The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York : historical and biographical sketches of its first fifty years, Part 11

Author: Prentiss, George Lewis, 1816-1903
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York : A.D.F. Randolph
Number of Pages: 322


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During all his life, he was noted for his uprightness, his integ- rity, his large-heartedness and benevolence, and during the greater part of his life, for his Christian activity and readiness to assist in schemes for the advancement of education. He was a great reader, and for a man who had not the early advantages given to the youth of the present day he was remarkably well informed. He always kept abreast of the times, and held advanced views. He was a most loyal citizen, and was in favor of the abolition of slavery when it was unpopular, and not always safe, to be an Abo- litionist, even in the North.


He voted for Fremont and for Lincoln, and was an ardent and enthusiastic Republican during the war. He always felt that the South was wrong, and that the cause of the North must succeed in the end. Even during the darkest days of the war, he never despaired.


His wife was Miss Jenette Ten Eyck Edgar, danghter of Major William Edgar of Edgarton, N. J. They were married early in life, and had thirteen children, several of whom died in childhood. Four daughters now survive him; one is the wife of Mr. John S.


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Kennedy, another the wife of Rev. A. F. Schauffler, D. D., and two are unmarried.


He died about eight o'clock in the morning. The sad intelligence was transmitted by cable, and the announcement of his death ap- peared in the New York evening papers of the same day, the 30th of March, 1868. This circumstance attracted a good deal of atten- tion and elicited many comments at the time, cable messages being at that time very rare, and if not the first, it was one of the first instances in which the cable had been used for such a purpose.


JOSEPH OTIS (1836-1844) was born at Norwich, Conn., July, 1768, and died there early in 1854, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was a descendant of John Otis, who came with his family from Glastonbury in the southwest part of England to Hingham, Mass., as early as 1635. He came in company with his pastor, the Rev. Peter Hobart, a stanch Noncon- formist, and twenty-nine associates, who settled in the same town. James Otis, " the patriot " of the Revolution, and other distinguished Americans of the name of Otis, were also among his descendants.


Joseph Otis was trained to commercial pursuits. At the age of twenty-one he started for himself near Charleston, S. C. In 1796 he established himself in New York, and became one of its foremost men of business. His position, integrity, en- terprise, and success secured for him universal respect and confidence. For many years there was scarcely a merchant of distinction in the city with whom he was not personally acquainted. About fifteen years before his death he retired to his native town, where he spent an honored and beautiful old age in fulfilling the varied offices of a good citizen and a generous, warm-hearted disciple of Jesus. The Otis Library of Norwich - a public library designed for rich and poor alike -is an enduring memorial at once of his munificence and of the wise judgment with which he distributed his gifts. A benevolent public spirit seems to have marked the family. It was Deacon Otis of New London, a cousin of Deacon Joseph


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Otis of Norwich, who some years ago bequeathed $1,000,000 to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Mr. Otis's New York life was full of Christian usefulness. He was one of the founders of the Cedar Street Presbyterian Church, of which Dr. J. B. Romeyn became the first minister. He took an active part also in establishing and building up the Duane Street Presbyterian Church, of which he was a rul- ing elder. With Davie Bethune, Richard Varick, William Col- gate, Ebenezer Cauldwell, and George P. Shipman, he attended the first meeting, held at the house of Mr. Varick, to devise and adopt measures for giving Sunday school instruction. He took a very effective part in the establishment of the Seamen's Friend Society, the Seamen's Bank for Savings, and other institutions created for the social elevation and religious improvement of this long-neglected class. All those societies which aim to propagate the Gospel throughout the world found in him a liberal and constant supporter. He watched their growth with deep interest, and cheered his old age with the thought that in the vigor of his Christian manhood he had been privileged to participate in the labors and sacrifices which initiated these noble charities.


