in September, 1804. After graduating he became an assistant teacher, first in Mr. Stevenson's school at Morristown, and then in Mr. Finley's at Basking Ridge. He resigned his place with the latter in 1807, and about the same time became a member of Mr. Finley's church, and a candidate for the ministry, under the care of presbytery. He was then for two years Latin and Greek tutor in the college at Princeton, where he devoted himself to the study of theology, chiefly under the direction of its president, Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith. On the 24th of April, 1810, he was licensed to preach the gospel by the presbytery of New Brunswick.

Continuing his theological studies during the next two years, and also preaching a while at Newtown, L. I., where he declined overtures for a settlement, he made an excursion into Virginia, and afterward to New England, and in November, 1812, returned to Princeton, in the capacity of senior tutor in the college. In 1813 he was transferred from the tutorship to the professorship of languages, and at the same time was chosen secretary of the board of trustees. He also held the offices of librarian and inspector of the college during his connection with the institution. In October of this year he was married to Margaret Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. Nathaniel Lawrence, attorney-general of the State of New York.

In 1817 he was twice chosen president of Transylvania University, Kentucky, but in both instances declined. In the same year he was ordained, sine titulo, by the presbytery of New Brunswick, and was also elected vice-president of the College of New Jersey. In 1822, after Dr. Green's resignation, he was for one year its acting president. The next year he was chosen president of Cumberland College, Tennessee, and also of the College of New Jersey, but he declined both appointments. The same year, the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him, by Dickinson College, then under the presidency of Dr. J. M. Mason.

After refusing to consider overtures concerning the presidency of Ohio University, at Athens, he was again offered the presidency of Cumberland College, and finally induced to visit Nashville; the result of which was that he at last signified his acceptance of the office in 1824. During his absence, the board of trustees of Dickinson College had sent a deputy to Princeton, to induce him to consent to become president of that institution. On the 24th of December he arrived in Nashville with his family--the college having then been in operation a few weeks, with about thirty students. He was inaugurated with much pomp and ceremony, on the 12th of January, 1825. His address, delivered on the occasion, was published and very widely circulated. It was a noble effort, and was regarded as auspicious of

an eminently useful and brilliant career. The corporate name of the college was changed the next year to "The University of Nashville."

In May, 1834, Dr. Lindsley was unanimously elected moderator of the general assembly of the Presbyterian church of the United States, then holding its sessions at Philadelphia. He was elected a member of the "Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians," at Copenhagen, in 1837.

In 1845, Mrs. Lindsley was taken from him by death, after a most happy union of about thirty-two years. In 1849 he was married to Mrs. Mary Ann Ayers, the widow of a kinsman-Elias Ayers, the founder of the New Albany Theological Seminary-a daughter of the late Major William Silliman, of Fairfield, Conn., and a niece of the venerable Professor Silliman of Yale College. In May, 1850, he was elected professor of ecclesiastical polity and biblical archæology in the New Albany Theological Seminary; and, having resigned the presidency of the University of Nashville in October following, he removed to New Albany in December, and entered on the duties of the professorship at the beginning of the next year. Here he continued usefully and acceptably employed until April, 1853, when he resigned the office, contrary to the unanimous wish of the board.

The remaining two years of his life were spent chiefly in study, devotion, and intercourse with his friends. A few weeks before the meeting of the general assembly in 1855, he was asked if he would consent to serve the presbytery, as a commissioner to the assembly, and his reply was, "I have never sought any appointment, and when God has placed upon me a duty, I endeavor to discharge it." He was accordingly appointed; but he seemed afterward to doubt whether it was his duty to attempt to fulfill the appointment; and he remarked, the morning that he left home, as if from a premonition of what was before him, "I think it probable I shall never return-I may die before I reach Nashville." He, however, did reach Nashville, though he reached there only to die.

On Wednesday morning, the 23d of May, while he was sitting at the breakfast-table, surrounded by his children, the conversation turned upon the danger of aged men traveling from home; and Dr. Lindsley expressed the opinion that it was unwise, and that they thereby often put their lives in jeopardy. A guest at the table pleasantly inquired, "Is not your advice inconsistent with your own lonely journey to this place?" "No," he replied, "no; I am here also at home as well die here as any where." And in a few minutes he was struck with apoplexy, and passed instantly into a state. of unconsciousness, in which he remained till his death, which occurred at one o'clock the next Friday morning.

When the tidings of his alarming illness were communicated to the general assembly, special prayers were immediately offered in his behalf, and a committee appointed to visit him, and express the sympathy of the assembly with his afflicted family. When his departure was announced, the most tender and respectful notice was taken of it, and the funeral solemnities, which took place on the succeeding Monday, and were conducted by distinguished members of the assembly, bore witness to the gratitude and veneration with which his character and services were regarded. His remains were deposited by the side of his first wife and his youngest son.

Dr. Lindsley left five children-three sons and two daughters. All his sons were graduated at the University of Nashville. One of them, Adrian Van Sinderen, is a lawyer; another, Nathaniel Lawrence, was formerly professor of languages in Cumberland University, and more recently principal of Greenwich Female Seminary, Tennessee; and the third, John Berrien, is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church, chancellor of the University of Nashville, and professor of chemistry in the medical department of the same institution.

