Columbia WLnibtx&itv mttjeCitpofjaetoforfe LIBRARY GIVEN BY Va/e University Library ^ S3 c j£^fc^i 271 College _-_--_) Rev. William Hague, D. D., from Germany - - 273 Rev. Augustus Tholuck, D. D., Ph. D., Professor in the Uni- versity of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany - - 275 Rev. Brooke Foss Westcott, D. D., Professor in the Univer- sity of Cambridge, England - - - - 276 Rev. Joseph Angus, D. D., President of Regent's Park College, London _.-___ 276 Rev. D. Z. Sakellarios. Athens, Greece - - - 277 Rev. Ezekiel Russell, D. D., Holbrook, Massachusetts - 278 Rev. Daniel L. Furber, D. D., Newton Centre, Massachusetts 286 APPENDIX. 1. Letter by Professor Hackett, Written in 1835 295 11. List of Published Works and Articles by Dr. Hackett 298 in. A Page from Dr. Hackett's Journal, 1845 303 CONTENTS OF BIOGRAPHY. ^ ) 4 » <» CHAPTER I. 180S— 1826. PAGE. BOYHOOD AND SCHOOL-DAYS. ______ 3 CHAPTER II. 1826— 1834. STUDENT LIFE AT AMHERST AND ANDOVER, EMBRACING COLLEGE TUTORSHIP. --_-_____ 10 CHAPTER III. 1834— 1839. MARRIAGE. PROFESSORSHIP AT BALTIMORE. CHANGE OF CHURCH CONNECTIONS. PROFESSORSHIP AT PROVIDENCE. 23 CHAPTER IV. 1839 — 1842. BEGINNING OF PROFESSORSHIP AT NEWTON AND ORDINATION. FIRST FOREIGN TOUR. THEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GERMANY. SERVICES TO BAPTISTS IN DENMARK. ^^ CHAPTER V. 1843— 1851. LITERARY LABORS : ANNOTATED WORK OF PLUTARCH J TRANS- LATION of winer's chaldee grammar ; — Hebrew exer- cises. TEMPORARY SERVICE IN ANDOVER SEMINARY. LIBERALITY OF CHARACTER. — FIRST EDITION OF COMMENTARY ON ACTS. - - - _ _ - 50 Vlll CONTENTS OF BIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER VI. 1851— 1852. SECOND FOREIGN TOUR : IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, ITALY, EGYPT AND PALESTINE, GREECE, GERMANY, FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN. - - - - -----60 CHAPTER VII. 1852— 1858. EVENTS UPON RETURN. REQUISITES FOR A SACRED INTERPRE- TER. PUBLICATION OF ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. SECOND EDITION OF COMMENTARY ON ACTS. - - 72 CHAPTER VIII. 1858— 1859. THIRD FOREIGN TOUR. SWITZERLAND. RESIDENCE, STUDIES, AND TRAVELS, IN GREECE. RETURN THROUGH AUSTRIA, GERMANY, BELGIUM, ENGLAND. - - 80 CHAPTER IX. 1859 — i860. ADDRESS ON BIBLE REVISION. LABORS ON THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. --__--_-- 89 CHAPTER X. 1861— 1865. PATRIOTISM: IN ACADEMICAL ADDRESSES; — CORRESPONDENCE; PUBLICATION OF MEMORIAL VOLUME; ADDRESS AT DEDI- CATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT IN NEWTON. - - 105 CHAPTER XI. i860 — 1865. RETROSPECT. HONORS. DEATHS OF FRIENDS. REMARKS AT NEWTON. LITERARY LABORS. EXTRACTS FROM JOURNAL. I 29 CHAPTER XII. 1865— 1868. LAST YEARS IN NEWTON INSTITUTION. LITERARY LABORS : DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE; WORK ON LANGE's COMMEN- TARY ; PLUTARCH. ACTIVITY IN ACADEMICAL SERVICES. RETIREMENT FROM PROFESSORSHIP IN NEWTON. 1J7 CONTENTS OF BIOGRAPHY. IX CHAPTER XIII. 1868— 1870. TASKS AS A WRITER. CHANGED MODE OK LIFE FOR TWO YEARS. ACCEPTANCE OF A CHAIR IN ROCHESTER THEOLOGI- CAL SEMINARY. INTERVAL BEFORE ENTRANCE ON ITS DUTIES. FOURTH FOREIGN TOUR, IN GREAT BRITAIN AND ON THE CONTINENT. ------___ ^8 CHAPTER XIV. 1870— 1875. PROFESSORSHIP AT ROCHESTER. OLD FRIENDS THERE. VISIT TO AMHERST IN 1871. TRIBUTE TO DR. E. G. ROBINSON. DECEASED CONTEMPORARIES. LITERARY LABOR. POSITION IN THE SEMINARY. REMINISCENCE OF ANDOVER ACADEMY. FIFTH FOREIGN TOUR IN EUROPE. - 153 CHAPTER XV. 1875. THE LAST OF EARTH. FUNERAL SERVICES AT ROCHESTER. FINAL OBSEQUIES AT NEWTON. MEMORIALS. CHARACTER- ISTICS. CONCLUSION. ----___ 167 MEMORIAL BIOGRAPHY. MEMORIAL BIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. 1 808-1 826. BOYHOOD AND SCHOOL-DAYS. Horatio Balch Hackett was born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, December 27th, 1808. This is the most ancient of the towns on the north bank of the Merrimac which belong to Massachusetts, having been incorporated in 1640. It is in a region noted at once for its picturesque inland scenery, and for a sea-coast of varied attractions, stretching from the bold rocks of Nahant to Salisbury sands. This is also a storied land, famous in colonial and national annals, in romance, and in song. With the dis- trict of the Merrimac are associated many of the most distinguished names in American history and letters. The name of the Merrimac, " most industrious and beautiful of rivers," is prominent also in the records of manufactures and commerce. Its ship yards have been long and widely known. At Salisbury the Continental frigate Alliance was constructed during - the Revolution, under the supervision, as joint-builder, of John Hackett, grandfather of Horatio. His maternal grandfather, Rev. Benjamin Balch, was chaplain in the same ship, and had 4 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. two sons on board with him, both of whom were minors, and counted as one man. The Hackett family is believed to be descended from the Scotch and the Danes. Few representatives of the name emigrated to this country. Richard Hackett, the father of Horatio, was also a ship-builder. He married Martha Balch, the daughter of the Rev. Benjamin Balch, of Barrington, New Hamp- shire. Four children were born of this union: James, who is now living in New Hampshire; Horatio B.; John (named after his grandfather), who died August 16th, 1815, at the age of four years and nine months; and Richard (a family name, borne by the father of the builder of the Alliance), who died some years since in Philadelphia. The father had preceded his infant son to the grave, dying October 2 1 st, 1 8 1 4, at the early age of thirty. Anterior to this heavy loss was an incident upon the very verge of Dr. Hackett's earliest recollections, which may be mentioned here as illustrating a by-gone phase of New England life. It relates to an old negro woman called Aga, who lived in the family of his grandfather Balch at Barrington, and had been nurse to his mother and aunt. She had been a slave in New Hampshire, before the emancipation there, and was originally stolen from Africa, of which she had faint recollections. He had heard her praises sounded, and, with reference to her fidelity and goodness, she had so often been called in his hearing a beautiful woman, that, ignorant of her color and history, he expected to behold an almost angelic being. When, upon being taken to his grandfather's, he INCIDENTS OF CHILDHOOD. 5 saw instead an old black woman, such was the revulsion of disappointment that he ran away, got a stick, and coming up behind her, struck her violently. She cried out, and he ran off and hid in the wood-pile. On being apprehended and led back, his first inquiry was, almost fearing he had become a murderer, " Does she bleed?" It is somewhat hard to believe, even upon his own testimony, that the severe scholar and dignified man was once a roguish boy, and liked to sit in the gallery of the church with kindred spirits. One of the Sabbath diversions of the boys, when they could elude the Tithing-man, was to fasten two pieces of apple to the ends of a string, and throwing it to the geese, to see them pull the pieces from each others' mouths. More congruous with his after character seems the interest which made the boy of eight years run from Salisbury to the Mills, to see President Monroe, on the occasion of his visit to New England, in the summer of 1 817. He distinctly remembered the Goodridge case in this same year, celebrated in the criminal annals of Essex county. His acquaintance with English literature began at an early age. Works by Smollett, Fielding, Sterne, and other writers, he read, when a little boy, visiting his aunt, on the Merrimac river, the books being borrowed from a neighboring sea-captain. At night he would ask his aunt to light up, and she would say, when he could see three lights on the river she would give him a candle. The little watchman would take his place, and ejaculate, "Aunt I see one light ! two ! three ! " In the autumn of 1820 he went to live, temporarily, with a relative at Newburyport. 6 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. The summer of 1821 was signalized by attending the Academy at Amesbury, under the charge of Master Walsh. Michael Walsh was a celebrated teacher, and a graduate of Dublin University, Ireland. He treated his young pupil with great kindness, affording him sub- stantial aid in obtaining an education, and was ever regarded by him with respect and affection. Two great historical names were connected with the remembrance of this period of the boy's history. One evening, returning home, he saw it written in chalk on the window-shutter of a shop, "Buonaparte is dead." His first knowledge of Daniel Webster he received from Master Walsh, probably in the year 1822, when that distinguished man was a candidate for Congress for the first time, from his new constituency in Massachusetts. The master was standing with a group of boys, in front of the Academy, which was upon an eminence overlook- ing the valley of the Powow, and the part of Salisbury in the neighborhood of Rocky Hill. Lifting his hand, and pointing with an earnest gesture in the direction, he said, " Now, boys, look there — the smartest man, yes, the smartest man in all Massachusetts came from out of the bushes over there ! " The remark made a strong impres- sion upon at least one of the youthful auditors. It suggested, and perhaps, as he afterward thought, was intended to suggest, that the fault is in themselves, and not in their stars, if persons fail to overcome the obstacles to success and eminence, which early poverty and obscurity may place in their path. Mr. Walsh referred, as he supposed, to the fact that the mother of Daniel Webster, who was an Eastman, was a native of Salisbury, Mass. SCHOOL-DAYS AT ANDOVER. 7 Some of the kindred of the name were living there in his childhood, and were well known. The circumstances of his early bereavement gave the fatherless hoy no exemption from the frequent lot of genius, the necessity of strenuous exertion, with the accompaniment of anxious forebodings. Plaistow, N. H., was the scene of another temporary residence, for the sake of employment in a store, in the autumn of 1822. At the same season of 1823, on the eleventh of Sep- tember, he became a pupil in Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. The step was taken by the advice of an uncle, Rev. William Balch, who had studied at Harvard College, and who was acquainted with the teachers at Andover. This celebrated school, " the Rugby of America," as it has been called, was now verging towards the end of its first half-century, having been founded in 1778, and incorporated two years later. It was at this time under the superintendence of John Adams, father of the Rev. William Adams, D. D., of New York, as Principal. Liberal aid was rendered to the meritorious, and at the end of three months, the new scholar was sure of board and tuition remitted, until fitted for college. The memory of this time has been embalmed by the literary genius of a distinguished school-fellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a charming paper published almost fifty years after. It contains a personal description of the young Hackett, as attractive in verbal portraiture of the reality, as is the engraver's familiar ideal likeness of the child Milton. 5 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. The writer says : — "Of the boys who were at school with me at Andover, one has acquired great distinction among the scholars of the land. One day I observed a new boy in a seat not very far from my own. He was a little fellow, as I recollect him, with black hair and very bright black eyes, when at length I got a chance to look at them. Of all the new-comers during my whole year, he was the only one whom the first glance fixed in my memory ; but there he is now, at this moment, just as he caught my eye on the morning of his entrance. His head was between his hands ( I wonder if he does not sometimes study in that same posture nowadays ! ), and his eyes were fastened to his book as if he had been reading a will that made him heir to a million. I feel sure that Professor Horatio Balch Hackett will not find fault with me for writing his name under this inoffensive portrait." Dr. Holmes speaks of Dr. Hackett as a new-comer, but the latter had already been a year in the school when Dr. Holmes came to spend the year 1824-5 there. It may have been the first time that the young Hackett attracted the notice of his popular and versatile school- fellow, whom every one knew and admired. Dr. Hackett has been heard to describe him in terms almost identical with those of a published reminiscence, by their school- fellow, Rev. Dr. J. F. Stearns, and the picture may be given here, as a pendant to the one already presented : " I remember Holmes just as if it was yesterday, and if I was a painter I could draw his face just at it was at the time of my connection with the Academy. A beautiful boy he was ; bright, cheerful, and unsophisticated, and SCHOOL-DAYS AT ANDOVER. 