, 18. The old chapel was begun in
1761, and dedicated in June, 1763, by a sermon from Professor
Daggett. Towards evening on the day of dedication "two
English orations were delivered by two of the pupils belong-
ing to the college." Previously to this time, daily worship
was observed in the College Hall from 1718, when the first
college edifice was completed, while on Sundays the students
attended at the First Church. The original chapel, now called
the Athenæum, had become too narrow for the accommodation
of the students and officers. That building will always be
memorable as the scene of the pulpit labors of President
Dwight. The third story had from an early date been set
apart for the uses of the department of Natural Philosophy,
and was divided into three apartments, the Philosophical
Chamber in the rear, and two rooms for apparatus in front.
On being abandoned as a chapel the most of the second story
was used for many years for the libraries of the Linonian and
Brothers' Societies, but subsequently for recitation rooms, and
still later nearly the whole of the building was given up to this
use. In the summer of 1830, the spire which surmounted the
tower was taken down to make room for an observatory which
1028229
4
was required for the new refracting telescope, then one of the
most famous in the country. The cost of the new chapel was
some $10,000 to $12,000, about one-fourth of which was con-
tributed by the friends of the college. The edifice itself has
undergone no material alterations since it was erected. The
attic was originally handsomely fitted for the reception of
the College Library which had been previously kept in that
portion of the third story of the Lyceum which is now divided ·
into two recitation rooms, which room was for several
years known as the Rhetorical Chamber after the library had
been removed to this building. The third story of this build-
ing was fitted as now for studies and lodging rooms, and from the
first was chiefly occupied by students in theology till 1838, when
the Divinity College was erected which was removed in 1870.
The gallery was furnished with square pews along the walls
of the house, with a broad passage between them and the
gallery front, in which one or two movable seats were placed, for
casual attendants and professional or graduate students. The
pulpit was so arranged that the speaker stood three feet higher
than at present. The present arrangement of seats in the gal-
lery was made in the year 1831, and in 1847, the year after the
accession of President Woolsey, the seats below were somewhat
improved, the central and higher portion of the pulpit was cut
down and the preacher brought into somewhat nearer commu-
nication with his hearers. Four years ago the pulpit itself was
again lowered and the gallery fronts were cut down. In the
year 1851 the present organ was purchased and the instru
mental accompaniments to the singing which had been previ
ously used were dispensed with.
It is a little more than fifty years since this edifice
was finished. The college at that time had four professors in
the Academical Department besides the Professor of Divinity.
The Academical Department numbered 349 students. The
5
Medical Department had existed from the year 1813, and in
1824 had 80 students. The Theological Seminary had been
formally organized as a distinct department the year previous,
and had 17 students. The Law School was not recognized as
a branch of Yale College until a year or two later. The humble
foundations of the Scientific School were laid in 1846. The
School of Fine Arts was founded in 1964. The Department
of Philosophy and the Arts was organized in 1847, although
resident graduates had received instruction here from the
earliest days of the college.
The pecuniary resources of the college were very limited.
In 1831, the whole net income of the Academical Department
from funds and real estate was $2,363. The whole cost of
instruction in the Academical Department in 1833 was $12,881.
In 1875 it was $57,867. Besides the large endowments and
gifts for buildings that have been made by individuals, three
several efforts to add to the general fund have been made
since 1824. The first, in 1831, resulted in $100,000, of which
$94,000 accrued to the Academical Department. The second
in 1854, yielded $110,000, $90,000 of which went to the same
department, and the third in 1871, which is not yet finished,
has already produced more than $150,000.
The instruction of the college was conducted chiefly by
tutors, each of whom taught his division in every branch of
study except those taught by lectures, and continued with the
same division during his official term. He became in this way
the guardian and counsellor of many of his pupils. The instruc-
tion of the professors was chiefly by lectures. Though few in
number, the professors were enterprising and able scholars, stand
ing foremost in their several departments, and were united to one
another by a chivalrous courtesy which was worthy of the
elder times, and which with their single-hearted devotion to
the college, gave them a high place in the confidence of the
督
​6
:
community. They were all men of decided religious convic-
tions, though singularly unlike in the expression of them.
·
I have no disposition nor temptation to depreciate the schol-
arship of the present day, and should be the last to desire to
go back to the scanty helps and the uncritical methods of fifty
years ago, but the inspiring power, the resources and the indi-
viduality of the instructors and pupils of those days would not
suffer by comparison with the products of these times. Life
was more sober then to those who reflected at all. Scholars
were more cautious, circumspect, solid and docile, than
they are at present, and the whole tone of intellectual life was
less pretentious and sensational. There was more independence
and individuality and personal enthusiasm in teachers and
pupils then than now. Ideas were diffused more slowly and
received more cautiously, for the reason that newspapers and
reviews, and railways and steamships, and telegraphs furnished
none of the abundant facilities of these times for the rapid dif-
fusion of thought and feeling. In literature, books were less
abundant, and in many departments immeasurably inferior to,
those which are now everywhere at hand. But neither the
men nor the times were worthy the flippant contempt with
which some learned scholars and many shallow sciolists are
disposed to judge the American scholars and teachers of the
preceding generation.
At the time when this chapel was erected, morning prayers
were held at five in the summer term and at six and six and
a half in the fall and winter. Morning recitations were uni-
formly attended before breakfast by all the classes except the
Senior, and after 1846 by the Senior class also. Evening
prayers were held at five and six o'clock, according to the season.
The President officiated at morning prayers and one of the
Professors or Tutors in the evening. On Sunday evenings, in
addition to the two services of Sunday worship, a printed ser-
7
mon was read by some member of the Senior class till the year
1828. In the year 1858 or 9 morning prayers and recitations be-
fore breakfast and evening prayers were abandoned, and in the
year 1872 the afternoon Sunday service was disused.
When this chapel was opened, the late Dr. E. T. Fitch had
been for seven years the Professor of Divinity and pastor of
the church. He was distinguished for the acuteness and
subtlety of his Theological discourses, and the persuasive elo-
quence of his popular sermons. No one who ever heard the
pathetic tones of his entreaties, or the elaborate exhaustiveness
of his subtle arguments, could forget the man; and no one who
knew him as a man would desire to lose him from his memory.
He may be said to have attained the zenith of his reputation and
his influence some ten or twelve years afterward, although his
characteristic power never left him. In 1852 he was led by
bodily infirmity to resign the active exercise of his Pastorate.☛
In the year 1854, Rev. George P. Fisher was elected as his suc-
cessor, and he filled the office for seven years, when he was
transferred to the professorship in the Theological Seminary,
which he now occupies. In 1863, the Rev. William B. Clarke
was chosen Pastor, and served three years, resigning in 1866.
In 1867, Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D., was elected, and resigned
in 1870. During the intervals the pulpit has been supplied by
the occasional services of clergymen connected with the college,
and others.
We turn from these external facts and events to the Theolog-
ical and Religious life of the institution during this period of
fifty years. I begin with the Relations of the Chapel to Christian
Theology. The pulpit in Yale College has always had a positive
Theological character. The college preacher has from the first
been styled the Professor of Divinity. President Clapp took no
negative position with respect to the controversies which agi-
tated Connecticut and the other colonies in respect to the then
New and Old Theologies. Professors Daggett and Wales were
both of them able and discriminating Theologians of the type
of their day, and were soundly Calvinistic, of the school of Ed-
wards. President Stiles would have been called a Broad
Churchman had he lived in these days, or a moderate Calvinist
with very catholic sympathies. President Dwight prepared his
system of Theology in the form of sermous for the College
Chapel. These sermons, while theological in their substance,
are popular in their form. They are remarkable for their free-
dom from scholastic terminology and their successful use of an
untheological diction. Dr. Dwight was one of the foremost
men of his time for his interest in English literature, and was
eminently successful in employing in the pulpit the language
of common life, and also in examining the principles of The-
ology in the light of common sense, and setting them forth
in the forms of popular illustration and of common speech,
Though he called himself a disciple of Edwards, and in form
held fast to one or two of his distinctive doctrines, as upon the
will and moral inability, he was thoroughly averse to a dryly
metaphysical manner, and could not endure the extreme con-
clusions, which some of the Edwardian theologians of his time
derived by logical inference from the doctrine of disinterested
benevolence. He was for his time a good interpreter of the
Scriptures. He welcomed and used the best commentaries
which the times could furnish. He was a man of marked lit-
erary taste and no little literary enterprise. He had a poet's
sensibilities, and was master of an imposing eloquence. For all
these reasons, his Theology was immensely popular, and by its
popularity it at once excited an interest in Theology and soft-
ened the asperities and smoothed the differences of narrow and
extreme partisans. The services of Dr. Dwight in combating
the Infidelity of his times, have been generally recognized.
