Among Students

The Princeton College meetings— Difficulties met and overcome—Contact

with President McCosh—Work at other colleges

IN the opening weeks of 1884 a door to new opportunities

and new activities was opened. Dr. James McCosh, the venerable president of Princeton College, had heard of Dr. Gordon through his Northfield labors and wrote urging him to come to Princeton, there to undertake special religious work among the students. The field was new and untried, and of especial difficulty and delicacy withal. Few will question the natural tendency to levity which prevails in a student community. Youth, freedom from home restraints, the contagion of diverse acquaintance, and the ignorance of those severe and disillusioning experiences of maturer years combine to make a product almost inaccessible to sober and religious influences. There were, furthermore, exceptional circumstances which, all unknown to the visitor, worked greatly to his prejudice and disadvantage. Take the train to Manhattan Field, New York, any day when the bill-boards announce some special intercollegiate fete. Listen to the hoarse cheering, rising like the surf of the Atlantic. Watch the waving colors, the excited thousands, the gladiatorial struggle over a pigskin foot-ball. It is on such occasions, if ever, that college students occupy a large place in the public eye. How irritated they would be if kept home and packed

15° ADONIRAM JUDSON GORDON

off en masse to college chapel! Yet this was very much the case with the discontented, angry youths who, by some recent and perverse enactment, found themselves gathered to hear an unknown preacher from Boston at the very hour upon which they had pitched for some gala festival of athleticism. That the preacher enjoyed the service quite as little as the boys themselves is seen from the following letter

" Princeton, N. J., February 4, 1884. " My dear Wife: I will give you a little account of the work, thanking God for what he has graciously given. The first day was the toughest experience I have ever had. The students have been free, hitherto, to come to the prayer-day services or not— they have largely chosen not to come— till

this year their attendance was made compulsory. My first

address was to this compelled crowd, many of them disgusted that their holiday had been turned into a holy day. They sat before me facing at all angles, ogling and squirming and showing pla'nly enough that they did not propose to be solemnized. I was never so taken off my pins in my life. I sweat and floundered about and made an utter fizzle. All the grave and dignified faculty sat ranged on either side. I came home and dried my clothes and went back to the evening service with fear and trembling. That was not compulsory, and I got on much better. Still, I was so discouraged that I determined to start for home on Friday morning. But I feel that the Lord overruled my rash purpose. A large delegation of students, who appreciated exactly the trial under which I had labored, came to see me, and insisted that I should stay. I consented, and began to visit the young men at their rooms. Sunday morning I preached again before students and faculty. There was a great change; no compulsion, but all were out and very attentive. In the afternoon again deeply solemn meeting. The good old pres-

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ident arose and made a most solemn appeal, saying, ' Young men, you have heard the gospel to-day so plainly declared that you are without excuse if you do not accept Christ.'

" In the evening the students who were Christians planned for meetings in their rooms, inviting those in their respective halls to come in. I started at seven o'clock to visit these meetings. I found them all crowded. In the first one I struck, ten rose at my invitation to indicate their purpose to follow Christ. I went from building to building among the meetings, finding in almost every one those who were ready to stand up. I visited six of these, and I judge there must have been twenty who confessed Christ in different rooms. My reception among the students was most cordial and affectionate. I think the Lord has given me their hearts, and my first discouragement has been turned into great joy. I have addressed the theological students and have met many of them in private for prayer and conference. A good work has certainly begun. I shall stay to-day at least to see it furthered. It has been a peculiar and valuable experience.

"Much love to you and to all. The Lord bless you. Pray, all of you, that I may not labor in vain or run in vain.

" Yours affectionately,

" Gordon."

The effect which his personality and his earnest words had upon the students may be gathered from the following admirable notes written by one who was at the time in the senior class at Princeton and who took a deep interest in the whole movement

"In November, 1883, the Interseminary Missionary Alliance met at Hartford. It was composed of delegates from theological institutions, but a large contingent from Princeton College went up and were permitted to enjoy the feast of good things, without participating in the discussions.

