USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > History of Andover theological seminary, 1933 > Part 5
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In the early days one of the members was chosen librarian, and it was his duty to be curator of the literature, to keep open house in his room for two hours at noon to the mem- bers, and to make loans of periodicals to members in their
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alphabetical order for a term not exceeding three days. At the first annual meeting it was voted to subscribe the next year for the Edinburgh Review, the London Quarterly Re- view, and the North American Review. With the new reading- room available it was decided to keep quarters open whenever attendance was not required at a Seminary appointment.
The activity of the Association was not limited to main- taining a library and reading-room. The constitution was revised in 1819, and a by-law was adopted that senior mem- bers in the course of the year should each review a single publication at a meeting of the society. The approval of the Faculty was asked for the revised constitution, the preamble of which read grandiloquently: "Desirous of knowing the present state of the civil, literary, and moral world; and be- lieving this knowledge to be acquired with the greatest facility by the perusal of the best periodical publications; we, the subscribers, form ourselves into a society." One wonders if the style of language improved or if the Faculty pruned the sentence, for when another revision of the constitution was made ten years later the preamble had shrunk to: "For the purpose of having access to the current intelligence of the day, we, the subscribers, form ourselves into a society."
It does not appear that time improved the morals and man- ners of the students, or else it was unfortunate that the society had admitted too many honorary members, for it became advisable to add to the list of officers a sheriff and four con- stables. Fines had been imposed for taking literature from the room of the society; now the penalty of expulsion was affixed to the rules, and the law was evidently to be put into force. The last of several resolutions adopted in 1829 was that whenever the president of the Atheneum should learn that publications were missing from the reading-room, he should immediately lock the door and give information to the high sheriff, who should forthwith make diligent search for them.
These by-products of education were not permitted to ob- scure the regular obligations of students to their academic tasks. Much of the reading of the students was under Faculty direction, and at least once a year the student must report
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his reading and pass an examination on the opinions and argu- ments of the principal writers whom he studied. He was examined also on his biblical readings in the original languages of the Old and New Testaments, including the Septuagint.
The main business of the students was transacted with theological books and teachers. Early Andover had a Faculty whose prescribed duty it was "to unlock the treasures of di- vine knowledge, to direct pupils in their inquiries after sacred truth, to guard them against religious error, and to accelerate their acquisition of heavenly wisdom." Men who had the self- confidence to accept places on the Andover Faculty needed to be endowed generously with the heavenly graces. They were required to have faith in divine revelation, and hold to "one living and true God and the Word of God, the only perfect rule of faith and practice," and they were reminded expressly "that God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, unchanging, in being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth, and that the Godhead exists in three persons." And then they were confronted with the Andover Creed.
The selection of the first Faculty was a serious undertaking, because the quality of the teaching would set a standard of scholarship for the institution. It was fortunate that Pearson and Woods were well-qualified teachers. Eliphalet Pearson was a learned man, with an extensive knowledge of educa- tional matters acquired from his connection with Harvard. It was he who largely determined the range of studies in the Andover curriculum, and established the high intellectual standards for which Andover became noted. He had a wide acquaintance with men and a practical ability to make a project successful. He was active in founding education, mission, and temperance societies. He was the first president of the Board of Trustees after the Seminary was started, and he retained the position for nineteen years, even during the year when he was a professor. But the qualities that had made him a successful principal of the Academy and an acceptable pro- fessor at Harvard did not fit so well the temper of a theologi- cal school and he resigned the year after the Seminary opened, though he lived fifteen years longer.