The equally if not more important services which he rendered
in introducing a more rational and scriptural theology have
not so often been acknowledged. Not long before his death,
the new school of scriptural interpretation which had been
growing up in Germany began to make itself felt in this coun-
try. The cardinal doctrines of this school were that the Scrip-
tures should be interpreted like any other ancient book-by the
rules of grammar and the true historic sense-and that Theo-
logians must reverse their proof texts, or test them by these
criteria. An active and earnest controversy in respect to the
Divinity of Christ sent the whole Christian community in New
England and the whole country to the study of the New Testa-
ment with renewed interest, to learn what was its testimony con-
cerning its Lord. At the same time a new interest in every
religious question was everywhere awakened, as the result of
the revival of Christian feeling. Dr. Fitch fully sympathized
with the newly awakened interest in theological discussion, and
with the new methods. He was himself a subtle thinker, and a
thorough student with more than a dash of genius, and yet
with many of the weaknesses of a recluse. He was also stimu-
lated by the fire and force of such men as Lyman Beecher, Nath-
aniel W. Taylor and Professor Chauncey A. Goodrich. Sud-
denly he became the hero of a theological controversy; and
before he knew it, this sensitive and retiring scholar found
himself assailed as almost a heretic in respect to the doc-
trine of Sin and other related doctrines. He defended himself
manfully, and became more positive than ever. He bestowed
unwearied pains upon the subtle argumentations of his morning
discourses, which were uniformly upon some theological topic.
Whether his auditors followed him in all the intricate mazes
through which he sought to lead them, they respected him for
his earnestness, and were always ready to arouse themselves
to listen with breathless attention to the bursts of eloquence
with which he uniformly ended the driest discussions The
2
10
spontaneous awakening to his animated perorations was often
distinctly noticeable but it never indicated disrespect.
During those earliest years of earnest theological and religious
life, the Theological Seminary was organized, and the upper
story of this edifice became the headquarters of all its opera-
tions. Both Dr. Taylor and Professor Gibbs had their studies
and their lecture rooms upon that floor. The earnestness
with which the so-called New Haven Theology was discussed
in all parts of the country was in all these ways intimately con-
nected with this chapel. It is no part of my design to explain
the features nor to discuss the merits of this controversy. The
alarm and suspicion which it excited for years have now happily
gone by.
Good men still continue to differ in opinion as
to the correctness of the doctrines which were taught with great
earnestness by Drs. Fitch, Taylor and Goodrich, and as earnestly
combatted by their critics. Some of these critics still insist
that they could not be real and consistent Calvinists, but none
ever doubted that they were zealous Christians, and that they
labored with intense energy to advance the kingdom of God.
We record it as a plain matter of history that for the past twenty
years this chapel was a place which attracted the attention of
many minds and the interest of many hearts all over the coun-
try. The Theology which was taught and defended here was
not taught as a scholastic speculation, but as a living and ener-
getic force, because it was believed to be the power of God
unto salvation. It was preached with apostolic power.
It was
held or rejected as the very truth of God or fatal error.
was an earnest and stirring life during all these years-
an almost fiery enthusiasm, which made this chapel a memora-
ble place to hundreds of the members and graduates of this
college.
There
If I might be permitted to give a critical estimate of this
theological movement, I should say it was simply a development
of the independent but reverent spirit of theological reasoning
11
which was begun by the elder Edwards, and popularized by
President Dwight. Viewed in another aspect it was an earnest
attempt to introduce the ethical element into the defence and
enforcement of the Christian system. The prominence which it
gave to the foundation truths of natural theology, as the free-
dom of the will, and the moral government of God-is explained
by the conviction that Christianity presupposes these truths,
that it must be interpreted in harmony with them, and that it can
never be rejected by a man who intelligently and honestly
holds them. The threatening aspects of modern unbelief, bring
daily and hourly confirmation that these views in respect to the
real strength and import of the Christian evidences, and the
nature of Christian theology, were just; and, that they were not
enforced too earnestly or too soon.
The transition is natural from the theological to the Religious
life of the College. During the first half of this half century, the
one was more or less closely connected with the other. It was
not so readily believed then as now that a genuine Christian
life could to a considerable degree be independent of a sound
theological creed. It is the simple truth to say that the earnest
theological discussions to which we have alluded were con-
nected with an earnest religious activity and a fervent zeal for
the conversion of men. It was true not only of this college
but it was true of the whole country, that its extensive and
pervasive revivals of religion from 1820 to 1840 or 1845, were
connected with earnest theological discussions, and sometimes
attended by zealous and even by bitter controversies. The
most active agent in the religious life of the college was Profes-
sor Chauncey Goodrich, from 1817-1839 Professor of Rhetoric,
and from 1839-1860 Professor of the Pastoral Charge. Though
he rarely if ever preached in the College Chapel, he was
eminently effective in familiar religious lectures, and in
12
private conversation with individuals. He was master of an
impassioned eloquence which, though it might seem occasionally
to rise above the level of ordinary religious emotion, was
very impressive to many minds. Professor Goodrich supplied
those services which Professor Fitch was physically incapable
of rendering, and till the day of his death was regarded as the
chief reliance for his personal religious power. He was the friend
of many in times of spiritual need, and by his prompt and
ready sympathy, and his generous liberality proved himself a
faithful servant of his master. As Professor Goodrich was
conspicuously active in all special seasons of religious interest,
he left behind a carefully written record of all that occurred in
the college before the year 1837. From this narrative and
other sources it appears that, during the last fifty-two years,
there have been fourteen occasions of marked religious interest
which have resulted in very considerable accessions to the
communion of the College Church, viz: in 1825, 1827, 1831,
1832, 1835, 1837, 1840, 1841, 1843, 1846, 1849, 1857, 1858 and
1866. In several other years the additions to the church by
profession of faith have been also worthy of notice. The most
remarkable of these occasions were in the years 1821, 1831
and 1858-in each of which the entire college community was
moved, and this edifice seemed indeed none other than the
house of God and the gate of heaven.
The most of these revivals have been in close sympathy with
similar movements in the community. Now and then it has
happened that a strong religious interest has been limited to
the walls of the college, but usually the tone of religious feel-
ing in this community has been in harmony with that which
has prevailed in the larger community without. In 1831, the
minds of men were moved by the logical yet earnest
presentation of theological truth. In 1858, as in the com-
munity so in this college, a wave of emotion seemed to affect
13
!
the hearts of men, on which multitudes were borne into the
kingdom of God, by the uplifting force of praise and prayer.
It is not to be denied that in this college as in other communi-
ties, these revivals have been attended with more or less of
mere sympathetic and factitious excitement, and followed by
some sad disappointments, but usually an intelligent and manly
earnestness has been the rule in them all, and hundreds of
noble men have received those impulses which have saved them
from threatening moral ruin, and been the beginnings of a
manly Christian life. Multitudes of students and their friends
have reason to bless this old chapel as the birth-place of their
noblest life, and not to them only, but indirectly to scores and
hundreds besides themselves, even to distant parts of our own
country and to lands beyond the sea.
The ordinary religious life of the college is of greater signifi-
cance perhaps than the occasional, although it may attract
less notice. Much is said of the proverbial sluggishness of the
Christian life in college walls, and of the chilling influences of
intellectual pursuits upon Christian piety. Many persons
indulge in the habit of speaking and thinking of the religious
life of the college as universally low, when it does not exhibit
the fervor and zeal of a revival. The low morality and easy
virtue of college students, especially in relation to college
duties and college temptations, are fruithful themes for mournful
lamentations and earnest appeals. It were wiser if the remedies
were more actively sought for and more efficiently applied. It
is the privilege and the duty of the citizen of the kingdom of
God never to despair of this kingdom in the future. But what-
ever defects have characterized the past, we have reason to be
grateful that it is bright with many examples of Christian
duty and honor. Every class during all these fifty years has
had scores of faithful men and true, who have abhorred lying
and resisted sensuality, who have walked in a good degree
14
humbly before God and uprightly before men. Every class
has had its striking examples of all human goodness, the
thought of whom has been potent with their classmates all their
lives afterwards to drive out every evil suggestion and strengthen
every good purpose. During all these fifty years, in every morn-
ing prayer and Sunday service, some hearts have offered spiritual
worship, and responded with faith and love to the uttered words
of truth. Many profane men have learned some semblance of reli-
gious reverence or at least of religious decorum. Many lewd and
intemperate men have been convinced of the rottenness and dis-
honor of sin. Much is said and much might be said with truth
of the temptations and dangers of college life. More might be
said than often is said of the solid and unobtrusive goodness of
the majority of those who hold fast to their integrity from the
first, or bring out of the occasionally pliant gristle of youth a
strong and well-knit Christian manhood. The old chapel has
gathered within its walls many noble aspiring souls, whose lives
have not dishonored the prayers which it has taught them to
repeat, and the words of counsel which it has caused them to
hear. Wherever they are this day, they would send back their
blessing to this place, did they but know that this is the last
season of our Sunday worship. Wherever they are we send them
our blessing from this common and never-to-be-forgotten altar
and temple of our God.
