The Founding of Yale College and The Vision There

[0:00] All right. Was he a Christian? Okay.

[0:16] If you were to visit Yale's Silliman Memorial Library, entering through the main entrance and proceeding a few paces, up to your left, just beneath the clerestory, there is a sculpted stone panel.

[0:32] Here it is, rendering a scene that has become the icon for the founding of Yale. The panel depicts ten Connecticut ministers surrounding a wooden table upon which they are ceremonially placing books they have brought, most of them sizable folio volumes.

[0:51] They are solemn in their action, and yet their faces are alight with satisfaction as they view this tangible evidence of their common determination.

[1:03] As they step forward, in turn, and lay their offerings upon the table, each pronounces, I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony.

[1:15] We will return shortly to this historic scene, which transpired in the Branford Parsonage of Reverend Russell sometime around 1700 or 1701.

[1:29] The vacillation on the actual year that this happened was so irritating for the stonemason, because they made him correct the date. See there, AD 1701?

[1:41] They made him correct it three times. And Yale was unsteady on this date, and on the 150th anniversary, they actually celebrated in 1850.

[1:55] Still unsure, but now we're pretty settled that this happened in 1701. Oops, wrong one, sorry, not yet. But for the true beginning, we must go back a little further, back to the foundation of New Haven itself, and the dream and determination of its first minister, John Davenport.

[2:16] We recall last week, if you were there, the animating motive behind the great migration which brought the Puritans to these shores was that they, quote, might enjoy the liberty not of some ordinances of God, but of all and all in purity.

[2:36] This is John Cotton, and his language is echoed by John Davenport, the founder of New Haven, all his ordinances purely according to his own mind, God's own mind in all things.

[2:50] But this commitment that they reflect in all of their affairs, the mind of God, had a clear correlate. How could they be faithful to all the mind of God without knowing the word of God?

[3:06] This was very important to them. If they lacked a thorough and deep acquaintance with the scriptures, zeal was not enough. It must be, to quote the apostle, zeal according to knowledge.

[3:19] Thus, the Puritan vision of godly church and society was bound up with the utter necessity of godly learning. Each community of the faithful must have ministers capable of expounding God's ordinances aright.

[3:35] And so, it was expected to have facility in the original languages, Hebrew and Greek of the Old Testaments and the New Testaments, and further to be acquainted with the expositions of the church fathers, the scholastic philosophers, the reformed theologians, requiring also Latin.

[3:57] This Puritan vision of society, they often compared to a stool, a three-legged stool. Two legs of the church and the state were not enough to make the stool stable.

[4:10] I mean, try sitting on a two-legged stool. It doesn't work very well. They needed to have a third leg, and that for them was the academy, or else things would collapse. Well, by the time Davenport and his fellow pilgrims arrived in Boston, first before they came to New Haven, their brother in there had already moved to form a college.

[4:32] 1638, sorry, 1636, my fault. 1636, there is the old Harvard College. A little bit later, that's about the earliest woodcut that we have, but it was similar to that.

[4:45] As Cotton Mather writes, after God had carried us safely to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity.

[5:13] Dreading, strong word, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. Failing such a provision, the churches of New England would be, quote, less than a business of one age, and soon come to nothing.

[5:33] Without a nursery for such men among ourselves, darkness must have soon covered the land, and a gross darkness the people. So you see how important education was to them.

[5:47] Davenport gave his support in these fledgling days of Harvard. Indeed, was himself one of the overseers of the infant college. But he and his clan soon pressed on to New Haven to plant their own colony, where was quickly established a free school for the better training up, this is a quote, better training up of youth in this town, that through God's blessing, they may be fitted for public service hereafter, either in church or in common will.

[6:23] It was headed by the far-famed Ezekiel Cheever. He was the contemporary of John Harvard and also from Emanuel College in Cambridge, and author of that much-celebrated Latin textbook that was used across the colonies, humorously titled Latin Accidents.

