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 The Wise Man of the Scriptures; or, Science and Religion. 
 
 / 
 
 7 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVEREI) IN" 'J'UE 
 
 Sillacjc Cljurrlj m l^mljcrst, Slarclj 2^, 18S4, 
 
 AT THE FUNERAL OF 
 
 Rsi M EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D. D., LI, D. 
 
 BY WILLIAM S. TYLEK, 
 
 PROFESSOR VS A5IUERSX COLLEQE. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD: 
 
 SAMUEL BOWLES AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1 8 G4. 
 
 ■^^^^ffTw>¥Ty^ » * I II V I ^ ^y^ry^'^^^'^F^ v v v v f » » wi^^rfr^\ i MD i u ii um ^ 
 
The Wise Man of the Scriptures; or, Science and Eeligion. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 Wtlh^t Cfjurdj lit i^mljerst, Itartlj Sir, 1S64, 
 
 AT THE FUNERAL OP 
 
 M M EDWARD HITCHCOCK, B. D., LL. D. 
 
 BY WILLIAM S. TYLER, 
 
 PROFESSOR IX AMHERST COLLEGE. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD: 
 SAMUEL BOWLES AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1864. 
 
 CU-;^ 'L 
 

 / 3 ^(> zr 
 
 / 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 "and he spake of trees from the cedar tree, that is in 
 leban:on evex uxto the hyssop, that sprixgeth out of 
 the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and 
 of creeping things, and of fishes." 
 
 L KlXGS, iv. 33. 
 
 It is not for the gratification of an idle and curious 
 fancy, that I have chosen these words, as the theme of dis- 
 course on this afflictive occasion. They suggest thoughts 
 in harmony with the all-wise but mysterious Providence, 
 that has called us together. They remind us of our great 
 loss. But they are also fruitful in the instruction and the 
 consolation, Avhich we need. 
 
 Wherever the Sacred Scriptures are known, the name 
 of Solomon is a synonym with wisdom. They pronounce 
 him, without hesitation and without exception, wiser than 
 all men ; and the variety and extent of his human knowl- 
 edge, in so early a period of the world's history, go far to 
 justify the assertion, irrespective of the divine wisdom which 
 was imparted to him by supernatural inspiration. He was 
 emphatically the savant of Israel, a land which excelled 
 in poetry and religion, rather than in science. He was 
 the sage of the Orient. "His wisdom excelled the wis- 
 dom of all the children of the east country and all the 
 wisdom of Egypt," the lands which Avere most distin- 
 guished for their early civilization, literature and philoso- 
 
phy. His fame was not confined to the limits of his own 
 country, widely as those limits were extended under the 
 reign of David and Solomon. Kings and courtiers came 
 from distant lands to see and hear the proofs of his wis- 
 dom, and went away exclaiming, that the half had not 
 been told them. He was the earliest writer, from whom 
 any works have come down to us, to whom the title of 
 philosopher was strictly applicable. He deserved that 
 name — he acquired the corresponding name of wise man — 
 many centuries before Pythagoras, who first bore it in 
 Greece. He is the only person whom the sacred writers 
 extol expressly for literary and scientific attainments. 
 The Bible is little given to commendation or censure of 
 individual characters. But Solomon is a marked excep- 
 tion. The Old Testament labors to extol, we had almost 
 said, to exaggerate, the incomparable greatness of his wis- 
 dom and the matchless glories of his reign ; and the IS'ew 
 Testament echoes the praises of the Old. 
 
 If he was not born a universal genius, he cultivated and 
 acquired a singular variety of talents. His education was 
 doubtless the best, which the kingdom could furnish, in- 
 cluding the instructions and example of his father David, 
 who was at once the sweetest poet and one of the greatest 
 warriors and statesmen of his day. Yet when he came 
 to the throne, and God bade him ask what he should give 
 him, modestly regarding himself as a mere child, quite in- 
 competent to the government of so great a people, he 
 asked for wisdom. " And God gave Solomon wisdom and 
 understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, 
 (or greatness of mind), even as the sand that is on the 
 sea-shore." In accordance with a view common to the 
 sacred writers and quite characteristic of them, the author 
 of the sacred history reckons Solomon's literary works 
 and scientific achievements among the results of that wis- 
 dom, which was the gift of God. Besides administering 
 the government, building the temple and other magnifi- 
 cent monuments of his wealth, power and taste, he wrote 
 
an immense number of works on a great variety of most 
 diverse subjects. He was a poet. "His songs were a 
 thousand and five." Among or besides these, was that 
 remarkable one, which has come down to us, and which, 
 on account of its unriviiled beauty and richness, has al- 
 ways and every where been known by the distinguished 
 appellation of the Song of Songs. He was a moral phi- 
 losopher. "And he spake three thousand proverbs," 
 which have been preserved in part in the Book of Prov- 
 erbs, a book remarkable alike for its instructive senti- 
 ments and for its pithy and beautiful style. ]^or is the 
 Book of Ecclesiastes less remarkable for its profound and 
 original discussion of the most difficult questions in ethics 
 and theology, than is the Book of Proverbs for its senten- 
 tious oracles touching human nature and human life. At 
 the same time, he was also a naturalist. "He spake of 
 trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the 
 hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of 
 beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." 
 These early and, in that age particularly, rare works in 
 natural history are all lost, and in the absence of any in- 
 formation touching their contents, it is impossible to de- 
 cide, whether they were purely scientific or whether they 
 were illustrative also of the works and w^ays of God. 
 Though we cannot but think, the latter supposition is far 
 more probable, both from the character of Solomon as 
 it appears in the sacred histor}^, and also from the analogy 
 of the books, which have come down to us from his pen, 
 which abound in illustrations of religious truth drawn 
 from the habits of the lower animals and from the anat- 
 omy of the human body. 
 
 But the highest wisdom of Solomon, and the crowning 
 excellence of his character, was his piety. This was, by 
 no means, perfect. ISTeither his private character, nor his 
 conduct as a ruler, was entirely without reproach. As if 
 to show the vanity of human wisdom as well as of human 
 glory, he was sufifered to fall into many and gross sins. 
 
Judging from the Book of Ecclesiastes, which we cannot 
 but believe to be a faithful portraiture of his own relig- 
 ious experience, he must, at times, have been strongly in- 
 clined to skepticism and even materialism, as, we know 
 from his history, he was to the worship of false gods and 
 the love of strange women. But, under the guidance of 
 the Divine Spirit, he worked out the difficult and some- 
 times apparently doubtful problem successful 1}', and 
 reached the sublime conclusion that to "fear God and keep 
 his commandments " is not only " the beginning of wis- 
 dom," but "the whole duty," or, as it is in the emphatic 
 language of the original, the luhole of man. 
 
 In contemplating so remarkable a character, it is inter- 
 esting to observe, in the first place, the use, which the 
 providence and the Spirit of God made of his wisdom and 
 genius. What honor he put upon him ! Though a king, 
 he was king of a comparatively small, obscure and isolated 
 kingdom, which was soon after divided, and almost 
 crushed between the great empires of Assyria, Persia and 
 Eo-ypt, and at length conquered successively by the Greeks 
 and the Eomans, who always regarded the Jews as the 
 most despicable of all the subject nations. Yet the his- 
 tory of Solomon, incorporated with the history of God's 
 chosen people and thus associated with the religion of 
 Christ, has been read b}^ more persons than ever read 
 Plutarch's Lives or the Annals of Tacitus. His name has 
 been pronounced, as the wisest of men, by m^a-iads of 
 children, who never heard of a Solon or a Cicero, an 
 Alexander or a Csesar. Thus it is that God delights to 
 honor genius and learning, when they are chiefly ambi- 
 tious to honor him. 
 
 And God has honored this wisest of men, not so much 
 in perpetuating his name, as in using him for an instru- 
 ment of good to others. What untold multitudes have 
 been guided and stimulated in the pursuit of true wisdom 
 by the history and the very name of Solomon ! And how 
 
many of the greatest as well as the humblest minds have 
 been instructed by his writings, as they have been read 
 in the synagogues and churches in all ages, and are now 
 read in families without number in every part of the civ- 
 ilized world. What a different book the Bible would 
 have been without the three Books, that bear the name of 
 Solomon. What a mine of practical wisdom is opened to 
 the world in the Proverbs ! What a guide and solace to 
 doubting minds, and, at the same time, what a check and 
 balance to worldly and ambitious spirits, is bequeathed to 
 the ages in Ecclesiastes ! And with what profit and de- 
 light have the church and the pious soul seen themselves 
 in the mirror of the Song of Songs, bedecked and crowmed 
 as the bride of the Son of God, the Savior of the world ! 
 God does not need the testimony of wise and great men 
 to his works or to his word. But in condescension to 
 human weakness, he often employs it for the elucidation 
 of the truth and the confirmation of our faith. If they 
 really love and obey the truth, great minds reflect more 
 honor on the God of truth, as Sirius or the sun shines 
 more brightly to his Maker's praise, than a star of inferior 
 magnitude, and also draws after him a brighter and more 
 numerous array of planets and satellites in his magnifi- 
 cent circuit around the central sun of the universe. 
 
 In the second place, we are led to think of the natural 
 and normal connection between learning and religion. 
 God has put great honor upon learned men in the very 
 composition of the Sacred Scriptures. This is seen in tho 
 bare fact, that so large a portion of the Books of the Old 
 Testament, and more than half of the Books of the IlTew, 
 were written by men {.iistinguished for their learning. 
 Moses was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." 
 Five of the largest and most important Books were from 
 his pen — in a sense, they are the foundation of the whole 
 Jewish and Christian Revelation. The author of the 
 Book of Job had manifestly observed and studied the 
 
8 
 
 movements of the heavenly bodies, the internal structure 
 of the earth, the animals whether of the land or the wa- 
 ter, and his own bodily and mental constitution. Three 
 Books bear the "image and superscription " of Solomon. 
 We might well speak of Isaiah, who was doubtless trained 
 in the schools of the prophets, and Daniel, who surpassed 
 all the wise men of Babylon in human as well as divine 
 knowledge, and we know not how many other prophets, 
 who probably received the best education that could be 
 found in their times, and Ezra, who was qualified for re- 
 vising and closing the canon of the Old Testament, by 
 prodigious learning combined with true piety. But let 
 us pass on to the !N'ew Testament, and there we shall find, 
 that the majority of all the Books — fourteen out of twenty- 
 seven — were written by one man, and that man learned in 
 all the wisdom of the Jews and the Greeks. The Spirit 
 as well as providence of God employs fit instruments and 
 none but learned men and profound thinkers would have 
 been suitable instruments for writing the Books of the 
 Law, the Philosophy of Human Life, (if I may so style 
 the subject both of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes), and the 
 Didactic Theology of the IsTew Testament. 
 
