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A MERICA in 1855 was a nation awash in excitement. Reformers denounced the evils of liquor and secret societies. Women’s rights advocates such as Lucy Stone, Abbie Kelly Foster, and Antoinette Brown Blackwell gained a national hearing. For many reformers, however , slavery was the dominant issue. Amid border skirmishes between proslavery and “Free Soil” militias, the abolitionist John Brown joined his sons and became the leader of an abolitionist group in “Bleeding Kansas.” Addressing an antislavery society gathering in New York City, Ralph Waldo Emerson estimated that $200 million was needed to purchase the freedom of every slave in the South. Frederick Douglass published My Bondage, My Freedom. In that year John G. Fee, his wife, Matilda, and others opened a school in Kentucky that attracted local attention for good teaching, lively preaching, and abolitionism. The values embodied in the school’s constitution bore witness to the tremendous commitment and sacrifice of Berea’s founding generation . Roots The founding of Berea College was characterized by several influences manifested in various reform efforts in nineteenthcentury America. The first of these influences was personified in Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875). Beginning his career as a lawyer, Finney experienced an intense conversion while studying the Mosaic law. He embraced the New School Theology wing of Presbyterianism , which was less strict in interpreting Calvinist doctrines such as election and predestination . His preaching emphasized the mutual cooperation between the work of 9 The Witness to Impartial Love John G. Fee and the Founding of Berea College [Berea] was founded by zealous missionaries before the war, to meet the wants of the region. Notwithstanding its earnest advocacy of liberty, and opposition to caste, it grew rapidly in reputation and efficiency. It became so great a power, that leading men in this section of the State said that it was endangering slavery and must be suppressed. Accordingly the Teachers and leading Trustees were driven from the State. In due time they returned. First Catalogue of Berea College Charles Grandison Finney. His revivals not only converted individual souls but also motivated social reform. the Holy Spirit and the human spirit in conversion. His revival meetings were electrifying , featuring converts falling to their knees in tearful surrender, public prayers by women, and an anxious bench in front of the assembly for those under conviction of sin. These meetings connected conversion and revival to a sense of social reform and concern for others. Finney’s linkage between the commonality of sin and the universality of grace demonstrated itself in a type of Christian egalitarianism.1 John G. Fee was converted to abolitionism while attending Lane Seminary in 1842. Two classmates , John Milton Campbell and James C. White, were instrumental in Fee’s reconsideration of slavery. They impressed two Scriptures with particular impact on Fee: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, . . . and your neighbor as yourself ” and “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” Fee was convinced that these principles were critical to his obedience to God. “Lord, if needs be,” Fee prayed, “make me an abolitionist.” Fee’s conversion was total. “The surrender was complete,” Fee recalled. “I arose from my knees with the consciousness that I had died to the world and accepted Christ in all the fullness of his character as I then understood Him.”2 Lane Seminary, founded near Cincinnati in 1829, formed a second influence in the founding of Berea. Students performed manual labor in addition to their studies. New and Old School Presbyterians fought for control of the seminary, but New School views rose under the influence of the radical New York philanthropist Arthur Tappan and Lyman Beecher, the seminary’s president . Lane was one of the first schools in America to admit African Americans. Under Beecher’s leadership the school espoused a moderate view of the slavery question , encouraging gradual abolition and colonization, a movement that argued for the voluntary resettlement of African Americans in Africa.3 Lane’s moderate position on slavery was directly challenged by one of Finney’s more radical disciples, Theodore Weld. Already an advocate for temperance, manual labor, and education for women, Weld entered Lane as a recent convert to the abolitionist cause. In the spring of 1834 Weld organized an eighteen-day debate that changed the students’ stance from gradual to immediate abolition. Students promoted pro-abolition views and began ministries among African Americans in Cincinnati. Fearing mob violence because of...

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