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 I In memoriam, Melancthon W. 
 ] Jacobus 
 
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 Melancthon W. Jacobus, 
 
 D.D., LL. D. 
 
 Born, September 19, 1816. 
 Died, October 28, 1876. 
 
Rev. Dr. Melancthon W. Jacobus was suddenly 
 called away from earth, on the morning of Saturday, 
 October 28th, 1876. His accustomed occupations 
 were prosecuted without abatement to the last. But 
 two days before his death he was in consultation with 
 Rev. Dr. C. C. Beatty, the President of the Board of 
 Directors of the Western Theological Seminary, and 
 its most munificent benefactor; busied with plans for 
 the welfare of that institution, and particularly for the 
 alteration and enlargement of one of its principal edi- 
 fices. It was scarcely two months since the opening 
 of the session, at which he delivered the introductory 
 lecture; returning with fresh zeal and apparently invig- 
 orated health to his work, from which the offer of the 
 Secretaryship of the Board of Education had failed to 
 draw him. His reasons for declining that position, 
 which had been urgently pressed upon him, will appear 
 from a brief extract from a letter written at the time: — 
 
 " You may be surprised to learn that, after weighing 
 all my duty in regard to the Secretaryship, I am not 
 
able to see my way clear to accept the invitation. 
 The work would take me so entirely off my track of 
 life-long occupation, — in the office and on the wing, 
 vindicating the cause, and appealing for funds, and tak- 
 ing a sort of oversight of candidates, — that I find 
 myself shrinking from it, and fearing that my nervous 
 s} T stem might not bear the strain. I therefore more 
 readily fall in with the protests from Allegheny, and 
 with the counsel of many Eastern friends, who say that, 
 while I am the man for the post, it is doubtful whether 
 it is the post for me. And, much as I should like the 
 idea of rendering the church important service, I can- 
 not be sure that even at self-sacrifice I should be able 
 to endure it. I wait, then, the will and providence of 
 God. I would like to pursue my Biblical studies, and 
 put my material of twenty-five years into shape. Per- 
 haps I may have mistaken my duty; but I have every 
 way sought light." 
 
 The Synod of Pittsburgh, of which he was a mem- 
 ber, being in session but a few days before he died, he 
 was present, and took an active part in its proceedings. 
 He addressed the Synod upon various matters which 
 were under discussion, and particularly made an ear- 
 nest appeal on behalf of the cause of sustentation, in 
 
which he continued to take a lively interest; having 
 been from the first profoundly convinced of its vast, 
 and even vital, importance to the Presbyterian Church; 
 having demonstrated its feasibility practically by set- 
 ting it in operation and for four years conducting its 
 affairs as its Secretary, without salary, and, in a manner 
 that commanded the confidence of the church, received 
 the unqualified commendation of its highest judicatory, 
 and vindicated for it a place among the permanent 
 schemes of the church; and still cherishing an un- 
 wavering confidence in its ultimate success, notwith- 
 standing the apathy of some and the discouragement 
 of others. 
 
 On the day before his death, he lectured in the Sem- 
 inary, as usual, and with his accustomed vivacity and 
 vigor. The next morning, the community was startled 
 with the intelligence that he was no more. 
 
 The funeral solemnities were conducted partly at 
 Pittsburgh, and partly at Newark, N. J., his ancestral 
 home, to which his remains were conveyed for inter- 
 ment. After prayer by Rev. Prof. Samuel T. Lowrie, 
 D.D., at the house in Allegheny, where Dr. Jacobus 
 had so long resided, the sad procession moved to the 
 First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, which was 
 
thronged in every part by a deeply sympathizing audi- 
 ence. Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. S. F. Scovel 
 and Dr. A. A. Hodge. Appropriate passages of Scrip- 
 ture were read by Rev. Dr. S. J. Niccols, and addresses 
 were made by Rev. Dr. Hornblower and Dr. C. C. 
 Beatty. When these services were ended, the bereaved 
 family took the train for the East, accompanied by 
 representatives of the professors, directors, trustees, and 
 students of the Western Theological Seminary, and 
 by a delegation from the Cliosophic Society of the 
 College of New Jersey. At the appointed hour, the 
 friends assembled at the house of Mrs. George A. 
 Keen, in Newark, where prayer was offered by Rev. 
 Dr. Craven; who also conducted the devotional exer- 
 cises in the church, aided by Rev. Dr. McCosh, and 
 Rev. John Hall, D.D., of New York City. Addresses 
 were made by Rev. William M. Paxton, D.D., Rev. 
 Prof. Samuel J. Wilson, D.D., and Rev. William 
 Adams, D.D. 
 
 The several addresses that were delivered here fol- 
 low, in their order; and to these are appended a few 
 extracts from some of the numerous letters received 
 from friends, and some tributes to the memory of Dr. 
 Jacobus by different associations. 
 
SERVICES 
 
 IN 
 
 THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 PITTSBURGH, PA. 
 
ADDRESS OF THE REV. \V. H. HORNBLOWER, D.D. 
 
 " Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in 
 Israel?" — 2 Sam. iii. 38. 
 
 The duty of addressing you to-day has been devolved 
 upon me, for the simple reason that my acquaintance 
 with him we mourn, and would honor, began in early 
 boyhood, and extends over the entire period of his 
 active life. Our parents were members of the same 
 church; our fathers were both elders of that church; 
 and we were both baptized by the hands of the same 
 pastor, the Rev. James Richards, D.D., afterwards Pro- 
 fessor in the Theological Seminary at Auburn, N. Y. 
 
 My review of the first part of his life is greatly aided 
 by an autobiography which he had recently begun. 
 
 ' Melancthon Williams Jacobus, born in New- 
 ark, N. J., Sept. 19th, 1816, was the son of godly 
 parents, Peter and Phebe Williams Jacobus, who con- 
 secrated him in his infancy to the holy ministry. He 
 was the eldest of six children. The character of his 
 
IO 
 
 parents may be judged by the fact, that one of his sisters, 
 Elizabeth, died at five years of age, "giving marvellous 
 evidence of the Christian life," as he writes in his 
 manuscript. I remember hearing much of this remark- 
 able child, and reading a brief memoir of her life that 
 was published at the time of her death. 
 
 This oldest child, consecrated to the ministry by 
 his pious parents, was as precocious in intellect as his 
 younger sister was in piety. At eight years of age he 
 was studying Latin and Greek, at the then famous 
 " Newark Academy," taught by Abraham Van Doren, 
 Principal, and his talented sons, J. Livingston, Luther 
 Halsey, and J. Howard Van Doren, Assistants. Five 
 years later, when the Newark Academy had passed 
 into less able hands, I became a pupil of the same insti- 
 tution, and have a very vivid recollection of Melano 
 thon Jacobus. Though only thirteen years of age, 
 his associates in his classes were much older than him- 
 self, — some of them no longer boys, but young men. 
 He seemed to me, therefore, "one of the big bo}^s"; 
 and this made the kind attentions he bestowed upon 
 me appear as a graceful condescension on his part, and 
 an honor on mine. A bright, high-spirited, quick- 
 tempered boy, wild and mischievous, he was regarded 
 
II 
 
 by the whole school as a leader whom it was chivalric 
 to imitate and follow. He was not the standard model 
 of a " good boy." Notwithstanding the pious efforts 
 of his parents, and the attendance on weekly prayer- 
 meetings, and the exercise of taking notes of the ser- 
 mons on Sunday morning, and of repeating the texts 
 and divisions to his father, and of writing out as much 
 of the sermon as he could recollect on Sunday evenings, 
 — all of which had a very beneficial effect on him, — 
 his too intimate association with the large number of 
 workmen in his father's employ was a damaging influ- 
 ence; and, as he himself writes, but "for the grace of 
 God," might have wrought his ruin. 
 
 At the age of fourteen he was sent to school at the 
 Academy in Bloomfield, N. J. His father was induced 
 to send him there, he says, because at that very time 
 there was a revival of religion in the church of Bloom- 
 field, and in this particular school, taught by Rev. 
 Albert Pierson. Among his associates in this school, 
 he mentions the names of three candidates for the min- 
 istry, who afterwards became distinguished for useful- 
 ness — Peter Dougherty, one of the first missionaries 
 of our Presbyterian Board to the Indians, and who 
 accomplished a work among some bands of the Chip- 
 
12 
 
 pewas and Ottawas, on the Grand and Little Traverse 
 Bays, in the State of Michigan, excelled by nothing in 
 the annals of missionary labor among American In- 
 dians; John H. Morrison, who to-day is the oldest 
 American missionary, still active and useful, in India; 
 and Elias J. Richards, a man of rare endowments, a 
 successful pastor, in Paterson, N. J., in the city of 
 Philadelphia, and in Reading, Pa., where he continued 
 many years, and ended a useful life six years ago. 
 These earnest men produced a profound impression on 
 the character of young Jacobus. But their influence, 
 and that of others who sought to win him for Christ, 
 was counteracted b}' that of a physician with whom 
 he boarded, and who dissuaded him from attending 
 the revival meetings. But he could not resist the 
 power of God's Spirit. A strong conviction, that 
 "godliness is profitable for this world as well as for 
 the world to come," led him to resolve to seek the 
 great salvation. Manfully he confessed his purpose to 
 his medical friend, who replied, " If you go to the 
 meetings, I will go with you." The result was the 
 conversion of both of them. 
 
 In the Seminary chapel, about a year ago, Dr. Ja- 
 cobus related his experience in this happy change of 
 
13 
 
 his life. Those who heard him will recall it in the 
 less full and animated account contained in his manu- 
 script: "I strove to find peace; to get a hope, as it 
 was called. I heard of frames and processes through 
 which others had passed, — tears, darkness, deep con- 
 victions of sin, followed by sudden light. I could get 
 no such coveted exercises. I fell upon my knees in 
 my chamber, read Nettleton's Village Hymns and the 
 Bible, if possibly the conviction and tears and agony 
 might come as with others. But no ! The more I 
 labored for such a hope, the more impossible it was 
 to me, till at length I said to myself, ? If I cannot be 
 saved without passing through such processes, I can- 
 not be saved at all,' when the thought flashed across 
 me, ? Thou fool! looking for your spectacles when 
 they are on your nose. Jesus has wept and agonized 
 and died for me, and all this preparation and provision 
 is completed for me by Him! ' Here I rested in Christ 
 and His finished work. Oh, blessed thought! " 
 
 At this time the great and apostolical Dr. Nettleton 
 was holding meetings in Newark. It was at one of 
 these meetings that I again met my old school friend. 
 We were seated in the same pew, in the gallery of the 
 old First Church, and after the meeting he addressed 
 
me very faithfully and affectionately about my soul. 
 He made several efforts afterwards to bring me to 
 Christ; and, though they were not successful efforts, 
 they left a deep impression on my heart, and I ever 
 after entertained for him a peculiar regard. He was 
 the first one, near my own age, who ever seemed to 
 care for my soul. 
 
 Previous to his conversion, he had intended to study 
 law. But " now his purpose was suddenly and posi- 
 tively changed." There was no " attraction to him for 
 the ministry," he says, " in a secular and a social point 
 of view." But the divine call could not be resisted. 
 When only fourteen years of age, he was received into 
 the full communion of the First Church of Newark. 
 On account of his youth, the Session hesitated to admit 
 him, and held his application under consideration for 
 three months before they granted his request. 
 
 In the month of September, 183 1, when still lacking 
 a few days of his fifteenth year, he entered the Sopho- 
 more Class of Princeton College. Though the young- 
 est member of his class, he carried off its highest honors 
 in each successive year. He, with Parke Godwin, — 
 now known as editor of the " New York Post " and a 
 writer of History, — and the now sainted Elias J. Rich- 
 
i5 
 
 ards, were representatives of the Cliosophic Society, 
 among the junior orators of his class. At his grad- 
 uation, he shared the first honor with Edward Pendle- 
 ton, of Martin sburgh, W. Va. At that time it was the 
 custom in Princeton College to bestow certain honors, 
 distinguished as first, second, &c, and each honor was 
 often divided among a number of competitors. To 
 take the first honor solus was regarded as a great dis- 
 tinction. In the case of Mr. Jacobus, although Mr. 
 Pendleton shared the honor with him, yet, on account 
 of his youth and other circumstances, it was judged 
 that his merit was equal to that of taking the first honor 
 solus ; and the Cliosophic Society conferred upon him 
 a mark of appreciation to which this distinction would 
 have entitled him. At the time of his graduation, when 
 not quite eighteen years of age, the Trustees of Prince- 
 ton College elected him a tutor. He was pressed to 
 accept the position; but, by the advice of Dr. James 
 Richards, determined to lose no time in preparing him- 
 self for the gospel ministry. 
 
 After his graduation from college, he spent a year 
 in his father's office. Here he developed such extraor- 
 dinary business talent that his best friends urged him 
 to relinquish his intentions of studying for the ministry, 
 
i6 
 
 and devote himself to mercantile pursuits. Even his 
 pious father, who had consecrated him to the ministry, 
 impressed by his genius for business, urged upon him 
 a partnership in his own prosperous manufactory. 
 :? Yet," he says, "I was never for a moment moved 
 even to doubt about my great high-calling to the 
 ministry." 
 
 In the fall of 1835, he entered the Theological Semi- 
 nary at Princeton, N. J. His course here was as success- 
 ful as it had been in the college. Among his associates 
 were men who have risen to the highest distinction in 
 the church. He was one of a private class instructed 
 by Dr. J. Addison Alexander " in special Hebrew 
 studies." " This elegant scholar," he says, referring to 
 Dr. J. Addison Alexander, fr took a lively interest in 
 me, and gave into my hands the Book of Malachi, to 
 prepare a commentary, which I did, in my way. 
 This exercise seemed to direct my studies in the 
 department of exegesis, and thus a taste was developed 
 for this kind of investigation." 
 
 At the end of his seminary course, he was invited 
 to remain as " tutor in Hebrew, and assistant of Dr. 
 J. Addison Alexander." This offer was accepted. 
 
 He became, at this time, an intimate friend of the 
 
17 
 
 celebrated Hebraist, Dr. Isaac Nordheimer, who in- 
 ducted him into the study of Arabic and Syriac. Dr. 
 Nordheimer enlisted him as an assistant in several lin- 
 guistic projects he had in view, but which he did not 
 live to complete. 
 
