USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > History of Andover theological seminary, 1933 > Part 6
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following year he was elected professor of divinity at Yale, and later Hamilton, Middlebury, and Dartmouth all sought him for the presidency. Perhaps these successive calls decided the Trustees to create the office of president of the Seminary, and to elect Dr. Porter to fill the position in 1827. Four years later he resigned his professorship, but retained the presi- dency until his death in 1834. The inscription on his monu- ment in Chapel Cemetery concludes a description of his vir- tues with the words: "Living he was peculiarly loved and revered ; Dying, he was universally lamented."
The duties of the professors started early in the day. Morn- ing chapel service was fixed by the Trustees at seven o'clock for the beginning of the winter term, with a change of fifteen min- utes every two weeks as the sun rose earlier, until by the first of March the hour was to be at six o'clock. The members of the Faculty found compulsory attendance as early in the day as that to be irksome, especially those who did not enjoy good health. Dr. Spring must have known the failings of the original professors, because when he tried to raise five hun- dred dollars for a chapel bell, and negotiated with Paul Revere for it, he remarked humorously that the bell would wake up "sleepy, lazy professors, who love a morning bed." As early as 1811 they claimed the right of infrequent attendance upon morning prayers, saying: "We have habitually attended the evening devotions of our Seminary in the chapel, but have not found it practicable, connected as we are with families, to attend in the morning without neglecting our own households."
One lecture was delivered daily to each class. The morning lectures came at ten o'clock, the afternoon lectures at half- past three. There were no lectures Monday forenoon or Sat- urday afternoon. By 1825 the Faculty asked the Trustees to be relieved from the responsibility of constant attendance, and a special committee of the Trustees was appointed on the matter. The committee presently reported that the statutes and laws of the school required the professors to attend both morning and evening chapel, and in their opinion no other duty in the Seminary ought to have precedence over the chapel serv- ices. If a professor on account of bodily indisposition should
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find it ordinarily impossible to attend, he should ask the Trus- tees to be excused by special vote during the indisposition. An- other committee's report on the same subject was accepted, to the effect that it was not the imperative duty of all the pro- fessors to attend morning and evening prayers simultaneously, but "to increase the reverence due to religious institutions as well as to give weight to public instruction it is expected that all the professors frequent the chapel at morning and evening prayers." Professors Woods, Stuart, and Porter filed requests to be excused in spite of these injunctions, but while the Trustees did not refuse they emphasized again the impor- tance of attending morning as well as evening prayers, and "expected that the professors will attend morning and evening prayers whenever the providence of God shall permit," as if this did not put a good deal of responsibility on divine provi- dence.
The professors were scrupulous in meeting their class obligations, which were not heavy. The methods of class in- struction were conservative. The professor depended on his lecture to inform the student and to stimulate his thought. There was freedom of discussion and opportunity for the student to read various opinions in the library, but the pro- fessor's own system of thought or teaching was supposed to be superior to others. It remained an accepted principle of the Seminary instruction that the main consideration of the first year should be the study of biblical languages and literature, that the second year should be devoted almost entirely to theology, and that the third year should provide training in homiletics. This arrangement gave to each professor an op- portunity to monopolize the attention of the student during his allotted time. During the reign of the triumvirate, Woods, Stuart, and Porter, this general scheme was modified slightly, but as late as 1839 the curriculum of the Junior class was : Stuart's Hebrew Grammar ; Chrestomathy ; written exercises, including translations from English into Hebrew; study of the Hebrew Bible; the principles of Hermeneutics; New Testament Greek and exegesis of the Four Gospels ; lectures preparatory to the study of theology ; natural theology ; evi-
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dences of Revelation ; inspiration of the Scriptures ; Hebrew exegesis ; Greek ; Pauline epistles twice a week; criticism and exegetical compositions.
