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Feeman, Harlan L.

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Feeman, Harlan L.

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HARLAtr.

LUTHER

FEEMAN

1 8 7 3

-oHarlan Luther Feeman was born at Champaign',
Illinois,,, January 22·., 1873-, son of Henry Benjamin
Feeman

an~

Margaret Ewing Feeman from Fairfield

County, Ohio, near Lancaster.

The parents moved

from a farm near Champaign. to one two and one-half
miles from the village of Foosland in the same
county where he grew to his majority.

He waa

baptized by Jacob Krapps of Worth Illinois Conference in the old Center Schoolhouse where: one of
four classes or congregations of a Methodist
Protestant circuit met for worship and Sunday school.
In the fall of 1.889 he was converted in the Foosland·
Methodist Protestant Church to which the congregation at Center Schoolhouse had been transferred.

He

united with this church during the well-known revival
conducted by the Reverend Frank Pollock, a meeting
that swept the community.

The pastors serving this

charge during Dr. Feeman•s active relationship were:
A. H. Widney, R. E. FoXt, J. A. Richard, I. T. Haverfield.

He took his first teacher's examination at

the age of seventeen a.t Urbana, . Illinois, and taught

2

t .wo years:., then went to Adrian to complete his high
school work in the College Preparatory School.

He

did not have access to high school in his own
community.

After completing work for college

entranc6- he accepted the offer to teach his old home
school at Center in 1896-96, returning to college in
the fall of 1895 and graduating from college in June,
1900.

Lat~r

he attended Oherlin ColLege and Drew

University.
While a student in his Junior year of college
he served for six months as the stated supply of the
Morenci Congregational Church.

In June 1900, he

beeame assistant pastor to Dr. B. W·. Anthony, Castle
Shannon, Pennsylvania, of the Pittsburgh Conference,
and served as pastor of the

Sh~aden

Terrace Methodist

Protestant Church f or four years and three months.
This church was organized and built by the aid of the
Pittsburgh Conference Church Union under the leadership of Dr. Anthony.

He became the Conference

appointed pastor to the Terrace

Church~

Sheraden,

following the annual conference at Washington,
Penn·s yl:vania, 1900, where he joined the Pi tt.s·burgh
Conference, and that fall the present Terrace Church
was built.
He was married to Annie Cairns, daughter of

Rev •. James Cairns and Mary J. Cairns of Eastern
Conference, stationed at Kearny, New Jersey, in
October, 1901.

While fn

Sherad~en

he became a:cti ve ir

the Allegheny County' Christian Endeavor Union and
S~cret~ry-Treasurer

Endeavor Union.

of the denominational Christian

He was one of the speakers at the

International Christian Endeavor Convention at
Cincinnati in June, 1901.

He was ordained by

PittS?burgh Conference at Kittanning,
September 6, 1903,

w..

Pennsy~vania ,

H. Gladderr, president, John·

Broomfield, s:ecretary.

c.

He remained as pastor of

this church until September, 1904, when he returned to
Adrian

Col~ege

to take charge of the newly created

department of History and Economics.

Seven years

were spent in service of the College, three years as·

.

head of a newly organized theological seminary.

He

became convinced that the denomination was not large
enough to support two theological seminaries

and

that this would work against denominational unity so
resigned to go back into the pastorate.

He was

called in 1911 t;o head the Department of Practical and
Biblical

The~loSY-

in Westmins ter Theological Seminary.

A number of his former students went with him which
laid to rest a sectional agitation that had
prevailed in the Church since 1817.

Having come

4

from the farm and village church he became vitally
interested in the 6ountry .. Life Movement and was
invited to deliver a. series of lectures on the rural
church to North Illinois Conference, in 1914.

Out

of this came the book, "The Kingdom and the Farm,"
which took

it~

place in the country life literature

of the pre-war period.
In December, 1914, Dr.

c. H. Hubbell, Secretary

of the Board of Young People's Work, died at Adrian,
Michigan, rather suddenly.

Dr. Feeman was offered

the position made vacant by this lamented death
but did not accept, feeling he should continue in
the

Semin~y.

