i Columbia . His daily visits to my room give me the deepest pleasure. A thrill of joy comes over me whenever I meet him, and he tells me too that he loves me. Although often compelled to feel that the friendships of the world are of little worth, yet whenever I think of little Willie, I feel that there is such a thing as a strong earthly love, even among us, who are the cold, studious, calculating men of the world." His friendship with Percy Browne also began this year. They took long walks together. The year shows a growing introspection. After a meet- ing of his literary society he recorded that he spoke several times as critic. "My fault," he added, "is that I do not praise enough." When he was teaching at Guilford Centre he had felt a distaste for the prayer-meetings held in his school-house. But this year he notes repeatedly his de- light in the college prayer-meetings. February 12, 1861, he wrote: "I enjoyed the prayer-meeting this evening very much. I was called upon to pray, and felt unusual freedom in addressing the Throne of Grace. Professor Wharton talked with me after the meeting, and told me I was the best logician he had ever known in college, undoubt- edly flattery. He made me a present of Chambers's Mis- cellany. I felt somewhat elated. But may I be kept from all pride." Speaking thirty years later of the religious life at Ken- yon, he said: "Religion was never thrust upon us. One of the things which struck me most on entering college was RELIGIOUS LIFE AT KENYON 19 that it was officered exclusively by laymen. No clergy- man came into any official relationship with us. The faculty in their capacity as laymen conducted prayers in the chapel, and Professor Wharton gave us most edifying sermons as a lay-preacher. There were those among the students who exerted a stronger religious influence than any chaplain could have exerted. The religious life of these men was sedulously cultivated among themselves. Class prayer-meetings, let those sneer at them who will, kept alive the soul of spiritual devotedness. We had no beautiful chapel in those days, nor did we worship to the sound of the organ. In the basement of Rosse Hall, cold and unsightly and dark, we gathered for morning and evening prayers. Religion had a certain healthy and manly character which commanded our respect." The next spring Postlethwaite applied for the chance to be his room-mate. "My acquaintance with Posy," Allen wrote, "has deepened during the term to a greater intimacy than ever before. ... It seems to me that I am different from most of the men here, in that I long for those who love me. I cannot be satisfied with simply being on good terms, and considered an ordinary friend. It is womanly, perhaps, although I think Christ had a longing, a yearning for this human love. He loved John; He loved the family at Bethany." About this time, in his self-scrutiny, he felt that pride was becoming an essential element in his character. " When once I was talking with Rockwell," he wrote in his journal, "he told me he thought I appeared egotistical, that I laid down my word as the truth. It has been several times noticed, for it has been suggested by several others. Have I come to such a pass as to be conceited? O that God may not let the foot of pride come nigh to hurt me! Certainly I have nothing to boast of. Let me at once destroy this idol which threatens to destroy me." These old journals are a sort of confessional. 2o A WESTERN COLLEGE By the first of January his "monetary horizon," he said, was lowering; indeed, so lowering that he decided that he must board himself again. This he did for eight weeks. "I have begun boarding myself this term," he wrote to his father, "in order to save a little money. It goes rather hard. But then the expense is very little. It will not cost me forty cents this week. Boarding myself at a dollar a week is very comfortable. Bread at present is my only article of food. A five-cent loaf lasts the whole day. Next week I am going into partnership with another fellow, and we shall get along much more pleasantly." Strangely enough^ he spent the afternoon of the day of this letter in the Seminary Library, examining books on fasting, to satisfy some queries of Mrs. Bates. Luckily dur- ing these two months he was invited to Bishop Bedell's and the President's. "The suppers at both places," he wrote, "were unusually good, and were certainly appre- ciated by a student boarding himself. I can't say, how- ever, that I did my eating powers justice, for bashfulness interposed, or sense of propriety. Amidst these con- flicting claims I was tossed about." It is not surprising that he felt that a small country college was not best for a poor boy. The President promised him tutoring for the next year, but it seemed impossible to get work. Then came the War. April 19, 1861, he wrote: "I have come to my room to-night excited intensely and unfit for everything. I have come to the conclusion that it is im- possible for me to remain in college, and, if it is possible, it is useless. I don't feel like study at all. Perhaps I might as well tell what I think of doing and what I have done. I have about the same as enlisted for the War in the Ohio Home Guard. There is some fear that the borders will be attacked. In that case, I suppose, I shall go at the call of the Governor. We begin drilling next week. It may be this plan will be overthrown. In fact I think the best thing that can be done would be for me to volunteer THE WAR 21 for regular service immediately. We are trying to get enough students to do this; that is, enough to form a part of a company. Our President has tendered his service, has been accepted, and has left the college for the War. This has increased the excitement here greatly." While he was waiting for word from home, the faculty decided that the college should go on, if only twelve students remained. Moreover, they induced many who had signed, to withdraw their names. By April 26, of the one hundred and forty students, only ninety remained. The committee which bestowed the scholarships was so heavily in debt that it was thought that beneficiaries would be forced to leave college for self-support. Meantime, he was drilling with the rest, and very little was he able to study. The drilling gave him extreme delight. One interesting detail is that the letters of war excitement are in the most direct and plain handwriting, quite like that of his mature manhood. After the excitement was over, the kinks and twirls returned. It shows the reality which the War brought to the youth of the country. The family at Guilford were poor, but they were not shirking their patriotic duty. Mrs. Allen was collecting money to send books (alas! tracts) to the soldiers, and she was knitting and sewing for them. She and her son exchanged sympathetic letters over the iniquity of Bishop Hopkins's approval of slavery, and his daring to vindicate it from the Bible. The year, in spite of all distractions, both of poverty and of war, was intellectually profitable. He was reading De Quincey and Carlyle and Macaulay; he was beginning to study German, and was impressed with its importance. He always remembered with gratitude Herr Messner and Herr Grauert. He was making pleasant field excursions with the professor of geology. He wrote and delivered his first "oration" in Rosse Chapel before the whole college, and the President criticized him for the way he stood. He 22 A WESTERN COLLEGE was a congenial friend, and students resorted to his room "to talk things over," to make coffee, and to sit up very late. "My life in college," he wrote with remorse, "is not a holy one." After much discussion of ways and means, he returned to Guilford for the summer. He was shocked to find the congregation listless, in spite of his father's goodness and ability. The congregation missed the two sons of the rector, who were as curates to him, and recognized that the rector himself was sixty-seven. They ceased to pay his salary, though they bore down upon him for sympathy and help in all their troubles. And he meekly submitted, calling it "God's will." During the summer Alexander spent much time study- ing the newspapers for tidings of the War. He read to his mother. He played the organ. He read the sermons of Archer Butler and Frederick Robertson, and was moved especially by Robertson. He agreed to room with Postle- thwaite for the senior year, but feared they might not agree. He wrote letters and took the old walks; but the feeling that his father must move from Guilford was a long shadow across his path. And it was hard not to feel the root of bitterness springing up. It was, therefore, with unusual loneliness that he left home for his last year at college. III. THE SENIOR YEAR As Allen returned to college the money question again became pressing. "To-day," he wrote on September 16, 1 86 1, "a way opened to me to make a little money, through Professor Wharton, probably between six and eight dollars. It is by writing articles for The Episcopal Record. I am to write three or four this term as I may find time. Each article is to be about three columns of the paper. My subject is to be 'The Indelibility of all and every Impres- sion made on the Mind:' I am to show the connection be- COLLEGE WRITING 23 tween this psychological fact and the retributive justice of God. He wants me to criticize particularly Haven's Philosophy; Haven is erroneous on the subject, the pro- fessor thinks. I am to study up to support the view of Sir William Hamilton, and also another work that has recently appeared, entitled, Obscure Diseases of the Mind and Brain. The author is Forbes Winslow, who is at the head of his profession in England, as superintendent of Lunatic Asylums. I doubt my ability to do anything on the subject, but told the professor I would try, as I want the money. ... I have been electioneering for AA$ and we have succeeded splendidly. . . . The late sup- pers which we always have at the opening of the year have come and gone, bringing expense and ill health in their train." With the routine work of this year went a great deal of voluntary writing for college societies and special occasions. On Washington's Birthday he spoke of "America's Posi- tion in the Philosophy of History." "It was a nervous moment," he told his mother. "The chapel was crowded — over a thousand people. I was much cooler than I expected to be, and when my name was announced, I was ready for the sacrifice. My speech lasted about thirty-five minutes. I presume the clergy and professors thought it rather fanciful and arbitrary. The Bishop told me after- wards that he did not quite agree with me. But I was convinced myself that it was the right and only view, though Professor Trimble said that he held a directly contrary opinion. You will see that I still disagree with my teachers." All this is suggestive of what was to come — the interest in the meaning of facts, and the independent striking out for himself. "I am getting radical, I suppose father will think," he wrote; "for unconsciously I am coming to agree with the views of German writers on many subjects. This Philosophy or Science of History is con- sidered rather a radical subject by such philosophers as 24 A WESTERN COLLEGE Sir William Hamilton." This letter also records that he was playing the chapel organ. Accused of throwing in "fancy touches," he replied that every organist had his style: this was his style. The excitement of the year culminated in a student re- bellion in the spring of 1862. The German professor had allowed his printed examination paper to escape him. For a lark, the whole senior class met, decided to present a uniform set of papers, prepared the night before, all of them exactly alike in their correctness. At the end of two days the whole affair was to be confessed. Herr Grauert, amazed, dreamed of another Septuagint prepared by scholars working in separate cells. Then it occurred to him that it might not be a miracle. The faculty was aroused. The class was expelled. Meantime the Rector of Guilford was informed that his son was rebellious against the authorities. The son re- ceived a long letter from his father, recalling all the training of his childhood, his baptismal vows, his confirmation, his duty towards his neighbour, which included "To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters." "Do you know such a young man?" the letter concluded. The letter had its effect; but there was still a protest from the son: "I am," he said, "completely sick of the place; I mean I hold in contempt most of the faculty. If I submit this time when I know I am right and have done nothing wrong, it will be the complete killing of every particle of manliness or independence in me. With no self-respect, I shall command the respect of no fellow student." The only thing that troubled him was that he feared the Guilford parish might be in such straits that his father might be contemplating removing from it: if so, it was pain to him to think that he might be adding to his father's troubles, which