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Emory, Robert, D.d

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Emory, John, D.d

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son of the preceding, an eminent Methodist minister and scholar, was born in Philadelphia, July 29, 1814. His early education was superintended by his father. In 1827 he entered Columbia College, New York, where he graduated in 1831 with the highest honors and medals of his class. He then entered upon the study of law, first in the law school of Yale College, and afterwards in the office of the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, of Baltimore. In 1834 he was elected professor of ancient languages at Dickinson College, Carlisle, and entered upon his duties there with great zeal. In 1839 he was admitted on trial in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church; in 1841 he was appointed to the Baltimore city station; and in 1842 he was appointed acting president of Dickinson College, during the absence of the president (Dr. Durbin). In 1844 he was appointed presiding elder of the Carlisle District; and in 1845 he was made president of Dickinson College. In the same year the degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Columbia College. In 1847 he attended the session of the Evangelical Alliance held at London, and few of the delegates made a greater impression upon the body. His health showed signs of failure during this year, and he spent the winter following in the West Indies. But he continued to decline, and on his return homeward he died in Baltimore, May 18, 1848 Dr. Emory was one of those rare men in whom the human faculties, both moral and intellectual, seem to approach perfection, and to reach almost complete harmony of action. His classical scholarship was thorough and accurate; his mind was at once logical and comprehensive, and his general culture was wide and generous. His religious experience was, in many respects, similar to that of President Edwards, and ripened into similar fullness and serenity. As a preacher he was luminous, earnest, and successful. As a college officer he was seldom rivaled. "His power of government was unsurpassed: he seemed born to command. In him prudence and independence met to form that rare combination so essential to one who rules. This remark finds its illustration and proof in his government of the college, to whose interests he devoted so much of his brief earthly life. While he shrunk from no responsibility of his position, he was still careful to maintain that position by devising the best means to meet responsibility. Though many felt the weight of the scepter in his hand, yet the conviction that it was wielded by a strong man, and in the fear of the Lord, conciliated esteem. As president of the college, as in every other position, he rose rapidly, both before the public and in the college; and the last year in which his name appeared in connection with that office was the most prosperous in the history of the institution. The students honored him even to reverence, and regarded him as standing on a moral and intellectual eminence toward which the indolent and unworthy must not even look, and to which the noblest and best among them ought eagerly to aspire." In 1841 he published A Life of the Rev. John Emory, D.D. (N.Y. 8vo); in 1843, an elaborate History of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (N.Y. 12mo). He left unfinished an Analysis of Butler's Analogy, which was completed by the Rev. G. R. Crooks, D.D. (N.Y. Harpers, 1856, 8vo), and which is the best analysis of the Analogy that has ever appeared. — Minutes of Conferences, 1849; Sprague, Annals, 7:828.