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The Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss

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The Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss 351 S 81 B64 ^0" 'Sp \ )l.fN LIBR \KY Cornell University Library LG 351.S81B64 The reminiscences of Daniel Bliss, 3 1924 011 492 463 DATE DUE ABJhffT Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924011492463 Daniel Bliss in His Seventieth Year. The Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss Edited and Supplemented by His Eldest Son iUUSIRATSa New York Chicago Fleming H. Reveil Company London and Edinburgh 'f':''" Copyright, 1920, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY Ay f30 New York: i$8 Fifth Avenue Chicago': 17 North Wabash Ave. London : ai Paternoster Square Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street Dedicated to ALL HIS STUDENTS ' s '^ 00 ^ 35: I I Q 0iUl o CO > m z o Q o m Q z D o fl) n r ^C > pj m 00 111 CL r o S ^ 2 Illustrations Facingpage Daniel Bliss in His Seventieth Year . Title President Bliss and President Washburn . 60 Dr. and Mrs. Bliss . ... 80 The Young Missionary 130 Marquand House: The President's Residence . 188 Statue Presented to the College by Graduates and Former Students in Egypt and the Sudan . 220 President Howard Sweetser Bliss .... 230 At the College Gate . < \ . 240 The Ninetieth Birthday : Dr. Bliss with His Grcat- Grandchildren . • • ^ . 252 I EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION UNITY is the distinctive mark of the life- work of Daniel Bliss. He was born on August 17, 1823, and lived to within a few days of his ninety-third birthday, passing peace- fully away, not in any illness, but because his time had come, on July 27, 1916, at his home in Beirftt, Syria. Six weeks before his translation, his was the prominent figure at the Commencement Exer- cises of the Syrian Protestant College, held at the close of its fiftieth year. This institution had controlled his thoughts for sixty years. This one thing he did. First there was a period of six years, covering his early mis- sionary life in Syria, a period when the idea of the College was slowly germinating. Then followed four strenuous years of direct planning and of the collection of funds, years spent in the United States and in England. Then for thirty-six years he was active President, watching the number of students increase from less than a score to many hundreds. Then for fourteen years he was the President- Emeritus, still keen in his interest, invaluable in counsel, constant in attendance at University exer- cises, a benediction of peace and of strength, felt by 11 12 DANIEL BLISS all—^teachers, students, visitors—as they saw him, with his tall erect figure and wonderful white hair, on his daily walks over the extensive campus; paus- ing often to look with simple enjoyment at the land he had bought, at the buildings he had erected, at the trees he had planted—or to gaze over the blue expanse of the Mediterranean, at the long line of the stately Lebanon Mountains, among which the idea of the College had first come to birth. To those unacquainted with his qualities of mind and will, the early years of Daniel Bliss might appear to be out of harmony with his life-work. But to those who know his character the idea of unity as the key-note of his whole life is not dis- turbed by the story of his youth and early man- hood. Indeed we may trace the way in which he moulded the adverse influences of these periods into a quite direct, if quite unconscious, prepara- tion for the unique work which an unforeseen fu- ture had for him to do. Obliged to earn his living when but a boy, he laid the foundations for a sympathetic understanding of the problems of stu- dents who were to come to him from many a humble home; brought into contact with all sorts of men in business relations, he stored up a varied knowledge of human nature which was later to serve him so well as a practical man of affairs. Entering college at the age of twenty-five, he turned handicap into advantage, bringing to his belated studies a seriousness of purpose, a matur- ity of judgment, that extracted from these their I' EDITOE'S INTEODTJCTION 13 maximum value; having long lacked the oppor- tunities of aesthetic culture, he welcomed their ap- proach with a freshness, an ardour, an appreciation that was to last him all his life; often deprived by the force of circumstances of the "means of Grace," as administered according to any one set rule or formula—^when religion finally grasped him, he was ready for a view of religion that was singularly fundamental and simple, enabling him in future years to presciut the essence of true re- ligion