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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

MEMORIAL ADDRESS

BY

Prof. TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D.D.,
Delivered October 22, 1882, in Norwieh, Conn.,
IN MEMORY OF
Rev. ALVAN BOND, D.D.,
Pastor Second Congregational Church, Norwich, Conn., 1835 — 1864."
Died July 10, 1882, in the goth year of his age.

" The memory of the just is blessed"
Proverbs x, 7.

^\N a beautiful afternoon of the last summer, as the
^-^ sun was drawing near the western horizon, there
was carried to his burial a man who had lived in this
community for many years, and had gained for himself
the respect and love of all the residents of the town.
Old and young alike had learned to honor him as one
who, having done a good work in the world, was passing
in a most peaceful and Christian way through the calm
evening of his long career. When the tidings of his
death were borne from house to house, the feeling of
every mind was that the city was poorer because of his
departure, and that the home of all goodness beyond the
veil had received into itself one worthy of its society and
its blessings. As the solemn rites were celebrated and
his mortal part was laid in the grave, the pastors of these
churches and many Christian brethren here stood to
gether in sympathy as a band of mourning friends, in
sorrow that the hour had come when the old man of
ninety years was obliged to say his farewell word in his
earthly dwelling. A link which had bound the present

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to the past history of the place seemed to have been
broken ; a man who carried the thoughts of children
back to their fathers and even their grandfathers had
passed away ; the life which had been in its maturity and
advancing years a service of faithful devotion to the
good cause, and in its later portion, like a benediction to
all who came within its influence, was to be hereafter
only a memory — but the memory was to be a blessing
for many hearts.
But the tidings of the death of such a man do not
affect those alone who are his fellow-citizens in his later
life; they go out to a wide circle in the regions beyond.
There are, scattered over our own country and even in
foreign lands, many whose early recollections gather
about this place as the home of their childhood ; many
to whom the hills and streets are familiar as the faces of
old friends, even though they are rarely able to return
here, or, when they do return, they see scarcely any still
remaining whom in the former days they knew. As
their thoughts have, from time to time hitherto, rested
upon the scenes of the past, they have found, amid all
the changes, one well-remembered and revered friend of
whom they could all speak with pleasure as interested in
themselves. To us whose birthright is in this beautiful
town, but whose residence is elsewhere, no less than to
those whose present active life is within its limits, the

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man of ninety years was one of the fathers who had
taught us, and whose doctrine and Christian living had
pointed us heavenward. We found, so long as he lived,
that something of the old life remained ; that, whoever
else had departed to the unseen world, the preacher of
the gospel whom we used to hear was still alive. But,
when he died, we seemed to ourselves to be set at a
farther remove from the early home than we were before.
As one of this company of the sons of Norwich
whose active life, in the ordering of Providence, has
been assigned to another place, I have felt an impulse
to come here for a day, and to ask of your pastor the
privilege of saying in this house a few words, in testi
mony to what the younger generation have cherished in
their remembrance of the friend whom we all honor for
his good works. I trust that those who saw his daily
living in the later years will not deem the hour of this
Sunday morning misspent, if they listen kindly to a few
words from a stranger to most of themselves, but not a
stranger to the preacher and pastor who was buried on
that summer afternoon of which we have spoken.
Dr. Alvan Bond came to this city, to enter upon
the pastorate of this church of Christ, in the year 1835.
My own memory reaches back to that time, but I was
still in the earliest part of my childhood, and hence my

recollection of him as a man dates only from a consider
ably later day. He seemed to us, who were boys then,
like a person in advanced life, and indeed he was not
very much younger than we are now. He had already
had experience of several years in the ministry, and had
occupied a chair of instruction in a theological semi
nary. He was, thus, in the fullness and vigor of his
powers. How little we thought that, when we should
have come to be as old as he was, he would be still in
life, seeing the results of his labors ! But God granted
to him what is given to few men — to have knowledge
of the children, not only as they were growing up to
maturity and entering upon their career, but even as
they passed far along in the course. He rejoiced heart
ily, as I think, in whatever success we — any of us — at
tained, and with something of a kind of parental pride.
In his closing years he kept in mind the young men
who had gone forth from his Christian teaching, feeling
that he had a personal share in all that they were doing.
No wonder if we all, in our turn, thought kindly of him.
As a preacher, Dr. Bond belonged to his own -gener
ation. He had nothing of the hardness and dryness of
the close of the last century and the earlier years of the
present one. He had come under the influences of the
time, which had brought the gospel nearer to men's
daily life, and were working out the results of great

