I 
 
 BX 7260 .P62 W66 1867 
 Woolsey, Theodore Dwight, 
 
 1801-1889. 
 Memorial of Noah Porter, D 
 
I 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 OF 
 
 NOAH PORTER, D. D. 
 
 LATE OF 
 
 F^RMI:^^aTo:Is^, conn. 
 
 COMPRISING THE DISCOURSES OF 
 
 PRES. T. D. WOOLSET, REV. LEVI L. PALSTE, 
 
 AND 
 
 HORACE BUSHNELL, D. D., 
 
 OCCASIONED BY fflS DEATH. 
 
 PARMINGTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL S. COWLES. 
 18G7. 
 
FUISrER^L ADDRESS, 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D. D. 
 
 President of Yale College. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive 
 in 2014 
 
 littps://arcliive.org/details/memorialofnoalipoOOwool 
 
PRIITCETCr.T 
 Rto. StP ibou 
 
 thsologica: 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 I APPEAR before you to-day, my friends and fellow- 
 Christians, with the feeling that it is a high privOege 
 and honor to stand in this pulpit and give my testimony 
 to the worth of the venerable man who is now no more. 
 I feel also that it is a duty I owe to the memory of one 
 with whom I was most pleasantly associated during the 
 sixteen years when we were together members of the 
 Corporation of Yale College. Still more, a long inti- 
 macy with his son, who is traveling across the water to 
 recover health and strength after exhaustive labors, 
 persuades me that there is a certain propriety in my 
 paying a public tribute of respect to a father whom he 
 so much reveres. And yet may I not say that I come 
 here with embarrassment, partly because I fail in that 
 minute and circumstantial knowledge which is so im- 
 portant on occasions like tliese, and partly because you 
 all know the venerable man at whose funeral we are 
 gathered, so well, that you need no description of his 
 life and character, and because you honor him with 
 such unqualified honor, that he needs no eulogy. 
 There is something very peculiar in this case. Here 
 
6 
 
 is a man who has lived eighty years among you. Your 
 fathers, your grandfathers, knew him. He has acquired 
 a traditionary character. He is known by you as well 
 as the rocks you look at from your windows, or the 
 stream that enriches your meadows. Is there any 
 doubt in your minds what Dr. Porter was, or any mis- 
 givings as to his main principles of life, or has the view 
 taken of him a generation ago changed in any respect, 
 except in becoming more and more confirmed ? And 
 was there not in the man himself a stability, an even 
 growth, a placid flow of character, so that the compan- 
 ions of the young man, and the parishioners of his 
 middle life, and the friends of his declining years, if 
 they could all be assembled together, would utter one 
 common voice in regard to him ? Nay, more, would 
 not the old men of his youthful pastorate, and the 
 young men of his old age speak one and the same lan- 
 guage? — expressing thus the estimate of him, enter- 
 tained by five or even six generations of such as have 
 seen him in daily life. Now when his character is seen 
 thus to rest on an immovable rock, and when his repute 
 has not veered for sixty years, there is an unbroken 
 testimony for him a thousand times stronger than any- 
 thing that a man may say. Why then say anything ? 
 Why not commit him to the grave amid the unex- 
 pressed memories of multitudes who are certain, every 
 one of them, that every other pays him an unquestion- 
 ing tribute of reverence? Why should not sacred 
 silence reign here rather than the words of a mortal, 
 and joy that a life so bright has set so blessedly, and 
 
7 
 
 love for the man who generations long has shed his 
 placid influences on this favored spot ? Such is my 
 feeling, such must be yours. And the feeling would be 
 justified, were it not that in expressing our feelings we 
 honor the man, we seek to honor the Master who 
 placed him in the ministry, we disclose our thankful- 
 ness to God for such a life so long continued, we utter 
 with a common voice our testimony to the value of 
 that holy Gospel that can make men means of so much 
 good, and can so round off the character. 
 
 The lives of some men are subjected to a great vari- 
 ety of formative influences, so that many sides of the 
 character are cultivated at once, or it may be that sin- 
 ister impulses from one quarter are simply repelled and 
 neutralized by opposing causes. Dr. Porter's life nei- 
 ther had nor needed such diversified influences. His 
 simplicity of nature was unfolded under the sway of 
 simple circumstances ; he was Uke a plant which trans- 
 plantation will not improve, which can thrive best 
 under the genial and wonted influences of its native 
 soil. Born in 1781, in this tranquil spot, the descend- 
 ant of ancestors who had here lived religious lives since 
 1652, when one of them was among the first settlers of 
 the town, and the first founders of this church, the son 
 of a father who " was many years one of its deacons," 
 baptized here in his infancy, he looked forward to no 
 other life than that of a farmer, to which his ancestors 
 had been devoted. His father placed him in his early 
 youth in the family of the Eev. Mr. Washburn, then 
 the minister of the parish, to pass a winter with him 
 
'8 
 
 for the completion of his education. Then it was, if I 
 am not deceived, that he had those quiet but effectual 
 religious impressions which led him to seek admission 
 into the church. His pastor, seeing in him the power 
 and the spirit to serve God in the ministry, persuaded 
 him to consecrate himself to the sacred calling. His 
 father was averse to this change in his plan of life, as 
 involving almost of course a separation from the place 
 of his nativity and his home. " It was," to adopt his 
 own words, " in a conflict of feelings between a desire 
 for the ministry and a sense of obligation to his parents 
 in their declining age, that he was induced " to abandon 
 plans which had been formed for him, and to the fulfill- 
 ment of which he had looked forward. This, perhaps, 
 was the crisis of his life, involving, it may be, more 
 struggle than would be gathered from his own calm 
 words. But the problem of Providence was soon 
 worked out in a way that none of the parties dreamed 
 of The son, obeying the command of God like Abra- 
 ham, was not called to a long separation from those 
 who were unwilling that he should leave them. The 
 minister who had led him to his new profession was 
 disabled and died just as he was ready to preach the 
 gospel, and as Mr. Washburn died, he was called to be 
 his successor. The father recovered him, enlarged in 
 gifts, to be a spiritual friend and comforter. 
 
 The years between his determination to enter the 
 ministry and his call to the pulpit in his native town, 
 passed quickly by in the work of preparatory disci- 
 pline. How faithfully he studied when in college, and 
 
9 
 
 what confidence he inspired in himself, may be gath- 
 ered from the fact that he delivered the valedictory 
 oration of his class at the public commencement of 
 1803, and that in 1806 he was selected as the first from 
 his class for the office of tutor. This office he declined, 
 and it was only a few weeks afterward that he was called 
 by Providence to become the pastor of this chm'ch. 
 
 That he should be called, so soon after being licensed 
 as a preacher of the gospel, to the church in his native 
 town, is surely no slight proof of the confidence reposed 
 in his talents, his gifts as a sermonizer, and his piety. 
 But that he should continue to enjoy the respect and 
 love of those who had known him as a boy, that he 
 should for once belie the old proverb that a prophet is 
 without honor in his own country, that he should be 
 able to retain this respect and love through an unbro- 
 ken ministry of fifty-five years, until he was supplied 
 with a colleague, that he should until nearly the age 
 of eighty-five, like some grand old tree, of which no one 
 now remembers the beginnings, be the object of the 
 regards of all passers hy.—this indeed, in our tune of 
 removals and short ministerial lives, is something re- 
 markable. At his death, he was the oldest minister in 
 Connecticut, the father of the clergy. In his half-cen- 
 tury discourse he thus expresses hunself, after speaking 
 of the goodness of God in givmg him a field of labor 
 so much to his mind : "I have [also] reason to admire 
 his goodness in having continued me in it so long, and 
 enabled me to prosecute my work in it with so little 
 interruption. Fifty years, with the intermission of 
 
10 
 
 only a few weeks, some by sickness and some by nec- 
 essary absence, I have gone out and come in among 
 you. Few men live so long ; fewer preach so long ; 
 and very few do this statedly so long in the same 
 charge. [None, he might have added, in the place 
 where they were born and brought up.] I believe 
 there is not at present another pastor in Connecticut 
 who was ordained before me and has the sole charge 
 of the church in which he was first installed." And 
 this in his humility he ascribes to the fact that " the 
 people have been more stable, and that leading men here 
 have been deeply impressed with the importance of a 
 stable ministry, and have been disposed to bear and 
 forbear that they might secure it." Very possibly, but 
 has not the minister himself much to do with the sta- 
 bility of the people, or could a man of a character just 
 the reverse of his have kept so long the confidence 
 which he had at first attracted. 
 
 And what was the success of Dr. Porter's ministry ? 
 It was such that he might well, as he looked back upon 
 his career from the last years of his life, give thanks to 
 the chief Shepherd that he had taken him into his ser- 
 vice, and given him the care of souls. It was such 
 that this Christian church may well give thanks to the 
 chief Shepherd that he assigned to his servant this 
 field of labor, and brought him into connection with 
 this flock. It is true that since Dr. Porter began his 
 ministry two churches, those of Unionville and Plain- 
 ville, having been formed out of the mother church in 
 the village of Farmington, the number of attendants 
 
11 
 
 at public worship has been reduced one-half, so that in 
 later times a much less number of souls has been under 
 his charge. It is true, also, that for the first fifteen 
 years of his pastorate, from 1806 to 1821, the church 
 hardly held its own, the number of admissions not 
 being quite equal to the number of removals and 
 of deaths. It is true, again, that many who were for a 
 time under his influence, emigrated to other parts of 
 the country, and no longer felt the power of his life 
 and preaching. But the blessing that has accompanied 
 his labors has been great and permanent : if the church 
 is not so strong as it was when the population of a 
 much larger district met in this place, it has yet sent 
 out its colonies to strengthen the kingdom of Christ ; 
 it has sent out its sons to diffuse the gospel here 
 taught through all parts of this land. The first marked 
 success of Dr. Porter's preaching was in 1821, a year 
 of blessings from God to many churches, when not 
 less. than two hundred and fifty converts were the fruit 
 of the labors of the pastor and of Mr Nettleton, and 
 two hundred and thirty-four made a profession of reli- 
 gion in this house. Of these, to use Dr. Porter's own 
 words, " a large proportion were heads of families, and 
 of the most wealthy, intelligent and influential in 
 the congregation. The moral aspect of society, and 
 more especially in this village, was wonderfully changed. 
 Prayer and praise were heard in almost every house, 
 quarrels were settled, animosities were healed. Christian 
 unity and fellowship were the bond of social life, and 
 zeal for the spread of the gospel and the conversion of 
 
12 
 
 men to God called forth the activities of hundreds who 
 had been alive only to their private, worldly interests." 
 
