Bulletin of 

COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 



DECATUR. GEORGIA 



Vol. XXIX 



February, 1936 



No. 1 



RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED 
Entered as second-class matter. May 9, 1928, at the post office at Decatur, Ga., under the Act of August 24, 1912. 



PUBLISHED QUARTERLY AT DECATUR. GEORGIA 



COLUMBIA SEMINARY 

and 

THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN 

CHURCH 



SOME FACTS IN CONNECTION WITH 
THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION 



Columbia Theological Seminary 

and 

TheSouthern Presbyterian Church 

WE are in the midst of the Diamond Jubilee Celebra- 
tion of our Assembly. A great and challenging 
program has been outlined for the year and our members 
have been called upon, not only to remember all that has 
been fine in the history of our branch of the Church, but 
to rededicate themselves to the service of Christ and to 
press forward to greater accomplishments in the future. In 
thorough sympathy with that program and in accord with 
its spirit, this bulletin is issued to call to the mind of its 
readers certain facts in the history of an institution which 
has played a notable part in the life of the Presbyterian 
Church, U. S., and to challenge them to a realization of its 
potentialities as an instrument for service in the years to 
come. 

DO YOU KNOW 

THAT Columbia Theological Seminary is now in its 
108th year of service to the Church? 

THAT it was founded by the Synod of South Carolina 
and Georgia on December 15, 1828? 

THAT its birthplace was Lexington, Ga., but that it was 
relocated in Columbia, S. C, in 1830 and continued to serve 
there until it was brought back to its present location in 
Georgia in 1927? 

THAT, when it was founded, this institution was the 
theological Seminary of one Synod having a total of only 
128 churches, 73 ministers, and 8,560 members? 

THAT, in 1936, it is owned and controlled by the five 
Synods of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and 
Mississippi which together have 1139 churches, 706 minis- 
ters, and 13 5,51 J members? 

THAT graduates of Columbia Seminary played a part of 
inestimable importance in making this expansion of our 
Church possible? 

THAT the first American Presbyterian Missionary to 
Africa was a member of the first class to graduate from 
Columbia Seminary  Dr. J. Leighton "Wilson? 

THAT what before and just after the War Between the 
States was perhaps the largest negro church in our country 
 the Calhoun St. Church, Charleston, S. C.  was founded 
and ministered to by Dr. John L. Girardeau, an alumnus 
and later a professor of Columbia Seminary? 



THAT, of the 52 ministerial Commissioners who organ- 
ized the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 
U. S., in 1861, 13 were alumni of Columbia Seminary? 

THAT the first Moderator and the first Stated Clerk of 
our Assembly  Dr. Benjamin M. Palmer and Dr. Joseph R. 
Wilson, respectively  were both alumni of Columbia Semi- 
nary? 

THAT the Magna Charta of our Church  The Address 
to the Churches of Jesus Christ Throughout the World  
was largely the work of Dr. James Henley Thornwell, a 
professor at Columbia Seminary, who also probably con- 
tributed more to the shaping of our Church's distinctive 
principles and polity than any other one individual? 

THAT the organization of our Assembly's early Foreign 
Mission Work was placed in the hands of Dr. J. Leighton 
Wilson  already mentioned as an alumnus of this institu- 
tion? 

THAT perhaps our Church's greatest apostle to the negro 
people and the Chairman of its first Committee on Domestic 
Missions was Dr. Charles Colcock Jones  a professor in 
Columbia Seminary? 

THAT the Chairman of the Committee which gave us 
our Book of Church Order was Dr. John B. Adger, another 
professor of Columbia Seminary, and that this book was 
prepared in the old Seminary Chapel at Columbia, S. C. 

THAT the late President Woodrow Wilson, who was the 
son of a professor in the Seminary, made his first profession 
of faith in Christ at a service held in this same old chapel, 
and that late in his life President Wilson is reported to have 
said that though he had listened to many eloquent addresses 
from the world's greatest living statesmen, he had never 
heard such eloquence elsewhere as he had there in that 
humble building during his boyhood days? 

THAT the three outstanding contributions to Christian 
Social Service which have been made by our Church were, 
in large part, the work of Columbia Seminary Men? These 
contributions with the names of the leaders associated with 
them were: 

The Cessation of the British Slave Traffic  Dr. J. Leighton 

Wilson. 
The Expulsion of the Louisiana State Lottery  Dr. Benjamin M. 

Palmer. 
The Chinese Opium Reform Movement  Dr. Henry C. DuBose. 

THAT Columbia Seminary has educated 1,107 men for 
the work of the Gospel Ministry? 

THAT 53 sons of this institution have gone into the 
foreign mission work of our Church, and that this number 



would have been materially increased had it been possible 
for our Assembly to send out new missionaries in recent 
years? 

THAT in this year's Senior Class at Columbia Seminary 
there are eighteen choice young men who will soon go out 
into the active work of the ministry? 

THAT Columbia Seminary is maintaining an increas- 
ingly high standard of scholarship, believing that a thorough 
preparation of the intellect is essential to the work of the 
minister, but that it also insists upon the necessity of a 
vital and personal religious experience and upon loyalty to 
the great truths of the Gospel? 

THAT, although conservative in theological outlook, 
this institution is progressive in methods, and, that discon- 
tent with present and past accomplishments, it is contin- 
ually seeking to improve its service and to broaden its use- 
fulness to the Church? 

THAT this School of the Prophets is still handicapped by 
a lack of sufficient endowment funds and that its opera- 
tion without a deficit for the past two years has been made 
possible only by the sacrificial service of its faculty and 
administrative force? 

THAT a contribution to theological education is a con- 
tribution to every aspect of our Church's work? 

THAT, by reason of its strategic location in one of the 
greatest commercial and educational centers of the South, 
Columbia Seminary has an opportunity to play an unique 
and vitally important part in the winning of the Southeast 
for Christ? 

THAT there is a glorious opportunity for Christians to 
make an investment here which will be returning dividends 
for the work of the Kingdom long after they have gone to 
their reward, and that Columbia Seminary urges you to 
remember it, not only as you dispense your present benevo- 
lent gifts, but also as you make your will? 

THAT Sunday, February 16, 1936, has been set by the 
controlling Synods as Columbia Seminary Day? 

THAT all friends of the institution are asked to remem- 
ber it, especially in their prayers and in their gifts at this 
time? 



COLUMBIA SEMINARY has done its 
best for the Church. Have you done your 
best for COLUMBIA SEMINARY?