, •— — ■ -, 3 ' c ^ 3 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY "' 'Aulmi'&'A&mJf^r'^'ln, miss olin 3 1924 029 348 079 ^O 1 /^ / / / ^ /H • *^. \ 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://archive.org/details/cu31924029348079 MY LIFE AND TIMES BY CYRUS HAMLIN Missionary in Turkey t/luthor of " Among the Turks," etc. SECOND EDITION, BOSTON AND CHICAGO (JTongregational ^unliag=Sci}ool antJ ^ublisfjing JSocfrtg /. :;\^Jl-M>S//.; ' \^ ._5 WCA.^ix' Copyright, 1893, By Congregational Sunday-School and Pubushing Society 'i/4'^^9 I' . / Y'\y ©rtication TO MY CHILDREN AND children's CHILDREN PREFACE While the record of my life and times is dedicated to all my children, it is due to my daughter Clara (now Mrs. Lee, of Marash) to acknowledge that her persevering insistence, while last at home, was the sole cause of its origin. All my children, however, joined with her in demanding it. It was written in familiar style, as addressed to them all. This personal address has been changed, and many family references omitted, but the origin and design of the book appear on every page, and should be kept in mind by the reader. If some of such references remain, every one will know how to excuse them. My social changes have been entirely omitted and reserved for a separate record. Some things that may seem remarkable in the record were due to the remarkable times in which my life was appointed. Perse- cution, war, and the contest for Robert College were the mold into which the life was cast, and it could not but have some shapings which are peculiar. And there were arrangements and deliverances of divine providence so wonderful that no flesh can glory in His presence. C. H. ILLUSTRATIONS. Author's Frontispiece. Hamlin Homestead Hamlin Homestead (from another point of view) W. GOODELL, D.D. Wm. G. SCHAUFFLER, D.D., LL.D. Rev. Henry A. Homes, ll.d. Colonel Toros . - ^ . ■ ,, . Rev. G. W. Wood, d.d. Bebek Seminary Rev. H. G. O. DwiGHT, d.d. Pastor Mardiros . Pastor Alexander Djejizian Christopher R. Robert Rear View of College College from Ablatio Shore Ahmed Vefyk Effendi PAGE 9 30 182 188 202 210 234 244 290 300 350 416 452 472 478 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. BOWDOIN COLLEGE. PAGE Hazing. — Illness. — Good Dr. Lincoln. — Winter at Home. — Training of Voice. — The two Societies. — Praying Circle. — Smashing Doors. — Who should lead the Class? — Academy at Rochester. — Sophomore Year, no Hazing. — Junior Year and Hazing. — Good Results. — Conversion of John D. Smith, and his first Speech. — Farewell Supper. — Religious History of the College. — Phebe, the ex-slave. — Governor Dunlap's Conversion. — The Steam-engine Episode. — Choosing <%. Missionary Life. — Literary Societies. — Challenging Ghosts and Hobgoblins. — Hazing again. — Trial at Law. — Grad- uation 89 CHAPTER VI. SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. Roommate Tappan. — Mr. McGaw. — Prospects of the Seminary. — Bangor and its Society. — Mrs. Crosby. — Close Study. — Bible Class of young Ladies. — Storer and Yeaton. — Africa. — Freewill and Predestination. — Outside Work. — Lecture on Aiirica. — The poor Irish. — Mrs. Cochrane. — Mr. Morrill. — An Irish Mob. — Professors Pond, Shepherd, Woods. — Debate on the Theater. — Appointment to Constantinople. — Temperance. — First "Maine Law" Address. — Close of seminary Life and Farewell to Bangor 141 CHAPTER VII. A YEAR'S DELAY. Financial Condition of the Country. — Marriage Deferred. — Meet- ings at the County Conferences. — Drs. Muzzey, Jackson, Goodell. — Supplying Payson Church in Portland. — The Armenian Circle. — Some Fruits of my short Ministry. — Settlement of Dr. Condi t. — Preaching in Worcester. — Sudden Order to get ready for sailing from Boston. — Farewells. — Stormy Voyage. — Mediterranean worse than the Atlantic. — Seasickness. — Gibraltar, Africa, Sicily, Milo, Smyrna, Con- stantinople ! l6e CONTENTS. 5 CHAPTER VIII. LANDING AT CONSTANTINOPLE AND COMMENCEMENT OF MISSIONARY WORK. PAGE Meeting Mr. Homes. — Our Teacher Avedis. — Blindman's Buff. — The Evangelical Union. — Secreting the Documents. — Our Teacher taken away. — Greek and French. — Our new Teacher Mesrobe, — His Arrest and Banishment and Escape. » — The rescued Sailor, Marcus Brown. — Expulsion of the Missionaries. — Last Prayer of Sultan Mahmoud. — His Death, — Loss of the Army and Fleet. — Change of Government. — Safety. — Smallpox. — Expectation of the Plague. — Our Firstborn. — My four Associates .... i8i CHAPTER IX. BEBEK SEMINARY. Hiring a House. — Temporary Location in an old Palace. — The beloved Invalids. — Opening of the Seminary, November 4, 1840. — The first two Students. — Our Number full. — Puri- fying the Language. — Effect of the Bible upon Language. — Fitting up a Workshop. — I'he Seminary a Place of Power. — Plan to break up the Seminary. — Patriarch's Secretary. — Failure of the Plan. — Street Scenes. — The French College. — Enlargement of the Seminary. — The Daughter of our Pro- prietor. — Visit to Brousa and Mount Olympus. — Removal to a larger House. — A thousand Visits. — Asdik Agha. — Bedros Gamalielian. — His Conversion. — A Philosopher. — Rev. Dr. G. W. Wood. — Students from the Sultan's College. — Visit to the Imperial Jewels. — Martyrdom of Hovakim. — Sir Stratford Canning's Treatment of the Case. —The broken Oar 205 CHAPTER X. BEBEK SEMINARY. Division of Hours. — Children's Hour. — Tea at 9 P.M. — Re- modeling the House. — Course of Study. — Character of the Students. — Jesuit Attacks. — Reply. —The Catholics of Etchmiadzin. — Translation of Text-books. — Poverty and Rags. — Remedy.— The Dadians. — The English Engineers. — Late Home. — Industrial Work in the Seminary. — Good Hi 6 CONTENTS, PAGE Results. — Zenope. — Simon and Stepan. — Opposition to Industries. — Dr. Lawrence's Letter. — The Armenian Patri- archate. — Its Power. — The Anathema. — The Burial of Oscan. — Protection by Turkish Government. — Protestant Honesty. — Trades Unions. — Baron Hovsep's Rat Trap 244 CHAPTER XI. THE SEMINARY AND A NEW ENTERPRISE. • A flour Mill and Bakery. — Charles Ede, Esq. — Much Opposition and many Difficulties. — The Constable and the Interdict. — The Custom House. — The steam Boiler and the Porters. — Cap- tain White and the English Sailors. — My forty " Boys." — My first iron Casting. — Letting on Steam. — Gratifying Success. — First Baking of Bread. — Selling the Bread. — Government Testers. — One Failure. — Tempering the steel Picks. — Result of the first Year. — Faithful Men. — History of Dr. Harutiune. — Our " bira Bread." — Dr. Mapleton. — Contract for the Hos- pital. — The Sunday Delivery. — Filling up of the Hospital. — Dr. Menzies. — Conspiracy. — Appeal to Lord Raglan. — Remarkable Deliverance. — Misery in the Hospital. — Florence Nightingale. — Return to the bread Contract. — Furnishing the Camp. — The Provost and Sunday Supply. — Coffee Episode. — Church Building. — Earthquake-proof. — The Judge *' left out." — Russian Prisoners. — Their Rations. — Battle of Inkerman. — A Laundry. — Building a Church out of a beer Barrel. — Sixteen Professions. — Cholera at the Bakery. — Death of six Physicians 296 CHAPTER XII. THE SEMINARY DURING THE WAR. Results of the Industries. — Change in the Senlinary. — Visit to the United States of America. — Voyage to Trieste. — Last Evening and Speeches. — Visit to Trieste and Venice. — Verona, Paris, London. — Origin of Turkish Missions Aid Society. — Earl of Shaftesbury. — Archbishop of Canterbury. — Drawing-room Meeting. — Letter from the Earl. — Note from the Archbishop of Canterbury. — Return to America. — Meeting with Friends. — Old Friends in the Payson Church. — The Armenian Circle. — Return to England. — Meetings CONTENTS, 7 PAGE of the Turkish Missions Aid Society. — Dr. Duncan. — Some Results of the Crimean War. — Resuming Work at Constanti- nople 370 CHAPTER XIII. THE FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE. Purchase of a Site. — My Relations with the American Board. — Visit to the United States of America. — Professor William Maltby . — Venice. — Solferino. — Milan. — Lake Como. — The Alps. — Heidelberg. — Paris. — Sir Hugh Hughes, Mem- ber of Parliament. — London. — Harrow-on-the-Hill. — The Steadmans. — Sir Culling Eardley. — Bad Passage in a bad Cunarder. — Jubilee of the American Board. — The Outlook Committee of the Congregational Club refuses to sanction my working in the Congregational Churches. — In spite of all a great Meeting in Tremont Temple. — Before the American Academy. — Mr. Corliss. — Rebellion. — Mr. Robert's Deci- sion. — Return. — English Feeling in London and Liverpool. — Mont Cenis. — Prohibition and Purchase of a new Site. — Second Prohibition. — The Abbe Bore. — Mr. Robert firm. — Opening the College without asking Leave. — The Abbe checkmated. — Unexpected Success. — American Embassy. — Sir Henry Bulwer. — Bribing Lord Lyons. — Aali Pasha. — Meeting at Hissar. — AaU Lied. — Midhat Pasha. — The Morgan and Seward Episode — Admiral Farragut. — His Questions. — Imperial Trade. — Temper of the Pasha. — All Materials to pass free for Work begun, — Materials for Mortar. — Trouble with Quarrymen. — Laying of the corner Stone. — Kurds as Workmen. — Departure for their Homes. — Letter from them. — Henry M. Stanley. — Visit of Mr. Robert. — Transfer to new Building. — Mystery cleared up. — Ahmed Vefyk Pasha's Character. — Unwilling Return to America for an Endowment. — Fire in Chicago causes my immediate Return. — Again left with my Family. — Meeting and Presentation at Mr. John Seager's. — Address with Signatures 415 CHAPTER XIV. ENDOWMENT FUND FOR ROBERT COLLEGE. Visit to Florida for Health. — Great Kindness of Friends in the 8 CONTENTS. PAGE North and in the South. — Miss Mather and Miss Perit. — Dr. J. W. Chickering. — Tallahassee. — Monticello. — Return North. — 111 Success. — Dr. Henry J. Bigelow. — Massachu- setts General Hospital, eighty-five Days. — Hiccough and Cure. — Recovery and leaving the Hospital. — Mrs. Walter Baker's immeasurable Kindness. — Visit to Washington. — Hamilton Fish and James G. Blaine. — Separation from Robert College. — Facing the Difficulties. — Writing a Book. — Call to Bangor Theological Seminary .... 485 CHAPTER XV. RETURN TO BANGOR. Meeting the surviving Friends. — St. John and Fredericton, New Brunsvi^ick. — Three Years at Bangor. — Prohibitory Law. — Notified of one Year more. — The Earth is the Lord's. — Astounding Election to the Presidency of Middlebury College. — Farewell Note. — My five years' Work in Middlebury. — Resignation and Reply. — Reflections. — Superannuation. — Purchase of a House at Lexington. — First Gift from my Chum; then a Downpour of Checks. — Mr. Porter's Re- ception. — Letters. — Question of Support. — Arrangement with the American Board. — Hartford Seminary. — Death of George H. Corliss. — Finis 508 Y-, in a V ^ o CO "> o t O o o MY LIFE AND TIMES CHAPTEk I. PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. nnHE Hamlins are of Huguenot descent. Their -■- ancestors, driven by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) o^^ o^ France, where they had suf- fered persecution, and, in one case, martyrdom, fled to England and Germany. One was a faithful friend and supporter of " Palissy the Potter." Many of them returned to France when amnesty was offered, and their descendants are still Protestants, among them being the admiral of the French navy in the Crimean war of 1854-56. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the two traditional brothers immigrated to this country from England, and one of them settled in Harvard, Massachusetts. My grandfather, Eleazer Hamlin, was a farmer, a great reader of history, and a true patriot. He had seventeen children, and with three of his sons fought in the war of the Revolution to the end. His admi- ration of Roman heroes led him to name his first- 9 lO MY LIFE AND TIMES. born son Africanus (leaving off the Scipio) ; his second he named Americus, the third and fourth, Asiaticus and Europus. But the world called them Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and there was no remedy. After the four continents, my grandfather had twins (b. 1768) whom he named Hannibal and Cyrus. He also had Eleazer, Jr., and Isaac, and, I think, Jacob, who died early. I have no complete list of the names of his children. Hannibal was my father. Cyrus was the father of Vice-President Han- nibal Hamlin. So you see that I was named for his father and he was named for mine. Uncle Africa was always called Major Hamlin, and I suppose he rose to that rank in the war under Washington, whom he held in profound admiration, keeping a Boswellian diary of everything he saw, heard, or knew of him. It was lost by too frequent lending to old Revolution- ary soldiers. At the close of the great war all that my grand- father Hamlin possessed was a large family and a free country. In consideration of his great sacri- fices and faithful services a large section of land in the " District of Maine " was given to him by the Massa- chusetts legislature. With unspeakable hope and joy he went down, as the journey was then desig- nated, to view it and select farms for himself and his sons. He would then have enough left for their sons. PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD, \\ He found the tract so rocky that nothing but a sparse growth of spruce trees could sustain life upon it, and so full of caves that it had become the head- quarters and breeding place of bears ; which it is to this day. He begged the legislature not to impose the gift upon him, as it was already occupied by the only inhabitants it could support. Finally four farms were given to his sons in Water- ford ; and Africa, Eleazer, Jr., Americus, and Hannibal came and selected their places of abode. My father, Hannibal, had earned money as a school-teacher, and was able to clear a part of the land and to build a house and barn, and then in the winter of 1799- 1800 he went to Acton, Massachusetts, and was married. There were then about thirty-five families in the town, and a majority of the men were Revolutionary soldiers. My mother was Susan Faulkner, born Feb- ruary 21, 1772, in Acton, Massachusetts. She was a beautiful and charming woman, the daughter of Colonel Francis Faulkner, who was, like my grand- father Hamlin, a Revolutionary soldier and a man of character and influence.^ There was iron in the blood of the Faulkners as well as of the Hamlins. Colonel Faulkner had eleven children. Those were the days of large families. 1 I have sketched the Faulkners in my lecture before the Lexington Historical Society, published as a pamphlet under the title " Colonel Francis Faulkner and the Battle of Lexington." I 2 MY LIFE AND TIMES. My father and mother took great pains to keep up Massachusetts culture down in that new settlement in Maine. When other families were located in the neighborhood, my father established for the winter months a weekly spelling match for old and young. After spelling awhile every one communicated what- ever news or new thoughts he had ; public affairs were discussed ; and if the young orchards had begun to bear fruit, the evening was doubtless closed with cider and apples. It was in effect a rural lyceum, and it knit the families together and did much to cultivate the intelligence which characterized those early inhabitants of the town. I was born January 5, 181 1. I had two sisters, Susan and Rebecca, and a brother Hannibal, two years older than myself. Susan was ten years older than I, and Rebecca six. Two other children had died in infancy. Susan and Rebecca were very different. Susan had judgment, prudence, and executive ability beyond her years. From a very early age she was a great help to her mother. She made a pet of me, and I would obey her lovingly almost as readily as I did my mother. I always knew that what she did was right. She governed us by a strange influence, so that we never thought we were governed at all. When I was at Bridgton Academy, old Mrs. Dr. Farnsworth PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 1 3 told me that at one time she had six or seven boarders, all of them academy girls, and she never liked to be absent a day unless Susan Hamlin was with them. Then she knew everything would go right. Rebecca was the bookworm, the scholar, the poet. She used to rhyme in her childhood, and would com- mit to memory poetry by the page. She was always first in her class, and nobody supposed she would ever develop such capacity for meeting the stern experiences of life as she did. She was always a lady, and always the executive of her household. I was not a promising child at the start. I was pronounced " weakly." My ** head was too big'' So the wise old ladies comforted my dear mother, and told her she must "never expect to bring up that child." 1 I was doubtless a great care and anxiety to her. My father died of quick consumption when I was but seven months old, and neighbors often said it was my mother's devoted care of the weakly baby that kept her from sinking down in sorrow. She was left with four children, two farms, and a large unsettled business, of which the lawyers relieved her to their own profit more than to hers. She had known almost nothing of the farm, and now it was 1 To " raise a child " was not used then as in New York state. We said to " raise a calf" — to " bring up a child." 14 J^y LIFE AND TIMES. to be her main support. But being of good Puritan stock, and well educated for the times, faculty and capacity came with the demand, and she conducted her affairs with great prudence and wisdom. Some of her neighbors were very kind ; others were not at all considerate of her interests. My tumbling downstairs was a story often told against me, and I remember it perfectly well. I was between three and four years old. A woman was weaving cloth at the head of the stairs ; I was play- ing near her, and rolled down bump, bump, to the bottom, making spots black and blue. Just as I came down, John Atherton, a jovial workman cut- ting our hay, came in with a honeycomb from a bumblebee's nest, the most delicious honey ever made. He gave me the honey to stop my crying, and told me he would give me another if I would tumble downstairs again. I tumbled down twice more that day, and I can remember his shouts of laughter ; for I was all black and blue, and my mother stopped the play at once. I had no design of tumbling down, but probably I played round at the top of the stairs so that if there was to be a tumble, I should be on hand ; and I had the three honeycombs. Susan and Rebecca were indignant, but when they poured out their indignation upon John he only laughed the more. PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 1 5 An early remembered act was a criminal one. Indeed, most of my earliest remembrances are of things discreditable. My mother had two neighbors at tea. They came with their babies, and as it was summer time the babies were bolstered up in the open door looking out upon the lawn where I was amusing myself. I threw a stone which went through the open window and smashed my mother's china sugar bowl all to pieces. It belonged to the tea set which her father gave her at her marriage. Mother simply told me to go round to the other side of the house and play. After the guests were gone, she showed me the broken pieces and told me how sorry she was, because her dear father gave her that sugar bowl. I defended myself. I said, " I did n't mean to throw it in at the window ; I threw it at those babies that were hollerin' in the door. I hated them babies." It was a poor defense. Mother very rarely in- flicted physical chastisement, but this was a most atrocious case which demanded it and had it. I always respected babies after that. The next thing was still worse, and it made an indelible impression upon me and upon my brother. We were over at Mr. Haskell's one day, and saw a little pile of oxgoads split out but not finished. They were of beautiful straight ash wood, and as 1 6 MY LIFE AND TIMES. every boy likes a stick, we each of us took one and brought it home. That we knew it was wrong was sufficiently demonstrated by our putting them behind the door of our wood shed, which concealed them while open and swung back, but as inevitably re- vealed them to any one going out if the door was shut. George Haskell, the young man who had split them out, and who was often in and out at our house, saw the ill-fated sticks standing in full view. He knew them instantly and took them directly to our mother. She called us to account, and we confessed having taken them. She took us separately into her bedroom and talked to us, and showed such distress at the wicked act that we never stole again. Our cousin Lydia used to laugh at us in adult age for never having fulfilled the promise of our preco- cious ability of concealing a thing ! A wicked act is sometimes a means of grace, as I believe this was to us. We confessed this and all other sins in later life, and implored the divine forgiveness ; but George had left the place, and we never had the opportunity to make confession to him. But there is in our moral nature, ineradicable, a necessity of confessing a crime to the person injured, unless it has become impossible. Nothing else will restore the moral balance. About seventy years after the occurrence, I met this same George. Of course we had only the PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 17 memories of childhood in common. We had much to talk about in the few minutes we were together, and he said, '' I shall be here again in two weeks, and we will talk up those early days." I resolved to ask him if he remembered the goadsticks, and to tel) him it always remained upon my conscience, and he must absolve me. He would have laughed, but I would have felt a real satisfaction in it. He did not come, and I lost the chance. We were a family in which the Bible was rever- enced and daily read as the Word of God, and the Sabbath was strictly kept from all unnecessary labor. The care of the cattle had its fixed duties, but nothing that could be called work was allowed ; and Saturday night, although not kept strictly as holy time, was the preparation for Sunday. The children were bathed, the clothes laid out for the morning, and then there was some reading in the parlor before we retired. The meetinghouse was nearly two miles distant, but it was very bad weather indeed that could keep us all at home. The church was unwarmed, and in very cold weather our heroic sufferings were mit- igated by a foot stove. One of the family always had to remain at home to see to the barn or the pasture and its occupants. As little boys are always ambitious to be big, I insisted one summer day that I would take care of 1 8 MV LIFE AND TIMES. things alone, and mother granted my desire. I was diligently instructed what to do, and Rebecca begged me especially to be careful not to leave the great whey tub uncovered on giving the pigs their whey at noon, for her speckled chicken might get in and be drowned. I promised faithfully to do everything exactly right. That speckled chicken was quite a character. It was Rebecca's property and pet, and was a large and beautiful chicken. It knew its mistress perfectly well and was the pride of all the broods. Well, I dipped out the whey to the pigs. I loved to look at them and see with what eagerness they drank it and wanted more. I went off and forgot all about the whey. A long time after, I thought of it and ran to the uncovered tub. Woe, woe, was me ! There was the speckled chicken, its wings spread out on the fatal fluid, dead ! dead ! I thought, " Oh, what a wicked boy I am ! How Rebecca will weep and break her heart ! " I took the chicken out, pressed the whey out of its feathers, and laid it on the hot chips in the sun in front of the long wood shed. I knelt down over it and called upon God to restore its life. I prayed earnestly, if ever I did, and I promised if God would only restore that chicken's life, I would never do another naughty thing so long as I should live. I PARENTAGE^ BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. I9 would be the best boy that ever was. My soul was in too great distress to stay long in one place, and I ran into the house to find comfort there ; and then I came back to the speckled beauty and knelt down by it. It moved and peeped ! It came to life ! My joy was dehrious. Before Rebecca came home it had begun to pick up crumbs like any chicken. I told the whole story, to the amusement of all. As to my promised goodness, I fear it was like the ■early dew and the morning cloud that vanish away ; but the chicken story never perished. I was about six years old, and a little fellow at that, when I had my first day's experience at the district school. I had made a small beginning at home, but, the schoolhouse being more than a mile away, my entrance on scientific pursuits was delayed. The master, Macallister, was a severe and brutal man, much disliked, " but he made the boys and girls study." I sat upon the front seat for little boys, with no desk before me. A scholar brought in an armful of shavings and threw them on the fire. They blazed up with a roar, and some of them fell and went down through a hole in the corner of the hearth. There must have been a draught of air upward, for immediately a bright, clear, forked flame shot up out of the hole, and^ little foolish boy as I was, forgetting all my environment, I laughed right 20 ^y LIFE AND TIMES. out. The stern voice called me up to the desk. I went with trembling and told him just how I came to laugh : *' When I saw that flame come up straight out of the hearth I snickered right out 'fore I knew it." That made the school laugh and the master mad. " Hold out your hand ; there 's no laughing in this school ! " he commanded. He seized the hand and gave me a terrible ferruling. I screamed. I was so terrified I don't think I felt the pain. My sisters hid their faces and wept, and so did my brother. I was " entirely kilt." I was disgraced. The crystal vase of life was dashed in pieces. What would mother say } Punished the first day, and the only boy punished that day in school ! But I lived through it somehow. Going home, my sisters com- forted me by saying that I had not done any wrong, and the master was a naughty, wicked, cruel man. Mother was evidently grieved and did not reprove me. She only said, '* Scholars must mind the rules." But the next day I heard mother and sisters talking about it in the next room, and declaring that such a man ought not to be allowed to teach school. That mended my broken heart. After this the district was divided, and we had a schoolhouse at a small distance. Our teachers were persons whom we loved and honored. I remember them all with great affection. PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD, 21 A decided forward step was taken when we came into possession of a good pocketknife. A Yankee boy is not much until he begins to whittle and owns a knife. We had a miserable thing which we did not respect and which was not worthy of respect. I remember well the time when our neighbor Mr. Kilgore made a call and in the course of his talk said to mother, " I have an excellent jackknife for your boys. We are out of butter, and if you will give me one of those balls of butter, they shall have the knife." No sooner said than done, and we were rich. The knife was a homely horn-handled thing, but the blade was of the best of steel. We idolized it. With its help we became early experts in making sleds for coasting and for drawing in wood. If that knife was mislaid, the house had no peace until it was found. I remember one incident as though it were yes- terday. The knife was lost. We hunted for it at home, and made mother and sisters hunt with us ; then despairing we rushed over to Mr. Haskell's, for we had had it there that morning. So we rushed back and forth, and if we gave up the hunt in one place, we ran to the other. Finally Uncle Sam said, " Stop this useless hunt. When the ^now goes off perhaps you will find it." I began to ask him what we should do till then, and to protest that I had had 2 2 ^^y LIFE AND TIMES. the knife right there on that log. Knocking my foot in the snow, because my toes were cold, / hiocked up the knife! right out of the snow. I seized it and ran shouting home, *' I 've found the knife ! I ve found the knife ! " The household ran together to participate in the joy. We never lost it again, and what its end was I know not. Our cousin Henry Upham, a student in Harvard, visited us and took note, evidently, of our beloved knife. After his return he sent each of us a splen- did pocketknife, with which our well-worn veteran could not compare. Susan took them, and said no- thing till morning, when she came early into our room with those fascinating knives in her hand and said, "These have just come from Henry Upham, but if you take them, you must give up your old one." The temptation was great, but our old knife rose up and appealed to us by all the memories of our whittling achievements. '* Let us not do it," we whispered to each other; and so we said with flash- ing eyes, " Send back those knives to Henry Upham and tell him we don't want 'em." Then Susan laughed and said, " You deserve them all and shall have them. I only did it to try you." After awhile the dear old knife was laid away in a drawer. It had seen its best days. It had become, PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 23 like the hand of the writer, nearly useless for labor, and it was time to pass into the oblivion which sooner or later envelops all our works. One of my pleasantest memories of childhood is the coming on of spring. It never lost its charm to us all until we left the farm. The long, severe win- ter, the roads often blocked with snow, cold hands and feet, sometimes frozen toes and ears and nose, quorum pars fiii^ made us long for spring with a great longing and watch for every sign of its approach. Who should see the first live fly, who should hear the first robin or see the first swallow were things we wanted to boast of. But above all, the springing up of green grass in some sunny spot, and the coming up of apple seeds we had planted here and there in the fall were revelations that never lost their charm. They were new and surprising wonders, delighting our hearts to the full. There always seemed to be a divine force beneath them. I can never see one of these germs of life now in springtime without being instantly transported to childhood's home, and always my mother and brother and sisters are there. Our apple trees, whether in blossom or fruitage, are another memory ineffaceable. We had two orchards in full blossom about the last week in May. One could hardly determine which was more entrancing, the vision of beauty or the subtle fragrance that 24 MV LIFE AND TIMES. seemed to be the very atmosphere itself. Nearly all the trees were brilliantly white, with here and there one of pinkish hue that greatly enhanced the uni- versal glory. If a breeze swept across our path, it brought a wave of more delicious aroma than art ever produced. No one could pass between the house and barns without stopping to be filled with the fragrance and the beauty on either side. The sight of an orchard in blossom always reproduces that unfaded picture. Our childhood's amusements were few and simple. Among them were pitching quoits (flat stones with us boys), "firing " stones and snowballs at a mark, coast- ing on our sleds, and playing blindman's buff, when there were enough together to engage in it. In the autumn berrying was a rage. It began with straw- berries in July, and then, later, raspberries, black- berries, blueberries, huckleberries. The land of the farms was then new, and strawberries grew as they now grow only by cultivation. They were hardly ever sold — at least I never heard of such a thing. If children from a family brought a neighbor four or five quarts, they probably did it for something which they had not, as butter, cheese, or whatever it might be. No price was set on either side. I remember giving twenty-five cents for a large milk pail heaping full of magnificent blackberries, PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 25 I suppose ten or fifteen quarts, and the children thanked me heartily. Our childhood was not without its labors. Every family was a hive of industry, summer and winter. Clothing was chiefly of home manufacture. Every family made woolen cloth, which went to the fulling- mill, where it was fulled and dressed and colored. It was fine or coarse or very coarse, according to the quality of the wool and the skill of the workers. There was no little competition and pride in these domestic manufactures. Linen cloth was also made for summer wear, and it never wore out. We boys had various duties in the house, but out-of-doors we had one task which we disliked. In the spring, before the grass was more than an inch or two high, and in the fall, after crops were harvested, we had to pick up stones and pile them into piles equidistant and on straight lines. A free surface was absolutely necessary for the mowers, or their scythes would suddenly come to grief. Never could little boys be engaged in a more useful work. We were excused from lifting all heavy stones, and were assured that the little ones did all the mischief. But we hated the work, and I never knew a boy so belated in his evolution as to like it. We could also drop corn and potatoes and beans and punkin seeds very early. Every other hill in 26 MV LIFE AND TIMES, every other row had five beans on the south side of the corn. The beanless rows were well provided with pumpkins. The land was new, the barnyard dressing was plentiful, ashes and ground plaster of Paris were freely used, and abundant crops were the results. We had to do the ashing and plastering of the corn. A large tub of ashes would be drawn out to the edge of the field, and the little boys, each with his pail and wooden spoon, dealt out a certain measure of ashes to each hill before the first hoeing. If it were plaster of Paris, the fingers were used, about a heaping teaspoonful being given to each hill. We had some kind hand, probably at the request of our mother, to provide us with boys' tools. We had a small axe, scythe, rake, and spreading-sticks. Spreading hay was fun, though raking was not. Hannibal with his small scythe became a skillful mower two or three years before I did. He had a native tact at doing things which I did not have. What I have done in mechanics has been by per- sistent effort and determination. He was a natural mechanic, and had marvelous precision and neatness in all that he did ; and yet I was destined to be the mechanic. We are in many things the creatures of our circumstances. Like most children, I was fond of asking questions,. PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 2/ and sometimes people laughed at my questions and mortified me so that I became afraid of asking things I wished to know. I asked my mother once what was meant by eighteen hundred and eighteen. She told me it was so many years since Jesus was born in Bethlehem. ''But how do they know, mother .? " " They have kept it right along," was her reply. "This year is 1818, next year will be 18 19, and the year after 1820, and so on." That satisfied me. I felt I was growing in wisdom and knowledge. I suppose there is a point when a child begins to think for himself — to reason out a thing. I know that point in my experience, as it appears to me. My mother, seeing that water was leaking through a crack in a kettle hanging over the fire, put in some meal right over the crack, and as it settled down in the leak was stopped. She had hardly turned away when the water in the kettle rose up and spilled over. I cried out in surprise, " Mother, you put in cold meal and the water boiled right over!" "Yes," she said ; " flour always makes water boil over badly if you don't take it off." I continued thinking about it until I said to myself, " The flour makes the water so thick the steam can't escape, and it has to lift the water up to get out." I gloried in having satisfied myself. From that point I started out on the career of endless thought. 