The Christian sons of Yale are a great and glorious company
of honored youth and honored men, whether they witnessed a
good confession of their faith while here, or whether the good
seed that was here sown in sermon and prayer and instructive
discipline has brought forth its fruits in later years. Few, very
few, have made a total shipwreck of their faith, or a dishonor
of their lives. Many, very many, of those who gave little heed
to the prayers and preaching of the chapel when here, would
now breathe upon us their earnest prayers and stir us with their
15
own moving admonitions, taught by the salutary experiences of
their later life.
Since this chapel was opened the great enterprises of Christian
benevolence and reform have made a rapid growth and attained
gigantic proportions. In 1824 the leaven of the gospel was just
beginning to work in heathen countries. Missionary enterprises
were looked upon with distrust and contempt by the sagacious
and worldly wise. But the leaven did not cease to work not-
withstanding, and there is now scarcely a nation in which its
effects are not clearly discerned and positively honored or feared.
Fifty years ago, the possibility of animating old and effete re-
ligions with a new Christian life, and of displacing dead and
corrupt systems by the simple gospel, was scarcely credited.
Now-a-days the missionary is respected by diplomats and his
power is recognized by the commanders of armies and of fleets.
Whether Christianity is the true religion or not, it is showing
its power, and fullfiling its destiny, by eating out the life of the
old religions. Not a few of the graduates of this College have
given their hearts and hands to the missionary work. Many
distinguished for scholarship, and noble in manly accomplish-
ments would this day if they could, send their greetings to this
house of prayer from the sanctuaries which they have reared on
the islands of the sea, at the Golden Horn, and upon the slopes
and heights of Lebanon; in India, China, and Japan. Not a
few have sent to us their sons from afar to be trained under the
influences by which their own zeal was inspired. A youth from
China, sent hither by a Christian teacher, himself a graduate of
this college since this chapel was built, returned to his home to
gain wealth and distinction, which he has learned nobly to use,
by inducing his government to send bands of her sons under
his guidance to this western or eastern region to be trained by
the culture which Christianity alone inspires, and is himself
=
• 16
soon to represent the Celestial Empire at the Capitol of the Great
Republic. Should I repeat the roll of honored missionary
brethren, who will, whether living or dead, never cease to
remember this hallowed place, it would be of a goodly com-
pany.
The services of this college through this chapel for the king-
dom of Christ in our own country have been if possible still more
conspicuous. Yale College during all of the present century
has been preeminently a college for the whole nation. Its
undergraduates at times have represented almost every State
in the Union, and there is not a State now in the Union in
which they are not now to be numbered, in some by scores, in
others by hundreds. Every man who has been trained in the
ways of Christian order and discipline, has gone back to his
home to be an example and a power for Christian uprightness.
Every man who has gone forth to take part in founding or
rearing one of our infant States, whether as teacher, or editor, or
lawyer, or judge, or preacher, has been a missionary of Chris-
tian truth just so far as he has exemplified the principles and
spirit which he here learned to believe in and to care for. Not a
few have been here inspired and strengthened to go forth to assist
in laying the foundations of many generations, in the forest and
prairie States, while as yet the prairies were unbroken and the
forest were unsubdued. Let one example suffice among many.
In the years 1828 and '29, seven members of the Theological
Seminary here were associated as the Illinois Association to
plant colleges and schools and churches in that infant State.
They soon were increased to twelve, most of them able men,
who have fulfilled their vows with conspicuous fidelity and
zeal. The formation of this missionary company was not only
most timely in the critical condition of Illinois, but it stimulated
to many similar enterprises. At that time Illinois had a few
more than 100,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom sym-
17
..
pathized with the southern civilization. Before 35 years had
elapsed this State sent nearly 260,000 men into the field to serve
three years in the defence of Christian freedom, and of whom
more than 28,000 laid down their lives, among them the head of
the nation. And still the good work goes on. I cannot count the
number of heads of colleges and schools, of professors and teach-
ers, of Christian ministers and missionaries, of bishops and mis-
sionary superintendents, of Christian magistrates and laymen,
from the Chief Justice of the nation down to the unofficed citi-
zens, who have been conspicuous in the newer States in propa-
gating those solid principles of Christian faith and duty which
this college has taught or confirmed.
During these last fifty years enormous advances have been
made in ethical, social and political reform. The movements
against intemperance, slavery, and for prison discipline; for
sanitary precautions in houses and streets, in cities and villages;
for the increase of the comforts and beauty of life-need only be
alluded to. Fifty years ago Europe and this country were just
beginning to recover from the effects of the convulsions and
protracted wars which followed the first French Revolution.
Universal political reaction set in. Almost the first sign in the
opposite direction was furnished by the Greek Revolution,
which was supposed to be complete by the battle of Navarino
in 1827, which was greeted by a general illumination of the
college buildings, preceded by a chant of triumph from the
college choir at evening prayers, The dethronement of Charles
X. followed in 1830, and the accession of Louis Philippe with
the charter. Then came the second reaction and the second
Revolution of 1848, and the accession of Napoleon III, after all
the thrones of Europe had been convulsed with revolution,
Then followed the Crimean war, which brought the western
powers into strange fellowship, and prepared the way for the
3
18
•
union of Italy and the ejection of Austria. Next the advance
of Prussia upon Austria, the triumph at Sadowa after a seven
weeks' war, and the creation of a united Germany- the begin-
nings of the first Protestant empire on the continent. Next
the invasion of Germany by France, the defeat at Sedan and
the surrender of the French Emperor. I cannot trace the
progress of Liberal ideas in England and the immense im-
provement in the purity and force of religious convictions
and the ´refinement of public and private manners, during the
reign of Victoria-whose reign cannot fail to be remembered
in the history of man, as a reign which Christ has signally
blessed and honored, and in which the whole Christian world
has rejoiced. During these fifty years England herself has
planted the seeds of new Christian empires in the Southern
seas, which are now illustrating and diffusing the blessings of
Christian civilization more rapidly than the world can follow
their progress.
During these same fifty years, Steam naviga-
tion upon the ocean, Railway traveling by land, Telegraphic
communication in the air and under the sea, Photographic
painting by the sun-have made the world another place to live
in than when this chapel was opened-a fairy land to dream
of, had its now commonplace realities been prophesied in the
sermon of dedication. Our own nation has been convulsed by
a war of ideas and saved by the voluntary sacrifice of the lives
of half a million of men and the martyrdom of a man whom
the world learned to honor almost as inspired of God, and over
the story of whose death it has scarcely yet ceased to weep.
And now, as we leave this chapel, this nation celebrates the
centennial year of its life, still safe, though sorely chastened by
the Providence of God, with its population and wealth increased
beyond the dreams of half a century ago.
These changes and this progress are chiefly interesting to us
as they are related to the Kingdom of God. So far as they are
19
the causes or effects of Christian civilization, they are the
blossoms and fruits of the tree of life. But amid all these ap-
parent triumphs of the Kingdom of God in missionary progress
and enterprise and in Christian reform and Christian culture,
it is more than hinted that the energy of Christian faith is every
where becoming relaxed, that science is sapping its founda-
tions, and criticism is disintegrating its structure, and that
this change is no where so sensibly felt as in the higher institu-
tions of learning. The most interesting question which we can
ask this day is, whether this is so? Is faith fleeing before the
advance of science-are Christian prayer and Christian conso-
lation and Christian immortality vanishing into smoke at the
touch of modern criticism?
That science has made extraordinary advances in the last
fifty years, all of us know. Many of the sciences of Nature
which fifty years since were in feeble infancy, have grown into
vigorous manhood. Not a few of these sciences have discerned
new facts, established new laws and evolved new methods, so far
as almost to have parted with their identity. But not one nor
all together have made nature less dependent on creative
thought and goodness. Not one nor all together have made
Atheism intellectually more attractive, or the denial of Provi-
dence more rational, or the rejection of prayer more satisfac-
tory. That science has become more theological by discussing
these deep-lying, wide-reaching questions, proves simply that
the scientist is enlarging his horizon. We may pardon him if
he reasons very badly upon these subjects, if he will condescend
to reason upon them at all. It is, perhaps, better that a man
should be an Atheist in Theology than never to ask whether
there is a God; better to deny prayer and providence, than
sneeringly to despise the questions which pertain to both. It
is a matter of congratulation that scientists of every school now
·
20
seek after God, if haply they may find him. That some philos-
ophers should doubt and others should deny, need not disturb
us so long as many believe and worship, and those who do
neither, cannot be content to leave these questious alone.
But how is it with history and literature and criticism? Are
not these abandoning the supernatural Christ? Just so far as
they are abandoning the living God, but no farther. The man
who denies creation must reject miracles. The man who sees only
force and necessity in history, must reject a loving Providence.
He who turns his back upon the living God as manifest in his
works, has no place in his head, because he has no room in his
heart for God manifest in the flesh. The man who believes
that the soul is but atoms in motion, must sneer at the love,
whether human or divine, that is stronger than death. He can-
not escape the logic of his own theories, and he ought not to try.
