learned to appreciate the deep mystery of being is not far from the place of communion with God. Christianity popularized philosophy. For the Christian's creed was a metaphysic; and the man who had been taught to believe in creation, the Incarnation, the Trinity, sin and atonement, was obliged in the nature of the case to have a very considerable theory of the universe. Many of us, I dare say, remember that we took our first lessons in philosophy in the pew, and that we got our first impulse to think through the sermon. I believe it is Stevenson who says that there is "a hum of metaphysical divinity about the cradle of every Scot." There can be little doubt, I think, that the religious training of the Scottish people has had much to do in making them the metaphysical people that they are. Christianity has done for the world what a particular type of it has done in a more marked way for Scotland. It has forced men to think. It has made learning a necessity for all who wish to be intelligently informed in regard to religion, and a particular necessity for those who were the official expounders of Christianity. The medieval universities were, for the most part, in the hands of the clergy, because they had most need of them and could make best use of them; for it must never be forgotten that if to-day there are other professions that require quite as much learning as the clerical, there was a time when it was the only profession that required any. If now, in addition to what has been said, it be remembered that Christianity inculcated philanthropy and high ideas respecting the duties of citizenship, we shall see how largely, even when it is not confessed to be such, it enters as a constitutive element in the making of the modern university. The stages of university history can be roughly indicated, though we must not press the idea of chronological sequence too far. First came the democratic guild of scholars and masters devoting themselves to the study of law as in Bologna, or to scholastic divinity as in Paris, and living without endowments or even fixed places of abode. Then came the period of endowed foundations-and perhaps it would be as well to take William of Wyckeham as a typical example of the great patrons of learning, for he, says Mr. Rushdall, "may be allowed the credit of having been the first college founder who required his scholars to say their prayers morning and evening and go to chapel daily."

Then, in the New World, came the colleges like those in New England, like Princeton, like Lafayette, like a multitude besides in the Middle and Western States, which were the direct outgrowth of Christian philanthropy, and which were established with the avowed purpose of giving a liberal education from the Christian point of view. Then came the State universities, and, last of all, the triumph of Christian philanthropy in the lavish use of wealth on the part of men like John C. Green, Johns Hopkins, Ezra Cornell, and John D. Rockefeller for the more complete equipment of existing institutions or the establishment of new universities. Now, though the eircumstances attending the establishment of colleges and universities are different in different cases, and though the religious motive in the establishment of some of the more recent universities by private beneficence, and particularly in the establishment of universities under control of the State, is not so manifest as in the establishment of those which are more directly identified with the religious interests of a particular denomination of Christians, I am disposed to give Christianity credit for them all. I have not yet known of a State university where the profession of atheism was regarded as a desirable quality in a professor, and I happen to know of more than one State university where a sympathetic attitude toward revealed religion is regarded as an essential qualification for a teacher of philosophy. I am glad to have Princeton in that goodly fellowship of American colleges that have been established by Christian men and have been built upon Christian foundations. I believe that these colleges have done and are still doing a work of priceless value for the Church and for the State. And yet I sometimes wonder whether more use might not be wisely made of the State universities; whether a wise economy of resources, as in the newer States, might not suggest such an affiliation of various educational interests as would serve to throw around young men a distinctly Christian influence and at the same time open to them the opportunities of a wide range of study which only a large institution can afford to offer. I recognize very distinctly the fact that the ranks of the ministry have been recruited very largely from the smaller denominational colleges, and I must not for a moment be understood as in any sense detracting from the immense services which those colleges have rendered and have yet to render, or as implying that they deserve any but the most liberal support of the denominations to which they naturally appeal, when I say that at the present day it is a matter of some importance that a very considerable number of those who enter the sacred calling should be very intelligently informed in respect to the questions now involved in science and philosophy before they enter upon the professional study of theology; and that it would be a misfortune if the time should ever come when it would be the strong men of the weak colleges and the weak men of the strong colleges upon whom we should mainly rely to fill up the rank of the Christian ministry. I do not wish, however, to ignore the fact that true though it may be that the universities are in a general way the offspring of Christianity, there are universities

