The Second Great Awakening and Timothy Dwight

[0:00] Maybe we'll get it. All right. The end of the 18th century in New England were times of dismal decline in religion and have been called the Dark Age of American Christianity.

[0:25] Gone, if not quite forgotten, were the glorious days of spiritual harvest at the preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield in mid-century.

[0:40] In their place was now cold indifference, depleted zeal, and worldly preoccupation. Preachers complained that though they may preach their hearts out, they only did so to empty pew.

[0:57] Or heedless slumberers. As one group of ministers aired the concern, this is 1798. This is the General Assembly of Presbyterian Church.

[1:10] We perceive with pain and fearful apprehension a general dereliction of religious principle and practice. A visible and prevailing impiety and contempt for the laws and institutions of religion.

[1:27] And an abandoning infidelity, which in many instances tends to atheism itself. Well, it was no exaggerated alarmist rhetoric.

[1:39] For in that early day of our new nation's infancy, the skies were blackened by the smoke from a bonfire of Bibles.

[1:52] Can you imagine that in early America? Bonfires of Bibles. Bonfires of Bibles. Mock communions were held by scoffers. And with the unhinging of religion, morality, indeed common decency, sank to its lowest ebb.

[2:10] Lawlessness was profuse. Gambling was rampant. Drunkenness ubiquitous. For the first time in our land, women feared the night.

[2:22] Or even daylight unaccompanied. Whence this evil... So we need to be careful as Christians. A lot of times we talk about the good old days when religion was going well.

[2:33] We need to revise that historically. Whence this evil tide which engulfed the young nation at its very birth? Well, one of the acutest observers, soon to assume the presidency of Yale, had no doubt.

[2:48] The infectious disease of infidelity had been caught from the midwife, France. She it was who had assisted America in its birth struggle against England.

[3:02] But her embrace had been pollution. For the revolutionary republic had exported its sneering contempt for revealed religion.

[3:15] Reason... Here we go. Thomas Paine. Reason, it was shamelessly asserted, is the only oracle of man.

[3:26] The Bible came under mocking assault and was dismissed as, but, quote, a book of stories, fables, invented absurdities and downright lies.

[3:38] This is from Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. And such insidious subversives of faith did their deadly solvent work in workshop, counting room, and parlor and courthouse.

[3:53] Neither were the colleges exempt from this baneful influence. Indeed, they were rather a tilled soil for such seeds of infidelity. And Yale was no exception.

[4:06] Lyman Beecher, there he is, who entered Yale in 1793, remembered his college years as, quote, the day of the infidelity of the Tom Paine School.

[4:22] Here's his further description. College was in a most ungodly state. The college church was almost extinct. Most of the students were skeptical.

[4:34] And rowdies were plenty. Wine and liquors were kept in many rooms. Intemperance, profanity, gambling, and licentiousness were common. Most of the class before me were infidels and called each other Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert.

[4:51] These are the names of the French philosophes who were all atheists. Yale's then president described the dominant beliefs of the students who had imbibed the heady brew, the heady new teaching from France.

[5:08] He writes, Religion, they discovered on the one hand, to be the vision of dotards and nursemaids. And on the other, a system of fraud and trick imposed by priestcraft for base purposes upon the ignorant multitude.

[5:24] Revelation was found to be without authority or evidence. And moral obligation, a cobweb, which might indeed entangle flies, but by which creatures of stronger wing disdained to be confined.

[5:40] And campus-wide disbelief had an unruly college twin disorder. Students waxed brazen, even rolling barrels down Tudor's staircases, smashing windows, cutting the rope of the bell to summon students to classes.

[6:00] I think that still goes on. It was going on in my undergraduate days, too. They always tried to get the clapper so they couldn't call for classes. Even setting off explosives in Commons.

[6:10] We didn't do that. As Tudor Moses Stewart, There he is. As Tudor Moses Stewart wrote to Benjamin Silliman, mercifully away on study leave, There appear to be more devils in Yale College at present than were cast out of Mary Magdalene.

