A C
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@).I  Ff 
A
DISCOURSE
DELIVERED AT SALEM, MASS., NOV. 13, 1866,
IN BEHALF OF THE
SOCIETY FOR THE PROM]OTION OF COLLEGIATE AND TIIEOLOGICAL
EDUCATION AT TiHE WEST.
BY
SAMUEL WFISHER, D.D., LL.D.,
PASTOR OF WESTMINSTER CHURCH, UTICA, N.Y.
I NEW YORK:
PRINTED BY JOHN F. TROW & CO.,
50 GREENE STREET.
-     1867.
Mi~sh2  ttt $trtugtW  Df grt  X 
"The thanks of the Board were tendered to the Rev.
Dr. FISHER for his Sermon, delivered last evening, and a copy
requested for publication."
Extract lroin the Minutes, Nov. 13, 1866.
-' ~*.~;J. SPAULDING, Rec. Secretary.
L C
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5.,IV
~~ 
DISC OURSE.
5 "A wise man is strong; yea, a           man  of knowledge
PRov. xxiv. 5:
increases strength."
THERE are two things which it is well for us to observe in order to a full explication of this passage.
There is a distinction between wisdom and mere
knowledge;-not so much, perhaps, between the
highest form of knowledge and wisdom, as between
the latter and the more popular idea of the former;
for knowledge is taken to be the acquaintance of the
mind with the general truths of science, while wisdom
is the practical insight into the relations of these
truths, and the masterly tact which combines them in
the best manner to effect good ends. And so we often
see a man who has largely stored his memory with
facts on a great variety of subjects, whose knowledge,
therefore, may be styled great and various, who is at
the same time, and in spite of these acquisitions, quite
deficient in the power to arrange and combine what he
knows, so as to effect important objects. On the other
hand, we often see men, his inferiors in these general
acquisitions, yet possessed of a remarkable capacity
for understanding the relations of what they know to
what they wish to effect, for concentrating the scattered rays of knowledge upon the purposes of life; 
) -2 7-1,733
.0.  
4
and for this reason they are in the practical, concrete
work before them vastly his superiors.  Now, the wise
man of the text is the one who combines both these
elements of power.  "Through wisdom is an house
builded; and. by understanding it is established."
Such a man is a true builder; his intelligence compasses alike the elementary facts and their combination in a work of true science. He can not only
quarry the stone, but put them together in such order,
with such compactness, solidity, fitness, and beauty,
that they shall form a noble mansion adorned and
fitted for his habitation.  The common maxim, "knowledge it power," needs just this qualification. It is
knowledge inwrought into the very thought and
reason; knowledge assimilated, and so creative; knowledge that becomes part of the mind itself, as it originates and works to practical ends-that comes and
goes as he bids it, and as a servitor waits to effect his
purpose; it is such knowledge ripens into wisdom;
such knowledge is the highest form of power.
The second clause involves an idea somewhat in advance of this, although  substantively the same.   "A
man of knowledge increaseth strength;" that is, knowledge enhances the original, the native force. Men
differ in original capacity as they do in feature, form,
and physical vigor. But in all cases knowledge proportionally augments power, be it originally less or
more. Some men are specially strong by nature; apt,
ready, quick in apprehension, effective in execution.
Such men will work their way, and make their mark
in their generation, often with very few literary or
scientific advantages. Burns will sing his lyrics; and
they shall be full of the inspiration of a true poetic
genius; they shall touch the chords of humanity's
great heart, evolving responsive music, generations 
5
after the tongue that gave them utterance is silent in
the grave. Hugh Miller, that still more complete
and well-rounded representative Scotchman, shall ham-.
mer and chisel his way down into the profundities
of the world's mysterious generation, and up to the
heights of literary fame.  Henry, the orator, "1 ascitur
nonfit," shall enchain his rapt hearers by the spontaneous outgusliings of an eloquence strange and wonderful even to himself. But all such native strength,
when it takes knowledge to itself, rises to a grander
height, expands over a wider field.
On the other hand, there are those whose original
natures have none of this imperial force; they never
originate, they only reflect, and that but partially, the
light of others.  "Wisdom  is too high for a fool."
The heights of wisdom their wings are too feeble to
scale; they are at home only in the simplest facts and
commonplaces of life. Knowledge increases somewhat the little strength they have; but in this constitution of the realm of iind it is not practicable by
any known process of mental discipline to impart to
them a broad, far-reaching, comprehensive, or creative
power. The mass of men crowd the space between
these extremes of strength and feebleness, the archangels standing in the sun and the dwarfs who grovel
on the earth. To them all knowledge comes as a
means of lighting up the leaden eye, and quickening
the torpid currents of the soul, vastly augmenting
their powers and widening their sphere of influence.
And thus we have before us the twofold proposition
of the text: "A wise man is strong, yea, a man of
knowledge increaseth strength."
Now, it seems to me wholly unnecessary, before
such an audience, here in the heart of New England,
where these thoughts are as familiar as the alphabet, 
6
to do more than briefly illustrate this truth.  In point
of fact, it is so clearly impressed upon the nature and
form of man; it shines forth so distinctly from all his
noblest works, as to be obvious to the dullest comprehension. The history and the organization of man at
once reveal the fact that his strength consists not in
his physical energy, but in his wisdom and knowledge.