It would require a little volume to give all the details of Mr. Otis's benevolence. In its extent and in the variety of its objects it was remarkable. Nor was it confined to great public objects. He loved to do good in ways unknown to the world. His sympathies were as considerate as they were tender and generous. He specially delighted in giving aid and comfort to ministers of the Gospel, who by reason of meagre salaries, ill-health, or domestic troubles, felt the sting of pecuniary embarrassment. He deserved to be called the minister's friend. When he made provision for a public library in his native town, he also provided to have a pastor's study on the second floor of the same building, to be held in trust for the use of the pastor of the church of which he died a member. Later, he endowed a pastoral library as a per-


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manent fixture of the study. Many a time did he forward his check to order, for twenty-five, fifty, or a hundred dollars, to some clergyman at a distance whose necessities had come to his knowledge. When his last will was opened, it was found that small sums, of from two hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars, were directed to be paid to several of his clerical acquaintances. To his own pastor he was like a father, as well as friend. No wonder that his name is familiar still as a household word in his native town !


I cannot better close this notice than by giving an extract from a letter of the Rev. Thomas H. Skinner, D. D., dated New York, April 24, 1854 : -


My acquaintance with the late Mr. Joseph Otis began soon after I came to this city to take the pastoral charge of the Mercer Street Church, and I continued to enjoy his society and friendship until he removed to Norwich. Repeatedly we were companions in travel, and residents together in the same quiet and beautiful retreat in the mountains of Virginia. Our intercourse with each other was intimate and confidential, and it has left on me a very distinct and very agreeable impression of his individuality as a man and a Christian. We often talked of matters relating to ourselves, but my memory as to details in his history does not enable me to give any recital of them, or to verify by reference to them the esti- mate which I formed of him from frequent conversations with him, and especially from our very pleasant sojourn together during the months of one or two summers.


This most worthy and amiable man outlived his generation. There are few among the living of those who knew him best in the days of his strength and activity. He was for several years a member of the same church with the holy and amiable Elder Markoe, between whom and himself there was a special friendship, and in some of the prominent traits of their religious character a degree of resemblance. They were both men of a kind and gentle spirit, of courtesy of manners, of singular sincerity and purity. The piety of both was at the same time deeply spiritual and seri- ous, and yet remarkably free from every form of moroseness and austerity. They adorned religion by a strict and lovely walk be- fore the church and the world. It was always refreshing to look


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on the face of Mr. Otis. It had a benign, friendly, affectionate aspect, even when his heart was sorrowful, and when his sorrow expressed itself in tears. And his natural and gracious amiability was not a weakness, nor was weakness its associate. He was a man of a penetrating and sound judgment ; of sharp discrimination between true and false, good and evil, whether in things or persons. His charity covered a multitude of sins, but it did not cover hypoc- risy or false professions. He was unsectarian, - a catholic indeed, - yet he discerned between essentials and unessentials, and had no fellowship with the preachers of "another Gospel."


With the passive virtues - patience, resignation, meekness, gentleness - he combined an aggressive and energetic zeal, and took an active part in the management and labors of Christian benevolence. At the Salt Sulphur Springs in Virginia he was the means of erecting a chapel, in which it was my privilege to preach the opening sermon. His liberality was without pretension, but it was generous, judicious, considerate, and effective. He was a sincere friend, a lover of good men, a lover of hospitality, a Chris- tian gentleman. It is a comfort to me to recall the image of this lamented man.


Although his official connection with the Union Theological Seminary was early severed by removal to Norwich, Mr. Otis never lost his interest in the institution. His largest legacy, after that to the Otis Library, was in its favor.


JOHN NITCHIE (1836-1838) was born in the city of New York, in 1783. A graduate of Columbia College, he studied law and was admitted to its practice when only about twenty years of age. For many years he was a member of the South Reformed Dutch Church, then worshipping in Garden Street. He was also an elder of that church. While engaged in his profession he was elected a member of the Board of Aldermen, - a real honor in those days, - and at the time of the last war with Great Britain was particularly active in providing the means of defence by which New York was protected from hostile invasion. In 1819 Mr. Nitchie gave up a full practice and flattering prospects as a lawyer, and accepted the appoint-