28 MV LIFE AND TIMES, It was at a later period than this, and when I may have been ten years old, that I solved by accident a problem that gave me a false reputation in arith- metic, of which I knew nothing but the four rules. Three or four young men were sitting round a table proposing puzzles. One was how to write four nines so as to express one hundred. They declared it was impossible. I knew nothing about fractions, but I knew that two halves, three thirds, four fourths etc., of a thing make one, or the whole, and said to myself, "Nine ninths make one." I plunged right in when I had no business, and taking a pencil wrote 99f . The proposer of the puzzle said, " The boy has done it, but somebody told him or he got it somewhere." I protested, " Nobody ever told me, and I didn't get it nowhere!" This performance gave me a reputation I could not keep up. I was rather slow in arithmetic except for an occasional hit at a problem. My brother early became a neat penman, and never had a blot on his writing books. I could beat him and almost every other scholar in blots, and my handwriting was the despair of ** schoolma'ams " and masters. But I was a pretty good speller. I won two prizes for spelling — small books. One was a stupid thing which I kept for many years because it was a prize. The other was given me by Miss PARENTAGE^ BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 29 Mary Emerson, and was a sweet, attractive tale of Swiss mountaineers. Miss Emerson was a character. She was aunt to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and she almost worshiped him. She was a transcendentalist. She would some- times spend the winter months at our house, we had a chamber so retired and our family was so quiet. She wanted no one to enter her chamber. If the boys would keep the woodbox full outside of her door, she wanted no other service. She gave herself devotedly to study and writing ; she was going to leave her thoughts to posterity. She wrote a great deal, but what no one ever knew. She often spent an evening hour with the family, and her conversa- tion was instructive and entertaining. She gave me "The Mountain Lute" for being **at the head" in reading and spelling. I kept it many years, but it has gone the way of all flesh. I advise all children to have a little box for their ** keeps " and hold them safe through life. The variety, cares, excitements, and intense occupations of missionary life have been fatal to many precious keepsakes. There is no marked line between our childhood and our farm life as boys hard at work, and I might as well pass to it right here. CHAPTER II. OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. /^\JJR farm was situated on the county road ^^ leading from Bridgton through Waterford and Norway to Paris, the shire town of Oxford County. It had a very pleasant western aspect of cultivated farms rising to the hilltops, and beyond were the White Hills, Mt. Washington always telling us when it put on its white cap of snow. My father, in the phrase of our courts at that day, was the high sheriff of Oxford County. He died at the early age of forty-two, as has been said; and the farm life of myself and brother was without the care and help of a father. We were early inured to toil. We took to it kindly, and were ambitious to do men's work while we were mere boys. Our ever- watchful mother tried to guard us against overwork, but my brother's constitution was unquestionably injured by it. I was naturally too tough to be in- jured. I was like the willow, he like the pine tree which is often broken by the storm. Our father left a large supply of farm implements such as were then in use ; but after his death our 80 H a n (/) o o 3 3 O o 3 O) 3* 3 K K o > O Z 3 ~. c , S' CD ~ H 3* ni o 3 ^^ "I 2L o -! o' 3 P a 5' oo o 10 > OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE, 31 neighbors were always ready to borrow them ; and when we boys were old enough to look after them a great many things which this neighbor and that said belonged to us were not to be found. I once went for an article which the neighbor confessed belonged to us, but he said he could n't do without it, and he wished I would bring it back when I had done with it ! Did I ? At length everything seemed to give out. ^ The potato cart and the hay cart were utter wrecks, and could no more be used. The holes of the ox- bows had worn enormously large in the yoke, and finally they split out, and the yoke came to the hon- orable death of old age with all the rest. Owing to some troubles in the district, there was to be no school all winter long, and we resolved to see what we could do. Our financial resources were only suf- ficient to buy a new plow and a pair of cart wheels. We resolved to make the rest — a resolve at which our neighbors laughed. I was then about thirteen or fourteen, and my brother two years older, with a natural gift at whittling out things. We cut down in our wood lot a nice yellow birch and obtained two lengths for yokes. We had a board pattern from a neighbor, and began to hew the log to the pattern. For tools we had an axe, drawshave, jack-plane, and an augur. The poor log 32 ^^y LIFE AND TIMES. was never left alone ; while one was taking care of the barn, the other was at the yoke. It was soon in shape so that we could carry it into the kitchen in the evening and work upon it before the fire, until our mother would make us leave it and go to bed. It was very difficult to work the curved surface with nothing but a drawshave. We heard of a man who had a spokeshave and we borrowed it. The yoke was splendidly finished. We scraped it nicely with pieces of glass, and then polished the surface by hard rubbing with a dry stick. It was at length "a thing of beauty." But the holes were not bored. We bored them the best way we could — and ruined the yoke ! The holes were not parallel, and the bows would not enter. When we saw there was no remedy our hearts broke. If I did not cry, it was because my grief, disappointment, and sense of loss were too deep for tears. Major Stone came along and scolded us for trying to do what few men can do well. But he comforted us. He praised the work. He said no better yoke could be made. ''Make another just like that, but leave it straight on the back, and I will bore the holes." We went at it and made it, but as he did not come the very minute we wanted him, we invented a way that would hold the augur parallel to itself all the time in making the four holes. It OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 33 was a complete success, and our hearts swelled with joy. We gave it the highest possible finish. It was an improvement on our first one, and we were glad of our misfortunes. How often that experience reappears in human life ! Major Stone came along and seeing this one said, "Well, boys, who bored those holes.?" ''We bored them," was the answer. " Then you have spoiled another good yoke," said he. But trying them and finding them perfect he said, " Don't you tell me a lie ; you never did that." When we showed him how, he laughed and said, "When I make a yoke you shall bore it." We felt lifted up. One great injury to be guarded against was the checking or cracking of the ends of the yoke in drying. They needed to be wet every day, or a piece of wet cloth thrown over them. We were told to soak them well with paint again and again. I went up to Deacon Carleton's, the cabinetmaker, and bought a pot of brilliant red paint, and borrowed a brush, and we painted the yoke a most brilliant red, and every few days painted it over again. It was the most magnificent object my eyes had ever seen, or ever will see in this life. Many a time I have stood before it with my hands in my pockets, to drink in the unmatched splendor. We then proceeded to make an axle and tongue 24 MY LIFE AND TIMES, for the new cart wheels, and a potato body or box body and the hay body. These were in part arrayed in the same splendor, and we reaped a rich reward for our persevering labors in the aesthetic enjoyment of these works of high art. I ought not to ridicule them, however, for there was real education in all this hard training. We derived as much real preparation for the battle of life as we should have derived from ten weeks* schooling. We generally had half a dozen cows, a yoke of oxen, fifteen to eighteen sheep, the '' old mare," and two or three colts of different ages, together with the young cattle reserved to supply the wastes of time. We were on the best of terms with them all. Each one had its name and seemed to know it. We really loved our noble oxen. Star and Golding, for whose patient and powerful necks we made the magnificent yoke. Our cows were the Great Red, the Great Brindle, Thief Brindlc, Old Scrimp, Little Red, and Little Brindle — not as being smaller, but younger. Great Red and Great Brindle were queenly beings. Thief Brindle was wicked. There was hardly a fence she would not jump over or break through to get at the corn or whatever else her soul lusted after. And yet she was a great coward. If she saw one of us coming with a stick, she would OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE, 35 decamp with such haste that she rarely received any righteous penalty for her deeds. Old Scrimp was also a thief, but a sneak thief, her nose in everything, watching for a chance to steal. Hannibal and I had made a new gate for our gar- den of which we were very proud. Thief Brindle came along, and seeing the cabbages on the other side put her head against the center of the gate and broke it through and lifted the frame off its hinges. Our neighbor came laughing and crying out, " The cow has stolen your new gate and is eating your cab- bages ! " She escaped as usual, but we drove her into the barn-yard, and then we could not get the gate over her horns. We must either cut off her head, which she richly merited, or take the gate to pieces. The latter being the more economical, we proceeded to do it, amid the laughter and jokes of those who had gathered round.^ But we really loved our dumb animals. To this day I remember them all with real affection, and wish I had done more for their comfort. Our dogs are a memory of joy and sorrow. The boundless love between a dog and his master and master's family is one of the mysteries of our earthly state. Our first dog was Bose — a noble. ^An ingenious youth, on hearing the story, remarked: "That is the first cow I ever heard of wearing a necklace made of a-gate!" ;6 MY LIFE AND TIMES. powerful, faithful, intelligent fellow, black as coal. He was our father's dog, and on the coldest evenings would sit on the doorstone and watch for his coming when he would come no more. It sometimes made my mother weep. My sister Susan, eleven years old, would put her arms round his neck and tell him : *' He won't come to-night, dear Bose. Come in and you shall watch for him to-morrow;" and so she would bring him in. He seemed to be one of the family. In the days of his strength he formed a habit which proved his death. Our well was between the dairy room and the woodshed, one end of which was also dairy room certain parts of the year. A slide door closed the well curb from the dairy room, and when water was drawn on that side the door was open. The dog, coming in or going out, would bound over the well through that door, with a leap so graceful in its curve that he was often put through it for the admiration of visitors. He was o:rowino: blind from age, but still he loved that way in. One cold, icy day in winter he leaped against the door and fell back into the well. Oh, the anguish that filled our hearts ! A boy mounted our horse and went a mile for our cousin Addison Hamlin. He came at the highest speed, and with a rope round him went instantly down the icy rocks and put the dog in a basket. He OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 37 had ceased to moan. He breathed convulsively two or three times, while we gathered round him wiping him dry and calling upon him to live. The grief of our hearts can be remembered ; it cannot be de- scribed. For many years that scene could not be recalled without tears. Our next dog was Caper, a fine fellow, but he fell into bad habits of chasing sheep and was justly shot by a neighbor, one of whose lambs he was feasting on. We boys cried over his untimely death. We did n't believe him guilty of any wrongdoing. Boys in the country cannot long live without a dog. We went to a distant neighbor and obtained a puppy and named him Carlo. He soon became a great playmate. That was all he was good for, he was so much petted. He was a genius at play ; he tempted us to it oftentimes to the delay of other duties. The game in our environment was composed of squirrels of all kinds, — red, gray, and black, — par- tridges, pigeons, hawks, crows, woodpeckers, foxes, rabbits, and woodchucks. Carlo was death on all these ; but he would tree a little red squirrel and bark all night at him. My brother and I were pas- sionately fond of hunting. We had each of us a gun — "a fowling piece." We killed something of all the above except "bre'r rabbit." Twice we chased a bear, but never got a shot at one. Bears 2,S MY LIFE AMD TIMES. had become very shy. They always made their escape to "Hamlin's Grant," as the tract offered Eleazer Hamlin is still called. Carlo was always about when he saw us with a gun. If he treed a squirrel, we must shoot it or he would die watching and barking at it. It was the same if he chased a woodchuck into a hole. He would bark at that hole like Beecher's dog Noble. He would always follow the chaise wherever it went, and Sundays we had to shut him up, because he would insist upon making one of the audience. He soon got round that, for Sunday morning he was not to be found. About halfway to church he would turn up sneakingly and beseech us to forgive. If he saw one of us laugh, he knew he had won his case, and his ecstasy knew no bounds. At length, like Bose, he grew blind and also deaf. His life was a burden to himself, for he had lost in great measure the sense of smell. He was tenderly cared for, but at length my brother, with many tears, had him carried into the woods and shot through the head. Hannibal wrote me a pathetic letter, and I replied in the following doggerel : — Far in the lonely woods Where wild flowers scent the air. Carlo shall rest in peace, For aye reposing there. OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 39 The winds sigh o'er his grave With sad and solemn sound, And nightly make their wail Above his leafy mound. Birds sing his funeral dirge When night winds cease their moan; Silent and sad he sleeps, Yet sleeps he not alone. Squirrels their revels keep About his lonely bed ; Woodchucks and rabbits bless Their stars that he is dead. Upon his naked skull They crack their nuts with glee And boast if \ were alive, They 'd crack their nuts as free. I closed with a moral and a resolve, but I cannot recall it, and English literature will forever suffer the loss. I think I can recollect every book we had in our library. We had two large Bibles (Ostervalds), one with and one without the Apocrypha, Hannah Adams' History of New England, Goldsmith's His- tories of Greece and Rome, The Vicar of Wakefield, Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, Elegant Extracts, Tristram Shandy, a book on farming (and, as I be- lieve, an excellent one), but, above all. Pilgrim's Pro- 40 J^y LIFE AND TIMES. gress and Robinson Crusoe. We took The Panoplist, with its blue covers, from the beginning; and by combination with three other famiHes, minister's and doctors', The North American Review. This my mother and sisters read, as being beyond us boys ; but I used to listen with eager ears, understanding some things perfectly well, and wondering if I should ever be able to comprehend the whole of that won- derful book. Our uncle. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, of Paris Hill, had a much larger library. Paris was the shire town. Mr. Lincoln, a lawyer and a poet, who be- came one of the early governors of Maine, boarded with him, and my sisters made frequent drafts upon that house. It was from that source we had Las Cases' Life of Napoleon, which fired our hearts against England. In our boyhood the old spirit of intense hatred to England still smoldered in the hearts of the people. The treatment of Napoleon was considered barbarous, as indeed it was. Our few books were thoroughly read, and we could give a good account of them. Esquire Howe ('* Square Howe" he was always called) came to live in the lower village. Calling at our house one day he saw us boys reading, and talk- ing with us found we were fond of history. He commended to us RoUin's Ancient History, in four large volumes, if we thought we could understand OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 41 such a great work. We assured him we would like to try it. "Call at my office," he said, **and get the first volume, and when you have read it bring it back and tell me if you want the second, and so on." We bestowed our spare time upon this great work for months. It gave us a new idea of the world and its history. I hold Mr. Howe's memory in grateful remembrance. Our family was a reading family. On winter evenings one of us always read aloud, while some of the family industries, as sewing and knitting, were going on. There is a bright glow of social happiness over those evenings, as they recur to me in memory. To my brother and myself the family training of reading and discussion was of more value than the common school. Our mother and sisters were authorities that we never questioned. Two or three of Scott's novels were read, Quentin Durward the first ; but our reading was mainly historical and biographical. The Bible was read before retiring to rest, and each child had a system of reading the Bible through, one chapter every day and five every Sunday. Our Sundays were sacredly guarded from all unnecessary labor, and the reading was in harmony with the sacredness of the day. The Panoplist, and afterward its successor, The Missionary Herald, was read aloud, and especially 42 MV LIFE AND TIMES. every item of missionary news, for some of our neighbors did not believe in missions. The missions were then so few that a close acquaintance with them was easily cultivated, and we believed in them with all our might. About the year 1820 or 1821 a proposal was made to the church to respond to the call for aid to edu- cate heathen boys in Christian schools in India. Twelve dollars a year would educate a boy. A penny contribution box was offered to the Sunday audience by the door, as they passed in and out. The cent was the limit in one direction against half cents, but in the other there was no limit. The object was to raise a dollar a month. It was pro- posed and voted to name the boy Lincoln Ripley, after our saintly and excellent pastor. All the boys, and girls were invited to try for a cent a week. There was little money in the country, and the trade was largely barter. But there was a potash factory in the place, and ashes commanded a good price. The boys could cultivate a potato patch. Good potatoes were ten cents a bushel. Girls could braid straw for hats and bonnets, or knit woolen under- wear. By hook and by crook the box cojlected its dollar a month, adults putting in the larger contri- butions. Much interest was excited in the work, and we thought we were doing something great. It I I t I I I t I I II " OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 43, was more difficult then for a boy to earn a cent than it is now to earn a nickel. We had four great days in the year — first of all Thanksgiving day. That has been written into the ground, but I love to recall its household joy and evening sports. Then the Fourth of July, ** the glorious Fourth." The reading of the Declaration of Independence was arranged beforehand, and everybody knew who was to have the honor. That occasion always fired our souls. We wondered that such a wretch as George III had been allowed to live. We have lost the Fourth of July. It is still worth keeping with less powder and more patriotism. Mr. Bowen sets a noble example in his Woodstock celebrations. Election day was a holiday, and we always had election cake and some boyish sports. But the annual muster was the great day. Then a regiment turned out, and this was all "the pomp and circumstance of war " our eyes were privileged to see. Everybody went to it. When there was a sham fight with the Indians in war paint and feathers, it was to us intensely exciting. I remember well one morning when — I suppose I was about ten or eleven years old — I was to start o£P alone, my brother being ill ; and as I was delayed 44 MY LIFE AND TIMES, by chores, the boys of the neighborhood had all gone ; but I did n't care. When I had got myself in order, my dear mother gave me seven cents for spending money, for ginger- bread, buns, etc. A cent then was a more puissant coin than it is now in such purchases. In giving it she said to me, "Perhaps, Cyrus, you will put a cent or two into the contribution box at Mrs. Farrar's." ^ As I was trudging along I began to question. Shall I drop in one cent or two } I wished mother had n't said one or two. I finally decided on two and felt satisfied. Five cents would furnish all I could eat and more too ; but after a time conscience began to torment me : " Five for yourself and two for the heathen ! Five for gingerbread and two for souls ! " So I said four for gingerbread and three for souls, I could n't make a firm stand there very long, and I said three for gingerbread and four for the souls of the heathen. I would have drawn the line there but for my foolish pride. The boys would find out that I had only three cents ! But I was at Mrs. Farrar's open door, and there was the contribution box, and I had the seven cents in my hand. I said, " Hang it all ! I '11 dump them all in * Mrs. Farrar was the handsomest woman in town, and it may be the contribution box profited by that fact. Week days she kept it where every one saw it OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE, 45 and have no more bother about it." So I did, and went away contented. I played shy of the refreshment stands ; and by three or four o'clock I had sated myself with military glory and made for home. I had been on my feet from early dawn, with absolutely nothing after my early breakfast. I was just as tired as a little boy could be who had never fasted in that way before. I burst into the house and cried out, '' Mother, I 'm as hungry as a bear ! I have n't had a mouthful to eat to-day." " Why, Cyrus ! have you lost the money I gave you?" " No, mother ; but you did n't give it to me right. If you had given me eight cents or six cents, I would have divided it half and half. But you gave me seven. I could n't divide it, and so I dropped it all in together." "You poor boy!" she said, smiling in tears; and soon I had such a bowl of bread and milk as I had never eaten, and no monarch ever ate. What was the meaning of mother's tears } I have gone back to earlier life. Revenons a nos moutons. Our prospective harvest was always a subject of deep interest to us from May to October. Our 46 MY LIFE AND TIMES. garden yielded an abundance of garden vegetables. Our orchard gave us an overmeasure of apples. We made from ten to fifteen barrels of cider, and put forty bushels of selected apples into the cellar for winter. The greenings and the russets would sell at fifty cents a bushel in the spring, the glorious rich bluepearmains for a dollar. Our orchard had an uncommon proportion of sweet-apple trees. These apples were gathered separately for sweet- apple cider, to be boiled down into apple molasses for apple sauce. With properly selected apples the result was delicious. We had a large sweet apple which when quartered and stewed in the molasses made the most seductive condiment ever eaten. Making apple sauce and drying apples and pumpkins were busy household industries in the autumn after harvest. We cultivated from four to five acres every year with the plow. The chief divisions were one acre each of potatoes, corn, and wheat. The rye, oats, flax, and buckwheat claimed the rest. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the fields of flax in blossom. That glory has passed away from New England. In my day our summer clothes were of homemade linen cloth. Its worst trait was it would never wear out ; we had to outgrow it. If we harvested two hun- dred bushels of potatoes, twenty bushels of wheat, OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 47 thirty bushels of corn (shelled), twelve to fifteen of rye, twenty of oats ; and peas, beans, and buckwheat for table use, we considered ourselves well supplied. We changed into money, at Portland chiefly, butter, cheese, a fatted hog, oats, beans, and nothing else that I can think of. Occasionally we had a colt to sell, or a pair of steers. At length there came up the practical question, What shall the younger boy do ? The farm was enough for one, but not enough for two. Our other farm had been sold for a thousand dollars, and any- how it was too stony and wet to be thought of for the youngster. A part of the price had been trans- muted into the education of my sisters. But the farm right opposite could be had for a thousand dol- lars ; and mother had five hundred dollars ready for the first payment. It would be a most delightful future to my dear widowed mother to have her two sons always close by her side. But our faithful physican, Dr. Gage, wise and excellent, said, "• No. The boy does not grow. He has not grown any for three years. Farm work will kill him. Give him an education." That was im- possible on account of the expense. Besides, I liked the idea of being a farmer. It was finally agreed that I should become a silversmith and jeweler in the establishment of my brother-in-law, Mr. Charles 48 MY LIFE AND TIMES. Farley, of Portland. My mother sacrificed her heart's desire without a tear, unless shed in secret. ** I would have been so happy to have you here, Cyrus ; but I see it is best for you to go to Portland, and you will be with your sister Rebecca ; but for that I could not let you go." I suppose my mother had something of that self- ishness that belongs to humanity, but her children never saw anything of it. At her funeral, her old pastor, the Rev. Lincoln Ripley, remarked, " I can say of our departed sister what I have been able to say of very few ; that now, standing by her coffin, I can testify that in an acquaintance of forty years I never heard her say a thing that I could wish had been differently said, and never heard of her doing a thing that I could wish had been differently done." It was agreed that I should keep my sixteenth birthday at home, January 5, 1827, and then depart for my new sphere of preparation for life's battle. There was a sadness in it all, and yet enough of hope to cheer us all. Both the daughters were hap- pily married, and now one of the two sons would go. A mother's love was equal to it, and what was done was done cheerfully. Hannibal and I had never been separated. I had never slept from under the ma- ternal roof but one night. To me the change would be great. OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 49 But at length the eventful day came. The trunk was packed, the sleigh loaded with such things as we had for the market, — Hannibal and I ' were to add ourselves to the load, — and at five o'clock in the morning we were to start and join Major Stone and Mr. Amos Saunders for the cold winter journey of forty miles to Portland. The last day at home dragged heavily with us all. It was more of an event than the starting for a voyage round the world would now be. But night came and the last thing was to feed the old mare, that she might need the less time for eating in the morning. Our cousin Almira Hamlin was with us, and she remained with mother for years, a great blessing to us all. She was up betimes, and a rousing fire warmed our benumbed fingers as we came down from a chamber that seemed to import cold for special use. A dry northeast snowstorm was on, and it was intensely cold. Mother was sure the other parties would not start, and knowing our stiff- neckedness to carry out anything we began, she made us promise to turn back and not push on alone if they should not go. With hearts ready to break we parted, with New England reserve and self-possession. Such expe- riences always nerved the New Englander up to the quality of tempered steel. The only part bordering 50 MV LIFE AND TIMES, on pathos was when my mother, with a tremor in her voice, gave me a Bible and asked me to read it every day. And then I slipped out to the barn to bid my dumb friends farewell with a "lantern dimly burning." I kissed the noble oxen and the favorite cows — those good, virtuous, heavenly-minded cows — a sad farewell. I never confessed that weakness until I was old enough to defend it. And thus my farm life closed. Our friends concluded to go, and we pushed on together. It was a day of no ordinary suffering. The cold was intense, the traveling heavy. Our party put up at a town, seven miles out from Port- land, but we rash boys refused to stop, cold, weary, hungry as we were. It was do or die. We could surely reach Portland in two hours — it took us more than three. During the ride a new anxiety seized us which made us forget ourselves : the old mare might give out and lie down and die. When at length we reached the great city of twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants, we began to inquire for Moore's hotel, which was our objectif. It was near nine o'clock. We had been sixteen hours on the road. This and that one knew of no such hotel, but finally we met a man who stopped and told us very kindly, ** Turn to your left at the third street from here and you will come right upon it." The first street we OUR FARM AND OUR FARM LIFE. 5 I passed was so narrow we said, " That is a lane, not a street ; " and we did not count it. But when we had passed four or five and only one of them was broad enough to be called a street, we inquired again, "Turn right about, boys, and the second street at your right is the one ; and Moore's hotel is close by." At length we were there and all our troubles were at an end. We told the hostler of our long journey and of our anxieties. We begged him to take good care of our horse (we changed her designation) and cover kim warm and give him a good bedding. For answer he said, " Go and take care of yourselves, boys, and I'll take care of your old mare." Mr. Farley's house was perhaps two minutes' walk away. It was nearly ten o'clock, and we had been at least eighteen hours on the qui vive. It was not in human nature not to be tired. Mr. Farley and Rebecca were sitting up before a bright anthracite fire in an open grate. We had never seen either before. They were amazed to see us. They won- dered we had not perished. We were warmed and filled, and then went to bed in an awfully nice and cold room. We trembled and shivered for half an hour, but we had always slept in a cold room if there was any cold about. We were well covered, and we 52 MV LIFE AND TIMES. awoke in the morning warm and refreshed. We ate a good breakfast, and then we sallied out to see the great and wondrous city. My farm life had closed; and now my life as a mechanic in a city was to begin. CHAPTER III. APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND. /^UR first visit after breakfast and prayer was of ^^-^ course to the stable. We were delighted to find the old mare in good order, and she saluted us with a whinny, as much as to say, " I 'm glad to see you, boys." We took our load and our orders to Mr. Burbank, a true and honest man, and the business part of my brother's visit was soon disposed of. Mr. Burbank had failed twenty years before, owing my father $\y. He now brought up the matter so long forgotten, and never known to my mother, and said she could draw upon him for that amount. He was again prosperous. The message affected my mother deeply. It seemed to come from her departed husband ; for Mr. Bur- bank s^id he was such a kind, just, and honorable man that he enjoyed paying this debt to his widow. She exclaimed : *' A score of known debts remain unpaid, but here the payment of an unknown debt is freely offered.'