He comes into this world the weakest, the most dependent of living things. Another mind full of emotion, informed by reason, acting on principles of the
truest wisdom, must minister to his wants, must plan
and study and labor for him; must train him in
learning, with a profound knowledge of his high capacities, until, after long years of such gentle and wise
nurture, he rises to the stature of a man.  Then, as he
stands forth in the fullness of manly beauty, how utterly disproportioned is his frame to the mighty works
he is to accomplish, yet how admirably is it constructed
as the instrument through which the intellect is to reveal its ascendency, and knowledge is to win its triumphs over mere brute and natural forces!  Erect in
form, his eye surveys alike the heavens and the earth,
as if, being made only a little lower than the angels,
he was destined to ascend to the first when he has
brought the second into subjection.   Look  at that
hand, so small, so slender, so weak beside the paw of
the lion or the bear, yet that hand built the pyramids,
that hand reared the enormous temples 6f Baalbec,
that hand hung high in midheaven the wondrous dome
of St. Peter's. That hand, did I say? yea, rather the
wisdom and knowledge of this mind within informing,
wielding that hand, wrought all these demonstrations
of strength.  These, using this slight, this feeble thing;
teaching it how to subsidize all the forces of nature, how
to tame the winds and the waters, and harness them to 
7
do its work; built all the proud cities of the past and
the present; whitened the ocean with canvas; subdued the wilderness; approximated continents; opened
the pathways of commerce and over them poured the
freightage of human life and the products of human
skill with a velocity that almost distances the chariot
of the sun. When the mathematician of Syracuse
taught his countrymen, by a combination of lenses,
to burn the ships of their enemies, he only demonstrated in a single instance the superior strength of
wisdom; just that kind of superiority which belongs
to man in distinction from the brutes; just that
superiority which, since the origin of the race, other
things being equal, has always given the victory to
its possessors  over  mere  physical energy.   It is
this which gave Alexander, C(esar, Frederick, Napoleon their terrible supremacy in war; it is this which
gave the feeble hand of our forefathers that irresistible momentum before which the hosts of savage warriors, as brave and hardy as themselves, faded and fell
as the autumn-leaves fade and fall before the frosts of
winter; and just so far as any nation embodies in itself this high element of power, will it advance and
conquer, while nations vastly greater in numbers and
brute force, but inferior in moral and intellectual culture, will decline, and, if they succeed not in the acquisition of this more vital power, must die.
The same thought finds an illustration inf that
higher region, when you ascend to those transcendent
forces which give to a nation its substantive form, its
organic life; to those laws, in obedience to which the
mind and heart of a nation move for centuries with
the steady and certain march of troops drilled to the
command of a single will. You see that the strength
lies not in material forces, but condensed and operative 
8
in the wisdom and knowledge of the few who in this
rose superior to the multitude. Your Solon and Numa and Confucius, your Alfred and Mohammed and
Charlemagne, your Madison and Hamilton-what separated them from the masses around them? What gave
them an influence which throbs through generations
and ages? what but this eagle insight, this intuition
into causes and results beyond the ken of others; this
tact and knowledge combined which impresses on
their minds and works the stamp of wisdom?
There is, however, another region of thoughtanother field of action grander than these, where our
proposition finds its fullest illustrations Man is allied
to his Creator-made in his image; in communion
with Him he truly lives; in the knowledge of Him he
becomes truly wise. Even Godcl himself is strong as
he is wise. It is not omnipotence alone or chiefly that
constitutes him sovereign; it is not this that attracts
to him the hearts of angels, nor is it this mainly they
adore when they compass his throne. It is that wigdom, fathomless, boundless, infinite, which has laid in
eternity the immovable foundations of his absolute
supremacy. This flames in the stars, and creates the
harmony of their sublime march in the peopled vastness of the skies; this smiles in the flowers, glows in
the sunshine, glitters in the snow-crystals, pours its
wild music in the tempest, sleeps quietly where the
everlasting granite ribs the world, comes forfh arrayed
in beauty when the soft breath of spring has wakened
nature to her green and glad existence, throbs all
through the forces of this material creation, but reveals itself to man most grandly and lovingly in the
face of Jesus his Redeemer; this is the sublimest
strength of God. And just as man rises to a knowledge of Him, as on his intellect and heart this like
I 
9
ness to his Heavenly Father is drawn most distinctly,
just as a son he takes in true conceptions of this wisdom, and in his soul feels the beatings of responsive
affections, does he, the creature of yesterday, wax
strong even with the might of God. Then it is he
runs and is not weary; he walks and is not faint; he
ascends on eagle wings and receives into his intellect
the opening grandeur and fullness of the infinite God.
And while the weak and the ignorant, when introduced into this sublime science, wax strong, yet even
in this loftier department of knowledge there are subjective differences in power. The Church on earth has
always had her cherubim, whose profounder knowledge
and larger capacity for combining the truths of religion,
so as to set them forth with special completeness and
adaptedness to mould and elevate the world, have
given them a just supremacy among the disciples, as
wise and strong. She cannot, if she would, and she
would not, if she could, strike from her glorious roll of
confessors, martyrs, and holy men, her Moses and Samuel, her David, Isaiah, and Daniel, her Paul and John,
her Origen and Chrysostom, her Jerome and Gregory,
her Calvin and Pascal, her Wickliffe and Cranmer, her
Baxter and Howe, her Wesley and Edwards —for they
are those who stood the strongest among the strong,
the wisest amidst the wise, emperors and kings in the
realm of divine science. Think of the influence of such
a man as Augustine, that converted gnostic and debauchee-think of him as standing on the borders of
those ages of darkness which were rolling up forces
from the bottomless pit to submerge the Church, and
sending his light forward and across that sea of corruption, chaos, and night, until its rays enter the cell of
the monk of Wittenberg, enter the intellect of that
grandest figure in the Reformation, aiding to kindle 
10
there anew the pure light on the altar of the Church
of Jesus. See Calvin, the Lawgiver of the Reformed
Church, and Zwingle, its battle,axe, and Melancthon, its
scholar, and Knox, its iconoclast, all sitting childlike at
his feet, to catch the whispers of that voice which, over
the dead centuries, spake to them the truth as it is in
Jesus;-then read once again the text, "A wise man
is strong, yea, a man of knowledge increases strength,"
and learn how vast, how profound, how full of perennial life, is that strength with which God sometimes
clothes his chosen servants, as they ascend to the comprehension of some of His wisdom, and enter, heart
and soul, into the glorious Temple of His Truth.
