Recollections of a Long Life: An Autobiography — John Shaqi
Recollections of a Long Life: An AutobiographyCuyler, Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard)
Religion
Recollections of a Long Life: An Autobiography
Cuyler, Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard)
Clergy -- United States -- Biography; Cuyler, Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard), 1822-1909
Our class, which graduated in 1841, contained several members who have
since made a deep mark in church and commonwealth. Professor Archibald
Alexander Hodge was one of us. He inherited the name and much of the
power of his distinguished father. Also General Francis P. Blair, who
rendered heroic service on the battle-field. John T. Nixon brought to
the bench of the United States Court, and Edward W. Scudder brought to
the Supreme Court Bench of New Jersey, legal learning and Christian
consciences. Richard W. Walker became a distinguished man in the
Southern Confederacy. Our class sent four men to professor's chairs in
Princeton. My best beloved classmate was John T. Duffield, who, after a
half century of service as professor of mathematics in the University,
closed his noble and beneficent career on the 10th of April, 1901. I
delivered the memorial tribute to him soon afterward in the Second
Presbyterian Church in the presence of the authorities of the
University. Another intimate friend was the Hon. Amzi Dodd,
ex-chancellor of New Jersey and the ex-president of the New Jersey Life
Insurance Company. He is still a resident of that State. During the past
three-score years it has been my privilege to deliver between sixty and
seventy sermons or addresses in Princeton, either to the students of the
University or of the Theological Seminary, or to the residents of the
town. The place has become inexpressibly dear to me as a magnificent
stronghold of Christian culture and orthodox faith, on the walls of
whose institutions the smile of God gleams like the light of the
morning. O Princeton, Princeton! in the name of the thousands of thy
loyal sons, let me gratefully say, "If we forget thee, may our right
hands forget their cunning, and our tongues cleave to the roofs of our
mouths!"
CHAPTER II
GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO
_Wordsworth--Dickens--The Land of Burns, etc_.
The year after leaving college I made a visit to Europe, which, in those
days, was a notable event. As the stormy Atlantic had not yet been
carpeted by six-day steamers, I crossed in a fine new packet-ship, the
"Patrick Henry," of the Grinnell & Minturn Line. Captain Joseph C.
Delano was a gentleman of high intelligence and culture who, after he
had abandoned salt water, became an active member of the American
Association of Science. After twenty-one days under canvas and the
instructions of the captain, I learned more of nautical affairs and of
the ocean and its ways than in a dozen subsequent passages in the
steamships.
On the second morning after our arrival in Liverpool I breakfasted with
that eminent clergyman, Dr. Raffles, who boasted the possession of one
of the finest collections of autographs in England. He showed me the
signature of John Bunyan; the original manuscript of one of Sir Walter
Scott's novels; the original of Burns' poem addressed to the parasite
on a lady's bonnet, which contained the famous lines:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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