UC-NRLF 
 
 S3 5DM 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Gl FT OF 
 
 Class 
 
 V, 
 
 \j 
 
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 The Seminary: Its Spirit and Aims 
 
 Addresses 
 
 given at the Annual Dinner of the Alumni 
 held on May 13, 1907 
 
 and a 
 
 Review of the Year 1906-1907 
 
 700 PARK AVENUE : NEW YORK 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE IRVING PRESS 
 
 1907 
 
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 The Seminary: Its Spirit and Aims 
 
 Addresses 
 
 given at the Annual Dinner of the Alumni 
 held on May 13, 1907 
 
 and a 
 
 Review of the Year 1906-1907 
 
 700 PARK AVENUE : NEW YORK 
 
 OF THE ' 
 
 UNIVERSITY ' 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE IRVING PRESS 
 
 1907 
 

CONTENTS 
 
 THE SEMINARY AND THE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY, . 5 
 By Prof. THOMAS C. HALL. 
 
 THE SEMINARY AND SCHOLARSHIP, 
 By Prof. FRANCIS BROWN. 
 
 THE SEMINARY AND THE CHURCH, . . . .16 
 
 By Rev. HENRY SLOANE COFFIN. 
 
 THE SEMINARY AND THE WORLD, . 
 
 By President CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE YEAR 1906-1907, . . . . .30 
 By Acting President GEORGE WILLIAM KNOX. 
 
 162905 
 
The Alumni Club of the Union Theological Seminary in- 
 vited four members of the Faculty to make the addresses at 
 the Annual Dinner of the Alumni on Monday evening, May 13, 
 1907, and suggested as the common topic, "The Seminary." 
 The addresses, as setting forth the spirit and aims of the 
 Seminary, are now printed by request. The summary of 
 the events of the year 1906-1907, which was given at the 
 luncheon on May 14, is appended. 
 
THE SEMINARY AND THE MESSAGE OF 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 THOMAS C. HALL 
 
 It is a presumption on my part, even by request, to at- 
 tempt to formulate in the name of the great spiritual fellow- 
 ship of Union Theological Seminary, the Christian message. 
 If that message were an opinion, or set of opinions, I would 
 not dare to do it. A small uncultured group can unite on 
 opinions, but the more intelligent we grow the more impos- 
 sible is it to agree on opinions. It is not opinion but purpose 
 that unites the faculty of Union Seminary. It is not opinion 
 but purpose that binds together the great and increasing 
 Alumni body whose zeal and enthusiasm are our constant in- 
 spiration. 
 
 The world would be a stupid place if we all had one 
 opinion. The charm and inspiration of many a social family 
 meeting of the Seminary are the vast variety of opinions, born 
 of honest conviction on the basis of special study. We have 
 no fears in talking out our hearts, for there burns in our midst 
 the great common purpose, with clearer and clearer light. 
 This is our enthusiasm, this our bond of Union. 
 
 It was my lot, as I returned last year from Europe, to 
 spend a short three days rainy days and cold they were in 
 venerable Rome. Never was the old impression stronger 
 upon me than in those three days, of how the beautiful older 
 medievalism had overlaid the Christ with the gaudy garments 
 of mythology. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus was 
 simply lost amidst the Virgin Mary images, the pictures of 
 the infant Jesus and the kneeling, bejewelled ecclesiastics. It 
 is not a grateful task to tear aside the veil so patiently but so 
 mistakenly woven. It is a dangerous attitude of mind that is 
 
 [5] 
 
6 
 
 bent upon the destruction of pagan dualism and misty medi- 
 aeval mythologies; only the recognition of the purpose in its 
 greater divinity; only the sense that even the glory and 
 beauty of mediaeval scholasticism are a snare if they hide that 
 purpose, can give us either courage or loving wisdom enough 
 to attempt the undertaking. 
 
 Protestantism has never quite freed herself from the 
 bonds of that mediaeval scholasticism. She continued to do 
 her thinking even in the days of her heroic struggle in Greek 
 categories and in the terms of that scholasticism which was 
 born of imperial ambitions. It was, therefore, no accident 
 that the new Protestantism of Union Theological Seminary 
 flung herself upon the recovery of the sources of our Christian 
 inspirations and began to teach men to think in the cate- 
 gories of the recovered Old Testament, and in the glorious 
 freedom and simplicity of a New Testament read without the 
 colored glasses of ecclesiastical commentary. May the time 
 never come when the Seminary will be false to the free and 
 scholarly traditions of her splendid past ! May we, who 
 breathe that freedom and enter into the labors of those who 
 have taught us where to find this spring of living water, never 
 be faithless or afraid as we formulate the message born of 
 personal contact with the life God has so freely given us. 
 
 For the message of the Seminary is given not on the 
 authority of a church or a creed, or even a book, however 
 sacred, but on the authority of the living God, as He has in 
 book or creed, in joy and sorrow become our personal exper- 
 ience. And all we can hope to do is to take our pupils by the 
 hand and lead them into the presence of the God and Father 
 of our Lord Jesus, thenceforth they are themselves in vital 
 contact with Him and know Him, not because we told them 
 but because they themselves have seen and heard. 
 
 Now this purpose is no abstract, academic thing, it is a 
 concrete and ever present reality. We know the purpose of 
 God because we have seen Jesus Christ. That great purpose 
 has laid hold of us and will not let us go. All life is glorified 
 and given eternal meaning because we have seen that incarna- 
 tion, unique and splendid, of God's loving, redeeming purpose 
 in the face of our elder brother, Jesus Christ. His life is the 
 formulation of the message of the Seminary to the world. As 
 
He was redeeming love so is God redeeming love, so are we to 
 be redeeming lives. 
 
 He calls us to the kingdom of His redeeming purpose. I 
 love to link the messages of Paul and John. Brethren, now 
 are we the Sons of God and let us fill out in our bodies that 
 which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ for His body's 
 sake, for God is now so loving the world that He is giving, as 
 He has given in all ages, His beloved sons that that world 
 may not perish, but through them have everlasting life. But 
 we can only thus redeem when we draw our life from purpose- 
 ful union with the only begotten son of our Father. 
 
 Again the purpose of the World's Redeemer was not His own 
 soul's salvation. The taunt of His enemies was His noblest 
 tribute: He saved others, Himself He could not save. Our 
 purpose is the redemption of the world and the revelation to 
 all the ages of the Father whom we have come to know and 
 love in the face of Christ Jesus. We have seen God and we 
 cannot rest until the world also sees Him, until the world, 
 God's beautiful world, reflects the heart of God in all the 
 splendor of His redeeming love in the beauty of His holiness. 
 
 Thus the message of the Union Seminary is formulated in 
 the Kingdom purpose of God as that purpose was proclaimed 
 in the life and death of our divine Master. We may have 
 many opinions about means and methods, many shades of 
 thought and feeling in expressing the message, many moods 
 and various levels of inspiration, but this is our purpose born 
 in an unshakable faith in love and life of the Eternal God, 
 that from sea to sea and from pole to pole men shall know 
 God because they have seen Him in the cross of Christ and 
 the resurrection glory of a divine social order. 
 
