I A 1,


P-`E A SE.~




















Sn ~i~moriam.
CALVIN      PEASE.
PRIVATELY PRINTED.
NEW HAVEN:
THOMAS H. PEASE.
1865.





RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.





CONTENTS.
PAGE
CORRESPONDENCE.............   1
A DISCOURSE BY WILLIAM G. T. SIIEDD, D. D..  5
REMARKS BY JOSEPH TORREY, D. D....... 33
SERMON BY JAMES B. SHAW, D. D.....     43
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. - A LETTER ADDRESSED TO D)R.
SHEDD, BY A. G. P....... 63
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE..........      99
PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.... 106
REV. MR. BOARDMAN'S ADDRESS.....  117
OBITUARY NOTICE......... 121, 124
RESOLUTIONS OF THE MEETING OF THE ROCHESTER
CLERGY........... 126
RESOLUTIONS OF THE WINOOSKI ASSOCIATION..  128










CORRESPONDENCE.


UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT,
BURLINGTON, Oct. 30, 1863.
REV. W. G. T. SHEDD, D. D.:
Dear Sir, - I am directed by the Faculty to express to you their desire that you should deliver, at the next Commencement, a Discourse
commemorative of the late Dr. Pease. It seems to them eminently
fitting, as well as consonant with their own feelings, that this University should do public honor to the memory of President Pease; and
equally fitting that one who was for a long time his associate, and
always his intimate friend, should be selected to perform this office.
Very respectfully yours,
MATTHEW H. BUCKHAM,
Secretary of Faculty.
NEW YoRK, Nov. 3, 1863.
PROF. M. H. BUCKHAM:
Dear Sir, - Your note, conveying to me the request of the Faculty, that I should deliver a Discourse commemorative of Dr. Pease,
is at hand. Such a request I do not feel at liberty to decline; and I
shall take a melancholy pleasure in performing the duty which has
been assigned me.
Very truly yours,
W. G. T. SHEDD.
1










A DISCOURSE
COMMEMORATIVE OF THE
LIFE AND SERVICES OF CALVIN PEASE, D.Do
DELIVERED AT BURLINGTON, VT., AUGUST 2, 1864,
BY
WILLIAM G. T. SHIEDD, D. D.
PROFESSOR IN UNION SEMINARY, NEW YORK.










DISCOURSE.


THE famous funeral oration of Pericles, delivered in commemoration of those who fell in the
first campaign of the Peloponnesian War, is largely
occupied with a panegyric of Athens. The delineation of the character of those brave men who
bore the brunt in the first resistance that was
made to the onset upon Athenian power and
glory, by the jealous Lacedaemonian, fills but a
small space in that eulogy which stands for all
time as the model of funeral eloquence. The
orator dilates, with kindling enthusiasm, upon a
democratic form of government that had served
as a model to others, but was original to Athens;
upon a system of popular education, by which the
youth of the land were inured to endure intellectual toil and labor like men; upon military arrangements that fearlessly laid the whole land open to
the inspection of foreigners in time of peace, yet
made it the terror of foreigners in the time of
war; and upon a style of social life that blended
elegance with frugality and energy. After this
glowing panegyric, in which the orator claims for





6


DISCOURSE.


Athens the highest pre"minence, as the school of
all Greece, he comes to his theme in these words:
"In the defence of such a State as this, refusing to
see it perish, these heroes have nobly fought and
died." * True to the ancient ideas, Pericles sinks
the individual in the State. He would find the
virtue of these brave men, whose bones had been
placed in the cypress coffins and carried in grand
procession to the public sepulchre, in the fact
that they had died, not for themselves or their
families, but for their country. It was not their
own private merit or interest, but their connection with the weal of Athens, that had earned for
them the popular sorrow and the popular commemoration.
We have been reminded of this incident in ancient history, while collecting our thoughts about
him whose memory and public services have convened us here and now. We do not intend servilely to follow the ancient idea, and lose the individual in the State. Our purpose is the delineation of personal character, and not the eulogy of
the Commonwealth. At the same time we would
approach our theme from the same general direction with that of the Athenian model, because
there is a special fitness in so doing. Our departed friend was a scholar, and an American
scholar. He received the first rudiments of education in that most distinctive of our national
institutions, the common school. He passed up
* Thucydides: De Bello Peloponn. II. 37-41.





DISCOURSE.


7


through the successive grades of discipline, academical, collegiate, and professional, as they are
exhibited in the American system of education.
He never saw a foreign university, yet he became
a ripe scholar and a good one. Thoroughly sympathetic with the great laboring class in American
society, - the class that labors with the brain, and
the class that labors with the hand, both of whom
are indissolubly united in this country as they are
in no other,--he was eminently an example and
specimen of what American educational institutions are capable of producing. In this manner,
he was connected with the people and the State
as really and as closely as those dead heroes over
whom the Olympian Pericles spoke his musical
and lofty periods. He belonged to that class in
the Commonwealth who scorn delights and live
laborious days that they may promote the intellectual and religious welfare of the nation, and to
whom society, under God, owes more than it does
to any other class of men; the class that educates childhood and early manhood; the class that
maintains popular intelligence among the masses
and scientific knowledge among the cultivated;
the class that ministers at the altar of God, and
assists and guides the public worship of the whole
people. While, therefore, the occasion will carry
us to a delineation of personal traits and characteristics, we shall endeavor to keep in mind that
our departed friend was a public man, that he
lived and labored for the highest interests of the





8


DISCOURSE.


nation to which he belonged, and that he thereby
deserves well to be remembered and commemorated.
CALVIN PEASE was born in Canaan, Connecticut,
August 12, 1813. The Puritan blood ran in the
veins of his ancestors, and he inherited, in an intense manner, the distinguishing peculiarities of
that stock.  In his thirteenth year his parents
removed to the State of Vermont, and he came
under the influences of a new region, - of a less
artificial state of society, and a far more beautiful
and impressive natural scenery. To say that man
is the mere creature of his circumstances, is false;
but to deny that he is greatly moulded by them,
is equally far from the truth. When a youth is
transplanted from the sea-coast to the inland, or
from the monotony of a level plain to the infinite
variety of the lakes and the mountains, we may
be certain that a change will come over him. He
himself will be unconscious of it at the time, and
those who accompany him will be unaware of it;
but he who, in after-years, surveys the man and
the character from the vantage-ground of a mere
spectator and critic, will perceive the effects of
such a transplanting. He will see the colors of
the new sky in the tincture of the mind; he will
detect the elements of the new scenery in the substance of the understanding. That this passage in
boyhood from southern to northern New England
made itself felt in the whole intellectual development of our friend, there is the plainest proof. To





DISCOURSE.


9


his dying day the hills and valleys, the lakes and
mountains of the State of his adoption were as
much incorporated with the qualities of his mind
and heart as was the scenery around Tintern
Abbey with the soul and sense of Wordsworth.
The first six years in these new scenes were
spent in the labors of the farm, and in those
studies which are opened to every youth of the
land in the common school. The tendencies of
the boy were apparent. He loved study, and
craved more than the common school could give
him. In his nineteenth year he began classical
studies in preparation for college. It was a late
period to begin, and nothing but an inborn love
for letters and a resolute will carried him over the
obstacles in his path. Yet though he came later
than the majority within the sphere of liberal
learning, he came with this advantage, that he
was ripe for the process, and thorough in the prosecution. Entering the University of Vermont in
September, 1833, he immediately took a position
with the very first in his class, and maintained it
to his graduation in 1838, - his course having
been interrupted by teaching for a year.  For
four years after leaving the University he discharged the duties of principal in an academy
at the State capital, with an ability that makes
an era in academical education in Vermont,- a
grade of education which, throughout the country,
it may be remarked in passing, has not kept pace
either with that below it or those above it. In
2





10


DISCOURSE.


1842, Mr. Pease was elected to the Professorship
of the Greek and Latin languages in his Alma
Mater, and entered immediately upon its duties.
The superior manner in which he conducted this
important department was but a continuation, in
a higher province, of the thoroughness and fidelity
of his academical career. After thirteen years of
service in the professorship, he accepted the Presidency of the College in 1856. In 1861, after five
years of laborious service, and the still more laborious and wearing anxieties incident to the presidency of an imperfectly endowed college, his failing health made a change of labor imperative.
He accepted an invitation to the pastoral charge
of the First Presbyterian Church in Rochester,
N. Y., and entered upon his work. He found it
congenial and happy in the highest degree. But
the very enthusiasm with which he entered into
this new labor, and the success which attended
him, were too much for the bodily frame. After a
brief but acute attack of disease, during the season
of respite and recreation, in his old home and
among his old friends, he passed away from earth
on the 17th of September, 1863.
Such is the brief record of a useful and honorable life. Let us now, for a brief hour, contemplate it more in detail; and that we may
concentrate our vision, and pass in survey as
many particulars as possible, let us consider our
departed friend, first, as a scholar; secondly, as a
teacher; and, lastly, as a preacher.





DISCOURSE.


11


I. In estimating the scholarship of an American,
it is important to keep in mind the disadvantages
under which he labors in acquiring a tJiorozyqh education.  The foundations of accurate and wide
learning, if laid at all, must be laid in the second
decade of human life. And the foundations of a
thorough classical education, in particular, must,
generally, be laid in the early part of this period.
It is true that Cato is said to have learned Greek
in his old age, and that the philosopher Hobbs did
not begin classical studies until after his eightieth
year. But neither of them could claim that grammatical, that vernacular accuracy which is the
slow growth of early and long-continued training.
Now it will not be disputed that in America the
preparatory schools for classical education have
thus far afforded but very imperfect facilities to
the active and enterprising youth of the land.
In England, a boy is subjected to the careful drill
of Eton, of Westminster, or of Rugby, in those
early years when memory is quick, and the power
of fixing grammatical forms and rules is alert and
facile. In Germany, the gymnasium, by its rigorous curriculum, mortises the whole fabric of
the ancient grammar into the framework of the
youthful mind with such niceness that it is never
wrenched away. A solid basis is laid, before the
sixteenth year of life, for a massive and grand
superstructure; and the Old World produces by
this method its Bentleys and its Hermanns. But
in America, the method of instruction in prepar




12


DISCOURSE.


atory schools has been comparatively hasty and
careless; and the consequence has been, that the
great majority of liberally educated Americans are
compelled to struggle all their days with the ill
effects of an imperfect grammatical discipline.
That so much has been accomplished in this country, under such unfavorable conditions, evinces the
natural energy of the American intellect, and also
an inborn tact by which small means are made to
produce large results.
We have adverted to this state of things, which
prevailed twenty-five years ago even more than it
does at present, in order to throw light upon the
energy and industry which made our departed
friend a scholar. Dr. Pease enjoyed very few advantages in early life for the attainment of classical discipline. Until his nineteenth year he had
felt no educational influences higher than those of
the common school, if we except (and it is an
important exception) those few books which the
scanty domestic libraries around him may have furnished. He began the study of the ancient languages at an age when many are about leaving it,
and at an age when the process of memorizing is
becoming irksome, because other processes, more
natural to advancing years, are asserting their
claims. With only a year of such training, he
entered upon the collegiate course, and during
that course made himself an accurate philologist.
We use the word 1'accurate" advisedly; for this
was a distinguishing characteristic of his mind and





DISCOURSE.


13


culture. There was nothing careless or slovenly
in his education. Everything that he did, whether
it was the construing of a period of Sophocles, or
composing an original one of his own, was nice,
exact, and elegant. A favorite author of his was
Horace; and he easily and felicitously reproduced
the simple elegance of that master and model of
good sense and good taste.
But although classical learning greatly interested him, and became his principal study for ten
or fifteen years, because it was the subject which
he was called to teach, it would be an error to
suppose that he was strong in this department
and weak in others. The lateness of the period
at which he began a collegiate course gave
him a breadth of view which is too often lacking in younger students, so that he did not content himself with strength in one direction and
feebleness in another.  He perceived that the
course of liberal education is a systematic one, and
that its highest power depends upon excellence
and proportion in each and all the parts.  He
did not suppose that a machine will run well by
strongly urging the driving-wheel and hanging
weights on the fly-wheel. He did not fall into
the error of those who think that the fertility and
mobility imparted to the human mind by classical
studies do not need the concentration, the steadfastness, and the inexorable tenacity of mathematical discipline. He was a good scholar in the
calculus. The elements of culture furnished by





14


DISCOURSE.


both of the two grand divisions in the modern
curriculum were thoroughly blended in him. The
mysterious region of philosophy was also explored
with patience and with reverence. This department of human science was then under the conduct of a highly profound and pure metaphysician, whose methods of instruction were as rigorous as those of Euclid, and whose nomenclature
was as exact and technical as that of Aristotle.
The lectures of Dr. Marsh were carefully reported
by the young collegian, and few graduates of
this University have ever made themselves more
familiar with their contents.
This rapid survey enables us to perceive that
our departed friend, in the days of college life,
was a conscientious and faithful scholar. In that
period of life when imagination and fancy are
active and run riot, - when, if there be literary
tendencies, they are too apt to dissipate and waste
themselves in an aimless wandering over the fields
of belles-letllres, instead of strengthening and concentrating themselves in the fields of science, - in
that romantic and dangerous age in the life of a
student, our friend was self-poised, circumspect,
and true to all his studies. In the phrase of
Leibnitz, he "yoked all the sciences abreast,"
and laid the foundations of his mind, and his
future course as an educated man, in granite and
concrete.
II. The education and discipline which our
friend thus acquired by energy, industry, and pa




DISCOURSE.


15


tience, were soon called into requisition. Upon
leaving college, he entered immediately upon the
vocation of an instructor, and this became the
principal service of his life. In sketching his
characteristics as a teacher, we notice, in the first
place, the fact that he regarded the work of an
educator as a professional work. He did not enter
upon it as a means to an end, but as an end in
and of itself. In this country, the business of
instruction has too generally been prosecuted for
the purpose of paving the way into one of the
three professions of theology, law, or medicine.
As soon as the year or two of pedagogical toil is
over, the collegian enters with enthusiasm upon
the study to which he proposes to devote his life.
The consequence of this arrangement is, that the
noble and important work of educating the public mind is performed by those who regard it as
drudgery, and who do not bring to it the skill and
ability of long-continued practice. The army of
teachers is composed of raw recruits, with only
here and there a veteran intermingled.
It was with other views and estimates that Mr.
Pease entered upon the vocation of a teacher.
The high theory of education that was formed
and put in practice by the able educators under
whose influence he came, and his own conscientious and thorough use of the educational curriculum in college, contributed to give him exalted
ideas of the nature of the work. He was willing
to devote his days to it, and therefore did not at





16


DISCOURSE.


this time contemplate the study of any one of the
professions, commonly so called. He believed that
Socrates was wise in thinking that he who educates the youth of a people is as powerful a citizen, and exerts as immediate an influence upon
the destiny of the nation, as the jurist, the philosopher, or the statesman. He remembered the remarkable impression which the Jesuits have made
upon the Roman Catholic Church by their stringent method of education, and by their still more
stringent perseverance and tenacity in applying it
to the children and youth gathered into their colleges. He never lost this high idea of the work
of a teacher, but carried it with him from the
academy to the professorship and the presidency.
During this latter portion of his life, when, as the
head of the State university, he was brought into
more immediate connections with State education,
he labored with great earnestness to infuse this
high estimate of the teacher's calling through the
common-school system.  It is the testimony of a
highly competent witness, that "he was the life
and soul of the Board of State Education, while:he remained 'a member of it," and that " whatever
measure of success has attended its efforts is attributable, in great measure, to him."*
Mr. Pease carried this same estimate of the
teacher's calling into actual practice. It was not
a mere theory with him. Few instructors have
devoted themselves more earnestly to the actual
* Secretary Adams's Letter.





DISCOURSE.


17


drill of the class-room. The subject to be examined was never slurred over, either by the pupil
or the instructor. Taking, as he did, a department
of instruction in the college which, perhaps more
than any other one, demands rigorous handling
in order to its highest efficiency, he was true to
his professorship. Owing to causes which we have
already referred to, young men enter the American college with a very imperfect classical preparation, and the collegiate discipline is compelled to
supplement the academical. This task was sternly
performed; and those classes who passed under the
exact philological instruction of Professor Pease
will bear testimony that the elements of the Greek
and Latin languages were wrought into their education by a most severe analysis and a most faithful tuition. We happen to know that the opening
of his professorial career was subjected to some
little sense of disappointment from these facts and
causes. He found classes whose knowledge of the
rudiments was imperfect. His own high theory of
classical education, and his rigid conscientiousness
in regard to the method of teaching, would not
permit him to allow these radical deficiencies to
remain, and show themselves through the whole
future career of the young men committed to his
care. He applied himself with main force to remove them. But the time and toil necessary to
impart a linguistic accuracy that ought to have
been secured  in the earlier academical course
were so much subtracted from the time and toil
3





18


DISCOURSE.


which an enthusiastic and enterprising classical
scholar would have greatly preferred to bestow
upon higher ranges of classical study, and a
more advanced course of classical instruction.
The whole wide field of Greek and.oman literature was opened to him, and he was qualified to
range over the whole of it, from Homer to Photius, from Plautus to Pliny; but the exigencies of
his professorship required that he deny himself
this excursiveness, and work in the mines of the
grammar and the lexicon for the benefit of others.
Schiller in a pretty poem has depicted the struggle of poetic genius with the coarse working-day
life of earth, under the simile of Pegasus in harness. The winged steed of Apollo is set to ploughing. It is also a fit emblem of the experience of
many a ripe classical scholar when summoned to
a professorship. He is set to parsing. But our
friend submitted cheerfully to the demands of his
position; and for thirteen years, we venture to
affirm, no college imparted a more exact linguistic
discipline than did the University of Vermont.
III. We have thus far sketched the intellectual
features in the portrait of our departed friend.
But the intellect is only one half of the man, and
that not the most important half. "Whether there
be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be
tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." The whole body of
profane literature is one day to disappear. In the
cycles of eternity, who will read Plato and Shak




DISCOURSE.


19


speare? In one million years from now, where will
be the libraries of earth, and the literatures that
are enshrined in them?   Measured by the scale of
infinity, and scanned with the glance of God, nothing is more fugacious and transitory than human,
secular letters. But 1 charity never faileth." That
which is moral, that which is spiritual, that which
is religious, endures forevermore.
"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears."
In passing to delineate Dr. Pease as a preacher,
we shall take into our survey, so far as is possible, his religious history. He entered upon the
work of a public religious instructor very late in
life, but a foundation had been forming for it during the whole forty years that preceded.
It is the testimony of all who knew him, that
his childhood and youth were singularly blameless.
His early manhood was also marked by a natural
sobriety. It was not, however, until he began
preparation for a liberal education, that his mind
became deeply interested in the great questions of
sin and redemption. In 1831, the public mind of
the region in which hlie lived was widely stirred by
religious anxieties, and the young man shared in
the common feeling. But he did not at that time
come out into clear light and peace. On the contrary, it is the testimony of one who best knows
his spiritual history at that time, that the subsidence of the religious interest in the community
left him, for some years, in an unsettled frame.





20


DISCOURSE.


