HODGE, CASPAR WISTAR: American Presbyterian, son of Charles Hodge; b. at Princeton, N. 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 New 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 ',If, 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 them: work or weaken their faith.

Hodge's at. work, however, was done in the lecture-room. He did not scatter his energies; his department 'was the New Testament, and he kept

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rigidly to it. It is probable that the students carried more out of his class-room into the actual work of pulpit preparation than out of any other in the seminary. He was a reverent believer in the Bible as the word of God and in the doctrines of the Bible as they are formulated in the creed of his Church. He was honest, fair-minded, and firm. He knew .the resources of the enemy and did not underrate them; but he also knew the argumentative resources of Christianity. The consequence was that his lec tures strengthened faith and deepened conviction; and men who had no great critical sagacity them selves felt that they had been reenforced immensely by the fact that they had a man of Hodge's scholar ship and judgment on the side of the Reformed theology. Hodge did not write for the press. His ideals were very high, and probably dissatisfaction with even his best work had something to do with his resisting all efforts to induce him to publish a book.

Francis L. Patton.

Bibliography: F. L. Patton, Caspar Wietar Hodge, a Memorial Address, New York, 1892.