 If ever the work of Union Seminary has seemed critical 
 and destructive, it has only been so because the way was 
 seemingly blocked by human traditions and outworn formulae. 
 Criticism and destruction have never been more than incidental. 
 The main message of our fellowship is the cry to men of all 
 opinions but of our good will to help build with us the King- 
 dom of our God. If men will join with us in interpreting the 
 world in the terms of a spiritual ethics, born of contact with 
 this Kingdom purpose to which we are called, we will not 
 quarrel with them as they allow themselves the luxury of 
 
8 
 
 metaphysics whether good or bad, an ontology tenable or un- 
 tenable. But these things dare not usurp the throne of God 
 and Father of our Lord Jesus, nor obscure the main issue 
 the coming of His Kingdom. 
 
 The message of Union Theological Seminary is therefore 
 the dream of the Christ, that we may be one in the unity 
 of our purpose with God, as He was one with His Father 
 in the unity of the loving purpose of redemption. We 
 hope to send out from our walls scholars and preachers, men 
 of thought and men of action; but scholarship and pulpit 
 power are but the means to the end. The end is the world's 
 redemption, the messengers are to be redemptive agents; in 
 the name of Christ redeemers of the world! 
 
 This, I take it, in its splendid simplicity, is the message 
 of Christianity as Union Theological Seminary sees it, and 
 proclaims it in humble dependence upon the God of all truth, 
 to a hungry and thirsty world. 
 
THE SEMINARY AND SCHOLARSHIP 
 FRANCIS BROWN 
 
 The Christian message is simple and direct. It aims to 
 reproduce the life of Christ in men, nothing more complicated 
 than that, nothing less revolutionary than that. The simple 
 Christian message is the thin edge of the wedge, with power 
 of conviction and the enthusiasm of loyalty and devoted pur- 
 pose to drive it home. 
 
 But a wedge is not all thin end. Drive a knife-blade 
 through a board, and you will not split the board. Behind 
 your narrow end there must be something broad and massive 
 if your wedge is to do its work. 
 
 Modern generalship is not to dash ahead waving a sword 
 and summoning men to follow. The leader must command 
 the field, he must plan out the battle. He must know where 
 he is going, and how to get there, and how to take advantage 
 of the ground. He must mass his forces and hurl them with 
 concentrated energy upon the point of attack. 
 
 You may have head of water enough to turn a great mill- 
 wheel, but no wheel will turn if the stream is delivered against 
 it through a pin-hole. 
 
 These figures are imperfect fair game for criticism but 
 they are meant to convey the truth that Christianity has a 
 wide appeal, and must maintain it, if it is to command the 
 world. We must get at all men, and the whole of each man 
 the thinking part of him as at every other part. The Christian 
 preacher must be so equipped that he can make the simple 
 Christian message a living force in all the spheres in which 
 men live their varied life the sphere of feeling and desire, the 
 region where men struggle for their daily bread or for the 
 luxuries that have become their necessities, the region where 
 
 [9] 
 
10 
 
 they make their great resolves, the region where they think 
 out their systems and explain themselves to themselves. The 
 remotest of these spheres is practical at the last; abstract 
 workings of the intellect grip the world in the long run. The 
 philosopher's wrestlings of one generation are the newspaper 
 axioms of the next. If Christianity is to last it must make its 
 appeal to men of mind and understand how to shape and 
 direct its messages to men in all the phases of their life. 
 
 Hence the need of scholarship. The Seminary and this 
 Seminary in a marked degree really exists for scholarship. 
 For Christianity scholarship is not the selfish satisfaction of 
 the recluse, nor the superficial adornment of the idle; it is the 
 indispensable enlargement of power. The scholar is the man 
 who has gone to school, he is schooled to his work. In the 
 only sense in which we are now concerned with the matter, it 
 is the trained man who is the scholar. 
 
 Only a narrow and short-sighted view belittles the impor- 
 tance of the scholar's training for the most practical of 
 callings. The raw recruit cannot make up for ignorance by 
 zeal, even in the ranks. Do you suppose the demands of a 
 captaincy are less exacting? It is for the very reason that 
 the ministry is a practical profession, that its service is ab- 
 sorbing, that its issues are not theoretical, but vital it is for 
 this very reason that the scholar's training is essential to its 
 full discharge. 
 
 Of course, its scholarship must be living and not dead 
 it must be progressive and not stagnant, it must keep pace 
 with the intellectual life of the world. Its ships must not be 
 moored forever to an ancient wharf, it must be free to sail 
 the seas, secure, not in the strength of cables that hold it fast 
 to prevent its drifting, but in the possession of chart and com- 
 pass and the guidance of the stars. 
 
 As a training-school for the ministry the Seminary must 
 supply this scholarship. It is the serious purpose of those 
 who have the affairs of this Seminary in their hands to suffer 
 nothing to interfere with the maintenance of scholarship as 
 a means to the great end of making effective the Christian 
 message of reproducing the life of Christ in men. 
 
 For this purpose its teachers must be trained men, men to 
 whom scholarship seems worth while men always in training, 
 
11 
 
 keeping in practice, producing scholarly results, adding to the 
 sum of knowledge men who strive for mastery in their field 
 lest they stagnate and cease to have any living scholarship to 
 impart. 
 
 In no department of life is the road to mastery an easy 
 road. One of the greatest services a teacher can render to 
 his students is to show them how it runs. For the scholar it 
 runs the way of patience and self-abnegation and infinite 
 painstaking, and humility; its sign-posts are love of truth, 
 hatred of shams, activity of mind, reserve in judgment; it 
 leads by observation and experience, by reflection and sym- 
 pathy to ripe decision and trained facility. It is a steep path 
 up which one must climb, one cannot hurry. It demands 
 abundant time, but it ends in power. I make no apology for 
 applying these remarks to the familiar categories of the- 
 ology defective enough as sharp divisions, but adequate for 
 our illustrations: 
 
 FIRST. The Christian message is a practical one to 
 reproduce the life of Jesus Christ. Practical Theology is con- 
 cerned with training at the very point of application, with the 
 sharpening of the wedge, with the mallet-strokes that send it 
 home. Practical Theology is experimental wisdom passed on; 
 it culminates in preaching an art requiring infinite practice. 
 We hope to emphasize this more and more. We earnestly 
 desire to awaken in the men who come to us the loftiest 
 preacher's ideal, and to help them to approach it by the 
 utmost assiduity of study, and the untiring repetitions of 
 patient exercise, that they may become preachers indeed to 
 whom the world will listen, because they know what their 
 message is and how they are to present it so as to make it 
 seem the thing it is in fact the most intimate and essential 
 of all human concerns. 
 
 SECOND. Take History. We propose to lay on Historical 
 Theology not less emphasis in view of urgent practical needs 
 but more, much more. In a large view history conies to its 
 own in this, that no subject in all the range of religious 
 knowledge can now be treated apart from its history the his- 
 torical method is everywhere in control. And the lessons of 
 history itself are many, and its uses are great. The promi- 
 
12 
 
 nence given to it would be justified abundantly by two: As the 
 record of past events in their relations it affords the setting in 
 which, and in which alone, we can understand in some measure 
 God's dealings with our own age; and as the record of human 
 thought about divine things, it shows God's truth developing 
 in human experience, and Jesus Christ coming by degrees to 
 his own. In both aspects it has its permanent and indispen- 
 sable service in shaping the Christian message, and helping to 
 reproduce the life of Christ. 
 
 THIRD. Take Systematic Theology. We enlarge this now 
 to include whatever aspects of philosophy are legitimate in 
 laying the foundation of faith, and whatever laws of moral 
 life are germane to the Christian character. At the heart of 
 it lies the substance of our message as Christian ministers. It 
 is here that we find room and time for the best approach to 
 sufficient statements of Christian truth. The enlargement of 
 this rubric to take in ethical questions obliges us to face here 
 all the social problems with which the Christian message is 
 involved, and to see to it that, as we preach it, it is in fact a 
 message for men in their manifold relations with each other, 
 ending in a redeemed society controlled by love, and active in 
 love. Here we express the eternal truth, in terms suitable for 
 fresh conditions. This is the workshop where the old verities 
 are tested, and wrought into new forms, effective for a new 
 age. Hither are brought the products of many mines of 
 thought, here burn the intense fires of religious experience, 
 here are shaped the moulds of exact words, into which the 
 molten thought may be poured, to meet the needs of a present 
 life, lived in the midst of unseen realities, until these moulds 
 in their turn shall be broken up, and the next age be served 
 by other moulds shaping the same substance of the Christian 
 message afresh for the men of its generation. 
 
 FOURTH. I come last to what I think most fundamental 
 that department which has to do directly with the Bible, and 
 which in the old nomenclature we call Exegetical Theology. 
 You will understand why I name it last, inverting the more 
 familiar order. It is of primary importance and may well be 
 offered as a climax. The Bible is essential, and must always 
 remain essential. It is of unique consequence. Nothing can 
 
13 
 
 ever displace it for this reason, if there were no other: 
 because the revelation of God through prophets and apostles, 
 and the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, can never again 
 come to mankind for the first time It is a book of fundamental 
 truth, and it is written by men in whose experience funda- 
 mental truth was new-born. This originality, this primary 
 quality, \ti\3> firstness about the Bible makes it unique, abides 
 in it as life, and ensures its perpetual power. Unless Chris- 
 tianity itself were to pass away, nothing can, for long, take 
 the place of the Bible. And Christianity itself will not pass 
 away. The Bible verifies itself over again in each Christian 
 heart, but the Bible can never be repeated, Christianity will 
 always go back to it as its charter. The simple Christian will 
 always feed his soul upon it and the leaders of Christianity 
 must always be trained in it. The most thorough knowledge 
 of it will not, in the long run, be thought too good the most 
 painstaking care will not be held too great. The languages 
 in which it was first written belong to its originality. They 
 are not necessary to an acceptance of its central message, but 
 they are necessary to a possession of its widest power. It 
 may seem to some advocates of them that Bible study has just 
 now fallen on lean years, in this regard. You know what we 
 have done in this Seminary, how we now give one diploma, on 
 occasion, without the knowledge of Hebrew or Greek on the 
 part of its recipient. We recognize the providential limita- 
 tions of some students. We are affected, as we cannot help 
 being, by the conditions of education in the colleges from 
 which our men come. . But we are practically putting the 
 B.D. degree in the place of our old diploma, and requiring 
 these languages for that degree, and we are urging all students 
 to take them. Disregard of them is an incident that cannot 
 become a permanent rule in the profound and fundamental 
 seriousness of the study of our primary religious documents. 
 My own feelings and convictions are deeply enlisted here, 
 but I can speak with entire calmness for I have no doubt as to 
 the long future. There will always be degrees and varieties 
 of knowledge. I speak with no depreciation of those whom 
 God uses to do any part of his great work. I honor them 
 all and rejoice in what they do. But ignorance of the primary 
 sources appears to me not emancipation, but a handicap. The 
 
14 
 
 Christian Church, in the end, will not consent that its leaders 
 and teachers shall be without the best knowledge that is to be 
 had of the books with which its beginnings are bound up, and 
 which continue to be a living foundation of its truth, a means 
 to its edification, a treasury of its power. 
 
 Only two remarks more. While the Seminary emphasizes 
 scholarship, it does not expect all its students, nor most of 
 them, to become specialists in learning. But it does desire to 
 stimulate in them love of scholarship for the sake of making 
 the Christian message more effective. It does wish to encour- 
 age those who can to seek advanced training for their work. 
 It does hope that some will become more thorough scholars, 
 and that each will become more of a scholar, because it is 
 assured that knowledge and facility in using it, is one great 
 reinforcement in the campaign whose object is to enter the 
 lives of all men with the uplifting power of Christ. The time 
 of training is not to be abridged, but rather extended. More 
 and more men are taking graduate courses making their 
 Seminary years four, or even five, instead of only three. It is 
 the voluntary response of students who are measuring their 
 task to the demands which that task makes on those who will 
 meet it worthily. 
 
 I hardly think this is the last point I hardly think there 
 is anyone here disposed to set scholarship over against piety, 
 as its antagonist, or a negligible alternative. And yet this 
 opposition is still sometimes proposed, and in the interest 
 of piety ignorant devotion is extolled over against patient 
 learning. 
 
 Of course, unless the life of Jesus Christ is in some 
 measure reproduced in the minister himself, he is useless. 
 But is there any opposition between this and the most thorough 
 schooling? Gentlemen, do we grasp our problem? Do we 
 know what forces we have to overcome? Do we understand 
 that the practical problem of Christianity is to lay hold, not 
 only of the simple and ignorant and yielding, but also of the 
 strong and intelligent and hard-headed? We have got to cap- 
 ture the citadel of superstition and prejudice behind whose 
 walls ancient systems live on in many lands. We have got to 
 get at the men of attainment and trained intellect at home, 
 the men of literary taste and capacity, the men of artistic re- 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 15 
 
 finement all those influential sets of people who have drawn 
 away from the churches and have set up, avowedly or not, 
 little make-believe religions of their own. It is not our 
 scholarship that will implant in them the spirit of Jesus, but 
 our best scholarship may be needed to teach us the avenue 
 into their lives, that one simple message may find its way. 
 Do you think Christianity is to abdicate, when it is confronted 
 with intellectual strength? Are human powers to be discarded 
 and condemned? Do you imagine that there is no room for 
 intellect in Christ's service, because he had the devoted pur- 
 pose of laying down his life to serve men? Do you think that 
 because it is Godlike to be good, it is therefore Godlike to be 
 stupid? If that notion were widely prevalent, should we need 
 to look far for the reason why Christianity is so feeble in its 
 appeal to men? 
 
 In fact, the larger Christian scholarship is a stimulus to 
 spiritual power, because it is the demand for it. We must 
 have the trained life, and the divine energy in greater abun- 
 dance, to take command of it. We must be bigger men, 
 every way make the most of ourselves, that God may make 
 more out of us surrender ourselves to the enthusiasm of 
 love and service, and count no toil too great that may render 
 us even a little more serviceable that all we are, and all we 
 can become may find its use in advancing His eternal king- 
 dom. 
 
