THE ELY FOUNDATION
The Elias P. Ely Lectureship was founded by Mr. Zebulon Stiles Ely, May 8, 1865. The deed of gift contains the following paragraphs:
“The undersigned gives the sum of ten thousand dollars to the Union Theological Seminary of the City of New York to found a Lectureship in the same, the title of which shall be the ‘Elias P. Ely Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity,’ on the following conditions:
“The course of lectures given on this foundation is to comprise any topics that serve to establish the proposition that Christianity is a religion from God, or that it is the perfect and final form of religion for man. Among the subjects discussed may be the nature and need of a revelation; the character and influence of Christ and His apostles; the authenticity and credibility of the Scriptures, miracles, and prophecy; the diffusion and benefits of Christianity; the philosophy of religion in its relation to the Christian system.”
Under date of May 24, 1879, Mr. Ely addressed a communication to the Directors of the Seminary in which the conditions of the Lectureship are amplified as follows:
“The conditions of the foundation of the Elias P. Ely Lectureship, dated May 8, 1865, are hereby modified, so that the course of public lectures therein provided for, may not only be on ‘The Evidences of Christianity,’ but on such other subjects as the Faculty and Directors, in concurrence with the undersigned, while living, may deem for the good of man.”
PREFACE
I here present the substance of eight Ely Lectures delivered in the spring of 1918 at Union Theological Seminary in New York. They were spoken without manuscript. In writing them out from the stenographer’s notes I have condensed them considerably. In these belligerent days publishers are disposed to economize paper and print, and readers to prize brevity in everything except newspapers. Such restrictions force on us loquacious bookmakers greater regard for compactness and lucidity, and are thus not altogether an injury.
The book seeks to call attention to a section of ethics in regard to which the public mind greatly needs clarifying. Altruism and egoism, socialism and individualism, are in our time sentimentally arrayed against one another as independent and antagonistic agencies, each having its partisans. A careful examination will show, I think, that the one has meaning only when in company with its supposed rival. I have thought to make this clearest by tracing three stages through which the altruistic impulse passes in every-day life, exhibiting their varying degrees of dignity and the helpful presence in all of them of egoistic balance. If through my notion of a conjunct self I have made this curious partnership plain I shall count it no mean contribution to our generous, sacrificial, self-assertive, and perplexed time.
George Herbert Palmer.