Columbia (HnitJersJftp THE LIBRARIES Bequest of Frederic Bancroft 1860-1945 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE BY JOSEPH PACKARD, D. D. 1812-1902 EDITED BY REV. THOMAS J. PACKARD Washington, D. C, BYRON S. ADAMS, PUhLISHSli '; '>' 1,902, ,,, , -, • '^ I > , > , > J ' > ' ' Copyrighted 1902 Thomas J. Packard baths at home. Dilworth's Spelling Book and the Psalter were the school books used. In winter there was a school for older scholars for a few weeks and Arithmetic to the Rule of Three and some other branches were taught." "The morals of the people were correct and pure. Profane lan- guage was very rare ; so was fraud and deception in trade, md theft or robbery. There were few amusements in those days. Playthings and toys for children were simple and few. Very early in my life I got a fife, to my great delight, and soon learned several martial airs. The tunes played and sung just before the Revolu- tion were exciting. I was eager to attend and often did attend the drill and enlistment meetings." 12 A Young Fifer. "The battle of Bunker Hill excited great feeling. On that day I was in a neighbor's field hoeing corn and I heard the roar- ing of the cannon. I was then thirteen and a half years old, but very large for my age. The captain of the militia lived near my father's and knowing they were high Whigs, and that I had some skill with my fife, he appointed me fifer in his company. Soon after this he enlisted and begged me to go with him as fifer, promising that he would treat me as a son, and he faithfully kept his promise. Though young and fond of home, I had no hesita- tion in enlisting, nor did my parents discourage it. I have won- dered that as I was the youngest, my mother did not oppose my going. I can never forget when I left home, she took my hand and said : ' Hezekiah, remember, praying will make thee leave sinning, and sinning will make thee leave praying.' This was to me as a guardian angel, being full of meaning and of practical truth." " As a soldier my moral habits were correct. I was averse to vices in the army, to which youth are exposed. I had many interesting experiences during the campaigns, in which I served so young." ' ' The regiment to which I belonged was ordered to Cambridge, and dwelt in tents near Cambridge Port, in an orchard where afterwards, in 1832, I took tea with my friend Rev. Thomas B. Gannett. We drew provisions from the College Hall, where beef, pork, &c. , were kept for the army." " From the time we marched into Boston, late in the autumn, until the following June, Col. Sargent's regiment, in which my name was enrolled, occupied several stations. We were ordered to Bunker Hill, and while there the grave of Dr. Warren was dis- covered and the body disinterred. I saw the spot where that American hero slept. We were ordered to New York, and had a pleasant passage from New London to New York. We were stationed near Hurlgate, six miles above the city, and the enemy had a fort opposite ours across the river, about a mile distant. The enemy had much greater weight of metal, both in cannon and in mortars." "A soldier, soon after the balls and bombs began to fly into our camp, walking proudly upon the parapet, boastfully pro- claimed that the ball was not yet made that was to kill him. Not many minutes after this a ball came and almost cut him asunder, thus warning others not to expose life needlessly, lest they also A Revolutionary Soldier. 13 should die 'as the fool dieth.' The cannonading continued for several weeks, killing and wounding some. An old man belong- ing to our camp saw a bomb fall and bury itself in the ground a few rods from him, and started hastily towards the spot, hoping to save the powder, which, would bring him a dollar. Just before he reached the place there was a tremendous explosion, and he was covered with dirt and nearly suffocated, but received no seri- ous injury. About the same time two young men, belonging to the same company, and, I believe, to the same mess, found a bomb, the fuse of which had been somehow extinguished, and thoughtlessly tried to open the vent with a pickaxe. This rash attempt was fatal to both, as a spark from the pickaxe reached the powder, and they were awfully mangled by the explosion." "Soon after this our troops left lyong Island, and we were ordered to evacuate New York. It was a Sabbath in the last o^ August or first of September. The heat was extreme, the roads were crowded with troops, with men, women and children, cattle, goods and chattels, all overspread with thick clouds of dust. The retreat was precipitate and confused. Many were injured by drinking cold water. One died near the well where he drank. It was a day of alarm and confusion, perplexity and fatigue, more noticeable as it was the Sabbath. The night following was dark and rainy. I slept on the ground under a blanket, with my cap- tain, who always treated me as a son." "The next morning, while breakfast was preparing and ihe soldiers were adjusting their packs, cleaning their guns, etc., after the rain, guns were heard, and the enemy was at hand. A com- pany of volunteers were called out to give the enemy a check, and of this number (136) my brother was one, but a few hours after was wounded and on his way to the hospital. On this day was the battle of Harlem Heights. Our regiment was near the center of the line of battle, extending from North or Hudson to East river, not far from King's Bridge. The right wing (towards North River) was first engaged, and before the centre was brought into action the enemy gave way and retreated. Our troops then returned to their stations and took refreshment. I think the number killed and wounded was great. I visited my brother several times. His wound became alarming and the surgeons nearly despaired of him. Afterwards he was somewhat relieved, and we did not meet again till we met in our father's house. In 14 A Campaign Ended. the autumn I fell sick, and the hospital being very filthy, I became worse, and thought I should not live." "At the end of the year my term of service ended. Being somewhat better, though still very weak, I set my face and tot- tering steps towards home. The first day with great exertion I travelled three or four miles. About the third day I reached the great road from White Plains to my native region, and was providentially overtaken by my captain's elder brother, who had ever been my friend in camp. He had bought a cheap horse, and finding me solitary and feeble, he readily dismounted and let me ride. The relief and favor were greater than I can express. I rode nearly the whole distance of two hundred miles ; nor do I think my generous friend rode even five miles, till we reached Easton, Mass., his native town, where my eldest brother lived. My youth and a fifer's uniform were of use to us both on our journey. We received many a good bit on our way in consequence of the pitiful story my friend told of the suffering fifer upon the horse." " My parents had heard nothing from me after the battle of Harlem Heights, save that I was there, nor did they know aught of my brother. I cannot express the strong, joyous emotions in my breast nor the pious joy which my parents manifested on my return. I was so reduced in health that for a long time I was unfit for business and suffered much. I was induced, however, to enlist again for six months. That I should do so has always been a mystery to me. I was ordered to Rhode Island and sta- tioned at Providence, and thence marched to Newport. General Sullivan, who had the command, intended to gain possession of Newport, then in the hands of the British. We passed in flat- bottomed boats to the Island in the night by the light of the moon, but owing to adverse circumstances the enterprise was given up and the campaign was soon closed." " I saw General Washington take command of the arm)'' under the elm tree in Cambridge. I saw him again but was so excited I forgot to take off my hat, and at the thought was ashamed." "My father died February 2, 1777, after a short and severe illness, of a typhus fever. He was most strict and conscien- tious in his manner of life, a man of prayer and practical piety. One of the last sentences he uttered was : ' If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.' Religious impress- ions were early made on my mind, and I have a distinct and Harvard College. 15 vivid recollection of being in doubt as to the proper subjects of prayer, to which I was then no stranger. Walking home with my father from the iSeld, I asked him what I ought to pray for. He was ready to answer me and encourage me in that duty. I was then probably eight or nine years old. The instructions, examples and prayers of my parents were blessed in my conver- sion about 1780." " In 1782, having hurt my arm, I decided to prepare for college, and went to study under Rev. Dr. John Reed. I was very dili- gent and in one year was ready to enter Harvard College, July, 1783. I had to make my way through many difficulties, with no patron or helper. I spent my vacations mostly at college, where I had a good chance to study, and made my board by keeping a morning school for misses. I kept school nine or ten weeks every winter, did anything I could do, and practiced rigid economy. In my Junior year I was monitor. When I took my first degree I owed about one hundred and tweutj^-five dollars. I passed through college without fine or censure and with a respectable literary character. John Quincy Adams was my classmate, and at a college re-union many years afterwards, I walked arm in arm with him in the procession. I was Mathematical Tutor at Harvard four years, succeeding President Webber, and Assistant lyibrarian, and was one of those who in 1788 prepared the first printed catalogue of the library. While Tutor, Judge Joseph Story was a pupil." Dr. Tyng gave me my father's part in the Harvard Commence- ment of 1787, but it was lost when many of my valuable papers and books were taken in 1861. In October 1793, my father received ordination over the church and people of Chelmsford, Mass., where he labored eight years very successfully. In 1884 I received a paper from there contain- ing a notice of a reunion of churches ; where, at one service, a Thanksgiving sermon preached by my father in 1795 was read, as was stated, to the decided gratification of the assembly. In July, 1802, he removed to Wiscasset, Maine, where he suc- ceeded Rev. Alden Bradford, a direct descendant of John Alden. He had a unanimous call at a salary of $700 a year. At that time and for many years after, Wiscasset was a place of great commercial enterprise and large trade with the West Indies, with about 2,000 inhabitants. i6 Minister and Teacher. But the schools, the morals and the institutions of religion had been much neglected. Intemperance and other vices prevailed. He was induced to teach a private school, besides preaching, and it succeeded so well that a brick academy was at once built, and he was put at its head in 1808. This made his duties very ardu- ous, but he thus exerted a greater moral influence and so was much more useful than in the ministry alone. The Academy, of which he was head, made an era in the history of Wiscasset. Its teaching was excellent for that day, while its strong yet kindly discipline, and the high moral influence which it exerted on that generation, worked powerfully for good. The Monday-morning lessons from the Scriptures, ' ' the fire and hammer of God's word, ' ' with the record taken of verses recited and of the number of chap- ters read in the Bible during the week credited on the student's mark, the devices for imparting fundamental maxims of life by question and answer of the school in concert, were in design most excellent, and their influence was to make lasting impressions of what Daniel Webster says is the profoundest truth of life — our responsibility to God. My father gave up the Academy, but always had six boys boarding with and being taught by him. He was noted for his influence and control over boj'S, and many men of prominence expressed their obligation to him for his training of them. Many wild and wayward boys were sent to him from Boston and other places. His discipline was strong and firm, and he was very suc- cessful in imparting knowledge. Some of his pupils, like Rev. John A. Vaughan and William Vaughan, Chandler Robbins of Boston, and Joseph Williams, a Governor of Maine, were very prominent. Rev. John A. Vaughan, D. D., was in Philadelphia many years and was Bishop Alouzo Potter's right-hand man, and on the Standing Committee. Frederick A. Packard, of Philadelphia, a nephew and pupil, was off"ered the Presidency of Girard College, and was foremost in religious and charitable work. In the summer he used to take his chaise and visit his friends, Dr. Abiel Holmes, the father of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dr. Pierce and Robert lyowell, whose sons as president and poet are so well known, and they returned his visits. He was associated with the father of George Bancroft, the historian, and other Unitarians in Cambridge, and while not a Unitarian himself he was somewhat influenced by their views and did not use the terms My Father's Influence. 17 co-equal and co-eternal of Christ. Priestley's Corruptions of Christianity, which was much circulated then, did great harm. He was regarded as the minister of the town, and had great influence in every direction, and on all public occasions he officiated. The Supreme Court sometimes met in Wiscasset, and he always opened it with prayer, and at the military musters, once a year, he rode on horseback with the officers and made a prayer. As Mrs. Sarah B. Hilton, of Wiscasset, wrote me six years ago, " Your father was the central figure in the religious and social life of Wiscasset and vicinity. Indeed ' Dr. Packard ' was a household name in all the families of my acquaintance." My father left Wiscasset in 1830, and took charge of the Church in Middlesex, for six years. This was a part of his old parish of Chelmsford, where he had founded in January, 1794, a library which continued to live and grow and, in 1894, celebrated its centennial. Judge Hadley made an elaborate address upon my father' s life and work of which I give two sentences. ' ' This library was not founded by an Astor, a Lenox, a Carnegie, or a Rocke- feller, but by a typical New England clergyman of the best Massachusetts stock, who loved good books and delighted in their refining and improving companionship, and who was himself the embodiment of the grace culture and refinement which good and pure literature always creates and fosters. Among the boys of this town who early devoured its volumes was Josiah Gardner Abbott, one of the most active founders of the City library in Lowell, so that Lowell not only owes her territory, but in some degree her present 50,000 volume library, to her mother Chelms- ford." " Books are men of higher stature. And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear." My father labored most diligently in these various fields, but ever with one purpose — to serve the cause of God and man, and though I shall often refer to him and his untiring efforts for our good, I must here pay him the tribute of filial respect and love and acknowledge that I owe to him whatever I learned of industry, honesty, and love of knowledge ; and I can truly say of him that he served his day and generation according to the will of God. CHAPTER III. BOYHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE. So great have been the social changes in this country that life in the beginning of the past century was very different from the life at its close. It has been a century remarkable for its inventions and discoveries. I have seen the first railroad — the Boston and lyowell — running a short distance, in 1830 or 1831 when a great multitude was assembled. I was present with my father-in-law, General Walter Jones, when Mr. Morse was per- forming his experiments with the telegraph in the open air in front of the Capitol in 1843, and the message was sent, "What hath God wrought ? " It would be difficult to represent the simplicity of my early life, passed as it was in the retirement of a country minister's parish. Edward Everett Hale has given an account of his boyhood in the city of Boston ; mine was spent in a secluded seaport town in the State of Maine. Wiscasset was one of the principal seaports, sit- uated on an inlet, the Sheepscot River, about twelve miles from the ocean, with a splendid harbor and ships coming from every port. Merchants owned vessels to a large amount, and ships, brigs, and other vessels were in constant and profitable employ- ment. Masts, logs and lumber of various kinds were floated in large rafts from the Kennebec. Mast-ships from I,iverpool and other British ports came yearly for masts and were supplied. Some of its merchants had fine houses, and it was a town of con- siderable culture and refinement. My father had bought a place on a hill, sloping gently down to the bay, about half a mile from the town, and had built a comfortable dwelling-house below the crest of the hill, under a sheltering rock. The site commanded a view of the town and of the bay, which is about a mile wide, with bold and rocky headlands. The most familiar sight to me in early life was the tide coming in twice a day twelve feet and covering the flats which bounded my father's land. An Englishman, once visiting the place, said that it was equal to any view he had ever seen, and few places had such an outlook. The father of Francis Parkman, the historian, used to visit at my father's and I remem- 18 WiSCASSET. ig ber his admiring the prospect and saying how much a nobleman in England would give to have such a view from his house. To quote from Dr. Smyth, " on the east was the beautiful har- bor, and the graceful lines of Birch point, fringed with forest trees. Beyond over the waters and the bold headlands were the stately hills of Edgecomb, and south and west and north, farm lands, and forests, and ranges of upland and the cheerful village with church, court-house and academy, with pleasant homes, and the broad street running down to the busy wharves. It was the most important town east of Portland, the shire town, where Daniel Webster and Jeremiah Mason argued great cases. The village bell rang out on the national holidays, and the guns of the old blockhouse made fitting reply. That old Lincoln County was like the marches of England and Scotland, for it was long in dispute between England and France, and no other region appeals more powerfully to the historic imagination. It has been the scene of the wars of races, of thrilling personal adventures, of fierce collisions and battles. What tales of courage and heroism, of midnight surprise and boldest adventure hang over its hills and promontories and are connected with the innumerable passes and channels from Merry-meeting bay to the waters of the Sheeps- cot and the Damariscotta ! The imagination is haunted by the suggestions of a remote antiquity and the successions of dusky tribes. Here Frenchmen and Englishmen join in mortal conflict, now pirates free as the winds that fill their sails coast the shores and swoop down upon their prey, now adventurers eager for discovery and gain come with barque and pinnace." I thus imbibed early in life a love for the beauties of nature, which has ever been a source of true pleasure, and I have always been thankful I was born in this country. One looks back to his earliest memories in wonder, so much has come between the first and latest. I have often felt, as my father did, that I had lived three lives, and that it did not seem possible that it was in this body that I did thus and so. There is a Frenchman who says that he recollects the relief pro- duced on his eyes when he was a baby thirty-six hours old, and a nurse lowered a curtain to screen him from the light. I cannot believe this, much less equal it, but I think that from three years on our memories retain distinct images. Goethe says he can remember his thoughts and feelings when two or three years old. I can faintly remember the burial of my grandmother, Mrs. Spring^ 20 Early Memories. in September, 1815, when nearly three, and also a fire at a neighbor- ing house. It was a very cold summer with frost every month, and the crops did not ripen. A little later most distinct impres. sions were made. One of the earliest is sitting in my father's study when he was writing his sermon, and looking out on the bay below the house and reading Belknap's History of New Hampshire, with its stories of bears killing children when they went after cows. I was three years old at the battle of Waterloo and nine years old when Napoleon died, but I do not remember hearing of his death. Another of my earliest memories is going to church and hear- ing my father give out the hymn, " Behold the morning sun." My church-going was a prominent part of my early life, and I will give some recollections of that, aided by my brother's record of the same. The meeting-house of Wiscasset was built in 1771, and was a barn-like structure, unpainted and unplastered, with the beams jutting out in the corners, and three galleries. One of the galler- ies was appropriated to strangers, seamen from the harbor, and sometimes was used by unruly boys. The front of the eastern side, opposite the pulpit, was occupied by the singing gallery. What seemed peculiar was that the singers on the front row of the gallery, as they rose to sing,iturned their back to the pulpit and faced those on the back seat, the leader beating time, and tuning- fork, bass-viol and bassoon being used. The church-music of those days was far different from now. Fugue tunes were very popular, in which the different parts of the scale seemed pursuing each other as in a race. The bell cast by Paul Revere was hung in 1800, and a centennial celebration of it was lately held in 1900, in my father's church. In the northeastern corner of the gallery were open seats appro- priated to the few colored members of the congregation. The deacons sat on the main floor in front of the pulpit, while the old men had a spacious square pew, raised above, immediately under the pulpit, on account of their deafness, and entered from the pulpit stairway. The ornaments were severely simple, little round knobs standing up on the back edge of the bench. We cannot forget those bitter winter Sabbaths in the old structure, its front door, without shelter, opening into the east wind and snow, its floor a stranger, from first to last, to the comfort of carpet, and the fierce rattling of windows when winds were high, sometimes Church Reminiscences. 21 almost overpowering an ordinary voice of the preacher, and the preacher himself clothed in surtout, cloak and black silk gloves. My father was once oflFered by a generous parishioner a foot-stove for the pulpit, but declined a comfort which his hearers could not share. Small tin foot-stoves in a wooden frame were common, which just before the public service were supplied with glowing coals from neighboring kitchen fires, and placed in the pews for the women and children. There was no other way of heating. The first stove heard of in Massachusetts for a meeting-house was put up by the First Congregation of Boston in 1773. In January, 1822, when I was ten years old, the ladies of the parish procured the first stove, and in gratitude their names were entered on the parish records. Hawthorne speaks of the old wooden meeting-house in Salem, which used to be on winter Sabbaths " the frozen purgatory of my childhood." All stood in public prayer, unless prevented by age or infirmity, and in the square pews the seats, for the convenience of those who stood, moved on hinges and were raised like the lid of a box. When the amen was said, some of the less careful let the seat fall, causing a clatter over the house like a running fusilade of mus- ketry. It was almost a disgrace not to go to church — dangerous to the character. Nearly everyone went, and if the vigilant pas- tor's eye detected empty seats, he presumed the absentee was sick or disabled, and would call on Monday to comfort him. People were obliged by law in the 17th century to attend church, unless they were sick. " In 1643, Roger Scott for repeated sleeping in meeting on the Sabbath and for striking the person who waked him, was at Salem sentenced to be severely whipped." Hawthorne says, " A Puritan had his pleasures. He was jolly at funerals and ordinations, when New England rum flowed like water." No Jersey wagons or buggies were known, few chaises were used, but horses with saddle and pillion were common, and a walk of two to four miles was no hindrance to church attendance, and the house was often left with dog and cat only to keep the premises. Old women used to walk a long distance to church and would dine at my father's on the way home. The older I grow, the more thankful I am that I was taught to keep the Sabbath holy, to attend church and to live in reference to another world. Many Christian parents now think that it is too much to expect children to go to church, or to give up their playthings on that day. 22 My First School. The clergy then used to appear in gown and bands, at least in summer months, and the reverent bearing of the congregation was universal and a lesson for their descendants. The clergy had somewhat in their costume which distinguished them as a class, and a grave yet courteous demeanor and a consciousness of the dignity and sacredness of their calling, the absence of which was deemed an offence. The late Hon. Josiah Quincy says that at the Old South Church, Andover, the people were all in their places when the pastor entered, and they rose and stood until his family were seated and he in the pulpit, and at the close of the service all stood until he and his family had left the church. Such rever- ence for the house of God and for the sacred office was most bene- ficial. As the minister went up the aisle he bowed to the people from side to side. The Congregational ministers were often called " father " and " parson." My father did not believe in children being taught to read at too early an age. I went to a dame's school of boys and girls, taught by a Miss Quimby, when I was six years old, to learn my letters. My most vivid remembrance of that time is of a mis- chievous boy putting a bumble bee down my back and the con- sternation excited thereby in the school, and my own distress. I began my Greek and Latin very early with my father, and he taught me thoroughly. He paid great attention to reading and declamation. I can remember distinctly, perhaps eighty years ago, John S. C. Abbott, author of the Life of Napoleon Buona- parte, then a pupil, declaiming in a dramatic way some lines from Parnell's Hermit: " Horror of horrors ! What ! his only sou ! How looked our hermit when the deed was done ? " Near the close of my twelfth year I was sent off to Phillips Academy, Andover, the most famous school in New England. This was a great event in my life and opened a new world to me, and I was much improved by my single year there. I was, how- ever, so homesick at first that I thought of running away. I remember my dear mother made a pudding for me the last day at home, and how the ginger bread tasted when I was a boy. I went to Andover with Mark Newman, who was going there to see his father, with whom I was to board. We went in a two-wheeled chaise, and were three days making the journey of one hundred Phillips Academy, Andover. 23 miles. The school had three teachers, and perhaps one hundred boys. Among my school-mates were Horatio B. Hackett and Ray Palmer, the sweet hymn- writer, whose desk was just behind mine in school, but he was not in my class. Oliver Wendell Holmes was there the year before I entered. Ray Palmer was a real poet, and the author of our favorite hymn, " My faith looks up to Thee, ' ' and Hackett was a distinguished scholar. Rev. John Adams, father of Rev. William Adams, D. D., President of Union Seminary, New York, was the Principal. Mr. Adams in his discipline was the American Busby, and belonged to the old dispensation. He believed with Solomon (Prov. xxiii., 14), " Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell. ' ' When Dr. Busby was showing Charles II over his school, he kept his hat on, saying in apology that it would never do for the boys to think that there was anyone in the world greater than he was. So with Dr. Adams. I have never witnessed the execution of a criminal, but I should not be more affected by it now than I was then by his flogging boys who had been guilty of some misdemeanor. This was customary then in all schools. We were obliged at the Academy to declaim pieces at regular intervals. I had in my class two boys from South Carolina, Edmund and Albert Smith. I can now recall how Edmund stood with hand outstretched, a natural orator, and declaimed an extract from Pope's translation of the Odyssey, where Ulysses sails between Scylla and Charybdis, with the loss of some of his men, and how it was made real to us by his man- ner. He afterwards became distinguished in his native State. This large family of Smiths afterwards had their name changed to Rhett, an honored name in the South. They were the uncles of Miss Mary Rhett, the charming matron of the Seminary for many years. My teacher in Latin and Greek was Jonathan Clements, an uncle by marriage of Phillips Brooks. I can never forget him for he was a most excellent teacher, and first opened my eyes to the beauties of some scenes and passages in Homer, especially the final parting of Hector and Andromache, which John Keble has thus versified so well : " Father to me thou art and mother dear, And brother, too, kind husband of my heart." I have an affectionate remembrance of him and of his pleasant smile and genial manners. 24 A Boy Teacher. In my d6but in declamation, I made in my agitation two bows, and John Adams held me up to the ridicule of the whole school. Deacon Newman's family, with whom I boarded, was a lovely one, and I was treated like a son by them. The Newmans were related to the Phillips family, and their house was the only one where I saw pictured tiles in the fire-place. I went on Sundays to the Old South church, where Justin Edwards preached, and when twelve years old I took notes of his sermons, which I preserved for many years. He left upon me an impression of sternness and austerity, which was not uncommon among the ministers of that day. They used to preach then on the ruin of man and his punishment more than now. I stayed at home the next year and taught in my father's school when fourteen years old. The boys were older than myself, but I was well up in Latin and Greek. Some were very bad and profane, and I have wondered that my father took them at a risk to his own children. Perhaps he thought we must be thrown with such, and it was best to meet them where better influences might counteract the evil. He charged three dollars a week for board and tuition, and it was thought a high price at that time. By this means he was enabled to live more comfort- ably, and to send all six sons to college, being surpassed in this by Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College, who sent eight sons to college. Domestic service was not then looked down upon as it is now, and servants were treated as members of the family in many ways. At Deacon Newman's the only servant was Miss , sister of a somewhat distinguished man, the biographer of Payson, and she married a farmer afterwards. Our servant was a lifelong devoted helper and friend, and in her last sickness was tenderly nursed by my sister. As to the amusements of my boyhood, they were few and sim- ple. My eldest brother wrote on one occasion that he had only half an hour during the day for play. Life was regarded as real and earnest and children were less indulged than they are now, and life was to them more sombre. In summer we bathed in the bay when the tide was high ; the game of ball was played, but not reduced to such a system as it now is, and foot ball was not practised. There was, too, the shooting of wild pigeons, which were very abundant in their sea- son. I did not own a gun, which was costly, and few boys owned A Boy's Amusements. 25 them. I could always borrow one from the old soldiers, Queen Anne guns, they were called. I recall those crisp cold days of winter, that were so exhilarating. I have often waked up with my breath frozen on the quilt ; but although the cold was so severe, we became used to it and did not suffer. The snow came early and stayed till late in March, and was often five feet deep, conceal- ing fences and stumps. The crust was often so hard that a horse could almost gallop over it without breaking through. There was a lane leading to my father's house, which was often so blocked with snow that men on horseback and heavy sleds with oxen had to come and open a way for us, very much like what happened here in the late blizzard. I saw a large vessel hauled on sleds by oxen to the seaside from some miles in the interior, where it had been built. In winter our amusements were ready to hand. After a heavy fall of snow, making drifts from ten to twenty feet in depth, we boys delighted to jump from the roof of house or shed, sinking almost out of sight in the soft, white yielding cloud, which had come from the skies and spread itself out beneath, apparently for our special fun. Burrowing in those grand drifts on the sides of ravines, we would cut out, like the inhabitants of Petra, from the solid rock, halls and corridors, which delighted us like the crea- tions of Aladdin and his lamp. In these rooms we could have carpets of straw, and even build fires, with snow chimneys to con- duct the smoke away, thus imitating the ice cabins of the Esqui- maux. We built snow forts with supplies of snowball ammu- nition ; some, as large as one's head, were bombshells to be hurled on our enemies. The fort would be attacked and defended with great valor, generally by imaginary British and American troops. They would last for weeks, almost as if made of clay. The sliding was perfect by day and by night ; often we went down hills, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, with railroad speed, the cold air making every nerve tingle with pleasure. We had only wood for fuel and open fires, with only one Frank- lin stove in the house. Logging was at that time one of the greatest industries of Maine, and my father would buy a large quantity of wood and have it hauled on sleds in winter, and in the spring it would be sawed and packed in the wood-shed for the next winter. He would get 100 cords for his use at one dollar a cord. CHAPTER IV. HOME LIFE. Thanksgiving Day was the great annual home festival in New England, when all the family would be gathered together, the boys returning from school and college. There was a large rock on the hill back of the house, where father and some of us would stahd to catch the first sight of Whiteface and the chaise that brought them home. They would tramp the nine miles from Brunswick to the Kennebec which they crossed on the ferry, and I would often drive seven miles to meet them on this side. Few families enjoyed so much together as we did. I recall how bright and happy father and mother were, and how happy they made us feel. It was an uncommon faculty they possessed with- out much talk. I can hear my father's voice on Thanksgiving morning as he opened his large Bible saying, " We will read the one hundred and third Psalm this morning. How much we have to be thankful for ! " He always read that Psalm himself We always went to Church, sometimes in a sleigh in deep snow, and returned to feast and enjoy ourselves. The governor of the State used to appoint the day and I recall my father reading in Church the Thanksgiving proclamations of Governor Albion K. Parris, whose grandson is now a prominent banker and worker in the Church in Washington. I think that Lincoln was the first President who made it a national proclamation. Once it is said the Governor put ofi" Thanksgiving Day because the ships with molasses were delayed and it was impossible to celebrate it properly without molasses for the pumpkin pies. We used candles for light and sperm oil occasionally. Matches were unknown until long after I was grown. The "Tinder Box " was their precursor and was as indispensable as the tea-kettle that still sings on the stove. Unknown to this generation, the tinder box is worth describing. It was of varied forms and more or less coarsely ornamental. An oblong wooden box some six or eight inches long and three or four in width it was divided into two parts. In one was the tinder, half burned linen rag, in the other 26 The Tinder Box. 27 were kept the flint, steel and brimstone matches. The flint and steel being struck together, emitted sparks, which fell upon and ignited the tinder. The matches were thin slips of wood, dipped in melted brimstone, and they were lit from the tinder. Often the fire would be covered up carefully at night, and one neighbor would give coals to another to kindle his fire in the morning. Neighbor Gray's chimney was large enough to hold a bench and there we often sat together. I used to go there for fire when ours happened to go out and the tinder box was not in order. As to children's books, of which there is now such a deluge, we had only Miss Edgeworth's Tales, which linger still in my memory, Sandford and Merton, and the sempiternal Robinson Crusoe. When I was in London, fifty years afterwards, I sought out with interest, in Bunhill Fields, the tomb of Defoe, its author. We had few books, but those few were thoroughly conned— read and re-read, so that perhaps we suffered no loss from lack of children's literature. Periodicals were unknown, and the age of illustrated magazines was far in the future. A weekly quarto sheet, the Boston Messe^tger, was the means of our communication with the outer worid. The London Christiayi Observer was republished in this country about that time. We had many traditions, and stories of the early days still were told around the winter fires. I remember .seeing many of the Revolutionary soldiers, with their Queen Anne muskets, who talked of Burgoyne, but pronounced it Burgyne, and one told me of the burning of Chariestown by the British, after Bunker Hill, which he had witnessed. I used to hear my father and others sing hymns of the Revolu- tion, and though they were not very poetical, and had much about bombs and wounds, yet I can imagine they were comforting to them in the perils of war. I can only recall a few lines : " War, I defy thee, Clad in smoky terrors, Bursting from bombshells, Roaring from cannon. " Good is Jehovah In bestowing sunshine, Nor less His goodness In a storm of thunder. ' Death will invade us By the means appointed, 28 Watts' Hymns. And we must all bow Before the King of Terrors. " Nor am I anxious, Nor am I anxious. If I be prepared, What shape he comes in." Watts was a favorite hymn-writer, and some of his hymns have been familiar to me for seventy-five years. My grandmother, who died suddenly, repeated the day before her death his striking Psalm 30 : " Firm was my health, my day was bright, And I presum'd 'twould ne'er be night ; Fondly I said within my heart. Pleasure and peace shall ne'er depart." Those old hymns, like Watts, were the spiritual food of our ancestors. I hope some day to know good Dr. Watts. My father and brothers had good voices, and I often would lie on the floor and listen to them singing in the evening. I will name some of their favorites. Psalm 102, Watts : " Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray. Nor let our sun go down at noon ; Thy years are one eternal day. And must thy children die so soon ! " Psalm 146 : "I'll praise my Maker with my breath, And when my voice is lost in death. Praise shall employ my nobler powers ; My days of praise shall ne'er be past While life and thought and being last, Or immortality endures." When very young I once went with my father to the burial of a man, and I can remember my father standing in the doorway and repeating in his deep bass voice that solemn hymn. No. 88 : " Life is the time to serve the Lord, The time to insure the great reward : And while the lamp holds out to burn. The vilest sinner may return." It made a deep impression on me. My father repeated in his last moments Hymn 31, which his mother had taught him eighty years before : Sunday Evenings. 29 "^Why should we start, and fear to die, What tim'rous worms we mortals are ! Death is the gate of endless joy. And yet we dread to enter there. " Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are ; While on His breast I lean my head, And breathe my life out sweetly there." I repeated this last verse to Miss Fish, in her sickness. She had had no religious training, and was much comforted by it and died a Christian. These and many other hymns have been much in my memory, and I read them over and over even now. My mother used to tell of a hymn, which sung to a fugue tune became ludicrous: "Ran down the beard, ran down, ran down the beard, the beard, to Aaron's feet." Sometimes it happened Ihey sang on a hot day, " Oh for a cooling, oh for a cooling, oh for a cooling stream." On Saturday and Sunday evenings we had much singing, and all the family save myself could sing well. The Sabbath was observed from sunset of Saturday to sunset of Sunday. We were not allowed to walk or whistle on Sunday. The present statute in Massachusetts which defines the L,ord's Day as from midnight to midnight is as late as 1844. We never had any evening services, but even in towns there was but a short intermission between the morning and afternoon sermons. In the Memorial of Rev. Dr. Crocker, of our Church, Dr. Lippitt gives an account of the intense interest aroused by a Christmas-Eve night service held in Dr. Crocker's church in Providence, when I was a child. The streets leading to the church, some two hours before the service, were alive with people to wit- ness the novel and strange sight of St. John's opened after night for Divine worship. The house was densely filled and packed, pews and aisles, and hundreds were turned away from gaining entrance even to the vestibule. His text was St. John iv., 10 : " If thou knewestthe gift of God," &c. Dr. Crocker's countenance and manner showed how solemnly he felt the responsibility of address- ing them. The stillness of death pervaded the assembly during the delivery of the sermon, nearly an hour long. Many were convicted and converted by that sermon. Eternity alone will dis- close the momentous results of that first night service in St. John's. Now an evening service and sermon are the rule 30 Sunday Observance. everywhere, but there is great difiBculty in securing the attend- ance of any great number of people who have been out in the morning. This difficulty is felt everywhere, in city and in country alike, in small and large churches, and many expedients have been devised for securing a better attendance. In the cities this might be secured by an exchange with a neighboring rector, who by arranging a series of sermons might, by the new voice and differ- ent treatment, arouse interest so as to induce the congregation to attend. Or it might be possible, through the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and making the pews free at the evening service, to secure a different congregation from that of the morning. As it is now, it seems to me that the Sunday with many Kpisco- palians, as with the Roman Catholics, is considered at an end after the morning service. This is cutting short the Lord's por- tion of time, and I fear its evil result upon Christian character. The extreme of the Puritan Sabbath is in danger of being re- placed by the laxity of the Continental Sunday. We went to meeting morning and afternoon always, as did all respectable people, as we thought, and the congregation was as large in the afternoon as in the morning. If any one had been seen driving out of town on Sunday morning or afternoon, he would have lost standing in the community. Often the minister would continue his subject in the afternoon, with the same hearers. There were no Missionary Societies and not much interest in missions in my boyhood. The year I was born Messrs. Judson, Hall, Newell, Nott and Rice were ordained in Salem, Mass., for Missionary work in India, and soon set sail, the advance guard of a noble host. Sabbath-schools were then just becoming common, and I went very young and received a prize for learning the Sermon on the Mount. E. E. Hale says he was not allowed to enter Sunday- school until he was six years old, being turned away twice. I remember hearing a Temperance sermon, a rare thing at that time, and a sermon on the text "Come, ye children, hearken unto me " in which the preacher applied it to children. My Puritan home of eighty years ago had no stern or unfeeling parents, to inspire children with terror or cast gloom upon their young hearts, as has been sometimes represented. My father, though strict in discipline and having the nickname from his scholars of System, was cheerful and kindly. He might forget some things, but he never forgot the morning and evening family A Happy Family. 