DISCOURSE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE REV. WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle^ New York City, 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/discourseofrevwiOOtayl 
 
MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 “ He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.’* 
 — Acts xu 24. 
 
 This is a remarkable eulogy. It was written by 
 Luke at the close of the second year of Paul’s first 
 imprisonment, and therefore in the full knowledge 
 of all the facts connected with the breach between 
 the great Apostle and Barnabas, which ended in 
 their departing “ asunder one from another,” and 
 of which the account comes in at a later part of his 
 narrative. For years the Evangelist had been the 
 constant companion and intimate friend of the 
 Apostle, and, as such, we may suppose that he had 
 received all the details of the unhappy controversy 
 from his lips ; yet in spite of all that had come and 
 gone between them, he takes this early and inci- 
 dental opportunity, which the mention of his first 
 visit to Antioch affords, to put on record his de- 
 liberate estimate of his character and worth. Here 
 and there, too, in the epistles of Paul, there are 
 casual allusions, which show that in the verdict here 
 pronounced he fully concurred ; so that its presence 
 in this place is alike honorable to all three — to 
 
48 
 
 Barnabas as thoroughly deserving this noble trib- 
 ute ; to Paul as showing that the controversy over 
 Mark had left no permanent estrangement in his 
 heart ; and to Luke as proving the judicial imparti- 
 ality with which he wrote his history. 
 
 But, striking as this testimony to Barnabas is, when 
 we regard the circumstances in which it was given, it is 
 no less noteworthy in itself considered ; for its sole 
 emphasis is laid on moral and spiritual qualities. The 
 greatness of this early disciple was in his goodness ; 
 that goodness, again, was rooted in his faith, and 
 the whole was vitalized by the indwelling Spirit, 
 whose influence pervaded the life, and gave it that 
 amiability and attractiveness by which it was dis- 
 tinguished. Barnabas was not deficient in intel- 
 lectual ability, neither was he destitute of mental 
 independence or moral energy ; but the totality of 
 the man — that by which he was best known and for 
 which he was most fondly remembered — was his 
 goodness. He was loved even more that he was 
 admired ; and even those who had seriously differed 
 from him were constrained to speak of him with 
 tenderest affection. 
 
 You will not wonder, therefore, that in seeking 
 an appropriate text for the memorial discourse 
 which this evening, at the request of the Faculty 
 of this College, I am come to deliver, I have been 
 led to select that which I have just announced. 
 
49 
 
 For though intellectually and theologically Dr. At- 
 water had much that resembled Paul rather than 
 Barnabas ; though he was one of the most versatile 
 and many-sided men whom I have ever known ; all 
 his other characteristics were fused into a unit by 
 his pre-eminent goodness ; and that, in its turn, 
 was permeated by his Christian faith. No one 
 could know him without loving him, and perceiv- 
 ing that he loved the Lord ; so that, though in his 
 time he had taken part in earnest controversies, and 
 had been in many conflicts, when he passed away 
 from us the universal ejaculatiom from former an- 
 tagonists and former allies alike was this — “ He was 
 a good man.” 
 
 I could have wished that the duty which has been 
 assigned to me had been committed to some one 
 who had known him longer, and could speak from 
 personal participation in the movements with which 
 he was identified ; but when the work was laid on 
 me, I could not refuse to place a wreath upon the 
 grave of one whose friendship I counted one of my 
 highest honors ; and though the wreath be made 
 of material as simple as the heather of my native 
 hills, it will at least attest the sincerity of my affec- 
 tion for him who was so greatly beloved by us all. 
 
 Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater was born at Cedar 
 Hill, now a part of New Haven, Conn., February 
 
50 
 
 23, 1813. He was descended from one of the first 
 settlers of the colony, and his parents had all the 
 characteristics of the Puritan stock to which they 
 belonged. He has himself described the formative 
 influences under which his early days were spent 
 in the following sentences, which we take from his 
 noble article on Horace Bushnell : * “ We recall the 
 Puritanical, almost Jewish Sabbath observance ; 
 church -going through wintry blasts into the un- 
 warmed ‘meeting-house,’ to hear theology reasoned 
 out through two sermons ; the drill in the Shorter 
 Catechism ; the common school with its rough 
 oaken seats and sometimes rougher teachers ; the 
 toilsome industry which extorted a frugal subsist- 
 ence from rocky soils, or by the slow process of 
 handiwork in producing what steam and electricity 
 and machinery will now yield in vastly greater pro- 
 fusion and superior quality to a tithe of the labor. 
 We now seem to hear the rattle of the household 
 spinning-wheel to produce the thread or yarn, for 
 the very weaving of which was paid double what 
 the same amount of cloth already finished, and bet- 
 ter fitted for the same use, would now cost. It is 
 scarcely possible for those whose lives do not run 
 back of the half century now closing to conceive of 
 the severe style of life and manners then prevalent 
 
 * The Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. 1 1 5. 
 
SI 
 
 from dire necessity.” A rough nurture that “Age 
 of Homespun ” gave to those who were born into 
 it ; but it made them men, and hardened them into 
 sturdy mental independence as well as into physical 
 vigor. 
 
