&* ^^ r^ ■ 
 
 
^ n - c ^, 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
""* 
 
 
 """ 
 
 
 The 
 Religious T/ife of 
 Famous Americans 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 By 
 
 LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 
 
 Author of ♦' The King's Stewards " and 
 *♦ Soul-Winning Stories " 
 
 
 » 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 
 
 150 Nassau Street 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
 
 
 
 

 Two Oooies 3ere»ved 
 
 SEP 20 1904 
 jftooyil£ht Entry 
 
 CLASS (X. XXo. No. 
 
 COPY 
 
 COPY B 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1904, 
 BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 
 
 BURR PRINTING HOUSE 
 NEW YORK 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 3 
 
 II. RUFUS CHOATE I7 
 
 III. SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE ,. . . 29 
 
 IV. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 4I 
 
 V. JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD .... 53 
 
 VI. WILLIAM MCKINLEY 65 
 
 VH. EMMA WILLARD TJ 
 
 VIII. DANIEL WEBSTER 89 
 
 IX. MARY LYON lOI 
 
 X. HENRY CLAY II3 
 
 XL STONEWALL JACKSON 125 
 
 XII. WASHINGTON IRVING 137 
 
 XIII. CYRUS WEST FIELD I5I 
 
 XIV. ROBERT EDWARD LEE 163 
 
 XV. ANDREW JACKSON 1 75 
 
 XVI. ELISHA KENT KANE 187 
 
 XVII. ABIGAIL ADAMS IQQ 
 
 XVIII. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT . . . .211 
 
 XIX. FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD . . . 223 
 
 XX. BENJAMIN HARRISON 237 
 
A FIRST WORD WITH THE READER. 
 
 Life is ever the greatest teacher. The story 
 of great men is of absorbing interest, not only 
 to youth but to thinking men at every stage of 
 their Hves. The poHtical biographer is not 
 likely to make much of the personal religious 
 character of the man the story of whose 
 political honor and ambitious career he 
 seeks to narrate. So that it often happens that 
 a public man whose religious life was most de- 
 vout and who drew the nourishment for his 
 most splendid deeds from the hidden springs 
 of worship and communion with God, stands 
 in the eye of the multitude as an unknown 
 quantity religiously. It has been the purpose 
 of the author in these chapters to present in the 
 case of the score of men and women whose 
 lives are studied the religious side of their 
 career. Such information has been sought 
 from every quarter available, and is presented 
 in a way which it is hoped will picture the 
 truthful and helpful Christian personality of 
 each character portrayed. 
 
 Louis Albert Banks. 
 
 West Nyack, N. Y., July 8, 1904. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Among the interesting things shown in the 
 Lincoln Museum in the Capital City of the 
 nation is an old copy of the Bible. No one 
 can look at its well-thumbed pages without 
 being assured that it has been much studied. 
 If you will look on the inside of the cover, 
 you will find these words, written by the 
 famous man who once owned it : "A. Lincoln, 
 his own book." 
 
 Throughout his life, Abraham Lincoln was 
 a devout student of the Bible. In his young 
 manhood, when writing to his brother about 
 his father's sickness, he uses these words : "He 
 notes the fall of the sparrow and numbers the 
 hairs of our heads." In all his early speeches, 
 both at the bar and on the political stump, he 
 
4 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 quoted from the Bible more than from any 
 other book, and he kept this up until the end 
 of his life. Indeed, after he came to the Presi- 
 dency of the United States and upon his shoul- 
 ders were laid such heavy burdens, his religious 
 life was evidently greatly intensified and deep- 
 ened. About a year before the tragic end of 
 his career on earth, he wrote to his friend, 
 Joshua Speed : ''I am profitably engaged in 
 reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon 
 reason that you can, and the balance on faith, 
 and you will live and die a better man." 
 
 After the Emancipation Proclamation, the 
 colored people of Baltimore presented Mr. 
 Lincoln with a handsome copy of the Scrip- 
 tures. He responded in these words : *'In 
 regard to the great book, I have only to say 
 that it is the best gift which God has given 
 to man. All the good from the Saviour of 
 the world is communicated through this book." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's faith in God, his confidence 
 in him as the author of the Bible, is brought 
 out in strongest light in his second inaugural 
 address. This tremendous paragraph stands as 
 an immortal testimony to the great man's reli- 
 ance and faith in God and his Word : 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. '5 
 
 "Both read the same Bible and pray to the 
 same God, and each invokes his aid against 
 the other. It may seem strange that any man 
 should dare to ask a just God's assistance in 
 wringing their bread from the sweat of other 
 men's faces; but let us judge not that we be 
 not judged. The prayers of both could not 
 be answered. That of neither has been an- 
 swered fully. The Almighty has his own pur- 
 poses. 'Woe unto the world because of of- 
 fences, for it must needs be that offences come : 
 but woe to the man by whom the offence 
 cometh.' If we shall suppose that American 
 slavery is one of these offences, which in the 
 providence of God must needs come, but which, 
 having continued through his appointed time, 
 he now wills to remove, and that he gives to 
 both North and South this terrible war as 
 the woe due to those by whom the offence 
 came, shall we discern therein any departure 
 from those divine attributes which the be- 
 lievers in a living God always ascribe to him? 
 Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that 
 this mighty scourge of war may soon pass 
 away. Yet, if God wills that it shall continue 
 until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two 
 
6 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall 
 be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn 
 with the lash shall be paid with another drawn 
 with the sword; as was said three thousand 
 years ago, so it still must be said, 'The judg- 
 ments of the Lord are true and righteous 
 altogether.' " 
 
 One of the strong writers of that day, com- 
 menting on the Christian spirit and faith 
 breathed from Lincoln's second inaugural, said : 
 "Since the days of Christ's Sermon on the 
 Mount, where is the speech of emperor, king, 
 or ruler which can compare with this ? May we 
 not, without irreverence, say that passages of 
 this address are worthy of that holy Book 
 which daily he read, and from which, during 
 his long days of trial, he had drawn inspiration 
 and guidance ? Where else but from the teach- 
 ings of the Son of God could he have drawn 
 the Christian charity which pervades the last 
 sentence, in which he so unconsciously describes 
 his own moral nature: 'With malice toward 
 none, with charity for all, with firmness in the 
 right as God gives us to see the right' ? No 
 other state paper in American annals, not even 
 Washington's farewell address, has made so 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 7 
 
 deep an impression upon the people as this. 
 . . . This paper in its solemn recognition 
 of the justice of Almighty God reminds us 
 of the words of the old Hebrew prophets.'* 
 
 Abraham Lincoln had a most devout faith in 
 prayer. General James F. Rusling gives a most 
 interesting account of a call he and General 
 Daniel E. Sickles made upon him after the bat- 
 tle of Gettysburg. During the conversation 
 General Sickles asked if the President and the 
 Cabinet had not been anxious about the bat- 
 tle? Mr. Lincoln replied that the Cabinet had, 
 but he had not; and he then went on to make 
 a confession that in the very pinch and stress 
 of the Gettysburg campaign he had gone to 
 the Almighty in secret prayer. He said he 
 told the Lord this was his country, and the 
 war was his war, but that we could not stand 
 another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville ; 
 and that he then and there made a solemn vow 
 with his Maker that if he would stand by us 
 at Gettysburg, he would stand by him; and 
 then he added: "And he did, and I will!" He 
 said that after he had prayed he could not 
 explain how it was, but a sweet comfort had 
 crept into his soul that God Almighty had 
 
8 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 taken the whole business there into his hands, 
 and we were bound to win at Gettysburg. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln returned again to the subject 
 of prayer in that same conversation with 
 Sickles and Rusling, saying that he did not 
 want it repeated then ; some might laugh ; but it 
 was a solemn fact that he prayed mightily over 
 both Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and verily be- 
 lieved our Heavenly Father was somehow 
 going to take care of the American Republic. 
 At the time of this conversation President Lin- 
 coln did not know that Vicksburg had already 
 been captured. 
 
 No public man ever more clearly empha- 
 sized his faith in God in his public addresses, 
 as well as in his private conversation and let- 
 ters, than did Abraham Lincoln. When he 
 started from Springfield, 111., to take his jour- 
 ney to Washington to become President, a 
 large number of the citizens of Springfield, 
 together with his neighbors and friends, gath- 
 ered at the station to bid him farewell. Stand- 
 ing on the platform of the car, and speaking 
 with deep emotion, he said : 
 
 "My friends, no one not in my position can 
 realize the sadness I feel at this parting. To 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 9 
 
 this people I owe all that I am. Here I have 
 lived more than a quarter of a century. Here 
 my children were born and here one of them 
 lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see 
 you again. I go to assume a task more difficult 
 than that which has devolved upon any other 
 man since the days of Washington. He never 
 would have succeeded except for the aid of 
 divine Providence, upon which he at all times 
 relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without 
 the same divine blessing which sustained him ; 
 and on the same Almighty Being I place my 
 reliance for support. And I hope you, my 
 friends, will all pray that I may receive the 
 divine assistance, without which I cannot suc- 
 ceed, but with which success is certain." 
 
 The journey which Lincoln took to Wash- 
 ington will always be historic. At every station 
 the people gathered and at every stop Mr. 
 Lincoln spoke, and the key-note of all his 
 speeches was his faith in God and his hope for 
 the divine guidance. In his address at Colum- 
 bus, Ohio, he said : "I turn then to God for sup- 
 port, who has never forsaken the people." At 
 Steuben ville he said : "Nothing shall be want- 
 ing on my part, if sustained by the American 
 
lo RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 people and God." At Buffalo, N. Y. : *'I am 
 trusting in that Supreme Being who has never 
 forsaken this favored land." At Albany he 
 said : "1 still have confidence that the Almighty, 
 the Maker of the universe, will bring us through 
 this." At Newark, N. J., he said : ''I am sure, 
 however, that I have not the ability to do any- 
 thing unaided of God." At Trenton he said : 
 "I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a 
 humble instrument in the hands of the Al- 
 mighty and of this his most chosen people as 
 the chosen instrument, also in the hands of 
 the Almighty, of perpetuating the object of 
 that great struggle." At Philadelphia, where 
 the last address was made before reaching 
 Washington, he used these words : "I have said 
 nothing but that I am willing to live by, and, 
 if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by." 
 While these utterances are sufficient to prove 
 beyond all doubt Mr. Lincoln's reverent faith 
 in God, it is certainly a matter of comfort to 
 all sincere Christian hearts that we have abun- 
 dant evidence that during his Presidency of 
 the United States Mr. Lincoln came into a 
 definite, personal relation with Jesus Christ as 
 his Saviour and Lord. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ii 
 
 Mr. Noah Brooks, who was a bosom friend 
 of Lincoln, says that, while he never tried to 
 draw anything like a statement of his religious 
 views from him, Mr. Lincoln freely expressed 
 to him **his hope of a blessed immortality 
 through Jesus Christ." 
 
 Mr. Frank Carpenter, the painter, who had 
 unusual opportunities for private conversation 
 with Mr. Lincoln, relates that a lady in the 
 service of the Christian Commission called on 
 Mr. Lincoln on a number of occasions on the 
 business of the Commission. On one occasion 
 their conversation turned to the subject of 
 religion. The President asked this good 
 woman to give her views as to what constituted 
 a religious experience, and she readily con- 
 sented. After she had clearly set forth her 
 views, Mr. Lincoln responded as follows: "If 
 what you have told me is really a correct view 
 of this subject, I think I can say with 
 sincerity that I hope that I am a Christian. 
 I had lived until my boy Willie died without 
 fully realizing these things. That blow over- 
 whelmed me. It showed me my weakness as 
 I never felt it before, and if I can take what 
 you have stated as a test, I think I can safely 
 
12 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 say that I know something of that change of 
 which you speak. I will further add that it 
 has been my intention for some time at a suit- 
 able opportunity to make a public religious 
 confession." 
 
 On another occasion, speaking to Mr. Noah 
 Brooks, to whom reference has already been 
 made, Mr. Lincoln said : "When any church 
 would inscribe over its altars as its sole quali- 
 fication for membership the Saviour's con- 
 densed statement of the substance of both law 
 and gospel. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' 
 that church will I join with all my heart and 
 all my soul.'* 
 
 Colonel Henry Watterson, in his remarkable 
 lecture on Abraham Lincoln, has this eloquent 
 paragraph expressing his faith in the divine 
 guidance and inspiration of Abraham Lincoln, 
 in which all Christians may unite. Mr. Wat- 
 terson says of him : 
 
 "Born as lowly as the Son of God, reared 
 in penury and squalor, with no gleam of light 
 nor fair surroundings, it was reserved for this 
 strange being, late in life, without fame or 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 13 
 
 name or seeming preparation, to be snatched 
 from obscurity, raised to a supreme command 
 at a supreme moment, and intrusted with the 
 destiny of a nation. Where did Shakespeare 
 get his genius? Where did Mozart get his 
 music? Whose hands smote the lyre of the 
 Scottish plowman and stayed the life of the 
 German priest? God alone; and as surely as 
 these were raised by God, inspired of God was 
 Abraham Lincoln. A thousand years hence, 
 no story, no tragedy, no epic poem will be filled 
 with greater wonder than that which tells of 
 his life and death. If Lincoln was not inspired 
 of God, then there is no such thing on earth 
 as special providence or the interposition of 
 divine power in the affairs of men." 
 
RUFUS CHOATE 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 RuFus Choate, one of the greatest of 
 America's lawyers as well as one of her most 
 famous orators, seems to have been born into 
 the world with a thirst for knowledge, and with 
 his first reading came the Bible. In the village 
 library of the little town of Ipswich, Mass., 
 where he spent his childhood, he found such 
 books as ''RoUin's Ancient History," '^Jo- 
 sephus," 'Tlutarch," and these and many other 
 books of a similar nature he read before he 
 was ten years old. During all these early years 
 the Bible was read and re-read with more than 
 ordinary thoughtfulness, and early in the War 
 of 1 812 he made what he thought was the 
 great discovery of an undoubted prophecy of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte in the book of Daniel. 
 
i8 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 He was at the same time an attentive and criti- 
 cal hearer of sermons, even when the minister 
 was dull. ''When about nine years old," says 
 his brother, ''he took us all by surprise one 
 
 Sabbath noon, by saying, 'Mr. (naming 
 
 the preacher) had better mind what he says 
 about James (the apostle), even James,' re- 
 peating the words emphatically. The minister 
 had been quoting Paul, and added, 'even James 
 says, For what is your life ?' The remark went 
 to show us (the family) not only that he had 
 been attentive to what had been said (which we 
 had not been), but that he saw an objection 
 to the comparison, implied, at least, between 
 the two apostles, both of whom were 
 inspired." 
 
 The moral discipline of the family where 
 Rufus Choate grew up was careful and exact. 
 A portion of the Catechism was recited every 
 Sabbath, and the lessons thus learned were 
 so deeply engraved on his memory as never to 
 be forgotten. On one occasion in later life, 
 in commenting upon the testimony of a witness 
 who professed his willingness to do any job 
 that might offer on Sunday, just as he would 
 on any other day, Mr. Choate repeated, word 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 19 
 
 for word; one of the long answers of the Cate- 
 chism on the import of the Fourth Command- 
 ment, and then turning to the Court, said, 
 ''May it please your honor, my mother taught 
 me this in my earliest childhood, and I trust 
 I shall not forget it in my age." 
 
 After young Choate left college he spent a 
 year in the office of William E. Wirt, in Wash- 
 ington. Mr. Wirt was then Attorney-General 
 of the United States, and the association with 
 him furnished great opportunity for the young 
 lawyer. Writing to an old college chum dur- 
 ing this year, this significant sentence occurs 
 in his letter, ''I read every day some chapters in 
 the English Bible." This early religious teach- 
 ing and Bible reading produced, as it always 
 will, strength of conscience. An educated con- 
 science was Rufus Choate's supreme master. 
 The story is told that on one very stormy night, 
 during his residence in Danvers, Mass., he was 
 called upon at a late hour to draw the will of 
 a dying man who lived several miles distant. 
 He went, performed the service, and returned 
 home. But after going to bed, as he lay re- 
 volving in his mind each provision of the paper 
 he had so rapidly prepared, there flashed across 
 
20 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 his memory an omission that might possibly 
 cause the testator's intention to be misunder- 
 stood. He sprang from his bed and began 
 dressing himself rapidly^, to the great surprise 
 of his wife, only answering her inquiries by 
 saying that he had done what must be undone, 
 and in the thick of the storm rode again to his 
 dying client, explained the reason of his return, 
 and drew a codicil to the will which made 
 everything sure. 
 
 He related this incident in after life, saying 
 that sometimes, years after a case had been 
 tried, he would feel a pang of reproach that 
 he had not urged some argument which at that 
 moment flashed across his mind. He always 
 fought his lost cases over again, to see if he 
 could find any argument whereby he might 
 have gained them. 
 
 Mr. Choate's biographer, Samuel Gilman 
 Brown, a former president of Hamilton Col- 
 lege, gives a very touching and graphic de- 
 scription of the incidents connected with the 
 death of a little girl but three years of age, 
 which sets forth very tenderly the Christian 
 faith and feeling of the great lawyer. Rev. 
 Dr. Adams, who was pastor of the family. 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 21 
 
 was away from home, and so Mr. Choate 
 wrote a letter which he sent by a special mes- 
 senger to Rev. Hubbard Winslow, asking him 
 to come immediately. 
 
 "Entering the chamber," says Dr. Winslow, 
 "at the appointed time^ I found the family 
 all assembled. A beautiful little girl of per- 
 haps three years lay dying. We all kneeled 
 in prayer, and after a few remarks I was 
 about to retire, to leave the weeping family 
 to the sacredness of their domestic sorrow, 
 when Mr. Choate took my hand and besought 
 me to remain with them while the child lived. 
 I consented to remain until evening, when I had 
 another engagement. He stood by the fire- 
 place, resting his elbows on the marble, with 
 his face in his hands, evidently absorbed in 
 prayer; Mrs. Choate was bending over the 
 pillow with the yearning tenderness of a 
 mother, and the older children and servants 
 stood around in silent grief, while I sat by 
 the bedside, observing the child's symptoms, 
 and sometimes repeating a passage of Scrip- 
 ture or a pertinent stanza of poetry. Thus 
 a full hour passed in silence, in prayer, in tears, 
 in communion with death and eternity, Mr. 
 
22 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Choate remaining motionless as a statue during 
 the whole time. Perceiving the pulse failing 
 and the breath becoming very short and diffi- 
 cult, I said, 'Mr. Choate, I fear the dear child 
 is just leaving us.' He then came to the bed- 
 side, embraced her, kissed her three times, and 
 then turned and resumed his position as be- 
 fore. All the family followed him in a parting 
 kiss. A few moments after, the angel spirit 
 fled. I closed the sightless eyes and said, 'My 
 dear Mr. Choate, your sweet child is in heaven !' 
 He burst instantly into a flood of tears, and 
 sobbed aloud. He did not change his position, 
 but remained with his face buried in his hands 
 and the tears pouring like rain drops upon the 
 hearthstone. And thus he continued, until duty 
 compelled me to leave the chamber of death. 
 He then came and thanked me, and said with 
 deep emotion, *I feel greatly comforted. My 
 dear child has gone home. It was God's will 
 to take her, and that is enough.' " 
 
 Occasional references in Rufus Choate' s 
 journals show that he was never so busy or 
 so interested in other matters as to forget the 
 necessity of feeding the spiritual life. During 
 a trip to Europe, in 1850, he writes while on 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 23 
 
 shipboard, "I have come away without a book 
 but the Bible and Prayer Book and Daily 
 Food." Later he writes down this resolution, 
 "I will commit one morsel in the 'Daily Food' 
 daily, and have to-day, that of the 29th of 
 June." In a memorandum concerning a relig- 
 ious service which he had attended in London, 
 he writes : "I have attended service in St. 
 George's for want of knowing where to go. 
 The music was admirable, forming a larger 
 part than in the x\merican Episcopal Service, 
 and performed divinely. The sermon was light 
 and delivered in a cold 'sing-song' on 'The 
 Character of David.' " 
 
 In laying out a plan for his daily conduct, 
 during a stay in England, he wrote down this 
 resolution, "And now for some plan of time 
 and movement for England. Before breakfast 
 I shall walk at least an hour observantly, and 
 on returning, jot down anything worth it. 
 This hour is for exercise, however. I mean 
 next to read every day a passage in the Bible, 
 a passage in the Old and in the New Testament, 
 beginning each, and commit my 'Daily Food.' " 
 And a month later, when he had been very 
 much taken up, so that he had little time to 
 
'24 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 write in his journal, he jots down this, "I read 
 Bible, Prayer Book, and a page of Bishop 
 Andrews' Prayers." 
 
 All the men who have written about Rufus 
 Choate have agreed in this : that as life matured 
 with him, the beautiful graces of the Christian 
 character became ever more marked in all his 
 relations to others. One says of him: "It 
 seemed as if nobody was ever so gentle, and 
 sweet hearted^ and tender of others as he. And 
 when we consider the constant provocation of 
 his profession, his natural excitability, the 
 ardor with which he threw himself into a 
 case, the vigor and tenacity of purpose 
 with which he fought his battle, as well 
 as his extreme sensitiveness to sharp and 
 unkind words, it seems little less than a 
 miracle." 
 
 Another says of him that he lavished his 
 good nature upon all around him, in the court 
 and in the office, upon students, witnesses, ser- 
 vants, and strangers as well. He was so 
 reluctant to inflict pain that he would long en- 
 dure annoyance, such as permitting himself to 
 be bored by an undesired visitor, or put himself 
 to great inconvenience in escaping from a diffi- 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 25 
 
 cult situation rather than to wound the feelings 
 of another. We are assured that he never 
 spoke ill of the absent, nor would suffer others 
 to do so in his presence. He was affectionate, 
 obliging, desirous to make every one about him 
 happy, with strong sympathy for any one in 
 trouble. 
 
 Dr. Adams, who was his pastor for many 
 years, in his funeral address tells a character- 
 istic little anecdote: ''He had not walked far, 
 one morning, a few years ago, he said, and 
 gave as a reason that his attention was taken 
 by a company of those large, creeping things 
 which lie on their backs in the paths as soon 
 as the light strikes them. 'But of what use 
 was it,' he was asked, 'for you to help them 
 over with your cane, knowing that they 
 would become supine again?' 'I gave 
 them a fair start in life,' he said, 'and 
 my responsibility was at an end.' Rufus 
 Choate was always helping them on to their 
 feet." 
 
 The great lawyer was very fond of music, 
 especially sacred music. Every Sunday even- 
 ing, after tea, he would gather his children 
 around the piano and join them in singing the 
 
26 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 old Psalm tunes and chants. In his last ill- 
 ness his children sang these old songs of praise 
 for him every night. His pure and happy 
 spirit must have rejoiced on entering the 
 heavenly chorus. 
 
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 
 
 'J'SS 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 
 
 The first message ever sent over the tele- 
 graphic wire — 'What hath God wrought!" — 
 taken from the twenty-third verse of the 
 twenty-third chapter of the book of Numbers, 
 reveals a spirit in perfect harmony with the 
 entire life and character of Samuel F. B. 
 Morse, the famous inventor of our modern 
 telegraph system. Professor Morse was not 
 only a Christian in his creed, but a sincere and 
 genuine Christian in his practice. Both his 
 father and his grandfather were ministers of 
 the gospel. He gave himself, without reserve, 
 to the Christian life in his youth, and held to it 
 with consecrated devotion throughout his 
 career. It was in his father's church in 
 Charlestown, Mass., that he first publicly pro- 
 fessed his faith in Christ. Later on, when the 
 family removed to New Haven, Conn., he be- 
 came a member of the First Congregational 
 
30 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Church of that city, where he remained in con- 
 nection until the year 1847, when he settled in 
 Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and united with the First 
 Presbyterian Church. But wherever he was, 
 in London, or Paris, or Washington, on sea 
 or land, in whatever company of people he was 
 thrown, he was always known and recognized 
 as a Christian. Those who knew him most 
 intimately were constantly impressed with the 
 feeling that he was guided in all his actions 
 by reverent love toward God and sympathy and 
 kindness toward his fellow-men. To him the 
 Scriptures were the guide and rule of life, and 
 he held his own life constantly to their stand- 
 ard. He was often unjustly assailed by those 
 who were envious or jealous of him because of 
 his inventive genius; yet these things which 
 often bring out the seamy side in a man's 
 character, had no such result with him. 
 Through the most annoying experiences he 
 maintained a composure and calmness, with a 
 forgiving and gentle spirit, which caused those 
 who beheld him to feel like saying,, as was 
 said of Peter and John, that he "had been with 
 Jesus and learned of him." He greatly 
 delighted in Christian conversation, and walk- 
 
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 31 
 
 ing on the street, or in the midst of business, 
 when he was seemingly overwhelmed with 
 business cares and perplexed with many busi- 
 ness anxieties, he ever welcomed a conversa- 
 tion on the subject of personal religion and 
 would talk with all the simplicity of a child 
 with any friend who was ready to discuss the 
 subject of the relation of the soul to God. 
 
