Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 48:192 (Oct 1891)
Article: Life And Services Of Professor Austin Phelps, D.D.
Author: Daniel L. Furber

BSac 48:192 (Oct 1891) p. 545

Life And Services Of Professor Austin Phelps, D.D.1

Rev. Daniel L. Furber

We have consecrated the services of this hour to the memory of one whose name will long be cherished on this hill of sacred learning, and throughout the wide brotherhood of Christian ministers and scholars. We have done this partly from a sense of the greatness of our loss, partly from gratitude to God for a life which illustrated so much of the power and beauty of the Christian religion, and partly for the benefit to ourselves of calling such an example freshly to mind. The Scriptures make much use of the example of holy men. They do not stop short with mere eulogy, but they say, “Seeing therefore that we are com-

BSac 48:192 (Oct 1891) p. 546

passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,” “let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

The glory of an institution of learning like Andover Seminary is made up largely of the names of its eminent instructors. The name of the institution suggests the names of the men who have made it what it is. If the early history of this Seminary is referred to, you have in mind, at once, the name of the father of biblical literature in America. If its later history is spoken of, you think of one whom Professor Phelps placed in that long line of New England theologians “who,” he says, “have done more in the way of original thinking for the advance of strictly theological science than any other equal number of men, within an equal space of time, since Augustine’s day.” But you think not of him alone. He had a co-laborer, loving and beloved, who stood in the very front rank of the teachers in his department, and of whose chief published work in that department, it has been very justly maintained that its equal is not to be found in the whole range of Protestant homiletical literature. Of the originality and practical value of that book to all writers of sermons, we may judge from a remark in its preface, that “nine-tenths of it consists of answers to the inquiries of students.” This man’s fame enters into that of the Seminary. A great teacher gives his life to an institution and the institution in return becomes his memorial,—it may be to the end of time.

In attempting to commemorate his life and labors in the presence of such an audience as this, I feel like quoting the words of Bossuet in one of his funeral orations, in which he said, “Although I may remind you to-day of the brilliant victories of the Prince of Conde, yet, always anticipated by your thoughts, I shall have to suffer your secret reproach for falling so far below them.” The sentiment expressed by these modest words of th...