No one having been selected after

three months, it was proposed that he take the
position together with his seminary work until
General Conference in

1916~

This was arranged and

after the denominational convention in Columbus in
May, he filled an enga.gement on the Faculty of a.
School of Methods at Alma College, Michigan.

Out of

this experience came the first regularly organized
School ot Methods in the Methodist Protestant Church,
put on at Sabina, Ohio,, in the old Ohio Conference in
August, 1917.

At the General Conference

~t

Zanesville, Ohio, he was elected to succeed himself
as Secretary of the Board of Young People•·s Work.

5

His first and main task was to give to the work of the
Board a more thorough and definite educational policy.
In March, 1917, he was invited to attend the meeting
of the Adrian College Board of Trll5tees in

May~

by

George H.. Mi'ller, Secretary of the Board of Christian
Education,, where he was elected to the presidency of
the College, and which he began in May and in which
he served twenty-three years.

Hi~

last act in

leaving the Board of Young People's Work was heading
up the School of Methods at Sa.bina, Ohio.

During

the period· following the regular pastorate at
Sheraden, in Pittsburgh, he served four

s~ort

pastorates under annual conference appointment and
call of the churches, either in connection with his
other work or during vacation periods, as follows:
Division

~treet

Methodist Church, Elkhart, Indi&fia,

from January into June, 1905; Sheraden Church,
Pitts;burgh Conference, June to annual Conference,
1907, Ohio, Illinois, Methodist Church,

Ju~~

to

annual Conference, 1911, and Sharpsburg, Pittsburgh
Conference, May until annual Conference, 1914.

With

the exception of Sharpsburg he was called in to lead
these churches through a crisis.
He was director of the Endowment Campaign of the
College for Five Hundred Thousand Dollars in 1927

6

when $490,000 was subscribed to this fund by six
supporting conferences.
One of the most fruitful ministries rendered to
young people has been the Quiet Hour Talks which
Dr.. Feeman gave at

Sa~ina,
.

eighteen years or more.

Ohio, each August for
He has written the

"prayers" for our Sunday-School literature for some
ten years.

He was a member of the General Confer-

ences ot 1928, 1932, and 1936, a representative of
his den()mination in the Inter-Church l.'Vorld Movement,
belonging to a speakers squad that visited four
large centers in the Southern States.

He was a

delegate to the Ecumenical Conference of Methodism at
Atlanta, Georgia, 1931, appearing twice in the
program, and a member of the Methodist Hymn Commission; member of Committee on Worship Programs at the
Kansas City Merger Conference in 1939 and was an
alternate delegate.
He served as secretary of the College Presidents
Association of Michigan Church-Related Colleges for
eleven years and was its president for two years.
He was one of the speakers at the Atlanta Methodist
Forward Educational Conference preceding the uniting
of Methodism in 1937.

He retired from the

presidency of Adr ian Co-llege, Jun'S 15, 1940,

h~ving

7

resigned the preceding June-, and became presidentemeritus.
His sermons have been published in the Homiletic
Review, The Expositor, various church papers and in
Me.cMill.an Coffipany's "Prize Sermons" Volume.

A

volume of his Baccalaureate Sermons has also been
published entitled,, "The lfurture of Vi tali ty".
Dr. Frank

w.

Stephenson; Secretary of the

Board of Education of the church, at a banquet
honoring President Feeman at the time of his retirement, said of him:
"To pay tribute to President Feeman·. in any of
his capacities, as an administrator, as a
scholar, as a citizen, as a public speaker,
as a friend, as a. teaeher, as a minister and
preacher second to none 1-n his denomination-.
and as an outstanding Christian gentleman,
would be a privilege as well as a great delight .
nAt this moment, however, we wish to think of
him as a oh~-a~man. He has loomed larger· and
larger in the life of the Church. He has·.
.
been l oyal to the Church and served it joyfully and generously wherever she has called
him; he has been an unusually useful member
and for many years one of her most influential
and helpful leaders."
Dr.
Trustee~,

c.