 This, brethren, is the scholarly ideal of this Seminary. 
 This is the work that, in all loyalty and devotion and courage 
 and humility, it desires to do. Some of us love learning, but 
 we issue no summons to learning simply because learning is 
 fine. We desire to learn, and we invite others to learn with 
 us, that God may find larger use for us in His great plan of 
 reproducing the life of Jesus in men. In this enterprise we 
 ask your constant sympathy, your active support, your fellow- 
 ship and your prayers. This is our specific share in the 
 common service. We feel our brotherhood with you as we 
 engage in it. As fellow-servants we invoke upon you and 
 upon ourselves the continual blessing of Almighty God the 
 unfailing presence of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world! 
 
THE SEMINARY AND THE CHURCH 
 HENRY SLOANE COFFIN 
 
 No one can speak to this toast to-day without beginning 
 on the note of congratulation. "For lo, the winter is past; 
 the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the 
 time of the singing of birds is come," and the Church is saying 
 to Union Theological Seminary: "Rise up, my love, my fair 
 one, and come away." We are giving thanks thanks that 
 our students are greatly sought after, and that we should have 
 no difficulty in placing twice the number in our present gradu- 
 ating class, were they men of the same calibre; thanks that 
 leaders in the ministry and membership of the churches are 
 looking to this Seminary for guidance and inspiration as they 
 did not a decade ago; thanks that men of goodwill outside the 
 organized churches come to this institution as to no other for 
 religious stimulus, as was well-evidenced by the gathering in 
 Adams Chapel last Lincoln's Birthday, when Social Settlement 
 workers of all shades of belief, or of no belief at all, listened 
 intently all morning and all afternoon to seven professors of 
 the Seminary talking on religion and its relation to the social 
 movements of the day. Thanks that the choicest candidates 
 for the ministry of many churches come here for their educa- 
 tion, as a university professor, himself a High Church Episco- 
 palian, recently remarked: "There is no comparison between 
 the quality of men in your student body and those in any other 
 seminary I know of, and I think I know something of all of 
 them this side the Mississippi." Thanks that through the 
 Extension Courses for Lay Workers an almost unlimited field 
 of usefulness is opening up to the Seminary, in this city and 
 its neighboring towns, in the training of earnest Bible School 
 teachers in the Bible and in methods of religious education. 
 
 [16] 
 
UNt\ . 
 
 QRtflbX 
 
 17 
 
 This summer, for example, the workers in the Vacation Bible 
 Schools conducted by the Federation of Churches, will be 
 taught under this department of Union Seminary. Thanks 
 that the churches officially are recognizing the Seminary on 
 its new, frankly undenominational, though as frankly evan- 
 gelical, basis, as is most clearly shown in the entente cordiale 
 between it and the body in which some of its severest battles 
 have been fought the regenerated Presbytery of New York. 
 Our students are received and examined on precisely the same 
 terms as those from any strictly denominational institution. 
 Thanks that we are giving the Church, year by year, as in the 
 present graduating class, a body of ministers and missionaries 
 and scholars of whom Faculty and Alumni may well be proud. 
 Thanks that the record of past devotion to truth, the generous 
 support of the institution by its friends, the wisdom of its 
 Directors, the consecration and ability of its Faculty, and the 
 quality of work done by its Alumni have given Union Theo- 
 logical Seminary a primacy among similar schools of religious 
 learning in American Protestant Christendom. And, above all, 
 thanks that the ideals and ideas for which this Seminary has 
 stood are gaining ground throughout the churches all over the 
 country with a rapidity that is simply startling. The very 
 stars in their courses in the world of thought are fighting for 
 us, because in the darkness of the past our magi have fol- 
 lowed them. 
 
 What then has the Church and by the Church we mean 
 the churches a right to ask of the Seminary? Let me name 
 only three things to-night. 
 
 FIRST. The frank recognition that the Seminary is the 
 servant of the Church, and that its business is to send out 
 men fitted to meet the Church's wants as they exist to-day. 
 This institution cannot become a school of theological research, 
 where religious knowledge is sought out of all relation to the 
 particular posts its graduates are to fill. It must continue as 
 it has always been, a training place primarily for preachers, 
 pastors, missionaries and teachers. The test of a preacher is 
 simply can he proclaim the good news of God convincingly? 
 of a pastor can he shepherd his congregation? In addition 
 to its thorough education along scholarly lines of which 
 Dr. Brown has just spoken and who more fitly than he, 
 
18 
 
 our hope and joy and crown of glorying among English- 
 speaking Old Testament scholars it is the duty of the 
 Seminary to take the student and ask him plainly, what is the 
 message which with the aid of his scholarship Hebrew and 
 Greek, Biblical exegesis and theology, Church history and 
 dogmatics and all the rest he intends to give, and to show 
 him how to give it effectively to Smith, Jones and Robinson, 
 and to Mrs. Smith and Lizzie Jones and Willie Robinson. 
 The churches demand that we give them men who know what 
 to do in a pulpit, a Bible School, beside a sick-bed, when they 
 meet people in the ordinary round of congregational visiting, 
 when they confront the problems of a parish or the perplex- 
 ities of a mission field. Practical efficiency is the test they 
 will apply. And if you gentlemen will glance at this year's 
 catalogue you will see to what an extent, under the leadership 
 of President Hall and Professor Hugh Black, and during the 
 past twelve months with the valuable assistance of Professor 
 Hoyt, of Auburn, the Department of Practical Theology has 
 been enlarged. In so far as an institution can breed preach- 
 ers we are seeking to do it, and to make them preachers of 
 the right breed. 
 
 SECOND. The Church has a right to ask that the Sem- 
 inary turn out what, for lack of a better name, we may call 
 "organizable" or "organization" men. In an institution 
 which breathes the free atmosphere of this Seminary it is all 
 too easy for the student to get into a critical attitude towards 
 the Church. In a sense this is both inevitable and highly 
 desirable. Ministers are to be leaders, and only the leader 
 who is alive to the defects of the body that follows him the 
 limitations of its theology, the crudities of its worship, the 
 inadequacy of its methods, the imperfections of its life can 
 guide it into larger usefulness. But there is a grave peril in 
 this critical attitude. A man may forget that the Church is 
 his spiritual mother, to whom under God he owes all the relig- 
 ious vitality he has, and that the Church as it exists to-day, 
 with all its faults, is doing the work of the Kingdom as no 
 other body. Nothing is cheaper or more undignified than to 
 indulge in sarcastic flings at the Church. Sympathy and not 
 sarcasm is the only tolerable tone. A liberal Seminary may 
 unconsciously give its students a certain superior, patronising 
 
