e
founded by the New England Congregationalists, to whom this has ever
been a favorite field of activity. But special honor must be paid to the
wise and courageous and nobly successful enterprise of large-minded and
large-hearted men among the Baptists, who as early as 1764, boldly
breasting a current of unworthy prejudice in their own denomination,
began the work of Brown University at Providence, which, carried forward
by a notable succession of great educators, has been set in the front
rank of existing American institutions of learning. After the revivals
of 1800 these Christian colleges were not only attended by students
coming from zealous and fervid churches; they themselves became the foci
from which high and noble spiritual influences were radiated through the
land. It was in communities like these that the example of such lives as
that of Brainerd stirred up generous young minds to a chivalrous and
even ascetic delight in attempting great labors and enduring great
sacrifices as soldiers under the Captain of salvation.

It was at Williams College, then just planted in the Berkshire hills,
that a little coterie of students was formed which, for the grandeur of
the consequences that flowed from it, is worthy to be named in history
beside the Holy Club of Oxford in 1730, and the friends at Oriel College
in 1830. Samuel J. Mills came to Williams College in 1806 from the
parsonage of "Father Mills" of Torringford, concerning whom quaint
traditions and even memories still linger in the neighboring parishes of
Litchfield County, Connecticut. Around this young student gathered a
circle of men like-minded. The shade of a lonely haystack was their
oratory; the pledges by which they bound themselves to a life-work for
the kingdom of heaven remind one of the mutual vows of the earliest
friends of Loyola. Some of the youths went soon to the theological
seminary, and at once leavened that community with their own spirit.

The seminary--there was only one in all Protestant America. As early as
1791 the Sulpitian fathers had organized their seminary at Baltimore.
But it was not until 1808 that any institution for theological studies
was open to candidates for the Protestant ministry. Up to that time such
studies were made in the regular college curriculum, which was
distinctly theological in character; and it was common for the graduate
to spend an additional year at the college for special study under the
president or the on