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 Ezekiel Wilson Mundy J^ 
 
 A Book of Loving Remembrance 
 
 By 
 His Friends 
 
 Who has not learned, in honrs of faith, 
 The truth to flesh and sense unknown : 
 
 That Life is ever lord of Death, 
 
 And Love can never lose its own." 
 
 Syracuse Public Library 
 
 1917 
 
yff* 
 
 LIBRARY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 tdu i.-i. I 
 
THE CONTRIBUTORS 
 
 The authors of this collection of tributes and 
 reminiscences are 
 
 Salem Hyde, a member of the Board of Trustees 
 of the Library since 1905. 
 
 Rev. Charles Edward Smith, D.D., of Fre- 
 donia, a classmate of Dr. Mundy at the 
 University of Rochester, and his successor 
 in the pastorate of the First Baptist Church 
 in Syracuse in 1875. 
 
 Rev. William H. Casey, late of Union Springs, 
 where he was for many years, and until his 
 death, January 17, 191 7, rector of Grace 
 Episcopal Church. He was a graduate of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
 Rev. C. J. Shrimpton of Athol, Mass. He 
 and Ezekiel Mundy were boys together in 
 Newark, New Jersey. 
 
 Rush Rhees, D.D., LL.D., President of the 
 University of Rochester, at whose hands Dr. 
 Mundy received the degree of Doctor of 
 Literature in 19 10. 
 
 Paul M. Paine, Librarian of the Syracuse 
 Public Library. 
 
 3 
 
 897 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Contributors .... 3 
 
 The Mundy Family .... 9 
 
 Ezekiel Mundy as a Boy, by C. J. Shrimp- 
 ton . . . . . . .11 
 
 From a Classmate, by Charles Edward 
 
 Smith ...... 15 
 
 Personal Recollections, by William H. 
 
 Casey . . . . 19 
 
 Dr. Mundy and his Alma Mater, by 
 
 Rush Rhees ..... 30 
 
 Dr. Mundy as a Librarian, by Salem 
 
 Hyde 31 
 
 The Life Immortal, by William H. Casey 41 
 
 Resolutions of the Trustees of the 
 Syracuse Public Library . -49 
 
 Conclusion, Paul M. Paine. . . 52 
 
Ezekiel Wilson Mundy 
 
THE MUNDY FAMILY 
 
 The earliest record of the family to which 
 Dr. Mundy belonged is that of the marriage 
 of Thomas Mundy to Sarah Wilson on Janu- 
 ary 3, 1770. These, Dr. Mundy believed, 
 were his great grandparents, though the 
 name of the wife does not correspond to the 
 name given in Thomas Mundy 's will. The 
 grandfather, Ezekiel Mundy, son of Thomas 
 Mundy was born December 10, 1774 and 
 died October 24, 1832. He married Lov- 
 icy Mundy, the daughter of Joshua Mundy 
 on April 16, 1796, and lived near Metuchen, 
 N. J., on the farm later occupied by his son, 
 Ogden Mundy. Ezekiel Mundy had seven 
 children, the fourth of whom, Luther Bloom- 
 field Mundy, Dr. Mundy's father, was born 
 in 1807. On January 26, 1831, he married 
 Frances Eliza Martin/daughter of Dr. William 
 and Sarah Elston Martin. They lived near the 
 Oak Tree School House, two miles north of 
 Metuchen. Their children were Adeliza, 
 born 1832; Edward Livingston, born 1835; 
 9 
 
io THE MUNDY FAMILY 
 
 Louise Matilda, born 1837; Caroline Virginia, 
 born 1842, and Ezekiel Wilson, the second 
 eldest, who was born June 16, 1833, m a tenant 
 house on the farm of his grandfather Ezekiel. 
 
 For much of the good influence which 
 characterized Ezekiel W. Mundy's early days 
 he always credited the Oak Tree School 
 House and its teacher, Bethune Dunkin. He 
 was a remarkable school teacher, the nephew 
 of Sir William Dunkin, Lord Chief Justice 
 of India. The father of Bethune was taken 
 prisoner by the Yankees during the Revolution 
 and was brought to Boston where he married 
 the daughter of a first-class Boston family. 
 Their son, Bethune, taught school near Metu- 
 chen for fifty years. 
 
 Ezekiel W. Mundy married Emily Kendall, 
 January 15, 1873. She is the daughter of 
 the late Horace and Emily King Kendall. 
 
EZEKIEL MUNDY AS A BOY 
 
 REV. C. J. SHRIMPTON 
 
 My friendship with Mr. Mundy dates 
 from the time we were boys seventeen or 
 eighteen years of age. We were first brought 
 together as members of the same church in 
 Newark, N. J. 
 
 Mundy was in the habit of writing a list 
 of the boys who entered the church, and hand- 
 ing a copy to the last recruit, with his name 
 at the bottom of the list. This was done 
 without his being requested to do it, but sim- 
 ply in obedience to the principle of order 
 which governed his whole life. I remember 
 distinctly that when he handed me the list 
 with my name appended, there were between 
 twenty and thirty names enrolled. 
 
 There were duties that fell to each one of us 
 in the conduct of the church's work, and by 
 consulting the lists Mundy had given us, 
 we knew when each one's turn came to serve. 
 
 The pastor of the church of which we 
 ii 
 
12 EZEKIEL MUNDY AS A BOY 
 
 were members was one of the most remark- 
 able men I have ever known. He had a 
 most uncommon ability in securing the 
 attention and confidence of young people. 
 As Mundy once said of him, "He knew how 
 a boy felt." This explains the gathering 
 around him of such a large circle of young 
 people, for there were as many girls as there 
 were boys. 
 
 The intimacy thus formed between Mr. 
 Mundy and me has not only lasted through 
 this long period but has steadily grown in 
 depth and affection. With more or less 
 regularity we have visited each other and 
 maintained a constant correspondence. 
 
