Coluntbta ®nit)tm'tp 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
 Bequest of 
 
 Frederic Bancroft 
 
 1860-1945 
 
A MAN IN EARNEST 
 
 LIFE 
 
 A. H. CONANT. 
 
 ROBERT COLLYER 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM. 
 
 1872. 
 
.:^ 
 
 <h 
 
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 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
 HORACE B. FULLER, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetta. 
 
 1 1^1 k ^ 
 

 N 
 
 GEORGE W. HOSMER, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF AIN^riOOH COLLEGE, 
 DEAR FRIEND ALIKE OF THE SUBJECT AND THE WRITER, 
 
 ^his PRoi:|$8l of Biogijaphi} 
 
 IS DEDICATED. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 When what was mortal of Mr. Conant had been 
 laid away, many friends and lovers asked me to 
 write a brief sketch of his life ; and my own love 
 for him prompted me to try and meet their 
 wishes. That the work was not sooner finished, 
 I trust will be pardoned on account of my many 
 cares. That it is not better done, must be my 
 own fault, or foolishness. 
 
 R. C. 
 
 May 26, 1868. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 I. FOREELDERS 9 
 
 II. Genesis and Exodus 26 
 
 III. Frontier Farmer 40 
 
 IV. Student 60 
 
 V. Secular but Sacred ... . . 85 
 
 VI. Missionary .... . . 100 
 
 VII. Preacher and Pastor Ill 
 
 VIII. Transplanted and what then ? . . . 137 
 
 IX. From RocKroiiD to his Rest . . . 147 
 
 X. What was said at the Geave-side . . . 211 
 
A MAN IN EARNEST. 
 
 I. 
 
 FOREELDE RS. 
 
 In a curious little manuscript volume inscribed 
 " Ebenezer Conant, his book, Asliburnham, Jan. 
 15, 1782," there is this introductory note : " This 
 book was made by my dear father, Ebenezer 
 Conant, who died on the 3d of August, 1783," 
 and then these words about the Conant family : 
 " I, John Conant, was born in Ashburnham, 
 Mass., Feb. 2, 1773. My father's name was Eb- 
 enezer Conant ; he was born in Concord, Mass., 
 Aug. 12, 1743. His father's name was also 
 fibenezer Conant, and he was born in Beverly, 
 Mass., Dec. 1, 1700. His father's name was 
 Roger Conant, who came to America with a col- 
 ony, about 1623, and settled near to Marblehead 
 or Salem, and I have understood that he was the 
 son of a man wlio lived in France when the per- 
 
10 FOREELDERS. 
 
 secution raged there against the Huguenots ; was 
 a Huguenot himself, and fled with one of his 
 brothers, of whom altogether there were seven, 
 to England, there to enjoy their religion in free- 
 dom and peace. My mother's name was Lydia 
 Oakes ; she was born in Stowe, Mass., on the 6th 
 of June, 1743, and my father and mother had 
 seven children ; namely, Lydia, born Nov. 21, 
 1768 ; Sarah, born Oct. 17, 1770 ; John (mean- 
 ing myself), born Feb. 2, 1773 ; Nelsy, born 
 March 15,1775 ; Ebbie, born June 6th, 1777 (on 
 my mother's own birthday) ; Calvin, born May 
 30, 1779, and Luther, born June 24, 1782." 
 
 It is the Eben born on his mother's birthday, 
 ninety years ago, who is still, 1868, a hale and 
 hearty man, living in Geneva, Kane County, Illi- 
 nois, who is the father of Augustus Hammond 
 Conant, the subject of this memoir. The manu- 
 script from which I have made these extracts 
 seems to have been written jointly by Eben- 
 ezer and John Conant, each contributing about 
 one hundred pages of such matter as was to him 
 of vital moment. The contributions of the fa- 
 ther are theological, those of the son autobiograph- 
 ical, an4 are altogether of very little interest, 
 
FOREELDERS. 11 
 
 except as they can throw a ray of light into the 
 lives of these Conants of eighty and a hundred 
 years ago, that may aid us to see better the 
 Conant who came from their loins. The theo- 
 logical works of the Grandfather Conant are 1. 
 A Piece wrote upon some Jarring Sentiments 
 among my Brethren about Predestination and 
 Election. 2. A Profession of Faith. 3. A Letter 
 to Mr. Lee. 4. A Discourse on the Fall and 
 Recovery of Man. 5. Thoughts upon a Man's 
 Spirit being generated with his Body. 6. A Cov- 
 enant. 7. Thoughts upon the New Birth. 
 
 It touches one to read these things now, and 
 to feel, as you read, that they must have come 
 out of the heart of a man who was all on fire 
 about them ; yet to notice how they are, 
 dead as the hand that trembled over the pages 
 when they were penned. One or two things 
 still have a spark of life left. Here is a sentence 
 from the introduction to Thoughts on a Man's 
 Spirit being generated with his Body: *'After a 
 long travail of mind about what constitutes or 
 makes up the man, I am now about to conclude, 
 or indeed have concluded, that I have always 
 been entirely mistaken about the whole matter." 
 
12 FOREELDERS. 
 
 There is also a touch of life in the letter to Mr. 
 Lee. It seems that this Mr. Lee, of Royalstone, 
 ill the year 1782, preached a sermon in Mr. 
 Conant's hearing, in which he set forth the doc- 
 trine that heaven is the purchase for the sin- 
 ner of the sufferings of Christ. This doctrine 
 Ebenezer Conant could by no means allow. So 
 meeting the minister after sermon at the house 
 of Mr. Gushing, he gave him a piece of his mind 
 about it, and this was his mind, — That not 
 heaven, but freedom from sin, is what Christ 
 purchased through his sufferings. How long the 
 two men disputed, the record does not tell. 
 Judging from experience and from what followed, 
 I should say that they hammered away at the 
 thing until it was time to go home, and then left 
 it very much as they found it. 
 
 Ebenezer Conant, however, will not allow the 
 matter to rest ; he sends this letter off at once 
 to the hapless preacher to settle him. It is a 
 strong argument of the sort made in those con- 
 troversies in wliich men 
 
 " Squabble for words upon the altar floor, 
 And tear the book in struggles for the binding; " 
 
 but the last words go into the real life of that 
 
FOREELDERS. 13 
 
 old time in a curious and striking manner, and 
 are worth preserving : — 
 
 " Suppose," Ebenezer Conant says, " that Gov- 
 ernor Hancock should purchase a number of pris- 
 oners from on board the prison ships, and set 
 them at liberty in Whitehall. Who would use 
 such an unmeaning term as to say that the Gov- 
 ernor gave the money to purchase Whitehall and 
 not the prisoners ? How, then, can we say that 
 Christ purchased heaven, and not freedom from 
 sin ? From your friend, Ebenezer Conant. 
 April 18, 1782." 
 
 We may well believe how the good man would 
 chuckle over this parting shot, would watch 
 where it struck, and feel sure that now Mr. Lee 
 was finally and forever routed, and would vend 
 no more such heresies in Royalstone. 
 
 But these are the only things in the entire 
 series of treatises that seem to have any life left in 
 them ; the valuable element they all hold besides 
 is the revelation they make of this Grandfather 
 Conant, as intensely interested in these nice points 
 in theology, while he was also striving to raise a 
 large family on a small and poor farm. They 
 were to him supreme questions of the life and 
 
14 FOREELDERS. 
 
 soul. How he became so interested, John Co- 
 naiit, the son, will tell us presently. What 
 Ebenezer, the father, tells us is that tlie keen, 
 high-questioning, and dissenting spirit wliich had 
 made his native France too hot for the old Hugue- 
 not Conant was back and busy again in the New 
 England farmer, — a spirit that could no more 
 be laid by the Congregational minister than by 
 the Roman priest. 
 
 " The first thing that I can remember," John 
 Conant says, in his half of the book, " was, when 
 two years and a half old, hearing the guns fire 
 at the Concord fight ; then, when I was seven 
 years old, came the dark days of May 20, 1780, 
 when the people ran about in great terror, believ- 
 ing that the end of the world had come. I re- 
 member holding on to my mother, because I 
 felt sure I should be more safe with her than I 
 could be with any other person. Then I remem- 
 ber how this dark day brought a great concern 
 to my soul. I reflected very seriously on the 
 awful condition I should be in if the world should 
 come to an end. In the midst of these brood- 
 ings, a Baptist preacher came to our town. The 
 people mocked him and hooted at him ; but some, 
 
FOREELDERS. 15 
 
 out of curiosity, went to hear him. Among others 
 my father and mother went, and they came home 
 pricked to the lieart. Long before this, on the 
 birth of their first child, they had joined the 
 Congregational cluirch by what is called the 
 half-way covenant, so that they might have 
 their children sprinkled. This mock baptism was 
 performed on myself when I was only eight days 
 old. Now they were dissatisfied with the half- 
 way covenant religion, and followed the Baptist 
 minister no longer from curiosity, but to obtain 
 salvation. 
 
 " In 1781, my father fell sick ; he was sick two 
 years, which made us very poor. I can never 
 forget his last address to us, made the week be- 
 fore he died. My poor mother was in very great 
 distress about her large family of little children. 
 She could not tell how we should live when he 
 was gone, and begged my father to give some of 
 his children away to friends who would gladly 
 receive them if he gave them on his death-bed. 
 But when she had done speaking, he looked up 
 into her face with such a joyful look as I never 
 saw before in my life, and said, ' My dear wife, 
 I have already done that. I have given away all 
 
16 FOREELDERS. 
 
 your children to the dearest Friend in the world ; 
 I have given them away to God.' We were all 
 there to hear that, and we never forgot it. Then 
 my father died in ahout a week, as I said, and 
 this is part of a little poem my sister made for 
 the sad occasion : — 
 
 •Come, friends, and hear my mournful theme; 
 It's not a fancy, nor a dream ; 
 But 'tis as sad as sad can be, — 
 My father's in eternity.' " 
 
 The story of the life of this John Con ant 
 would be well worth telling for its own sake, if 
 there was room for it in this small book. The 
 man was a noble specimen of that sturdy, capa- 
 ble, self-contained nature only found in its per- 
 fection in New England, determined always to 
 get along in the world, to gather property and 
 influence, but with a solemn religious element 
 woven through and through the business faculty. 
 The sort of man most faithful wherever he is found 
 in the support of schools, churches, and public 
 libraries, the controlling element so far, thank 
 God, in our American life ; for what is pop- 
 ularly known as the Yankee is only the excep- 
 tion to this ruling man, the Yankee being only 
 
FOREELDERS. 17 
 
 what is left when this religious element has rot- 
 ted away, — a new New England man without a 
 conscience or a present sense of God. 
 
 When John Conant stood by the death-bed 
 he has told us of with so touching a pathos, 
 he was only just turned ten years of age. 
 But he says, *' Being the eldest son, the sole 
 management of our small farm, with what as- 
 sistance my mother could render, fell on my 
 shoulders ; so my labors on the farm were very 
 hard for a boy, and so incessant that I had very 
 little time for books and learning. What small 
 chance I had, however, I improved to the utmost, 
 learnt to read and write, and arithmetic as far as 
 the rule of three. These advantages were all I 
 could ever command when I was a boy ; but we 
 always maintained our family worship, and as 
 my father left a chest of carpenter's tools, my 
 natural talent led me to use them to such advan- 
 tage that I soon became skilful in joiner's work. 
 I got along so well in this that when I was seven- 
 teen, I built for my mother a saw-mill, and then, 
 as I never did love farming, 1 began to work as 
 a journeyman carpenter, and so at eighteen I 
 2 
 
18 FOREELDERS. 
 
 found that I could hold my own with the good 
 workmen in our town." 
 
 "After some time," John Conant continues, 
 "" while at work at my trade, I hurt my arm on 
 the elbow. The hurt turned to a white swelling, 
 and all the doctors told me I must have my arm 
 amputated. This news distressed me dreadfully. 
 I could not bear the thought, so I determined to 
 see what I could do to save the arm, in spite of 
 the doctors. Hearing of a noted student at a 
 distance, I left home,, and travelled eighteen 
 miles on foot, in extreme pain, to see this new 
 man. He encouraged me to believe that I could 
 be cured ; so I stayed with him a long time, he 
 doing all he could to save my right arm, and I 
 doing all I could to work for him with my left. 
 And so it came to pass at last that I was cured, 
 and the doctor did not charge me much either, 
 because, as he said, I was a good boy, and had 
 done all I could to help him too ; so I returned 
 home with two sound arms and a grateful heart 
 to my mother." 
 
 After this, John Conant is promoted to be mas- 
 ter of the inside work in the new Bolton meeting- 
 house, but as lie finds the Bolton minister is ex- 
 
FOREELDERS. 19 
 
 tremely stupid, be walks five miles every Sunday, 
 to hear a man who pleases him better. 
 
 Ill the fall of 1794, he gets married, and then 
 finds it is time to be looking round for a larger 
 place than the old homestead ; so he heads a 
 little party of four, and starts for what was then 
 the wilderness of Western New York. There 
 they buy land, cut a road through fifteen miles 
 of brush to get at it, do not like the place at all 
 when they come to see it, and so return home. 
 After this, being on a visit to Brandon, Vermont, 
 he saw the Falls there, bought them on credit 
 for $1,133.34, returned home, removed the fam- 
 ily at once, and went to work to build a dam. 
 The result is in his own words : " With good 
 health and courage, the Lord hath so prospered 
 me ever since that time that I feel sure that 1 
 did my duty." 
 
 Here in Brandon John Conant found a fee- 
 ble Baptist church, which he gathered into his 
 house when the weather was cold, and when it 
 was warm, into his shop ; but in 1800 he writes, 
 " I myself, I say it with modesty, being the main 
 man, with eleven others built a meeting-house 
 forty feet by thirty-five, and there we worshipped 
 
20 FOREELDERS. 
 
 thirty-nine years." In 1801, he was made justice 
 of the peace ; in 1806, clerk to the church ; in 
 1809, he was chosen to represent the town in the 
 Legislature ; in 1815, was appointed by govern- 
 ment to assess the town for a direct tax ; and was 
 a member of that Electorial College for choosing 
 a president which resulted in the choice of Harri- 
 son. In 1818 he was made deacon of his church, 
 which office he says, " I consider the most hon- 
 orable and responsible ever conferred on me by 
 mortal man." After this, he built a dwelling- 
 house, a stone mill, a seminary, some brick 
 stores, and a grist mill that cost eight thousand 
 dollars. When his people had occupied their 
 meeting-house thirty-nine years, he writes, " Be- 
 fore I die, I want to see a better place of worship, 
 such as will be in all respects respectable, and 
 where others may be induced to come and hear 
 for tliemselves. So I feel it my duty to go 
 ahead, and build such a house." And in 1833, 
 the house is finished, and the church so blessed 
 as to satisfy him fully for all his sacrifices, priva- 
 tion, and toil. In 1843, when he was threescore 
 and ten, John Conant felt a great longing, before 
 he thould die, to see the great West. He had a 
 
FOREELDERS. 21 
 
 strange impression that he should never return 
 home alive, but that did not matter ; he felt he 
 must go West. And so he made all ready as a 
 man going on a way whence he should not re- 
 turn, commended himself to God, and started for 
 Rochester. After a happy visit with his chil- 
 dren, who were settled in Rochester, he left for 
 Butfalo, thence by steam to Cleveland, thence to 
 Cincinnati, St. Louis, Galena, Mineral Point, 
 Milwaukie, Chicago, St. Joseph, Detroit, and 
 then liome again. " So mercifully was an old 
 man of over seventy preserved in all this long 
 and dangerous journey." 
 
 And so within this story of a dutiful and help- 
 ful outward life, told by the man in a way that 
 would seem like egotism if the life itself were not 
 so full of quiet heroism, we can see that John 
 Conant held and nursed a sweet and well-toned 
 religious spirit always, and we gather from it all, 
 that, in some deeper way than that of the common 
 daily bread, the faith in which the father had 
 given all his children to God on his death-bed had 
 borne its fruit, and the look on the face of the dy- 
 ing man, such as they who saw it had never seen 
 before, was the light from the immanent heaven. 
 
22 POREELDERS. 
 
 The language in which the little story is told is 
 cast in the common mould of the time and the sect ; 
 but the struggle and victory it records is com- 
 mon to all times and to every faithful soul. The 
 book closes with these sentences : " On the 30th 
 day of July, 1786, the church obtained a faint 
 hope for me, and I had also a faint hope for 
 myself. I was on that day baptized and greatly 
 enjoyed the ordinance, and I look back to that 
 time, now I am an old man, and ask if I have 
 done my duty ? I regret I have not done more, 
 and yet I have done so much that I wonder at 
 it when I consider my feeble powers, and I bless 
 God that the outlook ahead grows brighter and 
 brighter. Just one month to a day after liis 
 inaugural address our President is dead. Why 
 is he taken and I left ? Is there any good still 
 that I can do ? Then God help me to do it. 
 Time looks very short now, yet I do not grieve 
 for this, because I know that when I have done 
 my work, I shall cheerfully leave it for a happy 
 home. My path has been strewn witli blessing, 
 but I cannot say I want to live my life over again, 
 because I am not sure if I did, whether I should 
 mend the bad places in it, or make more. And 
 
FOREELDERS. 23 
 
 it has been a very great luxury for me to give 
 my property to the cause of God, — so great, in- 
 deed, that I fear sometimes that I have given it 
 from a selfish motive. May the Lord forgive me if 
 this be so. I have tried to keep to a higher 
 motive ; and now, in these my last days, I can 
 truly say I am happy in my wife, my children, 
 my family connections, in society, in the church, 
 in my minister, and in God. 
 
 ' Let the sweet hope that thou art mine 
 My life and death attend ; 
 Thy presence through my journey shine, 
 And crown my journey's end.' " 
 
 This is all that need be said about the Conant 
 foreelders, but this much 1 have felt I must say. 
 About the grandfather, who, eighty years ago, 
 went so quietly into his rest leaning upon God, 
 and this good John Conant, who has also found 
 the rest that remains. Both together reveal a 
 sound natural and spiritual life. They were 
 closely knitted to our life as it is, were full of 
 its deep sympathies and active duties. Every 
 line I have found about these old Conants shows 
 me that they 
 
 " Wore the white lily of a blameless life." 
 
24 FOREELDERS. 
 
 That of itself is often no small matter, but they 
 did more than that ; they did their share to plant, 
 deep and strong, what to them were the very 
 foundations of all true prosperity, religious con- 
 victions, and religious institutions. And so 
 Ebenezer Conant, with his seven treatises, and 
 John Conant, with his endless religious activi- 
 ties, as well as the good old man, still working 
 and worshipping among us after more than 
 ninety years, are of the true stock of this man 
 whose life I mean to write, true spiritual as well 
 as natural foreelders. 
 
 When a gentleman, lately watching a de- 
 signer at work in one of our New England fac- 
 tories, said to him, " How long have you been 
 learning to do that ? " the man replied, " Six 
 hundred years ; so long ago the first of us began 
 to design, and we have been at it ever since." It 
 is so with many things ; it runs in the blood, 
 men say. That is but a hint of the real truth ; 
 it runs in that which informs the blood. And 
 when our Scriptures are so constant to this, 
 that through certain lines certain men must 
 come to us, they show us that always these spirit- 
 
FOREELDERS. 25 
 
 Tial and natural facts have been recognized, and 
 that, — 
 
 " So the old order changeth to the new, 
 And God fulfils himself in many ways " 
 
n. 
 
 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 Augustus Hammond Conant, the only son of 
 Ebenezer Conant and Fanny Clifford, his wife, 
 was born in Brandon, Vermont, on the 16th of 
 October, 1811. The story told of his childhood 
 and youth is like all such stories, simple and 
 brief. He was full of affection, and was truthful 
 and gentle, always loved one little kinsman so 
 well that, though they were parted at four years 
 old, when Augustus, seventeen years after, was 
 on his way through the West, he turned out of 
 his way to see his friend's face again, and take 
 up the thread of their child-love. It is remem- 
 bered that while still a small boy, some other boy 
 did a mischief for which Augustus was blamed ; 
 but though he got a severe whipping, he would 
 not betray his companion. In the summer of 
 his fourth year he was sent to school, and there 
 he presently won this certificate, which is still in 
 
GENESIS AND EXODUS. 27 
 
 existence in the teacher's own hand, and very 
 much adorned with flourishes : " This may certify 
 that Augustus Hammond Conant is a very good 
 scholar, and has particularly excelled his class in 
 spelling. Signed, Harriet Stebbings." 
 
 In tliis first summer at school the boy got 
 along so well as to be able to read easily in Web- 
 ster's old spelling-book. After this, he only went 
 to school as he could be spared from the farm his 
 father had got in Brandon ; but he made so 
 good a use of his time that as he grew up he began 
 to dream about a liberal education and a profes- 
 sion. But Ebenezer Conant, his father, thought 
 there were too many professional men already ; he 
 feared, also, tliat a course of study would unfit 
 his son for the active duties of life ; he preferred, 
 also, that Augustus should be a farmer, and so, 
 at last, it was settled that a farmer he should be. 
 There is hardly a word about these days in the 
 letters that have come to me, but I have learned 
 from those who knew Mr. Conant intimately, 
 that he did not like to talk about his early youth ; 
 would only now and then mention it, and then 
 it was to recall some wonderful Saturday after- 
 noons, when, the week-days' toil being over and 
 
28 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 the Sunday's toil not yet begun, he would go out 
 alone and 
 
 " Bathe his weary soul 
 
 In seas of heavenly rest." 
 
 Wandering over pasture and by woodland where- 
 ever he would, the memory of these days never 
 left him ; but, on the whole, the alternation be- 
 tween hard week-days and hard Sundays pressed 
 heavily on his life then, and on his memory for- 
 ever after. 
 
 When he was about nineteen, I find this bud 
 of promise on the tree of his life : ''''July 14, 1830. 
 I, Augustus Hammond Conant, do tliis day re- 
 solve to break myself of every evil practice, and 
 to forsake every sin as revealed to me by the 
 light of reason. So help me God ! " 
 
 It seems tliat a protracted meeting had been 
 field during the previous winter in a neighbor's 
 house ; that the youth had gone there, and been 
 touched by what he heard. He was stirred in 
 this way to take a step toward joining some 
 church ; but he was dissatisfied with Calvinism, 
 had got a glimpse somewhere of the glorious 
 doctrine of universal salvation, and wanted to 
 see more of it. His sister reports a talk she had 
 
GENESIS AND EXODUS. 29 
 
 with him at this time, which gave her great un- 
 easiness as to his orthodoxy. But during the 
 next summer, declaring openly his doubts about 
 eternal damnation, he offered himself for mem- 
 bership to the Baptist church in Pittsford, of 
 which his parents were members, and was bap- 
 tized and taken into full communion. In the 
 winter following he taught school, in the summer 
 again worked on the farm ; altogether his life 
 was opening into a quiet and gracious content- 
 ment ; he grew in favor both with God and man. 
 One letter still ^exists written at this time to his 
 sister. It is notable for a longing to enter more 
 deeply into a personal experience of what there 
 is no better name for than the grace of God in 
 the soul, and, also, for the record of what seems 
 to have been his first bruise against the myste- 
 ries of Providence. He says, " The other morn- 
 ing 1 awoke in the gray of light, and going to my 
 window, saw that it was raining heavily. It had 
 been raining so for some time past that every- 
 thing was afloat and rotting with the wet; then I 
 said in my heart. How can a good God send so 
 much rain to destroy all our hopes ? But, pres- 
 ently, something said. As men now live they love 
 
30 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 the pleasures of the world so well, mixed as they 
 are with pain, that they can hardly find time for 
 a single thought of God. Now if our pleasures 
 were perfect, is it not probable that we should 
 never think of him at all ? " A curious specu- 
 lation with a curious conclusion, that the best 
 way to bring a man to God is to snub and disap- 
 point him. But this stirring in the young man's 
 nature was not to be satisfied with these things. 
 Indeed, it was less a baptism of water than of 
 fire, and the new birth, a prophecy always of a 
 new life, was, in this instance, to find a noble 
 and ample fulfilment. 
 
 The gold and silver mines of the far West in 
 those days were the virgin prairies of Illinois, to 
 which the attention of the East was just then es- 
 pecially directed. The State at that time was 
 but sparsely settled ; the whole number of inhab- 
 itants hardly exceeded the present population of 
 Chicago, and that was mainly confined to the 
 central and southern tiers of counties, and it 
 was a weary way from the Green Mountains to 
 the far West before the days of railroads. But 
 then tliere was an adventurous tingle in the Co- 
 nant blood. Had not Uncle John once cut his 
 
GENESIS AND EX0DU8. 31 
 
 way through fifteen miles of wilderness ? And 
 there was money in Ebenezer Conant's locker, and 
 friends and kinsfolk scattered all the way west- 
 ward from Brandon to Vandalia. So to the 
 West young Conant determined to go, that, at 
 least, he might spy out the land. He started in 
 September, 1832, a month before he was twenty- 
 one years old. 
 
 Of this journey the young man kept a brief 
 journal that is quite interesting now for the 
 quick glances at life, it has preserved, along the 
 line of travel westward thirty-five years ago. 
 
 Starting from Whitehall, in the canal-boat 
 " Missanic," Mr. Conant went by Fort Ann and 
 Fort Miller to Saratoga. He was delighted with 
 the valley of the Mohawk and its fine fertile soil, 
 but was told that most of the farms were owned 
 by Dutchmen, who would not sell a farm for 
 money enough to cover it. Not a bad idea, one 
 thinks, of the Dutchmen, because a farm for 
 farming purposes should always be considered to 
 be worth still more to the man who has it than to 
 the man who wants it. At Schenectady, a place of 
 considerable business, he notices that the old build- 
 ings are all in the Gothjc style, with very shg|,rp 
 
32 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 roofs ; and here he saw, for the first time, a rail- 
 road, on which were two cars fastened together, 
 and carrying from twenty to thirty passengers, all 
 drawn by one horse at a speed of a mile in five 
 minutes, — he was told. He is charmed with 
 Little Falls, and pronounces it the most beauti- 
 ful place he ever saw. He admires Utica, finds 
 Palmyra a thriving village, the farms about it 
 good, and the land valued at about twenty-seven 
 dollars an acre, while wheat sells at from seventy- 
 five cents to a dollar a bushel. In one week 
 from the time he left home, Mr. Conant had come 
 to Rochester, and there he saw the place from 
 which poor foolish Sam Patch had made his last 
 leap into the dark. Then he came to Buffalo, 
 where he found friends and a fine city, that, he 
 was told, had increased in wealth and popula- 
 tion beyond estimate since the Grand Canal was 
 opened. 
 
 From Buffalo, on the steamboat " Superior," he 
 went to Detroit, and among the things which 
 impressed him on his way there, he makes special 
 mention of the greatness of Cleveland as a place 
 of business, and he himself counted no less than 
 twelve schooners there besides canal-boats. They 
 
GENESIS AND EXODUS. 33 
 
 encountered a heavy storm after leaving Cleve- 
 land, in which the steamer " bounded like a puff- 
 ball on the billows," but our young traveller 
 managed to escape the general sea-sickness by 
 lying still on his back, and so, without further 
 adventure they came finally to Detroit, where he 
 put up at Campbell's Hotel, finding good quarters. 
 So far the journey West had been an easy and 
 a pleasant one ; walking or riding, as suited him 
 best, he had encountered no hardships and under- 
 gone little fatigue. But from Detroit to Chicago, 
 and thence to the Mississippi, Mr. Conant adopted 
 another programme ; he determined to foot it. 
 He gives no reason for this in his journal, but 
 from what I can gather otherwise, I think it 
 probable that when he landed in Detroit, he found 
 ihat his purse was still lighter even than his 
 fatigue ; it was natural, also, that a young man 
 should want to see the wonderful country he had 
 come to study, in some more intimate way than 
 from the deck of a steamboat or the inside of a 
 stage, if there had been a stage then on the route 
 he intended to take. " Starting on the Monday 
 from Detroit," he says, " over the worst roads I 
 had ever seen, I went forward and westward on 
 3 
 
34 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 foot, and came that evening, footsore and very 
 weary, to Saline, where I met a party of soldiers 
 returning from the Indian war." Jonesville he 
 found a town of two frame and four log houses. 
 On the Cold Water Prairie he saw six deer in one 
 herd, and again met a party of soldiers, with cav- 
 alry and forty wagons. Passing through a thick 
 forest after this, and being very hungry and tired, 
 he came at last to the house of a lonely settler, 
 where he rested, while the good backwoods woman 
 made him eat some bread and milk and honey, 
 for which he could not prevail on her to take any 
 pay, which generosity brings the reflection, as he 
 walks on again, that he had found greater kind- 
 ness in those lonely backwoods than in the splen- 
 dors of crowded villages. On the Sunday he came 
 to White Pigeon, where he attended meeting all 
 day. On Monday to Niles, which he found quite 
 a village, with four stores and two taverns, and 
 here he rested three days, built a chimney, and 
 taught a class of four young men stenography, 
 by which he more than made expenses. Finally , 
 refreshed, he started again westward, but being 
 belated that night, he was lost in a swamp, 
 where he plunged about for a long time until 
 
GENESIS AND EXODUS. 35 
 
 at last seeing a light at a distance, he hallooed 
 as loud as he could, and was rescued by a boy 
 with a lantern. On the Saturday he walked 
 through part of Indiana to the house of an old 
 Frenchman, who, married to a squaw and living 
 on the Indian lands, w4th no other house for fifty 
 miles, devotes himself, Mr. Conant says, to the 
 fleecing of such hapless travellers as must either 
 stop with him or sleep in the woods. On the Sun- 
 day he came to Lake Michigan, and travelled 
 thirty-five miles on its pleasant pebbly beach, and 
 so at last, on Monday, the fifteenth day out from 
 Detroit, he came to Chicago. 
 
