Up for auction "Presbyterian Scholar" Howard Crosby Hand Signed 3X5 Card. 

ES-4634

Howard

Crosby (27 February 1826

– 29 March 1891) was an American Presbyterian preacher, scholar and professor,

great-grandson of Judge Joseph Crosby of Massachusetts and of Gen. William Floyd of New York, a signer of the U.S. Declaration

of Independence[ and the father of Ernest Howard Crosby, and

a relative of Fanny Crosby. Crosby was

also a descendant of Rip Van Dam and Matthias Nicoll. Crosby was born in New York City in 1826. He

graduated in 1844 from New York University where

he was one of the founding fathers of the Gamma Chapter of the Delta Phi fraternity, and became professor of Greek at

NYU in 1851. In 1859, he was appointed professor of Greek at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey,

where two years later he was ordained pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New Brunswick. From 1863 until

his death he was pastor of Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York. From

1870 to 1881 Crosby was chancellor of New York University, then

known as the University of the City of New York. He was one of the American

revisers of the English version of the New Testament. Crosby took a prominent

part in politics. He urged to excise reform and opposed total abstinence. He

was one of the founders and the first president of the New York Society for the

Prevention of Crime, and pleaded for better management of Indian affairs and

international copyright. Among his publications are The Lands of the

Moslem (1851), Bible Companion (1870), Jesus: His Life and Works

(1871), True Temperance Reform (1879), True Humanity of Christ (1880), and commentaries

on the book of Joshua (1875), Nehemiah (1877) and the New Testament (1885). He

was also president of the American Philological Association and in

1871 gave a presidential address, excerpted in the Proceedings of the American

Philological Association. "Linguistics or philology may be considered

either as a science or as a philosophy. Under the first aspect we may gain some

idea of its extent by thinking of the vast number of languages which are to be

investigated, not only those now spoken, but also many of which we have but the

fossils. It touches here psychology and history, and enables us to know the

unseen. A linguistic criticism is the source of all true commentary. By

philology we can reconstruct prehistoric man, and read the history of times

before the Olympiads and Nabonassar. Languages are never lost. By this science,

the original unity of the human race is already nearly proved….Again philology

as a philosophy speculates on the value of language to man, and its relations

to his mind. These speculations are not to be confounded with the facts of the

science….Every profound thinker has found himself fettered by language. Hence

disputes and misunderstandings have arisen. Also in poetry, in devotion, in

music, language is shown to be imperfect; it can never be made sufficient for

the whole realm of thought. Man in his development, must have a nobler and

fuller language than he has to-day. This may be in a new creation with

spiritual bodies." The President, in conclusion, referred to the field of

American languages as especially open to the researches of the Association,

suggesting its division into sections and the organization of local branches

(Crosby 1871: 8, quotation marks in the original). From 1872 to 1880 Crosby was

a member of the New Testament Company of the American Revision Committee. Crosby

married Margaret Evertson Givan, a daughter of John Givan and Mary Ann

Evertson, she a granddaughter of Jacob Evertson of Amenia, New York.