would be great enough already. But even this could not keep him from the martyr spirit, A COLLEGE REBELLION 25 which had been excited to a fine frenzy by the class-meet- ings. It was Luther's "Ich kann nicht anders." How- ever, public opinion among the trustees and others did not sustain the faculty in their lack of humour, and the faculty put the conditions of return so low that the black sheep returned to the fold. As the spring wore to summer, Allen, now just past twenty-one, was evidently coming into favour with the authorities in spite of his independence. Bishop Bedell offered him the editorship of his diocesan paper if he would stay through the summer vacation. This editorship was to continue after he entered Bexley Hall, for the Bishop assumed that he would remain in Gambier for his theologi- cal course. The salary for editing The Western Episco- palian — for that was the name of the paper — was one dollar a week! He at once appealed to his father for advice: "The object of the paper," he wrote, "is to reflect Bishop Mcllvaine and Bishop Bedell. I am to be more or less of a machine to work at their pleasure and will, and this is what of all things I can least endure. My views do not quite agree with those of Bishop Bedell. I am quite sure there would be collision. I do not like Ohio Church- manship." He did not wish to be tied down to the Ohio Seminary. On the other hand, it was something to have all the periodicals and books which were sent to the paper, and he enjoyed reviewing them. His father replied with characteristic fire: "Would it be honest to take the paper, if your views conflict with those of the Bishops? Have you the stock of general information requisite? You have had sufficient experience to know your own great propensity to be in an everlasting skedaddle with somebody or about something; and the more your relations are enlarged or widened, the greater would be the occasion for the exercise of this propensity — which, to say the least, is not desirable." In spite of this letter the editorship was accepted. 26 A WESTERN COLLEGE Allen was valedictorian and described the triumph of Commencement to his mother: "There was an immense crowd here," he wrote, "among others Dr. Tyng, Bishop Clark, all the clergy of the diocese, together with distin- guished strangers from every part of the state. I did not begin my oration till a few days before, and it was not com- pleted that morning. I had been up till two o'clock for three nights in succession, and I woke up several times this morning trying to repeat what I had written. I was worn out and had been unable to eat anything for two days. I determined to worry myself no more and to speak ex tempore. As I looked upon the sea of faces I became sud- denly calm and a cold breeze seemed to pass over my forehead. How I got through I don't know. What I said, I can't remember. But if it is any pleasure for you to know, I can say, I suppose, that the address was well received and was considered the finest valedictory delivered here for years. It was entitled, 'The Relations of Philosophy to Religion.'" The excitement of the Commencement over, his friends gone, he was lonely and despondent. With all the stir of this busy year, he had not wholly lost his moods of intro- spective depression. "Everything has gone wrong spirit- ually," he wrote one Sunday evening, "for the reason that all my temporal matters have been neglected ; the cleaning of my room, bringing up wood, and other preparations for Sunday were all put off until the morning of the holy day: religion extends even to little things. My religion ought to permeate my whole common life." He was grateful in after life for what he had received at Kenyon College. He recalled the friendships begun there, some of them lasting till death. He often spoke of Trimble who taught Latin and Greek, and Hamilton Smith who taught the natural sciences. But his chief debt was always to Dr. Wharton. "I gained from him," he confessed, "a lasting interest in literature. He was by constitution a INFLUENCE OF KEN YON 27 humanist, with an instinctive perception of the meaning of life, with a deep sympathy for all human manifestations. He made all he touched interesting. From him I gained my first conception of the picturesque aspects of history and my first conviction of its value as a psychological revelation of the soul of humanity." In general he found at Kenyon "the conditions necessary for the development of personality." It reminded him of a little Italian republic in the days of the Renaissance. No great neigh- bourhood overshadowed it. The chances for fame seemed momentous, and the world outside seemed insignificant. He stored up enthusiasm and self-confidence, qualities best developed in a community that is small and delight- edly aware of its own importance. CHAPTER III BEXLEY HALL 1862-1864 DURING the summer of 1862 — spent, on account of the diocesan paper, in Gambier — Allen was joined by his brother Henry. He wrote to Guilford and to Geneva of his desperate homesickness: "Home is the centre round which all my thoughts radiate, and the only thing which I live for on earth. I am completely alone, and all the memories of the past are rushing over me continually." This was too much for Henry, who fled forthwith to Gam- bier, and wrote then to his father, "Zander represented his homesickness in such a touching light that I came immediately, and took him wholly by surprise." Together they moved Alexander's belongings to Bexley Hall, the theological seminary, which was at the other end of the long village street from the college. It was a some- what gloomy transition. "The college world," he said afterwards, "seemed full of life and rich in interest, it lay to our imagination bathed in sunlight, while, for those who entered the dark seminary at the other end of the village, we felt, when in our kindliest mood, as the old Greeks may have felt for those who had entered the world of the dead; they had left the fullness and richness of life behind them, they had become objects of commiseration." The family at home were in dread lest the sons should be drafted for the War. Alexander wrote: "At present it does not appear to be my duty to volunteer, but should the draft come, it could be considered as no other than a provi- dential dispensation. Properly I ought to be exempt on 28 AN EDITOR 29 account of my sight, and no doubt I should be if I chose to apply, but I hardly feel willing to do so, when so many are evading on false excuses." The chief occupation of the summer was The Western Episcopalian. He wrote to Bishop Bedell frankly asking that the editorial page be turned over to him. A retired clergyman had been writing the editorials; and they were so dull that they practically killed the paper. "My own reward," he wrote, " would be amply sufficient if I could feel that each week the paper went forth a living messenger of the truth, and in every house which it entered was considered an interesting and valuable visitant." One fancies that the Bishop was amused at the confidence of his youthful editor, but he yielded, and afterwards confessed that the paper was never so good as under Mr. Allen's editorship. The Bishop became rather uneasy at times, because the editor was striking out for himself in ways to which the Diocese of Ohio was not accustomed. "Keep the first page," he wrote, "for articles of news which exhibit the dealings of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Do not allow the page to degenerate into an imitation of the mere news columns of that irreligious Church paper, The Church Journal. ... I enclose an article showing the progress of the warfare of truth with the Romish heresy." These were days of war. Dr. Mcllhenny was the one member of the theological faculty to whom Allen felt a genuine debt. "He created in us," was his testimony, "a respect for scholarship, and for the scholar, of whom he was a pure and beautiful type. ... I always associate him in my mind with the sort of man Erasmus may have been." Among the students was David H. Greer, a graduate of a Pennsylvania college, full of Evangelical fervour and opposed to secret societies. These years at Gambier were important for nothing more than for his private reading. He used to say that 3 o BEXLEY HALL one of the advantages of mediocre instruction was that it drove a student to read, to investigate for himself. The great teacher often compelled too ardent an attachment, and precluded independent thought. Years later, when speaking to Harvard students on reading, he recalled the reading which he himself began to do these five years at Gambier. " When I went to college, at the age of eighteen," he said, "I think I had not read a single book. But there must have been some contagion in the air which led me to begin. I cannot tell to this day what perverse instinct led me to read the Westminster Review. It was a poor little college, which none of you ever heard of. Its library might have had some 10,000 volumes, mostly donations of books which the donors did not care to keep. It had no endow- ment, but somehow it managed to subscribe for the reprints of the great British quarterlies. Those were the only new things in the library. And to these I turned, finding the Edinburgh and the London Quarterly uninteresting, but the Westminster was rich and inviting. The covers of these reviews may have had something to do with it, the Edinburgh was a dark, sombre green, 1 and the Quarterly a dull grey, while the Westminster was a bright clean yellow. For four years I read the Westminster regularly, looking forward to the advent of new numbers, going back also and reading the old bound volumes. I need not say that it was the quintessence of what we call scepti- cism — the organ of John Stuart Mill, George Eliot, and others — representing the old eighteenth century revived, with a mixture of the latest German type, which was then the left wing of the Hegelian School as represented by Strauss and Feuerbach and Baur. But what impressed me was its honesty and thoroughness, as well as its great ability. It seemed to go straight to the root of things with all its destructiveness; and it was destructive, for it 1 The Edinburgh Review has always been published in the blue and yellow dress of to-day — this was an American reprint. WESTMINSTER REVIEW 31 shook every conviction I had ever held. Its chief excel- lence was in the department of book notices, which took up a large proportion of space. No other review did this, at that time, with anything like the same carefulness and fidelity, unless it were for a very few years the North Brit- ish. I am inclined to think that the Westminster critics had always read the books which they had noticed — which is saying a good deal. The notices were severe and searching, and positive in their tone. The picture of the world's contemporary literature was complete. No favour was shown to what we call orthodoxy, but, with that exception, it was generally fair. It taught me what the world was thinking. I took up a copy recently, but some- how it seemed to me as if the teeth of the old giant had been drawn, and that it lay powerless in its cave. The old Westminster no longer inspired me with reverence. I had outgrown its philosophy, its principles of political economy, and it seemed meagre and shallow. "While I was reading the Westminster Review, I some- how stumbled upon Coleridge — I think it was in reading John Stuart Mill's essay upon him. I read it with an intense interest. What Mill was criticizing or condemning fascinated me. From that time I took Coleridge as my guide, philosopher, and friend. I read everything about him with a passionate devotion, and I tried to read and understand if I could what he had written. Probably I understood very little, and some may think, like Carlyle, for example, that he did not understand himself. But I am not sure that it is always necessary to take in an author's meaning completely. In youth we have not the necessary experience. And it is a good thing to feel that there are unknown regions beyond us, which still await our exploration. " Coleridge was to me everything which a man can be. He was engaged in reconstructing in a higher way what the Westminster was pulling down. He neutralized the seep- 32 BEXLEY HALL ticism. He introduced me to the world of human life, as I think no other man can do, to German philosophy and literature, to English literature, and especially Shakespeare, poetry and criticism, politics and statesmanship in their highest forms, the sacred mysteries of nationality. His own shipwreck of life was the most wholesome of moral lessons. He also gave me a respect for theology. What especially delighted me at the time was the Lake School of Poetry, of which I first learned through him — Words- worth and Southey and Charles Lamb and De Quincey. It was all wonderful and exhilarating and inspiring, to the last degree, and creates the Romance of a life." His love for Coleridge had begun in the college, for in one of