RELATIONS OF OUR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES TO OUR SYSTEM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES are institutions about forty years old in our denomination. Although this is more than the life time of a generation, it is but a short space in the life time of systems; whose age is to be measured by centuries; so that we may regard this system of theological training as still a novelty, in our Church. It certainly shows the unsettled relations of a new thing, in some respects; and calls for the watchful heed, and correcting hand of the Church, until it is far more matured than now, and until we have ampler experimental assurance than we now have of the safety of its workings.

A local abuse has, some years ago, become obvious at some points, arising out of the disposition of candidates for the ministry to remove their connexion from remote Presbyteries, to some one which meets near the Seminary in which they are studying. The plea for this is, that it saves much expense, and loss of time, which would be incurred by journeys to distant places at inconvenient seasons, to attend the meetings of their Presbyteries, and undergo their trials before them. But the consequence is far more serious than any such temporary inconvenience. A few Presbyteries near or around our prominent Seminaries, are so crowded with candidates, that they have no time nor patience to attend thoroughly to their trials. At every spring meeting, they are called upon to wade through the tedious trials of perhaps five, fifteen, or twenty young men whom they do not know, for whom they have no pastoral affection, whom they do not expect to labor in their bounds; who will ask for a dismission the hour after they receive their license, and never be seen again on their floor. All the examinations of these candidates, literary, religious and experimental, scientific, Hebrew, biblical, theological, historical, must be conducted; and a Latin exegesis, popular lecture, popular sermon, and critical exercise must be heard from each of the five, fifteen or twenty, until flesh and blood can endure no longer, and the business of the Presbytery is thrust aside. The consequence is, that the trials are huddled over with a disgraceful mockery of faithfulness. The Professors of the Seminary, who probably have scats in the Presbytery, stand aside from delicacy; saying that it does not become them to sit a second time in judgment on that scholarship which is their own handiwork. Thus the trials of the candidate for licensure are a mere hoax and sham ; but meantime, he goes forth to his distant region with the imprimatur of this most venerable Presbytery upon him; and the people out there, good mistaken souls, think that, because this venerable Presbytery is so large, and basks under such near and direct beams of a theological Seminary, and has so many learned divines among its

Presbyters, its license must be evidence of peculiar scholarship! Whereas it is, in fact, the most worthless of all similar documents which are issued throughout our Church.

Now the easy and obvious remedy for this abuse is, for Presbyteries to use a little firmness, and refuse to dismiss their own candidates for such a purpose. The Seminaries do not desire the continuance of such an abuse, nor are they blameable for it: and certain we are, that the afflicted Presbyteries near our Seminaries which now groan under the burden of these multitudinous parts of trial," will not complain when the evil is arrested.

It is to be feared that a far more serious lack of adjustment has grown out of our Seminary system, than the one just described. Because there is a mature course of study covering three years, pursued in them, the Presbyteries are far too much inclined to take for granted the candidate's scholarship. It becomes a matter of course in many cases, that he who has passed through the full three years, and received his certificate of proficiency from the Faculty, shall have his license. There is too much disposition on the part of Presbyters to take for granted the Faculty's decision; and to make the Presbyterial trials a merely decent form, instead of an actual and thorough test of attainments. This statement may be repelled as unjust; and no doubt there are many Presbyters who desire and labor for a more faithful execution of this Presbyterial duty, and who would earnestly join us in saying that the trial and licensure of candidates is made by the constitution a Presbyterial function, that the Faculty of a Seminary is not a Presbytery, and that any custom which either formally or informally transfers to such a Faculty the virtual responsibility is mischievous and unconstitutional. But yet, what is the customary result? Where is the young man who has been refused license, having passed through a Seminary course. Is it not notorious that among so large a number of Seminary graduates (if we may use the term,) there is as much difference of scholarship as there is of light between the sun and the moon? And yet we may safely challenge the records of our Presbyteries to produce one case of a candidate, whose imperfections were glaring enough to delay his licensure materially, he having the Seminary testimonial.

