Morning journal and courier., 1892-05-19
x.1r DIVINITY SCHOOL.

YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL. Exercises Yesterdays Literary Exercises at Battell Chapel fin the Misunderstanding of the Alumni at Marquand Chapel in the Afternoon-Interest Discus sion on Higher Criticism-PaPer Read by Professor Curtis, Late of Chicago.
 The annual anniversary exercises of the l Yale divinity school were held yesterday l morning and afternoon. In the morning l Battell chapel was well filled with the rel atives and friends of the graduates to wit ness the literary exercises in connection with the commencement There was also an unusually large number of alumni present. The order of the exercises, which began at 10 o'clock, was as follows:
 l. pyg Prayer.
 3. The Apostle Thomas.-Thomas Cutler Des
 Barres, B.A., University of Toronto, Toron- 4. Budaha and Christ. -sumantrao vishnu Kar- 5. True Liberalism. Nelson, B.A., Bates ..;,aisg college Gaaaan Canaan. Me. @ +, urv
 Robert Miles, B.A., Harvard university, ,Ap-
 pleton, Wis.
 8. The Effect of the Theory of Evolution Upon Traditional Theological Conceptions..-Irv- ing Francis Wood, M. A., Hamilton college, North Walton, N. Y.
 g. Present-Day Influences Upon Character Samuel Hetherington Woodrow, B. A., TO- The Quest of the Holy Grail-Charles Eugene Ozanne, B. A., Adelbert college, Cleveland H. Address to the class by Professor Harris. 12 Music.
 ! l3 Benediction.
 *Excused.
 The speeches were all of a high order, and were we'll delivered. Professor Harris | made the address to the school, which was ! A very interesting feature of the occasion. He said in part:
 "Gentlemen of the graduating class- You have come to the close of school edu- | catione Your teachers have been as guides up mountain. The great end of all true teachers is to make their pupils develop their own powers. The best years of your life are your college years.
 "While there is sadness in parting, l congratulate you your success. While others have fallen back you have gone on and now stand at the beginning of your work. The work which you are to do is pre- -eminently broadening to the mind. Science is broken up by specislties, but the ministry is not. There is danger, how ever, of ministers becoming professional men, but yet it is less than in other pro- fesssions. You ought to be students of the Bible and to study it as historical revelation. The future is not to all un- known. Christ has brought light in the l revelation of his words. I rejoice to see you going forth to oproclaim these glad tid ings to your fellow men. May you one and all be great blessing to the world and the kingdom of God"
 l At 2:30 in the afternoon the meeting oi the alumni was held iu Marquand chapel Rev. Dr. Joseph Anderson of Waterbury was elected moderator of the meeting and Rev. D. M. James of the Second church Fair Haven, was elected scribe. After prayer by Rev. Dr. Noble the annual re- port from the faculty was presented by Professor Day, dean of the school. Among other things he stated that tue school has recently received gifts as follows: $25, ,00( from Mrs Caroline Washburn of Madison Conn.,; $500 from Mathew Elliott, New Haven; $5,000 from a friend for establish ing a graduate fellowship, and various smaller sums for the current expenses o
 the school and for the fund for repairing
 the damage done by the recent fire. A notable feature of the meeting was
 paper by Rev. Edward L. Curtis, D. D.. | guage and literature in the divinity school } The subject was "The Present State of Oit . Testament Bible Criticism" He opened
 his address by calling attention to the ne } cessity of wise conservatism in reference ] to the greater use made of the researches ! of biblical critics than facts will warrant The conjectures and hypothesis of ex tremists should not be mistaken for the maturity of Christian scholarship. Whil, this is freely admitted by all critics witt reference to the other historical writings it is by some denied to the books of tn, Pentateuch.
 And yet in regard to these, ultra con
 servative critics such as Dr. Green, Bissel
 and Cave admit that Genesis shows that i } l is either based upon old documents O.
 written by more than one writer, and als'
 that in the Pentateuch there are three diff
 ferent codes. In view of these concession
 made by these ultra conservative scholars
 the question of documents and codes exist
 ing in the Pentateuch may be regarded a
 no longer debatable, and in view of tn
 unanimity on the part of all other b;blics
 scholars we may we'll accept the curren
 four-fold analysis of the Hexateuch an,
 regard it in it's present form as belongin
 to later period than that of Moses.
 This analysis represents the Hexateucl
 as being compiled from four origina
 sources known as the narratives of the Jah
 vist and the Zionist and the priests cod
 and the Deuteronomist code. Whi @ ther
 is some divergence among scholars in ref
 erence to the date or order of these docu
 ments, yet it is not especially great It i
 generally admitted that the first two ar
 the earliest and the priests code is tn
 latest. But the important question in thi
 criticism is not the date or order of thes | pfo hut fho lot 0f fhoi r1r
 ing teachings.
 Here we find two schools. The questio
 at issue between them is that of the gerr k of the Old Testament religion, or whs s was historic Mosaism. The advanc q school, represented by Welhausen, Stade
 Robertson, Smith, Cheyne and many ott
 CTS, regard all the special features c /; Israels religion as of late growth s Moses, it is said, gave no new idea of Go | to his people. In short, this school be l lieves that the religion of Israel may
 traced from the lowest stages of animisti worship up to ethnic monotheism. an from custom up to authorized divine la, . within the period distinctively embrace f in Israels history as a people. Professor Curtis went on to show tha 2 the positions of this school are untenable standing in too clear contradiction to tn 3 biblical record itself, requiring the as sumption of the incessant editing and re !, editing of all the writings of the Old Testa , ment, and not being in harmony with tb 8 recent archaeological discoveries in tn
 east. He then set forth the opinions of
 more conservative school of critics, repre-
 sented by Dilman, Schrader, Whitehous
 Driver and others, who, while acceptin
 the current analysis of the Hexatesc
 leave genuine foundation for the Ol
 Testament religion. "In the light Of thei
 opinions the order, the law and tn
 prophets have not entirely been re
 versed. They represent not sue
 cessive developments, but syn
 chronous ones. Real Mosaic element , are found in all the codes and documents and hence there is no place for the charg :. of fraud, if we hold that the codes i their present form are of 8 post-Mosai 7 date."
 . Professor Cur9is then showed that al though in the light of modern criticism ] we can still maintain 8 substantial COT rectness of the Old Testament record o Israel's religion and history, it was evi
 dent that our conception of these writing differs somewhat widely from the old tra l ditional one; that the authors of the Ol, l Testament were not kept entirely iron l viewing the past in the spirit of the az, ! in which they wrote. This was especial, clear in the case of the writer of Chroni ! all