Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/306

302 February, 1758, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. His connection with the College ceased in November, 1759, when the Synod directed him to go on a mis- sion to the destitute settlements in Virginia and North Carolina, he having been ordained a few weeks before. In 1761 he was installed as Pastor of the congregation at Deep Run, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He left this in 1770 for the pastoral care of Chestnut Level, in Lancaster County, and was there installed in November, 1771. He here added the care of a school to his many duties, for which he was well fitted by his training in the College. During the revolutionary war, it is said he accompanied a Pennsylvania regiment in one campaign as chaplain. He was alive to all the controversies in his church during these years of trial, and an active participant in them, and was generally on the side of progress. When the subject of introducing Dr. Watt's Psalms and Hymns into public worship disturbed the traditions of many of the congregations, he advo- cated the new Psalmody, and in the controversy issued a pam- phlet of one hundred and eight pages in defense of the new practice ; it is said this was the only work he ever published. The Degree of D.D. was proposed for him by the Trustees in 1799; that he accepted the Degree about that period is a fact well sustained, yet his name does not appear on the roll of any other College ; but as we have the record of its proposal, it is right to assume it was formerly conferred upon him, though we fail to find record of its consummation. He died 29 January, 1 80 1, aged 77 years. He married about the year 1765, Miss Mary M'Calla of Deep Run. Of his children there were four sons, all of whom entered the ministry ; of these three were graduates of the University, Francis Alison in 1790, William, 1794, and John Ewing in 1795. Dr. Samuel Martin's Memoir of him, says : Dr Latta was remarkably well qualified. Without severity, he had the faculty of governing well. He possessed the happy talent of making his pupils both fear and love him. * * * As a scholar, too, he had few equals ; his erudition was general and profound. Such were his known abilities, and such his reputation as an instructor, that when any of his