 This was the most marked blessing on Dr. Porter's 
 work as a minister. But from this time onward, until 
 he closed his ministry, the showers of grace were fre- 
 quent. In 1826, the youth in the Academy came un- 
 der the sway of divine truth, and twenty-five made a 
 profession of religion not long afterward. In 1828, a 
 revival penetrated into one part of the town, and thir- 
 ty-seven were received into the church as its fruits. 
 The revival of 1831, brought forty into the church ; in 
 1834, fifty were received ; in 1838, ninety-four ; in 
 1840, twenty-five ; in 1843, ninety-seven ; in 1851, 
 fifty-five. In all, up to that last year, eight hundred 
 and sixty-six were gathered into the fold of Christ, a 
 great host for one man to be the instrument in leading 
 to God and to salvation. Many of these are still here 
 to testify to the reahty of God's work, and the fidelity 
 of the pastor ; not a few who are gone forth to a dis- 
 tance from their early home, remember this as the 
 birthplace of their souls, and our venerated friend as 
 their spiritual father; but the majority are gone before 
 him, and who can tell the joy of those recognitions, of 
 that interchange of love, of that Christian fellowship 
 between the glorified Christian and the instrument of 
 his salvation, that must cheer and brighten the heav- 
 enly world. 
 
 The doctrines which Dr. Porter taught, and by which 
 he won souls for Christ, were the same old doctrines 
 which were preached in this church since it was built, 
 
13 
 
 and in New England since it was settled, the doctrines 
 in substance of Edwards, as interpreted by Dr. Dwight, 
 whom Dr. Porter, as his instructor and friend, held in 
 the highest honor. They were in short the doctrines 
 of a mild Calvinism, as modified by the New England 
 divines of the former days, when theology was studied 
 as the highest of the sciences, with the utmost earnest- 
 ness and concentration of thought. Yet, as there are 
 two schools, even in New England, it is proper to say 
 that he agreed through the middle and decline of his 
 life, on the whole, with his friend, Dr. Taylor, in his 
 philosophy of Christian truth. In fact, his own opinions 
 changed in some slight degree as he grew in years, just 
 as those of Dr. Taylor were, in some minor points, 
 deviations from the scheme of Dr. Dwight. Of this 
 change Dr. Porter in his half-century discourse gives us 
 so instructive an account that I cannot forbear to quote 
 a somewhat long passage relating to this subject. 
 
 " There are points of doctrine," says he, " which have 
 been variously expounded in this church, as in other 
 churches of New England, in the progress of two cen- 
 turies. At the opening of our records is a catechism, 
 which seems to have been adopted by the church at its 
 formation, as a confession of faith. According to it, 
 'Adam's transgression is imputed to his posterity,' by 
 which ' they are liable to eternal misery.' ' The sin of 
 mankind is of two kinds, original and actual.' ' Origi- 
 nal sin is the swerving of their whole nature from the 
 law of God.' 'Actual sin is the swerving of all their 
 actions from his law.' ' Justification is the imputation 
 
14 
 
 of Christ's righteousness to the believer.' ' The righte- 
 ousness of Christ is two-fold, his active and his passive 
 obedience ! ' ' His active obedience is that wherein he 
 fulfilled all righteousness — his performing all the duties 
 required in the law.' ' His passive obedience is that 
 wherein he fulfilled all the sufferings that the breach 
 of the law required.' ' Man by nature cannot believe 
 of himself These forms of doctrine have their foun- 
 dation in truth ; yet there are few of us, if any, who 
 could give our assent to them without explanation and 
 qualification. As forms, they have gradually and with- 
 out controversy, been dropped, both in the standing 
 confessions of the church and the teachings of the pul- 
 pit. Silently, under better light, they have given 
 place to others more correspondent with the simplicity 
 of the Gospel, and more commending themselves to 
 the conscience. Shades of them have indeed reached 
 our own times ; were received by myself, as I had been 
 taught, and were adopted and preached in some of my 
 earlier discourses, together with certain theories of re- 
 generation, and certain explanations of the reasons of 
 the counsels of God in the permission of sin, and of his 
 sovereignty in election and reprobation, for which, on 
 careful examination since, I have found no warrant in 
 the Scriptures, and the preaching of which, I greatly 
 fear, was a stumbling block to certain hearers, whose 
 prejudices against the truth I deplored. As it has been 
 I suppose it will be. While I am sure that the scheme 
 of doctrine which I have preached, is for substance the 
 same as has been preached here from the beginning, 
 
15 
 
 and is the true Gospel of the grace of God, I cannot 
 presume that those who will come after me will not 
 jBnd in it mistakes, if not as great as we see in the 
 preaching of the former times, yet such as mar the 
 purity and obstruct the power of ' the truth as it is in 
 Jesus ; ' for as Baxter quaintly but forcibly says: ' the 
 word of God is divine, but our mode of dispensing it is 
 human, and there is scarcely anything we have the hand- 
 ling of, but we leave on it the prints of our fingers.' But 
 while I say this, it is due to myself and to the truth of 
 God to say, that in the burden of my preaching, I have 
 not come to you doubtfully, with opinions and argu- 
 ments of my own, but I have come to you ' declaring 
 the testimony of God,' — referring you to his word for 
 my authority, and to your own sense of its import as 
 my witness, — that your faith might not stand in the 
 wisdom of man, but in the power of God, assured that 
 whatever imperfection there may be in our reasonings, 
 there can be none in his word." 
 
 What noble words are these ! how full of manliness, 
 modesty and freedom ; how ready he is to confess to 
 slight changes of religious philosophy in the course of 
 a long life ; how tolerant of the opposing sentiments of 
 others ; how sensible that there may be errors remaining 
 in his own system, which wiser generations will discard, 
 yet how sure that he has built on the foundation other 
 than which no man can lay ; how inclined to test a 
 theology by the practical effects of its doctrines on the 
 consciences of men, and yet how submissive in the end 
 to the authority of Scripture, which is all perfect as the 
 
16 
 
 sun, too perfect for our limited faculties to grasp and 
 to unfold without stripping it of part of its glory. 
 
 The method of sermonizing which Dr. Porter adopted 
 in the first years of his ministry, was, so far as I am 
 able to ascertain, that which prevailed in New England 
 when he began to preach. His discourses were at that 
 time theological and formal, such as his people would 
 naturally expect to hear and he would naturally at 
 that time regard as most calculated to do good to the 
 souls of men. In connection with the gradual change 
 in his way of presenting and vindicating the gospel, he 
 had recourse to a freer method which allowed of more 
 illustration and a wider range of topics, and was less 
 technical in the exhibition of doctrinal truth. In the 
 later portion of his ministerial life, during the last twen- 
 ty-five years, by reading Neander's life of Christ, and 
 other similar works, he acquired a new interest in bibli- 
 cal study, and in the results of historical interpretation. 
 This refreshed his mind and furnished new matter for 
 his sermons, which after this were richer, more instruc- 
 tive, more complete in every respect. Throughout his 
 ministry his style was simple and chaste. With the 
 capacity of becoming a finished preacher after the best 
 rhetorical model, he deliberately chose that manner of 
 writing and of exhibiting truth, which in his judgment 
 seemed most fitted to do good to his hearers. I re- 
 member long ago to have heard that in the first years 
 of his ministry he found himself inclined to reach after 
 beauty and finish of style, but carefully restrained him- 
 self in favor of great simphcity and directness. Prac- 
 
17 
 
 tical usefulness was his constant aim, as was manifest 
 in the adaptation of his discourses to the state of his 
 parish, in his bold and faithful rebukes of prevailing 
 sins, in the suitableness of his personal applications of 
 truth. He was earnest and often rose into a fine un- 
 studied eloquence. 
 
 Dr. Porter in an eminent sense made his pastoral and 
 pulpit labors his life work. Being engrossed by this, 
 he found small leisure for reading ; he seldom wrote 
 for the press ; he was very rarely absent from home, 
 even on public religious occasions; he found attention 
 to his land to be so much of a burden that he was com- 
 pelled to throw it off from his shoulders, and he never 
 gave himself to mere relaxation. He always appeared 
 in the pulpit with a written discourse ; always, I say, 
 until the last year of his life, when once or twice he 
 ventured on extemporaneous addresses. And yet his 
 unwritten remarks, on other occasions, were full of 
 variety, richness of thought, and tender Christian 
 feeling. 
 
 As a pastor, Dr. Porter was laborious, systematic, 
 wholly devoted to his work, a father to his people of 
 every condition down to the lowest. In the early years 
 of his ministry, before the churches in Unionville and 
 Plainville took off a part of his parishioners from the 
 mother church, his pastoral charge was particularly 
 heavy, the rides through his parish were l©ng, and the 
 population of whom he had the spiritual oversight was 
 large. But he shrunk not from the work, nor neglected 
 3 
 
18 
 
 it. In middle life he met his people in the lecture-room 
 on Sunday evening, after the two discourses in the 
 church; Monday evening was devoted to the holding 
 of a meeting in one of the outer districts of the town, 
 and on Wednesday evening there was another meeting 
 at the centre of the parish. He visited all the schools 
 and catechised the children. He took an interest in 
 the Academy, and in all the young persons who were 
 gathered in Farmington for their education. He was 
 most faithful in visiting the sick ; knew everybody, and 
 befriended the poor and the destitute. In January last 
 he called upon all the people of the village, rich and 
 poor. During the summer he made stated visits to a 
 cluster of very poor and ignorant people in one part of 
 the town in order to instruct them in the things of the 
 Gospel. Probably few ministers of his time, as pastors 
 and preachers, have been more successful, more faithful, 
 or more laborious. 
 
 Success like his, and a hold such as he had on his 
 people for so long a life, seems to suppose not only in- 
 tellectual, but moral and spiritual qualities of a high 
 order. 
 
 He was a man of decided ability, of a mind well 
 developed in all its powers, of good reasoning and in- 
 tuitive faculties, of an excellent taste and a sound 
 judgment, with a thirst for knowledge which did not 
 permit him to stagnate even in old age. But his qual- 
 ities of character were more rare and beautiful. He 
 had great modesty and humility in his estimate of him- 
 self, which kept him as remote from self-consciousness 
 
19 
 
 and vanity as possible. Ho bad an artless, simple, un- 
 pretending character, with no trickery or finesse about 
 it. He was a man of uncommon mildness and meek- 
 ness of temper, disposed to yield to others rather than 
 to force his claims upon them, not easily irritated by 
 opposition, nor losing his self-control, willing to com- 
 promise rather than to enter into a conihct. He was 
 not indeed the man to head an aggressive movement ; 
 he was more like the Apostle John than like Paul, more 
 like Melancthon than hke Luther, and if, when duty 
 imperatively demanded it, he could overcome the mild- 
 ness of his nature, yet it was not without a force put 
 upon lumself. He appeared to have no love of power, 
 nor strong desire of personal distinction, nor jealousy, 
 nor pride. If any of these quahties were in him by 
 nature, grace had rooted them out. 
 