He did not by any means become a skeptic; but
in his case, as in persons of an intellectual tendency it often happens, the period of intense religious excitement was followed by one of doubts
in regard to the genuineness of the experiences
through which the soul had passed. The great
earnestness, moreover, with which he applied himself to the course of study upon which he soon
afterwards entered, had the effect to throw religious themes into the background and into the
shade.  During the latter part of his collegiate
life, however, those themes rose again upon his
vision with yet more solemn meaning, and he
found a final and an eternal rest in the doctrines
and promises of the gospel.
The great subject of theology now began to
have an interest for his mind, although he did
not deliberately intend a course of professional
training in it. The work of a teacher, as we have
seen, he had chosen for his profession. Nevertheless, from this time onward, theological studies
constituted an important part of his personal discipline. In 1844, he writes to a friend that he is
reading the orations of Chrysostom, and gives an
analysis of that glowing panegyric of the goldenmouthed Greek upon the Apostle Paul. Increasing interest in that science which Bacon denominates "the sabbath and port of men's labors and
peregrinations" led him further every year of his
professorial life into its recesses, until, in 1851, he
received license to preach, and went forth before





DISCOURSE.


21


the churches as a public religious instructor. During his presidency of five years he ministered to
the churches of the region, especially the more
feeble and needy among them, with growing earnestness and zeal. It was not, however, until he
left his collegiate connections and entered formally
upon the duties of a preacher and pastor, that the
full power of his mind and heart in this direction
was apparent.
To some who knew Dr. Pease, it appeared somewhat doubtful whether the scholastic life which
he had led nearly to the fiftieth year of' his age
would admit of high success in so practical and
popular a field of effort as the. pulpit and the parish. But such judges forgot, that excellence in
one direction, when it is the result of careful and
conscientious discipline, is the surest road to excellence in any other direction. The human mind,
when highly disciplined, can be directed to almost
any branch of inquiry, and can labor with success.
Education is, in reality, the power to work with
the brain; if this power be acquired, it is a matter of secondary consequence what be the special
topic upon which the work is expended. In the
ancient gymnasium, the first purpose was to produce a muscular man. When this was accomplished, it mattered little whether he entered the
lists of the wrestler, or of the boxer, or of the
racer. Nay, if he were thorough-bred, he might
attempt the pancralium itself, and carry off all the
laurels.





22


DISCOURSE.


The pure and high cultivation, both in mind
and heart, which Dr. Pease had acquired, were
very readily directed to the labors of the Christian
ministry. His methodical mental habits, his stores
of choice information, his careful and polished
style, his uncommon industry and power of concentrating his faculties, - all these, which were
the fruit of his scholastic life, fitted him admirably
for the composition of sermons. This is the chief
labor in the clerical profession, and he went to it
with genial interest. Having led the life of a student for so many years, and having followed a
profession that does not necessitate original authorship, his mind and heart were in the condition
of a fountain that has been kept underground by
a superincumbent mass. When this is removed,
the living stream bursts forth with all the more
ebullient force because of the previous repression.
On leaving the college, and entering upon the
work of the pastor and preacher, Dr. Pease, somewhat to the surprise of those who did not take all
the facts of the case into consideration, immediately spoke to the popular mind from the pulpit
with as much freedom, fluency, and force, as if
he had been in the ministry for years.     It is
the concurrent testimony of all his hearers, that
the sermonizing of this scholastic man was eminently practical and instructive. Though "the
result of all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense of palladian oil," it
was nevertheless plain, simple, and edifying dis




DISCOURSE.


23


course. The preaching of Dr. Pease was a practical refutation of the common fallacy, that high
learning and discipline are incompatible with the
power of making an impression upon the popular
mind. On the contrary, that very simplicity and
instructive earnestness, which characterized his
sermonizing, could have sprung from no other
source. Shallow men tend to bombast; deep men
never. Half-educated men employ a tawdry rhetoric; thorough-bred men never. "It takes all our
learning," says Archbishop Usher, "to be plain and
simple."  It is too often forgotten that the easy,
bold, free power of a truly effective preacher,
springs only from a deep theology and a thorough
discipline. It is only a very strong muscle and
a very strong skeleton that can wield the heavy
broadsword like a feather; and this strong muscle
and skeleton are the slow product of years of
gymnastic exercise. We see this illustrated in
the province of fine art. A novice draws his
outlines with a trembling and anxious hand, and
lays on his colors as if he were signing his own
death-warrant; while a Michael Angelo dashes
upon the canvas both outlines and color (like the
round 0 of Giotto) with a rapidity that is equalled
only by the accuracy and the beauty. The novice
possesses little culture and little skill, and therefore he works cautiously and feebly; the great
artist possesses great culture and great skill, and
therefore he works boldly and with power. Yet
the preparatory discipline is too often forgotten.





24


DISCOURSE.


Men look at the result, and overlook, nay, disparage the means by which it was brought about.
Sir Joshua Reynolds was once asked, by a person
for whom he had painted a small cabinet picture,
how he could charge so much for a work which
had employed him only five days. He replied:
S"Five days! why, Sir, I have expended the work
of thirty-five years upon it." This was the truth.
Behind that little picture there lay the studies,
the practice, and the toil of a great genius fbr
more than three decades of years in the painter's
studio. It is not the mere immediate effort that
must be considered in estimating the value of a
work, but that far more important and far more
difficult general and preparatory effort that went
before it, and that cost a lifetime of toil.
Our friend, whose memory and services we are
commemorating, had laid broad foundations, and
made a great general preparation; and when the
Master summoned him to the immediate preparation, to the actual employment of his fund of
knowledge and of character in popular religious
instruction, he exhibited the natural and forcible
and free style of one who is "native and to the
manner born."
But while the sermonizing of Dr. Pease showed
these fine qualities of his mind and of his intellectual culture, it showed equally fine qualities
in spiritual respects. It was natural that his entrance upon the work of the ministry should be
marked by a quickening of the religious life. He





DISCOURSE.


25


had passed swiftly from the comparative seclusion of a scholastic life to that intimate and practical intercourse with the church of God, which,
more than any other influence save that of the
Eternal Spirit, is suited to stimulate and refine
religious character. Still more than this, it happened, in the providence of God, that the beginning of his ministry should fall upon a period of
unusual religious interest and awakening in the
community.   Here, then, was a mind to which
the doctrines of Christianity had been familiar for
years; which had all the preparation needed to
state those doctrines clearly and with energy;
which was filled and strengthened by a calm, dispassionate conviction that these doctrines are the
eternal truth of God, revealed for the salvation of
man;- it was such an intellect, and such a discipline as this, that was brought into warm, living
contact with the people of God, in their varied
experiences of spiritual joy and spiritual sorrow,
and with the men of the world, in their solemn,
anxious moments of inquiry respecting eternal
life and death. It was no surprising thing, therefore, under such circumstances, that the preaching of Dr. Pease should have been characterized
by spirituality and penetrating force. The moral
earnestness grew upon him. As the work advanced, and the truth took hold, and souls were
converted, his own faculties of thought, feeling,
and speech were highly elevated and quickened.
Nay, there is reason to believe that the zeal of
4





26


DISCOURSE.


God's house consumed his life faster than either
he or his friends were aware. The very enthusiasm and success of his opening ministry, the very
fervor and flame of his discourse in the pulpit,
in the house, and by the way, proved to be too
severe and exhausting a drain upon his physical
powers.
For with all the coolness and sobriety in his
nature, and with all the dispassionateness resulting from a life in the study and among books,
there was in Dr. Pease a vein of intensity. His
correspondence, at one period in his life, shows
that he had a strong affinity with such earnest and
sombre spirits as Martyn, Brainerd, and Payson.
These biographies he read with deep sympathy;
and his expressions of religious feeling and experience, at this time, evince that there was in
his constitution that tragic and solemn tendency
which lies at the bottom of all stern and startling speech, be it in Church or State. This tendency was reawakened and stimulated by the religious and practical labors of the ministry, and
it grew into increasing power and domination.
"Pray for me," he writes to a friend,- "pray
for me, that I may have faith and utterance."
The prayer was answered; for his faith steadily
grew stronger, and his utterance more incisive,
earnest, direct, and simple. An auditor, himself a
clergyman, who happened to hear one of his last
discourses in the pulpit, informs us that the impression upon himself was unique and remarkable;





DISCOURSE.


27


not mainly because of the thoughts and ideas
imparted, though these were high and spiritual,
but because of the wonderfully earnest and absorbed manner in which they were uttered. It
was not long before his summons to depart into
the presence of God; and perhaps he even then
felt that the awful shadow of eternity was upon
him.
One of the most -striking and impressive pieces
in the Elder English poetry is the "Soul's Errand,"
ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh.*     In it the soul is
addressed, and bidden to go out and tell its message to the world:--
4" Goe tell the court, it glowes
And shines like rotten wood;
Goe tell the church it showes
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lye.
" Tell men of high condition
That rule affairs of State,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practise onely hate;
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lye," &c.
Of this poem     Campbell remarks: "I know        not
how this short production has ever affected other
readers, but it carries to my imagination an appeal which I cannot easily account for, from a few
simple rhymes.     It places the last, and inexpressibly awful hour of existence before my view, and
* Percy: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.





28


DISCOURSE.


sounds like a sentence of vanity on the things of
this world, pronounced by a dying man, whose
eye glares on eternity, and whose voice is raised
by strength from another world." But it is a far
more solemn and thrilling tone than can ever be
heard within the secular sphere, when a Christian
herald, summoned by the voice of the Son of God
to proclaim the alternatives of salvation and damnation, speaks as a dying man to dying men.
This was the errand, and this was the startling
cry to his auditors of our departed friend.
This portraiture of Dr. Pease would be incomplete, if we failed to notice his excellence as a
pastor. Always affable, kindly, and courteous,
the line of labor which he was called to perform
in the parish developed these traits in a high degree. It is rare in the history of clergymen and
congregations that such a tender and affectionate
feeling springs up between pastor and people as
that which existed in this instance. Though the
connection continued less than two years, and
though there had been no previous acquaintance
between the parties, the tie seemed to have all
the strength of a long-continued pastorate. This
was due, unquestionably, to the fidelity and assiduity with which Dr. Pease discharged the pastoral
duties. One of the best of judges, himself a professor of pastoral theology, in addressing the bereaved church, employed these words: "You saw
in him what the Church seldom sees, - a man of
letters and philosophy, an educator to the age of





DISCOURSE.


29


forty-eight, turning at once to the pastoral office,
entering upon its duties with the facility of a lifelong habit, and actually attaining, in the brief
space of two years, such distinction as a pastor as
makes him a model for all coming time." *  There
is no tenderer tie than that which binds a Christian man to his spiritual adviser; and that pastor
who enters the Christian household, and makes
himself almost bone of its bone and flesh of its
flesh, by weeping where there is weeping and rejoicing where there is joy, attaches himself to it
by hooks of steel. Such was the relation between
Dr. Pease and his congregation. Deeply beloved
while he was with them, their affection still continues in forms and ways not less honorable to
them than to him, and he makes his grave with
them in his death.
Thus have we imperfectly delineated the intellectual and moral characteristics of one who served
his day and generation with fidelity. He merits
well, as was remarked in the opening, to be remembered by the public, by the Church, and by
the State, for he devoted to their interests the
self-discipline and labors of thirty years. He did
not live for the accumulation of wealth, or the
advancement of his merely private interests. Had
he done so, he might have succeeded. He might,
as so many other men have done with less natural
and acquired abilities than he possessed, have left
* Professor Cutting's Remarks.





30


DISCOURSE.


behind him houses and lands, and a local reputation to last for a few months or years; but he
would have contributed little or nothing to the intellectual and moral welfare of the country; and
he would not deserve to be enrolled, as he now
is, among those who have ministered to the true
glory and strength of the nation, by building up
its institutions of learning and religion.
But there is a narrower circle in which Dr.
Pease deserves to be remembered, and will be remembered, with respect and affection. He was an
Alumnus of the University of Vermont, and he was
one of its Professors and its Presidents.  Every
college is characterized by peculiarities that make
it an object of interest to its own graduates; and
probably among the more public relationships
which men sustain, there is none that is more
beautiful than the relation of alumni to their college. They feel the mystic tie which binds them
to the institution where they obtained their liberal
culture, and to the fraternities in which they were
associated in the most romantic and fascinating
period of human life. They share in the esprit
du corlps, the one corporate spirit which animates
the literary institution where they were bred, and
exhibit in their own traits, as educated men, its
strength and its weakness, its excellences and its
defects. And this, too, gives them an interest in
all who have passed through the same collegehalls, and read the same text-books, and submitted
to the same discipline, and listened to the same
instructors.





DISCOURSE.               31
By virtue of this common relationship to the
University of Vermont,` we, gentlemen and brethren of the Alumni, feel a more private and personal loss in the decease of him whose virtues we
have commemorated. He was an affectionate and
reverent son of our Alma Mater. None of us have
been truer to her teachings; none of us have been
more proud of her reputation and infiuence; none
of us have contributed more to her prosperity and
perpetuity. And as we here and now bid him
"hail and farewell," shall it not be with a deeper,
stronger interest in that institution to which he
gave the work of his life, and which, in all intellectual respects, is "1the mother of us all."










REMARKS BY REV. DR, TORREY,
AT THE
FUNERAL OF REV. CALVIN PEASE, D. D.
IN BURLINGTON.










REV. DR. TORIEY'S REMARKS.


IT is suitable, my friends, that before we commit to the earth the lifeless remains of one so
well known in all this community, so universally
respected, and so dearly loved by those who
knew him best, we should stop a moment and
reflect on the qualities that endeared him to us
while living, and which now make us feel so sensibly that we, as well as many others, have met
with a loss greatly to be deplored, in his being so
prematurely taken from us. Little need be said,
for this is no time to enter upon anything like a
labored analysis of his character. In what I have
to say, - who little expected ever to be called on
to take any such part as this in bearing testimony to his worth, - I shall speak of him simply
in his relation to the University, and as he was
concerned, not only in this relation, but otherwise, also, with the cause of education in our
State; and in doing so, I shall endeavor to be as
brief as possible, both out of regard to the sorely
afflicted ones who are thinking of other things
than these, and to allow room  for the remarks





36      REV. DR. TORREY'S REMARKS.


which are to follow mine, from his former pastor
and brother in the ministry of the gospel.
About half the life of our departed friend was
passed in connection with the University in this
place; and well on to twenty years of this time,
the best years of his life, as he truly expressed
it in his farewell letter to the Faculty in taking
leave of us, were spent in faithful and devoted
labors, first as a colleague instructor, and then as
presiding officer over the institution. During the
whole of this time, including the four years of his
life here as a student, it was my privilege to be in
circumstances wherein I had the best opportunity
of tracing his growth as a scholar and a Christian,
of marking his peculiar excellences as a teacher
and guide of young men, of understanding his
views of the great interests of education generally,
and of the manner in particular in which such
an institution as a college should be conducted
and sustained. It is not my intention to dwell
at length upon any of these particulars; but I
may be allowed to remark, in the first place, that
our lamented friend, whose career has been so suddenly cut short, was a steadily growing man, ever
giving evidence of progress, from the time I first
knew him as a student, to the last public performance which I had the great pleasure of hearing from
him." He was making progress, not only in knowledge, but in true piety, in force and energy of
* His last Baccalaureate Address to the Senior Class, 1863, preached
soon after his settlement at Rochester, N, Y.





REV. DR. TORREY'S REMARKS.


37


Christian character, and in the warmth of his interest for the welfare of all who came under his
care or his influence. Do we not all, who were
then present, remember his long-continued gratuitous services as a preacher in the college chapel?
Can we ever forget the lively interest he showed,
and the earnest, well-directed, and judicious efforts
he made in the way of encouraging and guiding
inquiring minds, and in warning the careless and
indifferent at all times, but especially whenever an
increasing interest in religion appeared among the
students? It may be said with truth, that on such
occasions he was the first and leading man among
us. Many, as I have no doubt, who are now laboring in the vineyard of our Lord, and winning other
souls to Christ, would, if inquired of, date their
first serious impressions, or earnest resolution to
devote themselves to the cause of their Redeemer,
to some chance word of his, brought home to their
hearts by the influence from above.
To say nothing here of the peculiar qualifications of our departed brother as a teacher in the
departments of instruction to which he was devoted, except to remark that faithfulness in preparing himself for his allotted work and scrupulous
accuracy in carrying it into execution ever distinguished him, I go on to mention, as another and
very lovely trait of his character, the paternal, or
I might better say, brotherly interest he ever felt
and manifested in the temporal prosperity of each
individual student.   This, it will be owned by





38


REV. DR. TORREY'S REMARKS.


those who best knew him in his connection with
the University, was one of the most striking things
which characterized him as its presiding officer.
Other presidents whom I have known, during the
many years of my life here, were also remarkably
distinguished for this same beautiful trait,--distinguished, each in his own peculiar way. But I
must say of Dr. Pease, it was the one thing which
signalized the spirit of his administration. In
looking back, do we who knew him now recall
to mind any feature in the character of our late
President which has left upon us an impression we
more dearly cherish than this? It may be truly
said that he rejoiced with those who had cause for
rejoicing, and that with the afflicted he also was
afflicted. He deeply sympathized with the friends
of those who were cut off in the midst of their
college-life, and never failed, when a suitable occasion offered itself, to commemorate before their
fellow-students whatever hopeful gifts and promise
of worth he had discovered in them. Then, how
true a friend he was to the poverty-stricken; to
those -and many such there were and always will
be in a college like this - who were struggling to
obtain an education with little or nothing to depend upon but their own efforts. Under all their
discouragements they were sure of finding a true
friend in Dr. Pease, one who fully understood their
case, who would enter into it with heartfelt interest,
and who would seek, in some way or other, by counsel, by encouragement, by such help as he could





REV. DR. TORREY'S REMARKS.


39


afford or obtain, to relieve them from present embarrassments and open to them better prospects
for the future. And I may here add, in giving
these details, that this faithful man did not consider it beneath the dignity of a president, or more
than his office required of him, to look carefully
after the health of those intrusted to his care.
He gave timely warning to such as were neglecting so necessary a condition of successful study
and a useful life; and he would candidly advise
those who were plainly injuring themselves by
application to books, to quit this mode of life, at
least for the present, and engage in more active
pursuits.
Many of the things which I have now mentioned as noticeable in the character of our departed friend and brother, and not least the great
delight he took in preaching to his fellow-men the
gospel of salvation, seem very clearly to indicate
the vocation for which, by talent and disposition,
he was most eminently fitted, and where, by the
providence of God, he at length found his place.
In his youth, and soon after leaving college, he
had, it is true, devoted himself to the business
of teaching. In his plans and expectations, this,
doubtless, was to be the employment of his whole
life. But God had ordered it otherwise. And in
how remarkable a way! During the later years
of his presidency he was called to preach somewhere nearly every Sabbath in each year. And
before this, he was in the habit of preaching a





40


REV. DR. TORREY'S REMARKS.


great deal in the college chapel, and, subsequently, in the Calvinistic Congregational Church
in Burlington. Meanwhile, the truly pastoral care
which, so far as his relation to the college permitted, he exercised over the young men generally,
and the pious young men particularly, of the university over which he presided, called forth and
kept alive those fine qualities of heart which
burst out, if I may so express it, in sudden and
surprising effulgence during the short period of
his pastorate at Rochester. Truly, God's ways are
not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts.
When we think ourselves permanently fixed and
settled for life, He may still have a work for us to
do and a place for us to fill which may be the
best, the happiest, and the most successful of all
our work here on the earth, though it had never
once entered into our own plans or expectations.
In the case of our brother, the work was a short
one.  In little more than a year and a half it
was finished. But during that short year and a
half, he was the favored instrument of winning
many souls to Christ, and enjoyed a happiness the
nearest of all like heaven, that of having a people under his spiritual care who loved him even as
he loved them.
I conclude with a word concerning his labors
for the general interests of this University.
In peforming this part of his duty to the institution, our former colleague and President was'diligent, earnest, and self-sacrificing. As he himself





REV. DR. TORREY'S REMARKS.