 It is only science and philosophy falsely so called, that 
 is ever disparaged in the Scriptures. "When human wis- 
 dom exalts itself above the wisdom of God, or sets itself 
 in opposition to the kingdom of God, then of course it is 
 false and deserves to be dishonored. But true wisdom is 
 modest, humble, teachable. Its symbol. Whether in sci- 
 ence or in religion, is the little child, sitting and inquiring 
 at the feet of his father. All true knowledge is one, as 
 the universe is one and has but one author. Its sum, as 
 well as its source, is in God. " Known unto God are all 
 his works from the foundation of the world." The 
 knowledge of him therefore involves a knowledge of all 
 his works, as the fountain involves the stream, as the mind 
 of-^he builder comprehends the building, as the knowl- 
 edge of the writer includes the knowledge of all his writ- 
 
9 
 
 ings. And, vice versa, the knowledge of any one of bis 
 works is a help to the knowledge of any other, and is a 
 part of the knowledge of God himself. The science of 
 the heavens, the science of the earth, the science of man, 
 whether of the body or the mind— these are all parts of 
 the science of God. There is a necessary relation between 
 all other knowledge and the knowledge of God, and since 
 that is, in its own nature, the highest knowledge, all other 
 knowledge should be, and so far as it is genuine, will be 
 ancillary to it. Galileo and Copernicus were God's chosen 
 instruments for revealing himself to men, not less truly, 
 though in a different way, than Job and David. Indeed 
 the revelation which the Holy Ghost made through the 
 latter was never understood in all the fullness of its mean- 
 ing, till, through the former. Divine Providence revealed 
 the unimagiued extent and the stupendous revolutions of 
 the material universe. Then the readers of the Scriptures 
 began to see in those words which the Holy Ghost teach- 
 eth, a beauty and a grandeur such as the writers them- 
 selves never could have conceived or imagined. " When 
 I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
 and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that 
 thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou vis- 
 itest him ? Lo ! these are parts of his ways, but how lit- 
 tle a portion is heard of him ! But the thunder of his 
 power who can understand?" "What a fullness of mean- 
 ing, never before comprehended, do these words of inspi- 
 ration derive from the light of modern science ! The 
 Psalmist saw the glory of God in the light of one sun. 
 Thanks to the science of astronomy, we see it in the light 
 of ten thousand. He illustrated the law of God by the 
 order and harmony of one system ; thanks to the discov- 
 eries of l!Tewton and Kepler, we can see the law of gravi- 
 tation and the law of love stretching out in parallel lines 
 through suns and systems without number, l^or do those 
 sciences which pertain to man, shed less light on the word 
 of God and the truths of religion. It was left for modern 
 2 
 
10 
 
 anatomy and physiology to reveal how " fearfally and 
 wonderfully we are made." Psychology discloses the still 
 more wonderful adaptations and the still more fearful con- 
 stitution of our immortal spirits. Comparative philology 
 testifies in harmony with Revelation, that " God has made 
 of one blood all the nations of men that dwell on the 
 face of the earth," and as they sprung from a common an- 
 cestor, so they need a common Savior; " as by one man's 
 disobedience all were made sinners, so by the obedience 
 of one all may be made righteous." And philology, in 
 its most comprehensive sense, including language, history, 
 antiquities and all the kindred branches, carries ns back 
 to the times and jDlaces in which the sacred writers lived, 
 and enables us to hear their own language as it were from 
 their own lips; nay, carries us back to the Genesis of our 
 race, and then brings us down through the Deluge, and 
 the Dispersion, and Exodus from Egypt, and the giving 
 of the Law, and the reigns of the Kings, and the Captivity, 
 and the fullness of time when he came who was the Desire 
 of all ISTatioDS, the scenes of the Gospels also, and the Acts 
 of the Apostles, the establishment and growth of the 
 Christian Church, in a word all along the stream of sacred 
 history and far down the stream of prophecy toward the 
 consummation of all things, as it is disclosed in the Rev- 
 elation. And as God reigns in the material universe, so 
 he reigns also in human history. As the one is his book 
 of Creation, so the other is his book of Providence, and 
 both run in parallel columns alongside his book of Reve- 
 lation in that grand harmony which contains all the truth 
 that God ha§ revealed to man. And he who raised up a 
 Solomon to write in the Old Testament and a Paul to 
 write in the ISTew, raised up also, each in his time, a l^ew- 
 ton to discover and proclaim that all the laws of nature 
 are only the rules and methods of God's working, and an 
 Edwards to teach that all history is directly or indirectly 
 a history of redemption. As the wider extension of the 
 bounds of the visible universe, through the discoveries of 
 
11 
 
 astronomers, has poured a flood of light and glory upon 
 the natural attributes and the natural government of God, 
 which has given a new significance to the language of in- 
 spiration ; so the growth of the Church and the progress 
 of Christian civilization, as developed by the most enlight- 
 ened historians, have furnished some demonstrations of 
 Christ the wisdom of God, and Christ the power of God, 
 of Christ the light of the world and Christ the life of the 
 world, of Christ as the center of the ages and nations, 
 which could not have been seen by the eyes even of 
 prophets and apostles. 
 
 But, in the third place, our text suggests especially the 
 connection between the several branches of natural his- 
 tory and the religion of the Bible. The w^riter of some ol 
 the most instructive books in the Bible was also the au- 
 thor of books on botany and zoolog}', and the fact is deemed 
 worthy of commemoration in sacred history : " And he 
 spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even 
 unto the hyssop that springcth out of the wall ; he spake 
 also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of 
 fishes." So numerous and so wonderful are the analogies 
 and correspondences between nature and revelation, as 
 not only to prove that they both proceed from the same 
 author, but also to suggest the idea that nature was chiefly 
 intended to be only a kind of mould into which revelation 
 was to be cast; natural objects only t3'pes and symbols of 
 spiritual things ; and all the myriad sights and voices of 
 the natural world a natural language by which God speaks 
 to the souls of men, and the souls of men in turn speak to 
 each other and to God. Figurative language is not a 
 mere play of the imagination. It is not b}^ some acci- 
 dental discovery or human invention that all words in all 
 languages originally and properly signify objects, actions 
 and events in the outvrard world. The material world 
 was made for this jpurpose. It is a universal language. The 
 elements of nature are a universal alphabet, and their 
 
12 
 
 infinitely varied compounds are so many words and 
 thoughts of God intelligible to all, more or less understood 
 by men of all ages and nations, and directly or indirectly 
 the only medium through which men communicate their 
 thoughts to each other as well as to God. We often hear 
 of the language of flowers. There is much of fancy in 
 the details, but the idea is based on a profound truth. 
 There is a language of flowers. There is also a language 
 of plants and animals, and it is the language of God. 
 Hence it is that the sacred writers use so much of this 
 language; and the Son of God while here on earth appro- 
 priated it as if it were peculiarly his own. " Consider 
 the lilies of the field." "Behold the fowls of the air." 
 "I am the true vine," that is, the real, genuine vine, 
 « &'^irsXog &X7]?iivr; " — the vine commonly so called is only the 
 image and shadow of the real. " My Father giveth you 
 the true bread," that is, the real bread, which imparts real 
 life. How full of such lessons is the whole Bible ! The 
 parables of our Lord are all such. And how full they are 
 of wisdom, life and power ! And the more this language 
 of nature is studied and analyzed, like those languages of 
 men which are fashioned after it, the more wonderful does 
 its structure appear. The better its nature and power are 
 understood, the more distinctly does it speak to us, as the 
 voice of God to our souls, and teach us, in part at least, 
 the same great lessons of truth and duty which he incul- 
 cates in his written word. 
 
 All science, as we have before said, is of God and from God. 
 And to the educated and reflective, history and psychol- 
 ogy may perhaps reveal more of God than even astrono- 
 my and geology. But the physical sciences address them- 
 selves more to the senses, and so speak a language more 
 intelligible and impressive to the common mind. 
 
 Again among the physical sciences, mechanics, optics, 
 and the several branches of natural philosophy, develop 
 chiefly the relation of cause and efiect, which is more 
 nearly allied to metaphysical ideas. But botany, zoology 
 
13 
 
 and the several branches of natural history have to do 
 with Jinal causes, with the adaptations of means to, ends, 
 which are more directly and palpably of a moral nature. 
 Hence it is from the internal structure of the earth, and 
 from the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, 
 including man, the highest of the animal creation, that 
 natural theology has drawn most of the arguments and 
 illustrations by which it substantiates the great doctrines 
 of natural and revealed religion. 
 
 Seen in the light of these sciences, the world in which 
 we live is a Bible as full of sacred history, and miracles, 
 and prophecies, and types— of antitypes also, and fulfill- 
 ments of prophecy — and new creations, and progress to- 
 wards a higher and better future, as the written word of 
 God ; and the whole creation almost literally groaneth and 
 travaileth together in birth-pangs for a new and higher 
 life, while it waits in earnest expectation for the manifes- 
 tation of the sons of God. 
 
 "We cannot but remark, in the fourth place, as an obvi- 
 ous corollary from the foregoing propositions, upon which 
 we need not dwell, that the natural tendency of such 
 studies is to faith and humble piety. The poet has w^ell 
 said, "The undevout astronomer is mad." He stands in 
 the temple of God, built by God's own hand, and admires 
 the structure, but refuses to bow down and worship, per- 
 chance (if he is unbelieving as well as undevout) ignores 
 the very existence of any builder. But the undevout and 
 unbelieving naturalist is, if possible, still more mad. He 
 comes into the very sanctuary, where God dwells and 
 works and imparts life, and sees no chemist in the labora- 
 tory of nature, no w^orkman in the curious workshop of 
 the human body, no optician's hand in the structure of 
 the eye, no designer in a world full of the most wonder- 
 ful contrivances, no living fountain in a world through which 
 life flows everywhere in gushing and overflowing streams. 
 
 !N"or are such studies more favorable to faith than to hu- 
 
14 
 
 mility. "The kingdom of men found in science," says 
 Lord Eacon, " is like the kingdom of heaven ; it can be 
 entered only in the character of a little child." The stu- 
 dent of nature, like the student of the Bible, is a mere 
 inquirer at the oracles of God. It is his business to inter- 
 rogate nature, to register her responses, and then to 
 classify and generalize the results. He sits like a little 
 child at his father's, or if you please his mother's feet, 
 and from morning to night does nothing but ask ques- 
 tions. If he wanders away from that position he is soon 
 lost. If he relies, for a little, on his own wisdom and 
 strength he is soon taught by bitter experience that he 
 knows nothing, that he can do nothing, that he can be 
 nothing independently of his parents. 
 