[6:31] This all proved too much for the aging president, Ezra Stiles, to handle. There's Ezra Stiles. Who, they've got that little up there.

[6:43] That's Haley's Comet. Because in his day, Haley's Comet came through. So they're indicating that. Ezra Stiles. Yes. In one attempt to quiet a hall full of convulsive Yalies, chanting and howling jibes, he beat his cane to shivers on his podium, all unavailingly.

[7:07] President Stiles' confidence that the evidences of revelation are nearly as demonstrative as Newton's Principia had not arrested the apostasy of the student body.

[7:21] Actually, he just, he literally, they dragged him out. He had this nervous breakdown and they had to drag him away. It was Ezra Stiles. Ezra Stiles, yeah. It would take another champion to do battle with the burgeoning infidelity and put to flight the philosoph Philistines.

[7:41] Is that why he's wearing a bib? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, always a cute, always a cute, Raul. The champion. Looks like they're related to American history.

[7:54] That's right. That's right, Sammy. They are. That champion was Timothy Dwight. There he is. Who assumed the presidency of Yale in 1795.

[8:06] What does that have to do with Bible study? Well, this is a history of the Second Great Awakening at Yale. So things that God did in extraordinary ways at Yale many years ago.

[8:17] Wow. Yeah. Should be interesting. We'll see. We'll see. So Timothy Dwight. At that time, not one in ten of the more than a hundred students at Yale even professed Christianity.

[8:31] What would be the medal of the new president? The wily students determined to put him immediately to the test. According to custom, seniors were to submit a list of proposed questions for disputation.

[8:46] In the list, they pugnaciously included the question, are the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments the word of God? The old regime would never have permitted such a volatile topic, lest its handling induce doubts in the weak.

[9:06] And the students naturally assumed that such repression proved Christianity could only be supported by authority and not by argument.

[9:18] But Timothy Dwight was not of the old order. And indeed, he had spent much of his adult life preparing to answer questions like that. And he, to the students' great surprise, selected that very question for senior disputation.

[9:35] Okay, this is how the president would teach the Yale seniors rhetoric, disputation, and debate. They would pick a topic, and he would teach them debate on that, and this is the topic that they picked.

[9:49] So he directed the students to give the question their best critical zeal. And that he would not assume their arguments reflected their own opinions, lest they be worried about their grade.

[10:02] The debaters went to work with gleeful exhilaration. Virtually all came forward as champions of infidelity. Timothy Dwight allowed them to make their best case, then proceeded, as one observer wrote it, in a torrent of irresistible argument and animated eloquence, to decimate the case against the scriptures and to effectually bolster its veracity.

[10:30] The persuasive performance, quote, left the stoutest infidel utterly confounded. His bolts had the effect of lightning upon the whole college.

[10:43] For the next six months, he preached and taught incessantly on the subject.

[10:54] The cannonade was formidable, but more would be required to turn things around. These are Dwight's, the nature and danger of infidel philosophy.

[11:05] So these are sermons that he was preaching to the students at the time. The seniors had been influenced, but when the next class entered Yale, so the fall of 1796, only one freshman was a professing Christian.

[11:22] The sophomore class contained none. The junior only one. And the senior, still a mere eight to ten, professed Christians.

[11:33] The college church, so see, once the revival went through and they graduated, they were all gone. Nothing in the lower classes. The college church had dwindled to two members.

[11:44] The college communion service at Yale at 1799 saw only one student present at an all-college communion service. Shubel Bartlett, good for him. Moore participated in a mock communion that they held simultaneously in the dining hall.

[12:02] It was against this backdrop that a mighty work of God unfolded at Yale. It seems that some students, hearing of the awakening work of the Spirit of God in other places, and in some cases having seen it for themselves while on break back home for them in Kentucky and Tennessee, so there were some revivals down there, that Yale, they began, they gathered and began weekly prayer that Yale might be included in God's blessing of awakening.

