Hilr' II I i 11m Hj flit HtlEUiutkfiliiiu CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BEQUEST OF STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 1943 Cornell University Library BX9225.H17 H17 1901 John Hall, pastor and jpreacher a blogra olin 3 1924 029 478 975 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029478975 John Hall Pastor and Preacher JOHN HALL PASTOR AND PREACHER '<^ /f/S SOAT THOMAS C. HALL o4)*«j FLEMING H. REVBLL COMPANY NEWYORK • CHrCAOO • TORONTO Copyright, 1901, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY (November) '->-(<^-4^^ ..*L._:7 ^7y. • u ^ TO MY MOTHER whose eager love lightened at every step the life of him whom these pages would fain portray, and from whom not even death divides this volume is affectionately dedicated By Her Son. Preface IT has been a labor of filial love to trace the life of one who left his mark for good upon thousands of lives. The born preacher foregoes a measure of literary fame as he speaks to the immediate needs of men, not in the forms that might make him acceptable to the chosen few, but in the modes understood of the many. My father was himself averse to printing his sermons. He has left but few in such a form that they could be given to the press, and those would, I fear, misrepresent him to those who never heard his voice or knew the charm that separates the born preacher from the pulpit speaker or even the platform orator. He gave his life for his generation. He sought no reputation as either a theologian or man of letters. Indeed he deliber- ately turned away from work great gifts fitted him to do, for that which he deemed more im- portant; the calling of men to life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord. The purpose of these pages is to prolong a little the savor of his mem- 7 8 PREFACE ory; to interpret, however weakly, the sincerity and singleness of aim that marlted the man, to a generation that needs inspiration to simplicity; to remind friends of what we all have lost, and perhaps, to help some one seeking to live the life of sacrifice and devotion how to make that life more widely useful. The filial relation forbids alike eulogium and critique. No powers at the command of the author can do justice to the straightforward, tender, upright manhood that made my father a tower of strength to every cause he made his own, and a sheltering rock to many weaker ones battling with untoward cir- cumstances. In him strength and gentleness mingled in an indescribably attractive way. He was personally unspoilt by success, and the last tests of his character though they broke his heart, left him without bitterness, humbly and simply leaning on that Father's strength, whose way is not our way, but whose love guarded His servant unto the end. With no one did my father prob- ably speak more intimately on many subjects connected with his life and work than with the writer. The loving confidences of a common calling were unbroken to the end. During the weakness and ill-health at Buxton (England) memory naturally with him went back to early PREFACE 9 days, and sitting in the gardens or driving out on the high uplands he told me many things that will always remain with me as vivid impressions of his hopes and aims. His life was no complex problem to be slowly explained amidst doubts and guesses as to the deeper meaning. His aim was as direct as it was high. He felt himself to be an ambassador for Christ beseeching men to be reconciled unto God. May this sketch of his life and work prolong for a little the tender memories of his loving plea. Thomas C. Hall, D. D. Professor of Ethics^ Union Theological Seminary^ New York. Contents I BOYHOOD DAYS The Province of Ulster The Family Home.— Early Train- ing — School Life. — The Old Meeting-house Earliest Memories.— Christian Experiences . . . ig II LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST Early Entrance to College. — The Religious Life of Belfast College. — Dr. Cooke and Dr. Edgar. — Undergraduate Days. — Special Religious Influences. — The Evangeli- cal Influences. — His Father's Death. — The Connaught Proposals ...-.--. ^^ III THE WEST OF IRELAND Character of the West. — The Social Conditions. — The Potato Blight. — Dr. Edgar's Note of Alarm. — Sym- pathy in Belfast. — The Student Missionary. — Pulpit Shyness. — Industrial Schools. — The Forms of Oppo- sition. — Newspaper Work.— The Call to Armagh - 67 IV THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH Church Life in Armagh. — Marriage. — Methods as a Pastor. — Missionary Work. — The Missionary Herald. — Family 12 CONTENTS Concerns — Temperance Agitation. — Revival Experi- ences.— Politics and the Crimean War.— The Needs of Dublin ■------. gc V THE MINISTRY IN MARY'S ABBEY — DUBLIN Mary's Abbey. — Irish Education. — National Schools. — The Queen's Commissionership. — The Rutland Square Church. — Vacations. — The Evangelical Witness. — Dis- establishment and the Moderatorship. — Delegate to America .-._---- 109 VI FIRST JOURNEY TO THE UNITED STATES Continental Travels. — First Voyage Across the Atlantic. — First Impressions of New York. — The Old and New School Assemblies. — Western Experiences. — Fast Trav- eling. — Washington and Baltimore The Journey Home ------._ 14^ VII THE CALL TO AMERICA AND ITS ACCEPTANCE Hints of a Coming Call. — An Atlantic Message. — The Call to America Accepted. — Remonstrances. — Reasons for Going. — Correspondence with America. — An Irish Esti- mate of Service Rendered - - - 169 VIII THE MINISTRY IN NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH Arrival in New York. — The New York Home. — The Fifth Avenue Church's History. — The Reunion. — Ideals of Education. — Ideals in Preaching. — Immediate Success. — Methods. — Pastoral Work - . - - 191 CONTENTS 13 IX THE NEW CHURCH BUILDING AND ENLARGING INFLUENCE New York's Changes. — The New Building. — Fellow- workers in the Congregation. — Outside Activities. — Education. — Home Missions. — Sunday-Schools. — ■ Powers as a Debater. — Church Extension and City- Missions. — Literary Work and Ambitions. — Theology 217 X HOME LIFE AND SUMMER TRAVELS Humor. — Freedom in Education. — Amusements. — The Va- cation. — San Francisco. — Illness. — Mother's Death. — Nephew's Death. — The House of Commons. — On Board Ship. — Germany. — Attempted Assassination. — The Press Absurd Reports . - . . 247 XI CONTROVERSY AND ATTEMPTED PEACEMAKING Powers of Controversy. — Revision. — Misunderstandings. — Counsels Rejected. — The Case of Dr. Briggs. — Union Seminary. — Attitude towards Extremists. — Conception of Fundamentals. ------- 273 XII SUCCESSES AND SHADOWS Degrees and Honors. — Inter-denominational Fellowship. — Church Unity. — Family Sorrows. — The Warsrawiak Case. — The Demanded Resignation. — The Congre- gational Protest.^The Church Reorganized - 293 XIII THE LAST JOURNEY HOME The Illness in New York. — Ordered to Buxton. — Increasing Weakness. — The Journey to Ireland. — Last Visit to Rut- 14 CONTENTS land Square Church. — The Journey Northward. — Home Longings. — The Last Hours . . - . 327 XIV THE LAST RITES The Funeral in Ireland. — The Remains Taken to New York. — Services in New York Tributes to the Memory, — The Last Resting-Place .... 337 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGES JOHN HALL Title THE HOME IN IRELAND 22 THE COLLEGE CIRCLE 49 MRS. JOHN HALL 88 DR. JOHN HALL AT THE AGE OF THIRTY 122 DR. JOHN HALL AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-EIGHT 148 CABLE— CALL TO AMERICA . . . 171 DR. JOHN HALL'S MOTHER .... 260 LIFE The " Roscommon and Leitrim Gazette" nth December, 18^0. Nay, Life is not the thing thou makest it ! 'tis not To work and rest, to eat and sleep, and say — 'tis well. 'Tis not to breathe the air of each new day, and tread Its round as does the sentinel, and boast at night That thou hast done thy work — ^it is not insect-like To flit from flower to flower — and sip what thou hast named A new delight : but which the wise fear not to call But perfumed poisons — it is not to kill the time. As though time were thy mortal enemy — 'tis not To hold up to thy lips the maddening cup, of which The fire distilled hath, worse than lightning — blighted souls, And been the prelude sad to fires eternal ! 'Tis not, where graceful forms obey the impulses Of sweet and joyous melody, and revel in The mazes of the dance, like her, who took the fee For her performance, in the faithful Baptist's blood 1 This is not Life, and if thou deem'st it is — alas ! Eternity will sadly undeceive thy soul. And Death will prove thy thought supremely mad ! Oh ! did'st thou know how minds, once like thine own, regard Thy trifling, thou would'st surely ask thyself at times " How seem I in the holy eye of Him who gave This life, and bade me serve Him ever ? " 'Tis not life ! 'Tis dancing on the scaffold — singing songs of joy. When justice saith of thee thou art " condemned already." No it is life, to serve the Maker of our soul. To feel His power, admit His justice, and escape 17 i8 LIFE His wrath deserved by sheltering beneath the tree Blood-sprinkled^ where, and only, where is life eternal — To be filled with holiest aspirations that take hold Of things in heaven, — to hope and fear, and act As children of a King. It is to consecrate The passing hour, and to the high behests of heaven To yield unfeigned submission — when the soul. Unchained, from earth's severest toils can look away With eye unkindled, upon crowns, and harps, and thrones, And say in humble faith, " these are for me — the blood Of Him I love hath bought them, and His grace hath made Them mine irrevocably." This is joyous life ! The dawning of a deathless day — the vestibule Of Heaven's own glorious temple — and who liveth thus, Shall tread its courts forever. Then, although our life Be '* but a vapor," it is such an one as shall Soar high in sunlight, leave its grosser part awhile On earth, and be absorbed into the holy heaven. I. BOYHOOD DAYS TO AN INFANT FROM THE PERSIAN EV SIR WILLIAM JONES When thou wast born, a naked helpless child, Thou only wept while all around thee smiled. So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep, Calm thou may'st smile, when all around thee weep. BOYHOOD DAYS THE PROyiNCE OF ULSTER. THE FAMILY HOME. EARLY TRAINING. SCHOOL LIFE. THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. EAR- LIEST MEMORIES. CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. THE Province of Ulster lacks some of the picturesque features tliat mark the southern and western parts of Ireland, nor is its soil the most fertile, yet a sturdy race has made it by far the most prosperous and contented portion of the Island. This northern section of the country was settled by Scotch and north of England Protestants to whom King James gave the land thus hoping to secure loyal support against the turbulent Roman Catholic opposition. ^ Among the Scotch settlers there went some of the family of Hall. The Scotch home is said to be still in the hands of the older branch of the family. All the descendants remained true to the old Scotch traditions, and the environment in which the subject of this memoir grew up was thus stoutly Protestant and Presbyterian. He was the eldest son of William Hall and Rachel McGowan. For six generations the family had maintained ' Cf. Prendergast's " Irish Settlement." 22 BOYHOOD DAYS possession of Ballygorman, County Armagh, where my father was born on the 31st of July, 1829. He was baptized in the same year on October 13th, by his mother's cousin the Rev. William McGowan. There came eight ' other children, all save three still living. Two little girls died in childhood, and one brother Robert Gillis, only survived his brother by about a year and a half. The three sisters still remain in the home country, but all the brothers either preceded or followed their eldest brother to America. It is not difficult for any one, at all familiar with the north of Ireland to form some picture of the simple home in which the family grew up. The little cottage still stands in the midst of the fields. A narrow lane bordered by thorn hedges leads up to the doorway. The softly rolling country is dotted by hundreds of other cottages not much varied in size and appearance. All neatly whitewashed, and now rather stiffly proud of slate roofs; these being an innovation. Part of the beauty of the countryside in the early days were the thatched roofs under which the birds built their nests, and twittered a noisy welcome to the early risers. Under a thatch ' Robert G., Hannah, Elizabeth, Sarah Jane, James, Mary, Mary Hall, Samuel M. Q < W o X w a BOYHOOD DAYS 23 roof William Hall brought up his family. He was a man of high standing and wide influence in his community. He was an elder in the Church, and with him the position was one of solemn responsibility. He seems also to have been a much sought counsellor in the affairs of the cojTimunity and to have enjoyed a wide acquaintance and high respect. Wealth he did not have. A large family and impaired health shadowed his later days with natural anxieties. Moreover the defalcation of a fellow trustee for a ward placed in their joint charge by the courts greatly harassed him. William Hall at once assumed the full responsi- bility of making good the loss. This sum was a large one for those days and circumstances; and although he carried out his resolution with un- swerving fidelity the effort must have contrib- uted, his children always thought, to the shorten- ing of his days. It was his ambition to give all his boys the education so eagerly coveted alike in the north of Ireland as in Scotland by Protestant parents for their sons. Very early, therefore, the eldest boy was started on the highroad of learn- ing at the little neighborhood school kept by a Mr. Wm. Whitten at Lough gilly. My father has left the following little sketch of that early day: 24 BOYHOOD DAYS "Probably a village school in Ulster, Ireland's most prosperous province, u'ould be less impress- ive to the adult mind than is a well-ordered Ward school in New York; but to the present writer, at the age of five, or a little more, nothing earthly could possibly be more solemn than the country school, the day he was introduced. He remembers the appalling hum as he approached, the awful introduction to "the master," the masked battery of strange and scrutinizing eyes, and the agony of suspense in which he sat and watched the retreating friendly form that had sheltered him till then, wondering what would now be done to him! With some such feelings, possibly, the Androcles whose acquaintance was made afterwards, awaited the approach of the lion. "And the lion became quite tame and like An- drocles, even kind. This teacher had only a parish school, one of that sort of which it was playfully said that the pupils mainly learned the catechism, and to take off their hats to the squire. But this man was a true teacher, and a gentleman — he is now a good clergyman in Canada — and if for no other reason, the present writer, in memory of him, will revere the calling of the teacher, and claim respect for the class as long as he lives." BOYHOOD DAYS 25 The more modern methods of learning without work were not then in vogue. The early drill, however, insured fair spelling and some knowl- edge of the English grammar. The much- thumbed spelling-book still exists, which was learned by heart from end to end, definitions and all. When that had been exhausted a short dictionary took its place, and was similarly mas- tered. At a very early age the handwriting of little John was formed, and by its regularity and beauty became the pride of a large family circle. So much indeed was this the case, that in the evening the younger children of the family and the neighbors round about were gathered in the kitchen of the farmhouse, and this, as the largest room obtainable, was made into a night- schoolroom with the eldest boy as teacher under the general superintendence of the parents. Any true picture of the family life of those days would imply almost poverty to those ac- customed to greater luxury. The daily fare was of the simplest character. The products of the farm being almost wholly relied upon to supply the table. Fresh meat was not freely eaten. In the evening those who had worked in the fields gathered about the turf fire in the kitchen and over it hung a huge pot of oatmeal boiled 26 BOYHOOD DAYS with the buttermilk from the dairy. This with oat-cakes formed the principal food of the whole countryside. Money was very scarce. The farm methods were exceedingly primitive, and the lack of coal and capital made any changes difficult and often unprofitable. Even the cloth- ing was largely home-made and constructed with a view rather to endurance than to fashion. Yet for all this, enforced simplicity was not felt as poverty. Nowhere in the world can there be found to this day, a prouder independence than among the self-sustaining Ulster farmers. When it became apparent that the capacity of the oldest son easily warranted the ambition of a college education, William Hall took up bravely the burden of making due preparation for this step. Mr. Whitten left soon for other parts, and his successor then confessed not long after that he could do no more for the boy. Some three miles from Ballygorman a man of good parts had established a classical school. The father at first took lodgings for his son near the school, but this plan was found to be inconvenient; then the boy, already tall for his age, walked with his school-books flung over his shoulder in a green bag. The walk was, however, too much for the growing lad, and the father bought him a pony. BOYHOOD DAYS 27 To the end of his days he carried the scar caused by the pony throwing him against a mile-stone on the roadside. The classical drill was narrow in range, but sound and thorough. The Latin of those days was never forgotten. And all through my father's life he had the habit of writing little ex- clamatory prayers in the Latin tongue in his note- books or at the close of sermons and addresses. The growing mind of a rather sober boy was now stimulated by the sense of increasing re- sponsibility. For the health of the father began now to fail steadily. Towards eventide the parent would take his eldest son by the hand, and with him would go out to the little orchard behind the cottage, and there overlooking the "far land" in the glow of the closing day, he would commune with God; and he himself pre- maturely bent with hard toil, anxiety and care, would impress on the boy's mind lessons he never forgot of fidelity to duty, obedience to God, dependence upon prayer, and of faithful- ness in all undertaken tasks. Even then the boy's mind was filled with awe and hope at the prospect of undertaking the public ministry of God's word. When the minister came, as was the wholesome custom, and gathered about him 28 BOYHOOD DAYS all the children to question and instruct them in religious matters, the eldest boy was always foremost in the accuracy of the answering. Each Sabbath the family made the way "across the bogs " if fine, along the roadway in wet or win- ter weather to the "meeting-house." Of this my father has left a description.' " High trees shade the place. Decent grave- stones, neat walks, beech hedges, and a high, strong wall dividing all from the main street — the one street of the village — give the place the air of a venerable and honored institution where the living worship, and where the dead repose. In the centre of the inclosure, along one side of which flows a rivulet through what was once a glen, rises the main building, solid in structure if not artistic in shape, and approached by a fitting gate, stone stairs and wide and sanded avenue, with the graves of the people right and left of it. You may walk straight up the aisle, with the pulpit on your left and out at the corresponding door, when another wide walk, similarly sur- rounded, takes you to the ' retiring-room.' Close by this retiring-room are the tombs of the minis- ters who lived and died among the people, and • In the New York Ledger, the owners of which have given generous permission to reprint any material found useful. BOYHOOD DAYS 29 over whose graves substantial monuments, with fitting inscriptions, invite the attention and ven- eration of all comers, and are read and re-read in the warm summer days, when the people are 'waiting for the minister to go in.' Where ' fifty years of faithful service ' are credited to a pastor whose remains sleep there — wife and several children beside him — it is not to be won- dered at if the name is repeated with tenderness, and held in veneration. "It is more than fifty years since the present writer was taken as a child to that ' meeting- house.' The minister was, to him, old, for a child counts any one old whose hair is turning gray, but he was remarkably kindly; and the kindness was all the more touching from the gravity of his bearing, and the dignity of his walk. I am not sure that all that he preached was understood, but it was all so solemn, tender, and suggestive of Deity and eternity, and the at- tention of the people was so reverent, that it was impossible to be inattentive. Much is said now- adays about making the churches attractive to the young, and the effort often leads in the direc- tion of competition with popular institutions that thrive by the number of tickets they can sell. The writer may be mistaken, but all his recollec- 30 BOYHOOD DAYS tions would indicate that to make the church and its service solemn, tender, true to the facts of life, real, sincere, and not a show of things not rendered real to the young mind, is the best way to make it revered and beloved by those who have not yet been demoralized by ' spectacles ' and palpable insincerities. "Fifty years ago the floors were earthen, ex- cept the great double pews at each end, which were ascended by a couple of steps, of course with a boarded floor and a wooden cover, like the venerable four-poster beds of the past genera- tion. In one of these it was the writer's privilege to sit and, while singing was going on, to gaze with admiration at the huge beams stretched from wall to wall, and on which rested the ' up- rights ' that held up the roof, for ceiling the building had none. On the angle made by the walls of two converging aisles stood the pulpit, high, narrow, with a roof over it with no visible support, and below it, a smaller one for the pre- centor, whose duty it was to give out each line of the psalm, sing it, or rather lead in the singing of it, and then give the next, and so on. These arrangements can be so described as to provoke a smile, but they were on the line of the life of the people; they were of a piece with the ways BOYHOOD DAYS 31 of other churches, and they were not incompat- ible with solemnity any more than with decency. 1 can well remember the Communion Sabbath — the long tables, covered with the white linen, stretching all the length of the aisles, and the people, psalm-books in hand, slowly and with the most devout bearing, moving out of their pews to their places, singing as they went: ' I'll of salvation take the cup, On God's name will I call ; I'll pay my vows now to the Lord Before His people all.' I have seen stately processions in historic cathe- drals, and still more moving spectacles of thou- sands starting to their feet under one impulse, but never anything more like reverent acknowl- edgment of the Divine than then appeared in the old meeting-house." Thus he grew up a tall thin lad, not then pos- sessing the muscular vigor he afterwards de- veloped, but with good health, and an envied reputation among his playmates for good temper, and although not strong yet quick and agile. Indeed at jumping he was long preeminent both at school and later at Belfast. Narrow means lose much of their terror when they are not contrasted with luxury, and do not 32 BOYHOOD DAYS place us in the power of others. The struggle with nature was hard for all alike. Manly inde- pendence was possible even to the poor. Thrift and daily toil entailed neither personal degrada- tion nor loss of social standing. Work was the normal occupation of all. Even as a young boy my father had helped to earn his school fees by giving lessons to those less advanced. When, therefore, it was decided that he should go to Bel- fast and prepare himself for the ministry,he looked forward, as did practically all his fellow-students, to helping himself through the course by teach- ing, prize-taking, and in other legitimate ways. There was a growing family to consider, and little sisters and brothers made the utmost econ- omy necessary. The atmosphere of the home was in the best sense of that word religious. At the same time intellectual influences were not lacking. William Hall, my grandfather, must have been a man of considerable intellectual force. Even while walking with the plough he would tell his boy stories from the Greek and Roman classics which he had gathered from well-used translations, and early he instilled into his son's mind a love for good English verse. Years afterwards my father could repeat poems he had so learned, and he BOYHOOD DAYS 33 never quite gave up the practice of from time to time learning verse. The simple easy rhythm of his pulpit style was, no doubt, in good part a product of this training. When John Hall went away to complete his education he carried with him, as he did through all his life the savor and fragrance of pious love. There were in those days in Ireland no com- mittees to grant money to any boy who induced his presbytery to give him a good character and who wanted to study at the expense of the church at large. There were, however, prizes and places that scholarship gave a claim upon. And although very young and by no means strong all the teachers were agreed that William Hall's eldest son should certainly go to Belfast and prepare for the ministry. The last penny of the sum spent by the unfaithful trustee had at length been paid, and the prospects of the family looked brighter. The classical school had been pretty well exhausted by the diligence of the pupil and so at a very early age it seemed best to send the youth to Belfast. It was a simple boyhood, filled with work, and with, perhaps, a minimum of play. Yet withal that childhood was always looked back to with tender memories of its joys, and a deep and rev- 34 BOYHOOD DAYS erent love for all the simple associations, and gentle influences of the home. Of that child- hood my father published himself some mem- ories in the Evangelical Witness under the date 1861. He was at that time himself the editor, so the impressions were not signed by him, but given under the heading "I remember," by "An Old Boy." Some extracts are as fol- lows: "I remember the first conscious impression I had of beauty. I think it almost as distinct a recollection as I have. It was a summer after- noon: we lived in the country, and in a house of no particular pretensions. It had trees about it, many of them sycamores, in which the wild bees were keeping up a pleasant hum. My brother — he was younger than I — and myself were playing in front of the house, when my mother raised the window, and calling us, handed each some bread and honey, with some kindly word — I for- get what. I think our pleasure pleased her, for her face beamed as it had never beamed to me before, and for the first time I was distinctly conscious that my mother was beautiful! It had a great effect on me. My mother was always good to me, and I revered her, but now I had a new feeling towards her. She was like an angel BOYHOOD DAYS 35 to me now. Ah, mother! long years have gone since then. On that face, there has been many a tear, tears over the little dead bodies, tears over their father's coffm, tears, no doubt, over me, and that face is changed to all others. 1 keep in my heart the photograph that was taken of it that summer afternoon, long, long ago, and I think, like that will be my mother's face to me in heaven. "1 remember the first real cry 1 ever, with my heart, sent up to God. Do not tell me that chil- dren have no troubles. Do not think because the tears soon give place to laughter they did not come from sorrow. I had early troubles, for there were tyrants — cruel and wanton tyrants of eight, nine and ten years of age, at school with me. The teacher closed it with prayer — a good cus- tom, — and I prayed. Prayers wrung from us by fear, I know, are not the best, but they are better than none, and I prayed them. My childish heart did actually ask God to save me from my tor- mentors. Oh, boys and girls! do not make any child's life bitter at school. He may cry to God against you, and God may hear and avenge him. ****** " I remember the first deep remorse 1 ever had. It was a dreary winter day, and 1 do not remem- 36 BOYHOOD DAYS ber how it came about, but a poor wretched dog came into our hands, and i and anotherboy made sorry sport for ourselves by throwing the creature into the water, pelting it with stones, and when it sweltered to the bank, pushing it in again. In one of its attempts to get out, I bent down to hurl it back, when the creature turned its eye on me with such a look of entreaty and reproach — such an appealing, deprecating lookl It went to my heart. 1 could not touch it again. 1 won- dered how my playmate could. I saved it from his hands, but I was too much of a coward to tell him why. Oh, I shall never forget that look from the dumb, helpless, suffering animal. It may seem profane to say it here, but I know the force of 'Jesus turned and looked upon Peter.' Many a time I have felt remorse since then, but I doubt if ever it was more poignant than under the eye of that poor dog. " I remember the first falsehood. My father had taken pains to teach me a lesson one evening, and he inquired particularly the next, was I not best in my class ? It was too much for me. I said yes, and felt degraded and condemned. Uncon- sciously he tempted me, but I should not have given way. And now I am older, I doubt if parents are wise when they inquire too minutely BOYHOOD DAYS 37 about the sayings and doings of tiieir young ones, from themselves. Our school, I am sure, was not a wonderful school in any way. You might see the boys and girls on a November morning, when the hoarfrost whitened the crisp grass, tripping along with little red hands, and shining faces, with a book or two under one arm and ' a turf (of peat) under the other, which, on enter- ing the school, was added to the heap that warmed the house for the day. And yet, simple and primitive as it was, we had the usual vari- ety of character, and 1 think, speaking generally, those whom 1 know now, are very much in ma- turity, what they were beginning to be as chil- dren. "I remember the first lively impression 1 had of natural beauty. 