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Leonard Woods was a much younger man than Pearson, born the year after Pearson graduated from Harvard. After his graduation from college he studied divinity with Dr. Charles Backus of Somers, Connecticut. He was attracted to a teaching position in the new school because of its possibility of wide influence, though the number of students was quite un- certain, and his initial salary was only one thousand dollars, for which he was expected to give some instruction in church history as well as in theology. Once in the Faculty he recon- ciled the two schools of thought represented in the Seminary as far as possible. In the classroom he had the reputation of being lucid in exposition, thorough in his study, and careful in the presentation of his thought. He charged his pupils to keep close to the Bible as the test of doctrine, for he believed that it was the immediate gift of the Holy Spirit, and so in- fallible and of divine authority. He was equally sure that Calvinism was essential to the prosperity of church and nation, and that a theological school with any other system of doc- trine would be a curse rather than a blessing. It is symbolic of Andover's staunch theology that the first book to be drawn from the Seminary library was a volume of the works of Jonathan Edwards. That Professor Woods was loyal to the Hopkinsian principle that one should be willing to be damned for the glory of God, appears when on the occasion of the birth of his fifth child he was in doubt whether he ought to ask God to save all his children.
That the Calvinistic theology did not breed hardness of heart is plain from the kindness and affection which Woods showed in his domestic life, and in his patience and sympathy with his friends and students. But Calvinism was a militant faith and it bred theological warriors. Andover professors were expected to train their guns of orthodoxy against error, whether within or outside the walls of embattled Zion, and the Andover professor was not strange to theological warfare. In his Commencement oration at Harvard Woods had eulo- gized "the brave soldiers who fought against the tyranny of the schools, conquered the powerful forces of that despot, prejudice, and established the liberty of reason." But that did
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not make him tolerant. In the very same oration he denounced the Catholic system and the injury that it had done to the Italians, saying: "The popes, those holy thieves, those pen- sioners of Satan, have exhausted your wealth and vigor, and now on their dying beds, bequeath you nothing but sensuality, superstition and ignorance." Once in the saddle at Andover he engaged in jousts with the Edwardeans at Yale and the Unitarians in the old Puritan citadel of Harvard.
He was enjoined by the Andover Constitution to lecture on divine revelation, on biblical inspiration as proved by miracle and prophecy, and by internal evidence and historical facts ; on the great doctrines and duties of religion, and the refuta- tion of objections, "more particularly on the revered char- acter of God"; on the fall of man and human depravity, the nature of grace and the atonement of Christ ; the Holy Spirit ; the Scriptural doctrines of regeneration, justification, sancti- fication, repentance, faith, and obedience ; on the future state ; on the positive institutions of Christianity ; and on the nature and interpretation of prophecy.
With the emphasis on dogma and polemics it might seem unlikely that these doughty theologians would be spiritual guides as well as warriors, but both Woods and Stuart felt that it was an important part of their obligation to converse with individual students on their state of religion. Against the judgment of Pearson, Woods originated a Wednesday evening conference for the fostering of personal piety. All the students were expected to attend, and either Woods or Stuart met them, and prayed and conversed for an hour in a practical way on the whole range of Christian doctrine. Professor Stuart late in life expressed the belief that the Wednesday evening conferences were the most valuable con- tribution that he had made to the Seminary. Group prayer meetings were frequent, and a general prayer meeting of the whole school was held once a month, at which the students prayed for the colleges from which they had come. The Semi- nary conference was transformed later into the prayer meeting of the Seminary church.
Professor Woods lived until 1854, dying in the full maturity
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LEONARD WOODS
MOSES STUART
AUSTIN PHELPS
EDWARDS A. PARK
of his fourscore years. He was mourned universally, as he was laid to rest in the Chapel Cemetery. That plot of ground had been set aside by the Trustees in 1810 as a burying ground for those who were connected with the two schools. It was east of the campus, and as the years passed the funeral pro- cessions were many. Students who died before the comple- tion of their studies, professors and members of their families, trustees, and members of the Academy, there found their earthly rest. It has been remarked that there are more brains to the square foot in Chapel Cemetery at Andover than in any similar plot of ground in America. In 1872 a Cemetery Asso- ciation was organized to care for the grounds, and this was incorporated thirty-five years later.