II. HIS CHIEF WORK AT NASHVILLE.

It will thus be seen that there were three principal fields of labor on which Dr. Lindsley, at different periods of life, made his influence felt as an educator: the first in his native state, and within the walls of his own Alma Mater, where he devoted fifteen years of his early prime, with unsurpassed energy and ardor, to the work of classical instruction, gradually but easily winning his way up, from a tutorship to the presidency of the college; the second at the capital of the then young and rising state of Tennessee, where, for twenty-six years, he gave the whole force of his intellect and character to the furtherance of all popular and liberal education; and the third at New Albany, where, for a few years, he imparted to candidates for the gospel ministry the well-matured results of his experience and scholarship. this last field we shall not now speak. His period of labor there was too short, and the circumstances of the institution too much embarrassed, to admit of much development. Nor need we dwell long on the first field, in New Jersey. Brilliant as had been his successes there, both as a scholar and a teacher, there can be no question that the great work of his life, both as it regards its intrinsic labor and its lasting usefulness, was performed in Tennessee.

Of

Of this first period, however, we may give, in passing, the testimony of an eye-witness, Dr. Maclean, the present (1859) president of the college at Princeton. "Dr. Lindsley," says he, แ was one of the best teachers of whom I have any knowledge. He had, in a high degree, the happy faculty of imparting to his pupils some of his

own ardor for the studies of his department. They were taught to give close attention to grammatical niceties, as well as to the style and sentiments of the authors studied. For youth in college, as well as for youth in classical schools, he insisted upon the importance of constant reference to the grammar and the dictionary, and of a thorough analysis of the words, as requisite to a full appreciation of the beauties of style and thought. His favorite Greek authors, if I mistake not, were Homer, Aristotle, and Longinus; and to his fondness for them may be traced some of the characteristics of his own style.” It is known that he declined the highest position in the gift of his Alma Mater, and cast his lot in the West, contrary to the wishes, and indeed to the deep regret, of his friends at the East. Who can tell the career of honor and usefulness which might have awaited him there had he accepted that important position? Who can say that a presidency at Nassau Hall, running through a quarter of a century, would not have presented a career of usefulness fully equal to that of Dwight at Yale, or Nott at Union, or any other which our country has yet afforded. Still we hesitate not to think that he acted wisely and well in going just when he did to what might then. be called the wild woods of Tennessee. We have no manner of doubt that he there achieved a greater and more important work for his generation than he could possibly have ever done at Princeton, New Haven, or any other eastern seat of learning. The heart of man deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. A great state was just emerging from the wilderness-building its churches and schoolhouses, constructing its works of internal improvement, bringing its virgin soil into cultivation, and just ready to lay the foundations of its literary and scientific institutions. The greatest work which any state can ever do for its children in all time to come, that of forming and putting into operation its systems of liberal and popular education, was here to be done. A niaster-workman was needed for the occasion-one who had the knowledge to grasp the problem, and the genius, energy, and enthusiasm to solve it. That master-spirit was found in Philip Lindsley. It is not too much to say that, if Cumberland College had made her selection from the entire circle of the eastern colleges, she could not probably have found any man more competent and better furnished for the task, better prepared, by all his tastes, studies, and attainments, to be the very pioneer, missionary, and champion of collegiate or university education at the South West. Having thus selected his ground, and driven down his stakes, at a point which was then the extreme south-western outpost of educational institutions, he determined once for all not to abandon it. Nothing is more striking in all his history, and indicative of that firm

ness of purpose which constituted so important an element in his character, than the fixed and persistent determination which kept him. from ever leaving Nashville till his work was done. No inducement from abroad, and no amount of difficulty at home, could ever wean him from this his first love of western life. There was scarcely a year of the twenty-six when he might not have gone to other posts of usefulness and honor. Offers came to him unsolicited, from the East, the North, the South. To those who understood the discouragements which he had to encounter at Nashville, and the repeated liberal inducements held out to him from other quarters, there was a touch of the heroic and sublime in that steady, unalterable resolve which kept him at his chosen post so long, and from first to last so confident of

success.

Says Dr. Sprague, "Though Dr. Lindsley never, directly or indirectly, sought an appointment from any literary institution, such was his reputation that he was solicited to the presidency of such institutions more frequently perhaps than any other man who has ever lived in this country. In addition to the cases already mentioned (in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio,) he was chosen to the presidency of Washington College, Lexington, Va., and of Dickinson College, Carlisle, in 1829; was chosen twice to the presidency of the University of Alabama, at Tuscaloosa, in 1830; was chosen provost of the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, and president of the College of Louisiana, at Jackson, in 1834; president of South Alabama College, at Marion, in 1837; and president of Transylvania University, in 1839 all which appointments he promptly declined, though he was greatly urged to accept them."

Now the explanation of all this is, that he saw from the first, with the clear intuition of his strong, practical mind, that there was a great work to do in Tennessee-one not to be finished in a day or a year, but demanding the labor of a life-time; and accordingly, instead of frittering away his energies on half a dozen different schemes and points of influence, he determined to make the most of life by devoting it all to that one work, and never to leave it, until those who should come after him might be able, upon the foundation which he had laid, to rear a noble and lasting structure.

III. HIS PLANS AND PURPOSES AS TO A UNIVERSITY.

Coming to Nashville in the full vigor of his well-matured faculties, at a time when there was scarcely any thing worthy of the name of college in all the South West, it was natural that Dr. Lindsley should at once form the design of establishing an institution on a broad and permanent basis, fully equal, if not superior, to any thing