19 
 
 air towards the Church which is insufferable. They may come 
 out with a tendency to emphasize disagreements, to belittle 
 their less enlightened but probably equally useful and earnest 
 brethren in the ministry, to fail of respect for the prejudices 
 of fellow-believers, and so to alienate their confidence and to 
 lose their co-operation, to air absurdly unimportant heresies 
 like the denial of the historicity of the Virgin Birth of our 
 Lord, to make light of the necessary ecclesiastical machinery 
 as useless red tape. There is no small danger that a liberal 
 theologian will exalt the particular tenets of his liberalism 
 to the same undue importance to which the old orthodoxy 
 exalted its articles of belief. The new intellectualism may be 
 no less dogmatic and all too likely far less comprehensive 
 than the old. If the Church tolerates a wide diversity of 
 opinion among its ministers and, thank God, most of us find 
 all the elbow-room we need to-day it has a right to insist 
 that these ministers shall keep to the fore their community of 
 purpose rather than their divergencies of intellectual state- 
 ment, and work together harmoniously in the same organiza- 
 tion. A Seminary that sends out free-lances and not regulars 
 who will take their places in the ranks with their brethren, is 
 of small service to the churches, or to the Kingdom of God, 
 which to-day must largely be brought in by organized forces. 
 THIRD. The Church has a right to ask that a Union 
 Seminary should make its students denominationally efficient. 
 We rejoice that this Seminary is a most potent factor for 
 Church unity. Students educated in the same class-rooms, 
 trained to think that denominational differences rest on 
 invalid interpretations of the New Testament, and, above all, 
 permeated with supreme loyalty to the Christian purpose of 
 which Dr. Hall has so eloquently spoken a purpose which 
 transcends and renders insignificant any sectarian interest, 
 cannot go out to enter into the miserable rivalries which 
 disgrace our Protestant Christianity. But for good or ill the 
 Church of Christ is denominationally organized and is likely 
 to remain so during our lifetime. And as long as this is the 
 case our graduates will be tested by their ability to work the 
 machinery of the particular sect in which they serve as Pres- 
 byterians or Episcopalians, Congregationalists or Baptists 
 and here again, we ask you to look at the catalogue and see 
 
the courses in the various sectarian polities and institutions 
 and theologies for which the curriculum of the Seminary 
 makes provision and not merely by their ability to work the 
 denominational machinery, but by the spirit they show in 
 bringing their individual churches into line with the denomina- 
 tion's work, in their readiness to serve on its boards and 
 committees and be conscientious ecclesiastics. If Union 
 Seminary does not make a Presbyterian a more efficient and 
 loyal Presbyterian, and a Methodist a more devoted and com- 
 petent Methodist, it can not hope to command the confidence 
 and sympathy of the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. 
 The churches ask that we turn out practically effective, organ- 
 izable, denominational men. 
 
 And what does the Seminary ask of the Church ? Very 
 little which it is not already receiving. One could wish that 
 the membership of the churches felt the same interest in theo- 
 logical scholars in this country as is shown in Presbyterian 
 Scotland. There the members of some small village or rural 
 congregation have a personal pride in a Rainy, a Davidson, a 
 Bruce, a Dods, who train the students at the Divinity Hall. 
 Why should not our people have equal pride in our scholars, 
 for instance, in such a titanic, herculean accomplishment of 
 learning as the Hebrew Dictionary? It is ours as pastors to 
 stir up such pride. 
 
 It is doubtless impossible as yet to expect that churches 
 officially will give financial support to an institution which 
 stands on our frankly unsectarian or pan-sectarian platform. 
 Such support in any case would amount to little. But it is not 
 unreasonable to ask that particular congregations, who owe 
 their efficiency under God's blessing largely to pastors educated 
 here, should do something to evidence their gratitude a 
 yearly contribution towards the library or scholarship funds 
 for instance and it is ours, fellow alumni, to make the sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 And further, the Seminary has a right to ask of us, its 
 graduates in the ministry of the churches, an even more out- 
 spoken allegiance than some in times of strain and stress have 
 been willing to give. There have been those who were in the 
 habit of stating their position "I am a Union Seminary man, 
 but" and then to mention that they dissented from the 
 
21 
 
 vagaries of the professors of this institution. Has not the 
 day come to bury these "buts?" "I am a Union Seminary 
 man, AND!" Let me speak for the youngsters here this even- 
 ing. You older men are proud of your training under a 
 William Adams and a Henry B. Smith, a Hitchcock, a Shedd, 
 a Schaff. We younger men are not one whit less grateful to 
 God for the men under whom we have received our training, 
 the men who sit on this side of the table to-night, the Halls, 
 the Browns, a McGiffert, a Knox, a Fagnani, a Frame. If the 
 Church is getting anything from us, the credit belongs far 
 more than we can appreciate to them. They are the fans et 
 origo of the methods we follow in our theological thinking, our 
 Bible exposition, our pastoral work, above all, of the spirit, 
 the ideals, that animate us in our calling. And by our 
 enthusiasm for them and the Seminary they man, it is ours to 
 interpret their and its worth to the Church of Jesus Christ, 
 which in this land to-day has few more precious possessions 
 than this Seminary and these scholarly men of God. 
 
THE SEMINARY AND THE WORLD 
 CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL 
 
 I am sure that we have all been impressed with the pro- 
 gressive development of the theme of the evening in the 
 several speeches that have been delivered. That portion of 
 the theme which falls to me is The Seminary and the World. I 
 take the word "world" in its largest sense, in that cosmic 
 sense that begins to stand forth on the field of a man's con- 
 sciousness when he has made, for the second time, the circuit 
 of the entire globe. Taking my subject in this large sense, it 
 seems to present two aspects which I shall try to set before 
 you: namely, the duty of the Seminary to its own students, 
 and the duty of the Seminary to exert a direct influence upon 
 the world. 
 
 When one considers the nature and needs of the modern 
 world, it is obvious that an institution, which professes to 
 train men for service in the modern world, owes specific duties 
 to those men. I can best approach this part of my subject by 
 suggesting a contrast. In one of his strongest books, which 
 is known to us by the name "Hypatia," Charles Kingsley in- 
 troduces a picture which must still be fresh in the memory of 
 all of you who have read the book. Far up the Nile is a com- 
 munity of holy Christian men who were once active forces in 
 the world and have now withdrawn into solitude, devoting 
 themselves to pious reflection. In their midst stands the 
 beautiful youth Philammon. From infancy he has lived in 
 this solitude, but now the awakening powers of youth suggest 
 to his imagination a world of which he knows nothing, yet 
 which he longs to know. He pleads with his venerable teachers 
 for permission to go forth into this world. They rebuke 
 him, they threaten him. At length his importunity prevails, 
 
 [22] 
 
23 
 
 and with tears they send him forth in his frail canoe. Down 
 the Nile he passes, trembling with the excitement of unwonted 
 liberty. At length he reaches Alexandria, which expands be- 
 fore him its terrifying iniquities and dazzling splendors. In their 
 midst the youth stands abashed, bewildered, overwhelmed. 
 This is an illustration of the opposite of all of that for which I 
 contend to-night. It is an illustration of the attempt of a 
 school of religious teachers to separate its young disciples 
 from the world, and to make them lead the life of the recluse. 
 One cannot speak too strongly against the fallacy and injustice 
 of this. Well for the Seminary that stands physically and 
 locally in close contact with the throbbing world, feeling the 
 vibration of its tremendous traffic, and looking forth upon the 
 steamships setting out upon their voyages and the steamships 
 coming from afar. The Seminary of to-day must be thoroughly 
 human before it is academic. Many of you have read Dean 
 Hodges' excellent article in the April Atlantic on "Theology 
 and Human Nature." The spirit of that article illustrates my 
 remark that the Seminary of to-day must be thoroughly human 
 before it is academic. 
 