But let him not assume to dogmatize for others, who, holding
different premises, follow a logic as rigid as his own, to nobler
and more inspiring conclusions. Let him not set up the spirit
of a literary clique for the time-spirit of a generation. Let
him remember that Voltaire and Rousseau, the one a critic and
the other a sentimentalist, were each as confident that he repre-
sented a spirit that should rule every coming generation. That
time-spirit ruined the generation which it sought to rule, and the
next generation shrank from it with abhorrence.
If we turn in another direction, we find that the faith of
multitudes of cultured men in the Christian spirit and the
Christian life was never so profound and so distinctly professed
as at present. The consciences of multitudes who are asking
one another, without being able to answer, What think ye of
Christ? do yet declare with a pathetic earnestness never known
before, Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
The Christian type of courtesy and self-sacrifice is more and
more generally accepted as the ideal of human excellence and
21
the law of human duty. It is not too much to hope that many
of those who are ready to believe in Christ only as a power will
very soon be ready to believe in Christ as a person, and the
ethical and religious culture which has been inspired in the
school which Christ has founded and nurtured, shall turn back
with tearful penitence and a loving heart to render to the Mas-
ter the love and homage which are his by right.
If there be a few who dream that Christ as a person must soon
cease to be honored even in Christian temples, there are those
who know that Christ as a power never wrought with such
energy or so demonstrated his supremacy as at this moment.
among all the shrines of idolatry and superstition. Meanwhile
the Living Church, which contains many scholars and philoso-
phers of foremost eminence and authority, holds fast to its faith
that the power of Christ to subdue all things to himself lies
in Christ's personality as the manifested Father and the
glorified Son of Man.
It is for the church of Christ to ask itself whether it is not
largely responsible for this modern unbelief; whether its sec-
tarian strifes, its narrow dogmatism, its exclusive preten-
sions, its suspicion of culture, its spectacular shows; whether
its cant, its formalism, its selfishness, its denunciation of science,
and its manifold uncharities, have not largely contributed to this
cultured rejection of the supernatural Christ and the scientific
denial of God.
It is for the Christian colleges and the men whom they train
to consider and decide, whether they shall not lead the way to
profounder views of Christian science, and wider conceptions of
Christian culture and freer views of Christian fellowship. If
there is to be a Church of the Future, such as there must and
will be, if Christ is to achieve His destined triumph, a church
free from sectarian strifes and narrow dogmatisms, in which the
Scriptures shall be interpreted by the advancing science and the
22
developed culture that are to be; in which zeal shall be refined
by knowledge, and knowledge shall kindle zeal, then Christian
seats of learning must be foremost in preparing the way of the
Lord.
We rejoice to bear testimony as we leave this pulpit that
whatever have been its defects it has been charitable and free
in its treatment of Christian truth. The confession of faith
which was introduced by Dr. Dwight is eminently simple and
Catholic. The preachers who have here defended the faith,
whatever have been their defects, have sought by manifesta-
tion of the truth to commend themselves to every man's con-
science in the sight of God. No sectarian or proselyting spirit
has ever been countenanced in these walls. But Christ has
been set forth as the example of the Christian's life, the ground
of the Christian's hope, the strength of the Christian's weak-
ness, the comfort of the Christian's sorrow, and the triumph
of the Christian's death.
And now as I remember that we meet for the last time as a
Christian congregation in this house of worship, I cannot but
think of the many noble souls who have here preached and
heard and prayed together, many of whom worship in the
house of God not made with hands. Little did I think when
I entered this Chapel for the first time, timid beyond the timid-
ity of youth, and awed by the stately presence of the venerable
Day, that I should be called to follow him in his duties and to
speak the last words in this house in his honor, to this honored
assembly. Nor again when in riper years I began to rejoice in
the friendship of his loved successor that I should perform this
parting service which were more fitly discharged by him. Nor
when I was moved by the persuasive eloquence of Fitch that
it should be my lot to bless his memory for the last time, in
what was so long his pulpit. Nor, as I have seen class after
class go forth in the glowing promise of Christian youth to
23
fulfill that promise in Christian manhood, that it should be my
office in the name of the multitudes of the dead and the liv-
ing, to pronounce their final blessings upon this place.
In the name of this goodly company, gathered with us in
spirit from the ends of the earth, and looking down upon us
from the heights above, do we bless this place for all the good
that it has witnessed and achieved, and for all the precious
memories that gather about its varied history. As we go forth,
bearing with us the truth which is committed to our care, into
the more attractive edifice which is provided for our use, may
our prayers be answered that "the glory of this latter house shall
be greater than of the former."
II. THE NEW CHAPEL.
JOHN Xviii, 37. EVERY ONE THAT IS OF THE TRUTH HEARETH MY VOICE.
WE are assembled to consecrate this edifice as a house of
prayer, and with befitting services of praise and worship to set
it apart to the religious uses of this college. The occasion
seems not only to justify but to require that we should consider
the need and the uses of a college chapel. This is the more
necessary and suitable, because the necessity of any special
provision for Christian worship and instruction in a college
community has of late been frequently questioned and the
practicability of harmonizing positive religious influences with
the appropriate aims and activities of a great university has
been openly denied. Upon these and kindred points I propose
to speak with entire freedom—not disguising from myself nor
hiding from you the existence and the grounds of opposing
opinions, but urging the counter-considerations with whatever
reason and force they may properly command.
I must assume that the obligations of religion are supreme-
that its importance is transcendent, that Christianity is a super-
natural religion, that to Christ belongs supreme authority in
heaven and earth and that the goings on of nature and the
events of human history, including the developments of science
and letters, of culture and art, are all in the interest of Christ's
kingdom. Those who deny or question any of these truths
can scarcely find any common ground with those who receive
them, upon which to discuss the question whether a Christian
church should be provided for a Christian college. Those with
whom the questions of Theism and Responsibility and Immor-
4
26
tality and Christianity are open questions may reasonably con-
tend that the positive recognition or enforcement of these truths
should find no place in an institution, which in their view
should be devoted exclusively to literature and science. With
such men we can have no arguments at the present time, but
only with those who profess to believe in God and duty, in
immortality and in Christ.
I would also premise that a college is a community by itself,
having a separate and peculiar common life. Its members
must to a large extent be shut up to the society of one another.
The peculiar occupations of teachers and pupils, the warm and
generous sympathies of the younger and the retired habits of
the older, tend to make this society isolated and exclusive.
Such a college is clearly distinguished from a university and
also from any school of special or advanced studies in which the
students by reason of greater age, or of their nearer connection
with the active life of the community, are supposed to be less
closely organized by the bonds of common intellectual and
moral sympathies. With this as my starting point I proceed
to observe-
1. The members of a college-instructors and pupils are men,
and as such are subject to religious responsibilities, and require
religious inspirations. Whether Christianity be regarded as the
flower of developed humanity, or as the necessary agency for
human redemption, those devoted to intellectual pursuits, as
learners and teachers, need to recognize and feel its power as
truly as other men. Every member of a college has a con-
science which commands to duty and forbids from sin. Every
one lives a life of loving and obedient fellowship with the
Father of spirits, or a life without God in the world. Every
one is a loyal disciple of Christ, or an unbelieving and disloyal
hearer of his claims. They are all exposed to the same sor-
rows and the same disappointments as other men and need the
27
same comforts and strength. Intellectual activities and achieve-
ments are no substitutes for those which are moral and spiritual.
At best they can only hide from the soul its weakness and its
sin and thus cut it off more effectually from the fountain of
strength and healing, but so far as they do this, they are no
blessing, but only a more dangerous curse.
It is only by a foolish conceit, that men of science and cul-
ture dream that they are specially exempt from those respon-
sibilities to God which hold other men to a religious life. It is
only a hollow inflation that lifts them above the obligations to
religious reverence and worship. It were well that they should
be reminded that, however sagaciously they may interpret the
universe, they did not originate its forces and cannot reverse its
laws that however wisely they may read the lessons of history
or predict the events that are to come, they owe many duties to
the present generation; that their individual lives are short
and their future well-being depends on the use they make of the
days and weeks which are in their hands. However flatteringly
they say to one another in their circles of mutual admiration,
"Ye are Gods and all of you are children of the Most High,"
the voice of truth sternly replies: "Ye shall all of you die like
men and fall like one of the princes."
It is well that instructors and pupils should come to a com-
mon place of prayer to hear and respond to these lessons of
truth as they together lift their hearts to God in worship. It is
well that there should be one place in which they may meet
together upon the same level, and may be reminded that they
are men, by their common relations to God and duty and the
Immortal life. Moreover, whatever tends to make them better
men will make them better teachers and better students.
dents will be none the worse but much the better for those
positive and elevating influences which impel them to be truth-
telling and honest, to be magnanimous and frank, to be upright
Stu-
28
and downright in their dealings and demeanor with their fel-
lows and their teachers. They will be none the worse but
much the better to be reminded by the highest of all sanctions
that the moral law is not relaxed because they are disposed to
forget it. It will do no harm and may do good that college
morality and college piety should be frequently brought into
the sanctuary of God for the readjustment of the standards of
the one and the rekindling of the inspiration of the other.
