Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890. Frothingham Octavius Brooks
Hall had been dedicated in August, 1826. It was situated on an avenue about a quarter of a mile from the college yard. It contained, besides thirty-seven chambers for the accommodation of students, a chapel, a library, a lecture-room, and a reading-room; it stood opposite the Zoölogical Museum. Before it was a vacant space used for games. Behind it was meadow land reaching all the way to Mr. Norton's. Just beyond it was Dr. Palfrey's residence. George Rapall Noyes, D.D., was elected in May, 1840, with the title of "Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages, and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature." He had already translated the poetical books of the Old Testament, and it was his eminence as a translator which had won him fame while a minister at Petersham. It was his duty also to explain the New Testament, and in addition to give lectures in systematic theology. Besides all this he was to preach in the college chapel a fourth of the year. He steadily grew in the respect and attachment of the young men; his authority in the lecture-room was very great; his opinions were carefully formed and precisely delivered; and his shrewd, practical wisdom was long remembered by his pupils. Convers Francis, D.D., appointed to the "Parkman Professorship," after the resignation of Henry Ware, Jr., was his associate. The branches assigned to him were ecclesiastical history, natural theology, ethics, the composition of sermons, and instruction in the duties of a pastor; besides all this he was to preach half of the time in the college chapel. Dr. Francis was an accomplished scholar and a faithful teacher. The best man, too, for his position, at a time when in an unsectarian school it was exceedingly desirable that the professors should harmonize all tendencies; for with a strong sympathy with "transcendentalism," as it was then called, he had been a most successful parish minister, a very acceptable preacher, and a man in whom all the churches had confidence.
At Cambridge, owing to the influence of Buckminster, Ware, and Norton, Unitarian opinion prevailed, though the controversial period had passed by when I was there. The clouds of warfare no longer discharged lightning; there was no roll of thunder; only a faint muttering betrayed the former excitement; and the memory of old conflicts hovered round the spots where the fights had been hottest. Marks of strife were still visible on texts, and chapters were scarred with wounds. Comment still lingered near the passages where polemics had raged, and the blood burned as we read the tracts or studied the essays of the champions we admired.
It was impossible to forget the interpretations that had been given to words or phrases. A strictly scientific study, either of the Bible or the creed, was therefore out of the question. But the course of exercises was broad, generous, inclusive, as far as this was feasible. The bias was decidedly unorthodox, yet without the bitter temper of opposition. The old system was rather set aside than attacked. It was assumed to have been vanquished in the fair field. The professors were liberal in their views. A small but serviceable library furnished the students with a certain amount of needed material, the college library was freely opened to them, and the collections of the professors were gladly placed at their disposal. The days were fully occupied with lectures, recitations, discussions, exercises in writing out and taking of notes. Once a week there was a debate on some general theme not connected with the topics of the class-room; and at the latter part of the course there was special training in the composition and delivery of sermons, accompanied by a brief experience of extemporaneous speaking. The Unitarian ministry was alone contemplated; no wide divergence from it was encouraged, and the conservative methods of interpretation were the ones recommended. Some knowledge of Greek and Latin being presupposed, the study of Hebrew was made the one study of language, and this was pursued with the best available helps. Biblical criticism naturally took a prominent place in the current curriculum, under the guidance of the most distinguished authorities; books of every school were recommended, whether old or new, Catholic or Protestant, "conservative" or "liberal," Horne, Tholuck, De Wette being consulted in turn. The New Testament and "Historical Christianity" were taken for granted; and these meant belief in miracles, which were defended against rising objections of the Strauss and Paulus schools, the former holding by the "mythical" theory, the latter favoring the notion of a natural explanation of some sort. The hostility towards rationalism was decided. This was forty years ago, before the "historical method," as it was called, instituted by Baur, Schwegler, Zeller, Sneckenburger, and the Theologische Jahrbücher, had any expositor in this country, long before the Dutch school, the later French school – Kuenen, Reville, Reuss, Nicolas, Renan, – came out. The great issue was the credibility of the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. The half-monastic life we led at Divinity Hall cut us off a good deal from social amenities, reform agitations, attempts to change institutions, and even from the deeper currents of religious sentiment. None but the very observant took note of Brook Farm, or heeded the movements in behalf of Association that were going on in other communities. Whatever was outside of the "Christian" ministry concerned us but little. The professors did not direct our eyes to the mountain tops or call attention to the bringers of good tidings from other quarters than the Christian Revelation, as explained by its scholars and writers. Even such a phenomenon as Emerson did not make a profound impression on the average mind.
A tone of old-fashioned piety pervaded the establishment. A weekly prayer-meeting, always attended by one of the professors, though officially rather than as a stimulator, was much in the manner and spirit of similar exercises at Andover. The students were cautioned against excessive intellectualism. Several of them spent their Sundays in teaching classes of the young in the neighboring towns, in ministering to the sick in hospitals, or in carrying the monitions of conscience to the criminals in the prison at Charlestown. The aims of a practical ministry were thus kept in view as well as the circumstances of the time permitted. Of course the school could not be a philanthropic institution any more than it could be independent or scientific. It was committed to a special purpose, which was the supply of Christian pulpits with instructed, earnest, devoted men. That they should be Unitarians was expected; that they should be Christians in belief was demanded. There were two ever-present spectres, "orthodoxy" and "rationalism," the one represented by Andover, the other by Germany. Audacity of speculation when unaccompanied by practical piety was discountenanced, and in flagrant instances rebuked.
The literal form of the orthodox creed, it need hardly be said, was made more prominent than its imaginative aspect. This was inevitable, for the object was to assail it rather than to understand it. To be perfectly fair to all sides was, under the circumstances, not to be expected at a period so near the era of controversy. An earnest, ingenuous youth could find at Cambridge all the courage and impulse he needed, for the atmosphere of the place was neither chilling nor depressing. The less emotional, more intellectual scholar was left to pursue his studies undisturbed, the wind of spiritual feeling not being strong enough to carry him away.
In a word, the institution was all that could have been looked for in a time when ecclesiastical and doctrinal traditions were fatally though not confessedly broken, and naked individualism was not avowedly adopted. The task of the professors, conscientious, hard working, utterly faithful men, was laborious, difficult, and thankless. The Unitarian public, fearing a tendency to unbelief, gave them a grudging confidence; the students, I am afraid, were not considerate of them, – the zealous finding them lukewarm, the cold-blooded blaming them for stopping short of the last consequences of their own theory. It is wonderful that the school went on at all. The single-minded devotion of the teachers alone preserved it. Looking thoughtfully back across a wide gulf of years, the writer of these pages feels that he owes this tribute to Convers Francis and George R. Noyes. How often he has wished he could take them by the hand and ask their forgiveness for his frequent misjudgment of them, misjudgment the remembrance of which makes his heart bleed the more as he can only think of their generous forbearance. Their influence was emancipating and stimulating. They were friendly to thought. Under their ministration the mind took a leap forward towards the confines of the Christian system of faith. What the divinity school of the future may be able to accomplish it would be hazardous to conjecture. It could hardly then have done more than it did.
The study of comparative religions, so zealously prosecuted within a few years, together with a desire to do perfect justice to orthodox doctrines, may render practical a scientific review of theological systems, but in this event a predilection in favor of a separate "Christian" ministry can be no longer characteristic of a divinity school which proposes to prepare young men for the clerical calling.
The three years of secluded life passed quickly away. The trial sermon in the village church was delivered and criticised.