L. Daugherty, President of the Board· of

speaking on the same occasion remarked:

u·o ne of the charming characteristicS' of
Dr. Feeman is that ·he has never been aware
of his own greatness. Simplicity and humility
of heart , linked with ·a burni ng passion for
truth and a full -consecration to unsel f i"sh
service all go to make him an unusual character.

8

"He- became President when this institution
was badly wrecked, drifting like a derelict
for the rocks. He repaired the wreck and
headed for the open sea upon which this
honored ship now sails for a brighter future."
Professor E. M. Jo:rres, being asked to write
the tribute to President Feeman for faculty and
students in the

Mound~

for l94a wrote:

"Physicists have a concept known as the fourth
dimension - the value and importance of this
concept is that it att.ains to a definite
re~ult which is unlike any of the factors
involved, yet dependent upon all of them for
its value. Great me~ of all ages and in all
fields have exhibited this value which
cannot be entirely explained by training.
race, creed, or other regular characteristics,
but, out of all of these, in an entirely
personal way, they have stepped aside from
routine and left an impress which time seems
not to dim. You as our retiring President
have left such an impress upon our times you have helped many to a saner and nobler
philos·ophy of life.
"s-uch a career as yours can spring only from
a lif~ founded upon, and throughly grounded in,
the fundamentals of Christianity. You have
touched the lives of the students here as well
as your friends and associates in this and
other places as few have ever done."
The foregoing was written in 1943.

. "/-:\'

7

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..

Methodist Union
HARLAN LUTHER FEEMAN, D.O.

When I was in my youth I heard "woman ~u ffrage" h eralded as the harbinger
of the millennium. It came but the millennium has n ot yet app ear ed. I heard
"prohibitio n " ad vocated as the vestibu le to a p aradise of virtues. I have seen it
tried but it brought no paradisaical ves tibule. I h ave heard "church union" discussed the most of my life, one kind or oth er , and I have believed 111 most every
form th a~ has s truck my ea r but I am not excited even over
the movement fo r Meth odist union which concerns some of
th e things of life which have been m ost dea r to m e. I have
le2rne::i that n on e of these things are goin g to do our work for
u s n or- make h e ro ic s el f- d en ia l and act!cn any the less needed.
They will n ot rid u s of selfis h ambition and injustice a nd sin
from undiscipl ined hu ma n nature. But I am profoundly interested in this plan and movement for l'vlethodis t unification
a nd F ray for its successful rea lization .
We l'vlethodists ou ght to uni te. Ther e are n o sound
reasons why we s h o u ld not do so. So far as Methodists Pro;:estants a r e con cerned , th e principle of lay representa tion is
f ully reco gnized throug hout the whole pla n of unification . Stron g prov1s1on is
m ade t o a ssure every preach er and member the opportunity of a full and fai r
hearing f or a ny complaint or cha rge aga inst him. S o far as pastorial superv is ion
by overseers goes, we have become accustomed to that in our a nnual conferences
and in recent years by a traveling G e n eral Conferen ce presiden cy. When it com es
to doctrines a nd temperament we h ave always been a kin Methodis ts everyw h en.:.
There a r e two facts that a re obvious in this instance. One is that l'vlethodist
Protestants as a who le n e ver " lived up" to their liberal evangelical p rinciples. The
American church p ublic h as never rea liz ed t h e n obility of th ese p rinciples tha t ou r
for e- fathers conceived and brou gh t forth. The re is inherent liberality of m e ntal
grasp here togeth er with a n evan g elica l soundness a nd p iety unexcelled, I believe,
b y any Methodist body. The Methodis t Protesta nt Church h as never r eceived
credit fo r this by the American chut·ch mind. There has a lways b een a tendency
to make a sect ou t of us, which we have n ever been and have a lways earnestly
r e pudiated.
T h e other obvious fact is this, th at ther e are more tempermental a nd doctrin<1l
differ ences within denomin ation s today th an b etween denominations. I suppose,
if we knew, this was th e case of the original aposto lic b a nd, a ll of which argues th a t
a n orga nized life should arrange for these honest differences, th ese native endowments in te m p era ment and ways of holding the tr uth , a nd then deploy our whole
force against th e advance o f th e enemy.
I am a hundred ,per cent. for M e thodis t Union. Our age and condition s demand it. Th ere is no convincing reason against it. Family a ffinity urges it. l'vJo, t
o f a ll, I h ave a con victio n that C h r is t , the H ead of th e Church Unive rsal, will b e
pleased with it. And I h ave a prediction to m.ake that if this p la n , perhap s to be
further modifi ed, culminates in reality a nd is do ne with the fine spirit of fe llowship
w hich h as charac terize d the action of th e com missio n s, it will go throu g h the world
like a n electric shock , creatin g possibilities of spiritual unity not now en visaged.