 And facts correspond with these arguments from the 
 nature of the case. There are of course exceptions. Lit- 
 tle children are not always humble and teachable. l!^atu- 
 ralists have not all been humble and believing Christians. 
 But by far the most and the greatest of them have not 
 only believed and worshiped the God of the universe, 
 but have gone to the oracles of revealed truth and the 
 temples of Christian worship with the same humble, teach- 
 able and believing spirit. Persian Magi, astronomers, 
 star worshipers, or, as they are called in our version, 
 wise men from the East, were the first to pay their hom- 
 age to the child that was born to be the Redeemer and 
 King of Israel. They saw his star in the East. Their 
 science led them to the birth-land of the infant Savior. 
 The}'- came inquiring, " Where is he that is born King of 
 the Jews, for w^e have seen his star in the East, and are 
 come to worship him. Aud when they saw the star stand- 
 ing over where the young child was, ihej rejoiced with 
 exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the 
 house, they saw the 3'oung child with Mary his mother, 
 and fell down and worshiped him." The name, that is 
 written highest in the register of modern science, stands 
 equally high in the records of Christian faith and piety. 
 
15 
 
 As he looked out over the word as well as the works of 
 God, ISTewton felt himself to be but a little child, standing 
 on the shore and picking up a few shells which were cast 
 up on the beach, while the boundless ocean of truth lay 
 unexplored before him. Such too has been the humility 
 and modesty, such the faith and reverential, filial love of 
 the great majority of modern geologists and naturalists — 
 the authors of the Eridgewater Treatises — the members 
 of the British and the American Association for the ad- 
 vancement of science, whose naines, while they adorn the 
 age, illustrate the Christian religion, and whose writings 
 and addresses at their public meetings have not unfre- 
 quently been, in their spirit though not in form, "sermons' 
 speaking not only of God but also of the Redeemer."* 
 And such, I need not say, eminently such v/as the spirit 
 of the great and good man, whose too early death, though 
 at the age of three score years and ten, we this day de- 
 plore. Edward Hitchcock rejoiced in the honored name 
 of geologist, naturalist, man of science, which the scien- 
 tific world, with one voice, has conferred upon him. But 
 it was his highest glory and his chief joy, that he was a 
 humble, penitent, believing and adoring disciple of Christ. 
 If in the greatness and the variety of his talents and at- 
 tainments, he was no unworthy representative of the wise 
 man of the Scriptures, so was he in the consecration of 
 all those talents and attainments to the highest and best 
 ends. It was his mission to illustrate, in his life as well 
 as by his tongue and his pen, the beauty and harmony of 
 the connection between science and religion. He is dead; 
 but his memory lives. His influence lives and will live 
 forever. He is gone from us. But his works do fol- 
 low him. His character and his writings remain to bless 
 the world. "We have lost a friend and a fVither here be- 
 low; but we have gained one on high. Amherst College 
 
 *Se8 in Reminiscences of Amherst College, p. 357, Dr. Robinson's motion for 
 a vote of thanks to Dr. Mantell for his lecture before the British Association in 
 1850. 
 
16 
 
 has lost a pillar ; but lie is now a pillar in the temple of 
 God. Earth has lost a bright light ; but heaven has 
 gained a star of the first magnitude ; audit will still shine 
 upon us in the night, and guide us in our earthly pil- 
 grimage. 
 
 The time and place forbid anything but a meagre out- 
 line of his life and character. The gratefal task of writ- 
 ino- his biography which might otherwise have been per- 
 formed by some friendly hand, is superseded by that inter- 
 esting auto-biography in which, his last published work, 
 he has himself drawn the characteristic features of his life 
 and laid bare his inmost heart with the familiarity and 
 frankness of a conversation at his own fireside. The 
 charm of novelty has thus been taken from any narration 
 of incidents which might now be given. Still the occa- 
 sion demands a summary of the leading events, and some 
 analvsis of the character of one who has held so high a 
 place among scientific men, and, at the same time, been 
 so widely known and esteemed by the masses. 
 
 The principal facts of his life in a synoptical form and in 
 chronological order, are as follows : He was born in Deer- 
 field, Franklin County, Massachusetts, May '24th, 1793 ; 
 was principal of the academy in his native place from 
 1815 to 1818 ; was ordained pastor of the Congregational 
 Church in Conway, June 21st, 1821, and.dismissed in Oc- 
 tober, 1825 ; elected Professor of Chemistry and ISTatural 
 History in Amherst College, August 23d, 1825 ; appointed 
 State Geologist of Massachusetts, June 26th, 1830, and of 
 the first District of Kew York, June 13th, 1836 ; received 
 the degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard University in 
 1840 ; was chosen President of Amherst College and Pro- 
 fessor of Natural Theology and Geology, December 16th, 
 1844; received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from 
 Middlebury College in 1846 ; was appointed Commis- 
 sioner of the State Government to examine the Agricul- 
 tural Schools in Europe, May 23d, 1850 ; delivered his 
 
17 
 
 address on retiring from the Presidency, Kovember 22d, 
 1854 ; was appointed to complete the Geological Survey 
 of the State of Vermont in April, 1857 ; and continued 
 to lecture in the department of Geology and Natural The- 
 ology, though for a few years past with some assistance 
 from his sons, till 1864, when he was called to higher 
 honors and nobler services in heaven. 
 
 His elections to membership in literary and scientific 
 associations, in his own country and in foreign lands, and 
 his invitations to other fields and departments of labor 
 which he did not feel at liberty to accept, were too nu- 
 merous to be mentioned on this occasion. 
 
 He was the youngest son of Deacon Justin and Mrs. 
 Mercy Hitchcock. His father was by trade a hatter, 
 though he labored also more or less on a farm, poor but 
 greatly respected by the neighbors for his strong mind, 
 sterling sense and steadfast piety. He was a soldier in the 
 revolutionary war (as his father had been a soldier before 
 him.) He was a deacon in the church, and when his pas- 
 tor swerved from the evangelical faith, he tried his hand, 
 with no mean success, in occasionally writing orthodox 
 sermons. 
 
 His mother was a Hoyt, and belonged to a family of dis- 
 tinction in Deerfield. She was a woman of active mind 
 and marked character. Her piety was without reproach. 
 But her organ of hope was small. She was constitution- 
 ally subject to depression, and in the latter part of her life 
 she sufi'ered dreadfully from poor health and nervous de- 
 bility. A thunder shower would throw her into a parox- 
 ysm of uncontrollable apprehension, and if the family or 
 any member of it were detained from home under sucb 
 circumstances as to excite her fears, she would stand and 
 wring her hands in anguish till their return. Those who 
 have known Dr. Hitchcock with any intimacy, will see at 
 once that he united in himself the marked characteristics 
 of both his parents — the intellectual and moral stamina of 
 the one and the acute nervous sensibility of the other. 
 3 
 
18 
 
 His boyhood was spent, with his brothers, in working 
 on the farm. For variety he sometimes dipped into car- 
 pentering and surveying. As deputy sheriff and aid-de- 
 camp under General Hoyt, he early had a taste of civil 
 and military life whichj his colleagues often thought, was 
 of use to him when he became an officer in college. His 
 opportunities for early education were limited. Obliged 
 to labor through the day, he studied chiefly by night. 
 "When a rainy day was added to his leisure, he was de- 
 lighted. In the absence of other means, he educated him- 
 self. He observed nature, and reflected on his own con- 
 stitution, while following the plow. He lay on his back 
 and studied the stars till he injured his eyesight and im- 
 paired his health. With all his disadvantages, such was 
 the value which he attached to a thorough academical ed- 
 ucation that he set out to prepare for an advanced stand- 
 ing in Harvard University ; but a fit of sickness so weak- 
 ened his eyes, already injured by night study and over- 
 exertion, that he was obliged to relinquish all hope of 
 ever going through college. 
 
 His first publication was a poem of five hundred lines, 
 written partly because he knew not what else to do, and 
 partly because his mind and the public mind at that time 
 was full of the subject. It appeared in 1815, and was en- 
 titled "The Downfall of Bonaparte." It drew attention to 
 the youthful author, and also procured him some substan- 
 tial benefits. His next appearance before the public was 
 in quite another capacity, that of a mathematician and as- 
 tronomer. The American re-publisher of the English 
 ITautical Almanac ofiered ten dollars to any man who 
 should discover an error. The young savant of Deerfield, 
 then Principal of Deerfield Academy, sent him a list 
 of forty-seven errors, and, on receiving only evasive an- 
 swers, published the list. This drew forth a contemptu- 
 ous reply, in which the critic who has presumed to arraign 
 the editor of the ISTautical Almanac, is spoken of as "one 
 Edward Hitchcock." The calculations for the next year 
 
19 
 
 were revised with great care, but no sooner had the almanac 
 appeared than that same Edward Hitchcock dared to send 
 out after it a list of errors more numerous than that of 
 the previous year. And so the controversy went on, till 
 the editor, discovering his mistake, changed his tone, and 
 one Edward Hitchcock became first Mr. Edward Hitch- 
 cock, and at length due acknowledgment was made in 
 the preface, of the editor's obligations to "Edward Hitch- 
 cock, Esq., to whom much credit is due for the industry 
 and talent bestowed upon the work." During the four 
 years of his connection with Deerfield Academy, he went 
 through every year all the calculations for the Farmer's 
 Almanac, not excepting those for the weather, to which 
 his imagination was as competent as his science was to 
 calculate the eclipses and conjunctions. 
 
 From accounts gathered chiefly from himself it would 
 appear that Dr. Hitchcock was not properly a precocious 
 child. But in his childhood and youth he had already de- 
 veloped all that variety of talents and all those marked 
 habits and characteristics which distinguished his after- 
 life, industry, temperance, economy of time and money, 
 originality, independence, moral courage, bad health, 
 nervous excitability, and sometimes morbid depression of 
 spirits. His boyhood was as unlike other boys as his 
 manhood was unlike other men. He " looked upon ordi- 
 nary amusements and recreations with a sort of contempt. 
 He never learned to dance or play cards, never attended 
 a ball," seldom a public dinner. All the money he could 
 get he devoted to the purchase of books, and all the time 
 he could spare from labor he spent in reading and study. 
 
 The four years spent in Deerfield Academy contributed 
 largely to the development of his powers and the perfect- 
 ins: of his own education. He doubtless learned more, 
 perhaps studied more, than any one of his pupils. At 
 the same time, Providence was preparing for him a help- 
 meet indeed, whose fortunes were ever to be interwoven 
 with his own, and whose character, the counterpart and 
 
20 
 
 balance of bis own, contributed scarce]}^ less than bis to 
 their subsequent fortunes. He was assisted in the in- 
 struction by a young lady (a Miss "White from Amherst), 
 v/ho was destined to be an important instrument in his 
 conversion ; whose hand and pen and pencil were ever 
 after to move, as it were, in instinctive obedience to his 
 will, and to whom, as the helper of his studies not less 
 than the companion of his domestic life, his greatest work* 
 was to be fitly and gracefully dedicated. 
 