9 brilliant in every department of his study. Well I remember the day that he passed his last examination, when he read his performance — I think it was a poetic translation ; perhaps my memory does not serve me right in that respect, hut I think it was a poetic translation from one of the Roman poets, — and there stood his good old father by, and the tears were running down the old man's cheeks as he listened. He was beloved by every one who knew him." Besides the daily vision of stern-faced John Adams, with the sub-master, Jonathan Clement, and the assistants, George Beckwith and Samuel H. Stearns, familiar and impressive to Hackett and Holmes, in these school-days, was the sight of the dignitaries of the Seminary: "Moses Stuart, Roman in face and figure, with his tooa over his arm in all weathers," Drs. Woods, Porter, and Murdock — to all of whom the boys listened as preachers, — and Squire Samuel Farrar, for a generation from its foun- dation Treasurer of the Seminary. With Dr. Hackett and his friends, — including the Rev. Ray Palmer, D. D., of New York; Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, D. D., of Newark, New Jersev; and Rev. William W. Newell, D. D., of New York, — originated, it is stated, the Philomathean Society of the Academy; which cele- brated its Semi-Centennial, May 26, 1875. In due time he became a member of the Senior Class Societv, the Social Fraternity, which does not now survive. Among his papers are several exercises prepared for its meetings. Three years were spent in this secluded retreat. He graduated from the Academy in August, 1826, with the Valedictory Address. The traditions of its youthful IO HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. eloquence still survive. According to one account, he drew a moving comparison between the favored lot of those who were to pursue higher studies, and the destiny of an enforced return to uncongenial occupations. Grave men who heard it were touched, and resolved that the foreboding should not be experienced. So, some idea he had had of trying his fortune at Brunswick was aban- doned, and he was sent to Amherst. CHAPTER II. 1826-1834. STUDENT LIFE AT AMHERST AND ANDOVER, EMBRACING COLLEGE TUTORSHIP. A month after the Exhibition at Andover, in the latter part of September, 1826, the youthful aspirant after learning was admitted to the Freshman Class in Amherst College. The excellent Rev. Heraan Hum- phrey, D. D., the second President of the College, had then been for three years in that office, which he con- tinued to hold until 1845. Among the Faculty at that time, special mention, on account of after intimacy and friendship, may be made of the Rev. Nathan Welby Fiske, Professor of the Greek Language and Literature ; and the Rev. Solomon Peck, D. D., who, for seven years, from 1825 till 1832, was Professor of the Latin and Hebrew Languages and Literatures. Dr. Peck died June 1 2th, 1874. Among letters which he had written, the reperusal of which was occasioned by his decease, COLLEGE DAYS AT AMHERST. II was one, dated Amherst College, September 20th, 1826, in which, speaking of admissions to the new class, he says: "Also young Hackett, who passed as splendid an examination as I have ever heard." Other professors were the Rev. Edward Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D.; the Rev. Samuel L. Worcester, D. D. ; and the Rev. Jacob Abbott, the well-known writer and teacher. The closest and tenderest of the associations with new teachers which the young collegian here formed, was that with the Rev. Bela Bates Edwards, D. D., who became tutor at Amherst in 1826-7. Dr. Hackett wrote, more than a quarter of a century after, " I can now recollect distinctly from my college days not a few of his remarks on passages in the classics, not merely the things said, but the words employed by him, the tone and look with which he spoke." At Amherst, he had the use of money from two gentlemen who had become interested in him, but lived with great economy, afterwards refunding the aid received. As many of his fellow -students went away, at the end of the first term, to teach country schools, he was led to follow their example. On December nth, 1826, he left Amherst for Belchertown to teach a school which had been previously engaged. He returned to Amherst, February 3d, having worked nearly two months for twenty dollars, enough to buy a coat. The year 1827 witnessed a great religious interest in Amherst College, and the future Christian teacher was included in its beneficent influences. So engrossed was he with the subject of his personal relation to Christ, that, according to his statement before the council at 12 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. the time of his ordination to the ministry, he resolved to lay aside his studies, until the matter was decided, and did not resume them until he felt that he had made a complete surrender to Christ. He became a member of the College Church soon after the opening of his Sophomore year, on the second day of November, 1828, forty-seven years before the day of his death. "It illustrates the value of revivals in college to observe, that among the large number who united with the College Church at the same time with Professor Hackett, were Dr. Benjamin Schneider, the missionary to Turkey; Henry Lyman, the martyr of Sumatra; Dr. Edward P. Humphrey, son of President Humphrey; Dr. A. W. McClure, Secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union, and others scarcely less honored and useful." The author of the above words, the Rev. Professor William Seymour Tyler, D. D., of Amherst College, became the life -long and valued friend of Dr. Hackett, as a classmate at Amherst, which he entered from another college, in the Junior year. He kindly furnishes the following incidents in the college life of his friend, beginning with one previous to their acquaintance. " Many little circumstances show the estimation in which he was held by his fellow -students in college. In 1827, when he was a Freshman, he was chosen one of the speakers in an exhibition of the Alexandrian Society, of which he was a member, and the exhibition came off on the 4th of July, as a part of the cele- bration of the national anniversary by the College and the community ! HONORS IN COLLEGE. 13 "In the summer term of his Junior year, 1S29, he- was elected the first president from his Class, of the same society, which was the highest honor that the society could confer upon him. His subject was, 'Ambition — its Influence in a Popular Government.' The same year he received the highest appointment for the Junior Exhibition (May 13th, 1829), viz., the Latin oration ; his theme was, ' De Militari Fama Romanorum, priusquam Imperatores Rerum Potiunturl " In his Senior year he was the chairman of a com- mittee who were appointed by the students to wait upon Professor (afterwards President) Hitchcock, and request him to publish the course of lectures which he had just given in the college on the subject of Health, Diet and Regimen. The lectures were pub- lished in a book, which became quite famous under the title of ' Dyspepsy Forestalled and Resisted.' The other members of the committee (one from each class) were Porter Parker (afterwards Dr. Parker, of China), Lyman Gibbons (afterwards Judge Gibbons, of Mobile), and Hosea D. Humphreys (afterwards Professor Hum- phreys, of Wabash College). " The same year he was chairman of a committee appointed by the students to wait on Daniel Webster, who was to pass the night in town, and request him to address the students. Mr. Webster replied, that he would not address them, but would be most happy to meet them a few moments at such time and place as they might appoint. He met them towards evening in the library. Of course, it became the duty of President Humphrey to address to him a few words 14 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. of welcome ; and then, of course, it became necessary for Mr. Webster to make a few remarks in response. Not a student present on that occasion, probably, but remembered ever after the Orator's graceful allusions to the surrounding scenery, with its educational influence, and illustration of the value of wisdom and culture, by reference to the far-famed bow which none could draw but the wise and cultured Ulysses. Professor Hackett often reverted in after years to that meeting and hear- ing of Daniel Webster ; and well he might, for does not Glaucus boast in the Iliad of having once seen the hero Tydeus in his father's house, and does not Antenor recount to his aged compeers the eloquent Ulysses' long -since visit to the Trojan city. "Our commencement was on the 25th of August, 1830. Hackett pronounced the Valedictory Oration. His subject was the ' Effects of the Diffusion of Knowledge on our Literature.' A copy of the oration, preserved in the archives of the College, lies before me in his own hand-writing, which, by the way, was then neat, round, regular and easily legible, yet exhibiting clearly enough the chirography out of which rapid writing at length developed the hieroglyphics that his printers and his friends were sometimes sorely puzzled to decipher. The main divisions of his oration, which exhibits much of the logical clearness and rhetorical beauty of his later style, are as follows : ' A greater certainty of the development of whatever mental energy the nation contains may be mentioned as one of the effects of the diffusion of knowledge.' ' Another conse- quence of the diffusion of knowledge is the creation of INCIDENTS IN COLLEGE LIFE. 1 5 new motives to intellectual effort' ' The independence of literary men is also an effect important to be noticed.' ' It may also be remarked that the diffusion of knowledge tends to raise the public estimation of literary talents.' With a complimentary allusion to the intelligent audiences which grace our literary anniver- saries and the indulgence with which they listen to the performances, as illustrating the general diffusion of knowledge, the orator passes naturally and gracefully to the valedictory addresses." Since Dr. Hackett's death, a friend relates having been once told that the first writing of his that appeared in print was a memorial to Congress against the removal of the Indians in Georgia. He was then a Senior in Amherst College, and at a public meeting a committee was appointed to draft such a memorial. President Humphrey was chairman of this committee, and at his request the memorial was prepared by Mr. Hackett, who represented his Class in the committee. Dr. Park writes in a letter: "In the year 1829 or 1830, I first became acquainted with Dr. Hackett, before he came to Andover Seminary, while he was a member of Amherst College. Visiting the family of President Humphrey, I heard much said of young Hackett, and was introduced to him as 'the brightest scholar in College.' I said to him that I wished him to take a little care of a young friend of mine in the College ; a friend three years younger than Mr. Hackett. He seemed surprised at my request, and at once replied, 'Why, Sir, I need him to take care of me.' He said nothing- more. I was at once called away from him, 1 6 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. but his modesty then arrested my attention ; and I can never forget the humble cast of countenance with which he expressed his incompetence to take the care of <7/vybody." It was preeminently the purpose of the founding; of Amherst College, in 182 1, to impart Christian education, and lay the foundation for an intelligent, devoted, Christian Ministry. Well-nigh half of its alumni have made this the business of their lives. It was natural that Mr. Hackett, from a conjunction of ancestral traditions and academical influences with the new motives of his Christian life, should return to Andover for the special professional studies of this calling. The Theological Seminary there was chartered June 19, 1807, and opened September 28, 1808. Its President, from 1827 to his death in 1834, w T as the Rev. Ebenezer Porter, D. D., who became Professor in 181 2. Moses Stuart had grown with it from 18 10, and was now at the height of the fame which his active mind and noble heart, his enthusi- asm in scientific Biblical study, and his position as its pioneer in America, conspired to give him. Dr. Hackett ever spoke of his character with admiration. He re- garded him as so many-sided that probably different classes, though all impressed with his power and fulness, carried away dissimilar ideas of the man. The image which they had of him was not the same. Idem aliusque was he, which has been pronounced the appropriate effect of a great man. Dr. Leonard Woods was the Professor of Christian Theology. Dr. Thomas H. Skinner was from 1833 to 1835 the Professor of Sacred Rhetoric. Dr. Ralph Emerson had lately become Professor of STUDIES AT ANDOVER. I 7 Ecclesiastical History. That prince among scholars, the Rev. Edward Robinson, D. D., having been previously assistant instructor, from 1823 to 1826, had just returned from four years of study and travel in Europe, and been appointed Professor Extraordinary of Sacred Literature at Andover. He soon after commenced the publication of the Biblical Repository, richly stored with stimulating contributions to sacred science, by the best native and foreign scholars. To be guided in the studies of the Old and the New Testament under the auspices of a Robin- son and a Stuart, was a boon which a Hackett could appreciate. Dr. Park has eloquently told how he profited by it. The later pupils of those eminent men recall the respect in which they held their fellow-scholar, whom they had helped to train, and whose ability and promise thev from the first discerned. " 1 was with him only one year at Andover," writes Dr. Park, "he being a Junior while I was a Senior. He seemed utterly unconscious of his superiority to other men; and he often embarrassed his companions by his deference to them, as if they were superior to himself." At the end of his first year in the Seminary, Mr. Hackett was honored with appointment to a tutorship in the college which he had so recently left. Even had his inclinations been adverse, his circumstances, in view of which he said in after years that he wondered how he got through the Theological Seminary, would have dictated his acceptance. He held this position during the collegiate year of 183 1-2. The Freshman class of that year expressed their regard for him by a gift of books, among which was Shakespeare. 