The dormitory of Baptist Bible Institute where, in the words of trustee, Gerald Smelser, 'The boys were on the third floor and the girls on the second . .. this, of course, was not the greatest idea in the world." was a desire to find another similar mansion."8 Smelser's comments demonstrate that this fundamentalist Bible institute had no desire to lead the trend toward coeducational dormitories! The trustees searched the area for additional dormitory property to no avail. One trustee indicated Western Reserve University "had used up all the fine buildings around their campus, and we were having real problems."9 As a Board member, Jeremiah was aware of the needs and frustrations the trustees had been encountering. But his eagerness to recommend the Cedarville property was tempered by a series of reservations. He was unsure what the ramification of merger might mean. While the purchase of property was a very clean process, merging raised a series of questions about possible conditions. At Jeremiah's request Engle had arranged to meet with representatives of Cedarville College, and that meeting was about to take place! As Jeremiah's auto turned north along Main Street in Cedarville and approached the campus, the young pastor began making mental notes on the village. It was a clean, pleasant village with a quaint brick paving on the main road. The car moved along Route 72 about one-half mile before Jeremiah got his first glimpse of Old Main, the building that was to be the focal point of his ministry for many years. He remembered: la/Chapter I There was one sidewalk on the campus that led directly to what is now the Development Office at the main building entrance. The door– way faced the east then. We went into the room. The floors were oiled in the fashion that they used to oil old wooden floors in the school houses to keep down the dusl. lO As the meeting with the representatives of Cedarville College began, Jeremiah was well aware of the prevailing attitudes in the G.A.R.B.C. The young Association had been founded in 1932 on the concept of biblical separation. A group of fundamentalists in the Northern Baptist Convention agreed it was impossible to purge the Convention of theological liberalism. They were convinced that the only solution was to sever completely their ties with the Convention. Through the years of their infancy, the new Association stood firm in the conviction that complete separation from doctrinal apostasy was a biblical mandate. Jeremiah remembered when Regular Baptists could not even merge with other Baptists. In 1947 another group of fundamentalists, who had stayed in the Convention when the Regular Baptists left in 1932, decided it was time to leave. A series of discussions were held between the Regular Baptists and the Convention fundamentalists, but the two groups could not agree on the issue of separation. The Regular Baptists remained firm on the principle of ecclesiastical separation,