The life, writings, and character of Edward Robinson

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Presented to the

LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

SCOTT THOMPSON

THE
LIFE, WRITINGS AND CHARACTER

OF

EDWAED BOBINSON, D.D., LL.D.,

READ BEFORE THE N.I. HISTORICAL SOCIETY

BY

HENRY B. SMITH, D.D.,

AND

ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY.

NEW YORK :
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH,

BROADWAY.
1863.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1863,
By ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, foi
the Southern District of New York.

EDWARD O JENKINS.

Printer,
20 North William Street.

REMARKS

OF

PEOF. HENRY B. SMITH, D.D.,

ON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEATH OF DE. EOBINSON,

AT A MEETING OF THE NEW YOKK HISTOEI-

CAL SOCIETY, FEBEUAKY 3, 1863.

TYR. EDWARD ROBINSON, though not able
*-' to trace his lineage to the spiritual father
of the Plymouth Colony, was of Puritan des
cent and New England parentage. He was
endowed in a high degree with the mental and
moral qualities of that penetrating, frugal, la
borious, liberty -loving and God-fearing race
from which he sprung. His early advantages
were slender, but they were all well improved.
In Hamilton College he easily stood at the
head of a large class in every department of
study, though mathematics was at first his
chosen pursuit. Devoting himself to the minis
try of the Gospel, he soon found that his con
genial sphere was in the walks of sacred schol
arship rather than in the routine of pastoral
life. At Andover and in Germany, during nine
years of study, he prepared himself, with pa-

4 REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D.

tient toil, for his life's work ; and with such
sagacity and success, that the name of the
humble New England boy is now named — in
Sacred Geography, with those of Bochart, Re-
land and Hitter, in Sacred Philology, with
Gesenius and Winer. In both these branches,
as also in the editing of theological periodi
cals, and in the thorough training of a large
number of students for the sacred ministry,
his eminence is so undisputed, that no English
scholar of the present century can be said to
surpass him.

With a clear perception of the wants of the
times, he first devoted himself to the thorough
study of the original languages of the Bible.
Forty-three years have elapsed since he first
went to Andover and received a strong im
pulse from the ardent labors of Professor Stuart.
Theological controversy in New England had
already ceased to be chiefly metaphysical and
dogmatic, and had begun to centre more defi
nitely in the inquiry as to the exact sense of

REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D. 5

the Scriptural record. Sacred Philology was
revived. Stuart was impulsive, and Robinson
methodical ; the one was bold, the other exact ;
the former inspired, the latter instructed with
patient skill ; what the one began with enthusi
asm, the other perfected with elaborate care.
Luther's motto, Nulla dies sine linea — the maxim
of assiduous toil, and that other maxim of con
stant progress, Dies diem docet, which Gese-
nius put in the front of his Hebrew Lexicon,
give us the clue to Dr. Robinson's scholarship.
Such labor may be called plodding, but it is
sure ; thus alone can a thesaurus be made, a
mine for all scholars. The process is slow, but
the result is a monument, defying the tooth of
time, and above the envy of the aspirants for
fugitive applause. It is worthy of a noble am
bition, and a high reward for years of toil, to
be assured that a work has been completed to
which scholars of every communion, in many
lands, and through long years must resort, there
to learn wisdom and knowledge.

6 REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D.

I can only allude to what Dr. Robinson
achieved for the grammar of the classic Greek
and of the New Testament scriptures, by trans
lations from the German; for Hebrew lexi
cography, by his edition of Gesenius ; for sure
and careful interpretation, by various essays
and prolonged instruction ; and above all, for
the exegesis- of the New Testament, by his un-
equaled Lexicon, itself a concordance of most
of the words and a commentary on all the
more difficult passages. His Harmony of the
Gospels, too, has a high and deserved repute.
But I may add a word on the principles which
guided all his interpretations. His simple, single
aim was to give the exact sense of the sacred
writers, unprejudiced by dogmatic assumptions
or preconceived theories. As the Germans
say, he did not read between the lines, but he
read the lines themselves. He belonged to the
staid historico-philological school of exegetes
— the school of Brnesti, Winer, Gesenius, De
Wette, Tholuck, Meyer, and many other well-

REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D. 1

known philologians. He belonged to this
school without sharing the rationalizing ten
dencies of some of its adherents, for he rested
reverentially in the declarations of the Divine
Word. He had no sympathy with either mys
ticism or rationalism. He accepted revealed
mysteries without being a mystic, and he used
all the lights of reason without being a ra
tionalist. Disdaining the cheap notoriety which
may be won by exaggerating difficulties, whether
arithmetical, chronological, or geographical —
he preferred the wisdom which attempts their
explanation and harmony ; and where all was
not yet clear, he struggled faithfully for further
light. Because there are sometimes clouds in
the sky, he did not deny the sun and the stars.
And so his criticism helped his faith, and
also the faith of others. For those taught by
him were forewarned, and not to be taken un
awares by any new and adventurous display of
old and oft-answered objections. And his con
fidence was ever firm, that the more God's word

8 REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D.

is studied, the more it will be prized. He feared
not the progress of the sciences, nor any honest
research ; believing that there is no dishar
mony between what Kepler calls " the finger and
the tongue of God," his works and his word.

Geography, not less than philology, has
grown in scientific dignity in these later days.
The great Ritter has elevated it to a high posi
tion ; treating it not merely as a description of
the material structure and outlines of the earth's
surface, but also in its intimate and vital rela
tions with the whole fauna and flora of creation,
and especially as the abode of a rational race,
the arena of human history. And among all the
lands of the earth, the land of the Bible is still
the one pervaded by the most hallowed memo
ries, the theatre of the life of that wonderful
people, which has given a faith to all civilized
nations, and itself remains, dispersed all over the
earth, bearing witness to the authenticity of its
own records and confirming the prophecies of its
own Books. The land of Abraham and of

REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D. 9

Jacob, of David and Solomon, of the prophets of
the old dispensation, and of the evangelists and
apostles of the new — the land made holy by the
presence of the Son of God — will always be
sought out by the feet of pilgrims, and diligently
investigated by the student of the Divine Word.
This sacred region, sacked by the Romans and
denied by the Saracens, long remained in obscu
rity, but the irruptions of Crusaders in the mid
dle ages made it again familiar to Europe ; and
then many an ecclesiastic legend claimed to iden
tify scenes and places named in the Word of
God and the traditions of the Church. Exact
investigations were needed even after the labors
of Reland, Raumer, and Ritter. In two pro
longed visits Dr. Robinson explored with a sharp
eye and exact measurement all the most import
ant sites ; and though he could not see much
that others had reported, he certainly described
many things which they had not observed ;
though he dissipated some monastic fables and
mediaeval superstitions, he more than supplied

10 REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D.

their place by accurate descriptions and certified
results. He acted upon Cicero's rule, as applica
ble to geography as to history : Prima historice
lex est, ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri
non audeat. He substituted scientific explora
tions for legendary lore ; and his four volumes
on this subject have received from the best au
thorities the highest commendation. Unfortu
nately, the Manual, which was to digest all these
researches, is not completed. But the results of
his careful scrutiny are permanent. Here and
there, a fact or statement may be revised by fresh
explorations, but most even of the details are
secure and trustworthy. Some of his positions
have, indeed, been sharply impugned ; but Dr.
Robinson, who never sought, did not avoid con
troversy ; and he was not a comfortable antagon
ist, because he judged by weight and measure.
Hence he was seldom foiled. His works on the
Holy Land stand at the head of the literature of
this subject, not only in this country but in the
civilized world.

REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D. H

What our revered colleague was as a professor
and teacher, especially in the Union Theological
Seminary for over twenty years, is known to
more than a thousand pupils, chiefly ministers
of the Gospel, now dispersed all over our own
land, and in missionary stations afar off in the
isles of the sea and to the ends of the earth —
where his own missionary zeal so largely con
tributed in sending them. He could hardly
visit a remote land in which his hand was not
warmly grasped by a grateful scholar. Exact
and punctual himself, he expected diligence and
thoroughness in others. Every day he prepared
himself anew for his task, because every day he
was still a learner ; and, like all the great mas
ters in science and art, he knew that progress is
conditioned upon always having the elements of
learning bright and burnished for daily use.
His deep voice, sometimes strong and clear as a
bell, gave weight and emphasis to his deliberate
and clear conceptions. Now and then, having
finished the details, or when challenged by a

12 REMARK8 OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D.

special occasion, he would enter into the process
of a prolonged and luminous argument, no fact
neglected, no difficulty slurred over, which, in its
combined result, would produce a profound con
viction and impression. And the honesty and
simplicity of his nature, his evident love of truth
for its own sake, always lent solidity and gravity
to his speech.

Francis Bacon — whom royal letters patent
needlessly and vainly authorize us to call Baron
of Yerulam — tells us, that there are three kinds
of workmen : spiders, who spin all from their own
bowels ; ants, who simply collect ; bees, who
collect and work over. Dr. Robinson is to be
ranked among the latter of these classes, having
left something, well worked over, for the benefit
of mankind. He was emphatically a working
man, seduced neither by the pleasures of imagin
ation, nor by the subtleties of metaphysical re
finement. A "large roundabout common sense"
characterized all he did and said. An inflexible
honesty presided over his investigations. Of

REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D. 13

himself and his own works he rarely spoke,
unless solicited, and then briefly ; but he was
always ready to impart what he knew, that he
might increase the sum of knowledge. Attached
to the faith in which he was bred, he was never
a polemic ; he never took part in ecclesiastical
agitations ; he stood aloof from doctrinal con
troversy, and ever showed a truly catholic and
magnanimous spirit. He chose his life's work,
and did it well, faithful to the last.

In person, he was built upon a large and
even massive scale ; with broad shoulders and
muscular limbs, that denoted capacity for great
endurance and toil ; crowned with a head of
unusual volume, a broad and open forehead,
with perceptive powers predominant ; a shaggy
eye-brow, a full, bright, piercing eye, though
usually shaded through infirmity ; a firm, yet
pliant mouth ; and, altogether, giving the im
pression, even to a casual observer, of a man of
weight and mark. His garments were worn
for the sake of convenience and not of fashion.

14 REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, JD. D.

His address was frank, direct, sometimes ab
rupt and decisive. Yet his affections were
warm and deep ; lie was tenacious in his friend
ships ; and the centre of his life was in his own
home, adorned by the companionship of one,
herself well known to fame. Any unusual ex
pression of esteem or confidence would call
forth a quick, responsive emotion. Intolerant
of sentimentality, he honored all genuine feel
ing, and sympathized with whatever is noble
and manly. An honest, earnest, resolute and
self-reliant spirit, he also clung to others, and
his soul was poised in God.

