6v ro Jo Ussf The date shows when this volume was taken. To renew this boali copy the call No, and give to ,the librarian. HOME USE RULES AH Books subject to Recall All borrowers must regis- ,^ ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books must be re- turned at end of college year for inspection and repairs. Limited books must be re- ^ turned within the four week j, ' limit and not renewed. ' — " Students must return all books before leaving town, "*** OflF.cers should arrange for the return of books wanted during their absence from town. Volumes of periodicals ^ and of pamphlets are held in the library as much as possible.,. 'For special pur- ^^"■^^^^ poses they are^ven out for y^ a limited time. ^fjy JU 1' 11 Borrowers should not; use their library privileges for the benefit pf other persons. ^ Books of special value • • ""' '. and gift books, when the \X!\\)J^PO giver wishes it. are not allowed to circulate, Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. 678-2 %1^t Winian Cbeological #»eminarp in ti^e Cftt of Bm i^otfe MEMORIAL SERVICE IN HONOUR OF THE Reverend FRANCIS BROWN Ph.D., D.D., D.LiTT., LL.D. PRESIDENT, ANB DAVENPORT PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND THE COGNATE LANGUAGES * IN THE CHAPEL TUESDAY, DECEMBER THE FIFTH NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN AT FOUR O'CLOCK ■1 ' i''^ ■^hI.V Cornell University Library BV4070.U559 B87 Memor a serv ce. n honour of the Rever olin 3 1924 029 355 231 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924029355231 Cije ^nton Cijeologtcal §)eminarp in ti^e Cftt of j^etD J^orfe MEMORIAL SERVICE IN HONOUR OF THE Reverend FRANCIS BROWN Ph.D., D.D., D.LiTT., LL.D. PRESIDENT, AND DAVENPORT PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND THE COGNATE LANGUAGES * IN THE CHAPEL TUESDAY, DECEMBER THE FIFTH NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN AT FOUR O'CLOCK CONTENTS PAGE ORDEE OF SEEYICE 6 PRAYER The Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, LL.D. ADDRESS 10 President William M. Kingsley, M.A. ADDRESS 12 President Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D. ADDRESS - 14 Professor George F. Moore, LL.D. ADDRESS 19 Professor Arthur C. McGepfert, D.D. APPENDIX - - ^5 9r» OEDEK OP SERVICE 1 Organ Prelude. 2 Processional Hymn 624. 3 The Lord's Prayer. The Eev, Henry M. Sanders, D.D. 4 Chant 192: ^^Deus Misereatiir." 5 Scripture Lesson. Romans viii : 18-39. The Rev. Anson P. Atterbury, D.D. 6 Prayer. The Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, LL.D. 7 Hymn 604. 8 Address. 9 Address. 10 Hymn 513. 11 Address. 12 Address. 13 Hymn 412. President William M. Kingsley, M.A. for the Board of Directors President Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D. for Columhia University Professor George F. Moore, LL.D. for the Alumni Professor Arthur C. McGiffert, D.D. for the Faculty 14 Prayer and Benediction. The Rev. Anthony H. Evans, D.D. 15 Recessional Hymn 409. 16 Organ Postlude. PRAYER BY THE Keverend Charles H. Parkhurst, LL.D. We bow before Thee, our heavenly Father, under the burden of a great sorrow. Thine angel of death has touched a spot in our hearts that is very sensitive and tender. We would not have the sorrow made less, but would be able to abide in serene strength under the pressure of it, and in our service of loving remembrance, this afternoon, would know certainly that Thou dost not only feel for us but feel with us, and dost as a true Father sympathetically enter into our pain and feel it as Thine own pain. Encouraged by intimations of Thy Holy Word, we would, in all unaffected confidence, conceive our departed friend as still a living friend, neither dead nor dormant, but spiritually alive, invisibly present in Thy spiritual kingdom, where blindness becomes vision and where the knowledge that is in part, widens into knowledge that is complete, the old creed retouched here and there but every line deepened. Let the sense of loneliness, so natural to us when gathered in a place where he has so often gathered with us, be mitigated by the comforting feeling of the intimacy in which all parts of Thy one kingdom are related to each other, so winning a helpful realization of the present actuality of the soul that has denoted so much to us, and which has just now slipped from the fleshly limitations in which it has been entangled. Grant unto us in this hour the courage of our faith and the fruition of our Christian presentiments. It has been by Thy divine ordering and arrangement that those who have been very close to us in their living, become yet more fully disclosed to us by their dying, and that when everything that is contingent has been eliminated and our bodily senses no longer play a part, what is essential and personal in our departed loved ones acquires singular distinctness and our thoughts reproduce them and our loves picture them with a truthfulness impossible when they were physically with us, so 7 that today we are able to revere our friend more as he is and to love him with an unconf used sincerity. We thank Thee, O God, that while Thon dost in a special manner image forth Thy character of holiness, wisdom and love in the person of Thy Son Jesus Christ, Thou art also sometimes very distinctly reflected in the person and life of men who stand amongst us, through whom we come within reach of Thy Spirit and are touched by it, men who are apostolic and priestly and put a baptismal touch upon us, so that through them we know Thee better and love Thee more, and have wrought within us a strangely clear persuasion of things divine, and a substantial conviction of the verity of the Gospel, work- ing upon us with an argument that is more than logical in its efficiency and which therefore no cogency of logic can refute. We thank Thee, then. Our Father, for giving into our ac- quaintance and friendship this apostle of faith and hope and love, in affectionate loyalty to whose memory and service we are come together. He has, for us, loaded with fresh and richer meaning Thy Son and His Word, and life and death. He has been to us a moving illustration of the Gospel's efficiency in its power to strengthen, illumine and sweeten, and has made us more conscious of the splendid service to which those are called who stand forth as preachers of the truth and ambas- sadors for Christ. Thou hast greatly blest this institution in placing in charge of its educational work a man who was himself a great deal more than any words that he could speak. As Thy Son Jesus Christ told his Disciples that he was not simply a teacher of the Way, the Truth and the Life, but was himself the Way, the Truth and the Life, so in the person of this prophet this school of sacred learning has been held not only under the discipline of words of formal instruction, but has been inspired by the unspoken and unspeakable spirit of him whom Thou has Thy- self inspired. We are very grateful unto Thee for the services of one who in these times of unsettled religious conviction was so loyal to all truth that he could hold himself steadily balanced between the thoughts of the past and those of the present and who, while breaking forth into new paths as was necessary with one 9 wlio was alive with the life of God, yet was true to the old without becoming a victim of the old. We are comforted today by the thought that while we are not going to see him here any more and the social bond has been severed and alas! the sweet domestic bond has been severed, yet in his influence he survives with a fulness of sur- vival that is rich in promise. We are profoundly