15 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. He then returned to theological studies at Andover, which he pursued to the end of the course, engaging in some occasional literary labor, as an addition to his re- sources. Looking back to this time in after years, Dr. Hackett has been heard to remark, that the slamming of a door was the hinge upon which the occupation of his life turned. At Andover one day a blast of wind slammed a door. Going to adjust it, he was met in the hall by Professor Edward Robinson, with the sheets of his translation of Buttmann's Greek Grammar. " I have just been" said he, "to Mr. Crosby's room, but he is out, to obtain his assistance in the correction of these proofs ; but you are just from teaching Greek, and can do the thing as well." Mr. Hackett expressed a willingness to share the work with Mr. Crosby (afterwards Professor Alpheus Crosby of Dartmouth College). The transla- tion, from the thirteenth German edition, was published in 1833. In the preface Dr. Robinson made mention of the services which had been rendered by several young gentlemen connected with the Theological Seminary, "particularly by Mr. H. B. Hackett, late Tutor in Amherst College, and Mr. A. Crosby, Professor elect of Languages in Dartmouth College; from both of whom the public has a right to expect much in future, for the advancement both of classical and of sacred learning in our country." This caught the eye of Dr. Wayland, at Providence, when looking about for a classical professor. Of the incumbent he also desired some Hebrew instruction. Thus Professor Hackett was in' readiness for translation to sole employment in Biblical studies at Newton. INVESTIGATIONS ON BAPTISM. 1 9 The closing period of his residence at Andover wit- nessed the beginning of those researches as to the proper subjects, and ancient practice, of baptism, which resulted in a change of Mr. Hackett's church connections. Their occasion, it is stated, was his being requested, in the course of the studies of the Senior year, to prepare an essay on Infant Baptism. Of interest at this point, not only for the incidental allusions to himself, but as, from the nature of the case, a delineation of experience similar to his own, is a paper by Dr. Hackett, published in June, 1873, entitled, "Reminiscences of Handel G. Nott." The Rev. Handel Gershom Nott was a graduate of Yale College in 1823, and died in Rochester, N. Y., May 3d, 1873. " My acquaintance with Mr. Nott began when he was settled as a Congregational minister in Nashua, N. H., and I was a student in the Senior class at Andover. His reputation at that time was very high among the Congre- gationalists, both as a man of earnest piety and as an able minister of the Gospel. "Of the more immediate occasion of his doubts re- specting infant baptism (the question of the mode seems not to have interested him much at that time) I have no knowledge. It so happened that about this time a few of the students at Andover, myself among them, then engaged in the study of ecclesiastical history, began to feel that the evidence for infant baptism, both from that source and from the New Testament, was not so decisive as we had been accustomed to believe. Mr. Nott at that time was exercised with similar doubt, and hearing in some way of our experience, came to Andover and 20 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. sought an interview with us. I think that no one of us had any previous acquaintance with him. At his request we met together in one of the Seminary rooms, and then he stated to us his reasons for wishing to see us, and invited us to join with him in prayer for Divine guidance and teaching. This prayer, which he offered, so child-like, and his whole demeanor so evincive of sincerity and a desire to know only the truth and follow it, won my heart almost at sight. I understood fully then his motive for introducing himself so abruptly to us. He was yearning for sympathy in his perplexities and hoped we might help him to see his way to a right decision. He was ready, I am sure, to accept this or that issue of the question ; but I think his preference was to be freed from his doubts rather than confirmed in them. " Mr. Nott did not break away suddenly from his early opinions and attachments. No man that I ever knew was less capable of acting from mere impulse or love of novelty. The ties of a long line of clerical ancestry, and his early friendships at the college and the seminary, made it hard for him to change his relations in these respects. He took no step in that direction except as the result of providential dealings, which made his course perfectly clear and imperative. He stated his perplexity fully and frankly to his church. It seemed to him un- necessary, so far as he was concerned, to sunder the tie between them as pastor and people. He was willing, if they wished the connection to continue, to administer baptism by immersion or sprinkling, as they might desire, and although he could not for himself administer infant baptism, he was willing that other ministers who had GRADUATING ESSAY AT ANDOVER. 2 1 no such scruples should occupy his pulpit and baptize children when the parents so desired. This proposition led to the calling of a council for acting on this question. The eminent and excellent Dr. Woods, of Andover, was invited to act on this council. "It so happened that just at this time I had occasion to call one day at the study of Dr. Woods, on some errand, and knowing, I suppose, something of my own state of mind, he referred to the case of Mr. Nott. He added, that being unable to be present at the council, he had prepared a paper to be sent ; and as it might interest me he would read his letter to me. It was an able argument, and foreshadowed clearly the decision of the council. He bore most hearty testimony to the fidelity and usefulness of Mr. Nott's ministry, and of his entire conscientious- ness in his views of the proper subjects of Christian baptism ; but he urged that the accommodation proposed would involve manifest practical inconveniences, and the sanctioning to some extent of the neglect of an ordinance which he and others regarded as scriptural and obligatory. "This decision brought to an end Mr. Nott's ministry of eight years at Nashua. It had been a period of almost uninterrupted religious interest from its beginning to the end. It is still remembered there as a remarkable epoch in the history of that church. The step which he was obliged then to take involved personal sacrifices to which it would not subject one at the present day." Mr. Hackett's Graduating Essay on leaving Andover, in 1834, discussed the question, "What bearing ought the Laws of Interpretation to have upon Christian Theology?" It maintained, first, that it would be as 22 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. contrary to sound philosophy to adopt any other than the inductive, or what is the same thing, interpretative, mode of study in theology, as to depart from this order in any of the physical sciences ; second, that to proceed in any other way, is certainly to treat the Scriptures most wiser ipturally ; to deny their ability to make the man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works ; to set aside their high claim of having been written by holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The essay was careful not to derogate at all from any just prerogative of reason. It simply claimed that the principle of Bacon's philosophy is as applicable to divinity as to other sciences, and anticipated that so soon as this principle came to be applied to it, in all its strictness, as it had been to them, a similar flood of light would be the result. A change due to an advance in the science of interpretation was noted as in progress, according to which the dispute which had heretofore respected the meaning of the Scriptures would for the future have respect to the authority of the sacred writers. This was already matter of history in Ger- many, and according to appearances would soon cease to be matter of prediction here. It was reason for rejoicing to have fallen upon times when inspiration was rejected rather than impute to God such weak- ness as that of having given a revelation to mankind which he could not make intelligible. MARRIAGE. 23 CHAPTER III. 1834-1839. MARRIAGE. PROFESSORSHIP AT BALTIMORE. CHANGE OF CHURCH CONNECTIONS. PROFESSORSHIP AT PROVIDENCE. On the 2 2d of September, 1834, Mr. Hackett was married, at Methuen, Mass., to his cousin, Mary Wads- worth Balch, daughter of the Rev. William Balch, whose principal settlement was at Salisbury, Mass. Her mother was Mary Wadsworth, daughter of Dr. Benjamin Wadsworth, who was settled as pastor at Danvers, Mass., for fifty years, and who was descended from a collateral branch of the family which gave President Wadsworth to Harvard College. Mr. and Mrs. Hackett proceeded to Baltimore, where the academic year of 1834-5 was spent, he having been appointed to a position in Mount Hope College He was already famous in collegiate circles, and was naturally chosen to take charge of the classical depart- ment. It may have become known, that, from the position in which he found himself placed, owing to his attitude on the subject of baptism, he would welcome temporary occupation in teaching. They journeyed by stage to Worcester, thence to Hartford, and thence by boat to New York. The railroad between New York and Philadelphia was the first on which he recollected ever travelling. 24 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. The following particulars concerning the Institution have been mainly furnished by the Rev. Stephen P. Hill, D. D., of Washington, D. C, and the Rev. Franklin Wilson, D. D„ of Baltimore. It was founded in 1829, by Frederick Hall, a gentle- man of erudition and piety, who had been Professor of Chemistry in Middlebury College, Vermont. It had no sectarian origin or character, and its great business was to thoroughly train youth for entrance into the higher American colleges. Rev. Messrs. N. T. Dutton, Leverett Griggs, D. D., Professor Lyman H. Atwater, D. D., and John O. Colton, were teachers there for short periods. It was incorporated as a college in 1833, but had very few students in the collegiate department. The building, which was a very imposing one, was situated in a beautiful rural spot, on a hill of com- manding eminence, about a mile and a half or two miles from the citv of Baltimore, though within its limits, out to which the city has now nearly if not quite extended. In the year 1835, Mr. Hall disposed of his interest in the college. The property finally passed into the hands of a benevolent society, and has been for many years devoted to the purposes of an asylum. Here, as always, Professor Hackett's reputation as a teacher was of the highest. The Faculty at that time is described as " a small but able one, of which he was the principal light and attraction. His connection with Mount Hope was eminently useful, and he not only impressed his pupils in the most salutary manner, but left behind him the endearing record of a most accomplished scholar and eminently good man." Dr. FURTHER RESEARCHES ON BAPTISM. 25 Wilson writes: "In September, 1836, I left Mount Hope and entered the Freshman Class at Brown Uni- versity. I have no doubt that my father was induced to send me there because Professor Hackett was there." In this year appeared the first of those contributions from his pen to periodical literature, which continued for forty years. The article was published in the Literary and Theological Review, No. IV., December, 1834, conducted by Leonard Woods, Jr., afterwards President of Bowdoin College. Its heading was : "The Intellectual Dependence of Men on God, by H. B. Hackett, Mt. Hope College, Baltimore, Md." The investigations on baptism which had been begun at Andover were carried forward during this year. The Rev. Dr. Hill, who was settled in Baltimore in 1834, has written of this time as follows:— " My first acquaintance with Dr. Hackett was made at Baltimore, in the Fall of 1834, while he was Professor in Mount Hope College. " I am inclined to think that that period was the transition period of his life. It certainly was, so far as his change of views upon the subject of baptism was concerned. The foremost man in his classical and theological studies, both at Amherst and Andover, he was regarded, probably, as the most promising candi- date for honorable and eminent service in the pulpit of the Congregational Church at the time. But, from the first of his training under Professor Stuart (whose particular favorite he was), his mind was not settled as to their views and practice of this ordinance ; and, while in Baltimore, he made it the subject of most 26 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. thorough investigation. I know that he not only read and searched the Scriptures, but he went through, in the most patient and thorough manner, all the Fathers, reading them in their originals. The result to which he came you know. With the clearest mental vision, and the now decided conviction of the truth, he did not hesitate to offer himself as a candidate for baptism to the First Church, of which I was then pastor. I shall never forget the clear, and, in every respect, the interesting experience which he gave to the church at that time. It was such a statement as I never heard before on such an occasion, of the reason of the hope that was in him, and of the act which he desired to perform — so entire, so convincing, so edifying, so conclusive, so exhaustive. I remember particularly this remark, and I think it will bear the best of examina- tion, ' that scarcely any two of the advocates of the other side of the question were known to agree in their theory for its observance.' " Dr. Wilson says : " Professor Hackett became a Baptist in 1835. He related his experience to the First Baptist Church of Baltimore, July 3d, 1835, and I have often heard my uncle, Jonas Wilson, Esq., say that he never heard a more satisfactory and conclusive argument in favor of Baptist principles than that given by Professor Hackett at that time." It is said that Dr. Woods, of the Seminary in Andover, attended the meeting there at which Mr. Hackett's application for a letter of dismissal from the Congregational Church, of which he had been a member, was presented. He spoke with tenderness of PROFESSOR IN BROWN UNIVERSITY. 