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revivals. He taught the truth simply, with clearness of
presentation and earnestness of conviction. He was not
an imaginative writer, and yet his discourses had, to
gether with the unfolding of doctrine, such illustration as
he deemed sufficient to give them their due effect upon
the hearer's mind. No one, who listened to him from
Sabbath to Sabbath, could fail to feel that his one desire
was to bring his people to the true life in Christ, and
to show them the way to heaven. He was a thorough
believer in the Christian teaching as it had come down
to him from the fathers, yet as influenced by the right
thinking of his own day. The doubts and questionings
of more recent years did not affect his mind, as, indeed,
they did not the minds of any of his brethren in the
ministry at that period. And yet Dr. Bond was a
scholar. He had taught students in theology how to in
terpret the Scriptures, and had gained for himself a spirit
of investigation which he never lost to his latest hour.
He was not a man who feared to open his mind to new
light. . He believed that, as the generations went on,
men might get a clearer and fuller apprehension of di
vine truth. He would not look backward only, but
forward also. I well remember how, only two years
ago, when I sent him a copy of the new Revision of
the English Version of the New Testament, on the day
of its publication, he said to me, in his letter acknowl-

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edging it, that he welcomed the new book because he
had long felt that the old version could be greatly im
proved, and that he had been long looking for the time
when the work should be done. In the years gone by,
when many other men were not ready for such an un
dertaking, his scholarly mind had appreciated the needs
of the Church. And so, from the beginning to the end,
he was a student of the Bible, keeping his thoughts
awake, and his soul ready for new illumination, wherever
God might give it. But he had no speculations which
carried him away from the simplicity of the gospel as
he had learned it in his earlier life. He preached it,
therefore, as he believed it, and no one was in doubt
what he thought. He was an ambassador to men on a
solemn mission, to tell them of their immortal needs,
and to tell them of the great deliverance from eternal
death through the interceding work of Jesus Christ.
He told his message affectionately, yet seriously, with a
deep sense of the tremendous issues of the future, on the
one hand, and of the wonderful love of God in redemp
tion, on the other. He was faithful to his duty— so we all
would testify — being instant in season and out of season,
reproving, rebuking, exhorting, encouraging, with all long-
suffering. He sowed the seed on every side, and waited
patiently and trustfully for the fruit. The fruit came
to maturity sometimes in the beginning, but sometimes

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in a far-distant day and in some remote place. Perhaps
the knowledge of it did not, in every case, come to his
mind until his long life was ended. But he knew
whose commission he bore, and he believed that at the
last all his labors would be accepted, and would be seen
to have been working put the Divine plan. He would
never, therefore, be discouraged, but always hopeful.
Such he was as he came to this place, almost fifty
years ago, for his work as a preacher of the gospel, and
such he continued to be until he laid down his office.
Who can estimate the extent of his influence for good,
here and elsewhere, during his long period of service ? — I
say here and elsewhere, for the influence which started
from this pulpit, on those Sabbath-days of the past, has
been working through other lives, and upon still other
lives, from boundary to boundary of this great nation.
We know where influence begins oftentimes, but we
can not tell where it ends. And every influence of his
preaching was to the end of Christian living. The
stranger, who returns hither for a day, and recalls the
life of his old home as it was in the years gone by, can
not but think of the good man who used to speak of
Christ here ; and, as he thinks of him, he can only say
to himself, " He was, indeed, a good man, striving always
to do good to his fellow-men, desirous always to do
good to me." He cannot but utter a benediction on

IO
the preacher's memory, and, in his doing so, bear testi
mony (unconsciously to himself even, it may be) to the
preacher's influence. The man of ninety years did not
go home to heaven at the end of his pilgrimage with
out carrying some part of his reward with him, in the
witness of many hearts to his loving helpfulness, and of
many lives to what he had accomplished by his words
and his prayers for them.
As a man, Dr. Bond was, in the early days, as he
was afterwards, serious, with that sober-mindedness which
the apostle sets forth as the characteristic of the true
minister of the Word. To all who saw him as he
walked the streets, he exhibited the Christian faith as it
affects even the outward appearance of the man who
possesses it in his heart. There was, indeed, no morose-
ness in him, and none of that awful solemnity which
makes life seem a gloomy thing to children, and which
is opposed to all the joyous conception of Christian
living given us in the New Testament. He seemed,
only what he was, a man who knew that the years here
took hold upon the years hereafter, and therefore knew
that the earthly living had a deep meaning. He was,
also, according to the apostle's rule, temperate, with that
self-control which held his entire being under his own
command — the scriptural idea of the word. He was
just in his dealings with men, and holy in his life before

