unchanged, its service not yet completed.

I regard it as a great favor of Providence that I was directed to our beloved alma mater in theology."

Henry Beach Blake, '44.

"My memories of Dr. Nettleton, which are quite vivid, are of his sick bed. I was asked one vacation to spend a night with him, which I did. He seemed to take a fancy to me as a night watcher, and sent for me, often. I spent many a night with him.

"The chamber where the good man meets his fate

Is privileged beyond the common walk

Of virtuous life;—quite in the verge of heaven.'

"He slept little; talked a great deal. The scenes in which he was an actor in the great revivals through which he had passed were always very vivid, and the impressions were very vivid to me.

"His expositions of Scripture were many, incisive, original. One night we heard a cock crowing, and he said the selection of the crowing of a cock as the sign of the fall and penitence of Peter was an evidence of the Divine Wisdom of the Master. He said the common opinion that cocks crow only at certain times in the night, was erroneous. But the cock was a domestic bird among all nations, and that in all ages, to the end of time, and to the uttermost parts of the earth, lonely watchers in the silent hours would be reminded of the incident in Peter's history, and led to solemn thought upon unseen and eternal things.

"I have always deemed the impressions received from Dr. Nettleton, during the months and years he lay dying in that hallowed chamber, as among the most valued results of my theological course."

Thomas Henderson Rouse, '50, Paia, Maui, Hawaiian Islands.

"It was in the fall of '47 that I came to the old Seminary. I found it a large, lonely, four-story brick building, with a chapel beside it, on a quiet, elm-lined street, which was ankle

deep with sand for miles, overlooking the valley of the Connecticut, with its thrifty farms and waving orchards.

"The place was still and lonely. At long intervals a carriage passed or a loaded cart filed in from the meadows. The arrival of the evening stage, on its way to Broad Brook, was the stirring event of the day. Then the students turned out and the professors took their evening stroll. It was our only connection with the busy world without. It brought our papers, our new books, which were distributed from Mr. Charlton's store, with many a graceful bow, and liquid, meandering remarks of compliment or sympathy, from the gracious old gentleman. The lightning trains sped by in the far distance over the Connecticut, reached only by a lazy, rope ferry, tooted up by a tin horn.

"It was a good place to study. You had to study. There was absolutely nothing else to do. Not a sight or sound to excite or distract the mind, except the songs of the robins and meadow larks. If you did not study you would die with ennui. The carpenter's shop, where we planned out bookcases, and the garden weedy, and full of everlasting quackgrass, soon cloyed on our enterprise. I needed no outward pressure to drive me to study afterwards. The habits of quiet. investigation formed there have stuck by me.

"At 11 o'clock the bell sounded for lectures, the door of the President's mansion opened, and he moved slowly down the walk, crossed the street, and, with his manuscript under his arm, ascended to the lecture-room. He seemed at first look the embodiment of a sound and well-rounded theology, A dozen or fifteen students, often less, filed in about the same time. When all were seated, a short invocation was addressed to The greatest and best of Beings'-the doctor's peculiar phrase, and the lecture commenced. The old doctor sat in delivery. His tones at first were deep, low, and deliberate, varied with a peculiar emphasis, when he closed some ponderous sentence, as a clencher to his argument. As he proceeded he waxed more earnest, as the visions of Taylorism and the New-Light heresies, with their destructive innovations, rose to view between the lines of his manuscript, and the pent ener

gies fired his delivery. His face flushed, the big veins in his lofty forehead swelled to whipcords, his right arm became impatient, and his clenched hand ploughed slowly but intensely along the table, and every word seemed to weigh a solid pound, as he drove into us the good, old, biblical theology. He generally remained sitting awhile like a patriarch, inviting the confidence of his pupils, who crowded around with question or request.

"In Greek and Hebrew we had Dr. Thompson. In recitation he was tender of your crude expositions, scarcely ever directly disputing you,-and in his correction saved all he consistently could of your rendering. But the veteran professor and venerable dean is still among us, the last of the Seminary fathers,—and I forbear. I speak of him as he was thirty-six years ago, hair black and bushy, covering a grand forehead and deep-set eyes. But now the granite gray crowns that self-poised brain, solid and well in hand, while beneath is a heart true to you and true to duty. In coelum serus redeat.'