[6:45] Not in the, like, crashing and terrible grammatical accidents that probably many of his students made, but not a great name for a Latin textbook or a book on grammar, I suppose.

[6:56] Latin Accidents, nonetheless. New Haveners at the time were supporting Harvard with contributions of corn, but they desired to do more than simply supply a college in Massachusetts.

[7:10] They wanted to possess one in New Haven. And this especially was Davenport's desire, and he began collecting books in the hopes of realizing this dream.

[7:22] So soon, he writes, as our ability shall reach thereunto. Well, that was the rub. For in the strange providence of God, outward circumstances multiplied to repeatedly scuttle the realization of a college.

[7:43] Many of the settlers in New Haven were merchants, some of them of no small means, and would have likely become benefactors of this hoped-for college.

[7:54] But a terrible series of financial losses virtually impoverished the colonies, so full of commercial hopes. The most devastating of these was the Great Ship.

[8:09] In the hopes of... And you can, if you go to the New Haven Historical Society, and you go up to the stairwell, they have an enormous painting, and this is one of them.

[8:21] This is where we got this from, as they insist on me sharing their New Haven Museum. A little advert for them. So, in the hopes of making good their many losses, the whole colony went together to hire a great ship, which they filled with all that they had, in the hopes that these goods might fetch a handsome price in England.

[8:50] It was to risk all they had in one pitch and toss. In January 1646, the great ship was loaded to the gunwales and set out.

[9:03] Davenport, the minister, prayed in classic Puritan fashion, yet expressed their steely-eyed submission to the hand of God.

[9:15] Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these, our family and friends, in the bottom of the sea, they are thine. Save them. Well, the ship was never seen again or heard of at all.

[9:30] Usually there's some flotsam or jetsam somewhere on the sea near Bermuda, and you figure it sunk. Nothing. No sign of it at all. Well, when months rolled into a year, the New Haveners feared the worst, that the ship had been lost at sea.

[9:45] But they prayed and asked God to reveal to them what had been the fate of the ship and their loved ones. And God answered their prayers in a remarkable way.

[9:57] We have much historical documentation for this. On one June day, one hour before sunset, New Haveners watched to their astonishment the great ship, whose loss they had so long mourned, come sailing toward them upon a cloud in the air.

[10:18] It was perfectly distinct and visible and came so close that one on the shore could have almost tossed a stone on board, they say.

[10:30] Then suddenly, in their sight, the top masts were torn apart in a seeming gale, the rigging tangled, the ship lurched, capsized before their eyes, and sank, disappearing into the cloud.

[10:46] They watched with awe, then heard the comforting words of Pastor Davenport, that God had graciously sent the phantom ship to show them how their friends had been lost at sea.

[10:59] Well, with the loss of so many precious loved ones came the loss of all their hopes for any commercial success. The disaster nearly put an end to the colony itself.

[11:13] There was serious talk about moving to Ireland or Jamaica, but they stayed and sought to gain a living from the soil. In these straightened circumstances, Davenport's dream of erecting a college would have to remain unrealized in his soul, a phantom like the great ship lost at sea.

[11:37] He would never see a college erected in his lifetime, though he kept the books in readiness for a future day, augmenting their number over the years. The dream never died, it merely lay dormant.

[11:51] And happily, the fallen torch that slipped from the great patriarch of the colony was taken up by a noble company in the next generation.

[12:03] The forward most in this college endeavor had ties with John Davenport, and those ties were actually more than ideological.

[12:16] In 1685, a young minister, James Pierpont, here he is, came to New Haven under consideration for the pulpit there of New Haven, Davenport's church.

[12:33] Preparing to give his trial sermon, he boarded with the widow of the patriarch's son, John Davenport, Jr. Abigail Davenport was his name.

[12:44] Well, despite his absorption with a critical sermon he had to preach the next morning, incidentally, it went well for him and the congregation didn't confirm his calling and he became their pastor.

