"But as our friends, what inexpressible happiness have we experienced in their disinterested love and cordial affection! We have lived together not as fellow students and members of the same college, but as brothers and children of the same family; not as superiors and inferiors, but rather as equals and companions. The only thing which hath given them the preëminence is their superior knowledge in those arts and sciences which are here cultivated, and their greater skill and prudence in the management of such important affairs as those which concern the good order and regularity of this Society. Under the prudent conduct of these our once worthy patrons, but now parting friends, things have been so wisely regulated, as that while we have been entertained with all the pleasures of familiar conversation, we have been no less profited by our improvements in useful knowledge and literature."
Hale's direct address to the parting members is as follows:
"Kind and generous Sirs, it is with the greatest reluctance that we are now all obliged to bid adieu to you, our dearest friends. Fain would we ask you longer to tarry—but it is otherwise determined, and we must comply. Accept then our sincerest thanks, as some poor return for your disinterested zeal in Linonia's cause, and your unwearied pains to suppress her opposers.... Be assured that we shall be spirited in Linonia's cause and with steadiness and resolution strive to make her shine with unparalleled luster.... Be assured that your memory will always be very dear to us; that though hundreds of miles should interfere, you will always be attended with our best wishes.
"May Providence protect you in all your ways, and may you have prosperity in all your undertakings! May you live long and happily, and at last die satisfied with the pleasures of this world, and go hence to that world where joys shall never cease, and pleasures never end! Dear Gentlemen, farewell!"
Not only in speeches but also in deeds Hale proved his love for Linonia. He is said to have contributed some of his own books to the library of the Society, and to have coöperated with Timothy Dwight and James Hillhouse in promoting its growth. In time the library owned more than thirteen thousand volumes. These three Linonians were always considered its real founders, and were so honored at the Society's centennial anniversary on July 27, 1853.
Timothy Dwight, the first of that name to be president of Yale College, was, like Nathan Hale, a descendant of Elder Strong who founded Northampton, Massachusetts. Dwight graduated in 1769, the year Hale entered college. He then became a tutor and was a personal friend of Hale's. He was a teacher of extraordinary power and was made president of Yale in 1795. He was one of the most remarkable men of his time, molding the moral and religious, as well as intellectual, character of the college so that his influence extended not only over the whole state but, to a great degree, over the whole United States. He was a fine illustration of the great abilities that centered in so many of the leading families of the colonists. Such connections as this man add even a higher luster to the genealogy of Elizabeth Strong Hale, and lessen our wonder that a son of hers, while hardly more than a boy, could face the duty and calmly accept the responsibility that he felt rested upon him.
As may easily be inferred, the Hale boys, Enoch and Nathan, were not forgotten by their home friends while making honorable records in college, and forming pleasant friendships outside the college walls—then the happy lot of all the best men in college—among the cultured families of what was then a small New England city.
An instance of the friendships Nathan made in New Haven is shown by the words of Æneas Munson, M.D., formerly of that city. When an aged man he spoke in the warmest terms of Hale's fine qualities as he observed them when he was a boy in his father's house, and he treasured a letter to his father from Hale in 1774 which will be given farther on.
Of home letters, happily a few from their father in Coventry to his two sons in college are still preserved; these prove, as no words of any stranger could, his constant and practical interest in all that concerned them. They show us how an upright father tried to influence his boys' religious characters while distant from them, and at the same time they show the economies which even well-to-do fathers then had to exercise in providing for their sons while at college. The first letter also shows that Nathan must have entered college when fourteen years and three months old, having been born in June, 1755, and entering college in September, 1769. We here give the first letter, with all its quaint old spelling, and after it two others written during successive years. We may smile at their old-time expressions, but we must own to a sincere admiration for the kind and thoughtful father, so interested in his boys, and so solicitous concerning their health "after the measles."
Dear Children:
I Rec'd your Letter of the 7th instant and am glad to hear that you are well suited with Living in College and would let you know that wee are all well threw the Divine goodness, as I hope these lines will find you. I hope you will carefully mind your studies that your time be not Lost and that you will mind all the orders of College with care.... I intend to send you some money the first opportunity perhaps by Mr. Sherman when he Returns home from of the surcit [circuit court] he is now on. If you can hire Horses at New Haven to come home without too much trouble and cost I don't know but it is best and should be glad to know how you can hire them and send me word. If I don't here from you I shall depend upon sending Horses to you by the 6th of May,—if I should have know opportunity to send you any money till May and should then come to New Haven and clear all of it would it not do? If not you will let me know it. Your friends are all well at Coventry—your mother sends her Regards to you—from your kind and loving
Father
Richd HaleCoventry Decr. 26th
A.D. 1769.