41


truly said, in his communication to the faculty
already referred to, he devoted his enthusiasm
and labors, and, so far as he had any, expended
his money, in its behalf. To him, as one of the
most efficient agents while he was a professor,
we were indebted for the successful bringing to
a close of an important subscription for the benefit of the University; and one great object he had
in view in accepting the office of the presidency,
though it was partially frustrated by the pressure
of the times, was to place the college on a firmer
and securer basis in its financial concerns.
As a friend and promoter of the great cause of
education, the labors of this devoted man, whose
loss we now deplore, extended beyond the college,
and to the improvement and furtherance of this
great common interest throughout the State. His
known practical wisdom and ability in regard to
the proper management of all matters of this sort
led to his appointment as member of the Board of
Education in this State, a very important position,
which he occupied until he was called away from
the State to take charge of the church in Rochester, New York.
Such, in brief, was he, possessed of such rare
and estimable qualities, in the particular sphere
and kind of action to which my remarks have
been confined on the present occasion. But he
had many other merits, of which it does not belong to me to speak, in the relations of private
life, and as a citizen and Christian minister, which
6





42       REV. DR. TORREY'S REMARKS.
must be added to those I have mentioned, in order
to form any just estimate of his character. And
when these are presented, I believe we shall all
feel that by the, death of Dr. Pease, not only the
cause of education, but religion, and. every -other
good and precious interest of the society in which
he moved, has been deprived of a friend, an advocate, and helper, whose loss cannot easily be
repaired.





SERMON BY REV. DR. SHAW.
DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1863, IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ROCHESTER, N. Y.










SERMON.


Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that
man is peace.- PSALM Xxxvii. 37.
WE are carried back this afternoon to the first death and
first burial of a saint which occurred in the Christian
Church. There are many points of resemblance between
the death and burial of the first Christian martyr and the
death and burial of that man of God whose unexpected
departure has clothed this congregation of the Lord in
sackcloth, and made the whole community to mourn. Like
Stephen, our brother occupied a commanding position in
the Church; many eyes were turned towards him. Like
Stephen, he was a man of rare graces and gifts, and few
were able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which
he spake. Like Stephen, he was taken away in the midst
of his days, at the height of his influence, when it seemed
as if he could do more than ever for the Lord who bought
him. Like Stephen, he spent the closing hours of his life
in prayer; the last breath bore a supplication to the throne
of the heavenly grace. Like Stephen, he died in perfect
peace, and in charity with all the world; left no grudge
for anybody to bury or keep alive. Like Stephen, his departing spirit was sustained and cheered by celestial visions. Like Stephen, devout men carried him to his burial,
and made great lamentation over him, and wondered what





46


SERMON.


the Church could do without him; and, like that holy man
of old, he has left behind a memory and an influence which
God will not suffer to pass away; an influence which shall
live till the last star has set. " The memory of the just is
blessed," and 1"the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."
Now, such a life and such a death make the words of the
text peculiarly appropriate and emphatic: " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man
is peace." Let us dwell for a few moments on the man here
described, and the claim which he has to our earnest attention.
The man here described: and first, he is a perfect man.
The word here rendered perfect means complete, finished,
symmetrical, full orbed, no defect, no excrescence; nothing
to mar the beauty, impair the impression, or diminish the
influence; nothing that the dearest friend would change
or remove, or even wish were otherwise. This man is not
absolutely sinless. It is nearly two thousand years since
the sinless one went back to the place whence he came.
The man of whom the Psalmist speaks sometimes misses
the mark, sometimes steps aside; and no matter how often
he may come before the Lord, he never kneels by the steps
of the throne without imploring the Divine forgiveness.
But while he sometimes fails in conduct, there is no radical
deficiency in character; and therefore we may speak of him
in the scripture sense, and in God's sense, as a perfect
man. This friend, so tall, so straight, so strong, so well
proportioned and thoroughly developed, we call physically
a perfect man. He does not always move with a steady
and an equal step. He sometimes trips, and sometimes
stumbles; and when the pavements were slippery, and caution asleep, has been known to fall; and yet, we do not
hesitate to pronounce him a perfect man. What is there
wanting to make a man? Every limb, every organ, every





SERMON.


47


feature, every fibre is there, and in beautiful proportion
and harmony. What would you add?     What dare take
away?  True, he sometimes trips, but that is only saying
that he is a finite creature, and inherits the weakness and
frailty common to all. Now, so this dear brother in Christ
is a perfect man. Every virtue is there; every grace is
there; every lineament of his Father's face.  True, he
sometimes trips, sometimes stumbles; but that is only saying that he is a fallen being, and inherits a sinful nature,
the sad legacy which our first father left us.
Now this perfect man may be distinguished for some
peculiar excellence; while all the graces of the Spirit are
there, some one may shine with surpassing lustre: just as
this able-bodied man of whom we have been speaking, this
man of commanding presence and godlike form, may be
known far and wide for his strength or agility or endurance
or courage. So it is with the man spoken of in the text;
he is distinguished for his uprightness: " Mark the perfect
man, and behold the upright." He is simple, sincere, honest-hearted. He is a transparent man. You can look into
his soul as you can look into that lake, so cool, so clear, so
still, and reflecting in its depths the beauties of the heavenly world. Many a man is like a stagnant pond, quiet as
a serpent, smooth and plausible as a Pharisee, with here
and there a beautiful flower floating on the surface, to woo
your feet to the treacherous brink. Who could suspect
that so many hideous and venomous things are lurking beneath the wily waters?  But it is not so with this perfect
and upright man of whom the Psalmist speaks. He has
nothing to hide. You can see to the bottom of him, a pebbly bottom, where an unclean thing, which loathes the light,
could never feel at home. If hatred, or envy, or suspicion,
or any other evil thing, should stray for a moment into his
heart, it would find such uncongenial companions there
that it could not stay; it could stay no more than a sinful





48


SERMON.


man could stay among the seraphim around the throne.
Here, then, is a perfect man, a complete and finished character, and distinguished above all others for his uprightness; speaking just as he means, appearing just as he is;
and who would no more speak a false word, nor make a
false pretence, than he would hang out a false light on a
lee shore.
Such is the man described in the text; and now, what
claim has he on our earnest attention? "Mark the perfect
man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is
peace." And first, this man is beautiful in himself. He is
God's workmanship, and the greatest and the most wonderful of all His works. It is the man created anew in
Christ Jesus who may say, "I am fearfully and wonderfully
made; and that my soul knoweth right well." God forbid
that I should speak one disparaging word of the material
works which His hand hath wrought. The forest, the sea,
the cataract, the mountain, the volcano, struggling to break
its fiery fetters and hasten the predicted doom,- oh, I sometimes stand before these, as before God himself, in silent
awe. The humblest thing which Almighty power has created, the lowliest flower, the leaf wafted by the breeze, the
blade of grass, the tuft of moss, the poorest pebble on the
sea-shore, can tell more of the power and wisdom of God
than all the words which come at my call. But it is no disparagement of nature to say that the thing best worth seeing here is the perfect and upright man. And has not this
been so decided by Him from whom there is no appeal?
Have you forgotten what occurred when Satan with shameful effrontery appeared once more in the immediate presence, dared again to enter that light and confront that glory?
"And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my
servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? " As if the Lord, from His high and holy place,





SERMON.


49


had been looking at Job, and would have all other eyes
turned towards himni. God speaks concerning Job as you
and I speak concerning a man of whom we are proud.
Sure I am that there was nothing here on which the Divine
eye rested with so much complacency as on the patriarch of
Uz, the perfect and upright man; and the Almighty showed
His regard, by making him better than he was, more like
Himself, removing the last blemish which even His searching eye could discover.
And then this man described in the text is seldom to be
found; his character is rare as well as beautiful, and that
increases its value, gives it a stronger claimn on our earnest
attention. Besides this, he can stay but a little while with
us. We do not know how long; God may take him away, as
He did our brother, in the midst of his days, or He may
spare him to a good old age. Like John Wesley, he may
live to celebrate his ninetieth anniversary. But what are
ninety years? How fast they fly away! How soon the last
year comes! It will take but a moment to count the years
of the longest life on your fingers. My father, how glad
I am that you are here to-day. I count it one of the mercies of God that He hath spared you to us so long. When
an aged saint, his locks white as the snows of Lebanon,
and his face radiant with the. light which comes from the
better land, when Zachariah or Simeon appears in the sanctuary, we can hardly make ourselves believe that hlie came
from any of these homes. It seems as if he had just parted
with the Lord on the top of the mount, and brought a little
of the glory with him. My father, I must tell you again
how glad I am that you are here, - here to pray, and
here to show that old age, with all its infirmities, cannot
make the heart of God's child sad,- sad, and he so near
the door that he can hear the cheerful sounds within. My
father, will you allow me to say it once more, how glad I
am that you are here; for I want you to rise and tell these
7





50


SERMON.


men and women how long your life appears, as you look
back on it from the river's brink. Ah! I see you are hold
ing up your hand. It is only a hand-breadth; is that what
you would say?  "Behold, thou hast made my days as an
hand-breadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee:
verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity."
There is one thing more which gives this perfect and upright man a claim on our attention: he is worth so much
while he stays. He has influence with man. An upright,
conscientious man, one who will do his whole duty, let what
will come, cannot be a cipher in the world. He must be
a power among men, a force in society, although denied
wealth, or position, or distinction, or influential friends, or
a cultivated mind, or the pen of a ready writer, or the persuasive powers of an eloquent speaker.  If he seeks to
have always a conscience void of offence toward God and
toward man, if he cannot be bought or sold, if he cannot
be fawned or frowned into doing what God forbids, he is
respected, and feared as well as respected. The good feel
stronger when he is here; the wicked breathe freer when
he is away; and this is the only homage which the wicked
can render to goodness. What an influence St. Chrysostom had in Constantinople, and even in the profligate and
perfidious court.  The emperor and the sycophants about
him can endure his faithful rebuke no longer. A cabinet
council has been called. The question is, How shall we dispose of John Chrysostom? The Scribes and the Pharisees
are together again, and it is the old problem, How shall we
put him out of the way.? One said, Banish him. Another
said, Cast him into prison. Another said, Confiscate his
property.  Another, to make surer work, proposed that
his life should be taken. But one, wiser than the rest, had
a different suggestion to make. All these things, he said,
will avail nothing. Banish Chrysostom, and he will spend
all his time in prayer; thrust him into a dungeon, and he





SERMON.


51


will praise God for his chains; confiscate his property, and
you rob the poor; take his life, and you do what of all
things he most desires, you open the gate of heaven and
let him go in. The only way by which you can hurt
Chrysostom is to make him sin; the only thing Chrysostom fears is to offend against his God. Such an influence
did that eminent servant of Christ possess; his presence
held the wicked in check, as a wall or a dike restrains the
infuriated waves; and this influence he secured, neither
by his learning nor his eloquence, but by his pure and
blameless and holy life.
And as this one of whom we are speaking is a perfect
man, so there is nothing to detract from his influence.
There are no counter-currents in his life. His life, gathering up what Providence sends, like a river its tributary
streams, with constant course moves in one direction; it
sets towards the throne of God. With this man there are
no ebb and flow, no rise and fall, no low tide, when the
flats are laid bare and every unseemly thing in his character exposed. The life of the perfect and upright man,
with swelling volume and ever increasing velocity, flows
onward till it empties into the ocean of infinite purity and
love. And the one of whom we speak has something better than influence with man: he has power with God; he
has access to the mercy-seat; he has the ear of the King;
he is one of the anointed intercessors, standing between
the living and the dead. His name is Israel: he can prevail with God. His name is Elijah: he can open the windows of heaven. His name is Paul: and God, in answer
to his earnest supplications, will give him all them that
sail with him. His name is John: and the Most High, as
the reward of his faithful efforts and importunate prayers,
will favor him with celestial visions, and send him back,
not as Saint Paul was sent back, but with a thrilling tale
to tell. This perfect and upright man, how much he is





52


SERMON.


worth while he stays, and what a loss to the Church, and
what a loss to the world, when he dies! Is there any such
calamity as the death of an intercessor?
Nor should we forget - in such a presence how can we
forget?- that this perfect and upright man once gone can
never return. Here is another thing which gives him a
claim on our earnest attention. There is no prophet now
to stretch himself on the lifeless body; no Lord of glory
to take the damsel by the hand, or touch the bier, or cry
at the door of the grave, "Come forth." If you would see
that dear man of God again, if you would look once more
on that face so full of light and love, you must follow his
steps into the valley and over the river. "I shall go to
him, but he shall not return to me."
I have not yet alluded to that thing which, perhaps, will
touch you most, the thing mentioned in the text, the peaceful departure of this perfect and upright man. "' Mark the
perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that
man is peace." " The end of that man is peace "; God has
said it, and who will take issue with Him? I have heard
something and read something about the Christian's dying
under a cloud; but I have never seen such a case, nor was
it ever my misfortune to meet with any one who had; and
I must see this thing before I can believe it. Even then,
I do not know that I would trust my eyes and ears; for has
not God said, " the end of that man is peace "? I have seen
many a Christian depart: sometimes it was the aged saint
going down into the valley, leaning on his staff; sometimes
it was the little child, scarcely old enough to reach the river's brink alone; sometimes it was the man in the midst
of his days, so good, so gifted, that no one could have
spared him but God; and, saddest of all, sometimes it was
the mother, her children clinging to her skirts; and yet I
never knew one go with a halting step or a hesitating heart.
God's child dying and He away, or if there, hiding His face!





SERMON.


53


It cannot be; it cannot be. Even the Lord of glory, from
whom the Father for our sakes turned away, did not die
under a cloud. The darkness broke before he gave up the
ghost. " The end of that man is peace." Do we not read in
the Holy Scriptures, "Forasmuch then as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same; that through death he might destroy "or render powerless- "him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of
death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage?" All
their lifetime, even up to the last hour, they may have been
subject to this dreadful bondage; but then the chains were
broken, then the fear-fettered souls were delivered, and they
fell asleep in the everlasting arms; "the end of that man is
peace." How peaceful the departure of the great Apostle!
He writes to his dearly beloved son Timothy: "I am now
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at
hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me." "The time of my departure."
Does the Apostle contemplate a journey? Is he going
to Corinth?  Is he going to Ephesus?  Is he setting out
to see his beloved children at Philippi again? Or does he
propose another visit to Jerusalem? must he see the city
of his fathers once more before it is given over to the destroyer? He is going to leave the earth, and by the hardest path any man can take. He cannot die as other good
men die, on his bed, amid all the ministries of love, and
all the sanctities of home. He is to seal his testimony
with his blood, and no one knows it so well as this venerable servant of Christ, and this leads him to speak as he
does: I am now ready to be offered, I am now ready to
be poured out as a libation. The whole scene is before
him, - the place of execution, the block, the axe, the Ro




54


SERMON.


man lictors, the grim executioner, and that head, so old
and white, rolling in the dust. With all that before him,
he writes, "LI am now ready to be offered," - not ready to
die merely, but ready to be offered, - "and the time of my
departure is at hand." 1 The end of that man is peace."
How can you forget, 0 child of God, that death hath been
vanquished; not yet destroyed, but vanquished, disarmed
of his dreadful power? Didst thou look into the sepulchre? Didst thou see the grave-clothes laid aside, and
the napkin wrapped, folded together in a place by itself?
The Lord of glory left these things for death himself to put
on. Oh, brother, death cannot hurt thee. Thou canst not
die.  Jesus said, - and never took it back,--" He that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
Shall I not be sick? but sickness is not death. Shall
I not part with friends? but parting with friends is not
death. Shall I not leave the world, look for the last time
on the blue sky and the green earth? but leaving the world
is not death. That terrible apprehension, that certain, fearful looking-for of judgment and of fiery indignation, that
insupportable sense of sin, - conscience flaying the soul
with her lash of fire; remorse eating into the heart like a
vulture; bound to a bed of pain, and working through the
rifted darkness to the things beyond;- that, that is death,
as they understand the word on the other side of the vail.
Come, let us for a moment bring this dreaded thing near;
let us stand face to face with this king of terrors. Brother,
the hour has come, yes, the hour has come, when thou
shalt suffer no more, weep no more, sin no more; when
God shall wipe away all tears from thine eyes. The hour
has come, yes, the hour has come, when thou shalt take
thy crown and meet thy Lord, and have as much joy as
all this world, with all its happy saints, contains. And shall
we persist in calling this death? My strength is all gone.





SERMON.


55


Brother, thou hast need of none now, thou art encircled in
the everlasting arms. My friends, in helpless grief, are
standing about my bed. Are not the angels, with fullstrung harps, hovering around thy head? There are so
many with whom I must part.   There are many more,
long waiting, with whom thou shalt meet. The last whisper of earthly love is dying away; but the heavenly host
are beginning to sing. The last ray of this world's light
is fast fading out; and is not the light of the Lamb kindling
a brighter day? " The end of that man is peace."
And was not the end of our departed brother peace, and
nothing but peace? The one dearest of all to him, the one
who had walked by his side and leaned on his arm so many
happy years, wrote to her daughter from his bedside: "' His
mind is in the most delightful, heavenly state, and his expressions of perfect peace, happiness, and trust in the Saviour,
are such as I never heard. They have alarmed me more
than anything else, he seems so near to heaven, just ready to
enter. He has called me since I have been writing, and said,
'I expect to go back to Rochester a converted man; oh, I
wish I could see those dear young people, and talk and
pray with them. And if each could come here, one at a
time, and see me, I could do them more good than by a sermon."' On the following day, Saturday, she wrote thus:
"' As I took his hand this morning, he said, ' I was trying
to pray for those young people in Rochester who are converted, each by name, that God would give them grace to
hold out, and for those who are not converted, that they
may become God's children; I did not let any go by.'"
Nor does this last sentence need any qualification; for
among the other good things which God had given our
sainted brother was a very retentive memory. He knew
every family in his congregation; he knew your faces, my
dear friends, he knew your names, he knew your ages;
and above all did he remember the one who might be





56


SERMON.


under a cloud.   In this state of mind he passed away.
Surely, the end of that man was peace! It seems, since
we heard of his death, as if heaven were nearer than it
was; as if we were walking to and fro before the gate, the
light that never fades streaming through the portals, and
the strains which make all other music poor, floating to
our ears. " The end of that man is peace."
This perfect and upright man has still another claim on
our earnest attention: what a legacy he leaves behind; how
many are made rich by his death! Think of his godly life,
of his peaceful death, of his fragrant memory, and of that
influence which God will no more suffer to perish than
He will let the sun go out; think of these, and think of
that which is worth far more than all these, his recorded
prayers. Bickerstith says, that " the prayers of the righteous are indented about the throne. God cannot look
around without seeing them, and without being reminded, if
it were necessary to remind Him, of what He has graciously
engaged to do. Every real prayer offered by the humblest
saint will be answered. Thousands of years may intervene,
but, as sure as God is God, the blessing will come.. This
constitutes the wealth of the Church; and the richest part
of every believer's birthright is the recorded prayers of
the saints. Prayers which Abraham, the father of the
faithful, offered, are yet to be answered. Prayers which
Moses, the servant of God, offered, are yet to be answered.
Prayers which David, the son of Jesse, offered, are yet to
be answered. Prayers offered by that humble company of
men and women who met in the upper room from which
the Lord went forth to die, are yet to be answered; and,
need I add, that prayers which the great Intercessor, the
One whom the Father heareth always, offered, are yet to
be answered? I would not barter my interest in my glorified mother's prayers to have my choice among the crowns;
nay, not for the brightest world which moves in silent





SERMON.