 His career in the Seminary covered the period of 
 the greatest convulsion in our Presbyterian Church, 
 which issued in the division of the Church into two 
 parties, — the New and the Old School. Here the 
 firmness of his own convictions was again tried. All 
 his friends in Newark were " strongly in sympathy 
 with the party which was led b}' Dr. Fisher and Dr. 
 Richards. But my own mind," he says, " was fixed 
 on the side of the standards and the true succession, as 
 I understood it." Though he dismisses the whole sub- 
 ject, in his manuscript, in the single sentence I have 
 quoted, I have no doubt he suffered more, and displayed 
 more heroism, in adhering to his convictions than he 
 chose, in these days of a reunited church, to record. 
 
 In the year of his tutorship, 1839, ^ e was licensed 
 to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of New Bruns- 
 wick. At that time, the students of Princeton were 
 not permitted to receive license till arrived at the end 
 of the three years' course in the Seminary. Neither 
 
 3 
 
were they suffered to exercise their gifts in preaching, 
 except in the class-room, or in the way of addresses 
 and speeches at prayer-meetings and Sunday-schools. 
 Dr. Jacobus complains of this, and feelingly describes 
 the hardship of being suddenly thrust into the pulpit, 
 without any previous experience in the delivery of ser- 
 mons to a promiscuous congregation. 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1839, he was, most 
 unexpectedly to himself, called to the pastorship of the 
 First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, N. Y. Here 
 his own manuscript ends. Two or three pages before 
 this ending is this sadly interesting note: "September 
 19, 1876. This day — a brilliant sky and invigorating 
 air — I am sixty years old, writing these reminiscences 
 of early life, thankful to a covenant God for His great 
 goodness, wherewith He has distinguished my lot, and 
 hopeful for other years of usefulness P 
 
 Alas! that hopefulness for other "years of useful- 
 ness " was not to be realized. It is pleasant to know 
 that he was not depressed and haunted with painful 
 dread of the impending event; that he had no gloomy 
 forebodings of the fact that, instead of "years" only 
 five weeks remained for " usefulness " on earth. And 
 yet how sad for us, that a life so full of spirit and 
 
19 
 
 energy was to be so soon and suddenly terminated; 
 the pen of the ready writer, to fall from the skilful 
 hand; and the "reminiscences," begun with such lively 
 interest, to perish for ever beyond the power of human 
 recovery! 
 
 What remains of the public life of Dr. Jacobus has 
 already been written and published. We need not 
 recapitulate the details. In the church, in its contro- 
 versies, in its benevolent enterprises, in its ecclesiasti- 
 cal courts, he has been an active participant. He has 
 attained the highest ecclesiastical honors that could be 
 conferred upon him. The scholastic degrees of D.D. 
 and LL.D. adorn his name. He is associated, histori- 
 cally, with the grandest event in the history of our 
 church, — as Moderator of the Old School Assembly at 
 the time of the reunion; at the meetings of the General 
 Assembly in 1869, in May at New York, and in 
 November at Pittsburgh; in the union meeting of both 
 Assemblies in the Third Church of Pittsburgh; and as 
 Moderator at the opening of the reunited Assembly in 
 Philadelphia, May, 1870. The dignity, the wisdom, 
 the piety, he displayed at this period were universally 
 admired; and the speeches he delivered and the public 
 prayers he offered, in his official character as Modera- 
 
20 
 
 tor, were of such superlative excellence that many, 
 and among them some who were not carried away 
 with the enthusiastic fever for reunion, were disposed 
 to regard him as inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. 
 His published writings, emphatically his commentaries, 
 have extended his fame to Europe, and will communi- 
 cate it to ages to come. All these facts have passed 
 into history. 
 
 But you who are assembled here to-day are mourning 
 for him as a genial friend, a popular preacher, and, to 
 some of you, in former years a dearly beloved pastor. 
 The versatility of his mind never appeared to better 
 advantage than in the pulpit and at the prayer-meeting, 
 or on occasions that called for impromptu speech. His 
 extraordinary tact enabled him to adapt himself to all 
 circumstances; and the rapidity of his mental action 
 seized on every passing incident, and derived advan- 
 tage from the unexpected events and surroundings 
 that would have embarrassed an ordinary man. He 
 was semper par atus. One unfailing resource with him 
 in all emergencies was his thorough knowledge of the 
 English Bible. This prince among scholars and eccle- 
 siastics rose above all his peers in other departments 
 of learning, by his familiar acquaintance with the Word 
 
21 
 
 of God. The facility and aptness of his Scripture 
 quotations were as surprising as they were edifying. 
 Who can forget the rich and beautiful recitations of 
 Bible sentences beside the sick-bed and at the burial 
 of the dead? How we miss his voice and his Script- 
 ure citations to-day! "Would," exclaimed one who 
 spoke what many have thought, — "would that what 
 he uttered at Dr. Howard's funeral was written down, 
 that it might be repeated word for word at his own ! " 
 
 Another source of his appropriateness in his addresses 
 and speeches was his quick sympathy with others. 
 He took their measure, entered into their minds, and 
 felt with them as well as for them. In his sermons 
 he bridged over the distance between the pulpit and 
 the pews, and lost his own personality in the aggregate 
 mass of the congregation, speaking to them as if he 
 himself were one of them; so that sometimes his ser- 
 mons and addresses had much of the effect of a col- 
 loquy between himself and the people. He would 
 anticipate objections that they might make, or ques- 
 tions they might ask, and put them into words for 
 them; or he would ask them questions, and answer in 
 their place. Sometimes a succession of questions 
 would follow each other, each one answered with his 
 
22 
 
 quick, emphatic "yes " or w no,'' without once allowing 
 his voice to descend into the falling inflection, so that 
 his discourse was like an animated and continuous 
 conversation. Another evidence of his practical knowl- 
 edge of men, and of his habit of preaching to the aver- 
 age man, was the exhibition of the same truth over 
 and over again, in a great variety of aspects. Some- 
 times he never got beyond the first simple proposition 
 or idea with which his sermon began. It was pre- 
 sented in different lights and colors and relations; his 
 fancy playing about it, producing often sudden and 
 surprising kaleidoscopic effects, or the subject passing 
 through a succession of dissolving views. The rhet- 
 orician might regard this as a homiletical fault; but, 
 in the man who addresses the people, it is an invaluable 
 element of success, such as William Pitt and Thomas 
 Chalmers studied to effect. Dr. Jacobus preached a 
 sermon in this pulpit, one evening, of which a critic 
 truthfully remarked, "There was nothing in the whole 
 sermon that was not substantially contained in the first 
 five minutes of its delivery." The next evening, at the 
 young men's prayer-meeting in the room behind this 
 pulpit, all the remarks and prayers were tinctured, col- 
 ored, permeated, with the sermon of the previous even- 
 
23 
 
 ing. Those who spoke and prayed did not appear 
 conscious of the fact; at least, there was not a single 
 direct allusion made to the sermon or the preacher. 
 But the one thought of that sermon had got into their 
 thoughts and hearts, without their knowing it. Dr. 
 Jacobus understood that, in preaching to the average 
 man, it is not enough to present a truth clearly and 
 prove it incontestably, but that it must be driven home 
 into the man's soul by reiterated blows of the rhetorical 
 hammer. 
 
 The adaptation of his ordinary sermons and addresses 
 to the people consisted, again, in avoiding a severely 
 logical structure or a brilliant display of imaginative 
 power. His logic, discarding artificial forms, was 
 addressed to the common sense, the ordinary judg- 
 ments, of men; and his motives, to the affections, prin- 
 ciples, and passions that characterize our human nature. 
 In some of his earlier sermons, the creative faculty was 
 largely employed. I remember one, preached in the 
 First Church of Newark, on the Foundation Stones of 
 the New Jerusalem, in which there was much novelty, 
 and some fine flights of imagination. He has told me 
 that, at that period of his life, he often sought out new 
 paths, and aimed at originality and striking effects. 
 
2 4 
 
 But the wise counsels of that great man, Dr. James W. 
 Alexander, who regarded him in his youth with affec- 
 tionate interest, led him to correct this tendency, and 
 regard chiefly the practical results of preaching, — 
 to aim at benefiting rather than pleasing his hearers. 
 But though he preached old truths, and made practical 
 applications, he always employed new materials to 
 render them fresh and vigorous; and so illuminated 
 them by the play of his fancy that no hearer, of what- 
 ever degree of intellectuality or culture, could fail to 
 be interested and instructed. He was, indeed, a "scribe 
 instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, like unto a 
 man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out 
 of his treasure things new and old." — Matt. xiii. 52. 
 There have been more eloquent preachers, — preach- 
 ers with larger and higher gifts of orator}' ; but never 
 was Dr. Jacobus excelled as a successful preacher to 
 those classes of intellectual and business men who con- 
 stitute the mass of our Presbyterian Church. And, in 
 debate and discussion in ecclesiastical assemblies, the 
 fertility of his mind, the vehemence of his feelings, 
 and the rapidity with which he caught ideas and 
 grasped conclusions, gave him extraordinary effec- 
 tiveness. 
 
25 
 
 How can we speak as we ought of Dr. Jacobus in 
 his connection with the Western Theological Semi- 
 nary? We must leave it to others to tell how much 
 that institution owes to him; and we must leave it to 
 the students who have graduated there to tell what his 
 personal power on the ministers of the church and 
 of the age has effected. Our grief at his loss is inten- 
 sified, because we had just, as it were, received him 
 back again to the chair that he had almost vacated, 
 and, with hopes of increased usefulness, concentrating 
 all his abilities in his professorial work, and resuming 
 it with apparently re-established health and a new 
 fervor of enthusiasm and spiritual consecration. I 
 doubt if ever the Faculty entered on a new session 
 with greater satisfaction or higher hopes: each mem- 
 ber of it in health, and the others strengthened by 
 the assurance that our senior Professor — our head 
 and chief, our prince — could not be charmed away 
 from us. 
 
 As the genial friend, Dr. Jacobus was loved by 
 many. In the more intimate and sacred relations of 
 his household, we have only to say to those who could 
 not judge for themselves, that it would be impossible 
 
26 
 
 to exaggerate the tenderness of his love, the sweetness 
 of his temper, the cheerfulness of his disposition, and 
 the unselfishness of his consideration for others. His 
 home was bright with sunshine, and all who entered it 
 were irradiated with its happiness. 
 
 This prince among men, among scholars, and among 
 divines, has ascended into the higher glory, to receive 
 a new diadem. Without pain, — or more than slight 
 sensations of faintness and exhaustion, — in an instant 
 he passed away from earth, working to the last 
 moment: at Synod last week, one of the most active 
 members, speaking often and with all his usual anima- 
 tion; in his class-rooms last week, never more inter- 
 ested and instructive than during the last hour he spent 
 with the Junior Class on Friday morning; no time lost 
 by prolonged sickness, he was translated in an instant 
 from work to rest, and is not, for God hath taken him. 
 
 When we lose our friends, our memories linger ten- 
 derly about the last events of their lives; and in these, 
 often, we find evidences of a special Providence, shap- 
 ing and preparing things for the approaching end, that 
 neither they nor we had apprehended. So is it in the 
 case of Dr. Jacobus. 
 
27 
 
 The opening address of the present term of the 
 Western Theological Seminary was delivered by him. 
 His theme, — "Bible Study: Professional and Popular." 
 The substance of this address was afterwards published, 
 in four successive articles, in the "Presbyterian Banner." 
 
 At the last Saturday prayer- meeting and conference 
 before his death, in the Seminary Chapel, Dr. Jacobus 
 presided, and addressed the students with unusual 
 animation. 1 
 
 The last sermon he preached was delivered in the 
 Second Church of Steubenville, Ohio, Oct. 8th, 1876, on 
 the text, Acts x. 38: "Who went about doing good." 2 
 The last sermon heard by the members of his own 
 family was delivered in Dr. Swift's pulpit, First Church 
 of Allegheny, Aug. 13th, 1876. The text was Hebrews 
 vii. 25 : " Wherefore He is able also to save them to 
 the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He 
 ever liveth to make intercession for them." In the 
 
 1 This meeting was a fortnight before the Saturday of his death. On 
 the intervening Saturday, the meeting was omitted on account of the absence 
 of the professors at Synods. 
 
 2 The last sermon preached to his former pastoral charge, the Central 
 Church of Pittsburgh, was on the significant text, " Your Fathers, where 
 are they? and the Prophets, do they live for ever?" — Zech. i. 5. 
 
28 
 
 manuscript the words " to the uttermost " are empha- 
 sized by having the original Greek words written above 
 them, — et<? to 7ravTe\e<i. The last head of the sermon 
 is, "Jesus is able to save to the uttermost limit of this 
 mortal existence P And the last words are a descrip- 
 tion of the Christian's experience in the final moment 
 of life: "At that uttermost extremity, when all earthly 
 helpers must give up and can do no further work of 
 relief or of salvation, Jesus goes on to save, — triumphs 
 there as the only Saviour, displays His supreme and 
 matchless ability to save through and through. Where 
 Death and the Grave defy any and all others, see how 
 He saves to the very completion, saves from the bitter- 
 ness and sting of death, saves even from the fear of 
 death, saves from impatience and repining amidst the 
 dying agonies, saves from all those overwhelming anxi- 
 eties that you would think must make the death-bed 
 of a fond parent so terrible! . . . And then you see 
 the salvation in the triumphant calm and peace wrought 
 out for the departing spirit. And victory sits upon the 
 brow, and a longing, longing for the heavenly home 
 seems to throw the fondest earthly home into the 
 shade. And the heavenly society, the kindred and 
 friends who are there, seem so ineffably attractive as 
 
29 
 
 to make those dear ones that were most doted on here 
 only secondary and inferior in their charms. And all 
 this is the proof, the shining proof, that Jesus is able to 
 save to the uttermost. And the secret of all this is, 
 that yonder in heaven, at the Father's side, He is busy 
 in His intercessions, — the living Saviour, actively 
 officiating for His dying children, where the dying 
 Stephen saw Him, — praying that they may be with 
 Him where He is, that they may behold His glory! 
 And so He comes down and meets them in the dark 
 valley, with His shepherd's rod and staff; and stands 
 at the dying bed, vanquishing Satan and hushing his 
 malicious accusations, and whispering, Peace! And 
 His own Spirit, the blessed Third Person of the Trin- 
 ity, is making responsive intercessions in the heart, 
 with groanings that cannot be uttered; taking of the 
 things of Christ, and showing them to the inward sight, 
 while the natural eye is sealing up in death, — opening 
 the vision to celestial glories at the very moment that 
 it is utterly closed to earth. 
 