 When we reached manhood we both 
 determined to enter the Christian ministry. 
 He went to Rochester and took a full college 
 course in the University in that city. I have 
 heard it said repeatedly that he was one 
 of the best scholars ever graduated from 
 Rochester University. 
 
 His acquaintance with literature was un- 
 commonly wide and accurate, and though he 
 made not the least boast or even allusion to 
 his attainments, no one could be in his com- 
 pany for any length of time without learning 
 how well-stored his mind was. 
 
EZEKIEL MUNDY AS A BOY 13 
 
 It was inevitable that abilities of so high 
 an order should be suitably recognized and 
 the degree of Doctor of Literature was 
 conferred upon him, both by Alma Mater 
 and also by Syracuse University. More 
 than once he visited Europe, and few men 
 could derive the profit that he did from the 
 spectacle of the older civilizations. 
 
 And this brings me to think of his longest 
 task in life. If he had had his eye upon the 
 position of librarian, he could not have 
 guided his course with clearer purpose to that 
 important task. 
 
 He was gifted with a remarkably even tem- 
 per. In all the long period of our close inti- 
 macy I never saw him irritated. With a quiet 
 and firm mind he held to his own views with- 
 out arousing opposition, and thus he was 
 ready to come into contact with all sorts and 
 conditions of people as the head of an impor- 
 tant public institution. 
 
 From the very outset of his connection with 
 the Library, when it was in the High School 
 building, his culture and his judgment made 
 themselves felt. All the people of Syracuse 
 know with what a firm and competent and 
 gracious hand he guided the growth and 
 progress and efficiency of the Public Library. 
 
14 EZEKIEL MUNDY AS A BOY 
 
 But my mind does not rest upon the great 
 public utility of Dr. Mundy's life so much as 
 because he was my dearest and most faithful 
 and intimate friend. 
 
 The world is poorer since he left. I miss 
 his calm, clear mind, his steady, quiet judg- 
 ment upon all the many occasions upon which 
 I was wont to consult him. 
 
FROM A CLASSMATE 
 
 REV. CHARLES EDWARD SMITH 
 
 My acquaintance with Dr. Mundy began 
 in September, 1856, when we both entered 
 college as freshmen in the University of 
 Rochester. Looking my class over for an 
 agreeable room-mate I decided that Ezekiel 
 Wilson Mundy was the most attractive man. 
 He accepted my proposal and we lived to- 
 gether for two years, when an advantageous 
 offer to enable me to earn my expenses took 
 me to another home. Still we were together 
 parts of almost every day; we belonged to 
 the same Greek letter fraternity, and we con- 
 tinued in the most intimate relations till 
 the end of our theological course five years 
 later. 
 
 When we graduated and he began his life- 
 work in Syracuse as pastor of the First Bap- 
 tist church, I settled elsewhere, but was 
 frequently in Syracuse, and in 1875 succeeded 
 him as pastor of the same church, and for 
 15 
 
16 FROM A CLASSMATE 
 
 ten years more we were residents of the same 
 city, and in frequent and happy association 
 with each other. Then our ways parted 
 again, but not to prevent occasional meetings, 
 sometimes extended to weeks, and a life- 
 long correspondence, the last letter from him 
 reaching me not a great while before his 
 death. No two brothers could have been 
 more fondly attached to each other, nor could 
 have endeavored to keep in touch with each 
 other more solicitously than we have done. 
 It will be seen that I have had every needed 
 opportunity to know, understand, and appre- 
 ciate Dr. Mundy, and it is a pleasure for so 
 old a friend to pay tribute to his worth. 
 We have loved each other in spite of great 
 differences of temperament, mental bias, and 
 belief. As students we were almost never 
 both on the same side of any question; of 
 course I disapproved his change of sentiment 
 when he organized his Independent Church, 
 and it was at almost our last interview that 
 he said, with tears in his eyes, that he did 
 not want to hurt my feelings by expressing 
 his disagreement with me on some religious 
 questions. He was radical and I was conser- 
 vative; novelties and difficulties interested 
 him, while I clung to settled opinions and old 
 
FROM A CLASSMATE 17 
 
 truths; but great as were our differences and 
 tendencies we loved and appreciated each 
 other highly. 
 
 The reason, at least on my side, is not far 
 to seek. I had the highest respect for his 
 intellectual ability, as indeed all who have 
 known him well must have had. As a stu- 
 dent he commanded the respect of his fellow- 
 students at every recitation, and the faculty 
 regarded him as one of the most brilliant 
 men of his class. No professor ever said an 
 uncomplimentary word to him but once, 
 and then Mundy left the room, and the pro- 
 fessor made the amende honorable by apologiz- 
 ing. His culture, acquaintance with books, 
 and literary ability are attested by his long 
 and great success as a librarian. 
 
 But the great charm of his character and 
 that which has given him his greatest influence 
 over others, was his delightful social qualities. 
 He was the most lovable of men. In college 
 there was no man who drew friends to himself 
 and was always met with pleasure and hailed 
 as a good fellow like ' ' Zeke Mundy. ' ' I doubt 
 if there is one whose hold upon college friend- 
 ships has been so strong as his. I was with 
 him once when he was building the edifice 
 for the Independent Church, and a lady 
 
18 FROM A CLASSMATE 
 
 said to me, "We are building a new church to 
 worship Mr. Mundy in. " I did not take her 
 words literally, but they did truly express the 
 large part which his social attractiveness 
 had in that enterprise. 
 