[12:32] And this gathering for earnest prayer had gone on faithfully for many, many months when God came down in, as they said, the plentitude of power.

[12:44] Widespread conviction of sin swept the college, and quote, daily, almost hourly, students submitted themselves to God. Of the 230 students then at Yale College, about one-third were converted, and 35 went on to become preachers of the gospel.

[13:05] The candidates for ministry in 1792, 5%. In 1805, it jumped up to 31% going in to the ministry. As one student present recalled, this is Porter of Farmington, quote, those were truly memorable days, such triumphs of grace, none whose privilege it was to witness them had ever before seen.

[13:31] So sudden and so great was the change in individuals, and in the general aspect of the college, that those who had been waiting for it were filled with wonder as well as with joy, and those who knew not what it meant were awestruck and amazed.

[13:47] Wherever students were found in their rooms, in chapel, in the halls, in college yard, the reigning impression was, surely God is in this place. The salvation of the soul was the great subject of thought, of conversation, and of all-absorbing interest.

[14:06] Among those touched of God in this revival was Benjamin Silliman. There he is. This is the revival of 1802.

[14:18] Tudor Benjamin Silliman, he was a tutor at the time. In a letter that he writes home to his mother, so he was a tutor at the time, he gives us a picture of how dramatically Yale had changed.

[14:30] And you remember the Lyman Beecher. Wines and liqueurs and most of it, you know, all of that. So contrast it with Lyman Beecher's earlier account that I had read. So this is Yale, June 11, 1802.

[14:46] Dear Mother, it would delight your heart, my dear mother, to see how the trophies of the cross are multiplied in this institution. Yale College is a little temple.

[14:59] Prayer and praise seem to be the delight of a greater part of the students, while those who are still unfeeling are awed into respectful silence. Pray for me, my dear mother, that while I am attempting to forward others in this journey to heaven, I may not myself be a castaway.

[15:17] One of the remarkable things about that revival of 1802 is how quickly, again, its effects seem to pass from the college. Within five years, of course, all who had experienced the revival had then graduated.

[15:32] So within five years, the number of professed Christians in all the classes of Yale did not exceed 15. So this is one of the peculiar features.

[15:43] Sorry about that. This is one of the peculiar features of college ministry and largely, actually, church ministry in a college town. You're always starting again, seemingly from scratch.

[15:58] Any foundations are kind of up and gone at graduation. There they go. There they go. And you have very little remaining to build upon oftentimes. Well, in such circumstances, one needs to rapidly pass on in the depth and to multiply disciples.

[16:17] 2 Timothy 2.2. These things that you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these commit to faithful ones who will be able to teach others also. That's what needs to be done. And, of course, we're busying ourselves with doing just that around here.

[16:32] Somehow this broke down at Yale, and the blessing was not passed along to succeeding classes of incoming students. Tutor Chauncey Goodrich, there he is, he reflected much on this matter, and he thought that the remarkable supernatural quality of revival made students so affected, it made them think that their own systematic effort at evangelism would be paltry compared with the sudden and sovereign divine blessing from above.

[17:12] Isn't it interesting? So they were actually discouraged from putting forth their hands. In other words, they waited for revival to kind of come down from heaven, just praying and praying and praying and praying that it would happen, and praying, great, all these prayers were great, instead of themselves actually going out and trying to evangelize the incoming classes.

[17:35] So it's fascinating. But in God's sovereign mercy, another revival did come in the spring of 1808. A revival of great power and extent had already been in progress a number of months in the city of New Haven, so right across the college fence, but it hadn't jumped the college fence, and it hadn't stirred the student body, which kind of looked on unaffected and indifferent.

[18:05] Well, this broke the fatherly heart of Dwight. He grieved that the spirit might come so close to his young wards and yet pass them by.

[18:17] It was with heavy heart that Dwight took up the Saturday evening service in college in preparation for the Sabbath. The melancholy contrast between an awakened New Haven, right just across the fence, and a slumbering Yale settled upon him with overwhelming weight.

