Yale: A Campus Like No Other
“Walk about Zion, go around her, count her towers,
consider well her rampart, view her citadels,
that you may tell of them to the next generation.
For this God is our God for ever and ever;
He will be our guide even to the end.” (Psalm 48)
In your time at Yale, you will be taken on many tours of the campus. The buildings will perhaps seem impressively large and beautiful and their number forbidding. But the towers and ramparts of Yale have an order to them. Yale isn’t Zion, and her buildings aren’t holy, but they are reminders of Yale’s inheritance.
Davenport College
Let’s start our tour at Davenport College. It is named for John Davenport, a Puritan minister who founded the New Haven Colony in 1638 intending to “drive things in the first assay as near to the precept and pattern of Scripture as they could be driven.” In 1645 the Colony set aside land for a college “to fit you…for the service of God in Church and Commonwealth.” Ten ministers confirmed Davenport’s dream by founding Yale in 1701.
Pierson College
Let’s move on to Pierson college. Abraham Pierson accepted the job of being the school’s first rector, saying he dared “not refuse such service to God and his generation.” Under Pierson’s direction, the first Yale students met together twice a day for prayer, at sunrise and in the late afternoon.
Jonathan Edwards College
Yale was only a few years old when Jonathan Edwards (for whom J.E. is named) entered it at the age of thirteen. In 1720 he graduated from Yale with highest honors at the age of seventeen. At graduation he was “filled with an inward, secret delight in God” and resolved to “live with all my might while I do live.” He played a major role in the first Great Awakening, which transformed the country in the 1740’s, and was regarded as “the most significant Protestant voice between the Reformation and the twentieth century.”
The Divinity School
Flying briefly up the hill to the Divinity School, we find a quad devoted to the memory of David Brainerd. When the famous English evangelist George Whitefield visited Yale during the Great Awakening and preached to “enormous crowds” on the New Haven Green and at the Center Church, Brainerd was one of those affected.
Though Brainerd was only a sophomore at the time, and a tradition forbade underclassmen to speak to upperclassmen unless first spoken to, Brainerd went door to door, freely presenting the Gospel to every student on campus. After leaving Yale in 1742, he became a missionary to the Delaware Indians, many of whom left their former beliefs to receive Christ. His example inspired Jonathan Edwards (who would have been Brainerd’s father-in-law had Brainerd lived longer) to go as a missionary to the Indians of western Massachusetts.
Ezra Stiles College
Moving back down the hill, let’s go on to Stiles college. Ezra Stiles became president of Yale during the American Revolution (1778). He was a frequent visitor to the Jewish synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, one of three synagogues in all of America at that time. He invited every Jew who passed through New Haven to dinner at his house. He would go out of his way to meet a rabbi—he met five in his lifetime—and he often discussed with them the suffering Messiah of Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53.
Timothy Dwight College
The “French Infidelity,” a deistic philosophy born during the French Revolution, had obscured the Christian foundation of Yale when Timothy Dwight (for whom T.D. and Dwight Hall are named) became President in 1795. “The frank and direct way in which he met and overcame the infidels immediately upon his accession was characteristic of the man. They thought the faculty were afraid of open discussion, but when they handed Dr. Dwight a list of subjects for class disputation, to their surprise he selected this: “Is the Bible the word of God?” and told them to do their best. He heard all they had to say, answered them, and there was an end. He preached incessantly for six months on the subject, and all infidelity skulked and hid its head.” During his seventh year as president, Dwight saw a “quiet but thorough” revival begin among his students in 1802.
Silliman College
Benjamin Silliman, an instructor at Yale during that revival, described the scene: “Yale College is a little temple; prayer and praise seem to be the delight of the greater part of the students while those who are still unfeeling are awed into respectful silence.” Silliman himself (yes, Silliman College is named for him) was converted in 1802. Soon after, he began counseling newly-converted students and leading Bible studies. One biographer said of him: “Throughout the rest of his life the depth and sincerity of his religious convictions [from 1802] influenced all that he undertook. Only in this way was he able to accomplish the work which caused him to be described by another Yale president as ‘the father of American scientific education.’”
Noah Porter Gate
If we walk from Silliman College over to the old campus, we will likely pass through the Noah Porter gate on our way. Porter was the president of Yale a little over a hundred years ago. If we wonder what Porter thought important, we don’t have to look far. One spring during his presidency he called a meeting of the senior class and reproved them. For what? For failing to witness to the underclassmen often enough of their faith in Christ.
Dwight Hall
Dwight Hall represents a tour in itself, but let us finish our walk through Yale by stopping there in front of the plaque honoring Timothy Dwight. There are many others honored in this building whose histories we might tell. We could talk about Henry Burt Wright, professor of Classics and Divinity early in this century, unofficial campus evangelist and warm friend of many who found Christ at Yale; or about Bill Borden (class of 1909), who started the New Haven Hope Mission for alcoholics and who died on the way to the mission fields of China; or about Kenneth Scott Latourette, renowned historian and one of Borden’s best friends, who maintained a faithful Christian witness at Yale through the first half of this century.
But the real point of such a tour as we’ve taken is to see that the God who has worked at Yale can work in our own lives if we let him. Timothy Dwight’s plaque in Dwight Hall says it all and represents his advice to the seniors of 1814 and beyond:
“Christ is the only, the true, the living way of access to God. Give up yourselves therefore to Him, with a cordial confidence, and the great work of life is done.” (Baccalaureate address, 1814)
The real point of such a tour as we’ve taken is to see that the God who has worked at Yale can work in our own lives if we let him.