> 
 
 C^?3 
 
T? 
 
 COLLEGES ESSENTIAL TO THE CHURCH OF GOD. 
 
 PLAIN LETTERS 
 
 ADDRESSED TO A PARISHIONER- 
 
 IN BEHALF OF THE 
 
 Bcdctg for tl)e |]romotlon of (HoUcigiate aulr Sljeological 
 €^u:atiou at tljc tUcst. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN TODD, D. D. 
 
 N E W - Y O R K : 
 'printed by LEAVITT, trow &, COMPANY, 
 
 33 ANN-STREET. 
 
 1848. 
 
Z.C 3^3 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 These Letters written to a plain man, and why. A new charity in our 
 Churches. Unarranged and common objections to it. Object of these 
 Letters. The moral destinies of the world rest on two Institutions. 
 The place occupied by the ministry. Its character. When and why 
 Colleges first instituted. The great plan of the Puritans. Why the 
 ministry cannot educate itself. Whence do ministers come ? Remark- 
 able town on the mountains. Our missionaries — whence do they 
 come ? Ministers must be poor men. Story of a poor widow. How 
 must a Christian ministry be provided ?.....„ 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 The great and new order originating with the Puritans. Foundation of 
 the New England character. What the leaven and< what the life- 
 blood of the land. The West — what we mean by it. What makes 
 it? Why so important? A contest approaching. The questions 
 involved. Fears at the East. Spasmodic efforts. A dangerous mis- 
 take. What peculiarity of the West demanding an able ministry. 
 Efforts and astonishing apparatus of the Catholics. A great question 
 to be solved. How answered ? The philosophy of the Puritan system. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 What necessary to carry out the philosophy of the Puritans. Colleges. 
 Experiments in this country and in the world. The end and aim of 
 our Colleges. Objection to Colleges — that we might raise up the min- 
 istry by private teaching. Three reasons why we cannot. Why not 
 have a Joint Stock Company? Answered. Who should control our 
 Colleges. Their peculiar character in this country. Power of edu- 
 cation. In whose hands it should be. Objection — that we educate 
 Lawyers and Physicians. Answered. Illustrations from Yale Col- 
 lege. The philosophy of our churches. Revivals in Colleges. Two 
 remarkable facts 13 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 The objection, that we are called upon to educate the sons of the rich 
 stated and answered. The gain to the church on this plan. Who 
 shall educate the rich ? For whom Colleges are chiefly and mainly 
 designed. Philosophy of the plan. The sons of the rich cannot be 
 educated on any other plan. Story of the wood-sawyer's son. Re- 
 ciprocal advantages of bringing the rich and the poor young man 
 together to be educated. The objection turned into an argument. 
 Why we call upon Christians of moderate means to aid in this work, 
 rather than to rely on the rich. What needed besides pecuniary 
 means? 18 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 The objection — that the West ought to raise up her own Institutions. 
 The philosophy of founding a College. We have pecuHar advantages 
 at the East. Situation of the western population. Remarkable fact in 
 relation to the Colleges of New England in their infancy — Harvard, 
 Yale, and Dartmouth. The ability of the West — why not available. 
 Remarkable fact relative to the Western Reserve. Objection — that 
 they might send their sons to the East for education. Answer. Illus- 
 trated by early history of New England. Illustration drawn from our 
 Common School system. Questions higher than mere dollars and 
 cents involved. Value of Colleges compared with Theological Semina- 
 ries. Objection-*-that the funds are liable to be perverted. A great 
 fact. Risks incident to all efforts of the Church of Christ. . . 23 
 
 LESSON VL 
 
 Objection — that there is so much of brick, and morlar, and machinery, 
 that to rear up a College is not charity. Answered. The philosophy 
 of having College buildings. The economy of the plan. Remarkable 
 history of a College sustained by the Church for twenty-five years. 
 The peculiar blessing of God upon such a College. The true position 
 of our local churches, and of the ministry in this land. The West to 
 decide the destiny of this nation. What must aiid will form the cha- 
 racter of the West 1 How a plain farmer looks at this subject. The 
 benefactions of farmers. The question which weighs upon the churches 
 of New England. Our confidence in the plan which tlus Society is 
 carrying out 28 
 
COLLEGES 
 
 ESSENTIAL TO THE CHURCH OF GOD. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Pittsfield. Mass., 1847. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — When I address these letters to you, 
 I feel that I am speaking to a friend, to a plain man, who 
 works and tiiinks for himself, and who represents a large 
 class whom I wish to reach. I am wishing to speak to 
 you, in these pages, just as I would talk at your own plea- 
 sant fireside. Your highest honor, as is mine, and that 
 which we esteem our highest glory, is that we hope we 
 love the cause of Jesus Christ. 
 
 You have noticed that among the objects for which we 
 are now called upon in our congregation to contribute, 
 Colleges come in, associated with Theological Seminaries ; 
 and we are told that these are so essential for the West, 
 that a Society is organized expressly for this object, and 
 that we are annually to be called upon to give of our 
 substance to these Institutions. And though you have 
 made no complaint to me, yet I have thought that you and 
 others looked as if you would say, " My Pastor, I don't quite 
 understand this. To sustain Colleges at the West, is to be 
 a prodigious burden on the Church of God. It seems to 
 be a roundabout way of doing good. It seems to be call- 
 ing upon us to give our money to rear up piles of brick 
 and mortar — to educate Lawyers and Doctors — to educate 
 rich men's sons — to buy libraries and apparatus — to do that 
 which belongs to worldly men and to the State to do ; and 
 
it seems to me that this is not doing for the cause of Christ, 
 as when I give and pray for the Home Missionary or the 
 Foreign Missionary cause. When we send out the word 
 of God, or the Kving preacher, or the religious book, we 
 know what we are doing. We are then laboring directly 
 for the salvation of the world. But I cannot see how it 
 is the same work to rear up a College ! It will be a fearful 
 burden for the churches to sustain, and before you call upon 
 them to do it, you must give them plain, common-sense 
 reasons for it." 
 
 Now, my friend, this is exactly what I wish to do ; I 
 wish, in the course of my remarks, to meet these and all 
 other objections which are raised ; and I hope to do it in 
 such a way as will commend itself to the good sense and 
 the conscience of yourself, and of all who are like you — 
 of whom I wish there were many more than there are. 
 
 The two great institutions on which the moral destinies 
 of this fallen world rest, are the Family and the Church. 
 Both were appointed by God, and both were to be perpet- 
 ual. The responsibilities of the former he has laid upon 
 parents ; for the oversight and instruction of the latter, he 
 has appointed ministers of religion. In all ages, these 
 ministers have had their qualifications specified and their 
 duties marked out. These religious teachers, according to 
 the Bible, have two great ends at which they are to aim ; 
 viz., to lead the devotions of God's people, and they must 
 therefore be pious men ; and to teach the revelation of 
 God, to make known his character, and to defend his truth. 
 A worldly man cannot do the former, and ignorance cannot 
 teach and enlighten. To combine these two ends, and 
 have them proportionate, has ever been the aim of the 
 ministers of Christ, who inherit the spirit of the Pilgrims. 
 All know that ignorance cannot instruct ; stupidity cannot 
 enlighten. Narrow views cannot expand the minds of 
 others. 
 