 In the Chicago of 1832, however, Mr. Conant 
 found nothing worth his notice except Fort Dear- 
 born. He thinks the town is so situated that it 
 will eventually become a place of considerable 
 importance ; but, resting only an hour in Chica- 
 go, he started for the Fox River country. " Eigh- 
 teen miles out from Chicago," he says, " I slept 
 with a wagoner under his wagon, and woke up in 
 the morning to find a sharp frost." At the 
 Dupage he found the little settlement rapidly re- 
 covering from the horrors of the Indian war. 
 Heard that not less than a hundred houses had 
 
36 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 been built during the past three years in a circuit 
 of twenty-five miles, and that the settlers now 
 raise all they need for their living. 
 
 Near the Bureau River, he lost his way, but 
 found it again when night came on by the prai- 
 rie fires stretching for vast distances along the 
 horizon. Stopping on the Sunday, after a walk 
 of twenty-five miles, he went to a Methodist 
 meeting, and there found such confusion and 
 clamor as he had never witnessed before in the 
 name of religion, in all his life. At Ellis' Mill, 
 where he stopped next day, after walking only 
 twenty miles, because it was twenty-five miles then 
 to the next house, he found that the wolves in that 
 region were fearfully troublesome, destroying the 
 sheep and hogs so that it was hardly possible to 
 keep any. But he found, also, that wild honey 
 was so abundant in the blufis and banks of the 
 river that the bee-hunters sold it for three cents 
 a pound ; and the land is so rich that turnips are 
 raised that weigh twenty-five pounds. In this 
 wild countj-y Mr. Conant again lost his way, and 
 was most of all distressed because he could not 
 see a single tree " any more than if he had been 
 in the middle of the Atlantic ; " found his way 
 
GENESIS AND EXODUS. 37 
 
 at last, however, after much wandering and some 
 suffering, and so came finally, without any other 
 adventure, to the Mississippi, crossing which river 
 he landed at Keokuk Point, there intending to 
 wait for a steamboat to the mouth of the Ohio. 
 
 Keokuk, he found in those early days a sink 
 of depravity, by far the most wicked place he 
 had ever seen in his life. But instead of fretting 
 over what he was as yet powerless to amend, he 
 went to work husking corn, chopping wood, and 
 doing chores generally, for worthy Mr. Campbell, 
 a sort of second Lot in this Iowa Sodom, delight- 
 ed every day with the sight of acres and acres of 
 wild ducks and geese on the river, and islands 
 within sight of where he was at work. 
 
 Taking a passage at last in the '' William Wal- 
 lace," he went down the river. Quincy he found, 
 even then, a notable town, with a fine hum of 
 business about it. St. Louis was a city of six 
 or eight thousand souls, the streets very narrow 
 and poorly paved, and the old French buildings 
 mean and squalid, but disappearing rapidly before 
 the march of improvement. 
 
 On the steamboat, the heart of the wholesome, 
 well-bred Vermont boy turned sick at the sight 
 
38 GENESIS AND EXODUS. 
 
 of slaves, and the clank of their chains. Help- 
 less to do anything but fret, he could only turn 
 for relief to the noble and beautiful scenery 
 through which they were gliding. The beautiful 
 islands covered with trees, and walled thick with 
 grape-vines, dusk with ripe fruit in the golden 
 autumn sunshine, especially attracted him, and 
 made him wonder at the fertility of this new 
 land. At the mouth of the Ohio, he makes no 
 mention of Cairo, but speaks of the noble trees 
 there, — sycamore, cottonwood, elm, and myr- 
 tle. Starting then up the Ohio, and leaving the 
 clank of the chains, he was still shocked by the 
 reckless gambling that was carried on all day and 
 all night long. Louisville he found wonderful 
 for business, so crowded with steamboats that it 
 was difficult to land. Cincinnati was a large and 
 beautiful town, with a market reported to be 
 equal to that of Philadelphia At Parkersburg, 
 then not much of a place, one of the firemen on 
 the boat was seized on the suspicion of his being 
 a slave, but he had his papers with him, though it 
 was believed on the boat that they would not 
 have saved him from being sold down the river, 
 had not the captain gone with him before the 
 
GENESIS AND EXODUS. 39 
 
 magistrate and pulled him through. At this the 
 young Vermonter cries out in his diary, " 1 
 would not excliange the cold, rough hills of Ver- 
 mont, uncontaminated as they are with the breath 
 of slavery, for the finest country ever cultivated 
 by the slave." Marietta Mr. Conant found a 
 very handsome place indeed ; Wheeling, a mile 
 long, built of brick, and containing eight thou- 
 sand people ; Steubenville, flourishing exceed- 
 ingly, and Pittsburg, the wonder of all that his 
 eyes had ever seen since he left home for elegance, 
 grandeur, and business. 
 
 From Pittsburg, he took the stage to Erie, 
 passing through Meadville, then a very busy and 
 important place. He found, when he got to 
 Erie, that the steamboat he had meant to take 
 had left, so he started on foot for Buffalo, forcing 
 his way through great storms of rain and snow. 
 Arriving at Buffalo, he found his kinsfolk all well, 
 but they were sure that he had fallen a victim to 
 the cholera, as tliey had not heard from him for 
 so long. And so at last, very thankful in his 
 heart, he came to his home among the cold, rough 
 hills of Vermont, where such welcome waited 
 the wanderer as we may guess, but are not told. 
 
iir. 
 
 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 How happy is the coDditioii of an honest farmer, 
 safe in his own resources ! He can hear the 
 roar of tlie great storms that wreck the fortunes 
 of the merchant, but the changes of trade, the 
 pressure of hard times, all the ups and downs of 
 fortune that send men from the heights of wealth 
 to the depths of poverty, he seldom or never feels. 
 He sows his seed in hope, and reaps his harvest 
 in a full content ; his bank is full of potatoes ; 
 his stock is alive, and growing ; his lots are not 
 blocks but sections. " I grow more than content 
 with farming, I am in love with it." 
 
 This is what Mr. Conant writes from the West 
 in a letter to his sister, dateless, but from an al- 
 lusion in it to Yan Buren, written, I suppose, in 
 the spring of 1837. He had then been in the 
 West nearly two years ; his r^ort of the good 
 land on his return home had created a revolu- 
 tion. 
 
FRONTIER FARMER. 41 
 
 New England is a dear good place to be born 
 in, a noble nursery of men, and her true sons 
 can never forget their true mother ; but the 
 family is large, and the old homestead is limited, 
 and so it came to pass at last that Eben Conant, 
 with all his household, determined to move on in 
 the track of the sun. 
 
 It seems that there was already land located 
 and secured to P. and E. Conant, down on the 
 Mississippi, and it had once been the intention 
 of settling there ; but it was finally determined to 
 stake out tlie new home a good deal farther north. 
 And so at last the right spot was found on the 
 Desplaine about twenty miles north-west of Chi- 
 cago. The country there is low and flat, but 
 very fertile and easy to farm. The land then 
 was just as the Indians had left it, and was 
 not even surveyed ; but there was plenty of 
 wood on it, and wild game and fish. A rising 
 city lay within a day's journey, ready to take 
 everything that could be raised, and pay cash for 
 it, and to supply everything that was needed in 
 return ; and altogether the undertaking was full 
 of encouragement to a prudent and enterprising 
 man. 
 
42 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 Mr. Coiiaiit, who went at once on land of his 
 own, kept a journal of his career as a frontier 
 farmer, from the first of January, 1836, to the 
 middle of May, 1840. It is a brief and terse 
 record of what was done, as real in its own way 
 as the work he was doing, and as simple and 
 modest as the man. He seldom spares more 
 than one line for one day, and sometimes 
 writes that in short-hand ; never makes a reflec- 
 tion, or chronicles a mood ; says a good deal about 
 the weather, but it is mainly about clear and 
 sunny weather, a delicate intimation, one cannot 
 but feel, of tlie weather that then and always 
 prevailed in the man's own soul; for — 
 
 "Held our eyes no sunny sheen, 
 How could sunshine e'er be seen? " 
 
 Beyond tliis turn for seeing in almost every 
 day a sun day, however, nothing can be more 
 constant and true to the hard, bare facts of the 
 frontier life than tliis journal ; yet as you read 
 on Ihie by line, the index at last opens the book 
 of his life to you, and you are aware of a certain 
 power and pathos in the brief, downright chroni- 
 cles that are not often found in more leisurely and 
 scholarly journalizing. Still it would not be 
 
FRONTIER FARMER. 48 
 
 well to print the record line by line, as it stands, 
 in this little book. Most of it could have no 
 interest to the reader now. And so taking the 
 first dozen entries just as they stand, as a speci- 
 men of the whole, I will then make such extracts 
 as I hope will preserve the essential spirit of the 
 entire work." 
 
 " 1836, Jan, 1. Attended to the survey of my 
 claim. 
 
 " 2. Drew rails. 
 
 " 3. Sunday. Wrote poetry. 
 
 " 4. Made shelves and split rails. 
 
 " 5. Went to Chicago with a load of potatoes. 
 
 " 6. Sold my potatoes for seventy-five cents a 
 bushel. 
 
 " 7. Cut apples, worked at my house, husked 
 corn. * 
 
 " 8. Attended a meeting of settlers for secur- 
 ing to each man his present claim. 
 
 " 9. Cut rail timber. 
 
 '* 10. Sunday. Went to Chicago. 
 
 " 11. Commenced thrashing. 
 
 " 12. Still thrashing." 
 
 This is the literal side of the young man's 
 
44 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 daily prayer for daily bread, the common level 
 God had ordained he should keep, with now and 
 tlien a glimpse into deeper and higher things, 
 tliat he tries at first to turn into " a song," but 
 at last into " a sermon." And this hither and 
 other side is to be traced clean through, together 
 with a gradual deepening of the intellectual and 
 spiritual life and power, that ends in his going to 
 Cambridge to prepare for the ministry, while 
 yet the common level is relieved here and there 
 in still other ways more akin to our common 
 life, as will be seen in some of the quotations I 
 now make from the journal. 
 
 " 1836. Attended a meeting called to get the 
 mail route changed from Chicago to Green Bay, 
 from the beach of the lake to Auxplane River. 
 
 " Attended arbitration between father and 
 Rufus Saule ; decided in favor of Rufus, and let 
 him have some potatoes. 
 
 *' Read Mason on ' Self-knowledge.' 
 
 " Read the ' Latin Grammar.' 
 
 " Brought in a deer. 
 
 " Read the ' Life of Josephine.' Got out wood 
 for chairs. 
 
FRONTIER PARMER. 45 
 
 "Made a coffin for Mrs. Dougherty, and helped 
 to bury her. 
 
 ^' Made and bottomed chairs. 
 
 " May 10. Mrs. Hoard and Betsy Kelsey 
 arrived. 
 
 " 11. Planted corn and prepared for the wed- 
 ding. 
 
 " 12. Married Betsy Kelsey. Weather very 
 fine and sunny. 
 
 " June 3. Made a table, and borrowed six 
 bushels of potatoes, to be paid back with interest 
 in the fall. 
 
 " 4. Wife eighteen to-day. Made a few arti- 
 cles of furniture. 
 
 " Read ' Paley's Natural Theology.' Meeting 
 at my liouse. Mr. Kent preached again. Made 
 a churn. 
 
 *' Sept. 28. Heard big wolves howling. Hunt- 
 ed deer. 
 
 " Worked at slioemaking. 
 
 " Made a coffin for H. Dougherty. 
 
 " Plastered my house. 
 
 *' Dressed pig and calves torn by wolves. 
 
 " Dug a well. 
 
 " Killed a badger. 
 
46 FRONTIER PARMER. 
 
 ^' Killed a wolf. 
 
 " Corn half destroyed by blackbirds. 
 
 " Set out shade-trees. Read Cowper. 
 
 " Took up a bee tree to hive for honey. 
 
 *' Hunted deer. 
 
 " Snow a foot deep. 
 
 " Attended a Christmas party. 
 
 "1837, May 4th. Wrote a temperance ad- 
 dress. 
 
 "11. Temperance meeting at my house, and 
 society formed. 
 
 " Read the ' Saturday Evening Post,' and wrote 
 to the Patent Office. 
 
 " Made a ditching-machine. Read ' Croly's 
 British Poets.' 
 
 " Read the Bible. Read ' Dick's Philosophy of a 
 Future State.' Studied Algebra. Made a chest 
 of drawers. 
 
 " Hunted a panther. Went to a bridge-raising. 
 
 "1838, Feb. 18. Meeting at my house. I 
 read a sermon. 
 
 " Began to read the ' Western Messenger.' 
 Made a back-kitchen. 
 
 " Hewed timber for a barn. 
 
 " Made a wagon. 
 
FRONTIER PARMER. 47 
 
 " Made a cheese-press. 
 
 '' Unwell, and so studied algebra. 
 
 " Made a sun-dial. 
 
 '' Aug, 19. Sister Harriet died. 
 
 " 20 . Made a coffin for Sister Harriet. 
 
 '* 21. Attended Sister Harriet's funeral. 
 
 " Sept. 16. Attended meeting, and read a 
 sermon of Channing's. 
 
 " Oct. 16. Went to the mill. 
 
 " 21. Returned from the mill. 
 
 " Read the ' History of Rome.' 
 
 '-' Hunted deer. 
 
 " Nov. 13. Rain. Only once before had rain 
 enough to soak through in five months. 
 
 " Went to the miller's to read Channing. Read 
 at the meeting Channing on ' Self-denial.' 
 
 "Unwell, so wrote temperance address. 
 
 " Temperance meeting ; delivered my address. 
 
 " Read ' Statement of Reasons.' Circulated 
 subscription-paper for a school. Mended boots. 
 
 " 1839, Jan. 19. Hunted panther. 
 
 " Sat jon jury. 
 
 " Began to distribute tracts. Helped to make 
 a post-office. 
 
 " Wrote a temperance address. 
 
48 FRONTIER PARMER. 
 
 '' May 12. Attended Unitarian meeting in 
 Chicago. 
 
 " Read ' Bancroft's Sermons.' 
 
 " June 29. Agreed to deliver an oration. 
 
 " Jult/ 4th. Delivered my oration. 
 
 " July 7th. Attended meeting in Chicago, and 
 became acquainted with Mr. Hosmer, Mrs. 
 Clarke, and Mrs. Gale. 
 
 " 18. Got my oration published, and paid for. 
 
 " 14. Atteiided Mr. Hosmer's meeting again. 
 
 " Read Home. 
 
 " Arranged my minerals. 
 
 " Distributed oration. 
 
 *' Made a coffin. 
 
 ''Oct. 20. Wrote a sermon from Matt. vi. 
 9, 27. 
 
 " Wrote another sermon. 
 
 " Read Locke. Examined the school-teacher. 
 
 " Wrote a sermon. 
 
 " 1840, Jan. ^th. Preached at McHenry. 
 
 " Feb. 1. Wrote a funeral sermon. 
 
 '' 9. Preached at Geneva. 
 
 " 25. Preached at Geneva. 
 
 " Read Norton on the Trinity. 
 
 " Made soap. 
 
FRONTIER FARMER. 49 
 
 " Boiled sugar. 
 
 " Wrote a sermon on the Aim of Life. 
 " April 5. Preached at Geneva. 
 " May 25. Started for New England, to attend 
 the Divinity Scliool in Cambridge." 
 
 These extracts need no comment ; they speak 
 for themselves. I have printed them as they 
 stand in the journal, because it seems most 
 natural to let tlie words tell their own tale in 
 their own way. What more there is to tell 
 about this period, must be stated as briefly as 
 possible. The letters reveal nothing more than 
 is revealed in the journal, except the exceeding 
 love that continually filled the heart of the writer 
 for the friends and kinsmen he had left in Ver- 
 mont, and brief hints of the struggles through 
 which he had to pass, before it became clear to 
 himself, and those most interested in his move- 
 ments, that he must give his heart utterly to the 
 docti'iiie of tlie one God, our Father, and make 
 his open profession in liarmony with his inward 
 faith ; and then that he must give up every plan 
 he had projected so far, on the ground that he was 
 to be a farmer, ajid give up the farm itself, with 
 
60 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 its cherished independence, because he was "sep- 
 arated into the gospel of God." 
 
 Two things beside the tendency in his own 
 nature, and what naturally came of it, such as 
 going to Miller's to read Channing " quickened 
 this movement." The Fourth of July oration 
 delivered to his own friends, and neighbors on 
 the Desplaine, turned out to be more than his 
 hearers had expected. Instead of reciting the com- 
 fortable old doctrine common to the occasion, that 
 there was no such freedom, or virtue, or valor as 
 ours on the earth, the young man got a hard gripe 
 on slavery, held it up in the face of the July 
 sun, just as it was, went on to show that such a 
 virtue as tliat was filthy rags, and that the only 
 valor worth the name was that which dared say 
 so, and take open ground against the old rank 
 lie. The consequence came instantly. Mr. 
 Conant was denounced, reviled, and invited 
 to eat his words. Instead of doing that, h^ 
 went to Chicago, and got the oration printed 
 at his own expense, sent it flying, broadcast, 
 over the settlement, and so became known at 
 ouce as one of the champions for freedom in 
 that part of the country. But before this, as 
 
FRONTIER FARMER. 51 
 
 the journal tells us, he had made the acquaint- 
 ance of Mrs. Clarke, the mother of Rev. James F. 
 Clarke, in her day the greatest missionary of our 
 faith, in the West, among women. In a most 
 interesting letter, written a few months before 
 her death, Mrs. Clarke says, — 
 
 " I remember Mr. Conant, how he came into my 
 son's store to make some purchases, and while 
 standing at the counter, took up the * Western 
 Messeno;er,' was so interested in it that he forgot 
 everything besides until he had read it through 
 and then asked my son to lend him all that he 
 could spare to take home. After this, when Dr. 
 Hosmer came up from Buffalo to preach for us, 
 Mr. Conant came in to hear him. I saw his face 
 as I went in to meeting, and it seemed illuminat- 
 ed with the feelings that filled his heart ; I intro- 
 duced him to the preacher after service, and the re- 
 sult was that Dr. Hosmer advised him to go East 
 and study for the ministry, offered to write to Dr. 
 Ware about receiving him, and to the Unitarian 
 Association to help him. ' No,' said the young 
 man, ' I thank you, but I had rather not begin by 
 begging. I will sell my crops, take orders for 
 payment on Vermont, and then take my wife and 
 
62 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 two children to live there with their folks, while 
 I am studying in Cambridge.' 
 
 " From that time he began to prepare for his 
 new life, rose very early every morning and 
 studied till it was time to begin work on his farm, 
 and whenever, besides, he could get a spare 
 moment, and then in the spring he sold his crops, 
 and started with his family for Vermont. But 
 when he arrived there, he could not get his 
 checks cashed, and so feared that, after all, he 
 would be compelled to give up his plan. He 
 wrote me about his trouble, and that he was de- 
 termined to go to Cambridge, see Dr. Ware, and 
 lay the matter before him. He lost his way in 
 going, and began to feel that it could not be the 
 divine intention he should study for the ministry. 
 He arrived at last, however, and began to tell 
 the Doctor why it was now impossible he should 
 come to school, as he had no money ; but the 
 Doctor said, ' I have a letter for you, perhaps 
 that may help you.' On opening the letter, it 
 was found to contain an enclosure of fifty dollars 
 from a gentleman who had heard of Mr. Conant's 
 efforts to get an education, together with the 
 assurance that more should be forthcoming if 
 
FRONTIER FARMER. 63 
 
 needed, and tlius the way opened at once to his 
 entrance on the course of study." 
 
 And then Dr. Hosmer also writes how he rec- 
 ollects preacliing m Chicago, — the introduction 
 of the bright, earnest young farmer, the interest- 
 ing talk they had, how he felt that here was one 
 called to be an apostle, and said so, with what 
 result I have already related. But instead of 
 arguing the point of independence, he let Mr. 
 Conant take his own course about the crops, 
 went home and told his story to one who never 
 could be indifferent to any noble endeavor, great- 
 hearted Mr. Huidekoper, of Meadville. The re- 
 sponse was the letter waiting with Dr. Ware, 
 and others to follow in a generous succession. 
 From Miss Shippen, also, and Mrs. Clarke, and 
 from other friends, as they heard of the luckless 
 Vermont bills, there came ready and effectual 
 help, filling the heart of the young student so 
 full of joyful and grateful surprise, that, whereas 
 he had never let his disappointment rob him of 
 an hour's sleep, he suddenly found that now he 
 could not sleep for gladness, but lay awake all 
 niglit thinking of all the good fortune that had 
 befallen him, until the sun rose, and it was time 
 to begin his morning lessons 
 
64 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 From the " Western Messenger." 
 
 Desplaine River, Cook Co., III., 
 Feb. 24, 1839. 
 
 Dear Brother Clarke, — Please accept this 
 cordial salutation of a lover of truth, a friend of 
 spiritual freedom and rational Christianity, one 
 among the hundreds of those that hail the " Mes- 
 senger " as the bearer of glad tidings, diffusing 
 the light of truth, the blessings of spiritual life, 
 and the joys of rational religion wherever it cir- 
 culates. The intelligence of success in your 
 arduous labors will doubtless afford you some 
 satisfaction and encouragement. And I there- 
 fore not only feel it to be a duty, but a privilege, 
 to give you a short account of the doings of the 
 " Messenger " here. 
 
 The first time I ever saw the " Messenger " was 
 in June, 1837, at the store of W. H. and H. F. 
 Clarke, in Chicago. The name of Unitarian 
 and Deist, or Infidel, were at that time very near 
 synonymous with me, but on examination, I 
 discovered something so liberal, free-minded, and 
 rational in the work that, notwithstanding its 
 bad name, I subscribed for it for one year, and 
 paid for one volume of the back numbers. The 
 systems of orthodoxy, in which I was instructed 
 
FRONTIER PARMER. 65 
 
 in childhood, I rejected soon after I began to 
 think for myself as contrary to reason and the 
 Bible, and repugnant to the best feelings of hu- 
 manity. The doctrine of ultra-Universalism was 
 too gross and inconsistent for belief, and I adopt- 
 ed, as the most rational theory, the doctrine of 
 universal restoration. I had frequently been de- 
 nounced as a heretic, and for that reason had 
 less dread of bad names. I resolved fearlessly, 
 though carefully, to examine the subject, and 
 follow Truth whether she lead through good or 
 bad report. I soon became convinced that the 
 bad name properly belonged to me, most of 
 the views coinciding exactly with my own ; 
 and many subjects, which were before dark and 
 mysterious, were rendered perfectly clear and 
 consistent. My father, who lives near me, 
 seemed to feel some anxiety lest I should be led 
 into worse error. He had been tried for her- 
 esy, by an ortliodox council in Vermont, because 
 he renounced creeds and confessions of faith, and 
 adopted some of the sentiments of A. Campbell, of 
 Virginia. He had broken the shackles of sectari- 
 anism, and was willing to read and examine. I 
 lent him the " Messenger ; " he has examined, and 
 
66 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 trutli has triumphed. Though he has not yet 
 ill a public manner avowed himself a Unitarian, 
 yet in conversation with friends he frequently 
 and fearlessly advocates the doctrine. Since I 
 embraced the sentiment, I have been furnished 
 by a Unitarian friend, who has a large library, 
 with the discourses of Channing and Ware, and 
 some of the writings of Bernard and Jason Whit- 
 man, of Gardner, Priestly, Dewey, and others, 
 and a few tracts which I have distributed among 
 those who are inclined to read and examine. 
 
 At a meeting established by the Methodists in 
 the neighborhood, I have, in the absence of the 
 preachers, read several of Channing's discourses, 
 and they have generally been well received, and 
 in some instances were much admired. The 
 preachers seem much afraid of Unitarianism, and 
 say many things against it containing more bit- 
 terness than truth. I have lent and circulated 
 the " Messenger " somewhat, with the hope of add- 
 ing to your list of subscribers ; but I do not know 
 that it has procured any new ones yet. One or 
 two individuals have said they would like to sub- 
 scribe for it, and I have directed them to your 
 brothers in Chicago. I should circulate it more, 
 
FRONTIER FARMER. 67 
 
 were it not that I wish to preserve the volume 
 for binding. What few tracts I have are not idle. 
 I ride around occasionally and exchange them, so 
 as to have all read by all^ and I feel confident 
 that the good seed will not be lost. If no more, 
 it will do something to remove prejudice, and 
 counteract the influence of bad report. The 
 spirit of the time is far in advance of the spirit of 
 orthodoxy. The liberal, purifying, elevating 
 views of a rational Christianity are called for 
 from every quarter. Am I mistaken ? Is it the 
 dream of enthusiasm, or has a brighter day 
 dawned upon the world ? The effulgence of 
 truth seems to glow with a sublime and immor- 
 tal lustre ; it is reflected from the spirit of a 
 Channing, a Whitman, a Brownson, a Dewey, 
 an Emerson, a Cranch, and a long list of kindred 
 minds, who seem to be looking for something 
 more spiritual, pure, and elevated than has ever 
 yet been claimed for humanity. The rights of 
 the soul, freedom of opinion, freedom of thought, 
 and freedom of investigation are asserted, and 
 the cry is Onward ! That this movement will not 
 only be onward but upward is the glad hope of 
 many who are watching the course of events 
 with tht' most intense anxietv. 
 
58 FRONTIER FARMER. 
 
 I fear I have already trespassed too much on 
 your time and patience, but I wish to communi- 
 cate one idea which I do not recollect to have 
 seen published, though it may be a familiar one 
 to you. The advocates of vicarious sacrifice 
 contend that the doctrine is necessary for the vin- 
 dication of the divine character. God (say they) 
 has made and proclaimed a law, and guarded it 
 by sufficient penalties, and there is no way to 
 maintain the honor of that law, but by the in- 
 fliction of the penalty, either on the transgressor 
 or a substitute. The idea which I would present 
 is that the repentance and reformation of the 
 transgressor is per se a sufi&cient vindication of 
 the divine character. Man, by transgression, has 
 said that the law was not good ; but by repent- 
 ance and reformation, he acknowledges his er- 
 ror. Can the infliction of the penalty in such 
 case add anything to the honor of the lawgiver ? 
 The same individual who said the law was not 
 good, when he becomes enlightened, declares that 
 it is good. Can he do anything more, or will 
 the infliction of the penalty add anything to the 
 force of the acknowledgment, or brighten the 
 evidence of the goodness and justice of the law- 
 
FRONTIER FARMER. 69 
 
 giver before the rational intelligence of the uni- 
 verse ? 
 
 If you can make use of any part of niy letter, 
 for the advancement of the cause of liberal Chris- 
 tianity, you are perfectly welcome to do it. 
 Though a private, inexperienced, and, you will 
 perceive, uneducated individual, my name and 
 influence, however humble, belong to the cause 
 of truth and righteousness, and shall gladly be 
 devoted to the best interests of men. The " Mes- 
 senger " has made me acquainted with some of the 
 master spirits of the age ; and though there is so 
 great a disparity of intellect, the contact of mind 
 has awakened sympathies which lead onward to 
 the same noble purpose of action. I feel an in- 
 terest in the cause for which they act, and would 
 rejoice to do something for its advancement. 
 May the blessings of Him who guides the desti- 
 nies of the moral universe rest on their labor, 
 and may you have the happiness to see the cause 
 of truth triumph in every quarter, and your la- 
 bors blessed abundantly. 
 
 Yours, in Christian love and fellowship, 
 
 A. H. C. 
 
IV. 
 
 STUDENT. 
 
 " 1840, June 25. Commenced study under the 
 direction of Prof. Henry Ware, Jr., and took 
 room No. 40, Divinity Hall. Attended Ware's 
 evening discussion. 
 
 ''''July 4. Attended the celebration in Boston, 
 and visited Bunker Hill. 
 
 '-'' Sunday ^ Aug, 9. United with Mr. Gray's 
 church in Bulfinch Street. 
 
 ''^Dec. 7. Received for sawing wood three 
 dollars. 
 
 '' 1841, May 19. Read a report before the 
 Philanthropic Society of the Divinity School on 
 Western Missions. 
 
 '-''June 8. Was approved by the Cambridge 
 Association as a minister of the gospel. 
 
 "'June 27. Received ordination as an evangel- 
 ist in Boston. 
 
 " From H. J. Huidekoper fifty dollars to 
 
STUDENT. 61 
 
 purchase books, and from the Divinity School 
 the works of Dugald Stewart. 
 
 '-^Jime 29. Left Cambridge. 
 
 '-July 23. Reached Chicago." 
 
 This is the entire journal of the year at Cam- 
 bridge as a student. Other notices of the time 
 are not numerous, for a great body of closely- 
 written notes of lectures and other college work 
 of that sort, still remaining, must have taken 
 up whatever time he had to spare ; after the 
 direct book-work for the day was done. In- 
 deed, this appears from the few letters that still 
 exist of this year. Informing his wife, to whom 
 of course the first is written, that he had procured 
 paper of the very largest size, so that he might 
 be able to write a great deal for one postage, he 
 writes his letter over and across, close and com- 
 pacted, in about a week from the time he begins 
 with " Dearest," telling here and there, as he 
 goes on, how tired he is to-night, or how late it 
 is ; but then how writing a bit more will refresh 
 him better than his sleep. 
 
 It is evident that the year altogether was one 
 of the very pleasantest in his whole life. It intro- 
 
62 STUDENT. 
 
 duced the young farmer to a new world. Cam- 
 bridge, always the central point of vitality in the 
 brain of the country, was then, with the society 
 that surrounded it, the glass of its good-breeding, 
 because good manners in the best sense are al- 
 ways nearest of kin to the good man. And Presi- 
 dent Quincy, Henry Ware, and others like them, 
 were then among the great men who noticed, 
 welcomed, assisted, and opened their homes to 
 him. Indeed, it is clear that the difference be- 
 tween the ease and urbanity he noticed in the so- 
 ciety lie had entered, and what seemed so rustic 
 and awkward in himself, came at last to oppress 
 him. He speaks almost pathetically of the strug- 
 gle he has to save himself from making bad blun- 
 ders. I get the impression that he must have felt 
 so constrained and awkward that the native dig- 
 nity of Vermont and Illinois had but a very poor 
 chance to show itself, and I heartily wish that 
 some wise man could have guessed his secret, 
 and then had the grace to say to him, " Young 
 man, be yourself. You have in your own instinct 
 to be a gentleman that which will do more for 
 you than trying to copy what you see in others. 
 Good-breeding is not to be learned from ' The 
 
STUDENT. 63 
 
 Whole Art of Politeness,' and is not being like 
 another well-bred man ; but it is in the simple 
 and sincere manliness you brought with you 
 from the prairie, and the courtesy you always 
 observed, without trying, toward your wife." 
 