Page Nine

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METHODIST

UNION

I

f;

A REPRI N T

FRO:\~

THE THEOLOG

The An nual Pub Iished By

THE SENIOR CLASS

OF THE

Westminster Theological Seminary
I

l

W'estm inster, Md.

The Theo log of 1936 is featuri ng Me thodist Union, and at the suggestion of the
Ed itor the articles in this pam phlet are rep rinted for gene ra l distri butio n.

..-;:...

d~1/'1ADRIAN
VOL. 123, NO. 112.

45 YEARS WITH ADRIAN COLLEGE

DR. H. l. FEEMAN,
fORMER PRESIDENT
Of -COllEGL DIES~
Guided C o I I e g e Th ro ugh
Troub lesome Yea rs Of
fi rst World War

SERVICES

ARE

Dr. Harlan L. Feeman, president of Adrian College from 1917
to 1940, died Fr iday noon in Lansing from ailments of advancing
years. He had undergone surgery
in September. The funeral serv·
ices are to be :illonday afternoon
at 3 o'clock in the First l\Iethod·
ist church here with burial in Oakwood Cemetery. 'l'he body is to
be brought [rom Lansing Sunday
and will be at the Brann Funeral
Home where friends may call i
from 10 a.m. Sunday unlit 1:30
11.m. :il1onday.
I
Dr. Feeman's association with 1
Adrian College covered 45 or his 1
84 years. He came to the college I
here as a student in 1~95 from 1
Champaign county, lUino1s, where 1
he was born in 1873 and had spent
his boyhood. He graduated from
the college in 1900, and did grad.l
uate work in Oberlin College and
later at Drew University in Madison, N. J. In 1904, after serving
in the pastorate or the l\lethod- -========:---- - - - - - -ist Protestant church in Pitls-1
burgh, be returned to the college
of bi!, Ion~
as head o! the department of his·
o£ Llw Jll'l' ld :c~ . hnt ' mm e es·
tory and education.
peciaUy becau~e hr was so bigllTeaches At Westminster
ly respected an(4 admired, he enl n 1911, he accepted the chair
joyed a remarkably wide acor Biblical and practical tbeol·
quaintanceship a mong alumni
and former students. He not only
0 gy at Westminster Seminary in
Maryland. Meanwhile be also took
remembered the alumni, he knew
the secretaryship of the board of
them intimately, followed their
young people's work for the Methcareers and was iu frequent cor·
odist Prostestant church, succeedrespondence will} many of them.
ing the late Rev. Charles Hubbell
Dr. Feeman was a deep scholar,
o£ Adrian. ln 1917 he accepted
especially of history and philosthe presidency of the college here,
ophy. A theologian and a remark·
1 e maining as president unti11940
ably effective and forceful preachafter the merger of the Methoder , be also was a student of huist and Methqdist Protestant de·
man relations. He was a ble to
nominations. Since then he bas
interpret llistory and the :tible
been president-emeritus. In later
in terms of the present. He was
years he made a point of atteoda kindly man and tolerant, suJ!lg the college's commencement
premely confident that the peoactivities whenever health per-!
ple, when they thought things
mitled.
_ through, would reach the right

j
I

t<';,:.;l·.