Dr. Gordon was one of the chief speakers, and gave at an evening session a powerful address on the enduement of the Holy Spirit for service. He held a consecration meeting at the close of the session at which nearly all the young men remained, even till nearly the midnight hour. It was a remarkably tender and spiritual service. He spoke very modestly and reverently of his own experience in receiving this enduement of the Spirit some years before. The Princeton students, like all the rest, were greatly drawn to Dr. Gordon. When the ' Day of Prayer for Colleges ' drew near, the latter part of January, those of us who had heard him at Hartford were a unit in desiring him to preach on that day, and through our efforts he was invited and came. Recitations were suspended for the day, and the students were required to attend service at eleven o'clock. The beautiful Marquand Chapel was filled with students, professors, people from the town, and students from the theological seminary. The sermon was excellent and made a fine impression, but the preacher was far from being himself.

" I remember very distinctly, in talking with him several years later regarding that service, he said it was one of the most trying experiences of his life. Everything around him was new, and everybody was strange; he was right in the heart of the conservatism of the great Presbyterian Church,

and all about him were seated its ablest representatives. He

was requested to remain over Sunday, which he did, and in the meantime conducted services as he had opportunity. But before he had concluded the meetings of Sunday he had recovered himself and had won all hearts. In spite of the earnest request that he stay and continue the good work which had sprung up among the students during his brief visit, he felt obliged to return to his own charge. For the next week or two we carried on special religious services with some degree of success; but finally it was decided that we

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must have Dr. Gordon return. At our earnest solicitation, indorsed by Dr. McCosh, he came back and was with us for perhaps ten days. He preached each evening in Murray Hall, and from nine till eleven o'clock went from dormitory to dormitory to conduct prayer and inquiry meetings. All the students that could be induced to attend were summoned from the section of the hall in which the meeting was held—a dozen, twenty, or more. A great many in those meetings made a profession of faith in Christ. They were gatherings never to be forgotten. One memorable feature was his teaching inquirers to pray. All bowed the head, and then Dr. Gordon would oflFer up a simple, earnest prayer of self-surrender and consecration to God, followed, sentence by sentence, by a chorus of half a dozen voices. Many of the rougher fellows of the college were deeply moved in these meetings, to which they came when they would not attend a public meeting.

" The students throughout the college were delighted with Dr. Gordon. Those who are familiar with such matters know how hard it is to suit an audience of undergraduates. I am sure there was less of criticism passed upon him than upon any other man who came before the students while I was in the institution. The professors as well as the students were pleased. Professor Raymond, of the chair of oratory, said the quality of Dr. Gordon's voice was unsurpassed; indeed, he had heard but one speaker who equaled him in this re-

spect. He thought if his natural gift were cultivated, he

would have marvelous power as a speaker.

" Dr. McCosh was in most hearty sympathy with the work. He was present at very many of the public meetings, and always urged their importance upon the students. Those who ever met Dr. McCosh will readily understand that he had absolutely no gift as an evangelist. He was wholly lacking in that tact, grace, and delicacy which one must possess who would conduct a successful inquiry meeting, among students especially. Frequently at the close of the meeting, as a matter of courtesy, the preacher would ask if the president had anything to say. He always had something to say by way of commendation of the work and of him who conducted it. Indeed, he seemed unable to find words to express his appreciation of the preacher. With his broad Scotch accent, which was well-nigh unintelligible to those not familiar with his speech, he would invariably inform us that ' Dr. Gourdon is the looveliest mon I iver had in me house. And if I iver h'ard the gospel preached in me life, it has been from the lips of Dr. Gourdon.' This sentiment was expressed with much feeling, evidently to the embarrassment of the preacher, and a good deal to the amusement of the students.

" It is doubtful if Dr. Gordon ever had a greater triumph, so to speak, than he had at Princeton. He showed himself to be by nature a prince among men, and by grace a man of God indeed. During that religious awakening, which continued a number of weeks, we had the assistance of some of the most noted preachers we could command, such as Drs. John Hall and Charles Cuthbert Hall, of New York, Drs. Pierson and Mutchmore, of Philadelphia, besides Professors Hodge, Patton, and Paxton, of the seminary. But none of these, and not even Mr. Moody, who had been at the college some years before, was received as was our own great leader. It was remarked by those who had been connected with the college a long time that not within their recollection had any one met with Dr. Gordon's reception. This chapter in his life will always stand as a significant indication of his influence among men, and especially among young men in college, than whom a more critical class cannot be found. Most truthfully may it be said of Dr. Gordon, 'As a prince he had power with God and with men, and prevailed.' "