 And what a genial character did that grace make 
 him — how loving, how hopeful, how forbeatring, how 
 mild in rebuke, how earnest for the welfare of Christ's 
 cause, how pure and holy. You who heard him and 
 knew what he was in private, who heard him in aU 
 moods and "frames of mind, and saw him in a great 
 variety of situations, you can best testify what a calm, 
 even, placid life of godliness was his. You young 
 people, removed from him by age and the changes of 
 society, can testify how he inspired mingled love and 
 reverence in a high degree ; you will say, I am confi- 
 dent, that few old persons you have seen have been 
 more lovely than he, that few old Christians have shone 
 with so soft and mild a light. 
 
20 
 
 } 
 
 His excellence caused him to be widely known and 
 honored beyond the bounds of his parish, as, for in- 
 stance, in the neighboring churches, in the councils of 
 religious societies, and in the corporation of Yale Col- 
 lege. Of this last body he was a member for thirty- 
 nine years, and of its most important committee for a 
 portion of that period. Here I saw him frequently, and 
 the same meek, gentle character which he manifested 
 elsewhere was conspicuous here also. I never saw him 
 discomposed or irritated in debate, never disturbed by 
 opposition, never other than the gentlest and kindest 
 of men. 
 
 And with such a temper so sanctified by the power 
 of grace, amid scenes so congenial, with so much more 
 than ordinary success attending his labors, he lived a 
 quiet, happy life. Providence, too, had exempted him 
 from the domestic afflictions to which almost every life 
 so protracted is exposed, — he did not outlive his family. 
 Every child he ever had is still living, and he has had 
 comfort in them all. But old age was stealing on him. 
 It was harder for him to hear than formerly, and at 
 length even eye-sight began to fail. It was time to 
 withdraw from one and another of the relations of the 
 outward world. In his beautiful half-century sermon 
 of 1856, he contemplates throwing part of his work 
 upon a colleague. In 1862, he insisted, against the 
 wishes of his associates, on leaving the Corporation of 
 Yale College, on account of his deafness, and already 
 the year before, was a colleague found acceptable to 
 him and to the people. How gracefully he retired 
 
21 
 
 from a part, and at length from nearly all his ministe- 
 rial labor ; with Avhat a fatherly spirit he met his young 
 associate ; how httle he wanted to keep the authority 
 of a minister after the active functions were resigned, 
 it was beautiful to behold. In his old age life and 
 sympathy were still fresh. He read new books, he felt 
 an active interest as well in private as in public events, 
 he entered earnestly into the great struggle of our 
 country, and rejoiced in the issue. He was hopeful, 
 cheerful, happy in life, with no anxieties as he looked 
 forward. And so he died peacefully away, not permit- 
 ted, indeed, by his disease to know that death was 
 nigh, or to express his hope, but in calmness of spirit, 
 and with little bodily pain. 
 
 " So gently shuts the eye of day ; 
 So dies a wave along the shore." 
 
 And now is not the natural lesson taught by such a 
 life that which is suggested by one of the last verses of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews : " Whose faith follow, con- 
 sidering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ 
 the same yesterday, to-day and forever." The refer- 
 ence here is to rulers in the church, or elders, who had 
 been removed by death from their earthly labors, and 
 whose hves were fresh in the recollection of their flock. 
 Jesus Christ, the unchangeable author of an unalter- 
 able faith, was the life-giving fountain from which their 
 permanent character was derived. And if from this 
 same fountain our departed friend and father drew his 
 Christian strength, as we have no doubt that he did, 
 
22 
 
 then follow ye him. Let his youthful colleague follow 
 him, as one who has been privileged in being brought 
 into intimate relations with so Christian a man. Let 
 the people follow him, who, ever since he was a boy, 
 walked with God before their eyes. Cultivate that 
 permanence of Christian principle which made his life 
 from boj^hood to eighty-five so complete a whole. With 
 such permanence of Christian character your Christian 
 institutions will be permanent, the gospel among you 
 will be a steady power, and you may confidently look 
 for the continuance of that spiritual prosperity which 
 you have so long enjoyed. 
 
SERMO 1^, 
 
 BY 
 
 Rey. Levi l. Paine. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Heb. xi : 4. — "And by it he being dead yet speaketh." 
 
 It was by his faith and piety that Abel continued to 
 speak to the Hebrews so many ages after his death. 
 When a man dies, httle long survives but that which 
 was excellent and godly in his character. Most pathet- 
 ically do the Scriptures set forth the transitoriness of 
 everything pertaining to man in his earthly conditions 
 and relationships. "As for man, his days are as grass ; 
 as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind 
 passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof 
 shaU know it no more." But we also read, that " the 
 righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." There 
 is something in piety which triumphs over the forget- 
 fulness of the grave. When a good man dies, being 
 dead he yet lives and speaks. 
 
 A voice which has been more familiar than any other 
 in this place for half a century was last week hushed 
 in death. We gather again in this sanctuary ; but the 
 form which has been wont to meet our reverent gaze is 
 4 
 
26 
 
 not here. There is a vacant chair at my side. Yet 
 Dr. Porter has not ceased to speak to us. I have often 
 thought, as I have endeavored to fulfill the duties of 
 my office in this pulpit, from Sabbath to Sabbath, that 
 the silent listener near me was preaching far more 
 effectually than I could preach ; and now though re- 
 moved from our sight, he speaks through the precious 
 testament which he has left us, of a godly life and ex- 
 ample. Let us, this Sabbath morning, in this place so 
 long consecrated by his labors and presence, gratefully 
 open this testament of his, and hear from him his last 
 message. 
 
 But you must bear with me, if I speak of Dr. Por- 
 ter, as I knew him, in an imperfect and broken language. 
 For the first time in my ministry I feel a sense of lone- 
 liness. A relation, one of the most sacred and delight- 
 ful into which it was ever my lot to be brought, has 
 been sundered. He in whose heart I so rested, on 
 whose wisdom I so relied, and whose simple presence 
 so cheered and lightened my labors, is taken from me. 
 But I must not linger, as I fondly would, over a per- 
 sonal grief In this I but share in that which you all 
 feel. 
 
 I cannot hope, in the sketch which I would draw of 
 Dr. Porter's character, to present anything approaching 
 to a perfect and exhaustive view of it. I have known 
 him only in his old age. Of the spiritual struggles and 
 experiences, of the labors, trials and Providential disci- 
 pline out of which his character grew, and by which it 
 was shaped, I have no personal knowledge. But such 
 
27 
 
 knowledge is very helpful if not quite essential to a 
 true conception and estimate of any human character. 
 K we would feel the full glory and beauty of a sunrise, 
 we must begin with the earliest twilight, and watch the 
 slow flight of night and its shadows before the coming 
 day. So if we would measure the whole scope and 
 excellence of a human character, we must have seen 
 it in all its processes of development, in all its wrest- 
 lings with sin and evil, in all its periods of darkness, 
 trial and peril, in all its victories over self and the 
 world. The brief margin of Dr. Porter's life which I 
 was privileged to behold, was characterized by that 
 serenity and repose which mark the soul's autumnal 
 maturity, when struggle has subsided, storms are past, 
 and home is near. But perhaps in this limitation of 
 view to the few closing years, what is lost in compre- 
 hensiveness may be gained in clearness of vision, as 
 we see a picture best when all other objects are cov- 
 ered. In the last years of life there is gathered, as 
 into a focus, the resultant of all the spiritual forces 
 which have been working on and moulding the charac- 
 ter. We have there summed up the total amount of 
 what the whole life has yielded. As I have looked at 
 Dr. Porter, there was a symmetry, a roundness, a mel- 
 lowness which spoke with authority of what his past 
 life has been. Such a character was never built up in 
 a day. It is a century plant. Its roots must have run 
 far back into childhood and infancy. Its youth must 
 have been sobered and sanctified by an earnest conse- 
 cration of the whole life to God. Its manhood must 
 
28 
 
 have been one constant and victorious march in the 
 path of duty. In its progressive development it must 
 have reahzed the beautiful description of the inspired 
 Preacher : "The path of the just is as the shining light 
 which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 
 
 The first trait in Dr. Porter's character, of which I 
 would speak, is that which, as I conceive, lay at the 
 foundation of all his Christian excellencies, — his faith. 
 Dr. Porter . had remarkably strong and clear convic- 
 tions of the reality of things not seen. He was. thor- 
 oughly persuaded of them. His thoughts were con- 
 tinually dwelling on them. He walked daily with God. 
 Prayer had become the native tongue of his soul. He 
 looked forward to that heavenly life which the Scrip- 
 tures promise and partially unfold, with a full assurance 
 of hope. There was great simplicity in his faith. He 
 implicitly trusted God ; he believed the Divine Word ; 
 he rested everything on the faithfulness of Him who 
 had promised. His faith was also deeply experimental. 
 He was assured of the reality of divine things because 
 he felt the power of them in his own heart. Yet he 
 was, least of all, a mystic. His faith was a rational 
 one. He believed that religion was a most reasonable 
 thing. His own religion was not founded in feeling, 
 nor was it left to the caprices of impulse ; but it had 
 the assent of his deliberate judgment, and was always 
 controlled by it. Hence the even and calm flow of his 
 religious experience. If he had no ecstacies, he had 
 no ebb-tides of depression, doubt, despair. It was not 
 the least remarkable quahty of Dr. Porter's faith, that 
 
29 
 
 it was so completely and transparently sincere. It 
 may have seemed to some that he was greatly aided 
 in his religious attainments by his sacred calling. K a 
 minister is not supposed to be better by nature than 
 other men, he is at least supposed to enjoy far greater 
 facilities for growth in grace. And it is doubtless true 
 that a minister is peculiarly protected from some sins 
 and temptations by his Christian office. The fact, too, 
 that religion is, in a sense, his business, gives him pecu- 
 liar opportunities for exercising his Christian gifts, and 
 developing his Christian graces. But no place in this 
 world is beyond the reach of spiritual assailments and 
 perils. That which may seem to be a minister's 
 strength has too often proved the source of his weak- 
 ness and fall. The sins most frequently and sharply 
 rebuked by our Savior, were those of religious cant 
 and hypocrisy — sins which had their strong hold in 
 the hearts of the religious teachers of his time, and 
 which are always especially dangerous to the piety of 
 those who, because of their ofiice, are led to feel that 
 whatever they do should wear some semblance, at least, 
 of religion. That Dr. Porter's character should have 
 been so free from all religious affectation is a most 
 weighty testimony to the genuineness and depth of his 
 piety. In his whole Christian demeanor he was natural. 
 Sincerity ran through the very marrow of his being. 
 He was just what he seemed to be — " an Israelite in- 
 deed, in whom there was no guile." He could no more 
 have worn a mask or acted a false part, than he could 
 have told a lie. Hence the faithfulness and impartial- 
 
30 
 
 ity of his Christian dealing with all men. As his con- 
 victions of right and duty were clear, so when the fit 
 occasion offered, they were frankly and faithfully given. 
 I look upon this quality of Christian sincerity which so 
 eminently distinguished Dr. Porter, as one of the most 
 truly attractive and beautiful traits in his character. 
 It was one source of his moral power as a preacher, 
 and as a man. He believed, and therefore spoke. His 
 very sincerity made his preaching always impressive. 
 It compelled attention, and yet had a winning grace. 
 The truths of the gospel seemed clothed with a new 
 importance and solemnitj^, as they were uttered by his 
 guileless tongue. 
 