College teachers and officials also, require to be now and then
refreshed with the conviction that their relations to their pupils
are not simply official and formal but are also personal and
human, and incited to improve every occasion for kindly
encouragement, for needed caution, for friendly reproof, in short,
for any word or look or act which may promise good for this
life or the next. If formal instructors make listless pupils and
supercilious teachers make contemptuous students, if suspicious
teachers make lying scholars and earnest, patient and courteous
teachers inspire respectful, confiding and well-mannered pupils,
and if a positive and fervent Christian faith is most efficient to
sustain the highest tone of manners and morals in any com-
munity, it follows that the manhood of a college cominunity
requires that recognition and use of Christian influences which
a college chapel is supposed to provide.
2. A complete education involves the use of religious mo-
tives and influences, and this whether we regard education as a
training of the character or of the intellect. Education cannot
be worthily conceived unless it respects the character. The
well-trained or perfected man is a higher result to aim at
than the accomplished logician, the smooth-voiced orator, the
many-tongued linguist, the sagacious scientist, and the inspired
poet. So thought the noblest of the ancients, interpreting the
suggestions of nature, and the wisest of the moderns, taught by
Christian truth and Christian example. The ideally perfect
29
man is also universally recognized, as reverent and devout,
humble and self-forgetting before the divine in himself and the
universe, and reaching forward by faith into the unseen and
future life. If God educates the soul for immortality by the
discipline of its earthly career, it should be no mean part of the
aim of every truly liberal university to inspire its pupils with
the highest Christian aims, and to instruct them to manifest
these aims in an upright and attractive life. It is no good sign
which we observe among American educators that so many
esteem these ends as inferior in importance, or, disdaining to
use efficient means to attain them, show a scant sympathy for
positive religious earnestness in their ideal of the successful
students and the successful teacher. At a time when character
is said to command the highest price in the market, and not to
be largely furnished under the law of supply and demand, it is
no encouraging token which we notice that some who seek to
give direction to our new education, are so coolly indifferent or
superciliously disdainful concerning the presence or absence of
a positively Christian element in our college and university life.
The words of Milton are worthy to be pondered by all such and
indeed by all men: "The end, then, of learning is to repair the
ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and
out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like
him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls, of true
virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith,
makes up the highest perfection."
Then, to stimulate and enlarge the intellect no agency is so
potent as an earnest and active religious faith.
Other things
being equal, the moment a youth begins to be inspired and con-
trolled by such faith his intellectual power and range and aspi-
rations are enlarged. Indolence and animalism are renounced,
the activities of his intellect are more evenly poised, and the re-
sults are more solid and effective. A sounder logic, a inore can-
30
did judgment and a simpler earnestness take possession of the
man who serves the living God, and holds communion with a
personal Christ.
We say, other things being equal, for we do not forget that a fer-
vent faith may be attended by intellectual narrowness and erro-
neous views both of the duty and the liberty of intellectual cul-
ture-but given similar advantages from nature and training
and given correct principles in respect to the relations of faith
to culture, we assert, that faith itself becomes an element of
power and achievement which cannot and ought not to be over-
looked. Would we educate a generation mighty in erudition,
honest and untiring in research, candid and comprehensive in
judgment, sagacious in conjecture, cogent in reasoning, fair in
statement, fervid in eloquence, lofty in imagination, inspired by
and inspiring to that intellectual enthusiasm, without which
there is no true intellectual greatness, we must educate that
generation in the spirit and by the principles of the Christian
faith. In science and letters godliness has the promise of the
life which now is as well as of the life to come. All critics are for-
ward to assert in a general way that Christianity has been the
mighty quickener of human thought and feeling. We ought
never to forget that much of what it has done it has achieved
by leavening the higher education of successive generations. It
may be true that if what we call Christian civilization is to
continue, and the peculiar and threatening evils of modern so-
ciety are to be overcome, not only Christian churches, but
Christian universities must continue to exist, and both must
become more positively Christian in their influence.
3. A college and university life is exposed to special mor-
ral and religious dangers, for which the college and university
car best provide the prevention and cure. I need not recite
the obvious temptations to which every society of young men
is liable, although the strength and variety of these temptations
31
can not easily be exaggerated. I will suppose even that intel-
lectual activity and social refinement have effectually excluded
sensuality and falsehood and trained to purity and self-
restraint, to truth and uprightness. Even in such a case it is
not to be denied that intellectual activities and achievements
not infrequently exclude frequent and fervent thoughts of
God and become unfriendly to an earnest and religious life.
The work of the scholar takes a more exclusive possession of
his inner life than the occupations of other men. The ambi-
tious and successful student aims to be and becomes a king in
his own domain-by the right of that power with which he is
annointed of God, and which is accorded by the consenting
acclaim of his fellows. The elevated nature of his pursuits
imparts to the devotee of science and letters, something akin to
a sense of moral superiority, which now and then assumes its
place. If a scholar is the discoverer of a new theory in science,
or a new distinction in grammar, if he is the master of vast and
varied erudition or uncommon learning, if he is the inventor of
some useful instrument, or the writer of a work of
authority, it is not uncommon, perhaps it is not unnatural
that he should regard himself as so supreme in his own
domain as to be exempted from his personal obligations to the
personal God, or as in such a peculiar sense a benefactor of his
race, as to be released from any other obligations to the gentler
charities of human life. The oldest representation, or record
which we have of human temptation, is of a temptation to intel-
lectual insight and pride-" Ye shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil," and nowhere is this temptation so insidious or so
strong as in an active and ambitious university.
College men, both instructors and pupils, are also sensitively
and severely critical in their habits and feelings, preeminently
in respect to any imperfect or unseemly expression of opinion
or feeling. With enthusiasm in any other sphere than their
32
own, they are especially unsympathizing. The mathematician
is moved to amiable compassion or unfriendly scorn by the
ardor of the classicist, and the classicist responds with similar
but more intense emotion. It is not easy to decide whether
scientists and theologians criticise one another more sharply
than scientists or theologians of one school criticise scientists
or theologians of every other. Religious activity and earnest-
ness has its sides of weakness and defect, and to all these the
sensitive souls of cultured nonchalants and contemptuous
Sadducees are keenly alive. Young men who fall into the
mood of either are readily offended by what they call cant
and enthusiasm in earnest religious souls. Their guardians and
instructors readily yield to that sensitive hesitation and reti-
cence in the expression of personal religious feeling, which is
natural to men of culture, and find manifold reasons for being
silent and inactive in the kingdom of God. It has passed into
a proverb that the absorbing activities of college life and its sen-
sitively critical atmosphere are eminently unfavorable to the
free play of religious feeling and the outward manifestations of
religious zeal.
These disadvantages and exposures are more than counter-
balanced by influences that may be made positively favorable
to religious culture and activity. It is true that young men in
college are frivolous and excitable, that they are sensitively
alive to the good or evil opinion of their fellows, that their appe-
tites are imperious and their passions are strong, and that they
abhor and look through pretension and suspect enthusiasm.
But on the other hand, they respond to the truth and are open
to conviction, and their consciences are not corrupted by the
hollowness and knavery of mature life. They always know
that they thirst for God, and often are not afraid to confess it.
Their sense of duty is quick to admonish and condemn if it is
sometimes impotent to restrain and control. If they are often
•
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ready to go with their set or faction or class or college when
plainly in the wrong, they can also be aroused to move toward
duty and God, as by a common impulse. If many who had
assumed Christian vows, show themselves unfaithful amid the
activities and excitements of college life, not a few are kindled
to higher aims and better aspirations; not a few also, after a
longer or shorter experience of the sin and folly of wandering,
come back to their old faith with new fervor. "I write unto you,
young men, because ye are strong and have overcome the
wicked one." It is a sad confession of weakness and disloyalty
for pupils or teachers to say that it is idle to expect or labor
for an active religious life among college students. Rather
should the sentiment stir us to indignation, by whomsoever it
is uttered, whether by students, instructors, or Philistines, it is so
dishonorable to Christianity and so untrue to fact, and so
plainly either an expression of censorious spleen or a confes-
sion of weakness or an excuse for indolence: I have had some
experience in pastoral duty in this college and other communi-
ties, and my fair share of discouragement in inciting younger
and older persons to a more earnest religious life, but I feel
justified in saying that the younger members of this college
church are as exemplary in their church relations as the older,
when due allowance is made for their special circumstances,
and that the younger communicants live as exemplary and as
earnest lives as the same number of adults, notwithstanding
the absence of the ordinary social and family influences.
The intellectual activities of college life are also attended with
peculiar moral and religious advantages. If knowledge some-
times puffs up, it also furnishes manifold reasons for humility.
