CHAPTER XXV. LATER MEMORIES. ANY have asked me to go fully into the details of the Semi MA nary life, its early professors and students, as so many of the old men have passed away, and the younger men do not know the old events. A generation has arisen that knew not Joseph, and we need to tell them of our history, that they may honor the old men who founded the Seminary and carry on the good work which they began in faith and love. This I have done in part and I continue the subject. I have in these Recollections mentioned many names of old friends and acquaintances. Of course it would be an impossibility to name all whom I have loved or even known intimately, whom "I have loved long since and lost awhile." Some may feel that I have been neglectful in naming some and not all, but in such a large acquaintance this would be impossible. Of the living I rarely speak. Suffice it to say, that in my long association of sixty-five years in this Seminary I can recall nothing but the kindly words and deeds of those whom I have known, my colleagues, the trustees, and the many hundred students, whom I trust soon to meet again, and I have had them all often in my thoughts and prayers. These memories of past days may recall to those still living the associations of this holy place, and preserve for the younger alumni the fading lines of the past. Like the old Covenanter who spent his last years in deepening with his chisel the almost illegible inscriptions on the tombstones of those who were slain for the Covenant, I have endeavored to wipe the dust and moss from some names of our alumni who may be forgotten, and to acquaint a later generation with the excellencies of men “of whom the world was not worthy." One subject has led to another, and as John Bunyan said of his Pilgrim's Progress, “Still as I pulled it came, and so I penned." The history of the Church in Virginia for seventy-five years is bound up with this Seminary. Like the early Christians the students in the earlier years had all things in common-a common woodpile, where each sawed his wood and carried it to his room; a common cruse of oil, where each freely helped himself. The bill for board was only THE MEETING OF THE BRETHREN. 309 seventy-five dollars a year. The students took the management of the refectory pretty much in their own hands and constituted themselves an imperium in imperio, called "The Meeting of the Brethren." There would be occasionally a bread and butter rebellion, when the faculty would meet the students for consultation; and I remember on one occasion a difficulty was settled by a resolution that the students should not be limited in their demand for dried apples. Those were times of plain living and, we trust, of high thinking, of primitive simplicity. No carpets covered the floor, the age of luxury had not yet come; it was the iron age of the Seminary. The postoffice was in Alexandria and each student in turn walked in and brought out the daily mail. Three professors were then considered amply sufficient for instruction, and all these had to attend the weekly sermon by a student and criticize it. Some who have been most successful preachers here plumed their unfledged wings for a higher flight. The demand in seminaries now is for a greater subdivision of labor growing out of the multiplied subjects of study. I have mentioned some changes in the customs and practices of the Church. The black gown was then worn both in the desk and chancel, and this was generally the case and not peculiar to Virginia. Dr. Staunton of New York said lately, "The surplice has only of late years obtained supremacy over the black gown. The latter garment was always worn in the pulpit, at marriages, baptisms and funerals in private houses, and generally in the administration of the Holy Communion to the sick. I remember well even an ordination at which all the clergy present except the bishop were in black gowns." The editor of the Church Kalendar says, "The Christmas day in which the white robe first made its appearance is fresh in my memory, and a wonderful sight it was to a child when the minister disappeared under the great pulpit (the only space allowed for robing room) white and speedily came out black." So it used to be in Trinity Church, Washington. After robing, the minister would part the curtains nearest the pulpit stairs and ascend the pulpit. On one occasion, a minister not observing that these curtains could be parted, did not know how to reach the pulpit and coming out from the rear asked to be shown the way up. The preacher always wore black silk gloves as well as the white bands, says Dr. Staunton. 310 THE DESIGN of the Seminary. The design of the founders of the Seminary has been fulfilled. It was to be Protestant. Our Church is the only one which bears this name upon its forehead. It is not only Protestant, when it protests against the idolatry and superstition of the corrupt Church of Rome, but it is Protestant in a positive sense, as holding in their purity all the articles of the Christian faith. And how shall we determine what are the articles of the Christian faith? Our Sixth Article answers: "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation."-words which deserve to be written in letters of gold on the portals of all Theological Seminaries. Thus does our Church lead not one foot on Tradition and another on Scripture, but its whole weight on Holy Scripture. Whatever any of its ministers may teach on this point, our Church maintains the sufficiency of Scripture. Our Prayerbook is Protestant throughout. It was to be an Episcopal Seminary. This is another distinctive title. Justice has sometimes not been done us, in our consistent adherence to the distinctive peculiarities of our Church, and in our observance of all its forms and rubrics. We have stood here firmly on the ground of Hooker and Bishop White. Hooker, as Keble in his preface to Hooker's Works admits, never ventured to urge the exclusive claims of the Church of England, or to connect the succession with the validity of the Holy Sacraments;" and Bishop White said that, at the same time that the Church of England decidedly set her foot on the ground of the Apostolic origin of Episcopacy, she carefully avoided passing a judgment on the validity of the ministry of other Churches." (Church Catechism Lectures.) Bishop Johus, the President of this Seminary, has publicly said, "that the ecclesiastical polity inculcated here has been that set forth in the preface to the Ordination service-conservative, but not exclusive." That three orders have existed from the Apostles' times, and no other ministry is to be recognized “in this Church.” Professor May, who, for twenty years, taught Church Polity here, said, "We affirm with great boldness, that from the Apostles' time, there have been three orders of ministry in the Church of Christ. On the ground of this affirmation, all Episcopalians stand as one man." AN EVANGELical SeminaRY. 311 It was to be Evangelical. The founders of this Seminary held, that there were things in the Gospel to be delivered first of all, that there were weightier matters of the Gospel, as well as of the Law, and that the weightiest of all was the doctrine of a complete justification by the sole merits and death of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It was the place this doctrine held in their system which gave them the name of Evangelical. The sun is seen in the Arctic regions, but it is low down in the horizon, where it will scarcely melt an icicle; but when high and alone in the zenith, nothing is hid from the heat thereof. But while professing to be Evangelical, we have here affected no broadness of opinion on doctrinal points. We have been suspicious of novelties of finespun philosophical speculations. We have held that Christianity, as a documentary religion, was to be learned and not improved. We have had too deep convictions of the truth, and loved it too well to be tolerant of error. It was, too, the anxious desire of the Founders of this Seminary, that it should be distinguished for a warm and fervent spirit of piety; that religious feeling here should not grow cold; that we should breathe here an atmosphere not too rarified for the breath of life; that the power of Christ in the soul should here be experienced in fuller and deeper measure; and that spirituality, not spurious, should be cultivated here. They hoped that Christian love here would rise as high as a Missionary temperature. Thus was this Seminary established in no false zeal, but with a single desire to promote the glory of Christ in the salvation of Its motto might well be: For Christ and the Church. It was a child of faith and prayer, brought in its infancy to Jesus, that He might take it in His arms and bless it. It was ministered to, for a long time, by the alms of devout women-not a few of Virginia. It is a great and blessed thing, that we can look back upon such a beginning. This Seminary is rich in the faith, which dwelt in its Founders. This is its best endowment, and has made it like a field which the Lord hath blessed. men. These words of appreciation from two of our great Bishops are given here : THE REV. DR. PACKARD, MY DEAR BROTHER: MIDDLETOWN, CONN., I desire to convey to you my most cordial good wishes for the well being and prosperity of a Theological Seminary of our 312 BISHOPS WILLIAMS AND POTTER. Church, in which the great fundamental truths of the inspiration and integrity of the Holy Scripture as the Word of God, and the Catholic doctrines of the incarnation, the vicarious sacrifice, the real resurrection and ascension of our Lord, and the personality and work of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of believers, as well as in the Church of God itself, are taught as parts of the one faith once delivered to the saints. So may it continue throughout all generations. I am, my dear brother, truly and faithfully yours, DEAR DR. PACKARD : J. WILLIAMS. NEW YORK, October 7, 1883. Your note was a great comfort and gratification to me, and I am glad to have your assurance that in the large task that has so unexpectedly come to me, I may have your sympathy and prayers. I have a difficult and delicate work before me, and I hope that in the doing of it my fathers and brethren will judge me gently and bear with me patiently. I shall be glad if you will let me see you when you are in New York; and I am always, dear Dr. Packard, With grateful respect and affection, H. C. POTTER. Bishop Potter's kind attentions and affection have been a source of great pleasure to me all these years. I need say nothing more of this "brother, whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches." In speaking of the benefactors of the Seminary we can not enumerate all, and must of necessity omit the mention of not a few, whose alms are recorded in that book of the Divine remembrance, where no good work fails of notice, and from which no work of faith, no work of love, is ever obliterated. We shall ever remember with gratitude the friends who have made provision for its necessities, especially those who have aided us when its prospects were dark. A second era in the history of the Seminary was the consecration, in 1858, of Aspinwall Hall, erected by the munificence of Messrs. William A. and John L. Aspinwall, through the suggestion of Bishop Bedell. It was a day long to be remembered in our annals. Bishops Hopkins, Smith, Polk, Bedell, Meade and Johns, with about fifty Clergy, were present. Addresses were delivered by Bishops Meade, Johns, and Bedell. |