 A second trait in Dr. Porter's character of which I 
 would speak, was the singleness of his devotion tohis Christian 
 work. As my own acquaintance with Dr. Porter grew 
 more intimate, the impression which this trait in him 
 made upon me, was proportionably increased. He was 
 not an impulsive or bustling man. There was a calm 
 method in all that he did. But his whole heart and 
 mind was in his work as a Christian laborer. And he 
 never came to feel that his work was done. In his 
 eighty-fifth year, after having served his Master in the 
 Gospel ministry for two generations, he considered him- 
 self just as truly called, according to his strength and 
 opportunities, to engage in active labors for Christ, as he 
 did, when in early youth he gave himself to God. In 
 illustration of this, I wish I were able to tell you all 
 that is treasured up in my heart and memory pertain- 
 ing to the relation which has subsisted between us 
 
31 
 
 during these last five years. You know how he re- 
 ceived me at my coming ; as a father receives a son. 
 Before my acceptance of your call, in a letter to me, 
 he said : " Should you come, I should immediately give 
 all up into your hands." From the day of my ordina- 
 tion, he treated me as the sole pastor of this church. 
 The first word of dictation to me never passed his lips. 
 I have often heard it said, during these five years, that 
 the relation of a colleague is a most delicate and trying 
 one. Were I to speak from my own experience, I 
 should say that no happier lot could befall a young pas- 
 tor than to spend the first years of his ministry in this 
 relation. But while he thus imposed the responsibili- 
 ties of the pastoral ofiice on me, he did not, under this 
 new state of things, regard himself as relieved from all 
 further care or interest in pastoral work, or from his 
 responsibilities as a Christian man. The relation be- 
 tween us became a living relation. He gave me his 
 whole confidence ; he always told me all that was in 
 his heart. He stood ready to counsel me, and to render 
 such assistance in the pulpit as I should need. And it 
 was through the growing intimacy of this relation that 
 I discerned how completely devoted he was to the work 
 of winning souls to Christ, and of promoting the wel- 
 fare of Zion. He loved this church with the w^hole 
 strength of his being, and prayed and labored for its 
 increase till the day of his death. Several times, in 
 seasons of spiritual declension among us, have I found 
 him deeply lamenting oiu' condition, and eagerly inquir- 
 ing what could be done for the revival of God's work. 
 
/ 
 
 32 
 
 And whenever the Divine Spirit seemed to be hovering 
 over us, and there was an increasing solemnity in our 
 meetings, I could always gather it from the state of Dr. 
 Porter's mind. His soul was most sensitive to every 
 indication of God's special presence, and was always in 
 readiness to welcome it. Until within a brief period, 
 when he was kept at home by growing infirmities, he 
 was a constant attendant upon all our religious meet- 
 ings. Who of that little company in our Wednesday 
 afternoon prayer meetings, will soon forget those brief 
 earnest addresses with which he was wont to follow my 
 own remarks ! What member of our Sabbath School 
 will not long remember the venerable form of that 
 teacher who esteemed it a privilege to labor in the 
 Lord's vineyard, wherever he might do good, while life 
 lasted ! And what teacher will not long be inspired by 
 his example ! Very touching too, it was to me, to witness 
 the part he took in the special meetings of last winter. 
 When the idea of those meetings was first presented to 
 him, he entered into it with all his heart. The message 
 of invitation he carried from house to house through 
 quite a large section of our village. And how appro- 
 priately, how afiectionately, how feelingly did he speak 
 to us, whenever called to ! Dr. Porter always responded 
 to whatever he esteemed a call of duty. It was the 
 habit of his life to do so. It was only last November 
 that he told me he thought his public work was done, 
 referring to his work as a preacher of the Gospel. He 
 preached but once after that, in a sudden emergency 
 which seemed to him providential. But he never spoke 
 
33 
 
 of his private Christian work as done. I have never 
 seen him more actively engaged and interested in such 
 work than he was last spring, as member of the com- 
 mittee appointed by the church for parish visitation 
 and tract distribution. His place on that committee is 
 now to be filled. Rarely has a life so long, been so act- 
 ive to its close. Most beautifully significant of it was 
 that coincidence by which it happened that when he 
 last descended from this pulpit, he had just offered a 
 closing prayer, and pronounced upon us the Divine 
 blessing. And thus, still a worker for God, he was 
 called away. Death 
 
 " found him on the field, 
 
 A veteran slumbering on his arms, 
 Beneath his red-cross shield." 
 
 Any notice of Dr. Porter's character would be very 
 incomplete, which did not take into view his charity. 
 Christian love was the soul of his religion, and the 
 ruling feature of his life. His mind was liberal ; his 
 heart was enlarged. He judged the conduct of others 
 as favorably and tenderly as was possible. So habitual 
 was this with him that I sometimes queried, whether, 
 looking through the mirror of his own pure and sin- 
 cere nature, he did not fail to take into account all the 
 vicious elements of humanity. But it was not so. Dr. 
 Porter knew the human heart. He thoroughly be- 
 lieved in its native depravity and deceitfulness. But 
 his charitable disposition always inclined him to the 
 more favorable view of character and conduct. I do 
 5 
 
34 
 
 not remember ever to have heard him utter a harsh 
 judgment. He spoke freely of the actions of men, but 
 rarely of their motives ; these he left in the hands of 
 the great Searcher of hearts. Dr. Porter was naturally 
 trustful and unsuspicious. He cherished no resent- 
 ments. He forgave all injuries. As much as lay in 
 him, he lived peaceably with all men. He avenged 
 not himself, but overcame evil with good. 
 
 I cannot close this estimate of Dr. Porter without 
 adverting to some features of his life, as he appeared 
 among us during these late years. "Mark the perfect 
 man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man 
 is peace." Dr. Porter's last days were happy days. 
 The retrospect of his long life was pleasant to him. It 
 contained no great wrongs, no sad mistakes, to cast 
 their shadows over his old age. I never heard him give 
 expression to any regrets. He had a conscience void 
 of offence toward God and toward man. He was 
 always cheerful. Life to the last had a relish for him. 
 He enjoyed the society of his family and friends ; took 
 great pleasure in reading ; rejoiced in every opportu- 
 nity of doing good.. Dr. Porter scarcely knew what 
 it is to be old. His mind continued active and vigor- 
 ous. His feelings were fresh and exuberant. He 
 lost none of his interest in social life, or in public affairs. 
 Yet all the while his affections were fixed on things 
 above. He looked forward to death as an event which 
 was near at hand ; and he was ready to depart and be 
 with Christ. He talked about his decease with cheer- 
 fulness, and with a growing anticipation and eagerness. 
 
35 
 
 As he drew near to the grave, his mind was kept in 
 perfect peace, being stayed on God in the hopes of the 
 Gospel. Those heavenly blessings which he had so 
 many times held out to the faith of others, now shone 
 down upon his own soul with a crescent brightness, like 
 stars in the evening sky. And so he fell asleep. 
 
 But Dr. Porter's last days were not only happy, they 
 were beautiful. Their very happiness and peacefulness 
 helped to make them so. It was beautiful to see him 
 walk our streets, with form erect and step elastic, as if 
 endowed with immortal youth. It was beautiful to see 
 him in the intercourse of his home, affectionate, simple, 
 and playful as a child. Beautiful, to see him visit from 
 house to house, entering with renewed interest, as he 
 laid the heavier burdens of the pastorate aside, into 
 domestic cares, and trials, and joys ; speaking a word in 
 season, and leaving everywhere his benediction of peace. 
 Beautiful it was, to see him, each Sabbath day, sitting in 
 his accustomed place in this house of God, so humble, 
 so reverent, so quick to hear, his face shining sometimes 
 " as it had been the face of an angel." 
 
 Dr. Porter, more than any other man I ever knew, 
 realized my ideal of the Old Testament saint. He pos- 
 sessed to a remarkable degree the Old Testament vir- 
 tues — the faith of Abraham, the meekness of Moses, the 
 piety of Samuel, the patience of Job. And his life, in 
 its close, filled out the picture, which the Old Testa- 
 ment is wont to draw, of the felicity of the righteous. 
 " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom. Length of 
 days is in her right hand. Her ways are ways of pleas- 
 
36 
 
 antness, and all her paths are peace." " The righteous 
 shall nourish like the palm tree ; he shall grow like a 
 cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house 
 of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God. 
 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age." " Blessed 
 is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the un- 
 godly, nor standeth in the way of sinnersj nor sitteth in 
 the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law 
 of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and 
 night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the 
 rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his sea- 
 son ; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he 
 doeth shall prosper." 
 
 Yet after all, a true conception of Dr. Porter's piety 
 requires us to supplement the Old Testament with the 
 New. "Godliness hath promise not only of the life 
 that now is, but of that which is to come." In Dr. Por- 
 ter's faith was combined the faith of Abraham and the 
 faith of Paul. He could say with the Apostle — "for 
 we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
 were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not 
 made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For we that 
 are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened ; not 
 that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that 
 mortality might be swallowed up of life." 
 
