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PUBLIC LIBRA
JUNCTA
JUVANT
1
CITYO
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01885 1029
GC 974.702 N422PRG
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https://archive.org/details/uniontheological00pren_0
C.t. Mesker
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. LENOX HILL, PARK AVENUE.
THE
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
IN THE
CITY OF NEW YORK :
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ITS FIRST FIFTY YEARS.
BY
GEORGE LEWIS PRENTISS.
Το επιεικές ύμων γνωσθήτω πάσιν άνθρωποις. Ο κύριος έγγύς.
PHIL. iv. 5.
NEW YORK : ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO. 1889.
2 4153,1
Copyright, 1889, BY ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO.
PUBLIC LIBRARY Acc. No. 112283 OF CINCINNATI,
University Press : JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
PREFACE.
-
T HIS volume, prepared by request of the Board of Directors and Faculty of the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, contains the ad- dress, a portion of which was delivered at the Semi- centenary of the Institution, on December 7, 1886, and also biographical sketches of the men whose names as Founders, Directors, Benefactors, and Professors are identified with its history. I regret that, owing to pro- tracted ill health, as well as to difficulty in obtaining the requisite material for many of these sketches, the publication of the work has been so long delayed, and that for the same reason it falls far short of what I desired to make it.
Not long after the celebration, President Hitchcock, who took a deeper interest in it than any one else, suddenly departed this life ; a loss soon followed by that of two of the oldest Directors. It seems fitting that some notice of them also should appear in this volume, although the record of their death belongs to the second, and not the first, half-century of the Seminary.
NEW YORK, September 24, 1889.
CONTENTS.
PART FIRST.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
PAGE
I. THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES IN THE UNITED STATES . 3
II. ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 5
III. THE FOUNDERS OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AS PLANNED AND ORGANIZED
8
IV. THE SEMINARY EQUIPPED AND OPENED FOR INSTRUCTION. - ITS EARLY TRIALS AND STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE . 20
V. EARLY ECCLESIASTICAL AND THEOLOGICAL POSITION OF THE SEMINARY 34
VI. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEMINARY IN ITS SCOPE AND TEACHING FORCE
44
VII. SUCCESSIVE ENDOWMENT EFFORTS. - LATER FINANCIAL HIS- TORY. - DEPARTED FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS. - REMOVAL OF THE SEMINARY 52
VIII. DEPARTED PROFESSORS, AND WHAT THE SEMINARY OWES TO THEM .
60
IX. THE LIBRARY, ITS GROWTH AND NEEDS. - SOME LESSONS OF THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CATALOGUE. - NATIONAL AND MIS- SIONARY CHARACTER OF THE SEMINARY. - ITS ALUMNI . . 73
X. PRESENT CONDITION OF THE SEMINARY. - ITS RELATION TO THE PAST AND THE FUTURE 83
NOTE A. THE COURSE OF STUDY 88
NOTE B. PROFESSORSHIPS, LECTURESHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 94
vi
CONTENTS.
PAGE
NOTE C. EXTRACTS FROM THE SERMON ENTITLED " THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY " 97
NOTE D. THE TREASURES OF THE LIBRARY 100
NOTE E. ALUMNI WHO HAVE BEEN ENGAGED IN THE FOREIGN MIS- SIONARY SERVICE 107
PART SECOND.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF FOUNDERS, DIRECTORS, BENEFACTORS, AND PROFESSORS.
I. FOUNDERS, DIRECTORS, AND BENEFACTORS .
. 109-240
II. PROFESSORS
. 243-274
INDEX 285 .
Part First.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN ADAMS CHAPEL, DECEMBER 7, 1886.
1
.
FIFTY YEARS
OF THE
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
I.
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES IN THE UNITED STATES.