 After his first course of education at the pub- 
 lic school, he was prepared for college by Dr. 
 H. P. Arms, afterward pastor of the Congrega- 
 tional church in Norwich, Conn. ; and at the age 
 of 14 he entered the Freshman class at Yale in 
 1827. He was a distinguished student, and at his 
 graduation in 1831 he received the second honor of 
 his class ; but during the last year of his course a 
 richer blessing came to him than any such literary 
 eminence, excellent as in its own place that is, 
 could confer; for in the spring of 1831 a deep, 
 earnest, and powerful, though quiet “ revival ” per- 
 vaded the College, and left its deposit of lasting 
 and germinant influence in his heart and life. “ We, 
 too,” he says, while alluding to the quickening 
 which Bushnell received on that memorable occa- 
 sion, “ participated in the same great awakening, in 
 which the ‘ still small voice ’ of the Spirit was so 
 mighty, that for days the usual din of conversation 
 at meals in the great dining-hall was hushed into very 
 whispers.”* He had been trained, as we have seen. 
 
 * The Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. Ii6. 
 
 Li’’"ARY 
 
 university of ILLINOIS 
 
52 
 
 in a Christian home, and now the new life within 
 him, lifted up into itself, and made its own all that 
 was best in his previous experience, thereby giving 
 a moral and spiritual unity to his character, so that 
 thenceforward the Christian in him was conspicu- 
 ous, not by ostentatious display, but by pervasive 
 power. 
 
 After a year spent near Baltimore in teaching the 
 classics at Mount Hope Seminary, he returned to 
 New Haven, and in the fall of 1832 he entered on 
 the study of theology at the Yale Divinity vSchool. 
 In 1833 he was appointed a tutor in the College, 
 but he continued his theological studies side by side 
 with his work as an instructor, and these years 
 probably did more than any others in his opening 
 manhood to shape the course of his subsequent 
 career. Already, in his undergraduate life, he had 
 become noted, along with his friend Noah Porter, 
 now the honored President of Yale, for his devo- 
 tion to intellectual philosophy ; and when he re- 
 turned from Baltimore to begin the study of theol- 
 ogy, his former discussions with fellow-students on 
 metaphysical subjects were resumed with all the 
 ardor and enthusiasm of youth. A company of 
 four are especially named by him'^' as having been 
 “ most addicted to philosophical study, and wont to 
 
 * '‘Memorial Discourse on Elisha Lord Cleaveland,” p. 29. 
 
53 
 
 probe questions to the bottom by original investi- 
 gations beyond the deliverances of the lecture- 
 room.” They occupied adjoining apartments in 
 the upper story of a house, which, because of their 
 continual debates, was known among their fellow- 
 students by the sobriquet of the “ Philosophical 
 Garret.” One of the four was Dr. Cleaveland, after- 
 ward pastor of a church in New Haven ; another 
 became a missionary to Turkey and afterward 
 librarian of the New York State Library at Alba- 
 ny ; the third was Dr. Atwater himself ; and the 
 fourth was that life-long friend whose voice was so 
 fitly heard in loving eulogy over the bier of his 
 early companion. I mention all this here because 
 it is full of suggestiveness, especially to students, 
 as serving to remind them that the training which 
 they give to each other in intellectual athletics, is 
 often of almost as great importance as that which 
 they receive directly from the professors in the 
 class-rooms. 
 
 At this time, too, it was, that Dr. Atwater came 
 under the influence of Coleridge. The “ Aids to 
 Reflection,” published in England some seven or 
 eight years before (in 1825), had found its way into 
 the hands of these young men, and greatly stirred 
 their minds. It is interesting, at this distance, to 
 trace the different directions in which the quicken- 
 ing force of the poet-philosopher has carried those 
 
54 
 
 who came under its operation. Some, like Carlyle, 
 having reached the stage of Titanic defiance describ- 
 ed in his chapter on “The Everlasting No.” before 
 they came into eontaet with the Highgate sage, 
 ridiculed his utteranees as “ moonshine.” Others 
 were sent by them into ritualism ; and more 
 perhaps were carried by them into Broad Church- 
 ism ; while there were not a few who, like his 
 American editor. Dr. Shedd, and our friend Dr. At- 
 water, were stiffened by their contact with him, into 
 a more stalwart orthodoxy. The reason of all this 
 may, perhaps, be found in the fragmentary and dis- 
 jointed charaeter of his writings. It is questionable 
 if he had ever reached a system in his own mind ; 
 but whether he had or not, he has nowhere given 
 systematic completeness to his teachings. His 
 philosophy, as Dr. Shedd has said, “ must be gather- 
 ed from his writings rather than quoted from 
 them.”* Those who have not had the patience to 
 make such an induction, have simply carried away 
 from him the general stimulus which his thinking 
 gave them, and the special suggestions which fitted 
 into their own tastes and idiosyncrasies ; while 
 others who have been awakened by him into inde- 
 pendent research have shaken themselves clear of 
 his mysticism, and have been grateful ever after- 
 
 The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. i., p. lo. 
 