2J his former pupil, and in a letter whieh accompanied that granted by the church, expressed satisfaction with the manner in which the question of duty had been decided, and said that it was his prayer and belief that this accession to the Baptist denomination would be a blessing to the cause of Christ. He was baptized, as Dr. Hill relates, "on a beautiful Sabbath morning, in an estuary formed by the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay, the place being called the Spring Gardens. After this time he preached for me occasionally ; his sermons being marked by great power of thought and spiritual unction. Had he chosen the pulpit for his field, I think he would have been one of the most impressive and useful preachers of his day." In September, 1835, Mr. Hackett became Professor in Brown University, Providence, R. I., with the title, at first, of Adjunct Professor of the Latin and Greek Languages and Literatures; in 1838, of Professor of Hebrew Literature. Dr. Edward Robinson's published commendation of Mr. Hackett has been mentioned as engaging the attention of Dr. Wayland. Professor Stuart too, being about this time at Providence (as Dr. Caswell related to a small circle, on the day of Dr. Hack- ett's funeral, at Newton), had advised Dr. Wayland, if he wanted to get a man that would be eminent, to get Mr. Hackett. The circumstances and motives under which he accepted this position — a step decisive of the course of his life — receive explanation in the following extract from a letter written by him to Dr. Hill, dated Provi- dence, October 17, 1835. "It may have been with some surprise that you heard 28 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. of the decision which has brought me to this place. It was as far from my thoughts when I left Baltimore, as it could have been from yours. It was a trying question to settle. I resigned, in disposing of it as I did, strong and long cherished hopes. It was, I confess, a step taken somewhat in the dark; yet, so far as I am conscious, I followed the best light I had. Probability is our guide; and that intimated to me, as I thought, in no ambiguous terms, that I could never run a long course in the ministrv. To decide to preach seemed like consenting to lay myself speedily in the grave. Could I indeed have heard the voice of duty urging me to this sacrifice, I hope I should have had grace to obey the dictate. But this did not appear required. Another door of being useful was opened to me; and in entering it, I trust I have not wandered from the proper course. If so, let it soon be apparent ; and let me be where God would place me, although in the cabin of the Indian, or kraal of the Hottentot. "It is impossible for me to say much yet of my new situation. I am but a stranger here. It will be indeed a wonder, if a single year can produce so strong an attachment to the place as I conceived in that time for Baltimore. The latter part of my residence at the South was agreeable to me in no ordinary degree." The letter closes with remembrances to friends, inquiries after the welfare of the church in Baltimore, and expressions of affection for his friend, its pastor. Dr. Wayland had been President of Brown University about eight years, having been inaugurated in 1827. He was now entering his second year in the professorship of DR. SAMSONS REMINISCENCES. 29 Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics. The Rev. Romeo Elton, D. D., had occupied for ten years the chair of the Latin and Greek Languages and Literatures. Rev. Dr. Alexis Caswell had been, since 1828, Professor of Mathe- matics and Natural Philosophy. Professor George I. Chace had been two years connected with the College, and Professor William Gammell entered the Faculty in the same year with Dr. Hackett. Rev. Arthur S. Train, D. D., was at this time a tutor. The Rev. G. W. Samson, D. D., late President of Columbian College, was a student at Brown University at this time. After Dr. Hackett's death, he was appointed, together with the Rev. Drs. Thomas Armitage and James B. Simmons, to prepare for the Ministers' Conference of New York, a commemorative paper, from which the following is taken : — "The personal recollections of the writer commence with Prof. Hackett's entrance on his duties as Assistant Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages at Brown University. From his first appearance in the recitation- room of the Sophomore class, his marked characteristics as a scholar and teacher were revealed. His small but wiry frame, his carelessly-parted black hair, his keen eye sparkling through his glasses, his prompt and thorough conduct of recitation, and his reserved strength of scholar- ship, only called out when excited by sharp questioning or the interest of an examination, subdued every pupil to respect, and inspired the zeal of true students. The first morning, a single remark from his lips gave direction to the entire life of some of his pupils. The text-book was Horace. The Professor was asked what edition he would 30 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. recommend. His reply was, 'Young gentlemen, I advise those of you who wish to be scholars, to buy the German editions of all Latin and Greek authors, and get out your translations without any notes whatever.' " Several characteristics of the manner, as distinct from the matter, of Professor Hackett's teaching, are fresh in the recollection of his pupils. The moment the quiet, modest little man, passing from the chapel through the crowd, took his chair, he was a commodore on the quarter-deck in the heat of an engagement, perfectly inspired by his enthusiasm. Again, he was there not to impress his views on pupils, but to draw them out ; and, like a commander, to be sustained by the men he led. The object was not so much to teach as to make teachers. Yet again, the slow mind, past whose snail-pace his quick thought shot, like a hare past the tortoise, he did not delight to outstrip, but rather to gently lead in his course. Hence, when he found that his explanations had implied too much advancement in his less favored pupils, he would go back, and with fresh effort seek to simplify, and thus, sometimes, to exalt the truth before half-expressed. Still again, to make sure that he had not left his pupils behind, he would call for questions ; and even when the majority saw that the pupil, rather than the Professor, had been at fault in the lack of comprehension, no severe censure could be drawn from his lips. Still, once more, he had not read in vain the apostle's exhortation, "be courteous," for the virtue was doubly implanted in him, first by nature and second by grace. As a specimen : one morning, in his half playful, half inspiriting way, he stopped a pupil who was reciting, and called suddenly RECOLLECTIONS BY STUDENTS. 3 I on another whose eye he saw off his hook. The true scholar, as he proved to be, began first two or three words before and then two or three words after his predecessor, and then sat down displeased with his Professor. At the close of the recitation, he called the aggrieved boy to his side, and with wonderful compliment as well as sympathy, exclaimed: ' Ouandoque bonus dormitat Homerus' — sometimes good Homer nods. When informed that weakness of eyes was the pupil's excuse, he was won to a friendship lasting as life." "The writer will never forget," says Rev. Henry M. Dexter, D. D., "the kindness received from Dr. Hackett —then Professor of Latin at Brown University — when in 1836 and 1837, coming a mere boy, just from home, under his instruction; nor how gently he bore with all classical crudenesses, and with what a fine and generous sympathy he loved to lift what was really worthy of a student in his pupils daily upward toward a higher and broader life. Nor does the vision of his nervous and magnetic face — comparatively youthful then — fade out of the pleasantest vistas of memory." "For the first six months," writes Dr. Wilson, "I was under his special care and guardianship, boarding with him at the 'Mansion House.' I formed a very warm attach- ment to him as a kind and judicious friend, and always cherished the highest regard for him as a teacher and scholar." The American Biblical Repository, for January, 1838, contained an article: "On the Infrequency of the Al- lusions to Christianity in Greek and Roman writers. Translated from the Latin of H. G. Tzschirner, by Pro- fessor H. B. Hackett." 32 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. Professor Hackett remained four years in Brown University. As connected with the close of his residence in Providence, and the beginning of that in Newton, the concluding part of Dr. Hackett's paper on the Rev. Mr. Nott may be fitly given here: — "Several years after this we were brought together again, at Providence, R. I. He was called there to supply the pulpit of the First Baptist Church during the absence of the pastor, Dr. Hague. At the close of this period of service here, which lasted several months, Mr. Nott was invited to the Federal Street Baptist Church, in Boston. He was recommended to that church by the special testimony of Dr. \Ya viand, who, as one of his hearers at Providence, had been led to form the highest opinion of his qualification for that field of service. In the mean- time I had become a professor in the Newton Theological Institution, and had thus an opportunity to renew and extend my intimacy with Mr. Nott. He preached the sermon at my ordination at Newton on entering on my professorship there. After his removal to Maine I saw him less frequently, but always felt his presence, though separated, almost as much as if we were in the habit of daily association. That was one of his marked peculiari- ties, that though out of sight, he left with his friends a sense of personal presence which made him a helper, reprover, guide; so that once knowing him, one felt that he was never separated from him." ORDINATION AT NEWTON. T>3 CHAPTER IV. 1839-1842. BEGINNING OF PROFESSORSHIP AT NEWTON AND ORDI- NATION. FIRST FOREIGN TOUR. THEOLOGICAL STUD- IES IN GERMANY. SERVICES TO BAPTISTS IN DENMARK. On the fifth of August, 1839, Mr. Hackett was elected Professor of Biblical Literature and Interpretation in Newton Theological Institution, and removed to Newton Centre in September following, where he was ordained to the Christian Ministry, December 8th, 1839. The subjoined account is from the Christian Watch- man, for December 13th, 1839: — "Ordination. — By an Ecclesiastical Council, convened at the request of the First Baptist Church in Newton, on the 8th inst., Horatio B. Hackett, Professor of Biblical Literature and Interpretation, in the Newton Theological Institution, was ordained a minister of the gospel. The following was the order of the public exercises on the occasion : Reading of Scriptures, by Rev. Professor Ripley ; Introductory Prayer, by Rev. W. H. Shailer, of Brookline ; Sermon, by Rev. H. G. Nott, of Boston ; Ordaining Prayer, by Rev. N. Med- bery, of Watertown ; Charge, by Rev. Professor Chase ; Right Hand of Fellowship, by Rev. Professor Sears; Concluding Prayer, by Rev. J. S. Eaton, of Hartford, Ct. 34 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. The sermon was founded upon the words of our Lord to his disciples, Luke xxiv, 49 : ' But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on hieh,' and was an excellent illustration of the sentiment, ' that the minister of the gospel needs an extraordinary measure of the Spirit of God.' The whole discourse was practical and spiritual, and we presume every minister present retired with a heart responding to the truth uttered by the apostle, ' I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.' And we hope that this truth will never be forgotten by those who labor for the conversion of sinners, and the spiritual prosperity of the saints." Professor Hackett was the fifth on the list of fifteen professors whom Newton Theological Institution has had. His predecessors were still connected with the Institution when he joined it, with the exception of the lamented Rev. James D. Knowles, who died the year before. They were : the Rev. Irah Chase, D. D., the Rev. Henry J. Ripley, D. D., and the Rev. Barnas Sears, D. D., LL. D. In 1823, Professor Chase, then of Columbian College, had been at Halle, Leipzig and Gottingen ; and had prosecuted in Holland, as well as in Germany, his favorite researches in church history. At the end of November, 1825, he commenced alone the work of instruction at Newton, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society. He had intermitted his labors in 1832-3, to cross the ocean a second time, to inaugurate a Baptist Mission in France. This was not the only occasion on which he rendered delicate and successful THE FACULTY AT NEWTON. 