FINNEY ON SANCTIFICATION AND ITS RESULTS IN OBERLIN COLLEGE HISTORY - CLOSING PICTURES

We have seen in the foregoing chapter how President Finney came to be such an independent theologian by a perfectly natural process, The only theological books to which he had access were intensely Calvinistic, and he rejected their teaching. He had received a baptism with the Holy Ghost almost immediately after conversion, and that brought his heart in loving harmony with God and holiness. He had no knowledge of the subject whatever, and no theory either to oppose or defend. He only knew that he panted after God and holiness as the hart pants after the water-brooks. When he read in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, "No man is able, either by himself or by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed," his Spirit-illumined soul resented it. He began to meditate deeply on the subject of holiness. The only theologies he had he rejected; the Only preachers he knew he distrusted as unsafe guides. He worked out his scheme of sanctification without man-made helps or helpers. If he had had some judicious books on the subject of sanctification, I am persuaded that all would have been different. But there were few such books in the early part of his ministry, and those he had never seen. Even John Wesley's "Christian Perfection" never came into his hands until 1836, when he had already filled the world with his fame, and his theology had practically taken its permanent form.

Perhaps the wonder is that he thought so wisely and so well; for no one mind, however great, can think out everything correctly alone, in so vast a field of thought as theology.

In 1837 he delivered two lectures to Christians in New York City on "Christian Perfection." There is very much of truth and Value in them. The divisions of the first lecture were:

I. I will show what Christian Perfection is not.

II. I will show what Christian Perfection is, It is perfect obedience to the law of God. The law of God requires perfect, disinterested, impartial benevolence, love to God, and love to our neighbor.

III. I am to show that Christian Perfection is a duty.

1. Because God requires it.

2. Because God has no right to require anything less.

3. Should any one contend that the gospel requires less holiness than the law, I would ask him to say just how much less it requires.

IV. I will show that Christian Perfection is attainable in this life.

1. This may be inferred from the fact that it is commanded.

2. That there is a natural ability to be perfect is a simple matter of fact.

There is no moral inability to be perfectly holy. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as Moral Inability. I have always maintained that Christian perfection is a duty, and I am more convinced than ever, during the last few months, that it is attainable in this life. I am persuaded of this because -

1. God wills it.

2. All the promises and prophecies of God that respect the sanctification of believers in this world are to be understood of their perfect sanctification.

3. Perfect sanctification is the great blessing promised throughout the Bible. "Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature. having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Pet. 1, 4.) If that is not perfect sanctification, I beg to know what is? (Ez. xxxvi, 25; Jer. xxxiii, 8; Eph. v, 25; I Thess. v; 23.)

4. The perfect sanctification of believers is the very object for which the Holy Spirit is promised.

5. If it is not a practicable duty to be perfectly holy in this world, then it will follow that the devil has so completely accomplished his design in corrupting mankind that Jesus Christ is at fault, and has no way to sanctify His people but to take them out of the world.

6. If perfect sanctification is not attainable in this world, it must be, either from a want of motives in the gospel, or a want of sufficient power in the Spirit of God.

Then he answers a number of objections, and closes, according to his custom, with eight remarks on the reasons why there is no more perfection in the world.

The seventh is: "They seek it by the law, and not by faith. How may are seeking sanctification by their own resolutions and works, their fastings and prayers, their endeavors and activity, instead of taking right hold of Christ, by faith, for sanctification, as they do for justification! It is all work, work, work, when it should be by faith in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. When they go and take right hold of the strength of God, they will be sanctified. Faith will bring Christ right into the soul, and fill it with the same Spirit that breathes through Himself. It is faith that must sanctify; it is faith that purifies the heart."

Save in the second point, there is scarcely a flaw in that sermon, and the reader may be tempted to ask wherein Finney failed in the teaching of sanctification. Only by a careful analytical study of his teaching will one detect its limitation and the cause of his failure. The basis of his difficulty was that he fixed all his attention upon the will as the only faculty of the man that needed any attention in seeking holiness. This appears in his definitions, and terms, and arguments.

A. For example, take his definition of depravity. He admitted physical depravity that -

(1) "Made the body diseased."

(2) "Made the actings and states of the intellect disordered, depraved, deranged, or fallen from the state of integrity and healthiness."