I

- - - - -----'
decisions for themselves ,as in-~
dividuals and for the nation. He
~tad deep faith in American democracy. He likewise h ad deep
faith in the mission of the churchrelated college as the training
grotmd for men and women as the
leaders of the nation.
Problems Of War Years
• ol
When he came to the pt·estdency or Adrian college in 1917
the nation already was a combat- •
ant in the first World War. The
!>tudent body was rapidly depleted
as young men enlisted or responded to drait calls. Within less than 1
a year tJJe student body had ~
shrunk to fewer tl,lan 100, and i
most of them were young worn- ~
en. He saw to it that a \ffiit of E
the Student Army Tt·aining Corps E
was e5tablished on the campus. ~

..

•

r

F or severa Lmonths soldier· were
the college buildings as they ~
nad heen during the Cidl War
when lhe collego was lbO, Iraioi.ng •Jl
qua rter~; !01 Michigan troop. • 1•tJ
'flte college r a me U1rough Ute ..1
war period as Dr . Feeman was ia
confident it would. With the war e
over he opened a campaign fot· I'
improved financial support. 'fhP.
present Ridge auditorium was be- li
gun during his adminislt·ation, C
though the building was doomed Ia
to stand uncompleted fur seven,l; II
years when the clepres:,iou of It

ln

1933 s truck.

c1

During h!S residence in Adrian b
Dr. Feema n took an active and T
1
leading part .in numerous community undertakings, such as ~
commuru'ty concert campaigns u:
and those for charities. He was ~
one of the first members of the 0:
Rotar y Club, served as president ,,
and i1} recent year , since leaving e:
Adrian, he held an honorary mem· r''
bership. He wa a member of the ll(
Sons of tbe Amel'ican Revolution T
and at one time ser ved' as chaplain of the slate organizati~n.
Writings Published
Hts writings included articles
published in various education
journ als and several books
among them " The Kingdom and ;
the Fa1·m'' published while at i
Westminster Seminary; "Francis <
Ashwry's Silvet· 'frumpet" and €
"The Nutture of Vitality." He also
collaborated with ~[i ss Rutlt Car- t
go of the Adrian College faculty t.
in the writing of " The Story of A iJ
Noble Devotion," a history of tJ
Adrian College. A number of his tl
sermons also have been published s.
ovet· the years, one of them being
included in a national collection of c
25 outstanding set·mons of th~ W'
year in 1932. In 1943 his " Pt·ayer it
for Our Time·' also attracted na- 1e'
tiona! attention.
1o
Af e, hts l'I'LU'i'mcnt he sp€'nl!h
thP wtntP.l'!> at hi•· home uh l lldi ••
lantic, ~le lbou.rne. ~·~a .. unul tlt<'l'
war and gasoline ratwnmg. l!'rom 1
then un til 1955 he and .Mrs. Fee- l
man resided at Olds Hall, Day- l
tona. Fla.. dl.tt·ing the winter, 1
spending 1he summers with l\Irs. '
Julia Cairns itt Adrian until her
death and later with a son, HyrU
Feeman, in Lansing.
l

?

t-!

His immediate survtvors include ''
his widow, the former Annie :
Cairns, a classmate of JHll collegel 1
student years whomlhe married ll
in 1901. A son Hyrtl lives in Lan- 1
sing and is principal of Walter 1
French junior high school. Dr. 1
and Mrs. Feemau have been liv- 1
ing wiU1 U1eir son and daughter- 1
in-law the last few year s. A !
daughtet· ,\ Irs. Lee H. Brown also
I
lives in Lansing.

I Plans call for the Rev. l van 1•

Hodg on, past.or of the .:\1.ethodist 1
church; Dr. John Dawson, col-1
lege prestclent and fl'iend of the jl
Jt'cem ans lor years: and Frank'' I
Stephenson of Pittsburgh. a long j
time associate in college work, lo l'
:
conduct tl1e funeral services.

