The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

who also served in the Revolutionary army), who sleeps in yonder tomb, could be waked up,
and have the Nebraska Bill with its black section put into his hands—what would He say? I
declare to you, I would not for any price go and knock at the door of that tomb, if I knew
that I could bring him up, except it were in the last extremity of expiring liberty, that he might
again buckle on his armor and march up to the cannon's mouth. No ! let him sleep, and never
till the day of judgment know anything of the atrocious conspiracy which has been concocted this
winter at the seat of Government !"
Dr. Humphrey's loyal heart was also intensely stirred when, in 1861, the storm of the
Civil war rose in the sky with its threatening portents. "He was appointed, by the clergymen
of Pittsfield,' to deliver a sermon at a union meeting on the day of National Fasting and Prayer,
which was observed January 4th, 1861. He accepted the invitation with all the ardor of youth,
and the result was a discourse which, for argument, for eloquence, for religious and patriotic fire,
equalled the best efforts of his meridian days. It was a wonderful discourse to have been pre-
pared and delivered by a man standing on the edge of his eighty-third year."
Dr. Humphrey had a strong physical constitution. This enabled him to withstand to a
remarkable degree the severe strains often made upon it, through the whole course of his life.
In person, he was above the medium height and well developed. His eye was dark and mild;
his Shakespearian head, as seen in his portrait, was in earlier life crowned with dark clustering
hair, and until past middle life his face was full and ruddy. He was at that period a noticeably
handsome man. His manner combined great dignity with true courtesy and- affability.
In his home life Dr. Humphrey grew more and more genial and companionable with every
advancing year. Though a man of rich and deep affections, which were bestowed without measure
upon his family, yet the custom of the times and of the home in which he was reared, together
with the degree of reserve always natural to him, made it diflicult for him to "unbend" with his
children when they were young, and he was not peculiarly demonstrative or familiar in his in-
tercourse with them. But he grew more free and full in the expression of feeling under the
mellowing effect of his later and less burdened years, and his companionship was the joy and
delight of all. His conversation was lighted with the play of humor so characteristic of him, ami
he was always fond of a harmless joke. His biographer says of him: "He was a man of great
simplicity and magnanimity of character; guileless and transparent as a child; ever ready to
apologize for and to forgive an enemy. While always self-respecting in the best sense of the term,
he united with this quality rare humility. His benevolence was large and systematic. Among
his papers was a memorandum-book in which he was in the habit of entering each item of his
income, the payment for a newspaper article or a Sunday's preaching among the rest. Against
every entry was a cross, followed by the fractional sign which indicated the generous proportion
he appropriated to benevolence. This was his 'charity fund,' and thus he had always something
to give from that which ha'd already passed into the Lord's treasury. Outside of this he would,
in his charities, often 'give upon faith,' as he called it, gifts which might seem extravagant in any
other light than that which shone upon them from his spirit of implicit confidence that 'the
Lord will provide.'''
The Rev. John Todd, of Pittsfield, said of him: "Through Dr. Humphrey humanity was
taught to the whole community. All the way through life he carried this trait. It sought the
salvation of a world, the good of his country, and considered the need of the little child as he
walked without shade to school." His kindly feeling always extended in a marked degree to the
animals under his care. One of his daughters remembers standing, when a child, by his bedside
one Thanksgiving morning, with all the usual glory of the day dimmed for her by the severe
illness which had suddenly prostrated him and cast unwonted pallor over his face. She vividly
recalls the gleam of relief that dispelled her alarm when she heard him speak in his natural tone
and caught the glimmer in his eye as he said to her brother, "My son, do not forget that the
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