31 prayers, which were like the Jewish tamid, a continual daily oflfering. I heard my father say that he would rather give up his breakfast than family prayers. We used to read in turn a verse from the chapter at prayers ; even the younger ones, who could not read well, would have their turn. This made us very familiar with the Bible. There was always the blessing and return of thanks at each meal, a pious custom often now disused, I fear. We were taught to see the hand of God in everything and to realize His constant presence. How it was done I cannot tell, for neither father nor mother talked to us much about these things. It must have been the force of example and the religious atmosphere that filled the house, unconsciously affecting us, as does the earthly atmosphere. I think of my father with all his cares and duties as always most cheerful, and of my mother as never too tired to entertain us by repeating poetry or telling stories, and both making our home always bright and happy. I might mention here what a great change has taken place in drinking customs since I was a boy. Then it was thought uncivil not to offer any visitor, much more the minister, Jamaica rum, or whiskey, when he called, and it was thought impossible for him to refuse it. A decanter of wine or spirits stood on every side- board. When as a boy I went around with my father, who never drank much, and afterwards became a total abstainer, I used to have the " heel-taps," as they were called. Deacons and elders sold liquor as regularly as groceries. A minister once was noticed to be very thick in his speech and much under the influence of liquor, and the congregation ap- pointed the deacons to investigate the matter. In excuse he said he had been in the habit of getting his liquor from Deacon but he had lately, through a friend, got some of the genuine stuflf from Boston, and though he had taken only the usual quantity, it affected him as they saw. Deacon moved to drop the in- quiry, fearing, doubtless, that his watered rum might suffer. Cider-drinking was very common, and it made men stupid and quarrelsome. Cider-drunkards showed it in the face. I have never seen any since. Dr. Leonard Woods, Professor at Andover Seminary, said he had known forty ministers to die drunkards. The temptations then to drinking were much greater than now, for the minister in this country and England would take a glass 32 New England Rum. of port or something of the sort, before and after preaching. We may thank God that this evil is lessening. In 1812 a gill of rum, whiskey or brandy was made part of the regular daily ration of each soldier. Improvements have been made in ethical, not to say Christian, living during the century : " Dr. Chambers, of Philadelphia, tells us that in 1825 he went to a funeral of a prominent member of his church, and that he and the sexton were the only persons who were not in danger of falling into the grave through drunkenness. On the next Sun- day he told his people that he would never again officiate at a funeral of a church member where liquor was freely distributed. As late as 1835 a deacon in a prominent church in Boston was at once a distiller of whiskey and at the same time an agent for the Bible Society." Coal was never dreamed of as fuel, but might sometimes be found upon the mantel-piece as a curiosity. In this year, 1902, when coal is so necessary it is strange to know that the year I was born, nine wagons loaded with anthracite coal were hauled 106 miles to Philadelphia ; two loads were sold at cost of transportation, and seven given away, and the sale was denounced as a fraud. Anthracite coal was first used in Boston about 1824 and gas about the same time, though not used in houses until I came to Virginia, about 1836. CHAPTER V. COLLEGE DAYS. THE old are generally praisers of the past and its ways. It is well for them to show the reasons for their belief and give some account of their experiences. I do not claim that my college life and advantages were equal in some respects to the present. Yet I think we had to study then as hard as now, with fewer dis- tractions, and the discipline of the mind and faculties was thorough. We did not have such scientific grammars or such full lexicons, or such a bewildering array of sciences ; but with our Graeca Minora and Majora, and the Delphin editions of Greek and Latin Classics, with notes in Latin, and Schrevelius' Greek Lexicon with Latin definitions, we soon gained a mastery of the languages, and read the higher works with more fullness perhaps than now, where a closer attention is paid to the details of lan- guage, its grammar, construction, and metre. Pickering's Greek Lexicon with English definitions was the first one ever introduced into this country, and was hailed with delight. We gained also a love of the classics which stayed with us, and this led to our keeping up these studies in a measure all our lives. Now, what with the cramming and pressure to pass severe examinations, there has come a desire to pass and then never to take up the study again, or in the press of life and its many engagements there is not the same leisure and opportunity to keep up one's college studies. Certainly, I do not see that those who now study Latin and Greek have any greater love for or acquaintance with the literature than we had in that earlier day. There is more scientific knowledge now, but the mind is not better trained, there is no sounder judgment, or clearer insight into difficult questions than under the old system. Students learned in grammatical construction often never dream of reading Latin or Greek for pleasure or self culture. Woodrow Wilson, Professor at Prince- ton University, believes in the old system of classical training, I am glad to hear. A few words must be said about Bowdoin College. An attempt was made in 1787 to establish a college in the District of Maine, 33 34 BowDoiN College. and the 24th of June, 1794, the charter was signed and the college was called Bowdoin in honor of Governor Bowdoin, the friend of Washington and a patriot. His son James Bowdoin perpetuated his father's memory by most liberal gifts to the college of lands and money, a rare collection of minerals and metals, a large and and valuable library, and a gallery of paintings accumulated in France. The charter established a college for the purpose of educating youth and promoting virtue and piety and the knowl- edge of the languages and of the useful and liberal arts and sciences. "Those were the days," says Chief Justice Fuller in his Centen- nial Address at Bowdoin June, 1894 — "we trust in every funda- mental sensethey are still with us — when all alike regarded virtue and piety as essential elements of education, and religion as the chief corner-stone of an educational institution. It was impossi- ble that [any other view could be entertained. Religion of some kind has been the basis of education, of whatever kind and at whatever time ; and as the things of truth, of honesty, of justice, of purity, of loveliness and of good report were the acknowledged ends of education, these were to be attained only through the spiritual forces of the Christian religion, by which human culture had been preserved and through which it was to reach its highest development. The charter did but adopt the language of the Constitution of the State, which declared that knowledge, wisdom and virtue were necessary for the preservation of the peo- ple's rights and liberties." These wise and weighty words of our Chief-Justice deserve to be remembered by all interested in edu- cation. Another graduate equally distinguished in another calling, Nathaniel Hawthorne, has said in his earlier novel, " If this in- stitution did not offer all the advantages of older and prouder seminaries, its deficiencies were compensated to its students by the inculcation of regular habits, and of a deep and awtul sense of religion, which seldom deserted them in their course through life." This influence doubtless affected him in writing his masterly stories, which treat of the profound problems of life, with its sin and crime, the mystery of pain, the reason and value of existence, the law of repentance, and the cure for the sinning Jsoul. This active moral and religious influence is a peculiarity of the Ameri- can system. At one of the German universities a Professor of Harvard gave one of the Professors some account of the discipline of the The College Course. 35 American colleges, especially its moral and religious tone, the stated morning and ev^ening service of the chapel, and the watch over the morals and character of the students. The German uttered an exclamation of surprise and gratification: "Would God we had the same ! " Bowdoin College had then, as it has now, the regular college course of four years, with mathematical and classical studies, as fixed as the laws of the Medes and Persians, binding on every one ; but it also opened up to the student every department, as the ad- vancing standards of the time demanded. Its scheme of discipline and study aimed to fit the student for the pursuits of practical life and for the prosecution of advanced study in any department. Dr. Daniel R. Goodwin, once a Professor there, in his address at Bowdoin in 1873, has wisely said : "The old function of the college proper will always be required. If our colleges were all at once transformed into German universities we should need and we should soon establish in their place our old colleges, or the German gymnasia, to perform what would thus be abandoned of their present office — a fundamental general training, the prepara- tion of a generous, liberal classical culture, the proper discipline of humanity. This would be needed for the professions, too, especially for that of the clergy. And as regards science itself, it will always be found that no minds are so well prepared to grasp and preserve the properly .yaV^z/z)?*; character and bearings of what is presented, even in the popular lecture, as those which have been disciplined by a thorough classical and mathematical training. . . . There is no hostility between science and the classics. . . . Let us propose no such miserable alterna- tives as learning or science, science or religion ; rather let our watchwords and battle-cry be — learning and science, science ayid religion, 'now and forever, one and inseparable.' " It was the twenty-sixth institution of learning established in this country, and in its hundred years of existence has had many graduates who have taken the first place in every calling and position. Upon its roll stand the names of a President and nine Senators of the United States, a Speaker of the National House, a Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, twenty-five members of Congress, many governors, foreign ministers, legislators, eminent divines, presidents and professors in colleges and seminaries, missionaries, editors, and noble and useful men in every depart- ment of life. 36 Bowdoin's Famous Sons. No college in the land has had a roll of alumni, in the ratio of members, superior to Bowdoin in force and brains. If it had a remarkable faculty it had and could not help having, out of such a population, a remarkable body of students. Its special season of glory is the time when Longfellow and Hawthorne shed undying lustre on the class of 1825. As Justice Fuller says, "In that class and in the classes that immediately preceded and followed it, covering a period of seven years, we find the names of men of such eminence as jurists, physicians, authors, teachers and divines, statesmen and orators, as would render any school illustrious. Among them were six members of the Senate of the United States, Franklin Pierce, President, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Longfellow, John S. C. Abbott, George B. Cheever, Sergeant S. Prentiss, Samuel S. Boyd. Calvin E. Stowe, and others who achieved a national reputation, and whose names are entered upon the lasting memorials of American history." Hawthorne and Longfellow sat near together, but their great fame was not then imagined. This somewhat curious incident illustrates the uncertain promises and prophecies of the college period. Longfellow and Abbott were on the best terms as classmates and friends, both being young and congenial and decidedly literary. It was good- naturedly proposed by some one that each should write a poem under given circumstances, and a committee of the class be appointed to decide upon the merits of these productions. They did so and the laurel was given to Abbott, but it was his last attempt at verse-making. The stage-coach that brought the semi-weekly mail from Boston was the chief means of communication with the outside world. Drawn by four strong, spirited horses, as Horatio Bridge says in his charming Recollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne, at the average speed of ten miles an hour along the smooth roads, men made pleasant friendships often with their fellow-travellers. Among the passengers in one of these coaches, in the summer Jof 1 82 1, were Franklin Pierce, Jonathan Cilley, and Alfred Mason, son of the famous lawyer Jeremiah Mason, from New Hampshire, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, from Salem, These four became intimate friends, and it is quite remarkable that four young men of such ability should have met together in that way. I entered the Freshman Class of Bowdoin College in Septem- ber, 1827, two years after the famous class of 1825, at almost the Coi^LEGE Prayers. 37 same age as my father when he entered the Revolutionary army. I was nearly fifteen, but, owing to my better training in Latin and Greek, I passed an examination that was considered unusually good. I belonged to the Peucinian Society, and was one of the four out of my class elected to the Phi Beta Kappa, to which sev- eral professors, among them Longfellow, and most of the conserv- ative students belonged. The college and its grounds were not attractive as they now are. There were three brick buildings and a wooden, unpainted chapel, the upper part being used for the library and the lower part for prayers and other exercises. It had a cupola in which was the hard-working college bell, which groaned over its inces- sant labors. The poet Moore writes beautifully of " Those evening bells, How many a tale their music tells Of youth and home and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime." I cannot adopt his language nor did he speak of those mor7iing bells, which awoke us from the sound sleep of youth by their dis- cordant clang. The winter's storm would be howling without, the thermometer 10° below zero, the snow in drifts ten feet deep in places, when we were obliged to rise at the early hour of six o'clock in winter and girding on our plaid cloaks which concealed a multitude of defects in our toilet, we hurried into the cold chapel, guiltless of register or steam pipe. There President Allen or some professor read a chapter of the Bible, by a lamp dimly burning, and the prayers followed. Immediately after prayers the first recitation was held, lasting until breakfast, after seven o'clock. We studied and slept in plain, unpainted and uncarpeted rooms, heated only by open fire, but made bright and cheerful by the same, wood being abundant at one dollar a cord. For sport we played ball on the campus, swam in the Androscoggin, shot pigeons and picked blueberries on the plains, and had our tavorite walks amid the whispering pines, to Consecrated Rock and Paradise Spring. The campus was a rough, unenclosed common, with trees just set out. The revenue of the college was very small, and everything was on an economical scale. In these days of more costly education, it may be of interest to note the college expenses of seventy years ago. This is an actual term bill of that period : 38 College Expenses. For tuition $8.00 Chamber rent 3.34 Damages .60 Sweeping and bedmaking 1.12 lyibrary .50 Monitor and Catalogues .13 Bell .11 Reciting- room .25 Chemical Lectures .25 Fines (perhaps for absence or " unnecessary walking on Sunday," i. e., a stroll after morning or afternoon meeting) .20 $14.50 The one largest expense (excepting books and stationery) was the "midnight oil," which was bought from a village "store" and burned in brass or Japanned lamps. Certain students, says Horatio Bridge, had extra lamp-fillers that had never known oil. These were carried in broad daylight across the campus, full of a liquid more quickly and pleasantly consumed, for grocerj' stores then sold " wines and liquors " like other goods. If there "was a sound of revelry by night" it usually ceased at nine o'clock. I, with other students, boarded part of the time in "commons." We did not " fare sumptuously every day " on a dollar a week, which was the price of our board. The highest charge was one dollar and a half or two dollars a week for table board. The coffee was sweetened with molasses, " long sweetening," as it is called in the West. Graham bread was much used, and on Sunday morning we always had pork and beans and brown bread. The fare and the habits of eating were not conducive to health, as we ate rapidly, often spending only ten minutes at a meal. The health and comfort of students was not consulted, and the life was an unnecessarily hard one, I think. Edward Everett Hale speaks on this point just what I experienced. There was an utter dis- regard of physical health in the arrangement of recitations, and a seemingly utter ignorance of any connection between mind and body. All the year the same distance between prayers and break- fast prevailed, and no one seemed to think that it was absolutely evil to work the brains of boys who had had no food for thirteen or fourteen hours. Francis lyieber was asked to prepare, about this time, the fun- Cleveland and Newman. 39 damental rules for Girard College, and in his curious code Article 227 was this : " No scientific instruction proper should be given within a full hour after dinner. The contrary leads to vice." In defiance of this rule, classes went at once from dinner to recitation. 1 was never told that I ought to take exercise every day, and I lived in the college-yard, studying, day in and day out, without think- ing physical exercise was necessary. The consequence was that many became confirmed dyspeptics or broke down in health. There was no suspension at Christmas, which was not observed at all, for we had recitations on that day just as on any other. I was never told anything about Christmas. My first recollection of Christmas is that on a snowy night, when at Guilford, Ver- mont, I went once to a service on Christmas-Eve, and looked on with some curiosity at the decorations, but little impression was made on me — no more than if it had been St. Blaise's Day. The Professors were young men of power — able, earnest, and enthusiastic in their departments, and shallow surface work was an abomination to them. Parker Cleveland, Professor of Natural Science, was one of the first professors and chosen for his practical and social powers as well as for his learning. He was the father of Mineralogy in this country and published the first work on that new science, which made him well known in Europe as well as in America. It was a great treat to hear his lectures, which were delivered early in the morning. His experiments were always successful, and though he performed them hundreds of times, his wonder and delight seemed always fresh at the successful result, like Professor Farrar, of Cambridge, whose hair stood on end at the success of his experiments in Chemistry and Electricity. Professor Cleveland's countenance was stern and rugged, and though he sometimes excited a smile in the class, he was never guilty of one himself, though he was kind and genial and none ever inspired more kindly respect. He taught his classes for fifty- three years, dying as he was preparing to go to recitation, in his eightieth year. I see again an old man of rugged features, clad in plain garments, standing forth in an unpainted lecture room, like the magician of old armed with the hidden but powerful force of the laboratory of nature. Samuel P. Newman taught Rhetoric and Oratory, and his text- book on Rhetoric passed through sixty editions in this country and was republished in England. It is perhaps the best elemen- tary treatise on that subject. 40 Upham and Smyth. Professor Upham taught Mental Philosophy and published a work on the subject, which has been the text-book in many col- leges and schools. He was young, scholarly, gifted and greatly beloved, a poet and an author of note. His poem on I^ovell's Pond, the scene of an early Indian massacre, where a tree still lived that was planted by a young man the day before his murder, made an impression on me. He was the only mystic I knew. His letters from Europe are original and striking. An extract from one from Paris is given : " Beauty and deformity ; life and death are mingled together. Man is here, but where is the Maker of man. I sigh for my native land. I wish to hear again the prayers and the hymns of her cottages, inspired by the bless- ings around them. Her rivers are her lines of beauty ; her hills are her monuments ; the mighty firmament is her cathedral, and God heard in the sighing of the winds, seen in the richness of the vast forests, and eternal in the reproduction of her wild and varied magnificence, God is everywhere." Professor William Smyth, nicknamed " Ferox," had the chair of Mathematics, and published several mathematical works, which first adopted the French methods and made an era in this study in America, and he made a great light dawn upon us as to the science of numbers. Blackboards were first used in 1826, here. On one occasion, I remember, he missed several students from his class, and hastily concluded that there was a " combination " to be absent. This was always dreaded — a bete noir to Professors, who continually suspected combinations. He gave out an extra recitation at an unusual hour to punish them. The class resented his act, but did nothing until the final examination in the presence of the trustees, when they all agreed to fail at the blackboard exercises. So when the problems were given out the class looked blankly at the board and did nothing, to the great mortification and annoy- ance of the Professor, who was a nervous man, with whom they thought they had thus gotten even. But the class was not ad- vanced until another examination at the opening of the next session ; so both suffered. Our Professor of Mathematics used to speak of the calculus as a powerful instrument of investigation, to which I alluded in these terms, Utinam Calculus, tale pr(Tpote7is instrumentum investiga- iio7iis, rnajore studio ac affedu recipiatur, and it was received with great applause and appreciation by the students. AivPHEus S. Packard. 41 I had the salutatory oration of my class in the Junior year and it was delivered in Latin as the above quotation shows. The Professor of Latin and Greek was my brother, Alpheus S. Packard, who entered college in 181 2, graduated with the Latin Salutatory, given to the second scholar in the class, in 1816, returned as tutor in 18 19, and then was made Professor, and con- tinued in his position there until his death, in July, 1884, when he was acting President of the College. Chief Justice Fuller, in his address before quoted, says : " Professor Packard is immortalized in the lines of one of his most celebrated pupils and associates." Longfellow, in the poem delivered at the semi-centennial of his class in 1875, entitled Morituri Sahitainiis, one of the most cele- brated and elegant poems he ever wrote, turning and address- ing him, thus spoke : " They are no longer here ; they all are gone Into the land of shadows, — all save one. Honor and reverence, and the good repute Which follow faithful service as its fruit, Be unto him whom living we salute." Justice Fuller goes on to say: "As to Professor Packard an observation may well be added. In his address of 1858 he quotes Chief-Justice Jay as saying that the French Revolution ' banished silk stockings and good manners,' but he furnished in himself, throughout the sixty-five years of his devotion to the college and its work, indubitable proof that though knee-breeches had dis- appeared, the latter part of the opinion of the Chief-Justice must be limited in its application or be overruled. Professor Packard had elegant and courtly manners, and was very handsome." In 1829 Henry W. Longfellow became Professor of Modern Languages and Librarian, and he with Goodwin gave to Modern Languages a position they had nowhere else. He was very young and handsome, the ideal of a poet, and very affable to the stu- dents, who were more at ease with him than with any other Pro- fessor. I remember well my first sight of him, dressed in English costume, as he had just returned from Europe ; with his clear, ruddy complexion, auburn hair and blue eyes, I thought him the most beautiful man I had ever seen. I was in the first class he taught. He taught me French and made me an Assistant Li- brarian. We studied Gil Bias, in the beginning of which Gil Bias says of his mother that when she married she was not in her first youth, in French, " EUe n' etait pas dans la premiere jeu- 42 lyONGFELLOW'S FrEINCH ClASS. nesse," which Longfellow rendered " She was no chicken." It was a pleasure to recite to him as the dullness of the lecture was enlivened by his remarks. He gave us exercises in French, and up to the time of the war I had mine with Tres Men often at the bottom in his own handwriting. He published Proverbs Dra- matiques, which we studied. He illustrated the proverb " Good wine needs no bush " by telling us that in his travels in Spain a " bush " was the sign over wine-shops. Though unknown then to fame, he exerted an inspiring influence on the men. He was always most kindly and pleasant in his relations tome, and when, in my Junior year, I had a bad cough from inflammation of the lungs, he advised me to discontinue my studies and try to get well. This I did for several months, and in April, 1829, I went with a friend from Wiscasset to New York in a schooner, and we were out five nights. We went up the Hudson to Albany in a fine steamer about ten miles an hour. We spent a day and night at the Catskill Mountain House, some miles from the landing, and under the inspiration of the scene I wrote, when seventeen years old, a poem on "Catskill Falls." Phillips Brooks said in his address on Poetry at the Episcopal High School in 1859 : " There are times when it is good for any man to perpetrate a page or two with the lines ending similarly. There is a great deal of poetry that is perfectly justifiable to write, but utterly inexcusable to show when it is written. Verses, like the papers in lost pocket-books, of no possible value except to the owner. * * * There are times when the dullest souls among us fledge unguessed — of wings and turn to sudden poets. There are brooks whose singing is contagious and sunrises which turn all live men into Memnon statues." So I will not print my verses. We hired a chaise and drove to Saratoga, which was a small place with few visitors. We stopped to water the horse in a stream, and, to our dismay, he began to sink in a quagmire, but got out at last safely. During a thunder-storm we stopped at a farm-house and were given some boiled cider, very strong and sweet. We returned the same way, very much improved in health. We spent a fortnight in New York city, where hogs were running in the streets. I paid five dollars a week board at a boarding-house on Pearl street, and I thought it very high. New York had then about 120,000 inhabitants. I heard Dr. Finney College Friends. 43 preach in Dr. Spring's Brick Church, and he impressed me very strongly. Fish were not allowed to be sold, unless alive, as is the case now in Norway. It was curious to see them floundering in the tubs of water. Water was sold from barrels. I returned to college much stronger in every way. I graduated in a class of twent5'--one and was given the lyatin Salutatory, the same position my brothers Alpheus and Charles had at their grad- uation. I might have taken a higher stand if I had been two years older and able to contend with more mature minds. Dr. Daniel R. Goodwin, the late distinguished Professor at the Philadelphia Divinity School, was three years in college with me, graduating in 1832, when two years older than myself. He was unquestionably the ablest man in the college. He was President of the Athenaean Society, and his essay against Radicalism for his M. A. degree was published in a pamphlet and was received with more attention because Professor Smyth was considered a Radical. Goodwin succeeded Ivongfellow, whose departure caused Mr. Davies to remark that other institutions not only borrowed our oil but took away our lamps also. Let me quote Justice Fuller's tribute to Dr. Goodwin, whose name and memory we honor highly in our Church : " The wide and varied learning, the accurate scholarship, the critical and incisive intellect of Goodwin, continued in other fields of useful- ness the high distinction which accompanied his efibrts here, while his remarkable power in debate gave him deserved weight in the councils of the Church of which he was a member." Cyrus Hamlin, the great missionary in Turkey, was with me one year in college. While there he made a perfect model of a steam engine, which is still preserved, and his natural gifts were developed by his Bowdoin training, so that he was enabled to meet the greatest diflSculties in that far-ofi" land, and to do a wondrous work in so many different lines. He is but one illustra- tion showing that the faculties trained and the mind disciplined by a college education best fit a man for practical life and business affairs. He came to Alexandria in 1837 and wrote to me in 1899. I think we appreciated more highly our privileges than students seem to do now. The old college life formed habits of diligence, application and energy, taught us to use our wits, to receive an impulse not only from teachers but from fellow students. It cer- tainly turned out men who have grappled successfully with the problem of life. 44 Hawthorne. It turned out the earliest of our great poets, Longfellow, and the first novelist of his age, Hawthorne, the Shakspere of human nature in fiction, who explored the deepest recesses of the human heart ; not to mention those sons distinguished in the State, in religious work and in every department of life. I know of no author in the English language who has afibrded me so much entertainment as Hawthorne. A master of Knglish prose, he has covered every portion of its literature with the glory of his genius. His Wonder Book, suited to young and old alike ; his Note Books, full of keen and delicate observation of all peo- ples and lands that he visited ; his Short Stories and Novels, and his religious allegory, The Celestial Railroad, have beguiled many weary hours in my later life. CHAPTER VI. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. IN the same class with Cyrus Hamlin, was Henry B. Smith, the foremost Presbyterian divine in his day in this country, a Moderator of the General Assembly, and a broad-minded, noble-hearted man. He was converted while at Bowdoin and had wonderful influence on others. We like to recall these men, who, mingling with us on the play- ground and in the class-rooms as equals, have risen above their fellows and written their names on history's fair page. It was at Bowdoin College that nearly all of these men received their strong religious impressions and confessed Christ and decided on their course. It was particularly so of Calvin K. Stowe, of Jacob Abbott and his four brothers, of Rufus Anderson, for more than fifty years the Christian Secretary of State, as it were, in one of the great departments of Christ's kingdom, the American Board of Missions, of Cyrus Hamlin, who there decided to be a missionary ; of Smith and Goodwin, as named above ; of Ezra Abbott, reading from his Greek Testament as he led the Sunday- morning meeting of the " Praying Circle," which was one of the religious forces of the College — an Erasmus, it is said, in scholar- ship, and more than an Erasmus in moral courage ; of George B. Cheever, that fervid and fearless prophet of the L/Ord ; and of unnumbered others, whose names are written in heaven. John Rand of Portland, Me., my class-mate, is now the oldest graduate. He has had the settlements of large estates, and isja man of the highest integrity. In the village church which the students attended, the Rev. Asa Mead was for a time the minister. He had a stern, severe aspect and manner, and on one occasion, when the students were restless and were shuffling their feet, he shook his fist at them and reproved them very severely, and he was unpopular with them. He was followed by the Rev. George Adams, his exact opposite in every respect, and a model of Christian suavity and gentleness. I remember his texts and sermons to this day, after sixty-five years, especially a sermon on Deut. xxxii., 31 : "Their rock is 45 46 College Preachers. not as our rock, our enemies themselves being judges." Often visiting ministers preached to us. I well remember that as I sat in the gallery above the pulpit I saw Dr. Lyman Beecher takeout of his vest pocket a needle and thread and calmly sew together the loose scraps of the sermon he was to preach. His habits of preparation were unusual. If he was to preach in the evening he was to be seen all day talking with whoever would talk, accessible ^o all, full of everybody's aflfairs, business, and burdens till an hour or two before the time, when he would rush up into his study (which he always preferred should be the topmost room of the house), and, throwing off his coat, after a swing or two with the dumbbells to settle the balance of his muscles, he would sit down and dash ahead, making quantities of hieroglyphic notes on small stubbed bits of paper, about as big as the palm of his hand. President William Allen sometimes preached, and once said : " If there were a ray of hope for the impenitent after death, I would expand it into a rainbow which would span the great gulf between heaven and hell." Some one preached on "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed," and the whole sermon was a running parallel between mustard and the Gospel ; mustard was pungent, so was the Gospel. It violated a rule of interpretation, it went on all-fours. The Rev. Mr. Goss, of Boothbay, preached there on Zaccheus' conversion. He dwelt on his being little of stature, and said, as well as I remember, " Small men surrounded by a crowd taller than themselves naturally seek some elevation from which to sur- vey what is going on," and later on made this statement : " Zac- cheus went to a sycamore tree and grasped its trunk, as does the monarch of the forest [a bear] until it shook to its topmost twig." I have heard the father of James R. lyowell preach, who was for fifty-five years pastor of a Congregational Church in Boston ; also Edward Everett, who was at eighteen a wonderful speaker. I heard R. W. Emerson, but it was not like true preaching ; he seemed to have no message to deliver. This was the case with most Unitarians. There was no "sure and certain hope" or "comfortable faith." They got no further than the philosophers of antiquity. The Christian revelation counted for little with them. There is something inexpressibly sad in the contemplation of a body of men of high culture, generous human sympathies, refined tastes, and disciplined characters, self-contained, calm, serene, looking forth upon the world of My Religious Impressions. 47 struggling, suffering men, from a lofty philosophic plane, and offering them nothing better, after nineteen Christian centuries, than the speculations of Plato. It was not until I was eighteen years old that I was awakened to the importance of personal religion. I cannot remember that anything was ever said to me in early life about personal piety, except by a schoolmate at Phillips Academy. Though brought up in a religious family, I had led a prayerless life. I do not remember being taught any forms of prayer or even the Lord's Prayer, and this was owing, doubtless, to the Congregational view of conversion then generally held, which differs greatly from the view of the Episcopal Church. In November, 1830, the Rev. Dr. Bennett Tyler preached a sermon at the College church on the Worth of the Soul, which made a deep impression on me. It afterwards was widely circu- lated as a tract, and has lately been published in his volume of sermons. He said: "The soul derives infinite value from its immortality. Have you thought on that word eter?iity ? Have you weighed the solemn alternative before you, eternal life or eternal death ? I,et me make a supposition that I have heard or read many years ago : ' Suppose this world were to be removed into the regions of infinite space bj^ a little insect — an insect so small that it could carry but a particle at a time — and to a dis- tance so great that he could go and return but once in a thousand years. How long would it take to remove this world ? Suppose this work accomplished, would eternity be ended ? Would it be diminished ? Would there not be an eternity to ensue ? Suppose a thousand such worlds were removed in like manner, still eter- nity would not be ended.' What profit, then, if you gain the whole world and lose your soul ? " [This illustration is found in a German hymn, translated by Miss Wink worth in Lyra Ger- ■ma7nca.'] I was not listening much to the sermon until my mind was arrested by this comparison, and I realized in some feeble sense the immortality of my soul. Eternity seemed to open before me. I had been thoughtless and careless. This was the great crisis in my life. It was as if an arrow had pierced my heart. I was suddenly awakened to the importance of its salvation. I do not, however, regard this awakening as conversion, but as the first step towards it. Men must first be awakened to the importance of religion before they are converted. God's Holy Spirit, under the preaching of the Gospel, or by some other means of grace, even 48 Episcopai, Church in Maink. the casual word of a friend, can flash conviction into the soul of its immortality of happiness or of misery, though He can act without these means. This sermon led to deep seriousness on my part for a long time, and no doubt to my conversion and to a new life. I did not join the Congregational Church for some time. I knew nothing then of the Episcopal Church. There were, I believe, in 1830, but two Episcopal churches in the State of Maine — one at Gardiner and one at Portland. About this period both of them were without a rector. I had heard more in my childhood of the Roman Catholic than of the Episcopal Church. There was a Bishop Cheverus, the first Bishop of Boston, who formed some Roman Catholic churches in New England, and made a great impression. He afterwards returned to France, being recalled by Louis XVIII, and became a Cardinal. In my visits to my brother George at Saco, Maine, I attended the Episcopal church of which he was a member, and I gradually grew to love its Liturgy and its ways, and was confirmed. It was not so much that it was the most apostolic Church on earth in its three orders of ministry, of whose importance I stand in no doubt, but it was its Liturgy and its ways that drew me into the Episco- pal Church. Hence, when I went to Andover I was known as being inclined that way, and I formed one of those feeble folk who met in an upper room and established the first Episcopal church in Andover, of which my brother was afterwards the rector. The theory of the religious life and experience of the young is different in the Congregational Church from that in the Epis- copal Church. In the former young persons were not expected to become pious until eighteen or twenty years of age. They waited for conversion or confession of Christ until some general awakening took place in the community, or until they met with some strange, almost miraculous experience. The Rev. F. Palmer, once a Congregationalist, now an Episcopal minister, says in sub- stance that the Congregational view assumes that all the moral quality of the act must lie in the will of the doer. Their object- ive point of prayer and eflFort, then, is to get men across this sharply dividing line of " I will." Before crossing that they are lost; after crossing that they are saved. The objective point of the Episcopal Church is the bringing of men in all their parts, and the will is one of the most important, into harmony with God. Congregationalism tends to substitute the consciousness of a Congregationalism. 49 spiritual process for the process itself. It aims to bring men to a conscious spiritual crisis, which it so identifies with spiritual life that it cannot conceive of one without the other. Its children must experience a change before they can join the Church. They search for and try to produce this in themselves. In order to pro- duce something they lay hold of any strange emotions which they may find and call them a change, and when the emotions fade, as they will do, the change is often gone. Many others, having no such conscious new state, which usually comes later in the expe- rience of the Christian, stay outside of the Church or become op- posers of religion. Too much stress was laid upon fully under- standing an elaborate confession, and many tender souls suffered without the fold, which should early receive them. This is the method of conquest, the change of the " natural " man, and lays stress on the emotions which accompany conver- sions more than on the fact itself. It treats the children of Chris- tian parents, and men and women living under the influence of Christian principles, as if they were heathen or the vilest sinners, and tries to bring them to the revival bench or altar, feeling as a heathen or a criminal would feel in regard to their salvation. On the other hand, the Episcopal Church looks on conversion as a turning point in a method oi growth, not of conqicest. By the Sacrament of Holy Baptism for Infants it gives the child the spiritual status of the parents, just as it has their status in social position, politics, and manners. The parents being Christians — in reality, not merely in name — then the child will be a little member of Christ, actually, as the Office of Holy Baptism declares. To complete the spiritual Ufe, the child is to add the element of individual choice, and confirm by his own act the process that has beengoing on in him from his birth. Conversion is the actual, open acknowledgment of the child or grown person that God is his father, and Christ his Saviour and King, and that he is henceforth determined to try to live and act as a child of God. Children under this view are to be trained up in the ways of the Church, as members of the Church, so far as they can be, through God's grace and love, and only needing their own act of choice and resolve to complete the relationship, God having most surely and fully fulfilled His part of the covenant. Holy Baptism is a covenant in which God has actually done His part, and not a mere pious ceremony, as most of the denominations regard it. The observance of the great Church festivals are most helpful 50 Church Festivals. in this training, since they arouse and cultivate a class of senti- ments and feelings which the ordinary exercises of the sanctuary leave dormant. On this point, Henry B. Smith, the prominent Presbyterian, says in his essay on Christian Union, &c., in Faith and Philosophy, that re-union would be greatly aided if the diflferent Churches would " unite in some stated religious observ- ances, commemorative of the great historic facts of the Christian faith in which they all agree and which cannot be appropriated by any one branch of the Church, such as the birth, the death, and the resurrection of our Lord, and the giving of the Holy Ghost. For these festivals antedate not only our divisions, but also the corruptions of the Papacy ; they exalt the Lord and not man ; they involve a public and solemn recognition of essential Christian facts, and are thus a standing protest against infidelity and connect us with the whole Christian history." The life of childhood is, by the Episcopal Church, thus early associated with the life of Christ, and thus the child is led on gradually and insensible to the love and service of his Saviour, not, however, without the grace of God acting on him and renew- ing him. Says Rev. Dr. Austin Phelps, an eminent Congrega- tionalist : " If I had been trained in the Episcopal Church, I should at the age of twelve years have been confirmed and have entered on a consciously religious life, and grown up into Christian living of the Episcopalian type. It was to me a sad misfortune that my Presbyterian culture had not, in addition to its high spiritual ideal of regenerate character, something of the Episcopalian ideal of Christian growth. The natural ascent to God for a Christian child is the Christian home, the family altar, the social amenities of life suffused by the love of God and man." It was a favorite remark of the pious Philip Doddridge, in con- firmation of this, that if parents did their full duty, conversion to God in adult age would be a rare thing. The rite of Confirmation, too, has a most important influence in awakening children to a consciousness of their duty. When Dr. Charles Hodge was in Germany he was very much struck with the strict observance of this rite by the Superintendents of the Lutheran churches, for in Germany every child is baptized and confirmed, and he thought it edifying and wished it could be observed in his own Church. BuRiAi, Customs. 51 The duty of submission to the sovereignty of God was in the theology of New England made very prominent, and the work of Christ in our salvation was by it overshadowed. Instead of pre- senting Christ as a Saviour, and as willing to save to the utter- most all who come unto God through Him, a law-work was con- sidered necessary— that is, deep conviction of one's sinfulness, followed by some sudden and revolutionary change of heart ; so that men looked to themselves too much instead of to Christ. I have thought it would be helpful to speak of these two different views of the Christian life and conversion, as realized by me. I might here add a word as to burial customs. Hearses were not known at that time, and the body was carried on a bier by bearers. The head of the family would at the grave thank those who attended the burial for their sympathy and presence. President Allen, of Bowdoin, had a lovely wife, the daughter ot President Wheelock, of Dartmouth. When she was buried he made a very touching address at the grave, speaking of her to the friends who attended. Professor Newman preached a sermon in the house at my mother's burial on the text, " Let me go, for the day breaketh," and gave out a hymn, " Hear what the voice from heaven declares." Only a few years ago I was pleasantly impressed at seeing Gen. Custis Lee and Capt. R. E. Lee at the burial of their brother, Gen. W. H. F. Lee, go around and speak to his old friends and companions in arms. In the year 1830, I employed my three months vacation in the winter, teaching a school of forty boys and girls, some of whom were grown. I boarded around and was kept very busy, often sitting up till eleven o'clock, correcting exercises, setting copies and mending the quill pens. I never worked harder and my only comfort was spending Saturday and Sunday at my brother Charles' home in Brunswick, Maine. His widow, in her ninety- fifth year, still lives there, in a serene and beautiful old age. Two of her sons. Revs. Edward and George T., are ministers, and her oldest son. Dr. Charles W. Packard, is an eminent physician in New York, at whose house I spent many happy days, when attending the meetings of the Revision Committee. After gradu.ting in 1831, I went to Walpole to be associate with Charles H. Allen, of Harvard, in a new academy just erected. This was a most beautiful town on the high banks of the Con- necticut in a very refined and wealthy community. We had boys 52 WAI.POI.E AND BrATTLEBORO. and girls and there I taught W. D. Wilson, whose long and use- ful life has been a blessing to the Church. I recall his eagerness to learn and his standing up to recite his Latin lesson. I had a class of ambitious girls, most eager to learn and to outvie each other in Latin and other studies. We had an orrery which excited deep interest. The school was an admirable one but not a financial success. I boarded with a Mrs. Robeson, whose brother was a retired merchant from Montreal. She was a fine character and they lived very well. In 1832, a vacancy occured in Brattleboro Academy, Vermont, and I was invited to take charge, which I did, and with some small assistance carried on the school for a year. I introduced prayers and reading the Bible in the school. While I was there a revival took place and I then made a profession of religion in the Congregational Church, on account of which the Unitarians, who were very bitter against the Orthodox, as they were called, with- drew their scholars and looked askance at me. In the Congregational Church on profession of faith, all who joined came out in the aisle, having given their experience previ- ously to the Committee, and were addressed by the pastor, Mr. McGee, and asked questions, " Do you solemnly promise, etc. ? " From my father's home at Middlesex, at the junction of the canal from Boston and the Merriraac River, I made my first trip to Boston, on the canal. Bricks were just then coming into use for sidewalks ; previously they had been laid with flat slabs of slate or shale, put down in any shape they happened to take in splitting. CHAPTER VII. ANDOVER AND MOSES STUART. I HAD always, as far as I can remember, thought of being a min- ister ; so, after teaching for awhile as principal of an academy, I entered Andover Seminary. Andover Seminary, founded in 1808, was the first theological seminary of any note founded in this or any other country, and it began the new system of prepara- tion for th- ministry. Before that date it was supposed that a college graduate was acquainted with theology as with any other branch of learning. A term of twelve months, or six, and often only three, was spent with a pastor in reading a few books and in writing a few essays and sermons, and this was deemed sufficient preparation for the ministry. Here first was realized the idea of gathering students within college walls for three years for the study of Divinity in the departments of Doctrinal Theology, Biblical Study and Sacred Rhetoric, with every possible advantage for mutual incitement and mutual helpfulness. Theological seminaries have greatly multiplied since that day in this and every country, but they have been modelled on this, and difier but little. The founding of this seminary, as it provided new means and advantages, created a demand for a higher and wider range of theological learning in all the churches. At the time I entered, it was in its third decade— the period of its largest numbers, certainly during its first sixty years— and it drew large classes from all parts of the country, one of which had seventy- nine members. All denominations went there, even Baptists, like Dr. Wayland, and Dr. Smith, author of " My Country, 'tis of Thee." There have been some changes since that time in the number of professors in seminaries. Several new branches have been introduced, and the Old and New Testaments have been given to separate chairs. There were four professors and one assistant there when I entered. Andover, though a small town, had been the home of many eminent men during their studies. It was twenty miles from Boston, and was like this Seminary of ours, " a city set on a hill." Its view was much admired, and one could see the distant mountains in Massachusetts. The sunrise and sunset were very 53 54 Andover Seminary. beautiful there. I was there during the meteoric shower, on November ii, 1833. I waked up one morning early, thinking the chimney was on fire. I looked out of the window and saw the whole sky filled with stones or flakes of fire as large as the hand. It caused great fright to the horses in the stages, and many people thought the judgment-day had come. The class to which I belonged was never a famous one. I knew there Munson, who was eaten bj^ cannibals afterwards. He was a serious, grave man, and once he found a novel of Scott, which he read all night, never having read one before, and being perfectly carried away by it. He and Lyman were students together, and as missionaries they went on an exploring expedition together into Sumatra. They were advised to take guns with them into the interior, and, coming to a mud fort in Qualebattoo, they were attacked by the natives, who thought them enemies, were speared and eaten. The United States Government sent a vessel there to punish the natives and burned their villages. Andover Seminary sent out in its first fifty years one hundred and thirty-four foreign missionaries, many of whom were eminent as explorers, translators and preachers, and as founders of great missionary enterprises. Three hundred went out as home mis- sionaries to the West and to the Indians. Two hundred were professors in colleges and seminaries, twenty-six have been presi- dents of colleges, and the same number have been editors. Our professors were able men. Leonard Woods, D. D., was considered an able theologian, of remarkable acumen. He was rather a heavy man, as I remember, and he read his lectures in the afternoon from a manuscript yellow with age, and they had rather a soporific effect. They were afterwards published precisely as read. Our evening prayers were conducted by one of the professors, and I can now see before me Dr. Woods' tall form and hear him read the hymn — " Thou art the sea of love Where all my pleasures roll, The circle where my passions move And centre of my soul." The Rev. Dr. Skinner, Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, was a very courteous man, and he introduced a new style of intercourse with the students. There had been a great want of courtesy between Andover Professors. 55 professors and students, but with Dr. Skinner began a newr%ime, as he always touched his hat to the students and was very polite. He was thought a very strong preacher, and his sermons were much admired. Professor Emerson was a dry, formal man, who did not add much to the strength of the Faculty and he soon retired to a more suitable sphere. He used the word "touching " as a preposition. Once a student rapped for silence at "Commons" and said: "Touching Professor Emerson's lecture to-day there will be none," and all enjoyed the joke. Prof. Moses Stuart, professor of Biblical lyiterature, exerted a greater influence upon my life and character than any other man I have ever known. I have elsewhere testified to what I owe to him and to my sense of his greatness as a man and teacher, but I may be permitted here to repeat some things and to add other things about him, which impressed us then and are of lasting value in his character and work. I avail myself of the words of others about him, though, strange to say, no life of him has ever been written. It was a great day for all theological learning in this country when Moses Stuart was dismissed from his charge in New Haven to fill the chair of Biblical I^earningat Andover. He had then, at thirty years of age, a reputation as an eloquent preacher and successful minister. President Dwight said : " We cannot spare him." Dr. Spring replied : " We want no man who can be spared." He came to Andover with no wealth of learn- ing, no fame for scholarship, and but a scanty knowledge of Greek or Hebrew. He said himself that he knew little more than the Hebrew alphabet, and the power to make out after a poor fashion the bare translation of five or six chapters of Genesis by the aid of the Lexicon. He never had the aid of any teacher in his Biblical studies, for at that time there was scarcely a man in this country who had such a knowledge of Hebrew as was requisite to be a teacher. He had to blaze his way, as it were, through an un- known country, to mark out the road, level the forest, establish the grade, and lay the rails on which we now travel so easily. Ivike the great leader of Israel, for whom he was named, Moses Stuart led us through the wilderness, and from the mount of vision showed us the goodly land which we now enjoy. About two years after coming to Andover he prepared a Hebrew ■Grammar without points which the students were obliged to copy 56 Moses Stuart. day by day from his written sheets. Hebrew types were not known by compositors, and he had to teach the printers their art and set up the types for half the paradigms of verbs with his own hands. Five editions of this grammar were published here, and the fourth edition was republished in England by Dr. Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford. At a time when the question was contemptuously asked, " Who reads an American book? " and when hardly an American author had a work republished in Europe, a self-taught professor in a theologi- cal seminary in a rural district of New England furnished a He- brew grammar and reader to an English university. Professor Eee, of the University of Cambridge, England, also admired him and his work most highly. Professor Stuart was a pioneer also in the introduction of Ger- man theological literature into our country. In consulting Schlensner's Lexicon he was troubled by the German terms therein used, which no one could explain to him. His curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and at great expense he obtained the apparatus for German study, and in a fortnight had read the Gospel of St. John in German. A friend gave him Seiler's Bibli- cal Hermeneutics. He writes : " Before I obtained Seller I did not know enough to believe that I yet knew nothing in sacred criticism." He often said that he did not really begin the critical study of the Bible until he was forty years old. From these bold forays into the Biblical learning of the German universities he returned laden with rich spoils. Others have gone further than he in German studies, and have penetrated more deeply the cloudy mysteries of the Teutonic philosophy and its relations, but it was his thorough grasp of those principles and his teaching and his influence that made Andover famous as a seat of learning, and that led its students into wider fields of theological enquiry. Many good men of that day feared as to the results of his German studies and lamented his waste of time on such ill-judged pur- suits. The value of these researches, however, was soon to appear. Unitarianism was then a dominant influence in Massachusetts. Dr. Channing, at the ordination of Rev. Jared Sparks, in Balti- more, preached a sermon, in which he advocated Unitarian opin- ions and attacked orthodox Christianity. In his Eetters to Dr. Channing on Unitarianism, Stuart treated in a strict exegetical, grammatical manner all the texts in dispute between the Unita- Unitarian Controversy. 57 rians and Trinitarians, and fortified his views by quotations as to the interpretation from the ablest German scholars. He appealed to the Word of God alone to establish his positions, and applied the principles of interpretation learned from his German studies with most convincing power. He closed the letters thus : ' ' When I behold the glory of the Saviour, as revealed in the gospel, I am constrained to cry out, with the believing Apostle, ' My Lord and my God ! ' And when my departing spirit shall quit these mortal scenes, and wing its way to the world unknown, with my latest breath I desire to pray, as the expiring martyr did, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' " The first edition of this book was exhausted in a week, and five other editions rapidly followed. Four or five editions were soon printed in England, with the highest commen- dations by Dr. John Pye Smith, Dr. Chalmers and others. An eminent theologian, on reading it, said to him, "You have filled a void in my mind which has existed for ten years." One of his colleagues said to him " You could not have written that volume without your German aids." The book is a model of Christian controversy, and the whole Church owes him a debt of gratitude for his defence of the faith, which is superior to that masterly one of Dr. Wardlaw, of Glas- gow. Unitarianism had been before attacked by theological argu- ments, but now, for the first time, there was a rigid exegesis of every text in the New Testament which bore upon the divinity of our Lord. This exegesis, as we have said, was immensely strengthened by quotations from German commentators, who cared little for the doctrine involved but treated the text imparti- ally. In the Life of John Duncan, of Scotland, there is a striking account of tlie effect produced on David Brown by these letters, and their effect upon the Christian world will never be told. These letters made a powerful impression at home and abroad, and placed him at the head of all biblical expositors. They dis- played his vast reading of authors almost unknown in America, his keen, cri;ical acumen, his power and completeness in meeting the objection to his construction of the controverted passages of Scripture, and the accuracy and reliability of the proof on which he founded his belief of the Deity of Christ. This was proved by the very slight modifications of his argument that had to be made after passing through the severe ordeal of opposing criticism for several editions. 58 Stuart's Commkntaries. Professor Stuart's precept and example reacted powerfully upon the classical instruction of every college of New England, and raised the standard, which was then at a low point. When a tutor or professor was needed in a college, but one course was suggested, " Send for a man from Andover." His contributions to sacred literature would almost make a library in themselves, and he wrote, besides, on a great variety of subjects in the Reviews. Eighty-one articles of his may be men- tioned. He wrote twenty volumes of books and fourteen pamph- lets, commentaries on Romans, Hebrews, Apocalypse, Daniel, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. In his sixty-seventh year he read all the tragedies of ^schylus for the sake of delecting idioms and allusions explanatory of the Bible. On his seventy-second birth- day he began his Exposition of the Proverbs, and in four months it was ready for the press, and its last proof-sheets were corrected and sent oflf two days before he died. I have always valued Stuart's commentaries as containing prificiples as well as opinions. All this work was done in spite of ill-health and weakness, so great that he was allowed only three hours a day for study. He would begin with secret or audible prayer, often chanting a Psalm in Hebrew, and would suffer no interruption. He was asked to officiate at the marriage of his ward, who lived in his house, and consented to do so if the ceremony should take place after half-past eleven in the forenoon. Being urged to perform it at an earlier hour, he refused to give up his study-hour and another minister was called in. As a preacher he was most eloquent and effective, and learned and unlearned heard him gladly. His personal appearance was striking. He was of a large, loosely-hung frame, like Henry Clay, of wiiom he reminded me. His manner, commanding and impassioned, gave to his words a power which they lost on the printed page. His voice was deep, sonorous, solemn, like what I imagine that of a prophet might be, a voice which more than any other I can remember seemed to open a way from the heart of the speaker to that of the hearer. We counted it a great privilege when he preached in his turn in the chapel. He thought that exegetical studies unfitted him for preaching, so he desired that all his preaching should come at one time, when his warmth and earnestness could be kept up. Prof. Kingsley of Yale, himself a good judge, said he was the most eloquent man he had ever heard. Moses Stuart would have been eminent in any calling, and would Stuart as Preacher. 59 have left his impress for good, so high, great and noble were his aims. Dr. W. W. Taylor once said that the best sermons were simple and vivid presentations of saving truth, that go straightest and deepest into the hearts and consciences of men, and that Moses Stuart was the most powerful preacher, according to this standard, that he had ever known. He preached Christ and Him crucified. One of his sermons on the Atonement closed thus : "I ask for no other privilege on earth but to make known the efficacy of His death ; and none in heaven but to associate with those who ascribe •salvation to His blood. Amen." His public prayers were fervid, scriptural, and delightful to the Christian heart. Once he prayed, " May we seek the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. May we be pilgrims and sojourners here on earth ; and as we pass through this vale of tears, this shadow of death, feed us with bread from heaven, and give us the water of life, and when we come to the Jordan of death, may the waves divide on either side and give us a passage to the heavenly Canaan." He delighted in the Wednesday evening conference of profes- sors and students, very much like our faculty meetings on Thurs- day evenings. Here the great principles of practical and experimental religion, and all matters of religious experience, duty and comfort were fully treated ; the work of the Saviour and the Spirit was glorified, and counsel and aid were given to the students as to their peculiar duties and dangers. Professor Stuart said : " If there is any part of my duty which I can remember with pleasure on a dying bed, it is what I did in the Wednesday Conference." He always added short exegetical remarks when he had prayers. He was a man of deep sensibility, and I have seen him with tears in his eyes when celebrating the Lord's Supper and when parting with the Senior Class. He was genial and pleasant ; I often walked with him, and asked his opinions of persons and books, and he was always ready to answer. I asked him once about Hengstenberg's view that the Millennium had already passed, between the fifth and sixteenth centuries. He said, " If so, it was a millennium of the devil." I remember asking him what he thought of Adam Clarke's Commentaries. He answered, "They are a farrago of pedantry." He was so delicate that he spent the time, except the three hours which he devoted to study, in trying 6o Stuart as Teacher. to strengthen himself for his work, often sawing wood or walk- ing for exercise ; the students would usually walk with him. Professor Stuart was liberal to all Christians, and specially kind to those of a diflFering denomination. I was inclined to the Episcopal Church when I went there, and was one of the few who used to meet in an upper room for Episcopal services, in which Rev. Dr. Stone, from Boston, ministered. I remember the text of one of his sermons, " He that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul." Stone had a rich, fertile mind, and could make the com- monest subject interesting. Some Episcopalians went to Andover. Among them Reuel Keith, the first professor here, Bishop Horatio Southgate, Charles H. Hall, of Brooklyn, George Leeds, of Baltimore, Daniel R. Goodwin, of the Philadelphia Divinity School, Charles Mason, of Boston, and C. B. Dana were for a longer or shorter time at Andover Seminary. As a teacher he must be placed high among the first class. He had three distinguishing elements of a great teacher — intellec- tual power, positiveness and enthusiasm. He had not merely a great memory and power of acquisition, like Macaulay, but real intellectual power of the first quality. This was shown by his originality in the best sense, and his power of grasping and weighing all truth, which is of such value to learning, and which alone makes a teacher truly effective. He marked out a course of his own ; his plan of study, his spirit and methods of investi- gation of the Scriptures, were new at that t-me, and he made his own text-books. The second important element was his positiveness. Another eminent professor, it was said, rather thought that two and two make four, although he would not be too confident. Moses Stuart scarcely knew what it was to rather doubt or rather believe any proposition which he examined. He was firmly convmced of its truth or falsity, or sure that he could come to no certain opinion. The words "unquestionably, undoubtedly," uttered with his tone of conviction, still linger in my ears. Such positiveness, if accompanied with a profound and reverent searching of God's Word, is essential in a theological teacher or preacher. Their opinions and preaching should have a bold and decided character, and not leave the hearers in a sea of uncertainty. Some teachers shrink from decisive opinions. In explaining Scripture or doc- trine which admits of more than one construction, they so evenly His Positiveness and Enthusiasm. 6i adjust the argument that the theological balances are in perpetual equipoise. Thei r belief is so mixed with doubt, and their doubt so qualified with belief, that it is hard to say which preponderates and it amounts to pretty much the same whether they believe or doubt. Not so with Professor Stuart ; he spoke with an authority and positiveness which, combined with his intellectual power and research, settled the question. His words were authority to his students. A third trait was his enthusiasm and earnestness. He never became dry by reason of his minute study of particles and lin- guistic details. Far from it ; he kept the dullest mind awake ; he aroused the most sluggish nature by his fiery zeal. In the ciass-room the students hung upon his words. After a brief and impressive prayer he began the lecture, and questions, remarks, and suggestions flew off like electric sparks, so that the utmost enthusiasm was excited ; and when the hour was past, a whole class hurried to pursue their studies, as if they had just discov- ered what treasures of knowledge were opening before them, and that life was too short to lose a moment from their acquisition. Dr. Wayland says of him : " The burning earnestness of his own spirit kindled to a flame everything that came in contact with it. We saw the exultation which brightened his eye and ir- radiated his whole countenance, if by some law of the Greek ar- ticle a saying of Jesus could be rendered more definite and precise, and we all shared in his joy. We caught his spirit and felt that life was valuable for little else than to explain to men the teach- ings of the well-beloved Son of God. If any one of us had barely possessed the means sufficient to buy a coat or to buy a lex- icon, I do not believe that a man of us would for a moment have hesitated. The old coat would have been called on for another year's service, and the student would have gloried over his Schleusner as one that findeth great spoil. In his class-room we became acquainted with the learned and good of the past and the present; we entered into and shared their labors ; we were co- workers with them and with our teacher, who was the medium of intercourse between us and them." Jacob Abbott said that Stuart had waked up tnore minds than any other man. Many of his students have said : " I first learned to think under the inspiration of Moses Stuart. He first taught me to use my mind." In the class-room he would often digress 62 Stuart's Work, from the subject in hand and give us valuable advice and sugges- tions as to the ministry. One of his anecdotes about Dr. Bellamy is recalled. Dr. Bel- lamy often had students for the ministry preparing under him. One of them returned after a year's absence, and told him that after preaching with all his might he had converted nobody. Dr. Bel- lamy said to him : " You know when you are fishing for trout you must not let your shadow fall upon the water, but silently throw your hook from under the rocks and trees ; while you jump into the water with a six-foot pole and cry out, ' Bite, you dogs you, bite.' " In his last sickness he said: "I have long since learned that feelings in religious experience are deceptive. I look mainly to my life for my evidence. I think that my first aim in life has been to glorify God, and that I have been ready to labor and suf- fer for Him." Dr. Stuart found great comfort in his last hours in the verse from Job ' ' Wearisome nights are appointed to me. ' ' He loved the Sabbath day and I think one of the surest proofs that one is truly pious is that he loves the lyord's Day. Thus ended a long and laborious life, spent in the service of his Master. He did a work which no other could have accomplished. Besides his written publications, living scholars were his books, and they, instead of types in ink, have perpetuated his influence. He was the inspiring teacher of more than fifteen hundred minis- ters ; of more than seventy presidents or professors in colleges and seminaries ; of more than one hundred missionaries to the heathen ; of thirty translators of the Bible into foreign languages ; through his students he had preached the gospel in all lands ; and his memorial is more lasting than brass and more precious than marble. I have felt that the record of such a model preacher and pro- fessor was due not only to his memory and work, but might be inspiring to ministers and teachers. CHAPTER VIII. BRISTOL COLLEGE. SHORTLY after leaving Andover I went to Bristol College, near Philadelphia, and was made Professor of Latin, Hebrew, and some other branches. Bristol College was started in 1833, by Rev. Drs. Bedell, Tyng, Milner of New York, Bishop Meade of Virginia, and others, as an evangelical college for boys and young men. It met with great success during its short life of four years, and went under from a want of financial support at a critical period. Rev. George W. Cole, an Episcopal minister, was professor there. I had known him at Bowdoin, and it was through his suggestion that I was appointed. It had a staff of eight professors and two hundred students in its various departments. The Revs. W. T. Eeavell and J. A. Buck were in the pioneer class and have added to my recollections of the college. The Sophomore class of 1833 had six members — ^J. A. Buck, D. H. Buel, E. B. Mc- Guire, W. T. Leavell, T. A. Todd, and Montgomery Shaw. The Freshman class was twice as large. The Academical Department numbered about one hundred, and the Select School for boys of Episcopal parents had about thirty pupils from ten to sixteen j^ears old. Rev. Dr. Chauncy Colton was President of the Col- lege, Rev. C. J. Good, Professor of Languages ; William Nelson Pendleton, Professor of Mathematics ; Rev. James French, an assistant professor ; Rev. George W. Cole was head of the Aca- demical Department, and Rev. Chester Newell was head of the Select School, with James Hulme, a student for the ministry, as- sisting. Rev. C. S. Henry and myself were added in the second year, 1834. Henry was a versatile, brilliant man and taught philosophy. Two of the class were communicants and preparing for the ministry. Two others joined the class and graduated in 1836, and four of the number received their first communion there. Five of the six communicants became ministers. There were twenty-five students from Virginia. I recall the names of Bedell, Berkeley, Bulkley, Bull, Crampton, Dobbs, Fackler, Fales, Gibson, Gillette, Halstead, Halsey, Heister, Jackson, father of Bishop H. Melville Jackson, Barton Key, B. B. Minor, Robert Nelson, Noble, 63 64 Professor at Bristol. Noblitt, John Page, Sheets, Shiras, John Augustine Washington, Benjamin Watson, long highly honored in Philadelphia, and G. T. Wilmer. I recall that Rev. Mr. Bull of Pennsylvania had two sons there. At one of the celebrations Dr. Colton presided and announced the names of the speakers in a very imposing way. When young Bull was to speak, he said in a deep voice, '' proxi- mus procedat scilicet Bull." One winter the Delaware was frozen for three months and all the college was much on the river. I had my rooms in Clifton Hall where many of the boys were. The steamers from Philadelphia to Trenton stopped at the Col- lege wharf to let off passengers and visitors at commencement. I often visited Philadelphia where I stayed with my cousin Fred- erick, or Princeton where several Andover friends were living. The character of Bristol College was in some respects peculiar. Whilst it aimed at high mental culture, it was chiefly designed by its founders to advance the moral and physical powers to their proper degree of improvement. Every one of the Faculty and of the Board of Visitors was a consistent and zealous Christian, and nearly all of them ministers of the Gospel, who looked upon the students as their special care, and who exerted themselves at all times to combine religious with intellectual training. The result of their faithful labors was that many who had come there with all the thoughtlessness of youth were added to the Church and became most useful ministers. The students had their social prayer-meetings during the week, their monthly Missionary Concert of Prayer, and on occasion all would contribute largely and regularly to the different objects of church-work far beyond the average of more wealthy congrega- tions. The students who were candidates for the ministry had an excellent influence, as salt to savor the mass, and the mission- ary, evangelical spirit was kept alive and ablaze. I have never seen more devout, earnest, faithful living, and I cannot forget the beautiful singing, such as Inspirer and hearer of prayer , at even- ing chapel, and the earnest and devout services. The course of instruction was thorough ; the young men the finest I have ever seen in college, and different in many respects from New England men, younger and more genial. Most of the students were from the South, Virginia and the Carolinas, sons of planters. One of them, still living, told me one year ago that he owed his conversion to my influence there. Student L,ife. 65 One of the most popular ministers at that time was Rev. Wil- liam Suddards, and he preached for us sometimes. A great religious interest was aroused at Bristol College by a sad occur- rence. One of the students was not able to go to church, but not sick enough for a nurse. When they returned from service they found him dead, kneeling at his bedside, and it made a deep im- pression. The students were only allowed to go out of the grounds two together. There was a regular system of manual labor and all were required to engage in some kind of work in the shops or on the farm from three to five in the afternoon, five days of the week. One day when they were digging potatoes, Chauncy Colton, the President, came out. They pelted him with small potatoes. He drew himself up with great dignity and said, " I am President ". Rev. Wm. T. Leavell wrote in his diary December 5, 1835 : " At 10 and II A. M. attended my own recitations in Moral Science and Hebrew, the former under Prof. C. S. Henry and the latter under Prof. Joseph Packard." He adds: "Here we find two names added to the Faculty, men fully equal to the others in qualification and devotion to their duties as teachers of youth. Who chose such men ? We answer, good evangelical Church- men, such as Drs. Bedell, Tyng, Milner and J. S. Stone and others like them ; with colaborers of the laity, such as Cope, Kinsman, and Mitchell (Dr.) of Philadelphia." G. T. Bedell, afterwards Bishop of Ohio, was the youngest of the first class, nicknamed by his class as " Energy Bedell ". His mother doubtless had much to do with his energetic life at college and in the ministry. Dr. Tyng once called her a remarkable woman and a wonderful worker. At least two of the orations de- livered by this class on Commencement Day were on the subject oi Missions, and I think many of the men were willing and anxious to be sent anywhere that Christ would call them and His Church would send them. I first saw the Soiithern Churchman in the hands of C. J. Gibson in 1834, its first year I think. Gibson was the young lady of the college from his sweet countenance and gentle manners. His complexion was beautiful, fresh and ruddy, with a peculiarly attractive expression. He was a great favorite, and every one loved him ; a pure and beautiful character, whose work and name will never be forgotten in Virginia, where his son is now Bishop. 66 CivOsiNG OP Bristol Coi^IvEGE. Bristol College was bought by its founders for $20,000. It was a beautiful place between the Delaware and Neshaminy rivers, containing 300 acres, with a splendid house, built by a rich China tea merchant. It was most substantially built, the walls were very thick, and the roof was covered with copper. One room was a cube of twenty feet and was used as a chapel. Bristol College did not come into friendly relations with the Bishop of Pennsylvania, though he was Bishop White. It failed because, having no endowment, and being conducted with no view of making money, much was going out in its purchase and extension and little came in. It relied on aid from the clergy named above, in Philadelphia, and on Dr. Milner of New York, who, on account of the great fire there, was unable to raise money for it. so that it had to suspend. Bishop Onderdonk offered to redeem it if it should be put under Diocesan control, but Dr. Tyng refused the offer and it closed in February, 1837. Bristol College passed through many changes ; once it was in the hands of the Roman Catholics, then it was sold to the colored people. With such an able and devoted faculty as Bristol College had, with its beauty and convenience of position, its high and noble aim, it should have had a long career of honor and usefulness, for it did a great work in its short life of four years. I have never understood why it was allowed to perish, when other colleges have lived on for years. I must add extracts from two letters written me not long before his death, by my valued and life-long friend, Major John Page, whose sons. Rev. Frank Page, Thomas Nelson Page and Rosewell Page of the Richmond bar, are well known : Oaki,and, Va., April 30, 1900. My Dear Old Friend : Your letter gave tne unqualified pleasure. One of the pleasures of my past days is to think of the dear old friends I have known, among the chief of whom I count you. I have known you for sixty-four years and have always respected and loved you. I ever think of you and the brave days of Bristol College. Never in life have you been out of my recollection, and now I rejoice that your honored old age is so com- fortable, and that you can look back on a long and useful life. I remember with much pleasure the visit my son Tom and I paid you. I, like you, have had great comfort in my children. They have all turned out well. You have always filled a post of honor, and have had much to do with the training of our younger clergy, among them my own son. Rev. Frank Page. I know no one who can look back on their past days with more satisfac- Major John Page. 67 tion than you ; your long and useful course of educating young men for the ministry must be a source of pleasure. I have just passed my seventy-ninth birthday, the 26th of April. I subscribe myself Your sincere friend, JOHN PAGE. Writing to Rev. T. J. Packard, Major Page adds : I remember your father ever since the fall of 1834, and he seemed to me as old then as he does now, the oldest young man, or to put it more politely, the youngest old man, I ever saw. He was looked up to there with admira- tion and respect, shall I say, awe ? as much as now. Dr. Packard was always considered a very learned man. He was always kind and considerate of us boys, for we were nothing but boys. I remember reading Livy at Bristol College under him, and the little I know of I^atin and Greek is very much due to his instruction and infusion of interest in the study of the classics. [Rev. Frank Page after my father's death wrote this tri- bute.— Ed.] My father always had the greatest affection for him. Dr. Packard was an inspiration to us. His illustrations, his quaint sayings, his reverence for sacred things, his humility, his scholarship, his cordiality in his own house, I remember as if it were yesterday. In fact, I cannot think of the Seminary without him. I always had the greatest regard for him. CHAPTER IX. COMING TO VIRGINIA. " Ah ! little kenned my mither When a bairn she cradled me, Through what lands I should wander, And the death that I should dee." WHIIvE teaching at Bristol I was elected in April, 1836, Profes- sor of Sacred L,iterature in the Theological Seminary of Vir- ginia. I think it was through the agency of Professor William N. Pendleton, my colleague, and through the Virginia students there, twenty-five in number, whose names I have mentioned, that I was suggested for the place. It certainly seems the leading of Providence that I, a stranger from a distant State, should be brought here. The Rev. Charles B. Dana, rector of Christ church, Alexandria, one of the Trustees of the Seminary, had been at Andover, and he had written to Professor Stuart in regard to my qualifications. The latter wrote a letter, saying that I had " made unusual progress in the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures," and that I was " fit for any Faculty." Professor Stuart told me later on, some years before his death, that all his life he had been trying to teach the Bible, and that I must do the same. I accepted the position and went at once to Andover to perfect myself. I read and studied hard, but late in the summer I had typhoid or nervous fever, which left me very weak and prevented my coming to the Seminary till the middle of October, after the session had begun. Meanwhile I was ordained Deacon by Bishop Griswold, in St. Paul's church, Boston, of which Rev. John S. Lindsay, D. D., is now rector, on July 17, 1836, together with W. H. Hoit, Charles Mason and George Waters, just at the very time when the venerable Bishop White was dying. Bishop Gris- wold preached on the text, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," the same sermon as at Dr. Lippitt's ordination seven- teen years before. We were presented by Dr. J. S. Stone, who examined us. Dr. Stone I had known before at Andover, where he used to come to preach, and he was one of our most eminent and useful ministers. On that same day in Virginia Bishop Moore ordained Francis H. McGuire, Alex. M. Marbury, Launce- lot B. Minor, R. E. Northam, John Payne (afterwards Bishop of 68 My Ordination. 69 Africa), Thomas S. Savage and I. E. Sawyer, most of whom I knew intimately later on. My first sermon was preached at Han- over, Massachusetts, for which I received five dollars, covering my expenses there. The day I was ordained I took tea with Jeremiah Mason, the great lawyer of New England, whose son Charles was ordained with me. Jeremiah Mason used to stay with my brother when on his circuit. Charles Mason was a very attractive man and good minister. I have a volume of his sermons. About that time I met Amos Lawrence, a philanthropist and a man of great wealth, a millionaire, which was then a great distinction. In a letter of my father to his daughter, written March 30, 1848, he speaks of Mr. Lawrence, who was a kind friend of his : " Mr. Amos Lawrence is still thinking of the family for good. He has recently paid into the treasury of the Am. Board Society $150 to make my five children life members, thirty dollars each, besides doing other kindnesses. My idea is that he is distributing his wealth very properly, and in return I hope he will enjoy in abun- dance those true riches which are liable neither to rust, decay or flight." From 1831 to the close of his life in 1855 he devoted himself to deeds of charity, giving liberally to educational institu- tions in various parts of the country. He founded and main- tained a Children's Infirmary in Boston and his private charities were abundant. Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts, his grandson was assistant to my brother George, at Lawrence, a place named from the family, and always showed the consider- ation and thoughtful attention that marks the highest type of Christian gentleman. The Episcopal Church was very weak in New England, and Bishop Edward Bass, the first Bishop of Massachusetts, had only labored six years, when he passed away in 1803, the year my brother Gecrge was born. The centennial of his consecration in 1897 was marked by an interesting life of him written by Rev. D. D. Addison. He had his fund of jokes, and some of these have been pre- served. Although born in Dorchester, he had some objection to living there. Upon being remonstrated with for deserting his native place, he simply replied, " The brooks of Dorchester are not large enough for Bass to swim in." His first marriage displeased many of his parishoners, and caused a ripple of gossip to pass through the town, so much so 70 Bishop Bass. that Bishop Bass concluded to preach about it. For some time he could not fix upon an appropriate text, but his search was grati- fied when he found this one, from which he preached the follow- ing Sunday — Gen. xx. 2, " Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake." Nothing more was said about his wife after this, and his second wife pro- voked no comment at all. Her name was Mercy, and before his marriage he preached on the text, " He that followeth after mercy findeth life," or as some put it, "I love mercy and I will have mercy." Bishop Griswold, Bishop of the Eastern Diocese, embracing Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, was of marked character and influence. He was an evan- gelical Low Churchman, of earnest, spiritual nature. He was first a lay-reader, and was so acceptable that he was urged to take orders. He was ordained in 1795 Deacon, and in October, Priest, at the last ordination of Bishop Seabury. He was poor and had to sup- port his family by the work of his hands until ordained, and, not being able to afford candles, he would stretch himself on the hearth and study by the light of the fire late into the night, after toiling all day. After his ordination his salary was so small that he had to teach a district school in winter, and he worked in summer at seventy-five cents a day harvesting. While farming he got a beard of wheat in his throat, and at last being made to cough, it came out, but it affected his voice and produced an impediment in his speech. Bishop Griswold was remarkably simple and unpretending in his ways ; this in one in his position had a great effect on people, and he won many to the Episcopal Church ; about two hundred and fifty ministers from other churches were ordained by him. Prof. E. A. Parks of Andover in a sermon in 1844 satirized severely the motives of those entering our ministry. He said : " Proclamation has been made in high places that within the last thirty years about three hundred clergymen and licentiates of other denominations have sought the ministerial commission from the hands of bishops ; that two-thirds of all the present clergy of the Church ' have come from other folds' ; and that of two hundred and eighty-five persons ordained by a single bishop in New England [this was Bishop Griswold] two hundred and seven were converts from other denominations. ' ' He was silent and reserved, but when he spoke always said something to the point. When a Bishop Griswold. 71 young man he was very talkative, but later on he became taciturn, and it was said that the verse " In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin " caused him to change in this respect. He was an untiring worker, preaching as rector at Bristol three times on Sunday and teaching all the week. Once, crossing Narragansett Bay in a storm, he had to lie down in the bottom of the boat as ballast, being so large and heavy. As a Bishop, though his health was never strong, he labored with unflagging zeal, continuing twenty- four years longer as a rector, besides superintending his vast Diocese. The year after his consecration he reported twelve hundred confirmations, and the Church grew in grace as well as in numbers, so that he lived to see the parishes increase five-fold, and his jurisdiction divided into five dioceses able to support four bishops, instead of the one whom they could not support. He was seventy years old when he ordained me, and in 1838 he became Presiding Bishop. He took a great interest in Foreign Missions and nominated the first foreign missionary ever sent out by our Church. He increased the circulation of the Prayer-Book, which he was wont to declare was "second only to the Bible in its utility." He would never give up in despair. Being asked to consent to sell a church in a decayed parish to the Congrega- tionalists, he said, "I can never indorse or consent to such a measure. ' ' Where there was no church he would hold services in groves. His last ofiicial act had been the consecration of Rev. Dr. Manton Eastburn on December 29, 1842, as his assistant. On February 11, 1843, he walked through the snow to call on him and fell dead on his doorstep. No greater character have I known of in our history than Bishop Griswold and his influence and work were never surpassed in certain lines. Bishop Eastburn was preaching and noticed that a woman near the pulpit seemed very much affected and shed tears. In the vestry room he spoke of it and said he would like to speak with her. The rector called her in and the Bishop said, ' ' What affected you so much in my sermon ? " She replied, " I was thinking all the time of dear Bishop Griswold, and that we would never see his like again." I left for Alexandria early in October, 1836. It was a long trip and by various conveyances. I first took steamer from New York to Amboy, then by railroad to Camden, then by steamer to New 72 Arrivai, in Virginia. Castle, where I took a short railroad to Frenchtown ; thence I took a steamboat again to Baltimore. As late as 1844 there was no railroad between Baltimore and Philadelphia. I came from Baltimore to Washington by the railroad opened the year before, and I remember the almost unbroken forests between Baltimore and Washington. There was only one steam- boat, going twice a day from Washington to Alexandria at 11 and 4, and Joe Johnson was its name. Rev. Frederick D. Good- win, who had been ordained with William M. Jackson exactly five years before me, July 17, 1831, was on board, and was just removing to another parish, I think. He spent a long and most useful ministry and handed over his work to his sons. Revs. Robert A., rector of old St. John's, Richmond, where Patrick Henry made his famous speech ; Edward I,., also of Richmond, both of whom have labored most faithfully. His grandsons, Revs. William A. R. Goodwin, of Petersburg, Frederick G. Ribble, of Culpeper, John F. Ribble, of Newport, all laboring in Virginia, and G. W. Ribble, a devoted missionary in Brazil, and a daughter, Mrs. Thomas H. Lacy, of Lynchburg, testify to the influences that must have existed in that Christian home. I hired a hack and came out to the Seminary October 17. On Shooter's Hill I met James A. Buck and William T. Leavell, whom I had known at Bristol, and after seeing them I felt more at home. The Seminary that year had 29 students ; in 1833 there were 36, in 1834, 32, and in 1835, 22 ; and three professors — Rev. Reuel Keith, Rev. E. R. Lippitt and myself. The following notice appeared in the Soiitheryi Churchman about this time : TheoIvOgical Seminary of Virginia. — We understand that the Rev. Joseph Packard, late Professor of the Latin, Hebrew and German languages in Bristol College, Pennsylvania, has accepted the chair of Professor of Sacred Literature in this institution. From the character we have heard of Mr. Packard, we feel author- ized to congratulate the friends of the Seminary upon the accession of such valuable aid. He will enter upon his duties as Professor in October next. The Trustees, in their report to the Convention of 1837, kindly said of me : " . . . As a scholar and a Christian he has the entire confidence of all who know him, and as an instructor is highly acceptable to the students." When I came to the Seminary, in 1836, we note from the Jour- Trustees and Friends. 73 nal that the Board of Trustees of the Seminary consisted of the Bishop or Bishops " and thirteen members, to be chosen by the Convention of the Church, who shall be elected every three years, and no Professor of the institution shall be eligible as Trustee."' Also this rule: " The Board of Managers shall keep a regular record of their proceedings and report the same regularly to the annual meetings of the Convention." Among the Trustees elected in 1836 for three years are the names of Rev. John Gram- mer, father of Rev. Dr. James Grammer, for many years now a Trustee also, two Nelsons, two McGuires, James M. Garnett, grandfather of Prof. James M. Garnett, Ph. D., and of our present Trustee, Judge Theodore S. Garnett, who filled many public positions and was a very popular writer. All of them were noble men and good friends to me. Of the seventy-nine men ordained Deacons in the year 1836 all have passed away except two— Bishop Clark and John Linn Mc- Kim of Delaware. Nine of that number were deposed ; four were Bishops— Clark, Boone, Payne, Atkinson ; twenty-six died before i860 ; Minor, Payne and Savage went as missionaries to Africa the next year, and Boone to China. Others were prominent as ministers ; among them Rev. Martin P. Parks (the father of Rev. Drs. I^eighton and J. Lewis Parks), who succeeded Bishop Meade at Christ church, Norfolk, and was a very striking preacher ; Dr. C. M. Butler, so useful in Washington and Philadelphia ; Rev. John F. Hoff, beloved and honored in Maryland ; Rev. Dr. A. T. Twing, our General Secretary of the Board of Missions many years ; and many others, beloved and useful ministers. I was ordained to the priesthood in the basement of the Semi- nary by Bishop Meade on Friday, September 29, 1837— a very solemn occasion to me. There was no chapel at the Seminary and no regular Sunday services there until 1840, and the students walked into Alexandria to church. The churches in Alexandria, Christ and St. Paul's, had strong rectors— Revs. C. B. Dana and J. S. Johnston, who came there about the same time, 1833. 1 knew Mr. Dana very intimately and sometimes preached for him. He was very particular and precise, and once when I had not my bands, he was much disconcerted. This seems strange now, but the bands were an important part of the clerical dress at that time. Bishop Atkinson once after getting to church sent to his home for a pair of fresh bands. The warden thought he asked for a 74 Dana and Johnston. pair of pants. Mrs. A., wondering why he wanted them, sent his winter pants. The warden called the Bishop from the pulpit, and he was much astonished at receiving his trousers instead of the bands. Another story illustrates the use of the bands. A rector came into church one day as his curate had entered the reading desk, and sent word that he wished to preach but had forgotten his bands. The only way was for the curate to untie his own bands and hand them up when the rector mounted the three decker to preach. Unluckily as he untied them, the string of the bands got into a knot. By a strange coincidence the singers struck up the anthem, " lyoose the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion." As they repeated the words over and over — " Ivoose the bands of thy neck, loose the bands, loose the bands," — the helpless curate became more baffled in his efforts to untie the strings, and supposed the anthem directed at him. Mr. Dana gave out the Psalms in metre in regular order every Sunday till all were sung, when he would begin again. He was cold and impassive in his manners, a graduate of Andover, an accurate scholar and nearly related to Mr. Dana, editor of the New York Su7i. He was at Christ church from 1833-1860, and, while not aggressive, as men are now, he did good work and was much respected there and was influential in the Diocese, especially as a Trustee of the Seminary. Professor Parks of Andover, a famous man, visited him and attended the Episcopal church. Mr. Dana was not a popular preacher, being somewhat formal and dry. I recall one of his anecdotes in a sermon. Two noble Romans were friends, and on parting they divided between them a tessara and agreed if they ever met or needed anything to show it. One was arrested and tried before a judge, who happened to be his old friend. He held up the tessara, " Knowest thou this tessara ? " and escaped sentence. Mr. Johnston was much admired and respected. He was digni- fied and stately, and took great pains with his sermons, learning them by heart ; he was very popular as a preacher. He had the professors to preach for him Sunday afternoons when the congregation was smaller, for which he paid us. Mrs. Johnston while at the North knew Rev. Dr. Francis L,. Hawks. Once rid- ing together her horse ran away ; Dr. Hawks could not overtake her, but in his beautiful and stentorian voice called after her, " Hold on tight." When the horse stopped and he came up, she Contemporary Events. 75 said to him : " Did you think I was such a fool as to let go if I could help it ? " Dr. Johnston lived to a good old age. Once I went to see him before his death, and asked him if I should pray and for what. He said : " Yes, pray that I may recover and live longer." " The tree of deepest root is found Reluctant still to leave the ground." Few indeed are like Sir David Brewster, who felt that he had done all that he desired to do. Many are like one of the best of servants and friends, as Dr. Boyd says, whose words were, "I never could have lain down at a worse time." Several interesting events occurred about the time of my coming to the Virginia Seminary. The Baltimore Sun, which has for two-thirds of a century grown ever greater as a clean reliable newspaper, made its first appearance, and I have its first number, a small folio sheet. Roger B. Taney of Maryland that year was appointed Chief Justice and Philip P. Barbour of Virginia, Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Martin Van Buren was the first President I saw inaugurated. Victoria became Queen of England one year after my appointment, but has passed away while I am still living. Sir Isaac Pitman invented his shorthand system. Windham Robertson of an old and honored family became Governor of Virginia. How strange it seems to know that thousands of settlers in Georgia and Alabama left their homes that year, 1836, through fear of the Indians ! Of all the families that then lived and received me, a stranger from the North, so cordially and hospitably, few survivors remain. Dr. Wilmer kindly wrote my son, " What grand men the North furnished us and what good Southerners they became! Dr. Dame, Dr. Woodbridge, Dr. Packard, and others." CHAPTER X. THE VIRGINIA SEMINARY. THE Seminary was only thirteen years old when I came, and it is now in its eightieth year. Of the nearly one thou- sand alumni, I have known all but about forty. Of the one hun- dred and eighty alumni before 1843 only one is still alive, the Rev. John M. Todd, who now lives in Maryland, after a long and active life, well known in conventions. When I came to the Seminary it was embosomed deep in lofty woods, which stretched nearly all the way from Alexandria, with paths and roads through them. It was no wonder that, twenty years after, Phillips Brooks lost his way in coming out to the Seminary, for the road seemed to end at no place. The origin of the Theological Seminary of Virginia is a matter of deep interest. While we can trace out its first beginnings, and name with honor those whose efforts gave it " a local habitation and a name," yet in a peculiar sense it is the child of God. His spirit worked in the minds of good men in Virginia and Maryland, inspiring them with love for the souls perishing for the bread of life, and with zeal for the sending forth of true ministers of the Word. This Seminary is in idea and in actual attempt the oldest in our Church. We cannot say of it that, like Jonah's gourd, it came up in a night. Several years elapsed before its idea took a definite form. Those who were earnest in reviving the Church in Virginia saw clearly that the great need was a supply of well- trained ministers. Our Diocese deserves the credit of being the first in this country to take steps to provide for the education of its candidates for Orders. One of the grandest monuments to the revival of the Church in Virginia was the founding of this Seminary. In 1 812 Rev. William H. Wilmer came as rector to St. Paul's, Alexandria, from Kent county, Maryland, where his ancestors had settled after leaving England in 1650. He had proposed while in Maryland the founding of a theological school, but it was not favored. Coming to Virginia, he found in Rev. William Meade, ordained in 181 1, one of like zeal and devotion. 76 The Seminary's Beginning. 77 In 1 813, two years before the General Seminary was established, Dr. John Augustine Smith, President of William and Mary Col- lege, proposed to the Convention of the Diocese, as he had already done in 18 14 to Bishop Moore, who was removing from New York to Virginia, that the support of a theological chair be pro- vided in that institution, where there was already a valuable library, formed by Drs. Blair and Bray. Rev. Messrs. Wilmer and Meade were on the committee on the State of the Church in the Virginia Diocesan Convention of 1815 and they reported a resolution, which was adopted, "that the Bishop and Standing Committee be authorized to adopt measures for the promotion of an object of such magnitude, and which may, under the blessing of God, be productive of the most beneficial consequences." Dr. Hawks says : " This incident contributed, in the hands of Providence, to produce, a few years afterwards, the Theological School at Alexandria." In 1818 the Education Society was formed by clergymen and laymen assembled in Wash- ington, of which Dr. Wilmer was President until he left Alexan- dria, and for which he issued stirring appeals. Of it Dr. Hawks said in 1836: "It has never failed to aSbrd assistance to every properly qualified applicant, and has aided more than one-tenth of all the clergy in this country." It still continues this good work. The founding of a Diocesan Seminary was much opposed at first. One of the bishops wrote Bishop Moore that such a plan would mar the unity and peace of our Church, and urged him to patronize the General Seminary, then at New Haven. The legacy of Mr. Kohme to a seminary in New York brought out a pamphlet from Bishop Hobart in favor of diocesan seminaries, and this form of opposition ceased. The General Seminary was trans- ferred to New York on terms which secured its chief control by that Diocese. In 1820 Dr. Wilmer. in his report from the Committee on the State of the Church, recommended the appointment of a Clerical Professor at William and Mary College, and Rev. Reuel Keith was chosen. In 1 82 1 Dr. Wilmer, from the same committee, recommended " the establishment of a theological school in Williamsburg, and that a board of trustees be appointed to select one or more profes- sors, and to raise funds for that object, and to correspond with 78 Seminary at Wii^liamsburg. the Standing Committees of Maryland and North Carolina to ascertain if they are disposed to co-operate with us." In 1822 Dr. Wilmer reports that ten thousand dollars had been raised. It is expressly stated that this action is from no opposition to the Gen- eral Seminary founded by the General Convention, but because peculiar circumstances made a seminary in the South necessary. That same year the Convention of Maryland resolved to establish a theological seminary, the trustees of which elected Dr. Wilmer president, but the strong hand of Bishop Kemp crushed it. The school did not succeed at WiUiamsburg, having only one student ; so it was removed after a year to Alexandria, where it met the wishes of the Maryland brethren, and received the funds intended for their proposed "school of the prophets." Dr. Wilmer had alwa3's felt the need of such a school, and it had been ever his chief thought. He had,with the Vestry's permission, built a schoolroom in St. Paul's church-yard, and John Thomas Wheat, a student of divinity under him, taught school there, and that little schoolhouse may be said to be the birthplace of the present Seminary, and Dr. Wilmer and Bishop Meade deserve to be called the founders of the Virginia Seminary. The early records of the Seminary in Dr. Wilmer' s handwriting show how great was his love and his serv- ice for its foundation. Among the laymen who helped to establish this Seminary stand high the names of Dr. and General Henderson (of the U. S. Marines) in whose house the meeting was held which fixed on Alexandria ; Francis Scott Key, a famous and noble man, and after its organization, Mr. John Nelson, of Virginia, who collected by his eflforts a large sum of money. Rev. Dr. Wilmer was rector of St. John's Church, Washing- ton, as well of St. Paul's, Alexandria, at the same time, but found it too much with all his other duties. His ofiice as rector was no sinecure. In 1824 Bishop Meade reports to the Diocesan Convention from the Board of Trustees that the Seminary has been started, as I have stated above, with two professors, and that the whole course of studies has been entirely conformed to the Canons of the Church, and as prescribed by the House of Bishops. He states that the removal from Williamsburg to Alexandria was necessary, as the former place was too remote and inaccessible. The session of 1824 opened with twenty-one students. The Seminary at Ai^exandria. 79 course of study was good. The four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles were critically studied in Greek, and eighteen chapters of Genesis and thirty Psalms in Hebrew by the Junior Class, besides the usual English studies. The Senior Class studied all the Epistles, and twenty chapters of Isaiah in Hebrew, with Sys- tematic Divinity and Church History, &c. Each member of this class, as now, had in his turn to prepare a thesis, a sermon, and to read the service. On these occasions the students were per- mitted to offer their criticisms and remarks on the performances, which must have made things lively and interesting, and the next week each of the professors criticised them. In the class of 1824 was the Rev. Caleb J. Good, with whom I was associated at Bristol College as colleague, and with whom I was very intimate, for he was my dearest friend there. He was afterwards professor at Trinity College, Connecticut. He was a man of earnest piety, and faithful in every sphere — as preacher, as teacher, and as friend. He was for some time in Caroline county, Virginia. In the spring of 1825 the Rev. Mr. Norris, rector of Christ Church, Alexandria, was chosen Professor of Pastoral Theology. In August Mr. Norris was seized with fever and died — a man of gentle, persuasive manners and deep piety, a tender and faithful pastor and preacher. He and our beloved Dr. Suter have been the only rectors of Christ Church who have died in office. In the case of both of them the bell of old Christ Church rang for service just before death came. Mr. Norris, recognizing its familiar tones, said to his attendants, " Go to church, go to church," and soon afterwards went himself to the Church of the First-born in heaven. His son, William Herbert, was a graduate in 1842, and married a daughter of Judge Rawle, of Philadelphia. Thus early in its history it was shown that there was need and demand for the Theological School of Virginia. By its situation in the South, and its accommodation to the habits and manners of that section, it attracted without injury to the General Seminary a support and attendance which otherwise would have been lost to the Church. Many of its students would have attended no seminary, and would doubtless have never entered the ministry, as Bishop Meade said. We notice now, in the names of the clergy of Virginia, the fact that nearly all of them are natives of the State, " to the manner born," and certainly there are nowhere more devoted and useful clergymen than they are. 8o Rev. William F. Lee. Of the class of 1825, I knew very well the Revs. John T. Brooke, D. D., John B. Clemson, D. D., John P. McGuire, and John T. Wheat, D. D., of whom I must speak later on. Rev. William F. Lee of that class died May 19, 1837, shortly after my coming and I attended his burial in Alexandria. Bishop Meade, speaking of him said : " The hopes and efforts of the few remaining friends and members of the Church in Gooch- land were aroused in the year 1826 by the missionary labors of the Rev. William F. Lee. As to body, Mr. Lee being little more than thin air, or a light feather, as he galloped over these coun- ties, his horse felt not his rider on his back ; but the people felt the weight and power of a strong mind and will, and the pressure of a heart and soul devoted to the love of God and man. He laid the foundation anew of the churches in Goochland, Powhatan, Amelia, and Chesterfield, and lived to see them all supplied by ministers. His physical power being incompetent to these itiner- ant labors, he took charge of the Church of St. John's, in Rich- mond, and afterwards of that in the Valley. His health failing, even for this, he devoted himself to the press, and was the first editor of the Southern Onirchman, establishing it in Richmond. He continued to edit the same, until his part of the work was per- formed, when, lying on his sick bed, his proof-sheets corrected, his selections made, and editorials written, while propped up with bolster and pillows, thus to the last spending and being spent in the Master's service. During his stay in Richmond, he was as a right hand to Bishop Moore, who not only loved him, for his amiable and zealous piety, but respected him for his good judg- ment, which he often consulted." William L. Marshall was ordained by Bishop Moore at the same time as Lee in 1825, and married Anne Kinloch, a sister of Robert E. Lee. A curious thing happened in St. James Parish, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, where my son was afterwards rector. A vacancy occurring, two ministers were invited to come and preach, Rev. Messrs. Marshall and Drane. They both hap- pened to fix on the same Sunday, and there being only one service, they agreed to preach at that. After Mr. Marshall descended from the pulpit, Mr. Drane went up and preached. There was a difference of opinion as to their merits. Many preferred Mr. Drane, but Mr. Marshall was chosen rector ; some said on account of his family and connections. He did not stay long, went to Miss Sallie Griffith. 8i Baltimore, gave up the ministry, studied law and became an emi- nent jurist and judge. The Rev. Dr. Clemson speaks of the olden times thus : ' ' There were but few students in my time, and they had happy homes in the families of Miss Peggy Ashton and Miss Sallie Griffith. The Rev. Mr. Norris always reminded me of the Apostle John. . . . The opening years of the Seminary were very auspicious. They were wise and true men who made choice of such fit instruments for laying the foundation on which has been reared so grand a superstructure to the glory of God." Miss Sallie Griffith was daughter of Rev. Dr. David Griffith, who was elected first Bishop of Virginia in 1786, but was unable to ob- tain means to go to England for his consecration, his salary being then only $250 a year, and his friends being unable to raise the money to send him to England. He was a noble and able man, the friend of Washington and I^afayette. He was rector of Christ Church, Alexandria, from 1780-89 and died that year, while at- tending the General Convention in Philadelphia. Miss Sallie was a lovely character and a devoted Christian. She was the aunt of Colonel Llewellyn and Rev. William Hoxton, Mrs. A. M. Randolph and Mrs. Buckner Randolph. She remem- bered General Washington dandling her on his knee, when visit- ing her father. I buried her in Alexandria at the close of the war. Dr. Hoxton, her brother-in-law, was confirmed at home on his deathbed, by Bishop Johns. At her house Professor Keith and four of the students lived and all of his recitations were in that building. How many pass it, even of our alumni, on the streets of Alexandria, without any rec- ognition or knowledge of its existence or associations. It stands diagonally across from the electric-car office, corner of Washing- ton and King streets ; and judging from the various signs on its walls, it has now a variety of uses. "Ah Moy Laundry " is one of the most prominent, the corner room facing both streets, on the lower floor. A ' ' heathen Chinee, ' ' in the room of Dr. Keith. ' ' W. E. Dienelt, Ophthalmic Optician, Eyes Examined Free," is another in a line with the former, towards Duke street. Beyond this are two others of a plumber and gas-fitter. On the second floor, fronting King street, is another, " Rooms of the Business League of Alexandria," and on the same floor, fronting Washington street, there is another, of " a school of shorthand typewriting". 82 Rev. George A. Smith. This, the original Seminary, thus still has its hive of workers. But of what different nature and for what different purposes ! The Seminary was opened in Alexandria, October 15, 1823, with Rev. Reuel Keith giving his entire time to teaching the Old and New Testament, Biblical Criticism and Evidences, and Rev. Dr. Wilmer, Rector of St. Paul's, as Professor of Systematic Di- vinity, Church History and Polity. Fourteen students were in attendance. The Rev. George A. Smith, a graduate of Prince- ton, was led into our Church and ministry by Rev. Dr. Wilmer and was the only graduate of 1823. He was a man of deep piety, fine ability, and strong character, and his influence was felt in many directions in this Diocese for the long period of sixty-five years. He was a life-long friend of mine, a man of excellent judgment, of wide sympathies. He was prevented from preach- ing lor many years by a weak voice, but as educator of youth, as editor, as writer, and, most of all, by his holy life and conversa- tion he did noble work for the Church. He held several impor- tant charges, and when compelled to give up preaching, was editor for a time of the Episcopal Recorder, and later of the Southern Churchman, as also, still later, rector of the Clarens School. For many years, he was chairman, at the annual meet- ings of the alumni. In 1826, the Rev. Dr. Wilmer, who, before the Seminary was organized, was training young men for the ministry, and had given his services without pay as professor for three years, re- signed St. Paul's and went to Williamsburg as President of William and Mary College, where he only lived for one year. His death caused profound grief to every family there, and to the Diocese. His work and influence in that year were great and far- reaching. Bishop Meade, in " Old Churches," wrote: "Beside the regular services of the Church and the duties of the College, lectures and prayer-meetings were held in private houses, twice a week, and the first fruits of a genuine revival of true religion, in the College and in the town, had appeared." His career, though short, was a splendid one and deserves to be remembered. Or- dained by Bishop Claggett in 1808, after four years in Maryland he came to St. Paul's, Alexandria. He was among the first clergymen of Virginia from the start, and among the foremost in restoring the Church there and in founding the Seminary. He presided and preached at the Virginia Convention in 18 14, and was instrumental in bringing Bishop Moore to Virginia. He was Rev. Dr. W. H. Wilmer. 83 always President of the Standing Committee, and always headed the delegation to the General Convention, and he was President of the House of Deputies for four successive sessions. He and Mr. Norris imported the Canon on Clerical Discipline, nearly a literal transcript of that in Maryland, which had been introduced from the English Canon through Rev. Walter D. Addison. In 1823, Bishop Moore being absent from sickness, Rev. Dr. Wilmer was elected President of the Convention by ballot. His ability and his untiring energy, physical, intellectual and moral, enabled him to do the work of many men in the parish, the press, the lecture-room, in letters, and in visiting. Though not twenty years in the ministry, his record is a glorious one. He died July 23, 1827, and was buried beneath the floor of the church in Wil- liamsburg. Bishop Meade, for the Trustees, said: "The Board has sustained a heavy loss in the death of the lamented Wilmer. In this and every other department of usefulness he ever displayed a judgment, zeal and activity seldom united in one man." Bishop Moore paid him the highest tribute, and many others have risen up and called him blessed. He was a model of a Christian minister. He was a man of deepest piety, of great knowledge of human nature, of most winning personality and a most able preacher. His half-brothers, Simon and lycmuel, were also devoted ministers in Maryland, and his children were the late Bishop of Alabama, Rev. Dr. George T. Wilmer, Mrs. Samuel Buel and Mrs. R. Tem- pleman Brown. He published in 1815 The Episcopal Manual, a most useful book on the Church, which passed through several editions, and in 1818 a Controversy with Mr. Baxter, a Jesuit priest. He founded in 1819 the Washington Theological Repertory , which he edited for several years. His son. Rev. Dr. George T. Wilmer, my pupil at Bristol, for whom I stood sponsor when he entered the ministry, died at Chat- ham, Virginia, where he spent his last years, honored and beloved, October 7, 1898. A ripe scholar, an able minister, a strong and earnest preacher, he had won the love and respect of all who knew him. In 1826 the Rev. E. R. I^ippitt was appointed Professor of Sys- tematic Divinity. He was of a distinguished family in Rhode Island, and had been in the Diocese a few years before as rector of Norborne parish, Berkeley county. He was a graduate of Brown University and had been master of the I^atin school there. 84 Professor E. R. IvIppitt. He was highly recommended for the position of professor and was here until 1842, when he resigned. He then for six years had charge of the Sotcthern Churchman. After passing through a series of distressing providences, which he bore meekly and with- out complaint, he died at his son's house in Clarke county in 1870. Bishop Smith, a life-long friend, says that he was a refined gentle- man, an accurate scholar, an exemplary Christian. Dr. Sparrow said that his mind was highly cultivated, but that his extreme modesty repressed the exhibition of his powers. He was the only man I ever knew overburdened with modesty. His death was peaceful and happy, and he had prepared lor it as he would have done for a night's rest. He was for several years the regular pastor of Falls Church, and was always ready for every good work. Many of the old alumni will never cease to remember with affection his pious and amiable character, which did much to sustain the religious spirit of the institution. His home was noted for its hospitality and good cheer, and the students enjoyed its social influences. In 1827 the disadvantages of having the Seminary in a town were felt, and the Trustees determined in May to purchase or erect, near Alexandria, a house or houses large enough for two professors and twenty students. In June, 1827, the Committee of the Trustees went to Alexandria, and after careful examination selected the present site, which, " on account of the healthiness of its atmosphere, the beauty of its prospect, and its many conven- iences, has given universal satisfaction." It contained sixty-two acres of land, half of it cleared, well enclosed, and covered with grass. There was a new brick dwelling-house, with out-build- ings. The cost was five thousand dollars, which Mr. John Gray, of Traveller's Rest, the treasurer and liberal benefactor of the Seminary, kindly advanced. A brick house of three stories, hav- ing twelve rooms besides basement, affording a dining-room and kitchen, was erected, costing three thousand dollars. This was the south wing of the old Seminary. The north wing, of the same size and at the same cost, was added some years later, in 1832, and afterwards the centre and connecting building, with a small cupola, was erected for five thousand dollars, in 1835, alto- gether thirty-six rooms, prayer-hall and refectory. In the fall of 1827, then, the Seminary was removed from Alex- andria to "The Hill", 255 feet above the Potomac. G. T. Wilmer remembers his trip out to the new site in a cart I ' Ul 5 H cq K 01 H > W f H Seminary Hill. 85 with some furniture. It was in the spring of 1828 when Miss Mary Dobson and he, a boy of nine years, took their seats in a cart with two horses, hitched tandem, and journeyed out. Ex- cept in pleasure-carriages, I think horses were usually hitched tandem then, and not abreast as now. Miss Mary would not let him return, as it was a drizzling evening, but put him in care of one of the students, who arrayed him for the night in one of his garments. That student was Charles Dresser, a graduate of 1828, and a most faithful and useful minister. A mnemonic associa- tion of ideas makes Mr. Dresser's name readily recalled. He de- serves a brief mention. Born at Pomfret, Conn., February 24, 1800, he graduated at Brown University in 1823, and went to Virginia, where he studied theology. He went in 1828, immedi- ately after ordination to Antrim parish, Halifax county, where he labored faithfully and successfully for ten years. He married in 1832 Miss Louisa Withers of Dinwiddie county. In 1838 he removed to Springfield, 111., where he remained twenty years and while there officiated at the marriage of Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln, November 4, 1842. He was chosen Professor of Divinity and Belles-Lettres in Jubilee College in 1855, and died March 5, 1865. In 1827 eight thousand dollars was collected for the purchase, and for the first building, entirely in Virginia, and in the Vir- ginia Convention Journal of 1829 is the list of subscribers with the amounts, which is very interesting reading to a Virginian who would know the people v/hose descendants are still in the old State. In the year 1829 the Permanent Fund was about eleven thou- sand dollars. Everything then was on a simpler, less costly scale than now. Bishop Moore only received three hundred dollars a year for his services as Bishop, having besides his salary as rector of Monumental church. The professors received six hundred, eight hundred, and a thousand dollars a year, and the board of students then was fully covered by seventy-five dollars, which in Alexandria had cost one hundred and twelve dollars a year. The expenses of living then were hardly half what they are now ; gro- ceries were cheap, and servants' wages small, and what are now considered necessaries were then luxuries, and the numberless expenses of dress now were then much fewer. To show prices then, one subscription to the Seminary was thirty bushels nf wheat, estimated at thirty dollars. I bought a bag of coffee at 86 Early Alumni. nine cents a pound. Besides, money went farther then than now. It was said that General Washington once threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock. Chief-Justice Coleridge was told this and was inclined to doubt the fact, but was reassured on being told that a dollar went farther in those days than it did now. Mr. Gray was the treasurer of the Trustees from the organiza- tion of the Seminary, and gave thousands of dollars during life and at his death. After his death his son-in-law, Mr. William Pollock, gave his faithful and gratuitous services until the war. During this long period, for thirty-one years of which the institu- tion was without a charter, the treasurers used such care and judg- ment that none of its funds were lost. I knew only a few of the graduates of 1827 and 1828. The Rev. George L,. Mackenheimer was a lovely man, affectionate, earnest and brave. He never failed to speak a word for Jesus, when many would have shrunk from doing so. He did not think it intrusive to warn the heedless or to encourage the timid when it was needed. Such was his gentleness and tact that he never gave offense, but on the contrary gained respect, and did good. He lived and died in Maryland. Rev. Dr. Wheat, whose memory is still fresh and fragrant in this Diocese, after more than forty years, at the time of our semi- centennial, wrote that he recalled Dr. Keith as to saintliness of character ; as to Mr. Lippitt, modesty ; as to Dr. Wilmer, keen- ness and power. The Rev. Dr. Brooke was a native of Maryland, and when Bishop Johns was rector at Frederick he was a bright and rising lawyer. He came in once to church, rather to scoff than to pray, but was converted under Mr. Johns' attractive preaching, and be- came an eminent clergyman. He had the power to prepare and arrange even the very language of an elaborate sermon, and with rare eloquence and clearness deliver it unwritten, exactly as it had been prepared. Bishop Johns alone surpassed him in this rare gift. Dr. Brooke labored faithfully in Maryland and Ohio, and died full of faith. He was the father of Rev. Pendleton Brooke and Right Rev. Francis Key Brooke, Bishop of Oklahoma. The Rev. John Grammer, D. D. (father of our Trustee, Rev. James Grammer, D. D), was one of the most faithful and true men, and one who, as minister and trustee, had a strong influence. He was born in Virginia, for which he lived and labored all his life. Except for a few years, which were spent in the parish of Grammer and Boyden. 87 the pious Devereux Jarratt, he spent his ministry in one cure, Antrim parish, Halifax county, where his name is still remem- bered and where he ministered for over forty years to different generations. His life was long and useful, and all respected and loved him. He was the trusted friend and confidant of Bishop Meade. He was simple and self-denying. He expressly asked that no "resolutions " should be passed nor eulogy spoken when he was dead. He died full of years and rich in good works for Christ. He had been destined for the bar, and his connection with such people as the Withers and Brodnax families and his own firm character and abilities promised success. When he decided to enter the ministry his friends expostulated with him, but could not dissuade him. He lived some time in the home of Rev. Dr. Wilmer in Alexandria. The Rev. Dr. Wing was often spoken of by Dr. Sparrow, who knew him at Kenyon, and was ordained the same year.' His name was striking— Marcus Tullius Cicero Wing. The Rev. Ebenezer Boyden, born in Vermont May 25, 1803, graduated at Yale 1825, and at our Seminary in 1828, was rector of Walker's parish, Albemarle county, Virginia, for forty-two years. He was a spiritually minded man and most exemplary in his life and ministry. Two of his sons entered the ministry, Rev. D. Hanson Boyden, who died in the morn of great promise of use- fulness, and Rev. Peier M. Boyden, now laboring faithfully and successfully in Maryland. When he lived in Vermont, his family had been Congregation- alists, but the church happened to be vacant once when a minis- ter travelling through the State stopped for a few days in the neighborhood. Being asked to preach, he said, "I am an Episcopalian and will do so, if you will use my service, and if some will learn it. ' ' They agreed to this, and he instructed them and preached twice. They were so much pleased they asked him to stay and be their minister. He said he could not on account of other engagements, but he would send Bishop Griswold. He came and won them to the Church and the Boyden family thus became Episcopalians, he being fifteen years old. When Rector of St. Paul's, Norfolk, the hole in the church wall where the British had fired a cannon ball was seen, but no cannon ball had been found. Eearning the direction of the shot, he hired a man, and digging deep found the ball and had it placed in the hole. The site chosen for the Seminary is unsurpassed for beauty and 88 Seminary Scenery. extent of prospect. Where could there have been found a better place ? Surely the hand of that God who founded the hills directed the choice. What a glorious amphitheatre of rural scenery, of hill and dale, of great cities, and of broad river flashing in the sun ! Said the early lost and long lamented Dudley Tyng : "Its location has left on my memory an impression not easily forgotten. It over- looks the undulating valley which slopes down to the broad and placid Potomac. At its foot lies the town of Alexandria and in the distance the cities of Washington and Georgetown, sur- mounted by the lofty dome of the capitol. On the right the woodland stretches down to the home and tomb of the Father of his country. From the cupola keen eyes may discover the three needle-points of the first mountain range, the Blue Ridge. Amid such a scene dwell the ' sons of the prophets.' Truly, you will say, if all within corresponds to all without, no wonder it should be remembered with longing and revisited with delight. Just such a picture as surrounding nature painted on my eye have its inner scenes imprinted on my heart." Said another alumnus. Bishop Bedell, " I never again expect to rest my weariness on a spot of earth which will appear so much in the neighborhood of heaven. It always seems to me in recol- lection a land of Beulah, a little way to the fords of the river and the gates beyond, where angels keep their ward. From this glorious hill we readily turn to look above to the city which hath foundations." Its beautiful grove affords place for retirement and meditation : " Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet, retired solitude Where with her best nurse, meditation, She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings." I think our seminary could not have been placed in a better situation than just here. It was in the South, so as to enlist the sympathies of the Southern Dioceses, and to be convenient for their candidates in days when traveling was difficult. It was near Washington, the Capital of the country, and so in touch with the national life. My recollections of Washington go back now sixty-five years, and they recall a very different state of things from what may now be seen. There was then great simplicity of living, and the city had very few of its present beautiful public Advantages of its Position. 89 buildings or private palaces. But it had what it has not now in its Senate and House — men who would make any city or State noble and distinguished. To see and hear these men was a privilege, and professors and students had this great advantage. The Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches have within the last few years realized the importance of Washington as a centre of influ- ence and are establishing great universities there. Bishop Meade and others chose wisely in selecting our beauti- ful and commanding Hill for the Seminary. If they could only have planned and executed on a larger scale, securing land when so low and proper endowments, we might have been able to do a larger work. Some have thought that if a Church college could have been established here, to complete the plan of the High School and to prepare for the Seminary, it would have filled a niche that is now empty in this middle section, with Trinity Col- lege north and Sewanee south. Our Preparatory Department would always have furnished a nucleus, and there would have been many who would have preferred a Church college to sending their sons to the universities or the denominational colleges. When Bristol College failed, if we might have taken up its work, I think good would have been done. Now we have twenty-five or more men being educated away, who, under the influence of the Seminary and the Church college, would have found more congenial and helpful influences than anywhere else. It may come yet ; but started sixty years ago, its work and usefulness would have been very great. CHAPTER XL MY FIRST FRIENDS. ISHAIyly Speak particularly of my first class in the Seminary, which entered with me in 1836. There were six members, though two more, Noblitt and Stewart, were with us awhile. Their names were James A. Buck, William H. Kinckle, William T. Leavell, Cleland K. Nelson, John J. Scott, Richard H. Wilmer. They were an unusually good class, I remember, all being men of fine abilities and excellent training. They were all ordained by Bishop Moore, and all (except Bishop Wilmer) on July 11, 1839, and went to work in different dioceses. Fifty years rolled slowly by with their mighty changes in Church and State, and five of these six graduates were still laboring faithfully in the vineyard, and I alone of their professors was still alive. At the suggestion and request of Rev. Dr. Buck, rector of St. Paul's, Rock Creek, D. C, we met on the fiftieth anniversary of ordination, July 11, 1889, to celebrate their jubilee. Only one of the class had fallen asleep, worn out by his untiring labors. Rev. W. H. Kinckle, of blessed memory. They joined together in the service and sacra- ment of love, which had been their occupation and joy for fifty years. Dr. Nelson making the address on this rare and memorable occasion. Afterwards they met together with many friends for a bountiful collation in the beautiful rectory grounds of Rock Creek parish, nearly two hundred years old. Five years later, July 11, 1894, all but one of us met again at the same place, four out of six remaining, active and strong for their age, Dr. Nelson having dropped from the ranks. At this fifty-eighth anniversary of their association together, the four were present and took part in the solemn prayer and praise to God, who had granted them to labor for and with Him all through the long day. Bishop Wilmer made the address and told of the secret of peace and power in the service and following of Jesus Christ, and with the rector administered the Holy Communion to a large congregation. I spoke of the remarkable and unparelleled case, that after fifty-eight years of work and friendship, five out of seven should be present in good health to celebrate the anniversary ; and I 90 My First Ci^ass. 91 dwelt on the rewards of such faithful ministry. The Rev. Dr, Elliott, of Washington, followed, with some happy and pleasant remarks, comparing the four veterans to the four winds, the four evangelists and the four creatures of Revelation ; and Bishop Wilmer closed with the blessing. An offering was made, and it is intended to place in the Virginia Seminary some memorial of this wonderful event of the class of 1839. Out of the sixteen classes before them only four graduates then survived, while whole classes after them have died ; only four graduates, up to 1845, now remain. We can recall no such wonderful thing as this, that in a fleeting and changing world, after fifty-eight years of association in the same work, two-thirds of the class should meet with one- third of their teachers, and all active and in fair health ; or that after fifty-three years, five-sixths of the class should survive, as was the case a few years ago. Truly they can say with the Psalmist, " I have been young and now am old, and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken." The members of this class have been well-known and devoted ministers in the Church, apart from the wonderful length of ser- vice ; the Rev. James A. Buck, D. D., had been for forty-one years rector of Rock Creek Parish, D. C, and endeared himself to all who knew him by a holy, devoted life and ministry. The parish under him has grown and flourished and is now stronger than ever, though all around new parishes have been formed. He was also chaplain of the Soldiers' Home near by, where iie was much beloved, and he headed the official list of the clergy of the Diocese, having spent, I believe, nearly his whole life therein. He died in the early autumn of 1897, having been more than fifty-eight years in active ministry. He was succeeded by his cousin. Rev. Charles E. Buck, an alumnus of our Seminary, and an influential member of the Diocese. The Rev. W. H. Kinckle, after loving, faithful service, mostly spent in Lynchburg, passed away after too brief a ministry, leav- ing a name and memory that still survive after more than a gener- ation have gone. The Rev. W. T. Leavell did faithful service in West Virginia, spending nearly all of his life in one section, where he was respected and beloved by all. Born Septem- ber II, 1814, in Spottsylvania county, Virginia, he early 92 Class of 1839. felt the call to preach the Gospel, and for sixty years he faithfully proclaimed its message. He preached his last sermon about two months before his death. The Diocese of West Vir- ginia was dear to him, and he exclaimed shortly before dying, " I wish I had another life to give to the Church in West Virginia." In his character were combined gentleness, cheerfulness, humility, devotion to duty and unselfishness. The epitaph he liked best was, " He lived for others." He passed to his reward August 25, 1899. The Church mourned with him over the death of his son, the Rev. Francis K. lycavell, a few years ago, after a short but devoted ministry among the poor. The Rev. C. K. Nelson, D. D., was well known in the Church at large as an eloquent preacher, and as deeply interested in higher education, which he did much to advance. I never knew him very well, for he .spent most of his life in Mary- land, as Rector of St. Anne's Church, Annapolis, as sixth President of St. John's College, Annapolis, 1857-61, and later as Principal of Rockville Academy, Maryland. He was a Greek and Latin scholar, and a very able writer. The Rev. Dr. Scott was for many years rector of Christ Church, Pensacola, and after long and useful service came to Washington to live as rector emerittis. He wrote me, " I have always felt grate- ful for the thoroughness and accuracy of the foundation you laid in my mind of Biblical learning. I have often called to re- membrance for my example and guidance your heart of love and gentleness of manner. Dr. Lippitt took me to his heart and made my visits to his family very pleasant. Dr. Keith said to me on parting, ' Never give up the study of Metaphysics.' " The Right Rev. Dr. Richard H. Wilmer, late Bishop of Ala- bama, was an early and life long friend, whose noble heart, kindly wit and calm wisdom were unsurpassed. He lived on a farm at Lebanon near the Seminary with his stepmother and rode down to lectures often with his trousers stuffed in his top boots. His studies were much interrupted, but he came to us with a reputation as a graduate of Yale College, class of 1836. I heard his first sermon, which was full of rhetori- cal figures and flowery. Dr. Keith objected to it on this ground, but Wilmer said in reply, " You know when you turn a young colt out he wants to run and kick up his heels ; when he gets older he gets more steady, so with my style, it will quiet down." Bishop Richard Wilmer. 93 He was a great preacher and made every where a deep and power- ful impression, for he had a persuasive and charming voice, a beau- tiful style and always clear and strong thought, illuminated by imagination and illustration. I heard him preach in the Seminary Chapel in October, 1897, with great delight, and his voice and energetic delivery were remarkable. A physician in New York after hearing him said, " I have spiritual food to last me a week." At the burial of Rev. Dr. Minnegerode he recited most beautifully the hymn, " I heard the voice of Jesus say." His wit and wisdom made him most charming, and a volume would be needed to set them forth. A brother clergyman, great in genealogy, wrote him he had traced back his descent to David, and hoped to go back further. Bishop Wilmer wrote him that at his time of life he was more interested in whither he was going than where he came from, and he hoped to get to Abraham's bosom. His last days and hours were brightened by a serene strong faith, which was shown in the wit with which he spoke, so natural to him, and showing no fear of death, but perfect confidence in God. His sister married my early friend, Rev. R. T. Brown, class of 1838, who was of unusual talent as a writer and of choice taste. He spent his last years in Rockville, where his preaching was greatly admired. A Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Stales, hearing Mr. Brown preach there, expressed the greatest admiration, and thought he had never heard a greater sermon. Bishop Wilraer's son. Dr. William H. Wilmer, the eminent oculist of Washington, is carrying on for the physical faculties the same work that his noble grandfather, Dr. W. H. Wilmer, did for the spiritual powers of the people of Washington and Alexandria, Asking his father not long ago where he should build his new house and office, the Bishop said : " My son, there are only two suitable places, C street or I street." The son chose I street. The Rev. Reuel Keith, D. D., was the first professor of the Serqinary, and for twenty years he was its main teacher, and the Seminary was fortunate in getting such a man, to stamp upon it a character which it has never lost. Born in Vermont, from early childhood he was passionately fond of books. In Troy, New York, where he was clerk in a store in his boyhood, he became acquainted with the Episcopal Church. He fitted himself for col- lege at St. Albans and entered Middlebury College in 1811, and, 94 Professor Reuei, Keith. after being at the head of all his classes, graduated with the high- est honors. He was baptized by Dr. Henshaw and became an earnest Christian. Coming to Virginia on account of his health, for the doctors said he had a large hole in his lungs, he became a tutor, which was a very common thing then, nearly all the teach- ers being from the North. He acted as la}^ reader in King George county, and this report was made to the Convention : ' ' The spirit of religion is reviving under Mr. Keith, who has large congrega- tions." He returned to Vermont and was tutor for his alma mater. He then studied for the ministry under Dr. Henshaw, in Brook- lyn, and later as resident graduate at Andover. He came to Alex- andria and was ordained by Bishop Moore in St. Paul's, Alexandria, in 1817. He at once became assistant to the Rev. Walter D. Addison at St. John's, Georgetown, where his ministry was so successful that a new church, Christ Church, was built, of which he was the rector for one year. After staying two years at Williamsburg, as rector of Bruton parish and Theological Profes- sor at William and Mary, he was, after a short stay in Vermont, brought back to Virginia in 1823, and from that time till his death, in 1842, was professor here. He was deeply interested in Hengs- tenberg's Christology and learned German thoroughly in order to translate it. A bookseller in Alexandria undertook to publish it, but it had to be printed at Andover, and I saw it through the press for him in 1836, just before coming to the Seminary. This work did honor to our Church and is a most admirable transla- tion. As soon as I arrived here I went to see him and was heart- ily welcomed. I spent my first evening at his house, and we talked until late in the night, not noticing the flight of time. I boarded with him for a year, having my room at the Seminary, and derived great profit from my association with him. He had the power of abstraction in a very high degree — the highest of all mental powers — and he would become so absorbed in his subject as to forget everything else. Thus he was very strong intellectually and was a master of what he had studied. Everything he read and saw and heard he put into his own cru- cible, tested it, and laid it away for future use. This was the se- cret of his wonderful command of all his resources. He was a many-sided man, great in the lecture-room and in the pulpit, and there were other sides of his character equally pleasing. He was an excellent and accurate scholar and thoroughly understood the Hebrew, Greek, L,atin and German languages, as his translation Dr. Keith's Sermons. 95 of Hengstenberg's Christology shows. He was a man of tall but stooping figure, with a noble forehead and piercing eye. He was, as Bishop Meade says, a most eloquent preacher, and the most earnest one I have ever heard, and he made a great impression on the students with his " blood earnestness," as Chalmers says. There was a glowing sense of the Divine presence on him which moved others. He was much sought after to preach at Associa- tions ; at Conventions he was often heard with delight, and was thought the best preacher in the State. His manner of reading ths Psalter and the Prayers, especially the I^itany, was remark- ably fervent and impassioned. He prayed the service throughout as I have never heard any one else do. His voice was very good, silvery and penetrating, awe-inspir- ing. His mode of preparation for the pulpit, when I knew him, was to look over one of his old sermons and then to give its sub- stance, with any new thought he had, without notes. I never knew him to write a new sermon in the six years of our associa- tion. Bishop Smith bears witness to the impression made on him by the solemn earnestness of Dr. Keith's piety, by the ferv^or of his devotion, and by the richness of instruction, the solidity of argu- ment and the force of delivery of his sermons, riveting the atten- tion of all who ever heard him, and producing powerful eflFects. He was a moderate Calvinist. A slight infusion of Calvinism, like sugar in a cup of tea, might by a discriminating person be perceived in his sermons. When a student on one occasion, after Dr. Keith had presented the Calvinistic view of a subject, said to him, "When, Doctor, are we to have the other side?" he answered, " There is no other." I will give an extract from a New Year's sermon of his which was published by request of the students, January, 1840 : " Pause, I beseech you, and reflect deeply and solemnly on the nature, the greatness, and the eternity of this salvation, that the thought of its nearness may forever dispel the slumbers of your immortal spirits. It is a salvation which interested the affections and occupied the councils of the holy, blessed and glorious Trinity before the foundations of the world were laid, and which were deemed of sufficient impor- tance in the sight of God, to be accomplished at no less expense than the incarnation, sufferings and death of His only begotten Son. It is the salvation of a rational, accountable 96 A New Year's Sermon. and immortal being, of boundless capacity for enjoyment or suf- fering ; a salvation which rescues him from all that is evil, and confers upon him all that is good, through the whole extent of his never-ending existence ; for it delivers him from the curse of God and makes him the object of His everlasting love. It is a salvation so great and glorious that every instance of its being se- cured by one of our fallen race heightens the happiness even of heaven itself; ' for there is joy in the presence of God and of the holy angels over one sinner that repenteth.' It is a salvation which God has accomplished for us expressly in order that He might show in the ages to come to an admiring, adoring and re- joicing universe what His almighty love can do, and what is the exceeding riches of His grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." Dr. Keith was very fond of horses and spent much of his leisure in riding or driving. He was much given to exchanging them, in which he generally got the worst of the bargain. He would spend his vacations driving over a good part of New England in a yellow carry-all with two horses, one probably a large, bony, grey horse, and the other a small sorrel. He never paid much attention to appearances. I borrowed one of his horses, the sorrel, to ride on horseback with him to L,eesburg, he on the grey, to the consecration of the new church there. On our return, in company with Bishop Meade, we stopped at a wayside inn, half-way between Ivcesburg and Alexandria. The Bishop deliberately drew a chair to the corner of the room and began to shave himself without a glass, a thing I have never seen done, before or since. Dr. Keith was of a very nervous temperament, moody and sub- ject to fits of depression, but on recovering from them he would be in very high spirits. From the time I knew him he would often sit for days together in his house without saying a word, and leaning his head upon the back of his chair. In 1840 he lost his wife, who was his right hand and his right eye, and he was very uncomfortable at home. In the next spring, after being sick all the winter and very miserable, he became melancholy and thought he was lost. Rev. Carter Page, one of the noblest men I have known, the brother of Rev. James J. Page, went with Dr. Keith on a trip South, as there was no one else to go. When traveling on the stage Dr. Keith addressed a man who was swear- ing and warned him to escape eternal damnation, to embrace now Dr. Keith's Sayings. 97 the salvation ofiered him, saying : " You can do it now, but as for me, it is too late; there is no hope for me." Though his sun went down here in clouds and gloom, it rose in glory on the other side, when he reached the city of which the Lamb is the light. This phase of his life reminds me remarkably of the poet Cowper, and of the lines written On Cowper's Grave by Mrs. Elizabeth B. Browning. " Oh Christians ! at your cross of hope, a hopeless haud was clinging ! O men ! this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling. Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling ! " His melancholia has been sometimes, but unjustly, ascribed to his religious views. Religion was with him the great and absorbing subject ; and just as a rich man when insane becomes fearful of poverty, so Dr. Keith when his mind was thrown off its balance feared that he was lost. Philip Slaughter, when a student, thinking that a Doctor of Divinity knew everything in the Bible asked Dr. Keith one day what was meant by "the whole creation groaneth." With his usual simplicity he replied, "I don't know; I never did know what that verse meant." He lived in the house next to the chapel, and his was the first door on the Hill at which I knocked. A student, visiting across the Potomac, had his mind diverted from his studies. He once called on Dr. Keith, and asked if he would explain how mind could be affected by matter. The doctor said he could not, but added, " There seems to be a little matter over in Maryland that affects your mind very much." Someone asked him what was the greatest sin a man could com- mit. " Defacing a mile post," was his reply. A student reciting in Butler's Analogy said, " Oh, Doctor, I have detected a flaw in Butler's reasoning." "Then you have caught a weasel asleep," said the Doctor. Something was said about the Deluge and the Ark, and a student 'asked, " Doctor, what became of the fish?" He answered, "Fine time for the fish, Mr. ." Even in his gloomy days he was logical. A student with a bad complexion and sickly look remarked to him bewailing his poor health, "Why, Doctor, you don't look very badly, you don't look worse than I do." He replied, "You are looking very badly, Mr. ." 98 J. C. Wheat. Rev. J. C. Wheat, D. D., is just my age and is a wonderful instance of activity in old age. He is by fourteen years the old- est living alumnus of Kenyon College, Ohio, where he graduated and soon after ordination he devoted his life to the training of the young, but always exercised his ministry when called on. He never received a salary from any parish, but gave his services freely and in Lynnwood parish where he spent the last fifteen years he baptized nearly all the children and buried all the dead. When Vice-President of the Virginia Female Institute he lived in Staunton and on Sundays officiated at Boyden Chapel, six miles, and at Port Republic, twenty-two miles distant, riding or walk- ing those distances winter and summer, no matter what the weather. In his ninetieth year he drove five miles to bury the dead. Like Mr. Leavell from seventy-six to eighty-four years of age he preached twice every Sunday, and was besides superintendent and teacher in the Sunday School until he was eighty-nine. [Dr. Wheat died August 12. 1902, after three days' illness. — Ed.] Rev. Henry W. L. Temple (1841) was a man of noble character and gained a most extraordinary influence not only over his flock, but his community, in worldly as well as in spiritual matters. He spent his whole ministerial life in one parish in Essex County. A tender, faithful pastor, a wise counsellor, an exemplary Christian he was greatly beloved by all, dying in 1870. I may here speak of the Rev. Edward C. McGuire, elder brother of Rev. J. P. McGuire, so well known to our older clergy, but re- membered now by very few. Born in July, 1793, he grew up, having " religious emotions " when ten or twelve years old, but with no one to guide or counsel him in religion save his pious mother. At eighteen he began to study law, and was then very fond of worldly amusements. He had visitations of the Spirit and was led to pray earnestly for several months, but relapsed into sin. In his nineteenth year he determined to be a Christian. " It pleased the gracious God," he said, " to visit me again with the powerful influence of His Holy Spirit. It was instantaneous and sudden as a flash of lightning from the clouds. It was unsought, the free and unmerited gift of a gracious God. Praise the Lord, O my soul ! " The outward circumstances of this change are said to be these. There was to be a large " assembly " ball in Win- chester, which he, in spite of difficulties, determined to attend. He started in fine spirits and full of joyful anticipations. A cloud rose rapidly, and a pouring rain forced him to take shelter under Edward McGuire. 99 a tree. An instant after a stroke of lightning shivered the tree, and that, strange to say, without even stunning him. Instead of going on to Winchester he returned home, and from that hour the gay pleasures of the world were nothing in his eyes. In January, 1812, he went to Alexandria to study under Rev. William Meade, as there were no seminaries at that time. In April, 1812, he writes, " I first communed, not haviyig had a7i opportunity before, ^^ showing the destitution of religious privileges. " I now began," he adds, " to rejoice greatly in the Lord." Mr. Meade leaving soon after, he studied under Rev. W, H. Wilmer, rector of St. Paul's. In September, 1812, he removed to Baltimore, where he studied one year, and September, 18 13, he was called to Freder- icksburg as lay-reader, and as rector as soon as he was ordained. This was on August 4, 18 14, by Bishop Moore, being his first or- dination. The state of the Church in Fredericksburg was most discouraging and might have daunted a braver heart. He writes : " I commenced a career most unpromising in the estimation of men. But the God of my salvation was with me. . . A work of grace quickly commenced in the Church. Souls were converted to God, and, aided by their prayers, we began to lift up our heads and pursue our work with increased diligence and strength." No one can .sum up the results of his ministry in this, his only charge, and only the day of judgment will reveal all that was due to his faithful preaching, his holy example and his untiring labors. Few have had a stay so long and useful in one place. Forty-five years did he spend in that one parish ! His ministry did not lose, but gained in strength the longer it continued. Some men may spend a brief ministry in a place with eclat for their stirring ser- mons and energetic work. Here was a man who started at twenty as lay-reader, and continued nearly a half century, as Bishop Meade says, "with a succession of revivals, or rather a continued one, under faithful evangelical preaching, with two new churches, each increasing in size and expense, called for, and with several young ministers going forth from this parish. Among them was Rev. Launcelot Minor, whose remains are on the African shore, alongside of those of Mrs. Susan Savage, the devoted missionary, whose spiritual birthplace was St. George's Church." There have been but few such cases in our Communion, and the papers mentioned the golden jubilee of Rev. Richard S. Storrs in Brook- lyn as unusual. loo Revivai^ under McGuire. Dr. McGuire not only built up his own parish, but went through Spottsylvania, StafiFord, Essex, Caroline, Culpeper and Orange counties preaching and visiting. Once in Caroline with Revs. J.W. Cooke and John P. McGuire, about fourteen hundred people gathered on Sunday, crowding the church and filling the yard. Great feeling was shown and many tears were shed, and souls were saved. In 1 83 1 there was a special awakening, of which I have often heard. There was simple, earnest preaching of the gospel, but the interest spread from soul to soul till about sixty were changed. Still greater was the religious interest in 1858. Though no spe- cial means were used, and the pastor's infirmities hindered him, yet as a result of the revival eighty-eight persons were confirmed, of every age and calling, male and female. I often saw Dr. McGuire, who was a true friend of the Semi- nary and visited it often. He told me that he was once on a wharf with Bishop Moore. An Irish porter passing by with a trunk hit against the Bishop, who struck him with his umbrella. The porter laid down the trunk and came to settle with the Bishop, who edged behind Dr. McGuire, as he was very tall and large. I can see him now as he represented the scene. I spent a night at Dr. McGuire's and was put in the same room with Bishop Meade. In the morning when he woke up he began to talk about his clergy, spoke of poor Mr. , who had a large family and needed help. He gave $400 one year to a minister who was with- out work, and was always thinking of his clergy, and spending himself for them. He stinted himself that he might have to give to others. Dr. McGuire published a volume on " The Religious Opinions and Character of Washington." He wrote many of the reports on the State of the Church in our journals. His great experience, sound judgment and pure character gave him great weight in our Conventions, and he was often a deputy to General Convention. In July, 1858, Alfred M. Randolph, now Bishop of Southern Virginia, who had just graduated, was secured for his assistant, as his health was failing. On Friday, October 8th, just after dressing to visit some parishoners, he dropped dead. He was just sixty-five, not old as we now think, but he had done much for his Master. The burial was attended by a vast concourse. Bishop Johns made a beautiful address, and he passed, we believe, to a glorious reward. Thomas E. L,ocke. ioi Rev. Thomas E. lyocke was born the same month and year as I was and had the room next to me at the Seminary mv first and his last year. We were thrown together very much and enjoyed a long and valued friendship for sixty years. His life was spent in Virginia, and his recollection of persons and things was very vivid. I wish he could have written his reminiscences. He told me a curious thing. He married a man and received twenty dollars ; he buried that wife and was handed thirty dollars. Not long after he married him again and he gave him ten dollars. On burying that wife he received the same amount. When he came to marry him again, the man remarked to some one, " Mr. Eocke will break me yet." Mr. Locke told me the students at Kenyon sometimes threw the butter out of doors, and he said the tea was execrable because a tallow candle was held over the kettle to see that the quantity was right and tallow dropped in. Bishop Chase reproved them and told them if they did so again, he would say, "Take up thy bed and walk." Eocke was one of thirty students there and graduated. CHAPTER XII. LIFE IN VIRGINIA. IN the summer of 1837, after our session had closed on July 15th, Rev. Philip Slaughter, rector of Christ Church, George- town, asked me to go with him to the White Sulphur Springs. I was very glad to have the opportunity of seeing something of Virginia. We started at 5 A. M. on the stage to Warrenton Springs, which we reached that night. Often one had to wait days to get a seat, the stages being full. We stopped for some days at the house of his father, Captain Slaughter, a distinguished officer of the Revolution, whose daughter afterwards lived on the Hill, and remembered my visit and some remarks sixty years before. He was then living with a widowed daughter, and offered me his easy- going riding horse to use. He had been closely associated with Chief Justice Marshall, as Marshall served under him in the war, and was, he said, a splendid soldier. The Chief Justice had died a short time before. I used to dine with his son, James Keith Mar- shall, when I preached in Alexandria, I remember that blackber- ries were not eaten then, but were thought fit only for hogs, and tomatoes were rarely used. We went on to Charlottesville, where I met Revs. Richard K. Meade and Joseph Wilmer, afterward Bishop of Louisiana. Wilmer had just published a sermon on "Great Men who have become Christians," and he gave me a copy. We met Professor Gessner Harrison at the University of Vir- ginia, which was then only twelve years old. There was at that time quite a lack of discipline and method, it seemed to me, in the course. They read very little Latin or Greek, but spent much time on grammar, &c. One of our bishops, a Master of Arts before the war, told me that he had never read any Homer, though a full graduate there. That is all changed now. One of the professors came into our hotel and drank at the bar a stiff glass of brandy, and it was said in excuse that he was an Englishman. We stopped at Covington and at last reached the White Sulphur. We had passed on our journey many family parties in their own carriages. At the Springs there were more than one hundred carriages owned by private parties. 102 White Sulphur Springs. 103 and six four-in-hand carriages, and every morning they went out driving. Mrs. Dolly Madison was there with some young ladies named Walker. She often went about the grounds in her turban. The leaders of society in Virginia and in the South were there, such as the Tayloes, Hamiltons, Middletons and Pinckneys. I remember what a pretty woman Miss Pinckney was. One family from South Carolina had eleven horses and seven servants with them. Gambling went on openly, and near our cottage men assem- bled to play. The table and accommodations were poor and Mr. Caldwell, the proprietor, said when complaint was made : "The guests came to drink the water and not for high living at the table." Men went out hunting all the time, deer and other game being very abundant. The packs of hounds interested me greatly, being something entirely new. We stayed three weeks and Dr. Slaughter preached. He had a very happy faculty for selecting suitable texts, and his sermon there was on the Pool of Bethesda. Once, preaching in the woods to the soldiers, he took no text, but said : " The groves were God's first temples," and used that as his theme. Ex-Governor James Barbour of Virginia, a large man with a strong face, was there ; he was a great talker and always had a group around him listening to his eloquent conversation. Ex- Governor Sprigg of Maryland and many other prominent men met there. We visited all the other springs near by, and the Hawk's Nest, fifty miles away. This is a remarkable precipice, 1,100 feet in perpendicular height above the water, which roars and tumbles below and yet not the faintest sound is heard above. I spent the night in a log cabin, and its owner said he had seen a panther the day before and that he could shoot all the wild turkeys he wanted more easily than raising them. Rev. J. J. Page, when in West Virginia, knelt to pray in a one- roomed cabin, and the man came and shook him, thinking he was ill. They had never heard of God or the Christian religion. The Natural Bridge far surpassed my expectations, and there I received my first impression of sublimity. To see that vast dome, so to speak, the arch so regular, so graceful, and airy, of solid rock, the same with the sides, overwhelms the mind. It is all one solid piece. We came back by Staunton, where there was a frame church and a small, feeble congregation, which had not been long organized, I04 White Mountains. where I preached. I visited Weyer's Cave nearby. I went also to Harper's Ferry, in which I was disappointed. Jefferson had never seen it when he wrote his fine description. Dr. French, in Alexandria, told me that buffalo had been killed the last ten years of the last century in Virginia. Where he lived he got certificates from several persons that their fathers had killed buffalo in Wytheville, and they were published in the American Naturalist, edited by my nephew. There is a place called Buffalo Lick Springs near Staunton. I never saw the dogwood which makes the spring so gay and spreads its level floors of white through the dull woods, until I came South, or the beautiful tulip poplar tree. The opossum, highly valued by the negro, is not found north of the Hudson. My son caught two in one night in his traps. Wild turkeys were abundant in Fairfax when I came. In August, 1832, five years before my trip through Virginia, I traveled in a buggy from Walpole through the White Mountains. The scenery was quite different from that in Virginia, and the trees and vegetation unlike. In both nature was in her prime, uninjured by the hand of man. I went up the valley of the Con- necticut river, stopping at Hanover for the College Commence- ment ; thence to Oxford, a beautiful town, Bath and Haverhill, the river in view all the way, lined occasionally with fine meadows, reaching Littleton, New Hampshire, where I was treated with attention from our letters of introduction. We next day drove the fifteen miles to White Mountains, through an unbroken " forest primeval " of the white pines one hundred and twenty -five and one hundred and fifty feet high, that had never felt the axe. Thirty years later I passed over the way and not one of them was left. The country was full of game ; partridges I saw in the road ; deer, wolves and bears were common and seen every day. I was much excited at seeing the fresh track of a bear. The week before a party passing through the Notch saw a wolf standing over the body of a deer. They drove the wolf off and took the deer of which they made a good feast. The mountain sides were grooved from summit to base by the sliding of earth, and the Notch seemed in process of being filled up by the torrents of sand and stones brought down. The clouds had been gathering around the bald summits, they enveloped the defile in mist as we came near and the violent wind bent down the stunted trees of the Notch. Potomac River. 105 We fished one day at the falls of the Araonoosuck, a wild syl- van scene, an object of great interest anywhere but in the White Mountains. The Crawford House was the only hotel and it was full with its fifty-two guests when I was there. Old Crawford was living, and to entertain the guests used a speaking trumpet, the sound of which when softened by distance and far away among the hills resembled unearthly melody, and tones of more than mortal sweetness were sent back from their rocky caverns. We were prevented from ascending Mt. Washington by a snowstorm in August, which Crawford said had never been known before. At that time visitors had to walk to the top, then horses were used until the railroad was made. With great interest did we watch the varying changes of that mountain, either when reflect- ing the evening or morning sunbeams, and when partly covered with snow. I once travelled with a man who said he could have bought, in 1834, the whole of Chicago for one hundred dollars an acre. Dr. Heman Humphrey, of Amherst, went out there and invested five hundred dollars. A few years after he was asked to sell it for twenty-five hundred dollars and he took the offer. The next sale was one hundred thousand. Its value now is immense, being in the heart of the city. It was incorporated as a city in this very year, March 4, 1837, population 4,170. The Potomac river when I first came was not only full offish, but abounded in wild ducks, canvas-back and other choice varieties, and wild geese. Going up the river on the boat, I have often seen large spaces, acres, covered with ducks, and they did not seem timid. Dr. Richard Stuart, who lived lower down the Potomac in King George county, has told me that often he was kept awake by the noise of the ducks and geese feeding in the river. I went down to an association there with Bishop Meade and B. B. I^ea- cock, who preached so well that they called him. He was very kind and helpful to me. We stayed at Cedar Grove, the beauti- ful and hospitable home of Dr Richard Stuart, and the table fairly groaned under the weight of his generous provision. His house was only a few yards from the river bank. The mocking birds used to sing all night, in the yard there, it seemed to me. Potomac means, I think, in the Indian language, stream of swans, and in a poem, " The Maid of the Doe," by C. Carter Lee, are these lines : "From thy south shore, great stream of swans, Came the great I^ees and Washingtons." io6 Fairfax County. When I came to Fairfax county the farms were very large, but the land was generallj^ poor. The negro slaves were numerous, but no one seemed to make money by farming or to care much for making it. Hospitality abounded, and living was most lux- urious as far as the table was concerned. There was a marked difference from the northern ways in all external matters, and while often the houses were substantial and well built, the yard and farm was not kept with strict regard to appearances or to beauty. I remember enjoying a most luxurious dinner at a house not at all imposing, surrounded by a worm fence, though this was not usual. By the way, the worm fence is a curious survival of the past, and shows a country, such as Virginia and Maryland were, where wood and labor were most abundant, and saw mills scarce nnd nails costlj\ In the seventeenth century nails were men- tioned in the wills as valuable assets. Society was then simple and in some respects patriarchal. The head of the house was a man who not only had his household looking up to him, but perhaps one to four hundred slaves, for whom he had to think and provide in many ways. Hugh S. IvCgare defined feudalism as a scheme of organized an- archy, while the social system of the South on the contrary was both unorganized and conservative. It has been called "patri- archal in its upper stratum and pastoral in its lower one." Dress was a very simple thing comparatively. A young lady of the best families would have a handsome dress, which was worn on best occasions, and some simple lawn or gingham gowns, and she would then be ready to visit her friends, or even to go to the Springs. Fashions did not then change so often as now. The trunks were small, often of sole leather, or hair-covered nar- row low boxes, such as could be easily carried on the top of the stage or the seat behind the carriage. Often in the mountains, where vehicles were not so much used, they would go off to a party or for a visit with sufiacient clothing carried in a bag on the pommel of the saddle. Now we have changed all this, and no young lady can go off for a short visit without a dozen dresses, and a Noah's ark or a Saratoga hotel to hold them. Virginia had from the first some remarkable characteristics in a financial way. During the seventeenth century, from 1607- 1700, there was so little coin in circulation that it might be said that it was not used, tobacco being the currency for everything, from the payment for groceries and goods to the hire of laborers. Kindness to Slaves. 107 the fees of lawyer, doctor and minister, the building of houses and churches. This use of tobacco extended in some measure into the eighteenth century, though coin and notes were then used more largely. But a new element came in, and that was slavery, which aflfected its financial system. It is a great mistake to think that the slaves were neglected generally. Being the most valuable property, they were of course well cared for, and I can bear my personal witness to the kindness and care usually shown them. They were kept occupied, but that was necessary for their good, and their work was not often excessive. This is shown by the fact that seldom was money made in Virginia by them ; no great fortunes were accumulated, no costly houses were built or handsome furniture bought. There was great abundance of good food, most of which was raised on the place by the industry and oversight of the master and mis- tress. Most of what was raised was consumed on the farm ; sel- dom was even enough sent off to pay for the goods that were bought. No private or public improvements remain to show any hard labor on the part of the slaves ; no good roads, no strong fences, and no public buildings or monuments such as were made by the Israelites in Egypt, were ever contemplated or attempted. Why ! Virginia with its immense number of laborers, if they had been worked with system, not to say severity, might be a garden spot, with stone turnpikes through every farm, stone fences and stone barns, instead of its miry, clay roads, its worm fences, and its frame stables. Just here I might say that in the life of the late Frederick Doug- lass, he states that negro children were not allowed to be baptized in slavery times. This is false in regard to the Episcopal Church (and I doubt not in regard to the Methodists and Presbyterians also), as our parochial records will show. For instance. Rev. F. D. Goodwin, rector of St. Paul's parish. Prince George's county, Maryland, reports to the Maryland Convention of 1836 that the previous year he had baptized 37 white infants and 63 colored infants. In our Journals from of old stands Infants, white ; in- fants, colored, under head of Baptisms, and the same double record for Confirmations. The slaves were not overworked or even hard worked in Vir- ginia or Maryland, I think. Fifteen or more would be kept about the house or yard ; fifty were kept about Arlington, and the others would work on the farm. I remember hearing that io8 FiNANCiAi, Methods. Rev. John T. Clark (father of Rev. W. Meade Clark), once find- ing that his overseer had made over one hundred hogsheads of tobacco on his immense plantation with its numerous slaves, told him that he did not want his slaves worked so hard. Not all were like this, for I heard Bishop Richard Wilmer once in a sermon say, " for a few more pounds of tobacco you will work your slaves too hard or make them work on Sunday. ' ' Now, as to the effect of slavery on the financial methods of Virginia, it was this : The slaves formed a large portion of the wealth of the rich and were almost the same as bonds, for they were readily converted into cash on occasion. Hence a man who had such property had good credit with the merchants. The planter could get what supplies he needed year by year, sending down what he had to spare from the farm, and being credited for the rest, and charged from twelve to twenty per cent, more for interest. This might go on for years unless either the merchant or the farmer should die. In that case the sale of a slave or a family or two of slaves would settle the matter. The planters were not used to paying their debts until they died, and it has occurred to me that this was one cause of the financial diificulties in which the State of Virginia was involved. They were not used to settling debts as others were, and hence, though with as high a sense of honor as any people in the world, repudiation and readjustment took place after the war. It was very uncommon to press a debtor in Virginia. While he lived, few creditors would disturb him by executing a judgment. Mr. Henry Fairfax once told a friend of mine that old Mr. D , under pressure of debt, was to be sold out by some creditor, not probably of the same county. On the day fixed for the sale Mr. Fairfax rode over to express his sympathy for his old friend, and found him sitting on the lawn before his house with his house- hold goods around him, but there was no one there to bid and the sheriff did not even make his appearance. Those were easy-going times, though somewhat earlier party strife was bitter and often sundered families. The army and navy had great attractions for Southern men, and, as appointments were the President's prerogative then, many Southern men entered both branches. Fairfax county furnished her share of navy and army officers. Before the State Convention of 1850 none but those having a Cotton and Slavery. 109 legal interest in land had the right to vote, and the vote was then viva voce. A word more as to slavery, which is admirabl}^ treated by Ed- ward Ingle in Southern Sidelights, from which I quote, that "cot- ton and slavery were introduced into the South within a twelve- month." Tobacco and cotton culture prompted England to fasten slavery upon the South, hence the plantation system was formed in order to produce raw material for England, and when England let go the North took hold, so that slavery in America is due to England and New England. The last ship that brought slaves from Africa to this country was called the " Wanderer," landing one load not long before the war on the coast of Georgia. Her "log" was lately found and is a curious record. Her owner, Mr. Charles I^ , was the only child saved from a terrible wreck, and to the remonstrance of his father about bringing slaves to this country, he replied that he felt justified in bringing the poor wretches out of Africa into Georgia for that he bettered their condition in every way. The community in general was peaceful and law-abiding. Men did not usually carry deadly weapons. Those who followed the code of honor had no occasion to go armed, and others, when they did fight, used their fists. I never heard when I came to Virginia of men drawing pistols on each other. Fourth-of-July and gen- eral-muster days sometimes were the occasions of trouble. Old General Morgan, of Revolutionary fame, was a noted pugilist and his home in Clarke county was near Berryville, which was often called Battletown, on account of his combats. McCarty, whom I have seen, used to be pointed out as the man who had killed Mason in a duel. They used rifles and agreed to stand at the end of the rifle, and it was a wonder McCarty escaped. Duels used to be common fifty or sixty years ago. I have known of :ministers fighting duels. There used to be a regular duelling ground outside of Washington near Bladensburg. It was considered that no man could come off" with honor without fighting a duel under certain provocations. Some few brave men stood out against this barbarous custom. John Randolph of Roanoke had been making pretty heavy strictures on the Richmond Whig, of which John Hampden Pleasants was the editor. Pleasants went on to Washington expressly to insult him and bring about a duel. Meeting Ran- dolph on Pennsylvania Avenue, Pleasants, standing directly in no John RandoLtPH. front of him, said loudly, "I don't get out of the way of pup- pies." Quick as a flash John Randolph, stepping aside, said, " I always do. Pass on." John Randolph said that " farming in Virginia went in a circle. The negroes raised the corn, the hogs ate the corn, the negroes ate the hogs" and so on. A Southern journal described the circle of investment of capital in land and negroes, " Making more cotton to buy more negroes to raise more cotton to buy more negroes. ' ' It reminds us of Turretin's Papal circle. The Papacy proved the Bible, the Bible proved the Church, and the Church proved the Papacy. When Randolph was Minister to Russia he visited London and was invited to lunch with lyord . He stopped on his way to see Mrs. Harriet Martineau who made herself so agreeable that the time passed away and lunch being brought in he did not leave. Arriving very late at the house of Lord he said, " Mr. Randolph, we have been waiting for you." He replied, " The woman tempted me and I did eat." John Randolph freed his slaves by will ; but made another will later making John C. Bryan, father of Joseph and Rev. C. Braxton Bryan, his heir. These wills were in litigation and finally the will freeing his slaves was established. His brother, Richard Randolph, freed his slaves and settled them on lands near Farm- ville, Va., but they did not prosper. Mr. David Minge, of Charles City county, Virginia, in the summer of 1825 set free his eighty-seven slaves, from three months to forty years old, valued at twenty-six thousand dollars, and the expenses were four thousand dollars more, as he chartered a vessel to take them to Liberia, furnished them with tools and goods and money to start them. Aged men, about to leave the world, have left large endowments and legacies to found institutions in their honor. Mr. Minge was only twenty-four or twenty-five, and thus performed a noble act of unselfish liberality. William H. Fitz- hugh set free three hundred .slaves. I recall my father-in-law saying to me that until the abolition movement in the North there was no statesman in Virginia who was not in favor of abolishing slavery as soon as it could be safely done. I was told that in 1832 the Brodnax resolution in the Vir- ginia Legislature to call a convention to abolish slavery was lost by only two votes. I have heard also that about that time Thomas Jefferson Randolph advocated its abolition in Virginia. Aunt Delphy. i i i Clay advocated gradual emancipation, with purchase, as they should come of age. If his views and advice had been adopted a fearful war would have been saved the country. But their eyes were blinded that they could not see, and their ears stopped that they could not hear. My father-in-law was one of Senator Clay's greatest admirers, and also one of the most ardent advocates of his pacific and humane measures. Dancing or some amusement was often provided for the slaves on Saturday nights closely followed by religious instruction on Sunday. On some plantations slaves were called to family prayers, and ministers either white or colored were employed to preach, to baptize, to marry and to bury the dead. An infidel, it is said, convinced of the advantages of religion for slaves, under- took to teach them about it himself I knew an old colored woman named Delphy, living on the Blue Ridge Mountains, who had been paralyzed for more than forty years, and suffering acute nervous pain. In all that time, we were assured, she had never been heard to murmur and her faith and patience were the admiration of all who knew her. For more than twenty years she had never heard the Bible read and did not remember having been visited before by a minister. She told me that though her sins were as great as the " Cobbler " mountain and black as charcoal yet Jesus had forgiven her. I wrote a short account of her to the Avierican Messeyigtr and money was sent for her. A good mattress was bought, instead of the boards on which she had lain, and her house was repaired, but it hastened her death. Much might be said about the negroes' desire to please by saying what seemed to be desired. An old woman in the Almshouse near us was visited by our students. She appeared very old and when one asked her how old she was, said, " Most two hundred. Master." Old uncle Dick, a negro at Chantilly, lived to a great age, and used to be fond of telling of his old master, saying once, " I remember Master Richard Henry Lee riding across the Atlantic Ocean on his white horse." There was a simplicity in religious as well as in social matters. People then believed the Bible, and observed the Lord's-Day as a sacred season, without criticism or analysis. They better knew how than why they believed and acted as Cowper has said : " They knew and knew no more, the Bible to be true, A truth the brilliaut Frenchman never knew." 112 Religion and Education. Such was the reverence for the sacrament of the lyord's Supper, that some under the influence of erroneous teaching were kept from observing the positive command of our Lord by the fear of not " being good enough," their intentions being praiseworthy, but their knowledge defective. The conduct of many such men was devout and exemplary, and many were not confirmed until old age. There were no internal revenue officers then, and men could "still" whiskey as they liked from apples or peaches. Ardent spirits were cheap, thirty and forty cents a gallon, so there was no temptation to poison and drug it, and even men who drank to excess were not made insane, as they are now. There were no public schools at that time, and there was a general inability to read among the laboring people. This, how- ever, did not prove that they were less intelligent or less moral than those who think that ed^icatiori means attendance on public schools, or being able to read and write. The masses received educating influences in mind and morals from well-educated classes — from lawyers, judges, public speakers and ministers. Public speaking was a great educating influence. There was a well-marked distinction of classes, but at the same time a kindly feeling and a friendly association between them. The Civil War showed what intelligence and character existed among the masses of the white people. We used to go every summer after I was married to Fauquier county, Va., to see my wife's sister, Mrs. Dr. R. E. Peyton. We went first in 1839. We hired a hack at four dollars a day and it took about three days. When we reached Thoroughfare Gap there came on a severe thunder storm and they told us we could not get across Bull Run. Mr. Chapman, who lived in a stone house near by, took us in, and we spent the night and reached Gordonsdale at 10 o'clock. I remt-mber how "The Plains" looked — only one store and one house. I used to enjoy my life at Gordonsdale very much. I was struck with the different customs, the great hospitality ; many visitors coming without notice and stajang two or three days, with their horses. They would have breakfast at 10 o'clock, and were cele- brated for their bread and biscuit. Dr. Peyton kept twenty horses, had fifty slaves — same number as at Arlington, only half a dozen perhaps, doing the work, the rest were children or infirm old people. Mrs. Peyton used to have a great deal of care about the Virginia HospitaIvITy. 113 slaves, their clothes to provide and a new suit for each at Christ- mas, and there were always some sick among them to be looked after. Every day in winter a wagon-load of wood was brought from the woods for the day's use. Dr. Peyton's home was a pretty fair specimen of independent, but not very wealthy, country life in Virginia. His farm contained about 700 acres, for which he had an overseer. That year he had 100 acres in corn, about the same in wheat, a garden of five or six acres ; grapes in the greatest profusion, more than I ever saw in my life before ; water- melons. We picked thirty fine ones in one day ; apples innumer- able and half an acre in strawberries. The house was a very large one of brick with fourteen guests at that time. Our usual dinner was ham (I never saw a dinner in Virginia without it), chickens, fried or broiled, a saddle of mutton, which is another standing dish, and suck mntton ; tomatoes, cymblins, cornpudding, etc. The desert is generally ice cream. The first Sunday I spent in Fauquier county we drove nine miles to a Union Meeting House, where Rev. George Lemmon preached the funeral sermon of a Mr. Buckner, who had died six months before. The widow in- vited us to dine with her on our way home. I used to go to Mr. Edward Marshall's frequently, where there was a house full of relatives, some from the far South, Douthats and others ; and to Mr. Strother Jones', who had a large farm near Winchester, using forty horses and many slaves. CHAPTER XIII. MARRIAGE— GENERAL WALTER JONES. REV. PHIIvIP SLAUGHTER, then rector of Christ Church, Georgetown, introduced me in Washington City, and took me to visit Gen. Walter Jones' family, whose daughter I married. General Jones was then at the height of his fame as a lawyer and orator ; was associated with all the leading men there, and was for many years at the head of the bar in Wash- ington. His father was Walter Jones, M. D., who, graduating at William and Mary College, went to Edinburg to study medi- cine, and was there held in high esteem by CuUen and other pro- fessors. He practised on his return in his native State, Virginia. In April, 1777, Congress elected him Physician General in the Middle Department. He was elected to Congress in 1797, and again in 1803-11. Dr. J. M. Toner, in his book, quotes of him this testimony : ' ' He was, for the variety and extent of his learning, the originality and strength of his mind, the sagacity of his observations and captivating powers of conversation, one of the most extraordinary men I have ever known. He seemed to possess instinctively the faculty of discerning the hidden cause of disease, and applying with promptness and decision peculiar to himself the appropriate remedies." He was the intimate friend of Washington and Jefferson, and their correspondence shows how highly he w^as esteemed by them. Walter Jones was born at Hayfield, Northumberland County, Va., on October 7, 1775. He pursued his classical studies under a Scotch tutor and all his life delighted in the L,atin classics. He studied law under Bushrod C. Washington, a wise and good man, who for more than thirty years was a Justice of the Su- preme Court. In May, 1796, he was admitted to the bar, and soon became famous for legal learning, eloquence and logical power. General Jones inherited his father's talents, and though he has left few monuments in the way of orations, yet, on the testimony of William Pinkney and others of equal weight, he was one of the most eloquent speakers that this countrj' has ever known, 114 General Jones. 115 The Supreme Court bears witness to his powers as a lawyer in its record of decisions, and he was engaged in the most famous cases for fifty years, the name of no other lawyer appearing in so many. Charles Carroll of Carrolton met him when a young man and said, " Is this the Mr. Jones of whom I hear so much ? " He was the principal lawyer in the Girard will case, and the argument had been made, and was being considered. Another hearing was given and Daniel Webster was chosen as associate. He made a very brilliant speech, but he did not answer a single new point. General Jones, through courtesy, assigned to him the closing argument. It was he that put Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines' case, that romance of litigation, on a firm foundation, so that it could be brought before the courts. The most famous of his cases was McCulloh vs. Maryland, in 1819. "Walter Jones, Luther Martin, and Joseph Hopkinson appeared for the State of Maryland, while Webster, Pinkney and Wirt, then Attorney- General appeared for the Bank. Though the decision of the Court was against the State of Maryland, yet Chief Justice Mar- shall from the bench said that ' ' both in maintaining the affirma- tive and the negative, a splendor of eloquence and strength of argument, seldom, if ever, surpassed, have been displayed." Mr. Pinkney in this case singled out the argument of Mr. Jones for special reply, saying his speech "was one which the most eloquent might envy, the most envious could not forbear to praise." Ruf us Choate spoke of ' ' the silvery voice and infinite analyti- cal ingenuity and resources of Jones." Judge Morsell admired him, and loved to talk of him, saying that if you granted Gen- eral Jones' premises, you must adopt his conclusions, so convinc- ing and persuasive was he. Mr. John H. Latrobe, in 1885, speaking of Webster, Wirt, Reverdy Johnson and Walter Jones, said : ' ' Walter Jones, with no personal advantages, the quickest, brightest and probably the acutest lawyer of the four. ' ' Philip R. Fendall, Esq., who knew him intimately, said : "We see him bringing to the height of his great argument 'All the reasoning power divine To penetrate, resolve, combine ; And feelings keen and fancy's glow.' ii6 His Eloquence. ' ' a logic severe and subtile; the most captivating elocution, though little aided by gesture ; rich, but never redundant, illustration, drawn from extensive and various reading, hived in a memory sin- gularly retentive, and always applied with accurate judgment and in good taste. We see him discussing a perplexed case, driven from one point to another, and, at length, after an exhausting contest of many days, seeking refuge and finding victory in some new position. . . . This faculty of caUing into instant action all the resources of an intellect so vigorous, so astute, so comprehen- sive, so fertile, so abundant in the learning of his profession, which led one of his most illustrious competitors to remark that • if an emergency could be supposed in which a cause had been ruled for immediate trial, and the client was driven to confide it to some advocate who had never before heard it, his choice ought to be Walter Jones.' In the social circle his charm was con- spicuous. His most casual remark was in a vein of originality, and couched in terms terse, sententious, and of the purest Eng- lish." General Jones appeared in nearly all the neighboring courts in Virginia and in Maryland. A gentleman from Winchester remem- bers when a boy that the school was dismissed in order that the boys might hear General Jones speak. Hon. Spencer C. Jones, of Rockville, recalls his father speak- ing of him in the Crampton will case, one of the famous Mary- land will cases. Walter Jones made the closing argument, and his father was foreman, and Tom was on the jury. Looking around he saw Tom gazing at General Jones with open mouth and gleaming eyes. At the close he said, "Tom, what did you think of that speech of General Jones?" "Well, I thought I would give everything in the world if I had that man's brains inside my head." " No, Tom, you could not have them ; they would burst it." Coming out of the court he would buy of the boys some mar- bles, put them on the ground, and soon lose them to the boys and go on his way. The military title of Walter Jones was derived from his com- mand of the militia of the District of Columbia. His active service in this role was in the defense of Washington in 1814, when the raw levies were forced to retire before the veterans of the British army. The only shame in that campaign was to the His Personauty. 117 victors, who burned the President's House and the Capitol, includ- ing its library, which by all rules of civilized warfare should have been held sacred. He was quite a small man but of well built and active figure; his features were irregular, but his face was lit up by brilliant and expressive brown eyes. His voice was rich and clear and so distinct was his articulation that he was easily heard in the largest assembly room. He attained the ripe age of eighty-six years, yet he preserved all his faculties in almost their full vigor to the last. When he was over eighty years of age he rode on horseback from Washington to my house in Fairfax county, a distance of eight miles. He died October 14, 1861. When his cousin, Mary A. Jones, went to him, he said, ' ' You have seen many sick and dying persons, do you think this is the death rattle ? " She said, ' ' Yes, I think it is. ' ' He then called his son-in-law. Dr. Miller, and said he wanted some writing done. The Doctor said, " It is too late now, Gen- eral." He said, " No, I can sign it with my own hand." When told there were two witnesses present, he said "There must be three." He dictated his will, his strength almost gone but his intellect unclouded, and while some one held his hand he signed his name. Not long before his death he said there was no act of his life that he looked upon with any degree of pride or pleasure. Walter Jones married in 1808 Anne, then sixteen years old, daughter of Hon. Charles Ivce and granddaughter of Richard Henry Lee, and first cousin of Robert K. Lee. When three years old she could repeat the Declaration of Independence. She was a brillant and beautiful woman, very gay, light-hearted and witty, would never speak without saying something bright. She was generous to a fault, gave away things really needed and even her jewels to her friends. She would never have her picture taken. They had fourteen children, twelve of whom grew up, nine daughters and three sons. Walter died of typhoid fever at the University of Virginia, having given promise of brilliant intellec- tual powers and noble character ; Thomas was drowned in the Rio Grande on the boundary survey in 1853, and Charles Lee died in 1889. His daughter Katharine died of smallpox caught from a scholar, while a missionary in China. Three daughters still survive. u8 My Marriage. General Jones had a country place in Virginia, and there was then neither Aqueduct nor Long Bridge, but only ferries. His ferriage bill, I think, was sometimes five hundred dollars a year. One summer when his daughter, Violetta, was ailing, he moved his family to the suburbs to a house standing on the site of the present Episcopal residence on Thomas Circle. He was often absent-minded from his abstraction and concen- tration of mind, once getting up and walking in the aisle of the church during service. His wife had the accumulation of some years sent to the auc- tioneer, but to her surprise and dismay a few days later nearly all of it came back, having been fancied by General Jones who often attended sales and did not know his own belongings. I married Rosina, his third daughter, at the house on Third street, in the evening of January 23, 1838, at seven o'clock. Rev. Mr. Owen, a one-armed man, who was then in charge of old Trinity Church, on Fifth street, oflficiated, and made me say the woman's part, includmg the word obey. Henry Clay, R. E. Lee, Emily Lee, Frances Lee, Franklin Pierce, then in Congress, all the Arlington family, the Lees and other relations from Alexan- dria, Mr. and Mrs. Lippitt, Mrs. Gales and others, were present, sixty persons in all. After the marriage there was a supper, and Henry Clay took the bride in, and I remember his congratulating me very pleasantly. I recall the scene and how people looked — they flit before me like figures in a dream. Life seems like a dream. No presents were given in those days and wedding journeys were not thought of, but parties and receptions were given. We spent a week in Washington, going into company every day. One evening we took dinner with Mrs. Gales, and shortly afterwards there was dancing before we had left. I saw Graves who had killed Cilley , dancing. Some ill-natured person reported the matter to Bishop Meade, who took me to task about it, but accepted my explanation. It was my first and last dancing party. We drove in a hack to Alexandria and paid a visit to Mrs. Hodgson, her cousin. Mrs. Harriet Lloj^d, a favorite cousin, gave us a beautiful dinner at which Rev. Mr. Dana and Mrs. W. H. Fitzhugh were present. The latter had not long been left a widow, and was one of the finest looking women I ever saw, fit to grace a throne, with charming manners and conversation. I H ar. K a Life at Howard. 119 liv^ed opposite to her a short time at the Lloyd house nearly thirty years after. We then boarded for three months at Dr. Alexander's at How- ard, the present High School property, which he owned and farmed. In the spring of 1838 the trustees bought for my home, Melrose, a place of twelve acres, with a good brick house, for which they paid $3,500. It was under high cultivation, having a fine orchard of apple and peach trees, a garden, beautiful rose bushes, whence its name, and the largest pecan tree and apricot trees that I have seen. My wife had visited Clarens before, as the McKenna family, her relatives, owned it. There she had met Philip Slaughter, who introduced me to her. It was vacant when I came and the Trustees thought of buying it for $2,300, but thought it too remote. I have been grateful every day since I came, to God and to kind friends, who have granted me such a sweet home for sixty- four years. The Tones family were very intimate with the Masons in Washington, and when General Jones was at my house once I took him down to see Mrs. Rush, who was visiting Mrs. Cooper. I have heard him often speak of General Washington. One raw and snowy day in the fall he said " It was on just such a day I remember that General Washington caught his death-cold. ' ' He attended his burial and I suppose was one of the last survivors of that occasion. Once, about 1858, walking up and down at mj^ house, I heard him say, " On this very da5^ sixty years ago, I saw General Washington at such a place in a green velvet suit." He had dined with Washington. I have regretted that I did not get more from him, for he had known Jefferson and all the great men of that day very well, and was a mine of information about that early time. When young we often do not appreciate how much we can learn from the old, and regret our loss when they are gone. I heard one of his daughters ask him about General Washing- ton. He paused and said : " He was the greatest man I ever saw ; there was a majesty about him that I have never seen in another. ' ' My wife, born in 1814, the year St. John's Church was started, was a member and a Sunday-school teacher of Old Trinity Church, built in 1829, a poor building, with a curtain near the chancel, behind which the minister changed his surplice for gown. I20 Trinity Church. Her interest in religion was first aroused by the solemn and beautiful service of the Holy Communion as celebrated by Rev. H. V. D. Johns, the brother of the Bishop, and first rector of Trinity Church. Her father attended that church, was on the building committee of the present edifice, giving one thousand dollars, and his daughter, Katharine, giving a legacy she had lately received. When his two daughters were confirmed, my wife and Mrs. Henry T. Harrison, he went up with them and stood near holding their hats. His daughter, Mrs. Matthew Harrison, was the first person married in the present church, which is like the Temple Church in London, with clerestory windows. For many years it was a bare looking building, but under the able leadership of its present rector. Rev. Richard P. Williams, it has been made very beautiful, the debt has been paid and on its seventy-fifth anniversary the church was conse- crated. The communicants now number 850 and the Sunday- school 850, while the parish has 2,000 members. I add here a letter written January 23, 1878 : My Dear Wife : . . On the fortieth anniversary of our marriage I feel that it is but due to you that I should address a few lines to you. Very few couples reach the fortieth year of their married life. I may at times have seemed unmindful of what I owed you, but the longer I live the more do I appreciate your faithfulness to your duties. My comfort and usefulness are largely owing to your prudent management and attention to my comfort. Our children owe to you, far more than to me, the training which has made them a blessing to us, and to others. They ' rise up and call you blessed.' I can only, on this day, pray that you may be spared many years to bless your family and that we may during the brief span of life that remains to us so live together in this world that in the world to come we may have life everlasting. I have spoken at the beginning of dear Dr. Slaughter, and will close with a letter he wrote me on my fiftieth anniversary as Professor here : The Highlands, Cui^peper County, Va. My Dear Brother: ^ ^ * * * * * * * Though absent in body I shall be present in spirit, and heartily sympathize with all that may be said and done in your honor on the semi-centennial anniversary of your faithful service in the Seminary. The good seed which you have sown has borne fruit Philip Slaughter. 121 in the Old as well as in the New World. It must be a great comfort to you in your old age to think that the impulse which you have given to many minds is propagating in ever-widening circles in a sort of geometrical progression, and will be felt in all time and in the endless cycles of eternity. Many a young soldier of the Cross whom you helped to arm for the fight has fallen in the domestic and in the foreign field while you survive. All honor to the battle-scarred veteran who after half a century's service still ' holds the fort.' In looking back over the years that are passed ' since we were first acquent,' myriads of memories come flashing like electric sparks over the wires. Among these, not the least pleasing are the memories of our wanderings to and among the AUeghanies — the mountains with the story-telling glens, the crystal springs, the murmuring streams, and meads as dew-drops, pure and fair, which filled our souls with grandeur, melody and love. What a change ! ' Faces and footsteps and all things strange ; Gone are the heads of silvery hair, And the young that were have a brow of care.' But these thoughts do not fit the occasion, which is one of congratulation and thanksgiving. ' Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee ' — the offering of a loving heart. ' So blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my Joe ! John Anderson, my Joe John, We clamb the hill thegither ; And mony a canty day, John, We've had wi' ane anither; Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my Joe.' Faithfully and affectionately your old friend, Philip Slaughter. Dr. Slaughter used to have very long family prayers, some- times when warmed up using the Te Deum or anything beauti- ful. Some young men who were visiting there were kept wait- ing a long time and it was suggested he should shorten his prayers. He said, "Shall I leave the throne of grace for mortal man? " CHAPTER XIV. BISHOPS MOORE AND MEADE. THE life of Bishop Moore has been written, but I will speak of him as I knew him the last five or six years of his life. He was born in New York in 1762, his grandfather being an eminent merchant there and the first person buried in Trinity church-yard in 1749. He was ordained Deacon and Priest in 1787 by Bishop Provoost. He was of most attractive manners and sweet temper, and after a most faithful and most successful ministry of twenty-seven years he was elected Bishop of Virginia in 1 8 14. He was intensely evangelical in his preaching, had strong personal magnetism and true pulpit eloquence. His man- ner was lively, and his voice had unusual charm and pathos. On one occasion, after preaching as usual and giving the benediction, no one started to go, but remained seated in fixed and solemn attention. A member of the church arose and said : ' ' Dr. Moore, the people are not disposed to go home. Please to give us another sermon." At its close a like scene was repeated, and the services went on through a third sermon, when he was obliged to say, " My beloved people, you mtist now disperse, as my strength is exhausted and I can say no more. ' ' It was the custom then to pay for burials as well as marriages. Often the executor was instructed to pay the minister. A funeral was not complete even in cities unless a sermon was preached, sometimes six months or a year after death, perhaps being re- garded as a requiescat as in the Roman Church. Hence arose the expression which still survives to "preach the funeral." Bishop Moore always had a good word for everyone. Once he preached at the burial of a woman who was known as a scold, and he gave her a different character from that she had with her neighbors. He was sent for to marry a gentleman and received a fee of fifty dollars. Some years after he was sent for to bury the wife and received one hundred dollars. Bishop Ravenscroft used to say that he received more from a man for burying his wife than for performing the marriage. Was the last fee larger because of greater 122 Bishop Moore. 123 affection than at the beginning ? I heard of a man who paid no wedding fee saying that he would send it at the end of the year if Sally pleased him, and every year thereafter sent one hundred dollars to the clergyman. At the General Convention in Baltimore, 1808, Moore made such an impression that he was twice called to St. Paul's there. The Convention was so affected by his reading of the new hymns that an opponent of their adoption protested, saying "I object to the hymns being read by that gentleman, for we are so fasci- nated by his reading that we shall without hesitation adopt them all." Only seven clergymen and eighteen laymen made up the special convention that elected him, so weak was our Church then. His coming brought new strength and hope to the Diocese, and new life sprung up. Ten new churches were reported as being built in 18 16, and eight of the old or deserted buildings were being repaired, and the good work he started has gone on even to this day. From four or five working ministers when he came, it grew in his twenty-seven years to nearly a hundred earnest and devoted clerg>'. His ministerial life was evenly divided — twenty-seven years as Priest and twenty-seven as Bishop, and in both he was most successful. He was of a loving, genial temperament, but mild, firm, and with his benignant countenance and saintly look he impressed every one, and none who saw him could doubt the apostolical succession in his case. When he came to the Seminary at commencement and examinations the easiest chair in the neighborhood was secured for him, and there he would sit, serene and calm, often asleep, but no one seemed to think anything of it. Once a young woman was speaking of the self-denial of the Christian life as hindering her confirmation, and he said, "Oh, I don't expect you to be an angel." He was very natural and human in his feelings and his conversation was bright and full of anecdote. He was to the end devoted to his work. I have heard him say that he was often weary m his work, but never weary of it. He was very fond of associations and protracted religious services, but without any of the dangerous devices of the mourners' bench. At the annual convention rehgious meetings were held before and after its session, and he called all the Church families he could together there to hear fervent preaching and earnest praying, and great good was done. Communicants were urged to abstain 124 Farewell Address. from worldly amusements and the standard of piety was raised. His addresses after the close of the convention, Sunday night, were so fervent and eloquent that the congregation were often in tears. In the Life of Bishop Moore one of his farewell addresses is given, but it cannot give the sweet voice, the appropriate gesture, the melting eye, the overwhelming pathos and feeling which made his words so impressive. A brief extract is given : . < ^ * -^ The concourse of people who attend our conven- tions from every part of the Diocese attest the responsibility of our office, prove the interest they feel in the concerns of our Zion, and proclaim to us in language which cannot be misunder- stood the necessity of ministerial fidelity. What ambassador of the Saviour can look around him at this moment without the conviction resting on his mind that he will have to give an account of his stewardship ; that the precious immortals who at- tend on his ministry merit his unwearied efforts ? that it is his duty to deliver his Master's message with scrupulous fidelity ; in season and out of season to call sinners to repentance ; to lead them for salvation to the Lamb of God, and to press on their con- sciences the necessity of that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord ? * * * When we cast our eyes around us, from the pulpits we occupy on the Sabbath, and witness the assemblies of God's people in the sanctuary, we should remember that they form the objects of the Saviour's compassion ; the beings for whom He shed His precious blood, and for whom He died on the cross. * =i^ * We should permit no considerations of pleasure or indulgence to step in between us and our pastoral duty. * * * My beloved sons in the ministry, we have no time to fold our arms in ease and indolence. * * * I speak to you, my sons, as a father to his children, and it is from an experience of fifty years as a preacher of the gospel that I call upon you to be faithful." This gives us some idea of his thought and his style of address. Bishop Moore was a great favorite in Baltimore and New York, where at times he received an ovation after his powerful preach- ing. He attended the General Convention in New York, 1841, and took great intestest in the proposal to appoint two bishops- one for Texas and the other for Western Africa. Returning home he preached in Richmond and then set out in November for Bishops Otey and Polk. 125 Lynchburg, where he died after an illness of a week, in his eight- ieth year. I can never forget this truly apostolic man. His placid, affectionate countenance, his hoary locks flowing down his neck and shoulders, his trembling hands upraised above the congregation, touched you before a word was spoken. His words were so solemn, so tender, so simple, so parental, that it was as a father speaking to his children. The Church in Vir- ginia owes much to his long and earnest episcopate. The Rev. Thomas Jackson, an honored clergyman, was assist- ant to Bishop Moore at Monumental Church, Richmond, but, his health failing, he came to Alexandria to live. He died there in 1837, and having married the widow Mullikin («/stponed in the case of bishops for the west coast of Africa and Turkey, though Rev. Horatio Southgate was nomi- nated for Turkey. One of the most prominent clergymen and speakers was Rev Thomas Atkinson, of Maryland, then regarded as one of the ablest ministers and preachers, and later the beloved Bishop of North Carolina. Ten of the clergymen present soon afterwards were chosen bishops. Of all the Clerical Deputies at that Convention only two are now living, both of whom I happened to know. CHAPTER XX. SOME OLD FRIENDS. AMONG my older friends were three of the class of 1832, all living beyond threescore years, and having each held in his ministry but one cure, the Rev. George Adie, William Friend, and Hugh J. Harrison, an example of devotion to one people and contentment with their lot very rare. The Rev. William Friend was most highly cultured, not only in theology, but in the classics and other learning, and doubtless to his intellectual as well as to his moral and personal worth was his lasting influence due. His sermons were models of force and elegance, for he had "the pen of a ready writer." A native of Massachusetts, he made Virginia the home of his affection and life-work. He married late in life, and during his bachelor days a ladies' society sent him a dozen shirts. He thanked them, and wrote that "the stream of their liberality could not have flowed into a more thirsty channel." The Rev. George Adie was a model pastor, with strong influ- ence on all, and dying where he had long lived, in Ivcesburg. Rev. Hugh T. Harrison was a very learned man, especially in theology and exegesis. He was an expert linguist. His son, Rev. Dr. Hall Harrison, was like him in these respects, and for years had the same parish, though having in the General Church a reputation and influence far wider, and his sudden death re- moved from the Church one of her most useful and gifted sons. Rev. Charles W. Andrews, D. D., was ordained at the same time, though not an alumnus of our Seminary, and spent his whole life in Virginia, honored by the Church and wielding a powerful influ- ence. He received a large vote for Assistant Bishop of Virginia. His life has been written by Dr. Walker. He and Charles E. Am- bler were good friends, and this story is told : Dr. Andrews had a way of saying to the sick or old, " Well, soon you'll be walking the golden streets and will leave this world of toil and trouble." It did not always comfort or brighten them. When he was taken sick once Mr. Ambler went to see him, and with very serious face said to him, " Brother, soon you will be leaving the troubles and 224 Class of 1837. 225 pains of this world and be walking the goldten streets above." Dr. A. became quite excited, and said, " Not at all ; I'll be well soon. Why do you talk to me in this way ! This is a pretty way to cheer a sick man." "Well," said Mr. Ambler, "that is some of your own medicine. You talk in that way to others." Rev. Richard K. Meade, son of Bishop Meade, born the same year as I, passed away November 17, 1892. He was Rector of Christ Church, Charlottesville, from 1836 to 1868, his only charge, when ill health caused him to resign. For many years he was principal of the Piedmont Female Seminary. A man of fine intel- lect, a good scholar and preacher, he was a worthy son of the great Bishop. His two sons. Rev. W. H. Meade, D. D., and Rev. Frank A. Meade, have labored in their native State successfully. In the class of 1837 were many good friends of mine. Rev. Up- ton Beall was a very earnest and pious man, and an excellent preacher. I remember hearing him preach at St. John's, Wash- ington, "The fathers where are they and the prophets, do they live forever," a funeral discourse. Bishop Johns preached a funeral sermon on his death. Rev. William Bryant, father of Mr. Herbert Bryant, of Alexandria, was a graduate of West Point, a soldierly man, as erect as if he had swallowed a sword, upright in every sense of the word. Rev. William A. Harris was sent to us by Bishop Otey for whom he had unbounded admiration. He was a successful min- ister and was long in Washington. Rev. Charles Goodrich was very prominent in New Orleans during the war. General B. F. Butler was very civil to him, and told him his family were Epis- copalians, and he contributed largely to the Church. It was the custom for one of the senior class to make an address, which was replied to by one of the middle class. Goodrich made the parting address that year. The Rev. William Hodges, though of Bap- tist training, became an Episcopalian and wrote the best book on Infant Baptism that we have. He was most useful and earnest. Rev. John Towles was a most worthy man, whose ministry was spent chiefly at Accokeek, Maryland. Rev. William J. Clark taught at the Carters on Shooter's Hill. He was at Snow Hill, Maryland, and had some great church controversy, dying not many years ago. Rev. Joshua Peterkin, D. D., was nearly two years younger than myself, but we were friends from my coming to the Semi- nary in 1836, where he was a student, till the close of Ms life, 226 Dr. Joshua Peterkin. March 7, 1892. In all that time I can recall nothing but what was lovely and of good report in thought, word and deed in his life. Joshua Peterkin was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in August, 1 8 14, and was educated at a classical school, which, however, he left when fifteen years old, and for four years he was in business. While thus engaged he attended Dr. John Johns' church, and often visited him for counsel. Bishop Johns used often to describe the winter night when, after hearing him preach, young Peter- kin came to him about his soul. After that sermon he felt " If what Dr. Johns says is so, I am in a very bad way, and must turn, and my whole life and aims must be changed ; " so he went directly and opened his heart to him. His appearance as he entered the library was most attractive, his face flushed with excitement, his eyes clear and shining, and his hair sprinkled with snow which had fallen on it without his notice, and that night's talk was like that of Christ and Nicodemus — one never to be forgotten, since eternal interests depended on it. The friendship thus early begun lasted through their life and has doubtless now been renewed never again to be broken. Dr. Peterkin entered the Seminary September, 1834, and grad- uated in 1837, was ordained Deacon that July and Priest in July, 1839, by Bishop Moore in St. Paul's Church, Alexandria. As a Deacon he labored in Baltimore for the colored people and for a white congregation at St. Andrew's, which had no means to pay a salary. He was rector of All Saints' parish, Frederick, Md., for six years, and of Zion parish, near by, for two years. Then he took charge of Wickliffe parish, Clarke county, Va., the first as he says, that he accepted voluntarily, where he felt as if his ministry really began. There he stayed for three years and for a like period at Princeton, New Jersey. Dr. Hodge told me that while at Princeton the students said he had sat up all night to nurse a sick chicken. I told this to Dr. Peterkin and he said that the foundation for it was that one cold night he had put a sick chicken in his room near the stove, and the heat made it so lively that it broke his sleep. Dr. Hodge said that the students liked his preaching very much, that it was quite different from the others, interesting in matter and manner. He was sent for to bury a Presbyterian minister instead of one of their own ministers. In 1855 he became rector of St. James', Richmond, where he exercised a most useful and beautiful ministry for Dr. Pkterkin's Ministry. 227 thirtj'-seven years. To know him was to love him, and his pres- ence brought peace and blessing with it. His name was honored throughout the whole city, and Christians of every denomination admired and loved him. He had a fine gift of extemporaneous speech, so that he was most acceptable both as a preacher and a pastor. His first ser- mon at Falls Church showed his remarkable fluency. Some, it is said, heel it, and some head it in a parish ; he did both well, and hundreds have risen up to bless his ministry. He improved every opportunity of doing good. Once when my parlor was full of young people at Commencement, he read in a most impressive way a little poem on judging others, beginning "Judge not." He had cut it from a paper. His tact and sympathy made all his approaches welcome, and the young loved him. Goldsmith's beautiful words seem written for him : " But in his duty prompt at every call He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all ; And as a bird each fond endearment tries. To tempt its new-fledged oflFspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt and pain by turns dismay'd, ******** Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last faltering accents whispered praise." During the war his house was a home for any Confederate soldier who needed it, and my son Walter found a welcome there and was tenderly cared for. He would visit the hospitals and would take tobacco with him, for, though he did not use it him- self, he knew how much a soldier liked it. My relations with him were always most cordial, and I do not think I had a truer friend. As a trustee of the Seminary he was faithful and devoted, and in the General Convention, of which he was a member for some sessions, his influence was felt. His wife was Miss Elizabeth Hanson, daughter of Thomas Hanson, of Frederick, Maryland, and his lovely daughter, Re- becca, has left behind her a memory fragrant with noble deeds, which " Smell sweet and blossom in the dust." 228 Bishop George W. Peterkin. His son, George W. Peterkin, Bishop of West Virginia, I have known since his boyhood days at the Episcopal High School, and the promise of his boyhood has been fulfilled in a noble, conse- crated manhood. His worth is known to all the Church, and distant Brazil, the youngest mission of our Church, has received the benefit of his wise oversight and labors. One of our purest bishops, a contemporary and life-long friend of Dr. Peterkin, said : " I am good sometimes, but Joshua is good all the time. I don't see how he keeps it up." Surely nothing more need be said. These lines, the authorship of which I do not know, seem to sum his life-story. "A name above reproach, a life as clean As uutrod snow ; a great heart undefiled By so much as a thought not reconciled Unto the law of Christ. No cloud between Him and his God ; no halting soul to wean From things of earth. Calm as a little child To whom fear is unknown, he walks serene. A soldier of the cross, he wears the sign Of outward grace upon a steadfast brow. Within his breast pure love of the Divine Seals his allegiance to a soldier's vow. Armed with the shield of Faith, no fiery dart Can pierce the stronghold of his loyal heart." John G. Maxwell, of the class of 1838, was a very worthy, excellent man, and the only one I know who read his own obitu- ary. He was very sick, and was reported dead, and Dr. Coleman (father, I think, of Bishop Coleman,) editor of the Banjier of the Cross, published his obituary with complimentary remarks. He got well. In our Catalogue we have published the names of men with a star to indicate that they shine in another firmament, who came to Commencement afterwards and reported themselves alive. Such was the case with Thompson I,. Smith. When I sent blanks out about 1880 to alumni to be filled in, one question was If deceased, time and place of death. Phillips Brooks wrote in that place ' ' Still alive. ' ' One of our students, on returning from a visit home, said he had been *' visiting his nativity." Another, a very pious fellow. Stories about Students. 229 who had never read a novel, was lay-reading one summer. Re- turning from church one day, he sat in the parlor and picking up Adam Bede began to read. His hostess came in after awhile and found him absorbed in it. She was shocked at a minister reading novels on Sunday, but only said, " Mr. , that is an interesting novel." " Novel, ma'am ! " he replied, " I thought it was the life of the venerable Bede," and he dropped it as if it were a coal of fire. The students always had mission stations at different points about the neighborhood, as far as ten miles. S. B. Dairy mple and others went to I^ebanon. I was called there to see a sick man, dying of consumption. I found him perfectly peaceful, and he said it was owing to the services and the words of the young men. I used to visit an old woman near Falls Church, where Francis Scott Key used to exhort, named Mrs. Hopkins. She was over ninety when she died, and remembered the kiln where the bricks for Falls Church were made, and had played in it as a child. It has been said of that and many other churches that the bricks were brought from England. It was not .so in that case, and I think not in most others, as brick-makers came over with the early colonists. They made bricks different from those now made, and used a different soil, it appears. Mrs. Hopkins had been a Meth- odist, and she told me that she was brought into the Episcopal Church by the text "Yet show I unto you a more excellent way," which she thought was Episcopacy. The examining chaplains used to have many stories about the answers they would sometimes get. Trying to get a man's idea about baptism, they put the question in a concrete way. " Sup- pose you were to meet with a Baptist who asked you about im- mersion ; how would you answer him ? " " Doctor, I hope there won't be a Baptist within twenty miles of me," was the reply. Ministers, I fear, make mistakes sometimes from every good motives. One of our clergy, himself a most pious man, son of a minister and brought up very strictly, found that his predecessor had been very severe on dancing and card-playing. He took oc- casion, therefore, to say in his sermon that dancing and card- playing were too much condemned, and spoke a good word for them. His people at once began to get up card clubs and danc- ing parties, much to his disgust, and went to extremes in them, There was no need for him to have said anything, 15 230 Bedell and Claxton. One of our students started to raise the tune when there was a small congregation. The hymn was, " O let triumphant faith dispel The fears of guilt and woe ; If God be for us, God the Lord, Who, who shall be our foe ? " The last line is, "Omnipotent to save." By some mistake, the hymn, which is C. M., was marked long metre in his book, and he started it long metre. Of course, in the last lines there were two feet too little, and he repeated them over but the effect was very trying, as, being somewhat deaf, he was singing all alone without knowing it. When he repeated, W/w, who, who, who shall be our foe, it sounded like the hooting of an owl, and when he came to the last line Omnip-nip-nip-potent to save, it was difficult to keep still. R. B. Claxton and Gregory T. Bedell (afterwards Bishop) were classmates, (1840), and rivals in class standing. Claxton I knew like a book ; he had superior gifts and did well in his studies ; he had been well trained and was ambitious. He was professor in the Philadelphia Divinity School. Bishop Bedell always appreciated this Seminary. He wrote me " I look back with enjoyment to the days when you were my young professor and I was a young scholar. Those days have never lost their beauty in my eyes, nor have I ever ceased to be grateful for the sound and patient instruction given me. ' ' Again, in 1886, he wrote, " Can it be that fifty years have passed since you took part in the noble work of our dear old Seminary, and first attempted to make of me a Hebrew scholar ? Alas ! It has been ' Bereshith ' with me ever since. I have never got much further than ' in the beginning. ' I remember that you used to tempt us and excite our enthusiasm by assuring us that Hebrew was the language spoken in heaven. It may be so, but Claxton and I — you remember him, don't you ! good fellow, he has been there for years — when we got out of the class-room used to say, how does he know ? and then the old Hebrew resumed its mun- dane aspect. But these efforts were the least of that continual example of patience and lovingkindness, that constant exhibition of Christian virtue and those wonderful exhibitions of truths in your department for which I have been ever grateful. ' ' Bishop Bedell was very diligent in his studies — ^methodical and Earnest and Rooker. 231 earnest — lovely in character ; he took infinite pains in all he did. He made himself a most acceptable preacher, and I have often quoted him as an example of one who doubled and multiplied his talents. He always did his best. Once in preaching on Jonah and acting the scene out, he exclaimed "Ho, there, any ship bound for Tarshish ? ' ' Another alumnus, whose name was Peter, quoting St. Peter and St. Paul, exclaimed, " Hurrah for Peter ! " " Hurrah for Paul!" I remember perfectly Joseph Earnest (1841), a middle-aged man when he came, having been a lawyer. It is curious how the countenances of some students will rise up before me and I cannot recall the faces of others. His face was furrowed, but the expression was very earnest and strong. He was at Laurel, Mary- land. Rev. Malcolm McFarland, of the same class, was bred to the law ; he entered the Seminary in mature life and exercised his ministry in Maryland. He left the professors $50 each, the only student that ever did so. He fell dead whilst officiating at the Holy Communion, and was buried beneath the chancel. Rev. William Y. Rooker (1841) had wonderful power in the pulpit, and his ministry in Virginia was of the nature of a strange phenomenon, like a comet. Many of the most careless were aroused by his almost appalling preaching, and his ministry was blessed of God to many souls. I never knew exactly what to make of him, or in what his extraordinary power consisted. He had the fiercest look of any man I ever saw, and, like the Ancient Mariner, he held men with his glittering eye. It was the eye of the lynx and the hawk combined, and people who came into church never took their eyes off him. He was a great disciple of Dr. Stephen H. Tyng and preached the terrors of the law ; retribution was his theme most often. Rev. William F. Lockwood, my dear and valued friend for many years, had a parish in Fauquier county and wished Rooker to help him in a rousing Association. This he would only consent to do on condition that Lockwood would come for him in his buggy all the way to Winchester and back. This he did, and I was at the Association with them. When at the Seminary, Rooker was very fond of going over to Rev. Lemuel Wilmer's, who was rector of Port Tobacco parish for forty-seven years, and of ex- horting in his prayer-meetings. He once borrowed Dr. Keith's hoTSte, a fine traveller, but raw-boned, with a " lean and hungry 232 Association Seirvices. look," and rode him over. He stopped at many places, and everywhere, looking at the horse they felt that he needed a feed, Mr. Rooker not saying anything about it. The horse died on that trip from too much feeding, and it was found that he had eaten one hundred and twenty-five ears of new corn in one day. So it was told me. I stayed with Rooker at Winchester at Convention, and he was afterwards in Kentucky. I have a sermon of his, preached in lyouisville and published by the Vestry. He went to England afterwards, where he was in charge of a proprietary chapel, as curate to his brother, a clergy- man of the Church of England, and died about 1870. These religious meetings, which were often held in Virginia, did much good. They were held in a parish, generally in the summer, and sometimes half a dozen ministers would be present and take their turns in preaching and visiting. Great good was done, and the social religious intercourse was helpful. There were often genuine revivals of religion in a parish, and sometimes the whole neighborhood would be aroused, the church would be thronged and many were converted. The new life of a parish began with some of these meetings, and old men are living now who owe their change of heart to those services. I often went on such visits — sometimes with Bishop Meade and another min- ister. Bishop Richard Wihner has given a striking account of one that was held in Fluvanna county when he was a young minister, when the Holy Spirit was manifestly working in the whole com- munity. William F. lyockwood, (1842), was a very earnest, sincere, de- voted man, very practical and useful. While here he was man- ager and provider at the Seminary. He had the church at Fair- fax Court House and Falls Church, and was for many years rector of St. Thomas', Garrison Forest, Maryland, where I often visited him. There at one time he had a small school. Speaking of him reminds me of others of his class. Samuel Hazlehurst, of a good old Pennsylvania family, I remember as a very sympathetic man, who interested himself in the poor and afflicted in the neighborhood, visiting and helping them. A negro man was to be hanged at Fairfax Court House, very un- justly, it was thought. He took Dr. L,ippitt and myself and others up at various times to visit him. I was pleased when he Class op 1842. 233 told me he thought I spoke so that the man could understand. He went as a missionary to Africa, and on his return brought back a very bad-smelling ram's horn, which the Greboes had worshipped, Edward B. McGuire was very much like his father in person and character as in name. He had charge of small country par- ishes, but was a man of piety and ability. Joshua Morsell was a very pleasant, genial man, of the old Maryland family ; of his uncle James I have spoken. He was in charge of St. James' parish, Anne Arundel county, for many years, and married old Mr. Chesley's daughter, Jane. Once Dr. Sparrow was visiting there and preached on the text ' ' How old art thou ? " So earnest and impressive was he that young Nat Chesley said, after coming out, " When Dr. Sparrow said that and looked at me I came near getting up and saying, ' Just twenty-one.'" Mr. Morsell was later at Navy- Yard, Washing- ton, and then in New Jersey, and he was made a D. D. and sent to General Convention. He would say whatever came in his mind, and sometimes did himself injustice. One of our alumni hearing of a vacancy at Elk Ridge said to one of his vestrymen, " Doctor you have influence at Elk Ridge. I wish you would get me called there. ' ' The Doctor replied, "Mr. , I don't think it would suit j^ou ; they are higher Church than we are here." "Oh, that doesn't matter; I can suit myself to them." The Doctor rejoined, "But they don't pay as much salary as here." " Well, that's a horse of a differ- ent color ; I don't care to go." Nicholas P. Tillinghast was a very superior, accomplished man; very courteous, and of a distinguished family. He lost his leg while he was in Georgetown in a strange way. Some ladies he knew were in the cars and he was outside talking to them. Somehow he was caught and dragged under and his leg had to be cut off high up. His nerves were very much affected. His sister married a Willing. Edward T. Walker, of Charleston, son of Rev. Joseph Walker, so well known in the Church, and brother of Bruce Walker, was a very fine man. In the class of 1843 I knew well the Rev. Dr. George A. L,eakin, who has been nearly sixty years in the ministry, and has comforted many with the hopes of the Gospel of Christ. The 234 W. H. Pendleton. Class of 1844. only other survivor is the Rev. John B. Richmond, who has been ' ' a brother beloved ' ' by me. One member of this class, preaching at Fairfax Court House, stayed at Mr. Rumsey's and on Monday morning when leaving handed Mrs. R. a half dollar for his board, which gave offense. He sent his sweetheart a bag of sweet potatoes while he was courting her. The Rev. William H. Pendleton was also a member of this class. Though deprived of many advantages of a thorough col- legiate training, Mr. Pendleton, by conscientious study, and the faithful cultivation of the excellent talents which God had given him, became one of the most accurate thinkers and best preachers in the diocese in which he was born and labored and died. For clearness of thought and distinctness of expression, amongst the men of his standing, he had no superior. Ambitious to do his Master's work, of singularly confiding character, he was only anxious to discharge his duty, and do it at his best. When his health, long impaired, but never inclining him to take repose until he could work no more, compelled him to relinquish his parish work, with strange calmness and deliberation he provided for his family a residence, and for himself a home, in which to die. It was in the parish in which he had first opened his mouth as a minister of Christ. Thence, in abundant measure enjoying that peace which passeth knowledge, he went home calmly, without distraction, full of hope and joy when his chang- ing came. He said death was just like passing from one room to another. William H. Pendleton, the simple, honest, earnest child of God, in manhood fulfilled amply the promise of his youth. In the class of 1844 were many whom I loved for their virtues. Rev. Andrew Fisher, uncle of Mrs. Dr. Walker, spent his life in his native State of Virginia, a true and godly man. Rev. Lewis Walke was a close friend of Bishop Whittle and son of my friend ; Dr. George D. Wildes was long the able secretary of the Church Congress. Edward W. Syle, an Englishman, came from Gambler, through Bishop Mcllvaine's influence ; he married Miss Hannah Washington, went to China, as did Rev. Henry W.Woods ( 1 844) , and then was a missionary to the Chinese in California. Henry M. Dennison was a lovely man and an able, strong preacher. I remember his first sermon in Christ Church, CI.ASS OP 1845. 235 Alexandria, and how he said that the lowest depth of hell was reserved for Judas Iscariot. He married a daughter of Presi- dent Tyler, and his daughter married Rev. James H. Wil- liams, class of 1868. Dennison went to South Carolina and died there of break-bone fever, after ministering nobly to the sick and dying. Dennison' s saying above reminds of what Dr. E. A. Parks once said, " It is difficult to stand in the pulpit, and it is damnation to fall from it. ' ' I recall the members of the class of 1845 distinctly. Rev. Francis M. Baker had Grace Church, Richmond, where I once preached for him. Rev. G. S. Carraway was a very worthy man, who lived long ; he sent money to the Seminary. Rev. William Duval has had his life written by Dr. Walker. He records in his diary, " Took tea at Dr. Packard's with some ladies; spent an unprofitable evening." He started the ring- ing of the ten o'clock bell at night, I think, as a sort of "taps," in soldiers' vocabulary. Rev. Albert W. Duy was a man of wonderful genius whose early death was a great loss to the world. Rev. Dr. Daniel Henshaw, now living, son of Bishop Henshaw, who took such interest in our Seminary and always befriended it, wrote me the very kind letter below. He has served the Church most faithfully and successfully. ' ' I remember my connection with the Seminary with a great deal of interest. Among those recollections is the great pleasure it always gave me to see Professor Packard go into the chapel pulpit. There was no preacher from whose sermons I derived so much benefit as from yours. If I honored the Seminary for no other reason the Thursday evening Faculty meetings would make me hold it in the highest regard. More than thirty years which have passed since I was a student under your tuition have served to confirm the high opinion I formed of some of the pecu- liar advantages of my theological alma mater." Rev. Dr. W. C. Meredith was an able and interesting man. His brother lived in California and was out riding with the brother of his sweetheart when they were surrounded by Indians. He put the boy on his horse and sent him off, and though cap- tured he afterwards got free. He had a valuable mine out there which was sold for $90,000 and his brothers got $25,000 apiece ; its next sale was for $250,000. Rev. Dr. Edmund C. Murdaugh, 236 Dr. SamukIv Ridout. whose brother was a prominent layman in Norfolk, was related to Mrs. I^ear, and was a courteous gentleman whose ministry was much blessed. Rev. Dr. Robert Nelson, when missionary to China, told me his long beard gained him great respect. He had the sterling virtues of his noble family. Dr. Samuel Ridout was four years younger than myself to a day, and I have a distinct and tender memory of him. He was of French Huguenot descent, and his family had always held honorable place in Maryland. Educated at St. John's College, he graduated in med- icine and began its practice. A severe sickness turned his thoughts to the ministry as a sphere where he could better serve his Lord. He entered our Seminary in 1842, and during his three years' stay he practiced without charge among the students, professors and the poor of the neighborhood. He was, I think, the handsomest man ever here. I remember well how he looked sixty years ago ; his countenance ruddy like David's, his features bright with the love and purity that marked his character ; to see him was to feel that he was one whom you must love and trust. He had a genius for making and keeping friends, and there was no one within my recollection for whom I entertained a warmer affection. He loved everybody and everybody loved him. His ministry of forty years, closing September 8, 1885, was marked every day by deeds of love and helpful ministry. After ordina- tion Bishop Whittingham allowed and advised his practising medicine, for he was an able physician. For ten years, 1859 to 1869, he labored in Albemarle county, and the rest of his minis- try was in his native State and county. He married, in 1853, Hester Ann, eldest daughter of Thomas Chase, Esq. , of Annapolis, a happy union, in which his widow survived him. She left the handsome old Chase house in Annapolis, with its rare old china and furniture, to the Diocese of Maryland as a home for aged and indigent ladies, and it has been lately opened for inmates. Dr. Ridout's whole life was a powerful sermon, convincing men of the power of religion, as they saw it elevate and beautify his life, and attracting them by its charming characteristics. He and his friend. Bishop H. C. Eay, a strong preacher and a lovely Christian character, passed from earth only a few days apart. One of our students had a sweetheart in Eeesburg, and he walked up there to see her, thirty-five miles. Another went to Chautilly, visiting some ladies, and Cleveland hired him an old George H. Norton. 237 broken-down mare with her colt running along, so that he did not cut a very romantic figure. The same man once drove my horse and carriage into Alexandria to meet me at the train. I saw no one when I got off ; after a little I found him, looking very downcast, and found that my horse had been scared by the train and had run away and broken my carriage. Miss Dobson, our first matron, was once congratulated by a friend on having such a pleasant life and associating with such holy men. She said very calmly, " There is a great deal of mor- tality even among theological students." George H. Norton, D. D., of theclassof 1846, son of Rev. G. H. Norton, is a name very dear to me and the many friends who knew him. In his class were many well-known men ; six out of the fifteen are now living after fifty-six years in the ministry — Rev. Drs. J. M. Banister, George H. Clark, A. A. Marple, T. L. Smith, and my good friend D. Francis Sprigg, editor for so many years of the Southern Churchman. Dr. Norton studied law before he entered the ministry, and from nature and training had a strong mind and a sound judgment. He had a parish in Columbus, Ohio, and in Warrenton, Virginia, and for many years was rector of St. Paul's, Alexandria. In Warrenton he did a noble work, building a new church there and firmly establishing its influence. Previously there had been only one service a month, in the afternoon, but he concen- trated his labor on Warrenton with the most happy results. He married Miss Claudia Marshall, of Fauquier county, who sur- vived him only three years. As a preacher he stood high, for his matter was always weighty and interesting, his style terse and clear, and he preached with- out manuscript ; and his people never wished to hear any one else. In all conventions he had great weight, though he did not speak often. He declined a professorship at the Seminary, after Dr. Sparrow's death, and would not allow his name to be used for Assistant Bishop of Virginia in 1883. I will add here what I wrote at the time of his death. I remember him as he entered our Seminary, a young man of quiet, modest bearing, but of marked ability and devoted character. His thirst for knowledge was remarkable, and what is true of those " who hunger and thirst after righteousness " is true also of those who thirst after knowledge, " they shall be filled," as 238 George H. Norton. was shown in his case. He was always a student, and while most ministers are content with the simple truths of Christianity, he went down to the foundations of the faith. Hence when the modern attacks upon Christianity were made he read them all, but his faith was never shaken, like that of some others, for he knew it to be founded upon an impregnable rock. He was like a man who, when told that the foundation of his house was in danger, should call for the key of the vault, light a candle, walk down and deliberately pass through the arches. Having satisfied himself that the foundation was perfectly safe, he would come up again, lock the door, hang up the key and quietly go about his work, saying, " They may raise an alarm, but I find hi^L, is SAFE." He represented our Diocese in the General Convention for thirty years with great ability. Rev. Dr. Washburn told me that his reply to Dr. DeKoven was " admirable." As a preacher, he was always faithful to the gospel, and strong, clear and ever fresh in his presentation of it for the practical needs of men. His lips, like those of the ideal priest in Scrip- ture, kept knowledge, and as he so clearly communicated it to his people, ' ' they were very attentive to hear him. ' ' His loss, in this respect, was reflected on with a feeling peculiar to the event, never experienced before, nor to be generally expected. Taken away while in the full possession and activity of all his faculties, his people had a sense of privation partaking of desolateness. An animating influence that pervaded and enlarged and raised their minds was extinct in one sense, but in reality whatever we have admired and loved in him remains and will remain forever and forever. As a pastor, he was tender, sympathetic and true ; he loved his people and was beloved by them, and his words were helpful and comforting beyond measure. For one-third of a century he went in and out among them, as a wise counsellor and true friend, and his death was mourned by all of every creed who ever knew him. For the same long period he was a trustee of this Semi- nary, and his wisdom, breadth and clear judgment in all matters gave him a powerful influence in its administration. As a man, in all the relations of life we can find no words but in praise ; so true, so pure, so simple and sincere, that we hardly dare say what we feel about his virtues, because we know his Bishop Francis M. Whittle. 239 aversion to all that seemed like eulogy or flattery. His life and example have been and are still an inspiration to his brethren. He has gone to join that communion of high and sanctified spirits who are now before the throne — Bishops Meade and Johns, Doctors Sparrow and May, and others whom time would fail us to name. May our souls at the last be with him, as he is with Christ ! I have missed him sorely since his death. Dudley A. Tyng, his classmate, was a splendid fellow, of beautiful countenance and great gifts ; his early death was a ter- rible loss to the Church. He went out where they were threshing wheat with a loose gown on, which caught in the machinery and his arm was pulled out, but not amputated for ten days, when he died from the shock. He was an eloquent preacher and great extempore speaker. At a temperance rally near Shepherdstown there was a discussion arranged between the lawyers in favor of license and Revs. Messrs. Andrews and Tyng against it. The lawyers thought they would have an easy victory, but they were routed and it made much talk, Another classmate. Rev. A. A. Marple, was a strong man in every way, a useful minister, and did able editorial work on the Church papers of Philadelphia. He wrote me he was ' ' an old pupil who has not forgotten his Hebrew professor or his Hebrew." I have often recalled him with pleasure. I have known Francis M. Whittle ever since as a youth he entered the Episcopal High School in its first session, and he has been ever the same, noble, strong and true. He was born in Mecklenburg county July 7, 1823, next to the youngest of nine sons of Mr. Fortescue Whittle. Brought up in the country, with its training for every sense of the body, in the old Virginia refinement and culture, of a family of high character and abilty, we see the inheritance and the surroundings that influenced him. After teaching a while, he entered the Seminary ; graduated in 1847, and was duly ordained deacon and priest by Bishop Meade. He labored first in West Virginia, in Kanawha parish, then in Goochland county, and in Berry ville. He removed to Kentucky in 1857, where he labored most acceptably for ten years, a conspicuous leader in Church affairs and a deputy to Gen- eral Convention. Known as an ardent Southerner in the trying times of the war and incapable of temporizing or concealing an opinion, so high was his character and so pure his conduct that 240 Bishop Whitti.e's Work. he lost no influence or power because of his views. The same in the opposite way was true of Rev. Dr. Osgood K. Herrick, when in Florida as a Northern man during the war. Mr. Whittle was elected Assistant Bishop of Virginia in May, 1867, and con- secrated April 30, 1868. He married Kmily Cary Fairfax, daughter of Llewellyn Fairfax. When he was made Bishop the Diocese, including West Virginia, had about seven thousand com- municants scattered over sixty-seven thousand square miles ; the towns were few and far apart ; the ways of travelling very meagre and much by private conveyance. The State was ruined by war, business prostrate, and the people poor. The Bishop, with zeal, energy, and self-denial, began his labors, and the Church revived and grew apace. In 1877, the Diocese of West Vir- ginia was set off from Virginia, and now has two Bishops and nearly as many communicants as the old Diocese when he was elected. In 1892 the Diocese of Southern Virginia was set off and now has nearly twice as many communicants as the entire old Diocese in 1867. Where there were about 7,000 communi- cants, there are now nearly 30,000 communicants of the Church, and some of the finest churches in the South have been built in his Diocese. [J. L/. W., in the Southern Churchman, has well described his character. — Editor.] ' ' In the history of Virginia and in the souls of Virginia people Bishop Francis M. Whittle will long abide as a most honorable type of Virginia manhood. ' ' To the general world he seemed to fulfil the words of the Prophet : I have set my face as a flint. That was against all manifestations of duplicity, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites in any shape. Devoted to the service of the true and living God, mani- fested in the Saviour, his soul hungered and thirsted for Him, in His purity and holiness, and abhorred all shows, compromises and counterfeits. " Ostentation, ambition, greed, selfishness and insincerity offended his clear and high manhood, and found no favor in his eyes. His noble nature despised them. His soul's delight was to be a man among men, a servant and worshipper of God. " His friends knew him as carrying his life in his hand, ready at any moment to be offered up for his L,ord and Master. ' ' Such was he, as a man of God, a champion of the faith, as a Bishop Whittle's Character. 241 defender of the household of the Heavenly Father. And yet to those who knew him well and intimately his soul was open, warm, affectionate and clear ; meek, lowly, confiding and com- forting. His presence was enlightening, stirring, wholesome, inspiring. " To dignitaries and those in high place, he was courteous, just, kindly and faithful. He gave full honor to all to whom it was due. But his liberality and bounty was not in that direction ; nor was his manhood ever compromised or under suspicion for overtributes to pomp and power or for withholding what might be its due. "The tenderness of his soul and the jealousy of his heart's warmest affections was for the little ones of the flock— the suffer- ing, the struggling, the helpless, the neglected. In that direction the whole Diocese of Virginia, ministers and people, join in one chorus : Well done, noble and honorable soul. " Brought up in a large slave-holding community, his interest in making the negroes good Christians was earnest and intelli- gent, and he worked and pleaded for them and won the love and affection of every negro priest upon whose head he laid his hands in Holy Orders. [Bishop Whittle died June 18, 1902, and was buried in Holly- wood. The minute of the Richmond Clericus is added as beauti- fully expressing his character :] ' ' When the Richmond Clericus carried the body of our beloved and revered Bishop Whittle to the grave last Friday, we realized that we were performing the last offices for one of the greatest Bishops the American Church has produced ; one of the strongest preachers of the Gospel in his generation ; one of the humblest, truest, most faithful and devoted Christians in the Church MiU- tant ; one of the purest, noblest, most manly and sincere gentle- men in Virginia. "Bishop Whittle was an extraordinary man. His towering, erect, sinewy form gave the impression of strength ; his calm, set, determined face confirmed the impression ; his firm mouth and the direct, unflinching glance of his eye left no doubt that he was in earnest ; that he had convictions, and was prepared to main- tain them. "His mind was of the same robust character. He thought clearly and directly ; neither imagination nor feeling could turn 242 Bishop Whittle's Character- him from the point to which his reasoning conducted him. Con- vinced that a thing was right, he gave no place to the considera- tion of the consequences to himself of doing that thing. He felt most deeply for others, and often his tenderly affectionate heart was grieved because he must needs give pain in the discharge of his duty. He was not stern, but firm. He was not cold, but true. He was unbending, because he believed to bend would be to be false. " His heart was ever kind, tender and affectionate, but in the discharge of his duty his feelings did not sway his judgment. ' ' His Christian character was of the same order. He loved peace, but with him the terms of peace were fixed and unaltera- ble. 'First pure, then peaceable.' His faith in the Scriptures, as the Word of God, was simple and childlike. ' Thy Word is truth,' and, as he often said, he had no commission to preach anything else. He preached the Gospel with all the powers of his spirit, of his mind, and of his body, and coming from the whole man it was simple, clear, earnest, direct and uncompromising. "His humanity of spirit, ever seeking to serve and not to be served ; his beautiful submission in his many and great afflictions and infirmities ; his untiring labors when the effects and the presence of pain and suffering were plainly visible ; his efforts to labor on when disease and weakness prompted to rest, were all in keeping with the greatness and simplicity of his character. He never spared himself, but he was constantly warning his clergy against overwork. He looked upon his great office of Bishop as a reason for greater humility and greater exertion, as making him ' a servant of servants,' not as justifying him in seeking ease or distinction or honors. ' ' He was ever retiring, seeking the lowest place where duty permitted, often doing the work of a deacon. "Yes, a great man, a great Bishop, a great preacher, and a true follower of Christ has gone from us. We cannot think of him as dead. We seem to hear that earnest, ringing voice sound- ing now from Paradise, ' My brethren, preach the Word,' and the exhortation, ' Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stead- fast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the lyord.' And from the sacred page the spirit speaks, ' Remember them that had the riUe over you, which spake unto you the Word of Charles Minnigerode. 243 God'; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.' " Death has not yet dimmed the name of Charles Minnigerode, who died October 13, 1894, at the age of eighty years and two months. Born at Arenberg, Westphalia, Germany, August 6, 1 8 14, his long life was an unusually interesting and eventful one. His family was ancient and noble and his father held a high position in Darmstadt. When fifteen years old he was, according to the custom of the Lutheran Church, confirmed after a year's moral and religious instruction. The tender interest of parents and friends, the solemn and impressive services, when five hundred boys were confirmed on Whit-Sunday, and afterwards their first communion, in which two or three thousand friends and relatives joined, left a deep impression on his mind, never effaced, and strengthed him amidst the temptations of his university life. The thoroughness of his training and the strength and breadth of his mind may be seen when we remember that, imprisoned in his seventeenth year, for three years, and cut off from all books, he was able at the close of that time to take up his work and to become a most able teacher of languages. He married. May 13, 1843, Miss Marj^ Carter, of Williamsburg, Virginia, and it was a long and happy union, of which they celebrated the golden wedding in 1893. It was my privilege to see much of Dr. Minnigerode during his residence in Alexandria in his last years, when his old age was serene and Christian, and did honor to the Master whom he so long had served. During the first part of his residence there he was able to preach occasionally at the Seminary. On one occasion, speaking of habits of irreligion, he said with the greatest energy, " Cut it off ! Cut it off ! or it will cut you off ! "and suited the action to the word, and it made the greatest impression on some who spoke of it next day. His sermon on ' ' Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his, ' ' made a great impression on his audi- ence. I never visited him without deriving some spiritual benefit from his conversation. He would speak of verses upon which his meditation had been sweet, such as, "I am thine, save me." He said if he could preach again he would try to preach better ; so said Bishop Johns. On one occasion he said he feared he was too desirous to depart 244 Dr. Minnigerode's L,ife. and be with Christ. His time was much occupied in writing letters to his old parishioners and friends. If any were sick or bereaved, his heart at once went out to them in loving sympathy, expressed in heartfelt language. I never knew any one so sympathetic. I often urged him to write his life, which was so eventful, but he said he had not energy. He was three years in prison in Germany, from sixteen to nineteen. This prison was so dark that he could not read after three o'clock in the afternoon. The German Government was then very despotic and looked with suspicion on the meetings of the students, and he was arrested on unjust suspicions. The only book allowed him was the Bible, and he learned portions of it by heart, on which to think in the sixteen hours of darkness. He thus learned nearly the whole Bible, read it through eight times, and the result was his conver- sion, which, he said, had been ascribed to other causes (such as the preaching of Dr. Slaughter at an Association in Williamsburg) , but that this was the true cause. He took it up as any other book, he laid it down and put it in his heart as " God's Book." He was allowed after three years to leave the prison, as the physicians said it would cause his death to be longer imprisoned. He stayed with a relative in the town two years more, guarded day and night, after which his escape to this country was not opposed. He sailed in 1 839 for America, reaching it after seventy days' voyage. When he reached America he was received with great cordial- ity by the Professors of Yale and Harvard, and settled in Phila- delphia. He saw an advertisement of the need of a Professor of Ancient I^anguages in William and Mary College, and he wrote a letter in I^atin to the Trustees and thus distanced all other thirty-six competitors. He was ordained Deacon by Bishop Johns, April 18, 1846, and his first parish was on the James river. Prince George county, where he spent five years in a four- roomed house, in a sandy, unenclosed lot of five acres. Though his family was large — three children and relatives — for so small a house, these were the happiest years of his life. He was for some years rector of Christ Church, Norfolk, and had flattering calls elsewhere. He went from Norfolk to St. Paul's, Richmond, where he was the beloved rector for thirty-three years. J. Stuart HanckeIv. 245 He was there during the trying times of the Civil War, and was the pastor of General L,ee and many others. President Davis and many soldiers and generals became communicants. The whole South knew his name and work. He was for many years one of the examining chaplains of the Diocese, and was most efficient and interested in the work, and he held this place until 1892. In 1871 he was sent to the Gen- eral Convention in place of Dr. Sparrow, and was sent again and again until he declined from failing health. His clear-cut features, his beautiful countenance attracted all who saw him, and his devoted, earnest life has been a blessing to his adopted State of Virginia. As a man, a scholar, a pastor, a preacher, a patriot, he nobly fulfilled every duty that was within his reach, and the world is poorer for his death. Rev. J. Stuart Hanckel, D. D., of South Carolina, succeeded Rev. R. K. Meade, and was many years rector of Christ Church, Charlottesville, and had a high and honored position in Virginia. He, like Dr. Minnigerode, was one of the first examining chap- lains of the Diocese, and was most thorough in all of its duties. He was very prominent in Diocesan and General Conventions, and had great power as a debater. He was a scholarly, agree- able man, and was always a welcome visitor to this Seminary. He died August 22, 1892. The name of Rev. John J. McElhinney, Professor in this Semi- nary from 1872 to 1887, when he was retired as Librarian, brings before the minds of all who knew him the picture of the ideal scholar. Born in Pittsburgh, March, 181 5, he was till his seventeenth year at school and helping his father in business. In his eight- eenth year he entered the College of Washington and Jefferson, Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania. Ordained Deacon in 1839 and Priest in 1842, he labored in Pennsylvania, teaching and studying at the same time. In 1846 he was married, and in 1856 he became Professor at Gambier, where he remained, filling various chairs, until 1872, when he came to this Seminary. After his retirement he removed to Falls Church, where he had purchased a home, and with feeble health studied and read, occasionally visiting the Seminary. He had collected a very valuable library of about seven thousand volumes, and few men in any Church were such accurate scholars in many departments. He wa& 16 246 Prof. J. J. McElhinney. studying and buying books to the last, and I remember his tell- ing me that once passing through Pittsburg he found in a shop a rare folio, and carried the heavy package in his hands across the city, unwilling to be separated from it. He hated to part with his books, but sold many before his death. He marked his books with notes. His sermons were beautifully written, keen and original in thought, and though his voice was weak he was a fine elocutionist. They were practical, not theoretical, and he told me that he had once observed some weeping while he was preaching. One of the young clergy preached one of his sermons for him when he was sick, and it made a deep impression. His work. The Doctrine of the Church, published while he was at Gambler, is a very valuable book for its research and vast stores of learning. He published short articles in the papers, and pam- phlets on Baptism and Eternal Punishment, which are very strong. Many old students can recall him now, as they used to see him walking across the lawn with a book always under his arm. He had the accuracy and the diligence of a German scholar, with clearer insight and judgment. He read everything— science, history, classics, as well as theology. I often w^ent to see him in his little home, a frame house, and you would enter his room and see books all around you — on chairs, tables and floor, and even on the couch where he had to rest his frail body in order to resume his studies. He died August 4, 1895, and was buried in Pittsburg. Rev. Dr. Henderson Suter, born in Georgetown in 1827, who passed away about the same time as Dr. McElhinney, was for seventeen years rector of Christ Church, Alexandria, and for many years a Trustee of the Seminary. He was well known to all of us here, and often drove out to look after the buildings and business affairs of the Seminary, in which he showed deep interest. Dr. Suter was a great reader, a very intelligent man, and was considered one of the most popular preachers in the Diocese. He was noted for administrative power and fearless devotion to duty. For twenty years he suffered from a complication of diseases, whose extent was not known till after his death, and at times endured excruciating pain, which in some degree always affected him. He bore it bravely and patiently, and died in peace and Henderson Suter. 247 triumph. He was a brave Christian and most useful minister of Christ. His death was mourned not only by his own people but by all who knew him. He had so lived that he was not afraid to die, and when told that he had but a few hours to live, he received the inexorable summons with the resignation and the fortitude of the faith that he had professed and taught ; and his manner of death was his last and most effective sermon. I recall him when he was a clerk in the Washington Post-office, where he showed me the book that Benjamin Franklin used as Postmaster-General. It was a very small common looking book ; so great is the difference between those times and these. He used to come over to Georgetown during the eight years of his Government service, and heard me preach there, and he told me he was struck with my raven black hair. Speaking of the Postoffice Department now reminds me of what it was in my father's time and in my early days. In 1793, when my father was ordained, there were seventy-five offices ; now there are seventy-five thousand. From that time to my coming to the Seminary, in 1836, was the stage-coach era of the postal system. Postage was rated by pennyweights and grains of silver, with an increased charge for every hundred miles, and you never knew exactly what your letter was going to cost. Yet the entire reve- nues of the Postoffice Department in Jefferson's first year would only have paid the letter carriers in the city of Washington now. Some of my letters cost twenty-five and fifty cents apiece, and young men at college or in business were sometimes unable to get their letters out for want of money to pay the bill, as they were not then prepaid. Only letters were sent by mail, and pamphlets and magazines were admitted first in 1845, when letter postage was reduced to five and ten cents a half ounce. Stamps were adopted in 1847, stamped envelopes in 1853, free delivery in 1863, and most important of all the railway mail service in 1865. Merchandise was admitted to the mails in 1872. The Universal Postal Union now carries a half ounce letter to nearly all parts of the world. Rowland Hill succeeded in getting ' ' penny postage ' ' for England in 1840, and is rightly hailed as a great benefactor of all mankind. This was the thought of a nature nobly trained in a family where simple living, unselfish concern for others, and a 248 Penny Postage. high ideal of laboring for the comfort of his fellowmen held the chief place. It is said that he once saw a young woman on a doorstep near the post-office sobbing bitterly. In answer to questions, she said, " A letter from my mother is in there, and I can't get it ; they ask seven pence and I have but a penny." Mr. Hill released it and went home thinking. Often we know letters had to go to the ' ' dead-letter office ' ' unopened for want of the postage. Sometimes tricky evasions were resorted to, such as pretending to be unable to read, in order to get the contents of the letter without paying, or there would be a set of signs on the outside, so that a mere look would convey the letter's meaning. Time would fail me if I were to tell of many other noble minis- ters of this Seminary, in Virginia and other Dioceses, whose record is on high. This Seminary may well be proud of her sons, who in every land, in both hemispheres, have by their godly life and true doctrine adorned the gospel of Christ and labored for His kingdom. I might speak of Dr. O. A. Kinsolving, of the class of 1845, whose broad culture, ability and devotion to the Church are well known, and who gave to the ministry three noble sons, two of whom are bishops. (Cotton Mather commemorates an old Puri- tan as one excelled only by his distinguished sons.) I never knew a father that objected to his sons being thought better preachers than himself. He was a very genial man, and delightful in social intercourse, a beautiful reader of the service, an able sermonizer and preacher. He was of very noble presence and on one occasion when the Bishop was absent presided in Convention with great dignity. He had calls to larger positions but pre- ferred the country parish. Dr. WiUiam Norwood, the founder of St. Paul's Church, Rich- mond, Bishop Johns used to say, was the best preacher in the Diocese, and his son. Rev. J. J. Norwood, was for many years the efficient evangelist of Virginia ; and I might speak of many others, living and dead, whose names and faces rise up before me. I shall give some random jottings, sometimes giving names and sometimes not. Rev. Mr. Jones, who from his height was called High Priest Jones, had considerable reputation in Virginia as a public speaker. I remember his preaching on the text " Call upon Me and I will show thee great and mighty things which thou has not known ' ' Norwood and Jones. 249 (Jer. xxxiii. 3). Once when he was preaching at Markham, I think, a small, wiry man got up and said, " Gentlemen, a storm is coming ; look to your saddles." A stampede of the men en- sued, and when they returned Mr. Jones was in confusion, and said, '• Brethren, I have lost the thread of my discourse." He struggled on for a while without finding it and had to stop. No storm came. A like incident happened when Dr. Norwood was preaching in Richmond. A cry of fire caused many men to leave the church, and Mr. Norwood thought to turn it to good account. He said in substance : ' ' How interested you are in temporal things, if your business or your houses are in danger, and how careless you are about eternal things. There is a fire that will try men, more severe than this," &c., &c. Just then Tom Nelson, who was well known in Richmond, came in and said, sotto voce, but heard by many, " It is a false alarm," somewhat spoiling the moral. CHAPTER XXI. WASHINGTON CITY. WASHINGTON City is of great interest to us, because I may truly say that it was the kind foster-parent of our infant institution. Washington and Maryland clergymen, Hke Rev. Walter D. Addison, Mr. Hawley, the Wilmers and others, wanted a seminary in Washington or Maryland, but when their efforts failed they generously aided our Seminary and made it their own. Washington and Maryland laymen, like Francis S. Key, Judge James S. Morsell and others, worked and prayed for our Seminary. We look to Washington and Maryland still to send its candidates to us to be trained in harmony with the feel- ings and surroundings of these nearly related dioceses. I can never forget Judge Morsell, who was born in 1774, and was, I thought, an old man when I first met him in 1836. He was never married until fifty-six years old, but was married twice before he was sixty, each wife leaving him one little girl. I knew him through Rev. Philip Slaughter, then rector of Christ Church, Georgetown, and so cordial was his invitation to me that I looked upon it as a home on my visits to Georgetown and often spent several days together with him. I have never known a more pious, devoted layman. It was a beautiful sight to see his two little daughters kneel down before going to bed and at his knee repeat the Lord's Prayer and Creed, when the youngest could hardly pronounce distinctly the words. He always shaved on Saturday evening instead of Sunday morning, and was a most devout and constant attendant at church. He had a prayer-meeting of laymen of the Church to meet regularly at his house, a sight I never saw elsewhere, and I well remember attending it. He told me that he was converted when a thoughtless, irreligious man, by a dream of the last Judgment. So vivid was it that he rose from his bed and began to pray. For some days he prayed with- out ceasing, until he found peace in believing. He delighted in talking on religious subjects, and his intelligent interest in Church affairs was very helpful. His brother, William Morsell, was the father of Rev. Joshua Morsell, a friend of mine for years, 250 Judge Morsell. 251 and James S. Morsell. One of Judge Morsell's daughters married Gen. William P. Craighill. The Judge himself lived to be ninety-six years old, dying in 1870, and at ninety-four walked with a cane anywhere, and, with his long snow-white hair falling on his shoulders, he made a beautiful picture of old age found in the way of righteousness. Judge Morsell's memory has been precious to me, and I hope through Divine grace to meet him again in heaven. He was a firm friend and supporter of the Seminary, of Bishops Meade, Johns and Mcllvaine, and of Doctors Sparrow, May and Keith. General Craighill is of the large and honored family of that name in Virginia, one being a trustee of the Seminary and Rev. James B. Craighill (1868), a faithful clergyman in Maryland. General Craighill, chief of engineers, was lately retired at his own desire under the forty-year service law, with a most brilliant military and scientific record. Francis Scott Key, an intimate friend of Judge Morsell, and so well known by his national song, was a lovely Christian charac- ter. As early as 18 16 Rev. Mr. Addison and the vestry of St. John's, Georgetown, wishing a lay-reader, requested the Bishop " to appoint Francis S. Key, whose talents and piety and sound- ness in the faith render him apt and meet to exercise the office." His name is inscribed on a brass tablet in our chapel as one of the founders of this Seminary, and he was earnest in his prayers and counsels and liberal in his gifts to it, and to all good works. He used to exhort the people at Falls Church, and taught in Trinity Church Sunday School, where he was senior warden and lay delegate. He often attended our commencements, where I met him. Once, shortly after the death of his son Daniel in a duel, I recall his sweet face with its sad expression and his silvery voice. He was a very refined, dehcate looking man, an intimate friend of my wife's family. As for churches, St. John's, Washington ; St. John's and Christ, Georgetown ; Old Rock Creek ; Christ, Navy- Yard ; with Broad Creek and Addison's Chapel, both near the city, were about the only ones of any note. Think now of nearly fifty Episcopal churches and chapels in the District. Trinity Church had then just been built on Fifth street, but was afterwards sold, and is now the site of lawyers' offices. Rev. Henry V. D. Johns had 252 Church Attendance. been its first rector, and had just left. The Rev. Mr. Bean was then at Christ Church, Washington. In those days church room in Washington was scarce, very many more people coming to the city in the winter months than could find places in the churches. I think, too, that church- going was more general then than now ; so that the Hall of Rep- resentatives used to be occupied on Sundays for public services. These I used to like to attend. There was at once a novelty and freedom at them. A good choir was usually made up, and some of the best preachers, the chaplains and others whose services could be secured, preached. In Miss Murray's book, " One Hundred Years Ago," a very interesting account is given by a stranger in Washington of a powerful sermon by Rev. W. D. Addison, preached in the House on Sunday, February 5, 1804. As church accommodations increased the custom of using the House fell into disuse, though it continued at intervals till the war. I might say something of the ministers of our Church then in Washington. The Rev. James F. French, my intimate friend and colleague at Bristol, had begun about 1840 what is now Epiph- any Church. They met in Apollo Hall and I often used to preach for him. When Webster was preparing for the Girard will case he would frequently go to see Mr. French and discuss with him the evidences of religion, and thus he got primed on that part of his argument, and made some of the most admired points in his argument. One of our ministers in the city, who had a vehement, denunciatory style, and preached the law more than the gospel, was called by Senator William Preston, himself a most polished, eloquent speaker, " God Almighty's prosecuting attorney." One of the chaplains, a Methodist, who made a great attempt at oratory, Webster said reminded him of a sylla- bub made of bad eggs. The Rev. Mr. Cookman, who was there about this time, was drowned in the steamer President, which was lost at sea in 1841. Rev. Mr. Hawley , rector of St. John's, had been a captain in the War of 1812, and after that studied for the ministry. He used to live on F street near Thirteenth, and would put on his gown and walk up the street to church, very erect and like a soldier. When Epiphany was started about 1840, the vestry of St. John's objected to giving up the best part of the city and refused to Stringfellow and Butler. 253 attend the laying of the cornerstone. Mr. Hawley died about 1846 and one of his daughters still survives. Rev. Horace Stringfellow was at Trinity and preached very long sermons. Dr. Washington, one of his members, told him so. He said, " I get so interested I do not know how time goes." Dr. Washington said, " I will give you a clock." So a big faced clock was put up. He lived to a great age, and once in Rich- mond took part in the service with his son and grandson. When he left Trinity the congregation gave him a silver pitcher with this inscription, " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again," etc. Rev. C. M. Butler was first in Georgetown and my sisters-in-law used to walk over from Third street to Georgetown to hear him preach, and they were rejoiced when he came to Trinity. There he had large congregations, the great men in Congress — Webster, Clay and Calhoun — enjoyed his eloquent ser- mons. Rev. C. M. Butler went to see Calhoun when he was sick, but he declined to see him. Calhoun said that he had not examined the subject of religion. Dr. Butler preached a funeral sermon on Calhoun and his text was : "Ye are gods, but ye shall die like men." Mr. Calhoun was great in conversation as in all else, being a most gifted man ; his language was appropriate and beautiful. He was very intimate with General Jones. Rev. C. M. Butler with his wife and child spent a fortnight with me once. He was a useful man and an ingenious preacher. I heard him preach a sermon on the text, "It is I, be not afraid," applying it in different ways, to death, for instance. In writing to my brother, a minister at Lawrence, Massachusetts, I told him of the sermon. He preached a sermon on the text and a lady in his congregation came to him and said, ' ' That sermon reminds me of one I heard Dr. Butler preach. ' ' He was several years in Grace Church, Boston. Dr Butler administered the Holy Communion to Henry Clay not long before his death. Clay was very devout and attentive at church, using his prayer book faithfully. Once when a selection was to be read the minister went on to the Psalms for the day and Clay said, sotto voce, ' ' The parson is out of order." I heard John Joseph Gurney, the Friend, a brother of Eliza- beth Fry, speak in Washington. The Rev. Mr. Gilliss, once rector at Rockville, had a pleasant 254 Hknry Clay. experience when building Ascension Church, where Bishop Pink- ney was afterwards rector. He was very friendly with a Roman Catholic priest, who said to him, " You are building a new church. We do not help others build churches, but you will need a pavement, which will cost you something. I will have it laid." His daughter, Mrs. Kennedy, was well known in Wash- ington, and was active in Church work. The meetings of the old Colonization Society were frequently held in the House, generally at night. At these the tall, willowy form of Henry Clay was nearly always to be seen. I sometimes sat near enough to have touched him. At one of these meetings he compared the bringing over of the negroes to America to the bringing of the Israelites into the land of Canaan. Henry Clay was over six feet tall, of very spare frame ; his face was homely, but full of intelligence and very attractive. He had a suavity and grace of manner that was captivating. Clay had the finest voice I have ever heard, and I think far supe- rior to that of Spurgeon or Beecher or any other. It was sweeter even than music, sonorous, melodious, silvery, with the depth and clearness of a bell — full of the finest and most delicate into- nations. He was heard, as few others were, throughout the House of Representatives, which was a hard room in which to speak. There was, I believe, never such another Speaker of the House. None dared to dispute his decisions, for they were given with such authority that it seemed no other view could be taken. I remember once how he said " Mr. President, this is a. direct tax, a DIRECT tax," audit seemed as if it were the most awful thing that could be said. I heard him and Webster speak on the same day, on the Missouri Compromise bill. His gestures were few but graceful and his command of an audience complete and per- fect. He was one of the greatest orators of any land or age. Clay boarded at this time at Miss Polk's boarding-house, and very often visited at General Jones'. His manners and conver- sation in private were charming. When introduced to Miss Mary Lyons, a beautiful and accomplished lady, who married Governor Henry A. Wise, he said: "Madam, I would not be afraid to meet a den of such lions. ' ' Mr. Clay was making a speech once and quoted ' ' Breathes there a man with soul so dead ' ' and made a rhetorical pause. Some one in the audience thinking he had forgotten the rest Daniel Webster. 255 prompted him. Henry Clay was baptised by the Rev. E. F. Berkeley, his rector, on June 22, 1847, when seventy years old, together with his daughter-in-law and her children, in the parlor at Ashland, Kentucky. He came to the Holy Communion on Sunday, July 4, and was confirmed by Bishop Smith a week or two later. I often heard Webster speak, especially before the Supreme Court. There he was rather slow and labored, not fluent. He kept his New England pronunciation, saying nateral, &c. In Congress everything was natural and informal — often talk. A bill would be read, and Webster or some one else would say " Let it pass." The only man who declaimed in schoolboy fashion was Walker, afterwards in the Treasury and very prominent. I sat very near Webster when he spoke at the laying of the corner- stone of the southern wing of the new Capital. The clergy sat together in the best places. General Scott, President Fillmore and others of eminence were there, and with the procession and music and speech was one of the finest things I ever saw in Washington — a grand occasion. Webster came in late, and I remember well how he swung himself round like a mighty ship of war coming to anchor. He showed great dignity and seemed to feel himself above the common mass. He had a manuscript in his hand and spoke one and a half hours. I called on Mr. and Mrs. Webster with my nephew, Prof. William Packard, of Princeton, on January i, 1852, the New Year's Day before he died. It was the custom then to have receptions on that day. Webster looked gaunt and haggard. We were the only ones present at the time. A member of Congress now gets $12,500 for his two years' service ; Webster for the same time received $3,600. I heard Prentiss, a most winning, persuasive, eloquent speaker, and Calhoun. Webster, Clay, Prentiss and Calhoun were stars of no mean magnitude in the oratorical and political firmament of those memorable days. When Webster was in London he impressed people as a great man, many turned round to look at him. Carlyle said he was an ' ' engine in breeches. ' ' I remember seeing the schoolhouse where he taught. It was a terrible ordeal getting into the Senate or House when the great men were to speak. We would have to go at eight 256 Early Washington. o'clock, three hours before the speaking began, and push for a place. The pressure was very great, we were completely hemmed in and could not get out until everything was over at 4 or 5 P. M. We had to take our lunch along or fast all day. Thus I did not hear them as often as I would have liked. I have always regretted that I did not go to hear Clay's farewell speech. Whenever Mr. Clay spoke there was a great crowd. He might not have argued as well as Mr. Webster, but crowds prefer declamation to reasoning. Mr. Clay in his out-of-Congress speeches usually carried a roll of manuscript, and Mr. Webster, too. They held it in the left hand as they spoke. It seemed as necessary a part of a public orator in those days as the pocket- handkerchief did of a bishop. Speeches and sermons have both become more read now than they used to be. What they have gained, however, in arrangement they have, in a measure at any rate, lost in popular acceptability. The crowd wishes to have some one do all its thinking for it ; to say a thing takingly, and, if need be, half a dozen times ; to be replete with illustration and and have all the ways and devices of what I may call a ' ' demo- cratic " mode of address. Clay was more popular than Webster. In those days Washington was only an overgrown village, if it was even that. Members of Congress paid only eight dollars a week board ; plain people less. They had only surface drainage ; the cows ran at large, and foot-paths abounded over the commons in almost every direction. The population was not much more than 20,000. ' ' The Avenue ' ' was hardly more than a good road ; tall poplars lined many of the streets — the stately old-fashioned lyombardy, now so little seen ; C and D were then fashionable streets. At the foot of the Capitol Hill, where now stands the group of statuary, was a rough wooden bridge across the Tiber, once called Goose creek, and it was very muddy around there. In 1841, when Mrs. Anthony Trollope visited Washington, she gives a very lugubrious account of the streets, and .speaks of seeing teams stalled on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Adamses in their journals describe the city as most primitive, and the streets as often impassable. I have frequently walked over all that part of the city beet ween the Island and Pennsylvania Avenue, which was the Mall or Common, seamed with gullies, with no houses, no Smithsonian building or grounds. A canal went down B street just below the Avenue, along where the Pennsylvania depot now Washington Streets. 257 is. I remember when the depot was a mere rough shed. When the depot was built I saw them driving in the most immense piles for its foundation, as the ground was very low and marshy, as was seen in the flood in 1889, when boats were used to cross from the Avenue to the Pennsylvania depot, and went right in the Sixth-street door, the water nearly covering the seats. Mrs. Trollope says, in her reminiscences of Washington in i84i-'2, what is vivid in my memory : " Washington is but a ragged, unfinished collection of unbuilt broad streets. Of all places that I know it is the most ungainly and unsatisfactory. Massachusetts avenue runs the whole length of the city, and is inserted on the maps as a full-blown street about four miles in length. Go there and you will find yourself not only out of town, away among the fields, but you will find yourself beyond the fields in an uncultivated, undrained wilderness. Tucking your trousers up to your knees, you will wade through the bogs, you will lose yourself among the rude hillocks, you will be out of the reach of humanity. The unfinished dome of the Capitol will loom before you in the distance, and you will think that you approach the ruins of some Western Palmyra. If you are a sportsman you will desire to shoot snipe within sight of the President's House. There were parts of Pennsylvania avenue which would have been considered heavy ground by most hunting men, and through some of the remoter streets only light- weights could have lived. Have I made it understood that in walking about Washington one wades as deep in mud as one does in floundering through an ordinary ploughed field in Novem- ber ? Trade seems to have ignored Washington altogether. Such being the case, the lyCgislature and the Executive of the country together have been unable to make of Washington any- thing better than a straggling congregation of pilgrims in a wilderness. ' ' Mr. W. Reading, of Rockville, went to Washington from Penn- sylvania in 1852, and was urged to buy lots sold by the city for taxes or for other reasons. He saw lots on Massachusetts ave- nue and Fifteenth street sold at five cents a foot ; on L, street, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth streets, at two cents a foot. One lot of four acres between L, and M and the above streets was sold at two cents a foot, alleys being deducted. What a great change in prices and conditions since that time ! The corner-stone of the Washington Monument was laid on July 4, 1848. General Jones went in the carriage with Mr. G. W. P. Custis, of Arlington, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, then in her 258 Robert C. Winthrop. ninety-first year, and the orator of the day, Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston, who rode beside General Jones. Mr. Custis brought with him a sword presented to him by General Washington, with the date 1775 inscribed on the blade. When the monument had been built 100 feet the funds gave out, and Congress did not appropriate anything until long after the war. While it remained unfinished it was very unsightly, and Trollope ridiculed it as a stump of a monument. Mr. Winthrop became a very distin- guished man, and was a Speaker of the House of Representa- tives, and very prominent and useful in our Church. He delivered the oration at its completion, some forty years after. He was President of the Trustees of the Episcopal Theological School of Cambridge, Mass., at his advanced age, dying in No- vember, 1894. Mr. Winthrop, born at same time as myself, studied law under Webster and succeeded Webster as Senator, having been ten years in Congress. No more independent man lived during the Civil War, and being put out of political life, he devoted himself to literary, historical and philanthropic work, and he became a chosen orator upon historical occasions. His career resembles that of Severn Teackle Wallis, of Baltimore, whose name sheds lustre on Maryland. His frequent guests at his home were Clay, Webster, Calhoun, lyincoln and John Q. Adams, though often opposing the pet schemes of each. When John Brown, of Harper's Ferry, is made still a saint and martyr, and good women weep scalding tears over his grave, it is pleasant to recall that at the time a Massachusetts man wrote : "I shall not forget the emotions with which I received, at "Vienna, last November, the first tidings of the atrocious affair at Harper's Ferry. * * * i think there could have been no true American heart in Europe that did not throb and thrill with horror at that announcement. But I confess to have experienced emotions hardly less deep or distressing when I read not long afterward an account of a meeting in this very hall (the Boston Music Hall) at which the gallows at Charlestown, in Virginia, was likened to the Cross of Calvary, and at which it was openly declared that the ringleader of that desperate and wicked con- spiracy was right." The Capitol when I first saw it was not a third as large as now. It had a low dome, which looked black. The present dome was finished about the close of the war. There was a fire in the Capitol John Quincy Adams, 259 Library which was very destructive. Among other losses were Jefferson's manuscripts in his own writing, which I had seen there. The Long Bridge was at first an uncovered wooden bridge, which was carried away by floods several times. General Jack- son recommended one of iron and stone. The present Long Bridge cost about one million dollars, I have heard. The Aqueduct Bridge, under which was the canal to Alex- andria, was thought a wonderful feat of engineering then, John Quincy Adams lived in the next house to Dr. Miller, on F street, owned by Mrs. Thornton, I think. There was a narrow alley between, used in common by both, and Dr. Miller thought Mr. Adams rather hard and exacting. The houses were then very plain in appearance but large and comfortable. I visited ex-President Adams twice ; first when I delivered a letter of introduction to him from my father, who was his classmate, and who walked with him in the procession at a reunion of Harvard alumni, and again when I took my eldest brother to visit him. His manners were formal, cold and repelling. Many were amused at his chronic defense of the " sacred right of petition," which the Southern Congressmen were anxious to restrict, and though he might oppose its purpose, Adams would promptly present any respectable petition. This was fully tested, I remember, in 1837, when, to the astonishment of every one, he presented a petition from actual slaves, and compelled its reception in spite of the uproar which it created. He was well-informed, witty and pro- found. Like his father, he kept very full diaries and journals, which have been published in twelve volumes, I think. He mentions his habit of daily swimming across the Potomac, a mile wide, in any fit weather. One one occasion he was nearly drowned, being seized with cramp. Like his father, he was a Unitarian, and every Sunday morning he attended a feeble Unitarian church at the corner of Sixth and D Streets, which was after- wards sold. In the afternoon he always went to St. John's, where Mr. Hawley, a genial man, was rector, and I remember seeing him there one rainy day, when I was preaching, though nearly all others were kept away by the thunderstorm. His last intelligible words were, ' ' This is the last of earth ; I am con- tent." 26o Henry A. Wise. One of the first times I went to Congress I heard Henry A. Wise, afterwards Governor of Virginia. He was speaking with the greatest vehemence, though not distinctly heard, and de- nounced the extravagance of the Administration just going out (General Jackson's). He said they had mirrors as big as barn- doors in the White House. He is described as pale and thin, "slovenly in apparel. His white cravat added to his invalid pallor, but he had dark and brilliant eyes. To see him sauntering about the hall with his long Indian strides, you would be tempted to ask who he was ; to hear him speak your attention would be riveted on him. Firmness, impetuosity, fierce sarcasm and invective all gather in a hurri- cane and startle the drowsy members from the lounges." He was a fearless and hone.st citizen, temperate, never gaming, and fighting but one duel, when his impetuosit}^ might have provoked many. His son, Rev. Henry A. Wise, left a brilliant reputation behind him, dying early in life. The early Presidents were for the most part Episcopalians. Washington's church, Christ Church, Alexandria, we all know about. Jefferson attended Christ Church, Navy Yard, and Mr. Combs, an old vestrymen, has told me that he often saw him ride down there on horseback with a large prayer-book under his arm. In this church alone a pew was set aside for the President, per- haps from Jefferson's attendance. The Adamses were regular church-goers. Jackson was not a religious man. Once he promised his wife to join some church, " but," said he, " if I do it now people will say it is for political effect. Wait till I get out of politics. ' ' He never got out of politics till very near the close of his life. He then made a confession of Christ, was bap- tized by one of our graduates, and died ver}^ soon after. Van Buren was a very little man, red-faced, and was rather peculiar- looking with his side whiskers and slanting forehead and tiny form. I saw President Jackson on the inauguration of President Van Buren, March 4, 1837, when they rode together to the Capitol. It was a cold, snowy day, and there was only a single boat to carry us up from Alexandria. It was heavily loaded and careened sometimes, to the fear of many. The river had a skim of ice, and we rather feared the boat might be cut by it and injured. There were only three or four thousand people around President Van Buren. 261 the stand, and it was sloppy and disagreeable. I went to the White House and saw Jackson there and shook hands with him. This was my first acquaintance with a President, and I am pleased to think that I have visited President Cleveland and shaken hands with him — a worthy successor of Washington, Jefferson and Jackson, a true, brave, able and patriotic man. On this occasion, in 1837, a monstrous cheese, the size of a large round table, which had been sent to Van Buren, was cut, and I got a piece of it, and some crackers, which were handed around. The cheese was mashed on the floor, and the whole house and almost the whole city was redolent of cheese, frag- ments of it lying everywhere on the streets. The Presidents used to go to the Senate and House oftener than they do now, and were seen by the people. Jefferson was a contributor to the Episcopal Church, once giving Mr. Hatch, the rector at Charlottesville, twenty dollars on the occasion of the Diocesan Convention. Jefferson's character has been much discussed. Dr. Hawks wrote a bitter article upon him in the New York Review. Some one has said that his Declaration of Independence was a plagiarism from that of Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, a year before, and that the English was not good ; as to " human events," events are not human, and other criticisms are made. This may be hypercritical. The financial question was then much discussed, and I heard much talk of the banks and the deposits and the removal of the public moneys. Jackson in 1834 completed what Jefferson in 1804 had begun, making gold the standard of the country, and I can remember what a curiosity a silver dollar was in those days, as none were coined for many years. There was great excitement in the Presidential canvass of Clay, Tyler and Harrison. The opponents of Harrison said that he was only fit to sit in a cabin and drink hard cider. This was what very many loved to do in those days, so that it did not in- jure him but made him popular. A wigwam was erected on the Avenue and many people went in for the cider and the dancing. In consequence of the exposure and fatigue at his inauguration, of which the hand-shaking was a large element, he caught cold and soon died. Dr. Miller was his physician. I think he rode horseback to the Capitol. I saw Tyler in his private room and had some talk with him. I have heard that after his term ejc- 17 262 Presidknts Tyler and Pierce. pired as President, when he went back to Virginia, some of his political opponents, thinking to mortify him, elected him road supervisor. He accepted the office and took good care to call out the hands and horses just at the most inconvenient times, and worked them up to the limit of the law. He secured better roads, but he was not re-elected supervisor of the roads. Zachary Taylor, I remember, looked like an old farmer. Clay's canvass reminds me somewhat of Bryan's last canvass. He went about speaking, and though such a matchless orator, he failed to be elected. The man that talks the most does not always have the most weight and influence. Doctors Sparrow and Nor- ton hardly ever opened their lips in Conventions, except to vote, yet both had commanding influence. I knew President Pierce quite well, and often saw him. He and my brother married sisters, and I stayed with my brother once at the White House, and once rode with Mrs. Pierce to the Navy Yard. Franklin Pierce was at my wedding and eighteen years after became President, no one then dreaming of such a thing. I remember very well the tragedy of Tyler's administration when the cannon ' ' Peacemaker ' ' burst on board of the frigate Princeton, killing several of the distinguished party on board. I was in my garden sowing peas on February 28, 1844, when in the afternoon I heard a tremendous explosion, as I judged, near Fort Washington. Captain Stockton, commander of the Prince- ton, had taken a large and brilliant company of 400 guests down the river and the great gun carrying a 225 pound ball had been fired several times. On the way back when opposite the Fort, the captain agreed to fire it once more. After firing, the gun burst three or four inches from the breech, wounding seventeen seamen. Among those killed by the explosion was Abel P. Upshur, the Secretary of State, an ornament to human nature, who re- called the old patriots of Virginia to our memory ; Thomas W. Gilmer, only ten days Secretary of the Navy, whose sister, Mrs. Ann McGee, has lately passed away ; Commodore Beverly Ken- non, whose widow now lives in Georgetown in a beautiful old age, after a most influential and useful life ; Virgil Maxcy and Ex-Senator Gardner of New York. The grief and mourning in Washington were unparalleled. The funeral services of these men were held at the White House Explosion on the Princeton. 263 by Rev. Messrs. Hawley, Butler and Laurie (a Presbyterian). There was an immense procession from the Capitol to the White House, sweeping trains of crepe hung from doors and windows everywhere, cannons were slowly firing, bells tolling, the vast crowd mute and dumb at the great calamit5% and over all the mist and cloud of a dark day in contrast to the warm, genial day of the explosion, all presented a scene of woe greater than had ever been seen before. I saw ex-President Buchanan during the war washing his hands out of doors at the Relay House. It was said that he was insulted by the father of the lady to whom he was engaged tell- ing him he was a fortune hunter, and never married her or any one. The lady died from the effects of her grief. The only time I ever saw Jefferson Davis was at the White House when he was Secretary of War. It was at this time that the wonderful single arch of stone over Cabin John Run was built, though Davis' name has been cut out of the stone from some petty spirit of dislike. CHAPTER XXII. WAR TIMES. I HAVE been asked to give some accouut of my experiences in the Civil War. As I look back upon them they do not seem to have happened to me, but to some one else. They do not differ materially from those of many others who were refu- gees, like myself. The " Diary of a Refugee," by Mrs. McGuire, who lately died at the age of eighty-four, gives in a simple and easy style her reminiscences. It is a book that deserves a much wider circulation than it has received. I do not propose to enter into any discussion about the causes of the war — simply to give a narrative of the experiences of myself and family. It is extraordinary how few persons brought on the war. The more I think of it the more unnatural it seems. The mass of people. North and South, did not desire the war, and some of the strong- est Union men were Southerners, who, however, felt constrained to go with their States. Clay and Webster had with equal earn- estness tried to preserve the Union in their day. I know of many instances where brothers were equally divided on the two sides — a dreadful state of things, when you think of it. "And every hand that dealt a blow, Ah me ! it was a brother's," it might be truly said, showing the strong convictions on each side. In the session of i860-' 6 1 the Seminary had seventy-three students, a greater number than ever before. There had been much agitation in Congress and in the country, and much uneasi- ness as to what would be the issue. There was great excitement in the whole country ; rumors of impending war became more and more frequent, but we had had no experience of war, and in our ignorance thought that it might be averted. One-half of our students were from the North, and gradually left us as the spring advanced. There was the utmost good feeling between the Northern and Southern students at the breaking up of the Seminary. There was a panic among the families in the neigh- borhood, who left their homes for a place of refuge. The Mayor 264 War Timbs. 265 of Alexandria sent out word that there might be firing and they had better move away. I^ittle did we think that the storm of war would sweep over our homes for more than four years, and our houses be despoiled of their contents. We went away leaving everything, thinking a lock and key sufficient to protect our household goods. We left everything in the house — linen, pict- ures, books, china, furniture ; and silver in a box in the library. Never did my home look fairer than when I left it in May, 1861, my family having gone before. It seemed to put on all its loveli- ness as I was about to leave it. Some natural tears I shed. We expected, ignorant as we were, that we would soon return and find our goods in peace. When after four years I returned, my house was dilapidated, few panes of glass left in it, and books, furniture and cherished memorials were all gone. A friend at the North thought I spoke with acerbity of my loss, since he had seen my books carefully packed away. His remark was repeated to me by a friend, and I simply said : " Packed up ! yes ; but they did not send them to me." My large family Bible with records was carried off", and twenty years after the postmaster at Alexan- dria received a letter asking of me, and the writer said that he would send it to me if I would forward stamps, which I did. Some neighbors had kindly come in and saved a picture or two. A beautiful portrait of Anne Lee, my wife's grandmother, by Sully, copied from Stuart, was ruthlessly ripped up by a bayonet. I carried Dr. May to town in my carriage, as he was going to Philadelphia and he looked like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet ; we were both very sad at parting. Rev. Herman L. Duhring, of Philadelphia, who was here when the war began, visited the Seminary lately, when in Alexandria, to address the Convocation on Sunday Schools. He had not been here for more than thirty-five years, and remembered my telling them all good-bye as they left in '61, and saying, " We will soon see you again." He kindly said to me, " Doctor, your Hebrew has been of use to me all my life ; " then jokingly, " I tried it on the beggars in Europe with great effect." He told me that I looked pretty much as I did when he saw me in 1861, only my hair was whiter. Rev. W. H. Neilson told me that in the middle of April, 1861, Mrs. McGuire met him on the walk and told him that Virginia had seceded. Then he and the other Northern students decided to leave, and four went together — Bancroft, Duhring, G. Zabriskie 266 Use; op the Buildings. Gray and himself. When they reached the boat from Alexandria to Washington there were so many on board that the captain said no more baggage should be taken after his. When they got to Baltimore the great riot was going on and the streets were filled with confusion and fighting. Shortly after they got on the train the angry mob rushed in and surrounded it. They pulled down the blinds and felt much anxiety. Presently the mob was attracted to the baggage room and the conductor started his train out, and it was the last train that left for some time. The Seminary and High School buildings in the month of June, 1 86 1, were occupied as hospitals. One of the largest hos- pitals of the Union army was established here. Additional barracks were put up in the Seminary grounds, so that at one time there were no less than 1,700 patients here. Five hundred and more died during the four years' occupancy and were buried in the lower corner of the Seminary grounds, opposite my place, and afterwards removed to the National Cemetery outside Alex- andria. Some boys playing in Dr. Walker's garden, as late as 1870, fell through a hole in the ground into a shallow grave, where a skull and bones were found. Rev. John A.Jerome, class of 1851, Dr. Sparrow's son-in-law, was stationed as chaplain at the Seminary Hospital, and did good service by taking care of things as much as possible during the war. I think he had the library books boxed up, and he saved Dr. Sparrow's library. On one occasion he saw that a soldier had written his name on the Seminary wall. He had him called up and made him wash it off. My own house was used as a bakery, and fifteen hundred loaves of bread baked daily in my kitchen in a brick oven which was built along its side. Many soldiers convalescing were imprudent in eating apples in my orchard and some, it is said, died thereby. As the Seminary was in the Union lines, repeated applications were made to Congress after the war for rent for the buildings, which after twenty-five years was granted by an appropriation of