dist ministers and their followers, who had by their sacrifices established this institution for Christian education. In the fervid oratory of his day, after the manner in which the historian Parkman speaks of the Jesuit Fathers, the Governor said: "They have been the companions of our pioneer fathers, they have been our moral and religious instructors. Spurning the luxuries of life, the refinements of taste and elegance, the comforts of ease and affluence, the allurements of the world, with the spirit of a Wesley only to nerve them, they laughed the dangers of flood and field to scorn; looked the terrors of the wilderness in the face with cheeks unblanched; endured cold and hunger without a murmur; encountered privation and peril without shrinking, and dying by the wayside even, leaving no memorial of their burial place, and for what? That the voice of supplication and prayer might rise from the deepest solitudes of our valleys; that the lamp of eternal life might be lit up in the gloomy recesses of our lonely cabins; that the departing spirits of their rude but noble tenants might be cheered and sustained, and reconciled in that awful hour by the glorious promises of another and a better world. The same sternness of purpose, the same unflagging zeal, the same untiring effort as in the beginning, still stamp their every conduct and action. They have suffered no pause in their labors; they follow the steps of improvement now, only to gather materials, and to seize occasions the better to scatter the choicest of heaven's blessings along their pathway; and at last, as if determined to leave nothing undone that the power and sublimity of the principles they teach may be appropriately displayed, they are now seeking out of the immense mass of intellect around them to rear a moral and mental structure for eternity." Toward the conclusion of his address, in what might properly be called a charge to the president in the spirit of the best friends of the new enterprise, Governor Wallace continued in "a word of caution," with these manly and appropriate words: "I have heard the objection repeatedly and sneeringly made, Look at that institution; see how the number of its students has diminished,' as if its merits or demerits were alone to be tested and judged of by the length of its catalogue of students' names. Mark it: Whenever the contest between our colleges shall become, not which shall send forth the greatest number of best educated men, but which shall exhibit in their respective porticos the greater crowd, we may then set it down that their fate is sealed, their usefulness ended, and the hopes of their friends blighted. No, sir; if your object is to give to this institution a real, a substantial, and an enduring reputation, to make it what its projectors designed it to be, a blessing to the State and nation, and to place yourself on the highest pinnacle of honor in your profession, suffer no student to leave with its parchment in his possession unless he carry with him all the elements of a thorough, sound, and practical American education."

These words give evidence that there were men in the years of foundation-laying who fully comprehended the nature of the great work they

had undertaken. Many of the difficulties in the way of such an enterprise we can not to-day fully understand. Besides overcoming the ordinary obstacles of poverty and indifference among the people, the new institutions under church auspices in that day had to encounter the positive opposition of religious rivals, as the State University at times suffered from the combined and ungenerous hostility of them all. The denominational schools of Indiana were founded in a time when sectarian strife and rivalry were more bitter and unchristian than is readily understood by us, who live in a better age of peace, amity, and Christian fellowship. The Methodist and the Presbyterian of those days frequently encountered in published sermons passages like the following: "If there be an uncompromising exclusive principle in Christianity, this principle we hold to be faith in the doctrine of Christ, according to our standards.”

"The New School Theology is on the high road to Deism. If it were to succeed in putting down all opposition, and securing the field to itself, it would bring on the millenium of Infidelity."

"If Christianity will renounce her exclusive principle, and exercise a liberal charity for all forms of idolatry; if she will recognize or even let alone Taylorism, Arminianism and the various other forms of infidelity, she will be received by the sister churches' into the embraces of popular favor."

"The wretched heathen Ovid is a better theologian than our Calvinists."

Such passages illustrate the controversies of the times.

In the midst of such a spirit which permeated to a great extent the theology of the church, President Simpson felt called upon to repel the charge of "sectarianism" brought against the new institution over which he was called to preside.

In his installation address following the oration of Governor Wallace, after calling attention to the fact that "colleges or high institutions of learning have always been the precursors of great improvements, whether in government or in the arts of civilized life," the President said:

"But the startling cry of sectarianism may perhaps be echoed throughout the land. We expect it. If by sectarianism be meant that any privilege shall be extended to youth of one denomination more than another, or that the faculty shall endeavor to proselyte those placed under their instruction, or dwell upon the minor points controverted between the branches of the great Christian family-then there is not, and we hope there never will be sectarianism here. Indeed our college charter secures equal privileges to all students without reference to religious peculiarities, and it is ever to be hoped that in collegiate instruction only the grand essentials of Christianity shall be taught. But, if by sectarianism be meant that the professors are religious men, and that they have settled views upon Christian character and duty, then we ever hope to be sectarian,