of the Visitors. The testimony before ex-Governor Rob-



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 209

inson so clearly invalidated the judgment of Dr. Eiistis,
that it would have served to change the vote of the Vis-
itors in the case of Professor Smyth, had the court based
its opinion on that issue. By the Statutes of the Associate
Foundation, in case of a tie in the vote of the Board of
Visitors, the vote of the President is made decisive. The
elimination of the vote of Dr. Eustis would have meant
the acquittal of Professor Smyth.

The dissenting opinion of the Chief Justice naturally
suggested a reopening of the complaint before the Visitors.
The complainants proceeded to carry out the suggestion.
During the time, however, in which the case had been
before the Supreme Court — nearly three years — certain
changes had taken place affecting the entire situation. Dr.
Eustis had died (1888) and Dr. Dexter (1890) and in the
same year Professor Park. Meanwhile the Board of Vis-
itors had become practically a new Board. President
Seelye had resigned and been succeeded by Dr. George
Leon Walker as President; and the vacancy occasioned
by the death of Dr. Eustis had been filled by the election
of Dr. Alonzo H. Quint. Mr. Marshall remained on the
Board and was made Secretary. It had become apparent,
as the proceedings went on before the Supreme Court,
that the case was turning more and more away from its
theological aspects toward its administrative bearings.
There was a liability that the case might be carried to the
Federal Courts upon the question of the constitutionality
of the visitorial system. Meanwhile the change which had
taken place in the personnel of the Board of Visitors
placed the determining power in the hands of the new
members. Dr. George Leon Walker, the President, and
Dr. Alonzo H. Quint. In view of these two facts, it was



210 MY GENERATION

proposed by some of the supporters of the Seminary,
including at first two or three of the Trustees, that it
might be well to withdraw the case from the Supreme
Court and restore it to its original theological status, by
resubmitting it to the reconstituted Board of Visitors. I
find by reference to correspondence, that this proposal
was seriously entertained by some who were directly con-
cerned with the affairs of the Seminary. But upon con-
sultation this proposal was dropped. It was seen to be
essential that there should be a decision upon the admin-
istrative as well as upon the theological points at issue.
Such a decision could come only from the Supreme Court.
It was also seen that it would be difficult, even under
general agreement, to bring the case back again into the
unquestioned jurisdiction of the Visitors. And still further,
the move might reopen all the old sources of contention;
and in the renewed confusion allow some compromising
decision — as, for example, a vote of acquittal accom-
panied by admonition. It was therefore decided with
practical unanimity that the case should go on, with the
result already stated.

After the decision was rendered it was uncertain what
course the complainants would take. The dissenting opin-
ion of the Chief Justice had opened the way, should they
choose to use it, for a renewal of their complaint. The
situation, however, as has been noted, had changed in
some important respects. I recall the more important.
There had been the change in the composition of the
Board of Visitors. Dr. Dexter, the chief complainant, had
died. Professor Park, to whom the complainants had
turned for advice, had also died. With the accession of Dr.
Dunning to the editorship of the "Congregationalist," the



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 211

burden of 'the attack upon Andover had been shifted to
the cokimns of the "Advance." These changes represented
apparent losses. On the other hand, the original contro-
versy had been carried on unremittingly in the rooms
and upon the platform of the American Board. It was a
significant fact that when the complaint was actually
renewed, and an early date for the hearing had been ap-
pointed, the complainants requested a postponement
until after the fall meeting of the American Board.

The uncertainty in regard to the action of the com-
plainants was set at rest by notice served July 11 upon
the Trustees and Professor Smyth that the "Amended
Complaint" would be renewed by the remaining com-
plainants, Drs. Wellman and Lanphear, and that a hear-
ing had been appointed for September 1 at Andover. It
was difficult to know just how much this meant. There
was no wish to distrust or embarrass the new Board of
Visitors through irritating preliminaries on the part of
the defendants. Such, for example, might have been the
proposal, very seriously entertained, that the four pro-
fessors who had been acquitted should petition the Visitors
that they be included in the renewed complaint. Their
position had been very embarrassing. Had the dismissal
of Professor Smyth resulted in his retirement, they would
have resigned. Should his dismissal on the renewed charges
be made final, they would resign. But their proposed re-
entrance into the case introduced such complications that
it was decided to put by the proposal. It was, however,
necessary to take account of the decision by the court,
modifying the powers of the Visitors and their method of
procedure, and to take such steps as might insure a suit-
able ground of appeal should it be necessary for either



212 MY GENERATION

the Trustees or Professor Smyth to resort again to the
court. The reply of the defendants took due account of
these precautions; and Professor Smyth made in addition
a brief but frank reply covering the theological charges
involved. The hearing was held as appointed on Septem-
ber 1, and at its close was adjourned for one week. At
that time the Visitors made their deliverance, covering
in somewhat minute detail their interpretation of the
decision of the Supreme Court as affecting their Visito-
rial powers, and concluding with the statement of their
reasons for the decision which they reached regarding the
disposition of the case against Professor Smyth.

It must be remembered [they say] that this amended com-
plaint was dated November 8, 1886, and that the burden of
such complaint claimed that the respondent held and main-
tained certain alleged errors nearly six years ago. An adverse
decision would now merely assert that to have been a fact. The
present condition of affairs is not involved in the specific ques-
tion at issue. . . .

It has a moral bearing, furthermore, that upon the former
hearing, upon verbally the same complaint then made against
five professors alike, and upon the same evidence in all the cases,
four of the accused were acquitted, and one (the present re-
spondent) was condemned. That this infelicity arose from a
conjunction of circumstances within the Board itself does not
affect the bearing of the fact. The conditions of that result have
never been generally understood, and a necessary and inevitable
prejudice 2vas awakened against the equity and the reasonableness
of the adjudication made. . . .

To some extent the present complaint operates as a barrier
to that more direct and current supervision of the affairs of
the Seminary as a whole, which has been indicated as a duty
recognized by the Visitatorial Board, and especially to those
amicable methods which should take precedent of all others.



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 213

In the peculiar condition, therefore, where this protracted
case is now found, and in its evident inadequacy to advance the
interests of the Seminary, and in the unlikehness that this
isolated case would be productive of good by further proceed-
ings, and in the belief that the Visitors can better fulfill their
responsibilities by other methods within their power, this Board
decides — without thereby expressing any opinion upon the
merits of the case — that the amended complaint now pending
against Egbert C. Smyth, Brown Professor of Ecclesiastical
History, be dismissed.

Thus ended finally the "Andover Case" after a course
of six years, preceded by two years of open controversy.
Following the movement of the case, we have these suc-
cessive steps — the formal complaint before the Board
of Visitors against five professors in the Seminary on the
general charge of heresy; the amended complaint, becom-
ing more distinctly according to the declared purpose of
the complainants, an indictment for breach of trust,
though held formally to the charge of heterodoxy; the
trial before the Visitors; the unequal verdict which dis-
possessed one professor of his chair, leaving the other pro-
fessors undisturbed ; the transfer of the case to the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts, through the appeal of the dis-
possessed professor on the ground of the prejudgment of
the case by one of the Visitors, and through a bill in equity
brought by the Trustees on the ground of having been
denied a place by the Visitors as a party to the trial; the
discussion before the court of the relative authority and
powers of the governing and Visitatorial boards; the de-
cision of the court declaring the judgment and decree of
the Visitors void on account of their violation of the
Statutes defining their powers; the reopening of the case
before the Visitors by the remaining original complainants



214 MY GENERATION

through the "Amended Complaint"; the reversal of the
decision made bv the Board in the earlier trial, and the
formal dismissal of the case.

The results of this protracted controversy and litigation
cannot be as succinctly stated, but they were at certain
essential points clear and impressive.

Owing to the circumstances attending the development
of the trial, peculiar interest attached to the personal re-
sult. I have said that Professor Smyth was the outstand-
ing figure. He was such by rightful distinction, by virtue
of what I may term his personal and professional corre-
spondence to the issue involved. Professor Smyth had been
reckoned a conservative rather than a liberal, according
to the way men were classified before the opening of the
Andover controversy. I am not sure that he would have
become so aggressively advanced on any of the other
questions which were opening the way into progressive
orthodoxy, I am quite sure that he would not have been
fitted by temperament or by training for leadership in the
distinctly scientific movements in some parts of the theo-
logical world. But for the truth underlying the Andover
"heresy," which, as he believed, touched the very heart
of Christianity, he was fitted both by his sympathies and
by his studies to act as its defender and advocate. He was
a wide and profound student of Christian history, espe-
cially of the history of Christian doctrine. When calling
in question some of Dr. Dexter's claims for certain creeds
as oecumenical, he was able to say with unimpeachable
authority — " they are not oecumenical, I know these all
by heart." He was likewise profoundly sensitive to the
humanity of Christianity. Here was the secret of his zeal



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 215

for missions. As a speaker on the platform of the Ameri-
can Board he was no longer the Church historian, but a
valiant and moving pleader for the rights of all men in
the Christian heritage and the Christian hope.

As the circumstance of the trial detached him from his
colleagues, he carried the distinction which this detach-
ment conferred upon him with dignity, courage, and gen-
uine simplicity. His legal opponents were impressed by
his behavior and carriage. He did not ask for sympathy or
invite it. He stood four-square against the adverse cir-
cumstances creating his isolation, which in spite of the
oneness of all concerned in the struggle had its painful
realities. His patient strength lay in the satisfactions of
duty, and in the undaunted assurance of the ultimate
success of his contention. There was not a little of the
spirit of Luther in the concluding words of his defense:
"What I maintain and where I abide in good conscience
is this: I have not violated my obligations under the Creed,
even upon a close and technical construction of them.
And if, as I also maintain, the Creed is a summary of
principles which are to be applied and developed from
generation to generation, I have done something far
better and more faithful than a literal repetition of them.
I have used them, and with them have confronted present
great and important questions of religious thought and
life." The vindication of the man whose whole course of
action justified such words as these, was not to be over-
looked in any fair estimate of the greater results of the
trial. It was no mere sentiment which led the public to
regard the culmination of the trial, in the restoration of
Professor Smyth to his professorial standing in the Sem-
inary, as of the nature of a personal triumph.



2i6 MY GENERATION

An uncalculated, but salutary result of the trial was
its exposure of the folly of the over-use of theological
safeguards. The Andover Foundation was guarded by an
elaborate creed, which in turn was guarded by a carefully
devised system of visitation. The Creed was calculated,
by reason of its excessive specifications, to confuse the
mind as to its essential purpose and as to its actual tend-
ency. Even so fundamentally honest and so acute a mind
as that of Judge Hoar failed to discern its actual bearings.
It remained for Professor Smyth to point out by a careful
historical analysis the real direction of the Creed; to show
that it had a forward, not a backward, look, and that its
restrictions were set up to guard against retreat, not
against advance. In like manner the visitorial system was
so devised as to create unwittingly the very liability to
inconsistency and injustice which has been so deplorably
in evidence. The Board of Visitors which dismissed the
case against Professor Smyth, charitably characterize the
injustice of the action of their predecessors as an "in-
felicity (which) arose from a conjunction of circumstances
within the Board itself." It is due to the Founders to note
their w^isdom in the provision they made to correct any
miscarriage of justice on the part of the Visitors. They
put the Visitors within easy reach of the Supreme Court.
They had the sagacity to see that men of religious char-
acter and purpose were not infallible in the exercise of
justice; that in fact religious zeal might divert their steps
from the straight and narrow path of justice. The Sem-
inary and the churches are indebted to the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts for its clear apprehension of the claims
of justice in their decision in the Andover case, although
it kept as far away as possible from the theological issues



