History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men, Part 47

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1096

USA > New Jersey > Burlington County > Burlington > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 47
USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 47

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

636

HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

be supplied as the need may be through many geuera- tions to eome.

But unhappily one defect eseaped the skill of the architect, and gave the generons donor much trouble, and involved large expenditure of money in the sequel, that was the want of a basement story capacious enough to be ventilated well and to supply warmth and dry air to the whole structure above. Many an expedient was resorted to for euring this defect, and still the books were mouldering and the ; he died, given by his family according to his own de-

librarians were shivering in the cold damp air of this cathedral building. At length, after the lapse of almost a whole generation, and after the Lenox Library of New York had been finished and endowed by the same benefactor, Mr. Lenox undertook to build another house ou the same three aeres, profit- ing by his long experienec, and taught to rely less on the experts in architectural art than his own sound wisdom. This new library building, of brick, put up with exquisite beauty, and arranged within for perfeet eomfort and the best preservation of books, and withal an economy of space which allows an indefinite increase of volumes, must be considered a masterpiece and model by all intelligent observers. The lamentation is that the noble donor himself did not live to see it finished.

The first building also will be permanently used for the store-house of manuscripts and pamphlets, and eventually, no doubt, books also, well bound, and the oceupation for every purpose will be avail- able by the expensive apparatus for warmth and airing which Mr. Lenox supplied before his death. The two buildings may hold many hundred thousands of volumes with convenience and safety. The number contained at present is over thirty-eight thousand volumes and sixteen thousand unbound pamphlets. : The trustees of the seminary are the legal custodians of its libraries, both buildings and books. They ap- point the librarian and fix his salary. The estate of Mr. John C. Green has endowed the office of librarian, and the institution has been fortunate in obtaining the present ineumbent of this office, Rev. W. H. Rob- erts. He was for years an assistant librarian of Con- gress at Washington. That position of good support and ample promise of promotion he relinquished for the Christian ministry, and came to Princeton with his little family, to spend three years in regular prep- aration at the seminary. Soon after his graduation he was settled at Cranford, N. J., and proved to be a popular preacher and successful pastor. Thus accom- plished every way, he came to this post in Princeton. Already skillful in methods of arrangement, and, genius of original thinking with the love obtained from ample and diversified study, he is of incaleu- lable benefit to professors and students in guiding the quest of knowledge on the shelves.

selected private libraries have been added in whole within the last few years. That of Dr. J. Addison : Alexander, purchased soon after his death by Messrs. R. L. and A. Stuart, consisting of some three thousand volumes, and donated entire to the seminary, was a most valuable accession, especially in the departments . of history and exegesis. That of Dr. John M. Krebs, renowned as a leader in the church and preacher and pastor, president of the board of directors when sire, was a valuable contribution to the department of praetieal theology ; and that of Dr. Collins, of Baltimore, enriching the aleoves with miscellaneous . works, and especially hygienic studies. Then to be notieed with special mention is the recent gift by the son of Samuel Agnew, Esq., of Philadelphia, which completes the munificence of his father, continued through many years, with additional pamphlets of rare value, judieiously eolleeted, and comprising the most complete collection of books and pamphlets on the Baptist controversy to be found in the world. Dr. Sprague, of Albany, N. Y., had previously con- ferred on this library the wonderful results of his lifelong curiosity and diligence in gathering pam- phlets of rare interest to bibliographers, carefully bound up in volumes. All the war of pamphleteers in New England, from its earliest annals, and especi- ally through the exeiting times of Edwards, White- field, Davenport, and others, of "the Great Awaken- ing," is housed and hushed in one aleove of this Princeton Library. The finest fae-similes of aneient manuscripts, curious and costly eopics of standard works in every department of saered study, inviting original investigation, and supplying referenecs for all agitated questions in the progress of knowledge, are treasured here in rich abundance by the constant liberality of living friends. It is to be regretted, however, that as yet there has been made no adequate endowment for the purchase of eurrent and cotem- poraneous literature, selected by the faculty and well becoming a depository so choice and so attractive already to modern savants. Another era of threescore and ten years' duration should fill the limits of Chris- tendom with the fame of this library.

