From His Return to Princeton, 1828, to His Transference to the Chair of Systematic Theology, 1840
The eleven years, the record of which is assigned to this chapter, were years of critical significance in the history of the American Presbyterian Church, as well as those in which passed the crisis of Professor Hodge’s life. During this period the conflict of elements in the church flamed into open controversy, and the great division into its Old and New School branches was consummated. Dr. Hodge’s part in this ecclesiastical convulsion was so important that it will be reserved for a chapter by itself This same period was marked in the history of Professor Hodge as the one in which, through protracted confinement and acute physical suffering, he achieved his reputation as a scholar, teacher, writer, and pre-eminently as an effective controver-
^T. HIS INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 203
sialist and church leader. He returned from Europe comparatively an unknown young man, and he entered upon his new professorship of Didactic theology in 1840, with very much the same general reputation he enjoyed to the end of his life.
He opened the session of 1828, ’29, with the Introductory lecture, in which he endeavored to impress upon the minds of the students “the practical truths which the circumstances of foreign states and countries had deeply impressed upon his own.” These were; First, the great importance of civil and religious liberty, as illustrated by the effect of our institutions in elevating the intelligence and character of all classes of the people, and in setting religion and the church free from the trammels of the State. Second, the training of youth in knowledge and religion. In this respect he declared the institutions of Germany to be greatly in advance of those of the United States. He sketched the system of public instruction, through all the grades of schools, throughout the Kingdom of Prussia, with special reference to religious teaching and its results.” But the most interesting feature of the whole system is that religion is as regularly and as systematically taught as any other subject. Each class of schools has its regular text-books on this subject; and in all, the history and leading principles, both in doctrines and morals, of the Scriptures are inculcated. The nature of this instruction depends of course very much on the individual character of the man to whom it is committed, and it is too often the case that it embraces little more than the leading facts and moral principles of the Bible. Still even this is of immense advantage.
So thoroughly is this system carried through in
Prussia, that I never met a boy selling matches in the street (and I made several experiments of the kind) who could not answer any common question on the historical parts of the Old and New Testaments.”” The German system provides for education of Protestants, Catholics and Jews alike, and
204 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. ’ [1828.
where it is possible, by separate schools. Is it not possible in this country to have the Christian religion taught in the common schools? The selection of teachers and the course of instruction depends on the commissioners of the several districts. If public opinion once be brought to decide for
the measure, it can be accomplished The various
sects are uniting not only to distribute the Bible, but also to circulate doctrinal tracts. May they not be induced to unite in the preparation of religious school-books in which the historical facts and essential doctrines, in which all evangelical denominations agree, may be taught and inculcated? If such books could receive the sanction of the ruling bodies of the various sects among us, there would be no difficulty in their being generally introduced.” The Third head was the intimate connection between speculative opinion and moral character. The correspondence between opinion and character is strikingly observable in the various religious parties in Germany. The leading parties are the Orthodox, the Rationalists, and the Pantheists. “Wherever you find vital piety — that is, penitence and a devotional spirit — there you find the doctrines of the fall, of depravity, of regeneration, of atonement, and of the deity of Jesus Christ. I never saw or heard of a single individual who exhibited a spirit of piety who rejected any one of these doctrines. Holiness is essential to the correct knowledge of divine things and the great security from error.” “If these be so, brethren, ‘keep your hearts with all diligence;’ beware of any course of study which has a tendency to harden your hearts and deaden the delicate sensibility of the soul to moral truth and beauty. Lean not on your own understanding, and keep as you would your hold on heaven your reverence for Jesus Christ.”
Mr. Hodge now devoted himself with renewed enthusiasm and with untiring diligence to his studies and class instructions. His professorship covered all the ground now distributed between the professorships of” Oriental and
^T. 31.] HIS WORK AS TEACHER AND PREACHER. 205
Old Testament Literature,” of “New Testament Literature and Biblical Greek,” and of the “Instructor in Hebrew,” etc. Until his lameness, he met two classes every day, teaching and lecturing on the Hebrew language, literature, and exegesis in the mornings, and on the New Testament literature and exegesis every afternoon. He prepared also extensive courses of lectures on Biblical criticism, hermeneutics, special introduction, sacred geography, and the exegesis of several books of both Testaments. He delivered to the junior class exegetical lectures on Paul’s Epistles, an exercise which he continued without interruption to the end of his life, a period of fifty years. At this time, also, until incapacitated by lameness in the summer of 1833, he preached in his turn in the village church, and afterwards in the Seminary Oratory, and the various Churches of the neighboring cities and surrounding country. His preaching at this time was more fresh and animated than it was in his later life. He engaged in the work with genuine enthusiasm, and was heard with universal interest and profit by intelligent audiences. He uniformly wrote and read the entire sermon. In style they had the well-known characteristics of all that proceeded from him; clearness, comprehensiveness, and vigor. He read naturally and simply, at times perhaps too quietly, but with his strong and inflammable emotional nature ready to burst forth at any moment as a boiling spring, or as a volcano, flashing light as well as sending forth streams of passionate feeling. None of the sermons preached at that period are extant. The tradition, however, yet remains of certain occasions when his feelings were powerfully wrought upon, and when, leaving his manuscript, he for a while melted or thrilled his audience by the tenderness or the passion of his appeals.
Such an occasion was the funeral of Edward, second son of the venerable Dr. Samuel Miller, in the autumn of 1832, when Mr. Hodge preached in the old Church which preceded the present first Church of Princeton. Dr. S. Ire-
206 AS A PREACHER. [1832.
nseus Prime writes me, “My first sight of your illustrious and now glorified father was in the pulpit in Princeton, in the autumn of 1832, when he preached the sermon at the funeral of Dr. Miller’s son Edward. The tenderness, simplicity and beauty of the discourse filled me with wonder and with love, and awakened a new train of thought in connection with the science of religious education. In my mind theology had not been associated so much with the writings of John as with those of Paul; but suddenly I saw both these men of the Bible blended and reproduced in the teacher and preacher who stood before me.” The compiler of these memoirs, then a child in the gallery, can still vividly recall the wave of emotion which swept over the whole audience, when the preacher lifted himself and addressed to the college students, filling the gallery on his right hand with the voice and the countenance of a herald from the eternal world, the message sent to them by Edward Miller just before he died — “Tell them to stop; they are mad!”
An instance of the same kind, though much more remarkable, occurred when he was called to deliver the funeral oration on the occasion of the death of his intimate friend, Rev. Dr. Albert B. Dod, the brilliant Professor of Mathematics in Princeton College, in November, 1845. Dr. Hodge had spent days and nights at the bed-side of his dying yet triumphant friend. His whole soul was in the highest state of spiritual exaltation. An account of this address and the effect it produced is given by Dr. Paxton in the closing chapter of this volume.
HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH GERMAN FRIENDS.
During these years he kept up a very active and general correspondence with his personal friends, and wich the leaders in the Church’s work alike in England and on the European continent and in America. Of his own letters not many except those written to his brother can now be recalled. But several of the letters from his beloved German
^T.3i.] GERMAN CORRESPONDENCE. 207
friends are given because of the intrinsic interest attached to the names of the writers, and because they beautifully illustrate the warmth of personal love which it was a characteristic gift of Dr. Hodge to attract in all communities and during his whole life.
PROFESSOR HODGE TO PROFESSOR THOLUCK.
Princeton, October 12th, 1828.
My Dearest Thohick: — You can hardly conceive of the pleasure I experienced when my little boy came into my study two days since, and said, “Father, here are two letters for you from over the wide sea.” A single glance was enough to assure me that one was from that dear friend to whose kindness and affection I am so much indebted. The many happy and instructive hours I have spent in your society, will be the subject of delightful recollection to the close of life. I look back to my sojourn in Germany with feelings of unmingled pleasure, so far as the recollection of misimproved advantages will permit. I love the German character, as exhibited in Christians, quite as much as though I were myself a German, and cannot pass a German immigrant in the street without feelings of interest I experience for no other people. You beg me to inform you “of my affairs.” This maybe done in a few words. After taking a tour from Dusseldorf up the Rhine, I went to Heidelberg, thence to Basle; spent two or three weeks in traveling in Switzerland; passed a few days in Geneva, and proceeded thence to Paris. I reached England about the 20th of June; delivered most of your letters. I visited Cambridge, and was kindly received by Professor Lee, whom I found determined to write down all your German neologists. In Oxford I missed both of the gentlemen to whom your letters were addressed. I sailed from Liverpool on the 2d of August, and arrived in New York on the 8th of September. To my inexpressible joy, on reaching Princeton the following day, I found my wife and children in perfect health and surrounded with every blessing.
Dear Tholuck, you can hardly think how happy I now am. My lovely children (for they are vety lovely), are hanging on my knees all the time, and my dear wife — I will not talk about — you must come and see her! Our seminary is prospering, and is furnished with its ordinary number of students. The spirit of piety has not declined among them, and perhaps more of a disposition to embark in foreign missions was manifested during the last term than usual. My yenerated colleagues, Drs. Alexander and Miller, you would love very much. They are the lights of our church, and their memories will long be blessed when they are gathered to their rest.
The American Board of Missions met last week in Philadelphia. Their report was very interesting, and their income last year was 108,000 dollars, and the information received from their various stations encouraging. I will endeavor to send a printed copy of their report to Berlin by the first opportunity. The History of Theology in the 18th century has been printed. It would, I presume, be much too expensive to you if we should send it to you at Rome. I will, therefore, forward it to Halle for you. I am very much distressed to hear of the state of mind of poor Krummacher. It was nearly as bad before I left Berlin, but I cannot help regarding it as mainly the effect of disease, and consequently hope to learn, that with returning health, his faith and hope have been restored. I am very much surprised to hear what you mentioned of Otto von Gerlach. I wish he would come to this country. He would, I am persuaded, find a wide field for the exercise of his talents. Should a kind Providence ever send any one of the dear friends I love so sincerely, to these distant shores, I should be overjoyed to meet them — my house and heart stand ever open to them. I should have written to you sooner, had I not thought it better to write by the way of Leghorn; but opportunities for that port occurring so seldom, I hasten to take advantage of the first packet for Havre. I thank you most cordially for your dear letter. Do write to me as often as your time will permit. Tell me whatever of interest occurs in your section of the kingdom of God. Let me know of important theological works which you think I ought to send for. I obtain books now regularly from the Buch-handlung des Waisenhauses in Halle, and shall therefore be able to procure whatever works you may recommend to me.
Give my best respects to Herr Bunsen,who, I rejoice to hear, is likely to attain a station of so much usefulness, as a seat in the Ministerium.
And now my dearest friend accept the assurance of my warmest and most grateful affection. Do not forget me — may love to our common Saviour bind our hearts in perpetual union.
Your brother in Christ, C. Hodge.
LETTER TO PROF. HODGE, FROM PROF. A. THOLUCK.
Rome, Feb. 27th, 1829. My Dear Brother in the Lord: — The distance that separates Princeton from Rome is such, and the waves that roll between my dear
^T. 31.] GERMAN CORRESPONDENCE. 2O9
brother and myself are so numerous, that I really despaired of our ever being able to stretch our hands to each other beyond the ocean. However, you have received from the hands of your little darling the lines of your poor German pilgrim in Rome, and Sir Thomas, the “macsfro di casa” of the Prussian ambassador, has put in my hands the unexpected news which I have received from the dearest friend I possess in your part of the world. You can scarcely imagine, my dear Hodge, the delight and the eagerness with which I broke the seal of your message. So delighted was I, that scarcely any letter from my country excited in me the same degree of eagerness. All the sweet and quiet evenings, spent in the floor room of the Ulrichs Strasse, and the little green spot out of the Galgthor, all the delicious enjoyments of the Kuhstall and Tharand, all the solemn hours passed in the fellowship of the Berlin brethren stood at once before my eyes. Earthly and spiritual enjoyments, earthly and spiritual cares have linked our hearts together, and space and time shall never separate what God has united.
You enjoy again all the delights and the sweetness of a Christian family-life, and your days will pass on quietly to the end. To me new scenes of life have appeared, and are opening again before my eyes, but for me the spot of undisturbed tranquillity lies forever beyond, in that life, from which none has ever returned, but He, who will lead there all troubled souls, and myself among them, as I trust in God. The days of my residence in Rome are running fast to an end. Before German spring begins, I shall find myself once more at the solemn gateway of the Galg-Strasse. The time spent in Rome has been for me a time full of various enjoyments and various engagements; and, although the sting in my flesh has made many an hour gloomy, I must still and will ever praise the Lord for the great mercies he has shown me during the past year. I shall leave Rome with my bodily vigor partly recruited, and with faith and hope still more increased. I have good reason to hope that the spiritual condition of Halle will improve. Although hindered by various intrigues the appointment of Guericke as extraordinarius is almost sure, and very lately Prof. Ullmann has been called there to the professorship of Niemcyer. He will probably become a more sincere fellow-labourer than Thilo, although there is about him a good deal of fear and timidity of men. A little flock of faithful students is still remaining in Halle, and under God’s blessing will increase. The Berlin Church journal {Kirchenzeitimg) is becoming more and more a standard for the faithful in Germany. The persecutions Hengstenberg has suffered on its account evince it the more a work agreeable to the Lord of the Church, and dangerous to its adversary, the foul fiend. The communications which it contains from America, have been a stimukis to many others as well as myself to fresh exertions. They are truly delightful. Pray send to me at Halle some more of your publications.
I cannot help mentioning again our dear little Krunimacher. I understand that the mist which involved his mind is disappearing. His spirit was terribly excited by the grand subject of predestination, which his uncle had enforced upon his mind, and which was so violently combated at Berlin, and this has now come to be apprehended by him as by his whole family as a truth.
I send this letter to Havre by the kindness of Dr. Jarvis, an Episcopalian from Boston, who saw you in Paris. He intends to spend the summer of 1830 at Halle. Our dear Robinson has not yet reached Rome, and I do not know whether I am still to expect him. Pray dear friend write to me very soon and send to me whatever you think interesting. In the bonds of Christian fellowship, and with a greeting to your esteemed, though to me unknown, wife. Yours sincerely and faithfully,
A. Tholuck
PROF. HODGE TO PROFESSOR THOLUCK.
Princeton, February 28th, 1829,
My Dear Friend nitd Brother: — I wrote to you some months since, directing, as you requested, to the care of the Prussian Legation, Rome. I write now to Halle, in the expectation that this letter will find you there by the first or middle of April. My affection for you remaining undiminished, I am very desirous to hear from you and learn the state of your health, and the character of your present prospects.. trust that your long absence in so delightful a country, and under such favorable circumstances, has been the means of restoring your spirits and preparing you anew for the arduous duties of your station. Let me know how things look in Halle. What progress the cause of truth is making there and elsewhere in Germany? I feel a deep interest in all that concerns your important section of the Church, and cannot but hope that the time is coming when she will arise in new splendor from the ruins of her lamentable fall.
With us there is little of much interest which you will not learn from the American journals. Although I feel as deeply as ever the great advantages which our ecclesiastical liberty confers upon us, and think that we have great reason to rejoice in the general prevalence of truth and piety in most sections of our country, I am now aware to a greater degree, than formerly, of the evils which attend even the best system. Our worldly men are more worldly even than yours. Religion being no concern of the state, they do not even pay it the formal regard which in your country it receives as a part of one general secular establishment. Everything depends with us on public opinion, and this will, in the main, be right as long as vital piety be prevalent to the extent it is at present. Revivals of religion continue in every section of the country, particularly to the North and East, and greater exertions are now made than ever before for the propagation of the Gospel, both at home and abroad, and for the diffusion of knowledge.
My Berlin friends have never written to me. I wrote a few weeks after reaching home to Ludwig Von Gerlach, but have as yet received no answer. I long to hear from them, but fear to trouble them with my letters. I am very desirous to be kept informed of the progress of theological literature in Germany, and for this purpose have ordered several of your periodicals — the Tubingen Zeit-Schrift, that by Umbreit, Lucke, &c., the Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung, and several others, but they come very slowly. July, 1828, is the last number that I have received of the Berlin journal. Please speak to Mr. Funke (the manager of the Buch-handlung), and beg him to forward the periodicals as rapidly and as regularly as possible. Please oi-der for us, from time to time, any book which you may think important for us to have, to the amount of from 50 to 100 Prussian dollars annually. You know the kind of books I want, valuable works on the language, literature and exegesis of the Old and New Testaments.
As I presume so far on the bond of Christian fellowship which binds us together, as to make such demands on your goodness, cannot you find something for me to do for you? Are none of your friends ever coming to our side of the Atlantic? I should be delighted to have it in my power to manifest my gratitude towards Germany, by showing kindness to any German. I wrote a letter of introduction for Rev. Edmund D. Griffin, of the Episcopal Church, to you about a week since. He is the son of an eminent lawyer in New York, and a young man, I understand, of amiable character. I do not know him personally, and therefore cannot say whether he belongs to the High-church or the Evangelical party of the Episcopal church.
My dear Brother in Jesus Christ do not forget me. Write to me often. Give my best love to Dr. Guericke, and to all my Berlin friends. May the best of Heaven’s blessings always attend you.
Your friend and brother in Christ,
C. Hodge.
PROF. HODGE TO PROFESSOR THOLUCK.
Princeton, June 8th, 1829,
My Dear Friend: — I received some weeks since your second letter from Rome, written on the eve of your departure for Halle. Some time before your letter was received, I had written and directed to you at Halle, under the expectation that you would be there in March or April. I greatly rejoice at the renewed health and” spirits with which you return to your usual duties, and cannot but hope that Providence will render you a great blessing to the section of the church in which he has called you to labor. The accounts which I have incidentally received regarding the progress of the Redeemer’s cause in Germany, are very encouraging, and make me regret that my means of intercourse with you are not more frequent and more direct. You are the only one of my German friends who has written to me.