When such instances of glaring deficiency occur, there are usually some Presbyters, who are conscientious, who desire to do their duty, and would postpone or refuse license. But the office of taking the lead in such an act is painful, odious and invidious; and there are always some brethren, in whom goodness of heart has swallowed up good sense, who come to the rescue of indolence and ignorance. "Well, moderator, I doubt whether many of us would not be unable to answer some of these questions any better than this young brothWe all know that it is not the most learned man who makes the most useful minister. With zeal and industry, I don't doubt this young brother will do a great deal of good; it would be a sin to disappoint that good, by refusing him license, now that the church so

er.

greatly needs ministers." Such are the arguments which we are accustomed to hear on such occasions. It is wholly forgotten that we are a religious Commonwealth, governed by a written constitution, and that every Presbyter is sworn to execute that constitution with exactness; that a certain grade of scholarship is there required; and if this requisition is found impolitic and unwise; the only proper, the only honest course is, to seek first an amendment of the constitution. It is forgotten that the very proof which the Presbytery should have, the only sufficient proof, of that zeal and industry in the candidate, which would make him a useful minister in spite of ignorance, is diligence in improving those means of instruction which the church has provided him for three years; and that his failure to improve them is the very evidence which the Presbytery is bound to take, showing that he will be as indolent as a minister, as he has been hitherto as a student. It is forgotten that the question for the Presbytery is; not how useful this young man may be with an imperfect education; but how useful he might be with the best cultivation he can receive, and that he, and they, owe it to the church and to God, to be satisfied with nothing short of this, his highest usefulness.

We can scarcely conceive of any Presbyterial action more unseemly, and more injurious to the ministry and its great purposes, than these inefficient trials of candidates. Here is a body which sits as a court of Jesus Christ. We do not believe that the civil governments of christian nations ought now to be theocratic; but the solemnity of the divine superintendence in the government of God's Kingdom is little less than that which awed and elevated the pious judges of the Hebrew Commonwealth. Every church court may say to itself with no little propriety, the words of the 82nd Psalm: God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He judgeth among the rulers. How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked?" Each Presbyter sits under a solemn oath to execute faithfully the constitution of the church. The body proceeds under these sacred sanctions to perform one of its most important acts, the trying of those who are to be examples and guides to Christ's flock, whose deficiencies, if they have them, may be so extensive a curse; but it often performs it with a mere mockery of fidelity. The tests actually applied are often so different from those technically described in the constitution, that a school boy may perceive the futility of the proceeding. The candidate is tried in order to see whether he can write Latin, whether he knows well Greek and Hebrew, science and history, theology and interpretation; and when the trials are carried far enough to make it pretty manifest that he cannot write Latin, and does not know these things in any proper sense, it is moved that Presbytery shall pronounce he does know them, and shall proceed to license. How could it be made more certain that this candidate, so admitted, shall be himself an indolent, inefficient, unfaithful Presbyter all his ministerial life, than by thus signalizing his clerical birth day with a general example of Presbyterial unfaithfulness?

What must be the impression, as to the moral grade and the dignity of the ministry, on the keen, criticising world, or on those men of secular professions, who are pursuing their vocations with an honorable ambition, and conscientious diligence?

Too often the Presbyteries thus relinquish to the Faculties, the virtual responsibility of licensing. But those Faculties do not by any means assume it. They say to themselves, "we are not the Presbytery, the licensing body; however strict our examinations, the Pres byteries may reverse all our verdicts; our action is in no sense final, and therefore we need not be particular." They have no roll call, no police, no "grade of scholarship" accurately applied to all the students, no demerit marks; every student attends recitations and prayers, or studies and writes, with just so much or so little diligence as seems good to his own conscience; and at the end of the three years, every student who has, in form, attended all the examinations, receives his certificate of proficiency. Now is it not the plainest thing in the world, to any one who knows anything of colleges, that where seventy or eighty young men apply for graduation (as is the case annually at our seminaries taken together) and all receive it, the testimonial so conferred ceases altogether to be any evidence of acquirement? At the University of Virginia, nothing is more frequent than the rejection of two-thirds of the applicants in the schools. of ancient languages, law and medicine. Wherever there are no rejections, there the testimonials of scholarship must be worthless; for among every large collection of human beings, there will always be some inefficient. Thus, the duty of testing the attainments of our candidates is bandied from the Presbytery to the Seminary Faculty, and is taken up by neither.

