The ranks of our veterans in Old Testament scholarship are once more reduced by the death on May io, at his home in Auburn, N.Y., of Dr. Willis Judson Beecher. He has been best known to this and the preceding generation as professor of the Hebrew language and literature in Auburn Theological Seminary, where he lived his life and did his work. The remarkable and loving tributes which the citizens of Auburn, the members of the Theological Seminary, the various civic, literary, and mercantile

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... iations of that and adjoining cities paid to his memory at the funeral revealed a character of rare exemplary worth, whose endowments and ideals and methods deserve more than passing notice. Willis Judson Beecher was born in Hampden, Ohio, April 29, 1838, of sturdy Christian parents. They early moved to New York state, where the lad was trained in Augusta and Vernon academies. He was graduated from Hamilton College at the age of twenty (1858) with the degree of A.B. After teaching three years in Whiteside Seminary, he entered Auburn Theological Seminary in 1861 and was graduated and also ordained to the ministry of the Presbyterian church, in 1864. For the next year he was pastor at Ovid, N.Y.; and from 1865-69 was professor of moral science and belles lettres at Knox College, Galesburg, Ill. In 1869-7I he was pastor of the First Church of Christ at Galesburg. In 187I he was called to Auburn Theological Seminary, to the chair which he so acceptably filled for thirty-seven years, until his voluntary retirement in 19o8, when seventy years of age. Since retirement from the Seminary he has devoted his time to writing and to the service of the several boards and organizations of which he was a member. Physically robust until about a month before his death, he was then stricken with the sudden illness which has removed a rare man and a widely beloved friend. Dr. Beecher was a man among men. He was one of those persons who never lost his humanness. He was interested in everything that made for the uplift of the life about him. More than this, he willingly, gladly shared his burden of responsibility as a citizen in the city of Auburn. Even his habits as a scholar did not make him a recluse, nor 65 This content downloaded from 129.