* Our business done, and the horse returned to the stable, we sallied out to see the wonders. Of course 53 54 ^^y ^IF^ ^^D TIMES. we made our way to the wharves to see the ships. We could pick out the ship, with three masts and square rigged, and we could distinguish the brig, the schooner, and the sloop. But what interested us above all things was a vessel on *'the ways." At high water, a man told us, it had been floated on to the cradle, and kept there while the sea retired. Then the cable from the cradle was wound round the capstan, and a horse was set agoing to draw the vessel up on those rails called' *' the ways." We watched it for along time; the horse went round and round, a boy following at his heels, and the vessel moved so slowly that we despaired of the operation. The horse must walk miles to move the vessel a rod. But then there was no noise and no hurry. There was a lazy boy whistling along and striking the horse only when he proposed to stop. We had seen an empty barn moved a quarter of a mile by a hundred yoke of oxen with "- hollerin'/' swearing, drinking, breaking of chains till pande- monium seemed let loose. Here were a boy and a horse moving a ship on to dry land without noise. It was in our view the greatest thing we had seen in Portland. The next morning my brother started late for home, as he designed to go but little more than half- way that day. He had had quite enough of putting APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND, 55 the journey through at one pull in heavy traveling. So we separated, who had never been separated before. We had thought aloud to each other and kept nothing back. Now our paths diverged. He pursued his education a good deal by himself. He .studied mathematics and became a skillful surveyor. He was very conscientious and independent. He dared to do right. In this respect he often toned me up. Our brotherhood was perfect unto the end. After he had gone I entered the silversmith and jewelry shop. There were three apprentices. Wil- ham Haskins was from my native place and from an honored and beloved family. He was just complet- ing his apprenticeship. He was a man of wonderful skill and taste in his art. There were also Thomas Hammond, who had still a year to serve, and Edward Eaker, who was in every way a pleasant, intelligent fellow and a good workman. For a month or two I was miserable. I was timid and bashful. I seemed to myself to make no pro- gress in acquiring that skill which the others bad and which came so natural to them. " Don't hurry. Learn to do a thing well, and then learn to do it fast,'* was a law of the shop which was of great advantage to me. When at length, in addition to silver sleeve but- tons, which had a great sale, and to mounting hair 56 ^^^y LIFE AND TIMES. necklaces and wristlets, I could make a good silver spoon, my happy days began to shine. I could make spoons with any of them. Mr. Farley encouraged me to make myself acquainted with every part of the trade, and when I should finish, at twenty-one, we would form a partnership and go in for importing jewelry and military goods. I should go to Europe, to Geneva and Paris ; and we could not fail to do well. To me it seemed a great and brilliant future. One of the boys boasted that he had taken so many ounces of silver in the morning and delivered five well-finished tablespoons at night. I said I could do the same, at which they laughed ; but Mr. Farley gave me the silver and let me try it. I did it, and the work was pronounced good. Three spoons of that weight were a journeyman's day's work. They did n't see where my little arm got the muscle for that day's work, for spoon-making was then the work of the right arm. It is now done by machinery, and a man will turn out some dozens in a day. The fibres of the muscle had been twisted together on the farm, and by constitution I had the quality of toughness. My father is said to have had it before me. After Haskins left to go into business for himself, a new apprentice by the name of Cutter entered. Remembering my own trials, I befriended him all APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND, 57 I could ; but heedlessness was inborn in him and could not be eradicated ; otherwise he could have made a man. He broke more things in one month than all the rest had done in their entire apprentice- ship. The following is a specimen : — Mr. Farley sent him for a large pane of glass for a showcase. He had hardly twenty steps to bring it, but he broke it. He was sent for another, and he broke that. " I will buy the third with my own money ; " and he entered the shop triumphantly with the last, and holding it up he began to explain how he came to break the second ; and the third fell smash ! upon the floor with a shout from the shop. That was Cutter — an intelligent fellow too. The last I heard of him he had become a sailor. The next was Kibby Dodge. He would do well as a workman, but he was too fond of amusements ; and he purloined money from the money drawer, and when he was caught he confessed he had done it many times. Of course he departed. ' The next was Francis Edmands, a dear, good fel- low of gentle nature and, I think, a true Christian. He and I had a bedroom in one corner of the mili- tary goods' room on the second story. We slept there as a guard against burglars. Poor Francis was so nervous that he thought every noise of the rats was made by burglars, and he woke me so often that 58 MV LIFE AND TIMES. I begged Mr. Farley to let him sleep at home. I preferred to guard the shop alone. I was well armed^ and I felt sure I could disperse any number of bur- glars with ball and buckshot. It was perhaps not wholly safe, though, against all contingencies, that a boy should sleep guard on that great block, no one being within call ; but I was proud of my marksman- ship and thought it brave to take the risk. After six or eight months' guard, having neither shot my- self nor anybody else, I was withdrawn from the post, undoubtedly through my sister's influence. I became intimately acquainted with a few appren- tices of my age, and our friendship remained till death separated us. Adams, Ilsley, Colesworthy, Stackpole were true, unselfish, genial fellows ; they became true Christian men and fought the good fight. Colesworthy alone remains at this writing — 1893. In the progress of my work I remember things that occurred to test my mechanical faculty. An apprentice may, by dint of practice, make a few things well, and yet not be a mechanic. I was am- bitious to be a real mechanic. Early one morning Pascal Brooks, a very excellent and popular young dry-goods merchant, called with the broken key of his store. One half the nib was broken off in the lock. I said to him : " I will cast APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND. 59 a brass key with a solid nib, and then saw and file out the wards.*' He was incredulous, but let me try. It was half done when Mr. Farley came, and he said, " Go on and finish it." I went with Mr. Brooks to try it. It opened the door with perfect ease, and my triumph was great. One day at noon, while all were gone to dinner, and I attended to the sales store, as the youngest apprentice, a countryman came in with a bruised and battered silver watch to sell the case for old silver. I took out the movement, and weighed it, and paid him a dollar and a half and gave him back the movement, telling him it was of no value to us. " Neither is it to me," he said, and left. I was going to throw it into the box of broken things when I noticed the peculiar brilliancy and finish of the inside work. When Mr. Titcomb, the watch re- pairer, came in, I showed it to him and said : " Is this good for anything } " He examined it very critically, and said he never saw nicer work. He would put in a mainspring and try it, adding, ** But if you have a dollar and a half of your commissions on collecting bills, pay it back into the money drawer and take out that old battered case. Who knows but you may have a watch ! " When Mr. Farley came in, I told him. He looked at it and laughed and said: "You have your evenings nov/ 6o ^y LIFE AND TIMES. and you may have Saturday afternoon to see what you can make of it." Mr. Titcomb very kindly put it in order, and, after a week's trial, declared that no watch living could run better than that. It did not vary from the regulator by one second a day. " If that countryman should ever turn up, you must tell him," he said. *' I think it is a rare watch. If now you can do anything with that case, you will not only have a watch of your own, but one of the very best." The only very difficult thing was the rim that held the glass. I must make a new one. If I should suc- ceed in that, could I solder on the hinges and make neat and perfect work there } I succeeded perfectly ! I found in the waste box an old seal and key which I polished up ; my sister gave me a black ribbon ; and my fob had a perfect watch. Marks of bad treatment remained upon the case which I could not remedy, but I had as good a watch for time as any gentleman in Portland. Farther on I shall tell how I came to part with it and my fruitless efforts to recover it. It had a history. Before this I had been tried by fire. Mr. Farley brought me a heavy bag of Mexican dollars and said, " There is twenty or twenty-five per cent of alloy in these dollars. Take the largest smelting pot. It will take eight or ten ounces at a time, and you APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND, 6 1 may have the week to do it in. What time you gain will be your own." I was glad of the chance. I was sure I could do it in three days. I hardly finished it in five, but I learned just what the work was, and that was my master's object. I also gained a very impressive illustration of the meaning of Mai. 3:3: " He shall sit as a refiner and purifier," etc. When the process was complete the melted mass in the fining pot retained a brilliant surface that perfectly reflected my face when I looked into it. No alloy remained to form an oxide and obscure the brilliancy. So far as my trade was concerned, I was indus- trious and contented. I had gained confidence in myself. When my five years should be finished I would be ready to launch out into business. As a salesman my pride had a terrible fall. I had often made important sales while alone in the store at noontime. Mr. Farley complimented me on it. One day a man called, dressed as a minister. He was in a chaise, and I saw him hitching his horse at the post. He wanted to look at our tableware. He bought a nice britannia coffeepot at five dollars, gave me a ten-dollar bill, and I gave him five in exchange. When Mr. Farley came in he found that the ten-dollar bill was from a " busted " bank and not worth a cent, as I might have found if I had 62 MV LIFE AND TIMES. looked over the bank list. No trace of the pur- chaser could be found. Some had seen him getting in and out of his chaise and thought him a country minister. He stopped at no hotel. He carried off a coffeepot and five dollars, to my great humiliation. It is the only time I have been cheated by a minis- terial dress. I have purposely deferred all mention of my reli- gious experience, in order to take it up by itself. My brother and sister Farley were members of Dr. Edward Payson's church, and of course I went to church with them. Dr. Payson was physically wrecked, but not mentally or spiritually. He preached occasionally in the forenoon, but always attended his Bible-class in the afternoon. In addi- tion to the spiritual power of his sermons was the deep sympathy felt by his people with their dying pastor in his heroic battle with disease. The leg of one side and the arm of the other being paralyzed, he could not use crutches, and one side was supported by a man whenever he moved about. He went up the broad aisle leaning heavily on Deacon Coe, his face indicating a sculptured fixedness from his con- stant, firm endurance of great suffering. His thus passing along would melt some to tears. His serv- ices in the pulpit brought life and power into his APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND, 63 voice and bearing. His farewell to his pulpit was so tender and solemn that few eyes were dry. I saw the tears fall from one who I supposed was a " graceless " young man. In this farewell he expressed his wish to continue his Bible-class as long as possible. As he had been informed that many were turned away every Sunday because they could not obtain admission, he would ask all his church members to refrain from coming. The exercise was expressly for those who were not church members, many of whom were excluded for want of space. I had become deeply interested in that service. He made Bible truth so clear, and brought it so for- cibly home to our own thoughts and experiences that it was impossible not to be interested. I was always there betimes and nearly in the same place. But, I thought, if my presence forces some one to be absent, I ought not to go ; and so I did n't. What was my surprise when a member of the church, Monday morning, came to me and said Dr. Payson wished to know why I was absent, and if I misun- derstood what he said from the pulpit. I told him frankly how it was. He said Dr. Payson wanted I should feel that his remark was to secure me and others like me a place, and he hoped I would return. That Dr. Payson should think of me, a little bashful 64 ^y LIFE AND TIMES. country boy, made a deeper impression than any sermon could have made. The next Sunday I was in my usual seat before the crowd came in. The vestry was soon filled to the utmost. Dr. Payson came in, leaning heavily on Deacon Coe. The room was a long one for its width ; the desk was on the middle of the right-hand side. He was helped to his seat, and first of all he wiped from his face the sweat which the painful exertion had caused. The complexion of his face was dead, but dark rather than pale, the muscles motionless and appearing to be carved out of walnut, resulting, I imagine, from constant, firm, heroic resist- ance to intense pain. When he had taken breath he turned his eyes to the right and then swept round over the whole audience, probably seeing every individual in it. When he came round to his left his eye seemed to rest on me. My eyes fell, but when I looked again he seemed to be still looking right at me. The probability is that a severe access of pain had fixed an unconscious look Intended or not, it went through my very soul. It said to me, '' Poor country boy ! have you come to this city to be lost or saved } " Before the singing of the hymn, he remarked that two modest strangers had misapprehended what he said from the pulpit, and were absent last Sunday. APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND, 65 He was glad to see them there again, and he hoped if any others had received a wrong impression, they would return. That I was one of the two I cannot doubt. Who the other was I never knew. After a few Sabbaths, a stranger took his place, and announced that Dr. Payson would never leave his house again, and was waiting with a hope full of immortality to lay aside his suffering body. He lingered long, with great sufferings, but with refresh- ing visions of the coming glory. Albert Titcomb, the watch repairer whom I have mentioned, in the revival which accompanied and followed Dr. Payson's death became very deeply impressed with the conviction that he was a lost sinner. He awoke as one surprised by a danger always near, never before felt ; but when he knew clearly the great truth that Christ is our salvation, that in him is eternal safety, out of him eternal ruin, he accepted him with inexpressible joy. The change in him was a transformation that no one could fail to notice. I followed later and with a slower pace. He joined the church months before I did. But he was a great help to me all along the way. I wanted some won- derful overpowering influence that should carry me right along. My friend Horatio Ilsley went with me in about the same experience. We joined the church 66 MY LIFE AND TIMES. together, May 6, 1828, a year and four months after I reached Portland. My brother about the same time joined the church in Waterford, and the close- ness of our union was only made the closer. Soon after I came to Portland, my reading took a religious turn. I felt little interest in other books. I read faithfully the Journal of the Franklin Insti- tute, in Philadelphia, and kept abreast of new inven- tions, but beyond that I can remember almost no- thing of that kind. I studied the Bible as a new book. Doddridge's Expositor and the Comprehensive Commentary were valuable assistants. But I fell in with Edwards' History of Redemption. It quite took possession of me. I read it through and said, ** Now I understand history." The great events of the world all have reference to the kingdom of God. God is in all human history, and the movements of the nations are under his control, and will be so \mtir the millennial days. My reading thenceforth took its shaping from this view of history. I read everything of Edwards I could get hold of. Watts on The Mind was another book of great use to me, in leading to a more methodical cultivation of my own faculties. I can hardly remember when I last saw the book, but it is full of good sense, and in its day was preeminently useful. I doubt whether a copy can now be found without great search. APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND. 67 About the time Ilsley and I were thinking of joining the church, we were invited to join a society of young men for religious improvement. It met every week at the house of one of the members, all young men, about half of them married. One ob- ject, and that which contributed perhaps to hold them together, was the payment to the secretary by each one of half a dollar a week toward the educa- tion of Edward Pay son, Jr., in Bowdoin College. Eminent as Dr. Payson was, and repeatedly invited to Boston and to New York, he placed no value upon money beyond its present use, and the expenses of his son's education would have been very heavy upon his resources. This object of the association was kept private, and probably Edward himself never knew of it. In this respect Ilsley and I were honor- ary members, but we had to take our turn in leading in prayer. This was "taking up our cross," but we knew it was good for us. It was a very great kind- ness and a true Christian interest in us that led those noble brethren to take into their companionship the two boys Horatio and Cyrus. It was a most excel- lent school to us. It made us both ministers of the gospel, although the thought then never came into our minds. The first half hour was social, the conversation being directed to the interests of the church, the 68 MY LIFE AND TIMES. Sunday-school, or any object of Christian work. Then a prayer was offered, and the person appointed read the passage selected and made his brief gen- eral remarks, after which every one, even the two boys, had a word to say or a question to ask. At nine o'clock a brief prayer closed the evening. It was the meeting we looked forward to more than any other. We used to have fifteen to twenty at a meeting ; the membership I do not know. Some of the members I recollect perfectly well by name : Isaac Smith, John Smith, William Cutter, David Cutter, Eben Steele, Erastus Hayes, Albert Tit- comb, John Codman, Pascal Brooks, Oliver Dor- rance, Baker, etc. Sixty-four years is a great effacer of names. Titcomb and I are the only ones now living, I in my eighty-third year, he in his ninety- second. They were all noble and useful Christian men. I hold them in dear remembrance. Thus life moved on in happy earnestness, both in the shop and out. In the winter of 1828-29, an apprentices' even- ing school was opened in one of the city school- houses. Master Libby and Master Jackson were in it, and there was a large corps of volunteer teachers. It gathered seventy apprentices, who were regular attendants to the close. The irregulars were dis- missed. Some of the volunteer teachers were de- APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND. 69 cided characters. Ben Fernald, the soap boiler, was almost a genius. Vain and self-important, he was indefatigable, unselfish, and an admirable teacher. Mr. Green taught my division grammar. He was an excellent teacher and full of enthusiasm. There were two other teachers whose persons I recall, but their names } Colesworthy would give them ; he remembers everything. In joining this school I had one difficulty. I kept the sales store while the rest went to supper. When they returned it was impossible for me to go to supper and be at the evening school in time. I resolved to sacrifice my supper, or rather to defer it to twenty minutes past nine — the earliest minute I could get home after school. It was not a good thing to do, but it did not hurt me, because I did it willingly. Had I been forced to do it, I would have denounced it as cruel and outrageous. Curious coincidences come to us in life. One evening as I was going with swift steps to the school, I repeated from Proverbs, " Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men." " Now," said I, " that is not literally true. I am certainly diligent in business, but I shall never stand before a king. We have no kings." Nineteen years after, this little incident came to mind as I was talking 70 MY LIFE AND TIMES, with the Sultan Abdul Medjid, in his palace on the Bosphorus. A few weeks before the close of the term, which must have been in March, two prizes, a first and second, were offered for the best essay on Profane Swearing. My sister Rebecca encouraged me to write for it. "But, Rebecca," I said, "you know I never wrote anything, and there are seventy boys, some of them studying geometry and navigation. I should appear ridiculous." But she insisted that as a Christian boy I ought to write against that prevalent sin of young men, and as a duty I yielded. We were to hand them in on a certain evening, and when sixteen fellows went up I would gladly have withholden mine. The first prize was a silver pen with ivory handle and cap, the other was a book. Three evenings before closing. Master Jackson called for attention and said, " Let every contestant for the prize be prepared to read his paper in a clear, manly voice, without a hem or a haw. This can only be done by faithful practice at home. Let every one come and take his manuscript for that purpose." I took mine, but doubt if I would have made the preparation, had not one of the prize committee said to Colesworthy the next day, "Tell Hamlin he has the first prize ; you have the second. Say nothing. APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND, 71 but be ready." I was overwhelmed with amazement. I pitied the poor sixteen. The eventful evening passed off. All the city magnates were there; but just as the closing speeches by the distinguished gentlemen were about to come on, the shrill shriek of " Fire ! fire ! fire !" was heard in the distance, and in an incredibly short space of time Master Jackson had his schoolhouse all to himself. It was afterward provoking to find that the blaze was out before any one got there. I do not deny that I was gratified by the prize, slight as was its value. Such a pen was then a new and curious thing, and may have cost half or three fourths of a dollar. Ben Fernald evidently knew of the decision days before, for he skillfully wove into his remarks to the class sentences from my essay which sometimes made me blush. That was my great and hateful weakness — to blush at trifles. I couldn't meet a girl without blushing, and so I avoided them. It was during this winter that one evening, as the little association came out of Eben Steele's house, Deacon Isaac Smith took me aside into a corner, and asked me if I had ever thought it might be my duty to prepare for the ministry. "No, sir; not seriously," I replied. '*Well, I want you to think of it and pray over 72 MY LIFE AND TIMES. it ; " and he offered some reasons why I should think of it. After a time he was at me again. I told him no : I was engaged to Mr. Farley and I had three years to serve, and then I should be free. "But suppose he should release you.? " " I don't think he would be willing to, and I would not like to ask him." However, his words awakened a conflict within me. Should I sacrifice my bright prospects } Should I be successful, how comfortable I could make my mother in declining years ! Then again, the utter vanity of all earthly things would come over me, and I would resolve to do that which I should be most likely to approve any number of thousands of years hence. I earnestly prayed -God to make my path so plain that I should have not a doubt that I was doing his will. I was greatly influenced by the following resolu- tions of President Edwards, which I copied for my own use and which seemed to me to have the force of Scripture truth : — Resolved, That I will do whatever I think to be most for the glory of God and my own good profit and pleasure in the whole of my duration ; without any consideration of the time, whether now or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND, 73 Resolved, So to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever. Well, at length Mr. Farley told me that, although it was a great disappointment to him, I was free to act according to my own views of duty. My sister Rebecca felt very deeply the thought of my going away. She shed many tears over it, and yet she said, "Cyrus, I want you to go. I think God calls you to that life and not to this, and I would not say one word against it." I became not a little "tum- bled up and down " in my mind as to what I ought to do. When Deacon Smith came to me again I said, " No. Let the thing be dropped. I can never make a minister. I can make a good mechanic, and I had better stick to that." " But you won the prize for an essay, did you not } " "Yes," I replied ;" and I wonder at it. But the expenses, Deacon Smith, make it absolutely impossi- ble. I could not get through with nine years' study for less than fifteen hundred dollars. My share in our home is not in a salable condition, and I could hardly provide one third of that." " Oh, I will see to that," he said ; and he placed the question before the chifrch, and the church voted to aid me to the extent of one thousand dollars. 74 ^y L^^E' AND TIMES. So, finally, I pitched all my life plans overboard and resolved to start anew, not for earthly, but eter- nal and spiritual good. It was not done without great searchings of heart, but once done it was never for one moment regretted. It was decided that I should go to Bridgton Acad- emy to fit for college. I should be within six miles of home. Master Libby obtained some second-hand Latin and Greek books for my first studies. I had a Latin Liber Primus and an awful Latin Dictionary, hardly legible, a Greek Testament, etc. That Greek Testament I am confident was from Neal Dow, then one of the promising young men of Portland, a tanner by trade, but also a scholar and a gentleman. That Greek Testament, printed in Boston, 1814, has recently come back to me from the west with names of students through whose hands it had passed. The son of the last owner, seeing my name and the date, 1829, and I being the only living one of those who had owned it, sent it to me as a memento of the past. It helped bring my farewell to Portland very vividly to mind. With feelings of wonder and great tenderness I bade farewell to the shop, to the tools, to the store, to its inmates, and mounted the stage for Bridgton. It was early in May, two years and four months since I had left home. I asked. Is it reality, or is it a dream t APPRENTICE LIFE IN PORTLAND. 75 All things are changed, plans, prospects, hopes, de- terminations. The world is changed, life is changed. The past is all like a dream, and now real life begins. I was eighteen years and four months old. I had lived a very industrious life. I must now settle down to study, and I resolved not a moment should be wasted. I had some money in my pocket derived from com- mission on collecting a very hard lot of bills. A pump and block maker promised to pay his bill of twenty-five dollars the next day. My commission would be one dollar and a half. That evening his , great establishment took fire and burned up. I went up to the flat roof of our store and saw at once just where the fire was. "There," said I, "there goes my dollar and a half ! " Very wonderful is the per- sonal pronoun, first person singular. CHAPTER IV. BRIDGTON ACADEMY. '' I ^HE preceptor of the academy, the Rev. Charles ^ Soule, received me very kindly and took me to Mr. Gould's to board, just above the academy. His son Stephen had just begun the study of Latin, and we roomed together. He was a thoroughly good young man, but not quick in his studies. I had money enough to pay my stage fare, and but little over. The church had said nothing, and I did not wish to ask for money before I had done any- thing. I think Mr. Soule had engaged my board at one dollar and twenty-five cents a week. After six weeks a short vacation ; and with a bounding heart I would see my mother, brother, and the old farm again. But I must pay my board bill. I took out my beloved watch and asked Mr. Gould if he would take that in pay, and he said he would. I had a foolish love for the good and true old thing, but it was no time for sentiment. Two weeks on the farm at home was life and joy. I worked and talked and ate and slept. I determined to live at some cheaper rate than one 76 BRJDGTON ACADEMY. 