USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume II > Part 10
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It would be difficult to overestimate the contributions that the Andover Theological Seminary has made to the religious and intel- lectual history of this country and of the world. Essex County may well feel proud of this great institution. It is with temerity that I attempt to write of this seminary, whose accomplishments have been so extensive.
The Great Awakening in the middle of the eighteenth century was followed by a period of indifference that affected all branches of the Christian Church. Men's energies were being directed into dif- ferent channels such as industry and commerce and the development of new lands. Men's minds were absorbed by the Revolutionary War
I. "Time," March II, 1935, states: In 1780 a pious Gloucester man named Rob- ert Raikes formed the first Sunday School. His purpose was to keep children off the streets while teaching them their letters, "the truths of the gospel" and "moral restraint." As time passed a further objective appeared-to lead children into church membership.
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and the subsequent tasks of establishing a new government, of repair- ing the damages of the war, and of the economic readjustment that was necessary. Many people were frankly skeptical. Religion still had its place in the minds and hearts of the people, but it was too formal. If religion were to retain or perhaps attain its proper place, it must be made more vital. Something must be done to make reli- gion seem more necessary.
An attempt to do just this was made by what was termed the Evangelical Reawakening at the end of the eighteenth century. Revi- vals spread throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut as well as in other parts of the United States, and local ministers rekindled the spark of religious enthusiasm. The effects of these revivals were shown in a new interest in missionary work at home and abroad, in evangelism, and in an increased interest in Christian education. Col- leges and academies were established, and soon dotted the landscape of New England.
As early as 1778 the Reverend Jonathan French, the instructor of certain students in divinity at Phillips Academy and the minister of the South Parish in Andover, made a suggestion for a seminary. In a let- ter to Nathaniel Niles, of Vermont, he wrote :
"The students should be such only as have been graduated at some college or are otherwise qualified to enter upon the study of divinity; should tarry three years at the Academy and be boarded in common. None should be allowed to enter but persons of sobriety and good morals. The president should be the first in the land for good principles, learning, and piety, if to be had; the best of libraries for the purpose be procured, and a whole course of divinity be studied, and everything practicable that may assist to qualify young gen- tlemen for the work of the ministry be taught."
By a clause in the will of Dr. John Phillips a sum of money was left to establish instruction in the two academies at Andover and Exeter in the study of divinity under "some eminent Calvinistic min- ister of the Gospel" until a regular professor of theology could be employed. Mr. French was the provisional incumbent of the posi- tion in Andover from 1796 to 1807. During that time some twenty young men studied for the ministry.
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Mr. Samuel Abbot, of Andover, had made money in the mercan- tile business in Boston. He was deeply interested in religion and shared his wealth with Harvard students and with the ministry. In 1803, upon consultation with Dr. Eliphalet Pearson and Dr. Tap- pan, who were also trustees of Phillips Academy, he decided to leave his money to Harvard, stipulating that it should be used for the aid of theological students. In 1805, when he had become convinced that the trend in Harvard was toward Unitarianism, he made a codicil to his will directing that his entire estate should be left to the trustees of Phillips Academy: "to be appropriated to the support of a Theo- logical Professor in said Academy, of sound, orthodox, Calvinistic principles of divinity, and for the maintenance of students in divinity."
Now the time was ripe for some leader to give a definite form to these plans. Such a leader was found in Dr. Pearson. He had been the first principal of Phillips Academy and had been called to Cambridge to accept a professorship in 1786. There he made a name for himself. Leonard Woods, one of his pupils at Harvard, said of him: "I have ever considered his instructions as constituting half of my collegiate education. No other officer in the college had equal influence in promoting improvement in literature, and the higher interest of morality and piety." When President Willard, of Harvard, died in 1804, Dr. Pearson became acting president for over a year. He may have wished to succeed Willard, and when Professor Webber was chosen president, Dr. Pearson resigned and returned to Andover. He had become convinced, along with Samuel Abbot, that Harvard ยท was becoming too liberal, and was determined upon his return to Andover to do all within his power to defend orthodoxy. He began to plan for the establishment of a theological institution "which should maintain the doctrines of the fathers of New England against the threatened apostasies of the times."
Due to the persuasive power of Dr. Pearson, Samuel Abbot saw that it would be advantageous to found such a school at once instead of waiting until after his death. While Dr. Pearson was busy with his project, a movement was on foot to found an independent divinity school in Newburyport. This movement was headed by Dr. Samuel Spring, the minister at Newburyport, who represented a distinct branch of Calvinism known as the Hopkinsian branch, because it held the tenets that had been advocated by Dr. Samuel Hopkins. It is not necessary here to go into the dogma involved.
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Associated with Dr. Spring were Leonard Woods, a young minis- ter of West Newbury, and three wealthy laymen, William Bartlet, a successful merchant of Newburyport; Moses Brown, an importer of sugar and molasses in the same city; and John Norris, of Salem.
