problems in front of us be solved in a Christian way,
intensifies the demand for Christian influences in the
institutions for higher Christian learning; for from
these, in increasing ratio, come those who, for good
or evil, through the puljiit and the press, in the forum
or the legislature, mould the principles and make the
laws of the people.

Suffer me also to make a distinct plea for Chris-
tian influence in connection with education, for the
sake of raising up a worthy Christian ministry. This
was at first the over-topping motive, and the studies
were originally arranged with special reference to the
clerical profession. Was its importance exaggerated *?
Comparatively, yes. Absolutely, no. If religion is
still to exist as an organized force, if there are to be
churches, then there must be religious teachers and
leaders fit to teach and to lead nineteenth-century
men and women. If we are to multiply in number
and increase in power the lines of force, so as to
permeate and possess all the departments of our com-
plex life with a Christian spirit, we must enlarge and
strengthen the dynamos at the centre. These are the
churches ; and in every dynamic church there must be
a dynamic man. The future of organized religion in
this country depends, more than on any other one
thing, upon the impression concerning the gospel min-



54 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

istry which shall obtain in our colleges. Mr. Glad-
stone has said, pleading for the science of theology :
" It seems no violent paradox to say that if there be
a Creator of this universe, the knowledge which rev-
erently deals with our relation to him can hardly be
other than the crown of human knowledge. It can
hardly fail to offer the richest reward, as well as to
advance the most commanding claim to the service
and devotion, not of stunted or enfeebled intellects,
but of the very flower of the youth." Whatever we
may say of the science of theology, the commanding
claim of the advancing kingdom of God for the ser-
vice of the flower of youth in the ranks of the Chris-
tian ministry must somehow get itself heard in our
colleges.

Fathers and mothers believe that we want religion
in colleges for the sake of the young man himself;
his opinions unformed, his habits unfixed, the lower
impulses strong, and the will wavering. Young men
in good colleges are morally more safe than out of
them, but nevertheless they are imperilled in their
highest interests. It was the testimony of President
Porter that "the first essay of a student's independence
is often an act of prostrate subserviency to the opinion
of the college community." He needs a standard.
There is a vast inertia even in the heyday of youth.
Writing in 1869, President Porter quotes Matthew
Arnold as saying, "that in the German universities
there were only a third of the students who really
worked," and Mark Pattison as asserting that, of the
students of Oxford, *^ seventy per cent are idle, —



SERMOX. 55

incorrigibly idle." The student needs impulse. In
the American college there has never been so bad a
record possible. But our older colleges are filled with
young men who have no felt want of training or of
any other special thing. They are there for four years
of pleasant association ; and among these are groups
of gilded youths, easy-going, self-indulgent, and sen-
suous, if not sensual, who are living their useless lives
in this generation which calls for the best that is in
every man, with no thought of personal obligation to
God, and no intention of generous devotion to any
good thing. The truth and the spirit of God are
needed to arouse them from their ignoble dream.
Self-indulgence sometimes becomes low vice ; intem-
perance and sensuality at times creep in. The most
characteristic contribution of Christianity to modern
life, next to its vital principle of love in sacrifice, is
its inflexible teaching of personal purity. The body
the pure temple of the Holy Spirit of God, — this
is the Christian ideal and demand. Soiled, debased,
enfeebled, ruined lives even, among young men tes-
tify that if this teaching was needed in Corinth, it is
also needed now. We want religion in our colleges
for the sake of morality in our colleges. If you
would see education without religion, recall the scenes
of the recent riots of the students in the Latin quar-
ter in Paris, — an indecent revolt of animalism.
'' The youth of France,'' says a distinguished French
writer, " are sufi'ering from a variety of diseases, all
of which have their root in atheism." Victor Hugo
liked to say *' that he who opens a school closes a



56 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

prison." But Proal says : '^' Many schools have been
opened, but no prisons closed. Criminality has not
diminished, while education has increased." "Moral-
ity," says this same authority, "is not an attribute of
thought, but of will; spiritual beliefs and respect of
God are necessary." (I quote from Circular No. 4
of the National Bureau of Education.) Of the recent
thirteen hundred and eighty-three inmates of Sing
Sing Prison, — and there were six college men among
them, — only one hundred and twenty were entirely
without education.

Ever since that accomplished classical scholar, that
fine artist and musician, the Emperor Nero, lived, it
has been abundantly evident, and never so clearly as
to-day, that high intellectual training is no guarantee
of exalted moral character. This theory is flatly con-
tradicted by the facts, and by the philosophers also.
Herbert Spencer goes so far as to say that "a mere
culture of intellect is hardly at all operative upon
conduct." " Intellect is not a power, but an instru-
ment." It is, therefore, the feelings that cause action
which need to be cultivated in moral training.

In closing, suffer a few thoughts bearing upon prac-
tical administration. The college student needs help,
and has a right to it, in the forming of religious opin-
ions. This is an age of transition in religious beliefs.
College years are, for earnest men, a period of eager
questioning ; and the truths of the evolutionary phi-
losophy necessitate a readjustment on every hand of
methods of thought and forms of statement. It will
be chiefly, perhaps, the office of the teacher of phi-



SERMON. 57

losophy to make the truths wliich science cannot
co-ordinate — the truths of God, freedom, and immor-
tality — the most vitahzing sources of intellectual
culture, and to show that the forces and method with
which science deals are not contradictory to spiritual
life and truth.

Beyond this there is need of appeal to heart and
conscience, and of a training of both through Chris-
tian truth. This calls for the office of the preacher
of righteousness. He must, to accomplish his end in
character building, speak clearly definite, essential
Christian truth, and he must bring to bear upon con-
duct the great motives of the gospel. To do this he
must keep the minds of the students in vital contact
with Holy Scripture.

It is essential that there be in the college an envi-
ronment favorable to the development and training of
the spiritual nature, a religious atmosphere in which
the life shall flourish. This atmosphere is a palpable,
real thing, as real as climate. It is the spirit of an
institution, as of a teacher, that determines character
and influence, rather than the curriculum of the one
or the method of the other. '' The secret of good or
evil is hidden," says the late President Tanner, '' in
the undertone which pervades the institution, — that
mysterious something which speaks day after day
through X and Y, and Alpha and Omega, and classi-
cal story and chemical formula, and Barbara and
Celerant." This atmosphere is an emanation of j^er-
sonality, and will exist where strong natures, filled with
sweetness and light, are in contact in natural and con-



58 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

stant ways with those about them. You surely lose
much if you are without common worship, in which
all statedly join. "Devotion," says Liddon, "is the
common sense of faith. The soul rises up at the sight
of God, as birds greet with their songs the morning
sun ; " and certainly, if the song swell in chorus, there
is a contagion of gladness in both impression and ex-
pression. I do not see how we can spare music, and
the uplifting of all hearts with all voices on the strong
waves of masterful harmony, blending and ennobling
the common life. Certainly the social feelings should
be enlisted so as to make them the true support and
stimulus of every noble aim in every realm of beauty
and blessing, of thought and of life. The great en-
thusiasms of young men are glorious. They are great
on the football field or at the boat-race ; why should
they not be evoked in other than physical contests ?

Volunteer religious organizations, transcending class
lines and society limits, should be encouraged to the
utmost.

Aiding all these, there must be a constant and sym-
pathetic knowledge by the student of the great muni-
ficent movements in the world's life. So far as possible
there should be also, and I believe much more than
now, an active participation in approved enterprises
for enlightenment, philanthropy, and religion. Seclu-
sion is good for scholarship, but fellowship in sacrifice
is good for manhood, and our young men are kept
too long aloof from the best work of the world. The
college, and our whole higher education in every de-
partment, needs nothing more to-day than the practical



SERMON. 59

adoption of the kindergarten principle, — that we learn
by doing. There will be little need of argumentation
for Christianity if you can enlist enthusiasm and love
in the task of saving men. We at Williams are the
rightful inheritors of the men of the haystack, and
the times of the haystack. Antedating the famous
foreign missionary league, there was here proposed a
society, the members of which were to furnish them-
selves with knapsacks and guns to kill game, and
were to march westward into the wilderness to set up
the Kingdom of God. In a letter to Gordon Hall,
Samuel J. Mills flashed out his inward fire with, " I
wish that we could break out upon the heathen like
tlie Irish rebellion, forty thousand strong." Thank
God that spirit still lives, and lives here ; but this has
a strange sound in the ears of many a kid-glove and
rose-water Christian student of to-day.

As counteracting, or if you please supplementing,
the tendency of men to draw off into groups and
cliques, cultivate, in every way possible, common in-
terest. In no way can this be done so well as through
the religious sentiment, and by common undertakings
for humanity through an applied Christianity.

And if, peradventure, sometimes there should fall
upon the student world a pervasive thoughtfulness
concerning personal character, responsibility, and des-
tiny, and concerning the highest welfare of one an-
other, — if the time should come when all consciences
would be quickened, and all feelings tender ; when it
would be easy to get into close contact, brother with
brother, in the deepest things of life and the highest



00 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

tliino's of life : when trutli would be illuminated and
mighty ; when God would be near, and Christ pre-
cious; when the life of love in sacrifice would seem
glorious, and the life of selfish sinning hateful, until
in glad companies men gave themselves to God for
any service in the kingdom of his Son, — that would
be a revival of religion, and that would be a help-
ful and rational and delightful thing. Such many
of you recall, such I remember; and I recollect no
fanaticism, or any evil connected with them. Such
in earlier times there were. " It came in the majestic
stillness of God;" "there was heart-searching and
confession ; " " heart after heart glowed and melted
under the sacred flame," — that is the record. Under
certain conditions such seasons will never be; but
where truth is, and prayer is, and joyous holy living,
they will sometimes come as comes the glad spring-
time that mantles with beauty these familiar hills.

How vital and intimate is this relation ! Something
that we know, but cannot describe. We cannot
get religion into college by making it a department ;
it cannot be taught from text-books. It is not a
science, but a life ; and the only way to get spiritual
life is to get somehow into contact with great na-
tures that have it. This is the profound meaning
of the Incarnation, this is the philosophy and method
of the gospel; and besides this method there is no
other.

The only fundamental question, therefore, of college
religious method is the question of getting the large-
natured, broadly cultured Christian man who is him-



SERMOX. CI

self in communication with the sources of life, and
the allied question of getting him into vital contact
with his students. " It matters little," says Emerson,
''what you learn; the question is, with whom you
learn." Surely, all that is possible to be done, b}' ap-
preciation and remuneration and free opportunity, to
alhu'e the best men into the teachers office should
be eagerly undertaken.

There is trouble in getting contact after you have
gotten men. Increase of numbers tends to weaken in-
fluence. Tlie professors with large classes sometimes
degenerate into automatic teaching-machines. The in-
tercom'se between teacher and pupil grows unlovely,
■frigid, and formal. How alluring the contrast, — the
idea of the academic family of the colleges of the
English University ! President Woolsey is quoted as
saying, "Had I my life to begin over again, I would
throw in my lot with one of the smaller institutions.
I could have more influence in training mind and
shaping character." There was a greater teacher than
he, who, when he would commit to the world truth of
priceless value, was satisfied with a single class of only
twelve. It is better to lead a few by the hand to the
tree of life than, like a guide-board, point a multitude
to the tree of knowledge.

We have now glanced at the histoiy of the relation
between religion and education in the past, especially
in the American colleges ; we have considered some
of the conditions for the profitable continuance of this
ancient connection, and have reminded ourselves of
certain reasons for such continuance ; s^^eaking finally



62 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

of a few tilings that are suggestive of metliods in
tlie practical administration of religion in the college
life.

At the recent inauguration of the President of Illi-
nois College, Thomas K. Beecher, from his serene
heio-ht of aofe and wisdom, with broad outlook and
keen vision, uttered these eloquent words, which I
reverently quote : ''I cannot forecast the institutional
future of State or Church, or college or university;
but I certainly know, and do this day prophesy,
that the eternal God can never be dethroned. What-
ever may happen to these social organizations of
mixed architecture in which God condescends to mani-
fest himself, yet when, by the necessary infirmity of
human nature, these institutions die into oblivion like
the men who founded them, there will still remain
the same inspiration of the eternal God, inexhaustible
to our children as he was to their fathers. They are
wise who believe and make long experiment of the
wisdom of the Master, how he said, ' Seek first the
kingdom of God.'"

What the future holds we indeed know not, but
that it will be more religious as well as more intel-
ligent than the present we may be assured. Oxford
does not grow ashamed of her old motto, JDomimis
lUiiminatio mea ; Harvard at her two hundred and fif-
tieth anniversary, by her Peabody and her Brooks, re-
consecrated herself to " piety and learning," Christo
et ecclesiae. Our mother Yale reads her ancient le-
gend, Lux et Veritas, in loyalty to her ancient faith.
For Williams I can only say in the words of one who



SERMON. 63

was long a teacher here : '* If this college shall drop
down into a merely secular spirit and a training of
the lower parts of man's nature, so that it shall cease
to be in sympathy with him whose object is to train
to a perfect character that world which is symbolized
on the missionary monument, it will no longer be
Williams College."



ADDRESS

BY THE EEV. DR. C. C. HALL.

CONFEEENCE ON THE RELATION BETWEEN THE MODERN
COLLEGE AND APPLIED CHRISTIANITY.

TN introducing the exercises which pertain to this part
of our centennial commemoration, it is my duty
and my privilege to state the fundamental positions
underlying this conference. The theme proposed is :
'' The Relation of the Modern College to Applied
Christianit}^" In the language of this theme, and in
tlie intention of tliose by whom it has been for-
mulated, two positions are assumed as fundamental.
First, it is assumed that Christianity — the religion of
which Jesus is the Author, the Life, and the End —
is applicable as a force to the social relations and to
the vital problems of man in the present day for the
purpose of correcting, informing, and guiding those
social relations, and of solving those vital problems.
The application of this force is described as Applied
Christianity. Second, it is assumed that the modern
college has organic relation to Applied Cln-istianit}' ;
that a college of the present day vacates its noblest
right and misses its supreme end if it fail of appre-
liending its relation to Applied Christianity ; that Ap-
plied Christianity seeks to find a channel for its force
in and through the modern college ; that Christ would



ADDRESS. 65

wield the modern college for the service of the world
in which He died and rose again.

Upon these assumptions our conference is founded ;
and those who shall presently address you will seek
to show how variously Christ would wield the Chris-
tian college in the service of man. These two as-
sumptions — that Christianity is more than a body of
doctrine, even a living and life-giving force appli-
cable to present social conditions, and that a college
may be Christ's chosen instrument for the application
of that force — these two assumptions, uttered in this
hour of affectionate and reverential feeling, are, we
believe, consonant with the history and with the spirit
of Williams College ; and as we enter upon the fas-
cinating and fruitful deliberations of this hour, permit
me to define in a few sentences the point of view from
which we, as a college, regard Applied Christianity
and the collegiate relation thereto.

Williams College regards Christianity as something
more than the cherished faith and the holy tradition
of nineteen centuries. To us Christianity means the
present power of the living Christ operating in the
earth through the varied ministries of the Divine
Spirit. Jesus lives, not as a precious memory, but as
a contemporary Being ; and because He lives, we live
also, having received His living Spirit in ourselves.
And, through men who are made alive by His Divine
Spirit, the power of the living Christ becomes an ap-
plicable force in the present age, to correct, inform,
and guide social relations, and to advance the com-
plete redemption of the individual. I say '' the



66 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

complete redemption of the individual." Herein see
the broad purpose of the Redeemer. For the body, for
the mind, and for the spirit of each man, woman, and
child, the living Christ has a present gospel; to the
end that in the world where He, the Son of God, as
an Individual suffered and conquered, every son of
man as an individual may conquer amidst his suffer-
ings, by learning how to reverence the body, how to
cultivate the mind, how to admit the spirit into the
fellowship of God. This is Applied Christianity, — the
power of a living Christ bearing upon the individual
for his complete redemption, and, through the complete
redemption of the individual, regulating the social
relations of man.

