Ours Sins at the Seminary (Part V)

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

"Secondly, I will now, my dear brother, point out those circumstances in your present situation, in which the vigor of personal piety is in danger of being relaxed. It is certainly a melancholy reflection that there should be any circumstance likely to be injurious to piety, in that very situation where it sojourns for a while for the purpose of being better qualified to teach its own nature and enforce its own practice.

Yet so it is. Not, however, that there is anything in academic institutions naturally and essentially unfavorable to it; if there were, the prejudices which many have imbibed against them would be too well founded to be easily overthrown. Still there are circumstances which, through the imperfections of the best men, are likely, unless constantly watched, to issue in this baneful consequence. What these are I will now specify, that being apprised of the source from whence danger may be expected—you may be incited to incessant watchfulness.

1. The first source of danger I shall notice, is in the NATURE of your studies. These will of course be multiform, and by examination it will be found that each, without great watchfulness, may become injurious to piety. Let it be remembered that in an academy, divinity is studied as a science—a hallowed one, it is true, but still a science. Its evidences are canvassed, its terms are categorized, its parts are analyzed, its doctrines are classed. What till now has been treated as a system of facts and maxims—will be treated as a theory of doctrines and sentiments. Instead of listening to the holy converse of Christian friends comparing their experience with the Scriptures of truth, and mutually helping each other forward through all the difficulties of the path to Zion—you will frequently think and speak and read of religion as merely an intellectual study.

The Bible, which you had never read but as a Christian, you will peruse as a student. You will pray—to learn to conduct public prayer with decorum and edification. You will compose sermons, and listen to the composition of others, that you may learn to preach. You will hear the most solemn, the most melting truths of the Word of God mentioned and conversed on, without any of that feeling or that reverence with which you had ever been accustomed to listen to them. You will hear sermons in the academy for the sake of exercising your analytical talents, until you find it difficult to lay aside the academics in the most solemn and serious engagements. Where, without some exceedingly strong counteracting force, all this tends—you have perhaps, my dear brother, felt before now, to your no small distress and humiliation. Where, without incessant vigilance, will such a state of things lead us—but to the most frigid, barren, deathlike regions of lukewarmness itself!

2. The CLOSE APPLICATION which it will be found necessary to pay to your studies, will frequently endanger the prospects of your personal piety. Goaded by the reproofs of your tutors, or impelled by the rivalry of the students—you will carry on your pursuits with a closeness of attention that will sometimes render you deaf to the call of that hour that summons you to the closet of devotion and the mercy-seat of God. In this particular, my dear brother, your danger will be found peculiarly imminent; indeed, still greater by the suggestions of a deceitful heart, that the neglect is excused by the cause of it.

3. The NOVELTY of a great part of your studies will also open a source of danger. Your mind is traveling through a country almost new to you; objects before unseen will be perpetually starting up before you, not only soliciting your attention, but highly deserving of it; and as new situations are always a trial of piety—you will need all the care which it is possible your soul can exercise, to prevent your mind being so occupied with the novelties of your present situation, as to neglect those important concerns—which nothing should be so bright as to eclipse, or so great as to obscure.

4. The COMPANIONS of your studies will render great caution absolutely necessary. Those who ought to be helpmates, will frequently become snares. Some of them, it may be feared, entered the academy with but little personal piety—and have been gradually losing what little they had, since they have been there. Others, with dispositions far more jocular and volatile than is consistent with much seriousness and spirituality, are apt, in unbending the mind after the rigors of a close application to study—to run into an excess of levity and unsanctified hilarity. Amidst such circumstances, it is easy to perceive that fervent piety is endangered.

The student, I acknowledge, must have occasional relaxation from intellectual labor. His health, his spirits, require it; but then even his recreations ought to be those of a man of God—such as fit him for his future work, and not such as disqualify him. Incessant joking, laughter, sarcasm—which I lament to say form the substance of that conversation which is generally maintained within the walls of a seminary—totally unfit the mind of the students for spiritual fellowship with God or each other. I beseech you, my dear brother, be upon your guard! There is something bewitching in the character of a merry fellow, even though it is united with that of a candidate for the pulpit. We love too much to be amused, to be sufficiently alarmed at the danger arising to piety from a jocular and witty disposition."