 Under the dispensation of Moses, though a whole tribe 
 of Israel was set apart to be teachers and ministers of re- 
 
ligion, yet it was found that they needed more education, 
 and therefore, under Samuel, Colleges, or " Schools of the 
 Prophets," as they are called, were established by inspired 
 men : and from that day to this, it has been found neces- 
 sary for the Church of God to make special efforts to 
 educate her ministers. In accordance with this, the Puri- 
 tans were most anxious and careful in educating their 
 religious teachers. If the object were merely to have an 
 order of men who could offer a bullock on the altar, or 
 who could burn incense, or even read a prayer-book and 
 the Scriptures publicly, it would be different. But the 
 ministers of the New Testament must be men fully up to 
 their age — they must be leaders — they must be expounders 
 and defenders of God's truth, and they must be competent 
 to instruct and enlighten the most gifted minds on the stage 
 of life with them. The first ministers of the New Testa- 
 ment were instructed by Christ himself for three years, and 
 then they had the supernatural influences of the Holy 
 Spirit, through life, to bring the teachings of Christ back 
 to their memory. How long would the congregations in 
 this region be held together by ministers whose minds were 
 undisciplined, and who were uninformed men ? 
 
 Perhaps you would concede all this, and yet ask. Why 
 may not the ministry educate itself? Why must the 
 Church take the responsibility and the expense of educa- 
 ting her ministry ? A plain question. And I reply, Because 
 God, in his wisdom, has so ordered it, that his ministers, 
 as a general thing, are from the poor. They have been 
 born, have lived, and have died poor men. This is so well 
 understood, that you do not think of looking to the great 
 commercial city, nor to the houses of the rich, to furnish 
 them ; and when you do find such, they are exceptions to 
 the general rule. The leader of Israel was the son of a 
 poor slave. The father of the Reformation was the son 
 of a miner. The Apostles were poor men. A little moun- 
 tain town in Massachusetts, where the soil is the hardest, 
 and the climate severe, and the luxuries few, has raised up 
 
and sent out between twenty and thirty ministers of the 
 Gospel, in as many years. I need not go into the philoso- 
 phy of the thing. As a fact, you know that not many rich 
 are either willing or prepared to preach the Gospel. The 
 ministers at our altars must be men who can endure hard- 
 ness as good soldiers. They must be men of self-denial. 
 They must be able to sympathize with the poor ; and, lest 
 they be lifted up and forsake the ministry when the storm 
 comes, they must eat from the altar, and live on what their 
 people give them. Most of those who are laboring among 
 the heathen, and who are the living ministry at home, are 
 men of this description. And a wise provision it is. How 
 could a Redeemer sympathize with a poor man, and be 
 touched with his infirmities, had he never himself been laid 
 in a manger, or been too poor to give his disciples any 
 thing better than the raw grain in the field, or to have a 
 place where to lay his head ? We want our ministers to 
 be poor men, and to come from that class in the commu- 
 nity. They, probably, always will come from this class. 
 And if a poor man gives that which no money can buy — 
 if he gives his son to the Lord — can the Church do less 
 than qualify him for the work to which he is dedicated ? 
 Has not Hannah done her part when she gives her only 
 jewel to the temple of the Lord ? Some years ago, there 
 was a poor widow on one of our hill-sides, who lived in a 
 humble dwelling. Just at sunset, in our cold winters, she 
 might be seen out, cutting her own wood, and carrying it 
 in for the night. Honored woman ! She had lent her son 
 to the Lord, and he was now in College, and she was living 
 alone, and denying herself, that she might aid him to fit 
 himself for the ministry ! He has since filled a most im- 
 portant post, and been, probably, second to very few in our 
 day, in usefulness. What do you say? Should not the 
 Church provide for the education of such men ? The most 
 useful and eminent ministers whom you and I know were 
 poor, and are poor men. They must be educated by the 
 Church, or we must rely on the rich to fur lish o?t minis- 
 
ters, wnich they never will do ; — or we must have igno- 
 rance and stupidity set to watch, defend, and build up the 
 Jerusalem of God. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — There has been so much said about the 
 magnitude of the interests involved in the destiny of this 
 country, that I fear we shall become sick of the repetition 
 long before we have an adequate conception of the subject. 
 Our Puritan ancestors sowed here the seed of a new order 
 of things. They founded an empire, with a government so 
 free and easy, that no good citizen feels the burden ; and 
 so comprehensive, that as fast as a new State grows up, its 
 form of government is all provided, and the child has only 
 to put on the working-dress of manhood. We have not to 
 devise a government, or to make any new experiments in 
 that department. The empire founded by them, to be in- 
 definite in extent,' is to be based on religion and intelligence. 
 Thus, from the very first, the Church of God and the 
 Schools of Learning have been the fiz'st things to be pro- 
 vided for, — the most prominent things to be seen in the 
 centre of all New England villages. Protestant Christianity, 
 intelligence, and civil freedom were thus yoked together ; 
 and together is their destiny bound up. The Puritan drew 
 his spirit from the Word of God, and quenched his thirst 
 with the waters that flow from under the altar of God. 
 
 The spirit of the Pilgrims has created New England. 
 It has planted our churches, reared our Schools and Col- 
 leges, created our intelligence, made labor honorable, drawn 
 us into the habit of untiring industry, and given us sweet 
 homes, if not wealth. This same spirit of the Puritans is 
 the life-blood of the land. The descendants of the Pu- 
 ritans, now numbering, probably, not less than five millions, 
 
10 
 
 are scattered through all the land, and carrying with them 
 the leaven which our fathers brought across the waters 
 in the Mayflower. You can see this leaven at work wher- 
 ever you go ; and the spirit and the principles which have 
 made Massachusetts, must, and with God's blessing, will, per- 
 vade the land. Protestant Christianity can do its work in 
 no way but by filling the community with light. 
 
 But that which now immediately engrosses the atten- 
 tion of good people, is the West — the West. By the West, 
 I now mean — not a continent extending to the Pacific, but 
 I mean the territory which is watered by the Mississippi 
 and his branches. In this territory the whole population 
 of Europe might be set down, and there would be room 
 enough and food enough. It now contains nearly ten mil- 
 lions. But the most remote man in Europe can reach it 
 in one or two months, at farthest. Into it, Europe is 
 pouring a flood — noblemen and beggars, the enlightened 
 and the outcast, the good citizen and the scape-gallows. 
 No class is to be found in the old world which is not re- 
 presented here. Errorists, of every name and description^ 
 centre here. The good people of the land have felt that 
 they must be content to see this the battle-field on which 
 the principles upon which this nation was founded, and 
 their antagonist principles, popeiy and despotism, are to have 
 their contest. A contest it will be, and such as the world 
 has never yet seen. The questions involved are, whether 
 over this land there shall be free churches, free schools, free 
 institutions, light and intelligence, or, whether civil liberty 
 shall be destroyed, our churches be turned into cloisters 
 and nunneries, and the mutterings of monks and the count- 
 ing of beads take the place of enlightened teaching, and 
 intelligent prayer and praise : whether it shall be a nation, 
 a century hence, living by its virtue and intelligence and 
 religion, or a congregated mass of millions, fed by super- 
 stition, groaning under spiritual and civil despotism, and 
 rending the heavens with their groans of bondage. 
 