 For a number of years we have always 
 gone to college commencements together, as 
 neither of us wanted to face the crowd of 
 strangers alone. I was with him when he 
 received his degree of Doctor of Literature 
 at Rochester, and as he stood among the 
 Dons with his cap and gown, I thought that 
 none of them deserved the distinction more 
 than he. It was an honor which Syracuse 
 had paid him some time before, but which 
 scholars had awarded him much earlier. We 
 who knew him well will always think of him 
 as "a gentleman and a scholar," but the 
 best thing still in our hearts to recall is that 
 "to know him was to love him." 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF AN 
 OLD FRIEND 
 
 REV. WILLIAM H. CASEY 
 
 Everyone who knew Ezekiel Mundy for as 
 many years as I have done and with anything 
 like the same intimacy, must feel with me 
 that something has gone out of our lives 
 which cannot fail to make them henceforth 
 sensibly and visibly poorer than they were: 
 and probably all of us have asked ourselves 
 what is the reason of this unmistakable im- 
 poverishment. A partial explanation of it may 
 be found in our profound belief that through 
 and through Ezekiel Mundy was a gentle- 
 man; not such a gentleman as is described 
 by Aristotle, but such an one as is partially 
 portrayed in the 15th Psalm which, in order 
 to make my meaning clear, I here cite with- 
 out any abbreviation or apology : 
 
 Lord, who shall sojourn in thy holy tab- 
 ernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 
 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh 
 19 
 
20 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 righteously. And' speaketh truth in his 
 heart. He that slandereth not with his 
 tongue. Nor doeth evil to his friend. Nor 
 taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. 
 In whose eyes a reprobate is despised; But he 
 honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that 
 sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. 
 He that putteth not out his money to usury. 
 Nor taketh reward against the innocent. 
 He that doeth these things shall never be 
 moved. 
 
 But even this definition, good as it is, is in- 
 complete and needs, when we are thinking 
 of Ezekiel Mundy, to be supplemented by 
 the following citation from St. Paul's letter 
 to his friends in Corinth. A gentleman, we 
 are there given to understand, is a man who 
 " suffereth long and is kind; who envieth not; 
 who doth not vaunt himself, and is not 
 puffed up; who doth not behave himself 
 unseemly, who seeketh not his own, thinketh 
 no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth 
 in the truth; beareth all things; believeth all 
 things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
 things." Such an one I verily believe 
 Ezekiel Mundy to have been; and I venture 
 to think that among those who knew him well 
 there cannot be one man, no, nor one woman 
 either, who will not say, "Here, indeed, is 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 21 
 
 a veritable picture of the friend whom I have 
 loved and lost awhile." 
 
 But in all this I am wandering far beyond 
 the definition of his position as a churchman. 
 That I shall be able to do this to the satis- 
 faction of those whose relations with him were 
 almost wholly ecclesiastical I have not the 
 slightest expectation, if for no other reason, 
 than for this one ; because it is impossible to 
 paint a man who resolutely refuses to sit for 
 his picture. It is scarcely necessary to say 
 that he was a man of more than commonly 
 deep religious principle, or that his religion 
 was of that simple practical kind which St. 
 James describes in the first chapter of his 
 Epistle, — a religion as little differentiated by 
 the mysticism which has often been attri- 
 buted to him as the Ten Commandments or 
 the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 With regard to churchmanship, he used to 
 say that he was "a very weak brother," which 
 in my judgment he certainly was not ; and in 
 order to give to this point-blank denial weight 
 which it could not otherwise possess, I may 
 perhaps be permitted to say what would other- 
 wise be a gross impertinence, namely, that I 
 am to the Great Manor born and was taught 
 what the term "churchmanship " really means 
 
22 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 by my old tutors, Harold Brown, Joseph 
 Barbour Lightfoot, and Samuel Wilberforce. 
 No, — he was "a weak brother" only in his 
 own eyes and in those of his clerical brethren 
 who until the day before yesterday were 
 clergymen in some one or other of the Pro- 
 testant churches, and had not yet learned to 
 see the church of their adoption in dry light 
 and true perspective. It is true that he some- 
 times described himself as a Low Church- 
 man, but to that statement also, even though 
 it came from himself, I must demur, unless 
 it be so illegitimately stretched as to include 
 Stanley, Maurice, and Jowett, in which case 
 some other term should be employed. 
 
 Towards the cult of advanced Ritualism, 
 his attitude was one of amiable stand-aloof- 
 ness not unmixed with wonderment. To 
 him, as to Pusey, religion was far too personal 
 a thing to need any of the adjuncts of external 
 beauty. His life was simplicity itself, and his 
 personal habits of such a nature that he need- 
 ed no change in externals to symbolize the 
 change which he would like to have seen 
 in the dogmatic teaching of the Church. His 
 warfare was not of this world; if he could 
 get men to take his view of the Church, he was 
 content; and he left it to others to fight 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 23 
 
 for the symbolic recognition of their views, 
 well knowing that the symbols themselves 
 were worthless so long as the beliefs were 
 wanting. In order to make any mis-trans- 
 lation of these words impossible, I deem it 
 nothing less than fair to state that within my 
 knowledge and rather less than two years 
 ago in the course of a letter addressed to a 
 young priest of much more definitely marked 
 churchmanship than his own, he said, "There 
 are so many of your sort who work hard 
 and say nothing about it, and there are so 
 many of my sort who talk a great deal and 
 do not work at all, that I have somewhat 
 changed my notions on these matters": 
 meaning thereby, as he afterwards told me, 
 that for their work's sake he would, as far 
 as possible, close his eyes to practices which 
 he did not approve. 
 
 The only party in the Church — if "party" 
 be not far too large a term by which to de- 
 scribe less than one per cent, of the clergy — 
 whom he thoroughly disliked is made up of 
 those whose pliant theology and conjectured 
 science are in a state of unceasing flux, who 
 believe it to be a sign of liberality at five 
 or ten minutes' notice to refit their "views" to 
 the latest scientific guess and to bow with 
 
24 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 equal deference to the Lord and to the devil. 
 Dabblers and babblers, chatterers and smat- 
 terers in a theology of which they know very 
 little and a philosophy of which they know 
 nothing, he did occasionally treat according 
 to their deserts, and when he did it was 
 Vcb metis. He liked men to be one thing or the 
 other, whether they agreed with him or not, 
 but those who were neither "hot nor cold" 
 he was quite apt — to cite the vigorous lan- 
 guage of St. John the Aged — "to spue out of 
 his mouth." 
 