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 217

involved. The decision would have been still more satis-
factory had it entered more fully into the relations be-
tween the two boards, though as I have said in the sec-
tion of this chapter bearing on the proposed action of
the Trustees in the establishment of a new chair free
from visitorial jurisdiction, it was only in this way that
real institutional freedom could have been gained. It
would have been sufficient to have made the visitorial
system a subordinate, rather than as it is now, the dom-
inating part of the Foundation. Andover has been some-
what relieved of the excessive burden of its safeguards, but
it is still too heavily weighted with its defensive and
offensive armor to act in possible contingencies in the full
freedom of its strength.

The result which was most definitely secured, through
the protracted trial — the result, that is, which was actually
reached, and which could only have been reached through
conflict, was a reasonable assurance of theological freedom.
This result was the answer to those who deprecated the
fight and would have been willing to divert the issue. It
represented something achieved, something won. The fact
that it was reached through a reversal of judgment made
the victory more complete. Between the original judgment
and its reversal, public sentiment had grown into an
almost unanimous approval of the freedom secured. Very
few feared any danger from it. The long struggle had
familiarized the public mind with the spirit and intent of
the larger freedom. The danger from acquired freedom is
indeed quite different from the danger of inherited free-
dom. It is more obvious, but really less to be feared. The
utmost danger from acquired freedom lies in the possible
tendency to over-use it. The danger from inherited freedom



2i8 MY GENERATION

is not license but stagnation. This danger had begun to
mark the freedom of the New England churches of the
Puritan faith. The New England theology had begun to
stagnate. Its great traditions were no longer urging it
forward, and it was not sensitive to the stirrings of the
new life from without. By contrast, any theological free-
dom like that won in the Andover fight was safe. It was a
freedom to be respected, and trusted. A very significant
change in this respect was indicated in the final decree of
the Visitors, in their reference to subscription to the Creed.
All suspicion and distrust had now passed away. "Since
the date of the Amended Complaint," they say, "that
person [Professor Smyth] has again subscribed to the
creed of the Seminary as required by the Statutes; a
creed which this learned and Christian gentleman must
be supposed to have taken intelligently." "Intelligently,"
not literally, not evasively, but in consistency with his
well-known views, and in accordance with his declared
understanding of the Creed itself. Here at last is the full
recognition of the right of personal interpretation in the
matter of creed subscription. The Andover conflict
brought to those who won the rights which they de-
fended, and through them to all who set a proper value
upon theological freedom, the possession of a responsible
and respected freedom. "Suffice it to say," is the con-
clusion of an editorial writer in the secular press who had
carefully watched the whole course of the conflict, "that
there seems to be no longer any question that Progressive
Orthodoxy is orthodox; and that its progress is in the
direction of bringing, by methods adapted to the con-
ditions of to-day, to bear upon the needs of to-day, that
gospel which is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."



I THE ANDOVER PERIOD 219

It is much to say of the result of the Andover trial that
it secured a larger theological freedom for the Seminary — ■
its professors and students and graduates — and also for
theological education everywhere and for the ministry at
large; but it is far more to be able to say, as I think it can
truthfully be said, that the Andover controversy, of which
the trial was the culmination, contributed its part toward
that vastly greater end of theological freedom, namely
the freedom of Christianity. Much as it means for men to
be free in their holding of the Christian faith, it is in-
finitely more that the faith itself shall be kept free, or if
in any wise bound, shall be set free. The great struggle
within the field of doctrine has always been to break the
hold of fettering and restrictive dogmas. These dogmas
have been the obstructive forces in the way of a working
Christianity, — the dogma of a "particular" election, the
dogma of a limited atonement, and, last, the dogma of a
restricted opportunity. It was a sad comment on the
assumed and even boasted freedom of the New England
theology, of which Andover was a chief exponent, that a
theology which had won the conflict for a universal atone-
ment should surrender to the dogma of a restricted Chris-
tian opportunity; and that the missionary organization
called into being to carry out the motive of a universal
atonement, should shift its motive of action to this same
dogma of a restricted Christian opportunity. It was this
arrested development and perverted application of an
otherwise advanced theology, which made the Andover
contest in the courts, and the Andover contention in the
American Board, one and the same conflict. And the re-
sult.' Who now holds in good faith the doctrine of a uni-
versal atonement, compelled at the same time to limit



