academy held to the Failing to obtain the

the ten years of its existence the purpose and pledge of its founders. funds required for the maintenance of its high standard, the trustees chose to discontinue the school rather than suffer its good name to be tarnished. Its graduates who entered our best colleges took a high rank, and keen disappointment was felt on all sides that pecuniary embarrassment had paralyzed a young training school in which centered so many hopes for the cause of accurate scholarship and high moral culture.

Although opposition to the Theological Seminary had declined, as its spirit, methods, and results became known to the Christian public, and its pecuniary resources had at length reached a respectable figure, yet at the end of twenty years its guardians and friends became somewhat anxious. From the first local embarrassments had not been a slight obstacle to its growth. Instead of becoming less they had seriously increased. Facilities of intercourse between East Windsor Hill and other places had lessened. Steamboats had ceased to ply between Hartford and Springfield. The daily stage had been withdrawn. The railroad was on the opposite side of the river. To take a train one must go eight miles to Hartford or six to Warehouse Point or three to Windsor with the uncertainties of a primitive ferry. To or from either of these points no regular conveyance was established, and to obtain a private carriage was at times attended with difficulty. Dr. Eli Smith, the distinguished missionary, on a visit to his native land had occasion to find his way to East Windsor Hill in prosecution of a matrimonial alliance. In Springfield he learned that the nearest station was at Windsor. Stopping there at twilight he was a long time busy in finding a vehicle to take him to the river, where fresh delays and perils awaited the veteran traveler. On reaching his destination, he remarked, that in his various explorations in Palestine and Armenia he had experienced some inconveniences, but he never found it so difficult to get from one point to another as from Old Windsor to East Windsor Hill. Besides its isolation the seminary suffered from want of

social and spiritual vitality and a literary atmosphere so helpful to studious young men.

From 1855 to 1860 the Institution passed through a trying ordeal. For reasons already adverted to in part its continued existence was debated by its stanchest friends. While the academy continued to flourish, such was the decline in the theological department of the Institute as to threaten at least its temporary suspension. To guard the funds in such an emergency became an object of solicitude with the Trustees. Under legal advice it was decided that, if one of the theological professors should serve temporarily as principal of the school, the funds of the Institute would not be forfeited. Accordingly the Professor of Biblical Literature was requested to act in that capacity. This arrangement, involving no addition to the Professor's salary, was an economical one, as it saved to the treasury the amount otherwise required for the support of a principal. The proposal was accepted and several hours were daily spent in the academy without curtailing the time allotted to Hebrew and Greek in the other building. To instruct advanced classes fitting for college required of the teacher a review of the branches quite neglected for thirty years. This style of labor continued for two years.

Meanwhile the trustees of the Institute invited the corporators of Yale College to consider an overture for uniting the two seminaries. The number of students in each was small and declining. The guardians of each were constrained to ask what could forestall the calamity that threatened both. The proposed conference took place between a committee of our trustees and the Prudential Committee and afterwards the Clerical Fellows of Yale College. On both sides, it would seem, the conference was candid and courteous. Our trustees signified to the other party "that they had in charge three sacred and inalienable trusts; their funds, their faith, and a school in which these funds should be devoted to the inculcation of their faith." They asked therefore to be received into the united seminary in their complete and unrestrained integrity. It was proposed that the united school should be at New Haven; that the present professors

in both seminaries should retire, leaving all the chairs to be filled by a new election; that the trustees of the Institute should nominate candidates and the Corporation should have power to elect, but only from among these nominees. These were the chief points. To all the specifications of the overture the New Haven gentlemen acceded, with one exception. They demurred as to the mode of appointing professors, and proposed as a substitute that a union be formed substantially upon the basis already set forth, except that, instead of the trustees of the Pastoral Union nominating and the Corporation of the College electing the professors, the boards should constitute distinct and independent houses of convocation, each electing, and that a concurrent election shall be necessary in each case to actual induction. While offering this as a basis of prospective union the New Haven gentlemen signified that a due regard to certain very obvious personal relations and sympathies compelled them to ask a delay of definite action until such time as Providence should seem to indicate. After the conferences closed two of the Clerical Fellows of the Corporation signified that they should require some restriction upon the creed of the Pastoral Union if it was to be enforced in the united seminary. The attempt at union thus proving futile our board of trustees in 1856 summoned the friends of the Institute to "instant and earnest and assiduous endeavor and united prayer to God" for the increase of its efficiency. Only partial success, however, attended the efforts thus called forth. Local hindrances to the growth of the Seminary became more and more formidable from year to year. In the judgment of many its continued life depended upon its being transplanted to a more eligible home. Prominent trustees came to their annual meetings after 1857 with feelings little akin to a joyous reunion. Still the majority of the board were nothing daunted by the untoward signs which were hailed with joy by those whose maxim from the first had been; "Delenda est Carthago." How to effect an escape from our paralyzing environments and rekindle the languishing hopes of guardians and friends came to be an urgent problem. To leave East Windsor IIill