[12:55] Two things caught the young Pierpont's attention during his stay with the widow Davenport, Jr. The first was a very fine collection of books and the story of John Davenport, Sr., longing to see a college established.

[13:12] The second was the widow Davenport's young daughter also named Abigail. The prosopography gets confusing because they tended to name their children after themselves, so there are plenty of Abigails and Johns.

[13:28] Well, it was love, but in the young minister's case love was very patient as Abigail was only 12 years old at the time. James would wait six more years before they were married, but married they finally were, making James Pierpont the husband of John Davenport's granddaughter.

[13:51] Okay, so it was kind of a family affair here. Alas, sad to relate, for all the time they had waited to be wed, their wedded life was very short.

[14:03] A few months, merely a few months after their wedding, she died of consumption, apparently brought on from her attending a mid-winter church service wearing her bridal gown.

[14:18] That was the unvarying custom of the day. When you went to a new location, you were required by law to wear your wedding gown, and oftentimes if you had had a summer wedding, your wedding gown was a little bit, you know, sparse or parsimonious, and you could catch cold, and I found record of several women for whom this was their fate.

[14:41] They actually died of cold wearing a seasonally mismatched wedding gown. So ladies, let that be a warning to you if you find a temptation to wear your summer gown in wintry weather.

[14:54] It has taken away many. Now, Davenport's grandson-in-law, James Pierpont, undertook to revive the dream.

[15:04] He purchased the languishing library, which was technically owned by the town of New Haven, and set in motion a new beginning. At Pierpont's side, in this rekindled endeavor, was another local minister, Abraham Pearson, Jr.

[15:24] Abraham Pearson, Jr. His father was also named Abraham Pearson. Abraham Pearson, who would shortly become the first president, well then called rector of the college.

[15:34] was more than Pearson's Pierpont's comrade-in-arms for realizing this vision. He was also his uncle, for he was brother to the mother of Pierpont's deceased bride, Abigail.

[15:52] Don't worry about it. It's best to look at a chart at this point. All this to say, the founding of Yale was largely a family affair. there. There we go.

[16:05] So, when the ministers gathered that memorable day at that home of Samuel Russell, Reverend Russell, on the far side of the old Branford Green, to deposit their gift of books sometime in 1700, or maybe even earlier, it was not something new that they were doing, simply something renewed.

[16:29] President Clapp, in his Annals of the History of Yale College, records the incident. Meeting at Branford, he writes, each member referring to the ten ministers that he had just listed, which he kind of oddly designates as the undertakers, because they undertook this thing, so the ten undertakers that got Yale established, brought a number, Clapp continues to write, brought a number of books and presented them, laying them on the table, and said these words, or to this effect, I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony.

[17:07] Reverend Russell of Branford was appointed to be the keeper of the library, which then consisted of about 40 volumes in folio. The Branford Crest, those of you that know Branford College, this is the Branford College Crest, Crest.

[17:26] This points toward the books that were the bequest of these ten ministers, so the ten books refer to that founding incident.

[17:39] That's where that crest comes from. It has been charged by a few skeptics that this founding event was contrived in the romantic imagination of President Clapp, whose alone is the testimony, an occasional reference you can find in modern volumes to the legend of the 40 folios.

[18:02] The subversive question is asked, what collection of aged ministers could have toted to Branford on horseback 40 enormous folio volumes?

[18:14] So like folio, very, very large. After all, a folio would scarcely fit into the saddlebag of a minister and might weigh as much as a hefty dumbbell.

[18:26] So they think that the whole story implausible. But Clapp does not tell us that the ministers brought all the 40 folios, simply that the collected library by that time consisted of about 40 folios.

[18:40] And we can be quite confident that these ministers did indeed covenant to donate books from their own scanty libraries. We have a letter preserved from one of their number, James Noyes of October 28, 1701.