T HE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY in this country may be regarded as one of the characteristic institu- tions of American Christianity. It is mainly the growth of our own soil during the present century. There are in the United States not less than one hundred and forty schools of divinity, only two or three of which date further back than 1800, and more than half of which have been organized within the last forty years. These schools represent all Protestant denominations, as well as the Church of Rome, and they are found in every part of the Union. In them the spiritual guides and teachers of the American people are chiefly trained; not only ministers of the Gospel in the strictest sense, whether bishops, pastors, or evangelists, but editors of the
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THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
religious press, college presidents and professors, secretaries of ecclesiastical boards and other associ- ations for advancing the kingdom of God on earth, are mostly graduates of these institutions. 'It is not too much to say that our theological seminaries, to a very large extent, have in their keeping the most precious interests of faith, piety, and sacred learning in the United States. While differing radically as to polity and doctrine, they are nearly all agreed in asserting the divine origin and claims of Christianity, the ruling authority of the Holy Scriptures, the spirit- ual nature and destiny of man, as also the vital con- nection between his character and manner of life here and his eternal well-being. Their influence in the whole domain of belief and conduct is both formative and controlling. In the matter of education for the ministry they show a revolution like that which has taken place in other great spheres of professional train- ing. The divinity schools of the last century were mostly in the studies and parishes of eminent theolo- gians, who at the same time were often country pas- tors, - such men, for example, as Bellamy, Smalley, Hopkins, and Emmons in New England; the divinity schools of the present are in or near the great centres of population, where the throbbing, busy life of the nation is going on; they are permanent institutions of sacred learning.
·
5
ORIGIN AND DESIGN.
II.
ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL ..
SEMINARY.
WE celebrate to-day the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Union Theological Seminary. In reviewing its his- tory I shall touch only briefly upon the points so fully treated by my colleague, President Hitchcock, in his address at the dedication of these buildings two years ago. It is not my business to "gild refined gold." The character of an institution, like that of an individual, is apt to be determined in its origin and early years. Certainly, this has been the case with the Union Seminary. It is now essentially what, fifty years ago, it was intended to be. It has, indeed, grown and prospered far beyond the hopes of its founders; but it has grown and prospered largely along the lines they marked out, and in the spirit in which it was planned. The time and the circum- stances of its beginning were alike fortunate, - I should rather say, providential. Had it been estab- lished seven or eight years earlier, as almost happened, it would have been in direct antagonism to another seminary. Had it been established, on the other hand, a few years later, its design would in all proba- bility have been far less catholic, if not distinctly par- tisan. In a letter dated New York, June 5, 1827, the
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THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
Rev. Dr. John Holt Rice of Prince Edward County, Virginia, one of the best and wisest men in the Pres- byterian Church of that day, makes this striking statement : -
While all the brethren appear to regard me with great personal affection, neither of the parties are entirely cordial to me. The Princeton people apprehend that I am approxi- mating to Auburn notions ; and the zealous partisans of New England divinity think me a thorough-going Princetonian. So it is! And, while there is much less of the unseemly bit- terness and asperity which brought reproach on the Church in past times, I can see that the spirit of party has struck deeper than I had ever supposed. And I do fully expect that there will be either a strong effort to bring Princeton under different management, or to build up a new seminary in the vicinity of New York, to counteract the influence of Princeton. One or the other of these things will assuredly be done before long, unless the Lord interpose and turn the hearts of the ministers.
In another letter, dated June 15, he writes : -
I should not be surprised if, next year, we should hear of a seminary for the vicinity of New York. I cannot tell you in a letter all that I have learned here, but you shall know when I see you.
Dr. Rice does not name the ministers who, he says, contemplated building up a new seminary to counter- act the influence of Princeton. It is plain, however, that he could not have had in mind the most of those who eight years later took part in founding this insti- tution ; for they were not then settled in New York.
7
ORIGIN AND DESIGN.
The period between 1827 and 1836 abounded in trouble to the Presbyterian Church. More and more the theological atmosphere became charged with sus- picion and bitterness. Old quarrels grew sharper than ever. New quarrels sprung up. During these years the controversies about "New Divinity," " New Haven Theology," "New England Divinity," "New Meas- ures," " Protracted Meetings," " Ecclesiastical Boards," " Voluntary Societies," and the like, were in full blast. The memorable trials of George Duffield, Albert Barnes, and Lyman Beecher for heresy belong to the same period. These controversies and heresy trials - to say nothing here of the slavery question - aroused passions that wrought powerfully in two ways ; while hastening the division of the Presby- terian Church, they at the same time impressed not a few thoughtful and good men, especially among the laity, with a deep feeling of the evil effect of such strife upon the interests of Christian piety and evangelism, - a feeling intensified by the great re- vivals of 1829-33. To men of this class the heated discussions of the day were exceedingly distasteful. "The evangelical men," wrote Dr. Rice in 1829, "are disputing, some for old orthodoxy, and some for new metaphysics."