10


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ment of general agent of the American Bible Society. Later, he became its assistant treasurer, and then its treasurer. By his counsels, contributions, and personal efforts, he also ren- dered important service to other religious and humane insti- tutions. He was especially interested in Home Missions; and from 1809, when he took part in forming the Assistant New York Missionary Society, to his death, on January 3, 1838, when he was a member of the executive committee of the American Home Missionary Society, he stood forth an untiring friend and supporter of the cause. In 1832, moving to the upper part of the city, he connected himself with the Allen Street Presbyterian Church, and was eminently useful as an acting elder in it. In conjunction with his pastor, the Rev. Henry White, he took an active part in organizing the Union Theo- logical Seminary. He was then a little past fifty, of noble person, modest, gentle, clear-headed, of lively sensibility, and wholly devoted to Christ and the Church. On the occasion of his decease, Dr. White, then a Professor in the Seminary, delivered a sermon entitled The Memory of the Just, which contains a fine delineation of his character. The following is an extract from this sermon : -


His mind was capacious ; his views were large and comprehen- sive. His talents, however, were much more of the practical than of the abstract kind ; he manifested little taste for speculation upon abstruse and difficult questions. He was a wise and safe counsellor ; on subjects of great interest he seldom made an important mistake. It was this that qualified him to receive so extensively as he en- joyed it the confidence of the community at large, and especially of the religious community, and that gave such weight to his opin- ions in deliberative bodies. It is doubted whether the services of any other layman in our city, in connection with any important object, were esteemed more valuable than his. He was prominently engaged in devising and executing those extensive plans by which the American Bible Society has shed its benign influence throughout the length and breadth of our own land, and into many portions of foreign lands ; and scarcely any valuable enterprise was determined


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on, by any of the leading benevolent institutions among us, without being first submitted for his opinion.


The large and discriminating mind of Mr. Nitchie was richly stored with the treasures of information and thought. His educa- tion was originally thorough and solid ; he had a great thirst for knowledge ; his opportunities were uncommonly good, and his ex- perience and observation were extensive ; and these, connected with his various reading, - particularly upon religious subjects, and most of all the Bible, - furnished him with a fund of important information, altogether rarely to be met with. His knowledge of the Scriptures, particularly his critical acquaintance with the origi- nal language of the New Testament, was probably more minute, accurate, and extensive than that of almost any other individual, layman or clergyman, in our community. . .. Mr. Nitchie was no partisan ; the spirit of controversy he regarded as the great- est evil with which the Church is visited; and he could not be prevailed on to take part in contention. He was strictly "a moderate man," opposed to the extremes, and especially to the violence, of any party. His quick sense of justice, however, led him unequivocally to condemn that spirit which of late has wrought so disastrously in the Church, even to her dismemberment. But while such were his views, he held them with great liberality and indulgence toward his brethren of every name.


FISHER HOWE (1836-1871) was born at Rochester, N. H., September 3, 1798, and died at his home in Brooklyn, N. Y., November 7, 1871. After a successful business career he de- voted his later years largely to favorite literary pursuits. In 1850 he travelled extensively in the East, and upon his return prepared for the press a valuable work, entitled, Ori- ental and Sacred Scenes, from Notes of Travel in Greece, Turkey, and Palestine (New York, 1854). The work was reprinted the same year in London, with maps and colored engravings. Mr. Howe also published a very striking little volume on the True Site of the Cross, a subject to which he was said to have devoted years of study. It appeared just as he was dying, and his last charge to his children was that they should bring it to the attention of Christian scholars who are


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interested in the topography of Bible lands. A new edition of this essay was issued in 1888. It received warm praise from various quarters. In The Century magazine for November, 1888, Mr. Howe's devoted friend and aforetime pastor, Dr. Charles S. Robinson, expresses the desire that he may be re- garded " as the one who first gave out the orderly argument to establish what good men now believe is 'the true site of Calvary.'"


Mr. Howe was for many years a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. He took a deep interest in everything that concerned the cause of the Divine Master, whether at home or abroad. He rejoiced in doing good both to the bodies and the souls of men, and was a true Christian philanthropist. For over a third of a century he served in the Directory of the Union Theological Seminary, and should be held by it in honored remembrance as one of its founders and most faithful friends. He was a man of gentle manners, mild and considerate in his judgment, of a beautiful spirit, and a whole-hearted, loving disciple of Jesus.