55 
 
 ward for the quickening and impulse they have re- 
 ceived at his hands. Among these last was Dr. At- 
 water. As he has said of Dr. Cleaveland, so we 
 may say of himself, that “ he was one of those who 
 profited by Coleridge’s writings, because he knew 
 how to separate the chaff from the wheat, master- 
 ing, instead of being mastered by them.”* Indeed 
 that is substantially what he has said for himself in 
 his own excellent article on Coleridge, for after re- 
 ferring to the imperfect development of that author’s 
 ideas, he goes on to say that by that very thing 
 “ the reader would be excited to thought and study, 
 and every sort of tentative effort, to track out the 
 germinant thought to its full proportions, and realize 
 all the hidden treasures it embosomed. It shot into 
 his mind the dawn of a new idea ; he can not rest 
 till he has clarified that twilight apprehension or 
 imagining into meridian clearness. Now this oper- 
 ates at once as the effective stimulus and discipline 
 of the intellect ; and provided only that it does not 
 lead to a servile adoption of the author’s tenets, its 
 influence is every way salubrious and invigorating, 
 and a vastly higher benefit is gained by studying 
 such a writer than one who does not awaken such 
 mental strivings to work out for ourselves the prob- 
 lem that he has rather suggested than solved. And 
 
 Memorial of Rev. E. L. Cleaveland, p. 30. 
 
56 
 
 those who have, especially in youth or opening man- 
 hood, received such a lofty impulse and incalculable 
 benefit from any author, will not soon forget their 
 obligations to him whatever they may think of his 
 specific or peculiar doctrines.”* We can not but 
 feel that all this is autobiographical, and that we 
 have here described the history of his own relation 
 to the works of Coleridge. For one benefit he is 
 repeatedly grateful to the English philosopher. In 
 the course of his numerous writings he has quoted 
 oftener than once the following sentences from the 
 “Aids to Reflection” ; “Often have I heard it said 
 by the advocates for the Socinian scheme — True 
 we are all sinners ; but even in the Old Testament 
 God has promised forgiveness on repentance. One 
 of the fathers (I forget which) supplies the retort : 
 True ! God has promised pardon on penitence ; but 
 has He promised penitence on sin? He that re- 
 penteth shall be forgiven ; but where is it said, he 
 that sinneth shall repent ? But repentance, perhaps, 
 the repentance required in Scripture, the passing 
 into a new mind, into a new and contrary principle 
 of action, this Metanoia, is in the sinner’s own 
 power ? at his own liking ? He has but to open his 
 eyes to the sin, and the tears are at hand to wash it 
 away ! V erily the exploded tenet of transubstantia- 
 
 The Princeto 7 t Review, April, 1848, pp. 163, 164. 
 
57 
 
 tion is scarcely at greater variance with the com- 
 mon sense and experience of mankind, or borders 
 more closely on a contradiction in terms, than this 
 volunteer transmentation, this self-change as the easy 
 means of self-salvation.” These sentenees, as I have 
 said, I have found quoted at least twice in his arti- 
 cles, and on each occasion with appended remarks 
 which have in them the ring of a personal experi- 
 ence ; for on the first he speaks of the passage as 
 one “ which soon after its publication met the eye 
 of a theological student who had begun to be capti- 
 vated by the Pelagian speculations of the day, and 
 started a most beneficial revolution in all his views 
 of theology”;'^ and on the second he says, “This 
 has flashed a flood of light on more than one soul 
 bewildered in its struggles to realize in himself the 
 theory that he was able to make himself a Christian, 
 while it has proved a turning and guide-board for 
 his whole after career.”f When to these statements 
 I add that he said to one of his students only 
 eighteen months before his death, that he could not 
 exaggerate the influenee of the “ Aids to Reflec- 
 tion ” on his mind, and that though far from being 
 a Coleridgean he regarded his perusal of that book 
 as an epoch in his life : I am surely warranted in 
 drawing special attention to that whieh on his own 
 
 * The Princeton Review ^ April, 1848, pp. 181, 182. 
 t The Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. 124. 
 
58 
 
 testimony so materially influenced Dr. Atwater’s 
 history. 
 
 At the time to which we are referring, the Rev. 
 Dr. N. W. Taylor was stirring the thought of New 
 England by his eloquent and vigorous advocacy 
 of that system which came to be known as the New 
 Haven Theology ; but though drawn most affection- 
 ately to Dr. Taylor as the pastor of his boyhood, 
 Dr. Atwater could not receive his teacher’s theorv, 
 that all moral goodness is reducible to some form of 
 self-love, or means of happiness to the agent ; and in 
 many other details of his system, of more or less 
 importance, which need not here be named, he was 
 stimulated to antagonism by the very ability of his 
 master. Hence, he probably derived more quicken- 
 ing from Dr. Taylor’s course of lectures, than he 
 would have done if he had implicitly received their 
 doctrines, and for the rejection of one of these, the 
 determining impulse, as we have seen, was given him 
 by Coleridge. In any case, at the end of his theo- 
 logical course, he emerged a thorough Calvinist, of 
 the Old-School type, and on that line he travelled 
 till the close of life. 
 