1 had gone to another school, from which I was returning through the field. It was the end of March, and a sunny afternoon. Descending a gentle incline towards a little stream, I stepped on the mound that rose above it on one side, to jump over it to the lower bank on the other. I paused before leaping. The water was clear, showing the smooth pebbles underneath it, and the sunbeams glinting off them through the little eddies. The wild plants on the margin were coming out, and the moss and water 38 BOYHOOD DAYS herbage had a cheerful tint of green, and all was so calm, so clear, so harmonious, so suggestive of — not thoughts but feelings — pleasant yet some- how pensive — as to seem almost intelligent. It was long before 1 made my leap, and went on my way. 1 have seen many things since, — mountain, glen and flood, but did I ever taste a purer joy from these than when I discovered that new delight ? * * ^ * 5ff * " I remember the first death 1 saw. When I was leaving home one morning for school, mother's face was more than commonly pale. She had been up all night, and on her knee lay the cause of her wakefulness. Poor baby was ill — she feared, dying. Her little bosom heaved — even I could see — too much, and her little placid face had a look of languor as she lay with the head thrown back on her mother's arms. Mother made me kiss the baby particularly; — her heart, I knew, would fain have kept me at home, but what could I do ? I went to school. When I came home the house was more than usually still, without and within. There was a hushed solem- nity over all, and I saw the little baby face, the stillness of death on it, and the little curls drawn out from the small white cap, and falling on the BOYHOOD DAYS 39 baby brow, and mother sat looking at the closed eyes, and hair, and little fingers, oh, with what a terrible, still grief! That was the first death that came near me, and 1 had far more thought about it than children are supposed to have. 1 used to stand with my mother, when we went to ' meeting ' — we went a little earlier often than the people — by the little grassy grave where baby lay, and I knew my mother was thinking of her little one, ' now ' she said, ' like an angel in heaven.' I know now what mother then felt. rp ^ ^ ^ ^ 't^ "1 remember when I first went to Sabbath- school. It was a union school, the curate and the country being joined in its management, and where little, stout red-leather Psalm-books, with clasps, were coveted prizes among the children, before they were big enough to earn Bibles. When they did earn them by giving in ever so many tickets, each representing a Sunday at school, and so many verses learned ' by heart ' what honest pride they felt! You might see the happy little maiden with her Bible in the folded pocket handkerchief, with a sprig of ' sither-wood ' — that fragrant (?) plant which the Scottish settlers brought with them — or mayhap a full-blown rose gracing the exposed top of the precious book, blithely 40 BOYHOOD DAYS tripping to 'meeting' with father or mother. Ah, me! these simple luxuries are giving place to French gold and fashionable 'gauntlets,' but we do not complain. The world moves, and we believe Ulster has never had as many Bible-loving maidens as at this moment. By such as these, one of them is in heaven now, 1 think, — 1 was conducted to the Sabbath- school. There was much learning of texts, and exercise of the memory. There was little exercise of the judgment and no appeal to the heart. The school did good, for it formed good habits, familiarized the mind with the words of the Scriptures; but it did far less good than it might, had there been teachers fit to teach. "1 remember reading seven chapters of Deu- teronomy in a morning in that school. On — on — on we went without note or comment. Now that 1 am older I see the need of training teachers if we are to get good from our Sunday-schools, and I am thankful, and I hope so are my readers, that we have so many to teach, speaking what they know, and inviting to a Saviour whom they have found themselves." The influences of that Christian home were always emphasized by my father. He felt that such surroundings made a vast difference in judg- BOYHOOD DAYS 41 ing of a life. He went himself naturally into all the full duties of the Christian profession, having been baptized into the Church as a child. In re- ply to an inquisitive editor, he once wrote: " In reply to your inquiries 1 have to say, with profound gratitude to God, that 1 was brought up in the closest connection with the church, learned the ' Shorter Catechism ' in my home, attended Sabbath-school, and, 1 think, believed in the Saviour for years before becoming a com- municant. This step I was permitted to take at the age of fourteen, after passing through the communicants' class of a faithful pastor." In this home the vacations away from college were always spent. And to the school whence he had gone to college he returned to assist dur- ing his leisure time. He also aided his father on the farm as much as he was able to, and while at home made himself useful by teaching the younger children. His sisters say they remember the dehght with which he was always welcomed back from Belfast, and to him they always looked almost more as a father than a brother in later years. II. LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST LINES TO A CLASSMATE ON ONE BEING TAKEN VERY ILL Matt. 8 : 14. Beside the sufferer's fever'd bed Behold the Saviour stand, Calmly He bids disease depart, And takes the burning hand. Obedient to the voice of Him Whose word allayed the storm. Fever at once the victim leaves — Forsakes the wasted form. And is the Saviour weaker now ? Shortened His helping arm ? Less willing, or less able He To shield from every harm ? No ! He whose word of matchless power Frees from the threatening grave — ■ Who set at nought the tomb's embrace, Has still the power to save. May He, then, now exert that power, Make groundless all our fears, And raise hitn from the bed of pain In answer to our prayers ! Restore him. Lord ! to eager friends. As gold tried and refined, That he may preach a Saviour's love, And mercy to mankind. — J. Hall. 44 II LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST EARLY ENTRANCE AT COLLEGE. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE PLACE. DR. COOKE AND DR. EDGAR. THE UNDER- GRADUATE DAYS. SPECIAL RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. THE EVANGELICAL INFLUENCES. HIS FATHER'S DEATH. THE CON- NAUGHT PROPOSALS. IT was at an exceedingly early age even in those days that the name of John Hall was in- scribed on the books of the College at Belfast. He began his work there with the autumn session of 1841, and was therefore just beginning his thirteenth year. It is of no little importance to form some estimate of the religious and in- tellectual atmosphere from which the boy went and into which he entered. Ireland was feeling the full force of the evangelical movement. What Dr. Chalmers was in his way doing for Scotland Dr. Henry Cooke was accomplishing for Ireland. The home in Ballygorman had felt the impulses of a newly awakened religious life. The type of personal piety which was one of the best products of the evangelical movement was familiar to the lad as he saw it in both his father and mother. He was too young to have been 45 46 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST greatly stirred by the battle which Dr. Cooke had just won against moderatism and a loose Arian- ism— as it was called in those days. The signs of Dr. Cooke's victory were the enforcement of subscription to the standards and the control of the theological teaching in Belfast. The intellectual life of the north of Ireland had been quickened by the struggle. Although the College of Bel- fast as then at work would to-day be regarded as poorly equipped, and badly arranged, neither equipment nor systems really constitute a place of learning. There was to be found in its teach- ing the fresh earnest spirit of a triumphant church. The class-rooms still resounded with the arguments and the battle-cries of the past conflict, but better than these battle-cries there pervaded the lecture-rooms a deep sense of a newly awakened religious feeling. High per- sonal standards of godly living and entire con- secration to the work of the ministry made the theological students a powerful influence among their fellows. The whole atmosphere of the place was pervaded by the intense feeling to which the reawakening had given rise. According to the arrangement of studies the first sessions were devoted to the liberal arts. The professors in the theological department LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 47 taught however, here also. Hence the degree conferred upon "Johannem Hall" in November, 1845, is signed by Drs. Edgar as the moderator pro tern, Robert Parks, Adam Mongomery (Ex- aminer in Natural Philosophy), Killen (Professor of History), Robert Wilson (of Sacred Literature), Esaias Stern (Mathematics), and John Bentley (Examiner in Latin). From this it is seen that even in the undergraduate days theological in- terests were not neglected. Lecture courses were paid for as they were listened to, and the student received a card from the professor sta- ting that the fee had been paid and the course completed. At the end of the courses examina- tions were held, and in many departments extra examinations for prizes were also taken. The note-books of these early studies only in part survive, and are not neatly kept. But the note- books of the later specifically theological class- room work exhibit great care, and are written in the fine and legible handwriting of which men- tion has already been made. Student life in those days was not what it has since become; and was totally different from the highly organized life of an American College. The standard of expense was very low, and nearly all earned their way in part at least. It is 48 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST needless to say that a walk in the country was the only athletic exercise common to all, and that col- lege life was almost unknown. The students lived in lodgings. They generally supplied their own breakfasts and teas. Dinner was supplied to groups, who clubbed together for the purpose, by enterprising families in the neighborhood of the college building. The class-rooms were often overcrowded. Some of the instruction was in- ferior in quality. At the same time a spirit of earnestness and work made the life a fruitful one in achievement afterwards. For a boy so young as was the subject of this life the work was hard, and in addition my father soon began to teach in a girls' school some distance from the college buildings. This work of teaching he maintained until the close of his studies. He often spoke of having rather wasted the first two or three years of his Belfast days, but that is not the impression made by the record of his daily doings. His own testimony how- ever, given in a letter written years after, to a nephew is as follows: "I lost a good deal of time from being irregular in my ways of work- ing, at one time idling, and at another working like a horse, though the result was too often sugges- tive of another animal with longer ears. 1 hope you - /I / '^V /' LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 49 will work steadily, never running in arrears. Be thorough in whatever you learn and skim nothing." Undoubtedly the real intellectual and spiritual influences of the college began to be felt most distinctly when the formal theological courses had been entered upon. It was at this time that a few earnest friends banded themselves together to pray, to improve their own spiritual life and to promote a new missionary spirit. When separating for their life- work these friends resolved that on Saturday evenings they should remember each other in prayers and by name as long as they lived. That little roll of names has been sadly re- duced by death and the everlasting reunion of an eternal fellowship has begun. The fel- lowship was very dear to them all, and formed an abiding influence upon my father's life. Often on Saturday nights he spoke of those friends, and recalled the early aspirations and inspirations of those college days. He had later in life a little reproduction made of his list of names and addresses as he furnished them to the little band as a reminder of their pledge. The missionary spirit was particularly empha- sized by Dr. Edgar who met with the students and guided them in their work and prayer con- 50 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST ferences. Hence his name appears among those to be ever remembered before the throne of grace, although he was as a teacher looked upon somewhat differently from the student friends. To Dr. Edgar all eagerly went for advice and help, and his theology seems, along with that of Dr. Cooke, to have practically moulded the the- ological thought of the little band. The type of thought was that prevalent about that time in Calvinistic circles that had felt the in- fluence of the evangelical movement. Naturally it was eclectic and not always scientifically self- consistent, but in its clear definiteness, and sharp positive outlines, it was a system well suited for the practical work given the men to do. In Hebrew and Church History and later in Church History Essays my father repeatedly took prizes for good work. These were in the form of well selected books, admirably bound, and well fitted even to-day to grace a good library. Naturally the north of Ireland looked largely to Scotland for intellectual stimulus. Continental thought left little or no traces on the lecture notes, and many of the modern questions were, of course, not even considered. Dr. Cooke in his controversy had had occasion to build up a very strict theory of inspiration, and this was LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 51 thoroughly inculcated not only by himself, but by the teachers whom he had to some degree gathered about him in Belfast. The main out- lines of this system were accepted cordially by my father, and he never saw any reason for seriously modifying them. The influence of Dr. Cooke's clear system softened a good deal by the kindlier spirit of Dr. Edgar is marked in the correspondence of all these student friends throughout its course. In after years the influence of this supreme man of action is traceable throughout my father's life, even though differences on various subjects had somewhat widely separated Dr. Cooke from my father. At this time, also, a struggle was going on in the then established church of Ireland, which influenced the young student. This con- flict was between the evangelical elements on the one hand, and the so-called "high and dry" party on the other, whose ascendency dated from Laud. In this struggle the sympathies of the Presbyterians were naturally with evangelical- ism. This produced a very deep and bitter feel- ing against the Presbyterians on the part of the Established Church on its high church side. In- deed they attempted to revive old laws by which certain Presbyterian marriages were illegal, and 52 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST only in 1844 was a bill passed in the face of the bitter opposition of the Irish bishops making the offspring of such marriages legitimate. The teaching therefore of Belfast at that time was full of polemic, not always moderate in tone, against the claims of Rome and the High Church Episco- pacy. Particularly forceful and complete was Dr. Killen's treatment of the Protestant side of this controversy. These were the special in- fluences that controlled to a good degree the de- velopment of my father's thought. At the same time distinct notes of the evangel- ical awakening appear in his early religious ex- perience. The very banding together of the group of friends reminds us of similar bands in Oxford and under the haystack in New England. The missionary spirit was new to Presbyterian- ism, and was an importation from the evangel- ical awakening. This laid strong hold upon these friends, and the field of labor nearest to them was Connaught and the south of Ireland generally. The students of the college formed a society to support missionaries of their own in this region. In this work my father took an active part. , The social activity of the awakening was also a marked feature of the best religious life of those days. Temperance bands were formed to LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 53 combat the great and increasing evils of drunk- enness. The older orthodoxy looked with sus- picious eye upon this movement, and some fiercely resented it as an imputation upon the virtue and Christian living of undoubtedly good men o( the past, who nevertheless often came home decidedly the worse for the social glass always offered at weddings or any social gathering. It was at that time the custom, as it indeed still is in parts of Ireland to-day, to distribute "tokens" or little pieces of metal before the communion to those qualified to go to the Lord's table. The minister before the quarterly com- munion distributes these ' ' tokens, " going with an elder from house to house. At each house some- thing was offered to drink, and alas! many a time the days before the communion found excellent men of really godly disposition confused and dis- turbed if not actually intoxicated in consequence of the necessity laid upon them of accepting this mis- taken hospitality. Against this evil my grand- father, William Hall as an elder protested. And al- though he was not himself a total abstainer in the technical sense, he impressed upon his boy John the sense ofthe evils of intemperance, and led the young student to give much of his time both as a young man and later on in life to temperance reform. 54 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST My father wrote once what he called a "tem- perate autobiography " in explanation of his stand in this matter. He did not sympathize with the political extremists in his American life, and to some degree the "autobiography" was in answer to criticisms upon his position. I venture to quote the article almost in full. " In good old times fifty years ago, informal hospitality took the frequent form of a ' glass of wine' or 'punch.' It was the handiest thing to offer a caller who came between meals. The farmers were civil to one another in the way of exchanging drinks at fair or market. Indeed, in many cases, this was the way in which they paid for the care of their horses: they 'put up' in the yard of such an inn, and it was the correct thing to ' take something for the good of the house.' In every parish one could name two or three farmers known to be 'too fond of a glass;' but the thing would not be much or severely spoken of. It was often the one blot on the life, otherwise exceptionally good and kindly. Boys were not encouraged to drink; and com- monly did not. "At college, at the age of thirteen, I heard, now and then, of a student who took drink to excess. Sometimes they were what we called the ' mad- LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 55 icals.' Illustrating the differences in habits in different countries, for a man to be known as taking 'oyster suppers' then imperilled his reputation. They were a form of costly luxury, indulgence in which was suspicious. We were few of us rich. We all paid our own way, and our class fees, and most of us learned two things — the value of a shilling, and the habit of self- reliance. The only temperance advocates of whom I had then any knowledge were three; first. Father Mathew, who, from 1840 onward, made himself felt in Ireland; then Lyman Beecher, whose ' six sermons ' had been brought to my notice by Dr. John Edgar, the third, and who ardently urged temperance as distinguished from total abstinence. Though he took no wine himself, his arguments and societies were against the use of 'intoxicating liquors,' and he did not put wine among them. The first I only knew by public reports; the second by the 'six sermons;' the third I often heard, and later came to know intimately. He was a noble, elo- quent, public-spirited man. " Before graduating I lived for eighteen months in the house of the teacher at whose school I had prepared for college. I was classical master. Friendly entertainments were common, for he 56 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST was well-to-do and hospitable. From the influ- ences already named 1 took no drink at dinner, the way being, on these occasions, to remove the cloth, and set down wines and stronger drinks, sugar and hot water. I recall with gratitude the kindness of his wife who used to 'slip' before me delicious raspberry vinegar, which, with sugar and hot water, looked as nice as anybody's 'tumbler,' and saved the awkwardness of a very verdant youth tacitly rebuking his seniors. The hospitality was well meant, but bad in its effects. I can recall, among others, a man of un- doubted genius — for it requires genius to inspire boys of twelve with a love of Homer — whose professional career was marred by the habits there, at least in part, contracted. " Entering the theological college in 1845, 1 was a student under Dr. Edgar. Some ministers had been deposed for intemperance. A temperance society was formed; it is hard to say why, but my fellow-students made me its secretary. Its promise was against ' intoxicating drinks.' We were not bound against wine, but we rarely drank it; some from disinclination; some for the same reason that many estimable people here in New York do not eat terrapin. " We were practically total abstainers, but with LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 57 a general idea that to include wine in our pledge would reflect upon names and institutions relig- iously dear to us. Then I became a minister, and of course had often to remonstrate with persons Vv'ho ' drank to be drunk.' Many of these were farmers, first in the West, and then in the county- town of my native county. A sturdy farmer of my charge would fall under my eye, on the mar- ket-day, when he would rather not have seen me. Talking to him then would have been un- wise. Taking him in a calmer mood and a quieter place I would make my kindly protest. These men are commonly honest and frank, and I always liked them for it. ' All very well, for you, Mr. Hall,' (I had not been doctored then), 'to talk that way. You can take your wine. We can't do that ; we take what we can get, and it is stronger.' So he would answer. "Then it was — over thirty years ago — that I came to say: 'Well, I rarely take it, but to take that ground from under your feet, here, now, I abstain from wine, too, as a beverage,' and I found the appeal so made had its weight with them. I found others of my friends pursuing the same course, and also putting it from their table, and ceasing to offer it to friends. When we said ' as a beverage ' we meant to exclude 58 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST the communion wine and the medicinal use of it, and on that ground my old associates in Ireland still stand." The enthusiasm of the temperance band men- tioned above for temperance reform finds expres- sion in the correspondence of that date. Slavery was not a burning question in the north of Ireland, but it was one of the issues forced upon England by the evangelical revival, so in Ireland also meetings were held to denounce slavery and encourage the " underground rail- road " in America in its operations just then be- ginning. This "heresy," for so it also was deemed by the older orthodoxy, my father also embraced, and this interest together with the missionary enthusiasm soon led to a correspondence with Mr. George H. Stuart of Philadelphia, his distant cousin and lifelong friend. Perhaps, however, the most signal note of the marked connection between the evangelical movement and this religious interest was the emphasis early placed upon teaching. Just as the Methodist movement began by starting schools, so the missionary activity of the new spiritual life in the north of Ireland was shown in the desire to bring spelling and reading within LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 59 the reach of even the poorest, whether Protestant or Catholic. This firm confidence that education must bring the truth of God to light, and a cer- tain fearlessness born of the assurance that the truth will stand examination marked the whole tone of Dr. Cooke's and Dr. Edgar's teachings; it also controlled wholesomely their ecclesiastical policy, but has not always found imitators. This same Protestant spirit also marked the temper of my father. He felt that even danger- ous teachings must be duly and fairly examined, then answered and exposed. In this spirit and under the guidance of Dr. Killen he made as a student an examination of the Jesuit movement, and produced an essay that gained recognition by taking of a prize. The fairness and calmness of the treatment of this topic by a boy in the north of Ireland at that day is a quite remarkable evi- dence of the sanity of the historical class-room. Naturally the literature at hand was limited in amount and defective in accuracy; at the same time the spirit of the essay is scholarly and al- though of course intensely Protestant is free from the fanatical perversions all too common in even mature polemical writing. The personal religious life of the day was also strongly under the influence of the evangelical 6o LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST modes of expression. The eager, sober-minded student, hardly started upon the ministry before a diary was opened in which religious experience and the results of careful self-examination are duly noted. Later side-notes mark the distrust my father felt of this excessive self-examination made common by the Methodist class-room. At the same time what has for us at this day an air of unreality if not of positive cant, was without question the sincere and earnest expression of powerful longings, not always happily expressed, for a more profound spiritual experience, and a higher personal attainment in holiness. Another mark was the religious poetry in which all the friends seem to have more or less indulged. In undergraduate days my father filled a note-book with somewhat indifferent, yet harmless and even smooth good English verse. Later he brands the volume as "trash" and marks the fact that now he despised what he then admired, and disclaims particularly some very harmless verse in honor of a young lady related to him and an old family friend. From this on the verses are religious in character, though the literary quality does not improve. In his later studies of English literature the student again re- turned to secular themes, and often my father has LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 6i told me that verse making was in his judgment a fine training for the rhythm and balance needed in a rhetorical pulpit style. He continued also the habit gained from his father of learning poetry, and although he seldom quoted it in his later years, his early sermons have frequent quo- tations included, and indeed so many are closed with a selection of poetry that it seems almost to have been a habit in early life to do this. At this time the young student's taste seems to have been for the rather morbid religious poetry of the evangelical revival, and for Byron. He did not own Shakespeare, but at his boarding- house in Belfast the works of the master were in the dining-room. School duties kept him up to dinner-time, or nearly so, and he went directly from the school where he taught to the boarding- place. There in the few minutes that elapsed before the meal was ready he succeeded in read- ing the whole edition through. The class-book notes of some of the college afternoon sessions are enriched by eager imitations of the dramas that had been thus devoured while he was wait- ing. Life early became a very sober reality for the eldest boy in a large family. The head of the household was most evidently failing rapidly. 