[18:55] He apologizes that due to his advanced age, quote, my will is more than my strength, and that the trip for him is a journey over two rivers.

[19:07] He could not present himself, but he would present his books. I do desire and empower my brother to give out my books at his house my full proportion.

[19:21] for, quote, in nothing I would be behind hand in so public a good. So we know from letters that this actually did happen. It's not a myth.

[19:32] It's not a legend. Clearly, there was the presentation of books. And further, it did take place in Brantford in the parlor of Parson Russell, who was given care and keep of the library.

[19:44] In fact, we have two independent accounts of how one of the books was damaged, and that through a rather odd occurrence. It seems that a pane of the glass in Russell's parlor window was defectively convex, and on a particularly bright day, concentrated the sun's rays directly upon one of the bequeathed folios, burning a hole through the cover and into the first few pages.

[20:17] And this sad loss was remembered and passed down by the Russell descendants in Brantford, and the damage was noted by those who received the books from Russell's care when the college got started.

[20:30] So the gift of books at the act of founding is quite true. Quite true. But it is also quite telling.

[20:41] What did these donated books represent? Well, they certainly represented a personal sacrifice. They were not cast-off volumes or duplicates.

[20:53] Rather, they were the marrow of often very slender ministerial libraries. Books were prized possessions, and they had likely been passed down from earlier generations.

[21:08] So one historian refers to these books as dusty theological folios. But as Bainton writes, they were not dusty, and their owners would rather have parted with ten cords of cut wood in a New England winter.

[21:26] These were prize, prize volumes to them. And they gave their treasure because that's where their hearts were, as Christ would say. But these books also represented an endowment of faith.

[21:39] These were not works of literature or science. They were almost without exception works of theology and from the reformed tradition of the continental Protestantism.

[21:52] They were works of Beza, Bullinger, Busser, Calvin. This was the heritage of faith that they had received and sought to pass on and pass on without adulteration.

[22:06] Thus, in that memorable phrase of Bainton, Yale was conservative before she was born. They sought to preserve and propagate the faith of their fathers.

[22:17] And by 1700, the need for this was thought to be acute, for it was in danger of lapsing in the perception of many a conservative Connecticuter, Connecticuter, Connecticuter, sorry.

[22:32] New Englanders at this time were beginning to name their children Ichabod after 1 Samuel 4.21.

[22:44] And she named the child Ichabod, saying, the glory is departed from Israel. Harvard, that intended school of the prophets, this is your hiss line, there you go, okay.

[22:58] Harvard, that intended school of the prophets, was becoming theologically wobbly, and it was feared too elastic in its doctrines, what they called latitudinarianism, taking too much latitude with the faith once delivered to the saints.

[23:14] The degenerate graduates of Harvard that were being turned out were the sad tokens of paradise lost. There we go.

[23:26] Here's an increased Mather who had a front row seat right up at Harvard and is watching all these kids graduate. He writes the book Ichabod, or a discourse showing what cause there is to fear that the glory of the Lord is departing from New England, and on and on.

[23:45] So, such sad realities made the matter timely, even urgent. The driving motives of the founders were made explicit in their meeting in Saybrook, November 11, 1701, where they declared, quote, it was the glorious public design of our now blessed fathers in their removal from Europe into these parts of America, both to plant and under the divine blessing to propagate in this arid wilderness the blessed reformed Protestant religion in purity of its order and worship.

[24:24] And we, their unworthy posterity, lamenting our past neglects of this grand errand, and sensible of our equal obligation to prosecute some end, the same end, sorry, prosecute the same end, we do now undertake to erect, form, and regulate a collegiate school.

[24:47] So, there you have it. Oh, oops, sorry, no, this is not, I'm sorry, where's the, oh, I'll go backwards. So, this is the Yale charter here, from which I just read.

[25:02] This, then, was the design of Yale in its inception, to be a means of, quote, planting and propagating the blessed Protestant reformed religion.