But meanwhile the conflict waxed more violent. Among the advocates of " old orthodoxy " some were very dogmatical and overbearing in their tone; the advocates of "new metaphysics," on the other hand,
1
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THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
were tempted to retort in a spirit anything but con- ciliatory. Nor was the strife confined to the pulpit and the religious press : it invaded meetings of Pres- bytery, Synod, and General Assembly, and became at length a determined struggle for ecclesiastical su- premacy. Two years before this struggle culminated in the great disruption of 1838, the Union Seminary was planned and organized. But although built up in troublous times, it was as a training school and rallying point for men of peace, not of war.
It is the design of the founders to provide a Theological Seminary in the midst of the greatest and most growing com- munity in America, around which all men of moderate views and feelings, who desire to live free from party strife, and to stand aloof from all extremes of doctrinal speculation, practical radicalism, and ecclesiastical domination, may cordially and affectionately rally.
III.
THE FOUNDERS OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AS PLANNED AND ORGANIZED.
SUCH was the design of the founders, as described by themselves. Who were the founders of the Union Theological Seminary ? Fortunately, its official rec- ords furnish a clear answer to the question. And it seems to me only right that on this occasion these rec- ords should be allowed to speak for themselves. Here are the minutes of the earliest formal meeting : -
9
FOUNDERS OF THE INSTITUTION.
NEW YORK, October 10, 1835.
At a meeting of a few gentlemen convened, by mutual un- derstanding, at the house of Knowles Taylor, Esq., to take into consideration the expediency of establishing a Theologi- cal Seminary in the city of New York.
Present :
Knowles Taylor, Esq. Rev. Absalom Peters, D. D.
Richard T. Haines, Esq.
Rev. Henry White.
Abijah Fisher, Esq.
Rev. William Patton.
William M. Halsted, Esq.
Rev. Erskine Mason.
Marcus Wilbur, Esq.
Opened with prayer.
Knowles Taylor was called to the chair, and the Rev. Erskine Mason was appointed Secretary. After a free in- terchange of views upon the subject, it was unanimously
Resolved, That it is expedient, depending on the blessing of God, to attempt to establish a. Theological Seminary in this city.
Resolved, That a committee be appointed as a " Committee of Ways and Means" to take this subject into further consid- eration, with power to call a meeting as soon as they shall be able to report.
Messrs. K. Taylor, R. T. Haines, and W. M. Halsted were appointed this committee.
Adjourned. Concluded with prayer.
ERSKINE MASON, Secretary.
The second meeting was held on October 19, 1835, when in addition to those already named there were present Fisher Howe, John Nitchie, Lowell Holbrook, James C. Bliss, M. D., and Cornelius Baker. Again Knowles Taylor was called to the chair, and the Rev. Erskine Mason was appointed Secretary. The Committee of Ways and Means having reported
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THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
progress and been continued, the minutes proceed as follows : -
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to draft an exhibit of the reasons calling for the contemplated institution, and also an outline of a plan of instruction to be pursued. The Rev. Messrs. Mason, Peters, Patton, White, and John Nitchie, Esq., were appointed as this committee.
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to suggest the best mode of organizing a board of directors for this institu- tion. Messrs. Taylor, Nitchie, Baker, and Halsted, and Rev. Dr. Peters, were appointed this committee. Adjourned to meet on Monday, 26th instant, at 72 o'clock, at the house of Knowles Taylor, Esq.
Concluded with prayer.
ERSKINE MASON, Secretary.
Let me speak briefly of these men and of their qualifications for the task before them.
ABSALOM PETERS stands first among the four minis- ters of the Gospel. He belonged to an old Puritan stock, learned in his boyhood, on a New Hampshire farm, how to endure hardness, and grew up in such physical soundness and vigor that until more than threescore and ten years old he is said never to have known a sick day. The high reputation which he enjoyed at this time may be inferred from the fact, that on the retirement of Dr. Griffin, in 1836, Dr. Peters was chosen to succeed him as President of Williams College. Upon his declining the call, Mark Hopkins was appointed. He possessed a keen in- tellect, strong will, patient energy, and uncommon
11
FOUNDERS OF THE INSTITUTION.