62 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST Both father and son were eager to see the college and theological courses completed. For the father this was not quite to be. On the 20th of September, 1848, the son was suddenly called to say farewell to his best earthly friend. He had reached home in time, and in a letter to his friend Matthew Kerr he announced his loss. The letter is mature for a lad of nineteen in the midst of his first real and terrible sorrow. He writes : 45 Joy Street, September 26th. My Dear Matthew : The event which has stained this paper (the black border) has been the cause of my long silence at which you no doubt wondered. On Saturday fortnight I was written for to see my father, and till he had passed into a world without sickness or pain I sat by his bed, rejoicing that in him patience had (done) its perfect work. . . . After this he had no pain but what followed from weakness and exhaustion and on Tuesday night last slept in Jesus. The day before I got home he had " set his house in order," and after that act he spoke and prayed as one who had no more to do with the world. He was able to converse freely till the last, and his conversation was in heaven. We had made it a subject of prayer that he might have such glimpses of the glory that shall be revealed as might entirely wean the affections from earth — was that right? At any rate, it would appear to have been granted, as he spoke of the last enemy with perfect composure, talked of his change with joy though we all wept around him, and appeared to have much of the assurance of faith. On my offering him a little wine at one time he said he should soon " drink new wine in our Father's Kingdom," and when I asked him had he no fears for eternity, his answer was " Who is he that condemneth ? It LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 63 is Christ tliat died, etc." I liave reason to bless God that I was able to talk with him as one friend to another for it seemed as if the relations of father and son were at times forgotten and we became equals in Christ. On Friday most of our congregation, of which he was the oldest elder, though but fifty, and very many friends of all denominations accompanied all of him that was mortal to the house appointed for all living. The text of a funeral sermon preached yesterday was appropriate, " The righteous hath hope in his death." ... I hope you will write to me soon. I trust I am not repining although I feel very lonely and melancholy, at times I cannot repress a feel- ing of desolation — but I bless God that I need not sorrow as those who have no hope. If you would learn divinity go to the deathbed of a believer, if you would know the meaning of Christ's being precious see a believer looking death in the face. If you would see the sufficiency of the doctrine of free grace to support and comfort in the last struggles hear a believer's dying words. My father's were " I die happy." This he repealed suddenly as if some new idea had flashed on his mind. After this he only repeated with difficulty " Why tarry the wheels, etc.," and soon after murmured with difificulty "joy unspeakable and full of glory ! " and soon slept away. Dear Matthew, " may you and I die the death of the righteous, and let our latter end be like his." . . . Ever affectionately yours, J. Hall. This death meant very serious struggle with uncertainty and various calls of seeming duty. The family was not rich. The teaching that had so largely been supporting the student had been given up to go to the sick bedside. And a call to go to work in Connaught had been pressed in- directly by some interested in the schools there. 64 LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST The mother was firm in her intention to have the study for God's ministry unbroken. The place in the school was kept open, and my father re- turned feeling that he could be more use to his brothers and sisters if he completed honorably his course of study. It was with heart heavy with a sense of responsibility for the whole family, a burden never laid down while life lasted, that the bereaved boy returned to Belfast to take up the final duties and decisions of a last year of the- ological education. The band of students had settled upon their youngest member to represent them on the mis- sionary field of Connaught. Matthew Kerr and Hamilton Magee were already at work, and with much misgiving and fear and trembling the de- cision was accepted as "from the Lord," and the immediate future was thus determined. Al- though with a large measure of self-control my father was really a shy and self-distrustful man. He was also proud in the best sense of that word. Self-respect was born in him, and no virtue has shone more clearly in the stock from which he sprang. He greatly dreaded the coming plunge into active life. He dreaded meeting new faces and new ways. And yet through his shy self- distrust there breaks from time to time the sense LIFE AND STUDIES IN BELFAST 65 of strength and confidence in his cause and in himself. He passed out from the college with the love and respect of all his classmates, and the high regards of his instructors. With Dr. Edgar and Dr. Killen his relations became those of intimacy. With Dr. Cooke he always felt a sense of "dis- tant awe," he once remarked, and although the relations remained cordial up to the parting, when death took Dr. Cooke, yet some differences of judgment in regard to ecclesiastical politics pre- vented, in addition to great differences in age, the same intimate relations that marked the friendships with the others. Moreover Dr. Cooke was in these last years not very active as a teacher, and only in his ministry and in a class in Bible exposition did my father come much in contact with the great leader to whom Irish Prot- estantism owes so great a debt. III. THE WEST OF IRELAND JESUS, SAVIOUR, PLEAD FOR ME ! Weaker than a bruisM reed, Lord, I go Thy cause to plead ; Thou my guide, ray helper be, Jesus, Saviour, plead for me I Though I meet contempt and scorn I'll recall what Thou hast borne ; Thou hast shared in failure's lot. And Thine own received Thee not. Give me, Lord, Thy humble mind, Make me courteous, meek and kind. What I need do Thou impart. Help me reach man's hungry heart. Grant me, as in utmost need For Thee and Thy cause to plead ; Should my voice still powerless be, Jesus, Saviour, plead for me ! — J. H. in Missionary Herald, i85o. 68 Ill THE WEST OF IRELAND CHARACTER OF THE IVEST. THE SOCIAL CONDITIONS. THE ■POTATO BLIGHT. DR. EDGAR'S NOTE OF ALARM. SYMPATHY IN BELFAST. THE STUDENT MISSIONARY. "PULPIT SHYNESS. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. THE FORMS OF OPPOSITION. NEWS- "PAPER IVORK. THE CALL TO ARMAGH. ALL the evils of wrong social adjustment in its many forms have made themselves seen in fearful vividness in Ireland. The distances be- tween the owners and the workers of the soil have been made felt by differences in religion, custom, race and even tongue. In the change from an agricultural to an industrial state England suffered bitterly, but she had coal and made the change to her advantage in the main. Ireland had no coal. Blundering and even purposely selfish laws had wiped out what industry Ireland possessed. Only in the north of Ireland, — where relative homogeneity of population, a greater intelligence, Protestant freedom and the nearness of English coal gave industry a chance to survive, did the population really prosper. In the south and west the introduction of the potato made existence possible for a large pop- 69 70 THE WEST OF IRELAND ulation, but it also excluded any thought of proper progress. No section was more depend- ent upon the potato than the beautiful but poor province of Connaught, and no part of that prov- ince is poorer than the southern section immedi- ately between the Shannon and the wild Atlantic. Here in 1846 the blight that fell upon the potato was felt at once. Hunger stared the peasant in the face. Dr. John Edgar, professor of divinity at the Royal college of Belfast, was at that time in Con- naught making an evangelistic tour. He was the first to sound the alarm of coming famine in a letter which had an enormous circulation. The interest aroused in Belfast was, of course, very great. In a letter to the Banner of Ulster Dr. Edgar wrote of the population: " The great pro- portion of them live on a bare and unproductive soil; a few are possessors of as fertile a land as was ever warmed by a genial sun. But what can a farm of three or four acres — the average size over large districts — do for the support of a family ? Oats grown on it all, without any pas- ture for the lean ass, man's faithful servant here, would be far, indeed, from producing, in meal, a sufficient supply, even were the landlord to forego his whole claim. The potato, therefore, has been the only resource, and in most cases THE WEST OF IRELAND 71 without any addition but salt, or as a luxury salt fish, their only food. Corn mills are for the rich, and even the old querns,' once turned by the hand of the poor, are of no use now; for the pig so carefully reared, and all the corn, scarcely suf- fice to satisfy the landlord's demands." The awful year of famine was followed by a year of hunger typhus. The famine had not, of course, touched the richer land-owning classes, but the fever did, and in 1848 their resources were strained and financial disaster followed for them. Ruin passed from family to family over the whole south and west of the country. Then to crown all in 1849 cholera made its ap- pearance and stalked amidst the hunger-racked peasantry, and the now bewildered and dis- heartened gentry. It was only natural that the Student's Mission- ary association, with Dr. Edgar as the leading spirit, should turn to distracted Connaught for their field of labor. So it came about that the association chose one of the youngest graduates of 1849 to follow some friends, sent the year before, into the work of home missions in the west of Ireland. > Quern was the coarse hand-mill used to grind the corn for distilling purposes. 72 THE WEST OF IRELAND It was thus in the summer of 1849, on the 6th of June, that my father started on the long journey, of those days, for Connaught. The mail coach left Belfast very early in the morning, but only part of the way could be travelled by the mail coach, hence a car was used from Cloue to the final destination. It was with great fear and trembling that the raw and shy lad fresh from college undertook the work. Letters of that period speak of long and prayerful consideration. Self-distrust and fear lest the cause should suffer through inexperience or want of thought made the young student hes- itate longer than Dr. Edgar thought right, in un- dertaking the commission of the students. The examination before the presbytery had been satisfactory, although shyness had been so marked in the sermon which had to be preached, that one of the older members in kindly fashion told the young preacher he would get more help look- ing into the eyes of those he was speaking to than by trying to bore a hole in the roof with his eye. ' The work Dr. Edgar had started in the west of Ireland consisted largely in schools of an indus- trial as well as religious character. He had seen ' The first actual sermon preached was in the little school- house at Ballygorman — his old home. THE WEST OF IRELAND 73 that the population must learn to support itself, and that particularly the women must be taught some useful art. Thousands of the young men were already leaving the countryside. Women and girls were left. Knitting and embroidering linen were the household arts of the north of Ireland. An association was formed in Belfast of women to cooperate with Christian women over the west of Ireland in founding schools in which reading the Bible and knitting and em- broidery formed the threefold course. In this school work teachers were employed, but volun- tary effort was also engaged. My father had had, for so young a man, a wide experience in teaching. As a mere child he had taught a night class, as we have seen, in the kitchen of the old home. From that on he was engaged in teaching more or less steadily all through his course. In his college experience he had had to do with girls and young ladies, some older than himself. All this was of great help to him as he undertook his missionary work in Ireland. Often in after life he has said to me, "No knowledge or experience comes amiss to the preacher." His work was the inspection of schools, preach- ing at various stations, distributing tracts, visit- 74 THE WEST OF IRELAND ing the people at their homes, and establishing Sunday-schools. He rode a good deal from place to place, and preached as often as a service could be arranged. The nearest larger centre was Boyle, and headquarters were near Camlin. Here the schools had had the earnest and untiring support of Mrs. Emily Irwin, the lifelong friend of Dr. Edgar. From the very beginning of the work a warm friendship was established be- tween Mrs. Irwin and my father. Mrs. Irwin had been married very early in life, and very early had been left a widow with three little boys. The affection between my father and Mrs. Irwin ripened into love, and very soon a practical en- gagement was concluded. The union was a most fitting one, and like interests and tastes made the relationship a sweet and blessed partnership in the life work of the ministry. Mrs. Irwin had offered a site to her own church — the Established Church of Ireland — for a school, but this offer was refused. Dr. Edgar however accepted it, and secured hearty support of his work in Cam- lin from the whole Irwin relationship. These schools were productive of a vast amount of good, and years after in the far west of America prosperous farms and comfortable homes told of the good the instruction in these schools had done. THE WEST OF IRELAND 75 One of the little band of college friends, the Rev. Matthew Kerr, was at work at Dromore West, some distance from Boyle, and another, the Rev. Hamilton Magee, was engaged at some little distance from Dromore. It was therefore one of the pleasures of the work that an occasional day could be spent together. Thus on the i8th of June is an entry in a day-book, kept rather irreg- ularly: — "Came home Sunday night wearied from preaching, but did not go to bed. At three o'clock A. M. rode to Boyle, by mail to Ballysodere — thence by coach to Dromore to meet my dear friend Matt. Kerr — all day there — saw 'the Tower ' and in the evening joined by Hamilton Magee — happy." The ordination as missionary took place in October in Ballina where the presbytery met in 1850, and by that time the work of the district was in fullest activity. The discouragements were however great. Many were leaving for America. Land was rising again in rental price from the efforts of English undertakers to in- crease the size of holdings and use the land for pastorage. Nor was the reception on the part of the Roman Catholic priest cordial. They looked upon the whole movement as an attempt to take advantage of the needs of the people to proselytize. 76 THE WEST OF IRELAND The work although done by Presbyterian min- isters was in some sense undenominational. Money was contributed to the school work by Methodists, Episcopalians and especially by Quakers. The instruction was simple and mainly in the reading of the Bible. Even Roman Catholic teachers were employed, and no pressure was brought to bear on either parents or chil- dren to become Protestants, save only as the in- struction in reading the Bible tended that way. Yet it was distinctly not only a Protestant but an evangelical work and as such had the natural op- position of the priests. Nor were the priests the only ones to resent the movement. The High Church party of those days was rather the party of Laud and the " high and dry' Anglicans of English History, than what we now understand by the term. For this type of thinking the Presbyterian Church was more unsympathetic than the Roman communion. The Established Church was sharply divided into evangelical and High Church parties. The evan- gelicals eagerly assisted in all the work of the schools, and indeed in most cases had charge of them. The rector and curate, however, of Boyle fiercely resented the intrusion of Presbyterian preaching. In a letter dated June the eleventh. THE WEST OF IRELAND 77 1850, my father writes to his friend the Rev. Matthew Kerr: "My Dear Matthew: — " I fear you think I was 'stiff ' in the matter of your ' soiree.' No, no, I really could not go. About that time the Boyle clergy were preaching against me, and one of the sermons I am told is in the press. The result will, I trust, be most beneficial to us. It was meantime diminished by half our Boyle congregations; one of the curates actually walking before the chapel, and turning the people back. But it has confirmed many of our higher class hearers who won't be frightened and who come out here (Camlin) to show their sense of the wrong done us. The curate in one sermon, without any names, com- pared me to 'Absalom (!) stealing the hearts of his Israel,' and warned them against being led away by ' youthful zeal, etc' On Monday week a missionary Church clergyman, a rector in County Longford, visited Camlin, where I dined on the day of his arrival to meet him. I asked him to lecture for me next evening, which he did. 1 conducted the services and he preached. On Thursday he went into Boyle with me and 78 THE WEST OF IRELAND was a hearer in our congregation. This has set all the High Church element about Boyle into the most violent ferment, and they talk of ' bringing him over the coals ' for it." On the other hand the relations with the Wesleyans and the evangelical section of the Established Church were most cordial. The superstition of the people was very great. At one time a priest denounced from the altar with great violence my mother who was exceedingly active in the school and relief work. That week she was taken very ill with fever, and for some weeks lay at death's door. The interpretation put upon the incident was in danger of really in- juring the school work, when the priest himself took ill. He, poor fellow, died of the disease and my mother fully recovered. The supersti- tious people now reversed the judgment and saw in the circumstance a direct endorsement of what the poor priest had denounced. Another discouragement was the political con- dition. The fierce resentment of the oppressed Irish poor sought political utterance. The leaders were however, naturally, not of the highest class, and political violence and short-sighted demands united the landowning and intelligent classes in a resistance to the peasant movement which in- THE WEST OF IRELAND 79 eluded many reasonable demands as well as the unreasoning violence. The condition was de- plorable. Dr. Edgar himself described it vividly in a letter to the Banner of Ulster. "The real fact of the case is this: — The poor Connaught man eats none of his own corn, none of his own butter, pig, all go to pay his rent; and whatever potatoes remain after the pig is fed, are the only food, the only support of his family." He also defended in the same letter the character of the Connaught peasant. "It is a libel," he wrote, " on the poor Irishman to say that he is too lazy or too savage to seek for better food than pota- toes. His only nourishment is potatoes because the other products of his farm, go to his landlord, and because potatoes are the only crop sufficiently productive to save himself and his family from starvation." Around Camlin the poverty was not quite so great as in some other districts, yet on the whole the poverty was deep, settled and extreme. The Mayo district Dr. Edgar in another place describes as follows: "When distress comes on a man in humble life here, (the north of Ireland) he has some little store on which to draw — if not money at least furniture, or extra clothing, which he can place in pawn; but the Connaught man has no 8o THE WEST OF IRELAND clothing but what he wears; and as for furniture, you might enter house after house in Connaught, as I have done, and find no table, no chair, no cupboard, no bedstead, deserving the name, no spoon, no knife, no anything, except a square box, and a potato pot, which a pawnbroker would not take in pawn. In fact a large propor- tion of the houses are not fit for anything that we would dignify with the name of furniture. They have no chimney, no window; their floors are fearfully damp, their roofs are often not water-tight, and the general custom is to have cow, pig, ass, and geese, all in the same apart- ment with the family — all sleeping together, and all going in and out by the same door." Amid such scenes the work was often depress- ing in the extreme, and in the notes and verses of this period there is reflected at times the wear- iness and heartsickness such poverty and blank ignorance must produce. The cheerful home in Camlin was a pleasure that could only be enjoyed at intervals. The first year and a half were spent in unceasing in- spections of schools and preaching at stations often widely apart, with the congregation at Boyle always demanding steady attention. Then study had to be kept up, and late hours became THE WEST OF IRELAND 8i the rule. At last health began to suffer, and the diary begins to note the fact that bed had to be sought earlier, and work had to be done in the morning. Yet up to very late in life the habit of my father was to do much of his work late at night. The house was quiet, callers did not dis- turb, and far on into the small hours the busy pen kept rapid pace on the paper. In Connaught the habit was formed of writing for the weekly papers. Under a pen-name week by week a poem or letter appeared in the local county paper. And the editor of the Roscommon and Leitrim Gazette as well as the Irish Mes- senger soon found out that a young correspond- ent was writing things their readers were glad to get. Under the letter "P" or the signature "Autos " religious poetry and devotional articles found ready access to the columns of the local papers. Quite independently of the venerated Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, my father discovered as Dr. Cuyler did what a source of power the weekly press, religious and secular, might be made. And all through his life he plied his pen freely. Many times in five different places an article would appear from his ceaseless pen in the same week. He realized himself that many of these had only temporary value. Again and 82 THE WEST OF IRELAND again he refused to gather such writings into a volume, declaring that like his sermons they were meant for the occasion, and the better fitted they were for the occasion, the less fitted were they for permanent form. Of a number of such poems one obtained a wider circulation than the weekly in which it was published, and is char- acteristic of the religious poetry more common then, under the inspiration of Cowper, and many lesser poets now forgotten, than it is to-day. It is as follows: THE MIGNONETTE AND THE OAK. LINES INSCRIBED TO A MISSIONARY. I marked a child — a pretty child A gentle blue-eyed thing; She sowed the scented mignonette One sunny day in spring. And as the tiny seed she sowed The streams of thought, thus sweetly flowed. " On thy dear bed the dew shall fall, And yon bright sun shall shine. 'Twill grow and bloom and blossom then. And it shall all be mine." And the fair thing laughed in childish glee. To think what harvest hers would be. I saw a man an acorn plant, Upon the hillside bare ; No spreading branch, no shading rock Send friendly shelter there. And thus as o'er the acorn bowed I heard him — for he thought aloud. THE WEST OF IRELAND 83 " Frail thing ! ere glossy leaf shall grace Thy stem or sturdy bough, I may be laid amid the dead As low as thou art now. Yet shalt thou rise in rugged strength And crown the barren heights at length." Each had a hope — the childish heart Looked to a summer's joy. The manly thought, strong and mature Looked to futurity. Each trusted nature's genial power. He sought a forest, she a flower. The unceasing activity and the energy of the young missionary had been noted, and already many who by chance had heard him had pre- dicted a wider range for his talents, but he him- self was contented with his work and refused to take any steps towards a change. When then it became known that his name was before the congregation of the First Church in Armagh he took pains to make it known that this was by no act or word of his. Then the church asked him, as was the custom, to preach in turn with a num- ber of others. This he refused to do. When asked however to supply the pulpit as the only one the church thought of, he did so, in no way committing himself to acceptance of any call should it come. In fact he wrote plainly, " I am not weary of my work as a missionary — nor can 84 THE WEST OF IRELAND I move in the direction of leaving it unless the Providence of God seemed as plain as in leading me hither. Now I could not regard a place in a candidate's list such an indication of the path of duty." Family affairs called him to the old home in the County Armagh, hence it was natural and easy that he should supply the pulpit for two Sabbaths. This he did with the result that a unanimous call was extended to him to become the pastor of the church. The notice came on the sixth of January, 1852, that the hearty desire of the people was expressed in the call, and at once steps were taken to sever the relationships existing with the presbytery in Connaught to go to the new field of labor. IV. THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH A NEW YEAR'S PRAYER BY REV. JOHN HALL, D. D., LL. D. O God, my good desires fulfill ; The bad do Thou restrain ; Reveal to me Thy holy will. And make my duty plain. Sustain me by Thy heavenly grace, And keep me in Thy fear ; Help me to run the heavenly race With Jesus ever near. O Christ, my all-wise Prophet, I sit down at Thy feet ; Teach me to do the Father's will. For heaven make me meet. O Christ, my great High Priest, Ascended now to heaven, On Thine atoning work I rest. To Thee the praise be given. O Christ, my glorious King, Thy law write on my heart ; And bring me to the heavenly home Where we shall never part. There let me sing the song of songs ; There let my praise be given. To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, The Trinity in heaven. For The Golden Rule, January 2, 1896. 86 IV THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH CHURCH LIFE IN ARMAGH. MARRIAGE. METHODS ^S iA •PASTOR. MISSIONARY WORK. THE " MISSIONARY HERALD.'' FAMILY CONCERNS. TEMPERANCE AGITATION. n^EI^I^AL EXPERIENCES. 'POLITICS ^ND THE CRIMEAN WAR. THE NEEDS OF DUBLIN. THE circumstances of the church life in the new field were entirely different from those of the missionary activity in the west of Ireland. The First Presbyterian Church in Armagh was second only perhaps to Mary's Abbey, Dublin, in the councils of the Church. The personal influ- ence of Dr. Cooke had made, indeed, his church in Belfast a leader in all good works, but the Armagh church had a long and honorable history that gave it a unique place. An able and godly ministry had preceded the vacancy of 185 1, but various reasons had made the later years of that ministry less effective in the country districts, dependent still upon the Church, than it once had been. The farmers of the so-called "town- lands" had been in the habit of making the gal- lery of the church their special place. This gal- lery had suffered sorely from the physical inabil- 87 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 89 at Monkstown Castle, County Dublin, a younger daughter of an exceptionally large family. Her father was a Mr. Bolton, who married Miss Carpenter, who died in comparatively early life. Emily, who afterwards became Mrs. Hall, was educated in Dublin at a school superintended by an accomplished French lady. The Bolton family travelled a good deal in France and elsewhere, and in later years most of the members lived in England, although still retaining homes and prop- erty in Ireland. At a very early age Miss Emily Bolton was married to John Irwin, Esq., J. P., a landed proprietor in the west of Ireland, and settled at no great distance from the home of an older sister also married to a landlord in the neighborhood. Mr. Irwin died after a few years of happy married life, leaving his widow with three boys, one of them born after his death. Another sister of hers having married a brother of Mr. Irwin and hving in the neighborhood, and in the midst of a large connection of relatives, Mrs. Irwin continued to live in the family home which was pleasantly situated near the town of Boyle in the county of Roscommon. When the "famine" following what was known as the potato failure came, multitudes of the poor peasantry around were starving. Mrs. 90 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH Irwin and her sister-in-law looked about to give some employment. Little could be done for the men, although the land-steward employed as many of them as could be well provided with work. At that time, however, a kind of em- broidery known as "sewed muslin work" was being done largely in the north of Ireland. Firms in Scotland furnished for this purpose the material and payed for the work. Mrs. Irwin decided on trying to introduce this work. This she succeeded in doing, and by the aid of the society in Belfast under the guidance of Dr. Edgar hundreds were in this way saved and given the means of earning an honorable wage. It was, as we have seen, in the midst of this activity that my father met the partner of forty- six years of joy and sorrow. Mrs. Irwin's sym- pathies were with the extreme evangelical wing of the Established Church to which she be- longed. Her loyalty to the Established Church was much shaken however, by the way in which the school work and the effort of the association in Belfast were met by the narrower section of the High Churchmen ; it was therefore an easy thing for her to throw in her lot with the Presbyterian faith. She did it intelligently and heartily, and faithfully served its interests as she conceived those interests THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 91 to be identical with God's kingdom from tiiat time on. The wedding was a quiet one in June 15th, 1852, at the Presbyterian Church in Kingston from the house of General Irwin her brother, and then after a short wedding trip the united life began in the Master's service. It was a family circle from the beginning, for not only were the three boys of the first marriage in the home, but also the youngest brother James, little more than a lad at that time, was still under his brother's care. Even in Connaught he had largely been with his brother. In Armagh were developed those powers as pastor and preacher which made the future career so fruitful. It was the habit of the little Belfast student circle, when members of it met to say half-play fully to each other, "Now, preach good sermons!" More than once my father had occasion to emphasize the character of the con- gregation, as one exceedingly helpful and stimu- lating. Many of those living in the city were thoughtful and highly educated people. On this account the substance of the sermon had to be such as would edify them, while the style and manner had to be simple enough for the thought to be grasped by busy farmers and their tired 92 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH wives, whose opportunities for enlarging their vision were limited. To one member of that congregation my father felt himself deeply indebted on many accounts. He was a physician of high character and of emi- nent professional skill. He was more over a man of culture, and old enough to speak in a fatherly way to the young