 But in otlier ways, the society about him was 
 full of power to help him. He rushed to hear 
 tlie great preachers of the era ; and tells how 
 " To-day I heard Mr. Putman ; he preached one 
 of the very best sermons I ever heard in my 
 life." Then again, " I have been to hear Dr. 
 Beechei- ; there must have been a thousand peo- 
 ple present. I could agree heartily with the most 
 of what he said ; he is rather a hard-featured 
 old fellow, * awful powerful,' as the Hoosiers say, 
 and I thought if his pulpit cushions are not well 
 stuffed, I should not like to lend him my fists to 
 preach with." And then again, '' I have attended 
 Mr. Gannett's Lectures on the Doctrines. I sup- 
 pose, taken altogether, they are the best things 
 of the sort ever delivered on our side. They 
 have created a wonderful excitement in Boston. 
 The orthodox are thoroughly aroused by them, 
 have got out their old creed in its most hideous 
 form, and are trying to make the people swallow 
 
64 STUDENT. 
 
 it ; but they might as well try to make any man 
 who has had the good fortune to hear these lec- 
 tures swallow a chestnut burr. The lecturer has 
 only a few notes, to which he will refer now and 
 then ; but the lectures are given otherwise ex- 
 tempore^ whilst the speaker is pacing up and 
 down the platform, and the hearers are all on 
 fire with his eloquence. Each lecture occupies 
 about two hours in the delivery." 
 
 And then he would not be a mere listener, but 
 together with a fellow-student (Mr. Osgood), with 
 whom he became very intimate, went to the House 
 of Correction and prayed and labored with the 
 inmates, whenever there was opportunity ; pre- 
 pared and read his address on Western Missions ; 
 gave addresses on Temperance here and there, 
 and got some chances to preach beside in the 
 churches. 
 
 Still another way opened to him. One day, 
 soon after his commencement at Cambridge, a 
 fellow-student carried him off to see a lady he was 
 in the habit of visiting once a week, at least, for 
 his own sake and for hers. She had been confined 
 to her bed nine years ; had no father, mother, or 
 kinsman living ; was entirely dependent on a 
 
STUDENT. 65 
 
 goodness that bad never failed in those about 
 ber, but was so brigbt, cheerful, and well-in- 
 formed as to the newest and freshest things in 
 literature and life, kept up so wide a corre- 
 spondence, and was altogether of so fine a nature, 
 that it was a wonder to see and hear her. 
 '' There was no ' pious resignation,' or submis- 
 sion about her," the young student says ; " she 
 does not seem aware that there is room for such 
 things in a life so blessed as hers has been. 
 From where she is laid, she can see the trees and 
 spires, and when she is not working at some 
 small present for the friends who have been so 
 good to her, she is reading, writing, or watching 
 the world. The first two years, she says, were 
 much longer than the whole seven that have 
 come after; now she is as happy as the day is 
 long." 
 
 The friend who carried Mr. Conant to this 
 secluded " Salem " was about leaving Cambridge, 
 and asked him to take his place. It was a most 
 welcome request, and he gladly promised to go, 
 with his shred of choice reading and ripple of 
 pleasant talk, once a week, at least, to Miss Her- 
 sey's chamber. With how much blessing to him- 
 
66 STUDENT. 
 
 self only those who, like the writer of this me- 
 moir, have just such a privilege included in their 
 round of pastoral or other duties can guess. 
 
 In the home of Miss Sarah Clarke, then planted 
 near by, Mr. Conant was, also, always welcome, 
 and he touches, here and there, in his letters, on 
 bright minutes he had been spending looking at 
 the pictures or talking ; and here and there, we 
 have hints how the simple observation of the 
 good manners and grace there seemed to undo 
 some awkward twist in himself, and make him 
 feel wholly at ease and quiet. And all this, with 
 rambles in the company of Student Osgood, and 
 long talks of what they meant to do when once 
 they were fairly launched on the great enter- 
 prise for which they were preparing, with 
 glimpses at the sights of Boston, — among which 
 sights were the steamer '' Britannia," the first 
 that ever crossed the Atlantic, and the great 
 Whig procession, when a shoe came from Lynn 
 with seventeen men in it, — this is what one 
 gathers by glances along the student year. 
 
 Of the studies themselves, he writes one thing 
 well worth reading. In a letter to Mrs. Co- 
 nant, dated Nov. 10, 1840, he says, " I have 
 
STUDENT. 67 
 
 commenced the study of Greek. Do not be 
 frightened ; I shall not stay here any longer 
 on that account. I only intend to lay a sort of 
 foundation on which I may build hereafter. I 
 do not mean to let it hinder any other study, 
 and only take it as a change to rest my mind. 
 My fellow- students assist me in it, and the op- 
 portunity is one I shall never have again ; and 
 as it is generally thought to be of so much im- 
 portance for a minister to be able to read the 
 New Testament in the original, perhaps I shall 
 not regret the pains taken to learn it. Still, I 
 have always been opposed to the study of these 
 languages as a general thing. It is well for a 
 few, who have the time to spare, to become 
 thoroughly master of them, but to make the dead 
 language an essential part of a general education, 
 I have always considered to be a piece of folly 
 and a waste of time. And were it not for the 
 general opinion and prejudice of society, per- 
 haps I should not have commenced the study 
 at all ; as it is, I shall keep it, like a dog under 
 the table, to pick up the crumbs of time that 
 might otherwise be lost." 
 
 It was heresy then to say this, but it was 
 
68 STUDENT. 
 
 prophecy, too, as is most heresy, and men of no 
 mean repute are now repeating what was said so 
 well twenty-five years ago by this farmer from 
 the West. But it was hard work all through. 
 " If Professor Ware did not encourage me to be- 
 lieve that I am doing very well," he writes, "I 
 should be ready to give up in despair. It is so 
 hard to teach an old dog new tricks." But, as 
 we have seen by the journal, the year came to an 
 end at last. The masters were satisfied and the 
 longing of his soul was fulfilled in his ordination 
 to the work of an evangelist. 
 
 Cambridge, Sept. 28, 1840. 
 
 Mr. Scotto Clarke, — 
 
 Dear Sir : Judging from the kind sympathy 
 which you have manifested toward me, and the 
 interest you have appeared to feel in the cause 
 in which I am engaged, I suppose that a line 
 from me at any convenient opportunity will not 
 be wholly unacceptable. Your favor by Mr. 
 Wilson was duly received, and I was very happy 
 to hear that you had gained your health. I have 
 seen Mr. J. F. Clarke since his return to Boston, 
 and am very glad to hear of your religious pros- 
 
STUDENT. 69 
 
 perity, both in Geneva and in Chicago. It gives 
 me the greatest pleasure to hear of the successful 
 labors of others, in advancing the cause of ration- 
 al religion, though I cannot yet lend the helping 
 hand which I hope soon to be able to extend. 
 My present prospects are very favorable, and I 
 have little doubt but that I shall be able to re- 
 main a year. Mr. Ware speaks very favorably of 
 my improvement, else I should be almost discour- 
 aged. I fear I shall not be able to meet the ex- 
 pectations which my kind friends and benefactors 
 have formed of my ability for usefulness ; but 
 as I have enlisted, I have only to press on and 
 do the best I can. I feel a deep interest in the 
 work, and if I can do anything effectual, I shall 
 feel that I have not lived in vain. I am engaged 
 as teacher in two Sunday-schools, where I wish 
 to be a learner as well as teacher. I expect to 
 visit my wife and friends in Vermont next month, 
 and shall endeavor to say a few words to the peo- 
 ple of my native town and vicinity on the sub- 
 ject of rational religion, as they have expressed 
 a wish to have me preach to them while there. 
 Mr. Harrington was ordained last evening at Fed- 
 eral Street Church, sermon by Mr. Putnam, ordain- 
 
70 STUDENT. 
 
 ing prayer by Dr. Ware ; but of these things Mr. 
 Patten will inform you. I regret that I have not 
 seen him yet, and I fear I shall not see him be- 
 fore he returns. Mr. Wilson is to hand him this 
 letter. Give my best respects to your much es- 
 teemed family, to Mr. Buckingham, Esquire Mil- 
 ler, and all interested ; also express my sorrow 
 for Mr. Buckingham's unfortunate sickness since 
 his return, and believe me ever, sincerely yours, 
 
 Augustus H. Con ant. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 
 Cambridge, March 29, 1841. 
 
 Dearest : I have this afternoon received your 
 kind letter, for which I have been watching the 
 post-office more than a week. Perhaps I ought 
 not to leave my study to write immediately, but 
 I can hardly deny myself the privilege, after 
 waiting so long. Though I have much to do, I 
 cannot help thinking of you a great deal. I see 
 nothing new or delightful without thinking in 
 stantly how glad I should be to have you present 
 to share my happiness. When I walk out early 
 in the morning, and climb the hills and look 
 abroad over the beautiful scenery, and see the 
 first rays of the rising sun reflected from the 
 
STUDENT. 71 
 
 glittering spires, that may be seen in every direc- 
 tion, pointing to heaven, I think of the delight 
 you would feel to stand by me and survey the 
 glorious scene ; and while the heart is so full of 
 gratitude, and its offering of praise is ascending 
 to Him who made all that is bright and beautiful, 
 a prayer for the loved ones far away mingles 
 with the morning songs, and a feeling of humble 
 trust comes over the soul in connection with the 
 thought that the same hand that unseals the eye- 
 lids of the morning on the Atlantic shores lifts 
 its fair light upon the distant prairies of the 
 West. The same kind Father that supplies my 
 wants and guards my life watches over those 
 who are dearest to my heart, and they are safe 
 with him. It is a joyful service to worship God 
 and offer to him the gratitude of a devout heart 
 in his own fair temple when the breath of the 
 morning arises, and from the flowers of spring 
 the song of birds like choral symphonies from 
 every valley and hill. It is not that nature is 
 not beautiful, or that God is not good that we do 
 not at all times delight in worship. It is because 
 low aims and desires, unholy passions, selfishness, 
 and sin darken the mind and hinder the holy 
 
72 STUDENT. 
 
 communion of the soul with truth and virtue. 
 Oh if we could always keep our hearts pure, 
 then would the light of a holy and heavenly joy 
 ever fill our souls ! " Blessed are the pure in 
 heart, for they shall see God." Let us strive to 
 become pure in heart, to make ourselves what we 
 profess to be ; and we shall then best secure 
 the enjoyments which life can afford. If we can 
 strengthen each other in spiritual things, then 
 truly our union will be a happy one. 
 
 Tuesday Eveniiig, SOth. I have just re- 
 turned from a pleasant walk with my friend, 
 Mr. Osgood, and were it not that my heart is 
 with you, I suppose I should spend the evening 
 with him or some other of my fellow-students. 
 But in the midst of pleasant society, which I can 
 enjoy but a few months more, I still think of you 
 as my dearest earthly friend, and look anxiously 
 forward to the time when you will share my 
 walks and visit these scenes which are so familiar 
 to me, and which are fixing a strong hold in my 
 affections. Not that I am likely to become so 
 much attached to Cambridge as to forget our 
 Western home ; but it is a delightful place, and I 
 find so many kind friends that I look forward to 
 
STUDENT. 73 
 
 the time of leaving with pain as well as pleasure. 
 Tlie agreeable associations which I have already 
 formed cannot be broken off without regret ; yet 
 when I look westward, I long to return to my 
 friends and the scenes of my labor, the field of 
 my future toil and I hope usefulness. If I could 
 have you and our little ones, and father and 
 mother here, I sliould not want to leave my studies 
 under two or three years. But I feel that in the 
 present situation I should not be justified in re- 
 maining longer than the close of the present year. 
 I have received a letter from Mr. Hosmer since 
 my return, inquiring about my success, whether 
 I wished to stay longer, etc. He expects to visit 
 here in May or June to get the " pores of his 
 spirit filled," as he says, " and see once more his 
 native hills." I have to-day seen Mr. Nightingale, 
 who, you will remember, preached in Chicago. 
 Mr. Stone, who has been preaching in Wisconsin, 
 is also in Cambridge. I am glad to learn that 
 you find some time to study ; I wish you could 
 have more, and more books also, but perhaps you 
 have as many books as you can get along with. 
 I feel sorry for those who are so much afraid of 
 Unitarianism ; they must feel so bad to witness its 
 
74 STUDENT. 
 
 spread ; but it will not do to shut up the truth 
 and hide the light because people are afraid of it, 
 and would rather remain in error than be con- 
 vinced contrary to their old prejudices. Wliile I 
 was in Vermont, I became more tlian ever con- 
 vinced that Unitarianism was findhig its way 
 into the orthodox churches without their know- 
 ing it. There are so many cracks througli the old 
 walls of sectarianism that the light will shine in, 
 and though some will choose to remain within as 
 long as possible, and endeavor to stop the cracks 
 with untempered mortar, it will not answer a 
 great while. Calvinism has had its day, it was 
 good in its place, but it belongs to a darker age, 
 and cannot last forever. It is fast crumbling 
 away, and will soon be reckoned among the errors 
 of the past, the things that were^ but are not. 
 The hope that we may do something to spread 
 the light of a purer and more rational and liberal 
 faith, is sufficient to cheer us onward, and sustain 
 us under the few trials we are called to endure. 
 We know not how much we may accomplish if we 
 are faithful, sincere, and true to our trust. If 
 we improve the talents committed to us, they will 
 be doubled, and our reward will be in proportion 
 
STUDENT. 75 
 
 to our faithfulness. How trifling will all the sac- 
 rifices which we make for religion appear to us 
 when this world is fading from our view. 
 
 How rich and glorious the reward of all our 
 toils for truth and holiness ! " Soon," as you say, 
 "the places that now know us will know us no 
 more forever." But not one good desire or holy 
 purpose of our life will be forgotten by our 
 heavenly Father. The sincere endeavor, how- 
 ever feeble, will meet his approval, and the most 
 trifling service, performed through a sense of 
 duty to him, will receive his merciful acceptance. 
 A cup of cold water, given as a manifestation of 
 love to Christ's followers, will in no wise lose its 
 reward. Let us, then, not complain of our sac- 
 rifices for the cause in which we are engaged. 
 What are they to the sufferings of the martyrs 
 of old ? We love each other, but this very affec- 
 tion is the gift of our Father in heaven ; we love 
 our children, but they, too, are his gifts, and so 
 are all the joys of life. Read the little tract I 
 sent you of the slave mother, and contrast her 
 lot with what you enjoy, and perhaps you will be 
 ready to inquire, What shall I render to the Lord 
 for all his benefits ? Truly we have cause of 
 
76 STUDENT. 
 
 thankfulness, and when I think of my own sin- 
 fulness and neglect of duty, how little of true 
 devotion and sincerity of soul I possess, in con- 
 trast with what I enjoy, I am filled with aston- 
 ishment. Goodness and mercy have followed me 
 all my days, and my un worthiness has not pre- 
 vented the constant succession of favors. How 
 illy have I deserved to occupy the high and holy 
 station which I fill ! I tremble to think of it, and 
 can only trust that goodness, which has raised 
 me up, to keep me from falling. Father, save me 
 from pride, from ambition, from self-seeking and 
 hypocrisy, and make me worthy of the station I 
 fill. 
 
 Wednesday Moming-, Slst. 1 have a moment 
 which I usually devote to religious reading, which 
 I will steal for you. It is a beautiful morning, 
 and tlie old wish that you were here to enjoy it 
 with me comes home again to my heart. But I 
 doubt not you are enjoying it as well as myself. 
 Perhaps while I am writing, you are preparing 
 to visit the " Sugar Bush " and get a drink of 
 sugar water, or pluck the first flowers of spring. 
 Little John calls for his cap, and capers about 
 with high glee. Hurrah, for a walk with his 
 
STUDENT. 77 
 
 mamma ! And how he laughs and jumps and 
 chatters and points at everything that pleases him ! 
 Do not spoil him with indulgence, or neglect him 
 because you are busy ; watch the first unfolding 
 of his mind more closely than you would the 
 opening rosebud. It is a germ of immortality, 
 shelter it from the chilling blasts of hatred and 
 selfishness, and let the mild atmosphere of mater- 
 nal affection infuse a pure and generous life into 
 every holy principle of truth and purity and love 
 that lies concealed in the expanding soul ; let 
 him not be poisoned with flattery, or roused by 
 either excessive fondness or excessive severity. 
 Of the latter, however, there is little danger. 
 There is danger of governing too much, but it is 
 less common than governing too little. Never 
 think you have little to do while you have the 
 training of an immortal spirit. May God give 
 us wisdom equal to our trust. 
 
 Thursday Morning, April 1. How swiftly time 
 flies ! It is already the first of April. One fourth 
 of the term is already gone, and I feel as if I had 
 scarcely done anything yet. I must be more 
 diligent. Last evening I listened to a report on 
 Temperance, before the Philanthropic Society of 
 
78 STUDENT. 
 
 the Divinity School. The report was followed by 
 several resolutions, which called forth an animat- 
 ed discussion on the wine question. There were 
 several who plead for the use of wine, hut their 
 arguments were flimsy enough. It was some- 
 time before I could get an opportunity to speak, 
 and I became so much excited, that when the 
 opportunity offered, I poured forth my senti- 
 ments with an earnestness wiiich I have never 
 before manifested in this place. They must have 
 thought that the Western spirit was up. I believe, 
 however, that I did not say anything which, in 
 my sober moments, I could not approve. I forgot 
 everything but my subject, and perhaps spoke 
 rather too loud some of the time ; on the whole, 
 i think that the winebibbers felt that they had 
 the worst side to defend, and will probably here- 
 after take rather a different view of it. Dr. 
 Ware is thorough-going in the cause, and related 
 some anecdotes to show the evils of wine-drink- 
 ing in Europe when he was there. I am very 
 glad that you have quit tea-drinking. • When we 
 return to the West, we will set an example of cold- 
 water principles, which will be consistent and 
 worthy of imitation. 
 
STUDENT. 79 
 
 As I was passing along Washington Street, Bos- 
 ton, the other evening, I saw a large collection of 
 human skulls placed before a window, samples of 
 almost every race of the family of man. It was the 
 den of a phrenologist. Besides all the real skulls, 
 there were casts in plaster of heads of all kinds, 
 and certificates from many learned men of the 
 wonderful wisdom and skill of the gentleman 
 who offered his services to the gentlemen and 
 ladies of Boston in the line of his profession for 
 fifty cents a head. Phrenological books and 
 charts for sale, etc. Well, I ventured in to see 
 what was going on. There was just beyond a 
 curtain, that was partially drawn aside, a gentle- 
 man and lady, and near them the phrenologist 
 himself^ examining the head of a little girl. He 
 soon finished his description of her mental de- 
 velopment, and then the gentleman came forward 
 and took his seat to have the wonderful propen- 
 sities and powers of his physical, intellectual, and 
 moral being disclosed. I called for a book and 
 looked at it, listened, and peeped over it occasion- 
 ally, to see what was going on. The chart of his 
 cranium was soon made out, and then for the 
 lady. But perhaps he would not like to have 
 
80 STUDENT. 
 
 strangers present when the secret propensities of 
 her refined nature were unfolded, " Sir," says 
 the phrenologist, turning to me, " do you wish 
 to have your head examined ? " as much as to 
 say, " If you do not, you must leave the room, so 
 as not to frighten the lady." I hesitated a mo- 
 ment, and then answered in the affirmative. 
 "And now," said I, taking my seat, "no flattery ; 
 let out the whole secret, tell the worst." 
 
 "'Philoprogenitiveness enormous; you will be 
 likely to ruin your children, a high sense of honor, 
 combativeness large, will be likely to knock down 
 a man if he treads on your toes. Benevolence 
 full, will pick him up and ask his pardon the next 
 minute ; a great reasoner, considerable mechan- 
 ical skill, independent in opinion, fond of having 
 your own way, great decision of character, and 
 firmness of purpose. The highest regard for 
 truth, parsimonious and saving, unalterable af- 
 fection, enduring all things for love, but not like- 
 ly to make a fool of yourself on account of the 
 girls ; little solicitude about religious matters, 
 small degree of faith, want of credulity, keen 
 perception of the beautiful, correct power of ana- 
 lyzing and criticising, without mucli deception, 
 and not very witty," etc. 
 
STUDENT. 81 
 
 " Strange, what a character ! So fond of chil- 
 dren! Ha, ha!" said I, ''don't think I am more 
 fond of my children than other men. True, I 
 think a great deal of my wife, but never thouglit 
 that I should spoil my children by indulgence ; 
 hardly love them enough." 
 
 "Perhaps 'it is manifested in fondness for 
 domestic animnls, — dogs or horses. Not at all ? 
 Well, it is there, at any rate." So you must 
 watch that I do not spoil the children when I re- 
 turn. 
 
 I am expecting a letter from Illinois soon, 
 and when I write again, I shall be able to give 
 you some news from there. My health is good, 
 and all goes on pleasantly. Mr. Ware ex- 
 pressed an ardent wish to see you, in Cam- 
 bridge, which I hope will be gratified. I think 
 it will be of more advantage to you than it 
 would to walk on a Turkey carpet^ or glitter 
 in diamonds the rest of your life. The improve- 
 ment of the mind is of more consequence than 
 outward display, and the opportunity which a 
 few weeks in this vicinity will afford will repay 
 the expense of the journey witli a liberal interest. 
 I hope you will write immediately, when you re- 
 6 
 
82 STUDENT. 
 
 ceive this, as practice makes perfect in every- 
 thing. It affords me a double satisfaction to find 
 that you are doing so much for the cultivation of 
 your own powers, while you are making me hap- 
 py by the account of what you are doing, how 
 you enjoy yourself, etc. Give my love to all, 
 without thinking that you can rob yourself. 
 Your ever affectionate husband, 
 
 Augustus H. Conant. 
 
 Cambridge, June 7, 1841. 
 
 Dear Sister, — I have been thinking that I 
 should like in some way to give expression to a 
 brother's love otlier than in words, and leave you 
 something for a remembrance, though it would 
 be but a trifle. I know of scarcely anytliing 
 which I think more valuable than a well-selected 
 family library ; and though my opportunity for 
 reading has not been very great, I might be able 
 to select a few books which would be valuable, 
 both to you and your children, and a few books 
 well read are always better than a great amount 
 of trash. If, therefore, you will trust me to se- 
 lect for you, I will make you welcome to my 
 service, and to what is due me from Harris, pro- 
 
STUDENT. 83 
 
 vided he can get the money, and send it to me in 
 season to purchase the books before I leave here. 
 The note amounts to twenty-seven dollars and 
 sixty-eight cents ; and if he is disposed to add a 
 few dollars so as to make up thirty dollars or 
 more, I should have no objection. I expect my 
 wife will start for Cambridge the 18th or 21st, 
 and if you can send the money by her, it will be 
 the best way ; but if you should fail of it, you may 
 send it by mail, but not after the 21th, as it would 
 be too late for me to attend to it. I need not say 
 that if anything is done, it must be done quickly. 
 My time is very much occupied ; I frequently do 
 not get more than four hours' sleep out of the 
 twenty-four. I have a vast deal to do here, and 
 but a short time to do it. Yesterday, I gave a 
 Sunday-school address at Cambridgeport, heard 
 two sermons, preached once myself at South Bos- 
 ton, and attended church meeting in the evening ; 
 and I say to you, what I should not like to say 
 to others, that I have very good success in extern' 
 pore speaking, and receive many expressions of 
 commendation and encouragement from those 
 in whom i have the greatest confidence. God 
 has blessed me in everything ; my hopes are 
 
84 STUDENT. 
 
 high. Pray for me, sister, that I may be humble, 
 true, and devout ; that I may rise above selfish- 
 ness and vain ambition, and seek to be myself 
 the example of what I preach. 
 
 My love to you, and all that are dear to you. 
 In haste, your brother, 
 
 Augustus H. Conant. 
 
V. 
 
 SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 The missionary efforts of the faith which Mr. 
 Conant was now ordained to preach in the West 
 began in 1826 with the formation of the Ameri- 
 can Unitarian Association. 
 
 In April of that year, a man was sent West 
 from this society, apparently to spy out the land, 
 and then come back and report. Starting from 
 Boston, he went by the way of Philadelphia to 
 Harrisburg, where he found a society resolved 
 on building a church ; thence to Northumber- 
 land, where he found a church, but wondered 
 how the preacher could stay there, when he 
 had talents that would support him hand- 
 somely in New England. He went on then to 
 Pittsburg, where he found a society stronger 
 than that which gathers there now, after forty- 
 two years. Westward from Pittsburg, he went 
 into Ohio, where he found the " Christian" de- 
 
86 SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 nomination quite strong. He was attending one 
 of their meetings, when a venerable preacher 
 walked in, with his Bible and hymn-book nicely 
 wrapped in a piece of deer skin, and gave the 
 people a prayer an hour long and a sermon 
 nearly three. Here our missionary distributed 
 some tracts, as indeed he did wherever he went^ 
 if he thought they would be welcome. 
 
 In Cincinnati, he found a number of persons of 
 our faith anxious to start a church. In Louisville 
 and at St. Louis, there was the same anxiety ; of 
 the latter place he says, " A church here may in- 
 clude some of the best citizens, if the right man 
 will go there ; but should the preacher in his 
 zeal hold meetings in the market-place, or under 
 the shade of a tree, he will fail to do the good he 
 might do with more prudence." 
 
 After this, he visited and inspected the inter- 
 esting social experiment at Harmony, and found 
 the cornfields and vineyards overrun with weeds, 
 the fine church turned into a workshop, and the 
 socialists hard at work playing ball, while every- 
 thing about the place gave signs of an impend- 
 ing crisis. In another place he strayed into a 
 prayer-meeting, in which one man was praying 
 
SECULAR BUT SACRED. 87 
 
 and the rest shouting, laughing, groaning, and 
 weeping, " until," he says, " deafened by their 
 clamor, and disgusted with their worship, I had 
 to get away." 
 
 And so it came to pass, at last, that our mis- 
 sionary arrived safe back again in Boston, after 
 an absence of five months, in which he visited 
 twelve States, and travelled fifteen hundred miles 
 through all the pleasant summer days of 1826. 
 
 But in the report from which I have drawn 
 these notes, there is one very notable feature, 
 perhaps unparalleled in missionary annals. In 
 this long journey of five months, going through 
 twelve States and eighty-eight counties, there is 
 no mention made that this apostle in all that 
 time preached a single sermon. It is a sad re- 
 port to read. Nothing can exceed the decorum 
 and good taste of everything the good man did. 
 He never stood in the market-place nor under a 
 spreading tree with his heart so full of the Word 
 of Life that he must speak, whether the West 
 would bear or forbear ; but one of those shout- 
 ing Methodists, at whose conduct lie had felt 
 such disgust, would have done it, though the re- 
 sult had been a coat of tar and feathers ; and it 
 
88 SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 is equally curious to notice that when he made 
 this report of his services, no man seems to have 
 felt that he had not done his whole duty. 
 
 Better things, however, were speedily to follow. 
 Next year Jolui Pierpont bore his great, burning 
 heart into Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri, pro- 
 claiming the glad tidings, and societies were 
 started in Louisville and Cincinnati. In 1834 
 William G. Eliot went to St. Louis, and George 
 W. Hosmer to BufFalo in 1836. Li 1833 James 
 Freeman Clarke went to Louisville, where, 
 not content with preaching only, he started the 
 " Western Messenger," a magazine still quite 
 valuable for some of its papers, and curious, as 
 the medium through which some of Emerson's 
 finest poems first saw the light. All these men 
 also acted as missionaries to the country about 
 their stations, and it was in one of tliese raids, as 
 we have seen, that George W. Hosmer came to 
 Chicago, where Mr. Conant heard him, and was 
 led, thereby, into the way of life, went to Cam- 
 bridge, and, returning at the end of a year, pre- 
 pared to fall into line witli the devoted little band 
 that, in this new country, were working the 
 work of Him who sent them. 
 
SECULAR BUT SACRED. 89 
 
 The centre of tlie work Mr. Conant was des- 
 tined to do in the West was the then very small 
 settlement of Geneva, on the Fox River. The 
 leading men and women in the place were from 
 New England, and among these were some from 
 the West Church in Boston, who could not be 
 satisfied with such preaching as was commonly 
 beard in the new country ; they longed to bear 
 once again the truth with which good Dr. Lowell 
 bad made them glad, just as a Scotsman longs to 
 bear a skylark. 
 
 Mr. Conant went there first to preach in 1839 
 while still a farmer. The friends who heard 
 him still remember bis first appearance, and 
 that they supposed be was a new settler 
 come in to borrow a few bushels of corn, oi 
 to make a trade. It was a welcome surprise 
 to find that he bad come not to get bread from 
 them, but to bring them the bread of life. 
 
 He was quaintly dressed, they say, and did no. 
 promise much at the first glance. I suppose h^ 
 was not a bit Hke Dr. Lowell, but when be had 
 once preached to them, they felt it was all right, 
 recognized the fine soul vinder the queer garb, 
 made him welcome with all their hearts, and in- 
 
90 SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 vited him to come again ; and so, when he came 
 back from Cambridge, it was the most natural 
 thing in the world that he should be their minis- 
 ter and settle among them for good. It was at 
 once the need of the place and the wish of the 
 man, however, that he should come as a mis- 
 sionary not to Geneva only, but to the whole 
 country round about ; that was what he wanted 
 to do, what his heart bounded at, for it was his 
 meat and drink, and psalm and prayer, and faith 
 and hope, that he might go far and wide, bearing 
 the gospel of peace. 
 