I have thus briefly illustrated the passage before us.
Let us now consider it in its application to the object
represented by this Society. That object is to aid in
the endowment and support of Christian Colleges at
the West. I propose to speak first of the work of a
Christian College, and then the way will be open to
bring home to your responsibilities the claims of such
institutions in our Western, and I trust also our Southern, States.
What, then, is the design of the Christian College?
Wht  As it done to fulll this design?  The design of
the College is just to assist men in obtaining precisely
this wisdom which constitutes a strong man.   It aims
to impart such knowledge and such mental discipline
as will greatly increase the native strength, and enable
its students to exert a large, profound, and healthful
influence upon society. I say it aims to increase the
native, the original strength-not to create it. Colleges
educate, they cannot create. Brains are the gift of
God.  Strong natural. powers come directly from the
creative hand of Infinite Wisdom.  Holiness is oper
to all; the child and the hoary head, the giant states 
11
man and the feeble plodder, who can do little else than
carry a hod, are here on a level. But great mental
powers are no more within a man's grasp than his
bodily stature. Colleges may aid in developing a mind
inherently feeble, but they cannot give it the highest
strength. This is not their office. You may educate
as much as you please, and yet you cannot make a
William the Silent out of a James the Second; yet
there will be Burkes and Websters, Edwards and Chalmers and Halls and Masons, towering up above the
multitude of even educated men in the secure strength
and clear sunlight of matchless wisdom. And to object to the College that it graduates some foolish, some
impracticable men, is to object that it has not creative
energy-that it has not robbed the All-wise of his
sovereignty, and constituted itself the Plastic Power
that impresses on all nature its original form and
native force. All that the College aims to do is to improve and develop the original powers according to
their susceptibility of improvement. It takes the student from the platform on which the common-school
and the academy have placed him, and, just so far
as he is capable of profiting by its discipline, endeavors
to lift him to a still higher position. By working his
mind through all the niceties of thought in language,
and the invigorating processes of mathematics, and the
great facts and theories of natural science, up to and
along the line of those profounder principles-which
constitute the knowledge of his intellectual and moral
nature, and so out into the broader field of the attri
butes and works of God; by teaching him how to abstract and analyze and penetrate through the outward
appearance to the underlying principle, and then
ascend to broad and massive generalizations, and thus
incorporate knowledge into his soul by a true mental 
assimilation;-by all this varied process it seeks to
make him strong in the noblest sense.  A mind gifted
with fine natural powers, availing itself of this discipline, grows unconsciously to a lofty stature; it becomes,
on the one hand, a compound blow-pipe, in whose flame
the diamond resolves itself into its original elements, all
questions solvable by man lose their knotty hardness;
and, on the other, a grand constructive force, under
whose action chaotic facts wheel into system and order,
and the world, man, providence, no longer a wild, rude,
puzzling, confounding, disconnected, disarray of things
material and immaterial, take each their places as parts
of one harmonious thought, over which the wisdom of
the Infinite sits enthroned in mysterious and unapproachable glory.
Nor is this all the College aims to effect. It recognizes the fact that a man who can write and speak, as
well as think, is doubly strong; that such an one can
make his powers most effective in moulding and elevating mankind; that he, coming into sympathy with
humanity, can best infuse the light he has brought
down from the throne into the eyes that are everywhere upturned to receive it; that he, seeing men
groping in darkness, can  most effectively seize the
torch of truth, and cast its blaze full upon the errors
and darkness of the world. And therefore the College
puts a pen into the scholar's hand, and disciplines his
stammering tongue, and awakens and invigorates his
power of expression by the collisions of debate and
the exercises of the class-room; and then sends him
forth practised in the art of grappling with mind and
bringing down to it all the researches of science and
the acquisitions of practical labor.
Nor are we yet at the end of our College work.
for here I speak only of a truly Christian College;
12 
13
where God's word is made the highest authority;
where this is sought to be inwrought into the reason,
the conscience, and the heart; where all natural science
is known to be its servitor, and itself the highest revelation of infinite wisdom; where week by week its teachings are brought to bear upon the whole man;-of
such I say that it bids the ripe scholar go forth from
its halls responsible to God for his influence; it bids
him go forth as the friend of man, the deliverer of the
oppressed, the comforter of the troubled, the guide of
the blind, the support of the weak, the elevator of the
corrupt, the enlightener of the ignorant; it bids him,
no matter what walk of life he may choose, whether it
be the pulpit, the bar, medicine, merchandise, the chair
of an editor, or the profession of a teacher, remember
that he is gifted of God with a special mission to commend the religion of Jesus to the hearts of men. It
puts into his hand the Bible as a familiar book, that he
has studied long and profoundly, and tells him, armed
with this, to consecrate his powers to Him who gave
them, and the Saviour who redeemed him; and putting his trust in One almighty to save, regardless of the
babblings of infidelity, the taunts of the worldly wise,
the ribaldry of the profane and the profligate, to go
forward and do his best for the life that now is, and
that grander life which must so soon open upon him.