 Very significant and interesting also was 
 the attitude of his mind towards the diffi- 
 culties of belief of the present day, and 
 particularly towards the "free-handling" of 
 Holy Scripture, often attempted with a 
 view to meet them. His mind was too 
 open and too candid either to ignore difficul- 
 ties, or to tie itself rigidly down to the narrow 
 conceptions of inspiration and interpretation, 
 in which he had been brought up. From 
 his youth upwards he had taken a wide 
 interest in literature and science, and during 
 the later years of his life he had given himself 
 very largely to purely metaphysical reading 
 and still more largely to metaphysical think- 
 ing. Accordingly, both as an inquirer and a 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 25 
 
 teacher, whose guidance was sought by minds 
 as inquiring as his own, these questions were 
 prominently before him. His view of such 
 difficulties was eminently, in the rightful sense 
 of the word, a view of faith, deeply conscious 
 of the reality of the truths to which God 
 had led him in the Word, refusing to give 
 them up, because they could not as yet 
 explain all other truths really or appar- 
 ently discovered by science, but certain that 
 all truths must harmonize, and hoping 
 that, in degree at least, that harmony 
 would manifest itself even here to those 
 who would at once search for it and wait 
 for it. 
 
 Thus, speaking on the conclusions suggest- 
 ed by geological science as to the origin and 
 date of man's appearance in the world, and 
 their apparent inconsistency with Scripture, 
 he has again and again spoken to me very 
 much as follows : — 
 
 "Ly ell's speculations do not seem to me to 
 touch the origin of man or the date of his 
 first appearance on the earth; but what of 
 that? One way or the other? I have very 
 little sensitiveness on such subjects; and of 
 a disturbing kind none at all. On the con- 
 trary, every year as it passes leaves me 
 
26 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 more and more sure that there cannot be 
 any real discrepancy between the intimations 
 of inspiration and the established facts of 
 science, for the one is just as truly the voice of 
 God as the other." 
 
 I remember very clearly that at one of our 
 old time clerical meetings and for just such 
 an utterance as this he was denounced by a 
 young clergyman whose orders were at that 
 time less than a year old as "the lineal 
 descendant of Bunyan's 'Mr. Facing Both- 
 ways. ' To this ill-begotten and ill-born 
 sneer, and with flashing eyes Bishop Hunt- 
 ington made answer, "Young man! you are 
 bearing false witness against your neighbor. 
 My dear friend Dr. Mundy — and I speak 
 whereof I know — is as little influenced by 
 the strife of tongues as were Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abed-nego of Nebuchadnez- 
 zar's burning fiery furnace. " It will throw a 
 kindly side-light on my dear friend's char- 
 acter if I record that after this flaying process 
 had, in his judgment, lasted long enough, 
 he was heard to say sotto voce, "Have you 
 forgotten, Bishop, that the gentleman 
 who is sitting next to you is an officer of the 
 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Animals?" 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 2-j 
 
 Of his work as a parish priest I know but 
 little, and experimentally nothing at all. 
 
 But I do know at first hand what many 
 of his people thought and said about him. All 
 of them loved him. All of them reverenced 
 him. All of them spoke of him as a shepherd 
 who cared for the sheep, not merely as a 
 flock, but one by one. One of them — a 
 shrewd old Yorkshireman but little differenti- 
 ated by his residence in this country — said 
 of him " 'e wor most as good as t'auld vicar of 
 Leeds." (The great Dr. Hook.) And as 
 I happen to know, that is a good deal for a 
 Yorkshireman to say, whether he be recon- 
 structed or not. And a young Canadian, 
 once a member of his congregation and after- 
 wards for many years the honored warden of 
 the church with which I have been so long 
 associated has often told me in detail of 
 many men, and women too, whom "Good 
 Old Mundy," as he used to call him, had 
 rescued from the land of the harlot and the 
 swine. 
 
 What his friends and contemporaries — 
 I am now thinking of that sadly dwindling 
 band of men who have been affectionately 
 described as the "Grand Old Men of Syra- 
 cuse" — thought of him they will probably say 
 
28 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 for themselves, but here is what one of them, 
 no longer with us, but the peer of the best of 
 them, has actually said about him in a letter 
 addressed to myself, " There is something in 
 that man, Mundy, — call it by whatever 
 name you please — which compels reverence 
 and love. I doubt if any better name can be 
 found for it than 'The grace of Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. ' But describe it how you will, 
 it is an animating influence for good — an 
 influence against which men can't harden 
 themselves, because they are not conscious 
 of it. It comes on them like the early dews 
 of morning, or the fragrance of incense com- 
 ing they know not whence, and steals on their 
 receptive faculties before they have time or 
 notice to resent its interference." To the 
 people of Syracuse it is hardly necessary to 
 say that this letter came from the pen of 
 Bishop Huntington. 
 
 Of the more tender graces of this good 
 man's character, this is not the place to speak. 
 Such details belong to his family, and not to 
 the world. But surely there can be no im- 
 propriety in recording the fact — the beauti- 
 fully pregnant fact — that they who have 
 never seen him in his own home have never 
 seen him at his best. 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 29 
 
 Of his moral worth it must suffice to say 
 that I always trusted him and never found 
 him wanting. 
 
 "A strong soul! By what shore 
 Tarriest thou now? For that force, 
 Surely, has not been left vain! 
 Somewhere, surely, afar, 
 In the sounding labour-house vast 
 Of being, is practised that strength, 
 Zealous, beneficent, firm." 
 