(3) "Made the sensibility, or feeling department of the mind, sadly depraved. The appetites and passions, the desires and cravings, the antipathies and repellencies of the feelings, fall into great disorder and anarchy. Numerous artificial appetites are generated, and the whole sensibility becomes a wilderness, a chaos of conflicting and clamorous desires, emotions, and passions."

But he made nothing of all this physical depravity, and said that "Moral depravity consisted in selfishness, in a state of voluntary committal of the will to self-gratification." He therefore gave his whole attention to the rectification of the will as the only thing to be concerned about. He strangely forgot that, while the "intellect was deranged" and "the sensibility" was "a wilderness, a chaos of conflicting and clamorous desires, emotions, and passions," the will would have a hard time of it, and be quite likely to be unsteady in its loyalty and devotion to God. He ignored that vast realm of "chaotic desires, emotions, and passions" that lie back of the will, and underlie its activities.

I have already quoted Finney as saying, "I had known somewhat of the view of sanctification entertained by our Methodist brethren; but as their idea of sanctification seemed to me to relate almost altogether to states of the sensibility, I could not receive their teaching." Precisely this was Finney's fundamental error; and in this is the excellence of the Methodist doctrine of sanctification; it looks after the cleansing of the "wilderness of depravity," the sanctifying of the "chaotic desires, emotions, and passions," the slaying of the abnormal propensities and appetites that are hostile to God and holiness.

1. Sometimes Finney seemed to get a glimpse of the true philosophy of sanctification, which should have served as a clew to lead him out into the full truth. For instance, on page 275 of his "Lectures to Christians" he says: "The converted person feels at peace with God, joy and gratitude fills his heart, and he rejoices in having found a Savior. . . . But by and by he finds the working of sin in his members, unsubdued pride, his old temper breaking forth, and a multitude of enemies assaulting his soul from within, and he is not prepared to meet them." This ought to have convinced Finney of the need of having those inner forces of the nature cleansed by the Holy Spirit; but it did not. He never came into the full light.

2. Here is his definition of holiness or sanctification: "We have seen that holiness belongs strictly only to the will or heart, and consists in obedience . of will to the law of God as it lies revealed in the intellect; that it is expressed in one word, Love; that this love is identical with the entire consecration of the whole being to the glory of God." (Systematic Theol., p. 403.)

Again: "Sanctification, as a state differing from a holy act, is a standing ultimate intention, and exactly synonymous or identical with a state of obedience." (Page 405.) Now, a justified man can obey God, and does obey Him while he retains his justification. The above definition, therefore, falls utterly short of the Scriptural idea of holiness which is taught by Methodism.

3. Again Finney says: "Sanctification consists in the will's devoting or consecrating itself and the whole being to the service of God. . . . Sanctification may be entire in two senses: (1) In the sense of present, full obedience, or entire consecration to God; and (2) In the sense of continued, abiding consecration or obedience to God. Entire sanctification in this sense consists in being established, confirmed, continued in a state of sanctification or of entire consecration to God." (Page 405.)

Here, again, are the two fundamental and fatal mistakes of his system. So far at it relates to sanctification: (!) He makes it consist in a devotion of the will to God -- a thing that is always secured by conversion and regeneration -- while the Scripture makes it consist in the cleansing of the whole being, precisely as the Methodist Church teaches. (Acts xv, 8-9.) (2) He makes "consecration" synonymous with "sanctification." But consecration is only one of several conditions of sanctification; not the thing itself. First, man consecrates himself to God, and then by faith receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit for the cleansing of the whole being -- the sanctification of body, soul, and spirit. Man consecrates; the Holy Spirit sanctifies. Finney never got this clearly in his thought. The only difference he made between "sanctification" and "Entire Sanctification" was, that the latter is "a continued, abiding obedience."

President Fairchild accepted President Finney's definitions, and then coolly set it all aside by denying that it was a second distinct work of grace after conversion, that it was "sudden," and by affirming that "this establishment or permanency, when attained, can not reveal itself in consciousness." That is, Fairchild said that it would take a special revelation from heaven to let a person know that his will would remain permanently loyal to God.

