Van Dyke at­tend­ed Prince­ton Un­i­ver­si­ty, then served as pas­tor of the Brick Pres­by­ter­i­an Church in New York Ci­ty. Se­ven­teen years lat­er, he re­turned to Prince­ton as a pro­fes­sor of En­glish lit­er­a­ture. Af­ter­ward, he held a num­ber of em­i­nent posts: Amer­i­can am­bas­sa­dor to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, mod­er­a­tor of the General Assembly of the Pres­by­ter­i­an Church, Com­mand­er of the Le­gion of Hon­or, and Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Arts and Let­ters. He chaired the com­mit­tee that com­piled the Pres­by­ter­i­an Book of Com­mon Wor­ship in 1905, and helped pre­pare the re­vised in edit­ion in 1932. His works in­clude:

• The Re­al­i­ty of Re­li­gion, 1884
• The Gos­pel for an Age of Doubt, 1897
• A Child in the Gar­den
• A Noon Song
• A Par­a­ble of Im­mor­tal­i­ty
• A Way­far­ing Song
• America for Me
• Christ of Ev­er­y­where
• Companionable Books
• Daybreak in the Grand Can­yon of Ari­zo­na
• Days Off and Other Di­gress­ions, 1907
• Fisherman’s Luck and Some Other Un­cer­tain Things
• Four Things
• Gran’ Boule
• If All the Skies Were Sun­shine
• Keeping Christ­mas
• Last Glimpse Here of Mark Twain, 1910
• Liberty En­light­en­ing the World, 1917
• Life
• Little Riv­ers
• Love’s Near­ness
• Love’s Rea­son
• Mare Lib­er­um, 1917
• Out-of-Doors in the Ho­ly Land
• The Amer­i­can Birth­right and the Phil­ip­pine Pot­tage, 1898
• The Blue Flow­er, 1902
• The First Christ­mas Tree
• The Lost Word: A Christ­mas Le­gend of Long Ago, 1898
• The Man­sion
• The Name of France
• The Po­et­ry of Ten­ny­son
• The Rul­ing Pass­ion, 1901
• The Sto­ry of the Other Wise Man
• The Spir­it of Amer­i­ca, 1910
• The Spir­it of Christ­mas
• The Sun-Di­al at Wells Coll­ege, 1904
• The Un­known Quan­ti­ty: A Book of Ro­mance and Some Half-Told Tales, 1912
• The Vain King
• The Wind of Sor­row
• They Who Tread the Path of La­bor
• Two Schools
• When Tu­lips Bloom

Some of Van Dyke’s quotes that have been wid­ely pub­lished:

There is a loft­i­er am­bi­tion than mere­ly to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift man­kind a lit­tle high­er.

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who re­joice, but for those who love, time is eter­ni­ty.

Who seeks for Hea­ven alone to save his soul
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wan­der far,
Yet God will bring him where the blessed are.

Use the tal­ents you pos­sess, for the woods would be ve­ry sil­ent if no birds sang ex­cept the best.

• Hustad, p. 331
• McCutchan, p. 36

1. Jesus, Thou Di­vine Com­pan­ion
2. Joyful, Joy­ful, We Adore Thee
3. No Form of Hu­man Fram­ing
4. O Lord, Our God, Thy Mighty Hand
5. O Mak­er of the Mighty Deep
6. O Thou Whose Bound­less Love Be­stows