man's life and benefactions, and are not affected by the new arrangement, the Statutes of the Theological Faculty proceed.] 13. Inasmuch as the fund given by Mr. Hollis furnishes less than one tenth part of the salary of the Professor, and the remainder thereof is paid by the University from other sources, it is considered to be no violation of the sixth article above written, to require of the person holding the office of Hollis Professor of Divinity, so long as he shall receive a full Professor's salary, some other services not inconsistent with those prescribed as above, by the founder of this Professorship, and not repugnant to his Statutes; the Professor elect assenting thereto at the time of accepting his appointment. It is accordingly further enacted, that,

The person holding the office of Hollis Professor of Divinity shall perform all the duties above prescribed and assigned to him in the first chapter of these Statutes.

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14. He shall also give instruction to the Theological Students in Natural Religion, Ethics, and the Evidences of Revealed Religion; also in Ecclesiastical History, and in Dogmatic Theology. The duties prescribed in this article, so far as they are embraced in the foregoing original Statutes of the founder, are not to be considered as requiring additional courses of lectures, but only as prescribing the mode in which the instruction provided for in the original Statutes shall be given.

'Chapter III. Of the Professor of Biblical Literature.

1. The Professor of Biblical Literature shall give instruction in the interpretation of the Old and New Testament, and in the collateral branches of Sacred Literature, which may tend to promote a critical knowledge of the Holy Scriptures

2. His duties will embrace a course of instruction on the interpretation of the New Testament, to be given to each of the three classes of Theological Students, and like courses on the interpretation of the Old Testament, to the Middle and the Senior Classes.

'3. If the Government should think fit at any time so to order, this Professor shall give instruction in the Hebrew language, which will make up two complete courses of instruction to be given by him throughout the three years.

Chapter IV. Of the Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the
Pastoral Care.

'1. The Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care shall give instruction in the art of preaching, or the composition and delivery of sermons; and also on the duties of the Pastoral Office.

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2. His instructions will be given in written lectures, so far

as the subjects may require or admit that mode of communication; and also in frequent personal intercourse with the students, either separately, or in classes, or in familiar lectures on the public and private duties of their profession, together with such private advice, expostulation, reproof, and encouragement, as may tend to the cultivation and improvement of their personal and professional characters.

'3. The Government will hereafter make such further and more particular regulations respecting the duties of the Professor, as experience shall show to be necessary and expedient.'

These Statutes were referred by the Board of Overseers to a Committee, as usual, who reported in favor of assenting thereto, and this report was accepted February 3, 1831, by a vote of thirty-four to twelve. It was on a previous motion to recommit the whole subject to the same Committee, with instructions to report at the next stated meeting of the Board, that the Rev. Dr. Codman of Dorchester made a speech against the adoption of the Statutes, a printed copy of which is now before us.

From these historical notices it will appear, that every thing which has been done respecting the Theological School has been done openly and with deliberation, by the authority of the Corporation, and with the consent of the Board of Overseers. It will also be seen, that Dr. Codman entirely mistook the real question before the Board of Overseers, if he supposed that it was, whether a Theological School should be instituted in the University, or whether that School should · have a regular Theological Faculty, or whether that Faculty should have its Statutes. The question, and the only question, properly before the Board was, whether the Statutes of 1819 should continue in force, or be superseded by those of 1831, as being better in themselves, or better adapted to the present condition and circumstances of the School. At the same time we have no wish to evade the general question, whether it was right or expedient in the Corporation and Overseers to establish a Theological School in the University, in the first instance. A full, and, in our view, perfectly satisfactory article on this point, and in reply to Dr. Codman, has been prepared, but the present Number was so far printed off before it was received, as to make it necessary to defer it

to the next.

The Gile

THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

ART. I. DR. CODMAN'S Speech in the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, February 3, 1831. Boston. Peirce & Parker.