During the daytime— which, as he said, " passes not a little

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slowly, as I can do nothing among the students until the evening, my work beginning at 7 p.m., and continuing until eleven"— he stayed at the Nassau House, "in order to give the students a better opportunity to come and see me, though I have two or three cordial invitations to professors' homes." After the evening services were over he went usually to Dr. McCosh's house and there spent the night. We get a glimpse of the delightful intercourse which he had in these late hours with the veteran president in certain charming reminiscences which he wrote out just after Dr. McCosh's death and within three months of his own departure. He says

" Some ten years ago, when invited by the students of Princeton to address them on the ' Day of Prayer for Colleges,' the president wrote confirming the invitation, and adding, ' Of course you will live with me while in Princeton.' I cannot say that I was entirely at ease in his dignified presence the first hour after entering his house, or that he was entirely free in his confidence toward a stranger till he should know who and what manner of man he might be. But, being invited to remain over Sunday, and the ice having been broken in the evening of that day, so that more than a score of young men came forward as inquirers, the good man at once laid aside all reserve, and from that hour put his whole heart into the work, attending every public meeting, and urging on the students at every session of college prayers the importance of giving attention to their spiritual welfare. The services continued for two weeks, very soon taking this turn in order to reach the students: preaching in the chapel at five daily, and then night meetings in the various halls, beginning at 9 p.m. and continuing till 12 p.m. It was in these gatherings that the personal work was done.

" When I returned to the president's house at the close of these midnight meetings Dr. McCosh would invariably be found waiting, with a warm fire on the hearthstone and a table spread with refreshments, always eager to hear what new names had been added to the Hst of inquirers. There could hardly have been greater joy in heaven over repenting sinners than there was in his heart as the names were read to him from my note-book night after night; and then he would talk them over and hft them up before the Lord, that he would by his Spirit make thorough work in their hearts and keep them from falling back.

"And now, the day's work being over for president and preacher, the former was ready to talk, to tell you about the men and the experiences associated with his early life, to be drawn out on points of doctrine and controversy, to answer all the questions you might propound, no matter if you should continue till two or three in the morning. He would never give the slightest intimation that he desired to retire."

The talk ran largely on religious movements in Scotland. Many and interesting were the stories which were told of the heroic days of the Disruption. Irving, McCheyne, Chalmers, Duflf, were all there in the dim twilight of the blazing fire's penumbra. They laughed heartily, too, over the mishaps which had befallen Matthew Arnold in his then recent visit to the college. For he had mailed his acceptance of an invitation to lecture there to Dr. Churchill, of Andover, sending instead a hearty expression of thanks for Dr. Churchill's hospitality to Dr. McCosh. And then, to cap all, he had missed the Princeton station and was obliged to walk eleven miles, coming finally into the little college town, spattered with mud, sitting on the high seat of a butcher-cart.

At last, when the fire had burned to the last ash, the long night sessions would break up.

"Thank God," says Gordon in closing his reminiscences, " for a great scholar who was able to yoke up the deepest philosophy with the simplest faith; who, with all his learning, kept the heart of a child toward the Saviour. How much he

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owed for the purity of his faith and the simplicity of his piety and the stahvartness of his convictions to these friends of his early days whom he so loved and revered— Chalmers and McCheyne and the Bonars!. Almost as remarkably as Dr. Wayland, in Brown, did President McCosh combine the intellectual and the evangelistic spirit. Pointing to a chair standing before the open fire in one of those midnight talks, he said, ' He came back some years after his graduation and knelt with me by that chair and confessed Christ. I believed he would do so, for I never forgot him nor ceased to pray for him after he left college.' He had been speaking of a very able but skeptical man with whom he had ' dealt much,' to use his own phrase, during his student days. Such college presidents are to be sought for and prayed for in these days. May God multiply their number."

Gordon's work among college students did not end here. At the Northfield college conferences his influence upon young men was always marked. To mention one case only, Mr. Robert P. Wilder, the original and most prominent leader in the Student Volunteer Movement, since grown to such proportions, has declared in a recent letter that to A. J. Gordon and to J. Hudson Taylor he owes more for the development of his spiritual life than to any others, living or dead. Others have made like statements. In later years, in addition to the addresses given at these college conferences, he spoke at various times at Yale, Amherst, Rutgers, Mount Holyoke, Williams, at Princeton again, and at Brown, always with great acceptance, and in several of the colleges named conducted series of religious meetings with the attendant personal work described above.