 Again the Seminary of to-day owes to its students to 
 give them what I have sometimes called the cosmic point of 
 view. " Lift up your eyes and look. " To this end its directors 
 and its teachers must be in a large and true sense men of the 
 world, men who have breathed the air and have grasped the 
 facts of the modern world, and who are thereby lifted above 
 merely sectarian aims or merely pedantic aims. They must be 
 men with love in their hearts and light on their brows, with a 
 true perspective: capable of seeing the large lines in the back- 
 ground of the great world-picture, as well as the small detail 
 close at hand. Union Seminary has such directors and such 
 teachers, and they are communicating their spirit to the 
 students. 
 
 Let me turn now to the other aspect of my subject, the 
 duty of the Seminary to exert a direct influence upon the 
 world. The Seminary that has most grandly conceived its 
 place and purpose in the circle of modern institutions, cannot 
 satisfy itself with efforts centered within its own walls upon the 
 small circle of disciples gathered there. It will feel its imme- 
 diate duty toward the broad world. It will set in motion 
 
24 
 
 influences that shall go far beyond its own walls and touch 
 communities that have no organic connection with the Semi- 
 nary and never can have. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the local side of this subject. Let 
 me point only to the Union Settlement as an evidence of the 
 desire of our Seminary to serve the world that lies close 
 outside its walls. I would dwell rather upon the duty of the 
 Seminary to the wider world; not the world of the United 
 States, or the world of Europe only, but the modern East, the 
 world of India, of China, of Japan. How tremendous that 
 world is in its modern aspects, no one can realize so well as 
 those who have plunged into the life of these remote nations. 
 It is not my purpose to take up your time with an account of 
 my own recent experiences in India and the Far East. I shall 
 confine myself to the statement of certain impressions which 
 registered themselves upon my mind during my recent term of 
 residence in the East. 
 
 First I was struck with the impetuous energy of western 
 material and intellectual influences throughout the Orient. I 
 could illustrate this at great length, but a few instances will 
 suffice. The East is flooded with young American and Euro- 
 pean commercial men, eagerly devoted to the introduction of 
 their goods to the oriental consumer. Enter to-day any one 
 of the great European hotels, that stretch like a cordon across 
 the East, let us say the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, or the 
 Astor House at Shanghai, or the Hongkong Hotel at Hong- 
 kong, or Raffles Hotel at Singapore, or the Grand Oriental 
 Hotel at Colombo, or the Grand Hotel in Calcutta, or the 
 Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, and you will see the dining- 
 rooms and corridors filled with young traveling representatives 
 of western firms. You are reminded of Denver or Chicago. 
 I was lecturing at Lucknow. I approached the Reid Christian 
 College, where the lecture was to be given. At the same 
 moment a fine French motor car swept up to the door, and 
 from it alighted an Indian rajah, who entered the hall, 
 leaving the motor car in charge of his Punjabi chauffeur. 
 If you happen to be at Hankow, six hundred miles up the 
 Yangtse River, on a Tuesday evening, you may take a train 
 df luxe for Peking, equipped with sleeping carriages and 
 dining carriage. If you take a railway out of Tokyo in 
 
25 
 
 any direction, you will see along the roadside, set forth in 
 gaudy colorings like some kind of unwholesome flowers, the 
 signboards advertising Scotch whiskey. Take up native news- 
 papers in Calcutta, Colombo, or Tokyo, and therein you will 
 find reported the latest phases of our western life, be it good or 
 evil: the gift of millions to an educational fund, or the sensa- 
 tional murder trial, or the latest lynching in Georgia. These and 
 many other instances illustrate the impetuous energy of west- 
 ern material and intellectual influence throughout the Orient. 
 
 Another aspect of the oriental world that impressed me is 
 the modernizing of the non-Christian faiths. A popular idea 
 exists that the ancient non-Christian faiths continue as they 
 were from the beginning, resisting the changing influence of 
 time. This is not the case. These ancient faiths are not so in- 
 flexible as has been supposed. They are in process of re- 
 adjustment to new conditions, and are assimilating religious 
 elements of western thought, and using the product thus 
 assimilated as a means of self-defence against Christianity. 
 Here arises the very serious problem of the modern non- 
 Christian world assimilating the culture of Christendom, while 
 rejecting its faith. I could give many illustrations, but shall 
 confine myself to two. 
 
 When visiting in Hyderabad, the chairman at my lecture 
 was a Mohammedan gentleman of high position. He had 
 spent his life within the precincts of the remote native state of 
 Hyderabad. Five and twenty years before he had paid one visit 
 to England. One might suppose that a man placed in such 
 remoteness from the centers of western thought would have 
 his mind filled with local ideas. On the contrary, in the 
 course of a delightful and many-sided conversation, he 
 broached the subject of American literature. He assured 
 me of his peculiar admiration of Edgar Allen Poe. He 
 then proceeded to compare Whittier and Longfellow, and 
 to nlake some very discerning observations upon the points 
 of contrast and resemblance between Emerson and Carlyle. 
 Impressed with his wide reading, I sought a further test and 
 suggested the name of Washington Irving. I found him per- 
 fectly familiar with all the writings of Irving, and was further 
 astonished when he drew my attention to the stately style of 
 Irving as suggesting the latter part of the eighteenth century 
 
26 
 
 rather than the nineteenth century, and as connected in his 
 mind with the style of Oliver Goldsmith. Thus had this 
 Mohammedan gentleman, residing in a native state, assimi- 
 lated the culture of Christendom. But in his religious position 
 his face was set as a flint against Christianity. 
 
 The other illustration of this modernizing of the non- 
 Christian world was brought to my attention by Dr. Zwemer, 
 the Arabian missionary, who permitted me to examine a 
 Mohammedan manual of prayer, lately issued at the Moham- 
 medan Book and Tract Repository in Lahore. In this manual 
 occurs a prayer of confession, the language of which I am 
 sure must be familiar to many of my auditors. The prayer 
 begins as follows: "Almighty and Most Merciful Allah, we 
 have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we 
 have followed too much the devices and desires of our own 
 hearts, we have offended against thy holy laws, we have done 
 those things that we ought not to have done and we have left 
 undone those things that we ought to have done, and there is 
 no health in us, etc." 
 
