before and just after the Revolutionary War. It appears by the triennial catalogue that in the year 1835 not far from two hundred and fifty alumni of Yale were living who were graduated during Dr. Stiles' presidency.

Going back to the preceding presidency of Dr. Naphtali Daggett (1766-1777), there were yet alive, in 1835, fifteen men who were graduated during those years. Two of these were famous men-Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, of the class of 1767, who died in 1840, and Dr. James Murdock, the eminent biblical scholar, of the class of 1774, who died in 1841. Yea, more, we can go a step beyond this. There were in 1835 at least two men still alive who were graduated under the presidency of Dr. Thomas Clap. These were Dr. Isaac Lewis, minister of Greenwich, Conn., who came out of college in 1765 and died in 1840, seventy-five years after graduation; the other was Hezekiah Ripley, of the class of 1764, who died in 1836. This Isaac Lewis dated his conversion from a sermon by Whitefield, preached in the college chapel, on a week day in 1764, when he was a member of the junior class. Yale College set itself with great vigor against Whitefield in 1740, but in 1764, under the same presidency of Dr. Clap, he was invited to preach in the chapel, where he spoke with his customary power.

Of the more than 1,100 students graduated under the presidency of Dr. Dwight (1795-1817), the great majority were alive in 1835. The men who were in college in Dr. Dwight's day retained a most enthusiastic regard for his memory, and in the annual gatherings for Commencement in those years his praises were sounded forth in all places, public and private.

Dr. Samuel Nott, of Franklin, was graduated under Dr. Stiles in 1780. He lived seventy-two years after the close of his college course, dying at the age of ninety-eight in 1852. For seventy years he was pastor at Franklin, and only during the last three years of his ministry did he have a colleague. A few years before his death he was present at the Commencement season, and was asked to conduct the devotional services at the Concio ad Clerum in the North Church. He did so, and his mind seemed to move with much of the healthful vigor and freedom of his earlier years.

In the winter of 1833-34 the writer spent a Sabbath in Franklin, the only time he was ever in the town. A great snow-storm set in on Saturday, attended with a strong northeast wind. All night long the wind howled and the storm prevailed. On Sunday morning the fall of snow ceased, but the roads were thoroughly blocked with drifts, and the aspects of the world were decidedly cold and wintry. A challenge to another young fellow to attend church on Franklin hill, two miles away, was given and accepted. It was a hard journey through the snow-drifts, but the church was reached at last. In due time Dr. Nott appeared and mounted up into the high, old-fashioned pulpit. It was a meeting-house of the ancient, but not the most ancient, New England type. It was square, with doors opening into it on three sides, while the lofty pulpit occupied the fourth side. The sounding-board hung above, to prevent the preacher's voice from soaring away and losing itself in the regions of the upper air. There were present in the house that day about a dozen men and boys, who sat clustered around a box stove placed in the corner of the house at the right hand of the pulpit. Forenoon and afternoon the good doctor held on the even tenor of his way through the two customary sermons, with all the devotional accompaniments. The audience was almost exactly the same both parts of the day, and the cold wind which sung about the house was all the while sifting and packing the snow into more obdurate piles.

In Dr. Ashbel Woodward's History of the Franklin Church we learn that this antique structure was nearing its end when we were there. He says: "The second church, erected in 1745, battled from its bleak eminence with storms and winds for nearly a century, but finally had to yield, and in 1836 gave way to a more modern structure, located midway between the places of the first and second churches."

In extreme old age the pride of the human heart comes at last to play about the fact itself of great age. There is as strong a desire to roll up and increase the number of the years as there is in the earlier periods of middle life to repress and diminish the record. Dr. Nott, a few years before his death, was in the neighboring town of Norwich, Conn., and was talking with some one on the sidewalk, when an elderly man pass

ing by stopped and said: "This is Dr. Nott, I believe." The fact was duly acknowledged, when he continued, “I think, Dr. Nott, I am a somewhat older man than you are." "I guess not," was the reply. "How old are you, Dr. Nott?" "I am ninety-two." "Well, I am ninety-four." "Who are you?" said Dr. N. "You must be one of the Perkinses; they live forever." Dr. Nott was an example, showing how the longestlived men and women are not infrequently those whose early life was weak and sickly. This was true of the venerable President Day, of Yale College, who was almost given over of his friends and expected to die in his youth, but lived to be ninety-four.