preacher. Profoundly attached to his minister, his years enabled him to give many a helpful piece of advice. This doctor in the providence of God was the means of saving the life of the third boy, and in gratitude for this, and many other services, the present writer bears his name. The need of the congregation was a closer touch with the outlying regions dependent on the Church. At once my father began that syste- matic visiting which marked his ministerial life throughout. He was in the habit of announcing a prayer-meeting in one of these districts on a cer- tain day and hour, having arranged with some household for the use of their largest room. Then he visited round about all the day, often taking his supper at some of the houses, spoke at the prayer- meeting, encouraged the people to attend regularly the Sunday services, and then made his way home. The note-books of those days are filled with such entries as, "Visit in IVIoneypatrick and THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 93 preach same evening at house of Mr. , home at eleven." These prayer-meetings and extra preaching services were at first criticised as "Methodist" and quite " un-Presbyterian," but the results were soon seen in the gallery as well as on the floor of the Church, and week after week the congregations grew steadily and quietly, but with permanent strength. In all else my father's methods were inclined to be a little unsystematic. He had a remarkable memory, and could afford to trust it where others would have used some system. In his visiting, however, from the beginning he kept careful records and worked with steady and persistent system. In his later years he sometimes remarked that the difficulty of pastoral visitation had changed. In the Armagh days he needed tact and resource to pre- vent his visitation being purely official ministerial and professional. In those days it was expected that the children should be questioned, and say their catechism, and then the minister prayed with the household. In addition to this he desired to come as a friend, to share the social life and know the real needs of those to whom he ministered. In his later life the difficulty was the other way. He needed tact and resource to give his visiting the min- isterial and spiritual significance he coveted for it. 94 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH The wave of religious life that had swept over England and Scotland reached Ireland somewhat later, but from time to time the feeling arose of new spiritual needs and of aroused spiritual hunger. Such an era followed the famine. The attempt was made in Ireland to carry the Gospel to all classes. In this work the young preacher took a deep interest, and the correspondence of 1853 shows how active a part he took. Public meetings in behalf of the South of Ireland were held. These meetings were at times stormy. In a letter to his friend Matthew Kerr dated August 17th, 1853, he writes: "The effect of the pro- ceedings in the South (the political outrages be- coming more and more common at that time) on our efforts in the North is bad. We had good order in Armagh till last Friday night when we were regularly mobbed here! This renders the effort unsavory with our fashionables; but it would never do to give violence a victory, so we try it again next Friday." Later letters speak of the "complete triumph of the cause" and of orderly meetings in behalf of the work in the south of Ireland. The relative failure of the evangelistic efforts of Protestantism in Ireland is due to the fact that Protestantism is identified in the minds of the common Roman Catholic peo- THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 95 pie with an alien race and a hostile social class. The particular meeting that was mobbed was for the Hibernian Bible Society whose mission it was to circulate the Bible in the English tongue among all classes, and to carry on a work of evangeliza- tion among the Roman Catholics. The vigorous and aggressive Protestantism of the movement was however tempered by the kindly sympathies of those who were chiefly interested. Dr. Edgar always defended the Connaught Roman Catholics even when a lawless few were doing their worst to bring the whole countryside into discredit. In once urging in public speech the cause of Connaught Dr. Edgar said, " In acting thus kindly towards the people of Connaught, you will only be imitating the great kindness which the poorest among them would show you if you were living or travelling among them. In the midst of abject poverty and absolute destitution, their generosity and hospitality are most affect- ing. They make no inquiry whether you are Protestant or Roman Catholic: it is enough for them that you are a man and a stranger. With them. Stranger is a holy name, and whatsoever their house contains is at your service." Perhaps also no Protestant in all Ireland was at one time more popular in his way among the 96 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH Roman Catholics than Matthew Kerr, and my father, with a deep-rooted horror of the errors as he saw them of Rome, and with a profound per- suasion that Protestants were ignorant of and careless about the dangers of Romanism, yet sought to be fair and generous in his controversy with them, and on more than one occasion fought their battle when he thought them being wronged. Hence, as generally happens, in such cases, he was in spite of his sturdy Protestantism believed in and greatly respected by his Roman Catholic fellow-citizens. In pursuance of the missionary purpose so re- cently implanted in the reinvigorated hfe of the church in Ireland, literary matter was in demand. Hence in 1855 my father took charge of The Children's Missionary Herald, and carried it on until i860, when he gave it into the hands of his friend Matthew Kerr, that he might be free for another literary enterprise along the same but larger lines in Dublin. In the October number, in 1858, was reprinted, bad spelling and all, a letter received from one of his Connaught pupils who had gone to America. The writer of the letter, a mere lad when he left Ireland, sent for his father and mother, and later for his whole family. The letter is in part as follows: "I wonder if THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 97 you have forgotten me. 1 have been wishing to hear or get a few lines from you. You are as fresh upon my mind as when I left Camlin. O the kindness you bestowed on me — the pains you took in instructing me, when I was young and inexperienced, if I was to see you face to face, 1 would be able to tell you how thankful I am to you. It is often when I am wandring through this wilderness of a country I pray that the bless- ing of God might be with you, and if it please God that I might see you here on earth, I will be able to tell you how happy 1 sometimes feel, and may the Lord grant that we may well prepare for that hour which no man knoweth save Him above. My dear friend, though the rowling seas are between us, do remember me and pray for me. ... In reguard to our living, we have as good a living hear as the richest man in that country. ... I kept your last letter in my pocket till it crumbled away. If 1 mistake not you asked me what church 1 belong to, I atach myself to the Methodest Church in , but I have a great liking for all Christian people." Some twelve years later my father did visit in the west of America the prosperous and well-to-do man, whom he had taught as a poor half-starved cowherd in the wilds of Connaught. 98 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH In Armagh were born all the children save one daughter, born in Dublin, and besides the respon- sibility of his own family there fell on the shoulders of the eldest son the additional burden of his younger brothers and sisters. Cheerfully and lovingly all his life he was, as his youngest sister testified, more of a father than a brother to them all. Very early the parents in dedicating their eldest son to the ministry had desired that he should go as a foreign missionary, when the failing health of the father made it apparent that the eldest son would have more than usual responsibility. William Hall had said, " we cannot spare John, he must take my place," and this with loving fidelity and extraordinary wisdom for so young a head the eldest son did even in school and col- lege days. In Armagh he had the advantage of being nearer to the old home where his mother and brothers and sisters were, an advantage not to be despised in the days of slow and imperfect com- munication. The journey to the General As- sembly was in those days a solemn undertaking, and one who had been to England was a far- travelled man. What widened considerably however the ho- THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 99 rizon in evangelical circles was the missionary literature, with maps of far-off lands, and accounts of strange races and foreign ways. It would be interesting to know how much England's col- onies owe to the missionary literature and mis- sionary efforts that awakened a curiosity in the minds of many young adventurers whose aims in travelling were not always the same as the missionaries who first gave the impulse to journey forth from the native place. In another direction my father's energies were thrown at this time. Even in college he had be- longed to a temperance circle, and now he flung his influence against one of the curses of Irish society, the excessive drinking of intoxicating spirits. Some of the best temperance tracts of that date are from his pen, and one or two had an enormous circulation. This movement was not popular. Many of the wealthiest Presbyte- rians made money in the traffic. There was no sentiment against the trade, and the conservative elements saw in the position taken a reflection upon the generation that had harmlessly indulged in the social glass. In spite of the offense he of necessity gave, my father continued steadily in season and out of season to urge temperance. A constant entry in his day-book is, "spoke at a 100 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH temperance meeting in ttie township A.," or "urged temperance at the church of . . . ," and one time he notes the fact "exceeded the due limits of an address by speaking an hour and three-quarters on temperance." In after days he sometimes lamented the political temper- ance movement, and felt, as 1 understand Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler also feels, that the original temperance movement has been injured by the identification of it with political prohibition. In the autumn of 1859 my father took part in a re- markable religious movement that was connected with the north of Ireland specially. The religious awakening excited attention, and after it had gone on for some little time abuses began to be manifest. Against these my father and others raised their voices, as was fitting, seeing that they had had much to do with the situation. Yet many things took place which greatly dis- turbed him. Never again could he hail with the same zeal movements connected with excite- ment, which he recognized distinctly as physical. Indeed, 1 think, he was perhaps almost unduly prejudiced by the experiences of that year against similar movements later on. He wrote a letter to the Armagh Guardian, which is especially interesting, because it so exactly reflects his feel- THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH loi ings all through his life. The letter was as fol- lows: Armagh, 2ist September, i8^g. Dear Sir,— In the present deeply interesting state of a portion of the people of Armagh, may I venture to suggest to reflecting persons a few things that require to be considered ? 1. When tourists, clerical or otherwise, come to the place, will it be wise to exhibit to them persons believed to have been visited by the Spirit of God ? In the nature of things this can only be done with those most likely to suffer, either by being tempted to self-complacency, or as has occurred elsewhere, to making a gain of godliness ? Should not intelligent persons be satisfied with their observations at meetings, and with the in- formation afforded them ? Who would covet a gratification at the risk of doing mischief in such a case ? 2. Should young persons be put forward to speak in public, because recently converted ? what principle is in the apostolic words ( I Tim. 3:6) " not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into, etc. " ? Would it not be much better to give sound scriptural instruction to these deeply interesting young persons ? 3. Should any attention be given to dreams, trances, etc., if they appear here ? Should they not be treated as trifles to say the least of them, as compared with the real work of God's Spirit ? 4. Should young people be encouraged to protracted meet- ings especially where no minister is presiding ? Or would it not be better to have meetings shorter and earlier, and if neces- sary to close business places earlier to give facility to attend ? Will not employers gain by any really good influence on the employed ? 5. Can much good be expected from mass meetings and ex- cursion trains ? Would not the temptation to mere ephemeral excitement be more likely to abound on such occasions than in the quiet enjoyment of the ordinary means of grace ? Should 102 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH any individual be encouraged to collect professedly religious meetings, for the order and decorum of which no one is respon- sible, while the character of a religious movement may be im- perilled thereby ? Reflecting people, by forming and expressing matured opinions on these and similar topics, may discourage and put down many things, over which Christians mourn as unhappily attaching themselves to a real and undoubted work of God. A deep interest in the Lord's work in Armagh induces me to submit the above questions to readers of your paper, to whose minds they may not otherwise have been carried. — Believe me, faithfully yours, J. H. With a growing family and a good many cares, witli an ever-increasing weight of responsi- bility in ecclesiastical matters, and a great deal of hard drudging work, my father yet always looked back to the days spent in Armagh as among the most profitable and happiest of his ministry. In the meantime the fame as a preacher of the young Armagh minister was spreading. In August, 1856, he had made a short trip to Scot- land and preached for an acquaintance in Glas- gow. He had hardly returned to Ireland before overtures were made to him looking towards his removal to Scotland. But in spite of the attract- ive nature of several such overtures then, as also later in his career, he felt that Scotland was well provided for, and that his duty lay elsewhere. In spite of the heavy duties of the Armagh THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 103 pastorate outside interests were not neglected. Nearly every season a tour was made in the in- terests of the Deaf and Dumb Institution of Ulster. The Hibernian Bible Society had also a claim on his time, and he was frequently called upon to plead its claims elsewhere than in his own church. To the militia of Armagh he also acted as chaplain, and a list of the Protestants was carefully kept by him, and they were visited as regularly as his parishioners. The prayers of the years 1855 to 1857 abound with references to England's sacrifices in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny. In those days it was my father's habit to write prayers which either opened or closed the sermon, and several longer prayers exist which he had written out in full. In these the soldiers fighting under distant skies were specially remembered, for the eldest stepson had gone as a young oificer to learn the art of war. This step was taken just in time to see the closing scenes of the Indian Mutiny 1857-1858, and as a mother's heart followed the news of England's struggle, earnest prayers for the soldier's safety were mingled with the thanks- givings over tidings of success. Then as always Irish blood was flowing freely for the exten- sion and preservation of the Empire, and the 104 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH North contributed her share to the armies sent abroad. It was characteristic then as throughout the life of my father that he was not strongly biassed politically. Naturally belonging to the liberal party, he yet took no active part in the political turmoil of those days, and this in spite of the fact that nearly all ministers of influence were then more or less inclined to political activity. Dr. Cooke had been as successful as a politician as he had been as a preacher, and many undertook to imitate his political methods without his judg- ment or his ability. Along this line my father never seems to have been tempted. Neither at this time nor later in life did he closely identify himself with any political party, and although great national interests, such as national educa- tion, temperance reform, industrial education called out his best energies, yet it was always distinctly as a non-partisan liberal. Particularly did he see in the advance of Pres- byterianism the highest good of Ireland. Almost anxiously does he canvass the situation in the correspondence of 1857 and 1858. The reason of this anxiety was not far to seek. The splendid religious impulse that had given the Irish Presby- terian Church some of her best leaders was in THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 105 danger apparently of giving way to a satisfied re- action. The older men were either passing away, or were no longer in touch with new wants constantly arising on the horizon. The conditions, also, in Ireland had materially changed. The loss of upwards of two millions of her pop- ulation between 1846 and 1856 had made Ireland in many respects a different country. The North actually prospered under the changed conditions, for famine hardly touched her, and her shipping trade and cattle export were greatly improved. At the same time the changed conditions affected unfavorably — at least such was the judgment of many at the time — the higher interests. Particu- larly in Dublin did the leading men feel the diffi- culty of the situation. The correspondence between Dr. Hamilton Magee and his friends disclose some of the difficulties under which the religious work of the Church was done. At this time the leading Presbyterian Church in Dublin was called Scotts church, Mary's Abbey. Dr. William B. Kirkpatrick was the honored and scholarly minister. He however felt, together with others, that his strength was not equal to the holding of the congregation, and at the same time doing the work expected of the minister of such a church outside. io6 THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH Dr. Kirkpatrick was a student rather than a man of affairs and under these circumstances he and the congregation began to look about for one who should become with him a fellow-minister in the work of the Church. The choice fell at once upon the Armagh min- ister. Yet the grave question arose how any change could be made to seem right under the existing conditions. Financially such a charge in Dublin had no attractions, as the First Armagh was abundantly able and willing to provide faith- fully for its minister, and a divided responsibility can never seem as hopeful as where one is in the definite leadership. The situation was such however that the call was extended, and great in- fluence was brought to bear upon my father to cause him to go to Dublin for the sake of the Church at large. The leaders in Belfast also took this view of the case, and gave their help in per- suading the Church at Armagh of the wisdom of the change. It was in many ways a sore trial to the whole family. Armagh had become dear to both hus- band and wife as the birthplace of their children. The old manse was a real home ; no kinder peo- ple did they ever know than the Armagh friends of my parent's first ministry ; and in some ways THE MINISTRY IN ARMAGH 107 it was even a pecuniary sacrifice to accept tlie place. At tile same time my father felt tliat the united judgments of so many demanded from him an affirmative decision, and with heavy heart he said at last, " Yes " to the invitation to go to Mary's Abbey. The birth of the youngest son in September, 1858, made the removal of the family only possible in October, but a few weeks be- fore that definite leave was taken of the kind and prosperous congregation who felt sorely the loss of one they had come to tenderly love. The future relationships between the Church and the former pastor remained ever most tender, and it was always with warm enthusiasm that the congregation was spoken of in the family circle. V. THE MINISTRY IN MARY'S ABBEY- DUBLIN THE LORD'S PRAYER Father ! who hast in heaven Thy seat, All hallow'd be Thy name so great ! Soon may Thy peaceful kingdom come ! Thy will on all the earth be done, In cheerfulness and holy love As angels serve in heaven above. Bestow upon us what is good, And grant each day our daily food. As we forgive them who have sinned May we ourselves forgiveness find. Rough trials' paths let us not tread, And from all evil shield our head. For kingdom, power and praise to Thee Belong to all eternity. July, 1847. ]■ H. (Signed) "Autos." V THE MINISTRY IN MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN MARY'S ^BBEY. IRISH EDUCATION. NATIONAL SCHOOLS. THE QUEEN'S COMMISSIONERSHIP. THE RUTLAND SQUARE CHURCH. VACATIONS. THE ''EVANGELICAL WITNESS." DISESTABLISHMENT tAND THE MODERATORSHIP. DELEGATE TO ^AMERICA. THE call of the congregation of Mary's Abbey is dated the 28th of June, 1838, and the arrangement included a division of the preaching labors between Dr. Kirkpatrick and the new as- sociate minister. The pastoral and other work was to be divided as best suited both ministers, and the division of labor aimed at giving both incumbents time for work outside the immediate church, Dr. Kirkpatrick being engaged in literary and particularly apologetic and polemic theology, while the younger strength was engaged in out- side work with reference to the Church as a whole. No formal arrangement was made. The call was extended as the usual call to a minister from the congregation, no reference being even made to the relations to Dr. Kirkpatrick. In spite of the strenuous efforts of the two men, whose warm friendship lasted through the life- 112 THE MINISTRY IN time of Dr. Kirkpatrick, the arrangement had many disadvantages, and did not work well. With men less absorbed in the great interests in- volved, and in even slight degree thinking of themselves the plan would not have worked at all. Scholarly, thoughtful and refined as were the sermons of the older preacher, they lacked the popular clearness, and the warmth that made the younger man's ministrations acceptable to a much larger number. Dr. Kirkpatrick rejoiced in the success of the new voice, but it was not in his power to prevent unkind things being said by mischief-makers who would have gladly seen trouble between the two friends. The personal relations were however too sincere and too genuine to be thus disturbed. On Saturday nights they met together for prayer and study, and many times my father has spoken to me gratefully of the spiritual and intellectual stimulus gained in those meetings together. At the same time the experiment was one he never desired to try again. Mary's Abbey filled up rapidly, and in spite of a location altogether unfavorable, and a building far from meeting the needs of the congregation, the prosperity was apparent and real. In Dublin the same restless energy and power of unceasing work was displayed that had marked the pastorate MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 113 in Armagh. As chaplain to Mountjoy Female Prison a great variety of human wants and woes had to be met and mastered. The weeks were few in which some article, tract or open letter did not appear. The Children's Missionary Herald was given up in i860, but only to make possible the editing of the Evangelical Witness, a monthly religious paper started shortly after, and which my father continued to edit until he left Dublin. To the outside activities of the church he devoted now a great deal of time. The evangelization of the West lay on his heart; the institutions for the orphans and the deaf and blind needed sermons and addresses to which he devoted much labor going from place to place until his voice and tall figure crowned by deep black hair was familiar in every little town in the north and middle west of Ireland, and his name was now known to Protestants all over the country. He was especially now sought as a temperance advocate. It was at that time neither usual nor popular for all clergymen to be pronouncedly on the side of temperance. Many a kindly warning did my father receive of the "injudicious " tem- perance agitation to which he was addicted. This was more especially the case because pow- erful Presbyterian interests were directly or in- 114 THE MINISTRY IN directly engaged in the traffic. To tiie great credit of those interests be it said that in no quarters were my father's outspoken statements of his convictions more generously received. Those whom timid counsellors feared he would offend, admired him for his courage and faithful- ness, even where they were not convinced by his arguments or won by his persuasions, and be- came his lifelong friends. Among the many open questions in Ireland remains still that of education. The difficulty is one of ideals. The Roman Catholic Church cannot be content with anything less than full control, and this means, in the experience of the Protes- tant elements a dangerous popular ignorance. At the same time the Protestants are themselves di- vided. The Episcopal Church has an educational ideal not shared by the Presbyterians. The ques- tions at issue were even more sharply debated before the disestablishment of the Church in Ire- land in 1869-1871.^ It was as early as 1831 that as a result of the work of an educational inquiry a Board of National Education was established, with commissioners from various faiths.^ 1 The bill was passed by Mr. Gladstone, the 26th of July, and took effect on Jan. ist, 1871. 5 The first religious census in Ireland was taken in 1834, and according to it the population was divided as follows : MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 115 The Board was at once furiously attacked by the Orange and extreme Episcopalian (Church of Ireland) interests. This was a most happy prov- idence, for this fact drew temporarily to the Board's aid the Roman Catholic sympathy. In accordance with directions from the government the education was to be wholly non-sectarian, The Established Church . . . 852,064 ' Roman Catholics 6,427,712 Presbyterians 642,356 Other Protestant Dissenters . . 