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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (March 14, 1900)
Vo.. 1s Ne 4 NEW HAVE N, CONN., WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 1900. EDWARD JOHN PHELPS. Tribute of Ex-President to the Late Kent Professor of Law— The Services. Yale paid tribute to the character and work of the late Professor Edward J. Phelps at the funeral services held in Battell Chapel, Sunday, March 11, at three in the afternoon. The services which were largely attended by both THE LATE EDWARD J. PHELPS. students and members of the faculties, were conducted by Dr. Theodore Munger, Yale 51, pastor of the United Church of New Haven and member of the Yale Corporation, and a personal friend of Professor Phelps. The ad- dress, which is reproduced in full below, was by ex-President Dwight, who spoke most feeling and appreciatively, out of the memories of long and intimate asso- ciation. The casket was borne into the Chapel on the shoulders of eight Seniors—J. P. Brock, R. J. Schweppe, G. W. Sim- mons, G. H. Hubbell, M. B. Brainard, L. B. Barbour, H. Boocock and T. B. Clarke. The honorary pall bearers were President Hadley, Dean Wayland, Judge S. E. Baldwin, Prof. W. G. Sumner, Prof. Weir, ex-Governor Ingersoll, General McCullough and Mr. Whitt- ridge of New York. After the College choir had sung “Lead, Kindly Light,” Dr. Munger read the Ninetieth and Twenty-third Psalms and passages from the Twenty-first and Twenty-second chapters of Revelation. He then offered prayer as follows: The Prayer. O Thou in whom we live and move and have our: being, our Father and our God, in this supreme moment of life we turn to Thee for Thou hast made us and Thou wilt not torsake the work - of Thy hands. In the weakness of our finite hearts, we cast ourselves into Thy eternal hands, praying that Thou wouldst impart unto us Thine own peace and strength. Lift us, we beseech thee, above the dark semblances of death, and give unto us instead a vision of Him who brought life and immortality to light. Teach us that because He lives, we shall live also, even though we die. In the fullness of his years, thou hast called Thy servant away from the world to Thy more immediate presence on high. And now that he has gone to Thee having fulfilled his calling as Thy ser- vant in the affairs of men, we beseech Thee that he may rest from the suffer- ings of this earthly life, and may share in Thine own eternal peace. Grant also, we pray Thee, that those most afflicted by Thy Hand, may have the consolations of Thy sustaining grace, and while they humbly say “Thy will be done,” may they rejoice that he is now forever with the Lord, and that the time is short until the daybreak and the shadows flee away. At evening time let there be light, and peace and hope and clear vision of the world beyond. We pray Thee, O God, that Thy bless. ing may rest upon the University, where so long Thy servant has taught those under his care to fear Thy Name in keeping Thy commandments of truth and justice; and may the bright example of his spotless character, and his unsul- lied patriotism, and the honor that no temptation could touch, remain with them to guide and inspire and uplift. And let Thy blessing rest also, we beseech Thee, upon our country whose trusted servant he was; and also upon the nation whither he went on high errands of peace and good will; and grant that these nations may ever abide in peace, and together strive for the glory and honor of Thy name in all the earth. O God, Thou God of our Fathers, and of all men, our hope and our trust is in Thee. One generation passeth away, and another cometh, but Thou art from ever- lasting to everlasting, and Thou changest not. We praise and bless Thy name that, though we perish from the earth, and go hence, we live evermore unto Thee, andso live not in vain here below. Grant that in the solemnity and grief of this hour our hearts may be lifted up within us, and that with joy and hope we may say: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, that they may rest from their labors, for their works do follow them. Amen. After the hymn, “Abide with Me,” President Dwight made the address as follows: President Dwight’s Address. This is an hour of farewell—when the final word of affection and kindly esteem has just been spoken and the turning away from the parting scene becomes, in a certain sense, for all a new begin- ning of life’s movement. This is a meeting of a brotherhood and a friendly company, from which one of the oldest and most highly honored members has just been called away to other associa- tions and a larger sphere of action, while the minds of those who remain behind, as they look out as it were upon the wide sea and the unknown land beyond it, turn alike to the past and to the future. A beautiful vision rises before them, though it seems so far away from present experience that they cannot pene- trate its mystery or comprehend what it would reveal in the richness of its de- tails. A pleasant memory lifts the old life again into fresh reality and brings with itself happy thoughts which turn, as they think them, into great, wide- reaching hopes. The friendly company, as all are fully conscious, has lost out of itself the personal presence of one of the membership, with whatever of enjoyment or of blessing that presence could give; but it still has in its pos- session the results, the influence, the ele- vating power of the life which has been lived within it, together with the con- fidence in the future which such a life must awaken. What are the words which, at a time like this, such a brotherhood would most fitly—and most in accordance with the natural sentiment of the hour—say among themselves, each one to his fel- low, concerning the one who had gone forth to a new dwelling-place and to new. duties. They would be words, I think, not of formal eulogy, or of careful, discriminating measurement of charac- ter or work, or of a detailed and com- plete estimate of manhood. All these may well be spoken. The life is worthy of them ‘and calls for them. But they befit another hour and another meeting, when there is less all-centering and all- controlling thought of the brotherhood and its loss, and less of closeness to the separation and farewell. ‘We turn away from the honored or beloved friend who is just leaving us for another land, or for the other