his letters about clothes he asked his mother please to wrap up in them his father's copy of The Friend. In the college days there had been some flutterings of doubt, but they were vague and not quite real. His journal reveals this. But the world to which Coleridge and the Westminster had admitted him became somewhat terri- fying in the quiet of Bexley Hall. He was beginning to find a master only second to Coleridge in Frederick Denni- son Maurice, who was helping him to become constructive. But the process had its pitfalls, and at last, in the spring of 1863, he unburdened his soul to his father. "As your wish," he wrote, " seems to be to draw out as fully as possible my present condition, mental, spiritual, and physi- cal, I have no objections to telling you my exact status, as far as I myself can fathom it. I am considerably oppressed with the blues to-night, and if I should look at things with 'more than distorted gaze,' I trust you will make due allowances. "My views have undergone so complete a change in reference to religion that it seems almost like hypocrisy to remain a student for the Christian ministry, though to myself they are correct and in accordance with the Chris- tianity I profess. They are known at present only to one RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 33 person in Gambier — Ed. Stanton [the son of the Secretary of War]. Perhaps I have been the means of leading astray- one for whom the prayers of many are offered, that he may be converted. On the subject of Christianity and religion we coincide, but beyond this I have no sympathy with my views here. If it were not for him, I could not stay, for some vent for my opinions and sympathy I must have. The distance between myself and evangelical Christianity seems widening. This fact, continually before me, makes all the pursuits of the seminary disagreeable. And I cannot keep up the appearance much longer. It comes particularly hard when I write for the paper. "My chief obstacle in religious thought is that in this crisis in the history of Christianity I have discarded the Inspiration of the Scriptures, and they only appear to me, as Maurice has expressed it, as 'phases, or expressions of religious thought.' My old belief in their infallibility it would be impossible, it seems to me, ever to restore. This question is the key to a thousand other religious diffi- culties. The best way of explaining my present condition is by saying that I am thoroughly imbued with German Transcendentalism, Rationalism, Pantheism. This is the popular expression of my condition. If it is wrong, I trust sometime to be restored to the truth. "The reason why I have not written before is that I have not always felt sure of sympathy. If any one needs it, I certainly do. I am almost alone, and I feel my loneli- ness intensely. My opinions if known would ruin me in the Church. But I must be honest to myself and the con- victions of my heart. I cannot subscribe to doctrines which inwardly I contemn. It may be only a phase of intellectual development which I shall pass through and then return to the old orthodox path, but I must come through it honestly if it is, and not try to banish the ghost which will not down at the bidding of creeds and formularies. I know you cannot agree with me, and any efforts to set 4 34 BEXLEY HALL me right I shall appreciate, but what I want most of all is sympathy. I have got to battle my own way in the world, and expect to do so, but in my troubles, or sorrows, or wanderings, I certainly ought to be able to look for expressions of feeling with me from home. The reason why I refer to this is that in reply to my last letter to you, you only threatened to write to Bishop Bedell." This letter, at length reaching the calm of Guilford, made a tremendous commotion. It was long before the father could gather himself to reply. "The contents of your letter," he began, "were of such an astounding nature as completely to nonplus your father and render him quite unable to prepare for and perform the services of the following Sunday. I was utterly unprepared for the intelligence that a child of mine could ever be brought to renounce his faith in the religion of God his Maker and Saviour. The blow was so unexpected, so crushing, you must not wonder, my dear child, that I have not written sooner, but that I am able to write at all. Already borne down by the weight of age, infirmity, and prospective want, yet I was fondly hoping I might be permitted to see the day when my son should be sent forth an earnest and able ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. What I can do for you, my dear son, I know not, more than this, to pray to that personal God, the God of all truth and mercy, beseech- ing Him to bring back to Himself my erring child, and spare him for the Redeemer's sake; and beseeching my son to renounce his errors and return to his former faith and allegiance. . . . Your father's pity for you, Alex- ander, in this shipwreck of your faith is not withheld: he would not be human if it could be. But, alas! what can it avail you — or the sympathy of any other human being, what can it avail you? Were it not better for you at once and for ever to abjure the ruinous errors you have embraced, and seek the sympathy of Him who says, ' Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden?' . . . And A FATHER'S APPEAL 35 now, advice. It appears that you have been led, step by step, in the Serbonian bog of German infidelity. ... I do not simply advise, I entreat, I beseech, I implore you to renounce every infidel author, your Maurice, your Emer- son, your Carlyle, your essayists. Be conformed to the old Religion as taught by the Primitive Church and as now symbolized in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. If 'an independent thinker' cannot bow to these creeds, tell me how in the world he can bow to such an one as you gave us the other day in the W. Episcopalian, manufactured by Mr. Maurice and his associates. What a marvellous tissue of assertions and contradictions in each separate article! Was this creed the offspring of independent thinking? Flee from it, my child, as you would from the City of Destruc- tion, with your fingers in your ears. " To this letter Alexander replied that he was deeply impressed and sincerely thankful. He felt the overwhelm- ing love and yearning in all its pathetic efforts to help. He was covered with remorse because his frankness had brought such evident pain. "My philosophy," he said, "is at present one of irreverence and incredulity. The world is involved in confusion. I can see no buoys, can hold by no anchors, discern no beacons. Nothing appears fixed, or certain, or true. There is, I am almost convinced, no absolute truth here, no absolute unwavering standard of morality. I doubt — doubt everything — doubt my own existence, and that of the external world about me. Doubt is my characteristic at present." He then quoted Hume on his darkness and despair, and made the words his own. "I have been getting into this state gradually. It is not so much independent reading, as it is independent thinking. Years ago when I was teaching school I held discussions on universalism with the minister at Guilford Centre, and he shook my former unquestioning faith to its very foun- dation. I almost doubted that there was a God, or, if there were, that He heard and answered prayer. But in 36 BEXLEY HALL those days it was easy to regain confidence. Still I was then sowing the seed of which I am now reaping the harvest." He went on to describe how as a boy of sixteen he had delighted to pick out of the papers attacks on Christianity, refute them to his own satisfaction, and lay the whole thing aside for the day when he should appear as a champion of Christianity. His orations and essays in college all bore on the subject of infidelity. He then felt sure he could answer every difficulty. Since his valedictory, in which he had tried to show God the centre of philosophy as well as of religion, he had given up the effort. "Involuntarily and suddenly," he continued, "my mind gave way as if it had long been sustaining a burden too heavy for it, and I then became convinced of the rationale of the process, the in- ward war I had been so long waging — that I myself who endeavoured to overthrow unbelief and establish the truth, was an unbeliever. "I never expect to return to the orthodox standards, as they are usually held. That I shall be led to embrace the grand essentials and requisites to salvation, I am almost confident. I have more sympathy and agreement how- ever with the Broad Church than with any other school, and at present I avow myself such. I have read everything which comes from England on the subject. Bishop Colenso is a means to an end, though sadly mistaken. The whole English Church is tottering. I believe every man who would be effective hereafter must enter into and understand the change which is passing over religion. The effort will end I believe in establishing more firmly the Church of God. If God is true there can be no doubt of that. But the force of the revolution will be to adapt Christianity to the character of the age, not to change its inherent nature. It takes the appearance of infidelity and justly shocks the religious world. But the movement has its deep significance, and it must have its results." SYMPATHY FOR DOUBT 37 So thought this struggling youth of twenty-two. The new age with its problems was coming on, and the old leaders did not quite understand what the youngsters meant who read the Westminster Review. The Lord was speaking to the Samuels, but the Elis did not understand. In this dark spring, Dr. Francis Wharton, who had become Rector of St. Paul's, Brookline, held out his always friendly hand. He knew that Allen needed profounder leadership than Gambier could furnish; so he suggested that the Rev. George Packard ask Allen to assist him in the parish at Lawrence ; that he might study at Andover, only a few miles away. Accordingly, the break came with Bexley Hall at the end of the middle year. He had been longing to escape from the narrow conditions, but when the time came to go, it was with a wrench. "It will be hard work, leaving Gambier," he wrote to his mother, "between my creditors on the one hand and my friends on the other. The latter are so importunate that a very little more persuading would make me feel like relinquishing my plans. I have become attached to the place and the state." In all this mental turmoil his mother gave him the sym- pathy of a great love. She felt sure that he held firm to the Saviour, and in that simple conviction she knew that all else would straighten itself. In the providence of God the time was coming when Alexander Allen was to make a refuge where perplexed youth could find a way out of the darkness of doubt into Christ's marvellous light. CHAPTER IV ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE 1864 - 1867 THE summer of 1864 Allen spent at home. The hill country about Guilford always restored him. Early in September he wrote to Percy Browne, then just graduated from Kenyon: "I am glad to know that you have come to the conclusion you have mentioned in regard to the Christian life. It seems to me that the one grand spiritual essential is to be living in Christ. Christ must be the centre and groundwork of religious faith. From Him we must draw from actual living communication our own life. I have my own speculative beliefs on the relations in which He stands to us, and can sometimes see a deeper meaning than is at first evident in such words as, 'I am the vine, ye are the branches ... I in you and ye in me.' Inward experience will give them a meaning which no words can define. It electrifies the soul, when it first feels in itself the power of Christ. Those words of St. Augustine seem to me philosophical as well as deeply spiritual, ' Thou hast made us for thyself, and our souls are restless till they find their rest in thee.' With me at present the life of Christ is more predominant than His death. A living Christ I should love to preach more than Christ crucified. I sometimes think, 'What if the phrase, an Elder Brother, should imply some deep eternal relationship, eternal as the existence of God, and developing in time with the coming of Christ.' Some personal experience is absolutely neces- sary to the minister, and let me tell you, Percy — and it 38 RETURN OF FAITH 39 may come with more force from me, for I speak from experience, and am beginning to rectify the errors of my past course, and you are just beginning yours — that the main thing of the Seminary course should be in the develop- ing this inward life as it is in Christ. I didn't think so when I entered the Seminary, but I find now that to be without it, a minister's life is likely to be a burden hard to be borne. It seems to me dishonest for a minister to be preaching that which he does not know to be true by having felt in himself its truth. And when you have once begun this life of experience you will feel, as I most