Soon Woods of one camp, and Morse of the other discovered each other's enterprise. I am quoting from Rowe in his "History of the Andover Theological Seminary":
"Immediately it was apparent to both that the two groups ought to combine forces. Both were Calvinists and equally hostile to the Liberal movement in Massachusetts, and they were agreed in their purpose to provide orthodox training for the Congregational ministry. It was to require patience, long discussion, sweet reasonableness, and perseverance, before the two parties could be brought to arrange a merger."
On December 1, 1807, Spring, Pearson, and Morse met at Charles- town and agreed on an "Associate Creed," forming what was known . as the "Visitatorial System."
The two factions were finally reconciled by the terms of the agree- ment, which are quoted from Rowe:
"The compromise which was reached provided that the Seminary should be located at Andover, and the Trustees of the Academy should hold and administer the endowments under their charter. The original Constitution of the Found- ers was to stand, and the Associate Statutes of the Hopkin- sians to be of equal authority. Every occupant of a chair endowed by the Associate Founders was to be a Hopkinsian. Madame Phillips and her son were to erect the building for the Seminary. Phillips Hall and the donations offered were accepted, twenty thousand each from Abbot and Bartlet and ten thousand each from Brown and Norris, the last three gifts constituting the Associate Foundation and the donors consti- tuting the Associate Founders. A self-perpetuating Board of Visitors was given the power to revise the acts of the Trus- tees, to interpret the Creed and the Associate Statutes, as occa- sion might arise, and to preserve the orthodoxy of the Semi- nary. Appeal might be made from the Visitors to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, if they 'should exceed the
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limits of their jurisdiction and constitutional power,' or 'act contrary to' the statutes of the Seminary. The visitors were intended, as it was phrased, to be the censors of the school as long as the sun and moon endure, visiting it at least once a year, and to see that the true intentions of the Founders of the Seminary were carried out."
It was provided by the Associate Statutes that upon the day of his inauguration each professor appointed on the Associate Founda- tion should make publicly a statement of his faith "in divine revela- tion and in the fundamental and distinguishing doctrines of the Gos- pel" as stated in the creed and that once every five years he should repeat his statement and should include the following :
"I do solemnly promise that I will open and explain the Scriptures to my pupils with integrity and faithfulness; that I will maintain and inculcate the Christian faith as expressed in the Creed by me now repeated, together with all other doc- trines and duties of our holy religion, so far as may pertain to my office, according to the best light that God shall give me, and in opposition not only to atheists and infidels, but to Jews, Papists, Mohammedans, Arians, Pelagians, Antinomians, Arminians, Socinians, Sabellians, Unitarians, and Universal- ists, and to all other heresies and errors, ancient and modern, which may be opposed to the gospel of Christ or hazardous to the souls of men; that by my instruction, counsel, and example I will endeavor to promote true piety and godliness; that I will consult the good of this institution and the peace of the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ on all occasions, and that I will regularly conform to the constitution and laws of this Seminary, and to the statutes of this foundation."
On October 1, 1807, Mr. Woods, of Newbury, had been nomi- nated by Samuel Abbot, of Andover, as his first Professor of Christian Theology. This endowment of a chair in theology was the first in America outside a university. When this courtesy was reciprocated on March 2, 1808, by the appointment of Dr. Pearson as the first Professor of Natural Theology on the Associate Endowment, it was acknowledged that each side had accepted the tenets of the other and that thus the affiliation was accomplished.
Courtesy of The Essex Institute
29 Chestnut Street, built 1825 SALEM-PICKERING DODGE HOUSE
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On September 22, 1808, the Seminary was formally opened with appropriate exercises at the South Parish Church. Dr. Pearson showed that the seminary was a logical outgrowth of the academy, and that the two institutions should work in cooperation. It has been noted that the trustees of the academy were also the trustees of the seminary.
At the afternoon session of the opening exercises Dr. Pearson, who was a layman, was ordained, and he and Mr. Woods were installed in office. The professorship did not agree with Dr. Pear- son's liking, so he resigned at the end of a year.
Through the generosity of the Phillips family, and of William Bartlet, Samuel Abbot, John Norris and his wife, and Moses Brown, the seminary was established on very firm financial foundations. Dur- ing the first half century of its existence some $450,000 were available for buildings and endowment. The wealth of the institution made some feel that the seminary would overshadow the academy, and others felt that this wealth was not compatible with a theological school.
The establishment of the seminary was a very important event in American church history. Two theological groups had been united, and this augured well for the future. But all were not pleased, espe -. cially the Liberals. There was very little-if any-leeway on mat- ters of doctrine as stated in the creed. Events were to prove that this characteristic would be a handicap when professorships became vacant. But the Founders and Associate Founders, interested, as they were, in establishing permanent foundations, cannot be blamed for not being able to see what the future had in store. There had been enough changes. They had agreed on one definite set of opinions, and they were determined that that set should endure.