 It was at this period, that he experienced that radical 
 change in his religious belief and in his whole character, 
 which gave a new and unexpected direction to his subse- 
 quent life. In common with not a few of the oldest and 
 strongest churches in Massachusetts, under the subtle in- 
 fluence of an able and popular pastor, the church in Deer- 
 field had drifted almost unconsciously into Unitarianism. 
 The father of young Hitchcock, though he protested 
 against the new doctrines, was still a member and an ofii- 
 cer of the old church. The son not only attended the 
 ministry but imbibed the sentiments of his pastor. And 
 what he did, he never did by halves. He not only held 
 the new creed, but advocated it. Without examination, 
 he took up the notion, that Orthodoxy was narrow and 
 illiberal, and as such, he hated and denounced it. But 
 he was not satisfied. IlTeither his intellect nor his heart 
 found rest. He read the Scriptures carefully from begin- 
 ning to end, without any other commentary, than that 
 which is involved in marginal references, with the simple 
 purpose of ascertaining the truth ; and he was obliged to 
 admit, that they taught the Orthodox system. He looked 
 at the fruits of the two systems, as they appeared in the 
 lives of the church members, and could not deny, that 
 there was more of Christian activity and life and power 
 in the Orthodox churches in the vicinity, than there was 
 in the Unitarian church in Deerfield. His principles 
 proved inadequate to sustain him under the disappoint- 
 ments and trials of life. He saw in others— especially in 
 
21 
 
 one other, whom he could not but esteem and love, a peace 
 of mind, and a meekness and gentleness of spirit, which 
 he knew not of. The death of a young friend, who had 
 lived a Unitarian and almost a skeptic, but who gave his 
 dying testimony to the evangelical faith, brought him to 
 a decision. At last, he submitted his heart and will to 
 the practical claims of the Gospel the very night after the 
 death of his bosom friend. 
 
 Still he was not freed from his early misapprehensions 
 and prejudices touching "the Orthodox." He imputed 
 to them a belief in: natural inability, limited atonement, 
 a literal imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, in- 
 fant damnation and all the other extravagances, with 
 which they are charged by their enemies. He still sup- 
 posed them to be bigoted and uncharitable. In short, he 
 thought them about as far from the truth and spirit of 
 Christ, as the Unitarians. Under these circumstances, he 
 joined the church, of which his father was a member, and 
 set himself at work with all the zeal and energy of his na- 
 ture to infuse into it more vitality ; and it was only when 
 he found his exertions opposed and in a great measure 
 thwarted by those who should have been the foremost to 
 aid them, that he saw clearly the radical defect and false- 
 hood of the whole system. He had even commenced 
 study in preparation for the ministi-y with his own pastor. 
 But more and more convinced by his own observation and 
 experience, that all was not right, nay, that all was radi- 
 cally wrong in that system, he broke away from the 
 shackles, went to J^ew Haven for the further prosecution 
 of his studies, and there learned, for the first time, what 
 the evangelical system as then held b}' the ministers and 
 churches of New England, was, and was equally surprised 
 and delighted to find, that their views were essentially the 
 same which he had derived from the independent study 
 of the Sacred Scriptures. Meanwhile the providence and 
 the Spirit of God were showing him more and more of the 
 desperate wickedness of his own heart, the exceeding sin- 
 
22 
 
 fulness of his past life, and his personal need of a Divine 
 and Almighty Savior. The struggle w^as protracted and 
 severe. But the surrender was at length unconditional, 
 final and complete. The foundations of a thoroughly Cal- 
 vinistic creed were immovably laid in a deep and thorough 
 Christian experience. It was not till after he was settled 
 in the ministry, that he fully embraced the doctrines of 
 election and the Divine purposes. But his heart was al- 
 ready prepared to receive them ; and, when he saw them 
 in their scriptural and doctrinal relations, he built npon 
 them the very foundation of his personal hope and of his 
 confidence in the final triumph of the Gospel. If the 
 atonement of Christ was, in his view, the corner-stone of 
 the evangelical system, the sovereignty of God was the 
 key-stone of the arch. If he had selected any one verse 
 of the Bible to be the symbol of his theology, it would 
 have been this, " Of him, and through him, and to him 
 are all things : to whom be glory forever." 
 
 As his first experience in teaching was in his native 
 place, so his first and only settlement in the ministry was 
 in a neighboring town. And the prophet was not with- 
 out honor in his own country. Deerfield and Conway 
 have always been proud of their association with the name 
 of Edward Hitchcock. In Conway, while all name him 
 with pride as their former pastor, very many remember him 
 with gratitude and afiection as their spiritual father. His 
 ministry there was short — only about four years. But it 
 left an impression as enduring as the rocks and hills on 
 which the town is built, and as happy as it is enduring. 
 There were two general revivals of religion during his 
 pastorate, and many were added to the church. His ser- 
 mons, at this time, were short, seldom over thirty minutes, 
 clear, forcible, considerably exegetical and sufficiently 
 doctriual, but always eminently practical and spiritual. 
 There was great variety in his preaching. "Well aware, 
 that the first condition of usefulness in a sermon was, that it 
 should be heard with attention, he resorted to all suitable 
 
23 
 
 means to make his discourses interesting. Sometimes he 
 would startle the audience by preaching from strange and 
 unexpected texts. He once preached a sermon from the 
 word "Selah," of which the doctrine was "stop and 
 think." In times of revival, he adopted without hesita- 
 tion such measures, as he thought best calculated, under 
 the circumstances, to secure the desired result. Once at 
 an evening meeting, where there was considerable feel- 
 ing, but things were rather at a stand, instead of pro- 
 nouncing the usual benediction on the whole congrega- 
 tion at the close, he said, " How can I bless those whom 
 God hath not blessed. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 be with all those that love him in sincerity. But if any 
 man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema 
 Maranatha." The effect was like an electric shock, and 
 the result most happy. While his theology was decidedly 
 of the Old School, he was practically a ITew Measure man ; 
 though neither his old theology nor his new measures 
 were carried to extremes. He had a profound veneration 
 for Mr. ITettleton, and in efforts to promote revivals, trod 
 in his footsteps, or rather showed a similar wisdom in the 
 use of suitable means. 
 
 During his pastorate at Conway, he found exercise and 
 recreation in making a scientific survey of the western 
 counties of Massachusetts. This was the beginning of 
 that life among the rocks and mountains, which was ever 
 after a delight and almost a passion. Like the giant in 
 classical mythology, whenever he could plant his feet on 
 the bosom of mother earth, he was in his element — it was 
 his strength, his health, his life. This was also the origin 
 of the geological survey of the entire State, which was 
 afterwards made by the Government at his suggestion, 
 and which has the honor of originating that rapid succes- 
 sion of scientific surveys, which have since done so much 
 to develop the mineral and agricultural resources of our 
 country. 
 
 The way was thus prepared for his appointment to be 
 
24 
 
 tlie first Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in 
 Amherst College. After some study and practice in the 
 laboratory of Prof. Silliman at l^ew Haven, he entered 
 upon the duties of his ofiice. The College was then in 
 its infancy. There were but two college edifices. The 
 Laboratory was a room in the fourth story of the present 
 iTorth College, the same double room afterwards occupied 
 for many years by the Library of the Alexandrian Society 
 — which served.also the purpose of a Cabinet, a Philosoph- 
 ical Room, and a Chapel. " There," he remarks some- 
 what humorously in his valedictory address at the close 
 of his presidency, " There mornlDg and evening, all col- 
 lege assembled for their devotions. Li the intervening 
 period, the Professor of IsTatural Philosophy or myself 
 made preparations for our lectures and delivered them. 
 , I thought however sometimes, that the students, at evening 
 
 prayers, were more deeply afiected by the mephitic gases, 
 that had been generated during the day, than by the relig- 
 ious services." 
 
 The chemical apparatus was then not worth ten dollars. 
 Cabinet there was none. Not even a beginning had been 
 made of those magnificent scientific collections, which 
 now adorn the college hill. For many years, he was sole 
 professor in all the departments of ISTatural History. He 
 lectured and instructed in Chemistry, Botany, Mineralogy, 
 Geology, Zoology, Anatomy and Physiology, Natural The- 
 ology, and sometimes — to fill a temporary vacancy — he was 
 the most suitable person, the college could depute to teach 
 also Natural Philosophy and Astronomy. Like Solomon 
 he spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon 
 to the hyssop that groweth out of the wall ; he spake also 
 of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of 
 fishes. He spake also of rocks and soils, of which, so far 
 as appears, Solomon did not speak. He dealt also in 
 songs, and proverbs, to say nothing of sermons. He lived 
 to see those departments occupy, in whole or in part, the 
 time of four men ; the chemical laboratory and apparatus 
 
25 
 
 among the finest in the United States, and the collections 
 filling two spacious edifices, and, together with the build- 
 ings, valued at from sevent^^-five to a hundred thousand 
 dollars ; and all this the fruit, directly or indirectly, of 
 his own enterprise, energy and perseverance. Dr. Hitch- 
 cock created the materiel and the reputation of Amherst 
 College in the Department of Natural History. 
 
 At the same time he was deeply interested in the spir- 
 itual w^elfare of the students. He took a prominent part 
 in the preaching and biblical instruction, and by all the 
 means in his power co-operated with President Humphrey 
 in giving to the College, from its foundation, the religious 
 character by which it has ever been distinguished. Those 
 students, who were here in his professorial days, will never 
 forget the pathos and unction, the point and power, with 
 which he preached in the College Chapel, and especially 
 in the old Rhetorical Room in times of revival. It was 
 in those days, also, that he labored with so much zeal and 
 success in the cause of temperance. For two or three 
 years — in and near 1830 — his mind, his heart, his tongue, 
 his pen w^ere all given to this subject, so far as they could 
 be, without interfering with the more immediate duties of 
 his professorship ; and the result was the establishment 
 of a society in the College, pledged to total abstinence 
 from ardent spirits, wine, opium and tobacco, which has 
 ever since numbered among its members nearly all the 
 officers and a large majority of the students ; and the pub- 
 lication of several books, tracts, articles and essays — 
 among the rest a prize essay — which have identified his 
 name with the history of the Temperance Reformation 
 scarcely less than with the advancement of science. No 
 sooner was this work accomplished, than he entered with 
 all his soul upon the series of geological explorations 
 and scientific surveys, which occupied all the time and 
 energy he could spare from the College, for the greater 
 part of ten years. He did but one great work at a time. 
 But he was never afraid of having too many smaller irons 
 4 
 
26 
 
 in the fire. The great work was his business. The 
 smaller ones were his recreation ; and change was the only 
 rest he allowed himself till sickness prostrated him and 
 obliged him to lay aside all his occupations.* 
 
 As a professor, though already shedding lustre on the 
 College by his scientific reputation, he claimed no supe- ' 
 riority to the humblest of the Faculty. He was true to 
 his colleagues as individuals, and faithful to the Faculty 
 as a body. Though often differing from them in judg- 
 ment, he always sustained the decision of the majority, 
 and would aid in the execution, even of such laws and 
 sentences as his own judgment did not approve, with 
 much the same spirit, with which he would have gone to 
 the stake as a martyr. 
 