 In May, 1834, Mr. Atwater was licensed to 
 preach the Gospel by the New Haven West Asso- 
 ciation, and on the 29th July, 1835, he was ordained 
 and installed pastor of the First Congregational 
 Church of Fairfield, Connecticut, which is one of 
 
59 
 
 the oldest churches in that State, and which had en- 
 joyed for many years the ministrations of a series 
 of distinguished men. Here he labored for nine- 
 teen years with great ability and acceptance, and 
 hither in October, 1835, he led home the wife of his 
 affection, who cheered his domestic life with her 
 genial companionship until the day when, after 
 years of weakness which he brightened by the most 
 tender care, she was taken from his side into the 
 heavenly mansion. 
 
 Only two things connected with his pastorate 
 need to be particularly mentioned here, as serving 
 to show the sort of man he was. The first was 
 the part which he took in the controversy which 
 arose over the theological teachings of the late Dr. 
 Horace Bushnell, as these had been embodied in his 
 work entitled “ God in Christ.” The whole dis- 
 cussion has now become a matter of history, the 
 record of which may be found on the one side in 
 the recently issued life of Bushnell by his daughter, 
 and on the other in Dr. Atwater’s article in the Prince- 
 ton Review ior October, 1853; and latterly in the 
 splendid dissertation on Dr. Bushnell, which he con- 
 tributed to the Presbyterian Review for January, 
 1881, and which reveals the finest qualities both of 
 his head and of his heart. It is unnecessary, here, to 
 specify the subjects concerning which the conflict 
 was waged ; enough to say that they were questions 
 
6o 
 
 of the highest importance, and that Dr. Atwater 
 bore himself all through like one who neither de- 
 sired controversy nor feared it. On each side were 
 ranged men of the highest ability and the noblest 
 character ; under leaders concerning both of whom 
 Dr. Atwater has said that they were even “ finest 
 types of the clergy of their time ; and the spirit 
 by which he was animated throughout may be gath- 
 ered from these sentences : “ With untold reluc- 
 tance, labor, anxiety, cost of so much that was dear, 
 they went forward to the end. They discharged 
 their consciences — with what effect it is given us to 
 know only in part. The leaders on the other side 
 of this conflict consisted largely of those endeared 
 to me, at least, by life-long ties, tenderest of all out- 
 side of my own household. I can see how, looking 
 more at Dr. Bushnell on sides which satisfy and de- 
 light than on those which appall and confound, 
 than did others, they should have advocated a course 
 so different from that which seemed to very many 
 imperative. I hope and pray that the policy which, 
 then inaugurated, has gained increasing headway 
 since, of preventing the trial of ministers who 
 furnish strong prima facie ground for trial, will not 
 issue in the evils to the old loved churches of my 
 nativity and nurture which have been so much pre- 
 
 * Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., pp. 138, 139, note. 
 
6i 
 
 dieted.”* And there is something inexpressibly 
 touching in the mellow sweetness of his final refer- 
 ence to him who had been the occasion of the con- 
 troversy, when, after mentioning one defect in Dr. 
 Bushnell’s character, he adds : 
 
 “ It is a pleasing compensation for this, that it 
 was so free from ‘ envy, malice, and uncharitable- 
 ness ’ toward men ; so filled, despite all unhappy 
 speculations, with all the fulness of God in Christ. 
 Few have so much of that creative imagination 
 which makes it ‘a vision and faculty divine.’ He 
 was more of a seer than a constructive reasoner. 
 Doubtless any obliquities or shadows that marred 
 his beholdings here are now cleared away in the im- 
 mediate vision of God and of the Lamb.”f Thus 
 the debates of controversy, though firmly carried 
 on by Dr. Atwater, were not suffered to embitter 
 his heart ; and to those who know the history of 
 the conflict, the article from which I have made 
 these extracts is one of the finest examples of the 
 power of Christian love in lifting the spirit above 
 all prejudices and partisanships, which the English 
 language affords. In the controversy and after it. 
 Dr. Atwater was pre-eminently “ a good man,” and 
 he retained to the last the esteem and affection of 
 some of those who were most strenuously opposed 
 
 * Presbyterian Review y ut supra, p. 138. 
 t Presbyterian Review y ut supra, p. 144. 
 
62 
 
 to him, even as they also continued to be the ob- 
 jects of his sincere regard. 
 