According to this, the angels that fell, even though they may have lived in heaven with God a million years, were never wholly sanctified, because at last their wills finally broke connection with God. This was a logical inference from a false definition; and the natural result would be to dampen all ardor in the pursuit of an experience which one never could know that he had obtained; and if he did pursue it with ardor, how could he testify to the possession of it for all future time? Manifestly he could not; for no man knows whether his present moral state will be abiding. This was precisely the effect of this false notion and definition upon Finney himself. With all his preaching of the privilege and duty of believers to be sanctified, and writing about it, and striving after it, he did not testify to it himself. He said in his "Lectures to Christians on Perfection," page 266: "I do not myself. profess now to have attained perfect sanctification; but if I had attained it, if I felt that God had really given me the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil, and made me free from sin, would I keep it a secret, locked up in my own breast, and let my brethren stumble on in ignorance of what the grace of God can do? Never!"

Professor Wright, in his "Biography of Finney," wrote: "Still, Finney did not encourage any to announce themselves as living in a permanent state of entire consecration (sanctification); nor was he ever known to speak of himself as having attained that state. He knew too well the deceitfulness of the human heart, and the fallibility of memory, to encourage such claims; and so, as the declaration expresses it, attention was to be turned, not to the question whether any were now actually attaining this state, but whether it was attainable in any such sense that it could rationally be striven after."

"The believer's need, according to Finney, is to have such a revelation of the great truths of the gospel that they shall serve as a counterpoise to the abnormal developments of the lower propensities."

Alas! if Finney had only paid more attention to "these abnormal developments of the lower propensities," and had sought the crucifixion of this "old man," instead of a counterpoise to it, by a heart-cleansing baptism with the Holy Spirit, he would have worried less about the permanency of his will. He would also have had the removal of indwelling sin to testify to; for the Holy Spirit would have borne him witness. (Acts xv, 8,9; Heb. X, 14, 15.)

4. Finney failed to connect the obtaining of sanctification with the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Sometimes he almost got the truth, as his directions. to seekers occasionally show, But his discussions, as a whole, show that he never fully grasped the idea that the heart was cleansed of indwelling sin by the baptism with the Holy Ghost. So it came about that, with all his matchless gifts as a preacher and teacher, he was not eminently Successful as a teacher of sanctification.

No man in his generation studied the subject more carefully. Probably no one even tried so hard to preach it and to lift the Church from its low state of piety. No man suffered such opposition. and abuse, both from friends and foes, for doing it. Dr. Hodge led all the Calvinists in a combined assault upon him, paying him back with compound interest for all the hard things he had said against the Confession of Faith and the leading points of Calvinism. Even the "New School" preachers with whom he had held sweet communion and labored in blessed revivals, tore away at his reputation, and lacerated his heart, and opposed his college. Presbyteries passed resolutions; Doctors of Divinity wrote books and pamphlets, persistently misrepresented his teachings, and warned the people against him, and the Churches against his work, all because he strove to be holy, and taught, to the best of his ability, that God required believers to be holy, and that it was clearly possible, by the grace of God, to be holy in this present life.

Had the books of John Wesley and John Fletcher and Adam Clarke and Carvosso been put into his hands at the time of his conversion, it would, I believe, have been an unspeakable blessing to the kingdom of God. Had Finney held correct Scriptural opinions of what sanctification is, and how it is obtained, he would have been the mightiest preacher of holiness the world has yet had since St. Paul, just as he was the most successful soul-winner of the centuries.

As it was, a few souls here and there sought and received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and obtained the Divine witness to a cleansing of heart under his preaching. Among these was President Mahan himself, and Rev. Sherlock Bristol, of the second graduating class, I think, of Oberlin; and we may hope Professor Cowles and Professor Morgan, both of whom wrote on the subject of holiness.

The attention of the whole school was drawn to the subject of holiness and to an earnest inquiry as to its attainability in this life. There was then a perpetual revival atmosphere in Oberlin, and almost a continuous revival, making that college hamlet a delightsome place, where the Spirit of God had right of way and brooded over homes and hearts. Had Oberlin held the Scriptural, old-fashioned Methodist doctrine of sanctification from the beginning, she might have easily become the capital of the holiness movement of the world, and had three thousand students today, instead of less than half as many.

But none of these leaders then apprehended the glorious truth in its fullness; they were feeling their way into the light. None of them ever fully reached it but President Mahan, He was born and brought up a Presbyterian and Calvinist after the straitest sect, and well-nigh lost his soul from the chilling, deadening doctrines of that awful system. But through years of prayerful meditation he struggled out into the truth, broke away from the horrors of his ancestral faith, became a Congregational preacher and president of Oberlin College for fifteen years; then president of a Methodist college in Michigan; closing his noble life for several years as an editor of a holiness journal in London. He thought the subject through, and became, in the closing years of his life, as clear as a bell on the subject of sanctification.

