ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT ALLEN.
September 24, 1882.
“Remember how He spake unto you.”
These are the words of an angel. They were spoken in the early morning while it was yet dark, to frightened and sorrowful women, who had gone to the sepulchre of Christ with spices and ointments to embalm his body. These women fully expected to find the body of their Lord; for as they went they said, “Who shall roll us away the stone from the sepulchre?” When they reached the place, they found the stone was rolled away and the grave was empty. And one of them ran back to the disciples to tell them that the grave was open and the body gone. Those that remained went into the sepulchre and saw two men in glittering garments, who, seeing that the women were perplexed and afraid, standing with bowed heads and startled looks, said, with a shade of reproof in their tone, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen.” And, perhaps, seeing that the women could hardly believe this, it was added, “Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”
The words that are quoted as having been spoken by Jesus to his disciples were spoken in Galilee six months or more before this, and as they were not clearly understood at the time, it is not so very strange that they should have been forgotten.
It had been well if these sorrowing women, as well as the other disciples of the Lord, had remembered other words, and all the words that the Lord spake to them, not only while in Galilee, but in all other places. The world would be better to-day if those gracious words had been more carefully laid to heart.
I hope the words of my text will bear, without too much accommodation, the use which I shall make of them.
Almost three-quarters of a century ago, a boy was born in the family of a New England farmer. It was in the then territory of Maine, and near the little city of Augusta. The family were plain, poor people, and the child grew up, as many other farmers’ children grew up, accustomed to plain living and such work as children could properly be set to do. In the winter he went to school, as well as at other times when the farm work was not pressing. It would be very interesting to know, if we could know, whether there was anything peculiar in the early disposition and habits of this boy, or whether he grew up with nothing to distinguish him from his playmates. If we could only know what children would grow up to be distinguished men, we should, I think, be very careful to observe and record any little traits and peculiarities of their early childhood. The boy of whom I am speaking, and whom you know to be William Henry Allen, seems to have been prepared at the academy for college, which he entered at the advanced age of twenty-one years. Four years after, he was graduated, and at once he set out to teach the classics in a little town in the interior of the State of New York. While engaged in that seminary, he was called to a professorship in Dickinson College, at Carlisle, in our own State of Pennsylvania. In Dickinson College he held successively the chairs of chemistry and the natural sciences, and that of English literature, until his resignation, in 1850, to accept the presidency of Girard College.
From this time until his death, except during an interval of five years, his life was spent here. For twenty-seven years he gave himself to the work of organizing and directing the internal affairs of this college, with an interest and efficiency which, until within the last year, never flagged. It is not possible at this day for any of us to appreciate the difficulties he had to encounter in the early days of the college, but we do know that he did the work well.
See how he was prepared for the work he did. He was a lover of study. When only eight years old he had learned the English grammar so well that his teacher said he could not teach him anything further in that study. There was an old family Bible that was very highly prized by all the family, and his father told him that if he would read that Bible through by the time he was ten years old, it should be his property. The boy did so, and claimed and received his reward. That book is now in the possession of his daughter (Mrs. Sheldon). This early reading of the Bible will, perhaps, account for President Allen’s unusual familiarity with the Scriptures, as evinced in the richness of his prayers in this school chapel.
The school to which he went in his early youth was three miles from his father’s house; and in all kinds of weather, through the heats of summer and the deep snows of winter, he plodded his way.
I have said that his parents were not rich; and this young man pushed his way through college by teaching, thus earning the money necessary for his support. This may account for the fact that he entered college at the age when most young men are leaving it, viz., twenty-one years. It did not seem to him that it was a great misfortune to be poor; but it was an additional inducement to call forth all his powers to insure success. He knew that he must depend upon himself if he would succeed in life. And so he was not satisfied with qualifying himself for one chair in a college, but, as at Dickinson, he held two or three chairs. He could teach the classics or mathematics or general literature, or chemistry or natural sciences. Not many men had qualities so diversified, or knew so well how to put them to good account. You know very well that this liberal culture was not acquired without hard work. And this hard work he must have done in early life, before cares and duties crowded him, as they will absorb all of us the older we grow.
“Remember how He spake unto you.” I would give these words a two-fold meaning—remember what he said and how he said it.
Twenty-seven years is a long time in the life of any man, even if he has lived more than three-score years and ten. In all these years President Allen was going in and out before the college boys, saying good and kind words to them.