world, with a thought and a word of the man as we knew him, of the gifts of good that have come from him, of the life that has reached its end, of the great future before us all. Such words I would try to say briefly and affectionately, as I am permitted to - give some expression to the feeling of the friendly company and of the hour. THE MAN. The man as we knew him. He re- vealed himself differently, no doubt, to different men among us, and much more fully to some than to others. This is the inevitable law and experience of life. We see in our associates, and the sharers in the peculiar world to which we may belong, what by reason of our individual capacities or qualities we are fitted to see. We are drawn towards a common friend along varied lines, and sometimes are drawn towards him when we could not be towards one another. We can, therefore, bear witness only of what we perceive and appreciate. Moreover, by the very limitations com- mon to us all, as well as by the free choice and desire of our souls, we open the deepest part of ourselves to those whom we most deeply love. They only, therefore, can appreciate our inmost life. But as I have now the privilege of offering my testimony, I would speak of our friend as I seemed to myself to know him—and others who may have known his life more intimately will say to one another with greater fullness of emphasis what I may try to say to you all. He .. was, as 1, thmk - of :--hen,*.a man having in himself by nature and through education, the finest char- acteristics which we ask for in the mem- bership of the University brotherhood. With a strong intellect and a manly spirit—with an earnest purpose and a quiet determination to build up and build out the powers within him—with an ap- preciation of culture, and a desire to give it its most wide-reaching influence in mind and heart and outward manner —with a generosity and magnanimity which lifted the life ever above little- ness and meanness—with no wish to seem more than reality would justify— with a lofty ideal of the professional career to which he had devoted himself— he stood in our company, and among men everywhere, as a worthy example of the educated and refined scholar and of the cultured, manly man. So he appeared to me from the day of my first meeting with him even to the very end. The impression was only deepened as the years moved on. | re- joiced in his presence among us because of what I thus saw of his life; and, interested as I have always been in the true manly and scholarly development of the student community here, it has been a satisfaction to me that the successive classes of young men could see him as he came upon these grounds and could see in him so much of what a true citi- zen of our fraternity should be. The lives of men testify for themselves here, as they do everywhere, and there are men who teach a lesson of noble manhood whenever they pass along these walks or underneath these elms—a _ lesson Copyright, 1900, by Yale Alumni Weekly. - man, as well as a gentleman. Price 10 Cents. which enters silently indeed, yet with transforming and uplifting influence, into the souls of those who look upon them. The legacy which comes from such man- hood, thus manifested through the long years, is one of the richest parts of the University inheritance. HIS RULE OF LIFE. He seemed to me, as I saw him and thought of him, a manly and true man in his life and work as related to him- self. His rule of living in this regard appeared always to be, to do his work and build up his life in the professional sphere into which he was called with- out the undue thought of honors within it or beyond it. He wrought for the ends which were legitimately before him, and: left:the honors to come, or not to come, as they might or would.’ So his course was one Of straightforward man- liness, and throughout it his example was an example to be imitated by those who worked with him or followed him. The honors reached him, indeed, as the life advanced, and in a happy way and eratifying measure, but he had the satis- faction of knowing that he did not seek after them, but rather that they sought him, and of knowing also that the men who were nearest to him in the intimacy of acquaintance were fully persuaded that he merited them all. In an age like ours—indeed, it must be so in any agve—it is a pleasure’ to’ have. seen’ a genuine man, and to have witnessed a genuine life, of such a character in this regard. Our University brotherhood— our friendly company-—is blessed in hav- ing had a man of this order within the circle of its membership. HIS TEMPERAMENT. He seemed to me to be a man of large kindliness of spirit, of the gentleness of a gentleman, of a peaceful temper, of a disposition toward friendly feeling rather than toward hostility or enmity, of the qualities, in a word, which win the kindly sentiment of others, and of the character which makes old age re- tain the happiness of youth, and renders the whole of life a blessing, from its beginning to its ending. Such charac- teristics. are creative powers for a brotherhood, and in some special sense for a brotherhood of cultured men. Such characteristics, when they are recognized, carry with them an influence which is a grand inspiration for other lives—an influence which abides through the years and works to the noblest ends. But with all these qualities there was united an independence of mind and a courageous spirit which, when the inter- ests of truth or justice were involved, made him ready to speak with all bold- ness and gave to his words a fullness of energy and power. Instances of such boldness in the history of the recent years will be remembered by all—in- stances in which the strength of his courage and of his manly character be- came impressively manifest. He was a The two elements were united in their power and influence in his personality, and they accomplished for him, as they do for all men in whom they work together and harmoniously, very rich results. We like to be with such men while they live. We grieve with the sincerity of ~ sorrow when they die. AS MINISTER TO GREAT BRITAIN. The two characteristics, or elements of character, which have thus been men- tioned eminently fitted him, not only for the other spheres of duty to which he was called, but, in a peculiar sense and measure for the office, which he held for four years, as the representative of