II
God. No one among his townsmen has ever remem
bered anything unfair or selfish in his career here ; no
one doubts for a moment that his inner life was sincere,
truthful, consecrated to Christ, in constant communion
with him. He was a faithful servant of the church to
which he ministered in holy things, seeking not theirs,
but them. He was not contentious, or self-willed, or
soon angry, but gentle, and ready ever to be a peace
maker. He was not a lover of money, or greedy of
filthy lucre ; but, on the other hand, was a lover of good,
willing to help in every worthy undertaking and every
wise Christian effort. He was, as the pastors of our
New England churches have generally been, given to
hospitality, and disposed to minister, according to his
ability, to the necessities of the saints. He had, if any
man in the church here ever had, a good report of them
which are without, and good testimony from them. He
was a calm, wise, judicious, blameless man, living among
his fellow-men without reproach ; one fitted to desire the
office of a bishop, and equally fitted for the good work
which appertains to it.
Dr. Bond was a man of a true and pure spirit. He
was kindly, sympathetic, tender in his feeling, with a
loving heart for all men. He had, indeed, a certain
diffidence, which sometimes prevented his showing all
that he felt ; but even children knew that he desired

12
nothing but their truest happiness. They did not ques
tion the genuineness of his character, and hence his
words came to their minds with the power of sincerity.
His daily walk was to them, as to their elders, a con
tinual testimony to the truth.
Dr. Bond was a lover of peace. He was by nature
conservative and quietly-disposed. For this reason, he
was not adapted to be an energetic leader in new move
ments. To hasten slowly was, according to the ancient
maxim, the better way, to his view. But he never stood
immovably in the way of forward progress, as some men
do. As, in the movement of things before the recent
civil war, he was willing to try every means of concili
ation possible, in order to avoid the calamity of war,
but, when the conflict proved to be inevitable, he was
found advocating, with no uncertain voice, the cause of
truth and liberty ; so it was in all his course. He did
not think that it was desirable to throw the community
into excitement and strife because of every evil which
might exist, or even might continue for a while. He
was willing to wait the favorable moment for action, and
to exercise all patience, if need were, that the minds of
slow-thinking and slow-moving men might be convinced.
Doubtless, in some cases, the good cause loses because
the battle with wrong is deferred. But we see instances
enough in human life to show us that the losses are not

13
always due to the peace-makers, or to those who are ready
to sacrifice much for the sake of peace. We are apt to
forget how great an influence for the public welfare, as
well as for private interests, a calm, well-balanced, even-
living, pacific, serene man exerts, by his orderly, quiet
course — always known to be on the side of righteous
ness, and yet never rushing into conflict, so long as there
is hope that conflict may prove to be unnecessary.
The Church needs heroic leaders, but it also needs, and
in an equal degree, men whose testimony is given in the
more tranquil mood. There is an honorable conserva
tism, as truly as there is an honorable progressiveness ;
and the world would get on but poorly without either.
The friend whom we are thinking of to-day was always
a lover of the right, and always in his place among the
people of God. But he was never in the rush of ex
citement, or apparently in fear that the cause would fail
if the armies were not mustered at once. He possessed
his soul in quietness, and looked for the kingdom of
peace. Dr. Bond had, also, something of the peculiar quiet
of the scholar's life, which meets the scholar's taste.
He did not seek the public honors of the world, as
some men do — even some men who have a most worthy
ambition. Those who are in love with learning, gener
ally, do not find their minds and hearts going out after