[18:38] He could not complete the opening hymn. His usual loud and sonorous voice became weak and tremulous, recalled one of the students. He sang but a single stanza and stopped.

[18:52] Then came the prayer in which the distraught Dwight poured out his heart. He acknowledged the sovereignty of God in the dispensations of his grace, but made that very truth the ground of his appeal before the throne for his sons.

[19:10] Never did a minister plead more fervently for his people, recalled one present, who would soon experience in his own soul the fulfillment to the president's pleas. Never a father more importunately for his children than he did for his pupils before them.

[19:28] The next morning, Sabbath, Dwight preached upon Christ's words to the dead son of the widow of Nain. Young man, I say to thee, arise.

[19:40] That was the text. And it was these words that the spirit spoke in power to many a student's heart that morning. Conviction of sin was deep and pungent.

[19:51] It's a phrase that they always use. Deep and pungent. Another revival had commenced. Dwight was overjoyed to see the travail of his soul. And he addressed the students upon his regular Saturday night meetings and Sunday services.

[20:07] No preparation. No notes. Just spoke straight from his heart. He also set up weekly meetings, oftener than when required, for students under conviction that he might shepherd them to Christ in his grace and forgiveness.

[20:26] Indeed, Dwight allowed none of the numerous duties as president and instructor to keep him from distressed souls in need of gospel comfort, but laid himself open at all times to the calls of those who sought his spiritual aid, recalled one student.

[20:45] And many there were who closed with Christ upon their knees in his study with Dwight tenderly beside them. Isn't that a wonderful image? The president of Yale leading these men to Christ on their knees in his own study.

[21:00] Had those who sought his instructions been his own children, writes one of his charges, he could hardly have treated them with more kindness or shown greater solicitude to see them in the arc of safety.

[21:18] Well, not only was Dwight's study hallowed by the conversion of students, some students were in such distress under the weight of their conviction that they were confined to their rooms in spiritual agony.

[21:33] And Dr. Dwight had to make house calls to the dorms to work the gospel physic. In this task, he had the able assistance of a young Elisha, not young in that picture when they painted it, but his name was Asahel Nettleton, Asahel Nettleton, and there he is.

[21:57] So he would go on to be one of the foremost evangelists of the awakening, which spanned about the first three decades of the 19th century. And it was at Yale as a student under Dwight that he received his first training.

[22:13] He was much in prayer for the work of the Spirit in his fellow Yalies and didn't miss any indications that God was answering his prayer. He always has his antennae up to see which of his fellow students was experiencing conviction of the Spirit.

[22:31] Often did I see him, recalled one of his classmates, interestingly called with the name Jonathan Lee, which I know him well. Often did I see him with one or two heart-burdened youth of his youngest class, walking arm in arm in the college yard before evening prayers, conversing upon the great interest of their souls.

[22:54] His conversation with such individuals, his silent and unostentatious labors, his meeting for prayer and conference, held a very prominent and important place in that memorable and joyful season.

[23:07] Young Asahel and President Dwight made a good team. It seems the president was even willing to be awakened in the middle of the night to come to a stricken student's side.

[23:22] Neither was Nettleton reluctant to call on the president at that hour under urgent circumstances. On one occasion there was such a desperate case of despairing agony of conviction.

[23:34] The balm of Gilead was needed now for the wounded soul. Nettleton found the sufferer and went immediately for the president, stirring him from his slumbers.

[23:46] Dwight came at once there in his robe, his nightgown. As one president described the scene, for a short time the president seemed overwhelmed.

[24:01] So deeply did he share in the agony of the agonized. At length, however, taking a seat by his bedside, he gradually directed the anxious inquirer unto the divine sufficiency and the infinite fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[24:22] He recited the invitations of the gospel before the student and then followed his paternal counsel by prayer to God. That prayer was heard and the words which he spoke were a healing balm from on high.

[24:37] A sweet serenity seemed to steal over the agitated sinner's mind. A serenity which was the harbinger of a joy that came in a short time after and was unspeakable and full of glory.

[24:54] What a wonderful picture. The president of Yale College making little room calls to those stricken. Well, that stricken soul which found grace in the early hours of the morning went on to become a missionary.

[25:08] He would always remember that young Elisha, Nettleton, at the president's side. As he wrote later, he remained with me all night. Yeah, President Dwight went back and resumed his sleep, but Nettleton stayed with the young convert all night.

[25:23] He remained with me all night. He was besieging the throne of grace. His whole soul seemed bent on my deliverance. Man never pleaded with more fervency and I cannot doubt that I was more indebted to him for my relief than to any other person.

[25:41] Some 30 others had a similar testimony of God's converting work upon their souls and three quarters of those went on into ministry upon graduation.

[25:54] Such was some of the fruit of the revival of 1808. And yet, in the passing of a mere four years, the college was again a place of spiritual decline.

[26:08] It seems that this sad state prompted several seniors, unknown to each other, to devote the last hour of the day to prayer that God would again come in power.

[26:23] It seems further, again unknown to each other, that the focused prayer was devoted to one student in particular who was a figure of wide influence on campus, baneful influence, alas, and no friend of vital godliness.

[26:41] Elias Cornelius. There he is. I couldn't find another picture, so I just took it from one of my volumes. Elias Cornelius was the subject of these several independent intercessions.

[26:59] And these pleadings, God suddenly and dramatically answered. Cornelius was soundly converted, seemingly out of the blue, to the amazement of the intercessors and to the alarm of his previous companions, with whose company Cornelius immediately broke.

[27:19] Cornelius foreswore swearing, bought a Bible, and began to evangelize. And in this, God granted remarkable fruitfulness. As one astonished observer wrote, with his characteristic ardor, he now sought, in conjunction with his new Christian friends, to bring others to a knowledge of the Savior, whom he found so precious to his own soul.

[27:44] Their labors were attended, he continues to write, their labors were attended with the happiest results. Nearly 20 principally members of the senior class gave evidence of a genuine change of heart.

[27:58] And thus, the college awakening of 1812 has come to be called, in history, the Elias Cornelius revival.

[28:11] Thankfully, Cornelius' influence was not lost to Yale with his graduation, for he remained to study theology in preparation for a hoped missionary career, hopeful missionary career.

[28:24] And it was Cornelius, who was at the center of a small group of burning souls, who had an ardent desire for God to repeat again his mighty dealings at Yale College.

[28:36] Every Sunday morning, well before church, these stalwarts, brave the snow, they began in December, and for a, brave the snow for about a half a mile distance, at the early hour of 3 a.m.

[28:51] to gather in a secluded place for earnest supplication, that God would again pour out his spirit. It was quite a commitment, but it seemed the warmth of their hearts more than compensated from the chill of the winter.

[29:06] As one who braved the hour and frost remembered, quote, I will recollect one very cold night in which we walked nearly half a mile from college at the early hour of 3 of the clock to a private room to pray.

[29:22] And I have always remembered that morning as one of the happiest I ever enjoyed. It was truly a season in which heaven seemed to be let down to earth.

[29:33] Well, the prayer warriors, happily, happily, this pattern, then having bombarded the strongholds with intercession, got up from their knees and actually went forth.

[29:46] They went through the college room to room heralding the good news. As one Yale student who went on to be a Baptist minister described the adventure, scarcely a room did they enter in which there was not found at least one awakened sinner, some infidels bolted their doors determined to shut out the visitors and to shut out conviction.

[30:14] But the Spirit of the Lord reached them too and compelled them not only to open their doors but also their hearts to receive the truth. So universal was the excitement that there were not more than three or four students in the college who were not impressed with a concern for their souls.

[30:32] About 80 were considered as fruits of the revival. And many will forever bless God that Cornelius was there and labored for their salvation. Well the numbers seem staggering but Cornelius' recollection corroborate the testimonies that we have from several students.

