and resubmitted the case of Mr. Noyes to the Prudential
Committee, but without affecting any change in the
former result. In the conference with the Committee
which ensued, Mr. Noyes reafSrmed the liberty of holding
the "reasonable hope" which he had cherished, and the
Committee reaffirmed its unwillingness, under the caution-
ary instructions which it had received at the annual meet-
ing of the Board at Des Moines regarding the hypothesis
of a future probation, to consider further the appointment
of Mr. Noyes. At the close of the year Mr. and Mrs. Noyes
were sent out as missionaries to Japan to be located in
Tokyo under charge of Dr. Greene, the oldest missionary
of the American Board in that country, until arrangements
should be made for more permanent location. The mis-
sion was carried on for five years. It was then given over,
the occasion for its separate existence having passed.
At the annual meeting of the American Board, held at



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 157

Worcester in October, 1893, the following resolution was
adopted. It was significant in many ways.

Resolved, that this Board, in response to the expressed wish
of its missionaries in Japan and in recognition of the successful
labors of the Reverend William H. Noyes in that Empire re-
quests the Prudential Committee to offer to him an appoint-
ment as missionary of the Board. The Board declares that this
action is not to be understood as in any way modifying its
former utterances on the subject of future probation.

This resolution was passed by a vote of 126 to 24.

Still more significant were two other resolutions passed
at the same meeting:

Resolved, that the limit of corporate membership be fixed at
350 (virtually doubling the membership), and that in addition
to vacancies regularly occurring, 2.5 persons be nominated and
chosen at each annual meeting for the next four years, com-
mencing with 1894.

A previous vote had provided for nominations to the
membership of the Board from the State organizations of
Congregational churches — thus bringing the Board under
the direct control of the churches.

A further resolution adopted at this meeting prescribed
a reorganization of the Prudential Committee, reconstitut-
ing its members into three classes, the term of service of
each member to terminate at the end of three years unless
reelected.

During the period between the rejection of Mr. Noyes
and his final acceptance, other missionary candidates
holding the same views had been rejected — or, in the
phraseology of the Committee, "postponed for further
fight." In some instances, however, candidates like Mr.
W. J. Covel, whose cases were thus postponed, refused to



158 ' MY GENERATION

submit to further parleying and withdrew. But since the
action at the Worcester meeting giving the Board over
into the control of the churches, I know of no instance in
which the Prudential Committee has not recognized the
standards of the churches in its appointment of mission-
aries. Nor do I know of any instance in which it has con-
tinued to insist upon the acceptance of the dogma of a
restricted Christian opportunity, despite the concluding
statement of the resolution accepting Mr. Noyes, that
"this action is not to be understood as in any way mod-
ifying its former utterance on the subject of future pro-
bation." And under this change of pohcy I can see no
sign, comparing the gifts of the churches, or the offerings
of the seminaries, or the quality of service rendered in
the various missionary fields, with like results in former
days, that the "nerve of missions" has become less sen-
sitive to the needs of the unchristianized world or less
vitally connected with the source of supply.^

1 In illustration of the change of sentiment on the part of the constituency of
the Board within a little more than a decade following the Worcester meeting
(1893), I quote an extract from a letter written by an official of the Board to
Mrs. Tucker in acknowledgment of her hospitality during a missionary con-
vention at Hanover. The letter bears date of December 21, 1906, and refers to
the annual meeting of the Board held in New Haven in the previous October.

"I had it in mind to tell your husband of an interesting call I had from Dr.
F. A. Noble, of Chicago, a short time before the annual meeting. Being under the
impression that Mr. Capen was intending to retire from the presidency of the
Board, he called to urge President Tucker for the position, saying we wanted to
go back to the kind of president we had in Mark Hopkins. I could hardly believe
my ears in view of his attitude toward the more liberal wing in the Board during
the long controversy. It was most significant and beautiful."

