View source for Beecher, Willis Judson

=Willis Judson Beecher=
*Born: 29 April 1838, Hampden, Ohio
*Died: 10 May 1912, Auburn, New York

Obituary from [https://books.google.com/books?id=bJjNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false ''The Biblical World'', v. 40, n. 1, pp. 65-67]

'''Willis Judson Beecher''' The ranks of our veterans in Old Testament scholarship are once more
reduced by the death on May 10, at his home in Auburn, N.Y., of Dr.
Willis Judson Beecher. He has been best known to this and the preceding
generation as professor of the Hebrew language and literature in
Auburn Theological Seminary, where he lived his life and did his work.
The remarkable and loving tributes which the citizens of Auburn, the
members of the Theological Seminary, the various civic, literary, and
mercantile associations of that and adjoining cities paid to his memory
at the funeral revealed a character of rare exemplary worth, whose
endowments and ideals and methods deserve more than passing notice.

Willis Judson Beecher was born in Hampden, Ohio, April 29, 1838,
of sturdy Christian parents. They early moved to New York state,
where the lad was trained in Augusta and Vernon academies. He was
graduated from Hamilton College at the age of twenty (1858) with the
degree of A.B. After teaching three years in Whiteside Seminary, he
entered [[Auburn Theological Seminary]] in 1861 and was graduated and
also ordained to the ministry of the Presbyterian church, in 1864. For
the next year he was pastor at Ovid, N.Y.; and from 1865-69 was
professor of moral science and ''belles lettres'' at [https://www.knox.edu/ Knox College], Galesburg,
Ill. In 1869-71 he was pastor of the First Church of Christ at Galesburg.
In 1871 he was called to Auburn Theological Seminary, to the chair which
he so acceptably filled for thirty-seven years, until his voluntary retirement
in 1908, when seventy years of age. Since retirement from the
Seminary he has devoted his time to writing and to the service of the
several boards and organizations of which he was a member. Physically
robust until about a month before his death, he was then stricken with
the sudden illness which has removed a rare man and a widely beloved
friend.

Dr. Beecher was a man among men. He was one of those persons
who never lost his humanness. He was interested in everything that
made for the uplift of the life about him. More than this, he willingly,
gladly shared his burden of responsibility as a citizen in the city of
Auburn. Even his habits as a scholar did not make him a recluse, nor
dehumanize him. Among the educated and uneducated he was equally
a man abounding in human sympathy and helpfulness. Modest,
retiring, yet firm, he commanded the highest regard of everyone.

As a member of the Presbyterian church he was a pillar of support.
He was always an official in the local church at Auburn, a teacher in the
Bible school, a genial friend and helper, and one of the most cordial welcomers
of those whom others would be likely to overlook. In denominational
work in the synod and in the whole country he was naturally a
leader, wise adviser, and counselor. Pastors and teachers eagerly
consulted him and availed themselves of his sympathy and wisdom in
the prosecution of their work. In the community at large he wielded
a forceful influence for good. The Y.M.C.A., the city library, the
historical society, Wells College at Aurora-all were enriched by his
active efforts and counsel.

But the one department to which he gave the bulk of his time and
strength since 1871, a period of forty-one years, was that of the Old
Testament.

He was known among his students as patient and kind toward the
hard-working, earnest, yet mediocre student, and always severe on
himself. He had the spirit of the true scholar in the thoroughness which
he required; and the humility of the real scholar in his treatment of
difficult questions. His students testify that they received some of their
best lessons in sincerity in the modest reply he gave to some difficult
question: "I do not know; I'll investigate the matter and see if I can
give a satisfactory answer." He rarely if ever gave an answer to weighty
questions based on his own assumption of knowledge, or the superiority
of his methods of investigation. With this modesty was linked an
open-mindedness that always seeks the truth and welcomes it from
any quarter. He was not merely a student of books, but a thinker, who
made his own investigations and reached his own conclusions. Though
hospitable to truth from any source, he was by nature conservative, and
very tenacious of the conclusions he had once reached. While he recognized
the scientific method, he could not always accept the conclusions
of his fellow-workers. The old paths were more acceptable to him than
the untrodden ways of new theories.

As an Old Testament scholar he devoted much time to lecturing, and
wrote extensively for religious journals, especially those denominational,
and the ''Sunday School Times''. His published books have been mainly
of a popular character. In 1874 he issued ''Father Tompkins and His Bibles''; in 1905, ''The Prophets and the Promise''; in 1906 ''The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Future Life''; in 1907, ''The Dated Events of the Old Testament''; and in 1911, ''Reasonable Biblical Criticism''. Though somewhat mediating in character, his last works cling firmly to the principles
of the conservative school of thought on Old Testament themes.

Dr. Beecher had another very desirable trait for these times. He
had a greater regard for life than for intellectual conclusions. As over
against the spiritual life of men, he felt that the biblical scholar often
pursued the base of a rainbow. This attitude necessarily made him a
mediator, a judge. His chief question was not, "What is truth?" but
"What is the truth for men? "

As a kind friend, by the written and printed testimony of the professors
of Auburn Seminary, to which credit must be given for our information,
Dr. Beecher was unsurpassed. His unselfishness and fidelity
toward others had the ring of true friendship. He had a heart that was
always thoughtful, warm, and tender. He put himself in the place of
others. He was free from envy and any semblance of self-seeking,
preferring others before himself. He was the first to rejoice in the successes
of his friends and the most sympathetic in their sorrows. Since
the death of his wife twenty years ago, his only child, Miss Elizabeth
Beecher, has been his constant companion and the sharer of all his joys and sorrows.

Life to Dr. Beecher was something sacred. He made drudgery
divine. He moved among even the common things of life with the sense
of their divineness. With all his passing years he was always young
and fresh in thought. His life broadened and enriched with the years.
His love of nature, of the woods, brooks, and mountains, the joys of
friendship, the loss of himself for the good of others—all made his years
youthfully happy. To those who knew him best, he was a great man and a great Christian.

IRA M. PRICE