grateful for those hundreds of young men to whom he has made personal communication of the wealth of his own spirit, so that he is going to continue to speak through their words, to live in their lives and to perpetuate the stamp with which they have been impressed. Dear Lord, continue to bless this institution as Thou hast blessed it, cherishing it as a precious instrument for the con- veyance of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, truth so handled as to persuade men of its truthfulness, its efficiency, its necessity and its winsomeness. Amen. ADDKESS BY William M, Ki:tfGSLEY, M.A. President of the Board of Directors We are sitting in the twilight at the close of a glorious day, — one of those days when the sun is bright and the sky is blue with drifting clouds of snowy whiteness, when the air is crisp, invigorating, inspiring. Kow the day is over and the sun has set, but the glory of the day has not departed, for the clouds are lined with silver, around and between them the delicate tints of the rainbow are appearing, the evening star is beginning to glim- mer. We say to one another " It was a wonderful day,'' although we are not seeking to impart any information, for all already know. And we ask each other ''Is it not a superb sunset?'' although the question neither implies a doubt nor expects an answer, but somehow we like to express our thoughts in words and let each other know that we are appreciating the beauty of the scene that is stretched out before our eyes. In this same spirit we are gathered here this afternoon to remember Dr. Francis Brown, to speak of the beauty and value of his useful Hf e, to talk together of the colors that are visible in the evening sky. Ris ability. A distinguished scholar of international repu- tation 5 a forceful writer, speaker and teacher ; as the executive head of the Seminary Faculty, discharging the duties of that office with foresight, judgment and success. Ris strength. Stalwart in body, active in mind, broad in spirit, firm in faith. Ris dignity. Not only on public and formal occasions, clad in the robes that marked the high degrees conferred upon him, not only in the business meeting and class room, but as well, when alone with others, at all times. Ris fidelity. Always at his post, always prompt, always ready. Ris modesty. Prominent in position, a natural leader, a man of earnest convictions, yet never self assertive, ever respecting the views and wishes of others. 10 11 His gentleness. The kindly look in his eye, the quiet quality of his voice, the friendliness of his manner; approachable, lovable and loving; a great strong man, but a Christian gentle-man. May I quote from the records of the Seminary a part of the Minute adopted by the Board of Directors regarding Dr. Brown? " His wisdom, his sanity, his clarity of vision, his justice, his absolute truthfulness, his untiring faithful- ness in things both great and small, his broad-minded- ness, his complete freedom from censoriousness and bitterness, his unfailing courtesy, his inexhaustible reserves of quiet power — these were recognized by all. He was a man of large and massive mould, a man of rare balance and self control, a man to honour, to follow and to depend upon. That he was also a man of warmest feeling and deepest affection perhaps not all realized, for he was reticent and never carried his heart upon his sleeve. But those who knew him best know how he loved his friends and how they loved him. The depth of his religious nature was also perhaps not known to all as it was to those most closely associated with him. His piety, simple, wholesome, unaffected, but constant and pervasive, was a benedic- tion to all that came into intimate relations with him, and with all his sympathy with the modern point of view and his own activity in defending and promoting it, his faith was extraordinarily firm and unwavering — a rock to build upon in times of uncertainty and doubt." May I quote also from a much earlier record a Minute regarding him ? ''The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long- suffering, gentleness, kindness, faith, meekness, tem- perance." His chair is vacant but his spirit fills this institution, and will long continue to be a living, uplifting and inspiring influ- ence. We are grateful for the many years of service — years that are passed and years still to come — given by Dr. Brown to Union Seminary, The sun has set but the glory of the day has not departed. ADDRESS BY Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D., President of Columbia University. In this presence and within these walls, words of mere eulogy of Francis Brown would be as unbecoming as they are unnecessary. The love and the honor for him, for his life and for his accomplishment, that fill our hearts make eulogy seem weak and paltry. We are rather to contemplate for a few moments this afternoon the passing of a great American scholar, a gTeat American theologian, a great American citizen. If we shall not insist upon the importance in our national life of a scholar, of a character like this, who will insist upon it ? We think first of this life and of this personality in terms of our personal relationships, in terms of devoted and up-building service to this Seminary, in terms of many important contribu- tions to human life. But we must think of it also in terms of that larger intellectual and spiritual life of which this Seminary, this City, and this State are after all but a small part. We are trying a severe task of building a democracy among the nations of the earth that shall have sound and enduring foundations, and that shall have high and pure and true guiding ideals. What are we to say of the part played in that life, that national public life, by the scholar who, in his quiet walk, made his name and his country's name and his country's fame as well known, as familiar, in Oxford, in Berlin and in Paris as in ^ew York, in Cambridge, and in Baltimore "? This world — this modern world — abounds in architects of every type, but it sadly lacks builders. There are architects in social reform, architects in religion, architects in philosophy, architects in institution building, and all of them with plans, some of them inviting, others even imposing and magnificent ; but by the side of these architects how few are the builders ! Francis Brown was a living builder ; he not only made plans but it was his lot and his capacity to execute them. He left behind not one monument, but many monuments, in the intel- lectual, the scholarly, and the spiritual structures that he helped 12 13 so largely to build. So that today we think not alone of the friend and colleague whom we loved and honored, not only of the immediate associate or fellow in every day life, but we think of one who was adding to the glory and might of the good name of America, and who helped carry forward its standards of life and of spiritual thought and action, and to in- crease its reputation throughout this wide world. America is not made alone by men of affairs ; it is not made alone by holders of public office ; it is not made alone by soldiers and sailors ; it is made first and chiefly by those exponents and examples of its intellectual and spiritual life who are builders, and who give to our American name a fabric and a quality that are unique because they are of the intellect and of the spirit. Such a builder, a nation builder, was Francis Brown, in his scholarship, his thought, his teaching, and in his human service. He has gone from out this world of war and strife and suffer- ing to that everlasting