 But though constrained by conscience to interest 
 himself thus in what may be called the public Church 
 questions of his times, he was not neglectful of his 
 pastoral work. One of his successors in the ministry 
 bears this testimony to his wisdom and love in the 
 matter of church extension : 
 
 “ Three substantial church buildings, now occu- 
 pied by flourishing congregations, were erected in 
 the town of Fairfield during his ministry. One was 
 for the accommodation of the old church itself, and 
 it still stands in its beauty to bear testimony to his 
 diligence and energy. Previous to its erection, 
 however, some members of the church who lived 
 two miles away, in the part of Fairfield known as 
 Southport, thinking that they could in that way 
 serve the cause of Christ, asked and obtained the 
 consent of their pastor to organize a new church, 
 and in all the steps necessary to be taken in building 
 both the spiritual and material edifice the well-be- 
 loved pastor cheerfully assisted. Several years later 
 a similar step was taken by the people in another 
 section of the town, and the thriving church at 
 Black Rock was organized chiefly by the members 
 of the old First church, some of whom still live and 
 vie with those who remained under his care, in their 
 love and admiration for their former pastor.” * 
 
 * Edward E. Rankin, D.D., now of Newark, N. J. 
 
63 
 
 What like his public ministrations were may be 
 gathered from his articles on “ The Matter of Preach- 
 ing,” and “ The Manner of Preaching,” * the former 
 of which was written in 1856, just after he had left 
 the pulpit for the professor’s chair, and was so highly 
 regarded, that it was credited to Dr. James W. Alex- 
 ander, and printed, by mistake, as his, in the pos- 
 thumous volume on Preaching by that eloquent 
 divine, which has taken its place as a standard in 
 the department of Homiletics. It may be regarded 
 as a summation by himself of the kind of work 
 which he set himself to do at Fairfield, and it ought 
 to be pondered by all young ministers and students 
 of Theology as containing, in the briefest compass, 
 the concentrated essence of the truth on the subject 
 of which it treats. Judging from its statements his 
 aim in the pulpit was to exalt God before his peo- 
 ple as Maker, Preserver, Benefactor, Sovereign, 
 Saviour, and Judge ; to enforce the law under which 
 man is placed ; to proclaim Christ as the object 
 toward which faith, love, hope, obedience, and devo- 
 tion are to be directed ; to answer the questions. 
 What shall I believe ? what shall I love ? what shall I 
 do, in order to lead a righteous, sober, and godly 
 life, and that when Christ shall appear, I also may 
 appear with Him in glory? and to enforce the ex- 
 
 * See Princeton Review for October, 1856, and April, 1863. 
 
64 
 
 ercise of religious principles and all the virtues of 
 our holy religion in every sphere of life and action. 
 With all his leanings toward philosophical studies, 
 he did not carry metaphysics into the pulpit, and to 
 this day the Fairfield people speak with gratitude of 
 the practical Biblical instruction which they received 
 at his lips. His great object was to divide rightly 
 the word of truth, and so “to glorify God and 
 bless men by bringing sinners to the obedience of faith 
 in Christ, and promoting their sanctification, their 
 knowledge, love, and adoration of God ; their as- 
 similation, conformity, and devotion to Him in 
 thought, desire, word, and deed ; their cordial and 
 delighted communion with Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost ; their love, gentleness, meekness, patience, 
 uprightness, and faithfulness toward their fellow- 
 men.”* He had little confidence in exceptional 
 and spasmodic methods, for reasons which he has 
 given in his article on Revivals,f and which had their 
 root in principles rather than in mere taste ; but he 
 set himself to the fullest improvement of the “ or- 
 dinary means of grace,” and sought thereby to ad- 
 vance his people “ in all holy conversation and god- 
 liness.” So as the years revolved, he had the hap- 
 piness of seeing those committed to his care grow- 
 ing in Christian intelligence, and manifesting “ the 
 
 » * Princeto 7 t Review, October, 1856, p. 659. 
 t Princeton Review, January, 1842. 
 
 A;. 
 
6s 
 
 fruit of the Spirit ” in that roundness of symmetri- 
 cal character, of which he was himself so conspicu- 
 ous an example. 
 
 But though he did not take philosophy into the 
 pulpit, he had not forsworn it in the study ; and in 
 the comparative leisure which a country pastorate 
 afforded, he found time for writing many excellent 
 contributions to the periodical press on those sub- 
 jects which, from the days of his student life, even 
 to the last, had pre-eminent attraction for his mind. 
 His earliest article in the Princeton Review, on “ The 
 Power of Contrary Choice,” was printed in 1 840, only 
 five years after his ordination to the ministry, and 
 almost each succeeding year on to the close of his pas- 
 torate, one or more contributions from his pen ap- 
 peared in its pages. The mental power which these 
 productions evinced secured for him the degree of 
 D.D. from the Trustees of this institution in 1851 ; 
 and so impressed them with a sense of his special 
 ability in that department that in 1854 he was ap- 
 pointed by them Professor of Mental and Moral 
 Philosophy in the College of New Jersey. Here 
 the remainder of his life was spent, and how quiet- 
 ly, how diligently, with what Christian humility, and 
 yet with what pure dignity ; with what minute at- 
 tention to his professional duties and yet with what 
 patriotic public spirit ; with what unaffected piety 
 and yet with what human naturalness, he [bore him- 
 
