tihvary of €Ke theological ^tmxnaxy 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of 
 Harold McAfee Robinson, D.D. 
 
 BV 4596 7b8 H68 1915 
 Howard, Philip E. 1870-1946 
 Their call to service 
 
Their Call to 
 
 A Study in the Partnership 
 of Business mid Religion 
 
 By 
 PHILIP E. HOWARD 
 
 mm 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 The Westminster Press 
 
 19^5 
 
Copyright, 191 5, 
 By F. M. Braselmann 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Word on the Threshold . . v 
 
 I. Samuel Chapman Armstrong . . i 
 
 Soldier and Pioneer Educator. 
 
 II. Sir George Williams ... 19 
 
 Founder of the Young Men^s Christian 
 Association. 
 
 III. George H. Stuart .... 33 
 
 A Christian Leader in ** The Heroic Age 
 of America.^* 
 
 IV. Stephen Paxson .... 49 
 
 Pioneer and Light- Giver in the Middle 
 West. 
 
 V. John H. Converse .... 61 
 
 Builder of Locomotives and Christian 
 Enterprise. 
 
 VI. John S. Huyler .... 77 
 Friend of the Outcast. 
 
 VII. David D. Wood .... 91 
 
 The Blind Musician and Teacher. 
 
 VIII. William E. Dodge .... 105 
 
 A Master of Big Business and Philan- 
 thropy. 
 
 IX. Cyrus H. McCormick . . .123 
 
 Inventor and Business Builder. 
 
 X. Henry Clay Trumbull . . -139 
 
 Business Man, Missionary, Army Chap- 
 lain, and Editor. 
 [iii] 
 
A Word on the Threshold 
 
 If the readers of tliis little book derive even one- 
 half the inspiration from it that the writer has de- 
 rived from his personal, or his indirect, acquaint- 
 ance with those whose lives are briefly told herein, 
 the book will not fail of its purpose. 
 
 It is an excursion into life, life of varied scope 
 and significance, particularly for the sake of young 
 men whose eyes are eagerly scanning the road 
 ahead, and who want to win to the uplands in clean 
 and straightforward fashion, without trampling 
 others under by the way. 
 
 The men of this book had no easy time of it, as 
 each followed God's imperative call to his own soul. 
 How they fared, and how others fared because of 
 them and their obedience, is in each case a very 
 plain and practical exhibit of effects produced by 
 known causes. 
 
 These men proved by their deeds that one's busi- 
 ness or profession and one's religion are partners 
 which are able to get on eminently well together, 
 for big ends in varied service. 
 
 Where the writer has known them personally he 
 has drawn upon his knowledge of them and their 
 ideals and practices. Where he has not known 
 them, he has had recourse to the work of others, 
 whose books alone can give with needed fullness the 
 
 [V] 
 
A WORD ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 life stories, a siDgle phase of which forms the motive 
 of this group of studies — Their Call to Service. 
 
 Perhaps in the reading some one may also hear 
 his own call to the kind of service God has in store 
 for him. 
 
 [vi] 
 
I 
 
 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 
 
 Soldier and Pioneer Educator 
 
 One of the books without which a young man's 
 library is incomplete is *^ Samuel Chapman Arm- 
 strongy^ by Edith Armstrong Talbot. 
 
 The opening incident of this chapter was told to 
 the writer by Miss Annie Beecher Scovilky of the 
 Hampton Institute staff. 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 A FIRE was raging in the big mill at Hampton 
 Institute. The whole school had dropped books and 
 tools, and every one had turned out to do what 
 might be done to save the building. 
 
 A man in a wheel chair watched the scene with 
 keen and eager eyes. Nothing escaped his glance. 
 He saw how courageously the boys swarmed to the 
 roof of the building, and how vigorously and in- 
 telligently they fought the flames ; but he could not 
 help seeing that the fire fighters were in danger, and 
 that the tin roof was lifting and twisting under the 
 heat, and might at any moment curl out over the 
 roof's edge, upon the boys on the ladders. Sud- 
 denly the tin lifted clear of its fastenings, rose like 
 swelling canvas, and pitched over the edge of the 
 roof, not upon, but between the groups of fighters. 
 Then the fire was gradually brought under control. 
 
 The man in the wheel chair watched all this. 
 When it was plain that the fire would do no more 
 damage, he turned to a man who had come from a 
 long distance to see him, and began to discuss plans 
 for a big agricultural building for the school. 
 While the fire was on, his whole being was centered 
 on that. When the danger was over the keen-eyed 
 invalid turned at once to the next duty. It was not 
 [3] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 the first time that General AruistroDg had shown 
 such a spirit of eager duty-doiug. 
 
 He was a man singularly well prepared for the 
 task with which his name will always be associated, 
 the founding and upbuilding of Hampton Institute, 
 that pioneer school of industrial education for Ne- 
 groes. Few men of our time could look back over 
 a more marvelous preparation for his chief life 
 work than General Armstrong. He was led into a 
 new and singularly trying work of reconstruction, of 
 breaking new ground in education, of reconciling 
 conflicting ideas as between North and South, and it 
 is hard to see how his preparation for that work 
 could have been more direct. This did not appear 
 in advance, for he never in his preparatory days 
 seemed to be at all sure of his calling. But birth, 
 and schooling, and playtime, and war time all gave 
 of their wealth of equipment for his great undertak- 
 ing. 
 
 Samuel Chapman Armstrong was born on the 
 island of Maui, Hawaiian Islands, January 30, 1839, 
 the son of Eichard and Clarisa Armstrong, mission- 
 aries of the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions. He was born in a time of 
 tremendous religious enthusiasm, when great revi- 
 vals caused the people in general to give up heathen- 
 ism and to turn to Christ. Public offices were some- 
 times occupied by missionaries. At the time of 
 Eichard Armstrong's death King Kamchamcha said 
 of him : 
 
 "Doctor Armstrong has been spoken of as Min- 
 ister of Public Instruction, and subsequently 
 [4] 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 President of the Board of EducatioD, but we have 
 only partly described the important offices which he 
 filled. He was a member of the House of Nobles, 
 and of the King's Privy Council, Secretary of the 
 Board of Trustees of Oahu College, Trustee of the 
 Queen's Hospital, Executive officer of the Bible and 
 Tract Society, and deeply interested in developing 
 the agricultural resources of the kingdom. No 
 other government officer or missionary was brought 
 into such close intimacy with the native as a whole." 
 
 When, shortly after Samuel's birth, the family 
 moved to Honolulu, they came into the main cur- 
 rent of Hawaiian i^olitical, religious and educational 
 movement. There was austerity in the home life in 
 essential things, but with plenty of play for the 
 youngsters. General Armstrong's biographer gives 
 an enchanting picture of the boy's life in that land 
 of fertile pleasantness. Did any youngster ever 
 have a more glorious time of it ? 
 
 "In such a home setting one can imagine little 
 Samuel barefooted, clad in faded blue denim, among 
 his crowd of brothers and sisters and playmates, 
 blond and slim, full of his father's fun, with long, 
 shaggy hair tossed back from dancing eyes, rushing 
 in and out of the water after his little boats, to make 
 and sail which was the greatest delight of Honolulu 
 boys, with their facilities of reef-locked harbor, and 
 constant trade wind. As marbles, chess, and cards 
 were not allowed, and as football was unknown, 
 baseball (in which Samuel was never proficient^, 
 swimming, sailing, and riding were the sports among 
 boys, followed, as the players advanced from the age 
 [5] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 of blae-deDim trousers into that of great care for 
 ueckties, by choir practice, debating clubs and 
 horseback rides by night. There were glorious 
 dashes over the moonlit sands, twenty or thirty 
 couples of boys and girls abreast, when the game 
 was to have one extra man, then break the ranks 
 and let all try for a place in the line with one of the 
 gi rls. There were week-long excursions and upward 
 dashes to the cool mountain tops, where the cataracts 
 had their birth, and whence one could overlook the 
 ocean rising on all sides to the level of the eye like 
 a great blue saucer." 
 
 The General himself described those days in this 
 way : 
 
 " The large crop of boys that swarmed about the 
 mission had the usual piratical instincts of their 
 kind, and, although we were all subjected to the 
 severest Puritanic disciiDline, we managed to execute 
 occasional raids on the barrel of lump sugar in the 
 mission depository. The ' Maternal Association ' 
 took up the more hopeless cases of those who played 
 checkers or said ' By George ! ' The boys were 
 thrown into convulsions when one of their number 
 reported hearing an excited missionary father say 
 ' By Jingo ! ' . . . We had no stables, and out 
 in the wild pasture had to catch with the lasso every 
 horse we rode ; and everybody rode — men, women, 
 children. . . . Nothing, however, was more 
 permanently popular than swimming in the great 
 deep mountain basins. The great feat was to jump 
 from the cliff, some forty feet, into the depths below, 
 where we played like fishes." 
 [6] 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 *'He never forgot,'' says his biographer, ^Hhe 
 fan of being a boy, never, in fact, quite got over 
 being a boy." 
 
 With all his fun, Samuel thoroughly enjoyed his 
 school work, in the Eoyal School at Punahow, 
 which was later called Oahu College. He named 
 his sailboat ''Telemachus," and his horses for 
 heroes discovered in his studies. He read text- 
 books very much as some boys would read stories, 
 because he liked to do it. One who had been a 
 student at Oahu College, Joseph S. Emerson, de- 
 scribed in The Outlook Armstrong's readiness and 
 ability in the varied use of his splendid powers of 
 body and mind. He was put in charge of a geom- 
 etry class, in the absence of the teacher, for a con- 
 siderable time. 
 
 Mr. Emerson said : "On taking the class in 
 geometry, from the very first he began to inspire us 
 with some of his own enthusiasm. Coming in from 
 a hotly contested game of wicket, he looked every 
 inch a man. He would deliberately close his own 
 book, and lay it one side, seldom referring to it 
 during the hour of recitation. It was thus easy for 
 him to persuade us to follow his example in this 
 particular. Our memories were trained to do ad- 
 mirable service, so that at the end of the year the 
 majority, if not all, of the class could repeat the en- 
 tire seven books, except the demonstrations and 
 mathematical calculations, from beginning to end, 
 or give any axiom, any definition or proposition by 
 its appropriate book and number." 
 
 In 1860, after the death of his father, young Arm- 
 [7] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 strong, in accordance with his father's wishes, came 
 to America, and entered Williams College. He had 
 come out of a missionary atmosphere into a college 
 with missionary traditions and spirit, and under 
 the influence of Mark Hopkins. He had passed his 
 boyhood among missionaries and natives of the 
 islands, and had grown up with a full knowledge of 
 the thoughts and ways of a childlike race. Now he 
 was to experience the rigorous atmosphere, intellec- 
 tual, spiritual and political, of the ante bellum New 
 England, at a time when tremendous issues were in 
 the heat of discussion. That from which he had 
 come was, quite unknown to him, a primary school- 
 ing for his life work. Mark Hopkins and Williams 
 College and the New England of that day were to 
 give him his preparatory-school education. Then 
 his training was to be rounded out by a collegiate 
 course in human life-and-death struggle for a cause 
 with which he became identified. ' ' In his Hawaiian 
 days,'^ says one who knew him well, ^' he used to 
 say that he would be a politician or a businessman ; 
 that he would be a philanthropist was the farthest 
 from our thoughts.'' 
 
 And what kind of fellow was Armstrong among 
 the others at Williams? Dr. John Denison gives 
 this picture of him in The Atlantic Monthly : 
 
 ^'He was a trifle above middle height, broad- 
 shouldered, with large, well-poised head, forehead 
 high and wide, deep-set, flashing eyes, a long mane 
 of light-brown hair, his fiice very brown and sailor- 
 like. He bore his head high, and carried about an 
 air of insolent good health. He was unconventional 
 [8] , 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 in his notioDS, Sbaksperean iu sympathy, and 
 wished to see all sides of life, yet he never formed 
 affiliations with the bad side. If he touched pitch, 
 he got rid of it as soon as he could, pleasantly if 
 possible, but at all events decidedly ; he had a 
 robust habit of will, and laid hold always of the 
 best in his environment. . . . His greatest tend- 
 ency seemed to be to go ahead. He was the most 
 strenuous man I ever saw. Doctor Arnold said of 
 himself, ' Aut Caesar aut uullus.' Armstrong said 
 of himself, 'Missionary or pirate.' " 
 
 He had serious thoughts about his future plans. 
 With all his fun and high spirits he shows evi- 
 dences of the forward look. He wrote in March, 
 1861: 
 
 " Just now there is considerable religious interest 
 in college, and I think I have become a better 
 Christian than I used to be. I look forward with 
 joy to a life of doing good, and if my native land 
 should present the strongest claims to me I should 
 be willing and glad to go there. My aim is to study 
 for the ministry, but yet I hesitate to take the 
 solemn vows ; the responsibility is so awful. Baxter 
 [his brother] used to say that none of our family 
 would make good ministers ; if he feels that way 
 about my choice, tell him that I mean to have good 
 times after all, and not to look like a galvanized 
 mummy. Tell him to save one of his finest colts ; 
 I may need it in about four years." 
 
 A little later he wrote, as the war excitement 
 grew: 
 
 **I shall go to the war if I am needed, but not till 
 
 [9] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 tlien J were I an American, as I am a Hawaiian, I 
 should be off in a hurry. Next term it will be 
 hard to remain at Williamstowu, and harder yet to 
 study." 
 
 In the spring of 1862, when he graduated, his 
 thoughts turned toward the war more strongly than 
 ever. In the summer he decided to recruit a com- 
 pany. He built a shanty in a public square in 
 Troy, and very soon had his quota of recruits, and 
 was sworn in as seuior captaiu. Thus began his 
 experience of fire and blood and daring that gave 
 his education its climax for the work that became 
 his when the war was over. 
 
 His brother relates a characteristic incident of 
 the regiment's march through New York City. 
 The men were resting in City Hall Park. One of 
 Armstrong's men came up and said ; " I say. Cap- 
 tain, where can I get a drink of water?" Arm- 
 strong started off at once to get it for him. ''It 
 seems to me," said the brother, ''that is not very 
 good military discipline for the captain to be run- 
 ning around for water for his men." "The men 
 must have water," replied the captain ; " I'm bound 
 to see that they get it.'^ That was his spirit then, 
 and it held true to the end of his life. If any under 
 his care needed anything he was bound to see that 
 they got it. Hampton Institute was built on that 
 foundation. 
 
 Armstrong's great testing under fire came at 
 Gettysburg. After telling of the terrific fighting, 
 in which he led his men, he wrote : 
 
 " But I cannot describe the battle field — the dead 
 [10] 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 — the wounded — the piteous groans and the prayers 
 of agony that went up to heaven all night and day. 
 . . . I may say to you that I have made what 
 inward preparation I can for death. I keep a little 
 volume of Psalms with me, and try to act the soldier 
 of Christ. Don't be anxious for me. The God 
 above does all things well. There are more battles 
 to be fought, and I must fight. My sensations in 
 battle are not strange. I feel simply resolved to do 
 my best, to lead my men, and to accept my fate 
 like a man." 
 
 And now another phase of Armstrong's prepara- 
 tion came into his life. In November, 1862, he be- 
 came entitled, after a rigid examination, to the rank 
 of colonel of colored troops, a service that appealed 
 strongly to him. He took charge of six companies 
 of the Ninth Eegiment of United States Colored 
 Troops in General William Birney's command. On 
 the night before he left his old regiment, the One 
 Hundred and Twenty-Fifth New York, he wrote : 
 
 "The negro troops have not yet entirely iDroved 
 themselves good soldiers ; but if the Negroes can be 
 made to fight well, then is the question of their free- 
 dom settled. . . . All mankind are looking to see 
 whether the African will show himself equal to the 
 opportunity before him. And what is this oppor- 
 tunity ? It is to demonstrate to the world that he 
 is a man, that he has the highest elements of man- 
 hood, courage, perseverance and honor ; that he is 
 not only worthy of freedom, but able to win it, so 
 he has a chance. ... I gladly lend myself to 
 the experiment, to this issue. It will yet be a grand 
 [11] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 thing to have been identified with this negro move- 
 ment." 
 
 Armstrong drilled his men into a state of high 
 efficiency in every resj)ect. He planned, too, for 
 their recreation. He arranged his own tent attrac- 
 tively, to quicken others to do likewise. At Bene- 
 dict, Maryland, where the troops were then stationed, 
 was a school for the negro soldiers, and Armstrong 
 was put in charge of this school, — "an old secesh 
 tobacco barn, cleaned out, ventilated, and illumi- 
 nated by a few tallow candles ; well-seated and holds 
 five hundred men." 
 
 The bravery and fine discipline of Armstrong's 
 men amply vindicated his hopes for them and his 
 belief in them. When his discharge came, in 
 August, 1865, various openings came to him, and it 
 was hard to choose among them. Out of the un- 
 certainty his duty began to appear. On the third 
 anniversary of his enlistment he wrote: "There 
 may be a place for me in the struggle for right and 
 wrong in this country." And there was, beyond 
 any shadow of doubt. Again he wrote : " There is 
 something in this standing face to face with destiny, 
 looking into its darkness, that is inspiring ; it ap- 
 peals to manhood ; it is thrilling, like going into 
 action." 
 
 The proposed work of the Freedmen's Bureau un- 
 der the direction of General O. O. Howard, to meet 
 the needs of the ex-slaves, drew Armstrong with a 
 constraining interest. He applied for service in 
 that connection. He was appointed an agent of the 
 Bureau, having ten counties in Virginia in his care, 
 [12] 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 and he acted as superiutendeut of schools over a 
 larger territory. Hampton was the village near 
 Fort Monroe where his headquarters were estab- 
 lished. There were thousands of freed slaves all 
 around him and his work challenged every ability 
 with which he was endowed. 
 
 It was while he was in the midst of these delicate 
 and difficult tasks of untangling broken and twisted 
 relationships of Negroes and whites, and while he 
 was providing in practical ways for the everyday 
 needs of the bewildered and unschooled Negroes, 
 that he became clear on the solution of his problem. 
 He was neither a Northern nor a Southern man by 
 birth. His citizenship had come to him by resi- 
 dence. He was not troubled by the ' ' intense and 
 burning local antagonism to his work which made 
 the situation of his fellow workers almost intoler- 
 able." When the work of the Freedmeu's Bureau 
 came to an end in 1872, Armstrong was already well 
 along in his plans for the uplift of the Negroes. 
 
 The thing to be done was clear. There must be a 
 school for the Freedmeu. He wrote later of its 
 purpose : 
 
 ' ' To train selected negro youths who should go 
 out and teach and lead their people, first by ex- 
 am j)le, by getting land and homes ; to give them 
 not a dollar that they could not earn for them- 
 selves ; to teach respect for labor, to replace stupid 
 drudgery with skilled hands, and to those ends to 
 build up an industrial system for the sake, not only 
 of self support and intelligent labor, but also for the 
 sake of character." 
 
 [13] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 General Armstrong suggested to the American 
 Missionary Association that such a school should be 
 established at Hampton, and he was asked to take 
 charge of it. ' ' Till then my future had been blind, ' ' 
 he wrote. "It had only been clear that there was 
 a work to be done for the ex-slave, and where and 
 how to do it." 
 
 From that time on Samuel Chapman Armstrong 
 lived for Hampton Institute. He was the personal 
 friend of the ever-growing numbers of students. He 
 understood them, knew what they could do, and saw 
 to it that they did their work. " There is no place 
 for a lazy man in this world or the next," he would 
 say. He dignified work, unfolded to the students 
 the possibilities of character ; went about the North 
 winning friends and gathering funds ; planned and 
 carried to completion great extension j)laus, and al- 
 ways and everywhere preaching his doctrine of 
 achievement, "Doing what can't be done is the 
 glory of living." At a meeting at Lake Mohonk he 
 exclaimed, " What are Christians put into the world 
 for, but to do the impossible in the strength of 
 God ! ' ' General J. F. B. Marshall is quoted by 
 Armstrong's biographer as having said : "For most 
 people an obstacle is something in the way to stop 
 going on, but for General Armstrong it merely 
 meant something to climb over, and if he could not 
 climb all the way over, he would get up as high as 
 possible, and then crow ! ' ' 
 
 What a challenge there is to the heroic in every 
 young man in such a life as this ! Who can be near 
 such a flaming, forth -faring spirit without taking 
 [14] 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 fire from him ! General Armstrong entered into the 
 new life, May 11, 1893. Hear his call to those who 
 were to follow him in his work, and his acknowledg- 
 ment of God's goodness to him : 
 
 ** Now, when all is bright, the family together, 
 and there is nothing to alarm and very much to be 
 thankful for, it is well to look ahead and, perhaps, 
 to say the things that I should wish known should I 
 suddenly die. 
 
 "I wish to be buried in the school graveyard, 
 among the students, where one of them would have 
 been put had he died next. 
 
 ^'I wish no monument or fuss whatever over my 
 grave ; only a simple headstone — no text or senti- 
 ment inscribed, only my name and date. I wish the 
 simplest funeral service, without sermon or attempt 
 at oratory — a soldier's funeral. 
 
 " I hope there will be enough friends to see that 
 the work of the school shall continue. Unless some 
 make sacrifice for it, it cannot go on. 
 
 '' A work that requires no sacrifice does not count 
 for much in fulfilling God's plans. But what is 
 commonly called sacrifice is the best, happiest 
 use of oneself and one's resources — the best in- 
 vestment of time, strength and means. He who 
 makes no such sacrifice is most to be pitied. 
 He is a heathen, because he knows nothing of 
 God. 
 
 ** In the school the great thing is not to quarrel ; 
 to pull all together ; to refrain from hasty, unwise 
 words and actions ; to unselfishly and wisely seek 
 the best good of all ; and to get rid of workers whose 
 
 [15] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 temperaments are uufortunate — whose heads are uot 
 level ; no matter how much knowledge or culture 
 they may have. Cantankerousiiess is worse than 
 heterodoxy. 
 
 " I wish uo effort at a biography of myself made. 
 Good friends might get up a pretty good story, but 
 it would not be the whole truth. The truth of life 
 usually lies deep down — we hardly know ourselves ; 
 God only does. I trust his mercy. The shorter 
 one^s creed the better. * Simply to thy cross I 
 cling ' is enough for me. 
 
 *' I am most thankful for my parents, my Hawaiian 
 home, for war experiences, and college days at 
 Williams, and for life and work at Hampton, 
 Hampton has blessed me in so many ways ; along 
 with it have come the choicest people of this coun- 
 try for my friends and helpers, and then such a 
 grand chance to do something directly for those set 
 free by the war ; and, indirectly, for those who were 
 conquered ; and Indian work has been another great 
 privilege. 
 
 *' Few men have had the chance that I have had. 
 I never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life — 
 have been, seemingly, guided in everything. 
 
 '* Prayer is the greatest thing in the world. It 
 keeps us near to God. My own prayer has been most 
 weak, wavering, inconstant, yet has been the best 
 thing I have ever done. I think this is a universal 
 truth— what comfort is there in any but the broad- 
 est truth ? 
 
 "I am most curious to get a glimpse at the next 
 world. How will it seem ? Perfectly fair and per- 
 [16] 
 
SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
 
 fectly natural, no doubt. We ought not to fear 
 death. It is friendly. 
 
 " The ouly i)ain that comes at the thought of it is 
 for my true, faithful wife and blessed dear children. 
 But they will be brave about it all and in the end 
 stronger. They are my greatest comfort. 
 