peace which passeth all understanding : there our faith and our love do follow him. ADDRESS BY Professor George F. Moore, LL.D. of Harvard University Francis Brown came of a scliolarly ancestry and grew up in academic surroundings. What visions or dreams of the career of a scholar he may have had when he entered Union Seminary I know not, but long before the completion of his course his fellow-students as well as his teachers had recognized his calling. I have a vivid memory of my first sight of Brown when I joined the class at the beginning of its senior year. He was sparring with his room-mate Davis on one of the broad , landings of the main stairs in the old seminary on University Place — a tall, well set-up fellow, glowing with the vigor of youth. My next memory is of Professor Briggs' lecture room, where we read selections from the Prophets, and of my admira- tion for Brown's proficiency in Hebrew. He seemed not only able to understand the Messianic prophecies in the way that was expected, but — what was more wonderful to one who had learned his grammar in the old tradition — he could find his place in Driver's '^ Hebrew Tenses," where the idiomatic, " Do this, and live,'' figured as a variety of the Hebrew conditional sentence. In other courses — with Professor Hitchcock in Church History, or Shedd in Theology, or Schaff in Symbolics — some might hold their own with him, but in Hebrew Brown was unrivalled. He was Professor Briggs' favorite pupil; and surely no master ever had through life a more loyal disciple or a more devoted friend. By universal consent our chief scholar, the class felt honor reflected upon it when he received the first appointment to a foreign fellowship and went to Germany to continue his studies. Students of the Old Testament were then beginning to take a keen interest in the discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia, and Brown availed himself of the opportunity to begin Assyrian in Berlin under Eberhard Schrader, who had shown how much light the inscribed monuments of Assyrian rulers might throw on the chronology and history of the Israelite kingdoms. On 14 15 Ms return to the Seminary in 1879 as Instructor in Biblical Philology, Brown gave what was, I believe, the first course in Assyrian offered in an American institution of learn- ing. But philological studies were never an interest with him for their own sake ; they were only a hand-maid to the inter- pretation of the Old Testament— which is indeed the only right they have in a theological school. In 1890, when Professor Briggs was transferred to the chair of Biblical Theology, Brown succeeded him in the professor- ship of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages. Those were stir- ring times for teachers of the Old Testament. The controver sies excited by the critical revolution associated in the popular mind with the names of Wellhausen and Eobertson Smith, and by the consequent reconstruction of the history of the religion of Israel, raged not only in the learned war of books, but in ecclesiastical tribunals, and Union Seminary was the centre of the conflict. At Berlin, where Dillmann occupied the Old Testa- ment chair, if Brown, in 1878 or '79, heard anything about the new school of critics, he certainly heard no good of them, and I take it that he came home with critical opinions, so far as he had formed any, more or less of the school of Ewald, which was then the critical tradition. Before long, however, he came in his own deliberate way to the position of what was then the new criticism and has now become in turn the tradition of the schools. Of his work as a teacher and as president of the Seminary others will speak. It is my privilege, as a student in the same field, to say a word in appreciation of his achievement as a scholar. Of the minor and more or less ephemeral publications which serve chiefly to adorn — or cumber — bibliographies he had fewer to his account than most of his contemporaries, because he had greater things to do. His enduring monument is the Hebrew Lexicon, in which his name is associated with those of Professor Briggs and Professor Driver of Oxford. Projected as a successor to Eobinson's Gesenius (1854)— for which also the English-speaking world was indebted to Union Seminary — it was thought at the outset that by a thorough revision of Eobinson, with the aid of recent editions of the "Handwor- terbuch " and other German lexicons, the venerable Gesenius, whose name had for half a century been a synonym for Hebrew 16 dictionary, could be rejuvenated and made to answer the needs of a new generation of students as well as its predecessor had served their grandfathers. When once the task was taken in hand, however, this method was abandoned as insufficient, and a plan adopted which meant nothing less than the making of a new lexicon of larger scope, based on a fresh and independent examination of all the material, so that in the end there was little more left of Gesenius or Robinson than the names which piety or the value of a trade mark left on the title page. The plan demanded not only the examination of every occur- rence of every word in the Old Testament and a concordantial completeness in the classified registration of all except the commonest words, but the mustering and recording of the results of philology (especially in the sphere of etymology), criticism, exegesis, topography and archaeology, and even of the conflict of opinion in these fields. I am sure that, in thus attempting to make the Lexicon serve several other purposes besides those of a dictionary, the senior editors, with whom the responsibility for the plan doubtless lay, can not have realized the inhuman dimensions of their undertaking, which l)rescribed a labor out of all proportion to the usefulness of the results ; but once committed to it by the publication of the first fascicle, there was no retreat. In the division of the work his fellow-editors undertook cer- tain classes or groups of words — Driver the particles, Briggs words of specifically religious associations — but the brunt of the prodigious toil fell on Brown. For upwards of twenty years he labored at it, along with all his teaching ; more than once he had to lay it aside to defend the right of a modern scholar to know more than the ancients. In those long years of drudgery, he must often have echoed the sigh of the great Joseph Scaliger which met his eye whenever he opened the '^ Handworterbuch,'^ Si quem dira manet sententia iudicis dim, Damnatum aerumnis suppliciisque caput, Hunc neque fabrili lassent ergastula massa, Nee rigidas vexent fossa metalla manus. Lexica contexat : nam cetera quid moror ? Omnes Poenarum facies hie labor unus habet. 17 But tliough he must have often been desperately weary of the interminable task, his diligence never flagged ; there is no relaxation of the thoroughness wjth which the work is done to the last page, ''ohne Hast, aber ohne East.'' The pains Brown took with his work sprang from a funda- mental honesty of character ; he could not let himself off with less than the best he could do. To this honesty belonged a judicial habit of mind. Before he gave an opinion, whether in print or in the class-room, he must have had before him all the evidence, heard all the opinions of his predecessors and weighed their arguments, and deliberately formed his conclusion with his own sound judgment and great gift of common sense. Where the evidence seemed to warrant no more, he was content to rest in a non liquet, rather than decide one way or another on indecisive considerations. His friends were sometimes in- clined to think that he carried these virtues to excess. They would have had him less careful to count the votes of commenta tors and dissertators who have not the right of suffrage in the assembly of the learned, less deferential to "authorities," more confident of his own knowledge and judgment, less modest in the estimate of his rank among scholars. But it was in the na- ture and conscience of the man to be thus and not otherwise ; and after all, scholars are not so prone ''in lowliness of mind each to esteem other better than themselves" that there is no room for an example. Among scholars, as in science, there are different types of mind. To a few is given the insight that perceives problems where others see plain facts or adequate solutions, the inven- tion that projects hypotheses and devises methods of investiga- tion, the instinct that keeps the inquiry on its true course — in a word, the creative imagination of science, which in one man in an age becomes the divination of genius. Others make their contribution to progress, not by brilliant discoveries or by striking out new lines of research, still less by epoch-making hypotheses, but by methodical investigation, testing, correcting, confirming, sux)plementing, the accumulation of facts and the theories by which they are explained, and by digesting accepted results for the common apprehension. To this larger class Pro- fessor Brown, like his co-worker and friend, Driver, with whom 18 he had so much in common, belonged. Greatly learned, method- ical, patient, judicious, I fancy that both of them, as they read the lucubrations of some of their fertile and ingenious contem- poraries, were more impressed with the dangers of the unscien- tific imagination than with the supreme scientific value of the faculty; and if they looked with wonder on that Pandora's gift, they did not covet it for themselves. The qualities of Brown's work sprang, as I have said, from the character of the man. A stranger could not be in his com- pany for half an hour without feeling that here was a man to trust completely. Intelligence, honesty and good will were written in every feature and expressed in his manly carriage. Nor could even the most casual acquaintance escape the charm of a singularly gracious manner, through which a friendly soul shyly disclosed itself. Without the least of that meretricious charm for which the cant phrase " personal magnetism " has been coined, he drew and held men to him by a stronger and more lasting attraction. Yet, though he had so many friends, I imagine that few of them felt that they were admitted to his real intimacy. It was not only a native dignity which made demonstration distasteful to him, not merely reserve of manner, the protective armor in which sensitive souls encase themselves, it was the instinctive sense of the sacredness of the inner man. But even a place in the vestibule of his friendship was more to be prized than the facile intimacies of less noble spirits. ADDEESS BY Professor Arthur C. McGiffert, D.D. Francis Brown was first and foremost a scholar, and it is as a scholar that we, his colleagues, chiefly think of him. His scholarly work has already been described and appraised by one more competent than I and I must not repeat what has been said, but I should leave a wholly false impression of our attitude toward our colleague and president did I not at the very beginning refer to the large place which his scholarship had in our estimate of him. Most of us were his students, and ever since our student days he has seemed to us an ideal scholar — careful, thorough, accurate, candid, open-minded, free from prejudice, wholly devoted to the truth. I was myself one of his pupils in the early days of his career as a teacher and I shall never cease to be grateful for what he did for me. He first introduced me to the critical study of the Kew Testament, opened my eyes to the problems involved, and threw light upon the methods to be pursued in solving them. He taught for many years both Greek and Hebrew as well as Aramaic and Assyrian, and one of the most fascinating courses of my Seminary days was in the last named subject when two or three of us had him all to ourselves. He was a fresh and stimulating teacher under whom it was a delight to work. He was at the time the youngest member of the faculty and my relations with him were more intimate than with any of his colleagues. I learned to love him as I loved few of my teachers, and my affection, like my admiration for him, steadily grew during the twenty-three years in which we worked together on the same faculty. Like countless other students who have come under him, I gained from him a new respect for scholar- ship and a new appreciation of the sternness of its demands and the graciousness of its rewards. As has been already said, the lasting monument of his scholarship is the great Hebrew Lexicon, to which he devoted nearly twenty-five years of his life. During all those years it consumed the larger part of his time and attention and kept 19 20 him from publishing other works which he had planned and which the world of Biblical scholarship could ill spare. When the Lexicon was at last finished, it was hoped that he would find opportunity to write the books we had all been wanting him to write, but all too soon he was called to the Presidency and his days of productive scholarship were over. He belonged to a family of presidents. His great grand- father, John H. Mason, was President of Dickinson College, his grandfather, Francis Brown, of Dartmouth College, and his father, Samuel Gilman Brown, of Hamilton College. He him- self was twice called to a college presidency before he became President here, but he could not be induced to leave Union. When elected our own President he would have preferred, we all knew, to remain in his professor's chair, but the Seminary needed his leadership, and, though reluctantly, he responded, as he always did, to the manifest call of duty, and for eight years we were privileged to have him as our leader. I have said that Dr. Brown was first and foremost a scholar, but he was more than a scholar, he was a man in the highest sense, a man of large calibre and of splendid parts. The very name '^ Yahweh,'' by which he was playfully known to successive generations of students, reveals the kind of impression he made upon them. A lofty and majestic figure they felt him to be ; perhaps also a little aloof and unapproachable he seemed to many of them, but if they thought of him thus they sorely misunderstood him, for no one was more interested in each of them than he, or more eager to be of personal service to them. It is true he was not a man of easy intimacies ; he was reticent and did not make friends quickly, and it often took time and effort to get beyond the barrier of his reserve, but no one ever had a kinder heart or a readier sympathy. He was particularly fond of children and they of him. They loved to be with him and never seemed in awe of him as many of their elders did. He was a tower of strength, and yet he was extraordinarily gentle, fuU of generosity and thoughtfulness, and quick to help where help was needed. He was indefatigable in his care for others. No one of our Seminary circle could be ill or in any sort of trouble without receiving daily evidences of his thought and sympathy. Though never the pastor of a church, he had the 21 pastoral instinct highly developed, and he carried constantly upon Ms heart the personal interests of the whole student community. If to see him was to honour him, to