[25:13] This did not mean that they would exclusively train ministers, though that would be a principal part, for the effective planting and propagating of the faith, would also require those equipped for service in the civil sphere.

[25:30] As the charter puts it, you could, if you could, if that were a little more clearer, you could read it, as the charter puts it, 1701, a collegiate school wherein youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences, who through the blessing of the almighty God, may be fitted for public employment, both in church and in civil state.

[25:55] So remember the three-legged stool. The college leg, the academy, was the feeder for both the other legs of the church and the state. And then you would get stability in society.

[26:08] Having the mind of Christ was absolutely critical, not simply in the church, but in all of society. Whether you were going to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer, or a farmer, our vocation can and must express kingdom truth and kingdom values.

[26:26] This is part of the vision that we need to keep reviving. And there was another aspect of the vision of the four fathers that the founding members recognized and embraced in their founding, for as they carefully noticed, our blessed fathers sought to plant and propagate the blessed Protestant reform religion, quote, not only to their posterity, but also to the barbarous natives.

[26:56] Their language, not current language. They were not mistaken in this, and well might they have remembered, for Abraham Pearson, so the founding, the first rector and one of the founders, his father, Abraham Pearson, senior, okay, had served as a missionary to the local natives, the first missionary sent out from New Haven Colony, and I think I, yeah, here it is, and this is, so Abraham Pearson, senior, this was one of the first tracks, indeed, he learned their language and published for them, this was the first work, some helps for the Indians, showing them how to know the true God and the true Christian religion, 1658.

[27:47] 1858. So, this, thus, it was part of the original design of Yale, not simply to secure the Christian faith among the settlers, but also to extend it among the Indians.

[28:03] So, we have a missionary design right at the founding of Yale College, and over the course of this class, we shall observe how Yale has fulfilled those hopes of her founders to be a missionary sending ground.

[28:18] Incidentally, this was also the case for Harvard. Oops, here we go, okay, yes. Indeed, her charter, Harvard's charter, specifically mentions the college being of service to the natives, and a dorm was provided expressly for their use, simply for Native Americans at Harvard.

[28:43] Harvard. Indeed, many a Puritan father saw the missionary design of God in transplanting them from Old England to New England, as John Eliot.

[28:57] So, this is actually the crest of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630. And notice, they have the Indian there, the Native American, and out of his mouth is coming the words, come over and help us.

[29:14] Those are the words you recall of Paul's vision of the Macedonian that prompted his missionary work to Europe. So, this was very much at the center of their efforts.

[29:26] As John Eliot wrote, one end of God sending so many saints to New England was the conversion of these Indians. And he, incidentally, gave his whole life to reaching them.

[29:38] He was one of the first Puritan full-time missionaries to the Indians. It's interesting, if you were to interview, which he did, interview the Indians, the commonplace Native American speculation as to why all of these English people kept showing up on their coastline was that they must have lacked sufficient firewood where they came from.

[30:03] You see that in the accounts. You need firewood, you can go to some lengths to get extra firewood if you need it, apparently. Well, Abraham Pearson was selected by his fellow ministers to become the first rector.

[30:19] At this earliest beginning, Yale was not in New Haven. Neither was it yet called Yale. The first instruction took place in Abraham Pearson's Killingworth parsonage.

[30:35] So, there's actually the statue that if you're on the Yale campus that you see of Abraham Pearson has its twin at the Killingworth green. Very, very same one because that's where he had his first parsonage.

[30:48] His congregation loved him. The plan was always to bring the college to New Haven, but his congregation loved him so well and his ministry among them that they conspired to keep him from moving to New Haven from Killingworth.

[31:06] And they concocted a plan that no one, they covenanted that no one would buy his house or farm. So, he couldn't sell his house or farm to anyone there.

[31:18] They didn't have bridge loans or what have you. So, he was stuck and hence they got the college to start in Killingworth for many, many years until 1718. So, that's where Yale began, although not yet called Yale as his congregation would not release him.