This personal action of Dr. Noble was very generous. I do not know how
completely it represented the conservative element in the constituency of the
Board. It was not put to the test, as I positively declined to allow the use of my
name in response to the requests which came to me from the delegates assembled
at New Haven. I was then already conscious of being overburdened with college
duties. I also felt that it would be unwise for the Board to recall the controversy
through which it had passed, by placing in its most representative position one
who had been so thoroughly identified with the controversy.



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 159

m

Andover as a working Center during the Decade of Conflict

In passing for the time from the environment of con-
troversy into the internal Hfe of the Seminary, it may be
difficult, perhaps impossible, to convey the impression
that the essential interest at Andover was not in the
controversy, but in the normal work. But such was the
fact. There was an unreality about the whole contention
in striking contrast with the realities of the classroom.
The prosecution, as I have already remarked, was so
contrary to the traditions of the Seminary and so out of
harmony with the general spirit of the age, that it was
hard at times to realize that it was actually going on.
Most of the Faculty were graduates of the Seminary
and imbued with its aggressive theological principles; and
the more recent members had but just come to their duties
from centers of intellectual life and activity. The enforced
attention to the controversial situation compelled an in-
terruption, at times almost a reversal of established habits
of thought. But the normal interest, as I have said, cen-
tered in work, not in conflict.

The work went on under this outward disturbance
without the least sense of insecurity. Perhaps there was
no point at which the unreality of the controversy made
itself more felt, than in the failure of the protracted litiga-
tion to awaken any fear whatever as to the final result.
The action of the Visitors in deposing Professor Smyth
was not taken seriously. It was impossible to believe that
the action could stand. When Professor Smyth went on
with his work as if nothing had taken place, his course
seemed natural and consistent. These outward conditions



i6o MY GENERATION

created no excitement or distraction among the students.
Students were not deterred by them from entering the
Seminary, nor incited to leave to finish their coiuse at
other seminaries. On the contrary, there was a steady
increase of students throughout the entire period. There
was a notable increase in the number of mature men, some
of them from other seminaries, some of them from other
professions. There was a remarkable spirit of comradeship
between students and faculty. This was the spirit which
pervaded the classroom.

It is difficult to say whether this environment of contro-
versy was the more annoying or stimulating; but disre-
garding either view, the work of the Seminary was in
itself of exceptional interest. In this respect it shared in
the revived interest in theological study in all the sem-
inaries. Subjects of special investigation in all the de-
partments invited the most earnest attention of scholars.
The revival of scholarship was nowhere more apparent
than in the more advanced seminaries. Add to this general
fact the local fact that the majority of the Faculty were
new to their departments and obliged to construct and
organize as well as teach, and it will appear that the work
of each was of compelling and absorbing interest, at least
to him. In nearly all of the departments it was both
intensive and extensive. Theology was making severe
demands upon close and accurate scholarship, and its
demand was equally urgent for a wider application to the
vexing problems of society. In a word, it was not chiefly
the constant presence of controversy which made the
work at Andover during this period of exceptional interest
and concern; the work itself, for the reasons given, had an
exceptional significance to those who were engaged in it.



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 161

I confine myself, in my reference to the Andover
of this time as a working center, to the work of my own
department. To enter into the problems which gave in-
terest and distinction to the work in other departments
would divert me from the natural trend of these "Notes,"
without giving thereby any satisfactory view of the work
of my colleagues.

The work of my department was twofold — the one
part covering much ground already under high cultiva-
tion, the other part extending into almost entirely new
territory. I must explain how this extension of the de-
partment was made, as I was responsible for it. There had
been in the Seminary "from time immemorial" an un-
attached and somewhat perfunctory lectureship, known
as the "Lectureship on Pastoral Theology." It had been
assigned, from time to time, to one department or another
according to some supposed fitness of the incumbent, or
to the least power of resistance on his part. It seemed to
me, as I looked into this lectureship, that it was capable
of rendering a wide and timely service, and I therefore
asked, much to the relief of my colleagues, that it might
be attached to my professorship. It thus became an open
door through which I had free access to those social prob-
lems which were confronting the Church. It became
entirely logical, under the construction put upon this
lectureship, to emphasize the new and enlarged functions
of the Church in modern society. And as these functions
rapidly grew in importance and gained formal recognition,
elective courses in sociological subjects were added under
the title of "Social Economics," which after a time were
given in outline in the " Review," in response to urgent
demands from interested ministers and laymen.



i62 MY GENERATION

The chair of Preaching, to which I had been called (the
Bartlet Professorship of Sacred Rhetoric), was one of the
first chairs established upon the Andover Foundation. As
I remarked at my inauguration, the Founders, contrary
to the order of procedure in some of the earlier theological
schools, at once did all in their power to insure for the
truth an adequate hearing. The Trustees invariably called
to the service of this department men who had had the
discipline of the pulpit. The traditions of the Bartlet
Professorship ran back through a line of distinguished
preachers — back to Phelps, to Park, to Skinner, to
Murdock, to Porter, to Griffin, the Boanerges of the Park
Street pulpit, Boston. Of course each man in the succession
brought to the classroom his own philosophy of preaching,
the inevitable outcome of his experience, or observation,
or study of the principles of his art. There were standards
to be upheld by all alike, and there was a common stock
of knowledge on which all must draw, but somewhere the
emphasis laid on this or that requirement, showed the
ruling idea which was to govern each new incumbent
of the chair. My own philosophy compelled me to lay the
emphasis, the strong emphasis, in preaching upon the
personality of the preacher. After leaving Andover I gave
the course of lectures (for 1898) upon the Lyman Beecher
Foundation on Preaching at Yale. These lectures were
published under the title "The Making and the Unmak-
ing of the Preacher." "How shall we put ourselves," I
asked in the opening lecture, "within so great a matter
as that of preaching? Where is the point of reality? I know
of no place where one may so certainly expect to find it as
in the consciousness of the preacher. Around him and
above him stretch the vast ranges of truth. They all con-



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 163

tribute something to his message. Before him is the com-
mon humanity. Nothing which belongs to that can be
alien to him. But neither truth nor man has anything to
do with preaching until each has found the rightful place
in the consciousness of the preacher " (p. 3).

And again, in asking about the true relation of the
morality of preaching to the art, I said: "Preaching con-
sists in the right correspondence between the apprehen-
sion and the expression of a given truth. The morality of
preaching lies at this point, just where also its effectiveness
lies. Preaching becomes unmoral, if not immoral, when
the preacher allows the expression of truth to go beyond
the apprehension of it. This is unreality in the pulpit.
Doubtless some unreal preaching is effective, but never
for long time. The law is that the power of the pulpit
corresponds to the clearness and vividness of the preacher's
apprehension of truth. The preacher who really believes
the half truth will have more power than the preacher
who half believes the truth. But it is almost equally true
that preaching may fail for want of adequate expression.
Hence the occasion for the art of sermonizing, or for the
art of preaching; the art, that is, of making the expression
of truth satisfy the apprehension of it" (pp. 62, 63).

This philosophy, or psychology of preaching, was not
the substance of the classroom lectures. These lectures
had to do necessarily with the technique of preaching. But
this philosophy of preaching was the underlying and work-
ing principle of the department. In conjunction with Pro-
fessor Churchill, a weekly or semi- weekly exercise was
inaugurated at which each member of the senior class
preached at least twice before the class. This exercise
brought out the man as well as the sermon. Although the