66 
 
 self through all those nine and twenty years, is known 
 to every inhabitant of Princeton. His change of 
 residence brought with it a change in his ecclesiasti- 
 cal relationships ; but that was easily consummated, 
 for the difference between the Consociationism of 
 Connecticut, to which he had been accustomed, and 
 the Presbyterianism of New Jersey, to which he 
 came, was not great ; and the separation from beloved 
 friends in the neighborhood of Fairfield was largely 
 compensated by his proximity to Dr. Charles Hodge, 
 for whom he had long cherished an ardent admira- 
 tion, and whom, as the years went on, he regarded 
 with an affection that was allied to reverence. He 
 continued to write for the Princeton Review ; was, 
 probably, its largest contributor, and became, in 
 1 869, its virtual and responsible editor. Then when, 
 at the reunion of the churches in 1872, that period- 
 ical was amalgamated with the American Quarterly, 
 he was joint editor with Dr. Henry B. Smith, of 
 the Union Seminary, New York ; but owing to the 
 feeble health of his coadjutor, the larger share of 
 the burden fell upon him, until, in 1878, t\\t Review 
 passed into other hands, and assumed the character 
 which it still maintains. In 1861 he was appointed 
 Lecturer in the Theological Seminary here, on the 
 connection between Revealed Religion and Meta- 
 physical Science, an office which he filled with mark- 
 ed ability and success for five years. In 1862 he 
 
6 ; 
 
 was successful by dint of great labor, and at the 
 cost of a serious illness, in raising an Endowment 
 Fund of $140,000 for the College, which was then 
 sorely crippled by the effect of the civil war. In 
 the estimation of almost all its friends the effort was 
 a “ forlorn hope,” but the patient energy and wise 
 persistence of Dr. Atwater made it a complete suc- 
 cess. In 1863 he was unanimously appointed by 
 the General Assembly to the Professorship of The- 
 ology in the Allegheny Seminary, but, to the joy 
 of all the friends of Princeton College, he decided 
 to remain as one of its Instructors. 
 
 In 1869, on the accession of Dr. McCosh to the 
 Presidency, he cheerfully consented to transfer the 
 subjects of Psychology and the History of Philos- 
 ophy to that eminent metaphysician, receiving in- 
 stead those of Economics and Politics, so that 
 from that date until his death he was Professor of 
 Logic, and Moral and Political Science. He took 
 an interested and important part in ecclesiastical 
 affairs, and was a member of the joint committee 
 which perfected the basis of union in which the Old 
 and New School Presbyterian churches were able to 
 come together ; and in the various Assemblies of 
 which he was a member, he was always a guiding 
 spirit, but never surely in a more appropriate place 
 than when, as in that of 1880, he was Chairman of 
 the Judieial Committee. In all these ways, but es- 
 
68 
 
 pecially through the pages of the Princeton Review, 
 which was so powerful in impressing the opinions 
 of its conductors on those whose province it is to 
 teach others, and through these upon the Church 
 and the world, his influence was widely exerted, not 
 only on theological, but on philosophical, ethical, 
 and social subjects. 
 
 But these outside labors, large as they were, were 
 but the overflow of a life that otherwise was full. 
 They were but the accessories and incidental ac- 
 companiments of his main business. That business 
 was the work of an Educator, and therein he was 
 pre-eminent. Few men have been more successful 
 than he was, in training thinkers. He impressed 
 all his pupils with his perfect mastery of the sub- 
 jects with which he had to deal. They admired the 
 clearness of his expositions ; the fairness with which 
 he stated the opinions of those from whom he 
 differed ; the absolute impartiality with which he 
 criticised the views of others ; and the candid spirit 
 in which he advanced his own. He would not do 
 their thinking for his students ; but he furnished 
 them with the needful data, and then encouraged 
 them to form their own opinions while he stood by 
 ready to guide them in the effort. They felt, more- 
 over, that he understood not only his subjects, but 
 his students. He never forgot that he had once 
 been a young man himself, and he could put him- 
 
69 
 
 self back into the place of an undergraduate and 
 look at things from his point of view, with greater 
 ease and accuracy than most men of his age and 
 acquirements. 
 
 But all this I give on the evidence of testimony, 
 for it never was my privilege to see him in the 
 class-room, and therefore I may be pardoned for in- 
 troducing here one or two tributes, corroboratory 
 of what I have just said, which I have received from 
 some of his students. A member of the class of ’6i, 
 himself now a Theological Professor,* thus writes : 
 “ Dr. Atwater’s exceptional success as a teacher, 
 now seems to me to have been due very largely to 
 two things ; First, the force or weight of his per- 
 sonal character which compelled both respectful be- 
 havior and sustained attention from the class ; 
 and second, a power of absolute clearness in state- 
 ment and explication Besides these, his 
 
 teaching was marked by a trait which I take 
 to be a great merit, namely, that he threw himself 
 most heartily into great subjects. The doctrines of 
 immediate perception, of real as distinct from rela- 
 tive knowledge, of causation, and in moral science 
 of the absoluteness of the idea of right, and of the 
 determination of the will, were among the subjects 
 upon which in our class he placed the greatest em- 
 
 * Prof. John De Witt, D.D., Lane Seminary. 
 