(and Princeton is one of them) that may be regarded as distinctly Christian institutions, yet they are Christian rather in the conditions of their origin than in the contents of their curricula. Their object is not so much to teach religion as to teach science in a religious spirit. It is more in the way they teach than in what they teach that they deserve to be called Christian schools. Hence a Christian college is not to be judged by the amount of religion that it teaches, or the place it assigns to the Scriptures in its curriculum. In the colleges and universities of which I speak, Christianity underlies, informs, unifies, and is the unexpressed postulate of all instruction. And this Christian spirit that practically affects teaching without announcing itself, which presupposes Christianity without any irritating selfassertion, is on the whole the most effective. Not that it is to be expected that a Christian university should be reticent in regard to the truths of religion. Indeed, as I shall at present be at pains to show, it can not be. And so it has come to pass that the university has had its share of religious controversy. Very naturally; for when religion plants a seat of learning and installs the faculty it clearly says that religion is ready to be tried by rational tests. The child of the Christian consciousness, the university by and by becomes its critic. Born of Christianity, the time comes when it attains its majority and refuses to remain in ecclesiastical leading strings. This may seem ungrateful, but it can not be helped. The necessary consequence of the alliance between religion and the university is the rationalizing of religion. It is easy to see that the extremes of tendency are superstition on the one hand and infidelity on the other. Ecclesiasticism pure and simple may easily run to the one extreme; intellectualism pure and simple may as easily run to the other. How to be saved from either may be difficult; but we may be sure that the religion which in the last analysis will not bear examination must go down. "Credo quia impossibile" is not the basis of a sound apologetic, and whether it be Tertullian or Mr. Kidd who would have us think so, it can never be rational to believe in an irrational religion.

The rationalizing process may go wrong, but that is no reason why men should stop thinking; and a university is a very dead place if the men in it do not think. When, therefore, the masters of the University of Paris told the Pope that on a certain matter of dogmatic theology they were more competent to speak than he was, they were doing exactly what they might have been expected to do, and in doing this were the precursors of that movement which put so many of the universities of northern Europe on the side of Protestanism and made them the embodiments of the spirit of religious independence. When I say that the criticism of religion in the university is inevitable, I am not saying that it is the essence of the university that its teachings should be absolutely free. I have nothing to say here by way of objection to those universities where absolute freedom of teaching is the rule. There are universities I know where that absolute freedom would not be allowed. So far as Princeton is concerned, I find myself in very agreeable harmony with what one of my younger colleagues has said in a recent periodical. "Princeton," says Professor Daniels, "is definitely and irrevocably committed to Christian ideals. It has therefore, with reference to certain primary problems, already taken a definite position. It stands for a theistic metaphysic. Nor does it claim or desire any reputation for impartiality or open-mindedness which is to be purchased by a sacrifice of this, its traditional philosophic attitude." Princeton then, as we are told, "stands for a theistic metaphysic." The critic might say, if he were so disposed, that with equal reason it might be made to stand for something less; or might be made to stand for something more; and that there is something arbitrary about the boundary line that separates the kingdom of fixed belief from that of free discussion. Now, I venture to say that the weight of the sentence that I have thought sufficiently significant to quote lies not so much in what Princeton is said to stand for as in the fact that she is said to stand for something; and I can easily believe that the exact quantum of belief for which Princeton stands may be something about which individuals may now differ and may vary from age to age. What Princeton stands for really depends upon those who govern her. No matter what our origin was; what was believed 150 years ago; what Christian symbol or legend we put on the university seal; what moral obligations are imposed by gifts of generous benefactors, the exact amount of religious belief that this university will stand for can be determined only by the amount of belief that the trustees have the moral courage to enunciate in the form of a resolution. That will depend upon the state of public opinion; the degree of sensitiveness to public opinion on the part of men who hold the places of responsibility, and the amount of strong conviction ready for expression at any given time by the governing body.