The third professor to be inducted into office was Edward Dorr Griffin. Griffin was the leader of his class of 1790 at Yale, and then studied theology with Jonathan Edwards, Jr. William Bartlet had made provision for a professorship of sacred rhetoric as well as of sacred literature, and when the time came for the choice of an incumbent attention turned to the man who for eight years had been pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey. Bartlet again exercised his power of appointment to the chair, which then bore the title of Public Eloquence. Griffin was appointed in 1808, but did not come to Andover to begin his duties until the next year. For a time it was uncertain whether he would accept. The salary offered was not attractive, and he enjoyed his ministry in Newark. He liked the inspiration of large audiences, and Andover did not give much scope for show- ing his possession of the eloquence which he was expected to teach. He wrote to Woods that, while the quiet atmosphere of the New England village might suit the other professors, for him "it would want those excitements which would be essential to the professor of pulpit eloquence."
At the same time that Griffin was being sought for the Seminary, Park Street Church in Boston looked in his direc- tion. The church on Brimstone Corner was just being launched as a defence of orthodoxy in a town where all but one among the old Congregational churches had become Unitarian, and
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it needed a brilliant preacher to give it standing in the com- munity. The Newark minister believed that he could com- bine his teaching at Andover with his preaching in Boston, and so overcame his reluctance for the professorship alone. He was worth having for Andover on any terms, and Bartlet recognized that fact by building him the best professor's house in the village. His people "wept a week," so Griffin wrote to Woods when he left Newark, but he admitted that there were some sons of Belial among them whose malice was "scarcely exceeded by that of the lower world."
The new professor was inaugurated with much ceremony on the twenty-first of June, 1809. Dr. Spring preached a ser- mon, and Dr. Griffin delivered his inaugural address. After the services were concluded, "the Trustees, Visitors, pro- fessors, clergy, musicians, and gentlemen in public office, pre- ceded by the students of the Theological Institution, walked in procession from the church to the hall of the Academy, where with social and cheerful feelings, they partook of the bounties of Providence."
It was the duty of the Department of Public Eloquence to see that the students were instructed adequately on the im- portance of oratory ; on elegance, composition, and dignity of style ; on pronunciation, voice, and gesture, but withal a preser- vation of a natural manner. Yet it was regarded as highly important that a speaker should be a finished pulpit orator. Methods of putting together a sermon, of the style and char- acter of the discourses of the most eminent divines which were used as models, and of strengthening the memory, were taught faithfully. Above all, the student must be impressed with "the transcendent simplicity and beauty of the Sacred Writings."
Griffin's reputation as an orator seems not to have been exaggerated. Dr. Spring felt his competition and the spell of his superb presence, for Dr. Griffin stood six feet three inches tall. Spring wrote to Dr. Morse of Charlestown : " Alas ! Alas ! what a mammoth of an orator we had along. ... I have had thoughts of holding my own in the pulpit, but if we do not confine the monster within the four walls of the institution, all will be up with poor me. ... I can bear tolerably well to
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be equalled when I feel good ; but to be so astonishingly out- done-it is too much for flesh and blood and my common share of humility. What say you, sir, must we not slip our cables and get out of the harbor as soon as we can?" Daniel Webster, who went to hear the distinguished preacher, said : "If you are going the same way with the lightning, it won't hurt you ; but if not, you had better keep out of its way."
William Bartlet was not in sympathy with the Park Street arrangement, and tried to make Dr. Griffin contented at An- dover. Griffin tried to fulfil the obligations of both of his positions, and he showed unusual adaptability as a professor. In his class, as he was about to criticise a student sermon, he would remark in kindly fashion : "Young gentlemen, we have met to criticise a sermon, and all feelings are to be laid aside at the seeming severity of remarks which may follow." Then, says the chronicler, "the poor sermon shrivelled up . . . until its parched remains rustled away upon the adverse gale, and men saw them no more." The commuting distance to Boston proved too great in the days of stagecoaches and horse-drawn chaises, and Griffin reached the conclusion that Boston had the more attractive claim. In 1811, therefore, he ended his brief professional career at Andover, and it was necessary to look for another instructor.