77 dollar and twenty-five cents a week, and to pay the bill without asking help from any one. A fellow student, Isaac Carleton, of like mind, joined me in making an arrangement to board at Farmer Howard's — two miles from the academy. It was hardly two miles, for we could walk it in half an hour with high enjoyment. Full half the way was through a forest which has since disappeared. We could run it in twenty minutes, but it was hard on our breathing because we did not train for it. Mrs. Howard was the kindest, most motherly woman that ever lived. They had one daughter, Rebecca Howard. Mr. Howard was an intelligent, industrious farmer ; and I think we introduced a variety into their life that was as pleasant to them as to us. We had a spacious room with cheerful scenery from our windows. Our food was abun- dant. Excellent bread, butter, cheese, milk, cream, with all farm produce — what more could we want } We took a lunch with us for noon, and dear Mrs. Howard spent more labor and care upon this than she was ever paid for. We told her so, but she would say with a smile, *'Boys like a good lunch at noon." There were some fine old apple trees on the hillside in front that had inviting sitting places, which, on our return after tea, we often enjoyed, preparing our morning lessons until light faded utterly away. 78 MV LIFE AND TIMES, In the neighborhood there was an excellent, pious woman at whose house there was a neighborhood prayer meeting. Methodists, Baptists, and Congre- gationalists had no difference in such meetings. We "exercised our gifts" in them, and they were of advantage to us. We left the Howards with regret, but the fierce November blasts made us seek a place near the academy. I paid my board bill and other expenses in various ways. I went to the old shop in Portland and made half a dozen silver teaspoons for Rebecca Howard, about to be married. I made a pair of silver-bowed spectacles for Mrs. Howard, and another pair for Mr. Sawyer, the tailor. My brother sold to Mr. Howard a steer, and all bills were balanced. Next, I went to board with our excellent and be- loved principal, Rev. Charles Soule. I took care of his horse, and he made my bills very light. It is not for that, but as a kind, noble-hearted. Christian gen- tleman, I remember him with affection ; and dear Mrs. Soule can never be forgotten. Our academy life was full of interest and real life. The students were young men and women who came there for a purpose, and in pursuing their object they turned neither to the right nor left. I am tempted to sketch some characters, but must not stop. We had a debating society that called forth 4 4 4 4 < 4 < BRIDGTON ACADEMY, 79 all our Strength. Dr. Farns worth, who, like his son, George S. Farnsworth, then the little boy student, was a benefactor of the academy, was always present at our debates, as were also the principal and Dr. Gould, the vice-president of the Board of Overseers. Others came in from curiosity, Our august assembly incited us to make the best preparation we could, and some of those debates are still in memory — one, with Henry Carter, now Judge Carter, of Haverhill, and the other with Solo- mon Andrews. The latter was a trained . debater, and ten years my senior. He used me up, although I gave him one or two fair hits. It did me more good than the other debate, in which Carter and I were more evenly matched, and each of us did our- selves immortal honor. The students generally de- rived great benefit from these literary contests. They were compelled to do their best, and that is real education. I honor the unselfish devotion of our seniors to this exercise. Our weekly declamations, half one week, half the next, became quite unpleasant to us. All the girls of the village who could flourish out used to come in and instead of being wholly absorbed by our masterly eloquence, they were often, as we thought, making fun of us. Carleton and I committed to memory, each of us, a whole sermon of Thomas T. 8o ^y LIFE AND TIMES. Stone, on Peace and War. They were good sermons, but would not amuse those young ladies. Andrews had a half hour of excerpts on tattling and tale- bearing. We arranged that we three should come on last. Andrews and I delivered our pieces with so much energy that Mr. Soule apparently merely wondered at their length. Carleton came on in a droning strain, and when halfway through Mr. Soule said, '* Carleton, that will do. You are all dismissed." It wrought a perfect cure ! I recall as one of the great blessings of my academy life at Bridgton the being classed with a very slow scholar. He found it hard to get ten lines of Virgil. We had only read the Liber Primus, and not all of that ; our drill in grammar was defective. I wanted the principal to let me move on. But he replied, " Get the lesson thoroughly, and then move on in other studies." So we went through the first book of the ^neid, and I could repeat every line of it from beginning to end. At the close of the last lesson Mr. Soule closed the book, and looking at me from under his dark, projecting eyebrows, he said in a low, significant tone, ** Go ahead, Hamlin!" Of course, after that training and drill, I walked right through the other books. At the close of the term I had just finished the ^neid, and I objected to being examined in it by the visiting committee with- B RID G TON ACADEMY, 8 1 out reviewing. But Mr. Soule was inexorable, and I had to stand it. Every one knows that the first few lines of a book are made familiar, and it is quite possible the committee felt themselves on safer ground there than elsewhere. They took no other portion. I had to translate rapidly a few sentences from the first of each book, and they were satisfied. I ought not to have been allowed to get off with such imperfect proof of work. One great enjoyment of my academy life was the privilege of going home every other Saturday. In good weather I always went across by Bear Pond and Hawk Mountain, with my beloved gun. Par- tridges, gray squirrels, and in the autumn pigeons were tempting game. Once as I was passing along the deeply shaded path, a beautiful partridge, uncon- scious of danger, walked from the covering into the road. Instantly I shot it. To my surprise it did not flutter, but remained on the ground, its head erect. It looked at me with its beautiful eyes and seemed to say, " Could you not let a poor partridge enjoy its short and happy life in its lovely, leafy home.'*" Then its bright eyes glazed in death and its head fell. I resolved I would never shoot an- other partridge, and I never did. The shot had severed the spinal cord just above the wings and hence it could not move. It looked as though it 82 MY LIFE AND TIMES, waited, motionless, in order to reprove me. I ex- cepted from rny resolve all pernicious ''varmint.'* One afternoon we saw from Mr. Howard's house a bear crossing the pasture toward the woods. We rallied the forces at hand and gave chase, four men with guns. We pursued him till he changed his course for Hamlin's Grant. Two of our party fol- lowed his track with dogs all the next day, but Bruin made his escape. When winter had well set in, our district school in Waterford was under the teaching of Luther Farrar, a college sophomore and an excellent classical scholar. He offered to superintend my Greek and Latin, and for eight or ten weeks I could board at home. The preceptor required that I should come as often as once in two weeks for examination. I was again on the farm, but my studies pressed me hard. Mr. Soule had mapped out for me what I must do in order to enter Bowdoin College the next autumn, September, 1830. The plan was of doubtful wisdom, but it would save a whole year of expense. I was up every morning at five o'clock, and I studied till nine or ten ; my mother would not let me study later. She went to Mr. Soule to object to my being pressed at that rate. He made her rather a curious reply, saying, '* That boy will never hurt himself by hard study. He is not of that sort. He learns BRIDGTON ACADEMY. 83 easily and never mopes and bothers himself, but goes right along. Besides, he is such a good walker and gunner that he '11 never want for fresh air." If there was some exaggeration, there was some sagac- ity in this judgment, for I did study very hard, and I did not injure myself. I grew more that year than in any year of my previous life. I began to look like a boy of more than sixteen or seventeen. But then there was a penalty — I outgrew my clothes. I must mention two more pleasant episodes of my academy life, and then dismiss it. As I was crossing by Hawk Mountain one Sat- urday, I went to the summit to enjoy the view. I noticed an immense bowlder on the very edge of the precipice, looking as though it might easily be dis- lodged and do something grand in bounding down into Bear Pond. My brother told me that one Fourth of July there was a general rally of young men to throw it off. They cut a number of spruce trees about six inches in diameter, and placed these long levers under one side, but they 'could not start it. It was imbedded at the base in a foot or two of solid gravel, and that must all be dug away. They had no picks or spades for that, and they retired de- feated but resolving to do it some day. I found by careful examination that it rested not on the solid granite, but on at least a foot of gravel. 84 ^^y ^^FE AND TIMES. I made an agreement with my brother to meet Andrews and me the next Saturday, as soon after dinner as possible, with a sharp axe, and we would make sharp stakes of the hornbeam which grew around ; and two would sit on the brow of the precipice, one on either side, and pick out that gravel, and see what the great bowlder would do with itself then. The other would supply sharp stakes, and so we would all take turns. The work proceeded hopefully for three or four hours, and we felt sure of a magnificent result, when we discovered that right in the center there was a round stone that just filled the space between the bowlder and the solid rock. It was time to go home to supper. We gave it up, and agreed to borrow two crowbars and come the next Saturday and finish it ; and then one suggested that some one would find it out, complete the work, and get all the credit. We went at it again, saying, '' Let supper go for once." It looked critical and dangerous ; the thing might cant over on one side and catch the fellow^ and he would never cry for help more than once. The third man was to watch for the slightest motion,, and give us warning. We detached the stone, and sent it rolling down. We were searching for another when the scream, ''It's moving!" made us scrabble up without any unnecessary loss of time. It seemed BRIDGTON ACADEMY, 85 at first to move slowly and reluctantly, as it sucked its base out of its compact bed of gravel where it bad lain for untold millenniums ; and then with a sudden plunge it went down its fateful granite track in sheets of flame, from friction or electricity. When it reached a swell in its path it curved majes- tically and gracefully into the air and struck the solid granite a hundred feet below. It burst with a tremendous sound and a vivid flash > into three great fragments which went bounding into the forest. The biggest fragment made its path known by the marvelous commotion in the tops of the trees. We stood, rapt observers of the scene so entrancing and so short. But we voted it better than any sup- per, and agreed to come the next Saturday and fol- low the track of that great fragment. We found that when it entered the woods it cut trees of eight inches' diameter right square off, without disturbing the roots. As the speed de- creased, it broke them down, and finally, before reaching the pond, it fell in between two bowlders bigger than itself, where no academy boys will ever disturb its repose. Legends of the achievement still exist in the neighborhood, considerably magnified. During the winter I spent at home, I came in contact with the rum power, or, more correctly, my brother Hannibal and I together did. There was a 86 MY LIFE AND TIMES. fierce division in the school district between the rummies and the temperance side. The temperance side gained their man, and the strife ended. But one night the rummies took out all the windows of the schoolhouse and carried them off. My brother Hannibal, who always had a knack at rhyming, wrote a hudibrastic description of their brave doings. I carried the letter at midnight and hung it on the handle of the door. The person to whom it was addressed never knew from whence it came. He brought it to our house in great glee, saying, " That Harvard student who has been in town undoubtedly wrote it." He spread it all over town, and it stirred up wrath and laughter. But the rum party was getting everything into its hands, and something must be done. One Sunday evening, at the house of my brother-in-law, Mr. William Stone, we discussed the situation among us. We wrote the names of eighty persons who might be called drunkards, and of seventy who were hard drinkers — 150 in a population of 1,500. It was astounding. Mr. Stone said to me: ^' If you will write a petition to our minister to begin at once a course of weekly or fortnightly lectures on total abstinence, I will go round to- morrow and see how many men will sign it." I did so, and he obtained the names of seventeen BRIDGTON ACADEMY. 87 men. The drunkards and hard drinkers signed, saying they would like to hear what Douglass would have to say. Then William Warren, physically and mentally the most powerful young man in town, took it, and obtained forty additional names. Mr. Douglass was astonished, and the meetings were appointed without delay. They were well attended and ably conducted. In the spring of that year^ 1830, the first Total Abstinence Society of the town was formed. It produced great and excellent results. It rescued many from the very jaws of destruction, and saved a majority of the boys from the deathly habit. It needed, however, the Maine Law to finish the work. I returned to Bridgton Academy and to Mr. Soule's house, where I felt at home, for the summer term and the final struggle. I have nothing but pleasant and affectionate remembrances of Mr. and Mrs. Soule, and all my associates and friends at Bridgton Academy. I roomed with Joseph Blake the last term, and we were dear friends to the end. He died a few years ago in Andover, to which place he had retired. Bowdoin College conferred upon him the title of D.D. Carleton had found a place in Bangor Classical School, where he could fit for theological study by a three years' course. He became a de- voted minister of the gospel, suffered much from 88 MY LIFE AND TIMES, poor health, and died early. I believe his sons are useful and prosperous men. The term closed, and I bade farewell to Bridgton Academy, farewell to Waterford, farewell again to the farm, but with very different feelings all round. My mother was cheerful and happy that I was pre- paring for a useful life, and that I should be at home vacations, and Hannibal and I kept up a constant correspondence. CHAPTER V. BOWDOIN COLLEGE. T LOOKED forward to the examination with fear -*- and trembling. What would those learned pro- fessors make of me or think of me ? I passed through the Latin grammar and Virgil, here and there in the ^Eneid and Georgics, without disgrace. When I came to Cicero's orations, I knew that I might fail in many places. But I had an astonishing piece of luck. In my hasty review I came upon a page of very long and difficult sentences that I had not fully mastered in the first reading. I said to myself, if I am taken up on this page in examina- tion, I shall ignominiously fail. I gave myself to it, and wrote out a satisfactory translation, and said, "Now come on, Mr, Professor, and try me on this." To my amazement, the examining professor turned to that page and said, " You may pronounce the Latin first, and you will perhaps get hold of it all the better." I did so, and then gave him such a ready and smooth translation that he said, " That 's quite sufficient," and closed the book. I blushed, for I knew I ought to say to him, " That is the only 90 MV LIFE AND TIMES, page in Cicero that I can translate in that way." But I didnt With the exception of geography, my ex- amination was less rigid than I anticipated. Geog- raphy was always a weak point with me, and the examining professor asked me just the questions that I could not answer. However, I received at once my ticket of admission ; and behold I was one of about fifty freshmen of Bowdoin College ! It was the largest freshman class that had ever been admitted. On the way to Brunswick I fell in with Albert Cole, of Saco, who was to join the same class. We became friends at once, and for life ; I trust also for eternity. He passed over after a short but blessed ministry. Edward Woodford, of Woodford (then Woodford's Corner), was another freshman, in deli- cate health, — a pure and noble spirit, — who still lives, having made the bravest and longest struggle for life against physical weakness that I have known. We three were a trio. Both of those choice friends supplemented me through the college course. Cole spurred me up to effort. Woodford was a young man of wise, considerate judgment. He had more of that mature, common sense that decides a thing once for all than any of us. Cole and I learned very soon to respect Woodford's judgment. He was out of college half his time from sickness, but he graduated BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 91 honorably, and has outlived thirty of the thirty-five- who graduated with him. At ex-Governor Parris' special request, I took his son Albert as my roommate in my freshman year. I have always had the highest respect for the family, parents and daughters, but Albert was not the chum whom I wished to have after the first year. We had hardly fixed up our rooms, and had our first recitations in each department, when a friend in one of the other classes enlightened me on the sub- ject of hazing, and advised me to take it kindly and jocosely. My whole soul revolted against this, and I replied that I would certainly shoot the sophomore that should enter my room by force. It is true I had nothing but a bootjack and such other missiles as I might procure, but I was resolved not to dis- grace my Revolutionary origin by basely yielding the right of self-defense. The class, conscious of being two to one, and indeed, against hazers, three to one, easily responded to the appeal to defend ourselves to the last. We really prepared no arms but stout- heavy canes and such missiles as could effectively be hurled by the hand. Some, who roomed near each other, had watchwords by which any one too closely beleaguered could call out assistance. The other party wanted vulgar, brutal fun, without any danger of penalty. When they saw a fierce determination. 92 MY LIFE AND TIMES, to turn eheir weapons upon themselves and make their violent dealing come down upon their own pates with a vengeance, their ideas of fun all van- ished, and there was not an instance of hazing in our freshman year. Had the sophomore class been larger, and the freshman smaller, there might have been ugly encounters. But the sophomores, besides being few, had so many excellent fellows among them, as Allen (President of Girard College), Harris (President of Bowdoin College), John Pike, Ebenezer Parsons, James Means, W. T. Savage, Ben Tappan, S. H. Shepley, C. C. Farrar, and others, gentlemen and scholars, who were above all such brutal out- rages, that the hazers found themselves in a con- temptible minority, and concluded that " discretion was the better part of valor." The mischief was only adjourned. It will appear again. I immediately found college study quite different from my fitting course. Not that I studied harder, but everything was regular and measured. Three recitations a day, with some stated variations ; and then we must go thoroughly into a thing. Our pro- fessors were men of power. Shallow, surface work was their abomination. Professor Smyth took us in scientific arithmetic, and a great light dawned upon the science of numbers and the laws of notation. Latin and Greek grammar had to be studied anew. BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 93 Here I was very weak as compared with some of my classmates who had been in fitting schools from three to five years. I saw very soon that I was not armed for the strife. I went to Professor Smyth, who seemed to take a liking to me, and told him just what I thought and felt. He listened to me with a sober, thoughtful look and said, ** It might have been well if it had been planned so in the beginning ; but now you have entered college, you could not at once strike into a course of study or find a class just fitted to your plan in any academy. You had better con- tinue where you are. You take mathematics easily. Make up your Latin and Greek grammar, and you will reach the sophomore year on a level with the rest." It was, on the whole, wise advice. I had not the financial resources to take a different course without calling upon the church for help, which I was resolved not to do. Deacon Smith and Deacon Coe advised me to apply to the Education Society, which I did, and with the help from home I reached near the close of the first term very happily. I had formed some friendships in the class and out, which time has only made dearer ; but now most of them have passed over to the other side. How few remain ! About three weeks before the close of the term I caught a bad cold, which resulted in a high fever 94 ^y LIFE AND TIMES. and delirium. It was partly from the absurd supper which I cooked for myself out of materials which my chum brought me from the club, at my express order. I was destined to be a great bread maker, but I was not an accomplished cook. In the night I saw visions. I thought that the college was on fire ; and that I must get my chum and all the furniture out of the window before L could escape. I rose, dressed myself, putting on my coat first and then buttoning my suspenders ; my coat tails were turned up against my ears. I pulled my chum out of bed, but he was such a sleepy head that he went right back. I moved the bureau against the window, but I could not get it out ; I must have help. Taking a stick of firewood, I went to the next room to call upon my friend Cole for aid. I pounded on his door, and although it was midnight, he was still at his desk. He cried out, "Come." His look of terror and surprise is still vivid in my memory, for every part of that night's experience is as indelibly im- printed upon my memory as though it had all been stern reality. He sprang from his seat, and then checking himself, said, " Oh, yes ; we '11 do that right off. But here ! we don't want that stick of wood. I '11 see to it all ; " and putting his arm soothingly round me, led me back, told me I was ill and needed a doctor and must lie still, and he would call Dr. BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 95 Lincoln. Dr. Lincoln was the best physician in the place, but had retired from all night practice ; and he positively refused to come, but Cole made him come. He had to come, to keep Cole from waking up his invalid wife and the whole household. Dr. Lincoln talked pleasantly to me, took off three or four of the bed coverings, bathed my hands and face ; and I was quite restored to reason. He gave me an emetic, after which I had some good sleep. Mrs. Lincoln was exceedingly kind in sending me nice things to eat, among which were enormous baked apples, as delicious as big. After a few days he said, " Go home to your mother. This is no place for you." After I had gone, he told Professor Smyth : '' You must n't expect to see that student back here again." I went by a pleasant stage ride to my sister Rebecca's in Portland. It was better than going into the best hospital in the world. Little Emily took to me wonderfully, and she was one of the most charming little girls ever born. I must have had characteristics then that have faded out, for children generally made friends with me right off. Old Mrs. Farley (Mr. Farley's mother) had a bottle of medi- cine half full. The other half had served her in just such a state as I was in, and now I must take it in the same way. It relieved my cough at once. 96 MY LIFE AND TIMES. I took it home with me, and with mother s excellent care and the good, nourishing home living I rallied very quickly. I then thought I must teach school ; but fortunately the schools were all supplied, and I spent a happy winter at- home. It was well I did. My vocal organs were strangely affected. My voice was very weak and indistinct. Professor Smyth welcomed me back very warmly and told me what Dr. Lincoln had prophesied. Professor Newman (of rhetoric) took me immedi- ately into training for a voice and especially for dis- tinctness of enunciation. It was of peculiar value to me. After some weeks of training, he told me there was no student in college with a more distinct enunciation than I had attained. Blessings on the memory of Professor Newman ! He found my hand- writing something like my voice. When I went over to his study to receive back my first '^ theme " with criticisms, he said to me: "Your style, Hamlin, has a Quaker-like simplicity and clearness. I only wish you would aim at a little more ornamentation ; and your handwriting is often quite indistinct. There is a sentence — or rather that word — what is that.?'* '* It is indistinct, sir." *' Yes," he said with some surprise; "that's what I complained of." " Well, it is indistinct, sir." BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 97 I saw he was about to be offended and I said : " That word which I have so badly written is the word indistinct y He laughed heartily and added : " Make your handwriting as clear as your style, and I shall have little to say," He knew how to encourage a poor, bashful, blushing freshman. In the second term of the year we entered our chosen societies. The two leading literary societies were the Peucinian and Athenian. I chose the former. They were rivals and the rivalry bred certain evils, but they were fine training grounds for life. There were two religious societies — the Praying Circle and the Theological Society. This latter was rather for cultivating some historical knowledge of the heresies and orthodoxies of the past ages and of the present times. We aimed at nothing above our reach. The Praying Circle brought together the religious element of the college without any distinctions. In that there were neither Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, nor Presbyterians. Its influence in col- lege was unobtrusive, but was very great. There was a corps of earnest Christian students in college, v/hose influence was excellent and whose work in life has been blessed. 98 MY LIFE AND TIMES. There was also a rough and rowdy element, pos- sessed of the devil, who thought it grand and manly to destroy college property by bonfires, blowing it up with powder, etc. The faculty could only moderate the mischief. Where the authors were not found, the damages were averaged. Every student paid from one dollar to one and a half on each term bill — from three to five dollars a year. At length we rebelled, and formed a combination that for a time stopped it with a rough hand ; and the faculty thanked us for it. Not in my freshman year, but at a later time, I smashed a student's door all to pieces, and told him that was my first hint that the business he was up to in the night would stop ; if it did not, I would try issues with him. I wrote the treasurer what I had done, and that I would stand for the damages. He never charged them to me. Of course I got the ill- will of some, but we had quiet times for study. There were always some splendid fellows, none supe- rior to Charles Beecher and John Goddard, ready to put down lawlessness by force ; but the rowdies never came to an open fight. " Conscience made cowards " of them all, and they knew that law, government, and public opinion were all against them. When my freshman year closed, I had begun to know that by diligence I might have a fair standing BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 99 in my class. Indeed I already had it. Before the close of the first term, I overheard some boys in rather loud dispute as to who was going to " lead the class." H. B. Smith, Mel Weston, H. T. Cheever were all mentioned. Moses McLellan with his magisterial voice said aloud, " You are all wrong, gentlemen ; Hamlin is going to lead this class," and gave his reasons. I only noted that his interference was not scouted. It surprised me more than any- thing of the kind that had happened. Cole took hold of it and said, " Aim for the first rank, and take it for Christ and his cause." He may have stirred my ambition some, but I did not look upon it as either possible or desirable. I closed the first year with gratitude and joy. My health was good, and I had learned to study. One habit was of great advantage to me in the languages. Immediately after, recitations I sat down in my room and read over the whole lesson, so as to fix whatever light I had gained on any passage or word. This aided me to remedy, in some measure, the deficiency in my " fit." Home at length, enjoying my first vacation ; fresh- man year closed, and sophomore dignity already on my youthful brow. Everything about the farm wore a charm unknown before. My brother had every- thing in order, and I entered into his plans with lOO MV LIFE AND TIMES. enthusiasm. He had a '' porcine " that he v/as proud of. He was going to fatten it. I had just read in The Oxford Democrat the advice to cut off an inch or two of a pig's tail on commencing the fattening process. The bleeding would be slight, but vastly beneficial. I advised my brother to do it. He would n't go into that pen for any such purpose. Opening the large blade of my pocketknife, I was in the pen instanter, and had hold of the quirl of the tail with my left hand. The wild beast plunged round the pen so that I could hardly hold on, but I gave the tail a slash and brought off triumphantly, not two inches, but five or six ! The next morning the poor pig had bled so much he could only stagger about. We called one of our neighbors. He said, *' Kill it immediately ; it will make good pork as it is." I felt awfully ashamed and conscience-smitten. I felt for the poor pig. He drank feebly the buttermilk I gave him, and I had to go and call a butcher, and we had fresh pork before the time. The joke was upon me decidedly. That was a specimen of my '' college Farnin'." My brother-in-law, Mr. William Stone, laughed and laughed immoderately over it. Two or three years more, he said, would make me the great- est farmer in New England. He thought everything of me, and could joke me without offense. I took my honor as meekly as possible. BOWDOIN COLLEGE. lOI In the vacation I earned something as a Sunday- school agent, visiting remote districts and establish- ing Sunday-schools. I found the people generally ready and waiting, or I would have done nothing. As I have mentioned above, I applied to the Edu- cation Society for aid, but my generous and noble cousin, Hon. A. D. F. Foster, of Worcester, was more to me than the society, and I drew aid from it only part of the time. I was induced by Professor Upham to take the academy in Rochester, New Hampshire, the native place of the Uphams, for one term. He said that I could keep along with my class perfectly well, and earn fifty or sixty dollars besides. I had such con- fidence in his wisdom, and such want of the money, that I yielded, but it was a great mistake. As to the academy, I came off with honor, and made some friends dear to me still. It was, however, an injury to my studies, and I have always advised students never to drop out of their course for a single day. At the close of the academy term I walked from Rochester to Portland. One day I made thirty- seven and one-half miles, my greatest day's walk. My rule was twenty-five miles a day, and that I could keep up for any length of time. I had no desire to try that stint again. On reaching Portland, I found my brother, Mr. 102 MV LIFE AND TIMES. Farley, with his sister, Miss Susan Farley, just stepping on board the brig Florida, Captain Stallard, -for a trip to St. John, New Brunswick. I accepted their invitation to go with them and for the first time put to sea, and for the first time set my foot on the dominions of his majesty William IV. I saw the sea and felt its nauseating power ; and I saw Eng- lish colonial society in a most interesting manner. It was a very enjoyable excursion, treasured up in memory still. The coming in of the tide at St. John was worth going to see. I returned in season for the term, and my exami- nation, whether satisfactory or not, was accepted. I resolved to be absent from my class no more. In our sophomore year there was no hazing, because we had set ourselves against it from the beginning, and as it was a monopoly of the sopho- more class, the freshmen were safe. In the sopho- more year I was one of Longfellow's assistant librarians, which brought very small pay, but always a word or two with him. Any inquiry about an author usually brought him out, but he was always busy with some investigation of his own, and we did not intrude upon him. He was universally liked, and no one wished to intrude upon him. At the close of the sophomore year, I was chosen secretary of the Peucinian Society, an office usually BOWDOIN COLLEGE. \0\ given to the member of the highest rank in his class. In the Athenian Society the same position was given to H. B. Smith. Still Weston and Cheever were probably on the same plane in the books of the faculty. My studies in mathematics interested me intensely, and probably I stood as well in that department as any one, except J. H. C. Coffin, who was a mathematical genius, but remark- able in no other study. I entered upon my junior year weighted down with too many society offices. We had a vigorous Temperance Society, of which there was need. Colonization in Africa was then believed by many to offer ultimate hope for the slave. We formed a new Natural History Society with great zeal. In all these I had rather a leading part. But hazing again came to the front in its most atrocious mode. The sophomore class, though a very excellent one, had a few fellows who determined to renew the discredited practice of hazing. A few moderate impositions upon the freshmen were borne with too much mildness. In the meantime two of the freshman class had fitted up their rooms in a style offensively neat. The room was newly papered, a carpet quite covering the floor was spread, some pictures adorned the walls, a nice center table with a handsome cover completed the outfit. I have no I04 ^^y LIFE AND TIMES. doubt their mothers had been there, and had done it with a mother's love. A brute by the name of D resolved to spoil that fun. He had a large tin syringe made with a jet, and filling it with a quart or two of ink, he and his fellows broke out a pane of glass, and injected the whole into the room with all possible force. That was bad enough. But after that the decaying carcass of a dog was thrown in. The poor freshmen declared they would leave college at once. Their beautiful room had become a horror. I exhorted them to stay and see what would come out of it. In the evening, I called together in Woods' room (for many years president of Western Pennsylvania University) some ten or a dozen of the most powerful fellows of the class, and exhorted them to inflict some pen- alty upon D , the leader, that would stop such outrages in the future. I promised assistance if they would utter a certain call, and I went and engaged about twenty good fellows to answer the call, with shillalahs ready for use. I had my own ready. I was awakened that very night by a crash, and I sallied out with short preparation, and the first object I saw was D , in his nightshirt, and in the hands of a band of stalwart freshmen. ** You hurt my right hand ! " he cried. '' Let it go, and upon my word of honor I won't strike." BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 105 " Let it go," said the captain ; and D laid one of them on the floor by a well-aimed blow. He was paid in cold water. They hurried him out to the pump, and held him under the spout until he was well drenched. ** Oh ! oh ! oh ! " he groaned ; and they let him go- It was a clear frosty night with a brilliant moon, and as he came trotting back over the frosty grass, the water dripping from him in the moonlight, I clapped from my open window.