DWELLING-HOUSES. - The seven professors are provided with seven houses to live in. The first one built was for the first professor, Archibald Alexander, D.D., situated at the east end of the main seminary building, and built of brick. and ready for occupation about the same time, 1817. Dr. Samuel Miller, of New York, the second professor appointed, had ample means to purchase and build for himself; and the much more than a man of method, combining the : spacious house he erected on Mereer Street, near the seminary, reverted to the estate of his family. The seeond house built for a private residence was that of Dr. Charles Hodge, situated at the west end of the main building, and erected on seminary ground at Thus equipped this library is advancing in value and attraction every month. Excellent and wisely- his own expense, with a stipulation by the trustees that the cost would be refunded to him or his family

037

PRINCETON.

at his demise, or sooner, as the board would be able and willing. This was done many years afterwards while he was living, and when the family of Dr. Hodge were all grown up. This residence is also of brick, and fine workmanship within, renovated and refitted for the accommodation of his eldest son and successor.

The next house was purchased and donated by the Lenox family, a spacious frame building, situated near the library and having two aeres of ground at- tached. It was originally bought by certain gentle- men in Philadelphia, who were special friends of Dr. John Breekinridge, and presented to him when he eame as a professor to the seminary. On this property there has been the longest succession of professorial occupants, and it has therefore the greatest variety of association in the reminiseenee of alumni. Dr. John Breekinridge, Drs. J. Addison Alexander, James W. Alexander, W. Henry Green, and Alexander T. Me- Gill have been the tenants in this order. The last named has resided there for more than a quarter of the century, and repaired it often at his own expense. Though it is the least valuable house on seminary ground, it is the most adorned with lawn, shrubbery, and garden connected. Dr. Green relinquished the occupation of this house when his munificent uncle, John C. Green, presented to him an elegant resi- dence purchased from Judge Field. This being his own private possession, the trustees allow him five hundred dollars per annum as a nominal equivalent for the provision of a dwelling, which they give to each professor in addition to the salary.

When Mr. John C. Green endowed the chair of Church History in 1860, called in memory of a de- eeased daughter "Helena," he purchased in con- . nection a farm-house adjoining the seminary grounds, and fronting on Mercer Street. Commodiously situ- . during the civil war, which broke out before he was ated, this building was enlarged and handsomely re- fitted, and has been occupied thus far by Dr. C. W. Hodge, Mr. Roberts, and Dr. Patton successively. The grant of this property for the use of a " pro- fessor" rendered it necessary for Mr. Roberts, the librarian, to leave it, and the next house to be men- tioned, a beautiful residence adjoining the seminary grounds on the west side, built by Mrs. Albert Dod. was given to him for occupation. This property had also been purchased for a professor by Messrs. R. L. and A. Stuart, and Dr. Aiken first occupied it. But the donors being both alive authorized a nominal change in the grant, giving it to the librarian, when Dr. Aiken preferred another house.

Simultaneously with the building of the second library edifice, Mr. Lenox provided the erection of two exquisite dwelling-houses for professors on the same lot, and in beautiful arrangement with the li- brary, the graveled walks, and ornamental trees and lawn. These two houses are the best finished dlwell- ings in Princeton, and were intended by the builder for the two sons of his special friend, Dr. Charles . maries originated and controlled by hersch the senior

Hodge, but the elder of the two preferred his father's house, and at the recommendation of this father the new houses were given to Dr. Aiken and Dr. C. W. Hodge. These are the last improvements made by Mr. Lenox, as he said himself at their inception. And even more than his metropolitan fame in adorn- ing New York with a library. a hospital. churches, and a home for the desolate, the fragrance of his name will abide at Princeton as a wise benefactor of conse- crated aim and faithful adherence to the establishment of truth and righteousness on the earth. The exam- ple of Mr. Lenox is now being followed by Mr. R. L. Stuart in building another dwelling-house for Dr. Patton, who is "Stuart professor" in the seminary. This building, elose by the others mentioned and situated on an eligible lot purchased from Col. S. W. Stockton, of " Morven," promises to rival the best houses yet distributed among the professors here.