Such is the design of a truly Christian College. It
matters not that in all cases it reaches not full success.
God only is perfect; God only accomplishes all His
purposes.  Man, imperfect in his nature, working with
imperfect instruments, can attain only imperfect results. It is enough that the College seeks by all worthy
means to effect this work in the mind and heart of all
its students.
. Now it may be said that all this may be accom 
14
plished by private tuition and discipline. Well, the
College arrogates to itself no monopoly of powers to
effect these objects. It is certain that a man of great
natural force and rich gifts, may, with little of the machinery of the schools to aid, but at the cost of vast
labor, work his way up to the heights of professional
knowledge, and stand forth strong in wisdom. All
honor to Franklin, to Summerfield, to Clay, who, conscious of high gifts, sought by steady labor to develope and use them for high purposes. Such men there
are here and there in all the professions. Would that,
instead of rising now and then like solitary palms in
the wild dreariness of the desert, their name was legion,
and their light a constellation amid the starry splendors of the firmament.
Yet, with all this admitted, it is affirmed, that just
here the College asserts its supremacy as the finest
means of helping forward to their just position this
whole class of minds. For, think a moment, what a
combination of circumstances and influences there must
be to rouse, to bear up, to encourage those minds in
this great work! Think of the obstacles they must
surmount, the influences of physical pursuits and pecuniary success tending to draw them aside, and then
wonder not that you can almost count their names on
your fingers.  The greatest, the best of these men are
at one with us here. They are ever ready to acknowledge a consciousness of the lack of that breadth and
accuracy of culture which the College gives, but which
is rarely attained outside of it; while, as a general
rule, it is evident all along the history of civilization,
that the College, or some equivalent educational force,
has brought forth minds thus gifted, and through its
invigorating discipline, they have risen in multitudes
to the heights of wisdom. This influence, going forth 
15
from these institutions, has roused the latent genius to
conscious life; has begotten new aspirations in souls
that would have slumbered on in the round of material
pursuits; this nerved them to effort., led them on from
the school to the academy, and the academy to the
college, until they went forth strong in wisdom, effective in knowledge.
It has sometimes been asserted that the College is
anti-democratic in its character and tendencies: an assertion more stupidly false and unhistoric never was
made. It is false in history. The old universities of
Europe, with scarcely an exception, were originally
eleemosynary institutions established as public charities. Scholars entered them from all ranks of society.
The peasant jostled the noble, and in the conflicts of
mind most frequently won the victory. Barons and
knights in the olden time never dreamed of monopolizing knowledge. The men who handled the battleaxe and whose grand argument was the sword, were
not so foolish as to imagine that God had given them
all the gifts of intellect and wisdom. It was firom these
universities emerged a new order of nobles-nobles
knighted of heaven; gifted by God himself with high
powers of intellect, there trained to overturn the old
supremacy of a false aristocracy, the supremacy of
brute force, and usher in the reign of intelligence, the
sovereignty of knowledge. And it is mainly to these
very universities, where the sons of poverty, possessed
of rare original endowments, ascended the heights of
learning in connection with a revived Christianity,
that our modern society is indebted for its vast progress in a truly Christian civilization.
But the sentiment is just as false in fact now as it
is in history. Who are they, who, with bright anticipations, are found in our colleges, with manly earnestness 
16
rising step by step through the stern discipline of
study, asserting the native nobility of an intellect informed by knowledge? Four out of five are the sons of
toil, nurtured where brawny hands hold the plow and
swing the hammer. I see yonder, in one of the quiet
intervales of New Hampshire, and not far from that
lake which sleeps so beautifully among her hills, a
father and his son riding together. That father was
a man of the revolution, whose heroism had assisted to
maintain our liberties, but on whose escutcheon there
was emblazoned no heraldic signs of hereditary dignities. Hie had entered a section of land and built his
log cabin on the frontiers of civilization, where, till
then, the smoke curling upward from the bark hut of
the Indian was the only sign of a human habitation.
Time has passed on; the forests have disappeared before the axe of the sturdy woodman; Dartmouth College has been planted in part by the munificent charity
of one across the waters, whose name it bears and
honors, for the purpose of educating the sons of the
forest, doing for us what it is the purpose of this Society to aid you in doing for our Western world. In
the bosom of that son the desire to enjoy its advantages has grown strong.  The father, too, impressed
with the inestimable value of education, like all our
Puritan ancestry, yearned to see that boy become an
educated man. Long has he pondered how, with his
slender means, to secure that great object. At length,
though it cost him a sacrifice only those placed in his
circumstances can fully appreciate, his desire ripens
into a fixed purpose. On that wintry morning, as he
rides slowly along, he informs his son that to college
he may go. The manly boy; too full of emotion to
speak his thankfulness, leans his head on his father's
shoulder and bursts into tears. There is a picture of 
17
struggling poverty in its intense and passionate longings for high intelligence, worthy of the pencil of the
most gifted artist. You all know the result of that
lofty purpose; what name stands forth preeminent
among the sons of Dartmouth; what name within
the last half century has been blazoned in letters of
living light all over the pages of his country's history.
It was the College that trained the stalwart intellect
of Webster; it is the College that, at this time, is busy
in giving the power of knowledge to the minds of hundreds of the sons of just such fathers.
From these seats of learning the blood of a new
intellectual life is poured into the veins of society.
