The History of Dartmouth College

by Baxter Perry Smith

"In 1853," President Lord continues, "he was transferred to the position which he held in this college till his death, leaving the honorable office which he had so lately assumed, at Auburn, partly out of his great love for his Alma Mater, and partly, to minister to his revered parents in their advanced years.

"In all these relations the qualities which I have suggested laid the foundation of his acknowledged excellence. In all the departments which he successively occupied he was regarded, as among the most learned, able, and effective teachers and preachers of the country. He was competent to every service required of him, and gave to every position dignity and honor. He was distinctively Christian in them all, and made them subservient to no school or party, but to the gospel through which he had been saved.

"Wherein Professor Long was like other men, he was above the generality, and, though he aspired not to lead, was fitted to precede them. Wherein he was unlike them, the difference was more conspicuous. His peculiarities were striking, and in them we perceive his most observable traits, whether of the intellect or the heart.

"I know not whether it were most of nature, or habit, that our friend was so distinguished for acuteness, directness, and singleness of the mind,—a mind not especially intuitive and rapid, not noticeably free in its conceptions, wide in its survey, or comprehensive in its generalizations, moving rather on an extended line than an enlarged area, but subtle and clear as light; sharp, piercing and discriminating as electricity; pointed, direct, and exact as the magnet; conclusive, positive, and decisive as the bolt of heaven. His processes were simple, natural, easy, and continuous, not stiffly regulated by scholastic laws, but strictly conformable, and his results inevitable. Give him his definitions and his postulates which, though not given, he would, like other resolved reasoners after his method, sometimes take, at his own risk, and he would go round or through the circle, or make his traverses in darkness and storm, and never lose his meridian, or be confused in his reckoning; and he would come back precisely to his starting-point laden with success, his points all proved. It was well said of him by a curious and critical observer of scholars, that, as a logician, he was not exceeded in the country.

"Our professor had made large attainments in the science to which he was especially devoted,—the Metaphysics. He read whatever was worth the reading, of which, however, he chose to be an independent judge, but he thought more, so that his attainments were emphatically his own. He was not like what so many now become in this department of study,—a mere follower, imitator, panegyrist,—but a searching critic and judicious commentator. He had a higher range of speculative inquiry than most of the more ambitious men who have exceeded him in popular effect, and he corrected his inquiries by a better logic, and a more simple faith. But I have sometimes thought him too much of a recluse for his greatest profiting in this respect. He loved best the retirement of his own study, and was rarely seen outside of it, except when required by his official duties. He abjured the artificial forms and fashions of social life, the bustling confusions of trade and commerce, and the whirl and finesse of political agitations. He never would stand on a platform, nor be seen at an anniversary, nor harangue a popular assembly. He was happiest in solitude where, undisturbed, he could solve the abstruse problems of ethics, or be a delighted critic of metaphysical theories, or seek to penetrate the mysteries of theology. He was consequently in danger of contemplating his subjects, like so many others of his time, both in Church and State, too much in their refined essence, and too little in their comprehensive practical relations; rather as things, in his judgment, ought to be, than as they are; too much in the light of a fictitious principle, and too little in that of experience, history, and analogy; rather according to God's original constitution than the actual necessities of a fallen state; too much as they may be in the ultimate development of God's moral providence, and too little as they are in its administrative course. Hence, but for the greatest care which, in the main, he exercised, he would have been likely to crowd into his definitions and postulates more than they naturally admitted, or to make them less than they naturally required; to mistake, for the basis of his fulcrum, a speculative subtlety instead of a practical reality; and, consequently, to make his inexorable logic draw too much, or to little, for legitimate practical effect. If, occasionally tempted by the excitement of our present types of speculative and conjectural science, he seemed to overstep the limits which God has prescribed to us in our present probationary state, and to make the human a measure of the Divine, it was done not presumptuously, from a spirit of conceited and ambitious intermeddling with things forbidden, but unconsciously, from an honest desire for knowledge. When he perceived, as he was not slow to perceive, that many of the objects which now so much allure the learned men of the world, who are falsely so called, were not real, but ideal and conceptional only, not actual knowledge verifiable by a day-light test, but shadows and chimeras chasing one another over the moonlit sky, then he retreated. He chose to stop, reverentially, as taught by Scripture, when he must, rather than to be driven back by the cherubim and the flaming sword. Not even Kant, or Coleridge, or any of their living imitators, however congenial their respective tastes for speculative subtleties, could tempt him so to disregard the boundary between reason and faith as to lose sight of Calvary, or mistake an ignis fatuus for the Sun of Righteousness. His college experience, and, I have sometimes thought the genius collegii, with a father's and mother's teachings and prayers, all favored by the Spirit who only searcheth the deep things of God, kept him near and true to the everlasting Word.