 Still in Geneva, where the work was to find its 
 natural centre, there was hesitation, difficulty, 
 and doubt. Mr. Conant began to preach there 
 on the 1st of August, 1841, but on the 8th 
 of May, 1842, he writes, '' We had our first 
 meeting to-day, on the subject of forming a re- 
 ligious society in Geneva, but there was a doubt 
 as to whether the right time had come to begin, 
 and a declaration of principles that had been 
 circulated and signed by twenty persons was re- 
 served for further consideration." A month 
 after this, however, the new society was organized 
 as the first Christian society of Geneva. Very 
 
SECULAR BUT SACRED. 91 
 
 few were present at tlie meeting, and the prospect 
 was still dubious, but there was life at the heart 
 of the movement, and that is always the main 
 thing, so Mr. Conant was chosen pastor ; Samuel 
 Clarke and Scotto Clarke, assistant teachers ; 
 James Sterling, Amasa White, and Jonas Carr, 
 trustees ; Charles Patton, treasurer, and F. Whit- 
 ing, secretary. 
 
 Then it soon began to be clear that they must 
 have a meeting-house. The school-house in 
 which they met was a very poor place, not easy 
 to come at, not easy to warm in winter, and to 
 meet there was like flying with a broken wing. 
 There has been a good deal said about churches 
 in destitute places ; in one sort of destitute 
 place a church is just as sure to be built as birds' 
 nests are, and that is where the destitution is felt 
 by those who live there. It was felt in Geneva, 
 and so the church was a foregone conclusion ; 
 it was built in the hearts of the little band of 
 worshippers first, and then the stone and lime 
 and lumber followed, as the effect a cause. 
 
 Miss Patton, a most devoted friend of the soci- 
 ety, returning to Roxbury from a visit in the 
 West, hiterested many friends there and in Boston 
 
92 SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 to help build a cliiircli in Geneva. They started 
 a fair, at which a very handsome sum was real- 
 ized and sent out. This, with what the society 
 could give beside in money, materials, and labor, 
 put up a church, which was opened in January, 
 1844, when Mr. Conant preached the sermon, 
 Mr. Harrington, of Chicago, offered the prayer 
 of dedication ; Eben Conant wrote an original 
 hymn for it, and various Christian elders, with 
 Arthur B. Fuller, then teaching school at Belvi- 
 dere, took the rest of the service. From this 
 time the cause in Geneva was sure of its footing. 
 The Association in Boston gave generously to 
 support the preacher, sent books and tracts with- 
 out stint, had a warm regard always for the 
 young church, and did for it all that was noble 
 and good. 
 
 The life of a minister is generally uneventful. 
 It is sometimes identified with the most sublime, 
 or awful, or romantic, or pathetic incidents ; it 
 offers examples that are among the grandest the 
 world has ever seen of human character ; it is 
 able to point to those that are " foremost of the 
 sons of light " among its most illustrious names, 
 but for all that, the majority of those that follow 
 
SECULAR BUT SACRED. 93 
 
 this calling must be content with a very quiet 
 and commonplace obscurity. This, on the whole, 
 is to be Mr. Conant's lot during his ministry 
 of sixteen years in Geneva. Devoted to his 
 work with a singular and entirely unselfish devo- 
 tion, and doing more hard work than most men 
 do in it, his best claim to our regard lies first 
 in the breadth and deepness of the sympathies, 
 and then in the full-handed industry with which 
 his work was done. 
 
 He has left journals of these years in a great 
 profusion. They are far too ample to be printed 
 in this small volume, but I will give such parts 
 of them as tell his story better than I could tell 
 it, only drawing the lines he himself has drawn, 
 by giving first, from one journal, what will show 
 how his life went on in Geneva, while he held, as 
 it were, the pioneer's axe in one hand and the 
 Bible in the other, doing a man's work with both ; 
 and then in another chapter some account of his 
 work as a missionary : — 
 
 " 1842, Jan. 7. Removed to Geneva. 
 " Wrote on a sermon, and made a door. 
 
94 SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 " Repaired our room. Worked at a sermon. 
 Doctored sore eyes. 
 
 '' Raised the liouse frame. 
 
 '* Cut and drew ice, and made curtain rods. 
 
 " Made a plan of a sermon on tlie prodigal son, 
 a pair of quilting frames, and an argument at the 
 Lyceum against capital punishment. 
 
 " Read Neander. Made a chair. 
 
 " Worked on a sermon. Drew straw. 
 
 " Worked on a sermon. Made a partition for 
 the stable. 
 
 " Worked on a sermon, and drew wood. Snow 
 two feet deep. 
 
 " Commenced a sermon, and worked in the 
 woods. 
 
 " Doctored sick horse. Cut wood. 
 
 " Read Neander. Horse died. 
 
 " Read Neander. Mended a pump. 
 
 " Wrote on a sermon, read Neander, and mad^ 
 a wheelbarrow. 
 
 " Read Bushnell. Drew out manure. 
 
 " Began a sermon. Planted potatoes. 
 
 " Wrote a sermon on Episcopacy. Built ar 
 ice-house. 
 
SECULAR BUT SACRED. 95 
 
 ** Read the Methodist Discipline. Helped my 
 wife to wash. 
 
 " Planted potatoes. Wrote a sermon on Unita- 
 rianism. 
 
 " Worked on a sermon. Made benches for the 
 school. 
 
 " Finished sermon, and haying. 
 
 " Wrote a sermon. Set out plum-trees. 
 
 " Planned a sermon. Made a gravel walk. 
 
 " Wrote at a sermon. Papered my study. 
 
 " Wrote at a sermon. Planted seventy peach- 
 trees. 
 
 " Finished sermon. Made soap. 
 
 " Wrote at a sermon. Made window-frames 
 for Richard Moore. 
 
 u Wrote sermon. Planted onions. 
 
 " Planned a sermon. Made a bedstead for 
 the cobbler. 
 
 " 1849, Nov, 21. Went to Elgin with father, to 
 build a cupola for the cluirch. 
 
 " 22. Worked at cupola. 
 
 " 23. Raised cupola. 
 
 " 24. Hung the bell. 
 
 " 25. Preached in tie church. 
 
 " 26. Finished the cupola, and went home. 
 
yb SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 " Wrote a sermon. Repaired a wagon. 
 " Read Milman. Planted raspberries. 
 " Wrote a sermon. Plastered the cellar-floor. 
 " Read Macaulay. Made candles. 
 " 1850, Sept. 12. Railroad train came into 
 Geneva for the first time." 
 
 This is the plan of what may be called the 
 journal of a working man. The record stretches 
 from Jan. 1, 1842, to Dec. 6, 1853, and then 
 ends.. There would be no additional interest in 
 printing the whole ; what is given here is a fair 
 sample, and is far too characteristic of the man 
 to be omitted, and I think we cannot afford to 
 lose this revelation of the way in which all things 
 worked together about the little parsonage when 
 the parson could be at his post. Soap and ser- 
 mons, the Methodist Discipline, and washing- 
 day, Episcopacy and an ice-liouse, Macaulay 
 and candles, Neander and a wheelbarrow, the 
 study and the stable, a course of lectures on the 
 sects, and a bedstead for the lame cobbler, — a 
 journal like this is only possible of the life of a 
 man as honest as he was, and in earnest, living on 
 the frontier, and capable of turning his hand to 
 
SECULAR BUT SACRED. 97 
 
 anything. There are, of course, many days in 
 which the work done is altogether secular, when 
 the man is out of doors hammering away at 
 something from dayUght till dark. Then lie is 
 whole days in the study with his books and at liis 
 desk. Now he is in tlie fields and woods, and then 
 in the garden and the workshop. But what the 
 journal never yields in these twelve years is a sin- 
 gle line to tell of a single moment devoted to 
 dismal speculations about the universe, or to 
 grumbling because things did not go as well as 
 the writer expected. There is no sign of a blue 
 Monday, or a feverish Saturday. I sit with this 
 journal of days' works before me, written with 
 the most abominable ink (home made, I guess), 
 and there still seems to be a voice crying out of 
 the homely old book to the recording angel. Write, 
 for these things are faithful and true. They are 
 better than the writer ever seems to guess ; the 
 hand that is writing is only half conscious of 
 what it writes about; the right hand does not 
 know what the left hand doeth. 
 
 One brief entry, for instance, is of a bedstead 
 made for the cobbler. There are other places 
 in which this time-honored person figures in the 
 7 
 
98 SECULAR BUT SACRED. 
 
 same obscure way, and these lines are but the ci- 
 phers of as noble and touching a thing as ever 
 was done by a man in Mr. Conant's position. 
 The cobbler was a cripple, and wofully helpless 
 and poor, when he came to the place ; he could 
 mend shoes if he had a room to live in, but he 
 had no possibility of getting one. This minister 
 of the gospel could not afford to go distracted 
 about that, or to put the man off with a dollar 
 and send him about his — starvation, so he built 
 a place for him entirely with his own hands, 
 furnished it in the same way, and started the 
 old cripple on his way of life rejoicing. He 
 got him all the wood he wanted, too, for the win- 
 ter, sawed, split, and piled it for him, got in pro- 
 vision for him, drove the wolf once for all from 
 the door, and the result was the happiest cobbler 
 in Kane County, with not a doubt in his heart for 
 evermore about the truth of this liberal Chris- 
 tianity. Mr. Conant held on to the man after 
 that, until the angels got him. And this was 
 but one instance of the endeavor he made con- 
 stantly to grapple hand to hand and foot to foot 
 with things about which most of us feel but little 
 personal concern, because to this man at work 
 
SECULAR BUT SACRED. 99 
 
 in Geneva, the simplest and most common duty 
 touched at once his own heart, and the heart of 
 the Christian faith. He was as quick to leap to 
 the appeal of a crippled cobbler, and as strong 
 to save him, as if the Master had come out of 
 heaven to bid him do it, and had told him he 
 should have for his deed an endless renown, and 
 the praises of all the choirs of heaven. 
 
VI. 
 
 MISSIONARY. 
 
 The field stretching away from Geneva was 
 ample enough for a host of missionaries, who 
 should have no other work to do but go out and 
 preach the gospel to every creature. 
 
 But the chapter just read of the life of a work- 
 ing man has told us something about what Mr. Co- 
 nant had to do in providing for his own household 
 before he could begin to venture abroad at all. 
 How he did go out, and what came of his apos- 
 tolic journeys, his journal must again inform us, 
 but, as in the previous chapter, only by its essence 
 and spirit, by the extract, if it can be made, of 
 his whole missionary life. Then the chapter that 
 will follow this on the Preacher and Pastor will 
 complete my record of his life at Geneva, and the 
 whole will be clearer, I trust, done in this way 
 than if I had made of the sixteen years just a 
 chronological jumble. His whole life at Geneva 
 
MISSIONARY. 101 
 
 was a threefold cord which cannot be broken, but 
 as the strands of it are so different in their na- 
 ture, I have thought it would be most instructive 
 to look at each strand separately, point out its 
 quality, and then let the whole strong cable by 
 which this man was so fastened to his fellow-men, 
 and to God, abide in its simple and beautiful 
 perfection. 
 
 " 1841. Commenced preaching in Geneva on 
 my return from Cambridge. From the 20th to 
 the 28th made a journey to the North- West, 
 preaching at Rockford, Oregon City, and Belvi- 
 dere. 
 
 " Oct. 14. Went to Joliet, preached four ser- 
 mons, and visited the people. 
 
 ''Nov. 10. Preached at Blackberry. Met 
 some " Christian " preachers there, and arranged 
 with them to unite our labors. 
 
 ''Nov. 14. Went to Joliet, but met with only 
 poor encouragement. 
 
 ^'Nov. 21. Preached at Blackberry, where I 
 baptized my wife and Fayette Churchill. 
 
 "Dec. 24 to the end of the year. Went into 
 Wisconsin Territory, preaching at Burlington, 
 
102 MISSIONARY. 
 
 Spring Prairie, Gardiner's Prairie, Rochester, 
 and Montalana. 
 
 "1842, Jan. 3. Attended Quarterly Confer- 
 ence at Montalana. 
 
 " 16. Preached at Rock Creek. 
 
 " 30. Preached at Batavia. Found great 
 prejudice about us there. 
 
 ''•Feb. 26. Preached at St. Charles in the new 
 Universalist meeting-house to a good audience. 
 
 '''April 3. Attended Christian Conference at 
 Rhillbuck Creek. 
 
 *' 10. Preached at Sugar Grove. 
 
 " 14 to 20. Went into Wisconsin, preaching as 
 I found opportunity. 
 
 ''Aug. 1. One year since I returned from 
 Cambridge. During the year I find I have trav- 
 elled as a missionary 1,844 miles, distributed 
 150 volumes of books and 1,000 tracts. 
 ^ " Oct. 9. Preached for the first time at War- 
 renville. The Baptist church there is the 
 largest in the Western country, and includes 
 most of the inhabitants of the village, very jeal- 
 ous of Unitarianism, but some are anxious to 
 hear. 
 
 "1843, Jan. 17. Lectured at Naperville on 
 
MISSIONARY. 103 
 
 the Evidences of Christianity, and the Causes of 
 Modern Unbelief. 
 
 '''March 1. Lectured at Batavia on the Trinity. 
 
 " March 28 to April 5. Went into Wiscon- 
 sin, preaching in Burlington, then in McHenry. 
 Found great interest in our ideas. 
 
 '•'April 30. Preached in Chicago. 
 
 ''May 14. Preached at Rock Creek, Sugar 
 Grove, and Aurora. 
 
 "July 1, 2, 3. Held general meeting at 
 Geneva. Five elders of Christian body present. 
 Baptized J, S. Wheeler in the Fox River, and ad- 
 dressed the people from the water, on the nature 
 and importance of the ordinance. Great interest 
 felt. 
 
 "Aug. 13. Preached in Chicago. 
 
 " 13 to Sept. 3. Went North, preaching at 
 Wheeling, Elgin, Dundee, Silver Creek, and 
 other places. 
 
 "Dec. 10 to 15. Attended general meeting 
 at Joliet, lecturing on the Atonement, the Trin- 
 ity, Practical Christianity, and Dec. 30 and 31 
 attended general meeting at Warrenville. 
 
 " 1844, April 2 to 16. Went into Wisconsin, 
 preaphing at Dundee, Solan, Little Prairie, Bur- 
 
104 MISSIONARY. 
 
 lington, Milwaukie, attending also the Christian 
 Conference, where Brother Bristol was tried, 
 found guilty of immorality, and turned out of 
 the connection. 
 
 ''May 26. Attended a yearly meeting of the 
 Disciples at Naperville, but found them full of 
 prejudice against us. 
 
 " June 9. Preached at Belvidere on the Trin- 
 ity, and on the Doctrine of Election. The Baptist 
 minister thereupon began a course of lectures on 
 Bible Doctrine, but then left that and went on 
 to show that Unitarians are German Rationalists 
 and infidels, denying the inspiration and author- 
 ity of the Scriptures. He said the discourse of 
 Theodore Parker at the ordination of Mr. Shack- 
 ford in South Boston represented the sentiments 
 of the Unitarian clergy in Boston in 1841 ! ! I re- 
 plied, defending our views as well as I could, and, 
 the result was that quite a number embraced 
 them. 
 
 ''July 15 to Aug. 15. Went to St. Louis, 
 Quincy, Warsaw, Burlington, Rock Island, and 
 Galena. Mormonism and politics, I found were 
 the great and absorbing topics, so that I did not 
 get good attention. Joseph Smith, the Mormon 
 
MISSIONARY. 105 
 
 prophet, had just been killed by a mob. I visited 
 Nauvoo, and spent three days with his family." 
 
 So runs the record of the missionary life of 
 Mr. Conant to the end. From about this time to 
 June, 1845, he went regularly to Belvidere, and 
 made that a second parish, but at last found that 
 the distance was too great to permit him to go 
 on with his pastorship tliere, so that the work 
 had to be taken up by another man. After 
 this, he went on a journey through the Rock 
 River country, in which, at Como, he found ten 
 Unitarian families. Then he preached regularly 
 in Elgin for a long while, making that a second 
 parish, — going also to Joliet, Belvidere, and 
 many other places with his word of life and 
 tracts and books. 
 
 In Elgin, April 5, 1846, he organized a free 
 Christian congregation of twenty members, in 
 which every member is left to the free exercise of 
 his own understanding and conscience. 
 
 April 27th of this year he started for New 
 England to attend the anniversaries, preaching 
 on his way twice in New York on the Wants 
 of the West. In New England, also, he preached 
 in a number of places on the Wants of the West, 
 
106 MISSIONARY. 
 
 and received a great welcorae. Collections were 
 made, interest was aroused, his hands and his 
 heart were full, and altogether he had a great 
 time. 
 
 Returning to the West by way of his old home 
 in Brandon, he was able to preach there in the 
 church good John Conant had done so much to 
 build up, and where the preacher himself had 
 attended as a child, and as a young man had 
 been admitted a member. It was a great day for 
 him, as we may well believe. On the. 27th of the 
 month he was safe at home again. 
 
 But soon after this the young apostle began 
 to feel that there was a limit even to his endur- 
 ance. Out in all weathers where as yet rail- 
 roads were below the Eastern horizon, taking 
 the pot-luck of the frontiers as to his food, and 
 his chance as to sleeping, whenever he wandered 
 away from the cosey parsonage in Geneva, with 
 all the work of heart and brain which he had 
 to do, and with a constant anxiety about some 
 of his missionary stations, — all this at last 
 broke him down, so that for a while he could only 
 attend to his two widely separated parishes of 
 Geneva and Elgin, regretting all the while that 
 
MISSIONARY. 107 
 
 he could do but little more. Before the end of 
 1847, however, he was at work as hard as ever, 
 baptizing by immersion, or affusion, as the folks 
 prefer, organizing in Como, preaching in Dixon, 
 and Aurora, and distributing books and tracts 
 everywhere. 
 
 1843, on the 19th of January, he was able to 
 open his new meeting-house in Elgin, toward 
 which he had given two hundred dollars of the 
 money raised in New England, when he was there, 
 and Elgin rose to the dignity of providing him a 
 '•'■regular^'' salary of from one hundred and 
 twenty-five dollars to one hundred and fifty dol 
 lars per annum for one service each Sunday. In 
 the June of this year he was in Indiana, preaching 
 and distributing books without stint. At Cole 
 Creek in this journey he met a Christian elder, 
 James McKinney, who told him that he had the 
 highest salary of any man of their denomination 
 about there ; for whereas the rest did not aver- 
 age more than twenty-five dollars a year, he had 
 twenty-nine dollars and tliirty-nine cents ! 
 
 In the May of 1849 he went again to Boston, 
 preaching and speaking on the Needs of the 
 West at the anniversaries, collecting books and 
 
108 MISSIONARY. 
 
 money, also, wherever there was a chance. In 
 this visit James Freeman Clarke, who had heard 
 how Mr. Conant, the winter before, had lost his 
 horse, slipped into his hands the money to buy an- 
 other. Cyrus Bartol bade him go into his library 
 and take what books he wanted. Other friends 
 remembered the wife and children. Everybody 
 was glad to see and hear him, and on his way 
 home, by way of Brandon once more, he preached 
 in the town-hall on the sect everywhere spoken 
 against, from which I fear good John Conant's 
 church had been refused him this time. Still 
 when we remember how a sense of the courte- 
 sies due to the place and the preacher acts on 
 all preachers when they stand in another man's 
 pulpit, we need not feel sorry that Mr. Conant, for 
 once in his old town, could let the word have free 
 course and be glorified. 
 
 Jan. 3, 1850, he writes, "It is now the begin- 
 ning of the last half of the nineteenth century. 
 How much is to be done in tliis field of labor to 
 which I am called ! I would be a more faithful 
 and a better, that I may be a more useful man. 
 my Father, help me." 
 
 In 1850, 1 find Mr. Conant preaching regularly 
 
MISSIONARY. 109 
 
 at Geneva and Elgin, and beside that at a school- 
 house on the prairie on his way between the two 
 parishes, preaching beside this in St. Charles, 
 Rock River Grove, and at other places, and dis- 
 tributing his beloved books wherever he went. 
 
 In 1851, in addition to his other work, he went 
 to Meadville to commencement, to Detroit to Mr. 
 Mumford's ordination, and to Chicago to preach 
 for the Rev. Mr. Skinner, Universalist. He notes 
 that there seems to be in this denomination a 
 tendency to a catholic spirit which ought by all 
 means to be met with sympathy on our part. 
 Then there were ministers' meetings here and 
 there, at which sermons were read and things said 
 about the common faith and work that sent every- 
 body home with a new glow of devotion. 
 
 May 17, 1852, he went to Cincinnati, to help 
 organize the Western Unitarian Conference, and 
 met W. G. Eliot, A. B. Fuller, R. R. Shippen, 
 T. J. Mumford, Rev. Mr. Boyer, of Connelton, 
 Messrs. Heywood and Harlowe, Livermore and 
 Webster, DeLange and Clarke, Huidekoper and 
 Hosmer, and a great number more belonging to 
 the West, and Dr. Briggs, Dr. Lothrop, and Dr. 
 Ellis, from Boston. 
 
110 MISSIONARY. 
 
 And so it would be very pleasant, if life was 
 long enough, to read every word of these old 
 journals down to the last entry. 
 
 June 20, 1857, he tells us that for sixteen 
 years, wanting three Sabbaths, he has been 
 preaching in Geneva, has formed many tender 
 ties, but now feels that it is his duty to leave 
 them. How the duty came to be clear to him, 
 I must tell in another chapter. This is a very 
 brief record of a duty done for the whole land 
 about him. When St. Francis Xavier lay dying, his 
 only cry was Amplius, Amplius, — Farther, farther 
 yet, — as if the whole East was too small for him. 
 This man, as he tells this story of his missionary 
 labors, seems, as he is living through these years. 
 always to be devoured by the same hunger for 
 the conquest to God of the West. He would, had 
 his power been equal to his zeal, have won it all. 
 This record amply shows that he did what he 
 could, desiring always to come to that noble con- 
 summation of the good old hymn : — 
 
 " My body with my charge lay down, 
 And cease at once to work and live." 
 
VIL 
 
 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 Every wise minister gives the best he has, first, 
 to his own congregation. Those that the Fa- 
 ther has given him, and who have come to him, 
 he can in no wise cast out from the first place in 
 his heart and mind. Sermons, sympathies, fore- 
 thought, reflection, he garners and uses in that 
 small corner of the field he has to care for. 
 When it is otherwise, it is doubtful whether he 
 should have a corner. The people will only take 
 chafi' from their pastor when they know he has 
 not wasted the wheat, or sold it in another mar- 
 ket. It is always hard for a flock to hunger 
 and not be fed ; but if there be an undertone that 
 seems to say, " You see I have nothing to-day that 
 will feed you. I tried hard to get something, but 
 failed, and while you hunger, I faint," there may 
 be patience in the people to wait for better things, 
 but only when they are sure the best that could be 
 
112 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 has been done. I suppose Mr. Conant guessed 
 this at once, and so he made it the rule of his 
 ministry that, whatever he might do beside, the 
 best he had should be given first to Geneva. 
 That was the Bethany where those lived he loved 
 best, where he rested, and was cared for by good 
 hearts and ready hands. The readers of this 
 book are not, therefore, to imagine that the 
 preacher and pastor was merely the shadow of 
 the working man and missionary. This outside 
 work was but the setting of the gem. 
 
 It is clear, also, that the minister had the in- 
 sight to perceive which of these offices of the 
 pastor and preacher should take the greatest 
 place. He did not believe that to be a good 
 pastor is any excuse for being a poor preacher. 
 The easy paths of pastoral gossip into which so 
 many men are allured never attracted him away 
 from the more trying and exhausting work of the 
 study. He felt what we should all feel, that in the 
 cure of souls the pastor, if he be wise and tender, 
 ijaay be a good nurse ; but the preacher, if he be 
 strong and true, is a good physician. 
 
 And so it was that, though Mr. Conant never 
 grew to be what is called an eloquent or popular 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 113 
 
 preacher, because some peculiarities in manner 
 and voice in a measure prevented that, no man 
 ever tried harder than he did to be a strong and 
 true preacher, so he was in the best sense a good 
 preacher, growing better to the end. This makes 
 the mere titles and subjects of his sermons a 
 most interesting study. I feel, as I read them, 
 as if I am with him, watching how he lays 
 out his work, and how he goes into it resolute, 
 please God, to make it as good as possible. How 
 he perceives that no mere hash of negations, with 
 texts for salt and sarcasms for pepper, can ever 
 bring men to feel the powers of the world to 
 come. He must study to approve himself a 
 workman that needeth not to be ashamed, and if 
 he will not study, then sooner or later ashamed 
 he must be. 
 
 A great many of his sermons, therefore, as will 
 be seen in what he says about ten years of his 
 ministry, in the sermon annexed to this chapter, 
 are the strongest and stoutest affirmations he can 
 make of the Fatherhood and love and goodness 
 and wisdom and power of God. 
 
 Then there are numbers on the brotherhood of 
 Jesus Christ and of men, of the worthiness of 
 
 8 
 
114 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 the worst for this brotherhood, of the final ani 
 certain salvation of all men, and the certainty 
 that all things are now working together to that 
 end. 
 
 Earnest, strong, and tender sermons then 
 come, on the curse and baleful blight of sin, on 
 the beauty of and need for holiness, and all the 
 great lines of personal conduct in its relation to 
 the higher life. Then there are special courses 
 of sermons and lectures on the relation of science 
 to religion, on inspiration and many other as- 
 pects of the Bible question, on the Sects and 
 Churches of Christendom, their Nature and Uses, 
 The Signs of the Times, The Manliness de- 
 manded by the Times, and other courses demand- 
 ing at once close reading, and that the preacher 
 shall be wide awake to what is passing about him. 
 He would touch, also, those deep and awful or 
 tender and high subjects that we all find we have 
 to speak about, — The Nature of Evil and the 
 Good of it, wherever Evil is not also Sin. Sleep 
 and Death. Little Children taken into the Arms 
 of Christ. Jesus weeping. Jesus washing Feet. 
 The Cup of Cold Water. Paul kneeling 
 with his Friends on the Sea-shore. Then 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 115 
 
 he would get close to the common things of 
 our life, and light them up afresh, — when he 
 preaches on The Duty of loving Money. The 
 Need and Joy of Labor. The Use of Railroads 
 to Religion. The Religion of Prompt Payment. 
 The True Art of Living, and so on. Finally, 
 there were sermons not a few on the themes that 
 then tried the souls of men, and were the tests 
 of the faithful preacher, above all others, — The 
 Sin and Curse of Human Slavery. The Wick- 
 edness of any Contempt for Humanity. Con- 
 servatism and Christianity. Christian Democ- 
 racy. Education. Intemperance. The Liquor 
 Trade, and every other object and aspect of re- 
 form. Mr. Conant grappled as well as he could 
 with all these questions. The one cry of his 
 heart from week to week seems to have been. 
 What must I say on Sunday that my people need 
 most to hear ? for that I must take for my sub- 
 ject, and leave the rest to God. Then he said 
 the thing that was in him with all his might, as 
 one that must give an account for every idle 
 word in the day of judgment ; and that was his 
 plan and endeavor as a preacher. 
 
 As a pastor in Geneva, Mr. Conant can only 
 
116 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 be measured by what has been said already, and 
 by what we know of the life of every minister 
 who has his lot in a small country town. In 
 such a town as Geneva especially, composed, as 
 it was in those days, of healthy, hearty people, 
 there is but little pastoral work to do. In the 
 first ten years of his pastorate there. were two 
 deaths of adults in his society, and in that time 
 he attended only five funerals of adults in the 
 whole town, wiiile the number of men, wo- 
 men, and children at whose funerals he was 
 present through the whole country was only 
 thirty-eight. In this time he had fifty-six mar- 
 riages. What school celebrations, lectures, ad- 
 dresses, and other" public occasions " caught him 
 up, and made him speak, I have no time or space 
 to tell, but will close this chapter with what is 
 better than anything I could say, from the pen of 
 his old and fast friend and constant church-mem- 
 ber, Judge Wilson, of Geneva, to whom I am 
 indebted for many hints in the brief study I have 
 made : — 
 
 " There was something about Mr. Conant that 
 drew you irresistibly toward him. We never 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 117 
 
 thought of treating him as a pastor with any re- 
 serve or ceremony. When he entered our houses, 
 he seemed always as one of the family, from 
 whom we would no more conceal anything than 
 we would from any other member of the house- 
 hold. He took the same interest in our domes- 
 tic affairs as he did in his own, and so did we in 
 his. 
 
 " This made him a cliarming pastor. Our joys 
 were his joys, and his were ours. He had, more- 
 over, a habit of dropping in at any hour in the 
 day, without the least ceremony, to tell something 
 he had been reading, or consult about some new 
 project, and these brief calls were like sunbeams. 
 There was such a combination of frankness, sym- 
 patliy, and sincerity in his nature that it was im- 
 possible for those who knew him well not to love 
 him. If an unkind word escaped his lips, he 
 never rested until he had made threefold repara- 
 tion. In serious evils and trials, he was always 
 observed to be undisturbed and patient. Failures 
 and disappointments that would have discouraged 
 most men only inspired our pastor with new en- 
 ergy and zeal. Years after the most of his co- 
 workers in the West had disappeared, he still 
 
118 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 stood at his post faithfully, and kept right on 
 working with all his heart." 
 
