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VIII

THE RESPONSES AT THE DINNER

THE RESPONSES AT THE DINNER

MR. ROBERT C. OGDEN:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Faculty, Alumni, and Students of the Union Theological Seminary:

I have to say to you all on behalf of the Board of Directors at this close of a remarkable day in the history of the Union Theological Seminary that we as a Board feel under very great obligation to you that you have accepted our invitation for this evening's enjoyment.

The day has been a remarkable one. Its peculiar features have been celebrated in public address at the new buildings of the Seminary to-day, and it would ill become me to undertake any repetition of what has been so ably said already.

At the outset of this proceeding this evening I think it would be well to drink to the toast, "The President of the United States," and before calling for that toast I desire to state a word or two about the present incumbent of that high office. Last Spring we called upon him to give him an invitation to be here to-night. He was extremely gratified and said he would be delighted to come, for he had certain things in his mind on the subject of Religious Education that he would very much like to say and he would like to say them on such a propitious occasion as this, but that he could not tell then whether he would be able to attend when the time came. From the nature of that conversation I was prepared for a disappointment, and the conspiracy between the Panama Canal and the Congress of the United States so worked upon him that he not follow the bent of his own inclination and be with us to-night.

He has sent us a word of greeting, however. His secretary writes on his behalf:

"The President wishes me to express his regret at his inability to accept. He is working at great pressure on his annual message and it would simply be impossible for him to leave Washington at this time."

I think that as this is a sort of Christian Temperance Union we may fill our glasses with pure water, and drink not only to the office of the President of the United States but to the President.

After the drinking of the toast, in which all present joined with great enthusiasm, MR. OGDEN continued :

The Union Theological Seminary has been honored in the proceedings of this day by the large number who are representatives of other institutions, who have accepted the invitation to be present. One hundred and thirty-five delegates from other institutions of learning from every part of America, and some not from America have been here with us today. Included in these acceptances we have responses from Oxford, and from Cambridge, and from the University of Durham, and from the University of Manchester, in England; we have them from the University of Marburg, in Germany, together with a number of sympathetic and interesting letters and many acceptances from distinguished scholars in Germany and elsewhere, other than those I have referred to. We therefore feel justified in claiming for the Union Theological Seminary not only a national character but an international reputation, and we are certainly gratified at the sympathy expressed through our sister seminaries, and in such a marked degree by the great universities of Europe.

We shall hear from two of the representatives of those universities, one of them the honored President of Columbia, the other the Bishop of Massachusetts, as the evening proceeds.

And this reminds me that I have here some little remark to make concerning the extent of the program of post-prandial prattling that we have proposed this evening. We have quite a number of speakers, and some people evidently are a little anxious under the circumstances as to the time as to which this dinner would adjourn. I beg of you all to accept my assurances that all of the addresses this evening will be of the most interesting character; and if you will examine the list of the speakers you will be assured I am right. But they are all impressed, being sensitive and honorable gentlemen, with the prominent thought in New York society to-day, which is the thought that is given to us by the Pennsylvania Railroad with the elegance and completeness of its terminal facilities. And this applies to human corporations quite as well as railroad corporations; and I am sure that this beneficent and soul-satisfying thought is prominent in the minds of all the gentlemen that will speak to us this evening.

The first toast on the program, as you may possibly have noticed, is the one entitled "Our Neighbors.

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Being a somewhat serious and perhaps partially well-educated group of people, in the words of the Holy Scriptures, we may remember the question of one of the great teachers years ago, "Who is my neighbor?"-and when the Union Theological Seminary asks that question the response comes very quickly, "Columbia University," and therefore it is proper that we should first hear this evening from the loved and honored President of that institution, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler.

PRESIDENT BUTLER:

Mr. Ogden, Ladies and Gentlemen :

It is my privilege to state in a few brief sentences my conception of the significance of the coming of this Seminary to its new home on Morningside Heights. It is significant for this metropolitan city and for the Union.

No matter how devoted we may be to peace, we fall inevitably into the habit of speaking of many of the problems and tasks of life in terms of struggle, of contest and of controversy. The biologist and the economist alike will have it so.

We are engaged in a most conspicuous fashion in this modern democracy of ours in making a struggle almost desperate in character for the formation and expression of the intellectual and the spiritual life.

The first act of a good general is to mobilize his forces, to bring them into touch, into relation, into sympathetic co-operation, each part with the other, that the struggle may be more effectively carried on.

It is now almost a quarter of a century since the far-seeing men of New York have begun to occupy and fortify Morningside Heights as the citadel of our intellectual and our spiritual life. They have planted there a great cathedral with its spires of aspiration pointing everlastingly towards Heaven. They have built there a great hospital with its rooms open to receive the poor, the sick and the needy. They have built there a great university representing every aspect of letters and of science in their theory and in their applications.

And now they have surrounded these and their allied institutions with a great school, magnificent, well equipped, catholic and scientific for the study of the "Queen of the Sciences."

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