 Professor Morse was far more than a senti- 
 mentalist in the Christian life. The Christian 
 spirit pervaded all his business. He was active 
 and conscientious in the use of his money and 
 gave largely and cheerfully as his means in- 
 creased to any object of Christian benevolence 
 which appealed to his judgment. Few men, 
 we are told, have given more in proportion to 
 advance the cause of Christ. He held all his 
 success to be God-given. After the first dis- 
 patch was sent and received, Morse said of it, 
 "It baptized the American telegraph with the 
 name of its Author." The Author, as he be- 
 lieved, was God. So grateful was he that he 
 gave the first earnings of the telegraph as a 
 sort of first-fruits to the church. From this 
 beginning, which was only the commencement 
 of a flow of wealth into his hands which ever 
 
32 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 afterward gave him abundance, he remained 
 faithful to that sense of stewardship to God. 
 He was Hberal in his gifts to colleges and 
 theological seminaries, as well as to missionary 
 and other religious causes. 
 
 During the later years of his life, when 
 Professor Morse had become one of the famous 
 men in the world and when honors and riches 
 were heaped upon him, the marked character- 
 istic of the man was the development of the 
 spiritual life. None of his successes in any 
 degree spoiled him. In the midst of earthly 
 honors and riches his appreciation of spiritual 
 riches increased. 
 
 Dr. Wheeler, of Poughkeepsie, who was 
 Mr. Morse's pastor during the latter part of 
 his life, has given a very charming picture of 
 Morse's religious life during the years when he 
 knew him. He writes: "It was at Locust 
 Grove I knew him best and most. Here among 
 the grand old trees, the fresh, green lawn, and 
 rare plants which adorned his grounds, the 
 fashion and substance of the man were seen. 
 This home he greatly loved. Writing from one 
 of the capitals in Europe at one time imme- 
 diately after one of the grandest receptions 
 
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 33 
 
 that scholar or philosopher ever received, he 
 says: 'My heart yearns for my dear old home 
 on the Hudson; its calm repose, its sweet 
 walks, where so often I have been with God.' 
 I recall with great satisfaction the many times 
 on his veranda, looking westward on flood and 
 hills beyond, in large discourse he would dwell 
 upon the 'things unseen' and his utterances 
 would have such depth and scope that I mar- 
 veled at the beauty and strength of that love 
 for God and his realm which rose and fell 
 like mighty tides in his heart." 
 
 On one occasion when his pastor was with 
 him some allusion was made to his career and 
 the honors which had thickened upon him. A 
 significant smile stole over the face of the great 
 inventor as he gently said : 'It is all of God. 
 He has used me as his hand in all this. I am 
 not indifferent to the rewards of earth and 
 the praise of my fellow-men, but I am more 
 pleased with the fact that my Father in heaven 
 has allowed me to do something for him and 
 his world." On another occasion when Dr. 
 Wheeler called on him Morse met him with 
 brimming eyes, and, grasping him with both 
 hands, exclaimed: "Oh, you cannot tell how 
 
34 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 thankful I have been this morning, in thinking 
 this matter of the telegraph all over, that God 
 has permitted me to do something for the health 
 and comfort of my fellows. I have just heard 
 of a family made happy by a telegraphic dis- 
 patch from one of its absent members, an- 
 nouncing his safety, when the whole household 
 v^as in grief over his supposed death; only 
 think of the many homes that may be thus 
 gladdened, relieved from solitude and pain!" 
 Some scientific men have seemed to take a 
 greater interest in trying to exclude God from 
 his own universe than in finding out the truth ; 
 but for such men Morse had no sympathy. He 
 was a thoughtful, well-read, and thoroughly 
 practical scientific seeker after truth; but he 
 found God everywhere. Pointing one day to 
 an insect's wing, he said: "There, that is 
 enough of itself to satisfy any reasonable mind 
 of God's being, wisdom and power. It is in 
 these things which we call small that I am find- 
 ing every day fresh proofs of God's direct and 
 positive agency. I see in all these things God's 
 finger, and I am so glad through them to get 
 hold of God's hand ; and then," he added, with 
 moistened eyes, and a voice husky with emo- 
 
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 35 
 
 tion, '^if God makes all these small things 
 around us here so exquisitely beautiful, what 
 grandeur must attach to the things beyond, 
 unseen and eternal !" 
 
 Soon after coming to Poughkeepsie, one 
 summer, he fractured one of his limbs, and 
 was confined for most of that season to his 
 room. Naturally it was a great trial to him, 
 but he bore it with such resignation and there 
 ripened upon him during it all such spiritual 
 graces that his friends regarded it a rare privi- 
 lege to see him in his sick chamber. His win- 
 dow overlooked the broad and splendid Hud- 
 son River. As a friend sat with him one 
 afternoon, looking upon river and hill and 
 forest as they glowed in the changing light of 
 the setting sun, Morse said : "I have been look- 
 ing upon the river of my life. I thank God 
 that it had such a beginning, that upon it has 
 fallen such a sunshine; and I know whom I 
 have believed and rejoice that so soon this 
 river will flow out into the broad sea of an 
 everlasting love." 
 
 One who knew him well writes of Morse: 
 *'In his whole character and in all his relations 
 he was one of the most remarkable men of his 
 
36 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 age. He was one who drew all who came in 
 contact with him to his heart, disarming all 
 prejudices, silencing all cavil. In his family 
 he was light, life, and love; with those in his 
 employ he was ever considerate and kind, never 
 exacting and harsh, but honorable and just, 
 seeking the good of every dependent; in the 
 community he was a pillar of strength and 
 duty, commanding the homage of universal 
 respect ; in the church he walked with God and 
 men. He is not, for God hath taken him. 
 Blessed for evermore his memory, and blessed 
 those who saw and knew him not merely as 
 the man of science and the Christian philoso- 
 pher, but as the man of God." 
 
 The spiritual life of Professor Morse deep- 
 ened and became still more beautiful as the 
 time of his departure from the world drew 
 near; his faith strengthened and his hopes 
 brightened with the years. Writing, in 1868, 
 from Dresden, to his grandson, he says : "The 
 nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, 
 the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin 
 of the Bible; the grandeur and sublimity of 
 God's remedy for fallen man are more appre- 
 ciated, and the future is illumined with hope 
 
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 37 
 
 and joy." And in a letter to his brother, dated 
 from Paris, March 4, 1868, he says: 'It can- 
 not be long before all this will be gone. I feel 
 daily the necessity of sitting looser to the world 
 and taking stronger hold on heaven. The 
 Saviour daily seems more precious; his love, 
 his atonement, his divine power are themes 
 which occupy my mind in the wakeful hours of 
 the night and change the time of 'watching for 
 the morning' from irksomeness to joyful com- 
 munion with him." 
 
 Morse lived to a ripe old age, having num- 
 bered his fourscore years before the summons 
 came. He met the call with unwavering faith 
 and courage, and in response to a remark made 
 by one of his tried friends concerning the good- 
 ness of God to him in the past he said, with 
 cheerful and buoyant hope, "The best is yet to 
 come." 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 After the death of John Quincy Adams a 
 book was published, entitled ''Letters of John 
 Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and its 
 Teachings." These letters were written dur- 
 ing the younger life of Mr. Adams, while he 
 was minister for the United States at St. 
 Petersburg, Russia. His young son was in 
 school in Massachusetts, and this brillant law- 
 yer and diplomatist thought there was no way 
 in which he could help his boy so much as to 
 rivet his mind on the importance of the Bible 
 as the Word of God. He sought in these let- 
 ters to inculcate a love and reverence for the 
 Bible and a delight in its perusal and study. 
 Throughout his long life Mr. Adams was him- 
 self a daily and devout reader of both the Old 
 and the New Testaments, and delighted in 
 comparing and considering them in the various 
 languages with which he was familiar, hoping 
 
42 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 thereby to acquire a nicer and clearer appre- 
 ciation of their meaning. The Bible was em- 
 phatically his counsel and monitor through life, 
 and the fruits of its guidance are seen in the 
 unsullied character which he bore through the 
 turbid waters of political contention to his final 
 earthly rest. His political life was lived at a 
 time when factional and party feeling ran high 
 and when political abuse abounded; but the 
 historian has said of him that he left no man 
 behind him who would wish to fix a stain on the 
 name he inscribed so high on the roll of 
 his country's most gifted and illustrious 
 sons. 
 
 These letters to his son are not only of great 
 value because of their candid and reverent 
 spirit, but especially because of the testimony 
 so unconsciously borne by this statesman and 
 scholar to the truth and excellency of the 
 Christian faith and Scriptures. 
 
 John Quincy Adams was a practical Chris- 
 tian. This was proved by his spotless life, 
 his strict honesty and integrity, his devotion 
 to duty, his faithful obedience to the dictates 
 of conscience at whatever sacrifice, his rever- 
 ence of God and of Christ, his respect for 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 43 
 
 religion and its institutions, and his recognition 
 of its claims and responsibilities. 
 
 For many years Mr. Adams was a member 
 and one of the vice-presidents of the Ameri- 
 can Bible Society. In reply to an invitation 
 to attend its anniversary in 1830, he wrote the 
 following letter: 
 
 "Sir: Your letter of the twenty-second of 
 March was duly received; and while regret- 
 ting my inability to attend personally at the 
 celebration of the anniversary of the institu- 
 tion on the thirteenth of next month, I pray 
 you, sir, to be assured of the gratification 
 which I have experienced in learning of 
 the success which has attended the benevo- 
 lent exertions of the American Bible So- 
 ciety. 
 
 "In the decease of Judge Washington they 
 have lost an able and valuable associate, whose 
 direct co-operation, not less than his laborious 
 and exemplary life, contributed to promote the 
 cause of the Redeemer. Yet not for him, nor 
 for themselves by the loss of him, are they 
 called to sorrow as without hope ; for lives like 
 his shine but as purer and brighter lights in the 
 
44 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 world after the lamp which fed them is 
 extinct. 
 
 "The distribution of Bibles, if the simplest, 
 is not the least efficacious of the means of ex- 
 tending the blessings of the Gospel to the 
 remotest corners of the earth; for the Com- 
 forter is in the sacred volume; and among the 
 receivers of that million of copies distributed 
 by the Society who shall number the multi- 
 tudes awakened thereby, with good will to man 
 in their hearts and with the song of the Lamb 
 upon their lips ? 
 
 'The hope of the Christian is inseparable 
 from his faith. Whoever believes in the di- 
 vine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must 
 hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail 
 throughout the earth. Never since the founda- 
 tion of the world have the prospects of man- 
 kind been more encouraging to that hope than 
 they appear to be at the present time. And 
 may the associated distribution of the Bible 
 proceed and prosper, till the Lord shall have 
 made 'bare his holy arm in the eyes of all 
 nations; and all the ends of the earth shall 
 see the salvation of our God.' 
 
 "With many respects to the Board of Mana- 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 45 
 
 gers, please to accept the good wishes of your 
 friend and fellow-citizen, 
 
 "John Quincy Adams." 
 
 Throughout the life of Mr. Adams he lived 
 in harmony with the spirit of this letter. In 
 his old age, during a visit to Niagara Falls, 
 he went one Sabbath morning to visit a rem- 
 nant of the Tuscarora Indians and to attend 
 divine worship with them. At the conclusion 
 of the sermon the ex-President of the United 
 States was invited to make an address to the 
 Indians. A report made at the time has this 
 paragraph : 
 
 '*Mr. Adams alluded to his advanced age 
 and said this was the first time he had ever 
 looked upon their beautiful fields and forests; 
 that he was truly happy to meet them there and 
 join with them in the worship of our common 
 Parent; reminded them that in years past he 
 had addressed them from the position which 
 he then occupied, in language at once that of 
 his station and his heart, as *his children ;' and 
 that now, as a private citizen, he hailed them, 
 in terms of equal warmth and endearment, as 
 his ^brethren and sisters.' He alluded, with 
 
46 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 a simple eloquence which seemed to move the 
 Indians much, to the equal care and love v^ith 
 which God regards all his children, whether 
 savage or civilized. He touched briefly and 
 forcibly on the topics of the sermon which 
 they had heard and concluded with a beautiful 
 and touching benediction upon them." 
 
 In 1 83 1 John Quincy Adams wrote the hymn 
 which was sung at the celebration of the Fourth 
 of July at his home in Quincy, Mass. I quote 
 these verses as peculiarly suggestive of his 
 Christian faith^ though the entire hymn 
 breathes the same spirit: 
 
 Sing to the Lord a song of praise; 
 
 Assemble, ye who love his name; 
 Let congregated millions raise 
 
 Triumphant glory's loud acclaim. 
 From earth's remotest region come ; 
 
 Come, greet your Maker and your King ; 
 With harp, with timbrel, and with drum, 
 
 His praise let hill and valley sing. 
 
 Go forth in arms ; Jehovah reigns ; 
 
 Their graves let foul oppressors find ; 
 Bind all their sceptered kings in chains; 
 
 Their peers with iron fetters bind. 
 Then to the Lord shall praise ascend; 
 
 Then all mankind, with one accord, 
 And freedom's voice, till time shall end, 
 
 In pealing anthems, praise the Lord. 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 47 
 
 I turn from this patriotic but intensely re- 
 ligious composition to one of the tenderest 
 and sweetest little poems in all our American 
 literature, which shows with what simplicity 
 of faith and love the scholar and the poli- 
 tician had been sitting at the feet of Jesus 
 as he listened to his teaching concerning the 
 immortality of little children. The following 
 is a quotation from his poem on 'The Death 
 of Children :" 
 
 Sure, to the mansions of the blest 
 When infant innocence ascends, 
 
 Some angel brighter than the rest 
 The spotless spirit's flight attends. 
 
 On wings of ecstasy they rise, 
 Beyond where worlds material roll, 
 
 Till some fair sister of the skies 
 Receives the unpolluted soul. 
 
 There at the Almighty Father's hand, 
 Nearest the throne of living light, 
 
 The choirs of infant seraphs stand, 
 And dazzling shine where all are bright; 
 
 The inextinguishable beam, 
 With dust united at our birth, 
 
 Sheds a more dim, discolored gleam, 
 The more it lingers upon earth: 
 
48 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Closed is the dark abode of clay, 
 The stream of glory faintly burns, 
 
 Nor unobscured the lucid ray 
 To its own native fount returns. 
 
 But when the Lord of mortal bfeath 
 
 Decrees his bounty to resume, 
 And points the silent shaft of death, 
 
 Which speeds an infant to the tomb, 
 
 No passion fierce, no low desire, 
 
 Has quenched the radiance of the flame; 
 
 Back to its God the living fire 
 Returns, unsullied, as it came. 
 
 I am sure we will all agree with his biogra- 
 pher, William H. Seward, that the heart which 
 could turn aside from the conflicts of the politi- 
 cal world, and utter sentiments so chaste and 
 tender, revealing a spiritual mindedness rarely 
 beautiful, must have been the residence of the 
 sweetest and noblest emotions of man. 
 
 The end of life came to John Quincy Adams, 
 as he desired, in the midst of his work. Rising 
 as if to address the Speaker from his seat 
 in the House of Representatives, in Washing- 
 ton, he was suddenly stricken with paralysis, 
 and two days later he bade farewell to earth. 
 His last words were, "This is the last of earth ! 
 I am content!" 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 49 
 
 Among the many tributes paid to John 
 Quincy Adams none were more tender and 
 appreciative than those that were offered by his 
 political foes. Mr. Holmes, of South Caro- 
 lina, closed his eloquent eulogy with these 
 words: *'But the last Sabbath, and in this hall 
 he worshiped with others. Now his spirit 
 mingles with the noble army of martyrs, and 
 the just made perfect, in the eternal adora- 
 tion of the living God." 
 
 His colleague from Massachusetts, Mr. 
 Davis, said in his address in the House of 
 Representatives : *'It is believed to have been 
 the earnest wish of his heart to die like Chat- 
 ham, in the midst of his labors. It was a sub- 
 lime thought that where he had toiled in the 
 House of the Nation, in hours of the day 
 devoted to its service, the stroke of death 
 should reach him and there sever the ties of 
 love and patriotism which bound him to earth. 
 He fell in his seat, attacked by paralysis, of 
 which he had before been a subject. To de- 
 scribe the scene which ensued would be im- 
 possible. It was more than a spontaneous gush 
 of feeling which all such events call forth, so 
 much to the honor of our nature. It was 
 
50 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 the expression of reverence for his moral 
 worth, of admiration for his great intellectual 
 endowments, and veneration for his age and 
 public services. All gathered around the suf- 
 ferer, and the strong sympathy and deep feel- 
 ing which were manifested showed that the 
 business of the House (which instantly ad- 
 journed) was forgotten amid the distressing 
 anxieties of the moment. He was soon re- 
 moved to the apartment of the Speaker, where 
 he remained surrounded by afflicted friends 
 till the weary clay resigned its immortal spirit. 
 'This is the end of earth !' Brief but emphatic 
 words. They were the last uttered by the 
 dying Christian." 
 
JAMES A. GARFIELD 
 
 ^* 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 On a dark, rainy night in 1847, ^^ the Even- 
 ing Star was leaving a long reach of black 
 water in the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, 
 a boy was called out of his berth to take his 
 turn in tending the bowline. Bundling him- 
 self out of bed, his eyes only half opened, he 
 took his place on the narrow platform, below 
 the bow deck, and began uncoiling a rope to 
 steady the boat so that it might pass through 
 a lock it was approaching. Sleepily and 
 slowly he unwound the coil till it knotted and 
 caught in a narrow cleft in the edge of the 
 deck. He gave it a sudden pull, but it held 
 fast, then another and a stronger pull, and 
 it gave way, but sent him over the bow of 
 the boat into the water. Down he went into 
 the dark night and still darker water, and the 
 Evening Star glided on to bury him in a watery 
 grave. No human help was near. God only 
 
54 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 could save him and he only by a miracle. So 
 the boy thought as he went down, saying the 
 prayer his mother had taught him. In- 
 stinctively clutching the rope he sank below 
 the surface; but then it tightened in his grasp 
 and held firmly. Seizing it, hand over hand he 
 drew himself up on deck, a live boy among 
 the living. Another kink had caught in 
 another crevice and proved his salvation. Was 
 it the rope or the prayer of his loving mother 
 that saved him.? The boy did not know; but 
 long after the boat had passed the lock he 
 stood there in his dripping clothes pondering 
 the question. 
 
 Coiling the rope, he tried to throw it again 
 into the crevice, but it had lost the knack of 
 kinking. Many times he tried — six hundred 
 it is said — and then sat down and reflected: 
 "I have thrown this rope six hundred times; 
 I might throw it ten times as many without 
 its catching. Ten times six hundred are six 
 thousand, so there were six thousand chances 
 against my life. Against such odds Provi- 
 dence alone could have saved it. Providence, 
 therefore, thinks it worth saving, and if that 
 is so, I won't throw it away on a canal boat. 
 
JAMES A. GARFIELD. 55 
 
 I'll go home, get an education, and become a 
 man." 
 
 Straightway he acted on the resolution, and 
 not long after stood before his mother's log 
 cottage in what was then the Cuyahoga wilder- 
 ness. It was late at night, but by the fire- 
 light that came through the window he saw 
 his mother kneeling before an open Bible which 
 lay on a chair in the corner. She was read- 
 ing, but her eyes were off the page, and she 
 was looking up as if quoting the Scripture 
 back again to God, and these were the words 
 he heard: "O turn unto me^ and have mercy 
 upon me; give thy strength unto thy ser- 
 vant, and save the son of thine handmaid !" 
 
 He opened the door, put his arm about her 
 neck, and his head upon her bosom. What 
 words he said we do not know; but there by 
 her side he gave back to God the life which 
 he had given. So the mother's prayer was 
 answered. So sprang up the seed which in 
 toil and tears she had planted. 
 
 That boy was James A. Garfield, later the 
 distinguished soldier, congressman, senator, 
 and President of the United States. 
 
 Soon after the experience we have related 
 
56 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 young Garfield proceeded to carry out his reso- 
 lution to get an education. And in March, 
 1850, during a series of evangelistic meetings, 
 he united with the Church of the Disciples 
 and was baptized in a little stream that flows 
 into the Chagrin River. This final decision 
 and public confession of his faith in Christ was 
 brought about by a quiet, sweet-tempered man 
 who held a series of meetings in the school- 
 house near the Garfield homestead and told in 
 the plainest manner and with the most straight- 
 forward earnestness the story of the Gospel. 
 The openness of young Garfield's mind, very 
 remarkable for a young man yet under twenty, 
 may be seen in the reasons which he gave for 
 choosing to go to Williams College instead of 
 Bethany College, an institution sustained by 
 the church of which he was a member and pre- 
 sided over by Alexander Campbell, the man 
 above all others he had been taught to admire 
 and revere. These are the reasons, as he gave 
 them in a letter to a friend : "There are three 
 reasons why I have decided not to go to 
 Bethany : First, the course of study is not so 
 extensive or thorough as in Eastern colleges. 
 Second, Bethany leans too heavily toward 
 
JAMES A, GARFIELD. 57 
 
 slavery. Third, I am the son of Disciple par- 
 ents, am one myself, and have had but little ac- 
 quaintance with people of other views, and, 
 having always lived in the West, I think it will 
 make me more liberal, both in my religious and 
 general views and sentiments, to go into a 
 new circle, where I shall be under new 
 influences. These considerations led me to 
 conclude to go to some New England 
 college." 
 
 Garfield took a fine standing in William.s 
 College, and his religious character was as 
 well understood as his intellectual power and 
 ability. He became a contributor to and after- 
 wards editor of the Williams Quarterly, the 
 college magazine. A quotation from one of 
 these articles, entitled, 'The Province of His- 
 tory," reveals his strong and intelligent Chris- 
 tian faith at this time: *'For every village, 
 state, and nation there is an aggregate of 
 native talent which God has given and by 
 which, together with his Providence, he leads 
 that nation on, and thus leads the world. In 
 the light of these truths we affirm that no man 
 can understand the history of any nation or 
 of the world who does not recognize in it the 
 
58 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 power of God and behold his stately goings 
 forth as he walks among the nations. It is 
 his hand that is moving the vast superstructure 
 of human history, and though but one of the 
 windows were unfurnished, like that of the 
 Arabian palace, yet all the powers of earth 
 could never complete it without the aid of the 
 Divine Architect. 
 
 *'To employ another figure — the world's his- 
 tory is a divine poem of which the history of 
 every nation is a canto and of every man a 
 word. Its strains have been pealing along 
 down the centuries, and though there have 
 been mingled the discord of roaring cannon 
 and dying men, yet to the Christian, philos- 
 opher, and historian — the humbler listener — 
 there has been a divine melody running through 
 the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon 
 days to come. The record of every orphan's 
 sigh, of every widow's prayer, of every noble 
 deed, of every honest heart-throb for the right 
 is swelling that gentle strain; and when at 
 last the great end is attained — when the lost 
 image of God is restored to the human soul, 
 when the church anthems can be pealed forth 
 without a discordant note — then will angels 
 
JAMES A. GARFIELD. 59 
 
 join in the chorus and all the sons of God 
 again 'Shout for joy.' *' 
 
 On leaving college Garfield was at first a 
 professor in and a little later president of the 
 college at Hiram, Ohio. The Church of the 
 Disciples is accustomed to accord large liberty 
 of speaking to its laymen, and so it came to 
 be a recognized part of the young college pres- 
 ident's life to preach a brief sermon to his 
 pupils every Sunday. In later days many of 
 the students of that time looked back to those 
 Sunday morning talks as the vital religious 
 influence which molded their young lives and 
 established them in the Christian faith. 
 
 It is not the object of this article in any 
 way to follow the life of Garfield as a biogra- 
 pher would do. But into the legislature, and 
 on into the civil war, where he was swept 
 soon after, through his growing career as a 
 soldier, Garfield never forgot his religion. His 
 first recourse in every emergency of life was 
 to the Bible and to God. One of his biogra- 
 phers says of him that when Governor Denni- 
 son of Ohio offered Garfield the lieutenant- 
 colonelcy of the Forty-second Ohio Regiment, 
 he did not accept the tendered command 
 
6o RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 hastily. He by no means grasped the glitter of 
 command with the avidity of an aspirant for 
 honors. He went home, opened his mother's 
 Bible, and pondered upon the subject. He 
 had a wife, a child, and a few thousand dol- 
 lars. If he gave his life to the country, would 
 God and the few thousand dollars provide for 
 his wife and child? He consulted the Bible 
 about it. It seemed to answer in the affirma- 
 tive, and toward the next morning he wrote to 
 a friend : "I regard my life as given to the 
 country. I am only anxious to make as much 
 of it as possible before the mortgage on it is 
 foreclosed." 
 
 Many stories are told of the way Garfield 
 carried his Christian faith into the army camp, 
 in association with his fellow officers and in 
 the command of his troops. Again and again, 
 after a battle, it was his custom to go among 
 the dying and the wounded and talk with men 
 in sore trouble about the Christ who was able 
 to comfort and save them. 
 
 One of the notable occasions on which Gar- 
 field's Christian faith shone forth with extra- 
 ordinary sublimity was in New York City the 
 morning after Lincoln's assassination. There 
 
JAMES A. GARFIELD. 6i 
 
 was a great mass-meeting gathered in the 
 street in front of the Exchange Building. 
 Nearly a hundred generals, judges, statesmen, 
 lawyers, editors, clergymen, and others were 
 gathered in a reception room looking out on a 
 massive balcony, where the speakers were to 
 stand. The meeting took a bad turn. The 
 mob was stirred to riot; there was a spirit of 
 vengeance in the air. One man lay dead, 
 another was dying, and the mob began to cry 
 for the destruction of the World office. If 
 it had once got started, murder and ruin would 
 have spread everywhere. Then it was that a 
 man went to the front. He held a telegram in 
 his hand, and waved it above the heads of 
 the excited throng. He caught their eyes and 
 ears by shouting, "Another telegram from 
 Washington." And then, in the awful still- 
 ness of the crisis, taking advantage of the 
 hesitation of the crowd, whose steps had been 
 arrested a moment, a right arm was lifted sky- 
 ward, and a voice, clear and steady, loud and 
 distinct, spoke out: "Fellow citizens! Clouds 
 and darkness are round about him. His pa- 
 vilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the 
 skies. Justice and judgment are the establish- 
 
62 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 ment of his throne ! Mercy and truth shall go 
 before his face ! Fellow citizens ! God reigns, 
 and the Government at Washington still 
 lives!" 
 
