Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 58:229 (Jan 1901)
Article: President Samuel Colcord Bartlett
Author: Gabriel Campbell

BSac 58:229 (Jan 1901) p. 162

President Samuel Colcord Bartlett

A Character Sketch

Prof. Gabriel Campbell

The fall of Richmond, the martyrdom of Lincoln, and the shouts of, and to, our victorious returning army were still in the air when, in the early summer of 1865, immediately after commencement, I took train for Chicago in order to visit the theological seminary where Professor Samuel Colcord Bartlett was a leading spirit, and to settle the question, Shall I take a professional course in the East or in the West?

Vividly I recall my conference with Dr. Bartlett, who impressed me at once as a man of an uncommonly well-balanced brain, energized by a vigorous and fine physique.1 Glancing over my letters, he remarked with a gentle irony, “I had your place in my class; I sympathize.”

He then proceeded to give his reasons for coming to Chicago. The city had surpassed all in its growth; it was the center of the country, the emporium of the opening West. Its people are from the East, the choicest spirits; they are the “brightest and best of the sons of the morning.” The churches are crowded—fifty more churches needed in the city. He had been drawn from Manchester, N. H., to one of the strongest, but had decided to throw himself into an institution for the education of the ministry; for the East does not supply the demand. He has had a call to Andover, but is satisfied this is the richer field. The sem-

BSac 58:229 (Jan 1901) p. 163

inary, already in seven years, has a new building full of students, an adequate working library, a faculty small, but of the best, with endowed chairs. Chicago, moreover, had honored herself during the war. She sent to Washington the commission who induced Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation; and from the State had gone forth both Grant and Lincoln to save the country.

September finds me one of Dr. Bartlett’s students in a class he used to call remarkable. Entering at the close of the war, two or three members had been commissioned officers, two had studied and practiced law, one had been a leader in a state legislature; the chief institutions in New England were represented, as well as the larger religious denominations.

Professor Bartlett had the chair of Biblical Literature, but the field for discussion was practically unlimited. Science and Genesis, ethnology, Messianic preparation and prophecy, Jewish and Roman law, the harmonization of the Gospels, Hebrew and Greek idioms, eschatology, higher and lower criticism—these were among the prominent themes. Our teacher proved himself a master. As a logician he was facile princeps. Of the admirable thinkers who have been my instructo...