In his character, habits, association, and sym
pathies, he was every whit an American, and
loved his country more, the more he knew of
other lands. He died in the midst of the perils
and darkness caused by the "weight of armies
and the shock of steel ;" but he did not doubt
the final triumph of the cause of liberty and
law. His loyalty was heightened, when trait
ors struck down our flag ; his patriotism be-

REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D. 15

came more ardent when foreigners exulted in
our anticipated ruin. Conservative by instinct,
yet deeply sharing our national instinct —
which is the love of an impartial liberty, he
slowly but surely came to identify loyalty and
liberty, and to see that our national cause is
also freedom's cause.

Through almost all his mature life he was a
sufferer from various bodily infirmities ; yet
with him, as with so many rare scholars, the
disease of the mortal frame seemed but to
stimulate the immortal energies of the soul, in
its undying aspirations after knowledge and
virtue. He labored often in pain, yet always
in hope. Growing infirmities made him more
genial, serene, and resigned ; yet still he spoke
little of himself. He lived in his work to the
last. Though almost robbed of his mortal
vision, he still spelled out to his classes the
sacred words of the Book he prized above all
others, and which gave to him an inner light.
And within three months of three-score years

16 REMARKS OF PROF. H. B. SMITH, D. D.

and ten he had finished the work given him
to do, and then he parted with that

" earthly load of Death
Called Life, which us from Life doth sever."

And upon his monument coming times will
write

Here lies an American Christian Scholar.

THE

LIFE, WRITINGS AND CHARACTER

OP

REV. EDWARD ROBINSON, D.D,,LL.D.

BEAD BEFOKE THE NEW TOKK HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

MAECH 24, 1863.

BT

ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D. D.

NOTE.

THE materials for the introductory part of the
following discourse have been drawn from the Biog
raphy of the Rev. WILLIAM ROBINSON, written by hi's
son, the Professor, and printed for private distribu
tion in 1859. Should this part of the Discourse, at
first sight, seem to be disproportionately long, the
author hopes it will be found to have its use in
throwing some light upon the character he has
undertaken to portray. R. D. H.

(18)

TN the Vatican there is a gallery, a thousand
feet in length, lined on either side with tab
lets, most of them sepulchral, taken from the
Catacombs of Rome. On the right are Pagan
tablets, chiseled with dreary, bitter, rebellious
sorrow. On the left are Christian tablets,
chiseled with tranquil resignation, trust, and
triumph. And so they stand confronting each
other : the Pagan and the Christian estimate
of death. On the one side is blind nature,
wringing her hands over an irreparable loss ;
on the other, clear-eyed faith, bending meekly
over a form not dead, but only sleeping, whose
tenant has moved joyfully away, in full assur
ance of a joyful return. On the one side there
is a passionate bewailing of hopelessly ruptured
ties ; on the other, a serene recognition of un
broken fellowship.

(19)

2 0 INTR OD UCTOR Y.

That gallery is now repeating itself in us.
Here, as there, the Pagan antedates the Chris
tian. Our first feeling is that of profoundest
and most poignant grief. For ourselves, and
for the scholarship of Christendom, we lament
a soreness of bereavement seldom equaled. A
great light, fed by the studies of half a century,
has suddenly gone out, darkening our sky, dark
ening the whole firmament of letters. Nor had
those studies fairly rounded their goal, as they
might have done in two or three years more.
The shaft that rose so steadily, has been denied
its capital. The crowning work of that busy
life, so long and eagerly revolved, so well out
lined, and so well begun, has been left, and must
remain, unfinished. The calamity is greater
than of foundered ships, and lost battles.

And yet over against our great sorrow, there
stands a greater consolation. This is no stroke
of fate, but of Providence. To such as have
lived aright it is gain to die. The service here,
without arrest or interlude, joins on to a loftier

ANCESTORS OF DR. ROBINSON. 21

service beyond the vail. Even as it regards our
selves, it may be that the departed, for all the
finer uses of fellowship, are nearer to us than
they were before. Or if there be no bond be
tween us but that of memory, at all events, they
rouse and rule us from their urns, as they never
roused or ruled us with their living tongues.
So death enriches while it robs us. It takes
away our scholars, but turns them into sages.
It takes away our Christian comrades, but turns
them into saints. It thins our ranks upon the
field, but quickens the conflict by new memories.

THE ANCESTORS OF DR. ROBINSON.

Dr. Edward Robinson, whose translation out
of life into history we are now met to celebrate,
was of the old Puritan stock of New England.
The name naturally suggests descent from the
famous John Robinson, first Pastor of the Ply
mouth Church, who led his little flock from
Scrooby, in the north of England, to Amster
dam, and from Amsterdam to Leyden, where

22 ANCESTORS OF DR. ROBINSON.

he died in 1625, and whence his widow, and,
at least, one son, four years afterwards, mi
grated to America. Such descent has, indeed,
been claimed in some branches of the family to

which our late associate belonged. But he him-

«jt
self, in a biography of his father, printed for

private distribution in 1859, sets aside this
claim, concluding his statement of the case with
the characteristic remark : " However much I
might rejoice in a rightful claim to an ancestry
so honorable, I am, nevertheless, loth to claim it
at the expense of historic truth." Quite re
cently, in 1855, it was discovered, that the Rev.
John Robinson, of Duxbury, through whom this
descent had been claimed, was of the Massachu
setts Bay, and not of the Plymouth Colony. The
earliest ancestor of the family in this country
was William Robinson, of Dorchester. The
church in this town, whose organization in Eng
land preceded the settlement of the town itself
in 1630, was entirely broken up in 1635 by the
removal of the greater portion of its members,

ANCESTORS OF DR. ROBINSON. 23

with their minister, to Windsor, in Connecti
cut. In 1636 a new church was organized,
under the ministry of Rev. Richard Mather, the
father of Increase and grandfather of Cotton
Mather, then recently arrived from Bristol, in
England. Of this new church, William Robinson
became a member in 1636 or 1637. He was,
probably, from the west of England ; but no at
tempt has been made, so far as I know, to carry
the genealogy any farther back. He was a
landed proprietor, the owner of a tide-mill still
extant in Dorchester, was once chosen Constable,
and three times Assessor, belonged to the " An
cient and Honorable" Artillery Company of
Boston, and in 1668 died a violent death, being
drawn through and torn to pieces by the cog
wheel of his mill.

His eldest son, Samuel, acquired a still larger
property, and came to higher honor amongst his
fellow-townsmen ; receiving, as few then did, the
title of Mr., and holding at different times the
offices of Assessor, Selectman, and Representative

24 ANCESTORS OF DR. ROBINSON.

to the General Court. He died in 1718, at the
age of seventy-eight.

The third in descent was Eev. John Robin
son, born in Dorchester in 1671, and graduated
at Harvard College in 1695 ; the scholarly but
eccentric minister of Duxbury, whose handsome
property, inherited from his father, enabled him
to collect a fine library, who went through the
coldest winters without a fire in his study,
preached always in a short jacket, eschewed
over-coats, had many sharp disputes with a
penurious people about his salary, finally re
signed his pastoral charge, and, after a pretty
emphatic shaking off of the dust of his feet " as
an everlasting testimony " against the " vipers,"
removed to Lebanon, in Connecticut, the resi
dence of his son-in-law, the first Governor Trum-
ball, where he spent the last six years of his life,
and died in 1745, at the age of seventy-four. His
wife was a descendant of John Alden, one of the
founders of the Plymouth Colony. The Ply
mouth separatism thus blended with the Massa-

ANCESTORS OF DR. ROBINSON. 25

chusetts Bay nonconformity in the views of the
Robinsons, as they had already blended in the
ecclesiastical life of New England.

The youngest son of this eccentric clergyman,
born in Duxbury in 1720, inherited at once the
Lebanon homestead, and his full share of the
paternal eccentricity. His name was Ichabod,
and he lived to be eighty-eight years old. By
appointment of his brother-in-law, Governor
Trumbull, then Probate Judge, he was for a
time Clerk of the Probate Court ; but, with this
exception, rose to no higher civil trust than that
of Key-keeper and Guager. He was a man of
peevish temper and queer ways, jealous of his
relatives, the Trumbulls, the terror of all mis
chievous urchins, not much loved even by his
own immediate family, and yet respected by his
neighbors, because really respectable by reason
of his intelligence and moral strictness. He
kept a store in Lebanon, buying his goods
chiefly in Boston, though sometimes importing
them from England ; and made a comfortable

26 THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON.

living by the business. Our Dr. Robinson re
membered him, as he confesses, without affection,
and yet speaks with gratitude of the use he was
permitted to make of the old gentleman's li
brary, which " contained many of the best works,
which appeared in England for the half century
prior to the American revolution." Special men
tion is made of the original edition of Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe, of the Spectator, and of the
Gentleman's Magazine, to which his grandfather
was for ten years a subscriber. We, in our turn,
must not fail to be grateful to this country mer
chant, who permitted the hungry boy to " sit in
his great arm-chair, and devour his books." We
must also pass it to his credit, that, out of a slen
der income, he managed to bestow upon two
of his sons an education at Yale College.

THE FATHER OP DR. ROBINSON.

The second son of this Ichabod, was the Rev.
William Robinson, the father of our Professor.
His mother was Lydia Brown, a woman of strong

THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON. tf

mind and energetic character, through whom
he inherited, from the Browns, great size and
strength of body, with great solidity of judg
ment. He was spared the inheritance of his
father's and grandfather's eccentricities. He
was his mother's boy, and his mother, who was
always out of bed before daylight, used to take
him with her. To this habit of early rising, thus
formed, and adhered to through life, he ascribed
no small share of his success. From the cele
brated Grammar School of Master Tisdale in
Lebanon, which, with the possible exception of
that of Master Moody in Newburyport, was then
the best school in New England, he went to Yale
College, where he was graduated in 1773.
Amongst his classmates were James Hillhouse,
afterwards United States Senator; Benjamin
Tallmadge, Member of Congress ; and Nathan
Hale, " the martyr-spy of the Revolution." One
of his tutors in college was Joseph Lyman, after
wards the Rev. Dr. Lyman of Hatfield, Massachu
setts ; between whom and himself there continued

28 THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON.

during tlicir lives the most cordial friendship.
As illustrating the commercial progress of the
nation since then, it may be worthy of mention,
that the average expenses of young Robinson
in college, were only about seventy-five dollars
a year. As indicative of his mental tone, it may
also be mentioned, that, amongst the books pur
chased by him in his senior year, were Prideaux's
Connection, Rollings Ancient History, and Rob
ertson's History of Charles the Fifth. Before
graduating, he took the Blakeley prize for decla
mation, which that year was a copy of Mill's
Septuagint ; * and when he graduated, it was
with a high reputation both for ability and
scholarship. After two years of teaching at
Windsor, he returned to New Haven, and began
to prepare for the Christian ministry, having
Timothy Dwight and Joseph Buckminster, then
tutors in the college, as his companions in

* It came into the possession of Dr. Robinson, and was
used by him to the last. On the fly-leaf of the first volume
is inscribed " Gulielmi Robinson's Munus pro dedamando" in
the handwriting, probably, of President Daggett.

THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON. 29

theological study. He commenced preaching in
1776 ; with what measure of success, may be in
ferred from the effort made to induce him to
preach as a candidate in the pulpit once occupied
by Jonathan Edwards in Northampton. Declin
ing this, and all other overtures, he continued to
reside in New Haven, one year as tutor in the
college, studying, and preaching as opportunities
offered, till 1780, when he settled down in
Southington, a town about half way between
New Haven and Hartford, where, after forty-one
years of service, he died on his birth-day, Aug
ust 15th, 1825, just seventy-one years of age.
According to the estimate of his abilities enter
tained by those who knew him intimately, he
ought to have taken high rank amongst the theo
logical giants of his day. In the type of his
theology, closely allied to Dr. Bellamy, it was
believed he might have rivaled him in influence.
Only two years younger than President Dwight,
he was, at the time, considered quite equal to him
"in intellectual power and promise." As com-

30 THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON.

pared with Dr. Smalley, Dr. Chapin once ex
pressed the opinion, that though Dr. Smalley
might be the more acute, Mr. Robinson had the
larger grasp and the wider vision, of the two. It
was evidently a matter of very painful reflection
to our friend the Professor, that his father did no
more to realize the expectations entertained of
him by his early contemporaries. The secret of
his comparative obscurity is easily discovered.
Commencing his professional life, when about
twenty-six years of age, in a farming town, at
that time one of the poorest in the State, with a
" settlement," as it was termed, of two hundred
pounds, and an annual stipend of barely one hun
dred pounds, with twenty-five cords of fire- wood,
the necessities of a growing family soon com
pelled him to cast about for other means of sup
port. He became a farmer ; and, being a man
of shrewd, strong sense, he became an exceed
ingly thrifty farmer. He bought fields and pas
tures, cows and oxen, and also kept bees ; all of
which he used to let out on shares. He also

THE FATHER OF DR. ROBIN SOF. 31

purchased a grist-mill, and a saw-mill. And
with such rare sagacity and judgment did he
manage all this business, as to make himself, in
no long time, the wealthiest man in town. By
and by, this secular enterprise and thrift began
to be complained of. Not that the minister
failed in the spiritual duties of his office ; for his
mornings, and they had an early beginning, were
always spent in his study, his preaching was in
structive and solid, and pastoral visitation was
by no means neglected. Not that he was
charged with sharp, hard dealings, or inordinate"
gains ; for he greatly befriended the poor, was
foremost in every public enterprise, and did
more than any other man that ever lived in
Southington towards developing its agricultural
resources, and thus making the town what it
now is. Not for any of these reasons was Mr.
Robinson blamed, but simply because there was
a good deal of human nature in Southington be
sides what was inside of the parsonage. Of the
one hundred and seventy ministers at that time

32 THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON.

in Connecticut, not one lived upon his salary, or
was expected to live upon it. They all half sup
ported themselves. And some of them, whether
more fortunate, more frugal, or more sagacious
than others, acquired considerable estates. Even
Dr. Bellamy was very well off. The offence of
Mr. Robinson, as we arc called upon to measure
it, was mainly against himself. His fault was,
that when he had secured a competency for him
self and his family, he did not stay his hand, and
lay out his great strength in studies and efforts,
which might have won for him the leadership
for which nature designed him. If ever there
was real greatness undeveloped, which some
have questioned, here, doubtless, was an exam
ple of it in the person of the Rev. William Rob
inson of Southington. No one who reads the
memorial of him prepared by his distinguished
son, can fail to be struck by the many points of
resemblance between them. Unlike as they
were in their opportunities and achievements,
with respect to physical constitution, and certain

THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON. 33

elements of character, one description might very
well answer for them both. The Connecticut
pastor was a man of large frame, and massive
head, with light sandy hair, and grey eyes over
hung by shaggy brows. He had uncommon
depth and delicacy of sentiment, held in subjec
tion by a clear understanding and a manly will.
Promptness, and severity of method, were con
spicuous in all his doings. His opinions were
carefully matured, and then firmly adhered to.
Although, as his son says of him, " not a biblical
scholar after the present fashion," he had great
familiarity with the Scriptures, and laid special
stress upon Christian doctrine as the basis of
Christian life, and the inspiration of Christian
duty, in politics, he belonged to the school of
Washington, and could endure no man whose
principles appeared to him to be at war with
the virtue, the honor, or the institutions of his
country. As a preacher, he attempted no flights
of eloquence, but dealt out solid, sober truth, in

solid and sober style. His piety was a mascu-
2*

34 THE FATHER OF DR. ROBINSON.

line conviction, mellowed by a tenderness too
deep for voluble discourse. Dying of the same
disease which took away his son, with few words,
he gathered his mantle about him, and moved
on calmly to meet his God.

Such, through all the generations of our Amer
ican history, was the descent, and such the imme
diate parentage, of our great scholar. If we do
not believe in hereditary rank, we must yet be
lieve in blood. And of all human blood, none
can be better than that of the old English Puri
tan, aerated for two such centuries on such a con
tinent as this. New England may well be proud
of having given such a scholar to the country.
And the country may well be proud of having
given such a scholar to the world.

His father was three times married, and three
times a widower, within the first nine years of
his residence in Southington. Of the four chil
dren by these earlier marriages, not one survives.
His fourth wife was Elizabeth Norton of Farin-
ington, a farmer's daughter ; not elaborately edu-

DR. R OBINSON'S EARL Y LIFE. 3 5

cated, but of a good stock, the Rev. Dr. Asahel
Strong Norton, of Clinton, Oneida county, New
York, and Professor Seth Norton, of Hamilton
College, being her brothers ; a woman of gentle
piety, of admirable sense, and always fond of
reading. She was the mother of six children
only three of whom are now living.* Her sec
ond son was our Edward, who was born in South-
ington, April 10th, 1794.

DR. ROBINSON'S EARLY LIFE.

Although the son of a clergyman, that clergy
man, as we have seen, was also a farmer, carry
ing on a large business ; and it was this secular
side of the family life, which made itself most felt
in the early training of the son. His father's
library was not a large one. It contained the
writings of his distinguished contemporaries,
Bellamy, Hopkins, West, Smalley, Strong, and
Dwight ; as also the works of the elder Ed
wards. These, with Ridgley's Body of Divinity,

* She died in 1824.

36 DR. ROBINSON'S EARLY LIFE.

were about all that the library contained of sys
tematic theology, till, in 1816, the Philadelphia
edition of Calvin's Institutes was added. In the
line of regular commentary, the only apparatus
possessed was Poole's Annotations. The minis
ter, it is true, spent the early hours of each day
in his study ; and a chapter or two in the Greek
Testament uniformly constituted a portion of his
daily task. But the atmosphere of the house
savored more of the farm than of the study.
The common sitting-room of the family was the
kitchen, whose most vividly remembered music
in after years was " the busy hum of the spin
ning-wheels, both large and small," responded to
by "the click of the loom in the wash-house."
For many years, the clothing of the family, both
linen and woolen, was all of home manufacture.
The sons of the family, till the age of thirteen
or fourteen, were brought up to labor with the
hired men upon the farm. Edward, however,
being of a slender constitution, shared only in
the lightest of these labors. He was early noted

DR. ROBINSON'S EARLY LIFE. 37

for his mechanical ingenuity. Many contriv
ances, for the facilitating of manual labor in the
house and on the farm, attested at once his skill,
and his care for the comfort and happiness of the
family. He became an expert weaver ; a beau
tiful blanket of his handiwork being still care
fully preserved as a memento of his youthful
industry. As described by one of his younger
brothers, Charles Robinson, Esq., of New Haven,
to whom I am indebted for these and other par
ticulars of his early life, he was at this time re
markable chiefly for the kindliness of his dispo
sition, the maturity of his practical judgment,
the soundness of his moral principles, and the
general propriety of his deportment. His brother
is of the opinion, that he had no great mental
precocity, and was not at first a remarkably
bright scholar ; but another member of the fam
ily has said, that his companions in the village
school always considered him the first scholar
among them. He was certainly very fond of
books, and if he lacked anything in quickness

38 DR. ROB INS ON' 8 EARLY LIFE.

and brilliancy, it was more than balanced by his
eager thirst for knowledge, combined with an
untiring industry and an iron diligence, which
enabled him in the long run to outstrip all com
petition. He never missed an opportunity, and
was never idle. " The loss of a minute," he once
said to a younger brother who had laid down his
book to eat an apple, " is just so much loss of
life." And this was his watchword to the last.

Between the ages of ten and sixteen, having
gone with credit through all the branches of
study pursued in the common schools of his na
tive town, he appears to have resided for some
time as a pupil in the family of the Rev. Mr.
Woodward of Wolcott, an adjacent parish. It
is related of him as an eminently characteristic
incident, that while residing in Wolcott, in the
midst of a great excitement in regard to inocu.
lation with kine pox as a protection against
small pox, then a recent discovery, he took some
of the virus home with him and successfully vac
cinated the whole family. He was then about

DR. ROBINSON'S EARLY LIFE. 39

fifteen years of age, and had probably commenced
his classical studies. Not far from the same
time he taught school in Farmington, as also
afterwards in East Haven ; in both of which
places there are still a few surviving pupils,
who remember him and his instructions with
lively interest and affection.

As his father, for some reason or other, had no
idea of sending him to college, and his constitu
tion was not rugged enough for the life of a
farmer, he was put, when sixteen years of age, as
an apprentice into the store of a Mr. Whittlesey,
of Southington. Here he had special charge of
the drugs, which made up a part of the stock in
trade. But his desire for knowledge, which had
by this time become a passion, rebelled against
the arrangement, so that, after a couple of years,
he was prepared and permitted to join his ma
ternal uncle, Professor Seth Norton, at Clinton,
New York, where he entered the first Freshman
class of Hamilton College, in the autumn of
1812.

40 HAMILTON COLLEGE.

HIS CONNECTION WITH HAMILTON COLLEGE.

