ABSTRACT
Born in 1848, P. T. Forsyth was a Congregational minister who served five pastorates prior to becoming Principal of Hackney College, London, from 1901 until his death in 1921. If we compare his dates with those of the formative Mercersburg years we can see that in a literal historical sense, Forsyth and Mercersburg have nothing whatever to do with one another. Partly because of the delightfully British habit of picking up the ideas of others fifty years after they have been discarded in their places of origin, Forsyth's intellectual inheritance was not altogether dissimilar to that of Nevin. In thinking their thoughts in an intellectual environment permeated to a greater or lesser degree by Hegelianism, Nevin and Forsyth were also reacting against certain characteristic features of the Enlightenment. Forsyth fears lest fusion or absorption in the organic whole replace the moral and spiritual reconciliation of persons, which makes for communion.
