After his extended evangelistic labors in various cities, Mr. Finney was appointed to a theological chair in the newly organized college at Oberlin, Ohio.  From this post, his irrepressible desire to kindle revivals and to save souls often called him away, and he conducted two famous evangelistic campaigns in Great Britain.  He was the first man to introduce American revivalistic methods into England and Scotland; but his labors were never as wide, as influential, and generally acceptable there as the subsequent labors of Messrs. Moody and Sankey.  Forty years of his busy and heaven-blessed life were spent at Oberlin, where he impressed his powerful personality on a multitude of students of both sexes; few religious teachers in America have ever moulded so many lives, or had their opinions echoed from so many pulpits.

With all my admiration of President Finney’s character, I could not—­as a loyal Princetonian—­subscribe to some of his peculiar opinions.  It was, therefore, with great surprise that I received from him a letter in 1873 (two years before his death) which contained the startling proposal that I should be his successor in the college pulpit at Oberlin!  He wrote to me:  “I think that there is no more important field of ministerial labor in the world.  I know that you have a great congregation in Brooklyn, and are mightily prospered in your labors, but your flock does not contain a thousand students pursuing the higher branches of education from year to year.  Surely your field in Brooklyn is not more important than mine was at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York, nor can your people be more attached to you than mine were to me.”  This letter—­although its kind overture was promptly declined—­was a gratifying proof that the once bitter controversies between “old school” and “new school” had become quite obsolete.  When I mentioned this letter to my beloved Princeton instructor, Dr. Charles Hodge, a few weeks before his death, he simply remarked that “his Brother Finney had become very sweet and mellow in his later years.”  And long before this time the two great antagonistic theologians may have clasped hands in heaven.

The closing years of President Finney’s useful life were indeed mellow and most lovable.  In the days of his prime he had a commanding form, a striking face and a clear, incisive style of speech.  Simple as a child in his utterances, he sometimes startled his hearers by his unique prayers.  For example, he was one day driven from his study at Oberlin by a refractory stovepipe which persisted in tumbling down.  At family worship in the evening he said “Oh, Lord! thou knowest how the temper of Thy servant has been tried to-day by that stovepipe!” Several other expressions, quite as quaint and as piquant, might be quoted, if the limits of this brief sketch would permit.  What would be deemed irreverent if spoken by some lips never sounded irreverent when uttered by such a natural, fearless and yet devout