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BX 9225 .J63 R62 1914 
 Robinson, Charles Edward, 
 
 1835- 
 Herrick Johnson 
 
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HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 An Appreciative Memoir 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES E. ROBINSON, D.D. 
 
 Author of 
 •* Maltbic Davenport Babcock : A Reminiscent Sketch " 
 
 Nkw Yoar 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1914, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
TO 
 
 iWrs;. Jlerricfe HToSnsfon 
 
 who has won the gratitude 
 
 and love of Dr. Johnson's many friends 
 
 by the love and happy home and tender care 
 
 she gave him during the last years of his life. 
 
 This Memoir 
 
 is respectfully dedicated by the Author 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 AS this tribute to the memory of one so 
 widely beloved goes out from the press, 
 ""I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness 
 to those who have generously aided me in pre- 
 paring it and to tender my thanks. Were it not 
 for the remarkable work done by the first Mrs. 
 Johnson in preserving in many scrapbooks 
 items that helped to tell the story of her hus- 
 band's large, full life, this memoir could not 
 have been prepared at all. It was one of the 
 many ways through which she expressed her 
 devotion to him through the nearly fifty years of 
 their singularly happy life. Nor should I fail to 
 thank Mrs. Blinn, widow of the Rev. H. G. Blinn, 
 formerly of Cambridge, N. Y., for opening up 
 the treasures of her youth and giving me access 
 to a delightful correspondence she had with Dr. 
 Johnson in his early life. But for this great 
 kindness the specially interesting features of his 
 fine boyhood and young manhood could not have 
 been brought to light. His sister, Mrs. Oscar 
 Gray, of St. Louis, Mo., also furnished most 
 interesting material for that period, for which 
 I am indebted. 
 From Dr. E. C. Ray, D.D., for many years 
 
 5 
 
6 FOREWORD 
 
 Secretary of the College Board of the Presby- 
 terian Church, who knew Dr. Johnson most 
 intimately; Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, and the 
 Faculty of the McCormick Theological Seminary 
 in Chicago, and from my publishers, I have re- 
 ceived very marked encouragement in my im- 
 perfect effort to portray the impressive and 
 inspiring personality of this noble friend and 
 teacher of men. For it all I am both apprecia- 
 tive and thankful, as I am for the helpful sym- 
 pathy of the present Mrs. Johnson, which I have 
 expressed in my desire to dedicate this book to 
 her. I only wish it were a better, a finer book — 
 one not showing so plainly the effect of declining 
 years. Yet whatever its merits, whatever its 
 shortcomings, it is offered in tender tribute to the 
 memory of the man I knew and loved so well. 
 
 Charles E. Robinson. 
 
 Pelham Manor, N. Y., 
 August 2j, 1914. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I Early Years and Memories . . 9 
 
 II Troy, N. Y., i860- 1863 — Pittsburgh, 
 Pa., 1 863- 1 867 — Marquette, Mich., 
 1868 34 
 
 III Philadelphia, 1868- 1874 ... 48 
 
 IV Auburn Theological Seminary, 
 
 1874-1880 68 
 
 V Fourth Presbyterian Church of 
 
 Chicago, III., 1880-1883 • 83 
 
 VI McCoRMicK Theological Seminary, 
 
 1883-1903 98 
 
 VII Afternoon and Evening Time, 1905- 
 
 1913 147 
 
" Master in his work, distinguished in per- 
 sonaHty, a prince of preachers, educator and 
 leader of leaders, a consummate Christian states- 
 man, superb in assemblies, fearless knight of the 
 conscience, courageous commander of the forces 
 of righteousness, exponent of every grace of 
 courteous manhood, and, above all, linking to 
 himself, by the powder of love and gratitude, the 
 men of the ministry in all parts of the world, 
 who sat at his feet." 
 
 (Quoted from Dr. Hill's opening address at the great 
 memorial service held in the First Presbyterian 
 Church, Philadelphia, Dec. 7, 1913). 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 
 
 " Preaching is to take the truths of Holy Scripture, and 
 unfold, illustrate, and amplify them for enlighten- 
 ment and persuasion, and under the guidance of 
 the Holy Spirit to have them intensified by profound 
 personal conviction, fused in the fire of one's own 
 soul, poured upon waiting ears and hearts from 
 lips touched with God's altar fires, and accompanied 
 by every possible adjunct of effective posture and 
 gesture and voice — this is preaching." 
 
 — Herrick Johnson. 
 
 HERRICK JOHNSON and I met for the 
 first time in September, 1853, at Ham- 
 ilton College, where we entered the class 
 of '57. We soon afterward joined the Alpha 
 Delta Phi Society, which at once brought us into 
 an intimate association, out of which grew the 
 friendship of our Hfe, strengthening with the 
 years, until his death in November, 1913. The 
 last ten years were the best of all, intimate and 
 affectionate to the close. It was in these last 
 years that, in great modesty, he exacted a prom- 
 ise from me, that if a biography of him were 
 thought worth while, I should have charge of it, 
 should I survive him. It comes to me therefore 
 as a sacred trust, but with a profound sense' 
 
 9 
 
10 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 of being unequal to a task (especially on account 
 of the infirmities of years) which calls for a 
 vigor and intellectual vivacity of which the many 
 years of my life may have deprived me. But at 
 the strong desire of his family and closest friends 
 I take it up, with the hope and prayer that the 
 devoted friendship of our sixty years may sup- 
 plement the loss of other things. 
 
 When Herrick Johnson entered college he was 
 tall, lithe, athletic, with a serious purpose even 
 then stamped on his face, but with also a merry 
 heart, a keen sense of humor, and a hearty laugh 
 which was most contagious. The corridor in 
 which he roomed was not a particularly quiet 
 one. He loved noise, his physical enjoyment of 
 life was very intense, and his shout and song 
 rang through the College halls. 
 
 I learned later that he was born in Kaughne- 
 waga, in the town of Fonda, N. Y., September 
 22, 1832. His father was Mr. J. Jay Johnson, 
 his mother Mrs. Lydia French Herrick John- 
 son. His mother died comparatively early, leav- 
 ing two sons. Jay and Herrick. Mr. Johnson 
 was a commission merchant, who is said to have 
 built the first grain elevator in the city of Buffalo. 
 
 The family was well-to-do. Mr. Johnson's 
 older brothers belonged to the class known as 
 gentlemen farmers in New York State. He 
 married, for his second wife, Miss S. Katherine 
 Hequembourg. The fruit of this marriage was 
 a daughter, still living (Mrs. Oscar Gray of 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 11 
 
 St. Louis, Mo.), who, on the death of her father, 
 became the tender charge of her half-brother 
 Herrick, who, with characteristic thoiightfulness 
 and affection, attended to her education, seeing 
 to her graduation at the then famous Seminary 
 of Mrs. Emma Willard, Troy, N. Y., and as all 
 who know him would be prepared to believe, 
 he was a most devoted brother. There was also 
 a sister Margaret, who died a few years ago, 
 and Mr. Charles W. Johnson, now residing in 
 Webster Groves, Mo. 
 
 Herrick Johnson's eldest brother was Jay 
 Johnson, a civil engineer, who died in a fire in 
 Nevada, in a supposedly fireproof building, 
 where, in the dense smoke, he had gone to secure 
 a map which he had made. Little is known 
 about him; but the effect of his awful death on 
 his father, completely prostrating him and from 
 which he never rallied, showed that the son pos- 
 sessed qualities of mind and heart that made 
 him inexpressibly dear to his father. Had Mr. 
 Johnson realized into what a splendid manhood 
 and glorious career of usefulness his younger 
 son Herrick would develop, he might possibly 
 have rallied his powers to live for him. 
 
 Mr. Johnson sent his son Herrick to James- 
 town, N. Y., to prepare for college. Here the 
 brother of his second wife lived, a gentleman of 
 rare nature and culture, the Rev. Charles E. 
 Hequembourg, a graduate of Yale and at that 
 time the pastor of a church at Jamestown. Her- 
 
12 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 rick loved him, and had a short but happy stay 
 under his roof. Jamestown was at that time 
 noted for its culture, refinement, and churches, 
 and there were three men in the town who 
 exerted a peculiarly strong influence upon the 
 young man's intellectual, moral, and spiritual 
 life. They were his stepmother's brother, the 
 Rev. Charles E. Hequembourg, just referred to; 
 a very influential Dr. Gray, a man of devoted 
 piety, to whom Herrick used often to refer, 
 especially as to his remarkable power in prayer, 
 and, later, the Rev. H. G. Blinn, who married 
 a daughter of Dr. Gray's and who, with his wife 
 and her family, were immediately instrumental 
 in the conversion of Herrick Johnson. This 
 daughter of Dr. Gray, Mrs. Blinn, was a young 
 woman of remarkable presence and intellectual 
 power. She became an intimate friend of Her- 
 rick's, and at that early period of his life exerted 
 over him a very quickening and intellectual 
 influence. Their correspondence through all his 
 early life was very delightful. Occasionally 
 some of Herrick's college friends had an oppor- 
 tunity to read a letter of hers, and they never 
 forgot it. Undoubtedly Herrick owed more than 
 can be told to his association with Jamestown 
 life. Mrs. Blinn is still living in honorable 
 retirement at Cambridge, Washington County, 
 N. Y., cherishing the precious memories of that 
 early friendship. 
 
 In his letters to his dear friend Mrs. Blinn at 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 13 
 
 this time of his Hfe Herrick frequently refers to 
 his intense desire for the conversion of his father 
 and his fervent prayer for him, and at the time 
 of his death, which occurred while Herrick was 
 in Hamilton College, he writes to her, October 
 5, 1855, as follows : ** Yesterday I stood at the 
 bedside of my father and saw him die. Without 
 pain or paroxysm he breathed his last breath, and 
 went almost smiling into eternity. His expres- 
 sion ever since has been so pleasant, so unlike 
 death, that it almost assures me he is at rest. 
 And yet — and yet — my sister, he never gave me 
 evidence of a change of heart. When I came to 
 him in this last sickness, he recognized me, 
 indeed, and could speak rationally now and then, 
 but his mind wandered so frequently that I could 
 say nothing to him of Jesus. He told Dr. Reed, 
 the minister, that he was ready and willing to 
 die. Fearing, doubting, trembling, I am assured 
 of nothing. But I did so long for some evidences 
 of his acceptance. It makes me doubt my own, 
 for surely I have been conscious of as faithful, 
 earnest heartfelt prayer for him as for myself. 
 It is all dark, drearily dark, and yet I am calm, 
 so calm it almost alarms me. Be pitiful, O God ! 
 —Herrick." 
 
 Referring to his sense of loss in the death of 
 his mother, who died in his early youth, and to 
 his longing for home, he replied as follows to 
 Mrs. Blinn's question as to whether he ever 
 thought of her father's home (Dr. Gray's), 
 
U HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 where he was ever most welcome : '' Think of 
 it? think of it, do you say? The home that has 
 been mine in some sense as it has been yours, 
 don't I think of it? Do you remember the little 
 stranger lad that stood leaning on a gate looking 
 over at that same home ten years ago this next 
 Thanksgiving Day? He remembers the leaning 
 and the looking, and how two years after God 
 gave him a place at the board by the hearth, 
 and at the altar of that blessed home, and how 
 the dear group he found there gave him a place 
 in their hearts. To-day — to-day, he is full to 
 weeping, dear friend, at the memory of it, while 
 he thanks God for the gift. He wasn't grateful 
 to the Giver then, not until those same hearts had 
 agonized for the adopted one, not until one of 
 that loved circle [Mrs. Blinn, to whom he was 
 writing, herself young in the Divine life] came 
 from her closet with God one Sabbath and told 
 him in her own sweet simple way the story of the 
 Cross and said, ' Be a Christian, Herrick.' Let 
 the tears fall, for they are holy. And he remem- 
 bers the mother in that home, how she loved 
 the newly-born child of God, cared for him, 
 prayed for him, counselled him; and how she 
 died, triumphantly, gloriously, peacefully, and 
 then ' went Home indeed.' What a rush 
 of precious holy memories, and how they all 
 cluster there. That home ! That home ! Don't 
 I think of it ? shall I ever forget it ? " 
 
 Both Herrick and myself had a most intimate 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 15 
 
 friend, who died suddenly in his Junior year — 
 Charles M. Ferrin, from Watertown, N. Y. 
 Still writing to Mrs. Blinn, he poured out his 
 heart in grief : '' Charlie had become very dear 
 to me. Our intimacy of a year and more, our 
 close companionship, our daily worship at a 
 common altar, our precious evening prayers, 
 when we together met with God, had served to 
 bind my heart to him much closer than I had 
 thought. I knew not that I loved him half so 
 well, until I saw him passing away. He met 
 with an accident while riding downhill, result- 
 ing in congestion of the brain, from which he 
 died. He passed into a state of stupor out of 
 which he never came. For three days and nights 
 I watched beside him, wishing, longing, praying 
 for some signs of recognition, but not a word, 
 not a look, was given. When his mother, who 
 had been summoned to his bedside and who had 
 lost an older son in the same college, some years 
 before, besought him to speak to her and there 
 was no response, it was enough to unman the 
 stoutest heart, and I wept like a child. Fare- 
 well, Chum Charlie — Angel Charlie — till we meet 
 again to make sweet melody with our hearts in 
 Heaven. Farewell ! " 
 
 Mrs. Blinn writes me very suggestively of that 
 early life : *' When Herrick came to us, he was 
 a clean, rollicking, cheery boy, seeming to have 
 no thought at all of the spiritual life. Mr. Blinn 
 followed Mr. Hequembourg very soon after 
 
16 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Herrick's coming to Jamestown, and then, at 
 once, he became one of our family. When the 
 season of the great revival in our church, under 
 Mr. Blinn's ministry, came,^ Herrick was boy- 
 ishly inclined (not to sneer) but to take the 
 subject very lightly, apparently. We all loved 
 him, and he and I, fellow-students in the Acad- 
 emy, were the best of friends — really comrades — 
 engaged in much the same studies, and both 
 somewhat of a literary turn of mind. Being on 
 such terms, I and he had a considerable influence 
 over each other. Then, when the religious in- 
 terest in our church deepened, I being already 
 a communicant, and very desirous of influencing 
 him in things of the spirit, began to try to turn 
 his attention that way. He tried to laugh at 
 me, but I ' screwed up my courage ' and resisted 
 his ridicule. My parents were godly people and 
 always at the family altar, where all members of 
 the family, who were not yet numbered among 
 those confessing Christ as their personal Savior, 
 were specially remembered. Herrick still held 
 aloof. But to me, his girl comrade, and to my 
 godly father and my most lovely mother, he 
 always attributed his turning at that time unto 
 God. It was in 1847 he became an inmate in our 
 family. In 1850, I married and left home. Her- 
 rick's union with our family was that of a son 
 and brother, and so continued until his mar- 
 riage in i860. As I have said above, he was a 
 particularly bright, intelligent lad, more than 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 17 
 
 clever, honest, square, generous to a fault ; up- 
 right, with absolutely nothing low or mean in 
 spirit, or soul, or heart, or temper. Amiable, 
 lovely, and loving. He had a most affectionate, 
 sympathetic heart." 
 
 Although the letter here following was writ- 
 ten to Dr. McCook, June, 1902, from Lake 
 Mohonk, I quote it here, at the outset, as it 
 relates especially to Dr. Johnson's boyhood. It 
 was written to correct a statement made by 
 Dr. McCook in an address on Dr. Johnson, who 
 at that time, in the great debates of the Revision 
 of the Standards, was in the forefront of the 
 contest, and many people were interested in his 
 possible early history. Dr. McCook stated that 
 Dr. Johnson began life as an errand boy and a 
 stable boy, and Dr. Johnson in this letter seeks 
 to correct the erroneous statement : 
 
 " Dear Dr. McCook : The picture you painted 
 by your imagination has a good deal of basis in 
 fact. The town was Jamestown, in western 
 New York. Dr. Alfred Gray was the physician ; 
 a bright, keen-spirited, and swift little mare 
 called Nellie was the horse, and I was the boy. 
 And there I first studied Latin. But I became 
 devotedly attached to the household before I 
 became a Christian, and spent months in the 
 beautiful home, before I went back to prepare 
 for college, in order that I might become a 
 Minister of the Gospel. In the loft of that barn, 
 
18 lERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 in earlier days, I cried to God for mercy, and 
 after an ' inquiry meeting ' in the old First 
 Church, I went into the basement and there, 
 alone in the dark, I found the light and the peace 
 of God. I went back that next spring to Buffalo, 
 where my father lived, a respectable, fairly well- 
 to-do business man, and renewed the occupation 
 of the previous year, taking my old position in a 
 forwarding and commission office, but with my 
 heart no longer in trade. The desire was planted 
 in me, and it grew and grew as the days and 
 weeks and months went by, that I must be a 
 preacher of the Gospel. That desire never left 
 me. I waited a year to test it, that I might surely 
 know whether it was a temporary enthusiasm 
 born of the hour, or a conviction born of the 
 Spirit of God. Meanwhile, I kept at my post 
 as a shipping clerk, having made public profes- 
 sion of my faith in Christ, and united with the 
 First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, of which 
 Dr. M. L. P. Thompson was then the pastor. 
 
 " Later I talked with my father of my growing 
 conviction and desire to become a minister. He 
 was surprised and disappointed. He had counted 
 on a business career for me. I had already won 
 the confidence of the house in which I was em- 
 ployed, and had very gratifying assurances from 
 the head of it. This study for the ministry meant 
 eight or nine years of academic training. My 
 father was opposed to it. He had no objection to 
 the ministry as such, while not then a professing 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 19 
 
 Christian. He attended regularly the services 
 of the sanctuary, and contributed regularly to 
 its support. But he had set his heart upon my 
 achieving business success. After further con- 
 sideration, I went to him again, some weeks later, 
 and told him that the desire had grown with the 
 lapse of time and that I must have his consent 
 to begin preparation for college. He gave it, 
 but said his circumstances were such that he 
 could not render me any assistance at all ad- 
 equate to the need. He had always cared for 
 his family by a reasonable competence. We 
 children had had a good common school, and I 
 an excellent private school, education, but I had 
 never touched the classics. At one time my 
 father was quite successful in the forwarding 
 and commission business, being one of a com- 
 pany running a special line of boats of their own 
 on the Erie Canal between Buffalo and Albany, 
 but he had met with reverses, and when I began 
 studying with a view to the ministry was not 
 able to render me any material aid. I had been 
 at Jamestown a couple of winters, visiting and 
 reading for the Rev. Charles Hequembourg, a 
 brother of my father's second wife. There I 
 became acquainted with Dr. Gray's family, living 
 just opposite, and I at last became so attached 
 to that family, and they to me, that I made their 
 house my home, when Mr. Hequembourg moved 
 from the village. 
 
 " The Grays became very dear to me, and I 
 
go HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 was like an adopted son. Their house seemed 
 an outer court of Heaven. Mrs. Gray was a 
 saintly soul, and Dr. Alfred Gray was to my 
 mind the nearest to an ideal of a good physician 
 I ever met. I never knew a physician who so 
 carried his patients on his heart, and who so 
 bore them to God in prayer. It was under this 
 family influence, and under the preaching of the 
 Rev. H. G. Blinn, that I was brought to Christ. 
 I was in that family as a son. I was not hired 
 to do anything, but my chief work was to keep 
 the doctor's books, and prepare his medicines. 
 The care of the horse was a purely incidental 
 matter, but that bay mare, spirited and gentle, 
 was my pride and joy. I groomed her as I 
 would a pet dog. 
 
 " You can readily see from all this, Dr. 
 McCook, that your representation of my early 
 career conveys a false impression. It does not 
 tell the truth in the statement that I began life 
 as a stable boy. In referring to me as an errand 
 boy and a stable boy it conveys the impression 
 that I was a hired hostler employed in a stable. 
 If I had been, I should not have been ashamed 
 of it. The greater would have been the credit 
 for overcoming unfavorable conditions. And 
 there is no disgrace whatever in having been 
 employed in a stable. But it does not happen 
 to be the truth, and I am sorry you made such 
 public use of false premises. If your address 
 should go to print, this feature of it should be 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 21 
 
 made to conform to the facts. I intimated as 
 much as this in referring to the * picture painted 
 by your imagination.' Under the pressure that 
 was upon me, just prior to the Assembly, I could 
 not take the time for these details. But I did not 
 dream you were to give your statement the wide 
 publicity that followed. I think you should have 
 consulted me before embodying it in an historic 
 address." 
 
 It was the greatest blessing to him, and 
 to the world, that he responded favorably 
 to the intellectual and Christian life with which 
 he was surrounded at Jamestown, for he would 
 have been a great sinner had he not become a 
 saint. He had it in him to be one or the 
 other. He did nothing by halves. In his 
 boyhood some bright alluring associates led 
 him to the saloons of Buffalo, where he was for 
 a time quite fascinated, his bonhomie, his fine 
 voice, his gifts for speaking making him a strong 
 asset of that life. But he soon felt the shame 
 and sin of it, and in the face of the derision of 
 his companions broke away from it. They went 
 on their own way, and after a while were lost 
 in the flood of evil, while he went on his way, 
 constantly upward to the perfect day. 
 
 One of his best preparations for college was 
 the facility and love for writing and public speak- 
 ing he possessed in his school days. I have on 
 my desk an essay, written in fine, almost micro- 
 
ga HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 scopic, and beautiful chirography when Herrick 
 was about fifteen years old, which took a prize. 
 Early in life he delivered in a public hall a tem- 
 perance address — the beginning of his lifelong 
 eloquent advocacy of the cause of temperance. 
 In coming to Hamilton College he found a con- 
 tagious influence in that direction. The very 
 night he arrived there was the great event of 
 the commencement week, the contest for the 
 prize, by the twelve best speakers — four from 
 each of the three under classes — and the oc- 
 casion when Charles E. Knox, afterwards the 
 celebrated Dr. Knox of the German Theo- 
 logical Seminary, won the first prize Fresh- 
 man year — the highest prize of all. Those who 
 are still alive, who entered college at that time, 
 will never forget the thrill and excitement of 
 that contest. Undoubtedly it has been so ever 
 since at every commencement, for Hamilton 
 College has always given great attention to pub- 
 lic speaking and class orations. The high stand- 
 ard was set by a remarkably gifted man. Pro- 
 fessor Mandeville, who instituted a system in 
 the study of oratory and public speaking which 
 has been known ever since, with some modifica- 
 tions, as the '' Mandevillian System." 
 
 In 1853, Dr. Anson J. Upson was in the 
 Mandevillian chair, and had lifted up to still 
 greater height the standard of public speaking, 
 and had awakened a great, inextinguishable 
 enthusiasm for it. Not one of the boys who 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 23 
 
 entered that year, and who were at that prize 
 speaking contest, could fail to be seized with the 
 public speaking craze. It specially met Herrick 
 Johnson's taste and trend and gifts, and fired his 
 highest aim. Probably there was nothing he 
 wanted so much as the prize in his class at the 
 next commencement. But unfortunately his 
 standards and ideals of public speaking were just 
 then as far as possible from the Mandevillian 
 standard. He had acquired what was called a 
 ministerial tone and other faults fatal to any 
 success, unless eradicated. The best speakers of 
 the upper classes were the recognized and ac- 
 cepted '' drillers " of the new boys, who at once 
 put themselves under their care and criticism. 
 Every spring and fall a certain valley with a 
 grove, north of the college, was the resort of 
 the aspirants for success at this time. The 
 woods would ring with their *' exercises " and 
 strenuous declamation, and I presume it is the 
 same to-day. 
 
 Herrick Johnson had a magnificent voice, well- 
 nigh ruined by his sins against the right method 
 of using it. He soon saw that it was going to 
 be essential for him to go down to the foundation 
 of his wrong methods and break them all up 
 and absolutely eradicate his *' tone." It was no 
 easy thing to do, but the young man was in- 
 tensely ambitious, and so he worked with the 
 greatest energy. He failed of an appointment 
 OP the " best four " of his Freshman class. But 
 
24 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 he worked away during Sophomore year and 
 failed again. But the upperclassmen saw his 
 pluck, they recognized his grand voice, and they 
 worked with him during his junior year, until 
 he had mastered the Mandevillian style, wholly 
 eradicated his '* tone," corrected all defects, and 
 got his appointment for one of the best four 
 speakers of the Junior year; and on the prize 
 speaking night of that commencement, he went 
 on the platform conscious of his power and swept 
 everything before him as the Junior prize speaker. 
 It set the standard for that young man. Voice, 
 manner, address were all masterful and ac- 
 counted easily for his great success as a public 
 speaker through all his subsequent prominent 
 and successful career in his profession. 
 
 I have dwelt at considerable length on this 
 experience of his, as it was, in a certain sense, 
 the turning point in his public life, and his suc- 
 cess showed, as nothing else in college, his mas- 
 terful qualities. His standing in college was 
 high. He took several prizes in writing, but it 
 was in public speaking and prize debates, that 
 he went up to the front. It was inevitable that 
 the eyes of the college should be turned toward 
 him and that the faculty, who are not easily 
 deceived by " the men," had great hopes of his 
 future. A peculiarly warm and devoted friend- 
 ship sprang up between that rare man, Professor 
 Edward North, and Herrick Johnson, so that 
 when years afterward that greatly beloved '* Gre- 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 25 
 
 cian " came to die, Herrick Johnson (to quote 
 from President M. Woolsey Stryker, writing 
 from Hamilton College) was selected in 1903 to 
 " make the memorial address here, in tribute to 
 our long time beloved Professor Edward North. 
 He did it in most complete and welcome style." 
 
 He was happy in his selection of Auburn The- 
 ological Seminary as the institution for his pro- 
 fessional studies. The city of Auburn was itself 
 delightful, and the warm love and pride of the 
 citizens for the seminary gave to the students a 
 homelike environment quite unlike that of the 
 average theological seminary. 
 
 To his friend, Mrs. Blinn, he wrote a descrip- 
 tion of his room in the old seminary building, 
 which I quote, certain that if any clergymen are 
 now living who roomed in that old building read 
 it, they will recall with interest that part of their 
 life which was spent there : '' Take my arm now, 
 and we'll visit my little home of a room together. 
 You know I said the building fronts south, so 
 here we go up the gravelled walk, entering the 
 door of the west wing, up one flight of stairs and 
 opening the first door at the right, we find the 
 rear middle room, second story of the west wing, 
 with windows facing the north. This is my 
 sanctum — walk in. Just at your left elbow in a 
 corner, close by one of the windows, is a high 
 desk, designed as a relief when one gets tired 
 of sitting. There I shall occasionally stand and 
 study or write. Between the two windows hangs 
 
26 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 the little monitor that ticks off the seconds as 
 they come and go, out of time into the past 
 eternity. It reminds me often of another time- 
 piece, my beating heart, whose rusted machinery 
 has been made to run smoothly again by my 
 visit to Jamestown. Beyond the second window, 
 in the northeast corner, is a stand and bookcase, 
 the latter just large enough to receive my little 
 library. The four shelves of books look so cozy 
 there, and give such a literary air to the room, 
 that I am vastly pleased with the northeast 
 corner. Passing your eye along the east side, 
 you meet the stove about midway, standing well 
 out in the room and a perfect little gem in its 
 way, both in its appearance and utiHty. On the 
 southeast corner, see that alcove partially 
 screened by tasteful curtains ? Just outside there, 
 my sister, is my praying place. There I try to 
 talk with God. Elsewhere also, but there espe- 
 cially seek I communion with my Elder Brother. 
 There you are remembered and the other loved 
 ones. Within that alcove is a comfortable bed 
 on which I pillow my head of nights and rest- 
 fully sleep, perchance to dream. Passing on to 
 the southwest corner, you see a door that opens 
 into my clothes-press and wash room, and so 
 you finally reach the main entrance again. The 
 centre table, at which I am now writing, is some 
 httle distance from the north side, where the 
 windows are, and about midway between a com- 
 fortable remove from the stove and from all 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 27 
 
 points easily accessible. Here I shall do the most 
 of my studying and writing. Here the thoughts 
 of my letters to you shall wipe their sandals as 
 they go in with the sheet of blotting paper now 
 before me as the doormat. Here I shall dig 
 after Hebrew roots, strive to digest mental food, 
 discipline my mind, and store it with such mate- 
 rials as shall the better fit me for usefulness in 
 the years to come." 
 
 There was a close relation between the sem- 
 inary and the churches of the city, and at that 
 time peculiarly so with the First Presbyterian 
 Church, then one of the grandest churches in 
 central New York, under the inspiring ministry 
 of Dr. Charles Hawley. Very few theological 
 students had had an opportunity to attend such 
 a notable prayer meeting as was held every week 
 in that church, or to hear such laymen give their 
 testimony as Dr. Steele, Dr. Willard, and others 
 did. The first year of Herrick Johnson's semi- 
 nary life was in 1857, at the time of the great 
 revival that spread through the country. Auburn 
 churches were always specially responsive to 
 such great awakenings. The religious life at 
 that time was very intense, and greatly inter- 
 ested and affected the students — especially Her- 
 rick Johnson. He was, as has been stated, very 
 ambitious in college, and while his ambition was 
 strong, intense, immense, it was not then always 
 consecrated. But at this time his soul was moved 
 to its depths, and he made a dedication of him- 
 
S8 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 self, so complete and spiritual as to radically 
 change his Christian experience, with this great 
 result — that all his traits and gifts and tenden- 
 cies were consecrated. He came into a humble, 
 devout, reverent spirit, which ever afterwards 
 characterized him. He had always a dominating 
 way with him, but it became controlled, enriched, 
 and sweetened. Not until then did his friends 
 realize the depth and strength of his affections. 
 Strong, sometimes assertive, blazing away with 
 intensity in the defence of great questions and 
 principles, it was, after all, from this time that 
 his heart controlled him, controlled, as it in turn 
 was, by the Spirit of God. 
 
 The faculty of the seminary held very friendly 
 relations with the students. Dr. Samuel M. 
 Hopkins, cultured, brilliant, and fascinating, if 
 sometimes somewhat erratic; Dr. Huntington, 
 witty, friendly, charming, and at home in 
 Hebrew; Dr. J. B. Condit, polished, devout, the 
 very ideal of the old-fashioned cultured New 
 England preacher, and Dr. Edward Hall, with 
 his old-time theology, benign face, sturdy heroic 
 persistence in the face of failing health, a splen- 
 did example of a man possessed with a pure and 
 noble purpose — these were the men of sterling 
 worth to whom the seminary students had access. 
 If they could not measure up to some of the 
 educational ideals of to-day, they would, at least, 
 stand among the highest anywhere and at any 
 time, in character, devotion, single-hearted con- 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 29 
 
 secration to Jesus Christ, and as such their influ- 
 ence upon the student was inspiring and lasting. 
 As a rule the life at a theological seminary is 
 freer from the dividing contests and selfish aims 
 of college life. And so it was that the men had 
 one purpose, one aim, and so dropped the ag- 
 gressive spirit of college days. Herrick John- 
 son greatly enjoyed the life in the seminary. 
 When not occupied with his studies, which he 
 pursued with a scholar's instinct, he was often 
 in hot debate with his dear old friend, Thomas 
 Sherrard (who died all too early to fulfil the 
 fine promise of his life), walking up and down 
 their rooms, with their long study gowns flying 
 as they vehemently argued, shaking their fists 
 in each other's faces, but under radically differ- 
 ent conditions from those of whom Milton sang — 
 
 " — Reasoned high 
 Of Providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate — 
 Fix'd fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute 
 And found no end in wandering mazes lost. 
 Of good and evil much they argued then, 
 Of happiness and final misery. 
 Passion and apathy and glory and shame." 
 
 Herrick made his corridor about as noisy as 
 he did in college, filled as he was with the joy 
 of life. On the campus he ran for the ball with 
 great vehemence. In our primitive gymnasium 
 it was fine to see him swing himself with the 
 rings, rising with physical prowess, and throw- 
 ing his muscular frame out to the limit. There 
 
30 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 was a certain eagerness to succeed in athletics, 
 which was characteristic of the whole man. 
 Eagerness was the best word, perhaps, to use to 
 describe his method in college, seminary, or the 
 world at large. The ideal eagle, not the real 
 bird, the ideal lion, not the feline beast of the 
 jungles, would well denote the look on his face. 
 After his spiritual re-baptism, ** aspiration " 
 might be a better word to employ than eagerness, 
 but one must combine them to get a true idea of 
 what manner of man he was. 
 
 Herrick Johnson owed a great deal to the deep 
 interest awakened among young people at that 
 time in Tennyson, the Brownings, and Owen 
 Meredith. The students were all talking about 
 Tennyson's In Memoriam and Mrs. Browning's 
 Aurora Leigh, Drama of Exile, and Sonnets 
 from the Portuguese and Robert Browning's 
 Saul, By the Fireside, and others. Great poems 
 these, which are certainly not shelved now — 
 but they were new then — and the enthusiasm 
 over them was intense. 
 
 I remember going into Herrick's room one 
 morning and finding him ill and designing to 
 remain in bed. I offered to read to him, and 
 he chose Mrs. Browning's Drama of Exile. I 
 soon became too absorbed to think of him. When 
 at the height of the Drama I turned to the bed 
 and found him sitting up straight, his arms lifted 
 up in a sort of rapture. That is the way we took 
 our great literature in those days. 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 31 
 
 It was here, in Auburn, that he found his 
 dearly beloved wife of many years. The Har- 
 denburg family was one of the best and most 
 honored families in the city, and Miss Kate 
 Hardenburg was unquestionably a young woman 
 of rare intellectual culture, and of strong per- 
 sonal influence. The Hardenburg residence was 
 the centre of a charming social and literary life. 
 The newest poet, the latest book, were always 
 discussed there, with cultured discrimination. 
 Mr. James Cox, a prominent lawyer of Auburn, 
 and son of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Harson 
 Cox, played the violin very well. One evening in 
 each week he brought in the best music, to which 
 Miss Kate Hardenburg played the accompani- 
 ments. They were delightful evenings. A few 
 students were privileged also to resort to them, 
 among them Herrick Johnson. Before the close 
 of the second or middle year of the seminary, 
 his engagement to Miss Kate Hardenburg was 
 announced, to the delight of many friends. It 
 was a union greatly blest to them both, through 
 a long and happy life. 
 
 There were three of us — Herrick Johnson, 
 Smith Harris Hyde (" Harry," as we affec- 
 tionately called him, of blessed memory), and I, 
 who went three times a day to our boarding 
 place on Grover Street. The way took us past 
 the corner of the old First Presbyterian Church, 
 which looked out on the rear of the Hardenburg 
 mansion, across the street. Every morning there 
 
S2 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 was a face and hand at the window to greet 
 Herrick, and an answering recognition with 
 waving of hat and a sort of Jim Crow shuffle. 
 The fun and spirit and that hand from the win- 
 dow come back to me over the waste of years, 
 and I recall it with smile and sigh. 
 