 Dr. Porter's whole character was one of singular 
 beauty. It not only had great excellencies, it was also 
 free from the faults and blemishes which mar the beauty 
 of so many human characters. Such symmetry was 
 there about him, that it was difficult sometimes to de- 
 
37 
 
 tect the secret of that which made him appear so lovely. 
 Yet his character was one of positive strength. It was 
 built out of the solid granite of conviction, and princi- 
 ple, and faith in God. His house was founded upon a 
 rock. During a long life the rains descended upon it, 
 and the winds beat against it, but it fell not ; for it was 
 founded upon a Bock. It has been our blessed privilege, 
 my hearers, to see that house in its old age ; the rains 
 over, the winds stilled, the clouds breaking away, the 
 light of heaven shining on it. The earthly part of it 
 was indeed dissolving ; the outward man was perish- 
 ing; but the inward man was being renewed day by 
 day. Beautiful was such a house, though falling out- 
 wardly into decay ; beautiful was the evening of such 
 a life, so serene and starry. By that life, he being dead 
 yet speaketh. He speaks to the old who are soon to 
 follow him. He speaks to the young before whom life 
 still opens. And the question which comes to us all, as 
 a voice from his grave, is : on tvhat is thy house founded? 
 
SERMOISr, 
 
 BY 
 
 Horace Bushnell, d. d. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Psalm 71: 9. — "Cast me not oft' iii the time of old age: forsake 
 me not when my strength faileth." 
 
 Strength must fail — that is the condition of age — 
 and how often does it fail, morally as well as physically ; 
 as if the decayed and broken old man were really for- 
 saken of God, just now when he is most wanting God's 
 abiding presence and supporting help. It is so, many 
 times, in cases where there was supposed to be, and 
 apparently was, a fair show of Christian character. 
 The picture is a very sad one, and one that moves our 
 pity the more deeply that nothmg is left any longer to 
 move our respect. 
 
 Thus we too commonly see that the man who is be- 
 coming old and growing conscious of loss, takes on airs 
 of smartness to rally his powers ; but alas, they will 
 not answer, or thinking foolishly that they do, others 
 will see that they do not. By and by he is obliged to 
 admit, in a dolorous way, that he w'earies easily, and 
 scolds his vigor, for the giving out in which it deserts 
 him. He is secretly chafed by the discovery that he 
 6 
 
42 
 
 cannot do anything in such a gale of impulse as he 
 used to have upon him. Purpose flags, intensity slack- 
 ens, food has a dull relish, and sleep is unrefreshing or 
 even wearisome. His memory crumbles, his sight 
 grows dim, his hearing thick, or probably enough all 
 these tokens come upon him together. His bones are 
 heavy and troubled by rheumatic twinges. His step, 
 that began to be slowed, is now becoming tremulous ; 
 there are quavers too and cracks in his voice — alas ! 
 he is a broken, decrepid old man. 
 
 Now any or all these changes might come upon him 
 only to make him a happy, much honored and even envi- 
 able man; but prepared for them by no right discipline 
 or character, he is as far from that as possible. He is even 
 broken morally more than he is in his body. All the 
 perverse tempers that he used to hold in check, but that 
 were never extirpated, are now loosed, having nothing 
 left to hold them in check longer. As the will-force slack- 
 ens, the habit-force takes undivided sway, so that in all 
 bad points he appears to be worse, and not better than he 
 was. He is more easily moved by jealousy — -jealous of 
 others who are getting before him in business, or above 
 him in standing ; if he is a pastor among his flock, jealous 
 of his flock, when some other is praised, or grows popular; 
 if he is rich, jealous not unlikely of his children. His 
 infirmities make him peevish. If he was a little cov- 
 etous, his dim eye twinkles at the mere chance of gain, 
 and his charities are all shut in. He is irritable, unrea- 
 sonable, a torment in this way to his friends, and quite 
 as much to himself If he did not pray, his tempers 
 
43 
 
 now forbid the attempt when his judgment rcciiiires it. 
 If he used to pray, he now prays without any sense of 
 benefit, and as one forsaken of God. Miserable, truly 
 helpless, hopeless old man ! without serenity or peace, 
 and watching for his death only as he watches for an 
 enemy. 
 
 The picture is, alas ! too often seen — seen too often, 
 I must add, in the case of men reputedly Christian. 
 And such was the picture I conceive that our Psalmist 
 had in view when he prayed, " Cast me not off in the 
 time of old age, forsake me not when my strength 
 faileth." He wanted a good and ripe old age, a divinely 
 sanctified habit, supported by the confidence of God's 
 favor and friendship. He wanted all the peace 
 good tempers bring; to be loving and lovely, and 
 pure, and true ; so that if his body should crumble his 
 mind would not, or so that if his mind should crumble 
 his heart should be rested in peace ; so that if his eye 
 should be dim, or his ear report no sound, he could still 
 go forth speaking benedictions on his friends, and beam- 
 ing testimonies unspoken, from the manifest sweetness 
 and serenity of his closing days. 
 
 In this view, it becomes a very great question for us 
 all, how we shall obtain the blessing of a good and right 
 old age? On this point let me offer a few suggestions. 
 
 And one great law to be considered is, that it is not 
 what we get, but what we are, that provides a happy, 
 well- conditioned old age. As we cannot carry what 
 
44 
 
 wc get with us when we go hence, so it is about equally 
 difficult to carry on down to old age, in a manner to 
 get much from it, either money, or admiration, or a 
 name, unless we carry a good, great soul with it ; and 
 upon that everything depends. The very eagerness of 
 any getting process grows, at last, into a kind of bad 
 possession, that even makes a torment of success. The 
 power that was gotten, now that strength faileth, be- 
 comes a poor, lame caricature ; the admiration begets 
 jealousy, the money that cannot sufficiently bless, be- 
 gets peevishness. Nothing, in short, makes a happy 
 old age but to be, in ourselves, what makes well-being 
 possible. 
 
 For a similar reason we must, as Christian men, de- 
 pend more on our habits and tempers than we do on 
 our opinions, or the self-control of our will. Eight 
 opinions will even make a man more miserable, if he 
 has not lived them out thoroughly enough to get them 
 converted into dispositions — lingering round him as 
 shadows and ghosts of reality, that only mock his 
 peace and cannot even support his prayers. So if he 
 has had it for his religion to merely keep himself in 
 a respectable show, by the self-controlling force of his 
 will, he will be left, when that force slackens, with all 
 his half-regulated tempers on hand, to run riot in him 
 and trample his peace. What he wanted was to get heav- 
 enly tempers bedded in right habit, — able, in that man- 
 ner, to reign well when his will ceases to reign. The 
 peace of a good old man belongs to what is inmost in 
 
45 
 
 his habit — the truth of his feehng, the himinons glory 
 of his faith, the loving sweetness of his dispositions. 
 
 The same is true again of what is called holy princi- 
 ple ; it must be principle ingrained by the sway it has 
 maintained over the life. Quite old men do sometimes 
 take up new principles, but the difficulty is that the 
 new principles cannot sufficiently take up them. Holy 
 principles want to be so fastened and domiciliated in 
 the soul that we no longer even assent to them, but 
 have them reigning by their own determinations, even 
 as good subjects bow to the laws of the state without 
 so much as remembering that they ever chose to obey. 
 Having reached this point by the practice of a right- 
 eous life, the old man stands a pillar, because right 
 principle has made him a pillar. In this principle, long 
 held, his nature itself has become harmonic and steady, 
 and when he breaks there is a kind of sovereign order 
 in him that cannot break. When his memory gives 
 way, as it often does, he does not have to remember, 
 and keep right by continual self-recollection ; for there 
 is a right keeping in him that goes on of itself There 
 is dignity, order, and sweetness in him, all the more 
 evident, that it stays by even in his weakness, flowing 
 as serenely as fair weather, even in decrepitude itself. 
 
 Again, the kind of piety wanted is rather a close 
 habit of friendship with God, than a compost of frames 
 and emotional excitements. The flame element in 
 souls commonly runs low in old age, and an old man 
 trying to be raised in frames and ecstasies, or seeming 
 to think that he is, makes a feeble, half-absurd figure. 
 
46 
 
 What we now expect of him is a calm sobriety, not the 
 tempests of emotional excitation. But if the old man 
 has grown old in God's friendship, learned to have God 
 nigh, and live in the sense of his society, if he has been 
 true and faithful, and has daily had the sunrise of his 
 mind in the testimony that he pleases God, a kind of 
 holy custom settles on his feeling, and keeps the embers 
 of his life in a glow, when the flames of emotion have 
 subsided. As he sits a patriarch in his chair, so his 
 mind sits serenely in the chair of his customary piety. 
 And he worships serenely, leaning on the top of his 
 staff, as one whose piety, grown old in habit, is fixedly 
 rested on God. He thinks no more of his frames, 
 watches them no more. Holy custom is the frame that 
 keeps him and he wants no other. 
 
 Again, it is partly an inference from all that has been 
 said, and also a truth standing in its own evidence, that 
 the best old age is possible only when the Christian life 
 begins early. Here, in fact, is one of the principal de- 
 lusions of men, that when they are doing so many 
 things to provide for the comfort and peace of old age, 
 they are yet so commonly postponing the calls of reli- 
 gion to the time of middle life, or even to the arrival 
 of age, when their work of enterprise will be ended. A 
 late-born piety they think will be sufficient. They 
 expect to waste the fine possibilities of youth, and yet 
 sufier no loss. There could not be a sadder mistake. 
 Doubtless a very old man may be converted, but he also 
 may not. And if he is, the new nature will not easily 
 become a second nature in him. He will be an old man 
 
47 
 
 with only a young piety — strengthened by no experi- 
 ence, blurred and baffled in everything by his old blind 
 habits, struggling vainly to keep his new beginnings 
 good, groping and stumbling in them, because he has 
 no acquaintance with God to steady his practice. His 
 feeling is bronzed by his old religious neglect, his mo- 
 tives are married to a persistently selfish habit, and his 
 very prayers, for want of any skill in prayer, become 
 a kind of peevishness. Only the piety that begins in 
 childhood, and ripens with manhood, and flows along 
 onward in the current of years, can duly saturate and 
 shape the soul's habit. This early kind of i)iety 
 becomes at last the man himself, so to speak — a kind 
 of ingrown property, that flavors his life-principle itself 
 The happy, right old man, therefore — this let every 
 youth remember — is connnonly the right young man 
 grown old in God — he and no other. " The child is 
 father of the man," in a much deeper and more Chris- 
 tian sense than the poet even seems to have imagined. 
 