 These questions, at times, press upon the good people at 
 
II 
 
 the East with great power, and they feel that they must do 
 something for the West. These seasons of anxiety have 
 produced spasmodic efforts. At one time we rise up to fill 
 the valley of the great Father of Waters with Sabbath 
 schools. At another time, we undertake to enlighten and 
 Christianize it with tracts and the books of the colporteur. 
 These are good things in their places, and I bid them God- 
 speed. But they can no more create the West, and make 
 it what it must be in oi'der to save the nation and our hopes, 
 than a few crumbs, thrown from a rich man's table, can 
 give bone and muscle to an army of strong working men. 
 We must have means more commensurate with the work 
 to be done. We are in danger of feeling that the enemy 
 is upon us, and we must go out at once and fight him ; 
 more anxious to do battle, than to possess the best weapons 
 of warfare. But I beg you, my friend, to recollect, that 
 our main dependence in this warfare must not be on Sab- 
 bath schools, nor on religious tracts and books. These are 
 the Hght arms of the Church — very convenient and often 
 very powerful. We make no objection to them in their 
 places ; but it is idle to think that with these we can lay 
 the foundations of society at the West, and make them 
 stable. Why, there are in this valley, nearly a million of per- 
 sons who cannot read or write. What will books do for 
 these ? Their children cannot read ; and this number is 
 every day increasing. Talk of books ! Who does not 
 know, that the people of the West are not generally a 
 reading people ? They are intelligent, but illiterate. They 
 will not allow a. minister to read his sermon, and prefer 
 the crudities of an extempore discourse, to any that can 
 be read to them. What they want is living men, — the 
 living voice of the living preacher. Him they will hear. 
 You may send them the writings of Baxter, if you please, 
 it is well : but still, it is the living Baxter that they need — 
 the living epistle of Christ, whose voice and sympathies 
 they can feel. 
 
 The Roman Catholics understand this. They do not 
 
12 
 
 expect to gain the West, and, of consequence, the country, 
 by any spasmodic efforts. They are building forts and fill- 
 ing them with munitions of war, and are manning them 
 with great care. In other words, they are building great 
 Colleges and Schools all over the valley, — not to educate 
 the Catholics — they never do that ; but that they may educate 
 the children of the Protestant community, and thus under- 
 mine all our hopes. What expense have they spared to 
 found these institutions? They number in the United 
 States 24 literary institutions for young men, of which 13 
 are colleges "regularly organized;" 21 ecclesiastical insti- 
 tutions ; 66 female academies ; 834 priests on the ground, 
 including 2 archbishops, 23 bishops, and 1 vicar apostolic ; 
 besides nunneries and mummery-houses, I know not how 
 many. Their great field is the West. In rearing these 
 colleges and schools, they are calculating for a long war- 
 fare, and for the moulding of society as they desire. 
 
 Now can you doubt, for a moment, what instrumen- 
 tality we need for the same ground ? What we want is 
 men, living heralds of the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 — men who are born of God, and educated thoroughly for 
 the day in which they live. And these we cannot raise up 
 except by having Colleges and Schools of the very first 
 order. Suppose you were to-day set down at the West, in 
 the midst of a great heterogeneous population, and it was 
 laid upon you to solve the problem how you could do most 
 good for that community, now, and for ages to come? 
 What would you do ? Would you not look back and see 
 how the first foundations of your beloved New England 
 were laid ? If you say, " yes," — then I can tell you what 
 you would do, and how you would solve the difficult ques- 
 tion. You would say, "First, plant the local Church, with 
 an educated, able pastor ; next, rear the School-house near 
 the church, free to all, where the children could be re- 
 ligiously instructed. Next, you would say, rear the College, 
 where we may raise up sons of the prophets, who shall 
 each become the centre of light, intelligence and religion 
 
13 
 
 (and which can be multiplied only as Colleges have pre- 
 pared able pastors) — as our pastor is in his sphere. Let 
 these local churches be multiplied, and these free schools 
 go with them, till the land is occupied ; and let the Colleges 
 and Theological Seminaries be raised up as fast as they are 
 needed to educate a Christian ministry !" This would be 
 your plan, if you were as wise a man as I think you are. 
 And if you could not sustain this pastor, you would beg the 
 Home Missionary Society to aid you ; and if you could not 
 find a teacher for your school, you would beg one to come 
 from the East to aid you ; and if you could not sustain your 
 College, or your Theological School, you would ask the 
 enlightened and the great-hearted to aid you. Your notes 
 of appeal would be loud, and long, and earnest. You could 
 not meet the responsibilities which God in his providence 
 laid upon you by any thing short of this. And this is just 
 what we wish to do. The local Church is the nucleus of 
 all our system. Then the Free School, to educate the 
 whole community ; and the College and Theological School, 
 to raise up wise and able teachers of religion. When we 
 make our appeal in behalf of the Western Colleges, it is to 
 carry out the plan so wisely laid by our fathers ; and which 
 has worked so admirably, for more than two hundred years, 
 in New England. 
 
 LETTER in. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — It is settled, I presume, in your mind, 
 as well as in mine, that to carry out the plan devised by 
 our fathers, our local churches must be so many centres of 
 light, safety, and salvation. These churches must each have 
 a pastor or overseer ; and these men must be thoroughly 
 educated. They must be teachers in theology, and every 
 church must be a kind of theological school. Without 
 
14 
 
 thorough discipline of mind, they cannot take the lead in in- 
 fluence. The amount of discipline, hard thinking, and mental 
 furniture which each teacher must have, is far greater than 
 any one can imagine who has not occupied his station. 
 He must "prove all things," and then " hold fast that which 
 is good." I feel that I cannot too earnestly impress the 
 thought, that we must have able pastors, and they must be 
 thoroughly furnished. To this every good man will yield 
 his assent. The only question on which we can differ is. 
 Are Colleges absolutely necessary to do this, a,nd are they 
 the best means we can use ? 
 
 I reply that Colleges, or something answering to them, 
 have been deemed necessary by the wisest minds the 
 Church has had, ever since the days of Samuel. We have 
 tried the system in this country for more than two hundred 
 years, and it is found to work admirably. It is, moreover, 
 the experience of the world in all ages. All our Colleges 
 at the North were founded by good men for the purpose of 
 raising up an able ministry. We have looked to this point 
 almost solely in planting them. We endow them, so that 
 the teaching, the use of books and apparatus, may be within 
 the use of all. 
 