painfully do now, how short the time is for you to develop it before you are called upon to go out into the world and stand up as a teacher of others. "It is harder to talk upon this subject than it is to write, and I am glad of this opportunity of expressing myself. Probably your experience has been this summer akin to mine. It is good to be alone. I have never left this lonely little village, after having spent the vacation here in silence and obscurity, without going back to college a wiser and a better man. The year in which my difficulties in Gambier sprang up was when I spent my summer in its atmosphere, and found no time to take counsel with myself as to my condition and progress. Sad, lonely, and dreary as my life is here, as far as all associations outside myself are concerned, I would not give up for a year of study this interval of quiet self-searching communion with myself, Nature, and God. I find that thus I grow larger, capable of assimilating in one, great differences which I would not have thought could be reconciled." This letter shows the spirit in which Allen entered Andover. The first days were cheerless. His room, 20 Bartlett Hall, was cold and damp, unfurnished and con- fused. But he sat down in it stolidly, with his overcoat on, waiting for his practical friend Doty to come and help him settle. "Professor Park," he wrote, "is the great gun 4 o ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE here. He is magnificent looking, and his lectures are the most powerful things of which it is possible to conceive. Men are here from every seminary in the country to hear him. I shall never regret coming." The work at Lawrence was among English mill opera- tives. He went over Saturday afternoons to call, and then again Sunday afternoons to hold a Sunday-school and an evening service in a hall, returning to Andover at nine Sunday night. ''Willie" Taylor came to Harvard this year, broke down in health, and, returning to Cincinnati, received long affec- tionate letters from his friend in Andover. In June 1865, Allen wrote to him: "I once believed that the shell or husk which clothed the germ of truth, and which it seemed to me the creeds had too much reverenced, was rotten and ready to fall off, and allow the unimpeded development of the soul of the truth itself. Then the whole Bible history appeared to me mostly mythical, but those myths had a deep inward significance. As to Prayer, I rather held with Fichte that the Being above us was so great that it were almost blasphemy to intrude into His presence. But 'earnestness' summed up for me the practical duties of religion. . . . You ask me at what conclusion I have now arrived. I think then in the first place that there is no such crisis at hand as I had anticipated. It is not the world's method of progression. It will never 'come. By what process did I reach this conclusion? Probably there was reaction, to begin with. I was tired and wearied with endeavouring to construct a religion for myself. I began to suspect my own mental weakness. I felt a yearning for something substantial, time-worn, honoured with the devo- tion of past generations. Theirs was a common humanity with mine, they had found a relief for the soul's unrest in the bosom of the Church. It was from such a basis as this that my respect for the past began to grow upon me and an historical Church to impose its necessity upon my THE VISIBLE CHURCH 41 mind. A spiritual Church does not go deep enough for the sinfulness of men. By a spiritual Church I mean one that evolves from the spiritual consciousness the data upon which its spiritual life rests. It may satisfy one side of our natures, but it is only a half truth. The historical Church, which comes up from a vale of tears, bearing about her the groans and confessions of all her children, and offer- ing to them and us all the only consolation suited to one age and to all ages — forgiveness and a firm hope of salvation through the blood of the Lamb. This is the other side of the truth without which no Church can stand. It really amounts to justification by faith. . . . You speak of the Love of God as the essence of Christianity. If you have come to feel that, the remark is a very deep one. I should say, it is God's Love as revealed to us in Christ. It is the Love of Christ which is the essence of Christianity. Christ is the great central truth not only in Christianity, but also in the history of the world. On some points I am sceptical, on some rationalistic. I am a thoroughgoing Broad Churchman of the old school. The position of the new school is unnecessarily abstract. I am in a measure a High Churchman, but these distinctions I do not attach much importance to, compared with the life of faith in Christ and Him crucified. I almost feel as if the implan- tation of this faith was Divine, supernatural, the gift of God." The authorities at Andover were becoming interested in their student from Bexley Hall. On June 15, he wrote: "Professor Park asked me what I intended to do after graduating. I told him I should like to remain at Andover another year. He said he had been intending to speak to me on the subject, and advised me to remain here a year or two years more and take up a more extended course of study. He said he had noticed that I took an interest in the philosophical aspects of modern thought and it was so seldom that any one did that he thought 42 ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE I ought to pursue the subject uninterruptedly for a year or more. I told him that it was the worst preparation for a practical ministry. He admitted it, but, in a very sympa- thetic manner, he declared his faith in metaphysics, saying that power lay in the man who could wield them. He spoke of Choate and Webster. He said he loved people who split hairs. He did not care for mere orators." Allen was ordered deacon at Emmanuel Church, Boston, by Bishop Eastburn, July 5, 1865. When he returned to Andover, Professor Park met him with an amused twinkle: "You've been away, Mr. Allen. I'm sorry you've missed my lecture against Episcopal orders." Allen gathered courage, and replied, "Oh, Dr. Park, I've been on an errand practically refuting it: I've been or- dained." He wrote to Taylor about his Lawrence Sundays. The singing of the children in the afternoon moved him. "It goes down to the depths, and makes me sadder, but stronger. I can hardly keep back the tears." He felt that if he were to study "Divine Philosophy," as Professor Park called it, he must save himself from the dangers of speculation by keeping close to the practical, in "efforts to do good." For this reason, too, he kept away from the inn, and spent his Sundays with various parishioners, eating at their tables, and entering into all their interests. "I am becom- ing interested in people," he wrote, "who once seemed to me to possess nothing in common with me." He then went on to speak of his sermons: "In the morning I use notes, for I find I cannot carry more than one full-fledged sermon in my head at a time. In the evening I speak as I feel or as occasion dictates. I seem to myself to stand in a charmed circle as I talk to them. They listen, down to the most careless children. It is sympathy. I take no credit. It rather depresses me, for it is not intellectual power that attracts them — this they could not appreciate; and it is not beauty of thought or language, for neither of these I PREACHING 43 possess. I wish I could feel though that they came to hear a man in earnest. But it is not all earnestness. I believe it has a close resemblance to it, but it is a highly excited nervous action that makes me feel as though I were on fire, and makes me speak so, and it is this wild excitement which I believe takes off from my life every time I speak. I do not usually get over the effect of my evening work till the middle of the week. Then it is nearly time to begin the same process over again. I live Monday and Tuesday under the excitement; when it passes away then comes the depression and the irritable condition. How long I can keep on so, I don't know. Practice increases rather than diminishes the difficulty." This fall of 1865 he was preaching a series of sermons on the Bible in Rela- tion to Salvation. He was getting away from the Evan- gelical language of his boyhood, and was putting his answers into the concrete texts, "Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor"; " Repent and be baptized"; "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." He was troubled to explain even to himself what it is to believe in Christ. He felt that a man must find out what it meant. With the hard work he rarely slept without dreaming, and, oddly enough, always of Nantucket. In this same confiding letter to Taylor, he confessed how glad he was that the people were so easy to please, because his mind was in an experimental condition, and there were no heresy-hunters among them; so his religious views could develop naturally and freely. He was beginning to feel that he could not be both student and preacher. "I shall decide soon," he wrote in another letter, "which I shall be: the worst of it is that it involves the now-or-never principle. If the reading is not done now it never will be done." So we come to the end of 1865 to find the deacon of twenty-four leading for six days the life of a student, and, on Sunday, the most vigorous life of a practical parson. 44 ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE Professor George Herbert Palmer, his fellow student at Andover and close friend always afterwards, recalls how they always looked upon Allen as a recluse, a self-indulgent scholar, caring nothing for men, till they learned to their amazement that he was giving his utmost strength to a congregation of mill operatives in the neighbouring town. Every stranger coming to Andover said that it was im- possible. But there was no question about it: he got hold of these simple people; and many in Andover went over to Lawrence to see how he did it; and they too fell under the spell. It was the old missionary spirit which sent him to his books. Mr. Palmer recalls also that there was no trace of his poverty about him. The distinction in his manner, simple and straight, but very reserved, gave to his clothes a grace that no newness nor fineness could give. He himself remembered, to his delighted amusement, that coming out of chapel one morning, he heard the whisper, "He's rich." Graduating from Andover in 1865, he delivered a com- mencement part on ''Christianity an Organic Develop- ment." Being then a graduate, and therefore obliged to seek quarters outside the seminary buildings, he took rooms over a book-shop and printing-office, and there, with his books about him, he studied. The picture which his friends had of him was of coming in to find him absorbed in Alford's Greek Testament, which was new then. He was ploughing through it, line by line. His notebooks, filled with extracts, show how carefully and widely he was reading. He warned Taylor that he must cultivate drudg- ery, for the scholar, however brilliant, never attained with- out drudgery. He and Taylor exchanged lists of books, and commented on the books they were reading. He was digging out the thought of Kant, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Locke, Bacon, Mill, Whately; he was looking into Strauss, Renan, Rousseau; Coleridge was perpetually giving him fruitful suggestions; De Quincey, Charles Lamb, Words- READING 45 worth, Keble, refreshed him; in Essays and Reviews he liked Temple's essay, and especially Temple himself; Anselm, Bernard, Richard Baxter, Jonathan Edwards, Bushnell, were helping him to construct his own the- ology; men of the day, Newman, Kingsley, Stanley, Ruskin, Froude, Clough, Matthew Arnold, Agassiz, were of absorbing interest to him; Goethe, Lessing, Shake- speare, Plato, Cicero, he was constantly quoting; Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics was a book after his own heart — and he used playfully to tell his students in after years that this was a book every gentleman should own. Maurice was his master, so far as he called any man master; and to him he gave affection as well as respect. Mr. Palmer recalls that one day he was criticizing Maurice for dodging the question in the sermon on Jonah and then in general he said that Maurice lost himself in a sea of words. Allen could not stand it. The words hurt him — as if one had spoken against his mother. Maurice was not to him merely a writer, he was a person. Nothing in these Andover days could shake his allegiance to him. He always spoke of him with a hush. He was reading largely to fortify and clarify his own impressions. To this end he sought in the books of men whom he respected to discover what they thought on his problem. He was not interested in getting at a man's system. He wished to have his own system, he did not want to have any philosopher swallow him. So it was the man who suggested who was dearest to him. He fixed early upon his independence and demanded