"Kind and generous Sirs, it is with the greatest reluctance that we are now all obliged to bid adieu to you, our dearest friends. Fain would we ask you longer to tarry--but it is otherwise determined, and we must comply. Accept then our sincerest thanks, as some poor return for your disinterested zeal in Linonia's cause, and your unwearied pains to suppress her opposers.... Be assured that we shall be spirited in Linonia's cause and with steadiness and resolution strive to make her shine with unparalleled luster.... Be assured that your memory will always be very dear to us; that though hundreds of miles should interfere, you will always be attended with our best wishes. "May Providence protect you in all your ways, and may you have prosperity in all your undertakings! May you live long and happily, and at last die satisfied with the pleasures of this world, and go hence to that world where joys shall never cease, and pleasures never end! Dear Gentlemen, farewell!" Not only in speeches but also in deeds Hale proved his love for Linonia. He is said to have contributed some of his own books to the library of the Society, and to have coöperated with Timothy Dwight and James Hillhouse in promoting its growth. In time the library owned more than thirteen thousand volumes. These three Linonians were always considered its real founders, and were so honored at the Society's centennial anniversary on July 27, 1853. Timothy Dwight, the first of that name to be president of Yale College, was, like Nathan Hale, a descendant of Elder Strong who founded Northampton, Massachusetts. Dwight graduated in 1769, the year Hale entered college. He then became a tutor and was a personal friend of Hale's. He was a teacher of extraordinary power and was made president of Yale in 1795. He was one of the most remarkable men of his time, molding the moral and religious, as well as intellectual, character of the college so that his influence extended not only over the whole state but, to a great degree, over the whole United States. He was a fine illustration of the great abilities that centered in so many of the leading families of the colonists. Such connections as this man add even a higher luster to the genealogy of Elizabeth Strong Hale, and lessen our wonder that a son of hers, while hardly more than a boy, could face the duty and calmly accept the responsibility that he felt rested upon him. As may easily be inferred, the Hale boys, Enoch and Nathan, were not forgotten by their home friends while making honorable records in college, and forming pleasant friendships outside the college walls--then the happy lot of all the best men in college--among the cultured families of what was then a small New England city.