 " But why could not an able ministry be trained up by 
 private teaching?" 
 
 I will tell you in a word: For three plain reasons. 1. 
 Because no private teacher could have the books and ap- 
 paratus sufficient to instruct all the branches, or if he did, 
 his outlay must be so great that his charges must be enor- 
 mously heavy. 2. No one man is or can be qualified to teach 
 all branches. There must be a division in teaching, and it 
 is as much as one man can do, to teach one thing well. If 
 it takes one hundred and twenty persons to make and per- 
 fect a common needle, it is nonsense to talk of one man's 
 being able to educate ministers. 3. You know that when 
 you and I sit down and talk over a subject, we learn much 
 faster than when we sit down alone and think about it. 
 Mind excites and stimulates mind, and creates thought; 
 
15 
 
 and the excitement of having young men together in classes, 
 and their reciprocal influence upon each other, cannot be 
 dispensed with. 
 
 Some have thought that we might have joint-stock com- 
 panies formed, which might educate cheaper and more 
 efficiently, without all the expense of endowing Colleges. 
 Let us look at this a moment. Suppose a company were 
 formed in this county to take the place of Williams Col- 
 lege. Let it attempt to educate 100 students (that College 
 has nearly twice the number). Suppose the capital to be 
 $50,000 only. To get men to subscribe, and to make the 
 stock equal to money, you must have about ten per cent, 
 interest. You could not induce them to take stock at a 
 lower rate. The interest, then, to the stockholders is $5000. 
 Suppose the teachers to receive $4000. You must now 
 charge each student $90 annually for tuition, before 
 you make any charge for books, board, fuel, lights, clothing, 
 &c., &c. Do you not see at once, that this would pre- 
 clude the possibility of our being able to raise up a ministry 
 adequate to the wants of the Church? But suppose we 
 could endure the expense, where is the security that such a 
 company would not place unsanctified men in the chair of 
 instruction, and thus give the devil the opportunity which 
 he desires, by which to raise up his own leaders for the 
 army of Christ ? And this brings me to say, that our ob- 
 ject being to raise up a faithful and able ministry, we may 
 not have our Colleges controlled by the State, nor by world- 
 ly men. It is impossible that a State can plan and act as 
 we do, having the great aim of her Colleges to train up a 
 ministry for Jesus Christ. These Colleges must he in the 
 hands of the Church of God. They must be reared and 
 sustained by her prayers and contributions, guided by her 
 wisdom, and instructed by her best sons. They ever have 
 been, and they are now, and they are to be, schools of the 
 prophets. Our Churches have never refused to give up 
 their most valued pastors to be instructors in these Colleges. 
 They have also had peculiar joy in seeing the work of the 
 
16 
 
 Lord revived in them, from time to time. Besides, you weit 
 know that the power of education is a prodigious power. 
 Let a cross-grained, bull-headed fellow attempt to instruct 
 one of our district schools for a single winter, and what 
 mischief does he do ! He makes impressions and creates 
 prejudices in the school, which a lifetime cannot efface. 
 Education is the grand pioneer in the onward progress of 
 the "sacramental host" of God in its inroads upon the 
 kingdom of Satan. The Church must have this power. 
 God has given it to her, and most calamitous for this world 
 will that day be, when she relinquishes this power. All 
 our instructions to our missionaries go on the principle that 
 education is a vast power, which they are to be prompt to 
 seize upon. 
 
 But perhaps you will say, " Why must our Churches be 
 called upon to endow and raise up Colleges in which to 
 educate lawyers and physicians ?" " I hope," said a good 
 man, as he handed his dollar for this cause, " I hope that 
 this will not go to educate lawyers." The feeling of the 
 good man was a natural one. Let us look at it in its true 
 light. There can be no doubt but we must have lawyers 
 and physicians ; and they must be educated by somebody. 
 Which is wisdom — to have them brought under the power 
 of an education strictly Christian, which will exert a silent 
 influence upon them through life — imbued with the philo- 
 sophy of the Church — trained by her intellectual principles, 
 breathing in her atmosphere, or, to have them cast off to 
 be educated under the influence of infidelity, or even of 
 teachers who live for this world alone ? What an incon- 
 ceivable difference would it n^ake in this nation, if all who 
 have studied law or medicine, or become teachers, had 
 been educated in schools not controlled by the piety of the 
 Church of God ? Who can tell how many silken cords 
 have bound these spirits, and made them the friends of good 
 order, of law, the supporters of the Sabbath and of good 
 things, and which cords were fastened upon them while 
 receiving their education ? At Yale College, i387, accord- 
 
17 
 
 ing to the last triennial catalogue (1844), have been edu- 
 cated. Of these, 1594 have been ministers of the Gospel. 
 Multitudes of those who did not become ministers, have 
 been exceedingly useful — pillars in the church and nation. 
 It is impossible to tell how very different would the influence 
 of the same men have been, had they been trained in a 
 College not reared and endowed for the purpose of educat- 
 ing an able ministry. But I have no hesitation in saying, 
 that the influence of this Christian education upon these 
 men is ample compensation for all the Church has expended 
 on that College, even if not a single minister had been 
 educated. Are we not acting on the principle in all our 
 plans as Christians, that we are to influence and carry with 
 us as many as we possibly can ? Suppose no one except 
 the people of God, in this place, kept the Sabbath, or went 
 up to public worship. Would it not be the duty of the 
 Church to have her house of worship, and her })astor and 
 teacher ? And if she can have that great mass of mind in 
 the place. — constituting the great sphere of his usefulness 
 — brought into the house of God, and under the truth of 
 God with her, is it not better ? Is not one object in having 
 the pulpit well manned, and all this Sabbath apparatus pro- 
 vided, that the world may thus be brought under the influ- 
 ence of the truth? Would not a Church forget herself 
 greatly, were she alone to make provision for the spiritual 
 education of her own children ? Now this is precisely the 
 principle on which she acts when she rears a College to 
 educate her ministers, and yet makes provisions so ample, 
 that all the mind which is educated in the land, may be 
 trained under the most decided Christian influence. Your 
 own plans at home answer the objection. The education 
 of lawyers and physicians and teachers in our Colleges, is 
 incidental to the great object which we have in view in 
 establishing and endowing them ; but it is so much clear 
 gain to the cause of truth ; and I feel confident that the 
 moment you look at the subject in this light, you will re- 
 joice that while the Church is doing so much good directly 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 oy educating her ministers, she can do so much indirectly 
 for the good of the human family. I might add, that the 
 frequency of revivals in our Colleges — for which a day of 
 fasting and prayer is annually observed — the number con- 
 verted in College, and the number who are converted after 
 leaving College, and who thus greatly increase the number 
 of faithful ministers, more than strengthens my argument. 
 About one-fourth of those who have entered the ministry 
 from one of our best New England Colleges for the last 
 twenty-five years, are known to have been converted while 
 in College ; and doubtless, the records of other Colleges 
 would show a similar result ; and take the community as a 
 whole, there is nothing like the same number of conversions 
 that there is among these young men in College. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — Perhaps it has occurred to your mind 
 — I know it has to the minds of others — that, in rearing 
 and sustaining a College, the Church has to educate rich 
 men's sons, and that, in point of fact, the rich receive very 
 much aid in this way, inasmuch as we bring the expenses 
 down very low. Do I state the objection clearly ? Let 
 me answer it as clearly. 
 