I have just returned from Philadelphia, where I have been for the last two weeks attending the meeting of our General Assembly. We had a large and interesting meeting, and have much reason to rejoice in the progress of the cause of Christ in our country. We received several very excellent letters from the French Protestant churches, with whom we have opened a correspondence, which bids fair to be mutually useful. I will endeavor to send you a copy of our minutes, and of the reports of our several religious and benevolent societies. They will serve to exhibit to you more of the activity of “the hands and feet” of the church, and arouse you, who constitute the head and heart, to do your work in unison. I had the pleasure of seeing our good friend. Bishop Andres, in Philadelphia. This was his first visit to that city. He had been shut up in Bethlehem, and has, I fear, not received the most favorable impression of his new residence. He complained much of the heat of the climate, and of the difficulty of adapting himself to it. I hope he may make me a visit in Princeton, it would give me the greatest pleasure to be kind to a real German.
Please write to me soon and often. My heart yearns toward you with all its first affection, and I cannot bear to think that my dear friends abroad have so soon forgotten me. T heard lately from dear Monod, who is laboring faithfully and successfully at St. Ouintin, and’a little while after received from the Stadtrath Semler a beautiful little picture of Lisco’s church, and a short note. I wish you would thank him for me, should you have an opportunity, though I hope soon to write to him myself. Give my best love to all my friends — both the von Gerlachs, Le Coq, Focke, von Senfft, Hengstenberg, Guericke, &c. I often think of them with great affection. The intelligence which you gave me of Krummacher’s return, did not surprise, though it greatly rejoiced me. He will, I hope, come out from the fiery trial, by which he has been tried, as gold doubly purified.
May God our Saviour bless and keep you my dear friend and brother, and enable us both to run, with joy, the race which has been set before us. Yours, with much affection and esteem, C. Hodge.
LETTER FROM PRESIDENT LUDWIG VON GERLACH TO
MR. HODGE.
Berlin, July 14th, 1829. To Mr, Hodge: — How ungrateful must I have seemed to you, my friend dearly beloved in the Lord, in that I have left unanswered until to-day your letter of the 28th of last September — a letter so friendly and gracious! I ask you, nevertheless, to believe that I, like yourself, hold fast the common interest which faith in Christ and His love has awakened in us, and that I constantly and thoughtfully recollect the blessings which God has bestowed upon me through the instrumentality of His children in America, and especially through an acquaintance with the American churches, and particularly through yourself, since you have shown me the living image of that which written and printed descriptions but imperfectly represent. I feel so deeply in myself and most German Christians the lack of determination and completeness which are to be found in both theory and practice among the followers of Christ in England and America; and I know so well that whatever profoundness of thought and feeling may exist in Germany is but a poor substitute for these effectual operations of the Holy Spirit. These latter qualities of the German character may very easily entice and lead us not to God, but into the abysms of Pantheism. For this reason communion with the Lord’s people beyond the sea is a necessity. If, notwithstanding, I have left your letter so long unanswered, I must plead in excuse the press of affairs and business which my stay in Berlin brings with it. Not every moment is fitted for converse with so true and dear a friend. We await rather a time whn heart and soul are fresh and free from business cares and outside impressions, and while thus waiting, month after month passes away. I am not even now able to write to you because the proper mood is come, but to-day is an important epoch and turning-point in my life, and I do not wish to carry over into the new period the debt of love which your letter of the 28th of September has laid upon me, although I repay it poorly and unsatisfactorily with these rapid lines, and your undeserved friendship and love will make me ever your debtor,
To-day is my wedding-day. Let me but look into your house in Princeton at the joy of seeing once more your loved wife and children “all loveliness and promise to a father’s eye,” and then you will feel with me what I experience to-day, especially when you recall that it is, as you know, my second marriage. My life has not been, as you once said of your own, “like a silver stream.” It has overflowed with sorrows. The mercy of the Lord meets me once more with consolation and joy, but my heart has not yet recovered from its wounds, and longs to be free from sin and death, to rest in Him who alone hath everlasting joy and life. My bride is the cousin and dear friend of my late wife, and in this way first became dear to me. Gossner is to perform the ceremony. Day after to-morrow we leave for Halle, where I have been appointed Landgerichts-director, President of an inferior court of justice; and there I hope to enjoy Tholuck’s companionship. You will learn from the accompanying letters of Otto von Focke, together with much beside, that during last May we suffered a sore affliction in the loss through death of our dear friend Le Coq, with whom we were so often together. The peace and tranquillity of mind which characterized him lasted through many sorrows to the end, and his death awakened the heart of his brother, whom you also know, and moved him to give himself up wholly unto the Lord.
The little time which remains for me to stay is almost gone. Let me beg you once more to pardon my long silence, and to rest assured of my warmest brotherly affection. As Cato always said, “Praetereacenseo Carthaginem esse delendam,” so I say to you, and would like to say the same to all Christians in America, among others to Dr. Alfred Post, in New York. Be on your guard against materialistic politics and the false liberalism of the infidel French and English of the last century — Voltaire, Gibbon, Rousseau, &c., &c. Compare not only your doctrines, but also your feelings, with those of the blessed Lord, of St. Paul, and of the saints of former times, on the one hand, and with those of the liberals of our own time on the other; but compare thoroughly and candidly, without prejudices, as before the all-seeing eye of the Holy One, and shudder if you disagree with the former and agree with the latter. Alas! that Satan should always prefer to build chapels close beside the churches of God!
Yours forever, Ludwig von Gerlach.
My warmest regards for Mrs. Hodge, my half-countrywoman.
LETTER FROM JUSTICE OTTO FOCKE.
Berlin, July 29, 1829. My Dearest, Dearest Brother: — Oh! that I could express by words, my dearest friend, how I love you, and how my heart longs to see you again in this life! But that is the blessing of the bond of Christian love, that, although far separated by land and sea, the hearts are and remain united in tender and firm love and in prayer. God bless likewise our bond of love; and as I never will forget my dearest and loveliest friend Hodge, you may sometimes remember Berlin, and pray for the friends you have in this city. Your friendly letter to von Gerlach has rejoiced us very much, and I hope that you will continue to communicate to us from time to time news of your welfare.
My friends have probably written to you that one of our dear brethren, the soft and lovely Adolph Le Coq, walks no more amongst us. He was the best of the Christian friends here at Berlin, and therefore God hastened to bring him in peace. Oh, that we may see ourselves with him before the throne of God. What a joy to be united there with all friends in unseparated connection. There shall be no more leaving nor separations by land or by sea. Yes, there shall I see you again, and see your beloved wife and dear children.
We had the last winter, also, some very dear friends from America here amongst us, the dear Post and Woolsey, but they were no Hodge.
That beloved word, ‘America,’ has been a great deal more in my mind and heart since I met such dear friends from there, and know that they are safe at home again. Alas, that the world is so large, and friends so widely scattered. Prof. Tholuck was here during Whitsunday and stayed with me. Remember him often in your prayers, that the Lord may give him faith, the most steadfast and happy, and also aid him with firmness and decision in his course of life. He is now engaged to a young lady in Halle. May the Lord bestow his blessings on this bond. He remembers you constantly with much love.
Our circle of Christian friends, through the removal of the beloved Ludwig von Gerlach to Halle, and of Prof. Hochweg to Bonn, and through the death of the blessed Le Coq, has suffered a very painful loss, and there is great need that the Lord raise up new brothers. Alas! that there are so few Christians, and that even among Christians themselves, there is so little firmness and decision. The Lord has visited Europe with severe trials and heavy calamities, with earthquakes, floods, violent storms, diseases, etc., but the majority of the people heed neither the voice of love nor wrath.
The times appear to me to indicate more and more that the coming of the Lord is near at hand. Therefore we will take courage and await Him with watching and praying. Yes, He will surely come, and we will pray, ‘come soon!’ Now, farewell, God bless you and your dear wife and children, with His everlasting blessing.
Let us receive good tidings from you very soon, and write also some lines to me.
Farewell, and remember your faithful and obedient brother in the Lord. Otto Von Focke.
LETTER TO PROF. HODGE, FROM PROF. A. THOLUCK.
Halle, March 30, 1830.
My Dear Friend Hodge: — I sent you a letter last summer, some time in August. Did it not reach you? It was my heartfelt expression, but I have received no answer to it. I have been quite well during the past winter, and have been able to do a great deal of work, but my wife* is very sickly the greater part of the time. In no way can I keep her with me very long; yet the Lord’s will be mine. Our beloved Guericke, who enjoyed the happiest of marriages, has suddenly lost his wife in child-birth. He is so afflicted thereby that he is thinking of resigning his professorship, and becoming a pastor. We have experienced much in many ways during the last few months. The King has now appointed an able committee to investigate the teaching of Profs. Gesenius and Wegscheider, but no further results will be reached. On the whole I have not been able to agree with Von Gerlach’s action — he is the author of the article in the Kirchenzeitung. The excitement is still going on here. I know not whether the cause is really advanced by it. Yet there was a warmer and a firmer bond of love between some thirty students last winter than ever before.
We had also established a missionary society, the regulations of which I enclose with this letter. I besought you urgently in my last letter to prove your friendship toward me by sending a contribution to the Literary Advertiser. I will now limit still further my wish expressed at that time, and ask you only for the notice and critical opinion of the most current work in America for or against predestination, together with a historical review of its advocates and opponents. I beg you not to refuse me this friendly service. I shall soon expect its execution.
In the Lord our Saviour, yours ever the same. A. Tholuck.
PROF. HODGE TO PROFESSOR THOLUCK.
Princeton, February 9th, 1831. My Dearest Tholuck: — How often and how affectionately my thoughts and heart have been turned towards you since I last wrote, it would be difficult for me to state. It is seldom, I believe, that a
* Married since his return to Halle from Rome, summer of 1829.
day passes without your image presenting itself in some form or another before my mind. I commune with you in your writings, where I trace those same features which were so familiarly exhibited during our personal intercourse. Or I hold intercourse with your spirit through the recollections of the past. Rejoice over the remembrance of your friendship, and in the prospect of meeting you Jenseits in a purer world. I have sympathized with you much in your trials in Halle. The more, because you could not, as you mention in your letter, fully approve of the course of your own friends. It is difficult for a stranger to enter understandingly into all the circumstances which should modify the application of general principles to particular cases, in a distant land. To us the principle on which our dear friend von Gerlach seems to have proceeded, that the members of a church should, while they continue such, conform to its standards, seems self-evident. And in such a country as ours, its application is easy. But how it is possible, rebus sic stantibus, to do the same with you, it is not for me to judge. My feelings, however, side with von Gerlach and Hengstenberg in this business, and force me to dissent from the course the venerated Neander would have the friends of religion in Germany to pursue. I rejoice much in the spirit of your communication to the Evang. Zeitung, respecting the nature of your relation to the Rationalism of Halle. You will excuse my saying, that the drift of some passages of your discourse on the Relation of Revelation to Reason, published in your Anzeiger, made me fear that we differed considerably on this point, and that you were less impressed with the radical difference between the two systems. Rationalism and Faith in God’s word, than we Positive men could have wished. The spirit of your communication to the Kirchen-Zeitung has removed in a great measure this apprehension, and made me feel that we all are of one mind on this subject. I regret that I do not receive the Anzeiger and other periodicals more regularly and frequently. Nothing later than May, 1830, has come to hand.
The wonderful changes that have occurred in the political state of Europe since you wrote, are full of interest for the Christian. I fear troublous times are at hand for your poor Prussians; with Poland convulsed on the east, and intoxicated France on the west, it seems scarcely possible that peace can long be maintained. Will you not be tempted to seek an asylum on our peaceful shores, far from the struggles of the dying systems of feudal Europe? I have profited much from the lessons of Ludwig von Gerlach, and though I rejoice in the progress ot liberty as much as ever, am rather cautious to see that what is just, as well as what is desirable, should be kept in view.
I have not the purpose of writing on politics to you. The state of things in our country, politically, is not without its clouds. I do not apprehend any serious convulsions, but our present rulers take such a view of our relation to the dependent Indian tribes on our borders, that I very much fear our national character will be deeply stained by their disregard of solemn treaties. The religious state of the country is as favorable as in years past. The number of extensive revivals in various quarters is considerable. For particulars I must refer to the New York Observer. The progress of the Temperance Reformation has been astonishing. No one could have imagined that such a result could have been produced by the simple proposition, that men should agree never to use ardent spirits except as a medicine. The consumption of this destructive article has, by the exertions of temperance societies, been diminished perhaps one-half.
I thank you for the books which you ordered in my name at the Waisenhaus. I wish to receive the most important of your theological works, that I may be kept going, so to speak, with the German mind. We have not received the 2d part of the 2d volume of Meander’s Ecclesiastical History. Will you order for me a copy of Freytag’s edition of Golius; of Schlegel’s Philosophische Vorlesungen, delivered in Dresden; of the Greek Testament, Scholz; of Draseke’s sermons, and whatever good and new works you choose within moderate limits.
Give my best love to Guericke. How severe has been his loss, and how shameful the treatment he has received! I did intend writing to our friend Ludwig von Gerlach this afternoon, but am prevented by company. Assure him of my continued and warm affection. Dear Friend, do write to me. I long to hear from you. Do not punish me for my silence. Write at once on the spur of the moment. You have a home in America whenever you choose to come and claim it. I saw Mrs. Robinson last October in Boston. I was much delighted with meeting her again. She appeared well and happy, and takes just and philosophic views of things in this country. The Richtu7ig of the people is so different from her’s, that she can hardly feel herself at home yet, particularly at Andover. I want to send you a set of the Biblical Repertory published here in Princeton.
Love to all dear German friends.
Yours, affectionately, C. HoDGE.
PROF. HODGE TO PROF. THOLUCK.
Princeton, April 6th, 1833. My Dear Friend: — In commending to your kind and affectionate reception Mr. J. A. Alexander, I feel as though I were commending
^T. 35.] GERMAN CORRESPONDENCE. 2 1 Q
my second self to you, if you will understand this expression as intended to convey, in the strongest terms, the interest which I feel in his welfare, and that I will rejoice as much over kindness shown to him, as if I experienced it in person. Mr. Alexander is my associate in the department of Biblical Instruction in our Seminary. He is more of a scholar, especially in your favorite field of Oriental languages, than any American within my knowledge, who has visited Europe. He is an amiable and excellent man, and what is of more importance, and of greater interest to you, he is a Christian. I feel assured, therefore, you will receive him for his own sake as well as mine, with open arms, and facilitate in every way you can his improvement and happiness. I wish it were possible for him to spend the winter with you, as I have no doubt it would be of great service to him, and a great pleasure to you. His plans are not yet definitely fixed, and you may greatly aid him in making the most advantageous disposition of himself during his stay in Germany. Will you be good enough to facilitate his access to your scholars and libraries, and do for him as you did for me, which includes all kindness. That neither time nor distance has either weakened or changed my feelings for you, I hope your own heart will lead you readily to believe. You are as bad a correspondent as I am. I wish you would reform in this respect, and I will promise to follow your example.
Yours, affectionately, C. Hodge.
LUDWIG VON GERLACH TO PROFESSOR HODGE.
Halle, Whitsunday, 1833.
My Beloved Friend and Brother in Christ: — From this subject in regard to which I have ventured to presume a perfect unity of feeling between your Christian fellow-countrymen and myself, I will now pass to another, which by its close relation to the fate of the kingdom of God, affected me not less than the former. In regard to this I cannot presume upon such a unity with you and your fellow-countrymen. I mean the shock of Christendom through Liberalism since July 1830. It is true you remarked in a letter to Tholuck, Feb. 1831, “That you have profited so much by my lessons, that though rejoicing in the progress of liberty as much as ever, you are rather cautious to see that what is Just as well as what is desirable should be kept in view.” But when the “just” and the “desirable” become placed near each other, as two different things with a like meaning, then indeed does this seem far different from the lesson which Christ the Lord taught us, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (which comprehends all that is “just”) and all these things (the desirable) shall be
ADDED unto you.” Few things in my life have so long and so deeply affected me as the existence of Liberalism and its relation to the Church of Christ and to our age. If therefore, as I hope, the brotherly love which you entertained for me in Berlin, and have preserved on the other side of the ocean by letter, still dwells in your heart, then you will see nothing more than a desire for brotherly communication when I ask you to read what I have written since the July revolution in the Evangelical Church Journal upon this subject, and also in regard to Church power, authority, freedom, etc., etc. It has surely reached you, and may I ask you to express yourself to me freely thereon.
Should Christians be at variance on such grand and fundamental questions? Is it not a disgrace to the Church, that it becomes divided into two heads by political ideas, while in the 16th and 17th centuries religious doctrines divided the political world? Is it not a shame that the earnest Christians of North America and Scotland should be under the same yoke with the Roman Catholic O’Connell, and the deistical and atheistical French liberals?
O, that the Lord would gather together the sheep of His fold! That we who bear the name of Christ were at all points of like mind and heart! What victories we could win under the banner of our Heavenly King!
With the most sincere brotherly love, yours most truly. Finished Jan. 23, 1833. Ludwig Von Gerlach.
A LETTER FROM OTTO VON GERLACH.*
Berlin, Feb. 28, 1834. My Dear Friejid: — Three years have already flown by since I received your friendly letter, and during all this time I have left it unanswered. Meanwhile, I have heard with many heartfelt sympathies of your great bodily affliction which you have, however, if not altogether, yet in good part overlooked for the sake of your calling. May the Lord soon restore you to health, and prepare you anew both in body and mind for the responsible position you hold. It has given me much joy to receive through Mr. Alexanderf news from Princeton and America. I am of the opinion that the school of Prof. Stuart, to judge from his new “Comentary on the Epistle to the Romans,” will become the source of many heretical opinions, the beginning of which lies in his teaching concerning original sin, and of the Son of God, the eternal Sonship of Christ. I think it an excellent thing that opposition
*” The Wesley of Berlin.’’
■)” Professor Joseph Addison Alexander.