 But the end of these pleasant, hard, earnest, 
 joyful days in Geneva came at last. I will not in- 
 terfere with Mr. Con ant's own account of the 
 termination of his ministry as it is written in his 
 journal. It is, in its brief way, a contribution to 
 the history of the Christian Church of the time, 
 and so reads to us a grave lesson we cannot af- 
 ford to ignore. And then in the days that are 
 opening for our country these records of stout 
 and steadfast nonconformity will be gathered up 
 as very precious things, to encourage men afresh 
 to stand up for the right, though every tie and 
 the heart-strings beside, be broken in the strife. 
 The journal says, July 24, 1856, — 
 
 '' Attended the funeral of Brother S. N. Clarke, 
 my Sunday-school superintendent, and my very 
 intimate and dear friend. The loss to me and 
 to the society in the death of Mr. Clarke is un- 
 speakable. He was a model of manly and Chris- 
 tian excellence, whose life was a benediction, and 
 whose presence made earth more like heaven." 
 
 And then June 20, 1857, this comes : — 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 119 
 
 " Since the above record, I have passed through 
 many trials as a Christian minister, some of the 
 severest growing out of my preaching against 
 slavery in opposition to the prejudices and wishes 
 of a portion of the society. The disaffection has 
 been so great tliat the congregation has been 
 considerably diminished, and my hopes of useful- 
 ness in Geneva greatly reduced. Old and lead- 
 ing members of the society have expressed so 
 much dislike to anti-slavery preaching, and I be- 
 came so much disheartened, that some three 
 months ago I promised them if the condition of 
 this society did not assume a more favorable as- 
 pect in six months, I would resign my pulpit. 
 
 " On the 10th instant, I received, quite unexpect- 
 edly, a unanimous call to become pastor of the 
 Unitarian society in Rockford, and have accepted 
 the same, and expect to close my connection with 
 this society the first Sunday in July. 
 
 '' For sixteen years, wanting three Sabbaths, I 
 have been preacliing in Geneva, and have formed 
 many tender ties. But it seems to me now a 
 clear case of duty to leave them, and most fer- 
 vently do I commend them to the favor of God." 
 
120 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 July 20th, 1851, Mr. Conant preached this 
 sermon. I have felt it must be printed because 
 it is the man's own modest summary, up to date, 
 of what I have tried to tell of his work as preacher 
 and pastor, and is the best possible supplement to 
 a chapter that would be quite incomplete without 
 it: — 
 
 " Give an account of thy stewardship," — Luke xvi. 3. 
 
 This afternoon completes my term of service 
 as a Christian minister in this place for ten years. 
 Such a period is no inconsiderable portion of 
 human life. We can hardly look back without 
 some serious reflections upon its changing scenes 
 and interesting events, or upon the manner in 
 which we have been doing our work of life. 
 
 It may be recollected by some who were here 
 at the commencement of my ministry that I pro- 
 posed ten years' labor here as an experiment by 
 which I might judge of the prospect of accom- 
 plishing a sufficient amount of good to justify 
 my remaining longer. The declaration of such 
 a purpose was made to remove an impression 
 which prevailed that our efforts were transient, 
 and would soon be abandoned. Through the 
 permission and blessing of Divine Providence, the 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 121 
 
 purpose thus declared has been accomplished. 
 The ten years have passed, — the experiment 
 has been made, — the time for looking at our 
 labor and its results has come. 
 
 And I would now invite your attention, — 
 I. To the religious condition of things at the 
 time of my coming. 
 
 II. To what have been the leading objects 
 of my ministry. 
 
 III. The methods. 
 
 IV. The results. 
 
 When I commenced preaching here after my 
 return from Cambridge, there was no religious 
 society in existence, and no regular public wor- 
 ship was maintained in the village. 
 
 Elder John Walworth had been preaching a 
 part of the time the preceding year ; the Metho- 
 dist ministers on the circuit had sometimes 
 preached here, but for want of encouragement 
 had abandoned the place; there had been also 
 Episcopal and Presbyterian and Baptist preach- 
 ing, and I was informed that there had been as 
 many as ten unsuccessful attempts made by min- 
 isters of one religious denomination or another to 
 sustain worship or establish a society in the place. 
 
122 PRRACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 The moral and religious reputation of the village 
 was low ; intemperance, profanity, and disregard 
 for the Sabbath were characteristic of Geneva in 
 1841. 
 
 There was one star of hope in this night of 
 moral darkness ; it was the Geneva Sunday- 
 school. 
 
 A young man from Cambridge University had 
 settled in the place, and engaged in the duties of 
 the legal profession. Seeing the exposed moral 
 condition of the children of the village, he en- 
 gaged tlie assistance of a few friends and opened 
 a Sunday-school. Fearless of the ridicule that 
 might be cast upon his enterprise, and faithful to 
 his high convictions of duty, from Sabbath to 
 Sabbath, while no religious society existed, and 
 no other worship was held, he gathered his little 
 company of children together to impart to them 
 ideas of God and Christ and eternal life, and 
 to endeavor to lead them into the paths of virtue 
 and religion. On my first visit to Geneva in 
 1840, I found him thus employed, but before my 
 return from Cambridge and the commencement 
 of my ministry here he had been called by the 
 providence of God to a higher sphere, and his 
 
PREACH KR AM) PASTOR. 123 
 
 Sunday-school was left to be sustained by other 
 hands and hearts. His dust hallows our burial- 
 ground, and the name of Caleb A. Buckingham 
 is and will be hallowed in the hearts of that 
 band of teachers who were associated with him, 
 and will in many others who knew him kindle 
 emotions of reverence for moral worth, and grati- 
 tude for the exhibition of a pure and cheerful 
 and benevolent faith in a consistent life, wliile 
 our early history shall remain. The Sunday- 
 school and the efforts put forth in establishing and 
 sustaining it were the most hopeful appearances 
 of moral and religious life and progress in the 
 place. One thing there was to commend it to 
 the consideration of a Christian minister, — ther? 
 was great need of this kind of work. For m) 
 own encouragement, and as an indication that it 
 might be my appropriate sphere of labor, thf» 
 Sunday-school had been started and was sus 
 tained chiefly by those of the same denomina- 
 tional faith. A few Unitarians were here, and 
 they were anxious to have a minister, and will- 
 ing to do what they could for his support. 
 
 It was with the expectation of labor under 
 circumstances of difficulty and discouragement 
 
124 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 that I came here, and I endeavored to prepare 
 my mind in the outset to meet them, and, if such 
 might be the will of God, to overcome them by 
 patient and persevering effort. 
 
 From this view of the religious condition of 
 things at the time of my coming we will pass to 
 consider the leading objects of my ministry. 
 
 The principal ends I have kept in view have 
 been the moral and religious reformation and 
 improvement of the people, to promote intelli- 
 gence and virtue, morality and piety, the exer- 
 cise of Christian charity among those of different 
 sects, and of peace and good-will in the neigh- 
 borhood and family relations of life. Wliile 
 sincerely believing that our own religious views 
 are best suited to produce the most exalted per- 
 fection of character, I think I can say with truth 
 that I have never sought to abridge in the slight- 
 est degree the freedom and usefulness of those 
 who have entertained different opinions, but on 
 the contrary have as far as possible endeavored 
 to co-operate with them in every good work, and 
 have wished them success in the way of well-doing. 
 
 It has not been the great object of my efforts 
 to multiply conversions to a sect, but rather to 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 125 
 
 enlighten the understandings, and purify and 
 expand and elevate the affections of my people, 
 and to form their characters after the teaching 
 and example of Christ. I have endeavored to 
 keep in view the purpose of the gospel expressed 
 by the apostle, when he says in reference to Jesus, 
 *' Whom we preach, warning every man and teach- 
 ing every man in all wisdom that we may present 
 every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Perfection 
 of character according to the standard of the 
 sermon on the mount, and of the example and 
 life of Christ, is the end and aim which every 
 man should propose to himself, and for the pro- 
 motion of which among his people every minister 
 of Christ should devote his chief energy and 
 effort, because to make men righteous is a more 
 glorious and blessed work than the upbuilding 
 of a sect or the attainment of any object of 
 earthly ambition. Such have been my views 
 and aims in my work. My chief regret in the 
 retrospect of the past is that they have not been 
 more single and distinct and more faithfully and 
 earnestly pursued. 
 
 From this brief and general statement of the 
 leading objects of my ministry, we will pass to 
 
126 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 consider, the methods by which I have sought, 
 and we have labored together, for the attain- 
 ment of these ends. After having preached 
 here six or eight months, I felt the necessity of 
 uniting all who were friendly to the objects we 
 had in view in a religious society. To accom- 
 plish this, it was necessary to have a broad basis 
 of union. A declaration of principles common 
 to all Cliristians — such as belief in the fatherly 
 character of God, and in the divine mission of 
 Christ, and in the sacred Scriptures as a rule of 
 life, and containing a statement of the object of 
 association to be the promotion of " practical 
 godliness in the world, and aiding each other in 
 moral and religious improvement " — was drawn 
 up, and about twenty signatures obtained. This 
 was the first movement toward the organization 
 of our society. 
 
 On the 29th of May, 1842, we observed, for 
 the first time in Geneva, the ordinance of bap- 
 tism and the Supper, and on the 25th of June 
 the organization of the " First Christian Congre- 
 gation of Geneva" was completed. In this organ- 
 ization we endeavored to suit our methods to 
 our aims. Seeking to promote righteousness 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 12T 
 
 rather than the interests of party or sect, and by 
 making our basis broad enough for all Christians, 
 we hoped to enlist the sympathies and secure- the 
 co-operation of all friends of Christianity. 
 
 Soon after the organization of the society, we 
 began to feel the need of a more commodious 
 place for public worship. The old court-house, 
 where we held our meetings in summer, was un- 
 furnished with a stove and so was uncomfortable 
 for winter. We sometimes met in the basement 
 of what is now the American House, and some- 
 times in a building on the east side of the river, 
 which had been used as an establishment for rec- 
 tifying whiskey. Sometimes we were nearly 
 frozen during the services, and at others nearly 
 blinded and suffocated with smoke. We at 
 length made known our condition and wants,, by 
 correspondence and through the " Christian Regis- 
 ter," to our friends in New England, and received 
 from the Unitarian society in Roxbury eight hun- 
 dred dollars, to aid us in building the church 
 in which we now worship, and one hundred and 
 fifteen dollars to go toward the support of the 
 minister while the society was engaged in building 
 the house. The passession of this house has aided 
 
128 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 US ill our work in many ways. It has removed 
 the discouraging impression that our efforts were 
 soon to prove a failure. It has not only met our 
 own want of a commodious place of worship, but 
 has given us an opportunity to afford some ac- 
 commodation to our Methodist brethren previous 
 to the erection of their house, and also to give to 
 our Presbyterian friends a place for gathering 
 and organizing the society. Having this house, 
 we have been enabled to show by our acts the 
 sincerity of our professions of good-will toward 
 all who are endeavoring to promote the moral 
 and religious improvement and welfare of the 
 community. 
 
 Our Sunday-school has from the first been one 
 of the principal methods employed for accom- 
 plishing the objects we have in view. We have 
 sought to make it a school for instruction in 
 Christian knowledge and virtue, and not a nur- 
 sery of sectarian prejudice and exclusiveness. 
 
 Teachers and scholars from all denominations 
 have been welcomed with a like cordiality to co- 
 operation in the work of instruction, and to 
 enjoyment of the privileges of the school. By 
 this method we liave sought to promote the prin- 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 129 
 
 ciples of an enlarged Christian charity, in the 
 rising generation, and to cultivate respectful and 
 friendly feelings among those educated in different 
 forms of faith. 
 
 In my preaching I have endeavored to unite 
 instruction with exhortation and to present the 
 claims both of morality and piety. I have given 
 expository lectures on various parts of the sacred 
 Scriptures. I have given series of discourses on 
 doctrinal subjects, and have frequently presented 
 the claims upon our attention of the leading re- 
 forms of the day, — Freedom, Peace, and Tem- 
 perance. I find on looking over my discourses 
 that I have preached often upon the goodness of 
 God, his presence and providence as motives to 
 piety, and that I have dwelt much upon the 
 character and work of Christ. My preaching 
 has not been entirely without system, but it has 
 been a good deal varied by circumstances, and 
 dependent for its character upon what seemed at 
 the time to be most needed. 
 
 Among our best methods I must notice the 
 social conversation meetings for the study of the 
 Scriptures. I was conscious of receiving more 
 benefit from these meetings while they were 
 
130 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 held than from almost anything else in which 
 we have engaged. It gave me a knowledge of 
 the wants of my people, and a feeling of interest 
 in them, and of confidence in their sympathy, 
 and of faith in the earnestness of their good pui:- 
 poses, which I had not before felt, and I cannot 
 refrain from expressing a hope that we may be 
 able to have something of the kind again. I 
 should perhaps also mention the ladies' sewing- 
 circle among the methods employed for pro- 
 moting the objects of our society. Their meet- 
 ings have not only been occasions for the culture 
 of the social affections, but have furnished the 
 means to adorn and to enlighten this outer sanc- 
 tuary of our devotions. From time to time, wo 
 have met at the table of Christian communion to 
 commemorate Christ's dying love, and strengthen 
 the ties of holy sympathy and affection by which 
 we are made one body, and connected with the 
 one Head of tlie Church on earth and in heaven. 
 In the use of these various methods for the ac- 
 complishment of the objects of our existence as a 
 society, we may not at all times have been as 
 single-hearted and earnest and faithful as we 
 ought to have been, but I trust that our efforts 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 131 
 
 have not altogether failed of bringing the bless- 
 ings of Christianity to our own hearts and to the 
 community in which we live. From this view of 
 our methods let us pass to consider (fourthly) 
 the results. 
 
 From the nature of the leading objects we 
 have had in view, and of the methods we have 
 employed, much of the results are of a kind 
 which lie beyond the sphere of human observa- 
 tion. 
 
 Denominational statistics are easily made out ; 
 but the statistics of thought and affection, of 
 spiritual growth and improvement, of the moral 
 and religious progress of a community, are not so 
 easily obtained. The visible results of a work 
 which has to do mainly with things invisible may 
 be apparently small, and yet the real influence 
 and ultimate effects may be of great importance. 
 
 If we look at the moral and religious condition 
 of this community as it was ten years ago, and 
 compare it with the present, we shall discover a 
 marked change for the better. Idleness, intem- 
 perance, and other forms of immorality and irre- 
 ligion can, by comparison, hardly be said to exist 
 among us. Instead of the sectarian strife which 
 
132 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 in many communities is disturbing the peace of 
 society, we are dwelling together in peace and 
 good-will, our denominational relations causing 
 no more contention than the circumstance that 
 we have each our own family and home. 
 
 Methodists, Presbyterians, and Unitarians not 
 only join hands for the promotion of temperance 
 and other reforms, but labor together in the Sab- 
 bath-school, meet together for worship, and sit 
 together about the table of our common Lord. 
 
 We may not claim the honor of having done 
 all this work of reform and improvement; but 
 we may justly claim to have done a share of it. 
 Our efforts have contributed to the general re- 
 sult. We may not have accomplished as much 
 in some directions as we hoped to do ; we may 
 not have done as well in anything as we wish and 
 desire, or as well as we ought to liave done ; but 
 still we have, through the blessing of God, accom- 
 plished something for which we should be grate- 
 ful to him, and something which should encour- 
 age us to persevere with increased confidence and 
 zeal in the way of well-doing. 
 
 We have in our immediate vicinity overcome, 
 in a great degree, the prejudice which did at first 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 133 
 
 exist, aud which, at a little distance from and 
 around us, still exists against our faith. We have 
 thus prepared the way for doing more good, for 
 extending the knowledge of tlie truth and the 
 spirit of charity more widely around us. As we 
 each look within, and look back upon the ten 
 years of life that have passed since we first sus- 
 tained the relation of pastor and people, we doubt- 
 less feel in some degree conscious of coming short 
 of a life in perfect accordance with our faith 
 and purpose. But to me, and I hope to you, the 
 relation has been pleasant and profitable. We 
 may not have derived all the benefit from the re- 
 lation which we might have done, but I trust it 
 has been mutually a blessing, for the continu- 
 ance of which, through some trials and difficul- 
 ties and discouragements, we may justly be grate- 
 ful to God. 
 
 Commencing my ministry here with little 
 preparation, and no experience, and with no 
 elder brethren of the profession near with whom 
 to counsel, and partaking of the imperfections 
 common to humanity, I now look back upon 
 many mistakes and errors, imperfections and 
 faults, for which I have needed the forbearance 
 
134 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 and forgiveness of my people. That you have 
 not failed to exercise such forbearance and kind- 
 ness is cause of gratitude and affection. 
 
 He to whom much has been forgiven may very 
 properly love much. Other ties bind us strongly 
 together. 
 
 At the marriage altar we have sought the 
 blessing of God upon the holiest and strongest 
 affections of earth. We have knelt together in 
 the house of mourning, to offer the prayer of 
 submission and faith, and seek comfort and sup- 
 port from the Father of spirits. In connection 
 with this subject, our thoughts turn naturally to 
 one whose name stands first on the list of mem- 
 bers of our society, — a man upon whose wisdom 
 and integrity, upon whose deep interest in every- 
 thing pertaining to the moral welfare of society, 
 we all felt the strongest reliance ; the man to 
 whom we looked for sympathy, and went for coun- 
 sel, and on whom we leaned for support, was taken 
 away. In the experience of such a loss, we have 
 a mutual feeling of bereavement and sympathy 
 in sorrow, which is a strong bond of attachment 
 to each other. 
 
 We have for these ten years been together in 
 
PREACHER AND PASTOR. 135 
 
 joy and sorrow. We have encountered difficulty 
 and borne trial and discouragement. The result 
 is that we know each other better and love each 
 other more than it would be possible for us to 
 know and love strangers. Should God, in his 
 mercy, permit us to continue our relation and 
 labors for ten years more, we may hope, from the 
 experience of the past, and the advantages we 
 have gained, to do more and better than we have 
 heretofore done. 
 
 Circumstances may occur which will make it 
 expedient and necessary for us voluntarily to dis- 
 solve the connection we have held, but such a 
 separation would be the severing of many strong 
 and holy ties. God willing, I would prefer to do 
 my work of life where I have begun. I am sorry 
 not to have done more and better in the com- 
 mencement ; but with regard to past errors and 
 deficiencies, we may as well follow the example 
 of the great apostle in '' forgetting the things 
 that are behind, and reaching forth towards those 
 which are before." 
 
 The day is hastening when we must each give 
 account of our stewardship before God. For the 
 use of all liis gifts, for the improvement of all 
 
136 
 
 PREACHER AND PASTOR. 
 
 our privileges and opportunities of growth in vir- 
 tue and of doing good, we must give account. 
 
 May we find mercy with him for our past de- 
 ficiencies, and in our future life be found faithful 
 in that day. 
 
VIII. 
 
 TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 
 
 There was at once a new interest and genuine 
 sorrow in the church at Geneva when Mr. 
 Conant resigned his charge and prepared to 
 leave them. The old deep human ties that 
 hold their own, often, thank God, against the 
 most dreadful strain of political difference, began 
 to be felt everywhere. The strong, sweet words 
 that had drawn these friends to him, who still 
 could not be reconciled to his position on the 
 most momentous question of the age, began to 
 tell, and the holy, earnest life he had led among 
 them for sixteen years had brought an influence 
 of its own that could not be shred away even 
 by the mighty sword that had come through 
 Christ to di'vide them. 
 
 And so I am prepared to believe that in the 
 '' resolutions," which were of course got out as 
 such things always are, — though there be noth- 
 
138 TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 
 
 ing at the heart of them but the ashes of a dead 
 fire, — were in this case the heart-felt expression 
 of a pure regard and prayer, as they proceed to 
 tell how, during sixteen years, their minister has 
 endeared himself to their hearts as a faitlit'ul 
 preacher and kind friend, and at liis departure 
 retains their confidence, respect, and affection ; 
 how the great resources of his mind and manly 
 independence and energy of character have done 
 much to advance the whole interest of the com- 
 munity, and so, wherever he may go, they will 
 send their best wishes after him, and will keep 
 in their hearts the recollection of his faithful- 
 ness, goodness, kindness to the poor, and noble 
 social qualities. All this they say while op- 
 pressed with sadness at their separation, yet 
 glad also that, as this must be, he is to enter 
 a wider field of usefulness, and commend him 
 to the Christian sympathy of his new charge. 
 For the rest I must drop the veil. 
 
 The Fattens and other fast friends of that fine 
 grain, — friends who had never wavered or al- 
 tered, but had clung to their minister through 
 all, as is the fashion of those that are nurtured 
 at the West Church in Boston, from the old 
 
TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 139 
 
 days of Dr. Majliew to these new days of Dr. Bar- 
 tol, — what they felt and said and did that was 
 tender and true and generous can only be written 
 in that other book which is the Book of Life. 
 
 So, on Sunday the 12th July, 1857, Mr. Co- 
 nant, going to Rockford, preached there his first 
 sermon as pastor of the church to a congrega- 
 tion of about seventy. 
 
 And the prospects of the society opened well ; in 
 possession of a beautiful place for worship, with 
 members in the church not to be surpassed by any 
 within the knowledge of the writer, in any church, 
 and with a strong desire to go onward and do good, 
 the people received their new minister with the 
 warmest welcome. Yery soon eleven new mem- 
 bers were added to the church ; on the first 
 Sunday in April, 1858, twenty more ; on the 
 80th of May, ten more. There was a constant 
 ripple of revival in the best and most living in- 
 terests of the congregation. Things were got into 
 good order, a Sunday-school society formed to 
 take care of the Sunday-school, and other socie- 
 ties as they were needed to oversee other in- 
 terests, and everything was bright witli promise. 
 And in these days he is to be traced to Chicago, 
 
140 TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 
 
 busy in the ordination of George Noyes as pastor 
 over the church there, to Cincinnati, wliere the 
 Western Conference was held in 1858, notable to 
 the writer of this chapter, if to nobody else, as the 
 time when Dr. Furness, of Philadelphia, who had 
 made him out and said kind and encouraging 
 things to him, invited him also to preach in his 
 pulpit wliile he himself should go to the confer- 
 ence. After a time, also, Mr. Conant went to 
 Geneva to preach on an exchange with Mr. Wood- 
 ward, their minister ; found that the disaffection 
 that liad been felt by a few toward him was 
 wholly gone, and he was received with the most 
 perfect cordiality and affection by everybody. 
 
 But the tree was too old to transplant. It be- 
 gan to be felt, after perhaps two years, that there 
 was dearth and drought in the movement, that 
 things were not prosperous. " It is rather a cold, 
 dull time," he says, sadly, " and I feel at times 
 greatly depressed, almost discouraged. I seem 
 to accomplish nothing, and feel sometimes that 
 I am not fit for a minister ; and if I could do it 
 with a clear conscience, I would gladly return 
 to the plough. I know I ought to brace up like 
 
TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 141 
 
 a man ; but I do get soul heavy sometimes, and 
 feel like saying Die." 
 
 The truth was that he was hurt by the change 
 from the old field to the new more than he could 
 imagine. It was impossible that a nature so 
 deep-rooted, and with so many delicate and ten- 
 der rootlets netting bis whole life to Geneva 
 should not be damaged fearfully by being torn 
 out after so long a time, and put down where 
 everything has to grow afresh as it can. Per- 
 haps he ought never to have left. Who shall 
 say that, except they can know what had come 
 of his staying ? Only this we can say, if we 
 will watch tlie lessons of the ministry as they are 
 open to us everywhere, — tliat as a rule the worst 
 mistake a minister can make is to leave the 
 parish in which he has been long at work and 
 through wliich he has established himself as a 
 living power, and go to a new place. Generally 
 an able minister, if he be in middle life, is only 
 able tlirough tlie accumulation of what is best of 
 his life and power in those that have got the 
 grace and glory of his youth. Put him then, 
 where everything is strange, and according to the 
 very excellence and nobility of his nature may 
 
142 TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 
 
 be his failure to connect. Widows and widowers 
 do not often even pretend to be to each other, 
 if they marry, what the husband and wife are 
 who, as youth and maiden, fell in love, and have 
 grown more loving in all the succeeding years. 
 There are notable exceptions, but that is the 
 rule ; but the good men and women at Rockford 
 were true to their minister. Men like Melanc- 
 thon Starr and Roger Fowler and E. H. Griggs 
 spared notiiing of their means and labor to push 
 the ark onward. And there was cheerfulness 
 and a quick life in it. I went there in those 
 days for the first time, and can remember how 
 well pleased I was with the expressions of 
 esteem I heard on all sides for Mr. Conant. 
 I have felt that the following might go in and 
 help make up the tale of the kindly Rockford 
 life. 
 
 A PLEASANT INCIDENT. 
 To the Editor of the Christian Inquirer: 
 
 I want to tell you of a very pleasant interlude 
 to the war fever, which occurred at Rockford, on 
 tjie J3tli of May, in the evening. Rockford is a 
 plac^ of exceeding beauty, from its situation on 
 
TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 143 
 
 the Rock River, its position as the centre of a 
 rich farming country, and at this time because it 
 is buried in l)lossom. How old a place it is, no 
 one can tell. There are mounds on the banks of 
 the river whicii seem to have been the first rude 
 ideas of the pyramids, and out of which you can 
 dig pottery and other relics, together with the 
 bones of those for whose sake they were buried, 
 and the monuments were painfully raised over 
 them. I suppose the owners of these bones must 
 have been of the first families in Rockford, and 
 notable enough in their day ; but that day was 
 so long since, that even their ghosts seem to have 
 died. (Did you ever think of the fact that 
 ghosts do die, after a time ?) How completely 
 these old kings liave abdicated was illustrated 
 to me, while talking with a gentleman of the 
 town about those things, when he said to his 
 wife, — 
 
 " My dear, where's that skull I dug out of the 
 mound ? " 
 
 '' Oh ! " said the lady, laughing, " some one 
 let it fall, and it crumbled all away ; so I swept 
 it out of doors." 
 
144 TRAxNSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 
 
 And that was the last on eartli of the " stoic of 
 the woods, — the man without a tear." 
 
 Rockford is of interest to us, also, in the fact 
 that tliere is in it an earnest band of liberal 
 Christians. They have a good church, built of 
 a fine yellow limestone ; a good society, though 
 not very large ; and a good pastor, Rev. X. H. 
 Conant. Brother Conant is a wine that needs 
 no bush to tlie readers of the " Inquirer," East or 
 "West ; but I must tell you what I saw in the par- 
 sonage on that Monday evening. The parson 
 looks about thirty-four years of age ; his good 
 wife, thirty, or, by'r lady, thirty-one. They were 
 possessed, somehow, with the idea that they had 
 been married twenty-five years ; and as there 
 were two handsome young gentlemen and a lady, 
 who claimed to be their children, but seemed to 
 be their brothers and sister, the parish had to give 
 in, and believe that they must be a great deal 
 older than they seemed, and give them a silver 
 wedding. Of course, there was a silver shower, 
 and Mistress Conant's two or three troubles took 
 the form of casters. The friends came together, 
 and a very pleasant company they were. CoU- 
 yer, from Chicago, extemporized a service, the 
 
TRANSPLANTED AND WHAT THEN. 145 
 
 children standing with the parents. He said 
 tliat this happy meeting was well fitted to bear 
 out a deep conviction of his life, — that all true 
 loves and matches and marriages were the re- 
 sult of divine inspiration and appointment ; such 
 matches were made in heaven ; that it was a dou- 
 ble blessing for a minister to have a good wife, 
 because he was so often called to unite others, 
 and if his own marriage were unhappy, it would 
 be an ever-fresh misery to feel that he might be 
 helping to fasten others to misery, but an ever- 
 fresh joy when his own life was a joy ; that be- 
 fore tlie time of their golden wedding should 
 come, both these dear friends might have gone 
 over the golden river ; but there came a double 
 blessing even in that, — they would leave good 
 children to take their place, and be reunited in 
 the holier love, where man and wife are as the 
 angels of God. So, with a simple prayer, in 
 which all joined, the wedding came to an end ; 
 then congratulations, cake, and wine, music, sing- 
 ing, a little dancing, and we parted, all asking 
 that these dear friends and devoted servants of 
 the Master, who have been faithful as pastor and 
 pastor's wife for twenty years to liberal Chris- 
 10 
 
146 TRANSPLANTED AND WF \T THEN. 
 
 tiauity in the West, might still, for a long life te 
 come, be spared for the work, and abound n^o%Q 
 and more in all wisdom and goodness as the] 
 have abounded. 
 
 It was not long after this that a Cininon-sho^ 
 struck the ark of the covenant at Fort Sumter, 
 and brought the West to her feet in a might} 
 passion of indignation and tears. Then the 
 hymns given out to be sung were " When Israel 
 of the Lord beloved " and '' My country, 'tis of 
 thee ; " and the text for the sermon was " Jesus 
 said but now he that has no sword let him sell 
 his garment and buy one." And the anthem 
 was, " The star-spangled banner," and the altar 
 cloth was the flag that the rebel was determined 
 to destroy, and the true man determined to de 
 fend. The appeal was to the Lord of Hosts 
 The end had come, and the beginning, and ther 
 in a day, through the darkness and fire, God 
 opened a way by which his faithful servant should 
 do the crowning work of his life, and enter into 
 his eternal joy. 
 
IX. 
 
 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 Early in July, 1861, Mr. Conant, having re- 
 signed his charge in Rockford, came to Chica- 
 go, proposing to go out as chaplain, if he could 
 find a chaplaincy, and anxious, if possible, to get 
 that of the 19th Illinois regiment under the com- 
 mand of Colonel Turchin, because he thought it 
 would give him plenty to do and the officers were 
 men he would prefer to serve with. I remem- 
 ber going with him to see Mr. Augustus Burley, 
 of our city, his old and fast friend, whose children 
 had boarded at the little Geneva parsonage, and 
 whose services to our city and country in the war 
 were singularly noble and unselfish. Mr. Burley 
 gladly exerted himself to get Mr. Conant th(? 
 post he wanted, and the matter was so far ar 
 ranged that, on the 22d of that month, he writes 
 to his father, " I expect to start this afternoon to 
 join the 19th Illinois, now in Missouri, with a 
 
148 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 strong hope of obtaining the chaplaincy of that 
 regiment. Letters recommending me for the 
 post have been sent forward to the colonel and 
 other officers, and now I have concluded to go 
 myself and attend to the matter in person." 
 
