Character.

Lectures.

CHAPTER XX.

Outline of Character.-Usefulness.-Activity.-Lectures.-A Citizen.-A Pastor.-Social Qualities.-Anecdotes.--Liberal Feelings. -Sketch by his friend, Dr. Sprague.

In following our friend and brother through his ministerial and literary career, we have neglected to observe the various yet important labors in which his heart and mind were actively employed for the general good of the community in which he lived, the Church at large, and the world.

Usefulness was emphatically the object of his life. Few men in the Church were more efficient and successful in advancing the interests of her boards of benevolence, and her Theological Seminary at Princeton. An active director in these institutions, he was punctual in attendance, and vigilant and sagacious in counsel. At the same time, so catholic was his spirit, and so wide the range of his labors, that he gave to the great national societies for the circulation of Bibles and Tracts, and for various other noble works, his warm support.

He was sent for, and he went as a lecturer, from the farthest East to the Mississippi, and from Canada to the South; and the lectures that he delivered are among the most able, learned, and brilliant productions that he left behind him.

As a citizen he was ever foremost in every enter

A citizen.

Social life.

prise that promised to advance the welfare of the people. Among the memorials of his leading influence are the Lyceum and the Orphan Asylum, the monument to the Rev. Mr. Caldwell, near now to his own, and schools public and private, in whose establishment or support he took the liveliest interest. The cause of common school education in the State of New Jersey occupied a large place in his affections, and his exertions were felt in the Legislature and in the remotest county. He was among the founders of the New Jersey Historical Society, and at his individual request the meeting was called that resulted in its organization.

So much time and labor did he bestow upon these extra services, that his own vineyard might have been neglected but for that high principle and thorough system which made his pastoral duties paramount to all others. Of his own people he was never forgetful, and his success is the best proof of his ministry.

To those who knew Dr. Murray in social life, any sketch of his character will appear unlike him that does not reflect the constant sunshine of genial humor, and the flashes of wit that illumined and enlivened the circle around him. Yet it is quite impossible to preserve and reproduce these most characteristic passages of his history. He could make no record of them; no one else has recorded them; and they can not be recalled. But those who heard him in Synod, when in his happiest moods, will remember such hits as this. He was remonstrating against the course of an inferior court that had tried a man while absent.

In Synod.

Liberality.

"Why, Moderator," said he, "I agree with one of my own countrymen, who said he would not hang a dog unless he was present!"

Every year he spent a few weeks in summer at Saratoga for the benefit of the waters. Then he was the animating spirit of a group of friends, who loved to get within the charmed circle of his conversation and his sunny smiles. A young sprig of divinity had been ventilating his Puseyite ideas to the great annoyance of the company, who had been disgusted with his affectation of clerical dignity and dress. As he left the piazza, some one remarked, "He is a miniature edition of Romanism." แ "Yes," added Dr. Murray, "bound in calf.”

He was liberal in his feelings toward Christians of other names than his own; and it is to his honor, as well as to the praise of Divine Grace, that he was charitable to the Church which he abandoned in his youth. He abhorred Romanism, but he loved all men, Roman Catholics especially, his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh. When I learned that he had subscribed and given money to aid in building a Roman Catholic church in Elizabethtown, I ventured to question the propriety of such an act. He replied that he desired to testify his kindly feelings toward those whose errors of faith he was bound to oppose.

Among the many sketches received since these memoirs were commenced, there is none more complete than the letter which is here given, from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Sprague. No man is so well fitted, by intimate knowledge of the subject, to portray the life and character of Dr. Murray.

Dr. Sprague's sketch.

Recollections.

"Albany, 2d July, 1861. "MY DEAR DR. PRIME,-You could not have asked a service of me more grateful, in every respect, to my own feelings, than to record my recollections of our much loved and lamented friend, Dr. Murray. There are two reasons why I can perform it with the utmost alacrity. One is, that I loved him so much that my heart warms at every remembrance of him; the other is, that I knew him so well that I can speak of him with perfect confidence in the correctness of all my statements. I confess, however, to a degree of disappointment in regard to the amount of material which I have for such a communication as you have asked for. My first impression was, that there were lodged in my memory facts and incidents enough, which had fallen within my observation, to make a larger part of forthcoming volume than could reasonably be appropriated to me; but, now that I have set myself to an effort at recollection, I find that I am much richer in impressions than incidents-the former remaining in all their vividness, while the latter have, for the most part, become confused and shadowy, or faded away altogether. I will endeavor, however, as faithfully as I can, to portray the man as he now lives in my memory and my heart, taking care to say little or nothing for the truth of which my own personal observation is not the voucher. In doing this, it will be impossible to avoid a substantial repetition of some things contained in the discourse I delivered on the occasion of Dr. Murray's death (already published); and, instead of suffering myself to be embarrassed by any attempt

your

Settlement.

Dr. Griffin.

to do this, I shall just write what occurs to me, as if this were the first offering I had made to the memory of our friend.

"I first heard of Dr. Murray in connection with his settlement at Elizabethtown as the successor of Dr. M'Dowell; and the very favorable account which I had of him, coming, as it did, from one of Dr. M'Dowell's own family, created in me a strong desire to make his acquaintance. After the death of Dr. Griffin in 1837, it devolved upon me to write a brief memoir of his life; and as Dr. Murray had been one of his pupils at Williams College, Dr. Griffin's gifted and excellent daughter, Mrs. Dr. Smith, then of Newark, requested him to write out his recollections of her father, to be incorporated in the memorial of him which I was then forming. He readily complied with her request, and, in doing so, gave me the first definite idea I had of his character. The letter he wrote me was marked by great clearness, discrimination, and point, and showed me that he had a thorough appreciation of the character of the great man whom he had undertaken to describe. Two or three letters passed between us at that time, but the first time I met Dr. Murray was in April, 1839, on the day that John Quincy Adams delivered his celebrated oration on the Jubilee of the Constitution. Some one of our mutual friends brought us together that morning, and we went together to the North Dutch Church to hear the oration, and then went to a hotel (I think the City Hotel), where there was a large gathering of gentlemen, and, among others, Major General Scott, to whom Dr. Murray intro