VET. 36.] GERMAN CORRESPONDENCE. 221
to this departure from the true doctrine is already taken at Princeton. Moreover, I deem it a happy result that more life and animation infuse themselves into the English and American literature through the influence of German theology. In England, where one finds so many treasures of books, and where Christian life especially prevails, things in the realm of theological learning are at a greater standstill than ever before. With us, thanks be to God, prospects have greatly brightened since you were here. In Pomerania, where at that time the first great revival had occurred, the number of orthodox ministers has more than ordinarily increased. In one region there were seven of them in immediate neighborhood, and among them there is much genuine sympathy and much fellowship in the service of the Lord. The Bishop Ritschl has constantly been becoming more determined in his avowal of the Gospel. He is a blessing to the whole province, favoring everywhere the installation of Evangelical ministers and the removal of the incapable and vicious. The number of believing ministers here in Berlin has increased. You are aware that the Methodist Minister Gossner, whom we have so often heard together, has become a disciple of Janicke. His Church is crowded at all times, and his labors among the lower orders are especially rich in blessings. I am constantly forming the acquaintance of persons who have been brought into the Church through him. The Rev. Mr. Kuntze, who was in London assistant to Dr. Steinkopf when you were here, is also preaching now; and for the past year. Rev. Mr. Arndt, a pupil of Strauss, has been laboring with churches constantly filled, and his labor results in many blessings. Further, no one of our believing pastors has been called away by death, and everywhere the number of their hearers has increased rather than diminished. Our missionary society is in a very prosperous condition, that is, when considered from a German and not from an American or English point of view. Its revenue in comparison with the past has increased threefold in the last six years, and it now has thirty missionary posts. These have of course in many places to contest vigorously with the authorities, but these engagements have almost always resulted successfully, and they have brought about and increased brotherly relations. Last fall, the first five missionaries were sent from here to South Africa. Since they were detained by storms a long while on the Isle of Wight, the latest information we have of them is of their being on the Atlantic Ocean. The number of ministerial associations (Predigervereine) has greatly increased in Germany. In Silesia, in Prussia-Poland and in Prussia proper they are in part quite numerously attended. The persecutions on the other hand on the part of the Consistories have only begun here and there.
Thus only recently a society in Konigsberg, which was under the direction of Dr. Ashansens, was suppressed by order of the King, because (a striking circumstance which calls to mind the eveKnipev Tjiiag 6 laravag*) two of the ministers had become crazy for the adjournment of the convention. How effective Tholuck’s sermons are at present in Halle you will hear through Mr. Alexander. An old school-friend of mine, together with his wife, has lately been brought to Christ through one of them. The Christian work is progressing in Prussia as in several other of the German lands. Many active ministers of the gospel have made themselves conspicuous in the kingdom of Hanover, which a few years ago was apparently dead. In Gottingen my dear friend Julius Müller has become the university chaplain; he is a profound and righteous man, who has written an article against Hegel’s philosophy in the Studien und Kritike7t. He also delivers lectures on exegesis and practical theology. Liicke, as you know, is there also. He is, however, at present, so feeble and undetermined, that I would not be surprised to hear that he accomplishes little. In several of the cities of Hanover, where lately the Christian cause was entirely dead, there are now active ministers of the cross of Christ. Especially is the condition of the free-city Bremen encouraging. Five ministers are laboring there with great earnestness and effect. They are aiding each other in their work, and a struggle between light and darkness, which is highly interesting, has begun there. In Hamburg the rising generation give promise of quite a number of ministers; while the old people are for the most part worldly and inclined to universalism. The most discouraging outlook, however, is in middle Germany. In Leipsic and Jena scepticism is prevalent, and particularly in the province of Saxony matters have of late become rather worse than better. You will not be surprised when I state that the liberal constitution which that unfortunate land has received, increases still more this sad condition. In Hesse affairs are becoming now somewhat more encouraging.
At Cassel there are several evangelists, and also a clergyman. In Marburg Kling, the editor of Flatfs Lectures, has recently become professor of theology. The worthy Harless has now become professor extraordinary at Erlangen, and from him we look for a thorough commentary on the epistle to the Ephesians, in a short time. Only in Tiibingen does the future seem dark. The old school of Storr, Flatt, etc., is now completely supplanted by the followers of Schleiermacher, as Baur, Hegel, Strauss and others. Steudel has very few
* I Thess. 2: 18.
^T. 36.] GERMAN CORRESPOADENCE. 223
hearers. This is not to be wondered at, for that old school had become too indogmatical and too partial to exegesis, and their successors were becoming even shallower.
At present the Prussian lands are enjoying in general the richest blessings, and the others are beginning to rise from their wretchedness. But in the otherwise so greatly blessed Wurtemburg, the cause of Christ seems to be greatly in danger on account of the many sects prevailing there. In our university here in Berlin things appear in many respects far otherwise than they did six years ago. Since the evangelical Kirchcnzciiung oi 1830, Neander has labored in much closer connection with Schleiermacher, and withdraws still further from Hengstenberg. One notices this especially in the students, among whom since that time it appears to me that the Christian life has been sadly lacking in decision. On the other hand, since that time, Hengstenberg has had many hearers, and it is especially pleasing that so many thoroughly energetic disciples of Christ have attached themselves to him and to me.
You have probably learned ere this that Dr. Schleiermacher died on the 1 2th of February of this year. Up to the eighth day before his death he had been in excellent health, and had read with me for three hours daily. Everything is now in great commotion over the important question as to who is to become his successor. The great majority as far as shown by open manifestation are for Twesten — particularly so is Neander and his followers, together with all the partizans of Schleiermacher. On the other hand the theological faculty (to which Neander at present does not belong) has come forward with a request to the Minister to call Olshausen; a step which has caused great surprise. Should the latter be called I would be more than ordinarily rejoiced, for notwithstanding a peculiar weakness of his, I regard Olshausen as one of the best thinkers and most determined men among our University theologians. His commentary has already had a second publication in two volumes. It is widely circulated and accomplishes much good. Twesten, on the other hand, agrees almost altogether with Schleiermacher, and is said to be a worldly-minded, fickle man, who visits the theatre, indulges in high living and neglects in this manner the proprieties of his vocation.
After this much of public news, let me say a few words about our friends here and in other places. Frau von Schonberg, at whose house you often met with us, has dwelt for the last three years in Stettin, where her husband is the Ober-president of Pomcrania. Her quiet, devout disposition and her energetic love have accomplished even more there than they did here, where she labored in a more retired position. She is helping greatly the advancement of the cause of Christ. Count Groben is still in his former position. It was only last week that he lost his only and very amiable daughter, yet he will be greatly strengthened in the Lord by this calamity. Our old friend Senfft has been married for four years, and already has three children. He has an excellent, truly Christian wife, and gives evidence of being happily married. He heartily returns your greeting, and thinks of you often with tender love. Focke has been in very poor health for three years, so that we have often indeed believed that God wished to call him out of this, to him, oppressive life. However, he is now recovering again by degrees, and we hope yet longer to keep him with us. The old venerable Baron Kottwitz is still living, now in his 77th year. The king has often of late shown him confidence in a noteworthy way, and he has thereby brought it about that four new churches have lately been built in our densely populated suburbs. I am to become pastor of one of them in a few months, but will also continue to lecture in the university.
The great gap that was made by the death of our beloved friend Le Coq, is still at all times painfully present to me. You will be able to imagine in some degree how sad his loss was to us. What a lovely image of our Lord shone in his heart! How one could turn to him at all times, and ever find the same honest, loving, friendly heart, the same desire for the advancement of the kingdom of God. Hengstenberg has been married also for some time, and although “considerably under thirty,” yet is even now the Dean of the theological faculty. The third volume of his “Christologie” will appear soon. After which he is purposing to write either a great work on the authenticity of the Pentateuch, or a popular commentary on the Psalms. I advise him, by all means, to undertake the former of these in the first instance, since I deem a critical examination of the Pentateuch as the most important work for a Professor of the Old Testament. My own studies draw me more and more from the peculiar German kind of scholarship. I am inclined too much to action, too greatly adapted to church work. Hence I cannot bury myself so to speak, among my books, as is necessary for a German scholar. Yet I have chosen for myself a subject which sooner or later will prove of greater importance, if God gives me time and strength, viz., a history of Christian Church government in connection with a dogmatic exposition of the doctrine of the Church.
I have been engaged for three years on a practical edition of the Bible, which is to contain the Lutheran text, with short explanatory remarks. The printing of the New Testament will begin this sum-
;et. 36.] RELATIONS WITH HIS BROTHER. 225
mer. For the future I am purposing to found near my parish a small Minister’s Seminary, similar to that of Wittemberg, but “non salariepari’ etat” — but upon the American principle of disconnection between church and state. You have perhaps seen my plans in regard to these things (much talked about between us in 1827 and ’28) in Tholuck’s “Literary Advertiser,” of 1832, where the article upon “The re-arrangement of the Church Government in the Evangelical Church” was written by me. You have no doubt also seen the long article by me, which appeared in the Septentber number of the “Evangelical Church Journal,” for last year, entitled, “Concerning the cultivation of the relations between Church and State in the Lutheran and Reformed Churches.” In regard to this, your acquaintance has been a great advantage to me; for without it I could scarcely have become acquainted with North America in general, or interested myself in any degree in it. I have requested Mr. Alexander to send me the most important historical works on North American Church history. You promised me this six years ago, but I have received nothing. May I ask you to assist him with your advice, since you understand me and my needs.
Now I must conclude, my dear friend, ever present to me in my thoughts. Keep for me across the ocean your sincere love until we see each other in the future, where we may embrace without sin in the society of the blessed. O! may no one of all those who are mentioned in this letter be left behind. “May each one who has such hope within him, purify himself even as he is pure,” and unceasingly seek for the jewel of a heavenly calling. With the request for a few lines, as opportunity may offer,
I remain in sincere love, your friend and brother,
Otto Von Gerlach.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS BROTHER.
CHILDREN, FAMILY RELATIONS AND RECREATIONS.
During all these years he exchanged weekly letters with his brother. He had never known a sister nor any other brother. They were only eighteen months apart in age, and in childhood and youth had been all in all to each other. They were one in principles, opinions and interests, temporal and spiritual. Their differences of character and position were precisely such as to cause them to be mutually attracted to and dependent upon each other. In this
226 RELATIONS WITH HIS BROTHER. [1830-’40.
correspondence Dr. Charles Hodge’s whole life, inward and outward, personal and family, lies embalmed. Through this channel, for fifty-three years, from his settlement in Princeton in 1820, to his brother’s death in 1873, he poured out without reserve all the contents of his mind and heart. The whole is a singular monument of that brother’s nobility. The Philadelphia brother was the elder, with much more of the instinct and habit of the anxious care taker than was proportioned to the difference of age. He was of the more cautious disposition, and of the more deliberate and cooler judgment. He was a skillful and experienced physician. He lived in a great city, lately the seat of government of the United States, and, at the time of which we write, the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Presbyterian Church in America. After his practice was established, and he had entered upon his professorship in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, he became the richer of the two. Thus it came to pass, that in all things he was his brother’s counsellor, supporter and comforter. Before the days of railroads, telegrams and express agencies, he was the unwearied agent for the execution of a ceaseless stream of commissions. No matter who else was the family physician, every detail of morbid symptom of every member of the Princeton family was narrated to him, and his advice sought, and often his personal presence asked for and obtained. When the children multiplied, and expenses with them, when the theological professor’s salary failed to be paid for months, and the Editor of the Repertory was pressed for money to pay its bills, for which the returns from subscription were at first entirely inadequate, the Philadelphia brother, with inexhaustible generosity, came to the rescue by loans and absolute gifts.
It was during these years, from February, 1830, to December, 1840, that Professor Hodge’s six youngest children were born. The letters, like an echoing gallery, repeat the voices of those days, and bring back into the present, not
^T. 36.] FAMIL V LIFE. 227
only the words but the very flush, and tone, and gesture by which his love for and delight in these little ones is expressed. They are full of their doings and sayings and of the father’s joy and pride and hope on their account. They were at every age and at all times allowed free access to him. If they were sick, he nursed them. If they were well, ho played with them. If he were busy, they played about him. His study had two doors, one opening outward towards the Seminary for the convenience of the students, and a second one opening inward into the main hall of the home. Hence his study was always the family thoroughfare, through which the children, boys and girls, young and old, and after them the grandchildren, went in and out for work and play. When he was too lame to open the door, and afterwards when he was too busy to be interrupted by that action, he took the latch from the doors, and caused them to swing in obedience to gentle springs, so that the least child might toddle in at will unhindered. He prayed for us all at family prayers, and singly, and taught us to pray at his knees with such soul-felt tenderness, that however bad we were our hearts all melted to his touch. During later years he always caused his family to repeat after him at morning worship the Apostles’ Creed, and a formula, of his own composition, professing personal consecration to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. But that which makes those days sacred in the retrospect of his children is the person and character of the father himself as discovered in the privacy of his home, all radiant as that was with love, with unwavering faith, and with unclouded hope.
His musical tastes and talents were not remarkable, yet he loved good music, and especially singing, which appealed to the religious affections. His older children remember him before his lameness walking up and down his study singing devotional hymns. Finding that his second son, while an infant on the knee, discovered special
2 28 RECREATIONS. [iSjo-Vsusceptibility to music, he revived his own flute-playing, which he had practiced when a theological student. Afterwards he got a violin for his boy, and the grave professor and commentator himself used it until he had acquired quite a respectable skill.
Partly because of his lameness, and partly because of his taste, he always kept a single horse or pair from 1832 until his death. Partly to provide for their support, and partly for his own recreation, he purchased November, 1830, six acres of ground, immediately adjoining the Seminary property to the westward. To these he subsequently added by purchase, two acres in the spring of 1832. He cultivated these lots for more than a quarter of a century, with great interest and success. He manured and limed and drained them in the most advanced methods. He raised the best crops, of the finest quality and largest quantity in proportion to his ground, known in the neighborhood. Successes of this kind pleased him very much, and the only boasting his most intimate friends ever in all his life knew him to express by word or look, came from him colored with a boy’s enthusiasm in view of such achievements as these effected through the instrumentality of his hired man. Especially was this the case when on some occasion he exhibited to a farmer or other competent judge some high-bred calf or colt he had raised. He intelligently appreciated and heartily delighted in all the points which exhibited and proved their perfection of type and style, and their physical excellence in general. To the end of his life he delighted in fine horses, and would listen with animated interest to the conversation of gentlemen who also happened to be connoisseurs in horse lore, and were describing the perfections of some celebrated horse, or narrating his achievements on the road or course.
^T. 34] HIS MOTHER’S DEATH. 229
DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.
In April, 1832, his beloved mother died after a brief illness, so unexpectedly that her youngest son, although he used all diligence, was unable to reach her bed-side until after her departure. As soon as he returned to Princeton after her funeral, he wrote to his brother:
“I was much mistaken in thinking I should have little comparatively to call dear mother to mind. Almost everything, I find, is in some way associated with her. So many articles of clothing of the children, so many of their books and playthings, and so many of my own clothes bear marks of her care, that she is constantly recalled to our recollection. The loveliness of the children now gives a mournful pleasure, as I know that the eyes which would have looked on it with so much delight, are now closed. But constant recollection of the mercy of God to her and to us, the thought of how much everything has been ordered as she would have wished, soothes and satisfies me. I feel very much for you, my dear brother. Great as I feel my own loss to be, I know yours is greater. You have a daily and sensible void in your circle of duties and enjoyments. But as you have more to mourn for, you have more to console you. You were the chief earthly stay and comfort of our dear parent, and most of the happiness of this world which she enjoyed came through you. You too had the inexpressible satisfaction of being with her to the last; of seeing and receiving the evidences of her confidence in her Redeemer, and the assurances of her love. So dear brother you have every consolation of which such an affliction can admit.
Your loving brother, C. H.”
In July and August of that year, the Asiatic Cholera prevailed in this part of America for the first time. Its character and the condition of its progress appeared mysterious; its virulence baffled the skill of the physicians, and its ravages were dreadful. Four citizens of Princeton fell victims to it that season, and quite a number of the laborers on the canal and stragglers from the road came into the village hospital to die. Mr. Hodge was very active in ascertaining from the most competent sources the proper treatment of the disease, and in visiting the patients in person, and in making arrangements for their comfort. Every case and its treatment was made a subject of consultation with his brother. The son as well as the brother of a physician, and having in early manhood attended lectures on anatomy and physiology, he always took the greatest interest in reading upon and discussing medical questions, and in cases of necessity, was himself capable of acting the part of a respectable practitioner.
He was always an attentive and interested witness of political events, and entertained and expressed the most decided opinions. He was trained by his family in the opinions of the old Federalist party of Washington, Hamilton and Madison, and he held them tenaciously as principles to the end of his life. He had a poor opinion of President Jackson, and of the Locofoco party, and was a warm advocate of the protective tariff, and of the United States Bank. He always adhered to the old Whig party until its death; then in 1857 voted for Fremont, the first Republican candidate for the Presidency, and continued to be a decided Republican as long as he lived.
He writes to his brother, October ist, 1831:
My Dear Brother: — The commencement passed off much in the usual manner. As I seldom attend on such occasions I cannot speak of it from personal knowledge. Mr. Dallas’ oration on the preceding afternoon was better than that of Forsyth the year before, but still very deficient in solid worth. The only production of this kind which seems to have given much satisfaction generally was that of Mr. Wirt. He, it seems, is the anti-masonic candidate for president. I wish he could succeed. But this splitting up the anti- Jackson men into Calhoun, Clay and Wirt factions will only secure their own defeat, and burden the country with the present miserable incumbent for another term. The apathy of the people in respect to his misconduct is of serious omen for the future. The missionaries in Georgia are probably, through his desertion, by this time condemned to the penitentiary for four years! Verily, I think I could in such a case join a rebellion, with a clear conscience, as I am sure I could with a full heart. But not a voice is raised on the subject. The dreadful excitement on the negro question will absorb all interest in the South for a time. I heard to-day that fresh murders had been committed, and that one planter had called up four of his slaves, and caused them to be shot without the pretence of a trial, and that it was feared a dreadful massacre of the blacks might yet occur. The papers state that tortures are resorted to to extort confessions; that the suspected are flogged to make them confess and disclose. This is a most deplorable state of things, and will serve to exasperate the feelings of the South against the North, although it be more than ever unreasonable. Your brother, C. H.
