Excerpt from Demand for an Educated Ministry: An Address, Delivered Before the Students and Trustees of Western College, Western, Iowa, at the Annual Commencement

Young Gentlemen:

I speak to-night to those of you who trust, that in the providence of God, you have been called to preach the Gospel of Christ to a ruined world. A fearful responsibility is upon him who attempts to teach the young, because in his hands rests their present and eternal destiny. A still greater responsibility rests upon him who is instrumental in forming and molding the character of the embassador for Christ. In benefitting him, he indirectly blesses hundreds of others. In leading him astray, he ruins for time and eternity. Trusting in the God of our spirits to teach you aright wherein I shall fail, I shall present to you some considerations showing the urgent demand, at the present time, for an Educated Ministry. This subject should have the careful consideration of all intelligent. Christian men, because in proper conclusions upon it rest your own welfare and the success and prosperity of the Church.

In approaching this subject, I am immediately met by an oft-repeated objection which it might be well enough to dispose of in the beginning. "Are not the Apostles said to have been ignorant and unlearned men and were they not successful?" If we should confess this, for argument sake, and infer that we, therefore, need the same class of men now, we would show greater presumption than common sense or piety. Acknowledging them to have perfectly suited the age in which they lived, it does not at all follow that they would suit this age. The world has not been stationary.

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