 Suppose it be so, — that we do educate rich men's sons 
 at Colleges which are reared up to educate a Christian 
 ministry. Ought not these to be educated, and well edu- 
 cated, and to be brought under the influence of Christian 
 training ? If you were to build a dam over the beautiful 
 river that flows at your door, at a great expense, for the 
 purpose of irrigating your fields, and thus you fertilize and 
 beautify your own lands, would you object, if, in doing so, 
 you also fertilized the lands of your rich neighbor, — and 
 more especially if he gave part of his increase to the cause 
 
19 
 
 of religion ? It costs you nothing to do it, and you increase 
 the products of the earth in so doing. To carry out the 
 figure a Httle further, suppose, unless you did overflow his 
 lands, also, they would be barren, and dry, and unsightly, 
 but by your labor they become fruitful and beautiful- 
 then, what do you say ? But allow me to use the figure 
 once more. Suppose that the rich man sees you building 
 your dam, and he says, " You are doing a good work. Your 
 lands will give your children more bread ; and since you 
 have begun it, I will also put in and be at a part of the ex- 
 pense." And he actually furnishes more than his share of 
 the expense, and you thus secure a better dam than you 
 could build without his aid. Have you now any objection 
 to watering his fields? This is precisely what we are 
 doing. The Church of God plants a College to rear up an 
 able ministry, and rich men know that it is a public benefit, 
 and they know it is the only place where they can educate 
 their own sons, and they cheerfully put in their share, and 
 more than pay for what we do (money only considered) for 
 the education of their sons. So that, in point of money, 
 we lose nothing by the operation, but gain much, as we 
 secure better endowed institutions. 
 
 But take another view of the subject. Is it a matter 
 of no interest to_ the Church, whether the sons of the rich 
 spend their youth in ostentatious folly, in fashionable 
 amusements, the nine-pin alley, the dance, the chase, the 
 horse-race, or whether they spend their youth in the pur- 
 suit of knowledge, under pious teachers, where night and 
 morning they hear the word of God read, and hear prayer 
 offered ? Are the men who disgrace their country, to say 
 nothing of themselves, on the floor of Congress, by intoxi- 
 cation, and profaneness, and brawls, — are tJiese the men 
 who were chastened in youth in any of our New England 
 Colleges ? Is it no gain to the cause of religion to have 
 these young men educated with the sons of the Church 
 and by the Church ? 
 
 But I repeat it — our Colleges are chiefly and mainly 
 
20 
 
 institutions designed for the poor and those in moderate 
 circumstances, and not for the rich. What College in all 
 New England lives by its tuition fees ? What one, whose 
 needful expenses are not more than double what are charged 
 to the students ? By these endowments, indigence itself 
 can drink at the richest fountains of knowledge, when, 
 without these endowments, none but the rich could be edu- 
 cated. Our Colleges are the best possible provision for the 
 rich, but are emphatically designed for the poor. 
 
 And here let me say another thing. We have no insti- 
 tutions in our land more truly republican than our Colleges. 
 The rich and the poor meet here ; but nowhere does the 
 distinction between wealth and poverty vanish so soon, and 
 appear so insignificant. I can well remember the poor 
 youth who rang the bell, and waited on tables, and occupied 
 the recitation-room, because of his poverty, and yet in a 
 class of nearly a hundi-ed, there was no one more respected, 
 honored, or courted by the rich. Is there any other place 
 more republican than this ? Very soon is the lesson learned 
 at College, that wealth has little power compared with 
 knowledge. Our most important posts, in New England 
 certainly, where we lack neither intelligence nor wealth, 
 are occupied by those who were poor when starting in 
 life. 
 
 It may seem a paradox — but it is nevertheless true, that 
 it would be impossible to educate the sons of the rich, except 
 in Colleges that are charitable institutions. To secure the 
 education of the wealthy, you must bring the means down 
 within the reach of the poor. Suppose our Colleges were 
 not endowed, and none could enjoy their benefits except 
 the rich, what efforts would the rich then make to be 
 thoroughly educated ? They would feel that their wealth 
 gave them a standing, and as they could now monopolize 
 both wealth and education, what would they do ? What, 
 but the hotbed of extravagance, of folly, and of sin, could 
 a College be, filled with young men too indolent for bodily 
 or mental labor? But let the rich man's son compete 
 
21 
 
 with the poor youth who is aspiring and struggUng to 
 quahfy himself to do good, and he will find that he must 
 study, or he loses all standing. Mind, and not matter, is 
 the standard in College, and take away poor men's sons, 
 and leave only the rich together, and you can never edu- 
 cate them. Is not this plain? I was lately at a College 
 commencement, where I was peculiarly struck with the 
 appearance of a young man who came on the stage to 
 speak. He had one of the brightest eyes and most illumi- 
 nated countenance ever seen, and just enough of the foreign 
 accent to show that he was a foreigner by birth. He de- 
 livered his oration, and so thrilling was his voice, and so 
 beautiful the thoughts, that every heart was touched. Great 
 statesmen and high judges were present, and their hearts 
 were bowed, and they shed tears with the rest. Who was 
 the noble youth? I was told that his father is a poor 
 man — an Irish woodsawyer in a neighboring city ! After 
 the exercises were over, I saw his poor mother walking 
 arm in arm with her son, and I said to myself. These are 
 nature's nobility ! These are the fruits of our system of 
 Colleges. Blessed system ! where the rich is not degraded 
 by learning the true standard of excellence, nor by associ- 
 ating with and respecting those whom he would be in dan- 
 ger of scorning, were he to meet them on any other ground ! 
 
 I ought here to add, emphatically, that there are recip- 
 rocal advantages in thus bringing the sons of the rich and 
 poor together, and that the youth in moderate circumstan- 
 ces derives much benefit from associating with those who 
 have moved in a different sphere, and, in some respects, 
 have had advantages superior to his. His views are en- 
 larged, while his manners are softened and refined. 
 
