The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

provided. Recitation rooms, a chapel, library and apparatus were all wanting. Slowly the walls
went up as did the walls of Jerusalem under Nehemiah. Besides all the outside labors President
Humphrey was carrying on, he was instructing the Senior Class in more than a half-dozen
branches, and for two years after the chapel was completed, 1S27-2S, he supplied the pulpit
regularly. In 1834, his health had become so impaired by incessant toil that friends urged his
spending some months in Europe, and defrayed his expenses. This journey was of great service
to him. After his return his official duties were less burdensome, and the College was furnished
with a full corps of eminent professors. "He was at this time a systematic student, devoting
much of his leisure to literary composition. He was a regular contributor to the religious
journals of the day. His public addresses in the pulpit and on the platform were frequent. His
voice became familiar at all the great centers of benevolent effort. The soundness of his judgment
became as widely known as the mingled wisdom and eloquence of his lips, and far and
near he was consulted in ecclesiastical matters."
One of his most vigorous discourses was an address to the students of Amherst College,
July 4th, 1828, the subject being "A Parallel betxyeen Intemperance and the Slave Trade." This
address was printed, and gained a wide circulation. He delivered a discourse on "Indian Rights
and our Duties," in 1829, which was occasioned by the forcible expulsion of the Indians from
Georgia by a direct act of nullification, by the State, of treaties formed by the Federal Government.
This address contained words of warning which in the light of to-day seem remarkably prophetic
"Do you tell me that there is no possible danger—that no man nor number of men will ever
dare to assail our free and glorious institutions.' Let the history of past republics, or rather, let
their tombstones decide between us. So it would have been said, when Washington and Jefferson
were at the head of affairs, that no one would ever dare to disinherit or enslave the Indians,
protected as they are by more than a hundred and fifty governmental treaties. And how much
better are our parchment defenses than theirs.' If such encroachments, acquiesced in, do not pre-
pare the way for even greater violations of the public faith, our children will have to be protected
by higher munitions than our vaunted constitutional bulwarks."
In Dr. Humphrey's personal association with the students under his charge he was peculiarly
happy in impressing them by the force of his character, and in gaining their confidence and reverent
affection. By his familiar lectures in the class-room, and by his frequent fatherly counsels to all,
he manifested his deep interest in whatever concerned their true welfare. None who watched his
daily life, whether it flowed on in even course or led through peculiar en^ergencies and trials,
could doubt that the Christian truth he so earnestly proclaimed was his vital inspiration and
strength. A touching illustration of the spirit with which he met sore personal bereavement is
given by one of his former students: "In July, 1S40, President Humphrey's son Henry, then a
member of the Sophomore Class, a young man of fascinating beauty and brilliant promise, was
seized suddenly, in the midst of robust health, with an acute inflammatory disease, and died in
a few hours. The next morning we were all surprised to see the President in his accustomed
place at morning prayers in the chapel. His face was pale, and he had a worn and exhausted
appearance, but he arose as the college bell ceased its ringing, and calmly, sweetly read, not
any wail of lamentation and anguish, but the cheering words of the 103d Psalm: 'Bless the
Lord, O viy soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name,' and so on to the impressive words,
'He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities,' closing with
the words, 'Praise ye the Lord.' Then he offered such a prayer as would be likely to follow such
a Scripture read under such circumstances—a prayer that was full of tenderness but transparently
trustful. There was nothing of stoicism or assumed absence of emotion in the service, but there
was a quiet mastery of faith over feeling by a strength that was borrowed from the unseen
and eternal."
In speaking uf President Humphrey's connection with the College his biographer says : "Had
:
551