to the followers of many and diverse faiths and creeds. The story of these early years is told in his own words. It was a happy moment when, in the com- parative leisure that followed his retirement from the active Presidency, Mrs. Bliss persuaded her husband to write his reminiscences for his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The early reminiscences they now share almost in 'full with the larger circle of his friends. A preliminary word, however, about his ancestry may be in place. In " The Bliss Book," Mr. C. A. Hoppin, a Bliss on his mother's side and one learned in genealogy, points out that the name Bliss is of purely Saxon origin, and that it marks the first possessor as a man in humble circumstances but of a happy dispo- sition. Surnames, he reminds us, were introduced into England by the Normans and were adopted by the common people about the middle of the twelfth century. As in Syria to-day, a surname was sug- gested by the name of the property owned by a 14 DANIEL BLISS given individual, by his trade, by Ms father's trade, or by his dwelling-place. When a man had nothing particular to distinguish him, he was apt to receive a nickname, which might stick to the family as a sur- name. Thus, according to the ingenious Mr. Hop- pin, the " first Bliss " owned no land, was skilled in no trade, but was notoriously cheerful. Whatever may have been the condition of this unknown ances- tor, the choice of the name Bliss proved to be fortu- nate for the possessor thereof who came to Syria in 1856. In Arabic the word for " Father of Lies," Iblis, is strongly accented on the last syllable. Accordingly, when a Moslem neighbour asked the new Missionary for his name, he was deeply shocked " at the word that struck his ear. " Iblis? Iblis? he said, " That cannot be ! What is themeaning of the word in your own language?" "Happi- " ness," said Mr. Bliss. "Ah ! answered the much relieved Moslem, "then I will call you Khowaja " Farah —^the Arabic word for Joy. Mr. Hoppin, whose speculations as to this first mythical though surely once existent Bliss we have noticed, finds the first actual mention of the name in the " Hundred Rolls " of 1272 and 1273, which recorded the results of a sweeping inquiry made by Edward III into the condition of Land Tenure in England. Two men of the name of John Bliss are mentioned—^both in humble circumstances. One lived in Tyringham, Buckinghamshire, and it is he who is most plausibly regarded by Mr. Hoppin as the veritable Patriarch of the American line. How- — EDITOE'S DJTEODUCTION 15 ever likely tMs may be, there is no documentary evidence in the subsequent Parish Becords, which do not begin to furnish an absolutely unbroken chain of ancestry for the American Blisses tiU ,the appearance of the names of the Master-Blacksmith of Daventry, Northamptonshire, William Blisse by name, whose will was proved in 1574, when Shake- speare was ten years old. Three grandchildren of this William Blisse,—^two brothers, Thomas and Creorge, and their cousin, also called Thomas Blacksmiths all—emigrated from Northampton- shire to America about the year 1638, and there founded the different branches which produced the thousands of Blisses found in the United States. Prom Thomas Bliss, brother of the George afore- said, and from his wife Margaret, through a line of five intermediate Blisses, was descended the subject of this biography. Thomas died in Hartford, Con- necticut, about the year 1650, and his wife at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1684. From the fact that there are no parochial baptismal records for their children, born in England, Mr. Hoppin infers that their parents were Puritans who had suffered excommunication for their principles. The direct line of Daniel Bliss was long-lived : the average age for the five generations, terminating with himself, is over seventy-five years. The line was also fruit- ful: Daniel Bliss was one of nine children; his father Loomis was one of seventeen; his great- grandfather was one of thirteen; Samuel, son of Thomas and Margaret, was one of eleven. 16 DAJSriBL BLISS But it is time to give place to Daniel Bliss' own story of his early years, -written at his home in Beirut, in his eighty-second year. It is indeed a story based on " reminiscences," for, as far as his editor is aware, he kept no journal during these early days. Many of the anecdotes recall to the minds of his children the long, happy evenings, when we heard them from his own lips, as we sat before the Winter fireside in our home by the Syrian sea, n CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH WAS born on the seventeenth of August, 1823, in Georgia, Vermont.
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