 There was at that time a most enjoyable 
 service open to the students for the first year 
 and a half of their course, — teaching classes in 
 the prison, Sunday morning. There were gen- 
 erally about two hundred of the prisoners al- 
 lowed to be present, and the interest displayed 
 both by teacher and pupils was very inspiring. 
 Toward the last of the middle year such students 
 as had been licensed to preach gave up their 
 prison classes in order to be ready to supply 
 vacant pulpits in the country churches round 
 about Auburn. It was while engaged in this 
 work in the latter half of the Senior year that 
 some one from Troy, N. Y., heard Herrick John- 
 son and was so struck with his personality and 
 his preaching that he gave his name to a com- 
 mittee of the First Presbyterian Church of Troy, 
 who were on the lookout for an assistant to the 
 venerable Dr. Beman, who, having filled his pul- 
 pit for many years with great ability and won- 
 derful power, was now feeble through age. The 
 committee invited him to supply their pulpit, and 
 in a very short time he was called to the position 
 of assistant pastor and a committee was ap- 
 pointed to confer with him at Utica, half-way 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 33 
 
 between Troy and Auburn. There was great 
 excitement among our set of fellows, and six 
 of us met Herrick at the railroad station on his 
 return and took him to an oyster saloon, and 
 calling for a private room, sat down to the simple 
 meal, and said, '* Now tell us all about it." He 
 told us fully about the meeting with the com- 
 mittee, the conference, and his acceptance of the 
 call. We asked him what his salary would be, 
 and when he told us that it was to be fifteen 
 hundred dollars we almost fell under the table! 
 It was the time of small salaries for 
 young men, and we thought with amazement of 
 the way he would roll in wealth. We asked 
 him if he was not afraid of being *' set up," of 
 losing his spirituality. He and I have often 
 laughed over it since, but at the time it took us 
 days to get over our astonishment. Herrick 
 graduated with honors in the spring of i860. 
 His entire class loved him and was very proud 
 of him. He entered as soon as possible on his 
 field of service as assistant pastor in the First 
 Presbyterian Church in Troy, and on September 
 6, i860, was married to Miss Katherine Spencer 
 Hardenburg and so began his great career as a 
 minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
II 
 
 TROY, N. Y., 1860-63— PITTSBURGH, PA., 
 1863-67— MARQUETTE, MICH, 1868 
 
 "Then I preached Christ, and when she heard the 
 
 story — 
 (Oh! is such triumph possible to men?) 
 Hardly, my King, had I beheld Thy glory, 
 Hardly had known Thy excellence till then. 
 
 Oft when the Word is on me to deliver. 
 Opens the Heaven and the Lord is there. 
 Desert or throng, the city or the river, 
 Melt in a lucid paradise of air." 
 
 — F. W. H. Myers. 
 
 THE First Presbyterian Church of Troy, 
 to which Herrick Johnson was called to be 
 assistant pastor, was, without doubt, at 
 that time not only the foremost Presbyterian 
 church in the city, but also a notable church in 
 northern and eastern New York State. Dr. 
 Beman was a Southern man, of very pronounced 
 Northern principles, invincibly opposed to slav- 
 ery, and of clearly defined New-School theolog- 
 ical views. He was a man who had the courage 
 of his convictions, and great ability in presenting 
 them. He held a free lance on Thanksgiving 
 Day, and regularly aroused such antagonism in 
 those who did not agree with his political views 
 that several of them would leave the church in 
 
 34 
 
TROY— riTTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 35 
 
 white heat, vowing that they would never enter 
 it again. But he was so much of a man, so 
 tender in his preaching on the love of God, en- 
 dowed with such power in argument, so irre- 
 sistible in persuasion, so fascinating, that those 
 very men who would leave the church on Thanks- 
 giving Day were always drawn back again. He 
 educated men and women to be thinkers, and 
 his congregation were thoroughly capable of 
 digesting solid food in preaching, and both 
 wanted and welcomed it. 
 
 Herrick Johnson was unusually mature at the 
 time of his graduation from the theological sem- 
 inary. He stood every inch a man, at once chal- 
 lenging the attention of his hearers. He was 
 not New School in his theology. He would have 
 been a stern Calvinist had it not been for his 
 heart, and he, like Dr. Beman, had great courage 
 and boldness in preaching the truth. His voice 
 was like a great organ with many stops, from 
 the vox humana to the open diapason. He had 
 perfect control of it. He had, even then, a re- 
 markable gift in prayer. There was a reverent, 
 tender, exquisitely solemn quality without any 
 " solemn tone " to his voice that helped those 
 whom he led in prayer to realize that they were 
 in the very presence of God Himself. Such 
 confession of sin, such penitence, such love, such 
 adoration the people felt could be voiced only by 
 one who himself was really praying. Those of 
 his hearers whom he might have antagonized by 
 
36 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 the force of his logic in pressing his Calvinistic 
 views would find their hearts melted and tender 
 under the influence of his closing prayer. His 
 Troy people appreciated his ability in the pulpit, 
 and were responsive to his preaching. 
 
 Before his first year was over, the country was 
 in the awful throes of civil war, and he was 
 a leader in loyalty, and in opposition to slavery. 
 He preached a very strong sermon on " The 
 Ground of Submission to Civil Authority." In 
 the course of his argument he said : " Rather 
 than have this rebellion a success may a half a 
 million loyal hearts give their life blood — give 
 it freely and give it all. Rather than have it a 
 success may every minister in the land leave the 
 peaceful walks in which he is now pursuing his 
 holy calling, and toughen the sinews, harden 
 the muscles, and inure himself to hardships so 
 as to do and dare and die like other men, on the 
 battlefield. Rather than have it a success, I 
 would gladly lay this body gashed and mangled 
 in the enemies' trenches, and wish I had a 
 thousand more to lay beside it." He closed his 
 sermon with these words : " This rebellion will 
 be worth all its suppression will cost, if it clears 
 the atmosphere of all doubt as to the power and 
 authority of government, restores our respect for 
 rulers, by giving them their high position as 
 ordained by Heaven, and leads us to submit to 
 every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake — ' to 
 fear God and honor the king.' " 
 
TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 37 
 
 It is generally acknowledged that churches 
 seeking for pastors feel a little more liberty in 
 approaching an assistant pastor than one who 
 has been a long time settled in his parish. It is 
 natural that they should recognize an imperma- 
 nency in such relations, and that the man occu- 
 pying such a position should desire the larger 
 liberty gained in the transfer to the full charge 
 of a parish. It was not possible for Herrick 
 Johnson to be let alone. He had, during his 
 short ministry, already made too broad a mark, 
 and taken too high a stand, to be lost sight of. 
 Finally a very prominent church in the great 
 city of Pittsburgh (the Third Presbyterian), 
 which had lost its able pastor, Dr. Henry Ken- 
 dall, by his transference to the secretaryship in 
 the Board of Home Missions — a position which 
 he filled until his death with great distinction and 
 signal devotion to the Church and its Master — 
 had its attention called to Herrick Johnson, who 
 had been only two and a half years out of semi- 
 nary, but who had made full proof of his min- 
 istry. He was called in December, 1862, and 
 on January 11, 1863, was installed pastor. It 
 was a very inviting and important field for so 
 young a man, but he showed no immaturity. 
 Through God's blessing he stood equal to the 
 position. 
 
 '' Great doors and effectual " were opened to 
 him at once. The church was made up of some 
 
38 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 of the finest men and women of the city, and 
 large numbers of young men rallied around the 
 young pastor, attracted not only by his youth, 
 but by his marked ability, his genial spirit, and 
 his great-heartedness. He had singularly 
 marked qualities to lead young men — strength, 
 enthusiasm, a lofty purpose, a deep Christian 
 experience, and a strong love for his fellows. 
 The young men leaped to his standard like the 
 soldiers to the white-plumed Henry of Navarre. 
 Institutions of learning summoned him to ad- 
 dress them at their commencements, and a paper 
 called the Risks of Thinking, which he delivered 
 before the Literary Societies of Jefferson Col- 
 lege during the first year of his pastorate in 
 Pittsburgh, awakened especial attention. His own 
 college (Hamilton) called him the same season 
 to their commencement to address the graduating 
 class. 
 
 But in October of that year, the fine old build- 
 ing of the Third Church was burned, and all the 
 cares incident to such a great loss were suddenly 
 heaped upon the young pastor. It was an emer- 
 gency to which he proved himself equal, and 
 the members of his great church realized that 
 they had a man at their head. They determined 
 not to re-roof the old walls of the building, but 
 to build a new and beautiful church edifice. 
 They did not, however, make this misfortune an 
 excuse for not contributing to the great causes 
 to which their church was committed. Herrick 
 
TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 39 
 
 urged them not to let up on their beneficences. As 
 a result they subscribed that very season over 
 two thousand dollars to help endow the Board of 
 Publication, and when the time came for their 
 annual contribution to Home Missions, they gave 
 over four thousand dollars ! At the same time 
 Pittsburgh was the very centre of the great 
 patriotic United States Christian Commission, 
 which brought vast numbers of Christians of all 
 denominations together to minister to the bodies 
 and souls of hundreds of thousands of volun- 
 teers. The New York Evangelist of May, '64, 
 stated that one of the largest meetings ever held 
 in Pittsburgh was one held in Dr. Patton's 
 church. It was the second of a series of meet- 
 ings on behalf of the United States Christian 
 Commission in connection with the great national 
 subscription of one million dollars. The Rev. 
 Herrick Johnson presided. 
 
 He had been now only four years out of the 
 theological seminary. He was still a young man, 
 except in the strong, capable way he met his 
 public duties, which placed him in the forefront 
 of the forceful citizens of the great city. The 
 work of the Christian Commission in minister- 
 ing to the sick and wounded soldiers appealed 
 to him very strongly and was specially congenial 
 to his great patriotism and large-hearted Chris- 
 tian philanthropy. He did not spare himself. 
 Aside from the large demands of his public work, 
 he daily worked in the wards of the hospitals. 
 
40 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 He wrote letters for the wounded boys to their 
 friends at home ; he pointed them to Jesus, he 
 prayed with the dying. Possibly it was this that 
 brought on a severe attack of diphtheria, which 
 laid him aside for several months, and his de- 
 voted people, in the midst of their sacrifice for 
 the country and the building of their new church, 
 and despite the fact that they had given him 
 two thousand dollars to help him and Mrs. John- 
 son to go into housekeeping, gave him three 
 thousand dollars more to take him to Europe and 
 to recuperate from his severe illness. Mrs. 
 Johnson accompanied her husband, and they re- 
 turned October lo, 1865, and at once plunged 
 into the great work of a pastorate in a city such 
 as Pittsburgh was in those strenuous times. In 
 response to an invitation given to him about this 
 time to address the Pittsburgh Temperance 
 League, Herrick so treated the subject that a 
 local newspaper stated that he *' surpassed his 
 usual powerful style of oratory, and delivered 
 one of the most eloquent and impressive lectures 
 we have ever had the pleasure of hearing." It 
 was while preparing this lecture, as he sat at 
 his desk with a cigar in his mouth, that he felt 
 for the first time (as he told me afterwards) 
 the force of the argument which we had often 
 had with him against his smoking. ** If there is 
 any force in the point which I have just made 
 in favor of temperance, it applies to this cigar 
 which I am smoking." He arose from his 
 
TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 41 
 
 chair and flung the cigar into the fire, and never 
 smoked again. Such an action was characteristic 
 of the man. 
 
 It will be impossible to tell the full story of 
 his " labors oft " in his Pittsburgh parish. In 
 Synod and in General Assembly also he dis- 
 tinguished himself, where it was said of him 
 that " more like an ideal leader of the Church 
 of the West, is the pastor of the Third Church, 
 Pittsburgh, who, with his Elder Judge Wil- 
 liams, forms one of the strongest delegations 
 sent from any Presbytery." But we must refer 
 here to a signal tribute to the estimation in which 
 he was held by his appointment to address the 
 closing gathering of the United States Christian 
 Commission held in the Hall of the House of 
 Representatives in W^ashington, February ii, 
 1866. '* The Assembly was composed of the 
 distinguished and honored of the land, repre- 
 senting perhaps more fully and truly the powers 
 which wield our great nation than any similar 
 assembly ever convened in our country's his- 
 tory. The Hall was draped in tender reference 
 to the memory of the beloved dead." We boys 
 of Hamilton College and Auburn Seminary were 
 very proud of our representative and fellow stu- 
 dent standing there that day, a peer with all 
 those great men, delivering his eloquent, thrill- 
 ing address. A further honor awaited him, 
 for after an address before the Phi Beta Kappa 
 Society of the Western Reserve College, June 25, 
 
4^ HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 1867, the trustees conferred on him the title of 
 Doctor of Divinity. 
 
 Soon after that it became evident that the 
 health of Mrs. Johnson w3iS not equal to the 
 peculiarly trying climate of Pittsburgh. Her 
 physicians declared that to save her life she must 
 leave the city at once. It v^^as a sore trial all 
 around. The pastor and church had been bound 
 together by great soul-stirring times in the 
 progress of the war. A great revival had been 
 granted them ; large numbers had united v^ith the 
 church, and a great army of young men had 
 rallied around him. The farewell meeting of 
 the church on Sabbath morning and the address 
 to the young men in the evening marked how 
 high the tide of deep feeling and sorrow had 
 risen. During the five years of his ministry his 
 church had made an advance of nearly three hun- 
 dred and fifty per cent, on its various causes of 
 Christian benevolence and an advance of over 
 five hundred per cent, on its voluntary contribu- 
 tions to other causes, and that while engaged in 
 building a costly church edifice. Those two fare- 
 well services, especially the one in the evening, 
 when the great congregation was composed al- 
 most entirely of young men, were remembered 
 for long years afterwards and are still tenderly 
 recalled by those of the number now living. 
 They were well-nigh heart-rending. Those who 
 have never seen Dr. Johnson, save in the vehe- 
 mence of public debate in Church Courts on some 
 
TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 43 
 
 great question, can have little idea of the ten- 
 derness of his heart, and the way he drew men 
 to him — especially young men — as with hoops of 
 steel. 
 
 There are middle-aged men, pastors of im- 
 portant churches, professors of theological semi- 
 naries, and men at the head of great business 
 enterprises, who were then parishioners of Dr. 
 Herrick Johnson. And these men when they 
 heard of his lamented death recalled away from 
 1867 the precious memories of his ministry 
 among them with warm and tender feeling, par- 
 ticularly that notable farewell service, which 
 almost broke their hearts. The Pittsburgh press 
 expressed, on every side, the universal sorrow 
 over his going. " An event which is regarded 
 by Christians of every name as a misfortune to 
 the city." The people of the Third Church 
 offered Dr. Johnson a long leave of absence, 
 but in the uncertain state of Mrs. Johnson's 
 health it was not clear that it would ever be 
 safe or desirable to bring her back to the smoky 
 atmosphere. So, and being unwilling to keep 
 them in a state of suspense, he pressed his resig- 
 nation, which was, finally, but sorrowfully ac- 
 cepted. The correspondent of the New York 
 Evangelist said : " None who have heard him 
 need be told of his power as an orator, and in 
 regard to his constancy in labor we need only 
 say that during the revival in this city last winter 
 he preached for several months daily with almost 
 
U HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 no help from any one. His church ranks second 
 in the New School body, in point of liberality, 
 yielding only to that of Dr. Adams of New York 
 City." 
 
 It was decided that Dr. and Mrs. Johnson 
 should go to Marquette, on Lake Superior, for 
 the winter, and a small church being at that time 
 without a pastor, he was invited to supply the 
 pulpit. The change from the smoky at- 
 mosphere of Pittsburgh to the absolutely 
 pure, clear, and bracing air of Lake Su- 
 perior was most beneficial to both the preacher 
 and his wife. Undoubtedly it was the principal 
 cause of prolonging Mrs. Johnson's most valu- 
 able life for the many years in which they were 
 subsequently enabled to live together. To Dr. 
 Johnson it was a great tonic also. He wrote 
 most enthusiastically of it. '' Come up here and 
 snuff this bracing air," he wrote. " It is more 
 Superior than the Lake — grammar to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding. I have been out in it, 
 this morning, taking a lung-bath. Whew ! Two 
 or three good draughts of it fairly lift one off 
 the earth, making his feet like hinds' feet. It 
 gives lightness and buoyancy to the frame, just 
 as a joy does to the spirit. To a denizen of 
 sooty Pittsburgh, who has been a dweller there 
 in the midst of the cloud, and who has just come 
 out of its blackness of darkness, this new at- 
 mosphere is especially an exhilaration and he 
 goes rollicking in it with infinite zest." Later 
 
TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 45 
 
 on he wrote of the deepening of religious interest 
 there to his great joy. He loved nothing so 
 much as a genuine spiritual awakening. He 
 flung himself into this movement with the great- 
 est ardor. " Now," he writes, " religion is the 
 topic of conversation everywhere. On the 
 streets, across the counters, and in the work- 
 shops and in the drinking saloons words are ex- 
 changed about the way to be saved. Even as 
 at Ephesus, * the Name of the Lord is magni- 
 fied,' and mightily grows the word of God and 
 prevails. Public hops go begging for patronage. 
 The Presbyterian Church is crowded every night. 
 The Baptists and the Methodists are equal 
 sharers in the great blessing. Young men, — and 
 the village swarms with them, — are standing 
 up for Jesus. Strong men are bowed down and 
 led of God like little children. Mad men who have 
 fought against God and found out their shame, 
 are sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in 
 their right mind. Professional and business men 
 have sought and found the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 There is a solemn awe in our public assemblies. 
 In the hushed stillness, it seems as if blinded 
 sinners have caught the sound of the footfall of 
 Jesus of Nazareth passing by, and have cried out 
 to Him, and He has stood still and bidden them 
 come to him, and they have received their sight." 
 He wrote to me also of the joy that filled his 
 soul. He would go down on the shore of the 
 Lake for solitude and prayer and praise. He 
 
46 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 walked that shore in a sort of ecstasy, going over 
 in his mind the Une of his thought for the even- 
 ing service and swinging his arms and shouting 
 his praise. It was only a short time before this 
 that the now most familiar hymn, " He leadeth 
 me, O blessed thought," had appeared, and dur- 
 ing the great revival of 1857 it was taken up 
 and sung throughout the whole land. Dr. John- 
 son greatly loved it. He would go up and down 
 the Lake shores, with only the great waters list- 
 ening, and sing it at the top of his voice. Those 
 were days of rapture, and he gave to his people 
 at night the blessing that filled his soul those 
 days by the great waters. Later on (in March) 
 he wrote : *' The religious interest commenced 
 just prior to the Week of Prayer and has been 
 sustained with great power ever since. Yester- 
 day we celebrated the Sacrament of the Supper, 
 and seventy-eight stood before the altar, to make 
 public profession of their faith and dedicate 
 themselves to God. It was a scene not often 
 to be witnessed, and never to be forgotten." 
 
 Shortly after this Dr. Johnson received a unan- 
 imous call from the First Church of Philadel- 
 phia, for so many years the scene of the honored 
 and fruitful ministry of the Rev. Albert Barnes. 
 Mr. Barnes was himself deeply interested in Dr. 
 Johnson's accepting the call, which we shall con- 
 sider in a later chapter. But while waiting at Mar- 
 quette through the beautiful summer weather, 
 a great fire, for so small a city, consumed among 
 
TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 47 
 
 many other treasures all Dr. Johnson's sermons, 
 all his MSS. of college and theological seminary- 
 notes, all his prize essays in college — in fine, 
 everything. Thus he stood facing the responsi- 
 bilities of a new parish in a great city, with 
 none of the material which had accumulated in 
 his active ministry to help him along. 
 Here, too, he showed his virile manhood. 
 He was not a whiner. He faced it as 
 a call from God. In addressing a meeting of 
 members of the Y.M.C.A. at Marquette, who 
 had lost their building, he most urgently called 
 upon them to meet their misfortunes bravely, 
 and be prepared to make sacrifices, and to put up 
 an edifice greatly in advance of the old one. He 
 began his new work as successor of the Rev. 
 Albert Barnes in the First Presbyterian Church 
 of Philadelphia, June, 1868. 
 
Ill 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 
 
 "Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
 That makes the path before him always bright? 
 
 More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure 
 As tempted more, more able to endure 
 As more exposed to suffering and distress, 
 Thence, also, more ahve to tenderness. 
 
 But who if he be called upon to face 
 
 Some awful moment, to which Heaven has joined 
 
 Great issues, good or bad, for human kind, 
 
 Is happy as a lover, and attired 
 
 With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; 
 
 And through the heat of conflict, keeps the law 
 
 In calmness made and sees what he foresaw; 
 
 Or if an unexpected call succeed. 
 
 Come when it will, is equal to the need." 
 
 — Wordsworth. 
 
 IT will help us to see Herrick Johnson more 
 clearly if we note him on the threshold of 
 his larger field, particularly as an active 
 promoter of the work of the Presbyterian 
 Church as a great whole, in the union between 
 the O. S. and the N. S. Churches, which took 
 place in 1869. Many things had contributed to 
 his very decided growth. His work among the 
 sick and wounded soldiers in the Christian Com- 
 
 48 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 49 
 
 mission Hospitals, his intense patriotism, his 
 deep anxiety over the serious illness of his be- 
 loved wife, his sorrowful experience in tearing 
 himself away from the very dear church at 
 Pittsburgh on account of her health; his great 
 enjoyment of the air and scenery of Lake Supe- 
 rior; his rich experience of the unique revival 
 in the little church at IMarquette ; the loss of all 
 his MSS. by fire, which brought him to the heroic 
 acceptance of a most trying providence just as 
 he was about to take up a new work in the great 
 city of Philadelphia, were all wrought into 
 the very fibre of his manhood, and helped to 
 make him a more sympathetic man, a broader 
 man, a man of clearer vision, a more conse- 
 crated man, and a man of larger liberty, as well 
 as to specially fit him for a wider sphere of 
 usefulness in the great United Presbyterian 
 Church. 
 
 This was most noticeable in the active debates 
 in the Synod and in the General Assembly, by his 
 hearty and enthusiastic advocacy of the Union of 
 the two Assemblies — the O. S. and the N. S. 
 He faced the opposition to it very vigorously. 
 He vehemently insisted that there must be no 
 surrender of such liberty in interpreting the 
 standards as the New School Presbyterian 
 Church had enjoyed. One of the religious 
 papers, in reference to the debate on the Basis of 
 Union in the New School Assembly, stated that 
 " Dr. Johnson's earnest plea for liberty came 
 
50 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 with all the more force because of his assent to 
 the imputation of being Old School in Theology. 
 Most fervently did our hearts go with him when 
 he exclaimed : " Perish the union if such free- 
 dom is sacrificed to obtain it." In the same 
 address he said, *' There are differences between 
 the Old School and the New School. They do 
 really exist. And they ought to be recognized 
 and acknowledged. To my mind they are not 
 differences that justify the continued separation 
 of the two great branches of the Presbyterian 
 Church. I confidently believe that they are con- 
 sistent with a hearty and harmonious union. 
 Perhaps they could not be better expressed than 
 in the words so happily used by Dr. Adams 
 yesterday, in his address to the other Assembly 
 as the delegate from this body. ' You said that 
 you are the conservators of orthodoxy — we the 
 conservators of liberty.' Now in the proposed 
 Reunion on the Basis as presented, is it expected 
 that the Old School are to yield their conserva- 
 tion of orthodoxy ? No ! Are we to yield our 
 conservation of liberty ? No ! Perish the union 
 rather than that. God forbid the union forever 
 rather than that. 
 
 *' A liberty within the limits of sound Calvinism, 
 a liberty always enjoyed in the body, and exer- 
 cised to-day fully as it was twenty years ago, it 
 is neither our wish nor our purpose to surrender. 
 Let it be distinctly understood. There should 
 be no misapprehension in regard to the matter. 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 51 
 
 Let it go forth to the other Branch of the Church 
 and to the world. Not a dozen votes in this 
 Assembly, not a half-dozen Presbyteries in our 
 whole connection would favor this Basis of Re- 
 union, if its acceptance and adoption were thought 
 to involve the giving up of this liberty. Such 
 liberty, e.g., as recognizes and freely allows those 
 views in theology that are held by Albert Barnes. 
 Albert Barnes ! revered, honored, beloved, rip- 
 ened now to a golden completeness, ready to go 
 to his grave in a full age like as a shock of corn 
 Cometh in, in its season, and ever presenting him- 
 self to my thoughts as of all men in the world, 
 the guileless man. Our brethren take us as we 
 are, we in like manner take them. Their ortho- 
 doxy is to put no clamps upon our hitherto 
 enjoyed liberty. Our exercise of liberty is not 
 to contaminate, nor pervert, nor in any way im- 
 pair their orthodoxy. Liberty and orthodoxy 
 meet together. Liberty and orthodoxy kiss each 
 other. Henceforth they are to live in the same 
 house, to sit at the same table, to worship at 
 the same altars, to work in the same groves, to 
 evangelize through the same organization. 
 Henceforth they are to go hand in hand in 
 mutual affection, fidelity, and trust. I thank God 
 for it." "And let it be the fervent, earnest, 
 constant prayer of all hearts that we go forth 
 for our country *s and the world's evangelization. 
 One church, banded and bonded and welded 
 together, holding the Cross, held by the Cross, 
 
52 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 irradiated by the glories of it, stirred by the 
 inspirations of it, our hearts swelling with the 
 memories of it, and the outreach of that an- 
 guished heart of love that broke on Calvary, 
 when Jesus with outstretched arms embraced a 
 dying world." 
 
 In the mean time while all this discussion was 
 going on, and committees were meeting, Dr. 
 Johnson was intensely interested in the develop- 
 ment of his field in the First Church. It was a 
 great historic church and had been distinguished, 
 for the thirty-seven years previous to his coming, 
 by the presence in the pastorate of the distin- 
 guished Rev. Albert Barnes, whose annotation of 
 various parts of Scripture, called Barnes^ Notes, 
 had a very wide circulation, more than a mil- 
 lion copies being sold before the last revised 
 edition was issued in 1872. These gave the 
 author great eminence, together with the fact 
 that he was tried for heresy on account of cer- 
 tain passages in his commentary on the Epistle to 
 the Romans and acquitted. " He was leader 
 of the New School Presbyterians when soon after 
 his trial a definitive rupture occurred in the 
 denomination." It was undoubtedly not only an 
 interesting fact that his colleague years after- 
 ward, Dr. Johnson, was one of the foremost 
 leaders to reunite these two bodies, but it was, 
 as we know, a peculiar joy to him to serve Mr. 
 Barnes and the United Church in this way. 
 While it was a church of a great history, the poor 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 53 
 
 health of Mr. Barnes and his failing eyesight and 
 the great change in the character of the popu- 
 lation immediately surrounding the church, had 
 caused a number of problems, as to its future. 
 It had become a " downtown church." But 
 quite a large number of its members, devotedly 
 attached to Mr. Barnes and to the church, either 
 refused to move away from its surroundings, or 
 in moving away, still retained their membership 
 in the old church. 
 
 It was to the upbuilding of this old and 
 greatly honored church that Dr. Johnson de- 
 voted his best energies, recognizing at the same 
 time the fact that his being the pastor of that 
 church called for his co-operation with others in 
 the great work opening before the whole Pres- 
 byterian Church of the country. He wrote al- 
 most constantly for the religious press. As 
 chairman of the Synods Committee on Home 
 Missions, he was so surprised and shocked at the 
 story told by the statistical records as to the re- 
 sponse of the churches in the Synod to the 
 call of Home Missions, that his report to the 
 Synod thrilled it, and roused the Presbyterians 
 of the state. He declared that the " figures 
 were startling and as shameful as they were 
 startling." It shows the tact with which Dr. 
 Johnson presented the humiliating condition of 
 the interests of Home Missions, that instead of 
 arousing antagonism there was a hearty and 
 general acknowledgment of delinquency. He 
 
54 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 espoused most enthusiastically the Y.M.C.A. 
 movement in the city. He called the city's at- 
 tention to the week of prayer, then near at hand. 
 He began a series of sermons to young men, 
 especially on Temperance and Amusements. 
 There was a great interest developed in his 
 churches at the time of, and after, the Week of 
 Prayer. He held services every night. At the 
 autumn communion twenty-four new members 
 united with the church, four on profession of 
 faith, and twenty by letter. On the first com- 
 munion after the Week of Prayer, forty- 
 three persons united with the church, thirty- 
 three by profession and ten by letter. " No such 
 ingathering had taken place in this church for 
 more than a quarter of a century." 
 
 Then came the great meeting of the General 
 Assembly at the Church of the Covenant in New 
 York City with a corresponding meeting of the 
 Old School Branch of the Church at the Brick 
 Church, with the one burning question of the 
 " Union " before both Assemblies ; and after 
 those speeches in its advocacy uttered by Dr. 
 Johnson, to which I have already referred and 
 from which I have quoted. The Basis for Union 
 was adopted by both Assemblies and sent out by 
 them to the Presbyteries for ratification, with the 
 well-known and glorious result. After union 
 was a foregone conclusion. Dr. Johnson wrote a 
 rousing article on '' x\fter Reunion — What?" 
 Everything that he wrote and said was rousing 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 55 
 
 and ringing, for all his powers were profoundly 
 quickened for the work in hand. 
 
 In this article he wrote : " It has been claimed 
 to be the ushering in of a new era. Shall it 
 be seen that we have been imitating the example 
 of some author who thunders only in the index? 
 Is our apparent zeal for the glory of God to 
 have the * lame and impotent ' conclusion of a 
 great zeal for the glory of denominationalism? 
 Or is there to issue out of reunion that which 
 shall be a justification of our joy at its coming, 
 and the fulfilment of the best prophecy on record 
 of its beneficent results? To be content with 
 making just such record of increase and efficiency 
 of toil and triumph united as we made apart, 
 will not answer. Something better and higher 
 and grander is demanded of us. The United 
 Church must be what the two branches of the 
 Church never were — in life, in labor, in liberality. 
 The old standards of Christian giving must be 
 lifted away from their present altitude and set 
 furlongs higher in the scale of obligation. The 
 old grooves of Christian eflfort must give way 
 to others in and through which there may be 
 room for the play and sweep of greatly vitalized 
 and enlarged activities ; while our life — our 
 spiritual life with God and in God — must be 
 more vivid and intensely real. It must be closer 
 and deeper, increasing the clearness of our con- 
 ception and the firmness of our grasp, and the 
 fervor of our love of things spiritual. First of all 
 
56 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 therefore, paramount to every other thing we 
 have to do, vital, in order to the gathering of 
 such fruit of Union as may be, and ought to be, 
 brought forth to the glory of God, everywhere 
 throughout our entire borders, by the least and 
 the greatest, by every individual member of our 
 communion, there should be renewed commit- 
 ment and consecration to Christ." Undoubtedly 
 many noble souls felt in the same way about the 
 spirit and purpose of the United Church, for its 
 record since the Union has been very high, and 
 has showed the Church nobly responsive to the 
 meaning of the Divine Call. 
 
 I have quoted quite largely from Dr. Johnson's 
 article "After Reunion — What?" in order to 
 show the man and to make it plain how gener- 
 ously and responsively his soul leaped to the 
 thought of the glorious possibilities in that United 
 Church. As if he were speaking through a 
 trumpet, he said, " Let pastors and people be 
 urged to closet themselves with God, so that we 
 shall not only be kept from the pride of Babel or 
 Babylon builders, but brought into such close 
 alliance with the Master, and in such close sym- 
 pathy with His out-reaching and world-embrac- 
 ing Spirit as our Church has never known." 
 
 The two General Assemblies that had accepted 
 The Basis for Union adjourned, with the ratifi- 
 cation by the Presbyteries of both Branches to 
 meet in Pittsburgh November lo, and formally 
 unite. On that memorable day the Old School 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 57 
 
 body, emerging from the First Presbyterian 
 Church, met the New School body, which had 
 marched from the Third Presbyterian Church, 
 and locking arms two by two, an Old School man 
 and a New School man, in a procession of more 
 than a thousand, they moved amid the cheers of a 
 vast concourse of people through the streets, back 
 to the Third Church, where as they filed into 
 and settled themselves in its great audience room, 
 the Moderator gave out the grand old hymn, 
 " All hail the power of Jesus' Name." There was 
 hardly a dry eye in all that vast congregation. 
 The United Church then adjourned to hold its 
 first Assembly in May, 1870, in the historic First 
 Church of Philadelphia; and it must have been 
 particularly interesting and gratifying to Dr. 
 Johnson, that the formal Union took place in his 
 old church in Pittsburgh, and the First Assembly 
 in his church in Philadelphia. He was the 
 Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements for 
 the reception and carrying on of the Assembly, 
 and showed in this office that he had as much 
 business and executive ability as he had power 
 in the pulpit and influence in the Assemblies. 
 The patience, self-control, and good cheer with 
 which he met all the exacting duties of his posi- 
 tion won for him the admiration of the city as 
 well as the Assembly. " Although the Assembly 
 was more than double the size of ordinary As- 
 semblies, every arrangement was most carefully 
 and systematically made by Dr. Johnson and his 
 
58 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 able Committee of Arrangements. No other 
 Assembly was ever better cared for in advance. 
 Dr. Johnson has won golden opinion from ail 
 for his patience, activity, and his courtesy, but 
 few can ever know how much of his habitual 
 nervous force has been expended in caring for 
 this Assembly." 
 
 This year was full of intense activities. Dr. 
 Johnson preached a series of notable sermons 
 from which ultimately grew his very vigorous 
 and attractive book, Christianity's Challenge, 
 followed by a very able address at the Anniver- 
 sary of Philadelphia's Bible Society. Then a 
 memorial sermon at the death of his great prede- 
 cessor — Albert Barnes. Then an address before 
 the New York Association of Sunday School 
 Teachers. " Dr. Johnson evidently impressed his 
 audience with the belief that they were listening 
 not only to one of the first thinkers on this great 
 subject in this or any country, but to one of the 
 truly spiritual divines of the day." Then came a 
 protracted discussion on the wine question in 
 which he took the ground that there were two 
 kinds of wine referred to in the Scriptures — a 
 sweet and harmless drink, and a fermented and 
 alcoholic one — and urging the Christ could not 
 have made nor used the latter. There was much 
 earnest argument, not in the long run productive 
 of the greatest good to the Temperance cause, 
 and ultimately Dr. Johnson withdrew his claim, 
 with characteristic honesty. Then came the 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 59 
 
 sixth Anniversary of the National Temperance 
 Society, addressed by Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, Dr. 
 T. L. Cuyler, Dr. T. De Witt Talmage, and Dr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 Then came the commencement at Hamilton 
 College, where Dr. Johnson was most active, and 
 the report of the Committee (of which Dr. John- 
 son was chairman) on the New Hymn Book. 
 It was attacked of course, — no New Hymn 
 Book can escape that,— and the attack and criti- 
 cism had to be reviewed and answered by Dr. 
 Johnson, which in the main was done most 
 satisfactorily, and the New Hymn Book re- 
 ceived the General Assembly's endorsement. 
 But the year had been such a strain upon his 
 nervous force, that his church insisted upon his 
 taking a long vacation, in Europe, in the spring 
 of 1872. The Evangelist made the accompany- 
 ing reference to his going, "We have much 
 satisfaction springing from a sense of fitness 
 of things, in the announcement that the Pastor 
 of the First Presbyterian Church of Phila- 
 delphia, Rev. Herrick Johnson, D.D., is about 
 to take a six months' respite in Europe, and this 
 at the unanimous wish of his warmly attached 
 people." Entering that field just before the de- 
 struction by fire at Marquette of all his sermons 
 and MSS, *'he succeeded to the pulpit of the 
 man he perhaps most venerated in all the Church, 
 and whose fame for ability and cultured resources 
 was world-wide. The field was certainly no 
 
60 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 sinecure; it never had been such; and now for 
 obvious reasons, its demands as a downtown 
 church with more than an uptown prestige were 
 greater than ever before upon him who should 
 adequately fill its pulpit and its pews, and at the 
 same time make good the large place of Mr. 
 Barnes in the councils of the Church, and at a 
 period of peculiarly delicate readjustments. 
 