The Congregational churches and most of the ministers were in favor of the establishment of such a theological school, as they believed in the principle of theological education. Classes at the seminary averaged approximately fifty men during the first ten years. Continuing from Mr. Rowe's account :
"The Seminary marked a distinct stage of advance in theo- logical training, and spurred the Congregationalists to estab- lish other institutions for theological education. Bangor Theological Seminary was opened at Hampden, Maine, in
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1816, for students without college training and was removed to Bangor three years later. Yale Divinity School was founded as a distinct department of the university in 1822, as Harvard Divinity School had been at Cambridge in 1815. Other denominations were soon establishing their own schools on the Andover model.
"The foundations at Andover were laid firmly. The super-structure was to be built into the lives and character of generations of theological students, and the influence of the Seminary on the Hill was to be felt around the world. For the first half century it was to train most of the pastors of the Congregational churches of Massachusetts and nearly all the foreign missionaries of the American Board, and many Pres- byterians who found their field of labor in the Middle and Western States. Because of its high standards, competent instruction, and thorough discipline, Andover became a recog- nized leader in theology, in Biblical research, and in general contribution to the study of religion."
This is indeed a noble tribute to the seminary.
The first building in what came to be called "Brick Row" was Phillips Hall, the gift of the Phillips family. The second was Bart- let Chapel, the gift of William Bartlet, of Newburyport. The third was Bartlet Hall, also erected by Mr. Bartlet. The first and third were used as dormitories, while the second contained the chapel, the library, and three classrooms.
The rude simplicity of the living conditions at the seminary was a fitting preparation for the hardships of a small country parish as for the far off mission fields. Expenses were small. There was no tuition, rent ran from two to four dollars a year, and board in Com- mons was cheap. The students had to heat their own rooms, and once a year a committee was appointed to provide for the wood. There was no running water, but there was plenty of water in the wells, which the students could carry up to their rooms in pitchers. There was no heat in the dining room at all, and complaints were frequently made about this state of affairs, but I cannot find that the situation was remedied. Students had more reason to grumble about the food than they have now. Economies often seemed necessary, and food often seemed to suffer in consequence. At one time molasses
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was substituted for meat. The story is told that one student became ill, and when a doctor was called and performed the customary opera- tion of letting the blood, the poor sufferer oozed not blood at all -- only syrup. At one time warm bread was permitted for breakfast in an attempt to compensate for the frigidity of the room, but that practice was finally ruled out because the professors thought that warm bread was not good for the students. Soon after the Com- mons was established, the students voted the following bill of fare : "Resolved, that for breakfast we have milk, prepared in any method most agreeable to each brother, bread and baked apples, or a sub- stitute. For dinner one kind of meat, bread, and a sufficient quantity and variety of vegetables. For supper milk, bread, and butter." After six weeks of this it was resolved: "That those brethren who cannot eat milk in the morning be furnished with water and butter instead of it." Tea and coffee were soon added to the morning repast, after a vote had been taken, and a member of the faculty had acted as mediator. Commons ceased to exist after 1845.
Realizing that exercise was essential to health, as well as to a muscular Christianity, the trustees demanded that the faculty should require the students to work for one or two hours a day on the land of the seminary. After twelve years a workshop was built, a stone structure in which the students fashioned, as Mr. Rowe says, "coffins, wheelbarrows and other useful articles." Of this building Sarah Stuart Robbins, in her "Old Andover Days," says further :
"Thither were led-for I am sure very few went there of their own accord-the Juniors, Middlers, and Seniors, to grow into the full stature to a glorious, rounded manhood. And what do you suppose the authorities chose as among the chief objects, in the construction of which the theological students, weary, perhaps, from a lecture on the future of the wicked after death, should relax their minds and invigorate their bodies? You will hardly believe me when I assure you that they were set to making-coffins! There you have a theological consistency worthy of John Calvin himself !
"Very ludicrous pictures come up before me, of scenes which we children used to see there, when we stole in during work hours, to adorn our straight hair with the beautiful shin-
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ing curls of shavings. There were pale, puzzled, weary faces, bending over corners that wouldn't fit, and over boards that were too long or too short, too narrow or too wide. There were failures to hit nails on the head; there was dulling of saws, breaking of hatchets, and rasping of files; oh, the ignor- ance and incompatibility are as funny to remember as they must have been hard to bear! To the participants there was nothing amusing about the scene. Each man was as solemn as if the coffin he was making were his own. We hear of theo- logical workshops! Here was one, the like of which had never existed before, and probably can never exist again. Hammered in were the Greek and the Hebrew, homiletics and ecclesiastical history, election, free grace, natural depravity, and justification by faith-hammered down tight, and the nail clinched on the other side."
