CHAPTER LXI. IN LATER YEARS—1856-1905
My relations with Professor Fisher at New Haven; his good influence. My interest in church work as a professor at the University of Michigan; am asked to select a rector; my success. Readings in ecclesiastical history; effect of these. Sale's Koran. Fra Paolo Sarpi's "History of the Council of Trent." Dean Stanley's "Eastern Church." Bossuet, Spalding, Balmez, Buckle, Lecky, Draper, the Darwinian hypothesis. Special influence of Stanley's "Life of Arnold," Robertson's Sermons, and other works. Good influences from sundry Methodists. Exceptions taken by individuals to sundry Broad Church statements in my historical lectures; their favorable reception. Sobering effect upon me of "spiritualistic" fanaticism. My increasing reluctance to promote revolutionary changes in religion; my preference for evolutionary methods. Special experiences. The death-bed of a Hicksite Quaker. My toleration ideas embodied in the Cornell University Charter; successful working of these. Establishment of a university chapel and preachership; my selections of preachers; good effects of their sermons upon me. Effects of sundry Eastern experiences. Mohammedan worship at Cairo and elsewhere. The dervishes. Expulsion of young professors from the American Missionary College at Beyrout; noble efforts of one of them afterward. The Positivist Conventicle in London. The "Bible for Learners." Summing up of my experience. Worship—public and private; reasonableness of both. Recognition of spiritual as well as of physical laws. Recognition of an evolution in religious beliefs. Proper attitude of thinking men. Efforts for evolution rather than for revolution. Need of charity to all forms of religion but of steady resistance to clerical combinations for hampering scientific thought or controlling public education.