 Called to the presidency in one of those trying emer- 
 gencies through which the College has passed from time 
 to time, he accepted the office with extreme reluctance. 
 He had no taste for the peculiar duties of the office. Like 
 President Edwards, he felt, that his constitution and tem- 
 perament were not adapted to it. He was conscious of 
 more or less unfitness in his own want of a college educa- 
 tion. The innumerable details of business, of corres- 
 pondence, and especially of government and police, which 
 necessarily devolve on the president of a college, he knew, 
 would be to him like a perpetual crucifixion. Moreover 
 they must engross his time from pursuits which were 
 more congenial and which promised a more ample return 
 of money and of fame. It was as a man of science that 
 he had gained his reputation ; and it was as a man of sci- 
 ence, chiefly or only, that he could expect to transmit his 
 name to posterity. It was in the same capacity also, that 
 he had hitherto been useful, and that he hoped in time to 
 come to benefit the church and the world. It was there- 
 fore only at the sacrifice of all the cherished tastes, pur- 
 suits and aspirations of his heart, that he could take upon 
 him the presidency. 
 
 * Several paragraphs here, and at the conclusion, were omitted in the deliverj. 
 
Zi 
 
 Besides when he looked at the condition and prospects 
 of the College, these were anything but encouraging. 
 The high tide of prosperity which had flowed in so unex- 
 pectedly for a time, had been followed by an ebb corres- 
 pondingly low and equally unexpected. The number of 
 students had gone down in ten years from over two hun- 
 dred aud fifty to less than one hundred and twenty-five. 
 After all that the friends of the College had done in the 
 way of private subscriptions for its relief, the income was 
 still far from equal to the expenditure. A debt, incurred 
 in the first place for buildings, was increasing at the rate 
 of two or three thousand dollars a year, and that more 
 and more rapidly as the number of students was from 
 year to year diminishing. Should he not only sacrifice 
 his beloved studies and his prospects for scientific distinc- 
 tion, but risk property, reputation, health, life — all in tak- 
 ing the command of a ship, which was leaking at every 
 seam, which others, ofiicers as well as students, were aban- 
 doning in despair, and which not only enemies and indif- 
 ferent spectators, but some of its best friends, thought, 
 must inevitably sink ! Others shrunk from undertaking 
 such a hazard. One and another was invited to the presi- 
 dency but declined the office. He added his solicita- 
 tions to those of the trustees, but to no purpose. They 
 came to him as the forlorn hope of the Institution. 
 He hesitated. He shrunk from it in every fibre of his 
 body as well as every sensibility of his soul. But he could 
 not refuse. He had already embarked in the vessel. He 
 had been a subordinate officer in it for twenty years, and 
 he had learned every rope, and spar, and plank in it. And 
 it was a noble, nay, a sacred ship. It was freighted with 
 all that was most precious to the church, and to mankind. 
 In an important sense, it bore the ark of God and the 
 person of Christ. It must not, nay, it could not sink. 
 Such, at times, was his hope. As the storm gathered 
 thicker and beat harder upon it, he sometimes seemed to 
 hear a voice beside him, saying, " Ne timeas; Christum 
 
28 
 
 vehis." " Fear not ; Christ is in the ship." Still he took 
 the helm with fear and trembling. And he undertook it 
 only on condition, that the Faculty should agree, for the 
 present, to receive the income of the College, be it more 
 or less, and divide it among them for their support. The 
 Faculty consented. This stopped the leak at once. It 
 was m^t long, before the ship began to right up and 
 float upon the waters. The public sympathy was enlisted. 
 Public confidence was secured. Friends came to the res- 
 cue. The State, for the first time, contributed to the 
 funds of the Institution. Munificent private benefactors 
 rose up one after another and placed it on a solid founda- 
 tion. Students flocked in as fast as they had before run 
 away. In ten years, the number was doubled. The Col- 
 lege edifices also were doubled in number, and more than 
 doubled in value. Scientific collections, cabinets, appara- 
 tus, funds may be said to have been created during this 
 period — for there was scarcely anything before that de- 
 served the name — and created too, with the blessing of 
 heaven, by the genius and reputation, in one word, the 
 character of Dr. Hitchcock. Having thus accomplished 
 the object for which he accepted the office, and feeling 
 also the pressure of bodily infirmities and sufferings ag- 
 gravated by his excessive cares and labors, he resigned 
 the command and fell back again into the ranks — rose 
 again, let us rather say, for so he viewed it, to those un- 
 clouded heights of science and religion, on which he had 
 before delighted to stand, but which now appeared more 
 serenely beautiful than ever, as he looked back upon the 
 region of clouds and storm through which he had passed. 
 His presidency formed a new era in the government and 
 discipline of the College, as well as in its outward condi- 
 tion. During his professorship, he had always been an 
 advocate of a more paternal government. He never rel- 
 ished the traditional system of college pains and penal- 
 ties. Like too many other hereditary notions and prac- 
 tices which prevail among the students, they seemed to 
 
29 
 
 him to savor too much of the dark ages. Perhaps he saw 
 their absurdity the more clearly for not having been edu- 
 cated in the cloisters of the university. ]S"or was the sys- 
 tem of college appointments much more to his liking. 
 He preferred the use of moral and Christian motives. 
 He had great faith in moral suasion and personal Christian 
 influence. "When he came into the presidency, his ideas, 
 of course, prevailed in the discipline and, to some extent, 
 though not so fully, in the instruction of the College. 
 Whatever may be true of other institutions in other cir- 
 cumstances, there was doubtless an imperative necessity 
 for reform in the administration at Amherst. However 
 well it might have suited other older, larger and richer 
 colleges with students younger, less manly and less gov- 
 erned by religious principles, it was not adapted to a young 
 institution dependent on the good will of its students for 
 its very existence, and those students, the majority of 
 them, mature Christian men preparing for the Christian 
 ministry. From the commencement of Dr. Hitchcock's 
 administration, there was a great falling off in the num- 
 ber and aggravation of cases of discipline. He strove to 
 rule in the hearts of the students ; and the confidence 
 which they felt in his truly parental character and feelings 
 towards them was, in fact, the sceptre of his power. Un- 
 willingness to grieve their father restrained them from 
 many an act of disobedience, which they would have 
 gladly perpetrated under the government of a mere iwesi- 
 dent of a college Facaliy. Of course in so large a family, 
 there were perverse children, who took advantage of his 
 parental kindness and grieved the good man to his inmost 
 heart. Perhaps he sometimes bore and forbore too long 
 with such ingrates and rebels. But of the wisdom of the 
 policy, in the circumstances of the case, and of its good 
 results in general, none can doubt, who is acquainted with 
 the facts. 
 
 The religious character of the young men under his 
 care now became more than ever the object of his deepest 
 
30 
 
 solicitude. He longed and labored to extend a Christian 
 influence into all the departments of instruction and gov- 
 ernment, so that Amherst College might realize the idea 
 of a Christian college. The language of President With- 
 erspoon of the College of New Jersey was none too strong 
 to express the earnestness and intensity of his feelings : 
 *' Cursed be all that learning, that is contrary to tlie cross 
 of Christ ; cursed be all that learning, that is not coinci- 
 dent with the cross of Christ ; cursed be all that learning, 
 that is not subservient to the cross of Christ." He in- 
 sisted on the maintenance of the weekly Bible exercise 
 and was anxious to have every member of the Faculty 
 take such a share in biblical instruction, as was most con- 
 genial to his department; and as would most effectually 
 link every department to the Bible. Believing with all his 
 heart in the reality and the necessity of revivals of re- 
 lio-ion — their necessity everywhere and their especial ne- 
 cessity in college — he labored assiduously, and prayed con- 
 tinually, for their frequent occurrence ; and almost every 
 year witnessed the frait of those prayers and labors in 
 the sanctification of the church and the conversion of a 
 few souls, if not in a more copious outpouring of the 
 spirit. He established a weekly religious meeting at his 
 own house, at which he invited especially professors of 
 reliiP'ion, but others also, if they wished, to meet him for 
 prayer and the familiar discussion of some question of 
 practical religious interest. These meetings were always 
 interesting and instructive, and sometimes they overfiov^ed 
 the study, and turned the parlor, and almost the whole 
 house, into a Bethel. More than one revival of religion 
 first manifested itself there, and there many an irreligious 
 youth has opened his mouth for the first time in prayer 
 and praise. In times of unusual religious interest, this 
 was accompanied on the same evening, or followed on the 
 next evening, by a meeting for inquiry, which will be re- 
 membered with gratitude and joy by many a minister in 
 his parish and many a missionary in far off heathen lands. 
 
31 
 
 For periods of less atteution to personal religion, with the 
 cordial co-operation of the professors and tutors, he insti- 
 tuted a plan of personal Christian intercourse between 
 the officers and students, by which all might be sure to be 
 reached, watched over and cared for in their immortal in- 
 terests. Soon after their admission to College, he used to 
 invite the Freshman Class, in a body, to meet the offi- 
 cers and their families at his house, that a personal ac- 
 quaintance might be thus early formed, and a personal at- 
 tachment grow up, which, he hoped, would deter them 
 from evil and allure them to good more powerfullj^ than 
 any college censures or even college rewards. He en- 
 couraged the students to come to him with all their cares 
 and troubles. If any were sick, he knew, as if by instinct 
 and by experience, how to counsel them. If any were af- 
 flicted, he could comfort them. If any were poor, he 
 usually found some way to help them. If any were dis- 
 couraged about their studies, he entered at once into their 
 feelings, and inspired them with hope and courage. If 
 any were poor in spirit, sick of sin, and ready to despair 
 of eternal life, he directed them to the great physician. 
 He had an experience wide enough and a heart large 
 enough for them all. 
 
 And this conducts us, at once, as it seems to me, into 
 the secret of his great power. It was the breadth of his 
 sympathies growing, out of the width of his experience — 
 it was the clearness and compass of his views and the 
 depth of his feelings growing out of the largeness of his 
 powers and susceptibilities. He passed through a great 
 variety of experience — in humble life and in high life, 
 among the masses and with the great, in health and sick- 
 ness, under the power of error and sin and in the glorious 
 liberty of truth and righteousness. He was a large man. 
 His frame was large, his mind was large, his heart was 
 large. He sympathized with all, because he compre- 
 hended all ; and he comprehended all, (if that is not an 
 identical proposition), because he had all in himself. He 
 
32 
 
 was a whole man, and therefore he was a man of univer- 
 sal sympathies and universal power. He had in him all 
 that is properly human, and had it in large measure, and 
 therefore he could not fail to have in himself the measure 
 of all minds and the key to all hearts. 
 
 He had naturally great physical strength and powers of 
 endurance ; and though by overtasking his prodigious 
 powers by more prodigious exertions, he early impaired 
 his health and strength, still down to the last years of his 
 life, few could climb mountains or break rocks with him 
 — few could endure so much fatigue as he on a geological 
 excursion. 
 
