BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION.

"THE world will be filialized when it is fraternized."

The memory which John P. Coyle has left may not be more fittingly characterized than by the above words of his, words of philosophy, exhortation, and prophecy. Few children of men have been better exemplifications of the filial and fraternal spirit at its best than he was.

How can one write a chapter of biography and do it wisely and fairly who is compelled to confess that he never saw a fault in the friend who is the subject of it? Such is the task laid upon me when asked to compile some introductory personal pages to this volume of sermons. Such a work is a labor of love indeed, but its difficulty is yet more enhanced by reason of the fact that no rebuke for exaggeration or untruthfulness would be so sharp as his. Through this narrow passage lying between a desire adequately to express the exact measure of honor and affection widely and generously bestowed upon him, and on the other hand the hope to avoid the just condemnation of the manly modesty of our friend, an attempt must be made to steer the little craft of this chapter.

Mr. Coyle was a typical American in that his blood was well mixed. Scotch-Irish would describe its predominant elements, but there was a little wholesome mixture of Dutch and English blood “in me, and as I grow older I find it playing the part of a conservative upper house tenacious of the continuities as against the impatient Celtic idealism of my general make-up."

He was specially fortunate in his early home. Fortunate most of all in his parents, of whom he once wrote: "In the self-sacrificing lives of my parents remained to me the vision of the human God when every other divine light was clouded. From my mother I received the never forgotten advice to think fearlessly; and from both father and mother I gained an impression of the objective reality of the spirit of Christlikeness which could not be effaced by years of black doubt and dreary agnosticism. To them belongs the credit if I have been able to think through any one of the problems of the age."

He was born near East Waterford, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, May 3, 1852. He was the second of the ten children of David Scott and Matilda Longwell Coyle. Both parents belonged to that Scotch-Irish race which, coming to this country before the Revolution, settled many sections of Pennsylvania and endured all the hardships of pioneer life.

Mr. Coyle's father was a man of more than

ordinary intelligence, having a good education preparatory to a college course, which ill health prevented his getting. He was a teacher for some time prior to his marriage, when he returned to his father's home near the little hamlet of East Waterford. His health was always precarious, so much so that he was unable to go into the army. He was, however, a hard-working and successful farmer, gaining not riches, for he was too wise to hoard, but for his children what was far better, a solid education and the memory of a home life moving on high planes. The father was a quiet man whose few words were worth hearing. He was a man of sweet and gentle spirit, combined with unswerving integrity; a true man of God, not only righteous, but lovably and gently good.

To the mother was left the discipline of the family, and she was well fitted for it. As frank and free of speech as her husband was reticent, her quick wit, independent spirit, and power of initiative supplemented his conservative, steady, grave character, making them ideal parents, and giving their son, through the harmonious combination of these marked characteristics, a personality of rare beauty and strength.

Mr. Coyle's home was such a one as story-tellers love to describe. They abound in tales of Scotch life as in Maclaren's stories, in biographies like David Livingstone's and John G. Paton's. The family was old school Presbyterian. The older

children were baptized and preached to during their earlier years by an aged Scotch minister, Rev. Andrew Jardine, whose brogue was so heavy as to put him almost beyond the range of intelligibility to the young people. A neighboring Scotch minister, Rev. Mr. Allison, used to visit the family and, according to their national and ecclesiastical customs, take the children on his knee, hear them recite the Shorter Catechism, and give them some psalm to have ready learned for him when he should come again. Mr. Coyle's father and grandfather were elders in the church and usually entertained visiting ministers, so that a religious atmosphere, not only in the home itself, but from its visitors, constantly surrounded the children until grown up. This lad heard only Rouse's version of the psalms in the church; to sing a hymn would have been heretical, and an organ was the summit of sacrilege. At the communion services only those gathered around the Lord's table who had received on the day previous a "token" that they were members of the church in good standing.

Sundays in that home were stiffly observed. Sometimes after all were in bed Saturday night a voice would be raised, "Is the coffee ground?" If not, some one must up and dress and to the kitchen and grind it, else there would be no coffee on Sunday. But the children had their amusements with limitations less felt then than realized in later life.