[31:36] So, the students all came to him and in consequence, his dear wife's kitchen became the refectory. She would make the meals as well as the extra rooms.

[31:48] People often would board among others in the town. They had no designated college building at the time. Thankfully, the classes were small. Four-fifths of all the students who graduated under Pearson became ministers and went on to shine his distinguished lights in the churches of New England.

[32:11] And I suppose a lot of them decided they might as well go into the ministry given the fact that the curriculum was basically a preparation for that vocation anyhow.

[32:23] So, whether you were a candidate for the ministry or not, the courses were all the same for you, including heavy doses of Greek, New Testament, Hebrew, Old Testament, and the Westminster Catechism in Latin, along with William Ames' Mero of Theology, and this sort of thing.

[32:41] So, hey, you might as well. You were trained. It was not until 1718 that the college permanently settled in New Haven. So, lots of ministers, lots of people became ministers.

[32:53] Cotton Mather said, there's nothing cheap in New England except for milk and ministers. Plenty of both of those things, I guess. Well, in 1718, the college then was permanently settled in New Haven and also came to take the new name of Yale College, both on account of a sizable bequest of one Connecticut-born but world-traveled trader, one Elihu Yale.

[33:24] There he is. The opulence is evident in the attire there. He made a fine fortune in the East India Company.

[33:37] Apparently, the way you make a fortune in gems is what he did in India, is he had this preternatural knack of when people would show him all of these gems in the rough, he would be able to make some very accurate estimate as to what they were going to be worth when cut and sold, so could put in really good, bids and know his margin of profit.

[34:02] Apparently, this amazing skill he had, so he made a huge, huge fortune doing this. Well, it was Cotton Mather who prompted the benefaction.

[34:16] Cotton Mather wrote to Elihu Yale, certainly, if what is forming at New Haven might wear the name of Yale College, it would be better than a name of sons and daughters, and your munificence might easily obtain for you such a commemoration and perpetuation of your valuable name, as would indeed be much better than even an Egyptian pyramid, or so he wrote.

[34:48] Always, I guess, these are the sorts of things that you do and say when you're trying to squeeze out a bequest. Well, if Elihu was considering an Egyptian pyramid, he ended up preferring to go with the Endowa College route for perpetuating his name, though there was one rather sizable hesitation that he did have.

[35:11] Elihu Yale was an Anglican, and yet the Connecticut College was decidedly not. Remember, the first settlers here had been under the persecuting whip, or I should say brand, you would actually brand them, of the Anglicans that were in power in England, so they disliked Anglicans.

[35:35] So if you came to New Haven Colony in the first generations, you had a special tax on you just for being an Anglican, the Anglican tax, because we don't really like you here.

[35:48] So such were those days. So there was this problem, but this scruple was overcome by the cunning observation of the agent that Yale sent over to talk to Elihu Yale.

[36:05] His name was Jeremiah Dummer, and he told Elihu, if the discipline of the Church of England be most agreeable to Scripture and primitive practice, there's no better way to make men sensible of it than by giving them good learning.

[36:27] And I would say, if Anglicanism is the way that's clearly scriptural and supported by church history, hey, endow an institution that studies the Scripture in church history. You'll do nothing but make Anglicans on your assumption.

[36:40] So Elihu was convinced, and he handed over sacks and sacks of gems and money. And Elihu's munificence was swiftly turned into a handsome new building named Yale College.

[36:55] So technically, Yale College was the name of the first building, not the whole college, not until about 30 years later did actual Yale College refer to the whole college rather than the little building.

[37:09] But for Jeremiah's dumber services of kind of angling this bequest, they originally wanted to name the college after him.

[37:21] But then as they kind of rolled that around in their hearing, dumber college didn't have as robust a sound to it. So he graciously declined and said, name it after Elihu Yale.

[37:34] Did he go on to be governor of Massachusetts? Elihu Yale? Dumber. I think probably he did. Yes, yes. He was the one, at least in his family.

[37:45] That's right. That's right. Yes, alas. We try to hide these facts from other states, but such is the egregious truth. Yes. So hence, then, Yalies are known as the sons of Eli.

[38:01] Those of you who are biblically literate, though, know what the Bible says about sons of Eli, which is a great thrill to me as a Princeton man. And the sons of Eli were wicked in the sight of the Lord.

[38:13] But moving back to historical matters, 1745 was also the year that President Clapp, and technically that was the year that 1745 is when the name Yale College actually was transferred to the college itself and not simply the building.

[38:35] And 1745 was also the year President Clapp drew up a new charter and a list of college rules, which were an explication of the founders' original, the original rules that they had had.

[38:56] Clapp had a gift for spelling things out that no one might wonder, as student or otherwise, what Yale College was about and how the aim was to be attained.

[39:11] So, the Yale College rules state, every student, quote, every student shall consider the main end of his duty to wit, to know God in Jesus Christ and answerably to lead a godly, sober life.

[39:33] Interesting. Times have changed. Times have changed. As each incoming student would read again from the quill of Clapp above the list of books that they were to digest.

[39:43] So, this would have been the first paragraph that every college student would see right above the list of books that they were going to be examined in, and it was this.

[39:55] Above all, have an eye to the great end of your studies, which is to obtain the clearest conception of divine things, to lead you to a saving knowledge of God in his son, Jesus Christ.

[40:16] Isn't that extraordinary? So, here we have an academic institution that clearly identifies as its aim, not an academic, not an educational aim, but a spiritual aim.

[40:31] Our chief aim as this institution, Yale College, is that every student that comes in here experiences regeneration.

[40:43] That's our chief aim. Isn't that extraordinary? I'll read it one more time. Above all, have an eye to the great end of all of your studies, which is to obtain the clearest conceptions of divine things, and to lead you to a saving knowledge of God in his son, Jesus Christ.

[41:03] In fact, the original, if you go back, a lot of it's written in huge caps and bolded, just to make sure you're not going to miss it. No. And that was the president of Yale in September? This is, that was 1745.

[41:17] Yeah. But he was just making explicit the things that were earlier. And this is clap. Yeah. And what daily regimen would conduce to this? Well, as another college rule stated, quote, every student shall exercise himself in reading the holy scriptures by himself every day that the word of Christ may dwell in him richly and that he may be filled with the knowledge of the will of God in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

[41:49] So this was the holy errand of these beginnings, these the beginnings of Yale. And what became of this godly foundation in subsequent generations will be the topic of some of our following lectures this week.

[42:06] Well, let me stop there because I don't always do a good job about allowing time for questions. Yes. I just, you know, as a Hopkins grad, Hopkins was founded in 1660. 1660.

[42:17] Yeah. So was that considered like a feeder to educate the young folks so they'd be prepared? Yes. For when the university would eventually, when a university would eventually be founded?

[42:27] Yes. That's right. So their children would be literate and already have a head up in Latin and That's exactly right. So they had, if you read through it, there's instantly a desire to set up what they would call a Latin school that at least would teach the boys Latin and then rudiments of these, the basic trivium.

[42:49] And this would be, Hopkins school, 1660 was one of those. Now at the time, they had hoped that they would have a college right there locally.

[43:00] But then what would happen is the new Haveners that would go to Hopkins would then go to Harvard. Yeah. And that's, that happened for a long time. Yeah. So, yes, you're right. But isn't that extraordinary?

[43:11] That's preparatory. Hopkins, even older than Yale, 1660 as opposed to 1701. And again, it was just a matter of expense. It just, they couldn't quite make the cut of getting enough to get a college.

[43:24] But they could get what they call grammar schools or typically Latin schools, they would call it. Yeah. When you see universities leave their first love, like the gospel and Christ, is it, what's the first thing that's attacked within the institution?