His scholastic career was now fairly begun.
His uncle, Professor Norton, then thirty-two
years of age, was a good classical scholar, and a
very successful teacher. His tutor in mathe
matics was Theodore Strong, since then a dis
tinguished professor and author. Some three
or four years ago Dr. Robinson was heard to
say, that of all his teachers Mr. Strong was the
one who had done most towards shaping his
course in life by thoroughly rousing his mind to
study. The college, it is true, was just com
mencing its existence on the very verge of the
wilderness, and almost within sight of the wig
wams of the Oneidas. But the class to which
young Robinson belonged, considering the in
fancy of the institution, was quite respectable in
numbers, and more than respectable in ability
and promise. Of the seventeen whose names
are now in the Triennial catalogue, two have
been members of Congress, two have received

HAMILTON COLLEGE. 41

the title of D. D., and three the title of LL. D.
Of the six or more who have died, one was the
Rev. Luther F. Dimmick, D. D., a highly re
spected and influential clergyman of Newbury-
port, Massachusetts. Of those who survive, the
Hon. Philo Gridley of Utica, Judge of the Su
preme Court of New York, and the Hon.
Charles P. Kirkland of New York city, are too
well known to require remark. Robinson was
the eldest of them all, being at the time he
entered college eighteen years of age. Of his
personal character and habits as a student, not
much was then known, or if known, not now
remembered, by his surviving associates. He
lived very much by himself; moved thereto, not
more by the disparity of age between himself
and his classmates, than by his greater maturity
of character and aim. His rank as a scholar
was soon determined. In every branch of study,
and equally in all, he stood easily, and without a
rival, at the head of his class. He was then
especially fond of mathematics, for which his

42 HAMILTON COLLEGE.

natural aptitude, perhaps, was greatest, but was
also an accurate linguist, and was crowned with
acclamation by his classmates as the finest writer
of them all. So strongly pronounced was his
ability, and so remarkable his diligence, that
those who knew him then, would have been
greatly disappointed, had he failed of a dis
tinguished career.

To what employment he first betook himself
after his graduation in 1816, I have not been
able to learn. But in February, 1817, he re
paired to Hudson, New York, where he spent
the summer in the law office of James Strong,
Esq., afterwards member of Congress. Had he
pushed on in this direction, we should now, per
haps, be lamenting the decease of one of the

/

ablest jurists in the land. A very different des
tiny awaited him, towards which he was now
beckoned by the offer of a tutorship in Hamilton
College. Accepting this appointment, he re
turned to Clinton, and for one year gave instruc
tion in mathematics and Greek. This service

HAMILTON COLLEGE. 43

ended, in the early autumn of 1818 [September
3d], he was married to Eliza Kirkland, youngest
daughter of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the well-
known Missionary to the Oneidas, a man of
strong character, and almost romantic life. To
benefit the Indians, amongst whom he had la
bored, he founded the Oneida Academy at Clin
ton, out of which grew Hamilton College, as
Dartmouth College had previously grown out of
Dr. Wheelock's Indian school, first established
at Lebanon, Connecticut, and afterwards re
moved to Hanover, New Hampshire. One of
his three sons was the brilliant John Thorn
ton Kirkland, President of Harvard College,*
and author of the biography of Fisher Ames,
one of the choicest of our American classics.
One of his three daughters was the mother of
the Rev. Dr. Lothrop of Boston. The young
est was Eliza, some years older than Mr. Robin
son, but a woman of superior intellect and edu-

* From 1810 to 1828. He died in 1840, at the age of
seventy.

44 HAMILTON COLLEGE.

cation, and of uncommon personal attractiveness.
She died in less than a year after their mar
riage, leaving him in possession of the large and
fine farm inherited from her father, who had
died some years before.* Here Mr. Robinson
continued to reside, dividing his time between
study and the care of the farm, till the autumn
of 1821, when he went to Andover, Massachu
setts, for the purpose of publishing his first
book. This was an edition of eleven books of
the Iliad — the first nine, the eighteenth and the
twenty-second, with a Latin introduction, notes,
and other apparatus of study ; a reproduction,
for the most part, of the editorial labors of
.Heyne, Wolf, and others, but with some changes,
and many omissions and additions. This volume
probably affords us an indication, not only of
what his recent studies had been, but also of his
literary plans and aspirations for the future.
He appears to have chosen the Greek language
and literature as his study for life.

* In 1808.

AT ANDOVER. 45

AT ANDOVER.

But at Andover lie fell under the singularly
magnetic influence of Professor Moses Stuart,
who soon launched him in a new direction. His
Iliad was put to press in May, 1822. About
this time he is remembered, by one who was then
a member of the Junior class in the Theological
Seminary,* as discussing, in the tone of a novice,
the Hebrew vowel points, which Professor Stuart
had but recently been willing to adopt. But
when once fairly started, so rapid was his prog
ress, that in the autumn of 1823, Professor Stu
art had him appointed Instructor in Hebrew in
the Seminary. Upon him in a great measure
devolved the labor of correcting the proof sheets
of the second edition of Stuart's Hebrew Gram
mar, which appeared in September, 1823. In the
preface, credit is given him " for many of the im
provements in manner, not a few in matter, and

* The Rev. O. Eastman, one of the secretaries of the Amer
ican Tract Society, who then occupied a room, as did also
Mr. Robinson, in the house of the Rev. Dr. Woods.

46 AT AND OVER.

for much of the minute accuracy" of the new
edition. Professor Stuart then goes on to say,
that " the radical knowledge which Mr. Robin
son has acquired of this language, is a happy
indication of the progress which the study of it
is making in our country ; and holds out in re
gard to him a promise of extensive usefulness in
the department of sacred literature." So much
had he accomplished in less than two years.
"Whether scribe or pharisee," as he said of
himself playfully, and not without some just
pride, " he had been put into Moses7 seat." Ad
mirably did he sustain himself in this difficult
position for three years, from 1823 to 1826.
Right under the eye, and under the dazzling
reputation of the Magnus Apollo of biblical
scholarship in America, he held his place with
marked ability, and succeeded in making a rep
utation of his own. If Stuart was the more
brilliant, adventurous, and electric, firing his pu
pils with enthusiasm, Robinson was looked upon
as the more careful, exact, and thorough. He

AT AN DOVER. 4/7

was a most indefatigable student. There seemed
to be no end to his endurance of mental toil. As
a teacher, he was dry, but clear and strong. His
patient and solid scholarship commanded the un
qualified respect of all competent judges, and
made him a conspicuous candidate for future fame
as an Orientalist. His leaning, however, was
decidedly towards the Greek, rather than the He
brew language. This appears in his translation
of Wahl's Clavis Pkilologica Novi Testamenti,
with some additions and improvements, which he
published at Andover in 1825 ; as also in the asso
ciation of his name with that of Professor Stuart,
in a translation of the first edition of Winer's
Grammar of the New Testament Greek, which
was put forth in the same year. Winer's Gram
mar, it is true, was "a mere pamphlet," and
Wahl's Clavis was soon outgrown by the schol
arship which had reproduced it on this side of
the Atlantic ; but these translations marked the
beginning amongst us of a new era in the domain
of biblical criticism. They were the early

48 RESIDENCE IN GERMANY.

sheaves of a rich harvest, which has been equal
ed nowhere outside of Germany.

RESIDENCE IN GERMANY.

In 1826, haying resigned his place at Andover,
Mr. Robinson, who was then thirty-two years of
age, set sail for Europe, in quest of philological
opportunities and helps, such as Europe only
could afford. After staying awhile in Paris,
where the venerable De Sacy was still vigorously
at work * he made his way to Germany, first
spending a few weeks at Gottingen, to get well
started in-ine language, and then going to Halle
where he plunged into his favorite studies, with
so clear a vision of what he wanted, and so deter
mined a purpose in its pursuit, as could not fail to
to insure an accomplished scholarship. In steady,
plodding diligence, he became a German amongst
the Germans. He remained four years abroad,
residing mostly at Halle and Berlin, but making
himself familiar with other interesting localities

* He died in 1838.

RESIDENCE IN GERMANY. 49

in Germany, and visiting the northern countries
of Europe, as well as France, Switzerland, and
Italy. His residence in Germany was well-timed.
Many eminent scholars, since deceased, were
then in their prime. At Halle were Gesenius,
Wegscheider, and Thilo, who have since died ;
besides Tholuck and Rodiger, who are still alive.
At Berlin were Buttmann, Hegel, Schleiermacher,
Marheineke, Neander, Zumpt, Ritter, and Savig-
ny, all now gone j with Hengstenberg, Bekker,
and Bopp, who are still among the living. At
Gottingen he foi^d the two Plancks, father and
son, Pott, Blumenbach, Heeren, and Liicke, not
one of whom survives. Those with whom he ap
pears to have had most to do, were Gesenius,
Tholuck and Rodiger at Halle, and Neander at
Berlin. Gesenius, in 1826, was about forty years
of age, and was at the height of his reputation,
with five hundred students crowding his lecture
room. Tholuck was but twenty-seven years of
age, and had only just come to Halle. Rodiger,
the exact grammarian, a favorite pupil of Gese-

50 RESIDENCE IN GERMANY.

nius, and now, perhaps, the finest Arabic scholar
living, was younger still, and did not begin to
teach at Halle till 1828. Neander, at the time
Mr. Robinson was in Berlin, was thirty-eight
years old, and had issued the first volume of his
History two years before. Our American scholar
did not put himself in contact with any of these
men, to be moulded by them. He had by nature
too much intellectual independence, and was by
discipline too mature a thinker, to be bent away
from the line of development, in which, on the
other side of the Atlantic, and under the influ
ence of other institutions, he had begun to move.
And yet he learned much of his German teachers
and companions in study. Gesenius he admired
as " the first Hebrew scholar of the age." Nean
der he regarded as not only " the first ecclesias
tical historian of the age," but also as " one of
the best, if not quite the best exegetical lecturer
on the New Testament in Germany." Towards
Tholuck he was drawn not merely by " his un
common and unquestioned talents and learning,"

RESIDENCE IN GERMANY. 51

but also by the fervency of his religious life.
But whatever may have been his indebtedness to
living teachers and scholars, the great advantage
he reaped from his residence in Germany, was
the perfect mastery it gave him of the German
language, and thus of all the treasures of criti
cism which that language contains. But Ger
many's best gift to him was that of a domestic
companion, who, for his sake, consented to sur
render associations and plans and prospects, such
as have rarely been surrendered by any woman
for any man. Therese Albertine Luise von Ja
cob was the youngest daughter of Staatsrath von
Jacob* Professor of Philosophy and Political
Science in the University of Halle. She was
born and had lived in Halle till the family were
driven out by the storm of war which burst upon
that part of Germany in 1806. After ten years
of exile in Russia, first at the University of Char-
kow and then at St. Petersburg, Professor von
Jacob returned with his family to Halle. Mr.

* Who died in 1827.