to think out his own thought. He was reading history in these years, but history was interesting as the bearer of philosophy. One of the subjects which he was fighting out for himself was the future life. To William Taylor he wrote, this winter: "The question of Future Punishment is very difficult, but I must profess my belief in it. Even eternal future punishment seems to stand on sound logic. It 46 ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE seems to me to rest upon the principle that the tendency of sin is to perpetuate itself, on and on for ever. It would be contradicting one of Nature's laws for God to interfere with it. It may be that in the other world a man passes through some Lethe, and thus with the past life entirely obliterated is allowed to start upon another career of pro- bation. But on this theory there would be no such thing as progress in the universe, always providing that it was possible for man to sin. It seems to me that this prop- agating nature of evil is a sufficient basis for the Doctrine of Endless Punishment. It is harder to believe in what is called universal salvation, for me, than particular salva- tion. I could not believe the former if I should try. It lacks sound reasoning, and is sentimental. But one difficulty in all reasoning on the subject is the vagueness of the words Punishment and Salvation. They belong to an old Theology. I should like to see the subject reasoned out on new principles. Professor Park does so in a measure, but not as I should like to see it. There is a theory — of English Churchmen, I believe — that it is the tendency of evil to intensify and exhaust itself; that in the very nature of things evil must be finite; that to think other- wise is blasphemy against God. But I do not know in what evidence this assertion exists, certainly not on obser- vation in this world, or experience of it in the heart." William Taylor had asked him about so-called danger- ous books. '"If any man will do the will, he shall know of the doctrine,'" Allen quoted to him in return. "The practical life, if it is conformed to the life of Christ, will neutralize the otherwise one-sided influence in mere specu- lative reading. Speculation not only in Religion but every- where else is dangerous unless the heart is active and thus balances and corrects the head." Friendship, indeed, seems to reach its crest in these letters to Taylor. It is love of the highest in his friend which inspires all the counsel. "The greatest pleasure I ever had in any corre- PROFESSOR PARK 47 spondence," he wrote to Taylor at this time, "I have had in this to you." As we pause here at the opening of 1866, it will be wise to look for a moment at the influences at Andover. The fine friendship with Taylor was the undercurrent. On the surface were the distinguished teachers that then drew men from far. Chief of these was Park. Park was not, it is now known, either philosopher or theologian; he was rather a superb lawyer, to whom it fell to defend the inheritance of the New England Theology. As one of his wisest pupils has said, he was a Schoolman, born out of due time, using powers of the first order for a third- rate task. He had an impressive, striking face, burning, penetrating eyes. He walked with a half stagger. He was full of jest. What Wagner was to Bayreuth, that was Park to Andover. The students thought that Wall Street and Threadneedle Street were waiting for news from the last lecture. His lectures were from eleven to twelve and at half-past twelve the men sat down to dinner. And all the talk was of Park's lecture: the discussion was fast and furious. The late Joseph Cook, who was in Andover at this time, is remembered to have resented this intru- sion of students' chatter after the master had spoken: "Don't, don't," he cried, " put a hen coop on Mt. Sinai!" Then he thumped the table with his fist so hard that all the tumblers danced. Allen distrusted and adored Park. His following of Park was sometimes of terror; often of fascination with his marvellous acting. Park was an intellectual gladiator, fighting for the truth committed to him. He came to Andover a radical; he died a conserva- tive. His method was by proof-texts; for though he treated some parts of the Bible cavalierly, he found the Bible inerrant in everything it was intended to teach. When a discussion reached a hard pass, Park twirled his glasses and told a story — a story so beguiling that the men forgot the difficulty. 48 ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE This man taught Allen many things, but Allen never called him master. He felt the hollowness of Park's plead- ing, even while he recognized the majesty of the man, and bowed his head with the rest before the superb genius. A more modern man in the seminary was Egbert C. Smyth, who taught history. He was more of a scholar, though he had the German habit of huddling facts together without giving them any special significance. He had read widely and had generous sympathies, but he could neither teach nor interpret. He opened up vistas, and looked out towards the future. He joined his pupil in knowledge and affection for Maurice. Years later, the pupil spoke of him as "a plodding literalist, timid, unable to generalize, confused by details — a man who does not know himself. That is what I thought of him when I sat under him at Andover. He struck me as inferior to Park. I remember that one day in his lecture I became rather disgusted at hearing him speak several times of the 318 pastors at Nicaea, and I asked him if they were not more correctly described as bishops at that time. I did not mean to embarrass him, but unfortunately I did so to an extent which I regretted. He called them bishops after that. He knew well enough that they were, but he was congregationalizing the history for his own purpose." The third notable figure in the Andover faculty was Professor Phelps, who taught homiletics. Allen re- sembled him somewhat in looks and in cultivation and refinement of manners. But the pupil escaped the vanities of the teacher. Austin Phelps had marked reputation as a preacher, being able to move people by his literary gifts ; but he was not a scholar. " He is my ideal of a literary preacher," Allen wrote of him to William Taylor; and it is certain, from words of admiration dropped in his letters, that he received much from Phelps on the literary side. The fact that he copied a long sermon from Phelps into his Commonplace Book confirms this conviction. ORDINATION 49 On June 24, 1866, Alexander Allen was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Eastburn at St. John's, Framing- ham. He had written to Taylor, a little before, that he felt like going to his funeral. "As I come near the time to which I have so many years looked forward I can feel only saddened and humiliated." Evidently Bishop East- burn allowed the service to be as much like a funeral as possible, for the home letters speak of it as being a "very shabby service." Letters came to him from old friends, full of affection and loyalty. They all addressed him as Viets, which was his college name. That he saved all their letters reveals how thoroughly he valued the depth and flavour of their friendship. It was still with William Taylor that he exchanged most intimate thoughts. He told Taylor that he must read Frederick Robertson's Life, yet he confessed that the Life had destroyed for him the charm of the sermons. "I had become," he added, "so interested in him from reading the sermons, that I waited impatiently for his Memoir to come out, and when it did, I read it with the deepest interest and could read nothing else till I had finished it. But I laid it down dissatisfied. It was like getting to the end of a novel of which the interest centres in the plot. And when that is unravelled you care nothing more for the story." Then he passed to himself: "I feel as though I were undergoing a great mental change myself. I no longer look with contempt upon Evangelicism. I really believe sometimes that I am coming round to all of the old positions which I had long abandoned. I feel as though as religious experiences grow so does my appreciation of those Evangelical truths which are said to be distasteful to the carnal mind, the natural man. I have been thinking lately of those expressions, found in all Evangelical writers, about giving up all pride of reason, and simply believing, taking as truth what the Bible declares. Evangelicism 5 50 ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE corresponds most nearly with St. Paul's teaching. I am beginning to feel St. Paul's remark about the preaching of the Cross. I begin to like to preach those old doctrines, even to use the stereotyped expressions. I can't under- stand myself, but I feel as if I must stop speculating. Reason does not help me in believing. It only hinders me from full acceptance of many things. It is pleasant to repose in the old faith which has sustained eighteen cen- turies of Christian life, unquestioningly, like a child in its mother's arms. I feel myself unable to reconstruct Chris- tianity. I know intellectually its weak points, but morally it affects me, and that is enough. I must have some theory of salvation, and some theory, too, not of my own or of modern devising. It is pleasant — it is more than pleas- ant — it thrills me with deep satisfaction and quiet joy to hear of Christ in whose blood our sins are blotted out, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, who suffered, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. . . . As to the love of God, I may believe in that, but it is under a cloud even in this world. I cannot reconcile the misery I see with omnipotent love. It cannot be done. We can only trust God to be doing what in His wisdom He knows to be best. Why not do so with the future?" Then the letter takes a sharp turn. "Did I write you, dear Willie," he went on, "that Percy Browne paid me a visit in Andover several months ago? I had a very pleasant time with him. He fortunately brought with him a dozen sermons, and I enjoyed hearing him read them. They were excellent. I recall, as I write, one afternoon when, after he had read me three of them at one sitting, we were both of us unac- countably seized with a strange drowsiness, and, singularly enough, both of us fell into the profoundest slumber for the space of more than two hours. I think those sermons must tell upon any congregation." After Christmas, 1866, he wrote to his mother: "I nearly forgot to tell you that we had the choral service in St. ESSAY AT CONVOCATION 51 John's Christmas-Eve, with a double responsive choir. It was quite effective. I then delivered a strong Church sermon, in which I compared the Church with the bodies of dissenting Christians, much to the advantage of the former. I think father would have enjoyed the services." His voice was even more melodious than in later years. There was always a magic compulsion in its soft low tones. He modestly said that it explained the success of his Lawrence preaching. In February, 1867, he read the essay at the Annual Convocation of the Clergy of Massachusetts, in Boston. He took as his subject "Free Thought and the Method in which it Should be Met by the Clergy." The essay, which took an hour and a half to read, was a summary of his convictions. Work was the solvent of doubt; free thought widens, but lames: action narrows, but animates. Missionary and benevolent activity is the best evidence that God is with us. He ran through modern movements in England and Germany with an assurance surprising in a youth of twenty-six. The Evangelical Bishop and the ritualistic Rector of the Advent mingled their voices in praise. A young clergyman from Worcester, named Huntington, wrote a grateful letter about it. Urged to publish the essay, Allen fled to Professor Park for advice. As Allen read the essay to him, he felt the old man's sharp eyes gleaming at him out of the darkness. Dr. Park ad- vised him to publish the essay as a pamphlet, but this Allen never did. It was his "Apologia." In March, by Bishop Eastburn's invitation, he delivered the second of the Price Lectures in Trinity Church. It was, under the title of "The True Conception of the Deity," a leading up to Christ. These public appearances may have brought him to the minds of certain influential laymen who were planning a divinity school in Cambridge, but more than all was the persistent affection of Dr. Francis Wharton. Dr. Wharton had urged his name upon the 52 ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE trustees and sought the powerful commendation of the king of the theological world, Professor Park. On April 15, 1867, Allen wrote home: "I have been offered to-day the position of adjunct professor in the new Episcopal Divinity School at Cambridge. The department is Ecclesiastical History. I do not know whether I shall accept." In May a call came to be assistant at St. Ann's, Brook- lyn, and to be in full charge for a year while the rector was abroad. It was an opportunity