ts of
human life; the profound significance of the founding and the progress
of the Church; a deep psychological understanding of human desires,
motives, joys, ambitions, griefs; the relentlessness of sin; the help
and glory of Redemption; the quickening of the Christ; the vigor and the
tenderness of faith. Coincident with these must be a growth in depth and
dignity of life. No one likes to take spiritual instruction from men who
are themselves crude, foolish, sentimental, or conceited. Many social
snags on which young ministers are sure to run, are simply the rudiments
of social conduct, as practised by the world. Noble manners are one's
personal actions as influenced and guided by the great behavior of the
race. Under the impulse of ideals, much that is untoward or superficial
in one's bearing will disappear. It is impossible to think as noble men
and women have thought--to dream, love, and work as they have dreamed,
loved, and wrought--and not have pass into one's mien the high
excellence of such lives.

The first education is spiritual. Until mind and heart are swept by the
spirit of God, chastened, purified, ennobled, and inspired, vain is all
the learning of the schools! To this end, there should be a more deeply
spiritual atmosphere in our seminaries, less of the mere academic
impulse. In every age, there are men just to come in contact with whom
is a benediction and a help for years. Such a man was Mark Hopkins, Noah
Porter, James McCosh. Such the leading men in every seminary should be.

The plan of education must be of principles, not of facts. The
university research-men gather facts, and scientific men everywhere
collect, analyze, and classify them. But each small department of human
learning--each minute branch in that department--needs a lifetime for
the mastery of that one theme. Hence the work of the college is quite
apart from that of the school of theology. It is the place of the school
of theology, not to ignore the New Learning, but to group, upon the
basis of a thorough college training, certain great interests and
pursuits of mankind, in such a way as to afford, by means of them, a
leverage for spiritual work.

After all is said and done, it is not the grammar-detail of Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic dialects that makes a minister's power. It is
the strange language-culture of the race which should enter in; the
inner vitality of words, the beauty of poetic cadences, the strong flow
of rhythm