 " 'Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, 
 Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying ! ' " 
 
 " 'Oh ! had we learned what death alone brings nigh, 
 The dread had been to live, and not to die.' " 
 
3° 
 
 The last texts of Scripture that connect themselves 
 with him who was so full of texts, and so quick and 
 wonderfully apt in their citation, were precisely those 
 he himself might have chosen. " The Silent Com- 
 forter," a roll containing texts for every day, and indi- 
 cating chapters for daily reading, hangs in his study, 
 and bears the marks of constant use. It was found 
 open for the twenty-eighth day of the month, — the 
 day of his translation. Probably he himself the night 
 before had turned the leaf, that his eye might rest on 
 the right page in the morning. It was at least a pleas- 
 ant coincidence that the texts his eye last rested on 
 and the Scriptures for that day's reading were these: — 
 
 Job xix. 25-27: "For I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon 
 the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy 
 this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I 
 shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and 
 not another; though my reins be consumed within 
 me." 
 
 Psalm xvii. 15: "As for me, I will behold Thy face 
 in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake 
 with Thy likeness." 
 
 The Scripture lessons were Psalm xvi. and 1 Thes- 
 
3i 
 
 salonians iv. The last subject I happened to hear him 
 discussing, in conversation with his associate professor, 
 Dr. Lowrie, was the Messianic character of this six- 
 teenth Psalm. In that Psalm occur the words, " The 
 lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have 
 a goodly heritage; " and the last words are, "Thou 
 wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is ful- 
 ness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for 
 evermore." The fourth chapter of i Thessalonians 
 ends with these glorious words, that have already been 
 read to you: "But I would not have you to be igno- 
 rant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that ye 
 sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For 
 if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so 
 them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
 Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the 
 Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the 
 coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are 
 asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from 
 heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, 
 and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ 
 shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain 
 shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, 
 to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be 
 
32 
 
 with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with 
 these words P 
 
 The last evening of his life was partly occupied in 
 writing to those he loved. There were found lying 
 upon his desk, the next day, sealed, stamped, and 
 addressed, — a letter to his well-beloved physician, a 
 letter to his second daughter, and a postal card to his 
 younger son. In these two last, after speaking, in his 
 playful, punning fashion, of a toothache from which 
 he was suffering, he used these remarkable words: 
 " I hope, providentially, to be relieved on the morrow." 
 It is singular that he should have introduced that word 
 " providentially." Doubtless it gave point to the humor 
 of the moment. Yet we may almost believe that 
 it was dictated by some hidden inner consciousness, 
 unrecognized by himself, but dimly affected by the 
 shadow of that absolute and eternal relief from all pain 
 that was silently approaching. . 
 
 The very last utterance that passed his lips, the last 
 word to which he gave audible voice, was the name of 
 her who was dearest to him of all on earth, — that 
 wife whose form suggests the image of the fragile reed 
 that bends before a zephyr's breath, but whose womanly 
 faculty made her a staff of strength to support her hus- 
 
33 
 
 band's steps in every hour of trial, trouble, and distress. 
 God help her now, and be to her a tower of strength! 
 
 We have spoken of the last things in the earthly 
 career of this departed prince of the kingdom of God. 
 But let us not forget that, in the chain of endless causa- 
 tion, there are no last links: there are subtile connec- 
 tions between the life that now is and that which is to 
 come; and, had we the keener perception to trace them, 
 we would learn, doubtless, that the transitions of death 
 do not produce the abrupt and violent changes they seem 
 to involve. Dr. Jacobus once, in one of his sermons, 
 illustrated the unbroken continuity of the believer's life, 
 begun on earth and prolonged in heaven, by a bold ref- 
 erence to crossing the Allegheny suspension bridge. 
 Looking up from his manuscript, with his countenance 
 all aglow, in his quick, nervous tones, he exclaimed, 
 "What is it for the Christian to die? It is only cross- 
 ing the suspension bridge. The bridge is wrapped in 
 Pittsburgh mist and smoke. You can't see what lies 
 beyond it. A stranger hesitates to cross it. But, 
 impelled to go forward, he passes over it; and what 
 then? Why, the street goes straight on, with the 
 houses on both sides, and objects in view similar to 
 
 5 
 
34 
 
 those he left on this side. He has only changed posi- 
 tions from one side of the river to the other. He has 
 not changed his life, his work, or his inward self. And 
 so death is only crossing the bridge from one city to 
 another, from one street to another. The Christian 
 who is living for God, working for God, and loving 
 God, here on this side of the dark river, continues on 
 the other side of the river to live for God, work for 
 God, and love God. It is a continuous life, continuous 
 work, continuous communion in the love of God!" 
 And so let us think of him now that he himself has 
 crossed the bridge to that other city. He is the same 
 man he was, with the same objects of pursuit before 
 him, — the glory of God in the kingdom of His dear 
 Son; the same motives impelling him to action, — 
 faith, hope, charity; and the same rewards in the expe- 
 riences of his own soul, for "the kingdom of God" — 
 both here and there — " is within us " (Luke xvii. 21) ; 
 " for the kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, 
 and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17). There 
 are no absolute, radical, essential changes wrought in 
 the soul of the Christian by the agency of death. He 
 who consecrated his life to God in childhood, and kept 
 his consecration vows down to the border-land of old 
 
35 
 
 age, has passed into a higher sphere from the stage of 
 preparation here; carrying with him his intellectual fac- 
 ulties, his human affections, and his spiritual graces, — 
 not to be destroyed, but purified, elevated, sublimated, 
 and glorified, and still consecrated to God, and employed 
 in His service. 
 
 Let us remember, finally, that, though his last acts 
 and words on earth are complete, their results are not 
 yet finished. The Christian, being dead, yet speaketh. 
 And the Christian hero we mourn and commemorate 
 to-day has left words and works that possess in them 
 an indestructible vitality. His contributions to Christian 
 literature, and especially to his favorite department of 
 study, the exposition of inspired Scripture, will con- 
 tinue his influence wherever the English language is 
 read, and, like other writings of that class, can never 
 wholly lose their value. The sermons he preached 
 survive in the hearts of Christian converts, to be 
 preached over again in their lives and words, to exer- 
 cise converting power in an endless succession of those 
 added to the church, who shall be saved. The instruc- 
 tions of his class-room survive in the ministers they 
 helped to fashion and furnish for the work of extending 
 
36 
 
 the gospel to the ends of the world. And the germ- 
 seeds of truth he was sowing day by day in the words 
 he so aptly spoke, — words like apples of gold in bas- 
 kets of silver, — words in which he knew so well how 
 to condense doctrine in proverbs, and epigrammatic 
 phrases, and antithetical sentences, often humorous, 
 sometimes of the keener-tempered metal of wit, — inci- 
 sive words, penetrating even dull minds, and inhering 
 in reluctant memories, — those germ-seeds will fructify 
 and reproduce their kindred seed in years and genera- 
 tions and ages yet to come. 
 
 Especially must the great work to which he devoted 
 the best part of his life go on, accelerated by the 
 impulse he has given to it. To raise up a pious, edu- 
 cated, and efficient ministry, he employed his intellect- 
 ual faculties, contributed his large stores of Biblical 
 knowledge, generously distributed his worldly fortune, 
 and labored in prayer night and day; and speaking to 
 us now, with all the appealing power of his own life 
 so unselfishly consecrated to this work, he seems to be 
 exhorting, as in the words of the Apostle Paul to his 
 son Timothy: "And the things that thou hast heard of 
 me, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall 
 be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. ii. 2). To train 
 
37 
 
 " faithful men," " able to teach others," he gave money, 
 prayer, wise counsel, executive ability, intellectual 
 effort, unceasing toil, and, finally, exhausting the ner- 
 vous power of the physical man by unremitted work, 
 life itself. To us he has left the responsible duty of 
 pursuing with tireless zeal and prompt energy the 
 work he pursued " with his harness on " to the last day 
 of his life. May God make us faithful in fulfilling the 
 trust that in this sudden providence is committed to 
 our hands and hearts, — hands feebler, doubtless, than 
 those now still and helpless! but let us pray that our 
 hearts may not be less warm and enthusiastic than his. 
 Death has chosen a shining mark, and extinguished a 
 burning and a shining light in our beloved church. 
 " But," in the closing words of his inaugural discourse 
 when installed a professor in the Western Theological 
 Seminary, we can say, "The Great Teacher ever 
 lives. And the gracious Master, as Head of the 
 church and Helper of His weak servants, gives the 
 Holy Spirit to them who ask Him." 
 
33 
 
 REMARKS OF THE REV. C. C. BEATTY, D.D. 
 
 I desire very particularly in this presence, not only 
 for myself, but as President of the Board of Direc- 
 tors, to express our deep sense of the great loss we 
 have experienced in the death of our senior professor. 
 It has come upon us most unexpectedly, and the loss 
 seems to us irreparable. The Great Head of the Church 
 alone can repair the breach which has been made. 
 We have long tried and known his worth. His long, 
 able, faithful, and successful labors among us have 
 been highly appreciated by us alf: he had caused us 
 not only to admire but love him. 
 
 He was recently called to another most important 
 position in our Church, as Secretary of the Board of 
 Education, for which he was admirably adapted; and 
 we had some fears that we might lose his valuable 
 services. Indeed, he himself hesitated for a while. 
 He then wrote to me that there were some arguments 
 for a change, as it might give him, in a new position, 
 freshness and energy for action; "and," said he, "if 
 ever I am to make a change from the Seminary, now is 
 the time, and this is the opportunity." But he decided 
 to remain, and throw himself for life, with all his vigor. 
 
into the work of his professorship. Neither he nor 
 any of us thought for how short a time this would be. 
 
 But for this quick exit from labor to reward he was 
 not unprepared, in fact or thought or sentiment. We 
 had spoken together, just the day before, of the sudden 
 death of Dr. Howard. Indeed, he several times reverted 
 to it as a subject of his frequent thoughts; and he said, 
 that sudden death, to them that are prepared, was not 
 to be deprecated, but rather desired if God so or- 
 dered, as to be " absent from the body is to be present 
 with the Lord." And how frequently since has that 
 excellent form of words come up to my mind, — " The 
 souls of believers are at their death made perfect in 
 holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; their 
 bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their 
 graves till the resurrection " ! Precious sentiment ! 
 blessed truth ! "do immediately pass into glory!" 
 Yes, he has gone into glory, and why should we 
 grieve? Though absent from us, he is now present 
 with the Lord. Let us follow after. 
 
 It was my privilege to spend twenty-four hours with 
 him at his house, but a day before his sudden depart- 
 ure. We had met by appointment, to confer and plan 
 for the future welfare of the Seminary. He was full of 
 
40 
 
 interest, fertile in suggestions, and his enthusiastic nature 
 looked forward with hopefulness to its future advance- 
 ment. Reference was had to the half-century celebra- 
 tion of next spring; "and then, also," said he, "at the 
 same time I shall celebrate my quarter century of con- 
 nection with it, and we both shall enter upon a new 
 course of usefulness." We shall miss him greatly, not 
 only from the lecture-room, but in regard to his active 
 outside work, in promoting the material interests of 
 the institution in various forms, and for which his exec- 
 utive ability eminently fitted him. He loved the Sem- 
 inary, and loved to labor for it. Next to the spiritual 
 interests of the kingdom of Christ, the prosperity of 
 this institution lay nearest to his heart. 
 
 Did time and the fulness of my heart allow, I should 
 speak of my personal relations so long and so inti- 
 mately and so happily maintained with this beloved 
 friend and brother and his family; but I must forbear. 
 
 To that stricken family — partner, children, relatives 
 — I would say, they have our heartfelt sympathies in 
 their sad bereavement, and our sincere prayers that 
 our and their Heavenly Father, the God of all comfort, 
 may vouchsafe to them the strongest supports and rich- 
 est consolations of His Holy Spirit. The Lord has 
 called him from us to " go up higher." 
 
SERVICES 
 
 IN 
 
 THE THIRD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 NEWARK, N.J. 
 
ADDRESS OF THE REV. W. M. PAXTON, D.D. 
 
 "And I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, 
 Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." 
 These words seem to assure us of the truth of those 
 beautiful lines of Faber: — 
 
 " There is no place where earth's sorrows 
 Are so much felt as up in heaven." 
 
 When there is a sorrow down here, there is sympa- 
 thy up there. Heaven has a care for us in our bitterest 
 trials. A voice comes from the skies, saying, "Write!" 
 But, with our eyes dazzled with the glare of the world, 
 the writing is often invisible to us until the heat of the 
 furnace of affliction brings out the record clear and 
 distinct, and then with what delight we read, " Blessed 
 are the dead who die in the Lord"! 
 
 This is a bitter sorrow under which our hearts are 
 oppressed to-day. We all feel it. Our departed 
 brother held so many important positions, and stood 
 in so many different relations, that there is not one of 
 us who in some way or other is not made to feel that 
 
44 
 
 this death is a personal grief, A father has been taken 
 from the midst o( a family, where he was loved, — oh, 
 how tenderly! a professor, from a chair which he 
 
 adorned with his learning j a teacher, from the midst of 
 
 students, who looked to him for guidance in the way 
 of truth: a minister, from the pulpit where he attracted 
 so many hearts: ami an author, from his pen, which he 
 used so successfully in illuminating the word of God. 
 I lis death is a grief to us. and a loss to the generation 
 which he served. 
 
 It only remains with us to recall the points of his 
 useful life: remembering that with us. also, w the time 
 is short." 
 