[43:38] Is it the authority of scripture or the inerrancy of scripture? Yeah. So, yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a great question. And it's extremely complicated. So briefly.

[43:49] Okay. And there's a great book to read on this. It's a big book. It's by Marsden, George Marsden, called The Soul of the American University.

[44:02] It's not just about Yale, but it's mostly about Yale. And it kind of tells the story of going from established, establishment faith, Christian faith, to established disbelief.

[44:17] And it traces that out. But here's the issue. A lot of times it's easy to think, oh, there must have been some sort of nasty conspiracy of, of atheists that somehow got in and secularized this place in some dark, smoky back room.

[44:37] But actually, no. No, what it was, was many godly people trying to figure out what do we do with what is now a diversity that we never had to deal with.

[44:53] Because when Yale was founded, the colony of New Haven, and even broadly in New England, was largely religiously homogenous.

[45:04] It would be hard to come across anyone who was not your co-religionist. You know, you weren't a believer. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[45:16] You would assert these things in public. You would know that you were not regenerate. But you said, oh, this is the truth. Everybody was a Christian. Exactly. Oh, yeah. This is true if only God would awaken me to love it.

[45:28] You know, so that's how people would describe it. And so as long as there was really the society was religiously homogenous, you could still have a college that was for everybody.

[45:46] And nobody was going to. Sometimes you'd have problems with what Anglicans would say, we don't want to use what we learn our catechism. We don't want to use the Westminster catechism. We want to use our own catechism.

[45:57] So accommodations would be made a little bit. But you're really only going inches in each direction. You know, when you're letting Anglicans use another catechism or go by the 39 articles and this sort of thing, there's really almost no doctrinal difference at all.

[46:13] But then you begin to get some more. And any diversity that New England gets, you force everybody to go to Rhode Island. Because that's where those nasty Baptist words were more tolerant.

[46:25] You don't want that. They called that the sewer of New England. That's where the Baptists were with Roger Williams and those. And that's where you have the first synagogue.

[46:37] The first synagogue in America is in Providence, Rhode Island. You know, because there was religious toleration there. Not elsewhere. But when society became more and more diverse.

[46:50] Now, at first, with immigration, because there's lots of immigration coming in. Now, at first, most of the immigration was from Northern Europe and Western Europe. That is mostly safely Protestant.

[47:00] But then, over the years, it began to shift. It would begin to shift toward the south. And you'd get some Roman Catholics coming in.

[47:11] And it would even shift toward the east, Eastern Europe. And you'd get more Jews coming in. The potato famine in Ireland would bring a lot of Irish Catholics in.

[47:22] So, already by the Civil War, it's becoming a lot more diverse. And you remember Yale's motto, for God, for country, and for Yale. You can almost tell the story of this in terms of what happens as long as...

[47:36] Okay, yep. As long as... Thank you. As long as for God and for country is always in harmony. But what happens if for God and for country is intention?

[47:47] Because not everybody in the country is for God, in your understanding. Then they had to decide, do we make Yale a college just for our little group, or is this going to be a college for the nation?

[48:01] And they decided to go for the nation. So, they would step back on religious requirements and religious tests and that, so it would be open to the nations.

[48:12] Now, some of that was very disturbing for certain of the alumni and the conservatives. But the fact of the shift was concealed largely because you get a liberal Christianity that would use a lot of the terminology, but they would mean something very different.

[48:29] So, it would sound orthodox, but it wouldn't be. It's like one Yale professor said, how could you accuse me of denying the divinity of Christ?

[48:40] I deny the divinity of no man, least of all of Christ. I mean a mental something. So, it was just, you know, language would, you know, conceal these things.

[48:51] So, we need to run. I think they keep flashing me because I'm an offender. But thank you, team. We will see you, Lord willing, next week where I think we'll take up the first great awakening at Yale and New Haven.

[49:07] We'll let you hit that because I'm not sure what to hit. Thank you.