 The application was successful. On the 2d 
 of August he writes to his wife from the steam- 
 boat '' Empress," off Cape Giradeau, how he is 
 rejoicing in the thought that, with a thousand 
 young men for his parish and congregation 
 he may be able to do quite as much for the 
 moral and spiritual elevation of man as he had 
 done at Rockford. "If it is best," he contin- 
 ues, " that I should live and work in this way 
 for afeiv years until the war is over, I shall feel 
 secure in the divine protection ; but if it is the 
 will of God that I should finish my course in 
 the cause of freedom and humanity, I hope, 
 dear wife, you will accept that termination to 
 my life as the best, trusting in the wisdom and 
 love of our Father." 
 
 So the good man came in this spirit to the last 
 work he was to do this side heaven, as cheerful, 
 hearty, and hopeful, as he was when he had 
 written what bright days they were twenty-five 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 149 
 
 years before at his wedding. " I am well," he 
 says, " as ever I was, sleep soundly on the soft 
 side of a plank, and ready for whatever may 
 come." 
 
 It would be a shame now, I think, to write 
 any words that should take the place of Mr. 
 Conant's own. I propose, therefore, through the 
 rest of this chapter, to print such parts of his 
 letters as will tell this story as it came out of 
 the head and heart of the good man day by day, 
 omitting nothing, I believe, of an important or 
 curious interest, while omitting much relating 
 to private and tender domestic concerns, only 
 meant for the most loving eyes, to him, on the 
 planet. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS OP 1861. 
 
 (To Ms Wife.) 
 
 FIRST SERMON IN CAMP. 
 
 Aug. 4:th. I have just been preaching to the 
 soldiers from the top of a large sycamore log. 
 The regiment were not all together, and 1 only 
 gave them a short discourse on the duty of man- 
 ly endurance and mutual kindness. I doubt 
 whether I ever spoke fifteen minutes with better 
 moral effect in my life. 
 
150 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 Aug. 11. Prcaclicd to tlie officers and soldiers 
 assembled from the text " Tliy kingdom come/* 
 endeavoring to show that the war in which we 
 are engaged is a practical utterance of this 
 prayer, and ought to be carried on by us in a 
 worthy and manly way. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 DISPOSITION TO MAKE THE BEST OF HIS CIRCUM- 
 STANCES. 
 
 Aug. 20. To-day I obtained a candle box of 
 the commissary, and with a hatchet and my 
 pocket-knife have made of it a writing-desk, and 
 I also obtained of the sappers and miners a board, 
 some nails, and the use of a saw and plane, and. 
 made a bench to sit upon. Now I am sitting be- 
 fore the door of my tent with my new desk on 
 one end of the bench, almost as well fixed as I 
 should be in my study chair. 
 
 The few ladies — officers' wives in camj) — are 
 worth more tlian a file of soldiers in keeping 
 order. I wisli we could have twice as many ; but 
 it is no place for a woman of delicate nerves. The 
 most shocking sights, sounds, and odors of all sorts 
 are of perpetual occurrence, yet a strong-minded 
 
FROtr ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 151 
 
 and pure-hearted woman may pass through it all 
 unliarmed. Mrs. Turchin blooms like a fair 
 flower in it. She reminds me very much of 
 Lucy Stone Blackwell. With all the refinement 
 of a lady, she has the energy and self-reliance of 
 a man ; she feels able to take charge of herself, 
 carries a nice little revolver and dagger in her 
 belt, and has a dignity of manner and bearing 
 that secures respect from the roughest soldier. 
 
 Sept. 25. I feel that God's great providence 
 is over all, and nothing will happen to me, or to 
 others, contrary to his will, or which, on the 
 whole, is not for the best. I have no desire to 
 be a victim of this unholy rebellion, but if I 
 should be taken prisoner, or lose my life, I hope 
 that not only I shall meet whatever comes man- 
 fully, but that all my friends will bear it with a 
 courage and patience worthy the cause. I have 
 felt greatly mortified and vexed at President 
 Lincoln's interference with General Fremont's 
 noble action, — so much so that I have almost 
 'egretted having joined the army. It seems to 
 jie it will strengthen and encourage the rebels 
 and protract the war, and that the North if a 
 different policy is not adopted, will bo thoroughly 
 
152 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 whipped, and I am not sure but it is the best 
 thing that can happen, as a means of making us 
 willing to do justice, and make an end of slavery, 
 the cause of all our troubles. 
 
 PROTEST AGAINST TEMPORIZING WITH REBELLION. 
 
 Sept. 26. If the rebels should suffer a thor- 
 ough defeat in the vicinity of Washington, it 
 would probably hasten their expulsion from 
 Kentucky and Missouri ; or if the government 
 should send a naval force south, acting aggres- 
 sively instead of defensively, we may expect a 
 retreat of the traitors from this neighborhood 
 (Lebanon Junction, Kentucky). But the miser- 
 able temporizing of the government in relation 
 to slavery, and apparent fear of offending slave- 
 holders, and the manoeuvring to keep clear of in- 
 terference with the infernal institution which 
 is at the bottom of all the treason, so encourages 
 the rebels, that it would be no matter of surprise 
 if they should defeat us half a dozen times, 
 and until we are ready and willing to carry on 
 the war in earnest, and strike at the heart of 
 their treason. I hope and pray that a higher 
 and more earnest and righteous pu^-pose may 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 153 
 
 inspire the hearts of our people, that we may 
 redeem our country from ruin, and make our 
 government the support of freedom and justice 
 it was designed to be by its founders, and tliat 
 kingdom of heaven for which humanity waits 
 with longing hope and devout aspiration. 
 
 Sfunday Evenings Sept. 28. You know, dear- 
 est, how down-spirited I have usually been af- 
 ter my day's work on Sunday. I have been 
 thinking over my experiences this evening, and, 
 strange to say, for the result of a Sunday evening 
 meditation, 1 have come to a cheerful conclusion. 
 I do not think, on the whole, that I am much, if 
 any, more discontented here in the army than I 
 sometimes felt in Geneva or in Rockford. Men 
 did not do as I wanted to have them there, and 
 it is the same here ; I had times of feeling that 
 I was laboring in vain, and I have such times 
 here. But really I am perhaps doing as much 
 good as ever I did, or as ever I shall do, and 
 gratitude for my opportunities and means of use- 
 fulness is quite as befitting as grumbling and 
 discontent with my condition and work. I think 
 on the whole, that I have done a fair day's w^rk, 
 and that I may hope for God's blessing on his 
 
154 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 word of truth. The men seemed (when I 
 preached to-day) attentive, interested, and grate- 
 ful. I hope the seed sown will take root and 
 bear good fruit. I should be glad to be with 
 you, but as it does not seem the way and will 
 of Divine Providence, I will try to be contented 
 and happy where I am. It used to trouble me 
 Ihat my salary and support seemed a burden to 
 my people, but this trouble while I am here is at 
 an end. My pay comes without grudging and 
 without stint ; it is a little delayed sometimes, but 
 there is no fear of failure in the end. I have rest 
 from hard study, and from the task of writing a 
 weekly sermon whether inspired or not inspired 
 with a word of truth from God, for humanity. 
 The rest is, in fact, in excess, and I would like a 
 little communion with my library ; but I have 
 rocks and trees and clouds and living men to read, 
 and can get from them precious lessons, if I am 
 an attentive student. It does seem as though 
 with all these things, and good health and good 
 rations, a man ought to be happy, and might 
 enjoy himself, if he had a mind to. I suspect 
 having a mind to is the chief thing in the busi- 
 ness. I mean to try to have a mind to and to 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 155 
 
 have a lieart to enjoy the good gifts of the bounti- 
 ful Provider for human want and welfare. Then, 
 more than all these, I have loved and loving ones 
 at home, who, I hope, are bravely doing their 
 duty in this hour of trial and peril to our nation. 
 I can talk with honest pride of my sons in the 
 army of freedom, and of my heroic wife and 
 daughter and mother at home, taking care of 
 themselves and of the little one who bears an 
 honored name. Ah ! in having such home 
 treasures I am rich, and may well rejoice. 
 It will not seem long after it is past, this 
 time of separation, though counting the days as 
 they pass one by one, with no tidings from home 
 for weeks, it does seem rather long and weari- 
 some and lonely ; but we will hope that the 
 future has ample amends in store for us. 
 
 Elizabethtown, Ky., Oct. 28th, 1861. We 
 have had in camp a Methodist or Baptist ex- 
 horter by the name of Moody, sent out by the 
 Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago, 
 who held evening prayer-meetings in camp 
 several evenings of last week. He was exceed- 
 
156 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 ingly active and earnest in his efforts to get up 
 a revival, and evidently displeased with me for 
 not indorsing his proceedings and aiding his en- 
 terprise. I told some of his friends that it was 
 much like what it would be for a pedler of patent 
 pills to come to camp and propose to look after 
 the health of the regiment, — to cure all distem- 
 pers with his pills, and all flesh wounds and 
 broken bones with Perry Davis' Pain Killer, 
 telling the soldiers that the treatment they were 
 receiving was unsafe, and expecting the regi- 
 mental physician and surgeon to indorse him 
 and aid his efforts. At his first introduction to 
 me, he did not hesitate to intimate that what I 
 was doing was of no account, and one of the 
 most evident results of his efforts with those in 
 sympathy with him was to produce in them the 
 same impression, and lead them to utter it and to 
 seek to give it currency. One of his zealous con- 
 verts had the politeness to tell me if I had gone 
 to work as Moody did, half the regiment might 
 have been converted before this. Last evening 
 one of them went to the colonel with a complaint 
 of my inefficiency ; but the colonel told him all 
 the regiment were not Methodists, and they 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 157 
 
 could hardly expect a chaplain for every sect, 
 or one that would be equally pleasing to all. 
 Very little satisfaction will they be likely to 
 get for their complaints from him. 
 
 {To his Wife.) 
 AN INDOOR VIEW OF HIS MILITARY LIFE. 
 
 Elizabethtoivn Ky.^ Nov. ^d. I suppose you 
 think of us in the cold November rain, camped 
 in a tent, as in a very miserable condition. Let 
 me describe some of our inconveniences and 
 sufferings, that you may know just how to pity 
 us. Day before yesterday we made rather a 
 blazing fire in our tent, and our barrel-built chim- 
 ney outside took fire, and blazed away finely for 
 a few minutes ; but the water-pail afforded a 
 sufiicient fountain and the dipper an adequate 
 engine for extinguishing the flames, and to pre- 
 vent a general conflagration from a similar ac- 
 cident in the future, we constructed a chimney 
 yesterday morning of turf, and surmounted that 
 with the barrels, obtaining in this way both safety 
 from fire, and a good draught. In the afternoon 
 we went to the tin shop in town, and got a piece 
 of sheet-iron about a yard square, and had a hole 
 
158 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 cut ill the middle of it, over which we can put a 
 kettle or frying-pan for cooking, and a small hole 
 in each of the four corners through which to 
 drive pins to fasten it in place, looking about so 
 fashion, |g o g] . This we placed over the trench 
 leading into our chimney, and behold we have a 
 cook-stove. Fireplaces in tents we now regard 
 as quite out of fashion ; nothing but a stove is in 
 any degree decent or tolerable. Before we got 
 it quite done, it began to rain, but we had a good 
 pile of wood in our tent, and as we sat over our 
 stove dry and warm, while the storm raged with- 
 out, you can perliaps picture in imagination 
 " our sufferings.'" When supper- time came, we 
 stirred up some Indian meal with an egg and 
 due proportions of soda, tartaric acid, sugar, salt, 
 and water, and putting our little bake kettle 
 upon the stove, we put in it a large basin contain- 
 ing the prepared materials, and covered the top 
 with coals, and in a few minutes after, as we 
 lifted the cover and looked in, behold a johnny- 
 cake light as a sponge, and done to perfection. 
 We had syrup made from melted sugar and 
 fresh butter, and a good cup of black tea, and 
 thus wretchedly provided, and with a keen 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 159 
 
 appetite, you can imagine how we did suffer. 
 Then, as to lodgings, we levelled the pile of straw 
 under the blanket, and placing our well-filled 
 straw tick upon it, with our feet toward the 
 stove, and a load of blankets and overcoat and 
 outside of all an india-rubber. 
 
 After our usual evening worship, we crawled 
 into as warm and soft a bed as if at home, and 
 heard the storm roaring without and the rain 
 driving against our tent, while all was dry and 
 comfortable within. Imagine the horrors of such 
 a night. I have not asked Henry how his mind 
 was affected by it, but for myself, I awoke with 
 a recollection that dreams of my boyhood, full 
 of beauty and joy, played with my intellect, 
 blending things of thirty or forty years ago with 
 things of my Rockford home, in weird fancies 
 and droll but happy confusion. Ah ! dearest, 
 and all my family and friends, do think of us 
 every night with a becoming commiseration of 
 our condition and pity for our privations. But 
 all joking as regards ourselves aside, it was a 
 hard night for the common soldier, especially for 
 such as had to stand on guard exposed to the 
 pelting storm ; it was hard for many who have 
 
160 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 insufficient clothing and blankets, and no fire in 
 their tents : there was doubtless a great deal of 
 real suflfering in our camp and other camps in the 
 vicinity. It is no wonder that men under such 
 circumstances should commit such depredations 
 as burning fence-rails to keep warm, and even 
 steal from stables the unthreshed bundles to 
 put in their tents to sleep on. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 
 Camp Lincoln, Elizabethtoicn, Ky., Nov. 16. 
 I have not had as good attendance on my 
 preaching, since the visit of Mr. Moody, of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago, 
 as before, and there has been a good deal of 
 fault-finding because I do not visit more, preach 
 and pray more, and so forth. Whether it is in 
 any degree due to the sayings of Mr. Moody, I 
 cannot of course say certainly, but it looks like 
 it. I have been told that it was probably his 
 intention to get me turned out of the chaplain- 
 cy, and get himself, or some other orthodox man 
 in my place. He went to General Sherman at 
 Louisville, and entered a formal written com- 
 plaint against the regiment, as being in such a 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 161 
 
 demoralized condition as to demand immediate 
 attention. But after reading it, the adjutant, as 
 I was informed, threw it in the fire as unworthy 
 of notice. The officers of our regiment, when 
 they heard of his complaint at Louisville, were, 
 in general, exceedingly indignant, and I have 
 heard that he narrowly escaped a whipping from 
 one of them wlio since met him in the streets in 
 Chicago. I am very glad no violence was done 
 to him. 
 
 {To his Daughter.) 
 PLAIN PREACHING. 
 
 Camp Lincoln^ EUzabethtown, Ky., Nov. 18. 
 I obtained yesterday the use of the Baptist 
 meeting-house in Elizabethtown in the after- 
 noon for our regiment to meet in, and had a good 
 many citizens besides. It happened that I had 
 a sermon on the war, in which I expressed my 
 views pretty freely on the way it had been, and 
 the way it ought to be, conducted, particularly 
 on the confiscation of the slave property of rebels 
 and the emancipation in the rebellious States. It 
 happened, also, that most of my audience, except 
 
 our regiment, were slave-holders, and probably a 
 11 
 
162 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 majority were in sympathy with secession. For 
 once in their lives, they had an opportunity to 
 hear a little plain preaching on the subject of 
 slavery, and I had an opportunity to preach with- 
 out hindrance, or fear of molestation, to slave- 
 holders in a slave State. The good deacon of the 
 church and his wife, who are slave-holders, but 
 Unionists, were evidently sore alarmed, and a 
 good deal troubled about the effect of the ser- 
 mon on their secession neighbors, but I hope a 
 little wholesome truth will do them no lasting 
 injury. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 • ' A PIOUS HOPE. 
 
 Camp Lincoln, Elizahethtown Nov. 26. I had 
 a very pious letter of exhortation from some 
 orthodox sister in Christ in Chicago a few days 
 ago, who seemed very anxious that I should do 
 my duty, and I have since had a letter from an 
 agent of the Presbyterian Publication Society of 
 Philadelphia, offering to send me tracts for circu- 
 lation. I wrote to the agent that he might send 
 on his tracts by mail, and I would circulate them. 
 As to the sister in Christ, as she only signed her 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 163 
 
 initials, I did not take the trouble to reply to 
 her. I hope in the Lord's good time he will take 
 her to glory. I am sure I should much prefer 
 that all such sisters should go to glory than 
 come into camp. I hardly know which is 
 most annoying, orthodox bigotry and cant, or 
 infidel blasphemy and cursing. Both are bad 
 enough. The hope of doing some good still 
 keeps me in heart. 
 
 [To his Father.) 
 
 UNLIMITED CONFIDENCE IN GOD RULING OYER ALL 
 
 MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 Camp Lincoln.) Elizabethtown, Kt/., Nov. 29. 
 You can hardly feel more impatient at the slow 
 movement in our military departments than do 
 most of our men in camp. I share, to some 
 extent, the general impatience to have some- 
 thing done, particularly in the South, during 
 cool weather, the only time when we can do 
 anything there. But I feel more confidence 
 in the wisdom of those at the head of affairs 
 than I do in my own, and try to be satisfied with 
 the faithful performance of my own humble 
 trust, finding more call for wisdom and virtue 
 
164 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 herein than I can respond to satisfactorily. It 
 is my chief satisfaction to believe that superhu- 
 man wisdom is directing the destinies of our 
 nation, and to hope the issue will be Emancipa- 
 tion, and the full realization of Liberty and Jus- 
 tice to all witliin our national domain. I long 
 to see this kingdom of God come in six months. 
 But if Providence sees fit to employ three or 
 more years in so great a work, I hope I shall 
 have patience and rejoice in every step of the 
 grand advance of the incoming age of glory and 
 blessedness. 
 
 I feel greatly cheered at the indications of a 
 growing disposition on the part of the Govern- 
 ment to accept the help of all loyal men without 
 regard to color or condition, and trust that when 
 justice is done to oppressed humanity, we may 
 begin to lift up our heads and hands, rejoicing 
 that the time of our redemption draweth nigh. 
 Whatever misfortunes may be necessary to teach 
 us this lesson of Justice, whatever delay may be 
 necessary to impress it thoroughly, may well be 
 cheerfully and patiently endured. Things which 
 seem to us disastrous so often turn out to be the 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 165 
 
 best that could have been done, that we may well 
 wait on the Lord and hope in his salvation. 
 
 {To his Wife.) 
 STRAW. 
 
 Camp Nevin^ Nolin Creek, Ky., Dec, 1861. 
 Yesterday was a very warm, summer-like day, 
 and I preached to the soldiers in the open air 
 before the colonel's tent. I learned the night 
 before that many of the soldiers had no straw in 
 their tents to sleep on, and were uncomfortable 
 for want of it ; and so I preached from Exodus 
 5 : 16. " There is no straw given unto thy ser- 
 vants, and they say to us. Make brick ; and 
 behold, thy servants are beaten, but the fault is 
 in thine own people." 
 
 Without straw for his tent, I said, it was very 
 liard for a man, however well disposed, to be a 
 good soldier. Sleeping on the bare ground pro- 
 duced colds, indigestion, consumption, and rlieu- 
 matism ; and with any of these complaints upon 
 liim, it was impossible for a man to be a good 
 soldier. Then, again, it had a moral significance 
 and influence. A man full of discomfort is like- 
 ly, also, to be full of ill-humor and to ^ay and do 
 
166 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 bad things. Hence tlie duty of the officers to do 
 all in their power for the comfort and welfare of 
 the men, and especially to set before them an ex- 
 ample of good morals. Hence the duty of the 
 men, also, to take care of themselves. If some 
 of you would save the money you spend for 
 wliiskey, buy a tick and fill it with straw, and 
 if they did not give you straw, like the Israelites, 
 gather stubble, or corn-husks, or even leaves, 
 you would find it much easier to be manly, moral, 
 and noble men. 
 
 If a man will not try to take care of himself, 
 all the officers can do will not avail to make him 
 comfortable. Have a practical faith, fellow-sol- 
 diers, in the go^spel of straw for your tents, — in 
 the gospel of a good bed and good food, and it 
 will help you to exercise faith in every other 
 good thing in human goodness and divine good- 
 ness, and the good and glorious hopes of immor- 
 tality. The gospel of God's grace to the body 
 precedes and prepares the way for the gospel of 
 his grace to tlie soul. In immediate attention to 
 material welfare lay the foundation for moral and 
 spiritual and eternal well-being. 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 167 
 
 {To his Wife.) 
 
 Dec. 26. You would be amused to see the 
 contrivances of the soldiers for guarding against 
 the cold and storm. I found a Rocky Mountain 
 trapper in Company K this forenoon, who had 
 dug a hole six feet square, and five feet deep, 
 covered it all over with earth ; then in one side 
 at the bottom dug into the clay a hole eighteen 
 inches square, and a little distance from the side 
 of his pit another hole to meet it from the top, so 
 he had a fireplace and chimney ; then his fire 
 baked the clay, and he had a nice brick fire- 
 place and chimney ; and I see quite a number of 
 others following the example. This with a 
 tent over it makes a very nice hut. 
 
 {To Ms Wife.) 
 AN EXCHANGE WITH A BAPTIST BROTHER. 
 
 Camp Jefferson, Ky.^ Dec. 29. I went, by 
 agreement, and exchanged with Brother Coffin, 
 of the 10th Wisconsin. It has been as beauti- 
 ful a day overhead as midsummer. I went on 
 " Puss " [his pony] without my overcoat, and was 
 warm enough for comfort, but the clay mud was 
 nasty. I had opportunity to learn that our reg- 
 iment was not peculiar in some of its disagreea- 
 
168 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 ble habits ; worse cursing and swearing about 
 being compelled to go to meeting than I over- 
 heard there I never overheard at home, or any- 
 where else. The opposite of blessing was heaped 
 upon chaplains without stint, and hints were 
 dropped by the officers of dull, insignificant 
 preaching as being a nuisance, quite significant 
 of sympathy with the dissatisfaction of the men. 
 I was listened to with attention, and treated with 
 distinguished consideration, invited to dinner by 
 the lieutenant-colonel and major, — the colonel 
 being called away, — feasted on Christmas turkey 
 and chickens, and entertained with literary and 
 moral discussions in a most charming way. It 
 was very fine. '' Change of pastures makes fat 
 calves," " new brooms sweep clean," and so forth. 
 Now, think I to myself, as I was riding home, I 
 have no doubt that my good Brother Coffin, who 
 appears to be held in so light esteem as a preacher 
 at home has delighted my regiment with his dis- 
 course, and particularly those who tliink lightly 
 of me. So, keeping my own secret about what 
 I had heard, I made inquiry, and found it was 
 as I had anticipated. He had given general 
 satisfaction, and some of the sourest sectarian 
 
FROM ROCKPbRD TO HIS REST. 169 
 
 grumblers were loud and eloquent in his praise. 
 It was the first gospel sermon they had heard in 
 six montlis. I have no doubt my regiment, 
 with a few exceptions, would think and talk 
 of him as his own does ; and on the other 
 hand, I should find those in his regiment 
 equally dissatisfied as are men of like prejudices 
 in my own. So let the grumblers make much 
 of their discontent, while we both endeavor, 
 with the ability God giveth, to do tlie best we 
 can. I have no doubt that Brother Coffin is 
 really a man of good abilities, deep earnestness, 
 and great excellence of character ; doing good 
 to those who are in sufficient sympathy with 
 him to receive good from him. On the whole, 
 the exchange has been pleasant to me, and rather 
 encouraging, and 1 rejoice in it, as an exhibition 
 of a Christian spirit of liberality and charity in 
 the army which is rare indeed in civil clerical 
 life. 
 
 A chaplain can, in this respect, act more like a 
 Christian gentleman than the pastor of an ortho- 
 dox church. As chaplain, he has broad Chris- 
 tian ends to serve, and not the petty interests of 
 a sect. But it is no place in the army for those 
 
170 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 who depend for their enjoyment on " soft rai- 
 ment " and social amenities and the sweet cour- 
 tesies and charming graces of refined, cultivated 
 Cliristian society. It is a John Baptist mission, 
 to be fulfilled in a hair mantle and a leather gir- 
 dle, and with an axe-man's blows at the root of 
 prevalent evils. 
 
 I have been slowly learning the necessity of 
 working without gloves, and to follow Paul's di- 
 rection to Timothy, — " Those that sin openly re- 
 buke before all, tliat others, also, may fear ; and 
 let no man despise thee," and that the example 
 of Jesus in making and using a whip has a 
 practical and important significance. Tliere are 
 money-changers, gamblers, rascals for whom a 
 flogging is needful and useful, and he is no true 
 disciple of Christ who will not on occasion ad- 
 minister something of the kind. 
 
 I imagine I see a humorous, roguish kind of a 
 smile on your face as you read such sentences 
 from me, and think of my anti-belligerent views 
 a few years ago. But I can only say experience 
 is a great teacher, and new circumstances give 
 us new views, and a change of position ~some 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 171 
 
 times changes opinion and feeling in a way as 
 surprising to ourselves as to others. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 
 Camp Jefferson^ Bacon Creek^ Ky.^ Jan. Ist^ 
 1862. One of the pleasant recollections that 
 came to me this morning was the circumstance 
 that on the 1st of January, 1836, 1 wrote a let- 
 ter from the Desplaine River, in Illinois, to Betsey 
 M. Kelsey in Brandon, Vermont. God be thanked 
 for the happiness of that day and year, and for all 
 the joy of which it was the prelude. How much of 
 domestic enjoyment has been my experience, and 
 hope 1 may say yours, also, in these twenty-six 
 years of life ! The recollection is just occasion of 
 gratitude and fit inspiration of a still purer and 
 deeper love for each other ; and yet our love has 
 at no time seemed deficient in these qualities. 
 God be thanked for the children he has given 
 lis, and for all their good qualities, their good 
 behavior, their worth, and prospects of usefulness 
 and happiness in life. Their worth and welfare 
 is the multiplication of our enjoyments, and we 
 have occasion of gratitude that they are doing 
 so well. 
 
172 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 (To his Father.) 
 
 Boivling Green, Ky., Feb. 2Dth, 1862. 1 feel 
 sorry for your financial difficulties, but I hope 
 you will give yourself as little trouble and 
 anxiety about it as possible. " We brought 
 nothing into this world," as Paul says, " and can 
 carry nothing out ; " and I presume that, not- 
 withstanding all losses, you will have enough to 
 carry you comfortably through ; and if your 
 means fail, mine may hold out, and will be 
 cheerfully used for your comfort, should occasion 
 demand. The war has produced general dis- 
 turbance, but we may hope for prosperity with 
 the return of peace. When I see what men 
 have lost here by the robbery and burning of the 
 rebel army, and by the destruction of timber 
 fences, grain fields, etc., by both armies, I think 
 our friends of the North have little reason to 
 complain. Many Union men of this town have 
 been burned out, and all they had destroyed in a 
 fev^ hours. All around the country has been 
 stripped and devastated ; and all that many of 
 the people have to show for their horses, cattle, 
 and crops is southern scrip and due-bills from 
 quartermasters of the Confederate States, wliich 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 173 
 
 may be redeemed if the rebellion succeeds, — a 
 poor show just at present. 
 
 ( To his Daughter.) 
 
 Camp near Fayetteville, Tenn., March 6. This 
 morning I sent in a match-box a prisoner 
 captured at Athens, Ala., to Dr. Le Baron, of 
 Geneva. It was a rebellious and bellicose beetle 
 bug, about as large as a small mouse, with enor- 
 mous mandibles. I informed the doctor where 
 he was captured, and that I had kept him in 
 close confinement for about ten days, and as he 
 would not take the oath of allegiance to the 
 United States, I sent him as a prisoner to him to 
 be dealt with in a proper manner. This is the 
 only prisoner I have sent home as yet from the 
 war. The honey-bees, flies, and butterflies all 
 hum and flutter in a loyal way, feeling no sym- 
 pathy with rebellion, and the pe-wees, wrens, 
 larks, and swallows sing in real Northern Union 
 style. There are songsters of the grove, whose 
 plumage and song are new to me, but there 
 is evidently nothing treasonable and malicious 
 about them, and no thought of murderous war- 
 fare is harbored in their breasts, unless, perhaps, 
 the military necessity of foraging upon bugs 
 
174 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 and worms, and mayhap, in an emergency, 
 taking, without a " voucher," a few grains of 
 wheat or oats from a ripening field.- Soldiers 
 who take chickens in a similar way ought not to 
 complain of them, particularly as no " general 
 orders " have been issued to them forbidding 
 such things. Set a bowl of water in the sun- 
 shine and hold a piece of glass over it, and see 
 the bright reflection dance about on the wall 
 or overhead. Just so are the rippling waves 
 of the river now making of the reflected sun- 
 light dancing Jacks upon the shaded, overhang- 
 ing wall of rock across the water from my 
 tent. Cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer, sings a little 
 bird in the great sassafras tree overhead. 
 Whether he is cheering the sport of the wavelet 
 or something else which excites his exultation, 
 I am not able to declare. His comrades seem 
 to understand him, and respond heartily with 
 chirp and twitter, warble and song, whistle and 
 bird-shout, and the crow, high overhead, caws 
 his sympathy and approval. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 
 Camp Martin Van Buren, below Murfrees- 
 borough^ Tenn.^ March 22. The negroes are 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 175 
 
 the truest friends we have, and take every safe 
 opportunity to give us useful information ; and 
 it is abominable meanness, as well as stupid 
 folly, that our officers will not generally avail 
 themselves of the advantage of their friendly 
 disposition, and accept the assistance they might 
 render us in prosecuting the war. We de- 
 serve defeat and disgrace until we are willing 
 to let the oppressed race co-operate with us 
 against the rebels and oppressors who are not 
 only warring against Eepublican Government, 
 but against humanity. If the punishment could 
 only fall on those who deserve it, I should say let 
 it come, no matter how soon ; but we are all 
 bound up together, and must take our share of 
 the weal or woe involved in the conduct of the 
 war. My hope is that we shall grow wiser by 
 experience and do better, and that the desire of 
 the righteous shall be fulfilled, and the rod of 
 the oppressor be broken, and the counsel of the 
 wicked come to naught. Does not God rule on 
 the earth ? 
 