DR. MUNDY AND HIS ALMA MATER 
 
 DR. RUSH RHEES 
 
 Doctor Ezekiel Wilson Mundy, who was 
 graduated from the University of Rochester 
 in i860, and received its honorary degree, 
 Doctor of Literature, in 1910, was one of 
 the gentlest spirits I have ever known. His 
 gentleness was of the spirit, for it was coupled 
 with positiveness of conviction and courage- 
 ous loyalty to that conviction. He was 
 therefore a man of quiet but subtly powerful 
 influence, and of tenaciously loyal friendship. 
 The former all felt who knew him. The latter 
 became a blessing to all who shared its privi- 
 leges. 
 
 Repeatedly since his graduation from 
 college his Alma Mater had evidence of that 
 loyalty. Repeatedly successive academic gen- 
 erations of students, who had the opportunity 
 to know him, experienced the influence of his 
 strong character. 
 
 He was one whom his Alma Mater de- 
 lighted to honor, and whose death leaves her 
 poorer in all but memories. 
 30 
 
DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 
 
 SALEM HYDE 
 
 It is with much pleasure that I respond to 
 the request to contribute something to the 
 printed memorial being prepared to com- 
 memorate the life and work of our loved 
 Mr. Mundy, as Citizen and Librarian. I 
 only wish that what I can say might be more 
 worthy of the subject and the setting than 
 anything I can hope to prepare. 
 
 For nearly if not quite half a century it has 
 been my privilege to know Mr. Mundy and for 
 the greater part of that time to count him as 
 one of my personal friends. This was indeed a 
 rare privilege, for he was a rare man, an exceed- 
 ingly modest man yet with a vast amount 
 of reserve power ready for all emergencies. 
 There was a quietness, a gentleness — what 
 Matthew Arnold called "a sweet reason- 
 ableness" — about him that drew all acquaint- 
 ances in loving friendliness toward him and 
 made him indeed the " friend and helper 
 31 
 
32 DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 
 
 of those who would live in the Spirit." He 
 loved his friends and it was impossible not to 
 love him. One of the old philosophers, I 
 think it was Seneca, gave this advice, "Let 
 us choose some good man and keep him 
 always before our eyes that we may live as if 
 he watched us and do everything as if he 
 saw." To anyone desiring to live the good 
 life he could not have made a better choice for 
 such assistance than Mr. Mundy. 
 
 Early in his married life and in mine we 
 became neighbors and friends. He was 
 then the minister of the Independent Church 
 which later became the Lutheran — located on 
 South Salina Street. I was not a member 
 of his church but occasionally went to hear 
 his sermons. I loved his quiet manner, 
 his graceful elocution, his thoughtful and 
 scholarly discourse, and profited greatly by 
 them. Mr. Mundy' s sermons, as I remember 
 them, were never dogmatic or doctrinal, none 
 of the theological frightfulness so commonly 
 preached in those days, nothing of the sen- 
 sational. There were Art and Poetry and 
 Science, a simple philosophy of good living, a 
 feeling after the truth if haply it might be 
 found. There was clearness of vision, logical 
 sureness in his reasoning, firmness in con- 
 
DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 33 
 
 viction, the real, true culture that lives 
 by appreciations of what is best, by sym- 
 pathies and admirations, not by dislikes 
 and disdains, ever preserving the higher, 
 healthier tone and living on the higher levels 
 of power — a gospel of love, truth, beauty, 
 God. Love and service were the keynotes. 
 You could not help feeling that his own 
 religion was expressed more by his life than 
 by his words; he was both the idealist and the 
 practical man. As has been said of another 
 good man of his type, "he kept about him 
 the atmosphere of the hills," and in Mr. 
 Mundy's case he was always ready to come 
 down into the lowliest surroundings if there- 
 by he could serve his fellowmen. 
 
 Later in life he came to love the beautiful 
 forms of religion and ritual as used in the 
 Episcopal Church to which he attached him- 
 self and in which he found comfort and peace. 
 To that Church he consecrated many years 
 of his active life, rendering highly appreciated 
 service and gathering to himself friends to 
 whom he was ever loyal and whose loyalty to 
 him were the highly prized treasures of his 
 later and declining years. 
 
 Intellectually Mr. Mundy was character- 
 ized by breadth of vision and toleration of 
 
34 DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 
 
 thought. What a man thought out for him- 
 self straightly and honestly was to him 
 deserving of the highest respect. While him- 
 self loving the beautiful forms of the Church 
 — its articles of faith, its rites, its organi- 
 zation — the main thing was to fill them with 
 the right spirit. To him Christ was in every 
 life which served man in the Spirit of love 
 and self-sacrifice — no matter what the philo- 
 sophy, no matter what the creed or church 
 affiliation, "A man's a man for a' that" — 
 goodness is goodness, purity is purity, love is 
 love wherever manifested. 
 
 Now it usually happens that a man devoted 
 to these lofty ideals, devoted to literature, a 
 student of philosophy, a dreamer of beauti- 
 ful dreams, religious in the deepest sense, 
 falls far short of accomplishment when under- 
 taking to assume in any large way the re- 
 sponsibility of handling important business 
 affairs. Mr. Mundy became the head of our 
 Syracuse Public Library when it was a very 
 small affair housed in a small back room in 
 our old City Hall — that picturesque little 
 building with a grove of stately trees in front 
 which should have been left as one of the too 
 few monuments remaining to speak of the 
 early civic life of our City. 
 
DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 35 
 
 From that small beginning with a collec- 
 tion of a few seedy volumes and a circulation 
 of most limited range he, with patient fidelity 
 to his task, organized and built up the vast 
 collection of worthy books now housed in our 
 noble Public Library and distributing its 
 nearly half million volumes annually. This 
 was the successful construction of a large 
 business enterprise organized into many 
 departments with competent heads and many 
 subordinates. It involved the selection and 
 purchase of many thousands of books annu- 
 ally, a close censorship lest unworthy or un- 
 clean literature found its way to the shelves, 
 a careful and tactful discipline to be 
 maintained over the staff of workers, a con- 
 stant watchfulness over the physical property' 
 — care, repairs, additions, furnishing, adjust- 
 ment of wages and what not. 
 
 Now, I think the patrons of the library 
 and my associates on the Board will bear me 
 out in the assertion that in none of these 
 particulars did Mr. Mundy fail — while over 
 it all, through it all, and in it all there was the 
 never-failing suggestion in manner, in speech, 
 and gesture of the quiet gentle scholar, the 
 superb, Christian gentleman. I never saw 
 an angry or contemptuous look on his face. 
 
36 DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 
 
 Occasionally when some unusual provocation 
 stirred others to wrath and testy expression, a 
 puzzled look would come over his face as 
 much as to say, "My dear, good man how 
 could you do or say such a thing?" And 
 yet there was such a strong, stern fiber of 
 determined will running through his char- 
 acter that when he knew he was right, and 
 he generally was right, enabled him in the 
 gentlest and most winning way to bring about 
 the results he aimed at. 
 
 And so this gentle, strong fibered soul 
 worked on, and our great library is the pro- 
 duct of his brain and heart. His spirit breathes 
 through every door and window of the mass- 
 ive building, speaks from every bookshelf, 
 from the deportment of every member of the 
 Staff and every employee. All will tell you 
 that they loved him and that they couldn't 
 help it. Our city reaped the harvest of this 
 man's work. The salary was meager, the 
 material benefits to himself slight. Had 
 these generous gifts of this "patient continu- 
 ance in well-doing" been directed toward 
 business or professional enterprise the re- 
 wards could not have been other than great. 
 He has told me of opportunities that had been 
 almost forced upon him whereby he could 
 
DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 37 
 
 have shared in rich material rewards and 
 scarcely could have failed to build up a 
 substantial fortune; "I did not feel I had a 
 right to do it, " he said, " It seemed to me that 
 my work lay in other directions — and yet, 
 and yet" he said "I have my doubts now — 
 on my family's account." Thus inspirit 
 he was another Louis Agassiz — he did not 
 "have time to make money" yet he was a 
 living, breathing, vital man in every sense of 
 the word — in no sense a colorless character. 
 Tennyson said of the Prince Consort that "he 
 wore the white flower of a blameless life " ; 
 so did our gentle hero friend who was himself 
 worthy of any Tennysonian panegyric that 
 could be written. Mr. Mundy had great 
 aversion to all personal publicity although 
 the minutest revelation of the details of his 
 life could have no other effect than to raise 
 him still higher in the estimation of the 
 public. 
 
 At the same time he was possessed of a 
 force of character and a frankness of speech 
 which, as has been said of a great poet he 
 admired, "saved him from the curse of being 
 taken for that most disagreeable of beings, a 
 so-called saint." Mr. Mundy' s love for the 
 highest literature, his bent towards con- 
 
38 DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 
 
 templation and reflection, his proficiency in 
 learning, his firm grasp on the profoundest 
 philosophies, his peculiar faculty or gift 
 of getting hold of the precious kernel of a 
 truth or system and imparting such knowl- 
 edge in clear, simple language to others — 
 through writing or in conversation, was one 
 of his most marked mental characteristics 
 and made him the chosen companion of many 
 wise and learned men. 
 
 He was at home with the great literatures 
 of the world and was able at sight to dis- 
 tinguish what was really worthy from the 
 ephemeral trash, the silly nonsense and taint- 
 ed morality, now characterizing so much of 
 our popular fiction and popular periodical 
 literature, if literature it may be called — and 
 to keep them out of the library. Mr. Mundy 
 loved books and loved to talk about books 
 and to lend such as especially appealed to 
 him, to his friends. 
 
 One of the special delights of my associa- 
 tion with him was now and then to look 
 up from my desk, see him come into my 
 office with a book under his arm which had 
 pleased him and which pleasure he wished 
 me to share by leaving the book with 
 me. 
 
DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 39 
 
 Everything really artistic and beautiful 
 appealed to him — poetry, music, pictures, 
 art in pottery especially, and in his younger 
 days he was a diligent and discriminating 
 collector of choice specimens from all the 
 great manufacturers. My earliest visits to 
 his home were made interesting by his 
 enthusiasm over this collection and the evi- 
 dent pleasure he had in showing and de- 
 scribing them to his friends — a taste to 
 which doubtless may be traced the strik- 
 ingly beautiful cameo and figure modeling 
 and coloring brought to such perfection, 
 and to such world-wide recognition, in the 
 charmingly artistic work of his daughter, 
 Miss Mundy. 
 
 I must bring this to a close although I do 
 not seem to have said one half that I would 
 like to say or that it is in my heart to say. I 
 may perhaps add that during the more than 
 half century during which I have made my 
 home in Syracuse there have been many able 
 men, strong men, men of fine character and 
 commanding influence among her citizens, 
 yet in my estimation there has perhaps 
 been no man who has stolen so quietly and 
 sweetly and with recognized benefit into 
 the affections of so many of our citizens 
 
40 DR. MUNDY AS LIBRARIAN 
 
 and stayed there permanently as has Mr. 
 Mundy. 
 
 To have been numbered amongst his per- 
 sonal friends, I esteem as one of the greatest 
 privileges of my life. 
 
THE LIFE IMMORTAL 
 
 (ADDRESS BY REV. WILLIAM H. CASEY AT THE 
 FUNERAL OF DR. MUNDY) 
 
 You and I, dear friends and fellow-mourn- 
 ers, are once more face-to-face with the great 
 enigma. 
 
