Henry Jackson van Dyke
Born: November 10, 1852, Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Died: April 10, 1933, Princeton, New Jersey.
Buried: Princeton, New Jersey.
Van Dyke attended Princeton University, then served as pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City. Seventeen years later, he returned to Princeton as a professor of English literature. Afterward, he held a number of eminent posts: American ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, Commander of the Legion of Honor, and President of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He chaired the committee that compiled the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship in 1905, and helped prepare the revised in edition in 1932. His works include:
The Reality of Religion, 1884
The Gospel for an Age of Doubt, 1897
A Child in the Garden
A Noon Song
A Parable of Immortality
A Wayfaring Song
America for Me
Christ of Everywhere
Companionable Books
Daybreak in the Grand Canyon of Arizona
Days Off and Other Digressions, 1907
Fisherman’s Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things
Four Things
Gran’ Boule
If All the Skies Were Sunshine
Keeping Christmas
Last Glimpse Here of Mark Twain, 1910
Liberty Enlightening the World, 1917
Life
Little Rivers
Love’s Nearness
Love’s Reason
Mare Liberum, 1917
Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land
The American Birthright and the Philippine Pottage, 1898
The Blue Flower, 1902
The First Christmas Tree
The Lost Word: A Christmas Legend of Long Ago, 1898
The Mansion
The Name of France
The Poetry of Tennyson
The Ruling Passion, 1901
The Story of the Other Wise Man
The Spirit of America, 1910
The Spirit of Christmas
The Sun-Dial at Wells College, 1904
The Unknown Quantity: A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales, 1912
The Vain King
The Wind of Sorrow
They Who Tread the Path of Labor
Two Schools
When Tulips Bloom
Some of Van Dyke’s quotes that have been widely published:
There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.
Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.
Who seeks for Heaven alone to save his soul
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wander far,
Yet God will bring him where the blessed are.
Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal