The Presbyterian Society for the promotion of the education of youth, as preparatory to the ministry, has been but recently formed in the city of New-York. Mr. Clinton was from education and feeling a member of this class of Christians; but, as all who were acquainted with him well knew, entirely free from sectarian dogmatism, both in principles and in action. I have been favoured with the following papers under this head, from my friend the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D. pastor of the Laight-street Presbyterian church, New-York.

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Address of his late Excellency, De Witt Clinton, on taking the chair of the Presbyterian Education Society as its presiding Vice-President, at its seventh anniversary, May 1824. He was afterwards, the same evening, unanimously elected President of the Society, and continued in that office till his death.

In consequence of the resignation of the worthy and respectable president of this institution, I have been honoured with an invitation to act in his place; and in acceding to this request, I have felt all the responsibility attached to the occasion, and all the solicitude connected with the important duties which we are assembled to perform.

It is certainly a work of supererogation to expatiate on the high interests which are blended with the prosperity of this institution. The solemnities of the Jewish ritual have given way to the mild administrations of christianity, and the establishment of the cross has destroyed the sanguinary prescriptions of the heathen mythology. With this change of the character of religion, the offices and functions of its ministers have received a correspondent improvement; and instead of the priest presenting victims at the altar to propitiate the fabulous deities of superstition, the christian divine offers up prayers to the almighty father of the universe - expounds the revelations of heaven - administers the solemn ordinances of religion, and exerts all the powers of his mind to inculcate the observance of morality.

The experience of mankind evinces that religion is essential to cement society, and to promote good government: and in reference to a future state it determines our destinies for ever. The influence of religion must be coextensive with the number and the character of its ministers. An able and pious clergy will produce a moral and religious people. And in proportion to a deficiency in the number and a failure in the qualifications of the sacred ministry, in that ratio will the morals of the people be affected, and the interests of the community impaired.

In this state, the functionaries of religion are constitutionally interdicted from office, and in most of the states they are practically proscribed; and it is well known that the emoluments of the sacerdotal office furnish no allurements to cupidity. The sons of the great and the powerful, of the opulent and the ambitious, will seek the road to civil distinction or wealth through other professions; and it thus unfortunately happens that those most able to bestow the blessings of education on their children, are the most unwilling that they should devote themselves to the official duties of religion. This defect must be supplied - this evil must be remedied, by gratuitous education. And with this view, institutions like the present, which cherish merit without any regard to the factitious distinctions of society; which rescue poverty from privation, and elevate humility above depression, and which appreciate talent and virtue in the abstract without any connexion with the endowments of fortune or political distinction, are calculated to enlist in the cause of religion, men of gigantic minds and wonderful energy. In the dark abodes of poverty, and in the sequestered shades of obscurity, genius often exhibits its powers, and the virtues of a saint and a martyr are frequently cherished with holy enthusiasm. Cultivation and patronage must unite in drawing forth these latent and dormant energies, and enlisting them in the service of mankind.

It is in vain to contend that the functions of a christian minister can be performed without education. The apostles of Christ were, at first, men without the benefits of literature; but they were armed with the gift of tongues, the power of miracles, and the visitations of the Holy Ghost. But, besides these preternatural endowments, all the learning and philosophy of the ancients were united in St. Paul, who was called into the christian church by a miraculous interposition. His writings display the most powerful talent, and he has even condescended to refer to some of the great classical authors of antiquity. His eloquence was of a Demosthenian energy; and to his intellectual cultivation must be ascribed, to a certain extent, the vast consequences that resulted from his labours in the cause of christianity.

An able divine ought to understand the original languages in which the inspired writers promulgated our religion. And it would be well if he extended his acquisitions to the other radical languages of the eastern hemisphere. His acquaintance with literature and science ought to be extensive and profound; and he should be deeply read in moral philosophy, metaphysics, and theology. He should also be master of all the points of polemic discussion, and be prepared not only to defend christianity against the assaults of scepticism and infidelity, but to vindicate his particular creed against the objections of opposing sects. In order to attain this intellectual eminence, so becoming an ambassador of heaven and a minister of the Most High God, he must pass through all the seminaries of education, from the rudimental school to the university, and devote year after year to the attainment of pulpit eloquence and the acquisition of theological knowledge.

How are these great blessings to be acquired? By the union of the friends of religion in the education of a christian minister - by inducing our youth to devote themselves to the altars of God - and by dispensing the benefits of gratuitous instruction to the favourites of piety and genius, wherever they are to be found. And let it be understood that the interests of good government as well as of religion, are seriously affected by the want of religious instructors. Thousands of places are now destitute of christian ministers; and the evils are felt not only in religious privations, but in the prevalence of practices incompatible with the public welfare. Wherever a good and an able divine is settled, he will acquire the love, the confidence, and the respect of his congregation. His influence will be felt in all their conduct, and a commerce of benefit and gratitude will be established, which will reach the sources of the noblest virtues, and exercise the most powerful control over the whole field of human action.

