Kansas University Weekly.
137
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Another instance of his tireless fidelity to duty is seen in his remarkable record as superintendent of the Sunday school at the Baptist church, of which he was a highly valued working member. For twenty-eight years he held this superintendency to the entire satisfaction of both Sunday school and church, although an annual election afforded his constituents an opportunity to make a change should a change be deemed advisable. His patient and scholarly study of the bible lesson for each Sabbath during his long term of service rendered his meetings with the teachers a source of inspiration for their work and gave his connection with the general exercises of the school a highly salutary influence upon its members
It may be said in short that in every form of activity which the life of Professor Robinson touched, the value of constant faithful attention to little things was fully illustrated and emphasized. "Our fates from unmomentous things may rise like riyers out of little springs."
I am permitted to quote from a letter from one of his college classmates, with whom, while at Rocnester university, his association was so intimate that the two young men were known as David and Jonathan. They were inseparable companions whose mutual affection of the strongest type continued unbroken for forty years: "My love for him has always passed the bounds of brotherly affection. Thrown together at a time in life when our natures were being moulded and our characters fashioned with common aims and a common ambition, we thought and planned and grew together, and in many respects became one in life, in purpose and in hope. This to me has become a habit of life. Our relations were so intimate and our constancy so great that no other soul on earth was like him to me. I am proud to say that in all our intimacy and lifelong friendship I never knew him to do or say a single thing that would bring a blush to a mother's cheek. In all our boys frolic and fun, in all our habits, there was never a mean thing thought or done, or anything that transgressed any strict rules of morals or violated the purest law of Christian life. We lived and observed a high standard in life, and were controlled by the highest moral principle. To live Christianly became a habit of life. Our affection for each other was founded upon the profoundest respect."
Another prominent feature in the character of Professor Robinson was the breadth of his mind, the largeness of his intellectual vision. Although from the beginning a special student of the Latin language and literature, and justly finding the glory of his professional life in the perfection of his knowledge of his chosen subject, he was always deeply interested in other departments of learning. It may be stated as a proposition incapable of refutation that no man can know the most that can be known about any one subject who has not given some serious attention to many other topics. An apt illustration from the field of science, philosophy or general history will never come amiss in the Latin lecture room, and Professor Robinson well knew how to enliven a dead language by excursions into the living world. He had not only the rare ability to bring the nineteenth century into the presence of ancient Rome in the class room, but the still more rare capacity to carry the Latin tongue into the every day world of business. This capacity was aptly illustrated by his publication of a unique Latin text book for students in pharmacy, which is the standard authority in the United States among druggists, and being the only one of its kind has no rivals in the important field which it occupies.
Although not a technical student of science he was always interested in scientific subjects. During my own investigations of the bird fauna of Kansas he was frequently my companion in the field excursions which are essential to a practical knowledge of the subject, and his own satisfaction when a new species of feathered inhabitant was discoverer in Kansas territory was almost equal in kind and intensity to that of the professional ornithologist. By these expeditions into prairie and forest he brought to a high degree of cultivation that love of nature and of nature's children whom was an inherent element of his character His love of art was also intense, and his discriminating criticisms of art productions were highly appreciated by his art-loving friends. During a fortnight spent with him in the enjoyment of the works of art at the Columbian Exposition I learned to respect and admire his quick perception of the excellence and the defects of the artists of all nations. He was especially a lover of good landscape painting and could easily distinguish the work of the genuine artist who had put something of his own soul into his painting, from the mere copyist, who had not only failed to catch the inspiration which animates the heart of nature, but was also unable to communicate to his work an inspiration which he himself did not possess.
It is entirely beyond my power to give adequate expression to the sense of personal bereavement which we have experienced in the withdrawal of our friend from the scenes of his earthly life. Lowell once said 'Life is the jailor, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.' But Professor Robinson was not a prisoner in the midst of surroundings which were irksome to him and from which he felt it a joy to be liberated. Blessed with the most generous
gifts of a happy home, which had not been broken by the removal of any one of its members, living in the daily enjoyment of a most congenial profession, full of enthusiasm for the development of this great educational enterprise, coming constantly into helpful relations with scores of young men and women, life to him was a boon to be carefully guarded and retained to the longest possible limit of time. But this was not to be. May we not believe that the Providence which protects us from real harm kindly withdrew our friend from future earthly evil and allowed him to pass into his immortal inheritance in the full possession of his powers, without the antecedent prolongation of months and years of suffering and decline which precedes the termination of so many lives. A Christian optimism must hold that in the large view of events it has been well with him who has left us so suddenly. Plato approximated to the truth of Christianity when he declared that "no one knows whether death which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil may not be the greatest good." The Christian view exalts to an assured belief the glimmering suggestion of the Greek philosopher, and we may with confidence assert that life has now become far more glorious for our despaired friend than was possible under the limitations of his earthly environment. And sometime we may rejoin our departed fellow student and beloved teacher—
For "Love will dream and Faith will trust (Since He who knows our need is just) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must, Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees! Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own!"
ADDRESS BY JUDGE JAMES HURMPHREY.
When a good man dies whose life has been distinguished by many years of useful and honorable activities, a distinct personal loss is felt by all who have been brought within the circle of his fluence. But while the inspiration of a personal presence is missed, and there results a cessation of those activities which have been the outflow of the potency of that life, the effect of every useful act done and the elevating influences emanating from it are not lost, nor has death served to diminish the sum or the active operation of those moral forces which that life shed abroad over the community.
The individual dies, at least to the world. but the total sum of existence is eternal In all the changes and transformations through which the universe passes, not an atom of matter, nor an