DISCOURSE.

JOHN V. 35.

HE WAS A BURNING AND A SHINING LIGHT; AND YE WERE WILLING, FOR A SEASON, TO REJOICE IN HIS LIGHT.

THE relation of minister and people, that, for almost ten years, subsisted between the late President Holley and the christian community that come up to this house to worship, has been, indeed, for many years, dissolved-as that relation ought always to be dissolved, when death does not come in to break it up by the mutual consent and independent agreement of the parties. But it is forbidden by the constitution of our moral nature, as it is inconsistent with our social and religious affections, that we should be indifferent to the weal or the wo of one who has, for years, devoted himself to the interesting offices of the christian ministry, who has given us religious instruction, and led us in our public devotions, even though the tie has been unloosed that once bound us together. It is forbidden that we should look upon him as a stranger

while he lives, or pass by his memory, or his remains, as we would those of a stranger, when he is dead. The mournful intelligence has reached us that the man who once stood up in this place, in the sight of a great portion of this congregation, as the servant of Jesus Christ and as an expositor of his gospel of truth, and peace, and hope, and life, is dead. In the language of an apostle I may say, 'And now behold, I know that ye all, among whom he went, preaching the kingdom of God, shall see his face no more.'*

We have come together to bring back his image to our minds; to ask of faithful memory and kind affection, that they would unite their efforts for a few moments, and retrace the noble and beautiful picture that has already begun to fade, but which we would not lose. We have come to speak as we may of him who, from this place, once spoke so well of the value and the power of a rational faith, and of that moral integrity, and that bold and uncompromising mental independence, which bring the true lovers of Religious Truth to her abode and her embrace. We may not indeed speak worthily, we may not speak wisely; but honestly we may and will speak. Even if the pulpit which the deceased once adorned were now venal, had it lost its honesty when it lost its ornament, he left no legacy to purchase praise; and, as flattery cannot 'soothe the dull cold ear of Death,' so neither can

Acts xx. 25.

the lips of the dead, however eloquent they may once have been, repay in kind a heartless and a worthless panegyric from the lips of the living.

HORACE HOLLEY, the fourth minister of this church, and first President of Transylvania University after its reorganization in 1818, was born in Salisbury, Connecticut, in February, 1781. He was the son of Luther Holley, and was one of six brothers, to all of whom the Creative Spirit, both physically and intellectually, had imparted largely of his best gifts. He was graduated at Yale College, 1803, with one of the highest honors of that institution, at that time under the presidency of Dr Dwight. Immediately after leaving college Mr Holley entered upon the study of the Law, with Peter W. Radcliff Esq. a highly reputable lawyer, of New York; with whom, however, he did not remain many months before he gave up his flattering prospects of distinction at the bar, and, returning to New Haven in 1804, entered upon his theological studies with President Dwight, by whose counsels he was probably not a little influenced, in determining to change his professional course. Early in the year 1806, soon after he had completed his course of theological studies preparatory to the christian ministry, he was ordained as pastor of the parish of Greenfield Hill, in Fairfield County, Connecticut; the place which Dr Dwight had held previous to his acceptance of the presidency at

New Haven. After a short ministry there, he was regularly dismissed from his charge at Greenfield, by a Consociation of ministers, meeting at that place on the thirteenth of September, 1808, from which ecclesiastical body Mr Holley received a certificate of his regular dismission, in which they declare their entire approbation of his ministerial character, and recommend him to the grace of God and the churches as a gospel minister.' *

On the eighth of the following March, 1809, Mr Holley was installed pastor of this church; in which office he continued till 1818. Early this year, he received an invitation from the Trustees of Transylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky, to become the President of that institution, which, having existed in a feeble and languishing state for more than thirty years, the friends of science in the West had made an effort to awaken and call forth from the dust. On receiving this invitation Mr Holley visited Lexington for the purpose of gaining, from personal observation, that knowledge which he deemed necessary as the basis of an enlightened decision of the question then before him; and while there, under the immediate pressure of flattering representations and sanguine hopes, he so far departed from the counsels and affectionate intreaties of his personal friends in this neighbourhood, as to give an answer accepting the invitation

See certificate referred to, in the Records of Hollis Street Church, p. 263.

of the Trustees, before his return to the field of his past labors.

On the twentyfourth of August, 1818, the communicants and the noncommunicants of this church, by their joint act, voted unanimously, that their pastor, the Rev. Horace Holley, be, at his request, dismissed from this church, and that his pastoral relation be dissolved;' and on the afternoon of the first Sunday of October following, he bade adieu to his people from this place; and not to his people alone, but to a throng of assembled citizens, which no one who formed a part of it, will soon forget. Since that time, with the exception of a few days during a visit to this place in the summer of 1822, we have neither seen his face, nor heard his voice in our churches. He gave himself, with little remission, to the laborious and most trying duties of his station, until the beginning of the present year; when, as it would seem from all the evidence that is before us, after more than eight years of honorable toil, attended by too little of honorable support, and followed by too little of honorable reward, he resigned his office, and, with his wife and son-his daughter having been married in Kentucky-went down to New Orleans in the month of March, with a view of embarking for Europe with some young gentlemen, of whom he was to have the instruction and the care for several years. His hopes, however, from this quarter, were blasted, and that expedition was given over. Another door of useful