This only shows how solemn the responsibility is which rests upon the twentyseven men who control Princeton University. They have power to vote in the election of their colleagues, but no power to direct their votes after they take office. We have received this institution from a past generation and we hold it with absolute power of tradition to the next. We can not bind our successors. We may

install them with due solemnity of precatory phrase, but we can not predict or control their action. The sacred interests of Princeton are in our keeping. We have but a simple duty respecting their transfer to the next generation. St. Paul has expressed that duty in his own words to Timothy: "The things which thou hast heard of me, the same commit thou to the faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."

II.

There is another phase of the subject with which we are dealing. It concerns the inquiry as to the extent to which religion, and particularly the Christian religion, should enter into the curriculum of the university. There are two extreme positions sometimes taken by those who express themselves upon this question. There are some who seem to suppose that it is proper and possible to exclude all reference to religion and confine the work of university instruction to strictly secular themes. Others, again, seem not to realize the changed conditions of university life and suppose that it is easy to carry on through the entire undergraduate curriculum a scheme of enforced religious instruction based upon an accepted type of thought in respect to the Bible and revealed religion. I am confident that a more careful study will show that both of these positions are wrong, and that nothing requires more wisdom, tact, and knowledge of the actual conditions of thought in the learned world than the problem of religion in the university. It is a very large subject, and I question whether it can be adequately dealt with by anyone who is not in actual contact with undergraduate life, and who is not aware of the ins and outs of thought in it, and who, moreover, is not by reason of professional study brought into close relations with the religious problems of the present day. For myself, I believe that in the early years of undergraduate life a course of elementary biblical instruction adapted to the needs of young men who are no longer schoolboys, on the one hand, and are not yet students of philosophy, on the other, is a most important part of the curriculum; but I would not carry biblical instruction into the upper years of the curriculum, unless in point of scientific thoroughness it could compare favorably with the work done in other departments; and then, of course, I would not make it compulsory, though I firmly believe that advanced students in philosophy and literature should have the opportunity of seeing how the problems of literature and philosophy bear upon the Bible and Christianity. For if secular themes are to be discussed in a Christian university in a religious spirit and under Christian conceptions, it is no less true that religious themes must be discussed in a scientific spirit and acccording to scientific principles. It is impossible for a university to discharge its functions without declaring itself upon the great question of religion. The subject no longer lies within the easy possibilities of definition which existed half a century ago. Then the student of Reid or Dugald Stewart debated the question of mediate or immediate perception, or accepted the easy account of the mental powers as they were mapped out for him in the psychology of introspection, and seldom went any deeper. His religious faith was buttressed by a course of lectures on the evidences which treated as postulates what have since become some of the most serious problems of our times. There were religious difficulties to be dealt with, but they lay for the most part in a remote corner of the field of inquiry, and concerned questions like the days of Genesis and the extent of the Deluge. It is otherwise now, for the doctrine of evolution has made a great change in regard to the place of religion in the studies of the universities. Every subject is considered from the historical point of view and according to the genetic method. And whether we approve it or not, the religious problem is forced into prominence. A man can not study genetic psychology and metaphysics and the theory of knowledge at the present day without facing the problem of a separate and enduring selfhood and without asking whether the world is to be construed according to a theistic or a pantheistic metaphysic. It is idle for the theologians to attempt, as the Ritschlians do, to exclude metaphysics from theology; but it is just as idle for the philosopher to talk of excluding theology from metaphysics; theology is philosophy and philosophy is theology, so far as the question of the relation of God to the world is concerned. All problems in philosophy go back to two questions: whether God exists separate from the world and whether we exist separate from God. The fate of religion lies in the answer to these questions. When, therefore, the student is wrestling with the problems of metaphysics, he is putting his religious faith on trial. It is easy then to see the vital relations which the chair of philosophy sustains to practical Christianity, and the responsibility that one assumes when he undertakes to be guide, philosopher, and friend to the young man who finds himself obliged to seek for himself a fresh orientation in reference to his religious belief. Now, if one-half of our religion, or what is commonly called natural religion, is necessarily involved in the study of philos ophy, the other half, or what is known as revealed religion, is as necessarily involved in the study of history. We should hardly think of excluding the history of civil