.FEEMAN'S CELEBRATE
50TH 1:\NNIVERSARY
ESPITE the pluvial down-pou t· and
the cold winds from the n01·th
country about fifty rela tives and friends
came to t he Michiga n A venue Methodist
Church, Lansing, to h elp celr.brat e the
Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary of Dr.
and Mrs. Harlan L. F eeman on Sunday
afternoon, October 7. Dr. a nd Mrs.
F eeman had been visiting their children
Mr. and Mrs. H. C. F eeman of Lansing
and Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Brown of E ast
Lansing f or t he summer. Th.ese two
families planned the celebration. During

D

the week preceding t he
p arty Dr. a nd Mrs. F eeman had been
r eceiving greetings at 928 Gr een St.,
t heir son's home, from fa r and near;
St. P etersburg, Fla., Dallas, Kansas
City, Mo., Bloomington, Ill., Champaign,
fudianapo1is, Dayton, Toledo, Detroit,
Newark, N.J., Baltimore, Richmond,
Va., and especially from Adrian.
A dinner wa s served in the church
dining room on a U-shaped t able decorated \vith dahlias and chrysanthemums,
having as a centerpiece a white-frosted,
t hree-layer cake with it s golden wedding bells and on each side of it the
slippers worn by the bride f ifty years
ago. Mrs. Feeman, Sr., wearing a corsage of ye1Jow r oses, cut the f irst p iece
of the wedding cake whfch was t hen
served to the guests by her sister -inlaw, Mrs. H arry E . Feeman. Pictures
were taken of several groups; a f our
generation group. Dr. Feeman ha d bap·

I

rtized
at 'the churc~rvice in the morning a great gr arijJdaughter, La rk Lee
Riley. Then a pictu t·e of t he .rela t ives
present was taken, followed by one of
the whole company.
Dr. C. S. Ritchie, a close friend of
t he fa mily, after reading some appropriate Scripture, made a brie:f address.
Mrs. Feeman a nd Dr. F eeman were called upon a nd gave shott r esponses. A
brother of Mrs. F eeman, Will Cairns,
the ar t ist and poet, eighty-five years of
age next December , of Scranton, Pa.,
spoke a f ew words.
Some of the old songs were sung with
Mrs. Mar garet F eema n Brown at the
piano, and Pa ul Cairns, Hyrtl F eeman,
Lee Brown, and Will Cairns about the
piano leading the singing, which included t he Londonderry Air with the words
of T iplady. Mrs. H. C. F eeman was in
charge of the dining room, Mr. H. C.
Fceman presided. Visit ors were present
from Scranton, P a., Adrian, Ann Arbor,
Flint, Maume~, 0., Saline;.,... Hanover,
East Lansing and Lansing~ , ~

i\IRS. ANNIE C. F EEMAN, 92, widow
of t he la te Dr. Ha rlan L. F eeman f ormer
president of Adrian College, died May
11 at the Beadle Convalescent H ome in
Lansing. B o r n in
Belfa st , I reland, April
8, 1870, Annie Sara h
Savage Cairns was
named fo r a relative
once the Lord Mayor
of Belfast. She came
lo Am erica and li ved
al Dunk irk, N. Y.,
where her fa t h e 1·,
James Cairns, became
!\'Irs. Fccman
a
i\lethodist Protestant ministc1·. She g-raduated in the
class oi 1900 fro m Adrian College. Dr.
F eeman whom she married October 14
1901, was also a graduate of Adrian:
They lived in Kearney, N.J., Dr. Feeman's first pastorate. The F eemans returned to Adrian in 1904 when he became professor on the College faculty
before accepting a position on the faculty of Vlestminster Theological Seminary, Md. From 1917 to 1940 the Feemans lived in Adrian and Dr. Feeman
was Adrian College president. Mrs.
F eema11 was a member of the Delta
Delt a Delta So1·ority; active in the Methodi st Protes tan t Church; and state secretary of the 'Women's F oreign Missionary Societ y. She is survived by a son,
Hyrtl, principa l of Walter F rench Junior High School, Lansing; one daughter,
i\lrs. Lee H . Brown, DeWitt ; three g randchildren a nd six g reat-g t•andchildren .
F uneral services were held in the First
Methodist Church, Adrian, May 15, with
Dr. F ranklin Stephenson of Adria n College officia t ing. Dt·. J ames Spencer ,
a lso of the College, was organi st. Intennent was in Oa~ Jood Cemetery,
Ad rian.
S"/~'f/"" .::- 1