The moral conditions of eminent success in scientific research,
are akin to those which admit to the kingdom of God. Intel-
lectual aims and ambitions are not, in the long run, consistent
with sensuality or falsehood. If scholastic rivalries and con-
5
34
tests are often deformed by envy and disgraced by trickery,
they also foster the spirit of justice and honor. The purposes
which genuine culture proposes are favorable to earnest views
of life, to reverent thoughts of the universe and to noble aspira-
tions for a perfected and immortal existence. Every species
of intellectual discipline awakens that reflection which is an-
other name for the recognition of duty and of God. The truths
of religion appeal for their authority to the human intelligence.
Christ declared of himself and his mission,-"To this end came
I forth that I might bear witness to the truth." Though intel-
lectual culture may furnish subtle temptations to evil, yet,
"like the spear of Ithuriel, it heals the wounds which itself has
made."
We contend that the special exposures and special advan-
tages of college life, require special and definite arrangements
for religious worship and instruction. These the college itself
should furnish. All the peculiar dangers noticed, arise from
the fact that this life separates the students from the commu-
nity and the church of their homes. This natural operation of
a vigorous college life is felt even upon students who continue to
reside at their homes. For those who have left their homes, it
is a dream of romance to hope that a college town, in ordinary
cases, can successfully furnish to three or five hundred youths
domestic associations, or efficient church influences. Every
college is a world by itself, with its own peculiar atmosphere,
its separate earth and sky. It must have an altar of its own,
or lose the advantage of regular and formal worship. A com-
munity like this, so shut up to itself, composed of youth trained
in Christian families, bred to habits of Christian worship, and
many of them professing Christian aims and hope, without its
appointed hour and place for public prayer would furnish an
offensive exception to the ways of other organized human socie-
ties. Attendance at this exercise should follow the general
law of the community for other prescribed duties. That at-
35
tendance should be enforced, is no hardship so long as it is
practiced by instructors, and so long as the students are dealt
with as reasonable beings, and their honesty and honor in giv-
ing excuses are not challenged by vexatious suspicion and de-
grading distrust. One of the most useful results of a wise edu-
cation is the acquisition of habits of method, and regularity in
meeting the requisitions of life. Compliance with the college
rules which impose such regularity should become as easy and
natural as obedience to the laws of nature, if for no other reason
than that the students themselves may be delivered from hesi-
tation and self-indulgence, from dawdling and childish caprice,
in controlling their time and meeting the stern demands of life.
Were the student at his home, he would often be constrained
against his will to be present at family and Sunday worship, by
parental authority and the force of public opinion; and for both
of these in college days there is and can be no efficient substitute
but college rules. College prayers and Sunday worship, may
naturally fail of the best success, when conducted in a formal
and mechanical spirit; when they are dishonored by neglect
or want of sympathy in instructors, or made repulsive by the
discomfort and squalor of the house of prayer. They are cer-
tain to be failures, when they are publicly dishonored by mak-
ing attendance voluntary, or are made attractive by such sensa-
tional devices, as may excite for a week, but are certain to be-
come offensive after the lapse of a month. Compulsion, I
know, is an odious word, but as it seems to me it is never so
odious as when it is wrested out of all propriety in the spirit of
a demagogue in education, and addressed to sectarian or liber-
tine prejudices. We trust that no Christian college will so far
lose its self-respect in obedience to its cry, to close or dishonor
its house of prayer.
Worship is itself the noblest and the most elevating act of
the human soul. The habit of worship with inward reverence
36
and outward decorum is a habit of all others most needful to
be used by the educated youth of our time. We live by
admiration, hope and love, and how many are now panting and
dying for the want of all these. Prayer and praise hinder no
man's life. An aspiration expressed at the prayers of a College
Chapel or a thought dropped in the Sunday's preaching, has
saved many a college student for this life and the life to come.
One of the most eminent professors of the University of Berlin
who visited this country a few years since, was more interested
and moved by the daily service in this college, than by any
single incident, it seemed so elevating and significant an
homage to Christ.
4. A positive religious influence is required in college and
university life to arrest and turn back those atheistic and anti-
Christian tendencies with are now so active in the circles of
science and culture. These tendencies are not to be disguised
nor despised. It may be questioned whether they are not more
alarming than is generally believed. Some sober thinkers are
ready to ask, whether if science is to proceed towards atheism
with steps so willing and rapid as not a few scientists of late
have seemed ready to take, and if literature shall so openly
betray Christ with the kiss of Judas as not a few critics and
littérateurs have done within the last twenty years-whether
after a few scores more of years have gone by, there shall be
found a place any longer for Christian temples or Christian
rites in those communities in which universities hold sway.
It is not surprising that the conception of a Christian uni-
versity should be positively rejected by a certain class of rea-
soners as involving a contradiction in its terms. Those who
contend that science and culture have always been the natural
foes of theology and faith, must conclude that the university
should recognize no form of religious truth as true and exert
no positive religious influence.
37
We contend that neither faith nor theology are the historical
or the natural foes of science and culture. We grant that
Christian theologians have often feared and opposed many true
theories in science because they were new, and have opposed
them in the name of theology. But these same theories have
been received and defended by other theologians. Indeed it is
only till very recently that scientists could possibly be arrayed
against theologians, for the simple reason that the larger num-
ber of eminent and progressive scientists have been Christian
believers, and not a few of them eminent theological thinkers.
Indeed in a scientific or logical view of the matter, a scien-
tist who teaches atheism or a literary critic who argues against
Christianity is as truly a theologian as a devout theist or a
believing Christian.
We freely concede that science and culture are beneficial to
faith. We assert that Christian theology and historical interpre-
tation have been instructed and liberalized by science and criti-
cism. We find no occasion to deny that this process has often
been steadily resisted by those who have loved their dogmas
better than the truth. But we also contend that faith is as
helpful to science as science is useful to faith, and we assert
that in a truly Christian university, science will be more truly
scientific than in one which is atheistic or anti-Christian, simply
because faith, when other things are equal, tends to make
science more thorough, more liberal, more candid, more com-
prehensive, and more sagacious.
The division of labor in modern science and research, tends
to make the devotee of any single department, narrow and
dogmatic in proportion to the completeness of his mastery
over his chosen field. A thinker who is limited to a single
species of phenomena or a single class of relations, is likely to
be inappreciative or incredulous with respect to any other. If he
extends his thoughts beyond, he is in danger of trying every
38
theory by those facts and laws in which he is at home, and
pronouncing upon every description of truth with the confi-
dence, which is justified in his own sphere. Hence the readi-
ness with which materialism and atheism are accepted by men
who limit their knowledge to the phenomena and relations
with which the senses are conversant, and supernaturalism is
rejected by those who rarely think of what is involved in
human and divine personality.
Faith in God lifts the student above this narrowness so far as
it familiarizes the intellect with the one comprehensive thought
to which every other fact and relation must be referred. What-
ever department of nature or even of mathematics or meta-
physics is the domain of the student, God presents himself,
as higher and deeper, and more comprehensive than them all.
Whatever evolutions history unrolls, whether the history con-
cerns the upbuilding of the earth or the fortunes of historic or
pre-historic man, God is certainly a possible as he is the only
satisfactory explanation of the plan and the realization of the
proceeding phenomena. Whatever forces and laws are dis-
covered or assumed as the rational explanation of the past,
and the certain prophecy of the future, these forces and laws
are best explained by an intelligent thinker and the loving
Father, who has prepared the earth for man's dwelling-place
and the scene of his discipline for a higher sphere of activity
and enjoyment. A thoughtful believer in God cannot but be
a broader thinker than the narrow atheists who profess to solve
the problem of the universe by some single formula of the
latest fashion, rather than by faith in an intelligence and per-
sonality grander and richer than their own.
Hasty and superficial generalization is another characteristic
of our times. It is seen on the one hand in the brilliant romanc-
ing of the eloquent scientific lecturer, in the flippant theories
that characterize our historical and literary criticism, and the
39
confident dogmatism of our one-sided theorists in psychology,
ethics, and sociology. Digests, and reviews, and summaries
present the ready materials for these dashing hypotheses. With
these at command the quick eye can discern analogies, and the
hasty glance can overlook differences. The vivid imagination
shapes the incomplete materials into an imposing theory, the
ready tongue sets it forth in the blandishments of imposing dic-
tion. A positive manner, a trenchant style, copious illustrations,
and humorous allusions all lend their charms, when all at once
the living God is changed by the accomplished juggler before
the wondering eyes of the cultured but credulous crowd into
an unconscious force, or a persistent tendency. Or, as Christian-
ity comes into question with its unmatched Christ, with his
recorded but positive supernatural deeds and his lofty claims
with their more wonderful fulfillment in his person, words,.
and works, these are all disposed of by a rapid whirl of the
juggler's hand, as he blends into a confused image Christ's like
ness to other masters of faith and overlooks the amazing dif
ferences which reveal themselves to the earnest and patient and
truth loving eye. The brilliant theorist and eloquent writer
too often carries the day, especially with an audience of hila-
rious youth, or of over-cultivated men, whose pursuits and asso-
ciations have removed them far from the stern realities of life
and of death. The new Voltaire is more decorous and respect-
ful in his manner than the old. The new Rousseau is less
impulsive and more self-controlled. The new Hume is more
exact in his knowledge, more respectful and restrained in his
tone, but the new Voltaire and the new Rousseau and the new
Hume shut their eyes as persistently to the same facts and
relations, which their prototypes rejected with passion, or ridi-
cule, or contempt. Atheistic and Anti-Christian theories of
history, of government, of politics, of culture, of ethics, and of
human progress are as narrow in data, as false in their conclu-
40
sions, and as dangerous in their influence in this generation as in
any other, and none the less because they are more decorous,
more learned, and more scientific.