 Once more, it makes a very great difierence as re- 
 gards the kind of old age at which we arrive, by what 
 kind of engagement we make our approach to it. If 
 we become old simply by the going on of the sun, and 
 not by any going on of life in works of industry and 
 duty, our state of age will not be either Christian, or 
 good, save in the sense that we are permitted a possible 
 hope of salvation at the end of it. The powers settle 
 gracefLdly into old age, only when we come to it in the 
 harness of good endeavor. AVliat we call wearing out 
 in good, is only the way to wear in good ; so that when 
 
48 
 
 the forces of action are spent, the soul is packed brim- 
 full of good, and in that good finds the equilibrium of 
 its rest. A really fine old age is a hall into which the 
 powers have come to hang up their armor, and look on 
 it with a brave strong heart, because there has been 
 something bravely and well done. The soul is strong 
 in righteousness because it has been suffering and fight- 
 ing for righteousness sake. But where the transition 
 to age is made through self-indulgence, indolence, or a 
 mere idle looking on, the state of age will be the rust of 
 the man, nothing more. The residuum of a chaffy life is 
 only chaff. Even if the man be a Christian, he will yet 
 be a chaffy Christian, unsolid, unregulated, weak and dry. 
 Having so long been doing nothing which Christ lays 
 it upon him to do, he will finish his course in becoming 
 a kind of Christian nothing to himself — unilluminated, 
 without zest, having nothing to remember, and waiting 
 for death more as an enemy than as a friend. He 
 can not pray, "forsake me not when my strength 
 faileth," for he was not using his strength for God when 
 he had it. The really right old man is one who has 
 been strenuously right before, one who can say with 
 David, in this same chapter, "0 God, thou hast taught 
 me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared thy 
 wondrous works." " Hitherto," he says, down to this 
 time, and he begins to fear, as the sense of age comes 
 on, that he may give out before his great life-purpose 
 is accomplished; therefore he prays again, "Now also, 
 when I am old and gray-headed, 0 God, forsake me 
 not ; until I have showed thy strength unto this genera- 
 
49 
 
 tion, and thy power to every one that is to come." 
 What shall come, but a right and strong old age, pass- 
 ing into it by a transition so manfully strenuous ? The 
 transition will not commonly be made in a day, or even 
 in a single year, but the high engagements will be still 
 in hand, and the life will be lapsing gradually into the 
 exhausted or decrepid state, still keyed as it has been 
 before, and resting grandly in that key. 
 
 These thoughts I have sketched, to show something 
 of the manner in which, and only in which, a right and 
 happy old age is prepared. Probably there is not one 
 of you, not even the youngest, who does not sometimes 
 glance along down his future, asking what kind of fig- 
 ure he will make when the time of old age is come. 
 You all desire long life, and just as much desire a long 
 life crowned with peace. Be not insensible, then, to 
 the immense significance of the suggestions I have now 
 made. 
 
 And that you may be the more feelingly impressed 
 with their truth, and the value of their truth, let me 
 go on to show you their embodiment in a shape more 
 convincing than words; namely, in the worthy and great 
 character of your late venerable father and pastor. I do 
 not propose, at this time, an obituary sketch of his life, in 
 the facts and dates that marked its progress ; this I pre- 
 sume has been sufficiently done already, by your young 
 surviving pastor, in the commemorative discourse he has 
 already given. He also himself, very modestly and beau- 
 tifully recited the facts of his life and ministry, in his 
 7 
 
50 
 
 V 
 
 Half-Century sermon. What I wish more especially to 
 do on the present occasion is to sketch, if I can, his 
 character ; and above all, its principal distinction, as 
 exhibited and crowned by his truly great old age — a 
 character which is not easily written, and I fear never 
 can be, so as worthily to present the picture. 
 
 Two weeks ago. Dr. Porter, your pastor, closed his 
 venerable life, at the very advanced age of nearly 
 eighty-five years. Here he was born and brought up, 
 and here he served in the ministry of God for sixty 
 years, supported, and only more and more nearly re- 
 placed by a much beloved colleague, in the latter years 
 of his life. He looked out from his window and his 
 walks on the glorious rich landscape of the Farmington 
 valley, and watched its changing moods and phases 
 from childhood onward to his dying day, freshened 
 always in his feeling by the picture, and becoming a 
 good type of it, in the breadth and holy quiet of his 
 own bosom. He was known so well by his flock that 
 only a half-dozen knew when he began to be known. 
 Indeed, if he ever threw a shade of doubt upon any 
 word of Scripture, it was done bv showing that a 
 prophet can possibly have honor in his own country. 
 And yet it was not honor, exactly, that you learned to 
 pay him, but something deeper and closer to necessity. 
 We do not so much honor our heads as accept them, 
 and let them go through our body ; giving dear wel- 
 come to what they think, contrive, impel in our motions 
 — all the benefits tliey propose, all the configurations 
 
51 
 
 of body, and feeling, and life in which their sway is 
 exerted. If we call it honor that we pay them, we 
 only speak in a figure ; the real truth of which is that 
 they go through us and pervade us in the most occult 
 and inmost secretions of our bodily and mental life. 
 So he came into the eyes of your childhood as a child, 
 and began to do you good thus early; for an excellent 
 Christian man, who had been his playmate here in 
 childhood, left it as one of his acknowledgments that 
 he owed his beginnings in the Christian life to the con- 
 versations of Noah Porter, the child, when he was but 
 nine years old. So he grew up with you as you grew, 
 went through you week by week and year by year in his 
 teachings, and you took him pervasively ; till he came 
 to be so deeply ingrown that Farmington was Dr. Porter 
 and Dr. Porter Farmington, and he could not be gotten 
 out of your nature now, save by a decomposition of your 
 substance. What immense worth and wisdom it required 
 in him to win such a place among his townsmen, it is 
 not difficult to perceive. How often would a mere slack- 
 ness in duty, a very little bad passion, a few grains of 
 nonsense or conceit, have raised the familiars of his 
 childhood against him ! But he grew steadily out upon 
 you, and so grew steadily into you, neither you nor 
 he scarce knowing how ; childhood passing into youth, 
 youth into manhood, and manhood into old age ; so 
 that when his working day was ended, he stood a ripe 
 old man, complete in character — by that working still, 
 so pervasively that you scarcely felt the outward cessa- 
 tion of his work. 
 
Years before his death disabihties began to come 
 upon him, such as would have quite unstrung most men 
 — partial deafness, partial blindness, a touch of para- 
 l3^sis ; but it was beautiful to see how his character 
 stood by, hke the bones in his body, and supported 
 everything in a firm equilibrium. More by habit than 
 by will, he held on, with what force was left him, upon 
 his old engagements and duties, giving out the heat 
 that was left in his embers, calling the youth, striving 
 with his people in their prayers, talking or expounding, 
 when he could not read a manuscript, helping, as he 
 could, his young colleague, and drawing the people 
 afiectionately toward him ; just as truly himself, in all 
 inmost character, as if no infirmities had come. 
 
 Some might think that he was steadied by his naturally 
 firm, clear intellect, but it would be quite as true to say 
 that his intellect was steadied by the moral equilibrium 
 of his habit. There was, it was true, no gustiness or 
 tempest-force in his natural character that could spring 
 the equilibrium of his mind ; but how many such there 
 are who get no balance and hold nothing steadily, just 
 because they have no springs of impulse, and take to 
 nothing with sufiicient appetite to be fastened by it ! 
 He was not a brilliant man, as we commonly speak ; 
 there was nothing sensational in his demonstrations ; 
 but there was a vast amount of food in him, and a 
 deeply-toned fervor of enthusiasm that provoked a solid 
 appetite in his hearers. His sermons represented his 
 industry and his profound love of truth. He may have 
 written a poor sermon, but I never heard one from 
 
53 
 
 him. Indeed, I have many times felt that, if a trne 
 average could be cast, it would not be easy to fix on 
 any other preacher of his time whose average stood 
 higher. If he did not soar, there was neverthless a 
 capacity visible to get on Avith something, to add, to 
 work out, to incite, bring forward and maintain a living 
 motion. His argument was thoroughgoing, solid, and 
 richly imbued with experience. He launched his ser- 
 mons as they launch ships — heavy-timbered, close-built, 
 having the seams well calked; ready thus for the 
 water, and pitching deliberately in as by gravity, but 
 never going under. 
 
 His piety worked very much like his mind ; moving 
 in weight, and having, as it were, a law of indivertible 
 progress in itself It was experimental, but not fantas- 
 tic or moody. It was clear of all cant, and bore no 
 look of sanctimony. He loved ancient things, and 
 especially ancient goodness, which had a great deal 
 more power over him than ancient thinking. All men 
 he knew could mistake, but goodness could not be less 
 than good ; and he loved to be drawn very closely to 
 it and to God, by the study of its best examples. He 
 wanted to know how they came, and if there was a 
 plain mixture of error from the head, he wanted to 
 find, if possible, what the truth was out of which they 
 got their spring. God was the soul to him of all truth, 
 and truth was practical, in that it had a soul and could 
 also beget a soul. He sought to make God great, as 
 being great in love, and the life-giving power of love, 
 not as being at the head of some great theologic sys- 
 
54 
 
 tern of abstractions. He did not work speculation-wise, 
 though he had abundant reasons always to support him 
 in his subjects. He began as a Calvinist, and he died, 
 I suppose, thinking himself a Calvinist; as in some 
 duly qualified sense he certainly was. But he maps a 
 large transition in his noble Half-Century sermon, that 
 shows how willing he was to make advances, if they 
 could only be made in allegiance to truth. I also re- 
 member to have heard him say, not many months be- 
 fore his death, that he was coming somehow to look on 
 a good many things differently from what he once did. 
 He was ready always to see things differently, and no 
 word of man, however sanctified by custom, held him 
 for one minute, after he saw it not to be true. What- 
 ever, therefore, he may have said or thought of himself 
 as related to his beginnings under Calvin, I think it 
 even the best and truest tribute for him, to say that he 
 died, and was more and more concerned to die, a Chris- 
 tian. He clung to the gospel as God's very truth, and 
 could not sufficiently magnify the Christ of his faith ; 
 Christ crucified, offered up for sin, the justifying grace 
 of God in that manner for lost man. His very mind 
 was flavored by the cross of his Lord, and the love be- 
 gotten by it both to God and man. In this love he 
 was set on from his earliest years, wanting always to 
 know more of it, even the most possible. 
 
