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| Dr. Francis Landey Patton |
Note Book
November 26, 1932
Jesse Halsey
Dr. Patton died today in Bermuda, nearly ninety. It brings
back old times. I remember when first I saw him; at Woodrow Wilson’s
inauguration as president (of Princeton, 1902). He had a cadaverous figure and
face; sideburns that made him ‘look like a monkey’ (I thought to myself and
have never breathed before). He had a biting wit, was keen as a brier in
repartee, and could preach for an hour—and interest freshmen—by his
eccentricities of manner and lapses into slang and homely and cogent
illustration, and then keep the faculty going thru the sermon by his
comprehensive knowledge of philosophy and unusual thought forms. He was a great
preacher—and a lazy man. He delivered and sold some lectures at Lake Forest
twenty odd years ago—and they have never been finished.
My admiration for him as a keen minded heresy hunter changed
after I saw him in action in Princeton. Partly because my point of view changed
and David Swing the heretic, whom Dr. Patton had prosecuted, became one of my
heroes, and Dr. Patton’s star declined in my young mind. I had more admiration
for the old colored janitor—Charles—in Miller Chapel at the Seminary and when
he brought in with great ceremony the glass of water just before service and
handed it to Dr. Patton, Charles and not Prexy pronounced the benediction—on
me.
Dr. Patton would come to class about half the time—this was
in Theism, at the Seminary; often late, and would mumble over his notes and
yellow MS written thirty years before. Unless you sat in the front seat you
couldn’t hear. Some of the boys used to complain, but he never would speak
louder. There is a legend (true in the case of Dr. McQueen of Pittsburgh) that a
***
[Ed note: The text is missing the next page! In my text, the following inexplicably
appears instead.]
Five to sixteen letters every week there is a vacancy in our
Presbytery. We have nearly seventy churches and ordinarily there are one to two
vacant. As soon as this church is listed by Dr. Mudge’s Office—sometimes
before—the letters begin to come. There are a lot of repeaters. These are
briefly and courteously answered, but receive slight consideration. A letter
from a friend is better than one from a candidate himself; though sometimes a
man who writes a direct application without rationalization as to why he wants
to move, will receive favorable consideration. This chairman then checks on a
man by every available reference, and when meeting with the session of a vacant
church talks over with them the qualifications of two or three of the most
likely candidates.
We then decide on the preferential order and the pulpit
committee undertakes to hear the prospective candidate, preferably without his
knowledge, a committee visits his church and community and gets their
impression, this is reported back and after conference the man may be invited
to preach, preferably not unless the committee is practically unanimous as to
his desirability.
Dr. Patton would come to class about half the time—this was
in Theism, at the Seminary; often late, and would mumble over his notes and
yellow MS written thirty years before. Unless you sat in the front seat you
couldn’t hear. Some of the boys used to complain, but he never would speak
louder. There is a legend (true in the case of Dr. McQueen of Pittsburgh) that a
student went to him and asked him to read louder. “You
wouldn’t understand it if I did,” came the answer.
But there were mornings, not a few, when, after ten minutes
with the MS., he would throw them aside and sit and talk. Sometimes it was
concerning the news of the day, sometimes some problem of philosophy, but most
often, something about St. Paul, who was his hero. His sketches of the Pauline
Epistles, given off-hand in these hours, stand out as among the most inspiring
of my experience.
One day in class Dr. Patton thought he was being horsed (to
use the Princeton term for roughhouse). He could deal with any situation, as
one day when he heard students leaving the back seats during his lectures (he
was very nearsighted) he was heard to say, (this time so all could hear), in
his cracked falsetto voice, “our blessings brighten as they take their flight.”
This particular morning he slammed his book, took up his coat and strode out
and went home. The noise was from the hall, made by another class going to its
recitation room. Sensing that he knew none of this, our class got quickly
together and delegated me to take their explanation, and apology, to Prexy.
***
With fear and trembling I was ushered into his study. The
colored servant announced my name. Dr. Patton was storming up and down, puffing
a black cheroot. “Halsey? Halsey? You belong to that class that just insulted
me?” “Yes. Sir.” “Well, explain—never had such outrageous treatment from any
class in the thirty years I’ve been in Princeton!” And much more. At last, when
he was exhausted, I simply told the fact. His face changed. He came over and
put his hand on my shoulder. “Young man. Sit down.” He talked for thirty
minutes—one of the most surprising, and in a manner, pathetic things I’ve ever
heard, or read. He said, in substance, that he’d never had a friend in college
days, didn’t know what it was to be hailed as an equal and fraternized with as
an undergraduate. “I was an Ishmaelite—always have been.” His poor eyesight was
one reason, he said.
Then he told how his reputation was made as a heresy hunter;
how he came to Princeton on the reputation, and intimated that it was a bad
thing to have a reputation to live up to. And, as I gathered, that many times
he would have taken a more liberal slant in public utterance if he hadn’t felt
charged with the responsibility of orthodoxy, and the urge toward consistency.
He talked a long time, as to an equal, an overflowing of the soul.
I left, hardly knowing what had happened; went back to my
class and reported that we were absolved and non one else was implicated—but
never told the rest of the story. From that day I had a unique place in my
memory, and sympathy, for Dr. Patton.
Some of the most brilliant discourses I ever listened to, or
expect to, fell from his lips.
One item more. The day after Mr. Wilson’s inauguration was
Sunday. Dr. Patton preached to a crowded chapel. I sat, as it happened, just in
front of Nicholas Murray Butler. As Dr. Patton went on scoring one philosophy
after another in his sermon, Dr. Butler would whisper to Mrs. Butler, “That’s
Spencer; Kant, now; Spinoza.” Once I heard her ask, “Who’s that?” He answered, “I
don’t make out.”
I ought now, while the iron is hot, to add that Dr. Patton
was more or less forced to resign at the College. At the very meeting when he
did resign, he had that influence with the trustees, that, before they had
adjourned after his resignation, they had, under his influence, elected Woodrow
Wilson.
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