More might be written about the visible estate of this institution, the expense lavished on the grading of its extensive lawns and paving of its beautiful ways and facilities for athletic exercise, needed so much by sedentary men. One of these, "Langdonie Hall," is a spacious wooden building on the southwest side of the campus, replenished with all varieties of implements for muscular excreise and training, and available in all sorts of weather, and profitable with- out danger to all varieties of constitution among the students. Even this building has traditional associa- tions of peculiar interest. The man whose active mind originated the enterprise and mainly collected the money for building and furniture, who also ini- tiated here the method of exercising every muscle of the body within the compass of an hour's time in this building, was Frank Butler, a graduate of Yale Col- lege, a patriot and hero. As chaplain in the army settled as a pastor, he met his death in the brave dis- charge of his duty on the battle-field. Like many another "non-combatant" in that direfn! strife, he deserves a memorial more than many a fighting com- mander who stood behind the slaughter.

THE PROFESSORS .- It has been the rare felicity and honor of this original seminary in the Presbyterian Church that hitherto and, throughout the seventy years of its operation there has been the utmost har- mony and good will to each other among its pro- fessors. The perfect equality and independence of each other. in respect of authority, support, and the interior management of the several departments, may account partly for this exceptional unity. The parity of ministers, wherever they are actuated by the spirit of Christ, will effectuate harmony which is real, in contrast with that nominal oneness which appears in gradations of rank through all places and ages. Hence the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church from the beginning has organized her in-ti- tutions withoat a president, and made in all the semi-

638

HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

professor chairman of the faculty, merely for the sake . Henry W. Smith, A.M., appointed in 1878, with the of order in deliberations. And in 1854 it was made title, "J. C. Green Instructor in Elocution."

the understanding that the oldest in commission, not in age, should be chairman of the faculty, and that the date of commission should be the time of one's first inauguration, by authority of the General As- sembly, at any institution of the kind controlled by that supreme body, when a professor is transferred from one seminary to another by its vote.

The following is a tabulated view of the professors. the dates of appointment, of exit by death or by resignation, and the changes made from time to time in the titles of their ehairs :

Elected. Resigned or Died.

1812. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D.D., LL.D. *1$51

Didactic and Polemic Theology.

1840. Pastoral and Polemic Theology.

185I. Pastoral and Polemic Theology and Church Government.

1813. SAMUEL MILLER, D.D., LL.D.

Ecclesiastical History and Church Government.

1849, Emeritus Professor *1850

1822. CHARLES HODGE, D.D., LL.D. *1878 Oriental and Biblical Literature.

1840. Exegetical and Didactic Theology.

1854. Exegetical, Didactic, aud Polemical Theology.

1874. Charles Hodge Professor of Exegetical, Didactic, aud Po- lemical Theology.

1836. JOHN BRECKINRIDGE, D.D. Pastoral Theology. 1838

1835. JOSEPH ADDISON ALEXANDER, D.D. *1860 Associate Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature.

1840. Oriental and Biblical Literature.

1851. Biblical and Ecclesiastical History.

1859. Hellenistic and New Testament Literature.

1851. WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, D.D., LL.D. Biblical and Oriental Literature.

1859. Oriental and Old Testament Literature.

1854. ALEXANDER T. McGILL, D.D., LL.D.

Pastoral Theology, Church Government, and the Composi- tion and Delivery of Serions.

1859. Church History and Practical Theology.

1860. Ecclesiastical History and Church Government.

1861. Ecclesiastical, Homiletic, and Pastoral Theology.

1860. CASPAR WISTAR HODGE, D. D. New Te-tament Literature and Biblical Greek.

1879. New Testament Literature and Exegesis.

1861. JAMES CLEMENT MOFFAT, D.D. Helena Professor of Church History.

1871. CHARLES AUGUSTUS AIKEN, D.D. Archibald Alexander Professor of Christian Ethics and Apol- ogetics.

1882. Archibald Alexander Professor of Christian Ethics and He- brew Literature.

1877. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER HODGE, D.D., LL.D.

Associate Professor of Exegetical, Didactic, and Polemic The- ology.

1879. Charles Hodge Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology. 1880. FRANCIS LANDEY PATTON, DD., LL.D.

Stuart Professor of the Relations of Philosophy and Science to the Christian Religion.

The first six professors in the list are dead, and their praise yet lives, and will ever live in the churches. Most of them were voluminous writers, and the eredit of their volumes must be eoneeded as that of standards in sacred literature, world-wide in fame, and many of them translated into other lan- guages, not only by missionary pupils at .the ends of the earth, but also by the presses of English-speaking people in the highest places of Christian culture abroad. These departed six may be divided into the two classes of authors and preachers. This division is by no means a sharp and exclusive one, for the authors were also preachers, eminent and popular as sueh, and the preachers were authors also, whose writings were valuable, and still survive to be read with interest and profit. But the distinetion is one of preponderance iu the weight of influenee, so far as this ean be appreciated in the visible church and the world. Drs. Samuel Miller, Charles Hodge, and J. Addison Alexander achieved vastly more of good by the use of the pen than that of the tongue, how- ever eloqnent and attractive they may have been in speech also.