^ D complained of the outrage to President Allen ; and the president, in his bland manner, said : "Yes, D ; the outrage shall be examined; but all the antecedents which may have led to it will also be examined. Knowing this, if you will make a writ- ten application, I will attend to it immediately." It is needless to say he never made it. The general sentiment of the college was '^ Bravo for the freshmen ! served him right." But D and his party planned an attack upon two of the more obnoxious freshmen's rooms. Rev. Dr. Rand, 150 Nassau Street, New York, knows about that and how it was thwarted. After some days a more formidable plan was ^ Fifty years after I met George Woods, ll.d., in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the first words he said were, " Give it to him, boys ! give it to him ! " He said that I called out from my window those words, which I do not remember. 106 MY LIFE AND TIMES. formed of carrying out a ''bogus" freshman to the pump. He was to call lustily for help, and as we should rally out to his aid they had a dozen reserves in a recitation room who would rush upon us, catch- ing us one by one, ancj give us a thrashing. The plot was revealed to' me by one of their own number in season to enable us to thwart it and turn it into ridicule. I never could devise a reason for that treachery. That ended hazing for a year or two more. The reason why it has died so hard is the general cowardice of college governments as to pun- ishing outrages by law before the courts. Such affairs in college soon pass, and they hardly disturb the current, except for a day. One more event was destined to disturb my quiet for a day and to cause a great deal of amusement of a very transient kind ; but first I must mention the antecedents. In the latter part of the junior year there was an interesting state of religious feeling, and there had occurred some marked conversions. One of my classmates, John D. Smith, was in all things the antipodes of Henry B. Smith. He was of a power- ful physique, of a rough wit, the leader of scrapes^ and the president of ''The Old Dominion," a society for joviality and practical jokes. He derided "the pious." "Go and talk with John D.," said some; BOW DO IN COLLEGE, \Qy "he always treats you well and you can talk with, him." I was very unwilling to do it, but seeing his chum one day on the ball ground, I determined to- see if he were in his room alone and have a talk with him. I found him, so I told him at once I had called to have a talk with him on personal religion, if he would ; if not, I would retire. " Sit down, Hamlin," he said ; and then, looking at me with an impassioned and withering look, he said, '*That holy Cole will lie ! " " Suppose he will. Smith : what is that to you or me ? He has to answer for it, not we." It disconcerted him a little, but he returned to the- charge : " That pious Thomas Parnell Beach is a confounded hypocrite ! " " Well, Smith, I don't know but he is. What is. that to you or to me } Every man must give account of himself to God. But I want to ask you this, Smith : Are you content to live and die just as you are, and risk eternity upon it .^ " " No ; I am not. I know it 's my duty to become a Christian, and if I am one of the elect, I am safe, and if not, I am damned and there is no help for me." After a conversation of very deep interest, I pro- posed that we call upon God in prayer. We knelt together. I think the Holy Spirit was with us. The dinner bell rang. We went over together, and I08 MV LIFE AND TIMES. it seems to me now that we did not speak on the way. The "trio" made him a subject of earnest prayer. I feared it was all a momentary impression. I dared not seek an interview for fear he would explode it all. The next day but one I saw him coming across the campus, and I met him as though accidentally. He said " Good-morning ! " so pleasantly I said : — " How is it with you now, Smith } " " Oh, I have made my peace with God ! " " When, pray } tell me about it ! " " When we were on our knees together before God in my room." We did not believe in such conversions then, but it stood the test of time. It produced a profound impression upon college. It helped forward the spiritual work. We feared that what occurred, which was called John D.'s first speech after his conversion, would injure the tone of things, but I believe it did not. The Amherst students wrote a letter to the Bowdoin students proposing a united total absti- nence society, with the idea of extending it to other colleges. As it was addressed to me, I placed the subject on the bulletin board, and proposed a college meeting in the chapel right after dinner Saturday. The chapel was quite full. I read the letter, after BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 1 09 we had chosen Thomas chairman, and I made a few remarks upon the importance of temperance in college. When I sat down W was up, and commenced a speech in ridicule of the whole thing. He had repeatedly pitted himself against me, with no very satisfactory results to himself. His remarks finally passed the bounds which even college students set to the grossly personal. John D. sat at my right, in the next seat back. I saw his strong countenance working with some intent, and at length he arose, a good six footer, and putting one hand on my seat he lifted himself on his toes, and swinging his long right arm over his shoulder, he bent forward and pointing toward Thomas roared out, ^^ Thomas, button up your vest ! " It struck Thomas like an electric shock. He sprang to his vest, but found nothing to do. There was a momentary silence of astonishment ; and then the most astounding applause with peals of laughter. Little W stood sublimely unmoved until the noise subsided, when he recommenced his speech. The students did not relish this, and clapping, stamp- ing, scraping, caterwauling followed ; some jumped out at the windows and the assembly broke up. It mortified and embittered W , no MV LIFE AND TIMES, No effort was made at that time to renew the temperance movement, but the principle of total abstinence was strong in college. The drinking minority was small, and very few of them were men of any influence. Our class was peculiar for its discordant elements. We quarreled over something at our first class meet- ing. I think it was about having a class uniformity of dress. As we began, so we proceeded through college. We never had one harmonious class meet- ing. Our last meeting in the senior year, to arrange for a class supper, broke up in disorder over the question of having wine. H. B. Smith came to me and said, " This is too ridiculous. We have quarreled at every class meeting straight through for four years, and now we must quarrel over our farewell supper. We cannot even eat together." I replied, ''There is no class in college that has more real fellow feeling, only we can't do anything by vote. Let us start a subscription paper for a supper without wine, and propose in the heading three men as a managing committee." So we did immediately, and every man but one signed it, and we had a grand good time. We proved that the class of '34 needed no wine to move its hilarity and wit. BOWDOIN COLLEGE. \\\ As I am writing my life arid times I cannot pass over lightly the religious history of the college. The religious students had three societies which drew them together. The Society of Inquiry had perhaps ten or twelve members, of whom three went into the foreign field. The Theological Society, meeting once a month and having an annual public address, had a much larger membership, and was useful mainly in giving us some knowledge of the history of great theologies. The Praying Circle met every Sunday morning an hour before church. All the religious students belonged to this society. Its meetings were open to all, and were attended by many students who were not members. It was a most excellent and useful association. It kept church members together and in sympathy. The rivalries of college did not enter here. Every year there were seasons of special earnestness in our reli- gious work, and there was no year without some con- versions. It sometimes occurred that in vacation a student had received deep religious impressions, and he found a sympathizing brotherhood to help him forward when he returned to college. We had indeed three revivals in our college course : one in the sophomore, one in the junior, and one in the senior year. My classmate Woodford writes : " Of our senior year there was nothing marked, but I I I 2 MV LIFE AND TIMES, must not omit to notice the steady gain in Christian development during our last year on the part both of the new and old converts. Who can measure the good done by the fifty or more who in these three revivals devoted themselves to the Saviour?" But the revival in our junior year seems to me worthy of brief record here, for the manner in which it came on and for the power of God mani- fested in it. Its approach was silent as the fall of dew. There seemed to be a peculiar spirit of prayer in our Praying Circle. Individual students felt a deep impression that we were entering the atmos- phere of a revival. Some had come from revival scenes at home. Our circle found a college room too small for the attendance, and it was arranged that the next Sunday morning we should meet in the house across the campus on the main road, as there were two rooms, and the intervening hall would easily accommodate fifty or sixty students, or more. They were crowded, to the surprise of all, and some had come in whom we had never seen there before. As we passed out from that meeting at the toll of the bell for church, I met Professor Longfellow. He looked surprised and said : " What is up now, Hamlin .^" I replied : "It is only our Sunday morn- ing prayer meeting." **Ah!" said he with a puz- zled look, and passed on. We all loved and admired BOWDOTN COLLEGE. II3 Longfellow, but we could not claim his sympathy in this movement. During the week Mrs. Pro- fessor Upham sent me a note asking me to meet the ladies' prayer meeting for a few minutes and let them understand the state of feeling in college. Dr. Adams, pastor of the Congregational church where nearly all the students attended, had ap- pointed an early morning prayer meeting, thinking some would come together at an early hour who would not be able to come after the labors of the day had begun. Anxious lest the conference room should not be suitably warmed and dusted, he rose early and went to see to it. He found Phebe, the colored sister of the church, of whom I shall speak further on, kneeling on the doorstone in prayer. "Why, Phebe," he asked, "what are you praying here for on this cold stone } " •* O Mr. Adams ! " was the answer, " I know the Lord is coming; I feel it in my bones." Dr. Adams said to me : " Who should know it first of all but Phebe, who holds closest communion with Him } " We found by conversing with students that many were under serious impressions. It was so in the village also. Dr. Adams appointed a protracted meeting and called to his aid the Rev. Dr. Tappan, 114 ^^ ^^^^' ^^^ TIMES. of Augusta, and Dr. Pond, professor in Bangor Theological Seminary. The meetings were very full and very solemn. There were many conversions — more than fifty, I think. A few were so remark- able I will mention them. H. B. Smith was one. He became a distinguished teacher, writer, and theologian. Do not fail to read Professor Stearns' life of him. Daniel R. Goodwin was another. He was undeniably the first scholar and ablest man in college. I have mentioned the singular conversion of John D. Smith. There were Allen, Harris, Pike, Parsons, Fred. Goodwin, Storer, and many others who have lived lives of distin- guished usefulness. The writings of Harris, Good- win, and H. B. Smith have left their impress upon thousands of choice receptant minds, and will live for generations. In the village the conversion of Dr. Lincoln and Governor Dunlap occasioned a profound sensation through the state. Dr. Lincoln, who probably saved my life (see page 95), was the most distinguished infidel in the state of Maine. He was a man of excellent social character and irreproachable morals. But now he came to see himself a sinner, and to fear the righteous judgment of God against the trans- gressors of a holy law. He found peace in believing. It was a memorable evening when Dr. Lincoln BOWDOIN COLLEGE. "5 came in, and with great dignity and sweetness said in substance : " You will expect that I should tell you, my friends and neighbors, what has caused the recent change in my religious views and feelings. I can say it has not been argument. I have never heard or read arguments to which I did not think I could give a satisfactory answer — satisfactory, I mean, to myself ; but there was one argument, a living argument, that moved every day and often before my window, in the humble, benevolent Chris- tian life of my neighbor. Deacon Perry." He went farther, but this remark made such an impression I could never forget it. He joined the church and witnessed a good confession until death in a good old age. I had a delightful interview with him in 1856. One Sunday evening as L entered the church, rather late. Dr. Tappan was at prayer, and the burly form of Governor Dunlap was right before me. Then the whole audience stood in prayer. Governor Dunlap was known as a pronounced Unitarian, a Democrat, and aristocrat. I wondered what had drawn him in ; whether it was merely to find some- thing for sarcastic criticism. Soon Dr. Tappan fell upon him in prayer. At first he prayed for the governor of the state in very appropriate language, such as any minister might use, and then proceeded I 1 6 MY LIFE AND TIMES, to individualize him in a most remarkable and ear- nest manner, praying that he might feel such a sense of his sins and his danger of eternal ruin and of his need of a Saviour that he would gladly choose to die as a beggar with Christ as his Saviour, rather than attain the highest prizes of political ambition without him, etc. It was painful and astounding to many persons present, who thought the evil one had crept into that prayer so as to raise a row with the Unitarians. We changed our minds when, the next morning, at chapel prayers, President Allen prayed for the governor of the state, who had passed a sleepless night under deep conviction of sin. Governor Dunlap's conversion was very decided in its characteristics and bore the test of time. When the manumitted slave woman, the praying Phebe, died, he was one of her pallbearers, regard- ing her as one of the King's daughters. The fruits of this revival were exceedingly rich and valuable. The steam-engine episode of my college life you will not wish me to pass over, although you can find it on page 208 of ''Among the Turks." When Professor Smyth lectured to our class upon the steam engine, hardly one of them had any clear understanding of the machine. Few had ever seen one ; there was no such thing then in the state of Maine. BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 1^7 After the lecture I said to Professor Smyth : '' I believe I could make an engine that would make any one see its working." "I think you can make anything you undertake, Hamlin, and I wish you would try it." I at once agreed to do so upon the encouragement he gave. Thus thoughtlessly, in two minutes, I em- barked in a scheme that you will see has had an influence upon all my life. It was done rashly, on no sufficient knowledge of the machine I had engaged to make. I made haste to examine it more fully. I could find no work on the steam engine in the library, but we had the monthly publication of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. I read a notice of "Lardner on the Steam Engine," and I obtained it immediately from Boston. I was in for it, and I resolved " to do or die." I soon perceived that the two months' vacation would be far too short a period for such a work, for I resolved to make it a complete condensing engine, with condenser, air pump, and all. Professor Smyth entered into the scheme very warmly and obtained two weeks of our review time, as I could do that work evenings. So with fell determination to at- tempt and to accomplish what seemed to myself almost absurd, I left for Portland. After some search I found a place in a clock maker's shop, Edward I 1 8 • MV LIFE AND TIMES. Grueby's, where I could have the use of a good foot lathe and forge. I had told Professor Smyth I should want ten dollars' assistance, but I had to pay that for shop rent. My brass cylinder, for which I made the model, cost enormously, as did all my other castings. I knew nothing about boring the cylinder and it was done imperfectly by a contriv- ance of my own. I bestowed a vast amount of labor upon finishing and polishing the inside of that cylinder, Neal Dow took great interest in it from the beginning and helped me in boring out the refractory piece. As the work slowly proceeded it grew in formidable proportions. I began to work evenings as soon as I had completed my reviews. Mr. Grueby very kindly entrusted me with the shop, and I worked at first till nine o'clock and then till ten, till eleven, and as long as I could keep awake. I wonder how I endured it. Some of the work I had to do over twice, but I never dropped a piece till I was satisfied with it. When six weeks of the two months' vacation had passed. Professor Smyth came up to see how I was succeeding. He was pleased with what he saw. He promised me the two weeks out that I would need for its completion. My bills amounted to $'J2 ! Neal Dow, president of the Portland Lyceum, secured two lectures, $\o each, before the lyceum. BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 119 After that I lectured at Saco, Hallowell, Augusta, Gardner, and Brunswick, with varying fortunes. The lyceum lectures brought $\o each and ex- penses, 'and two ticket lectures, one at Saco, the other at Gardner, managed by my friends, were to bring me $30 or $40. A terrific snowstorm ruined one and a fire the other, so they left me a little out of pocket. But a ticket lecture in Brunswick netted $'^2, I was prouder of that achievement than of the engine. My debt was paid and a little more, and the college gave me ^175 for it as a model to be placed among the philosophical apparatus. It is now in the Cleaveland Cabinet. I would not like to have any mechanic look at it without remembering that it is the first steam engine ever made in the state of Maine and that I made it without competent tools or competent knowledge. It cost me three months of the hardest work of my life. The steam-engine enterprise must have diverted me some from my regular studies, but it opened new fields of knowledge, of history, of political economy, and the balance was restored. I shall have to refer to it often. I have passed over the time when I chose the foreign field for my life work. I think I always had a trembling apprehension that if I should become I 20 MY LIFE AND TIMES. a minister of the gospel, I should have to be a mis- sionary to the heathen. What reason could I give to God or my own conscience why I should not be ? In the winter of 1831-32, Monson and Lyman, the martyrs of Sumatra, were at the medical college in preparation for their work. They were truly devoted men. Secretary Wisner, a very admirable man, came and urged the claims of the heathen millions upon all who professed discipleship and obedience to the first Great Missionary. I acknowl- edged the reasonableness of the claim and I said to my conscience and my Lord, " Here am I, send me.'* When I went home I told my dear mother. She broke down and wept as I had never seen her before. Her emotion was transient. She recovered herself and said with a tremulous voice : '' Cyrus, I have always expected it and I have not a word tO' say, although I would have been so happy if I could have had my youngest son with me." The others shed many tears, but not a word of opposition came from brother or sisters. I early chose Africa for my prospective field. I read Mungo Park and Denham and Clapperton, and some other African explorers, and the idea of pene- trating the interior took strong possession of my mind. It led me to recast my views of life pretty earnestly and solemnly. I resolved I would never BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 12 1 lay up any money. I would try to square my ac- counts every year and there should be nothing over. I also resolved that I would sacrifice all my ambi- tious ideas of great learning and would give myself to just those things that my work and my environ- ment seemed to call for. I have kept this vow also. If I could choose life's sphere of labor over again, I would not change. I bless God who has guided all my path. Our little Society of Inquiry did not do very much toward making missionaries. Parris, Dole, and Bond went to the Sandwich Islands and they have done a noble work there and their names shall never perish. I should leave out a long slice of college life if I should not notice more fully our society life. It was something far more literary and scientific than col- lege societies are at the present day. The two rival societies, as I have before mentioned, were the Peu- cinian and the Athenaean. The division of each freshman class between these two was a matter of im- mense importance. In point of numbers they were about equal. Each had its library, and the loyalty of each student was measured by his gifts to the library. They were both beautiful libraries of about three hundred volumes each. The librarianship was a post of honor. The fortnightly meetings were for « 122 MY LIFE AND TIMES. debate and the reading of essays. Our debates were sometimes very earnest and called forth talent and research. They constituted an important part of the literary incitement of the college course. Each class at the close of its junior year furnished the candidates for the offices of president, secre- tary, and chairman of the standing committee. There was no little political- excitement in distribut- ing the honors. The principle in all the societies was to give the presidency to the highest in college rank, and the secretaryship to the next. But as it often was difficult to discriminate, the secretary usually had the annual oration, and that leveled up his honor quite to the presidency. Parties were sometimes formed, of course, but the vote of the so- ciety decided the contest, and I do not remember any asperity that remained a single day after the decision. I had far more than my share of the presidencies, and more than I could accept. I accepted three — the Peucinian, the Praying Circle, and the Theo- logical. I positively refused three others, and I ought to have refused the Theological, because that required an annual public oration, and I had too many irons in the fire in my senior year. You may wish to ask me if I was so popular among the students that they should heap upon me all the honors they had to bestow. I wondered at BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 123; their choice myself. I was not so popular. There was, perhaps, a particle of truth in what a graduate said of me, that I was the best loved and the best hated of any student of my class. The hatred has. as much to do with it, perhaps, as the love. I had the reputation, not at all deserved, of being perfectly fearless and of not mingling with anybody's affairs that did not belong to me. I had very warm friends, out of my class — Means, Harris, Pike, Tappan, Par- sons, Goddard, Farrar, Allen, Prentiss, Dole, Blake,, Drummond, etc. Between the hatred and the love I confess to have had more than my share of college honors at the hands of the students. It was their fault, not mine. I never sought one of them. The public oration before the Peucinian Society did not belong to me. I was chosen, as I thought, in disregard of the rights of a classmate whom I loved and honored. I positively refused it ; but at the next meeting I was again unanimously chosen, and I accepted it. In looking round for a subject I selected The Philosophic Errors of the Middle Ages. Accidentally reading the Summa Theologice of Saint Thomas Aquinas^ I noticed some absurd topics gravely discussed. I asked Professor Long- fellow what he thought of that as a subject. He said : " Capital ! fresh, and never made a subject by any of our students..'*' Profes^oa: Newman liked the; 124 ^^^ ^^^^ "^^^ TIMES. oration, and sent it to The Quarterly Register. Pro- fessor Longfellow, meeting me on the campus the next day, said : ** Hamlin, that was the best oration I ever heard from lips studential." It was extrava- gant praise, but Longfellow loved to give full measure of commendation where there was any chance. After it was published I regretted that I had not drawn special attention to the fact that I had searched for the errors only. I had given no credit for philosophical acuteness and subtle analysis. My classmate, Henry B. Smith, was president of the rival society, the Athenaean, but we always re- mained the best of friends, and used sometimes to laugh at our belligerent forces. His oration before the Athenaeans was far superior to mine ; but being less peculiar, did not excite the attention and admiration which it deserved. After the celebration, the society had one great supper, in which there was every luxury our souls lusted after. These four feasts and the farewell class supper constituted all the feasting that I re- member in college. One evening in the sophomore year, coming up from the Peucinian supper at eleven o'clock, or later, feeling that after such a supper I should not easily sleep, and there being moreover a wind storm with masses of flying clouds sometimes obscuring every star, I was tempted to try my BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 125 nerves as to superstition connected with graveyards and darkness. There was an old abandoned church a mile and a half from the college on the sandy- plain ; and alongside of it, separated from it by the road, was an old graveyard where "the forefathers of the hamlet slept " ; but population had moved off to the banks of the river and there was nothing left but death and desolation. The windows had been broken out by naughty boys, and the floor was so broken up that even sheep could not find a refuge inside, for the great holes in the floor would let them down two or three feet. The pews were for the most part standing. It was regarded by the super- stitious as a haunted place ; it was the saddest place I had ever seen. The freak took me of going out there in that most ghostly night and climbing up into that old pulpit, in absolute darkness, and offering a challenge to all the ghosts of the buried dead and the hobgoblins of the air to meet me and do me wrong and I would send them howling into the abyss. I accomplished it with great care, lest in the absolute darkness I should tumble into a hole and the joke would be upon me. I began my address, competing with the roaring sounds, when unmistakably I heard a groan or a grunt. " Halloo, there ! who are you .-^ what do you want } " Then two or three heavy raps on the 126 MV LIFE AND TIMES. * side of the house to my right and a peculiar scraping sound and another grunt or groan ! I was in for the contest I had challenged, and I would see it through. I got out of the old house as quickly as I safely could, and stepping upon some sticks lying round I picked up by feeling a good club and went round to call the intruder to account. The first thing I stumbled on was a good old cow ! and I found that a whole herd of cattle had quietly sheltered themselves from the wind under the lee of the old church, and, lick- ing themselves as cattle will, had knocked their horns against the church ! I did not disturb them. I went away satisfied that ghosts could not frighten me, and that I had no fear of a graveyard in night and darkness. Why should any one have .'* This affair is quite out of chronological order, and belongs to the sophomoric year. In my senior year I was repeatedly warned that there was a party of students who had bound them- selves by an oath that they would have revenge upon me before I should graduate and I had better be on my guard. I laughed at such warnings. I said, "They are all cowards, for they have been challenged to meet us in open conflict, and for three years they have never done it." My conscious security gave me perfect peace, but no safety. I misjudged the bitterness of the opposi- BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 12/ tion. One night I felt myself to be in a terrible incomprehensible nightmare ; but something which was smothering me slipped off. I drew a full breath and instantly comprehended my situation. I was in the hands of my friends the enemy, and I resolved " to play the Indian " of perfect passivity. Strug- gling to escape would have been useless, for I was in the hands of seven persons. One had my head, two had my arms, two grasped me powerfully in the flank, and two had my legs. They rushed down two flights of stairs roughly, but I set my teeth firmly, resolved not to utter a sound. When they came on to the level I relaxed every muscle and hung like a dead man in their hands. There was one at the pump making the water fly. But some one said, " He 's dead ! " and they dropped me rudely on the corner of the platform ; not a drop of water reached me and they fled for their lives — I up and after them. I singled out two of them and gave chase. They fled to the pines which then bordered the campus. As I was barefooted, I gave up the chase and went back to bed. I did not even change my nightshirt ; but I resolved what I would do. I would make nothing of the affair, would look upon it with contempt, and keep absolutely still until they should all be thrown off their guard and let the whole affair out boastfully. I would then arrest 128 ^Y LIFE AND TIMES. ^g- them for assault and battery and housebreaking This satisfied me so completely that I fell asleep and slept an hour after my intended time. I had taken out leave to go to Portland that day, and I had a pitcher of milk and some bread for my early breakfast. I resolved I would take that walk of twenty-four miles, unless I should fall by the way. I made my breakfast, and had a piece of bread to spare for lunch. I started out just as all the students were coming out of prayers. They sur- rounded me, and I stepped upon the stone block, gave the briefest statement possible concerning the attack, and expressed my contempt of. the whole affair, and my only regret that, having overslept, I was starting for Portland an hour late. They gave me a very hearty cheer as I departed. It was, I confess, a hard walk. I had been wrenched ; large patches were black and blue ; and when they dropped me my left hip struck the sharp corner of the great plank platform of the pump. When I reached Portland my sister Rebecca ex- claimed, ''Why, Cyrus, you are sick! " I said, ''No ; not sick, but awfully tired. Give me supper and ten hours' sleep, and you '11 find me lively as a cricket." But what helped me sleep was the following letter. The students, immediately after breakfast, had a public meeting and passed the resolutions below : — BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 129 Brunswick, June 28, 1834. Friend Hafnlin, — A transcript of certain resolutions annexed, passed this day by the students assembled in the chapel, will inform you of the purpose of this communication : — Whereas, An indignity was last night offered to Brother Hamlin, in whom we as fellow students feel interested, and whereas the expression of our sympathy should be as public as was the outrage, therefore, by this meeting of the students of Bowdoin College be it Resolved^ That pumping is subversive of law and honor, and derogatory to the character of students ; that the unprovoked attack upon and personal abuse of Hamlin can be justified by none of the feelings of men, and by none of the principles of common morality or even of common decency ; and that the perpetrators of this deed are regarded by us as unmanly and dishonorable, deserving neither respect nor kindness. Resolved, That the character of Hamlin as a superior scholar, as a high-minded and public-spirited young man, and as a Christian, while it cannot be wounded by any such base means as have been employed, now, more than ever, demands out" public and unqualified approbation. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions, signed by the chairman and secretary of this meeting, be forwarded to Hamlin. (Signed) G. Horace Upton, Secretary. Daniel Weston, Chairman. With the above I had the two following brief notes of the same date : — My dear Friend, — We had some struggle, but the victory is ours — is yours. I congratulate you upon the full sympathy, no less full than deserved, which you have met with. As a class- 130 MY LIFE AND TIMES. mate, and I hope as a fellow Christian, I rejoice. The wanton aggression has been, as far as human means avail, avenged, and while you can trust in your consciousness of right and in your Saviour for grace to help, I am sure that you may go on your way rejoicing. In haste, yours truly and ever, Henry B. Smith. My dear Brother, — I fully accord with the sentiments ex- pressed by our good friend. Henry B. Smith has acted a noble part in this affair. After some fear and trembling we determined on a general meeting ; the discussion was somewhat stormy, and continued for one and a half hours, but your friends and the friends to religion proved true and valiant. After the few in the opposition had exhausted all their art and fiendish malice, the original motion for the passage of the resolution was called for, and the result glorious — seventy-five for, six against. Full well I know that your character needed no such testimo- nies and vindication, but receive them as a renewed expression of brotherly love and affection. Yours most sincerely, A. Cole. With this generous endorsement of myself and withering condemnation of the other party, I could go right on as though nothing had happened. The president told me that the faculty were ready to take the most efficient action. I begged them to do nothing until I should enter a complaint, to which he acceded. I would not talk with any one about it, not even with Cole and Smith and Wood- ford. Sometimes a student would ask me, '' Are BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 131 you going to swallow all that, Hamlin ? " And I would reply, " I have swallowed it and I don't see as it hurts me at all. My digestion was never better." So everybody thought the affair had passed by forever. It worked just as I had confidently expected. The fellows began to boast of their achievement. In a symposium of some twenty or more the whole thing was discussed and each one's part in it was talked over. One of those present, a student belong- ing to all parties and having about equal sympathies with all, described the whole to me. I manifested no interest in it. I told him I had always supposed it was just about so. Still I said nothing and did nothing, until another student volunteered informa- tion equally minute. I then wrote down the names of the seven who had offered the personal violence, whom I intended to arrest, and the names of seven- teen who had some personal knowledge of the affair before it came off or during the transaction, to be summoned as witnesses. I went into Chandler and Proctor's room and told them what I was going to do and that I wanted their advice about two individuals. Their excitement astonished me. Chandler danced about his room and clapped his hands and said : "Now, Hamlin, you are Hamlin! It would have 132 MY LIFE AND TIMES, been disgraceful to let such an outrage go unwhipt of justice." When I told them that I was going right to the lawyer's office to have all the papers made out and the fellows arrested and the witnesses summoned as the students came out from prayers the next morning, they could hardly control themselves. ** Oh, won't those fellows laugh out of the other side of their mouths ! They have become boastful, and they might have caught yDu again to finish their work and do it better next time ! " But the two cooled off and sat down and carefully considered the whole list. They knew everything. They belonged to the Athensean Society and would not naturally be my champions. They revealed their knowledge, not directly, but by giving me advice. At one item I positively objected. But they both insisted, '* He will be your strongest witness if the lawyer knows how to turn him inside out." They were good and faithful friends. I had some difficulty at the lawyer's office. Charles Packard, Esq., was a good, generous, noble- hearted man ; but he feared for me and knew that for himself he should have to bear endless insults from those fellows. "But that is nothing," he said ; "your life will not be safe." BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 1 33 I finally said with some impatience, '* Mr. Packard, I have not come to ask advice, but the making out of the legal forms that are needful to summon those fellows before Justice D ." He yielded and made out the papers and agreed to act as m" counsel. We had a splendid constable, powerful, cool, and fearless. I was quite unexcited myself, for I was doing it from a conviction of duty, to prove that law can be made to reign in college, and I believed that one example would inaugurate a change. I went into it calmly, prayerfully, firmly, with a good conscience toward man and toward God. In the morning there was some delay in getting a place for the trial. As soon as I engaged the Free- will Baptist meetinghouse I sent the constable up the hill. He broke up every morning recitation. Professor Cleaveland was the most affable of men socially, but he was " monarch of all he surveyed ^' in his lecture room, and any student, however slow of apprehension, understood, at least, that much. A rude knock at the door clothed his brow with thunder. **Nason, please to see what is wanted." Nason returned, his countenance showing con- sternation and fear, and said, " Please, sir, the con- stable wants So and So and So, and I think Hamlin is arresting the hazers." 134 ^^y ^^P^ "4^^ TIMES. Every seat was instantly empty and the class rushed out wildly, caring no more for the great professor than for one of his trilobites. I came up to the college level just as the whole cavalcade was issuing from the campus. My lawyer was sure I should be brickbatted and protested that I placed no value upon my life. I was received with a grand hurrah, and the arrested fellows had not recovered from their surprise enough to even hiss. The defendants engaged Squire Alden, but he was so abusive toward Packard and myself that the audience scraped him down, and would not let him open his mouth. Justice D very properly delayed the proced- ure till they could engage O' Brian, who was a gentle- man. Two weeks were allowed them to consult their papas and prepare their defense. The move was everywhere popular and just the thing that should have been done. Dr. Lincoln sent for me to say that he had consulted with a few friends, — the Dunlaps and others, — that they had agreed that the legal trial should be no expense to me, and that they wanted me to employ the best counsel in the state. I felt that the Lord himself was supporting me in that way. On the eve of the momentous day the counsel on both sides met together. The three lawyers for the BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 135 defendants — William Pitt Fessenden, Deblois, of Portland, and Young, of Freeport — pleaded for a compromise. They (the defendants) belonged to rich families and their parents had better pay an indemnity than to let the case go on, as it might put a blot on these young fellows for life. The counsel on both sides sent a messenger asking that I pro- pose an indemnity that would satisfy me to let the matter drop. I replied at once that any indemnity, great or small, would ruin the case. I would agree to anything my counsel advised, only the settlement should involve two things — a written confession and apology and payment of all expenses. The counsel pronounced the decision magnani- mous and wise. The fellows were confounded. They first sent one of their number to ask the presi- dent if they settled the matter thus, if it would pre- vent their getting a diploma. He replied : *' Of course not." One declared he would never sign. But toward midnight, softened by large potations, he signed, and the case ended. I received the thanks of the faculty and of the most distinguished friends of the college, while some were disappointed that no suitable penalty was inflicted. One of the defendants suffered a lifelong penalty — the young lady to whom he was engaged, but of whom he was not worthy, promptly dismissed him, 136 MV LIFE AND TIMES. declaring she would never be the wife of a man who could do so mean a thing. I have never seen reason to regret the course I took, but I do regret that there is so little manliness in colleges that hazing has so long been endured. Faculty and students are both guilty that law does not reign over the violators of law. A few days after this case terminated one stu- dent in a violent quarrel kicked another, who immediately started for Lawyer Packard, and told him he would have to settle that case with him. The offender immediately relented, begged his par- don, and stuffed a five-dollar bill into his vest pocket. It came to be understood that law could be instantly appealed to. As the last term passes on the appointments for Commencement are discussed in a lively manner. I resolved to be content with any appointment I should have. I had been engaged in so many things that I could not hope for, and did not wish, the distinction of first or second part. I might have the third ; I would be content with the fourth, for of the four students who were reported to stand side by side, I had done so much extra work that I was ready to take the consequences. The four were put on a perfect level. Four oratibns were to come on to the stage in alphabetical order. Previous years had BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 137 brought great dissatisfaction with the distinctions made, but here there could be none. " The defendants " were not satirsfied with the upshot of their revenge. Two or three days before Commencement President Allen sent for me and said he was sorry to say that he had received notice from a most reliable source of a plot to drive me off the stage and prevent me from delivering my oration. A certain number of students would cooperate, but chiefly fellows from without would be distributed through the house, who would take up and continue the hissing, caterwauls, scraping, and whatever other ways they might have of expressing their malice. They would hardly dare to throw missiles. He would like to know what course I would suggest. I replied : " I have managed those fellows thus far and I would like to have them all the way through." He smiled and said : " You have done so well thus far the faculty thought you would choose to do so." I went to Colonel Estabrook, our magnificent mar- shal on Commencement days, and told him of the plot. I begged him to take it all as a regular part of the exercise when I should come on to the plat- form. I would wait as long as they would make a row, and then I would explain the matter to the audience for their decision, and I knew it would be in my favor. I came to the stage with nerves 138 ^^y LIFE AND T/MES. somewhat firmly strung. I wore Longfellow's Oxford gown, for we all spoke in gowns. I had my oration in a roll in my hand, so that if great con- fusion should occur, I should not be driven off the track by fault of memory. I saluted the president, the two boards of government, and the audience, expecting every moment the other part of the per- formance would begin ; but it did not. I paused a little and then concluded to begin my second oration, as the first seemed to be uncalled for. When I concluded, I received, as was confessed, the most rapturous applause of the day. It was an unspeakable gratification to my mother, as also to myself, that no disturbance was made. I think my brother Hannibal was a little disappointed that he could not see me put those fellows down. As the audience slowly dispersed two young ladies put a package in mother's hand. The ladies were the Misses Perkins, of my Bible class in Topsham. It was a pair of shirts of the nicest linen that could be found, and of the nicest needlework, when ladies' fingers were the only sewing machines. They seemed to never wear out. I of course used them carefully. They lasted far into missionary life on the Bosphorus. I remember that Bible class with deep interest ; they were a fine set of girls. They expressed to BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 139 Students their burning indignation of my treatment. They were amazed to see me unchanged, laughing, and telling them it was a mere college trick, not worth a moment's thought ; they could n't make me a martyr anyhow. ^ Cole and I first, and afterwards others, had a Sun- day-school two seasons in the Pennell and Curtis district, out on the Freeport Road. My acquaintance with those interesting families continued until recent years. Death and change have carried them far away. I cannot but think that in the world to come even the casual friendships of this life will be of some value. The Commencement audience disperses and then the spreads begin. There may have been twenty- in our class of thirty-five. Generally two students united. My chum in the senior year was John. H. C. Coffin, brother of Mrs. Professor Smyth. He was the mathematical genius of our class and of the college, and afterwards a distinguished professor of mathematics in United States service. We fitted up our room with ornaments from the woods and the gardens. My sister Rebecca, Mrs. Farley, offered to make the graduating cake, and Coffin supplied the lemonade and fruit. The cake was fine. Miss Susan Farley had the freedom of. Blant Sawyer's garden in order to make the wreath.-. 140 MV LIFE AND TIMES. It attracted general attention, and though others expended three or four or five times the money, there was nothing attracted more admiration. Some of the most distinguished men in the state came in to express their approbation of what I had done, and to congratulate my mother. She, of course, was gratified that her little boy had passed through so many experiences with honor and good health. Farewell, Bowdoin College ! Farewell, beloved classmates of 1834! No period of life is like col- lege life — its high hopes and resolves, its undy- ing friendships, its earnest and joyous contests, its solemn views of life's career, its deep religious im- pressions, its efforts to be led and to lead others in the path of life. The inspiration, too, derived from the character, attainments, and teachings of a noble, devoted, learned, unselfish faculty, and the friendship of those men through life, make the college years of priceless value. President Allen, Professors Cleave- land, Upham, Newman, Smyth, Packard, Longfellow, every name excites emotions of gratitude, admiration, and love. CHAPTER VI. SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. A FTER a vacation of a few weeks, which I very -^^^ highly enjoyed, in Waterford and Portland, Ilsley and I went on board the steamer for Bangor. It must have been in October, and well advanced, for it was cold and stormy, and we found Bangor abundantly supplied with a very adhesive mud. It is now such a very beautiful and clean city one can hardly conceive of its condition then. But it had a very enterprising people. There was so much intelligence and refinement and literary cultivation that one wondered to find it all in such tumultuous surroundings. Buildings were going up on every hand, new streets were being opened in the clayey soil, and except where plank sidewalks were laid it was best to attempt as little movement as possible. Tappan and I had made an agreement to room together. We had been good friends in college, as we are now, and our three years passed most har- moniously. He was a close student, a fine linguist, a profound and independent thinker, a perfect gentle- man, an earnest Christian, but with a sort of reserve 141 142 MY LIFE AND TIMES, that has kept him back while others of lighter weight have gone ahead. The day after my arrival a gentleman of fine appearance, whose gray hair and cast of counte- nance would suggest the age of seventy, called and introduced himself as Mr. McGaw, a lawyer of Bangor, and inquired if I were the son of Hannibal Hamlin, of Waterford. On finding that I was, he gave me a very cordial welcome to Bangor, and wished me always to feel that I had a home in his house. "Your father," he added, "gave me my first busi- ness as a young lawyer; he had confidence in me and brought me forward, and what success I have had I consider largely owing to that starting out in life. I have always felt that it would be a pleasure to me to do a favor to a son of Hannibal Hamlin, of Waterford." It was almost like' meeting my father, whom I never knew, and who on his deathbed had special anxiety about me. I entered at once upon the study of Hebrew and New Testament Greek and exegesis with lively interest. The two professors Pond and Bond con- ducted our fi:rst year's studies. There was quite a change in the institution in many respects. It had been struggling for existence, and in great poverty SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 143 had been turning out very useful men who com- manded the respect and love of the people. Dr. Pond, a man of power, by nature, culture, and grace, had come there to stay. A new professor- ship of sacred rhetoric was about to be founded, and graduates of colleges, some eight or nine in my class, came in. Before then, most of the students had entered the Theological School after a three years' course in the Classical Academy. All was life and hope and joy. Bangor society received us kindly and generously, but Tappan and I soon saw the danger, and we fixed a rule : " One evening a week to society, and even then faithful study till nine o'clock." In this way we avoided the waste of time which students sometimes make in society, and which we should have made but for this rule. I did not very much enjoy society, except where I was so well acquainted as to feel at home. I was excessively bashful, and I blushed like a girl at the slightest thing ; I was so ashamed of this I blushed all the more. But I found my good genius there. Mrs. James Crosby, either from pity or from seeing something in me that should not be lost, with equal skill and wisdom gave me the friendship, the confi- dence, the consideration that gave me confidence in myself; and from that day to this I have counted her among my best friends. l/\/\ MY LIFE AND TIMES. We settled down to close study. We agreed that our theological course depended mainly upon our- selves, upon our modes and habits of study. The policy of the teaching was to call out effort, and to encourage the utmost freedom of thought and inquiry. I resolved to have no such issues as in college and to keep clear of everything that should in the least distract me in my studies. This came very easy the first year and I had nothing outside but a Bible class of young ladies in Dr. Pomeroy's church. Some of its members were very bright and not afraid to ask puzzling questions ; but I was never puzzled, for I always confessed my inability frankly when I felt it. No man loses anything by that, especially a young man. The scholars in that class have nearly all passed away. A few years since I heard of two of them at the West, and it gave me a thrill of pleasure to know that they had inquired for me and had remembered the Bible class. I began also to go out into school districts within four or five miles' walk, of a Sunday after- noon to " hold a meeting." I found some fruit in one of these places forty years afterward. But the first year was one of study and of growth and of extending a pleasant acquaintanceship with the peo- ple of .Bangor, who seemed to receive us into their SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR, 1 45 families in a very friendly and natural way. I often dined at Mr. McGaw's. We found two graduates of Bowdoin College in the class preceding ours, who were a valuable addi- tion to seminary life. H. G. Storer, Bowdoin Col- lege, 1833, was a wit, a devout man, of a very clear analytic mind, whose ill health kept him down or he might have been a leader of thought. The logic of Edwards entranced him, almost strangled him. He once said to me, " I fear I shall become a fatalist.'* In conversation on the Scriptures and on Christian experience he had a peculiar richness of thought. His nervous system was unsound and he was subject to great changes from hilarity to despair. After he became a preacher he never supplied an empty pulpit, in city or country, without receiving a call to settle. His health would sometimes enable him to preach for a few months and then he would retire to recruit. His mind was clouded toward the close. He was greatly beloved by his intimate friends. Yeaton was another Bowdoin College graduate, a close friend of Storer's. The two were very unlike. Yeaton was a Coleridgeite. He was a man of gentle, refined character and taste and of exact scholarship. Everything from his pen bore the character of finish. He succeeded more as a teacher than preacher. 146 MV LIFE AND TIMES. Visits to these dear friends, on my return from the East, are memorable and precious. " In what part of the world shall I live and labor ? " will always be a question of interest to one who has decided to go wherever duty shall seem to call him. The world was all before me where to choose. I was more inclined to China, because Tracy and Johnson, whom I knew at Brunswick, had gone there ; and Tracy had sent me a box of Chinese paper dresses, pictures of gods, and native offerings, with which I could interest Sunday-schools. But about the time of entering the seminary I had by chance taken up Mungo Park's Life and Travels in Africa. I was so much interested that I also read Bruce, Denham, and Clapperton, the Landers, and The Limits of the Negro Race (by Heereni'j. I fixed upon Africa. I would go into the great in- terior and see what there was there. This was my ideal. I dreamed of being in Africa. This choice had one important, practical influence. I resolved never to select a wife, never to fall in love, never to expose myself to that danger by any familiar ac- quaintance with young ladies, however excellent, until I had penetrated Africa and come out alive. This gave me a feeling of freedom I could not otherwise have had, and I also regarded myself as no object of interest to any young lady or to any mamma. SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR, 1 47 On that whole subject Africa made me delightfully free. She was my bride ; I was already married. Freewill and the divine foreordination of all events of course perplexed us. Professor Pond held strongly to the Decrees and also to Edwards' Theory of the Will — "always as the strongest motive." W\^ preaching was as though the will, the man, was self-determined. Self-determinism he rejected. I was long in doubt, until I resolved to stand by self- determinism as well as by divine sovereignty, and not attempt to explain their harmony of meeting together. I rested there and fought the battle on that line. My first theological year passed with nothing * remarkable. It was a year of growth. I felt sure that I stood in right relations to God and man in my African outlook. My mother, my sisters, and my brother approved of my general choice, but did not like the prospect of a combat with African fever. At the close of the year three of us walked to Brunswick, suffering much from bad weather by the way. My stockings were soaked in blood when I took off my boots in Warren's room. ** O Hamlin," he said, ''you have done cruel work there ; but I will bring ycu out all right." He went out, bought a pint of rum, and, with 148 MV LIFE AND TIMES. about the same amount of warm water, put my feet to soak. It had a wonderfully soothing effect ; and with a little bandaging and a day's rest I went on as though nothing had happened. It was the best use of New England rum I ever knew and I found it equally efficacious on other similar occasions. The second year, 1836, brought me into outside work enough. I gave a course of lectures on physi- cal science in the Classical School, with experiments, and received seventy dollars for the course. I gave also one of the course of lectures before the Bangor Lyceum. My subject was Africa : its Resources and Prospects. It was well received. It was pub- lished in The Literary and Theological Review. In the neighborhood of the seminary there was a new Ireland. About five hundred Irishmen had come in to find work, which, until winter came, was abundant. They had put up shanties unfit for our terrible winters. There was hardly a temperate man among them, and their priest was a drunkard. A fearfully cold snap came on in the winter. The thermometer fell to twenty-four below zero, and I knew at once there must be suffering in Paddytown. I found three families in one house, and one in another, without fuel or fire, and with no food but frozen potatoes. They were cowering together in straw and rags and all the covering they could muster. SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 149 ''What are you going to do?'* I said. ''Are you going to die here ? " " Yes ; indade we must. Can I go out in this coat.?" " No," I said ; " hold on a little and you shall have all you need." I made swift steps to Charles A. Stackpole, a friend of mine in many sharp discussions of history, ancient and modern. He was always ready for any good work. He undertook to furnish a load of dry wood as quickly as possible. Morrill went for cloth- ing and bedding, and Thayer went for food. In a short time there were great fires blazing in the shanties, abundance of warm, secondhand cloth- ing and bedding, and more food than they had ever seen at one time in their poor habitations. They all became jovial and hilarious without a drop of rum. They had baskets full of cooked meats, fowls, vege- tables, bread, cakes, doughnuts, pies, etc. Bangor people do nothing by halves, and the scene of joy that followed was characteristic of the Irish nation. In a small, half-finished house right opposite we found a Mrs. Cochrane, with a poor fire, and two little girls cowering and trembling in her lap. No fire could have made her room comfortable in that weather, for the door did not reach the sill by six inches. Her husband had gone to Boston to find 1 50 My LIFE AND TIMES. work. Her daily expectation of hearing from him was never gratified. She seemed to be paralyzed by the awful cold. We made a great fire, and Mr. Stackpole obtained a piece of board from a carpen- ter's shop near by and finished out the door. Mr. Morrill obtained some clothing for the little girls. The mother was very grateful, and she seemed in some respects superior to any of the Irish women we had seen. She said to us that she was able and will- ing to do any work, in washing, in cleaning house, or taking care of the sick. She did n't want any assistance, but work. I secured for her at once the sweeping and cleaning of seminary rooms, and Mr. Stackpole obtained places for her one day in a week or one day in a fortnight in a number of families, so that her time was fully employed and well paid. Mr. Morrill, of the junior class, had manifested a wonderful faculty in getting the Irish children to- gether Sunday afternoons, teaching them to read and to commit to memory passages from the Bible. The Ladies' City Missionary Society very gladly employed him as a city missionary to attend expressly to the Irish. The drunken priest endeavored in vain to exclude him from their houses. He finally succeeded in establishing a day school for them, and obtaining an excellent teacher who felt a real missionary interest in her work. Mrs. SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 151 Cochrane's two little girls went to that school. The priest went and told her not to send them again. She told him plainly that until he would have as good a school her children would continue where they were, and she did n't want to hear another word from his lips about it. He became so violent from time to time that she quit their church entirely and went to Hammond Street Church, of which she finally became a member. Mrs. Cochrane informed Mr. Stackpole that at one house to which he sent her for work they de- clared that they had heard nothing about him, and he went to ascertain the fact. The lady laughed on his entering and said : *^ I came to the conclusion I was wrong, but the woman said Mr. Stickerpole and Mr. Rumbelin sent her. I assured her no such gentlemen were known to me, and I packed her off, and afterwards I thought the good woman meant Mr. Stackpole and Mr. Hamlin ! " The eldest daughter was regarded by the teacher as the brightest girl she had in the school — a rank which she bore in every school into which she entered. As the winter went on there was any amount of drunkenness and rows in that neighborhood. Two of those rescued men had become very sober and industrious. We lent them money to buy an outfit for sawing and splitting wood, a wood saw, saw- 152 MY LIFE AND TIMES, horse, a few files, and an axe — about three dollars more or less. These were Sullivan and O'Gorman. (O'Brien had recovered and gone to work well-dig- ging.) Late one evening, Sullivan and O'Gorman came panting to my room and said, *' O sir, do come quick ; they are tearing our house down and killing the women and childer upstairs." I rushed up to Paddytown to see what I could do with an Irish mob. One or two hundred had sur- rounded the house on every side, and not a window remained whole. I rushed in among them, and they began to pass the word, *' Hush ! the young praste has come ! " They perhaps thought it was Morrill, for he was their "young praste," and some did not hesitate to declare that he was a truer "praste" than their old drunken bruiser. The missiles stopped, and I went up at once where a new family had finished off a room. It was a sight to see. There was a baby that seemed to be having a good time in a cradle, into the foot of which a stone had fallen which must have weighed three or four pounds. It would have inevitably killed the child had it fallen upon it. Another child of four or five was sitting upon the floor in the corner, out of the range of missiles, and was actually singing to itself and playing with some straws and sticks. SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 153 In searching into the cause of the row I found it was from a feud having its origin in "swate Ireland," and set on fire by alcohol. The assaulters were arrested by the city marshal, and they were made to pay the damages. These were heavy enough to secure the peace of the quarter for the future. What amazed me was the sacredness of my person in that excited mob as " the young praste." Mr. Morrill's influence became so great in Paddy- town as to alarm the bishop in Boston. He recalled the drunken fellow, who was generally hated, and sent a more decent and crafty man to oppose him. Mrs. Cochrane remained true to her faith to extreme old age, and at the age of eighty-seven died in peace and hope. This middle year was made remarkable in our seminary experience by a number of things. Our much-beloved Professor Bond left us at the begin- ning of the year, from ill health in part, more, as we students believed, from poverty. He had a small salary, and the treasury was rarely able to pay that on time. Professor Pond put in all his strength and his in- defatigable labor to remedy this discouraging state of things. One hundred thousand dollars were sub- scribed, and Leonard Woods was chosen to fill the vacant professorship. His brilliant reputation for 1 54 ^^ L^P^ ^^-^ TIMES. scholarship and genius, and the financial success of the subscription, filled all with joy. He was an inspira- tion to every student. Our studies in theology with Dr. Pond were very absorbing, and were conducted in a way to make us think for ourselves. The seminary received another and still greater addition in the election of Professor Shepherd, of Hallowell, as professor of sacred rhetoric. He was a man of power, and his inspiration as a teacher was very marked. In preaching he was a Boanerges, and few have surpassed him in the power of vigor- ous thought in vigorous English. In his lectures he would impress a point with some phrase that would never be forgotten. In advising us to hit the nail on the head he cautioned us against *' driving the spike so as to split the plank." He used to say: "The spurt of the spigot is never higher than the water in the cask, unless there is a pressure of gas!' Still he did not aim at such expressions ; they came naturally to him, and always produced a ripple in the class. His memory is blessed. During the middle year I fell into close connec- tion with the Bangor Lyceum. My college class- mate. Chandler, a law student, a young lawyer of the city, and myself, were the committee of arrange- ments. It was proposed to build a theater ; and in order to gain public favor the topic appointed by a SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 155 vote was, " The theater has a beneficial, intellectual, and moral influence upon society." After a number of changes in the appointments I was compelled to take the negative ; a young lawyer took the affirma- tive. I stood alone for three nights, for it was adjourned from week to week. The contention was sharp, and the party brought out its forces. I found splendid matter in Plato and Rousseau. The translations of Plato were by Rous- seau. I found a vast amount of able philosophical and historical discussion of the question, and those whom I asked to come to my help declined, saying, "You are doing very well." The tide set against the theater all along. The party petered out. When it came to a vote there were but four or five boldly on the affirmative. This discussion gave me some repute in the city, but in one instance more than was just. I had been to Portland to recruit, after too much watching with typhoid fever cases, and returning in the mail stage there were Senator Anderson, of Portland, and a law professor from Harvard and a Harvard law student in the coach. The conversation fell upon a certain great actor, and I made some derogatory remark upon the intellectual influence of the theater. The law student and the theologue had miles of lively argument in to Bangor. I did not think he had any 156 MY LIFE AND TIMES, reason for exultation, and the senator and the pro- fessor complimented me on the extent and accuracy of my reading. I felt rather cheap in saying, " It is a subject which has often interested me," whereas I should have said, " I have just had a great debate upon it." I have often had more reputation than belonged to me. In 1877 I found some persons in Bangor who recalled that debate. It put back the theater project for that time. During the year Mr. Stackpole and I became fre- quently associated in the temperance question. We were appointed by the Penobscot Temperance Soci- ety to correspond with physicians and obtain an expression of their views upon the use of cider. It had special reference to the farming community. Mr. Stackpole was in business, which allowed him more time for writing, and he held the pen. We were surprised and delighted with the general una- nimity of their testimony to its injurious effects. It led to the including of cider in the pledge. I