Henry Van Dyke
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) was an influential American Presbyterian minister, professor at Princeton University, and diplomat, serving as ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg under President Woodrow Wilson. He is perhaps best known for his Christmas tale, "The Story of the Other Wise Man," which reflects his belief in literature's moral purpose. Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Princeton and initially pursued a career in writing before becoming ordained in 1879. Van Dyke's early sermons often highlighted the presence of God in nature, leading to his advocacy for conservation and involvement in the creation of Yellowstone National Park. Throughout his career, he published works that synthesized his religious beliefs with literary criticism and environmental themes, including essays on agricultural depletion and collections like "Little Rivers: A Book of Essays in Profitable Idleness." He was also instrumental in developing the 1906 Presbyterian liturgy. During World War I, his writings took on a patriotic tone, although later generations have critiqued his narrow artistic views. Despite this, Van Dyke remained a prominent figure in literary and religious discussions until his death.
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Henry Van Dyke
Writer
- Born: November 10, 1852
- Birthplace: Germantown, Pennsylvania
- Died: April 10, 1933
- Place of death: Princeton, New Jersey
Biography
Best known for his Christmas tale, The Story of the Other Wise Man, Henry Van Dyke also was a respected Presbyterian minister, a professor at Princeton University, and America’s ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg during the presidential administration of Woodrow Wilson. Van Dyke was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1852, the son of a clergyman. He graduated from Princeton in 1873 and returned there to attend seminary, although he was hesitant to give up his dream of writing in favor of an ecclesiastical career. Ordained in 1879, he became the minister at New York City’s Brick Presbyterian Church. His popular early sermons often explored the presence of God in nature and foreshadowed his later commitment to conservation, particularly the establishment of Yellowstone National Park. His concern with nature also stimulated his earliest published work, an investigation into agricultural depletion in the Red River Valley, which was the lead essay in the May, 1880, issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine.
His first monographs, published in 1884 and 1887, were on religious topics, and his first book of criticism, a study of his favorite poet Lord Tennyson, appeared in 1889. Tennyson approved of the book and met with Van Dyke personally in 1892. Another environmentally themed collection, Little Rivers: A Book of Essays in Profitable Idleness, was published in 1895, and his best-known short work, The Story of the Other Wise Man, appeared in 1896, quickly finding an enthusiastic audience. Van Dyke was a great proponent of the idea that literature should serve a moral purpose, and The Story of the Other Wise Man reflects this belief.
In 1889, he was elected to the Academy of Social Science Association and helped create the National Institute of Art and Letters. Another collection of his environmental essays appeared in 1899, the same year Van Dyke returned to Princeton as the Murray Professor of English Literature, a position he would hold until 1923. His literary criticism from this period synthesizes his religious beliefs with his aesthetic interpretations.
Van Dyke chaired the committee that wrote The Book of Common Worship of 1906, the controversial printed version of the Presbyterian liturgy. He was visiting lecturer at the University of Paris during the 1908-1909 academic year and was appointed by his former classmate, President Wilson, to serve as ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913. He resigned the post in 1916 in protest of American neutrality and became the lieutenant commander for the navy’s chaplain corps. Strongly anti-German, his writing during World War I emphasized patriotic and procapitalist themes.
After the war, Van Dyke returned to literary themes, promoting his favorite literature to a general audience and opposing the new literary movements of the early twentieth century, which he saw as dark and without moral compass. Due to these views, subsequent generations of scholars have viewed him critically as a man of Victorian temperament with a narrow and moralistic definition of art. However, Van Dyke reveled in the arguments against the artistic avant-garde, engaging them publically until his death in 1933. His son, Reverend Tertius Van Dyke, released a biography of his father in 1935.