Faith in God guards against the superficial, hasty and bril-
liant theorizing of modern letters, because of the sobriety, and
caution, and reverence to which it trains. The Christian tem-
per is self-distrustful and yet self-reliant. It is cautious in
seeking after truth, slow in forming its conclusions, and
undaunted in holding and defending them. For these reasons
the spirit of reverent faith has a positive scientific value. It was
not in vain that Lord Bacon saw an analogy between the child-
like spirit that is the common condition of entering the king-
dom, of science and the Kingdom of God. The distinct recogni-
tion and the earnest enforcement of Christian theism in a Chris-
tian university is an important scientific force. It has created
and fostered science and culture in the past. It must defend both
in the future from the narrow dogmatism and superficial bril-
liancy of the theories of the day. That is no mean scientific ser-
vice then to which a college chapel and a Christian pulpit are set
apart in a Christian university. Formal lectures in chapel or pul-
pit on the so-called relations of science and religion are not often
called for. The preacher who ventures upon them is liable to
go beyond his depth, and a slight oversight or venial error is
not readily overlooked by some of his hearers. But the college
preacher should be sensitively alive to all the tendencies of
modern speculation. No electrometer should respond more
quickly than he to the changing moods of the thinking of the
times. He should anticipate as by instinct each new position
for atttack or defence which is taken by the unbelief of culti-
vated men. Being himself a man of culture and thoroughly
acknowledging it in all its forms as the rich and beautiful
fruitage of the kingdom of God, he should assert for faith itself
a royal preeminence and set forth its claims by arguments which
41
command respect and compel conviction. As he expounds to
his hearers those themes which are common to them with all
other men-their doubts and temptations, and sorrows and sins.
-he must also meet their peculiar intellectual wants and justify
himself to their intellectual respect. He must study and under-
stand the student's mind and the student's heart by cherishing
a constant sympathy with the student's life. In order to do
this he must be their friend and pastor, and when he is both he
can speak with the authority which only knowledge and love
can impart. But still it is on moral and spiritual grounds that
faith must stand or fall. If the students of a college are taught
in their chapel from a man who commands their intellectual re-
spect and their personal affection, there is little occasion to fear
even from the dogmatism of modern speculation or the brilliancy
of modern criticism. The living preacher is stronger than pro-
fessor or writer, even though he know less than either, because
he deals with the conscience which enforces duty and the heart
which thirsts after God, and the longing after immortality which
will not be denied. That there are honest sceptics we have no
doubt. That the way to a settled faith is to many earnest
souls a long and arid road we concede. And yet it may be true,
that it is with the heart the fool says there is no God, and he that
doeth the will of God shall know of Christ's doctrine whether
it be of God. That dogmatism and denunciation are specially
unseemly and impotent to a student audience we know. That
something more than preaching is necessary to convince doubt-
ing minds is true, and it is also true that an earnest and intelli-
gent and thoughtful ministry to the hearts and lives of a
college audience by one who is at once cultivated in his tastes,
intelligent in his convictions and young in his sympathies, is
the most efficient and the most needed instrumentality against
the scepticism of these times. For this reason, if for no other,
the Christian college should have its own pulpit and its own
6
42
Christian worship. That its worship may be edifying, it
must be attractive, and its pulpit to be useful must be a place
of power.
5. The objections which are urged against the positions
which we have defended are not decisive. The first which we
name is that every so-called Christian college must necessarily
be sectarian. The term sectarian as used by the objector is a
term of reproach. The reproach which it implies is well de-
served. It is most dishonorable to the Christian Church that it
should be divided into sects, and that so much of the zeal
which might burn so purely and brightly for God and Christ
should be kindled of partizan heats and flash into au un-
hallowed flame. We grant that it is practically necessary in
the present divided state of Christendom that the religious.
worship and teachings of a college should conform more nearly
to the practice of some religious denomination, but we insist
it is not necessary that these should offend either the convic-
tions or the tastes of any earnest or positive Christian believer.
So far as the college is true to the lessons of science and culture,
so far will it be anti-sectarian in its teachings and its spirit.
The lessons of philosophy, the teachings of history and the
amenities of culture all lift the Christian scholar above the nar-
rowing influences of denominational divisions and the petty
excitements of sectarian or personal quarrels, and open his
heart to a more enlarged Christian charity. These healthful
influences are sometimes resisted, and the college becomes a
school of narrow judgments and a nursery of bitter and un-
christian sectarianism. But these are not the legitimate fruits
of genuine Christian culture. The tendencies of all sound
learning and earnest thinking are in the direction of a more lib.
eral charity and of a closer union between Christian believers.
To these influences all Christian colleges must yield, if indeed
they are not foremost in urging them forward. It may be
43
reserved for them to contribute most efficiently to the restora-
tion of unity to the Christian church. So far as the church itself
is concerned, whatever may have been true in the past, the last
thing which it needs to fear at present is that the Christian col-
leges of this country will intensify the sectarian spirit.
It is not, however, in the interest of a more catholic Chris-
tianity that the objector usually argues. He more frequently
appears as the advocate of what may properly be considered
the catholicity of science itself. In this capacity he urges that
the introduction of a positive religious element into college
education interferes with that freedom from all prepossessions
which is the essential condition of a broad and catholic culture.
In the university, it is said, nothing must be assumed to be true;
every thing must give account of itself - even the principles
and methods by which we know, much more the religious be-
liefs and moral convictions on which men securely rest. All these
must be sifted by that critical spirit which is the glory of mod-
ern culture. To anticipate the conclusions which the inquirer
should receive, and especially to use them as material for positive
teaching and earnest enforcement, is to offend against the
spirit of true science, which in order to be thorough and criti-
cal, must be absolutely free, especially from any religious
dogmas.
To this we reply that the argument of the objector, if it
proves anything, proves too much. It would require that
nothing whatever in knowledge or science should be presumed
to be either fixed or true; that in Astronomy, the Newtonian
astronomy should have no precedence over the theories of Des-
cartes; that in Physiology, the doctrine of the animal spirits
must be admitted to a hearing before adopting the modern
theory of the nervous system. By the same rule no
By the same rule no principles of
physics, or chemical philosophy, or syntax, or psychology, should
be assumed by the teacher to be established, lest forsooth the
44
pupil should be unduly biased and his freedom to revise and
correct his knowledge should be impaired. Such a conclusion
would be rejected as ridiculous by every student of science.
In literature and criticism some principles are accepted as so
axiomatic that they cannot be shaken and do not need to be
revised.
Surely it is not too much to claim that the great verities of
Faith concerning God and duty and Christ and the immortal life,
may be received as so far fixed as to be the basis of positive
teaching in the education of youth. Though not established by
what is technically called the verified experiments of science,
they are assumed as the foundation of all that is valuable in
human existence-the authority of law-the security of prop-
erty-the sacredness of home-the inviolability of honor-
the obligation of truth--the tenderness of affection and noble-
ness of self-sacrifice, and the triumphs of love and faith over
death. Christian civilization has had too long and too varied a
history in the past not to testify to some fixed foundation of
truth. Christian literature and Christian art have blossomed into
flower and ripened into fruit for too many generations to leave
room to doubt that Christ is indeed the tree of life. It is true
that every generation raises new questions of doubt and diffi-
culty concerning the adjustment of these truths to the new dis-
coveries in science and new revelations of history and new
sentiments concerning manners, but it also true that the oftener
these truths are challenged the more satisfactory is the response
which they give, and the more closely they are cross-questioned
the more triumphantly do they endure the test.
More than this is true. A Christian university is, other
things being equal, the place of all others in which truth is
likely to be sought for with the boldest and the freest spirit,
for the simple reason that those who believe most earnestly in
the Christian verities are the most fearless in submitting them
45
to the severest scrutiny. While it is true that many religion-
ists and so-called theologians are timid of new light and suspi-
cious of new investigations, it is also true that those whose faithı
is the strongest and the surest, are the most eager for new inqui-
ries and the most fearless of fresh investigations. On the other
hand whatever may be thought of the doctrines of our modern
scientific atheists and literary Anti-Christians, their spirit and
temper does little honor to the catholicity of true science. A
university thoroughly pervaded by the modern irreligious
spirit, would be of all schools of knowledge the most intolerant
of Theists and Christians. Whatever it might profess, the
dogmatism of its unbelief, and the credulity or earnestness of
its faith, would sooner or later weaken its scientific upright-
The founder of our faith declared with emphasis, To
this end came I forth that I might bear witness to the truth,"
and for this reason it is that he applies the searching test,
"Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."
ness.