beckoning him strongly to the parochial ministry, for which he had demonstrated his fitness. He had the puzzling task to determine whether he was to be teacher or preacher. He seems to have felt no elation over the recognition implied by the calls, but wrote that he wished that they had come later, when he could feel that Lawrence was better able to sustain a change. Then came the event which made all calls seem vanity. Monday, May 20, he had gone to Andover to get books from the library. A little before noon he returned to his room in Lawrence, and there on his desk lay a telegram. "I think," he wrote, "I knew what it contained before I opened it. It was dated Sunday, May 19, 1867, and it read: 'Your father died this morning. Come.' I sit down now at the distance of more than five weeks from the time, and the scene is yet too fresh for me to write. It overpowers me to think of it. It was a stun- ning blow." This sorrow so unnerved him that in June he was quite ill with congestion of the lungs. June 27, he wrote to his brother: "I have been reading over my letters from Father. They seem to be fuller of affection, for their very reserve. Some of them I did not feel equal to reading. I have tied them together and it is a sacred package. ... I had a dream of him after I came back to Lawrence. He appeared to me and I went round with him holding his warm and loving hand. He did not look as he did for the last two DEATH OF ETHAN ALLEN 53 years, but as I think he looked when we were children. We appeared to be in some place that was not familiar to me. I introduced him with a sense of triumph that he was not dead. I cannot but think that there may have been in it something more than a mere vision." Friends comforted him. Postlethwaite came to spend August with him, as he stayed by his work at Lawrence; Taylor came in October. His mother, assisted by the gallant General Phelps, broke up the housekeeping at Guilford and with her daughter removed to the lonely and tranquil farm at Rehoboth. In a short holiday which he allowed himself in September he visited Nantucket and preached in his father's old church. He had also preached, with overwhelming emotions, a sermon in the Guilford church the Sunday after his father's death. The decision fell to Cambridge, but the school buildings were not ready till winter, and Lawrence still needed him. December 8 was his last Sunday at St. John's, Lawrence. The last day of 1867 he sat down in his room at Cam- bridge to review the year. "This year," he wrote, "has been the most marked in my whole life. It took away from us our dear Father. I am just beginning, little by little, to feel my loss. It is irreparable. It is agony to think I never again in this world can see him. May God give me strength to imitate his blest example, for he followed Christ, and to me seemed almost perfect. May I do the work which God has given me to do faithfully, as in His sight. I sat down to write some reflections of the year, but the thought of dear Father is too much for me. His loss to me is the meaning of 1867. His death has changed life for me. It is now a serious thing to live, and the goal seems always in view. The year has brought blessings and mercies. Father, if he could speak to me, would tell me to be of good cheer and manfully to take up my work and do it with my might. O God, help me. We are weakness without Thee. Make me more entirely Thine. Make 54 ANDOVER AND LAWRENCE my consecration of myself to Thee, mind and soul, com- plete. Do for me as Thou wilt. Make me an instrument to Thy glory in this world, and then receive me into the blessed mansions which Christ has gone to prepare for them that love Him. Amen." CHAPTER V BEGINNINGS OF THE CAMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 1868-1872 IN January, 1867, Benjamin Tyler Reed, of Boston, de- posited the sum of $100,000 in the hands of certain gentlemen whom he nominated as trustees of an institu- tion to be known as the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge — Edward Sprague Rand, Robert Charles Winthrop, and John Phelps Putnam. To these he after- wards added Amos Adams Lawrence and James Sullivan Amory. The founder expressed his purpose by asking that the School always "distinctly set forth the great doctrine of Justification by Faith alone in the Atonement and Righteousness of Christ, as taught in . . . the Thirty-nine Articles, according to the natural construction of the said Articles (Scripture alone being the standard), as adopted at the Reformation, and not according to any tradition, doctrine, or usage prior to said Reformation not contained in Scripture." To the outsider the most distinctive mark of the School was that its trustees were laymen, as a vestry charged with the temporalities, thus leaving the spiritualities entirely to the clergy of the faculty. Thus fashioned on the lines of a parish, the School has enjoyed a life of unusual freedom and harmony. Dr. John Seely Stone became the first Dean. Dr. Wharton accepted the chair of Homiletics, and Peter Henry Steenstra accepted the chair of Biblical Interpretation. 55 56 THE CAMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL Phillips Brooks declined a post at the School, attractive though it was to him. 1 Cambridge was chosen as the home of the School, that it might be near Harvard, and have the advantage of its library and of its traditions of learning and freedom. Those who did not like the School were prone to say that it was tainted with Harvard Unitarianism; and its staunch friends, men like Dr. Packard and Dr. Dyer, sometimes fell into a panic about it. Even Dean Stone, though assur- ing Dr. Dyer that the institution was thoroughly orthodox, conceded that it was foolish to give the enemy such a chance to blaspheme, and that it was a mistake to plant it in Cambridge. Dr. Stone came to Cambridge in October, and took up his abode in a house at the corner of Mt. Auburn street and Coolidge avenue, hard by the cemetery. A neighbouring house was to be the School, containing rooms to be used as a temporary chapel, sleeping rooms for the students, and rooms for Mr. Allen, as the only resident teacher, besides Dr. Stone. Mr. Steenstra was to remain in Newton till a house could be secured for him, and Dr. Wharton was to stay permanently with his parish in Brookline. So Dr. Stone sat down and waited, and wrote patient, sweet, and dreary letters to his dear friend, Dr. Dyer, in New York. "Dr. Stone wrote me," Mr. Allen afterwards said, "about the middle of October, that three students had been heard from, but he was not sure that they were coming. We waited a little longer, and in the middle of November he wrote me that a student was plainly in sight. So about the fifth of December, 1867, I came to Cambridge, and took rooms in the house on Mt. Auburn street. There I waited for a month, and no student came. It was on the first day of January, 1868, and it was at four o'clock in the afternoon that the School opened. A student by the name of Sylvester — from Danvers — presented himself. 1 Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks, vol. i. p. 588. EARLY PUPILS 57 I remember well the day. It was a dark winter afternoon and rather cold. We had a large fire in the open grate, and at four o'clock he came into the study and sat down, and we talked over Church History. That was the open- ing of the Theological School." Through its early history the School was extremely small. Dr. Stone's well-deserved reputation was offset by the coolness of bishops who suspected a school planted near Harvard with no convention or bishop to control it. The friends of the School did not regret this slow growth. It gave the teachers time to find themselves, and it bound teachers and students into the beneficent intimacies of a religious family. While the institution dwelt in tabernacles, or, as Mr. Allen would say, in its own hired house, the Prayer Book Services for family prayers were used rather than Morning and Evening Prayer. Mr. Allen was the "house-father," and being only twenty-seven years old was companion and friend as well as leader to the men committed to his care. He enjoyed the conversation of young men always, and always treated them as if they knew as much as he. His letters to his mother during these early years note the coming of such students as Arthur Lawrence, James H. Lee, Charles S. Lester, and others, in whom he took delight. He was feeling his way, but he was already inspiring his men to study hard. Moreover, since the students of the School were drawn to it, not by outward or conventional inducements, they were men of more or less independence in thought: many of them had serious intellectual difficulties, and for these the house-father had infinite patience and sympathy. Dr. Stone was a staunch Evangelical Churchman, but with his friend Dr. Dyer he stood for all that was gentle and loyal. He had a dread of Rome; this dread was intensified because one of his sons, to the father's enduring grief, became a Roman Catholic. He had no sympathy for the movement towards a Reformed Episcopal Church, 58 THE CAMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL and he was not afraid of the frank scholarship that was daring to ask hazardous questions. Dr. Francis Wharton was also an Evangelical Church- man of the generous type, moulded by the influence of Bishop William White and Bishop Alonzo Potter. It had been his ambition to be associated with a theological school ; but when the headship of the Cambridge School was offered him, he showed his fineness by urging the election of Dr. Stone. Dr. Wharton was a man of the world, versed in law, literature, theology, and life. He taught Liturgies, Church Polity, and Canon Law; and for a few years he taught also Homiletics, Pastoral Care, and Apol- ogetics. Both Dr. Stone and Dr. Wharton were men of dignity and personal charm. Their faces were singularly beautiful in their maturity and strength. The other two members of the faculty were young men. Years later Mr. Allen said of his colleague: "I met Mr. Steenstra in 1867, calling upon him at Newton. He was one of the most conservative men that I ever knew. It was like pulling teeth, every step that he took. You have hardly any conception of what the steps were we were taking. In those early days we were discussing very pain- fully the question whether the date of the received chronol- ogy was true; whether or not the world was actually made in the year four thousand and four and in the spring of the year; that the evening and the morning of March 25 were the first day. And we were very much exercised over the question whether the deluge was partial or complete. On these questions, Mr. Steenstra was very conservative; and we groped painfully through the difficulties." Dr. Steen- stra seemed afterwards a radical Old Testament scholar, but of late years the tide has been coming in so rapidly that his once radical position is now counted only con- servative. While other schools were reaching the now assured results of Old Testament Criticism through panics and eccelesiastical war, the Evangelical authorities GREEK THEOLOGY 59 at Cambridge were trusting patiently in the honest devotion of two young men. In Mr. Allen's department of Ecclesiastical History also there was advance from the old Evangelical position. His teaching was refreshing and awakening, but he was not impressing the men as he impressed later students. He did not adopt the full lecture system till the early eighties. He used a text book, and, though he talked freely, there was the atmosphere of a recitation. Mr. Allen assisted Dr. Stone in the Sunday services in Cambridge. But his engrossing work in these first years, as always after, was to study history, and to teach it. He was made a full professor, February 25, 1869. How thor- oughly he worked, a house filled with note-books is eloquent witness. He not only read widely — he studied, he re- flected — and he was constantly committing his acqui- sitions to writing, not in formal lectures, but in a mass of "material." It was temperament as well as conviction that was leading him to value the Greek Fathers above the Latin. The vein of humanism was discovered in him at Gambier. Professor Park had given him at Andover the harder side of thought. But he came back to the humanism, and so to the School of Alexandria in its glory. St. John's Chapel, at the corner of Brattle and Mason streets, the gift of Robert Means Mason, was consecrated by Bishop Eastburn, November 16, 1869, as the chapel of the School. In 1869 Phillips Brooks came to Trinity Church, Boston; since Dr. Stone had long known his power, he at once arranged to have Mr. Brooks preach in the Chapel the third Sunday night of each month. The church was thronged by Harvard and Cambridge, and it was here that Mr. Brooks first put his hand upon the life of Harvard College. From this beginning his association with the School became gradually intimate. In the early seventies he felt the teaching power of the School so slightly that he advised