PELATIAH PERIT (1836-1857) was born in Norwich, Conn., June 23, 1785. His ancestors were Huguenots. In 1798 he entered Yale College, and there came under the powerful religious influence of President Dwight. When his class entered, only one of its sixty or more members avowed him- self to be on the Lord's side, and that one died before the end of the third year of their course. In March, 1802, a great spiritual awakening took place, and on the Sabbath before the Commencement in that year twenty-four of the graduating class sat together at the table of the Lord in the college church. Of this number Pelatiah Perit was one. He in- clined to study for the ministry, but, following an early bent received during several years passed in the home of his mater- nal grandfather, Pelatiah Webster, a prominent merchant and financier of Philadelphia, he decided upon a mercantile career.


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THOMAS MCAULEY.


After a few years he became a member of the eminent firm of Goodhue & Co., in this city. Mr. Perit was a man of very attractive personal qualities, a public-spirited citizen, warmly interested in all forms of philanthropic and Christian work, and greatly esteemed and honored by the whole community. From 1853 to 1863 he was annually re-elected President of the New York Chamber of Commerce, was many years presi- dent of the Seamen's Bank for Savings, and filled positions of importance in other financial institutions. He was an officer of the American Tract Society, the American Bible Society, the American Board of Foreign Missions, the Seamen's Friend Society, the Seamen's Retreat and Sailor's Snug Harbor, the New York University, and an active as well as generous friend of other religious, literary, charitable, and humane in- stitutions of the city. For more than twenty years he was a Director of the Union Theological Seminary. The closing days of his life were passed in New Haven, where he died, March 8, 1864, in. the eightieth year of his age. The follow- ing extract from a notice of his death recalls a scene closely associated with his memory : -


One of the most delightful annual festivals in the city was that at which he was accustomed to entertain the little inmates of the Orphan Asylum adjoining his beautiful country seat at Blooming- dale. There, on the breezy lawn, would he spread a feast of straw- berries and cream, and other delicacies of the season, to which the orphans were invited. It was a pleasant sight to see Mr. Perit moving about among them, a child himself in the simplicity of his disposition, and overflowing with happiness because his little neigh- bors were happy. His love of children, and especially the unfor- tunate and outcast, was boundless ; and nowhere will his death cause a sincerer grief than in the school-rooms and the work-shops and the play-grounds attached to the juvenile institutions of the city, to which he came so often a smiling and generous visitor.


THOMAS MCAULEY, D. D., LL. D., (1836-1845,) was born in 1777, and graduated at Union College in the class of 1804.


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He served as tutor and lecturer in the institution until 1814, when he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natu- ral Philosophy. Having been licensed and ordained to preach the Gospel, he became, in 1822, pastor of the Rutgers Street Presbyterian Church in the city of New York. Of his labors here Dr. Gillett says : -


Rarely has any one had more occasion to rejoice over a successful pastorate than Dr. McAuley while in charge of this church. By no means remarkably eloquent or profound, he was a man of ready utterance, and from a mind richly stored with Scriptural knowledge and far from lacking in the lore of the scholar he poured forth with the freshness and fervor of pastoral fidelity those expositions of truth which were at once instructive and edifying. The charms of his genial spirit, racy humor, conversational tact, and warm sympathy almost idolized him in the hearts of his people.1


In 1827 Dr. McAuley accepted a call to the Tenth Presby- terian Church in Philadelphia. In 1833 he returned to New York, and was installed pastor of the Murray Street Presby- terian Church, as the successor to Dr. William D. Snodgrass. Several years later, the church, taking with it the church edi- fice, removed to Astor Place, where it was generally known as the Eighth Street Church. In 1845 Dr. McAuley resigned the pastoral office. He died on May 11, 1862, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was a scholarly man, of excellent gifts both as preacher and pastor, a model of Christian courtesy and kindness, and, until his faculties became impaired by fail- ing health and old age, an honored leader in the Presbyterian Church. He took a prominent part in the eventful Assembly of 1837, and no other member surpassed him in wise, gentle, and Christian speech. I met him about that time, and have never lost the impression made upon me as a boy by his affable and gracious manners.


Dr. McAuley was one of the founders of the Union Theo- logical Seminary, one of its first Directors, and for four years


1 History of the Presbyterian Church, Vol. II. p. 245.


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its President, as also its Professor of Pastoral Theology. He took a deep interest in the institution, and rendered it, in its early years, varied and important service.