In our last Number we adverted to the History of the establishment of the Theological School at Cambridge, and presented to our readers the several Statutes which have been prepared for its government. We now come to the examination of Dr. Codman's Speech. The printing of this speech we consider in the nature of an appeal to the public, from the decision of the Board, an intended, premeditated appeal. Indeed we presume the chief object of making the speech was to give some show of weight and authority to its doctrines, when laid before the public, beyond what they would ordinarily receive, if they had made their first appearance in a newspaper or review. The learned gentleman admits, in the course of it, that he had no hope of arresting the establishment of a theological faculty in this University'; and as the professed object, of delaying the measure or of modifying it, failed by a very large vote, the only point to be gained by the publication of the speech, is to inflame and aggravate that spirit of hostility, which it has suited some prominent individuals among us to excite toward this ancient institution.

But Dr. Codman is not exactly the man to be the leader of a party warfare of this kind. He has too many con

VOL. X. N. S. VOL. V. NO. II.

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nexions among the friends of the liberal system to entertain all those prejudices and animosities, which are necessary ingredients in the character of a proselyting sectarian. He knows too intimately and entirely the kind and amiable feelings, the intellectual worth, the pure and correct morality, that are to be found in the ranks of his opponents, to apply to them the fierce and denunciatory epithets, with which a more persecuting temper has not unfrequently assailed them. He has travelled abroad and at home, and become too familiar with mankind not to despise that illiberal and contracted temper, which limits all truth and integrity and Christian principle within the narrow circle of believers in one theological creed. We fear, however, that as the good Doctor seems to admit that sectarians can be Christians, and speaks of his consideration and regard towards them, and more especially, as he declares that he should be the last person in the world to wish to deprive them of their right, or lessen their facilities, of propagating what they honestly believe to be the doctrines of Christianity,' he has opened an account, which it will not be very easy to settle, with the modern Inquisition to which he is amenable.

But, these disqualifications notwithstanding, Dr. Codman has some claims on his theological friends. He has presented their views as strongly and forcibly as they could be exhibited, and he has set forth their arguments clearly, with energy, and apparent self-conviction; and his arrows, if they come short of the mark, fail not from the feebleness of the arm, but the weakness of the bow.

The Doctor well understands the advantage of stating the question in his own way, and accordingly he demands whether, in the existing state of public opinion on religious subjects in this Commonwealth, it is expedient for this University to descend from the high and elevated station, which it ought to hold as the University of the State, and by the establishment of a Theological Department, lend its mighty influence to the support of any one sect of professing Christians?' And he seems to take for granted, if he can establish the negative of this question, that he maintains his

case.

The true question before the Overseers was, whether the Statutes for the Theological School, then proposed by the Corporation, should be substituted for those of 1819, which were

already in force, and would have continued in force if the new Statutes had not been adopted. We are willing, however, in this discussion, to yield to Dr. Codman a proposition for which in the course of his speech he contends, namely, that the original establishment of such a department is not a conclusive reason for continuing it, or for sanctioning and endeavouring to improve it, if its original establishment was wrong in principle, or is found to have injurious effects. We give up, too, the argument to be derived from the disadvantage of abrogating existing establishments, because we are willing to meet the case on the broadest ground of principle, and would not justify a continuance in error on the authority of usage, if such usage can be proved to be wrong.

A theological department, then, we contend, is an indispensable part of this University; and we do not mean to argue from the example of every other such institution, with the only exceptions, as far as we know, of London and Virginia, but from the origin, design, and object of Harvard College itself.

This Institution was, and is, dedicated Christo et Ecclesia. Its pious founders erected, supported, and maintained it, chiefly because a good education was necessary for the existence of a learned ministry, and a learned ministry was one of the chief means, by the blessing of Heaven, for the propagation and maintenance of the Christian religion. It was not for the purpose of making physicians or lawyers or statesmen, that classical literature and the exact sciences were to be taught in Harvard College. These great objects were only incidental to the greater and more important one of bringing on a regular and abundant supply of able, intelligent, and pious ministers for the churches of Christ.

In 1642 one of the first patrons of the College thus writes; 'After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers should lie in dust.'*

* New England's First Fruits. Mass. Hist. Coll. Vol. I. p. 202.