 Melancthon W. Jacobus was born in this city 
 ^Newark) on the ioth of September, 1816, lie was 
 rain in Bloomfield, X. J., where he was pursuing 
 his preparatory course of academic study. He entered 
 the Sophomore class in Princeton College, at the early 
 age of fifteen, and graduated with the first honor of his 
 class in the year i$^-|. After a brief interval, he com- 
 menced the study of theology in Princeton Seminary, 
 and attained to such proficiency in his studies that. 
 when he graduated, he was retained as an assistant to 
 Pre:", Addison Alexander in the department of Hebrew 
 
45 
 
 instruction. In the year 1839, he was called and set- 
 tled in the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church 
 in the city of Brooklyn, where he remained for a period 
 of eleven years; during which time a large and admir- 
 ing congregation was attracted by his preaching, and 
 the church advanced to a high degree of prosperitv. 
 It was at this time he received the first warning of 
 impaired health. Added to his pastoral and pulpit 
 labors, he had undertaken the preparation of a commen- 
 tary upon the Gospels, the first volume of which he 
 had already published. The confinement and exhaus- 
 tion of this accumulated work brought upon him a 
 hemorrhage from the lungs, which rendered it neces- 
 sary to intermit his labors, and seek refreshment and 
 health in a foreign tour. Accompanied bv his wife, he 
 travelled over the Continent of Europe, and then ex- 
 tended his tour to Egypt and the Holy Land, returning 
 by Constantinople and Greece. 
 
 It was during this absence that Divine Providence 
 opened to him a door which changed the direction of 
 his after life. The chair of Oriental and Biblical Lit- 
 erature in the Western Theological Seminary in Alle- 
 gheny City, Pa., was vacant; and the attention of the 
 directors being attracted to his rising fame, both as a 
 
4 6 
 
 preacher and commentator, he was chosen as the man 
 to fill that important position. Upon the nomination 
 of the directors of the Seminary, he was elected to this 
 professorship by the General Assembly, in May, 1851. 
 This call met him in a foreign land. His health had 
 been greatly improved; yet the stress of pulpit labor 
 might endanger his already weakened vocal organs, 
 whilst the comparative quiet of a professor's chair 
 seemed to hold out the hope of continued life. The 
 decision was not difficult to make. He resigned his 
 pastorate in Brooklyn, where many warm friends 
 regretted his loss, and, accepting the chair of Oriental 
 and Biblical Literature, entered upon his duties earl} 7 
 in the year 1852. 
 
 From that time until his death it was my privilege 
 to know him intimately, and enjoy his confidence. 
 Being then a pastor in the city of Pittsburgh, I was the 
 eye-witness of much of his after life. Knowing the 
 circumstances as I did, I may safely say that no man 
 was ever received with greater cordiality by the citi- 
 zens of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, and by the large 
 Presbyterian population of Western Pennsylvania. 
 When he preached in the churches, he was listened to 
 with delight; when he commenced his work as a pro- 
 
47 
 
 fessor, the students gathered around him with admira- 
 tion; and at synods and presbyteries and conventions, 
 he was popular and influential, a favorite with the 
 elders and with his brethren in the ministry. 
 
 His present position was favorable to the accom- 
 plishment of the ideal of his life, — the completion of 
 a commentary upon the Sacred Scriptures. His vol- 
 ume upon Matthew had already been published; but 
 now, fresh from the scenes of the Holy Land, and his 
 mind teeming with new thoughts and suggestions, he 
 took up the broken thread of his work, and soon after 
 issued his volume upon Mark and Luke. This was 
 followed by his still more valuable work on the Gospel 
 of John; and, in after years, by the ablest and most 
 scholarly of all his works, — his Commentary upon 
 Acts, and his two volumes upon Genesis. Of the 
 character of these works it is needless for me to speak. 
 They have taken their place among the standard works 
 of the church. Some of them have been republished 
 in England and Scotland. His thoughts upon the 
 Gospels have been reproduced in thousands of Sabbath- 
 schools, and are familiar in many households. 
 
 During this period of his professorship, he was provi- 
 dentially drawn into controversy, where his keen 
 
48 
 
 intellect and ready learning gave him an easy victory. 
 You may remember that, sometime about the year 1853 
 or 1854, the Roman Catholic Church in this country 
 began, in an ostentatious way, to claim that the Romish 
 Church is the foster-mother of free institutions. Into 
 this controversy Dr. Jacobus entered with great fresh- 
 ness and vigor; and, such was his ready learning and 
 skill in argument, that an intelligent public opinion did 
 not hesitate to award him the victory. The bishop 
 whom he fought soon after retired from his episcopal 
 throne, and it was shrewdly suspected by many that 
 this was pursuant to the settled policy of Rome, — not 
 to allow a vanquished champion to remain in honor. 
 It was not precisely with the simple " sling and stone " 
 of David that he slew that Philistine, but rather with 
 the keenness of a scimitar and the flash of a Damascus 
 blade. 
 
 But there was another work to which Dr. Jacobus 
 seemed called of God, which I take pleasure in men- 
 tioning, because it rises up before my mind as the 
 most blessed work of his life. It was the authorship 
 of the " Address to the Churches " in the year 1857, 
 which was so greatly blessed of God in promoting the 
 work of revival. 
 
49 
 
 You may remember that the autumn of 1857 was 
 marked by a very severe pecuniary crisis, which was 
 followed, as has often been the case in the history of 
 the church, by a great religious awakening. A con- 
 vention of the ministers and elders of the five synods, 
 including Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, 
 met in the First Presbyterian Church in the city of 
 Pittsburg, to pray for the outpouring of God's Spirit 
 upon the churches. On the first day of the meeting, a 
 committee was appointed, of which Dr. Jacobus was 
 chairman, to draft an address to the churches. The 
 first day of the meeting was not marked by any special 
 interest. Indeed, so dull was the whole proceeding 
 that many of the most anxious and hopeful began to 
 despond. On the second day, toward noon, that re- 
 markable man of God, Dr. Plumer, arose and made a 
 few tender remarks, and concluded by narrating one 
 of the simplest of stories about a little girl who had 
 always observed that her mother comforted herself 
 under all trials by saying, " Jesus lives? One day, 
 seeing her mother bathed in tears, the child ran to her 
 and said, "Mother, mother, is Jesus dead?" The 
 utterance of these words, "Is Jesus dead?" melted 
 the assembly into tears. All hearts seemed broken, 
 
 7 
 
5° 
 
 stifled sobs could be heard all over the house. It 
 seemed to be the moment when the Spirit of God 
 came down on that assembly. This was immediately 
 followed by the reading of Dr. Jacobus's Address to 
 the Churches. It had been prepared, as I afterward 
 learned from his correspondence, amid prayers and 
 tears; and, when his burning words fell upon that 
 assembly, the effect was such as cannot well be de- 
 scribed. God had prepared him to write. It was bap- 
 tized with prayer and tears. The thought was so 
 apposite, the appeal so powerful, and the Scripture 
 passages were woven together with such point and 
 power, that it seemed to be the very word of God 
 addressed to every heart. The revival had begun, 
 and God's ministers and elders were baptized for 
 a great work. This Address was published. The 
 ministers carried it home with them; and on the fol- 
 lowing Sabbath, instead of a sermon, this Address was 
 read in multitudes of pulpits; and, wherever it was 
 read, such a blessing attended it that a great revival 
 followed over all that region of country. 
 
 But time will not permit us to continue these per- 
 sonal reminiscences. He has gone, and we mourn 
 his loss. His departure was so sudden that we are 
 
5i 
 
 stunned and confused by the shock. It seems but 
 yesterday since I saw him in the midst of a joyous 
 marriage scene; but now the tongue that uttered such 
 expressive words of kindness is stilled in death. He 
 died in the faith of those blessed truths which he has 
 so ably expounded and so eloquently preached. Man's 
 sinfulness and Christ's salvation were the great truths 
 which appeared in his whole work as an expositor 
 and preacher. He had a deep sense of his own per- 
 sonal unworthiness in the sight of God, and this led 
 him with a simple faith to accept Christ's righteous- 
 ness as his only hope. In this confidence he lived and 
 died. And now he has gone — 
 
 " To sit clown by the clear 
 And crystal waters ; he has gone to list 
 Isaiah's harp, and David's, and walk 
 With Enoch and Elijah and the host 
 Of the just men made perfect." 
 
52 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE REV. SAMUEL J. WILSON, D.D. 
 
 Perhaps that which first impressed those who knew 
 Dr. Jacobus intimately was his wonderful versatility. 
 His mind was many-sided. He was a scholar in the 
 best and truest acceptation of that term, and at the 
 same time he possessed eminent business qualifica- 
 tions. He was a ready and elegant writer, and at 
 the same time a fluent, apt, and eloquent extempora- 
 neous orator. He was an able and accomplished 
 professor, and at the same time a popular and dis- 
 tinguished preacher. He was alike successful as a 
 writer of books, of reviews, and of newspaper articles. 
 He could preach either with or without notes. Few 
 men were happier than he, either in a studied, elabo- 
 rate address or in an impromptu effusion. He was 
 an indefatigable and enthusiastic student; yet he never 
 became monkish or ascetic, but was always thoroughly 
 awake to the living issues of the times. He was an 
 accomplished ecclesiastic, a ready and an effective 
 debater, and always shone conspicuously on the floor 
 of the Presbytery, the Synod, and the General As- 
 sembly; and as the organizer of the scheme of Susten- 
 tation in the Presbyterian Church in this country he 
 exhibited extraordinary executive ability. He would 
 
53 
 
 have been distinguished in any profession or in any 
 station. He would have occupied a front rank as a 
 merchant, a lawyer, a statesman, or a scientist. Any 
 thing which he undertook to do he did well, and upon 
 all his work he left the distinct impress of a strong 
 individuality. It seemed easy for him to achieve suc- 
 cess and distinction in any calling or in any depart- 
 ment of human effort. His powers and acquirements 
 were varied, and all of them were at ready and instant 
 command. In his study and lecture-room, he might 
 have been taken for a mere scholar; in the pulpit, he 
 might have been taken for a preacher, and nothing 
 more; in the social circle, he might have been taken 
 for a man who was devoted to society; on the plat- 
 form, he might have been taken for a popular speaker, 
 and for that alone: yet he passed from each of these 
 divers spheres to the others with perfect ease and nat- 
 uralness, and was alike distinguished in them all. 
 
 Perhaps the next thing which impressed those who 
 knew him well was the rapidity of his intellectual 
 operations. The quickness of his mental movements 
 was wonderful. These movements were as swift as the 
 flight of the eagle, and in their swiftness were some- 
 times dazzling and bewildering. He was one of the 
 most rapid and facile workers I have ever known. To 
 
54 
 
 the rapidity of his intellectual movements both tongue 
 and hand appropriately and S3 7 mpathetically responded; 
 so that fluent and felicitous speech, and the pen of a 
 ready writer, kept pace with the rapid thought. In 
 this way he was enabled, notwithstanding his ill health, 
 to accomplish an amount of work that was prodigious. 
 With his thoughts coming thick and fast, with a co- 
 piousness of fitly chosen words, which never for so 
 much as even a moment failed him, and with a pen 
 which fairly flew across the paper, his achievements in 
 work were amazing. 
 
 The fertility of his mind was quite as remarkable as 
 his versatility and as the rapidity of his intellectual 
 operations. He was never tame, he was never dull, 
 he was never commonplace. Upon every subject he 
 was fresh, lively, and suggestive. His mind was a 
 prolific field which abounded with every variety of 
 product. He brought forth out of his treasure things 
 new and old ; the new being dignified and made attrac- 
 tive by rare and exquisite learning, and the old being 
 beautified by the choicest drapery of expression and 
 imagery. His mind teemed with thoughts, images, 
 and associations, and these were always presented in 
 some new light, with some new tint or shading which 
 a chaste and delicate fancy added to them. 
 
55 
 
 Another characteristic of his was the intense and 
 tireless activity of his mind. He was always busy. 
 His active intellect could not rest. His brain and his 
 hands were always full, and he was constantly project- 
 ing new schemes of work and of activity. It so hap- 
 pened, in the providence of God, that for the last ten 
 days of his life I was much in his company. In those 
 ten days, we conversed more on general topics than 
 ordinarily we did in a year. I never knew him to be 
 so full of plans and schemes of work and usefulness. 
 His thoughts ranged over the entire church with its 
 vast interests and enterprises, and it seemed that it 
 would require a hundred lives to carry out all the proj- 
 ects of his fertile brain. With his infirmities of body, 
 ninety-nine men in a hundred would have given up all 
 work; but he seemed only to labor the more intensely, 
 as if admonished that the time was short. His quick 
 eye was on the whole circle of learning, and nothing 
 escaped its notice. He gathered the choicest books 
 around him, read them with avidity, and extracted 
 from them the very quintessence of their contents in 
 so concentrated a form that it was available at any 
 moment and in any emergency. It was impossible to 
 confine his activities to any one particular channel. 
 They would transcend all barriers, and would expend 
 
56 
 
 themselves in varied and diverse enterprises. He was 
 always working. His pen never flagged. He worked 
 to the very last. 
 
 As a preacher he had few equals. His sermons 
 were scriptural, expository, sound, direct, cogent, clear, 
 fresh, lively, abounding in original thought which was 
 couched in the most beautiful and appropriate lan- 
 guage, which was happily at an equal remove from the 
 dry commonplaces of theology on the one hand, and 
 from the dialect of slang and provincialism on the 
 other. He would have adorned any pulpit, and would 
 have edified any congregation. In his knowledge of 
 the English Bible he was, perhaps, absolutely unri- 
 valled. He had memorized not only verses and chap- 
 ters, but whole books, — indeed, nearly the entire 
 Bible. He always had scriptural quotations pat to the 
 purpose. This greatly enriched his preaching, but it 
 imparted especial unction and impressiveness to his 
 prayers. These prayers of his were unique : none 
 just like them were ever heard; none just like them 
 shall we ever hear again. How inimitable was his 
 paraphrase of the Lord's prayer! The power of the 
 Address, to which Dr. Paxton has so happily and so 
 eloquently referred, consisted largely in the fact that 
 it was drawn directlv from the word of God. 
 
57 
 
 His qualities as a pastor were as remarkable as 
 his qualities as a preacher. Affable, genial, and 
 sympathetic, he was alike at home and acceptable 
 in the social circle, in the sick-room, and in the 
 house of mourning. 
 
