St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-07-12
:D>lre Galedunia1t.
St. .Tohnsbury, Vt, Thursday. july 1a. 1888
THE LATE A. f. RANKIN.

fore the st. JOhnsbury Academy Alum
nj Association, June ~, Isss.
For many reasons am glad to speak
of the man whose name has Just been
mentioned. Our anniversary brings us
together in the character of students,
and no name upon our roll could be
more suggestive of the amenities of
scholarship than his. In the few words
which have to say | wish to speak of
him mainly as a scholar, because at
other times and places enough has
been said of his other traits and be-
cause that seems TO me more apprO-
pirate and helpful view for us than any
other. He would have been the first
to deprecate any praise that might
seem fulsOme, the very last to lay claim
t" any gift or grace he did not possess.
Happily the plain truth is his best Gu
logy.
How much is implied in the phrase
when we call a man, distinctively,
scholar. When we say that, we say
that for that man life means education,
the world is an open book. He has
turned his inquiring glance on every
object, from the primer of his lisping
days to the scroll of heaven character
ed with stars. He has followed the
trace of the human spirit along it's de-
viOus bat ascending path from the bar
barian to Shakespeare. Fancy has de-
lighted him and history has taught him
her sober lessons. The MUSES. have
sung around his cradle strains never
to be wholly remembered or forgotten.
Music has opened to him her golden
and ado flrunI- with
dy. He has felt the witchery of color
and bowed before the majesty of form.
He is in love with nature. He knows
the words of sage and bard, of saint
and prophet. He has mixed with men
and learned the strength and weak
ness, the shame and the glory, of his
race. Finally, and above all, he has
pondered the enigma of existence
"Wlence came /? Whittier am |
bound And why 2" BY every turn of
life's mysterious road the Sphinx has
sat and accOsted him with riddles.
Such is the scholar. Such was this
man, our friend. 1t is written, some
where, that when we know what
man loves we shall know what he is
He loved beauty and truth. Upon
those two poles his spirit turned, Gf in
deed they are two, and not one and
the same.)
The scholar is not the bookwor
but his chief delight is in books, the
record of "the best that has been
thought and said in the world" This
man had been admitted to the fellow
ship of books, the chest society" He
was on familiar terms with Plato and
Bacon. lie gOssipped with Plutarch
and chatted with MOntaigne. He
laughed with Lamb and Goldsmith
He dreamed with Hamlet. He unused
and analysed with Hawthorne. Ho-
mer, Virgil, Dante, MiltOn-these were
his torch bearers through the dread re-
gions traversed by the soul. With
Goethe, Carlyle and Emerson he com
muued and meditated. He loved Il
perfect sentence, poised and balanced,
where no word is wanting, nc word SUI
perfiuous. Felicities in language
pleased him so that he was wont to re-
trace them with his own hand, as if
somehow, by SO doing, he could make
them more his own. He loved poem,
as II work of art, fawIess, finely
wrought and
s'MnsinoI % - A,-,nn'a Irte-''
He knew his favOrite authors, line by
line,-their traits of thought and turns
OI tADIceSlOI. IIC hHCN Gu6Hl us d
lover knows the features of the below
ed, as an artist knows the masters
touch by the slightest trace of brush or
chisel He was peculiarly in love
with what is fine and delicate in liter
allure and art. | remember a morning
when | met him in the Athen8um. He
touched me on the arm and led me
back Oh tiptOe to the gallery and Gag
erly pointed to a painting-(the mea-
dow-scene which shows the cattle
straying down to drink beneath the
dropping elms.) The canvas hung
that morning in a rare soft light which
gave it a new loneliness, as though
cOnspiring with the painters hand. 1t
was Il faint, vanishing grace, but he
had an eye for beauty of that sort and
no such fairy-like display was lost on
him.
This was his love of beauty. But a
more prominent trait in his character,
and indeed the most prominent trait
so far as my acquaintance went was
his love of truth, his intellectual hon
esty. This is the trait we can initiate
most prOfitably. In every matter of
belief he saw and insisted that the first
duty was not to believe this dogma or
take that creed for granted, but to be
honest with himself. There is a school
of teaching which insists that the first
thing to do is to believe certain things.
He did not subscribe to this. He said,
81 must deal with these questions as
my reason and conscience, purified from
prejudice and illumined by unselfish-
ness, decide" And he did it, Every
question, from the least to the great
est, passed before his mind and con-
science, as before tribunal, and was
judged. Thereafter it took, in his
life, the place to which it had been as
signed by his conscience, not by the
conscience of any other man, or body
of men. He recognized the fact that
to allow any conscience but his own
to decide for him, no matter under
what name or disguise, was no less
than sacrilege. | can easily imagine
him using such lines as these:
o friend, the your light may be,
And mine the glow-worm's spark
Yet must follow where see
The light amid the dark;
And surely He that gave to me
This lantern strange and dim,
Can show the way, by night or day
That leadeth unto Him.
But he never stunned or trifled will.
the great questions of being and desti-
ny. He faced them, seriously, inquir-
ingly, fearlessly. He felt the i'm
mense responsibility of conduct. He
knew the intimate relation between
conduct and belief. He knew that by
a law older than all the Bibles, old as
the law of gravitatiOn, righteousness is
blessedness. He was broad, catholic,
humane. He had watched, none more