Never can a nation become effete and old where Christian Colleges are sending forth, into its positions of
power and intelligence, minds fresh from all the departments of social-life, with their original and special
associations, refined and energized by a noble Christian
intelligence.
Right or wrong, the influence of the College has
always been profound and far-reaching. In some cases
and for a season they may have been the fortresses
within which error has entrenched itself, and then their
power for evil has been terribl'e. But in the main,
the great republic of letters they have constituted has
been a power for good, elevating society, beating down
the tyranny of hereditary station, and sending its light
far and wide. Out of the universities have goneforth
the great leaders in Church and State; the men who
have initiated healthful reforms, originated free, ecclesiastical organizations, systemized and given form to law,
framed constitutions to check and fetter irresponsible
power, worked with an enlightened zeal in all the professions, as statesmen, as lawyers, as physicians, as ministers of the gospel, as teachers, as editors, and given to
2
I.. 
18
society the ideas and the spirit which are now spreading themselves as the elements of a nobler civilization
than the world has ever seen.
Such men, to a large extent, led forth the colonies
to this new world. The Robinsons, the Davenports,
the Mathers, the Penns, the Ogilthorpes, gained their
power in the universities. All along through the Revolution and the formation of our Constitution, it was
the men of a thorough education that bore the most
effective part. Washington and Franklin were the
exceptions to a rule. The men who drafted declarations, who negotiated treaties, who framed constitutions, who administered governments, who interpreted
the law, who gave to our institutions their peculiar vitality, compactness, and form, were mainly educated by
a generous literary discipline, for which most of them
were indebted to those infant institutions which, with
benevolent foresight, our fathers had planted.   Macaulay's remark of the great men of Britain is substantially true of this country. "Take," says he, "the
Cambridge calendar, the Oxford calendar for two hunidred years; look at the church, the parliament, the
bar; and it has always been the case that the men who
were first in the competition of the schools were first
in. the competition of life." Take the calendars of the
Colleges of this country since its settlement, and the
great mass of those who have shone as the brightest
lights in each generation, and who in all departments of
mind have achieved the noblest triumphs, whose works
live either in the form of books, or statutes, or institutions, or men informed by their spirit, will be found
there recorded.
Especially when you come to the Church, to train
whose sons for the ministry Colleges have been largely
endowed, is this remark true. From a fourth to a third
t        -
i. —    - I 
19
of their graduates have entered the ministry. Here
they have wrought patiently, quietly, earnestly, and
with an effectiveness it is almost impossible to overestimate, to instruct and elevate society, through the
illustration and application of those Divine truths
which, like the sun, are most mighty to bless the
world.  In our own land, or far away in Turkey, in
Hindoostan, in China, in the islands of the sea, they
have scattered the seed which is now yielding so rich
a harvest.
Thus doth the College send down its influence
through society.  Its elevating virtue penetrates to
the remotest limbs of the body politic. The minds it
has trained transfuse the thoughts that quicken and the
science that stimulates and guides into multitudes that
know not their source.  They enter an atmosphere of
thought, which men breathe, and feel its quickening
power without realizing whence it comes. Its noblest
triumphs are not the grand displays of its orators, the
writings of its philosophers, or the arguments of its
statesmen, but that insensible influence which, proceeding from many sources, imparts a vital energy to
all the noblest functions of society.
Could the educated minds that have informed the
world be marshaled before us in one grand army,
what an imposing demonstration, rising to the sublime,
would that scene present! Moses, reared in the temple
of Isis, the great college of the Egyptians, should head
the procession of the ancient hierophants of science;
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, should lead forth the
corps of philosophers, historians, poets, statesmen, and
orators, educated to the highest point of mental power
in the schools of Greece; Cicero and Tacitus should
gather around them the cultivated mind of Rome;
Paul, reared at the feet of Gamaliel, should marshal 
20
the hosts of Christian scholars, trained in the seminaries of the early Church; Jerome, with Wickliffe and
Tyndale, should march before the company of those
magnificent scholars who have made the Bible a household book, bearing before them God's Word translated
into the vernacular of one hundred and seventy nations,
all blazing with the light that, through its various languages, shines upon six hundred millions of our race;
Augustine and Calvin, the grand masters in the realms
of theologic science, should assemble the profound
thinkers who have given form and symmetry to systematic theology; Luther and Wesley should bear a
burning torch before the Reformers in Church and
State; Bacon and Descartes, with calm, philosophic
mien, should lead the hosts of philosophers; Grotius
and Montesquieu and Mansfield, the bench and the
bar; Paracelsus and Harvey and Cullen, the physicians; Chrysostom and Whitfield and Chalmers, the
orators of the Church; Mirabeau and Burke, the orators of the State; Spencer and Milton and Johnson,
the poets and critics and writers in the field of literature; and thus, under these great leaders, the vast
army who, in all the departments of thought and influence have wrought for man, should pass in review before us. The historians, the editors, the teachers, the
men whose thinking has been for man, and has told
deeply on his progress and destiny, would all combine
to form that matchless demonstration of the elevation,
the glory, and the influence of educated mind. These,
and such as these, the College now aims to mould and
multiply through the length and breadth of our expanding land. The Edwardses, the Dwights, the
Witherspoons, the Davises, who are to train the thinkers for our future, are to come forth from the College;
the Hamiltons, the Jeffersons, the Storys, the Kents, 
21
the Clintons, the Websters, are there to ripen their
genius for their future work. The men who are to
write our best books and rule in that mighty fourth
estate, the weekly and daily press, and minister as our
physicians, and teach in our academies, are there to gain
their chief discipline. The ministers of Jesus, whose
words uttered from thousands of pulpits, spoken in
love and hope by ten thousand firesides, sounding afar
amidst the darkness and silence of Paganism, until
prophecy is fulfilled and Jesus ascends His throne on
earth, are there to obtain in large part their preparation for their sublime work.
