Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/305

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WALLACE RADCLIFFE
251

gan. Since 1895 he has been pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian church, Washington, District of Columbia, one of the leading churches of the city, and the one in which five presidents have worshiped, where the Lincoln pew still retains the wood-work of Lincoln's time.

Doctor Radcliffe has held important ecclesiastical positions. He was moderator of the synod of Pennsylvania and of the synod of Michigan; commissioner to General assembly, 1874, 1883, 1889, 1898, 1899; delegate to the Pan-Presbyterian alliance 1877, 1889, and 1899, and moderator of the General assembly, the highest governing body of the Presbyterian church in America, in 1898.

Public services have been rendered by Doctor Radcliffe outside of his immediate pastoral and church relations, notably in organizing and directing, from 1887 to 1895, the Tappan Presbyterian association of the University of Michigan. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from Lafayette college in 1882; and that of LL.D. from his alma mater, Washington and Jefferson, in 1901. He has published sermons, church forms, and manuals. He is a member of Sigma Chi, of the Cosmos club of Washington, and of the Presbyterian Historical society of Philadelphia, and a director of Princeton theological seminary. He has always been identified with the Republican party, and has no thought of changing his political allegiance. The books which have been most helpful in fitting him for his life-work, as he looks back at it, are the Bible, "Pilgrim's Progress," Dr. Hodge's Theology, McCosh, Caird, Tennyson and Dickens. He finds healthful recreation and amusement in golf, walking and in "a good novel." His choice A of profession was controlled by the wishes of his parents and by an increasingly peremptory conscience. His aspirations toward the intellectual life were strongly stimulated by one of his teachers, Mr. Andrew Burt, of Pittsburg. His own private studies and the inspiration of school and of his teachers have been the sources of his success, and in offering suggestions to young men he emphasizes the importance of concentration, by saying that "to the lack of full concentration he traces whatever failure he has experienced in his own life"; and he further suggests to young people that "they strive to acquire decision, concentration, independence and the morality founded upon the old Bible."

Wallace Radcliffe was married to Jessie Rawson Walker in May, 1889.