52 RESIDENCE IN GERMANY.

Robinson was introduced to their social evening
reunions by one of their relatives, who chanced
to travel with him from Gottingen to Halle, as an
American gentleman who " spoke but little Ger
man, and was melancholy and rather homesick."
His natural reserve and bashfulness, aggravated
by his imperfect knowledge of the language, were
at first very much against him. But all this was
presently overcome. There was one at least who
recognized in him a man of no ordinary powers.
And she herself, introduced to public notice by
Goethe, had already attained distinction as a
writer. They were married on the 7th of Au
gust, 1828. After spending nearly a year in
Switzerland, France, and Italy, they returned to
Halle, where they remained through the winter
of 1829-30, Mr. Robinson abandoning with ex
treme reluctance the plan he had formed of win
tering in England. On the 2d of July, after a
tedious voyage of two months, they landed in
America. Of the years that have followed, years
of sacred domestic tenderness, not less than of

PROFESSORSHIP AT ANDOVER. 53

diversified literary toil, and splendid literary
achievement, I may not presume to speak. It is
not for me to unveil either those ministries of
love which once gladdened, or these vigils of
heavy sorrow which are now hallowing the schol
ar's home.

PROFESSOESHIP AT ANDOVER.

Shortly after his return from abroad in 1830,
Mr. Robinson was appointed Professor Extra
ordinary of Sacred Literature and Librarian
at Andover. He had now reached the fulness
of his strength, and began at once to put it forth
in a succession of labors, as remarkable for their
variety as for their value. In January, 1831,
appeared the first number of the " Biblical Re
pository/' of which he was the founder and sole
editor, and which, for four years, was conducted
by him with an ability and judgment that gave
it almost oracular authority on both: sides of the
Atlantic. He himself furnished a large propor
tion of the matter which filled its pages. Of

54 PROFESSORSHIP AT ANDO VER.

the one hundred and one articles contained in
the first four volumes, forty-seven were from his
own pen ; twenty of which were original essays,
and twenty-seven translations and compilations,
the translations being chiefly from the German.
Two learned articles on "the Slavic language
in its various dialects," were from the pen of
Mrs. Robinson. Fourteen original essays were
furnished by his colleague, Professor Stuart.
The other thirty-eight articles were contributed
by several scholars, most of whom are well
known, and of acknowledged authority, in the
theological world. « The Review," which was
finally (in 1851) united with the "Bibliotheca
Sacra," continued for some years longer to main
tain a high rank ; but the earlier volumes, edited
by Professor Robinson, are more sought after
than all the rest. Beyond most other works of
the kind, they are laden with matter of perma
nent value, and are of special interest as repre
senting the first grand impulse given to the
evangelical theology of America by the evan-

PROFESSORSHIP AT ANDOVER. 55

gelical theology of Germany. The Doctorate
of Divinity conferred upon Professor Kobinson
by Dartmouth College, in 1831, came none too
early; he had earned it by contributions to
sacred literature, not only valuable in them
selves, but full of promise for the future.

His retirement from the editorship of the
Biblical Repository by no means terminated his
connection with the periodical press. He con
tinued to furnish articles of value from time to
time for the Repository ; and, in 1843, com
menced in New York a serial issue of tracts
and essays on biblical and theological topics,
many of them written by himself, which he
called the BibliotJieca Sacra. In 1844, this
work was transferred to Andover, and became a
quarterly, under the editorial management of
Professors Edwards and Park. For this also
he continued to write as late as 1855, and
allowed his name to remain upon the title-
page till 1857. Of the articles furnished, many
of which were geographical, special mention

56 PR OFESSORSH1P AT AND 0 VER.

should be made of a suggestive and stimulating
essay on " The Aspect of Literature and Science
in the United States as compared with Europe ;"
besides articles on " The Resurrection and As
cension of our Lord," "The Nature of our
Lord's Resurrection-Body," and "The alleged
Discrepancy between Jolm and the other Evan
gelists respecting our Lord's Last Passover,"
which are models of thoroughness, and very
valuable contributions to the exegetical litera
ture of our language.

In 1832, Dr. Robinson edited Taylor's trans
lation of Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible,
greatly enhancing the value of it by such re
trenchments and additions as his more critical
and extensive scholarship enabled him to make.
This portly work, of more than a thousand
pages, went rapidly through a large number of
editions ; but as he had no copyright in it, and
was soon immersed in other studies, he bestowed
no further labor upon it, and gave no further
attention to it, except to make it the basis of a

PROFESSORSHIP AT ANDOVER. 57

much smaller work, which, under the title of "A
Dictionary of the Holy Bible, for the use of
Schools and Young Persons," was issued by
Crocker & Brewster, of Boston, in 1833. This
same year, Buttmann's Greek Grammar was given
to the American public, in a translation which he
had made of it during the last winter of his resi
dence in Halle. With such favor was this work
received, and so steady continued the demand for
it, that, in 1839, while Dr. Robinson was in
Germany, on his way home from Palestine, his
friend, Professor Stuart, was constrained to put
forth, though without change, a second edition
of it. This edition also soon went out of print.
Another edition was long and loudly called for.
Meanwhile, five new editions of the original, by
Buttmann's son, had been published in Ger
many ; in the last two of which, there had been
an almost entire reconstruction of the syntax,
with improvements and additions throughout the
whole work. In 1850, Dr. Robinson took in
hand the eighteenth German edition of this

58 PR OFESSORSHIP AT AN DO VER.

bulky grammar, as, more than twenty years be
fore, he had taken in hand the thirteenth, and
so made Buttmann once more a teacher in our
schools.

Dr. Robinson spent three years at Andover.
He was there as Professor Extraordinary, no
endowment existing for his support. Professor
Stuart had encouraged him to expect that such
an endowment would be secured ; but, unfor
tunately for the Seminary, it did not come.
Meanwhile Dr. Robinson was taxing the strength
of his constitution beyond all prudent bounds.
Repeated attacks of epilepsy threatened his life.
It is true he got the better of this malady, but
his constitution was for the time shaken, and his
health was utterly broken down.* He there
fore resigned his office, and in 1833 removed to
Boston.

* For a medical statement of the case, see Dr. Mussey's
recent book, "Health: its Friends and its Foes." Boston,
1862. Pp. 289-96.

IN BOSTON. 59

IN BOSTON.

In Boston, as soon as his health permitted, he
resumed his studies with renewed ardor, subject
to none of the interruptions incident to the call
ing of a theological professor. The first fruit of
these studies was, in 1834, a revised edition of
Newcome's Greek Harmony of the Gospels, on
the basis of Knapp's text. It was a great im
provement upon the Andover edition of 1814;
and a still greater improvement upon the orig
inal Dublin edition of 1778. And yet no radi
cal changes were made. The work was still
essentially Newcome's ; his chronological order
being generally followed, and his preface, sec
tional divisions and notes retained. Eleven
years later, in 1845, Dr. Robinson published a
Greek Harmony of his own, which was wholly
a new and independent work. Its leading fea
tures were, the substitution of Hahn's text for
that of Knapp ; a new chronological arrange-

60 IN BOSTON.

ment in several important particulars, but es
pecially of the events belonging to the last six
months of our Lord's life ; and the appended
notes, substituted for those of Newcome, remark
able for the exactness and solidity of their learn
ing. The more important changes referred to,
grew out of his own identification, in 1838, of
the city of Ephraim mentioned in John xi. 54,
with the modern Taiyibeh, some twenty miles
north of Jerusalem.* This established a paral
lelism between John xi. 54 and Luke xiii. 22,
and enabled him to harmonize those portions of
Matthew, Mark and Luke, which had previously
been the most difficult to dispose of. This
Greek Harmony immediately took its place at
the head of all similar works. The London Re
ligious Tract Society soon issued an English
Harmony, based upon and almost entirely fol
lowing Dr. Robinson's arrangement.! It was

* See Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. ii. pp. 398-400.

f Only a few and slight changes were made, on the author
ity of Greswell's Harmonia Evangelica, 1830-34, and Wiese-
ler's Chronologische Synopse, 1843.

IN BOSTON. 61

also taken as the basis of a French Harmony,
which was published in Brussels in 1851. In
1846, Dr. Robinson himself put forth an English
Harmony, making such changes in the notes as
seemed advisable in order to adapt them to
popular use, but making no change in the order
of time, except to correct a slight error of one
day in the Greek Harmony, into which he had
been led, as he says, " by relying too implicitly
upon the authority of the learned Lightfoot."
A revised edition of the Greek Harmony was
published in 1851.

But in Boston, during the three years which
he spent there, his strength was laid out mainly
in the department of Biblical Lexicography.
The 1815 edition of the Hebrew-German Lexi
con of Gesenius, had been translated by Pro
fessor Gibbs in 1824 ; and this was followed by
an abridged Manual in 1828, which passed into
a second edition in 1832. But, during all this
time, Gesenius himself had been making rapid
progress in his favorite science; so that his

62 IN BOSTON.

Hebrew-Latin Lexicon, which appeared in 1833,
was greatly in advance of all he had done be
fore. This new work, the best Lexicon of any
language which the world had seen, being the
first to exemplify the historico-logical method
of lexicography, was faithfully translated by Dr.
Robinson, and laid before the public in 1836.
A second edition, with additional matter from
the Thesaurus of Gesenius, was published in
1842. A third edition, a good part of which
was stereotyped, with further additions from the
Thesaurus, appeared jn 1849 ; a fourth edition
in 1850 ; a fifth, and the last in which any
changes were made, in 1854. Dr. Robinson was
careful to say, that he performed no other office
in connection with this work than that of a
translator, adding nothing of his own, except an
occasional remark or reference, always with his
signature. The changes which Gesenius himself
made in his own work, Dr. Robinson was but
too happy to incorporate into the successive is
sues of the translation, since Gesenius so frankly

IN BOSTON. 63

confessed, that, " the older he grew, the more
inclined he was to return in very many cases to
the long received method of interpretation.'7

But the labor bestowed upon his first edition
of Gesenius, occupied only a small portion of
each day. Throughout the whole of the three
years, during which this work was in hand, the
greatest portion of every day was spent upon
another work, which is now one of the main
pillars of his fame. I allude to his Greek and
English Lexicon of the New Testament. This
also came from the press in the autumn of 1836,
and was generally recognized at once as the
best Lexicon of the New Testament in any lan
guage. The way had been well prepared for
this new work. In his translation of Wahl's
Clavis, years before, Dr. Robinson had, in two
important respects, improved upon the orig
inal. The various constructions of verbs and
adjectives with their cases, given only in part by
Wahl, were given by Dr. Robinson in every in
stance. He also greatly multiplied the Scri^f *^n

64 IN BOSTON.

references, so that the Lexicon became, in more
than seven-eighths of the words, a complete
Concordance of the New Testament. In some
points of interpretation he had found occasion
to differ with Wahl. One article, nvevpa, an
article of no little importance, he had entirely-
recast. In short, he had gone so far in the mat
ter of making changes, that it seemed to be both
his right and his duty to drop Wahl altogether,
and prepare a Lexicon of his own. This he now
did. The Clavis, a new edition of which had
appeared in 1829,* was, evidently, the founda
tion upon which he built ; and properly enough,
since it was the best existing Lexicon of the New
Testament, and much of what enters into every
good Lexicon must needs be common property.
Bretschneider's Manual, which had reached a
second edition in 1829, was also freely used.t
Schleusner, likewise, was of some service to

* Wahl died in 1855. There have been three editions of
his Clam: in 1822, 1829 and 1843.

f Bretschneider's Manual has appeared in three editions :
1824, 1829, and 1840.

