Thank you so much for your reply. I have been checking this site regularly, but I did not scroll down far enough. I guess, at 65, I am not as patient as I should be. I will send Professor Long an e-mail for sure.

God Bless,

Tom

Thank you for your kind words and inspiring reflections. I have indeed found Mr. Long. He and his lovely wife are alive and well and living in Oberlin, Ohio. This past Tuesday he turned 91 years old. While his hearing is failing, he enjoys corresponding by email: crhslong@juno.com. I sent him a photograph and a link to this homily to jog his memory. His responded with characteristic warmth.

I think Stacy, Brent House’s chaplain, said it best. “Those early blessings have a very long reach.”

Peace and Blessings,

Maurice
Ph.D. Candidate, History of Christianity
University of Chicago Divinity School

What an elegant sermon, and so very true! You see, Herbert Long was my teacher too. In the middle- 1960′s Herbert Long was my Ancient Civilization professor at Hamilton College, and with him I read, in text- based fashion, Herodotus, Thucydides, and some of the great Greek dramatists. Herbie Long (only irreverant undergraduates would call him that, but it was with affection) was responsible for my introduction to historiography and, with his Hamilton faculty colleagues, to the canon of western civilization. This served me well when I went on to the University of Virginia, where I earned my doctorate in 1972. I would love to know from you if you found that Ohio address.

I have two candidates for future All Saints remembrance, and both have connections, remarkably enough, with the University of Chicago. The first is Winthrop Still Hudson, who earned his doctorate at Chicago, and went on to become one of America’s most respected historians of religion. During a searching year at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, he became my mentor and advisor, made me his teaching assistant in his American religion course at the University of Rochester, and helped me make the correct decision to aim for a teaching career and not the ministry. Win Hudson turned me in the direction of independent school teaching. My teaching career in such schools goes back to 1975, and since 1982 I have served Casady School, a diocesan Episcopal institution in Oklahoma City, as a history teacher and college counselor.

Then there was the magnificent Karl Joachim Weintraub, who came to the University of Chicago as a refugee and an undergraduate, earned his doctorate there some years later, and basically never left. His devotion to the Western Civilization curriculum at Chicago was legendary, and so were his exacting standards. When I encountered him as an NEH instructor at Chicago in the 1980′s, he correctly saw that I was in need of a refresher course in how to deal properly with source material. His ministrations were tough, exacting, and, as we got to know him, also concerned and kind. Since his death, I have wanted to write his widow, who as I recall was studying theology at the time. I hope somebody can help me with this. Jock Weintraub, at least to us, revealed himself as an atheist, but I cannot help but think, as a teacher and an Episcopalian, that he truly merits an All Saints Day remembrance.

So, Maurice Childs, God Bless you for this sermon. I hope for more good news.

Thomas R. Rumsey, Ph.D., Roy C. Lytle Chair for History, Casady School.