[30:53] So, so universal was the Spirit's conviction that rooms were designated in every Yale entryway for those gathering seeking salvation.

[31:07] Oh, what things do we witness? Writes Cornelius from the Ramparts. Let heaven and earth rejoice. The Prince of Peace and Glory is riding through the world.

[31:20] The angel is flying in the midst of heaven with the everlasting gospel. Oh, what a time to live in. Rejoice, ye heavens and earth, for the day of his power and glory and grace has come and who will not bow before him?

[31:39] Well, one remarkable story connected with these events is that of Henry Obukaya. Oh, there he is.

[31:51] Wow. Yeah. Now, there's a look. So, a Hawaiian refugee from tribal wars on his island, the Sandwich Islands, they called them at the time, in which he had lost both of his parents.

[32:12] Apparently, this young guy, he just, everybody was just so sanguinary. Everybody was being killed and he saw, he saw this large canoe. It was actually a western ship out in the bay and he just swam out and hid himself in it as a stowaway and then it sailed around, sailed around and when it finally came to port, it was New Haven and he found his way onto the Yale campus.

[32:40] So, there he is, Obukaya, wandering around the college yard in a rather ill-fitting sailor suit that he had located on board and he's discovered and taken in by a Yale student and eventually ends up living with President Dwight where he was taught to read and to write along with a daily dose of gospel.

[33:07] As he wrote in his memoir, I heard of God as often as I lived with this family. He's talking about Dwight. He was then taken into the home of Samuel Mills, Samuel Mills, the son of the famous Haystacker who, like his dad, also had a passion for missions.

[33:28] Mills was the bosom companion of Elias Cornelius and with such companionships, it surprises us little that Henry Obukaya eventually came to Christ.

[33:41] And it was Cornelius, Elias Cornelius, who had the idea of starting a foreign mission school to equip Obukaya and others like him to carry the gospel back to their people.

[33:54] And this was the great desire of Obukaya. He said, I've got to get the gospel back to any who survived my home in the Sandwich Islands.

[34:08] Well, the Yale senior who first found Obukaya, Edwin Dwight was his name, wandering around New Haven, he became the first principal of this foreign missions college that they established in Cornwall, Connecticut.

[34:24] It was founded in 1817. Sadly, as so often happens in these circumstances, Obukaya never made it back to his people with the gospel.

[34:39] He died of typhus in 1818. So often, they just wouldn't have the same immunities and would be so vulnerable to a lot of these diseases and would die in training before they could get from their mission college back to their mission fields.

[34:57] So he dies of typhus in 1818. But his story was written up and published as a tract which stirred up a heart for missions among many.

[35:08] And in fact, his classmates at Yale decided, we're going to take up the torch and we're going to get the gospel to the Sandwich Islands for Obukaya.

[35:22] And it was not long before another son of Eli, Hiram Bingham. There he is. Hiram.

[35:35] Yeah, that was kind of the fashion of photography in those days. They didn't want you to crack a smile. Very hard to find a smile in the days of Deragatite or whatever. So, yes, Hiram Bingham, he actually would bring the gospel to the land of Obukaya.

[35:59] Interestingly, Hiram Bingham, missionary, first missionary to the Sandwich Islands, had a son, Hiram Bingham II, who's actually a friend of Raul.

[36:13] No, that's the great grandson. Hiram Bingham II, who came back to teach at Yale, grew up as a missionary kid, came back to teach at Yale, and was in archaeology and anthropology. Hiram Bingham II, he's the one that went down to Machu Picchu and got all his stuff and brought it back, and was such a picaresque character, really a fascinating fellow, that the movies, oh, it was Harrison Ford.

[36:39] Yeah, yeah. Indiana Jones, yes, is based upon that character. We vacation with his son before you've met him. That's right, that's right, yeah, yeah, Raul is corroborating all of these things, so it's clearly true.