know him was to love him. For forty-two years— more than half its entire span of life- he was connected with this Seminary, as student, as Fellow, as Instructor, as Professor, and as President. With his going, almost the last link is snapped which bound the old Seminary to the new. Of my own Seminary teachers he is the last. There were still on the Board of Directors when he began his work two of the founders of the Seminary, Charles Butler and WiUiam Adams. He was a pupil and later a colleague of Wniiam Adams. Eoswell D. Hitchcock, William G. T. Shedd, George L. Prentiss, Philip Schaff and Charles A. Briggs. How these names recall old times and old scenes ! There are still one or two of us left who knew all of them, but the majority knew at most only the last named. Dr. Brown began his work in the old building on University Place. He went with the Seminary to its second home on Lenox Hill, and it was during his Presidency that it moved to this splendid site. Into every part of it he built himself, so that wherever you touch it you find the impress of his per- sonality. Long before he became President he had a leading part in the conduct of its affairs. His judgment always carried the greatest weight, and it was a common tradition among us that without his support a project had little hope of gaining the assent of the faculty as a whole. He was apt, indeed, to be a majority even if he stood alone. One of Dr. Brown's most marJ5:ed characteristics was his steadiness of purpose. He was not easily swayed and he did not quickly change ; he was least of all a rash experimentalist. He was deliberate in forming his opinions and reaching his conclusions, but when he had made up his mind he could be counted on to stand fast. And what extraordinary self-control he had ! How calm he could be when others were excited, how quiet when others were vociferous, how patient when others were in haste ! He was willing to wait. He preferred to build slowly and to build solidly. He thought in terms not of months and years merely, but of decades and generations. 22 With all the firmness which strong convictions gave him he was yet considerate of the opinions of his fellows, always slow to express dissent and always courteous if he felt he must. He had a rare modesty and a fine regard for the rights of others which made it impossible for him to be self-assertive or domineering. He was never narrow and intolerant and never insisted upon agreement in small matters. Only the large things counted with him and he sought eagerly in every con- troversy to find common ground upon which he and those who differed with him could stand. It was quite in accord with his general spirit and attitude that he interested himself actively in the cause of church unity. In company with Dr. Briggs he worked valiantly in its behalf for a number of years. He was naturally conservative in his temper and attitude. Novelty never appealed to him. He had an instinctive rever- ence for the past and a deep-rooted repugnance to the radicalism which would break completely with it. His sense of historical continuity was highly developed. To him it is due, more than to anyone else, that in the immense enlargement of recent years, and in the great changes that have taken place, our Seminary has remained so true to the spirit and ideals of its earlier days. Though a conservative by temperament he belonged to the liberal school in theology. As a Biblical scholar he was in the very van of the forward movement and he was heartily at one with the progressives in religion. He made his own the modem social emphasis and accepted unhesitatingly and without fear the radical re-interpretation of the gospel to which it has led. All this not because of any fondness for the new, but because of his large knowledge, his wide vision, and his open mind. He was an unprejudiced seeker after the true and the good, and he found them not merely in the past but in the present, and he anticipated with calm assurance the ever larger discovery of them in the future. As a result of the combination in him of the conservative and the liberal he was a bulwark of strength for every cause that he espoused, while if it came to conflict he was a magnificent leader, able to inspire confidence in men who differed widely with each other. Not only as a theologian but also as an administrator he was a genuine progressive. He was always alive to new needs and 23 new opportunities. He was heartily in sympathy, for instance, with the broadening of the Seminary's platform, which made it a truly interdenominational institution, and gave it com- plete freedom from ecclesiastical domination and theological bondage. He was one of those who rejoiced in the Seminary's removal to its present home, and in the enlarged opportunities and responsibilities given it by its close affiliation with Colum- bia University. And he was zealously enlisted in the plan for developing on a large scale advanced courses in theology, which should attract competent scholars and carry them far beyond the ordinary professional training of the minister. Of all his traits of character his faithfulness, perhaps, most impressed those who knew him well. He was faithful in little things as well as in great. Often he was more punctilious in the discharge of his duties than he needed to be and his health suffered in consequence. He insisted on doing whatever was expected of him at whatever cost. He had a conscience which would not let him slight anything or leave anything undone that he could do. No accoujit of Francis Brown would be at all true to him which failed to speak of his controlling religious interest and his deep religious character. His piety pervaded all he did, and he had a rare power of uplifting prayer. One of the remarkable things about him was the calmness and assurance of his religious faith. Free as he was in his attitude toward many traditional beliefs, he had a tremendous grip on the great verities, and the firmness of his convictions heartened many a troubled soul. His religious influence was peculiarly wholesome, for he was absolutely with- out cant, and he was not given to the use of pietistic language. His religion, indeed, was more a matter of life than of speech and there was about it no suspicion of unreality or of insin- cerity. He loved the daily service in the Chapel and was seldom absent from it. On Sunday it was his particular delight to be present and to take part in the regular morning service. There are doubtless many in the habit of attending here Sunday by Sunday who, even though they may not have known him per- sonally, feel a sense of bereavement as if a spiritual guide and pastor had been taken from them. 24 In our Seminary community, where he was known and loved best, his going has left an irreparable breach. Of our personal sorrow — the sorrow of those of us who knew him longest and most intimately — I cannot trust myself to speak. But such a man as he belongs not simply to those who walked with him and labored side by side with him ; he belongs to a wider and ever widening circle. To quote his own words, *' Death is no barrier to power;" and his death will not put an end to his influence. Through his students he has touched and will con- tinue to touch the lives of countless persons who never saw him, and so long as this institution stands his memory will not perish nor will his life cease to count. APPENDIX MINUTE ADOPTED BY THE BOAED OF DIRECTOKS OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NOVEMBER 14, 1916 Francis Brown was bom on the 26tli of December, 1849, in Hanover, New Hampshire. He was the son of the Reverend Samuel Oilman Brown, at the time Professor of Oratory and Belles Lettres in Dartmouth College, and of Sarah Van Vechten. His grandfather, Francis Brown, had been President of Dart- mouth early in the nineteenth century, and his father later became President of Hamilton, so that Dr. Brown came of presidential stock. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1870 at the head of his class and, after teaching for four years, entered Union Semi- nary, graduating in the Class of 1877. He won the Prize Fellowship, which had just been established, and went to Berlin for two years of further study, devoting himself particularly to Hebrew and the cognate languages. It is reported that at the time of his graduation from the Seminary Dr. Hitchcock re- marked at a meeting of the Board of Directors ^' That young man is the biggest sail on the horizon.^' Returning from Germany in 1879 with his bride, Louise Reiss of Berlin, he at once began work in the Seminary as Instructor in Biblical Philology. In 1881 he became Associate Professor, and in 1890, when Dr. Briggs was transferred to the newly established Edward Robinson Professorship of Biblical Theology, Dr. Brown succeeded him as Davenport Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages, a position which he held untU his death. For some years he taught in the Seminary not only Hebrew and Greek, but also Aramaic and Assyrian, being the first person in America to give instruction in the last named subject. In 1885 he published a capital little book on " Assyriology, its Use and Abuse," and in 1907 he gave the Ely Lectures on ** The Relations of Israel with Babylonia and Assyria." 25 26 From the beginning he displayed those qualities as a scholar which were to make him eminent — untiring diligence, painstaking accuracy, absolute fairness, soundness of judgment, careful weighing of evidence, caution in drawing and stating conclusions. His reputation steadily advanced until he gained recognition both at home and abroad as one of the greatest of Americans scholars. As a teacher his influence was always invigorating and wholesome, and he had the unqualified respect and con- fidence of all his students. Ko one could come under Mm without having his ideals of scholarship heightened and his conscience as a scholar quickened. In 1884 he published with Dr. Hitchcock the first American edition of the newly discovered " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,^' republished the next year in a greatly enlarged form and enriched with admirable notes for which he was chiefly responsible, as he was also for the translation. Early in the eighties, at Dr. Briggs' request, he began work upon the great Hebrew Lexicon of which he became ultimately the Editor-in-Chief. It constitutes his magnum opus and one of the greatest monuments of American scholarship. It consumed the greater part of his time and attention for more than twenty years and kept him from publishing other books which the world of Biblical scholarship could ill spare. Dr. Brown's distinction in the scholarly world was due rather to the breadth and solidity of his learning and the recog- nized soundness of his judgment than to varied and rapid productiveness. But when one realizes the stupendous amount of work that went into the preparation of the great Lexicon one must pronounce him, in spite of the few titles to his credit, one of our most productive scholars. In recognition of his scholarly attainments he was given in 1884 the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by his alma mater and of Doctor of Philosophy by Hamilton College. In later years he received academic honours in abundance ; the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Yale, Glasgow, Williams, and Harvard, Doctor of Laws from Dartmouth, and Doctor of Let- ters from Oxford, the last in especial recognition of his work upon the great Lexicon. 27 Dr. Brown was connected with many societies and actively interested in many good causes. He was a member of the American Oriental Society, the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, and the Oxford Society for Historical Theology. He was a Trustee not only of Dartmouth but also of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and one of the founders, and for many years the President of the Union Settlement. Dr. Brown was born and bred a Congregationalist, but in 1882 he was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry and for the rest of his life was a loyal Presbyterian. He was unwearying in the discharge of his duties as a presbyter, and he rendered important service in more than one period of strain in the rela- tions between the Seminary and the Presbyterian General Assembly. At the same time his sympathies and interests were confined by no denominational boundaries. For some years he worked side by side with Dr. Briggs for the cause of Church unity, and he was heartily and actively enlisted in the effort to make the platform of the Seminary truly interdenomi- national. In the spring of 1908, after the death of Dr. Cuthbert Hall, Dr. Brown, who was spending the year in Palestine as Director of the Oriental School of Study and Eesearch, was elected to the Presidency and took up his duties with the opening of the academic year in the autumn. He had already been Acting President in 1902-3 during Dr. Hall's absence in the Far East, and he brought to his task large wisdom, ripe exper- ience, intimate acquaintance with the Seminary^ s history and ideals, and the confidence not only of the Board of Directors and the Faculty but also of the whole body of students and alumni. His administration was a notable one in many respects. In 1910 the Seminary moved to the new site on Morningside Heights provided for it by the munificence of Mr. D. Willis James. During Dr. Brown's administration the endowment funds of the Seminary were greatly increased and both the faculty and student body were enlarged by more than a half. With the removal to the new site a regular Sunday morning service was started in the Chapel, of which he was permanently in charge. It was largely due to him that the service was 2S inaugurated and he always found great delight in it and counted it one of his dearest interests. In the summer of 1915 Dr. Brown suffered a severe attack of illness, and though he was loath to do so he was finally pre- vailed upon to take a year's leave of absence. It was hoped that he would thus regain his wonted health and vigour. He did act- ually return to the Seminary in September of this year intend- ing to resume his Presidential duties, but he was unable to take his i)art in the opening exercises of the term, except on Friday when he presided at the devotional meeting of faculty and students, and on Sunday morning when he conducted the service in the Seminary Chapel. On the fourth of October he went to Dartmouth, where he was a Trustee, to induct the new President into office. A friend who was there reports that the address he made on that occasion was the finest thing he had ever heard from Dr. Brown, but the effort proved too great and upon his return he went at once to bed not to get up again. It was known that he was in a serious condition but no one imagined that the end was so near and his death came as a great shock to all that knew him. He is survived by Mrs. Brown, by a son, Julius Arthur Brown, Professor of Physics in the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and by two daughters, one the wife of the Eeverend James McClure Henry of the Canton Union