Westminster College.
It was largely through the munificence of Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson, the two elect ladies referred to above, that this institution was transplanted from its former undesirable location, and established in the city of Cambridge, thus bringing the Puritan theology back to its original home in England. The financial agent who canvassed the English Presbyterian Churches for the supplementing of the donation of these two large-minded and large-hearted ladies was the Rev. Dr. John Watson, of Liverpool, better known to the general reader as "Ian Maclaren," author of Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, and other popular works; and for special reasons it was with no ordinary interest that I examined the result of his toils in the outfit with which the institution has been provided. It is admirable. The location, indeed, is not so good or so beautiful as that of Union Seminary, in Richmond, with its breezy sweeps of green campus, and the building, which is of red brick like ours, is not nearly so imposing as the handsome group at Richmond. Everything, in fact, is on a much smaller scale, naturally so, as the English Presbyterian Church is a much smaller body than our Southern Church. But, on the other hand, there are some features that are superior, e. g., the stairways are of stone, not of wood as with us.
The dining-hall is spacious, comely, cool, inviting, with ornamental windows, and walls hung with portraits of Presbyterian worthies, and the tables are heavy and handsome, of hard wood. No seminary in our Southern Church, or in the Northern, has a sufficiently attractive refectory. The one at Union Seminary is better than most of them, but it, too, is below the mark. Some benevolent person can do a great work for our future ministry by presenting that institution with a properly equipped refectory building.
The rooms occupied by the students at Westminster are much smaller than ours at Union, and seem in some cases cramped, but there is a bath-room for every four students. I fear this will seem almost a sinful degree of cleanliness to those brethren who a few years ago were so much opposed to the introduction of any bath-rooms and other modern conveniences into our seminary.
There are three professors at Westminster College, Cambridge: Principal Dykes, Dr. Gibb, and Professor Skinner; and twenty-three students, a slightly smaller number than last year.
The same Difficulties about Candidates.
The churches here are facing the same problem that confronts those in America as to an adequate supply of ministers. The number of candidates is decreasing rapidly in Scotland. Some attribute this decline to the stagnant spiritual condition of the churches throughout Europe and America, and connect it with the spread of devitalizing critical theories concerning the Scriptures. But the zeal and activity of the churches do not seem to be deficient in other particulars. It is not a question to discuss here, but it is one for Christian people to think about and pray over.
The identity of our difficulties in America and Britain may be seen again in the fact that here also the theological schools are complaining that the universities are graduating men with the degree of A. B. who have never studied Greek. How can a man without Greek master the New Testament in the original? Is it not clear that no man can be a thoroughly furnished minister who has not studied Greek? Yet some of our own colleges in America, conducted under Presbyterian auspices, are encouraging this crippling omission by offering an A. B. course without Greek.