21,808 7.943.940 This census was probably grossly inaccurate. Dr. Killen im- pugns it in Reid's history of the Presbyterian Church as mis- representing the proportions (cf. vol. Ill, page 499, Ed. 1853). But in the writer's opinion, it also grossly exaggerates the total population, and is untrustworthy as giving data for computation of the number in Ireland. In 1871 an accurate census was taken with the following results : Episcopalians 683,295 Presbyterians 503,461 Methodists 41,815 Independents 4,485 Baptists 4,643 Society of Friends 3.834 Roman Catholics 4,141,933 Thus Protestantism had in 1871, 1,260,568 and Roman Cathol- icism about four times that number. Of course famine and emigration weakened both Protestantism and Roman Catholi- cism, but Roman Catholicism suffered far more than Protestant- ism. ii6 THE MINISTRY IN the reading of the Scripture was not to be enforced on unwilling children, but in accordance with the wishes of parents, religious teachers of various faiths were to have opportunity given them for the instruction in religion as favored by the parents. As up to this time Episcopal parish ministers had had a most offensive power of interference with schools, established and maintained by private means in large part, and wholly attended by those of another faith, the extreme party in the Church resented fiercely the establishment of the Commission. It was, in fact, the beginning of the end. Step by step the power of the Es- tablished Church was curtailed until at last dis- establishment was an accomplished fact. One of the first commissioners appointed had been the scholarly and able minister of Mary's Abbey, Dublin, the Rev. Mr. Carlile. He was both popular and extremely orthodox, as that term was then used, yet he was very nearly subjected to churchly discipline for accepting the position. Only the fact of his very influential position, and that there were hopes — afterwards realized — that he would succeed in changing the plan of the Board of Education, saved his ecclesiastical life. For, alas, many Presbyterians were completely MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 117 blind to the great step in advance such national education really was. For them the cry "God- less" and "irreligious" education had far too much weight. The attitude of Dr. H. Cooke — the "Cock of the North " was also a serious embarrassment. Dr. Cooke was a Conservative by birth, educa- tion and instinct. The existing state of things was for him d priori the right state of things. His policy had been to work with the Established Church, and he had been a good deal petted by the Tory and High Church elements. To him Trinity College, Dublin had given a degree, an almost revolutionary action in those days. He supported always the candidates set up by the Tory and landlord interests, so that Presbyterian and Liberal representation was at that time im- possible. Dr. Cooke opposed disestablishment, and actually in 1868 the Presbyterian Church ex- pressed modified disapproval of Mr. Gladstone's bill. He did not like the growing liberal party in the Presbyterian Church, and saw in National Board Schools a menace to the distinctively relig- ious education which was his ideal. In 1839 there was, it is true, a compromise made between the Synod of the Presbyterian Church and the Government Board, but friction was not wholly ii8 THE MINISTRY IN overcome. The difficulties of national educa- tion were then enormously increased when after 1848 the Roman Catholic Church reversed its policy and denounced in unmeasured terms the whole scheme. In 1 84 1 two Synods of the Presbyterian faith came together, and formed the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. From that time on Presbyterian Liberalism began to work itself free from the leadership of Tory Protestant- ism. Yet the change was a gradual one. This was in part in deference to Dr. Cooke. The struggle over national education was still going on in 1858 when my father went to Dublin. As has been remarked he was no politician, yet he was a Liberal, and a rather pronounced Liberal on the education question. The older men looked to the coming younger man with much of hope. The stalwart and evangelical orthodoxy of the new voice that was being heard over all Ireland greatly encouraged those who dreaded the dead- ness of a past era. Unfortunately however the older orthodoxy was lukewarm in the matter of national education and was inclined to join hands with Tory and Orange extremes in opposition. The experience in the west of Ireland had greatly interested my father in education. He saw in it MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 119 the one hope of the population. He did not underrate religious education, but he did not see how there could by any chance be "an Episco- palian spelling," and a " Presbyterian table of multiplication." He flung himself boldly on the side of national unsectarian education. Then when in i860, in accordance with the express wish of the Presbyterian church for a third Pres- byterian commissioner the place was offered to my father; he at once accepted, and became queen's commissioner of national education. The letter asking my father to join the board is as fol- lows: Irish Office, ig Nov. i8bo. Dear Sir: When a deputation of the Presbyterian church did me the honor to call upon me on the subject of the addition, which it was proposed to make, to the board of education, one of the principal objects which they had in view was to obtain the ad- dition of a third Presbyterian commissioner. The Lord Lieutenant authorizes me to acquaint you, in his name as well as in my own, that the government are disposed to accede to their request and I beg to propose to you to join the board, and give to it the sanction of your name and your attention. I remain, dear sir, faithfully yours Rev. John Hall. Edward Caldwell. For this step some who never openly attacked him never really forgave him. Moreover his I20 THE MINISTRY IN vigorous defense of his position savored far too much of advanced radical views to suit those who were still in the armor put on for past conflicts. Particularly offensive to some was a "Very Short Catechism for Such as be of Weaker Capacity" which my father wrote at this time. It is as follows: A VERY SHORT CATECHISM FOR SUCH AS BE OF WEAKER CAPACITY. A. Is it true that the Bible is shut out of the Irish National Schools ? B. No. It is in every school, where the man- agers wish it, and is read in many hundreds of them. A. But that is before or after school hours when of course no child would be silly enough to come ? B. Well you may try the thing by experi- ment, and in the Belfast Model School, e. g., or the Dublin Model School you can examine a class and compare the answering with that of any public Protestant school for the sons of the gentry, and you will find the Model School class the better taught of the two, which could hardly be the case if the children did not come. A. Still it is not in school hours ? MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 121 B. What do you call school hours ? A. Well from 10 a. m. until 3 p. m. we com- monly call school hours. B. Just so. Then if you manage a school and fix the hours from ten to eleven for Scripture reading, would you say the Scriptures are not used in school hours ? A. Certainly not. I should be setting apart that portion of the school hours for Scripture, as I should set apart the next hour for spelling, or writing. B. Which is exactly the course pursued in the national schools. You have only to define be- forehand the time you mean to employ in this way, and all the board requires is that there be adequate time for secular instruction. A. But Mr. Whiteside and others tell us every year that the Bible is shut out during school hours. Is not that very odd ? B. Very. A. How do you account for it ? B. Did I promise to account for it ? I do not attempt it. A. But they must have some show of argu- ment for this assertion > B. Suppose 1 order that geography shall be taught in my school from two till three only, would 122 THE MINISTRY IN it be fair or true to say it is not taught in sciiool liours ? A. Surely not. B. Weil suppose in most schools the parents did not wish mathematics to be learned by their children, would it be fair to say that the board excludes mathematics ? A. No. It is the parents who effect the ex- clusion. They have only to ask for them 1 sup- pose, and the board will give every facility for their gratification. B. Quite so. And just so with the Scriptures. A. But it is very wrong of parents not to ask for the Scriptures. B. Of course it is. What shall we do with them then ? Tell them they cannot have read- ing, writing and arithmetic, without taking the Bible too? A. No, not exactly that. It would be too like Spain which won't give men civil rights, or even sepulchral honors, unless he will take the Catho- lic religion. B. Exactly, and we have got past that, at least since 1829. We shall never come to offer men gas, water, police-protection, civil employment, education scholastic or collegiate, on the inevita- ble condition of their accepting our religious DR. JOHN HALL AT THE AGE OF THIRTY MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 123 books and teaching. In accordance with the genius of the free Protestantism of these kingdoms we have ceased to manufacture hypocrites and infidels in this fashion. Then what would you do? A. I would leave the people free to read the Bible. B. A very unassailable truism that. What do you mean by " free " ? Do you mean you would put Bibles in every school, if the children liked to have them without reference to the parents' wishes ? Then you would say to the promoters of a school, Gentlemen we give you a grant of books and salary, on condition this shelf of Bibles is in a conspicuous place in the school for every child that likes. Would you do that? A. That is not exactly what 1 mean. B. I should think not. Try the converse of it, and imagine the Roman Catholic Emperor of France giving aid to Protestant schools, only on condition that each school have a supply of Roman Catholic volumes. We should call that a mild form of intolerance, and should we not ? But pray explain yourself — what do you mean by "free"? A. Well 1 don't think a parent has a right to keep the scriptures from his child. 124 THE MINISTRY IN B. Another impregnable position. He has not as regards God. But he has as regards you and me. He has no right to be envious, or covetous, to neglect praise and prayers as regards God, but he has as regards you and me. Would you think of Kerry, where there is not a Protestant school within five miles and the little Protestant is secured the advantage of a good secular edu- cation and the priest or the teacher cannot inter- fere with his faith unless by his parents' consent ? A. Oh ! I admit there are difficulties, but the fact is Romanism is getting it all its own way ever since 1829. B. Well now consider — what has most weak- ened Protestantism since that time ? Has it been concession to Romanists by "Liberals" or ap- proximation to Romanism by high-flying Prot- estants ? Is Protestantism more or less alive and energetic now than 1829? And would it be stronger now, had it retained legal ascendency ? Is there any way in which you can so weaken the hands of an enemy, and strengthen your own, as by doing him in all things the justice you claim for yourself ? A. Yes, but should a parent have a right to keep his child from reading the Bible ? B. Well try the other side of the case. Your MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 125 little Dickey who has reached the mature age of nine and a half having the advantage of a devout Roman Catholic nurse gets fond of the wor- ship she practices, thinks the pictures fine, the music beautiful and the priest imposing, and an- nounces to you some fine morning his intention of commencing the study of Alban Butler's " Lives of the Saints "and begs you to procure him the "Key of Heaven" and the "Path to Para- dise." What would you do? A. Of course I would insist on teaching him, or having him taught the truth, till he came to years of discretion. B. Precisely; and for conceding exactly this to Roman Catholic parents, the board is annually abused and the abettors of it stigmatized by men who preach charity and counsel trustfulness as belonging to Protestantism. How could the gov- ernment adopt any other principle in schools than British law follows in all other matters ? Are the boys and girls to be constituted judges of their parents' capacity and right to rule ? Fancy Dickey telling you at breakfast, " Papa, you are incapable of being my governor, according to Lord Eldon and Mr. Whiteside, for you have de- nied the faith! " The thing is too ridiculous. A. But the government cannot — well at least 126 THE MINISTRY IN the government is not a safe guide on this solemn matter. B. Indeed. You can trust the government to manage the national church, but not the national school. The government can decide whether your bishop shall be evangelical or otherwise, and in multitudes of cases whether the sermon you hear shall be good or bad, but you will not trust the government to decide on the schools of the country. Either you should acquiesce here or begin reform farther back. A. I admit the difficulty. But it is very hard, is it not, that a Protestant clergyman must refrain from teaching the truth to his little parishioners at school, unless their parents wish it? B. Try the rule the other way then. Is it not very hard that M. the cure cannot teach his little parishioners the Romist doctrine in France unless their parents wish it? Don't we applaud this as toleration in France ? The importance of this position taken by my father in determining his future career justifies the insertion here of a condensation of an article which was one of his last and clearest utterances on this subject. It was a defense of the system MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 127 of national education in Ireland and was headed, " What is ' Godless ' Education ? " " ' Godless' is not a complimentary adjective. Even the man whom it accurately describes does not wish it applied to him. A ' godless ' 'wife,' a 'godless' 'community,' are undesir- able associations. To fasten the term to man 'or thing is to raise a strong prejudice against that man or that thing. One may be, by common consent, a practical atheist and yet unwilling to appropriate this reproachful epithet. "Rome has tried to fasten the epithet, 'god- less,' on all education that she does not direct, and to raise a prejudice against it. A true and strong human instinct demands that education should take account of God, and revolts from any that ignores Him. It is clever, therefore, if it were only also honest, to stigmatize any educa- tion which the Church does not direct as godless. sp 5f; ijc ip 2^ ^ "Now, let us see. Is this the ground of her complaint ? The British Government set up a system of schools and colleges where the best available teachers should give all denominations secular learning in common; where, at separate hours and in separate places, the clergy or other religious teachers approved by the parents should 128 THE MINISTRY IN come and teach each his own co-religionists as much of his religion as they pleased. The Epis- copalian can then have Bible and prayer-book, the Roman Catholic his catechism and prayer- books, or any religious books he will, and the Presbyterian his Bible and Shorter Catechism. The only two rules are that no one shall be de- nied secular education on religious grounds, and no one shall be forced to learn tenets opposed to his own religion. But each denomination may make its own youth as 'godly' as it can. This seems fair and unobjectionable all round. But this was the very system that had the term ' god- less' applied to it, and which is still denounced and disliked by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, though the laity have shown their estimate of its value to their children. "On this plan, under a Board of equal numbers of Roman Catholic and Protestant noblemen and gentlemen, the British House of Commons is ex- pending nearly |2,ooo,ooo a year in Ireland, but it is in continual practical war with the ecclesias- tics, who clamor, under every variety of plea, for a separate allowance of money — to be laid out by themselves. That the high officers, the inspectors, the managers of the training schools, are appointed with due regard to denominational MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 129 representation, is nothing; that the books have everything offensive to any denomination ex- cluded, is nothing; that history is excluded be- cause history is hard to teach without touching religion, is nothing; that the Roman Catholic priest appoints the teacher, superintends him, and can dismiss him — all this is nothing; — the system is under condemnation, and the cry from 'the Church ' is for a 'separate grant.' ****** " We doubt if any government ever made a more honest effort to educate a nation than that which is conferring inestimable blessings on Ireland, and no one thing has excited deeper re- gret among all true and intelligent lovers of that land and its people — among whom the writer claims a place — than the persistent Papal opposi- tion which has retarded, though it has not crushed, the educational advancement of the people. " It is idle to allege that infidelity springs out of all education which 'the Church' does not direct. Romish countries have as many infidels as Protestant. As many people— proportionally —in Spain, France, and Italy, disregard God as offered by Roman Catholic teaching, as may be found in Protestant lands disregarding God as 130 THE MINISTRY IN Protestantism worships Him. Tliis fact no one can deny. It was not Protestantism that inoculated France with infidehty. " It is nothing to the point to parade the old argument that as the oldest colleges, like Oxford, were founded by Roman Catholics, therefore, the system must be favorable to learning. It was not for popular education they were erected, but for the education of the clergy and such as could afford to pay well for education. Nor can the Church claim much honor for originating these. The greatest friend of education, for many ages, was Charlemagne, who, by imperial enactment, ordained that bishops should erect schools near their churches and that monks should have them in their monasteries. How much external power is needed to stimulate Romish ecclesiastics in this direction, might be inferred from the fact that the more bishops and monks in any country, as a rule, the worse educated are the people. On the other hand, nowhere are the masses of Ro- man Catholic people so well educated as where they live among Protestants and under Protestant institutions. " Roman Catholics themselves have an interest in this question. They have derived immense benefit from the common schools, and could not MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 131 gain anything — if all history is not a cheat — from their transfer, in any greater measure, to the Church. The whole community would be a loser, for it is for the public good that the people of different kindreds and tongues peopling this fair and broad land should coalesce and become one; and, if any denomination has reason to think its youth less instructed in religion than is fit, surely patriotic and candid men can find means to supplement the existing system. It is poor policy to pull down a good house for the sake of putting in an additional window." This shows the pronouncedly liberal position taken in days when religious toleration had been too much the monopoly of Quakers and Unita- rians. In fact the hearty support that the Unita- rians had given to the national education plans of the government had formed one reason for the suspicion in some Presbyterian quarters. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has long since begun to realize how important a step was taken at that time, and is also slowly awakening to the fact that larger views must be taken of Protestant opportunity, and Protestant inspira- tions. The cry was raised that the Presbyterian Liberals were working hand in hand with the 132 THE MINISTRY IN " papists," and that they were destructive radicals etc., etc. Against these charges my father wrote sharply and clearly, and did much to clear the air and define the issues at stake. Rational and pru- dent as seem his counsels now, in those days they excited the bitterest feelings on the part of some of his natural friends and allies, the theolog- ically conservative. He was accused of " trimm- ing," "working with both parties," and because he realized that a divided Protestantism meant permanent disability he was accused of seeking peace at the price of "convictions " as some dig- nified their poor little narrow prejudices. At last my father came out with a definite at- tack on the Tory tactics. In a rather long article reviewing the situation, he asked unpleasant questions about the real meaning of Tory com- plaints against the national schools. The article was regarded as an attack upon the long time practice of acting as a tail to the Tory kite in the supposed interests of Protestantism, and more particularly as the article took definite issue with the Orange Lodge and denounced its petty criticisms of Protestantism's enlarging horizon. He was then bitterly attacked, these political at- tacks did not weaken my father's position as a preacher. MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 133 The "common people heard him gladly" and crowded congregations made Mary's Abbey al- together too small and too unimportant a build- ing for the uses of the church. It was very earnestly desired to have Presbyterianism prop- erly represented in Dublin. In fact the impor- tance of this was felt on every hand. As long as Presbyterianism was a local issue concerning only Belfast it could not do its work or command the support needed in spreading the gospel. The congregation did not feel, however, strong enough to undertake the raising of a new building. Just at this time Mr. Alexander Findlater came forward and offered to put up the building, if the congregation would secure a suitable site. This was done by buying a corner on Rutland Square where the building now stands. The following letter explains the generous con- ditions of the gift made at a most opportune time in the history of Dublin Presbyterianism. Alexander Findlater &> Co., 30 Upper Sackville St., Dublin, 30 Jan'y, 1862, The Rev. John Hall, My dear Sir ; — I am glad that the ground for the new Presbyterian Church is secured, and as the congregation of Mary's Abbey have thus done their part of the work, I think it right to tell you that I am now prepared to perform mine. I had at first intended to have so far interfered in the proposed 134 THE MINISTRY IN building as to employ the architect and approve of the plans, and then to have left the matter in the hands of the congrega- tion, but on consideration I have decided on refraining entirely from all personal interference in the work beyond the con- tributing the funds, and the only authority I ask to exercise is the nomination of a committee to whom I will delegate the entire control of the business, and at whose disposal I will place the funds as they may be required. I believe that in my first communication with you, I ex- pressed my readiness to give ;£^6,ooo to ;^7,ooo. To remove all uncertainty on that subject, I now beg to say, that I will give if required ;^8,ooo, and the only stipulation on which I will in- sist in return is that the ground and building shall be given up perfectly free of debt, so that the congregation shall be able to support their ministry liberally. Although the proposed church is intended primarily for the congregation of Mary's Abbey, yet my idea has been, (in which I believe the Presbyterian public concur) that it should be adapted for meetings of the General Assembly, and should in all respects by its architectural appearance, its position and internal accommodations, be a building worthy of the Presby- terian Body in the Metropolis, and therefore I think that the committee for carrying out these views, should not be composed exclusively of members of Mary's Abbey congregation, although I am willing that they should form the majority. I propose on the whole that the committee shall consist of five, namely, yourself as chairman (on which you will excuse me saying I must insist) Mr. Drury, Dr. Denham, Mr. Todd and Mr. Geo. Blood, and I will be happy to give you a room at 30 Sackville street as long as you may find it convenient to meet there. My dear sir, Yours very truly, Alex. Findlater. The fact that Mr. Findlater was the leading wine and spirit merchant in Dublin caused some com- MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 135 merit, as he was one whom my father's temper- ance agitation it was feared might antagonize. And it is needless to remark that the temperance agitation continued unabated. The new building was entered in 1864 with ap- propriate services, and a great burden of new pastoral care came upon the ministry. Dublin was growing in all directions although not very rapidly and the congregation came from great distances. It was my father's habit to start out, going from house to house, where parishioners lived until he had reached the outmost limit, when he would often take an outside car home, or reversing the process he would select some farthest point and work his way back to the city. The first house was in No. 45 Eccles street, and afterward in No. 11 of the same street. From the rear windows of the last house the younger children many times watched the road along which the father might come, often bring- ing a few "sweeties," by which name candy was known in Ireland, for the comfort and delectation of the little ones. Many times in later life the remembrance of a large and well-kept garden in Dublin was a pleasure to my father. The head gardener of the Vice-regal Lodge was an old friend and insisted 136 THE MINISTRY IN upon assuming the charge of this garden. Flowers, and fruits, a dove-cot and a greenhouse made it an ideal place for the children, who were encouraged to cultivate little plots of ground for themselves. Skilled gardeners came regularly and watched over the fruits and flowers; from them the children obtained plants and flower- shoots as well as directions as to how these should be cared. Often in later years my father sighed for a sight of green from his study window. Once he wrote while on a visit to Ireland: " Yes, this is my native land — these are my native fields. In New York, my eyes are often hungry for something higher than the top of a warehouse, or hotel, or church-spire, and some- thing more simple and varied than brown stone cut into fantastic shapes. Here they are ' satisfied with seeing.' Oh ! this delicious green — all green, yet not all the same green, for there is one green of the oats, and another of the grass, and another of the hedges, and another of the trees, and another of the flax, and over all 'the lark sings loud and high.' 1 now find one good thing has to Ireland come through our Fenian friends; and 1 cheerfully acknowledge it. The stir they made led to the 'proclaiming' of wide districts; MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 137 and this rendered the possession and carrying of fire-arms more difficult; and this led to the diminution of 'gunning,' or 'fowling,' as it is in the vernacular of Ulster; and this led to the in- crease of birds, the solemn crow, the chattering daw, the long-tailed magpie, with his piebald coat and pert manner, and the dear old plain- coated thrush. Burns' 'mavis,' and the equally mellow-voiced blackbird. And here in every hedge is the robin, not the great able-bodied robin of America, made on the scale of the coun- try, but the true robin, no bigger than the spar- row — the very robin that covered up the babes in the wood with dry leaves, and then sung a funeral dirge over them. Of course no one but a brute would shoot him, in Ireland, where they know the true history of his red breast; how he pitied the world's Redeemer on the cross and tried in vain to pull away the thorns from his brow, and one of them pricked his own bosom and the blood came out, and the Redeemer marked the well-meant effort of the little bird, and through His benediction the blood stain be- came a glory on his breast forever." But a little plot of garden such as almost every poorest householder in Dublin may cherish is in New York's wilderness of stone and brick such 138 THE MINISTRY IN a luxury as even multi-millionaires cannot often permit themselves. The summer vacations were variously spent. One of the simple pleasures of my father's younger days was a walking trip in Wales. With light luggage, and living on the simple fare of the kindly Welsh people he walked all over the northern and southern parts of Wales, and retained to the end of his life a great admiration, and deep regard for the Welsh people. A little Erse which he had picked up in Connaught helped him to make his wants known where only the Welsh tongue was spoken. He also visited with my mother and a dear friend the principal continental cities, travelling in France and Italy as well as Switzerland. The vacations were short, but in successive trips he covered in this way a good deal of ground. The Dublin ministry had many joys as well as the usual trials. The last addition to the family circle was a little girl born in Dublin, and a great delight to the parents in the midst of so many boys. Warm friends and tender life-attach- ments were here formed. Moreover the in- fluence of the voice in the pulpit was greatly supplemented by the writings in the Evangelical Witness, already mentioned as founded by my MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 139 father in the years when most his hands seemed full with a new church building in prospect. It was a difficult undertaking. Every question in Ireland at that time was political. Moreover the divisions among the Presbyterians was pro- nounced. The aim of the Evangelical Witness was to write news of different political convic- tions on the basis of an honest evangehcal Prot- estantism. My father was as we have seen himself a pronounced Liberal, but he was no politician either secular or ecclesiastical. To him the success of evangelical orthodoxy was the supreme end. He sought to interest men of all shades of political and ecclesiastical opinion. Hence he often gave offense to extremists on both sides. As Thomas Macnight, so long an editor of a foremost Liberal paper in Belfast has written of those days, "I repeat, therefore, that to be a Liberal in Ulster at that time (1866) was a very different thing from being a Liberal in Great Britain. It meant a great deal more; it meant often pecuniary loss, loss of municipal and Parliamentary honors, loss even of ordinary social courtesies from the great Ulster noblemen and their families, whose names at least were as- sociated with the old ascendency." But Liberal- ism was making steady headway among the 140 THE MINISTRY IN younger men. Dr. Cooke saw it and felt it as an almost personal grievance. In 1866 a movement was set on foot to mark the real union of the two wings by electing a Liberal to the moderator- ship of the General Assembly. Already, how- ever, disestablishment was in the air. Strenuous efforts were made to enlist the Presbyterian Church on the side of the establishment. In those days all Presbyterian ministers received the so called Regium Donum a small sum "given" as a solace to the "dissenting meeting-houses." On the basis of this gracious favor vast efforts were made to hold the Presbyterian Assembly true to the principle of a "God-fearing state." It would never do, therefore, to have a Liberal elected to the moderatorship. The editor of the Evangelical Witness, and the man who had at last given Dublin a worthy Presbyterian church, and made Presbyterianism known and respected as something more than the Ulster tail to the Orange kite, was the natural candidate. It was quite impossible to impeach the orthodoxy or spiritual experience of my father, but he had somehow to be gotten rid of in an honorable and yet effective way. This way was easily found. He was made a delegate to the Assem- blies' meeting in the United States of America. MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 141 Dr. J. C. Johnston (Dublin) reports' a reply said to have been made at this time by my father. Some one said to him "I thought you were to have been moderator?" "My brethren have transported me," was the half-humorous re- joinder. So transported he was, adds Dr. Johns- ton, " and his political and other heresies troubled the Assembly no more." It was under these circumstances that the first journey was undertaken to America in company with Dr. Denham Smith as delegates to the Gen- eral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church North. No thought at that time had entered my father's mind that he might be called to leave Dublin. Many interests bound him to the place. He felt deeply responsible for the success of the new church in Rutland Square. The future of the Evangelical Wilness seemed to depend largely upon him. He was surrounded by able and sympathetic men, for not only was his old friend and college companion, Dr. Hamilton Magee in Dublin, but Dr. Fleming Stevenson was meeting with great and deserved success in a new church enterprise with which my father had had much to do. In fact on all sides he was engaged, as ^ The Irish Presbyterian, November, 1 898. 