Such is the character, the purpose, and influence of
the College. Under right influences its whole design
is to develop the wisdom which makes the man strong,
and impart that knowledge which increaseth strength.
This discussion of the real work of the Christian
College is the strongest appeal to the best feelings of
all right-minded men to plant and sustain such institutions wherever they are needed. No true patriot can
be indifferent to their claims when he fairly apprehends
their character and aims. Two hundred years ago it
was remarked by one of the great patriots of our
country," The nations that have shaken off barbarity
have not more differed in the languages than they
have agreed in this one principle, that schools for the
instruction of young men in all liberal sciences are
necessary to produce and preserve that learning which
softens the manners and saves from rudeness." Colleges,
representing the higher grade of mental cultivation,
and connecting themselves with all the science which
is diffused through the State, have always attracted
the deepest interest of our most enlarged and patriotic
minds. You can scarcely name a person in the history
of our country distinguished for comprehensive views 
22
and regard for the interests of the State, who has not
evinced his appreciation of the College as a power vital
to our elevation.  As founders of such institutions, as
benefactors, as supervisors, as generous and ardent
friends, their names have acquired an additional lustre;
they have connected themselves with powers that
would live and work for the elevation of the State and
the preservation of our liberties long after their bodies
had mingled with the dust. They felt that virtue and
intelligence were the only forces competent to secure a
free, a prosperous, and a highly civilized society. Without these in a republic, constitutions, laws, popular suffrage were only ropes of sand; with these our nation
would survive all the assaults of its enemies from without, and the more deadly assaults of the ignorant, the
corrupt, and the traitorous within.  Who is there that
cares for his country, who loves her liberty and glories
in her progress, and hopes to see her the foremost
representative in the congress of nations, of all that
is most noble and beneficent, that can say, These institutions are nothing to me; I recognize no claim of
theirs upon my influence, my property, my efforts?
But if patriotism should feel and act thus, what
shall we say of the obligations of the Church? If Jesus
has led his people to institute these powers of light,
where is the Christian who can be indifferent to them,
who will not recognize them in his prayers, and will do
nothing to secure them as forces vital to the advancement of true religion? The relation they sustain to
the Church and the progress of Christian truth, is
of incalculable importance. Cotton Mather says, " A
college was the best thing that ever New England
thought upon." And the testimony of the early colonists was to the same effect. "After God had carried
us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, 
23
provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil
government, one of the next things we longed for and
looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it
to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry
to the churches, when the present ministry shall be in
the dust."  There outspoke the heart; there shone
forth the Christian foresight of those heroic men who
laid broad and deep the foundations of the Church and
State!  "They dreaded to leave an illiterate ministry
to the churches, when their present ministers were in
the dust." They looked to the future; they labored
for posterity, and we have entered into their labors,
ant are reaping the harvest. This is the spirit which
has made New England, in her religious character, her
civil and literary institutions, the glory of our nation
and the wonder of the world; this has given to her sons
that high intelligence, that power of personal impression, that persistent and clear-sighted enterprise, which
all over this land is to-day the finest. demonstration of
the wisdom of a Puritan ancestry.  This high appreciation of learning, beginning with the common-school
and culminating in the university, has moulded the
character and is yet to fix the destiny of millions.
This taught her bayonets to think, and compacted her
troops into a solid phalanx by the power of principles
clearly seen and deeply felt. This, in connection with
her position, developed her inventive genius, and has
made her valleys vocal with the hum of innumera ble factories. This has made her foremost in enter prises to spread religion and intelligence and liberty
over the continent and the world. For a learned uni versity, vitalized by the religion of Jesus, is a power
the strongest in the world for the upbuilding of all
sorts of institutions of learning and the diffusion of the 
24
thoughts that quicken and expand the souls of men.
A learned Christian ministry and schools of science are
ever related to each other as reciprocal causes and
effects; powers acting and reacting on each other, and
on the whole mass of society.
Now, that which they did for us we must do for those
who are to come after us. With our advancing intelli.
gence and our greater facilities, we must breathe their
spirit and follow out their line of action; we must do
what they did for the Church-the Church as it is yet
to expand over this fair land and through the world.
The College and the Church are bound to each other.
The College must be consecrated by the Church. Her
prayers, her sympathies, her watchful guardianship
must encompass and sustain it; then the College will
educate her ministry, and send forth trained intellects
in sympathy with her spirit, and thus, and thus only,
will the Church feel through all her functions the
strength and influence of a consecrated learning.
I have said that the College must be consecrated
by the Church. Christianity is a vital element in the
progress and perpetuity of all true science. That
science which begins and ends with man, which either
has not God as its point of departure or its end, is shallow, effete, and powerless to elevate the soul. Separation from God is scientific suicide. Degenerate itself,
it allies itself with human degeneracy, and hastens it,
enervating the forces that would counteract it, turning
the thinkers of the world into Pantheistic dreamers,
and the people into dumb, driven cattle, for whom the
brothel and the grog-shop are found just as excellent
in educating them for eternity as the Church of the
living God. Religion alone will save science firom putrefaction, for it alone supplies the vital element which
makes it a power to quicken and exalt the soul. And 
25
this power must be predominant, fully recognized, actively at work in these higher institutions, vivifying
the mind, controlling the hearts, exalting the aims,
purifying the utterances, consecrating the whole influence of the teachers in them to Christ and his Church.