 Now, in every one of the traits I have sketched he 
 was only writing, so to speak, the introduction to his 
 very peculiar and really sublime old age. The grand 
 distinction of it was, and I know not any example to 
 
55 
 
 match it, that he kept his windows open to the last, 
 wiUing to know anything possible to be known, afraid 
 of nothing that could bring just evidence. He kept 
 up with the times. To help the blur of his sight, he 
 used a large magnifying lens, holding it by the handle ; 
 and by help of this, he had slowly pushed his way, 
 sentence by sentence, through the lately published vol- 
 ume, Ecce Homo, even before it was issued from the 
 American press. Not satisfied, he resumed his task 
 and did the same again. And then, to make sure of 
 his judgment, and his largely qualified approval, he 
 did the same a third time. There was no single 
 grain of radicalism in his personal temperament. He 
 was naturally conservative and cautious. He only did 
 not want his ship anchored, but to keep his sail still up, 
 steering carefully on by the Bible charts and the needle 
 of a polarized experience. Loving liberty, he loathed 
 liberalism ; forbidden thus to be either a bigot or a 
 loose adventurer — avoiding in this manner the two op- 
 posite infirmities of age ; that of an old man who has 
 played fast and loose with truth so long that he goes to 
 pieces in piteous weakness, having no faith left to hold 
 him together; and that of the old man whose soul has 
 become ossified by age, whose opinions must be right, 
 deviation from whose way must be sin — able to endure 
 no variant form of thought which meets the bigot form 
 of his most certainly essential truth. This latter in- 
 firmity of age he felt to be, in his case, the more 
 especial danger, and he often prayed to be kept from 
 it. He even spoke of having taken it as a fixed reso- 
 
56 
 
 lution, never to. allow any such incrustation upon his 
 soul's liberty. The result was that, in his latest days, he 
 never had his equanimity disturbed because the world 
 moved, or because he could not hold it still. Indeed, 
 he wanted it to move, and presented the very uncom- 
 mon spectacle of an old man willing to keep up with 
 it even to his grave's edge. 
 
 He asserted the same liberty for others, and even had 
 a rather strenuous battle for it when he was already 
 seventy years of age ; in which his quality is nobly 
 shown, and also his ability to weather a storm for lib- 
 erty, as other old men do for their formulas. In the 
 Ministerial Association, where, by his acknowledged 
 merit, he long held the rank of fatherhood and chief 
 leadership, it was my lot to be arraigned for heresy ; 
 this, too, if I correctly remember, on motion made by 
 Dr. Porter himself, esteeming it a duty probably which 
 was owed to the general fraternity and peace of the 
 churches. By careful and fair inquiry he became sat- 
 isfied that I was probably right in some things ; in some 
 things he was not as well satisfied ; in some things I sup- 
 pose that he even blamed an appearance of departure. 
 But he could not see that I was fatally off the founda- 
 tions, or that deposing me from the ministry would con- 
 tribute anything to the real honor and safety of religion. 
 He voted therefore Nay, and there was a general con- 
 sent in the vote. Whereupon protesting clamors broke 
 out on every side. He was set upon, goaded, im- 
 plored, by brethren who were his compeers in age, by 
 men of high position, by younger men assuming to be 
 
67 
 
 fathers before their time, all demanding a reconsidera- 
 tion, and scarcely anybody interposing a word to soothe 
 the panic, or to clear away the smoke of it. But the 
 reconsideration did not come, simply because honest 
 conviction had majesty enough to be conviction still. 
 He knew what belonged to a man acting on conviction, 
 and could not be without understanding because he 
 was seventy years old. And who is there now, it 
 might be fairly asked, that does not justify both his 
 judgment and his firmness in it ? Was it laxity that 
 withstood so fierce a clamor ? There is nothing heroic 
 in laxity. "Was it obstinacy ? There was not a particle 
 of obstinacy in his nature. No, it was the firmness of 
 a soul religiously wedded to truth, and daring with 
 brave confidence to assert some rational degree of lib- 
 erty for truth's sake. I have seen other old men • I 
 have read of many ; but a better, finer example of 
 true Christian fatherhood in the faith is, I think, not 
 often seen. 
 
 Now, it is the more remarkable that Dr. Porter kept 
 such open outlook on the world, and such free sym- 
 pathy with its forward movements, that he lived his 
 whole life long in this very quiet agricultural town, re- 
 mote from all the exciting and stimulating causes of 
 his time J also, that he kept himself very much at 
 home, performing his still rounds of duty with unceas- 
 ing fidelity and exactness. He worked as the sun does, 
 and one year was the duplicate of another. He was 
 punctual, too, as the sun. He not only preached, but 
 8 
 
58 
 
 he watched his sermons and his people under them, 
 contriving how, if possible, to keep his work in motion. 
 He fanned every fire that began to burn, and kindled 
 every fire he could. He loved every conversion as a 
 miser does his money ; and when conversions did not 
 come, he was none the less strenuous to edify such as 
 had come. He M^atched the schools not less carefully, 
 and kept them in his eye, as visitor and examiner of 
 teachers, from first to last. All his habits ran to faith- 
 fulness, and faithfulness in turn moulded all his work 
 into a character. He was faithful to his own household, 
 having it for his reward to see all his children walking 
 early in the way of his Christian example, and adding^ 
 in their places afterward, honor and respect to religion. 
 All the children of all the households were his, to all 
 the youth he was father. When they did well, he re- 
 joiced ; when they fell, he mourned, as a true father 
 will. But the metropolis of his faithfulness was a 
 small city of God which you did not often see, namely 
 his study. There grew apace his unflinching, ceaseless 
 way of industry. In that chamber of silence he went on 
 year by year, sending up how many prayers for his flock, 
 and by how many more plowing open the word to get 
 new food both for himself and you. And how beautifully 
 fitting was the sign he gave at the close, when he left 
 his Greek Testament open upon his table, where he 
 had been patiently deciphering the words, and taking 
 his last dear lesson ! 
 
 Now, it might naturally be supposed that, in such a 
 kind of life, he must be legal and mechanical, and bear 
 
59 
 
 a look of dryness. Very far from that ; lie bad a genial, 
 warm, and friendly nature, and kneAv liow to connect 
 with so great steadiness of habit a rare cordiality and 
 gentleness. If he had a look of dryness to some, it 
 was the dryness of benignity, which includes, in fact, a 
 good many kinds of moisture. Thus, without any 
 spark of wit, he had a certain play of humor, so quiet 
 and covert that many would not see it ; saying play- 
 fully, for example, when he came out the morning after 
 his touch of paralysis, " Well, I feel now like an old 
 man, but I may be young again [that is, in the other 
 world] before noon." Young people were greatly drawn 
 to him, because he was so evidently drawn to them ; for 
 he did not bring down his old age upon them in airs of 
 authority, but sought opportunity in them rather for a 
 certain youthful paternity of feeling that softened the 
 oppressive rigors of respect. He had also a certain in- 
 herent modesty that seemed to rather grow with age, 
 than to be overgrown, and which kept back all such 
 appearances of rigor. Those who knew him best, even 
 his own family, could say that they never heard him 
 speak of any thing he had written or done, in a self- 
 pleasing way, because it was his. He was withal an 
 eminently hospitable man. Having but a moderate 
 salary, and obliged to draw upon his few acres of patri' 
 mony for the education of his family, he must yet have 
 friends, and give them a free welcome at his table ; and 
 such a table it was, thanks in part to another, that an- 
 gels coming unawares would not think they had missed 
 
60 
 
 their place. His people grew into the same hospitable 
 habit. I should make out a curious inventory if I could 
 recount what public meetings, anniversaries, and va- 
 riously notified gatherings have been held in Farming- 
 ton, by his and their consent, during the last fifty years. 
 We all think it a high honor and felicity of this Chris- 
 tian pastor and his flock, that the great American Board 
 of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was here organ- 
 ized, in his private parlor. But if we consider what is 
 meant by a Christian hospitality to the outcast and the 
 poor, and hear Christ say, " Ye did it unto me," we shall 
 think it a much greater and nobler felicity, that here is 
 the place, in all this broad land, where the poor Amis- 
 tad captives must be gathered — finding here true Chris- 
 tian friends to care for and teach them, and shelter 
 them from the hunters waiting to sieze them and drag 
 them back into slavery. So began just here the Mendi 
 Mission, which, though it has encountered more adver- 
 sity than was looked for, we can not but hope will some 
 time conquer the deserved success, and that these Mendi 
 , people will be able, at some future day, to write Farm- 
 ington at the head of their new civilization. However 
 that may be, it will be seen, by all these tokens, that 
 legality and dryness could not reign, where the Great- 
 Heart principle was so beautifully, honorably shown. 
 
 It will require no specifications to show that such a 
 life was successful. It was also a happy life ; more and 
 more happy in appearance, even to the end. All that 
 he wanted for the comfort of his old age he had — books, 
 
61 
 
 and children tenderly mindful of him, and the wife of 
 his youth, who had made his house a joy to him for two 
 whole generations, and strengthened him in every best 
 work and hardest trial. His people held him in the 
 dearest love and reverence. Enemies he had none ; it 
 was difficult to be his enemy. He was happy in main- 
 taining the dearest, tenderest relationship, as of father 
 and son, with his colleague — being one of the few men 
 that can have a colleague. Though his body was 
 breaking, his mind appeared to be as firm and fresh as 
 ever. The old house began to be dilapidated, but the 
 occupant was even young in it still. There he rested 
 in a fair serenity, and his paternal look beamed upon 
 his friends and his people even more paternally to the 
 last. All the conditions of a happy old age that I have 
 named had been fulfilled in his life, and the result ful- 
 filled the conditions. God was his friend, and it was a 
 well-tried, confidently-felt friendship. " Mark the per- 
 fect man and behold the upright, for the end of that 
 man is peace." 
 
 Few men ever rose to such eminence in a way so 
 quiet, and withal so little pretentious. He was no de- 
 claimer, no agitator, no platform man, no forward man 
 as we commonly speak ; but he began to be thought of 
 long ago as one of the fixed stars in our sky — shining 
 always just there, making no parallax, yet all the bet- 
 ter to navigate by. He was sought as a counselor by 
 all his brethren, far and near. He took on no airs of 
 authority, and yet he was bishop among the churches. 
 
62 
 
 He at last began to be missed at our ordinations and 
 other councils, and seeing the patriarchal chair stand 
 vacant, we thought of him with many sad regrets. If 
 he had grown weak, or annoying, or oppressive, as old 
 men often do, we could easily have spared him ; but we 
 had so great comfort in his fatherhood, that we loved 
 his counsel still, and looked on his face as a token of 
 God's benediction. 
 
 Farewell, venerable man ! Be thy truly great char- 
 acter a mark for us, and may thy noble fatherhood drop 
 its mantle upon us. 
 
