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

gave,
To draw them on to heaven by reason
fair,
And good example was his daily care
AS a semonizer my father obeyed thc
"time spirit of his day and followed
the fashion of preaching Christ after
the manner and Interpretation of Cal
win. This was a heavy handicap to 6
man of generous feeling, when people
We're becoming FESTIVE under It's severi
ties. He records in his Journal the fol
lowing text as suitable for pungent ex-
egesis:
"In that day did the Lord God Of
hosts call to weeping and to mourning
and to badness and to girding with
sackcloth."
A brother supply" also breaches for
him from this text: "He shall be driv-
en- from light into darkness and chased
out of the world" The sermon was an
lawful description Of the wicked in the
future world" For my part, | liked
best his off-hand address when he was
taken by surprise and could not or did
not get In his most serious work In the
more dread and solemn lines Of
thought; when his matter and manner
had natural impulse and fervor or
junction." as they then termed It,
Well, ministerial campaigning was
tough work, but lively and eXhilaratlng
enough when several tried for the same
pulpit The candidate must preach
thrice ON the Sabbath, lead the weekly
prayers, meet the anxious inquirers, -
call right and LEFT through the parish
and SO on week after week. while the
/ people looked him sharply over.
Father records candidating in this
style In Norfolk, among the Battels,
Pettibones, Porters, Phelpses, Millses,
Iawrences, Welches and Miners, calf
ing upon more than one hundred differ
ent families, amidst the SHOWS and cold
of one of the severest winters ever
[ known. that Of 1881.
Mr.. Robinson had rather a contem-
plative and historical than speculative
turn of mind; a gift for accuracy of
statement, a special memory Of dates,
names and annals. He valued the past
not meanly as a foil and leader to the
present, but for it's own sturdy merits.
He sometimes gave aid to local histo-
rians and in making up the early class
al catalogue, Of which there was a lack
of data at Andover, filed out and re-
vised the class lists of his day; wrote
several historical parish records, his
tory Of Plainfleld academy, of which he
was trustee; these in manuscript, and a
few memorial or Biographical sketches
that were printed but published no SER
mons.
He was early at work in the field of
genealogy and set out about 1910 to
gather lost data Of his family, when
such inquiries were so rare as to be re-
garded slightly queer and Quixotic
To Illustrate the reach of his long
life; he knew hts own grandfather, who
dying in 1902, was born in 1725, only
thrty-siS years after the decease Of the
first known ancestor, Thomas Robinson,
of Gulford.
He had much to say of his great
grandfather, Samuel l., always speak
ing of him devoutly as THE Old Es-
quire," of whom he was plainly proud;
who had married Rachel Strong, of
Northampton, who had gone to the leg
islature and transmitted the faculty of
going there to his descendants until
going off to college to try their prem
tice hand in the learned professions,
they lost the cue TO that career
His own father, Samuel III, took to
the military began by playing the fife
over the road to Fair Haven to frghten
the British In 1873; became colonel and
rose to ride on a black horse at the
head OF his regiment. Then firing of
this he threw UP the military, and be-
ginning anew worked his way UP In
the church, and died In 1899, holding of
flee in the deaconry, having shown
equal faculty for war and peace
Our father kept throughout his active
life journal numbering some forty
small quarto volumes that holds much
valuable family data and happenings
In the parishes he served, and affordlng
examples of what has been ingeniously .
termed canned history" The Hlstori- |
cal society at Hartford, some how get
ting an inkling Of its value, desired to
copy 1t.
Thus he describes, June II, 1888, the
Andrew Jackson procession through /
with Jackson in It, Sitting
on fine grey horse, bowling and wav-
Ing his hat to all about him. and at the
windows and houses on either side of
the streets" And visit to "Barnums
Museum" In 1852, where he is brought
up standing before two anacondas, Of
which he speaks respectfully as works
If God -
Another page announces Henry Clay
In town at Suffield, Nov, 3, 1888, and
Oct 20, 1862, the village bell at Plain
ield tolls one hour, from twelve to one,
FOR the burial Of Daniel Webster
Yale and Andover, in those days.
must have wound up young men like
locks, expecting they would run free
Y for the rest Of their lives,
In house, now almost numbered up
with thousands of choice books gath
red since his decease. 1t is pathetic to
hink what scant and empty-shelved
'esources of books and Libraries the
clergyman had for carrying ON his
work. When | see the lists of books
made from time to time by our father
books that he needed but could not
lave--l am struck with the pity of it,
Tis library, some 800 volumes of
he Christian Observer, the Chris
ian Spectator, ancient sermons and
tudy books, with here and there a
hoice historical work like Wlnthrop's
Journal and Governor Bradford's His
ory of Plymouth, is altogether chiefly
seful to illustrate the past rather than
o instruct the present.
Mr.. Robinson kept some of his learn