 His scholarship was varied and accurate, and would 
 have adorned any chair. For twenty-three years he 
 performed the duties which belong to the depart- 
 ments of Old and of New Testament exegesis. His 
 connection with the Seminary and my own have 
 been almost contemporaneous. He entered the 
 Seminary as professor a few months before I en- 
 tered it as a student; and ever since, for all these 
 twenty-five years, as student, as tutor, and as fellow- 
 professor, I have been intimately associated with him, 
 and never for an hour has our friendship been 
 interrupted. We differed, and that, too, where each 
 had cherished and positive convictions. We met 
 often where the angles were sharp, we met where 
 interests clashed, we passed twelve years as pastors 
 of adjoining congregations, and yet never in those 
 twenty-five years was there one moment when we 
 could not meet in perfect cordiality. Dr. Jacobus 
 had less venom in his composition than any man I 
 
58 
 
 ever knew. He never harbored malice. Enmity 
 and spite found no lodging-place in his heart. 
 
 As professor, he devoted himself to the interests 
 of the Seminary. He was thoroughly identified with 
 it, and he labored for all its interests. He was very 
 successful in securing patrons for it, and in securing 
 funds for its constantly growing wants. His life for 
 the last quarter of a century has formed a large 
 part of its life and history; and he will be sadly 
 missed, not only in the lecture-room and in the 
 meetings of the Faculty, but in the wider sphere 
 in which the general interests of the institution must 
 be looked after. He died in the harness; he fell 
 on the field; and young men among whom he labored 
 so long carry him to his burial. 
 
 His busy, useful life has ended suddenly and mys- 
 teriously. If we were the judges, we should say that 
 his life had ended before his work was done : but 
 the purposes of God are inscrutable ; and there 
 are infinite reasons lying back of this providence 
 which, if revealed to us, would be perfectly satis- 
 factory to the bereaved Seminary, to these father- 
 less children, and even to this widowed mother. 
 For this explanation we wait; but he knows it all 
 now. Thank God, he knows it all. 
 
59 
 
 How blessed to be permitted to work up to the 
 very last, without the loss of an hour, without the 
 loss of a single lecture or recitation! The last place 
 I ever saw him alive was at his desk in the lecture- 
 room. He finished the work of the day; and, before 
 the bell summoned to duty the next day, he had 
 entered upon a higher service in heaven. How 
 blessed to fall asleep in Jesus, without seeing death 
 or tasting its bitterness ! 
 
 When we have spoken of the public life of the 
 deceased, of his professorial, of his pastoral, and of 
 his ecclesiastical work, of his books and his literary 
 productions, we have only given the exterior of his 
 life. To describe him fully, we should have to in- 
 trude within an enclosure which is too sacred to be 
 exposed to view here. Dr. Jacobus was only truly 
 and fully known at his home, in his family, as hus- 
 band and father. To those who thus knew him best, 
 all his honors and titles sound hollow and empty 
 compared with the more sacred titles of husband 
 and father. On this hallowed ground I shall not 
 dare to tread. We stand in the outer court. With- 
 in the sanctuary are the golden candlesticks, the 
 table of shew-bread, and the altar of incense. 
 
6o 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE REV. WM. M. ADAMS, D.D. 
 
 The death of a Christian minister! At how many 
 graves has he stood ere he reached his own! Into 
 how many homes stricken with sorrow has he en- 
 tered, with ministries of consolation, before his own 
 home was made desolate by his departure ! How 
 often has he preached to his fellow-men concern- 
 ing death, and Him who is the Resurrection and the 
 Life, before he himself passed into the great mys- 
 tery of dissolution ! 
 
 In such a presence it is that we gather our best 
 lessons as to the true value of life. Two aspects 
 of humanity are brought together by the inspired 
 apostle. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of 
 man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, 
 and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word 
 of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the 
 word which by the gospel is preached unto you." In 
 one aspect, what so frail and evanescent as a human 
 life? In another, even as associated with the word 
 of God, and that destiny to which it points, what 
 so sublime and imperishable? It is the province 
 
6i 
 
 of every Christian minister to be connected with 
 his fellow-men in those matters which relate to 
 what is divine and immortal. As he passes from 
 the world when his work is finished, we recall the 
 fact that his influence never can die. It surpasses 
 our power of computation. It has given stimulus 
 to thought, and direction to character. You may- 
 put in order the number of public services he has 
 rendered, enumerate the sabbaths and the sermons 
 of his official career; but who can measure that 
 invisible influence which he has exerted in the 
 comparisons and judgments and purposes of hun- 
 dreds and thousands who have been led into a 
 religious life by his persuasion and fidelity! Blessed, 
 indeed, is he who, dying in the Lord, is permitted 
 to see the long succession of good results which 
 follow his faithful work in the ministry of Christ. 
 If I may be permitted to paraphrase the language 
 of Mr. Coleridge concerning a distinguished teacher, 
 I would say: "When I would frame to myself the 
 most inspiriting representation of future bliss which 
 my mind is capable of comprehending, it would be 
 embodied to me in the idea of a Christian minister 
 receiving, at some distant period, the appropriate 
 reward of his earthly labors, when thousands and 
 
62 
 
 ten thousands of glorified spirits, whose reason and 
 conscience had through his efforts been unfolded, 
 shall sing the song of their own redemption, and, 
 pouring forth praise to God and to their Saviour, 
 shall repeat his c new name ' in heaven, give thanks 
 for his earthly virtues, as the chosen instruments of 
 divine mercy to themselves, and not seldom perhaps 
 turning their eye towards him, as from the sun to 
 its image in the fountain, with secondary gratitude 
 and the permitted utterance of a human love." 
 
 The death of a Christian scholar ! Superficial 
 minds, judging according to sense, might regard the 
 life of a student, delving in books and making 
 books, as of small account in this great and noisy 
 world. But the wheels which make the noise as 
 they grind the grain and saw the lumber are put 
 in motion by the stream, which has its beginning 
 in the hills, and flows quietly along through the 
 meadows, attracting no attention to itself. The 
 author of a good book is the true Methuselah: he 
 lives a thousand years who excites and informs 
 and directs other minds for generations after he 
 has gone from the sight of men. Specially true 
 is this of the good and the great men who have 
 given their lives to the elucidation of the Holy 
 
63 
 
 Scriptures. Generations pass along over the earth, 
 customs change, nations perish; but the word of 
 the Lord abideth for ever; and he who writes any 
 thing which helps men to a better understanding of 
 the Bible has a share in the immortality of that 
 book which he illustrates. Judge not that a Chris- 
 tian scholar passes a life of idleness and waste; for 
 
 " A drop of ink 
 Falling, like dew, upon a thought 
 Produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." 
 
 The sudden death of a Christian minister! Smit- 
 ten when in full armor in the midst of vigorous 
 duty! So Chalmers died. Lying down at night 
 in apparent health, with the implements for writing 
 within easy reach of his hand, that he might work 
 when first he woke, and at the early dawn his liber- 
 ated soul exclaimed, " Let me go, for the mornino- 
 breaketh." So died Albert Barnes and Nicholas 
 Murray ; so died our common friend Dr. William 
 D. Howard, at whose funeral, three weeks before 
 his own, Dr. Jacobus so tenderly officiated. Let 
 us dismiss all speculations and preferences as to the 
 time and mode of our departure, since concerning 
 these we have no responsibility. With one thing only 
 are we charged, — always to be ready. Death never 
 
6 4 
 
 can be sudden to one who lives so mindful of his 
 exposure to it that he may be said, in the language 
 of the apostle, to die daily. Never can it be un- 
 expected to him who is well prepared for its 
 coming. May God help us all so to live that we 
 may adopt the words of the pious Baxter : " Lord, 
 when thou wilt, how thou wilt, where thou wilt ; 
 be it only that I am ready." 
 
 My personal associations with Dr. Jacobus became 
 intimate for the first time in connection with those 
 negotiations which resulted in the reunion of the two 
 branches of the Presbyterian Church. He was the 
 moderator of his own assembly at the time when 
 the vote was taken to consummate the union. 
 Thrown much into his society at that time, it gives 
 me pleasure to recall his uniform urbanity and wis- 
 dom and catholic, Christian temper. Several asso- 
 ciated with us on those committees of conference 
 have already gone. Surely they do not regret, in 
 their abodes of glory, what they did in the cause of 
 Christian unity and love. Should I adopt the thought 
 of Leighton, — that in the presence of death all 
 earthly distinctions fade out of sight, even as all colors 
 are alike in the dark, — the association might well 
 be regarded as too sombre. Rather would we say 
 
65 
 
 that, in the light of heaven and in the presence of 
 our Lord, all the petty differences which divide 
 and separate on earth are lost for ever in the glory 
 of a common relationship to God and the Lamb ! 
 
 Rapidly are the servants of Christ passing to 
 their eternal home. To many this world is grow- 
 ing lonesome; but heaven becomes more and more 
 home-like and populous as companions and co- 
 laborers are removed thither. We understand better, 
 every time that a familiar friend is translated to that 
 world of joy, the words of inspiration, "We are 
 come to the general assembly and church of the 
 first-born which are written in heaven, and to the 
 spirits of just men made perfect." 
 
 " Ten thousand times ten thousand, 
 
 In sparkling raiment bright, 
 The armies of the ransomed saints 
 
 Throng up the steeps of light. 
 'Tis finished, all is finished, 
 
 Their fight with death and sin : 
 Fling open wide the golden gates, 
 
 And let the victors in. 
 Oh, then what rapturous greetings 
 
 On Canaan's happy shore ! 
 What knitting severed friendships up 
 
 Where partings are no more ! " 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
DR. JACOBUS AND THE SCHEME OF 
 SUSTENTATION. 
 
 It seems proper that some supplemental reference should 
 here be made to the services of Dr. Jacobus in connection 
 with the General Assembly's Scheme of Ministerial Susten- 
 tation, of which he was the earnest advocate and zealous pro- 
 moter, and of which he was for three years the efficient 
 secretary. What here follows upon that subject is simply 
 condensed from his annual reports presented to the Assem- 
 bly ; and is designed to exhibit, in as compact form as pos- 
 sible, his views of the magnitude and importance of the work, 
 the considerations by which he defended the necessity of a 
 sustentation agency, and the actual results achieved. No 
 eulogy or encomium is attempted, nor any comment offered. 
 The arguments which he employed are simply recited, and 
 the facts are allowed to speak for themselves. 
 
 A growing concern had been felt for years in the Presby- 
 terian Church on the subject of the inadequate support of 
 the ministry, with all the privations, anxieties, and discour- 
 agements which it occasioned to ministers themselves and 
 their families, as well as the damage thence resulting to the 
 
7o 
 
 church itself, since it seriously curtailed the amount and 
 impaired the efficiency of ministerial work, and proved the 
 fruitful source of other alarming and increasing evils. The 
 conviction was general that some adequate remedy must be 
 devised, and ought to be applied. Great expense was in- 
 curred in educating men for the ministry. A disabled min- 
 isters' fund was provided for those who were worn-out in the 
 service : but a large proportion of those who were actually 
 engaged in doing the work of the church received, instead 
 of a generous support, a miserable and scanty pittance ; and 
 existing methods of relief were quite unable to correct this 
 grievous wrong. This matter engaged the attention of the 
 first assembly of the reunited church in 1870 ; and a com- 
 mittee, of which Dr. Jacobus was chairman, was appointed 
 to consider and report upon the question of sustentation. A 
 resolution was also referred to this committee, directine 
 inquiry to be made into the stipends of ministers ; and the 
 results laid before the next General Assembly, with sugges- 
 tions as to the best means of raising the smaller stipends. 
 
 Inquiries were accordingly addressed to all who were in 
 charge of churches, whether pastors or stated supplies. 
 Out of the entire number (2,729), answers were received 
 from 2,100. Of these, but 852 received salaries of $1,000 or 
 upwards; 1,248 received under $1,000 (of whom 432 were 
 pastors, and 816 stated supplies). There were 909 who 
 received less than $800: of these, 281 were pastors, and 
 
7i 
 
 628 stated supplies. And 622 received less than $600: of 
 these, 145 were pastors, and 477 stated supplies. Of the 
 
 629 who were not reported, more than 200 were home 
 missionaries : so that the general average would not have 
 been materially affected if all had been heard from. In 
 the language of the committee : " These figures represent 
 startling and saddening facts, calling loudly for action." 
 " Here is a large class of educated men, with cultivated 
 tastes, and with wives of refinement, used to comfortable 
 living, who endure drudgery, and suffer hardships and priva- 
 tions which they would shame to tell : their children growing 
 up with meagre facilities of schooling ; the minister, who 
 should owe no man any thing, unable to worry through the 
 year without debt, always under the harrow, wasting his 
 best energies in making ends meet." 
 
 Hence the increasing instability of the pastoral office : 
 hosts of candidates flocking to every desirable vacancy, and 
 bringing the ministry into contempt ; the multiplication of 
 stated supplies, one thousand of our working ministers stand- 
 ing in this equivocal and temporary relation, — a relation 
 unknown to our constitution ; the great number of unem- 
 ployed ministers and vacant churches (out of 4,238 min- 
 isters on our roll, only 2,700 at the utmost being in any 
 ministerial charge, and only 1,625 being pastors; while out 
 of the 4,526 churches on our lists, more than one-fifth are 
 vacant) ; preachers without charge accumulating in large 
 
72 
 
 places, and fearing to go to destitute regions ; the enforced 
 secularization of the ministry (men ordained to preach 
 the gospel, and who, by divine ordinance, should live of the 
 gospel, constrained by sheer lack of bread for their needy 
 households to turn aside to secular pursuits, and, abandon- 
 ing sacred functions altogether, or devoting to them but a 
 fraction of their time and strength) ; young men of talent and 
 piety deterred from entering the ministry, and drawn aside 
 to other avocations which offer at least a comfortable living ; 
 the popular impression created, and the sentiment actually 
 advocated publicly, that the ranks of the ministry are full, 
 and even overcrowded, notwithstanding the spiritual wastes 
 that everywhere abound, and the fact that our Lord's injunc- 
 tion, "Preach the gospel to every creature," is utterly un- 
 fulfilled. 
 
 This state of things, it was urged, betrays a deficiency in 
 our existing methods. It is not to be traced to incompetency 
 in the ministry. Whatever may be true in individual cases, 
 though some may have mistaken their calling, so sweeping 
 and cruel a charge cannot be brought, with any show of 
 justice or truth, against this large body of faithful and devoted 
 men, — men who will compare favorably, on the whole, 
 with the ministry of any church or of any land, or with their 
 brethren in our own church more favorably circumstanced ; 
 and who are ready and anxious, if the opportunity were 
 afforded, to do good service for the church and for their 
 
73 
 
 Lord. This cannot, with any reason or fairness, be treated 
 as a purely commercial question, and allowed to adjust itself 
 by the law of supply and demand ; as though a preacher 
 were worth what he will fetch, and will fetch what he is 
 worth, and a poorly-paid minister were for that reason to 
 be subjected to the suspicion that he is not worth a living 
 salary, and is unfit for his work. 
 