 The effect was tremendous. The crowd 
 stood riveted to the ground with awe, gazing 
 at the motionless orator, and thinking of God 
 and the security of the Government in that 
 hour. As the boiling wave subsides and set- 
 tles to the sea when some strong wind beats 
 it down, so the tumult of the people sank and 
 became still. All took it as a divine omen. 
 As their passions cooled men turned to one 
 another inquiring the name of the man who 
 had wrought such wonders by his sublime 
 words quoted from God's truth, and those who 
 knew answered, 'Tt is General James A. Gar- 
 field, of Ohio." 
 
WILLIAM McKINLEY 
 
WILLIAM M KINLEY. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 
 
 The mother of William McKinley was a 
 woman of rarely beautiful character. It was 
 her prayer and her desire that her son William 
 should be a preacher of the Gospel ; and though" 
 the great weight of his life was to be given in 
 other directions, he was for many years a local 
 preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 and throughout his entire life he gave con- 
 tinuous and powerful testimony to the fact of 
 his personal faith in God, in the divine inspira- 
 tion of the Bible, and in Jesus Christ as his 
 personal Saviour. 
 
 When young McKinley was fifteen years of 
 age he moved with his parents to Poland, 
 Ohio. There was a little academy at this town, 
 and here the future statesman and President 
 received such academic instruction as was to 
 serve for his life work. It was here that he 
 made his first public profession of faith in 
 Christ. 
 
66 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 In 1856 Rev. A. D. Morton, a Methodist 
 itinerant preacher, was appointed to the church 
 in Poland, Ohio. It was a lovely little country 
 town. It had that pleasant, intelligent, thor- 
 oughly moral and religious atmosphere which 
 often pervades the country college town. Small 
 as the town was, there were three churches, a 
 college, and a law-school. The pastor in such 
 a town finds not only his most delightful but 
 his most important work in seeking to know 
 and help the students of the college. Among 
 the first young men Pastor Morton became 
 acquainted with was William McKinley. He 
 was a genial, kind-spirited young man and 
 showed that quality of unselfish gentleness in 
 dealing with every one who came in contact 
 with him which was as fascinating in his boy- 
 hood as it was in later days at the White 
 House. 
 
 During the winter Mr. Morton decided on 
 holding a series of revival meetings and ear- 
 nestly prosecuted the work, preaching night 
 after night, and especially interesting himself 
 in winning the young students who were at 
 such a critical period of their lives to make 
 a definite decision for Christ. William Mc- 
 
WILLIAM McKINLEY. (y^ 
 
 Kinley attended the meetings, but had made 
 no move whatever toward personal acceptance 
 of the invitations offered until, one evening, 
 without any excitement or previous intima- 
 tion, he quietly arose and announced his inten- 
 tion of beginning then and there a Christian 
 life. 
 
 Mr. Morton, who still lives, remembers very 
 distinctly some of the sentences he uttered. 
 Among them were these : "God is the being 
 above all to be loved and served;" ''Religion 
 seems to me to be the best thing in all the 
 world;" ''Here I take my stand for life." What 
 splendid sentences they are ! Many young men 
 who are "almost persuaded," but have not 
 yet made the great decision, might well ponder 
 these words of this man, the merit of whose 
 manhood came in later years to be recognized 
 by a world-wide appreciation. 
 
 Throughout his entire public life William 
 McKinley remained faithful to that confes- 
 sion and vow which he registered among his 
 classmates in the little academy church. There 
 was never any question concerning his relig- 
 ious principles, for he gave the most devout 
 heed to the Word of God, attending the ser- 
 
68 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 vices of the church with the greatest regu- 
 larity, entering into the singing of the hymns 
 and the other services of divine worship with 
 manifest earnestness and sincerity. 
 
 During the time President McKinley was 
 in the White House I was making a long trip 
 by train when I fell into conversation with a 
 fellow passenger, himself a man widely known 
 throughout the country and who was of a dif- 
 erent political faith from that of the then Pres- 
 ident of the United States. He related to me 
 a conversation which he in turn had had with 
 another man who had been very bitterly 
 opposed to the President in politics and had 
 entertained for him, politically, very harsh 
 feelings because of differences with him in 
 matters of public importance. But this man 
 had never seen the President until, shortly 
 before going to the East on business, he had 
 stopped over for a first visit to the city of 
 Washington. 
 
 On Sunday morning, drawn by curiosity, 
 and retaining his severely critical feeling con- 
 cerning the President, he visited the church 
 where Mr. McKinley was accustomed to wor- 
 ship. It was Communion Sunday morning, 
 
WILLIAM Mckinley. 69 
 
 and, said this man to his friend, "1 watched 
 the President. I watched his face while he 
 sang; I gave close attention to his countenance 
 and attitude during all the opening service, 
 and his interest in the earnest words which 
 were spoken before the sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper was administered. And after a while, 
 when I saw William McKinley get up from 
 his place and go and kneel down at the altar, 
 humbly, with the rest, and reverently take the 
 Communion, and then, when he arose, quietly 
 wipe away the traces of emotion from his 
 eyes, his whole countenance and attitude show- 
 ing the deepest religious emotion, I confess 
 to you that I felt a great change coming over 
 myself, and I said to myself, 'A country which 
 has a man like that at the head of its affairs 
 is not so badly off, after all.' " 
 
 McKinley's pastor in his home town of Can- 
 ton, Ohio, where he attended church whenever 
 at home, and where his membership remained 
 until his death, had this to say of his Christian 
 character: "Another beauty in the character 
 of our President, which was a chaplet of grace 
 about his neck, was that he was a Christian. 
 In the broadest, noblest sense of the word 
 
70 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 that was true. His confidence in God was 
 strong and unwavering; it held him steady in 
 many a storm, where others were driven before 
 the wind and tossed. He beheved in the 
 Fatherhood of God and in his sovereignty. 
 His faith in the Gospel of Christ was deep 
 and abiding. It is well known that his godly 
 mother had hoped for him that he would 
 become a minister of the Gospel and that she 
 believed it to be the highest vocation in life. 
 It was not, however, his mother's faith that 
 made him a Christian. He had gained in early 
 life a personal knowledge of Jesus which 
 guided him in the performance of greater 
 duties and vaster responsibilities than have been 
 the lot of any other American President. He 
 said at one time, while bearing heavy burdens, 
 that he could not discharge the daily duties of 
 his life but for the fact that he had faith in 
 God." 
 
 The death of William McKinley, after being 
 struck down by the hand of the assassin, will 
 ever remain as a sublime testimony to the divin- 
 ity of Christianity. Mr. James Creelman, in 
 his book, "On the Great Highway," gives an 
 authorized version of the stricken President's 
 
WILLIAM Mckinley. 71 
 
 last words. It is one of the most marvelous 
 illustrations in history of the power of Jesus 
 Christ to give perfect rest to the soul in its 
 greatest emergency. In the afternoon of his 
 last day on earth, McKinley began to realize 
 that his life was slipping away, and that the 
 efforts of science could not save him. He asked 
 the family physician to bring the surgeons. 
 One by one they entered, and approached the 
 bedside. When they were gathered about him, 
 the President opened his eyes and said : "It is 
 useless, gentlemen; I think we ought to have 
 prayer." Then the dying man crossed his 
 hands on his breast, and half-closed his eyes. 
 There was a beautiful smile on his countenance. 
 The surgeons bowed their heads. Tears 
 streamed from the eyes of the white-clad nurses 
 on either side of the bed. ''Our Father, which 
 art in heaven," said the President, in a clear, 
 steady voice. The lips of the surgeons moved, 
 "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 
 Thy will be done — " the sobbing of a nurse dis- 
 turbed the still air. The President opened his 
 eyes and closed them again. "Thy will be 
 done on earth, as it is in heaven." A long sigh. 
 The sands of life were running swiftly. He 
 
72 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 began again : ''Give us this day our daily 
 bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive 
 our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, 
 but deliver us from evil." Another silence. 
 The surgeons looked at the dying face and the 
 trembling lips. 'Tor thine is the kingdom, 
 and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." 
 "Amen," whispered the surgeons. 
 
 A little later the President was conscious 
 again. He asked for his wife. Presently she 
 came to him, leaning feebly on the arm of his 
 secretary. As she reached the side of her hus- 
 band and lover — who had read to her every day 
 at twilight for years from the Bible — she sank 
 into a chair, and, leaning her frail form over 
 the white counterpane, took his hands in hers 
 and kissed them. 
 
 The President's eyes were closed. His 
 breath came slowly. As he felt the touch of his 
 wife's lips, he smiled. It was to be their last 
 meeting on earth. "Good-by! Good-by, all." 
 The wife gazed into the w^hite face and strug- 
 gled for the strength to bear it. "It is God's 
 way. His will, not ours, be done." The 
 President turned his face slightly toward his 
 wife. A look of ineffable love shone in the 
 
WILLIAM McKINLEY. 73 
 
 haggard features. Once more he spoke: 
 "Nearer, my God to thee" — his soul was on 
 his Ups. His face was radiant. ''E'en though 
 it be a cross" — There was a moment of utter 
 silence. "That has been my inextinguishable 
 prayer." His voice was almost inaudible. 'Tt 
 is God's way." It was the last thought and 
 the last word of the gentle and noble McKinley 
 on earth. He awoke in heaven. He had rest. 
 
EMMA WILLARD 
 
EMMA WILLARD. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 
 EMMA WILLARD. 
 
 Emma Willard was one of the few women 
 whose names received votes for a place in the 
 Hall of Fame. Her biographer, Dr. John 
 Lord, in summarizing her claims to immortal- 
 ity in the hearts of her fellow citizens, declares 
 that her peculiar glory is in giving impulse to 
 the cause of female education. In this cause 
 she rendered priceless services. When we 
 remember the institutions she founded and con- 
 ducted, the six thousand young ladies whom 
 she educated, and many of them gratuitously; 
 when we bear in mind the numerous books she 
 wrote to be used in schools, and the great favor 
 with which these books have generally been 
 received; when we think of the ceaseless en- 
 ergy, in various ways, which she put forth, 
 for more than half a century, to elevate her sex, 
 it would be difficult to find a woman who in her 
 age or country was more useful or who will 
 
78 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 be longer remembered as both good and great. 
 Not for original genius, not for any immortal 
 work of art, not for a character free from 
 blemishes and faults does she claim an exalted 
 place among women, but as a benefactor of her 
 country and of her sex, in those things which 
 shed luster around homes and give dignity to 
 the human soul. 
 
 Emma Willard was deeply religious, and 
 never lost sight of the highest and noblest 
 things in her educational work. Here is a 
 beautiful hymn which she composed, and which 
 was sung by her pupils at the close of a most 
 thorough examination : 
 
 O Thou, the First, the Last, the Best ! 
 
 To Thee the grateful song we raise, 
 Convinced that all our works should be 
 
 Begun and ended with Thy praise. 
 
 It is from Thee the thought arose 
 When chants the nun or vestal train, 
 
 That praise is sweeter to Thine ear 
 When virgin voices hymn the strain. 
 
 Lord, bless to us this parting scene; 
 
 Sister to sister bids farewell; 
 They wait to bear us to our homes, 
 
 With tender parents there to dwell. 
 
EMMA WILLARD. 79 
 
 Oh, may we ever live to Thee ! 
 
 Then, as we leave earth's care-worn road, 
 Angels shall wait to take our souls 
 
 And bear them to our Father, God. 
 
 An interesting occasion in the life of Emma 
 Willard occurred in connection with the visit 
 of General Lafayette to this country in 1825. 
 His services in the cause of American inde- 
 pendence, his friendship with Washington, his 
 labors in behalf of constitutional liberty in 
 France, his sufferings in an Austrian prison, 
 and the mingled gallantry and sentiment, allied 
 with rank, which early gave him prominence 
 and fame, made him an idol to the American 
 people. It is doubtful if popular enthusiasm 
 has ever been so great over any visitor to this 
 country. 
 
 Emma Willard was enthusiastic to the high- 
 est degree, and the coming of General Lafay- 
 ette to Troy, N. Y., as a visitor to her school, 
 made an epoch in her life. She wrote for the 
 occasion two verses, which were sung in his 
 honor by the young ladies of the school. In 
 the second verse she does not fail to bear testi- 
 mony to her faith in the atoning sacrifice of her 
 Saviour. Both verses are of peculiar interest : 
 
8o RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 And art thou, then, dear hero, come? 
 
 And do our eyes behold the man 
 Who nerved his arm and bared his breast 
 
 For us, ere yet our life began? 
 For us and for our native land 
 
 Thy youthful valor dared the war; 
 And now, in winter of thine age, 
 
 Thou'st come, and left thy loved ones far. 
 Then deep and dear thy welcome be. 
 Nor think thy daughters far from thee. 
 Columbia's daughters, lo ! we bend, 
 And claim to call thee father, friend. 
 
 But was't our country's rights alone 
 
 Impelled Fayette to Freedom's van? 
 No, 'twas the love of human kind — 
 
 It was the sacred cause of man ; 
 It was benevolence sublime. 
 
 Like that which sways the Eternal Mind! 
 And, Benefactor of the world. 
 
 He shed his blood for all mankind. 
 Then deep and dear thy welcome be, 
 Nor think thy daughters far from thee. 
 Daughters of human kind, we bend, 
 And claim to call thee father, friend. 
 
 General Lafayette was affected to tears by 
 this reception and at the close of the singing 
 said: *'I cannot express what I feel on this 
 occasion ; but will you, Madam, present me with 
 three copies of those lines, to be given by me, 
 as from you, to my three daughters?" 
 
EMMA WILLARD. 8i 
 
 The sympathies of Emma Willard, Hke those 
 of Lafayette whom she so warmly admired, 
 went out to oppressed and needy people every- 
 where. She became deeply interested in the 
 cause of Greece, and in an address delivered in 
 1833 she said: ''Where is there a child so 
 noble in its lineage as Greece? Where does 
 the sun shine upon a people so bright in native 
 intellect ? With the advantages of instruction, 
 with the renovating light of pure Christianity, 
 Greece may again lead the nations of Europe 
 not merely to eminence in arts and arms, but, by 
 .moral regeneration, to the glorious liberty of 
 the sons of God. If it be infatuation to be 
 zealous in such a cause, I desire to be in- 
 fatuated. If it be infatuation to be moved 
 with compassion for degraded and imploring 
 humanity, who of us, my brothers and sis- 
 ters, would not wish to follow through such 
 infatuation the steps of our blessed Mas- 
 ter?" 
 
 Emma Willard was a woman of the loftiest 
 patriotism, and that patriotism was always 
 Christian. Her "National Hymn" deserves, 
 in my judgment, at least equal appreciation 
 with good Dr. Smith's ''America." It ought 
 
82 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 to be in all the hymn books. The sentiment is 
 lofty and the hymn is sublimely reverent. The 
 verses are as follows : 
 
 Giod save America ! 
 
 God grant our standard may, 
 
 Where'er it wave, 
 Follow the just and right, 
 Foremost be in the fight, 
 And glorious still in might 
 
 Our own to save. 
 
 Chorus — Father Almighty, 
 
 Humbly we crave, 
 
 Save Thou America, 
 
 Our country save ! 
 
 God keep America — 
 
 Of nations great and free, 
 
 Man's noblest friend : 
 Still with the ocean bound 
 Our continent around, 
 Each State in place be found, 
 
 Till time shall end. 
 
 God bless America — 
 As in our fathers' day, 
 
 So evermore! 
 God grant all discord cease, 
 Kind brotherhoods increase. 
 And truth and love breathe peace 
 
 From shore to shore ! 
 
EMMA WILLARD. 83 
 
 In Emma Willard's case the promise of the 
 Psalmist that the righteous shall bear fruit in 
 old age was splendidly realized. To the close 
 of her long and useful life she maintained her 
 youthful vivacity, her enthusiasm of spirit, and 
 her power to work. Her diary the last year of 
 her life still notes the sermon she heard on 
 Sunday. It is interesting to note that she 
 recorded in her diary every sermon she heard 
 during the last thirty years of her life. She 
 attended lectures and the examinations at the 
 Seminary up to within a short time before her 
 death, with as much interest as she had taken 
 twenty years before. She never lost her taste 
 for reading or her interest in public affairs. 
 She still took long drives and received visits 
 from friends and read new books which were 
 famous. Every Sunday evening she collected 
 around her hospitable board her children and 
 grandchildren and great grandchildren, as well 
 as others among her intimate friends, and 
 heard them repeat passages of Scripture. This 
 was a habit of many years, and beautiful were 
 those family reunions; but the most beautiful 
 thing about them was the venerable figure of 
 the benignant old lady entering into every sub- 
 
84 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 ject of interest with the sympathy of youth and 
 receiving from all the profoundest reverence 
 and respect. 
 
 Thus orderly, harmoniously, honorably, hap- 
 pily, did this noble woman, when eighty years 
 had rolled over her life, pass her declining days. 
 She died April 15, 1870, at the age of eighty- 
 three, after a life of usefulness and happiness, 
 honored and beloved by all classes and by a 
 numerous circle of friends. A distinguished 
 educator said of her at the time of her death : 
 "In the fulness of age she approached the ter- 
 mination of life with the calmness of Christian 
 philosophy and the faith of a true believer. 
 When the last hour came, the final struggle was 
 marked by fortitude and resignation, and the 
 twilight of one life was but the morning rays 
 of another. The place of her death was the 
 old Seminary Building, at Troy. Here, half 
 a century ago, she founded an institution which 
 has been an honor to our age and country. 
 Here she taught the true philosophy of living 
 and dying — works done in faith and faith made 
 practical in works. Here she inspired thou- 
 sands of her own sex, for the common benefit 
 of us all, with an ardent love of knowledge, 
 
EMMA WILLARD. 85 
 
 with a profound reverence for the great truths 
 of religion, and with the aspiration of duty to 
 be done ; and here she impressed upon them the 
 nobihty of her own nature." 
 
 I do not know how better to bring to a close 
 this remembrance of the Christian character 
 and life of Emma Willard than to recall her 
 ''Ocean Hymn," which will perhaps be longest 
 remembered of anything she wrote : 
 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
 I lay me down in peace to sleep ; 
 Secure I rest upon the wave, 
 For thou, O Lord ! hast power to save. 
 I know thou wilt not slight my call. 
 For thou dost mark the sparrow's fall ; 
 And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep. 
 
 When in the dead of night I lie 
 And gaze upon the trackless sky, 
 The star-bespangled heavenly scroll, 
 The boundless waters as they roll, — 
 I feel thy wondrous power to save 
 From perils of the stormy wave : 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
 I calmly rest and soundly sleep. 
 
 And such the trust that still were mine. 
 Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine, 
 Or though the tempest's fiery breath 
 Roused me from sleep to wreck and death! 
 
86 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 In ocean-cave, still safe with thee, 
 The germ of immortality ! 
 And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 'fsa 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Daniel Webster's first text-book was the 
 Bible, and he read it as far back as he could 
 remember. Rufus Choate, in his great eulogy 
 delivered before the Boston Bar, referred to 
 the ''training of the giant infancy on Catechism 
 and Bible, and Watts' version of the Psalms." 
 
 William T. Davis, who knew Mr. Webster 
 well, and who has recently written of him, de- 
 clares that he was a man of the deepest religious 
 feeling and was as familiar with the Bible as 
 with the Constitution of the United States. It 
 was his regular habit on Sunday morning to 
 gather his household in his library, and after 
 reading from the Scriptures to address them on 
 the responsible duties of life. 
 
 In his boyhood Daniel Webster joined the 
 orthodox Congregational Church in Salisbury, 
 
90 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 N. H., under the pastorate of Rev. Thomas 
 Worcester. When he removed to Portsmouth, 
 N. H., he carried a letter to the orthodox Con- 
 gregational Church in that town, under the pas- 
 torate of Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster. On 
 removing to Boston, Mr. Webster seems to 
 have attended for a time on the ministry of Rev. 
 Joseph Stevens Buckminster, a son of his 
 former pastor in Portsmouth, who was now 
 pastor of the Unitarian Brattle Street Church 
 of Boston. He attended this church, however, 
 but three years, when he became one of the 
 founders of the St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal 
 Church. He attended the meetings of its or- 
 ganizers and was one of the building com- 
 mittee in the construction of St. Paul's Church 
 on Tremont Street. He occupied pew No. 25. 
 Mr. Webster seems to have kept in touch with 
 this church for the rest of his life. His son 
 Charles, who died in 1824, his first wife, who 
 died in 1828, and his son Edward, who died in 
 Mexico in 1848, were buried in the vaults of 
 St. Paul's Church, though afterward removed 
 to Marshfield. 
 
 Bishop Henry B. Whipple, in his "Lights 
 and Shadows of a Long Episcopate," says that 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 91 
 
 his aunt, Mrs. George Whipple, a niece of Dan- 
 iel Webster, told him that when her uncle was 
 staying at John Taylor's, in New Hampshire, 
 he attended the little village church morning 
 and evening. Another United States Senator 
 came to visit him while he was there and said 
 to him, "Mr. Webster, I am surprised that you 
 go twice on Sunday to hear a plain country 
 preacher when you pay little attention to far 
 abler sermons in Washington." 
 
 'Tn Washington," Mr. Webster replied, 
 "they preach to Daniel Webster, the statesman ; 
 but this man has been telling Daniel Webster, 
 the sinner, of Jesus of Nazareth, and it has 
 been helping him." 
 
 There has been a great deal printed in recent 
 years to give the impression that Daniel Web- 
 ster was much given to dissipation, even to the 
 extent of drunkenness. We are told of saloon- 
 keepers who have Daniel Webster's bust in 
 their windows, and the liquor traffic and peo- 
 ple who are of a convivial turn have taken great 
 interest in increasing and deepening that im- 
 pression. That the belief is utterly unfounded 
 no honest man who will faithfully search out 
 the evidence can doubt. Rev. Edward Everett 
 
92 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Hale, D.D., is surely a good witness. His 
 testimony would be held anywhere in America 
 as of the highest import on a question of fact 
 with which he was well acquainted. Here 
 is what Dr. Hale has to say on the sub- 
 ject : 
 
 "Between the years 1826 and 1852, when he 
 died, I must have seen him thousands of times. 
 I must have read thousands of letters from him. 
 I have been I know not how often at his house. 
 My father, as I say, was his intimate friend. 
 Now it was to me a matter of the utmost per- 
 sonal surprise when I found gradually growing 
 up in this country the impression that Mr. 
 Webster was often, not to say generally, over- 
 come with liquor in the latter years of his life. 
 I should say that now a third part of the anec- 
 dotes of him which you find afloat have refer- 
 ence to occasions when it was supposed that, 
 under the influence of whiskey, he did not know 
 what he was doing. I would like to say, there- 
 fore, that in the course of twenty-six years, 
 running from the time when I was four years 
 old to the time when I was thirty, I never had 
 a dream or thought that he cared anything 
 about wine or liquor — certainly I never sup- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 93 
 
 posed that he used it to excess. What is more, 
 I know that my own father, who Hved to the 
 year 1864, heard such stories as these with per- 
 fect disgust and indignation. This is a good 
 place to print my opinion that this class of 
 stories has been nourished, partly carelessly 
 and partly from worse motives, and they are 
 not to be taken as real indications of the habit 
 or life of the man." 
 
 No one who will read the final will and testa- 
 ment of Mr. Webster and note the spirit in 
 which he faced death and eternity can doubt 
 the depth and sincerity of his religious 
 convictions. It was evidently his earnest 
 wish to leave behind him no doubt of his 
 faith in the truth of Christianity. He 
 opened his will with these solemn para- 
 graphs : 
 
 "In the name of Almighty God! I, Daniel 
 Webster of Marshfield, in the County of Ply- 
 mouth, in the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
 setts, Esquire, being now confined to my house 
 with a serious illness, which, considering my 
 time of life, is undoubtedly critical ; but being 
 nevertheless in the full possession of my mental 
 
94 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 faculties, do make and publish this, my last will 
 and testament : 
 
 "I commit my soul into the hands of my 
 heavenly Father, trusting in his infinite good- 
 ness and mercy. 
 
 "1 direct that my mortal remains be buried 
 in the family vault at Marshfield, where monu- 
 ments are already erected to my deceased chil- 
 dren and their mother. Two places are marked 
 for other monuments of exactly the same size 
 and form. One of these, in proper time, is for 
 me ; and perhaps I may leave an epitaph. The 
 other is for Mrs. Webster. Her ancestors and 
 all her kindred lie in a far distant city. My 
 hope is that after many years she may come to 
 my side and join me and others whom God 
 hath given me. 
 
 "I wish to be buried without the least show 
 or ostentation, but in a manner respectful to 
 my neighbors, whose kindness has contributed 
 so much to the happiness of me and mine, and 
 for whose prosperity I offer sincere prayers to 
 God." 
 
 The epitaph which Mr. Webster referred to 
 in his will as one he would possibly prepare is 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 95 
 
 now engraved on his monument at Marshfield. 
 It reads as follows : 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 Born January 18, 1782, 
 Died October 24, 1852, 
 Lord, I believe. Help Thou mine unbelief 
 Philosophical argument, especially that 
 drawn from the vastness of the universe 
 in comparison with the apparent insignifi- 
 cance of this globe, has sometimes shaken 
 my reason for the faith which is in me; 
 but my heart has always assured and re- 
 assured me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 must be a Divine Reality. The Sermon 
 on the Mount cannot be a mere human 
 production. This belief enters into the 
 very depth of my conscience. The whole 
 history of man proves it. 
 
 After Mr. Webster had finished his will, 
 which was a very lengthy and perplexing paper, 
 he said : *T thank God for strength to perform 
 a sensible act." He then engaged in prayer. 
 During that prayer, he was heard to utter this 
 sentence, ''Heavenly Father, forgive my sins, 
 
96 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 and receive me to thyself through Christ Jesus." 
 He concluded his prayer with this exclamation, 
 "And now unto God the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost, be praise for evermore. Peace 
 on earth, and good will toward men. That is 
 the happiness, the essence — good will toward 
 men." 
 
 A most curious incident in reference to the 
 death of Daniel Webster is the fact that he 
 seemed to have resolved to watch the process of 
 his own dissolution, to employ his intellectual 
 faculties in scrutinizing the successive steps of 
 progress of that mysterious and wondrous 
 change which takes place when the soul severs 
 the bonds which bind it to its tenement of clay. 
 This explains Mr. Webster's last words, uttered 
 after all other indications of life had disap- 
 peared. As if intending to assure those who 
 were near him that though his body was dying 
 his mind did not share in its decay he said, with 
 his last expiring breath, 'T still live!" 
 
 Webster still lives as an inspiration to the 
 new generation which he apostrophized in his 
 splendid Plymouth oration : "Advance, then, ye 
 future generations! We would hail you, as 
 you rise in your long succession to fill the places 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 97 
 
 which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of 
 existence where we are passing, and soon shall 
 have passed, our own human duration. We 
 bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the 
 fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful 
 skies and the verdant fields of New England. 
 We greet your accession to the great inheritance 
 which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to 
 the blessings of good government and religious 
 liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of 
 science and the delights of learning. We wel- 
 come you to the transcendent sweets of domes- 
 tic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, 
 and children. We welcome you to the im- 
 measurable blessings of rational existence, the 
 immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of 
 everlasting truth!" 
 
MARY LYON 
 
 ^¥ 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
MARY LYON. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MARY LYON. 
 
 In writing the story of the religious life 
 of Mary Lyon, one of the greatest Christian 
 educators in American history, the chief diffi- 
 culty lies in the embarrassment of resources. 
 
 Miss Lyon, though reared in a Christian 
 home, had not given herself definitely to the 
 Christian life until she went to attend Rev. 
 Joseph Emerson's school in Byfield, Mass. 
 Though a believer, she did not take any stand in 
 the school until a weekly prayer-meeting was 
 appointed by Mr. Emerson, to which all Chris- 
 tians were invited. This caused Mary much 
 agitation of mind, for she felt that there was 
 the dividing line. She must now class her- 
 self with the children of God or with those 
 who knew him not. She said that she had 
 too long denied Christ before men, while her 
 conscience testified that the friends of God 
 were her chosen companions. After much 
 
102 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 deliberation she concluded to attend the meet- 
 ing, and she never regretted her decision. 
 
 While still very young, Miss Lyon wrote a 
 letter to her sister on the Fourth of July, 
 revealing not only the strength of her thought 
 and the intensity of her patriotism, but espe- 
 cially the deep bed-rock of Christian faith 
 which undergirded all her thinking: "This 
 day, you will recollect, completes half a cen- 
 tury since the Declaration of our Independence. 
 How interesting must be the reflections of 
 those few who can remember that eventful 
 day! And to every one the events of our 
 history must be an exciting theme. Who, on 
 the face of the earth, fifty years ago, could 
 have anticipated such results? It is true that 
 Washington, and almost all Americans who 
 lived in the days of Washington, hoped for 
 independence. But did they look forward to 
 this time, and anticipate such a nation as this? 
 Must not all believe that ^promotion comes 
 neither from the East, nor from the West, 
 nor from the South; but God is the Judge; 
 he putteth down one, and setteth up another' ? 
 Must not all exclaim. This is the linger of 
 God'?" 
 
MARY LYON. 103 
 
 The spirituality of her mind is clearly 
 revealed in a letter written two years later than 
 this last quotation. It is a letter to one of her 
 friends in which, referring to her own spiritual 
 life, she says : "I feel that there is one way, 
 and only one, in which I can guard against 
 this easily besetting sin, and that is, to seek 
 daily the presence of Him who can turn the 
 hearts of all as the rivers of water are turned. 
 I have been too much inclined to seek to direct 
 my own path. May I be saved from this. 
 The Lord in his great mercy has given me 
 a field of labor; so that for several years I 
 have not doubted about the path of duty. The 
 privilege of laboring is to be more and more 
 precious. I would not choose the spot. I 
 would not choose the circumstances. To be 
 able to do something is a privilege of which 
 I am altogether unworthy. Should I be laid 
 aside, as a useless servant, it would be just. 
 I would humbly seek that I may be permitted 
 to labor faithfully and successfully, that I may 
 be saved from those temptations which my 
 feeble heart cannot withstand, and that I may 
 be blessed with whatever may be desirable for 
 health of body, and health of mind, and for 
 
I04 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 general usefulness. For little else of this world 
 do I feel at present that I ought to ask. May 
 I be the Lord's — spirit, and soul, and body." 
 
 As time went on, and Mary Lyon became 
 more and more intrenched in a school of her 
 own, her spiritual life deepened and her activi- 
 ties were intensified in two or three very impor- 
 tant ways. She became greatly impressed 
 with the importance of instruction in Bible 
 truths, exceedingly interested in the conver- 
 sion of her pupils, and more and more 
 impressed with the importance of great liber- 
 ality and self-sacrifice for the promotion of the 
 work of foreign missions. I think she was 
 one of the pioneers in what is now quite com- 
 mon in many Christian colleges — expecting 
 revivals in the school and definitely laboring 
 for the conversion of students as the most 
 important part of the college work. 
 
 One autumn, during Miss Lyon's residence 
 in Ipswich, Mass., she wrote her mother a 
 letter in which she said: 'The religious state 
 of our school is interesting and has been so 
 for several weeks. The Spirit of God is evi- 
 dently among us, operating on the hearts of 
 our dear pupils. The work is silent and grad- 
 
MARY LYON. 105 
 
 tial, but the effects are certain; and that it is 
 the work of God there can be no doubt. Eight 
 or nine have indulged hope that they have 
 found the Saviour, and the state of many 
 others is very encouraging. So far the work 
 has been slow; but the way seems all pre- 
 pared by the Holy Spirit for richer and more 
 abundant displays of mercy. It does appear 
 that the fields are white already to the har- 
 vest. The blessing seems just ready to descend 
 upon us. If there is no Achan in the camp, 
 if there is no stumbling-block in the way, if 
 there is not a manifest and decided fault on 
 the part of Christians, we shall probably see 
 greater things than these. Perhaps the Lord 
 may put it into the heart of my dear mother 
 to pray for these souls, that prayer of faith 
 which God will hear in heaven, his holy dwell- 
 ing place, and answer on earth." 
 
 This last request of her mother was the char- 
 acteristic precedent to all the great revivals in 
 Mary Lyon's schools. It was her custom in 
 the autumn to write to her dear Christian 
 friends in all parts of the country and enlist 
 them to pray for the spiritual condition of her 
 school. She had wonderful faith in prayer, 
 
I66 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 and the results marvelously justified her 
 faith. 
 
 The next spring following the above let- 
 ter to her mother she wrote to her sister a 
 letter containing this remarkable paragraph : 
 "I have never witnessed such an improvement 
 in moral character, in ardent desire to possess 
 meekness, humility, patience, and perseverance. 
 A spirit of benevolence has seemed to reign 
 among us to such a degree that selfishness has 
 appeared to most of our little community some- 
 what in its own character. . . . Many 
 intelligent, refined young ladies, brought up 
 in the lap of indulgence, thought they would 
 be willing to go to the remotest corner of 
 the world and teach a school among the most 
 degraded and ignorant, might it only be said 
 of them by their Master, as rt was said of 
 one of old, 'She hath done what she could.' 
 But, more than all, we have been visited by 
 the influence of the Holy Spirit. Soon after 
 the commencement of the school the gentle 
 dews began to descend, and continued to 
 increase until the last week, when we were 
 blessed with a plentiful and refreshing shower. 
 More than thirty expressed the hope that they 
 
MARY LYON. 107 
 
 had found the Saviour precious to their souls. 
 At the commencement of the term more than 
 forty indulged in this hope." 
 
 One source of Mary Lyon's power in devel- 
 oping Christian character in her pupils v^as 
 that she not only lived a Christian life her- 
 self, but also regularly studied and taught the 
 Bible as much as anything else. Her manner 
 was simple. There was not the slightest 
 appearance of speaking for effect or trying to 
 speak eloquently; but her intense faith aiid 
 earnestness pervaded every word and made 
 her a powerful speaker. Dr. Hitchcock, a 
 former president of Amherst College, says that 
 the vividness with which she evidently saw and 
 felt the very truths she was uttering was one 
 secret of her power. If she had ever a fleet- 
 ing doubt of the certainty of future retribu- 
 tion, that doubt was never known or suspected 
 by her most intimate friends. The founda- 
 tions of her faith never wavered. The princi- 
 ples of the Christian religion seemed inter- 
 woven in the fibers of her soul. The world to 
 come was as present to her thoughts as this 
 world to her eyes. Her confidence in God 
 was as simple and true as a child's in its 
 
io8 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 mother. She felt the Saviour to be present 
 with her, her friend, her counselor, her adviser, 
 sustaining and directing her as really as though 
 she had seen him at her side, had leaned bodily 
 on his arm, had heard his lips respond to her 
 petitions, and seen his wounded but almighty 
 hands reach down deliverance. 
 
 Mary Lyon had broad and noble ideas con- 
 cerning the necessity for the education of 
 women and the possible blessings that would 
 come from it to the world. On one occasion, 
 when she was under the strain of great effort 
 to obtain needed help for Mount Holyoke 
 Female Seminary, she wrote a letter to a lead- 
 ing minister, in the course of which she said : 
 "Woman, elevated by the Christian religion, 
 was designed by Providence as the principal 
 educator of our race. From her entrance on 
 womanhood to the end of her life this is to 
 be her great business. By her influence not 
 only her female friends, her scholars, and her 
 daughters are to be affected, but also her sons, 
 her brothers, the young men around her, and 
 even the elder men, not excepting her father 
 and his peers. Considering the qualifications 
 which the mothers in our land now possess, 
 
MARY LYON. 109 
 
 is there not a call for special effort from some 
 quarter to render them aid in fitting their 
 daughters to exert such an influence as is 
 needed from this source on our infant republic, 
 on our Christian country?" 
 
 Such a letter would not seem daring now, 
 but it took a prophet to write it seventy-five 
 years ago. 
 
 A little glimpse of Miss Lyon's thought 
 about the Sabbath, as well as the use she put 
 it to in the midst of her campaigns of soul- 
 winning, is shown in this letter to a friend 
 written in March, 1843 * "-^ large number of 
 hopeful conversions have occurred in three 
 days, including the Sabbath. The Sabbath is 
 of indescribable value to us. There can be no 
 community to which it is more important. In 
 times of revival it seems always to be the 
 day that God delights peculiarly to honor. At 
 other times it seems to be worth more than all 
 other days in bringing the thoughts into cap- 
 tivity to the will of Christ." 
 i I can only refer to her great work in behalf 
 ^ of foreign missions. So many missionaries 
 went out from her seminary that worldly fam- 
 ilies became afraid to send their daughters 
 
no RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 there to school, lest they should give them- 
 selves to Christian work. After her death one 
 writer suggested the breadth of her mission- 
 ary work in these words: "Is she missed? 
 Scarcely a State in the American Union but 
 contains those she trained. Long ere this, 
 amid the hunting grounds of the Sioux and 
 the villages of the Cherokees the tear of the 
 missionary has wet the page which has told 
 of Miss Lyon's departure. The Sandwich 
 Islander will ask why his white teacher's 
 eye is dim as she reads her American letters. 
 The swarthy African will lament with his sor- 
 rowing guide who cries, 'Help, Lord, for the 
 godly ceaseth.' The cinnamon groves of Cey- 
 lon and the palm trees of India overshadow 
 her early deceased missionary pupils, while 
 those left to bear the burden and heat of the 
 day will wail the saint whose prayers and 
 letters they so prized. Among the Nesto- 
 rians of Persia and at the base of Mount- 
 Olympus will her name be breathed softly as 
 the household name of one whom God hath 
 taken." 
 
HENRY CLAY 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HENRY CLAY, 
 
 Henry Clay, like his great contemporary, 
 Daniel Webster, has suffered by the anecdotal 
 gossip which has grown up since his death. 
 In many a story we are told that he was a 
 gambler and a duellist. In his case it must 
 be admitted that there is far more foundation 
 in fact than for the stories which have pur- 
 sued Webster. In Henry Clay's youth he par- 
 took largely of the works and habits of the 
 people of his class at that time; and yet his 
 biographers all agree that he never visited a 
 gambling house in his life and was never seen 
 at a gaming table set up for that purpose. In 
 the early periods of his public career he did 
 engage with his associates in society for the 
 excitements of the games, but even during 
 these years never allowed cards to be kept in 
 his own house. That he did yield to occasional 
 play in his youth is not more true than that 
 
114 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 he always condemned the practice and for the 
 last thirty years of his life abstained from it. 
 
 It is also true that twice in his younger 
 life Henry Clay engaged in duels, the first 
 with Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, and 
 the second with John Randolph, of Roanoke. 
 All that can be said about it is that it was 
 at a time when the duello held the club over 
 many men, and it was often true that a man 
 had to choose between giving up his career 
 and abiding by it. In later years Henry Clay 
 regarded the laws of the so-called "code of 
 honor'' a violation of the rights of society and 
 of God and deeply felt that his own experiences 
 were blemishes on his career and regretted 
 beyond words his part in them. 
 
 Many years before his death Mr. Clay defi- 
 nitely accepted Christ as his Saviour and made 
 a public profession of Christianity at his home 
 in Kentucky, where he was baptized in the 
 communion of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, and during the later years of his life 
 in Washington he was in full communion with 
 Trinity parish in that city. No one could have 
 been more genuine, more sincere and frank 
 about his beliefs, whether political or religious, 
 
HENRY CLAY. 115 
 
 than Henry Clay. That oft-quoted declara- 
 tion of his, ''I would rather be right than be 
 President," was a key to the man's character. 
 Mr. Clay's belief in the Bible, his reverence for 
 Christian institutions and for the Divine Will, 
 was often illustrated both by his words and 
 life. 
 
 In his farewell speech in the United States 
 Senate in 1842, Mr. Clay said: ''I have waited 
 in perfect and undoubting confidence for the 
 ultimate triumph of justice and truth, and in 
 the entire persuasion that time would settle 
 all things as they should be; and that what- 
 ever wrong or injustice I might experience at 
 the hands of man, he to whom all hearts are 
 open and fully known would by the inscru- 
 table dispensations of his providence rectify all 
 errors, redress all wrong, and cause ample 
 justice to be done." 
 
 In the opening of Mr. Clay's speech at Lex- 
 ington, Ky., on his retirement to private life, 
 soon after the above words had been uttered 
 in the Senate, he said: "I feel that it is our 
 first duty to express our obligations to a kind 
 and bountiful Providence for the copious and 
 genial showers with which he has blessed our 
 
ii6 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 land — a refreshment of which it stood much 
 in need. For one, I offer to him my humble, 
 dutiful thanks." 
 
 It was Mr. Clay's habit, especially through 
 the latter half of his life, on all proper occa- 
 sions, in private and in public, to make a relig- 
 ious and reverential recognition of Divine 
 Providence and to speak in the most respectful 
 manner of Christianity, its rites and its insti- 
 tutions. He was also an habitual attendant on 
 the public services of religion. On a Sunday 
 evening, some time after the result of the Pres- 
 idential election of 1844, which was the great 
 political sunset of his life, had become known, 
 while sitting at his own fireside with two 
 friends, the dark prospects of the country being 
 a topic for conversation, he said, pointing with 
 his finger to the Bible which lay on the table 
 — the only book there, showing the use that 
 had been made of it : ''Gentlemen, I do not 
 know anything but that Book that can recon- 
 cile us to such events." 
 
 In 1845, i^ writing to some Christian women 
 of New Haven, Conn., who had made him a 
 member of the American Home Missionary 
 Society, Mr. Clay said : ''I request you to 
 
HENRY CLAY. 117 
 
 communicate to them [the ladies of the Mis- 
 sionary Society] my grateful acknowledg- 
 ments for this distinguished proof of their 
 highly appreciated esteem and regard and to 
 assure them that I share with them a pro- 
 found sense of the surpassing importance of 
 the Christian religion, and believing, as I sin- 
 cerely do, in its truth, I hope and trust that 
 their laudable endeavors to promote and 
 advance its cause may be crowned with signal 
 success." 
 
 On the death of Henry Clay one of his col- 
 leagues from Kentucky, Mr. John C. Breck- 
 inridge, in his address to the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, said: ''But the approach of the 
 destroyer had no terrors for him. No clouds 
 overhung his future. He met the end with 
 composure, and his pathway to the grave was 
 brightened by the immortal hope which springs 
 from the Christian faith. 
 
 ''Not long before his death, having just 
 returned from Kentucky, I bore to him a token 
 of affection from his excellent wife. Never 
 can I forget his appearance, his manner, or his 
 words. After speaking of his family, his 
 friends, and his country, he changed the con- 
 
ii8 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 versation to his own future, and looking on 
 me with his fine eye undimmed and his voice 
 full of its original compass and melody, he 
 said, 'I am not afraid to die, sir. I have 
 hope, faith, and some confidence. I do not 
 think any man can be entirely certain in regard 
 to his future state, but I have abiding trust 
 in the merits and mediation of our Saviour.' " 
 Rev. Dr. Butler, who was chaplain of the 
 United States Senate at the time of Mr. Clay's 
 death, delivered a funeral discourse at the 
 National Hotel, which was attended by the 
 President of the United States, the chief 
 officers of the Government, the diplomatic 
 corps, and the members of the Senate and 
 House of Representatives. His text was, 
 **How is the strong staff broken, and the beau- 
 tiful rod!" (Jeremiah 48:17.) In that pres- 
 ence Dr. Butler related this interesting history 
 of the religious experience of the last few 
 weeks of the life of Henry Clay : *'It is since his 
 withdrawal from the sittings of the Senate 
 that I have been made particularly acquainted 
 with his religious opinions, character, and feel- 
 ings. From his first illness he expressed to 
 me the persuasion that it would be fatal. From 
 
HENRY CLAY. 119 
 
 that period until his death it has been my 
 privilege to hold with him frequent religious 
 services and conversations. He averred to 
 me his full faith in the great leading doctrines 
 of the Gospel — the fall and sinfulness of man, 
 the divinity of Christ, the reality and necessity 
 of the atonement, the need of being born again 
 by the Spirit, and salvation through faith in 
 the crucified Redeemer. His own personal 
 hopes of salvation he ever and distinctly based 
 on the promises and the grace of Christ. Strik- 
 ingly perceptible on his naturally impetuous 
 and impatient character was the influence of 
 grace in producing submission and 'patient 
 waiting for Christ' and for death. On one 
 occasion he spoke to me of the pious example 
 of one very near and dear to him as that which 
 led him deeply to feel and earnestly to seek 
 for himself the reality and blessedness of relig- 
 ion. At another time he told me that he had 
 been striving to form a conception of heaven; 
 and he enlarged upon the mercy of that pro- 
 vision by which our Saviour became a par- 
 taker of our humanity, that our hearts and 
 hopes might fix themselves on him. On 
 another occasion, when he was supposed to be 
 
I20 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 very near his end, I expressed to him the hope 
 that his mind and heart were at peace and 
 that he was able to rest with cheerful con- 
 fidence on the promises and merits of the 
 Redeemer. He said with much feeling that 
 he endeavored to and trusted that he did 
 repose his salvation upon Christ; that it was 
 too late for him to look at Christianity in the 
 light of speculation ; that he had never doubted 
 its truths; and that he now wished to throw 
 himself upon it as a practical and blessed rem- 
 edy. Very soon after this I administered to 
 him the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Being 
 extremely feeble, desirous of having his mind 
 undiverted, no persons were present but his 
 son and servant. It was a scene long to be 
 remembered — there, in that still chamber, at a 
 week-day noon, the tides of life all flowing 
 strong around us, three disciples of the Saviour 
 — the minister of God, the dying statesman, 
 and his servant, a partaker of the like precious 
 faith — commemorating their Saviour's dying 
 love. He joined in the blessed sacrament with 
 great feeling arid solemnity — now pressing his 
 hands together and now spreading them forth 
 as the words of the service expressed the feel- 
 
HENRY CLAY. 121 
 
 ings, desires, supplications, and thanksgivings 
 of his heart. After this he ralHed, and again 
 I was permitted frequently to join with him 
 in religious services, conversation, and prayer. 
 He grew in grace and in the knowledge of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Among the 
 books which he read most were Jay's 'Morn- 
 ing and Evening Exercises,' 'The Life of Dr. 
 Chalmers,' and 'The Christian Philosopher 
 Triumphant in Death.' His hope continued to 
 the end, though true and real, to be tremulous 
 with humility rather than rapturous with 
 assurance. When he felt most the weariness 
 of his protracted sufferings it sufficed to sug- 
 gest to him that his heavenly Father doubt- 
 less knew that after a life so long, stirring, 
 and tempted such discipline of chastening and 
 suffering was needful to make him meet for 
 the inheritance of the saints; and at once the 
 words of meek and patient acquiescence 
 escaped his lips." 
 
i 
 
STONEWALL JACKSON 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 STONEWALL JACKSON. 
 
 The commanding officer of his regiment 
 while it was in Mexico following the Mexican 
 War, Colonel Francis Taylor, was the first 
 man to speak to Stonewall Jackson on the 
 subject of personal religion, Taylor was an 
 earnest Christian, constantly interested in the 
 religious welfare of his soldiers. He made a 
 deep impression on young Jackson, who after 
 this conversation resolved to study the Bible 
 and seek all the light within his reach. 
 
 On his return to the United States, soon 
 after settling as a professor at the Virginia 
 Military Institute, Lexington, Va., he applied 
 for admission into the Presbyterian Church, 
 making a public profession of his faith in 
 Christ on November 22, 1851. He soon 
 became a deacon in the church, and with a 
 soldier's training in obedience to superior com- 
 mand he followed out the same principles in 
 
126 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 his church duties, going to his pastor as his 
 chief for his ''orders," and "reporting" per- 
 formance of them in a mihtary way. 
 
 Few men had such reverence for ministers 
 of the Gospel as had Jackson, and he often 
 said that, had his education fitted him for it 
 and had he more of the gift of speaking, he 
 would have entered the pulpit. In a letter to 
 his aunt, Mrs. Neale, he said, 'The subject of 
 becoming a herald of the Cross has often seri- 
 ously engaged my attention, and I regard it 
 as the most noble of all professions. It was 
 the profession of our divine Redeemer, and 
 I should not be surprised were I to die upon 
 a foreign field, clad in ministerial armor, fig;ht- 
 ing under the banner of Jesus. What could be 
 more glorious? But my conviction is that I 
 am doing good here, and that for the present 
 I am where God would have me be. Within 
 the last few days I have felt an unusual relig- 
 ious joy. I do rejoice to walk in the love of 
 God. My heavenly Father has condescended 
 to use me as an instrument in getting up a 
 large Sabbath school for the negroes here. He 
 has greatly blessed it, and, I trust, all who are 
 connected with it." 
 
^^STONEWALL" JACKSON. 127 
 
 So scrupulous was Jackson in the perform- 
 ance of his duties that he would not neglect 
 even the smallest, saying, ''One instance would 
 be a precedent for another, and thus my rules 
 would be broken down." After his conscience 
 had decided upon questions of right and wrong, 
 his resolution and independence enabled him 
 to carry out his principles with a total disre- 
 gard of the opinions of the world. He thought 
 it a great weakness in others to care what 
 impression their conduct made upon public 
 opinion, if their consciences were only clear. 
 The fear of the Lord was the only fear he 
 knew. After he became a Christian he set 
 his face against all worldly conformity, giving 
 up dancing, theater-going, and every amuse- 
 ment that had a tendency to lead his thoughts 
 and heart away from holy things. When a 
 question was raised as to the right or wrong 
 of indulgences that many consider innocent 
 he would say, pleasantly: "Well, I know it 
 is not wrong not to do it, so I am going to be 
 on the safe side." His rule was never to 
 make any compromise with his principles, but 
 there was not a particle of asceticism or gloom 
 in his religion. It shed perpetual sunshine 
 
128 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 upon his life, and his cheerful serenity was 
 like the full flowing of a placid stream. His 
 faith and trust led him to feel that nothing 
 could happen to him but what was sent in wis- 
 dom and love by his heavenly Father. One 
 of his favorite texts of Scripture was: "We 
 know that all things work together for good 
 to them that love God." 
 
 Mrs. Jackson in her biography tells us that 
 soon after he united with the church, his 
 pastor, in a public discourse, urged his flock 
 to more faithfulness in attending the weekly 
 prayer-meeting, and enjoined upon the church 
 officers and members especially their duty to 
 lead in prayer. Hearing this, Major Jackson, 
 for that was his rank at the time, called to 
 inquire if he was among those who were 
 admonished not to be deterred from their duty 
 by modesty or false shame. He said he had 
 not been used to public speaking; he was natu- 
 rally diffident, and feared an effort might prove 
 anything but edifying to the assembly; "but,'* 
 he continued, "you are my pastor, and the 
 spiritual guide of the church ; and if you think 
 it my duty, then I shall waive my reluctance 
 and make the effort to lead in prayer, however 
 
"STONEWALL" JACKSON. 129 
 
 painful it may be." Thus authorized to call 
 upon him, if he thought proper, after a time 
 the pastor did so. In responding to the request 
 Jackson's embarrassment was so great that the 
 service was almost as painful to the audience 
 as it was to himself. The call was not repeated, 
 and after waiting some weeks the Major again 
 called upon the pastor to know if he had 
 refrained from a second call from unwilling- 
 ness to inflict distress upon him through his 
 extreme diffidence. The good pastor was 
 obliged to admit that he did shrink from 
 requiring of him a duty which was rendered 
 at such a sacrifice, lest his own enjoyment of 
 the meeting be destroyed. His reply had the 
 true soldierly spirit : "Yes, but my comfort or 
 discomfort is not the question ; if it is my duty 
 to lead in prayer, then I must persevere in it 
 until I learn to do it aright ; and I wish you to 
 discard all consideration for my feelings." 
 The next time he was called upon he suc- 
 ceeded better in repressing his agitation, and 
 in the course of time he was able to pour out 
 his heart before God with as much freedom 
 in a public meeting as at his own family 
 prayers, which were never omitted. 
 
I30 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Stonewall Jackson was as conscientious 
 about the use of his money as he was about 
 his time and influence. In his giving for relig- 
 ious purposes he adopted the Hebrew system of 
 tithes, contributing every year one-tenth of his 
 income to the church. 
 
 No Christian man was ever more careful 
 of his personal habits than Stonewall Jackson. 
 He abstained from the use of all intoxicating 
 drinks, solely from principle, having a fond- 
 ness for them, as he himself confessed, and 
 for that reason never daring to indulge his 
 taste. During the war, when asked by a 
 brother officer to join him in a social glass, 
 he replied : ''No, I thank you, but I never use 
 it; I am more afraid of it than of Federal 
 bullets." Nor did he use tobacco in any form, 
 and for many years not even tea and coffee, 
 believing that they were injurious to his 
 health. 
 
 As an instance of the alacrity with which, 
 once convinced that a thing was right to do, 
 he would act, his biographer relates that on 
 one occasion, when he had been talking of 
 self-abnegation and making rather light of it, 
 a friend suggested that he had not been called 
 
"STONEWALL" JACKSON. 131 
 
 upon to endure it, and supposed a case : ''Imag- 
 ine that the providence of God seemed to direct 
 you to drop every scheme of life and of per- 
 sonal advancement and go on a mission to 
 the heart of Africa for the rest of your days, 
 v^ould you go?" His eyes flashed as he 
 instantly replied: ''I v^^ould go without my 
 hat!" 
 
 This same friend once asked him what was 
 his understanding of the Bible command to 
 be ''instant in prayer" and to "pray without 
 ceasing." "I can give you," he said, "my 
 idea of it by illustration, if you will allow it 
 and will not think that I am setting myself up 
 as a model for others. I have so fixed the 
 habit in my own mind that I never raise a 
 glass of water to my lips without lifting my 
 heart to God in thanks and prayer for the 
 water of life. Then, when we take our meals, 
 there is the grace. Whenever I drop a letter 
 in the post-office, I send a petition along with 
 it for God's blessing upon its mission and the 
 person to whom it is sent. When I break the 
 seal of a letter just received, I stop to ask 
 God to prepare me for its contents and make 
 it a messenger of good. When I go to my 
 
132 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 class room and await the arrangement of the 
 cadets in their places, that is my time to inter- 
 cede with God for them. And so in every act 
 of the day I had made the practice habitual." 
 
 ''And don't you sometimes forget to do 
 this?" asked his friend. 
 
 "I can hardly say that I do; the habit has 
 become almost as fixed as to breathe." 
 
 His friend, wishing to push the matter still 
 further, asked him : "Major, suppose you 
 should lose your health irreparably; do you 
 think you could be happy still?" 
 
 He answered: ''Yes, I should be happy 
 still." 
 
 "Well, suppose in addition to life-long ill- 
 ness you should become suddenly blind; do 
 you believe your serenity would remain 
 unclouded ?" 
 
 He paused a moment, as if to weigh fully 
 every word he uttered, and then said: "I am 
 sure of it; even such a misfortune could not 
 make me doubt the love of God." 
 
 Still further to test him, and knowing his 
 impatience of anything that even bordered on 
 dependence, it was urged : "But if, in addition 
 to blindness and incurable infirmity and pain, 
 
^'STONEWALL" JACKSON. 133 
 
 you had to receive grudging charity from 
 those on whom you had no claim — what 
 then?" 
 
 There was a strange reverence in his lifted 
 eyes, and an exalted expression over his whole 
 face, as he replied, with slow deliberateness, 
 *'If it were God's will, I think I could lie 
 there content, a hundred years!" 
 
 Mrs. Jackson gives a very tender account 
 of her husband's conduct at the breaking out 
 of the war. He had hoped and prayed for 
 peace and with great sorrow saw the last hope 
 fade away. The morning he was to leave he 
 sent a message to his pastor requesting him 
 to come to the barracks and offer a prayer with 
 the regiment before its departure, and the last 
 thing he did was to return to his home, take 
 his Bible, and read that beautiful chapter in 
 Corinthians beginning with the sublime hope 
 of the resurrection — 'Tor we know that if 
 our earthly house of this tabernacle were dis- 
 solved, we have a building of God, a house not 
 made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 Then he knelt down beside his wife and com- 
 mitted himself and her whom he loved to the 
 protecting care of his Father in heaven. Never 
 
134 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 was a prayer more fervent and touching. His 
 voice was so choked with emotion that he 
 could scarcely utter the words, and one of 
 his most earnest petitions was that, "if con- 
 sistent with his will, God would still avert 
 the threatening danger and grant us peace!" 
 From the beginning of the war Stonewall 
 Jackson manifested the deepest interest in the 
 religious welfare of his men, and made active 
 efforts to promote the same. He once said to 
 a colporter, '*'You are more than welcome to 
 my camp, and I shall be delighted to do what 
 I can to promote your work. I am more 
 anxious than I can tell you that my men shall 
 be good soldiers of the Cross." One who 
 heard him lead a prayer meeting for the sol- 
 diers a few days before the battle of Chan- 
 cellorsville says, "I shall never forget that 
 meeting. The reading of the Scriptures, the 
 sweet songs of praise, the simple, earnest, prac- 
 tical talk, and the tender, appropriate, fervent 
 prayer of the great soldier will linger in my 
 memory through life, and will be recalled, I 
 doubt not^ when I meet him on the brighter 
 shore." 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 Any one who has ever been at Tarrytown, 
 N. Y., in the summer time and strolled past 
 Christ Episcopal Church cannot have failed 
 to note with admiring attention the splendid 
 ivy vine which has climbed its way upward 
 until it has covered the tower with its great 
 cloak of living green, changing into varying 
 shades of beauty as the summer wanes into the 
 autumn. If some proud citizen has told the 
 visitor the story of that vine it has added very 
 much to its interest. That ivy vine was 
 planted by Washington Irving with his own 
 hand, from a cutting made from the vine 
 which adorns his beautiful and historic Sunny- 
 side, and which, in turn, came from a cutting 
 which the brilliant author brought from the 
 ruins of Melrose Abbey. Perhaps there is not 
 in all America a more picturesquely historic 
 vine. This vine is a living witness to Wash- 
 
138 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 ington Irving's interest in the Christian 
 Church. If, now, you go inside the church, 
 you will find above the pew where he used 
 to sit a beautiful memorial tablet containing 
 the Irving coat-of-arms, two royal supporters 
 holding a shield emblazoned with holly leaves, 
 having as a crest a hand holding a bunch of 
 holly. On this tablet there is the following 
 inscription : 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING 
 
 Born in the City of Nezv York, April j, 1783. 
 For many years a Communicant and 
 Warden of the Church, and Respect- 
 fully one of its Delegates to the 
 Convention of the Diocese. 
 Loved, honored, revered, he fell asleep in Jesus 
 March 28, i8§p. 
 
 The venerable pastor of that picturesquely 
 adorned church in Tarrytown, Rev. Dr. J. 
 Sheldon Spencer, gave Dr. Ferdinand C. Igle- 
 hart some exceedingly interesting reminis- 
 cences of the religious life of Irving. Among 
 other things, he said : *'My acquaintance with 
 Washington Irving began in 1853, and it soon 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 139 
 
 ripened into friendship under circumstances 
 most tender and affecting. At the beginning 
 of my ministry in Christ Church, Tarrytown, 
 N. Y., my wife died. Irving was one of the 
 first to call upon me and proffer me the com- 
 fort and strength of his tender sympathy. The 
 warm and prolonged pressure of his hand 
 made me feel the power of his sympathy, and 
 then followed these few words, softly and 
 gently spoken, 'They who minister to others 
 must not themselves refuse consolation.' In 
 my sorrow it was a personal revelation of 
 human tenderness, next to the benediction of 
 the Master. 
 
 'T can never forget the embarrassment I 
 first experienced in preaching before him. I 
 painfully anticipated the criticism of one who 
 stood in the foremost rank of all authors. But 
 I soon found that there was no more devout or 
 attentive hearer in the church than he. He 
 sat in his pew, with his head resting lightly 
 on his hand, in that pensive attitude which one 
 of his portraits exhibits. He would thus sit, 
 with his eyes intent upon the speaker, as one 
 anxious to receive some truth for his soul's 
 health. With all his powers of mind he knew 
 
140 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 of no other spiritual sustenance than the Gos- 
 pel of Christ and its plain, simple truths. 
 
 "During my first interview with him at Sun- 
 nyside he introduced the subject of church 
 music, of which he was particularly fond, 
 though I do not think he could sing a note; 
 but the sentiment and the melody deeply 
 affected him. He referred to the Gloria in 
 Excelsis. Repeating the words as if they were 
 the joyful refrain of his own heart, he 
 exclaimed, his eyes filling with tears and his 
 voice trembling with emotion, 'That is relig- 
 ion, Mr. Spencer; that is true religion for 
 you. I never hear the hymn without having 
 my mind lifted up and my heart made better 
 for it.' 
 
 "During another visit he spoke to me of 
 this text, which had profoundly impressed him : 
 *My son, give me thine heart.' Years before 
 he must have been deeply impressed with it, 
 for, on looking over a volume of Bishop Wain- 
 wright's sermons, I found one on the text, 
 accompanied by the statement that it was sug- 
 gested to the bishop by Washington Irving as 
 a text which, more than all others, he should 
 like to hear treated in a sermon. On another 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 141 
 
 occasion, on the church porch, he expressed 
 with great feehng the same general thoughts, 
 in words which may be classed with the best 
 and most beautiful he ever uttered : 'Religion 
 is of the heart, not of the head. We may, with 
 the understanding, approach the vestibule of 
 the Temple; but it is only with the heart that 
 we can enter its holy precincts and draw near 
 its sacred altar.' " 
 
 Washington Irving' s parents were Scotch 
 Covenanters, and his father was a deacon in 
 the church, a most sedate and God-fearing 
 man, always very serious in his intercourse 
 with his family, without sympathy in the 
 amusements of his children. Though he was 
 not without tenderness in his nature, the exhi- 
 bition of it was repressed on principle. He 
 was a man of high character and honor, 
 greatly esteemed by his associates. He endeav- 
 ored to bring up his children in sound relig- 
 ious principles and to leave no room in their 
 lives for trivial things. One of the two weekly 
 half-holidays was required for the catechism, 
 and the only relaxation from the three church 
 services on Sunday was the reading of "Pil- 
 grim's Progress," 
 
142 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner in his biography of 
 Irving remarks that this cold and severe dis- 
 cipline at home would have been intolerable 
 but for the more lovingly demonstrative and 
 impulsive character of the mother, whose gen- 
 tle nature and fine intellect won the tender ven- 
 eration of her children. Of the father they 
 stood in awe; his conscientious piety, thor- 
 oughly genuine, nevertheless failed to arouse 
 any religious sensibility in them, and they 
 revolted from a teaching which seemed to 
 regard everything that was pleasant as wicked. 
 
 Washington Irving was a bright, happy 
 child, sportive and gladsome in his disposi- 
 tion ; and one of his biographers says that this 
 used to give even his mother some anxiety, 
 and she would look at him with a half-mourn- 
 ful admiration and exclaim, ''Oh, Washing- 
 ton ! If you were only good !" While he was 
 still very young and was required to attend 
 the church of his parents, he slipped away 
 at other hours to attend the Trinity Episcopal 
 Church in New York City, where the family 
 were then living. His conversion was a very 
 striking occurrence. When he first began to 
 attend Trinity he found the service of the ritual 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 143 
 
 tedious to him and was restless under it, wait- 
 ing impatiently till it was over, and then set- 
 tled himself to hear the sermon ; but one Sun- 
 day as he was entering the church the solemn 
 exhortation to confession was being read, and 
 the thought struck him that he, too, had sins 
 to confess, and so he fell upon his knees and 
 joined in the humble confession of sins; and 
 from that day forward, until the end of his 
 life, the church service was to him an increas- 
 ing and never-ending source of comfort and 
 delight. 
 
 Dr. Spencer, the pastor of Christ Church, 
 Tarrytown, already quoted, gives a number of 
 interesting incidents connected with Irving' s 
 church life. He says that Mr. Irving took 
 an active part in the practical work of the 
 church. After his return from Spain as 
 United States Minister he was elected warden 
 of the church. It became his duty among 
 other things to take up the collection. Many 
 a faithful church-worker in other denomina- 
 tions will appreciate the famous author's feel- 
 ings on that subject. On coming out of the 
 church one Sunday Irving said, his eyes twin- 
 kling with humor, ''I have passed that plate 
 
144 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 so often up and down the aisle that I begin 
 to feel like a highwayman. I feel as if I 
 could stop a man on the road and say, 'Your 
 money or your life!' " 
 
 An amusing story, yet one having an illus- 
 trative point in regard to Irving' s nature, is 
 told. At one of the vestry meetings a Mr. 
 Holmes, one of the members, was accompanied 
 by an inoffensive pet dog which took refuge 
 at his feet. There was an animated discus- 
 sion. Mr. Holmes in an earnest manner 
 pressed his views upon the meeting, and the 
 discussion threatened to be prolonged and 
 serious. When he had ended, Irving, who 
 was always a peacemaker, arose and inquired 
 of the chairman whether Mr. Holmes should 
 be allowed to put them all in bodily terror, 
 adding that he had not only come to advo- 
 cate his measure, but had brought with him 
 a fierce beast to overawe the vestry and con- 
 trol their votes. "And," he added, pointing 
 to the little dog, "there he is now by his 
 side, keeping guard." The irresistible droll- 
 ery of his speech and manner was like oil upon 
 the troubled waters of the discussion and dif- 
 fused a feeling of perfect good-nature over 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 145 
 
 the meeting which gave a satisfactory settle- 
 ment of the question. 
 
 Irving was passionately fond of children, 
 and he had for them a constant charm. It was 
 a common thing for them to flock about him on 
 Sunday at the church door and decorate him 
 with flowers and slip bouquets into his hand. 
 The tender words and smiles which he always 
 had ready for them were to their innocent 
 hearts the rarest of treasures. In all his asso- 
 ciation with his neighbors and fellow church- 
 members he was natural and simple, utterly 
 without affectation; and while a vein of mirth 
 and humor was ever bubbling up in his speech, 
 there was never anything but kindness mani- 
 fest in it. 
 
 Washington Irving's faith in God and his 
 love of humanity were very simple, and his 
 life and literature were all of a piece with 
 this simple faith. Only two years before 
 Irving's death Bishop W. F. Mallalieu, then a 
 senior in Wesleyan University, at Middletown, 
 Conn., during the spring vacation took a little 
 trip, exploring both sides of the Hudson River 
 from New York to the Catskills. This trip 
 took him through Tarrytown, and, having a 
 
146 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 schoolboy's worship for heroes, he called, 
 entirely unannounced and without recommen- 
 dation, at the author's home at Sunny side. An 
 elderly gentleman opened the door, and the 
 young student inquired: 
 
 ''Have I the honor of addressing Washing- 
 ton Irving?" 
 
 He replied, "Yes." 
 
 Mallalieu immediately said, "Mr. Irving, I 
 am a student in my senior year in Wesleyan 
 University, Middletown, Connecticut. As far 
 distant as that is, we have often heard of you, 
 and have read many of your writings. I was 
 visiting points of interest along the Hudson, 
 and I could not deny myself the pleasure of 
 calling on you." 
 
 Mallalieu then began to tell him that he had 
 no introduction, when Irving swung the door 
 open, and in the most cheery tone said : "You 
 have no need of an introduction; you have 
 attended to that yourself. Come in, come in." 
 
 He then proceeded to give the young student 
 an hour the memory of which has been "as 
 ointment poured forth" through all the years 
 since. 
 
 Irving's literature was like his life. With- 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 147 
 
 out exception his books are wholesome and 
 full of sweetness and charm. There was never 
 either sting or poison in his humor. Though 
 his mirth amuses, it is an innocent gladness 
 that leaves no stain upon the soul. 
 
CYRUS WEST FIELD 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CYRUS WEST FIELD. 
 
 Cyrus West Field, the man whose name 
 will be forever associated with the laying of the 
 first ocean cable between England and America, 
 was the seventh son of Rev. Dr. David 
 Dudley Field, for more than sixty years a 
 distinguished Congregational minister. The 
 religious life of Cyrus Field was of the gen- 
 uine, rugged type one might expect from such 
 an ancestor. Although the old Puritan rigors 
 vanished and a breadth and catholicity of view 
 developed, the sincerity of his faith was as 
 sure as the New England granite. 
 
 While still very young Cyrus came to New 
 York and was apprenticed to A. T. Stewart, 
 the famous merchant. Soon afterwards, in 
 writing home to his mother, he added this 
 
152 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 postscript! 'Tell father that I have read 
 through the Pilgrim's Progress which he gave 
 me when at home, and that I like it very much ; 
 and also that Goodrich and myself take turns 
 in reading a chapter in the Bible every night 
 before we go to bed." 
 
 The boy in the boarding house who reads his 
 Bible and has his nightly prayer with his 
 roommate is fitting himself well for the same 
 kind of honesty and integrity which caused 
 Cyrus Field, years afterwards, when he had 
 failed in business and had been discharged 
 from a large part of his indebtedness, to care- 
 fully search out his old creditors as soon as 
 he regained prosperity and pay every one of 
 them together with seven per cent, interest 
 for the ten years that had elapsed. The 
 Bible and family prayers make honesty like 
 that. 
 
 The entire story of the laying of the first 
 Atlantic cable is perfumed with the reverence 
 and Christian faith of the great man who con- 
 ceived the idea and pushed it, through inde- 
 scribable opposition and difficulty, to final suc- 
 cess. In 1858 his friend and pastor, Rev. Dr. 
 William Adams, of New York City, wrote a 
 
CYRUS WEST FIELD. 153 
 
 letter to Mr. Field in which is this paragraph : 
 ''1 do not know whether your homeward 
 thoughts ever include your minister, but mine 
 very frequently traverse the sea towards you 
 and your noble enterprise. We have all 
 watched with great interest the noble bearing 
 of your good wife in all the sacrifices which 
 she makes for you and the cause you so gal- 
 lantly represent. These are things not so much 
 thought of by the great world; but, after all, 
 they are the chief elements in that great price 
 which we are compelled to pay for everything 
 good and great." 
 
 Cyrus Field was a man of strong faith in 
 God, and it steadied his life. His first mes- 
 sage to the Associated Press on the laying of 
 the first cable contained these words, *'By the 
 blessing of divine Providence it has suc- 
 ceeded." 
 
 At that time his family were living in Stock- 
 bridge, Mass. The wife and children were 
 spending the afternoon quietly, when all were 
 startled by the appearance of Mr. Field's 
 mother. Almost breathless with excitement, 
 she exclaimed : "Mary, the cable is laid. 
 Thomas, believest thou this?' " The good 
 
154 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 wife dropped her face in her hands and gave 
 herself up to silent thanksgiving to God for 
 his goodness. His brother, David Dudley 
 Field, immediately telegraphed his congratu- 
 lations in these words : ''Your family is all at 
 Stockbridge, and well. The joyful news arrived 
 there Thursday, and almost overwhelmed your 
 wife. Father rejoiced like a boy, mother was 
 wild with delight. Brothers, sisters, all were 
 overjoyed. Bells were rung, guns fired; chil- 
 dren, let out of school, shouted. The cable is 
 laid! The cable is laid!' The village was 
 in a tumult of joy. My dear brother, I con- 
 gratulate you. God bless you." 
 
 Dr. William Adams wrote Mrs. Field a 
 beautiful letter, from which I quote this inter- 
 esting paragraph: ''What shall I say to you? 
 Words can give no idea of my enthusiasm. 
 As your pastor I have known somewhat of 
 your own private griefs and trials, and the 
 sacrifices which you have made for the success 
 of your noble husband. Now the hour of 
 reward and coronation has come for him and 
 for you. I wrote to him yesterday, directing 
 to New York, to be ready for him when he 
 came. I was at Andover when the news came. 
 
CYRUS WEST FIELD. 155 
 
 in company with several hundred clergymen. 
 We cheered, and we sang praises to God. I 
 was so glad that your husband inserted in his 
 first dispatch a recognition of divine Provi- 
 dence in his success. 
 
 ^'I sprang to my feet; I told the company 
 that I was the pastor of Mr. Field, and that 
 the last thing which he had said to me before 
 starting was his request that we should pray 
 for him; and then I had an opportunity to 
 pay a tribute to his perseverance, his energy, 
 and his genius, which I did, you may be sure, 
 in no measured terms." 
 
 This triumph was only temporary, for the 
 cable soon dropped into silence, and then fol- 
 lowed long years of mingled hope and dis- 
 appointment succeeding each other at rapid 
 intervals. Few indeed are the men who would 
 not have given up in despair. But Field per- 
 severed. He tells of one day when he stood 
 on shipboard, "The day was cold and cheerless, 
 the air was misty, and the wind roughened 
 the sea; and when I thought of all that we 
 had passed through, of the hopes thus far 
 disappointed, of the friends saddened by our 
 reverses, of the few that remained to sustain 
 
156 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 us, I felt a load at my heart almost too heavy 
 to bear, though my confidence was firm and my 
 determination fixed." And there that load 
 remained until the end. 
 
 At last, in 1856, when success had come 
 again, he telegraphed his wife, "All well. 
 Thank God, the cable has been successfully laid 
 and is in perfect working order. I am sure 
 that no one will be as thankful to God as you 
 and our dear children. Now we shall be a 
 united family." 
 
 It is hard for the younger generation, who 
 have been accustomed not only to one cable 
 but to several, and have never thought of 
 continents so widely separated as they were in 
 the old times, when it took weeks to receive an 
 answer to a communication sent across the 
 ocean, to appreciate how much Field's great 
 work meant to the world. Henry Ward 
 Beecher, at a public celebration held at Fish- 
 kill, speaking of the laying of the cable, said: 
 "I thought all the way in riding down here 
 to-night how strange it will seem to have that 
 silent cord lying in the sea, perfectly noiseless, 
 perfectly undisturbed by war or by storm, by 
 the paddles of steamers, by the thunders of 
 
CYRUS WEST FIELD. 157 
 
 navies above it, far down beyond all anchor's 
 reach, beyond all plumbing interference. There 
 will be earthquakes that will shake the other 
 world, and the tidings of them will come under 
 the silent sea, and we shall know them upon 
 the hither side, but the cord will be undis- 
 turbed, though it bears earthquakes to us. 
 Markets will go up, and fortunes will be made 
 down in the depths of the sea. The silent 
 highway will carry it, without noise, to us. 
 Fortunes will go down, and bankruptcies spread 
 dismay, and the silent road will bear this mes- 
 sage without a jar and without disturbance. 
 Without voice or speech, it will communicate 
 thunders and earthquakes and tidings of war 
 and revolutions and all those things that fill 
 the air with clamor. They will come quick as 
 thought from the scene of their first fever and 
 excitement, flash quick as thought and as silent 
 on their passage, and then break out on this 
 side with fresh tremor and excitement. To me 
 the functions of that wire seem, in some sense, 
 sublime — itself impassive, quiet, still, yet 
 moving either hemisphere and its ex- 
 tremities by the tidings that are to issue 
 out of it." 
 
158 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 The peroration of this same address was 
 splendid : "While thus we are enlarging the 
 facilities of action let us see to it that we main- 
 tain at home domestic virtue, individual intelli- 
 gence; that we spread our common schools, 
 that we multiply our newspapers throughout 
 the land, that we make books more plenty than 
 the leaves of the forest trees. Let every man 
 among us be a reader and thinker and owner, 
 and so he will be an actor. And when all 
 men through the globe are readers, when all 
 men through the globe are thinkers, when all 
 men through the globe are actors — are actors 
 because they think right — when they speak 
 nation to nation, when from the rising of the 
 sun to the going down of the same there is 
 not alone a free intercourse of thought, but 
 one current of heart, virtue, religion, love — 
 then the earth will have blossomed and con- 
 summated its history." 
 
 But no utterance of the time was more 
 splendid in every way or more thoroughly 
 voiced the lofty purpose and the noble 
 feeling which had sustained Cyrus W. 
 Field through all his years of struggle than 
 the "Cable Hymn," by John Greenleaf 
 
CYRUS WEST FIELD. 159 
 
 Whittier. The three closing verses illustrate 
 its sweep of vision and its loftiness of 
 spirit : 
 
 Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, 
 
 Beneath the deep so far, 
 The bridal robe of earth's accord, 
 
 The funeral shroud of war. 
 
 For, lo ! the fall of ocean's wall, 
 Space mocked, and time outrun; 
 
 And round the world the thought of all 
 Is as the thought of one! 
 
 The poles unite, the zones agree, 
 
 The tongues of striving cease; 
 As on the Sea of Galilee, 
 
 The Christ is whispering peace! 
 
 On December 2, 1890, Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus 
 W. Field celebrated their golden wedding. 
 From all over the world there came words of 
 greeting and good-will. From England a most 
 loving letter came, signed by a large number 
 of names, among which were the Duke of 
 Argyll, Canon Farrar, Mr. Gladstone, and 
 others whose names are known the world over. 
 President Henry Morton of the Stevens Insti- 
 tute read the following poem, which will make 
 
i6o RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 a fit conclusion to our study of the Christian 
 life of this very remarkable man : 
 
 Golden light the sun is shedding, 
 
 Ushering in this golden wedding, 
 
 As he did on that bright day 
 
 Fifty golden years away. 
 
 Then as now the "golden flowers," 
 
 Lingering after summer's hours, 
 
 The chrysanthemums foretold 
 
 Anniversary of gold. 
 
 Golden love and golden truth 
 
 To gold age from golden youth, 
 
 In the fire of life, thrice tried, 
 
 Pure themselves, yet purified 
 
 By the sorrows borne together. 
 
 By the stress of stormy weather ; 
 
 This pure gold, outlasting earth, 
 
 Proves its own celestial birth. 
 
 And shall shine with golden light. 
 
 Star-like, from Heaven's dome of night. 
 
ROBERT EDWARD LEE 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ROBERT E. LEE. 
 
 Chaplain J. William Jones, in his "Per- 
 sonal Reminiscences of Robert E. Lee," tells us 
 that while the army of Northern Virginia con- 
 fronted General Meade at Mine Run, near the 
 end of November, 1863, and a battle was 
 momentarily expected, General Lee, with a 
 number of general and staff officers, was riding 
 down his line of battle, when, just in the rear 
 of General A. P. Hill's position, the cavalcade 
 suddenly came upon a party of soldiers 
 engaged in a prayer meeting. An attack from 
 the enemy seemed imminent — already the 
 sharpshooting along the skirmish-line had 
 begun — the artillery was belching forth its 
 hoarse thunder, and the mind and heart of the 
 great chieftain was full of the expected com- 
 bat. Yet, as he saw those ragged veterans 
 bowed in prayer, Lee instantly dismounted, 
 uncovered his head^ and devoutly joined in 
 
i64 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 the simple worship. The rest of the party at 
 once followed his example, and those humble 
 privates found themselves leading the devotions 
 of their loved and honored chieftains. 
 
 It is related that as his army was crossing 
 the James, in 1864, and hurrying on to the 
 defense of Petersburg, General Lee turned aside 
 from the road, and kneeling in the dust 
 devoutly joined a minister present in earnest 
 prayer that God would give him wisdom and 
 grace in the new stage of the campaign upon 
 which he was then entering. 
 
 Rev. Dr. T. V. Moore, in a memorial ser- 
 mon on Lee, said that on one occasion he had 
 the opportunity to render him a slight ser- 
 vice — so slight that, knowing the General to be 
 ill and under a terrible strain at the time, he 
 expected no acknowledgment; but to his sur- 
 prise he received a letter thanking him for the 
 service, and adding: "I thank you especially 
 that I have a place in your prayers. No human 
 power can avail us without the blessing of 
 God, and I rejoice to know that, in this crisis 
 of our affairs, good men everywhere are sup- 
 plicating him for his favor and protection." 
 
 One day when General Lee was inspecting 
 
ROBERT E. LEE. 165 
 
 the lines, he met a humble colporter who was 
 distributing tracts. The General asked him if 
 he ever had calls for prayer-books, and said 
 that if he would call at his headquarters he 
 would give him some for distribution, explain- 
 ing that a friend in Richmond had given him 
 a new prayer-book, and upon his saying that 
 he would give his old one that he had used 
 ever since the Mexican war to some soldier, 
 the friend had offered him a dozen new books 
 for the old one, and he had, of course, accepted 
 so good an offer, and now had twelve instead 
 of one to give away. The colporter called at 
 the appointed hour. The General had gone 
 out on some important matter, but even amid 
 his pressing duties had left the prayer-books 
 with a member of his staff, with instructions 
 concerning them. He had written on the 
 flyleaf of each, "Presented by R. E. 
 Lee." No doubt they are still cherished as 
 precious legacies and heirlooms in South- 
 ern homes. 
 
 With the close of the war the piety of Gen- 
 eral Lee seems to have mellowed and deepened, 
 and his career as a college president at Lexing- 
 ton, Va., gave bright evidences of vital, active 
 
i66 RELIGIOUS LIFE, 
 
 godliness. He was a most regular attendant 
 upon all the services of his own church, his 
 seat in the college-chapel was never vacant 
 unless he was kept away by sickness, and if 
 there was a union prayer-meeting anywhere, 
 or a service of general interest in any of the 
 churches of Lexington, General Lee was sure 
 to be among the most devout attendants. His 
 pew in his own church was immediately in 
 front of the chancel, his seat in the chapel 
 was the second from the pulpit, and he seemed 
 always to prefer his seat near the preacher's 
 stand. He always devoutly knelt during 
 prayer, and his attitude during the entire ser- 
 vice was that of an interested listener or a 
 reverential participant. 
 
 General Lee was emphatically a man of 
 prayer. He was accustomed to pray in his 
 family and to have his seasons of secret prayer 
 which he allowed nothing, however pressing, 
 to interrupt. He was also a constant reader 
 and diligent student of the Bible and had his 
 regular seasons for this delightful exercise. 
 Even amid his most active campaigns he found 
 time to read every day some portion of God's 
 Word. 
 
ROBERT E. LEE. 167 
 
 Not only did General Lee read the Bible 
 himself, but he always manifested the liveliest 
 interest in circulating it among others. Dur- 
 ing the war he was an active promoter of 
 Bible distribution among his soldiers, and soon 
 after settling in Lexington he accepted the 
 presidency of the ''Rockbridge Bible Society" 
 and continued to discharge its duties up to the 
 time of his death. In his letter accepting this 
 office, he wrote: "I have delayed replying to 
 your letter informing me of my having been 
 elected president of the 'Rockbridge Bible Soci- 
 ety,' not for want of interest in the subject, but 
 from an apprehension that I should not be 
 able to perform the duties of the position in 
 such manner as to advance the high object pro- 
 posed. Having, however, been encouraged by 
 your kind assurance, and being desirous of 
 co-operating in any way I can in extending the 
 inestimable knowledge of the priceless truths 
 of the Bible, I accept the position assigned 
 me." 
 
 General Lee manifested the deepest concern 
 for the spiritual welfare of the young men 
 under his care. Soon after becoming president 
 of Washington College he said with deep feel- 
 
i68 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 ing to one of the pastors of the town : "I shall 
 be disappointed, sir — I shall fail in the leading 
 object that brought me here — unless these 
 young men become real Christians ; and I wish 
 you and others of your sacred profession to 
 do all you can to accomplish this." To another 
 pastor he said, ''I dread the thought of any 
 student going away from the college without 
 becoming a sincere Christian." 
 
 At the beginning of each session of the 
 college he was accustomed to address an auto- 
 graph letter to the pastors of Lexington, invit- 
 ing them to arrange for conducting in turn the 
 regular chapel services of the college, asking 
 them to induce the students to attend their sev- 
 eral churches and Bible classes, and urging 
 them to do all in their power for the spiritual 
 good of the students. Not content with this 
 general request, he prepared lists of the stu- 
 dents connected with particular churches and 
 handed these to the several pastors with the 
 earnestly expressed wish that they would con- 
 sider these young men under their especial 
 watch-care and give them every attention in 
 their power. And he would frequently ask a 
 pastor about individual students — whether 
 
ROBERT E. LEE. 169 
 
 they belonged to his Bible class or were regular 
 in their attendance at church. 
 
 At the "Concert of Prayer for Colleges" in 
 Lexington, in 1869, a pastor present made an 
 address in which he urged that the great need 
 of the colleges was a genuine, pervasive 
 revival; that this could come only from God; 
 and that, inasmuch as he has promised his 
 Holy Spirit to those who ask him, they should 
 make special prayer for a revival in the col- 
 leges of the country, and more particularly in 
 Washington College and the Virginia Military 
 Institute. At the close of the meeting Gen- 
 eral Lee went to him and said, with more 
 than his usual warmth : ''I wish, sir, to thank 
 you for your address; it was just what 
 we needed; our great want is a revival 
 which will bring these young men to 
 Christ." 
 
 During the great revival which followed 
 in the Virginia Military Institute, he said one 
 day to his pastor: ''That is the best news I 
 have heard since I have been in Lexington. 
 Would that we could have such a revival in 
 all our colleges !" 
 
 Rev. Dr. Kirkpatrick, Professor of Moral 
 
170 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Philosophy at Washington College at the 
 time, relates the following concerning a con- 
 versation he had with General Lee just a short 
 time previous to his fatal illness : "We had 
 been conversing for some time respecting 
 the religious welfare of the students. Gen- 
 eral Lee's feelings then became so intense that 
 for a time his utterance was choked; but 
 recovering himself, with his eyes overflowing 
 with tears, his lips quivering with emotion, and 
 both hands raised, he exclaimed, 'O doctor! 
 if I could only know that all the young men 
 in the college were good Christians I should 
 have nothing more to desire.' " 
 
 General Lee was a member of the Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Church and was sincerely 
 attached to the church of his choice; but his 
 large heart took in Christians of every name; 
 he treated ministers of all denominations with 
 the most marked courtesy and respect; and 
 it may be truly said of him that he had a 
 heart and hand "ready to every good work." 
 When once asked his opinion of a certain 
 theological question which was exciting con- 
 siderable discussion, he replied, "Oh! I never 
 trouble myself about such questions ; my chief 
 
ROBERT E. LEE. 171 
 
 concern is to try to be a humble, earnest 
 Christian myself." 
 
 An application of a Jewish soldier for per- 
 mission to attend certain ceremonies of his 
 synagogue in Richmond was endorsed by his 
 captain : ''Disapproved. If such applications 
 were granted, the whole army would turn 
 Jews or shaking Quakers." When the paper 
 came before General Lee he endorsed on it : 
 ''Approved, and respectfully returned to Cap- 
 tain , with the advice that he should 
 
 always respect the religious views and feel- 
 ings of others." 
 
 The venerable pastor of one of the churches 
 in Lexington, speaking at General Lee's 
 funeral services, said, with deep feeling: "He 
 belonged to one branch of the church and I 
 to another; yet in my intercourse with him 
 — an intercourse rendered far more frequent 
 and intimate by the tender sympathy he felt 
 in my ill-health — the thought never occurred 
 to me that we belonged to different churches. 
 His love for the truth and for all that is good 
 and useful was such as to render his brotherly 
 kindness and charity as boundless as were the 
 wants and sorrows of his race." 
 
172 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 One of his biographers closes his summary 
 of the rehgious character of General Lee by 
 this emphatic statement : "If I have ever come 
 in contact with a sincere, devout Christian — 
 one who, seeing himself to be a sinner, trusted 
 alone in the merits of Christ, who humbly tried 
 to walk the path of duty, 'looking unto Jesus' 
 as the author and finisher of his faith, and 
 whose piety constantly exhibited itself in his 
 daily life — that man was General Robert E. 
 Lee.'' 
 
ANDREW JACKSON 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 Andrew Jackson, twice President of the 
 United States, did not become a professed 
 Christian until after he had retired from poHti- 
 cal life and was past sixty years of age. He 
 had promised his wife that immediately on 
 retiring from politics he would make a public 
 profession of Christianity; but he was rather 
 slow in keeping the promise. In August, 1838, 
 he wrote in answer to one who had written him 
 on the subject : "I would long since have made 
 this solemn public dedication to Almighty God, 
 but knowing the wretchedness of this world, 
 and how prone many are to evil, that the 
 scoffer of religion would have cried out, 
 'Hypocrisy! He has joined the church for 
 political effect,' I thought it best to post- 
 pone this public act until my retirement to the 
 
176 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 shades of private life, when no false imputa- 
 tion could be made that might be injurious 
 to religion." 
 
 Tames Parton, his most careful biographer, 
 received from Rev. Dr. Edgar, who was at 
 the time pastor of an influential Presbyterian 
 church in Nashville, Tenn., the story of Gen- 
 eral Jackson's conversion. Dr. Edgar said 
 that he was invited, during the year 1839, to 
 the Hermitage to administer religious advice 
 to the wife of the General's son, who was 
 sick, and also troubled in mind. During the 
 conversation she chanced to say, in General 
 Jackson's hearing, that she felt herself to be 
 "a great sinner." 
 
 "You a sinner?" interposed the General. 
 "Why, you are all purity and goodness! Join 
 Dr. Edgar's church by all means." 
 
 This remark was considered by the clergy- 
 man a proof that at that time General Jack- 
 son was blind as to the nature of true relig- 
 ion. 
 
 Not long afterwards a protracted meeting 
 was being held in the little church on the 
 Hermitage farm. General Jackson sat in his 
 accustomed seat and Dr. Edgar preached. 
 
ANDREW JACKSON. 177 
 
 The subject of the sermon was the interposi- 
 tion of Providence in the affairs of men, a 
 subject congenial with the habitual tone of 
 General Jackson's mind. The preacher spoke 
 in detail of the perils which beset the life of 
 man, and how often he is preserved from 
 sickness and sudden death. Seeing General 
 Jackson listening with rapt attention to his 
 discourse, the eloquent preacher sketched the 
 career of a man who, in addition to the ordi- 
 nary dangers of human life, had encountered 
 those of the wilderness, of war, and of keen 
 political conquest; who had escaped the toma- 
 hawk of the savage, the attack of his country's 
 enemies, the privations and fatigues of border 
 warfare, and the aim of the assassin. ''How 
 is it," exclaimed the preacher, ''that a man 
 endowed with reason and gifted with intelli- 
 gence can pass through such scenes as these 
 unharmed and not see the hand of God in his 
 deliverance?" While enlarging on his theme 
 Dr. Edgar saw that his words were sinking 
 deep into the General's heart. 
 
 After the service General Jackson got into 
 his carriage and was riding homewards. He 
 was overtaken by Dr. Edgar on horseback. 
 
178 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 He hailed the doctor and said that he wished 
 to speak with him. 
 
 "Doctor," said the General, "I want you to 
 come home with me to-night." 
 
 ''I cannot to-night," was the reply; "I am 
 engaged elsewhere." 
 
 ''Doctor," repeated the General, ''I want 
 you to come home with me to-night." 
 
 Dr. Edgar said that he had promised to 
 visit a sick lady, and he felt bound to keep 
 his promise. General Jackson, as though he 
 had not heard the reply, said a third time, 
 and more pleadingly than before: ''Doctor, I 
 want you to come home with me to-night." 
 
 "General Jackson," said the clergyman, "my 
 word is pledged; I cannot break it; but I will 
 be at the Hermitage to-morrow morning very 
 early." 
 
 The anxious man, under the deepest con- 
 viction of sin, was obliged to let it rest that 
 way, and went home alone. He spent the 
 entire night pacing his room, conversing with 
 his daughter, and in prayer. It was a time 
 of most radical and momentous revolution in 
 the man's nature. His biographer says of that 
 night: "What thoughts passed through his 
 
ANDREW JACKSON. 179 
 
 mind as he paced his room in the silence of 
 the night, of what sins he repented, and what 
 actions of his Hfe he wished he had not done, 
 no one knows, or ever will know. But the 
 value of this upheaving of the soul depends 
 upon that. There is a repentance which is 
 radical, sublime, regenerating. There is a 
 repentance which is shallow and fruitless. 
 Conversion means a turning. It is only when 
 we know from what a man turns, and to what 
 he turns, that we can know whether his turn- 
 ing is of any benefit to him. There is such a 
 thing as man's emancipating himself, in one 
 night of agony and joy, in one thrilling instant 
 of time, from the domination of pride and 
 desire. He who is walking along the plain 
 cannot reach the mountain-top in a moment; 
 but in a moment he can set his face toward 
 it and begin to scale the heights." 
 
 As the day dawned on that awful night of 
 repentance and anguish, the light from Heaven 
 broke upon Andrew Jackson's troubled soul, 
 and a great peace soothed his spirit. 
 
 Dr. Edgar arrived soon after sunrise that 
 Sunday morning, and to him General Jackson, 
 in the first flush of his new love for Christ 
 
i8o RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 and his new joy at the forgiveness of his 
 sins, expressed a desire to unite with the 
 church with his daughter that very morning. 
 The minister conversed with him, putting 
 the usual questions respecting doctrine and 
 experience, and all were satisfactorily ans- 
 wered. Then there w^as a pause in the con- 
 versation, at the close of which Dr. Edgar 
 said, very solemnly: "General, there is one 
 more question which it is my duty to ask you. 
 Can you forgive all your enemies?" 
 
 The question was a surprise, and for a few 
 moments Jackson was silent. 
 
 "My political enemies," he at length re- 
 sponded, *1 can freely forgive; but as for those 
 who abused me when I was serving my coun- 
 try in the field, and those who attacked me for 
 serving my country — ^Doctor, that is a differ- 
 ent case." 
 
 The minister assured him that it was not dif- 
 ferent; but that forgiveness of our enemies is 
 at the very gateway to Christian life, that 
 Christianity forbids the indulgence of any 
 hatred whatever and absolutely requires the 
 forgiveness of every one who has wronged us 
 in any way. 
 
ANDREW JACKSON. i8i 
 
 After an extended pause General Jackson 
 said that he thought he could forgive all who 
 had injured him, even those v^ho had assailed 
 him for what he had done for his country in 
 the field. Dr. Edgar then consented to his 
 uniting with the church that morning, and left 
 the room to carry the glad tidings to Mrs. 
 Jackson. She hastened to the General's apart- 
 ment. They rushed with tears into each other's 
 arms and remained long in a fond and silent 
 embrace. 
 
 The Hermitage church was crowded that 
 Sunday morning to the utmost of its small 
 capacity. At the windows were the eager 
 faces of the colored servants. After the usual 
 services General Andrew Jackson rose in his 
 place to make the required public declaration 
 of his concurrence with the doctrines and his 
 resolve to obey the precepts of the church. He 
 leaned heavily upon his walking stick with both 
 hands; tears rolled down his cheeks. His 
 daughter, the fair young matron, stood beside 
 him. The silence was most profound and the 
 emotion of the people beyond description as the 
 General answered the questions proposed to 
 him. When at last the formal ceremony was 
 
i82 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 ended and he was pronounced a member of the 
 church and Dr. Edgar was about to continue 
 the services, the long restrained feelings of the 
 congregation burst forth in sobs and devout 
 exclamations which compelled him to pause for 
 several minutes. The clergyman himself was 
 speechless with emotion and abandoned him- 
 self to the exultation of the hour. A familiar 
 hymn was announced, and all the people, both 
 within the church and outside in the gathered 
 groups about the windows, joined with an 
 ecstatic fervor which at once expressed and re- 
 lieved their feelings. 
 
 No one who knew Andrew Jackson ever 
 doubted the genuineness and sincerity of that 
 conversion. The whole character and life of 
 the man were transformed. From that Sun- 
 day morning when he stood in the little Her- 
 mitage church to take that new oath of alle- 
 giance to Christ until the day of his death his 
 Christian character was his chief characteristic. 
 During the remainder of his life he spent most 
 of his leisure hours in reading the Bible, in 
 studying Bible commentaries, and in reading 
 over and over the hymns in what he always 
 pronounced in the old-fashioned way his 
 
ANDREW JACKSON. 183 
 
 '^Hime-hook." The commentary known as 
 "Scott's Bible" was a source of great delight to 
 him ; he studiously read it through twice before 
 he died. He held prayers every evening in the 
 presence of his family and household servants. 
 
 On the last Sunday but two of his life Gen- 
 eral Jackson partook of the communion in the 
 presence of his family. He spoke much of the 
 consolation of religion and declared he was 
 ready for the final summons. To one who 
 called to see him just before his death he said, 
 *T am in the hands of a merciful God. I have 
 full confidence in his goodness and mercy. My 
 lamp of life is nearly out and the last glimmer 
 has come. I am ready to depart when called. 
 The Bible is true. The principles and statutes 
 of that Holy Book have been the rule of my 
 life, and I have tried to conform to its spirit as 
 nearly as possible. Upon that sacred volume 
 I rest my hope for eternal salvation, through 
 the merits and blood of our blessed Lord and 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ." 
 
 A friend of the family, Mr. William Tyack, 
 who spent a few days at the Hermitage as 
 Andrew Jackson neared his sunset, kept a 
 diary in which he recorded Jackson's conversa- 
 
i84 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 tion and the events which occurred in the 
 household. Among other things he wrote: 
 "At nine o'clock, as is the custom, all the Gen- 
 eral's family, except the few who take their 
 turn to watch by his side, took their leave of 
 him; each of the family approached him, re- 
 ceived his blessing, bade him farewell; kissed 
 him, as it would seem, an eternal good-night; 
 for he would say, 'My work is done for life/ 
 After his family retires it is touching to wit- 
 ness this heroic man, who has faced every dan- 
 ger with unyielding front, offer up his prayer 
 for those whom Providence has committed to 
 his care; that Heaven would protect and pros- 
 per them when he is no more — praying still 
 more fervently to God for the preservation of 
 his country, of the Union, and the people of the 
 United States from all foreign influence and 
 invasion — tendering his forgiveness to his ene- 
 mies, and his gratitude to God for his support 
 and success through a long life, and for the 
 hope of eternal salvation through the merits of 
 our blessed Redeemer." 
 
ELISHA KENT KANE 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ELISHA KENT KANE. 
 
 Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the famous Arc- 
 tic explorer, was brought to a definite and com- 
 forting Christian experience when but eighteen 
 years of age through a severe illness which 
 brought him face to face with death. For a 
 long time his family despaired of his life, and 
 he was himself persuaded that there was no 
 hope of his ever making himself useful or hon- 
 ored among men. His biographer, William 
 Elder, says that this was a period of a new 
 birth to him. ''Coasting the infinite so long 
 and so near, it opened its scenery to the eyes of 
 his spirit. He walked in its light thenceforth 
 through his journey to the end. He was let 
 into his own inmost life; he got hold of his 
 destiny, and he ever after governed himself 
 conformably. He was at one with himself 
 now, and knew how to conciliate order and lib- 
 erty, to obey and to command, to accept the 
 
i88 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 help of system and to preserve his individual- 
 ism under it without conflict ; he stood ready to 
 die, but he did not despair." 
 
 Dr. Kane's journals, kept during his long 
 absence in the frozen North, bear eloquent tes- 
 timony of his faith. Here is one entry concern- 
 ing Christmas. It reads thus : "Sunday, Dec. 
 25. The birthday of Christ." 
 
 Kane's biographer well says that his heroism 
 would have been reckless if it had not been 
 reverent ; he believed that whatever God wills, 
 a man may do; he believed in special provi- 
 dence. His life was full of this confidence. In 
 the journal of his second Arctic voyage we find 
 this : "It is twelve months to-day since I re- 
 turned from the weary foot-tramp which de- 
 termined me to try the winter search. Things 
 have changed since then, and the prospect 
 ahead is less cheery. But I close my pilgrim 
 experience of the year with devout gratitude 
 for the blessings it has registered and an ear- 
 nest faith in the support it pledges for the times 
 to come." 
 
 Speaking of a time when things were at their 
 worst, he says : "I look back at it with recol- 
 lections like those of a nightmare. Yet I was 
 
ELISHA KENT KANE. 189 
 
 borne up wonderfully. I never doubted for 
 an instant that the same Providence which had 
 guarded us through the long darkness of win- 
 ter was still watching over us for good, and 
 that it was yet in reserve for us — for some; I 
 dared not hope for all — to bear back the tidings 
 of our rescue to a Christian land. But how, I 
 did not see." 
 
 Dr. Kane had great faith in prayer, and Wil- 
 son, one of the rescue party, gives this account : 
 *7ust before we started [on the return with the 
 rescued men], while the rest of the party sur- 
 rounded the sledge with uncovered heads. Dr. 
 Kane rendered thanks to the Great Ruler of 
 human destinies for the goodness he had 
 evinced in preserving our feeble lives while 
 struggling over the ice-desert, exposed to a 
 blast almost as withering as that from a fur- 
 nace. The scene was extremely solemn as, 
 deeply impressed by the situation, our com- 
 mander poured forth ready and eloquent sen- 
 tences of gratitude in that lonely solitude, 
 whose scenery offered everything to depress 
 the mind and nothing to cheer it. Not a word 
 fell from his lips that did not find a ready re- 
 sponse in our own hearts when we reflected 
 
190 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 upon the dangers we had undergone and the 
 certainty of death which would have followed 
 the continuance of exposure for even a few 
 hours." 
 
 On another occasion, Dr. Kane writes: "I 
 never lost my hope; I looked to the coming 
 spring as full of responsibilities; but I had 
 bodily strength and moral tone enough to look 
 through them to the end. A trust based on 
 experience as well as on promises buoyed me 
 up at the worst times. Call it fatalism, as you 
 ignorantly may, there is that in the story of 
 every eventful life which teaches the ineffi- 
 ciency of human means and the present control 
 of the Supreme Agency. See how often re- 
 lief has come at the moment of extremity, in 
 forms strangely unsought — almost, at the time, 
 unwelcome; see, still more^ how the back has 
 been strengthened to its increasing burdens and 
 the heart cheered by some conscious influence 
 of an Unseen Power." 
 
 The Christian heroism of Dr. Kane that 
 served him for his own great trials made itself 
 felt in every man in his party and kept them 
 from despair. One of them afterwards, when 
 questioned in regard to it, said : "Well, it kept 
 
ELISHA KENT KANE. 191 
 
 us human when we were nearly desperate. 
 While we stood with uncovered heads in an at- 
 mosphere far below zero, his prayers brought 
 up the spirit of society and civilization in us; 
 and although we perhaps had very little relig- 
 ion in us, we always had some about us." 
 
 In a farewell letter to his father on one occa- 
 sion, as he was about to leave for the Arctic, 
 he wrote : "Say to mother to have no fears on 
 Arctic account. I am not entirely well, but as 
 well as I would be at home, and so trusting in 
 the Great Disposer of good and ill that I am 
 willing to meet like a man the worst that can 
 happen to one secure of right and approving 
 heart and soul of that in which he is engaged." 
 After the good-bye signature there is this sen- 
 tence : "Love, my last word is Love." 
 
 The long and lonely experiences of the Arc- 
 tic made Dr. Kane deeply introspective and 
 furnished great opportunity for communion 
 with his own soul and his God. Sitting one 
 day at his father's table, after his return from 
 his last expedition, some one closed the nar- 
 rative of a dangerous adventure with the 
 words, "I never encountered anything so awful 
 in my life." The doctor had been for an hour 
 
192 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 silently attentive to all that was said. At this 
 point one of the guests turned to him and 
 asked, ''Dr. Kane, what is the most awful thing 
 that you ever experienced?" His face 
 took a devotionally serious expression; and 
 he answered, 'The silence of the Arctic 
 night!" 
 
 On another occasion he gives us a glimpse 
 into some of these experiences in the lonely 
 North : "I am afraid to speak of some of these 
 night-scenes. I have trodden the deck and the 
 floes when the life of earth seemed suspended 
 — its movements, its sounds, its coloring, its 
 companionships; and as I looked on the radi- 
 ant hemisphere circling above me as if render- 
 ing worship to the unseen Centre of light I 
 have ejaculated in humility of spirit, 'Lord, 
 what is man, that thou art mindful of him?' 
 And then I have thought of the kindly world 
 we had left, with its revolving sunshine and 
 shadow, and the other stars that gladden it in 
 their changes, and the hearts that warm to us 
 there, till I lost myself in memories of those 
 who were not; and they bore me back to the 
 stars again." 
 
 Dr. Kane had broad sympathies and a gen- 
 
ELISHA KENT KANE. 193 
 
 erous, compassionate heart which gave him an 
 interest, gentle and tender, towards animals as 
 well as human beings. Horses and dogs were 
 something more than pets and indulgences 
 with him; his attachment to them was a 
 strongly marked feature of his character. He 
 called each by some pet name always, with a 
 feeling which kindly, almost respectfully, ac- 
 corded to them their poor claims to a distinct 
 individuality, if not personality, with its rights 
 and the resulting relations with their masters 
 and among themselves. 
 
 On one occasion an elephant on exhibition 
 at the Philadelphia Circus killed his keeper and 
 went on a rampage in the menagerie, making a 
 general jail-delivery among the tiger and lion 
 cages, with such zeal that he broke one of his 
 tusks. The alarm roused the police, and the 
 mayor ordered out a company of militia to kill 
 the enraged animal. Dr. Kane heard the 
 rumor, and exclaimed, "The cowardly tyrants, 
 to call the elephant mad ! An animal with the 
 intelligence of an elephant has a right to be 
 indignant : that's the word for it. He has been 
 outraged by a brute with less than his own in- 
 tellect and nothing of his sense of right; and 
 
194 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 now he must be murdered to check his just 
 revenge." 
 
 Dr. Kane, however, was no pessimist in re- 
 gard to human nature. He saw something 
 good in every one. To a friend who was pat- 
 ting a dog., after he had been abusing some of 
 the lowest and most loathsome of our own 
 species and exploiting the depraved side of 
 human nature generally, he said, "I like your 
 kindliness to the poor dog-people; I have that 
 feeling more than moderately strong myself. 
 But I never saw a man who was not higher 
 than a dog." That was after he had seen 
 humanity in its dregs in every quarter of the 
 globe. 
 
 When Dr. Kane returned from his last Arc- 
 tic voyage he requested his pastor. Rev. C. W. 
 Shields, of the Second Presbyterian Church of 
 Philadelphia, to which his parents belonged 
 and where he had been baptized as a child, to 
 make public thanksgiving for the deliverance 
 of his party from the perils of their cruise. He 
 greatly enjoyed the service and warmly 
 thanked the pastor for performing it. Before 
 he set out he had requested public prayer to be 
 made in one of the churches in New York for 
 
ELISHA KENT KANE. 195 
 
 the well-being of the crew and the prosperity 
 of the enterprise. 
 
 Death came to the heroic explorer in 
 Havana, Cuba. His mother and his brothers 
 were with him. At the last he had them read 
 to him the Beatitudes, and then asked to have 
 repeated to him David's sweetest Psalm : "The 
 Lord is my shepherd : I shall not want." The 
 Good Shepherd had led the traveler on many a 
 dangerous and daring trail, but now he was 
 leading him by the "still waters." Then he 
 asked for the reading of those precious words 
 with which the Saviour took leave of his weep- 
 ing disciples : "Let not your heart be troubled : 
 ye believe in God; believe also in me. In my 
 Father's house are many mansions; if it were 
 not so, I would have told you. I go to pre- 
 pare a place for you." Even while they were 
 reading these words he took his departure and 
 was with the Lord. 
 
 Surely Dr. Elisha Kent Kane deserves to 
 live in history as a great Christian hero. His 
 Arctic explorations stand on a different basis 
 from many others. His search for the party of 
 Sir John Franklin, whom he believed to be 
 still living, dignified it to a great work of 
 
196 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 humanity. His pastor in his funeral discourse 
 declares that the philanthropic spirit was the 
 crowning charm of his character and a con- 
 trolling motive in his perilous enterprise. 
 ''Other promptings indeed were there, neither 
 suppressed, nor in themselves to be depreciated. 
 That passion for adventure^ that love of 
 science, that generous ambition which stimu- 
 lated his youthful exploits appear now under 
 the check and guidance of a still nobler im- 
 pulse. It is his sympathy with the lost and 
 suffering and the duteous conviction that it 
 may lie in his power to liberate them from their 
 icy dungeon which thrill his heart and nerve 
 him to his hard task. In his avowed aim the 
 interests of geography were to be subordinate 
 to the claims of humanity. And neither the 
 entreaties of affection nor the imperiling of a 
 fame which to a less modest spirit would have 
 seemed too precious to hazard could swerve 
 him from the generous purpose." 
 
ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ABIGAIL ADAMS. 
 
 Abigail Adams stands alone in American 
 history as the one woman who had the unique 
 honor of being the wife of one and the mother 
 of another President of the United States. 
 She was a very remarkable woman from any 
 standpoint, and one cannot read her letters or 
 the story of her life without discovering that 
 her profound religious convictions were the 
 source of much of her greatness. The deep- 
 est sorrow of her life was the long separation 
 which she was compelled to endure because of 
 her husband's duty to the public; but it is 
 through this separation that we have many 
 glimpses into the lives of these two truly great 
 Americans. When the Revolutionary War 
 broke out in Boston, she closed a letter giving 
 a graphic description of occurrences there by 
 saying, "Hitherto I have been able to main- 
 tain a calmness and presence of mind ; and hope 
 
200 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 I shall, let the exigency of the time be what it 
 will." 
 
 John Adams's presence and services were so 
 invaluable in Congress that he could not be 
 spared, and consequently Mrs. Adams was 
 called upon to exercise all her fortitude and 
 bear up in great measure alone under the ter- 
 rible trials of war, pestilence, and such like 
 evils; yet she did not murmur, and she sym- 
 pathized fully in the glowing words of her hus- 
 band, who had been the great and eloquent de- 
 fender of the Declaration of Independence in 
 July, 1776. ''You will think me transported 
 with enthusiasm," he writes, "but I am not. I 
 am well aware of the toil and blood and treas- 
 ure that it will cost us to maintain this Declara- 
 tion and support and defend these States; yet 
 through all the gloom I can see the rays of rav- 
 ishing light and glory. I can see the end is 
 more than worth all th- means and that pos- 
 terity will triumph in that day's transaction, 
 even although we shall rue it, which I trust in 
 God we shall not." 
 
 After the Battle of Bunker Hill Abigail 
 Adams wrote to her husband^ *' 'The race is 
 not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; 
 
ABIGAIL ADAMS. 201 
 
 but the God of Israel is he that giveth strength 
 and power unto his people. Trust in him at all 
 times; ye people, pour out your hearts before 
 him. God is a refuge for us.' Charlestown is 
 laid in ashes." 
 
 In the midst of these troublous times per- 
 sonal sorrows and bereavements were often 
 calling men and women away from public 
 affairs. What a window we have into the 
 tender heart and confident faith of this great- 
 souled woman in this letter to her husband tell- 
 ing of the death of her mother : ** 'Have pity 
 upon me, have pity upon me, O thou my be- 
 loved, for the hand of God presseth me sore.' 
 *Yet will I be dumb and silent, and not open 
 my mouth, because thou, O Lord, hast done it.' 
 How can I tell you (oh, my bursting heart!) 
 that my dear mother has left me — this day, 
 about five o'clock, she left this world for an in- 
 finitely better. After sustaining sixteen days' 
 severe conflict, nature fainted, and she fell 
 asleep. Blessed spirit ! Where art thou ? At 
 times I am almost ready to faint under this 
 severe and heavy stroke, separated from thee, 
 who used to be a comforter to me in affliction ; 
 but, blessed be God, his ear is not heavy that 
 
202 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 he cannot hear, but he has bid us call upon him 
 in time of trouble." 
 
 During the long absence of John Adams in 
 Europe Abigail Adams not only bore her own 
 trials and carried on the family life success- 
 fully, but she buoyed and encouraged her hus- 
 band by letters such as few men have ever re- 
 ceived from their wives. On one occasion she 
 writes when she was uncertain as to his loca- 
 tion, for there was often a long time between 
 letters in those old slow days: "Hitherto my 
 wandering ideas have roved, like the son of 
 Ulysses, from sea to sea and from shore to 
 shore, not knowing where to find you; some- 
 times I fancied you upon the mighty waters, 
 sometimes at your desired haven, sometimes 
 upon the ungrateful and hostile shore of Brit- 
 ain, but at all times and in all places under the 
 protecting care and guardianship of that 
 Being who not only clothes the lilies of the 
 field and hears the young ravens when they cry, 
 but hath said., ^Of how much more worth are 
 ye than many sparrows;' and this confidence, 
 which the world cannot deprive me of, is my 
 food by day and my rest by night and was all 
 my consolation under the horrid ideas of as- 
 
ABIGAIL ADAMS. 203 
 
 sassination — the only event of which I had not 
 thought and, in some measure, prepared my 
 mind." 
 
 Abigail Adams was as great a mother as she 
 was a wife^ and some of her letters to her son, 
 John Quincy Adams, when at an early age he 
 was absent with his father in Europe pursuing 
 his education, bear eloquent testimony to the 
 depth of her Christian character. In one of 
 these letters she says to her boy, who had writ- 
 ten her of a narrow escape from shipwreck: 
 **You have seen how inadequate the aid of 
 man would have been if the winds and the seas 
 had not been under the particular government 
 of that Being who 'stretched out the heavens 
 as a span,' who 'holdeth the ocean in the hollow 
 of his hand,' and 'rideth upon the wings of the 
 wind.' 
 
 "If you have a due sense of your preserva- 
 tion your next consideration will be for what 
 purpose you are continuing in life. It is not 
 to rove from clime to clime to gratify an idle 
 curiosity ; but every new mercy you receive is a 
 new debt upon you, a new obligation to a dili- 
 gent discharge of the various relations in 
 which you stand connected; in the first place, 
 
204 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 to your great Preserver ; in the next, to society 
 in general; in particular, to your country, to 
 your parents, and to yourself. 
 
 'The only sure and permanent foundation of 
 virtue is religion. Let this important truth be 
 engraven upon your heart. And also, that the 
 foundation of religion is the belief of the one 
 only God, and a just sense of his attributes, as 
 a Being infinite, wise, just, and good, to whom 
 you owe the highest reverence, gratitude, and 
 adoration." 
 
 In the spring of 1785 Mrs. Adams accom- 
 panied her husband to England, he having been 
 appointed the first American Minister at the 
 Court of St. James. It was a position of great 
 difficulty, not only for Mr. Adams but for his 
 wife as well. But Abigail Adams was equal 
 to the occasion and bore herself with the most 
 admirable skill and spirit in her trying posi- 
 tion. A true and genuine Christian lady, with- 
 out pretension or affectation, claiming nothing 
 for herself beyond what is due to every lady, 
 but expecting and requiring from the haughti- 
 est the consideration appropriate to her rank as 
 representing the women of her native country, 
 she seems to have charmed the nobility and 
 
ABIGAIL ADAMS. 205 
 
 votaries of fashionable life by her unaffected 
 simplicity, gentleness, refinement, and courtesy, 
 and fully to have sustained the character which 
 her countrywomen may well have admired. 
 Though subjected to many annoyances, Mrs. 
 Adams always proved herself equal to every 
 emergency and never tarnished the fair name 
 of the people to whom she belonged. 
 
 Fame and power never for a moment dazzled 
 the eyes of this sincere Christian woman. In 
 1 797, John Adams having been elected the suc- 
 cessor of Washington as the President of the 
 United States, his wife wrote to him in terms 
 not only of great womanly dignity, but in sen- 
 tences which revealed the sincere, spiritual 
 quality of her nature. She begins her letter 
 with a little couplet : 
 
 "The sun is dressed in brightest beams, 
 To give honor to the day, 
 
 and may it prove an auspicious prelude to 
 each ensuing season. You have this day to de- 
 clare yourself head of the nation. 'And now, 
 O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant 
 ruler over the people. Give unto him an 
 understanding heart, that he may know how 
 
2o6 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 i to go out and come in before this great 
 \ people; that he may discern between good 
 ^ and bad. For who is able to judge this, 
 thy so great a people?' were the words of 
 a royal sovereign; and not less applicable to 
 him who is invested with the Chief Magistracy 
 of a nation, though he wears not the crown nor 
 the robes of royalty. 
 
 *'My thoughts and my meditations are with 
 you, though personally absent; and my peti- 
 tions to Heaven are that 'the things which 
 make for peace may not be hidden from your 
 eyes.' My feelings are not those of pride or 
 ostentation upon the occasion. They are 
 solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the 
 important trust and numerous duties connected 
 with it. That you may be enabled to discharge 
 them with honor to yourself, with justice and 
 impartiality to your country, and with satisfac- 
 tion to this great people, shall be the daily 
 prayer of your A. A." 
 
 When Thomas Jefferson lost his daughter 
 by death, Mrs. Adams wrote him: *T have 
 tasted of the bitter cup and bow with reverence 
 and submission before the Great Dispenser of 
 it, without whose permission and overruling 
 
ABIGAIL ADAMS. 207 
 
 providence not a sparrow falls to the ground. 
 That you may derive comfort and consolation 
 in this day of your sorrow and affliction from 
 that only source calculated to heal the wounded 
 heart, a firm belief in the being, perfections 
 and attributes of God, is the sincere and ardent 
 wish of her who once took pleasure in subscrib- 
 ing herself your friend." 
 
 Abigail Adams made herself supremely es- 
 sential to the two great men forever connected 
 with her name, her husband and her eldest son. 
 John Adams found in her death, though he 
 was then eighty-three years of age, the severest 
 affliction which had ever befallen him. She 
 had gone through the vicissitudes of more than 
 half a century in his company, had sympa- 
 thized with him in all his aspirations, and had 
 cheered him in his greatest trials. Her char- 
 acter had adapted itself to his in such a man- 
 ner as to improve the good qualities of both. 
 
 Her eldest son, John Quincy Adams, re- 
 turned home after eight years' diplomatic ser- 
 vice abroad and became Secretary of State 
 under President Monroe. It was, no doubt, a 
 great gratification to his mother to have a son 
 whose uprightness of character and abilities as 
 
2o8 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 a statesman were fully and freely recognized; 
 and had her life been spared but a few years 
 longer she would have seen the son, as she had 
 seen the father, elevated to the Presidency of 
 the United States. Though John Quincy 
 Adams was at the time of his mother's death a 
 famous man in mature years, her loss came to 
 him as a great shock, and he wrote of it that 
 he scarcely knew how to live in the world with 
 his mother absent from it. She had with rare 
 and beautiful fidelity impressed him not only 
 with her mother love but with her firm relig- 
 ious convictions and the spiritual quality of her 
 great soul. 
 
WILLIAM C. BRYANT 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 William Cullen Bryant was brought up 
 in a Christian home and from his earhest baby- 
 hood breathed the atmosphere of Christian 
 faith. He says of his childhood : "I naturally 
 acquired habits of devotion. My mother and 
 grandmother had taught me, as soon as I could 
 speak, the Lord's Prayer and other petitions 
 suited to childhood, and I may be said to have 
 been nurtured on Watts' devout poems com- 
 posed for children. The prayer of the Publi- 
 can in the New Testament was often in my 
 mouth, and I heard every variety of prayer at 
 the Sunday evening services conducted by lay- 
 men in private houses. But I varied in my 
 private devotions from these models in one re- 
 spect — namely, in supplicating, as I often did, 
 that I might receive the gift of poetic genius 
 and write verses that might endure. I pre- 
 sented this petition in those early years with 
 
212 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 great lervor; but after a time I discontinued 
 the practice, I can hardly say why. As a gen- 
 eral rule, whatever I might innocently wish I 
 did not see why I should not have, and I was 
 a firm believer in the efficacy of prayer." 
 
 Bryant made a rhymed version of the first 
 chapter of the Book of Job when he was only 
 ten years of age. It began as follows : 
 
 Job, just and good, in Uz had sojourned long; 
 He feared his God, and shunned the way of wrong. 
 Three were his daughters, and his sons were seven, 
 And large the wealth bestowed on him by heaven. 
 Seven thousand sheep were in his pastures fed, 
 Three thousand camels by his train were led; 
 For him the yoke a thousand oxen wore, 
 Five hundred she-asses his burdens bore. 
 His household to a mighty host increased, 
 Greatest man was Job in all the East. 
 
 The great poem of his early youth was 
 "Thanatopsis," written when he was but 
 seventeen years of age, and revealing the no- 
 bility of his thought and the religious spirit 
 which mastered and controlled his poetical 
 gift. 
 
 It was not, however, until William Cullen 
 Bryant was sixty-four years of age that he 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 213 
 
 was moved to make a public confession of his 
 faith in Christ in a formal way. He was liv- 
 ing with his family in Naples in 1858. Mrs. 
 Bryant had been suddenly prostrated by se- 
 rious illness, and he had watched over her 
 through many anxious weeks. A Mr. Water- 
 ston, a minister from Boston who happened to 
 be just then in Naples and who was also an 
 acquaintance of Mr. Bryant, received from him, 
 on April 23d of that year, a note stating that 
 there was a subject of interest upon which he 
 would like to converse with the minister. Mr. 
 Waterston recounts the story as follows : 
 
 *'0n the following day, the weather being 
 delightful, we walked in the Villa Reale, the 
 royal park or garden overlooking the Bay of 
 Naples. Never can I forget the beautiful 
 spirit that breathed through every word he ut- 
 tered, the reverent love, the confiding trust, the 
 aspiring hope, the rooted faith. Every 
 thought, every view, was generous and com- 
 prehensive. Anxiously watching, as he had 
 been doing, in that twilight boundary between 
 this world and another, over one more precious 
 to him than life itself, the divine truths and 
 promises had come home to his mind with new 
 
214 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 power. He said that he had never united him- 
 self with the church, which, with his present 
 feehngs, he would most gladly do. He then 
 asked if it would be agreeable to me to come 
 to his room on the morrow and administer 
 the communion, adding that, as he had not 
 been baptized, he desired that ordinance at the 
 same time. The day following was the Sab- 
 bath and a most heavenly day. In the fulfill- 
 ment of his wishes, in his own quiet room, a 
 company of seven persons celebrated together 
 the Lord's Supper. With hymns, selections 
 from the Scriptures, and devotional exercises 
 we went back in thought to the 'large upper 
 room' where Christ first instituted the Holy 
 Supper in the midst of his disciples. Previous 
 to the breaking of bread William Cullen 
 Bryant was baptized. With snow-white head 
 and flowing beard he stood like one of the an- 
 cient prophets, and perhaps never since the 
 days of the apostles has a truer disciple pro- 
 fessed allegiance to the Divine Master. 
 
 "After the service, while standing at the 
 window looking out over the bay, smooth as 
 glass (the same water over which the Apostle 
 Paul sailed, in the ship from Alexandria, when 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 215 
 
 he brought Christianity into Italy), the grace- 
 ful outline of the Island of Capri relieved 
 against the sky, with that glorious scene repos- 
 ing before us Mr. Bryant repeated the lines of 
 John Heyden, the Oriental scholar and poet — 
 lines which he said had always been special 
 favorites of his and of which he was often re- 
 minded by that holy tranquillity which seems 
 as with conscious recognition to characterize 
 the Lord's Day : 
 
 With silent awe I hail the sacred morn, 
 That scarcely wakes while all the fields are still ; 
 
 A soothing calm on every breeze is borne, 
 A graver murmur echoes from the hill, 
 
 And softer sings the linnet from the thorn. 
 
 Hail, light serene ! hail, sacred Sabbath morn ! 
 
 Mr. Bryant's daughter, writing to his 
 biographer of his personal religious habits, 
 says that on Sunday mornings he always read 
 prayers and a chapter from the Bible, and that 
 she supposed it was only on Sundays, because 
 in earlier years her father was obliged to leave 
 home on week days before the family could be 
 assembled for prayers. She also states that 
 often in the evenings, after her father had left 
 the parlor, she would go up to his library, and 
 
2i6 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 almost always find him reading the Book of 
 Prayers or some other religious book. He 
 never spoke of it, but she knew it was his in- 
 variable custom to read in his room some pages 
 of books of this kind before retiring. On Sun- 
 day evenings, 'if anything prevented his going 
 to church, and generally in the country, where 
 there was no evening service, he read a ser- 
 mon aloud, choosing from a wide range, often 
 one written by Souths or Beecher, or Phillips 
 Brooks, or Robertson. Miss Bryant says: 
 **Very few people knew how much of my 
 father's time was occupied with religious mat- 
 ters, especially during the last years of his life, 
 and after my mother's death he read more 
 books of that character than of any other." 
 
 At Roslyn, his country home, Mr. Bryant 
 was a trustee of the Presbyterian Church, of 
 which Dr. Ely was pastor. In New York City 
 he attended the successive pastorates of Drs. 
 Dewey, Osgood, and Bellows. Mr. John Bige- 
 low, his biographer in the "American Men of 
 Letters" series, declares that *'No one ever rec- 
 ognized more completely or more devoutly the 
 divinity of Christ." Not long before his 
 death his friend, Dr. Alden, published a little 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 217 
 
 volume entitled "Thoughts on the Religious 
 Life," and one of the last things Bryant ever 
 wrote was a preface to this book, in which he 
 said: 
 
 "This character, of which Christ was the 
 perfect model, is in itself so attractive, so 'alto- 
 gether lovely,' that I cannot describe in lan- 
 guage the admiration with which I regard it; 
 nor can I express the gratitude I feel for the 
 dispensation which bestowed that example on 
 mankind, for the truths which he taught and 
 the sufferings he endured for our sakes. I 
 tremble to think what the world would be with- 
 out him. Take away the blessing of the advent 
 of his life and the blessings purchased by his 
 death, in what an abyss of guilt would man 
 have been left? It would seem to have been 
 blotting out the sun from the heavens — to 
 leave our system of worlds in chaos, frost, and 
 darkness. 
 
 "In my view of the life, the teachings, the 
 labors, and the sufferings of the blessed Jesus 
 there can be no admiration too profound, no 
 love of which the human heart is capable too 
 warm, no gratitude too earnest and deep, of 
 which he is justly the object. It is with sor- 
 
2i8 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 row that my love for him is so cold and my 
 gratitude so inadequate. 
 
 "The religious man finds in his relations to 
 his Maker a support to his virtue which others 
 cannot have. He acts always with a conscious- 
 ness that he is immediately under the eye of a 
 Being who looks into his heart and sees his in- 
 most thoughts and discerns the motives which 
 he is half unwilling to acknowledge even to 
 himself. He feels that he is under the inspec- 
 tion of a Being who is only pleased with right 
 motives and purity of intention and who is dis- 
 pleased with whatever is otherwise. He feels 
 that the approbation of that Being is infinitely 
 more to be valued than the applause of all man- 
 kind and his displeasure more to be feared and 
 more to be avoided than any disgrace which he 
 might sustain from his brethren of mankind." 
 
 Miss Bryant, writing to her father's biogra- 
 pher, says of this preface to Dr. Alden's book: 
 "The Preface must have been one of the last 
 things written by my father. It speaks more 
 fully than I have known him to do elsewhere 
 of his religious belief and of his belief in 
 Christ, and is very touching, I think. I re- 
 member how earnestly he used to enjoin upon 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 219 
 
 me to study the character and example of 
 Christ and to try to follow it. He was so re- 
 served even with his children in speaking of 
 such subjects that he rarely admonished any 
 one in this way; but when he did it was done 
 with a simplicity and earnestness that made it 
 something never to be forgotten." 
 
 The poetry of William Cullen Bryant is 
 largely pervaded by the spiritual quality of the 
 man's mind and heart. One of his poems, 
 especially, reveals his spiritual insight as well 
 as his faith in immortality. It is entitled 'The 
 Future Life" and inspired by a longing to see 
 again the wife whom he loved so tenderly. 
 
 How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps 
 The disembodied spirits of the dead, 
 
 When all of thee that time could wither sleeps 
 And perishes among the dust we tread? 
 
 For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain 
 If there I meet thy gentle presence not; 
 
 Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again 
 In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. 
 
 Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? 
 
 That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given? 
 My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, 
 
 And wilt thou never utter it in heaven? 
 
220 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, 
 In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, 
 
 And larger movements of the unfettered mind, 
 Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? 
 
 The love that lived through all the stormy past, 
 And meekly with my harsher nature bore, 
 
 And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, 
 Shall it expire with life, and be no more? 
 
 A happier lot than mine, and larger light, 
 
 Await thee there ; for thou hast bowed thy will 
 
 In cheerful homage to the rule of right, 
 And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. 
 
 For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell 
 
 Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll; 
 
 And wrath has left its scar — that fire of hell 
 Has left its frightful scar upon my soul. 
 
 Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky. 
 Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name. 
 
 The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, 
 Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same? 
 
 Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, 
 The wisdom that I learned so ill in this — 
 
 The wisdom which is love — till I become 
 Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? 
 
FRANCES E. WILLARD 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD. 
 
 In the Capitol at Washington Frances EHza- 
 beth Willard stands in the great circle of honor 
 to represent the prairie State of Illinois. In 
 the great circle of reformers gathering through 
 all the ages her place is forever secure. The 
 early home life of Frances Willard was pre- 
 eminently Christian. Many years afterward 
 she wrote : 
 
 '*Oh, sacred Sabbaths of our childhood! 
 Oh, early mornings in the spring, when we ran 
 together through the dewy grass or laid our 
 ears to the brown bosom of the earth to hear 
 her vibrant breathing, the thrill at her puls- 
 ing heart! Oh, birds that sang for me, and 
 flowers that bloomed, and mother-love that 
 brooded and father-love that held ! And God's 
 sky over all, and himself near unto us every- 
 
224 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 where; yea, nearer than near! Surely- 
 heavenly and without end are the blessings of 
 the Lord to his children ! Verily, his goodness 
 and his mercy are with us all our days." 
 
 Miss Willard's great career as a reformer 
 had its root and growth in the religious charac- 
 ter of the family and in the religious develop- 
 ment of her own character and life. The chil- 
 dren in the Willard family early signed the 
 total abstinence pledge inscribed in the old 
 family Bible, where the names of the father 
 and the mother preceded the childish auto- 
 graphs. This was the pledge : 
 
 A pledge we make, no wine to take, 
 No brandy red that turns the head, 
 Nor fiery rum that ruins home, 
 Nor whiskey hot that makes the sot, 
 Nor brewers' beer, for that we fear, 
 And cider, too, will never do; 
 To quench our thirst we always bring 
 Cold water from the well or spring. 
 So here we pledge perpetual hate 
 To all that can intoxicate. 
 
 Fifty years after Frances Willard had 
 signed this pledge, she composed another 
 
FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD. 225 
 
 pledge, especially for her friends among the 
 boys: 
 
 I pledge my brain God's thoughts to think, 
 
 My lips no fire or foam to drink 
 
 From alcoholic cup, 
 
 Nor link with my pure breath tobacco's taint. 
 
 For have I not a right to be 
 
 As wholesome, pure, and free as she 
 
 Who through the years so glad and free 
 
 Moves gently onward to meet me? 
 
 A knight of the new chivalry 
 
 For Christ and Temperance I would be — 
 
 In Nineteen Hundred; come and see. 
 
 Frances Willard's father had very conserva- 
 tive ideas about the kind of books proper for 
 young people — and, indeed, for older people — 
 to read. He had the severest prejudice against 
 fiction of any kind and did not allow his chil- 
 dren to read even the best class of such books. 
 Frances obeyed him implicitly during her 
 childhood and until she had reached her legal 
 majority. An incident which occurred on her 
 eighteenth birthday shows, however, that the 
 goodness of Frances Willard was by no means 
 goody-goody. She believed that every human 
 soul had a right to itself under God. On her 
 
226 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 eighteenth birthday she wrote a poem in which 
 we find these lines : 
 
 The clock has struck! 
 
 Oh! heaven and earth, I am free! 
 
 And here, beneath the watching stars, I feel 
 
 New inspiration breathing from afar 
 
 And resting on my spirit as it ne'er 
 
 Could rest before, comes joy profound. 
 
 And now I feel that I'm alone and free 
 
 To worship and obey Jehovah only. 
 
 Toward evening of this day, which she called 
 "Freedom day," Frances took her seat quietly 
 in her mother's rocking chair and began to 
 read Scott's "Ivanhoe." Her father came in, 
 and, noticing with great astonishment the book 
 she held, grew cloudy of brow. 
 
 "I thought I told you not to read novels, 
 Frances," he remarked, seriously. 
 
 *'So you did, father, and in the main I've 
 kept faith with you in this; but you forget 
 what day it is." 
 
 "What day, indeed ! I should like to know 
 if the day has anything to do with the deed !" 
 
 "Indeed it has — I am eighteen — I am of age 
 — I am now to do what / think right, and to 
 
FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD. 227 
 
 read this fine historical story is, in my opinion, 
 a right thing for me to do." 
 
 Her father could hardly believe his ears. 
 He was completely taken aback. At first he was 
 inclined to take the book away ; but that would 
 do harm, he thought, instead of good; so he 
 wisely concluded to see this novel action from 
 the funny side, and laughed heartily over the 
 situation, her older brother, Ohver, doing the 
 same, and both saying in one breath, ''A chip 
 of the old block." 
 
 Although she was brought up in such an at- 
 mosphere of religion and prayer, it was not 
 until the leisure of convalescence from a se- 
 rious illness that prevented her presence at the 
 graduating exercises of her class in North- 
 western University that Frances Willard posi- 
 tively entered upon the religious life. This is 
 her own record of that important and signifi- 
 cant occurrence : 
 
 ''It was one night in June, 1859. I was 
 nineteen years old and was lying on my bed 
 in my home at Evanston, 111., ill with typhoid 
 fever. The doctor had said that the crisis 
 would soon arrive, and I had overheard his 
 words. Mother was watching in the next 
 
228 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 room. My whole soul was intent as two voices 
 seemed to speak within me, one of them say- 
 ing, *My child, give me thy heart. I called thee 
 long by joy, I call thee now by chastisement; 
 but I have called thee always and only because 
 I love thee with an everlasting love.' The 
 other said, 'Surely, you who are so resolute and 
 strong will not break down now because of 
 physical feebleness. You are a reasoner and 
 never yet were you convinced of the reasonable- 
 ness of Christianity. Hold out now, and you 
 will feel when you get well just as you used to 
 feel.' 
 
 "One presence was to me warm, sunny, safe, 
 with an impression as of snow-white wings; 
 the other cold, dismal, dark, with the flutter of 
 a bat. The controversy did not seem brief ; in 
 my weakness such a strain would doubtless ap- 
 pear longer than it was. But at last, solemnly, 
 and with my whole heart, I said, not in 
 spoken words, but in the deeper language of 
 consciousness, *If God lets me get well, I'll try 
 to be a Christian girl;' but this resolution did 
 not bring peace ; * You must at once declare this 
 resolution,' said the inward voice. 
 
 ''Strange as it seems and complete as has 
 
FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD. 229 
 
 always been my frankness toward my dear 
 mother, far beyond what is usual even between 
 mother and child, it cost me a greater humbling 
 of my pride to tell her than the resolution had 
 cost of self-surrender or than any other utter- 
 ance of my whole life has involved. After a 
 hard battle, in which I lifted up my soul to God 
 for strength, I faintly called her from the next 
 room, and said : 'Mother, I wish to tell you that 
 if God lets me get well, I'll try to be a Chris- 
 tian girl.' 
 
 ''She took my hand, knelt beside my bed, 
 and softly wept and prayed. I then turned my 
 face to the wall and sweetly slept. 
 
 "That winter we had revival services in the 
 old Methodist church at Evanston. Doctor 
 (now Bishop) Foster was president of the 
 University, and his sermons, with those of 
 Doctors Dempster and Bannister and others, 
 deeply stirred my heart. I had convalesced 
 slowly and spent several weeks at Forest 
 Home, so that these meetings seemed to be my 
 first opportunity of declaring my new alle- 
 giance. The very earliest invitation to go for- 
 ward, kneel at the altar, and be prayed for was 
 heeded by me. Waiting for no one, counseling 
 
230 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 with no one, I went alone along the aisle with 
 my heart beating so loud that I thought I could 
 see as well as hear it beat as I moved forward. 
 One of the most timid, shrinking, and sensitive 
 of natures, what it meant to me to go forward 
 thus, with my student friends gazing upon me, 
 can never be told. I had been known as 'skep- 
 tical,' and prayers (of which I then spoke 
 lightly) had been asked for me in the church 
 the year before. For fourteen nights in succes- 
 sion I thus knelt at the altar, expecting some 
 utter transformation — some portion of heaven 
 to be placed in my inmost heart, as I have seen 
 the box of valuables placed in the corner-stone 
 of a building and firmly set, plastered over, and 
 fixed in its place forever. This is what I had 
 determined must be done, and was loath to give 
 it up. I prayed and agonized; but what I 
 sought did not occur. 
 
 "One night when I returned to my room 
 bafiled, weary, and discouraged and knelt be- 
 side my bed, it came to me quietly that this was 
 not the way ; that my 'conversion,' my 'turning 
 about,' my 'religious experience' (re-ligare, to 
 bind again), had reached its crisis on that sum- 
 mer night when I said, 'Yes' to God. A quiet 
 
FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD. 231 
 
 certitude of this pervaded my consciousness, 
 and the next night I told the public congrega- 
 tion so, gave my name to the church as a pro- 
 bationer, and after holding this relation for a 
 year, waiting for my sister Mary who joined 
 later to fill out her six months' probation, I was 
 baptized and joined the church, May 5, 1861, 
 'in full connection.' Meanwhile I had regu- 
 larly led, since that memorable June, a prayer- 
 ful life (which I had not done for some months 
 previous to that time), studied my Bible, and 
 as I believe evinced by my daily life that I was 
 taking counsel of the heavenly powers. 
 Prayer-meeting, class-meeting, and church 
 services were most pleasant to me, and I be- 
 came an active worker, seeking to lead others 
 to Christ. I had learned to think of and be- 
 lieve in God in terms of Jesus Christ. . . . 
 What Paul says of Christ is what I say; the 
 love John felt, it is my dearest wish to cherish." 
 How that Christian life, thus begun, grew in 
 fulness and power the whole world that heard 
 her and felt her influence can testify. Many 
 years after that conversion she was able to 
 v/rite : "The life of God flowing into the soul 
 of man is the only life, and all my being sets 
 
232 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 toward him, as the rivers to the sea. Celestial 
 things grow dearer to me every day, and I 
 grow poorer in my own eyes save as God gives 
 to me. I still care a little too much for the 
 good words of the good, but God helps me even 
 in that." 
 
 The end of the career of Frances Willard, so 
 far as her earthly life was concerned, was as 
 truly religious as in the great days of her 
 power, when she laid every wreath and crown 
 bestowed upon her at the feet of her Lord. As 
 she lay upon her last bed of sickness, after a 
 hard day, she suddenly gazed intently on a pic- 
 ture of the Christ directly opposite her bed. 
 Her eyes seemed to meet those of the compas- 
 sionate Saviour, and with the old eloquence in 
 her voice, in the stillness she said : 
 
 I am Merlin, and I am dying, 
 But I'll follow the Gleam. 
 
 And a little later she said to the friends who 
 gathered about her, "Oh, let me go away, let 
 me be in peace; I am so safe with him. He 
 has other worlds, and I want to go." And so, 
 still following the Christ Gleam with a brave 
 
FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD. 233 
 
 heart and a courageous step, the dauntless soul 
 went on to follow her Lord to all worlds 
 whithersoever he might lead her. 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON. 
 
 Benjamin Harrison — heir of a distin- 
 guished Hne in American history, stretching 
 from that other Benjamin Harrison who 
 signed the Declaration of Independence with a 
 genial wit and a cheerful daring that has never 
 been forgotten, on through another President 
 Harrison, who was first a famous general — 
 was as well known as a Christian as he was as a 
 statesman. For a great many years Mr. Har- 
 rison was a devout member and a ruling elder 
 in the First Presbyterian Church of Indian- 
 apolis. His membership in the church was 
 not like that of some other public men, merely 
 honorary and formal. He was thoroughly in- 
 terested in the church, had its interests on his 
 heart, held himself to a keen responsibility not 
 only for attendance on its services, but for 
 faithfully fulfilling all his obligations to the 
 church. General Harrison could have uttered 
 
238 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 without any cant or meaningless formality the 
 words which often mean nothing, *'I belong to 
 the church." 
 
 As is well known, Mr. Harrison was not a 
 demonstrative man^ and in his religion as in 
 other matters he was inclined to be modest and 
 retiring. But the old proverb, "Still water 
 runs deep," was true of Benjamin Harrison in 
 relation to his devout love for Christ, his 
 supreme faith in the Bible as the Word of God, 
 and his earnest determination to do all within 
 his power to help on the advancement of the 
 kingdom of his divine Lord. 
 
 On one occasion General Harrison, stand- 
 ing in the vestibule of the church after a ser- 
 vice, incidentally overheard a conversation be- 
 tween a very bright, keen-brained, young man 
 who had attracted his eye and another man 
 who had spoken to him about becoming a 
 Christian and coming into the church. His ear 
 caught the young man's reply, spoken in a 
 serious and he thought rather a regretful tone, 
 to the effect that he was not able to accept 
 Christianity, as there seemed to him insur- 
 mountable difficulties in the way of believing 
 the Bible to be the Word of God, and as Chris- 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON. 239 
 
 tianity was founded on that, it did not seem 
 possible for him to become a Christian. 
 
 This young man was poor, almost entirely 
 unknown in the city, living in a modest room 
 in a boarding-house. We can imagine his as- 
 tonishment, two or three evenings later, when 
 there came a knock at his door, and Benjamin 
 Harrison — the most distinguished lawyer in 
 Indiana, at that moment a candidate for the 
 United States Senate before the legislature 
 then in session, an office to which he was 
 elected a few days later, and a man frequently 
 spoken of as a future President of the United 
 States — was shown into his room. General 
 Harrison at once made him feel at home, how- 
 ever, by frankly telling him that he had acci- 
 dentally overheard his conversation at the 
 church on the Sunday previous and th?t it had 
 greatly interested him for the reason that he 
 himself had formerly had the same difficulties, 
 they had given him great trouble, and naturally 
 he felt a brotherly interest in any young man 
 who was troubled in the same way he had been. 
 
 General Harrison followed up this statement 
 with the further statement that, having thought 
 the matter through to a satisfactory conclusion 
 
240 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 for himself, until he had rested his faith upon 
 the Bible as the Word of God and had proved 
 Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour, he had 
 thought that perhaps this experience had pecu- 
 liarly fitted him to be of some help to another 
 man who found himself in a like situation. 
 
 Of course the young man was entirely dis- 
 armed, and could not help being softened and 
 mellowed into an openness of mind and heart 
 to receive teaching under such circumstances. 
 
 With the keen, sharp skill of an able lawyer, 
 softened by the kindness of Christian brother- 
 hood, Benjamin Harrison drew out all the 
 young man's mind and heart on the great sub- 
 ject in hand. He soon saw every point of diffi- 
 culty; and as they came to the front, one by 
 one, with logical clearness he disposed of them, 
 never leaving a point until his young friend 
 was entirely satisfied that his objection was 
 gone. And so they talked, on and on, utterly 
 oblivious of time, until at last the young man 
 admitted that all his objections had been an- 
 swered; that every difficulty had been cleared 
 away; and with deep emotion announced his 
 faith in Jesus Christ and his determination to 
 accept him and serve him as his Lord. 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON. 241 
 
 When at last the conversation was brought 
 to this happy conclusion they arose to their 
 feet, and when the General looked at his watch 
 he found to his amazement that it was some 
 hours past midnight and was nearing the morn- 
 ing. So completely given up to the great pur- 
 pose of winning this young man to accept 
 Christ had been this famous statesman and 
 distinguished lawyer, that he had been utterly 
 oblivious to the passing of time. All that even- 
 ing, for hours, his political friends had been 
 searching for him, that they might counsel 
 with him regarding his candidacy for the 
 United States Senate; but he had been utterly 
 forgetful of his own political interests and lost 
 in the intense earnestness with which he had 
 entered into the spiritual interests of another. 
 
 Soon after the death of President Harrison, 
 Dr. W. C. Gray, the veteran editor of The In- 
 terior, who had been a school friend of both 
 Harrison and his wife, related a very interest- 
 ing story of a visit which he paid to the Harri- 
 sons while Benjamin Harrison was United 
 States Senator and but a little while before 
 he was nominated for the Presidency. During 
 a conversation Dr. Gray said to him, "Sena- 
 
242 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 tor, you bear a historic name — historically 
 the most eminent of any American citizen; 
 you possess abilities which I estimate as equal 
 to the best, if not the very best, among Ameri- 
 can statesmen. Your record is worthy of 
 your name. You live in a doubtful State, 
 which you can carry in a Presidential contest. 
 On no man does the shadow of the Presidency 
 fall so clearly as it does upon you, and yet your 
 friends think you are at a disadvantage in one 
 particular." And then Dr. Gray referred to 
 the magnetic qualities of successful political 
 leaders, and especially other statesmen who 
 were then aspirants. Of the result of that con- 
 versation Dr. Gray says, "In the very kindly 
 conversation which followed I discovered that 
 he was not troubling himself with ambitious 
 aspirations, that at the bottom he was a man of 
 humble spirit and yet of a self-respect which 
 forbade him to be a courtier even to the Ameri- 
 can people — that though he was a great man, 
 he was unconsciously great; and though his 
 heart was large and generous, he would carry 
 it in his bosom and not upon his sleeve. It was 
 to me a memorable interview, which filled me 
 with deep friendship for him. Boy or man, 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON. 243 
 
 there was no haughtiness in him, only a natural 
 reserve and self-poise. . . . He won his 
 great success without the compromise of a 
 hair's breadth of his convictions of right and 
 duty." 
 
 General Harrison, as he grew in political 
 honors and in the regard of the public, did 
 what very few public men do — he kept pace in 
 his interest in the larger affairs of Christianity 
 and the world-wide interests of the great 
 branch of the Christian church to which he be- 
 longed. In connection with the administration 
 of the larger affairs of the Presbyterian 
 Church, of which he was the most famous 
 member, he frequently occupied a place of hon- 
 orable service. He was seen in the meetings of 
 the General Assembly and took part in the dis- 
 cussions of that great body. He took great in- 
 terest in the missionary work of the church, 
 both at home and abroad. He was also on the 
 Assembly's committee on the revision of the 
 Confession of Faith. This committee paid a 
 most loving tribute to his memory after his 
 death. In the course of that tribute it is said : 
 **His appointment as a member of this commit- 
 tee was made at a time when he was declining 
 
244 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 high public and official honors and when he was 
 deeply engaged in the solution of questions that 
 affected the welfare and peace of nations; but 
 he did not hesitate, though at much personal 
 sacrifice, to respond to the duty the church of 
 his choice and love had laid upon him." 
 
 Two or three years before his death, at a 
 time when he was perhaps the most distin- 
 guished American citizen living, Mr. Harrison 
 identified himself in a most unique way with 
 universal Christianity by accepting the invita- 
 tion to preside at the Ecumenical Missionary 
 Conference held in New York City, beginning 
 April 21, 1900. His opening speech was a 
 very remarkable production in many ways and 
 was full of Christian enthusiasm. Many para- 
 graphs in that speech are like windows into the 
 devout heart and spiritual quality of the man. 
 In the opening of his address he says : 
 
 ''Hours for devotional exercise are assigned. 
 The greatest need of the foreign field is a re- 
 vived, reconsecrated, and unified home church. 
 And this conference will be fruitful and suc- 
 cessful in proportion as it promotes those ends. 
 There will be, I hope, much prayer for an out- 
 pouring of God's Spirit." 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON. 245 
 
 Mr. Harrison's tribute to Jesus as King is 
 graphically beautiful. He says : 
 
 "The highest conception that has ever en- 
 tered the mind of man is that of God as the 
 Father of all men — the one blood — the uni- 
 versal brotherhood. It was not evolved^ but 
 revealed. The natural man lives to be minis- 
 tered unto — he lays his imposts upon others. 
 He buys slaves that they may fan him to sleep, 
 bring him the jeweled cup, dance before him, 
 and die in the arena for his sport. Into such a 
 world there came a King 'not to be ministered 
 unto, but to minister.' The rough winds 
 fanned his sleep; he drank of the mountain 
 brook, and made not the water wine for him- 
 self; he would not use his power to stay his 
 own hunger, but had compassion on the multi- 
 tude. Them that he had bought with a great 
 price he called no more servants, but friends. 
 He entered the bloody arena alone, and, dying, 
 broke all chains and brought life and immor- 
 tality to light. 
 
 "Here is the perfect altruism ; here the true 
 appraisal of men. Ornaments of gold and 
 gems, silken robes, houses, lands, stocks and 
 bonds — these are tare when men are weighed. 
 
246 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 Where else is there a scale so true? Where a 
 brotherhood so wide and perfect? Labor is 
 made noble — the King credits the smallest ser- 
 vice. His values are relative; he takes account 
 of the per cent, when tribute is brought into his 
 treasury. No coin of love is base or small to 
 him. The widow's mite he sets in his crown. 
 Life is sweetened; the poor man becomes of 
 account. Where else is found a philosophy of 
 life so sweet and adaptable — a philosophy of 
 death so comforting?" 
 
 Later on during the great missionary confer- 
 ence, when President McKinley and Governor 
 Roosevelt addressed the members, Mr. Harri- 
 son in reply uttered this significant paragraph : 
 *Tt is reported that the aged German Chancel- 
 lor, Prince Hohenlohe, recently said as he 
 looked about over the world, its struggles, and 
 strifes, and distress, and grief, that it seemed 
 to him as if that geological era had returned 
 when the saurians, gigantic monsters, walked 
 the earth in their devouring forms. He was 
 addressing, I think, a meeting of scholars, and 
 he turned to scholarship as giving him hope for 
 a world that seemed to be greedy for the de- 
 struction of its own members. Ah! my 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON. 247 
 
 friends, not scholarship, not invention, not any 
 of these noble and creditable developments of 
 our era — not to these, but to the Word of God 
 and the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ must 
 we turn for the hope that men may be delivered 
 from this consuming greed and selfishness." 
 
 But perhaps in the closing words of his final 
 address at this remarkable conference Mr. 
 Harrison uttered his tenderest Christian testi- 
 mony : "We part with you in sorrow, and yet 
 bitter as they are, the Christian partings always 
 are cheered by the promise of the great gather- 
 ing where all who love the Lord shall see each 
 other again. We thank you for your gracious 
 and instructive words; we thank you for the 
 inspiration you have given us; we hope that 
 you have caught from our hearts some of the 
 love we bear you, and that you will go back to 
 the Lord's appointed work stronger for our 
 prayers and for our sympathy. 
 
 "And now, as we bring this meeting to a 
 close, may I not assure you all that the prayers 
 of the Church in America will be offered with 
 a frequency and a fervor they have never had 
 before and that the pockets and the purses of 
 the American people will be opened with a gen- 
 
^ 
 
 248 RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 erosity they have never known before to con- 
 duct this great world work — a work which is 
 to bring in the day when the kingdoms of the 
 earth shall become the kingdoms of our Lord. 
 
 *'God bless you all, abide with you in your 
 places, strengthen your hearts, fill them with 
 the converts that he knows so well how to con- 
 vert, and give you success in your devoted 
 efforts to make known his name to those who 
 are in darkness." 
 
 Surely no one can read these utterances 
 without feeling the pulsations of a great warm 
 heart full of love for Christ. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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