his brother John to go to Andover and to 60 THE CAMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL Philadelphia. Had he then esteemed Mr. Allen as he esteemed him later he would not have been satisfied to allow his brother to go through his three years of theo- logical training without being under him. It was during 1869 also that Dr. Stone moved to 2, Phil- lips Place, and the Brown house on Brattle street was pur- chased for the "house-father" and his students. In this year Mr. Allen became engaged to Dr. Stone's daughter, Elizabeth Kent Stone; but the trustees, sympathetic as they were, felt the School to be too poor to add to the $1250.00 which was the salary of the professor of Ecclesias- tical History. So the wedding was deferred for three years — till June, 1872. He was finding the atmosphere of Cambridge and Boston stimulating. He spoke always with enthusiasm of Long- fellow, who was a close neighbour to the School and always most hospitable and friendly. He met the poet one day walking down Brattle street with Charles Dickens, and was impressed by the novelist's careworn face. He went into Boston with a student to hear Beecher. "It was very interesting," he wrote, "but the lecture was a tissue of sophistries and made no effect upon me at all." "Last night," he wrote to his mother, June 7, 187 1, "I attended the young ministers' Clerical Club, which meets at the rooms of Phillips Brooks. The subject of Cheney was discussed." This summer of 187 1 he took charge of The Christian Witness, and continued in charge of it till its sponsor, J. S. Copley-Greene, felt that he could pay its bills no longer, and it was merged with The Protestant Churchman, Feb- ruary, 1872. Dr. John Cotton Smith, the editor of The Protestant Churchman, asked Mr. Allen to be associate edi- tor, but with his teaching and preaching Mr. Allen found editorial work too onerous, and declined. Still he enjoyed this chance to express his thought. He wrote several appreciative articles on Dean Stanley as an Ecclesiastical CHURCH JOURNALISM 61 Historian. He approved of Stanley's putting the empha- sis not upon institutions or opinions, but upon personality, but criticized him for stopping there, and attempting no philosophy of history, never daring to go beyond the concrete. He objected to Stanley's comprehensiveness, in that it approached indifference. He admired him, but with discrimination. In the issue of July 13, 187 1, he attacked an article in the New York Nation on Cheney in his movement toward what proved to be the Reformed Episcopal Church. "Generally," he wrote, "we might criticize The Nation's attitude as being outside of the Church, and consequently incapable of appreciating the complexity of an institution which involves questions reaching back to the origin of Christianity. Hence it happens that the common sense and 'practical' opinions on ecclesiastical difficulties are not always conclusive." In this connection, he wrote: "The trouble with some of our Church contemporaries is that they will not let God do His work in His own way. They want to do it all themselves in their own way. We believe that, in all the distractions of the time, God is as actively present in the world as in any previous period of its history . . . The tactual Apostolic Succession of the Christian ministry is an exceedingly interesting historical fact, and has a certain value of a doctrinal kind in attesting the continuity of Christian feeling. But when it is exaggerated into anything beyond this, it reminds us of ancient forms of religion, like Buddhism or Judaism, which spent so much time on the husk that they lost sight of the kernel, which it was given to preserve. Too much interest invested in externals is one of the fatal signs of decline in any system of inward power." January 18, 1872, in an editorial, he spoke against those who boasted their superior intelligence in rejecting old formulas. "There is," he said, "a mystery in the great 62 THE CAMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL unquestioning heart of faith which we had best leave as we find it. That faith is the gift of God, leading the blind by a way that they know not." The next week he spoke a word in behalf of the Sacraments. "Grace," he said, "or the loving help of God, does come through channels, as well as directly to the soul . . . Christ works through other agencies, and He can come to the soul without the need of any outward means. This is true, but it is still more true that He does work with all the freeness and fulness of His grace, through the special institutions of His own appointment, in which mainly He is to be sought and found." Between the periods of study, teaching, preaching, and writing, Mr. Allen gave himself to the care of his mother and sister who were living at Rehoboth. He could not often go down to them, but he tried to spend part of the summer holiday with them, and usually Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a day or two after Easter. They sewed for him, and he was their connection with the outer world, bringing or sending to them the various purchases with which they commissioned him. When he was their guest he became painter and carpenter, delighting to make the lonely farmhouse more comfortable and attractive. When his sister wrote that she was depressed, he begged her to stop reading George Eliot. Her books, he said, were un- wholesome, and would make the most cheerful take de- pressing views of life. Old friendships too were maintained, as new ones were forming. He visited his brother in Allegheny, and "Posie" in Brooklyn. To "Willie Taylor" he still poured out his soul. "I have come to think," he wrote to Mr Taylor in February, 1869, "that the changes in store for us in the Church of the Future are not so great as I once imagined they would be. I think the old theologies will receive something of an adaptation to the needs of the present. That they must receive. But ages must roll CONSERVATISM 63 away before they are lost to the world substantially, and I think they have so much truth in them they never can be. There are so many precedents of this kind that one cannot take that enthusiasm in present movements, which others ignorant of these precedents might take. For example, Clement of Alexandria in the third century raised most of our modern questions. And an old fellow in the eighth century thought that the time would soon come when Christianity would give place to a religion of pure human- ity. Ten centuries — and it has not given way yet! The study of Church History must make anyone conservative. ... I have been studying the Neo-Platonists this last year. I should like to talk with you about them . . . Posie is head over ears in the Cheney matter. I do not agree with him. The subject is worn threadbare." (In December, 1874, Mr. Postlethwaite allied himself with the Reformed Episcopal Church.) June 21, 187 1, the School had its first formal Commence- ment in St. John's Chapel, with Bishop Eastburn presiding. In the May following, ground was broken for Lawrence Hall, the dormitory of the School, given by Amos Adams Lawrence, one of the trustees. The anxious days of the institution were not past, but it had proved its right to live. When Mr. Allen went off for his wedding journey, visiting Brattleboro and Guilford and Lake George, in the summer holidays of 1872, he was reasonably certain that the rest of his life was to be spent in doing his share to build up a school which was to have a permanent place in the life of the Church. CHAPTER VI THE UNKNOWN TEACHER 1873 - 1878 MR. and MRS. ALLEN began their housekeeping at 37, Trowbridge street. Mrs. Allen was as at- tractive as she was beautiful. Full of kindness and sweet intelligence, she won all who came to know her. She was to her husband his link with the world. She did not understand his history and his philosophy; but she was proud of him, and went gaily about her household duties while he studied and taught. When his day's work was done she spread the news of the neighbourhood before him. She helped him to entertain his students; while some talked theology with him in the study, others talked the lighter aspects of life with her in the drawing-room; and he brought them all at the close of the evening to her. " We had sweetness and light," a student said — "sweetness on one side of the hall, light on the other." It was at this time that Mr. Allen became chaplain at the Hospital for the Insane at Somerville. "It is dread- fully nervous work," he wrote to his brother, "and uses me up completely. But there is one thing about it which I like — it brings me into contact with the world and human life in a practical way. What I missed here in Cambridge was some communication with the world. Theological students do not afford such communication: in fact, it is one of the things they need. Thus being shut out of the world, I slide in again through an insane asylum." One of the Harvard faculty of those days has told how 64 PRACTICAL RELIGION 65 much he regretted that Mr. Allen did not oftener preach in Cambridge. People liked his sermons, but had a feeling that he was living in his study, giving himself to those who came to him, but seeking none. It was with a sort of thrill that they learned, one by one, that this man who seemed to shut the world out, who indulged now and then in vitriolic talk about the worthlessness of modern "works," who was content to let you think him only a book- worm, was giving his Sundays to the people he pitied most. " He " they said, "the sanest of men, preaches to the insane." He was fond of paradoxes, and he was a paradox himself. He always wrote his sermons for Somerville: the congre- gation was apt to make odd remarks, which were too diverting for a preacher who had a sense of humour, but no notes. In September 1872, Bishop Eastburn died. At the con- vention in the following May, it became clear that neither of the leading candidates (Dr. Henry C. Potter and Dr. de Koven) could be elected, and Dr. Paddock was chosen Bishop of Massachusetts. In the fall, Mr. Allen wrote to his mother: "We have had our visit from Bishop Paddock and are pleased with him. We expect that he will work heartily with the School. We have now 13 students, the largest number we have had." May 21, 1873, he wrote to Mr. Taylor of the birth of his son, Henry Van Dyke: "An old servant came to tell me in a triumphant way that it was a boy. I took up my Prayer Book and read with tears in my eyes the Gospel for the Third Sunday after Easter, the Gospel for the week. . . The words seemed to come to me like a blessed benediction from the Divine Saviour, and a new meaning, and a deeper, came into the words: 'And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.' " In this same letter, which covered the news of many months, he spoke of his reading. "I read The Nation 6 66 THE UNKNOWN TEACHER regularly," he said, "and could not do without it. Some things about it I do not like. It is no soothing-syrup that it doles out weekly. But it is able and illuminating. Percy Browne has given up reading it, because it takes for granted that the world is going to the dogs, and is carping and critical and heartless. I told him I thought it was a bad sign for a young man to give up reading it. Dr. Stone has dropped it; but that I can understand." In February, 1874, he wrote to his mother that all Bos- ton and Cambridge were being stirred by the visit of Charles Kingsley. "He is now the guest of Dr. Wharton, and I spent last evening at Dr. Wharton's and heard him talk. Among others came Longfellow. Kingsley was nervous and irritable, but under the influence of Longfel- low's gentleness and the genial manner of the host, he gradually mellowed. Mr. Longfellow was trying to in- terest him in the subject of Roman ruins, but Kingsley refused to be interested, declaring that he had never been to Rome: all he cared to know about Rome he could gather from Longfellow's poetry. Mr. Longfellow spoke of Uypatia as the finest historical novel ever written. On Dr. Wharton's saying that if Mr. Kingsley had not been in Rome, he had made a thorough study of Alexandria, Kingsley confessed to have gathered from books all that he knew of it. This evening he came to prayers in the Chapel, and after being introduced to the congregation, he broke his intention to be silent, making an address which those who heard will never forget. He is a tall, large-framed man, of a dark countenance. There is a certain grace and dignity in his manner and carriage. He has the English reserve and hauteur. His voice is deep and musical. He carries rather a grave, sad face." In 1874, Mr. Reed, the founder of the School, died. He bequeathed about a half million of dollars, which was to be paid after Mrs. Reed's death. This assured the trustees of a prosperous future, though there were many CHURCH CONGRESS 67 years of strict economy and many years of constant giving to the current expense account from devoted friends be- fore the School entered upon its inheritance. "We are feeling