 It was further urged that, according to the Presbyterian 
 doctrine of the unity of the church, there is an obligation 
 resting upon the entire body to secure to the faithful minis- 
 try a competent support. " There is a field for every true 
 and faithful minister of Christ in this broad land ; and the 
 church ought to sustain him in his field, as much if he be at 
 work in America as if he were at work in India or in China." 
 " Although the particular congregation which is served by 
 the living preacher is, in a sense, more immediately obli- 
 gated, as being more directly interested and obliged, yet 
 the church at large is surely bound to secure a maintenance 
 for her ministers, as ordained by her for the work at large, 
 and as belonging to her necessary apparatus for evangel- 
 izing the world." 
 
 This duty has in fact been recognized by the church from 
 the beginning, and through her Home Mission Board she is 
 extending aid to 1,200 out of her 2,700 working ministers. 
 But this very circumstance calls for serious thought : a large 
 proportion of the churches assisted by the Board of Home 
 
74 
 
 Missions are in the older States and in long-settled districts. 
 Many of them have been in this state of dependence for 
 many years, and are making no visible progress toward 
 self-support. And, then, the entire number that must be 
 aided is so considerable that the amount which can be 
 afforded to each is necessarily small, — much smaller in a 
 multitude of cases than the presbyteries and churches ask 
 for, and smaller than the Board would gladly grant if they 
 had the means at their disposal to do so. The inquiry hence 
 arose, whether this important and indispensable arm of our 
 church might not be materially strengthened, and the work 
 which it is now vigorously yet vainly struggling to overtake 
 be essentially aided by the incorporation of a new feature 
 in our system of relief. While the Board is left to continue 
 the same method as heretofore, and to accomplish all that it 
 is possible for it to do, cannot a new agency be devised, 
 auxiliary to it, which shall relieve the Board of a portion of 
 its work ; and, by applying a special stimulus to such mis- 
 sion churches as are prepared for it, and granting them 
 larger aid for a limited period, afford a competent support 
 at once to a number of deserving pastors, whose hands will 
 thus be strengthened and their hearts encouraged, and their 
 churches put upon a process which will soon issue in self- 
 support, and thus place them beyond the need of further 
 assistance? The larger outlay, for a brief term, in churches 
 of this description, would be true economy, if it could be so 
 
75 
 
 applied as to impart a new stimulus to them, and they could 
 be thereby roused to bestir themselves to do their best to 
 stand alone, instead of sinking down contented in a state of 
 permanent dependence. This method can then be success- 
 ively applied to ever-widening circles. As churches thus 
 effectively relieved are in succession lifted out of their state 
 of needy dependence into the condition of self-support, the 
 funds thus released could be in turn extended to others, with 
 the hope that, in no very long time, the entire body of the 
 hard-working and poorly-paid pastors throughout our whole 
 church could be reached, and a decent maintenance afforded 
 to them all; while the Home Board, thus relieved, could be 
 extending its arm of aid further and further into the regions 
 beyond, and reclaiming the outlying wastes and desolations. 
 This attempt to raise the salaries of the underpaid min- 
 istry to the point of a comfortable maintenance as speedily 
 as possible, and to bring the mission churches up to the con- 
 dition of self-support, was, it was constantly urged, to be 
 associated with and furthered by the conjunction of contigu- 
 ous weak charges under one pastorate. It was no part of 
 the scheme to further the multiplication of separate charges 
 in districts, or under circumstances where they manifestly 
 could never be sustained, or to burden the church at large 
 with the support of two or more separate pastors in the midst 
 of a population which could be adequately served by a single 
 pastor whom they could maintain themselves. The mistake 
 
7 6 
 
 of dissociating churches which had been and ought to be 
 joined together may sometimes have been inadvertently com- 
 mitted in the subsequent management of this scheme, and 
 there may have been other errors of judgment arising from 
 imperfect information ; but these were no part of the scheme 
 itself. And no one would be more ready to admit or to cor- 
 rect such errors, if they existed, than those who were 
 charged with its administration. 
 
 Influenced by such considerations as these, the General 
 Assembly adopted the scheme of sustentation which was 
 proposed ; appointing a special committee to take it in 
 charge, and electing Dr. Jacobus to be its secretary, — a post 
 which he accepted and held, so long as he retained it at all, 
 on the condition that he should receive no salary for his ser- 
 vices. The object attempted was to enable such churches 
 as came into the scheme to raise their salaries to $1,000. 
 In order to do this, the church must itself make up at least 
 $500 toward this amount ; and the sum raised for this pur- 
 pose b}r the church must amount to not less than $7.30 per 
 member ; the minister in charge must be regularly settled 
 as a pastor; the church must contribute, in advance, to the 
 Sustentation Fund one-twentieth of their share of the salary, 
 and must make systematic contributions to all the boards of 
 the church ; and both the necessities of the church, and its 
 satisfactory compliance with all the requirements of the 
 scheme, must be regularly certified by the Presbytery. 
 
77 
 
 Each congregation aided was thus incited to do its utmost 
 for its own support : it was trained to take an interest in all 
 the causes of benevolence conducted by our church ; the 
 formation of the pastoral relation was encouraged, instead of 
 the loose connection of stated supply ; contiguous churches 
 were encouraged to unite, in order to avail themselves more 
 readily of the benefits offered by the scheme ; and the regu- 
 lar growth of membership would, in a few years, by the 
 very conditions of the aid furnished, place the church 
 beyond the need of receiving it further. 
 
 Several months were necessarily spent in getting the 
 scheme fairly started : but in the first annual report to the 
 General Assembly, in 1872, the Secretary was able to state, 
 that 748 churches had contributed $41,073.52 to the cause 
 of sustentation ; and meanwhile the receipts of the Board of 
 Home Missions, instead of being diminished thereby, were 
 $30,000 more than ever before; and it was, in addition, 
 relieved of the support of 72 ministers transferred to this 
 scheme. 114 applications for aid had been granted, amount- 
 ing to $18,212.92 ; and 61 stated supplies had been made 
 pastors ; and the minutes of the Assembly for that year show 
 an increase of 150 installations over either of the two pre- 
 vious years, with no increase of dissolutions. The report 
 further states : " Many churches testify that the people have 
 done far more for the minister, and for all the boards of the 
 church, than would have been possible under any other 
 
78 
 
 arrangement : e.g. , ' Our people have done fifty per cent more 
 for the salary, and one hundred per cent more for the boards, 
 than ever they had done.' . . . The scheme set on foot a new 
 movement. Many churches advanced their salary to $1,000, 
 without our aid ; many stated supplies hastened to become 
 pastors ; churches which were below the minimum increased 
 their salary, so as to come under the scheme. If, as now 
 seems, this movement is to go largely forward along the 
 whole line of our weak churches, there will be a general 
 lifting up of large numbers, and that according to a scheme 
 which will not allow of dependence upon the church funds 
 for an indefinite time. They will here be put upon a sliding 
 scale towards speedy self-sustentation." 
 
 The second annual report to the Assembly, in 1873, states 
 that, during the past year, 1,269 churches had contributed 
 $60,184.20, which, with the former balance, gave a total of 
 $83,044.80 ; 308 ministers had been taken under the scheme, 
 and $70,858.40 disbursed ; 200 home missionaries had, by 
 the operation of the plan, been settled as pastors, and the 
 funds of the Home Board relieved to that extent. " Reports 
 have been received from 200 churches under our scheme, 
 which show their total of contributions to the boards to be 
 $20,000, as compared with $6,000 during the same period 
 previous. Most of these churches had been under the 
 Home Mission Board, which is thus doubly relieved by 
 transfer of the churches, and bv increase of funds from this 
 
79 
 
 source and by this means. In the amount raised by these 
 churches themselves for the salaries of their ministers, the 
 increase is to $110,000, from $85,000 previous to sustenta- 
 tion. These figures show a solid gain of $39,000 under this 
 regimen. And, estimating for the remainder (one-half more) 
 in the same proportion, we would have $58,500 of gain in 
 salaries and offerings to the boards beyond the same period 
 previous." And testimonies of the strongest and most de- 
 cided character are recited, from various synods, presbyteries, 
 and individual churches, to the salutary and effective work- 
 ing of the scheme. And the General Assembly declared 
 "that this scheme is one of the very highest importance to 
 our church ; that its administration has been prudent and 
 able ; and that it should no longer be regarded in the light 
 of an experiment, but fully established as a part of the settled 
 policy of the church." The agitation of the subject, also, 
 bore its indirect fruits ; the Assembly's minutes showing an 
 increase, during the year, of over half a million of dollars in 
 the column of ministers' salaries. 
 
 The next year was, in all respects, a most trying one, and 
 calculated to put the scheme to the severest test ; both because 
 of the financial panic, and because the report of the Consoli- 
 dation Committee, published some time before the meeting 
 of the Assembly, had suggested a discontinuance of the 
 Sustentation Committee as a separate agency, and thus led 
 to a greater diminution of the receipts in the last two months 
 
8o 
 
 of the year than had previously been occasioned by the 
 monetary stringency. In spite of these depressing circum- 
 stances, however, the third report, in 1874, mentions 266 
 pastorates under the scheme, 13 of which had become self- 
 sustaining ; $51,758.03 had been received, which, with the 
 surplus of the previous year, gave a total of $63,944.43; 
 and $67,388.63 had been paid out, leaving an indebtedness 
 of $3,444.20. The March payments were in arrears about 
 $4,000; and on the next pay-day, June 1st, there would 
 be a further liability of $14, 500. 1 Of the churches aided by 
 the scheme, full reports had been received from 155 : from 
 which it appeared that they had raised, during the year, 
 $44,506 more for ministers' salaries than they had done 
 prior to sustentation, and $9,365 more for contributions to 
 the several boards of the church ; making a total gain of 
 $53,871. If those not fully reported were estimated in the 
 same proportion, there would result a total gain of $92,800. 
 
 Dr. Jacobus resigned his official connection with the 
 scheme at that time ; and the Assembly recognized the 
 value and the disinterestedness of his services in the follow- 
 ing resolution : — 
 
 "Resolved, That the thanks of the Assembly are due, and 
 are hereby cordially tendered, to the Rev. M. W. Jaco- 
 
 1 At the time of its transfer to the Board of Home Missions, in the 
 month of June, the deficiency amounted to $31,014.35, according to the 
 statement of the Board. 
 
8i 
 
 bus, D.D., Secretary and Treasurer of the Sustentation 
 Committee, who has served the church in this capacity for 
 three years, with distinguished ability and faithfulness and 
 without salary." 
 
 It may be safely said, that no enterprise in which our 
 church has ever engaged met with more marked favor, or 
 achieved a higher success in so brief a period. There were 
 diversities of judgment in respect to some of the details of 
 the scheme, and opposition was encountered in certain quar- 
 ters. But the facts, which stand on permanent record, 
 abundantly demonstrate the feasibility of the scheme in the 
 hands of a man of the requisite executive ability, who has 
 faith in its working, and who means to make it succeed. 
 
LETTERS, RESOLUTIONS, &c. 
 
 From a Member of his Church in Pittsburgh. 
 
 Allequippa, Nov. 6. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Jacobus, — I have hesitated about writ- 
 ing to you, lest the expression of my grief should renew 
 your own, and be less kind than silence. My thoughts 
 are constantly with you, and I feel that I must express 
 something of the love and sympathy I bear you. My 
 dear, dear Mrs. Jacobus, if /am left desolate and sor- 
 rowing, how will you bear this bereavement? You know 
 all that / have lost in the death of your dear husband, 
 — a most true and faithful pastor, wise counsellor, sym- 
 pathizing in my sorrows, and ever ready to aid me by 
 the kindest, wisest advice; a most honored friend, — yes, 
 he allowed me to call him such, though the title I ever 
 felt to be the greatest condescension from one such as he. 
 Ah! how can I spare him? Where can I ever find an 
 ear so willing and a voice so wise? Whose prayers for 
 me and mine can ever replace his? I trust that my love 
 
«3 
 
 for my dear pastor will lead me to honor him by a re- 
 newed consecration of myself to the service of the Master 
 whom he so loved, and to whose glory he devoted his 
 life and talents. Already he seems to speak to me across 
 the great river that lies between us ; his former words 
 come back with all their winning earnestness; and, for 
 his dear sake, I will make new efforts to serve my God 
 faithfully. With a heart full of sympathy, believe me 
 Your loving and sorrowing friend, 
 
 E. S. B. 
 
 From a Member of his Brooklyn Church. 
 
 Baltimore, Nov. 2. 
 
 My dear Friend, — I have just laid down the paper 
 containing the sad intelligence of the death of our be- 
 loved former pastor. I do not write with even the 
 faintest hope of soothing your deep, overwhelming sor- 
 row ; but to assure you that in our home there is deep 
 sympathy with you, and to express, with numberless 
 others, our sincere affection and genuine, heartfelt esteem, 
 and even reverence, for that dear one whose departure 
 has left an aching void in the hearts of so many. As 
 I read the account of his useful life and his endearing 
 qualities, my heart responded, "So true, so true, is 
 it all ! " How often has my memory dwelt so lovingly on 
 that precious visit to us here during that meeting of the 
 
84 
 
 Northern General Assembly ! Those delightful days of 
 sweet Christian intercourse can never be forgotten. The 
 evenings were warm ; and, as we sat in the darkened 
 parlor at the hour of worship, there was no need of the 
 written word for him who conducted our devotions for 
 us. A psalm of David was repeated so sweetly that the 
 charm of it was enhanced ; and then the earnest petitions 
 which followed made us feel as though we were indeed 
 in a little sanctuary below. In your grief is no bit- 
 terness, except that it will cost us a bitter pang to sur- 
 render our dearest treasures, even into the loving arms of 
 
 our Redeemer. 
 
 Yours, with the same old love, 
 
 S. H. A. 
 
 From the President of the Board of Directors of the Seminary. 
 