 No man could look even for the first time upon his high 
 and massive forehead, and doubt for a moment, that it 
 was the index and the instrument of a gigantic intellect. 
 His brain was not only immense, but, as his whole struc- 
 ture and temperament clearly indicated, it was of the 
 finest and most delicate material. Large as was the frame- 
 work of bones, and strong as was the texture of muscles 
 and sinews, it was pervaded and over-mastered by a still 
 more remarkable nervous development. And this also 
 was of the finest texture. Every bone and muscle and 
 sinew was alive with sensibility. Every organ thrilled to 
 its extremity with the excitement of his mind, when it 
 was roused to action, every nerve and fibre of his body 
 quivered with pain or pleasure, as his heart sank with 
 sadness or leaped for joy within him. 'No man of less 
 sensitive nature can imagine what he sufiered, when body 
 and spirit both were wounded. No language can express 
 what he enjoyed, when body, soul, and spirit were all in 
 harmony, and all seemingly filled with the charms of na- 
 ture, the delights of science, or the love of God. 
 
 No word of less comprehensive and exalted significa- 
 tion than the word genius can express the variety, versatil- 
 ity and greatness of his intellectual powers. And in so 
 saying we do not understand that word in the low and 
 narrow sense to which it is often desecrated ; but we take 
 
33 
 
 it in its only full and proper sense as denoting an unusu- 
 ally large development of all the powers proper to man. 
 It were not easy to say, whether observation or reflection, 
 perception or memory, reason or imagination was his pre- 
 dominant faculty. Quick and accurate observation of 
 nature was, of course, the foundation of his scientific dis- 
 coveries. He was also a sharp observer of men- and 
 things. His judgment of character, like his interpreta- 
 tion of natural phenomena, was quick and seldom erro- 
 neous. He had the originality and creative power which 
 belong to genius. He was made for a discoverer, for an 
 originator of new ideas, new theories, new methods, new 
 measures. He was tall enough to see over the heads of 
 other men, and catch the first dawning beams of a new 
 day. He had more faith than most men, in new discov- 
 eries. This believing disposition sometimes welcomed a 
 premature announcement or a fabrication even, like the 
 celebrated moon-hoax; but it expected great things, at- 
 tempted great things and achieved great things for science. 
 It wrought miracles in the scientific world. He saw an 
 element of truth in Phrenology, recognized some un- 
 known and mysterious power in Animal Magnetism, or 
 Mesmerism as he more frequently called it, and, in the 
 true spirit of a philosopher, sought to eliminate the truth 
 and discover the power. As a Christian philosopher, he 
 welcomed every discovery in Geology and the physical 
 sciences, never doubting, that they would not only harmo- 
 nize with, but illustrate and confirm the Sacred Scriptures. 
 Ichnology, as a science, began, and as yet may almost be 
 said to end, with him. He was the originator of the State 
 Scientific Surveys. The American Scientific Association 
 sprang from his suggestion ; and he was its first president. 
 His originality in starting new doctrines, and new argu- 
 ments in Natural Theology, is seen in instances too nu- 
 merous to mention. His mode of answering the objection 
 to the Resurrection of the body, his proofs" from Geology 
 of the general benevolence of God, of special providence 
 5 
 
34 
 
 and of special Divine intervention in nature, and his Tele- 
 graphic System of the Universe, may serve as examples. 
 He possessed in a remarkable degree that power of rapid 
 and wide generalization, by which the fall of an apple 
 suggested to IJfewton the law of universal gravitation. 
 Taught by a few terraces on the hill-sides, he could recon- 
 struct the Connecticut Yalley at each successive geologi- 
 cal epoch of its existence ; and guided by a few foot-marks 
 in the sandstone, he could re-people it with its various 
 orders and tribes of primeval inhabitants. If he had not 
 been a great geologist and naturalist, he would have been 
 a great astronomer and mathematician. The question, 
 which he should be, turned, not on the faculties with 
 which he was endowed, but on the accident, or rather the 
 providence, of his impaired health and eyesight. 
 . He might have made a great poet. He possessed the 
 poetic faculty in large measure — not the faculty of rhym- 
 ing merely though that came easy to him — but the crea- 
 tive power of imagination. There is more poetry in the 
 ^'Coronation of Winter," the sermon in "A Wreath for the 
 Tomb," or " The Telegraphic System of the Universe," 
 than there is in many a long and popular poem. In certain 
 states of his brain and nervous system, he saw visions, — 
 with his eyes closed but not in sleep — "Visions of unearthly 
 beauty and glory. Imagination mingled with his religious 
 faith and emotions ; and then he saw visions of God and 
 heaven and, like Payson and not a few other men of 
 similar temperament and like precious faith, described 
 them in words of more than human eloquence. 
 
 Wit and humor were not wanting in him, as, according 
 to Coleridge, genius never is destitute of those powers. 
 His conversation, his lectures and his books were enliv- 
 ened with playful flashes, l^ow and then a publication 
 of his is overflowing with facetiousness and fun, like the 
 Zoological Temperance Convention in South Africa; 
 though usually these faculties are overshadowed by those 
 of a larger and more solid kind. Only a short time before 
 
35 
 
 his death, he called my attention to a huge bowlder of 
 pure copper which lay in his sick room, and invited me to 
 put it in my pocket and carry it home with me. 
 
 In short, -he had in him the stuff and also the working 
 power of half a dozen men, and each of them more than 
 a common man. When sick, he could do more work than 
 any well man about him. And in perfect health, he could 
 turn ofl' the work of half a dozen. In addition to the en- 
 grossing labors of a professorship combining several dis- 
 tinct departments, or of the presidency combined with a 
 professorship quite sufficient of itself to employ one man, 
 and besides the innumerable special plans and efibrts to 
 raise funds, build cabinets and make scientific collections, 
 he has published to the world more than twenty books, of 
 all sizes from small duodecimos to large quartos, besides 
 innumerable articles in the daily, weekly, and quarterly • 
 literary, scientific or theological journals, amounting in 
 all to eight thousand pages. Several of these books, be- 
 sides numerous editions in this country, have been repub- 
 lished in Europe and won for him a world-wide reputation. 
 His labors have shed lustre on the country that gave him 
 birth, and have made the Connecticut Valley a classic land, 
 whither men of science from all nations must go on pil- 
 grimage, if they would see the best ichnological cabinet in 
 the world, and indeed the only one that deserves or claims 
 ^hat distinctive name. And as they visit that cabinet, and 
 the other scientific collections and buildings on this conse- 
 crated eminence, under the name of Edward Hitchcock, 
 they will read the inscription : si monumentum quaeris, 
 circumspice. 
 
 At the same time, his modesty was e^ual to his great- 
 ness. It is said, that genius is always unconscious. Cer- 
 tainly true wisdom is always modest. ITone but the truly 
 wise and great are fully aware how little they do know. 
 The ancient sage, who was pronounced by the oracle the 
 wisest of men, acknowledged his superiority to other men 
 only in this : they were ignorant without being aware of it, 
 
36 
 
 he was conscious of his ignorance; and to know one's 
 ignorance is to know something. In conversing with Dr. 
 Hitchcock, neither stranger nor friend would have sus- 
 pected from anything in his air or manner, that they were 
 conversing with a man whose name was a synonym with 
 science in every part of the civilized world. He never 
 seemed to be aware that he had done anything — never 
 seemed to think he could do anything. When he used to 
 experiment in chemistry, his experiments were always go- 
 ing to fail ; but they never did fail. "WTien he began a 
 book or an exploration, he always doubted if he should 
 be able to finish it. Those who did not know the man, 
 when they saw him always speaking with so much self- 
 distrust and yet always acting with such apparent self- 
 reliance and such marvelous success, were sometimes 
 'tempted to charge him with affectation. But never was 
 there a man more genuine in his whole character — never 
 one more sincere and unaffected in his self-depreciation. 
 He was constitutionally self-distrustful. He distrusted 
 his piety. He distrusted his own wisdom. He distrusted 
 his memory. He distrusted his health. A constitutional 
 diffidence prevented his speaking extempore with anything 
 like the ease and fluency, which characterized his written 
 productions. "When aggravated by ill health and bad 
 weather, this self-distrust sometimes became morbid. It 
 made him think he was going to die, when others saw, 
 that he was in no immediate danger. Sometimes, though 
 rarely, it deterred him from undertaking or prevented his 
 accomplishing what he might otherwise have done. For 
 instance, he was appointed by the Governor of JSTew York 
 to make a geological survey of the eastern section of that 
 State. He made his preparations and went upon the 
 ground ; but encountering bad weather and suffering from 
 depression of spirits, he retreated before it, returned 
 home, and resigned his commission into the hands of the 
 Governor. But such instances were rare. On the whole, 
 he probably accomplished more for this very anomaly in 
 
37 
 
 his constitution. Always fearing failure, he took the 
 more pains to avoid it. Suffering keenly in all his sensi- 
 bilities, he sought relief in hard work, deep thought, 
 earnest writing, and heroic action. Thoroughly con- 
 vinced, that his life was to be a short one, he did with his 
 might what his hand found to do, and did it under the 
 hallowing and inspiring influence of light and motives 
 from another world. 
 
 This modesty was connected with the most unaffected 
 simplicity. He was simple as a child. This also is char- 
 acteristic of genius and real worth. Ignorance and weak- 
 ness may well stare and strain at what it cannot compre- 
 hend. But genius and true wisdom can speak of the 
 greatest subjects with the familiarity of household words. 
 His style as a writer, though all aglow with imagination 
 and emotion is simple, easy, flowing. He bestowed as 
 little time and labor on the adorning of his thought, as he 
 did on the dressing of his person. He forgot his style, as 
 he forgot himself, and was wholly possessed and inspired 
 by his subject. His dress, his equipage, his whole man- 
 ner of living was extremely simple. And this modesty — 
 this simplicity was perhaps the most beautiful and the 
 most striking trait in his character. Strangers felt the 
 charm of it as they saw his collection of footmarks in the 
 light of his own presence, and admired the collector and 
 interpreter more than the cabinet. And the savor of it 
 remains with his most intimate acquaintance and friends, 
 fragrant as his moral and religious worth, and more endur- 
 ing" than even the memory of his scientific attainments. 
 
 He was temperate in all things, in food, in drink, in the 
 luxuries of life as well as the delicacies of the table. He 
 abstained entirely from the use of intoxicating drinks, as 
 a beverage. At home, abroad, in the houses of the poor, 
 at the tables of the rich, in his solitary explorations and 
 at public celebrations, he was everywhere the same un- 
 deviating, unflinching advocate by precept and example 
 of total abstinence as the only safe basis of the temper- 
 
38 
 
 ance reformation, and to that reformation, he was always 
 ready to give his tongue, his pen, his scientific reputation, 
 all the weight of his personal and official influence. 
 
