"endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ," willing to endure privations and toils, "perils by sea and by land and among false brethren," men who will go into the wilderness or cross the ocean, who will go to any place or do any thing which the service of Christ may require. If men are needed to go and lay their bones with Fisk and Newell on a foreign shore, or with Munson and Lyman to fall, butchered, by the hand of the savage cannibal, or to waste away to a premature old age under the hardships of the missionary field, we want men who will be ready for the sacrifice,-men who will account no labor too great, no danger too appalling, no privations too severe, to be encountered for the promotion of the cause of Christ. Give to the church the right men, properly trained, and in sufficient numbers; let the church sustain them by her prayers and efforts, and the Holy Spirit accompany them by his power and grace, and we may expect that "Jerusalem will soon arise and shine, her light being come." The jarrings and jealousies, which now distract our bleeding Zion, will be then unknown, and the whole church will thus go forward in solid column and with unfaltering step to the conquest of the world. It was, Sir, in the belief and expectation that your views of what is requisite in the gospel ministry at the present day, accord essentially with our own, that we have been solicitous to obtain your services for the chair of instruction to which you have now been introduced. To what extent the future history of this institution may be affected by your influence, I need not inquire. It is proper however that I should apprize you that the expectations of the church in relation to it, are high. It is an institution which the churches of Western New-York love and prize. They have labored long and cheerfully to bring it to its present state, and we are happy to congratulate the church to-day in seeing the last of its vacant chairs filled in a manner which justifies the high expectations which we en tertain. Most cordially, Sir, do we bid you welcome to Western New-York, and to the labors and responsibilities of the office into which you are now inducted. We pledge to you our cordial support and co-operation, so far as our relations to the Seminary may require, and we expect of you a faithful observance of the Rules and Ordinances of the Institution, a conformity in your instructions to the Confession of Faith which you have now subscribed, and to the order of the Presbyterian Church, and that you will in all things seek the prosperity of this Institution, and endeavor to make it, in all respects, what its friends so ardently desire that it should be, and what its past success encourages them to believe that it may be, a rich blessing to the church of Christ. And now, Sir, we commend you and this Seminary, with all its precious interests, "to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified." INAUGURAL ADDRESS. BY SAMUEL H. COX, D. D. MY FATHERS AND BRETHREN IN THE MINISTRY, THE COMMISSIONERS AND THE TRUSTEES OF THE SEMINARY, THE PROFESSORS AND THE Students, and OTHER LEARNED AND HIGHLY RESPECTED AUDITORS CONVENED ON THE PRESENT SOLEMN OCCASION; IN acceding to the duties of a Professor in this sacred School, it is right that I should give utterance to my sense of their magnitude, in contrast with the limit of my real or supposed qualifications for their competent discharge. The chair I am to occupy has been long vacant, or rather was never absolutely filled; my first and only predecessor in the place* to whom on many accounts the In * The Reverend Dirck C. Lansing, D. D. formerly pastor of the First (and then the only) Presbyterian Church of Auburn, Resigned, March 3, 1826. |