He was a graduate of Hamilton College and Andover Seminary, an exceptionally able preacher, a bold and Vigorous thinker, an enthusiastic student of philosophy and theology, a man of keen moral intuitions, and an aggressive moral reformer. He had an active, fertile mind, giving to the world the following books: "Mahan on the Will," "Intellectual Philosophy," "Moral Philosophy," "Logic," "Spiritualism," "Natural Theology," "The Baptism of the Holy Ghost," "Out of Darkness Into Light," "Autobiography: Intellectual, Moral, and Spiritual." Though not such a genius as Finney, there were not a few who regarded him as the Strongest man in the Oberlin Faculty. He was baptized with the Holy Ghost in 1836, one year after he became president of the college, and from that time onward he bent the energies of his manly mind to discover the truth about sanctification. He ultimately found the happy haven of intellectual and soul rest in the Methodist doctrine of a work of grace subsequent to regeneration, obtained by faith, and consisting of a cleansing of heart produced by a baptism with the Holy Ghost.

He was very aggressive in defending and pushing the doctrine of sanctification, It, of course, aroused opposition to the college; this, in turn, led those in influence in the college who were formal in religion and cold toward the doctrine of sanctification, to oppose him at home. They wanted peace with those who opposed the doctrine of holiness; and this man was betrayed to formal professors and a Christless world, and practically forced to resign from the presidency in 1850. That was the darkest day, I believe, that ever came to Oberlin; from which may be dated the beginning of her fatal spiritual decline.

I have written to Rev. Sherlock Bristol, of Montalvo, California, one of the few men now living who knows all the facts from the beginning of Oberlin's history, who himself was baptized with the Spirit, and became a preacher and author of great power and usefulness, to give me the facts about Mahan's resignation an I Oberlin's spiritual decline. Here are selections from his letters:

"Montalvo, Cal., January 2, 1902.

"My Dear Brother Hills, -- Your letter of December 28th came to hand this evening, and was very cheering and encouraging. The reports of conversions and sealings of the Spirit in the Holiness University, and in that part of Texas, are such as we do not hear of nowadays in the Northern part of the country. I think I know the reason why this is so. It is the same as made the north of Palestine more receptive of Christ than highly favored and enlightened Judea, They were less gospel-hardened, had less pride and self-conceit. I rejoice that it is so, and can heartily join with Christ in saying, 'Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.' The growth of your college and theological school is wonderful. How I should like to help you! But such as I have I give -- a daily visit with our Lord to the school in prayer. . . Now, in regard to Oberlin and its steps down from the highway of holiness, where once it walked with God in the days of Finney's and Mahan's presidency, I feel reluctant to write, lest I should seem ungrateful for what that school did for me, and lest, also, some injustice should be done to some one, The Lord help me to write with a charity that thinketh no evil!

"That Oberlin has receded from the high ground she once occupied spiritually admits of no question. President Fairchild definitely owned it in a pamphlet he published some twenty years ago, and read before the Faculty, securing their approval and indorsement. In it he went so far as to say, 'It came to be more and more a matter of doubt whether the seeking of sanctification as a special experience was on the whole to be encouraged, and it was not in general an occasion of satisfaction when a young man gave himself up to seek the blessing.' This shows how far Oberlin had backslid from the high and apostolic ground held while President Mahan stood as the human head of the school.

"This leads me to trace, somewhat in detail, the steps which led to this sad departure. President Mahan was quite a prominent in those days as was Professor Finney. In my opinion, the baptism with the Spirit he received was equal to Finney's. His sermons were mighty and his influence great. Spending his vacations abroad in spiritual labors, he boldly urged upon Christians and converts the earnest seeking of that Divine enduement foretold by the prophet Joel and experienced at Pentecost. Vast good was done. But, as was to be expected, opposition appeared here and there. Letters were written from Boston and elsewhere, criticizing Mahan's preaching of the doctrine. Some of these fell into the hands of members of the Faculty, who did not relish the doctrine, and felt restive under its demands and restraints. Revivals followed all his labors; but, notwithstanding, he found on his return, when the term opened, quite a clique combining against him.