Theological College in Canton, China, the other the wife of the Reverend Otis Tiffany Barnes, pastor of the Reformed Church at Bronxville, New York. Both the sons-in-law are alumni of the Seminary and Mr. Henry is at present, while at home on his furlough, an Assistant in the department of Systematic Theology. In this brief and formal Minute it is impossible to speak adequately of Dr. Brown's personality and character, ffls wisdom, his sanity, his clarity of vision, his justice, his absolute truthfulness, his untiring faithfulness in things both great and small, his broad-mindedness, his complete freedom from cen- soriousness and bitterness, his unfailing courtesy, his inex- haustible reserves of quiet power — these were recognized by all. He was a man of large and massive mould, a man of rare balance and self control, a man to honour, to follow, to depend upon. That he was also a man of warmest feeling and deepest affection 29 perhaps not all realized, for he was reticent and never carried his heart upon his sleeve. But those who knew him best know how he loved his friends and how they loved him. The depth of his religious nature was also perhaps not known to all as it was to those most closely associated with him. His piety, simple, wholesome, unaffected, but constant and pervasive, was a benediction to all that came into intimate relations with him, and with all his sympathy with the modern point of view and his own activity in defending and promoting it, his faith was extraordinarily firm and unwavering — a rock to build upon in times of uncertainty and doubt. In putting upon record tlieir esteem and affection for President Brown and their own sense of loss in his death, the members of this Board desire also to express their deep sympathy with the sorrowing members of his family and to commend them to the God of all comfort and grace. MINUTE ADOPTED BY THE FACULTY OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINAEY, OCTOBER 18, 1916. We meet under the shadow. At ten o'clock on Sunday even- ing, October 15, 1916, our beloved friend and trusted leader, Francis Brown, after a brief illness, the seriousness of which we had scarcely had time to appreciate, fell on sleep. It seems only yesterday that he met with us in the chapel to lead our thought in the opening service of prayer. We cannot even yet quite bring ourselves to believe that when we meet there tomorrow, or the day after, he will not be there to render this high service for us again. Under these circumstances we cannot be expected to bring to the duty of the hour the detachment of spirit which the just appraisement of a human life would seem to require. Dr. Brown was so much a part of Union Seminary ; he had so lived himself into its life, so incarnated its spirit ; he so interpreted its ideals to the imagination of those who touched him, that the very air of the place is redolent of his personality. We have known him for periods longer or shorter ; we have touched him with vary- ing degrees of intimacy — it may be said without fear of contra- diction that there is not one of us who, if we were asked to 30 define what Union Seminary at its best meant to him, but would answer, a type of character like that of Francis Brown. On the facts of his life we can touch lightly, for they are a part of the public record of American scholarship. He was born at Hanover, New Hampshire, on December 26, 1849. His father was Samuel Oilman Brown, a professor in Dartmouth College, who afterward became President of Hamilton College; his mother was Sarah Van Yechten. Two sisters and a brother survive him. He was graduated from Dartmouth in 1870 and received its M. A. in 1873; its D.D. in 1884, and its LL.D. in 1901. In 1905 he became a trustee of his alma mater. Higher honor still she would have paid him had he permitted. More than once he was offered the presidency of the college. It cost him a severe struggle to see his duty, but the call was declined and his con- nection with the Seminary remained unbroken. But though Union was first in his affections, Dartmouth remained a close second. The last public act he performed was his visit to Dartmouth on the occasion of the inauguration of her latest president. Dr. Hopkins, to whom he had the happiness of speaking words of counsel and encouragement, which Dart- mouth men will hold in their memories as a priceless legacy. He entered this Seminary in 1874, where he came under the spell of Dr. Briggs and formed that friendship rare and roman- tic as that of Jonathan and David, which was thereafter to become one of the determining influences of his life. Oraduat- ing in 1877 as Fellow, he went to Berlin where he spent two years in linguistic and biblical studies under Dilhnann and Weiss. He returned to the Seminary in 1879 as Instructor in the Biblical Department. Two years later he became Asso. ciate Professor in the Department of Bibbcal Philology, a position which he held until 1890 when he was appointed Davenport Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages, the Chair which he occupied at his death. In 1908, on the death of Dr. Hall, he was chosen President of the Faculty and stepped into the position of leadership for which aU his prev- ious training had qualified him. The choice came to him in the ripeness of his years. Already once before in 1902-3 he had served as Actiug President during 31 the absence of Dr. Cuthbert Hall on his first lectureship in India, but long before that his rare wisdom and unrivalled knowledge of the history of the Seminary had given him an authority with his colleagues to which official position could add little. When Dr. Briggs was tried for heresy, Dr. Brown acted as his official counsel and constant advisor, and his lead- ership during our more recent controversies with the Presby- terian General Assembly is too fresh in all our minds to need reference here. Of Dr. Brown's scholarship it is superfluous to speak in this place. Its monument is the dictionary to which, in collabora- tion with Dr. Briggs and Dr. Driver, he consecrated twenty- three years of his life. What an infinity of patient labor he brought to it! What rigorous determination never to be satis- fied with anything less than the best possible, those of us who lived closest to him during those years of unremitting toil know best. What his fellow scholars thought of him appears from the honors they paid him. Besides his degrees from Dartmouth he received the Ph.D. from Hamilton; the Doctor of Letters from Oxford, and the D.D. from Tale, Glasgow, WiUiams and Harvard. He was a member of and valued contributor to many learned societies : the American Oriental Society, the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, the Oxford Society for Historical Theology, as well as of Phi Beta Kappa. He spent the year 1907-08 in Jerusalem as Director of the American School of Oriental Study and Eesearch. Apart from the dictionary his name is associated with few published works and these, with a single exception, in collaboration with others. A study of Assyriology : its Uses and Abuses, appeared in 1885. In the same year he was joint editor with Dr. Hitchock of an edition of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. In 1902 he joined with Drs. McGiffert and Knox in publishing a group of essays entitled, The Christian Point of Yiew. Other work he had in contemplation : a con- temporary history of Israel, and a commentary on Ejngs, but the needed time and leisure were denied him. The best of him- self he put into his addresses on Seminary occasions, and it is earnestly to be hoped that