Rev. Daniel Waldo was graduated at Yale under the presidency of Dr. Stiles in 1788, and lived afterwards seventy-six years, dying at the age of nearly one hundred and two years in 1864. It is to be noticed, both in respect to Dr. Nott and Mr. Waldo, that, though they lived an uncommon number of years after they left college, they were not young at graduation. In their day the average graduating age was not much above twenty. On this matter of age they might have used, with a little variation, Charles Lamb's argument when he was reproved. for coming so late to his desk in the India House. His reply was, "But you must remember I go away very early in the afternoon."

If we mistake not it was in the year 1858 that Rev. Mr. Waldo attended the annual Commencement at Yale, and was invited to speak at the Alumni meeting. He was then ninetysix years old. Those who heard him on that occasion could hardly believe the story of his age, when they saw a man who seemed to be alive to his fingers' ends, full of bright thoughts and anecdotes, speaking with a clear, quick voice, and accompanying his words with fit and lively gestures.

He had been asked to tell what rules of life he had formed and acted upon, that he was able to live so long. He went on with his rules one after another in their order, in a manner fresh and entertaining. One of them was: "Never get mad. Never allow yourself to fall into a fit of anger. One storm of angry passion will cut short your life more than an ordinary run of fever."

The Yale Obituary Record for 1865, says of him: "One of the most noteworthy events of his life was his appointment to be Chaplain of Congress in 1856, and again in 1857, when he was ninety-four and ninety-five years old. His faculties were unimpaired throughout his long life, and his last sermon was preached after he entered upon his 102d year."

Mr. Waldo was born in Windham, Ct., Sept. 10, 1762. Miss Ellen D. Larned, in her History of Windham County, makes occasional references to him. Her first notice is under the year 1779, when she says: "Daniel Waldo at seventeen served a month under Capt. William Howard at New London, and then enlisted under Capt. Nathaniel Wales for continental service." So he was a revolutionary soldier before he began his studies for the ministry. It was in that part of Windham called Scotland Parish, where Mr. Waldo was born, and when a boy of ten years he came under the able ministry of Rev. James Cogswell, D.D., who had it for one of his special cares to look out suitable young men to be educated for the Christian ministry. Miss Larned quotes Dr. Cogswell's opinion of Daniel Waldo, probably while he was in his course of study: "A sensible, serious, growing youth, no orator, but likely to do good in the world." Later on, speaking of this Scotland Parish, Miss L. says: "She can show us the birth-place of Hon. Samuel Huntington; the early homes of Daniel Waldo, the famous centenarian Chaplain of Congress, and the more distinguished artist Samuel Waldo, and the homes of other ancient families which sent out names now known throughout the land."

Another of the Yale Alumni, who lived seventy-six years after graduation, was the brilliant but eccentric Rev. Thomas Williams. He died in the city of Providence, R. I., Sept. 29, 1876, having reached the age of nearly ninety-seven. He was of the class of 1800, and after the death of Timothy Bishop of New Haven in 1873, was, until his death, the oldest living graduate of Yale. We have from time to time heard the story of his life from his own lips. He was born in Pomfret, Ct., Nov. 5, 1779, and three days after his birth he was, according to the custom of that time, carried some miles to church to be baptized. The day was cold and snowy. For

his college education he first entered Williams, but the closing part of his course was at Yale.

The college has had few students under its care of a more acute and penetrating intellect or brilliant imagination than he. But all this brightness and power in him was marred by the fact that he could not apply himself long and vigorously to intellectual labors without passing into a condition where he seemed to tremble upon the very verge of insanity. His case presented to the observer some curious mental problems. It might seem that a mind constituted like his would early become broken and weak. On the contrary, his mental powers, in extreme old age, were remarkably clear and active. We heard a sermon preached by him when over ninety years of age,—an extemporaneous sermon, which scarcely betokened any diminution of mental quickness and force. He held in his hand a small-print Bible, to which he referred freely, reading texts from it, without glasses, and handling it with the ease and facility of a young man. Physically too, at that time, he was strong. There was almost nothing about him of the tremulousness of old age. His voice had a resonant firmness which enabled him very easily to fill every part of a church of more than average size.

Many are the amusing anecdotes which are still told of him among the elderly people who have known him; many the bright and witty sayings of his which are often repeated. Candidates for the ministry coming out of Yale College just at the close of the last century and in the early years of the present, were apt to take a longer or shorter turn at service under the Connecticut Missionary Society, before settling down to regular parish work. Many young men who were afterward among the notable divines of their generation, were initiated to their profession through this Home Missionary service. Thomas Williams, early in the century, labored thus among the new settlements in New York.

Indeed, many of the settled ministers of Connecticut-men who had gained the wisdom and experience of years—would, at the request of the Missionary Society, obtain leave of absence from their people, for a season, that they might go and preach to the scattered households who had gone to Vermont or New York, or the Western Reserve.