THE BROSS LECTURES
The Bross Lectures are an outgrowth of a fund established in 1879 by the late William Bross, lieutenant-governor of Illinois from 1866 to 1870. Desiring some memorial of his son, Nathaniel Bross, who died in 1856, Mr. Bross entered into an agreement with the “Trustees of Lake Forest University,” whereby there was finally transferred to them the sum of forty thousand dollars, the income of which was to accumulate in perpetuity for successive periods of ten years, the accumulations of one decade to be spent in the following decade, for the purpose of stimulating the best books or treatises “on the connection, relation, and mutual bearing of any practical science, the history of our race, or the facts in any department of knowledge, with and upon the Christian Religion.” The object of the donor was to “call out the best efforts of the highest talent and the ripest scholarship of the world to illustrate from science, or from any department of knowledge, and to demonstrate the divine origin and the authority of the Christian Scriptures; and, further, to show how both science and revelation coincide and prove the existence, the providence, or any or all of the attributes of the only living and true God, ’infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.’”
The gift contemplated in the original agreement of 1879 was finally consummated in 1890. The first decade of the accumulation of interest having closed in 1900, the trustees of the Bross Fund began at this time to carry out the provisions of the deed of gift. It was determined to give the general title of “The Bross Library” to the series of the books purchased and published with the proceeds of the Bross Fund. In accordance with the express wish of the donor, that the “Evidences of Christianity” of his “very dear friend and teacher, Mark Hopkins, D.D.,” be purchased and “ever numbered and known as No. 1 of the series,” the trustees secured the copyright of this work, which has been republished in a presentation edition as Volume 1 of the Bross Library.
The trust agreement prescribed two methods by which the production of books and treatises of the nature contemplated by the donor was to be stimulated:
1. The trustees were empowered to offer one or more prizes during each decade, the competition for which was to be thrown open to “the scientific men, the Christian philosophers and historians of all nations.” In accordance with this provision, a prize of $6,000 was offered in 1902 for the best book fulfilling the conditions of the deed of the gift, the competing manuscripts to be presented on or before June 1, 1905. The prize was awarded to the Reverend James Orr, D.D., professor of apologetics and systematic theology in the United Free Church College, Glasgow, for his treatise on “The Problem of the Old Testament,” which was published in 1906 as Volume III of the Bross Library. The second decennial prize of $6,000 was awarded in 1915 to the Reverend Thomas James Thorburn, D.D., LL.D., Hastings, England, for his book entitled “The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels,” which has been published as Volume VII of the Bross Library. The announcement of the conditions may be obtained from the president of Lake Forest College.
2. The trustees were also empowered to “select and designate any particular scientific man or Christian philosopher and the subject on which he shall write,” and to “agree with him as to the sum he shall receive for the book or treatise to be written.” Under this provision the trustees have, from time to time, invited eminent scholars to deliver courses of lectures before Lake Forest College, such courses to be subsequently published as volumes in the Bross Library. The first course of lectures, on “Obligatory Morality,” was delivered in May, 1903, by the Reverend Francis Landey Patton, D.D., LL.D., President of Princeton Theological Seminary. The copyright of the lectures is now the property of the trustees of the Bross Fund. The second course of lectures, on “The Bible: Its Origin and Nature,” was delivered in May, 1904, by the Reverend Marcus Dods, D.D., Professor of Exegetical Theology in New College, Edinburgh. These lectures were published in 1905 as Volume II of the Bross Library. The third course of lectures, on “The Bible of Nature,” was delivered in September and October, 1907, by Mr. J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., Regius professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen. These lectures were published in 1908 as Volume IV of the Bross Library. The fourth course of lectures, on “The Religions of Modern Syria and Palestine,” was delivered in November and December, 1908, by Frederick Jones Bliss, Ph.D., of Beirut, Syria. These lectures are published as Volume V of the Bross Library. The fifth course of lectures, on “The Sources of Religious Insight,” was delivered November 13 to 19, 1911, by Professor Josiah Royce, Ph.D., of Harvard University. These lectures are embodied in the sixth volume. Volume VII, “The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels,” by the Reverend Thomas James Thorburn, D.D., was published in 1915. The seventh course of lectures, on “The Will to Freedom,” was delivered in May, 1915, by the Reverend John Neville Figgis, D.D., LL.D., of the House of the Resurrection, Mirfield, England, and published as Volume VIII of the series. In 1916 Professor Henry Wilkes Wright, of Lake Forest College, delivered the next course of lectures on “Faith Justified by Progress.” These lectures are embodied in Volume IX. In 1921, the Reverend John P. Peters, Ph.D., of Sewanee, Tennessee, delivered a course of lectures on “Spade and Bible.” These lectures are embodied in Volume X. The present volume is comprised of lectures delivered November 3 to 6, 1921, before Lake Forest College, on the occasion of the inauguration of the President.
Herbert McComb Moore,
President of Lake Forest University.
Lake Forest, Illinois.