these, with such other material as his family may find available, may be gathered into a volume 32 or volumes for the use of liis colleagues, his pupils and his friends. To his pupils Dr. Brown was a constant example of that thoroughness which is the first as it must always remain the characteristic virtue of the scholar. What was slipshod he could not abide. To some his insistence on detail was almost pedantic, till closer contact revealed a breadth of ^dsion and warmth of feeling by which his research was informed and inspired. It was the man back of the scholar who tied his pupils to him, and the bond tightened instead of weakening as the years went on. His acquaintance with the alumni of the Seminary was large, his knowledge of their lives a constant sur- prise. They loved, admired and trusted him to a man, and there is not a quarter of the globe today to which the news of his death will not bring a sense of personal sorrow as well as of public loss. Dr. Brown was a good churchman. A member of the Presby- terian church, he brought to his duties as presbyter accurate knowledge and unremitting fidelity. He came early to meetings and stayed to the end. He spoke seldom but always to the point. He was at his best in time of crisis. Those who heard him at Atlanta and again at Eochester when the issue between the Seminary and the Assembly was under debate will not soon forget the impression he made. From a hostile Assembly he won respect and even admiration. Both speeches won converts. Seldom has a good cause found a worthier advocate. But Dr. Brown^s churchmanship, though loyal, was never sectarian. He was a Presbyterian because he believed Presby- terianism to be a part of the church of Christ, but it was Christ who had his primary allegiance. In his theology he was con servative, using that word in the best sense. He saw things in their large perspective ; he had the historian's vision. He was not afraid of change, but he valued most the things of which he could be sure that they would last. This breadth of vision inspired his interest in Church unity. Loyal to his own branch of the church, he longed for the day when the divided members of the body of Christ should be reunited. It was a desire to which he often recurred — notably 33 in a paper read at Chi Alpha, a ministerial circle of which he was one of the oldest and most devoted members. Much as he loved the church, he never forgot the world. A scholar by training and sympathy, he had the social vision. He believed in a gospel that was meant for the whole man, and he was wiUing to go wherever that faith might lead him. His social sympathy found practical outlet in his relation to Union Settlement, of which he was one of the founders and for many years the president. Of all his interests none lay nearer to his heart. Again and again he found refreshment from care in touching the lives of the men and women who were laying their lives close to the city's need. It was to him the type of what Christianity ought to be doing every day and everywhere. Dr. Brown married on August 7, 1879, Louise Keiss of Berlin. Of their three children, Julius Arthur, Natalie de Froideville and Elizabeth Oilman, one is a Professor in the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, of which Dr. Brown was a Director; the second married the Eev. James M. Henry, a missionary under the Presbyterian Board and Professor in the Canton Union Theological College, in China, at Canton; and the third married the Eev. Otis T. Barnes, pastor of the Eeformed Church, at Bronxville. Both sons-in-law are alumni of the Seminary. Such in briefest outline is the outward story of the man of whose service to this Seminary we desire here to make grateful record. Yet how little of what he meant and means to us can such a Minute express. It is one of the characteristics of the relation which binds us in this Seminary that to the personal ties which unite us man to man, there is an added quality which springs from our common allegiance to the one great cause. It is not merely a friend we have lost or a companion ; it is a fellow soldier, a trusted comrade on whom we could rely. How much and in how many ways we shall miss him! First of all his strength — that is the first and outstanding impression as we think of him. He stood erect, foursquare, a massive fig- ure looking you in the eye. He was a man on whom you could lean and feel sure that he would not shake. This was true even of his physical appearance. An artist who had had occasion to paint his portrait once said, "Dr. Brown's head is everything that a human head should be." It 34 was a symbol of his entire personality. He was strong of mind, a wise man; strong in character, a good man. And withal he had the tenderest of hearts. This was a quality in him of which one learned only gradually and came upon with a sense of surprise. He loved deeply, even passionately. He was jealous for the welfare of the ones he loved. It hurt him to see them suffer — all the more if their suffering was moral. But tenderness never obscured his sense of fairness. Of all the men we have ever known none was more scrupulously just. He was just to others, and, what is harder and rarer, just even to himself. He was modest, yet without undue self -depreciation. He brought the scholar's mind to bear upon the moral values of life. He measured all things great and little by the stand- ard of the eternal. This made him patient, but it made him exacting too. He was willing to wait but never to go back. From others, as from himself, he required the forward look. At the root of all lay his faith in God. This was the explan- ation of all the rest — strength, tenderness, wisdom, justice. He drank at hidden springs ; he drew on reserves open to those only who have learned to pray. In a sense in which that can be truly said of few men, he was a holy man, a man consecrate, set apart. To us he was in fact as well as in our familiar speech, ^^St. Francis." He walked with God, and his face revealed what he saw. He talked with God and God answered him. For him religion was communion, first with God, then with Christ who has revealed God; finally with his fellows in Christ's service. He had the gift rare among men of making his aspira- tion Godward vocal. When he prayed doubt was banished and the unseen became real, and Christ's service the simplest and most obvious thing in the world. We shall always love to think that the last time we had him with us in public was in the place he loved best and in the act which we shall always associ- ate with him as most characteristic. Our teacher in many things, we shall remember him most often and most gratefully as our teacher in prayer. Of the many utterances in which he has expressed his ideal for the Seminary he loved we may select this as typical. It forms the conclusion of one of the sermons, all too rare, which he preached in the Seminary chapel. He had been speaking of 35 the social aspects of the gospel, of the range and sweep and glory of God's purpose for the world, and he concludes as follows : ^^I should like to ask you not to forget as you come here from time to time that this chapel belongs to an institu- tion which exists to train men to preach this gospel. Will you remember in your praying to beg God to help us to train them and to train them himself through abundant knowledge, and especially through deep acquaintance with him in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, to utter a message as personal and universal as his love is." May we not take these words as his personal message to us today ?