IN BOSTON. 65

him.* But Schleusner, in some important re
spects, was far behind the times in his scholar
ship ; and even with Wahl and Bretschneider he
had points of difference on every page. Dr.
Robinson's Lexicon was, therefore, in every just
sense of these terms as employed in such a con
nection, a new and independent work. As such
it was received, and received with great avidity ;
three rival editions of it being speedily issued
in Great Britain. And yet when he sat down
in 1847 to revise it for a new edition, so far
was it from answering his own demands, that he
re-wrote a large part of it. This great labor,
which must have taxed his patience to the ut
most, consumed three full years. These three
years added to the three he had spent upon the
first edition, and these again to the two years,
which he had probably bestowed upon the Clavis
of Wahl, make in all eight years of severe toil,
the fruit of which is given us in the Lexicon of

* Schleusner died in 1831. His Lexicon was published in
1792, 1800, 1808, and 1819.

66 IN BOSTON.

1850. It is, unquestionably, the best Lexicon
of the New Testament in existence. The method
of Gesenius is rigidly applied throughout, so far
as that method can be applied to the New Tes
tament lexicography. The meanings of words
are traced, from the root, in their true logical
order. The discriminations are sharp. The
references to the Septuagint, to the later and to
the Attic Greek, are abundant and apposite.
In nine-tenths of the words, instead of the seven-
eights of the previous edition, the Lexicon is a
complete Concordance of the New Testament ;
so that the student may almost dispense with
Bruder. And, furthermore, so much care has
been taken to interpret all the more difficult
passages, that the Lexicon is not only a Concor
dance, but also a Commentary. One may not
always agree with the Commentator, but if he
finds peace in his disagreement, he will have to
wrestle for it. A singularly self-possessed and
vigorous intellect challenges his judgment at
every step.

REMOVES TO NEW YORK. 57

KEMOVES TO NEW YOEK.

In 1837, soon after publishing the first edition
of his Lexicon, Dr. Robinson came to New York.
He had been solicited, the year before, to accept
a chair in the University of New York, but de
clined it. The Union Theological Seminary,
then recently established, was more successful in
its suit. He signified his willingness to accept
the offered Professorship of Biblical Literature,
on the condition of being permitted, before en
tering upon its duties, to be absent for three or
four years for the purpose of exploring the Holy
Land. This condition acceded to, he set sail,
with his family, from New York, July 17, 1837 ;
passed rapidly through England to the conti
nent ; up "the glorious Rhine" to Frankfort;
and from Frankfort to Berlin, when he bade
adieu to his family, and set his face towards the
Orient. In Athens, he trod the Acropolis with
all the enthusiasm of a scholar ; but not till he
had first set his foot upon the Areopagus with

68 REMOVES TO NEW YORK.

all the reverence of a Christian. In Egypt, he
saw the Pyramids, and ascended the Nile to
Thebes. From Egypt, along the route taken by
the Hebrews, he went to Sinai ; and from Sinai,
by way of Akabah, to Palestine. His travelling
companion was the Rev. Eli Smith, since de
ceased, missionary of the American Board, an
accomplished Arabic scholar ; and, between
them, they searched the Land of Promise to
somewhat better purpose than Caleb and Joshua.
They started from Cairo March 12th. 1838;
were at Sinai on the 23d ;. reached Jerusalem
April 14th ; explored Arabia Petrasa in May ;
were at Nazareth June 17th ; went from Naz
areth to the Lake of Tiberias ; from there to
Safed ; and from Safed, by way of Tyre and
Sidon, to Beirut, where their journey ended
June 27th. Hastening back to Germany, by
way of the Danube, Dr. Robinson fell sick in
Vienna, and barely escaped with his life. This
severe sickness at Vienna was a crisis in his
life. From this time, the exclusively vegetable

REMOVES TO NEW YORK. 69

diet prescribed for him some years before at
Andover, was abandoned, and his health under
went a marked improvement. In October he got
to Berlin ; and in August, 1840, after nearly two
years of severe but delightful labor amidst the
libraries and scholars of the most learned capi
tal in Europe, the manuscript of his Biblical
Researches was ready for the press.

These two years in Berlin were among the
happiest and most golden of his life. He saw
much of Neander, Hengstenberg, Twesten, Bopp,
Zumpt, Raumer, Ranke, and Petermann, although
the work upon which he was engaged left him
but little time for society. With Karl Ritter,
the great geographer, whose personal acquaint
ance he then made, he was especially intimate.
Ritter was a man after his own heart ; learned,
modest, generous, and of most unaifected and
fervent piety. Common tastes and studies drew
them very closely together. In 1852, when Dr.
Robinson was again in Berlin, on the eve of his
departure, Ritter gave him a flattering proof of

70 REMOVES TO NEW YORK.

his affection. As he came to take tea with him
for the last time, he said : " I came near losing
this evening. The King sent for me, but I sent
word to his Majesty, that I must be excused this
time, as it was the last evening which I could
spend with my friend Robinson." And it was
indeed the last, for Bitter died in 1859, and
Dr. Robinson was not again in Germany till
1862.

The original manuscript of the Researches is
now in the Library of the Union Seminary,
neatly bound up in eighteen volumes ; a precious
treasure to us, as it will be more and more pre
cious to those who come after us. In Berlin, it
was translated into German by a competent
hand, carefully revised by Mrs. Robinson, and
afterwards carried through the press at Halle
by Professor Rodiger. The sheets struck off in
Boston were sent, in advance of their publication
here, to London; so that in 1841 the work was
issued simultaneously in America, in England,
and in Germany. The publication of this work

REMOVES TO NEW YORK. fj

was followed, in 1842, by what he looked upon
as the highest of all his earthly honors : the
awarding to him of a gold medal by the Royal
Geographical Society of London. This gave
him a place among the selectest few of scientific
discoverers. Other academic honors which fol
lowed close, were, in 1842, the degree of D. D.
from the University of Halle, and in 1844, the
degree of LL. D. from Yale College.

In the autumn of 1851, the Directors of the
Union Seminary, without solicitation on his part,
though well aware of his desire in the matter,
voted him leave of absence for another tour in
Palestine. He left New York in December;
spent a month in Berlin with Eitter, Lepsius,
Humboldt, and other eminent men of science •
sailed from Trieste by way of Smyrna to Beirut,
where he landed April 5th, 1852 ; went through
Galilee and Samaria once more, but by a new
route, to Jerusalem ; carefully explored the more
northern portions of the country, which he had
failed to see on his former visit ; passed over to

72 REMOVES TO NEW YORK.

Damascus ; went tip through Coele-Syria to Baal
bek and Ribleh; crossed the mountains to El
Husn ; and from El Husn passed down southward
to Beirut, where he arrived June 19th ; on the
17th of July, joined his family at Salsburgr
amongst the Austrian Alps ; and on the 27th of
October, was back again in his chair at the
Seminary. On this second journey, he had as
companions in successive stages of his route, the
Rev. Eli Smith, as before; the Rev. W. M.
Thomson ; and the Rev. S. Robson ; to all of
whom he renders due tribute of acknowledgment
for important services rendered him. In 1856,
he gave us the new volume of his Researches;
Mrs. Robinson, as he went on with the prepara
tion of it, translating it for him into German.

He looked upon this as the great work of his
life ; and yet not this, but another, of which 1
shall presently speak, and of which this was to
be but the preparation and the prelude. As far
back as the time of his first residence in Ger
many, inspired by his love for the Word of God,

REMOVES TO NEW YORK. 73

he had conceived the design of exploring the
Land of God. Through many laborious years,
his studies were shaped with reference to it ; so
that when the auspicious hour came for him to
start, he was well prepared to make the most of
his opportunities. Men of learning, like Bochart
and Reland, had treated of the Geography of
Palestine, without having personally explored
it ; Reland, most admirably, Bochart not.* On
the other hand, unlearned men in abundance had
traversed Palestine, and returned to repeat and
perpetuate its monkish legends. Only Raumer,
Burckhardt, and Laborde had written books of
any great value to science. Even the map of
Syria by BergJiaus, till then the best, was found
to be so inaccurate as to be of little service.
The time had come for a scholar, equal to
Reland in acuteness and breadth of judgment,
to enter this tempting field with thermometer,

* The Hierozoicon of Bochart is of permanent value ; but his
GeograpJda Sacra abounds with " untenable hypotheses and
and strained etymologies."

4

74 REMOVES TO NEW YORK.

telescope, compass, and measuring-tape, but,
above all, sharp-eyed and sufficiently skeptical,
and then make report of what he had seen and
measured. Such a man was our late associate,
raised up, endowed, and trained, for this very
purpose ; so keen of vision, that nothing escaped
his notice ; so sound and solid of judgment,
that no mere fancy could sway him ; so learned,
that nothing of any moment pertaining to his
work, was unknown to him ; and yet, withal, so
ardent in his religious affections, as to pursue his
task like a new Crusader. There never was a
man better suited to his calling.

Of this great work, the Biblical Researches,
in which his achievements of discovery are now
enshrined, we have no need to speak. Since Rit-
ter has pronounced its encomium, its authority
is sealed, and its fame is fixed. In form, this
work is a journal, after the manner of Maundrel
and Burckhardt. On this are engrafted, at
great cost of time and toil, historical illustra
tions and discussions " of various points relating

HIS UNFINISHED WORK. 75

to the historical topography of the Holy Land."
The materials out of which the work was
wrought, were the very full separate journals
kept by Dr. Robinson and his travelling com
panion, which were usually written up each
night from pencil notes taken upon the spots
visited during the day. Dr. Robinson was of
the Poet Gray's opinion, that "a single line
written upon the spot, is worth a whole cart
load of recollection." Of his indebtedness to
Dr. Eli Smith, which has been sometimes not
very generously alluded to, Dr. Robinson makes
repeated and most frank acknowledgment. The
more important and interesting results of the
journey, he says, are mainly to be ascribed to
the Arabic scholarship, and other accomplish
ments, of his travelling companion.

HIS UNFINISHED WORK.