administrative ability, combined with literary culture, good learning, and whole-hearted zeal for the advance- ment of Christ's kingdom in the world; nor was he without a touch of the poetical temperament. In the ecclesiastical conflicts of fifty years ago, he took rank among the leaders. Had he devoted himself to a mili- tary career, as at one time he intended, his name might have become famous as a general; and he was equally fitted to win a foremost place at the bar, on the bench, or in political life. Cool, sagacious, fear- less, and master of his case, he was well qualified to cope on the floor of the General Assembly, as he did in the stormy sessions of 1836-37, with such debaters as John and Robert J. Breckenridge and William S. Plumer. ,
The opponents of voluntary societies and of New England ideas regarded Dr. Peters with no little dislike, as well as fear. At the "nod of the arch- magician," as he was called, votes were supposed to be given or withheld in the General Assembly. I remember how in my boyhood the changes were rung upon his name as an adroit ecclesiastical man- ager and wire-puller. He was equalled by few men of his generation, I doubt if any one surpassed him, as an organizer and advocate of Home Mission work in the United States; and the same qualities that made him so useful as a founder and early secretary of the American Home Missionary Society, rendered him invaluable as one of the founders of the Union
12
THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
Theological Seminary. He was on the committee to set forth the design of the institution, and propose a plan of instruction ; he was a member of the com- mittee on organization, and he was chairman of the committee which prepared the constitution. This Seminary is bound to hold the name of Absalom Peters in lasting honor.
HENRY WHITE is the second name. He was at this time pastor of the Allen Street Presbyterian Church, to which he had been called in 1828. I shall have occasion to speak of him later as a Professor in the Seminary. His services as one of its founders were of the utmost value. There can be no doubt that, in the various meetings and consultations which issued in its establishment, he exerted a constant, wise, and shaping influence. He possessed an uncommonly sound judgment, was at once prudent and sagacious, had great tenacity of purpose, and enjoyed in a high degree the confidence of the laymen who were enlisted in the movement. Several of them were his intimate friends and elders in the Allen Street Church.
WILLIAM PATTON is the third name. He was a man of large and generous views, strong in his con- victions of right and duty, as well as bold in asserting them; a natural enemy of wrong, oppression, and intolerance ; one of the earliest and ablest advocates of the temperance reform; an ardent patriot, whether at home or abroad, and a firm believer in the provi- dential mission and destiny of the American people.
13
FOUNDERS OF THE INSTITUTION.
He suggested the assembling of the convention which in 1846 organized in London the Evangelical Alli- ance, and went himself as a delegate from America to that convention. As one of the founders of this institution, he is in a special manner entitled to our remembrance to-day. If not the first to suggest a theological seminary in the vicinity of New York, he seems to have been the first to suggest one in New York itself. In a letter to the Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, D.D., written in 1876, he relates that Dr. Peters called upon him one day to consult him as to the best disposition of some funds, which Mr. H., a well known gentleman, held in his hands and desired to appropriate to a good object.
I at once said, "Let the funds be given to commence a theo- logical seminary in this city," for I had been thinking on this subject. Dr. Peters said, "That will never do, it is no place for a seminary," and made a number of objections. I then argued the matter with him, to prove that a great city is exactly the place, as furnishing enlarged and available means of support to the indigent, by teaching singing in churches, playing on organs, etc. ; also means of practical usefulness, while studying, bringing the student away from the cloistered life of the colleges and seminaries in the country, and intro- ducing them into the masses of men among whom they must work as ministers ; that it would be a good trial of their piety and fidelity, and that, if any failed, it would be better to have them fail then than later. I so far overcame Dr. Peters's ob- jections as to name the plan to Mr. H.1 We called in the
1 Mr. H., however, seems not to have regarded it with favor, for the funds in his hands were never obtained.
14
THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
counsel of R. T. Haines, Wm. M. Halsted, and perhaps C. O. Halsted. The result was the determination to raise $75,000, that is, $15,000 a year for five years, as an experiment ; and if, at the end of this time, the experiment was not successful, · then to close up, but if successful, to go on.
Dr. Patton adds, that he personally secured $50,000 of the original subscription, by application to moneyed men, and by argument convincing them of the desira- bleness of the plan. To show his confidence in the scheme he himself subscribed $500. He was active also in all the early meetings; his views were defi- nitely embodied in the preamble to the constitution of the Seminary, and for many years he was a most efficient member of its Board of Directors.
