Vault Early Papers of the University Box 1 Document 7

AN ADDRESS

TO THE

MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH

An Address

to the

Members and Friends

of the

Protestant Episcopal Church

in the

Southern and South-Western States

Philadelphia Herman Ho[a?]ker & Co Booksellers and Publishers S.W. Corner Chestnut and Eighth Streets 1856

[3?] To the members and friends of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Florida Alabama Mississippi Louisiana Texas Arkansas and Tennessee

The undersigned Bishops of the Dioceses above named uder a sense of their responsibility to God as your chief [pastors?] charged with the duty of devising measures for the training of your children in all those graces and virtues which belong to the Christian character, have deemed it proper for the better discharge of their trust, to unite in proposing to you a plan of union, by which they may be effi-

ciently aided in the accomplishment of this common duty.

The importance of developing the intellectual faculties and of strengthening and cultivating them to their utmost capacity, as a means of qualifying men for the largest usefulness, as well as for advancing individual happiness is so universally admitted, that it [text struck through] needs only to be stated in order to be received. That religious truth may find its way into the heart and (4) exercise as controlling influence over the life, through the understanding [of?] but partially enlightened is a fact also admitted.

But it is not less true, in order that the religious principle may [secure?] the greatest amount of control - that it may occupy the largest field of usefulness - it must be supported as well as invigorated by an adequate amount of intellectual culture

5

These familiar truths underlie the obligation of Christian communities, to make suitable provision for the educational training of their youth. And the considerations they suggest though at all times of the weightiest character, have at no time in the past seemed so pressing on the minds of the Bishops of the Southern Dioceses as they appear at the present moment. And it is to the obligation and duty of making provision for the intellectual moral and religious training of the youth belonging to our several dioceses that we would now invoke your attention.

And we desire in the outset to supress our sense of the high character and eminent services of many institutions already existing in the several states where our fields of labor lie. -- Institutions which whether founded by the States severally, or by one or the other of the religious denominations inhabiting them, have discharged the duty