And yet this great work, which will send his
name down through every human generation to
the end of time, was but preparatory to another,

76 HIS UNFINISHED WORK.

to which, through long years and consuming
studies, he looked steadily forward as the crown
ing labor of his life. In 1856 he wrote as fol
lows : " The great object of all these travels and
labors has been, as formerly announced, to col
lect materials ' for the preparation of a syste
matic work on the physical and historical geo
graphy of the Holy Land.' To this work, so
much needed, should my life and health be
spared, I hope speedily to address myself." To
this work he did address himself, and that im
mediately. Even before the last sheets of his
later Researches had left his hands, he had set
about the new and final task. But instead of
any report of my own, I prefer to transcribe the
account kindly furnished me by Mrs. Robin
son :

"In the year 1855 or 1856, while his later
Researches were printing, he commenced a work
on the Geography of the Bible, which he called :
"Scripture Geography." Of this work, which he
divided into five parts, I find the full plan, the

HIS UNFINISHED WORK. 77

introduction, and seventy closely written quarto
pages ; besides notes, additions, etc.

" In this work he was interrupted by an attack
of gastric fever during the winter of 1856-7.
He never considered himself as perfectly cured
during the following summer ; and this opinion
was confirmed by another severe attack in
1857-8 of the same complaint, assuming a ty
phoid character, which greatly prostrated him.
Although he felt decidedly better of that, it was
some time before he could make up his mind to
resume his more severe studies. He wrote the
memoir of his father meanwhile. Of course, he
kept thinking of his great work, and examining
it from all sides ; but when he took it up again
he decided to recast it completely, and began on
the 3d of June, 1859, to write a new work. I
find the full title of it written out by him : Bibli
cal Geography. Vol. I. The Central Region :
Palestine, with Lebanon and Sinai, by E. R.
Vol. II. Outlying Countries.

" Of these two volumes, he hoped to be able to

78 ffIS UNFINISHED WORK

finish at least the first. But God has decided
otherwise. This first volume, of which the plan
is distinctly laid out, he divided into three parts :
1. Physical Geography. 2. Historical Geogra
phy. 3. Topographical Geography.

" It pains me to say, that only the first part,
the Physical Geography, is written ; and even
this not completely, for the last two chapters on
Vegetable and on Animal Life, are still missing.
They could, however, be easily supplied from
the older manuscript, as there is no reason to
believe that this portion of the work would have
been materially altered by him. The seven hun
dred and fifty pages of this manuscript were
written in exactly two years ; or rather in the
winter and spring months of two years ; for
during the months of July, August, and Septem
ber he hardly ever wrote. They were com
menced on the 3d of June, 1859, while the last
page was written on the 3d of June, 1861. On
the 18th of June his eye was operated upon, and
he never was able to resume his studies."

HIS LAST DA Y8. 79

Not for his own fame, which is safe, but for
ourselves, and the whole living generation of
Christian scholars, and for other generations yet
unborn, do we lament the calamity of this un
finished work. There lives no man to finish it ;
and when one shall be born to do it, God only
knows.

HIS LAST DAYS.

On the last days of our great scholar there
fell the twilight of a fading vision. In both
eyes a cataract had for some time been forming.
The operation upon one eye, skillfully performed
by Dr. Agnew on the 18th of June, 1861, failed
of its desired effect. The age and other infirmi
ties of the patient forbade success. In the latter
part of May, 1862, Dr. Robinson set sail with his
family for the old world, to avail himself of the
professional advice of Dr. Graefe of Berlin, the
most eminent oculist in Europe. He had the
satisfaction, such as it was, of being assured by
Dr. Graefe that his case had thus far been
wisely managed, and that his American surgeon

80 HIS LAST DA YS.

had done for him all that was possible under the
circumstances. The seven weeks which were
spent in the Infirmary at Berlin helped his gen
eral health ; but an operation upon the remain
ing eye was not deemed advisable, and he was
compelled to leave, with nothing better to com
fort him than tlio fact, that tlio cataract was
making apparently no progress. Meanwhile,
another disease, the nature of which was not
then known, was undermining his constitution,
and wasting his strength. And yet he had great
enjoyment of life. In Switzerland he ascended
the Rhigi. At Kosen, a watering-place near
Halle, and wherever else his family went, he
joined cheerfully in their recreations. In Halle
he was very happy among the friends of his
wife. In Berlin he had the society of Roediger,
of Petermann, of Twesten, of Ranke, of Lepsius,
of Wetstein, and of Kiepert. The attentions
paid him by these distinguished scholars, who
both admired and loved him, were not more
flattering than friendly. The evenings they

HIS LAST DA Y8. 81

spent together were as genial as any he had
ever known. He was enjoying, though he knew
it not, the mellow Indian summer of a life, which
was soon to close. He got back to New York
about the middle of November, and at once re
sumed his duties in the Seminary. On the 15th
of December the family physician was called in
to prescribe for new and more threatening symp
toms, which had appeared. With the Christmas
holidays his labors ceased. And at half-past
nine o'clock on Tuesday evening, January 27th,
1863, he peacefully breathed his last. It is not
certain that he knew he was passing away.
Nor was it needful that he should. Behind him
lay a long life of faithful Christian service ; and
now, in dying, he had no new testimony to give.
Or if he knew that his time had come, he had
only to grasp silently the hand that was reached
out to him in the deepening shadow, and step
calmly through. And so he died. Had he lived
to see the 10th of April, he would have been

sixty-nine years old.
4*

82 HIS LAST DA YS.

With sorrow, which no words can measure,
we now take our leave of this great, good man.

In summing up the achievements of his labor
ious career, it would be enough to recite the
titles of his books ; but especially of three, which
stand like monuments of granite piled up by his
own hands. His record is : the best Greek
Harmony as yet prepared ; the best Lexicon of
the New Testament Greek in any language ; and
a Journal of Travels in Palestine absolutely
without a rival in the world. And yet the three
are but one in impulse and intent. It was the
supreme ambition of his life to explain and illus
trate the Holy Bible. The one adjective in our
language which he loved the most, was Biblical.
It was the watchword of all his studies ; and
now we carve it upon his tomb-stone. Of his
special achievements in geography, it might suf
fice to say in general, what Ritter has so em
phatically said, that Dr. Robinson's work on
Palestine is the beginning of a new era in Bibli
cal Geography. The readers of these volumes

HIS LAST DAYS. 83

do not need to be told, how many places spoken
of in the Bible he has identified, how many lying
legends he has routed. What if some call him
an iconoclast ? Who wants to be cheated, even
into holy rapture over the Church of a sepul
chre, which was somewhere else ? At any cost,
let us have only the truth. It was he that did
more than any man had ever done before to
wards determining the true topography of Jeru
salem, by identifying the fragment of an arch on
Mount Moriah with the bridge spoken of by
Josephus as leading from Moriah to Zion. A
desperate effort was made to tear this laurel
from his brow ; but the laurel remained.* And
what he did for Jerusalem, he did also for the
whole of Palestine. It is hardly too much to

* Mr. Scoles, an English architect, had, some years before,
requested Mr. Catherwood to search for any remains which
there might be of the bridge of Josephus. In 1833 Mr.
Catherwood discovered the remnant of an arch, but so utterly
had the suggestion of Mr. Scoles faded from his memory,
that he thought of the arch only as belonging to some old
aqueduct or viaduct. Its identification was made by Dr.
Robinson in 1838.

84 HIS CHARACTER.

say, that he found it afloat like an island in the
sea, almost like a cloud in the sky of fable, and
left it a part of Asia.

HIS CHARACTER.

Of his character, I might well hesitate to
speak ; for although some features of it were as
bold and rugged as the outline of Lebanon itself,
other features of it, little known to the world,
were as delicate and charming as the rose of
Sharon. His intellect was one of great native
solidity and vigor. For metaphysical subtleties
he had no relish whatever. What he sought for
was not truth in speculation, but truth in life ;
and, most of all, the truth of God, as revealed
for human guidance in duty. This, he thought,
might be surely known, and clearly stated. He
had great respect accordingly for the real com-
munis sensus of mankind ; and very little re
spect, some of us would say, not respect enough,
for the established terminology of the schools.
What he saw, he was determined to see clearly.

HIS CHARACTER. £5

What he could not see clearly, he did not desire
to look at at all. If the word were not so com
monly used in a bad sense exclusively, I should
say that he was naturally skeptical. But his
skepticism was of that sort which Bacon com
mends in the Problems of Aristotle, which not
only " saveth philosophy from errors and false
hoods," but serves also as a sucker or sponge
" to draw use of knowledge." Till he was quite
sure of a thing, he would not affirm it ; and it
required more to assure him, than it does most
men. This trait was constantly appearing, even
in the most unreserved social intercourse ; so
that his family used to call him " The Chancel
lor," in allusion to some lines they had met with
in their reading :

" Mr. Parker made the case darker,

Which was dark enough without ;
Mr. Leech made a speech,

And the Chancellor said : 1 doubt"

And yet this habit of doubting, appears never to
have been let loose against the teachings of

86 HIS CHARACTER.

Scripture. Persuaded, as he was so thoroughly,
that man has need of a Divine revelation, and
having satisfied himself that a Divine revelation
has been made, and that the Bible is that revela
tion, he never dreamed of impugning its doc
trines. His only question was : What are those
doctrines? And when once established by a
legitimate but rigid exegesis, he no longer
treated them as aliens. What God had clearly
spoken through Paul to the Romans, was as full
of authority, and as final, to him, as what was
spoken from Sinai to the Hebrews.

Being thus a man of clear and positive convic
tions, he was no less clear and positive in utter
ance. He had little facility, or power, in what
is called extempore discourse. His thoughts
came feebly to their birth upon his lips. But
when he wrote, it was always with singular com
pleteness, precision, and force. Sometimes there
is great felicity of diction • but commonly the
beauty is of that severe sort, which gleams on
the edge of the battle-axe. No man who pro-

HIS CHARACTER. 87

voked him to controversy, cared ever to repeat
the experiment. He discovered to his cost, that
he might as well have put his fist between a trip
hammer and its anvil. Whatever subject he
took in hand, he had a most searching and ex
haustive way of treating it. No sheaf ever
came out from beneath his flail with much grain
left in it. As specimens of his controversial
skill and ability, we may instance his treatment
of Dr. Grant's attempted identification of the
Nestorians with the lost tribes of Israel ; his
passage at arms with an English churchman
about the site of the Holy Sepulchre ; his tri
umphant vindication of his own claim to the
honor of discovery in the matter of the bridge
of Josephus ; and the final disposition he made
of the vexed question with respect to marrying
the sister of a deceased wife. All these ques
tions are now by most people thought to be set
tled. But with all this severity of method, and
all his diligence, he was not a dull, mechanical
worker. Stout as he was in make, he had great

88 HIS CHARACTER.

fineness of fibre. In composition, he was always
under the necessity of waiting upon his moods ;
and wondered at the men who can write just
when they will. Sometimes for days together
he could make no headway in his higher tasks.