ERSKINE MASON is the fourth name. His father was the renowned Dr. John M. Mason, the friend of Alex- ander Hamilton, an eminent divine, and one of the first pulpit orators of the age. To Erskine Mason, then thirty-one years old, was assigned the task of giving written expression to the views and aim of the founders of the Seminary. Nor was there, perhaps, another man in the Presbyterian Church better quali- fied for the task by training, solid sense, intelligent zeal for the cause of Christian truth and learning, freedom from theological partisanship, greatness of soul, and the habit of taking wide, far-reaching out- looks in the interest of the Gospel.
Notwithstanding his modesty and reserve, he swayed men's minds alike by innate force of charac-
15
FOUNDERS OF THE INSTITUTION.
ter and by the strength of his judgment. Such mas- ters in the law as Chancellor Kent and George Wood of New York, and Randall and Meredith of Pennsyl- vania, were glad to take counsel with him in the legal discussion and contest that followed the disruption ; and there was no one, we are told, to whose advice they and his brethren paid so much of respectful deference. The preamble to our constitution, as I have intimated, was prepared by him; and although aided in com- mittee by Drs. Patton, Peters, and White, and that ex- cellent layman, John Nitchie, it must yet be regarded as essentially his work. Its tone of wise moderation, its dignity and condensed vigor of thought and ex- pression, and its whole spirit, are characteristic of him. " Nothing, my brethren, is great in this world but the kingdom of Jesus Christ : nothing but that, to a spir- itual eye, has an air of permanency." This grand sen- timent, uttered in one of his sermons, inspired him in setting forth the design of the new seminary.
Such were the four ministers to whom we owe to- day so large a debt of grateful recognition. One of them was a native of New Hampshire, and one of Pennsylvania ; the other two were natives of New York. All four had pursued their theological studies at Princeton, either wholly or in part. Two of them were at the time pastors ; one, secretary of the Cen- tral American Education Society ; another, secretary of the American Home Missionary Society ; while all were deeply imbued with the spirit of home and
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THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
world-wide evangelism, which so signally marked the times.
Associated with these eminent clergymen as found- ers of the Union Theological Seminary were some of the most prominent Christian laymen of New York and Brooklyn.
KNOWLES TAYLOR stands first in the list. It is praise enough to say of him, that before reaching the age of thirty he had been an intimate friend and correspondent, as well as trusted counsellor, of Dr. John Holt Rice, of Virginia. Dr. Rice's memoir of his brother, James Brainerd Taylor, - a young man of extraordinary piety and zeal to win souls for Christ, -is doubtless known to many of you. Years before, Mr. Taylor had taken a lively interest in the Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, contrib- uting liberally toward its endowment, and becoming familiar, through the letters and conversation of Dr. Rice, with the claims and importance of such institu- tions. He was, I think, one of the founders, and almost from the first had been the treasurer of the American Home Missionary Society. The first formal meeting of those interested in the question of estab- lishing a theological seminary in New York, as we have seen, was held at his house.
The name of RICHARD T. HAINES follows that of Knowles Taylor. In mentioning this honored name, I am tempted to stop and ask myself the question, whether without Richard T. Haines the Union Theo-
17
FOUNDERS OF THE INSTITUTION.
logical Seminary in New York would ever have ex- isted, - whether, at all events, it would have long continued to exist. And if the name of WILLIAM M. HALSTED be joined to his, the question would not be a fanciful one. These two noble men - partners in business and partners in the service of Christ- were pillars of strength to the infant institution. As their liberality and wisdom helped to found it, so through years of poverty and trial they joined hands in sustaining it. They were among the most solid merchants of New York; their house remained up- right even amidst the financial cyclone of 1837; and the qualities that gave them their steadfast position in the mercantile world - the same persistent energy, prudence, and fidelity - were exercised in behalf of the Union Seminary. For thirty years Mr. Haines was President of its Board of Directors ; for five and thirty years one of its most judicious and efficient friends. From the moment when Drs. Patton and Peters to- gether sought his counsel to the day of his death, his devotion to it knew no change except to grow stronger. Mr. Halsted was Treasurer of the Seminary from its beginning until 1845; and in this capacity watched over its interests as if they had been his own.
ABIJAH FISHER was already well known in the re- ligious and benevolent circles of New York. From the first he was a Director of the Seminary, and as such rendered it faithful service for nearly a quarter of a century.
2
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THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
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