"But we forgot all his speculative trials and temptations, we forgot almost that he was not perfect but in part, when, in his sacred character, and in this sacred place, he laid aside his weapons of intellectual warfare, and, with his peculiar meekness of wisdom, simplicity of statement, power of argument, and cogency of appeal, testified to us the great things of the kingdom of God, so far as he had learned them out of the Holy Scripture. Very instructive and affecting it was, when, as sometimes, the aspiring philosopher, the uncompromising logician, the astute economist, the grave and learned dogmatist, renounced these and all other accomplishments of nature, or rather made them subservient to the greater accomplishments of grace. Then we admired, even to tears of thankfulness, how the wise man, in becoming a fool, becomes truly wise; how he who could be great among his fellows on Mars Hill,—great after the fashion of the Areopagus,—could be greater, after a higher fashion, in declaring the God there Unknown; in repeating simply the lessons of that heavenly wisdom which none of the princes of this world knew; and, with a child-like sincerity and earnestness, from his own sense of the sufficiency of redeeming mercy, inviting us to 'The Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.'

"It might seem that one so abstract and speculative, so contemplative and reserved, would naturally be wanting in those sensibilities and affections which are justly reckoned indispensable to the highest excellence of character, and to the happiness, or the relief, of our present state. But appearances do not necessarily represent, but more frequently conceal, realities. I have been permitted to read some of his most familiar letters, which reveal a sunny and cheery side of his character which I had not learned from personal observation. That he had a susceptible and generous heart no man ever doubted. But one must know what he has written to his friends, out of its unperceived fullness, to appreciate those hidden sympathies of his nature which brought him into harmony as well with the outer as the inner world. Few would have a better relish for innocent festivities, or the pleasures of travel, or the grander and finer works of nature or art. Few would be more excited by the sparkle or roar of ocean, the magnificent scenery of Centre Harbor, the sublime panorama of the White Mountains, or the quiet beauties of the Connecticut valley. True, such objects engaged him but for a time. They were not his chief good. He wanted the higher satisfactions of enlarged knowledge, of speculative insight, of reasoning activity, of professional engagement. They were not his work, but his pastime. Yet, when he played, it was with as great enjoyment as any man can have who plays alone, and far greater than they have, or can have, who do naught but play in company, who care for little but sights and sounds, at length sickened and enfeebled by their very tastes, incapable of grave and dignified pursuits, disgusted by their own vanities, remorseful at their own intemperate hilarities, saying, at last, of laughter, 'It is mad, and of mirth, what doth it?' Stoical he may have been, for that belongs, almost of course, to natural magnanimity, and familiarity with large and elevated themes; but ascetic and cynical he was not, and could not have been, with his appreciation of Christian truth, and experience of a Saviour's love.

"The scholar, teacher, preacher, learned, profound, effective, venerable in all relations, has passed away; the good man, regenerate by the grace of God, trusting in the righteousness of Christ, and hoping for salvation only through redeeming blood; the righteous man, stern and inflexible in his integrity, who never dissembled, never professed what he did not feel, never hated, never spoke evil of his neighbor, and could and did say that he was never angry at his brother; the faithful man, who was true to his engagements, kept his post, and, in weariness and painfulness, performed his appointed work till he was struck with death; the husband, father, friend, of whom, in these relations, it were impertinent to speak particularly, while wounded spirits are already telling, too much, how great his value, and how great their loss. He has passed away, dying as he had lived, and taught, and preached,—in faith; peaceful as a little child, and hopeful of that better state where that which is perfect will come, and that which is in part shall be done away."

Professor Long published a sermon before the W. R. Synod in 1847, a discourse on "The Literary Merits of Immoral Books," in the same year, "Inaugural Address at Auburn," in 1858, a sermon in Dartmouth College Church, "Jesus Exalted yet Divine," in 1859, and a memorial sermon on Professor Roswell Shurtleff, in 1861. In 1836, with Professor Gregg, he assumed the editorship of the "Ohio Observer" published at Hudson. In their first address to their readers is this passage: "In relation to the subject of slavery we shall take the high ground that man is man and cannot therefore be treated and used as property without sin, that immediate emancipation is a duty, and that it is therefore the duty of every man to pray and strive in every virtuous way for the abolition of slavery." The last date of an editorial is June, 1837.

Professor Long married Rhoda Ensign, daughter of Alpha Rockwell, of Winsted, Connecticut. He died at Hanover, October 14, 1861.