142 THE MINISTRY IN he thought, usefully. He had refused a splendid opening for usefulness in Glasgow. A committee had waited upon him from free St. George's Church in Edinburgh to urge him to consider that opening, but he not only refused, but at his suggestion the matter was kept confidential, and until the memoirs of one of the committeemen was published in which the offer was mentioned no public knowledge was had of the refusal. Even in Belfast many were hoping that he would sooner or later be called to take the real leader- ship in the Assembly. The attempt to nominate him for the modera- torship revealed what was a complete surprise to him. He saw that the "pillars" did not want him. He was too active, too aggressive, too lit- tle of a man to handle, too hard to confer secretly with, nor was he given to schemes and arrange- ments. He was moreover a Liberal, believed in secular education and personal rights. He thought questions should be debated in open court, and that men should respect each other's differing views. To his dying day he loved and reverenced Dr. Cooke, and looked on him with almost an indiscriminating honor and affection. He saw no reason why the small men who came toddling after Dr. Cooke imitating their leader on MARY'S ABBEY— DUBLIN 143 his weakest side, should quarrel with him be- cause he could not share Dr. Cooke's political opinions, or be blinded by the Conservative chaff obsequious Tories flung in Dr. Cooke's eyes. He knew, moreover, that Dr. Cooke himself de- manded no sacrifice of manhood from his younger brethren ; that although accustomed to be obeyed, and proud of his judgment and skill in debate, yet even so in the most acrid disputes of the old Arian controversy. Dr. Cooke had main- tained the position that there should be no perse- cution "for personal opinion" and no legislation that would be retroactive ; and that only con- vinced judgment was worth anything to the Church. It was with mingled feelings, therefore, as the correspondence shows, that the invitation to go as delegate to America was accepted, and other overtures coming just at that time of a most in- viting character, opened up before him, as he started westward, the whole subject of his duty to Ireland, to himself and to the Church at large. At the same time the idea of going to America was wholly strange to him. There were not as many ties between the two countries then as now, and so far as the writer knows, the call ex- tended to the Dublin preacher by the New York 144 THE MINISTRY IN DUBLIN congregation was one of the first calls of the kind, although the precedent was followed very often in after years. To the little household in Dublin the trip seemed an exceedingly formidable one. The far-off land lay then on a vastly more misty horizon than it does now, although even yet the American much more easily makes the journey to Europe, accustomed as the American is to longer distances in his own land, than does the European make the trip to America. Hence with some measure of excitement, natural under the circumstances, the duties of the delegation were undertaken. VI. FIRST JOURNEY TO THE UNITED STATES A PRAYER FOR ONE TRAVELLING Gracious Father ! We desire to join together with all our hearts in committing to Thy care one who now leaves his dwelling. Go Thou, O heavenly Father, who art everywhere present, with him, to give safety and peace in all the ways of life, to bestow the peace that coraeth from knowing and serving Christ, and to give at last an entrance with us, and with all the family that is named after Jesus, into Thy heavenly king- dom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. — From Family Prayers, by J. Hall. 146 VI FIRST JOURNEY TO THE UNITED STATES CONTINENTAL TRAVELS. FIRST VOYAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. IMPRESSIONS OF NEIV YORK. THE ASSEMBLIES. WESTERN EXPERIENCES. FAST TRAVELLING. WASHINGTON kAND BALTIMORE. THE JOURNEY HOME. IN the spring of 1867 my parents went with an old friend, with whom they often travelled, for a trip to Italy. They left Dublin on March 25th, for London, going at once to Paris, and thence next day to Lyons, Marseilles, Nice and thence by steamer to Genoa, and after a rather hurried visit to Naples and the surrounding country they proceeded to Rome to be there in time for the Lenten week, and the Easter cele- bration. The impressions made on my father by this visit to Rome he often recalled. He had many warm personal admirers among the Roman Catholics, and had worked with them in Ireland in many public enterprises, but he had a deeply- rooted sense of the danger of Roman Catholicism as a system. In Rome he saw what he con- sidered the pure heathenism of both the ceremo- nial and the government. In those days Rome was still under the dominion of the Vatican. «47 148 FIRST JOURNEY The luggage was searched for forbidden books, among which the New Testament was counted as one, and on every hand was seen the adminis- trative inefficiency of the Papal power in Rome. When in 1870 a change became inevitable in the mastery over Rome no one rejoiced more at the thought of a free Italy than did my father. The glory of the music, and the gorgeous nature of the spectacle in Rome was not enough to hide from him the miserable bondage, as he saw it, of the superstitions that overlaid the gospel. The crowds of dirty monks, the beggars.the filth of the side streets, the disorder during the processions, the eternal paying of small sums for services not really rendered, and the miserable way in which the art treasures and the priceless antiquities were kept seem to have been the impressions most deeply made upon the whole party. So bad was the drainage, and so defective the water supply, that each returning Easter season with its crowds brought fever as a regular and expected guest into the city. Nor did the party wholly escape, although prompt flight to Florence stopped the attack from reaching a serious point. The ap- pointment to go to America compelled my father to hurry home, and leaving the two ladies in Paris he made his way back to Dublin. A pas- DR. JOHN HALL AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-EIGHT TO THE UNITED STATES 149 sage having been secured for him on the steam- ship City of New York, he was bound to sail on the 2d of May. This first voyage was so new an experience that a careful journal was kept. The contrast between the present day comfort makes some selections from it of interest. " 2d May, 1867. Left my most happy home at eight o'clock for Queen's Bridge Station. Had the carriage mostly to myself for reading purposes good, no one coming in to whom I cared to talk. Got a horse and cart (Cork cars too small) to take my luggage to the Queenstown Station. After a delay of an hour the steamer was signalled, and we saw her coming in. The passengers gath- ered, and we all set out in the tender for her — about half a mile away. The embarking of the steerage passengers was a scramble, in the end of which I got my luggage and possession of my cabin. 1 find 1 have a room all to myself. It is a very good one in the centre of the ship, al- though the steward says it takes in water in cer- tain weather. I got settled about six o'clock, and going on deck found the night too thick to see much of the land. 1 waited for tea at half-past seven, but when it was served was not disposed for it; went to my berth and had an undisturbed night's sleep. " 3d May, Friday. Could have had some break- 150 FIRST JOURNEY fast but the steward forgot my order, and 1 did not feel enough appetite to make a row, for when I got up 1 felt squeamish, but was very well in bed. At four 1 rose and dressed and went on deck after dinner. It was raining, and after surveying the scene without poetry or en- thusiasm of any kind I returned, undressed and went to bed. The strongest feeling of my rather torpid nature at this time was one of profound thankfulness that my darling children were happy at home, and my beloved wife enjoying herself in Paris. I was not however continuously sick, but was plainly thought to be so, for an oppo- site neighbor with whom I had exchanged scraps of personal history on Thursday evening (from Hollywood, County Down) came to me and offered some 'excellent oaten bread' which his wife had bought as a ' good thing to settle the stomach. ' I felt the kindness, but as sheherself was audibly ill in bed 1 did not feel proper confidence in the cure. " Saturday morning, May 4th. . . . I ought to say that the ship's motion is easy, but to me dis- agreeable, though I can hardly tell why. We have our sails set and are going over smooth enough water at twelve miles an hour, so that we must be now about 540 miles from Cork on Saturday after- noon. TO THE UNITED STATES 151 "Wednesday morning, May 8th. Soon after the above was written the weather became too rough to admit of doing anything with comfort except ' looking upward ' and thinking of my treas- ures on earth. The high sea makes the sound of the engine and screw most disagreeable. Re- morseless unresting, it keeps pounding away as it were at my very head, and accompanied as it is by the dashing of the water along the side of the ship and especially about the screw, it is not at all favorable to rest at night, especially in the crib, which it is an insult to my usual sleeping place to call ' a bed.' Sabbath continued rough with most disagreeable cross seas: no service of any kind could be had, and many were sick in their berths. Of the remainder many, 1 am sorry to say, were drunk at night. Each afternoon I went for a little on deck, but have not much appetite save for meat, and I feel as if I could consume a jar of pickles. "On Monday the cross seas changed into a series of squalls, dead against us which reduced our speed to about six knots an hour, and made our plunging through it very uncomfortable. 1 spent the whole forepart of the day on deck, the fore- part of the ship every now and then covered with a sheet of spray. . . . Had a good deal of 152 FIRST JOURNEY talk with some passengers, and especially with a highly educated German (I suspect a Jesuit priest) who speaks English well, and knows the older philosophy well, but he is feeble indeed as to the truth. He could not hold his ground five minutes with Hamilton Magee. "On Tuesday things got still worse. A stiff northwesterly wind blowing us out of our course. Only a sailor could hold his footing. 1 sat a long time on the steps and watched the scene, the captain, who, of course, made little of it with me for a little while. Storms are painted fairly enough by the writers and painters. The great irregular moving masses of water, black, dark blue, cobalt and now and then, as the sun shone through the tops of the waves, light-blue and even green like malachite, may well enough look to the imaginations of steerage passengers on a lower deck 'mountain high.' In point of fact I think the valleys were about fifteen feet deep. The stormy petrels were skimming their sides, hke swallows, no doubt seeking their food. The screams of great sea-birds were now and again heard, and their plunges into the waves were seen. They are often in the 'troubled' waters behind the ship. As night came on the sea grew worse, and with nothing but the ship TO THE UNITED STATES 153 to blow against the motion became unpleasant. The wind went hissing through the shrouds (like the confidential whisper of the tempest) with a subdued force that we felt rather than heard, and it was withal very cold. I went to bed realizing 1 trust and feel the meaning of Psalm 46 (God is our refuge and our strength). The early part of the night continued rough, but towards morning it moderated, and the wind chopped about on our beam, so that we have some sails up and are going as fast as on the first days. . . . Among the suffering ladies I am sorry to report my oaten-cake friend, who has not realized the benefit of the specific. She has not left her cabin, but may be heard in it, where she is accompanied by two suffering children. As I write the ship rolls a good deal and makes writing very difficult. I have my pockets full of books, and beside me the features of my own little circle, and now that we are more than half way to New York, and we may hope the worser half, 1 need not feel cast down. In time perhaps I would get inured to life at sea but it would take long. " Wednesday, four o'clock. This is the first endurable day for three or four. The day keeps 154 FIRST JOURNEY fine, and we make fair progress. 1 have done more to-day in reading, etc., than any one else likely on board. It is a lazy life. Got through several magazines which had lain by me on the continent. The ship will soon have been eight clear days from Liverpool, and if it had not been for adverse winds three more would likely have brought us in sight of America. Now it will \ikely take five more. . . . Last night I found some Irish Presbyterians on board, and to-day I was a good deal among the steerage people talk- ing to them as well as 1 could. They are of all nations, and this is not easy. To-day the ship made 320 miles, and if all goes well we shall still reach New York on Monday. 1 have made the acquaintance of an Englishman, an engineer who has been through Turkey in Asia. His little Greek wife is with him, the daughter of a Greek captain of a Turkish warship. She cannot speak English and he cannot speak Greek, but both speak Turkish and so converse in that tongue. He gives a bad account of the Greeks as dishon- est, mean and lying. He is not a man of culture, but in knocking about the world has learned many facts. . . . Our captain is the man who was out fifty-four days in the City of Washington, whose screw was lost. He put TO THE UNITED STATES 155 his passengers aboard another ship and stuck by his own. . . . There are 760 steerage pas- sengers! Swiss, Swedes, Dutch, English, Amer- icans and Irish; and the crew also are much di- vided in nationality. . . . 1 spoke to a young woman (married) going to San Francisco, who told me her family lived in Dublin, and that her brother was or had been a Methodist, but now went to a 'people they call Presbyterians, and the min- ister was a Dr. Hall or Hawley, she didn't know which.' I took his address. Have been among the steerage folks again — not many English-speak- ing Protestants among them. But on the whole a sober lot. The worst case, I am sorry to say, of beastly drinking is among the cabin pas- sengers — a Belfast man, who gives himself out to be a mill owner. " Sabbath morning, May 12th. Good sleep, and up early as the captain has asked me to preach. Good congregation including two Jews and a Roman Catholic doctor, and a Roman Catholic priest, already mentioned from Germany. My text was I Peter 1:19. Afterwards went below among the steerage passengers and never spent a happier time than the four hours with them; the Swedes, five hundred of them, all Lutheran, 156 FIRST JOURNEY singing their hymns to the tune ' I have a Father in the promised land.' I got hold of a good lad who spoke English and interpreted and 1 preached to them. Their tears flowed. They kissed my hands, and were most grateful. All are learning English. The evening was fine, the moon shi- ning, and we getting on our way very well." The rest of the journal is filled with little details of only relative interest now. My father was taken at once to the home of Mr. James Stuart, a distant relative, where as he remarks, "1 am luxuriously lodged." The object of sending a delegation to America from the church of Ireland was to establish again bonds of fellowship imperilled by the Civil war, and its divisions of sentiment. Dr. Denham was accompanied by his wife, but my father as the younger man, expected to travel too far and too fast to permit of the trip being a pleasure to a lady. He at one time thought of taking his eldest boy, but the same considerations prevented that plan also. He had only eight weeks in the country, and in that time he spoke day after day in nearly all the eastern and many of the western cities. The delegation was formally accredited to the Old and New School Assemblies, to the Synod of the Reformed church and to the Synod TO THE UNITED STATES 157 of the Covenanters, and while in America a com- mission came to them to the Covenanter Synod in Canada. One of the vivid recorded impres- sions of New York was a thunder-storm which came soon after landing; "I slept well, notwith- standing a thunder-storm last night like which I never saw anything." The first duty was dis- charged in meeting the " Covenanters," as my father calls the body to which Mr. George H. Stuart at that time belonged, i. e., the United Presbyterian Church, and which was meeting in New York. Mr. Stuart was a relative, and had a national reputation in religious circles on account of his zeal and energy in all good works, but in particular in connection with that of the Chris- tian commission throughout the Civil war. No religious public meeting without Mr. Stuart as chairman was considered quite complete. He was afterwards disciplined by his body for sing- ing hymns, which as he was totally tone-deaf seemed to many to be making a crime out of a calamity. He had long known and corres- ponded with my father, (see page 58) and had shown practical and wise interest in the Con- naught mission. It was now a great and real pleasure to him to arrange plans for the appear- ances of the delegation. Mr. Stuart had an in- 158 FIRST JOURNEY satiable appetite for public meetings, and his mere presence insured that the meeting would be well arranged, full of snap and thoroughly well- known beforehand. He moreover knew well the American public, and was in touch with as many religious interests as any man of his gener- ation. He at once began making plans for the exploiting of the Irish delegation. Mr. Stuart coming himself from Markethill in the north of Ireland felt a most particular desire to have the results of the mission as abundant as possible. In a letter to the home circle, my father says in one place: "1 need not now dwell upon impres- sions. Everything indicates wealth, and all that money can buy is on hand. Every one is most kind, and I am sure, sincerely glad to see us. We shall have hard work for the next month, if we overtake all the engagements made for us. New York is fine; in the end I live is like the west end of Glasgow; the business end has an un- finished rough and ready, republican kind of look, every house having a mind of its own." After meeting with the Reformed Presbyte- rian church the start was made for Rochester where the New School Assembly was in session. The trip took the party up the Hudson, which made a most enduring impression upon the visi- TO THE UNITED STATES 159 tors. " The river itself is far finer tinan tiie Rhine, or any river in Europe, although, of course, it lacks the historic feature, and the picturesque castles of the old world scenery," was the verdict of my father. As it happened two brothers of younger years had preceded my father to America, and as both were in Canada, and not far from the Falls of Niagara, he writes "1 found at breakfast that I was within a day's journey and six dollars of Robert. The love of my brothers got the better of the love of the Falls and at ten o'clock 1 was off to the Canada side, crossed Lake Ontario by boat to Toronto, thence sixty-three miles by train. There I spent the Sabbath and preached in the Presbyterian and Wesleyan churches." On Tuesday the delegation was received at Rochester by the New School Assembly, and "very cordially" is the comment of the corre- spondence. Thence they proceeded to Cincin- nati, "rather slowly" my father thought, but "Dr. Denham does not like to go too fast." At Cincinnati the speech of my father made a pro- found impression. The enthusiasm aroused was very great, and from that time on calls came to him to speak at meetings all over the country at most impossible distances. Of this speech i6o FIRST JOURNEY Harper's IVeekly said: "His eloquent speech on the occasion of his reception, which was one of the striking incidents of that Assembly, will never be forgotten by any who heard it." The re- sponse to the many calls for speeches began to try even the younger member of the delegation. He writes, "I am in good health, I am thankful to say, but it is very fast work, and the meals are so unlike my own in time, quality, etc., that I am not always comfortable." At the same time he says: "Our coming to the new school has already done good, and a deputation will be in Edinburgh and in Dublin. Please to send a letter on getting this to Dr. McCosh telling him that the new school deputation will be in Edinburgh, and that they are looking to him to care for them in Ireland." In the correspondence of this period great comfort is taken in a small coin. "Tell Emily I have her half-penny as a memorial of her, and often look at it." The last day in Dublin, had in fact been given to the children. It is one of the writer's vivid memories of going in Phoenix Park for a last " long walk " with the father who was going to America. The children had heard of the expense of such a journey, and just before part- ing the little daughter, about six years of age, TO THE UNITED STATES i6i slipped a half-penny into the father's hand. " It is all 1 have, but it may help towards the expense in America." It certainly did help to cheer the journey, as many allusions to it in the home let- ters abundantly prove. In the hurry and rush of those eight busy weeks the family in Eccles Street was never for- gotten. The leaves of the journal have a "bank- note " for Bolton's collection of stamps and bills; a "coin or two " is in the trunk for Robert's col- lection. Alas, the shops of New York are "en- tirely too expensive to permit of the purchase of many little things one would like to take home as keep-sakes," but "no doubt I will find some- thing for the rest by and by." From Cincinnati the plans carried the party to Xenia, Ohio, and thence to Indianapolis, and every occasion for a speech or a public meeting was made the most of by Mr. Stuart who was now in full control. At Springfield the life and death of Lincoln is noted with tender words. In the struggle be- tween the North and the South, my father had taken a definite stand in a speech made in Glas- gow as the war was going on, on the side of the North. Even as a student he had interested him- self, as we have seen, in the liberation movement. For Lincoln he always had a sincere admiration i62 FIRST JOURNEY mingled with regrets that he lacked, what my father thought he most needed, the comforts of an active militant Christian life. The State of Illinois impressed the traveller im- mensely. He writes, "The next day we came by Dayton, to the capital of Missouri (St. Louis) about 260 miles, and right across the whole State of Illinois, one of the finest and richest countries 1 have ever seen. The land is so level that one sees ten miles, and so fertile that it needs no manure for twenty years and produces 100 bushels of corn to the acre ! " In St. Louis, Springfield, Lafayette meetings were held at which my father preached, and then the party went on to Chicago. He writes, " I am not overworked, though I do not like the living here, and am better at home with you. But the profusion of things, fruits of the earth especially that are eaten is something wonderful. The state of religion is much like as with us. In Europe people do not enough carry religion into their business. Here I think they carry business into their religion a good deal." Of Chicago the impression was of rush and hurry. "It is the Queen of the West, with 200,000 people, where thirty years ago there were only 600! We get crowded meetings, and are TO THE UNITED STATES 163 ■wonderfully reported, as you will see, not in what we say, but how we say it." And again, "We are carried round Sabbath-schools to no end, and Dr. Denham and I get rid of a good deal of perspiration. Happily we have plenty of iced water." Crowded meetings in Pittsburg are mentioned, and thence the journey was to Phila- delphia. Here again preaching, speaking, and visiting schools, institutions, and attending public dinners consumed the time, until atlast my father insisted on a day or two of leisure to visit Balti- more and Washington, both of which cities seem at that time to have rather disappointed him, although he was deeply and profoundly moved by the graves at Arlington, "where rest 30,000 soldiers, sleeping their last bivouac." Lecture engagements called him thence to Can- ada, and from there down through the New Eng- land States, speaking on the way at Amherst, and recalling Jonathan Edwards as he passed Northampton. On the 23d he was in New York again and found that arrangements had been made for him to preach in the morning for Dr. Adams (New School) and in the afternoon in the Fifth Avenue Church (Old School), and at Dr. Duvyea's in the evening. On the 24th he was in Princeton, speaking there and addressing i64 FIRST JOURNEY the Cliosophic Society, which had elected him a member. Here he met Dr. Hodge and others. From this on the time was filled with various ap- pointments and visits to various people, including the run up to Canada, already mentioned, and then on the 13th of July passage was taken on the City of London, for the old home. This trip to America made a great impression upon him of the vast possibihties for good or evil that lay involved in the tremendous power and wealth he saw was in the future. Mr. Stuart had set his heart on having him come to America, even before this visit, but the idea only very vaguely crossed his mind that he himself should ever come, but in one place he says, " I can hardly overcome the idea that at some future time some of the children will be on this conti- nent, where things are done on so much larger a scale than with us." Looking back upon his first visit to America, my father once recorded some of his early memories and impressions which in part are as follows: " I landed from the Ctty of New York steamer on Manhattan Island, not as an emigrant nor a mere tourist, but to discharge an honorable and pleasant duty as a delegate from the ' mother TO THE UNITED STATES 165 Church,' in Ireland (for so we may truly call her), to the Presbyterian Churches in Synod and Assemblies in the United States. Expecting to be only a couple of months in the country, and then to return to pastoral duty in the capital of my native land, I meant, of course, to keep eyes and ears very wide open, and to carry away as much as possible of — not money, for my ex- penses were provided for by the body repre- sented, nor glory, for 1 thought myself quite un- fit for the task — but knowledge of the places, the people, and the institutions of which I had read and heard from childhood. "A lovely summer day, the 13th May, 1867 — was the day of landing; and, like most others, I looked with unbounded admiration upon the scenery opening up to the eye as one enters the Narrows and approaches the city. There is nothing just like it in Europe as a bit of scenery, and there is nothing at all like its magnificent, dignified ferry-boats, with their great beams in the air, not to speak of those models of confi- dence and impudence, the steam-tugs. I had had the advantage of a few days' seasickness in the solitude of a room, knew no one on board, and expected to see dear friends on the American shore; so when the tugs rushed past, and i66 FIRST JOURNEY screamed, ' Keep out of my way if you want to be safe,' it was natural to laugh in admiration. There was a little disenchantment over the rather ragged piers in great contrast with the solid cut-stone docks of such places as Liverpool, and in the rather rough streets over which one was rolled, but it was not forgotten that the country was new, and some things needed to be ' fixed up.' There was an opportunity given to speak the very night of the first day on the American soil, and 1 am bound to say gratefully that the country has continued in this respect as it began with me. "Oh! what a day that was that laid bare, in pleasant sunshine, the glories of the Hudson, right and left, as surveyed from the steamboat. There were books and papers for the way, but they had a holiday. I had been on the Rhine and among other tempting bits of European scenery in the previous spring. There were, of course, the castles, the chalets and the lingering tradi- tions; but for grace, dignity and interest the Hudson is far ahead of them, and well prepared one for the Falls of Niagara the next day. 'Blood is thicker than water,' and the Falls were soon forsaken for a brother and a group of unknown cousins on the Canadian side. It was TO THE UNITED STATES 167 good to see an old aunt, settled in Canada about the time I was born, and to hear her tell of children and children's children, and chuckle over the saying of the neighbors that ' if you threw up a stone anywhere, it would fall on one of them.' Duties really began at Roch- ester, where an Assembly met. 1 came in after midnight, and judge of my horror on finding the portmanteau that contained the speeches lost! And, to add to the terrors, the speech had to come off early next forenoon. .No matter. There was an opportunity to see the noble form of Dr. Adams, and without being told, guess his commanding position. And the speeches got themselves off at Cincinnati, and Xenia, and Indianapolis, and Chicago, and each day brought its store of new ideas, and it did seem too bad to have only a few days in Phila- delphia, and then a few more in New York, and then quit the continent probably forever!" The voyage home was uneventful. At first calm, and yet very slow. The notes of the voy- age declare, "This ship is about 390 feet long, 100 feet longer than the City of New York, more steady, but her machinery is defective, and she has had to stop three times to allow it to coal. The table is good. The first few days we had i68 FIRST JOURNEY fine weather, but our motion was slow, one day we only did 156 miles. I have been able to preach each Sabbath morning, and to very at- tentive audiences, some of whom wept. One rough sailor declared to me in a sort of ' aside ' on deck, that ' he could listen to me talking to the day of Pentecost,' a well meant though ill- expressed compliment. I have read a good deal on board, including periodicals, the Edinburgh Review, North British Review and Charles King- sley's 'Two Years Ago' and 'Yeast.'" The landing was at last affected, and Dublin was reached, where the little family was found in restored health. For while away the two younger children had been ill. At once was begun the ceaseless round of visits that marked the faithful ministry during its whole range. VII. THE CALL TO AMERICA AND ITS ACCEPTANCE AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN BY REV. JOHN HALL, D. D.' Mother of nations vanquishing the earth ; Old ocean queen ! to whom we owe our birth ; Columbia, mingling with thy grief her tear, Sends thee her greeting on this sad New-Year. There have been strifes — in woe, they are forgot ; And feuds — they are as though they had been not : When father-land the mournful watch is keeping, The scattered household needs must hear the weeping. Thrice thirty years since we were seeking rest, A callow bird, pushed from the parent nest; Now strong, and glad her eagle wing to fold, Her memory of the deed — not she — grows old. Grieve not, because ye sent us o'er the sea ; God meant it well for truth and liberty. He makes us great ; so let these clasping hands Be ever clasped — for blessing to the lands. New York, Dec. 75, i8yi. * Published in an issue of the New York Ledger ^ in which also some lines by Tennyson appeared. 