35 service to Christian missions. Dr. Hackett said of him, at the time of his death, in 1864: — " His agency in founding- the Newton Theological Institution was no doubt the great monumental act of his life, as it is also the best known ; but he was active and influential in other ways and in other spheres. I am confident, that, as the beginnings of this later growth and activity of our denomination are studied more and more, the name of I rah Chase will come out to view more and more distinctly, and will take its place among the names which future generations will cherish with gratitude and honor. " Dr. Chase held with great tenacity the peculiar views of the denomination to which he belonged. He believed them to be not only true, but important to the best wel- fare of men and the purity of the Christian church. No one among us has examined these points more thoroughly or discussed them more frequently or with greater ability. His contributions to this particular department of study are, I suppose, not less valuable certainly than those of any Baptist writer who has appeared in this country." The Rev. Dr. Ripley entered into his rest about six months before Dr. Hackett's decease. For the Greater part of nearly fifty years, from 1826 till 1875, his activities, in different spheres of service, as Professor, and Librarian, were largely devoted to the Institution at Newton. He is known as an accomplished scholar and writer, and a devout Christian. He was graduated at Harvard College, in 18 16. To those who saw the well-preserved, small, quietly active, courteous man, in his last days at Newton, it was startling to think that well-nigh sixty J 6 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. years had passed since he was the contemporary at Cam- bridge, of Prescott, Palfrey, and Sparks, in the classes just before him, and of Bancroft and Cushing, in the class that followed his own. The Rev. Barnas Sears had now been four years con- nected with the Institution, having been appointed to a professorship after his return from an extended residence in Germany for purposes of literary culture. He had been in the lecture rooms of Hermann and Bockh, an early figure in that procession of American pilgrims, which had been headed by Everett and Ticknor. He had also been the instrument of distinguished service to religion, at the origination of the Baptist Mission in Germany. With these scholarly men as associates, — Professor Chase, in the department of Ecclesiastical History; Pro- fessor Ripley, in that of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Duties; Professor Sears, in that of Christian Theology; — Professor Hackett was now fairly inducted into the great occupation of his life, — the advancement of Biblical scholarship. "Many of his college pupils," says Dr. Samson, "enjoyed his instruction in his new field. Here a new and limitless field of scholarship was developed, for the whole range of literature, Asiatic and European, was called into requi- sition in seeking a complete interpretation of the inspired revelations of the Old and New Testaments. Few German and still fewer American philologists were the peers of Professor Hackett in their comprehension of the varied elements that make a master in the department of Biblical Exegesis. Professor Hackett was a rare teacher in his own chair. DR. SAMSONS REMINISCENCES. ^ " Professor Hackett, moreover, was a practical example of Coleridge's maxim, that to know fully any one thing, a scholar must have a general knowledge of all things. He knew that his department bore a close relationship to the other three embraced in the curriculum of a theologi- cal seminary; that of Biblical theology, that of church history, and that of pulpit rhetoric and pastoral duties. In each of these his remarks at times showed comprehen- sive thought. In the Epistle to the Romans, when students fresh from the discussions of Gospel doctrines would press Professor Hackett with the question, 'Does not Paul teach this doctrine?' he would always show himself abreast of the Theological Professor in his analy- sis. The most masterly of his replies when, one day, several keen questioners were pressing him, was this : ' Young brethren, I think it quite as important to note what Paul does not say as what he does say.' In the history of doctrines and of ecclesiastical practices, the change of church relations which Dr. Hackett had in youth been obliged to make, gave him an outline of the entire range of human thought when brought into con- tact with the sacred Scriptures, which could but add precision in his work as an interpreter. And yet so nice was his sense of personal propriety and of social courtesy, that never in the class-room or the meeting of Christian ministers did he allude to any distinctions in denomi- national views; for he seemed never to allow himself to imagine that Christians could be other than 'of one mind and of one heart' Yet, again, conscious how his close study weakened his physical frame, laboring to repress, yet to give reins to his fervent soul when he 38 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. addressed an audience, some of his pupils will never forget his heartfelt congratulations when he listened to mere youth, who could make the learning acquired in his class- room a power to move men whom his feeble voice could not reach. " Those who, both in college and in the theological seminary, were favored to have Dr. Hackett as an in- structor, cannot but remember him as Timothy must have regarded Paul when the great apostle, in his advanced life, addressed him, thus : ' My own, my dearly beloved son in the faith.'" After he had been two years at Newton, Professor Hackett made the first of his five voyages to the old world. His purpose was a year's residence in Germany, to enjoy the opportunities of professional study at the Universities of Halle and Berlin. He sailed from Boston Sept. ist, 1 84 1, with Professor John L. Lincoln, LL. D., who had lately been tutor at Brown University, as his companion, and arrived at Liverpool on the evening of Sept. 14th. Less than a week was spent in London. It included, besides the sights of the city and of Windsor, a visit to Parliament, when Sir Robert Peel had just become premier, with a large and well-organized majority in both houses; and also an opportunity of hearing the Honorable and Reverend Baptist W. Noel preach, who was still, and until 1849, an Episcopalian clergyman. He sailed for Hamburg the 2 2d of September, arriving on the twenty-fourth. He stayed here several days, attend- ing Sabbath service at the Rev. Mr. Oncken's church, although without meeting him, as he was absent on an extended missionary tour. He wrote to the Missionary GESENIUS AND TIIOLUCK. 39 Board in high terms of the value of Mr. Oncken's labors, which he took pains to ascertain, and also with respect to the condition and prospects of the brethren in Denmark. Thence, by way of Magdeburg, he came to Leipzig, at the end of the month, remaining there nearly a fortnight, and receiving many courtesies from that Christian gentle- man, his friend, Mr. C. C. Tauchnitz, of the great publish- ing house. Of sixty professors in this University, found- ed in 1409, the oldest in Germany except that of Prague, not one could be accounted orthodox. He first saw Tholuck, at Halle, on Sabbath, October twelfth, going out from Leipzig, and returning on the same evening. Two days later, he commenced his residence at Halle, which lasted six months. During this whole year he was extending by systematic study his knowledge of the German language, which he had long read with facility. When the lectures began, October 25th, he understood Tholuck pretty well. Three days after, he listened to the great Gesenius, who, five days before the next 28th of October came round, had died. It was to the lectures of these two eminent men that Professor Hackett chiefly devoted his attention. Gesenius had announced a course upon the Psalms, but, as is frequently the custom, departed from the programme, and gave one upon Genesis. Tho- luck, in like manner, had announced the Passion and Resurrection, but gave the Sermon on the Mount. Tholuck impressed his new auditor as displaying astonish- ing activity of mind. The veteran, who has lived to mourn his American friend, but whose own frail life had been almost despaired of twenty years before the time under review, was at the height of the powers which he 4-0 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. so long maintained. He had a prodigious memory. He devoted in general about three hours to study, from six to nine, A. M. He would lecture four hours during the day, and invite students to tea at eight in the evening. His conversation was very stimulating, and marked by appreciation of the merits of his contemporaries, even when, as in the case of Ewald, whose Commentary on Canticles he praised, there were great differences in their general views. While the reaction from rationalism had been con- siderably marked in fifteen years, its sway was still powerful. It was in 1825 that Tholuck delivered his memorable speech against the Rationalists, in London. At his first lecture in Halle, the room was crowded with hostile students, and even members of the Faculty were present with the same spirit. There was great confusion, and he long endured molestation. Even up to this period, Hengstenberg, though he now began to be re- spected, had been ridiculed. Tholuck could but lately mention the name of Olshausen without eliciting the same sentiment. About this time Havernick was ap- pointed Professor at Konigsberg, succeeding a rationalist. Two hundred students went out as he discoursed, and in the evening serenaded his rival for the post. When Tholuck preached, he appeared in his greatest power, and it seemed to his American auditor, on the first occasion, that he had never witnessed such profound attention given to a discourse from beginning to end. His fortnightly social meetings, of an instructive and devotional character, were very beneficial to the students. Gesenius at this time was just bringing out the four- CELEBRATION AT HALLE. 4 1 teenth edition of his smaller Hebrew Grammar. After hearing him lecture, his new listener says: "His vivacity is great, and the effect of it shows how important a qualitv it is to every teacher." He was given to amusing his audience, and laughed frequently, sometimes without any response from his auditors. He often, at this period, omitted lectures, posting up a notice that he was unwell, which the students suspected of being a pretext to secure time for more uninterrupted private study. To the young American professor of thirty-three years, calling upon him, the German of fifty-five seemed old, but zealous and young in studies. On one such occasion, Gesenius showed him the first Hebrew grammar ever written by a Christian, that of Reiichlin. On another, he animadverted on Hegelianism as having no God, no immortality, and uncertainty about Jesus Christ. Another lecturer to whom he listened was Professor Rodiger, reputed the ablest Arabic scholar in Germany. About a fortnight after his arrival, was celebrated the third Jubilceum of the Reformation in Halle. Appro- priate services took place in the Aula of the University, including an address by Tholuck, mainly historical, review- ing the theological history of the University. After a Latin address by Wegscheider, Dean of the Faculty, various academic degrees were conferred, among them that of Doctor of Theology upon Professor Robinson, specially for his services as an explorer, — "Eduardum Robinson, theologies apud Nco-Eboraccnscs in America Profcssorem, qui itinere nupcr in Terrain Sane tain suscepto, gcographiaiu saerani mirifice illustravit" Just before the Christmas holidays, the students sere- 42 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. naded the distinguished Liszt, who had been playing for several days in the place, his concerts being attended by several of the professors, including Gesenius and M tiller. At a celebration, January 26th, 1842, in honor of the Christening of the Prince of Wales, attended by professors of the University, citizens, and English residents of Halle, Professor Hackett made a speech, offering in conclusion, the sentiment, "The prosperity, now and ever, of the University of Halle-Wittenberg?" Other toasts on the occasion were : to the King of Prussia, by Dr. Samuel Davidson ; the Queen of England, by Gesenius ; the President of the United States, by Pernice, a Jurist pro- fessor; and the Prince of Wales, by Leo. Besides his own more immediate studies, he acquainted himself with the methods of education in vogue about him, and heard celebrated lecturers in different depart- ments at Halle and Leipzig. Among these, in one day at Leipzig, were Hermann, in Latin, on the Persse of x'Eschylus ; Tuch, Westermann, Krehl, and a member of the Medical Faculty. He had gone thither for relaxation and to see the spirit of the place. It is affecting to read the entry in his journal, sad presage, but too true : — " Was during the whole day almost sick enough to relin- quish all business. I must learn to combat such feelings, for I have before me the prospect of having to contend much of my life against such adverse influences." Other names on the list are Wachsmuth, Winer, Miiller, Ulrici, Erdmann, Heinrichs, Pott. While he thus breathed the atmosphere of the land of scholars, he was not unduly affected by the volatile elements of ephemeral criticism floating in it. He preserved his independence GERMAN METHOD OF INSTRUCTION. 43 and sobriety of judgment, as is attested by the following words : — "I must more and more distrust the critical judgments which so many of the German scholars pronounce so confidently, respecting the usage of language in the Bible. I have heard some of them attempt the English; and if there, where the forms of thought and expression come so much nearer to those of their own tongue, they succeed so poorly, how much more danger must there be of this, in respect to languages which have so long ceased to be living ones, and where the whole structure is so foreign to our occidental modes Ox" conception and speech." The thorough, rigorous, early drill in the schools, which, in any land but Germany, might seem likely to hang clogs upon the spirit of wild speculation, instead of furnishing it wings to fly away with, interested him. He thus describes an exercise of a class in Hebrew, at the Orphan House in Halle : — "A translation out of Greek into Hebrew, Luke vii, 11— 17. First, a student translated the Greek into Ger- man. Then another took a verse and gave the Hebrew, word for word, or phrase for phrase, the teacher mean- while objecting or correcting, with explanations, as the case might require. Then the teacher called on another to dictate the whole verse, while he (the teacher) wrote it on the blackboard, without points. Then another was required to name the points with which the words should - be written, which the teacher meanwhile, as they were mentioned, inserted, asking at the same time why it was so, and not otherwise, and if mistakes were 44 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. made, stating the fact, and requiring the correction. This verse being disposed of, another was taken up in the same manner. During the hour they went over verses ii to 15 inclusive." On one occasion he notes hearing two students exam- ine each other in the history of Paul, as related in the New Testament, and out of it, and was astonished at the accuracy of the knowledge which the examination elic- ited. On the other hand, he was told that the students, after coming to the University, particularly those of law and medicine, but also those of theology, usually go back in knowledge of languages, specially of Greek. Near the end of March, he made a short visit to Dresden, and then returning to Halle, took leave of his friends there. Concerning the journey from America to Europe, and the residence in Halle, which has been sketched, Profes- sor John L. Lincoln, LL. D., of Brown University, re- sponds to an inquiry : — "I sailed from Boston, September, 1841, in company with the late Dr. Hackett, with the intention on the part of both of us to spend some time in Germany as stu- dents. I had known him in college, in my Senior year, 1835-6, though I was not under his instruction. He left Brown for Newton in 1839, an< ^ m that y ear I left Newton, where I had been a student, and came to Brown as a Tutor. During those two years, 1839-41, I often had occasion to see him, sometimes at Newton, and sometimes at Providence, so that we were ready, in the fall of 1 84 1, to complete a plan we had been forming to study in Germany. We went to Liverpool, thence to PROFESSOR JOHN L. LINCOLN S RECOLLECTIONS. 45 London, where we made a short stay, and then to Ham- burg, where we had our first experience with the practical study of German. I shall never forget the three or four days and nights which we there devoted to the task of studying German, and of using it, so far as we could, in intercourse with the people. Then we made our way to Leipsic by diligence, for there was then no railroad, except for part of the way. "In that diligence, on the first night — a cold and raw one — I remember well Hackett's first encountering German smokers on their own soil. He could not endure tobacco in any shape — at least at that time. The vehicle carried only four, and two German gentle- men were our compagnons de voyage. No sooner were they comfortably seated than out came their pipes and tobacco pouches, and they got all ready to smoke and were just lighting up, when one of them, for mere form's sake, turned to us and said, ' Nicht unan- genehm?' Poor Hackett hadn't yet much colloquial German, but he worried out, 'Ja, macht kretnk! You may imagine the strange look, the look even of disgust, of our Teutonic friends at this reply — but they were polite enough to forego their ' occupation,' and so Hackett escaped his Krankheit. " We staid several weeks at Leipsic, at a hotel, still very busy with the German, and as I was the younger of the two, and as my companion was rather reserved, and didn't like to air his German till he was sure it was of good quality, I had to make most of the advances when we went about among the people. Finally when the time for the opening of the winter semester came, 46 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. we went to Halle and established ourselves there as stu- dents of the University. We were constantly together there in our rooms and at the lectures, and in society, especially at Professor Tholuck's, during the winter, and indeed until the end of April, I think, when Dr. Hackett went to Berlin for the summer, leaving me in Halle, as I did not mean to go to Berlin till the fall. " I am inclined to think that Hackett never spent six months of more intense intellectual activity than during that fall in Halle. I know that we often said to each other, at the close of a hard dav's work, that we were never so conscious of daily progress in study, under the perpetual pressure of the noblest incentives, as in those first months of study in Germany. It was far less common then than now for Americans to study in Germany, and we felt in their full force intellectual influ- ences which are now more widely diffused." " Excuse me for this rambling letter. Your question brought up so freshly that voyage to Liverpool, and the events of the succeeding weeks and months, that I couldn't refrain from setting down a few words about our lamented friend. He was a good man and a true scholar. His simplicity in those earlier days — simplicity in the best sense of the word — I shall always remember. He was as simple as a child in his inquiries for truth, in his eagerness for knowledge, and in his dutiful devotion to its acquisition and fullest appropriation." From Halle Prof. Hackett proceeded to Berlin, where he arrived on April 4th. A few days after, he called on Dr. Maerke, who was rejoicing with great enthusiasm over the discovery of a God — who had escaped Creuzer, FROM BERLIN TO COPENHAGEN. 47 and all the other explorers of ancient mythology. His residence in Berlin lasted about four months. As the lectures did not begin until April 1 8th, he had opportunity to become acquainted with the vast city. Among its prominent monuments, that to the great Frederick, in its principal and celebrated avenue, was now in course of erection. In his German studies at this time he read Goethe and Lessing. He resorted particularly to the classes of Neander and Hengstenberg. He also took occasion to hear Uhlemann,Twesten, Vatke, Ranke, and others. He made the acquaintance of the Rev. Mr. Lehmann, the Baptist pastor in Berlin, worshipping with his church, which had been recently molested, it having been the centre, during this year, of great religious interest. Persecution of the Baptists, as has been intimated, was also active in Denmark, and Professor Hackett, and Professor Conant, then of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, residing temporarily in Europe, proceeded to Copenhagen, in August, 1842, as an Amer- ican deputation in their behalf (an English delega- tion having already visited the country for the same purpose). Professor Hackett was appointed to this service by the Board of Managers of the Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions, and Professor Conant by the American and Foreign Bible Society, in the United States of America. The Memorial volume of the Missionary Union records that they met and consulted with several government officers and persons of influence, and valuable concessions were obtained. On returning home, Professor Hackett made an oral report of his mission, which he was requested to write 48 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. out, after having received a vote of thanks for the very- able and satisfactory manner in which he had fulfilled his appointment. This most interesting paper may be found in the Baptist Missionary Magazine, of November, 1842. It relates at length the objects of the mission, the arrival at Copenhagen, and the events which had previously occurred there, the situation and number of the brethren, interviews with them and with officers of the government, and others, testimony to the character of the brethren, and other relevant matter. The following passage is of special personal interest : — "We were not allowed to prosecute the objects of our mission wholly without molestation. As illustrating the laws of Denmark in regard to our denomination, it may be mentioned, that at the close of our first day's proceed- ings, we received a summons from the police, saying that we must present ourselves at the travellers' office the next day at 1 1 o'clock. We had reason to suppose that our labors were now at an end ; that we should be taken possibly for a while into custody, or at all events required at once to quit the country. Our only hope now was to postpone this result for one day more, and thus gain time for a journey to Roeskilde, some fifteen miles distant from Copenhagen, where the Estates was then in session. Without this, our main object would have been lost. On our return from this journey, which we took on the day following, we found that the summons in question had been renewed, and the next morning we presented ourselves accordingly at the bar of the travellers' office. ' Information has been brought here,' we were told, ' that you belong to the sect of the Baptists. MISSION OF PROFESSORS HACKETT AND CONANT. 49 Is it true?' We, of course, pleaded guilty to the charge. ' You are aware,' continued the officer, ' that in Denmark this is a prohibited sect' We answered that we knew it. 'And also,' showing us at the same time the law, ' that no person is allowed to come here to do anything for its promotion.' On the latter point we were in some danger of being a little embarrassed ; but on desiring that the law might be somewhat more exactly explained, we were told that it meant, at least in our case, that no one should come there to preach, and make proselytes or baptize. Being able to say, that we had not done this, or come thither with that design, we were acquitted and permitted to take our leave." In incidental reminiscences of this episode, which Dr. Conant published in 1875, ne sa y s °f tne g°°d Bishop of Zealand, who afforded a marked contrast with his subordinate, the Dean of Copenhagen : " Though he claimed that the King must be faithful to the Church, the Church being the foundation of his Throne, he was deeply moved by Dr. Hackett's earnest and pathetic appeal for those sincere believers in God's word, who asked only liberty to serve Him as they were led by His word and Spirit. The good old man, at parting, proffered both his hands, with tears and his blessing." August 15th they left Copenhagen for Stralsund, twenty dear friends bringing them on their way. On the 17th, they reached Berlin. The next day Professor Hackett took leave of Neander. On the 19th he bade adieu to the city, and taking Leipzig, Naumburg, and Frankfort-on-the-Maine in his way, on the 24th went up the Rhine to Cologne. He took passage from Ostend, 50 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. and proceeding to London and Liverpool, embarked for home in the Great Western, a year and two days after leaving Boston. He landed in New York, and reached Boston and Newton September 20th. CHAPTER V . 1 843-1851. LITERARY LABORS ! ANNOTATED WORK OF PLUTARCH ; TRANSLATION OF WINER'S CHALDEE GRAMMAR | HEBREW EXERCISES. TEMPORARY SERVICE IN ANDOVER SEMINARY. LIBERALITY OF CHARACTER. FIRST EDITION OF COMMENTARY ON ACTS. With the beginning of the Seminary year in October, Professor Hackett resumed his duties of instruction. As auxiliary to their highest usefulness, in order to advance the study of the classical Greek authors, as a sort of par- allel course with that of the Greek Testament, he soon set himself to prepare an annotated edition of Plutarch's treatise on the Delay of the Deity in the Punishment of the Wicked. This weighty, acute and elegant tractate was a life-long favorite with him. Its high tone of philo- sophic thought was congenial with the dignity of his own mind, and its argument was especially satisfactory to his reason, as anticipating the best efforts of Christian writers, when discussing the same subject within the same limits of natural religion. On the value of his labor in this volume, the verdict of a competent judge will be here- after cited. The preface is dated December 27th, 1843. PROFESSOR PARKS RECOLLECTIONS. 5 I This was his thirty-fifth birthday. It may be lawful, for once, to invade the sanctity of the supplications habitually recorded on this anniversary, for a period of more than fifty years, so far as to note this petition : " Especially be pleased to put thy blessing on labor which has so long occupied me, and which I have been permitted to bring so near to a conclusion. May it increase my means of usefulness and of doing good. Help me ever to conse- crate to thee the fruit of all my studies." In a prospective course of private studies, to occupy in succession a period of several months, he enumerates in the middle of the year 1 844, French, Chaldee and Syriac, Modern Greek, and Sanscrit. November 3d of this year, he preached at Old Cambridge, as he records, "with increasing conviction that I must work out my destina- tion as a student. I acquiesce." "After he became a Professor at Newton," writes Dr. Park, " I read to him, for his criticism, two or three essays which I was intending to publish. His criticisms were so respectful, and were expressed with so unfeigned a depre- ciation of himself, that I never dared to read any more essays to him. His proposal of emendations appeared to give him more pain than his decided censures would have given me. I shrank from subjecting him to such pain. Still, in these very interviews, made so embarrassing by his diffidence of himself, he would become interested in the defence of some principle, and would refute the objections of the most eminent men who had written against that principle, and would denounce the reasonings of those men, as if he were inveighing against the blunders of some careless pupils. I have often been 52 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. amazed at his reverence for personalities, when he was thinking of persons ; and at his utter disregard for per- sonalities, when he was thinking of principles. About a year and a half after his first volume, Professor Hackett gave to the theological public his translation of Winer's Grammar of the Chaldee Language, as contained in the Bible and the Targums. Four appendices, by the translator, contained appropriate information, explanatory and bibliographical. This work, too, was connected with his daily instructions, the more immediate object of its publication, as the preface, dated June 21st, 1845, says, being "the accommodation of some of my own pupils, who had expressed a desire to attend to the study of the Chaldee." In it he refers gracefully to Professor Stuart, quoting his remarks as those of "a distinguished biblical scholar, to whom the writer acknowledges himself indebted, in common with so many others in our country, for his first instruction and impulse in sacred studies." In this year, 1845, Professor Hackett received the degree of D. D. from the University of Vermont. The influence of the German sojourn, as well as of his early inspiring instructors, is seen in his literary perform- ances and projects at this time. In January, 1845, the first number of the second volume of the Bibliotheca Sacra contained his critique on the Life of Jesus by Strauss. Towards the end of the year, he enumerates as works he would like to write : " 1. Chaldee Reader. 2. Syriac Grammar and Chrestomathy. 3. Introduction to Old and New Testaments. 4. Theological Dictionary. 5. Critical Studies in the Gospels. 6. Analecta on the Psalms. 7. Hebrew Guide for writing. 8. Commentary PUBLICATION OF HEBREW EXERCISES. 53 on New Testament ! ! ! " He was aghast at his own list, but follows it with the resolution to exert himself, and prayer that he may be enabled to bring something to pass. Though few of the works, as above entitled, ever appeared from his pen, yet many of his studies in those directions have found expression in his great work of editorship, many years after, on Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, and in periodical literature. Very soon after, in January, 1 846, appeared his able article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, " Synoptical Study of the Gospels, and recent Literature pertaining to it." In less than three weeks from the time of jotting down the above list, he began, not an easy task, to sketch out a plan for one of the works it contains, a Hebrew Guide. The preface is dated some sixteen months after, April 7th, 1847. The full title is : "Exercises in Hebrew Grammar, and Selections from the Greek Scriptures to be translated into Hebrew, with Notes, Hebrew Phrases, and References to approved works in Greek and Hebrew Philology." As a motto, are appended the words of Melanchthon, "Scriptura non potest intelligi thcologice, nisi a?ite intellccta sit gram- matice" The author justly says : " The number of pages which it contains is not large, but it is large enough to give employment to any amount of linguistic attainment or critical skill, which the most mature scholar might be able to bring to such a work." His original intention had been to translate and adapt some German publication of the same general character ; but, on examination, he was unable to find one which possessed all the requisites for the object in view, and was obliged to assume the harder task of making essentially a new book. The contents 54 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. were divided into three parts : Exercises in the punctu- ation of Hebrew words; Exercises in translation from Greek into Hebrew; and Exercises in the punctuation of unpointed Hebrew text. One of the latter was on the account of the Widow's Son restored to life, Luke vn, 1 1 — i 7, done into Hebrew. It was the passage which he had heard translated from the Greek into German, and then into Hebrew, at the Orphan School in Halle, in 1842, an account of which has already been given, and which he prefaced in his diary, "The exercise was one which I ought never to forget." He remembered it to good purpose, if, as seems not unlikely, it had its agency in occasioning the work under consideration. The ap- pendix, of a few pages, gave the views of Gesenius and Winer on the Method of Hebrew Study. The volume has now been for many years out of print. For more than eight years before his death, Dr. Hackett himself had been without a copy, having lost his last one at Newton. Traces of his studies while preparing it are accessible in two articles in the January number of the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1847, "The Structure of the Hebrew Sentence," and " The Greek Version of the Pentateuch, by Thiersch." A year later, the same periodical contained, from his pen, an Analysis of the Argument in the Epistle to the Gala- tians. From the outset of his career as a theological teacher, he had been studying and teaching this epistle, and it continued to the end to be one of the great studies of his life, so central and vital is its membership in the organism of Scripture, so pregnant is it with historical and doctrinal statement and implication. Early in March, 1848, he visited Andover by invitation, PERSONAL TRAITS. 55 and rather reluctantly decided to render temporary ser- vice in the Greek studies in the Seminary there. The en^a^ement was for some five weeks, and embraced twenty-two exercises. The attendant excitement and the travel back and forth made the labor, though pleasant, a somewhat exhausting one. About this time he records feeling the need of enlarged inquiries on different classes of subjects, to counteract specialism. The wisdom of such a perception is not to be questioned. But it may be affirmed that one marked feature of the impression which he made on all who came to know him, was, that he had a broad interest in the great characters and events of history, and of the time in which he lived. He was never in danger of losing his human sympathies, or of sinking the man in the scholar. There was a severity in the lineaments of his face, that was the appropriate stamp of a fine spirit, subjected to the processes of disciplined thought and ennobling emotions, but you could not tell as you gazed upon the face, or marked the erect figure when he walked, whether the evident gentleman and scholar were physician, lawyer, statesman, or divine. In his own loved employment, his professional interest in the scholastic spoils of interpretation was subordinate to his interest, as a man, in the plain meaning of the Scriptures, by which his race was to be judged, and might be saved. This view of his character is illustrated by a leaf from his journal, under date of Sabbath, March 5, 1848, which begins with recording the texts of the day's discourses. It should here be said, that his pastor for twelve years, and his neighbor almost from the first of his residence at Newton, 56 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. as well as his contemporary at Andover Seminary, was that accomplished scholar, poet, and divine, the Rev. S. F. Smith, D. D. The journal continues : "At my request the hymn by J. Q. Adams, on the shortness of time, was read at the opening of the afternoon service. His death took place February 23d, twenty minutes past seven, P. M., in the Capitol at Washington, — at. 81. I should like to see a discriminating sermon on the differ- ence between a philosopher, in the world's acceptance of this term, and a Christian. I must read the writings of the ancients, as Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and the like, and endeavor to form for myself a more precise idea of the character of these men. I have reperused to-day some of the pages of Hess's Life of Christ, which relate to the last scenes of his history. L. F. O. Baumgarten- Crusius has treated this subject in his Commentary with a fulness which will furnish me great assistance when I have occasion to enter on the critical study of this part of the gospels. I think I can say with truth, that the investiga- tion of the Scriptures appears to me a work of more importance than any other which can engage the attention of the human mind, and that on this account, and not merely on account of the intellectual and literary interest which I find in such pursuits, it is taking stronger and stronger hold of my feelings. I do feel that all the certain light which shines upon that spirit-world which lies beyond this, comes to us through the medium of the inspired volume." Four years and a half elapsed between the publication of the "Hebrew Exercises" and the appearance of the first edition of the Commentary on the Original Text of COMMENTARY ON ACTS. 57 the Acts of the Apostles. Indications of the progress of the work during this time are to be traced in the publication of a few select portions in the Bibliotheca Sacra. It was interrupted by the author's severe illness in 1849, which commenced on the sixth of April, and had "well-nigh terminated his life," confining him to the house between three and four months. From this time he was more and more obliged to consign himself to seclusion, and avoid cerebral excitement. Thus he came to give up preaching, which in earlier years he had liked and practiced. In two months after convalescence, he suffered a piercing sorrow in the loss of his little son, William Richard, who died September 19th, 1849, his third child, and one of remarkable promise. The Commentary appeared in 1852. The words of dedication are as follows: — " The author is permitted to inscribe this volume to Augustus Tholuck, D. D., whose writings in illustration of the Sacred Word, and whose personal instructions, have caused his influence to be felt and his name to be honored in foreign countries as well as his own." The work, a second edition of which was issued in 1858, is now out of print, the stereotype plates having been destroyed in the great Boston fire of 1872. Partly for this reason, but more because it sets forth Professor Hackett's views of his work of interpretation, and his aim and enjoyment as an instructor, the greater part of the preface to the first edition, dated Newton Theological Institution, October 31st, 185 1, is here reproduced: — "Those portions of the Acts, constituting the greater part of the whole, which relate to the great apostle, must 58 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. be thoroughly mastered before any proper foundation is laid for the exegetical study of the Epistles. It is the object of these Notes to assist the reader in the acquisi- tion of this knowledge and discipline ; to enable him to form his own independent view of the meaning of the sacred writer in this particular portion of the New Testament, and, at the same time, furnish himself to some extent with those principles and materials of criticism which are common to all parts of the Bible. If the plan of the work and the mode in which it is executed are such as to impart a just idea of the process of Biblical interpretation, and to promote a habit of careful study and of self-reliance on the part of those who use the book, it will be a result much more important than that all the opinions advanced in it should be approved. It is a result beyond any other which the writer has been anxious to accomplish. The grammatical references and explanations will enable the student to judge of the consistency of the interpretations given with the laws of the Greek language. The authorities cited will show the state of critical opinion on all passages that are supposed to be uncertain or obscure. The geographical, archaeo- logical, and other information collected from many different sources, will unfold the relations of the book to the contemporary history of the age in which it was written, and serve to present to the mind a more vivid conception of the reality of the scenes and the events which the narrative describes. "No single commentary can be expected to answer all the purposes for which a commentary is needed. The writer has aimed at a predominant object ; and that has PREFACE TO COMMENTARY. 59 been, to determine by the rules of a just philology the meaning of the sacred writer, and not to develop the practical applications, or, to any great extent, the doctrinal implications of this meaning. "The author can recall no happier hours than those which he has spent in giving instruction on this book of the New Testament to successive classes of theological students. May the fruits of this mutual study be useful to them in the active labors of the sacred work to which they are devoted. They are now sent forth into a wider sphere ; — and, here also, may God be pleased to own them as a means of contributing to a more diligent study and a more perfect knowledge of his Holy Word." The work was well received. The New Englander, for February, 1852, contained an extended notice, in which occur the words, " We do not believe that a Com- mentary in which the rule ne quid nimis is more observed, while nothing important is withheld, has ever proceeded from the American press." Other tributes from foreign, as well as native sources, will be given when the period is reached at which this standard work received its final form from the author. In a paragraph of the preface, not given above, the writer speaks of the state of his health as obliging him to relinquish for a time the duties of his office. This notice may introduce the second foreign tour of Professor Hackett, upon which he set out in a few weeks after his task was completed, receiving on the eve of his departure a most respectful and affectionate letter of parting saluta- tion from the Junior Class of the preceding year. 6o HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. CHAPTER VI. 1851-1852. SECOND FOREIGN TOUR : IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, ITALY, EGYPT AND PALESTINE, GREECE, GERMANY, FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN. Professor Hackett arrived at Liverpool, December 8th, 1 85 1. The next day he went to see Mr. Howson, Principal of the Liverpool Collegiate Institution, the patient collector and elaborator of the historical material in the great work on the Life and Epistles of St. Paul, which appeared between 1850 and 1852, and with which the names of Conybeare, his predecessor in the office he then held, and himself are connected. On the following day he visited Lancashire Independent College, four miles from the city of Manchester, meeting Dr. Davidson once more, after ten years since their residence at Halle. From him, as from Howson, he met with a kind recep- tion. Dr. Davidson reported the interest in Hebrew learning at the Universities as low. After a few days in London, Professor Hackett pro- ceeded to Paris, by way of Folkestone and Boulogne, arriving on the 1 7th of December. Like so many who have visited the strange, gay metropolis, he observed the repaired traces of "the recent outbreak," the latest recur- rence of that chronic malady having taken place a FROM PARIS TO ALEXANDRIA. 