TO HIS BROTHER.
March 10, 1832. The decision of the Supreme Court has filled all hearts here with gratitude and joy. The memory of these judges will be cherished as long as good men live in America. It is the most important decision, taking all things into view, which that court ever made. Jackson men here, at least the best of them, say they will stand by the Court in preference to their master, and I hope there will be enough equally well principled to cause it to be the course of policy to execute the laws. Your brother, C. H.
TO THE SAME.
December 15, 1832. My Dear Brother: — I rejoice with you over the President’s proclamation — it is excellent, worthy of Washington in doctrine and spirit. I presume it was written by Taney, the Attorney General, who is a Federalist. Livingston took different ground, I remember in his speech on nullification in the Senate from that assumed in the Proclamation. He differed from Webster, especially where Webster and Jackson coincide. That is as to the origin of the Government. Webster and the Proclamation saying that it was formed by the people of all the states as a whole. Livingston maintaining that it was a compact between the several states as such. I conclude, therefore, that he is not the author of this paper. Besides its whole spirit is too elevated. It is a striking proof of Jackson’s imbecility that he can put his name with so much composure to documents which differ so entirely in doctrine as the Veto Message and the Proclamation. I should feel still more rejoiced at the character of the latter if I thought the old gentleman really understood it, or knew what he said. I should not be surprised to find that when called to act on the principies just avowed, he should allow Amos Kendall to prepare a proclamation worthy of the most atrocious Jacobin, and sign it without remorse, or even the consciousness of his folly. Still what we have is a great good, for which we should be thankful. And if the President be true to his text, I would be for voting him a statue and for evoking the spirit of Phidias to make it.
Your brother, C. H.
TO HIS BROTHER.
January 23, 1833.
My Dear Brother: — We should all be very thankful that God has led Jackson to do his duty in the present crisis so promptly and ably. I like the Proclamation, however, better than the Message, though the latter will do. The true policy now for the NuUifiers is to secede from the Union (z. e., according to their own principles). Their laws and ordinance rendered the collection of the revenue under the existing laws of the Government out of the question. Jackson proposes to alter those so as to secure the revenue, and render nugatory all that Carolina has done. If they go no further they are ridiculous. Besides standing on the ground of nullification they stand alone. The whole South as well as West and North pronounce that a heresy — but the advocates of the right of secession are ten to one to those who advocate nullification. As soon as they assume the position of seceders, they have the opinion and sympathy of a large portion of the South in their favor. If Virginia holds the right of secession how can she either aid or allow the exercise of that right being denied to a sister state? Beside the casus contemplated in the ordinance has so nearly arrived should the President’s suggestions be acted upon, that it would be folly in them to think of hesitating for a moment.
This seems to me so clearly the policy of these disorganizers that I much fear they will pursue it, and then, unless God in mercy prevents, we shall have hard times.
Your brother, C. H.
TO THE SAME.
January 28th, 1834. My Dear Brother: — Nothing, I think, has yet appeared comparable to Binney’s speech, except Webster’s short expose of his views. Gold coin drops from his lips whenever he opens his mouth. He is still among the statesmen facile primus.
Your brother, C. H.
TO THE SAME.
August 1st, 1837. My Dear Brother: — Is it true that Maryland is going with the Administration?!! It is beyond all comprehension, and affords another proof of the ascendency of the rabble. If we could have a Republic with the right of suffrage restricted to householders, who can read and write, and have been at least ten years in the country, we could get along grandly. But a democracy with universal suffrage will soon be worse than an aristocracy with Queen Victoria at the head. I feel such an interest in that youthful sovereign, that I could acknowledge her authority with far more complacency than that of Martin Van Buren.
Your affectionate brother, C. H,
TO THE SAME.
January 9th, 1834. My Dear Brother: — I have been reading Major Downing’s Life and Letters. It is a most excellent and useful book! not merely for excellent humor and point, but for a complete exhibition of the whole nature, machinery and chicanery of American politics. It is grand. There are a multitude of letters which I never saw in the papers, and some of the best of the Portland, or real Major’s production. Of the New York Major there are only two or three given by way of appendix. Your brother, C. H.
TO HIS BROTHER.
August 17th, 1837.: My Dear Brother: — It seems that, notwithstanding all the country has suffered, the elections are going in favor of Van Buren, almost as much as ever. I do not believe we can stand it much longer. We must get rid of universal suffrage or we shall go to ruin.
Your brother, C. H.
TO THE SAME.
June 7th, 1839. My Dear Brother .• — The little Queen has my hearty approbation! Which she will no doubt appreciate duly. Sir Robert Peel has made a great mistake as far as I can see. He moved too soon. He ought not to have displaced the ministry until his road was clear, but having done it, to be frightened back by these ladies of the bed-chamber, appears ridiculous.
Your affectionate brother, C. H.
234 LAMENESS. [1833.
Although heartily and conscientiously an American patriot, maintaining that the United States is a Nation, and loving it and admiring its institutions as more excellent than those of any other, he was ever proud of his part in the inheritance of Anglo-Saxon traditions and glories. Great Britain was loved and honored as the Mother-country, and her history and prestige were sacred to him. Above all was he a life-long admirer of the Duke of Wellington, and the history of all of his campaigns and battles was known to him in all its various versions and critical details.
LAMENESS.
The portion of his life allotted to this chapter was for the greater part a long scene of severe physical suffering and confinement. His affliction was an obscure affection of the thigh of the right leg; as to the nature and proper treatment of which different opinions were given by different physicians; and the views of the same physicians wavered with the changing aspects of the case. The final judgment was that it’ was an inflammation of the thigh-joint, which was arrested by entire rest and depleting treatment in .its earlier stages, after which the cold douche and gradual exercise restored the tone and usefulness of the limb.
He had suffered much pain, and undergone treatment for the same trouble in the earliest years of his professorship. During his residence of two years in Europe, he was almost entirely relieved from any inconvenience from this source, so that he was able to climb over the ascents and the glaciers of the Alps for days. A result which Mr, Hodge attributed to the salubrity of the climate. After he came home, for the first four years, he suffered only as he was limited in his powers of locomotion, by the weakness and tenderness of that leg. But in the spring of 1833, he was commissioned to canvass the Presbyterian Churches of the city of New York, for the purpose of collecting money for
^T. 35-41.] LAMENESS. 235
the erection of the new chapel for Princeton Seminary. He made several visits to the city, and spent many days in going over its vast distances on foot. The result was a violent and permanent aggravation of his disease. The pain became severe, the distress occasioned by walking unbearable, and the limb shrank in size. He returned home, and was put almost at once upon his back, and subjected to a most violent system of counter-irritants. While in Philadelphia consulting several eminent physicians, Dr. Archibald Alexander wrote to him from Princeton, August 18th, 1838:
Princeton, August 18th, 1838. My Dear Sir: — I hope you will not suffer your mind to be disturbed about Seminary affairs. It is in every way for the interest of the institution that you should take the most effectual measures for the restoration of your health. Make this for the present your only object. Composure of mind is one of the best medicines in all diseases. “Be careful for nothing.” Roll all your burdens on the Lord. He knows best how to dispose of you, and what afflictions are necessary. We shall, I trust, get along very comfortably here. The students, when I was attacked, wished to have a suspension of all exercises for a week or two, but it was judged inexpedient. Several, however, have gone home, and will not return this session. Yours, affectionately, A. Alexander.
When Mr. Hodge came back he was put flat upon his back upon a hard paliasse, resting upon a narrow couch, moving on rollers. The policy of absolute rest was tried in the first instance, his body was perfectly and rigidly horizontal, and his right leg fixed immovably in a wooden splint. For months he was kept in that position, night and day, without change, until at last it was only gradually, and interrupted by many turns of faintness and dizziness, that he could be accustomed again to assume a sitting or standing position. In January, 1834, the methods of cure began to be so far ameliorated that his limb was released from the wooden splint, which was replaced by a splint made of
236 HIS STUDY CHAIR. [1839.
straps of steel, more elastic and capable of being easily carried while he was in a vertical position, and of being put on or off as occasion required. While reclining horizontally, by far the greater part of the time upon his couch, he now began to move somewhat about upon crutches. In June, 1834, he tried sea-bathing at Old Point Comfort, the site of Fortress Monroe, Virginia. During August of the same year he tried the same agency with little effect at Cape May, New Jersey. On his return he was again almost entirely confined to the house, and by far the greater part of the time to*a horizontal position. He slept by himself in the back parlor, where after so many years he died. His couch occupied during the day, from September, 1833, precisely the same position in his study as that subsequently occupied by his chair until the time of his death, a period of forty-five years. The chair in which all his students and surviving friends remember to have seen him either sitting or reclining was given to him by his brother, November, 1839, and was thenceforward used by him exclusively as long as he lived. Indeed he did not leave it until about the end of his last sickness. He said pathetically a few days before he died, “this chair and I for forty years have been growing to each other very closely.” This fact is a striking and characteristic illustration of his constitutional trait of conservatism — forty-five years reclining and sitting, reading, writing, praying and talking in one spot of one room. During all these years also he omitted on no single morning, when at home, to record the direction of the wind, and the state of the thermometer, and of the sky. He likewise, until almost his last years, resisted all the efforts made by a younger generation to induce him to have his clothes made elsewhere than at the same old shop which he had patronized from the first, through all its succession of occupants. There was no element of his nature inclined to new measures, any more than to new doctrines. During this time, from the early autumn of 1833 to
/ET. 35-41.] HIS LAMENESS. 237
1836, he was most heroically treated with violent counter-irritants. His hip, and thigh, and knee were over and over again blistered, cupped, rubbed with tartar emetic and iodine; treated with issues, and setons, and the moxa, i.e., burnt with actual fire from the hip to the knee. All this he bore, not only with bravery and resignation, but with habitual cheerfulness, and continued without serious interruption, constantly engaged in his studies and writing. In the fall of 1834, his distinguished friend. Professor Joseph Henry, brought his battery to Mr. Hodge’s study and applied galvanism to his limb, without any known effect. In the spring of 1838, he believed that he had made no progress toward recovery, and becoming impatient of the old methods, he urgently pressed upon his physicians the propriety of his trying either the hot springs of Baden in Germany, or those of Virginia. After much discussion and many plans, he settled down to trying the effect first of warm baths, and then in October, 1838, of the cold douche upon his lame hip and thigh, in his own home. WitJi the use of the latter, the tone and strength of the limb gradually returned, and he slowly increased his exercise, and laid aside first one crutch and then the other, and finally settled down upon the support of a cane which he used until the end of his life.
All this time of languishing pain and confinement, his general health was preserved almost in perfection. He not only was well, but he appeared to others unusually fresh and youthful. This is to be attributed to the strength of his constitution — the placidity and sunny cheerfulness of his disposition, his Christian faith, and his remarkable temperance in food, and regularity of habit. Few men have ever been known who possessed a more complete control over their appetites, and although his emotions were always strong, and on occasion uncontrollable, he was characterized to a remarkable degree by the faculty and habit of throwing off from his mind all painful or disagreeable subjects. On
238 ^!S LAMENESS. [1833-40.
December 3d, 1834, he writes to his brother, “I have not walked across the room without a crutch for a year and a half.” He has marked as a note attached to his dailyrecord of the weather, under date of July 16th, 1842, “Preached in Elizabethtown for the first time since 1833;” that is this was the first instance of his preaching in that time. Again, under the date of September 18th, 1842, “Preached in the Chapel for the first time.” And on the 19th of June, 1843, “Walked to town (the village) for the first time in ten years,”
During the worst of this time, the latter part of 1833 and the first of 1834, he employed at his own expense, with the assistance of a friend or two, of whom the sainted Dr. Miller was the principal, the Rev. Austin O. Hubbard, of the last graduating class, as an assistant. Mr. Hubbard relieved him of the Hebrew, while Mr. Hodge continued to lecture on Introduction and Exegesis. Mr. Joseph Addison Alexander was appointed assistant in his department, and entered upon its duties immediately upon his return from Europe in May, 1834 — declined his election of Adjunct Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature in 1835, and accepted it, and was formally installed in 1838.
From the summer of 1833 to the 22d of February, 1836, with a trifling exception, in June, 1834, Dr. Hodge met his classes in his own house, sometimes in the study and sometimes in the back parlor. The rooms being crowded up to the edge of his couch with settees during class time, while during the intervals the settees were pushed together to the walls.
Meantime, it was evident that he was conducting his studies and using his pen under the most serious physical embarrassments. From 1833 to 1840 inclusive, he wrote twenty-eight articles for the Repertory, besides reading and editing all the rest. While at the worst, lying perfectly horizontal, and at times, at least, with his right leg in a splint, he wrote his reviews of Stuart on the Romans, and
.ET. 38.] GATHERINGS IN THE STUDY. 239
of Barnes on the Romans, his two articles on the Act and Testimony, which shook the Church, and shaped its history, and his own commentary on the Romans. He learned then to write upon a board covered with leather held upon his breast by his left arm. This plan he practiced exclusively until 1853, when he was with some difficulty induced by his wife to substitute for the board the table, which in the wood-cut of the study is represented as standing at the side of the chair. His later articles, commentaries and his “Systematic Theology,” were written sitting at that table. While confined to his couch his books were placed in part in a revolving case, and stood in every available place on stands and chairs by his side, while, of course, at that time he fell back constantly upon the assistance of members of his family, to get his books and place them in convenient positions, and to read to him while he copied or translated passages for quotation.
THE GATHERINGS IN THE STUDY. The fact of his long confinement, and the further fact that he was in age and general qualities the central man, the common bond of intercourse and action among the Princeton Professors of that day, caused his study to be for many years the meeting place and intellectual exchange of both Institutions. Here during all these years the faculty of the Seminary held all its meetings. Here the Association of gentlemen which conducted the Repertory met for the reading and criticism of articles, and for the discussion and decision of the policy of the Review. Here all debates and consultations of general interest were held, and here literary strangers, visitors to either Institution, were brought to meet the gentlemen of the town. Here almost every night for long years came Professors Dod and Maclean, and frequently Professors James W. Alexander, Joseph Henry, and the older Professors, A. Alexander, and Samuel Miller, President Carnahan, and frequently when visiting the town, Professors Vethake and Torrey, and Dr. John W. Yeomans. Thus at )east in the eyes of the young sons, gleaming out from the corneis, from the shadows of which they looked on with breathless interest, this study became the scene of the most wonderful debates, and discourse on the highest themes of philosophy, science, literature, theology, morals and politics. When Professor Dod was here alone, the time was also improved by playing chess, at which he was a distinguished master. Mr. Hodge at that time attained to such skill in this intellectual game, that he held his own respectably, not only with his habitual antagonist, Professor Dod, but also upon occasion even with Professor Henry Vethake of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the most distinguished chess players of the United States.
PROF. HODGE TO HIS BROTHER.
August 2d, 1836. My Dear Brother: — I am glad you were in season to welcome your fourth son into the world. There is no reason for turning up your nasal member at boys. They are not to be despised. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them, he shall talk with his enemy in the gate. If he turns out to be a good man, that is better, because a harder and a rarer thing than a good woman. Train him up in the right way, and leave the result to God.
Your affectionate brother, C. H.
TO THE SAME.
January nth, 1838.
My Dear Brother: — I have had Dr. Sweet to see me! What a fall was there, my countrymen! I, the son, the brother, the husband (?), the father, it may be, of a doctor, harboring a quack, illiterate and presumptuous. I suppose you will cut my acquaintance instanter. You must at least admire my courage in telling you. Send me a dose of prussic acid.
Yesterday afternoon when I came from recitation I found a plain, respectable old gentleman, about sixty, sitting in my study waiting my return. He handed me a letter from a clerical friend, begging
^T. 40.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS BROTHER. 24.I
to introduce Dr. Sweet, who, he assured me, had been effecting a multitude of marvelous cures in his neighborhood, and entreating me not to allow the fear of quackery to induce me to decline his services. Here then was the man himself, of whom I had heard so much, who had been recommended to me by lawyers, bishops, merchants, ministers, sent without any agency or preconcert of my own. Was this not Providential? Would it not be a foolhardy rejection of a chance of relief to turn my back upon his offers of assistance? I confess I thought so, and felt quite moved. On conversing with him I found he was ignorant to a wonder. He informed me that the sciatic nerve was the round ligament; that the doctors were in a manner unaccountable to him, unable to discover a dislocation, when he could see it in a moment. His whole language was that of an illiterate man. On the other hand there was much to inspire confidence. In the first place he was plain and serious, just such a man, they say, as General Harrison, whom you tried to make President of the United States. In the second place, his grandfather and his father had been bone-setters before him; he himself has done nothing else for more more than forty years. If there is anything in a hereditary gift, or if practice makes perfect, he surely might challenge confidence in his own calling. In the third place, admitting one-half of his vaunted cures to be imaginary, there remains a multitude of cases which cannot be questioned. I know of several on the best
human testimony. Young is one; Mr. of Rahway, is
another, who had been for years under Stevens & Mott, and could hardly walk on crutches, who was dancing in a ball-room within a month after Sweet took hold of him. He is sent for all over the United States. He went not long ago to Kentucky, to see a Mr., who had not walked in ten years, In a week he was walking about, and in three weeks he was riding on horse-back, and carrying on like a young man. For this cure he received five hundred dollars, and is to receive a like sum if the cure proves permanent. This last story is his own. He certainly has a wonderful memory, for he went into details, the most minute, about cases which I had heard of from other sources. Well, do you blame me now? Only the other day he cured (he says) at Mount Holly a young man whom Randolph had kept twenty-three months in a splint. He was walking about the streets when he (Sweet) left him. This is one of the cases my clerical friend referred to.