 '^Hampton must not go down. See to it, you 
 who are true to the black and red children of the 
 land and to just ideas of education. 
 
 ''The loyalty of old soldiers and of my students 
 has been an unspeakable comfort. 
 
 *'It pays to follow one's best light — to put God 
 and country first, ourselves afterward. 
 
 " Taps has just sounded. 
 
 S. C. Armsteong. 
 
 " Samjyton, Virginia^ New Year's Eve, 1890.'''' 
 
 [17] 
 
II 
 
 Sir George Williams 
 
 Founder of the 
 Yoimg Men^ s Christiait Association 
 
 The biography of Sir George WilliamSy written 
 by J. E. Hodder Williams y is a book for every young 
 marl's library. It is rich in interest and stimulus. 
 
II 
 
 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS 
 
 George Williams is known to most men of our 
 time as the founder of the Young Men's Christian 
 Association. Just what this achievement has meant 
 to the young men of to-day is not to be measured in 
 the terms of ordinary language. The Young Men's 
 Christian Association in America alone has had an 
 untold influence u]3on the life of the generation in 
 which we live, and the founder of that association 
 was a man whose business career in the trade in 
 which he was a leader was quite as noted for its 
 strength and conspicuous success as his career in his 
 chosen field of Christian service. 
 
 George Williams was a country boy, born in 
 Dulverton, Somerset, October 11, 1821, and he was 
 brought up among the peasants of the English 
 countryside. He attended the ordinary schools of 
 his day, and was subjected to the same temptations 
 and surroundings as the other boys of the farming 
 community. He did not seem to have any special 
 gift for farming. After a period of experiment as 
 a farmer, when he was one day taking a load of hay 
 to the barn, the wagon was upset by the ruts in the 
 road, while the hay, the cart and the horses went 
 into the ditch. This was the final determining 
 
 [21] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 factor in leading his brothers aud his father to feel 
 that he would never be a success as a farmer. 
 
 He was accordingly apprenticed to a draper, or 
 dry-goods dealer, in a neighboring town. Of his 
 character at that time he said : *^ I entered Bridge- 
 water a careless, thoughtless, godless, swearing 
 young fellow." Yet in later years he could call 
 that town his ''spiritual homeland." God's hand 
 was in the move that took him away from the rough 
 farm life of his day, aud placed him where he 
 gradually came under strong religious influences. 
 He saw that there was a life far above the plane of 
 his own, and he began to be troubled about himself. 
 When he was sixteen he heard a sermon by Eev. 
 Evan James in the Congregational Chapel. That 
 night he found his way to the back of the shop in 
 which he worked, and kneeling there, he gave him- 
 self to God. When, in mature life, he took part in 
 the opening of a fine Association building that he 
 had been instrumental in giving to the town, he 
 said : ''It is not easy to forget one's first love. I 
 first learned in Bridgewater to love my dear Lord 
 and Saviour for what he had done for me. I learned 
 at Bridgewater to see the vital importance, the 
 tremendous importance of the spiritual life. " 
 
 When he was nineteen he went with his father to 
 London, and there was introduced to the senior 
 member of the firm of Hitchcock and Eogers, 
 drapers. At first he did not make a particularly 
 good impression upon Mr. Hitchcock, but there was 
 somethipg about him which drew the older man, 
 who finally concluded to try him. Young Will- 
 [22] 
 
SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS 
 
 iams accordiugly was taken into the life of the 
 business establishment, which then occupied prac- 
 tically the whole waking time of the young men 
 working there. 
 
 The business hours in the forties were by no means 
 so easy as the hours of to-day. It was not unusual 
 for the young men assistants to begin work at seven 
 o'clock in the morning and finish at eleven at night 
 This allowed very little time for sleep or recreation, 
 and in their weary state of mind and body their 
 recreations were likely to be of a not very high 
 order. The young men lived in dormitories, or 
 rooms connected with the business establishment, so 
 that business was practically their whole life, ex- 
 cepting for the few hours of the night when many of 
 them resorted to dissipation, while some took ad- 
 vantage of the time to get necessary sleep. 
 
 George Williams, a boy from the country, was 
 thrown into these associations and had to make his 
 way in business in the midst of what now would be 
 called serious moral and physical disadvantages. 
 The youug man of to-day who looks forward to a 
 business career faces no such conditions as these. 
 Drapers' assistants in the forties in the city of Lon- 
 don lived in a way that would seem intolerable to 
 us, but George Williams, even in his twenties, was 
 able not only to toil after this fashion, but so to live 
 among his fellow workers that instead of adding 
 another chapter to the story of broken youth all 
 around him, he began and carried through to a 
 glorious world-wide influence a work that began in 
 a very humble way. One secret of his impervious- 
 [23] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 ness to the evils around was what is believed to be 
 his chief reason for leaving Bridgewater — a desire 
 to be where he would find the largest field of work 
 for Christ. He set his face steadfastly toward the 
 life of service. When he joined the establishment 
 there were one hundred and forty assistants. He 
 wrote : 
 
 ' ' I asked myself, What can I do for these young 
 men ? There were five or six of us in the bedroom, 
 and the conduct of my comj^anions was altogether 
 different from anything you can form an idea of. 
 In an inner room which opened out of this bedroom 
 there were four or five young men, one of whom was 
 a Christian, and one was a good moral character, 
 although unconverted.'^ 
 
 These two Christian young men arranged to meet 
 in the bedroom for prayer, and George Williams 
 says of these beginnings, *' We met, our numbers 
 grew and the room was soon cramped ; in answer to 
 prayer the spirit of God was present, and we had 
 conversion after conversion.'^ 
 
 Williams made it his habit to pick out his men 
 one by one and pray for them steadily. As the re- 
 sult of this, many of the young fellows were con- 
 verted ; and Mr. Hitchcock himself was undoubtedly 
 led out into a public profession of Christ in this 
 way, and became a helper to the young men who 
 were trying to lead a Christian life. 
 
 One young fellow who was very hard to reach 
 was under consideration in one of the prayer meet- 
 ings. When Williams found out that he was 
 specially fond of oysters, he suggested that the boys 
 [24] 
 
SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS 
 
 give au oyster sapper, aud invite liiin to it, at the 
 same time making it plain that there was to be no 
 talking to the young man about his soul on that oc- 
 casion. The man was much amused at the invita- 
 tion ; he could not think of these Christian young 
 men as indulging in any such good time. But he 
 discovered that the Christians were not quite so 
 dull as he thought they were. Later he began to 
 attend the prayer meeting, and joined their prayer 
 circle, and he was among the first twelve members 
 of the Association that was later formed. 
 
 In his own bedroom Williams gathered together a 
 few of his friends for the study of a plan that had 
 taken shape in his mind. Out of that meeting grew 
 the Young Men's Christian Association, first de- 
 signed as a means of evangelistic and missionary 
 work among the assistants of Hitchcock and Eogers ; 
 and gradually extending from that establishment to 
 others. Into this work, George Williams put his 
 first and best thought, kept it in the center of his 
 prayer life and gave to it his skill, his untiring en- 
 ergy and his best powers in the inspiring and lead- 
 ing of men in all walks of life. 
 
 Meanwhile, he did not abate his intense and clear- 
 headed attention to his business as a growing young 
 man in a dry -goods house. He attended as relig- 
 iously to his business duties, as he attended busily 
 to his religious duties. When he was put in charge 
 of the buyers, he showed an accurate knowledge of 
 the needs of the public ; he knew how to encourage 
 his buyers, and to sui)ervise them closely, and un- 
 der his care the business increased greatly, long be- 
 
 [25] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 fore the glad day came when he was taken into the 
 firm. Another partnership, his marriage with a 
 daughter of Mr. Hitchcock, was a profound and 
 continued influence for nntold good in his life. 
 
 He was sunshine itself among his associates. He 
 was able to accomplish enormous amounts of work 
 by his steady and cheery industry, and his shrewd 
 insight into the character and latent ability of 
 others added much to the sum total of his success 
 by the wise choice of helpers. His religion and his 
 business were blended in a combination that held 
 valid and effective under the tests of a long life, 
 " He believed and stated more than once," says his 
 biographer, "that the lack of a well-grounded faith 
 in Christ, of definite Christian ideals, was one of 
 the chief causes of commercial failure ; believed 
 with his father-in-law, the founder of the firm, that 
 one of the greatest delusions of the day was that relig- 
 ion spoiled a man for business ; that the men of God 
 (other things, natural ability, education and knowl- 
 edge being equal) are the best men of business. He 
 was not, however, inclined to make the mistake of 
 trusting or employing a man merely on account of 
 religious training or convictions. He held firmly 
 to the idea that a Christian young man might be, 
 and indeed ought to be, a good employee, and 
 although he did all in his power to impress upon 
 everyone in his establishment the claims of Christ, 
 he had, in these days of the making of his fortune, 
 the keenest scent of the hypocrite and the highest 
 appreciation of commercial capacity." 
 
 In his home life, he was exceedingly haj^py, 
 
 [26] 
 
SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS 
 
 although his engagements prevented him from 
 spending many of his evenings with his family. It 
 was his custom on Saturday night to read to his 
 family from the Illustrated Weekly, and then upon 
 Sunday morning to go with them to Portsmouth 
 Chapel where he attended church. On the Sabbath 
 he was busy with Christian work of all sorts : hos- 
 pital visiting, distribution of tracts, speaking at 
 meetings, personal work and care for one branch or 
 another of the Young Men's Christian Association 
 enterprise. On many a business day, after the 
 crowded hours in his office, he would spend his 
 evenings at the Association building. Sometimes 
 several months would pass without any evenings 
 spent at home. 
 
 He was accustomed to invite persons to lunch 
 with him in his establishment, and there he would 
 entertain friends from the country, persons from 
 abroad, visitors who were interested in the work he 
 was doing, and secretaries of Associations. A mis- 
 sionary from western China wrote how the words of 
 good cheer spoken in that little room remained with 
 him throughout the years of toil and persecution. 
 Another, a country clergyman, told of the way in 
 which his heart was made to glow as they talked 
 together of the goodness of God and of the greatness 
 of the work ; a stranger from America told how he 
 had carried across the Atlantic the blessings he had 
 received at parting. 
 
 After his luncheon time, it was Williams' custom 
 to spend fifteen minutes in prayer, and to ask for 
 special mercies ujion the work represented by those 
 [27] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 who were at the luucheou with him. His biographer 
 says : 
 
 "It is impossible to give more thau ODe or two 
 examples of the way in which George Williams' iu- 
 fluence j)ermeated the religious activities of his time. 
 He was conuected more or less intimately with 
 nearly eveiy prominent evangelistic institution in 
 the country, and was the main support of many 
 humbler endeavors. His contributions to the Brit- 
 ish and Foreign Bible Societies were very large. He 
 gave lavishly to missionary societies of all denomi- 
 nations. His generosity recognized no limitations 
 of creed. He took part in the reopening of White- 
 field's Tabernacle and gave a large sum toward the 
 erection of an Anglican Church at Exeter in which 
 his son, Eev. Charles Williams, was particularly in- 
 terested. 
 
 ''But perhaps more characteristic examples of his 
 breadth of mind and wide generosity are to be found 
 in the records of less known societies, such as the 
 Commercial Travelers' Christian Association, the 
 object of which is primarily the promotion of inter- 
 course among Christian commercial men with a view 
 to counteracting the special temptations of the 
 'road' ; the Christian Community of those who 
 work voluntarily among the poorest of London's 
 poor, especially in the workhouses ; the Seaman's 
 Christian Friend Society, which ministers to the 
 welfare of sick and destitute seamen and carries on 
 missions in some forty British ports ; the Soldiers' 
 Christian Association, with its four hundred branches 
 scattered throughout the Empire ; the London Cab- 
 [28] 
 
SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS 
 
 men's Mission ; the London Tramcar and Omnibus 
 Scripture Text Mission, whose object is to arrange 
 for the exhibition of texts in trams, omnibuses and 
 railway carriages ; and even of such a society as the 
 Christian Cyclists' Union. These are but a few out 
 of many similar institutions which had ever a warm 
 place in his heart, and which now mourn the loss of 
 one who never wearied in forwarding the work by 
 his counsel and never failed them in their hours of 
 need." And further it is said ; ^' Whatever the de. 
 mands upon his time and purse, he did not forget or 
 neglect the least ostentatious work with which he 
 had ever been connected. One of his most intimate 
 friends conducted a mission at Bromley, in Kent, 
 and for twenty years without a break, George Will- 
 iams occupied the chair at its annual meeting, 
 postponing important engagements to be present, 
 and to the last was as keenly interested in its 
 welfare as if its work had been of world-wide di- 
 mension." 
 
 Not long before the great Young Men's Christian 
 Association Jubilee gathering in London, the Queen 
 offered to George Williams the honor of knighthood 
 in acknowledgment of his '' distinguished service to 
 the cause of humanity." When he received the let- 
 ter he grew pale, and in a choking voice asked his 
 secretary, handing him the letter: ''What do you 
 think of that ? " "Sir, it is a well-deserved honor,'' 
 was the earnest reply. "No, no," said George 
 Williams, "it is not for me, it is for the Associa- 
 tion. It belongs to our Master, let us put it at his 
 feet." Then, kneeling in prayer, this knight of 
 [ 29 ] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 Christian service unaffectedly rendered homage to 
 the Lord whom he had served so long. 
 
 "From first to last," writes his biographer, " the 
 Jubilee was a triumph. But the memory which 
 will last the longest of all is the frail figure of an old 
 gentleman as he stood to receive from ten thousand 
 of his fellow men a demonstration of affection and 
 pride without parallel in the history of religion, and 
 wondered why everybody was so kind to him." 
 
 George Williams passed away in November of 
 1905. Long years before, when he was thirty-four 
 years old, he thought it worth while to set down for 
 his own guidance certain rules, which are well worth 
 quoting. These rules explain much that came into 
 his life, as he went on with his remarkable service 
 in the field of business, and in the field of Christian 
 philanthropy. This prayer was written as a preface : 
 
 * ' The Lord be pleased to help me to form resolu- 
 tions and then give me grace to keep them.'^ 
 
 The rules were : 
 
 "That I determine to get an alarm and when it 
 goes off I am out of bed before it is finished. 
 
 "That I read and meditate upon a portion of 
 God's Word every morning and spend some time in 
 prayer. 
 
 "That I strive to live more in the spirit of prayer. 
 
 "That I do not parley, but resist at once the va- 
 rious temptations which beset me. 
 
 " That I resist the Devil at once, however he may 
 come to me. 
 
 "That I pray more for my dear relatives and 
 strive for their conversion. 
 [30] 
 
SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS 
 
 "That I speud some tiaie iu praying for the young 
 men at St. Paul's. 
 
 " That I have certain days and times for certain 
 things, and strive to be regular and punctual. 
 
 " That I strive to gain a better knowledge of the 
 Scriptures, and have Bible readings with dear Helen. 
 
 ' ' That I read these resolutions over before every 
 ordinance day." 
 
 And this was the message that he sent to the 
 young men of America when he had almost reached 
 the end of his earth's journey : 
 
 " Tell the men of America to seek first the king- 
 dom of God and his righteousness, and not to think 
 too much of the things that are temporal, for the 
 true riches are only to be found in Jesus Christ." 
 
 Then he said to his visitors to whom these words 
 were spoken : 
 
 ' ' My brothers, we shall never meet on earth 
 again. I am just waiting, waiting for His call.'^ 
 Then raising both his hands, as in benediction, he 
 said, "May God be with you and make you and all 
 your faithful workers very useful in his hands, to 
 the salvation of precious souls." 
 
 [31] 
 
Ill 
 
 George H. Stuart 
 
 A Christian Leader in 
 The Heroic Age of America " 
 
 Mr. Stuart's own account of his life, edited 
 by Robert Ellis Thompson, D. D., is filled with 
 stirring reminiscences of men and events, — " 2^he 
 Life of George H. Stuart.'' 
 
Ill 
 
 GEORGE H. STUART 
 
 On a July day in 1863 a man mouuted a chair in 
 the center of the big dining room of Congress Hall 
 in Saratoga Springs, New York, and held up a 
 telegram. Then he asked in a loud voice if the 
 peox)le in that room wanted to hear from Charleston. 
 There was no question about that. The Federal 
 navy was besieging Charleston, and important news 
 was expected. 
 
 There was a sudden hush throughout the room. 
 Then the man read the telegram, which was from a 
 naval officer : 
 
 *'For God's sake send us a cargo of ice, as our 
 men are dying for want of cooling drinks." 
 
 The man on the chair then announced that all 
 who wished to help might leave their contribution 
 at the hotel office. Dessert was about to be served, 
 but without waiting for it the diners hurried to the 
 office, and the giving began. 
 
 Then the man who had caused all this stir went 
 to the Union Hotel, and to the United States Hotel, 
 where the appeal was made again. So much was 
 given in response to these appeals that a vessel was 
 chartered in Boston by telegram, and within a day 
 or two sailed for Charleston, loaded with ice. 
 
 The man who had been so quick to seize the op- 
 portunity of the hour was the chairman of the 
 [35] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 CbristiaD CommissioD, George H. Stuart of Phila- 
 delphia. He was always on the alert to serve, aud 
 always bold and resourceful in doing what needed to 
 be done. 
 
 Mr. Stuart was for many busy years a familiar 
 figure not only in Philadelphia, but in many other 
 centers at home and abroad, wherever his activities 
 for mankind led him. He came into great promi- 
 nence in America during the Civil War, because of 
 his place and work as Chairman of the Christian 
 Commission, a work inaugurated by a convention 
 over which he presided, of American Young Meu's 
 Christian Associations, held in New York, in 
 November, 1861, ''to take active measures to pro- 
 mote the spiritual aud temporal welfare of the 
 soldiers in the army and the sailors and marines in 
 the navy, in cooperation with the chaplains and 
 others. ' ' His capacity for devotion to a cause, his 
 executive ability, his power with men and his excep- 
 tional platform skill were given scope in this great 
 task. 
 
 George H. Stuart came to America when he was 
 fifteen years old, from Ulster, the source of so much 
 of our sturdy Scotch -Irish immigration. He was 
 one of the most distinguished of that stock on this 
 side of the sea. He came to Philadelphia in 1831, 
 while Stephen Girard was yet alive, while all the 
 city lay to the east of Broad Street along the Dela- 
 ware, and while the present Philadelphia area was 
 still under the control of several city governments. 
 He lived to see the city uuified and tremendously 
 extended j to see the beginnings and some of the 
 
 [36] 
 
GEORGE H. STUART 
 
 progress of busiuess undertakings there that have 
 become prominent in the world of commerce, and to 
 be chosen one of the managers of the vast sums left 
 by Stephen Girard to be administered by the City 
 of Philadelphia. 
 
 Young Stuart served a clerical and traveling ap- 
 prenticeship in his brother's dry -goods house. After 
 six years he was taken into partnership in the firm 
 of Stuart and Brothers on New Year's Day, 1837. 
 
 As to his boyhood schooling Mr. Stuart said, 
 toward the end of his life : 
 
 *'I was full of fun and frolic, and probably no 
 boy ever paid less attention to his studies. Owing 
 to my predisposition for sport, my fondness for hunt- 
 ing and swimming, et cetera, my education was not 
 what it might otherwise have been. I have often 
 since regretted that I had not paid more attention to 
 it. What I have picked up has been through coming 
 into contact with men of culture and education." 
 
 He had ** picked up" already some clear and 
 definite moral and religious standards of conduct 
 that helped to prepare him for growth in this 
 respect. His home training in the Associate 
 Presbyterian Church in Ulster had been strict in 
 many details. As life opened out before him in his 
 new homeland he acquired convictions of duty that 
 did much to shape his career. He told once the 
 story of a business trip to Pittsburgh by canal, while 
 he was still a salesman. He and the two friends 
 with him found to their surprise that the boat could 
 not reach Pittsburgh until Sunday night. " With 
 my early education I could not consent to travel on 
 [37] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 the Sabbath," he said, "and, with a few others 
 who felt as I did, I left the boat about teu o'clock at 
 night at a small towD." Wheu they did reach 
 Pittsburgh they stopj)ed at a hotel where, as was 
 the universal custom, they had their wine at dinner. 
 That evening they went to a temperance lecture. 
 One of the speakers held up a glass of wine, de- 
 scribed its contents, and the results of its use. 
 " It was then and there," says Mr. Stuart, " in my 
 seat, at the conclusion of this address, that I deter- 
 mined, without joining any temperance society, to 
 abstain thereafter from the use of wine as a 
 beverage, which, by the grace of God, I have been 
 able to do to this day." 
 
 This led him to take a keen interest in the 
 tem23erance movement. Eight years later it was he 
 who welcomed John B. Gough to Philadelphia on 
 his first visit there as a temperance speaker, having 
 been engaged by Mr. Stuart to speak in the young 
 merchant's church. 
 
 The foundation of Mr. Stuart's business prosper- 
 ity was laid by his far-sighted courage during his 
 first trip to England, in 1840. He was buying goods 
 for his firm. He for the first time learned of and 
 saw black alpacas. He bought thirty cases, and 
 sent twenty cases to Philadelphia and ten cases to 
 New York. Promjjtly a protest came from the New 
 York branch, but the goods sold rapidly, and the 
 firm became large importers. Some concerns, whose 
 members were known to have anti-slavery ideas, 
 were boycotted by those of other sympathies, but 
 Stuart and Brothers, whose anti-slavery views were 
 
 [38] 
 
GEORGE H. STUART 
 
 wc41 known, were not boycotted, because alj)aca was 
 one of the fabrics that the ladies of both North and 
 South decided they must have. 
 
 Both business skill and great ability in Christian 
 service were found in Mr. Stuart to a high degree. 
 The editor of his autobiography^. President Kobert 
 Ellis Thompson, writes :. 
 
 ''The successful business man is one who has 
 taken the trouble to ascertain the relative value of 
 things, and who proceeds to a;Ct on that knowledge 
 without question or hesitation. And the Christian 
 of this temper is a man who has satisfied himself 
 that his Master's estimate of the value of things is 
 the right one, and who proceeds to act on that as- 
 sumption with as little reserve or hesitation as if it 
 were a question of the market price of hard ware or 
 dry -goods. 
 
 "It has been Mr. Stuart's joy to testify everywhere 
 and to all men of his love for the Saviour, and that 
 with a frankness and unreserve which mark the man 
 who 'means business ' in his religion as elsewhere." 
 
 Young Stuart joined the Eeformed Presbyterian 
 Church in Ai^ril, 1835, and from that time on he 
 served in nearly every office within the gift of his 
 church. He was devoted to Sunday-school work, 
 and acted as secretary, treasurer, teacher, and as 
 superintendent. His first appointment was as a 
 Sunday-school librarian, and from that he went on 
 with ever increasing interest in the Bible study and 
 character-training institution of the church. As a 
 superintendent he was particularly careful in his 
 choice of teachers, and his consciousness of oppor- 
 [39] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 tuuity is shown in part by the fact that he was the 
 means of leading many young men into the ministry. 
 
 He found most of his own leadings into large serv- 
 ice in some small service close at hand. He was spir- 
 itually alert, and although he was a master of organi- 
 zation as a method, he did not wait for organization 
 to accomj)lish a work that might seem to him needed. 
 