H
such rewards. The retirement of their own dwellings
and the work of their own peculiar sphere fill their de
sires. They move on with little noise, therefore, and
caring little how widely the great world hears of them.
They abide within themselves very much, and within the
circle of friends, and of those around them, to whom
they are appointed to do good. In his earlier life, as
has been already said, Dr. Bond had been engaged di
rectly in the field of Christian scholarship ; and, though
his parish duties called him away from this distinctive
work to a large extent, he never lost his early habits or
his early love. The calm evenness of his life, through
all his long career, was owing partly, we may believe, to
this cause.
I am not trying to give a full review of the life of
this revered friend of ours, or a full representation of his
character or mind. To do this would be the appropriate
work for another, rather than myself. I only speak of
some things which impressed even the younger mem
bers of his congregation in the years gone by, or which,
half impressing them then — as children get thoughts of
those much older than themselves — came, as they saw
him or thought of him afterward, to be a part of their
estimate of the man. In this serene, unruffled, and yet
'faithful way, he seemed to us, who saw him only occa-

i5
sionally, to move forward through his advancing life,
until the drawing on of threescore years and ten re
minded him that the period for active work was near its
end. I know of no instance in the ministerial history
of Connecticut where there has been more Christian
dignity, or more gracefulness and fitness of Christian
action in the closing years, than he manifested in the
manner of his laying down his office. It is hard for a
man who finds the number of his years admonishing .
him that he is old, and who yet feels himself competent
to do what he has always done, voluntarily to give up
his position, and see another assume the place which he
has held. Of all gifts, the gift of resigning when old
age comes is, perhaps, the rarest among men. And
hence it is that many men, whose lives have been useful
up to the closing period, become a burden and injury,
for the reason that they outlive their energy or their
wisdom, or pass their declining years in moroseness and
bitterness because others cannot look upon them as they
once did. How many men have a melancholy ending
of their day for this reason, although its beginning and
its noon were bright with promise and achievement.
But Dr. Bond knew how to grow old as gracefully as
he had lived before. He knew how to make the peace-
fulness of the evening as beautiful as the work of the^
noon and of the afternoon hours had been, or could

i6
have been, in their season. When he saw that the time
had come, he was ready to meet it, and to act with
calmness and with wisdom. He said to his people — as
I may give the substance of his thought and feeling in
my own words — I have labored with you for many
years, but now I am getting far on in life, and it is
better for you that my work should be laid aside, and
that another and a younger man should take it. Do not
, ask him to be an assistant, or even a colleague ; it is
wiser to give him the whole duty and responsibility of
the pastoral office, while you suffer me to retire alto
gether and take my place in the pews as one of your
selves. I am sorry for many reasons to lay down my
charge, with all its pleasures and labors — how could it
be otherwise ? — but we may still do good to one another.
I am to live among you hereafter, as I have done, and
you may call upon me for any service which our old
association and affection may suggest. My sympathy
will be with you in your joys and your sorrows, in your
busy life and in your times of rest. I would have you
think of me still as the pastor of former days, who
buried your fathers, as they were called away from
earth, and baptized your children, as they began their
life ; who joined you in marriage and sought the bless
ing of Heaven upon your opening home, or, in the hour
when the great change of life's purpose and principle

i7
came to you, received you into the fellowship of God's
people. For every kindly feeling on your part I shall
be grateful, but be assured that there will be no jealousy
in me as related to your new pastor. Whoever may
please you will please me. I shall sustain him with all
my heart. I shall be to him, so far as I have power,
what I could wish him to be to me, if I were in his
place and he in mine. The day of my life among you
has been a golden day ; let not its sunset hour be dark
ened by a single cloud — let not the stars of its evening,
if God shall grant the evening to me, lose anything of
their brightness and glory.
It was thus that he went away from the pulpit which
he had occupied so long, with a benediction for all upon
his lips and a prayer for all in his heart. The sunset
came and the evening followed. How long that even
ing was to continue he little dreamed ; but the stars
were never darkened to the very end, and there were no
clouds. The church and the community alike attended
him from year to year with undiminished affection, and
his old age was serenity itself. I have often thought
that these his closing years read a lesson as impressive
and powerful as any which he could have taught during
his active life. Surely such a living from seventy to
ninety tells all who witness it or know of it much of
the hope, and faith, and love, much of the righteousness