"A continual dropping wears a rock. I knew these men, one and all, and how assiduously they worked. During a winter vacation, while Mahan was absent in Boston, Providence, and New York, these home critics drew up a paper, and, by strong efforts, persuaded a majority of the Faculty to ask him to resign. It almost broke his heart, But he continued his energetic work. I left my work of gathering funds for the school, went back, and persuaded the Faculty to withdraw their request. He returned and resumed his work; but no more with the cordial good-will and co-operation of former times. Finally he resigned. I have no more doubt that it was want of spirituality that generated the opposition and fed it than I have that I write this account of the matter. Nor have I any doubt of that action being a great sin against God, From that day onward, Oberlin declined further and further from the spiritual life and power of Mahan's days, but with like steps, also, from the doctrine of possible Pentecostal power.

"When the dear man left the school for which he had done so much, he must have felt much as Paul did when he uttered the sad words in his letter to Timothy, 'Thou knowest that all they of  Asia are turned away from me, of whom is Phygellus and Hermogenes!' Oberlin is still a large school of intellectual and moral power; but the spiritual power of other days it has no more.

'O hadst thou known in that thy day,
And flocked beneath the wing
Of Him who called thee lovingly,
Thine own anointed King.
Then had the tribes of all the earth
Gone up thy pomp to see,
And glory dwelt in all thy gates,
And all thy sons been free!'

"I am sure President Finney never agreed with President Fairchild in repudiating the Pentecostal baptism so plainly taught as the need and privilege of New Testament Christians. He had felt too deeply its influence within, and witnessed too much of its power without, But he was getting worn down and wearied, and he allowed things to drift as he would not have done in earlier days; and he died before having seen President Fairchild's pamphlet repudiating the experience and doctrine of Mahan's administration and times.

"How sad the history of Oberlin! I mourn every time I look that way. Fairchild and I have exchanged many letters on the subject. He and I were very warm friends during our whole college and theological course. I do not think he loved any student more than myself, if I except his brother Henry. He was a natural gentleman, genial, moral, of equable temperament, and highly intellectual; non-impulsive, and little tempted toward outbreaking sins. He passed through those great Pentecostal seasons which changed so many of us without any deep sense of his own need of a baptism with the Holy Ghost, and with little effort to obtain it. It was in that line, what abnormal morality is, often an obstacle to conversion. 'I fast twice in a week; I give tithes of all I possess,' etc., seems to me the illusion Which kept him from seeking and obtaining the gift unspeakable. 'Because thou sayest I am rich,' etc., -- that is my explanation of his singular blindness, and also of his fearful leading of other blind ones also. It is God's order that we all, however intellectual, should go to Christ for light; and unless He anoints our eyes with the eye-salve of heaven, we shall grope in darkness all our days.

"Fairchild did not intend to be a preacher, and did not realize his need of more than natural equipments to do his work as a teacher and Christian. He ultimately threw his influence decidedly against the doctrine. He criticized it in his theology, and in his pamphlet defended the drift of Oberlin backward from the ground occupied by Finney and Mahan to that occupied by the average Churches. Oberlin, with few exceptions, went with him. 'Facilis est descensus Averni.' Nevertheless, the seed sown is springing up all over the land.

"Just now there is a great struggle at Oberlin, as in other colleges, to gain large endowments of money. But what it needs more than all the gold of earth is a return to its first love -- to the spirit of those early days when its students were taught to 'tarry in Jerusalem till endued with power from above.' The retrograde steps of Oberlin were due to the persistent carpings and criticisms of men in the Faculty, college, and town, who had small experience in spiritual things. So chronic it became, at length, that better men at last yielded, and consented to Mahan's departure, and with him the doctrine of sanctification, for the sake of peace! Oberlin's 'Old Guard,' Morgan, Finney, and Cowles, and many sanctified students, will mourn this concession for many a day. May other institutions take warning, and 'let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall!'

"This is a long letter, written in haste and with sorrow. May the Lord bless you, dear brother, and preserve you and your school from the like disaster, and unto Him be the praise for ever and ever!

"Most affectionately, your brother, "S. Bristol."

This is an epitome of the sad history of sanctification in Oberlin College and Churches, which Finney went to Oberlin expressly to teach. He had been in England for a year when Mahan resigned. It is evident that he had no part in bringing it about. On his return to Oberlin, in 1851, he was elected to the presidency of the college, and filled the place until 1865, when he, in turn, was asked to resign; ostensibly, on account of his age; possibly, for the same reason that Mahan's resignation was secured, It is a significant fact that, in his Autobiography, Finney never mentions or alludes to his presidency of the college. Fairchild was his successor in the office, -- a cool, almost contemptuous, rejecter of both the doctrine and experience of sanctification. He was a man of large intellectual gifts, but unusually devoid of spiritual power. I have been told by one who spent a lifetime in Oberlin that he was never known to have a conversion under his preaching.