6 1 fortnight before, on the occasion of Louis Napoleon's coup tf c tat. He remained there nearly a fortnight, spending an evening at Mr. Goodrich's (Peter Parley), the United States Consul at Paris, and visiting numerous places of interest, specially the Museum of the Louvre, where he was greatly attracted by the Assyrian collection, and its value for the illustration of the Biblical history of Nineveh. Leaving Paris at the end of December, he journeyed to Lyons, and thence to Marseilles, where, after being obliged to summon a physician for a day or two, he embarked for Italy, on a Neapolitan steamer. He was in Rome on the ioth of January, 1852. His first errand on arriving was to obtain letters from home ; then he paid a hurried visit to the Coliseum. The next day was Sunday, when he attended the American Chapel twice, and wandered through St. Peter's. He staid until the 5th of February, exploring the treasures of the city. At Naples, where his window commanded the Bay and Vesuvius, he spent two weeks, visiting Pompeii and ascending the volcano. February 24th he left Naples for Malta, being at the island on the 26th, and resuming the voyage the next day, reaching Alexandria March 2d. On this day he records going on deck at six o'clock, " and Alexandria and the low coast around it were near at hand. I was deeply afTected at the thought of being so near to the Oriental world. I could not refrain (I con- fess it) from clapping my hands with a wild delight." Soon he was among the novel scenes of Cleopatra's Needles, Pompey's Pillar, the Pasha's magnificent palace, and the dreadful slave market. The next day he departed 62 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. for Cairo, where he spent about ten days, making excur- sions to the pyramids and to Memphis. " The sun was hanging low as I left Cairo, on the 1 5th of March, to proceed across the desert to Syria ; and after a march of two hours and a half we halted near the obelisk which marks the site of Heliopolis, the On of Scripture (Genesis 41 : 45). This obelisk at On is all that remains of that famous seat of the sun worship in Egypt. It is a granite shaft sixty feet high, inscribed with hieroglyphics. The eyes of Abraham and Moses rested upon it. Herodotus, whom we call 'the father of history,' looked up to it, as the relic of an already for- gotten age. Plato sat and moralized beneath its shadow. "Never can I forget my first night in the desert, in traveling from Egypt to Palestine. The appearance of an eastern sky at night is quite peculiar, displaying to the eye a very different aspect from our sky. Not only is the number of stars visible greater than we are accustomed to see, but they shine with a brilliancy and purity of lustre of which our heavens very seldom furnish an example. Homer's comparison, at the beginning of the Fifth Book of the Iliad (Cowper's Translation), " bright and steady as the star Autumnal, which in ocean newly bathed, Assumes fresh beauty " was often brought to mind, as I remarked the fresh, unsullied splendor, as it were, of the more brilliant con- stellations. "An oriental sky has another peculiarity, which adds very much to its impressive appearance. With us the AN EASTERN SKY AT NIGHT. 63 stars seem to adhere to the face of the heavens; they form the most distant objects within the range of vision ; they appear to be set in a groundwork of thick darkness, beyond which the eye does not penetrate. Unlike this is the canopy which night spreads over the traveler in East- ern climes. The stars there seem to hang like burning lamps, midway between heaven and earth ; the pure atmosphere enables us to see a deep expanse of blue ether lying far beyond them. The hemisphere above us glows and sparkles with innumerable fires that appear as if kept burning in their position by an immediate act of the Omnipotent, instead of resting on a framework which subserves the illusion of seeming to give to them their support. " I had entered the tent erected for me, about dark, and, being occupied there for some time, the shadows of evening in the meanwhile insensibly gathered around us ; the stars came forth one after another, and commenced their nightly watch. On going abroad, at length, a scene of surpassing beauty and grandeur burst upon me. I was in the midst of a level tract of sand, where no intervening object rose up to intercept the view ; the horizon which swept around me was as expanded as the power of human vision could make it ; and all this vast circuit, as I glanced from the right hand to the left, and from the edge of the sky to the zenith, was glittering with count- less stars, each of which seemed radiant with a distinct light of its own ; many of which shone with something of the splendor of planets of the first magnitude. I could not resist the impulse of the moment, but taking 64 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. my Hebrew Bible, read, with a new impression of its meaning, the sublime language of the Psalmist : — 'Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent thy name in all the earth, Who hast placed thy glory upon the heavens ! When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers ; The moon and stars which thou hast made ; What is man, that thou art mindful of him, And the son of man, that thou carest for him ? ' " I remembered, too, that it was probably in some such situation as this in which I was then placed, and on an evening like this, that Abraham was directed to go abroad, and ' look towards heaven, and tell the stars if he could number them,' and thus form an idea of the multi- tude of the posterity destined to be called after his name (Genesis 1 5 : 5 ). I turned to that passage also, and saw a grandeur in the comparison, of which I had possessed hitherto but a vague conception." Such is the record of a day, ascertained by the colloca- tion of passages from the " Illustrations of Scripture," the reference of which is fixed by the aid of the Journal. While at Naples, it may be here remarked, he ex- pressed the opinion that a New England sky, at night, presented on the whole as fine a view as the Italian. On the 27th the caravan reached Gaza, and the travel- ers were put in quarantine. On the next day, Sunday, some of them read together parts of the Bible relating to places they expected to visit. These days may have been further beguiled by one pilgrim, in making a list of ques- tions on the archaeology of Ruth, twenty-nine in number, which are on a loose leaf of his journal. Their answers, received in the further course of the journey, are embodied JERUSALEM. 65 in an article on the Book of Ruth, in the Dictionary of the Bible. On being released, he proceeded, by way of Ascalon, Ashdod, Jaffa, Lydda, Remla, to Jerusalem, of which he obtained his first sight on April 2d. His first visit was to Gethsemane, as its locality and appearance were the last sight he strove to imprint upon his mind when depart- ing. " It is the spot above every other which the visitor must be anxious to see. It is the one which I sought out before any other. We may sit down there and read the affecting narrative of what the Saviour endured for our redemption, and feel assured that we are near the place where he prayed, saying, ' Father, not my will, but thine be done;' and where, ' being in an agony, he sweat as it were great drops of blood, falling down to the ground.' " In the course of a month's stay, he made excursions to Jericho, the Jordan, and Dead Sea, Bethlehem, Hebron, Tekoa, and Adullam. On Wednesday, the 28th of April, 1852, he left Jerusalem, passing out of the Jaffa gate at nine A. M. That very morning, as his " Biblical Re- searches" reveal, Dr. Edward Robinson entered it one hour earlier, on this his second visit to the Holy Land. One cannot but regret that the two friends should have so narrowly missed seeing each other, in the most in- teresting of earth's scenes. But they have met in Jerusalem the Golden, to go no more out forever! A leisurely ride of three days and a half, through the heart of the ancient land of Israel, allowing an occasional dctoar to such places as Gophna, Shiloh, and Samaria, where he visited the Synagogue ; and affording an oppor- 6 66 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. tunity of reading, on the spot of its utterance, the Saviour's conversation with the woman at Jacob's well, and of enjoying the charming scenery of the vale of Shechem ; — brought the traveller, on the afternoon of Saturday, May first, to Nazareth, where he had desired to spend the Sabbath. His first sight of the humble village formed, as he records, one of the great moments of the journey. Further scenes or stages of his travels, were Mt. Tabor, the Sea of Tiberias, Safet, Tiberias, Magdala, Mt. Carmel, with whose beauty he was enraptured, Ptolemais or Akka, Tyre, upon whose ruins beneath the sea he looked down through the calm waters, with melancholy interest, in the long twilight which closed the tenth of May; Sidon, Beirut, Lebanon, Damascus, Baalbec. Returning to Beirut, he embarked thence, at half-past six o'clock, P. M., on May 25th. As it had given a special interest to the horseback ride from Carmel to Akka, to know that he was traversing the ground over which Paul and his friends passed on his last journey to Jerusalem, so, now, on his voyage, he was still further returning, very nearly, on the apostle's track. The next day at ten o'clock, he arrived off against Larnica, on the Island of Cyprus, and on the following night at two o'clock, A. M., came to anchor in the harbor of Rhodes. After eight hours the course was resumed, and on the 29th Smyrna was reached. Here he received tidings of the death of his dear friend, the lamented B. B. Edwards, late Professor in the Theological Seminary at Andover. A peculiar propriety will be seen in transcribing from the "Illustrations of Scripture," page 1 5 7, the tribute there paid to his memory : — "I cannot write his name without emotions of sad but TRIBUTE TO PROFESSOR EDWARDS. 6~ tender interest. The journey to which these pages relate, was one which we had planned to execute together; it had been the subject of many conversations between us, and of long cherished desire on both sides. How much more useful and delightful would it have been in the society of such a friend! His failing health obliged him to relinquish the undertaking at the last moment, though not without a hope that he should live to accomplish it at a future time. It was otherwise appointed. It was my privilege to receive a letter from him, just before leaving the Holy Land, in which, with a touching allusion to his disappointment, he requested that, "as I plucked a leaf or gathered a flower here and there, I would lay aside one, also, for him;" and in a week from that time, on arriving at Smyrna, I heard that he had been called away to his rest in Heaven. He died at Athens, in Georgia, on the 20th of April, 1852. The impression of his character, so unique in its combination of modesty and sterling worth, and of his various intellectual endowments and attain- ments, will never be forgotten by those who knew him. The Memoir of his life and labors, so worthily prepared by his friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. Park, will cause him to be remembered in future times. He was so long associated with all my anticipations of eastern travel, and was so constantly present with me in thought during the journey, that I have desired, not for his sake, but mine, to record his name on the pages of this humble memorial of our common enterprise." Professor Hackett tenderly loved his friends. Already, on this journey, he had been reminded afresh of the loss which he, with a wide circle, sustained in the death of the 68 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. Rev. Nathan W. Fiske, Professor in Amherst College, " a man justly esteemed for his eminent talents as well as his virtues." He died in 1847, while on a journey in Palestine, and his remains lie buried in a small cemetery at Jerusalem, not far from David's tomb. " My visit to his grave called up many affecting recol- lections of the past. He acquiesced cheerfully in the will of God ; but it was impossible not to reflect how many natural feelings it would have gratified could he have been spared to regain once more his native land, and die among the kindred and friends whom it is ever a source of so much consolation to have near us in the last trying scene ! Paucioribus lacrimis compositus es, ct novissima in luce desideravere aliquid oculi tui. A Latin epitaph, setting forth his character in just terms, has been in- cribed on his tomb-stone. It afforded me a melancholy pleasure to adopt means for having two cypresses, partly grown, transplanted at the proper season, and placed one at the head and the other at the foot of the grave on Mount Zion, where his body awaits the resurrection of the just." Leaving Smyrna on June fourth, and coasting along the plains of Troy, on the sixth he arrived at Constanti- nople, where he remained about a week, and met Dr. Hamlin, and the Hon. Mr. Marsh. It had been reserved for him, on returning from the East, to linger for a short time in the ancient home of Attic arts and learning, under the auspices of cordial welcome and attentions from the honored missionaries, Rev. Albert N. Arnold, then residing at Athens, and Rev. Rufus F. Buel, at Piraeus. Arriving at Athens June 18th, a stay of ten GERMAN UNIVERSITY LECTURERS. 69 days included visits, among other places, to Marathon, Salamis, Nauplia, and Mycena