The Middle class met five days a week for instruction in Christian theology. Compositions on the principal topics of theology were examined in private. Exegesis of the New Testament was continued once a week, to keep the student in training, and there was instruction on special topics in sacred literature. It was natural enough that so much attention should be given to theology. The Congregational and Presbyterian churches were indoctrinated in Calvinism to such a degree that a minister needed to be a master. He was expected to preach doctrinal sermons, and he must be ready to defend the faith against all comers. Always there was danger that the emphasis upon sound doctrine in the Seminary should divert chief attention from religion itself to the science of religion. This was counteracted by the religious influence of the professors and particularly by the Wednesday evening conferences, by Sunday worship, and by the mutual fellow- ship of the students.
The Senior class had as the major part of the curriculum lectures on the philosophy of rhetoric, sermons, and the prepa- ration of their own, with criticism from the professor of sacred rhetoric both in public and in private. But lectures on the history of Christian doctrine kept up the study of theology, and critical and exegetical lectures on the Hebrew and Greek Testaments still had a place. For all classes there was public declamation once a week, and private lessons in elocution. Lectures on the Apocalypse were given every three years, that each generation of Seminary students might know how to interpret that puzzling Scripture.
The climax of the scholastic year came at the Anniversaries, when every class was examined publicly before the assembled Trustees, Visitors, and the public, both lay and clerical, who packed the available space in Bartlet Chapel. Many persons stood throughout the exercises ; some could not get into the chapel at all. The crowds were so large that the sheriff and the constable were requested to aid in preserving order. The
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Junior class was examined in Hebrew and Old Testament and New Testament Criticism, the Middle class exhibited essays on theological subjects, the Seniors exhibited similar essays and were examined in sacred rhetoric. The examina- tions were thorough. Professor Park's examination in the- ology is known to have lasted all day. But they did not include all the subjects that had been discussed during the year. A student had a chance to distinguish himself before an appre- ciative audience, or he might get a reputation that injured him for years to come. The exercises closed with an address from a member of the Senior class. The written papers that were submitted were considered worth preserving in the Library.
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CHAPTER IV THE MIDDLE DECADES
FTER 1830 New England was feeling the ground- swell of a movement that was making inroads into the conservative traditions of Puritan days. Changes were coming politically, socially, economically, and religiously.
With the election of Andrew Jackson as President the com- mon folk came to a realization of their power. Theoretical democracy became actual democracy. Federalist traditions had lingered longest in New England. Until 1833 Congre- gationalism maintained a place of privilege, but though social prestige remained, equality of all denominations before the law was realized in that year. The industrial revolution had gripped the rising cities of the lower Merrimac valley. Though the south village of Andover remained unchanged, the industries of North Andover and the mills of Lawrence were so near that her citizens could not remain oblivious to the changes that were taking place. With a rapidly increasing population, New England was sending her sons to the West to be pioneers like their colonial ancestors, and home mission societies were organizing to take care of their religious needs. The application of steam to railway and river travel facili- tated the movement of the population, and people became less provincial as their contacts widened.
New England retained the intellectual leadership of the country, and deemed it a privilege to teach manners and morals, politics and religion, to the less favored. This attitude of superiority was resented at times, but the general accep- tance of New England's intellectual precedence gave her schools a prestige that was greatly to their advantage. Har- vard attracted students from everywhere; Phillips Academy had achieved a reputation as a preparatory school; Andover
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Seminary enjoyed a growing popularity and received an in- creasing number of students from the South and the Middle West. Before 1840 the school reached its maximum of at- tendance, one hundred and sixty-four.
Imagine Bartlet Chapel in Andover on a Sunday morning about 1830. Over the community brooded the quiet that was characteristic of the Puritan Sabbath, but a specially solemn hush rested upon the Hill. In the homes of the faithful the preparation began the evening before, even the morning be- fore, when the school lessons of the professors' children were taken from the Bible and the Westminster Catechism, and hymns were taught and sung. The teacher then prayed until the stroke of twelve. Respite until sunset and to bed by nine o'clock. Nine o'clock on Sunday morning saw the children on their way across the Common to Sunday School in the schoolhouse, where students served an apprenticeship as teachers. At the tolling of the bell for morning worship the children were marched back of the Seminary to the chapel; following the superintendent and accompanied by the teachers, while their elders were making their way to the same goal.