170 BRITISH & IRISH MAGNETIG K i — ,U- -*r*- liuwing Mes: VII THE CALL TO AMERICA AND ITS ACCEPTANCE HINTS OF ^4 COMING CALL. ^N ^4TLANTIC MESSAGE. THE CALL TO AMERICA ACCEPTED. REMONSTRANCES. REASONS FOR GOING. CORRESPONDENCE IVITH ^MERIC/I. ^N IRISH ESTIMATE OF SERVICE RENDERED. EVEN before the delegation had left America, the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church Ses- sion had considered the wisdom of calling my father to the vacant pulpit, and had cautious ap- proaches made to him. These overtures were not however taken seriously by him, and in his ignorance of local conditions he could give them no thought. He was therefore not a little sur- prised to learn from Mr. George H. Stuart that the matter was being definitely pushed, and that he would be compelled to consider some over- ture. The letter stating this was followed almost immediately by a cable from Mr. William Walker, as clerk of the session, saying, "Large meeting of congregation voted you cordial and unani- mous call." In those days cables were not as common as now. After twelve years of seemingly almost 171 172 THE CALL TO AMERICA fruitless struggle Mr. Cyrus Field had made in 1866 his last successful effort. Just before the starting of the Great Eastern with the cable on board, a number of clergymen had been invited to Valencia to inaugurate with appropriate relig- ious services the undertaking. Among those in- vited had been my father; and it was with a feel- ing akin to awe that this cable message a few months later was viewed in the family circle. Among the household treasures was a piece of the cable, and a finely illustrated history of the undertaking. These were all again examined and admired in the light of this practical example of the efficiency of the Atlantic cable. This message came on the ist of August, 1867, and was at once taken into grave consideration. Many things had to be weighed on both sides. The aged mother in the north of Ireland was deeply moved at the mere prospect of having the great ocean part her in her declining days from the son on whom she now gladly and freely leaned. Her one comfort was that, "he would be preaching to many nations, and that though her hope he would have been a missionary was not fulfilled, that yet at least his voice would bring the gospel to distant parts." Had all the love and affection been made man- AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 173 ifest that later years proved existed, the parting from heland would have been far harder, and the path of duty less plain. But my father felt, and to an inner circle guardedly said, that his sympathies were with a set of ideas and a policy plainly not favored by the General Assembly as a body. He was an outspoken Liberal; the policy of the Assembly was to work with the Tory party in the great issues at least. He was for disestablishment and thorough disestablishment at that; the Assembly was — as seen in its action of i868^on the other side. He was on the side of secular and undenominational education; the Assembly was not heartily in favor of it, although assenting with constant, and often unjust criti- cisms of their representatives on the National Board of Education. My father had no objection to either organ or hymns, but these were the burning questions — hardly settled yet — on which a triumphant majority were glad year after year to assert their power to stop progress by de- structive conservatism. Along many lines my father had been calling down the criticisms of the "pillars" and "safe " counsellors in the church by demands for reforms in Sabbath-school teach- ing, by his temperance activity and by pleas to carry on the evangelization of Ireland along the 174 THE CALL TO AMERICA lines laid down by Dr. Edgar. There was little or no opposition of an open kind to my father's restless activity along these and other lines; but there was a steady quiet suppressing of his en- ergy. He longed for "more atmosphere," and said so confidentially to an inner circle. Yet he loved Ireland, and he loved Dublin. He clung with a tender and unceasing affection, not only to a little band of ministerial friends, but to num- berless families all over the country. In Belfast, in Newry, in Cork as well as in Dublin his heart was bound by sweet and lasting bonds to Chris- tian friends, whom he never forgot, and who never forgot or betrayed him. Great as was the pressure put upon him to ac- cept the call voices were at the same time lifted up by intimate friends both in Ireland and in America urging him to consider the step carefully. His oldest and dearest friend wrote: My dear Hall : It is not my place, of course, to interfere in that most serious business of your going to New York. Serious it is, in almost every aspect of it. I know quite well you are not the man to act from impulse, and that you have deliberately weighed the matter in all its bearings. I am not certain whether you have irrevocably pledged yourself to go, nor do I wish you to tell me whether you have or not. But, if you have NOT, I beseech you to consider the position of responsibility and AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 175 influence that God has assigned you in the present crisis of our ecclesiastical and national history. You are, I am quite sure, satisfied that some of the gravest questions that have ever been discussed in our church in our time, are certam to come up very soon. You are needed. You know I am never given to flattery. But I only say what I think, and what I have very, very often said to others, that of all the men in our church, you are the man, I would say, we cannot spare. God is not tied to any individual instrument, it is true. But seeing He conde- scends to raise up, and to qualify instruments for His own work, we are not dishonoring nor disturbing Him when we recognize the qualifications for special service, He has Himself bestowed. ... I write in confidence, I am not mentioning even to my wife that I am writing to you. It is as well not. I can speak more freely. There will be only one feeling in Dr. Kirkpatrick's family should you go — of deep and poignant sorrow. Those young people are all exceedingly attached to you. I know these are small matters, but I can at least do no harm to mention them. The one thing that weighs upon my mind is, that you are more needed for, and I think, considering everything, more fitted for, working in the land of your birth (first and second) than in any country under heaven. If the Lord still opens up your way to remain among us, no one will be more gratified than your old college friend, H. Magee. To J. Hall, Aug. i^th, i8(yj. From an Irish friend then in America and fa- miliar with conditions in New York and even in some degree with the conditions in the church he asked for " the gloomy side " of the call, and received a very sober and careful letter, of which some abstracts may be interesting. 176 THE CALL TO AMERICA " August gth, iSby. "Dear Dr. Hall : — ****** "You will understand that my object is to lay before you such facts regarding this country and the church as, I think might influence your de- cision as to coming out here, and I will do it as fairly as I can, for I would not on my account desire you to come out and then be disappointed by finding anything different from what you had expected, and yet I cannot tell you how thankful I should feel personally if the Father should in His kind providence bring you here while we are still here. "In the first place the church has not been in a very satisfactory state. Some did not treat Dr. Rice at all as they ought to have done, and the one who took the lead was whom you have met. Some particularly desired another candidate when Dr. Rice was elected, and they never, therefore, were favorably disposed to him. Besides, he came at the beginning of the war. He was a Kentuckian by birth, and his wife and most of his friends were southern peo- ple, and his not preaching political sermons was construed by his enemies into a sympathy for the south. But it was really only a few of the AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 177 extremists carried away by the excitement and passion of tlie moment, who turned against him. The great mass of the church did not want po- litical preaching, nay, they were very thankful not to have it. They loved the noble old doctor most intensely, no one had any idea how in- tensely, until he was compelled to leave them. They would have done anything to have retained his connection with the church. But he would not remain while he could not work and he was completely broken down. Of his own free will he resigned, greatly to the sorrow of the great portion of the congregation. In your case how- ever the church is perfectly unanimous, and you come without being mixed up with either po- litical party. ... I fear however should you come out you will miss very much the congenial circle of ministers which you must break from in leaving Dublin. You will find a prejudice against you in the minds of some of the smaller clergymen here. It is natural that they should feel slighted by a call being given to you a for- eigner, which to some extent will be strengthened by the prejudice against Irishmen in particular; and there is a strong party, both in the Presby- terian church and out of it called the 'Native American ' party, who would not scruple to use 178 THE CALL TO AMERICA the cry of foreign birth against you, if it suited their ends, and any cry of this kind is dangerous with a people like the Americans, who are natur- ally illogical and impulsive, and therefore dog- matic and apt to be carried away by their feelings so as to see the end aimed at only, and for means do, what, after calmer consideration they are sorry for. "As to America itself (remember I am trying to bring up all the objections I can at present) you would be much pained by the toadyism to the moneyed aristocracy (by far the worst kind of an aristocracy) and by the purse-proudness of many (even among Christians) and by the gen- eral feeling of the omnipotence of the Almighty dollar. "The education of your children would, I think, be another serious obstacle. I would be hooted at for hinting at such a thing, but my feel- ing is that here the education is very superficial; though I confess 1 do not intimately know it, but only the results. . . . Again the rates of liv- ing are so high that in Ireland I believe one could be more comfortable on ^^500 than on ;!^i,ooo here, and in many things the tastes, feelings and ideas of Americans so differ from ours, that I think you would never be so happy here as in AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 179 Ireland, and indeed I believe it would be a per- sonal sacrifice your coming out here, which should only be made in consideration of the Im- portant place you are called to fill, believing that it is the Master's call, and that it is He who has opened such a wide field for you to labor in." Not all the letter is quite in this strain, at the same time other and personal considerations are dwelt upon. My father had in no way com- mitted himself in his letters to Mr. Stuart and at one point in his deliberations words from certain quarters urging him to stay would, probably have decided him for Ireland. Those words were not spoken. He felt that he could be spared, and that the call from over the water was the voice of Providence, and he said finally "yes." The moment that word was spoken there was such a tremendous appeal made, and such a commotion in many circles that my father was fairly stunned. He had always with the utmost vigor upheld Presbyterianism against the claims, often he thought haughty and arrogant, of the Established Church. Courteously yet firmly and constantly he battled for what he considered a more thoroughgoing and scriptural Protestantism than the somewhat High Church Establishment. i8o THE CALL TO AMERICA What then was his pleasure and his astonishment to find some of the very warmest and strongest protests against his going coming from those whom he had already begun to put his armor on to fight. The Roman Catholics had good words for him, and letters came from far-off Connaught asking that he stay and fight out the battle of the spelling-book which he had so bravely carried on. The disestablishment party in the church saw their supposed feeble minority left without a leader; and now earnest words were spoken by even those whose opposition and silence had made my father feel that as a young man in a very leading position his place was one of great difficulty, even to the imperil- ling the peace of the church. He profoundly felt that after the struggles in which the church had been engaged, and in the face of the difficulties without, peace within was a first necessity. To secure that peace was one of the motives that led him to be willing to go. Now he had said "yes," and all protests were in vain. Friends of my father — I never heard him himself complain of it, — felt that the Rutland Square congregation had not dealt generously with him. He had made pecuniary sacrifices to come to them. When Mr. Findlater built the church he distinctly inti- AND ITS ACCEPTANCE i8i mated, in the letter already quoted, that he ex- pected the congregation to support the ministry liberally. There had been no adequate recogni- tion of the greatly increased labors flung on the shoulders of the younger man, by the larger con- gregation and the declining strength of Dr. Kirkpatrick. Now that he was going the mis- take was seen, but it was too late. It only re- mained by great public meetings and addresses, as well as by memorial silver to show how strongly fastened were the ties that bound the pastor to the people he was so soon to leave. To his friend Dr. Magee he wrote at once saying: II Eccles Street, Dublin, iSth August, i86y. My Dear Friend : Your kind letter certainly moved my feelings very much, though my judgment remains as I had formed it after a careful and serious survey of all the circumstances which a minister should take into vievif in determining his duty in a case of this kind. Everything that formed a reason for my coming to Dublin has its stronger counterpart in reference to New York. If the Church is apparently dependent on such men as I am, remaining, it may be the best discipline for her in the present temper of the majority of her members to have a few such re- moved. I am sensible of the strength of the case made by the Rutland Square people, but then any circumstance of ease, comfort, society or business would withdraw any family among them from us. Many whom I know most as friends are prov- identially removed or removing and I should have only to do in detail, what is now to be done with much pain to myself at once. I always valued — much more than I can say — the i82 THE CALL TO AMERICA sympathy and affection of a few college friends among whom you stand m a foremost place, but I often felt as if the prom- inence of the place I was, without any fault of mine, put in, and the multiplicity of duties to be done, deprived me of the enjoyment of as much of this blessing as I might otherwise have had. I am glad of the good-feeling of the young people, to which you kindly allude, but I do not think it would be at all just to Dr. Kirkpatrick and myself to alter the opinion I had formed, and in some measure indicated, on account of the new proposals.! jje and perhaps some others — of whom I know you were not one — blamed me for setting him aside (or sanc- tioning that course) partially — how much more if I were a party to doing it altogether ? Nor, in other points of view, would the proposed arrangement long continue consistently with our self-respect, independence of feeling, and general comfort. But my reason for going, though founded on a con- joint view of all the circumstances, rest more on the facts in connexion with New York, and if spared to live and labor there, I shall always retain the friendships of other and less care-laden times, and always be to you as I am sure you will be to me a sympathizing, cordially appreciating, college and Christian friend, J. Hall. Meantime letters in abundance pressing the claims of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church came to hand, and the news of the hearty char- acter of the call gave an additional reason for prompt acceptance. The session of the Church had issued a circular to the members who were scattered for the vacation, as follows: ■ Dr. Kirkpatrick had intimated generously to the congrega- tion that he was ready to step aside to enable them to retain his fellow-minister. AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 183 New York, July 18, 1S67. Dear Sir : The Session of the Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue, corner of Nineteenth Street, respectfully calls your attention to the communication which follows : Those members of the congregation who have had the op- portunity of hearing the Rev. Dr. Hall, of Dublin, preach, have, we believe, without exception, expressed a desire that he should be called to our Church. In the scattered condition of our congregation, usual at this season of the year, we do not feel justified in calling a meeting to consider the subject with- out giving an opportunity to all members of the congregation to be present, and to express their views. We, therefore, take this method of informing you that a meeting of the congregation will be held on Wednesday EVENING, July 31st, at the Lecture Room of the Church, at half-past seven o' clock. At that meeting it is our intention to nominate Rev. John Hall, D. D., as Pastor of our Church, and to recommend him most cordially. We are happy to say that we have encouragement to believe that he will accept a call from us, if he can obtain the consent of his people. The circumstances of the case, are, in our judgment, such as to make early action necessary. If, from any cause, you should be unable to attend the meeting, you will very much oblige us by addressing a note to William Walker, No. 69 Liberty Street, or either of the undersigned, stating your approval or disapproval of the proposed call. We are. Yours respectfully, William Walker, Thomas U. Smith, James M. Halsted, David Hoadley, Henry G. De Forest, Henry Day. i84 THE CALL TO AMERICA The official letter giving notice of the formal call and enclosing the papers was delayed, but the clerk of the session, and the lifelong friend of my father, Mr. William Walker, sent at once a letter stating the full result. The letter read: New York, j4u^. t, iSby. My dear Sir : I have but little time before the sailing of the steamer to state that we had an unexpectedly large meeting of our con- gregation last evening, and with entire unanimity a call was made out for you. I received in addition about forty letters (representing probably seventy-five persons,) from those who could not be present at the meeting expressing their cordial ap- proval of the proposed call. The moderator was pleased to say that he had never been present at a congregational meeting so perfectly harmonious in their views. The salary proposed is g6,ooo in gold zxiA the free occupa- tion of a suitable dwelling-house. In addition the trustees were instructed to pay the expense of bringing your family here. I telegraphed you this day informing you of the call. The necessary papers will be forwarded as soon as they can be prepared. With the earnest prayer that your decision may be such that God may be glorified and His cause promoted, I am very truly Your brother in Christ, Wm. Walker. To this letter my father replied as below: Dublin, 20th August, iSfyj. My dear Sir : I have received your kind communication and several others on the same subject. I have weighed with much concern AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 185 all the circumstances of which I think a minister should take ac- count in forming his judgment, and I see no reason to alter the opinion of which you and other friends have had indications already, that I should accept the invitation of your Church and remove to New York. The fact that I did not take any step towards a settlement in America, that I never contemplated it, the great and commanding importance of the field, the una- nimity of the members, and the urgent counsel of leading min- isters of the American Church are among the principal reasons that have led me — through a most painful struggle with feelings of personal and local attachment — to this conclusion. I have intimated my opinion to the congregation of Rutland Square through the Session, and upon their taking certain steps and begging my reconsideration of the case, I have again re- ported my unaltered opinion to them. I shall be guided by their convenience (as my colleague is just now in Amsterdam at the Evangelical Alliance Conference), as to the time of ask- ing the leave of the presbytery to resign ; but this, and I trust all other necessary steps can be taken so as to admit of my re- moval to New York with my family during the month of October. The probable time of the equinoctial gales, the time of a suitable steamer's sailing and other circumstances must determine the exact time of the month, and of this you shall have the earliest intimation possible in course of post. The cordial and harmonious action of the people is I trust an indication that this thing is of the Lord, and I hope they will not fail to beseech Him to crown the arrangement with His own blessing. I am deeply sensible of the importance of the work to which I go, and I shall enter upon it in dependence on Divine aid, and in expectation of that confidence and co- operation of Session and congregation of which it has been my happiness to enjoy so much hitherto. Believe me to be, dear Mr. Walker, Yours most faithfully in the truth, John Hall. Wm. Walker. Esquire. i86 THE CALL TO AMERICA The parting from Dublin was made very seri- ous by the expressions on every hand of the loss the Church at large and the city sustained. Many interests had to be cared for. The Evangelical Witness passed into other hands, and became a weekly paper of great power, and is still the leading organ of the Presbyterian church as the Belfast Witness. The national education cause interested my father to the end of his life, and he saw the complete triumph of his views before many years had passed. The Episcopal church was disestablished, and, as he had predicted, prospered as never before on that very account. National education won its way and compelled the adhesion of even the extreme Roman Catho- lic party. The Presbyterians flung off the lead- ing strings of the Tory party and became intelli- gently and independently liberal, securing their own representation in the House of Commons, and ceasing from that day on to be the mere "tail to the Tory kite." It would be, at this date, impossible to repro- duce and tiresome to attempt it, the many printed estimates and criticisms of the eighteen years of public service in Ireland. Yet one esti- mate in the Evangelical Witness after it had passed from under his control is worth repro- AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 187 duction, as it is from tlie pen of the Rev. Thomas Croskerry of Londonderry, who at that time wielded large influence and whose services in connection with the Evangelical Witness are still fresh in the minds of Irish readers. The article condensed somewhat was as follows: The Rev. Dr. Hall. " Our gifted predecessor, after a brief but dis- tinguished ministry of eighteen years, has left his native country to spend the remainder of his days in the service of American Presbyterianism. His departure is a subject of universal and un- feigned regret. It is, however, a subject of just pride and congratulation that he will nobly rep- resent, in another land, the power and versatility of that Scotch-Irish race which the historian, Bancroft, has glorified in connection with the civil and ecclesiastical history of America. It is almost unnecessary to say to Irish Presbyterians what Dr. Hall was to the church of his fathers. The pulpit was the throne of his power. He was no talker of drawling platitudes or explana- tory futilities, with affected rhetoric or artificial turns of phrase, or mental inanity, whose ser- mons act upon part of a congregation like chlo- roform, while they drive another portion into i88 THE CALL TO AMERICA thinking of nothing, a third into wondering when the preacher will be done, a fourth into ill-natured criticism, and a fifth out of church al- together. He was something more than a mere pounder of texts in a doctrinal mortar; some- thing more than a dry, didactic talker after modes beaten flat by the incessant hammering of cen- turies. In fact. Dr. Hall was one of the freshest preachers of the age. He preached, too, as he talked, with a fine conversational freedom and naturalness, and was so singularly lucid and happy in expression that he was, to our mind, the Goldsmith and Franklin, in one, of the Irish pulpit. His sermons — some of them, if rumor is to be credited, like Jonah's gourd, the offspring of a single night — are powerful from their heav- enly unction, their beseeching tenderness, their popular scope, and, above all, their wide range of analogical illustration. He was, indeed, sin- gularly skillful in analogies, in the structure of those ' aerial pontoons ' which bridge across the literal and the figurative. It is, perhaps, the highest praise of Dr. Hall's sermons and speeches that they do not read well, for it is a well-known fact that the newspaper speech which is polished and rounded, and Ciceronian in its periods, is anything but popular or pleasing to an audience. AND ITS ACCEPTANCE 189 We must say, however, that the speeches of our gifted friend were such fresh and familiar tran- scripts of good sense and feeling, with a certain rich zest and flavor and power about them, that the reader could always associate the image of the speaker with every paragraph, and his ear seemed to catch and recognize the very tones of living address. His speeches were always short. Let it be said to his credit that he always ex- hibited, in debate, a high-bred Christian courtesy, and that he abstained from all those weapons of fierce and sarcastic recrimination which do so much to lower the moral status as well as lessen the influence of the ministry. "We cannot well estimate the amount of his various labors for our denominational benefit, whether as a preacher, as a journalist, or as a director of education. For six years, in the midst of endless concerns of public and private ur- gency, in the metropolis of the country, where he was surrounded by all the social temptations of the popular preacher, he sustained the Evangel- ical fVitness, without a farthing of help from public or private funds, and did vast service to the Presbyterian cause by defending and explain- ing Presbyterianism, by correcting the errors and chastising the heresies of the times, by rebuking igo THE CALL TO AMERICA the exclusiveness and intolerance of Churchmen, and, above all, by cherishing the literary spirit in our ministers. For nine years, he was occu- pied in raising Dublin Presbyterianism to that proud and commanding position it held in the days when Joseph Boyse preached to a thousand hearers in Wood Street, including the Darners, and Langfords, and Loftuses, of high descent; and for eighteen years he has been conspicuous, in the ranks of his brethren, not merely for great eloquence and great force of character, but as a man of unblemished integrity, of tried courage, of large benevolence, of unaffected piety — a man whose views were always tolerant and liberal, his convictions deep and hearty, with few antip- athies and many sympathies, yet his career, in all its stages, marked by decision. We can think of his life proudly and thankfully, as of the course of a river filling its channel from bank to bank, moving onwards by the force of its own ample stream, and, with effortless ministry, watering the fields and the flowers on either side." VIII. THE MINISTRY IN NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH A PRAYER I come to Thee, gracious Lord, As taught in Thy most holy word In Christ Thy Son, I do believe, And for His sake the world I leave. Teach me in faith and hope to live. And to this end Thy spirit give, That I may run the appointed race, Sustain me by Thy heavenly grace. Guide me through life, supply my needs. Keep me from all unrighteous deeds, And when death comes oh ! let it be That I may live, O Lord, with Thee. — John Hall. 192 VIII THE MINISTRY IN NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. THE NEW YORK HOME. THE FIFTH AVENUE CHURCH'S HISTORY. THE REUNION. IDEALS OF EDUCATION. IDEALS IN PREACHING. IMMEDIATE SUCCESS. METHODS. PASTORAL WORK. IT was a beautiful warm autumn day when after a long, but on the whole pleasant trip, the extra Cunard Steamship Aleppo brought my father and his family to the dock at New York. A long-trusted and loved housekeeper and two servants accompanied the party. The four little boys all arrayed in Scotch caps and the belts and blouses worn in those days by school children in Ireland, but unknown in America, are said to have attracted an attention of which the wearers were happily unconscious. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness and thought- fulness of those who had made provision for the comfort of the future minister. The dwelling- house was in every way suitable, and was most fitly furnished. In a letter of that year (9th of December, 1867), the impressions made are de- scribed in a letter to Dr. Hamilton IVlagee : 193 194 THE MINISTRY IN My Dear Friend: As I write in the dining-room, the living-room of our house, for here the drawing-room is called " parlor," you and the other brethren look down on me from over the clock, and recall all the days and evenings of labor and enjoyment in Dublin. The Lord's goodness has been signal and conspicuous. I feel as much at home as if the weeks had been months, to say the least of it. Our communion — held yesterday — was exceedingly pleasant, very like Rutland Square, only that the afternoon time is given to it. We received about thirty new communi- cants, nearly twenty of them on profession of faith which, in some instances is made at an age we should count childhood at home. I have begun with ordinary sermons that I might not pitch the standard of expectation higher than I could honestly keep up — have eschewed all attempts at sensationalism, and told the people that our reliance must be upon the steady, patient teaching of divine truth. So far the Church displays all the signs of interest. The building is comfortable ; the elders, I think right-minded men, and I suppose I have heard as many as twenty or thirty laymen offer up prayer in public very ap- propriately. There is a fine field here for work, and a readi- ness I think to value an evangelical ministry. I hope to begin a down-town mission service on Friday evenings — we live " up- tovifn." This I find surprises the folk, the approved way hitherto being for the up-town people to pay students, etc., to do this work. Mission-schools are the hobby of our congregation, and they are good, but skilled labor is a little wanted. I hope to begin my Bible-class for ladies by the opening of the year. Preparation is no more difficult here than at home, and I have written several sermons — strange as it may seem — since I came ! Now I want you to tell the dear brethren of the ministers' meeting — that I am trying to be what they would have me (be) as their representative in New York. . . . Ever, my dear Hamilton, Your affectionate friend, J. Hall. NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 195 The Church itself had had a most honorable history which perhaps had up to that time reached its climax in the long and most success- ful ministry of Dr. James Alexander, the imme- diate predecessor of Dr. Rice, whose failing health, and, perhaps, supposed southern sympathies, had prevented his undoubted worth and ability being fully recognized. The war had closed, and many southern people found themselves attracted by the theology of the Old School to which wing the Church naturally had belonged, and by the fact that Dr. Rice did not say anything that was likely to wound their feelings. There were however also intensely northern partisans. It was the good fortune of the Church to secure as a min- ister one who could unite both wings. The con- gregation had worshipped in several buildings. The old Cedar Street Church having been built in 1808. Then the Church moved to Duane Street, which building was erected in 1835. In 1852 a new building on Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street was entered, and in this building my father began his New York ministry. The Church still is used having been moved stone by stone to Fifty-seventh Street near Eighth Avenue, where with some changes it stands as in the former days. The traditions of the Church carried it 196 THE MINISTRY IN over to the Old School, but in the congregation were New School men, attracted by the elo- quence and the learning of Dr. Alexander. Here again it was my father's good fortune to be iden- tified in no way with the old dispute. Naturally attracted to the older theology, he found much that was sympathetic in the warmer evangelical spirit of the New School thought. Of Albert Barnes he once wrote : ' "And then came the end of Albert Barnes' labors. It was like the life that preceded it, life and death of a piece. Meek, laborious, system- atic, gentle, he sat in the chair of a departed friend to give comfort to the survivors, when the Lord's messenger touched him, and said, 'Arise, and follow me;' and he arose and entered through the gates into the city, wondering, we may well believe, whether it was a vision, or whether that was true which was done by the angel. But it was soon all real ; all happy ; all homelike; 'absent from the body, and at home with the Lord.' " For Dr. William Adams' affection and admira- tion mingled from their first meeting at the New School Assembly in Rochester in 1867 to the close of Dr. Adams' life. The stately dignity of the 1 The A?nerican Messenger, March, 187 1. NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 197 man, together with the gentle pervasive courtesy in tone and manner that so distinguished the great New School leader, appealed with special power to my father. Quite frequently, particu- larly in his earlier experience in America he was offended by the "slap-dash, slap-on-the-back " (as he called it) type of minister, who mistakes rude familiarity for ease, and substitutes brusque- ness for straightforwardness. He had been naturally thrown as a delegate from Ireland into connection with both Assemblies, and the at- tachments thus formed he used to good effect in the following years of rapid approach on the part of the two Assemblies. Already in 1867 men were talking about a pos- sible reunion of the Church. It was impossible for one coming so recently to the country to take with good grace any leading part in such a move- ment. Yet it was with earnest and hopeful solicitude that he watched each step towards such a consummation, and no one rejoiced more sin- cerely in the ultimate result than did the new- comer to American shores. The union was com- pleted in 1869 when at Pittsburg the two As- semblies came together, and on the plan of mutual forbearance and reasonable liberty the Church became one. In accordance with his in- 198 THE MINISTRY IN stincts my father turned at once to the United Church for a better support for educational insti- tutions, and particularly for a larger and deeper conception of the culture and learning needed in the ministry. In an appeal to the United Church, headed, "What Next?" he urged the chief ad- vantages of the reunion. He asked in the columns of the Evangelist, "And for what are we one ? To overshadow or absorb other churches ? No. That were a poor and unchristian ambition. Let our Metho- dist brethren cry aloud ' ye must be born again,' and sanctify social sympathies; let our Congrega- tional friends assert all human liberties under divine lordship — the very freaks of their free- dom are better than the decay and decency of despotism; let our Baptist brethren make the wilderness a pool of water; let our evangelical Episcopalians — we have nothing to say for the other sort — make prayer common everywhere. They are all needed by the country, needed with us, perhaps, to present the full-orbed truth. Let them all render their parts in the anthem of American praise to Jehovah. When they all sing their loudest, many places are still silent; and in many their voice is not heard. Be our aim to swell the cry — not to silence other voices. We NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 199 have a share in their graces and successes, and they in ours, by that prerogative of saints, ' all things are yours'; and if we turn our union to true and spiritual account, they ought all to be the better for it. " One thing seems by common consent agreed upon, that the colleges and seminaries of the Church must be placed upon a better foundation. We are now employing the first men in the country, on incomes shamefully inadequate. It is vain to expect that talent and culture can be long retained in our service under the pressure of cares that belittle and vex; and that vex specially the best order of minds — minds that do not give a thought to the privations of poverty, but are chafed by its meanness, by enforced small sa- vings and compulsory checks upon every generous aspiration. " The ministry of the Word has similar just ground of complaint. But nine out of ten min- isters will not teach their people duty on this matter. How many ministers of the Presbyte- rian Church have fairly expounded to their people I Cor. 9 ? The press must speak out on this subject, and laymen must take it in hand. The better-supported ministers, too, who can speak on this point without the suspicion or appearance 200 THE MINISTRY IN of pleading their own cause, must come to the help, not of their brethren, but of the church they serve. It is worth considering whether ef- fort judiciously and successfully laid out here, would not set the ministry free of ill conditions that now repel some who could educate them- selves, and so swell the incomes of our educa- tional institutions, and promote other desirable objects. Promptly and frankly invited to the columns of The Evangelist, in the spirit of the union, it would be a great joy and honor to the present writer if he could make any contribution to the Church's efficiency in these directions." In another place he ventured to criticise the methods by which students were helped into the ministry; methods which he could not but feel undermined their self-respect, and jeopardized their standing in the community. Dr. Hodge took him very sharply to task for his opinions on this subject, but they remained his opinions to the end. Very early in his ministry good ladies asked him to read a notice from the pulpit asking for cast-off clothing for the theological students at Princeton. He refused to do it, and explained his reasons. To him it seemed unworthy of the manhood and womanhood of the church to treat NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 201 those who were to be leaders and teachers as ob- jects of a careless charity of this kind. He had no objection to the church training her ministry, but her methods he thought altogether wrong, and traced to those methods much of the restless- ness and inefficiency among the ministers and churches. It was a habit of his to watch the news column of the weekly religious press, and when he saw that the " Rev. Mr. A. of Boom- town had had a most remarkable ministry full of success, and had just added thirty souls to the communion roll," he said he expected soon either a note asking his aid in a change for Mr. A. or a paragraph stating that the Rev. Mr. A. contem- plated a period of rest after his labors. One of the things which he mourned and be- wailed in common with Dr. Adams was the crowd of relatively irresponsible book agents, insurance solicitors, and unattached ministers who filled up the presbyteries, and destroyed often the fraternal confidence which alone makes the presbytery an efficient body. It remained also his opinion to the end that Professors of Theology should be admitted as active elders to the churches, and that only so should they have full recognition in the counsels of the church. The flitting of ministers he attributed to the fault 202 THE MINISTRY IN of both churches and pastors. Many ministers, he said, reminded him of the little sparrows on the roof which keep their wings twitching all the time ready at any time to fly on the slightest im- pulse. My father thought very highly of American speaking. He was wont to contrast English speaking with the American type of easy natural address, such as is so often heard on the plat- form or at the dinner-table. He did not think so highly of American preaching, highly as he es- timated the best preachers. Very gently he sought to intimate as much in his early ministry. After the reunion he wrote an article that was much quoted on "What the reunion could not do." The italics in the selection from it are his own. In it among other things he said: "There are many desirable objects which the United Church cannot effect by any direct agency. She cannot, for example, make all her ministers good preachers. If a man is inclined to air his vocabulary or indulge in metaphysical specula- tion, in his sermons, he will not be immediately altered by being in the United Church. Or if he cultivate 'simplicity' until it becomes childish- ness, or mistake foolish preaching for 'the fool- ishness of preaching,' the union will not instantly NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 203 change him. This is a matter outside the power of the General Assemblies. Presbyteries indeed can use greater care in admitting to the place of preachers those who are destitute of the power to preach; but as regards those of us who are licensed, our preaching must depend on our con- gregations first, and secondly on ourselves. If our people weary and harass us with a multiplic- ity of small matters they could better manage themselves; if they demand that we swell the pomp of every social gathering, sit through every committee, and be on hand generally for any- thing and everything, then we shall be inferior preachers. The same unhappy end can be reached by forcing a portion of our strength away from our work, as for example, to the ac- quirement of further means of living, or the pain- ful and anxious economy of what we have. " Much depends on ourselves. If we live mainly among books and little among men; if we defer the severe labor of composition till the end of the week, and then think how to get re- spectably through for the Sabbath, intending to do better next week ; if we take no pains to know the points at which we and the message we carry can come into contact with the minds of our hearers; then plainly our preaching power 204 THE MINISTRY IN will be small, even though the union were a thousand times more glorious than it is. But our preaching power is our real power, and there is not one among us that will not own that he could have made much more of it. While there- fore the great event of our time cannot in this re- spect improve us, it were surely a good time for our people and ourselves to seek that improve- ment. A living church will always be a preach- ing Church. The decay of the pulpit goes hand in hand with the decay of piety, partly as cause, and partly as effect. We shall be strong when men shall feel that where the church is Presby- terian, the strong presumption is that there will be in it thoroughly good preaching." As a preacher his own success in New York was instantaneous. In the letter already quoted (page 194) to his friend Dr. Magee he dwells upon the simplicity which adorned his preaching to the end. His first sermon was preached on November the 3d on the text Isa. 52 : 7, " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, etc." The sermon dwelt upon the poetical character of the passage, and the beauty of the language, then expounded the substance of the message — a message of peace, through forgiveness of sin and loving re- NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 205 lations established in Christ Jesus. This early preaching was characteristic of the preaching of the lifetime. Old sermons were often refused, and my father not only did not despise repreach- ing of sermons but thought that the self-criticism of the process, if the second preparation was as conscientious as it ought to be, was an actual benefit both to the preacher and his people. Later in Hfe he published his volume on "God's word through preaching" in the "Lyman Beecher Lecture " course before the Yale Theo- logical Seminary, in which he set forth fully his views of preaching in method and spirit. He also wrote at one time an interesting little auto- biographical sketch of his pulpit progress, of which a few extracts are appended. "Among the gifted professors of the Theolog- ical Seminary," he writes, "of which I enjoyed the advantages were two men of conspicuous prominence as preachers. Dr. Henry Cooke and Dr. John Edgar were unlike in style and manner, but each enjoyed the public confidence and com- manded the attention of the community. They were not only instructors in principles and in methods; they were examples and inspirers. No minister of prominence in the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, of that day, read his manu- 2o6 THE MINISTRY IN script in the pulpit. A certain proportion of its six hundred pastors, at the present time how- ever, read carefully prepared discourses. " It was the rule of the classes for the student to receive texts, and to preach from them before the professor and the class, and to receive such criti- cism from the professor upon arrangement, mat- ter, and manner, as he felt to be proper. The sermons were commonly memorized and given verbally as written. Reading was not the order of those — to the preacher, solemn occasions. " We were not, of course, taught that memori- zing the language was to be our enduring method, but that careful writing contributed to order, clearness, correctness of description, and definite- ness. All my experience since my student-days confirms that impression. "My ministry began, and continued for three years, in somewhat peculiar conditions, the con- 'gregations consisting of the Protestant Gentry, not Presbyterians, a few Presbyterians, and the majority not only not used to Protestant, but many of them not used to the English language. It was necessary to prepare to speak in such a way as to interest the educated and at the same time to be intelligible to the rest of the hearers. It was not uncommon to deliver a carefully pre- NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 207 pared sermon in the forenoon, to go, frequently on foot, seven or eight miles in the afternoon, and repeat it to a corresponding congregation, in the evening. The experience of the morning sometimes led to modifications in the evening. What seemed to be obscure to the hearers in the morning was clarified as much as possible in the delivery to the evening hearers. " It appeared to be my duty, at length, to come from the ' West of Ireland ' to my native coun- try, and take charge of the First Presbyterian Church, in succession to a pastor of great culture and of high character. The congregation in- cluded a large portion of the educated people of the city, and the rest — one half the congregation — consisted of comfortable farmers all around it, within a radius of two to three miles. The same necessity existed for sermons that would be edi- fying to the city people without being ' over the heads' of the rural members. The writing of the sermons went on as before, but with a little less reproduction in speaking of the language as written. The topics were selected early in the week. It was needful to go into the rural dis- tricts for week evening sermons, in schoolhouses and in farmers' houses, and while preparation was made for discourses for these meetings, it 2o8 THE MINISTRY IN was less formal than for the Lord's day, consist- ing of 'abstracts,' or 'notes,' with a system of contractions both of sentences and of words, of my own invention. " It was then common to arrange topics in a series, so that preparation in reading could be carried on in advance, and also to have one of the two services expository — a method of teaching which many people need, and which saves the pastor from the dreary soliloquy, ' 1 wonder what 1 should preach on next Sabbath.' The expositions did not require as much writing, but quite as much study, as did the sermons; and it was found to be a help to regular attendance by the best of the people, when they naturally said: ' I would hke to hear the rest of what he has to say on that line,' of subjects or of an Epistle, or a minor prophet. "After half-a-dozen happy years in the capital of my native county, at the urgent request of brethren to whom I looked up, I was removed to the capital of my native land, to be colleague to a saintly pastor whose name I write down with affectionate remembrance, Rev. Wm. B. Kirkpatrick, D. D. For the first year or two 1 had only to preach once each Sabbath in our own pulpit, but my brethren of various denominations NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 209 were very good to me, and afforded opportunities to preach when I was not needed in our Mary's Abbey. " It is proper to say — as already mentioned that every word is not written down, nor every word in full. One learns to contract sentences, keep- ing in its place every determining word, and to contrast also, familiar words. One incidental advantage of this it may be allowable to mention. When a gentlemanly reporter asks for the sermon the true reply : ' I write out, but with a system of abbreviation a printer could not use,' is 'a saving' — in several directions.' " It would be natural to say: 'What is the use of writing in this way?' The answer I give might not be pertinent in other cases. The writer can only speak for himself. One has often general ideas, indefinite views partly from the feeling, partly from the judgment. To put them down distinctly tends to remove the nebu- lous element, and makes them communicable ; for how can an audience catch an idea which the speaker cannot put into lucid expression ? Conciseness is thus produced, and the mind is helped to follow the natural sequence of ideas. What one sees under heads 1, 11, and 111, with perhaps, orderly items (i), (2), (3), and practical 210 THE MINISTRY IN applications (a), (b), (c), will usually be more orderly, easier of recollection, and more intelligi- ble than would be an extemporaneous address however much thought out. There is moreover — the writer now speaks for himself — a certain relief to the mind when one can say to his own con- science: 'It is a poor sermon for such a grand theme, but it is the best that I can do.' It may not be improper to add that 1 have, many a time, outlined the topics for thanksgiving, confession, and petition in prayer, so as to give the best ex- pression 1 could to what the people should, and would, join in presenting before the Father's throne." The building at Nineteenth Street was soon packed at each service. Camp-chairs were placed down each aisle. The inconvenience to pew- holders of the coming of strangers into their pews gave rise to complaint; and promptly six of the most influential, and one or two of them the oldest, members in the session and board of trustees took upon themselves the task of seat- ing the strangers, and made in many ways the church one of the pleasantest to visit. When Mr. Robert L. Stewart or Mr. Henry Day asked any one if they could seat a stranger, a refusal was given only in case of disagreeable necessity. NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 211 The services being in the morning and after- noon, my father preached almost regularly on Sunday evenings in some other church, and his voice was soon familiar in almost all the Evangel- ical Churches of New York and Brooklyn. Into the New York pastorate was brought the same systematic pastoral work that had marked his Dublin and Armagh periods. Day after day he sought out the members of his flock, high and low, visiting with caretaking system family after family, watching over those employed in house- holds with the same diligence as those who em- ployed. From time to time he visited the busi- ness section of the city, and although seldom sitting down, he yet visited the offices of the business and professional men. He liked to know, he said, where and how they work. The sick he visited regularly, and doctors who are often and, sometimes reasonably, suspicious of ministers' visits to their serious cases, have told the writer that they made exception in the case of my father, whose low accents and ready tact and short ministrations encouraged and strengthened and soothed, where less skillful or sympathetic visitation would have excited and done harm. For purely social engagements he had no time. 212 THE MINISTRY IN The number of houses where he ever dined in a formal social way could be numbered on his fingers. He felt in later life, that he perhaps had neglected opportunities along this line. Yet he never saw exactly what other course, under the circumstances, he could have pursued. That that which is known as the " social world " was altogether out of his range and knowledge he felt with some degree of sadness. All that was harmless and innocent he thought should be in contact with the religious life, yet many things he was opposed to, which Christian feeling he deeply respected considered innocent. Thus he never thought the theatre anything but an evil, and though fond of music, even if in an untrained way, yet he never went where he thought the prejudices of any would be offended, and when abroad he always resisted the inducements often held out to him by friends to go to the opera, unwilling to do abroad what he would not do at home. Yet he had abundant charity when he was sure that Christian judgment was convinced that an- other course was proper. "I am not a police- man," he once said to one who playfully con- fessed a fondness for the theatre, "I am only an adviser. 1 advise you not to go, but to your NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 213 Saviour alone you stand or fall in such matters; I may be wrong." And once writing in the Christian Intelligencer he put the case strongly, saying: "Let us not as Christian ministers under- take to pronounce upon amusements, discrimina- ting which is good, which is bad, and when an innocent becomes a sinful game. For one thing, we have more dignified work to do than to measure the comparative qualities of all the pas- times of the people, from 'fox and goose' up- ward or downward. For another, our oracle will be construed in ways we never intended. We approve, for example, of square dances, not of round. Well, the devil will soon put the mischievous elements of the dance we condemn into that we approve; and we are now in a worse case than before, for the evil proceeds with our approval, and we cannot turn dancing- masters to oppose it, nor be always on hand to point it out. "For yet another thing, this plan minimises Christian people. ' Our minister allows so and so;' 'Our pastor disapproves of so and so.' What! have you no judgment, no conscience, no Bible ? or are they packed away like children's knives, lest they should cut their innocent fingers. 214 THE MINISTRY IN while a clerical mamma, or a Rev. ' Father' does all the serious cutting ? Let me be a preacher, a teacher, a writer, if I can; but let me never be- come that compound of vanity, ambition, love of power, misguided zeal and distorted religion, ' a spiritual director.' We are helpers of the peo- ple's faith. Saintliness as well as sex forbids our being degraded into duennas." Many thought on account of his firm views on such subjects that they had to be hypocrites to him. But that was not the case. Some of his dearest friends differed from him and he had only to be sure that they were acting con- scientiously, and for him the matter was settled. He might think them mistaken, but he left the final decision to themselves. For his judgment in even business matters men versed in such things had a profound respect. As he went in and out as a pastor his worth as a friend and helpful adviser was recognized. His correspondence up to the day of his death reveals the thousand avenues of his influence as his counsel was sought for far and wide. In his pastoral work he sought to bring forward the spiritual interests he had at heart. Where it was possible and it could be tactfully done he sought to have prayer with those whom he visited. Of NINETEENTH STREET CHURCH 215 course in a great city this was not always pos- sible. But sooner or later on occasion of trouble or loss or difficulty he came as the bearer of a message into nearly every family of his congre- gation. And even after the first shock had laid the foundation for the trouble that ended his life, he toiled patiently up high flights of stairs, often, in vain, seeking those who sometimes had but the barest claims upon his ministry. A physi- cian who knew him only by sight was deeply moved in the spring of 1898 by seeing him lean- ing heavily and breathlessly on the balustrade toiling up three flights of stairs he should never have attempted to climb, as he sought out some one to whom he was bringing his message of peace and hope. IX. THE NEW CHURCH BUILDING AND ENLARGING INFLUENCE THE SILENT TOWER' BY REV. GEORGE W. BUNGAY It rises in silence and splendor In the light of a better day ; The lesson is touching and tender To the sufferers over the way. It points to the bells that are ringing In heaven, unheard here below, Where the choir celestial is singing Near the throne that is whiter than snow. The music of silence is sweeter Than the ringing of bells in towers ; It chords with the cadence whose metre Is sweet as the wind-harp in flowers. By the couches where patients are sleeping, And dreaming of visions above, Two angels their vigils are keeping — One is Mercy, the other is Love. Not even the clock that's revealing The passing away of the hour. Can disturb with dolorous pealing, Since Love struck it dumb in the tower. * Dr. John Hall's people refrained from hanging a bell in the tower of their church, and would not even suffer the clock to strike, lest the pa- tients in St. Luke's Hospital, then opposite, should be disturbed. 2l8 IX THE NEW CHURCH BUILDING AND ENLARGING INFLUENCE NEIV YORK'S CHANCES. THE NEW CHURCH BUILDING. FELLOW-WORKERS IN THE CONGREGATION. OUTSIDE AC- TIVITIES. EDUCATION. HOME MISSIONS. SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. POWERS ^S lA DEBATOR. CHURCH EXTENSION