We greatly fear that the result has been produced, which might be reasonably expected a degradation of theological training, in thoroughness and in conscientious diligence. After all our recent expenditure of money, men, and time on this great cause, the scholarship of our young ministry is losing in depth, what it has gained in extent of surface; in many, the habits of research and knowledge of the learned languages are soon lost, after they enter upon their active duties. The average grade of diligence in the seminaries is not what it should be, and what it is, among the better students of secular institutions. We shall, of course, not be understood as saying that it is as low as the average which we should find in secular institutions, by including all the idle and dissolute who are found there in such numbers along with the diligent. But it is no unfrequent thing to hear candid students in our seminaries avow that they do not there practise as much diligence as they did in the college, when competing for an honour, or studying to attain a standing for graduation, which they knew would be sternly applied. Now the Presbyterian Church should not be satisfied with a diligence in any of her ministry beneath that which is exhibited by the foremost in secular professions. While she has employment and awards for every grade of capacity, even to the humblest, she has no use for any degree of

indolence, or for any but the highest energy. The times demand that she should realize in the zeal of her ministry, the promise by Zechariah: "He that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David, and the house of David as the angel of the Lord before them."

But there are practical difficulties which we fear, will prevent the seminaries from carrying out any such honest system of examinations, as would effectually remedy this state of things. The knowledge that their verdict ought to have, constitutionally, no decisive weight, that it is in no sense final, that it is to be reviewed in all its grounds, and may be utterly reversed, will almost certainly slacken their diligence in making it up. The rejected candidate for their testimonials might at any moment remind them that they were not a licensing body, and might return to flaunt his Presbyterial license in their face. An honest rejection of the deficient candidates would be charged upon them by some, as an arrogant attempt to forestall the independent judgment of the Presbytery, and prejudice the claims of the unfortunate applicant. The Presbyteries would find themselves in a dilemma in weighing the verdicts of the Faculties; if they disregarded them, they would be slighting the opinions of those best qualified by familiar acquaintanceship, to pronounce on the merits of the applicants for licensure; if they regarded them, they would be depriving the applicants of a constitutional right, that of having the Presbytery as the sovereign judge of their qualifications.

We would propose, therefore, that the Faculties of our Seminaries should assume a different position and policy, which seems to us accurately conformed to the principles of Presbyterial government. The Presbytery is the master, the judge, the father, of all candidates for the ministry, whether licensed or unlicensed. The theological faculty is but the teaching agent of the Presbytery to train its candidates. Let not the agent assume the functions of master and judge. But at the same time let not the master and judge be ignorant of the results of his agent's labors. In a word, the agent should report all these results to the employer. There his agency ends. This therefore is the appropriate policy for our theological faculties-to keep accurate records of each student's diligence in study, in recitation, and in attention to the ordinances of religion; of his daily and yearly scholarship as compared with a fixed grade of his energy of character and con scientiousness, as displayed in his academic demeanor. The Faculty should examine at the end of each session into the students' proficiency, and graduate their scholarship accurately. But on all this let it pass no verdict. Let it give no diploma. Let it pass no decree of rejection on any. Let it faithfully report the whole to the Presbytery to which each student belongs. Let the Presbytery when it comes to decide whether the candidate is worthy of licensure, have all the facts before it, so that it may know whether he was remiss or diligent in the recitation room, whether he was neglectful or observant of the means of grace, whether he was wasteful or economical of his time. Then the responsibility of deciding would be wholly placed in fact, as well as in form, where the constitution places it.