When he examined my limb, he pronounced immediately that the
hip was out of joint and the knee also!! This was really too much.
However he convinced me that my diseased limb is nearly an inch
longer than the other. At least I did my best to make the measurement accurate. He was not unduly urgent for me to submit to his operation. He said it would not last more than ten minutes, nor give more pain than drawing a tooth; that it would require very little force, nor more than half his strength; that I could immediately walk about the house without crutches, and in a week or two walk as well as ever; that he never persisted in an operation when a patient complained or fainted! but used all possible gentleness.
Even Sarah began now to give way, and urged that I should let him begin, and make him stop when the pain became severe. But I refused, and manfully held fast to my integrity. So after he had sat here four hours and a half, I paid him for the expense of coming at the request of my friend, and dismissed him, saying, that as soon as I was convinced that my hip was out of joint I would send for him. Now if you do not glorify me at a great rate for this, I will send for him right off. For I am by no means sure that I have not acted like a big fool. He may be entirely mistaken in his absurd talk about dislocations, and yet, like those famous shampooers of the East, have a knack of cracking a man’s spine, neck and hmbs, greatly to his edification. I maintain I have performed a great action. Whether a wise or foolish one you must judge.
Your brother, C. H.
PROF. HODGE TO HIS BROTHER.
January 16th, 1838. I feel unsettled and dissatisfied about myself, and you must not be surprised if (should we all live till spring) I should enter on some desperate enterprise. I have of late suffered more pain than usual, particularly at night. What gradual change there is in my limb is for the worse, I am sure, though I cannot trace its progress. I am also impressed with the belief that this limb is longer than the other. I have repeatedly had it measured since I first mentioned the- fact, and always with the same result. The idea that is now haunting me is the possibility of getting to some hot mineral baths. I should greatly prefer those in Virginia, could I get to them. But how to travel so far is the question, and the accommodations for bathing, I am told, are very poor. I have thought that by getting a dearborn wagon on easy springs, and large enough to hold my mattress, I might lie down and ride even over the rough roads, for the one hundred and fifty miles from Richmond. Were I rich I would venture on going to Baden, though I have no desire to cross the ocean again. By going first to London, then to Rotterdam, and then up the Rhine, I could reach those springs with little or no land carriage.
Your brother, C. H.
His brother, while with characteristic generosity offering him pecuniary assistance to execute his desire of visiting the hot springs of Baden, expressed his want of confidence in the proposed remedy, and in the virtue of natural mineral waters in general. Hence the following philippic against doctors in reply.
PROFESSOR HODGE TO HIS BROTHER.
January 29, 1838. My Dear Brother: — I am going to write a philippic against doctors, founded on your last letter. If the public have no confidence in the profession you have to thank yourselves for it. You not only call yourselves pretenders, vain boasters, etc., etc., but make assertions which shock the common sense of mankind. For example, you say that hot water is hot water whether it be in Germany, Virginia or Princeton. This of course means that the hot natural mineral baths have no greater remedial powers than artificial hot baths. Now this, I maintain, is contrary to reason, to testimony and to experience, i. e. it is opposed to all the kinds and degrees of evidence that can by possibility apply to the case. It is contrary to reason that different things should have precisely the same effects, and hot water is a different thing from hot sulphureous water impregnated with iron, magnesia, and other matters. Secondly, a hot bath is a very different thing from those natural bathing places where the patient imbibes, exhales, inhales, absorbs and drinks down, for what I know, the fumes of these medicated waters hour after hour. Your assertion is contrary to the testimony of all classes of men. Dr. Johnson says, that though he cannot explain it, it is still the fact that one grain of iron in the natural mineral waters produces a greater tonic effect than one hundred grains administered as an artificial preparation. Besides this kind of testimony there is that of those who, having tried the artificial baths to no effect, have been essentially benefited by the use of the natural ones. And finally as to experience, those baths have been frequented, in some cases for six hundred years, by hundreds and thousands of people. Are all mankind crazy? Might all these people as well have stayed at home, and sat down m a tub of hot water? Is a medical fact (the most slippery thing in nature, I admit) utterly incapable of being established even by the experience of thousands of years and of thousands of individuals?
I know your answer to all this — “Charles wants to go, and he will prove it reasonable.” But I have no fancy for the journey nor for the isolation from friends and home comforts. I should rejoice to be able to believe that all the advantages of these springs could be obtained at home. As to the French douches, you forget I tried them all one summer to no purpose. The idea of comparing such matters with one of nature’s steaming caldrons, in which the patient lies for hours at a time beneath a vaulted roof, inhaling sulphureous fumes, while his body soaks in hot medicated waters, is like comparing a trickle of tepid water to a thundering cataract. So much for the philippic, in which there is so much good nature, I fear it will be but a brutum fuhfien. You must consider it as written in great wrath. Your affectionate brother, C. H.
He, however, submitted to try first the hot and then the cold douche at home, and afterwards rapidly and permanently improved.
PROFESSOR HODGE TO HIS BROTHER.
June 5th, 1838. My Dear Brother: — We have had a visit of two or three days from the Rev. Samuel Hodge, of Tennessee, an humble, pious and sensible old gentleman. His grandfather came from the North of Ireland, and settled in North Carolina. He says the name is quite common in Carolina and Georgia, and he is inclined to think from the similar physique, that all who bear it are of one origin.” They are characteristically large men, with light complexions, friendly, yet ready to fight.’’’
Your affectionate brother, C, H.
When writing his “Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,” he consulted his brother as to the best sources of information upon the subject of nervous epidemics, &c. This he sought by way of preparation for discussing the history of the physical phenomena accompanying the revival of religion in Kentucky in the early years of this century.
PROF. HODGE TO HIS BROTHER.
August 15, 1839. My Dear Brother: — You seem to think I meant to penetrate very far into the. labyrinth, of medicormetaphysical speculations about
/ET. 41.] CORRESPO.yDENCE WITH HIS BROTHER. 245
nervous diseases. You need not be apprehensive on that score. A single page will probably embrace all that I have to say, but to write that page, I should like to read a volume or two. A page will contain a good many assertions, and I should like very much to be able to make them on good authority. The phenomena of fainting, convulsions, jerking, etc., which have in all ages attended strong and general religious excitements, I am persuaded are nothing but one form of an infectious nervous disease, generated by strong impressions on the imagination and lively emotions. If so they have nothing to do, properly speaking, with religion, and instead of being encouraged or tolerated, as they almost always have been by good men to the great injury of religion, they ought by all means to be guarded against and suppressed as much as epilepsy or hysterics. Your brother, C. H.
PROF. HODGE TO THE SAME.
October 10, 1839.
My Dear Brother: — I was greatly concerned to hear of the suspension of your banks. It must be a death-blow to the Whig party, as it will turn popular clamor against all banks and their advocates. There was great joy in Washington when the news reached there, beyond all doubt. The sub-treasury is now inevitable, and we shall have all the loco-focos dipping their straws into the molasses hogsheads of the people’s money, and smacking their lips at a great rate. This is not the worst of it. I cannot see how the banks can retain their charters. If these are withdrawn, what a revolution of property must take place. How many hundreds, who depend on bank dividends, will have no income, until they can get their money back and reinvested, should the banks prove ultimately able to pay their stockholders. However, the Lord reigns.
With regard to your physico-theological investigation, I fear I can give you little assistance. You are beyond my depth. I do not know of any speculation on the subject, and I suspect we all know just nothing. We can only reason from analogy. A plant is a plant the moment the seed begins to sprout. It has all that is essential to its nature, not only as a plant, but as a plant of a certain genus or species. It has its own specific vis formativa, if that is anything more than an infidel expression for the divine energy. Still it has its own character from the beginning. So with regard to every animal. I should suppose it must be granted that it has it« specific character from the commencement of its organization. If this is so, why must it not be allowed that the human being is a human being from the beginning? There is no greater difference between the new born infant and the embryo, than between the infant and a full-grown man. I should say, therefore, that the moment life begins, it is the life of a human creature, having all the essential attributes of such a being. And life begins when development or growth begins. The human soul, as I understand the matter, has no separate existence (in this world) from the body, nor the body from the soul.
If I can hear of anything on this subject, I will let you know. Do write to me and let me hear how the world wags.
Your affectionate brother, C. H.
PROF. HODGE TO THE SAME.
October 15, 1839.
My Dear Brother: — I am happy to hear of your professional success, and hope ydu may meet with many such instances to make up for your sleepless nights and laborious days.
I feel very much concerned about the poor Bank of the United States, not only, and, as I fear, not chiefly because of the distress which her misfortune must occasion, but I am mortified as a Whig, as a Philadelphian, as an American. It is a shame, no doubt, to blame Mr. Biddle and the Bank for measures, which, before the issue was known, were almost universally regarded as wise and salutary. Still his reputation must suffer, as there can be no doubt that the present result has proceeded mainly from his measures. The general causes, of which you Philadelphians speak, will account for the general pressure on the money market, but not for the peculiar pressure upon the United States Bank. You may remember that Mr. Biddle, in his last letter to* Mr. Adams, said, that instead of restricting its operations during the suspension of ’37, the Bank greatly enlarged them; that it advanced freely to planters and banks on the pledge of cotton, and he boasted, and with great reason, that he had thus saved the country millions, and had enabled it to pay honorably its debt to England; and now, he added, the bank should resume its appropriate sphere as a Bank. Unfortunately, however, the Bank was not able to get out of its mercantile business. It was still obliged to deal largely in cotton. Whether this arose from the premature resumption of specie payments, or from hope of gain, it is acknowledged that the Bank did deal immensely in cotton. It subjected itself, therefore, not only to banking, but also to mercantile risks, and now that cotton has come down, the Bank suffers. I have seen these things said over and over, and long ago in the English papers, and Mr. Biddle censured for making the Bank a great trading concern.
.ET. 27.] THE “PRINCETON review:’ 247
Add to all this, the large investments which the Bank has made in other banks, in railroads, &c., &€., thus locking up its capital, and I think there is no great mystery in the result. I sincerely hope she may weather the storm, though it be at a great loss.
Some of the newspapers are perfectly atrocious in their abuse. The Journal of Commerce calls it a broken concern mercantilely and morally, exhorts all the Philadelphia banks to throw out its paper as bankrupt rubbish, or they will all sink with it, &c., &c., and points with exultation to its stock at 70.
This is rather a strange letter for me to write. It is written before
breakfast, while waiting for the lazy part of the family, and therefore
may be a little crusty.
Your affectionate brother, C. H.
THE “BIBLICAL REPERTORY AND PRINCETON REVIEW,” ITS HISTORY AND ESTIMATE OF ITS CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE. DR. HODGE’S QUALIFI-CATIONS AND SUCCESS AS AN EDITOR AND REVIEWER, HIS ASSOCIA/IE EDITORS, AND PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTORS.
As has been above noticed, Mr. Hodge began in January, 1825, the publication of a quarterly journal, under the title of the “Biblical Repertory. A Collection of Tracts in Biblical Literature.” The design of this publication was “to assist ministers and laymen in the criticism and interpretation of the Bible.” It had been occupied for the first four years almost exclusively with reprints and translations of the essays of European scholars. Prof Robert B. Patton had acted as editor during Mr. Hodge’s absence in Europe. The translations had been prepared for the most part by President James Marsh, then of Hampden Sidney, Virginia, Drs. James W. and Joseph Addison Alexander, and by Professor Patton and Mr. Hgdge. In January, 1829, the entire plan and management of the journal was changed, and the “New Series” of Volumes date from that year. It was thenceforward entitled “The Biblical Repertory and Theological Review.” Its object is declared in a long Advertisement to be 1st, to furnish Christian readers with “facilities for a right understanding of the divine oracles;” 2d,
2 48 THE” PRINCE TON RE VIE WP [ 1 825,
“to bring under strict, impartial review the philosophy and literature of the time, and show their influence, whether for good or evil, on biblical interpretation, systematic theology, and practical religion, in doing which it will be necessary to correct and expose the error of founding religious doctrines on isolated passages, and partial views of Bible truth, or forcing the Scriptures to a meaning which shall accord with philosophical theories;” 3d, “To notice and exhibit the dangers of the particular form of error prevailing in the period;” 4th, “To present the history of religious doctrine and opinion, to notice the revival of old and exploded doctrines, and their effects on vital religion;” 5th, “To consider the influence of different principles of ecclesiastical polity on piety, morals, literature and civil institutions;” 6th, “.To observe and sustain the various enterprises of Christian benevolence, especially the vast and growing interest of Sabbath-schools;” 7th, “Such attention as the limits of the work will admit, will be bestowed on the important interests of general knowledge, and select literary information will be given in every number;” 8th, “The work is not designed to be controversial in its character, but to state temperately and mildly, yet firmly and fearlessly, Bible truth in its whole extent.” This commendatory advertisement is signed by the following leading ministers of the day: Ashbel Green, Samuel Miller, Archibald Alexander, John H. Rice, Ezra Fisk, Ezra Styles Ely, Francis Herron, Thomas Cleland, Samuel H. Cox, Thomas H. Skinner, James Hoge, Henry B. Weed, William Nevins, Joseph Sanford, Thomas J. Biggs, Samuel L. Graham, Luther Halsey. Thus some of the strongest and most prominent partizans of each of the two Schools, into which the Presbyterian Church divided in 183 1, were in 1829 united in laying the foundations of the Biblical Repertory, destined to take so decided a part in the coming conflict.
The new Review henceforth instead of bearing the name
^T. 27-74.] THE” PRINCE TON RE VIE IVr 2 49
of a single man, was edited by an “Association of Gentlemen in Princeton.” These were Rev. Drs. Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller, the Rev. Mr. Hodge of the Seminary, and President Carnahan, and Professors Maclean and Dod, of the College. The Rev. James W. Alexander, then of Trenton, New Jersey, and Mr. Joseph Addison Alexander, then of the College, and afterwards of the Seminary, were from the beginning copious and most important contributors to the Review, and they soon began to take a leading position in its editorial management. In 1837 the title was changed to “Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review.” In January, 1840, the “Literary and Theological Review” of New York, hitherto edited by the Rev. Mr, Pigeon, in the interests of the old orthodoxy, was merged into the “Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review.” Although conducted by an association of gentlemen from 1829 to 1855, Mr. Hodge was the actual working editor during the greater part of the time, to whom fell the correspondence, the procuring of contributions, and in the first instance, their examination. In 1856 he again put his name on the title page as sole editor, which position of unrelieved labor and unshared responsibility he maintained until the end of the year 1868- Then he was fortunate enough to secure the consent of Rev. Lyman H. Atwater, D.D., of Princeton College, to act as his colleague in the Editorship. Dr. Atwater had abundantly proved his pre-eminent fitness for this great office, by the ability and steadfast orthodoxy of his contributions to the Review for many past years. And henceforth, although Dr. Hodge’s name continued to appear on the title page as senior Editor, and he continued to share in its direction and to contribute to its pages, Dr. Atwater discharged the major part of the work. After the reunion of the two branches of the Presbyterian Church, the “Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review’’ was in 1872 combined with the ‘’American Presbyterian Rcviezv “of New York, with the title of” Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Reinciv’,’ under the
250 “PRINCETON REVIEW.’” [1829-56.
editorial management of Rev. Dr. L. H. Atwater, and Rev. Dr. H. B. Smith. And in the latter end of 1877 it was sold to the present editor of the new” Princeton Review’ a transfer for which Dr. Hodge was in no degree responsible. He was the founder of the Review, and he continued in connection with it as sole or joint editor, from January, 1825, to December, 1871, a period of forty-six years.
Of the management of the Review by an “Association of Gentlemen,” which continued from 1829 to 1856, Dr. Hodge writes in his “Retrospect of the History of the Princeton Reviezo’ published in the Index Volume in 1868: “The Association above-mentioned was not defined within very strict limits, nor was it controlled by any special terms of agreement. It consisted of the more frequent contributors to the pages of the journal, who were willing to assume the responsibility before the public of its character and contents. It included the Professors of the Theological Seminary, and some of the officers of the College. Although the laboring oar was still in one pair of hands, it was of importance that the work had the sanction of a number of gentlemen who had the confidence of the public; and it was a real advantage that all contributions touching delicate or difficult questions were read and canvassed by the Association before being committed to the press.”
The most eminent and frequent contributors were Di*. Samuel Miller, Drs. Archibald, James W. and Joseph Addison Alexander, Profs. Dod, Maclean, Stephen Alexander, J. H. Mcllvaine, Wm, H. Green, James Moffatt, Lyman H. Atwater and John Forsyth; the Hon. Chief Justice Lowrie, the Hon. Stephen Colwell, of Pennsylvania, and Samuel Tyler, of Washington. Dr. Samuel Miller contributed between 1830 and 1842 twenty-five articles; Dr. Archibald Alexander in all seventy-seven articles; Dr. Joseph Addison Alexander, ninety-three; Dr. James W. Alexander, one hundred; Dr. Lyman H. Atwater contributed from 1840 to 1868 sixty-six articles; and Dr. Hodge in all con-MT. 27-74.] DJ?. HODGE AS A REVIEWER. 25 1
tributed one hundred and forty-two articles, averaging with his proportion of the hterary notices, at least five thousand octavo pages, or ten ordinary octavo volumes. These articles of Dr. Hodge were in the form both of essays and of reviews, didactic and controversial, and they ranged over a wide circle of subjects, including besides theology and biblical criticism, discussions in metaphysics and psychology, in personal, ecclesiastical and political ethics, and in all the range of ecclesiastical polity, constitutional and administrative, theoretical and practical, springing from the passing events of the time.