 One thing more on the objection that our Colleges edu- 
 cate rich men's sons. Suppose these sons could be educated 
 by themselves, or suppose the rich did not aid us to endow 
 our Colleges, though their sons are educated at them, still, 
 there is another thing to be taken into the account. I will 
 suppose that in educating fifty young men for the ministry, 
 
22 
 
 you also educate fifty young men, sons of the rich, who dc 
 not enter the ministry : still you have directed the bias, the 
 warmth, the enthusiasm of youth towards the cross of 
 Christ; you have set before them the true standard of excel- 
 lence ; you have taught them the great object of life ; and 
 you have prepared the way for them to use their wealth for 
 the high and noble object of doing good. You have lifted 
 that wealth, otherwise probably lost, up on the platform of 
 Christian benevolence, and opened new fountains which 
 will flow for years to come. And thus the Church of God 
 receives back, wdth amazing interest, all that she expends 
 to educate the rich. 
 
 You will excuse me, my good friend, for having dwelt 
 so long on this point. I wish to show you not only that 
 the fact that we do educate the rich is no objection to our 
 system of Collegiate Institutions, but it is a strong argument 
 in their favor — to my mind, an unanswerable one. 
 
 What makes the meadow lying back of your dwelling 
 so beautiful and so fertile ? Is it not because the sweet 
 "river of hills" which God has created by collecting a 
 thousand little mountain-streams into it, brings down fer- 
 tility and freshness as it winds its way to the ocean ? And 
 if, on its way, it throws blessings into the dwellings of a 
 thousand poor men, are you not willing that here and there 
 a rich man also should receive its benefits ? Would you 
 wish to open a fountain on one of the mountain-sides which 
 should send out healing waters long after you are dead, and 
 not have these waters free to all ? So God feels in causing 
 the rills to bubble up around us. And while our Colleges 
 were founded to educate such men as Payson, and Gordon 
 Hall, we rejoice that, incidentally, they do a vast amount 
 of unseen good, and pour blessings upon others, without 
 turning aside from the great end of their establishment. 
 Bear it in mind, that they are,, and ever have been, char- 
 itable institutions, whose great aim is to raise up an able 
 ministry : the rest is incidental. So good men feel it to be, 
 when once they understand it. The greatest donation that 
 
23 
 
 Yale ever received, was from a plain, hard-working farmer : 
 and a plain farmer of Massachusetts was among the earliest 
 and heaviest benefactors to Lane Seminary, to Marietta 
 College, to Wabash College, to Amherst, and to the The- 
 ological Seminary at Gilmanton. And if you inquire, Why 
 do we not call on the rich and endow these Colleges en- 
 tirely by obtaining large sums, and not thus call on men of 
 moderate means to throw in their small donations ? we an- 
 swer, for the same reason that God collects the great river 
 from a thousand little rills. We want our Colleges to lie 
 warm on the heart of the Church, to live in her prayers and 
 sympathies ; and for the same reasons that our great mis- 
 sionary funds are collected from ten thousands of praying 
 people, does God send us to such men as you are, to aid in 
 rearing the College. You will not love and pray for insti- 
 tutions in which you have no stock invested.* And we 
 want your prayers no less, certainly, than we want your 
 contributions. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — It is the impression of some, that the 
 West can and ought raise up and maintain her own Col- 
 leges. Do we not do so at the East ; and is not her soil 
 vastly more fertile than ours ? Do we no read of wheat 
 fields there two miles square each, yielding twenty-five 
 bushels to every acre ? And have we not such accounts 
 of the fertility of their soil that we are almost tempted to 
 leave our cold climate and worn-out soil for the West? 
 
 * When New England was poor, and they were but few in number, there 
 was a spirit to encourage learning. The infant institution [Harvard] was a 
 favorite. Connecticut and Plymouth, and the towns in the East, often contri- 
 buted little offerings to pijpmote its success. The gift of the rent of a ferry was 
 a proof of the care of the state ; and once, at least, every family in each of the 
 colonies gave to the College at Cambridge twelve pence, or a peck of corn, or 
 its value in unadulterated wampum-peag ; while the magistrates and wealthier 
 men were profuse in their liberality. — Bancroft's History of the United States 
 Vol. I. p. 459. 
 
24 
 
 Why, then, do they not lean upon their own population, and 
 do the work themselves ? 
 
 I will tell you. Colleges grow out of the wants of the 
 Church. She rears them to raise up her ministry. When 
 New England was first settled, it was by a company of 
 saints, "a royal priesthood, a peculiar people." All their 
 strength went together for any good object. Hence, though 
 they were poor, they could rear their schools, by concen- 
 trating all their strength. But at the West, there are all 
 kinds of people and views, aims and feelings, the greater 
 part go there because they are poor, and wish to better their 
 condition ; they have their wild lands to subdue and pay 
 for ; their houses, school-houses, court-houses, and churches 
 to build, they have their roads and bridges to make, and 
 the number who feel the need of a College, who can under- 
 stand its value to the cause of religion, and at the same 
 time have the power to do much, is comparatively small. 
 If the population were all like the Puritans of New England, ' 
 the case would be different. But it is not ; and few of us 
 are aware how much sickness, and self-denial, and suffering 
 most have to pass through before they have a home that is 
 their own. The number of pious people to the whole mass 
 is small, and probably they are not all of the most intel- 
 ligent and enlightened order. And before we complain 
 that they come East to ask our aid to build and sustain 
 their Colleges, let us recollect one important fact. It is just 
 ivhat we did when we were young, feeble, and in a forming 
 state. With all her enlightened piety and forecast, New 
 England never could have reared her wonderful schools 
 when she did, had she not looked East for aid. Harvard 
 College, and Yale College, and Dartmouth, all received 
 their names from the great-hearted men who lived or were 
 reared in England. Their early funds and their aid, at the 
 time most needed, came from Europe. * I must remind you 
 here too, that when Lord Dartmouth was laying a plan by 
 which to raise the Indians, he planted a College at Hanover, 
 that, like a powerful engine on the top of a hill, it might 
 
25 
 
 draw up from the valley that which needed raising. The 
 Indians have passed away but the engine still remains, a 
 monument of the wisdom of its founder, and a great bless- 
 ing to the world. If Esau despised the blessing, Jacob has 
 inherited it. I do believe it would have been impossible 
 for these institutions to have risen up as they did, and lohen 
 they did, and to have become what they have, without 
 help from abroad. Let us remember this. And if you still 
 insist upon it that at the West they have a rich soil, I reply, 
 it is no richer than ours was when the plough was first put 
 in it. No part of the world ever yielded more abundantly 
 than the virgin soil of New England,* and yet, though they 
 had all this, and though all felt alike and thought alike, and 
 though they were very wise and good men, yet they need- 
 ed aid from abroad, and received it ! Is it any wonder 
 that the West cannot at present command the means to 
 lay the foundation of such institutions as her circumstances 
 require ? There is no doubt but there is wealth enough at 
 the West ; but bear in mind, that the model of a College is 
 an institution whose chief design is to train up an able Pro- 
 testant ministry, and the number of those who can heartily 
 enter into this design, is so small, that the wealth which 
 they can command is absolutely inadequate to this great 
 design. f 
 
 You are aware also, I presume, that some think that 
 this is not the best way to accomplish the end at which we 
 
 * See Mr Gould's address before the Berkshire Agricultural Society, 1846. 
 
 tit appears from recent investigations, that of the 210 townships on the 
 Western Reserve — which has been called " the New England of the West " — 
 55 townships, containing a population of 51, 171, have not any Congregational 
 or Presbyterian church organized within their limits, and are to a great extent 
 without church organizations of any kind. According to the most liberal es- 
 timate, not more than one-sixth of the population on the Reserve is under the 
 influence of these denominations. The number of churches connected with 
 New School Presbyteries and Independent is 136 — averaging about 70 mem 
 hers each. Their reliable ministerial force, consisting of Pastors, Stated Sup- 
 plies, and Licentiates, amounts to 80. Of these, 50 during the last year re- 
 ceived aid either from the American Home Missionary Society or the Connec- 
 ticut Missionary Society, leaving only 30 as the number sustained wholly by 
 their parishes. There are, also, 9 churches connected with Old School Pres- 
 byteries. — N. E. Puritan, 1846 — 7. 
 