i64 MY GENERATION

conditions were not perfect for direct and effective preach-
ing, still it was preaching, and by the choice of subjects
with some reference to the audience, it was capable of
being made natural preaching. It was a far different matter
from handing in a written sermon for criticism. It allowed,
and called forth, criticism at all vital points. The class
took the initiative, usually freely and vigorously. Not
infrequently the criticism from the department came in
as a corrective. Sometimes it was necessary to interpret
a man to his fellows, to uncover the latent thought which
had been missed by the class, to give to the preacher of
the day the courage of seeing more clearly the intended
and entirely possible result which he had failed to reach.
At other times it was equally necessary to show a man
how he was hindering the truth by some mannerism, by
some insufficient interpretation, by some false note in the
spiritual application. As I look back upon this exercise, I
am confirmed in my philosophy of preaching — that it
has to do most vitally with the personality of the preacher.
I am sure that the men themselves grew in preaching
power, as they grew in the understanding and use of their
personality. I am sure that I came into a larger sense of
their possibilities the more I studied their personal apti-
tudes. I think that they set themselves free very quickly
from the common charge of "seminary preaching," and
became preachers in their own right, their work bearing
the stamp of their own personality.

The lectures, as I have said, were of necessity chiefly
concerned with the technique of preaching — the forma-
tion of the homiletic habit, how distinguished from the
literary or oratorical habit, how related to the philosophi-
cal and interpretative habits and to the historic spirit;



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 165

methods of preaching, how can the so-called extempore
method be cultivated to insure accuracy and precision
in freedom of speech, how escape the confinement of the
memoriter method, how distinguish between the method
of the sermon written to be delivered, and that of the
sermon written to be read; the fundamental idea of the
sermon, and its great qualities of style and tone; the
original sources of pulpit material, the Bible, Nature, and
human nature, and secondary sources involving the con-
sideration of plagiarism; and modern schools of preaching.
Of these general topics, I found that the greatest interest
centered in methods of preaching, due in large measure
to the very great difficulty of really mastering any one
distinctive method. To write a sermon is not difficult, but
to determine whether one shall try to put into it some-
thing of the charm of literature or something of the force
of oratory, involves a study of the essential meaning of
style. It is more difficult to speak without notes than to
write and read or deliver, but it is far more difficult still to
become a master of trained speech, so clearly a master
that a man can trust himself, and that his audience can
trust him. If the memory is entirely trustworthy, quick
and sure in action, the memoriter sermon may be free
from the unnaturalness of the method. Whenever a man
was in perplexity about his method, I advised the written
sermon, the sermon written to be delivered, as the basis
from which one could work out his own permanent method.
Doubtless a good many stick in this tentative method
and never advance into the commanding forcefulness of
the spoken style at its best, or into the persuasive charm
of the purely written style at its best. But a period of
writing is absolutely essential to most men if they are to



i66 MY GENERATION

gain any sure command of language. The danger of being
permanently and rigidly holden to a manuscript is far
less than the danger of a loose and unstudied speech,
which has never passed under the severe training of the
pen.

The conduct of public worship in the non-liturgical
churches is so much a function of the pulpit that the
subject is inseparable from that of preaching. The awaken-
ing and guidance of the spirit of devotion in the congre-
gation virtually rests upon the minister, and like preach-
ing, is largely determined by his personal aptitudes and
training. Ineptness, or lack of the devotional sense, or
want of liturgical knowledge, seriously affects the tone
of the whole service, and may grievously offend the more
sensitive spiritual natures. The witticism was attributed
to Professor Park, returning from a winter in Boston on
his retirement, that he now understood the growth of
Episcopacy in the city, after hearing ministers pray. The
devotional lack of the time was not altogether in the
matter of public prayer. The churches suffered not a little
under the reign of music committees. The order of worship
often took on the character of a programme. The intro-
duction of irrelevant music prolonged but did not enrich
the service. Some fifteen minutes was added to an Easter
service which one of the Andover professors had been
asked to conduct, by the moralizings of a tenor soloist
upon the striking of the hours — from one o'clock to
twelve. Both Professor Harris and myself were frequently
impressed with the need of a larger participation of the
congregation in worship, not through a lowering but
through an elevation of the standard of congregational
singing. The experiment of utilizing the congregation