 It was an additional recommendation of simplicity and 
 temperance, that they were essential to economy. Econ- 
 omy was with him a Christian duty, at once a safeguard 
 from extravagance and its attendant dangers, and the 
 handmaid of charity and every virtue. For the same 
 reason, he took good care of his property, managed well 
 his business, and was a good economist in getting as well 
 as keeping money, that he might have wherewithal to do 
 good, as well as to render to every man his dues. 
 
 Dr. Hitchcock was not above the practice of honesty 
 and integrity in business transactions. On the contrary, 
 he was scrupulously honest in the most trivial matters. 
 He made it a rule, literally as well as figuratively, to " owe 
 no man anything." I never knew a man, who, in the re- 
 lations of business and of common life, approached more 
 nearly to the golden rule — the rule of Christian upright- 
 ness. " All things whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye even so to them." This maxim 
 controlled his transactions with the government. Think- 
 ing it no more right to defraud the State, than an indi- 
 vidual, his charges for service to the public were always 
 reasonable — far lower than the usual remuneration for 
 such services. Hence he always had the entire confidence 
 and good will of the Executive and the Legislature. 
 When he accepted the presidency, he insisted that his sal- 
 ary should exceed that of his colleagues, who undertook 
 to farm the revenue with him, by a smaller per centage 
 than had been customary ; and when he resigned, it was 
 his own proposition, that he should receive only half the 
 ordinary salary of a professor. Carrying the same dis- 
 interestedness into all the relations of life, it is not strange 
 that he was a hero among his neighbors, and men hon- 
 ored him more, in proportion as they knew him hetter. 
 
 Dr. Hitchcock never did a thing merely because it was 
 
39 ' 
 
 popular and fashionable. His life was one continual pro- 
 test against popular errors and fashionable sins. He was 
 not indifferent to the good opinions of good men. On the 
 contrary, he was keenly sensitive to the approbation of 
 men. But he was not dependent upon it nor swayed by 
 it. If the public approval came to him in the way of his 
 duty, it gratified him exceedingly ; if not, he could do 
 without it. He could wait for the more impartial verdict 
 of posterity, and even that was of small account in com- 
 parison with the approbation of God. And the result 
 shows, that popularit}'", so far as it is worth anything, is 
 most sure to come to those, who do not seek it. Few men 
 out of political life, and few in, have had such a hold upon 
 the masses as Dr. Hitchcock. This is but the reflection 
 and reciprocation of his sympathy for them. His mod- 
 esty, simplicity, economy and integrity have contributed 
 greatly to increase it. The common people of Massachu- 
 setts, very many of them, knew him personally, They 
 had seen him in the fields, among the rocks, on the moun- 
 tains, in a costume like their own, and, what was more, 
 with a heart like their own, only larger ; and they have 
 always reckoned him as one of their own number — the 
 great scientific commoner of the old Bay State. 
 
 Still only his intimate friends knew all the largeness of 
 that heart. And all its warmth and tenderness were 
 known 'only to that little circle, who knew and loved him 
 as a husband and father. ISTo language but their tears can 
 tell what he was to them in the familiar interchange of the 
 ministries, courtesies and affections of his own home; and 
 even tears are all inadequate to speak the grief and anguish 
 of their hearts. We will not presume to invade the sanc- 
 tuary of their love and sorrow. "We will onl}'- say that Dr. 
 Hitchcock loved home, sighed for it in his absence, re- 
 turned to it the moment he was at liberty, and never was 
 so happy in the highest honors which the world lavished 
 on him, as in the bosom of his affectionate, faithful and 
 devoted family. 
 
40 
 
 The life of Dr. Hitchcock cannot be properly narrated, ev- 
 en in its outlines, without some allusion to Mount Holyoke 
 Seminary. Kor can the history of Mount Holyoke Semi- 
 nary be written without large reference to Dr. Hitchcock. 
 Sympathy for the masses conspired with his zeal in the 
 cause of Christian education to interest him deeply in all 
 the early plans and efforts for the establishment of such 
 an institution. Miss Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke, 
 had been known and highly esteemed by him as a teacher 
 among the hills of Franklin county and at Ipswich ; and 
 when she was laying broad and deep her plans for an in- 
 stitution more elevated and more permanent than had 
 ever yet been reared for the education of woman, she was, 
 for months, a member of his family. All the principles 
 and methods in which it should be founded and conducted 
 were discussed with him and other friends of learning and 
 relio-ion at his house ; and when at length these were suf- 
 ficiently matured, his tongue and his pen were among the 
 chief organs for communicating them to the public. And 
 from that time to the day of his death, next to Amherst 
 College, Mount Holyoke Seminary was the child of his 
 affections, the subject of his prayers, the object of his 
 constant watch and care. The last commission which I 
 ever received from him was to affix his name to the peti- 
 tion which the trustees of the Seminary have just laid be- 
 fore the Legislature of Massachusetts, asking a grant in 
 aid of its funds and for the enlargement of its educational 
 resources. These two institutions in the Connecticut 
 Valley which are so largely indebted to him for their ex- 
 istence and their character, will perpetuate his name and 
 his influence so long as they faithfully represent that idea 
 —science and religion— which was the motto of his life. 
 As we have already said, it was the highest glory and 
 the chief joy of this great and good man, that he was a 
 humble, penitent, believing and adoring disciple of Christ. 
 All the powers of his body, all the faculties of his mind, 
 all the warmth and wealth of his heart, all the treasures of 
 
41 
 
 his knowledge and all the honors of his name were brought 
 and laid at the feet of Jesus. And hero — at the feet of 
 Jesus— here it was, that his face shone brightest, and his 
 intellect penetrated farthest, and his faith rose highest, 
 and his humility bowed lowest, and his whole character 
 appeared invested with a true moral grandeur. Enter- 
 taining a profound veneration for the Scriptures as the 
 inspired word of God and an unerring rule of faith and 
 practice, he brought all his powers and acquisitions to bear 
 upon the right interpretation of them, and wherever he 
 found an unequivocal Thus saith the Lord, it was to him 
 the end of all controversy. Fully believing that Christ 
 was the Alpha and the Omega of all God's revelations to 
 men, whether in the kingdom of nature, providence or 
 grace, he made Christ the beginning and end of his teach- 
 ing and preaching. Christo et Ecclesise was the motto of 
 his professorship and his presidency ; and every book that 
 he wrote, was directly or indirectly dedicated to Christ 
 and the Church. From the moment when he first felt 
 the power of Christian truth in his own heart to the last 
 day of his life, it was his paramount object to bring men 
 to the knowledge, faith and obedience of Christ. His 
 sermons, though remarkable for their variety and rich- 
 ness, were not less remarkable for their spirituality, pun- 
 gency and moral power. They grew longer as he ad- 
 vanced in years, stronger, richer in thought, argument and 
 illustration ; but they were also more thoroughly anointed 
 with a holy unction, more fully baptized with sacred fire. 
 His lectures, wherever they might begin, were sure to end 
 as the Bible ends, at the throne of God and of the Lamb. 
 He found " the Cross in ITature, and Kature in the Cross." 
 Of all the sciences, which he studied and taught, theology 
 was the center. ISTay, in his later years, he taught the 
 natural sciences only as parts of Natural Theology, and 
 thus as foundation stones to revealed religion. His book 
 entitled "The Religion of Geology" is the type of his 
 writings and of his life. That book has commended re- 
 6 
 
42 
 
 ligion to many a skeptical mind. Many a disbelieving 
 student lias been convinced, many a doubting student es- 
 tablisbed in the faith, by his lectures on the Analogies 
 between Geology and Natural and Kevealed Keligion. 
 Still more have been convinced and persuaded of the real- 
 ity of experimental piety by his unquestionably sincere, 
 consistent, holy life. I^ot in college only, but years after, 
 amid the temptations and trials of public life, v^hen wave 
 after wave has gone over them and the foundations have 
 almost been swept away beneath their feet, they lookback 
 and say, " "Well, whatever else may be doubtful, I cannot 
 doubt that Dr. Hitchcock was a real Christian ; and the 
 religion which satisfied him, and made him what he was, 
 is true enough and good enough for me." There was a 
 beautiful harmony between his teaching and his life. If 
 the reconciliation of Philosophy and Faith was the sub- 
 ject matter of his teaching, his life was the embodiment 
 of Faith and Philosophy. As he insisted much in his 
 writings on the credibility of miracles and prophecies from 
 the analogy of nature, and the consistency of prayer and 
 special providence with the uniformity of nature's laws, 
 so he regarded his whole life as a continual series of 
 special providences and answers to prayer, and Divine in- 
 terpositions just as marked and just as manifest to his 
 mind, as if, to use his own favorite illustration, he had seen 
 the sun and moon stand still, or the waters of Jordan di- 
 vide, that the people of God might pass over. 
 
 With the self-distrust and self-depreciation, that was 
 natural to him, he never was very confident of his own 
 good estate. But he never doubted the reality or the 
 richness of the inheritance. He had no more doubt of the 
 truth and divinity of the Christian religion than he had 
 of the truth of a mathematical demonstration, of a doc- 
 trine or fact in science, or of the real existence of that 
 material world, which it was his life work to explore. 
 There was not only the same certainty in the one case as 
 in the other, but the evidence was very much the same. 
 
43 
 
 That religion commended itself to bis rational and moral 
 nature. Its facts were established by unimpeachable tes- 
 timony. 'Nay, it was itself a stupendous fact, firm as the 
 solid earth, lofty and enduring as the everlasting moun- 
 tains, which he had seen with his own eyes, and whose 
 truth and beauty, grandeur and power he had felt in his 
 own heart. Such was the purport of the last words he 
 said to me, as I stood by his bedside in what he then 
 thought to be his last illness, five years ago : " You know," 
 he said, "I have never been confident of my personal in- 
 terest in the great salvation. But the foundation stands 
 sure. I have not a doubt of it — not one single doubt. It 
 is firm as the everlasting hills. I may not stand upon it. 
 I do not deserve to rest upon it in my dying hours. I 
 have been too great a sinner. I have done too little for 
 my Lord and Master. But," said he, bursting into tears, 
 " I do not wish for anything surer, brighter, better than 
 the hope of the real Christian. I cannot imagine anything 
 more glorious. I want words to express how glorious it 
 now appears to me." Yes, venerated father, the founda- 
 tion does indeed stand sure, as Mount Zion above ; and thy 
 feet are now planted on it. The inheritance is glorious, 
 and not more solid and enduring in itself, than securely 
 and inalienably thine. The title was doubtful to none but 
 thyself, and ihy doubts have given place to actual posses- 
 sion. Thy mingled hopes and fears are both forgotten in 
 full and everlasting fruition. 'Now are thy brightest im- 
 aginings of heavenly purity and beauty infinitely sur- 
 passed by the present reality. ISTow dost thou behold the 
 worlds which God has made, and which, to thy earthly 
 sight darkened by clouds and storms, appeared so beauti- 
 ful — now dost thou behold them with unclouded vision in 
 the very light of His presence ; and how glorious beyond 
 comparison must they be with the Lord God and the 
 Lamb for the light thereof! All is well with thee. For 
 thy sake we would not wish thee back to earth. But alas 
 for us, thy children, whom thou hast left behind, bereft, 
 
44 
 
 forlorn, fatherless ! Shall we never again lean on thy 
 strong arm ? Shall we never more sit at thy feet for in- 
 struction ? Shall nature henceforth be dumb, or speak to 
 ns only in unintelligible signs, having lost her interpreter ? 
 Shall we never again listen to thy voice as the voice of 
 God in the sanctuary ? "Wilt thou never again be our 
 voice in prayer to God ? Shall the officers and students of 
 this college no more share in thy prayers and counsels ? 
 Shall the college no more rest upon that pillar, which has 
 so often sustained it under the heaviest pressure ? Shall 
 the churches and their pastors never again see in their 
 parsonages and their pulpits him whom they have so long 
 revered as a father ? " Our father, our father, the chariot 
 of Israel, and the horsemen thereof !" — But it is vain to 
 call after him. " He is not, for God took him." Let us 
 take up his mantle, and return to the school of the proph- 
 ets, to our place of study, to our field of labor, whatever 
 it may be. And oh, that a double portion of his spirit 
 might rest upon us during our earthly'' pilgrimage. And 
 when our change shall come, may he welcome us to the 
 presence of his Savior and our Savior, his God and our 
 God. And then again will we sit at his feet and hang on 
 his lips, as he interprets to us the wonderful works of 
 God. 
 