57


adoration about the throne. Those prayers, I know, have
strengthened me, comforted me, held me up, brought me
help in many a dark, distressful hour, and, through the
faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God, made me what
I am."
And how rich this church is, and especially how rich
these young people are in the prayers of their glorified
pastor.  And not you alone; others may share in the
legacy which this saint made perfect hath left us. I have
learned that he did not confine his prayers, during those
last days and hours, to his own congregation. He remembered all with whom he had conversed during the previous
memorable winter, when so many joined themselves to the
Lord. A day or two after these prayers were offered in
that sick-chamber in Burlington, and I do not know but at
the very time he was praying, one of these young converts,
whom our dear brother a few months before had led to
Christ, died in the cars in his mother's arms on his way
home from the West. A strange place to die; a good
place to die, if Christ be there. Awaking more than once,
after the cars had started, from a feverish sleep, he said,
1" Mother, mother, I thought that I was talking with Dr.
Pease; I thought that I was talking with Dr. Pease." He
is talking with Dr. Pease. They have met in that bright
world where no sad change ever occurs, through whose
streets no funeral procession creeps slowly along, and
where the robe is never exchanged for a winding-sheet,
nor the harp laid down that another may fold the hands
over the hushed heart.
The character of our departed brother was indeed a rare
combination. He possessed a metaphysical mind. He had
been endowed with a rare power of analysis, and of course
he received nothing upon trust. He took everything to
pieces, to see what it was made of, before he laid it aside
in his treasury of truth. He was emphatically an intel8





58


SERMON.


lectual man. Now such men, with hardly an exception,
are cold and sluggish in their temperament.  They are
not sensitive nor sympathetic; if you move them at all, it
must be through the head. There is no direct avenue to
their hearts; you must sail through a polar sea to reach
the tropical region of their nature. But all who ever
came near enough to our brother to hear his heart beat,
know that it was not so with him. His heart was as gentle and tender as his mind was clear and discriminating.
We can say to this man's praise - and what pastor can
have any higher commendation? - that the children loved
him, and that none miss him so much as the poor. How
characteristic of the man was the last pastoral service he
ever performed. On the Lord's Day, and after the exhausting services of the sanctuary, and when he was far
from well, he went to see a poor dying child, connected
with the Sabbath School. She could not speak, she was
too far gone for that; so he knelt by her side and in tremulous tones poured out his soul before God, praying as if
it were his own child going the way which each must go
alone.
Can anything be more beautiful than the filial piety of
our brother. Wise as he was, - and a wiser man, a man
of more reliable judgment, more consummate discretion
I never met, - wise as he was, even to the last' he never
took an important step without consulting his mother,a mother in Israel who has more than numbered her fourscore years. He grew to be a man; he became the head
of a house, the President of a flourishing university, the
pastor of a large and influential church; yes, he grew to
be a man, a man to whom others looked, on whom many
leaned; but he never ceased to be a child. He brought
from his mother's knee the gentleness, the sweet confidence, and the reverential' love which made him so dear
to her who bore him. May the Lord abide with that





SERMON.


59


widowed mother, for it is toward evening, and the day is
far spent, and her strength almost gone, and the staff on
which she expected to lean in her old age has been taken
away.
Should I not have a parting word of comfort and admonition for this afflicted congregation of the Lord? I am
glad, beloved in Christ, that no remorse is mingled with
your grief to-day. You did receive your sainted pastor as
a gift from God; you did appreciate his services; you did
minister to his necessities; you did anticipate his wants,
and render him what God is not too great to ask, the
homage of your hearts. Nor will your kindness end here;
you have received his widow and fatherless children as a
sacred trust, and no evil will ever reach them that loving
hearts and liberal hands can keep away. And was he not
worthy of all this confidence and love? Neither weakness, nor pain, nor the agony of the dying hour, nor the
parting with those dearer than life, could make him forget
you. He bore you on his heart through his whole sickness; and the greatest disappointment of his life was to be
denied the privilege of coming back to his beloved charge.
He felt as Moses did when he turned his back on the camp
and went up to the top of Mount Nebo to die. The last
night - ah! that last night, how sure it is to come - the
last night, when his soul, pluming itself for its heavenward
flight, was wandering a little, he thought that he was in
this church, once more leading this dear people in the service of God's house. He offered a connected and most
touching prayer, every word of it for you, and then commenced to give out the doxology, -
"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below: "
there his strength failed; and with this doxology lingering
on his lips, in a few hours after he passed away. Nay, he





60


SERMON.


entered heaven with that song in his mouth; began there
where he left off here; passed the gate singing, as he went
in, -
"Praise him above, ye heavenly hosts;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
How much he loved you!
You have regretted, no doubt, that it was not your privilege to minister unto him in his last hours; to hear those
words of heavenly peace; to join in those early prayers;
to stand with him on the summit of the mount, and see him
go up; and then, when the soul had ascended, carry that
form so dear to you, and dearer still to Christ, to the grave,
bury him in dear Mount Hope, and have him mingle
his dust with yours,- sleep where Penney sleeps, till the
Master comes and calls; - oh, if God had only granted you
so much as this, it would have broken the blow. But, my
dear friends, you can do something better than that. You
can treasure up his counsels, you can heed his entreaties,
and gratify the last wish of his heart. "If all my children
were in the Church," he said, at one time, "1and all my
congregation converted, I would be ready to go." Only
come to Christ, only gather around that cross on which all
his hopes were hung, "and heaven," as Rutherford said,
"will be two heavens to him."  By the peaceful and triumphant death of this man of God, a door has been opened
again in heaven through which you can look, through
which you may enter. Will you go away from that open
door? Will you turn your back on that glory? Will you be
disobedient to that heavenly vision? Your beloved pastor
still speaks, still pleads; only, as if to make his words more
impressive, instead of standing here he is standing there,
- there, by the steps of the throne, clothed in white and
crowned with glory. There he is; brush away your tears
* During Dr. Pease's sickness, while he had strength to join in the
exercise, he had prayers in his chamber every morning at sunrise.





SERMON.


61


and look. Listen as well as look, for it is the same dear
voice again: By all this light and love, by all this peace
and joy, by all this blessedness and glory, I beseech you,
my dear people, come to Christ.
My brother in the ministry, who waits with me by the
altar, who breaks with me the bread of life, who stands
with me in Christ's stead between the living and the dead,
this gracious Lord and Master, who has shown such kindness to. our departed brother, is the one that you and I love
so little and so poorly serve. We have followed him afar off,
and the people committed to our care could get no nearer
to their Lord without passing us by. Must it be so for the
time to come? Shall we not get nearer to our Lord and
take a new hold of the cross? Let us join hands this day
around the grave of our brother, and pledge ourselves
anew to Him who loved us, and gave himself for us. He
is a good Master, and it is a great and glorious work in
which we are engaged; and who can tell how short the
day may be? Kempe and Coit and Cheney are gone, and
the time of our departure may be at hand. The winter so
near, may scatter its snows on your grave or mine. " The
feet of them which have buried thy brother are at the door,
and shall carry thee out." "Behold, I come quickly; and
my reward is with me, to give every man according as his
work shall be."  " Mark the perfect man, and behold the
upright: for the end of that man is peace."










BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.










BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


A LETTER ADDRESSED TO DR. SHEDD, OF UNION THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY, NEW YORK.
PROF. W. G. T. SHEDD, D. D.:
My Dear Friend, - You ask me to furnish you, in aid
of your work of preparing a Memorial Discourse on my
brother, some characteristics of him, such as I had better
opportunities of observing than were possessed by his later
and more general acquaintances. No task could be more
welcome to me, if I could feel myself qualified for it.
Opportunities have not, indeed, been wanting, for I have
known him always and intimately, though not admitted to
that particular acquaintance with his official life in college
which his colleagues, and especially yourself, enjoyed. Of
the last period of his life - that of his pastorate - I have
not, of course, that knowledge which was the peculiar privilege of the members of his flock. With these exceptions
I think I may be said to have known him, at least to have
had opportunities of knowing him, - taking the whole
course of his life into the account, - better than any one
else. I do not say that I had a better appreciation of him;
that would depend upon power, -a qualification which
I know I do not possess in an equal degree with many
whose opportunities have been less.
I ought to remark, also, that, in one respect, the very
nearness of my relation to him tends to disqualify me for
9





66


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


the task of describing him. I stood too near to him, our
two lives grew up too nearly together, were too much identified, to allow me readily to make him an object of critical and impartial study and analysis. I always, indeed,
noticed and felt his peculiarities, and always keenly realized the great differences and strong contrasts between him
and me. I always felt how unlike I was to him, and how
superior he was in native endowment and character. But
still I always felt, and feel now more than ever, the difficulty of making him a separate object, and entering upon
a critical survey of his characteristics. I have derived too
much from him to be certain that I am looking at him
wholly with my own eyes, rather than with eyes that are,
at least, partly his.
Perhaps, also, I ought to recognize a " bias of flesh and
blood" as, of necessity, entering into the reckoning, and
modifying the view that I take of him, making it less accurate and reliable than otherwise it would be.
But enough of this, which I confess may be very little
to the point. You want what I have to give. Of its
value and accuracy you are to be the judge. If I could
help you, I should be glad. But I am sorry that the help
I am able to render you will be so small when it would
seem that it ought to be large.
His life, as I contemplate it, especially since his death,
presents itself to me under three quite distinctly marked
periods, corresponding to the three leading stages of his
development. If I should indicate these stages, and mark
what, to my view, was most characteristic of each, as well
as what they all had in common, I should, I think, throw
more light upon the subject than I could hope to do by
any other method.
The first of these periods is his boyhood, extending to
about the age of sixteen, or near to the time when he commenced his preparation for college.





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


67


The next period is marked, to my mind, as the student,
or distinctively and peculiarly intellectual period; and it
extends to about the time of his marriage and entrance
upon his professorship at Burlington.
The last period, extending from that time to his death,
may most properly be denominated the practical-spiritual
period, - the period of his matured and finished Christian
manhood.
If, now, I could describe him as he was in his boyhood,
and tell how his development went on from that stage,
through all the succeeding stages, to the end, I should present him very much as he stands before me, and doubtless,
also, as he really was in himself. Something of this I hope
to do. But I must, of course, study brevity, and deal in
general views rather than in minute details.
1. Of his boyhood I should say (to speak in the most
summary way) that it was most remarkable for what, from
the nature of the case, was actually least remarked; that
is, extraordinary harmony.and balance of dispositions and
qualities. He seemed to have every power and tendency
in fit and natural proportion, with no visible excess, with
nothing inordinate in any direction. Although he was a
quick and apt scholar, he was never regarded as a prodigy
of learning or intellect. His powers were not developed
in a manner at all disproportionate to his years or his opportunities.  He always excelled in school; and never,
so far as I know, in any school that he attended, had his
equal in all the qualities of genuine scholarship or intellectual promise. And yet he did not belong at all to the
class of boys that are called precocious.
He was remarkable as a good and agreeable boy, a
lively and genial associate and playmate, quite as much as
for being smart or gifted. This was owing, I think, to
his original make, or what I have called the remarkable
balance of his powers and tendencies. By a practised stu




68


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


dent of the human physiology, he would have been remarked as a fine example of physical development. The
image of his childhood, in its brightness, vivacity, and
beauty, is continually before my imagination while I write,
and I can hardly resist the temptation to dilate upon it.
Suffice it to say, that that fine physical development seems
to me most perfectly to represent and symbolize what, at
that period, he was in heart and mind. He was balanced
and harmonious. His mind was better than ordinary, but
not better than his heart. He had a sweet and generous
disposition, and was admired and loved by all who knew
him; but the brightness of his intellect was quite as noticeable as the sweetness of his disposition. He was reverential and obedient to his parents, and agreeable and kind to
his associates and equals, because that was natural to him.
At least it may be said that it was easier for him than for
a nature less balanced and less harmoniously constructed
than his.
Neither his passion nor his appetite nor his will was so
exorbitant or excessive as to interfere with what belonged
to his natural duty, relation, or condition. At least, in his
case the interference was less than what is common even
among what are called good children.
His being good was not, that I remember, particularly
remarked, or made the matter of special praise or commendation. Neither have I any remembrance of his being punished or severely censured. At the same time, I
should not deny, that, like other children, he sometimes
did wrong, and was censured, and even punished. But
instances of this kind must have been rare and slight, and,
in respect to him, formed the exception and not the rule;
and what constituted the rule in his conduct and treatment is what remains in my memory, and not these
natural and necessary exceptions. The truth is, he was
always nearly right.  It was expected of him to be so;





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


69


and no surprise was expressed or felt when he was so. I
have no doubt that if he had been, on the whole, less thoroughly good, his occasional acts and manifestations of goodness would have been more noticed and more praised.
I have said that he was one of the best of scholars, and
yet not looked upon as a prodigy. He always had good
lessons; but that was because he studied. It was not so
much because he learned easier than other boys, as because he studied harder. If he excelled, it was by means
of effort; but he made the requisite effort, because effort
was easier for him than for others. He had readier command of himself and his powers than ordinary scholars.
If he gained his end, it was because he used the means;
but the means were more at his command, and he excelled most others in the facile and effective use of them.
This equipoise is the more remarkable in view of the
fact which began early to be noticed of him, and which
in different degrees characterized him through his whole
life, and constituted, as it seems to me, the most distinguishing element of his peculiar organization, - I mean a
certain intensity of being. With all his harmony and balance, he was intense. He was not, when a child, good and
true, obedient and kind, because of a weak and languid
temperament or constitution. He felt keenly and deeply.
He saw clearly and distinctly.. No nature responded more
quickly than his to every sort of treatment or influence to
which he was exposed. He had no lack of appetite, or of
passion, or enthusiasm, or will. On the contrary, he was
remarkable for the strength of all these. I have many
times thought --have, indeed, always had the habit of
thinking - that I never saw a being possessed of so much
will. His manifestations of it were, at times, to a nature
like mine, almost fearful. Into his resolves he threw more
than excited passion, more, even, than mere will.  He
threw into them the whole strength of his being; and





70


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


then nothing could be more immovable than he. And yet,
even then, he was not self-willed, nor obstinate, nor wilful. Although he was capable and sensitive, beyond almost
any other person I have ever known, to feel and resent an
insult or a wrong, yet he was not passionate or irritable.
He never fell into any uncontrollable or unseemly fits of
anger. His intensity was not of this superficial kind.
And the reason why his resolutions, in their almost tragic
strength and fearfulness, had nothing of the nature of wilfulness in them, was, that they were founded upon reason
as well as upon will. There were the depths of a rational,
as well as of a passionate nature in them.  Therefore,
they could not but be respected, and must needs be strong.
He could as well give up his prerogative of reason itself
as give up the resolution which both his reason and his
conscience required him to form and to maintain. In his
decisions and purposes generally, and especially those relating to the more important interests and exigencies of
life, there was much more of this high and rational quality
than is common. In regard to matters not of the highest
concernment, and involving no matter of principle, he was
yielding. Occasions of difficulty or difference seldom arose
between him and his associates. He was not pertinacious
in insisting upon his own way in an unimportant matter.
He would much sooner yield than contend. This shows
his native good sense, as well as the even balance of his
nature and his remarkable self-control.  He would not
allow himself to be excited or wilful about a matter of
small consequence. He had too much sense of what belongs to the dignity of human nature.
As might have been expected, from what has already
been said, he was, as a boy and youth, remarkably pureminded, -free, I should say, almost absolutely, from all
low and vulgar tastes and tendencies. And if this was
true of his childhood, it was equally so of his youth and





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manhood. If he had faults and blemishes and evil inclinations, like the rest of mankind, they did not lie in this
direction. He was not only not inclined in this way, but
his tendencies were most decidedly and strongly in the opposite direction. You could scarcely, at any period, offend
him so much, as by impure expressions, hints, or allusions.
And this was just as characteristic of him when a boy as
in the period of his manhood, when the element of Christian purity had thoroughly possessed and interpenetrated
his nature. He was pure by nature. The better elements
of humanity always had the upper hand in him. With
natural appetites and relishes as healthy and keen as those
of any other boy, he never, that I know of, yielded to any
intemperate indulgence of any of them.
At all periods of his life he was the furthest from all
sensuality. There was a something about him that silently
rebuked everything of the sort, and kept all gross and sensual persons at a long distance from him, as if between
him and them there were nothing in common. The two
natures were opposite and mutually repellant. It would
follow from this that he was not easily led into bad company, or enticed by it into petty trespasses and mischiefs,
such as even good boys, under such influence, are more or
less liable to. Instances of the kind may have occurred in
regard to him, but they must have been exceedingly rare,
they were so unlike him, and nothing of the sort is remembered. And such is my impression of him, that I
do not think there was, at the last, in his whole recollection of life, an instance of the kind to give him pain.
But I may be speaking too strongly, not recollecting, as I
should, that if his nature was pure, it was also and equally
sensitive.  Offences that were not noticed by us were,
doubtless, noticed by him; and pure and lovely as his
youth was, he had occasion, and doubtless did say, with
David and the rest of us, "Remember not against me the





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sins of my youth."  And yet I wish to add further upon
this point of the native purity of his mind, that, constant
and intimate as was my intercourse with him during the
whole period of our childhood and youth, never, in my
hearing, did an expression or allusion of grossness fall from
his lips, or, if it did, it was followed quickly by a blush of
shame, which showed how foreign from his nature and
offensive to his conscience any such thing was. And this
not because of any restraint which my presence imposed
upon him, or any rebuke received or feared from me or
any one else. We were not the ones to restrain or rebuke
him. The restraint and rebuke, if any there were, came
from the opposite direction, - was administered by, not to
him. And he had a silent, but most effective way, of expressing himself on such occasions, which I well remember,
and which was not lost upon me.
He was not, as might be inferred from this description,
reserved, or by nature or habit on his guard against the
free utterance of his feelings, or unrestrained obedience to
his impulses. He was the furthest from any such constitution or habit as this. He spoke, he acted, he jested, he
frolicked, freely, and even wildly, laying the reins upon
the neck of fun to gambol and dash on at will, for he was
capable and inclined to this as much as any other boy;
his temperament was not at all of the grave or phlegmatic
cast. Whatever was in his heart or his impulses or his
inspirations at such times came out of themn; but there
came out of them nothing impure, nothing which had the
taint of moral grossness upon it, because there was no such
thing in them. His heart was not of that sort, his inspirations were not from that source.
I have said the element most characteristic of him was
intensity; I have also said that he was equally remarkable for the even balance of his powers and tendencies.
Now, if we put these two elements together, we shall, as it





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seems to me, have in our hand the clue and the key to his
character and conduct, - to the course and manner of
life to which he was led, to the work he accomplished, and
the eminence he attained. His grand and distinguishing
characteristic, as God made him, - the germ and principle
out of which his development proceeded, and which determined its course and its character,-- was a balanced intensity of being, guarded from excess, on the one hand, and
from weakness, languor, and inefficiency on the other. If,
with all his intensity of feeling and conception and impulse,
he had been less balanced and regulated by good sense, good
temper, and sound judgment, he would have overworked, or
worked wrongly and ruinously, or spasmodically and to no
purpose, and thus his energies would have been wasted or
turned to bad account. If, on the other hand, with his
rare balance of impulses and powers, and his easy and
steady self-control, he had lacked intensity, he would have
been wanting in force and efficiency, and though of a clear
mind and a pure character, he would have been content
with little exertion, and would have accomplished little.
He would have been inspired by no lofty ideal, and felt no
necessity laid upon him for the utmost exertion, and no
woe to him if he did not make it.
This leads me to remark upon another of his characteristics, - a remarkable fidelity and thoroughness in the execution of all his tasks, and in doing whatever he undertook.
His judgment taught him what to attempt, his earnestness and fidelity sustained and carried him through, and
secured the thorough performance of the work. He could
never content himself with any low or small undertaking,
or with any slack or sham performance.  Being so well
balanced, he did not aim too high, he was not so much an
idealist as to be visionary and impracticable in his schemes,
nor did he overrate his ability and undertake what was
beyond his power. Though nothing was more common
10