 A third aspect of the modern East which impressed me is the 
 evidence, already abundant, that the Christian development 
 of the East will be along lines corresponding with the oriental 
 consciousness, rather than along lines predetermined by west- 
 ern ecclesiastical authority. I speak with all honor of denomi- 
 national missions in the East. Not otherwise than through 
 these could the great work already done have been accom- 
 plished. Yet a large study of the situation shows that, in its 
 future assimilation of Christianity, the East both consciously 
 and unconsciously will move along lines suggested by its own 
 temperament and preference. The development is likely to 
 be different in different countries, for the temperament varies. 
 If I might hazard a conjecture touching the future, I should 
 say that the Chinese are likely to turn most naturally to ritual 
 and a prescribed liturgy. They love organization and regular- 
 ity of practice, and care less for the subjective side of 
 religious experience. The Hindu deprecates organization and 
 turns toward the mystical and philosophical aspects of truth. 
 The future religious development of Japan promises to be 
 along the line of simplicity of ritual, combined with a large 
 interest in theological doctrine. 
 
27 
 
 Such were some of the impressions made upon me as I 
 moved among the most thoughtful minds of the East; and 
 there grew in my thought a conviction that no institution of 
 the West is more happily situated for the exertion of influence 
 upon the modern East than a great theological school like our 
 own, emancipated from ecclesiastical control, built upon unde- 
 nominational lines, while interested in all denominational 
 churches. An institution so situated occupies a position of 
 singular advantage. By reason of its freedom and catholicity, 
 it can do what the local church cannot do, because of the 
 pressure of its own local affairs, and what the denominational 
 boards cannot do, because of their very proper restriction to 
 certain prescribed lines of action. A great undenominational 
 theological school of to-day may touch the broad world 
 directly, and bring to bear upon it powerful influences that 
 make for Christianization. 
 
 Let me suggest, as I close, what my thought is in three 
 particulars. The question to be answered is: How can Union 
 Seminary, now approaching a large and glorious future, 
 engage in the work of world Christianizing on a large scale? 
 I answer first, by cultivating a spirit among its students of 
 appreciation and love toward the world, which shall result in 
 sending forth to the East an increased number of thoroughly 
 trained men as missionaries. We have every reason to be 
 proud and thankful concerning many of the men who have 
 gone out from us to the East. I could speak long and fully 
 about numbers of these men, older and younger, with whom I 
 came in contact and of whom I have heard. But we must 
 prepare and send forth greater numbers as our contribution to 
 the East, and we must equip them on the basis of a first hand 
 knowledge of oriental conditions. 
 
 Secondly, the Seminary can exert a direct influence upon 
 the world through availing itself of opportunities, that may 
 arise from time to time, to send its teachers directly out into 
 the non-Christian world with the large irenic message of the 
 Christian Gospel. Already the Seminary has made a beginning 
 in this direction by sending forth, twice, one of its faculty as 
 Barrows Lecturer to India and the Far East. But this is only 
 a beginning, what I may call the thin edge of the wedge. I 
 have in view the adoption of this as a principle of our adminis- 
 
28 
 
 tration, that from time to time, while our work goes on at home, 
 a representative of the Seminary shall be in the East as a witness 
 and a teacher. I turn to one who sits on my right, my dear friend 
 and colleague, Doctor Knox. By the singular felicity with 
 which he has discharged the duties of Acting President during 
 my absence, he has given one more proof of his ability to 
 render service at home; but we must not forget that Doctor 
 Knox has spent fourteen years of his life in Japan, that he is 
 thoroughly at home in Japan and has the confidence and 
 esteem of Japan's leading men. What could be more fitting 
 than that, at the proper time, this Seminary should send forth 
 Doctor Knox to Japan, to speak at this most critical period of 
 Japanese development concerning the fundamental principles 
 of the Christian Gospel? 
 
 And finally I answer the question, " How can Union Sem- 
 inary bring to bear direct influence upon the modern oriental 
 world?" Let us take the initiative in providing for the oriental 
 world literature that shall adequately represent the noblest 
 and least sectarian modern interpretations of the Christian 
 religion. I am not unmindful of the valuable service rendered 
 by various denominational missionary presses. Their contri- 
 butions to the vernacular literatures of the East have in many 
 instances been very valuable. But at the present time, what 
 the East most wants is not literature issued by a denomina- 
 tional board, but deliverances of Christian scholars, defining 
 with clearness the essential truths of the religion of Jesus 
 Christ. When in Shanghai, I had a very striking interview 
 with the distinguished missionary Timothy Richards, who told 
 me that recently two provincial governors of China, unable to 
 find in any existing vernacular publications a sufficiently broad 
 and non-sectarian interpretation of the Christian religion, 
 have deputed their own non-Christian scholars to produce 
 manuals of the Christian religion which could be studied in 
 the schools. Doctor Timothy Richards tells me that the 
 manuals thus produced reflected the unfamiliarity of their 
 authors with the actual facts of the Christian religion. 
 Nevertheless, instances like these are significant, and I hold 
 that the way is open for us to work directly and indirectly 
 for the instruction of the oriental world in the higher truths of 
 our holy faith. 
 
29 
 
 Gentlemen of the Alumni, as I look toward Morningside 
 Heights and think of the great buildings shortly to arise there, 
 a vision unfolds before me of the future world-wide influence 
 of this Seminary. God grant that the vision may be fulfilled. 
 
REVIEW OF THE YEAR 1906-1907 
 GEORGE WILLIAM KNOX 
 
 It is my pleasure to welcome President Hall on behalf of 
 this distinguished assembly. You, Sir, return with an experi- 
 ence enriched by a remarkable series of opportunities for 
 contact with all sorts and conditions of men, opportunities 
 nobly used, indeed, too laboriously and conscientiously used, to 
 the overtaxing of yourself. We thank God for your recovery 
 from the serious illness which cut short your stay in Japan, 
 and for your restoration to your accustomed strength. You 
 have been a true ambassador of our Lord in Asia, and, may I 
 not add, the true representative of the spirit of this Seminary. 
 Under the inspiration of your renewed leadership we look for 
 a constant approach to that which yet ever recedes as we 
 draw near it the Seminary's ideal. 
 
 In the absence of Dr. Hall upon his service in India and 
 the Far East, the executive work of the Seminary has been 
 my charge during the year, and it is my duty therefore to 
 report to the Alumni the work of the months past. 
 
 Naturally foremost in our thoughts has been the proposed 
 removal to the new site upon Morningside Heights, and it is 
 fitting that the Faculty should acknowledge the constant con- 
 sideration of the Board, of Directors for its wishes. The 
 Faculty was requested in the beginning to specify the needs, 
 and in the programme issued for the competition these require- 
 ments were set forth and the successful architects have 
 embodied them in the admirable design which has been chosen. 
 Therefore, we are forbidden to complain if the plans, when 
 realized, should fail to satisfy the requirements of the future; 
 but should this prove to be the case, it will not be from the 
 lack of prolonged and thoroughgoing and minute consideration 
 and discussion. 
 
 [so] 
 
31 
 
 We would also express our gratitude for the great gifts 
 which have made this embodiment possible, former benefac- 
 tions having been increased by the announcement at this 
 Commencement of a new gift of $200,000. This will provide 
 for the completion of the group of buildings as planned, 
 excepting only the Library for which we are still seeking 
 donors who shall give the $250,000 needed for its erection. The 
 plans wait for this consummation; when it is attained, the wise 
 conservatism and caution of the Board in delaying the incep- 
 tion of the work until the means for its accomplishment are in 
 hand will be fully justified. 
 