All moved reverently as they entered the building and took their places. In the summer soft breezes were wafted through the open windows, but in the winter the room was chilly. It was heated by a single wood stove, which the sexton stoked frequently from the woodbox which was on the other side of the pulpit. The heat radiated from the long pipes which ran around the chapel. The bare blue walls and yellowish gal- leries did not give one the impression of the beauty of holiness. The stovepipes and the wood crackling in the stove were sug- gestive of unpleasant thoughts to sensitive souls which were conscious of faults that deserved eternal punishment, unless the divine mercy assured one a place among the elect. Bare floors matched the bare walls. Yellow pews added nothing attractive to the ensemble.
One can picture to himself the appearance of some of the professors' pews. The front pew in Professors' Row was occu- pied by Dr. Porter. He is described as a tall, slight man-it used to be said that no man less than six feet tall could expect
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appointment to the Andover Faculty-dignified, yet kindly, with a large head covered with stiff gray hair, and with a pale face. He was distinguished by a yellow bandana handkerchief which he wore around his neck. He was not physically strong and had to husband his strength, but when possible he and his fragile wife were in their places on Sunday. Next was the pew of Professor Woods. He had the reputation of being the best-looking man on the Faculty. Tall and inclining to stout- ness, with high forehead and rather delicate features and blue eyes, his whole presence breathed distinction whether he stood or sat. The children rather feared him because he was called "Old School," though they did not understand what it meant. In his relations to the students he was kind and gen- erous, in his family a model husband to an invalid wife; he was considerate even towards the Unitarians, with whom he was brought into controversy. Because of these qualities he was respected and admired through the long years of his active service in the Seminary.
Professor Stuart occupied the third pew. His daughter, writing of him as he appeared in the chapel, says : "Four-fifths of the year he carried his long blue cloak on his arm to church. Spreading it carefully over the back of the pew, and sitting on it, he was a most attentive but at the same time a most restless listener. To keep still seemed to be a physical impos- sibility for him. If the sermon was poor his impatience showed itself in shrugs, in opening and shutting his large white hands, in moving in his seat, and in a lengthened face pitiable to see. If it was good, no one doubted his appreciation, or the social feeling which made him wish to share his enjoyment. At the utterance of any especially pertinent remark, he would often rise in his seat, and turning round upon the young men, his students, draw his red silk handkerchief across his mouth several times, expressing in every feature the keenness of his pleasure. If he differed theologically from the sentiments uttered, no words could have expressed his dissent more strongly than did his looks and gestures."
One can imagine the preacher flanked by such appreciative or critical hearers on one side, and on the other by John Adams,
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principal of the Academy, and such substantial citizens as Samuel Farrar, and wonder if he did not feel trepidation as he faced his audience, even though his discourse had been carefully prepared and written. It is unnecessary to remark that students and Faculty children were respectful in their attitude, and dutifully and silently wended their way out of the sacred precincts at the close of worship. It was the custom for the occupants of each pew to wait their turn, as the con- gregation retired, beginning with the students nearest the door.
During vacation at the Seminary the families of the Faculty attended the village church. The children found the change a welcome novelty. Sitting in the gallery, they could nod recognition or send a voiceless message to a friend across the meetinghouse. One service was not deemed respectful enough to the Almighty or sufficient for the needs of the soul. After a two-hour intermission, "with a cold dinner and a pious book" at the noon-house, they gathered again for afternoon worship.