ization from the studies of the university, yet it would be difficult, I imagine, to treat the history of institutions without reference to Christianity, or trace the history of ethical ideas withont mentioning the New Testament, or the history of opinion in respect to social morality without regard to the Sermon on the Mount and the Pauline literature. These writings may doubtless be referred to without raising the question of their authority; but that question must be raised sooner or later, because the question respecting authority is involved in that of origin, and the question respecting the origin of the sacred books is involved in the question respecting the place of Christianity in the history of the world, and this again is part of the broader question respecting the meaning and the history of religion. Any theory that undertakes to explain human history must be adequate to give a rational explanation of religion. It is not merely because of its practical importance, but also because of its persistent universality that it has become the object of so much interest to the philosopher. Hence it happens that the most earnest students of the phenomena of religion are not always religious men, but men often who are anxious to show that their theories which destroy the value of religion are abundantly adequate to explain it. Now, when one enters upon the study of the history of religion, I do not see how he can content himself with the simple recognition of Christianity as one of the forms in which the religious consciousness has been manifested, or how he can avoid assuming some attitude in respect to exceptional claims that Christianity makes in its own behalf. He knows what attitude some of the philosophers are taking. They are becoming constructive theologians. They are lecturing on Jesus and St. Paul, and expounding the ethics and metaphysics of the New Testament in the interests of naturalism. What shall we do? Shall the agnostic be free to deny the claims of Christianity, and we be hindered from defending it? Now, I venture to say that the philosophical construction of the facts of Christianity is forced upon us by the conditions of thought under which we live and that there is no subject wider in its sweep, more imperative in its claim, and more momentous in the issues with which it deals, than the philosophy of religion. Into the making of it go one's psychology, one's ethic, one's metaphysic, one's history, one's literary criticism; and on it depends in greater or less degree one's social science, one's politics, one's jurisprudence, one's theology, one's religion. The day has passed when religion was regarded as something very important but not very interesting. There are too many, I fear, who do not regard it as important; but among philosophers it is generally conceded to be interesting. No well-appointed university can refrain from dealing with its problems. For us there can be but one of two positions. We must be silent and hand over the discussion to the skeptic, or we must show ourselves worthy of the high place we have already won in the department of religious philosophy and take a strong position on the side of historic Christianity. There is little doubt among us, I think, respecting the attitude that Princeton should ever hold. Leaving to the theological schools and to the appropriate ecclesiastical tribunals the discussion of questions in divinity on which the churches are divided, and standing aloof from sectarian controversy, it is our duty to hold ourselves ready for the defense of those fundamental truths in philosophy and in religion in the maintenance of which Christians of every name have a common interest. I hope that Princeton will always stand for belief in the living God, the immortal self, an imperative morality, and the Divine Christ. On this broad platform all the true friends of Princeton can meet, and here we must stand if we would be true to the spirit of our history and continue to deserve the confidence of Christian men.

III.

I trust that I have made it clear that I fully recognize the fact that however true it may be that Christian ideas have been the moving causes in the endowment of universities, and particularly of this, and however much it may be proper and even inevitable that the great fundamental truths of Christianity should have place in university teaching, the particular end for which the university exists is not primarily the promotion of religion. The university should not be expected to do the work of the church. It has ends of its own, and these are not distinctively religious. And yet we can not keep religion altogether out of our minds when we consider these ends. Religion is indeed, as a little reflection will show, necessary to the full and satisfactory realization of the ends for which the university exists, and it is in this light that I now wish to regard it.