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 167

under the leadership of a large and highly trained choir
had been tried with assuring success at the Central Church,
Providence, during the pastorate of Professor Harris, and
under the direction of Mr. Glezen as organist. I had been
much impressed by the service at this church, as I was
often called to supply the pulpit. Taking this experiment
as a practical suggestion, we set at work with the cooper-
ation of Mr. Glezen upon the preparation of a hymn book
which might be a stimulus to worship. The now familiar
tunes of the best English composers had not then come
into general use, and the hymn books were scant of hymns
expressive of the experience of the modern Christian. The
old hymns and tunes of enduring quality were retained,
but the number of hymns usually found in a compilation —
twelve to fourteen hundred — was reduced to seven hun-
dred and fifty-nine, and in the popular edition of the book
to four hundred and eighty-nine. The Psalms were ar-
ranged for chanting as well as for responsive reading. The
title of the book was, I think, the best that has been
adopted — "Hymns of the Faith." It has its special fitness
in the fact that the arrangement was based upon, and
followed the order of the Apostles' Creed.

The preparation of the book was to us both a refreshing
labor. Professor Harris wrote from his summer home in
Bar Harbor, "Strange as it may seem" (the controversy
was well under way) "the hymn book is now on my mind
more than any other project." The reception accorded to
the book was both gratifying and amusing. Where, how-
ever, it was amusing to the editors, it was perplexing to
the publishers. Houghton, Miflflin & Company had had
some experience in the somewhat analogous sale of text-
books, but I doubt if they ever found the hobbies of school-



i68 MY GENERATION

masters and school committees quite so vexing as the
whims of churches. Some hymn had been left out — prob-
ably excluded; could not a new edition be prepared to
include it? Here and there a new adaptation of tune to
hymn had been made — not allowable. Like the book,
but type too small for one of our members — that settles
it. Too many new tunes, takes too much time to learn
them. Many of the criticisms were valuable, and on
the whole the response was quicker and more general
than we had anticipated. Occasionally a letter came in,
like this from Professor Sewall, of Bangor, from which
I quote.

Last evening went all thro' it — like a Chinaman beginning
at the end and working back to the beginning — and I want to
tell you that I like it thoroughly, from end to end, whichever
end you start with. It is good — full of good hymns, and full of
good music. It strikes me with admiration that you have been
able to keep out so much that must have clamored for ad-
mission; and further that you have put into so small compass so
much that is highest in taste and sweetest in music. Only — if
you ever issue another "popular edition," do, do, do leave out
that rascally Greenville! — which I think must have been about
worn out by the time the fellow got it done. I hope I may meet
brother Rousseau in heaven — i.e., if he gets there — and pro-
vided I get there too — which ifs you may set down as a pair
of twins; but if he does get there, I am sure his tune will have
been burnt off of him in the fires of purgatory thro' which he
will have to pass. But those other tunes — of Monk and Dykes
and Stainer and Barnby and Tours et al. — just lift one's soul
up into heaven. ... I hope those composers will go into the
heavenly life with their creative powers all perfect, and forever
increasing.

"Hymns of the Faith" soon took its place as an edu-
cating force in hymnology, popularizing the best tunes,



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 169

and helping to put the right valuation on hymns. The
fact is often overlooked that it is as much one of the re-
ligious functions of every generation to winnow its hymns
as to revise its creeds.

The Lectureship on Pastoral Theology, which was used
chiefly to relate the Church to its new social duties, re-
quired a certain amount of attention to satisfy its original
demands. The pastoral offices were treated altogether by
lectures; the administration of the local church also by
lectures, but still more definitely in connection with a
system of scholarships, which gave the students access to
the working of thoroughly organized churches. Berkeley
Temple, which had become an institutional church under
the pastorate of Dr. Charles A. Dickinson, gave employ-
ment on Saturdays and Sundays to a considerable num-
ber; others spent an equal amount of time in the service
of churches in the neighboring manufacturing towns;
others still devoted a certain amount of time on Sundays
or during the week in work at the Concord Reformatory,
or in other reformatory institutions in eastern Massa-