Dr. Griffin did not continue to find full satisfaction in Boston. His theological outlook as a conservative Presby- terian did not fully harmonize with Boston orthodoxy, and the Second Presbyterian Church in Newark was wooing him back to that city. In 1815 he preached his last sermon at Park Street from the text: "The return of the dove to the ark, having no rest elsewhere." Even then he did not remain fixed, for Williams College called him to its presidency after six years, and there he remained until a few months before his death in 1837.
Before Dr. Griffin had severed his connections with the Seminary, a fourth professor was in the offing. A successor to Dr. Pearson was needed. For that purpose Dr. Spring visited New Haven and listened to the preaching of Moses Stuart, pastor since 1806 of the First Church in that city. At
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the age of thirty he was esteemed highly in Connecticut. He had been born in 1780, had been educated at Yale, and after three years in the study of law had been admitted to the bar. But his purpose changed, and after a period of theological study with President Dwight he was ordained in 1806 and be- came pastor of the First Church in New Haven. When Dr. Spring inquired tentatively as to Stuart's abilities, Dwight replied that he was a very able man, but he could not be spared. Spring replied at once that that was the kind of a man that Andover wanted.
Stuart came to Andover to lecture on the form, the preser- vation and the transmission of the Bible; on the original lan- guages, including the Septuagint version; on the history, character, and authority of other versions and manuscripts ; on the authenticity of Scripture ; on the Apocrypha ; on mod- ern translations; on the canons of biblical criticism; and on the various readings and difficult passages in the Bible.
It seems odd that a man should have been selected for the chair of sacred literature who knew neither Hebrew nor Ger- man. Yet Stuart soon showed ability to make good his de- ficiencies and to prove himself a fortunate addition to the Faculty. At the fiftieth anniversary of the Seminary, Leonard Bacon said of Stuart: "It was his teaching and his influence that gave celebrity to Andover as a seat of sacred learning." It was because of this that he became recognized as the prince of biblical learning in America. It was he who set the stan- dards and fixed the methods of biblical study for the next generation, for he remained at his post in Andover for thirty- eight years until 1848. Men who sat at his feet went to imitate him in their teaching at other seminaries, not only in the Bible, but in the classics as well, for his sound philological methods gained general approval. Elijah Kellogg was professor of Greek at Williams for nearly thirty years, Nathan W. Fiske filled a similar chair at Amherst, as did James Torrey at the University of Vermont, and Samuel P. Newman at Bowdoin. Irah Chase graduated from Andover in 1817, and went to Columbian College at Washington, D. C., to be professor of biblical literature for seven years, and then helped to found
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the Newton Theological Institution and was its first profes- sor of biblical literature. Newton went to Andover again for her second professor, Henry J. Ripley, of the class of 1819. The imprint of Stuart's mind was felt still farther afield, for Miron Winslow, class of 1818, translated the Bible into the Tamil tongue of India and compiled a Tamil-English lexicon, and Samuel A. Worcester, class of 1823, translated parts of the Bible into the language of the Cherokees in America, set- ting an example to other missionaries.
Dr. Stuart had the diligence and patience to become a master of Hebrew, and a commentator who was regarded by a large circle of ministers as an authoritative interpreter. He was exact and thorough as a scholar, patient and enthusiastic as a teacher, believing uncompromisingly in the Scripture as the divine Word. He was eager to meet the controver- sialist, vigorously defending his own positions, but he was open-minded. He improved every opportunity to gain famil- iarity with German thought and language, even on his jour- neys, and he became acquainted with German scholarship as few men of his time could boast. He introduced his students to modern critical literature in German, to the alarm of cer- tain conservative brethren, but he was admired and trusted by his pupils, and he was popular because of his earnestness and his pleasantries in the classroom. He was a doughty op- ponent in debate with the Unitarians. He wrote letters to William Ellery Channing, which, when published, made plain his orthodox position, and relieved the concern of those who feared his liking for German literature. He issued an exhaus- tive statement on the Trinity which seemed to his friends to answer satisfactorily the criticisms of Channing.