The  question here arises,-and it is a question
which the logic of facts and the necessities of the case is
forcing the Church to answer,-how can this religious
influence be thus made predominant and secure in these
higher institutions? No one will contend that the mere
general influence of the pulpit at home is sufficient for
this purpose; for our youth are gathered together
away from home, under a peculiar discipline, to be
moulded and impressed by men of learning and ability.
By a law most powerful in its operations, the teacher
standing for the time in the place of the parent, when
the mind is just opening to thought, and is passing
through the most critical period of it' intellectual as
well as religious life, may ennoble or degrade, may
guide it into truth or pervert into error,Imay fortify its
faith or strip it of its support, may lead it to Jesus, or
send it wandering off into the night and firost of unbelief. The Church has no security in this line of action. In point of fact there are but two methods open
to us. The first is, to commit the whole matter of education to the State.  Now, if the State were in all
respects truly Christian; if our legislators and executive
officers were Christian men, of broad and comprehensive views, who appreciated the importance of a truly
Christian education, and were resolved to secure it, we
might safely follow this course for a time; although,
looking at the future, and taking warning from the
past, I should be doubtful of its expediency. But the
State is only in a homceopathic sense Christian. It is
composed of all sorts of people, separated by all vari 
26
eties of belief and unbelief; and every one of them
has just as good a right to have a voice in this matter
as his neighbor. Organize your College on this basis,
and every sect will demand that it shall be represented
there; the Romanist must have his representative, and
the Universalist his, and the Pantheist his, until your
seat of learning becomes the arena of warring elements,
and the result will be that Religion is utterly eliminated as an educational element.
Besides, we claim to be a free people, and in this
sense we certainly are fiee; there are no legal hindrances, no State inhibitions, that shall prevent any
denomination, or any portion of the people, or any one
man, firom establishing such institutions of learning as
he or they may choose, provided the bare limits of
absolute immorality be not overpassed;  and the result will continue to be here as it has been, that Colleges will rise in the interests of different sects and of
no sect; they will teach error or truth according to the
influences that control them; they will blight or they
will bless society. No man can legally prevent them.
We must work in religious education according to the
free developments that characterize the genius of our
nation. The Church is to fight this battle on the basis
of entire freedom, trusting not in the State but in God
and his Word for the victory.  And if she cannot succeed on this platform, she ought to fail; and this
brings me to the only method really open to us for
securing in these institutions of learning a thorough
Christian education-an education in which religion
shall form a vital and controlling element. The College
should have one or more evangelical denominations of
Christians standing back of it, pledged to sustain it,
exercising a controlling influence over it, using it as an
instrument the most powerful to advance religion and 
27
train her youth to fight the battles of the Lord.  The
Church is responsible to God for the Christian education of her sons. It is not for her to commit the training of the lambs of her flock to wolves, whether they
wear sheep's clothing or their natural costume. It is
for her to educate not only her own children in Christian principle, but, so far as her influence and resources
can effect it, the youth of the nation. She is to aim at
grand results. Nothing less than universal dominion
for Jesus should measure her ambition and her efforts.
This Society is the child of just such views. It sprang
from the necessities of the Church in giving practical
effect to this great idea. The question of denominations has ever been subordinate. Its first point of inquiry has been, whether the institution that asks its
aid is under such religious control that true Christianity will be taught there; whether its teachers and its
teachings combine to advance the cause of Christ?
And when assurance of this has been given, then its
strong arm has been extended to assist its feebleness
and make it strong to fight the battles of Immanuel.
It chose the West for its field of labor, because it was
in its infancy, its immaturity, its feebleness; because
there our sons and daughters were to dwell; there was
to be the seat of empire; there, if anywhere, the vision
revealed to our fathers of a Republic consecrated to
Jesus was to be realized, and because there tlhe assistance given early would tell with greater effect on the
future progress of religion. The West was to us what
the Colonies were to the fatherland. In the early feebleness of our institutions of learning, we stretched
our hands across the water for help; and there is not
one of our older institutions that did not receive it.
But we were homogeneous; our ministry and people
were animated by the same spirit, they appreciated 
28
the importance of the College, and they wrought
together to build it up. But the West is heterogeneous, representing in itself the opinions, the prejudices,
the excellencies, and the vices of all parts of this nation; and thus the difficulties in the way of consolidating and uniting the people in support of institutions
vital to their future progress, was vastly increased.
It was young, however; it could be trained; and they
who early set themselves to the work of moulding
the public thought and feeling, would be most successful. When a stream first begins to flow over -a virgin
soil, it wanders here and there without aim, for it has
not found a channel in which to concentrate its powers.
If now you strike a furrow, or dig a channel for it, as it
follows it increases, it deepens, it broadens-you have
fixed it for all time. But if you neglect it, it will mark
out its own channels, and as it increases, rushes impetuously, carrying ruin to the fairest prospect. Then
you may dyke, and dam, and work to regain your lost
opportunity, which yet you will never fully regain:
what might have cost a few thousands, now will cost
millions, and labor infinite. The population of the
West is such a stream. Wherevei you have dug a channel for its thought, it has concentrated itself and become a tremendous power for good; where error and
infidelity have anticipated you, or it has been neglected
by Christian men, there, with equal force, it jnoves in
divergent and evil channels away from the Church of
Jesus. I need not speak of the West as the grandest field
of labor for Christian men on this or any other continent; she speaks for herself.  She is not to-day what she
was yesterday; nor will she be to-morrow what she is
to-day. The centre of power in this nation has reached
already the Miamis; to-morrow itwill be on the monarch
river of the world. You began your work in what 
29
you thought was the West. You have reared your
memorials there; institutions you aided in their feebleness, are mighty elements of power. To-day, across the
plains of Kansas, across the Sierra Nevada, across the
new-found Ophir and Golconda, where the Columbia
pours its clear waters into the Pacific, and the Golden
Gate opens its portals to the kingdom of the Orient,
voices reach you pleading for assistance, to plant there
those seminaries of learning that shall train a ministry
for Jesus-a ministry that, passing westward, shall
reach the East, and on the shores of Japan and amid
the dense darkness of China, shall yet rear the standard
of Jesus, and shed forth the light of a purer Christianity upon her myriad myriads of idolaters.