i8
and peace, much of the glory and beauty, of the Chris
tian religion. And this community and this church have
a rich inheritance in such a life lived among them and
before them. It was fitting that he should have gone
away to his other home on a beautiful summer day —
that he should have been laid in his grave as the sun
was moving towards the western hills.
We look beyond the evening here, and we cannot
help asking, What was the dawn ? Who can doubt
that a brighter than earthly day followed, and that he
lives now in the heavenly peace ? There is a great
company in the other life to whom he was no stranger.
He had seen three generations of men here, in this
town, to many of whom he had often spoken the words
of truth. To many among them his presentation of
the Divine message had been effectual unto salvation.
What must have been their joy in meeting him once
more ; what, we may say with even more emphasis, must
have been his joy in meeting them ! This is the Chris
tian pastor's peculiar reward — his compensation for every
effort and every trial.
In our Father's house there are many mansions. As
our friends pass away from our sight, the thought of
the heavenly life varies, according to the special features
of their Christian character, as we have noticed them in

x9
the past. When we think of the friend of whom we
are speaking to-day, and of his entrance into heaven, we
do not call to mind so much the rest of victory after
the heat of battle or strife, or the satisfying reward of
the heroic leader in the great reform movements in so
ciety, but rather of the " Well done, good and faithful
servant," which comes to him who does his Christian
work as a pastor in the field where God has placed
him, beseeching all men there to be reconciled to their
heavenly Father, and winning them by the gospel mes
sage to the discipleship of Christ. Like the beloved
apostle, we can think of him as reclining upon the Sav
iour's bosom, and rejoicing in his love.
There is something very deeply interesting in the
contemplation of a life which lengthens out its course so
far beyond the ordinary limits of seventy years, and
which, therefore, as the mind continues active and
awake, sees much more than ordinary men are permitted
to see in this world. In the same way, there is a pecul
iar interest in thinking of the passing of such a man
into the life beyond the veil. It seems as if he might
bear testimonies with him from the younger generations
to the older, and thus bind the long-since departed ones
and the living together. At the least, when such a
man dies, we cannot but imagine him as coming into
fellowship with those whom we knew so well in former

20
years, and who knew him so well also ; and thus we
seem to ourselves to be brought nearer to the fathers
and mothers, and the elder friends, who once made this
place so full of life and love to us, but whose absence
now changes it so greatly to our thought, leaving only
the hills to remind us of the days gone by. When the
life which the man himself has led has been filled with
good, and when the messages which he bears with him
are messages only of good, the passing away and the
meeting also must be joyful indeed. Our venerated
friend, whose memory has come back to us once more
this morning, carried with him the consciousness of fin
ished work, all in the line of Christian service, we doubt
not. We hope that he carried with him, also, the testi
mony to the fathers, who sent us on our way with their
influence and their blessing, that we were, with some
degree of faithfulness, doing our duty and helping on
the cause of truth in our generation. We may have
confidence that he bore the best tidings that he could,
for he had the most loving wishes for us all, and he was
always ready to believe and to hope good in the case of
those whom he had ever numbered among the people of
his charge. May it be ours not to disappoint his hopes, or
the hopes of the fathers and mothers who committed us
to God when they left this world, and desired for us,
above all things else, that we might live the true life !

21
And so I come to the end of what I proposed to
myself — not to eulogize our honored friend in any
formal and full discourse, but only to bear testimony to
my own kindly regard for the old pastor of my child
hood, whose calm and serene old age has seemed to me
so worthy of a Christian, and to voice, as it were, the
affectionate sentiment which the children of the earlier
days of his ministry have carried in their hearts, as they
have heard from time to time of his peaceful journey
toward the end :
" How blest the righteous when he dies ;
When sinks a weary soul to rest,
How mildly beam the closing eyes,
How gently heaves the expiring breast !
" So fades a summer cloud away ;
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er ;
So gently shuts the eye of day ;
So dies a wave along the shore.
" A holy quiet reigns around,
A calm which life nor death destroys ;
And naught disturbs that peace profound
Which his unfettered'soul enjoys.
" Life's labor done, as sinks the clay,
Light from its load the spirit flies,
While heaven and earth combine to say,
' How blest the righteous when he dies ! ' "

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And now, as we finish our speaking together, and
leave the good man in his peaceful rest, what is our
thought but this — that the memory of the just is, in
deed, blessed; the thought which was written in that
wonderful book of the Old Testament long ages ago,
and to which time, as it moves on its course, is ever
bearing witness. A new testimony to the truth is given
in this city and in this church.

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