We have just received the sad news of the death of our dear friend and brother, the Rev. Azel Freeman, D.D., of Cumberland, Ohio. In the death of this good and noble man our Church has sustained no ordinary loss. Dr. Freeman has long been known among us as a man of great learning, deep piety, and sterling worth. He filled many positions of trust and honor in the schools and pulpits of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He began he career as a teacher, we believe, in old Cumberland College, at Princeton, Ky., where he became distinguished as a mathematician and linguist, an unusual combination of gifts. For a time he was a professor in Bethel College, in Tennessee, before its removal from McLemoresville. He was also at one time, just prior to the war, a professor at McGee College, in Missouri. During the war he was principal of De Laney Academy, at Newburg, Ind. It was while engaged in this work that he conceived the idea of founding a school of high grade in the North-west.

If we are not misinformed, he was the first to urge the establishment of such a school. In Indiana Synod he introduced resolutions looking to such an undertaking.

His pen and voice were busy in those dark days, cheering and urging on our scattered people in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. Few men did more than he in those trying times to strengthen and fortify the Church against despair. Around his leadership gathered scores of brave and noble men, and founded Lincoln University. He was made its first president, a position which he filled with great acceptability for four years. He was universally beloved and honored by students, professors, and patrons.

Holding certain theological views which were not indorsed [sic] by his Church, and particularly by some strong friends of the institution, he resigned the presidency rather than cause any division among the supporters of the university. In his position as president of Lincoln University, Dr. Freeman did the noblest work of his life. He loved the institution as a mother loves her own child. It was to his wise and generous planning that the institution owed most of its early popularity. Four fifths of all the books now in the college library were gathered while he was president.

Dr. Freeman was a great lover of books. He was, without doubt, one of the most widely-read men in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He read Latin with more ease than most men read English. He was a fine Greek scholar. For more than forty years the Greek Testament was his daily and hourly companion. He knew history, ancient and modern, as but few men know history. He was passionately fond of English poetry. There were very few poets from Chaucer to Tennyson with whose writings he was not intimately acquainted. In astronomy he was deeply learned. He used to take great delight in calculating eclipses of the sun and moon.

It was, however, as a theologian that our friend was most profoundly read. He was familiar with the writings of theologians in all ages of the Church of Christ. Bible commentaries, Church histories, and theological works were his greatest treasures. He was an ardent, patient, reverent, and devoted student of God's word. We have never known any man who had a more tender and childlike reverence for the Bible than he had.

It is not strange that such a man inspired young men with a love of truth and a lore of learning. The writer of this desires here to acknowledge his great indebtedness to this noble and good man. While Dr. Freeman was President of Lincoln University, the writer made his acquaintance. From that hour until the time of his death, Dr. Freeman was to him a source of strength, help, and inspiration. In all the joys and sorrows of many years their hearts were one.

Death can not rob one of such a friend. The grave can not hide him beyond the reach of love.

After leaving Lincoln, Dr. Freeman had a checkered but useful career. He was for a short time president of a State normal school in Nebraska. He was for a brief time pastor of the Church at Waynesburg, Pa., and for several years President of Greenville Female College, in Kentucky. His health, never strong, failed him while in Kentucky. He returned to his native hills in Pennsylvania, and traveled over the country on horseback selling books for the American Bible Society. He afterward became pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at Old Concord, in Washington county, Pa., where he remained six years, laboring with great zeal and earnest love for his little Church. Less than a year ago he left the congregation at Old Concord, and took charge of the Church at Cumberland, Ohio. In all the places where he lived we venture to say that he won the confidence and love of all who knew him. He was modest, gentle, and true. He was a man of simple habits, lofty aspirations, noble impulses, and unblemished character. He had a childlike faith in God, and an unflinching loyalty to truth. He loved his friends sincerely, and bore wrong like a Christian. He was twice married. He was born May 11, 1818, and died December 3, 1886.

He loved his fellow-men, and was loved by them. He has carried our affections with him to the beautiful home of the soul. Heaven is richer and earth is poorer because of the death of this noble Christian scholar.

[Source: The Cumberland Presbyterian, December 9, 1886, page 4]

A. Freeman, D.D. - Muskingum Presbytery

[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 187, page 15]