 ( To his Daughter. ) 
 
 Camp Van Buren^ March 26. I should not 
 object to a close of the war in four weeks, and 
 
176 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 a return liome from this camp ; and I some- 
 times think it among the possibilities that we 
 may do so. But there are indications of a long 
 struggle. If our Government only had the 
 courage and common sense to declare the slaves 
 of traitors free, and take them into service as la- 
 borers, or enlist them as soldiers, it might make 
 short work of pulling down the rebellion. But if 
 the policy is pursued of preserving slavery and 
 the Union too, we may look out for a long and 
 hard struggle. Until we are ready to do justice, 
 or something approaching towards it, to the col- 
 ored race, we are not ready for a settlement of 
 the strife, and the restoration of peace, — we are 
 not ready for even a successful prosecution of 
 the war. But it is little I can do to change the 
 course of events. I think before the war is 
 ended, however, we should be wilHng to take 
 hold of it more in earnest, and let slavery go to 
 destruction to save the nation. 
 
 {To his Wife.) 
 
 Camp Van Buren, March 31. Yesterday I 
 preached from the text, " There is no power but 
 of God, and if God be for us, who can be against 
 us?'* 1 had a brass drum for a desk, and a 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HTS REST. 177 
 
 rifled brass cannon on either side for the walls of 
 my pulpit. Not a large attendance, but I gave 
 them a plain, earnest talk on the necessity of 
 obedience to the laws of God in order to enlist- 
 ing on our side the power of God, — of being 
 for truth, justice, and humanity if we would have 
 God for and with us. I also spoke of the failure 
 of many of our military men to recognize the im- 
 portance of moral and religious influences and 
 moral force in tlie prosecution by citizen soldiery 
 of a war for the moral welfare of our nation and 
 of universal liumanity. ... I have not been 
 more delighted with anything since the com- 
 mencement of the war tlian with President Lin- 
 coln's special message recommending the passage 
 of a resolution favorable to gradual emancipation 
 in the border slave States. This looks, indeed, 
 like the dawn of day, the breaking light of free- 
 dom, and a true and lasting peace. Just as fast 
 and far as slavery is abolislied, the victory is fully 
 won, the cause of strife removed, and abiding 
 peace obtained. But it must be done as the 
 President is doing it, gradually and cautiously, as 
 the people are ready and willing to co-operate 
 with it. All the delay and suffering experienced 
 
 12 
 
178 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 has been a necessary preparation for united and 
 efficient action ; and we may yet need more of 
 tlie same kind to bring us a nation fully up to the 
 mark. But what is needful I feel sure will be, 
 and God's glory will be revealed in the deliver- 
 ance of the oppressed, and the thorough regenera- 
 tion of our nation. The blood of our heroes, like 
 the blood of Christ, will l)e our cleansing from the 
 sin of pride, oppression, and cruelty, of which we 
 have been so long guilty as a people. If we are 
 indeed redeemed by the blood shed, the salvation 
 will exceed the cost. The ultimate blessings se- 
 cured will be more than worthy the sacrifices 
 made. If I should happen to come home with- 
 out a scratch or scar, I shall feel as thougli I had 
 hardly earned a right to share the blessings ob- 
 tained by the bloody sacrifices of others. But 
 God knows I have not been without moral suffer- 
 ings in the endeavor to do my duty, and these 
 may be a substitute perhaps for physical ones. 
 
FROM ROCKPORD TO HIS REST. 179 
 
 chaplain's report. 
 
 CHA.PLAtN'8 Quarters, 19th Reg. III. Vols., 
 
 Camp Martin Van Buren, March 31, 1862. 
 
 Report of the Moral and Religious Condition of the Vdth Regi- 
 ment of Illinois Volunteers^ for the Quarter ending March 
 Ust, 1862. 
 
 To Major Frederick Harding, Commanding: 
 
 In presenting the following report, the chaplain 
 would remark that, while the moral and religious 
 condition of the 19th Regiment affords some 
 cheering confirmation of the substantial truth 
 of the beautiful, inspiring, and poetic fancy that 
 every human being has " an angel side," it 
 also leaves little room for doubt that there is for 
 a portion of humanity an opposite side, which 
 can only be characterized as bestial and devilish. 
 In regard to the low vices of profanity, drunken- 
 ness, and gambling, there is great need of re- 
 form and improvement, but very little hope of it 
 until initiated and sustained by the officers of the 
 regiment. All which is respectfully presented to 
 serious consideration and earnest attention by A. 
 H. Conant, chaplain of the 19th Reg. 111. Vols. 
 
 {To his Sister.) 
 
 ■ Shelbyville, Tenn., April 1th. I sympathize 
 with your desire to have the war effect the re- 
 
180 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 moval of its iniquitous cause, and have sometimes 
 felt the apprehension that it would fail of it. 
 But, on the whole, I am inclined to be hopeful. 
 We of the North did not desire or design to 
 have war, but it came in spite of us ; so we do 
 not as a whole want to interfere with slavery in 
 the prosecution and conclusion of it. But I feel 
 confident we shall be compelled to do it, willing- 
 ly or unwillingly. A higher power is at work, 
 and for higher ends than govern our action. I 
 was more excited and elated by the special mes- 
 sage of President Lincoln on the subject of 
 emancipation in the border States than I have been 
 by any victory we have gained. I think it is the 
 beginning of the end of slavery, and hope that, in 
 the same wise and just spirit, the subject will be 
 followed up until the glorious result is attained. 
 I feel not only the physical, but the moral hor- 
 rors of this war. But if through all this agony 
 the nation is really regenerated, it will be as a 
 drop in the bucket to the blessings secured. I 
 feel shocked and disgusted at the depravity and 
 corruption exhibited in camp. It seems such an 
 outrage that so holy a cause as that in which we 
 are engaged should be desecrated and compro- 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 181 
 
 mised by the vileness and iniquity of those who 
 are sustaining it, that I am often sick and dis- 
 heartened, and feel as though notliing l)ut a 
 severe flogging by our enemies, and a just retri- 
 bution for our sins, can do us any real good. 
 But for the sake of those who love righteousness 
 and hate iniquity, and are striving with all 
 their energy to do well, I hope and pray for the 
 continued success of our armies, and the speedy 
 end of the rebellion. 
 
 (To his Son.) 
 
 Decatur, Alabama, April 21. I was sorry 
 to hear of the death of Colonel Ellis, at Pitts- 
 burg Landing. It is a sad experience for his 
 wife and little family. How many brave men 
 have fallen in this struggle for freedom and 
 constitutional law against slavery and self-will ! 
 But we have reason to hope that by this shedding 
 of blood our nation will obtain redemption from 
 the sin and curse of slavery and lawlessness, and 
 the reward be greater than the sacrifice. If it 
 should be my fortune to fall a victim, I know 
 you would all grieve over it; but I hope you 
 would also rejoice that I laid the offering of my 
 
182 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 life upon the altar of freedom and humanity, and 
 fell for so good and noble a cause. Death must 
 come to us all, and it may be esteemed fortunate 
 if it come in such a way as greatly to promote 
 the welfare of mankind. I liope to live and re- 
 turn to you to enjoy long the results of a success- 
 ful war for tlie maintenance of our government, 
 and the best ideas of which it is significant ; but 
 if I should not, I hope you will always esteem it 
 an honor that, in God's providence, I had a place 
 among the hosts of martyrs to freedom. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 
 Decatur, Alabama, April 22, 1862. It seems 
 as though the chief hardship and suffering has 
 not fallen to me in camp, but to you at home.* 
 While I have had little or no opportunity for the 
 exercise of heroic virtues, you have had severe 
 trials of courage, endurance, self-sacrifice, and 
 won laurels quite as worthy of ambition as those 
 of the brave defenders of freedom. It is not the 
 place or circumstance that constitutes essential 
 greatness, but the true, noble, brave spirit, which 
 meets and masters all. So you have been exhib- 
 iting and acquiring heroism at home ; while in 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 183 
 
 the camp and on the march, I have done little 
 more than to look out for my own comfort and 
 welfare. 
 
 {To Ms Sister.) 
 
 Camp Mitchell^ Mt. Athens^ Alabama^ May 
 16th, 1862. I sympathize with your repugnance 
 at the horrors of war, and feel, as worse than tlie 
 mortal agonies and social bereavements, the de- 
 moralization of men in camp life. But I still 
 hope that out of all tliese evils the great provi- 
 dence of God will bring forth greater good, and 
 the agonies will be followed by the new bulk of 
 our nation, the night of iniquity by the dawn- 
 ing of the day of freedom, and these conflicts 
 with the powers of darkness be followed by the 
 triumph of righteousness and the coming in 
 power and glory of the kingdom of heaven. If 
 the right prevails over the wrong, if the curse 
 of slavery is removed, and we come forth from 
 the war a redeemed people, all the sacrifice will 
 be amply repaid. Hoping and trusting this will 
 be the ultimate result, I endeavor to endure pa- 
 tiently and wait cheerfully, and do the little I can 
 do, and leave the rest to Him who cares for us 
 all. 
 
184 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 {To his Wife.) 
 
 There are as vile beasts in human sliape in 
 camp as are permitted to pollute the earth with 
 their presence. It is a place of abominations. But 
 there is one comfort, a man need not make him- 
 self mean in tlie midst of meanness. The soul 
 can create for itself a heaven in the midst of hell, 
 and make all abominable things add to the depth 
 of its purity and strength of its integrity through 
 the sentiment of disgust and horror and detesta- 
 tion excited against them. I do not think I ever 
 could have felt such abhorrence and hatred of 
 certain forms of vice, if I had not seen their 
 hideousness in camp, as my recent experiences 
 awakened. So this purgatory may be of service 
 to me after all, I believe; indeed, it will be my 
 own great folly and fault if I am not only a 
 wiser but a better man for my camp life. Tak- 
 ing this view of the matter, I feel ashamed of my 
 moral weakness and cowardice in wishing to es- 
 cape to the safe and blessed sanctuary of home, 
 from which gross evils are shut out. I ought to 
 be a brave soldier and not a cowardly deserter in 
 the moral warfare in which I have enlisted. 
 But spite of these manlier thoughts, the love of 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 185 
 
 home will keep alive the earnest desire for the 
 speedy coming of the day of discharge. 
 
 {To his Wife.) 
 
 Bridgeport, Ala., July 10, 1862. The more I 
 see of the condition, and learn of the feeling of 
 the common people, the more apprehensive do I 
 become that we have but just begun the war. 
 There is a wider-spread and deeper-felt hatred 
 of the Northern people at the South than I could 
 without observation have understood or believed. 
 It seems as though nothing short of the depopu- 
 lation of the country, and its repopulation with 
 men of a different character could bring peace. 
 
 July 18, 1862, writes. Many of the officers 
 mean to resign if Colonel Turchin is condemned. 
 But I should be sorry to have men in favor of 
 slavery, as Buell is well known to be, left in en- 
 tire control by the resignation of men in favor of 
 freedom ; so I shall not resign for that ; but as it 
 is probable that, owing to the scattered condition 
 of the regiment, being set to guard one hundred 
 miles of railroad, I may not be able to render the 
 men any service as chaplain, and then I may re- 
 sign. 
 
186 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 June 10, 1862. Yesterday I made a hum in 
 camp by seizing the money of some gamblers for 
 the benefit of the hospital fund, according to a 
 general order from Colonel Turchin, issued last 
 summer. Since the men were paid off, the gam- 
 blers in camp have been fleecing the simple ones. 
 One fellow lost in a few hours ninety dollars, and 
 was frantic to go on. I spoke to the officer in 
 command about it, but whenever he appeared, 
 there was no money to be found. I happened, 
 in passing a tent, to see a game going on and the 
 money on the table ; so I just seized hold of it, 
 telling them I must confiscate it to the hospital. 
 One of the gamblers sprang up, and caught hold 
 of me, and tried to take it from me. I told him 
 be had better be quiet, or he would get himself 
 in trouble. I put the money into the hands of 
 Mrs. Turchin, until the colonel returns to camp. 
 Some of the gamblers threatened that if any 
 one attempted to take their money, they would 
 get their head knocked off; but captain told 
 them the best thing for them to do was to keep 
 still, or they would be put under arrest. I 
 supposed, of course, they would not like to be 
 interfered with. But I am commissioned and 
 
PROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 187 
 
 paid to look after the moral welfare of the reg- 
 iment, and I do not mean to be prevented for 
 fear of giving offence. The colored men of the 
 brigade were taken this forenoon under a guard 
 to brigade head-quarters, to give a party of slave- 
 holders a chance to look for runaway slaves ; but 
 none were found. By some means the negroes 
 had heard of the plan last night, and those in 
 danger had disappeared. It is thought by some 
 that Colonel Hill, 37th Indiana, has laid himself 
 liable to be cashiered for this attempt to aid slave- 
 catchers. 
 
 I have just given my colored boy Andy his first 
 lesson in reading. It is a great pleasure to lielp 
 a bright fellow like Andy, who seems so able and 
 willing to help himself; he is wide awake, keeps 
 all in order, gets up a good breakfast, dinner, and 
 tea. Yesterday evening I found in my tent a 
 splendid bouquet of roses, pinks, and honey- 
 suckles. I gathered from him that they were 
 from Sally, who had found out where he was, and 
 met him at the well when he went for water. It 
 is a peculiar feeling, camping here in the ene- 
 my's country. I look out at the mountains only 
 three or four miles off, long to climb them, but 
 
188 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 dare not venture. It seems queer to be sur- 
 rounded by people who look at you like wolves, 
 to guard your life night and day by unflagging 
 vigilance ; but it is the stern necessity of war, 
 and none but an atheist can believe it will be in 
 vain. We may suffer defeat, but it will be to 
 teach us higher wisdom and to do that justice 
 with which alone is omnipotence and real success. 
 
 I am getting ragged, but I patch up and keep 
 as decent as I can. I have made a cot to sleep on, 
 which is very nice. You can hardly believe how 
 entirely comfortable I have learned to make my- 
 self in tent. I might lie on the damp ground at 
 night, as I see others do, have no floor to my 
 tent and no fire, get sick, and then a nice long 
 furlough ; but as I feel it my duty to take care of 
 health, I see no prospect of a furlough, and shall 
 probably have to keep fat, healthy, and far from 
 home. 
 
 This evening our Bible class was the fullest we 
 have ever had, and all seemed interested ; I feel 
 better satisfied with these meetings than with 
 anything else I am doing, and really think that in 
 this way I am sowing good seed where some of 
 it will be likely to spring up and bear fruit. 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 189 
 
 I feel sometimes as though I were accomplish- 
 ing very little and ought to resign. The officers 
 of the regiment are many of them not merely 
 irreligious but immoral men, gamblers, hard 
 drinkers, and profane swearers. My preaching 
 and talking seems to avail nothing, and to get 
 out of the regiment would be to me like getting 
 out of pain ; but then I consider whether without 
 a chaplain some at least would not be worse, and 
 that there is no place under heaven where moral 
 and religious influence is more needed, and I be- 
 lieve I have, with all these adverse influences, 
 inspired the respect of both officers and men. 
 
 I have had for a day or two to keep quiet from 
 an attack of the army diarrhoea. I saw in the 
 " Inquirer " a notice that a tea made from the 
 bark of the sweet gum tree is a capital specific. 
 So, as one of these trees makes part of the shade 
 over our tent, I got the bark, and am drinking the 
 tea ; and Mr. George, who has just come by while 
 I am writing in the shade, tells me the efiect of 
 this tea in the hospital has been most excellent. 
 I can hardly help feeling guilty for living so idly 
 and comfortably as I do now, but I try to be 
 reconciled by thinking that the Divine Providence 
 
190 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 is giving me a holiday whether I will or no, and 
 this is a wonderful plea to be lazy in. The 
 country is full of fine ripe peaches ; thousands of 
 bushels are rotting on the ground, and it is piti- 
 ful to see the quantities of blackberries that have 
 dried up. Our boys have built a dam across the 
 creek, and far down I can see them enjoying the 
 cool stream and the cool shade of the trees, as we 
 were before Eve ate the apple. But if these 
 earthly scenes are too earthly, then the blue 
 heavens and white clouds shine through the 
 dancing leaves and open into vistas of celestial 
 beauty, symbols of divine sanctity, infinite majesty, 
 and eternal peace. Ah, wife, these old trees 
 reveal quite as much as they conceal of heaven's 
 glory, and the clear eye, the pure heart, has ever 
 its mission of the infinite beauty and responsive 
 pulsation to the infinite love. 
 
 I have found out how to touch the heart and 
 moisten the eye of the soldier. I just begin to 
 describe to him what a paradise home is, — how 
 pure the love cherished there, how kind the 
 hearts, how gentle the tones, how unselfish the 
 deeds, — and then he is soon done for ; if there 
 is any manliness about him, he surrenders. It is 
 
PROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 191 
 
 a thing I uever do, however, without having to 
 end wiping my own eyes. I sometimes hope, when 
 I am nearest despair, that this camp life, which 
 seems so ruinous to the souls of our men, may 
 end in an utter surfeit of simple indulgence, an 
 everlasting abhorrence and hatred of the vices of 
 men set free from the restraint of home. I am 
 often astonished that men are not sooner sickened 
 by the profanity and obscenity which prevail. 
 
 Huntsville, Aug-. 19, 1862. A scene. Two 
 ladies in a carriage, with a negro driver, have 
 been to these head-quarters slave-hunting. Had 
 heard that one named Andrew was here. Had 
 a permit from General Rousseau to search tlie 
 camps. Inquired for the chaplain's tent, and pro- 
 posed to search that. Chaplain closed the tent, 
 and told them that it belonged to him, and' they 
 could not enter or look into it. Ladies held out 
 a paper, which they said was General Rousseau's 
 permit of search. Chaplain told them neither 
 they nor the general could enter his tent for 
 such a purpose. Ladies left in a towering pas- 
 sion, to bring the general in person to catch the 
 negro, punish the chaplain, and so forth. Have 
 not returned yet with him, and J suspect they 
 
192 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 find it hard to persuade him to come. Mayhe 
 I shall be honored with an invitation to the 
 general's head-quarters, or to appear before his 
 highness Don Carlos Buell. Maybe not ; I wait 
 with patience. After the ladies were gone, Andy 
 took a walk ; I did not notice which way he 
 went. 
 
 Aug. 22, 1862. Yesterday we had another 
 hunt in our camp. The women came again, re- 
 inforced by an escort of three cavalry with 
 orders from General Rousseau, they said, to take 
 Andy, dead or alive, to his head-quarters. Andy 
 was not in camp. I was a little distance from 
 my tent, building a foot-bridge, but went and 
 closed my tent-door. Seeing my tent shut up, 
 they suspected Andy was there ; so one of the 
 escort came, intending to look in. I bade him 
 stand back, told him he could not enter. He 
 presented what he said was General Rousseau's 
 order. I told him the order was to search the 
 camp, but not my tent ; he might go to the length 
 of his order, but in such an infamous business, 
 not an hair's breadth further. He then went 
 back, when one of the women shouted she 
 wished she was a man, she would go into that 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 193 
 
 tent. I told her it was a pity she was not, so she 
 could try. I believe if they could get Andy into 
 their hands they would kill him. Is it not infa- 
 mous that, in defiance of the law of Congress, 
 our generals in command will go their utmost 
 length to help to catch and return the slaves of 
 traitors now in tlie Confederate army ? 
 
 Oct. 16, 1862. This, dear wife, is my fifty- 
 first birthday, and I had for my dinner a green 
 apple pie, which I ate from the speaker's desk, 
 sitting in the speaker's chair of the Representa- 
 tive's Hall, in the State Capitol of Tennessee. 
 A fiddler was in the Senate Chamber ; soldiers 
 were dancing, playing cards, or asleep ; women 
 were selling cakes and pies. I could not but re- 
 member that here, by vote of traitors, a large 
 majority of the people of Tennessee were bound 
 hand and foot to the Confederacy, and if the hall 
 had not first been filled with vile orators, it would 
 not now be occupied by armed soldiers. Soap 
 and water will remove the filth left by the sol- 
 diers, but blood alone will wash out the stain and 
 pollution of treason. After eating my dinner, 
 and then at the desk offering a silent prayer for 
 13 
 
194 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 the success of our cause and freedom and jus- 
 tice, I went away. 
 
 From a camp to the south-east, come, low and 
 soft from the distance, yet clear and distinct, the 
 tones of " Sweet Home " sung by a multitude of 
 manly voices, and doubtless the deep-felt utter- 
 ance of brave, manly hearts. There is no place 
 like home. But its sanctity and blessedness are 
 dependent upon that Christian civilization and 
 those principles of justice, freedom, and virtue 
 for which we are contending under the flag of 
 our country. So the love of home requires pa- 
 . tient endurance of separation from it, for its own 
 sake, and love of the dear ones keeps us away 
 from them while almost dying to be with them. 
 
 {To his Son.) 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 6, 1862. As you have 
 enlisted, I doubt not, from honorable motives, I 
 am anxious for you to do the best possible. You 
 will, in the army, see more of coarse vice than 
 you have ever met with before, — profanity, gam- 
 bling, stealing, lying, drunkenness in camp, than 
 you have ever imagined. You will be beset by 
 temptation to these vices in one way or another, 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 195 
 
 by example and solicitation every day and almost 
 every hour. Remember the sayings of Pope, — 
 
 " Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
 Yet seen too oft, famUiar with her face, 
 We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 To keep aloof from these vices, will require 
 more vigilance than the night watch for the ene- 
 my, and more courage than to face the rebels in 
 fight. To go through the service and preserve 
 the purity and integrity of your character unim- 
 paired, will be a higher honor, and the proof of 
 greater bravery than other that can be obtained 
 or exhibited. I know a few young men in our 
 regiment who do keep their manliness unim- 
 paired, who neither swear, nor gamble, nor 
 drink liquor, nor indulge in other low vices, and 
 they have the respect and esteem of all. Even 
 those who would like to be kept in countenance 
 by having the force of their example cannot help 
 respecting them. I hope you will do your coun- 
 try the service of setting an example of moral 
 heroism and soldierly good conduct. 
 
 (To his Wife.) 
 
 Nashville, Tenn.,Oct. 5, 1862. I have in posses- 
 sion a little bit of white silk thread which I carry 
 
196 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 a large part of the time in my bosom, and often 
 take out and look at, and after bringing it very 
 near my lips put it back. Isn't that que r ? 
 What do you suppose it means ? Do you give it 
 up ? Well, I may as well tell you a little more 
 about it ; that little bit of silk thread ties up a 
 tiny lock of hair, and the lock of hair is in a 
 papier mache daguerrotype case containing the 
 picture of a mother and daughter. Ah, you will 
 guess the rest, and how, in the absence of the 
 originals, the heart in its yearnings gives way to 
 image worship, and pictures get the kisses love 
 would give the dear ones, made by a year of 
 separation to seem more dear than ever before. 
 It can hardly be helped this image worship, and 
 I have learned to reconcile it with my Unitarian- 
 ism, and think it no sinful idolatry, but rather 
 akin to true Christian devotion by acceptance of 
 the philosophy of the German D. D., who said that 
 he loved God in his wife and children. I believe 
 that is a kind of piety which comes natural to 
 me, and the exercise of which is quite sponta- 
 neous. My wife and children, ah, how large a 
 space they fill in the world of my thoughts and 
 affections ! How much of the heaven of mem- 
 
FROM ROCKPORD TO HIS REST. 197 
 
 cry and of hope takes the blessedness from them, 
 and has its sanctity and joy bound up with them ! 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., Nov. 23, 1862. I preached to- 
 day a sermon on the times. I had nearly a dozen 
 of chaplains and Methodist ministers to hear me, 
 and a good audience of soldiers and citizens. My 
 text was, " The night is far spent, the day is at 
 hand ; let us, therefore, put off the works of dark- 
 ness, and let us put on the armor of light." My 
 sermon was much of it written, but the last part 
 of it unwritten. I believe it gave very great satis- 
 faction, and hope that some truth fell like living 
 seed into good and fruitful soil. 
 
 Dec. 6, 1862. I have been hesitating which 
 would be most " pious," — to go and hear Meth- 
 odist preaching in the chapel about a mile from 
 our camp, or to sit down and write to you. On the 
 whole, I have concluded I would do both ; I be- 
 gan as above before meeting, and now after meet- 
 ing I go on to write to you. I am glad I put away 
 my letter and went to meeting, for I have heard 
 not Methodist distinctively, but Christian preach- 
 ing on " trust in Providence." I got a far better 
 feast of good things than I expected. 
 
198 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 {To his Wife.) 
 
 Dec. 21, 1862. How I wish I could be with you 
 to spend Christmas holidays, but it is no use to 
 think of it with the enemy so near and a battle 
 impending. If a battle should be fought, and I 
 should not be on hand to care for the wounded 
 and dying, I should feel guilty. I am busy enough. 
 When I can do no more for the sick, I work for 
 the well. One man comes to me with a new axe 
 and a handle to fit in it. I have made the colonel, 
 the adjutant, the major, and myself each a writing- 
 table, beside ever so many camp-stools and dinner- 
 tables. When we came here, I found a stand and 
 camp-stool among the stuff that I had made in 
 Nashville. I supposed some one had put them on a 
 baggage-wagon for me, and was thankfully carry- 
 ing them off, but a colored man said he found 
 them and carried them all the way from Nash- 
 ville, six miles, on his head, so I allowed his claim ; 
 then he divided the plunder, giving me the stool. 
 I feel dreadfully at times, saddened, sickened, 
 and disgusted at the doings of war. But bad as 
 it is, the injustice and oppression perpetrated for 
 ages is worse, so if the war be needful to that 
 
PROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 199 
 
 justice, mercy, and truth, which is the kingdom 
 of God, we must fight till his kingdom come. 
 
 This was the tenor of our chaplain's life in 
 camp, so long as he was spared for the service ; 
 sick at heart sometimes at the things he saw 
 about him, longing to get home again, if it were 
 only for a day, to see the wife and children, and 
 especially the little child he had never seen, that 
 was born after he went to the wars, and when the 
 rest of his children had grown to be men and 
 woman. He never did see that little one in 
 this world at all ; it was baptized in the room 
 where he lay dead, and the vase that held the 
 baptismal water rested on his coffin ; and then, 
 not long after that, the child himself was taken 
 by the angels to the arms of the father who had 
 longed so to see and hold him on this earth. 
 But Mr. Conant's life in the camp, as my readers 
 will notice, was not without fine encouragements 
 and cheerful aspects. The boy Andy who had 
 come to him out of bondage, and was a very 
 handy Andy indeed, — a capital washerman, 
 ironer, and cook, a great hand at making black- 
 berry wine, and many other delectable things, and 
 who always brought his water to camp riding on 
 
200 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 horseback, with the tub on his head, — this Andy 
 was an endless interest to him. He taught him 
 to read and write, and what could be got into 
 him beside of the humanities, — entered keenly 
 into his domestic troubles and trials, and brought 
 him along to a good estate. 
 
 The officers' wives, too, whenever they were in 
 camp, were great allies and helpers to him ; " they 
 are worth more," he says, " than a file of soldiers, 
 in keeping the men in order. He wishes there 
 could be twice as many ladies with them all the 
 time, " though it is no place for a woman of deli- 
 cate nerves. Yet a strong-minded and pure- 
 hearted woman," he adds, "may pass through it 
 all unharmed. Mrs. Turchin blooms like a fair 
 flower in it. She reminds me very much of Lucy 
 Stone Blackwell, has all the refinement of a lady, 
 with the energy and self-reliance of a man ; is 
 able to take charge of herself, carries a nice little 
 revolver and dagger in her belt, and has a dignity 
 of manner and bearing that secures respect from 
 the roughest soldiers." 
 
 Sometimes he got a fine chance for a sermon 
 that was not exactly within strict theological 
 lines, as one day when he found the soldiers had 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 201 
 
 no straw to sleep on, and were getting sick for 
 want of it ; while those that should have provid- 
 ed it were slack about their duty. He preached 
 from the text, Exodus fifth chapter, sixteenth 
 verse. " There is no straw given unto thy ser- 
 vants." 
 
 He went on, as we have seen, to say in his 
 sermon that in this time, also, it was hard to 
 get along without straw. Sleeping on the bare 
 ground was bringing colds, rheumatism, and 
 consumption among the men, and a man with 
 any one of these ailments could not be a good 
 soldier. This was bad again in a moral sense, 
 because discomfort brought on bad temper, and 
 in a bad temper, the men would say bad things. 
 He told the officers they ought to do all in 
 their power for the comfort and welfare of the 
 men, and the men that they could take better 
 care than they were taking of themselves. They 
 could buy a tick with the money they spent in 
 whiskey, fill it with leaves or corn-husks, and 
 get along, if they had to, without straw. The 
 best help, after all, was self-help. "I want you," 
 he concluded, " to have faith in a good bed, good 
 food, and wholesome drink, and that will help 
 
202 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 you to have faith in every other good thing, be- 
 cause the gospel of God's grace to the body pre- 
 pares the way for his grace to come into the soul. 
 Next day a farmer was found who had some 
 sacks of grain ready for threshing, who would be 
 glad to supply some straw if the soldiers would 
 help to thresh ; it did not take long after that for 
 the men to get all the straw they wanted. 
 
