Discussions, Vol. I: Theological and Evangelical

Tlie editor •would pointedly call attention to tlie invaluable assistance rendered to tlie issue of tliese rolumes by the Eev. George Summej, of Chester, S. C. But for liim .it is not unlikely tlie enterprise would have failed altogether. The subscription lists hung suspended for many months below the figures which would enable the publication, Mr. Summey secured enough additional subscribers to warrant going forward with the enterprise. In addition to this, he has not only given his practised skill to the correction of the proofs, but the Index of the papers pubhshed is solely due to his generous labor. To him many thanks are due from all the fi-iends of the undertaking and from all who shall receive the benefit of these sound and ■vigorous discussions of valuable truth. To the skilled labor of Mr. Eobert Whittet, of the publishing firm, and his painstaking efforts to secure accuracy and tasteful execution in the mechanical make up of these volumes, many thanks are also due. All who have taken a share in the work of giving these volumes to the world are entitled to the satisfaction of feeling that they have aided in gi^'ing a wider and more enduring existence to defences and expositions of pure and invaluable truths — truths which take hold upon the great abiding interests of mankind — sound and strong expositions of Christian doctrine, and safe principles of ecclesiastical polity and philosophical theories grounded in common sense and in accord with the great evangeHcal system. These traits will aj)pear to every judicious reader no less clearly than will the extraordinary abihty with which they are presented.

Paqe. BlOGKAPHICAL SkETCH "vii

The Moral Effects of a Free Justification „_. 73

Theology of the Plymouth Brethren (a Reply to Strictures by

The Re-\t:sed Version of the New Testament 391 the University of Vii-ginia, and ia 1842 I'etii'ed with the degree of A. M. In July, 1842, he again returned to his paternal home, and spent niore than two years in managing the affairs of his mother and teaching a select private school, with the view of educating her yoimger children. He entered Union Seminary in October, 1844, took the full three years' course in two years, and was licensed to preach in May, 1846. His health at this time was nearly rioined. He spent one year as a missionary in his native county, and at the beginning of July, 1847, became pastor of Tinkhng Spring Church, in the county of Augusta, where he remained six years and two months. At that period he was elected to the chair of Ecclesiastical History in Union Seminary, which he held tmtil 1869. In that year, after serving as Adjunct-Professor of Theology in addition to discharging the duties of his owai chair, he was made full Professor of Theology. He discharged the duties of this position until 1883, when, warned by his physician of the necessity of a change of chmate, he accepted an invitation to take charge of the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Texas, the duties of which he still discharges with characteristic energy, in spite of a blindness now become total, and of general health giving way. The only interruption to the long term of his services in the Seminary w'as occasioned by the war, and for sixteen years of his stay in the school of theology he served as co-pastor of the College Church along with his colleague and brother-in-law. Dr. B. M. Smith. This regular parochial work he was at length constrained by bronchitis to resign. Discharging this accumulation of duties, interspersed Avith various literary labors and the management of the little farm attached to his professional residence, some conception may be formed of the immense labor w«hich for many years taxed all the resom-ces of his energetic mind.

The war between the States began in April, 1861. ^\Tien the Seminary session closed in May, Dr. Dal3ney proposed to the session of the College Church that Dr. Smith should solely occupy the pulpit during the summer, and he himself should be allowed to follow the young men who, in considerable numbers, had left the congregation to go into the army, and serve as chaplain. But the directors of the Seminaiy had expressly ordered the facult}^ to keej^ the Seminaiy open. This compelle,d Dr. Dabney to take only a temporary position as chaplain, and return to the Seminary in October, 1861. This was always a matter of regret to him, as it broke up the chaplain's work, which he felt he ought to have done during the whole war. Early in 1862 the conscription law emptied the Seminary, as he had foreseen. The wife of Gen. Stonewall Jackson, then living in Dr. Dabney's family, being related to Dr. Dabney's wife, reported to Gen. Jackson that he was virtually out of all obligations to the school. Jackson promptly offered him the post of chief of staff to his corps, with the privilege of doing missionary work in the army every Sunday. Dabney had no military education, and the offer seemed to him at first to l)e unreasonable. But the patriots and divines of his acquaintance urged him to accept, and with many misgivings he did so. After fully justifying the singular but shrewd judgment of his chief, in the latter part of the campaign of 1862 his health broke down, in accordance with his own misgivings, and, resigning his post, he returned home. As soon as the fatal termination of the war allowed the Seminary to resume its work he resumed the duties of his chair.

tion in the arts of the architect and the map-drawer, he di'ew plans for churches and private dwellings with all the elaborate detail of a professional artist, and the wall of his class-room was adorned with a map of his own drawing. …