It is not necessary to lay stress upon the mediaval distinction between the university of masters and the university of scholars for the purpose of settling questions of precedence or of determining the relations they sustain to each other. It would hardly be denied on the one hand that the professor's business is to teach, and it would be pretty generally conceded on the other that more is expected of him than the discharge of his pedagogic functions. But the distinction I have referred to will serve a good purpose if it reminds us that the professors of a uni

versity sustain a relation to the general public apart from the relation they sustain to the students who listen to their instruction. They constitute the priesthood of learning and are set apart for the service of Truth. Besides training young men for the active duties of life, it may be fairly expected of them that they should enlarge the borders of knowledge and contribute substantially to the formation of a sound public opinion. These, indeed, I take it, are the three great functions of the university. The institution that is not doing something in each of these directions is not accomplishing the work it was intended to do; and for the successful accomplishment of this work a reverent attitude toward religion and a certain amount of religious faith would seem to be a logical necessity.

I lay stress upon that side of the professor's life which relates him to the general public, for the nonacademic consciousness does not always properly apprehend it. The professor would not think that his calling were possessed of so much inherent dignity if he regarded himself simply as the means of imparting to a body of mediocre and often very idle young men the modest amount of knowledge that they acquire during a college course, and he would particularly resent the crude Philistinism that regards him simply in the light of an employee. The dignity of the professor's calling can be maintained only by regarding the incumbent of this office as holding a commission as an independent seeker after truth. There is something fascinating in such a life. In its fine scope of material things, in its dignified and independent simplicity, there is surely something to admire. We can not help feeling, it is true, that intellectual labor is sometimes wasted on very unimportant matters and that much of what was never known before is not worth knowing, and that original research so often means only infinite pains for the gathering of facts that involve no theory and help no generalization and apparently serve no other purpose than to verify the statement that of making many books there is no end and that much study is a weariness of the flesh. Then, too, we find it hard sometimes to hear the great inan's arrogance and conceit, and it disappoints us to see him enter the world's market and sell his rash judgments and crude novelties for such poor price of place or fame as the world will give. But, after all, the marvel is that the appetite for learning and the zest with which men engage in intellectual toil should be so enduring. I particularly wonder at the intellectual earnestness of men who have discarded all religious belief. They seem to be so inconsisteut and illogical; they especially impress me so when they employ their energies in seeking to destroy the world's faith in God; for they seem to be undermining their own career and leaving it without a reason. For on the supposition that the world is a system of thought relations, there is something natural in man's persistent effort to explain his habitat and give an account of himself. For whether God be our unreached goal of endeavor, the ideal Good, the infinite Knower in front of us, above, and beyond; or whether it be that the inspiration of the Almighty gives man understanding, so that be is the light of all our seeing, in either case there is a religious element in all inquiry; there is something that partakes almost of a religious act in every serious effort to understand the world; there is something almost sacramental in the apprehension of a great idea which at the same moment interprets the world and brings the mind into fellowship with God. I believe that the indwelling spirit of God is the source of our curiosity; that our restless seeking after the right understanding of the world is one of the ways in which God reveals himself; that the religious nature of man is the key to his intellectual activity and the basis of even his irreligious zeal; that if there were no God and no fellowship between God and man, if all that is were explicable in the terms of matter and motion, there could be no ideals and no intellectual ambition; that if man should lose his faith in God he would lose his love of truth, and that the death of religion would be the death of intellectual endeavor.

There is another work which the university ought to perform. It should contribute toward the forming of a sound public opinion. In a broad and far-reaching sense, it should teach patriotism. There is, I grant, a great deal to justify the confidence with which we rest in the sober second thought of the nation, and the opti mism which makes us feel that the common sense of the American people is equal to any emergency. The essential morality of the people of our land, as it finds expression in the pulpit and the press, is a great source of comfort in a time of national peril. And yet when fundamental morality is assailed; when revolutionary views of government are publicly expounded; when socialistic theories find plausible advocates, it will not do to rely altogether upon popular sentiment or the naive common sense of the American people. We must do something to keep this common sense from being corrupted, and this must consist of something more than popular harangue and the florid iteration of the commonplaces of morality. There must be deep plutosophical discussion of great public questions by men of acknowledged anthority in political, social, and economic science. This work can be done better in the universities than anywhere else. This is what I mean when I say that the university should be a school of patriotism. Of a certain type of patriotism there