This building was later remodeled for the home of Professor Calvin E. Stowe. It was in this house that Harriet Beecher Stowe, his wife, wrote "Dred" and "The Minister's Wooing."
A typical day in the life of a student in 1819 is described in the letter of one of them to a girl of his acquaintance.
"We are at present in a very small business, that is, reviewing the Greek grammar. Besides this we have the Hebrew alphabet to learn. But I have quartos around me enough to frighten a very timid man out of his senses. Our living is quite as good as I expected. . . . . That you may know how much a slave a man may be at Andover, if he will follow the rules adopted by the majority, I will give the order of the day. By rising at the six o'clock bell he will hardly find time to set his room in order, and attend to his private devo- tions, before the bell at seven calls him to prayer in the chapel. From the chapel he must go immediately to the hall and by the time breakfast is ended, it is eight o'clock, when study hours commence and continue till twelve. Study hours again from half past one to three. Then recitation, prayer, and supper makes it six in the afternoon. Study hours again from seven to nine leave just time enough for evening devotion before sleep."
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One wonders when the students found time to work on the semi- nary grounds or in the carpentry shop, unless it were before six o'clock in the morning.
Several of the early professors at the seminary deserve a much fuller treatment than I can give them in this brief account. In attempting to deal with them fairly I shall quote frequently from Rowe. Eliphalet Pearson was the man largely responsible for the range of studies at the seminary, and "he established the high intel- lectual standards for which Andover became noted." "But the quali- ties that had made him a successful principal of the Academy and and an acceptable professor at Harvard did not fit so well the temper of a theological school, and he resigned the year after the Seminary opened, though he lived fifteen years longer."
Leonard Woods, the man who with Dr. Pearson had labored incessantly to bring about the affiliation of the Andover and New- buryport schools, "as a member of the Faculty reconciled the two schools of thought represented in the Seminary as far as possible. He charged his pupils to keep close to the Bible as the test of doc- trine, for he believed that it was the immediate gift of the Holy Spirit, and so infallible and of divine authority. He was equally sure that Calvinism was essential to the prosperity of the church and nation, and that a theological school with any other system of doctrine 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, appeared when on the occasion of the birth of his fifth child he was in doubt whether he should ask God to save all his children."
The field that he was asked to cover in his teaching was vast and perhaps somewhat hard to comprehend by the average layman today.
"He was enjoined by the Andover Constitution to lecture on divine revelation, on Biblical inspiration as proved by the miracle and prophecy and by internal evidence and historical facts; on the great doctrines and duties of religion, and the refutation of objections, 'more particularly on the revered character of God'; on the fall of man and human depravity, the nature of grace and the atonement of Christ; the Holy
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Spirit; the Scriptural doctrines of regeneration, justification, sanctification, repentance, faith, and obedience; on the future state; on the positive institutions of Christianity; and on the nature and interpretation of prophecy."
Professor Woods believed that the students should be guided in their personal religious life, and so he originated a Wednesday eve- ning meeting which all the students were expected to attend and at which all questions pertaining to Christian doctrine were discussed.
Professor Woods died in 1854, and was buried in the plot of ground east of the campus, which had been set aside by the trustees in 1810 as a burying ground for those who were connected with either the seminary or the academy. "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."
When a successor to Dr. Pearson was needed, the seminary was fortunate in obtaining the services of Dr. Moses Stuart, who had been since 1806 the pastor of the First Church in New Haven.
"Stuart came to Andover to lecture on the form, the preservation and the transmission of the Bible; on the original languages, 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."
Dr. Stuart was appointed to the chair of sacred literature, but he knew neither Hebrew nor German. He set himself to the task of learning these languages and became so proficient at Hebrew especially that he has been called "the father of Hebrew literature in America." When he could find no one who knew how to set the Hebrew type which he had imported, he set it up himself on his little printing press, which was installed in Shipman's store. He soon taught others how to set the type and was responsible for the first Hebrew grammar printed in this country.
Dr. Stuart mastered German literature and became thoroughly acquainted with German scholarship. "He introduced his students to modern critical literature in German, to the alarm of certain con- servative brethren, but he was admired and trusted by his pupils,
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and he was popular because of his earnestness and his pleasantries in the classroom." It must have been a keen pleasure to sit at the feet of a man who could make interesting the task of learning Hebrew grammar. "The Bible under his keen and inspiring investigations seemed to glow with new light and beauty."
At the beginning of each year Dr. Stuart would lecture his stu- dents about regulating their lives so as to get up at five and to go to bed at ten, and would tell them to make notes about what they ate so that they would learn just what agreed with them. He even pre- scribed their exercise and study. Even though he was honored abroad as well as at home for his scholarship, he always had time for his students, except at his morning study hours. He divided the Wednesday night sessions with Dr. Woods.
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