"Miller's Letters" made a multitude of intelligent Christians Presbyterian before they were revised and embodied in his book, "The Christian Ministry." This book and its companion, on " Ruling Elders and Deaeons," along with his essay on "Creeds and Con- fessions," not to mention other works, except his last, in the evening of his life, ou " Publie Prayer," so in- struetive and seasonable now, have done more than all other authorities combined to shape and guide and consolidate the Presbyterian Church of this country, and through more than half a century. His " Retrospeet of the Eighteenth Century," published before his removal from New York to Princeton, gave him high standing in the world of letters as an au- thor of large and varied learning, aeute observation, and polished dietion. His book ou "Clerical Man- ners" was just such a production as he owed to the generation in which he lived. No other man eould have written it. Himself the most refined and ae- complished Christian gentleman of his age, brilliant in social life, yet humble in the estimation of him- self, tender, delieate, pure, considerate, and liberal, he was the man to show minutely to rising ministers a more exeellent way of winning souls by earthen vessels than the stiff and awkward way of leaning on official position alone for aeceptanee with men. He was sometimes disparaged as a man of method more than genius. But we have only to sean his literature to see that it was the genius of method, and not the slavery thereof, which made him great and wise and useful. The reader is referred to the "Life of Dr. Miller," written by his son, Samuel Miller, D. D .. of Mount Holly, N. J., an excellent biography, full of

Besides these regular professors, there have been "instructors" employed from time to time to give special courses of training in the Hebrew language and its eognate dialects; also in eloention and vocal mnsie, thorough training of the human voice. In- struction in this department has been endowed by the trustees of the John C. Green estate, and the per- manent incumbent of such foundation is at present i interest and instruction.

639

PRINCETON.

Dr. Charles Hodge has also a life, written by his skill. Yet no man ever despised expression for its own sake more than he did. Gigantic thoughts put on his langnage as a drapery, substantiated with their own strength and beauty. This made him an elo- quent preacher, attracting crowds to hear him in our great cities and elsewhere, until he became abashed · at his own reputation, and retreated from the gaze of pulpit eminence as if it were a gaudy sham, alluring souls to the admiration of man more than the worship of God. His peculiar sensibilities, however, in avoid- ing the snares of popularity led him at length to so mueh reserve as to become too careless of his own manner, and too indifferent to the solicitations which crowded upon him from vacant pulpits and anniver- sary platforms. son, Archibald Alexander Hodge, of peculiar interest and great success. Boswell's " Life of Johnson" was not better in the great secret of making biography perfect, by keeping the subject always in view and hiding the writer behind it. The works of Dr. Hodge may be said to have overspread every department of study in the seminary which he adorned as a living teacher through the unprecedented time of fifty-six years. Beginning as an author when his life as a teacher began, with exegesis, he produced a "Com- mentary on Romans," which established his reputa- tion at once for profound learning. terse logic, and singular excellence of style. After a long interval, during which he wrote " The Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church," and filled the world | Thus he shut himself up to authorship. The noble aspirations of his nature, sanctified by grace, the : honesty and energy of his great soul, the opportuni- ties he held so well in hand, and the vast resources of his learning, all combined to make his books what his sermons were, means to an end, and not an end them- selves, -books not for the sake of au author, but for God's sake, and the glory of His revelation. Hence all his works are helps of lasting value to the exer- cise of private judgment, both by the learned and unlearned student of God's word. Every page has the hand of decision for the undecided, and a blow of telling force on plausibilities of error and presump- tion. He was the great destroyer of destructive criti- cism in his day; a master in the skill of refutation, compressing in a sentence the gloss and the folly of rejected comment. His commentaries on Isaiah, and the Psalms of David, and the Acts of the Apostles, and the gospels of Mark and Matthew are enduring monuments of exegetical ability and historical eru- dition. But in the midst of life like this the great professor was in death. Insidious and almost unob- with his fame as an evangelical reviewer, he resumed for a short time the writing of commentaries, and in quiek succession he produced three volumes more on First and Second Corinthians and Ephesians. Faster than they could be written for the press, an eagerness of the public would express itself in advance, like that of the distinguished Dr. Thornwell at the South : " How soon will Dr. Hodge issue another volume of his delicious commentaries ?" Meanwhile, a small volume written for the American Sunday-School Union, entitled "The Way of Life," had run, like the " Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan, far as the English language is spoken, and farther, in being translated into other tongues for the "healing of the nations." It is both scholarly enough to be a text-book in col- leges and popular enough to guide the little child and solaee the unlettered poor man in his cottage. Extracts from his massive quarterly, The Princeton Review, which he founded aud conducted alone, and with pecuniary loss, through a generation, have been wrought up into large volumes by others, with his permission and without emolument to him. "As i served a fatal disease, when he was about fifty years old, arrested his work and finished his usefulness on earth. A glowing eulogy of his life and labor by his nephew, Dr. Henry C. Alexander, was published in two volumes, 1870.