 It might be expected that I should speak more di- 
 rectly to the church and people he has left and also to 
 his family. But what can I say, in words, when such a 
 life is speaking ? I have tried to show you all how it 
 is, pastor and people, that you may win a happy and 
 wise old age. But you have been seeing this with your 
 eyes for long years back, and what can I do now, bet- 
 ter than to say — thank God for such a leader, and fol- 
 low him. K the dead are blessed that die in the Lord, 
 have you not seen how certainly blessed are the living 
 that live in the Lord ? 
 
 We are not surprised, but are none the less pleased, 
 to hear that our venerable father had been dwelling 
 much, in the months past, on the heavenly state before 
 him. He knows it now, and the greetings of all the 
 great good minds in that high company have put him 
 already at home. And shall we not have it for a 
 thought most welcome, that when so many children 
 
63 
 
 pass in there, to be cherished for the beauty of their 
 innocence, an old man now and then comes up thither, 
 out of his sins and his weather-beaten life, in a habit so 
 grandly true and right, as to move their glad respect ? 
 
LAST DAYS. 
 
 Until within three or four months before Dr. Porter's 
 death, his physical vigor and health had failed little, 
 his power of endurance was not greatly lessened, and 
 his step was quick and elastic, so that notwithstanding 
 the failure of his sight and hearing, it was not easy for 
 him to believe that he had come to so advanced age, 
 and he sometimes playfully spoke of the time as yet 
 to come when he should be an old man. His sight was 
 so dim that reading was laborious, yet he highly en- 
 joyed it, and perhaps sometimes overtasked himself in 
 reading. He had wholly resigned the expectation of 
 again preaching in the pulpit, but in May last, Mr. 
 Paine being called away to a funeral on Sunday after- 
 noon, Dr. Porter, that the regular service might not be 
 omitted, preached without notes, a short extempore 
 discourse, taking for his subject the penitent thief on 
 the cross. The next day he officiated at a funeral, and 
 on both these occasions, his friends enjoyed the appa- 
 rently easy outflow of his thoughts, revealing his inti- 
 mate communion with God. He, however, remarked 
 that it had not been easy for him to sustain the course 
 9 
 
66 
 
 of his thoughts, and a day or two later, after an hour 
 or two of reading, at evening, his right side became 
 somewhat paralyzed, and the next morning he could 
 move but very feebly ; his sight was dimmer than be- 
 fore, and his utterance was imperfect. He rather ex- 
 pected, very soon, another and a fatal attack, and said 
 half playfully, "I have become now an old man, but I 
 may be a young man before noon." He did not look 
 forward to a recovery of his powers, but cheerfully and 
 quietly resigned himself to the loss of them. But the 
 paralysis proved less serious in its effects than he had 
 expected, and after a few weeks, although he was more 
 easily wearied than before, and did not regain his old 
 quick step, his friends scarcely remarked a change, and 
 a week or two before his death he spoke with thank- 
 fulness of his very comfortable health, and said that he 
 might almost believe the paralysis to have been a fancy. 
 The summer passed for him very serenely, and in his 
 prayers he several times gave thanks "for peaceful 
 days and quiet nights." He passed Friday evening, 
 the 14th of September, cheerfully with his family, but 
 early the next morning he was attacked with illness. 
 It was a bilious attack, seeming not severe, and al- 
 though from the first he was uncommonly drowsy, yet 
 he and his family expected that he would throw off the 
 disease, as before in similar cases. But the disease, 
 without making for several days much progress, contin- 
 ued unabated. He suffered little, his strength was not 
 exhausted, but his mind, although not wandering, was 
 inactive, and he slept much and quietly. Towards the 
 
67 
 
 end of the week, the fact that he was not throwing off 
 his disease awakened fear as to its result. There was 
 no great change until Sunday evening, when he sank 
 into a sleep from which he was not roused. The sleep 
 became more and more placid, and for several hours 
 was as peaceful as the sleep of an infant, until between 
 three and four o'clock in the morning of the 24th, his 
 breath ceased, and his spirit was at home with God. 
 
 The funeral services were fixed for two P. M., on 
 Wednesday the 26th. Many of Dr. Porter's friends, 
 the neighboring ministers, who would gladly have been 
 at his funeral, were absent from home at the annual 
 meeting of the American Board at Pittsfield, Mass., and 
 a rain, which through the da}^ became more and more 
 violent, hindered many others, and some of his own 
 people, from coming to share in the last earthly acts of 
 love for him. His own people, deacons and others, 
 were his bearers. President "Woolsey, of Yale College, 
 and Mr. Paine, Dr. Porter's young colleague, conducted 
 the services, the fonner offering the funeral prayer and 
 making the address. The hymns beginning, " Servant 
 of God, well done," and "Unveil thy bosom, faithful 
 tomb," were sung. Before the close of the services at 
 the church, the rain had become so violent that burial 
 seemed almost impossible, and it was proposed to defer 
 the burial until the next morning, and to leave the 
 remains for the night in tlie church. All at once as- 
 sented with pleasure to this proposal, and during the 
 following night, the body, looking as if in natural sleep, 
 lay in the aisle in front of the sacrament table of the 
 
68 
 
 old church which he had regarded and loved as his 
 second home. The next morning was beautiful and 
 mild, and at nine o'clock Dr. Porter's friends and neigh- 
 bors gathered at the church, to bear his remains to 
 their last earthly home. At the grave, Mr. Paine spoke 
 the last words of farewell. He held the book in which 
 Dr. Porter had recorded the long list of deaths of the 
 generations whom he had buried in the grave-yard 
 where he himself was now gathered to them, and in 
 the older neighboring ground. Before the family of 
 Dr. Porter left his grave, Mr. Samuel Porter, the eldest 
 son, in a few words, in behalf of the family of him who 
 had just been laid in the grave, expressed heartfelt 
 thanks to all who by taking part in the funeral, had 
 showed their love and sympathy, and added that the 
 family all desired, around the grave, to express their 
 grateful recognition of the love and kindness bestowed 
 by the people on their friend and father, during the 
 long years now past, especially for the manifest love 
 and respect which had so much soothed and made 
 cheerful and happy his declining years. He hoped 
 that God would grant to all grace so to live thereafter 
 that the end might be peaceful, and that all might share 
 with him, now in his grave, a blessed immortality. 
 
 The pulpit in which Dr. Porter had so long preached, 
 and the chair in which he had, in later times, sat, a 
 meek and earnest listener, remained for thirty days 
 draped in black. 
 
 The Sunday following Dr. Porter's death, Mr. Paine 
 delivered the memorial discourse now printed. Dr. 
 
69 
 
 Bushnell had been invited to take part in the funeral 
 services, but had been prevented by the severe storm 
 from being present. At the request of Mr. Paine and 
 of others of Dr. Porter's friends, he prepared and 
 preached in Dr. Porter's pulpit, on the third Sunday 
 after his death, the discourse herewith pubhshed. 
 
RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 At the Annual Meeting of the First Ecclesiastical 
 Society of Farmington, held on the 3d day of Decem- 
 ber, A. D. 1866, the following Preamble and Kesolutions 
 were unanimously adopted : 
 
 Whereas, God in his providence, has, during the past 
 year, removed by death the Kev. Noah Porter, D. D., 
 for sixty years the Pastor of this Church and Society, 
 therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we bow with profound grief, and with 
 submission, to this afflictive dispensation. 
 
 Resolved, That this Society desire to express their 
 high appreciation of the character and services of Dr. 
 Porter, during his long and faithful service, as their 
 spiritual shepherd and guide. We bear our grateful 
 testimony to the purity and blamelessness of his life, to 
 his entire devotion to the duties of his office, as a 
 preacher, pastor and friend, to his usefulness as a 
 citizen, and in all his relations to society. 
 
 Resolved, That we tender to his family an expression 
 of our heartfelt sympathy with them in their affliction, 
 
72 
 
 and our earnest desire that they may personally be 
 sustained by the precious truths which their honored 
 and beloved husband and father has so often and ten- 
 derly administered to the afiiicted of his flock. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these Resolutions be signed 
 by the Moderator and Clerk of this meeting, and be 
 presented to the family of Dr. Porter. 
 
 Attest, 
 
 SAMUEL S. COWLES, CkrJc. 
 
VOTE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 At the Annual Meeting of the First Congregational 
 Church of Farmington, held January 2d, 1867, it was 
 unanimously voted to enter the following minute upon 
 the Records of the Church, and that the Clerk be re- 
 quested to communicate a copy of the same to the 
 family of our late Senior Pastor, Dr. Porter : 
 
 The past year has been marked in the history of this 
 Church by the removal from among us by death of our 
 late greatly beloved and revered Senior Pastor, the 
 Rev. Dr. Porter. For nearly sixty years has he been 
 spared to go before this flock as their spiritual shepherd 
 and guide. During all this period has he shown him- 
 self to be a single-hearted Christian ; pure, gentle, for- 
 getful of self, circumspect in life and conversation, and 
 in all his relations and conduct commending the religion 
 he professed to those around him. 
 
 We would gratefully record our testimony of his 
 worth to this community as a citizen. By his public 
 spirit ; by his deep interest in, and efforts to promote 
 10 
 
74 
 
 the prosperity of our public schools ; by his steadfast 
 adherence to, and advocacy of, what ever has tended 
 to promote the public morals and highest temporal 
 prosperity of the town ; by his judicious counsels and 
 liberal contributions, has he been to us alike a model 
 and a public benefactor. 
 
 But chiefly do we desire here to express our pro- 
 found appreciation of his eminent excellence and faith- 
 fulness as a Christian minister. Into the pulpit has he 
 habitually brought discourses carefully prepared, rich 
 in thought, elevated in style and expression, and above 
 all designed and adapted to meet the spiritual wants 
 of his hearers, and imbued throughout by the spirit 
 and doctrines of the gospel. As a pastor, has he 
 sought out alike the rich and the poor, guiding the 
 erring and ignorant, comforting the afflicted, standing 
 by the bedside of the sick and dying, and imj)arting 
 to all the consolations needed by them. Even when 
 compelled by the burdens and infirmities of age to 
 cease from more active services, has he blessed us 
 by his counsels of wisdom and love in our homes, and 
 in the prayer meeting, and when his strength has 
 allowed, by his presence and benedictions in the house 
 of God. 
 
 Long will the fruits of his labors be gathered by us. 
 Cherished in the deepest affections of our hearts shall 
 be his memory and instructions. To God shall our 
 prayers ascend for the venerable and beloved partner 
 of his life, so long as God shall permit her to remain 
 
75 
 
 among us, and also for his children. And to them 
 would we express our sympathy, and our assurances of 
 continued respect and regard. 
 
 Attest, 
 
 T. K. FESSENDEN, CUrTc.