Allen W. Dodge, a pupil of Stuart, testified to his teaching power. Stuart would say to his students: "Don't be dis- couraged, young men, don't get mired in the Slough of De- spond." He made interesting the monotonous task of teaching the Hebrew grammar, and "the Bible, under his keen and in- spiring investigations, seemed to glow with new light and beauty."
Stuart's diligence and intrepidity were the more remarkable
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because he suffered much from ill health. Indigestion and sleeplessness bothered him, but he studied his own deficiencies, and he did not hesitate to pass on his conclusions to the stu- dents. He lectured to them at the beginning of the school year, telling them to go to bed at ten o'clock and rise at five, and prescribing their diet, exercise, and study, advising them to make notes of their food and its effects, and so by experiment to learn what to eat. When he was ill with typhoid fever and a student was watching with him at night, the professor had him read aloud a monograph on the disease, and he was espe- cially interested in the novel idea that the patient might have all the cold drinks he desired. He had his own notions of hygiene. He would come into a stuffy classroom warmed by a stove, and throw cold water on the stove until the room was filled with steam, on the theory that the moisture would carry off the superfluous heat through the walls.
Andover was a rural town, and in those days it was not above a professor's dignity to hoe his garden, milk his cow, - and cut his own hay. More than one of the professors was glad to use student assistance at haying time. Francis Way- land, later the well-known president of Brown University, related how one day Stuart closed his class early with an in- vitation to the students to join him in the hayfield. They turned out generously to his aid. The crop was poor, and as Wayland was raking beside the professor, Stuart berated the soil, which in spite of his best efforts yielded only mediocre crops. "Bah!" said he, "was there ever climate and soil like this? ... If you plant early, everything is liable to be cut off by the late frosts of spring. If you plant late, your crop is destroyed by the early frosts of autumn. If you escape these, the burning sun of summer scorches your crop, and it perishes by heat and drought. If none of these evils overtake you, clouds of insects eat up your crop, and what the caterpillar leaves the canker-worm destroys." Said Wayland : "Spoken in his deliberate and solemn utterance, I could compare it to nothing but the maledictions of one of the old prophets."
Moses Stuart never relaxed in his earnest search for truth. He was honored for his scholarship abroad as well as at home,
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yet he took time for the students. For years he divided the responsibilities of the Wednesday evening conference with Dr. Woods. He was the inspiration of nearly forty classes of students. Year after year he walked back and forth between his home on Main Street and the buildings of the Seminary, alone with his thoughts, yet, so writes his daughter in "Old Andover Days," "in the silence and solitude through which he walked hearing and recognizing the song of every bird that carolled on the trees, noting the changes in the elms which he had loved ever since he had seen the tiny twig planted in the rough, new ground ; watching through the brief summer days for the flowers that sometimes dotted his path; overlooking no slightest thing in earth or sky that God has given." He lived until 1852.
One other name belongs in the roster of the early professors. This was Ebenezer Porter. A graduate of Dartmouth in 1792, he studied divinity with Dr. John Smalley of Berlin, Connecti- cut. He had been minister of the Congregational church in Washington, Connecticut, for five years, when he was selected by the Board of Trustees to succeed Dr. Griffin as professor of sacred rhetoric. He was inaugurated in 1812. He had a charming personality attractive to students. He was kindly, even in his class criticisms, of their crude homiletical achieve- ments. Slight in frame, he lacked the physique and vigor of Griffin, and his health was never robust. For that reason the students cheerfully shoveled snow paths for him in winter, and mowed his hay in summer. In his study he was method- ical, and so diligent as to injure his health. He wrote with careful choice of language, and in his lectures he guarded against emphasizing doctrine or even biblical lore above the value of a living faith. He was punctilious in his observance of the rules of gentlemanly conduct, and he insisted on such observance from his students when they met in official rela- tions. He even gave instructions to the members of each junior class how they should enter his study. Dr. Porter declined an invitation to the presidency of the University of Vermont three years after he had come to Andover, and the next year he refused a similar offer from the University of Georgia. The
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