26 
 
 aim. They would have the West send their sons on to 
 the East to be educated. " Here," say they, " we have the 
 institutions all prepared. We have the libraries, the ap- 
 paratus, the teachers, and we can give them a much better 
 education here, than they can receive at home." We re- 
 ply to this, that experience leads to safe conclusions. 
 When we were young here, poor, and our institutions in 
 their infancy, our fathers could have received a better edu- 
 cation in old Cambridge or Oxford across the waters than 
 they could here. A few did go there for education, and 
 came back impressed with the conviction that they must 
 raise these institutions at home as fast as possible, and as 
 high also. But the great mass of those educated for the 
 ministry could not go. They must be educated here, or 
 not at all. Now we have here at the East fine mill- 
 streams, a great water-power, and good mill-wrights and 
 valuable mill-stones. They lack all these, measurably, at 
 the West. Would it be wise, therefore, for them to send 
 all their wheat to us to be ground ? You say, " No ; they 
 must have their own mills, and must grind their own 
 wheat." I say so too. And so they must have their own 
 Schools, and Colleges, and Institutions. Their wants are to be 
 so great, that they cannot send abroad to educate their sons. 
 Just turn the tables. I am a poor man. I can just sup- 
 port my family. God has given me an only son, whom I 
 consecrated to him from the moment of his existence. I 
 wish to educate that boy, in the hope, that he may serve 
 Christ in his Church. By straining every nerve, it is pos- 
 sible I may do it. But suppose we had no College in all 
 New England, and I had to send him over the mountains 
 to the West, in order to get at a College. Could I do it ? 
 Could any number of our poor youth, who are now trained 
 up to be very useful men, who had else never had the oppor- 
 tunity to do any thing great in the cause of Christ ? 
 
 If you still press me, and say, " Why not — why not send 
 them here ?" I reply, that it takes a great many little things 
 to make a great one. If I am to send my son to the West, 
 
t7 
 
 to be educated, he is either to travel home every vacation, 
 or stay there, — either alternative is expensive. If he goes 
 there I can clothe him and provide for him only at arm's 
 length, and at great disadvantage. Would it be possible for 
 one of our sons to be educated there, where three are now 
 at home ? And is it not equally true, if you ask the same 
 question about the West ? But even if they could send 
 their sons to the East, and we could educate them at a less 
 expense than to endow Colleges there, there are other con- 
 siderations that rise immeasurably above dollars and cents. 
 I shall stop only to say, that the exigencies of every great 
 community require that the education of that community 
 be within itself A College is the heart, and what could 
 you do if the heart were taken from the centre of the body 
 and placed in your hand, or in any other remote part of the 
 body ? The Church needs a native ministry, when this is 
 possible, and we cannot lay plans to raise up a ministry for 
 ten or twenty millions of people, by having them all sent 
 hundreds and thousands of miles to find a College. Which 
 is wise, to build one free school in the centre of each town, 
 or to have our district schools scattered all over the town ? 
 Would the same oil which is now distributed through the 
 streets and lanes of a great city, do as much good if con- 
 centrated into two or three great lights ? I need not 
 answer these questions. And I hesitate not to say, that if 
 you would fill the community with light — ^which is the life 
 of Protestant Christianity — you must have Colleges distri- 
 buted through the land. 
 
 I do not know but I may be called heterodox for the 
 opinion which I am about to pen ; but so deep is my con- 
 viction of the importance of our Colleges, that if the ques- 
 tion were whether they or our Theological Schools should 
 go down, I should have no hesitation in saying, " Stand by 
 the Colleges." The place of our Theological Seminaries 
 can be supplied ; but the place of our Colleges, nothing can 
 supply. The Church once did without the former, but the 
 universal experience of the Church in all ages, proves that 
 
28 
 
 she cannot do without the latter. Perhaps the former may 
 still be considered as an experiment ; but there is nothing 
 experimental about the latter. They are the wholesale 
 warehouses, from which intelligence and thought are dis- 
 tributed all over the land and the earth. 
 
 A word here on the objection to founding Colleges, that 
 the funds are liable to be perverted, and the institutions be- 
 come engines of mischief I admit the liability, and most 
 woful are the results when this is the case. But let us re- 
 joice that Christ can keep that which is committed to his 
 hands. According to the statement of the President of one 
 of our Colleges, among one hundred Colleges which have 
 been established in our country, there has been but one 
 solitary College which has been perverted from the design 
 of its founders. This is a remarkable fact. We must re- 
 member, that when the Church deals in the things of this 
 world, she must run risks which business men run. A mis- 
 sionary ship needs insuring as well as any other. We must 
 expect occasionally to meet with losses. If a steam-boiler 
 bursts, its very power to speed us on our way becomes 
 fearful to destroy. Banks, factories, joint-stock companies, 
 and all human enterprises which require capital, sometimes 
 fail and draw ruin in their track. Shall we, therefore, shut 
 up our banks, stop our machinery, furl the sails of our ships, 
 and bury our property in the earth, because we sometimes 
 meet with losses in using it? Civilization cannot exist 
 without a certain degree of risk, nor can Christianity make 
 progress without risk. 
 
 LETTEE VI. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — There is a feeling with some that there 
 is so much about a College that looks like machinery, that 
 it cannot be a charitable institution. " There are the build- 
 ings, the piles of brick and mortar ! Is it charity to build 
 those huge buildings ? Is it charity to give my money to 
 
29 
 
 purchase apparatus, and a library of books that have nothing 
 to do with reUgion ? Do these seem Hke aiding the cause 
 of reUgion ?" 
 
 As to machinery — we do and can do nothing without 
 it. We must use the lead of the mines, the tanneries, the 
 press, and the steam-engine, with which to print and circulate 
 the Bible. Formerly they used mules to drive the printing 
 press at the Tract House. Is it charity to give my money to 
 buy mules, to buy leather and paper and boxes when I 
 would circulate the Bible ? Yes, it is charity. And if we 
 could not send our missionaries abroad except by owning 
 missionary ships, we should build them and buy them for 
 this purpose. Whatever machinery is necessary in order 
 to do the work of preaching Christ, we must have. The 
 plates and the cups at the communion table, are necessary 
 to the object contemplated. So are libraries, and apparatus, 
 and lecture-rooms, and recitation-aooms, necessary in order 
 to train up an efficient ministry. 
 