This is the age of enterprise, of vast, of gigantic
enterprises, involving not thousands but millions;enterprises that, half a century ago, would have seemed
as fabulous in prophecy as the tales of the Arabian
Nights are in fact; enterprises individual, corporate,
national, international, distancing the wildest dreams
of the past, and equalled only by the magnificent
imagery of the Revelation of the seer of Patmos. The
nation and the world moves forward with strides majestic and sublime, such as the angel of the Apocalypse,
who stood with one foot on the land and one on the
sea, might fully symbolize. All the forces that create
power and mould nations-commercial, mechanical,
agricultural, literary, social, political-are working
with an effectiveness truly grand. In this uprising
and mighty march of humanity, all forms of good and
evil are mingling and struggling for the leadership.
Who shall be king, Jesus or Satan? What shall be
the spirit that is to control and guide this immense
force of mind in these its world-wide movements,
Christianity or devilism? These are questions for the 
30
Church of Jesus to answer-to answer only by deeds
and not words-by deeds as grand, as vast, as comprehensive, as the forces she is to meet and master.  No
half-way, timid, feeble efforts on her part now will
meet the measure of her responsibilities. With her
vast resources, with all the experience of the past to
guide her, with so sublime an object appealing to her
faith and Christian heart, it is for her to rival and outdo the world in its gigantic projects. Error and infidelity are in the field, planting seminaries and colleges
for secular education, where Christ is to be discrowned
and Nature exalted to the throne. Millions at this
hour are poured forth, in the attempt to subsidize the
science of the world in the interests of error. If ever
these influences prevail in our high places of learning,
and the Cross becomes there the symbol of fanaticism
and folly- if ever infidelity shall infuse its poison into
the minds of our young men of genius and talent as
they leave these institutions in all the strength of culture and knowledge-then will our land soon feel the
sad eclipse of faith in its chill, dark reality; then will
our pulpits be filled with men who, under the guise of
religion, will preach the philosophy of Hume and
Strauss and the magnates of satanic literature; our
press will be ruled by a taunting, scoffing crew of the
disciples of some modern Voltaire; our bar will abet
injustice and crime; our physicians will deal with
man as material and mortal  like the brutes;  our
schools and academies will drive out the Bible and in
turn die out, or become the hotbeds of corruption;
then will come the triumph of the arch-enemy; licentiousness and intemperance, fraud, ambition, and violence will hold hig,h carnival, and upon the nation will
settle a darkness more fearful than that of Egypt in
the night of her woe. 
31
But if the Church, appreciating her position and
responsibilities, shall put forth her power along the
various lines open to her sanctified enterprise; if she
shall not only plant churches but schools and colleges
to train a ministry for them prepared to do Christ's
work among the people, then no vision of the prophet,
however bright and grand, will surpass the glorious
future of our country. For these Chfistian Colleges,
enthroning the Bible as the only true light of the immortal soul, shall rise and flourish in every State of our
vast Union, and mingle their radiance till it covers
with its glory of science the whole field of educated
mind. Our gifted sons, breathing its pure atmosphere,
shall become centres of spiritual power and light; our
pulpits will be filled with men strong in wisdom and
mighty in the Scriptures; our lawyers, trained under
such influences, will plead at the bar, and our statesmen
will legislate in our Senate-houses, as men who know
that all law and all justice have their original in the
bosom of God and their noblest illustrations in his
blessed revelation; our physicians shall not only minister to the body, but to the soul they shall also minister the consolations of the Great Physician; our academies and schools shall feel the quickening influence
descending and resting upon them. We shall rise to
still higher regions of knowledge; we shall grow
strong in the faith of Jesus. Our country shall grow
wiser and purer, because it shall come to feel, through
all its organs of influence and social life, the vital force
of divine truth. We shall become, in all things true
and manly, the glory of nations; and from us shall go
forth the light of civil and religious liberty at one
with the light of revelation. We shall carry back the
law to the land where first the temple of God was
reared; we shall bear the torch of truth into the dark 
32
ness that enshrouds Hindoostan and China; the sons
of Ethiopia in this land, led out of the house of bondage by an arm mightier than that of man, educated
for God, shall consecrate many of their most gifted
and eloquent ones to the evangelization of their fatherland; we shall give a noble civilization to the myriads
of the great hemisphere on which we dwell; millions
in every land shall hear the voice of our Christian
teachers, and feel the force of our example; and then,
then at length we shall join our triumphant voices in
that grand chorus, which, from mountain-top and valley, from island and ocean, shall swell up to Him who
bought us with His blood, and opened the portals of
heaven to our sinful and suffering world. And now
unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible; the only
wise God; and unto the Lamb who sitteth in the
midst of the throne, be honor and glory, dominion
and power, for ever and ever. Amen.
I