was to incur a considerable loss of property, to inflict a deep wound upon certain liberal and steadfast friends who could not listen to arguments in favor of a removal from the old site, and to run the risk of extinction elsewhere in circumstances of mortifying publicity.

In the early part of this transitional period of our history the infirmities of age compelled Dr. Tyler to ask a release from his official trusts. Before his resignation and to the last day of his life his prevailing belief and hope were that the Institute would see brighter days. Occasionally, indeed, he yielded for a moment to a feeling of despondence and once or twice read at evening prayers in the chapel the hymn; "By whom shall Jacob now arise, for Jacob's friends are few." Without warning and without the slightest justification anonymous charges against his doctrinal soundness were put in circulation just as he was leaving a post which he had honorably filled for more than twenty years. This bitter cup, it is supposed, was prepared by a few members of the Pastoral Union who had shared with him the burdens of an unpopular undertaking. Brooding over the misfortune which seemed to threaten the beloved Seminary they yielded to the suspicion that the Professor of Theology was the Achan that troubled the camp. At an informal trial which was forced upon the Pastoral Union the charges in question were thoroughly refuted and the way made clear for the venerable professor to retire with dignity and grace.

In 1864 the Clerical Fellows of Yale College appointed a committee, of which the late Dr. Hawes was chairman, to confer with our trustees on the question of uniting the two seminaries. Since the abortive attempt in the same direction in 1856 such changes had taken place as awakened fresh hope that the measure might be consummated. But it was destined to a second and final defeat. The trustees of the Institute had now resolved to remove it to Hartford "in order to open to it a wider field of usefulness and to confer upon it greater privileges." This step was agreed upon in spite of their disappointment in the effort to raise a fund of two hundred thousand dollars, deemed necessary to meet the increased

outlay required by the proposed change. At the meeting of the Pastoral Union that year (1864) statements were made by ministerial brethren from Massachusetts which favored an enlargement of our constituency beyond the bounds of the state of Connecticut. The brethren from a neighboring state expressed a desire to coöperate with us in checking the speculations of a false philosophy which had invaded the denomination, and which they deemed more alarming at that time than ever before. In consequence of the representations and appeals made at that juncture the Union passed several resolutions favoring an invitation to its membership of any Congregational pastors in sympathy with our theological sentiments. Up to this time the Pastoral Union embraced few ministers not living in Connecticut. At present a considerable number from other states are enrolled among its members. The first accession from Massachusetts rendered much assistance in the removal to Hartford, but, subsequently less aid than was expected came from that particular band of allies. By more than one of their number it was confidently affirmed that, if a pastor in eastern Massachusetts were elected to a professorship in the Seminary, funds would be supplied from that quarter for his salary. The election was made but no funds came from "Boston and vicinity." To meet the embarrassment that ensued our steadfast patron, Mr. James B. Hosmer, gave fifty thousand dollars for the support of the new Massachusetts Professor. That the receipts of the treasury might equal its expenditures Mr. Hosmer had been accustomed as treasurer to make good the annual deficits from his own resources, but in view of the circumstances this gift of fifty thousand dollars revealed a magnanimity of character not less worthy of record than the still larger donations reserved for a later day. While the Seminary was adjusting itself to its new surroundings schemes for its amalgamation with two western seminaries were set on foot. At the meeting of the National Council in Oberlin in 1871 an effort was made to enlist the moral support of that body in carrying out this pol