The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-10-11

land the loud laugh that marks the va
cant mind" as warning against frivoli
ty.
AS for curiosity or concern for what
people might say about him, he woulc
sometimes repeat laughingly. Better
be much abused than know it but lit
tie"
When he threw off, in it's scanned
staccato, Virgins word-pcture of the
galloping horse, fine turn of onomata-
poeia: "quadrupedante putrem sonitt
quatlt ungula campum,' we young un
Latined children thought father knew
enough for all our purposes. Our
mother, who had early editions of some
of the English poets, would quote
Young, Cowper and Watts as If they
were near neighbors.
She reserved her best respects fol-
Hannah Moore and kept her remains
in two tall volumes
Our childish reading ran to Bunyan
De Foe, Peter Farley and brave Daniel
Boone.
Mr.. Robinson was on the examining
committees of Yale in 1927 and 1886
when it was the custom to call in alum
nj to help quiz the young gentlemen,
eager for their sheepskins. On the for
mer occasion he was present on the
evening of September II, 1927, in the
College chapel, at the formation OF the
Society Of Alumni of Yale.
Mr.. Robinson's public efficiency in
the causes of education and temperance
and good politics ronded out his life
work. He was especially Jealous In
missions and would mount upon the
conference walls his own boughten
maps Of the benighted parts of the
world and with a long rod point out
the dark, beshadowed lands where the
heather lay, and work his people into
such compassion that he drew from the
Plainfield church sums almost incredi-
Bile for missions giving so generously
himself from his small stipend as to
make sacrifice as real as the blood of
bulls and goats in ancient days. And
still more money was miraculously
raked together to make us children
while yet careless urchins, members
for life OF the American Bible and
Tract societies.
Our fathers acquaintance was rath-
er extensive in the ministerial and
scholarly circles of his day. He knew
well Lyman Beecher, Harlan Page and
Asahel Nettleton, having worked
alongside of them in the vineyard of
the Lord. Possessing a biography of
Nettleton, he bought another copy Of Il
passing tin-pedlar; when his daughter
suggested that there was already one
In the house, he replied "he wasn't at
all sure, and any way he couldn't have
too many biographies of that good
man."
He had the good fortune to have
friendly association with such men as
DR., Nathaniel Hewitt Prof. Nehemiah
Cleveland Or. Edward w. Hooker, Or.
Joel Halves, Rev. Hart Ta1cott, Prof.
George Shepard of Bangor, Prof. Flea
Ear T. Fitch DIR. r. III. Galaudet,
Judge Francis Parsons, DR.. r. p. Rog-
ers and Prof. William c. Fowler, with
most of whom he maintained a life
long acquaintance and occasional cor
respondence.
If he was blown, in the casualties of
the ministry, from one hilltop parish
to another a fate that clergymen then
az now CALAMITY survived, those were
no i'll, but rather kindly winds that
made him loving and beloved to the no.
Bile people of Morris, Suffield, Putnam
and Plainfield.
The half view of his ministerial life,
which / give, laid chiefly in Plalnfeld,
and of which 1 represent the sunny
side" remembering no SHADY side
there, may stand for the general sun
ny side experiences in the other parish
es.
AT Painfield we children would
stitch our fathers sermons In a pinch,
and illustrate some of their doctrines to
him; but we generally encouraged the
good man in his parish work made
sometimes the lecture-room fires that in
winter were sorely needed to warm the
emotions and conciliated parishioner,
perhaps, by running swiftly an errand
for him. There my father had in his
audience toward twenty Chickasaws, |
students al the academy; dear old fell
lows I fondly remember, with their red |
faces, black hair, swift feet and abo-
rginal gravity.
Well, the clergy then were much like
powerful sheiks in an Arab village If /
they did not make themselves formida-
BILE as in old English style by wearing
wigs and bands and other frightful in
sigma, they did sometimes seem to
study or affect a certain aWfuness of
aspect and never allowed themselves to
run about in any masked or careless
lncognito, but wore their badge, which
might prevent profane swearing or 9TH
err rudeness that would shrink from
their approach and dignlfied presence,
The minister's coming was alarm
enough to send a squad Of boys scam
perng, and certainly interrupt their
folly or harmless pleasure;
and the minister's boy ran with the rest
likely enough.
1t was the fashion for the clergy to
wear white cravat that no other man
Jared to put on 1t was milk white
and smoothly ironed with a bit of
starch, then folded and wound around
he neck and tied In a knot or bow,
With short, very short, flyers out. This
ny father chung to all his life.
l suspect it was the half-oause of that
yery tickling Of the throat it may have
been supposed to ward off, and to
which our father was subject. Now it
s. singular how differently this would
ct off the appearance Of man, giving
o one a meek, soft air Of purity and
and to another a proud
ouch-me-not aspect that you would
scarce believe could come from a piece
# cambria.
The country esquire and gentleman,
,D,I,1 md IA fT1-yIt r |