7 It seems not unlikely that the episode of the Sunday School Times had something to do with Dr. Toy's resignation. Though not mentioned by Dr. Broadus, this episode must have made him and Dr. Boyce anxious lest the Seminary should become involved in suspicion of heterodoxy, a suspicion which, for a variety of reasons, they would be loth to have it bear. In the light of subsequent events it is now evident that this anxiety was not without foundation. But to the incident itself: In the first half of 1878 and 1879 the Sunday School lessons were based on selected portions of the Old Testament, and Dr. Toy furnished weekly to the Sunday School Times an article under the title “Critical Notes.” In 1879 the lessons published in the issues of April 12 and 19 were based on Isaiah 42 1–10 and 53 1–12. In the first of these passages Dr. Toy held that “servant” of verse 1 means, as elsewhere in the book, Israel. In regard to Isaiah 53 he held that the subject is still the same. “The reference is throughout to Israel immediately, with a final complete fulfilment in the Messiah.” The Christian Intelligencer, an organ of the Reformed Church in America, scented danger in these articles, and on April 24, denounced Dr. Toy and the Sunday School Times in unmeasured terms. The Sunday School Times in an editorial on May 10, for the benefit of those of its readers “who may have been misled by the hasty and erroneous statements of the Christian Intelligencer,” shows that Dr. Toy's interpretation of Isaiah 53 is not heretical but is held by other reputable Biblical scholars. Dr. Toy's last “Critical Note” was in the issue of May 24. For two or three weeks after that date the critical articles appear with no name attached. The selections then passed from the Old Testament to the New.
