Miami Union

July 5, 1873

TALBOT, REV. SAMSON D. D.

The telegraph bears to us the sad announcement that Rev. Samson Talbot, D. D., President of Denison University, died last Sabbath morning, June 29, at Newton, Mass., where he had gone, several weeks since, for his health.  His death will awaken profound sorrow in many hearts throughout Ohio, and bring disappointment and regret to every friend of the institution over which he presided, and whose prosperity has been greatly advanced by his arduous labors.  His position at the college, and frequent calls to preach at ordinations, conventions, and other special occasions, gave him a personal acquaintance with many, who by his ardent Christian sympathies, genial, courteous deportment and entertaining conversation, he readily and strongly attached to himself.  All who knew him had learned to love him as well for his excellencies as a humble devote Christian, as for his work's sake.  Remembering his personal kindness to ourselves, the efficient aid rendered us by his ever apt pen, when we undertook our then untried editorial duties, and the words of cheer with which he often encouraged us, we write in the sorrow they feel who have been bereaved of one near of kin.  If we mistake not, he was born near Urbana, Champaign County, Ohio, in 1829; graduated from Denison in 1851, and immediately entered Newton Theological Seminary, from which he graduated, ranking high in scholarship.  He was immediately appointed tutor of Hebrew in the seminary, and remained in this position pursuing other literary work also, until 1855, when he was called to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio.  Among his hearers were some of the ablest minds and the best educated laymen in the State; and so well did he discharge the onerous duties of the ministry that when called, eight years after, to give him to Denison University, they said a better or more acceptable pastor they did not, could not ever expect to have.  When he entered upon the Presidency of the University in 1863 there was little more than the hopes of a better future to assume control of.  Supported by a few of wise counsel and generous hearts, who realized the seed of a Baptist College in Ohio, he gave himself wholly to the task of building up one that should yet rank with the best in the country.  It is not exceeding the facts to say that the labors he performed in the College, with the pen and in the pulpit, together with the cares and anxieties incidental to his office, were all that any two minds, however strong, should have borne.  Profoundly sincere and possessed of the highest sense of honor, he discarded all the artifices and schemes by which the pretentions gain unmerited and superficial success, and addressed himself to the task of raising a high standard of thorough scholarship.  He did none but solid work, and hence leaves the institution on a solid basis.  He was apt to teach, and governed as by magnetism.  Students admired and loved him, even to veneration.  Approachable at all times and by all, plain and simple in manners and bearing, as they of greatest gifts of mind and excellencies of heart always are, he nevertheless held supreme control over all.  To few called to govern could the language used to express the ease of command expressed by the statue of Aurelius be more appropriately applied.  He was a good linguist, but his keen perceptive faculties and compact reasoning powers enabled him to excel in the metaphysical and scientific studies.  His sermons on man's likeness to God, the constitution of man's mental and spiritual nature, expressive of his views on Darwinism, although in a measure fragmentary, give him a place among the ablest modern thinkers.  Only forty-four years of age, beginning alone, as it were, and unaided by wealth or influential friends, few could at this early age predict the eminence to which he would have risen if spared to ripest years.  He has been ill since March last.  Hoping for his restoration to health and his official labors, we deemed it unnecessary to publish the serious nature of his illness, lest it should have an unfavorable effect upon him, and perchance create unnecessary alarm.  He leaves a widow and five children.  He was a brother of Mr. Smith Talbot, of Troy.  Other relatives are living at his native place.  Truly he labored while the day lasted, and not in vain.  He rests from his labors, and his works follow him.