Hence the immense scope of Applied Christianity.
It is the '' wideness of God's mercy, like the wide-
ness of the sea." This afternoon you shall be shown
this wideness. You shall see how the force of a liv-
ing Christ is seeking to develop a genuine socialism,
by making all men through whom the Divine Spirit
can speak practical agents to reveal unto the igno-
rant the better way of physical and mental life, how
to keep the body clean and sacred, how to liberate
the mind from intellectual debauchery.

We shall see how the force of a living Christ is
stimulating an experimental sociology, which, not con-
tent to dwell in dreams and in doctrines, is going out,
awake, vigilant, loving, along lines of practical relief.
You shall see how the force of a living Christ is medi-
ating for intelligent unity among the severed commu-
nions of the Catholic Church, and how the light and



ADDRESS. 67

heat of His Spirit are promoting mutual recognition
and mutual affection between His members, estranged
by ecclesiastical tradition. You shall see how the
force of the living Christ is propelling through the
present age a system of evangelization more practical
and more comprehensive than those which any former
generation has seen, — a system of concentric circles,
metropolitan, national, universal : metropolitan, the
work of city evangelization ; national, the work of
home missions ; universal, the sublime and catholic
endeavor of foreign missions. Thus is the living
Christ evangelizing the spirits of men, and preparing
the world for the consummation of His kingdom at
His second coming.

We assume in this conference, and the spirit and the
tradition of Williams have for one hundred years as-
sumed, that the college is organically related to these
immense movements of Applied Christianity. Not
only so ; we believe that in its relation to Christ's
present work for the world is contained the chief end
of the Christian college. We do not undervalue the
subjective culture of individuals, which is the im-
mediate mission of the college ; still less do we mini-
mize the value of any work wrought for the world
by lives untrained in the collegiate discipline ; but we
hold that if Christ has among men a circle in which
]nore than in any other He speaks distinctly the call
unto service, a circle to which more than to any other
He charges personal responsibility for the redemption
of the individual and the reconstruction of the social
order, that circle is the circle of collegiate life.



68 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

Therein are found opportunities for comprehensive
view and prolonged examination of duty ; thereto are
given opulent advantages for physical, mental, and
spiritual self-development; and unto the Christian
collegian of to-day Christ constantly and gloriously
affirms : " Unto whom much is given, of him shall
much be required. He that hoardeth his life unto
selfishness shall miss its meaning and its joy, but lie
that poureth out his life for the world, in the fellow-
ship of My redeeming mission, shall find it, both here
and in the State Beyond, given back to him continu-
ally, renewed with eternal strength and beauty."



ADDRESS

BY PEOFESSOR JOHN BASCOM.

T AM asked to present, in a brief moment, tlie office
of a Christian college at the present time in train-
ing students to meet their social duties. Tliis, our
period, is one of widespread, intense, and critical ac-
tivity. Forces are rapidly deploying on every side,
and a march in one direction or another must begin
at once. It has already begun. What can we do in
our college work still further to determine its course
and secure its success ? Society was never more com-
plex than now, and is looking constantly to greater
complexity. Never were its energies more beyond
the control of any one man, yet never was there a
more distinct and urgent claim on the energies of
every man. The number of devils to be cast out is
legion, and the number of pure spirits to be evoked
is also legion.

The church — reform commences at the house of
God — is in hand for more knowledge, more tolerance
of truth, a more comprehensive and gracious purpose,
more wealth of affection. The household is before
us, that we may shield its inner purity and renew its
outer strength. Society is under inquiry, that we may
apply to it the vexed and vexing law of temperance,



70 WILLIAIkIS COLLEGE.

may deepen its democratic temper, and make strong
and wholesome within themselves all the ties that knit
it together. Business — wealth-getting and wealth-
dividincr — is arraigned, that we may probe once more,
to the very bottom, the principles of economics, and