Although the Seminary and Academy were a part of the South Parish, and the meetinghouse was used by them on special occasions, the educational institutions were a unit in themselves, and it seemed wise to the Trustees as early as 1815 to form a separate church organization with Sunday worship in Bartlet Chapel on the Hill. The church was to be under the direction of the Trustees, and the professors of the Seminary were "colleague pastors" of the church without salary. The faculties of both schools and their families, together with the student bodies, made up the regular constituency of the church. Students might transfer membership to the Seminary church from their home churches. A number of the residents in the vicinity liked to attend the services of worship and were ad- mitted to "occasional communion," as "under the watch of the church." All persons who became members of the church subscribed to the confession of faith and covenant which had been adopted. The confession was not so rigid a document as the Creed of the Seminary. The first to sign the confession and the covenant were the three members of the Faculty, Professors Porter, Woods, and Stuart. Samuel Farrar was one of the first deacons.
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At the outset the church was grounded on the Cambridge Platform, "in matter, form and discipline," and elders as well as deacons were chosen to perform the duties as described in that Platform. The Congregational churches of Massa- chusetts, however, had moved away from that semi-presby- terian arrangement, and it was not likely to survive at An- dover. A disturbance arose in 1832 when a student with a sensitive conscience expressed dissatisfaction with the exist- ing order. He affirmed that the polity of the church was not strictly congregational, and insisted on withdrawing from membership. The church resented his attitude, but as he severed his connection there was nothing to do. Twenty-seven years later the church was reorganized on a more congrega- tional basis. Since the original church never had been consti- tuted by act of a council of neighboring Congregational churches, it was free to dissolve and reconstitute itself by transferring its members to the new organization. The Faculty of the Seminary was authorized to give letters of dismissal. It is rather surprising that a training school for the Congregational ministry should have been so irregular in its organization, but it is to be remembered that Presbyterian students as well as Congregational were in attendance, and that when Congregationalists went outside New England they usually joined Presbyterian churches.
When the Seminary church was organized it found accom- modations for worship in the original chapel in Phillips Hall. After the erection of Bartlet Chapel the Sunday exercises naturally were transferred to the new quarters. There they remained until the new chapel was built in 1875. That build- ing, erected by general subscription, and costing fifty thou- sand dollars, was dedicated "for the Sunday worship of the chapel, church, and congregation."
The great occasion of the Seminary year was Commence- ment. Coming later in the summer than now, it was no less the culmination of the school year. With fewer occasions to command popular interest than at the present time, and with full appreciation of the splendor and dignity of Commence- ment Week at Harvard, the people of Andover and the con-
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stituency of the school made elaborate plans and looked forward with eager anticipation to the Day of days. As if Thanksgiving were approaching for the farmer's wife, a bustle of preparation permeated the homes of those who expected to keep open house. The country was scoured for provisions, and additional help was arranged for with those convenient persons who were willing to accommodate. Gardens were groomed and lawns were trimmed. Pantries groaned with good things. All available space was set aside for visitors, and the boys of the family found a bed in a hay-loft of the barn. Meantime hopes that had been cherished for months in rural manses approached fruition. Ministers' families put by small sums, as one might save for a European voyage, that the alumnus might visit again his fostering mother, and catch inspiration enough to carry him through another year of a long pastorate. Then when the time arrived, watchers along the road saw the four-horse stagecoaches loaded with human freight, and looked with eager interest at the one-horse chaises and the dominie with his saddle-bags urging his horse towards the goal. Services a-plenty kept the visitors busy. On Monday evening came the public meeting of the Society of Inquiry. Tuesday brought the public examinations of the classes, which served the double purpose of testing the intelligence of the students and the skill and orthodoxy of the Faculty. On the evening of the same day occurred the public speaking of the members of the Porter Rhetorical Society. All the year they had given utterance to eloquent orations, engaged in de- bates, and occasionally invited the muse of poetry. This night brought the coveted opportunity to display talents which might command an invitation to an enviable position in a prominent pulpit. Wednesday the throng crowded into Bartlet Chapel, shared in the dignified program, and witnessed the conferring of final honors. A large tea party afterwards gave opportunity for goodbyes, and then the vehicles, public and private, car- ried the visitors away in a cloud of dust.