 Dr. Hitchcock bore the sentence of death written, as it 
 were, on his heart during the larger part of his life. With 
 almost literal truth, and with emphasis, might that have 
 been said of him which, in another sense, is true of us all : 
 he began to die almost as soon as he began to live. His 
 health broke down in the midst of his laborious astronom- 
 ical observations and calculations in 1811, when he was 
 only eighteen years of age ; and the comet's tail which, 
 as his physician facetiously remarked, then got into his 
 stomach, remained there in the form of a chronic dyspep- 
 sia and then of a wasting marasmus to the day of his 
 death. He was dismissed from his pastoral charge in Con- 
 way on the express ground as stated by himself and ac- 
 
45 
 
 cepted by the council, that " there was no reasonable 
 prospect of his being able to serve the people permanently 
 and profitably in the duties of the ministry." He entered 
 upon his professorship in the hope that " the great amount 
 of physical exercise " which it required "might enable 
 him to hold out " at longest only " a few years." In his 
 second annual report to the trustees after entering upon 
 the duties of the presidency, he informs them that he had 
 " reached that state in which his life was little else but a 
 scene of severe suifering," and, though he would cheer- 
 fully endure the suffering and die at his post if thereby 
 he could hope to carry the college safely through its exi- 
 gencies, yet there seemed little prospect of his accomplish- 
 ing so desirable a result. Throughout his entire public 
 life he preached and taughtas a dying man, with the grave 
 alwaj^s in sight, sometimes almost stepping down into it, 
 and ever and anon weaving "A Wreath for the Tomb." 
 What earnestness this gave to his labors, what vividness 
 to his conceptions, what intensity to his language, what 
 almost prophetic inspiration to his pen and lips and life, 
 none need be told. The visions of God and heaven which 
 he brought back from these near approaches to the spirit- 
 world, are among the richest legacies that he has left be- 
 hind him. 
 
 It is now more than six years since he asked me, as a 
 last proof of the friendship and affection which had so 
 long existed between us, to perform the part which I per- 
 form to-day. Five years ago, physicians and friends des- 
 paired of his life; -she who had been his help-meet and 
 his organ of hope, the balance-wheel and almost the main- 
 spring of his life, gave him up and called on-me to fulfill 
 my x^ledge ; and at that time the body of this discourse 
 was prepared substantiall}' as it has now been delivered. 
 Had he died then he would have been saved an immense 
 amount of suffering, and she who knew so well how to 
 minister to him, could have smoothed his dying pillow. 
 But she was destiiied to go before him, and by showing 
 
46 
 
 how easy and how beautiful a thing it is for a Christian to 
 die, to relieve his fear of death and thus, perhaps, to ren- 
 der him a more essential service. If he had died then, the 
 world would have said, it was a completed life. But not 
 so heavenly Avisdom. Before heaven could say to him, 
 " Servant of God, well done," he must live on and labor 
 on through years of suffering, years of dying they might 
 almost be called, still writing and publishing, still, like 
 the aged Athenian sage, learning many things, still in- 
 terpreting nature and studying his own frame so fearfully 
 and wonderfully made, still lecturing to his classes though 
 too feeble to go to them, and therefore inviting them to 
 come to him, still making large and choice collections for 
 his cabinet, still caring and planning for his beloved col- 
 lege, still toiling to enlarge tl^e boundaries of science and, 
 so far as possible, to perfect his favorite department, still 
 watching with jealous eye his own heart, the spiritual con- 
 dition of the college and the interests of evangelical re- 
 ligion — all the while battling heroically with death and 
 "him that has the power of death," and nobly illustrating 
 the triumph of mind over matter, of faith and philosophy^ 
 over all the powers of darkness even in the last extremity. 
 He continued to ride on horseback till he could no longer 
 sit in the saddle. Then he consented to be driven in a 
 carriage ; and when he was no longer able to bear this, he 
 was carried out in a chair borne by his two sons, that he 
 might breathe the out-door air which he so much loved 
 and look upon the face of nature, his beloved. He told 
 me, he had no doubt he had prolonged his life for months 
 after most persons would have succumbed to the power of 
 disease, by the care with which he had watched, and — 
 with the help of those ministering angels, his physician 
 and his children — guarded the citadel. The activity and 
 clearness of his mind at times during these last months 
 was wonderful, and he said, he had a thousand thoughts 
 and a thousand plans which he would have loved to exe- 
 etite— -had Providence prolonged his life— all in his chosen 
 
47 
 
 sphere of science aud religion. With the lively imagina- 
 tion which was so characteristic of him, he sometimes saw 
 himself surrounded on every side by diagrams of his fa- 
 vorite sciences which, for the time, so delighted his eves 
 and so engrossed his thoughts that he could hardly forgive 
 his attendants if they interrupted him with the untimely, 
 the almost profane intrusion of his medicines ; though 
 afterwards with a kindness and politeness which was no 
 less native and which his physician often noted, he w^ould 
 make ample amends for it, and perchance with his charac- 
 teristic humor, turn it off with a pun or some other pleas- 
 antry. 
 
 He loved to converse on personal religion, and was 
 grieved when his Christian friends who called on him, 
 seemed to avoid the subject. The last time I saw him, 
 which was five days before his death, he expressed his 
 feelings more fully than usual. After speaking of his un- 
 shaken confidence in the immovable foundations of the 
 evangelical Christian system and the absence, as from 
 most of his former life, so now from his sick bed, of such 
 sensible manifestations of the Divine presence as some 
 Christians enjoyed, he was asked if Christ w^as not pre- 
 cious to him: "Precious!" — he exclaimed with an in- 
 flection and an emphasis which spoke volumes — " of 
 course, he is unspeakably precious. But that is no more 
 than everybody says who is not entirely destitute of the 
 Christian's hope. He is more than that — infinitely more. 
 He is everything. He is all in all." He then went on 
 to express his longing desire to depart and be with the 
 loved ones that had gone before him, with his pious friends 
 and acquaintances who were in heaven, and with all the 
 wise and good of all ages ; and with them to celebrate 
 the praises of his God and Redeemer. The last night of 
 his life, he seems to have been fully aware that the hour 
 of his departure was at hand. For the most part, he 
 was in the full possession of his faculties, though he some- 
 times seemed to see gathered about his dying bed friends 
 
48 
 
 that were not there. Less than an hour before he died, 
 feeling that his head was not supported as he wished, he 
 laid his hand on the pillow by his side and said, " There, 
 -place the cross there.'' His son responding, "Father, I 
 thought you had always had the cross near you." " Yes," 
 said he, "But I have learned its value here — right in this 
 place." " -RewzarA-a^fe .^ REMARKABLE !! " l^ot long after, 
 he lifted up his hands, and said, " I am going — I am go- 
 ing—farewell to earth." These were his last words. He 
 breathed less frequently and more feebly for half an hour, 
 and then — -just as the day was dawning — his spirit passed 
 from the darkness and sorrow of earth to the light and 
 glory of heaven. All his life-time, he had been more or 
 less subject to bondage through fear of death. But he 
 fell asleep at last as sweetly as an infant in its mother's 
 arms. He often mourned that he had no more sensible 
 manifestations of the Savior's presence, and enquired 
 anxiously of his Christian friends if he would probably 
 have dying grace given him for a dying hour. But he 
 died leaning his head on the cross almost visibly present 
 by his side and wondering at the riches of redeeming, 
 sanctifying, sustaining grace : 
 
 "Thou art gone to the grave! and, its mansion forsaking, 
 Perchance thy weak spirit in doubt lingered long : 
 But the sunshine of glory beamed bright on thy waking. 
 And full on thine ear burst the seraphim's song." 
 
 And there, the last, best, fondest desires of his heart have 
 been more than realized. There he has already been re- 
 united to her whose death before him took away more 
 than half of his own life, and with united hand and heart 
 and voice, as on earth so in heaven, they have laid their 
 united offerings at the feet of Jesus. There he has been 
 welcomed by Moore and Humphrey and Graves and Pack- 
 ard and Fiske and Adams and Peabody and Edwards and 
 Clarke, and other colleagues in the government and in- 
 struction of Amherst College; and together they have 
 thanked God for the success with which he crowned their 
 
49 
 
 toils and Btruggles in building such an institution. There 
 parishioners and pupils who loved and honored him as 
 their spiritual father, were doubtless waiting to greet him ; 
 and he has presented them before the throne, saying, 
 " Here am I and the children thou hast given me." 
 There savants and scholars in whom he delighted on 
 earth as not only brethren in science but brethren in 
 Christ, have doubtless recognized him and introduced 
 him to that grand association of Christians and scholars 
 and philosophers wherein are gathered all the truly wise, 
 from the days of the wisest of men, and long before, to the 
 present time ; and he has joined with them as they — now 
 without one dissenting voice or one reluctant heart — 
 cast their crowns before Him in whom "are hid all the 
 treasures of wisdom and knowledge." There he has met 
 with prophets and apostles and martyrs and those who 
 have been wise in turning many to righteousness, and 
 while with them he shines as a sun in the kingdom of their 
 Father, with them too he sings that new song, which will 
 never grow old : " Unto him that loved us and washed us 
 from our sins in his own blood and hath made us kings 
 and priests unto God and his Father ; to him be glory and 
 dominion forever and ever." " And I heard a voice from 
 heaven saying unto me. Write, blessed are the dead which 
 die in the Lord : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
 from their labors, and their works do follow them." 
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