THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
college (1841) and the Princeton Theological Seminary (1847), and, after spending three years (1847- 1S50) in India as a missionary, held pastorates at Lower West Nottingham, Md. (1851-55), Fredericksburg, Va. (1855-61). and Wilkesbarre, Pa. (1861- 1864). In 1864 he accepted a call to the chair of systematic theology in the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, Pa. Here he remained until in 1S77 he was called to Princeton to be the associate of his father in the chair of systematic theology, to the full duties of which he succeeded in 1S78. This post he retained till his death. At the time of his death Dr. Hodge was in the zenith of his powers. Every element that entered into his eminent reputation put on its best expression during the closing years of his life. He was public-spirited, and helped every good cause. He was a trustee of the College of New Jersey and a leading man in the Presbyterian Church. He was a man of wide interests and touched the religious world at many points. During the years immediately preceding his death he was writing, preaching, lecturing, making addresses, coming into contact with men, influencing them, and by doing so widening the influence of truth.
Hodge's distinguishing characteristic as a theologian was his power as a thinker. He had a mind of singular acuteness, and though never a professed student of metaphysics, he was essentially and by nature a metaphysician. His theology was that of the Reformed confessions. He had no peculiar views and no peculiar method of organizing theological dogmas; and though he taught the same theology that his father had taught before him, he was independent as well as reverent. His first book and that by which he is best known was his Outlines of Theology (New York, 1860; enlarged ed., 1878), which was translated into Welsh, modern Greek, and Hindustani. The Atonement (Philadelphia, 1868) is still one of the best treatises on the subject. This was followed by his Commentary on the Confession of Faith (1869), a very useful book, full of clear thinking and compact statement. He contributed some important articles to encyclopedias — Johnson's, McClintock and Strong's, and the Schaff- Herzog. He was one of the founders of the Presbyterian Renew, to the pages of which he was a frequent contributor.
In the pulpit Hodge was a man of marked power. As he was not under the necessity of making fresh preparation every week, he bad but few sermons, and he preached them frequently. They were never written; nor were they deliberately planned as great efforts. They grew from small beginnings and, as he went through the process of thinking them over as often as he preached them, they gradually became more elaborate and became possessed of greater literary charm. There are few preachers like him. To hear him when he was at his best was something never to be forgotten. It is possible to entertain different views of what a professor's function ought to be. According to one view a professorship means an opportunity for special investigation and leisurely research, the results of which are communicated in the lecture-room to men who desire knowledge. According to another view the academic lecture is intended to stimulate interest in the
department to which it belongs. It is not intended to be a substitute for independent reading and that mastery of the subject which only independent reading can give. According to still another view the professor's business is to see that a certain definite body of instruction is safely and surely transferred from his mind to the minds of those who hear him. He is not only, or even chiefly, to present truth that men may receive if they choose; he is to see that they receive it. Hodge was a teacher of this type, and one of the greatest that America has ever produced. Francis L. Patton.
Bibliography: F. L. Patton, in Presbyterian Review viii (1S87), 125 sqq.
HODGE, CASPAR WISTAR: American Presbyterian, son of Charles Hodge; b. at Princeton, X. J., Feb. 21, 1830; d. there Sept. 27, 1891. During his boyhood he enjoyed the companionship and instruction of Joseph Addison Alexander, who exercised a molding influence upon his life. He was graduated with distinction from the College of Xew Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1848, and from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1853. He was ordained to the ministry Nov. 5, 1854, his first pastoral charge being the Ainslie Street Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn. In 1856 he was called to the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church in Oxford, Pa., and in 1860 he was called to the Princeton Theological Seminary as the successor of Dr. Addison Alexander in the chair of New Testament literature. He retained this position till his death.
Only those who came into close relations with Hodge knew how great a man he was. He was singularly modest and retiring. He was free from vanity and self-seeking. He gave himself to the work of his chair, and his permanent influence is to be found in the men whom he trained and who found in him inspiration for the work to which they had consecrated their lives. With theological students was he a great favorite as a preacher, but he was not what is usually called a popular preacher. He had a voice of marvelous richness, but he would never use it for oratorical effect. He preached apparently with the consciousness that the gospel message should make its appeal to men in majestic simplicity and that God's word did not need the aid of human art to give it power or beauty. He made no attempt to decorate the earthen vessel that contained the heavenly treasure — that the excellency of the power might be of God. His sermons were really studies in Biblical theology, and while they were beyond the grasp and abounded in distinctions that would escape the notice of an ordinary audience, they were model discourses for the seminary pulpit. They were university sermons of a high order. They were full of subtle thinking, but always practical. In these sermons the errors of the day were presented to the view of candidates for the ministry, not as though the preacher were a defender of the faith or a professed champion of orthodoxy, but as a Christian friend who would warn his hearers against evil tendencies that might cripple their work or weaken their faith.
Hodge's great work, however, was done in the lecture-room. He did not scatter his energies; his department was the New Testament, and he kept