The grand characteristics of these reviews arc knowledge, clearness and faith. These, in the degree and combination in which they existed in Doctor Hodge, gave them the qualities of breadth, independence, moderation, conservatism, clearness of thought and style and eminent conviction. His religion was a personal experience. The most close and critical observer never in any moment of his living or dying hours saw in him the least symptom of doubt. That Christ is what he is set forth in the Scriptures to be, and that the Bible is the infallible word of God, were facts inseparable from his personal consciousness. The logical force and habit of his mind made him see and grasp all things in their relations. All that he saw to be logically involved in a vital truth by which he lived, was to him part of that truth. Thus he experienced the whole Calvinistic system, and would defend it at all cost as the truth of God, from loyalty to Christ, and love for human souls. The whole was a matter of conscience and of life and death. Hence, also, he was apt sometimes, as his critics have successfully pointed out, to go beyond the warrant of historical fact, in asserting that the Church had everywhere and always held as he held as to secondary matters. Hence, also, he saw all truths in their relations. Defect at the circumference threatened heresy at the centre, and defective theistic conceptions of men of science in the various spheres of nature
252 DR. HODGE AS A REVIEWER. [1829-68.
threatened atheism, and were to be met and vanquished at the time and place of their birth, before they had gathered strength, or extended their pernicious influence. Hence, also, from his logic, came the symmetrical form into which his essays were arranged, like an army skillfully set for battle; and from his faith came that momentum and penetrating force of absolute conviction which rendered the serried ranks of the attacking army irresistible. Hence he was transparently disinterested and essentially impersonal. He fought only in obedience to the Master, for the honor of Christ and the salvation of souls. It was God’s cause, and all personal share in it was swallowed up in that awful fact, always and perfectly realized. He cherished inimical feelings to no man, or class of men, except in as far as he thought he saw they were opposing God’s truth, and were thus knowingly or ignorantly dishonoring Christ and imperiling souls. Only once in all his life did he strike out with an angry, personal intent, and that was in the article entitled “The Princeton Review and Cousin’s Philosophy,” April, 1856. The occasion was that Caleb S. Henry, D.D., after waiting seventeen years, had attacked Dr. Hodge’s friend, Albert B. Dod, eleven years in his grave, for an article on Transcendentalism published in 1839. strike in wrath the man who tore open the grave of his friend. But with regard to all other opponents, he had no other thought or feeling than that involved in the reverent defence of the ark of God. If others praised him, he rejoiced in their love, and thanked God, to whom only praise belongs, and from whom alone all graces come. If others angrily scourged him in their attacks or replies, then, after the first sentence in which he detected the flavor of the hostile animus, he closed the page, and refusing even to hear what had been said, he banished the whole thing from his mind. He certainly missed much improving discipline, which his antagonists have laboriously prepared for his good. There probably was never another warrior of equal extent of experience who sat so habitually in placid unconsciousness of the missiles of the enemy, whether from the ambush or the open battle, whether the pistol or rifle of the newspaper, or the siege-guns of the great reviews.
The same qualities caused him to be both conservative and moderate. He was conservative because the truth he held was not the discovery of the progressive reason of man, but the very word of God once delivered to the saints, and therefore authoritative and irreformable; and because reverence for that word repressed in him all ambition for distinction as the discoverer of new opinions, or as the improver of the faith of the Church. The consistency with which, under all changes of times and party-combinations, he for fifty years maintained without shadow of change absolutely the same principles was very remarkable, and without any parallel in this age. He held precisely the same doctrines in his age as in the early controversies of his youth, and the same principles as to the relation of government to moral and religious questions, and as to temperance and slavery after the war as he did years before. He was always moderate also, because his loyalty to the Master made party spirit impossible, and because the amount of his knowledge and force of his logic caused him to see things in all their relations in all directions, by the aid of the side-lights as well as by the aid of those shining in the line of his direct vision. Of the fact of his moderation, his whole controversial history is an illustration. Dr. Ward, the editor of the Independent, notices this trait in an editorial on occasion of Dr. Hodge’s semi-centennial celebration, April, 1872. The form and spirit of his “Systematic Theology” abundantly and conspicuously show it when compared with the representatives of the extreme parties of the Reformed Churches, as Beza and Gomarus, on the one hand, and Amaraldus and Placaeus, on the other. The same is shown by his position as to the questions of slavery, temperance and Romish baptism. At first
254 Q UALIFICA TIONS AS A RE VIE WER. [ 1 829-68.
he opposed the ultra Old School men in 1836 who were bent on the division of the Church, because the New School brethren were too bad to live with. Again, he opposed the same men and their successors in 1866 and ‘8, who would precipitate the re-union of the two branches, because the same New School brethren were too good to live without. “As early as 1855, some of our southern friends who had taken extreme ground as to the policy of boards, raised a further question as to the prerogatives of the Church respecting matters that had secular relations and bearing. Dr. Hodge, in the Review, earnestly opposed the extreme action carried by a small majority at Indianapolis. A harmonious understanding, however, seemed to have been reached, after the warm, though courteous, debate at Rochester in 1860. But when the Church in 186 1 (the Spring Resolution) apparently leaned over to the opposite extreme, he still adhered to the principles of the Rochester action. No articles from his pen have attracted more general attention or called forth more praise and censure than those on the state of the country and affiliated subjects. During the excitement of the times, the radical friends of the North and the ultra friends of the South criticised him with unmeasured severity; but the Church and the country appears to be gradually returning to his moderate position.” Thus the rock in the sea by maintaining through all tempests an unchanged position, at once opposes and measures the oscillations of the changing tides and of the restless waves.
He possessed in perfection that kind of bravery which, while perfectly consistent with humility, love of approbation, and love of ease, yet makes it easy for a soldier to do his duty regardless of opposing odds and of consequences. It is an historical fact that he quietly took the personal responsibility of the Princeton side of all the controversies for the forty years of the most momentous controversies ever known to the American Church. He just as often stood up in defence of his opinions in the face of opposing majorities as with their support. He alternately opposed both sides, and often stood almost alone, as before the General Assembly in Philadelphia in 1861. The press of the city, the mob in the street, the majority in the Assembly, the constituencies at home, were all violently excited at the futile opposition made to their wishes. Many men were swept off their feet by excited feeling, and many more were intimidated. One confessed to Dr. Hodge: “I am opposed to these resolutions, but if I vote against them, I can never go home.” But then, as under all other circumstances, for fifty years Dr. Hodge stood fast where the Master put him. Not one of his debates or controversies was ever prompted by ambition, or by any inspiration of the mere gmidia certaniinis, but in every instance he spoke by way of obedience as the servant and soldier of Jesus Christ. “Here I stand, and cannot do otherwise. God be my help. Amen.”
Of the general character and conduct of the Review, Dr. Hodge himself wrote in his Retrospect of the History of the Princeton Review, in the Index Volume, 1868:” The conductors of the Princeton Review, however, were Presbyterians. They firmly believed that the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the system of the Reformed Church and of Augustinians in all ages, is the truth of God revealed for His glory and the salvation of men. They believed that the upholding that system in its integrity, bearing witness to it as the truth of God, and its extension through the world, was the great duty of all those who had experienced its power. They believed also that the organization of the Presbyterian Church, its form of government and discipline, was more conformed than any other to the Scriptural model, and the best adapted for preserving the purity and developing the life of the Church. It was, therefore, the vindication of that system of truth and of the principles of that ecclesiastical polity, the conductors of this Journal, from first to last, had constantly in view.
In this world life is a constant struggle against the causes of death. Liberty is maintained only by unsleeping vigilance against the aggressions of power; virtue is of necessity in constant antagonism to vice, and truth to error. That a Journal consecrated to the support of truth should be controversial is a matter of course; it is a law of its existence, the condition of its usefulness. The Bible is the most controversial of books. It is a protest against sin and error from beginning to end. To object to controversy, therefore, is to object to what is in this world the necessary condition of life. It is, consequently, no just ground of reproach to this Journal that it has been engaged in controversy during the whole course of its existence. If it has always contended for the true and the right, and done this with due humility and charity, it has fulfilled its destiny. That it has often failed — at least in spirit and manner — may, and we fear must, be conceded. All such failures are to the surviving conductors matters of regret; but they can honestly say they have ever labored to support the truth of God and to promote the interests of His kingdom to the best of their understanding and ability.”” It is with unfeigned and humble gratitude to God that the conductors of the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review can look over the comparatively long period of its existence with the conviction that from first to last it has been devoted to the vindication of that system of doctrine contained in our standards, and which, as all Presbyterians believe, is taught in the word of God. No article opposed to that system has ever appeared in its pages. It has been the honest endeavor of the conductors to exhibit and defend the doctrines of our standards under the abiding conviction that they are the doctrines of the word of God. They have advanced no new theories, and have never aimed at originality. Whether it be a ground of reproach or of approbation, it is believed to be true that an original idea in theology is not to be found in the pages of the Biblical Repertory and Princeton
Review from the beginning until now. The phrase ‘Princeton Theology,’ therefore, is without distinctive meaning.”
The following interesting testimonies as to the character. and conduct of this Review is furnished by independent and competent witnesses. The British Quarterly Review, in an article on the American Press, January, 1 871, says: “The Princeton Review is the oldest Quarterly in the United States. It was established in 1825 by Charles Hodge, the well-known commentator on the Epistle to the Romans, a Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary. It is beyond all question the greatest purely theological Review that has ever been published in the English tongue, and has waged war in defence of the Westminster standards for a period of forty years, with a polemic vigor and unity of design without any parallel in the history of religious journalism. If we were called to name any living writer who, to Calvin’s exegetical tact, unites a large measure of Calvin’s grasp of mind and transcendent clearness in the department of systematic theology, we should point to this Princeton Professor. He possesses, to use the words of an English critic, the power of seizing and retaining with a rare vigor and tenacity the great doctrinal turning-points in a controversy, while he is able to expose with triumphant dexterity the various subterfuges under which it has been brought to elude them. His articles furnish a remarkably full and exact repository of historic and polemic theology. The great characteristic of his mind is the polemic element; accordingly we find him in collision with Moses Stuart, of Andover, in 1833, and with Albert Barnes in 1835, on the doctrine of imputation; with Prof. Park, in 185 1, on ‘The Theology of the Intellect and the Theology of the Feelings;’ with Dr. Nevin, of the Mercersburg Review, in 1848, on the subject of the ‘Mystical Presence;’ with Prof. Schaff, in 1854, on the doctrine of historical development; and with Horace Bushnell in 1866 on vicarious sacrifice. In fact, a historical duel has been going on between Andover and Princeton for over forty years, the leading controversialists of Andover being Stuart, Park, Edward Beecher, Baird and Fisher, and those of Princeton Hodge, the Alexanders and Atwater. The articles in the ‘Princeton Review’ on science, philosophy, literature and history have generally displayed large culture and research. The review of Cousin’s Philosophy, in 1839, by Professor Dod, was one of the most remarkable papers that appeared on the subject in America, and was afterward reprinted separately on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Prof James Macgregor, D.D., of the New College, Edinburgh, in an article in the “British and Foreign Evangelical Review” for July, 1874, on “Dr. Charles Hodge and the Princeton School,” says:” In thus speaking of Dr. Alexander we are not led away from Dr. Hodge. The two men are only two parts of one whole. We might set the matter thus: — Alexander was the Socrates of the Princeton School, and Hodge has proved to be its Plato and Aristotle. The two between them have been the leading power in eliciting a school of Christian thought, which more and more manifestly, is destined to be the dominant thought of Christian America.
“The Princeton school has been markedly Biblical in its thinking. Dr. Archibald Alexander was all his life-long an enthusiast in biblical studies, especially in relation to hermeneutics and criticism. His son, Joseph Addison, author of the learned commentaries on Isaiah and the Psalms, who was reckoned a prodigy of linguistic erudition, devoted his whole life to the study and exposition of Scripture. The ‘Princeton Rcviczv ’ was at first, for some years a ‘Biblical Repertory’, directly devoted to the expiscation of questions reo-ardinff Holy Writ. Dr. Hodge, the now acknowledged Coryphcjeus of the school, had been twenty years Professor of Biblical Theology before he became Professor of Systematic Theology. The influence of this biblical culture appears not only in his production of commentaries on the vET. 27-74.] HIS QUALIFICATIONS AS A REVIEWER. 259
Romans and Corinthians, but appears most clearly and fully of all in his great work now completed of Systematic Theology.
“The manner of the Princeton School has been peculiar. Controversy is perhaps not a good test of Christian character. The proverbial odium tlieologicunt may be really creditable to the theologians as a class, because evincing the glowing earnestness of their convictions. Still we cannot close our eyes to the fact that controversy brings about surprising revelations of natural character. Some men, heretofore supposed to be simply saints, will betray a frailness in the fibre of their manhood. Other men will evince a firm fibre of manhood, either by sweet and uncomplaining acceptance of defeat, or by magnanimous forbearance and kindness towards those over whom they have got the upper hand. This greatness of nature has been exhibited in remarkable measure from first to last by the Princeton school in general, and by Dr. Hodge in particular. They have in their controversies been earnest, eloquent, warm, even passionate; but so far as we know, they have invariably spoken as true Christian gentlemen, who in relation to adversaries make due allowance for the fact that — speaking more Americano — ‘there’s a good deal of human nature in man.’ They have shown themselves to be manly men of the heroic type.”
Dr. Charles P. Krauth, the great theologian of the Lutheran Church, testified at Dr. Hodge’s semi-centennial celebration in 1872, “that he (Dr. Hodge) had always treated the doctrines of Churches and parties differing from his own with candor, love of truth, and perfect fairness.”
Dr. Irenaeus Prime, of the Nezv York Observer, said at Dr. Hodge’s semi-centennial, April, 1872, “I think, and I have had connection with the Press for thirty years — I think Dr. Hodge the ablest reviewer in the world. Any one who has carefully studied the ‘Princeton Reviezu ’ for the last thirty years will bear witness when I testify to the trenchant power with which he has defended the truth, and put forth the pecuHar views which have made that Review a power in the Church and in the world.”
And in an editorial in the “iV. Y. Observer,” the week after Dr. Hodge’s death, June 27th, 1878, Dr. Prime says: “The ‘Princctoji Review’ in his hands was an army with banners. It did not array itself on the side of the Church, or of any party in the Church. It was the organ of his opinions. And they were set forth with no dogmatic stubbornness, but with such Christian meekness and deference to the Divine word, that they carried weight with them as if his was the flagship of the fleet, iron-clad, that sailed in with victory on its prow. We recall a case in which the General Assembly, after one of the ablest debates ever held on its floor, came to a decision on an important ecclesiastical question (Romish Baptism) with almost entire unanimity. Dr. Hodge reviewed the decision in the ‘Princeton Review’ with such masterly power, as to set back the opinions of the Church, and hold it on the other side to this day. And to us this power of his appears the more wonderful, as we believed then, and do now, that he was wrong, and the Assembly was right.”
The editor of the life of Dr. Lyman Beecher says, with reference to the article of Rev. Prof! Albert B. Dod, July, 1837, on “Beecher’s Views in Theology,” that “the Princeton Review was the most powerful organ in the land.” Autobiography, etc., of Lyman Beecher by his Son, Vol. II., p. 402.
Mr. Hodge, whom henceforth we will style by his title of doctor of divinity, which was conferred upon him in 1834 .by Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., contributed to the Review, during the eleven years now under review from January, 1829, to April, 1840, thirty-six articles as follows:
1829. Introductory Lecture. — Public Education. — Reply to Dr. Moses Stuart’s Examination of the Review of the American Education Society.
^T. 31-42.] ARTICLES IN THE “PRINCETON RE VIEW.” 261
1830. Reply to Dr. Moses Stuart’s Postscript to his Letter to the Editors of the Biblical Repertory. — Regeneration and the Manner of its Occurrence. — Review of an Article in the CJiristian Spectator on Imputation.
1 83 1. Sunday Mails. — Sprague’s Lectures to Young People. — Doctrine of Imputation. — Remarks on Dr. Cox’s Communication.
1832. Hengstenberg on Daniel. — The New Divinity
Tried.
1833. Suggestions to Theological Students. — Stuart on the Romans.
1834. Lachmann’s New Testament. — The Act and Testimony.
1835. The Act and Testimony. — Barnes on the Epistle to the Romans. — The General Assembly. — Narrative of Reed and Matheson.
1836. Riickert’s Commentary on Romans — Slavery. — The General Assembly.
1837. Voluntary Societies and Ecclesiastical Organizations. — Bloomfield’s Greek Testament. — The General Assembly.
1838. Oxford Tracts. — The State of the Church. — The General Assembly. — West India Emancipation.
1839. Clapp’s Defence of the Doctrine of the New England Churches. — The General Assembly. — Dr. Dana’s Letters. — Testimonies on the Doctrine of Imputation.
1840. January. Latest Forms of Infidelity.
The most important of these articles may be classified as follows for the purpose of a brief notice:
I. Those relating to the controversy with Professor Moses Stuart as to the American Education Society. Dr. Hodge, in his “Retrospect of the History of the Pnnceton Review, 1871,” says on this subject: “The first controversy on which the Repertory took an active part was the Education Question. In 1829 the General Assembly had reorganized the Board of Education, and called upon the churches to sustain it in providing for the expenses of candidates for the ministry in their preparatory studies. At the same time the American Education Society, a voluntary society having its origin in New England, and its chief seat of operations in Boston, Mass., offered to grant its aid to all suitable candidates for the sacred office in any part of the United States. Branch societies were organized in different parts of the country, and a large number of Presbyterian churches contributed to its funds in preference to the treasury of our own Board. In the July number of the volume for 1829, the late Dr. Carnahan, President of the College of New Jersey, published an article on “The General Assembly’s Board of Education and the American Education Society,” in which the objections to the plan of the American Society were briefly and clearly stated. This called forth a long communication from Professor Stuart of Andover, in reply. Professor Stuart’s article was printed at length in our October number, with a rejoinder from the conductor (Dr. H.) of this Review. A separate edition of Professor Stuart’s article, with a postscript of sixteen pages, being published, that postscript was reviewed in our number for January, 1830. This ended the discussion as far as this journal was concerned.