[36:53] So, yes, but that fellow was actually the son, so the Indiana Jones stories are based on the son of this man right here that's not smiling. So, yes, ah, the thick web of history, how fascinating.

[37:05] Oh, he's not here. Well, no sooner had the great revival of 1815 begun to wane than Cornelius and his band were praying for another visitation.

[37:19] This time, the circle of intercessors was to be wider. A plan is on foot for establishing a concert of prayer in all the colleges in the United States.

[37:32] at nine of the clock every Sabbath morning, wrote Cornelius to a friend. Our concert was held last Sabbath morning and will be continued till another revival of religion and from that period, I hope, till the millennium.

[37:51] And so, they continued praying and proclaiming. See, there's the combination. Praying and proclaiming. Interceding and entreating and rejoicing in the harvest that God granted their labors.

[38:07] And what a joy was theirs in that great day of God's power. As Cornelius wrote to a co-laborer, and may this be our final charge here, or our charge, not final.

[38:21] Oh, my brother, how rich a reward in this world do those enjoy who have any reason to hope they have been instrumental of saving souls.

[38:34] No matter how much toil has been sustained, one soul is enough to pay for toil infinitely greater. Blessed Jesus, strengthen our weak faith.

[38:51] Fill our hearts with the Spirit of Heaven and make us burn as flaming fires in Thy service. Does not your soul respond, Amen.

[39:03] Even so, Lord Jesus. Or, in the words of Timothy Dwight, I love Thy kingdom, Lord, the house of Thine abode, the church our blessed Redeemer saved with His own precious blood.

[39:20] For her, my tears shall fall. For her, my prayers ascend. To her, my cares and toils be given till toils and cares shall end.

[39:34] Just a final thought here, and then I'm determined to leave some room for questions. Do you recall how quickly dismal days of spiritual decline plagued New England with Yale as a microcosm of such speedy declension?

[39:53] Remember the pattern here. One class would be revived and Yale would be described as a Bethel, the very house of God. Then, in a few short years, scarcely any sign of spiritual vitality.

[40:11] Surely, this should supply a special urgency to the need to relay spiritual blessings to the next generation.

[40:23] Our faith does not pass automatically from one generation to the next. No. the relay of faith must be deliberate.

[40:35] Again, 2 Timothy 2, 2, what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful ones who will be able to teach others also.

[40:45] That unbroken relay across generations. We can ask ourselves, what are we doing to relay the full wealth of gospel conviction and experience to the next generation?

[41:01] What might we do? For this needs to be all hands on deck. So, as you reflect, think about what has been relayed to me?

[41:13] What are some of the blessings of godliness that I have received relayed to me by faithful people? And how might I be able to relay some of that to the next generation?

[41:27] So, prayers and proclamations. So, reflect on that. Well, let me stop there in case there are any questions or comments. Yeah.

[41:39] Okay. I found this on the web for questions or comments. I think colleges today usually require a statement of faith before acceptance. But I take it that was not the case at Yale or did they change because they were founded to be a college.

[41:55] Did they have or have a policy like I were? Is it not? Well, yes. They did. Every student would be required to place themselves under the means of grace.

[42:15] But there was an acknowledgement at the founding of Yale that there would be many who came that even though they were in a Christian culture and a Christian society who attended churches faithfully. They were not yet regenerate.

[42:29] So they were not required to give an account of their conversion because many of them had not been regenerated.

[42:39] They didn't give an account of their regeneration because many of them had not. But what they did need to do was they needed to place themselves under the tutelage of the gospel and all would do that.

[42:51] So it was among the college laws originally that every student must give themselves to daily Bible reading because that would be one of the means of grace that God might use to regenerate them.

[43:06] Then they also would have to place themselves regularly under the preaching of the gospel in college chapel or to attend church so they would have to do these things and then they would also be instructed so they would all have to memorize catechisms.

