THE

REFORMED CHURCH REVIEW

No. 1.-JANUARY-1918.

I.

ADDRESS OF DEDICATION.1

J. SPANGLER KIEFFER.

It is interesting and instructive to consider the order, and the manner, in which the "institutions of learning" of the Reformed Church came into existence. These institutions, literary and theological, have from the beginning been closely united together; but it is important to remember that the order in which, in the history of the Church, they came into being, is not just the same as that in which they are usually regarded and mentioned. It is usual and natural for us to speak of College and Theological Seminary; it is because this is the natural and necessary succession in which these institutions

1 We print in this number of the REFORMED CHURCH REVIEW a series of addresses which were delivered in Lancaster, Pa., on Thursday, October 18, 1917, at the services held under the auspices of the Eastern Synod of the Reformed Church in the U. S. of A., gathered in its one hundred and seventy-first annual session, for the purpose of dedicating a dormitory, named the Walter F. Richards Hall, and a refectory, named for the late Jacob Y. Dietz, erected for the use of the Theological Seminary by the generous gifts of the constituency of the Eastern, Potomac, and Pittsburgh Synods. In connection with these dedicatory services, a bronze tablet was unveiled to the memory of the late Rev. Prof. Frederick A. Gast, and also an oil portrait of the Rev. Prof. John C. Bowman. These various addresses fitly commemorate an historical event in the life and growth of the Theological Seminary. EDITORIAL NOTE.

are resorted to and used by those who are permitted to enjoy the privileges which they afford. It is significant, however, that this is not the succession in which they were historically developed, but that, in the process of development, this order was reversed; that here it was, not first the College and then the Theological Seminary, but first the Theological Seminary and then the College. It is well for us to remember, on this interesting and important occasion, that this Theological Seminary is the first, the original, the oldest institution of learning in the Church to which it belongs, and that out of it all the other institutions of the Church, both literary and theological, have eventually been evolved. The College is the offspring of the Theological Seminary; it came as an afterthought, a corollary, an appendix, as it were; a natural, logical, necessary consequence, it is true, but, nevertheless, in respect of its origin, not of an original and independent but of a characteristically sequent and subordinate character. As far as the College is concerned, that institution, important and indispensable as it is, was not the result of a distinct, deliberate and direct attempt to establish a college. It came, not directly, but indirectly, and, as it were, unintentionally. It would seem to be an instance of that law of indirection, as it might be called, of which multitudinous instances might be given, and by which men, while aiming at one thing, are led to the accomplishment of something different.

Originally it was not a college but a theological seminary that was thought of and desired. When, a hundred years ago, the question of establishing some sort of institution of learning began to be agitated in the Church; when, exactly a hundred years ago this year, the Synod, at its meeting at Yorktown, in 1817, first "took action looking towards the establishment of a theological school of some kind, and appointed a committee to give the subject a careful consideration," it was simply, merely and exclusively "a theological school of some kind" of which the forefathers were thinking. They were not concerned for education and learning as such; they were not con

sumed by a burning zeal for the benefits of a college education for the "rising generation"; they had no thought at all of these things; they were animated and actuated by an altogether practical purpose, the purpose of remedying an existing evil and alarming condition in regard to religion.

Within its

bounds, at that time, there existed great spiritual destitution. The Revolutionary War had taken place; as a consequence, in 1793, the connection of the Reformed Church in this country with the Church in Holland had come to an end, and with it had ceased that supply of capable ministers which had formerly, through this connection, been, with some degree of regularity and efficiency, afforded. In those days there were, especially in Pennsylvania, a number of small and scattered congregations of the Reformed Church; but, there being no organized means of supplying them with pastors, a large proportion of these congregations were "as sheep having no shepherd." "The hungry sheep looked up and were not fed." It was this condition of affairs that lay as a burden upon the minds and hearts of those who in those days cared for the welfare of the Church. It was their concern and anxiety for these shepherdless flocks that caused the movement for the establishment of a Theological Seminary; a movement which, after years of difficulty and struggle, finally issued in the founding, in the year 1825, of the institution in whose honor we are here to-day assembled. No sooner, however, had this "theological school" been established, than it became evident that it would be necessary to organize some sort of "classical instruction" to prepare the students for their theological studies. At first, in 1831, a "classical teacher" was appointed to give instruction within the Seminary itself. This appointment led to the organization, in 1832, of the "Classical Institution," the name of which was changed, in 1835, to that of the “High School of the Reformed Church." It was this High School which afterwards, being removed from York to Mercersburg, was erected into Marshall College, and which to-day continues

its existence, under the form now of Franklin and Marshall College, so closely associated with this Theological Seminary.

Such was the order in which these two kindred institutions came into existence; such was the practical religious motive which actuated those by whom they were founded. It was the Church that laid the educational foundations upon which the State has since been building. At an early day different branches of the Christian Church were engaged in the work of propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of civilizing and Christianizing the people of a new country. They found that an educated ministry was necessary; this led to the establishment of a theological seminary. The establishment of a theological seminary logically and necessarily led to the establishment of a college. It was thus that many of the oldest colleges of the land originated; such was their original association with religion. They were brought into being, not exclusively, nor even mainly, by the desire for education and learning as such, but by the desire and the effort to supply certain moral and religious needs of the people. Inscribed on a gateway at Harvard is the following quotation from New England "First Fruits": "After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, 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 our present ministers shall be in the dust." This, their original association with religion, seems, by some of them, in recent times, to have been forgotten, if not repudiated. It is well, however, indeed it is unavoidable, when we are considering the beginnings of the history of these educational institutions, to remember that they were of a religious origin; that they were founded in the belief, and owed their existence to the belief, that there is a constitutional and vital relation between education and religion. Into any discussion of the question of this relation we have no thought of entering

here. We would only say that the present condition of higher education in this country, the result of the attempts which have been made to dissociate education entirely from religion, and to make the educational process utterly and absolutely secular, can hardly be said to encourage the belief that it is wise or safe to undertake a permanent divorce between the two.

We have been dwelling upon the circumstance that, in the order of their development, the Theological Seminary came first and the College afterwards, not merely for the sake of the historical fact itself, but because of a certain principle which was operative in, and is illustrated by, the process of their development. It is a vital, fundamental, far-reaching principle; whoever follows it will be carried far. It is the principle of the priority of that which the Theological Seminary stands for, and the posteriority of that which the College stands for; of the priority of life over literature, of condition over theory, of the moral over the intellectual, of the spiritual over the temporal.

Indeed, so far as what we are saying on this occasion involves a retrospect, and a consideration of the beginnings and the progress of that process of development by which this Theological Seminary has become what it is to-day, we are calling attention to these things, not for the purpose of reciting the facts themselves, which are sufficiently well known, but for the sake of certain principles of which they are the expression and the manifestation, which they illustrate, of which they serve instructively to remind us. Other principles, besides the one which has been mentioned, were active in, and are illustrated by, this process. One of these might be called the Mustard Seed Principle. It is the principle laid down by our Saviour when He said: "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." And, again, when He said: "So is the kingdom of