His scholarship was real, downright scholar
ship. It was also more various than was com
monly supposed. In his earlier life, he played
the flute, and was fond of poetry. With Shakes
peare and Milton he was especially familiar,
He was a careful reader of the best newspapers,
religious and secular, and closely watched cur
rent events. It might almost be said, that what
he failed to notice, was not worth noticing. He
cherished no foolish conceit of independence
upon the acquirements of those who had gone
before him, in whatever department of study.
He was guilty of no meanness in concealing the
amount of his indebtedness to them. He used
freely whatever lay open to be freely used. But
he took the learning of others, whether dead or
living, not for a Jacob's pillow to sleep on, but

HIS CHARACTER. §9

for a Jacob's ladder to climb by. He began by
translating the works of others ; he ended by
producing better works of his own. He exem
plifies the great difference there is between
riding upon other men's backs, and standing
upon other men's shoulders. Unquestionably,
he had his full share of ambition as a scho
lar. His reputation, hard earned and slow
in coming, was precious to him ; and he was
careful never to compromise it himself, nor per
mit to be compromised by others. It is very
plain to me, from an inspection of his works,
that he expected them to live ; and he accord
ingly weighed well his words. One seldom finds
in the writings of any man so many tokens of a
proper self-consciousness and self-respect. He
was not unaware of the important services he
was rendering, and had no lower aim, as surely
he could have had no higher, than to make those
services as effective for good as possible. A
touching example of this appears in his valedic
tory to the patrons of the Biblical Repository in

90 HIS CHARACTER.

1834, in which he says : " Under these circum
stances, and bowed down with broken health, he
feels it to be a duty which he owes to himself, to
his family, and perhaps to the churches, to with
draw from the station which he has hitherto
occupied as the conductor of a public Journal."
Of an overweening estimate of himself and his
services, I find nowhere any trace. Nor do I
know of any thing in his treatment of other
writers entering his special domain, to warrant
the charge against him of being " at once janitor
and judge, Cerberus and Rhadamanthus over all
travellers and books having relation to the Holy
Land." A critical notice of the volumes of Mr.
Stephens, which he inserted in the Commercial
Advertiser, and which some pronounced severe,
Mr. Stephens himself was so well pleased with,
as to regret that it had not appeared in the
North American Revieiv. Certainly, no modest
scholar ever asked his assistance in any enter
prise, without abundant occasion for gratitude ;
and no scholar ever added any thing to the

HIS CHARACTER. 91

stock of human knowledge, without his ap
plause.

He was likewise an able teacher ; curt, blunt,
and peremptory in manner, it is true ; but al
ways thoroughly master of his subject, and al
ways best liked by the best scholars. He re
quired no genius in his pupils, knowing well
how rare that is ; but he did require a proper
deference to his opinions, and, above all, fidelity
and diligence in study • and no man ever gave
proof in his class-room of having slighted a
lesson, without smarting for it. And yet his
severity was never relentless. A student, whose
remissness had greatly plagued him, and who
had consequently suffered what he thought rather
rough treatment at his hands, was one day over
heard praying, that God would " bless Dr. Rob
inson, and teach him better manners." This
prayer was reported to Dr. Robinson, and the
result was, that the student, whether he deserved
the relief or not, had less to complain of after
wards. Some years later, when that student

92 HIS CHARACTER.

happened to be in distress, Dr. Robinson took
the lead in getting up a subscription in his be
half. Usually, the number of those in each
successive class, who came into close personal
relations with him, was small ; but the few who
did know hirn socially, " knew him, but to love
him," as now they " name him, but to praise."
As an interpreter of Scripture, he may have
leaned rather strongly towards a certain bald
ness of exegesis, as though he were in quest of
the minimum of meaning ; but what he did find
in a passage, you might be pretty sure was
really there. His own favorite commentators
were De Wette and Meyer ; not from sympathy
with their doctrinal prepossessions, but because
of their rigid adherence to what he considered
the best method of interpretation. Meyer's
Commentary on the New Testament, was one
of the few books kept within easy reach upon
the desk at which he studied. Hackett's Acts,
it may be added, was another.

It is with the Union Theological Seminary,

HIS CHARACTER. 93

that his fame as a scholar and teacher, will, in
the time to come, be most intimately associated.
Connected with it almost from its earliest be
ginning, devotion to its interests was one of the
strongest passions of his life. Its metropolitan
location commended itself to his judgment as
affording some of the facilities for professional
study most needed by candidates for the Chris
tian ministry ; while the perils involved, are
' only such as may serve to test arid settle the
character of the student. However long the
institution may stand, and whatever may be its
future enlargement, the first twenty-five years
of its history will forever shine with the light
of his labors and his renown. Till he returned
from his first visit to Palestine he drew no pay
from its treasury. To its alcoves he made large
and valuable contributions from the shelves of
his own library. On many of its alumni, who
are now preaching the word of life, he set the
stamp of a superior scholarship. Within the
shadow of its walls he lighted for years his

94 HIS CHARACTER.

morning lamp ; performed a good part of the
best work of his life ; and died at last with a
reputation encircling the globe.

As a man he was little known. A natural
reserve veiled his innermost character from the
knowledge of the world. He might seem to be
lethargic and unimpressible ; but in reality noth
ing which transpired in his presence escaped his
notice. When he appeared to be seeing and
hearing nothing, he was seeing and hearing all.
Many people, no doubt, thought him to be hard
and cold. He was any thing but hard and cold.
The "Homo sum " of Terence, was never better
exemplified than in him. The strong nervous
element in his constitution, which exposed him
to fits of melancholy, made him keenly alive to
all human interests. He was also largely pos
sessed of genuine humor, which seldom missed
its opportunity. In the midst of grave discus
sions going on in his presence, I have heard
from him, in an undertone, a by-play of pleas
antry, which, if overheard, would have convulsed

HIS CHARACTER. 95

the audience with laughter. In any sorrow, which
called for sympathy, his words were few, but his
whole manner was so thoroughly tender and
genial as never to be forgotten. In his own home,
especially as he advanced in years and in reputa
tion, his temper was delightful. No man was
ever more fond of his wife ; or more considerate
of the happiness of his children. In the common
intercourse of life, no man was ever truer to his
friends. As a citizen, no man was ever more in
tensely loyal to his country's flag ; or more ar
dent in praying for the time to come when that
flag shall wave over only the free. Of his do
mestic life I have heard incidents, of which I
forbear to speak. Of what occurred outside
of the family circle, much might be reported
which would set his character in a new light.
Let one or two instances suffice. In former
years, he used to write not a little for the news
papers. The money paid him for these articles
commonly went into the pockets of indigent
young men preparing for the Gospel ministry.

96 HIS CHARACTER.

Only a few weeks before he died, happening to
hear of a young man, once, though for a short
time only, connected with the Seminary, as hav
ing come to the city for medical advice not
likely to keep him from the grave, Dr. Robinson
sent him a handsome sum of money through the
hands of a friend, strictly charging that friend
not to let the young man know who sent him the
money. As the benefactor and the beneficiary
are now both dead, I feel myself at liberty to
divulge the secret. Many such good deeds went
before him to his final account. If he had the
head of a Jupiter, he had the heart of a child.
Nor in these sad and shameful days of treason
in arms behind its ramparts, and of a still baser
treason before those ramparts, may we forget to
commemorate, with thanksgiving and with pride,
the burning patriotism of our departed friend.
It was in him, and about him, like a flame of fire.
Like all true scholars, like all good men, he
loved his country as he loved the grave and the
memory of his mother.

HIS CHARACTER. 97

In his religious, as in his social character, Dr.
Robinson was not at all demonstrative. It
would be absurd to say, that his religion was
not that of feeling ; for religion is essentially a
thing of feeling. But with him there was no
forwardness in the expression of religious feel
ing. His life was a hidden one, and the deeper
for being hidden. His peace with God appears
to have been early made. I have not been able
to learn at what time he joined himself to the
visible communion of the Church. I only know,
that in the earliest of his manuscripts which I
have seen (and I have had before me sermons
written when he was twenty-eight years of age),
there are the clearest tokens of a well-advised
and most settled faith in the person and work of
the great Redeemer. The Gospel as a super
natural economy of healing and of help, is, in
these sermons, surveyed with great distinctness
of vision, and laid hold upon with great vigor
and steadiness of grasp. He knew no other
Christianity than that of the canonical Scrip-

98 HIS CHARACTER.

tures, authenticated by miracles and prophecy.
He knew no way of being saved but by the grace
of God, abounding above his sin. And he knew
no warrant for his Christian hopes, but what
was furnished by his own patient continuance in
well-doing. He was never a parish clergyman ;
but during his residence at Andover he was li
censed to preach by the Hartford Association in
Connecticut ; wrote in all nine sermons, leaving
also the fragment of a tenth, which are still pre
served ; received Presbyterian ordination at thB
hands of the Third Presbytery in this city, in
compliance with the requirements of the Consti
tution of the Seminary, when he became one of
its Professors ; and often preached in the earlier
part of his professional life, for the last time, I
believe, in one of the Dutch churches of this city
in 1846, although he has left no sermon written
later than 1826. Each of these sermons, is, in its
plan, exhaustive of the topic discussed, and all are
marked by great breadth and maturity of sen
timent. His trial sermon, which he rarely

HIS CHARACTER. 99

preached afterwards, was an elaborate discus
sion of the " Divine origin and authority of the
Scriptures." His earliest popular discourse was
on the " Danger of neglecting the Great Salva
tion." Other subjects were : " The Christian
Kace ; " " The Loss of the Soul ; " " Obedience,
the Test of Christian Character;" "Washing
the Disciples' feet." The ninth, and last sermon
completed by him, on " Preparation for Death,"
from the text, " I am now ready to be offered," I
have read with peculiar interest. Had it been
written thirty-six years later than it was, it
could hardly have been any riper in Christian
wisdom than it is. For myself, I am thankful to
have had this opportunity for communion with
so manly a piety. What he most valued in
every Christian, was evidently that which he
best exemplified in his own life : an abiding,
hearty, practical interest in the earthly kingdom
of his Lord and Master. For this he studied ;
and for this he taught. His pupils have gone to
the very ends of the earth. And no voice was

100 HIS CHARACTER.

louder, or more urgent, than his in sending them.
The globe is dotted over with missionary posts,
at which the intelligence of his death will be
received with profoundest grief. The eternal
shore is now trodden by the feet of many pagan
converts, whose spiritual fathers were his chil
dren.

Alas, my father, thou art gone, to return no
more ! That massive form will be seen no more
upon our surging streets. That deep voice will
be heard no more in the halls of Christian sci
ence. That sober, sturdy intellect will invite no
more the audience of learned men. That loyal
heart will beat no more in answer to the call of
country, or of home. The great scholar, one of
the greatest on our continent as yet, has done
his work, and folded his hands, and the account
is closed. " His body is buried in peace, but his
name liveth evermore."

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