THE DEDICATION SERMON

By the Reverend Henry Sloane Coffin, D.D.

Psalm 1xi, 5.

"Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name.'

Our first thought, as we set apart these stately and graceful buildings to their use for the Kingdom of God, is naturally of those to whose large faith and generous thought we owe both the plan for the enlargement of this Seminary's work and the means for its accomplishment. We recall with reverent and grateful affection the late President of the Faculty, Charles Cuthbert Hall, who dreamt dreams of the destiny possible to this institution upon this commanding site at the great academic center of the metropolis of the continent; the Christian men of affairs in our Board of Directors, who shared his vision and made possible its achievement upon a scale surpassing even his sanguine hope, such men as John Crosby Brown and Morris K. Jesup; and in particular that broad-minded, truth-loving, far-seeing business man, whose memory this chapel records, D. Willis James, the Greatheart in the company of those who in recent years have with signal wisdom, assurance and devotion guided this school of sacred learning. Of them we may say as we look about upon that which they planned, but were not permitted to see completed, "These all died in faith, not having received these promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar." We cannot but feel that they commit to us very wistfully and very trustingly this heavy responsibility, the weight of which they appreciate, because they carried it in anticipation. And we, as we accept it from God so directly through them, are keenly sensible that their consecration in planning and providing has already given its solemn dedication to that which we are now setting apart to its intended use. The dedication comes with the gift itself, as we say gratefully, "Thou hast given us the heritage of those that fear thy name."

And with these who conceived and prepared for these

impressive buildings we would couple in our thankful remembrance the illustrious rôle of teachers, who in the past have won distinction for this Seminary by their scholarship, the pastors and missionaries who have gone from its halls to bring honor to its name by their efficient service of the Church of Christ, and the ministers and laymen, who with singular freedom from denominational prejudice and untrammeled by traditionalism, with faith in the living God, loyalty to Jesus Christ, and seeking to be as inclusive in their sympathy as He, have shaped its policy, supplied its endowments, directed its affairs and moulded its spirit. It has been theirs to command for this institution that trust and attachment manifestly evidenced in this incomparable equipment for its work. It is ours-and how weighty the obligation!— to deserve what it has been theirs to secure.

We are dedicating this costly plant to the preparation of preachers and teachers of religion. Religion comes to every man, no matter how independent an investigator he may be in his fellowship with the Invisible, as an inheritance. It is significant that two of our evangelists in presenting the biography of the world's most startling religious Innovator, its most original and self-reliant Man of faith, supply us with His genealogy, as though His unique convictions were inexplicable and unintelligible apart from their antecedents in a long succession of believers. This Seminary has been called in the providence of God to stand for the right and the duty of each generation to think its own thought of the Most High. But this by no means implies our want of reverence for those who have preceded us in the life of faith. It is not the imitative followers of adventurous leaders who are in closest sympathy with them, but the pioneers who gratefully acknowledge the bounds which their precursors reached, and instead of remaining within them set out from them to add to the territory already attained. The God we trust has been man's old, old home. There can be nothing strictly new in our intercourse with Him. Every emotion we feel in His presence, every thought of Him that comes to our minds, every word we utter of praise or petition, every rite we perform in worship, every task to which we set ourselves as our Father's business, has a long history behind it. God, even with His unsearchable riches, would not mean so much to us were it not that into their fellowship with Him, as into their permanent home, centuries of believing men and women have put their personalities.

"The souls of many thousand years

Have laid up here their toils and fears
And all the agonies of their pain."

Religion, no doubt, means to every man a private understanding between himself and God. He is conscious of following no precedent as he places himself in the everlasting arms. He is not aware that he is obeying an age-long tradition when he responds to the voice of God in his conscience. He flies to Him and obeys Him spontaneously, as though God and he had been made for each other, and suddenly he recognized the affinity. But when he comes to reflect upon his private fellowship with the Father he discovers that he has entered a great household of faith. The impulse that drove him to an unseen Friend and the conscience that spoke to him with commanding authority have behind them a far-stretching heredity. The confession of his weakness and failure and sin which he is pouring into the divine ear seems an echo that comes sounding from every century of the voices of the contrite in heart. His aspiration which rises towards godlikeness in temper and sympathy and usefulness appears as the outbreathing through him of the souls of the upreaching of every generation. His consecration to the kingdom of love is an ancient fire that has blazed in the spirits of untold thousands since time began. His timid knock at the door of the divine heart for companionship has admitted him to a thronged presence, where men out of every kindred and tongue and era stand before God. The divine voice that seemed to whisper its confidential secret in his ear now sounds as the voice of many waters, a great harmony of all the heavenly tones that have fallen on the ears of men from the beginning. Paul uses a bold but true phrase when he speaks of "the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints." There is a genuine sense in which God Himself has more to offer us because of His acquisitions in the past from all who have served Him and are now with Him abidingly. Our first exclamation when we come into the secret place of the Most High may be, "O God, Thou art my God." But our next will be: "Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations." "Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear Thy name."

There are some who would challenge our right to place this theological seminary beside institutions where sciences like mathematics and chemistry and astronomy are studied. Theology is not to them a science because it does not deal with