 '* That Dr. Johnson has succeeded in abundantly 
 satisfying and largely increasing his congregation 
 and membership in spite of his pulpit and library 
 losses, and his aptitude for outside labor of all 
 sorts, incident to a laborious committeeman or a 
 vigorous pen and ink tilt with the ex-President 
 of Princeton on the wine question is just cause 
 for congratulation and must be ascribed to ex- 
 cellent qualities of endurance, and no mistaken 
 repute for power in the pulpit. He has succeeded 
 in a great work and we are sure that the prayer 
 of his people and of a host of friends throughout 
 the Church will attend him and his wife as they 
 now voyage from our shores in company with 
 Dr. Cuyler in the good steamer China." 
 
 It was my pleasure to sail the same summer, 
 Dr. and Mrs. Johnson not knowing when they 
 sailed (April 29, 1872) that I was soon to follow 
 them. I met Dr. Cuyler in London, but found it 
 very difficult to cross Dr. Johnson's divergent 
 paths, and at the same time follow out my plan. 
 He wrote me from Innspruck : " How pleased and 
 blest was I, and I am proving it by improving 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 61 
 
 the first opportunity to let you know of our 
 movements. Your letter reached me this morn- 
 ing just as we are starting from Innspruck on 
 our tour through Switzerland and the Tyrol. We 
 expect to be in Zermatt about the 20th of July, 
 passing along from here through the Ober- 
 Engadine to the Julier Pass, seeing something of 
 the Splugen, and its celebrated Via Mala, down 
 to Regantz and so on to Andermatt, St. Gothard, 
 and Furca. From Zermatt we now expect to 
 make the pass of St. Theodule and the Via 
 Aosta and Courmayeur around Mt. Blanc to 
 Chamounix, and over Tete Noir to Martigny, 
 then to Interlaken by the Gemmi Pass and to 
 Lucerne and to Brientz. We may have to change 
 our plans, but in any event I think we shall be in 
 Interlaken and Lucerne somewhere about 
 August 1st. Do meet us if possible. In great 
 haste but in great affection, Herrick." 
 
 On receipt of this letter I planned to meet him 
 and Mrs. Johnson at Interlaken. In the mean- 
 time, meeting Mr. and Mrs. F. Gridley of Buf- 
 falo and their son Charlie and Rev. Fred Ken- 
 dall (son of the Rev. Dr. Kendall of the Home 
 Board), we joined forces for a tour through a 
 part of Switzerland. All of the men of this 
 party were graduates of Hamilton College and 
 members of Alpha Delta Phi. The younger men 
 were on the qui vive to run across their college 
 friend, the Rev. Maurice Edwards, for so many 
 years pastor of one of the most prosperous Pres- 
 
62 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 byterian churches of St. Paul, Minn. Tourists 
 will understand how the faces of every group 
 passed were scanned for friends. We had 
 reached the quaint and lonely Grimsel Hospice 
 and were in our rooms preparing for dinner, 
 when I heard the college men of my party yell- 
 ing like mad, and pounding away at the man they 
 were looking for — Maurice Edwards, who had 
 suddenly appeared in the corridor. As I stepped 
 out from my room, towel in hand, and delighted 
 with their joy, I heard a voice cry out of the 
 dark corridor, '' Hello, there's Charlie Rob ! " 
 It was Herrick, who was taking a pedestrian 
 tour with Edwards from Monte Rosa, by Grim- 
 sel Hospice, and had stopped there just to rest 
 for an hour. It was now his and my turn to yell 
 as only college boys know how to, and to pound 
 each other. Only those who have been through 
 a similar experience can imagine our delight. 
 We accompanied Johnson and Edwards for 
 quite a little way up the zigzag path, singing 
 our old familiar college songs and especially our 
 Alpha Delta Phi songs, and then parted to meet 
 in Interlaken. 
 
 Both parties united at Interlaken, putting up 
 at the Hotel des Alpes. We agreed to take 
 turns in ordering the meals, and we furbished 
 up our long- forgotten college French (poor at 
 the best), and the waiters must have gone about 
 wild over our attempts. I remember Dr. John- 
 son said to a waiter : " Do you speak English ? " 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 6^ 
 
 " No English/' " Bring us some bread, then/' 
 Mr. Fred Gridley, who had been longer from 
 his college French than the rest of us, in his 
 banking business at Buffalo, having made a 
 most elaborate attempt to order a dinner for our 
 party, came in at the appointed time and, seeing 
 that the table was not yet spread, said, " Hello! 
 Dinner n'est par ready, eh?" Dr. Maurice Ed- 
 wards and myself are the only ones now left of 
 that merry, happy party. I have no doubt but 
 that he recalls the fun, the fellowship, the as- 
 sociations, and the tours with a very warm heart. 
 It was a summer never to be forgotten. 
 
 Dr. and Mrs. Johnson reached their home in 
 Philadelphia after six months' absence, in- 
 vigorated and greatly improved in health. He 
 found the Alpine climbing afforded him the best 
 physical recuperation. Among the first things 
 which he took up as he resumed his public duties 
 was the Board of Education, to help students 
 for the ministry, who had no means or insuffi- 
 cient means to pursue their long course of at 
 least seven years. Some of the religious papers 
 attacked the whole system of furnishing aid to 
 poor students. Here is some of their argument 
 raised against it: *' If they are of the right 
 metal, such stuff as the Church needs for lead- 
 ership, they will get through." '* Yes," Dr. 
 Johnson replied, " but have we a right to compel 
 them to get through at the expense of precious 
 years, and often by wear and strain and self- 
 
64 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 denial, pinching, starving, killing out of them 
 the very spring and buoyancy of spirit with 
 which they ought to come bounding to their 
 work? It is ah very well to talk about the 
 ' discipline ' of this thing. But there isn't a 
 father in this land who would compel his son 
 wholly to work his way through college, if he 
 had the means to help. And is the Church to 
 repeat the tyranny of the old Egyptian task- 
 masters ? Will she expect bricks without straw ? 
 Shall we urge the indifferent and unfit quality 
 of the Board's Candidates and say they are a 
 company of ne'er-do-wells? Probably there is 
 no impression more prevalent in certain quar- 
 ters. There certainly is none more utterly and 
 mischievously erroneous. Many of the most 
 widely influential and gifted ministers of our 
 Church were assisted in their course of educa- 
 tion. Cavilling, carping sceptics concerning this 
 matter would be astonished at their roll-call." 
 
 Dr. Johnson was thoroughly aroused by these 
 attacks upon the Board of Education, and he 
 threw himself into the thick of the fight, to de- 
 fend and strengthen this cause. There is no 
 doubt but that the present unquestioned hold 
 which this Board of Education has to-day on 
 the heart of the Church is the fine fruit of Dr. 
 Johnson's generous, spirited, and very able re- 
 ply to charges made against the very system. 
 He kept it up, with blow after blow, until he 
 was the master of the field. It is due to his 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 65 
 
 priceless memory that this should be thoroughly 
 understood. 
 
 In looking over the minutes and report of the 
 General Assemblies for 1873 and 1874, one can- 
 not help noting with admiration the practical 
 quality of Dr. Johnson's addresses, which are at 
 this time and further on very frequent. He had 
 the mind of a business man as well as that of a 
 great preacher. He was possessed of broad sym- 
 pathies, and in all his many and impressive 
 speeches took the wide and generous side. He 
 believed that true soundness in the faith was 
 fairly conditioned on such liberty as he fought for 
 in coming into the United Church. 
 
 He might have been narrowly sectarian had it 
 not been for his fair-mindedness and his great 
 heart. We used to call him " Greatheart." 
 Here is a letter to me from him, written soon 
 after his and Mrs. Johnson's return from that 
 European trip : 
 
 " Yes, it was a disappointment not to meet you 
 again at Interlaken. I was gone ten days on 
 that grand trip, a part of which was glorious 
 and inspiring beyond all description. The last 
 day was the superbest of all when I came di- 
 rectly across the snow and ice-fields over the 
 Bernese Ober-land, descending by Schmadribach 
 Falls, at the upper end of Lauterbrunnen Val- 
 ley. If I could have had you along! Maurice 
 Edwards had left me, and I was alone with 
 
66 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 guide and porter, roped together, steps cut in ice, 
 etc., etc. My people seem to think it would pay to 
 send me abroad every year. I have been giving 
 them * Looks Abroad ' Sabbath evenings ; 
 ' France and Her Falsehood of Extremes,' 
 
 * Germany and the Old Catholic Movement/ 
 
 * Switzerland and the Lessons of Her Everlast- 
 ing Mountains,' ' England and Her Establish- 
 ment,' * The Sea and Its Lessons.' They have 
 asked me to repeat the course, to publish it in 
 book form, and to do this or that most foolish 
 thing. I consented by very special and wide 
 request to repeat the sermon on Switzerland, as 
 a great many did not hear it on its first delivery, 
 who were especially desirous of listening to that 
 particular sermon. I, too, am very much better 
 than when we first landed, and my wife has been 
 very much improved also. Work abounds, 
 duties multiply. The week of prayer brought 
 its special anxieties, no great cloud gathers over 
 us. But we continue some services. How about 
 Troy? You're a brave fellow to go extemporiz- 
 ing. I'm a coward and daren't. Love to all 
 from us both. Affectionately, 
 
 " Herrick/' 
 
 He was put in charge of the Westminster 
 series of Sunday school lessons. He was the 
 President of the Board of Education, and Chair- 
 man of the Presbyterial Committee on Foreign 
 Missions, and gave in the summer of 1873 at 
 
PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 67 
 
 the Hamilton College commencement a notable 
 address on *' The Priceless Value of American 
 Citizenship." But the strain upon him had be- 
 come altogether too great. That early summer 
 while I was visiting him at Philadelphia, I 
 referred to the various calls he had been getting 
 from Dr. Eells' church in Brooklyn, from the 
 First Church of Syracuse, etc., but he was not 
 ready to accept any of them. He confessed to 
 being very much broken by overwork. He felt 
 that his strength was failing and that he dare 
 not stay where he was, and owned that the in- 
 vitation from Auburn Theological Seminary to 
 the Chair of Homiletics and Sacred Rhetoric 
 presented itself very attractively in its oppor- 
 tunity for quiet and rest, and that he would 
 probably go there. He loved Auburn; it was 
 still the home of his wife's family, and the whole 
 city loved him and would give him a proud and 
 glad welcome. 
 
IV 
 
 AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 
 1874-1880 
 
 " * I am the True Vine,' said our Lord, * and Ye, 
 My Brethren, are t'le Branches;' and that Vine, 
 Then first uplifted in its place, and hung 
 With its first purple grapes, since then has grown, 
 Until its green leaves gladden half the world, 
 And from its countless clusters rivers flow 
 For healing of the nations, and its boughs 
 Innumerable stretch through all the earth. 
 Ever increasing, ever each entwined 
 With each, all living from the Central Heart. 
 And you and I, my brethren, live and grow. 
 Branches of that immortal human Stem." 
 
 — H. E. Hamilton King. 
 
 HERRICK JOHNSON had never tried 
 teaching, but he had the teacher's in- 
 stinct, contact with a lot of young 
 men looking forv^ard to the gospel ministry 
 specially appealing to him. And, turning from 
 the pressure and fever of city life, he vi^as 
 in just the condition to feel strongly the drawl- 
 ing of that special work. Nor was he mistaken. 
 It was the open door to the great work of his 
 life. For over thirty years from that time he 
 was an inspiration to hundreds of splendid 
 
 68 
 
AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 69 
 
 young men, who in their enthusiasm, and with- 
 out at all disparaging other professors, used to 
 speak of him with great affection. Of course it 
 was a hard pull to leave his church in Phila- 
 delphia. The people loved him in all the relations 
 which he held toward them and were very proud 
 of him, and he most reluctantly yielded to his 
 profound conviction that it was the Hand of God 
 leading him to Auburn. That was many years 
 ago, and a very large part of the church which 
 held so tenaciously upon him has gone to the 
 Heavenly land. But one of his devoted friends 
 there is still living, Mr. Abraham R. Perkins, of 
 Germantown, Philadelphia, and he writes me: 
 " From 1868, when Dr. Johnson came to us, 
 he was my very dear friend, and I miss him 
 daily; he was an inspiration in earlier days, and 
 a joy to be with always." 
 
 Of course there was no time to hang heavy 
 in his new field, all his lectures on Homiletics 
 and Rhetoric having to be newly written. But 
 the quiet of the Auburn life in which to carry 
 on all this writing was a great relief. He could 
 never be idle. Every hour was filled. Then the 
 fellowship with the students, the contact with 
 their fresh young life, just at that time of his 
 own middle life, when many men allow them- 
 selves to feel old, brought back the old days of 
 joyful vigor and youth. All this was so entirely 
 new as to furnish the radical change in feeling 
 and association which he needed, so that while 
 
70 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 he worked hard, he felt it to be grandly new and 
 inspiring. But then Herrick Johnson never came 
 to the time when life ceased to be '' grand " and 
 *' new " and " inspiring." 
 
 Through the generosity of a number of his 
 friends, mainly in Philadelphia, a very attractive 
 and commodious house for the new Professor 
 and Mrs. Johnson was erected. It was the habit 
 of the Faculty of Auburn Seminary to be hos- 
 pitable, and Dr. and Mrs. Johnson were pre- 
 eminently so. They made their beautiful home 
 most delightful to the young men. That was a 
 distinguishing feature of the more than thirty 
 years of their seminary life. 
 
 Auburn Seminary had always held a unique 
 position among the theological seminaries of the 
 country. Such men as Richards, and Mills, and 
 Hall, and Huntington, and Condit, and Hopkins, 
 and Shedd had been among the professors in its 
 earlier history. It had at that time on the roll 
 of its Alumni the names of some of the fore- 
 most men in the Church, and in some of the fore- 
 most positions of trust and responsibility. Over 
 two hundred of its graduates were at that time 
 in the pulpits of the four or five Synods of the 
 Empire State. Its buildings for the accommo- 
 dations of its students are unsurpassed by any 
 in the land. 
 
 On the occasion of Dr. Johnson's installation 
 into the Chair of Homiletics and Sacred Rhetoric, 
 the prayer of inauguration was offered by the 
 
Dr. Herrick Johnson in iMiddle Life. 
 
AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 71 
 
 Rev. J. B. Condit, D.D., the address to the newly 
 inaugurated professor delivered by the Presi- 
 dent of Hamilton College, S. G. Brown, D.D., 
 LL.D., and the welcome given by Rev. 
 Thomas C. Strong, D.D., President of the 
 Board of Commissioners. Then came the In- 
 augural Address by Dr. Johnson. I would like 
 to give it in full, but the limits of this little 
 book forbid that, but I cannot refrain from 
 quoting his closing words : " Its supreme aim, 
 its subject-matter, its ruling spirit, its unearthly 
 sanctions, its cooperating agent — these are some 
 of the great and mighty ideas which stand in- 
 dissolubly connected with the work of preach- 
 ing and which uplift and glorify the homiletic 
 art, and are fitted to arouse a lofty enthusi- 
 asm in its prosecution. What are mortal 
 daubings on canvas when painting can be done 
 with eternity for a background ; what are Thor- 
 waldsen's or Angelo's chiselings in marble, when 
 sculptured souls may be the immortal product of 
 our toil? What is it to make poems and ora- 
 tions, to kindle only natural emotions, when ser- 
 mons may be made which shall put a new song 
 on the lips of immortal men to be sung forever? 
 " Surely it is a shame to students of God's 
 mysteries if they grow not in love with their 
 homiletic toil. Men pursue their secular arts. 
 They go to the preparation of marble and can- 
 vas and poem with hearts beating all aglow with 
 enthusiasm, fired with a passion for their work. 
 
12 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Ought not this divinest of art, which it is the 
 special province of the Chair of Sacred Rhetoric 
 to teach, to waken a grander enthusiasm and to 
 possess with a more consuming zeal? Do I 
 magnify my office? Be it freely acknowledged. 
 God grant that I may magnify it by future deed 
 as well as by present speech. I come to the 
 Chair of Sacred Rhetoric in this institution with 
 the profound conviction that what the pulpit 
 of our day most needs is just this: not better 
 theologians, not greater learning, not vaster 
 stores of information, but the art of using what 
 it already possesses. If the element of enthusi- 
 asm could be put into the preparation and de- 
 livery of sermons all over the land, in thousands 
 of instances the effect would be like a resurrec- 
 tion of the dead. The art of preaching has been 
 sadly and widely ignored and forgotten in a too 
 exclusive and absorbed attention to the subject- 
 matter. The structural work of sermonizing, 
 the rhetorical form, the adaptation in methods 
 and dress of thought to the best efforts have 
 far too little heed, while sermons are far too 
 often delivered with a sameness and slovenli- 
 ness, and utter indifference to oratorical excel- 
 lence scarcely befitting the common talk of the 
 street. 
 
 " The pulpit wants (is it extravagant to say 
 it?) above all else enthusiastic homiletes, men 
 not only consecrated to the general work of the 
 ministry, but fired with a passion for the art of 
 
AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 73 
 
 preaching, filled with a holy zeal for effective 
 sermonizing, men who shall be more earnestly 
 and sacredly ambitious to have the best methods 
 of preaching and to know how to use them so 
 as to exert power over men, and win prizes in 
 the arena where souls may be won, than the old 
 Grecians were to excel as athletes and win prizes 
 in the ancient games. May God help us, here in 
 this seminary, to make such men." To this 
 work Dr. Johnson gave the rest of his life (over 
 thirty years) with an enthusiasm and devotion 
 that never faltered. 
 
 In looking over the record of his first year in 
 Auburn, one has to smile at the hope felt by 
 him, of securing more quiet and ease. Aside 
 from his having to prepare at least three new 
 lectures a week in Homiletics, and to devote 
 time to drilling the students in '* Prayer Meet- 
 ing Talks " and listening to a sermon from each 
 one of the Senior Class in turn every week, and 
 giving a most thorough and elaborate criticism, 
 in every case, he preached in the surrounding 
 cities — Utica, Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, and 
 Rochester. He addressed the Woman's Tem- 
 perance Society. He attended the General As- 
 sembly and entered very earnestly and elabo- 
 rately into its discussions, especially the theme 
 which at that time was at the front — " Consoli- 
 dation." Dr. Johnson was on a committee which, 
 all but himself, favored the movement to con- 
 solidate the Boards in a mighty whole. He pre- 
 
74 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 sented a minority report, opposing a wholesale 
 movement to combine the Boards, and really 
 secured the settlement of the question on the 
 basis of his report, and which has given shape 
 to the order and efficiency of the Boards ever 
 since. 
 
 Then came the Auburn Seminary commence- 
 ment, where at that time the graduating class 
 offered orations. The preparation of these and 
 the drilling of the speakers were under the care 
 of Dr. Johnson. Then came his Inauguration Ad- 
 dress, to which I have already referred. Right 
 after that Dr. Johnson preached in the First 
 Church under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., 
 soon after he attended the commencement at 
 Williams College, where the paper stated that 
 he delivered a ** masterly discourse before the 
 Mills Society." During the summer months he 
 supplied the Union Services in Hudson, N. Y. 
 All this, with a number of articles written in 
 answer to criticisms upon the " New Hymnal " 
 (the work of a committee of which Dr. Johnson 
 was chairman), and the constant work with his 
 classes in the seminary made the year anything 
 but quiet and restful, though he was very well 
 and happy in his work. 
 
 Dr. Johnson had become so much a part of 
 the life of Auburn that there was hardly any- 
 thing going on in its literary or religious life in 
 which he was not invited to take a prominent 
 part. He liked to identify himself with the 
 
AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 75 
 
 pleasant social life of the city. His good nature, 
 his humor, his dramatic ability, all lent a charm 
 to any entertainment that his friends were en- 
 gaged in. Just at that time there was a craze 
 rife through the country for spelling bees, and 
 the Opera House was crowded on such oc- 
 casions. Dr. Johnson not only was there, but 
 he also took a very prominent part — that of 
 enunciator of the words to be spelled. There 
 was great fun which he not only furthered, but 
 greatly enjoyed. At the summer resorts which 
 he was in the habit of visiting, he was the centre 
 of the social life, joining most heartily in the 
 charades, games, and tableaux, while he par- 
 ticularly enjoyed the impromptu musicals. His 
 dramatic talent, together with his facility in il- 
 lustration, made his addresses to children 
 charming. They were simply fascinated by him. 
 It was only amusements that had sin in them 
 which he opposed ; clean fun he delighted in. 
 He never would have preached as he did in 
 Philadelphia, and especially in Chicago, against 
 theatres, if the plays had been moral and elevat- 
 ing. Pure comedy he would have greatly en- 
 joyed. 
 
 The great city churches could not let him 
 alone. They felt that a man of his ability should 
 be more in the centre of power. The Collegiate 
 Church in New York, which had greatly enjoyed 
 his summer supplies, enthusiastically called him 
 with the offer of a very large salary. After 
 
76 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 mature and prayerful consideration, he declined 
 the call. The Collegiate Church repeated the 
 call, but he found himself unwilling to go out 
 of the bounds of the Presbyterian Church, to 
 which he was much attached. Later the Clas- 
 son Avenue Presbyterian Church, of Brooklyn 
 (the church started by Dr. Joseph T. Duryea), 
 called him. He was greatly drawn to that 
 church, and considered the call very prayer- 
 fully. He knew the joy of being a pastor. But 
 it had been shown him that God had given him 
 power to educate pastors. " His five years in 
 Auburn had made this so evident to his brethren, 
 that it could not fail to be evident to himself," 
 and so he declined this call also, deciding to re- 
 main at Auburn. A committee of some of the 
 most prominent men of Brooklyn went up to 
 Auburn and returned home without being able 
 to induce him to reconsider his refusal to accept 
 their call. He wrote me about it September 27, 
 1878, as follows : 
 
 " I am grateful to you for your words of 
 warm appreciation and hearty sympathy. They 
 have been helpful in the matter that has been 
 before me. I was in New York on Friday and 
 Saturday, September 13 and 14, seeking facts 
 and judgments, and after several personal, and 
 in some cases quite protracted, conferences, I 
 came up to Albany, passed the Sabbath there, 
 returned home on Monday, and on that day sent 
 
AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 77 
 
 back my formal declination. They telegraphed 
 on receipt of it, urging a reconsideration, but as 
 no additional reasons were given, I replied by 
 telegraph negatively. They then requested an- 
 other interview at Albany last Saturday (the 
 committee were here, at Auburn, in full force 
 the week before) and I met them at noon at the 
 * Delevan.' It was a long and precious, and 
 painful interview. They were noble men, and 
 they treated me nobly, and their whole presenta- 
 tion of the case was honorable, urgent, and most 
 affectionate. 
 
 " I never had so great a trial of this kind in 
 my life. But the call did not take on that im- 
 perativeness, which I think a call should, to 
 move a man from a place where he is already 
 satisfied and useful. I could not see that it was 
 my duty to go. I confess the balances seemed 
 often even and the case doubtful. It was hard 
 to decide where the greater usefulness might 
 be possible. I gave the benefit of the doubt to 
 Auburn, and reluctantly told the good brethren 
 that I saw no reason for a change of decision. 
 It was hard, Charlie. I don't want to go 
 through such another trial very soon. But it 
 has made me acquainted with some of the 
 choicest spirits I ever rnet. Since the decision 
 I have been resting in it, as of God in His 
 Providence, and I do believe it to be right. 
 " Yours very affectionately, 
 
 " Herrick/' 
 
78 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Almost immediately after having settled this 
 question of the Brooklyn call, Dr. Johnson threw 
 himself with an enthusiasm characteristic of him 
 into the work of advancing very materially the 
 interests of his beloved Alma Mater, Hamilton 
 College. He plied the Evangelist with article 
 after article, fairly burning with white heat 
 with his intense love for the college. His first 
 contribution was ** Do the Living Church and 
 the Living College Go Together?" "Shall the 
 College Be Christian?" followed with a strong 
 article on *' Shall the Presbyterian Church of the 
 State of New York Have a College?" Then 
 another, " A College at Our Door," followed 
 by an urgent contribution, "Our Splendid Op- 
 portunity," and still another, " Our Smaller Col- 
 leges." 
 
 In the meantime he went to Philadelphia to 
 pay an eloquent and exquisite tribute to the 
 memory of Dr. E. R. Beadle. The correspond- 
 ent of the Evangelist wrote of it : " The most 
 prominent service in the Presbyterian pulpit on 
 last Sabbath was the memorial discourse deliv- 
 ered in the Second Presbyterian Church, Phila- 
 delphia, by Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Auburn, 
 N. Y., in commemoration of the life and 
 services of the late Dr. E. R. Beadle, pastor for 
 thirteen years of the Second Church. Dr. John- 
 son came from Auburn at the request of the 
 church, and, prompted by love for the memory 
 of him with whom he had been intimately asso- 
 
AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 79 
 
 ciated while they were pastors together in Phila- 
 delphia. The sermon was a fine one, wrought 
 out with great completeness, and formed an elo- 
 quent loving tribute to the memory of his 
 friend." Right after that came a call from the 
 First Church of Utica, which he declined, lead- 
 ing the Evangelist to say : " The papers say that 
 Dr. Herrick Johnson has declined a call to the 
 First Presbyterian Church of Utica. This will 
 encourage all the churches that are after him, 
 and have not yet been refused." 
 
 But there came a call from the Fourth Church 
 of Chicago, which at first he also declined, but 
 which was renewed with arguments and reasons 
 to which he had to pay such heed as led him 
 finally to accept it. Perhaps nothing will more 
 clearly present these reasons and their effect 
 upon him than a letter which he wrote to me 
 from Auburn April 9, 1880: 
 
 " I have at last succumbed, as you doubtless 
 have seen by the papers. The pressure has been 
 persisting and augmenting, until I was brought 
 face to face with considerations that clinched my 
 conscience and made me feel the grip of an 
 'ought.' It came to look as if I must go to 
 Chicago, or fight against God. Doors of useful- 
 ness are opened, through which I see limitless 
 possibilities of power. I am offered a lecture- 
 ship in the Seminary, which will be no draft of 
 a serious nature, and in which I can go on giving 
 
80 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 to students the cream of what I have been giving 
 here. It will only be supplemental to the Chair 
 of Sacred Rhetoric. The details of the depart- 
 ment, the drill work, and much of the instruc- 
 tion, will, of course, fall to the occupant of the 
 chair. This arrangement is to continue only as 
 I wish and to the extent of work I may find 
 myself equal to. Then McCormick throws wide 
 open the Interior, and says I may use it as I 
 wish. Then there is our struggling University 
 at Lake Forest to be placed on a broad stable 
 foundation, and to be made the Presbyterian 
 University of the whole vast interior of our 
 country. Behind me, and assuring me of all 
 sympathy and cooperation, will be the Fourth 
 Church, possessing millions to-day, and humanly 
 speaking certain of adding millions more to the 
 wealth now held by its members. 
 
 " The Church is now free from debt, is in the 
 best position of Chicago, has no Presbyterian 
 church within two miles of it, and is full of ac- 
 tivity and alive with workers. Among the latter 
 are some of the noblest women on the continent, 
 according to the testimony of Mitchell. It is 
 possible, of course, that I go to great trial, dis- 
 appointment, strife of soul, and failure. No 
 matter! I never believed more fully that I was 
 in the path of duty, and if not even my lowest 
 and least hope is realized, I shall continue to feel 
 that this was of God. If it is not to permit me 
 to do some greater work for Him, then it may be 
 
AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 81 
 
 to show me more of Himself, through the path 
 of trial and by the way of cloud and storm. 
 My blessed Katie goes with me, full of the same 
 quiet belief. We have been singularly alike in 
 our feeling about it all. We have both had othei; 
 preferences. Personal tastes would have led us 
 eastward, if we were to move at all. We both 
 felt the first declination of this matter was right 
 and yet we both had lingering doubts whether, 
 after all, a mistake had not been made, when 
 the pressure was renewed under entirely new 
 conditions, and conclusion in favor of going 
 was reached, we rested in it as of God. 
 
 " You must cease not to pray for us — you and 
 Clara. It is a trial to leave dear old Auburn, 
 but the very reasons I had been accustomed to 
 urge for staying were turned upon me as per- 
 suasive to come to Chicago — Seminary and Col- 
 lege pleading there and ofifering facilities for 
 doing some things I could hardly hope to do 
 here. Keep on loving your old friend, and re- 
 member as you strike for Hamilton and Auburn, 
 and the dear Lord above all, that in the interior 
 of the continent somebody's heart boats in sym- 
 pathy always. As ever, 
 
 '' Herrick.'' 
 
 A correspondent for the Evangelist, writing 
 from Auburn, said of his going to Chicago : '' A 
 great deal that is true and beautiful in life will 
 go from us when Dr. and Mrs. Johnson leave 
 
82 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Auburn. It seemed so fitting that the gifted 
 daughter of Mr. Hardenburg, himself a poet, 
 should find a beautiful home on the very ground 
 given by her honored father sixty years ago for 
 the ' Theological Seminary of the Western Edu- 
 cation Society.' 
 
 *' We hoped that the fair scion would take 
 deep root in that genial soil, and that we might 
 long ' sit under its shadow with great delight.' 
 We know how well both Dr. and Mrs. Johnson 
 have fulfilled their duty in the honorable posi- 
 tion which they have occupied among us, and 
 it is with great reluctance that we admit the 
 thought that a more important and promising 
 field of usefulness now opens before them." 
 And Dr. S. M. Hopkins, giving the farewell ad- 
 dress to the then graduating class, said of Dr. 
 Johnson's going : " Long live the King, who 
 goes from us to occupy a broad and noble field 
 of usefulness in another part of the Church. We 
 have kept him as long as we could keep so suc- 
 cessful a pulpit orator, and a little longer, I 
 think, than he promised to stay when he came." 
 
V 
 
 THE FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 OF CHICAGO, ILL., 1880-1883 
 
 " Happy is the man taught by the truth itself, 
 Not by the shapes and sounds that pass across his life." 
 
 — Thomas a Kempis. 
 
 DR. JOHNSON was installed pastor of 
 the Fourth Church of Chicago, May 
 30, 1880, Dr. Arthur Mitchell, then 
 pastor of the First Church, preaching. The 
 charge to the pastor was delivered by the Rev. 
 R. W. Patterson, D.D., and the charge to the 
 people by Dr. D. S. Johnson. 
 
 In the autumn he began his course (contem- 
 plated when he came to Chicago) of lectures 
 on Sacred Rhetoric to the students of the Semi- 
 nary of the Northwest. The following is the 
 formal request of the Executive Committee of 
 the Board of Directors : " Resolved, that in ac- 
 cordance with the suggestion of Mr. McCormick, 
 and with the entire concurrence of Dr. Halsey, 
 Professor of Natural Theology and Church Gov- 
 ernment, Rev. Herrick Johnson, D.D., be, and 
 he hereby is, respectfully and earnestly invited 
 to deliver a course of lectures in Sacred Rhetoric 
 to the classes of the Seminary during the coming 
 
 83 
 
84 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 annual session, Mr. McCormick having given 
 Dr. Johnson satisfactory personal obligations for 
 this service." 
 
 The substantial consideration is understood 
 to have been two thousand dollars. On Novem- 
 ber 7th of that year the Second Church of Au- 
 burn, where Dr. Johnson had preached for a long 
 time, while he was professor at Auburn, held its 
 fiftieth anniversary of their organization as a 
 church, and very naturally sent him an urgent 
 invitation to be present at their celebration. I 
 give herewith his letter to show how he bound 
 men and churches to him by the strong cords 
 of his loving heart: 
 
 " 71 Rush Street, Chicago, Nov. 7, 1880. 
 " My Dear Brother Allbright : 
 
 " All my heart goes out in congratulation to 
 you and the dear people of the Second Church 
 on the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary as 
 an organized body of Jesus Christ. Jubilate! 
 And how I would like to join you in the glad 
 song! Something of my life went down into 
 the church when I touched it a little while ago. 
 Something of my life went down into your life 
 also, dear Allbright, when we walked and talked 
 together in your student days. So it would be a 
 right joyous thing to touch all your palms next 
 Wednesday night and join personally in the 
 greetings of that good hour. But duties here 
 forbid, and I must be content with a written 
 
FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 85 
 
 * God bless you,' and a hand-shake half-way 
 across the continent. Success to you, old half- 
 century ! Renew your youth like the eagle ! 
 Abide in strength, thou strong bow ! Go forth 
 with joy and singing, beautiful bride of Jesus ! 
 Up with invisible walls to click of unseen trowel 
 and with living masonry, O Zion of Auburn! 
 *' Yours in toil and love, 
 
 "Herrick Johnson.'" 
 
 On November 21, 1880, Dr. Johnson began 
 a series of sermons, or lectures, to be delivered in 
 Farwell Hall, Sunday afternoon, which attracted 
 very wide attention. The germ of them was 
 started in Philadelphia. But it was not until 
 this time that he elaborated them to the extent 
 of making a notable book, called Christianity's 
 Challenge. The topics of the lectures were 
 ''Christianity's Challenge," "Christianity's 
 Book," "Christianity's Christ," "Christianity's 
 Gospel of Definiteness," " Christianity's View of 
 Man," " Christianity's Endless Death," " Chris- 
 tianity and Endless Life." At the close of the 
 series, the lectures were published. Circulation 
 of the book was wide-spread, and has done an 
 incalculable amount of good. One of the daily 
 papers said : " It is certain to make a marked 
 impression upon the religious thought of the 
 times. It fills an unoccupied place in religious 
 literature, and upon every page shows the hand 
 of a master." " He is doing a good work in the 
 
86 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Fourth Church, and exerts a healthful influence 
 beyond it. He never preached with greater 
 power, more evangelically, spiritually, and af- 
 fectionately than now, whilst as a Lecturer on 
 Sacred Rhetoric he will do much to give char- 
 acter to our future ministry." 
 
 " He is a man of medium size and striking 
 physique, having in every respect the air and 
 manner of a Christian gentleman. The deep 
 overhanging brow, piercing eye, unaided by 
 glasses, so generally necessary to clergymen of 
 his age, denote the great preponderance of the 
 intellectual above the physical. But it is as the 
 rhetorician and elocutionist that we specially 
 admire this man. His style is clear and to the 
 point. His delivery unlike that of many of the 
 clergy, who seem to discharge a perfunctory 
 duty, was filled with energy, the voice, although 
 not a young man's, resounding at times through 
 the spacious edifice, clear and wonderfully dis- 
 tinct, yet managed with grace and elasticity, we 
 could not but think it a first-class opportunity 
 for our young and even older clergy to gather 
 a few elocutionary hints from this master of the 
 art of public speaking." 
 
 At this time, 1881, the Revised Version of the 
 New Testament came out, and the leading Chi- 
 cago papers sent reporters to get the view of it 
 from the various city pastors. Dr. Johnson re- 
 plied: "You ask for my judgment respecting 
 the practical utility of the new version of the 
 
FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 87 
 
 New Testament for public, personal, and home 
 use. The new version will tell every reader of 
 the New Testament more nearly the exact truth 
 of God. This is its supreme and eminently 
 practical advantage. Nothing whatever can 
 compensate for the lack of it. Nobody wants 
 gloss and false guise in God's Word, whether 
 for use in family prayers, private devotion, or 
 Bible study. Sentiment, sonorous form, musical 
 structure, old association, however sacred, every- 
 thing must give way to truth. The new version 
 is an honest, thorough, scholarly effort to get at 
 the mind of the spirit, and to give that mind 
 exact expression. 
 
 " If it be said that archaisms, grammatical in- 
 accuracies, and interpolations could be explained, 
 the reply is, The Art of Scripture should explain 
 itself. ' Take no thought for to-morrow ' wants 
 clearing up. * Be not anxious for to-morrow ' 
 makes its meaning stare the reader in the face. 
 * Charity ' sends the ordinary reader's thought at 
 once to alms-giving. ' Love ' has largeness 
 enough for all that is wrapped up in the original 
 Greek. * The lamp of the body is the eye ;' how 
 luminous that makes the passage, the ' light ' of 
 which has been * darkness ' to multitudes. And 
 so on all through. If it be said that the new 
 version will disturb the faith, the reply is that 
 the faith that is disturbed by the truth rests in 
 the letter and is not worth keeping." 
 
 On July 4, Dr. Johnson delivered an address 
 
88 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 to the Mills Society at Williams College, " of 
 very great ability and excellence, producing a 
 profound impression. He has a brilliant, lucid, 
 and nervous style both of writing and speaking, 
 his thoughts are incisive and his views of truth 
 and duty such as the age and all ages demand. 
 He has that accuracy of epithet, pertinency of 
 illustration, and that peculiar choice and colloca- 
 tion of words, which not only finish the sentence 
 when it is concluded, but which arm the close of 
 it with an explosive quality like that of a minie 
 bullet." 
 
 On Dr. Johnson's return to Chicago, in the 
 fall of 1881, the papers were full of various ac- 
 counts of a suspension of a member in a Pres- 
 byterian church for dancing. On account of Dr. 
 Johnson's decided views concerning certain 
 forms of amusements, the press very naturally 
 desired to get his opinion of this special case, 
 and I am glad to quote his reply to show how 
 sane his views were : " I hardly think that the 
 statement of the case can be the correct one. I 
 think that the Presbyterian Church without any 
 question leaves that sort of thing to the individ- 
 ual conscience. There must have been some- 
 thing else in connection with that case beyond 
 what is shown on the face of it. It cannot be 
 possible that the Synod or Presbytery can have 
 disciplined any man simply for indulgence in a 
 cotillion. It certainly cannot be made a condi- 
 tion of church membership, and such a provision 
 
FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 89 
 
 is not in the bounds of our Church, so far as 
 I know — anywhere. If such a rule is made in 
 any individual case, it is without the authority 
 of the Church. Dancing is not a matter of dis- 
 cipline, and, in my judgment, ought not to be. 
 It is one of that class of indulgences that comes 
 under the law of things indifferent. It is one of 
 those things which is not wrong or right of it- 
 self, but only the one or the other in connection 
 with surrounding circumstances. Therefore it 
 is a thing which must be left for settlement as 
 to its moral bearings to the individual conscience. 
 
 " The great law of our Church in reference to 
 church membership is this, namely, that there 
 are no conditions of church membership which 
 are not likewise conditions essential to salvation. 
 In other words, we do not believe in making it 
 harder to get into church than it is to get into 
 Heaven. That is the great principle on which 
 our Church is founded. I would here state that 
 there is a very mistaken notion abroad that we 
 are bigoted and narrow-minded, and needlessly 
 strict, when the real truth is, that we are among 
 the broadest and freest of churches in reference 
 to conditions of church membership, in that our 
 reception of members is based upon the funda- 
 mental law to require no more conditions for 
 church membership than we claim as necessary 
 to secure salvation." 
 
 In 1881 and 1882 Dr. Johnson began a series 
 of sermons entitled " Plain Talk About the 
 
90 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Theatres," which greatly roused the city. 
 Friends of the theatres, both in the Church and 
 out, claimed that Dr. Johnson's unfamiliarity 
 with the theatre made him a very unfair critic. 
 He was vehemently attacked by theatre man- 
 agers, prominent actors, stockholders of thea- 
 tres, by leaders of fashionable clubs. He was 
 charged with narrowness and ignorance; some 
 contributors to the papers treated him cour- 
 teously, others vituperatively. It was not like 
 him to enter upon such a crusade without 
 preparation. '* Ordinarily," said one of the re- 
 ligious papers, " a minister is placed at a great 
 disadvantage in attacking the theatre, because 
 from actual attendance he knows nothing of 
 what goes on there. But in this case the dra- 
 matic writers for the daily papers, by their 
 sweeping criticisms and denunciations of trashy 
 and immoral plays, which the theatres have for 
 the most part exhibited, supplied Dr. Johnson 
 with a well-stocked armory of weapons, and he 
 made tremendously effective use of them. The 
 latest chapter of the controversy is this : The 
 Hon. E. C. Earned, an old and most reputable 
 citizen of the city, published an open letter to 
 Dr. Johnson, in which he courteously defended 
 the theatre, and maintained that all its immorali- 
 ties could be corrected if Christians and good 
 people generally would come to the support of 
 the theatre, and patronize only clean plays. 
 Never was a luckless and self-confident adven- 
 
FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 91 
 
 turer in the Alps more completely overwhelmed 
 by an avalanche than was Mr. Larned by the 
 reply which his defence brought forth from Dr. 
 Johnson." 
 
 These sermons and articles in defence from 
 the attacks made upon him were gathered in a 
 book named A Plain Talk About the Theatre, 
 published by Revell. In the same season 
 was issued a book, Revivals, Their Place 
 and Power. Both books received a great deal 
 of attention. Soon after this, in the spring 
 of 1882, the General Assembly met in Spring- 
 field. There was a great deal of interest shown 
 in the election of a Moderator and a number of 
 candidates. There was a special desire to do 
 away with the recognition of the old divisions in 
 the Church, before the reunion. Regularly the 
 alternation of Moderators' Old School and New 
 School went on year after year. The special ob- 
 jection against any minister nominated would 
 be that as the retiring Moderator formerly be- 
 longed to the Old School, it would never do to 
 elect this new man to the high office, because 
 he too had been an Old School man. Several 
 candidates were nominated, when Judge Moore 
 of Chicago rose and nominated Dr. Herrick 
 Johnson, not only because of his marked ability, 
 but also because he belonged to the same school 
 that the retiring Moderator belonged to — the 
 New School. Judge Moore, himself an Old 
 School man, said he wanted to break up this 
 
92 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 regular oscillation between the New School and 
 Old School. He hoped that the time had gone 
 by when they could nominate a man only because 
 he belonged to either the New or Old School. 
 Dr. Johnson received 354 of the 444 votes cast. 
 Thus the last trace of the old schism was ob- 
 literated. 
 
 The friends of Dr. Johnson, especially from 
 the Chicago Presbytery, were naturally very 
 much pleased over his election, claiming that the 
 large majority was an indorsement of his warm 
 fight against the theatres in Chicago the winter 
 before. They claimed that the Presbyterian 
 Church of the United States was in accord with 
 Dr. Johnson in that fight, and that this large 
 majority was his indorsement. The Chicago 
 Times said : " Dr. Herrick Johnson, the able 
 Pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, of 
 this city, who has been giving such heavy blasts 
 against the theatre lately, was yesterday chosen 
 presiding officer of the Presbyterian General 
 Assembly of the United States, in session at 
 Springfield, 111. Dr. Johnson may be a little too 
 radical on the amusement question, but there are 
 few abler theologians or pulpit orators than he 
 is." Dr. Howard Crosby wrote him as follows : 
 
 " My Dear Dr. Johnson : 
 
 " I am rejoiced to hear of your election as 
 Moderator. There is no man who more fitly 
 represents the old and the new than yourself. 
 
Dr. Johnson as he was at "McCormack." 
 
FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 93 
 
 You are conservative and yet in the front rank 
 of progress. With your administration the Hnes 
 are obHterated entirely. I feel like having a 
 bonfire in my yard to-night in honor of the oc- 
 casion. God bless your presidency, and may 
 the blessed Spirit baptize the Assembly. 
 
 ** Yours in Christ, 
 
 "Howard Crosby. 
 
 The New York Independent said of him : 
 " The personnel of the Assembly may be 
 sketched in a sentence. It is a body of good 
 balance, sense, industry, and earnestness. It is 
 composed in good part of the younger men of 
 the Church, with enough of its more experienced 
 leaders to keep its work well in hand and to 
 carry it on according to proper forms and by 
 approved methods. Its Moderator, Dr. Herrick 
 Johnson, was chosen according to a deliberate 
 purpose to bury the dividing lines between Old 
 School and New School out of sight forever. 
 
 " The Moderator is a success — a fine parlia- 
 mentarian, prompt in decision, and positive in 
 rulings and courteous always, he drives the busi- 
 ness along as seeming not to drive it, and in- 
 spires the Assembly always with his own cheer- 
 ful, energetic, and devout spirit." Undoubtedly 
 the most interesting, exciting, and momentous 
 time in the Assembly was when the overture of 
 the Presbyterian Church, South, was presented 
 to seek for fellowship with a desire that the 
 
94 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 " Bloody Chasm," caused by the war, be 
 bridged, and both Churches meet in cordial fel- 
 lowship. After a very spirited and exciting de- 
 bate, growing out of an intense desire to do 
 nothing that would detract from the past record 
 of the Church on loyalty, a response to the cour- 
 teous and Christian advance made by the Pres- 
 byterian Church, South, was agreed upon 
 amidst immense enthusiasm, cheers, tears, and 
 doxologies. 
 
 The action of the Moderator when he had with- 
 drawn temporarily from the chair that he might 
 take part in the debate, revealed his intense 
 loyalty and his truly fraternal feeling toward the 
 Southern Church. Dr. Johnson spoke with the 
 fiery eloquence of a patriot, pleading for his 
 country. He spoke excitedly, for he was ex- 
 cited, and his supporters and opponents were for 
 the moment carried away with his eloquence. 
 When he closed with the declaration that he 
 would lose his right arm before he would trample 
 on the graves of the Union soldiers in the South, 
 and say that treason was right, there followed 
 such a storm of applause as is rarely seen in 
 such a convention. Johnson never became so 
 eloquent in his warfare on the vices of Chicago 
 as when defending the loyalty of his church. 
 And when he introduced his amendment to the 
 troublesome motion it was carried with a loud 
 and enthusiastic vote. At the conclusion of the 
 business of the Assembly, Dr. Charles L. Thomp- 
 
FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 95 
 
 son moved a vote of thanks to the Church, the 
 city, and the Governor with a happy address 
 such as he knows specially how to deliver. He 
 said that their Assembly might be called the As- 
 sembly of the Apostle John, while Dr. Matthew 
 Newkirk, in seconding the resolution, said that 
 they were not only in the spirit of the Apostle 
 John, but of the Apostle Johnson. The Interior 
 said : " The Assembly has never had a better 
 Moderator, nor one, all things considered, so 
 good, within our recollection. Quick, clear, cor- 
 rect, and courteous, holding the business fully in 
 hand, giving no offence, dispatching business 
 with a rush, he was a model all through." 
 
 In his 1882 vacation Dr. Johnson went to Lake 
 George, and one of the papers of the time said 
 of him : " Dr. Herrick Johnson and wife have 
 come down from Saratoga, and beyond as far 
 as Lake George, to Ocean Grove, from whence 
 he will run up once more, next Sabbath, to 
 preach to those who may gather at the Marble 
 Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue at Twenty- 
 ninth Street. His people out in Chicago will be 
 glad to hear that he is in the best of health, and 
 moreover, has just been surprised and compli- 
 mented here in New York by the reception of 
 the George Wood medal for the ' Premium Tract 
 on the Glory of Christ,' his recent volume, en- 
 titled Christianity's Challenge, having been ad- 
 judged by the proper committee of the American 
 Tract Society as above all competitors entitled to 
 
96 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 this special and golden distinction. The medal 
 is very handsomely engraved, every way a 
 worthy memento of a work which, we are glad 
 to say, is having a large sale. 
 
 " This medal has been awarded for eight years 
 past, the first time to Dr. Theo. Christlieb of the 
 University of Bonn for his Modern Doubt and 
 Christian Belief, and last year to George Smith, 
 LL.D., for his life of Dr. Alexander Duff. Now 
 an American has won it, and will wear it humbly 
 as already the more signal honors of this sumptu- 
 ous year which fell upon his shoulders from the 
 Springfield sky." 
 
 Through the autumn of this same year there 
 was much to be done in answering criticisms 
 from Southern sympathizers and conservatists 
 regarding the way the Assembly, under his lead- 
 ership, settled the reply to the overture of the 
 Southern Church. All these criticisms faded 
 out in due season, and time showed that the 
 Southern and Northern Churches as a result of 
 that action came nearer than ever before. It 
 was in that summer that he received the honor- 
 ary degree of LL.D. from the Trustees of Woos- 
 ter University. 
 
 In the fall of 1889 the Seminary of the North- 
 west changed its name to that of McCormick 
 Theological Seminary for very good reasons. 
 It had been for years under the fostering care 
 of the distinguished Mr. Cyrus McCormick, 
 who, with Mrs. McCormick, his coadjutor in 
 
FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 97 
 
 every good word and work, had put up building 
 after building, and added immensely to the en- 
 dowment of the institution. After his death, his 
 family still farther added greatly to the endow- 
 ment, and the Trustees in grateful recognition 
 of it all, changed the name to that of the Mc- 
 Cormick Theological Seminary, making it a 
 monument of his and his family's generous care 
 of the great institution. The relation which Dr. 
 Johnson held to that family was one of great 
 affection on both sides. Through all his long 
 and honorable career as a distinguished pro- 
 fessor in the seminary, the friendship with that 
 family was ever most inspiring to him. 
 
VI 
 
 Mccormick theological seminary, 
 
 1883-1903 
 
 " No man is born into the world, whose work is not 
 born with him, there is always work and tools to 
 work withal, for those who will, and blessed are 
 the horny hands of toil ! The busy world shoves 
 angrily aside the man who stands with arms akimbo 
 set until occasion tells him what to do, and he who 
 waits to have his task marked out shall die and 
 leave his errand unfulfilled." 
 
 — James Russell Lowell. 
 
 IN June, 1883, Dr. Johnson resigned the 
 pastorate of the Fourth Church, which he 
 held, in common with a Lectureship on 
 Homiletics in the Seminary of the Northwest, 
 in order to give himself wholly to the work in 
 the Chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, 
 to which he had been called. The pastorate and 
 the professorship together involved too much 
 labor, and it was necessary for him to give up 
 the one or the other, and he felt peculiarly 
 drawn to the work of helping to make ministers, 
 for which he had a peculiar and remarkable 
 fitness. The church accepted his resignation 
 with the deepest regret. In their resolution, 
 among many things, the committee said : " He 
 brings to his office an intellect clear, incisive, and 
 
 98 
 
Mccormick seminary 99 
 
 comprehensive, a self-poised resolute character, 
 and a life of devout spiritual consecration. He 
 has taken advanced rank among the great lead- 
 ers of the Presbyterian Church and of the 
 Church of Christ universal, in all fields of Chris- 
 tian effort. He has proved to be the most suc- 
 cessful advocate of higher education and a faith- 
 ful and dauntless monitor of the public con- 
 science. We gratefully recognize the energy, 
 efficiency, tenderness, and faithfulness of his 
 pastoral work," etc. 
 
 As Dr. E. C. Ray, now the editor of 
 the Pacific Presbyterian, Santa Barbara, Calif., 
 was a most familiar or beloved friend of Dr. 
 Johnson's, and for many years the Secretary of 
 the College Board, which Dr. Johnson orig- 
 inated, I have asked him to write an article on 
 that board and Dr. Johnson's relation to it, and 
 he has most kindly furnished the accompanying 
 delightful paper. Had he been unable to do so, 
 I would have applied to Dr. D. S. Gregory, the 
 long-time and honored editor of the Homiletic 
 Review, who was a most helpful member of that 
 College board and who " did the fine and con- 
 vincing work with facts and figures that Dr. 
 Johnson used with effect at the Assembly of 
 1883": 
 
 " Most of us see only what folks around us see, 
 what we are all habituated to see. Here and 
 there a man is tall enough to see over his con- 
 temporaries' heads. We call him a statesman, 
 
100 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 one fitted to lead the State. Thirty years ago 
 there was but one man in the Presbyterian 
 Church, so far as I know, aside from some presi- 
 dents of Western colleges, who was tall enough 
 to see that our denomination's weakest point, 
 and a fatal one, was its neglect of college work. 
 Everybody else stoutly boasted that we were * a 
 college-building and a college-endowing Church,' 
 or asserted that denominational colleges were no 
 longer needed. Other great denominations saw 
 that such colleges were essential, and built and 
 endowed them to from three to five times the 
 colleges and endowment of them we had sup- 
 plied to ourselves. Dr. Johnson saw the facts 
 which others were blind to and saw the truth 
 about the matter which others did not suspect. 
 He, with a strong corps of lieutenants aiding, 
 planned and secured the organization of the 
 Presbyterian Board of Aid for Colleges and 
 Academies, now the College Board of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in the U. S. A. Within five 
 years after the Board got to work our colleges 
 and academies had increased fivefold. 
 
 '' The organization of the Board came about 
 in an interesting way — the opportunity looked 
 about until it found the man for the hour. The 
 General Assembly of 1877 appointed a special 
 committee on enlarging the functions of the 
 Board of Education, the end in view being some 
 plan to increase the movement of our sons into 
 the ministry, one of the periodical alarming 
 
Mccormick seminary loi 
 
 slumps in the supply of candidates being then 
 upon us. The committee reported progress to 
 the Assemblies of 1878, 1879, 1880, and 1881, in 
 its final report recommending indefinite action. 
 That report was then given to a new special 
 committee, Dr. John Hall, Chairman. That com- 
 mittee reported progress the next year, 1882, 
 and Dr. Hall asked to have the chairmanship 
 given to some one who could devote more time to 
 the matter. Looking about for some gentleman 
 of leisure, the Assembly chose one who had on 
 hand only the pastorate of a great city church, a 
 chair in a theological seminary, personal father- 
 ing of its students, and perhaps a dozen other 
 matters of first importance, and selected Dr. 
 Johnson to add to the committee as its Chairt 
 man. 
 
 ** Then he worked. Two special committees 
 had been running five years to get a good start 
 to jump, but had been unable to find the starting 
 line or the direction for the jump. Dr. John- 
 son's committee did not run far, only a year, 
 before it jumped. It recommended the organi- 
 zation of the College Board, submitting a consti- 
 tution for it, outlining its policies. The Church 
 had been consolidating boards. The East was 
 pretty solidly against a new board. Many pow- 
 erful ministerial and lay delegates came up to 
 the General Assembly resolved to prevent the 
 formation of a College Board. The report of 
 his committee was in Dr. Johnson's baggage, 
 
lOa HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 completed, when he left Chicago for the Assem- 
 bly at Saratoga; and all the way on the train 
 he was preparing his sermon, as retiring Mod- 
 erator, on the same subject. First that sermon, 
 then the report of the committee, fell upon the 
 commissioners with such irresistible weight of 
 argument statistical, historical, and oratorical 
 that opposition was smashed down to a single 
 solitary negative vote. The Board of Aid was 
 organized. 
 
 " It got to work. Dr. Johnson was chosen 
 President and so continued until he declined 
 reelection two decades later. He sat at the head 
 of the Board table ; but from that table he never 
 took a bit of pie so big as a postage stamp, being 
 there to give himself, not to get. Probably no 
 president of one of our Church boards ever gave 
 attention more comprehensive and more minute 
 to all the Board's affairs. No patience was too 
 great to be yielded to its lesser matters, no time 
 too long, no concentration of mind too taxing 
 to be given for its larger projects. He never 
 dictated to the Board. He never domineered. 
 But he dominated, and that solely by his seer- 
 ship, his statesmanship, his devotion, his knowl- 
 edge, his insight, outsight, foresight, his creative, 
 organizing, administrative abilities freely at the 
 Board's service. He planned, he corresponded, 
 he travelled, he preached and talked, he inter- 
 viewed, he solicited for the Board. He ex- 
 hibited in all that service, in a most interesting 
 
Mccormick seminary los 
 
 manner, the union of certain pairs of balancing 
 opposite qualities which are seen thus operating 
 together in one person only in big statesmen and 
 generals ; as, daring and discretion, intensity and 
 indefatigableness, tenacity and tact, persever- 
 ance and elasticity, readiness and sedulity, nerve 
 and prudence, conscious power and consideration 
 of others. He showed the rare statesman's qual- 
 ity of inability to acknowledge defeat when 
 smaller men would give up, or to remember any 
 failure an hour after it occurred ; instead of la- 
 menting and despairing, he shut up that experi- 
 ence in his subconsciousness and turned all his 
 conscious powers into a new channel to lead to 
 victory. 
 
 " As Secretary of the Board for about twenty 
 years from 1891, I knew something of Dr. 
 Johnson as President of the Board. The 
 greatest greatness of my honored and beloved 
 chief was not his statesmanship or generalship; 
 it was his heart. As I watched the movements 
 of that great heart toward our struggling insti- 
 tutions, teachers, and students ; toward theo- 
 logical students while under his tuition and ever 
 afterward ; toward everybody and everything, but 
 most of all toward myself, I realized what is 
 meant by a great, true, tender, human. Christ- 
 like heart. There were frequent happenings, 
 and exhibitions of his heart there-anent, that 
 filled me with wonder, with awe in my sense of 
 his greatness. Of all the great men I have known, 
 
104. HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 he stands among the two or three in whom 
 I never saw anything petty or mean ; and I knew 
 him intimately for more than thirty years. I 
 recall such instances, in our relations official or 
 friendly, of bearing and forbearing, of never- 
 failing kindness and courtesy, of criticism, 
 counsel, commendation of ready sympathy and 
 making allowance, and, above all particulars, of 
 such an atmosphere, such a spirit pervading his 
 relations with me, that it all stands in my mind 
 as the ideal of friendship — the real thing, friend- 
 ship so high, so unselfish, so faithful, so trusting, 
 so inspiring, steadying, vitalizing, compelling, 
 that I can compare it to nothing else in my world 
 but the friendship of two women, my mother 
 
 and my wife. 
 
 " E. C. Ray." 
 
 The following letter was written by my be- 
 loved friend, to greet Mrs. Robinson and myself 
 while on an eight months' absence in Europe, 
 during which I had the great joy of visiting 
 Egypt and the Holy Land, while Mrs. Robinson 
 remained in Italy: 
 
 " Southampton, L. I., July 6, 1887. 
 " Here by the sea at last I find leisure for a 
 word to you. Old Great Heart. You are not so 
 full of the glories of your royal journeyings that 
 you won't welcome tidings from an Old * Ordi- 
 nary.' Perhaps you don't know that we, too, 
 have been sightseeing (we two) and that the rush 
 
Mccormick seminary 105 
 
 across the continent and back and straightway 
 thereupon to Kansas City and back, with prepa- 
 ration for three College Commencements, have 
 kept me from sending you earlier greetings and 
 congratulations. I went to San Francisco in the 
 interest of the International Y.M.C.A. to address 
 the Triennial Convention there. They gave me 
 two hundred dollars for the trip, so I took Katie 
 along and the wish of years was gratified. We 
 went by Denver and Rio Grande and returned by 
 Northern Pacific, and every step of the way was 
 a delight. Yosemite met utmost expectation, and 
 that is saying a marvellous thing, for expectation 
 was at a great height. That valley is one of the 
 half-dozen things in this world that have not 
 disappointed me. And, while the first sight was 
 impressive beyond expression, the scene grew on 
 day by day, and I longed to spend weeks there. 
 The isolation of the great peaks in the Rocky 
 and Cascade Ranges gave them a grandeur and 
 uplift surpassing any single peak of the Alps. 
 Though Hood and Shasta and St. Helen are not 
 by any means as high as Mont Blanc and Monte 
 Rosa, it was a great journey and has whetted ap- 
 petite for the greater one, vh., Alaska, which 
 from Dr. Roberts' description must be one of the 
 wonders of the world. 
 
 " How you filled and thrilled me with your 
 account of ' The Land,' and how you touched me 
 by telling of your frequent thought of us, as 
 you passed from holy place to holy place, and 
 
106 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 felt the stir of the associations and the presence 
 
 of the King. ' Herrick would enjoy all that ' 
 
 indeed and he prays God to put this precious wine 
 
 of delight into his cup before he goes hence, and 
 
 he thanks God that, seeing the sickness must 
 
 come, it was made the occasion of putting to 
 
 Charlie Rob's lips this exquisite draught. Drink 
 
 it, Dear Boy, with a great appreciation and a 
 
 great gratitude and with it may come thrills of 
 
 new vitality and an assurance of a new lease 
 
 of vigorous and joyous life. Now I judge you 
 
 and Clara are together again and bathing in the 
 
 splendor of Switzerland. May your souls grow 
 
 larger and your vision of God clearer, and your 
 
 song of gratitude more rich and tender amidst 
 
 the inspiring presence. 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 Then came his greeting on our return from 
 the long tour. 
 
 " Chicago, 111., Dec. 21, 1887. 
 " Welcome back to the pastorate. You belong 
 there. I pray that the resumption of the old 
 toil may be the open door to the richest work 
 of your life. I like what you say of the Scranton 
 field. It seems full of promise. Blessings on 
 you, dear old heart. Palestine is uncertain, i.e., 
 our trip to it. I am booked for the Presbyterian 
 Council meeting in London, in June next. We 
 are dreaming a little of a tour among the far 
 Oriental nations. George Knox has just been 
 
Mccormick seminary iot 
 
 here with stirring appeals for Japan. Dr. Hap- 
 per preceded him in behalf of China. A visit 
 among the missionaries would be a great treat. 
 Actually, to look upon Japan's marvellous revo- 
 lution would be a rare privilege. Mighty changes, 
 the mightiest our world ever saw, are soon to 
 take place in the vast empires of the Orient, I do 
 most confidently believe. The boys that go now 
 and take their places there will be in the szvim. 
 Six or eight of the choicest go from our Senior 
 Class — Charlie, it's just magnificent to have the 
 touch of these young men who are to be the 
 heroes for God of the next twenty-five or fifty 
 years. Let the pessimists croak. My face is 
 toward the radiant morning. My old ram's horn 
 is going to be jubilant and hopeful. What a 
 splendid breath of inspiration the Supreme Court 
 gave us Prohibitionists the other day [later in life 
 Dr. Johnson returned to the Republican Party 
 and cast his last vote for Taft]. How noble and 
 Christian were Cleveland's words to the Evan- 
 gelical Alliance delegation, week before last. 
 You can hardly imagine how still the air is since 
 we hanged the Anarchists. The gladdest of holi- 
 days to you and yours from us both. As ever, 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 In addressing a friend who was particularly 
 happy in his pastorate he wrote : " I do greatly 
 rejoice in what you write of your field and work. 
 Why should not the mellow golden days of life 
 
108 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 be the richest, where a man has gotten as you 
 have into the inner sanctuaries of his people's 
 hearts ? 
 
 " I cancelled many of my preaching engage- 
 ments in justice to Katie and the Seminary. Re- 
 action came after Commencement, but it came the 
 wrong way. The path back and up was so try- 
 ing, and the progress so slow, that I deemed it 
 only just to all interests to honor some of my 
 engagements in the breach. I preached a half 
 a dozen times during the summer, where only one 
 Sabbath service was called for, and by making a 
 business of loafing I am back in the harness in 
 fair shape. It fell to my lot to open the Seminary 
 with an address and you would agree with and 
 heartily endorse most of its contention. It was 
 on 'Preaching and the Preacher.' The quar- 
 tette I named for the latter being grace, grit, 
 gumption, go. As ever, 
 
 '' Herrick/' 
 
 To a friend, he wrote, October 2y, 1895 • 
 
 "Where are you? In the highway of the 
 King of course, at the Master's business, winning 
 souls. How are you ? Well, I trust, full of fire 
 and fervor, hopeful and trustful, 'putting a 
 cheerful courage on,' as you begin the New 
 Year's work. I am ordered out to grass, no more 
 work for a year is the physician's imperative 
 prescription. The old brain has been driven so 
 
Mccormick seminary 109 
 
 relentlessly, it is entering protest. I never knew 
 until lately that I had a spine. So many physi- 
 cians agreed as to the diagnosis and their ver- 
 dict so accorded with my own conviction, that 
 I have deliberately dropped all work, and as soon 
 as matters can be adjusted here we start for the 
 'Alma Health and Rest' at Alma, Mich., where 
 we shall probably spend two months and then go 
 somewhere south (possibly California, possibly 
 Honolulu) for equable temperature, outdoor 
 lives, and sun baths. I seemed to be improving 
 until I reached Liverpool. Then I had unmis- 
 takable notice that all was not right in my nerv- 
 ous system. Anaemia was the immediate symp- 
 tom. The remote and underlying trouble, 
 impaired nerve tissue. I must go to work build- 
 ing up this nerve tissue. 
 
 *' The doctors are sure that I can be on my feet 
 in twelve months, with absolute rest meanwhile. 
 They are sure of nothing if I keep at three 
 months, except irretrievable disaster. I obey, I 
 go into retirement, I turn my back on what is 
 dearer to me than life, my life work, in the hope 
 that temporary abandonment will give me a new 
 lease both of life and work. I am so fond of a 
 racket that I know that this is going to be a 
 bitter medicine to take. But Katie and I are 
 already trying to get some sweetness out of the 
 bitterness and we are talking over the possible 
 blessings ' this cloud is big with ' and picturing 
 to ourselves the delights we may come across in, 
 
110 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 ' studying to be quiet ' ; and blessed surprises the 
 dear Lord may have for us, along this wilderness 
 way. You and your wife must hold us in your 
 hearts and wrap us about with your believing 
 prayers. Your breezy, precious letter reached us 
 in London just before we started for home. May 
 God enrich you more bountifully than ever for 
 the work of rescue and structure and make this 
 year the best of all in your honored ministry. 
 As of old, 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 Through the years of '90 to '95, Dr. Johnson 
 was intensely alive to many questions. He was 
 preparing the way for the great success of the 
 revision which came in 1901. He wrote many 
 articles tingling with intense life, on that subject. 
 Then he threw himself into the midst of the fight 
 for the Sunday closing of the World's Fair, in 
 Chicago. He advocated it with a burning zeal 
 which was characteristic of him, and the failure 
 of the movement was to him a bitter disappoint- 
 ment. He wrote many articles on the World's 
 Parliament of Religion, and cleared the air of 
 many of the assumptions of its advocates, so that 
 it came to be considered for what it was worth, 
 stripped of the Orientalisms and false lights of 
 the East. 
 
 Dr. Joseph W. Cochran, secretary of the Board 
 of Education, in an address at the Memorial 
 Meeting held at Philadelphia, recalls in a most 
 
McCORMICK SEMINARY 111 
 
 inspiring way Dr. Johnson's presence and address 
 at the Chicago Auditorium in advocacy of the 
 closing of the great Fair at Chicago on Sunday. 
 " Oh how that lion nature, fearless of soul, as 
 the flash of his eagle eye betokened, would rise 
 to the height of emotional fervor and with that 
 clarion voice shake congregations out of their 
 spiritual torpor. I never saw such a telling 
 exposition of the Spirit-filled personality as I did 
 when Dr. Johnson stood in the Auditorium at 
 Chicago speaking on the Sunday closing of the 
 World's Fair in '93. One intense sentence of 
 absolutely irrefutable logic fused in that mighty 
 heart and hurled into the heart of that great 
 congregation sent the people to their feet in- 
 stantly and the applause that rang out was 
 deafening." He carried on his continued fight 
 for temperance, working hand in glove with the 
 Prohibitionists, the W.C.T.U., and all the other 
 temperance organizations. 
 
 The intense life he lived made it necessary for 
 him to take a long rest in California in winter 
 of '95 and '96. He wrote at this time as follows : 
 
 " April 30, 1896, San Diego, Cal. 
 
 " Yours of April 21, directed to the care of 
 Prof. Stevenson, was at once forwarded to San 
 Diego and, when it got here, was at once eagerly 
 devoured, and, like everything else from your 
 dear, old, faithful heart, was good to take. 
 
 '' Yes, God has been exceeding good to us and 
 
m HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 has not let us see much of the dark side of min- 
 isterial life. Eternity won't be too long to tell 
 Him our gratitude. Yet I am not sure but some 
 of the loaded, bowed-down ones will have a 
 deeper gratitude to tell to the dear Lord. For in 
 the darker rooms through which they have been 
 led there may have been vouchsafed visions to 
 them which we have not been permitted to enjoy 
 along the sunny slopes. 
 
 " We have come to a wonderful climate, in- 
 deed, here in Southern California. Chas. Dudley 
 Warner calls this region ' Our Italy,' and while 
 in finished cultivation and historic association the 
 term is inappropriate, yet in superb climatic con- 
 ditions it is more than justified. Egypt's March 
 last year was not near so choice, so balmy, so 
 flooded with sunshine and so rich with floral 
 beauty, as the March of this Southern Pacific 
 Coast. Even Italy's, wonderful old Italy's, glory 
 pales in comparison. Come down here some day, 
 when you and your wife are weary, and take 
 these sun baths and sing a new song of the good- 
 ness of the Lord. We were up at Los Angeles 
 last week attending La Fiesta and it was sur- 
 passingly beautiful. The floral parade was sim- 
 ply magnificent. We took a hurried run to Red- 
 lands to the now quite celebrated Smiley Bros.' 
 Paradise, but the Mohonk home rivals and out- 
 vies it. By the by, why have you never climbed 
 the Mohonk heights? My impression is you 
 have never been there. See it late in June, and 
 
Mccormick seminary iis 
 
 you will own it is the most picturesque spot your 
 eye ever rested on in Uncle Sam's domain. 
 
 '' We hardly know how long we shall stay in 
 San Diego. The climate is ideal, and everybody 
 assures us the summers here are as fine as the 
 winters and springs. Strictly, there are no such 
 things here as summers, and winters, and springs. 
 The sun, and the flowers, and the delicious balm 
 take full possession the year round and like 
 Death ' have all seasons for their own.' But 
 the probabilities now are that we shall turn our 
 faces Chicago-ward the middle or the last of 
 June, attend to a few household matters, and 
 then . . . ? Possibly IMohunk, possibly West- 
 minster Park, possibly southern Michigan. We 
 hope to resume ' business at the old stand ' in 
 September. If God grant us this we shall be 
 very grateful, and if He deny us this we shall 
 try to say with a submissive and chastened cheer- 
 fulness, Even so. Father. 
 
 " As ever — forever, 
 
 '' Herrick." 
 
 The great question of the Revision of the 
 Standards was inevitable. The coming together 
 of the New School and the Old, in the quickening 
 time of that reunion, rendered the Revision the 
 natural outcome. The division was as sharply de- 
 fined as had been the Separation of the Two 
 Schools, though it did not follow the lines of the 
 two former bodies. 
 
114i HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Men who were opposed to the question were 
 not necessarily historically Old School men. 
 There were surprising outcomes. Dr. Johnson's 
 attitude toward it might have caused those to 
 wonder who knew him only in early days, when 
 he was so strong a Calvinist. But those who had 
 followed his career and noted his open mind, 
 his responsiveness to progress, understood it. 
 Dr. Howard Crosby's note to him, at his election 
 as Moderator, had in it an intimation of such a 
 development. " You are conservative and in the 
 front rank of progress." 
 
 The thought of freeing the Standards from the 
 archaic forms of speech, which made them mis- 
 understood, and of giving a bold free ringing 
 statement of the definite Love of God, in the 
 Salvation of men, moved him mightily. He went 
 into the movement with great intensity and en- 
 thusiasm. Here is a letter written in that time, 
 in which he refers to the whole question : 
 
 " March lo, 1901. 
 " Your letter of Feb. 21 was a cordial one. 
 It went down into my heart's depths. God bless 
 you. The company that sees threescore and ten 
 years this side of Heaven are never numerous. 
 Nearly all the old intimates of the early days are 
 in Heaven. We shall be going soon, and we 
 have no new terms to make with the blessed 
 Lord. We took Him at His word, and settled 
 things once for all, and I rather think we need 
 
Mccormick seminary 115 
 
 not trouble ourselves now about the final issue, 
 ' I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all/ but I can 
 look up into the Lord's face and say, *Thou know- 
 est all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee.' 
 
 " Yet the blessed Master has permitted me to 
 wag my pen again and I do want it to do service 
 to the Truth. We had a fine evening in New 
 York (at the Presbyterian Reunion banquet). 
 All the social, aesthetic, and material appointments 
 were perfect and a beautiful spirit of love and 
 manly Christian courtesy pervaded the discus- 
 sion ; you doubtless have already seen the ad- 
 dresses in the Evangelist. They are to be put in 
 pamphlet form and widely circulated, as is being 
 done by the Evangelist Publishing Co. I take it 
 as evidence 'that the Evangelist at least is quite 
 well satisfied with the way things went. 
 
 " I saw our good Brother that evening 
 
 and tried as an old friend to get from him one 
 good reason why he opposed all changes in our 
 confession, but I failed in his case as I have failed 
 in every case. Charlie, my recent studies of the 
 confession make it absolutely impossible for me 
 ever again to regard our present confession as 
 a satisfactory statement of our faith. We cannot 
 any longer look intelligent men in the face and 
 go on declaring that the confession states Pres- 
 byterian belief. Its omissions are worse than its 
 commissions ! Do see to it that your Presbytery 
 is represented in the next Assembly and he there 
 yourself. 
 
116 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 ** Katie has not been at all well this winter, al- 
 though she has had no severe illness of any kind. 
 We are jogging on together, thanking God for the 
 daily fellowship and thinking it very sweet and 
 beautiful to grow old looking off into the west 
 ' where all the Heaven-bound sunsets go.' Do 
 you go to the Assembly this year ? I do hope you 
 are a commissioner. Grave questions are to be 
 settled. We need balance and poise. Did you 
 See Chicago's overture to the Assembly on the 
 question of credal changes? I flung it on the 
 Presbytery without consultation, but it went 
 through with only one dissenting vote. Some- 
 thing must be done. But nothing should be done 
 in a spasm." 
 
 The General Assembly of 1901 was a notable 
 one. The Debates on the Revision of our stand- 
 ards and a new statement of doctrine brought out 
 the strongest men on both sides and their dis- 
 cussion was very able and brilliant. The Chris- 
 tian Work says : *' One of the strongest men of 
 the Presbyterian Church to-day is Prof. Herrick 
 Johnson of the McCormick Theological Semi- 
 nary, whose orthodoxy none may question, and 
 whose devotion to the Presbyterian System of 
 doctrine none can impugn. In a recent communi- 
 cation to the Interior, Dr. Johnson, conservative 
 as he is, expresses himself with characteristic 
 directness upon the Presbyterian situation. He 
 affirms that it must be seen that our Church is 
 
Mccormick seminary 117 
 
 formally and constitutionally put on the road to 
 an actual change in her doctrinal standards, the 
 next battle, if there is to be a battle, he says 
 will be in the next Assembly, when this Com- 
 mittee now appointed and instructed shall make 
 report of its work. Dr. Johnson thinks that the 
 action taken was wise and eminently commend- 
 able. He adds : ' It is that to which I have given 
 the advocacy of pen and voice for the last year, 
 •and for which I do most devoutly thank God. 
 It puts us on the road to constitutional change 
 by constitutional methods. It settles for the time 
 being at least some very agitating and vexing 
 questions. It promises to take some stumbling- 
 blocks out of our existing creed. It promises to 
 furnish us a brief, clear statement of doctrine 
 that will make further misconstruction less pos- 
 sible. It secures a most happy and surprising 
 unanimity of action. And if it issues in success, 
 I most confidently and joyfully believe it will set 
 our Church forward with high hope and joyful 
 agreement to a great work of evangelization and 
 conquest for the good of man and the glory of 
 God." 
 
 Here is a much prized letter I received about 
 this time: 
 
 " McCormick Theological Seminary, 
 
 " April 28, 1912. 
 " I went through the work of the last Assembly 
 ' with fear and trembling/ sensible that the 
 
118 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 strain was great. I face the coming Assembly, 
 therefore, with some doubt whether it is wise for 
 me to take up the burden it of course will im- 
 pose. But Presbytery insisted that the interests 
 involved made it desirable for me to go again, 
 and I have consented. Our Revision Committee 
 had a delightful meeting at Pittsburgh, and the 
 unanimity reached was remarkable in the circum- 
 stances. The report ought to carry, but to keep 
 the extremists from kicking the traces, to win 
 men who want nothing in the way of change 
 and at the same time to win men who want 
 everything in the way of change is a kind of 
 gee-haw process compared with which driving a 
 couple of cantankerous and independent mules 
 would be child's play. Here is a good brother 
 who is reported as saying he would rather wait 
 ten years and then get an absolutely new creed 
 than get now what our report offers. I am sure 
 that even the explanatory modifications as sug- 
 gested would be great gain, and if we can only 
 get the brief summary of our faith something 
 like the Articles of Faith of the Presbyterian 
 Church of England, the gain would be immense. 
 
 ** Well, the fight will be on soon in the Assem- 
 bly. I marvel at the men who can resist an 
 honest movement to put the love of God for a 
 lost world in our published creed. It is a strange, 
 sad, and almost wicked anomaly; I pray God it 
 may end soon. By the grace of God, it shall 
 end some day. Your loving and loyal invitation 
 
Mccormick seminary 119 
 
 to Katie and me to come to your home on our 
 way to the Assembly for a week's visit touches 
 our hearts and we thank you both for the warmth 
 and the urgency of it. But, alas ! that week I am 
 counting on as the only time I can get in which 
 to make any possible preparation for the battle 
 that will be on at the Assembly, not only the revi- 
 sion battle, but two or three others that are loom- 
 ing up. 
 
 " Last week's Committee meeting at Pittsburgh 
 was a severe strain. This is Commencement 
 week. We cannot possibly leave here before 
 the Tuesday preceding the opening day of the 
 Assembly. So, dearly beloved friends, accept 
 from us both assurance of our heartiest apprecia- 
 tion. It would be a joy to be with you and to 
 go round about counting the signs of your rescue 
 and structure work. Don't you expect to get to 
 the Fair at Buffalo? We are booked for a few 
 days there about the last of June at the Alcazar 
 Hotel, near the Exposition grounds. Do join 
 us and renew the sightseeing experiences we had 
 when you were visiting us here in Chicago, when 
 the White City was reared and the World was on 
 exhibition by our Lake Front. 
 
 " In the old bonds, 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 The Chicago Interior, in August, 1901, contains 
 the following statement : " The inventive reports 
 of the secular press have been »o busy giving out 
 
120 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 misinformation in regard to the work of our 
 Committee upon Revision, that it seems best to 
 give the facts in the case : Dr. Herrick Johnson is 
 the Chairman of the Committee entrusted with 
 preparing a new statement of doctrine; Dr. 
 Dickey is chairman of the Committee entrusted 
 with the revision of certain specified sections of 
 the Confession, either by changes of text or 
 declaratory statement, and Dr. Niccols is chair- 
 man of the Committee to prepare a new chapter 
 on the Love of God, Missions, and the Holy 
 Spirit. Our readers will agree with us 
 that happier selections could not have been 
 made." 
 
 When the General Assembly met in the Fifth 
 Avenue Church, New York, May, 1902, Dr. 
 van Dyke was elected Moderator, and the report 
 of the Committee on Revision was the burning 
 question. 
 
 It is no province of this book to give an account 
 of the whole debate. What Dr. Johnson thought 
 of it, and how he regarded it is what we are after. 
 He says that the Brief Doctrinal statement is 
 " far and away the most significant and signal 
 action ever taken by American Presbyterianism. 
 It is the realization of the hope of years. It is 
 the product of more light from God's Word. As 
 more light in nature changes the appearance of a 
 landscape, throws some things in shadow, brings 
 out other things more fully to view and yet does 
 not take away a single essential of the landscapes, 
 
Mccormick seminary 121 
 
 so that restatement gives to the great truths of 
 God which it has always been our joy to hold, an 
 order and proportion and perspective and em- 
 phasis born of the better knowledge we have to- 
 day of the Divine word. Eternal truths have 
 not changed, but their relations and proportions 
 have changed. 
 
 " This Brief Statement is an immortal. Men 
 may try to hedge it about, they may put their 
 limiting, clamping irons upon it, they may bind 
 it with bands of steel and bend it back into an 
 iron coffin as if it were a dead thing. But this 
 Brief Statement of doctrine is an immortal. If it 
 is ever buried, it will be buried alive. And by the 
 life of God, and of the truth that is in it, it will 
 come forth from the tomb the conqueror of death 
 and remain, we may well believe, for centuries, 
 the balanced and tender exponent of that system 
 of doctrine which the Presbyterian Church has 
 ever deemed it her privilege and her joy to cher- 
 ish and defend. It will be preached in thousands 
 of pulpits from the first article to the last. It will 
 be committed to memory. It will become as a 
 familiar household word in Christian homes. 
 Whether formally placed in our doctrinal " Hall 
 of Fame " alongside our Confession, catechism, 
 and Apostles' Creed or scattered broadcast as the 
 leaves of the morning, it is instinct with life and 
 love, and power and victory. It has come to 
 stay." 
 
 To a friend he writes : 
 
n2 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 June 1 6, 1 901 : " Yes, to my mind, matters 
 shape themselves somewhat as follows. A new 
 creed embracing the essential features of the 
 old Confession, expressed in modern way in 
 Scriptural proportions and form and spirit, as 
 an authoritative and official interpretation of 
 what we as Presbyterians have believed and do 
 now believe, and so prepared as to give no justi- 
 fication whatever for the judgments passed upon 
 us, and the charges made against us. Then our 
 doctrinal standards will consist of the old Con- 
 fession as it is now. The larger and shorter 
 catechism. The Apostles' Creed, and this new 
 statement of our faith, is interpretive of the 
 others. To this latter alone shall subscription 
 henceforth be required inasmuch as it is to con- 
 tain all that is vital to the evangelical, the 
 Protestant, and the Reformed or Calvinistic sys- 
 tem of doctrine now in our common standards. 
 But I hope by God's sweet grace to hold my 
 mind open to suggestions from any quarter. 
 That we are on the road to some change, I feel 
 quite sure. Assembly has taxed me greatly and 
 put me under nervous strain. Committee work 
 was unusually exacting, but things went our way, 
 and that of course made the burden lighter. On 
 Revision, the paper I submitted to our Presby- 
 tery, and which passed, came at last to be the 
 Commissioners* action of the Committee on Bills 
 and Overtures, and so finally the action of the 
 
McCORMICK SEMINARY 123 
 
 Assembly. So we are again face to face with 
 *the question of credal changes. 
 
 " We are now to hear the voice of the Church 
 through the Presbyteries. But I do not beheve 
 any change is possible at the sacrifice of funda- 
 mentals. And therefore I have no sympathy with 
 those who stand trembling for the Ark of God 
 because of a possible change of hue in the color 
 of the curtains ! " 
 
 Reference has been made to Dr. Johnson's re- 
 markably clear and resonant voice in the General 
 Assembly or wherever he speaks. A reporter 
 once remarked that the man who calls out 
 '' louder," " louder," always looked sad when Dr. 
 Johnson got up. His occupation was gone! 
 
 All through this time of intense thought and 
 discussions of the great subject of Revision, Dr. 
 Johnson's regular work in the theological semi- 
 nary was going on, he lecturing to the various 
 classes, and always in the white heat of intense 
 conviction and superb power. He met every 
 student personally, for helpful, inspiring, sug- 
 gestive criticism, over his lecture room talks or 
 his sermon preached before the class. In this 
 work he never spared himself ; he was faithful to 
 each man — so sharp and critical that it would 
 have completely upset the student had it not been 
 accompanied with a personal magnetism and 
 kindly spirit and loving heart. He had a way of 
 assuring the poor fellow whom he had shot 
 
124 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 through and through with criticism, and whose 
 little sermon he had riddled, that all this was 
 the best thing in the world for him; that in no 
 way could he be made a first-class preacher, ex- 
 cept by being knocked down, and having the 
 pieces picked up, and put together again in a 
 shapelier, finer, stronger fashion than before. 
 
 The Rev, John T. Faris of the Board of Publi- 
 cation, in a letter to the Memorial Meeting in 
 Philadelphia, gave a humorous account of Dr. 
 Johnson's criticism of a paper he had handed in. 
 " A few days after my paper (a written test in 
 his department) was put into his hands he called 
 me to his desk after class and said sadly, ' Faris, 
 that paper was not worthy of you. It was not 
 worthy of your grandfather.' There wasn't any 
 answer to such an appeal as that but to set to 
 work a little harder." 
 
 One man who was formerly a student of Dr. 
 Johnson's, now a very able and brilliant and 
 successful professor in a theological seminary, 
 writes to me about his influence upon him as a 
 teacher. '' It is difficult for me to realize that 
 his work on earth is done. He had in him a 
 strength that seemed untouchable by years. How 
 much I owe to him ! His strong personality and 
 vigorous thought and telling way of putting truth 
 had a wide influence. America has never had a 
 better teachers of homiletics. Men strong like 
 himself sometimes objected to what they felt was 
 a dogmatic tone in him. But the majority of men 
 
Mccormick seminary 125 
 
 in the seminary needed his positive message and 
 above all the inspiration which he gave them to 
 speak with force and directness." 
 
 And not only was all this personal and profes- 
 sional work going on all through the years of the 
 intense excitement of the Revision debates, and 
 the numberless articles written in its defence. 
 But he also showed a most remarkable and 
 fecund treatment of various other subjects — 
 Temperance, Prohibition, Dr. Briggs's supposed 
 heretical books, and also Dr. Giffert's. It must 
 have been a source of considerable surprise to 
 those who regarded Dr. Johnson as severely Cal- 
 vinistic to note the breadth and fraternal spirit 
 with which he treated both these much criticised 
 men. While recognizing their divergence, in 
 some respects, from the generally received views 
 of Presbyterians, he stoutly maintained that they 
 were orthodox in essentials. He insisted that 
 they were too good, true, and scholarly to be put 
 out of the Presbyterian fold. And that was right 
 in the midst of the intensely bitter fight in our 
 Church over Revision and Heresy. To-day, if 
 Dr. Briggs were still alive, he would be regarded 
 as the mildest kind of divergent from our stan- 
 dards, and Dr. Giffert— well, some of us would 
 like him back. 
 
 In 1902 came Dr. Johnson's seventieth birth- 
 day, which he allowed to pass quietly by; but 
 when some of his devoted friends in Chicago 
 found it out later, they declared that so marked 
 
126 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 an epoch in a great career so signally useful 
 must receive some special recognition. A com- 
 mittee was therefore appointed to arrange a 
 dinner to be given in Dr. Johnson's honor, at 
 the Ministry Club on the evening of December 
 1 6th. 
 
 The Interior said of him, in view of this din- 
 ner : " Chicago Presbytery is in no peril of insidi- 
 ous dispute over the identity of its premier 
 member. By virtue of his now advanced and 
 honor commanding years, by virtue of his vast 
 personal influence in the Presbyterian Church, 
 and by virtue of his magnificent wealth of en- 
 dowment as theological preacher, teacher, and 
 statesman in the Kingdom of God, Dr. Herrick 
 Johnson holds a preeminence, among his fellow 
 presbyters, which they are not only forward to 
 acknowledge in the name of the love they bear 
 him, but which they are proud to assert as one 
 of the particular glories of the ecclesiastical body 
 with which they are jointly identified. There 
 is only one member of this Presbytery who 
 remains oblivious to this distinction, and that is 
 Dr. Johnson himself. He will count himself the 
 equal only of the latest ordained minister in the 
 Presbytery. 
 
 " Every felicity that could be desired for such 
 an occasion as this dinner in his honor attended 
 this delightful evening. Arrangements for dinner 
 were absolutely perfect in details. A pleasant 
 and thoughtful provision for the event had been 
 
McCORMICK SEMINABY 127 
 
 the collection of letters of congratulation from 
 alumni of McCormick Seminary and the Doctor's 
 personal friends throughout the country. A 
 great number of these were read at the table, 
 and they constituted together a remarkable 
 symposium of sentiments of affection and ac- 
 knowledgments of influence from many who 
 have known him most intimately in the relations 
 of the class-room and of denominational service. 
 The heartiest and most beautiful of all these trib- 
 utes was, as common consent agreed, the letter 
 of Mrs. Nettie F. McCormick, who expressed 
 gratitude for the part which Dr. Johnson had 
 borne in widening the efficiency of our beloved 
 Seminary, also for his worth as friend and spirit- 
 ual counsellor to her late husband, to herself, and 
 to her children.'* 
 
 The after-dinner speeches were chapters in a 
 eulogium of rare insight, tenderness, and love, 
 depicting in succession the elements of nobility in 
 the character of the evening's guest, and the 
 extraordinary usefulness of the work which he 
 has done for the Master and the Church. 
 
 The special guests of the evening were heard 
 first. Bishop Cheney of the Reformed Episcopal 
 Church paid a heartfelt tribute to Dr. Johnson, 
 and Dr. Simeon Gilbert, former editor of the 
 Advance, voiced the high admiration of the Con- 
 gregationalists for Dr. Johnson's statesmanlike 
 courage in the Christian world. Tributes from 
 members of the Presbytery then followed from 
 
128 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Drs. Carson, Notman, McClure, the President of 
 McCormick Seminary, and Professor Geo. L. 
 Robinson. Finally Dr. E. C. Ray, Secretary of 
 the Board of College Aid, analyzed with loyal 
 praise the character which Dr. Johnson had 
 shown in his relation to that Board as its Presi- 
 dent. Dr. McCaughan, as Chairman of the even- 
 ing, added his informal testimony to the esteem 
 entertained for Dr. Johnson in allied Churches 
 across the seas. Mr. Wright then presented to 
 Dr. Johnson, with very brief but felicitous re- 
 marks, a silver loving cup appropriately en- 
 graved to commemorate the Presbytery's recog- 
 nition of his seventy-first year. 
 
 Then it was the guest's time to reply. The 
 scene as he rose, and as the company rose to greet 
 him, will be for long years a theme for pleasant 
 memory to those who were gathered in that ban- 
 quet-room. There was applause to welcome him 
 before he began to speak, but none as he pro- 
 ceeded. The feeling of the moment was too 
 tense for outbreaking demonstration. Dr. John- 
 son's response was not a speech, he simply talked 
 to his friends — at first in low strained tones, 
 which emotion was almost choking. But his 
 heart-vibrant sentences as he declared his grati- 
 tude for the love of his brethren, yet protesting 
 his unworthiness to hear their praises, were far 
 better and more than a speech. They were the 
 unaffected outpouring of a great man's soul, and 
 his words, as he spoke, ascended from the beauti- 
 
Mccormick seminary 129 
 
 ful to the sublime. His hearers bent forward 
 listening — enthralled — while he summed up the 
 learning of his manhood years as all encompassed 
 in a dearer love of God's will and God's Word, 
 and in a deeper appreciation of the Lordship of 
 Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy 
 Spirit. With shining face the venerable Doctor 
 declared his exceeding gladness at knowing that 
 ere long he should see his Saviour. And they who 
 loved him so well before, loved him more deeply 
 than ever, as twice he repeated in a voice of 
 intense fervor: 
 
 " I am just a poor sinner and nothing at all. 
 But Jesus Christ is my all in all ! " 
 
 I wish space permitted me to quote all the 
 remarkable letters from old friends, and gradu- 
 ates from the Seminary who had had the great 
 privilege and joy of being under his instruction, 
 he received that night. Room must, however, be 
 found for some of them. First of all, I quote 
 the beautiful letter from Mrs. McCormick. 
 
 " December i6, 1902. 
 '' To THE Master of Ceremonies : 
 
 " One impulse rules us all to-night, and that is 
 to show the love and loyalty of our hearts to him 
 who has been to the Seminary, these twenty 
 years, a wise counsellor, an able professor, and 
 unfailing friend. Often it is said, — and truly, — 
 there will never come another who can teach the 
 
130 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 students how to be pastors, how to lead, and win 
 their flock, as our dear Dr. Johnson has done. 
 " I remember with gratitude all about his 
 coming, and the delightful relations of friendship 
 that existed between my dear husband and him 
 whom we would fain honor to-night. The mem- 
 ory of the visits, the talks, the cheer he brought 
 to him, — often in hours of physical suffering, 
 dispelling pain, and making him join in whole- 
 some, hearty laughter. Who of us has not felt 
 the magnetism of his honest, ringing voice when 
 bringing out his convictions of truth, — who of 
 us has not been drawn to him by the loving 
 kindness that rules his nature? He has been a 
 blessing to my children. There is a mistake 
 about the figures, — Dr. Johnson is not seventy ! 
 Youth still looks from out his eagle eye, and his 
 good right arm still has the strength of ten! 
 Long may he remain to grace the pastoral chair 
 in our dear Seminary! 
 
 " Nettie F. McCormick." 
 
 Dr. Allison of the First Church of Bristol, Pa., 
 wrote : " I am glad I can write you while you 
 are in the fulness and buoyancy of mature life. 
 I thank you to-day for what you have done for 
 my boy. If he shall be useful in the pulpit I 
 shall feel that humanly speaking you have been 
 blest of God as a largely contributive instru- 
 ment.'* 
 
 The Rev. David R. Breed, D.D., one of Dr. 
 
Mccormick seminary 131 
 
 Johnson's boys in the Third Church, Pittsburgh, 
 and now Professor in the Allegheny Theological 
 Seminary, wrote as follows : ** I am anxious to 
 add my hearty congratulations to the many you 
 have received and to add my fervent ' God bless 
 you,' as I have often done, in my private prayers. 
 Whatever you may have won of influence and 
 fame elsewhere, I am sure you have never won 
 more love than you did while \n Pittsburgh. 
 How devotedly that dear old Third Church was 
 attached to you, and how the whole city admired 
 you. And if those that remain of your old flock 
 could have spoken at your banquet I think your 
 emotion would have been even greater than it 
 was. I am mighty glad they did it for you. It 
 was the thing to do, but I only wish they could 
 have included Mrs. Johnson. Was there ever 
 sweeter, truer woman in any capacity, whether 
 pastoress or parishioner, than she?" Here is 
 one from another of his Pittsburgh " boys " — a 
 cousin of Mrs. Dr. Johnson, and now the emi- 
 nent Dr. E. A. Reed of Holyoke, Mass. : 
 
 .. . _ ^ " January 26, 1903. 
 
 My dear Pastor: 
 
 " I have received a copy of The Interior with 
 
 an account of the celebration of your seventieth 
 
 birthday, which I have read with great pleasure, 
 
 and although it is a little late, I wish to add my 
 
 congratulations. It must have been a joyous 
 
 event in your experience, and the remembrance 
 
 of it will always be blessed and inspiring. I am 
 
132 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 glad that the brethren had the good taste to 
 say something while you are with us and still in 
 the thick of the fight, and can easily understand 
 how the wealth of admiration and love expressed 
 touched your heart. I can never think of you as 
 growing old, but as one full of energy, hope, and 
 of achievement, even as I knew you in the old 
 Pittsburgh days. The memory of those days 
 often overpowers me, and I feel grateful for the 
 noble impulses and inspiring thoughts which you 
 gave me. And your example of hopeful and un- 
 tiring labor has been an informing influence and 
 power in my whole ministerial life. I rejoice in 
 all the good work which our blessed Master has 
 enabled you to do, and trust that you will be 
 spared to the Church for many years to come. 
 It seems a long time since I have looked into 
 your face. With love to Cousin Kate and your- 
 self, I am as ever yours, 
 
 " E. A. Reed." 
 
 Dr. Covert of Chicago writes : " You hear so 
 perfectly that not a whisper of friendship can 
 escape you — and so plainly that not a single beam- 
 ing affectionate smile will be lost upon you. You 
 are the best-loved man in the whole Presbyterian 
 Church. You are loved because you did so much 
 for the men and the Church. There is not a bit 
 of glamor about the Herrick Johnson of our af- 
 fections. It is the genuine old man himself who 
 has us by the heart-strings. I never can pay the 
 
Mccormick seminary 133 
 
 debt of love I owe you as teacher, guide, and 
 friend. It will be a theme for everlasting con- 
 verse on the sunny slopes of the everlasting 
 hills." 
 
 Dr. Theo. L. Cuyler writes : " Well-Beloved 
 Brother, and more, too. It is only this morning, 
 January 13, 1903, that I learned that you have 
 marched out of the sixties with flying colors and 
 have come into the seventies ! All hail ! I wish 
 I was back there with you, but next Saturday 
 my old-time clock will strike 81 ! Herrick, my 
 jewel, you have had a grand career, sound in 
 heart, sound in your theology, sound in your 
 staunch Presbyterianism, and blest of God in 
 your untiring labors. I would like to have been 
 at that dinner and poured out my soul in a love 
 tribute." 
 
 The late Dr. George W. Knox wrote Dr. 
 Johnson, December 30, 1902, Pelham Manor, 
 N. Y. : "I desire to add my congratulations to 
 the chorus which greets you. In all my course 
 of student life, I think of three or four men at 
 most as influencing me, and really worthy of 
 affection and grateful esteem. You already know 
 that I place you high in this small group. In 
 my Auburn days you were easily first and hold 
 a place apart from all others. Our all too in- 
 frequent meetings have been delightful to me. I 
 need say nothing as to your public career. It 
 has not only been distinguished by all the honors 
 the Church can bestow, but far more it has 
 
134^ HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 commanded the high respect of all for its cour- 
 age, its independence, its absolute veracity, its 
 true nobility, as for its intellectual success. In 
 Union Seminary no man in the Church is so 
 esteemed/' 
 
 Dr. William P. Merrill, now of the Brick 
 Church, New York, wrote, December 15, 1902: 
 ** I hate to miss the gathering of your friends, for 
 I am sure that no one of them can love and honor 
 you more than I do. You call out one's love 
 and loyalty in a rare way. I count it one of the 
 vast gains of my Chicago experience that I have 
 had the privilege of friendship with you. 
 
 *' You must be very happy over the returns 
 from the Presbyteries on the Revision Overtures. 
 Your work is certainly being crowned with suc- 
 cess, and a good many of us feel that we owe the 
 happy outcome very largely to you." 
 
 Dr. Samuel I. NiccoUs of the Second Church, 
 St. Louis, Mo., wrote, December 15, 1902: "I 
 heard last evening incidentally that you were to 
 have a birthday celebration. I don't want to 
 steal in uninvited, but I do want to stretch out 
 my hand to you in congratulation and in love. 
 I rejoice that you were born into this sore 
 troubled world, and that you have lived so long 
 and so well in it. I suppose if Dr. Patton's 
 supralapsarian view is the correct one, that you 
 could not help being what you are, and that I 
 ought to rejoice ' in the decree.' But somehow 
 I like to take a time view of my friends and to 
 
Mccormick seminary 135 
 
 rejoice in them, and to thank God that they 
 have ' fought a good fight, and have kept the 
 faith.' You have come to the appointed limit of 
 life in honor and power. Multitudes bless you 
 for your ministry, and the Church owes you a 
 debt of gratitude for your service. You will 
 live another seventy years in the lives of the 
 young men whom you have taught. Your min- 
 istry will be multiplied more than hundred fold. 
 Well, I congratulate you on a green old age, and 
 for the boy that still lives in you. I trust that 
 God will permit you to tarry with us many years, 
 yet I know that you are anxious at times to be 
 away and see our dear Lord's face." 
 
 Dr. George B. Stewart, President of Auburn 
 Theological Seminary, wrote, January 3, 1903: 
 '' My heart rejoices in the honor done you by 
 your brethren in Chicago. You deserve it all, and 
 more, too. Your life of service to the Church 
 and to your fellowmen has been one of pre- 
 eminent benefit. Hosts of men in the ministry 
 feel that they owe a lasting debt to you. Multi- 
 tudes of men and women rise up to call you 
 blessed. Many more years of service to you 
 here, and an eternity of it yonder." 
 
 I greatly wish that I could quote more of these 
 letters, written, as they were, right out of the 
 hearts of his devoted friends and pupils. They 
 reveal, as nothing else can do, why one was com- 
 pelled to own in writing about Dr. Johnson that 
 he was the best beloved man he knew. It was 
 
136 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 not simply that he was an unusually strong and 
 forceful teacher of homiletics, but he had a heart 
 compelling power. He loved greatly and was 
 loved greatly — none more so. 
 
 To a dear friend, who had been obliged on 
 account of his health to withdraw from the ac- 
 tive ministry, Dr. Johnson wrote from Lake 
 Mohonk, Mountain House, June 6, 1902 : 
 
 " From this marvellous scene, looking out on 
 God's everlasting hills and through an atmos- 
 phere pure as heaven's own, I send you my 
 heart's greeting. You are a ' shut in,' but you 
 have great company, and I know you and the 
 dear Master are having a good time together. 
 No place can be lonely with Him! Hospital 
 becomes palace, and desert a blooming garden, 
 and pain gets translated into pleasure. O the 
 magic of His touch ! I trust it will please Him to 
 make this second enforced retirement a passage- 
 way to renewed vigor and something of the old 
 virile swing. Your letter was a good while 
 reaching me. But I hasten to send a message 
 into your retreat and to assure you of my love 
 and sympathy. Katie joins me in the heartiest 
 remembrance, and we will make mention of you 
 often in our talks with God. Mohonk is still 
 the peerless place, and to-day it seems more 
 beautiful than ever. I wish you and your wife 
 could run up here for a day or two, on your way 
 to your summer resting-place. Now that Revi- 
 
McCORIVnCK SEMINARY 137 
 
 sion is on the sure road to constitutional stand- 
 ing in our beloved Zion and the ' brief statement 
 of the Reformed Faith ' is here to stay, I am 
 ready to sing with good old Simeon 'Nunc 
 dimittis ! ' Good-bye, brave, great heart, good- 
 bye. 
 
 " Affectionately, Herrick." 
 
 In January, 1903, Dr. Johnson quoted this 
 verse on *' Bright Things " : 
 
 " When you see a sky of blue 
 Think that sky was made for you ; 
 When the breeze bends down the trees 
 You just think that that's your breeze; 
 Every blessed drop of dew 
 Falls upon the rose for you." 
 
 To v^rhich he added this verse of his own : 
 
 "When clouds sweep a blackened sky 
 Think God's cloud of mercy nigh; 
 When the breeze roots up the trees 
 You just think that that's your breeze; 
 Every storm and stress and sting 
 Is God's way of bettering." 
 
 On April 8, 1903, he wrote to a familiar 
 friend : 
 
 "... Yes, e'en down to old age, I find it 
 hard to get any leisure. It almost seems as if I 
 were never quite so busy in all my life as this past 
 winter. For one thing my assistant (a fine, rare 
 young fellow, by-the-by, with as fine a wife and 
 
138 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 cluster of blossoming children as I ever knew) 
 was taken with pneumonia before the holidays, 
 and is still very weak, and will be unable to do 
 any seminary tasks until we open in the fall. I 
 have had his entire work since the middle of last 
 December. Through adjustment made with 
 him at the beginning of the year, I had been 
 counting on large leisure after the holiday re- 
 cess and partly on this account I had made a 
 number of outside engagements, which I could 
 not very well break without serious disappoint- 
 ment to the parties interested. Caught between 
 these two seas, it looks as if I should be sub- 
 merged. But thanks to a gracious Providence, a 
 resolute will, and some gumption and more grit, 
 I have pulled through, and it looks now as if 
 Commencement would be passed without any- 
 thing like a break. The banquet was, of course, 
 an occasion for great gratitude and great joy, 
 and great humility. I never dreamed of what 
 was coming in its fulness. 
 
 " The letters from * the boys ' were literally 
 from around the world, and utterly unexpected, 
 and a dear surprise ; they came pouring in even 
 weeks after the ' function ' was over, and Katie 
 has arranged them in a scrapbook, making a 
 volume of signs and tokens of a dear and death- 
 less regard beyond all price. Through this and 
 all other scenes and experiences and trial and 
 triumphs since the day Katie and I went Maying 
 by Owasco Lake, she has gone with me, my 
 
Mccormick seminary 139 
 
 pride and joy. Next to the gift of His own 
 Son, another ever blessed Spirit, do you think 
 God has ever given either of us anything com- 
 parable with the bride He helped us woo and 
 win forty-odd years ago? Well, we are in the 
 sunset land now and it is very beautiful, and 
 for the hope as well as the memory that is in 
 me, I could cry for joy. I love to think of the 
 dearer intimacies of your own kith and kin of 
 two or three generations. Ah ! those children ! 
 and the children of the children ! Ah, me ! I 
 wonder if God won't balance things when we get 
 to the city * whose streets are to be ///// of boys 
 and girls, playing in the streets thereof.' Do 
 you remember Charles Lamb's talk about the first 
 baby in heaven? Perhaps Katie and I may have 
 two or three of the elect little tots ' dying in 
 infancy ' whose parents were unworthy of 
 heaven — these little ones, these outward breath- 
 ing types that so soon into stillness passed 
 again. Perhaps God will give us two or three 
 as our very own when we go home, but where 
 are my thoughts running? Do not forget to tell 
 McGififert and Knox and the Gillets that I think 
 of them with loving interest. "What a shame 
 that McGiffert is not in our Presbyterian fold. 
 The old liners are still trying to mop out the 
 Atlantic. " Herrick.-" 
 
 In May, 1905, the McCormick family nobly 
 endowed the seminary with one million dollars 
 
140 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 in addition to all that they had already given, as 
 a perpetual memorial of the founder of the 
 family, Cyrus H. McCormick, the distinguished 
 inventor and great benefactor. The donation, 
 made through three members of the family, v^as 
 as follows: Mrs. Nettie Fowler McCormick, 
 $750,000; Cyrus H. McCormick, her son, $125,- 
 000; Harold F. McCormick, her son, $125,000; 
 total $1,000,000. 
 
 With this came the gratifying announcement 
 that the Trustees had secured the distinguished 
 and able Dr. James G. K. McClure as its Presi- 
 dent. " He is peculiarly adapted for the important 
 duties he now assumes, and no man could have 
 been chosen better equipped to put to the best 
 uses the liberal endowment of the McCormick 
 family. A new chair has been added, that of 
 the * Science and Art of Preaching,' and it will 
 be filled by Dr. Herrick Johnson, who retires 
 from the chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Theo- 
 logy. He thus secures the letting up of the 
 severe pressure which for so many years his 
 professional duties laid on him." Two years be- 
 fore this his new volume of Sermons from 
 Love to Praise was issued, a book greatly 
 prized and expressing the loftiest thought. 
 
 Dr. Johnson at first opposed very strongly the 
 Book of Common Worship as prepared by a 
 Committee of Ministers and Elders of the Pres- 
 byterian Church, who worked on the volume for 
 three years. For some time he wrote against it ; 
 
Mccormick seminary i4i 
 
 but as he had come to see at the time of the 
 McKinley Campaign that true patriotism called 
 for his giving up his adherence to the Prohibition 
 party and voting for McKinley and that the posi- 
 tion v^hich he had taken on the *' Two kinds of 
 v^rine, in the Bible '' was not really scriptural, he 
 with fine candor owned his mistake. So with 
 that open-mindedness which had come to be the 
 beautiful and ennobling characteristic of his old 
 age, he withdrew his opposition to the Book of 
 Common Worship, and stood for it, for the rest 
 of his life. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's commemoration address at the 
 McCormick Theological Seminary, 1905, was 
 really the close of his great career of twenty-five 
 years as the greatest teacher of Homiletics and 
 Pastoral Theology of his time : " It was brilliant, 
 tender, and impressive." He took for his theme 
 The Man, the Institution, and the Field. " In 
 the first as he presented the ideal man, in great 
 part he unconsciously portrayed such a one as 
 he himself is recognized to be by all who know 
 him. His second division of his theme seemed 
 prophetic of the Seminary's future under the new 
 conditions now opening. The ideal field under 
 the third head was one that called out the best 
 that was in a student, and aroused him to the 
 fullest development of his powers." 
 
 It was following this, that Dr. Johnson's re- 
 tirement began. This personal letter reveals his 
 own experience in that event. 
 
142 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 "June 23, 1905. 
 " Your good word is like a gentle breeze waft- 
 ing odors from a flower garden. If you write 
 from your summer home on the Island, I shall 
 expect the smell of the sea shore flung by a stiff 
 breeze from off old ocean. So I would have 
 been a great sinner, would I? Well, I don't 
 want to be any bigger sinner than I am now, 
 and the only satisfaction I can get from the 
 situation is that the bigness makes grace big. 
 Do you know, I am going to join you in a new 
 sense ? You say you ' are no longer in the ac- 
 tive service.' Me, too ! My resignation from 
 all seminary position and work goes to the 
 Executive Committee of the Board to-day. My 
 physician says I must say good-bye to all obli- 
 gatory work from this time on to the end. Work, 
 he orders, but only when you feel like it. Let all 
 work be optional, and not enforced, appointed, 
 obligatory. Expert opinion corroborates and en- 
 forces this with emphasis. So I am done with 
 McCormick homiletics. It has been a blessed 
 twenty-five years of toil. ' The boys ' made an 
 evening of it Commencement week, and I was 
 loaded with good things, though they didn't 
 come from around the world, as they did on the 
 occasion of the celebrating of the seventieth an- 
 niversary of my birthday. Well, God has been 
 exceedingly good to me, and has strewn life's 
 path with countless and most blessed gifts, 
 among the chief of which and next only to my 
 
Mccormick seminary us 
 
 Savior, I count my Katie, and Charlie, — Charlie, 
 dear old comrade of college and seminary days 
 and my life lover now these fifty years, — God 
 has indeed blessed us in our wives. He has let 
 us keep them well-nigh half a century." 
 
 As Dr. Johnson retired from the active duties 
 of seminary life. Dr. J. G. K. McClure en- 
 tered upon the new office of the President of 
 the Seminary, a man beloved by all, and singu- 
 larly fitted, by nature and culture and rich expe- 
 rience, for his position. His coming to the King- 
 dom for such a time as that was peculiarly grati- 
 fying to Dr. Johnson, who loved him as a father 
 might love a son. I quote the appropriate tribute 
 to Dr. Johnson at his retirement. " Although the 
 directors in their justifiable desire to keep him in 
 connection with the seminary provided him with 
 a lecture chair in which he will give occasional in- 
 struction, yet his regular work of teaching the 
 classes the principles and art of sermon making 
 is done and hereafter he and Mrs. Johnson will 
 spend their winters in a less rigorous climate than 
 that of Chicago. 
 
 "And what teaching it has been that he has 
 given to his classes for these many years. How 
 clean cut and clear in principle and how well 
 illustrated in practice. Few of our able preach- 
 ers have known so well as Dr. Johnson how to 
 build a sermon that would stand solid on its 
 foundation and rise symmetrical and beautiful 
 
146 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 fectionate relation to his students, together with 
 his preeminence in service in the Church at 
 large, have wrought influentially to endow the 
 Seminary with its present conspicuity and power. 
 ** The Directors express to Dr. Johnson its 
 deep sense of gratitude for his tireless devotion 
 to every interest of the Seminary throughout the 
 years of his connection with it and record their 
 regret in being compelled by his own urgent 
 demands to release him from active service in 
 the Faculty. The Directors desire to assure Dr. 
 Johnson, as he passes to an emeritus relation, 
 of their earnest prayers for his prolonged health, 
 and a long continuance of his honored name in 
 connection with the Seminary. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 " Wm. C. Covert, 
 "D. W. Fisher, 
 ''C. H. Holt." 
 
VII 
 
 AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME, 
 1905-1913 
 
 " Grow old along with me ! 
 The best is yet to be, 
 
 The last of life for which the first was made. 
 Our times are in His hand 
 Who saith * A whole I planned.' 
 Youth shows but half: trust God, 
 
 Nor be afraid." 
 
 — Browning. 
 
 DR. and Mrs. Johnson moved about May, 
 1905, from their residence on the 
 Campus of McCormick Seminary to the 
 Plaza near the Lake shore, as Mrs. Johnson 
 had become helpless and could no longer have 
 the care of housekeeping. She was taken in the 
 summer to Mount Clemens, with the hope that 
 the waters would be beneficial. 
 
 But her husband wrote : " They did nothing 
 for her and she came back as she went out — car- 
 vied from her room to the cars and from the cars 
 to her room. Some wonderful cures are efifected 
 by that remedial agency, but it did nothing for the 
 dear patient sufferer. We were at a sanitarium 
 and had every possible care, from the finest 
 body of trained nurses I ever saw, and we are 
 
 147 
 
148 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 fortunate on our return in getting back the 
 trained nurses that we left here when we went 
 to Mount Clemens. Our new quarters at the 
 Plaza are a great improvement on the old, and 
 so far as appointments are concerned, as to 
 nurse and rooms and physician, we have every- 
 thing that could well be desired. Well, beloved 
 friend, this evening slope of life, with all its 
 limitations, is very sweet and beautiful. Lifers 
 sunsets may be as full of glory as nature's. I 
 hope to get out a book or two soon, that in some 
 way may be a comfort to the bruised, and a help 
 and stay to God's many workers. 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 Here is another cherished letter I received at 
 the time: 
 
 " The Plaza, Chicago, February i8, 1906. 
 " It seems a good while since we have had a 
 dose of old-time fellowship. Come now, let 
 us reason together or muse aloud a while or get 
 on to the wireless telegraphy or call up some 
 power from the vasty deep that will put us in 
 touch with each other. Knox (G. W.) wrote 
 me some time ago that he was coming on here 
 to lecture at the University of Chicago, and 
 would try to see me. I at once replied that see- 
 ing him would be a dear joy, and he came and 
 called, and we talked of many things and per- 
 sons (for I have been pleasantly tied to Knox 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 149 
 
 in many ways and hold him in a very dear re- 
 gard), and he told me something of you and 
 yours, but he did not let me into the innermost, 
 where I always want to go, when you are up 
 for consideration, and I am longing to know 
 how time and the dear Lord are dealing with you 
 and yours. 
 
 " Perhaps you know that Katie has been a 
 prisoner in the bonds of rheumatism for many 
 months and virtually helpless. Away back in 
 April, last, she was caught in the grip of this 
 tenacious, pertinacious, and by no means 
 gracious thing, and has scarcely put her feet to 
 the floor since. But through these long, weary 
 months she has been a brave, patient sufferer, 
 sometimes measurably free from pain and never 
 suffering in that excruciating way which some- 
 times is the lot of rheumatics, but never free 
 from aching joints, and a soreness that now and 
 then spreads over her entire body. We had a 
 plan for last summer and fall that included 
 Mohunk and the Maine coast and Atlantic City, 
 with an indefinite stay at the latter place; but 
 Katie's condition broke it all up, and contrary 
 to all expectation I came back to Chicago only 
 to find no provision made for my chair, save the 
 distribution of a small portion of the work among 
 the other Professors and the Faculty clamorous 
 for my resumption of the old duties, so I have 
 been doing three or four hours a week through 
 the year. I close this work this week, and then 
 
150 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 I shall be free to go where it seems best to go, 
 and promises most for the relief of the dear old 
 Darling, who has been my pride and joy so 
 many years. Do you remember when I took her 
 for ' better, for worse, till death us do part ' in 
 Auburn forty-six years ago? What blessed 
 crowning years they have been of love and fel- 
 lowship ! What awaits us of joy or sorrow, of 
 pain or pleasure, of life or death we do not know, 
 and do not need to know. We know, don't we, 
 dear old boy? We know that our Redeemer 
 liveth, and that we shall see Him face to face. 
 " As ever, with love from us both, 
 
 " Herrick/' 
 
 Later on he wrote (November 14, 1906,) as 
 follows : " Just a word from out the silence to 
 tell you that we have spent the entire summer 
 here in our rooms at the Plaza, on the south 
 border of Lincoln Park, and only about three 
 squares from the Lake, that we have been very 
 comfortable, and that Katie is still an invalid 
 and in rheumatic bonds, but with a patience and 
 trust and peace that old Rheumatics can't break 
 and legions of devils can't destroy. They are 
 from the dear Lord and as beautiful to see as 
 they are prophetic of the land that is not so 
 very ' far off,' and whose inhabitants never say, 
 * I am sick.' We see no special change in her 
 condition, week by week, the lapses and the 
 gains about keeping the balances so that the 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 151 
 
 average state is about the same, month in and 
 out. I read a good deal to her, she sleeps quite 
 well, and has a fair appetite, but gains no 
 strength, and with respect to many things is 
 virtually helpless. About the only writing she is 
 equal to is a pencilled letter now and then, a 
 brief, and sometimes almost illegible, scrawl to 
 her only living sister, Mrs. Waldo. Once and a 
 while she manages to get a word written to one 
 or two of her old friends and correspondents, 
 but she can hardly hold a pencil, and only uses 
 it at all with some weariness and pain. She has 
 not walked alone for a year, and has not been on 
 her feet for months. 
 
 *' But we have had lots of blessed fellowship 
 with each other, and trust, with our Lord, in 
 this long ' shut-in ' period, and it has not been 
 without its blessed compensations. She sends a 
 tender message of love and greeting to you both. 
 It was well that I gave up my work at the 
 Seminary last year, and insisted on absolute 
 resignation. Hill, of Portland, and one of ' my 
 boys,' is in my chair, and making his first im- 
 pressions, and they give promise of fine things in 
 the whole field of applied theology. McClure, 
 our President, takes Pastoral Theology and 
 Church Government, and our Seminary ought 
 to do a great work for God and our beloved 
 Church in the next half-century. 
 
 " Of course, if within the possibilities every 
 living man of 1857 will be at Hamilton next 
 
152 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Commencement. Be there, old boy (Deo vo- 
 lente), and let us make it a reunion worth while. 
 Do you know that it is also the seventy-fifth 
 anniversary of the organization of Alpha Delta 
 Phi ? What a blaze of glory ought to be lighted 
 on the old hill. 
 
 " Herrick.^' 
 
 In 1907 he took up the work of revising his 
 remarkable lectures, which hundreds of his 
 students wanted him to publish, preparing 
 them to appear in a book which was most ap- 
 propriately named " The Ideal Ministry." At 
 the time of its appearance I reviewed it in the 
 Christian Work and Evangelist, the substance of 
 which I here quote : 
 
 DR. JOHNSON'S " IDEAL MINISTRY " 
 
 The ministry at large will regard the oppor- 
 tunity of possessing this book by the Rev. Dr. 
 Herrick Johnson as a peculiar privilege ; for Dr. 
 Johnson's work has not been done in a corner. 
 An impassioned, able, and eloquent leader in that 
 branch of the great church to which he has 
 devoted his life, his distinguished career is famil- 
 iar far beyond its bounds. Those who have been 
 under the spell of his powerful and persuasive 
 preaching, both in his pastorates and when he 
 has appeared year after year in the foremost 
 pulpits of the great central cities of our land, and 
 who have known of his extraordinary success as 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 153 
 
 a teacher of homiletics in two of the leading 
 theological seminaries of the Presbyterian Church 
 will be glad to get at something of the secret of 
 his power, which this book, as far as possible, 
 furnishes. And his many pupils, scattered all 
 over the world, will hail with joy this opportunity 
 to secure permanently his entire system of homi- 
 letics. 
 
 They can never forget the white heat of fervor 
 kindled in their souls by his inspiring personality 
 as a teacher, and by his mastery of all those 
 sources of intellectual, moral, and spiritual power 
 which brought them to his feet. Not to draw 
 comparisons with other great books by distin- 
 guished authors and masters of this subject, we 
 do not hesitate to state that it stands in the very 
 front rank. 
 
 Dr. Johnson is no mere theorist, as some pro- 
 fessors of homiletics may be, who have had no 
 marked personal experience of success in the 
 ministry. His fifteen years in three great pas- 
 torates gave him a rich and varied experience, 
 out of which to begin his homiletic teaching, when 
 Auburn Theological Seminary called him. At 
 once the young men felt the thrill and power of 
 this man, who had come to that chair, not because 
 he had failed as a preacher, but because, with the 
 greatest success in the ministry, he realized what 
 an opportunity was thus afforded him to show 
 the hundreds of students who would come to him 
 how God would use and bless them as thoroughly 
 
154 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 equipped and devoted preachers of the Gospel. 
 Men like Stryker, Stewart, Knox, Riggs, Bab- 
 cock, Merle Smith, Dickinson, and many others 
 have ever cherished as their highest privilege the 
 opportunity afforded them in that Auburn lecture 
 room. His had been a ministry of large in- 
 gatherings. Young men like Breed and Reed in 
 his church at Pittsburgh were brought to the 
 Master under the persuasive power of his minis- 
 try, and won to the preaching of the truth, at the 
 time of precious outpourings of the Holy Spirit 
 in that church. And when, on account of the 
 health of his wife, he was forced literally to tear 
 himself away from Pittsburgh, where he was al- 
 most idolized by both young and old in his church, 
 he found, in his year of apparent exile to Mar- 
 quette, on the shores of Lake Superior, a new 
 baptism of power, accompanied with a revival in 
 that little church, where he was supplying the 
 pulpit for that time, which for intensity and 
 spiritual power will never be forgotten. The 
 writer of this article, who has had the privilege 
 of intimate acquaintance with Dr. Johnson from 
 college days, still cherishes the letters written 
 under the glow and joy of that great blessing. 
 In the enthusiasm of his young life he would go 
 off to the solitary shore of that great lake to 
 prepare for those services night after night, 
 singing as he went that hymn born of the great 
 revival of 1857, and which fairly swept through 
 the church to a permanent place in her great 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 155 
 
 hymnology, " He Leadeth Me, Oh Blessed 
 Thought." 
 
 It was from that notable revival that Albert 
 Barnes called him to Philadelphia to a ministry 
 similarly blest of God. So that, when he stepped 
 from the throne of that great pulpit to the Chair 
 of Homiletics at Auburn, which he turned also 
 into a throne, he gave to his teaching the charm, 
 grip, and spirit of a consecrated successful 
 ministry. 
 
 It was not strange that Chicago, the metropolis 
 of the Central West, wanted him, and would not 
 listen to a refusal ; and the result of his work 
 there for the twenty-five years of his service to 
 the Lord in McCormick Theological Seminary 
 showed the wisdom of the West in placing him 
 there in the chair, where, for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, he wielded such extraordinary power, as is 
 explained in part by this remarkable volume, A 
 Comprehensive Handbook on Homiletics. Un- 
 der God it may be truthfully claimed that he has 
 changed, and lifted up to a very much higher 
 standard the character of the preaching through- 
 out the' Northwest. Many young men, like 
 Stevenson of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian 
 Church, responded to the full to the inspiring 
 quality and character of his teaching, and hail 
 him as their master in the great art of preaching 
 the Gospel. And this book gives, as nearly as 
 possible, his secret. It is not only a thesaurus 
 of knowledge about homiletics, but it reveals the 
 
156 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 great heart of the man himself. Some who 
 have known Dr. Johnson only as they have 
 crossed swords with him in memorable debates in 
 church courts have perhaps felt that, with his 
 power as a logical debater, he had more brain 
 than heart. But those who sat under his min- 
 istry, and at his feet in the lecture room know 
 how his strong and brilliant intellect is illumined, 
 and heated hot with the glowing, inexhaustible 
 fires of his heart. Those who know him best, 
 who know how he has loved and loves, call him 
 '' Great Heart," and this book shows it. It gives 
 a keen intellectual analysis of all the sources of 
 power in the ministry, it masters that depart- 
 ment of it, and it is pervaded with a glow of 
 love for God and man, of devotion to Jesus the 
 Christ, and of a passionate longing to save men, 
 which is a very sacred revelation of the inward 
 life of the author. In his last lecture, *' The 
 Sermon — Why Not a Soul Winner," he says : 
 " What if each preacher of the Word should call 
 the roll of his sermons, say five years back ; the 
 text, topic, and the dominant purpose of each. 
 How many of them would bear this characteri- 
 zation : ' Filled with a mighty persuasiveness ; a 
 sermon that was after a soul ? * " In another 
 lecture on " The Sermon's Ideal Topics," he 
 says : '' The preacher's aim is salvation in the 
 highest sense : reconstruction of manhood. The 
 preacher is to reach and find his man, and then 
 build him up in Christ Jesus. This is his * con- 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 157 
 
 stant absorbing,' inspiring purpose, and it has 
 only one possible way of accomplishment by 
 the truth of God as accompanied by the Spirit 
 of God. The Holy Spirit convicts and sanctifies 
 men only by the truth — and by the truth not as 
 it is in Socrates, or Plato, or the stars, or the 
 philosophies — but as it is in Jesus — the Christ." 
 In the lecture on *' The Sermon's Ideal Con- 
 stants " he quotes Ruskin's famous sentence 
 about the preacher's opportunity, *' Thirty 
 minutes to raise the dead in ! '' and then adds 
 these words : ** Once understand this, and a 
 man's whole soul will go out into his sermon 
 every week, and into the effort to make it all it 
 ought to be as a word of eternal life and death." 
 The author's loving loyalty to the Great Head 
 of the Church, and his consuming love for the 
 souls of men flame through this book in a way 
 to startle men who are in the ministry for half- 
 hearted service, viz. : " Next to a knowledge of 
 God's Word what can help a preacher so much 
 as a knowledge of the human nature that is be- 
 fore him thinking, feeling, wondering, hunger- 
 ing, yearning, doubting, hating? * Know thyself.' 
 But know others also. Psychology is important 
 here. But mix with men. Be observant. Get 
 at their dispositions. Discover their prejudices 
 and needs. Learn what they are thinking about. 
 Do not leave humanity outside of the study, or 
 at the foot of the pulpit steps. Let its wants set 
 back into the sermon, and determine the ser- 
 
158 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 mon's bent. Touch with the touch of personal 
 presence and companionship its great throbbing 
 heart/' Here is something in the same lecture 
 on the use of the classified text-book which 
 cannot be passed by : '' Jot down in it . . . all 
 texts that seem laden with new riches as they 
 go flying by. If the text-book is not within 
 reach use a piece of paper, an old envelope — 
 anything to make it sure that the thought and 
 its treatment will not be lost. These texts that 
 are brought down as it were * on the wing/ that 
 flash unbidden to the view, and grow luminous 
 on the instant are almost like inspirations, and 
 sermonizing on them will be like the sweep of 
 the eagle cleaving the air with his strong 
 pinions." 
 
 To Dr. Johnson there are just two compre- 
 hensive principles which make up the entire 
 substance of the Gospel commission. To rescue 
 men from spiritual death, and to build them up 
 in spiritual life. He claims that as a result from 
 working faithfully along the lines of these two 
 principles all that is involved in the redemption 
 of human society in its widest sense, is included. 
 *' Social connections will be revolutionized, gov- 
 ernment will be made pure and peaceable, right- 
 eousness will increasingly prevail, ethical values 
 will have wider and wider recognition, clean 
 homes and clean streets and clean politics will 
 come to be the universal order, and the kingdom 
 of heaven on earth will at last witness in its 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 159 
 
 completeness to 'the manifold (variegated) wis- 
 dom of God.' " We commend this extract to 
 such as hold that orthodox doctrine and preach- 
 ing are unproductive of or do not minister to 
 the vast interests of civil and social life; and to 
 such especially as regard settlement work with- 
 out definite Christian teaching as best calculated 
 to redeem and enrich the great seething, suffer- 
 ing centres of Christless communities. As if 
 men trained by a teaching that denies to them 
 a knowledge of and personal love for, and faith 
 in the glorious Son of God, could ever come to 
 their best, or human society be brought to its 
 divine ideal. There is a subtle temptation lurk- 
 ing on every page of this most inspiring volume 
 to quote what one would want never to forget, 
 which has to be resisted, or this article will go 
 far beyond its proper bounds. 
 
 The book, as to its printing and binding, 
 is exceedingly well done. The clear, clean 
 printmg makes its reading delightful. We 
 must particularly commend the author's sane 
 and readable punctuation, acquired undoubtedly 
 from the Mandevillian system, which he studied 
 at Hamilton College. And it is something to 
 consider carefully in these days of the submer- 
 gence of the comma, the absurd misuse of the 
 semicolon, the disappearance of the colon, and 
 the wide dominion of the " dash." The striking 
 picture of Dr. Johnson on the cover of the book 
 will please every one, and cause the cover to 
 
160 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 be cherished with more care than such sHpping 
 and cumbrous essentials usually receive. 
 
 The writer of this article is confident that 
 the charm and fascination which he has found 
 in this truly great work, and the flame which 
 goes from it through his soul lies not merely in 
 the fact that its author has been a life-long be- 
 loved friend, and not merely in the book itself, 
 but preeminently *' in the man behind " the 
 book. 
 
 The preparation of this work for the press 
 was carried on in the midst of the deepest 
 anxiety over the condition of his beloved wife, 
 who passed away before it was finished, to the 
 great grief of a large number of most affection- 
 ate friends, throughout the country. Miss Hal- 
 sey, of the Women's Board of Foreign Missions, 
 of Chicago, said, on learning of her death : " I 
 have always esteemed my friendship with Mrs. 
 Johnson as one of the privileges of my life. 
 Here was one of the sweetest, rarest, purest, 
 strongest spirits that ever blessed the world. I 
 met her years ago on the train going to our an- 
 nual meeting, and from that time she admitted 
 me into the inner circle of her intimate friends. 
 With a beautiful mind, trained to the highest 
 degree of culture, with unusual gifts, both in 
 speech and writing, she was yet so unassuming, 
 so unconscious apparently of her rare mental 
 development. Aside from her intellectuality, her 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 161 
 
 marked characteristic was her tenderness. This 
 tenderness made her voice wonderfully sympa- 
 thetic. Every one who has ever heard her read 
 her little poems will remember this quality that 
 made it so expressive. She was an admirable 
 presiding officer, calm, cool, self-poised, with 
 full knowledge of parliamentary rulings, ready 
 for any emergency, and yet magnetic and sym- 
 pathetic, quick to perceive an opportunity and 
 seize it to give life and color to the sessions. 
 She had a remarkable voice for public speaking, 
 clear and sweet-toned, never high pitched or 
 loud, yet in its rare carrying quality, without 
 seeming effort, heard, however large the audi- 
 torium. 
 
 " The qualities that characterized her through 
 life shone out with added radiance during the 
 two years and a half she was laid aside upon a 
 bed of suffering. To those who were admitted 
 to the intimacy of her sick-room, it was a mount 
 from which were caught glimpses of the Celes- 
 tial City, to which her eyes were ever turning. 
 Those who have nursed her bear testimony to 
 the unfailing cheerfulness that made her pres- 
 ence a benediction. To him, sorely bereft, who 
 has walked by her side so many years in per- 
 fect union of heart and mind and work, our 
 hearts go out with tenderest sympathy. Theirs 
 was an ideal marriage. 
 
 '* When they were young people in the East, 
 and the physicians' verdict was that the bracing 
 
16^ HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 air of the Northern lake might restore her to 
 health, Dr. Johnson resigned his charge that 
 he might go with her to Marquette. On being 
 remonstrated with by a friend about this, as 
 he thought sacrificing a career, he said : * What 
 is a career to me if I lose her? ' She has been 
 spared to him for many years, an inspiration 
 to others as well as to him. She has passed over 
 the boundary into a fulness of life that even 
 she, with her deep spiritual insight, could never 
 have imagined. In her own words, I cannot say, 
 and I will not say that she is dead, she is just 
 away. 
 
 " * With a tender smile and a wave of the hand 
 She has entered into that unknown land; 
 And left us wondering how very fair 
 That land must be since she lingers there.' " 
 
 " A voice in the twilight " had become a voice 
 in the full light. Mrs. Herrick Johnson, whose 
 gentle voice had been wise and eloquent in mis- 
 sionary councils, gifted with lyric and comfort- 
 ing powers in verse, and brilliant and tender 
 in personal touch, had gone from a life of in- 
 validism, conquered by amazing inward renewal 
 day by day, and from two years of help- 
 less pain and spiritual growth and beauty, to 
 the place where there is no more sickness nor 
 any pain. 
 
 Two are more than one and one. Herrick 
 Johnson would have been one of the great- 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 163 
 
 est preachers, writers, reformers, ecclesiastics, 
 theological teachers, and personal friends even 
 if he had stood alone ; and Mrs. Johnson 
 would have been a star of Christian womanhood, 
 shining and leading lesser ones in their true 
 orbits, even if she had stood alone. But who 
 can estimate the increment of intellectual and 
 spiritual and social power for good that came to 
 each from the ideal union of two such concord- 
 ant minds and spirits? The romance of her 
 life came to her when she met Herrick Johnson 
 as a young divinity student at Auburn, and at 
 the background of his distinguished career in 
 the church there has all the while run the sweet 
 history of a lovers' honeymoon, which only death 
 could end. The funeral at Chicago was con- 
 ducted by Dr. Johnson's colleagues in the Semi- 
 nary Faculty, and the venerable professor bore 
 the loved dust away to inter it in the quiet city 
 in New York State where his good angel en- 
 tered his life. 
 
 Of course this broke up the beautiful home 
 he had had with this rare companion and gifted 
 wife, and the door that was open to him was to 
 go to his half-sister, Mrs. Oscar Gray of St. 
 Louis, Mo., whose early education had been a 
 dear charge of his, and whose home in her youth 
 was with him. They were tenderly attached. 
 Her home at St. Louis, Mo., was thrown open to 
 him, and from the address and other places he 
 wrote me the letters which immediately follow: 
 
164 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 " 4443 W. Belle Place, 
 " St. Louis, Mo., May 8th, 1908. 
 " I thank you for your kind and characteristic 
 reply to my last. This is to tell you where I 
 am — here in old St. Louis. The city of Saint 
 Samuel Niccolls and the home of my sister, Mrs. 
 Mary Gray. Mollie was in my home several 
 years at Troy and Pittsburgh, and now she has 
 turned the tables on me, and has me at her 
 home. I shall be here awhile at least and pos- 
 sibly till I go to * the House not made with 
 hands, eternal in the Heavens.' The Ideal Min- 
 istry is to be out in time for the Assembly, and 
 I have ordered a copy sent to you. I trust you 
 will like it. It would have been worth a good 
 deal to me if some such books had been placed in 
 my hands when I entered Auburn Seminary. 
 May you find it interesting enough to go through 
 its pages. If I should go East this summer, is 
 there a place where we could meet for hobnob- 
 bing and reminiscence? It may be that I will 
 visit some of my old haunts, where my beloved 
 and I went not ' a-Maying/ but * a-Julying,' or 
 'Augusting * in the olden golden days. As ever, 
 
 '' Herrick." 
 
 On June 10, 1908, he wrote again, also from 
 St. Louis: 
 
 " Yes, I remember the old Seminary days, 
 made doubly dear to me now. Auburn gave me 
 my Katie and my theology and some eternal 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 165 
 
 friendships. It was then I first absorbed Dick- 
 ens and fell in love with Mrs. Browning. You 
 are so generously appreciative of my book that 
 I shall have to read some searching, drastic 
 criticisms of it to keep the balances. 
 
 '' Oh, yes, we would have been better preach- 
 ers if we had been brought up on richer homiletic 
 diet. But God be praised for what we had, and 
 Broadus and Beecher, F. W. Robertson and Bur- 
 ton and others have been mighty helps since. I 
 would give lots to meet you, old boy, and it may 
 be that we can arrange for a meeting. But as I 
 take my sister with me East, I must somewhat 
 regard her wishes and tastes, as well as my own. 
 My stay here is made most comforting and peace- 
 ful by the thoughtful interest of my beloved sis- 
 ter, Mrs. Gray. But I hardly know yet where 
 I shall find a permanent home. Heaven will 
 open to me some day. Meanwhile I mean to 
 trust and love and patiently wait. 
 
 *' In the dear old bonds, 
 
 '' Herrick." 
 
 From Lake Mohunk, August 2, 1908, he 
 writes : 
 
 " We, my sister and I, are in this wonderfully 
 beautiful region, where Katie and I used to 
 come in the summering days and where some 
 of our dearest delights were had. We shall be 
 here through the month of August. I tried to 
 make it possible to be with you a few days, but 
 
166 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 circumstances are sometimes mightier than re- 
 solves. We were at Saratoga a couple of weeks, 
 and amid the hallowed associations of that old 
 resort of ours I had many and precious thoughts 
 of my beloved. They are tearing old Temple 
 Grove to pieces, making a kind of apartment 
 house of it for young women, in connection 
 with an industrial and art school, founded in the 
 village by a wealthy woman of Saratoga. But I 
 found a sort of fascinating satisfaction in crawl- 
 ing and climbing about the old building, to get 
 into rooms Katie and I occupied so many sum- 
 mers. My sister and I stopped at Dr. Strong's. 
 " Well, here also, in the midst of the Mohunk 
 glories and beauties, memories are stirred by 
 the associations. This was one of our favorite 
 resorts, and it is as near an earthly paradise as 
 anything I know, a great stretch of picturesque 
 loveliness, where Katie and I walked and talked 
 and communed with one another and with na- 
 ture and with God. Oh, the memories ! and 
 
 the hopes ! 
 
 " Oceans of love to you both. 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 Back again to his sister's home in St. Louis, 
 he wrote, September 1 1 : 
 
 " Your delightful letter made me regret the 
 more our failure to get together this summer. I 
 longed to see you. Our stay at Saratoga and 
 Mohunk was very enjoyable, both sweetened 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 167 
 
 and saddened by precious memories. I did want 
 to have a visit with you by the sea shore, but it 
 was out of the question. 
 
 '' I am back here with my sister, and am con- 
 templating a run to Chicago on Monday. The 
 Seminary opens on Tuesday, and I find myself 
 longing to be at the services in the Seminary 
 Chapel. I shall only stay a day or two in all 
 probability, and what I shall permanently deter- 
 mine upon is altogether uncertain. The ties that 
 bind me to the Seminary are very precious, and 
 the associations of twenty-eight years are very 
 strong. I don't quite take to establishing new 
 ties. My sister, Mrs. Gray, is kindness itself, 
 ready to respond to my slightest wish and full 
 of love and tenderness. The Waldos have 
 moved to Urbana, where their son is now Pro- 
 fessor in the Illinois State University. Mrs. 
 Waldo was greatly fatigued by the journey, but 
 is resting and rallying fairly well. But it will 
 not be long before she will go to her Lord, and 
 the four Hardenburg sisters will be together. 
 I am wondering and wondering what new things 
 God has in store for them who love Him. I 
 often wonder what people are made of who 
 think Heaven simply a place of mossy banks and 
 flowing rivers and gentle zephyrs. Good-bye, 
 old boy. Love to your wife, and a hearty wish 
 that the evening slope of life may give you both 
 an uninterrupted vision of golden glory. 
 
 " Aff 'yv Herrick." 
 
168 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 " I find my heart leaning your way to-night, so 
 I'll let my pen wag your way, too. I am won- 
 dering how you both are. I have no doubt that 
 you are in the midst of plans and gifts and wishes 
 and prayers anticipative of Christmas. How 
 my Katie used to anticipate the glad day, and 
 devise and arrange so that a wide circle came 
 to be included in her holiday remembrance. And 
 to the very last she kept up the blessed business, 
 even when the physical weakness made the task 
 almost too great for her. This last year has 
 been a sad sweet year, full of memories most 
 precious and of hopes most inspiring, and the 
 angel of my heart seemed never so beautiful in 
 all the years of our wedded life as during the 
 months I have walked on alone. I am often 
 wondering if Katie knows! I know the dear 
 Lord knows, and I know He has ways of letting 
 her know! And so I know that Katie knows if 
 it is best for her to know. 
 
 " My time is quite occupied with things, 
 though I have nothing to do, i.e., nothing com- 
 pulsory. I have been putting some few touches 
 that seem to me improving touches, as my book 
 for the second edition. I shall make another 
 brief addendum, if another edition is called for, 
 on the * Sermon, Its Ideas, Introduction, and 
 Conclusion,' following the chapter on the * Ser- 
 mon, Its Ideal Topics.' I have discussed the 
 ' Sermon, Its Ideal Definition, Its Ideal " Con- 
 stants," " Immediates," '' Cardinals," *' Top- 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 169 
 
 ics," ' but strangely enough I have omitted all 
 discussion of its ideal introduction and conclu- 
 sion, either of which may be determinative of 
 pulpit effectiveness. How I came to leave these 
 minor, and yet often vital parts of the sermon, to 
 go without some elaboration and emphasis I do 
 not quite know. But the wonder is, amid these 
 trying days, when I was finishing the last part of 
 the book, the wonder is that I was able to finish 
 my task at all. For day and night I was in 
 constant ministry to my darling in ways that 
 were beyond the possibility of any nurse, how- 
 ever trained and sympathetic. The press, as 
 well as the dear brethren, have been very kind 
 to me. Aff'y, as of old and evermore, 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 " Your Christmas wish and greeting added to 
 my stock of joy in yesterday's messages from all 
 around the sky. It is the second Christmas I 
 have passed since Katie went home. What if 
 we could get greeting from there! I have been 
 wondering what she would say ! But God's seal 
 is on that door, and I would not break it, not 
 even for what would be the sweetest thing in the 
 world to me — a message from my darling. 
 
 " Friends were very beautiful and bountiful 
 in their remembrance of me. What a world of 
 meaning is wrapped in that word sympathy! 
 
 *' And now, dear old boy, what if I should look 
 in on you both some day ere long? I am going 
 
170 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 to Urbana, 111., to see the Waldos sometime in 
 January. Mrs. W. is very feeble. I hardly 
 think she will live through the winter. She is 
 a great sufferer from rheumatism — has been in 
 bonds with it many, many weary months, and it 
 is literally wearing her out. I am going to see 
 her, the last of the four sisters, before she goes 
 to meet her Lord and Katie. I know it would 
 make Katie glad if she knew. 
 
 ** And then I am thinking of going farther 
 East to see some of my old Philadelphia parish- 
 ioners and friends. My study and sleeping room 
 are waiting for me in the dearest of homes in 
 Germantown, [probably he refers to the home of 
 his very dear friend, Mr. Abraham Perkins] 
 and the two hearts that * beat as one ' are out on 
 the lawn looking this way longingly and eager 
 for my coming. How do I know this? They 
 have sent me a photograph of it all, so I am 
 going. Then I expect to run over to New York 
 to see the dear brethren there for two or three 
 days, and perhaps to spend a night with Revell 
 at his home a little way out of town, where he 
 has again and again invited me. Now I am 
 thinking of going a little farther on this con- 
 templated journey, with Pelham Manor as the 
 terminus. What do you say to that? Not to 
 spend the winter, but just for a day or two. Is 
 Knox making his home now in Pelham Manor? 
 I want much to see him and some of the other 
 Union Seminary chaps. 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 171 
 
 " I am thinking of starting in early January. 
 Blessings on you and yours. 
 
 " Aff y., Herrick." 
 
 Galen Hall, Atlantic City, May lo, 1909: 
 
 " It is ' Galen Hall,' you see, and it is fine. All 
 the appointments are excellent, the rooms for 
 general use are many and exceedingly attractive. 
 The table is all that can be desired. The sleep- 
 ing rooms are well appointed and cosey. I 
 have a large closet in connection with mine, and 
 a fine bathroom. But the room is about the 
 smallest one I ever slept in. I am going to try 
 to get more room, i.e., a larger one, and I am 
 promised the first one that is vacated. But the 
 treatment — well, I had my first one this after- 
 noon and it was simply delicious. I felt like a 
 new man. I have had many treatments in many 
 institutions. But this, to-day, was the finest by 
 all odds that was ever given me. Among other 
 things, the fellow treating me shot two streams 
 of water at me, hitting me first in front and then 
 in rear, and then the right side and then the 
 left side. The effect was peculiarly fine, fairly 
 delicious, and the reaction was simply splendid. 
 Come and try it! 
 
 " I suppose you will soon be ofif for the sum- 
 mer. But I do wish you could be moved to try 
 a week at Galen Hall. I am an enthusiast about 
 Galen Hall, and each day seems to let on more 
 steam, if you will pardon the wretched metaphor. 
 
172 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 I am here through August; I shall preach for 
 Gesner four Sabbaths. He used to be over the 
 Second Church of Saratoga, and has some ad- 
 mirable qualities as a preacher. He is very much 
 liked here. His church w^as jammed full yester- 
 day. Good-bye, old boy. Love to your v^rife. 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., February 9, 1910: 
 
 " I have just been reading over your precious 
 letter of January 29, and I must v^rite again to 
 tell you how it touches my heart. I am here 
 with my sister, Mollie, where I first found shel- 
 ter after Katie's home-going. Of course, in 
 one 5ense it is not ' home/ but Mollie is very 
 sweet to me, and lived so often with us when 
 Katie and I had a home together that her pres- 
 ence brings to mind many a precious incident of 
 the old days. I shall run over to Urbana soon, 
 the seat of the Illinois University, in which Dr. 
 Waldo's son is a professor. Mrs. Waldo is near 
 death, I think. She has been a long but very 
 patient sufferer, and the call home to her will be 
 a blessed relief. 
 
 " From there I'll go on to Chicago, where my 
 old comrades in the toil and joy of fitting men 
 for the ministry are still at their grand task. I 
 hope to see lots of the old and dear friends, but 
 most of all to meet and commune with Mrs. Mc- 
 Cormick, who has been to me for thirty years a 
 friend indeed. 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 173 
 
 ''How the ranks are thinning! I mean the 
 old ranks, the ranks we kept strength with when 
 we were buoyant youths ! God be praised for 
 two blessed things, memories and hopes. 
 
 '' As of old, so now and evermore, 
 
 " Herrick/' 
 April 29, 1 910: 
 
 " Are you expecting to be at Auburn next 
 week? Do you know what a fine program they 
 have for Commencement Week, and that I am 
 one of the speakers and not in it? It has been a 
 great disappointment to me to turn my back on 
 that Alumni feast. I was to speak on ' The True 
 Evangelism,' and it is in my heart that a ringing 
 word needs to be said on the subject. But I 
 could not get at it. My old brain kicked, I could 
 not put it in the traces. And I could not soar 
 with it. So I had to give up the appointment, 
 though it cost me a big lot to do it. You see, 
 old comrade, the swing of the old days is going, 
 if it is not gone. I can't count on the powers. 
 They get sluggish, they go wool-gathering. They 
 sometimes sleep. But I have an outline on that 
 topic, a message that I believe needs to be spoken 
 and some day yet it may find a voice. 
 
 *' Let me know about your summer plans ; we 
 may cross tracks. Love to your wife. Ever, 
 
 " Herrick.'' 
 
 We come now to the announcement of his ap- 
 proaching marriage to Miss Margaret Duncan 
 
174 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 of Louisville, Ky. The sensational press in re- 
 ferring to it had the cruel headings, " Eighteen 
 and Seventy-eight." But the facts should be 
 made plain that Miss Duncan was a mature, 
 cultivated Christian woman, at an appropriate 
 age in middle life for marriage. A charming 
 woman, who was ready to make a beautiful 
 home for this homeless, lonely man. And the 
 thousands who knew and loved Dr. Johnson and 
 mourned over his sorrowful, lonely condition, 
 will never cease to be grateful to her who made 
 during the last three years of his great life such 
 a bright, happy, and loving home for him out of 
 the devoted love she had for him. 
 
 He wrote as follows, expressing his wonder at 
 getting no word from me about his approaching 
 marriage. As a matter of fact, I had really 
 never received the letter and knew nothing of it, 
 save the cruelly incorrect notice in the paper : 
 
 " August 30, 1910, St. Louis, Mo. 
 " I have just been reading over your delight- 
 ful letter of May last, and to my surprise it 
 bears no trace of your having been notified of 
 my prospective marriage. It cannot be possible 
 that I have not informed you of it, but this let- 
 ter of yours of last May is the only letter in my 
 possession. I cannot believe it possible that 
 months have passed with no letters passing be- 
 tween us. Surely I have told you of my new joy, 
 and surely I have had, or ought to have had, a 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 175 
 
 bunch of hearty congratulations from one of the 
 oldest and dearest friends of the old days and 
 years. It comes over me like a flood, such a 
 possibility of silence. I am to be married to 
 Miss Margaret Duncan of Louisville, Ky., on 
 the 22nd of next month. 
 
 " We shall take a little bridal tour to New 
 York and up the Hudson and through Lake 
 George, returning to settle in Germantown 
 (Philadelphia) early in October, where I have 
 already secured a little love of a house for our 
 future home. I have had some most precious 
 letters of sympathetic and tender interest, which 
 has been a great joy to me, and I am simply 
 astonished that I do not find yours among them. 
 Dr. Ray wrote me a wonderful letter, and so 
 did Mrs. Peebles of Lansingburgh, Katie's most 
 loved and intimate companion and friend through 
 nearly her whole life. 
 
 " I sent your name to Miss Duncan along 
 with a whole lot of others to whom announce- 
 ments, official and formal, were to be sent. I 
 won't write any more until I get further word 
 from you. I am in a perfect maze of uncer- 
 tainty and doubt and bewilderment. 
 
 " With the old loving heart, 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 I wrote him as soon as possible, explaining 
 that from June all through the summer and 
 autumn months I had been, first in the General 
 
176 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Hospital at Rochester for a severe and very dan- 
 gerous operation, and then in the Jackson Health 
 Resort at Dansville, N. Y., for slov^ recovery, 
 and still later at Block Island, R. I., unable to 
 write any letters, though I had not heard from 
 him, and then came this reply of September ii, 
 1910, St. Louis, only about ten days before his 
 marriage : 
 
 " No, no, no ! I have heard nothing of your 
 protracted and severe illness. I little knew you 
 were so far down in the Valley of the Shadow 
 of Death. What a weary watching and wait- 
 ing, and what a glad returning to life and love, 
 and such service as God may fit you for. Noth- 
 ing henceforth compulsory, no allotted and com- 
 pelled tasks, no constraint through others to 
 work, to which you can never go again with 
 leaps and bounds and with feet like hind's feet. 
 I find a real satisfaction in my limitations. 
 
 " If I ever go to the operating table I trust I 
 may have the same spirit of trust and serenity 
 that marked you. I certainly have something 
 of the quality of endurance that marked your 
 case, for my ' vital organs ' have served me 
 splendidly through all the years. And I think 
 with a quiet life and no obligatory work, and a 
 loving woman and a home nest, with Miss Dun- 
 can's widowed sister to share it v;ith us, and 
 with a goodly number of my old and loved 
 parishioners in the immediate vicinage, the even- 
 ing slope of life may be somewhat useful and 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 177 
 
 very beautiful. Some day yet we may get to- 
 gether and talk over these and scores of other 
 experiences, and thank God for the grace that 
 helped us in sore traits and made us at last fit 
 for the Kingdom and glory. Love to you both 
 
 " From the same old 
 
 " Herrick." 
 
 After the death of his first wife he hungered 
 inexpressibly for a home of his own, and it was 
 fairly pathetic to see how he enjoyed it. It was 
 a lovely suburban residence in Germantown, 
 Philadelphia, an old-fashioned stone house, in an 
 attractive lawn, and all modern improvements 
 in the house. The charming study, opening 
 onto the lawn, the delightful reception room, 
 the exceedingly pleasant dining room, their own 
 rooms upstairs, and guest chambers, Dr. John- 
 son specially enjoyed showing to his guests, 
 whom he always welcomed with characteristic 
 cheer and bonhomie. From this address I re- 
 ceived the two characteristic letters which 
 here follow : 
 
 " 6358 Greene Street, Germantown Station, 
 
 "Philadelphia, Pa., April 21, 191 1. 
 " Where are you and how are you, and are 
 you planning to be at the Assembly this year? 
 You know it meets at Atlantic City, and we, 
 Marjorie and I, are going to run down there 
 for a few days. Wednesday, May 17th, prom- 
 ises to be a great day. Dr. Jowett is to be there, 
 
178 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 the big gun that has just come over the sea. I 
 want to hear him, and so do you. Thursday the 
 Assembly opens. Marjorie has never been at a 
 General Assembly, and this will furnish a good 
 opportunity to see what a splendid thing it is. 
 We shall return to Philadelphia after a good 
 taste of the big gathering, and huge drafts of sea 
 air. I don't believe that I could stand the 
 racket of an entire session. But how I used to 
 enjoy the rush and roar and the high debates. I 
 have hanging in my study a group of fourteen 
 Moderators, taken one summer at Saratoga. I 
 don't believe such a large number has before or 
 since been present. It was the year we or- 
 ganized the Board of College Aid, and Moore 
 was Moderator, and the ex-Mods, were Darling, 
 Van Dyke, Sr., Roberts, J. T. Smith, Patton, 
 Crosby, Morris, Paxton, Craven, Backus, C. L. 
 Thompson, E. D. Morris, and myself. 
 
 ** How the ranks have been mown down ! 
 Charlie, we are among the older white-heads. 
 It can't be long before the call to * come up 
 higher ' will take us to immortal youth. I feel 
 pretty well preserved for a man close to the 
 end of 79. But I could no more go through 
 one of those old debates that made the Assembly 
 a memory for life than I could fly. I think you 
 owe me a letter; make believe you do, anyhow, 
 and drop a few of your epistolary sweets into 
 my capacious maw. Love to your wife. As ever, 
 
 " Herrick.'' 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 179 
 
 '' Germantown, Philadelphia, April 2, 1912. 
 " Just a word of affection and cheer. Retro- 
 spect and prospect seem equally bringers of joy 
 to our hearts. How time is enlarging the num- 
 bers of our loved ones over the river, and how 
 the ranks on this side, with whom we have often 
 walked into the * Holy of Holies,' are thinning 
 out. Katie's sister, Mrs. Waldo, is lying very 
 ill and quite helpless in her home, in Urbana, 
 111., and her husband, nearly ten years older than 
 I, waits for the call home, and a little grand- 
 daughter may soon be called. Dr. Waldo has a 
 son, a Professor in the University of Illinois, 
 at Urbana, and they are there together, the aged 
 grandfather and grandmother, and their son 
 and his wife, and the children's children. But it 
 cannot be long before the circle will be broken. 
 And what a gathering, a family gathering it will 
 be when they get home! Yes, our McCormick 
 Robinson is a smasher when he chooses to step 
 into the arena, a royal, genial fellow, chock full 
 of O. T. knowledge, he is sound to the core, a 
 lovely, cheery, whole-hearted, genial fellow, and 
 has no patience with the extremists in higher 
 criticism. As to Beecher, I hold him in warm 
 and reverent regard, a careful, well-balanced, and 
 critical scholar, also sound to the core, and just 
 the man to be writing on ' Reasonable Bible 
 Criticism.' We hope, Marjorie and I, to go to 
 Louisville next May. You know the Assembly 
 meets there this year, and it was Marjorie's home 
 
180 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 for years. Of course, I have no right whatever 
 to be a commissioner from Chicago Presbytery, 
 though I am still a member of that body. But if 
 there are not many hankering to go this year, 
 there is a possibility of my being made a dele- 
 gate. Good-bye, dear heart. Love to you both. 
 
 " In the old bonds, 
 
 '' Herrick." 
 
 In visiting Mrs. Robinson's brother, v^ho was 
 a singularly happy paralytic, and his very dear 
 family, we went to the church where Dr. John- 
 son sent word he was to preach, and dined 
 delightfully with Dr. and Mrs. Johnson, and 
 her sister, who was living with them. He 
 was so unaffectedly happy to have us as his 
 guests and to have us at his table, that our 
 hearts went out with warmest gratitude and love 
 to Mrs. Johnson for securing such a home for 
 our beloved friend, who without it would have 
 been so unspeakably lonely. The strong, grand 
 sermon he preached with that thrilling ring in 
 his voice occasionally sounding as of yore, the 
 still eagle-like glance of his eye, the ride with 
 him and his lovely wife to their home, and that 
 social dinner, with all its attractiveness, re- 
 mains as an ever to be cherished precious mem- 
 ory of our last sight of him. 
 
 In writing afterwards to us, leaving out his 
 introductory loving personalities, he adds: 
 " Your letter was ' linked sweetness.' I wish I 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 181 
 
 could add ' long drawn out/ but it was a joy 
 to have you and your beloved in our home, and 
 it was a real satisfaction to preach to you two 
 sinners! 
 
 " I have a sermon on the ' Prisons of the 
 Soul.' I am almost sorry I did not preach it, 
 but it lacked the adaptation to the hour that the 
 text chosen so happily furnished. That ' Foras- 
 much as ye know ' is a great stimulant to ' al- 
 ways abounding.' 
 
 " We are so glad you enjoyed our little 
 modest home, and I am so glad you so easily 
 discovered that my Marjorie is a ' multum in 
 parvo.' She is out this evening to hear Speer on 
 * Missions,' but my having a cold made it seem 
 the part of Providence to stay indoors. Good- 
 bye, old fellow, and assure your beloved wife of 
 our warm interest and ever watchful regard." 
 
 To show into what a cheery, sunny, and af- 
 fectionate family Dr. Johnson married when he 
 took Miss Margaret Duncan of Louisville for 
 his wife, I quote from a letter written by Mr. 
 W. G. Duncan, president of the Luzerne Coal 
 Company, Greenville, Ky., October i, 1912, on 
 Dr. Johnson's eightieth birthday. The letter 
 has this on the file in Dr. Johnson's handwriting : 
 ** Brother Bill's precious and cheery letter, con- 
 cerning my eightieth birthday:" 
 " My dear Brother Herrick : 
 
 ** We reached home in safety and found all 
 our people well, and we have been having de- 
 
18^ HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 lightful weather ever since we came back. We 
 fully expected to have a letter in Atlantic City 
 for you on the 22nd of September, that being 
 the day that was commemorated by you and your 
 dear little wife, the day that marked two anni- 
 versaries, the first being the anniversary of the 
 day that your two hearts were made one, and 
 the second being the anniversary of your own 
 birthday, and I certainly congratulate you on 
 your health and the wonderful preservation of 
 all your faculties on your eightieth anniversary. 
 I know that you are grateful to the Master, and 
 you ought to be, for such preservation as en- 
 ables you to climb to the high peak from which 
 you review your past, and look forward to the 
 future, whatever it may have for you. And 
 it is certainly our wish and prayers that He 
 may yet have in store for you many days, even 
 reaching into many years probably, and may 
 they all be as bright and happy as any that have 
 been reviewed by you in the past. Your humble 
 servant thinks that he is getting to be quite an 
 aged man, but when he thinks of the octogena- 
 rian period that you have reached and, looking 
 down as you see the sunset slope of life, with all 
 the strength that you possess, he can hardly 
 hope to attain to the height and the nearness to 
 the Master that you have reached, because it 
 has been a life's work with you, as it should 
 be with all of us. But it seems that when I get 
 home and get involved in commerce and business, 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 183 
 
 that I too often forget the duties and pleasures 
 that I owe to those who are very near and dear 
 to me. It is so easy to postpone. This little 
 word * procrastination ' is one of the most dan- 
 gerous words in the language and causes more 
 troubles, annoyances, and heartaches probably 
 than any other, and I fear that I permit it to 
 let me say from day to day, ' to-morrow ' I 
 must do certain things. At any rate, our hearts 
 were full of love for both of you on that day, 
 and we spoke of it in our home and in our pray- 
 ers that night. 
 
 " Again hoping that you may both be spared 
 to each other and to those who love both of you, 
 we are most heartily and sincerely 
 
 " Your brother and sister, 
 
 ** Bill and Katie." 
 
 I am sure that it will be a great gratification 
 to those of Dr. Johnson's friends who may read 
 this record of his life to learn through a few 
 quotations from many happy letters how satisfied 
 and delighted he was in his home. He wrote 
 at this time to his sister-in-law, whose home was 
 with them in Germantown, but who had been 
 absent quite a time in Louisville for treatment 
 for her eyes. Mrs. Johnson, in writing to her 
 sister, writes at the close of her letter : " Her- 
 rick can have all the space he wants to-day for 
 his postscript. He often tells me I do not give 
 him enough." 
 
184 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 *' June 3, 1913. 
 
 " Yes, dear Ella, I want all the space left by 
 your considerate and ever-thoughtful sister, but 
 I am not sure that I can so fill it that you will 
 cry for more. Indeed, I think you have stopped 
 giving me the slightest notice lately, not even 
 saying ' dear folks * at the beginning of your 
 epistolary chat. Well, if I can't be anything 
 but a * folk ' I would rather be that than a 
 nonentity, so peg away with almost the com- 
 monest cognomens, if so be I only get noticed. 
 You certainly have such an abundance of riches 
 in the heart line that you can afford to give lav- 
 ishly in affectionate expression, even to an old 
 crank like me. So let the tender mix with the 
 commonplace, and don't, don't let silence reign 
 in the kingdom of sisterhood. Just let me have 
 a share in your epistolary goodies, and the 
 bigger the better. 
 
 " I have been greatly interested in the Pres- 
 byterian Assembly at Atlanta. How splendidly 
 Dr. Stone of my old Fourth Church outran the 
 fellows that had let their friends toot and toot 
 before the Assembly met. A good deal of his 
 success was, of course, owing to the fact that he 
 was Pastor of my old church ! The sure road 
 to the Moderatorship was through that gateway. 
 I got in that way ! Though Dr. Niccolls did his 
 best in tooting Dr. Dickey. Good-bye, dear sis- 
 ter. When are you coming home ? " 
 
 In another letter, Mrs. Johnson wrote at its 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 185 
 
 close : " I am sitting at Herrick's desk, and 
 using his pen, but all to no avail; the brilliant 
 thoughts of his brain do not seem to put them- 
 selves on paper through the medium of his 
 pen." Then Herrick takes up the laid-down 
 pen: 
 
 " P. S. : The brilliant thoughts are here, but 
 they are not Marjorie's, i.e., if they prove stupid, 
 Marjorie shall mother them, and if they prove 
 brilliant, count them as Herrick's own, stamped 
 and sealed, and * good for this trip only.' But 
 alas, me, the brilliants are paste. I picked one 
 up just now to put in here, and lo, and behold! 
 it disclosed its quality, and I pitched it into the 
 waste-basket. By the bye, have you forgotten 
 that there is a brother here who loves you, and 
 who thinks he has at least a little bit of individ- 
 uality, and rather prides himself on being * not 
 transferable and good for this trip only,' and 
 so don't like to be bunched with a lot of others 
 and called folks? You seem to be having a 
 royal time, as if you were the Queen Jewel in 
 a cluster of brilliants. Our httle niece, Mary 
 Elizabeth, is not here to-night to be challenged 
 for a game of rook, so we tried backgammon, 
 and Marjorie bloomed and bloomed with zeros. 
 If she really wants to beat her boy, she should 
 try something else. Good-bye ; we think of you, 
 love you, and pray for you. As ever, 
 
 *' Herrick." 
 
186 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 In another letter he writes to this beloved 
 sister-in-law : 
 
 " Dear Sun-beaming Sister, what's the matter 
 in your new quarters? Are they so large and 
 exacting in their claims on your time and 
 strength that you lose sight of the big kid and 
 his wife located here, in Germantown? Your 
 sister is threatening all sorts of reprisals, and 
 your brother is saying, ' Me too,' with a mighty 
 emphasis. If I knew your weak point, you 
 would get a walloping never to be forgotten. 
 You haven't seen me yet with a lashing tongue! 
 If you would escape all that, just let silence be 
 broken by a loving and tender epistle to Mar- 
 jorie, and a cartload of apologies to yours truly. 
 Marjorie has caught a cold in some way. But 
 the Doctor of Medicine is attending to her case, 
 and the doctor of theology is doing his best to 
 keep her in good cheer, and the weather is so 
 favorable that we are hoping for rapid improve- 
 ment. A cheery, hearty letter from you would 
 be a fine tonic. We are reading The Master 
 of the Oaks, by Caroline Stanley, and like it 
 exceedingly. She puts things very happily, and 
 every page is alive with her wit and wisdom. 
 If we were through with it, I would send it to 
 you. Get it to while away the weary hours 
 you must be enduring so far away from your 
 Germantown home. The weather is delicious, 
 and Germantown is at its best. It seems to me 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 187 
 
 that the place never looked lovelier, and our little 
 retreat is quite beautiful by a flower bed, just in 
 front of our back porch. All we need now to 
 make conditions perfect is — you may guess 
 what. Marjorie will add a word, so that you 
 will see that she is gentle and loving and forgiv- 
 ing, notwithstanding, etc., etc. Good-bye. Come 
 home soon. 
 
 '' Herrick." 
 
 In a postscript to another letter to this sister, 
 he writes : 
 
 " Somehow the house don't seem like the same 
 home without you, and you are not telling us 
 much about yourself. Do write a full, clear, 
 elaborate, roseate account of yourself, and es- 
 pecially go into particulars about your eyes. We 
 pray for you every day, ask the dear Lord to be 
 round about you as a shield, and in you as an 
 abiding and an abysmal joy. Mary Elizabeth 
 seems to be at the very height of joy just now, 
 because she and her wise and sober Aunt Dick 
 beat me at a game of logomachy. If it clears 
 up for an outing, we will take a drive through 
 the park. Do let us hear often. With waves 
 on waves of love from us all." 
 
 This was one of the bright and cheerful post- 
 scripts he wrote from his home to a dearly loved 
 sister-in-law. They all breathe a serenity born 
 of his great hope, and of the abiding presence 
 
188 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 of the Son of God in his soul. He knew he 
 was not far from his transfer from earth to 
 Heaven. It came as he wished it — suddenly, 
 while he was sleeping. The telegram announc- 
 ing that he had gone from earth to Heaven had 
 its exceedingly painful and its very glorious 
 sides. His devoted family and his large num- 
 ber of devoted friends has lost him. The 
 world will never seem the same with Herrick 
 Johnson gone. But he has gone to be forever 
 with the Lord. A very abundant entrance was 
 ministered unto him. The Son of God must 
 have delighted in him. All the way through life 
 he had followed Him, broadening, deepening, 
 rising in his spiritual life unto the end. Indeed, 
 there was no end; he has entered into life. The 
 adorable Master, the Son of God, we are sure 
 rejoices to have such a soul near Him, with Him 
 in the glory. 
 
 He preached on Wednesday night, November 
 12, just a week before he went home, at 
 the First Church, Germantown, where he and 
 Mrs. Johnson worshipped, from the text, 
 " Their Works Do Follow Them" (Rev. 14:13). 
 The sermon appears on a later page. His 
 voice was in fine condition, that wonderful 
 voice of his, and to his hearers, who listened 
 with rapt attention, he seemed to put as much 
 vigor and enthusiasm into his preaching as a 
 man of forty years. After service he walked 
 home, about eight blocks, and to one who asked 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 189 
 
 him if he felt tired, he replied: "I feel like 
 a morning star. It doesn't hurt me to preach. 
 There isn't anything in the world like preach- 
 ing the Gospel. I would like to be at it 
 again ! " 
 
 The next day he went with his wife to the city. 
 They lunched there together, and going back 
 home before her he met her, as was his custom, 
 at the station. Saturday evening they went to 
 an entertainment furnished by John Kendrick 
 Bangs, where Dr. Johnson's contagious apprecia- 
 tion of the lecturer's humor kept the people near 
 by greatly amused. It rained on Sunday, his last 
 Sunday, and he did not go out. But in every 
 way he showed his quiet enjoyment of the day. 
 In the evening he read a sermon to his wife, 
 and they sang together all the dear old hymns 
 which he loved. He went on Monday to the 
 ministers' meeting, lunched in town, but seemed 
 very tired. The doctor did not think any occa- 
 sion for alarm. He seemed better on Tuesday. 
 In the afternoon he took a walk with Mrs. 
 Johnson, but stayed at home on Wednesday, his 
 last day. He often spoke of how glorious it 
 would be for them all to be with the Lord. In 
 the evening he played backgammon with Mrs. 
 Johnson, and slept the early part of the night. 
 He was very restless the latter part of the night, 
 but fell asleep again, and quietly, without any 
 struggle, passed away. He had requested that 
 at the last there should be a most simple service. 
 
190 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 He had frequently said : " Wouldn't it be 
 blessed to go to sleep at night and wake up in 
 Heaven ? " God took him in the way he 
 wanted to go. He had promised to preach at 
 the Baptist Home, near them, Thursday night, 
 and when one of the men from that home came 
 on Wednesday to see him about it, he told him 
 he would be there. In the night he talked about 
 it, and Mrs. Johnson replied : " We will see 
 how you feel in the morning.'' In the morning 
 he was with his Heavenly Father. Services 
 were held at the house on Saturday evening at 
 five o'clock, because Dr. Johnson's sister, Mrs. 
 Oscar Gray of St. Louis, and his half-brother, 
 Mr. Charles Johnson of Webster Groves, Mo., 
 did not get to Germantown until Saturday morn- 
 ing. The service at home was most satisfac- 
 torily conducted by Dr. Jennings, the Pastor 
 of the First Presbyterian Church of German- 
 town, assisted by the Rev. Dr. Dripps, an old and 
 dear friend of Dr. Johnson's, and who has him- 
 self since passed away. 
 
 On Saturday the beloved remains of the de- 
 parted were borne to Auburn, N. Y., and de- 
 posited in the Hardenburg family burial lot 
 beside those of the first Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Accompanying the body to Auburn were Mrs. 
 Johnson and her sister, Mrs. Walter W. Boone, 
 of Germantown, and her brother, W. G. Dun- 
 can, of Greenville, Ky. ; her friend, Mrs. John 
 S. Lyons, of Louisville, Ky., also Dr. Herrick 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 191 
 
 Johnson's sister, Mrs. N. Oscar Gray, of St. 
 Louis, Mo., and his brother, C. W. Johnson, of 
 Webster Groves, Mo. These friends were all 
 entertained by President Stewart at his home, 
 on the Seminary campus. 
 
 Dr. Andrew Z. Zenos, who represented Mc- 
 Cormick Seminary and had a part in the serv- 
 ices, was a friend and co-worker of Dr. John- 
 son's for many years at McCormick Seminary. 
 Dr. Zenos is Professor of Church History in 
 that institution. He was entertained here by 
 Rev. Charles G. Richards, D.D., Pastor of the 
 First Presbyterian Church, who was a student 
 under both Dr. Zenos and Dr. Johnson at " Mc- 
 Cormick." 
 
 The services at Bradley Chapel were attended 
 by a small body of friends in addition to those 
 who had brought the body here for burial. A 
 number of beautiful floral tributes were sent to 
 the chapel, among which was a beautiful cross 
 of white roses, chrysanthemums, and lilies from 
 the Faculty of McCormick Seminary. 
 
 President Stewart read several selections of 
 Scripture, taking them from the book of forms 
 compiled by Dr. Johnson. Dr. Zenos spoke 
 briefly of the work of the deceased, but said that 
 he would make no attempt to give an apprecia- 
 tion of his life and work. He stated that a 
 memorial service when such expression would 
 be given was to be held in the Fourth Presby- 
 terian Church in Chicago at the first of the year. 
 
192 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Following his remarks, Dr. Zenos read a minute 
 passed by the McCormick Faculty after they 
 had received the news of the death of Dr. John- 
 son. The minute follows : 
 
 " The news which has just reached us of the 
 death of our beloved colleague, the Rev. Pro- 
 fessor Herrick Johnson, D.D., LL.D., brings to 
 our minds afresh the strong personality whose 
 activities and influence have shaped so greatly 
 the history of our institution. 
 
 " Dr. Johnson gave to this Seminary the best 
 energies of his being. He came to his class- 
 room in 1881 out of the midst of busy pastoral 
 work. The churches which had known his 
 power as preacher and pastor are among the 
 leading forces of our denominations. Churches 
 in which history had already been made ac- 
 cepted his leadership and rejoiced in his power. 
 
 " From Auburn, where he taught successive 
 generations of young men, he came to this city 
 as pastor of a church in whose membership 
 were men of extraordinary force of character, 
 trained in leadership, and originators of great en- 
 terprises. While this would have been to most 
 men a satisfying arena for labor and struggle, 
 to Dr. Johnson the opportunity that was offered 
 in our Seminary appealed with an irresistible at- 
 traction. It is not to the classroom alone that 
 his activities were confined. He was one of the 
 builders here when the outlook was just begin- 
 ning to brighten, and when enthusiasm and gen- 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 193 
 
 erous optimism were the prerequisites of the 
 Seminary's success. Shoulder to shoulder with 
 men of power, experience, and strong will, he 
 labored year after year. 
 
 " Generations of students bear grateful testi- 
 mony to his great personality. Were any dis- 
 couraged, they received from him fresh inspira- 
 tion and went their way rejoicing. Were any 
 needy, their anxieties were relieved and their 
 studies continued by reason of his open-handed 
 generosity. Our heritage to-day was won by 
 such work as he and the others unceasingly and 
 unstintingly gave. It is not always given to 
 our great men to see the fruit of their labors, 
 and be satisfied therewith, to give of their 
 strength, and yet behold the crown not only of 
 the institution, but of their own abundant toil. 
 
 " Dr. Johnson felt that he had rounded out 
 his task, and that he could retire from a work 
 nobly done, and we believe that in these last 
 years, when he was resting and awaiting the 
 summons to appear in the presence of his Mas- 
 ter, that he felt a joy and satisfaction in what 
 he had done for the young men, the sons of the 
 Church. 
 
 " We sorrow that he is for a season parted 
 from us, we do even more greatly rejoice that 
 he can so triumphantly enter into rest. 
 
 " In this hour of sorrow, our sincere and heart- 
 iest sympathy goes forth to the wife, who is now 
 deprived of his love, care, and companionship." 
 
194j HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 The following was adopted that evening by 
 the members of the Faculty of Auburn Theo- 
 logical Seminary: 
 
 " The Faculty of Auburn Theological Semi- 
 nary would record their sense of loss to the 
 Seminary and to the Church in the death of the 
 Rev. Professor Herrick Johnson, D.D., LL.D., 
 of McCormick Theological Seminary. 
 
 " Dr. Johnson came to Auburn in the vigor 
 of his manhood, and with the fame of preacher 
 and leader. His teaching of Homiletics and 
 Pastoral Theology had the authority of experi- 
 ence, and attracted and quickened by its clear- 
 ness and positiveness. He gave to it the charm 
 of enthusiasm and sympathy. 
 
 " Drawn to Chicago by what seemed to him 
 the unparalleled opportunity of the Northwest, 
 Dr. Johnson never forgot his Alma Mater and 
 the place of his first teaching, but rejoiced in 
 the welfare of Auburn, and followed his former 
 students with undiminished interest. 
 
 *' Four of the present Faculty think of him 
 with reverence and love as the inspirer of their 
 young manhood, and all the Faculty unite in the 
 expression of gratitude for the gift to the 
 Church of a preacher and teacher so devoted to 
 his high calling, so prophetic in his vision of 
 opportunity, so effective in calling and training 
 young men for the work of the Christian min- 
 istry.*' 
 
 On December 7, 1913, in the First Church, 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 195 
 
 Philadelphia, Sunday at 4 p.m., a remarkable 
 service in memory of Dr. Johnson was held by 
 his former students of McCormick Theological 
 Seminary. 
 
 Dr. Edvv. Yates Hill, the pastor of the First 
 Presbyterian Church, where the Rev. Albert 
 Barnes and Dr. Johnson had been pastor, pre- 
 sided. The Rev. Robert ' E. L. Jarvis, Ph.D., 
 offered prayer; Dr. David S. Kennedy, editor 
 of the Presbyterian, spoke on '' Dr. Johnson as a 
 Church Leader." The Rev. John W. Francis, 
 pastor of the Oxford Presbyterian Church, 
 spoke on " Dr. Johnson as the Author." Dr. 
 Joseph W. Cochran, Secretary of the Board of 
 Education, spoke on " Dr. Johnson as the 
 Preacher " ; Dr. John R. Sutherland, Associate 
 Secretary of the Board of Ministerial Relief and 
 Sustentation, spoke on " Dr. Johnson as Pastor 
 and Friend." The Rev. James H. Dunham, 
 of the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on 
 " Dr. Johnson, the Educator." I wish that the 
 space assigned me by the publishers would allow 
 me to quote these addresses in full. I trust, 
 however, that they will appear in a memorial 
 volume devoted to this great service, together 
 with the many tender and beautiful letters sent to 
 Dr. Hill. All of these are well worth reproduc- 
 tion here, but the limitations set by the publish- 
 ers make it essential to select only a few. Here 
 is one from the Rev. Dr. Stryker, the President 
 of Hamilton College, Dr. Johnson's Alma Mater : 
 
196 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 " November 28, 1913. 
 " The Rev. Dr. Edward Yates Hill. 
 
 '* My Dear Sir : Under the request of Dr. 
 Cochran, I write briefly this inadequate tribute 
 to Dr. Herrick Johnson as I knew him. I had 
 the honor to follow him in the pastorate of the 
 Fourth Church of Chicago. In all the work of 
 the Chicago Presbytery, 1885-1892, I was 
 closely associated with him. He was my teacher 
 at Auburn, 1875- 1876. He was an honored 
 graduate of Hamilton, 1857 — even then dis- 
 tinguished for his public forensic gifts. He was 
 selected in 1903 to make the memorial address 
 here in tribute to our long-time beloved Pro- 
 fessor Edward North. He did it in most com- 
 plete and welcome sort. 
 
 '* I deeply admired the masculine strength 
 and courage of conviction which marked all 
 of Dr. Johnson's career. He had rare spiritual 
 energy and tenacity. I enjoyed serving under 
 him upon the College Board, which was his child 
 and which nobly perpetuates his ardor for Chris- 
 tian higher education. 
 
 ** He was a good and kindly friend to me, and 
 I cherish the memory of his long and wise 
 service. 
 
 " I send my greetings to those who also loved 
 him. 
 
 " And I am yours most sincerely, 
 
 " M, WooLSEY Stryker." 
 
APTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 197 
 
 From the President of the McCormick Theo- 
 logical Seminary : 
 
 " McCormick Theological Seminary, President's 
 House, 2348 North Halsted Street, Chicago, 
 December 3, 1913. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Hill : 
 
 " It is with the greatest gratification I learn 
 of the intention of the Alumni of McCormick 
 Theological Seminary to hold a memorial serv- 
 ice for the Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson in the 
 First Church of Philadelphia. Surely such a 
 service will give opportunity to his former stu- 
 dents to voice their admiration for a beloved 
 teacher, while the very walls of the Church it- 
 self will sound out the praise of its former 
 Pastor. 
 
 " My acquaintance with Dr. Johnson covers 
 almost forty years. During that period our fel- 
 lowship became increasingly intimate, and our 
 friendship increasingly affectionate. 
 
 ** I knew him first as a great preacher, and I 
 recall with delight my admiration of his stalwart 
 form, his vigorous speech, and his impressive 
 personality. Then I learned to know him as a 
 tender-hearted pastor, who saw deep into an- 
 other's sensitiveness, and who carried as his! 
 own another's grief. Still later I knew him as 
 the inspiring teacher, sure of his own convictions 
 and summoning his pupils to accept and live his 
 views. Then there came acquaintance with him 
 
198 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 as a courageous initiator, and I watched with 
 dehght his movements to originate the College 
 Board and to secure revision of confessional 
 standards. 
 
 " The phase, however, of his character that I 
 most love to dwell upon, and that seems to me 
 his commanding glory, was the magnaminity of 
 his soul. He had the wonderful faculty, be- 
 stowed upon the very few, of preserving sweet- 
 ness of spirit, even when controversy was se- 
 vere and tended toward bitterness. I have seen 
 him face his opponent in debate with absolutely 
 unyielding resistance, and then when the debate 
 concluded, grasp the hand of his opponent with 
 warmth and assure him of his good-will. I 
 never knew him to cherish a grudge. His was 
 a splendidly loving heart, ready when the sum- 
 mons came to enter into that perfect life that is 
 perfect love. 
 
 " With my best wishes to all who participate 
 in this worthy service, I am cordially, 
 
 " James G. K. McClure.^' 
 
 Here is a single sentence from the letter of 
 the beloved and honored Dr. Charles T. L. 
 Thompson, for many years Secretary of the 
 Board of Home Missions : 
 
 " Our Church has produced few men like 
 Herrick Johnson — great in service, in friend- 
 ship, and in consecration." 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 199 
 
 From Dr. Johnson's very dear friend and 
 Seminary associate, Prof. Andrew C. Zenos, this 
 came: 
 
 " McCormick Theological Seminary, 2330 North 
 Halsted Street, Chicago, December 3, 1913. 
 
 Rev. Edward Yates Hill, D.D., Philadel- 
 phia, Pa. 
 
 '' My Dear Dr. Hill : I am deeply grateful 
 for the opportunity of sharing in the service to 
 be held in memory of Dr. Johnson at Philadel- 
 phia. The fact that such a service is planned 
 for in a church with which he had ceased to be 
 connected for nearly forty years is evidence of 
 the strength of Dr. Johnson's hold on the hearts 
 of his friends. He was indeed a many-sided 
 and great man, but his greatness was nowhere 
 more clearly revealed than in his power to 
 arouse affection and loyalty in the hearts of 
 his friends. He did not do this with a conscious 
 effort, though he enjoyed and appreciated as 
 much as any one else the possession of loyal 
 friends. It was, however, more the unconscious 
 magnetism of his personality than his deliberate 
 action that drew men to him and placed him in 
 the position of leadership when leaders were 
 called for. 
 
 " My own relations with him came to be, in 
 the course of thirty years, of the most intimate 
 kind. It was a joy to see him enter our home 
 and make himself a child with the children, to 
 
^00 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 hear his hearty laugh as he frolicked and jested 
 with them, and to feel the warmth of his genial 
 presence in the household circle. It was a 
 privilege likewise to be allowed access to the 
 sacredness of his own home life, to witness the 
 open-handed and lavish way in which he ex- 
 pressed his affection for those he loved, and to 
 admire the tender care and courtly chivalry with 
 which he always treated her who so beautifully 
 shared in all his public labors and rewards to 
 the end of his active connection with McCor- 
 mick Seminary. 
 
 " He was not slow in making his friends un- 
 derstand that with him they must be free to ex- 
 press differences of opinion without risk of 
 losing his esteem. Loyalty to him did not mean 
 standing with him, right or wrong, on all ques- 
 tions in dispute before the public. In private 
 conversation, as well as in public debate, he 
 expressed himself emphatically, fearlessly, and 
 vigorously. He gave hard blows in behalf of 
 what he considered the truth; but he was also 
 willing to listen patiently, and seemed to enjoy 
 emphatic dissent from his views as long as it 
 was expressed without personal rancor. When 
 the controversy was over, he was ready to re- 
 turn to the unruffled enjoyment of as intimate 
 fellowship as ever. 
 
 " One was not tempted to think of doing any 
 service for Dr. Johnson. His general strength 
 left the impression that he was never in need of 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 201 
 
 help of any sort. Nevertheless he was sensi- 
 tive to the slightest sign of friendliness, and his 
 generous heart always magnified whatever was 
 done for him in the way of expressing affection 
 and regard. 
 
 " His public services and character will, no 
 doubt, receive in other ways the tribute which 
 they deserve. I esteem it a privilege to be able 
 to add to your service these few words of a 
 private and personal appreciation of him. 
 
 *' Sincerely, 
 "Andrew C. Zenos." 
 
 From his lifelong friend, Dr. Niccolls : 
 
 "8 Hortense PI., St. Louis, Mo., December 
 
 4, 1913- 
 " Rev. Edward Yates Hill, D.D., 1014 Clin- 
 ton Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 " My dear Dr. Hill : 
 
 " Your letter, notifying me of the services to 
 be held in memory of Dr. Herrick Johnson, is at 
 hand. I greatly regret that circumstances pre- 
 vent me from being present on that occasion, for 
 I should like to be among the number of those 
 who will come to render their tribute of honor 
 to his character, and of gratitude for his services. 
 *' It was my privilege to know him and to enjoy 
 his friendship for many years. I gladly bear 
 testimony to his rare qualities of mind and heart. 
 His was a unique and most attractive person- 
 ality. No one could enter an assembly of which 
 
202 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Dr. Johnson formed a part and fail to recognize 
 his presence. It was dominating. His com- 
 manding form, the expression of his counte- 
 nance, his free, vigorous movements, and his 
 manner of speech proclaimed him a born leader 
 of men. There was nothing negative about him. 
 Positive in speech and convictions, there was a 
 certain royalty which compelled attention. He 
 was a brave and fearless fighter for truth and 
 righteousness, never trimming his utterances to 
 win applause, or gain the favor of men. 
 
 " The history of his ministry furnishes many 
 striking illustrations of his unfaltering and 
 heroic fidelity to his convictions. He was not 
 afraid to challenge the powers of darkness ; yet 
 he was no controversionalist, eager to cross 
 swords with those whose convictions and inter- 
 pretations of truth differed from his. He was 
 broad-minded, sympathetic, and tolerant in his 
 judgment of others. His genial and lovable na- 
 ture, and a soul quickened by divine grace, made 
 him incapable of cherishing resentment or bit- 
 terness against those who differed from him or 
 opposed him. Who, that knew him, does not 
 remember the smile that illuminated his face 
 and the joyous words of welcome that burst from 
 his lips when he greeted a friend? He could 
 laugh heartily, sincerely, and jovially, which is a 
 high qualification for a theologian and a teacher. 
 He could also shed tears, and weep with those 
 that wept. He was genuinely and unaffectedly 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 203 
 
 human, keenly alive to all of the interests of life. 
 For this reason he had a magnetic attraction 
 for his fellow-men and drew them to himself in 
 interest and personal affection. 
 
 " He was not ambitious to secure leadership, 
 yet he had it as by divine right. His preemi- 
 nence in the Church was not accidental or at- 
 tained by selfish methods. He was a great 
 preacher, not only through his knowledge of the 
 Scriptures and his ability to present their teach- 
 ings in systematic form, but also through his 
 power to appeal to the consciences and hearts of 
 his hearers. Those who sat under his instruc- 
 tion in the Theological Seminary will remember 
 what importance he attached to the appeal with 
 which a sermon should close. 
 
 *' He was a writer of good books, among which, 
 the one which will be of most enduring value, is 
 the Ideal Ministry, the rich fruitage of his long 
 experience and ripened wisdom. But the most 
 important feature of his public ministry was that 
 given for twenty-five years to McCormick Theo- 
 logical Seminary. By what he there wrote upon 
 the minds and hearts of the young men who 
 came under his instruction he has multiplied and 
 extended his influence throughout our country 
 and the world. They are ' living epistles,' each 
 one bearing more or less the marks of his hand- 
 writing upon them. His memory is an inspira- 
 tion to them, his example full of instruction. 
 
 '* Best of all. Dr. Johnson was a sincere. 
 
204j HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 humble-minded, and joyful Christian. His as- 
 sured faith made him ' glad in the Lord.' This 
 was the secret of his perpetual youthfulness. He 
 never grew old, save in bodily powers. He did 
 not, as is sometimes the case, lose his interest in 
 the affairs of the Church as his years multiplied. 
 After his retirement from his chair in the Theo- 
 logical Seminary, he became an attendant for a 
 time upon the services of the church of which I 
 am the pastor. Not only was he present on the 
 Lord's Day, but he was a regular attendant 
 upon the weekly prayer meeting, in which he 
 took part both by prayer and exhortation. He 
 preached powerfully among us by his example. 
 It would require a volume, rather than this brief 
 letter, to give an adequate estimate of his char- 
 acter and ministry. We who knew him and were 
 privileged to come immediately under the power 
 of his personality, thank God in his behalf, and 
 hold him in loving memory. But his influence 
 going abroad to thousands who never knew him 
 personally is one of the priceless legacies of the 
 whole Church. Thank God for such a man. 
 
 " May a double portion of his spirit rest upon 
 those who have witnessed his departure, and to 
 whom his memory is so dear. 
 
 " Fraternally yours, 
 
 '* Sam'l J. NiCCOLLS." 
 
 The following graceful tribute to Dr. Johnson 
 is here reproduced from the columns of The 
 Continent: 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 205 
 
 A VALIANT CAPTAIN OF THE LORD'S 
 
 HOST. 
 
 The Continent is gratified to-day with the 
 reflection that it has not waited until his death 
 to pay tribute to the briUiant talents which Dr. 
 Herrick Johnson so powerfully and whole- 
 heartedly devoted to the religious progress of 
 his generation. What is said here, therefore, 
 accompanying the record of his decease at his 
 home in Philadelphia on Thursday, November 
 20, can only be reaffirmation and reemphasis of 
 previous estimates of his altogether exceptional 
 service in the Presbyterian Church. It was a 
 service compounded of half a dozen varied ele- 
 ments, whereof any one would have been enough 
 to secure his name permanent remembrance in 
 the Christian annals of America. 
 
 Dr. Herrick Johnson was born in Kaugh- 
 newagh, New York, September 22, 1832. Grad- 
 uating from Hamilton College and Auburn 
 Seminary he was ordained to the ministry in 
 i860. Almost immediately he leaped into the 
 reputation of a preacher of the first rank for 
 eloquence, charm, and force. Successively he 
 was popular in the pulpits of his first charge in 
 Troy, New York; the Third Church of Pitts- 
 burgh, and First Church of Philadelphia. Then 
 followed a period of six years as professor of 
 homiletics in his home seminary at Auburn. 
 Thence in 1880 he was drawn to Chicago to 
 
206 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 serve as pastor of the Fourth Church with inci- 
 dental teaching duties in McCormick Seminary. 
 Shortly the teaching took precedence of the pas- 
 toral work, and he launched out fully on his 
 greatest lifework in connection with that insti- 
 tution. At the beginning of this period he was 
 elected moderator of the General Assembly in 
 Springfield, 111., May, 1882. 
 
 In 1905 the advance of age induced Dr. John- 
 son to retire from active duties. In 1907 he lost 
 his wife, whom as Miss Catherine Hardenburg 
 he married in Auburn in i860. In 1910 he 
 wedded Miss Duncan of Louisville. 
 
 There was something leonine in Dr. Johnson, 
 despite his slender and nervous figure, and that 
 daring and imperious quality had endued him 
 with the magic of leadership from his youth up. 
 Of that leaderly power he gave a faithful stew- 
 ard's good account by helping to cement during 
 his young manhood the then recent conjunction 
 of Old and New School Presbyterians, by forc- 
 ing on the General Assembly the necessity for 
 organizing a College Board to advance Christian 
 education, by contributing to the development 
 of McCormick Theological Seminary, by calming 
 the hysteria of fear which threatened to obsess 
 the Church at the period of the Briggs trials, and 
 perhaps above all else, by his persistent and 
 skilful labors to create among Presbyterians the 
 public sentiment that made possible the liberating 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 207 
 
 revision of the Westminster Confession in 1903. 
 It is full measure for a long life which is thus 
 recounted in barest outline, and even this enumer- 
 ation does not include the incalculable influence 
 of his twenty-five years of teaching in McCor- 
 mick Seminary. As professor of homiletics there 
 he imparted to hundreds of the ablest men in the 
 contemporary Presbyterian ministry his own 
 thrilling joy, and something at least of his own 
 entrancing power, in the preaching of the gospel 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 To those, however, who were in any degree 
 privileged to enjoy Dr. Johnson's personal friend- 
 ship, the memory of his monumental public 
 service will be subordinated to the tenderer mem- 
 ory of the " sweetness and light " of his private 
 life. With all his strength and determination, 
 it was yet a rarely gentle soul that dwelt in his 
 bosom. In public and in private his wholesome- 
 ness was equal, and a stainless shield is the 
 bright ornament of the earthly armor he has just 
 laid off. Being granted in God's providence an 
 ample span of duty and experience here, he is 
 not to be mourned as he passes to his heavenly 
 recompense; not sorrow but thanksgiving for 
 him is the perfume of the flowers on his bier. 
 
 The concluding pages of this brief biography 
 I shall devote to the words of him of whom I 
 have written. Here is his last message delivered 
 a week before he went home to God : 
 
208 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Rev. 14:13 (last clause). "For their works 
 follow with them." 
 
 (Read in connection Matthew 7:13-20.) 
 
 We sing of " the land that is fairer than day." 
 Where is it ? We speak of the land that is " very 
 far off." Is it so far ? Does Death end all ? And 
 if not, what is beyond? Hints, guesses, sugges- 
 tions, hopes, probabilities, analogies — these all 
 favor a future, but they give us no certainty, 
 they do not anchor us in a perfect confidence. 
 The seers of the race have sought to pierce the 
 mystery. The logicians of the race have sought 
 to solve the mystery. The poets of the race have 
 given wings to their imagination, and have come 
 back laden with the supposed perfumes and 
 sports of that unknown world, but we have 
 known them to be only dreams. Wherever man 
 has been found without a revelation, under what- 
 ever climes and in whatever age, he has stood 
 with some desire or dread of a hereafter, peering, 
 now with dull and heavy sense, now with keen 
 vision stirred by " awful thrills of curiosity," into 
 that mystery of the future, which yet has eluded 
 all sight and baffled all knowledge. 
 
 Clear, beautiful, and certain in the repose of 
 sublimest confidence, comes the word of Chris- 
 tianity, assuring us of immortality. Christ'si 
 vacant sepulchre is the open door telling us 
 unmistakably of room beyond. Looking through 
 that rent tomb, we grow sure Death does not 
 end all. Guesses, probabilities, peradventures are 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 209 
 
 done with, it is knowledge now. We do know 
 that if this earthly house of our tabernacle 
 perish, we do not die. 
 
 But whither after death, and what? The fact 
 of immortality assured, what about the kind ? Is 
 it so wide apart from now ? Is the future life so 
 unlike the present life as to make true the in- 
 finite contrasts we so commonly think of, when 
 we think of this matter at all ? Yes and no. The 
 answer will depend upon our point of view. We 
 shall be without a body, and that will be one 
 marvellous difference between then and now. 
 For the spirit to be free from every clamp and 
 hindrance of the flesh will be something strange 
 and wonderful, and though at the resurrection 
 each will get back his own body, it will not be 
 the body of our humiliation but changed by 
 Christ into the body of His glory, so that the 
 contrast will be marvellous still. 
 
 Those that die in the Lord will be without 
 sin in the future life, and that will be another 
 immense stretch away from now. 
 
 The life of the future will also be one of 
 perfect adaptations, and who can conceive what 
 a difference that will make? Things will match 
 all round. Spirits will harmonize. There will be 
 no maladjustment. 
 
 But apart from these things and things inci- 
 dent to them and growing out of them will the 
 future be so marvellously unlike the present? 
 If some writers have materialized heaven over- 
 
2,J0 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 much, are we quite sure that in our common 
 thought we have not etherealized heaven over- 
 much? Will it be so very different every way? 
 What is there in the mere article of death to 
 twist us out of our old drifts and tendencies and 
 habitudes, to break up our individualities and 
 transform us in traits and capacities? Washed 
 clean of sin, we shall be. But won't we go 
 right on otherwise, with our life, with our growth, 
 wuth our innocent preferences and companion- 
 ships and occupations ? The girl to whom music 
 here is both praise and prayer as her soul goes 
 up in sweet melody to God, may not have a piano 
 in heaven, the deacon's son may not hoe potatoes 
 there, but will there not be something in heaven 
 answering to each sinless trait and taste and 
 meeting it? Are we to be wrenched suddenly 
 away from everything of earth not only, but 
 from everything that characterized us while here ! 
 I do not believe it ! Moses and Elias came out of 
 heaven and on the Mount talked with Jesus, 
 talked as they would if they had never been 
 away, talked of the topic that lay nearest their 
 hearts. We shall do that, I do not doubt. Many 
 a soul will wait long beyond the gates for the 
 coming of some friend. Many a friend will 
 go there to find some blessed surprises. Multi- 
 tudes will have it to say that '' He the Master 
 was the first one to meet me. Never by one 
 word or look from that hour to this day has He 
 let me feel ashamed in heaven." And to be 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 211 
 
 thrilled with the joy of having plucked even one 
 such brand from the burning will be to under- 
 stand how it is that *' their works do follow 
 them." 
 
 " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord 
 from henceforth, Yea, saith the Spirit, that they 
 may rest from their labors, for their works fol- 
 low with them." You see how close this life is 
 to the next. You see how works here get tied 
 to blessedness there. They are not " labors " any 
 more, to be wearily done, for this is the meaning 
 of the word rendered " labors," wearisome effort, 
 toil with stress and pain, that tires and hurts. 
 Those that die in the Lord " rest " from these. 
 They are not through with service. The record 
 is '' They serve each day and night." The ** rest " 
 is therefore not the rest of inactivity, of idleness, 
 but the rest of toil without fatigue, of activity 
 with immortal freshness with the spring and dew 
 of eternal youth and mourning. And the reason 
 for the rest is " that their works do follow them." 
 The works pass on with them as their escort 
 into eternity. 
 
 The theme that thus invites our meditation is 
 the true relation of Christian works in this life 
 to Christian rest in the life to come. May heaven 
 be more real to us, and more near and dear to 
 us for our fellowship with this truth of God 
 to-day. 
 
 I. The Christian's works follow him through 
 the gates to testify to his right to the rest. 
 
212 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Does this seem a bold word ? Does it savor of 
 presumption to talk of rights for a poor sinner 
 in heaven? If I deserve nothing but condem- 
 nation, and God out of His infinite and sovereign 
 grace alone lets me through the gates, is it for me 
 to speak of the meanest privilege of heaven as 
 mine by right ? In Christ Jesus, yes, not only the 
 meanest privilege, but every privilege. The 
 whole sweep of heaven, every room in it, every 
 glory of it, the ineffable, fathomless bliss and 
 blessedness of it, is the rightful claim of the 
 Christian. For his own sake, nothing; for 
 Christ's sake everything. By personal merit, not 
 the rudest hovel that might be built in that city of 
 splendor and gold. By the merit of Jesus, the 
 very palace and presence chamber of the King. 
 The Christian's right to the heavenly rest has 
 been purchased; not with corruptible things as 
 silver and gold, not with such common and 
 tainted things as penances and prayers, but with 
 the precious blood of Christ, with the obedience 
 unto death of the blessed son of God. Presenting 
 that purchase price before the Father, Jesus 
 makes His plea not as a beggar begging a boon, 
 but as a royal advocate speaking by authority, 
 " Father, I will that those whom thou hast given 
 me be with me where I am." And the ransomed 
 will come up to the gates with rights and titles. 
 Having believed and loved, they will rest from 
 their labors. And their right to the rest will be 
 vindicated, for '' their works do follow them.'' 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 213 
 
 This attending escort of witnessing works will 
 prove two things, the genuineness of each Chris- 
 tian's faith and the sincerity of his love. 
 
 The works will follow to testify to the genuine- 
 ness of faith. '' For faith, if it have not works, 
 is dead," is a lifeless and spurious thing. If ** a 
 brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily 
 food, and one of you say unto them, ' Go in peace, 
 be ye warmed and filled, and yet ye give them 
 not the things needful to the body, what doth it 
 profit?'" So if ye say ''Lord, Lord," and do 
 not the things bidden of the Lord, what doth it 
 profit? But the dead that die in the Lord, 
 " Their works do follow them," and the weakest 
 faith will go unchallenged in the face of that 
 evidence. Some witnesses will testify to " King- 
 doms subdued," ** righteousness wrought," vio- 
 lences of fire quenched, mouths of lions stopped, 
 whole armies turned to flight, and the believers 
 whose faith gets the testimony of splendid works 
 and successes like these will, of course, have 
 their right to heaven's rest most amply vindi- 
 cated. But not only are brilliant successes the 
 works and therefore the proofs of genuine faith, 
 so are seeming defeats. Some witnesses will 
 testify to destitutions, afflictions, tormentings, to 
 trials, of mockings and scourgings, of bonds and 
 imprisonments, and the believers whom these 
 works follow will have their faith proved 
 genuine: Lofty works and lowly works, bright 
 shining works and hidden works, works done 
 
214. HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 and works honestly sought to be done and there- 
 fore in God's sight done. These all do follow. 
 An only son Isaac offered and a cup of cold 
 water given, a soul won and a cross borne, a 
 silent struggle, a baptism of tears, a look like 
 Christ's on Peter, with a great love and a great 
 tenderness and a great forgiveness in it, when a 
 cruel stab has come from some trusted friend, 
 and the faith thus testified to and vindicated, 
 whether of a conquering Abraham or a poor 
 harlot like Rahab, whether of a mighty prince in 
 Israel or one of the Lord's hidden ones, shall be 
 writ all over with the sign manual of the King- 
 dom of Heaven. 
 
 But their works do follow the dead that die in 
 the Lord to testify not only to the genuineness 
 of their faith, but to the sincerity of their love. 
 
 " He that hath my commandments and keepeth 
 them, he it is that loveth me,'' is the infallible test 
 to be applied to all professed affection for the 
 Lord Jesus. The love that obeys not is like the 
 faith that works not, dead, cold and dead. A 
 genuine love may not perfectly keep the King's 
 precepts, but it will try, and the love-prompted 
 efforts, the struggles toward obedience, the at- 
 tempts to rise in the way of God's command- 
 ments, will be the works that do follow the right- 
 eous to tell at heaven's gates of a true and real 
 affection. Not necessarily deeds distinguished 
 and trumpeted on Earth, for whatever good 
 cause and with whatever bountifulness of energy 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 215 
 
 and liberality, but deeds of any sort out of obedi- 
 ence to the Lord Christ and with love behind 
 them. The alabaster box of Mary and the mite 
 of the widow will be as eloquent in their witness 
 of love's sincerity as any heroic martyrdom. 
 Seeming patchwork here, will be seen to have 
 been done with threads of silver and needle of 
 gold on Christ's own vesture, if love and tears 
 shall have been dropped in among the stitches. 
 Thus it will come to pass that the witnessing 
 works of God's true saints following them when 
 they die, by proving the genuineness of their faith 
 and the sincerity of their love, will testify to 
 their right to the heavenly rest. 
 
 But this is not their only office. 
 
 II. The Christian's works follow him through 
 the gates to contribute to his sources of rest. 
 
 How is it that works here add to its source, 
 and therefore to the experience of heavenly 
 blessedness? 
 
 They do it in two ways, by their results and 
 by their rewards. 
 
 About the results, God's own children often 
 make mistakes, by reasons both of over-estimate, 
 and under-estimate. The results that loom large 
 as they address the eye, that arrest attention 
 and become the talk of the crowd and get pub- 
 lished from Dan to Beersheba are likely to be 
 counted at more than their true value, while the 
 deeper and untrumpeted fruits of toil are likely 
 to be counted at less than their true value. 
 
216 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 Philip's works in Samaria, stirring a whole city 
 and filling it with joy, doubtless seemed greater 
 far than his work with the single traveller read- 
 ing his Bible down on that lonely road to Gaza. 
 But God himself called Philip for the one and 
 set him at the other. And who shall say, weigh- 
 ing these respective works in the scales of God's 
 balance, who shall say what gave Philip the 
 greater source of joy when he died in the Lord, 
 and his works did follow him ! 
 
 There are outward results and inward results 
 of Christian works. And the outward results are 
 sometimes seen and sometimes not. But no work 
 for God is wholly fruitless. God has a way of 
 returning, after many days, the bread that is cast 
 upon the waters. And if the many days stretch 
 on into eternity, and the bread is found again 
 only when borne by the waters on that other 
 shore, is it not still true of such toiling saints 
 that their works do follow them, to contribute to 
 their heavenly rest? '' My wandering boy, very 
 wayward scholar. You here ! " And the breast 
 that was thought to be steeled against your 
 tenderness and tears will tell how the memory of 
 your faithful words broke it at last in penitence 
 at Jesus' feet, and how beyond the gates it has 
 been looking for you long while that you might 
 know about it. 
 
 Ah, these blessed surprises ! They will be 
 among the abysmal delights of heaven, and a mea- 
 sureless contribution to the soul's sources of joy. 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 217 
 
 But the outward results of Christian works, 
 whether seen or unseen, are not all. There is an 
 inward process going on, a fruit of toil that 
 tells on character. The works have wrought 
 some wonderful effects on the worker. It is 
 here in the spiritual as it is in the natural world. 
 The man that puts what he has to good use, 
 multiplies his means. He gets paid by increase 
 of capital for his employment of capital. The 
 blow of the blacksmith tells both ways. It tells 
 on the iron, fitting it for greater profit. It tells 
 on the muscles of his arm, fitting that for profit, 
 too. He gets power while he expends power. 
 
 So it is with works in their effects upon the 
 Christian worker. Gifts and graces are cultivated 
 and developed and greatly enriched by use. They 
 are weakened and shrivelled and finally lost al- 
 together by disuse. They that do the most for 
 God become the most, by an inevitable law, and 
 there is no possible limit to this process of in- 
 crease in the world of spirit. The law has its 
 metes and boundaries in the natural world. 
 There is a point, e.g., beyond which exercise can- 
 not go in its development of the body. Time 
 and circumstances and the antagonisms devel- 
 oped in the race for riches, set limits to the 
 acquisitions of property. But there is absolutely 
 no limit to growth in the knowledge and love 
 of God, in spiritual power, in capacity for joy and 
 blessedness. And " works " done here are con- 
 stantly enriching the worker in his own inner 
 
^18 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 life. He gets more soul as he deals with souls. 
 He gets more of God as he deals with God. His 
 Christlike work begets the Christlike spirit. He 
 puts Christ into his word and deed, and Christ 
 comes back to him and into him in the very effort. 
 He gets Christ by giving Christ just as the black- 
 smith gets power by expending power, and this 
 enrichment goes on, while the works go on. And 
 when Christians die, in this sense *' their works 
 do follow them," i.e., in these blessed inner re- 
 sults of their works, in this enlarged capacity for 
 joy and blessedness and high place and compre- 
 hension of the things of God which the faithful 
 toilers carry into heaven, and which will forever 
 make their heaven the richer and their rest the 
 sweeter. 
 
 Haven't you seen Christian men and women, 
 growing strong in spiritual stature and large in 
 spiritual capacity and rich in spiritual experience, 
 by the uses to which they put their gifts and 
 graces and the possibilities of development they 
 thus disclosed ? And haven't you seen Christians 
 beside them remaining weak and effeminate, and 
 really dwarfing their capacity and belittling their 
 powers and shrivelling up their souls, because 
 they put them to no real service for God and 
 truth? And then haven't you seen the former 
 getting inexpressible sweetness and joy out of 
 some word of God, where the latter found only 
 leanness and barrenness? Why? As well ask 
 why a dull clod gapes at a brilliant sunset and 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 219 
 
 goes his way unmoved, getting no joy for what 
 he deems a common every-day daub, while an- 
 other, who has cultivated a taste for the beauti- 
 ful, is thrilled with the exquisite delight coming 
 through that developed sense at sight of such 
 divine pencilling! 
 
 I once sat beside a dying saint whose mind was 
 almost gone. I thought he gave me no recogni- 
 tion. I repeated a part of the Twenty-third 
 Psalm. " Though I walk through the Valley of 
 the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil, for 
 thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they 
 comfort me." He was in the Valley. He was 
 passing through. But he had tested that rod and 
 that staff. He knew that Shepherd's tender 
 care. He had been led of Him, often and often, 
 beside the deep waters of that wonderful Psalm. 
 He had developed a taste for them ! And they 
 were sweet. O how sweet, to his parched lips and 
 tired heart. Some minutes afterwards, without 
 giving another sign of recognition, and when our 
 thought had turned to other things, his lips moved 
 and we caught the words, " Thy rod and thy staff 
 they do comfort me." Oh, yes, "they rest from 
 their labors, and their works do follow them." 
 
 And in all this, friends, I have said nothing of 
 the contribution to the sources of the rest who 
 will be made by the Christians' works because 
 of their rewards. I have talked thus far of 
 results or effects; who shall estimate the re- 
 wards, who shall tell what the " shining as the 
 
220 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 stars " means, promised to them who shall turn 
 many unto righteousness ? Who shall guess what 
 honorable and joy-giving trust is intended to be 
 committed beyond the gates to those whose works 
 do follow them, by the words of the Master, 
 " Thy pound hath gained ten pounds. Well done, 
 thou good and faithful servant. Have thou au- 
 thority over ten cities"? From ten pounds to 
 ten cities is immeasurable promotion. H the 
 giving a cup of cold water only, in the name of a 
 disciple, is worthy of such reward as even God 
 has to give, conceive if you can what He will 
 bring from out His infinite stores to reward the 
 Christian who has borne some heavy cross for 
 Him or fought a hard battle or rescued a soul ! 
 
 The practical lessons are obvious. 
 
 I. Our works are immortal as well as we. We 
 shall see them again. And we are nearer them 
 always than we sometimes think. They were 
 wrought in our past. But they live in our pres- 
 ent. And they strike on into our future. " Some 
 men's sins are open beforehand, going before to 
 judgment, and some men they follow after. Like- 
 wise also the good works of some are manifest 
 beforehand, and they that are otherwise cannot 
 be hid." It is evident that we are to look into 
 the eyes of our works again. Our present is the 
 product of our past, and our works are here now 
 in what we are. Their indestructibleness is the 
 soul's indestructibleness ! Their permanency is 
 the permanency of character. 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 221 
 
 It is preeminently worth our while, therefore, 
 to make good friends of our works to see that 
 they be good works. If we are going to have 
 their company on that long journey, it will be 
 pleasanter for us in the end to do right things, 
 righteous things. 
 
 2. The second practical thought is, that the 
 lowliest work for Christ takes on undying honor 
 in the light of this truth. Its being tied to im- 
 mortality lifts it out of all meanness and little- 
 ness, and tells us how utterly wrong we are in 
 cherishing disparaging thought of it. What if our 
 paths do not lead where the notable achieve- 
 ments can be wrought and where the chief hon- 
 ors seem to lie. What if our life appears some- 
 how to get filled only with the endless round of 
 common things, that give us care, and give us 
 little else, when we do long so sometimes, with 
 inexpressible longing to put some honor upon 
 the brow of our blessed Redeemer! Don't you 
 remember they said, " When saw we thee an 
 hungered or athirst, or sick or in prison, and 
 ministered unto thee ? " And the King said, 
 " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my 
 brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." 
 
 3. The third practical lesson is the toil, and 
 the weariness of work here may well be borne a 
 little longer, in view of the rest it surely will 
 bring. Who are these with white robes and 
 palms in their hands ? These are they who came 
 
222 HERRICK JOHNSON 
 
 out of great tribulation. We may be nearer 
 that than we think. 
 
 " One sweetly solemn thought 
 Comes to me o'er and o'er : 
 I am nearer home to-day 
 Thaa ever I've been before. 
 
 " Nearer the bound of life, 
 
 Where we lay our burdens down, 
 Nearer leaving the cross, 
 Nearer gaining the crown. 
 
 " But lying darkly between, 
 
 Winding down through the night, 
 Is the deep and unknown stream 
 That leads at last to the light. 
 
 " Father, perfect my trust ; 
 
 Strengthen the might of my faith; 
 Let me feel as I would when I stand 
 On the rock of the shore of death ! 
 
 " Feel as I would when my feet 
 Are slipping over the brink, 
 For it may be I'm nearer home. 
 Nearer now than I think ! " 
 
 And when home at last, oh, the sighs that 
 shall be changed into songs of deliverance ! Oh, 
 the tears that shall be as jewels in the crowns 
 of the ransomed! Oh, the labors of weariness 
 that shall drop all their weariness and become 
 works of rest ! Oh, the flowers scarce daring 
 to look up into the face of God's beautiful days 
 on earth, that shall bloom there at the very foot 
 of the throne ! " Blessed are the dead that die in 
 
AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 223 
 
 the Lord ; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
 from their labors, for their works follow with 
 them!" 
 
 The last sentences of this book shall be those 
 of triumph — words befitting the great soldier of 
 the Cross by whom they were spoken. Herrick 
 Johnson rejoiced in the hope of sure and certain 
 immortality, and from one of his great sermons 
 on " The Resurrection " the following words are 
 taken : 
 
 " Only when the resurrection of the dead shall 
 be brought to pass will the highest notes and the 
 grandest chords in the chorus of our triumph in 
 Christ Jesus he struck. Who would not die! 
 We may go to the grave with a shout of victory. 
 Through and through the Valley of the Shadow 
 of Death is shot the glory of these resurrection 
 rays. How He hanks the way to the tomb with 
 flowers, how He transforms the grim skeleton 
 into one of God's beautiful angels, come to empty 
 our tomb as Christ's tomb in the garden was 
 emptied. Oh, Death, where is thy sting? Oh, 
 Grave, where is thy victory? " 
 
 WHO WOULD NOT DIE! 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
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