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- especially in the later part of the period of which I am
now speaking- than for him to astonish me at the boldness of his projects, and the seeming extravagance of what
he proposed to do, and though the only way I could respond to him, on such occasions, was with expostulation
and discouragement, yet, in the end, I always had to confess that he had judged more correctly of his powers, and
of the reasonableness of his undertaking, than I had. Success vindicated the soundness of his judgment, and gave
proof of a power that I had not before believed him to possess. And so he went on, not only through his youth, but
through his whole life, astonishing me, and convincing me
that I had always been prone to under- rather than overrate his powers. It took experiment to prove him, at least
to me; and I doubt whether in all cases the result of his
experiments with himself did not exceed the expectations
of even his most appreciative friends.  Whatever may
have been their previous judgments, I think he always
satisfied them in the end that he had measured himself
against his tasks more correctly than they had; that,
though he often proved them to have been incorrect in
their measurements, he always proved himself to have
been correct in his.
It will, of course, be understood that I am speaking of
him here as a scholar, and that the field and variety of
effort to which my remarks refer is mainly that of the
intellect. Though not deficient in practical talent, and in
aptness for ordinary affairs, yet, by natural endowment
and vocation, he was a scholar, a student, a learner, a
thinker. The instrument or organ with which he worked
best and with most delight was the logic of abstract thought.
It was within the appropriate field of this faculty that he
was most at home and won his greatest successes. If he
had chosen the practical and external, rather than the internal and intellectual, as his field, and had done equally





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well in it, he would have made himself famous, and gained,
at least, a national celebrity. To those who knew him,
this remark is not necessary; to others, under whose eyes
this sketch may fall, it may not be out of place. I proceed, then, to remark further, under this aspect of my
subject, that in school, especially in his later school-days,
when his scholarly tendencies and capabilities were getting
more developed and pronounced, he undertook more, had
a far higher and more earnest purpose and aim, than any
other boy of my acquaintance; and his enterprises always
seemed to me unreasonable until he had accomplished
them, as he invariably did. He succeeded in what he
undertook because he knew he could, and determined he
would. I remember that when not more than thirteen or
fourteen years old, at the commencement of the winter
school, he determined that before the close of the term he
would go through Thompson's Arithmetic, the most advanced and difficult book in that department then in use in
the district schools; a book that I had never known thoroughly mastered by any scholar. But he mastered it, and
had it to say, at the close, that he had wrought out all the
examples. He had worked hard, and almost incessantly,
tasking the teacher nearly or quite as severely as himself;
and success once more crowned the effort.
The secret of these efforts and successes was not more
that he was ambitious, (for he was ambitious, as all noble
minds are,) than that he was faithful. He felt that he
owed it to himself to make these exertions, and that his
conscience would not hold him guiltless if he made them
not. There belonged to him, as an essential element of his
being, a fealty to the law of duty, which forbade his listening to any solicitations of ease or pleasure, or the example
of those who could reconcile their ideas of obligation with a
less severe exaction upon their time and energies. This incident illustrates a kind of severity in the discipline to which





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he subjected himself, and it was characteristic of him
through his whole life. But it is particularly remarkable
that he should have commenced it so early, and when there
were no motives urging him to it, except such as were
spontaneous in his own bosom. In the last and later stages
of his life, this severity was less apparent. Habit and culture had made that easy and natural which before had
seemed to subject his powers to an unnatural and unwholesome strain, and looked like a violence done to nature.
But these hard tasks of his youth did not injure him; they
were self-imposed and voluntary, and this made such toil
his pleasure. He found the work congenial to him, and devoted himself to it with all his heart; hence it did not injure him, but proved to be the discipline requisite to prepare him for the higher and graver tasks of his subsequent
life. What those tasks were, and how he acquitted himself under them, you do not need to be informed. If you,
if the world saw him proving himself equal to the highest
and most difficult duties, doing honor to some of the highest
and most responsible positions, - successful where success
is so difficult and so few succeed, -it may not be out of
place for me to assure you that the foundations of that success were laid in the energy, fidelity, and, hard discipline
of his youth, - a discipline, let it be remarked, entirely
voluntary, the work, the thought, the exaction of no parent and no teacher, and suggested by no example that had
ever come within the sphere of his acquaintance.
That he should thus, at this early age, in circumstances
like his, in obedience to no promptings but those of nature
within him, subject himself to a discipline like this, had
something in it of the truly sublime, and constituted a lesson, that, on a susceptible youth, not altogether without
kindred aspirations, could not be without important influence and effect. It was a kind of teaching that could not
be lost upon any mind capable of feeling its force.





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I ought to state further, in illustration of those leading
characteristics of his which I have mentioned, that when
only sixteen he began teaching school. He went into the
work with the preparatory discipline which I have described; and he went into it not more from necessity than
from choice. To teach, as much as to study, was the natural bent and calling of his soul. And if asked whether
he was more at home alone with his books around him, or
in the school-room in the midst of his pupils, I should not
be able to answer the question, except by saying that he
seemed equally at home in both places. If he was made
for a scholar, it is equally true that he was made for a
teacher, and that he succeeded in the one vocation as well
as in the other; and, in fact, that he was the one in order
that he might be the other. He learned,t and was diligent
in learning, that he might teach. Whether this, was his
own conscious design, or whether his interest and diligence
in study were at all increased by the idea of teaching and
being qualified to teach what he learned, I cannot say; but,
whatever may have been his own thought, it is obvious that
the design of nature in making him a scholar was that he
might be a teacher. This is obvious from the fact that he
loved teaching as well as he did study; and no one who
knew him can doubt that his love of learning was not
merely for its own sake, but for the sake of teaching also.
It is certain that there was not in the town a better school
than this first one of his, when he was a lad of only sixteen. He was capable not only of instructing, but of inspiring his pupils with the love of study. He never failed
to animate them with something of his own scholarly spirit
and resolute determination to yield to no difficulties or
temptations, but by energy and perseverance to triumph
over them all. The apt and sprightly among his pupils
soon caught his inspiration, and yielded themselves, with
the utmost docility, to his influence and control; and such,





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at the same time, was his own spirit of self-restraint and
fidelity towards those under his charge, that he could be
patient and long-suffering towards even the dullest and most
perverse, so long as there appeared to be any hope; and
thus he conferred benefits upon them that only such patient
kindness could realize.  I am reminded here of a passage
in one of his later sermons, upon the text, " Charity suffereth long, and is kind," which, in a few words, says more on
this subject than I could say in many. He says: " There
are few circumstances which illustrate the benefit and the
need of long-suffering as well as those of the teacher, who
has, in so many instances, to encounter indolence, perverseness, and ingratitude, which are scarcely compensated by
the diligence, obedience, and docility of others. A patient
kindness in these cases is very difficult, but it is very powerful, working, sometimes, a transformation almost like a
new birth."
But considering his extreme youth, and the slenderness
of his physical proportions, his power over a school, in the
way of government, was the most remarkable. His scholarship and ability to teach did not, after all, impress one so
much as the order and stillness of his school, the perfect
control he exercised over it, apparently without effort,
as the result of those inherent qualities of his inner being
in which lay the secret of his power. It is a power which
every one has noticed as belonging to some, but denied to
others of equal or even superior abilities in other respects.
Every one has noticed it, and there are few that have not
very distinctly felt it; but no one has been able to define
it, - to say in what particular part of the soul it resides,
or from what combination of powers or qualities it results.
But whatever it is, it belonged in a very unusual degree
to him; call it tact, insight, firmness, will, or all these
combined, he possessed it in a degree beyond what I
have ever seen in any other person. If I were asked for





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a definition, I should, without hesitation, say that it was no
single or specific power or endowment, seated in a particular part of the complex nature, but clearly the result of
the rare combination of qualities such as I have already in
part described as belonging to him. Insight, knowledge
of human nature, self-possession, decision, firmness, will,
or power, as it were, to project one's own being into that of
another, and all this expressed in the physical features and
organization, in the speaking, beaming eye, the lip, the tone,
and the whole air and hearing of the man, - these, in their
various and mysterious combinations and modifications,
constitute that magnetism which gives to some men an almost magical control over the wills of their fellows. This
control is necessary to the complete success of the teacher.
He needs to control-- as it were, to fascinate - the will of
the pupil, in order in the truest and most effectual manner
to teach him, - to lodge the truth in the very heart of
his being; for the heart and the will are concerned in the
apprehension and reception of truth, as well as the understanding, and true docility is not attained until the whole
moral and intellectual frame is rightly tempered and
moulded to the mind and will of the teacher. As concerned in this matter of the complete mastery of my
brother over his scholars, I ought to speak of that one
most remarkable physical organ of his, - I mean his eye.
I have never myself seen such an eye in another man.
Through and through my whole being, a thousand times
have I felt its influence. It was a power in itself, not only
of vision to him, but of influence and control over others.
It seemed to see everything, - to penetrate even the deep
things of a man, - and yet to fear nothing. I shall not
attempt to describe it, except to say that it revealed the
terrible strength and intensity of his will, and of his moral
determination, and the firmness with which he felt himself
seated on the eternal foundations of reason and righteous




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ness. It was by the power of this eye that he governed
his school as well and as completely when he was only a
lad of sixteen as when he became a man, and whether his
scholars were grown-up men and women, or merely little
children. It was not a physical, but a moral force; and
therefore could be resisted by the man no more than by
the child.
But let it not be thought that this most characteristic
organ of his had in it merely the power to utter rebuke and
inspire dread.  That would depend upon the character of
the object upon which it rested. It had in it the light of
love for the willing and obedient, and won confidence, admiration, and affection from all right-minded and docile
pupils. It was only the unfaithful, dishonest, and perverse
that felt in their inmost souls the withering power of its
rebuke. In such, at times, it inspired not only dread,
but something akin to hate. In later times there were
some who had fallen under his displeasure, and met his
merited reproof, who spoke of " the Devil in his eye."
They would have characterized its expression more correctly, if they had called it "the Nemesis," instead of
"the Devil."
But passing over other qualities which may be taken for
granted, I am anxious to specify one, which at this period
became prominent in him, and ought, at least, to be mentioned to give a true idea of him as he was at this time;
and it is the more important to mention it, because of the
influence it exerted upon his whole future development,
and especially that of the epoch immediately succeeding the
student period. I mean his peculiar sensitiveness. A more
than ordinary degree of this is indeed usually found in natures in other respects organized like his. But he had more
of it by far than is common. It prevailed in him so much,
indeed, as perhaps to impair the complete balance of his
constitution. It was in this direction, if in any, that there





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existed excess. It was not that he was sensitive, but that
he was too much, even morbidly so. It was here that he
found the principal weakness against which he had to
guard. It was from this that arose the chief of the shadows that obscured the brightness of his path. This furnished the occasion of most of the aversions and suspicions
with which, at one period of his life, he was wont to regard the ordinary human nature with which he was surrounded. If he had been less sensitive, he might, on the
whole, have been more happy, and made his friends and
associates happier; and his development might have been
more harmonious, or, at least, proceeded more legitimately
and with fewer disturbances through its successive stages.
But, on the other hand, this very quality, on account of its
excess, led to a development in some respects more complete, - to a more rigid and profound intellectual culture
than he would otherwise have attained. It operated sometimes as a goad to spur him on to exertions beyond what
the natural intensity of his constitution would have led him
to. But after the utmost allowance is made for its good
effects, it must be regarded as a disturbing influence, impairing the rounded completeness and perfect harmony of
his mental growth.
2. Omitting minor points, many of which are interesting and such as I should like to dwell upon, I come to the
intellectual period, which I so' denominate because it was
marked and distinguished by the growth and predominance
of the intellect, rather than of the affections.
Although the intensity with which he devoted himself
to study during this period may have been to his ultimate
advantage, yet I think it was somewhat excessive, and, in
some sense, injurious. I think, that, through the predisposing cause above mentioned, the original and most happy
balance of his powers was somewhat disturbed, and that he
would have been a happier - perhaps, on the whole, a bet11





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ter - student, if the affections had been allowed more play,
and the intellectual tendency had been less exclusive and
domineering. He would not, in that case, it is true, have
studied so hard, nor denied himself so austerely, and consequently not gained so much in the way of bare intellectual training and acquisition; but his intellectual tone
would have been more healthy, his development more harmonious, and his progress greater on the whole.
It is needless for me to tell you how diligent and earnest
he was as a student, or how exacting and unrelenting were
the demands he made upon his time and his energies; how,
term after term, he prosecuted his work, allowing himself
barely time for sleep and meals, with almost none for rest
and diversion; how he had little society in college, and
less outside of it; how, with an insufficient preparation,
he undertook nothing short of the entire course, and a good
deal in addition to it, when the demands of the course
alone were more than sufficient to consume the whole of
the regular study-hours, and the extra studies had of course
to be pursued in extra time, - time robbed from sleep and
rest and needful recreation; how he indulged himself in
scarcely any miscellaneous reading, throwing aside the poets
and the novelists and the historians, even Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, whom he had already
learned to admire and appreciate most thoroughly. It
would, indeed, be a mistake to say, that, at this, or at any
period, he renounced these favorite authors altogether. This
could not be. They had taken too strong a hold on him.
He had come to live too much in the atmosphere they had
created, and they had become too much to him the very
bread of his intellectual life. He did find time for some
reading of this sort; it would have been too complete a
sundering of the continuity of his intellectual consciousness if he had not; but he did not, for the sake of this,
diminish aught of his sterner tasks, or allow himself to be





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diverted, for a moment, from his great aim; which was to
make the most of his opportunities, and the most of himself. I remember, also, that he had a temporary connection with some literary societies, and that to these he devoted a part of his leisure time, though he had no time to
spare for them unless it was some midnight hour, when he
ought to have been in his bed. Besides holding the leading
position in all the regular classes, he found time, during
the two first years, to study, under Prof. Torrey, the Italian and German, and to make considerable proficiency in
both these languages. The German he afterwards pursued, and became quite at home in it. I may, perhaps, be
allowed to remark here that he became quite fond of the
poetry of Schiller, and subsequently translated some of his
lyrics into English. Some of these translations appeared
in the local newspapers; they were certainly good, but
they did not satisfy him, and he did not occupy himself
much afterwards with such efforts. Of course they were
never, with him, anything more than mere recreationis.
As to the great authors above mentioned, I should say
that he never weaned himself from them. He could not
have done it; but, for the sake of his great object, he denied himself during this period all intercourse with them,
except what he might enjoy in occasional and transient
meetings and recognitions. They might almost be called
stolen interviews; but they were enough to keep up the
acquaintance and strengthen the interest.
This may be the proper place for a word in regard to
the balance or proportion of his intellectual powers. Nothing has hitherto been said in regard to his imagination.
But his fondness for the great poets is evidence that he
possessed the faculty, and in more than the ordinary
degree.  His love of poetry was early developed; the
interest he took in it was marked and extraordinary, but
not more so than the ease with which he committed it to





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memory. He knew by heart the best part of all the poetry
he had read, and subsequently, and always, the best and
most striking passages were at his tongue's end; and especially were they not wanting or far to seek when he was
engaged in the work of composition. With nothing in his
earlier efforts of this kind was I more surprised than his
facility and aptness of quotation from the poets.  I was
astonished at the number of choice lines and passages that
seemed to live in his memory, and to present themselves,
unbidden, to illustrate his thoughts, and adorn and enrich
his compositions.
From being extensively a reader and student of the best
authors, he became an able and accomplished critic. He
had studied poetry as an art, and was thoroughly versed in
its laws and principles. For all the forms and movements
and melody of verse he had a quick and appreciative ear;
and there was so much of the poetical in his fancy and his
feelings, he had so much of the imagination and sensibility
of the poet, that all poetic truth and beauty were sure of
his recognition and love and praise. Though he did not
write verse, yet I think that in no department of literature
or learning was his reading so thorough and extensive as
in that of poetry. Nothing, in short, altogether satisfied
him, --nothing rose to the height of the aspirations and
demands of his intellectual nature, - but the great masterpieces of poetry and song. In these he seemed to find all
his demands met. Reason, imagination, the love of the
good, the beautiful, the true, found here their embodiment,
their exercise, and their gratification. The charm of the
Homeric simplicity, truth, and beauty, he felt, I am sure,
as much as any scholar, -
"And what the lofty, grave tragedians taught,
In chorus or iambic,"
found in him an admiring and susceptible pupil. Among
the Latins, Horace was his favorite. How often have I





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seen him go into raptures over the epigrammatic point and
wit, the exquisite melody, facility, and beauty, and the consummate art, of this author.
It is true that for the information of those who knew him
as student, instructor, and writer, there is no occasion
that I should speak of him in these points of view; but I
should fall very far short of presenting him as he was to
me, or of doing any justice to my own conceptions and
recollections of him, if I should omit them altogether.
Charles Lamb, in one of his Essays, apostrophizes Coleridge as "logician, metaphysician, bard."  The two first
of these honors I claim for my brother, but not the last.
In logical power and acumen it seems to me that he was
not inferior to the great philosopher and poet. And he
was a metaphysician, if by that is meant that he was
at home in the realm of abstract truth, and had a power
of analysis so keen that no appearances could delude
nor subtleties evade it.  But pervaded, vitalized as he
was throughout by the power of imagination, he did not
possess the faculty in that fulness and absoluteness which
is necessary to constitute the bard.  The genius which
spontaneously and of necessity creates beauty, and whose
products are a possession, and a joy forever, was not given
to him; but the power to appreciate and enjoy it, and live
upon its creations, was surely his.
The remarks in regard to his habits of study, previously
made, apply most strictly to the first half of his time in
college. The severity of his labors must have been, after
that, somewhat relaxed, for there was need of it. As
could not but happen, his health began to suffer. More
than once, I think, during his junior year, he was obliged
to suspend his studies for a few weeks at a time, to recruit
his wasted physical energies and recover the tone of his
overworked nervous system.
I think, too, that by means of this unnatural strain and





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somewhat one-sided culture, his nature suffered in the
sphere of the affections, and in the moral department.
I do not mean to intimate that he did not love his kindred
and his kind, nor that he was not true and loving as a friend
and a brother, nor that he was not dutiful and affectionate
as a child; but that he had not time or thought to bestow
on these, to him, then quite incidental and subordinate interests and objects. They were, in a measure, passed by
for the present, and the consideration of them deferred to
future times and opportunities. Something of this was,
doubtless, justifiable, and, for him, necessary; but for his
own good he went too far in it, and thereby lost a great
deal of the good, of even student life, that he might just as
well have secured.
Nor do I by any means mean to intimate that he ever
became, in any degree, immoral. I might almost say that
any such thing would, at all times, have been impossible
for him. His central and vital principle of self-control, of
fealty to reason and conscience, would, under any temptation, have forbidden it; and he was exposed to no temptation except what grew out of his intellectual pride and
ambition. He had no ends to gain except what were
honest and honorable, and he had no occasion to resort to
questionable means. Indeed, he was by nature the very
soul of honor, and it scarcely seems possible that anything
like immorality could be predicated of such a nature. He
might be false to himself, to his own higher instincts and
duties, under a one-sided view of truth, or an unbalanced
condition of his sensibilities. Though he was not immoral,
yet religion was neglected and ignored, at least as a matter
of present concern. Everything, then, had to bend to the
one idea and purpose of study and intellectual progress and
attainment.
I notice this chiefly for the purpose of bringing into
view what appear to me to have been the incidental causes