 Steubenville, Oct. 28. 
 
 My dear, dear, afflicted Friend, — I have just 
 received your telegram. Oh, how sudden and unexpected ! 
 I feel that my best, dearest friend on earth has gone from 
 me ; but gone to his Saviour and Lord. I had never 
 thought of his going before me ; but such is the divine 
 will, and I bow to it. He had spoken to me more than 
 once of Dr. Howard's death, and the effect on his mind ; 
 but we both agreed that the time and way made but little 
 difference when we are prepared. He was fully so. How 
 
§5 
 
 has glory succeeded to the darkness of this world ! He 
 had many, many friends who will deplore their loss in his 
 sudden departure from among them. It will give a shock 
 to our whole church ; but our dear Seminary is the great- 
 est loser, after his own family. Accept the sympathy of 
 my stricken heart for you and all the children. 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 Charles C. Beatty. 
 
 From the President of the Board of Trustees of the Seminary. 
 
 Pittsburgh, Nov. 8. 
 Mrs. Dr. Jacobus: — 
 
 My dear Madam, — I thought, on my return home 
 from Newark, I would see you, and express my sym- 
 pathy in this hour of your sorrow and bereavement ; but 
 illness prevents me. Dr. Jacobus was one of my dearest 
 and most beloved friends. He is gone : God has taken 
 him. He served his day and generation faithfully, and, 
 as far as it is possible for man to do, he fulfilled the 
 whole duty of man. The family's loss, the church's loss, 
 the Seminary's loss, is great beyond measure, and to us 
 irreparable. He has finished his labors : his works will fol- 
 low him. He has received the crown ; and nothing is left 
 undone by him for us to do but to bless and thank God for 
 his lifetime labors of love, and for his shining example 
 in the church and the world. We have received all by 
 his hands from God, as a faithful shepherd. In an hour 
 
86 
 
 when we thought not, God has taken him from us. Our 
 duty to God is plain, — that we cling closer to his God 
 and our God, and say, " Thy will be done." 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James Laughlin. 
 
 From another Member of his Brooklyn Church. 
 
 New York City, Nov. io, 1876. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Jacobus, — You, of course, learned that 
 Mrs. Dunham and myself attended the funeral services of 
 your dear husband. It was a sad, sad blow to us all. 
 To say we sorrow does not express our feelings. There 
 was no man living for whom I entertained greater re- 
 spect, and, I may add, no one out of our immediate 
 family circle whom I loved and revered as I did the 
 doctor. It was only a few days prior to his decease 1 
 was looking over several of his kind and affectionate 
 letters, all showing his intense interest and anxiety for 
 my soul's salvation. He was a true friend. Mrs. D. 
 joins me in very affectionate remembrance to you and 
 your family. 
 
 Very truly, 
 
 W. S. D. 
 
87 
 
 From an Old Seminary Friend. 
 
 Utica, N. Y., Nov. 4, 1876. 
 
 My dear Madam, — It is not meet for a stranger to 
 intermeddle with grief like yours ; but my very long-long- 
 ago acquaintance with your husband, formed during our 
 student life at Princeton, and while seated at the same 
 table, under the roof of the Misses Brearley, the high re- 
 gard and warm affection I then formed for him, and which 
 the many years past since never impaired, and the rela- 
 tions into which we were brought at an intensely inter- 
 esting and most momentous period in the history of our 
 church, impel me to take the liberty of saying that I 
 share your bereavement; and that, if sympathy could com- 
 fort you in the least, my heart is full of it. Endurance 
 and duty remain to us here ; and let me say for your en- 
 couragement that there may be found an untried sweet- 
 ness in them. Passing under the rod is delicious indeed; 
 and what a satisfaction there is in letting the Lord work 
 out his designs by us, even though it be by rugged paths 
 and heavy crosses ! But, with all the rewards and enjoy- 
 ments of patience and service, your eyes must turn now 
 from earth to heaven. The springs from which you have 
 so largely drank are broken up ; but a little way on is 
 
88 
 
 the " pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, pro- 
 ceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 P. H. Fowler. 
 
 From a Ministerial Friend. 
 
 Albany, Nov. i, 1876. 
 Mrs. Jacobus : — 
 
 Dear Madam, — I am deeply afflicted in your great 
 affliction, of which I was apprised in looking over the 
 New York Tribune last evening. None could know your 
 husband without esteeming and loving him. I regard my 
 acquaintance and intercourse with him, though far less 
 than I could have desired, a great privilege ; and the 
 reminiscence will ever be cherished lovingly. It is a 
 great pleasure to me to remember what a distinguished 
 career of Christian usefulness your dear husband has been 
 enabled to pursue ; how much good he has done for Christ 
 and for his fellow-men ; how amiable in character, cour- 
 teous in manners, and blameless in life. And, if it be 
 a pleasure to me thus to remember him, how much more 
 to you, my afflicted friend? Do not think of him as dead. 
 He is not dead, but living, enjoying more of life, and a 
 nobler life, than he ever enjoyed here. May the peace 
 of God, which passeth understanding, keep your heart 
 and mind, through Christ Jesus ; and may the grace of 
 God be sufficient for you, and for the whole circle of 
 
8 9 
 
 family and relatives ; to whom convey the sympathy and 
 condolence of Your sincere friend, 
 
 James R. Boyd. 
 
 From an Old Student. 
 
 Plainfield, Nov. 5. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Jacobus, — Just let me say that, among 
 all the letters you are doubtless receiving, no one of them 
 conveys a truer sympathy than that which I would by 
 these lines have you know is in my inmost heart for } r ou. 
 Since the death of my old friend and pastor, Dr. Cham- 
 bers, I have felt nothing so deep and strong as the emo- 
 tions which possessed me when, on Wednesday, I stood 
 by that coffin in Newark. It seemed so hard to look on 
 that dear, familiar face, and think I should see it no 
 more. The memories of all my pleasant intercourse with 
 him in the days of my student life, and in later days also, 
 came thronging in upon me, together with thoughts of 
 what a large place he filled in the work of the church, 
 and what a great vacancy was made by his taking away. 
 How little did I think a year ago that those beautiful 
 lines he wrote on Mr. Newkirk's death would thus soon 
 be applicable to himself. Ah ! what " hosannas to the 
 Lamb, with raptures all untold," he has been singing 
 this past week in the home above the skies ! 
 
 In tenderest sympathy, yours affectionately, 
 
 John C. Bliss. 
 12 
 
90 
 
 From an Early Student. 
 
 Pittsburgh, Oct. 30, 1876. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Jacobus, — I wish it were in my power 
 to say a word to comfort your heart in your great sor- 
 row. If human sympathy could relieve your anguish, I 
 am sure you have it from multitudes of God's dear people 
 throughout the world. The whole church is afflicted in 
 the loss of our dear Dr. Jacobus. But our loss is his 
 gain. Though his death was so sudden and startling, 
 yet it was so fitting and beautiful ! He had finished his 
 work, and God took him. "Not lost, but gone before." 
 Done with bearing the cross, already he wears the crown. 
 
 With a profound sense of personal obligation to your 
 dear husband, now in glory, 
 
 I am, very sincerely yours, 
 
 W. T. Beatty. 
 
 From a Ministerial Friend. 
 
 DOWNINGTOWN, PA., Oct. 3 1, 1876. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Jacobus, — I am grieved beyond ex- 
 pression to hear of the death of Dr. Jacobus. The day 
 before this intelligence reached me, I was engaged for 
 some time in studying one of the doctor's commentaries, 
 and, as I sat with the book in my hand, I fancied I could 
 
9i 
 
 see the face and form of my beloved friend, and I seemed to 
 receive instruction more from him than from the printed 
 page. Frequently, I recall the days I was privileged to 
 spend in your happy home. How much I enjoyed those 
 visits it is impossible to tell. As we sat in the house, and 
 as we walked or rode to and from church or presbytery, 
 the doctor's conversation was to me a continual feast. He 
 was always agreeable, interesting, and instructive, and, 
 at times, full of humor. It seemed to me that he had 
 read every book worth reading ; that he had knowledge 
 of every person of any prominence or distinction ; that he 
 was informed of every question or movement in church 
 or state ; and that he was as familiar with the Bible as with 
 the alphabet. It was always a wonder to me how he 
 could accomplish as much as he did. While discharging, 
 with distinguished ability, the responsible duties of pro- 
 fessor, he did not fail to meet all the requirements of 
 his office as pastor of the Central Church. And yet he 
 found time to write valuable commentaries, for which 
 there has been a great and increasing demand in this 
 country and in Great Britain ; and he attended religious 
 conventions, and meetings of Presbytery, Synod, and the 
 General Assembly, and took an active part in their dis- 
 cussions and proceedings. His was indeed a busy life. 
 He was a good and faithful servant of our blessed Lord 
 and Master, and great will be his joy and reward in 
 heaven. I sympathize deeply with you and your family 
 
9 2 
 
 in your sore bereavement. Not many know better than 
 I what a heavy and irreparable loss you have sustained. 
 Others feel the loss sustained by the Seminary and the 
 church, which he loved and served so well. Many will 
 lament the death of Dr. Jacobus. Although he is dead, 
 yet we are confident that he will not be forgotten ; and 
 that his influence, works, and example will be perpet- 
 uated. Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Francis J. Collier. 
 
 Froin a Ministerial Friend. 
 
 Philadelphia, Oct. 31. 
 My dear Mrs. Jacobus, — I am well aware that you 
 are in a condition of grief that should make a stranger 
 hesitate to meddle; but I cannot resist the desire to ex- 
 press my great astonishment and grief, and to assure you 
 of my sympathy. My relations to your husband were 
 most intimate and pleasant, and my regard for him the 
 highest. I cannot forget the deep interest he has always 
 manifested in me, and his continued kindness to me 
 through my entire ministry. The public esteem, of which 
 you have so many assurances, cannot compensate for the 
 great loss experienced in the inner sacred home-circle, 
 where the darkness is so thick ; but it must be a gratifi- 
 cation to know that your home-treasure was so valued 
 in the world, and, more than all, in the church of Christ. 
 
He has done a great work for Christ, and left a name 
 most honorable in our Presbyterian household. There 
 must be a sweet rest for a servant who toils so long and 
 toils so well in the vineyard. The Master must have 
 given a warm welcome in the Father's house to one who 
 believed so firmly, and was so helpful to the faith of others. 
 I greatly regretted his not coming to Philadelphia. It seems 
 as if God had kept him for this better change, and shown 
 His grace by translating him from the midst of many 
 friends. Please accept this word of tribute and sympathy 
 from one who feels indebted to your husband and laments 
 his loss. May the precious Saviour, whose preciousness 
 he so well knew and could so richly proclaim, comfort 
 you and your fatherless children, and keep you in His 
 grace till He brings you to his glory and to your dead. 
 Very affectionately, your friend in Christ, 
 
 Charles A. Dickey. 
 
 Extract from Minutes of the Faculty of Western Theological Seminary. 
 
 On Saturday, Oct. 28, at 7 o'clock a.m., suddenly died 
 almost without premonition, our senior professor, Rev. 
 Melancthon Williams Jacobus, D.D., LL.D., having 
 faithfully and successfully discharged his duties as a 
 member of this Faculty for nearly a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. 
 
94 
 
 We, his stricken brethren, would leave on record, in our 
 minutes, this simple expression of our love to him ; of our 
 unspeakable sense of his loss to our Seminary ; of our thank- 
 fulness for all that God has accomplished for the cause of 
 Christ, through the instrumentality of this honored servant ; 
 of our prayer for grace to bear the increased burden that 
 devolves on us, by the removal of our head and chief, who 
 so efficiently sustained all the interests, and was laboriously 
 active in the general management of the affairs, of this 
 institution ; and of our tender and prayerful sympathy for 
 his bereaved family, with whom we weep as fellow- 
 mourners. 
 
 Action of the Board of Directors of the Western Theological Seminary. 
 
 Whereas, since the last meeting of this Board it has 
 pleased the Head of the church to remove by death the 
 Rev. Melancthon W. Jacobus, D.D., LL.D., who, since 
 1851, has, with great distinction, filled the chair of Hebrew 
 and Biblical Literature and Exegesis, the members of the 
 Board feel themselves called upon to give expression to 
 their feelings under this great bereavement, in the following 
 minute : — 
 
 The Rev. Dr. M. W. Jacobus was elected by the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of 1851 to the professorship which he has 
 fulfilled for nearly a quarter of a century, with such distin- 
 guished ability as not only to give the best benefits of culture 
 
95 
 
 to the students from time to time under his care, but also to 
 attract the confidence of the church and the country to the 
 Seminary. The fruits of his scholarship and extended study 
 have also largely appeared in the valuable commentaries 
 upon various books of Scripture which he has given to the 
 public. At the same time, his active service in behalf of 
 the benevolent work of our church, as well as in his able 
 ministry of the gospel, have made a record which cannot be 
 obliterated. He was called away from the midst of his 
 work, and while he was maturing plans for the advanced 
 welfare of our beloved institution. His extensive reputation 
 shall still be cherished as a part of the rich inheritance of 
 the Western Theological Seminary. His spirit of consecra- 
 tion to the Master's work leaves no doubt, in those who have 
 been associated with him, that he is now with the Lord. 
 
 A true copy : 
 
 W. T. Beatty, Secretary. 
 
 Resolutions of the Board of Trustees of the Western Theological 
 
 Seminary. 
 
 Resolved, I. That in the death of Rev. M. W. Jacobus, 
 D.D., LL.D., the senior professor of the Seminary, we 
 recognize the hand of an all-wise and merciful Providence ; 
 and, while we deeply mourn our loss in the removal of 
 one whom we have learned to love and esteem most highly, 
 not only because of his ripe scholarship and marked adapt- 
 
9 6 
 
 ability to the duties of his chair, but because of the great 
 excellence of his character, we would, nevertheless, sub- 
 missively bow to the will of Him whom we seek to serve 
 and unto whom we humbly look for grace and wisdom 
 in all our ways. 
 
 Resolved, 2. That we hereby tender the widow and 
 children of our deceased brother our warmest sympathies 
 in this time of sorrow, and beg to commend them to the 
 care and mercy of our common Saviour. 
 
 Resolutions of the Presbytery of Allegheny. 
 
