SUGGESTED TO OUR COLLEGES.

That we as a people now feel, and that we have for some time past felt, and keenly felt, the want of a numerous class of preachers among us, more thoroughly educated than any we now have, is something which few of our best informed brethren will deny. And when we thus speak let us be distinctly under­stood. We are not about to advocate the policy of having a ministry composed exclusively of educated men. Very far from it. We believe in no such policy; hence, we have not one word to say in its defense. We certainly wish all our preachers were educated, and highly so; but we are far from thinking that they should be sent out of the field because they are not. We confess we are far from seeing how a want of education can constitute a qualification for preaching the gospel; and we think that no one else can see it. Unquestionably many uneducated brethren preach well; but this is not because they are uneducated. The truth is, they preach well in spite of their uneducation, and not because of it. They rise above their misfortune, and become superior to it; but this makes it none the less a misfortune. Had those uneducated brethren who preach well been highly educated, few persons will say that they could not have preached better. Indeed many a man who is now ordinary would, in that event, have been commanding; while many a one who is now commanding would have been unsurpassed. Had John Smith, Samuel Rogers, and George W. Longan been thoroughly educated when young men, instead of the three justly popular and eminently useful men they are, we should now have in them one of the finest reasoners, one of the most thrilling orators, and one of the most accomplished writers this or any other age has produced. No one who is just to truth can fail to lament the fact that these brethren were not made the peers of Bro. Campbell by their early training. Had such been the case, instead of a single Christian Baptist, a single Millennial Harbinger, what now might we not have had? A score of volumes rich in the rarest wit, the highest rhetoric, and the finest Addisonian literature, might have graced our scanty libraries. While we sincerely wish that all such men enjoyed the benefit of the highest classic education, we know well that it will never be the case. But for this reason shall they be silent in the time to come? Never. Our motto is—Let them preach. We will honor them for what they are, and what they do; but not set them aside for what they are not. We hope never to see the sentiment become prevalent in our ranks, that a man is not to preach unless educated. And we equally hope never to see the time come when the educated preachers shall be looked upon with [222] envy and distrust because educated. We have a sour-hearted dotard or two in our midst, who have been trying to give currency to the vulgar notion. We trust it will go as unheeded and die as unwept as its authors deserve to do.

But how shall the deficiency of which we complain be remedied? and the class of preachers of which we speak be provided? It is in view of these questions that the suggestions herein following are submitted.

We propose, then, the creation of a new and distinct professorship in our colleges. This professorship, of course, we would have well endowed, as a first preliminary step. We would make it sui generis, that is to say, peculiar in its nature and objects, and different from any thing of the sort of which we have any knowledge. We would create it for the especial benefit of such young men as might have the leisure and the desire for the kind and degree of education for which we would provide. In this school we would have taught, and thoroughly taught, first, the Hebrew of the Old Testament. This we would have taught, not merely for the sake of imparting a knowledge of that language, but for the sake of the sense of that Book. We would have the whole of the Old Testament read and studied in the Hebrew. We would have the Book, as a text book, exhausted both as to its meaning and its dialect. We would have the student made minutely and critically acquainted with the language as a language—with its structure, its peculiarities, its laws, in a word, with every thing essential to a masterly use and exegesis of it. We feel that we trans­cend no bounds of moderation, when we say that the importance to us of the knowledge and men we here speak of, can not be exaggerated. Our peculiar profession is, that we are the people of the Book. Let us, then, know it all; and that we may know it all, let us have all the means of knowing it.

Next, in this school, we would have thoroughly taught the Septuagint. As bearing on the New Testament, no book is of more value to the accomplished preacher than this. Its peculiar value lies not so much in its matter, as in its modes of expressing its matter. Its language is the same as that of the New Testament; it is a book with which the New Testament writers were not unfamiliar; hence, a thorough acquaintance with all its lingual characteristics could not fail to be of the highest importance in questions of explication. The Hebrew Bible, of course, would be relied on as to matter, but the Septuagint, as showing how the supple dialect of the Greeks was used in giving expression to the things of the Spirit. Again: laws of inter­pretation could be much more successfully evolved, settled, and illustrated by use of the Septuagint than by the use of the New Testament. In the case of the latter, the sense is always inter­fering; in the case of the former, this would not be. And where laws of inter­pretation are being evolved, the less the sense inter­feres the better; for where the sense is allowed to inter­fere, the great danger is that rules will become special, narrow, and unsafe.

But the great master-study of this school we would make the Greek New Testament. All knowledge we would subordinate to this; and all other studies we would prosecute for the sake of studying this. This should be the great daily labor of the department. Its language should be profoundly studied for the sake of the sense; and its sense [223] for the sake of the more successful presentation of it to the world. Here knowledge should be minute, accurate, complete. Neither law nor exception should be left unmastered. Exposition should be required, and trans­lations in writing demanded, until it became clear that the student was an adept in the science and use of sacred criticism. In brief, the great object of the school should be to send out a class of preachers critically and profoundly acquainted with the whole word of God. The advantages of this to the cause of Christ, and to the human family, it would be difficult indeed to enumerate. Still some of them are so obvious that we shall attempt to state a few of them.

1. The great fear arising for educated men is, that they will turn untrue expounders of the word of God, and so become dangerous to the cause of Christ. In the school now proposed this could, in a good degree, be guarded against. Whether a young man was sound in mind, sound in heart, and a safe inter­preter of the truth, or not, would here most certainly appear. Accordingly he should or should not be allowed to graduate. Soundness in the faith, and a true, well-balanced mind should be made primary tests.

2. A class of men would thus be created whose social and intel­lectual position would bring them into contact with the first scholars of the world. A channel of usefulness would thus be opened up, which, previous to this time, has been nearly closed to us.

3. We should at once begin to produce an order of literature which would quickly find its way to the great centres of learning of the world. Our works on sacred criticism and inter­pretation would command the attention and respect of scholars of every land. Thus would another means of usefulness of unsurpassed importance be rendered subservient to the gospel.

4. We should then be enabled to cope with the learning of the whole combined sectarian world in defense of the truth. Our offensive war on error would be as effectual as our defensive one against it now is. At present, we clearly lack the men to make those grand advances which the cause of truth at times demands.

5. From the learning of these men our uneducated preachers would derive a power which would most materially add to their success. The achieve­ments of the former would be reproduced by the latter to the infinite interest of the truth. Here, especially, would the advantage of the few become an advantage of the many.

6. We could then make the translation and dissemination of the Holy Scriptures our peculiar province. On this depends our ultimate success. No expense or labor should be spared that will enable us to accomplish it.

Such are a few of the results which would follow from the proposed school. I need not add, surely, that the chair in it should be filled by a man eminent for his soundness in the faith, and in all other respects fitted to the task. It would be difficult to find him.

To Bethany College and Kentucky University especially do we commend the preceding suggestion. These institu­tions have constantly evinced the highest interest in the preparation of young men for the ministry. Hence, they are particularly named. But the suggestion is not designed to be exclusive. [224]

[Volume II: January, 1865.]

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