The aspect of the world is replete with wonderful indications: within the memory and observation of many of us, the most extraordinary events, from the American revolution to the present period, have occurred. A new power, unknown to the ancients, has risen up to direct the energies and the superintend the destinies of mankind. Its authority is unlimited, its progress irresistible. It derives its existence from the lights of christianity, the invention of printing, and the diffusion of education. It governs the monarch on the throne as well as the peasant in the cottage. Need I say - the power of public opinion, which influences all the operations and is felt in all the ramifications of society.

This power, in order to be beneficial, ought to be founded on just and proper grounds. It ought to be directed by piety and knowledge. Monitorial education, Sunday schools, and Bible societies, are the great levers which must raise public opinion to its proper elevation: and when reinforced and impelled into activity by the ministrations of a virtuous and enlightened clergy, then the cause of liberty, order, and good government, will be established on a firm basis, and the prospects of blessedness in another and a better world, will brighten the gloom of seclusion, alleviate the burden of affliction, and solace the hour of death.

Such are the objects and such the tendencies of this institution; and recommended as it is by all the considerations which ought to operate on the man, the patriot, and the christian, I feel happy on this occasion to offer my humble mite for its support, and to raise my feeble voice in its favour.

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"NEW-YORK, March 20, 1828.

"DEAR SIR,

"It is with great pleasure that I attempt to comply with your request, in reference to our distinguished fellow-citizen and friend, De Witt Clinton. I am happy to communicate any knowledge in my power respecting 'The Presbyterian Education Society,' that is now without a president, and that mourns in the death of Clinton its highest officer departed, and one of its very efficient allies removed, to return no more.

"Clinton was the friend of education, and the example of its worth. Rarely has it fallen to the lot of one man to unite such various qualities of greatness in his own person. We have seen the homo ad unguem factus in examples comparatively frequent - the man who had received the last effect of education, and who would have been a cipher without it; we have seen also the paragon of native genius, presuming on its untutored resources, and evincing the deplorable want of the application which he scorned, catching at imaginary grandeur or wantoning in impracticable achievements, great even in his eccentricities, and almost redeeming his name from the infamy of uselessness by the vigour and vividness of his exploits; we have seen the sage of learned abstractions, conversant only with the books and sepulchred in a library, the associate of the ancients and a stranger to his contemporaries, his name quoted by the scholars of another hemisphere, and unknown in the vicinity of his own dwelling, to whom the numerical population of his country was a secret, and the use of a table of national statistics a thing insoluble - who could recite Homer and Demosthenes, Longinus and Virgil, Horace and Cicero, as his vernacular alphabet, but who could do nothing and think nothing in practical detail; we have seen mental giants, possessing many noble qualities, but with no symmetry or balance between them, and with whom some prominent defect sufficed to ruin or debilitate all the attributes of eminence: but Clinton was, I think, remarkable at once for the combination of great qualities and the happy equilibrium of their adjustment. He certainly possessed an extraordinary self command, an elevated and comprehensive vision, and a singular discretion, as well as a momentum of original thought, that was seen in its effects and acknowledged in its utilities. His eloquence evinced a native vein, while classical accuracy, splendid imagery, and verbal affluence everywhere marked his style. He was, perhaps, not eminently gifted at extemporaneous effort; he generally declined it; yet the fruits of time and care rewarded the patience of cultivation, and commended the soil in which they grew. He was unquestionably a man of genius, a scholar, a jurist, a statesman, an enlightened political economist, a deep and practical projector, and a polished gentleman; in all or in each he had few equals in any age. He was no visionary. His native state and the hearts of his countrymen contain, and will perpetuate, the monuments of his usefulness. Neither was he superficial, credulous, or precipitate.

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

He was the philosopher of evidence; a disciple of the Baconian school, and utility was the motto of his plans for aggrandizing the community. As an officer of the Education Society, he was universally honoured. Punctual in his attendance; no sinecure occupant of a lofty seat, but an intellectual and pecuniary contributor to the cause. He was not unacquainted with the rational evidence that demonstrates the divinity of the faith of christians; and his testimony is worth volumes. It will be quoted by christian apologists and future Americans, when all the oppugners of revelation shall sleep in ungrudged oblivion.

"But he has gone! 'Before the judgment-seat of Christ,' where greatness associates itself with responsibility, or is identified with moral virtues, or retires unseen, his audit has been sped, and we are hastening to the same ordeal of impartiality and truth! 'Glory, honour, immortality,' are legitimate objects of aspiration, and they are definable and attainable too, when sought in the ways of piety towards God. Let us be admonished by the transitoriness of time, by the splendid emptiness of all things without an interest in the Saviour, and especially by the sudden departure of a nation's hope, to live for eternity!

"With great respect, DEAR SIR,

"I remain, yours, &c.

"SAMUEL H. COX."

DAVID HOSACK, M.D. LL.D.

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Transcribed from the original text and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 5/22/99.