Presbyterian divine, Francis Alison. Dr. Ewing, in his funeral sermon, says of him:
Blessed with a clear understanding and an extensive liberal education, thirsting for knowledge, and indefatigable in study, through the whole of his useful life, he acquired an unusual fund of learning and knowledge, which rendered his conversation remarkably instructive, and abundantly qualified him for the sacred work of the ministry, and the faithful instruction of youth in the College. * * * All who knew him acknowledge that he was frank, open and ingenuous in his natural temper; warm and zealous in his friendships; catholic and enlarged in his sentiments; a friend to civil and religious liberty; * * * he has left behind him a lasting testimony of the extensive benevolence of his heart in planning, erecting and nursing, with constant attention and tenderness, the charitable scheme of the widows' fund, by which many helpless orphans and destitute widows have been seasonably relieved and supported, and will, we trust, continue to be relieved and supported, so long as the Synod of New York and Philadelphia shall exist.
Bishop White, in briefer phrase, gives a picture of his old professor:
Dr. Alison was a man of unquestionable ability in his department, of real and rational piety, of a liberal mind;—his failing was a proneness to anger; but it was forgotten,—for he was placable and affable.[1]
In his journey to New England in 1755, he visited Professor Stiles at Newport, who says of him:
He is the greatest classical Scholar in America, especially in Greek—not great in Mathematics, Philosophy and Astronomy, but in Ethics, History and general reading, is a great literary character.
Provost Smith in his account of the College and Academy in the American Magazine for October, 1758, says he has long been employed in the education of youth in this province, and many of those who now make a considerable figure in it have been bred under him. He was one of the first persons in this country, who, foreseeing the ignorance into which it was like to fall, set up a regular school of education in it; and so sensible were that learned and respectable body, the University of Glasgow, of his pious and faithful labour for the propagation of useful knowledge in these untutored parts, that they lately honored him with the degree of Doctor of Divinity sent him without any solicitation on his part, and even without his knowledge.
- ↑ Memoirs, 18.