 But is not too much money spent on College buildings ? 
 Perhaps so. But let me tell you how it is. In rearing a 
 College, we first find the location best adapted to the wants 
 of the community. We locate and wish to have it per- 
 manent in one place. It must not be travelling about like 
 an itinerant lecturer. We must rear buildings, then, suffi- 
 cient for a chapel, or place of daily prayers. We must 
 have large rooms for the recitations. We must have suit- 
 able rooms for the library, for the apparatus, and for the 
 students to hold their own meetings in. These are essen- 
 tial to a College — to every permanent institution. Then, 
 as to erecting buildings in which the students shall room 
 and study, that is a matter of expediency to be judged of in 
 ^ach particular case. My own opinion is, that in most 
 cases, it is economy to erect them, — and for these reasons : 
 1. The students must room and study somewhere. If the 
 College does not furnish rooms, private individuals must ; 
 then the students must pay such a price as is demanded, 
 and they must be more or less scattered through a town or 
 village. The cost to the student will be much greater in 
 
30 
 
 this case. 2. By rearing your rooms for the students, at a 
 very moderate rent, you have an income that makes your 
 outlay a safe investment. For example, if you have 
 $20,000, out of the interest of which you are to support a 
 Professor, and if, instead of putting this at interest, you in- 
 vest it in buildings, and rent the rooms for a sum fully 
 equal to the interest, and at the same time you give the 
 students much cheaper and better accommodations than 
 they could otherwise have, are you not wise to do so ? It 
 is only a question of investment of funds by which you 
 support the institution. You see, then, that the brick and 
 the mortar of a College are essential to it, just as the box 
 is essential in which to send off Bibles, just as the ship is 
 to send off missionaries, and just as human bodies are, to 
 contain the spirits that live and act for Jesus Christ. 
 
 I believe I have now, my good friend, laid the subject 
 before you, and considered the difficulties and objections to 
 this system of charity so fully, that you, and all our good 
 people, will cheerfully give this a place in your prayers, and 
 sympathies, and contributions. The people of God have 
 made a recent experiment in rearing up a College in this 
 commonwealth, wholly by their own efforts. It was plant- 
 ed and grew up in prayer. It has rested on the Church 
 alone for aid. What have been the results ? It is about a 
 quarter of a century old. In that time, it has been blessed 
 with eight different seasons of the outpourings of the Spirit 
 of God, which may be called general. More than 400, or 
 over one half of all who have graduated, have entered the 
 ministry. Over 100 are now Pastors in Massachusetts. 
 Others have gone out and are preaching the Gospel in 
 seventeen different states and territories, probably a ma- 
 jority of them sent out by the Home Missionary Society : 
 while about thirty have taken their lives in their hands and 
 have gone to preach Christ to the heathen. And what will 
 eternity disclose as the results of all this ? Why, if this 
 College were now to sink and never more to be heard of, 
 the good already accomplished would more than a thou- 
 sand fold compensate for all that the Church has done for 
 
31 
 
 it. " Them that honor me, I will honor," saith the Lord. 
 All the Colleges under the patronage of the Society have 
 been repeatedly favored with revivals of religion, and we 
 have no doubt that they will be the means directly of ad- 
 vancing the kingdom of God, in proportion as they are 
 sustained by the prayers and money of his people. Instead 
 therefore of feeling it a burden, to have the cause of the 
 Western Colleges thrown upon good people there, and good 
 people at the East, let us rejoice that it is so. Surely we 
 do not need the archangel to thrust down his trumpet and 
 blow the approbation of God into our ears ; and we have 
 every thing but that. The great end at which we aim, is 
 to give the West an able and efficient ministry, and for this 
 we cannot rely upon the State. Keep in mind that the 
 local churches are the centres of light and truth in this 
 country; and in the philosophy of the organization of this 
 nation every thing turns, and depends upon their being 
 guided by a rightly educated ministry. To this great object, 
 we must turn our attention with earnestness. We cannot do 
 the work without Colleges. The experience of all ages 
 decides this point. The country which has become the 
 asylum of all nations, the good and the bad, must have its 
 character decided by the West. And the West will have 
 its character formed and decided by the institutions of learn- 
 ing planted there. We must come up to this work, and 
 we must lose no time in doing it. 
 
 When the Society for Collegiate and Theological Edu- 
 cation at the West was established, I felt doubtful as to its 
 necessity, and of the favor which it would find with our 
 churches. The more I have reflected upon the subject, the 
 more convinced I have become, that it was, and is, and will 
 be, necessary for the present. We shall require our friends 
 at the West to do all in their power. But we must aid 
 them till they can provide for themselves in their own 
 fields ; for, the Colleges must be mainly charitable institu- 
 tions, at which the sons of the Church, poor though they 
 may be, may be trained up for the Redeemer's service. 
 The expenses to the student must be kept low for this pur- 
 
020 775 966 1 
 
 32 
 
 pose. A few years since, a plain farmer left his hard-earned 
 property to the care of a few friends to distribute. We 
 gave $1000 to each of several Colleges, and directed that 
 the money be laid out for a library. In consequence of 
 these books, the now able President of Marietta College 
 has compiled a Lexicon, which is an honor to him and to 
 our country. He has dedicated it to the memory of the 
 good man who gave the money. What a beautiful monu- 
 ment has God thus erected to the memory of Samuel Stone ! 
 For the last few years, the question. How can we sup- 
 ply the West with an efficient and educated ministry ? has 
 weighed heavily upon those who have stood on the walls, 
 and have heard the cry, " Watchman, what of the night ?" 
 We think we can now see how it can be done ; and we 
 feel confident, that when the candid and good men of our 
 churches have examined the subject, they will see as we 
 do ; that they will hail this Society as a chosen vessel of 
 mercy, and be ready to bid it God-speed. With all our 
 imperfections, we have and can have no selfish motives, in 
 urging our beloved people to take this cause near their 
 hearts. We shall raise up ministers and churches and 
 schools, which we shall never see. We shall become bene- 
 factors to those who can never know us. But we raise up 
 a divinely-appointed and the most efficient instrumentality 
 the world ever saw ; and we put a machinery in motion 
 that will operate long after we are dead and forgotten. We 
 enter the field on which the enemy of all righteousness is 
 building his strong forts, and we prepare, in the panoply of 
 light and truth and love, to combat his strength, and to fight 
 with weapons which God has appointed. If truth shall be 
 overcome in the conilict, we shall not five to see its fall ; but 
 shall be rewarded for our efforts. If it shall prevail, as prevail 
 I have no doubt it will, then will the river into which we 
 send our rills, for ever flow, and make glad the city of our 
 God. 
 
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