 The trouble Mr. Moody made him, as the 
 reader will gather, was very grievous while it 
 lasted. The exquisite illustration he hits on, in 
 one of his letters, in supposing that another doc- 
 tor without diploma, or any other authority than 
 his own say so, should come into camp and begin 
 to tell the men that their own physician, trained 
 and accredited to his office, was still unfit for it, 
 and that he was the man, is right to the point ; 
 but he got over this trouble as he did over every 
 other, did his duty with a full-hearted faithful- 
 ness, and won at last the confidence and esteem 
 even of those who had been stirred up against 
 him, and so 1862 drew to a close. This letter 
 will tell how the new year opened. 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 203 
 
 In the Hospital, ox the Battle-Field, 
 
 Near Murfkeesbo hough, Tenn., Jan. 2d, 1863. 
 
 Dear Wife, — We have been fighting three 
 days nearly on the same ground, and the battle 
 is not yet decided. I suppose you will hear of it, 
 and feel anxious about our safety. I write to 
 say that I am yet unharmed, and that I saw our 
 dear son, Neray, after the severest of the fight, 
 in which his regiment was engaged the day be- 
 fore yesterday, about noon, and he was unhurt, 
 also, though he had been in a hot battle, and, as 
 Col. Marsh said, '' had fought like a tiger." I 
 took a cup of tea with him while the storm of 
 battle was roaring like the seven thunders ; his 
 regiment had been so badly broken up and scat- 
 tered that I do not think they were again brought 
 into the hardest of the fighting, so I hope he is 
 still safe. There was constant skirmishing, and 
 our hospital, being in rather a central position on 
 the battle-field, was a good deal of the time be- 
 tween the two fires. Since I began writing, our 
 skirmishers have been firing at tlie rebels ; but 
 now they have fallen back, and the rebels are 
 about the hospital firing at them. We have over 
 one hundred wounded men in the house, Federal 
 and Confederates togetlier, and both sides try not 
 
204 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 to hit the hospital. I worked all night till four 
 o'clock ill the morning night before last, bring- 
 ing in the wounded from the battle-field, and 
 while the ambulance was taking a load, I gener- 
 ally remained out in the woods or fields, building 
 fires for the comfort of the poor fellows who 
 were waiting to be taken in, and also hunting 
 them up. While so employed, I was made a 
 prisoner by a Confederate colonel, and my am- 
 bulance and assistants were also captured ; but 
 we told tliem what we were doing, so, after some 
 parley, they concluded to let us all go and keep 
 about our work. Just now, as I wrote, the 
 rebels were in the yard, — now, again, our own 
 men are here, and the house jars and the win- 
 dows rattle with the discharge of artillery close 
 by us. We are surrounded with a wall of fire, 
 and I can hear the balls sing and the shells burst 
 as I write ; but our work of mercy is our protec- 
 tion ; we shall be hit only by accident. I need not 
 dwell on this. I have often been impatient be- 
 cause I have had so little to do ; but the oppor- 
 tunity to help those in need on this battle-field 
 pays for all delays. You cannot imagine how 
 much I have enjoyed for the last forty-eight 
 
FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 205 
 
 hours in helping friend and foe. Wlien captured, 
 I made some of the Confederates help me to bring 
 a wounded Ohio soldier to a fire, and as we 
 clasped hands beneath him, I told him we would 
 take one brotherly gripe, if we never did again. 
 It was the best right hand of fellowship I ever 
 gave or received. Now I must hasten to my 
 duties, and will write more when more at leisure, 
 the good Lord willing. 
 
 Your affectionate husband, 
 
 A. IT. CONANT. 
 
 Brigade Hospital, Battle-Field, 
 
 Near Murfreesborough, Tenn., Jan. 5tli, 1863. 
 
 Dear Wife, — The storm of battle is at last over, 
 and I have the happiness to inform you that 
 Neray and myself are still unharmed. I wrote 
 you the day before yesterday, while the fight 
 was going on, and we knew not which way the 
 tide of battle would turn. Yesterday afternoon it 
 was found that the Confederate army had re- 
 turned from Murfreesborough, and at sunset we 
 heard the distant roar of our artillery hurrying 
 up their flying footsteps. I went to-night toward 
 that part of the field where the 19th Regiment 
 were camped to learn their condition, then re- 
 
206 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 turned to the hospital by way of the camp of the 
 74th Illinois, and saw Neray safe and well. Since 
 I wrote you, I have been acting assistant surgeon, 
 nurse, and messenger, and liavo felt tliat my 
 opportunities of helping those in need liave ricli- 
 ly paid for all the delay and discontent of the 
 past. I think I must set down the last night of 
 the old year and the morning of the new, passed 
 in the woods on the battle-field gathering up and 
 bringing in the wounded men, as the grandest 
 and happiest night of my life. I wanted to stay in 
 Nashville and work in the hospital when our 
 army left there, and tried to get a situation, and 
 could not ; made up my mind that something 
 else was in store for me, and so it is turned out. 
 I have been permitted to do more and better than 
 1 could hope. 
 
 Your loving husband. 
 
 A. H. CONANT. 
 
 At the Hospital Battle-Field, 
 
 Near Murfreesborough, Texn. (no date.) 
 
 Dear Mother, — Before this I suppose you 
 have received father's letter about his sickness, 
 and are anxious to hear from him ; his doctor says 
 that he thinks he is doing very well. I am with 
 
PROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 207 
 
 him, and shall stay with him until he is well ; he 
 has a good place and as good care and nursing as 
 I can give him. The doctors and nurses are very 
 kind, and all try to do what they can for him. 
 His disease is inflammation of the lungs, caught 
 from overwork during the battle. I saw him a 
 number of times as the battle went on, and 
 tried to persuade him not to do so much ; but he 
 said he could not bear to see wounded soldiers 
 suffer when he could help them. I am very 
 thankful that I am where I can do him good ser- 
 vice. He seems to feel that he had done his duty 
 faithfully to the full extent of his power. 
 Yours in haste and in love. 
 
 Neray Conant. 
 
 In Hospital, Jan. 28th, 1863. 
 
 Dear Mother and Sister, — Father is improv- 
 ing slowly, and is able to sit up in a large rocking- 
 chair, bolstered up with pillows ; this position 
 suits him better than any other. I have a little 
 currant wine that 1 give him, which seems to 
 help him quite as much as medicine. I hope as 
 soon as he is able to travel that he can get a fur- 
 lough and come home ; they are sending sick and 
 wounded soldiers home on furlough now ; but 
 
208 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 you must not set your heart on his coming, be- 
 cause he does not much expect to get a furlough, 
 and says that by the time he is well enougli 
 to go home he will be fit for duty ; but that I 
 doubt. Your loving son and brother, 
 
 Neray Conant. 
 
 P. S. — 1 have one wounded Confederate in my 
 ward ; he behaves himself very well, and has just 
 as good care and attention as any of our men. 
 He would have frozen to death, but for father's 
 care, on the battle-field ; as it was, he froze his 
 feet badly. Father built him a fire, and gave him 
 two or three blankets to keep him warm until he 
 had time to come and fetch him away. 
 
 N. C. 
 
 But the end had come, the time of his depar 
 ture was at hand. 
 
 On the 6th he still seemed a little better, but 
 had a feeling that he could not recover, and said 
 to Neray, his loving and tender nurse, " I shall 
 not probably live ; but I have no fear of death. I 
 am ready and willing to go at any time God may 
 call me, and, but for the pain of the separation 
 from you and the dear ones at home, I should 
 
PROM ROCKPORD TO HIS REST. 209 
 
 have no wish to live. But tlie good Father, who 
 watches over us all, will care for and protect you 
 when I am gone." 
 
 On the afternoon of the 7th, he had a relapse, 
 though without apparent cause. The doctor 
 said it was a change from which he feared he 
 could not recover, but did all that possibly could 
 be done. Opiates were given him to alleviate the 
 pain ; from the effects of these he fell into a stu- 
 por, in which he remained until his death, uncon- 
 scious except when aroused. On Sunday, the 8th, 
 an old friend came to see him. I aroused him, 
 and asked him if he knew who it was ; he looked 
 up with one of his peculiarly sweet smiles and said, 
 " Why, yes ! that is Mr. Gilbert." These were 
 his last words ; he sank back into unconscious- 
 ness at a quarter before one o'clock, " and hav- 
 ing served his generation he fell on sleep." 
 
 " And I heard a voice from heaven saying 
 unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in, 
 the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit 
 that they may rest from their labors, and their 
 works do follow them." " For which cause we 
 faint not, but though our outward man perish, 
 yet the inward is renewed day by day, while we 
 
 14 
 
210 FROM ROCKFORD TO HIS REST. 
 
 look not at the things which are seen, but at the 
 things which are not seen, for the things which 
 are seen are temporal, but the things which are 
 not seen are eternal." 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAYE-SIDE. 
 
 OUR HONORED DUST. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF THE REV. A. H. 
 CONAVT, CHA.PLAIN OF THE 19TH REGIMENT, ILLINOIS VOLUN- 
 TEERS, BY ROBERT COLLYER, FEB. 17, 1863. 
 
 " They buried him among the kings, because he had done good both 
 toward God and toward his house." — 2 Chron. xxiv. 16. 
 
 This was a noble history and a noble end. It 
 is also a most touching and suggestive summary 
 of the nature and consequences of a good life. 
 The man had done good, both in the nation and 
 in the Church : so, when he died, the nation and 
 the Church joined to honor his dust. They 
 buried him among the kings. It is perhaps 
 twenty-seven hundred years since those Hebrews 
 stood weeping beside all that was left on this 
 earth of the good citizen and servant of God. 
 The frame that held and answered to the biddino; 
 of the strong and beautiful soul has long entered 
 into other forms. It is — 
 
212 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 " Blo-n-n about the desert dust, 
 
 And seale<i among the iron hills." 
 
 It has risen into grass and flowers, palm-trees, 
 corn, and vines. The sepulchres of the kings are 
 lost or doubtful ; the sacred seal is broken, the 
 sacred associations forgotten. " The outward 
 man perisheth ; but the inward man is renewed 
 day by day." Jehoida (known of Jehovah) 
 can never be forgotten. Little children spell 
 his name painfully, and say after it, " He was 
 buried among kings, because he had done good." 
 Young men read, and are touched with a holier 
 ambition ; men in the thick of a good life, and 
 a little disheartened, take some fresh courage. 
 When the people had buried him, and the scribes 
 had recorded his name in the temple-rolls, they 
 left him to his rest. The sepulchre was sealed ; 
 the busy life began again. All the men died that 
 had ever known him. Time gnawed the wood, 
 rusted the iron, faded the ink, burnt the parch- 
 ment, burnt the temple, scattered the nation far 
 and wide. Time could not touch the good name 
 and fame itself. It was sown in the weakness of 
 marble and parchment and poor human memo- 
 ries ; it is raised in the power of a great unfad- 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 213 
 
 ing history, touched with the mystery of a divine 
 inspiration, committed as a most sacred trust to 
 the most trusty races on the globe, translated 
 into all tongues, read in all countries. Mortality 
 is swallowed up of life, " because he had done 
 good both toward God and toward his house." 
 
 Now, friends, we meet in some such relation as 
 this to-day, to look for the last time on the face, 
 and to mourn the loss, of as good a man as we 
 have ever known, who has fallen in the first au- 
 tumn days of his life. We meet in this lonely 
 outpost church, where for so many years the 
 Master, walking among the golden candlesticks, 
 found him always in his place ; and, as he blessed 
 him, said ever, " Because thou hast labored, and 
 hast not fainted." We meet with the father who 
 held his first-born with the ever-wondering, clumsy 
 tenderness of the man, trembling over the sacred 
 trust ; with the dear one wlio has been to him as 
 his own life for more than six and twenty years ; 
 with the children who have grown up, in the near 
 presence of his love, to the full estate of man and 
 woman ; and with the little babe, the infant of 
 days, that he has never seen, and who will not see 
 him now, until, in the good time of God, the voice 
 
214 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 shall say, " Behold thy sou ! " as they both stand 
 near the cross no longer, but the throne. The 
 vision is full of pathetic groupings ; the natural 
 impulse is to weep. Death always touches the 
 gathered treasure of tears in some heart. One 
 wept for the vile Roman, whose life was one deep 
 execration. Then how near to the deepest spring 
 of tears we stand to-day ! A man, so good, dead! 
 Father, mother, wife, children, the church conse- 
 crated by his ministry, the fair country town that 
 came up with him out of the wilderness, all sit- 
 ting in the shadow of death ! 
 
 And I cannot tell you not to weep. A good 
 man may hide his tears as he hides his most 
 sacred prayers ; but a good man will no more 
 try not to- weep, in some sorrows, than he will 
 try not to pray in some sorrows. There is a 
 tearless philosophy, as there is a prayerless 
 philosophy ; but both alike are far removed from 
 nature and from God. It is surely not unmanly 
 in me to do either this or that after the manliest 
 man that ever stood beside a grave. For tears 
 are often the sweet waters of the nature, turning 
 themselves into blossoms of hope and trust, if we 
 let them flow outward ; but, if we keep them im- 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 215 
 
 prisoned in the heart, turning to a black bitter- 
 ness and decay. Alas even for Judas, when he 
 finds he cannot weep ! I think the recording 
 angel waits for the tears of the vilest, and cannot 
 write down sentence against a broken heart ; but 
 tears, falling from good men's eyes for a good 
 man dead, are a sacrament. I think, when the 
 angels, jealous for the sanctities of heaven, see 
 them, they whisper, ^' Behold, how they loved 
 him ! We must make him free of our guild ; 
 the orders of the angels are all possible to a man 
 for whom strong-hearted men weep." 
 
 And yet, friends, I had not spoken here to-day, 
 if I had no better solace tlian this possibility of 
 tears to offer you. There must be some other 
 and higher thing than sorrow in such a presence 
 as this. Life is not laid out in squares — to-day 
 so much sorrow, to-morrow so much joy — on 
 its most ordinary levels. How much more, how 
 much more now, may we hope for some great in- 
 timations of solemn rapture ! That is a won- 
 derful history, my brother, read you, when you 
 study it, as it opens inward to the soul. We 
 stand beside our dead ; we believe them dead ; 
 and, lo, they are not dead I We cry out piteous- 
 
216 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 ly, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother 
 had not died." By and by, the Lord answers 
 very quietly, "He that believeth in me, though 
 he were dead, yet shall he live." We cry, 
 " Lord, it is impossible : he has been dead four 
 days ! — four days ! " The Lord replies, " Come 
 forth ! " and he that was dead comes forth. 
 When the first crushing blow falls, we feel about, 
 bewildered, crying, " My brother is dead I " But 
 we cannot hold out against the gleams of the im- 
 mortal life : just as he was near to Christ, so 
 surely comes our sense of his blessed resurrec- 
 tion. The poet sings, — 
 
 " Behold a man raised up by Clirist! 
 The rest remaineth unrevealed : 
 He told it not, or something sealed 
 The lips of the evangelist." 
 
 poet! wise in the workings of the human 
 heart, why did thy sight fail here ? It is re- 
 vealed, — it is an open secret to the Christian, — 
 it is an open secret to-day. Jesus said, '' He 
 that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
 And yet, friends, I am not sure that even this is 
 the loftiest reach of this time. Is there not some 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 217 
 
 better thing reserved for us ? I love this insight 
 of the good old Scriptures, that will permit no 
 struggle between the mortal and the immortal 
 life, when this life is once well done ; tliat will 
 not permit even Messiah to raise any other than a 
 young man or a young damsel from the dead ; 
 that seem to say to us, " There is one thing 
 sacred, even from the disturbance of what you 
 call miracle ; and that is a life over which God 
 has cast the full " Well done ! " There is no 
 questioning whether Isaiah or Daniel or Paul or 
 John shall take up again with the deserted taber- 
 nacle, and reassume the old habitual life. Let 
 the life be once hid with Christ in God, and 
 miracle is powerless against it. There is no de- 
 batable border-land, when once the soul shall 
 have put on her new robes, and sings, '' I have 
 finished my course." Blessed and holy is he 
 that has part in the first resurrection. The scene 
 before me has this look of perfect holiness. My 
 friend impresses me in this way. He has fought 
 a good fight ; he has finished his course ; he has 
 kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for 
 him a crown of righteousness. 
 
 And I say this in the full knowledge of how 
 
218 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 earnestly he would plead that I would not say it, 
 if this dust could speak for him, and lie were 
 still by our side ; and, if he were still here, I 
 would not say so openly. But when once a 
 good man has gone up to God, I think he in- 
 stantly assumes a new relation. His life after 
 that is not his own, but a legacy to the world, 
 worth so much. If he could come back, it may 
 be he would say, " Tell the exact truth about 
 me ; tell it out frankly. If I have fought a good 
 fight, and it was right for Paul to say so of him- 
 self while he was in the world, it cannot be wrong 
 for you to say so of me when I have gone out of 
 it." I propose, therefore, secondly, to say why 
 we would bury this dust among kings, because he 
 has done good. 
 
 I. Our friend's life was full of a good, sweet, 
 home-made, every-day goodness. This is no 
 place to contend over a metaphysical goodness ; 
 and there are reaches in the absolute goodness, 
 as it shines in the face of God, before which our 
 Saviour himself shrank back, and said, " Why 
 callest thou me good ? " I rejoice in the fearful 
 tenderness of the best evangelical teaching about 
 what is to be counted absolutely a good life It 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE TtRAVE-SIDE. 219 
 
 is far better that we should all feel dissatisfied 
 with the best that we can do, and cry out every 
 day, " Not that I have already attained, or am 
 already perfect," than that we should ever say, 
 '' God, I thank thee I am not as other men." 
 But there is a certain homely goodness of the 
 common life, that we all understand and honor, 
 even if a man has no such lofty feelings. I mean 
 the goodness that lies in always telling the 
 truth ; in always dealing fairly and honestly ; in 
 being ready to do a good turn or two, or ten or 
 twenty, for the same man, looking for nothing 
 again; in being trusty as a neiglibor and friend, 
 whichever way you are tried ; in giving and for- 
 giving ; doing a fair day's work for a fair day's 
 wages ; in being so pure in word and deed that, 
 if a petty slander is set afloat, men shall never 
 believe it possible you can have started it ; or if 
 a sin is found out, and not the sinner, men shall 
 never whisper, " You may have done it." This, 
 friends, is the common, natural measure of good- 
 ness for the common, daily life of a man. These 
 things are the square foundations upon which you 
 must build the tower on which to plant your lofti- 
 est standard of goodness. It is the broad, honest 
 
220 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 goodness about which all fair-minded men agree, 
 whenever they do anything as real as eating 
 bread. Take any other goodness witliout tliis ; 
 then take this without that ; put tliem before a 
 common jury, and it will decide the case in a 
 moment. Where this goodness is not found, 
 open-eyed men do not seek for any other. 
 Friends, this is a sacred place and a solemn time. 
 It is said of an old nation that they held back 
 from bestowing the highest honors on their dead 
 for a season, so that, if any man had an accusa- 
 tion to bring against the memory, he should be 
 heard ; and, if it were proven, the honor should 
 not be given. I stand by the dust of our friend 
 to-day. Shall we bury him among kings because 
 he has done good ? He has gone in and out be- 
 fore you twenty-one years; you have known him 
 intimately. He must have had his errors • I 
 declare to you I do not know them ; and we 
 ministers are commonly kept well informed about 
 the weak side of our brethren. I believe the 
 man does not live who can tarnish his name by 
 one small spot of real dishonor. I call you to 
 witness this day, — you, his neighbors, who have 
 known liim so long and so well, — I stand here 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 221 
 
 your spokesman, and declare his public, open, 
 common life in Geneva and Rockford untar- 
 nished. We bury him among kings. 
 
 II. Then, I say, secondly, he was a good Chris- 
 tian. I assume to-day no peculiar sanctity for 
 Unitarianism over any other faith ; but in the 
 presence of this dust, I bait not one comma froLu 
 the highest claim. What men can attain to by 
 faith in God and in his revelation, I claim for my 
 friend. The question of a wholesome personal 
 goodness, that finds expression in kindly offices 
 and loyalties, is open to all. The neiglil)orhood 
 is the court in which that claim of our life is 
 tried. But it is not so with this. The mystical, 
 spiritual relation of the soul to God can only be 
 fully understood by the soul itself, and by tliose 
 to wliom the soul opens in her moments of rare 
 confidence. " No man knoweth the Father, but 
 the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal 
 him." I count that the most hideous of all big- 
 otries that would question the Christianity of 
 any man .who shall do justly, love mercy, and 
 walk humbly with his God. The soul has an ab- 
 solute right to say where she will seek her home 
 in beliefs and churches. There is no general liu- 
 
222 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 man way to test a belief, as it enters into the life 
 of a man, except by some sncli method as you 
 test a fruit or a flower. Is the belief higli, pure, 
 and good, can only be answered by finding 
 whether the life is high, pure, and good. Wliat 
 is sour or bitter may be good for God, and in 
 some way for men too ; but we decide by instinct 
 for the goodness of what is pure, sweet, and grate- 
 ful, over that which is not so. We prefer the 
 perfume of roses and the taste of the perfect 
 apple to the sting of the nettle and the acridity of 
 the crab, x stand here to-day, and say, tiiat, by all 
 the tests that can be applied by communities of 
 men, our friend was a good Christian. Every good 
 Christian grace had its own place in his life. He 
 held fast by all that he believed to be essential in 
 Christian beliefs, and grew by their power and 
 inspiration into the high Christian soul, whom to 
 know was to love, and to know more was to love 
 more. No man could commune with him of the 
 high things of the soul, and go away more in the 
 dark, or with his trust in God shaken, or witli 
 his conception of God degraded, or with lower 
 ideas of Christ, or with less of " the hate ot 
 hate, and love of love." No man came into the 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 223 
 
 near communion of the soul with him, — the rev- 
 elation of the Father by the Son, — who did not 
 feel that while others could soar higher, and stay- 
 longer, in the pure, cold, almost breathless regions 
 of religious speculation, no Christian soul could 
 help you more than this could, reminding you by 
 its direct and simple realizations of those little 
 ones, whose angels do always behold the face of 
 our Father which is in heaven. He made you 
 feel a pleasant, sunny atmosphere all about you, 
 while other and greater men would liave sent you 
 away from the very same discussions with a feel- 
 ing of dread. I count this among the best things 
 in a Christian man. This atmosphere of sweet 
 kindly airs and rains and sunshine, where the 
 very clouds fold you like a home, and the night 
 is full of rest, — such, in a singular measure, was 
 the Christian life of our friend. He was good 
 both toward God and toward his house. 
 
 ni. But there is a final estimate and affirma- 
 tion that outreaches all this ; and that, in our 
 friend, was the crown and glory of his life. He 
 was not only a good man in the common goodness 
 of life, and a good Christian spirit, keeping his 
 soul sacredly open to God, but he was true to the 
 
224 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 great trust and duty of his life. He was a faith- 
 ful minister of the gospel, " always abounding in 
 the work of the Lord." This story of the good 
 minister would be deeply interesting if I could 
 recite it from first to last, — how, when he was 
 a young man, holding quite another belief from 
 that which afterward became the inspiration and 
 fire of his life, he happened into William Clarke's 
 store in Chicago (I say happened, because I see 
 only the hither side of Providence) ; how there 
 he found some little tracts, that touched him in 
 some higher way than he had known before ; how 
 he caught from them new glimpses of God and 
 the Saviour and the Sanctifier, of life and death, 
 and earth and heaven and hell ; then how reso- 
 lute he was to follow these hints of cloud by day, 
 and fire by night, until finally the waters were 
 parted for him, and he stood in the promised 
 land ; and then how he went to Cambridge, be- 
 cause he would not lay hasty hands on the ark 
 of God, and fought his way to what was to equip 
 him for the ministry, — poor, brave, cheerful, un- 
 tiring ; how generous friends gave him lifts in 
 secret, delicate ways, as is the use of your ever- 
 dear, and now more than ever-dear, New England 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 225 
 
 toward such earnest, struggling men ; finally, 
 how he came back here to the West while this re- 
 gion was so new, and planted himself where we 
 stand to-day. From 1842 to 1857, he made your 
 town the centre of an influence that can only be 
 known in the great, full time of God. Steadily, 
 year after year, as he found time, he travelled in 
 all directions through these regions, with his heart 
 full of the great gospel of God, and his hands full 
 of such printed statements of it as can be made. 
 I saw him first in the spring of 1859. He came 
 into my ofiice, and, holding out his hand, said, 
 " I am Conant, of Rockford." I had never heard 
 the name before, but I liked the honest, good face, 
 the moment I saw it. The clear eyes, the open 
 brow, the kindly voice, — they were very sweet to 
 me, for I was a stranger. From that time we 
 were as brothers. I loved him ever more, the 
 more I knew him. In his home, in his study, in 
 the affairs of his church, in all things about which 
 brothers consult, we consulted. Friends, I know 
 the loyalty to God and man, the hope and trust 
 and strong endeavor, that found expression 
 through this dust. 
 
 He saw early and clearly the shadow of the 
 
 15 
 
226 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 fearful struggle between freedom and despotism, 
 whose convulsions are shaking the world to-day. 
 He elected openly whom he would serve : he 
 elected to serve God and the slave ; to fight for 
 freedom and right. In this endeavor he never 
 gave place, — no, not for an hour ; he was steady 
 through evil report and good report, through 
 honor and dishonor. When despotism decided 
 for cannon, he went into the camp as cheerfully 
 as he ever went into tlie pulpit ; he was the same 
 tireless disciple of Christ in the battle as he had 
 ever been in the church. I had many letters 
 from him as the work went on. He had sore 
 trouble for a time with a fanatic from Chicago, 
 who could not see how a man could be a Chris- 
 tian preacher if he did not roar like a bull of Ba- 
 shan. This man tried to turn the hearts of 
 his men against him, and partly succeeded for a 
 short time. He poured out his heart to me in a 
 long letter, which I should read to you if I did 
 not know that my friend sees all this now " with 
 other, holier eyes than ours." 
 
 I counselled — what I knew he was ready for 
 — that he should fall back upon the great im- 
 movable first things that always conquer in the 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 227 
 
 long run (tenderness, goodness, faithful, solid 
 hospital work), before which Trinity and Unity 
 are shadows to a rough soldier. I never had 
 the result made clear until yesterday ; then it 
 came in a voice from his regiment, in a paper 
 written by a soldier in the hospital, and given to 
 his son as he brought away the body. I will 
 read you the main parts : " Many hearts will be 
 made sad, when they hear that our chaplain has 
 gone to his rest ; many a fearless soldier s eye 
 will grow wet, when he hears that the brave and 
 noble chaplain, who dared the dangers of Stone 
 River, who never turned aside for bullet or shell, 
 but, where balls flew thick and fast, sought out 
 the wounded, and administered to their wants, is 
 dead. Never, while I live, can I forget him, as I 
 saw him on the field, with his red flag suspended 
 on a ramrod, marching fearlessly to the relief of 
 the suffering ; appearing to the wounded soldier 
 like a ministering angel. I can never forget the 
 night of the 31st December, when he labored all 
 the long night seeking the wounded. I can hear 
 his voice now, loud and clear, in the still air, cry- 
 ing, ' Any wounded here that need help ? ' And 
 so he labored to the end, taking no rest. When 
 
228 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 we said, ' Chaplain, you must rest, or you will 
 die,' he always replied, ' I cannot rest, boys, 
 while you suffer : if I die, I will die helping you.' 
 He sank down at last under his labors, and he is 
 dead. Let all weepers console themselves; wliat 
 earth has lost, heaven has gained." Friends, 
 these are the words of a man in the ranks. This 
 is the testimony of one who saw our friend on 
 the battle-field ; who witnessed the culminant 
 glory of his life ; who saw him steady amid the 
 fires and thunders of the day of God. noble 
 dust ! beloved and faithful man ! true 
 knight ! we will bury thee among our kings ; 
 with Winthrop and Putman and Ellsworth and 
 a great multitude which no man can number, 
 which have gone up out of this great tribula- 
 tion. And, in the time to come, if men have 
 still the old insight for what is good and great 
 in human life ; when this dust shall have risen 
 into the infinite forms of another life ; when the 
 marble you place over the grave is dust, and 
 the tongue in which I write this record is 
 dubious or forgotten, — this one flash stricken 
 out by this soldier, " I saw him on the battle-field 
 marching fearlessly to the relief of the wounded, 
 
WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 229 
 
 with his red flag suspended on a ramrod ; " "I 
 heard his voice ring clear through all the long 
 night, ' Any wounded here ? ' " "I saw him fall 
 down at last and die, because he could not rest 
 while we suffered," — this history is immortal. 
 
 When the noble Greek prepared for his sorest 
 battle, he put on his most beautiful armor ; for 
 he said, " If I fall in this battle, the cause de- 
 serves that I shall die so ; and if we are victori- 
 ous, I desire so to meet victory." Our friend is 
 not dead ; he has put on his most beautiful 
 armor, and met victory. I cannot, I cannot 
 mourn him among the dead. Death has no do- 
 minion. We bury the dust among our kings : 
 the man stands forever in the ranks of the im- 
 mortals. The cause is consecrated afresh to you 
 and me to-day. We must all live better after 
 this, or we shall not stand with him among the 
 sons of God. He has taken a mighty spring ; he 
 has gone into a great place. Let us go back to 
 our homes with deeper confidence in our good 
 cause because so good a man has died for it ; and 
 let us never fear that what is consecrated by the 
 blood of such martyrs can fail finally of its 
 
230 WHAT WAS SAID AT THE GRAVE-SIDE. 
 
 purpose. We must believe with a more solid 
 power in the ultimate triumph of our nation in 
 the vindication of its trust, because he also '' ever 
 liveth to make intercession for us." 
 
'. -<jr^ \- 
 
 ■ a:i: 
 
9oe.7 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 0035521783 
 
 BRlTTLF-nOHOI 
 PHOTOCOPY 
 
 JAN 3 ? 1955 
 

 
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