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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
