Religion and Scholarship

156 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY III. RELIGION AND SCHOLARSHIP w. R. TAYLOR EXfLV ro J.LVCFr~pLOv rijs 7rLO'TEU)S ~v Ka8ap~ uuvt:LO~O't:L Josiah Boyce once remarked that .we in this generation prefer the greatness of "him that taketh a city" rather than of "him that ruleth his own spirit." But there are times when we ·disengage ourselves from our pragmatic attitude to men and things and direct our thoughts to the manner of life of those who by the sheer power of personal worth keep strong our faith in moral and spiritual values. In this respect the life of Sir Robert Falconer has peculiar significance both for those of us in the University who served under or with him and .also for the large number of persons and institutions touched by him in his varied relations-national, international and ecclesiastical. The study of his contributions to our religious thought and life is only one aspect of a -life that was singularly woven in one piece. The legacy of what he has written in the field of New Testament and related studies brings to view the mainspring of the creative forces in his character and those principles which governed him in the execution of his academic and public·duties and determined his choice of the interests and the movements with which he associated himself. His religious faith was fundamental and altogether regulative. And for this reason he impressed all who knew him with a sense of his moral straightness in the grain. It is also to be remembered that the span of his life coincided fairly closely with an epoch which in the history of our culture has been the mos.t revolutionary since the Renaissance . This epoch had just begun at the time of his birth, and when he passed away he left us with our feet at the edge of a new one. In the midst of the din and confusion as the old order of the nineteenth century was giving place to a newer one, he made a spiritual and intellectual pilgrimage with his characteristic blend of openmindedness and caution. By the time that he had reached his 'middle thirties, his contributions entitled him to be set historically along with that brilliant group of older scholars, Grant and Jordan of Queen's, McCurdy and MacFadyen of Toronto, as a pioneer in the task of bringing biblical and theological teaching in Canada out of the back-bays. into the full tide of contemporary thought. In contrast with these other men who were principally concerned with the sciences related to the field of Old Testament studies, his peculiar distinction was that of being the first of ranking New T,estament experts in the history of this country. SIR ROBERT FALCONER 157 In the Rockwell-Lectures, delivered at the Rice Institute, in 1938, Sir Robert has given us an intimate account of his progress in things religious, from his early youth to the years following the First Great War. The title of this autobiography, Religion on My Life's Road, is fittingly chosen because, owing to his intellectual sensitiveness. to the radical and sometimes violent changes that affected the world into which he was born, he had once and again in the course of the years to resolve the seeming conflicts between faith and events. It is true, however, that the heart makes the theologian. And the heart is, more often than not, a heritage from a man,s forefathers. · Notre personnalite sociale est une creation de la pensee des autres. Sir Robert began life with the spiritual assets of a religious home founded on Scottish Presbyterian traditions. He was cradled and nurtured in the faith. And, being so favoured, he was spared the struggle that some must wage to acquire even the incipient will to believe. I may take to myself at least these words of the apostle Paul: "I served God from my forefathers in a pure conscience" ... , being "instructed according to the ·strict manner of the law of our fathers." As far as I can remember my boyhood thoughts, I was not disturbed by doubts as to the truth of what...