How often he spoke to you in the chapel! It was your church, and the only church that you could attend, except on holidays. His purpose was that this chapel service should be worthy of you, and worthy of the day. So important did he consider it, that when his turn came to speak to you here, he prepared himself carefully. He always wrote his little discourses, and the best thoughts of his mind and heart he put into them. He thought that nothing that he or any other speaker could bring was too good for you.
And then the tones of his voice, the manner of his instruction; how gentle, kind, conciliating. He remembered the injunction of Scripture, “The servant of the Lord must not strive.” You will never know in this life how much he bore from you, how long he bore with your waywardness, your thoughtlessness; how much he loved you. He always called you “his boys.” No matter though some of you are almost men, he always called you “his boys,” much as the apostle John in his later years called his disciples his “little children.” For President Allen felt that in a certain sense he was a father to you all.
For some time past you knew that his health was declining. You saw his bowed form and his feeble, hesitating steps. In the chapel his voice was tremulous and feeble. The boys on the back benches could not always understand his words distinctly. But you knew that he was in earnest in all that he did say. And for many months he was not able to speak at all in the chapel. On the last Founder’s Day he was seated in a chair, with some of his family about him, looking at the battalion boys as they were drilled, but the fatigue was too great for him. And as the summer advanced into August, and the people in his native State were gathering their harvests, he, too, was gathered, as a shock of corn fully ripe.
When Tom Brown heard of the death of his old master, Arnold of Rugby, he was fishing in Scotland. It was read to him from a newspaper. He at once dropped everything and started for the old school. He was overwhelmed with distress. “When he reached the station he went at once to the school. At the gates he made a dead pause; there was not a soul in the quadrangle, all was lonely and silent and sad; so with another effort he strode through the quadrangle, and into the school-house offices. He found the little matron in her room, in deep mourning; shook her hand, tried to talk, and moved nervously about. She was evidently thinking of the same subject as he, but he couldn’t begin talking. Then he went to find the old verger, who was sitting in his little den, as of old.
“‘Where is he buried, Thomas?’
“‘Under the altar in the chapel, sir,’ answered Thomas. ‘You’d like to have the key, I dare say.’
“‘Thank you, Thomas; yes, I should, very much.’
“‘Then,’ said Thomas, ‘perhaps you’d like to go by yourself, sir?’”
“So he walked to the chapel door and unlocked it, fancying himself the only mourner in all the broad land, and feeding on his own selfish sorrow.
“He passed through the vestibule and then paused a moment to glance over the empty benches. His heart was still proud and high, and he walked up to the seat which he had last occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat down there to collect his thoughts. The memories of eight years were all dancing through his brain, while his heart was throbbing with a dull sense of a great loss that could never be made up to him. The rays of the evening sun came solemnly through the painted windows over his head and fell in gorgeous colors on the opposite wall, and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit. And he turned to the pulpit and looked at it; and then leaning forward, with his head on his hands, groaned aloud. ‘If he could have only seen the doctor for one five minutes, have told him all that was in his heart, what he owed him, how he loved and reverenced him, and would, by God’s help, follow his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all without a murmur. But that he should have gone away forever, without knowing it all, was too much to bear.’ ‘But am I sure that he does not know it all?’ The thought made him start. ‘May he not even now be near me in this chapel?’”
And with some such feelings as these I suppose many a boy will come back to the college and stand in this chapel, and recall the impressions he has received from President Allen here. But his voice will never be heard here again. Nothing remains but to “remember how he spake unto you.”
I am sure you will never forget the day he lay in his coffin in the chapel, and you all looked on his face for the last time. What could be more impressive than the funeral? The crowded house, the waiting people, the bowed heads, the solemn strains of the organ, the sweet voices of children singing their beautiful hymns, the open coffin, the appropriate address given by one of his own college boys, the thousand and more boys standing in open ranks for the procession to pass through to the college gates, the burial at Laurel Hill cemetery, where many of his pupils already lie, and where many more will follow him in the coming years—all these thoughts make that funeral day one long to be remembered.
Let us accept this as the will of Providence. There is nothing to regret for him; but for us, the void left by his withdrawal. He is leading a better life now than ever before. He has just begun to live, and the best words I can say to you are, “remember how he spake unto you.”
“But when the warrior dieth,
His comrades in the war
With arms reversed and muffled drums
Follow the funeral car.
They show the banners taken,
They tell his battles won,
And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute gun.
“Amid the noblest of the land
Men lay the sage to rest,
And give the bard an honored place,
With costly marble drest,
In the great Minster transept
Where lights like glories fall,
And the choir sings and the organ rings
Along the emblazoned wall.”