 A year ago the President of the Board, in his address at 
 this luncheon, spoke of his earnest desire for the co-operation 
 of the Alumni, words which have already born golden fruit. 
 I need not here say that a movement has been undertaken 
 for the endowment of our Library to the amount of $100,000, 
 and that $10,000 has already been pledged by the Alumni for 
 this purpose. How much this means to the institution is clear, 
 for the Library through all its history has been hampered by 
 the lack of funds, both for its proper administration and for 
 the purchase of books; and yet it is the very center and, in- 
 deed, one may say, the nerve of our intellectual activities. 
 That the Alumni should unite in this effort in so practical a 
 manner is an acknowledgment of their appreciation of the 
 ideals of the institution and of their loyalty to it. 
 
 The Seminary has further advanced in its programme as 
 an institution founded for the promotion of theological in- 
 struction and training for all branches of the Christian Church. 
 In its student body twenty-one denominations have been 
 represented during the year past, and special provision has 
 been made for the first time for the instruction of men of 
 different religious persuasions in the ecclesiastical history and 
 polity of their respective churches. A year ago an enthusias- 
 tic and loyal Alumnus suggested the founding of a Lectureship 
 on the Principles and Polity of the Baptist Church. Rev. 
 Henry M. Sanders, D.D., not only proposed this, but through 
 him it has become a fact. The Seminary has welcomed with 
 gladness to its teaching force the Rev. Edward Judson, D.D., 
 who, with distinguished success, has occupied this lectureship, 
 a service which we trust is only the beginning of a permanent 
 
32 
 
 tenure. In addition, beside the instruction provided in our 
 charter for students of the Presbyterian Church, courses have 
 been given in the Polity and Principles of the Congregational 
 and the Episcopal Churches. It is the purpose of the Semi- 
 nary so to enlarge this feature that the institution may still 
 more fully represent the substantial Christian unity which is 
 the soul of our religious life in the midst of the diversity which 
 characterizes modern Protestantism. 
 
 The Seminary has also made progress toward influencing the 
 broader Christian life, recognizing its duties not only to the 
 ministry but to all the philanthropic and religious enterprises 
 of our times. The work of religious training has been carried 
 on by the Rev. Richard Morse Hodge, D.D., in connection 
 with the Teachers College and with various associations for the 
 promotion of systematic and thorough training in the Bible. 
 A unique occasion was the Quiet Day for Social Workers on 
 February 12, Lincoln's Birthday, when a large number of 
 those actively interested in social work of various kinds met 
 in Adams Chapel morning and afternoon. Many creeds were 
 represented, and all listened with evident and appreciative 
 interest to addresses from different members of the Faculty 
 on various aspects of social work, with particular reference to 
 religion. Luncheon was served by the ladies of the Faculty 
 in the Social Room. It was a highly stimulating occasion and 
 the Faculty feels a debt of gratitude to the Head Worker of 
 Union Settlement and Director of Student Christian Work for 
 proposing and carrying it through with such efficiency. On 
 Thursday, April n, another unique meeting was held to 
 take measures for co-operation with the Swiss of Geneva in 
 the erection of a Memorial to John Calvin. The meeting was 
 attended by men of all types of Christian thought, who found 
 themselves in genuine sympathy as to its object, and practical 
 steps were taken to realize the purpose for which it was 
 called. 
 
 The regular work of the Seminary has proceeded with its 
 accustomed efficiency: here is no evidence of the falling off of 
 students for the Christian ministry, on the contrary our num- 
 bers are well maintained, and still more the quality of the 
 student body is fully equal to that of any period in its history. 
 The Seminary has a distinguished constituency in the universi- 
 
33 
 
 ties and colleges, and among its students are men who have 
 already taken high place in their undergraduate studies. Nor 
 has the Seminary failed to contribute to theological learning. 
 Beside many articles in journals of scientific theology and 
 current periodicals, various books have appeared from the 
 pens of members of the Faculty. First and foremost is the 
 Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, by 
 Professors Francis Brown and Briggs, in conjunction with 
 Professor Driver, of Oxford, England. The Faculty cele- 
 brated the completion of this work by entertaining Professors 
 Brown and Briggs at a dinner at the University Club on the 
 evening of October 15. Dr. Briggs has further added to the 
 indebtedness of the learned world by the completion of the two 
 volumes of his " Critical Commentary on the Book of Psalms." 
 Professor William Adams Brown, in December, 1906, brought 
 forth his ''Christian Theology in Outline," an illuminating 
 work giving to us the continuity of Christian truth in the 
 terms of modern thought. In addition, dealing with religion 
 in its world-wide aspects, are volumes published by President 
 Charles Cuthbert Hall, in December, on "Christianity and 
 the Human Race," and by Professor Knox on "The Spirit 
 of the Orient," in September, 1906, and "The Development 
 of Religion in Japan," in January, 1907. 
 
 The Directors and Faculty and a few specially invited 
 guests celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dr. Hastings' 
 connection with the Faculty on the evening of December i8th, 
 1906. It was an occasion long to be remembered as fitly cele- 
 brating the highly important and esteemed service which 
 our beloved colleague has rendered not only to the Union 
 Theological Seminary but to the great cause of liberty in the 
 church. 
 
 In the absence of President Hall, the Seminary has been 
 efficiently served in the Department of Homiletics by the Rev. 
 Arthur S. Hoyt, D.D., of Auburn Theological Seminary, and 
 it has been our pleasure to serve in like fashion the Auburn 
 Seminary by lectures in the Department of Systematic The- 
 ology, given during the earlier part of the year by Professor 
 William Adams Brown, D.D. 
 
 From this cursory review of the year past we turn with 
 high anticipation to the future. Naturally the material 
 
34 
 
 advancement of the Seminary is most prominently before 
 the public, but the Faculty and the Directors are convinced 
 that this is only the outward form of a still more important 
 expansion of the Seminary life. That the Seminary should 
 continue its services in the future as in the past to the cause 
 of ministerial education and theological science goes without 
 saying, but in addition it desires also to extend its influence 
 and its benefits that it may be a training school for men 
 who would fit themselves for all departments of Christian 
 work. Our age demands that men who are engaged in prac- 
 tical labors should have a scientific training, and in philan- 
 thropy and religion, as in other departments of life, no educa- 
 tion can be too thorough for those who are to perform the 
 largest service. But with all of this the Seminary is not 
 unmindful of the spirit which has ever characterized it and 
 which is the motive-power of its existence. The religious life 
 of the Seminary has been maintained and strengthened, for 
 with its profound belief in truth and its full commitment to 
 liberty of investigation, it combines devotion to the spirit of 
 Jesus Christ and loyalty to the life of his church. These 
 aspects of the Seminary's life are more fully set forth in the 
 addresses at the Alumni Dinner, and it is my part merely, in 
 this hasty manner, to review the year which has passed and to 
 summarize the progress which has been made. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW