ade to be spent in the following decade, for the purpose of
stimulating the best books or treatises _"on the connection, relation,
and mutual bearing of any practical science, the history of our race,
or the facts in any department of knowledge, with and upon the
Christian Religion."_ The object of the donor was to _"call out the
best efforts of the highest talent and the ripest scholarship of the
world to illustrate from science, or from any department of knowledge,
and to demonstrate the divine origin and the authority of the
Christian Scriptures; and, further, to show how both science and
revelation coincide and prove the existence, {vi} the providence, or
any or all of the attributes of the only living and true God,
'infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power,
holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.'"_

The gift contemplated in the original agreement of 1879 was finally
consummated in 1890. The first decade of the accumulation of interest
having closed in 1900, the Trustees of the Bross Fund began at this
time to carry out the provisions of the deed of gift. It was
determined to give the general title of "The Bross Library" to the
series of books purchased and published with the proceeds of the Bross
Fund. In accordance with the express wish of the donor, that the
"Evidences of Christianity" of his "very dear friend and teacher, Mark
Hopkins, D.D.," be purchased and "ever numbered and known as No. 1 of
the series," the Trustees secured the copyright of this work, which
has been republished in a presentation edition as Volume I of the
Bross Library.

The trust agreement prescribed two methods by which the production of
books and treatises of the nature contemplated by the donor was to be
stimulated:

1. The Trustees were empowered to offer one or more prizes during each
decade, the competition for which was to be thrown open to "the
scientific men, the Christian philosophers and historians of all {vii}
nations." In accordance with this provision, a prize of $6,000 was
offered in 1902 for the best book fulfilling the conditions of the
deed of gift, the competing manuscripts to be presented on or before
June 1, 1905. The prize was awarded to the Reverend James Orr, D.D.,
Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology in the United Free
Church College, Glasgow, for his treatise on "The Problem of the Old
Testament," which was published in 1906 as Volume III of the Bross
Library. The next decen