I have given this history of Finney's teaching of sanctification in Oberlin for the striking lessons which it teaches:

1. He never had the correct view. Had Mahan been let alone, the school would ultimately have reached it, -- the Methodist doctrine of the founders and best exponents of Methodism. Its sweet reasonableness, and the attainability of the experience, would have been so attractive, and so many would have obtained it, that it would have possessed the college and Churches, and never could have been driven out. But an unwise theory could easily be discounted and discarded by unspiritual minds, It is profoundly important to get the Scriptural truth regarding any doctrine which the devil peculiarly hates and stirs up earth and hell to oppose. Of all the subjects of theology, that doctrine which he thus hates today is Sanctification.

2. It is well to notice that the outside opposition to Oberlin never did her the slightest harm. So long as she was, up to her best light and knowledge, true to God and holiness, she had amazing progress. But she was betrayed by those within her own fold. Under Mahan's administration the school grew to an enrollment of one thousand pupils. Now, after fifty-two years, that enrollment has only increased about thirty or forty per cent, and, I think, is not as large as it was some years ago. It may in time dimly dawn on the minds of some that, in the management of a great institution of learning, there are some things to be sought after besides scholarship, and money, and mortar, and stone.

How true it is that one generation makes history, and another sits in judgment on it, and decides whether it was wise or otherwise! English statesmen are now saying that England fought on the wrong side in the Crimean war. In another generation they will sit in judgment upon the wisdom of the present war in South Africa, It was no doubt thought to be a master-stroke of policy to get rid of Mahan, and make peace with those who fought sanctification. Now we can look back and see what fearful strides Oberlin has made worldward since that hour. During one of his last years of teaching, President Fairchild said in a classroom, "A wave of the world has struck Oberlin." Probably he little dreamed that it was by his own hand that the world struck.

Rev. Dr. Brand was Finney's successor as pastor of the First Congregational Church of Oberlin. Professor Henry Churchill King is Fairchild's successor as teacher of Systematic Theology, as he followed Finney. For two years Professor King was potential in the college while the trustees were seeking for a president, and calling President John Barrows. He introduced card-playing as an allowable pastime for the students, which for more than sixty years had been interdicted. He did it, too, against the tearful protest of Dr. Brand, who literally died soon after with a broken heart because of this fresh cyclone of worldliness which had broken over the place, making a revival of religion impossible. An alumnus said to me that, during Professor King's short term of power, he inflicted an evil upon the institution that it will not recover from in a quarter of a century. Will it ever do it? When, at the great alumni gathering in 1900 Professor King stood up before the vast throng, and grew red in the face defending the Oberlin's card-playing and worldliness, amidst the clapping of the students and the sorrow and pain of the old graduates and friends of Oberlin, he only proved two things: 1. That he was stung by criticisms of this modern life in the college; and 2. That the criticisms were deserved.

A man of national reputation, not a son of Oberlin, but well acquainted with it, many years ago told me that he thought there was more pure religion in Oberlin than in any other place of its size on the globe. But, in 1900, two men high up in official and professional life in Oberlin told me there was no special reason why any one should come to Oberlin for the sake of its peculiar religious opportunities. This may seem a light thing to some; but to us who love Oberlin and the kingdom of Christ it is sad beyond description. The case, then, stands thus: Mahan and Finney tried to teach sanctification and to make it a living experience in the college and Church; Fairchild stabbed it to death; and King joyfully buried it under a mountain-pile of euchre-decks!

3. There is a lesson here for our own Texas Holiness University, and for any other colleges who have had or may ever have the truth on the subject of holiness. Let it be known as a matter of history that this school was planted with the avowed purpose of giving the most careful training to the intellects of our pupils while the Lord sanctified their hearts; and, as a result, the Lord has sent us nearly three hundred students in the last four months from fourteen States, and ninety-five of them have been saved or sanctified; one hundred and seventy-three knelt at our altar and found God in conversion or sanctification during the year 1901; and more than one hundred found Him the year before; and our school is not yet two years and a half old. If this is the way God builds up a school that daily teaches sanctification as a work of grace subsequent to conversion, wrought in the heart by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, it is good enough for me.

