Muhlenberg.] 614: [March 16, 



and subsequently was elected President of Pennsylvania College, at the 

 same place, in wliicli useful and important positions, he labored with great 

 fidelity and success, until his death in the year 1867, in the 71st year of 

 his age. 



The life, employments, and character of the elder Dr. Krauth, had so 

 much to do with the usefulness and exalted fame of his son, Cliarles 

 Porterfield Krauth, that the writer felt it to be necessary to give the above 

 particulars with reference to liim, and to append a few statements from 

 some of those who knew him best, in regard to his extraordinary ability 

 and excellence. In this way, we can obtain clear views of the genial and 

 ennobling influences under which the younger Dr. Krauth was reared. 



One of his most intimate friends, long associated with the father whilst 

 he was President of Pennsylvania College, in an interesting sketch of his 

 life, says of him : "A character so near perfection, a life so f^lmost blame- 

 less is seldom found. He was one of the purest and best men that ever 

 lived." Another friend, now Professor in Columbia College, gives us this 

 estimate of him : "For me his character possessed attractions perfectly 

 irresistible, and I loved him with an intensity that beggars description." 

 A third gentleman, who spent a week with him at a comparatively early 

 period of his life, remarks: "His conversation was so instructive, his 

 counsels were so wise, his manners were so gentle, his spirits so buoyant 

 that I learned more practical wisdom than in any other week of my life." 

 It was the good fortune of the writer to Itnow, and be intimately associated 

 with this eminent man, for seventeen years ; and it gives him pleasure to 

 testify to the accuracy of his scholarship, soundness of judgment, keen 

 perception, warmth of heart, eloquence of speech, nobility of nature, and 

 eminence of Christian character. "He had," to use the terse language of 

 a writer in Johnson's Encj'clopjedia, if I mistake not, his own son, re- 

 cently deceased, "every quality Avhich ensures a large distinction, except 

 ambition." 



Born of such parents, surrounded continually, from his earliest years, 

 by such favorable influences for the improvement of his intellectual and 

 moral powers, we have no difficuUy in recognizing the cause, and in pre- 

 dicting, from such antecedents, the certainty of the future eminence of 

 our lamented fellow-member. He had the same eminent endowments of his 

 revered father, in an intensified form ; the same keenness of perception, 

 eloquence of speech, soundness of judgment, richness of imagination, and 

 warmth of heart. Through his mother, he was, perhaps, also gifted with 

 a vivacity greater than that enjoyed by his father. He thus united in him- 

 self the sober self-control of the Pennsylvanian, with the sprightliness 

 and exuberant emotion of the Virginian. These native endowments were 

 expanded also by early and constant companionship with his father, "who 

 knew all literature," and his profoundly learned friends, "who knew all 

 philosophy," and access to, and use of the valuable library he possessed. 

 In society, as well as in the case of individuals, auspicious influences for 

 growth, become cumulative, and a maximum good result is the product ot 