“In this controversy, the general question of ecclesiastical boards and voluntary societies was not brought under discussion. The simple point was the wisdom, propriety and safety of the plan adopted by the American Society. That society not only required its beneficiaries to make a quarterly report, detailing how the amount they had received had been expended, and what each had received from other sources, but regarded its contributions as loans. All the candidates under their care were required to give their notes for the sums received, payable in one, two and three years after the close of their preparatory studies, with interest after the same had become due. All the candidates for the ministry were thus placed in the relation of debtors to the
^T. 3 1 .] THE AMERICAN ED UCA TION SOCIE TV. 2 63
society, and must enter on their work burdened by this load of pecuniary obHgation,
“To this it was. objected, i. That the whole plan proceeded on a wrong principle. It assumed that the candidates had no right to the aid afforded; that it was a pure gratuity, which the donors, if they pleased, were authorized to demand should be refunded. This placed the candidates in the position of “charity scholars.” Being so regarded by their patrons, they were so regarded by their associates and by themselves. This was an injustice and an injury. This journal took the ground, ‘that whenever a man devotes his whole time and talents to the service of any community, at its request, it is obligatory on that community to provide for his support.’ The recognition of this principle changes the whole status of the candidate. He ceases to be regarded as an object of charity. All ground for the minute inspection into his receipts and expenditures is done away with. He is regarded as a man receiving no more than he is entitled to, and for which he renders a full return. This principle, it was contended, was scriptural, lying at the foundation of the institutions and commands of the Bible. It was, moreover, evidently just and reasonable, and was acted on by all civilized governments in the education of young men designed for the public service, especially in the navy and army.
“2. It was objected to the plan of the American Society that it was unjust to bring young men into the ministry burdened with debt. The salaries of young ministers are very seldom more than sufficient for their support, and in the majority of cases utterly inadequate for that end. If, in addition to providing for their necessities under these circumstances, they had to pay the money advanced for their education, they could not fail to be painfully embarrassed and harassed. To be in debt is to be in a state of depressing anxiety.
“3. The Scriptures say: ‘The borrower is servant to the lender.’ If the plan of the American Society had been fully carried out, the great body of the younger ministry in the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches would have been in this state of bondage to that society. Every one knows that virtually and effectively the power of such societies is in the hands of the executive committee. Thus, some half dozen men, with no official relation to our church, would have this controlling power over our ministers. This was evidently intolerable. The objection was not that the power had been abused, but that it existed. It was a power of dictating to a large proportion of the pious youth of the country in what academy, college or theological seminary they shall pursue their studies. It is the power of deciding under what theological influences our future ministers are to be formed. It is the power of holding and influencing these ministers as bondmen when they come out into the Church.
“4. This society was, in a great measure, independent of public opinion; first, because it elected its own members; and, secondly, because its income, so far as derived from the payment of the notes given by the beneficiaries, was not derived from the churches.
“The General Assembly’s plan was not subject to these objections: i. Because the Assembly did not elect its own members, but was renewed every year by the Presbyteries. 2. Because its Board was not the creditor of those aided by its funds. 3. Because the candidates for the ministry were not under its control.”
II. Two of these articles, that on “The General Assembly, 1836,” and another in the January number of the volume for 1837 relate to the respective advantages of voluntary societies and ecclesiastical boards. Of this Dr. Hodge said in his ‘’ Retrospect,” etc.:” Much greater interest attached to the controversy respecting the conduct of the work of missions, foreign and domestic. The General Assembly in 1828 reorganized its Board of Domestic Missions.
^T. 39.] ECCLESIASTICAL BOARDS. 265
The American Home Missionary Society was at that time in operation, and rapidly increasing in influence. At first, it seemed to be hoped that the two organizations might operate harmoniously over the same field. The General Assembly, as did Dr. Green and Dr. Philips and other leading friends of the Assembly’s Board, expressed their cordial willingness that all Presbyterians should be left to their unbiassed choice as to which organization they should support. But it was soon found that in the existing state of the Church, harmonious action was impossible. There were so many interests at stake; so many causes of alienation between what became known as the Old and New School parties, that the Assembly’s Board, under the control of the one, and the American Society, under the control of the other, came into constant and painful collision. This of necessity gave rise to serious conflicts in the General Assembly. The friends of the American Society took the ground that the Assembly had no right to conduct the work of missions; that it was incompetent for that purpose; that voluntary associations were more trustworthy, more efficient and more healthful; that two organizations for the same purpose were not only unnecessary, but injurious. They endeavored, therefore, in every way, to embarrass the Assembly’s Board. In the Assembly of 1836, they nominated as members of that Board men known to be hostile to its very existence, and secured one hundred and twenty-five votes in their favor. In the same Assembly they .succeeded in preventing the Assembly establishing a Board of Foreign Missions. One of the reasons most strenuously urged against the appointment of such a Board, was that the Assembly had no right to conduct such operations. On this point, Dr. James Hoge, one of the wisest and most moderate ministers of our church, said: * As the subject has been proposed in other forms, I have always objected. But the question is now brought before us in a new form, and is to be decided on the naked ground of the power and
266 ECCLESIASTICAL BOARDS. [1836.
rights of the Assembly to conduct missions. And on this ground I cannot abandon it while I love the faith and order of the Presbyterian Church, He further said, that if the majority pursued the course which they did actually take, * it would convulse the church to the very centre.’ And so it did. The action of the Assembly of 1836 in reference to matters of doctrine and to the Boards of the Church, was the proximate cause of the disruption which occurred in the following year.
‘* The question of Voluntary Societies was not an isolated one. Its decision did not turn upon the point, which mode of conducting benevolent operations was in itself to be preferred. It was far more comprehensive. The friends of the Assembly’s Board not only contended that the Assembly had the right to conduct the work of Missions, Foreign and Domestic, but that it was highly expedient that that work should be under the constituted authorities of the Church; that the selection, sending forth, and locating ministers, was properly an ecclesiastical function, and that it was to the last degree unreasonable and dangerous that that work should be committed to a society meeting annually for a few hours, composed of all who chose to subscribe to its funds, (which was the fact with the American Home Missionary Society), and to a large degree controlled by Congregationalists, hostile on principle to our polity, if not to our doctrines. Besides the objections founded on principle, there were others not less cogent founded on the action of the American Home Missionary Society. It was regarded as a great party engine, devoting, apparently, its immense influence to revolutionizing the Church. It sent out men educated in New England, holding sentiments condemned not only by Old School Presbyterians, but by the Woods, Tylers, Nettletons, of New England, and by such men as Drs. Richards, Fisher and Griffin of our own church. Its friends and beneficiaries voted C7i masse in the General Assembly against the condemnation of those sentiments, and
^T. 32-35-] HIS ARTICLES ON ‘’ imputation;’ c. 267
in favor of allowing men never ordained as elders, sitting and voting in our highest judicatories. It is no wonder, therefore, that this controversy excited so much feeling. Throughout the struggle this journal sided uniformly and earnestly with the friends of the Assembly’s Boards.”
III. A third class of articles are those on “Imputation,” “Regeneration, and the Manner of its Occurrence,” and the “New Divinity Tried,” which together with his Commentary on the Romans, first established Dr. Hodge’s reputation as a theologian. Of these articles he says in his ‘^Retrospect;’ 8ic., 1 87 1: —” As early in the history of this Journal as 1830, Dr. Archibald Alexander published two articles, one on ‘The Early History of Pelagianism;’ the other on *jThe Doctrine of the Church on Original Sin;’ and, in 1832, another on ‘The Articles of the Synod of Dort.’ To the first of these the Christian Spectator for June, 1 830, published a critique, over the signature of * A Protestant,’ (Prof Stuart), which was reviewed (by Dr. Hodge) in our October number for the same year. The discussion was continued in the Spectator, in the number for March, 1831, which contained two articles in reply to our review; one from ‘Protestant,’ and the other from the editors, continued and completed in the June number. Of these articles this journal contained a review published in October of the same year, (on * The Doctrine of Imputation,’ by Dr. Hodge). See also the article entitled * Testimonies on the Doctrine of Imputation,’ 1839, of which twenty-four pages are filled with quotations from the Protestant Confessions and Theologians, in support of that doctrine. The same subject was discussed in review of Professor Stuart’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 1833, and of Mr. Barnes’ Commentary on the same Epistle, 1835, and incidentally in several other communications in subsequent years.
“At the same time the doctrine of Regeneration was under discussion. It was maintained, by some prominent
268 HIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ARTICLES. [1835.
theologians among us, that regeneration was the sinner’s own act; that it consisted in his making for himself ‘a new heart.’ What that was, was differently explained. According to some it was loving God; according to others, it was the purpose to seek happiness in God instead of in the world; according to others, it was the purpose to seek the happiness of the universe. According to all the new views man was active in regeneration. The idea of passivity, as it was called, was held up to ridicule. The old doctrine, common to all Christian Churches, that regeneration is the act of God; that man is the subject, and not the agent of the change; and that it consists in the quickening of the soul, or imparting to it a new principle of life, a new disposition, or, in the old scholastic language, ’ a new habit of grace,’ was vindicated in the article on ‘Regeneration, and the Manner of its Occurrence,’ (by Dr. H.). To this article Dr. Samuel H. Cox replied at length in our number for October, 1 83 1, which number contained our answer (by Dr. H.) to his ‘Remarks.’”
IV. In 1835 he began to write a series of annual articles in review of the action of each successive General Assembly, in which he furnished a brief recapitulation and analysis of the proceedings, and discussed the doctrinal and ecclesiastical principles involved. He contributed each of the articles of this series from 1835 to 1867 inclusive, with the exception probably of 1841. They contained a summary of the arguments used by the prominent speakers on each side of disputed questions; they are to this day of great historical value, affording information not elsewhere accessible.
He says of them himself:” It is not the object of these accounts of the proceedings of the Assembly to give the minutes of that body, or to record all the motions and debates, but simply to select the topics of most importance, and to give the best view we can of the arguments on either side. We make no pretensions to indifference or neutrality. The arguments of those from whom we differ, we try to
^T. 35-38-] REVIEWS or STUART AXD BARNES. 269
give with perfect fairness, as far as possible, in the language of the reports given by their friends. But we do not undertake to argue the case for them. This we could not do honestly or satisfactorily. On the other hand, we endeavor to make the best argument we can in favor of the measures we approve, using all the speeches of the supporters of those measures, and putting down anything which may happen to occur to ourselves.”
Hence it has come to pass that they contain an exposition of his views of all the fundamental principles underlying the constitution of the Church, and its administration, and of the practical application of these principles to the various historical conditions experienced by the American Presbyterian Church during that long period. These, together with a series of articles upon the “Idea of the Church” and its various attributes, which appeared from 1845 to 1856, are the source from which the important posthumous work on “Church Polity” has been compiled by one of his best pupils, Rev. Wm. Durant.
V. His reviews of the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans of Stuart, 1833; of Barnes, 1835; of Riickert, 1836. For Professor Stuart, Professor Hodge felt and expressed the strongest admiration and gratitude.” We have, therefore, long been in the habit of regarding Prof. Stuart as one of the greatest benefactors of the Church in our country, because he has been the principal means of turning the attention of the rising generation of ministers to this method (philological and exegetical) of studying the Bible. This we doubt not is the great service of his life: a service for which the whole church owes him gratitude and honor, and which will be remembered when present differences and difficulties are all forgotten. We do him, therefore, unfeigned homage as the great American reformer of biblical study; as the introducer of a new era, and the most efficient opponent of metaphysical theology Alas, that he should have himself fallen on that veiy enchanted ground.
2 70 KE VIE WS OF STUAR T AND BARNES. [1833-36.
from which it was the business and glory of his life to withcall his younger brethren.”
Mr. Hodge’s criticisms are directed to the exposure of Prof. Stuart’s false and inconsistent metaphysical theology, as far as that was involved in his interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans. “We have now surely seen enough to convince the reader of two things: First, that the doctrine of imputation is not touched either by Prof Stuart’s exegesis or metaphysics. It is precisely where it was before; and, second, that his whole exposition of Rom. v. 12-19 “so inconsistent with itself that it cannot possibly be correct. In reading this portion of his commentary we have been reminded of a remark of Lord Erskine in reference to one of Burke’s efforts in the House of Commons: * It is a sad failure; but Burke could bear it.’” Dr. William Cunningham, “Reformers and the Reformation,” speaks in the highest terms of this article.
With reference to Mr. Barnes’ book, Mr. Hodge asserted that “he had plucked his pear before it was ripe.” That it gave evidence of prejudice and crudity of opinion, and was transparently inconsistent in the various statements of doctrines it contained, was the product of a perverting controversial animus.” We beg our readers to bear in mind that our review is not of an aggressive character. The book, which we have been examining, contains a violent, and, as w’e think, gratuitous attack upon some of the more important doctrines of the church. If there be, therefore, an offensive and defensive attitude in relation to this subject, we certainly are in the latter. Had Mr. Barnes adhered to his design and given, according to his own views, * the real meaning of the epistle without any regard to any existing theological system,’ what a different book would he have produced! So far, however, from his having no regard to any system, the system of doctrines contained in the standards of the Presbyterian Church seems to have been constantly before his mind. Instead of simply stating and
JET. 37-1 COMMENTARY ON ROMANS. 2*J
defending his own views, he frequently and at length attacks those of the Confession of Faith. He goes out of his way repeatedly for this very purpose; introducing these topics where the passage on which he comments gives not even a plausible pretext for so doing.”
VI. There remain a number of important articles, the consideration of which, for various reasons, we must defer to a subsequent chapter. The articles on the “Act and Testimony,” October, 1834, and January, 1835, and on the “State of the Church,” 1838, will be considered in connection with the “Disruption of the Presbyterian Church,” under the next chapter. The article on “Slavery” will be considered in connection with that on “Abolitionism,” under the date of the latter article, 1844. The article on “The Oxford Tracts” belongs to a class of articles on the Church appearing from 1845 to 1856.
HIS COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.
It was during the period embraced in this chapter that Dr. Hodge published his first books. His Commentary on the Romans was written during the darkest days of his confinement, the winter of 1834 and ’35, while stretched horizontally on a couch, and his right limb often bound in a steel-splint. It was published by Grigg & Elliott in Philadelphia, but soon afterwards passed into the hands of Wm. S. Martien. A cheaper and abridged edition for the use of Bible-classes was published in 1836. A new edition revised and in a great measure re-written was published in 1864.
Every good commentary on such texts as that of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans must possess in greater or less degree two distinct qualities. It must show evidence of scholarship and exegetical tact and skill in the interpretation in detail of the words and sentences constituting the original text. It must also discover a comprehension of the subject discussed, and of the design of the writer and the scope of the ideas which constitute the subject-matter of the treatise commented on. It is self-evident that in Dr. Hodge’s Commentary the latter of the two characteristics predominates. He has done his best honestly to get at what the words and sentences mean. But he has written in a prevailingly doctrinal interest. And in expounding that doctrine he is as clear as a crystal in the sunlight. He gives an analysis of the epistle as a whole. He gives the contents of each chapter; an analysis of each logical subdivision of the apostle’s argument; then a commentary, or exegetical discussion of each clause and verse; and then he presents a minute statement of all the doctrines taught in the section, and closes with a series of remarks illustrative and practical. The church at that time was convulsed with the controversies growing out of the intrusion into a community deriving its Presbyterianism from Scotland and the Westminster Assembly, of the new anthropology of the New England School. These “improvements” were rather negative than positive, and involved a rejection of the consensus of the Reformed Churches as to the imputation of the guilt of Adam’s sin to his descendants, as to original sin, as to inability, and as to the part of God in man’s regeneration. From early in 1830 the Biblical Repertory had been engaged in an active controversy with the champions of the New Theology on these points. Dr. Stuart and Mr. Barnes published Commentaries on Romans, in which the new doctrines were brought into association with the word of God. Dr. Hodge wrote his Commentary under these moral and ecclesiastical conditions, and he has striven to defend the ancient faith of the Reformation by a faithful appeal to exegesis, on the side which that faith presents to the hostile lines of what was then known as the “improvements” in theology imported from New England.
In his new edition published in 1864, he again reviewed his whole work, and rc-stated and defended his interpretation with the added light of Meyer and other German com-
.ET. 3 7 ] COMMENT A RY ON R OMANS. 273
mentators, and with additional notice of the reaHstic theories, which he over against the truth on the side opposite to those New England theories against which, in his first edition, his energies were chiefly directed.
While writing his original Commentary, because confined to his couch. Dr. Hodge communicated with Dr. A. Alexander by an interchange of notes. Although they were all designed for a temporary purpose, and no effort was made to preserve any of them, it happens that a few of these waifs have drifted into the hands of the compiler. They are given because they illustrate the relations of the two men, and because they prove, what has sometimes been denied, that Dr. Hodge never departed from the theology of his beloved teacher.
DR. A. ALEXANDER TO DR. HODGE.
My Dear Sir: — I have read over with some care the whole of these sheets. I am truly thankful that you have been enabled to write so much in the diseased state of your body, and I sincerely rejoice that God has helped you so thoroughly to expound this difficult and important portion of divine revelation. In the main, I am deeply persuaded that you have brought to view the doctrines which the Holy Ghost intended to reveal by the pen of Paul. In a few minor points I hesitate as to the correctness of your interpretation. It seems to me that there is less clearness and lucid order in your exposition of the fourth chapter than of any other, as far as you have gone. Indeed, this part is more involved and intricate than any other. I think your exposition of the latter part of the fifth chapter is admirable. It exhibits the truth with a lustre that cannot easily be resisted. I cannot easily express how much good will probably result from the publication of this exposition. The language of the whole is characterized by simplicity and conciseness, and needs no improvement.
The parts entitled “Doctrines” and “Remarks,” especially the latter, might be advantageously amplified. There are too many parentheses. Often the sentence would be more perspicuous by leaving out the dashes and parentheses.
Some method must be invented to prevent the Commentary from being encumbered with the references. Consult James and Addison on this point. The text of each chapter had better be placed at the beginning of the Commentary.
When your exposition depends on a criticism of the original words, it will be best to subjoin a critical note at the bottom of the page; but let the text of your Commentary be pure English. By this means it will be studied by all intelligent Presbyterians, and will become a hand-book for teachers of Sunday Schools and Bible Classes.
I entreat you to go on with the work as speedily as you can. I am anxious to have it in general circulation. It ought to be so continued as to make an 8vo. volume of 500 pages.
I assure you I have not for a long time read anything with so much
interest as these sheets.
I am affectionately yours,
A. Alexander.
DR. HODGE TO DR. A. ALEXANDER.
My Dear Sir: — Few things in my life have given me more pleasure than the approbation which you expressed of the part of the Commentary on the Romans, which you were kind enough to look over. I trust, too, that I shall derive great good from having the prospect of usefulness presented as something attainable.
I will endeavor to profit by all your suggestions. I feared that the Commentary on the fourth chapter would not be satisfactory to others, as it is not to myself. I find great difficulty often where there seems to be the least. Though I would not make the remark as an apology for my failure in this case, yet there seem to be many passages in which the sacred writers, who wrote as men, are obscure and confused in themselves. In many cases of apparent confusion there is a real principle of logical arrangement which it requires only a little attention to discover and exhibit. But in others there seems to be no such principle any more than there is in the 119th Psalm. This remark, I know, very rarely applies to the writings of Paul, and certainly not to the former part, at least, of the fourth chapter.
I now send you the Commentary on chapters vi. and vii. As a great part of the paper is written upon only on one side, it appears much longer than it really is. In looking over the Commentary on the early part of the sixth chapter, which I think peculiarly difficult, I feel a good deal dissatisfied. It has to myself the appearance of being written during the actual process of studying out the meaning of the passage, and might, perhaps, be improved as to clearness by being written over again.
I feel grateful to you for taking the trouble to read my manuscript.
^T. 37.] COMMENTAR Y ON ROMANS. 275
You can hardly know how much peace of mind your imprimatur, my revered Father, gives me.
Very respectfully,
C. Hodge.
DR. A. ALEXANDER TO DR. HODGE.
My Dear Sir: — I have cursorily read your manuscript on the sixth and seventh chapters of the Romans. As before, I think you have done best on the most difficult and disputed part. The opinion which I have formed of the exposition of the two chapters bears a near analogy to the opinion which I have already expressed on the fourth and fifth. I do not think of anything that could improve the seventh. It comes up fully to my ideas of the apostle’s meaning; and 1 have no objection to make to the exegesis of the sixth, but it is not so luminous as the exegesis of the seventh. The only thing which I would like to have added is a few observations on the meaning of the phrase “buried with him in baptism,” to show that it does not necessarily relate to immersion. Readers will expect something of this kind.
If you live to execute this work, you may be contented to say, if it should be the will of God, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, etc.” I do believe that it will do more to confirm the orthodox faith of our church than any book which has been published for a century. I must still exhort you, therefore, to labor at it as much and as fast as you can. Some measures ought to be taken to have the printing commenced by the beginning of winter.
Yours affectionately, A. A.
TO DR. H. FROM DR. A. A.
My Dear Sir: — The eighth chapter of Romans is, at the same time, one of the most precious and difficult portions of Scripture.
Forty years ago I was led to study the first part of it from hearing an Arminian preacher expound it very ingeniously on Arminian principles. For some time I hesitated whether his exposition was not correct, but after studying it intensely, as 1 travelled on my mission, I came ultimately to the same views of its meaning as those which you have given in your Commentary. And all subsequent examinations have confirmed the opinions then adopted. But I can scarcely designate a portion of Scripture in which all the expressions are so susceptible of a double meaning.
On the very “vexed passage” about “the creature being subject to vanity” you have also given my opinion exactly. Dr. J. P. Wilson,
Dr. Green, and, I believe. Dr. Miller, held that by Kxiaiq the body should be understood. “The redemption of our body” they considered as expository of the whole passage. Perhaps you ought to notice this interpretation, though I doubt whether it can be found in any respectable commentator.
The only passage in which I have any difficulty in adopting your explanation relates to the “witness of the Spirit,” which you seem to consider of the nature of the direct suggestion of a truth to the mind. Now this would partake of the nature of inspiration, and lays a foundation for enthusiasm. My opinion is that the witness is indirect by the illumination of the mind through the word, thus filling it with love and peace, and these graces, in present, conscious exercise, are “the witness of the Spirit.” Please to re-examine the comment on this passage.
I am gratified exceedingly, and thankful to God, that you have been enabled to go forward so expeditiously in this work. My opinion of its value increases with the perusal of every new portion. As soon as you have reached the twelfth chapter you ought to prepare a prospectus and subscription paper. It will not be necessary for you to run any risk in the publication. A sufficient number of subscribers can soon be obtained to authorize the publication of a large edition. It will possess an incalculable advantage over Stuart’s and other learned works, as it can be read by the plain, intelligent Christian, who knows nothing of the original.
Please let me have the ninth chapter as soon as it is completed.
This will be easy after you have surmounted the difficulties of the
eighth, except verse 3d,
I am affectionately yours, A. A.
DR. HODGE TO DR. A. ALEXANDER.
My Dear Sir: — I send, agreeably to your request, the Commentary on the ninth chapter, and a few verses of the tenth.
I cannot tell you how much your approbation cheers and encourages me, and especially the coincidence of the Commentary with your own views of the apostle’s meaning. Fashioned as I have been by your hands, you can indeed hardly be surprised at finding your own opinions more or less correctly reflected from anything which I may write.
I find, on reverting to the passage, that what is said of the “witness of the Spirit” is inaccurately expressed. I did not intend to intimate that the Spirit conveyed any new truth to the mind, but rather produced a new feeling. As when he” sheds abroad the love
^T. 43-] TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH. 277
of God in the heart,” he produces an intimate persuasion that the soul is the object of divine favor. And when he bears witness to the truth he produces a like persuasion that the gospel is of God. In the case referred to in the eighth chapter, I suppose Paul meant to say that the Spirit produced the conviction that God regards us as His children. All these cases seemed to me to be analogous. All that I meant to say was what I understood our Confession to say when it refers our full persuasion and assurance of the truth “to the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.” This seemed to me something different from the mere judgment of the mind on the evidence afforded by the nature of its feelings to the fact of the divine favor. It appeared to me that the apostle, if the a’w in cvuiiapTvpti is to be urged, meant to distinguish between the evidence which consists in filial feelings towards God and the persuasion of the divine favor which the Spirit sweetly insinuates into the mind when those feelings are in exercise.
I should be glad to know whether you still think my views, as thus explained, incorrect. For, if you do, the Commentary can easily be still further modified so as to express the idea more generally, and consequently in a way less liable to objection.
Should Providence permit me to get to the end of the ninth chapter, I have thought it would be best to turn back to the beginning. The plan of the work has been so much enlarged as I advanced that the Commentary on the first three or four chapters must be re-written in order to make the work uniform. When the Commentary on the first eleven chapters is completed the printing might commence at any time; the residue could. Providence permitting, be got ready before it was required.
With filial respect and affection.
Yours, C. Hodge.
Early in 1841 this Commentary was published in France. The translation was made by the Rev. Adolphe Monod of Montauban, at the instance of the venerable Professor V. A. Stapfer, who had made Mr. Hodge’s acquaintance in Paris in 1826, and had subsequently corresponded with him. The means to meet the expense of the enterprise were collected through the agency of Rev. Robert Baird, D. D., the eminent agent in Europe of the Foreign Evangelical Society. In his preface Dr. Monod said:
“I am authorized to say that Mr. Stapfer attaches the
278 TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH. [1841.
highest vahie to the Commentary of Dr. Hodge, and that of all the works which have in our day been devoted to the Epistle to the Romans, there is none which appears to him, upon the whole, superior, nor perhaps equal to this.
“It possesses qualities that are among the most valuable that can be desired in such a work, and which we have seldom found elsewhere so combined and carried to such extent. A pure and vigorous spirit; a simple and precise style; an intelligent and clear exegesis; a constant care to dwell upon those points which embarrass the reader of the Bible; a profound examination of all the great questions; substantial observations; solid and well-drawn inferences. When we add that there is evident in every part a spirit which is jealous for the divine doctrine and the divine glory, a soul deeply pious and ripe in the experience of the Christian life; in fine, an unction of mingled sweetness and gravity, which would almost lead one to conjecture that our Commentary was painfully written upon a bed of suffering, — our readers will understand the continued interest with which we have read the work from beginning to end.
“Dr. Hodge belongs to the religious opinion known in America by the name of the ‘Old School.’ His doctrine is precisely that of our own churches, and it is exhibited in the Commentary with remarkable distinctness and vigor. If we may venture the inquiry, we would ask as to this point whether the matter is not rather more precise and formal in Dr. H.’s exposition, than in the Bible itself We have learned from this Holy Book to have some dread of formulas that are too straitened, and of what Felix Neff, with his usual originality calls ’ squared doctrines,’ Happy are the authors who know how to preserve the proportions and balance which the Holy Spirit has observed in the development of the various topics of divine revelation.”
The editor of the “London Patriot,” in a notice of Barnes’ “Notes on the Romans,” naively remarks: —” Mr. Barnes acknowledges his obligations to Calvin, Doddridge, Mac-MT. 42.] CONSTITUTIONAL HISTOR Y. 2 79
knight, Rosenmuller, Tholuck, and Flatt. We regret that he does not appear to have seen Dr. Hodge’s admirable Exposition of this Epistle, which would have been of more use for his purpose than all the rest.”
HIS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.
In the early part of 1839, ^“’s published the first volume of his “Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,” and the second volume in the early part of 1840. This was for him the least natural, and most laborious work he ever undertook.
DR. HODGE TO HIS BROTHER.
Princeton, Oct. 12, 1838. My Dear Brother: — I have before now read volumes to feel authorized to make one assertion. I want to state in few words what were the constituent materials and peculiar views of our church at the beginning, and to do this requires a good deal of previous reading. I am not the man for such business. My lameness is more in my way now than it ever has been, as 1 have to depend on others to make search for old things in my behalf.
Your brother, C. H.
The design and character of this work is stated in his preface to the first volume, March, 1839.
“During the past summer, the Rev. Dr. Hoge, of Ohio, wrote to one of his friends in Philadelphia, stating that a work was greatly needed, which should give a distinct account of the present controversies in our Church. He conceived that in order to the proper exhibition of the subject, the documentary history of the formation of the first Presbytery, of the Adopting Act, of the great Schism, of the union of the two Synods, and of the formation of our present constitution, should be clearly presented to the public. The gentleman to whom this letter was addressed submitted it to a meeting of clergymen and laymen, who
28o CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. [1839.
all concurred in the opinion that such a work ought to be prepared, and united in requesting the undersigned to undertake the task. The plan was afterwards enlarged, and the writer was led to undertake a general review of the History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. The design of this work is to exhibit the true character of our Church; to show on what principles it was founded and governed; in other words, to exhibit historically its constitution, both as to doctrine and” order. He has, therefore, ventured to call the work ‘A Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.’ His readers will not expect more than this title promises.
“Recent events have led to various speculations on the origin and constitution of our Church. It has been said that we owe our ecclesiastical existence to Congregationalists; that the condition of ministerial communion among us was assent to the essential doctrines of the Gospel; and that the Presbyterian form of government which our fathers adopted was of a very mitigated character.... The writer was, hence, led to inquire what foundation was laid for a Presbyterian Church in the character of the early settlers of our country... The next subject of investigation was the actual character of our Church before the year 1729, as far as it can be learned from its history and records. The third chapter contains the review of our history from 1729 to 1 74 1. As the act by which the Westminster Confession of Faith was adopted by the Synod as their standard of doctrine, was passed in 1729, this seemed to be the proper place to exhibit in full the testimony furnished by the records, not only as to the true interpretation of the act, but as to the condition of ministerial communion in the Presbyterian Church.
“It is intended in a second volume to continue the history from 1 74 1 to 1789. This will require an exhibition of the causes of the great schism, an investigation of the doctrinal and constitutional questions involved in that contro-
^T. 42.] HIS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 28 1
versy, and of the principle on which the Church was settled at the time of the union of the two Synods.”
It is believed that in the execution of this work Dr. Hodge fully proved that the founders of our Church in the United States intended to plant a true Presbyterian Church, a genuine daughter of the Church of Scotland, and that the terms of ministerial communion among us have been from the beginning, and by the constitution of the Church continue to be, the real belief and honest profession that “the system of Doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures,” is the one contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.
The following letters of Dr. A. Alexander to Dr. Hodge, and of Dr. Hodge to Dr. Henry A. Boardman, on the subject of disputed points falling within the period embraced by this History will explain themselves.
DR. A. ALEXANDER TO DR. HODGE.
My Dear Sir: — I do not know whether you expect any fuller exposition of opinion from me after making your explanations. The truth is, it is a matter in which I have no right to interfere otherwise than by expressing my opinion. I have no responsibility in the matter; but yours is great. You are writing a history which will probably connect your name with the orthodox Presbyterian name as long as it lasts; and you are not at liberty to depart one iota from what appears to you to be a correct statement of facts, and correct judgment on them. If other persons take a different view of either that is no reason you should change anything in deference to them.
I must, however, in candor declare that my own opinion, as expressed in a former note, remains unchanged. I object to the rule of the Synod on ground which applies to them just as it does to our Synods, namely, that the examination of candidates, with a view to ordination, is properly a Presbyterial and not a Synodical act. I admit that the Synod, as then constituted, might, after consulting Presbyteries, determine what should be required of candidates, and on what they should be examined, and might have censured the New Brunswick Presbytery for disobeying such rules; but it was, in my judgment, improper for them to take upon themselves to make the examination. On this principle, as the protestants argued on the occasion, they might usurp all the prerogatives and powers of the Presbyteries, and thus render them useless bodies. I never received the doctrine “that a Synod is merely a larger Presbytery,” and may do whatever Presbyteries can. Their business is to see that Presbyteries do their duty, and to attend to concerns which relate to the whole body.
The year on which I was Moderator of the General Assembly this principle was largely discussed, and in the first instance decided in favor of the rights of Presbyteries; but the Kentucky Synod came forward with great zeal and power, and had a different opinion pronounced next year. To this decision I never gave my assent, and I believe that more than one half of the ministers then were of like mind.
And I must remain of the opinion that when the schism took place, any attempt at a regular course of discipline would have been perfectly futile and unwise. They might, and ought to have separated with less heat and violence than was manifest, but it is evident to me that a separation had become necessary.
The subject of disciplining an organized body is an extremely difficult thing. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, under the influence of the high-church principles of Dr, Robertson, undertook to discipline a Presbytery for resisting the exercise of patronage, and when it came to the punishment they selected one man out of the Presbytery and deposed him, not because he was worse than the rest, or a prime leader, but for other reasons. This very man laid the foundations of the relief Presbytery (now Synod), All that the majority could have done would have been to suspend the whole Presbytery, which was the same (in effect?) as what took place.
Yours, (S:c., A. Alexander.
DR. HODGE TO DR. HENRY A. BOARDMAN.
Princeton, Jan. ist, 1840. My Dear Sir: As to the History, all my feelings are in favor of your Board publishing it. It would be effectually done without putting my friends. Dr. Mitchell and others, to any trouble; and I shall be gratified in doing something for the Board. My judgment, however, is decidedly against the plan. As I must bear the responsibility, I must feel perfectly free to write as my judgment and conscience dictate. I know I should feel trammelled and uneasy if I was always thinking that what I wrote was to come out with the sanction of the Board. I have little doubt that the History will give more or less offence to a great many of our friends. I mean that kind of of-
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fence which men feel when they see a different view of any subject than their own presented. For example, the next chapter, which relates to the Whitefieldian revival, I suppose will be considered by many as very objectionable. This will be but a small matter if I only say what is disliked; but if your Board were to say it, it might be very offensive to many of our own friends. So of the 5th chapter, relating to the Schism, I am sure that many of our good old people will think it dreadful. I had received the impression that all the Old side were irreligious, unworthy men, and that all the New side were excellent and fervently pious. This impression, among the older ministers who received the traditionary accounts of that period, is so strong as to take something of the character of the original party feeling. Dr. Alexander, after reading the manuscript, wrote me a long letter, telling me what he had heard about the character of the two parties when he was a young in an, and how strong his feelings still were upon the subject, and his conviction that the Old side were a great deal worse and the New side a great deal better than I had represented them. This letter gave me, in one view, a great deal of uneasiness. I know that documents and books retain and transmit a very imperfect view of the spirit of any age, and therefore felt that my representation might be very far from the truth. But, at the same time, I must go by those documents, and to take the traditionary representations of those who had conversed with the actors in those scenes, and who had all the feelings of the conflict, would make a perfectly one-sided history.
I answered the Doctor’s letter, stating how I viewed the matter, to which he replied that he would not have me alter anything out of deference to anybody — that he had no responsibility, but that mine was very great. I do not mean to give you the idea that the Doctor thought the History very wicked, or that he would object to my publishing it; but I do not believe at all that he would take the responsibility of publishing it, or of sanctioning such a representation as I have given of the violence and disorders of the zealous men of that day. It would require the gift of prophecy for me to be able to state what will be the character of the last volume, should I live to write it. I no more knew beforehand what the character of the present volume was to be than a stranger did. I indeed question very much whether I shall have courage to undertake the labor of bringing down the History to the present time. It may be too soon to write the history of the last ten years.
All my friends here whom I have had the opportunity of consulting agree with me that your Board ought not to undertake the publication. If any one chooses to attack and abuse me, what harm is it?
But to have your Board hauled up and abused is a very different affair. You have a very difficult and delicate task to perform, and will get abuse enough I doubt not. I think you ought, at least for a while, to confine yourselves to books of known character, and by no means to publish too many.
Yours very truly, C. H.
“The Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America” was accordingly published by Wm. S. Martien in 1839 and 1840. But it was subsequently copyrighted and published by the Presbyterian Board of PubHcation in 185 1.