poor, yet making many rich," had been his motto. ; "Systematic Theology," in three large octavo vol- umes, though not the last volume of authorship by his hand, is regarded as the greatest, because it en- bodies completely the mature results of his great learning, logic, piety, and practical wisdom. It has brought the Pauline, Augustinian, Calvinistic the- ology to be called the world over "Princeton The- ology." The author disclaimed new thoughts in divinity. But no man of his generation did so much to make all things new in the combinations and as- peets of redeemning truth. Every new speculation of errant philosophy or false interpretation or specious infidelity was the occasion of putting a new face of glorious light on the system he handled as it frowned on the vanity of boasted innovation.

The third characteristic author, in the order of age, is Joseph Addison Alexander. A prodigy of philo- i logical learning in his youth, he became at the meri- dian of life a perfect master of words, using them as an instrument with magical ease and affluence and !

The other three of the deceased professors, whom we designate as preachers rather than authors, have the pre-eminence of beginning with that renowned preacher who began the actual operation of the sem- inary, Dr. Archibald Alexander. A model biography of this father we have from the pen of his eldest son James Waddel, who survived him but a few years. Dr. Alexander was born and educated in Virginia, and although trained without a college or diploma became president of Hampden-Sidney College at the age of twenty-five, in the year 1797. At the age of thirty-five he was elected moderator of the General Assembly, and at the next Assembly, in 1808, preached the opening sermon, and made it the first occasion of public urgency for the establishment of theological seminaries in the Presbyterian Church. HIe had been settled as a pastor in the Pine Street

640

HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

Church, Philadelphia, and made full proof of his ministry in that city, which was then, as it is now, the cynosure of that whole church he was to lead and adorn through a whole generation. Probably no man living could have been a better choice for the first professor. He had genius, learning, and eloquence not only, but rare ability for administration, to organ- ize and propel judiciously a new institution. He was the life given to the form which Drs. Green, Miller, McDowell, Richards, Romeyn, and others, as well as himself, had constructed.

The great object of the seminary was to make preachers. The highest perfection of preaching is that of instrumentality, which engages the interest of hearers in the subject of truth or duty, without occu- pation with the man himself who preaches. In this perfection Dr. Alexander was unrivaled. Simple, clear, logical, pungeut, and impassioned, he was the man for all capacities, and yet the model that no man could imitate. It was alike in talking to the indi- vidual, exhorting at the prayer-meeting, and proclaim- ing to the great congregation. It made every student : Bishop (afterwards Archbishop) Hughes, in 1832. like himself in being natural, and like no other man Courage, courtesy, and eloquence distinguished him in his rapid elevation to influence and fame iu the church. At the age of thirty-five he was elected pro- fessor in the seminary, but two years after his inaugu- as an orator. Dr. John M. Mason, his cotemporary, was greater in cloquence as the world estimates the superlative gift. But his pupils copied him almost inevitably. And for this reason he could not be com- ration he resigned, about the time his wife dicd. His pared with Dr. Alexander in fitness for training men : great gifts in public speaking and persuasive agency to speak, every one with his own eloquence. Aping : for good were then employed in the cause of foreign Alexander was instantly and always ridiculous. And | missions. Called to the First Presbyterian Church of so naturalness of manner in speaking became the mode and distinction of this institution, to remain the stamp of its character till this day.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men, Part 47

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1096