The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-21
PROF. FISHERS ADDRESS
AT Y4LE'S BICENTENNIAL CELE-
 BRITION.


 tell Chapel, Subject: "Yale University
 In Its Relations to Theology and to
 Missions"-A Powerful and Brilliant
 Paper.
 The second event of yesterdays off,
 cial programme took place at Battell
 chapel in the afternoon at o'clock.
 The service consisted of a simple musi-
 cal programme, with an address by
 learned and revered Professor George
 Park Fisher D. D., IL. D., of Yale.
 The beautiful weather gave an excel
 lent opportunity for visiting the uni
 versity buildings, which kept away
 many but those who attended Were
 given a rare intellectual treat. The musical programme follows.
 Organ prelude ........ Samuel Rousseau Hymn--O Where Are Kings and Elm
 pires Now?
 Hymn-Jesus Shall Reign Where'er
 the Sun.
 The address of Dr. Fisher, which fol- lows in full, was an exhaustive study on Yale in it's relation to Christian the ology and missions.
 On the platform were, besides the speaker President Hadley, Judge How land, Rev. Dr. Twichell, Rev. Dr. Charles Ray Palmer, Eli Whitney and Thomas G. Bennett
 The discourse follows:
 The Relation of Yale to Theology the first branch of the subject assigned to me--requires a few historical state ments by way of introduction The first settlers of New England-that is to say, the twenty-nine thousand Eng lishmen who planted these shores dur ing the interval between the landing of the Pilgrims in 1920 and the assembly of the Long Parliament in 1640, when the immigration practically ceased shared to the full in the interest which prevailed in the home country in the discussions, not merely on church polity, but also on Christian theology. They were firm adherents of the Genevan type of doctrine. This had held almost undisputed sawy in Eng land through the reign of Elizabeth. The Institutes of Calvin had been yir- tually the xt-5ook of the English Protestant Clergy. Even Hooker, the noblest expounder and champion Of the Anglican Ecclesiastical system, while he deprecates the unmeasured defer ence paid in England to Calvin's au- thority, pronouces a glowing eulogy upon him and his writings -deciaring him to be "incomparably the greatest man whom the French Church'-the Protestant Church of France-"had produced" Calvin had achieved what | no other. before him had accomplished. | He had organized the Protestant teach ing into compact and coherent sys- tenn. It involved the complete abjur- ing of human merit in the process of | salvation. It discarded the idea that 1 anything could occur either in the | world without or in the mind within, of the will and purpose of the Ruler of the universe. In this was embodied what was the creed alike of the Genevan school and of Luther and the early Lutherans. In the view of the Calvinsts, predestina- tion was presupposed in the sense Of mans absolute dependence, trust i'll the universal control of Divine Provi- dence, and unmingled gratitude for grace as the fountain of all that is good in the soul Whatever may be F. said of this creed, it breathed into it's humblest adherents humility and cour- age. and inspired with valor and forti- tude the heroic leaders, like Coligni, and William III, of whom Macaulay says: "The tenet of predestination was the keystone of his religion. He even declared that if he were to aban- don that tenet, he must abandon with t all belief in experimenting Provi- Hence. and must become mere Epicu- rean' History of England, Vol. II, p. |49. Am Ed) Calvinists have not pill { ,d tome upon tome of polemical writ ' ngs, they have not pined in dungeons [ md faced death on the battle field, for { , merely speculative notion. It was I he practical truth which they identi- I fed with it as the logical equivalent of f hat truth, which made them cling to ! t with unyeldng tenacity. But no i wonder that unanimity in this solution I if the old problem of liberty and ne- c ,essity, theme of debate since the | lawn of specula ton, could not be kept t ID in the ranks of those who had ac- { epted it. When New England was S olonized, not only disagreement with I minor features of Calvinism but open l issent from the characteristic princi- s ,le of unconditional election, were gain V no ground in Calvinistic communities. l >s late as 1918. delegaes had been sent | " James l., himself a Calvanist, to O Holland to aid at the Synod of Dort in U he erection of barriers to the spread g f the Arminian revlot. But as far as g he Church of England was concerned, Il uch resistance was intellectual. Inde- Q endently of their Calvinism the New fl ,ngland coonists of Massachusetts and W in common with the whole e odv of Puritans in the motherland, f' ere sworn foes of an illiterate minis fl ". This antipathy, more than ever N .a asonabIe in the circumstances in ., hich they found themselves, far away B .or7 the ancient seats of learning, was p lived with a we'll founded fear lest u ,eir posterity should sink into ignor- u nee and be cursed with unenlightened h .acbers of the Gospel. This apprehen- m on was keenly felt by the not less sl ,an eighty ministers, of whom not less 1T ,an half had been trained in the col Y oes of Oxford and Cambridge, and - ho if is not an exaggeratfon to say, r ,vond any other source of influence III t-