 His interest in foreign missions began when he 
 was yet in his teens. A young Irish coachman, who 
 had refused to get the carriage of his employer 
 ready for a Sunday drive, and who was promptly 
 taken into the man's counting room, was a member 
 of Stuart's Sunday school. He became the head 
 bookkeeper of the firm, and in his spare moments 
 was studying Greek, prej)aratory to entering the 
 ministry, which he finally succeeded in doing. He 
 went out to the foreign field as the first representa- 
 tive of the Eeformed Presbyterian Church of the 
 United States, in India. There he founded an 
 orphan school, and it was characteristic of the con- 
 nectedness of Mr. Stuart's life interests that for his 
 Sunday-school friend he raised money to support 
 and educate many of the boys, one of whom was 
 named for him and became a preacher. And from 
 that home Sunday school, largely through the influ- 
 ence of that coachman-missionary, ten missionaries 
 went out to help him in India, two to Africa, and 
 one to China. Mr. Stuart himself was the treasurer 
 of the missionary board of his church from 1843 to 
 1865, and was the publisher of its missionary maga- 
 zine, The Banner of the Covenant, until 1859. 
 
 Mr. Stuart's interest in the anti-slavery movement 
 [40] 
 
GEORGE H. STUART 
 
 also began at home. He was much impressed by a 
 natioual anti-slavery convention in Philadelphia in 
 December, 1833. When still a young man he met 
 Benjamin Luudy, tlie abolitionist, and John Green- 
 leaf Whittier, and although his business friends as- 
 sured him he would hurt his business, his interest 
 in the movement grew in intensity and activity. 
 He, with other young men, organized a Young 
 Men's Anti-Slavery Society, especially to enlist the 
 sympathies of the evangelical churches in behalf of 
 the slaves. The hall erected for meetings by the 
 Abolition party and by this young men's society 
 was burned by a mob. About that time, the 
 Negroes in the city were threatened by a mob, a 
 movement that was frustrated by volunteer militia 
 of which Stuart was a member. 
 
 In the presidential election of 1840 he was the 
 only one at his polling place who voted the Free 
 Soil ticket, although he was warned that if he did 
 so his life would be in danger. 
 
 The great revival of 1857 was a time of quickening 
 and development for him, and after that his public 
 gifts seemed to unfold to a remarkable degree. It 
 was his whole personality that counted, not merely 
 what he said. The spirit within him shone through 
 his cheery countenance, his hearty ways, his alert 
 action, his wonderful tact, his ability to get close to 
 the heart of men of all sorts and stations. As eai-ly 
 as 1854 he came into x>rominence as a presiding 
 officer in public meetings, when he presided at an 
 eight-nights' debate on the authority and inspiration 
 of the Scripture, between Dr. Joseph F. Berg, and 
 [4lj 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 the Euglish infidel, Joseph Barker, before an au- 
 dience of more than two thousand. Nineteen years 
 later he was on the platform with Mr. Barker, at the 
 dedication of the hall of the Young Men's Christian 
 Association in Germantown. 
 
 He was the first president of the Philadelphia 
 Young Men's Christian Association, organized June 
 15, 1854, of which John Wauamaker, who was then 
 a clerk in a clothing store, was the first paid secre- 
 tary, with his salary guaranteed by Mr. Stuart. 
 
 Abroad as well as in America this keen-minded, 
 consecrated, genial man was called into distin- 
 guished service. During the great revival in Ire- 
 land in 1860, he made a six weeks' journey through 
 the island, and during that time he made seventy- 
 four addresses, to over seventy-five thousand people. 
 On one occasion, in Belfast, he spoke, at an out- 
 door meeting in the Botanic Gardens, to more than 
 forty thousand persons. 
 
 He was the chairman of the International Com- 
 mittee of the Young Men's Christian Association, 
 and presided over the convention called by that 
 body during which the Christian Commission was 
 founded. Of this he was also chosen chairman, as 
 already narrated. And that responsibility was his 
 through the harrowing days of the sixties, not 
 merely as a presiding genius, bat as a worker in 
 season and out of season. There was no i)recedent 
 to guide in the work. "We were hampered at 
 first," he wrote, "by the prevalent feeling that 
 sufficient agencies already existed for doing such a 
 work as we contemplated ; but this rapidly gave 
 [42] 
 
GEORGE H. STUART 
 
 way to the conviction that there was room for our 
 organization as well as for the national and state 
 organizations already in the field ; and, toward the 
 close of the war there was no organization which 
 had a stronger hold than ours." 
 
 The work had the hearty Indorsement of Presi- 
 dent Lincoln, of his officials, and of the generals of 
 the armies, ''and particularly," says Mr. Stuart, 
 ' ' that of General Grant, who on all occasions did 
 everything in his power to aid us in ministering to 
 the temjDoral and spiritual wants of our soldiers, 
 sometimes stretching his authority in our favor." 
 
 And what gifts came in for this work ! A poor 
 sewing woman, an American living in England, 
 sent a five-pound note to President Lincoln for 
 Bibles for the wounded soldiers of the North. He 
 asked John Hay, then one of his private secretaries, 
 to send the note to Mr. Stuart, who bought the 
 uote, but not until he had "sold it over and over 
 again, realizing from its repeated sale about a hun- 
 dred thousand dollars." 
 
 A friend in Pittsburgh telegraphed Mr. Stuart to 
 come there and bring a good speaker with him, 
 and promised an offering of five thousand dollars. 
 "!N'o," answered Stuart, "I can't travel seven 
 hundred miles for five thousand dollars, a sum 
 which I could get in five minutes in Philadelphia ; 
 but I will go for twenty thousand." Back came 
 the answer over the wire, "Come." On the night 
 of the meeting, when Mr. Stuart spoke for two 
 hours or more, and on the next morning, more than 
 forty-four thousand dollars were raised. 
 
 [43] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 Ou one occasion Mr. Stuart with three friends, 
 oue of whom was William E. Dodge, visited Camp 
 Convalesce Lit, about ten miles from Washington. 
 A meeting held there lasted until ten o'clock at 
 night. The party was obliged to leave for Wash- 
 ington, but the Colonel at first would not give them 
 the necessary countersign for passing the sentinels 
 on the way. However, he finally took Mr. Stuart 
 aside, and told him that the magic word was 
 Beverley. When about two miles from camp, the 
 carriage was stopped by a sentinel. Mr. Stuart, 
 stepping to the ground, advanced toward the senti- 
 nel, who with his gun pointed at the traveler, or- 
 dered him to halt, and give the countersign. He 
 gave it, "Beverley." 
 
 "Mr. Stuart,^' said the sentinel, "you have got 
 the wrong countersign." 
 
 " What is the right one ? " he asked. 
 
 "I dare not give it to you, under penalty of 
 death, and, had I not known your voice, I should 
 have shot you on the spot." 
 
 The party returned to camp, and found the gen- 
 eral in command, who gave them the right word, 
 "Massachusetts." When Mr. Stuart once more 
 came to the sentinel who had halted him, he in- 
 quired how the soldier had known his voice. The 
 man explained that some years before he had heard 
 him address a Sunday school in New York. Mr. 
 Stuart then put his hand on the sentinel's shoulder 
 and asked him if he had the countersign. * ' Thank 
 God, I have ! '' was the answer. 
 
 " What is it r ' asked Stuart. 
 [44 j 
 
GEORGE H. STUART 
 
 *' The blood of Jesus." 
 
 As they shook hands and bade each other good 
 night, Mr. Stuart said, *'With this countersign 
 there will be no danger of your being halted at the 
 gates of heaven." 
 
 Just before the fourth and last annual meeting of 
 the Commission, in the House of Eepresentatives, 
 the friends of the Commission called on President 
 Johnson, Secretaries Stanton and Seward, and the 
 other members of the Cabinet. During each call 
 the visitors held a brief prayer meeting. It had 
 been suggested to Mr. Stuart that this plan might 
 not be agreeable to President Johnson. But Stuart 
 thought this made prayer in this case '' all the more 
 needful," and he called upon a bishop to offer 
 prayer in Johnson's presence. There was no objec- 
 tion at all. "And having made this good begin- 
 ning, we went on as we began," says Mr. Stuart 
 with evident gratitude for this exi)erience. 
 
 The Commission during the war distributed in 
 money and goods $6,291,107, and directed the work 
 of 4,859 agents, most of them unpaid, and nearly 
 two hundred Christian women, serving at the front 
 in hospitals. And it distributed 1,466,748 Bibles 
 or Scripture portions, 8,603,434 books or pam- 
 phlets, 18,189,863 newspapers and magazines, and 
 30,368,998 pages of tracts. The chairman might 
 well count this service as the most far-reaching of 
 his life. 
 
 Mr. Stuart became one of General Grant's closest 
 friends. On one of his visits to the army he called 
 at General Grant's headquarters. When he was 
 [45] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 about to leave, he asked the General if there was 
 anything he could do for him in Philadelphia. 
 Grant asked him if he could find a furnished house 
 there for the Grant family. On the way to Philadel- 
 phia Mr. Stuart suggested to Stephen A. Colwell, 
 who was with him, that money might be raised to 
 buy Grant a house. Mr. Stuart called a meeting in 
 his counting room, and no difficulty was found in 
 raising more than forty thousand dollars for the 
 house and lot, and enough to furnish the house com- 
 fortably. At the close of the war Grant presented 
 Mr. Stuart with the log cabin in which he had spent 
 the last months of the war. And by invitation of 
 the City Council Mr. Stuart placed the cabin in 
 Fairmount Park. Grant appointed him a member 
 of the Board of Indian Commissioners upon which 
 Stuart rendered great service in helping to do away 
 with contract and supply abuses and scandals. On 
 account of poor health he was unable to accept the 
 invitation given by Grant to become a member of 
 his Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 When, iul879, Mr. Stuart's firm went into liquida- 
 tion, he lost his entire fortune, and he had to begin 
 again at sixty-three. Some of his friends arranged 
 to start a new bank, of which he was made presi- 
 dent, — the Merchants National. The stock was at 
 once oversubscribed. One capitalist who became a 
 director, contrary to his custom up to that time, said 
 that he was led to do this because of Mr. Stuart's 
 kindness to him when, as a boy, he used to call at 
 Stuart and Brothers on business for his emi^loyers. 
 
 In 1875 Mr. Stuart was the chairman of the Lay- 
 [46] 
 
GEORGE H. STUART 
 
 meu's Committee liaviDg charge of the business 
 matters lu couuectiou with the great Moody and 
 Sankey meetings in Philadeli)hia. John Wana- 
 maker had just bought the Pennsylvania Raihoad 
 freight depot at Thirteenth and Market Streets, and 
 he gave the use of this for the meetings. When 
 ready for the campaign, the building contained ten 
 thousand nine hundred and sixty chairs. Mr. Stuart 
 appreciated, as not all did, the need for arranging 
 accommodations on a large scale. Concerning these 
 preparations he wrote : 
 
 " While I was superintending the work of prep- 
 aration, on a cold day in October, the building 
 being unheated, one of our prominent ministers haj)- 
 pened to come in, and asked me how many seats 
 were being provided. When I told him fhe number 
 he expressed great astonishment, saying, ' Why, 
 Spurgeon could not fill these chairs on every week 
 night but Saturday ; and do you expect Moody to 
 fill themr I told him that I did. Shortly after- 
 wards this same minister said to a friend of mine, 
 after relating the circumstance referred to, that he 
 never before thought that I was a fit subject for an 
 insane asylum. While the doors were closed on a 
 cold winter night in January, and orders had been 
 given to allow no other persons to come in, the 
 house being crowded, this same minister knocked at 
 the door and had his card sent up to me on the plat- 
 form, with a request that I would have him let in, 
 which I did.'^ 
 
 In all his activities Mr. Stuart was moved by an 
 overpowering desire to serve. He was naturally 
 
 [47] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 very diffident, and, as his son George H. Stuart, Jr., 
 says, '' until the revival of 1857, he was almost 
 afraid to hear his own voice. '^ He was a very 
 methodical man, exact in every detail of business ; 
 and his two favorite mottoes were, " Occupy till I 
 come," and, "It is better to wear out than to rust 
 out." 
 
 He suffered severely from asthma, spending much 
 of his time toward the close of his life at the Clifton 
 Springs Sanitarium, New York, and there doing 
 much personal work for his Master. He was most 
 magnetic and winsome, with the ability to become 
 intimate on short acquaintance with men of all 
 walks of life. 
 
 " If he had subordinated his religious enthusiasm 
 to business opportunity," says his son, "he would 
 have been very wealthy." But Mr. Stuart, while an 
 able business man, put the business of the kingdom 
 ' first, and consequently much was added to the sum 
 total of his useful life. 
 
 A few days after his death in 1890, these lines 
 were found in a letter case, where he had placed 
 them : 
 
 " I live for those who love me, 
 
 For those who know me true, 
 For the heavens that bend above me, 
 
 And the good that I can do ; 
 For the cause that needs assistance, 
 For the wrongs that lack resistance, 
 For the future in the distance, 
 
 And the good that I can do." 
 
 Thesie lines sound the keynote of his life. 
 
 [48] 
 
IV 
 
 Stephen Paxson 
 
 Pioneer and Light- Giver 
 in the Middle West 
 
 A most satisfactory biography of this strikingly 
 courageous a?id original pio?ieer in the field of relig- 
 ious education is the volume by his daughter ^ Belle 
 Paxson Drury, " A Fruitful Life" 
 
ly 
 
 STEPHEN PAXSON 
 
 This is the story of a lame and stainmeriug boy of 
 the pioneer days in the Middle West, a boy whose 
 home was broken u^d by his father's death, and who 
 had no schooling aside from the toil of the farm and 
 a hatter's shop. 
 
 But this boy became so distinguished in the call- 
 ing to which he was devoted in his mature manhood 
 that he was in great demand as a speaker east and 
 west. Thousands remember him with unspeakable 
 gratitude because he was the first to give to them, 
 over the wide area of his travels, good books, and 
 the Sunday school. 
 
 Stephen Paxsou, born in New Lisbon, Ohio, 
 November 3, 1808, was the next to the youngest of 
 the seven childien of Joseph and Mary Lester Pax- 
 son. On the death of the father the mother was 
 obliged to find homes for the children among 
 strangers. Stephen was taken into the home of 
 Quaker folk, who agreed to send him to school three 
 months in the year. He was so nervous on his first 
 day in school that his stammering iDrevented him 
 from giving any of the information about himself 
 that the teacher asked, and he was impatiently sent 
 home to remain until he should learn to talk. That 
 
 [51] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 ended bis school days. He Lad, of course, no books, 
 and he was kept at farm work. 
 
 This was iuterrui^ted by a severe illness which 
 crij)X5led him for months, in helplessness and agony, 
 and made him lame for life. During this illness his 
 kindly mistress, EuphemiaFagan, read aloud to him 
 from the story of Oelar, a wandering Quaker 
 preacher, and the boy was so deeply impressed that 
 he determined some day to ''travel all over the 
 world " J but as he was ignorant and lame and un- 
 able to talk well, he was sure that he could not 
 "hope to be helpful to others like the good man iu 
 the story." 
 
 To add to the difficulties that faced this much- 
 distressed lad he became so lame that he could not 
 even do farm work, so he was apprenticed to a hat- 
 ter. He was called "stuttering Stephen." He 
 could speak only with difficulty, and he could not 
 read. But as he went home from work he would 
 get his comj)anions' help in learning the letters on 
 the street signs, until he could read the names. 
 This, and the study of old newspapers, enabled him 
 to learn to read. 
 
 But Stephen could sing. As he sang his stutter- 
 ing speech seemed freed from its bondage, and his 
 memory for words and music was quick and reten- 
 tive. 
 
 When he decided to strike out for himself, armed 
 with his trade, his cane, his cheery songs, frank ig- 
 norance, and seventeen cents, he walked to the Ohio, 
 started to work his passage down the river, and 
 thus set forth on his remarkable life i)ilgrimage. 
 [52] 
 
STEPHEN PAXSON 
 
 He went from state to state, working at his trade, 
 learning by asking questions and by observation, 
 and at twenty-one found himself in Tennessee. 
 There, on one occasion, he wanted to cross a stream. 
 The ferryman was absent, but he saw near the other 
 side a girl in a boat. He asked her help. She 
 gave it. They were interested in each other, and 
 they became better acquainted. It made no differ- 
 ence to Stephen that the girl was the daughter of a 
 man of i)rominence. In a few months he had won 
 her ; they were married October 18, 1830, and went 
 to live in Virginia. 
 
 The Paxsons went to Illinois in 1838, and in Win- 
 chester Stephen met with substantial success in his 
 trade. He was able to live comfortably, and pro- 
 vide educational advantages for his children. He 
 was a worldly man, a particularly good dancer, in 
 spite of his lame ankle, and he gave a fiddler a 
 yearly retainer so that he might have music when- 
 ever he pleased. He stood entirely aside from the 
 church, and was given over to worldly pursuits. As 
 in the case of many another man of that type whose 
 life course has been suddenly changed, he would 
 have scoffed at the idea that he would ever do such 
 work as that in which he became preeminent. But 
 in the providence of God, this man's vision of his 
 true place in the world came before long with over- 
 whelming clearness. 
 
 A few years before the Paxsons went to Illinois, 
 the American Sunday-School Union had resolved 
 to "establish a Sunday school in every destitute 
 place where it is practicable throughout the valley 
 
 [53] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 of the Mississippi." That led to the organizing of 
 11 Simday school at Winchester. In this school lit- 
 tle Mary Paxson was a pupil. She promised one day 
 to join with others in trying to bring one uewpapil, 
 but she could find no one among her playmates who 
 would go. She told her father of this, and said, 
 "Father, won't you go?" He did for her what 
 probably no one else could have persuaded him to 
 do, and to his amazement he was to take charge of 
 a class of boys whose teacher was absent. Of course 
 he was reluctant, protesting his ignorance. But the 
 boys themselves persuaded him. And then followed 
 this experience narrated by his biographer, which 
 was pivotal in Stephen Paxson 's life : 
 
 " He took his seat with them and the boys pro- 
 ceeded to read a chapter, helping their teacher to 
 IDronounce, whenever he came to a hard word in his 
 verse. 
 
 "After the chapter was read, he supposed that 
 was all there was to be done, and closed his book. 
 But his little teacher said, ' Mr. Paxson, you must 
 now ask us some questions on the. lesson.^ 
 
 ' ' He glanced over the chapter, and not perceiving 
 any questions there, he replied : * Boys, I guess 
 there are no questions in this chapter.' 
 
 ' ' ' Oh ! ' said Wesley Knox, who was spokesman 
 for the class, * you must go to the library and get a 
 book which will show you what questions to ask.' 
 
 " ' What do you call a library "? ' said Mr. Paxson. 
 
 "Wesley replied: 'Do you see that dry-goods 
 box nailed up in the corner? Well, that's the li- 
 brary.^ 
 
 [54] 
 
STEPHEN PAXSON 
 
 ''He went to it aud said, 'Mr. Librarian, have 
 you a book here that asks questions?' He was 
 giveu a 'Union Consecutive Question Book' and 
 returned to the class." 
 
 Even the simiDle use of this book was too much 
 for him, and when the class adjourned Mr. Paxson 
 realized more keenly than before how utterly ig- 
 norant he was. He was roused now to his own con- 
 dition, and he proposed the same lesson for the next 
 Sunday, so that he could study it thoroughly. And 
 this man, who did not even know what a library 
 was, lived to scatter Sunday-school libraries over 
 the pioneer regions of the Middle West, and to 
 point countless teachers and other workers to higher 
 ideals of preparation and service. 
 
 Everything became new for him now. He was 
 converted, and united with the Church. He began 
 to study. He attended the home school in the 
 mornings, and in the afternoons he was away in 
 other neighborhoods, starting new schools or bring- 
 ing old schools to life. Because of his ignorance 
 aud the inquiring state of mind he found among 
 Sunday-school workers, he began to hold mass- 
 meetings of neighboring schools, in which teach- 
 ers exchanged experiences. This led him to ar- 
 range for county conventions, and thus he was a 
 l^ioneer in the vast system of district, townshij^, 
 county and state conventions of which some seven- 
 teen thousand are now held annually in North 
 America. 
 
 Aud now, under his larger call to service, Paxson 
 believed that if he had been able to overcome his 
 
 [55] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 lameness so well as to excel in dancing, and walk 
 twenty miles a day even when blood oozed from his 
 ankle, he ought to be able to overcome his stam- 
 mering. He did discover how to do it, and he was 
 quickened more than ever to broader service. He 
 thought of the wilderness destitution, and he put 
 himself wholly in God's hands for guidance, in his 
 longing to give his whole time to meeting the need. 
 Some things that had seemed important to this 
 keen minded business man had faded away in the 
 light of the new vision. 
 
 In 1848 he was commissioned as a missionary by 
 the American Sunday -School Union, largely through 
 the influence of Dr. John Adams, from 1810 to 1833 
 principal of Phillips Andover Academy, and in 
 1833 active in religious work in Illinois. Paxsou 
 was to have a salary of one dollar a day for each 
 day he worked. Because this was not enough upon 
 which to live in the village, he moved to a piece of 
 wilderness land in Pike County, and built a log 
 cabin on Hickory Hill. From this place he trav- 
 eled with horse and buggy up and down the region 
 round about the new home, avoiding towns, and 
 reaching in destitute places the solitary and the un- 
 evangelized. 
 
 One horse of his, ''Eobert Eaikes," named for 
 the chief founder of the modern Sunday school, be- 
 came famous. '^Bob" took his master on his jour- 
 neyings about seventy-five thousand miles. Mr. 
 Paxson said, " that horse wouldn't go by a school- 
 house without having his driver get out and visit 
 it, any more than some horses would go by a county 
 
 [56] 
 
STEPHEN PAXSON 
 
 tavern without stopping ; and he would always slow 
 up when he saw a child by the roadside." 
 
 It was often hard for Stei^hen Paxson to impress 
 uj)on the pioneers of that country their own needs. 
 Sometimes in meetings he used to tell this story 
 with an effectiveness that may well be imagined : 
 
 "I met a boy on the road one day. I stopped 
 my horse and inquired of him the way to Mr. 
 Brown's house. The lad was walking, so I asked 
 him to get into my buggy and ride. As we jogged 
 along I asked him questions, as is always my cus- 
 tom, in the hope of awakening some interest in his 
 young mind for something above the sordid affairs 
 of time. I began by asking him his age. ' Four- 
 teen,' was the rej)ly. I then inquired if he could 
 tell me who died to save sinners. He responded 
 promptly : ' Nobody has died .for sinners in our 
 neighborhood ; leastways, if anybody has, I never 
 hearn tell of it. ' 
 
 ''I asked him if he would like to have a book 
 which would tell him all about who died to save 
 sinners. 
 
 ** ' Oh, yes ! ' was the response. ' I'd give a heap 
 for a book, for I've been wanting something besides 
 my old speller for a long time. ' 
 
 " ' How much would you give ? ' I inquired. 
 
 " He pulled out a handful of marbles and an old 
 knife from his pocket, saying : 
 All I've got, these 'ere.' 
 
 U i 
 
 " I explained to him that if he would attend the 
 Sunday school I was about to organize near his 
 home, he could get a new book to read every Sun- 
 
 [57] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 day, and for uothiDg. He was delighted at the 
 prospect, aud said that if his father would let him 
 off from fishing and hunting on that day, he would 
 come * certain.' " 
 
 When years had passed by, Mr. Paxson learned 
 the sequel. The ignorant boy was awakened to a 
 new life in that Sunday school, and was pursuing a 
 course of study in college preparatory to entering 
 the ministry. 
 
 The American Sunday-School Union, as time 
 went on, used to have Mr. Paxson spend his winters 
 in the East, telling the story of his work. The lame 
 and stammering boy of the earlier days was now a 
 man of rugged and commanding presence, eloquent, 
 forceful, welcome in the strongest churches, and in 
 whatever home was fortunate enough to have him 
 as a guest. 
 
 He was not without temptations to turn aside from 
 the specific task to which God had called him. One 
 who knew his familiarity with western lands offered 
 him fifty thousand dollars to invest, promising him 
 an equal share in the profits. Paxson did not accept 
 the offer. ''Years afterwards," his daughter has 
 said, " Mr. Paxson and his business friend comi)ared 
 notes. His friend had doubled the fifty thousand 
 dollars. Mr. Paxson drew his memorandum book, 
 pointed to the record that fifty thousand pupils had 
 been gathered into Sunday school up to that time, and 
 said, ' I would not alter the record or change the in- 
 vestment. ' ' ' 
 
 After thirty years of missionary travel Mr. Paxson 
 was given the less taxing position of head of the 
 
 [58] 
 
STEPHEN PAXSON 
 
 Book Depository of the American Suuday-ScLool 
 Union in St. Louis, and to that city lie moved in 
 1868. There he j^roved himself a thorough business 
 mau. Each day's business must be done within the 
 day. A left-over order he called a "cripple." 
 
 Still he attended conventions ; and he was always 
 an outstanding figure in such gatherings. Every- 
 body loved him. His daughter tells of the way he 
 got on with others when traveling. 
 
 '' It was interesting to see him enter a car full of 
 people, all demurely reading or perfectly silent, as if 
 afraid of some contamination if they touched or spoke 
 to each other. Before he had been present a quarter 
 of an hour, his keen eye had observed every face, 
 and he discovered this man whom he once met in 
 Maine, shook hands with that friend from Colorado, 
 and bowed to a lady whom he once made superin- 
 tendent of a Sunday school because no man could 
 be found to fill the office. He would introduce these 
 various people to one another, get them to take seats 
 together, open his satchel and distribute music 
 books to them, and to any straugers who would take 
 them. He would remember having seen some men 
 with musical instruments as he was passing through 
 another car, and, retiring a moment, he would re- 
 turn with them. He would then decide upon some 
 song all could sing, and the music and the singing 
 would begin. Spectators, somewhat surprised at 
 first at his proceedings, would naturally draw 
 nearer and join in. As new people came in at the 
 various stations, they would at first seat themselves 
 demurely and look on wonderingly ; then, catching 
 [59] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 the contagion of the good time the crowd were hav- 
 ing, they would soon be one with them. So, plung- 
 ing through the forest and sweeping over the plain, 
 the noise of the singing and laughing — for he would 
 sometimes tell a story between songs— mingled with 
 the rumble of the train and the shriek of the engine, 
 made the travelers feel the truth that * all the world 
 is kin.' '^ 
 
 Stephen Paxson's last letter was written to the 
 wife of a man whom he was urging to become a 
 Sunday-school missionary. He was already giving 
 by word and deed that "higher rating" to the 
 Sunday school still further given to it by men of 
 large affairs in our own day. He organized more 
 than thirteen hundred Sunday schools, with eighty- 
 three thousand pupils and teachers. Out of his 
 pioneer, far-reaching, and highly resultful service 
 this obedient and self-forgetting worker passed 
 quietly into the new country of his desire, and his 
 last words were " Eest, rest, rest ! " 
 
 The chairman of the first International Sunday- 
 School Convention, held in 1872 at Indianapolis, 
 said of him that which might rejoice the heart of any 
 man : " You will find a broad belt of light through 
 central lUnois and northern Missouri, caused by the 
 labors for forty years of the pioneer Sunday-school 
 missionary.'' 
 
 [60] 
 
John H. Converse 
 
 Builder of Locomotives and 
 Christian Enterprise 
 
 There is tiofull biography of Mr. Converse y but 
 his life offers ample material for a volume of endur- 
 ifig value. 
 
JOHN H. CONVERSE 
 
 If j^ou liad come unexpectedly into a committee 
 room where John H. Converse was presiding, you 
 would have thought him almost a visitor. Discus- 
 sion might be lively enough around the table, but 
 the quiet man at the head would seem to be merely 
 a listener, until the talk showed signs of wandering 
 from the point at issue, or until a decision needed to 
 be reached. Then you would hear him say just a 
 few words that resolved discussion, and brought 
 conclusions. 
 
 It was so when one called on him in his modest of- 
 fice in the huge Baldwin Locomotive Works in 
 Philadelphia, of which he was the head. Sometimes 
 he would stand for as much as a half hour at the rail 
 of the outer office talking with some one who was 
 likely to do most of the talking while Mr. Converse 
 listened, — and decided. Or, again, he would invite 
 the caller to an easy chair in the inner office, and sit 
 down near him like a man of leisure, genial and 
 kindly and attentive, yet not giving the impression 
 that he thought either had time to waste. If, how- 
 ever, the visitor brought to him inflated ideas, he 
 would puncture them so neatly that the listener 
 hardly realized what had happened, and if the ex- 
 pressed ideas were vague, whether the caller knew 
 
 [63] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 it at the beginning or not, he knew it when Mr. 
 Converse got through with him. 
 
 Mr. Converse was a man of medium height, of 
 fairly large frame, and with a face whose strong 
 lines and sober expression would take on an unfor- 
 getably kind and friendly look when he was drawn 
 into conversation. He was ordinarily reticent, but 
 most approachable, and lavish in his bestowal of 
 time and money. Governor Stuart of Pennsylvania 
 said of him, as indicating Mr. Converse's devotion to 
 good works, ' ' He not only gives his money, but he 
 is willing to shovel coal." 
 
 This sound-minded, generous- hearted man of 
 large affairs grew up with the vast railroad inter- 
 ests of America, and indeed of the world. He was 
 the fourth of the seven children of Rev. John Ken- 
 drick and Sarah Allen Converse, and was born in 
 Burlington, Vermont, December 2, 1840. He was 
 a public school boy, very independent in spirit, very 
 much alive to neighborhood doings, and even then 
 so much interested in railroads that he spent a good 
 deal of his time about the yards, and made a wooden 
 model locomotive for himself. He studied teleg- 
 raphy, too, and as a boy of fourteen was the operator 
 at Essex Junction, on what is now the Central Ver- 
 mont Eailway. 
 
 He entered the University of Vermont in 1857. 
 He worked during vacations, and while station 
 agent and operator he learned stenography. On an- 
 other vacation he served as a reporter for the State 
 Legislature. He took a high stand in scholarship, 
 but when elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he did not 
 [64] 
 
JOHN H. CONVERSE 
 
 join at once because he did not have the five dollars 
 for the pin. 
 
 Mr. Converse went into newspaper work after 
 graduating from college. During his three years' 
 connection with the Burlington Daily and Weekly 
 Times, his duties included telegraphing, news-gath- 
 ering, editorial writing and even the mechanical 
 work of printing the sheet. He was one of the 
 operators who could take telegraphic messages from 
 sound, without reading the characters on the tape. 
 
 When Converse was twenty-four, he was offered 
 the post of official reporter for the State of Vermont. 
 This work was in the line of his ability, and might 
 be a step toward larger public service. At the same 
 time, however, he was offered a position as clerk in 
 the office of Dr. Edward H. Williams, Superintend- 
 ent of the Galena Division of the Chicago and 
 Northwestern Eailroad, to whose notice he had been 
 brought through a college friend. The salary was 
 less than in the state office, but young Converse felt 
 that the railroad call was his chance for larger serv- 
 ice, and he accepted it. It was a pivotal decision, 
 for it introduced him at once to men and enterprises 
 that shaped his business future, and to one man who 
 set before him, as early as the sixties, evangelistic 
 ideals that Mr. Converse was able to carry out and 
 endow on a large scale forty years later. D. L. 
 Moody was conducting services in a passenger car 
 in the Chicago Eailroad yards, and the young rail- 
 road man saw much of him. 
 
 In the two years spent in Chicago Mr. Converse 
 had great responsibility. He was Doctor Williams' 
 
 [65] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 right-hand man in everything. For some time he 
 was his only clerk. He lived aud worked among 
 the fundamentals of railroading at a time of great 
 expansion in properties and in the very intricate re- 
 lations among the various roads. He was prepar- 
 ing for yet larger service, and was in contact with 
 men of enterprise and vision. 
 
 At the opening of the Civil War, Thomas A. 
 Scott was the General Manager of the Pennsylvania 
 Eailroad. He was appointed Quartermaster General 
 of Transportation. In that of&ce he gained new views 
 of the tremendous possibilities of the American rail- 
 road, and persuaded President Thompson of the 
 Pennsylvania to let him seek the biggest available 
 railroad man and put him in charge of the operat- 
 ing departments. Scott went west into the heart of 
 the newer railroad country, and there selected Doctor 
 Williams as the man he wanted, and brought him to 
 Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1866. John Converse 
 came with him. 
 
 A few years later the Pennsylvania had a great 
 strike to contend with, the burden of which rested 
 so heavily upon Doctor Williams that his health was 
 somewhat broken. In 1870 he bought an interest in 
 the Baldwin Locomotive Works, sending Mr. Con- 
 verse on ahead of him as his representative until he 
 should himself appear on the scene of action. And 
 Converse very early started in to modernize the con- 
 duct of the concern's business. He introduced 
 office methods then radical in their newness, though 
 now considered essentials of good business. 
 
 Up to that time there were no specifications for 
 [66] 
 
JOHN H. CONVERSE 
 
 the buildiDg of the firm's locomotives. Au inquiry 
 would come from a road for a locomotive of a cer- 
 tain type, and a i^rice would be given by a personal 
 band- written letter from one of the firm. When the 
 order was received, it was filled on the basis of the 
 price and purely general description of the type and 
 size desired. Mr. Converse was instrumental in 
 changing this method to the careful specification 
 plan. He became a member of the firm in 1873. 
 
 The hard work of the partner counted. In 1866, 
 when Matthias W. Baldwin died, the works were 
 turning out one hundred and eighteen locomotives a 
 year. Mr. Converse lived to seethe production rise 
 to two thousand a year. 
 
 Mr. Converse was always a hard worker, even in 
 the days of changing health and growing wealth. 
 When, during the last twenty years of his life, he 
 was relieved of the most of his office work, lie spent 
 himself more freely than ever in religious enter- 
 prises, and in civic causes. 
 
 It was his habit to leave his suburban home at 
 Eosemont in time to reach his office at eight ; then 
 he worked until the late afternoon hours. He laid 
 great responsibility upon his younger coworkers. 
 In 1890 he was about to take his first trip to Europe. 
 As the day of sailing drew near, his partner. Alba 
 B. Johnson, expectantly awaited some final instruc- 
 tions from his senior. Bat the routine went on quite 
 as usual. On the afternoon before he was to leave 
 Philadelphia, Mr. Converse was at the works until 
 late, and at six o'clock he left the office, simply say- 
 ing good- by to those about him. During his ab- 
 
 [67] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 sence he sent no directions as to the commercial 
 operation of the great establishment. That was Mr. 
 Converse's way with men upon whom he relied. 
 Others he would not have around him. 
 
 It was so in details also. When Mr. Johnson was 
 his clerk and right hand in all sorts of details, Mr. 
 Converse would go over the daily mail with him. 
 He would mark ''yes'' or "no" on the letters, 
 hand them over to his helper, and then the clerk 
 would clean that mail up within the day ; and it 
 would include a great variety of matters having to 
 do with orders, sales, negotiations, specifications, 
 et cetera. It was left to Mr. Johnson to prepare 
 nearly all the answers. That was great training for 
 the younger man, and it showed how Mr. Converse 
 himself had learned the art of executive manage- 
 ment by his own early and later experiences. 
 
 It was this far-sighted and whole-hearted reliance 
 upon men in training that as much as any other one 
 habit of mind gave to Mr. Converse time for Chris- 
 tian work outside his office. He did not worry. 
 His faith was not a mere theory to be preached in 
 words, but a practical matter to be applied to daily 
 living. He concentrated upon the task in hand, 
 and did not take on the needless burdens of an un- 
 seen future. His whole nature turned with increas- 
 ing zeal to Christian service of many kinds, but 
 most of all to the work of evangelism. Individual 
 soul-winning engaged him far more than most of 
 those associated with him in organized work could 
 realize. 
 
 One day he telephoned to Henry Clay Trumbull, 
 [68] 
 
JOHN H. CONVERSE 
 
 then a shut-in, to inquire if he might bring to call 
 upon him a man whom Mr. Converse was trying to 
 lead to Christ. He thought that perhaps Doctor 
 Trumbull might be able to add something to what 
 had already been said. Accordingly, he drove in a 
 carriage to Doctor Trumbull's home, with the man 
 in whom both were now interested, and the three 
 had the interview that the man of large business 
 did not count too small to occupy his time. 
 
 In April, 1898, D. L. Moody was not very far 
 from the close of his earthly life, and John H. 
 Converse was giving time lavishly and money in 
 large sums to the work of the kingdom. At the 
 April meeting of the Presbyterian Social Union 
 in Philadelphia, Mr. Moody was the speaker, and 
 Mr. Converse was present. Mr. Johnson thus de- 
 scribes that occasion : 
 
 *'Mr. Moody took for his subject the mistakes 
 which had been made by him during his evangel- 
 istic work, and especially his failure to create a 
 permanent evangelistic committee to perpetuate the 
 revival work which, with Ira D. Sankey, he had 
 carried on in Philadelphia during the winter of 
 1875-1876. GrowiDg eloquent with his subject, he 
 challenged the churches of Philadelphia to take up 
 this work and retrieve the errors of his earlier ex- 
 perience. He declared that the churches of Phila- 
 delphia should raise a million dollars annually for 
 evangelistic work. At the close of his address 
 there was no other speaker arranged to follow him, 
 and Mr. Converse moved that the subject be re- 
 ferred to a committee. Mr. Converse was appointed 
 
 [69] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 cbiiirmau of this committee, and believiDg that the 
 work should not at the outset be hampered for 
 funds, he contributed twenty-five thousand dollars 
 annually, for three years, to establish it upon a firm 
 basis. This was the beginning of summer evan- 
 gelistic services in Philadelphia, which have since 
 been continuously maintained. The subject of 
 evangelism was then brought before the Geneial 
 Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. The local 
 work having been entrusted to a committee charged 
 with the duty of raising the funds for its continu- 
 ance, Mr. Converse assumed the burden of national 
 evangelism. As this great work expanded, his in- 
 terest in it increased. He placed J. Wilbur Chap- 
 man, D. D., with competent assistants, in charge, 
 who, after holding meetings with great success in 
 different parts of America, carried the work to 
 Australia, the Philippines, China, Korea, Japan, 
 Canada, England and Wales. 
 
 " Mr. Converse's enthusiasm in carrying the gos- 
 pel to every creature was so great, that during his 
 lifetime he created a trust fund of two hundred 
 thousand dollars, the income of which was to be 
 used to conduct the work during his lifetime and 
 guarantee its continuance after his death." 
 
 The story is told of one of the numberless bene- 
 factions of Mr. Converse which might not pass the 
 censorship of regulated charities, but which never- 
 theless warms the heart. A man, evidently a ha- 
 bitual drunkard, used to call quite often to see Mr. 
 Converse, and invariably would receive money from 
 him. During a somewhat prolonged absence of Mr. 
 [70] 
 
JOHN H. CONVERSE 
 
 Converse, it fell to Mr. Johnson's lot to care for 
 this dependent. He persuaded the man to take a 
 cure for the drink habit, sent him to the institution 
 at his own expense, and was rejoiced to find the man 
 restored to sane living once more. But it was not long 
 before he appeared again in the old condition, and 
 Mr. Johnson decided he ought not to give him any 
 more money. When Mr. Converse returned, the 
 man resumed his visits, with the usual result. 
 
 ''Mr. Converse," asked Mr. Johnson one day, 
 "I wish you would tell me just why you keep on 
 giving money to that man, when he is so obviously 
 unworthy ? " 
 
 " Come inside," said Mr. Converse. They passed 
 into the inner private office. Turning to his ques- 
 tioner the older man said with an earnestness not to 
 be forgotten : 
 
 *' Mr. Johnson, when I think of God's mercy to 
 me, in spite of all my faults, I cannot withhold the 
 little that I can do." 
 
 Nothing more was said on that subject. 
 
 Even Mr. Converse's large gifts seemed to him 
 inadequate. One day toward the close of his life 
 when he was at lunch with Mr. Johnson, he was 
 asked what form of giving he favored most. Mr. 
 Converse thought his friend referred to methods of 
 giving, and replied : 
 
 "Many men give a tenth of their income, and 
 feel that that amount has been established by Scrip- 
 ture and by custom among Christians ; but the 
 mercies which my heavenly Father has bestowed 
 upon me have been such as to make me feel that a 
 [71] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 tenth would not begin to requite him. In the last 
 few years I have been giving away from two-thirds 
 to three-fourths of my income." 
 
 His friend and partner already knew that in one 
 of these years when business conditions prevented 
 the Works from making a profit, these gifts 
 amounted to about six hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 It is well to know the factors that entered into 
 the success of a man like John H. Converse, as re- 
 vealed in his habits and achievements. He was a 
 worker. He was an executive. He was a man of 
 methodical habits, sound sense, and conservative 
 views. He had no desire for ostentation. It was a 
 long while before he would buy an automobile, 
 even when the machines had become comparatively 
 common. He was as faithful and as thorough in 
 keeping the Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the 
 Presbyterian Hospital as he was in the big affairs of 
 the Works. 
 
 After he was fifty years old he learned to play the 
 violin, and others of his family learned other instru- 
 ments. On Thursday evenings it was his habit to 
 use the services of two professional musicians, who 
 would lead him and his family in concert music. 
 And this man of simple tastes and large affairs 
 gathered in his home, ^^Chetwynd," a collection of 
 fine paintings notable for its distinctive examples of 
 the works of modern masters. 
 
 The range of his interests included the directorate 
 
 of several banks ; societies devoted to the arts and 
 
 sciences ; educational institutions ; the official boards 
 
 of his home church at Bryn Mawr, and of Calvary 
 
 [72] 
 
JOHN H. CONVERSE 
 
 Church in Philadelphia ; the Bible class that he 
 taught ; and the world-wide evangelistic work that 
 he organized and endowed. 
 
 Heavy sorrows came to Mr. Converse in his clos- 
 ing years, but he did not abate his zeal for Christ's 
 kiugdom. The sudden death of his wife in 1906 
 was a severe shock to him. In the same year the 
 failure of a bank in which he was a director, through 
 the dealings of one who was widely trusted, bore 
 upon him heavily both on account of the nature of 
 the case and the obligations that he with others 
 chose to assume to guard stockholders against any 
 loss. 
 
 Underneath all the urgency of spirit and competent 
 grasp of practical affairs that marked Mr. Converse 
 so distinctively was a very simple and humble 
 Christian faith. Mr. Johnson has told thus of one 
 occasion on which he came to his older friend with a 
 very real spiritual problem : 
 
 ' ' Some years ago, when much concerned with 
 respect to certain religious problems, I read in a 
 nominally religious, but actually agnostic, maga- 
 zine various articles discrediting theological beliefs 
 which I had always held sacred. At last, one of 
 these appeared so convincing in its logic aud so 
 damaging in its effect, that it seemed to sweep away 
 the foundations of my religious belief. I brought 
 the periodical to Mr. Converse and asked him to 
 read it and tell me what he thought of it. He read 
 it through carefully, and then stated that it did not 
 shake his faith nor cause him anxiety, because it 
 did not alter the fundamental fact upon which his 
 
 [73] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 faith iu Jesus Christ was based, namely, that Jesus 
 came iuto the world to save the i3eople from their 
 sius, aud that do other religion ever had or ever 
 could save from sin. The influence of his simple, 
 impregnable faith exercised a powerful effect upon 
 me, as it has done upon many others." 
 
 Perhaps nothing can reveal the inner life of Mr. 
 Converse more clearly, or better define the dynamic 
 that accounts for his noble service in business and 
 in religious work, than a letter that he wrote in re- 
 sponse to a request for a statement on the subject, 
 " Why I am a Christian '' : 
 
 *' By the grace of God, I try to be a Christian be- 
 cause I am conscious of my own natural siufuluess 
 and selfishness, and find in Jesus only my hope of 
 salvation from my sins and from the punishment 
 due to them. 
 
 ' ' I am a Christian because the life and teachings 
 of Christ impress me as the most sublime and perfect 
 system of truth ever revealed to man. Surely ' no 
 man ever spake like this man.' No human philos- 
 ophy can so satisfy the soul. 
 
 " I am a Christian because Christ has revealed to 
 me the love of God, and I feel that I may trust him 
 implicitly to care for me and protect me. ' His ways 
 are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are 
 peace. ' 
 
 '' And finally I am a Christian because I feel that 
 the only true way of happiness and peace, both for 
 this life and the life which is to come, lies in follow- 
 ing, as nearly as may be, in the footsteps of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 [74] 
 
JOHN H. CONVERSE 
 
 Is Dot this a disclosure of the real heart of a man 
 who to a remarkable degree was enabled of God 
 to join business and religion in a working partner- 
 ship ? 
 
 [75] 
 
VI 
 
 John S. Huyler 
 
 Friend of the Outcast 
 
 2'he story of this abounding life is found chiefly in 
 privately printed volume y '* In Memory of John 
 S. Huyler." 
 
 a 
 
VI 
 JOHN S- HUYLER 
 
 There is far more iu a box of ' ' Huyler's ' ' than 
 fine coufectiouery. 
 
 Thousands of waifs and strays, thousands of re- 
 deemed and renewed men and women, thousands of 
 youDg men of education in all walks of life would 
 see beneath that widely advertised name what the 
 unknowing world cannot ; for literally thousands, 
 more, indeed, than can be numbered, have cause to 
 be grateful to the man behind the product, to the 
 man who used his great business as an instrument to 
 be placed at God's disposal for use in uplifting and 
 caring for others. 
 
 John S. Huyler was born in New York City, 
 June 28, 1846. His father was a successful baker 
 and confectioner. John was educated in the public 
 schools, and then assisted his father. But he had 
 such enterprise and business vision that he soon be- 
 gan to work out ideas that proved to be highly suc- 
 cessful. '' Huyler's Taif3^, Fresh Every Hour " was 
 the beginning of his large confectioner^^ business, 
 with its sixty stores, and widely scattered agencies 
 the world over. In 1881 the business was incor- 
 porated, with the father, David Huyler, as presi- 
 dent, and, uj)on his father's death in 1885, John S. 
 [79] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 Hayler succeeded liim iu the presideucj^ of the 
 Company. 
 
 His call to Christian service did not come to him, 
 or at least was not recognized by him, iu the begin- 
 ning of his career, but it came in time for him to put 
 into liberal practice the conviction that became a part 
 of his very being. On the closing night of the year 
 1886 Mr. Huyler had planned to meet some of his 
 friends at midnight, to see the old year out and the 
 new year in. The celebration was to be not unlike 
 those with which the down-town life of big cities is 
 familiar to-day. 
 
 On his way to meet his friends Mr. Huyler hap- 
 pened to think of a check he had received that very 
 day. He had not even glanced at the amount. He 
 had simply thrust it into his pocket, with his mind 
 on the evening's i^lau. But now, under a gaslight 
 in the street, he pulled out that piece of paper which 
 represented his share of the Huyler profits for the 
 year. The figures sur^^rised him. They were very 
 much more than he had supposed ; they were so 
 large, in fact, that the responsibility for the use of 
 such a sum flashed upon him with startling effect. 
 He had reached the real turning point of his life. 
 In telling of the occasion he said, ^' I realized that I 
 must do one of two things, either give up the care- 
 less way in which I had been using my money, or 
 else God only knew what the result would be, with 
 so much money at my disposal." 
 
 As he stood there with the check in his hand, 
 deeply impressed with the new view of his life that 
 had so suddenly come to him, he remembered that In 
 [80] 
 
JOHN S. HUYLER 
 
 the small hall where what is now the great Calvary 
 Methodist Church began its work, a watch meeting 
 was in progress. Turning resolutely from his down- 
 town eDgagement, he went instead to the watch 
 meeting. That decision was fraught with blessing 
 for him, and for the world. Huyler found his 
 mother kneeling at the altar as he entered, and with- 
 out a word from anyone, he went forward, and 
 knelt beside her. There, in that watch meetiDg, he 
 was face to face with reality, and this was the be- 
 ginning of new things in the life of this able and 
 warm-hearted man. 
 
 It was only a few months after this that he was in 
 Paris. One night, in the midst of the gayety of the 
 boulevards, he faced, as an observer, another crisis, 
 and then and there he came to his final determina- 
 tion to turn from the world's allurements, and to give 
 himself unreservedly to God's service. 
 
 That decision put Mr. Huyler' s business at God's 
 disposal. It was a prosperous business. Mr. Huy- 
 ler was alert and energetic in his methods, a money- 
 maker by natural talent and by training. As his 
 wealth increased, and his interests widened, he said 
 to his secretary concerning his gifts to various 
 causes : " Hereafter, please put on every check, and 
 write it large, 'M. P. Account.' The money I give 
 belongs to My Partner who loved me and gave him- 
 self for me. I am simply his agent in passing it out 
 to the people." 
 
 His money did not come from the grudging toil 
 of unhappy and slaving workers, but from cheery 
 cooperation of employees who well knew his friend- 
 
 [81] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 ship for them. One of his saleswomen wrote : ' ' He 
 was never too busy to have a cheery ' Good-morning ' 
 and a kind and encouraging word for the humblest 
 of his people. It was his custom to give his girls 
 two weeks' vacation with pay every year, a turkey 
 at Thanksgiving time, and at Christmas a week's 
 salary, and a two-pound box of candy. He offered 
 to all membership in the Young Women's Christian 
 Association and the privilege of taking music or any 
 other course they desired, free of expense to them. ' ' 
 And one of his men has said : '' His heart was al- 
 ways ready to help. But back of all the money help 
 was the question. Could he help that man's soul? 
 Every now and then he would come around and say, 
 '■ Well, John, how is the family, how are the wife 
 and the little children ? ' Then the next question 
 would be, ^ How close are you to Jesus 1 ' " 
 
 As his means increased, Mr. Huyler traveled 
 widely. He would go into the Maine woods for a 
 vacation, and there become interested in the personal 
 life of his wilderness guide. When in London, he 
 would seek out a missionary working among the 
 very poor, and insist on sharing his experiences 
 with him. It was not the scenery or the sights that 
 seemed to have greatest hold upon him ; it was the 
 people whom he could meet and encourage, and 
 perhaps surprise into unexpected happiness by his 
 help. As one who knew him said : 
 
 "When he saw the multitudes, he had compas- 
 sion upon them. He felt as Christ felt. You have 
 walked with him, have you not ? on the stieets of 
 Paris, or London, or New York, keen in the repartee 
 [82] 
 
JOHN S. HUYLER 
 
 of some gay theme or serious in the consideratiou of 
 some i^lau of ui)liftj aud in the very climax of 
 amusement, in mid-sentence of discussion his atten- 
 tion would be drawn — where? You followed the 
 gaze of his fine, kind eyes and found a limping dog, 
 a stalled horse, a beggar, an old woman of the street 
 loud with the flushed gayety which tells of a soiled 
 life and a broken heart, a navvy sweating in a 
 trench, a street vender crying his wares, a newsboy 
 trying to work off his last papers for the night. To 
 him the folk were weary and worn, as sheep having 
 no shepherd. He saw them blind, lame, halt, starv- 
 ing, broken-hearted, as Christ saw them. This 
 made him a chevalier in benevolence, a knight of 
 Jesus for the protection of the helpless and the res- 
 cue of the unfortunate. ' ' 
 
 Upon one occasion he said to Bishop Burt, "I 
 had so much fun the last time I was in Turin." 
 And this was the fun. He was stopping in a 
 prominent hotel near the river. One day he saw 
 the women washing clothes at the river edge. To 
 him they seemed overworked and underfed. He 
 went back to his hotel, ordered a large table set on 
 the terrace, explaining that he wanted to have some 
 of his friends at dinner. When the table was ready, 
 Mr. Huyler himself went down and invited the 
 women to dine. To their appearance on the terrace 
 the waiter at the table strougly objected. The host 
 relieved him by sayiug . "These are my friends ; I 
 will pay the bill." And the women eujoyed their 
 dinner, but not more than Mr. Huyler did the scene. 
 
 Nowhere was Mr. Huyler more at home and more 
 
 [83] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 loved, outside of bis owu Lome, than iu mission 
 work amoug the most Ibrloru men the streets could 
 furoish. His first visit to the famous McAuley 
 Mission in Water Street, to which for years he de- 
 voted so much time and money, is described by 
 John H. Wyburu, the successor of Samuel H. Had- 
 ley in charge of that work : 
 
 "I was present the first night Mr. Huyler ever 
 came down to the Water Street Mission, many years 
 ago, and I shall never forget it as loug as I live. 
 Dr. Louis Klopsch, the proprietor of The Christian 
 Herald, had for a year been paying for the free sup- 
 pers which for many years have been given to this 
 Mission, and Mr. Hadley was telliug the boys that 
 that would be the last supper night. Then Mr. 
 Huyler stepped in, and offered to take the place 
 that Doctor Klopsch had occupied for a year. Mr. 
 Hadley then called upon him to pray, and, as you 
 know, he was never much of a public speaker, 
 never said very much when he came down here, 
 although his presence was a benediction to all of us. 
 Lookiug up, he said, ^I feel that I need your 
 prayers just as much as the men who are gathered 
 forward at the mercy seat,' and added, 'I want you 
 to pray for me now.' It seemed to me that Mr. 
 Huyler went away from this room with more joy 
 and peace and gladness in his heart and in his life 
 than anything else could have brought." 
 
 Again, another noted mission worker, John Cal- 
 lahan, tells of Mr. Huyler's generous thoughtfulness 
 for those in need : ''I^othing did him more good 
 than to see the poor men gathered together, partak- 
 
 [84] 
 
JOHN S. HUYLER 
 
 iug of that big corned-beef sandwich and hot cup of 
 coffee, and I used to look at liini, where he couldn't 
 see me, and I used to watch his face as they ate ; 
 aud it just delighted him to see them eat, those five 
 hundred men on Saturday nights." 
 
 Nearly fifty thousand men each year were fed by 
 this generous almoner of God's bounty, in the Had- 
 ley Eescue Hall, and about twenty thousand were 
 given comfortable lodgings by him. His friends at 
 the Mission usually knew whose voice they would 
 hear at the other end of the telephone when a call 
 would come on a bad winter's night. 
 
 ''Is that you. Brother John?" the voice would 
 inquire. 
 • "Yes, sir." 
 
 ''Pretty cold night, to-night, John. Got many 
 in the laall to-night 1" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Put every poor man to bed to-night." 
 
 From a window in his comfortable home Mr. 
 Huyler had looked out into the night, saying to 
 one who was near him : 
 
 "This is a bad night for the boys on the street. 
 What will the poor fellows do who have no place 
 to sleep to-night '^^ 
 
 Then the telephone call, and beds for perhaips as 
 many as two hundred wanderers. 
 
 But his ministry was not at the arm's length of 
 the telej)hone in remoteness from the conditions he 
 tried to ameliorate. He was often at the Mission. 
 He entered into the problems and needs of others, 
 keenly feeling their burdens. One who was in- 
 [85] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 volved in serious business troubles asked his coun- 
 sel. Mr. Huyler left bis office, went to Troy, New 
 York, with this man to help him straighten out his 
 tangle, and slept with him in the same bed in an 
 unheated room during a cold night. In that room, 
 before retiring, Mr. Huyler went down upon his 
 knees in prayer asking God to solve the problem. 
 To the man's relief and amazement, the matter was 
 settled readily in conference the next day. 
 
 With all his interest in the bodily welfare of men, 
 it is significant to note that John S. Huyler had a 
 motive that flowed like the mid-current of the 
 stream through all his uplift work. To one of his 
 friends he said : ^' What interests me, more than 
 material comforts, is that these men shall learn 
 about Jesus Christ. When they are hungry they 
 need food ; if they have no clothing, they need that 
 clothing ; if they haven't a bed, they need that bed ; 
 but that is not what they really need. We give 
 them that because that is a material necessity ; but 
 what they really need is to have those bodies really 
 become temples of the Holy Ghost ; what they need 
 is to have a new motive, a new aspiration, a new 
 aim." "And that is why," said his friend, "he 
 liked Water Street and the 'Christian Alliance, and 
 other interests dear to his heart, because while these 
 institutions recognized that the souls they were try- 
 ing to save were in bodies that needed attention, it 
 was the souls first of all that were their geiiuiue 
 concern, and this was also the first concern of this 
 godly man." 
 
 That motive will lead any man who follows it out 
 [86] 
 
JOHN S. HUYLER 
 
 into beneficent excursions in the field of hnuuiu life 
 wherever found, and will inspire the most extra- 
 ordinary activity in service. Men could not under- 
 stand how Mr. Huyler could find time for all that 
 he did. He was either president, vice president, 
 director or trustee of no less than seventeen chari- 
 table or educational institutions, a member in nearly 
 fifty societies, and a member of eighteen clubs — all 
 outside of his business interests. And night after 
 night would find him engaged in mission work, 
 while his secretary says that in a single year seven- 
 teen thousand persons passed his desk to ask Mr. 
 Huyler for aid of some kind. It is known, too, 
 that in the last ten years of his life Mr. Huyler gave 
 away an average of a thousand dollars a day to the 
 multitude of objects that claimed his interest. The 
 index of his benevolence ledger might be taken al- 
 most as a directory of the principal charities known 
 to givers of his day, and more than that, for it con- 
 tains very many names of pensioners and others 
 quite unknown to the world. 
 
 Mr. Huyler's heart seemed to be set upon improv- 
 ing everything he touched. He would observe the 
 crude product in any form and then study to make 
 it over into perfection in its sphere. So character- 
 istic was this habit of mind that he applied it to 
 himself just as much as to anyone else, in his own 
 growth in efficiency. He had one novel method for 
 doing this, wiiich explains the numerous long mirrors 
 in his offices. In his interviews with others he would 
 sit where he could see his visitor and himself in a 
 mirror, and he would study closely, in this objective 
 [87] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 way, the impression his words were making, his 
 bearing as he talked, and his visitor's response in 
 outward signs. He did this not to enjoy the scene, 
 but to perfect himself in the iSne points of mastery 
 and effectiveness in conversation. 
 
 So educative had he found this method that he 
 tried it on a visitor one day for quite another pur- 
 pose. An old acquaintance, who had been drinking, 
 and showed it, called to see him. There were others 
 in the office when the man was admitted to see Mr. 
 Huyler. But that made no difference to this very 
 practical philanthropist. He greeted the man cor- 
 dially, and asked him to be seated. 
 
 ^^Now," cried Mr. Huyler, '^just look at your- 
 self!" To the man's dismay he was face to face 
 with himself in a big mirror. "What do you think 
 of yourself? What sort of condition is that for a 
 man to be in ? " 
 
 The visitor took a good look, and then broke 
 down completely. 
 
 This man of many affairs gave himself without 
 stint to improve the human product all around him. 
 When he would leave his busy office for home he 
 would walk a part or the whole of the way, and 
 needy men lay in wait for him, knowing his habits. 
 He did not dodge, he did not change his habits. 
 He would walk and talk with these men, sometimes 
 giving them tickets good at the Water Street Mis- 
 sion, sometimes money, and, perhaps best of all, 
 sound counsel that would lead them out of their dis- 
 tresses. Sometimes he would stop at a store window, 
 just to lead some poor fellow to speak to him, and 
 [88] 
 
JOHN S. HUYLER 
 
 then, haudiiig bim money, he would say in his 
 kindly way, '' That's God's money ; will you use it 
 carefully 1 " Men sometimes refused to receive the 
 money on those terms. 
 
 It was so at the beginning of his day as well as at 
 the ending. When he would leave his home, to 
 walk to his office, he would soon be joined by some 
 one who needed help. And all day long men would 
 be calling at his house for Water Street tickets good 
 for a meal or a bed. Some in the family thought it 
 would be better to have a regular hour for ticket dis- 
 tribution there, so the hour of five to six in the after- 
 noon was set. Within a few days, it was found that 
 about seventy-five men would gather at that time, a 
 crowd quiet and orderly indeed, but not so readily 
 helped as on the all -day plan, to which a return was 
 speedily made. 
 
 When Mr. Huyler died at his summer home at 
 Eye, XewYork, on October 1, 1910, he had given 
 far more than money to the needy and the sinning 
 and the downtrodden. He had added one more to 
 that list of able and highly successful men of busi- 
 ness whose radiant spiritual life and unstinted serv- 
 ice for others utterly confutes the pessimist who holds 
 that business and religion do not mix. They do. 
 And the combination is one well worth learning. 
 
 [89] 
 
VII 
 
 David D. Wood 
 
 The Blind Mtisician 
 and Teacher 
 
 His full biography has never been written y but 
 his life is written in his music, and in the achieve- 
 ments of the blind and the seei?ig whom he trained. 
 
YII 
 DAVID a WOOD 
 
 On an October day in the year 1843, a canal boat 
 drew away from its moorings in Pittsburgh, Penn- 
 sylvania. On the deck a five-year-old boy was cry- 
 ing bitterly. His mother stood on the bank bravely 
 bidding him good-by, but he could not see her. 
 He could only stretch out his pleading hands to her, 
 for David Wood had been blind since he was two- 
 and-a-half years old, and the thought of his journey 
 away to school, in far-off Philadelphia, seemed more 
 than he could bear. 
 
 When he reached the school. The Pennsylvania 
 Institute for the Blind, he was more lonely than 
 those of us who have sight could iDOssibly be. More 
 than fifty years later, when the institution was about 
 to move into new quarters in Overbrook, he visited 
 the room in which he slept on that first night. 
 " The same old Venetian window blinds," he wrote, 
 "the tassels of which I reached out of bed and 
 played with, were still there. How dismal that first 
 night was ! Fancy a poor, dejected boy, far from 
 all that was dearest to him on earth, with no voices 
 save those of strangers, and no sounds of any kind 
 that were at all familiar, lying awake and count- 
 ing the hours as the watchman called them out 
 [93] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 in his melancholy tone. Was it any wonder I lay 
 there and cried until I thought my heart would 
 break ? " 
 
 While he was still a small boy, he was given 
 various musical instruments to try, and in the school 
 orchestra he played upon the flute. He began to 
 play the organ when he was twelve, but he took up 
 the serious study of it at fourteen. At fifteen, he 
 was an assistant teacher of music in the school ; be- 
 fore he reached the advanced age of eighteen, he 
 had won a prize for musical composition, and he 
 was not yet nineteen when he went out from the 
 school to take his part in the world of music. 
 James G. Blaine, who was chief teacher in the 
 school from 1852 to 1856, is said to have remarked 
 to George W. Childs, then owner of the Public 
 Ledger : '' If David Wood, the famous oi'ganist, had 
 turned his attention to science, he would have been 
 the greatest mathematician of the age. However, 
 there is compensation in the thought that what 
 science lost, music gained." And in this many a 
 student would agree with Mr. Blaine, because of 
 the world of interest and service opened out to him 
 by this rare teacher. 
 
 What obstacles David Wood had to overcome, 
 only the blind can know. In strong Christian 
 faith, aud with buoyant courage he reached out into 
 the difficult field of his life work. Some of his 
 early struggles for a livelihood showed the stuff of 
 which he was made. One of his pupils writes : 
 "So ambitious was he to become established 
 in his i)rofession that he hesitated to undertake 
 [94] 
 
DAVID D. WOOD 
 
 nothiug in the line of teacliiug. Upon one oc- 
 casion, a young lady applied to him for lessons 
 on the accordion. Now the art of drawing forth 
 sweet strains from that melodious instrument was 
 not one of Mr. Wood's accomplishments, but he 
 agreed to give the lessons desired,— tactfully borrow- 
 ing the book of instructions from his prospective 
 pupil. In the interim between the day of making 
 the arrangements and that of the first lesson, he had 
 mastered the art of accordion-playing, which he 
 transmitted to his pupil through a j^rolonged course 
 of study." 
 
 He became the director and chief instructor of 
 music in the school for the blind in 1887, and con- 
 tinued in that work until the day of his death, in 
 1910. His teaching work was so extensive within 
 and without the school that probably three fourths 
 of the organists in Philadelphia are either pupils 
 of his, or of those whom he taught. He was the 
 teacher of the organ for many years in The Phila- 
 delphia Musical Academy, where many of the best 
 organists were educated. Seven years after leaving 
 the school as a pupil, he became the organist of St. 
 Stephen's Protestant Episcopal Church, a position 
 that he occupied to the close of his life. 
 
 David Wood's real preeminence among men did 
 not go unrecognized. His native city, Pittsburgh, 
 in making up a list of her first thirty citizens and 
 sons, included him among the number with such 
 men as Brashear, the astronomer ; Andrew Carnegie, 
 the philanthropist ; Piddle, the theologian, and 
 Westinghouse, the inventor. 
 [95] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 When I first heard David Wood pla}^, it was not 
 merely that I heard the wonderful music he produced 
 from the organ ; my recollection of that first experi- 
 ence of his music included very vividly the fact that 
 I saw him play. Not that he indulged in violent 
 motions or emphatic leaps and starts, such as some 
 organists are wont to use. On the contrary, he 
 seemed more like one who was listening to the play- 
 ing of some hidden spirit within the organ. There 
 he sat on the organ bench beyond and above the 
 terraced choir of a hundred voices at the great 
 Temple Baptist Church in Philadelphia, where he 
 played in the Sunday evening services, — a solitary, 
 quiet figure, bending close to the manuals with head 
 slightly inclined, as when one listens intently ; and 
 up from the touch of his fingers came that glory of 
 rising and falling cadences which he brought forth 
 with the refinement of a loving purpose and con- 
 summate art. 
 
 One quite forgot that he was blind. The sight of 
 the eyes might have been at its highest power in the 
 master personality bending over the organ manual, 
 if the hearer were to judge by the accuracy of touch, 
 the instant combining of stops, and the reading of 
 difficult scores. There was no written music, in- 
 deed, before him, but one wondered then — and the 
 more one knew him the more the marvel grew — 
 that the tablets of memory could retain so much 
 material in endless variety of theme and form. 
 But that memory had been rigidly trained and 
 knew how to carry burdens. In the days when 
 Mr. Wood could not afford to employ anyone to 
 
 [96] 
 
DAVID D. WOOD 
 
 read music tx) him, he had to depend upon his 
 friends for this. He learned to memorize without 
 an instrument. He would sit in the drug store of a 
 friend, and listen with the intentness and concen- 
 tration of the blind, as the druggist, in the intervals 
 of trade, would read the notes of the printed score 
 to him. A pupil of his later life says that one day 
 Doctor Wood asked him to listen while he played 
 over a certain anthem. " I haven't played this for 
 years," said Doctor Wood. '^Iwant to use it to- 
 morrow with my choir. Will you follow the music 
 as I play it over, and let me know where I make 
 any mistake ! " But there was no mistake. The 
 blind organist played it as if from the score itself. 
 Indeed, there seemed something almost magical 
 about the sensitiveness of his hearing, as well as in 
 its registering on the memory. He could hear so 
 delicately that he would often stop his pupils as they 
 played their lessons over, and correct their finger- 
 ing ! 
 
 It was hard to realize that he could not see, for 
 there was nothing at the organ which he could not 
 do. But one was soon assured upon hearing him 
 play that only the seeing organist of rarest heart 
 and culture and genius could approach the depth of 
 understanding, the purity of technical skill, and 
 the poetic breadth of spiritual vision that David 
 Wood revealed. "His touch has a sympathy and 
 pathos all its own," wrote Dr. S. D. McConnell, a 
 rector of St. Stephen's. " It has been purchased at 
 a great price. God and himself alone know the 
 cost. It would seem that no lower price would 
 
 [97] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 serve. God does not act blindly even when be im- 
 poses blindness. He secures liis ends by the most 
 direct means. The love and admiration which we 
 give to our dear friend and Maestro could probably 
 have been won for him at no less a cost. Probably 
 no congregation in America has been blessed with 
 music which in form and quality and precision, and, 
 above all, in reverence and devotion, leaves so little 
 to be desired. '^ 
 
 "I have always regarded Mr. Wood as one of 
 the real inspirations of my life and ministry," 
 wrote Dr. Ell wood Worcester, also a rector of St. 
 Stephen's. ^'His music to me was different from 
 that of any other organist. There was a quality in 
 everything Mr. Wood played which makes other 
 organ-playiug seem almost coarse, an element of 
 thought, depth, intellectuality, purity which very 
 few organists, I imagine, have ever attained. The 
 communion service in my mind is always associated 
 with Mr. Wood and his wonderful improvisations, 
 which were so unobtrusive and so haunting that one 
 can never forget them." 
 
 After all, was not the veil that closed his physical 
 eyes to things of the material world about him the 
 barrier that turned his whole being into seeing, 
 with other eyes, the things that are hidden from us? 
 
 It was wonderful to see him leading a large chorus 
 of blind singers from the school. Let the reader 
 thiuk of the most difficult oratorio, the most glori- 
 ous, he ever heard. And who are singing on that 
 platform before a great audience of musicians and 
 music-lovers, with an orchestra, or without it? 
 [98] 
 
DAVID D. WOOD 
 
 Bliud boys aud girls, erect, atteDtive, alive to every 
 hint from the leader. By what chauoels, unused by 
 those of us who see, can that conipauy of trained 
 singers have gained the training they have so evi- 
 dently received ! One listens in vain to discover a 
 halting voice, a note just a fraction of a beat behind 
 the others, a break somewhere in that orderly glory 
 of song. But the listener ceases to be a critic. He 
 simply listens in amazement and joy. That was 
 the work of David Wood ; to go into the dark — a 
 dark that would not end on this earth for him, or 
 for any of those singers — and there, in the gloom, 
 to say to those young people : 
 
 " You and I are to see what our brothers and sis- 
 ters with sight may not see. Here we shall look 
 without distraction into the soul of Mendelssohn 
 and Mozart and Bach and Handel, and shall learn 
 in time to give forth from that intimacy the music 
 which they intended the world should possess." 
 
 These pupils of his were far more to him than 
 just so many more or less trying novices who had 
 to be dragooned into shape. They were real folks 
 with souls, and whether they were blind or seeing, 
 Mr. Wood meant that they should see more of the 
 soul of things than of the mere surface. Says one 
 student: ''Some of the most valuable lessons were 
 learned from Mr. Wood in the short talks after a 
 music lesson. At such times he would discourse on 
 many and varied themes. From his inexhaustible 
 store of information he scattered the seeds of knowl- 
 edge into the eager minds of his pupils." Another 
 who knew him well says : ''Those who were his 
 
 [99] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 I)upils thiuk of him uow more than ever as the mas- 
 ter, because of the depth and beauty of his char- 
 acter. It was a commou sight to see him between 
 lesson periods with a pupil on each arm, walking 
 and talking in the corridors. 
 
 ''Once, when a brilliant piano pupil of his lost 
 her right arm in a railroad accident in the very 
 3^ear of graduation, he yet brought her through the 
 recital ordeal, having found or written for her music 
 for the left hand only. I am sure she feels that no 
 other master could have so given her the courage to 
 persevere. Like many another of his blind pupils 
 she has since made a pronounced success as a 
 teacher." 
 
 This breadth of knowledge and keenness of in- 
 terest in the persons under his tutelage was shown 
 also in his letters and other writings on varied 
 themes. He thought deeply, and wrote freely on 
 many subjects in which he seemed as much at home 
 as any man of intellectual power who could browse 
 when and where he pleased among books, and 
 mingle with men of affairs. Some of his cherished 
 ideals that help to explain the course of his own 
 life are disclosed in this passage from an essay of 
 his on ".Method,'^ and they are suggestive as com- 
 ing from a man who all unconsciously embodied 
 them in his remarkable service to others : 
 
 "The successful merchants, the eminent profes- 
 sional men, the great generals, the astute statesmen, 
 the profound scholars, the men distinguished for 
 piety, men whose examples we Avould follow and 
 whose virtues we would strive to emulate, are those 
 [100] 
 
DAVID D, WOOD 
 
 who have risen to emineuce by iisiug every legiti- 
 mate meaijs iu their power to elevate and enuoble 
 humanity, rather than by speculatiug on its weak- 
 nesses. Men, not of ideas only, but men of action : 
 and their deeds live on — the very embodiment of 
 true wisdom and noble philanthropy. 
 
 '^ The poets, painters, musicians, sculptors, artists 
 of every description, whose names stand first on the 
 roll of fame, are those who have labored most con- 
 sistently ; and their works remain to us not only as 
 monuments of exquisite taste and beauty, but also 
 as models of purity and sound method. 
 
 " In estimating the true value of any work of 
 genius, we too often lose sight of the fact that any 
 method whatever was required in its development ; 
 and we are apt to regard its production simply as a 
 matter of spontaneous growth — so easy it seems for 
 a great man to do a great thing. Nor do we rightly 
 consider the enormous price that genius is frequently 
 compelled to pay for its victories. What restless 
 strivings ! What mental exhaustion ! What pro- 
 digious loss of nervous force ! We, who never get 
 beyond the outer court of the temple, can know but 
 little of the sacrifice that is laid upon the altar. 
 
 '•Whatever we do best in this world, we do it 
 practically first, and theoretically afterwards. We 
 lisp our prayers at our mother's knee, and prattle 
 forth our childish glee, long before we have any 
 knowledge of the rules which govern our speech. 
 If we wish to succeed as artisans, we must go to the 
 workshop rather than the schoolroom. Is it our 
 ambition to become rulers of men ? A just and 
 [101] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 right judge learus to obey the hiws of his couutry 
 before attemptiug to disi^euse them. Do we desire 
 to grow in every Christian grace and virtue 1 Then 
 let us engage in some definite Christian work. ' If 
 any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
 trine.^ This is the Master's injunction — it is an 
 eternal truth. ^ If ye do, ye shall know, ' is the law 
 that obtains everywhere and always. It is the law 
 of the spiritual world working itself downward into 
 the natural : moving along the line of least resist- 
 ance, and finding a ready lodgment in the hearts 
 and minds of those who will accept it and be con- 
 trolled by it. It is a fragment of the angels' song 
 'Peace on earth.' It is the star leading all wise 
 men, first to Bethlehem's manger, then forward to 
 the golden gates of that blest city where Bethle- 
 hem's Babe is the everlasting king." 
 
 It was on Easter Sunday in the year 1910 that 
 David Wood passed into the new day, while his 
 choir in St. Stephen's was singing the "Gloria in 
 Excelsis." He had made great preparations, as 
 usual, for his Easter music, but another was now at 
 the organ. 
 
 One who sang in that choir says that when David 
 Wood was a little boy, bewildered by the continued 
 darkness in which he found himself, he used to 
 plead with his mother for freedom from that dark- 
 ness. ' ' Take me out into the light ! Take me out 
 into the light ! " he would cry, unable to under- 
 stand that he was not to see the light again with his 
 mortal eyes. But surely on that Easter Day David 
 Wood stood at last in a flood of light. 
 
 [102] 
 
DAVID D. WOOD 
 
 How many there are who have cause for grati- 
 tude to this brave aud inspiring personality, whose 
 call to service was answered by faith-filled overcom- 
 ing of such obstacles as few men ever know ! 
 
 [103] 
 
VIII 
 
 William E. Dodge 
 
 Master of Big Business 
 and Philanthropy 
 
 The full story of this amaxuigly active life is 
 fou7id in " Memorials of William E. Dodge y"* com- 
 piled and edited by his son, D. Stuart Dodge, and 
 in Carlos Martyji's " William E. Dodge, the 
 Christian Merchant.'' 
 
Yin 
 
 WILLIAM E- DODGE 
 
 An overflowing life like that of William Earl 
 Dodge is nothing short of marvelous in its steady 
 output of energy and its long-sustained intensity in 
 many spheres of usefulness. He was a pioneer in 
 American big business ; a philanthropist with a be- 
 w ildering variety of interests ; a political force in 
 his neighborhood and in the nation ; a power in the 
 religious life of his time 5 an accessible, humane and 
 unspoiled helper of his fellow man wherever he 
 could give of his bounty in money, or counsel, or 
 encouragement. 
 
 He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, September 
 4, 1805. His father was the owner of two dry- 
 goods stores, and when William was yet a child 
 the father opened a branch house in Xew York, in 
 partnership with S. and H. Higginson of Boston. 
 
 The boy was trained in a business atmosphere 
 from the beginning. His mother gave him his first 
 schooling, but otherwise his school life was much 
 broken ; and when he was thirteen, he was taken 
 into a wholesale dry-goods house by the Merrit 
 Brothers in New York as a clerk. He did well 
 there, but his father took charge of a cotton mill at 
 Bozrahville, Connecticut, and William secured a 
 
 [107] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 position in the country store connected with the 
 factory. 
 
 He was so attentive to customers' wants, so 
 cheery and agreeable, that he made many friends 
 for the store. His father was pleased. He en- 
 couraged him by setting apart a show case at one 
 end of the store for him, which he was allowed to 
 stock to suit himself. The profits were to be the 
 boy's own. Thus William E. Dodge began the 
 foundations of a great fortune and a distinguished 
 career. 
 
 One day, while he was loading a wagon outside 
 the store, he was obliged to stop for a moment to 
 attend to something in the store itself. The clerk 
 who took his place at the wagon had hardly begun 
 his work when he was struck senseless by a falling 
 pulley, and died in a few days. This occurrence im- 
 pressed William tremendously. Had God spared 
 him for a special work in the world ? That was the 
 question he asked of himself. 
 
 It was not long after this that in Hartford he 
 came under the preaching of Nettleton, the evan- 
 gelist. As he was returning to his home, Doctor 
 Hawes of the old Center Church said to him : 
 
 '' What, William ! Going home, and taking that 
 hard heart with you ? " 
 
 That straight thrust reached the young man. On 
 Sunday eveniug, June 8, 1821, he rose to request 
 prayer in a prayer meeting in Bozrahville, and on 
 the first Sunday in May, 1822, he united with the 
 Church. 
 
 In 1825 the family removed to JS^ew York, and 
 
 [108] 
 
WILLIAM E. DODGE 
 
 the boy entered a store. Mr. Dodge later said of 
 his work : 
 
 " It was a very different thing in those days to 
 be a boy in a store from what it is now. I fear that 
 many young men, anxious to get started, would 
 hesitate long before facing such duties as had then 
 to be performed. 
 
 " I had to go every morning to Yandewater Street 
 for the keys, as my employers must have them in 
 case of fire in the night. There was much ambition 
 among the young men as to who should have his 
 store opened first, and I used to be up soon after 
 light, walk to Yandewater Street, and then to the 
 store very early. It was to be sprinkled with 
 water, which I brought the evening before from the 
 old pump at the corner of Peck Slip and Pearl 
 Street, then carefully swept and dusted. Then 
 came sprinkling the sidewalk and street, and 
 sweeping to the center a heap for the dirt cart to 
 remove. This done, one of the older clerks would 
 come, and I would be permitted to go home for 
 breakfast. In winter the wood was to be carried 
 and piled in the cellar, fires were to be made, and 
 lamps trimmed. I mention these particulars to 
 show that junior clerks in those days did the work 
 now done by the porters. ' ' 
 
 Of the New York of his daj^ he wrote thus : 
 
 ' ' Over the stores in Pearl Street were a large 
 number of boarding houses expressly for country 
 merchants ; here they would remain a week or ten 
 days, picking up a variety of goods, for most of 
 them kept what were then called countiy stores. 
 [109] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 They had to purchase dry-goods, groceries, hard- 
 ware, medicines, crockery, etc. It was a great ob- 
 ject with the jobbers to have one of their salesmen 
 board at a large house for country merchants, so 
 that they could induce them to come to their stores 
 to trade. Most of the goods were shipped by sloops, 
 bound up the North Eiver or the Sound ; those for 
 the South, on schooners and brigs to ports whence 
 they were taken into the interior. 
 
 " Think of New York without gas ! At that time 
 the street lamps were few and far between, often 
 filled with poor oil and badly trimmed. They 
 looked on a dark night like so many lightning 
 bugs, and in winter often went entirely out before 
 morning. In 1825 the first gaslights were intro- 
 duced by the New York Gas Company, which had 
 contracted to light below Canal Street. 
 
 "There were no police in those days, but there 
 were a few watchmen, who came on soon after dark 
 and patrolled the streets till near daylight. Their 
 rounds were so arranged that they made one each 
 hour, and as the clocks struck they pounded with 
 their clubs three times on the curb, calling out, for 
 example, ^Twelve o'clock, and all is well,^ in a 
 very peculiar voice. They wore leathern caps, 
 such as the firemen now use. 
 
 "Although the Sabbath was almost free from 
 disturbances from carriages, still, for fear that some 
 one might be passing during worship, the churches 
 had chains drawn across the streets on either side, 
 which were put up as soon as service commenced, 
 and taken down at its close. What would our rid- 
 [110] 
 
WILLIAM E. DODGE 
 
 iiig, sporting, Sabbath- breaking citizens say to such 
 obstructions, if put up on Fifth or Madison Ave- 
 nues now 1 " 
 
 Mr. Dodge went into business for himself in May, 
 1827, in a store on Pearl Street near his father's. 
 And this was the way of it as told by himself : 
 
 " A retired Connecticut merchant, with whom I 
 had done business most of the time while a clerk, 
 had a son j ust graduated from Yale, whom he was 
 anxious to place in New York, and having heard 
 that I was intending to commence business for my- 
 self, proposed a copartnership with his sou. He 
 offered to furnish an amount of capital which, with 
 the small sum I had (mostly savings from my 
 salary), would make, for those days, a respectable 
 beginning, and furthermore, promised to indorse 
 for us to a reasonable amount. There are few 
 events in a man's life more important than that 
 which introduces him into active business on his 
 own account, and as my partner had no experience, 
 I felt the responsibility the more. Here I will ven- 
 ture to relate an incident, as I think it may be of 
 service to some of my young friends who are look- 
 ing forward to mercantile life. A few weeks after 
 we started, and when our stock of goods was small, 
 three young men stepped into the store, each hav- 
 ing a large tin trunk which he carried in his hands, 
 aided by a large strap over his shoulders. I saw 
 at once that they were Connecticut peddlers, for I 
 had often dealt with such when a clerk. They 
 were attracted by some article in the window. 
 After giving them its price, and while they set 
 [111] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 down their loads to rest and talk, I said pleas- 
 antly : 
 
 '' ' I see you are, like myself,' just starting in busi- 
 ness. Now let me make you a proposition. There 
 is plenty of room in our store. Each of you take 
 one of these pigeonholes under the shelves, put 
 your trunks there in place of carrying them around 
 while you are picking up your goods, and just order 
 all you buy to be sent here. We will take charge 
 of your purchases, pack and ship them, and you can 
 come here and examine your bills, write letters, and 
 do as you like, whether you buy a dollar's worth of 
 us or not. I want to make at least a show of doing 
 business, and it will really be an advantage to us as 
 well as a convenience to you. ' They were pleased 
 with the offer, accepted it at once, and left in search 
 of such things as they wanted. My young partner 
 waited till they got out, and then, with consider- 
 able excitement and wounded pride, said : ' Well, 
 are those what you call customers f ' I said : ' Yes j 
 you know that tall oaks from little acorns grow. 
 We shall see by and by what they will make.' 
 Suffice it to say, that for the six years I remained 
 in the dry-goods business, they were among my 
 most attached customers. They were all respectable 
 young men, not afraid of work, nor ashamed of 
 small beginnings. One has been president of a New 
 England bank for more than twenty years. His 
 brother, years afterwards, moved to one of the large 
 towns of Ohio, went into business, and has grown 
 to be the man of the place, associated with the lail- 
 roads and public improvements of the state. The 
 
 [ 112 ] 
 
WILLIAM E. DODGE 
 
 other, who was from a manufacturiDg town in Con- 
 necticut, has long been connected with the large 
 mills of the place, a man unusually respected." 
 
 Mr. Dodge began in these years to do much for 
 the church and the Sunday school, perceiving in the 
 Sunday school an agency of untold possibilities, rep- 
 resented then in 'New York by only two or three 
 examples. He did not count himself too busy to 
 give time to the meeting of recognized needs j so, for 
 the young men, he helx^ed to found the ^ ' New York 
 Young Men's Bible Society " whose members 
 worked among the sick and destitute. 
 
 On June 24, 1828, Mr. Dodge married Melissa 
 Phelps, a daughter of Anson G. Phelps, and in 1833 
 he sold out his dry-goods business, and entered into 
 partnership with his father-in-law, and Daniel 
 James, under the title of Phelps, Dodge & Co., a 
 large metal-importing house. Here was a business 
 opportunity that he was not slow to appreciate and 
 develop. 
 
 Even while Mr. Dodge was a dry-goods merchant, 
 he had his eyes open for the business opportunities 
 offered by an expanding national life. He bought 
 timber lauds in Pennsylvania so extensively that he 
 "became the pait proprietor of whole counties." 
 He made other purchases in Michigan, Wisconsin 
 and Texas. His son, D. Stuart Dodge, writes : 
 " Probably few men, even among those exclusively 
 engaged in the lumber trade, were more widely and 
 practically familiar with the varied features of this 
 great industry. Mr. Dodge took an intelligent and 
 enthusiastic interest in every detail, from the first 
 [113] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 selection of suitable lands, the felling of trees, the 
 driving of the logs, the sawing, piling and distribu- 
 tion of the lumber, to the final sale in the best 
 markets. He was constantly reading on the sub- 
 ject, aiid carefully watching production and prices. 
 He knew, too, better than most men, what inter- 
 minable anxiety there can be over titles, taxes, 
 trespasses, fires, floods and droughts. '^ 
 
 He went into coal and iroD, and railroads, helping 
 particularly in the building of the Erie Railroad, 
 raising subscriptions for it by going from store to 
 store. He saw, and was interested iu, the begin- 
 ning of steam traffic by water and by rail, and his 
 wealth increased steadily as he seized the ready-to- 
 hand opportunities to share in the advancing values. 
 But it required unlimited courage to do that, and 
 the keenest prescience and energy to lay hold of 
 and develop the right interest at the right time. 
 
 In the thick of all these growing and thriving 
 enterprises, with their heavy responsibilities, Mr. 
 Dodge seems never to have lost sight of the spiritual 
 values that life must hold, and the claims of others 
 upon those who are gifted with constructive ability. 
 He thoroughly enjoyed money-making, and in- 
 tended to become wealthy. At the same time, from 
 the start, he was a giA^er of money and time and 
 personality to a multitude of good causes. Among 
 these were theological seminaries, such as Union, 
 Auburn, Princeton, Yale, Chicago ; and colleges 
 such as Williams, Dartmouth, Amherst, Oberlin, 
 Hamilton, Grinuell, and Maryville. Thousands of 
 young men were aided by him to prepare for the 
 
 [114] 
 
WILLIAM E. DODGE 
 
 ministry. He saw that clerks needed adequate read- 
 ing rooms, and so he helped to found the Mercantile 
 Library in New York. He took an active interest 
 in civic affairs, against corruption and waste. 
 
 In 1853, through the death of Mr. Phelps, Mr. 
 Dodge became the head of the firm. His business 
 skill was taxed to the utmost under the new respon- 
 sibilities, yet he took on more affairs than ever. 
 He was able to accomplish an immense amount of 
 work without friction, because he worked in faith 
 and by system, and had the faculty of turning 
 quickly from one duty to another with concentra- 
 tion on the task in hand. 
 
 He was an early riser, allowing a half hour for 
 prayer and Bible reading in his private library. 
 After an eight-o'clock breakfast, he would meet 
 callers in his own home, as also when he returned 
 in the evening. Before breakfast he would lead 
 family prayers for the whole household in the main 
 library. It is no wonder that days thus begun 
 were rich in success of every kind. 
 
 He would reach his office at nine, open and read 
 his always large mail, disposing of it rapidly with 
 the aid of secretaries. The plans for the day were 
 talked over with his helpers, checks were brought 
 in for him to sign, and, while attaching his signa- 
 ture, he received his first callers, with courtesy yet 
 with no tolerance of time- wasting. When the list of 
 callers was ended, he took up a scrutiny of credits. 
 Then he visited Wall Street and the Chamber of 
 Commerce, and took a hurried lunch, standing ; at- 
 tended one or two board meetings j and from two to 
 
 [115] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 four was iu bis own office again, from which he weut 
 to a National Temperance Society or an American 
 Bible Society committee meeting, reaching home for 
 dinner at six. 
 
 Mr. Dodge's relation to the peace efforts preced- 
 ing the Civil War, his support of Lincoln, his serv- 
 ice on The Christian Commission with George H. 
 Stuart and others, constitute an entire period of 
 service sufficient for a separate stud3\ He came to 
 love the South, and he invested so heavily in lands 
 in Georgia, and did so much for the people of the 
 region in which his lands were situated, that a 
 county was named for him, and to that he presented 
 a county house. Whatever he did was on this 
 princely and daring scale. He seemed always to 
 work with immense reserves of body and spirit, and 
 yet to overflow in work and in beneficence. 
 
 In 1864 he was elected to Congress, but he did not 
 take his seat there until 1866, owing to a contested 
 election in which, however, his victory was com- 
 plete. Hon. J. R. Grinnell of Iowa writes of Mr. 
 Dodge's place among his associates : "A historical 
 gathering was held iu the Capitol, in 1866, under 
 the auspices of the Congressional Temperance So- 
 ciety. Mr. Dodge read the names of -forty-seven 
 senators and rej)resentatives who were pledged to 
 total abstinence. To perpetuate the influence of this 
 great occasion, Mr. Dodge himself sent pamphlets of 
 the proceedings and speeches all over the country. 
 In the Congressional prayer meeting, where senators 
 and members of all sections and of every shade of 
 religious belief met to supplicate the favor of the 
 
 [116] 
 
WILLIAM E. DODGE 
 
 God of all natioDS, Mr, Dodge was a prompt attend- 
 ant aud the animating soul. As a Christian gentle- 
 man his cheerfulness and uniform courtesy left an 
 indelible imi)ression upon his associates. The an- 
 nouncement of his name as a speaker or presiding 
 ofi&cer would attract a crowded assembly. With 
 the colored congregations of the city he was a 
 special favorite as a speaker ; and he himself found 
 inspiration in their hearty 'amens' and stirring 
 songs, which, in his mind, were more in accord with 
 primitive worship than operatic airs given by a 
 professional quartet. 
 
 "In the Standing Committees of Congress, as Mr. 
 Dodge was not a member at the opening of the first 
 session, he was not assigned to some positions for 
 which he was eminently qualified. He served, how- 
 ever, upon the important Committees of Commerce 
 and of Foreign Affairs, besides others, special and 
 select.^' 
 
 Even while the war was still going on, Mr. Dodge 
 had become interested in the education of the Negro. 
 He gave liberally to the school at Oxford, Pennsyl- 
 vania, known now as Lincoln University, a school 
 for the training of negro teachers and preachers ; 
 and to Zion Wesley College, at Salisbury, North 
 Carolina, aud to many other schools such as Hamp- 
 ton and Howard University. 
 
 He was appointed by President Grant one of the 
 ten commissioners to manage the nation's Indian 
 affairs, aud there served with George H. Stuart 
 on the Purchasing Committee in doing away with 
 abuses that had become far too well intrenched. 
 
 [117] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 As Mr. Dodge approaclied the years when most 
 men relinquish much of their work, he seemed to be 
 as eager as ever for service. He was in great de- 
 mand as an after-dinner speaker ; he did not with- 
 draw from the harder tasks his position laid upon 
 him, but stood for his convictions with zeal and in- 
 trepid determination, as in his opposition to Sunday 
 traffic on railroads of which he was a director. On 
 this subject he said in an address in Boston, in 1879 : 
 ''The question of the day for everyone who loves 
 his country and believes in the value and importance 
 of the Christian Sabbath, as we in America have 
 honored and maintained it, the great question is, 
 shall this mighty railroad interest become one of the 
 chief instruments in transforming our American 
 Sabbath into the continental holiday, or — as it is 
 fast growing to be — a day like all the others of the 
 week 1 I have no doubt it is within the power of 
 the intelligent lovers of the Sabbath, associated with 
 the Christian stockholders in these roads to bring 
 about a change that shall stop the transit of freight 
 trains, and reduce the passenger traffic to such an 
 extent that the influence shall tell on the side of 
 Sabbath observance. I have no question that if 
 Christian men, when about to invest in the securities 
 of a railroad, would ask, ' Does this road run on 
 Sunday ? ' and if so, refuse to put money there, it 
 would go far to settle this problem. But if the only 
 inquiry is, ' Does the road pay regular dividends? ' 
 no matter how they get the money, do not be too 
 sure of your dividends. Those overworked engi- 
 neers, conductors or brakemen may lose all interest 
 [118] 
 
WILLIAM E. DODGE 
 
 in their duties, become discouraged and careless, or 
 incapable of that prompt action necessary in the 
 moment of danger, and an accident may occur which 
 will not only send many into eternity, but cause a 
 loss that will make a dividend imi)ossible. 
 
 ' ' Eailway managers determined to use the Sab- 
 bath as any other day must either drive the Sabbath - 
 loving employees from their roads, or so demoralize 
 them that they will soon come to feel that if there 
 is no binding force in the Fourth Commandment, 
 there is none in the Eighth ! Stockholders will find 
 they have a pecuniary interest in so conducting 
 their roads that men can be employed who believe 
 they have a right to claim the one day's rest which 
 God and nature demand." 
 
 This same spirit was shown in his advocacy of the 
 temperance cause, as President of the National 
 Temperance Society, which he had helped to found. 
 "This was his favorite agency," writes the biog- 
 rapher already quoted ; " and its history, illustrious 
 with energetic and effective labors for the enlight- 
 enment and salvation of mankind from drink, is his 
 temperance biography. Not once only, but many 
 times, were his scruples respected in miscellaneous 
 social circles, the decanter being banished and the 
 wine glasses turned down. From such bodies as de- 
 rived a portion of their income from the sale of in- 
 toxicants, as was the case with several clubs with 
 which he had been allied, he quietly withdrew, in 
 order to avoid the appearance of evil. Thus he 
 shaped his life into noble consistency." 
 
 One day, early in 1883, while he was on an er- 
 [119 J 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 rand of helpfulness with Mrs. Dodge, he was seized 
 with an illness that resulted in his death on Feb- 
 ruary 8. A sense of heavy loss was felt in all direc- 
 tions. It was not merely the head of a great mer- 
 cantile house who had gone on, but a friend to 
 thousands who bore testimony to their love for him. 
 
 Of him Mark Hopkins wrote words that should 
 impress themselves upon the aspiring consciousness 
 of every young man who reads them : 
 
 " Mr. Dodge's example was heroic. It was so be- 
 cause he had at his command the fullest means of 
 personal gratification ; because it was opposed to 
 the example and the spirit, almost universal, of 
 those with whom he was associated j and because it 
 sprang from a heroic motive. No man was more 
 cheerful or joyous, or enjoyed more perfectly those 
 tasteful and beautiful influences which wealth 
 can produce. No ; it was not from any asceti- 
 cism ! It was because he felt that he thus gained 
 a foothold which would enable him, when he reached 
 his hand down to lift up a struggling brother, to 
 do it more effectually. And it did give such a 
 foothold ; and, knowing this, it was the very spirit 
 of Christ in him which induced him to sacrifice him- 
 self. He asked no abstract question ; but, seeing 
 that his influence here and now for good would be 
 thus promoted, he adopted at once the principle of 
 the apostle, that if meat would make his brother to 
 offend, he would eat no meat while the world stood." 
 
 Or, again these words of Dr. S. Irenteus Prime 
 may well remain in the memory of every student of 
 successful living : 
 
 [120] 
 
WILLIAM E. DODGE 
 
 ''Mr. Dodge personally worked to do good ; like 
 his Master, he went about doing good. He had 
 more 'irons in the fire,' he was a more busy man, 
 with a greater variety of engagements for each and 
 every hour of the day, than any man we ever knew. 
 Active, wiry, untiring, even down to old age, he 
 went from one duty to another ; keeping memo- 
 randa of appointments, and a man to remind him ; 
 despatching business with promptness, but not with- 
 out careful attention. He literally gave himself to 
 the world, the Church, the poor— to Christ. His 
 large heart took in every good work ; and no list of 
 his charities, nor of the institutions which he founded 
 or supported, will ever tell the extent or the nature 
 of his deeds of love. How or where he began this 
 living for others, it may be hard to say. That it 
 ended only with his life, we know. That it grew 
 with him as a part of his being, becoming a broader 
 range of existence, more absorbing and diffusive, as 
 means and years and knowledge of the wants of 
 others were brought into the sphere of his acquaint- 
 ance, was evident year by year until the end.'' 
 
 But the end of such a life is not yet, for its im- 
 pulses will move in the spirit of many a young man 
 of to-day whose face is set toward right-minded 
 achievement. 
 
 [121] 
 
IX 
 
 Cyrus H. McCormick 
 
 Inventor and Business Builder 
 
 A remarkable book is the volume by Herbert 
 A, Cassoriy " Cyrus Hall McCormick, His Life 
 and Work:' 
 
IX 
 CYRUS H. McCORMICK 
 
 The harvest was almost over, and only a little of 
 the wheat on the farm was stand iDg. The machine 
 on which the farmer's son had spent much thought 
 and time was to be tested on that July day in 1831, 
 and father and mother and brothers and sisters 
 were eager to see what Cyrus had evolved. For 
 the father had studied the problem of the reaper, 
 and the son had taken up the experiment at a point 
 where the older man had laid it down, and it re- 
 mained to be seen whether Cyrus McCormick's 
 principle would work in practice. 
 
 When the reaper was driven into the standing 
 grain, and the machine cut it, and spread it upon 
 the platform of the reaper to be raked off by a 
 laborer, that Virginia farm near Lexington became 
 the birthplace of an enterprise that has given the 
 world a new agriculture, with all its vast and far- 
 reaching service to mankind. 
 
 The man behind the machine became one of the 
 colossal figures of American enterprise. He was 
 even then a hard worker and close student of farm 
 problems. His father, from the time Cyrus was 
 seven years old, had been trying to work out a 
 practical reaper, but the machine had never been 
 satisfactory. 
 
 [125] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 The father, Eobert McCormick, was a mau of 
 force and ability, of sound Scotch-Irish stock, and 
 the mother was iu all things his partner. He owned 
 some eighteen hundred acres of farm lands, but he 
 had also two gristmills, two sawmills, a smelting 
 furnace, and a blacksmith shop. He was an in- 
 ventor of farm machinery, and in all this mechan- 
 ical work his sons labored with him. The family 
 was a busy unit of production, for homemade appli- 
 ances of all sorts were made by the various members. 
 
 When Cyrus began to work in the fields, swing- 
 ing the old-time wheat cradle at harvest, he decided 
 he could improve on that, by making the cradle 
 smaller, which he did. And before Cyrus Mc- 
 Cormick was through he made harvesting ma- 
 chinery that changed the conditions of human life 
 the world around. 
 
 His religious life was not a superstructure but a 
 foundation. It was never taken on as an interest 
 of mature years, after the fight for material success 
 was over, but it was the undergirding of all that he 
 purposed. His ancestors were Calvinists, believing 
 with all their might in the sovereignty of God. 
 When Cyrus was twenty-five, special meetings were 
 held in the church on his grandfather's farm. All 
 day long the preaching went on, and on the fourth 
 and closing day those who wanted to confess Christ 
 were asked to rise. Cyrus did not do so. "That 
 night," his biographer tells us, •' his father went to 
 his bedside and gently reproached him. ^ My son,' 
 he said, ' don't you know that your silence is a pub- 
 lic rejection of your Saviour'?' Cyrus was con- 
 [ 126 ] 
 
CYRUS H. Mccormick 
 
 science strickeD. He leaped from his bed aud be-, 
 gau to dress liimself. 'I'll go and see old Billy 
 McCluug,' he said. Half an hour later, old Billy 
 McCluDg, who was a universally respected religious 
 leader in the community, was amazed to be called 
 out of his sleep by a greatly troubled young man, 
 who wanted to know by what means he might make 
 his peace with his Maker. The next Sunday this 
 young man stood up in the church, and became in 
 name what he already was by nature and inherit- 
 ance, a Christian of the Presbyterian faith." 
 
 Down deep in his character there was granite 
 bedrock. To tackle the hardest problem first was 
 a matter of principle, and a life habit with him. 
 He believed that the quickest and surest progress 
 comes through getting the impossibilities changed 
 into accomplishment at once. In his study of his 
 father's machine he saw that it could cut grain but 
 it did not deliver it smoothly ; it could not handle 
 tangled and fallen grain properly ; it was radically 
 defective. Then he set to work to make a thor- 
 oughly practical reaper, equal to the conditions 
 that must be met. 
 
 The reciprocating blade was one of Cyrus Mc- 
 Cormick's independent and very practical concep- 
 tions. In all, he worked out seven principles which 
 have never been abandoned in such machinery : a 
 curved arm at the end of the knife, as a divider to 
 separate the grain to be cut from the grain to be 
 left ; the reciprocating blade ; fingers to hold the 
 grain in position to be cut ; a reel to lift up the 
 fallen grain ; a platform to catch the grain as it is 
 [127] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 cut ; a side-draught machine ; oue driving wheel to 
 cany the weight, and operate the reel and cutting 
 blade. 
 
 In 1832, near the town of Lexington, in the pres- 
 ence of about a hundred persons, McCormick gave 
 an exhibition of his machine, in the midst of jeers 
 and incredulity, where the land was rough. He did 
 not do so well as he knew he could ; but the owner 
 of the adjoining field told him to pull down the 
 fence, drive over there, and go to work. He cut six 
 acres successfully, and the machine was driven into 
 Lexington ; and there, among others who saw it, 
 was Professor Bradshaw of the Lexington Female 
 Academy. "This machine," he finally called out 
 to the crowd, " is worth a hundred thousand dol- 
 lars." And he meant it. 
 
 How much more it was really worth no one then 
 even dreamed. That is, no one but young McCor- 
 mick. One day, when he was riding on his horse, 
 carrying to a foundry a pattern of the mold board of 
 a plow he had invented, the horse stopped to drink 
 in midstream as they were crossing. As Cyrus 
 looked out upon a fertile tract of land beside the 
 stream, he had a vision of vast possibilities for his 
 reaper invention in a daydream of future success. 
 But he was almost alone in his great hope. A way 
 must be found to perfect and to sell his reapers. 
 He believed he could secure the needed money by 
 farming. He began to advertise his machines in a 
 local paper, at fifty dollars each, but no buyers 
 seized this opportunity. It was nine years before 
 he sold one to a farmer. 
 
 [128] 
 
CYRUS H. Mccormick 
 
 He worked for a year on a farm giveu him. by his 
 father ; then, not finding the needed return in that, 
 he got his father and his school-teacher to buikl, 
 with him, an iron furnace. In 1835 he was making 
 iron. In 1839 he had not only made no headway 
 with the reaper, but the furnace became a failure, 
 and Cyrus gave up his farm and all that he had to 
 his creditors. But he did not sell the reaper. It 
 would not have been regarded by others as a good 
 asset. 
 
 Then McCormick began to build victory out of 
 defeat by making reapers in the log workshop on 
 the home farm. In the year of the furnace failure 
 he gave a public exhibition, and cut two acres of 
 wheat in an hour. And still the farmers were not 
 buyers. A year later, however, a man who had 
 seen this performance came a considerable distance, 
 and invested fifty dollars in a reaper. A few weeks 
 after this two farmers came from forty miles away 
 and ordered machines. McCormick was not quite 
 satisfied with the machine, so he took only one of 
 these orders. 
 
 In 1842 he sold seven ; in 1843, twenty-nine ; in 
 1844, fifty ; and he lived to see the works in Chicago 
 turning out fifty thousand machines a year, in 1884. 
 The story of the forty intervening years is the story 
 of the growth of a giant industry, and a giant man 
 of will power, energy and commanding ability as a 
 business builder. 
 
 Mr. McCormick sold rights to others to sell the 
 reaper ; he noted numerous sales in the West, and 
 accordingly set out on a three-thousaud-mile journey 
 
 [129] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 tlirougli what we now call the Middle West to see 
 where he could build and traDSi)ort his machines to 
 better advantage. And it was characteristic of his 
 sagacity and foresight and courage that he should 
 decide upon Chicago, then a rather dilapidated 
 town of about ten thousand inhabitants, but invit- 
 ing enough to him because of its location. 
 
 McCormick had no money, but he must have a 
 factory in Chicago. He found a partner in the most 
 prominent man there, William B. Ogden, who gave 
 him twenty -five thousand dollars for a half interest 
 in the reaper, and the factory was built — the largest 
 iu the town. In 1849 McCormick bought Ogden's 
 interest, paying him back his twenty-five thousand 
 dollars, and as much more for profit. 
 
 Cyrus McCormick then began to develo23 a sales 
 system, in which a new feature was the written 
 guarantee, and another was the fixed price. He 
 was already a confident and consistent user of adver- 
 tising, and in this he became an expansionist. 
 
 He was terrifically energetic in meeting competi- 
 tion, of which he had his full share. He scattered 
 agents everywhere, subjected his machine to the 
 most severe uses in contests with others ; and he was 
 a friend to the farmer, giving him ample credit, 
 and dealing leniently with him as to payments. 
 "It is better that I should wait for the money than 
 that you should wait for the machine that you 
 need," was his way of putting it. In 1850 his plans 
 had been so well developed that he had every kind 
 of competition — and his original patent had expired 
 two years earlier. 
 
 [130] 
 
CYRUS H. Mccormick 
 
 He thought his pateuts should be exteuded. He 
 had made ouly a begiuuiug, for the short harvest 
 season of only a few weeks each year gave him scant 
 time for experiment. He had as yet made little or 
 nothing from the reaper. But notwithstanding an 
 eight years' fight, none of his patents was renewed. 
 He must go on without tliat aid. When he found 
 that the government would not give him the i)rotec- 
 tion he asked, he prepared to go after those who 
 were making his reaper without arrangements with 
 him. His biographer vividly describes one of these 
 encounters : 
 
 '' He engaged three of the master lawyers of the 
 American bar, William H. Seward, E. N. Dicker- 
 son and Senator Eeverdy Johnson, and brought suit 
 against Manny and Emerson, of Eockford, Illinois, 
 for making McCormick Eeapers without a license. 
 
 '' Then came a three-year struggle that shook the 
 country and did much to shape the history of the 
 American people. Manny and Emerson, who were 
 shrewd and forceful men, hired twice as many law- 
 yers as McCormick and prepared to defend them- 
 selves. They selected as the members of this legal 
 bodj^guard, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, 
 Edwin M. Stanton, Peter H. Watson, George Hard- 
 ing and Congressman H. Winter Davis. 
 
 " It was a battle of giants. Greek met Greek 
 with weapons of eloquence. But Stanton outclassed 
 his great codebaters in a speech of unanswerable 
 power, which unfortunately was not reported. The 
 speech so vividly impressed McCormick that in his 
 next lawsuit he at once engaged Stanton. It awoke 
 [131] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 the brain of Lincoln, as be afterwards admitted^ 
 and drove liim back to a more comj)reheusive study 
 of the law. It gave Lincoln so high an opinion of 
 Stauton's ability that, when he became President 
 several years later, he chose Stanton to be his Sec- 
 retary of War. And it gripped judge and jury 
 with such effect that McCormick lost his case. It 
 was a wonderful speech. 
 
 " Abraham Lincoln, who made no speech at all, 
 was the one who derived the most beuefit in the end 
 from this lawsuit. It not only aroused his ambi- 
 tions, but gave him his first big fee, one thousand 
 dollars. This money came to him at the precise 
 moment when he needed it most, to enable him to 
 enter into the famous debate with Douglas— the de- 
 bate that made him the inevitable candidate of the 
 Eepublican Party. 
 
 '' It is interesting to note how closely the destinies 
 of Lincoln aud McCormick were interwoven. Both 
 were born in 1809, on farms in the South. Both 
 struggled through a youth of adversity and first 
 came into promiuence in Illinois. Both labored to 
 preserve the Union, and when the War of Secession 
 came it was the reaper that enabled" Lincoln to feed 
 his armies. Both men were emancipators, the oue 
 from slavery and the other from famine ; and both 
 to-day sleep under the soil of Illinois. No other 
 two Americans had heavier tasks than they, and 
 none worked more mightily for the common good." 
 
 Mr. McCormick was always ready to fight for a 
 principle of fair dealing. He was a man of many 
 lawsuits, among which was one that his biographer 
 
 [ 132 ] 
 
CYRUS H. Mccormick 
 
 calls "probably the best siugleiDstauce of llie man's 
 dogged tenacity in defense of a principle." With 
 his family party of six and with nine trunks, he was 
 about to leave Philadelphia for Chicago. Just be- 
 fore the train started the baggage master demanded 
 eight dollars and seventy cents for excess baggage. 
 Mr. McCormick refused to pay the charge, and with 
 his family left the train, directing that his trunks be 
 taken oif. But the trunks went on their memorable 
 journey. They were ordered off at Pittsburgh by a 
 telegram from the president of the road, to w^hom 
 Mr. McCormick referred the matter. Then the Mc- 
 Cormicks took the next train. The trunks, how- 
 ever, had been carried through to Chicago, as the 
 family learned when they reached Pittsburgh. And 
 in Chicago the next day they found that the trunks 
 had been consumed in a fire that destroyed the 
 depot. 
 
 Mr. McCormick sued the railroad for the value of 
 the trunks, $7,193. This was in 18G2. Twenty 
 years later, after many victories and consequent ap- 
 peals, he won his case before the United States Su- 
 preme Court. It was not until three years later, 
 after McCormick's death, that the railroad paid to 
 his estate the original value of the trunks, and 
 twenty-three years' interest, amounting in all to 
 $18,060.79. Such tenacity of purpose was sure to 
 be found in other phases of this energetic man's ca- 
 reer. 
 
 Mr. McCormick had the keenest possible eye for 
 details, and at the same time an intolerance of any- 
 thing petty or inconsequent. He seemed at his best 
 [133] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 when everything was going wrong, and be could 
 laugh at losses, put them behind him resolutely, 
 and push on more energetically than ever. ''I ex- 
 pect to die in the harness," he said, ''because this 
 is not the world for rest. This is the world for 
 work. In the next world we will have the rest." 
 
 "His plan of work," says his biographer, "so 
 far as he could be said to have a plan, was this : 
 ' One Thing at a Time, and the Hardest Thing First.' 
 He followed the line of most resistance. If the 
 hardest thing can be done, he reasoned, all the rest 
 will follow. And as for all work that was merely 
 routine, he left as much as possible of it to others. 
 He was not an organizer so much as a creator and 
 a pioneer." 
 
 He was insistent upon correctness, upon doing 
 the thing as it ought to be done, in every sphere of 
 activity. If things were wrong, or headed in the 
 wrong direction, they must be set right, including 
 clocks and watches and small accounts as well as 
 large. 
 
 But any review of Cyrus McCormick's life will 
 discover all through his struggles and successes 
 two invariable qualities that were preeminent — his 
 Scotch Covenanter sense of God, and his tremen- 
 dous will. " The exhibition of his powerful will," 
 said one of his lawyers, " was at times actually ter- 
 rible. If any other man on this earth ever had 
 such a will certainly I have not heard of it." 
 
 When the Chicago fire of 1871 devastated the 
 city, his factory was turning out about ten thousand 
 harvesters a year. He consulted with his wife as to 
 
 [134] 
 
CYRUS H. McCORMICK 
 
 whether he should rebuild, or retire from business, 
 aud she advised him to rebuild. The home was 
 then iu New York. He ordered that house sold, 
 telegraphed his agents everywhere to collect all the 
 accounts they could, aud gave orders to build in 
 Chicago on a larger scale than before. Others were 
 roused from discouragement by this example, and 
 began the rehabilitation of the city. 
 
 McCormick saw enough of the moral and religious 
 needs of the West of his day to convince him that 
 these frontier towns needed strong preachers. By 
 a gift of one hundred thousand dollars in 1859 he 
 made it possible to remove a needy seminary from 
 New Albany, Indiana, to Chicago, aud there, as 
 the Northwestern Theological Seminary, to work 
 upon a substantial foundation, the name being 
 changed later to McCormick Theological Seminary. 
 On the one hundredth anniversary of the founder's 
 birth, President W. W. Moore, of Union Theolog- 
 ical Seminary of Eichmond, Virginia, in an his- 
 torical address, quoted from two of Cyrus Mc- 
 Cormick' s early letters : 
 
 "He believed not only that there should be busi- 
 ness in our religion and religion in our business, 
 but that religion is our business. 'I often regret,' 
 he writes, ' that my example has not been better, 
 more pious ; and yet I have often felt a concern that 
 was not expressed. Business is not inconsistent 
 with Christianity ; but the latter ought to be a help 
 to the former, giving a confidence and resignation, 
 after using all proper means, which speak peace to 
 the soul.' And again at a critical juncture in his 
 
 [135] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 business affairs, when he was struggling with manu- 
 facturers who had broken their contracts, he says : 
 ' This is the point that should be aimed at, the feel- 
 ing that should be cherished — unconditional sub- 
 mission and resignation to the will and hand of 
 Providence ; and with his smiles, the most crooked 
 ways may be made straight and chastisements con- 
 verted into blessings. But for the fact that Provi- 
 dence has seemed to assist me in our business it has 
 at times seemed that I would almost sink under the 
 weight of responsibility hanging upon me. But I 
 believe the Lord will help me out. How grateful 
 we should be ! How humble on account of un- 
 worthiness ! And yet how rejoicing that, unworthy 
 as we are, the Law has been satisfied, and we may 
 be saved by faith.'" And on the same occasion 
 President McClure of McCormick Seminary said : 
 *^His letters were a combination of intense devo- 
 tion to business detail, and of intense devotion to 
 religious principle." 
 
 It was in this spirit that Mr. McCormick founded 
 the seminary, and repeatedly gave to it as need 
 arose ; and with the intention of supporting funda- 
 mental Presbyterianism, he bought The Interior, 
 now The Continent, and called to its service in all 
 departments men who, with him, gave it its place 
 of eminence and influence among periodicals to-day. 
 Just before the Civil War he bought the Chicago 
 Times, chiefly to keep before Chicagoans the view- 
 points of the South, and he attended the Demo- 
 cratic Convention in Baltimore so that he might lay 
 before Southerners the views of the North. ^'He 
 
 [136] 
 
CYRUS H. Mccormick 
 
 was a maker, not a collector, of public opiaion, and 
 instead of pandering to the war frenzy, he opposed 
 it — put his newspaper squarely in its path, and 
 held it there until the feet of the crowd had 
 trampled it into an impossible wreck." He was 
 entirely willing to spend a fortune in time and 
 money in any cause to which he was devoted. 
 
 When Cyrus McCormick died, in 1884, more than 
 half a million of his machines were in use, the 
 world around, and the United States had been for 
 some years the greatest wheat-producing nation. 
 The indomitable man who had dared ridicule and 
 poverty through thick and thin lived to see the 
 economic condition of millions of his fellows 
 changed for the better because of his answer to the 
 call that came to him in the days of drudgery and 
 seeming failure. And who can measure the in- 
 fluence of those other harvesters who have gone out, 
 and who are yet to go out from that institution he 
 made possible in the city of his business success — 
 for the fields are indeed ' ' white unto harvest ' ' ? 
 
 [137] 
 
X 
 
 Henry Clay Trumbull 
 
 Business Man^ Missio^iary^ 
 Anny Chaplain and Editor 
 
 « The Life of Henry Clay Trumbull " // by 
 Philip E. Howard, with an introduction by his son, 
 Charles Gallaudet Trumbull. 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 In the railroad office the clerks were tryiug their 
 strength. They had given the wheel of the letter- 
 press the hardest turn they could, and they chal- 
 lenged Henry Clay Trumbull to turn it further. 
 
 He was a thin, wiry chap, strong enough in the 
 arms, but not powerfully built ; and that wheel was 
 turned as far as the office strong man could turn it. 
 Henry heard the challenge, and throwing his whole 
 being into the contest, he sprang at the letterpress, 
 caught the wheel in a terrifically intense grip, and 
 gave it such a wrench that he broke the heavy screw 
 in two. 
 
 It was like Henry Trumbull to give the wheel one 
 turn beyond the power of most men in whatever he 
 undertook, and that intensity of character, always 
 ready for instant service, carried him through many 
 a difficult undertaking and into achievements that 
 enriched the lives of countless thousands. 
 
 Trumbull spent himself so freely in successive 
 fields of usefulness and poured out his life so 
 lavishly, that it is not so easy to say in what special 
 form of service he found his largest usefulness. 
 
 He was born in Stouiugton, Connecticut, June 8, 
 1830, and his busy eartlilv life overflowed into the 
 [ 141 ] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 new century to tlie winter of 1903. His family was 
 distinguished in colonial history, and has maintained 
 its distinction by specialized service in many fields 
 in our own times. He was, as a boy, privileged to 
 meet or to see in his home village many noted per- 
 sonages of the day, including Andrew Jackson, 
 Martin Van Buren, President Tyler, and John 
 Quincy Adams, Commodore Hull, of the '' Consti- 
 tution," and Colonel John Trumbull of Washing- 
 ton's staff, the artist son of that Governor Jonathan 
 Trumbull of Connecticut, to whom Washington gave 
 the name of ' ' Brother Jonathan. ' ' One of his play- 
 mates was "Jamie" Whistler, whose talent as an 
 artist was beginning to show even then. And 
 Henry well remembered the impression made upon 
 his mind when he saw and heard Adoniram Judson, 
 and Albert Bushnell, the " Patriarch of West Afri- 
 can Missions.'' 
 
 Henry was born in a time of intense political ex- 
 citement and from boyhood onward he was keenly 
 interested in public affairs, at eighteen entering 
 actively into the local work of bringing out voters 
 in the presidential campaign of 1848. His life, too, 
 in the little seaport gave him contacts with world 
 affairs, for Stonington in those days had its fleet of 
 sealing vessels, and its daring sailors like Captain 
 Nat Palmer, who, when only eighteen, in his forty- 
 five-ton sloop "Hero," discovered the land below 
 the South Shetlands in the Atlantic which was 
 named for him by a Eussian fleet commander cruis- 
 ing in that region. 
 
 Young Trumbull's schooling was very brief, in- 
 
 [142] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 eluding its beginnings in the "dame schools "of 
 the period, and its close in Williston Seminary when 
 he was about fourteen. His health was uncertain, 
 aud schooling was distasteful to him. He did not 
 seem strong enough to go through the college pre- 
 paratory work, or to enter college. And so the boy, 
 who became one of the most versatile and learned 
 and stimulatiug writers of his time, was obliged to 
 seek education from other sources. 
 
 He worked in his uncle's drug store ; he worked 
 in a bank in the day, and in the steamboat office on 
 the wharf at night, with trunks trundling past, and 
 steam blowing off, and persons coming in and going 
 out. "Yet I must settle the day's accounts," he 
 wrote, "with conductors and purser, in all this 
 hubbub. After that training I could sit on a curb- 
 stone in a city street aud write an editorial as 
 easily as in an inner study in a clergyman's house." 
 
 From his childhood, Henry had lived in a home 
 atmosphere of classical culture, New England wit 
 and strict religious practices, and he had taken an 
 active part in the local Sunday-school work. At 
 the same time, he had been a social leader in the 
 village, a light-hearted, winsome young fellow, with 
 an eye to the aesthetic in the life about him. Al- 
 though he had gained in character and experiences 
 he had not gained any definite purpose for the future, 
 nor was he giving much thought to the deeper things 
 of life. 
 
 His father, Gurdon Trumbull, knew the lad's 
 nature and its perils. Father and son were walk- 
 ing together one day, when suddenly Gurdon Trum- 
 [143 1 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 bull stopped, turned abruptly to liis son, and asked 
 with great earnestness : 
 
 "Henry, would you like to be respected and 
 looked up to by all your companions, as you grow 
 up?" 
 
 '' Of course I would, father." 
 
 ''Well, if you won't drink, or use tobacco, or 
 dance, or j)lay cards, you will be respected by 
 others, if you have nothiug else than this to recom- 
 mend you. You will be a leader through self-con- 
 trol, even if the other boys have more brains or 
 more friends than you have." Then he relapsed 
 into silence. But the boy understood. He was not 
 to be of the crowd. 
 
 In his twenty-second year Henry was called to a 
 clerical position in the Hartford office of the Hart- 
 ford, Providence and Fiskhill Eailroad. Here he 
 plunged into hard and exacting w^ork. He was a 
 spirited fellow, socially iuclined, and yet with little 
 time now for anything but his work. But his grow- 
 ing character was revealed in more ways than one. 
 His disciplined spirit was shown in a battle with 
 self on one occasion which would have seemed to 
 most young men to offer no occasion for a battle. 
 In the eugineering department, in which Henry 
 eventually became paymaster of construction, the 
 young clerks had fallen into the habit of borrowing 
 from the chief engineer's desk, in his absence, an 
 Inkstand containing a special ink. Henry accepted 
 this habit as one of the office practices, and one day 
 was using the inkstand when his chief, Samuel Ash- 
 burner, needed it at once. Sending into the room 
 [144] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 where the clerks were workiDgy Mr. Aahburiier had 
 the yoaug scribe and the borrowed inkstand brought 
 before him. 
 
 "Henry," he said, with kindly emx)hasis, "I 
 want that inkstaud to remain on my desk at all 
 times. You must never take it away." 
 
 "I'll bear that in mind, sir," answered the young 
 man, and went back to his work. 
 
 A few days later the ink was missing when Mr. 
 Ashburner had occasion to use it. Stei^piug to the 
 door of the clerks' room, he called, sharply, 
 " Henry ! ' ' Youug Trumbull quickly followed him 
 into the next room. 
 
 "Henry," he exclaimed, "what did I tell you 
 about that inkstand ? " 
 
 ' ' You told me not to take it away again. '^ 
 
 ' ' Yes, and I meant it. Now, bring it to me at 
 once ! " 
 
 Henry passed into the clerks' room, lifted the 
 missing inkstand from the desk of another, and car- 
 ried it to his chief. As he placed it in its proper 
 place and started to leave the room, Mr. Ashburner 
 looked severely at him. "Henry," he said, em- 
 phatically, " never let this happen again." 
 
 "I'll bear in mind what you say, sir," was the 
 quiet answer. 
 
 Later in the day the clerk who had been at fault 
 manfully explained the whole matter to his superior. 
 Henry was at once summoned. With an earnest 
 and troubled look Mr. Ashburner received him. 
 " Why didn't you tell me this morning that you 
 hadn't taken that inkstand ? " 
 [145] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 ^' You didn't ask me, sir," replied Henry. 
 
 The chief was somewhat nonplussed. He had 
 found men ready enough to lay the blame upon 
 others, but not so ready to keep still, when even a 
 word of denial might clear them. The interview 
 was closed with an apology from the chief, and 
 Henry went back to his desk. He was building 
 character while helping to build railroads. 
 
 Trumbull's spiritual awakening came as the re- 
 sult of a letter from a friend, and from the preach- 
 ing of Charles G. Finney, i^resident of Oberlin Col- 
 lege, in the revival in Hartford in the winter of 
 1851-1852. One noon, as he was returning from 
 dinner to his railroad office work, he found at the 
 post office a letter from an intimate Stonington 
 friend. He had heard from this friend only a few 
 days before concerning a revival at home. He 
 opened the letter, read a few lines, saw that it was a 
 personal appeal to him, and at once thrust the letter 
 into his pocket, saying to a companion, "I think 
 there must be a big revival in Stonington if it has 
 set my old friend preaching to me." 
 
 Young Trumbull reached the office, which was on 
 the third floor of one of the station towers, but he 
 passed up the stairs to the fourth floor, and en- 
 tered a small map closet, where he shut himself in, 
 and read the letter which urged him to accept Christ. 
 
 Henry was touched beyond expression by his 
 friend's letter, and even before he had read it 
 through he was on his knees, brokenly asking God's 
 forgiveness for his heedless past. Under the im- 
 pulse of this experience he attended some of the 
 
 [146] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 Finney meetings, and in the evangelist's clear and 
 reasoned message he found conviction, and soon 
 united with the First (Center) Congregational 
 Church in Hartford. It was characteristic of Mr. 
 Trumbull that immediately, even before he had 
 united with the Church, he began the work of indi- 
 vidual soul-winning which he always counted his 
 most enduring service, and entered as well iuto Sun- 
 day-school work in the Morgan Street Mission, 
 where he received his first real training in the field 
 with which his name was to be identified in world- 
 wide influence. 
 
 In 1854 Mr. Trumbull married Alice Cogswell 
 Gallaudet, a daughter of the founder of deaf-mute 
 instruction in America, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 He was at this time a business man. His inter- 
 ests were business interests. But the new vision he 
 had of Christian service was beckoning him urgently. 
 He became superintendent of the Morgan Street 
 Sunday School ; he entered into the local and state 
 political life, and developed rapidly as a political 
 speaker in the Scott-Pierce national campaign ; he 
 wrote on political subjects for the ^N'ew York Tribune, 
 and for other papers. He formed a partnership for 
 the conduct of a drug store in Hartford ; declined a 
 place on Governor Buckingham's military staff as 
 colonel ; was chosen for, but did not take up, the 
 editoi'ship of the Hartford Evening Press ; and then 
 went iuto a wool business with his former railroad 
 president. That business was for the time wiped 
 out after the panic of '57, and he was listening for 
 the next call of duty. 
 
 [147] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 One day he met Father Hawley, the city mission- 
 ary, ou the street. The good old man greeted him 
 with ; '' Trumbull, I hear you're out of business. 
 I'm glad of it. I hope the Lord will harrow up your 
 nest as often as you build it outside of his field." 
 
 Trumbull's chief life work was soon to open for 
 him unmistakably. In the first State Sunday-school 
 Convention in Connecticut, in March, 1857, he made 
 his first convention speech. After the second con- 
 vention, a little more than a year later, at the re- 
 quest of the State Association, he was appointed by 
 the American Sunday-School Union as missionary 
 for Connecticut, and entered upon that work, Sep- 
 tember 1, 1858. 
 
 In his first year of missionary work he visited 
 eighty of the hundred and sixty-one towns in the 
 state, traveling more than ten thousand miles in that 
 field alone, visiting, or meeting at union gatherings, 
 more than two hundred and fifty schools, of ten de- 
 nominations, writing more than a thousand letters, 
 and making about three hundred public addresses. 
 
 As the Civil War came on Trumbull was deep in 
 his missionary work, but he felt strongly that he 
 ought to be at the front. His health was so uncer- 
 tain that he could not succeed in passing the neces- 
 sary physical examination. He was tall and thin, 
 black-haired, and with heavy eyebrows arching over 
 the most wonderful blue eyes, that could twinkle 
 with merriment or flash with excitement in their 
 intense and piercing gaze. He was fluent and mag- 
 netic, welcome on every side, and a master hand in 
 dealing with the human material in which he 
 [148] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 worked. His spirit almost burued out the life of 
 his body with its iuteusity. AloDg with his Sun- 
 day-school work, he aided recruitiug officers where- 
 ever he could. " You ask me why I don't go my- 
 self," he would say. ''I tell you I would go if I 
 could. If a recruiting officer will take me, I'll en- 
 list to-night. I am willing to crawl into a hundred- 
 pound Parrott guu, as a wad, and be fired off for 
 my country." 
 
 Quite unexpectedly, in August, 1862, a call came 
 to him to be the chaplain of the Tenth Connecticut. 
 
 The Tenth was already in the field, quartered at 
 New Berne, North Carolina. IVIr. Trumbull's first 
 chaplain's sermon was not preached to his own regi- 
 ment, but on Sundaj^, September 21, 1862, to the 
 Twenty-second Connecticut, then in a rendezvous 
 camp near Hartford. "A small table," he wrote, 
 "had been borrowed from a neighboring house, 
 and set in the open air on the i)arade ground, as a 
 reading desk for me. A flag was thrown over it. 
 On this rested a large Bible and a hymn book. As I 
 took my place behind it, in the presence of the as- 
 sembled regiment, I saw that an open pack of cards 
 was on the Bible, as if in mischievous desire to test 
 the new chaplain. Without being disturbed or an- 
 noyed, I quietly gathered up the cards, and put 
 them out of sight, saying in a low tone to the 
 colonel, 'Hearts are trumps to-day, and I've a full 
 hand.'" The new chaplain was not new to the 
 ways of men. 
 
 A chaplain was not readily accepted by the 
 soldiers as necessarily a fellow man. Mr. Trumbull 
 [149] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 knew the Doble record of many a devoted chaplain, 
 and he knew the ignominious story of the failure of 
 many another to get alongside the men and officers, 
 for one reason or another. He decided two or three 
 questions very early in his chaplaincy. His place 
 was with his parishioners, whether they were on the 
 firing line, or in the quiet of the chapel tent. His 
 watchword was service. He was highly sensitive, 
 and often asserted that he was physically timid. 
 He determined that he would overcome his physical 
 shrinking from danger and bloodshed at any cost, 
 and stay with his men. This he did upon all occa- 
 sions, on the firing line, or with the wounded on 
 the field, or in camp or hospital, or as a prisoner, 
 ministering to others in the dreaded places of con- 
 finement. 
 
 Chaplain Trumbull said in his later years that he 
 never felt so thoroughly at home anywhere as in 
 the army, for there his natural energy and intensity 
 were not out of place, as he often felt they were in 
 civil life. Seized as a spy, when he was minister- 
 ing to the wounded on the battle field near Fort 
 Wagner, under a flag of truce, he was in three 
 prisons of the South, Columbia, Charleston and 
 Libby, and was released as by a miracle. 
 
 The story of his army experiences Doctor Trum- 
 bull has told in three of his books, "The Knightly 
 Soldier," a biography of his friend Major Henry 
 Ward Camp ; " War Memories of an Army Chap- 
 lain '^ ; and " Shoes and Eations for a Long March," 
 a volume of his army sermons. There is no more 
 significant testimony to his work as a chaplain in 
 [ 150 ] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 his three years of service than a little bundle of 
 faded papers, showing in a way which is probably 
 unparalleled in the records of Civil War chaplains, 
 the love and respect his comrades had for him. 
 For the officer of the brigade to which his regi- 
 ment belonged petitioned the Department Com- 
 mander to confer upon the chaplain the rank of 
 Major of Volunteers by Brevet, for distinguished 
 services in camp and on the field. That this could 
 not be granted by the War Department was due 
 solely to the fact that no law provided for the pro- 
 motion of chaplains. 
 
 After the War, Trumbull was beset with invi- 
 tations for addresses, and many calls came to him 
 to abandon his Sunday-School Union connection, 
 among them an offer from a life insurance company 
 to act as their New England agent on a minimum 
 guarantee of twenty thousand dollars a year. But 
 he was not to be diverted from the call of the Sun- 
 day school. He was appointed Normal Secretary 
 of the Sunday-School Union in 1871, to work in con- 
 ventions and institutions in any part of the coun- 
 try. His work in this way became nation-wide by 
 personal travel and by his steady outflow of contri- 
 butions to periodicals. 
 
 In 1875 an invitation came to him from John 
 Wanamaker, who had bought The Sunday School 
 Times, to become its editor. If he should accept, 
 the change in the character of his work would be 
 radical. All his home associations were in Hart- 
 ford ; there he had married ; there all but one of his 
 seven children had been born. The Sunday School 
 [151] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 Times had only a small circulation, and was an ex- 
 pense to Mr. Wanamaker, who was conducting it 
 in a spirit of philanthropy. But when the decision 
 was finally reached to go to Philadelphia as editor 
 and part owner of the paper, and the move was 
 made, Mr. Trumbull said, characteristically, to his 
 wife : 
 
 ''Alice, if future events should seem to show that 
 I have wrecked my business prospects, and even my 
 reputation, by going to Philadelphia, I want you to 
 know that I was sure, when I left Hartford, that God 
 wanted me to go there. Whether I am personally 
 to gain or lose by the move, God knows. That God 
 clearly indicated his wish for me to make the move, 
 I know. The result I am glad to leave with God." 
 
 How well the move turned out is now a matter of 
 journalistic history. In 1877 Trumbull, with his 
 son-in-law, John D. Wattles, bought the paper from 
 Mr. Wanamaker, and together the two men gave it 
 a new distinction and world-wide circulation by 
 aggressive editorial and business methods. Trum- 
 bull practically gave up public speaking, and 
 devoted himself to editing and writing. Nothing 
 was too good for his paper or for the Sunday school. 
 He had a genius for choosing and securing writers. 
 He spared no expense in providing reading matter. 
 He gathered around him a staff of specialists, and 
 called to the service of the Sunday school, through 
 his paper, the foremost Biblical experts of two con- 
 tinents. Bishop EUicott of Gloucester and Bristol, 
 Chairman of the New Testament Company of the 
 English Eevision Committee said once to him : 
 [ 152 ] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 *' That's a very remarkable paper you have, Mr. 
 Trumbull. We have nothing like it in this coun- 
 try. You have a way of securing contributions from 
 all directions. I believe you got something from 
 me. I don't know how you did it." And that was 
 the experience of many another leader in Biblical 
 scholarship. 
 
 In 1881, completely worn out in body and mind, 
 he made a pilgrimage to Egypt and the Holy Land 
 in search of health. It was on this journey that he 
 turned aside from his first plan, and went into the 
 Desert of the Wanderings on a hunt for the until 
 then uncertain site of Kadesh-barnea, which he suc- 
 ceeded in finding by determined and keen-witted 
 handling of his reluctant and secretive Arab guides. 
 His subsequent volume on the results of that visit 
 gave him at once a foremost place among Oriental 
 investigators. That volume involved an amazing 
 exploit in what were to him unfamiliar fields of 
 scholarship. He had studied neither Greek nor 
 Hebrew, and no modern language but his own, yet 
 he must test his conclusions by the work of scholars 
 written in various languages. He had an intuitive 
 sense of word-significance that enabled him to trace 
 key-words through their dictionary meaning to the 
 shade of meaning which they had when used in 
 varied connections. In the two years and a half 
 during which he was at work on his Kadesh-barnea 
 book, he kept up all his usual work on the paper, 
 and examined more than two thousand volumes in 
 seven languages in some of the principal libraries of 
 America, meanwhile corresponding with European 
 
 [153] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 scholars with reference to material in libraries 
 abroad. And when the book was published, no less 
 a man than Professor A. H. Sayce of Oxford, called 
 it " a model of what archseological research and 
 reasoning ought to be, one of the few archaeological 
 books in which the author knows how to prove his 
 point by what constitutes a sound argument." 
 
 It is impossible here even to touch upon all the 
 fields of activity in which Henry Clay Trumbull 
 rendered conspicuous service. He was unsparing of 
 himself. He shrank from vacations. He used to 
 say, " I get my vacations sitting on my porch these 
 summer afternoons watching my neighbors come 
 home in ambulances from their summer vacations." 
 He got his rest in sleep and his recreation in work. 
 He had time for everyone in need. He counted a 
 friend's need as his first call and the extent of his 
 personal ministry to individuals no man can pos- 
 sibly measure. 
 
 Meanwhile he wrote voluminously, writing in ad- 
 dition to all his regular weekly departments in his 
 paper more than thirty books. Practically none of 
 this writing was done in seclusion but in the open 
 freedom of his crowded editorial rooms, or in the 
 small library of his home between the dining room 
 and the drawing-room with the life of the household 
 in no way shut off from him ; or on trains, or street 
 cars, or while waiting for others to keep appoint- 
 ments. Much of his work required very extended 
 and patient research, yet he found time for many 
 social engagements, avoided no church obligalion, 
 but gave of his best, and continuously, to his Bible 
 
 [154] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 class aud teacher's meetiDgs, and to the Wednesday 
 eveuiug prayer meetiug, aud, outside the church, to 
 learned societies, to conferences of college students, 
 and groups of friends, in occasional addresses aud 
 lectures, and in much-sought personal counsel. He 
 was called upon for service on important state oc- 
 casions, as in the making of the address of welcome 
 to Grant upon his return from his journey around 
 the world. It was a sign of his wide sympathies 
 that he was invited to pronounce the benediction in 
 a Jewish Synagogue upon a memorial occasion. 
 
 Some of Doctor Trumbull's most abiding work was 
 done in the last ten years of his life, and some of 
 the most fruitful after he was physically disabled 
 and confined much of the time to his room. His 
 most widely circulated book, " Individual Work for 
 Individuals," was written after he could no longer 
 walk without assistance. He used to say, with a 
 laugh over his disabilities; " I'd rather lose three 
 legs than one head ! ' ' 
 
 Doctor Trumbull was a recognized specialist and 
 authority in a great diversity of subjects. He wrote 
 the popular biography of war time in the sixties ; 
 he wrote the authoritative and popular work on 
 Sunday-school teaching ; he delivered as the Lyman 
 Beecher Lectures at Yale what came to be recog- 
 nized as the one great history and estimate of the 
 Sunday-school movement ; he studied minutely and 
 set forth voluminously the origin and meanings of 
 the varied forms of covenants known among primi- 
 tive peoples ; he wrote the outstanding volume on 
 friendship, a study ranging over the influences affect- 
 [155] 
 
THEIR CALL TO SERVICE 
 
 iDg the world's leadership in maDy ages and lands ; 
 it was his study of the question *' Is a lie ever justi- 
 fiable ? ' ' that cleared the atmosphere for thousands 
 upon this question, which he answered with an ir- 
 refutable negative ; he put forth the most fertile and 
 convincing book on individual soul-winning. In- 
 deed, whatever he did was done with such spirit 
 and grasp and permanent principles beneath it that 
 it had in itself standardizing qualities. 
 
 But with all this, Doctor Trumbull was distinctly 
 a man among men. It is not enough to say that he 
 interested them. He startled them, charmed them, 
 made them forget self, brought them wide-awake, 
 face to face with the glory of living the life of a man 
 in the kingdom of God. John E. Mott said of him : 
 "In his relationship with men, Doctor Trumbull 
 impressed me as being more like Christ than any 
 man I have ever known." Says President Robert 
 Ellis Thompson : ' ' He had an instinctive sense of 
 personality. When he was speaking to anyone, he 
 seemed to realize what that person was, and his way 
 of looking at things." Of the effect of his person- 
 ality upon that of another, his friend Robert E. 
 Speer, speaking for the younger generation, said of 
 him : ' ' How boundlessly appreciative and generous 
 he was, — seeing good where there was no good ex- 
 cept in his seeing. He loved his own ideals which 
 he dreamed he saw in others, and then by his sheer 
 love he began to create them in others. It was but 
 our humiliation and our glory that he was ever 
 finding in us nobleness which we did not know was 
 possible for us until he loved it into being in us." 
 
 [ 156 ] 
 
HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 Out of his long experience Doctor Trumbull bore 
 this testimony to the fruitfuluess of the kind of serv- 
 ice that increasingly seemed to him most needed 
 and most honored by God among men. 
 
 "Looking back upon my work, in all these 
 years, I can see more direct results of good through 
 my individual efforts with individuals than I can 
 know of through all my spoken words to thousands 
 upon thousands of persons in religious assemblies, or 
 all my written words on the pages of periodicals or 
 books. And in this I do not think my experience 
 has been wholly unlike that of many others who 
 have had large experience in both spheres of influ- 
 ence. Eeaching one person at a time is the best 
 way of reaching all the world in time." 
 
 When, on December 8, 1903, Henry Clay Trum- 
 bull entered into the larger life, there were thou- 
 sands who must have thanked God, as they had 
 often thanked him before, that the Connecticut boy 
 had been obedient unto his heavenly vision again 
 and again in life's pivotal experiences, and had an- 
 swered his clear call, not only to distinguished ac- 
 complishment in that which the world counts im- 
 portant, but to unheralded service in Christ's name 
 to one soul at a time who needed light and a friend. 
 
 [157] 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
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