[43:24] All the students would memorize the Westminster Catechism. Though some wily students realized that if they acknowledged themselves as congregational or Presbyterians they'd have to memorize the Westminster Catechism and if they could just suggest that they were Anglicans then the catechism that they had learned was a little bit shorter a few pages shorter.

[43:50] So it was really odd it's so funny because the president was sitting why are we having all these why is everybody becoming an Anglican and they couldn't figure it out and finally it occurred to them the poor Presbyterians have to students identify Presbyterians or Congregationalists they have to memorize a longer catechism so as soon as they equalize the thing it reverts back as soon as there wasn't a memory advantage so stuff but this begins to fall away after the Civil War you begin to have some trends and again the dynamic is once you see in the early Connecticut and early Yale you have largely a religiously homogenous society so if we were to take the model that you've seen for God for country and for Yale early on there seemed to be no conflict it was utter harmony by being for the whole country at least as they experienced it and for God because everybody in their country in their immediate surroundings who would come to

[44:53] Yale was for God in the same way largely largely I mean if you were a Jew you're in Rhode Island if you're a Baptist you're in Rhode Island like Maryland yeah exactly but when America became much more diverse and even religiously diverse then you have a challenging situation you begin for country and for their perception of for God began to not be perfectly overlapping now first much of the immigration was from northern Europe and western Europe and that was all Protestant but then it began to shift Roman Catholics coming in it's shift to southern and even eastern Eastern Europe a lot of Jewish immigrants Irish potato famine a lot of Catholics coming through so now we have a pretty diverse culture and the trustees began to think okay are we going to be a college just for our congregationalists here our Protestant congregationalists or do we want to be a national college for everyone here so then we need to loosen up the strictures and let people come in who might not identify in the same way with

[46:11] Christianity as we understand it so those were some of the chief dynamics yeah yeah I'm curious about the mission school so I know another class you had mentioned that the early Puritans when they were reaching out to the Native Americans they thought they had to take away their culture and make them into their culture yes and then one of the guys from Yale who got I think he was one of the first ones to go to the Native Americans and let them just be their own culture I don't remember their name yeah so you're talking about Brainerd yeah so then the mission school that was sort of at this point what was kind of their philosophy on that right yeah so the thing is the Cornwall school yes and the shift was David Brainerd because David Brainerd when he had experienced some of the revival at Yale then he becomes a missionary and he's so he's among the Native Americans and then at the forks of the Delaware across Weeksville he has an experience where he is preaching and these

[47:13] Native Americans respond indistinguishably from the things that he had seen in these staid old New England churches among you know the English settlers and he realized oh my goodness they don't have to be civilized as they put it before they can be gospelized they clearly they clearly have become regenerated and you know what they don't have to live in a house they can live in a teepee in a wigwam and still be vital dynamic godly Christians so this the Puritans picked up on this and they were convinced that this was so so they abandoned they basically abandoned that and said no no we can preach the gospel we don't have to and yeah maybe things are a little bit strange we're not quite sure if you're nomadic how that works in with church membership there are a lot of confusing questions but we know it's got to be possible but I mean those are real questions you know how do you do this off the back of a horse how do you do church off the back of a horse it's challenging for missionaries still as we go different places but there's the indigenizing principle the gospel can find its home in any culture in any culture but then there's the pilgrimizing principle also the gospel is never perfectly at home in any culture and it calls us to repentance and to pilgrimage because we're citizens of heaven so it can come into any culture when the early Christians tried to understand this do the

[49:02] Gentiles need to become culturally Jewish before they can become Christians circumcision all that stuff in the Jerusalem council no you don't have to become a Jew to become a Christian you don't no no the gospel can fit into any can find its home in any culture and this is pretty distinctive Islam is not this way so vitally important we should probably conclude thank you team Lord willing next week we will be jumping to the next century and we'll be looking at William Borden and the student volunteer movement and so forth so thank you very much so this is called it all happened here six generations of faithful Christian witness in New Haven yeah

[50:02] I'm not going to touch this band because I might do something terrible so I'll let you do it to PG to G to the music