 Are we in the presence of a finished drama? 
 If we are, then is there no escape from the 
 horrible alternative, — the Supreme Power in 
 the Universe is not good, and no longer 
 deserves our worship. Nay then — to put it 
 nakedly — deserves from us nothing but pity 
 or execration — pity, if this is the best world 
 He could make, — execration if it is not ; He is 
 unjust if He will not, and impotent if He 
 cannot satisfy the righteous longings which 
 He himself has implanted in all His children. 
 
 Do I understand the tremendous signifi- 
 cance of these words? Yes,— I do. But what 
 would you say of a father who instilled into 
 his child's heart desires which he knew could 
 not be realized, — who trained him to expect 
 41 
 
42 THE LIFE IMMORTAL 
 
 something which he did not mean to give 
 him? Who gave him such false impressions 
 of his future prospects and position that 
 when he awoke from his delusions he would 
 be driven to despair? And how is it possible 
 for you to think that an infinite and omni- 
 potent Creator is under less obligation than a 
 weak and finite man? Do you not believe, — 
 do you not know that the higher you rise in 
 the scale of being the greater grows the sphere 
 of obligation? Has He who made us, or has 
 He not, by a very fact of creation laid Him- 
 self under an obligation to deal kindly and 
 justly with the beings He has made? Does 
 not the fact of creation carry with it an 
 infinite burden of responsibility? Have we 
 not a right to expect from Him something 
 better than dust and ashes, and the total 
 loss of love and personality? or, at the very 
 least, the chance, if we choose to avail our- 
 selves of it, of something better? And is it 
 giving us something better when we have 
 such a passionate longing for immortality, if 
 not for ourselves, at any rate for others, to 
 answer it with annihilation? Here is a ques- 
 tion which those who deny, or even doubt 
 the continuity and never-ending development 
 of our personal life, must answer somehow. 
 
THE LIFE IMMORTAL 43 
 
 This is an inquiry which cuts too deep to be 
 relegated to the region of notes and queries. 
 And I commend it to your most serious 
 thinking. 
 
 Yes, I know it is sometimes said that to 
 an infinite intellect everything would appear 
 quite different from what we, in our finitude, 
 can imagine. But there are many things 
 which a finite mind can know with infinite 
 certainty. It does not need infinite wisdom 
 to know that two parallel straight lines 
 cannot enclose a space, — nor does it require 
 infinite wisdom to know that the glory of the 
 Creator is inevitably bound up with the 
 glory of His creatures. If they are failures, 
 He has failed. If this world is a system 
 complete in itself, — if this life is not to be 
 followed by another, — if hopes are born only 
 to be blighted, yearnings roused only to be 
 crushed, beings created only to be destroyed; 
 if our most passionate desires are doomed 
 to everlasting disappointment, if, after think- 
 ing ourselves endowed with the power of an 
 endless life we are to die out like the flame 
 of a candle, then, so long as any remem- 
 brance of us lingers in the universe, we shall 
 be nothing but a reproach to our Maker, and 
 a witness to the fact that whatever else He 
 
44 THE LIFE IMMORTAL 
 
 may be He is no God. What would prove 
 impotence in a creature cannot prove power 
 in a Creator; what would bring contempt 
 upon the finite cannot bring honor to the 
 Infinite ; what in us would be unutterable dis- 
 grace cannot in Him be glory. If there be no 
 immortality, no development for us, limited 
 only by that which must forever make it 
 impossible for the finite to become infinite, 
 what is this but to say that the crowning 
 achievement of the Deity is to have created 
 an infinite number of abortions! To what 
 does all this point? To this — and nothing 
 less than this, that the alternatives before us 
 are immortality or atheism, by which I mean 
 to-day an utter denial of the goodness of 
 God. 
 
 Surely we shall place this foremost among 
 the lessons of to-day that the life of Ezekiel 
 Mundy, cut short at a moment when — save 
 for certain physical infirmities, it seemed to 
 be ever growing nearer to its greatest useful- 
 ness, must still be growing and expanding, 
 still learning and still loving, though no 
 longer within our ken. Must there not be 
 somewhere out of sight a more than compen- 
 sating existence, a home of many mansions 
 in which the faculties which were so ham- 
 
THE LIFE IMMORTAL 45 
 
 pered here shall find full scope and a never- 
 ending progress to perfection? Do we not 
 all possess within us powers and capacities 
 immeasurably beyond the necessities of any 
 merely transitory life? And was not this 
 more true of him than it is of most of us? 
 And do not these stir within us yearnings 
 irrepressible, longings unutterable, and a 
 curiosity unsatisfied and insatiable by aught 
 we see? Are these appetites, and passions, 
 and affections, as some would have us believe, 
 nothing but the delusive inheritance from our 
 savage forefathers? 
 
 Not so. They are the indication of 
 something within us akin to something im- 
 measurably beyond us, — tokens of things 
 attainable, yet not hitherto attained, — signs 
 of a potential fellowship with spirits nobler 
 and more glorious than our own, — they are 
 the title-deeds of our presumptive heirship 
 to some brighter world than this. 
 
 The greater the spirit, the tenderer the 
 conscience, the more loving the life, the 
 stronger is the argument from its very 
 discomfiture and defeat here for its immor- 
 tality in a state of which sight and sense give 
 no evidence, but which shall forever grow 
 in knowledge, and forever grow in love, 
 
46 THE LIFE IMMORTAL 
 
 where Anna shall meet her husband, David 
 his friend, and Rachel her children, and 
 being nearer there to the source of love shall 
 love them more than they ever did. 
 