Punctuated by these exercises at seasonable intervals, Semi- nary life went on from year to year with little excitement. Carlyle's remark that records are not expansive in time of
peace seems to have been true at Andover. Classes came and went. Some of the professors outlasted many student gener- ations ; for others the terms of office were short.
The annual catalogues serve as an index to the official rela- tions of the school. The increase in the number of students was rapid until by 1822 there were one hundred and thirty-two in attendance, classified as thirty-one seniors, thirty-five mid- dlers, and sixty-one juniors. In that year the broadside lists that had served for catalogues were abandoned for an eight- page catalogue, in which dormitory rooms were listed for the first time. Slowly the number of pages in the catalogue in- creased as it became desirable to publish the expenses and terms of admission. It was announced that the Seminary was open to all Protestants who were qualified by character, col- lege education, church membership, and recommendations from two reliable persons. The catalogue in 1838 contained a reprint of the annual examinations in sacred literature, Christian theology, and sacred rhetoric as they had been given in each of the preceding ten years.
In the catalogue for 1823 appear the names of Professors Porter, Woods, Murdock, and Stuart, as the Faculty, and a group of five men as resident licentiates, including Edward Robinson, assistant instructor in the department of sacred literature, Leonard Bacon, the later historian, and George Dana Boardman, prominent as a missionary.
James Murdock was the first incumbent of the chair of ecclesiastical history, which had been established by Moses Brown of Newburyport in 1819. His duty, as imposed upon him by the Trustees, was to inform the students about Jewish antiquities, the origin and extension of the Church, the various sects and heresies in the early period, the character and writ- ings of the Fathers, the rise of popery and Mohammedanism, the corruptions of the Church of Rome, the Reformation, the various constitutions, disciplines, and rites of worship of the Protestant denominations, the state and prevalence of pagan- ism, and its influence on individual and national character as compared with that of Mohammedanism and Christianity. Lacking a regular professorship hitherto, the subject of his-
tory had been neglected, an omission which had been called to the attention of the Trustees more than once by the Faculty. They protested that a fourth professor was needed, because "God has set the mark of frailty on man," and they were sensible that they had "a very precarious hold on health and on life." Even after his appointment he taught sacred rhetoric for five years before he could give his full attention to church history.
Murdock was a graduate of Yale and received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard in the year of his An- dover appointment. He was characterized as "a little dry man with a large elastic brain and nerves like catgut." His fund of learning was prodigious, and he was an exact scholar. He commenced the study of Syriac at the age of seventy, and three years later completed a translation of the Syriac New Testament. Then he started Arabic. His appointment was not approved by certain of the watch-dogs of Zion, including Emmons and Spring, and before he had been at Andover ten years the machinery was put into operation to remove him, first the Trustees, then the Visitors, and finally the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. He had expressed sentiments not in accordance with the Creed as the Trustees understood it, and it did not seem to them that he should remain. It was Murdock's young son who cheered Oliver Wendell Holmes, when he was a homesick boy in the Academy, and whom he embalmed in the verses :
"Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how You learned it all-are you an angel now ?
In those old days the very, very good Took up more room, a little, than they should ;
The solemn elders saw life's mournful half, - Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to laugh."
It appears as if the Murdock family had an unconventional strain.
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Reverend Ralph Emerson succeeded Dr. Murdock. He had graduated from Yale and Andover, and had served a Congre- gational church in Connecticut for thirteen years. At Andover he remained for almost a quarter of a century, and for half that time was chairman of the Faculty. From year to year the Trustees followed the custom of appointing one of the professors to be president of the Faculty ; in only two cases, those of Porter and Edwards, was a man made official presi- dent of the Seminary during the first hundred years. Stu- dents are proverbially quick to catch at idioms or mannerisms of their teachers. Professor Emerson habitually used the word "touching" when making a special reference. With this in mind a wag in Commons arose one day from his place at table and gravely announced : "Touching Professor Emer- son's lecture today there will be none." The records of the Seminary do not reveal the punishment meted out for such lèse majesté.
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