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87


of this partial disturbance of his natural equilibrium. Primarily I do not think there was in him any undue predominance of the intellectual tendency. He was affectionate,
thoughtful, reverential, religious, more than is usual. His
soul was remarkably open to spiritual influences, - to the
sense of the divinity that stirs within us, and that is reflected upon us from the heaven above and the earth
beneath. He felt " the burden of the mystery of all this
unintelligible world," and the thought of God and immortality penetrated and stirred him to the very depths of his
being. Few children have been characterized more than
he with what Wordsworth speaks of, -
"those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized;
High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Doth tremble, like a guilty thing surprised."
The disturbing causes, then, if such there were, are not
to be sought for in anything original in him, or in any germ
laid in his natural structure, unless, indeed, we say that
the foundation of that peculiar sensitiveness of his lay in
an original weakness or disharmony of his nature. I by
no means assert or imply this. And yet I think that his
development would have gone on more harmoniously, and
his life, as a whole, been brighter and happier, but for this
peculiarity of his organization, out of which his remarkable sensitiveness grew. It was owing to this, or, rather,
to the wounds that he received by occasion of this, that
he in some degree, and temporarily, lost his natural balance. Whatever was inordinate in him, or ungenuine in
any direction, was the reaction of his nature against the
injuries, real or fancied, which his too sensitive organization exposed him to. The poet Shelley may be adduced as





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a distinguished illustration of what I would say in regard to
my brother. There was illustrated very strikingly, and to
the view and the astonishment and grief of the whole world,
in the English poet, what was slightly and temporarily, and
with no bad result in the end, manifested in my brother.
It is said of Shelley, that it was mainly owing to the deep
wounds which his too sensitive nature had received, by
occasion of infidel doubts which he had expressed at the
University, that it was by reason of the cruelty and intolerance with which he was treated on this account, that he
became the wretched, raving, fanatical infidel that he was.
With a just, kind, judicious treatment, this might all have
been avoided, and Shelley might have been, more than any
other of modern times, the chosen name of all that is ethereal in genius and charming in song.
It may be worth the while to notice here, that, in his
compositions at this period, especially those which bore on
subjects of life and manners, there was a predominantly
sarcastic tone.  This evidently grew out of a kind of
grudge that he had conceived against society in general, -
a predisposition to look upon its least favorable side, and
estimate it accordingly. How deeply seated in him this
predisposition may have been I know not. Rather, I may
say, that I know that it was not very deeply seated, for
he was no misanthrope. His being was based on love;
and love was, after all, the vital element of his character.
Anything like settled hatred or contempt was impossible
to him, although he felt and manifested a tendency in that
direction. Through a temporarily diseased mental medium
human nature appeared to him in a diseased aspect, and
furnished a tempting mark for the shafts of his keen and
biting, though never malignant satire. He illustrates, in
this respect, what is so true, and what is so often illustrated, but so seldom considered, that the light in which
nature and man appear to us depends upon our own spirit




BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


89


ual condition or intellectual mood. As Coleridge so justly
says: -
" 0 lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live;
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud."
At the same time there was something in this satirical
vein that was most thoroughly native and genuine, that
was no symptom or fruit of anything morbid or unwholesome either in his constitution or his mood.   He had the
keenest sense of the ludicrous, and the most intense abhorrence of everything false, hypocritical, and mean. And
he was never at a loss for the language to suit his conceptions and feelings in reference to manifestations of this sort;
and there certainly were temptations enough for him to
employ it, whether he had in view merely his own, amusement and gratification, or the higher purpose of doing good
by administering wh6lesome castigation. In his maturest
manhood, and when his youthful fire had been most thoroughly tempered by " the wisdom that is from above,"
and 1"the charity that suffereth long and is kind," even
then this same tone of withering satire remained with him.
And that he did not scruple to use it, even on the gravest
occasions, and in view of the most weighty responsibilities,
the following passage from one of his Baccalaureate sermons, is sufficient proof: -
" There is danger of our leaving to die some of the noblest and
strongest features of our intellectual being. In some men they
seem to be not only going, but already gone. How near extinction, for example, is the power of intellectual fidelity. Where this
is wanting or deficient, - as in most men it is, - and especially
where there is no peculiar strength of will or fineness of moral
sentiment to stimulate and support it, we find the multitudinous
throng of mental imbeciles; men who recoil from a result as by
an organic irritability; between whose minds and a clear conception there seems to be a specific repulsion; who seem, in
12





90


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


contradiction to a general law of nature, to be able to breathe
only in a vacuum. Such men sometimes undertake to engage in
business; but they can form no plans, they can comprehend no
ends, they can finish no work; the only thing they can do is to
fail.
" Such men would sometimes intermeddle in the pursuits of
the scholar. But here, alas! no ideal ever charms their fancy,
and stimulates pursuit. Their only effort is the occasional mimicry of the energy which may happen to surround them. Their
necessary connection with those who work, - like corpses tied to
living bodies, - gives them an appearance of activity; but to the
close observer, 'they raise their limbs like lifeless tools, they are
a ghastly crew.'"
There was another temporarily disturbing cause that
ought not to be overlooked in speaking of his characteristics at this period. This was an intense religious excitement, through which he had passed just previous to commencing his preparation for College. It was owing to the
great revival of 1831, which was very powerful in and
about the region of our home, and in which great numbers, especially of the young, were hopefully converted.
He felt the influence strongly, and yielded himself up to
it freely. In real earnest he set himself about the work of
the saving of his soul. But he did not attain to peace, or to
anything satisfactory to himself. He soon, in consequence,
relapsed into a state bordering on despair as to any good
that could result to him from efforts of this kind, and resolved, for the present at least, that he would make no
more of them. Consequently from that time he kept himself aloof from the subject, and gave himself up, with an
intensified energy, to his studies, and to the carrying out
of his great plan of going through College, which, at about
this time, he had formed. And I think that the disappointment and failure which at this time he experienced, bred
in him a kind of aversion to all efforts of this sort, and
made him resolve to devote his energies to objects more





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


within his natural scope, to pursuits in which he should be
liable to no such mortifying failure. But, happily, this
cause did not operate long. He began to overcome it before the close of his College course. He became willing
and disposed to look candidly and favorably upon religion.
But it became with him now more a matter of calm reflection and solemn and rational self-determination, and less a
matter of feverish excitement and external manifestation
and effort than before. His agitation had subsided, prejudices had worn away, and his mind had gravitated constantly toward a truly rational and religious position. He
was in a condition to receive and consider the truth; his
mind was becoming good ground for the divine seed to
fall into. In his senior year he began to cherish the Christian hope; but he made no public profession of it until the
following year, at Montpelier. While yet in College he
wrote of it to me, and spoke of it to his instructors and
his more intimate friends, but my impression is that it was
not generally known in College. It was " the still small
voice" to which his soul was reverently listening and inwardly bowing. It was eminently true, in his case, that
"the kingdom of God came not with observation."
From this event we may date the commencement of the
change by which, in the end, the original balance of his
nature was completely restored, and clothed with added
strength and beauty. The merely natural became more
and more merged in, and transfigured by, the divine. His
life became grounded in, and regulated by, the unchangeable and eternal, and thus became the "everlasting life "
which becomes the property of those that believe on Christ.
Of course, from this time his nature began to have a
freer and fuller development on the side of the affections.
His friendships were not only intensified and multiplied,
but he came to love man as man, and to feel the impulses
of a genuine and universal "good will."  But he was still





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reserved and cautious beyond what was natural and fitting.
The circle of his friends, to whom he ventured to express
himself freely, and without reserve or suspicion, was small
and select.  There were many that most sincerely loved
and admired him, and who longed for his confidence, but
who were not yet admitted to it. The old shell of reserve
and suspicion was not yet quite broken. Or, to use a better figure, he had lighted his candle, but he had not put it
upon a candlestick, where it could give its cheering light
to all within the house; but he had put it under a bushel
- the bushel of unnatural suspicion - of too great fear of
misconstruction and insincerity on the part of those around
him. It may have been thought that religion should have
removed all this barrier of distance and reserve; nay, that
its existence was incompatible with the reality of Christian
love in the heart, on the principle that " perfect love casteth out fear." But his love, though real, was not yet perfect; it had not yet achieved his complete emancipation, nor
fully invested and inspired him with that freedom wherewith love maketh her children free. The work of faith
had been going on in his heart, but it was not yet complete. He had reached successively the stages of virtue,
temperance, patience, godliness, but it may be that he had
not yet fully added to his godliness brotherly kindness,
and to brotherly kindness charity. The law of Christian
growth is first the blade, then the ear, after that the full
corn in the, ear. During this long period, though he was
doubtless the subject of a true piety, and though, in many
respects, grace was eminently manifest in him, yet, so far
as related to the growth and exercise of the affections, and
the free communication to those about him of what had
been wrought within him, and especially, compared with
what, in this respect, he afterwards became, religion was
with him in the small and tender blade, -- a power and a
principle indeed, but yet feeble and only in its infancy.





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


93


The contrast between the impression he made at this time
upon his ordinary acquaintances and that which he made
afterwards on the same persons, was very great.  The
change that took place in him in this respect was beyond
anything of the sort I have ever known. Instead of an
involuntary shrinking from every approach towards intimacy and freedom with him, on account of a certain severity and reserve of manner there was about him, - instead
of the not unfrequent expression of doubt, uncertainty, and
fear with regard to him, in language like this, -" I am
afraid of him "; " I wish I could feel that I knew him ";
" I dare not approach him "; instead of this, expressions
of the contrary sort became common from the very same
persons. He came to be regarded and spoken of as one of
the most approachable, affable, condescending, thoughtful,
and agreeable of men. Everything like reserve and distance had melted away from about him like the chilly fogs
and damps of night before the sweet warm rays of the
morning. The sun of a new human and divine love had
risen in him, and the night shadows and the unwholesome
influences were fast fleeing away. There were no longer
any frozen streams or stiffened sensibilities, but all the little
brooks and rills ran and sparkled and rippled in the sunlight.
3. We have come to a stage in our journey where we
breathe already a sweeter and purer air; where the light
of another sun begins to color and temper the light of the
common day. A new serenity, calmness, and fragrance
are diffused around us. We have reached the last and
crowning period of his earthly development, - the period
of spiritual and intellectual health, harmony, and peace.
As we come out with our pilgrim upon this last stage of
his pilgrimage, there comes unbidden to our thoughts the
vision of Bunyan's dream, in which he saw the last stage
of the journey of his pilgrim. "Now, I saw in my dream,





94


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


that by this time the pilgrims were got over the Enchanted
Ground, and entering into the country of Beulah, whose
air was very sweet and pleasant. Yea, here they heard
continually the singing of birds, and saw every day the
flowers appear in the earth, and heard the voice of the
turtle in the land. In this country the sun shineth night
and day.   Here they were within sight of the city they
were going to; also here met them some of the inhabitants thereof; for in this land the shining Ones commonly
walked, because it was upon the borders of Heaven."
We have seen religion initiating the change constituting
the vis transitionis from the one-sided intellectual stage to
the balanced and ripened stage where the affections reassert their claim, and resume their legitimate place and office in the restored order and movement of the soul. We
have seen it checking and chastening what had been inordinate and excessive, and waking to new life and energy
what had been comparatively latent and repressed. We
have seen that very religion, the vain struggle to attain to
which, by an effort of the unaided human will, had operated as one of the disturbing and perverting influences,
now, when its principle had become seated in the will itself, acting as the grand restorative power, and inaugurating a new period, a new life, and a new character; imparting, I mean, a new character to the affections, and introducing a new order and a new power into the working of
the whole mental and moral machinery of the soul. The
example, I am sure, is instructive; it shows us the wretchedness and impotency of our strivings, when destitute of
the impulse and aid of the Divine Spirit, and the ease and
success of our efforts to attain unto spiritual peace and
progress, when we have that already in the heart as the
inspiring and vitalizing principle. It adds new significance
to that profound scripture, "work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


95


to will and to do of his good pleasure;" a passage which
was much in the mind of my brother, and the import of
which I think his experience enabled him very clearly to
understand.  In his previous strivings he had no proper
sense of the impotency of his natural self-will. He had
not come to a clear discovery of his bondage to sin. But
his own experience served in the end to convince him of it,
and to lead him to cry out, " Oh wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me?"
I have said that his final period dates visibly from about
the time of his marriage. And so it does visibly; but, as
we have seen, not really.  Though without doubt this
event cooiperated most genially with religion in carrying on
the work of restoration, and inaugurating and accomplishing the new balance, the new and more secure self-possession, the more regulated and calm intensity, the new harmony between the intellect, the will, and the affections.
He began from about this time to show not only a steady
self-control, but also a pervading kindness, the feeling of
kindred with his fellow-men, and of the claims which even
the most wretched, ungrateful, and perverse, had upon him.
The desire and the effort to do them good mingled with
and sustained his patience towards them. His whole mind
and heart began to be informed and vitalized by that most
central principle of Christianity - " the charity that suffereth long and is kind." The sphere of his sympathies
and cares became visibly enlarged; the covering of pride,
indifference, suspicion, and aversion was taken off from his
candle, and it had opportunity to shed its warm and cheering light upon all within the house. And this, now no
longer the mere light of a natural sympathy and affection,
but the natural, heightened and chastened, intensified and
regulated, sanctified and sweetened by the spiritual and
divine.
As soon as he had children of his own to love and care





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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.


for, to open the fountains of parental affection in him, to
shed a new light and joy about the footsteps of his daily
life, he began to regard children with new interest, whenever and wherever he met them. Humanity in them had
revealed to him a new phase, and he, in turn, presented a
new phase of his own many-sided being to that. From
this time, more and more, he lived and moved and had his
being under the power and within an atmosphere of love.
More and more he learned to love; more and more he discovered that all true life has its principle in love. And in
the light and life and power of love he lived, till at last Love
set her seal upon him, and claimed him as her own, her
child, her monument, her trophy; and the last uttered syllable of his dying lips was--for all he left behind, wife,
children, brothers, sisters, mother, friends, his flock, his
parish, all mankind- Love! Love!
I should, until quite recently, have said that, excellent
and eminent as he was in so many and important points
and relations, yet that his crowning excellence, the maturest
and richest fruit and effect of all his fine native qualities,
of all his remarkable self-government, of all his ripe culture and life-long discipline, was seen in the narrow and
quiet circle of his family. For never have I known a family where the order, the peace, the freedom without disorder, and the obedience without complaint or reluctance,
the presence and control of the head, the influence of an
all-controlling authority was so manifest, and yet not manifest by visible acts or orders or efforts to maintain authority or enforce obedience. In his family government, the
combination of firmness with gentleness, the influence of
his own perfectly self-possessed and self-balanced being, the
mingling of love and fidelity and authority, and their silent and steady exercise were very obvious, and their effect
was what was to have been expected, and what made his
domestic circle a model of what every such circle should





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97


be, but few, alas, are. Not long since, nay, until after his
death, I should have said that here, after all, was his throne,
and that this home was his crown.
But now I should modify that judgment, and say that,
after all, it was as a pastor of Christ's flock that he most
excelled; not as a preacher of the Word, but in the manner
in which he fed Christ's lambs, and carried them in his
bosom, and gently led and won and comforted the weak
and the erring and the afflicted, - the manner in which he
comprehended all classes and all extremes in the wide embrace of his loving remembrance and care, - the rich, the
poor, the young, the old, and that great and powerful middle class that lies between these extremes.  A sufficient
proof of the correctness of this judgment, and the highest
praise, it seems to me, that human lips could confer upon
him, and forming, perhaps, the fitting close of this sketch
of his life, is found in the testimony of one of the best
minds of his, or any other, congregation, who told me at
the time of his funeral, at Burlington, that when he listened to his trial sermons at Rochester, and when the
question as to giving him a call to the pastorate was before
the minds of the congregation, that from the first he had
no question of his talent, his ability, his character, and
every requisite of eminent power and success in the pulpit;
yet, that he had doubts whether a man so intellectual,
whose life had been so much in the study, among books
and scholars, would enter readily or sufficiently into the
spirit of a pastor's work among a large flock. This was
the attitude of his mind towards him and towards the question of settlement over that flock. But when the settlement was effected, and the pastor had entered upon his
work, he soon found that the sphere and the work in which
he excelled most, and for which he seemed most admirably
fitted, and in which his success was likely to be far the
greatest, was the work of the pastor among his flock.
13





98            BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
It was here that his Lord's summons found him. It was
near the close of a short season of respite from toil, when
he was girding up the loins of his mind for fresh tasks, not
knowing that his "1worn-out frame, which requ~ired perpetual Sabbath," was rapidly sinking under the inroads of
disease, and that he was going, not back to his work, but
up to his rest and reward.
A. G. P.
NoRWICHr, April 12, 1864.





BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.


IN this notice it is proposed to sketch, very briefly, some
of the leading incidents of the material life of him whose
death we lament, leaving to other hands a fuller record of
his intellectual and spiritual history.
The parents of Calvin Pease were of the Puritan faith,
tradition, and habits. The family, on both sides, was of
the best New England blood. He was the fifth in a family
of nine sons and one daughter. His father was Salmon
Pease, of Canaan, Conn., where he was born, August 12,
1813. His mother was a daughter of Dr. Thomas Huntington, of Connecticut, - a graduate of Yale College, of
the Class of 1768. His childhood passed without unusual
incidents, but was remarkable for a nice sense of honor,
that always governed him. The beauty of his person was
in keeping with the loveliness of his character. In a pecuniary point of view his prospects were not particularly flattering; but the highway to honorable distinction is ever
open to all American youth that may have the capacity
and disposition to enter upon it. Obstacles that would
have discouraged most persons, seemed only to operate as
a spur to his extraordinary energy, and were swept from
his path with apparent ease.
His father's house was ever the home of genuine refinement and simple abundance. The family removed from
Connecticut to Charlotte, Vermont, in November, 1826,





100


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.


when Calvin was thirteen years old. He was occupied on
his father's farm until the spring of 1832, when he entered
Hinesburg Academy to fit for college. He had always
a remarkable fondness for study, but never enjoyed any
extraordinary advantages for education. It would not be
more than the truth to say that he was the best scholar in
every school he attended; and it was the inevitable result of his native tastes that he should aspire to a liberal
education. He continued at Hinesburg until September,
1833, when he entered the Freshman Class of the University of Vermont. He at once took a very high position in
his class, and maintained it throughout the time of his connection with the institution. He graduated in 1838, having
been absent during his course more than a year, engaged in
teaching. From the time of his graduation until 1842, he
was employed as Principal in the academy at Montpelier,
Vermont.   Here he was very successful, and made great
progress as a student. Here, too, he became acquainted
with the lady who afterwards became his wifb, - the
youngest daughter of the Hon. Joseph Howes, of Montpelier, - to whom he was married in May, 1843. His
married life was eminently happy. He had five children,
all daughters, who, with their mother, still survive.*
In 1841 he delivered the Master's oration at Burlington, and received the degree of A. M. In 1842, he delivered the address before the Associate Literary Societies
of the University. This year (1842) he was elected to
the Professorship of the Greek and Latin languages in his
Alma Mater. He continued in this position until December, 1855, when he was chosen to succeed Dr. Worthington Smith, as President of the institution. Late in the
period of his professorship he was licensed to preach the
gospel, by the Winooski Association. He had not made
theology a systematic study, yet he was urged to this
* His third child has since died.





BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.


101


step by his friends, who knew his rare ability as a writer
and speaker, and his eminent qualifications, spiritual and
intellectual, for usefulness in the pulpit. At the Commencement in 1856, he was inaugurated as President, and
a few weeks later, received the degree of Doctor of Divinity, from Middlebury College, Vermont. During his presidency he received various marks of public appreciation
and regard, among which were his appointment as a member of the Vermont Board of Education, at its organization, in 1856, and his election to the Presidency of the
Vermont Teachers' Association, the same year; - both of
which offices he held until he left the State, and in both
of which, especially the former, he was particularly active
and useful, taking a leading part in shaping the present
highly successful educational policy of the State of Vermont. In 1862 he was elected a member of the American
Philosophical Society, of Philadelphia.
In November, 1861, he received a call to the pastorate
of the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, N. Y.,
which, considering the demands of his health and the
claims of his family, he deemed it his duty to accept. He
left Burlington and entered upon his ministry in Rochester, the January following. In May he was installed as
pastor of the church. His ministry of less than two years
comprehended the happiest and most interesting period of
his life. Within these few short months he did his greatest and best work, for which all his previous life, labor,
and experience were but the preparation, and it their fitting crown and reward.
His death occurred at Burlington, on the 17th of September, 1863, - by a somewhat extraordinary coincidence,
at his own former home, then and now the residence of his
brother-in-law, George Francis, Esq.
Dr. Pease left many valuable manuscripts and sermons,
but published only a few. His earliest published work





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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.


was a discourse on the " Import and Value of the Popular
Lecturing of the Day," before the Literary Societies of the
University of Vermont, (1842). Subsequently he contributed to the Bibliotheca Sacra, " Classical Studies,"
(July, 1852); "The Distinctive Idea of Preaching,"
(April, 1853); and to the Presbyterian Quarterly Review, "Characteristics of the Eloquence of the Pulpit,"
(October, 1858,) which article was delivered as an address before the Rhetorical Society of Auburn Theological Seminary. The "(Idea of the New England College
and its Power of Culture," was delivered as an address at
his inauguration as President of the University of Vermont, (1856).    "Address before the Graduating Class
in the Medical Department of the University," (1856).
Baccalaureate Sermons, 1856, 1857, 1859, 1860; and a
number of occasional sermons. As chairman of the committee of arrangements, he took a leading part in the
preparations for the grand Semi-Centennial Anniversary
of the University of Vermont, in 1854.
In this connection we may fitly introduce some extracts
from a private letter, written by J. S. Adams, Esq., to a
member of the family, as follows:--
BURLINGTON, March 30th, 1864.
MR. THOMAS H. PEASE:
My Dear Sir,- Your letter of the 7th instant was duly received, and, as soon as a pressure of other matters has allowed,
I now attempt, with a sort of painful pleasure, to reply.
I was a classmate, for two or three years, with Mr. Pease.
He entered in his brother Aaron's class, but being absent for
one or two years, upon his return to college, entered my class.
I was not very familiar with him in college, being considerably younger,-at a time of life when a few years' difference
in age makes a wider separation than it does afterward. But
though not intimate, I knew him very well. He stood at the
head of his class...... My intimate acquaintance with him





BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.


103


began in the winter of 1856-7. The legislature had, by especial
enactment, at the session of October, 1856, created a Board of
Education similar to the Board of Massachusetts. This Board
consisted of five members, three of whom were to be nominated
by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, and two of whom
were the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, for the time being,
ex officio. The educational prospects of the State, at this time,
certainly were not brilliant. No one had much faith in the old
system, and little more was created by the erection of the Board.
Mr. Pease was almost solely instrumental in procuring my
appointment to the office of secretary. I refused it, absolutely,
once; but, at his repeated and urgent solicitation, I at last accepted. When I first met with the Board, they seemed to be at
a loss themselves how to begin the work of gathering up the
broken threads, and bringing into effective shape the school
system of the State, and, in fact, devolved upon Mr. Pease the
whole direction of practical matters. What was done was done
by me, and always in concurrence with Mr. Pease. We, together, planned everything for the first year or two; and the
confidence of the Board in his capacity and judgment was implicit. What he advised was, almost without exception, assented
to by all. He was the life and soul of the Board while he remained a member of it; and whatever measure of success attended
our efforts - and the success has been greater and more marked
than we hoped - was attributed, in great measure, to Mr. Pease.
And the only differences of opinion that ever occurred, arose from
his habit of taking a larger view of all educational matters than
any other member of the Board, and from his entire want of that
sort of fear that deters men from doing what they admit to be
right, from a desire to Consult the dictates of expediency. He
was, most emphatically, a man without fear, and at the same time
had not a trace of foolhardiness.
The State of Vermont owes Calvin Pease a heavy debt of
gratitude for the wisdom and boldness, mingled with tact and
shrewdness, with which he threw himself, at exactly the right
time, into the field of educational labor in the cause of common
schools. Mr. Pease singularly impressed the other members of





104             BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.
the Board with feelings of respect, confidence, regard, and warm
affection. The expressions of personal kindness and of regret,
upon his resignation and removal, were frequent and warm in
the Board; and when at last he was removed from earth, deep
and unaffected sorrow pervaded the minds and hearts of his former associates.
The effect of his connection with the Board was singalarly
happy in the development of new mines of wealth, and of new
sources of power, in his owa character. He was interested, and
most deeply so, in a new phase of the great question of education, to which his life was given. A scholar of the first rank,
and decidedly scholastic and critical in his views of many matters, and metaphysically inclined to abstract and abstruse views,
he often expressed himself in a style that was incomprehensible
to the common mind. That was his former tendency. But his
connection with the Board threw him into contact with shrewd,
sharp, practical men who were not of the scholastic type, and the
effect upon himself was, to me, wonderful. I have never known
a man ripen and bear fruit so rapidly in a new field of labor.
I have often thought, and as often said, that Mr. Pease developed
more - strong as he was before - in four years, during his connection with the Board, than I ever knew any man to do in equal
time.  His power made itself felt throughout the State; and
when we lost him, the general impression was that the brightest
light of the State was extinguished. When the embarrassments
and trials, vexatious and annoyances of his position, as President
of the college, had nearly worn him out, and permanently injured
his health, he often talked with me as to what course he ought to
take, and particularly with reference to his Rochester call. I
did not hesitate (though I knew the loss his removal would occasion the educational interest of the State) to tell him that he
had a duty to himself and his family, and that he ought to go.
I knew then that the schools would lose their warmest and best
friend; and after his reason was convinced, it required almost a
superhuman effort to resolve to leave his field of labor here.
In him, as I think, Vermont has lost her ablest man. He
combined the highest, most exact, and critical scholarship, the





BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.                  105
most liberal and far-reaching views, the greatest keenness, and
sharp, shrewd, practical ability, with an intuitive perception of
the characteristics of men with whom he was brought in contact,
in a degree that has been seldom realized....
With much regard,
Truly yours,
J. S. ADAMS.
14





PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.*
THE following remarks by Professor Cutting, at the Co6mmemorative Services in the First Presbyterian Church, on
Sunday afternoon, of the late distinguished and lamented
Dr. Pease, will be read with general interest. As an appreciative sketch of the life and character of the deceased
pastor, they will be highly prized by his church and congregation, at the request of some of whom they are here
presented:
The reasons by which, as I suppose, the session of this
church was determined in requesting me to take part in
these solemn services, were of a character which forbade a
refusal on my part; and yet I may say that I have seldom
so shrunk from a public duty as from the attempt to sketch
the life and portray the character of my dear and honored
friend. It is difficult for me, even amid all this grief, and
w ith this grief in my own heart, to make distinctly conscious the realities of this sad hour. I cannot feel that I
am not again to meet my friend in my walks, not again to
welcome him as my guest, not again to behold him standing here where I stand, and here uttering, out of his wellstored intellect and full heart, the blessed truths of our
holy religion. The event is so sudden, so unlooked-for,
*From the Rochester "Democrat and American" of September
30, 1868.





PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.


107


that it seems all like a terrible illusion, to be dispelled by
his actual entrance into our assembly, as we find relief in
the realities of consciousness from the troubles of a painful dream. And even when this mournful bereavement is
most real to me, I am not in a frame of mind to contemplate my friend as an object of description and analysis, -
he is in my heart and not before my mind, and the heart
refuses to the lips the power to utter all which it feels. I
shall attempt but little, therefore; leaving to some other,
better able and with maturer thought, the tribute which is
due to our brother, and which cannot be withheld.
It is thirty years, at just about this very time, since I
first knew and honored Calvin Pease. It was at that time
that he entered the University of Vermont. I remember
no student of my college-days with more distinctness. If
I were to say to you that he impressed me at once as gentleman and scholar, you would say that that was only type
and promise of the impression he made on you when you
first saw him in this pulpit. A youth just ripening into
manhood then, he was, I think, a little more slender than
you were accustomed to see him, and a little more erect;
but otherwise he was in figure and expression what you
beheld him here. His sobriety and dignity commanded
respect; his genialness and sincerity raised universal respect to the quality of universal love. Whether it might
or might not be that lie had the poet's pen which turns to
shape the forms of things unknown, it was impossible not
to see that he had the poet's eye to behold them, and the
imagination to body them forth. It required no spirit of
prophecy to foretell that the haunts of literature and the
"shady spaces of philosophy" would present to his nature
paramount attractions, and as the event proved, these were
the departments in which he excelled. A thorough classical scholar, a master in English literature, especially in its
poetry, thoroughly versed in the philosophy then taught





108


PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.


by Dr. Marsh, and imbued with its spirit, he was a signal
illustration of the culture by which the University of Vermont was distinguished. Leaving college for a year, in
the midst of his course, he returned to complete his studies,
and graduated in 1838.
At the conclusion of his college course he became a
teacher at Montpelier, and while there made a public profession of religion. It was his design to enter upon theological studies; but the death of Dr. Marsh requiring the
transfer of Dr. Torrey to the chair of Philosophy, Mr.
Pease was appointed Professor of the Greek and Latin
languages in 1842. This change, however, was attended
with no purpose on his part to abandon sacred studies.
Such studies might be pursued incidentally, but they were
to be pursued; and there is sufficient proof of his proficiency,
in the ripeness and extent of the theological acquisitions
by which his brief ministry among you was adorned and
made efficient. His intellectual development at Burlington was rapid and healthful. It may be doubted whether,
constituted as he was, he could have been surrounded by
conditions by which that development would have been
better promoted.  There nature presented itself to his
loving heart in scenes of unusual magnificence and beauty.
From the dwelling which years of domestic love had consecrated, he looked across the town at his feet to the matchless waters of Lake Champlain, and beyond to the lofty
peaks of the Adirondacks, the scene, at the setting of the
sun, sometimes transmuting earth and sky into burnished
gold. Nowhere in our land is nature grander or lovelier.
There, too, he was surrounded by scholars of kindred culture and taste; there he had ample companionship with
books; and there, in contact with youthful minds under
his training, he found the practical incitements necessary
to a man consecrated to duty. There, thirteen years Professor, and six years President, he attained eminence in





PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.


109


scholarship, and his mind grew to the proportions which
made him a man of recognized intellectual power.
But he was not a teacher only. The convictions which
had early impelled him towards theology never lost their
influence upon his plans. These convictions met an answering call from his brethren of the communion to which
he belonged; and while yet Professor he was inducted into
the sacred office.  In the intimacy of our friendship it
was given me to know somewhat of the experiences which
led him into the ministry, and made him so constantly a
preacher in the churches around his home. He preached
because he could not but preach, not less than because
he was continually called to preach by the churches, I
cannot enumerate the places in which, for periods less or
greater, he was a stated supply. I remember Jericho and
Vergennes, where, all in all, he must have preached for
a period extending over three or four years. So by His
Spirit and by His providence, so by intellectual furnishing
and by spiritual preparation, God was making our brother
ready for that brief but most blessed pastoral work which
was to be his last work on earth.
Two years ago this month, a gentleman residing in a
Western city, who knew Dr. Pease, and knew this church,
in a letter to me expressed the belief that Dr. Pease would
enter on the pastoral office, and that his character and qualifications were eminently suitable for the pastoral office
here. That letter I placed at once in the hands of gentlemen of this congregation, saying, that if it were a question of inducing Dr. Pease to leave the Presidency I could
bear no part in it, for I feared that the University could not
afford to lose him; but that, if his becoming a pastor were
a thing settled, then happy would this church be if his services could be secured. He was invited to visit you, and
while here he was my guest; and most happy am I to bear
testimony to the tenderness towards the University, to the





110    PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.


affectionate interest in its welfare, with which he weighed
the question of his separation from it, and to the exalted
motives which led him to choose rather the exclusive
duties of a Christian pastor. I had not until then been
brought into relations with him so close and confidential,
and in these more intimate relations I saw the purity and
beauty of his character as never before. It was manifest
enough that to preach the gospel was the thing which was in
his heart. He came here for the same reasons which led
him to accept license and ordination, because he could not
but preach the gospel. Difficulties manifold and unanticipated made his subsequent struggles perplexing and painful; but the duty to preach, and the love of preaching,
triumphed in the conflict, and he became your pastor.
The rest you know; the rest you know better, far better
than I can tell it. You know with what total unreserve
he gave himself to your service; with what solicitude he
watched every interest of your parish; how he cherished
the Sunday-school and the cause of Missions; how he
looked after the sick, the suffering, and the afflicted; how
he composed differences, and promoted unity and peace;
how he was the joy of your homes, and the light of your
public assemblies; how gentle and loving he was; how
wise and circumspect; how intuitively his sense of propriety met every possible exigency; how spotless was his life,
and how salutary his example.' United to the communion
of scholars by long years of sympathy and common labors,
you saw him sever every bond which could by possibility
diminish his power of ministerial usefulness. You saw in
him what the Church seldom sees, - a man of letters and
philosophy, an educator to the age of forty-eight, turning
at once to the pastoral office, entering on its duties with
the facility of life-long habit, and actually attaining, in the
brief space of two years, such distinction as a pastor, as
makes him a model for all coming time. You saw him,





PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.


111


amid the great blessing of an extraordinary revival, the
safest of spiritual guides, never for one moment losing his
thoughtfulness, never failing of a control over events, so
quiet that none felt the consciousness of control, winning
to himself the young by the wisdom and affectionateness
of his counsels, and confirming the mature and strong by
the strength of his faith and the soundness and healthfulness of his teachings. You will remember, that, amid those
wonderful scenes, he maintained all his accustomed thoroughness of preparation for his pulpit ministrations, and
that there was a remarkable adaptation of his sermons to
your thoughts and feelings. Under God you are indebted
for that to the ripeness of his culture, and the unfaltering
power of system in his habits.   He never lost sight of
the fact that he was a Christian teacher; that such was
a period requiring special painstaking and soundness in
instruction; and that instruction at that period, to be
worth anything at all, must spring forth from his knowledge of your condition. He prepared, therefore, with all
his accustomed diligence and care, one sermon every week,
and it came forth as much from your souls as his own.
It had the power of freshness and adaptation; and under it
you grew, and could not, by the blessing of God, but grow,
in knowledge and in grace.
But I must not linger on details which no language
of mine is necessary to fix forever in your memory. In
this brief and most imperfect tribute, let me rather revert to some of those special elements of his character
which clothed his life with beauty and his ministry with
power.
One of these elements was his faith. I think I never
knew a man in whom faith had a more marked or more
beautiful development. Its basis in his nature was not the
weakness of credulity, for he was as careful in respect to
what he believed as he was in respect to what he did. No





112      PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.
man's faith was ever more intelligent. Faith to him was
the seeing of that which is invisible; the very substance of
things hoped for, and so the evidence of things not seen.
It was the crowning act of a rational nature. It was alike
of the essence of his philosophy and of the essence of his
religion. It was not something without, to be contemplated
as a mere object of thought; but it was a living principle
within, the very inspiration and guide and strength of life.
It was a habit, and lent its own nature to his thoughts,
his utterances, and his acts. That calm serenity which
adorned him was the perfect peace of the man whose mind
is stayed on God, and was the fulfilment of the prophetic
promise. He believed in God as a Being ruling personally
and everywhere, in the law of God as written in the heart
of man and in the Bible, in the adequacy and completeness
of redemption in Jesus Christ, in the regenerating and
sanctifying offices of the Holy Spirit. He believed in the
Christian Church, in Divine Providence, in the institutions
of human society, in the ultimate ascendency of truth, and
in the certain progress of law, order, and Christian civilization.
And as there was beauty in such a life, so was there
in it a silent but irresistible power. It was like the great
forces of nature, - like gravitation, which operates everywhere in great and small, pouring out the floods of Niagara
and floating the thistle-down on the air. Recall his sermons. Did he ever utter a sentence which was not from
his heart, in which his heart did not actually go forth to
you? and was not that faith of his a chief source of his
moulding, assimilating, his unconscious but real power?
He was no "sensation preacher," thanks be to God; he
was not an orator, in the accepted use of that term; but
you were held by him, and controlled by him, because out
of his believing heart came all that simplicity and adaptation of truth, which ripe culture, and patient thinking, and





PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.


113


communion with your souls had made ready for utterance
in this place. You were strengthened, because he never
doubted the power of the appointed means of grace; he
raised your thoughts to the Head of the Church, and made
you feel yourselves to be but his agents, his deputies, instruments only, but instruments to be blessed and made
successful in your work. So it was that he comforted you
in your personal trials; so it was that he lifted you up
when despondent; so it was that in all the gloom of our
country he heralded, as if with prophetic vision, the dawn
of a coming and more blessed day. Ah, my brethren, we
need such as was Calvin Pease to teach us how to trust
in God; to illustrate, for our weakness, the serenity and
beauty and power of faith.
I must name one other special element of his character,
--I mean his repugnance to sin, his loathing of it. He
shrank from it in all the forms of duplicity and meanness;
of envy, uncharitableness, and malice; of injury, vice, and
crime. And if I were to say to you that he saw sin and
loathed it only in these manifest acts, I should tell you but
half the truth, and that half the least significant. He saw
in all these acts the fruits and evidences of a deeper guilt
of human nature; a guilt too deep to be traced in its manifestations; the utter fall, and ruin, and guilt of man in the
profoundest depths of the human spirit. To use the phrase
of an eminent divine of the Presbyterian Church, friend,
fellow-student, and colleague of our departed brother,*from whom, at some time, I hope we may have such an
analysis of our brother's mind and heart as only that friend
is competent to give, - sin, to his view, was a nature, and
that nature was guilt. So utter, in his estimation, was the
fall of man.  Loathing thus all sin, he was the man of
spotless life which you saw him to be in his daily walk. I
never knew a human being more free from faults; long as
* Rev. Dr. Shedd.
15





114      PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.
I had known him, I had never discovered the first. And
yet I know that he would not have suffered me to say that
in his presence; for his conscious share in the wreck and
ruin of human nature led him to exclaim, " God be merciful to me a sinner." Sharing in that wreck and ruin,
he felt himself utterly helpless and dependent. That theology which abased man, and exalted the free and sovereign
grace of God in redemption, which he preached in your
hearing, and by which alone he sought your salvation, was
not to him a mere curious speculation, not a mere aggregate of logical deductions, but a vital personal experience.
So he preached, and so you believed. He never taught
you that one effort of your wills would recreate you, -
no, not a thousand efforts; he taught you that you, like
himself, were ruined and helpless sinners, to be saved only
by that Divine redemption which combines and illustrates
equally the power and the grace of God. Recall his sermons, recall his religious conversations, recall his instructions, whether public or private, during the great revival,
and see always that two ideas made up the sum and substance of all, and gave to all their efficacy and power, -
sin as utter ruin, and redemption as complete and only salvation.  There was, indeed, in his instructions a remarkable absence of theological forms of statement; but the
substance was always there, and the forms used were the
admirable results of his own independent, thoughtful, and
far-reaching analysis. I anticipated for him, my brethren,
a long ministry among you; and I looked for its blessed
fruits not chiefly to the influence of his character and life,
beautiful as his character and life were, but to these profound views of human sin, and to the consequent exaltation
and glory of the Divine remedy in Jesus Christ. These,
as I believe, constitute the chief elements of an efficient
ministry; these made the brief ministry of our departed
brother among you a ministry of power and. success,




PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.


