Our Sins at the Seminary (Part I)

(taken from two letters from John Angell James to his brother Thomas
James—on beginning his studies for the Christian ministry, circa 1811-1812)


"The subject of the present letter is to state the chief end and design with which you should enter on your preparatory studies, and the great importance of ever keeping that end in view.

It is the part of folly to act before the end is chosen or the means of exertion properly arranged.

Right reason suggests to every one entering on a new career this natural inquiry—For what precise object are you about to start? It is to a neglect of this question that we are to attribute that profligate misuse of time and talent which in this world of activity, we are so frequently grieved to witness.

How many active minds, capable of great service to the world, do we see driven at random over the stage of existence, answering no other end but to teach mankind how much exertion may be wasted, for lack of a precise and proper end to guide its progress. Their whole life resembles the evening flight of the bat—a useless flutter amidst darkness and vanity. What wisdom, to say nothing of religion, dictates to you, my dear brother, at the present moment is—to fix with yourself, after serious deliberation, the precise design of your academic career, to divide between many claimants, which has the rightful authority to your supreme reverence and regard. By your preparatory studies you propose to become possessed of learning—you mean to be a minister with some education—you wish to preach with acceptance—you propose to yourself great pleasure in the attainment of knowledge. These are all ends which you may lawfully set before your mind in your present prospect; but woe be to your ill-judging mind, if any of these is your chief end. If this is the case, you will carry a curse with you to the study, and from there to the pulpit, from thence to the grave, from thence to the bar of Christ, and from thence, by a last remove, to the bottomless pit!

I am, however, persuaded better things of you, though I thus speak. Your religion has, before now, fixed this on your heart as the chief design of preparatory studies—"that you might be qualified in the use of appointed means, more fully to glorify God in the salvation of immortal souls." It is not merely to be prepared to preach, nor merely to preach well, nor to preach acceptably—but to preach successfully. And what is successful preaching, short of the conversion of immortal souls?

But what I wish to impress upon your mind is the infinite importance of keeping this great object in view through all, even the most minute of your academic pursuits. Everything is to be viewed by you in connection with this end; and only as it promotes this is anything absolutely momentous. This must remain in the midst of all your feelings and opinions, all your pursuits and exertions—the common centre to which everything by an undeviating law of attraction gravitates.

If you pore over the difficulties of language, if you read the systems of moral philosophy, if you study the accuracies of logic, if you examine the flowers of rhetoric, or demonstrate the problems of mathematics—it must not be ultimately for the purpose of becoming a classic, a philosopher, a logician, an orator, or a mathematician; but that by these means you may, in one way or other, be prepared to demonstrate, explain, and enforce to the conviction of sinners, the truths on the belief of which, their salvation depends. All are to be viewed as giving you in the order of means, a readier access to their minds, a greater power over their hearts."