220 MY GENERATION

its application to the merest fraction of the human race?
Who now holds a working interest in missions, compelled
at the same time to find the motive to missions in the
arbitrary limitation of the Christian opportunity? The
conception of a future opportunity for those who have
not known or understood the Christ, denounced as a fatal
heresy, derided as a speculation, to be allowed if at all
only as a hope, was given its true place in the larger inter-
pretation of Christianity. It is no longer merely a possible
inference, it is seen to inhere in the spirit and intent of
the Christian faith; a faith which is constantly extending
its boundaries and becoming more and more capable of
including within its range the possibilities of the future
world; a faith which follows with unfaltering step the
path of every man on his way to his final destiny. This
progress of Christian faith can be measured not simply by
the enlargement of its range, but still more by the quick-
ening of its hope into confident expectation, that expecta-
tion which glows in the epistles of St. Paul. The greatest
advance of Christian doctrine within the generation has
been in its humanity. The humanizing process has been
at work in many ways, but in all those ways that are most
accessible and most easily recognized, it has been stimu-
lated by that larger hope for humanity which is the out-
come and expression of the newly acquired freedom of
Christianity. As the meaning of this enlarged freedom is
more clearly understood, it is reasonable to assume that
the inspiration to be derived from it will act with increas-
ing force upon the Church. Under the intense individual-
ism of the Protestant faith, the churches of that faith
have never caught the large vision, or felt the deep sense
of humanity. We, who profess that faith, have hardly



THE ANDOVER PERIOD 221

recognized, certainly we have not felt, the solidarity of
the race. But the Christianity of the New Testament and
of the early Church was conceived and announced in
universal terms. Nothing has yet been accomplished, tak-
ing full account of the glorious work of the past in some
transformations of life among some peoples, nor is any-
thing in immediate prospect, which can be accepted as
satisfying the spirit, or the purpose, or the capacity, or
the prophecy of Christianity. Is there a larger work in
human redemption going on out of sight, but not out of
the reach of faith .^^ ^ The Christian heart, and the Christian
mind, and more and more the Christian conscience have
contended for the right to believe in this unlimited work
of Christ. "We must cast ourselves," said one of the
earlier converts to Christianity — "we must cast ourselves
into the greatness of Christ." The conviction which found
such courageous expression in the saying of this early
convert has grown, all too slowly, but irresistibly, upon the
Christian Church. Every period of greatest advance has
been marked by some sincere attempt to realize its mean-
ing. I think that it may be claimed for the Andover Con-
tention, that it was a sincere attempt, successful within
the limits of its influence, to embolden Christian believers
to cast themselves more completely into "the greatness"
of Christianity, and to adjust their Christian activities
and expectations to this enlargement of their faith.

' No one can overlook the fact that the War is giving a reality and pertinency
to this question which could hardly have been anticipated when it was under
theological discussion. It is now a human question. The War has brought the
two worlds very near to one another in the minds of multitudes, even in Chris-
tian homes, who had been living in one world; and the constantly increasing
volume of premature deaths makes its direct and irresistible appeal to Christian
faith. W. J. T. 1918.



CHAPTER VIII

ANDOVER AND DARTMOUTH

1892

A Year of Painful Decisions

The year 1892 was the most personal year in my pro-
fessional life. The changes which it brought were sensitive
and far reaching, vitally affecting the home, and all those
intimate associations in which one's life takes root. The
essential change was a sharp and sudden turn in my career,
producing an immediate personal effect like that of the
shift of a train on taking a double curve at speed.