 The Presbytery of Allegheny being in session on the 
 day of the funeral of Dr. M. W. Jacobus, appointed a 
 committee to prepare appropriate resolutions expressive 
 of their views on this sad occasion. These are submitted 
 as follows : — 
 
 1. Resolved, That, in view of the solemn lessons of 
 Providence in the sudden death of Rev. Melancthon 
 W. Jacobus, D.D., LL.D., at so short an interval after 
 the equally sudden death of Rev. William D. Howard, 
 D.D., the members of this Presbytery feel called upon 
 to give most earnest heed to these impressive admonitions 
 to quicken our diligence in our Master's work, inasmuch 
 as we know not in what hour we too may be called to 
 meet the Son of man. 
 
97 
 
 2. Resolved, That we tender our sincere sympathy to 
 our sister Presbytery of Pittsburgh in the loss of two of the 
 most eminent and useful of their members within so short 
 a time ; also, to the Directors and Faculty of the Western 
 Theological Seminary, in being deprived of the valuable 
 services of a professor so eminently qualified for his work. 
 
 3. Resolved, That we do especially express our most 
 cordial sympathy with the bereaved families of our breth- 
 ren, Howard and Jacobus, and would commend them to 
 the God of all grace and consolation, who doeth all things 
 well ; while we would encourage ourselves and them with 
 the assurance that the Lord had need of these His ser- 
 vants, who had so well done their work on earth, that 
 He may employ them in higher and better service in His 
 upper kingdom. 
 
 Action of the Central Church of Pittsburgh. 
 
 With profound sorrow this congregation has heard of 
 the death of its former pastor, Dr. Melancthon Wil- 
 liams Jacobus, who died suddenly at his residence in 
 Allegheny City, on the morning of Oct. 28, 1876; and, 
 while we bow in submission to the will of " Him who 
 doeth all things well," we desire to pay a proper tribute 
 to the memory of the eminent and beloved deceased. 
 
 In the death of Dr. Jacobus the ministry has lost one 
 
 13 
 
9 8 
 
 of its brightest lights, the church one of its boldest and most 
 successful defenders, his family its honored head, and society 
 a devout Christian. His life was an eminently successful 
 one. Graduating at an early age, and with high honors, 
 at Princeton College, he shortly thereafter entered the min- 
 istry in the Presbyterian Church, and preached and la- 
 bored in an Eastern congregation with great acceptance 
 for many years, and until he was elected professor in the 
 Western Theological Seminary of our neighboring city of 
 Allegheny. He came amongst us in the maturity and 
 vigor of his full manhood; bringing a ripe scholarship, 
 a mind naturally strong and thoroughly trained by the 
 closest habits of application and study, a thorough knowl- 
 edge of his profession, and an absolute devotion to the 
 cause in which he was engaged, he filled the position to 
 which he had been chosen with the greatest success and 
 honor, continuously down to the time when he was sum- 
 moned hence by the Master. In all these years, he was 
 a leader in the church, as author, teacher, and preacher, 
 ever ready to aid and strengthen her friends ; and a for- 
 midable champion in her defence against the attacks of 
 her foes, the founder of some of her most glorious enter- 
 prises, and the sharer of some of the greatest triumphs. 
 
 But it is chiefly to him as pastor of this church and 
 congregation we would pay our tribute. This position he 
 filled for a period of more than fourteen years, commencing 
 
99 
 
 in 1858; and those of us who sat under his ministry can 
 bear loving testimony to the power, the progress, the in- 
 fluence, and prosperity of the church during that time. 
 Truly the "Lord did guide him continually;" and this 
 his church was "like a watered garden and spring of 
 water, whose waters failed not." During this pastorate 
 he was performing his duties as professor in the Seminary, 
 and writing those books which will live after him and be 
 an honor to his name, in guiding and assisting those in 
 search of truth. His life was one of actual active service 
 in the cause of the Master. His work will testify that he 
 wrought with labor and travail night and day, neither an 
 idler nor drone ; setting an example to the rising ministry 
 of earnest and abundant service. He was called away 
 suddenly from the midst of his usefulness, and before age 
 had compelled a relaxation from his labors. He continued 
 to love and cherish his association with us until his sudden 
 and lamented death. To us his Christian character was 
 lovely ; let his memory be blessed. At the time of his 
 death, he had served more years as pastor, with one 
 exception, than any others then living in our two cities ; 
 an aged and lamented one having preceded him into the 
 presence of the Master only a few days, in a similar man- 
 ner and almost as suddenly. 
 
 The lives and the deaths of these, who, with others, 
 have gone to sit down with the patriarchs in the kingdom 
 
IOO 
 
 of God, are fraught with lessons to us. Let us remem- 
 ber the words of admonition of the lamented dead, in his 
 last sermon to us: "The fathers, where are they? and 
 the prophets, do they live for ever? But our work as a 
 church is not yet done. The field remains, and widens 
 as men pass by. Occupy it. God opens a path ; but we 
 must do the marching. His path is open only to those 
 who go forward. One step at a time is all that God re- 
 quires. Near by to Marah are the palm-trees and wells 
 of Elim ; and just by is the blessed country, and the clusters 
 of Eshcol are there for such, and only such, as will go 
 in and gather them." 
 
 To the stricken family we offer our sincere Christian 
 sympathy and condolence in this the sad hour of their 
 bereavement, and direct them to go for comfort to that 
 source to which he, if living, would point them in all 
 their troubles. 
 
 Resolutions of the Faculty of the United Presbyteriaii Theological 
 Seminary at Allegheny. 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased God to remove by death Rev. 
 M. W. Jacobus, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Oriental and 
 Biblical Literature in the Western Theological Seminary 
 in this city, a position which he has occupied for twenty- 
 five years, therefore, — 
 
IOI 
 
 Resolved, i. That we, the Faculty of the United Pres- 
 byterian Seminary at Allegheny, cherishing, as we have 
 done, a high respect for this brother, not only as one who 
 has, by his extensive erudition and indefatigable labors, 
 advanced the cause of theological literature, but as one 
 whose conduct has ever been that of the Christian gentle- 
 man, do hereby express the deep sorrow which his re- 
 moval has awakened in our hearts, and our warm sympathy 
 with those who have by this providence been deprived of 
 his counsels, labors, and fellowship. 
 
 2. That, as a token of respect to the memory of the 
 deceased, we will, as a Faculty, accompanied by the 
 students of this Seminary, join in the procession that fol- 
 lows his remains from his dwelling in Allegheny to the 
 First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. 
 
 Resohitions of the Professors and Students of the Reformed Presby- 
 terian Theological Seminary. 
 
 Whereas, We have heard with deep regret of the 
 sudden death of Rev. Dr. Melancthon W. Jacobus, Pro- 
 fessor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis in the Western 
 Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church : there- 
 fore, — 
 
 Resolved, i. That we deeply sympathize with the 
 family of Dr. Jacobus in the loss of a beloved husband 
 
102 
 
 and father, and earnestly pray that they may have the 
 presence of the Comforter in this hour of their deep 
 affliction. 
 
 2. That we sympathize with the Theological Seminary 
 with which he was connected, in the loss of a professor 
 so distinguished as a scholar and so esteemed for his 
 Christian character and social qualities ; and with the 
 Presbyterian Church, with which he was so closely identi- 
 fied, not only as a professor in one of her most prominent 
 seminaries, but as an earnest and efficient promoter of 
 many of her most important schemes. 
 
 3. That in the death of Dr. Jacobus we lament, in 
 common with all the Evangelical churches, the loss of a 
 sound and judicious commentator, whose labors have been 
 abundantly blessed to many in assisting them to a more 
 correct and satisfactory knowledge of the inspired Word 
 of God. 
 
 4. That we recognize in this dispensation the hand 
 of a merciful Providence. This good soldier of Christ 
 died with his armor on. He was graciously spared much 
 of the bitterness of death. He has been removed from a 
 wide sphere of active usefulness here to a higher and wider 
 sphere there where His servants serve Him. With loins 
 girded and lamps burning, he heard the voice of the Bride- 
 groom, and was ready. " Blessed are the dead who die 
 in the Lord. They rest from their labors, and their works 
 do follow them." 
 
io3 
 
 Resolutions of the Evangelical Ministerial Association 
 of Pittsburgh. 
 
 As a ministerial association, united in a common faith* 
 sharing the privileges of a covenant relationship in Christ 
 our Lord, and engaged in a special and sacred calling, 
 we feel the ties of our brotherhood to be the very bonds 
 of peace, and our communion on earth the earnest of that 
 which the saints in light enjoy for ever; for our fellowship 
 is now with the Father, and with the Son, and with the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 It has pleased our heavenly Father, whose we are, and 
 whom we serve,— whose providence is always wise, how- 
 ever mysterious or afflicting to His children,* - to remove 
 from us, suddenly, our esteemed and beloved brother, the 
 Rev. Melancthon W. Jacobus, D.D., LL.D., a sincere 
 believer in Jesus Christ, an able minister of the gospel, 
 and a profound and successful educator in the things of 
 the Spirit. 
 
 To-day we miss our brother's familiar form and face 
 and voice ; we suffer because our loss is great and irrepa- 
 rable ; we sorrow because we are personally bereaved. We 
 wonder why one so dear, so near, so genial, so true, so 
 strong, — why one so ready, competent, and willing to help 
 us by his counsel, and share with us in toil and sacrifice, 
 
104 
 
 — should be thus unexpectedly removed from our ranks. 
 And yet we know that for such to die is gain, that our 
 missing brother's life is "hid with Christ in God," and that 
 there shall be reunion and reassociation of all believers 
 by and by. 
 
 We shall strive to emulate the worthy example of our 
 absent friend and brother by a more consecrated service, 
 by renewed diligence and zeal, by patience, vigilance, 
 courage, charity, and faith like his; and, like him, we 
 shall try to live in such constant communion with our 
 Saviour as to be ready, at any moment, to depart, and be 
 " for ever with the Lord." 
 
 We tender our heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved 
 family of our dear brother Jacobus, and commend them 
 to the gracious protection of One who abideth with them 
 always, even to the end of the world. 
 
 To the students of the Western Theological Seminary, 
 bereft of a teacher both revered and loved, we extend the 
 warm hand-pressure of a silent grief which words may 
 not express. 
 
 With family, fellow-professors, and students, with the 
 church of his early and eventful life, with the Christian 
 community at large, with the great multitude of those who 
 have been edified and comforted by his books, so widely 
 circulated both in our own and foreign lands, we mingle 
 our tears to-day ; and yet with all do we rejoice in the 
 
io5 
 
 hope of immortality and eternal life. "Then shall the 
 redeemed of the Lord return and come with singing to 
 Zion ; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head ; they 
 shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away." 
 
 Resolutions of the Baptist Ministers of Pittsburgh 
 and Allegheny. 
 
 Whereas, It has been brought to the knowledge of the 
 Conference of Baptist Ministers of Pittsburgh and Allegheny 
 that the Rev. Professor M. W. Jacobus, D.D., departed this 
 life on Saturday morning last : 
 
 Resolved, That we unitedly express our sympathy with 
 the sorrowing relations ; our esteem for him as a Christian 
 brother and as a divine ; and that Rev. R. W. Pearson, 
 D.D., Rev. J. S. Wrightnour, and Rev. Wm. H. Mc- 
 Kinney be appointed to attend his funeral on behalf of 
 this Conference. 
 
 Resolntio7is of the Cliosophic Society of the College 
 of New Jersey. 
 
 Whereas, God in His own wise providence has called 
 to himself our fellow-member, Rev. Dr. M. W. Jacobus, 
 of the class of '34 ; and whereas, in his death, the Clio- 
 
 14 
 
io6 
 
 sophic Society mourns the loss of an honored and worthy 
 friend, whose high Christian character, intellectual worth, 
 and devotion to her interests have won for him a name 
 which we all love to recall: therefore, be it — 
 
 Resolved, That, whilst our hearts are saddened at the 
 thought that we shall see his face and hear his voice no 
 more, yet we reverently bow in submission to God's will ; 
 knowing that He who doth lead us into darkness will bring 
 us again to the light. 
 
 Resolved, That, in this dark shadow of affliction, we 
 would tender our deepest sympathy and condolence to the 
 bereaved family. To them there is left a father's memory 
 and a father's prayers; to us, an example of a higher 
 Christian life. 
 
 Resolved, That, in token of our regard, the hall be 
 draped for thirty days, and a committee be appointed to 
 attend his funeral. 
 
 Letter from Great Britain. 
 
 The sudden death of the distinguished Dr. Jacobus 
 has caused wide-spread sorrow here as well as with you. 
 It was meet and fitting that Drs. Hall and McCosh should 
 join in the sad obsequies to represent the churches here 
 on the mournful occasion. The distinguished doctor be- 
 longed to the entire Catholic church. His learning, his 
 
107 
 
 works, his name, and his fame are its common heritage, 
 pregnant with enduring preciousness, rich with undying, 
 noble inspiration. Presbyterianism may claim them with 
 special joy, but cannot monopolize them as exclusively 
 its possessions. The eulogies pronounced over him were 
 appreciatory and just, free from extravagant adulation. 
 In chastened, correct, and discriminating language all the 
 panegyrics were embodied. 
 
 The following extract from a sermon by Dr. 
 Jacobus may fitly conclude this memorial vol- 
 ume : — 
 
 For to me to live is Christ, — Christ for the rule 
 of living, Christ for the motive of living, Christ for the 
 ideal of living, Christ for the source and spring of living, 
 Christ for the very definition of living. Then, indeed, 
 you may afford to be in a happy balance between two 
 worlds, — to have Christ with you on earth, or to be with 
 Christ in heaven. Walking with God, like Enoch, it can- 
 not be but that you shall go up to God virtually without 
 death, without its sting and curse and bitterness. 
 
 And when, some day, men will inquire why your place 
 is vacant in the business circle, in the household, and in 
 the sanctuary, it will be said, ,r He walked with God, and 
 
io8 
 
 was not, for God took him." He went up, not in any 
 chariot of fire, but on the soft wing of the covenant angel. 
 From where he daily climbed to the topmost round of 
 Jacob's ladder, he stepped directly into heaven. From 
 where he trod on the high road of Christian living, far 
 up towards the celestial city, he found the door wide open 
 into the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 Cambridge : Press of John Wilson & Son. 
 
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