 If God be God who shall doubt, save 
 perhaps in some morbid moment, that what 
 has been well-begun here will not be for- 
 ever interrupted, — that somewhere there is a 
 state where what has been ill-done here can 
 be atoned, — that affection once kindled 
 never need cease, — that sin committed can 
 be wiped out, — that the good conceived can 
 be achieved, — that the good seed sown in life 
 shall some day bloom and fructify in a more 
 congenial day, — that all that is within us 
 which is good and happy yet vainly struggling 
 here shall be free to act hereafter, — that 
 families kept asunder by a crowd of circum- 
 stances forever pushing them apart, and for- 
 ever leaving them with empty arms, will 
 somewhere come together! Is such a belief 
 the mere baseless amusement of a man who 
 likes to make creeds of his aspirations? Is 
 this a mere phantasmagoria of love? a fata 
 morgana and nothing more? No — a thou- 
 sand times, No. If God be good it is a logi- 
 cal necessity. 
 
 Surely no waste could be more wanton, and 
 
THE LIFE IMMORTAL 47 
 
 therefore under a God of wisdom and judg- 
 ment more inconceivable than that would 
 be if the good that is in us should forever 
 perish. Can anyone capable of thinking 
 seriously believe in such a hideous climax of 
 immorality as that? Then have we before 
 us, as the ultimate result, human life at its 
 best without an adequate motive, affections 
 without an object to satisfy them, hopes of 
 immortality never to be realized, aspira- 
 tions after God and godliness never to be 
 attained, and, as the outcome of it all the 
 undisputed kingdom of confusion and de- 
 spair! This thing cannot be, as the Lord 
 liveth, it cannot be. If morality have any 
 serious basis, if its Teachings be not the idle 
 and delusive dreams of minds which cannot 
 think and hearts which cannot feel, it must 
 be that "Our Redeemer liveth" and careth 
 for all His children. What does all this 
 mean? This, and nothing less, that our 
 dear brother is not dead, it is only his poor 
 tired body that sleepeth, and that in God's 
 good time, 
 
 The veil shall be rent — 
 
 The veil upon nature's face, 
 And the dead whom ye loved, ye shall walk 
 with, 
 
48 THE LIFE IMMORTAL 
 
 And speak with the lost. 
 The delusion of death shall pass. 
 
 And for this blessed hope, Hallelujah! to 
 God the Father, God the Son, and God the 
 Holy Ghost! 
 
 Amen ! and Amen ! 
 
A TRIBUTE TO EZEKIEL W. MUNDY 
 Syracuse, June 8, 191 6 
 
 The Trustees of the Syracuse Public Li- 
 brary desire to express our love and reverence 
 for the memory of Ezekiel W. Mundy, 
 Librarian Emeritus, whose death has taken 
 place to-day. From 1881 until a year ago he 
 was in charge of the Public Library of this 
 city. He brought to this task a cultured 
 mind, a never-failing and industrious loyalty 
 to his work, a generous wisdom in the adminis- 
 tration of his duties. The collection of 
 books now belonging to the city for the free 
 use of all its people is a monument to his 
 many-sided intellect and to his broad sym- 
 pathies. The example which he set as a 
 public servant is an inspiration to us who have 
 shared his responsibilities and the thought 
 of having served with him will remain to us a 
 remembrance of an unusual privilege and 
 honor. 
 
 While we mourn with the members of Dr. 
 
 4 49 
 
50 A TRIBUTE 
 
 Mundy's family the loss of this noble and 
 unselfish friend we share with them the satis- 
 faction of having enjoyed a close relation- 
 ship with a public man whose work for this 
 community, reaching over more than a 
 third of a century, has so warmed and stimu- 
 lated the cause of popular education, has so 
 raised the standard of public service, and has 
 so constantly and impartially radiated the 
 influence of generous helpfulness that he 
 made of his official position a title of demo- 
 cratic nobility. 
 
 Dr. Mundy was a rare man. His life was 
 an open book, known and read of all men, and 
 every page of it was clean. Ambitions for 
 fame and wealth never laid hold on him. He 
 was too gentle and sincere to follow the paths 
 trodden by self-seeking men. He lived in an 
 atmosphere of thought, of sentiment, and of 
 the kindly virtues. It is pleasant to re- 
 member that so many of his y ears were spent in 
 an environment so well suited to his inclina- 
 tion and ability. For years he was the head 
 of the Syracuse Public Library. To him, 
 more than any other, is due the development 
 and growth of this great public institution. 
 It was his constant thought and care. He 
 put his personality into it. It was his off- 
 
A TRIBUTE 51 
 
 spring. To the citizens of Syracuse of middle 
 life the Library suggested Dr. Mundy, as 
 thought of him also brings the Library to 
 mind. To the Trustees, association with him 
 was a constant delight. His quiet and kindly 
 spirit smoothed away all troubles and vexa- 
 tions. He was loved by all who knew him. 
 Rare tact, a very noble philosophy, and a 
 fine appreciation of all human things enabled 
 him to live above the rough and tumble of 
 life, and ripen with the years into a humble, 
 trustful child of God. 
 
 Douglas E. Petit 
 F. W. Betts 
 Paul M. Paine 
 
 For the Trustees. 
 
IN CONCLUSION 
 
 The character and ideals of such a man as 
 has been described in the foregoing pages are 
 unique and for most of us inimitable. One 
 to whom has fallen the duty of carrying on for 
 a while the work to which he gave most of his 
 life can best show loyalty to the tradition 
 which Dr. Mundy's life established in the 
 Library by striving to supplement and con- 
 tinue what he did rather than to imitate 
 what he was. 
 
 It is as a public servant that Dr. Mundy 
 was known to the present generation of 
 Syracusans. The quality of his devotion 
 to the public service was more than merely 
 conscientious. It was a passion with him to 
 be useful even in the humblest way in bring- 
 ing the light and warmth of good reading to 
 the homes of the people of the city. That 
 tradition remains a priceless heritage to the 
 institution he so deeply loved. 
 
 Syracuse, April, 1917. 
 52