"The sweet, amiable, gentle Dr. Hooker was also a member of the faculty while I was there. In his pulpit prayers he was most tender and touching. Poor man, he knew too well how to enter into some of life's deepest trials, for he had that greatest of sorrows, a wife insane. In his addresses at a throne of grace there always came, in tones of touching tenderness, the petition for those 'That had diseases of the mind.' From this source there came sorrow upon sorrow. There was living with him at East Windsor a daughter; tall, beautiful, accomplished,—a very angel with infolded wings, of a spirit so devoted and tender, heavenly and sad withal, that her walk among us was like some superior being, the shadow of whose coming and going filled us with a kind of awe. She had spoken of herself as a shadow on her home, and other expressions of deep despondency, when like a shock and a deep shadow indeed, the news came on a dark winter morning, bitter cold, that she was missing. The searchers traced her footsteps to the frozen river. From under the ice they drew her lifeless form, carried it to the home she had graced,

and from thence to its last resting-place. Well might that father say, 'There are no sorrows like unto my sorrows.' We all felt so, in our weak faith. But he, so nearly sanctified, only drew nearer to the side of God, like a child fully weaned, saying, 'My Father, Thy will be done.'

"Next to the professors about the old Seminary, we oftenest saw that careful, shrewd, conscientious old Yankee farmer, Deacon Ellsworth, lay defender of the faith. There was always a sly, watchful, half suspicious, yet genial smile on his honest face, as he came looking about the halls and buildings, as though he loved his boys dearly, yet thought they would bear watching,-were not wholly lifted above the liability to sins, of carelessness, at least; and I think that was the case. He frowned a little when he found the doors slamming in the wind, the blinds shattering themselves against the brick walls, the gates going to pieces, and the tools lost from the work-shop, and other indications of a general heedlessness. Precious old Seminary sentinel! His carefulness taught us care and economy, and how to combine shrewdness with thrift, and, when he died, a pang came over us that we had not been more careful of the sacred pence committed to his keeping. 'A faithful man who can find.' Oh! Psalmist, if you had lived in these latter days, and had known Deacon Ellsworth, you need not have despaired."

Robert Dexter Miller, '52, West Hartford, Vt.

Dr. Bennett Tyler always appears in the foreground of my recollections.

"At the close of our graduating exercises he happened to meet a number of students, gathered in front of the Seminary buildings, and was somehow led into giving us a short sketch of his life. He said, after nineteen years of earnest devotion to the interests of this new enterprise, that he had never had a doubt of its having been the way of duty for him to leave the large, united, prosperous church in Portland, and take and hold the place he has since occupied ;-a place of comparative difficulty, discouragement, and apparent

uncertainty. I well recall how happy the great, good man seemed to be.

“Prof. Gale, our Professor in Ecclesiastical History, who of us has ever felt like saying anything but good of him, so genial, companionable, and helpful? Those many practical suggestions of his on subjects pertaining to the gospel minister's office-work, given so pleasantly in off-hand lecture-room talks; who that enjoyed them has forgotten them, or failed of making them largely profitable as a pastor in doing wisely and effectively the duties of that high calling?"

William Brown Lee, '53.

"I remember that one day in the early fall of 1850, I took an old rattle-to-bang stage at the American hotel in Hartford, and went to East Windsor. I was landed on the sidewalk with my trunks, in front of the old Seminary buildings, and came very near to getting into a muddle with the stagedriver, because he would not take my trunks to my room. That driver was a citizen of East Windsor, and knew, and carefully maintained, and defended his accustomed rights. While I was musing on the steps a huge form came rolling across the street from the president's house, and soon the genial Dr. Tyler grasped me by the hand and gave me a warm welcome. The Rev. Dr. Thompson soon called on me, and in his gentle manner and kind spirit, made me begin to feel very much at home. I called Dr. Tyler, Paul; and Dr. Thompson, John; appellations which my fellow-students will remember cleaved to our beloved professors.

"I had purposed to stay in East Windsor only a single year, and then go to Princeton; but got so in love with Tyler, and Thompson, and Gale, and Lawrence, and Hooker, that I abandoned the plan of going away. We cast the world behind our backs, and let it wag in its own way, while we gave ourselves to study and to prayer; to discussions, to lectures and debates; to cutting and splitting our own wood; to gardening in the large and beautiful garden back of the Seminary; and to mechanical pursuits in