70 
 
 phasis. I recall also with what interest and ability 
 he urged upon us the value and fruitfulness of for- 
 mal Logic and Metaphysics in a Lecture, in which 
 he attacked Macaulay’s opposite contention in his 
 article on Bacon.” Another,* whose sparkling let- 
 ter I would gladly give entire if time permitted, 
 speaks as follows ; “ His characteristics as a teacher 
 were these ; (i) Sympathy with the student. He 
 respected the nature of the pupil. He made him 
 feel that he was his friend. I may safely say he 
 loved the boys, and consequently they loved him. 
 They sought his advice ; they told him their troubles. 
 (2) Simplicity in the presentation of truth. His 
 mind was as clear as a bell, and his method was 
 as clear as his mind. One could not help following 
 him. He possessed in a remarkable degree the 
 power of communicating to other minds that which 
 lay in his own. (3) Suggestiveness. He gave the 
 student credit for some brains. He created an ap- 
 petite, but did not satiate it. He led the boys into 
 the path, turned them in the right direction, then 
 said. Now go on for yourselves. He removed the 
 scales from their eyes and left them to do their own 
 seeing. He understood the meaning of the word 
 Educate, and therefore his aim in the class-room 
 was not to fill our minds with his thoughts, but to 
 
 * Rev. Thomas B. McLeod, Clinton Ave. Con. Church, Brook- 
 lyn. 
 
71 
 
 awaken thought and the power of thought in us ; 
 not to impress his mind on us, but to draw out our 
 own.” Another,* says : “ In all the branches which 
 he taught he showed himself a master — always in- 
 teresting, instructive, and especially clear. His cus- 
 tom was to give us an analysis of the Lecture writ- 
 ten out on the blackboard, and the value of his 
 teaching largely lay in the perfect system to which 
 he reduced everything, so that those who ran might 
 read.” A member of the class of ’8 if has the fol- 
 lowing; “ In all his branches. Dr. Atwater’s method 
 of teaching was liberal and just. He had his own 
 well-defined opinions, which he did not hesitate to 
 affirm ; but to the student he always gave the largest 
 liberty. In the class-room, at least during more 
 recent years, the exercises often took the form of 
 free question and answer, in which the student 
 was not the only one questioned, and the more 
 formal recitation was now and then adjourned in 
 favor of an orderly and earnest discussion. There 
 was in Dr. Atwater no trace of the disposition to 
 entrap a student. A recitation with him was not an 
 opportunity to torture a youth into an exhibition of 
 all he failed to know, but one to draw out the best 
 in each man, and to bring out the underlying truths 
 of the subject to the whole class.” But these ut- 
 
 * Prof. W. B. Scott, Princeton. 
 
 t Mr. A. C. Armstrong. 
 
72 
 
 terances must suffice ; the rather as they are only 
 individual echoes of the great chorus of grateful 
 appreciation that comes from all who were privi- 
 leged to sit at Dr. Atwater’s feet. 
 
 In the government of the College his influence 
 was as marked as it was in his own class-room. No 
 member of the Faculty contributed more to the 
 peace and good order of the Institution than did 
 he, and that because he had the implicit confidence 
 alike of the students and of his fellow-professors. 
 He stood between the two, and interpreted the one 
 to the other ; nay, such was the absolute fairness of 
 his judgment, and the inherent kindliness of his heart, 
 that every student who had so far forgotten himself 
 as to make himself liable to punishment, went to 
 him for counsel, and never went in vain. As one 
 has said, “ Those who went frankly to him in 
 trouble always spoke of his unfaltering kindness and 
 sympathy. The sin was there, and he would not 
 tolerate nor palliate that ; but the wrong-doer, unless 
 hopelessly depraved, was not an object of condem- 
 nation so much as of pity and aid. He was not 
 forgetful of a young man’s heart and ways ; and he 
 could see in a young man’s thoughts all the strength 
 and truth in them, although he was incapable of 
 appreciating the peculiar principles of undergradu- 
 ate ethics.”* A touching illustration of the truth 
 
 A. C. Armstrong, class of *8i. 
 
73 
 
 of these statements came incidentally to my knowl- 
 edge, in connection with his funeral services. In 
 the crowd that stood around his open grave, there 
 was one who had come all the way from Chicago 
 to show his affection for his beloved teacher. And 
 well he might, for when the question had been be- 
 fore the Faculty whether he should be expelled or 
 not. Dr. Atwater had said : “ It is true he deserves 
 expulsion, but give the boy another chance, and 
 perhaps this may prove the turning point in his 
 career,” and the intercession had prevailed, and he 
 had taken the admonition to heart, so that he was 
 there with tears in his eyes, feeling that he owed all 
 he was to his venerable instructor. Thus for con- 
 siderably more than a quarter of a century he labored 
 at this centre of education, sending his influence 
 not only through this land, but over the world in 
 blessing, and growing in all the elements of power 
 ever unto the last ; nay, it might even be said, that 
 he was then most lovable of all, and that like the 
 sun he seemed “largest at his setting.” 
 