HENRY AUGUSTUS ROWLAND, D. D., (1836-1845,) was born at Windsor, Conn., in 1804, graduated at Yale College in 1833, and, having studied theology at the Andover Seminary, was first settled in the ministry at Fayetteville, N. C., in 1830, and in 1834 became pastor of the Pearl Street Church, New York City. In 1843 he accepted a call to Honesdale, Pa., and, after laboring there for some years, was settled as pastor of the Park Presbyterian Church, Newark, N. J., where he died in 1860. Dr. Rowland was the author of the following works : On the Common Maxims of Infidelity (New York, 1850-52); The Path of Life (1851-55) ; Light in a Dark Valley (1852); and The Way of Peace (1853). He also published many sin- gle sermons and wrote a good deal for the religious press. He was a man of attractive presence, genial, warm-hearted, zealous for Christian truth, and much beloved.


ELIJAH PORTER BARROWS, D. D., (1836-1837,) was born at Mansfield, Conn., January 5, 1807 ; graduated at Yale Col- lege in 1826 ; was a teacher in Hartford for several years ; in 1835 became pastor of the First Free Presbyterian Church in the city of New York, and after a short service here accepted a call to the chair of Sacred Literature in Western Reserve College. In 1853 he was appointed Professor of the Hebrew Language and Literature in Andover Theological Seminary. Here he remained till 1866. In 1869-70 he gave instruction in Sacred Literature in the Union Seminary. In 1872 he ac- cepted a call to the same department at Oberlin, Ohio, where he died, in 1888, highly esteemed by all who knew him.


Dr. Barrows contributed various articles to the Bibliotheca Sacra. He also wrote A Memoir of Eustin Judson (1852),


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Companion to the Bible (1869), and Sacred Geography and Antiquities (1872).


ICHABOD S. SPENCER, D. D., (1836-1849,) was born in Rupert, Vt., February 23, 1798. Graduating at Union Col- lege in 1822, he became for three years principal of the Gram- mar School in Schenectady, and then studied theology with Rev. Andrew Yates, D. D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in Union College. In 1825 he accepted a call to be principal of the Academy in Canandaigua, N. Y., where, as before at Sche- nectady, he gained high distinction as a teacher. Licensed to preach in 1826, he was installed two years later over the Congregational Church in Northampton, Mass., as colleague with the Rev. Solomon Williams. In 1832 he accepted a call to the Second Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, N. Y., where he continued until his death, November 23, 1854. Dr. Spen- cer was a man of power, both as a preacher and as a writer. In his widely circulated work entitled, A Pastor's Sketches, or Conversations with Anxious Inquirers respecting the Way of Salvation, he shows a knowledge of the human heart, a spiritual discernment, a sympathy with religious perplexities, and a skill in guiding troubled souls to Christ, which are remarkable.


Dr. Spencer was a Director in the Union Theological Semi- nary for thirteen years, and for four years he served it as Pro- fessor Extraordinary of Biblical History. He belonged to the Old School, and partly for this reason, perhaps, was thought by many, at least in his later years, to be hostile to the New School institution. Referring once to this impression in a conversation with his biographer, the Rev. Dr. Sherwood, he declared it to be entirely unfounded : "I have carefully watched the history and workings of this new Seminary, and while there are things about it that I cannot approve, yet I do not hesitate to say it turns out the best preachers of any seminary in the land. I have assisted in the examination


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and licensure of many of its students, and I have followed and watched their progress in the ministry, and I say to you they are among the best trained, most practical and success- ful preachers that we are raising up in this generation."


ZECHARIAH LEWIS (1836-1840) was born in Wilton, Conn., January 1, 1773, and died in Brooklyn, N. Y., on November 14, 1840. He was a graduate of Yale College, and became a Presbyterian minister, but, owing to ill-health, early retired from the profession. For many years he was editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser. He took an active part in some of the most important religious and benevolent move- ments of his time that centred in New York. He was presi- dent of the New York City Tract Society and a leading member of the American Tract Society. Ministerial education spe- cially interested him. From its commencement he was a director of the Princeton Theological Seminary ; and his name is first on the roll of lay Directors of the Union The- ological Seminary. He seems to have enjoyed in an un- common degree the confidence and esteem of the Christian community. His influence, both personal and editorial, was of the best kind, and he exerted it effectively in favor of every good cause.




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