VIII. CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL
SOLOMON BULKLEY GRIFFIN '72
Dr. Hall was born in 1852, and died within a short time of two of his best and best-known college friends, H.L. Nelson and Isaac Henderson, on March 15, 1908. On being graduated from Williams in 1872 and from the Union Seminary, his first pastorates were spent in Newburgh, N.Y., and in Brooklyn, whence he was called to the presidency of Union Seminary in 1897. The most brilliant of his achievements was perhaps embodied in his two trips to India as the Barrows lecturer of the University of Chicago;—he had a wonderful aptitude in applying the principles of Christianity to an alien civilization. A class-mate, the editor of the Springfield Republican is the author of the tribute to his memory which follows.
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It is around the thought of Cuthbert Hall the college boy, rather than the distinguished president of a great seminary and all the rest, with the world so much his parish, that any word of loving memory shapes itself. He was refined and winning. If ever the sunlight of a gracious nature touched any youth, it rested on him; the unworthy and the trivial passed him by. His adjustment of values even then was mature and firm. His literary taste and product were superior. He was a natural gentleman, and that meant a Christian by all the call of his nature. Love of the fine, the high, the genuine, and the generous, was instinctive. His breadth of charity and welcome for knowledge in youth became the distinction of his manhood.
Qualities were conspicuous in his life that bound worldlings to him in a bond of fellowship that grappled the best that was in them. Goodness of his sort is commanding—the practical power of a pure life is a pulpit asset that reenforces the spoken word beyond all human calculation. Under his leadership Union Seminary could not have been other than liberal and sympathetic toward devout scholarship that might seem to threaten the ancient foundations of faith.
When a class-mate late in life found repose in the Roman church, Dr. Hall could see and say that such anchorage was best for his friend. All paths that led to trust in God and the strengthening of the essentials of character were allowable in the brotherhood of the service of humanity.
The world of scholarship has its arrogancies—sometimes it is critical over-much, intolerant toward the lesser requirements of busy men outside. This man never lost touch with men as they passed. His own assurance of belief was a flame which lighted many torches. It was a sane and a glad evangel that he gave to his students, and brought in almost constant and always ardent addresses to the youth of many colleges.
Intellectual integrity was joined in him with the finest spiritual apprehension and expression, so that he was qualified to carry a message to the cultivated of India, where he got his mortal hurt. In the knightly loyalty with which he labored his zeal was a highly tempered blade. He respected all faiths, but an abiding assurance of the supremacy of the service of Christ gave him unwavering serenity and poise. It is easy to think of Charles Cuthbert Hall entering the Supreme Presence reverently, unafraid, rejoicing, as naturally as a child would come home.