Holiness evangelists and Methodist ministers inform me that some Methodist authors and institutions are forsaking their own pure faith, and are playing with Fairchild's theory. I warn them, one and all, it will be fatal to the spirituality of the man or institution that tries it. I challenge one and all to show that any other than the old Methodist theory of sanctification has ever been permanently and successfully worked with commanding results. If we give this truth half a chance in our hearts and institutions, the Spirit of God will clothe us with power, and we shall be more than conquerors over a frowning world and all the hosts of hell.

But we will return to a few closing words about the great soul, a brief picture of whose noble life we have been giving to the world. Henry Ward Beecher heard him preach twice in London at the time of his first visit to England. He wrote back to the New York Independent that there were a thousand inquirers at the close of each service. "Nor," wrote he, "have we ever witnessed more solemnity, order, and unexceptionable propriety in the conduct of meetings than has prevailed under Mr. Finney at the tabernacle. Whoever speaks against this work, speaks not against Mr. Finney, but against all revivals."

At the farewell meeting in London, after nine months of preaching by Finney nearly every night in his church, Dr. Campbell said: "We can not say that we are much gratified at the thought of Mr. Finney's returning to college duties and the general ministry of a rural parish. We do not consider that such is the place for the man; and we must be allowed to think that, fifteen years ago, a mistake was committed when he became located in the midst of academic bowers.

He is made for the millions; his place is the pulpit rather than the professor's chair, He is a heaven-born sovereign of the people. The people he loves, and the mass of the people all but idolize him. . . . His rare gifts are of signal service in enabling Mr. Finney to fathom the deepest recesses of the human heart, and to throw light on the darkest portions of human character. For moral anatomy he has no equal among the multitude of great and successful preachers whom it has been our lot to hear, He is a man singularly endowed for evangelistic labors. We doubt if, in all the forty thousand preachers of America, there are many, if one, that possess all the qualifications above enumerated." (Wright's "Finney," pp. 295-301.)

In this picture of this great soul-winner, we should have made him more lifelike and human if we had dwelt more upon his personal characteristics, and given a few of the quaint incidents of his life, But the purpose of this brief story was too grave to admit of it. It possibly might be thought that. this stern preacher of righteousness, with his unbending integrity and awful sense of obligation to God and the sacredness of duty, would be hard and unlovely in the home. Precisely the opposite was true. He was simple and tender, and sweet as a child, in his home life. His affection for his family was unbounded, and they almost idolized him, He was a mighty man of prayer; and prayer is one of the most sacred and precious privileges vouchsafed to mortals. Here are two scenes of this Elijah in prayer:

"The summer of 1853 was unusually hot and dry, so that the pastures were scorched, and there seemed likely to be a total failure of the crops. Under these circumstances, the great congregation gathered one Sabbath in the church at Oberlin as usual, when, though the sky was clear, the burden of Finney's prayer was for rain, In his prayer he deepened the cry of distress which went up from every heart by mentioning in detail the prolonged drouth, in about these words:

"We do not presume, O Lord, to dictate to Thee what is best for us; yet Thou dost invite us to come to Thee as children to an earthly father, and tell Thee all our wants. WE WANT RAIN. Our pastures are dry. The earth is gaping open for rain. The cattle are wandering about and lowing in search of water. Even the little squirrels in the woods are suffering from thirst. Unless Thou givest us rain, our cattle will die and our harvests will come to naught. O Lord, send us rain, and send it now! Although, to us, there is no sign of it, it is an easy thing for Thee to do. Send it now, Lord, for Christ's sake. Amen."

He took a text, and began to preach; but in a few minutes had to stop for the noise of the rattle and roar of the storm. He paused, and said, "We would better stop and thank God for the rain." He then gave out the hymn:

"When all thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys!"

Another scene I have heard described by a student who was an eye-witness. A theological class was about to graduate and go out into the world as ambassadors for God, They came to the recitation, and, as usual, he opened the class with prayer. As he prayed, the thought of the solemnity of their calling came over him; the unfriendly world they must face, with all its depressing temptations; the importance of their success; the need of the Church; the worth of souls. He prayed on and on, with increasing tenderness and fervor through the hour, until the hour-bell rang for the next recitation, when they tiptoed out of the room, leaving him still in prayer.

And here we will leave him, with the passion of souls upon him, praying for the enduement of power upon the ministry, for the sanctification of believers and the Church, and for the salvation of a dying world.