 Of his long last illness there is little to be said. It 
 was one of alternations ; sometimes giving promise of 
 recovery,and sometimes giving presage of dissolution; 
 but through it all, he was the same quiet, cheerful, 
 undemonstrative, humble, unselfish, always-consider- 
 ate-for-others Christian that he had been through 
 life. One characteristic circumstance, illustrating 
 
74 
 
 the ruling bent of his mind, may be given. In Oc- 
 tober, when he was first prostrated with pneumonia, 
 he would lie at times as if asleep. After his partial 
 convalescence, he said to the members of his family, 
 that when they had doubtless considered him to be 
 sleeping, he was in reality thinking with unusual 
 energy ; that his mind seemed stimulated to extra- 
 ordinary acuteness on very profound subjects, reach- 
 ing with great rapidity conclusions which in health 
 would have been arrived at only after much longer 
 thought. He added that he should like to get well 
 enough to put some of those thoughts on paper. 
 But he never recovered so far as to do that. The 
 fact is striking, not only as showing the leanings of 
 his own nature, but also as throwing at least a little 
 light on the dark mystery that enshrouds, the border- 
 land. At length, however, the darkness deepened ; 
 or let me rather say, the new day dawned — and on 
 the morning of the 17th February, 1883, his spirit 
 passed into the presence of his God. Then a few 
 days after, “ devout men carried him to his burial, 
 and made great lamentation over him.” 
 
 In seeking to estimate Dr. Atwater’s character 
 and abilities, we are struck at once with his great 
 versatility. He was not so much a man peculiarly 
 gifted in any one particular, as fully developed and 
 well rounded in a great many. His articles ranged 
 over theological, philosophical, ecclesiastical, and 
 
75 
 
 sociological subjects, some of them dealing with 
 topics so abstruse as “ the power of contrary choice,” 
 and others with matters so praetical as “ the venti- 
 lation of churches,” and in all he was at home, — 
 though if I may speak from my own judgment 
 merely, he was specially eminent in the department 
 of Political Economy, and treated questions relating 
 to curreney and commerce, money and labor, with 
 the hand of a master. As a student he was almost 
 equally great in classics, philosophy, and mathemat- 
 ics, and this early balance was maintained through 
 life. His imagination was receptive rather than 
 creative ; and the same was true of his humor. He 
 did not often make mirth, but those who heard his 
 laugh when he was thoroughly amused would not 
 soon forget its heartiness. 
 
 His industry was simply marvellous. It seems 
 to me, that for years he did the work of two or three 
 ordinary men ; and yet he was never in a hurry. 
 He did everything with deliberation, and, I may 
 add, he seemed to do everything with ease. He never 
 appeared to be making an effort. Always he gave 
 you the impression that there was in him still an 
 immense reserve of force, and that, if he chose, he 
 could bring much greater strength into play. He had 
 great practical wisdom and executive ability, and 
 could manage men and arrange details with admi- 
 rable skill. On boards and committees, at Faculty 
 

 meetings, and in ecclesiastical councils, he was al- 
 ways a host in himself, and very often, like “ the 
 willing horse,” he got the burden to carry. He was 
 pre-eminently judicial. Mark I said judicial, not 
 judicious. Your mere judicious man will set him- 
 self to dodge difficulties, but the judicial to solve 
 them. What Dr. Atwater sought was not so much 
 to avoid trouble and annoyance, as to get at that 
 which was right ; and his calm, deliberate way of 
 looking at things, enabled him to go all round a 
 case, and reach its true decision. Had he given 
 himself to the profession of the law, he would have 
 become the most eminent of judges — because his in- 
 herent love of righteousness, and his admirable com- 
 mon-sense would have brushed away all sophistry 
 and brought the truth to light. 
 
 But more magnetic than all his mental qualities was 
 his tender-heartedness. It was a true instinct that im- 
 pelled the boys to go to him when they were in per- 
 plexity, for when they took hold of his heart, they took 
 hold of his strength, and, provided they dealt frankly 
 and truthfully with him, they were sure of his help. 
 Then pervading all his other excellences and giving 
 its own tincture to them all, was his simple and sin- 
 cere piety. He was a genuine Christian, and his 
 Christianity was coextensive with his life. It lay over 
 it like the atmosphere ; it illumined it like a sun ; 
 and like these two in the natural world, it brought 
 
77 
 
 out in it all the fulness of fragrance, foliage, flower, 
 and fruit, by which it was enriched. William Arnot 
 said of his friend, James Hamilton, that he would 
 be disposed to arrange his preaching, his books, and 
 his life in the relations of good, better, and best. 
 Were I to speak similarly of Dr. Atwater as an au- 
 thor, as a professor, and as a man, it would be in 
 the same order of comparison. As an author he 
 was good, as a professor he was better, but as a ma?i 
 he was best of all. It was a happy determination 
 of the members of the class of ’83 to endow a prize 
 that shall perpetuate his name ; but it will be a 
 worthier tribute to his excellence, if they, and all 
 who have enjoyed his instructions, will set them- 
 selves to carry out the principles which he enforced 
 upon them, and to reproduce that full-orbed Chris- 
 tian manhood which he so nobly exemplified. 
 
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