115


a ministry whose conscious influences you will recognize
more and more with the lapse of years, and whose unconscious influences will be among the beatific revelations of
the heavenly world.
But I have consumed your time beyond my intentions.
I cannot proceed further without injustice to the brother
who succeeds me. Our friend has departed, and amid
these earthly scenes we shall behold him no more. He
left us, somewhat worn by his labors, to visit his venerable
mother and the home of his childhood, and to find health
and strength in companionship with old friends, and amid
the scenery and bracing winds of his beloved Vermont.
He had met and greeted kindred and friends, he had
ascended the lofty mountain from which he looked down
on the home of his youth and the scene of his University
labors, he had felt anew the inspiration of Nature in her
forms of sublimity and beauty, when disease laid him suddenly low. Borne to the dwelling in which he had so long
resided, surrounded by the trees which his own hands had
planted, and which had grown up to beauty with the growth
of his own children, he wasted rapidly away. Without
apprehensions at the time of a fatal termination, he sent
messages to this church which will never pass from your
recollections; he bore on his heart and in his prayers, one
by one, the young disciples of his flock; thankfully I speak
it, he had even remembered me, and uttered my name in
a connection which implied our mutual friendship. But
disease was too powerful for his frame, and it became
apparent that his condition was critical. He sank rapidly, and departed to his rest. He died as one might die
for whom the whole of manly life had been a period of
preparation. To us he was but in the very midst of his
labors; but to the eye of God his work was complete, and
he heard a voice from heaven saying, "Well done, good
and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."





116      PROFESSOR CUTTING'S REMARKS.
A life which was beautiful for its human virtues was exchanged for a life of angelic excellence and glory.
It is loss to us, but it is gain to him. It is loss to that
dear and afflicted household of which he was the centre
of domestic reverence and honor; it is loss to the city, in
which he had become a salutary influence and power; it
is loss to the schools and seminaries, and the University
of our city, in all which he felt the interest of a Christian
scholar and a practised teacher; it is loss to the personal
friends in and out of his own communion, to whom the
ties of society and kindred studies had closely bound him;
it is loss to all our churches, for he was a blessing and a
joy of our common faith; it is loss to this church, so dearly
loved by his loving heart,--loss to its aged, who sought in
him a stay, and to its young, who looked to him as guide;
loss to its pulpit, its prayer-meetings, and its Sabbathschool; and loss to the still unconverted in this congregation, with whom he will never plead more, save in those
recollections of his fidelity which can never pass from their
minds, and by which they will be judged in the last day.
But it is gain to him; he rests with Christ, which is far
better, and is engrossed by scenes and employments too
glorious for our conceptions, and only dimly shadowed
forth to us as the antitheses of all earthly good, "incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." We
will bear the loss, that he may have the gain.
"Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrow and darkness encompass the tomb;
The Saviour hath passed through its portals before thee;
And the lamp of his love was thy guide through the gloom.
" Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,
Since God was thy Ransom, thy Guardian, and Guide;
He gave thee, he took thee, and he will restore thee;
And death hath no sting, for the Saviour hath died!"





MR. BOARDMAN'S ADDRESS.*


LAST evening Rev. Mr. Boardman, of the Second Baptist Church, prefaced his discourse with the following
eloquent and appropriate tribute to the late pastor of
the First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Calvin Pease, D. D.
In this brief eulogium Mr. Boardman pays a fitting and
well-deserved tribute of regard to a brother-clergyman,
who had endeared himself to all Christians with whom he
came into association during his ministry here. At the
special request of members of the First Church and others,
Mr. Boardman's notes were procured for publication in the
"Express."
I feel that it would be doing a keen injustice to my own
heart did I permit this great calamity, which has recently
befallen our religious community, to pass by without some
public recognition; for the late pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, in this city was, in a peculiar and very tender sense, my personal friend. I count it as one of the
rare treasures of my memory, that he honored me with
his intimacy.  Twice we have exchanged Sabbath services, and in both instances under circumstances of peculiar friendship. A special sympathy in the profounder
elements of the Calvinistic orthodoxy endeared us to one
another.
* From the Rochester " Evening Express" of September, 21, 1863.





118


MR. BOARDMAN'S ADDRESS.


But why should I thus speak of myself as being his
friend?  It is enough that he was my friend, as indeed
he could not but be the friend of all whom he knew.
Sympathetic without sentimentalism, manly without imperiousness, affectionate without blindness, constant without obstinacy, equable without inertness, courteous without
finicalness, dignified without sternness, grave without moroseness, cheerful without levity, ingenuous without feebleness, winning the affection of the young without losing
their respect, devoted to his family and yet true to his
church, scholarly without ostentation, doctrinal without
being polemical, rich in metaphysic lore yet deeply versed
in the higher ranges of poetry, a devoted student of scripture yet an enthusiastic lover of nature, his was a beautiful, transparent Christian character, - an Israelite indeed,
in whom was no guile. No wonder, then, that those who
were so happy as to know him, loved him with an affection that was chastened by reverence. But he has gone.
Beautifully has it been said, that "' the churches of earth
are but like the receiving-ships of a navy, from which
Death is daily drafting his instructed and adept recruit
for his entrance upon service in the far and peaceful seas
of the heavenly immortality." Thrice during my brief
pastorate have I been called to pay my public tribute to
the memory of fellow-servants at the altars of Messiah's
Church. Nott, the youthful and radiant, Coit, the generous and true, Pease, the manly and devoted, three
Christian noblemen, are no more. Their bodies are in
the grave, but their spirits have joined the spirits of the
just made perfect.
I have spoken of the loss of Dr. Pease as a great
calamity which has befallen this entire religious community. For whatever the denominational lines which
separate the Christians of Rochester into distinct assemblies, the real Church of Christ, as it exists among us, is





MR. BOARDMAN'S ADDRESS.


119


a unity. There is but one chief fold, as there is but one
chief Shepherd.
And here I gladly seize the occasion to say publicly,
that the ministers of Rochester glory in this unity. Ours
is a "goodly fellowship."  God grant that it may ever
continue, as it ever hath been, an unbroken brotherhood
in peace and love! And yet, though this great bereavement falls on us, as ministers, with peculiar weight, still,
all of us who are really Christ's are alike members of his
body, which is one, and so we are members one of another.
We have a community of life flowing from one fountain,
even Christ, the Head. And so, under this sad calamity,
we feel that the Apostle's saying is true: when one member of the Lord's body suffers, all the members suffer with
it. And now, in behalf of this dear flock, do I formally
yet earnestly, tender to that other stricken flock, who have
lost their shepherd, our most heartfelt sympathies. Ours
is a common grief; God grant that ours may be a common
consolation!
Calvin Pease is dead! And it is meet, that, if he must
die, it should be at his former home, in sight of that glorious, surpassing scenery he loved so well. I shall never
forget the occasion on which the clergy of Rochester met
together to pass resolutions on the death of the lamented
Coit.  Many of us paid tributes of personal affection.
When Dr. Pease arose, he spoke very tenderly and beautifully of a happy vacation which he once had spent with
Mr. Coit, amid the grand scenery of Vermont, and specially of their visit to Mount Mansfield.  Little did we
then think, as he spoke so tenderly of that vacation, that
he would so soon enter upon a better one, from near the
spot of which he spoke so beautifully. Yes, his is now
the soul's true vacation; - a vacation from toil, and trial,
and sin, and temptation, and sorrow; a vacation endlessly
health-giving and blissful.





120         MR. BOARDMAN'S ADDRESS.
"And I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me,
Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from
henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from
their labors; and their works do follow them."
Falling as a sentinel at his post on the walls of Zion,
I, a fellow-watchman, tremblingly weave this garland for
Love to hang upon his memory.





THE LATE CALVIN PEASE.*


LESs than two years ago Rev. Calvin Pease, D. D.,
President of Burlington College, Vermont, resigning the
Professor's chair for the Christian pulpit, assumed the pastoral charge of the First Presbyterian Church of this city.
His fame as a scholar, a gentleman of refined courtesy, and
a Christian of the purest type, had preceded him; and the
highest confidence was felt, by all who knew him, in the
eminent success of his ministry and the value of his personal example.
The power of his preaching and the beauty of his daily
life became at once conspicuous in the community, as well
as gratefully recognized by his congregation. His ministrations were richly fruitful in large accessions to the
church, while the magnetic sympathies of his generous
nature attracted to him the love and reverence of the
young and old. His brother-clergymen joyfully welcomed
to their ranks this sincere and powerful coadjutor in the
Christian work. They were prompt to do justice to those
rare gifts and attainments which enabled him to expound and illustrate the doctrines of his Master with
such force and beauty, and to acknowledge still more
those virtues and graces, which shone so benignantly in
his daily walk and conversation. The sister churches
* From the Rochester "Democrat and American" of September
25, 1863.
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OBITUARY NOTICE.


frequently enjoyed his visitations, and were quickened
and refreshed by his spiritual utterances. Our University and common schools were often favored with the
rich results of his scholarship, and his sagacious and
suggestive counsels.
Dr. Pease was remarkable as a man for the just balance
and harmonious development of all his faculties, as well as
the symmetry of his character. His extended career as an
educator of youth had rendered him an adept in human
nature, and as a moral painter of character few excelled
him in discrimination and insight. He had, too, a poet's
enthusiasm for Nature; his love for lake and mountain
scenery - the haunts of his youth, and the familiar views
of his riper years- never forsook him, and was often the
glowing theme of his conversation and letters.
He combined, in an unusual degree, social and domestic
accomplishments and tastes with the labors and the vigils
of the student.  His learning, theological and classical,
historical and literary, was ample and thorough. He was
endowed with a strength and subtlety of intellect which
scientific discipline and philosophical studies had rendered
facile in its operation and masterly in its results; and he
had attained an artistic culture of expression which rendered his cursory, as well as severer, mental efforts symmetrical and finished, viewed in their literary aspect.
He was a man of feeling, of heart, and' neither prejudice
nor interest contracted his sympathies; at the same time
his sensibilities did not offend good taste, but were qualified by a native tact. He was the widow's comforter, the
orphan's friend, and to the sick and dying a ministering
angel.
It was, however, as a minister of the gospel that he
would have preferred to be judged and estimated, as it is
in the performance of that hallowed mission that he will
be most gratefully remembered by Christians.





OBITUARY NOTICE.


123


None of his hearers will soon forget the blended modesty and authority of his presence in the sacred desk, -
that voice, usually low, like distant music, but occasionally
loud, like a rising storm; the eye kindling in appeal; the
right arm launched forth in demonstration. Sin his soul
hated. In whatever refuge it lurked, he dragged it forth;
in whatever citadel it flaunted defiance, he challenged and
assailed it; in whatsoever worldly allurements it smiled, it
was still to him "an evil and a bitter thing."  Priestcraft,
State craft, and Mammon craft he could scourge with a
whip of scorpions. On the other hand, truth, right, and
duty, as they relate to God and his word, man and his
destiny, - truth as it is expressed in Christian doctrine,
and illustrated in Christian character,-the truth as it is in
Jesus, - were to him most dear and supreme, the sweetest
of all the influences of heaven, and the most majestic of all
the forces of earth, " fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and
terrible as an army with banners."
Wearied and worn in his Master's service, late in the
summer he was fain to seek strength and refreshment
among the homes of his kindred in glorious New England. The limit of his vacation was passed, but he still
lingered away. He was looked for as children look for
a father, and as friend seeks friend; but he came not.
"Welcome back, brother!" was the cry of his people.
His heart, too, throbbed for reunion, but he could only
whisper, " Farewell." He was returning to God, travelling to a better country, to his rest beside the fountain of
living waters.





DEATH OF REV. DR. PEASE.*


-4WO
Oup columns to-day contain the mournful intelligence
of the death of Rev. Calvin Pease, D. D., an announcement which will carry sorrow through a very wide circle,
here and elsewhere. Mr. Pease was known throughout
this vicinity mainly through his connection with the University of Vermont, with which he was identified for nearly
twenty years, as member of the Faculty and as President
of the institution, and to which he gave the flower of his
strength. He was chosen Professor of Greek and Latin
in the University in 1842. As a teacher of languages he
had probably few, if any, equals, and his uncommon power
and felicity in translation especially, will never be forgotten
by those who were privileged to enjoy his teachings. In
1855 he succeeded Rev. Dr. Smith in the Presidency of
the University, which he held for six years. In this position, and as President of the Vermont Board of Education,
(which office he held from the organization of the Board
until he left the State,) he was brought more before the
public, and grew rapidly in the respect and esteem of a
constantly increasing number of friends and acquaintances.
His remarkable talent as a preacher was widely recognized,
and in November, 1861, he was called to the pulpit of the
First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, one of the oldest,
* From the "Burlington Free Press" of September 17, 1863.





OBITUARY NOTICE.


125


wealthiest, and best societies of Central New York. He
accepted the call, resigned the Presidency, and soon after
left Burlington for his new field of labor. He took at once
the high rank in the ministry which he would have been
expected to occupy, and as a pastor secured the unbounded
confidence and affection of his people, on whom his death
will come as a heavy, almost crushing blow. While visiting his Vermont friends, some three weeks or more since,
he was stricken down by the disease (dysentery) to which
he finally succumbed. He rallied from the first attack,
but suffered a relapse; and for a week past his condition
has caused the most anxious solicitude, our whole community uniting with his immediate friends in alternations of
hope and fear for the result. Last night all hope was abandoned, and this morning he passed away. He has been
taken in the full prime of his usefulness, and has gone to
his reward. To his worth as a man, his rare culture as a
scholar, his ability as an instructor, his value as a citizen,
and influencer of public sentiment, another and worthier
hand will doubtless pay a more fitting tribute in due
time.





THE LATE REV. CALVIN PEASE, D. D.


MEETING OF THE ROCHESTER CLERGY.
A MEETING of the clergy of this city was held 'at the
Athenceum building on Wednesday, September 23, 186.3,
to express the sense of their own and the public loss in the
recent and -sudden death of the Rev. Calvin Pease, D. D.,
late pastor of the First Presbyterian Church.
The Rev. Dr. Shaw was called to the Chair, Mr. Yeomans appointed Secretary, and the meeting was opened
with prayer by Dr: Dewey.
The Committee on Resolutions, consisting of Drs. Cutting and Dewey and the Rev. Mr. Nott, recommended the
following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:-.
It having pleased Almighty, God to remove from the scene
of his earthly labor's the Rev. CALVIN PEASE, D. D., pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church in Rochester, his friends and
brethren of the clergy of this city, assembled to express their
sense of this great bereavement, do hereby unite in the following
resolutions:-Resolved, That while we would bow submissively to this inscrutable appointment of the divine Head of the Church, we
would express our gratitude for, the brief mission among us of
a brother in whom were blended the rarest excelle.nces of the
Christian character and the best gifts of the Christian ministry. In him we beheld a disposition, naturally amiable, refined
by grace, and a simplicity wliich was without guile united with
a prudence which was always circumspect.  Entering on the





RESOLUTIONS.                    127
duties of the pastoral office after twenty years of service as Professor and President in the University of Vermont, he brought
the elegant accomplishments of the scholar into instant and
happy use in every sphere of pastoral duty. A preacher of distinguished ability, he was at the same time a pastor of unusual gifts.
He drew to himself the young by irresistible attractions, and the
aged held him in equal honor and respect. A man of strong
personal convictions, he was of catholic spirit, loving all who
bear the image of our common Lord. Capable of the warmest
friendships, his friendships were as enduring as life. In his brief
residence among us, his influence had increased steadily with the
lapse of time, and his unexpected death fills all our churches and
the whole community with sorrow.
Resolved, That we would record with gratitude to God the
fresh illustration of the power and blessedness of Christian faith
and hope, in sustaining the soul in the hour of death, which is
furnished in the peaceful and assured departure of our brother
from the scenes of his earthly life.
Resolved, That we hereby tender to the First Presbyterian
Church and Congregation, and especially to the bereaved family
of our departed brother, in this hour of their affliction, our profoundest sympathy; and that, in testimony of our respect and
affection, we will wear the usual badge of mourning for the
period of thirty days.
Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting, properly
attested, be published in the daily papers of this city, and communicated to the First Presbyterian Church and to the family
of the deceased.
During the meeting, various informal expressions of deep
and heartfelt grief, and of high personal appreciation of the
deceased, were given by the ministers present, which abundantly proved that the gathering and the resolutions were
very far from being a merely formal matter, but took unusually deep hold on the hearts of all.
JAMES B. SHAW, Chairman.
E. D. YEOMANS, Secretary.





THE LATE REV. DR. PEASE.


RESOLUTIONS OF THE WINOOSKI ASSOCIATION.
AT a meeting of the Winooski Association of Congregational Ministers, held this day at Williston, Messrs. Ferrin, Worcester, and Perry were appointed a committee to
draught resolutions expressing the feelings of the Association in view of the decease of the late Rev. Calvin Pease,
D. D. The following resolutions were reported, and unanimously adopted: -
Whereas, God has removed by death our late brother and
associate, Rev. CALVIN PEASE, D. D., who was licensed to
preach the gospel by this Association, and ordained by a
Council convened in connection with one of its meetings, and
till within two years has been an active member of this body:
And whereas, his position as Professor and President in the
University brought him into the closest relation to us and our
work, and made his influence to be felt in all our churches, we
deem it to be our duty, as it is our pleasure, to put on record our
estimate of his character and worth, and our sense of the loss his
death has brought upon the cause of Christ, sound morality, and
education; therefore, -
Resolved, That in all his bearing towards us he was emphatically the Christian man, courteous and kind, while intelligent,
strong, and firm. In all his labors with us, as well as in his peculiar work, his aim was to build up a manhood based on Christian
virtue and divinely revealed religion. His faith in the Bible, and
in the power of its truth to this end, was singularly clear, full,





RESOLUTIONSS.                    129
and hearty. All our association with him was pleasant and elevating,, fitted to encourage and strengthen us in our professional
work, and especially so were his labors in our pulpits, where he
often ministered.
Resolved, That we deeply and sadly deplore his loss to us, his
fa m ily, the interests of religion, and sound learning. We bow to
the inscrutable providence of God in his death, as to a sore personal bereavement, consoled only as we can say, "1the Lord
gave, and the, Lord hath taken away."
Resolved, That we offer to the family of our deceased brother
in their great affliction, our deep and tender sympathy; and we
will ever pray for their consolation and prosperity.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be recorded in our
minutes, and another copy be sent by the Scribe to Mrs. Pease.
G. B. SAFFORD,
Scribe, Winooski Association.
WILLISTON, Oct. 14, 1863.


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