was appointed to give the address at the annual meeting of the society. I felt called upon to do my best. I fell upon a fortunate train of remark, as an ex- ordium, that all true reforms have certain underlying principles that may be easily stated and usually con- densed into mottoes. I ventured to suggest a motto SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 1 57 for the temperance reform : " Light, Love, and Law." (i) MoKal suasion ; (2) benevolent action toward the victims ; but (3) the restraint of law. It was the first prohibitory argument I had known, and I knew it would stir up some wrath.. But in the evening meeting for general discussion Dr. Pomeroy agreed to that proposition, and I found more to accept it than I had dared to hope for. I have never changed my mind since. I have the credit of doing t^o first things in Maine : I made the first steam engine ever made in the state, and I made the first prohibitory law address. Of the first I am quite sure, of the second not so sure. There may have been a dozen similar ones ; but Neal Dow had not then come forward into the work, and my argument fell dead. All I can say is, "So far as I know." Mr. Stackpole liked the address greatly, and he took me out into neighboring towns to deliver it. At one town we dined at the house of the chief man, who was conveniently away from home. His wife was a lively piece, and very enthusiastic for temperance. She had a remarkable memory withal, and gave us a splendid dinner. She contrived to pay the speaker many compliments, using sentences from the address. I invariably complimented some- thing in the dinner. When Mr. Stackpole perceived that we were keeping up that running fire, he had ' I 158 MV LIFE AND TIMES. hard work to contain himself. He afterwards took hold of that man and brought him into the temper- ance fold, where he became a useful worker. Not long after my third year had commenced (October, 1836), I sent in my written statement of readiness to enter the missionary work, wherever the Prudential Committee should think best, only expressing a special interest in China, as Africa had been declared out of the question. One of the sec- retaries, Rev. William Armstrong, had told me that I might expect a definite appointment very early in the spring, and he saw no reason to doubt that China would be my field. On the fourth of February, if I remember rightly, I took three letters out of the Bangor post office, and read them as I walked up Hammond Street toward the seminary. One was from my brother, another from Hon. A. D. Foster ; the third was in a handwriting I did not recognize. I opened it, one or two hundred steps from the seminary, on Ohio Street. It was from Dr. Armstrong, appointing me to Constantinople and to Education. I was pro- foundly affected by thus being taken up by the Spirit and instantly transferred from China to the Bospho- rus. It seemed as though some physical influence had descended upon me from the clouds. I has- tened to my room, and was glad I could be alone ; SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 159 my chum was out. I took the map, and contemplated the route no doubt traversed by a Boston "rum and missionary " vessel to Smyrna. "Well! well!" I said, "what does this mean.? It means a good work, excellent and noble associates, Goodell, Dwight, Schauffler, Holmes, and, at Broosa, Schneider and Powers." I had read their journals with so much interest that I felt acquainted with them. " The climate is unsur- passed ; it is on the borders of civilization. There are physicians there. If Henrietta Jackson has a predis- position to pulmonary disease, she will live longer there than here ; and now, as I live, I will know from her own self whether she will go with me and share my life in that great work." The story of my social life I have written separately, and all the changes through which that problem passed are there re- corded. A strange Providence led the blind in a way they knew not, for all which they blessed the Lord. When I went to Bangor I found there an old friend, Albert Titcomb, who was in Mr. Farley's shop when I went to Portland in 1827. He it was who helped me along in my spiritual life, and for whom I have always cherished a grateful affection. He has a decided gift in prayer. He still lives and prays at the age of ninety-one or two. And l60 MV LIFE AND TIMES. there, among others, I formed a friendship with Mr. J. T. Hardy, the portrait painter. That friend- ship continues, although he has passed over in good old age. Morrill's health had been failing all the year. Indeed, he was in a diseased condition when he entered. In the winter of 1836-37 he broke down repeatedly. Determined not to give up, he would rally again, but at length took to his room, and finally to his bed. He saw the approach of the messenger from afar and said : " Here am I, Lord ; thy servant waiteth." I was much with him by day and night. He gave me his Bible, and wished me to send it to Miss A , to whom he was engaged, with the assur- ance that his chief pain in leaving this world was that they must be separated for a season. During the last night his thirst was great. Tamarind water had been his favorite drink, but now the acid, he said, burned his throat. I sweetened it, and then it did not quench his thirst. I made every combination I could, but in vain. He gave it up, saying, " They shall thirst no more." His last hours were not merely peaceful; they were joyful. He felt that his Lord had come and called for him. At his funeral from Hammond Street Church, the Irish in large numbers waited outside the church, in SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. l6l a cold snowy day, and followed us in a crowd to the cemetery. Professor Leonard Woods, looking upon it, said : " I would rather be followed by such a crowd of the poor than by all the titled heads of Europe." I wrote to Miss A that I would keep the Bible until I could deliver it to her in person, with his last message. The stage passed her father's house in New Hampshire and kindly stopped, while I delivered the Bible and the message. She maintained the self-control of Christian faith, but tears flowed abun- dantly. Her countenance bore the impress of grief. Forty years after I found a few Irish who remem- bered Mr. Morrill. Our graduating exercises filled Hammond Street Church to the last seat. The class song, a fare- well hymn, was composed for us by Mrs. Sigourney. I think we sent her a book and ten dollars, with our warmest thanks, and not as any adequate com- pensation. PARTING HYMN PREPARED FOR THE OCCASION BY MRS. SIGOURNEY. Farewell ! We go ! we go ! Brethren, tell us whither.'* Murmuring long and low In her heathen woe Asia calls us hither.i * Of the graduating class, one is expected to be stationed in Asia, one in Africa, one in Constantinople, and the remainder as pastors of churches in our own country. 1 62 MV LIFE AND TIMES, Sad Afric loads the gale With her prayerful weeping For the mission sail. Till the stars prevail, Still her lone watch keeping. Doth the proud Moslem sigh? Haste ! show his blinded nation Hope that cannot die — Heaven our home on high Jesus our salvation. We go! Farewell! farewell! Brethren, tell us whither? Hark ! yon village bell, With its tuneful swell, Sweetly warns us thither. So from their pastures far, Flocks are onward pressing. For a shepherd^s care, For a teacher's prayer, For a pastor's blessing. Farewell ! With joyful feet We '11 bear salvation's story. Brethren, may we meet At the judgment seat. With our crowns of glory! Our Commencement, that is, tei'mination, over, chum and I sold off our things. My shovel and tongs passed through various hands, with my initials SEMINARY LIFE AND TIMES AT BANGOR. 163 on them, and more than forty years after they were sent to one of my daughters by Rev. S. H. Hayes. We made our brief farewell calls in the city, and were surprised to find how many friends we had. I called Mrs. Cochrane to wash up and thoroughly clean our room. I gave her a pistareen (twenty cents). She took it, turned it over, looking at it, and then said : " They tell me, Mr. Hamlin, you are going to those Merhammedans the minister spoke about yes- terday." '* Yes, Mrs. Cochrane; I am going right off." "Well, I want you to take this piece of money, and perhaps you can buy 'em a book that will do their souls good.'' I took it, and it increased the contributions of a number of monthly concerts. A stranger passing out in the crowd said : " That poor Irishwoman's pistareen put one five-dollar bill into the contribu- tion box." In the moonlight evening, Thayer and I took a very late walk to the Mount Hope Cemetery, to see the lot that had been purchased for the seminary. He and I had chosen our last sleeping places on heathen soil, hence the somewhat sentimental yet Christian visit to the consecrated resting place of those whom God should call from our beloved seminary. 164 MV LIFE AND TIMES, After our return, when absolute silence reigned in the hall, and I was reviewing my three Bangor years, I heard a solitary step mounting the stairways, and it came to Number 10. The messenger brought me a beautiful farewell note from Mrs. Crosby. I pre- served it carefully, but am now unable to find it or I would insert it. With the banknote enclosed I pur- chased as memorials Milton's poetical works in two volumes, which have done such good service in our family. In the morning, with feelings of gratitude to God and love to all those faithful friends, farewell to Bangor, welcome Constantinople ! CHAPTER VII. A YEAR S DELAY. T HAD to leave Bangor with a debt of $y2, which -*- the American Board must pay, or give me time to raise the money. But I hastened to the Mission- ary Rooms on Cornhill, expecting then to receive orders to be married, ordained, and sent off in the course of three weeks. The secretaries were somber. " We have no cheerful news to tell you, Mr. Hamlin," they said. "The vessel that was up for Smyrna will not sail for that port, and the merchants can give us no encouragement for any other. The financial condition of the country is such that we are in great trouble about the support of existing missions, and we can send no reinforcements until there shall be a change." " How long do you think I may have to wait. Dr. Anderson .?'*■ " I hope not more than four or five months. There must be a change for the better before long." " What shall I do, then .? I do not wish to be married and hung out to dry with nothing to do and nowhere to go." 165 1 66 ^y LIFE AND TIMES. "That's a very right view to take of that ques- tion. For the present, there are annual meetings of county conferences in New Hampshire we would like to have you attend as agent of the Board. After that, if you are invited to supply any vacant pulpit for a few weeks, accept the call. It will be a good preparation for missionary work." The time before the first meeting was sufficient to allow of a visit to Dorset. We adjourned our marriage until the financial atmosphere should clear. We felt that God's good providence and grace had so plainly guided us that we could peacefully wait for the clouds to blow over. We were very happy in our choice. I met Beach at Dr. Jackson's house, and it is probable we had a good time. Dr. and Mrs. Jack- son were saints of the Most High, ripening for glory. Dr. Jackson formed the first education so- ciety in this country, and had been connected with all the religious and educational movements in Ver- mont. Mrs. Jackson watched the signs of the times, and kept in her field of view all the great political and religious movements of the world. A descendant of John Rogers, she had the martyr's consecrated spirit in that beautiful and peaceful valley. We had long and animated discussions of the past, present, and future ; but the days fled A YEAR'S DELAY. 167 swiftly, and I had to go to the meetings in New Hampshire. The family were glad to have the stay of the beloved daughter prolonged, but were grieved at its cause. My meetings at the county conference were extremely interesting and profitable to myself. Orford, Acworth, Nelson, Milford — all have pleasant, sacred memories. In Milford I saw one lovely dying saint, the wife of the pastor. From her chamber she pointed out the place of her burial, that in future years perhaps I might visit it, should I be passing by. Fifty-four years afterwards I went to the place, but her remains had been removed. I recently (1892) met a man from Acworth, who said my visit there was still remembered by a very few. I passed a night at Hanover, with the distin- guished surgeon, Dr. Muzzey, with whom I became acquainted in Brunswick over my steam engine, and who tried to make a surgeon of me. He was a devout Christian man. One of the old professors of Dartmouth took me in his chaise and carried me to Orford. He told me characteristic stories of Dr. Jackson and Dr. Goodell, whom he had known in their early youth. They both had the wit in them that was always there unto the end. Memory still lingers about those places where I first appeared as an agent of 1 68 MY LIFE AND TIMES. the Board. I cannot find that one of the ministers is living, although some were quite young. The Home Missionary Agent was of my age, and if we did not fight the beasts at Ephesus, we fought the mosquitoes at Nelson all night long, and made less eloquent speeches the next day. I returned from the service to Portland to see what I should do. The first thing was to pay my debt at Bangor. Dr. Chickering, of Portland, had a num- ber of places in view. I wanted one that would give me fifty dollars a month and board, and then I would pay my debt and call upon the Board for less outfit. I preached in the Payson church two of the three written sermons that I had not preached there, and then I went up to the dear home in Waterford. A letter followed me there asking me to supply the pulpit till they could find the right man to settle. I think the pay was $15 a week ; I would engage only for a short trial. I supplied the first Sunday by preaching myself in the morning, and then getting an exchange for the afternoon. Monday morning, I had nothing for the pulpit, but I had on my hands the Payson church and congregation, two services, morning and afternoon, and a large Bible class in the vestry in the evening, a week-day meeting in the evening, funerals to attend, and the sick to visit. The good people pitied my youth, and bore with A YEAR'S DELAY. 169 me. They knew I did the best I could, and their charity suppUed the rest. I remained there seven months. The committee of supply proposed to me to let my name go before the church for a call. It greatly surprised me, and I of course refused ; but the great reward was that some six or eight young people were gathered into the church, who have honored their profession by earnest Christian lives. It was a noble church. '* Payson Christians " they were, and Mrs. Payson and her family were still its strength and ornament. I wonder that I supported as I did those labors so far beyond my strength and experience. My college friend, George L. Prentiss, was spend- ing the winter in Portland, and we had an evening every week with Shakespeare, which we enjoyed very much. When he left for Europe, I wrote him a note, advising him that if in the future he should be considering the subject of marriage, not to pass by Lizzie Payson, for she, although so young, had such and such characteristics. He claims that I delineated her character by inspiration. On his return from Europe he followed my advice. My seven months were bounded by the settlement of Dr. Condit ; and I left for Worcester, to fill an interregnum in the Union Church, of which my cousin, benefactor, and friend, Hon. A. D. Foster, was one of the founders, in connection with Ichabod lyO MV LIFE AND TIMES. Washburn. I look back upon those seven months as having been a very useful part of my missionary training. The associate Congregational ministers. Dr. Dwight and Dr. Chickering, sustained and strengthened me most generously. It was largely through their cooperation that my brief ministry^ overweighted with heavy duties, was not a failure. I ought not to pass over the "Armenian Circle," a missionary society of young ladies which did for years earnest missionary work. I always received a warm welcome in that church while any of that *' generation that knew Joseph" survived. The number is now, after almost fifty-four years, very small, but it is delightful to meet the few. In one of my visits, an aged lady desired to see me. I did not recall her name, but when she spoke of the funeral of her child I remembered it, and told her it was the first funeral at which I had officiated,, and that the circumstances were very touching. The next day her husband, a sea captain, had to leave for a long voyage. He returned a praying man. He told his wife that " that young fellow's prayer at the funeral of my little boy changed my mind about reli- gion, and I have found that the only religion that is good for anything is a praying religion." The Spirit of God can speak to the soul of the veteran seaman through the prayer of a youth. Another seaman. A YEAR'S DELAY, 171 Captain Baker, was brought to Christ by my youthful ministry. On reaching Worcester Saturday, I was delighted to find the pulpit engaged for the two following Sab- baths so that I could rest. The Baptists, however, were seeking a supply, and I preached for them. I got through with the service of the day painfully. The reaction was greater than I had anticipated. My noble cousins, Mr, and Mrs. Foster, kindly suggested that the air and scenery of the Green Mountains were just what I needed to bring me up to time. I had thirteen days before me. I should take his horse and chaise Monday morning, promising to return them Saturday week, with sermons ready for the day follow- ing. I was quite overwhelmed by so much kindness and consideration, and I agreed fully as to the tonic effect of the Dorset air. The journey was every way a delightful one, and the week in Dorset was a section of paradise regained. The Union Church in Worcester was chiefly composed of young mechanics and their families. Messrs. Foster and Washburn foreknew the destined growth of the place and the need of this new church. For some years they bore the financial burden, but it grew rapidly into independent existence. My ser- mons were kindly received, and one of the committee earnestly proposed that, as I had waited almost a 172 MY LIFE AND TIMES. year and there was no probability of any great finan- cial improvement, I should accept a call to settle- ment. I replied firmly : " Not until the Board sends me notice of my unsolicited release will I allow any such proposal to be made." In recently visiting Worcester (1891) I found four members of that church still living, each past the age of eighty, each one older than myself. One of them, Mr. Albert Curtiss, known in Worcester County for his generous gifts, subscribed ;^500 to the Pera church fund for which I was then working. We five might meet together and, looking back on the fifty years, say: "Of the 250 members, we only survive." The church has been a large, prosperous, influential church. I boarded at Mr. Foster's. It was a model famil) He was a true Christian gentleman, and the Chris- tian was always predominant. He was universally loved and honored and admired. Mrs. Foster lived to advanced age ; I believe to eighty-three. She was a refined, lovely lady, and grew more lovely to the end. Among my valued keepsakes is a heavy afghan which she made with her own hands, at the age of eighty. Their son and two daughters have been among the choicest friends of my old age. In the early part of August, I felt that the Board ought to make some decision about my future. A A YEAR'S DELAY. 173 year and six months had passed since I received my appointment. Four of those appointed at nearly the same time had received calls and were settled pas- tors. I wanted some limit, but I suggested that it was time to break the ice and make a move. I knew too that this was Dr. Anderson's opinion. A reply came that was startling. A vessel would sail Sep- tember 12 for Smyrna. If I could be legally married, and get to Boston by September 6, I might be ordained, and have time to complete my outfit, which at that date was a very important matter. September 3 was fixed upon as our wedding day, the earliest date at which the demands of the laws of Maine and Vermont could be complied with. The ladies of the Portland church sent me a wedding suit from Messrs. Steven & Downes, who had my measure. The wedding is so well described by Mrs. Law- rence, in Light on the Dark River, pages 104 to 107, that I will pass over it entirely. Of the adults pres- ent at the solemnities, only one survives (1893), at the age of 102, Mrs. Deacon Gray, of Dorset. I reached Boston to hear that no vessel would go to Smyrna at present, but there would be one in a month or two. We waited till December 3, just three months. I attended the meeting of the Board in Portland, the last of September, and was ordained October 3, I 74 MV LIFE AND TIMES. right after the meeting. I saw Mary Lyon at that meeting, and had considerable interesting discussion about education. My young wife was very cordially and affectionately received by Portland friends. Then we went ta Waterford, for the dear mother must bid farewell to her youngest and most tenderly cared for son. It was a great gratification to her and sister Susan to see the wife I had chosen. They thought her very lovely, gentle, considerate, firm, and my dear mother said she could rejoice to yield her place to such an one. ''No, mother," I said, ''your place can never be taken by another. It is a brand-new place that is taken, and it only edges on yours." Our parting finally took place in Portland. Will not such partings be recalled when we reach the shore " where farewells are a word unknown " } Not one of the ministers is living (1893) who had part in my ordination. Just fifty years after my ordination, October 3, 1887, I was present at the centennial celebration of the Payson Church. Rev. J. W. Chickering, d.d., then the only survivor, was there present, and again we stood in the same pulpit — no, not the same. The pastor. Rev. Mr. Daniels, who gave the centennial history of the church, found no records of the church during my short ministry, and my name nowhere appears. A YEAR'S DELAY. 175 Evidently one book of records had been lost. There is evidence, however, outside of church records, to prove that I was actually there. The printed ser- •mon, charge, and right hand of fellowship at my ordination contain references to prove it, and there are perhaps twenty living witnesses at this present date (1893). At length our passage was engaged in the barque Eunomus, Captain Edward Drew ; first mate Hatch, a genuine old salt, and second mate Freeman, a young and ambitious sailor, whose widow and daughter reside in Wakefield in easy circumstances. One daughter is a successful teacher in Hampton Normal School, Virginia. I received my " instructions " from Dr. Anderson before a crowded audience in Park Street Church, December 2, and we embarked the following day. If I should mention all the interesting events of these last days, they could not have much interest for my readers. My brother came from Waterford ; the dear Fosters from Worcester ; my beloved college friend, Rev. James Means, arrived at the wharf two minutes late, but the Eunomus moved so slowly that he hurled at me a keepsake which fell upon the deck, and we shook hands through the air. Our Jackson friends at Andover chose to take the tender farewell there. Dr. Samuel Jackson had great admiration I 76 MV LIFE AND TIMES. and love for his sister Henrietta, but he never op- posed her choice. He wrote a very noble Christian letter to the family, so soon as he knew what pro- posal I had made to her. Mrs. Jackson was a lady whom no one could know without loving and respect- ing and remembering. It was a bitter cold day when we sailed. There was a large assembly at the wharf (India A/Vharf), and a very long prayer was made by Dr. Fay, of Charles- town. We came near martyrdom before reaching the right place. Mr. Foster's white handkerchief was the last object we could distinguish. The wind was almost a gale, and the shore receded very fast. In the cabin there was a smoky stove. We soon got smoked out and thawed out, and we tumbled into our bunks to begin the trying experience of sea- sickness. On the third day I threw it off and have not been troubled with it since. My intense anx- iety for the dear wife may have helped me. For two weeks, I think, she only rose to have the bed well shaken up, and that always caused a violent retching. The voyage was a very stormy one. Once we had to "heave to." The sea was in its sublimest mood and the phosphorescence of the waves revealed their towering splendor in magnifi- cence indescribable. The seventeenth day of the voyage was the first day I could walk the deck with- A YEAR 'S DELA V, 177 out having my feet washed by the waves. On the twenty-first and twenty-second of December, when we were approaching and passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, the sea was calm and beautiful. With indescribable emotions we looked upon the white walls of Ceuta of the African coast. There we were, Europe on the left, Africa on the right. " O Dark Continent," I apostrophized, '' I thought to give my life to thee, but it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." My dear, pale, emaciated wife could sit upon the deck, could begin to take some food, and was coming back to life. Her only nourishment had been a few spoonfuls of gruel each day, and the cook wanted to know what else she ate. V Nothing at all." "Then," he asked, " why don't she die ? " A whole week of calm or very light breezes did much to restore her, and to put the seamen out of humor. How like a paradise Sicily looked as we passed her verdant shores a few miles distant ! After that we had some very rough weather, and I was surprised to find the Mediterranean worse than the Atlantic in a storm. Instead of the majestic sweep of the Atlantic billows, the Mediterranean was short, choppy, and violent. On the eleventh we entered the harbor of Milo in a violent storm. The harbor is so completely landlocked that in a few minutes 178 MV LIFE AND TIMES. our gallant barque was gently anchored as in a placid lake. We were kept here by the storm till Monday, the fifteenth, when we got under way, but were driven back at night. Captain Drew and I made an inter- esting excursion upon the island. I saw, with deep- est interest, the Greeks in their own country, their costumes, industries, and modes of living. Their civilization seemed to me to be of the Middle Ages. They were friendly and polite. A young sailor, who could talk some English, came on board to inquire for his captain, Alexandros, who had gone to Boston to get his insurance on his lost vessel. He owed the sailor, and promised to pay him out of that. I had been on board that Greek vessel in the port of Boston some years before, and the Greek sailor and I agreed that we had talked or tried to talk with each other there. The Greeks lost their vessels so often and conveniently to themselves that the European insurance offices came to an understanding not to insure Greek vessels. This was a terrible blow to Greek commerce, and it brought them to their senses. On the seventeenth of January, 1839, ^^ reached Smyrna and stepped on Asiatic soil, forty-five days from Boston. We felt grateful for all the experience we had had of the guiding and protecting Hand, from A YEAR'S DELAY. 179 the day we left the Green Mountain home, four and a half months agone, to that hour. We saw, more- over, one of the Seven Churches, and perhaps the birthplace of Homer. We could look up to the place of the martyrdom of Polycarp. We had reached the lands of the Bible and of ancient history. Our reception by the missionaries, Temple, Adger, and Riggs, was most cordial. After ten days' re- freshing intercourse, we left in the steamer Stam- boul, of which we had read in America. It was, I believe, the first steamer that opened regular com- munication between Smyrna and the great capital. Other lines soon followed. The Dardanelles were the gates of Constantinople. While northerly winds prevailed no sailing vessel could pass through, and often commerce had to wait weeks for a wind. Steam made Constantinople a commercial city and brought the civilization, the arts, and the vices of the West and the East together in the Ottoman capital. Our passage Saturday afternoon up the Gulf of Smyrna was pleasant. We passed in the evening close to Lesbos, now Mytelene, but could only see its bold shores. Sunday it rained all day long. We only knew when we passed Tenedos and the shores made immortal by the Iliad. We anch- ored at night in the Golden Horn, too late to land, and our rain changed to snow. *. ' l80 MV LIFE AND TIMES. In the morning I rose early to see all the roofs covered with snow, the air chilly and uncomfortable. No breakfast before landing, and no landing till the health officers had made a diligent scrutiny as to our having had any possible contact with anything from Egypt, where the plague was then slaying its thousands. And this then is Constantinople ! Cold, discomfort, hunger, and doubt could only partially veil the glories of the scene. We bless God that we are here. CHAPTER VIII. LANDING AT CONSTANTINOPLE AND COMMENCEMENT OF MISSIONARY WORK. OO soon as "pratique" was given — leave to land •^ — the steamer was assailed by hundreds of caiques, every man vociferating for a passenger. We saw amid the insane, vociferating multitude a gentle- man standing erect in a Maltese boat nearly as broad as long, and making towards us. I said to wife ; "That is Mr. Homes!" I knew him from the portrait we saw in his father's house in Boston. Mr. Homes, of the firm Homes & Homer, hardware merchants, was known to all missionaries of the American Board. Every missionary and his wife must spend one night at his house before sailing, and he gave a razor to the man, and an elegant pair of shears to the lady. We were right glad to greet hfm. He apologized for his boat by saying that " Dr. Goodell enjoined him to take no other, lest we should be upset." The snow was melting, the eaves were pouring upon our heads, the streets were flowing with slush and filled with crowds of strangely dressed people ; 181 I 82 MY LIFE AND TIMES. but, with Mr. Homes to guide us and clear the way, we reached father Goodell's, and we had a reception as warm and cordial as though we were absent children just arrived at home. They had been wait- ing for us more than a year. A room with a lovely outlook was ready for us. In the evening Dr. and Mrs. Schauffler came in. We had a praise meeting and a social meeting, and the next day we settled down to study with Avedis Der Sahakian as teacher. Threats and plots of persecution were rife, but all things were otherwise undisturbed. The govern- ment was making great efforts to reduce Mehmet Aali of Egypt to submission, but his victorious son Ibrahim was subduing Syria. Two or three days of bad weather kept us all from an afternoon airing. The Goodells, old and young, were longing for a game of blindman's buff before dinner, which was at six p.m., but they were afraid it would shock our feelings of propriety. As for us, we were longing for anything like indoor gymnastics. Dr. Goodell incidentally remarked upon the necessity of keeping our health during this rainy weather. We might perhaps for the children's sake even be reduced to blindman's buff, if we could find nothine: else. '* That would be splendid," I replied. "I go for blindman's buff such a day as this." Rk\ . William Goodell, d.d. AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 183 He fairly shouted for joy. "Children, down to the lower hall ; the Hamlins will play buff with us! " We were a merry party and enjoyed the game much. When dinner came we were in a glow. One after another members of the " Avederanagan Miapanootiune " (the Evangelical Union) called to see and welcome us. The Union, I believe, had then twenty-two members. It was profoundly secret, for if known, every member would go to prison or exile instanter. In point of fact it was an active church. It had regular meetings. It had a secretary. The members in their individual capacity held corre- spondence with enlightened men, and with perhaps priests and vartabeds throughout the empire. The letters which they received were brought, read at their meetings and deposited with the secretary. The leader of these "Unionists" was Hohannes Der Sahakian, brother of our teacher. He could speak English, although with some difficulty. We were profoundly interested in what he told us of the signs of waking up in the sleepy old church all over the empire. The celebrated Dr. Robinson had just been here, and he went home and told the secretaries at the rooms that the missionaries in Constantinople were doing nothing worth all the expense ! It takes a great man to be a great fool! 184 ^y L^P^ ^^^ TIMES. We had been quietly studying but a few days, when to our surprise our teacher, Avedis, burst into our room out of breath, his face aflame and dripping with perspiration, and throwing a heavy bundle upon the floor exclaimed : *' This is of God ! Mr. Hamlin." As soon as he recovered breath, he told us that his brother was in prison at the patriarchate and would be sent into exile, but most providentially he had a chance to send by a faithful messenger this word : "Take all my papers quickly to Mr. Hamlin. Our house will be searched." In our grief and consternation I put all the let- ters,' journals, and records into this bag, and while I was putting some indifferent papers into his desk, behold the *'Jamgoch" were at the door! I seized this bag and ran down through our long, narrow garden which extends to a narrow lane. I threw the bag over, climbed over myself and went straight to the boat wharf, and jumping into a Turkish boat rowed straight to the foot of the hill nearest to Dr, Goodell's back gate. While I was climbing up this steep hill I saw the Jamgoch in a boat pursuing me. " Now put them where they can't be found, Mr. Hamlin," cried the teacher. " In five minutes they will be here. If they get all these papers and letters, five hundred men will be sent into exile, and you will AT CONSTANTINOPLE, 1 85 all be sent out of the country. You know they talk of that already." He was so excited that he was out of his wits, till Mr. Goodell fastened the back gate and would allow nobody to enter the front gate without knowing his business. The Jamgoch did not appear, and prob- ably the teacher was deceived by his excited imagi- nation. I went into a brick vault beneath the garden, de- signed for storing valuables in case of fire. It would have been almost useless, for it was half full of all ruined or useless or broken articles of every kind. Spiders and spiderwebs surpassed anything I had ever seen. I burrowed into that mass, found an empty cask into which I thrust the bag, and then filled in broken crockery and rusty tins till I knew neither rat nor mouse would penetrate it. Then restoring a covering of chaos, I bade the frightened spiders come back to their domains. The sack re- mained there almost two years, until the storm blew over. We were now without a teacher, and no Arme- nians dared to come to our houses. We immediately took modern Greek and French. The latter we could both read easily. My wife found her old French teacher in Dr. Schauffler. We had both studied ancient Greek. Now while we found these J 86 MY LIFE AND TIMES. Studies delightful, we also found that speaking a language is very different from reading or translating it off the printed page. As we could not pursue the Armenian, it was the best use we could make of our time, and we found the Greek and French not only useful all our lives, but often absolutely necessary. Keep to work; if cut off from one thing, take the next. Dr. Goodell had a very excellent helper in his Bible translation — a Greek gentleman, Mr. Panyotes. He came to me one day in some excitement, and said : " I have found a good teacher for you whom the Patriarch cannot touch. He is a Russian Armenian, Mesrobe by name, and I like him very much. I have met no such Armenian before. He is not only en- lightened, but he is a good Christian man." Of course we had no hesitation in taking him right into our service. He was a very modest man, and did not unfold himself at once, but every day we felt more and more that we had in him a prize of great value. The mystery of his character and attain- ments was explained when we found that he had studied six years in Bishops College, Calcutta, and had lived in some of the best English families there. He was a patriot like Paul '*for his brethren his kins- men according to the flesh," and his joy was great when he found I was devoted to education. He AT CONSTANTINOPLE. i87 i thought he saw the future he had long desired and prayed for. He had come all the way from Calcutta hoping to do something for his people, and for that object a rich uncle had sent him from Russia to Cal- cutta. He was a linguist, a poet, a student of his- tory, and a student of the Bible. His name was Mesrobe Taliatine, One day he went out to walk about noon, intending to be in at one o'clock to lunch. We never saw him again. Some two or three hours afterwards, a Per- sian Armenian,^ who had occasionally called upon him, came bringing a hastily written note very nearly as follows : — Dear, dear Mr. Hamlin, — My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. I am on board the Turkish steamer for Trebizond. I am des- tined to Siberia, by order of the Russian ambassador. Give the bearer my clothes, burn my manuscripts. I give my books to the mission library. Let all the brethren and sisters pray for me, for I am very sorrowful. Mesrobe Taliatine. Astonishment, indignation, and distress seized us. Dr. Schauffler hastened to the Russian palace to pro- test to the Ambassador Boutineff that we knew Mesrobe to be a good man, and that all the American missionaries were ready to go bail for him. Boutineff haughtily replied : " I might as well tell you now, Mr. Schauffler, that the Emperor of Russia, "^A professed friend, but a 5py and a Russian detective. 1 88 MV LIFE AND TIMES. who is my master, will never allow Protestantism to set its foot in Turkey." Dr. Schauffler saw the whole thing at a glance, and, bowing low to the ambassador, with equal dignity repUed : '' Your Excellency, the kingdom of Christ, who is my Master, will never ask the Emperor of all the Russias where it may set its foot;" and so retired. A fact was thus suddenly revealed to us which we were slow to learn — Russia's hostility to our mis- sions. I might be excused for learning it in these circumstances, but I was often laughed at as a crank on Russia. Time has grandly vindicated me. Mr. Mesrobe Taliatine made his escape in a most providential and interesting manner, as is narrated in Among the Turks, pp. 32-36. He became the editor of an evangelical newspaper in Armenian, published in Singapore, having reached Calcutta instead of Siberia. Russia's measures have often been a boom- erang to smite her in the face. We now returned again to Greek and French, and such stolen intercourse with Armenian as could be secured. A few young men came to us secretly, both to learn English and help us in Armenian. They were also interested in Bible truth as having author- ity over the church and over all consciences. During all the months of May and June, 1839, ^^e RkV. ^^ M, (I. ScilAllll.l'.R, DA), LI..1). AT CONSTANTINOPLE, 189 lion-hearted Sultan Mahmoud was dying, but still he was urging with his last breath the preparations of war for subduing his rebellious subject Mahmed Aali of Egypt. We were busily occupied in getting to housekeep- ing. A home of our own ! The first experience of home remains a unique memory for life. We found the dry-goods stores very unsatisfactory. Carpets and calicoes had flaring colors and big figures. An English lady (Mrs. Redhouse) who knew the lan- guages and could talk Turkish, Greek, and French, was going to housekeeping at the same time. She found at Ruboli's store a beautiful carpet pattern, and immediately informed us. Wife also found after much search some calico for sofa covering and cur- tains harmonizing with the carpet. Mr. Ruboli sent a man to make and fit the carpet and put it down. He worked with dispatch and precision, and we found it was his trade, his only trade. When it was completed with perfect neatness he charged me thirty piastres ($1.25), and I paid him willingly, but I gave him no backshish. I found afterwards that I should have given him fifteen piastres, and then five piastres as a backshish, and he would have been pro- foundly grateful. I had begun to learn the ways of the East. I had another experience, more funny and more igO MY LIFE AND TIMES. profitable. I priced an article of one hundred pias- tres. I said, *' No ; I will give you seventy." The trader rejected it with undisguised scorn and put the article back. I turned away and heard his partner demand, ** How much did he offer ? " *' Only forty piastres." ** Never mind ; call him back ;. better sell for that than not at all." So he called me back, and I coolly paid him forty piastres for the article for which I had offered him seventy. We found shop- ping most unpleasant because the price asked was no indication of its real market value. When at length we entered our house it was to us a palace. It needed no costly fittings to make it so. It was our own happy home. We had founded a king- dom, and each one acknowledged a king and a queen. I insert here the story of Marcus Brown, because its beginning belongs here : — It was a hot July day when, accidentally passing the great Turkish customhouse in Galata, Constanti- nople, I found a crowd obstructing the street. Pene- trating it, I found a poor mortal against the wall, apparently dying in the pains of cholera. His con- dition was indescribably revolting. I said : "Do you speak English.?" "Yes; your eyes!" he replied, turning upon me a look of anguish, or fierce hatred, I hardly knew which. He knew the inhuman crowd AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 191 was waiting to see him die. " Are you American or English ? " *' American," with the same or far worse profanity. I tried to get a couple of porters {hamals), usually ready for any such service, to take him and his sack of clothes to a sailor's boarding house near by. No one would touch him. I offered large pay in vain, when two noble colored sailors, Jamaica negroes, offered to take him without pay. The boarding house rejected us. We went to the English marine hospital, to be rejected in like manner. The two Jamaicans poured out the most awful malediction upon the English consul, to whom I appealed in vain, and the sick man joined them, until I ordered them to stop, in quick, sharp tones they were accustomed to hear on deck, and not an oath was uttered after that. I then had him carried to the boathouse of Nicola, a good, kind Italian boatman, who had nursed Cap- tain Holt, of Andover, through a long and dangerous illness. He assented to my leaving him in his bunk until I could run and call our doctor, Stamatiades The common sailors are generous fellows, faithful to each other unto death. I could not find our doctor, but in the search I most providentially met with Dr. Riach, a Scotch physician of experience in India and Persia. I seized upon him and took him to the boathouse. 192 MY LIFE AND TIMES. " Small chance for this poor fellow," said Dr. Riach ; " but administer this prescription ; it is all I would do for him to-night." The druggist first refused to make up the prescrip- tion, because "it would kill any man." But I com- pelled him to make it up quickly, and when I had administered it I found Dr. Stamatiades, who took the tase in hand with great kindness and attention. One evening he sent me word to come and bury Brown in the morning ; he would not live through the night, and the heat made immediate burial a necessity. I went, but the case had turned toward life, and Brown slowly recovered. The Rev. Mr. Hebard was staying with us, an invalid missionary from Beirilt. He visited Brown daily, or, if not able to, then Dr. Goodell or myself took his place. Brown seemed to be truly penitent for his sinful and abandoned life. He was about twenty-five, had learned to read in his boyhood, but had nearly lost all his learning in his vile, degraded life. Brother Hebard helped him recover what he had lost, and in two or three weeks he could read a chapter in the New Testament with some few hitches. When at length, after waiting for weeks, the consul found a passage for him home, he bade me good-by with a sailor's heart, and said, " I have AT CONSTANTINOPLE, 1 93 hitherto done all the evil I could in life, and now I am going to try to do good." So Marcus Brown departed and I did not hope to hear from him again. About a year after, Mr. Calhoun, a returned mis- sionary, wrote me : "Your sailor holds out a true Christian. I was in Father Taylor's prayer meeting, and when opportunity for prayer was given a sailor burst out with, * O God, I thank thee for the American missionaries. When I was dying, a poor blasphemous dog, in a street of Constantinople, thou didst send thy servants Hamlin, Hebard, and Goodell, to save me, soul and body ; ' and so on through a unique and earnest prayer which called forth hearty am ens." Mr. Calhoun failed to find him in the crowd after meeting, and perhaps another year passed when I had a very characteristic letter from Brown, not always correctly spelled, but full of life and earnest- ness. It began, *' Dear, dear Mr. Hamlin : Thank God I still survive the ded." He told of his ship- wreck when he " found his feet standing on the rock Christ Jesus," ** and now I am blowin' the gospel trumpet on the Erie Canal." I went over and read the letter to Father Goodell. He clapped his hands and said, " Let me begin the reply to that letter," and taking a sheet of paper he wrote : — 194 ^^ ^^^^ "^^^ TIMES. Dear Mr. Brown, — Blow away, brother, blow. Yours, in "blowin'" the same gospel trumpet, WILLIAM GOODELL. I know not if he ever received the letter. Twenty- eight years passed away from that contest with death on that hot July day, and in all the excitements, anxieties, and cares of missionary life, the rescued sailor was forgotten. In 1867 I was dining at the Hotel Newton, Rue de St. Augustine, Paris, at the time of the great Exposition, with William and Arthur Whitin, of Whitinsville, Mass. Near the close of the dinner, at which were seated men and women of different nations and languages, the gentle- man sitting at my right turned to me and said : — " I see you are from Constantinople, sir. May I ask if while there you chanced to meet with one Cyrus Hamlin "i " " I am the person you ask for, sir." After expressing his surprise and pleasure, he said: " I am just from Honolulu, and I have long wished I could ask you about a sailor. Brown, who has been a sort of sailors' missionary in the islands, and has done a great deal of good among the seamen of all nations. He has told me how he was dying, a 'blas- phemous dog' (his own language), in Constantinople, and how you rescued him, and so on and on. Now I want to know how much of this is a sailor's yarn, AT CONSTANTINOPLE, 1 95 or is it all true ? for he seems to be a man of great simplicity and sincerity." " Why, the sailor Brown ! " I replied. " I had for- gotten him. It is all true, and I bless God that I hear from him again." The reader will see in this brief story that we can rarely know what good may result from a simple act of kindness or humanity. Once in a while the good done may become known, but not often. Constanti- nople, Boston, Erie Canal, Honolulu, and Paris, with twenty-eight years between do not often come to- gether to reveal what is done. But no good deed is lost. *^ God will multiply your seed sown, and increase your fruits of righteousness." But skies were lowering. Reports were rife that the missionaries were all to be driven out of the em- pire. The hostility of Catholics, Armenians, Greeks was expressed in every possible way. We had some real friends among them who said to us : *' Lie low, don't move, don't appear much abroad, keep out of sight, and the storm will blow over." We knew our position to be critical. Even Dr. Goodell's wonted cheerfulness was clouded with anxiety. A distin- guished banker had assured him that the Patriarch had been promised the expulsion of all the mission- aries. Of course Boutineff's hand was in it. •196 MY LIFE AND TIMES. We gave ourselves unto prayer, morning, noon, and night. Nothing brings us to *' Our Father who art in heaven," Hke the failures of earthly supports and the gathering forces of irresistible foes. I was in Dr. Goodell's study with Schauffler when one of the children came and said : '' Mr. J. P. Brown wants to see you." " Let him come right in," said Dr. Goodell. Mr. Brown's salutation alarmed Dr. Goodell, and he said : " What is the matter, Mr. Brown ? " Whereupon he took out Commodore Porter's reply to a dispatch from the Sublime Porte that the government could no longer be answerable for the safety of the American missionaries, and they must at once retire from the country. The astounding reply of the commodore was that he had no official duties in regard to missionaries, but he would inform the gentlemen concerned, who would act for themselves. Mr. Brown said it was his official duty to go straight to the Sublime Porte, but his mother (the commodore's sister) made him promise to let Dr. Goodell see the dispatch. Here was the blow that had been threatened. Messrs. Goodell and Schauffler immediately took horses for a ride of ten or twelve miles to San Stefano to remonstrate. The commodore was a warm friend to all the missio*naries, and especially to AT CONSTANTINOPLE, 1 97 Goodell and Schauffler, but all the change he would make was that he must communicate with his gov- ernment, and he would expect the usual protection until he should hear from Washington. He was very positive and firm in any position he took, and he was sure our government would decide that, having only a commercial treaty with the Porte, it could not claim any protection for the missionaries. He laughed at the confidence of Drs. Goodell and Schauffler to the contrary. We immediately prepared our appeal to our government on the basis of the most favored nation clause in the treaty and claimed the same rights which the Roman Catholic missionaries enjoyed. In the meantime the missionaries throughout the land gave themselves unto prayer. They had come into that condition by the command of Him who had said : " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore," etc. Now our position had become defined we felt more at ease. We resolved to go only when arrested by officers of government and compelled to go, and we should then claim time for prepara- tion. We could then have no protection from the English embassy, for Lord Ponsonby, unlike his successor Sir Stratford Canning, although a Protestant, had a supercilious contempt for all missionaries. When we appealed to him in behalf 198 MY LIFE AND TIMES. of some exiled Armenians, he replied to us in a style which no gentleman and no true diplomat would ever use. While we were in this waiting mood, encouraging ourselves in the Lord, events were about to occur which alarmed all Europe. Hearing very contradic- tory accounts of the health of the sultan, I resolved to go and see him — that is, to go and see him enter the mosque at Friday prayers. It was to be at a mosque at the water's side on the Asiatic shore. I gained a position close to the stairs directly behind the last soldier of the line drawn up to the stairs. The approach of the magnificent boats was a pageant that only the Bosphorus offers to the eye. Two pashas were sitting by his side, and they lifted him as he rose and sustained him up the steps. The sweat stood in drops on his face. His eagle eye seemed to soar above the approach of death, but it was plain to every beholder that this was the last pageant of prayer for the dying caliph, and so it proved. He had with great difficulty raised an army to meet the victorious rebel Ibrahim Pasha in Mesopo- tamia. His fleet had been restored since the destruc- tion at Navarino, and a few days before his death it had left the Bosphorus with such thunders of artil- lery as I had never heard. At the time I was pass- ing very uncomfortably near the line of battle ships AT CONSTANTINOPLE, 199 in a caique, but was entranced by the power and grandeur of the spectacle. The sultan had been laid away in the tomb but a few days, when the astound- ing news arrived that his army had been beaten and dispersed at Nedjib, and his entire fleet had been be- trayed into the hands of the enemy. The world at the capital looked for the Russians daily, but Russia was caught napping; she was not ready. The young Abdul Medjid ascended the throne peaceably; Eng- land took the lead in settling the question.^ The personnel of the government was so com- pletely changed and the political condition so absorb- ing, that we felt we were safe in our obscurity and could go on with our work unnoticed. Where were our persecutors } The breath of the Lord had swept them away. Our anxiety for the response from Washington was alleviated greatly. Just for the present it had lost its interest. Daniel Webster was then, I believe. Secretary of State ; the answer at all events was Websterian and surprised Commodore Porter as much as it delighted us. Our early housekeeping had shadows to tone down its light and joy. The loss of our teacher' Mesrobe was one, although the joy at his escape was such a compensation that we could only give thanks at every remembrance of him. Our very nice servant ^ See Among the Turks, p. 39. 200 MV LIFE AND TIMES, girl Maria, to whom my dear wife had become per- sonally attached, died of confluent smallpox. We had to vacate the house for a week to have it thor- oughly disinfected. Dr. Goodell found us a place with an Italian woman who was very kind to us. It was fun to talk with her, as neither knew the other's language. But she knew a little French and a little Greek, and was jubilant when she got the idea. Our house had been most thoroughly disinfected with chlorine gas, and when we returned we found every iron and steel article covered with a beautiful coat of oxide of iron. Table knives wrapped up in oiled paper and then in linen and packed close and hard in a box were covered with a rust so fine that it seemed a pity to disturb it. The polish was easily restored, but the beautiful Maria could no longer use them. Henrietta had become quite able to communicate with her in Greek, and felt her loss daily, although she obtained another who was quite her equal. Another shadow was the expectation of the plague. Dr. Schauffler left me a bottle of plague matter reduced homeopathically to a high potenti- ality, and he gave me many useful suggestions as to how to avoid the contagion. I threw the bottle into the Bosphorus, for I had no faith in homeopathy. Quarantine has been a complete protection of the AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 201 capital against the destroyer. For the first few years of our residence, an occasional vessel from Egypt would come in with cases on board, but would be immediately quarantined and carefully guarded. Our firstborn, Henrietta Ann Loraine, came on to the stage of action December $. 1839. The monthly nurse was Mrs. Elkins, the wife of an English engineer. She was a good Wesleyan woman, who had been in the country two years. Having no children of her own, and her husband being most of the time away, she was glad of such an occupation. She would not attend the English chapel, and did not come to the American chapel because "they preached American, and she would not understand a word." Great was her surprise to find how well we spoke the English language. She was a very nice woman, but her insular and English notions afforded us a great deal of amusement. It is somewhat problematical whether she was ever fully convinced that we, in common with all Americans, were not of the aboriginal class. Henrietta second was a great laugher from her babyhood, and she still laughs some^ on occasion ; but she is sobering down, and by the time she is threescore and ten will be a fine dignified old lady. Dr. Stamatiades said she was born the most perfect child he ever saw in his life, and we believed him implicitly. 202 MY LIFE AND TIMES. When but a few days old — memory is too treach- erous to be confident of the exact number — I placed the face of the child within a few inches of a bou- quet of very bright little flowers pictured on the sofa cushion. She smiled at once. Speaking of it to Mrs. Goodell at her house, she thought it time to take me to task. She said : '' Now, Mr. Hamlin,, don't make yourself silly over that child. It is a sweet and beautiful child, and that is enough ; but it is not one of the seven wonders of the world. No child at that age ever smiled at anything ! " ** No, Mrs. Goodell ; she is not one of the seven wonders of the world ; she is our one and only won- der ; but you shall come over to my house, and I will prove to you that I have not exaggerated in the least." When she came in I repeated the experiment, and she confessed it was true. After this signal triumph I let Henrietta second fight her own way to favor. She was on her feet betimes and began to learn her letters early. She brought her book one day to read her A B C's ; but she was flighty, and after other things, and I gave her her book and said : " Here, you little stupid thing, run away." She went right to her mother and read so well that she praised her ; and the child, looking up very earnestly in her mother's face, said: ** I am not a little 'tupid t'ing, am I .-* " Rk\. IlKMn A. IIoMI' s, [ L.I). AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 203 I had no thought that she would attach any mean- ing to the word. She knew and talked Greek better than English. The only precocious thing about her was her jolly laughter and her apprehension of the ludicrous. Neighbors used to come in to make her laugh for the fun of it till we had to object. One day she took my stovepipe hat and used it very improperly, and then laughed and danced up and down with glee, as much as to say, " Have n't I played a huge joke on my papa.?" You can't pun- ish a child till you stop laughing yourself. Henrietta second had considerable will, but she always caved in at last, and on the whole we consid- ered her quite a model child. The rest came along about equal to her, only they were not the first. She was very much a child after her dear mother's own heart. I have presented in these pages the likenesses of the four missionaries residing at Constantinople- in 1839. They were to be my beloved and honored associates for many laborious, anxious, yet happy vears. They are too well known to the. Christian public to need any remark here. Mr. Homes was designated to the Mohammedans. He became a profound Oriental scholar. He rendered important and highly valued aid to other departments of the mission ; but there was no access to the mind of: 204 MY LIFE AND TIMES. Islam, and after some years he retired. He became the distinguished and honored librarian of the New York state library in Albany. CHAPTER IX, BEBEK SEMINARY. T~AURING the winter of 1839-40 we were much -■— ^ concerned about our mission work and Hfe. Persecution was so severe and the fear of exile or anathema so great that few Armenians dared to call upon us. Our third teacher, Melkon, was wasting away in consumption. I had come to organize a seminary or high school, and if I could only find a suitable place, not amid an Armenian population to watch us, we might have a few scholars, and be at least in the way of gaining a colloquial use of the language. The station did not believe we could hire a house without concealing our object, which we would not do, or that we could keep a single student against the power of the Patriarch. But Mr. Hebard was with us again, in still failing health, and he helped to forward the plan with great zeal. '* Fear thou not. Be of good courage. They that be for you are more than they that be with them." Courage is always contagious, and finally the station authorized me, by vote, to seek a suitable house. 205 2o6 MV LIFE AND TIMES. I have no lecord of how many quarters of Pera, Galata, St. Demetri, Scutari, Chalcedon, and both sides of the Bosphorus I visited. " Telals " a plenty to find exactly the thing that would suit us. Our Greek friends, Mr. Panyotes and Dr. Stamatiades, helped me more than all the rest. Generally if we found a place that really suited us, the moment a school was mentioned, or that we should have a few boarders who would study English and other things with us, the jig was up. At length Dr. Stamatiades came and said he thought he had heard of the right place, and off we went to see it in Scutari by the sea. He pointed it out from our caique. I said at once: ''There is the place for a college." This building was at least one hundred and fifty feet long, two stories, in the lower no windows, but square holes, say one foot square. When we entered we were amazed at the length and absence of width. Nobody but a Turk would ever erect such a building. A Greek friend with us said in expressive Greek to the doctor as we looked back upon it : ** The outside a bishop, the inside a poor lousy monk ! " After long search, we found a house in Bebek, that had been occupied by an Englishman, a Mr. Perkins, who had married a Greek lady. The father-in-law did not like the match, and hired two Montenegrins to assassinate him. Mr. Perkins partially avoided BEBEK SEMINARY, 207 the assassin's vigorous plunge meant for the heart, but received a dangerous wound. On recovering, he changed his residence to Smyrna.^ The affair cast an evil omen upon the house, and the owner was ready to let the house for a school or any other pur- pose whatever. I made the contract at once, but the owner would not give possession till November. I hired five enormous rooms at a small price for three months in the great old Madriarki palace in Arnaout Keuy. This great building has since been cut up into three dwellings, and a part taken down. Some of the neighbors became greatly interested in little Henrietta, and she had more attention than we liked. The rooms were of such immense size and height, and opened into each other through such immense doors, and the Bosphorus breezes were so fresh, that we had little occasion for outdoor exercise. Fixing two wheels and a pole to a box, I had a nice carriage for our little queen, and I could run more than one hundred feet in a straight line without turning. Brother Hebard was with us for a few weeks, enjoying this huge old building from which dancing 1 The assassins were not paid, because their work was not done. A few months later one of them appeared in Mr. Perkins' office and told him just how it was. " Now you pay me and your life is henceforth safe. If not, you will have a fatal blow the next time." Mr. Perkins unlocked his safe, paid him £,"20, recognizing the man perfectly well, and after that he felt safe, as indeed he was. 208 MY LIFE AND TIMES. and revelry had forever departed. The beloved and saintly Mrs. Powers (Harriet Goulding) was also our guest with her husband. Both of these missionaries were of priceless worth. Mr. Hebard and Mrs. Powers were earnestly seeking health, but were to find it only by passing over Jordan. Mr. Hebard died in Malta and Mrs. Powers in America after very long sufferings. Their memories are blessed. Mr. Hebard had great influence with the station, as I have said above, in urging us to take the risk of opening the seminary, even if the prospect of success should be a cloudy one. I was never indisposed to take a risk, if the thing were desirable, and the chances amounted to some degree of probability. I thought the station too cautious and conservative, but they had experienced the powers of persecution to break up schools, and I had not. The time at length came when the house in Bebek was delivered to me, and the owner, already in advanced pulmonary consumption, retired to another house to die. November 4, 1840, I moved into the house, having had a few days to get it ready. I think two scholars, Avedis and Toros, came the same day to the school- room, already prepared for twelve, the number we proposed to take the first year, if we could get them. And so Bebek Seminary began its career. Avedis was a youth of tlioughtful mind, not ready BEBEK SEMINARY, 209 to receive a thing as true because he had heard it or read it, but would turn it over in his mind until he could become satisfied. For example, that God created the universe out of nothing was a great stumbling-block to him. He believed matter was eternal, and yet he could be made to see the absurdity of that. He was for some years a native pastor, too much disposed to profitless speculations. He finally became a business man. He died in early life. Toros was a heedless youth, good-natured, of fair capacity, but in the whole cast of his character wholly unsuited to be a missionary helper in any department. He became a dragoman to the great English engineer, Mr. John Hague, was employed in large government works, and thence he entered the naval arsenal of construction as dragoman-in- chief. He became a successful man of good station and influence, always a friend to education and to Bebek Seminary. He bestowed great care upon the education of his daughters; He also died in middle life, leaving a competence to his well-educated family. Our limited number was soon full. It was com- posed of youth of various ages between fourteen and twenty. They were generally from poor families or were rejected from richer families on account of their strong determination to obtain an education. Board and instruction were free, but every student 2IO MY LIFE AND TIMES. was required to provide himself a bed, bedding, clothing, books, and stationery. Some of them had to be helped in various ways to meet even these ex- penses, or they would have been compelled to leave, I had been in the country a year and nine months, but, owing to the persecution, had been much of the time without a teacher and cut off from intercourse with the people. Now I had come into circum- stances favorable to the acquisition of the colloquial Armenian. As I found a great many Turkish words mixed in, I resolved not to use them, but so far as possible to speak a pure Armenian. Bebek Semi- nary had no small influence in the introduction of a purer style of speaking and writing the modern Armenian. It was then a rough uncultivated lan- guage ; the Catholic Armenians spurned it and chose the Turkish. Our mission saw clearly that, as the language of the Armenian race, we must adopt it and make the best of it. The idea of translating the Bible into such a language was ridiculed. There was a very imperfect translation of the New Testament, and it was referred to with contempt. But it was far better than scores of languages into which the Scriptures have gone with renovating power. The history of missions proves, by many examples, that no language is so degraded that the simple truths of C