"
It might be urged still further that no State college or State
university can under our political system be Christian in its
influence and teachings. We reply that this depends upon the
character of the people of the State. If these are prevailingly
Christian they will not only tolerate, but they will require that
their schools of learning shall be directed by men of positive.
faith and of earnest zeal. Whatever difficulties or complications
may be involved in the theory of their administration, the State
Universities of this country have hitherto been emphatically
Christian. Whether they can be maintained in this spirit, it is
not for us to ask or to attempt to answer.
We are not unaware that the religious question is not an
easy question to solve with the managers of many colleges and
universities. We concede that the complications occasioned
from many former traditions of the past, are such that in our
country it is not easy and perhaps not possible to found a new
46
·
college upon an ideally correct theory. We have no quarrel
with those institutions which are conducted upon another
theory than our own, however much we deplore their defects.
It is enough for us to know that the great majority of our
countrymen of English and Protestant descent prefer that their
sons should be educated in colleges in which the utmost free-
dom of scientific inquiry and the highest refinement of literary
culture are connected with positive and earnest religious
faith. Were it otherwise, were public sentiment other than it is,
a college proposing Christian aims, would be none the less needed
did it stand forth as the single representative of thorough cul-
ture controlled and elevated by the presence of Him at whose
name every knee shall bow and who shall sooner or later
bring into captivity every thought and aspiration of man. We
desire never to forget, we should be traitors to the past if we
did, that all the traditions of this college hold it to the service
and honor of Christ, yet in no slavish or narrow spirit. It
has not been backward to hail the beginnings of modern phys-
ical science. It has not feared to follow the subtleties of meta-
physical speculation. It has not shrunk from new inquiries and
new results in Christian theology. It has not been behind
other institutions nor behind the age in applying the historic
sense and the historic imagination to the rational interpretation
of scriptural and Christian history. It has maintained a broad
and free spirit in all its enquiries after truth, not loving Christ-
ianity better than the truth, but loving and honoring Christ,
because he is the truth. It has cherished a catholic spirit
towards all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. It
has moreover maintained the daily worship of God, with scarce
an interruption since it was founded. With the opening of the
first College Hall in 1718 this worship began. The first chapel,
still standing, heard from 1763 to 1824 the orthodox discourses
of Daggett, the finished sermons of Wales, the catholic and
47
learned disquisitions of Stiles, and the imposing eloquence of
Dwight. The second chapel for more than fifty years was the
scene of the elaborate and refined eloquence of Fitch, the
weighty arguments and the rousing appeals of Taylor, the
calm and deliberate wisdom of Day, the passionate appeals of
Goodrich, and the tender and meditative pathos of Woolsey,
whose names we have brought with us to remind us of the
precious traditions of the past, and to hold us to fidelity for the
future. We propose also to give special honor to two memor-
able names in the roll of Theology, Philosophy, and Christian
saintliness, and which can never be forgotten by the graduates
of Yale College, the names of GEORGE BERKELEY and JOHN-
ATHAN EDWARDS.
*
We gratefully recognize the good providence of God in the
gift of the edifice in which we are now assembled and which
we would now set apart for Christian uses. In the year 1864,
Joseph Battell made a very liberal subscription toward the
erection of a new chapel. To this sum fifteen thousand dollars
were added by several distinguished benefactors of the college.
The year after the corner stone was laid and the work of
building was commenced the college came into possession of
$50,000 as a legacy from Mr. Battell, which was appropriated
to the enlargement of the plan and the decoration of the build-
ing. In grateful recognition of his liberality, this edifice has
been formally named the Battell Chapel. This distinguished
benefactor of the college was the son of a most enterprising,
honorable and benevolent merchant of the State of Connecticut,
in simpler times, and the grandson of the first pastor of a
characteristically Puritan town. Eminently loyal and true in
his character, he retained till his death, a heartfelt respect and
ardent zeal for the faith and virtues of his New England ances-
try. A graduate of Middlebury College, he was a scholar all
*William E. Dodge, Wm. Walter Phelps, S. B. Chittenden, George Bliss, and
Moses Taylor.
48
his life in his tastes and habits, although occupied with the
cares of extended and manifold business enterprises. What he
gave to this college, he gave in the fixed conviction that its re-
ligious interests were essential to its true prosperity, and that its
religious welfare required a convenient and attractive house of
worship.
The church which we have been enabled to erect we do now
consecrate to the honor and service of Christ, as a living person
and an ever present power. This is no decorated mausoleum to a
dead or dying faith which we have built. We are not here
with sentimental make-believes to try to think of a symbol as
a fact. We are not here to render an empty honor to the faith in
which our fathers lived and died, but which to us is only a beau-
tiful and inspiring fiction of the past. This is no empty tomb
which we enter, whose hollow walls resound with mocking
echoes to our cries after Christ, saying why seek ye the living
anong the dead, but it is a living temple which we would con-
secrate to his praise, and hallow as our future place of worship
as we bring into it our believing and loving hearts. Here are
present instructors and guardians of youth, to whom Christian
parents year by year bring the hope and pride of their house-
holds, and they would set apart this house as the place of their
frequent worship-with the pupils for whose welfare they
labor, and whom they would train to thorough scholarship and
Christian usefulness. Here are present the families that meet
in our weekly assemblies to add their prayers to ours for the
blessing and presence of God in all our Christian activities. Here
are present the students-those who are soon to go from us,
who will never forget that they met once or twice in this new
chapel before they were parted and will not fail to leave behind
their blessing upon this our new house of prayer. Here are
present those who are to remain, to show by the habits of decorum
to which the beauty and comfort of this house will most cer-
49
tainly train them—that in the house of prayer they are always
Christian gentlemen, and to create and transmit to future college
generations a common sentiment which shall guard it from any
desecration in thought or deed. May the daily services of this
house of prayer be blessed by the quickening Spirit that as it
awakens us by the touch of each morning light shall also move ·
our hearts to renewed thankfulness. Let all who shall worship
here make the uttered prayers their own. Let all their voices
be heard in its songs of praise. May the quickly coming and
quickly going college generations, who as they come and go
more swiftly than the weaver's flying shuttle shall hear the
preacher within these walls, be ever mindful that "all flesh is
as grass and the glory of man is as the flower of grass. The
grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. But
the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto us.
77
11
ORDER OF SERVICES
AT THE
DEDICATION OF THE BATTELL CHAPEL, JUNE 18, 1876.
1. ORGAN VOLUNTARY.
2. DEDICATION ANTHEM,
Choir.
3. INVOCATION AND READING OF THE SCRIPTURES.
4. TE DEUM LAUDAMUS.
5. PRAYER,
Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D.
Choir.
Rev. Timothy Dwight, D.D.
6. HYMN No. 296 of the College Hymnal. Tune, Mear. Choir and Congregation.
NOTE. In September, 1718, at the public opening of the first College building erected on these
grounds, the congregation assembling in the room then set apart as the first Chapel of Yale
College, joined in singing the first four verses of the 65th Psalm, in Sternhold and Hopkins's
version, as follows:-
Thy praise alone, O Lord, doth reign
In Zion, Thine own hill; '
Our wicked life so far exceeds
That we shall fall therein;
Their vows to Thee they there maintain But, Lord, forgive our great misdeeds,
And promises fulfill.
And purge us from our sin.
For that Thou dost their prayers still The man is blest whom Thou dost choose
hear,
And dost thereto agree,
The people all, both far and near,
With trust shall come to Thee.
7. SERMON.
8. PRAYER OF DEDICATION,
Within Thy courts to dwell;
Thy house and temple he shall use
With pleasures that excel.
9. HYMN No. 20 of the College Hymnal.
Arise, O King of grace! arise,
And enter to Thy rest;
Rev. Theodore D. Woolsey, D.D.
Tune, Dundee. Choir and Congregation.
Here, mighty God, accept our vows,
Here let Thy praise be spread:
Lo, Thy church waits with longing eyes, Bless the provisions of Thy house,
Thus to be owned and blest.
Enter with all Thy glorious train,
Thy Spirit and Thy word;
All that the ark did once contain
Could no such grace afford.
10. DOXOLOGY.
11. BENEDICTION.
12. POSTLUDIUM, HALLELUJAH. Handel.
And fill Thy poor with bread.
Here let the Son of David reign,
Let God's Anointed shine,
Justice and truth His court maintain,
With love and power divine.

DEMCO
LIBRARY SUPPLIES
Madison New Haven
Wis.
Conn.
:
*
:

wils
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
378.7Y1 KP83
Porter, Noah, 1811-1892.
Yale college. Two sermons: I. On leaving
3 1951 001 546 335
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