very hopeful about the institution," Mr. Allen wrote to his mother in April; "we had been depressed a good deal. Never in the history of the American Epis- copal Church has such a gift been made before, and that too, without any condition whatever. We shall now, I hope, begin to make ourselves felt as an institution. I do not know when we shall begin to feel the change in our salaries." The next month he wrote to his mother: "I have been away to a conference in New Haven, which met to con- sider the State of the Church. It was interesting and im- portant. It was decided to have a Church Congress at the time when the General Convention meets in New York, and do some plain talking in hopes of moving the Con- vention. Most of those present were Broad Churchmen, but there were some others, among them Hugh Miller Thompson, Editor of The Church Journal. I was much pleased with him, and had a good deal of conversation with him." After the Convention had adjourned he wrote to his brother his impressions of both the Congress and the Con- vention. "As to Church matters," he said, "I am more hopeful than you. The Congress is at present the great hope of the Church. Broad Church ideas are peculiarly fitted for the republican mind and temper, and they took at the Congress like hot cakes. But I must admit that there were some bad signs about the General Convention, notably what you refer to — the way in which the bishops were spoken of as having an official insight into doctrine. One of the most dangerous articles I have seen was in The Churchman last week, taking the ground that no one not inside the Church is fit to criticize its movements. The Churchman is very near committing the sin against the 68 THE UNKNOWN TEACHER Holy Ghost. I have no doubt the General Convention will add life to the Reformed Episcopal Church. The outlook is not as good as it might be; but the place of the Broad Churchman is in the old Church." The prosperity of the School was increased in 1875 by the building of Reed Hall to contain the library and reci- tation rooms. This year Bishop Paddock dropped into the calm waters of the Theological School a post-card which set the waters to churning and tossing. The card, written to Dean Stone, asked for a report from the School and from St. John's Chapel. The faculty met, then the trustees, and it was decided that neither the faculty nor the trustees could make any report to the Convention. What would begin as a courtesy, might become an obliga- tion, and the free school of the prophets might be bound to the changing moods of a diocesan convention: claim- ing the right of a report, it might later claim the right to control. Dr. Stone suggested that the Board of Visitors could report if they chose. So the troubled waters sub- sided. In the spring of 1875 Mr. Allen was elected a member of The Ministers' Club, an organization of the more prom- inent clergy of all Christian bodies in greater Boston. Though never occupying the place in his affections filled by the Clericus, — which was practically Phillips Brooks's Club — it was stimulating. "I am afraid," he wrote to his mother in May, " that they have made a mistake in me. They meet once a month at the different houses, and each member reads an essay in turn, which is discussed. Then they have a fine dinner. Dr. Wharton is a member, and gave a swell dinner at his house a few months ago — a dozen or more courses, and several kinds of wine. Most of the clergy are in receipt of fat salaries. But as I am not, I think my best plan would be to give a dinner of herbs in true Apostolic fashion. This would be particularly appro- priate in one representing the ministry of Apostolic order. DORNER 69 This age is getting altogether too luxurious. We need to be called back to plainness and simplicity. I don't sup- pose St. Paul would have joined such a club. I wonder what sort of dinner he would have given." He was not forgetting students who had gone out of the School. To Lee he wrote: "You need quiet and mental repose to be able to work out your own theory of things satisfactorily to yourself. That is what every man abso- lutely needs in order to any successful prosecution of his calling, — a good working hypothesis. When he has gained it, he can afford to let it take care of itself, and follow his calling with fresh interest. We live, fortunately or unfortunately, in a time when every thinking mind must begin ab initio, and build up for itself; and in the process no other mind can be a substitute for his own, much as other minds may contribute. ... I am glad to know that you are reading Dorner, because it gives us a common ground. It is a book which has influenced me very much, and wrought a great change in my elemental conceptions. The Person of Christ is more satisfactory in the earlier volumes, perhaps the first three, than in the later. Dor- ner's History of Protestant Theology is to me invaluable as an explanation of thorough justification of the Protestant Reformation. If you have not read it, you have a great treat before you. . . . The Club goes on. Brooks read a fine essay on Heresy." In September, 1875, Dr. Stone wrote to his friend Dr. Dyer to ask questions about the Rev. George Zabriskie Gray: "Would he do more than I have done in attracting general confidence in our School? In answering this last query don't be tender on my account: I am old and tough and can bear without wincing any thing that you will say." The answer was so encouraging that Mr. Gray was called to a professorship, with the office of Dean, succeeding Dr. Stone, who felt himself too old to administer the affairs of the School. Dr. Gray began his work in Cambridge in 7 o THE UNKNOWN TEACHER 1876, and won the affection of faculty and students. More- over, having been in the parochial ministry, he empha- sized the pastoral side of St. John's Chapel. Though still technically only a collegiate chapel, it became under him much like a parish. Meantime, October 5, 1875, Mr. Allen's second son was born, and named John Stone for his grandfather, who proudly declared him the finest child he had ever seen. "You inform me," wrote Percy Browne, "of your new happiness in such a stately and ceremonious manner that I am not sure whether I ought to congratulate you. Still I do; though you don't deserve it. The first baby is the poetry, the second the prose of the family, so that it would be ridiculous to expect you to gush: all your friends, of course, will say that you are disappointed because it wasn't a girl. . . . "I ought to congratulate you also on a child of your brain — I mean the essay last night. It struck me as being far ahead of anything I have heard from you yet, and I think you must have noticed the unusual attention paid by the Club. It was long, but to me, and I think to all, profoundly interesting. Huntington was with me last night, and thought the essay and discussion the most interesting we have had." To Mr. Taylor he wrote, in January, 1876: "I agree with you in regard to the Reformed Episcopal Church. It is too late in the day to hope to remedy the evils in the Chris- tian body by a new Church, whether Old Catholic or Re- formed Episcopal. There will be those on the one side who will continue to expect great things from the Bonn Conference, and a great many will look with hope on this new bantling, which calls itself Reformed Episcopal. I have no faith in either. We don't want new Churches, but the regeneration of the old. What we really need is a great prophet who can get the world's ear, and reach its conscience, and who will tell us all what Christianity is FABER'S HYMNS 71 indeed. However, I don't expect to see any great change in my day. It takes centuries to do these things that have to be done, and not mere decades. The old Jewish proph- ets began to see the corruptions of the popular religion five hundred years before the fall of Jerusalem. It took at least the same time for Paganism to disappear when Christianity came into the Roman Empire. It took three hundred years to get ready for the Reformation of the sixteenth century. On the whole it is a good thing that great changes are not wrought in a day. The Reformed Episcopal Church and the Old Catholic Church are sig- nificant as signs of the times. "I want to make you a present, and have thought of sending you Faber's Hymns, partly for the beauty of the book, but mainly because I got it for myself, and have found the hymns a little the best of anything I have ever read. The hymns on God, in particular, I admire. They move me more than other religious poetry. I do not agree with them exactly: they represent a phase of religious experience which with me has yielded to another, and I think, a higher; but they do me good — they elevate, and the poetry is exquisite. I could almost wish to be a child again, so as to fit into the mood which would make these utterances its own. But such wishes are vain. As Emer- erson says — he is impressed by a bishop, but he would not be one." In 1877, Trinity Church, Boston, was consecrated; and Moody and Sankey held a revival. Mr. Allen felt that the dignified service symbolizing the fusion of many gifts in a magnificent church was a greater spiritual event than the rather boisterous revival, which of course was more con- spicuous to the general public. He delayed going to any of the Moody services. "But I shall go," he wrote to his mother, "though I do not feel much interest in the move- ment. I should not oppose it, but the excitement I do not like. In some respects, Moody and Sankey are an improve- 72 THE UNKNOWN TEACHER merit upon the earlier revivalists; there is less of terrorism in their preaching, and they give greater prominence to the ethical element in religion. I hope that they won't try to get hold of the children in this way. That I should regard as disastrous." Later he wrote: "I have been to hear Moody and Sankey. Mr. Moody has nothing sui generis about him, though he is a good speaker. I did not like his style, but in that style he is the best speaker I have heard. ... It was an impressive sight." In July, 1877, Mr. Allen sailed for Europe. The journey outwardly was the conventional first journey, but the student of Church History was everywhere living the past in the places he was seeing. He worked hard at seeing all each town could show. "I find myself lamenting dear little Jackie," he wrote from London, " and missing his sweet babyhood. I think he must know unconsciously that some love has gone out of his life. I saw in the National Gallery a picture by Rubens of Christ Blessing Little Children, which struck me very much. The child is a very ordinary one — none of your ideal children — and he is wistfully looking away from the Saviour in the direction of something that inter- ests him, and the Saviour seems to detain him for a moment from his play in order to give His blessing. Well, it seems to me there was a lesson there for us all. The blessings come unconsciously, sometimes against our wills. A lesson too about expecting too much from children." His first Sunday morning in London he went to the service at the Abbey, where he heard Stanley. "It was a fine sermon," he wrote, July 29. "I stayed to the Com- munion, and then I went up and introduced myself to the Dean. I was very much drawn to him. He guided me through the Abbey and to some parts to which the public is not admitted, and he told me many curious things. He pointed out the busts of Keble, Kingsley, and Maurice; then the grave of Lady Augusta. He talked a good deal ENGLISH PREACHERS 73 about her: it was very touching to hear him. Probably he would not have talked so freely to any one but a for- eigner. He showed me some rich curtains, the last thing she made for the Abbey. It stirred my sympathies to have it all pointed out to me by him. He is very quick and active, but delicate looking. He invited me to dine with him at five, but I declined. We talked a little about America. He admired Brooks. He kept saying, ' Quite so,' to everything I said." "This afternoon," he wrote the next Sunday, "I heard Canon Liddon at St. Paul's. He did not come up to my expectations. His voice was very high and rather monot- onous, with a certain sentimental cadence. I observed the congregation closely but I could not see that he held their attention. It was an immense congregation, com- pletely filling the space under the dome, part of the nave beyond, and both transepts. A good many left before the sermon. It was trite, but he spoke with great force and earnestness. It was easy to see that the preacher was theologically blind in one eye. He dwelt upon the ritual as ordained by God, but did not mention how in other places God Himself denounced it through the prophets as a thing He was weary of. I should say that as a preacher he had enthusiasm and fire, and might be eloquent, but he doesn't come up to the best standards of American preaching. He is not equal to Brooks. ... At seven I went to hear Dr. Vaughan, Master of the Temple, at St. Andrew's, Holborn. He has a pleasant voice, but weak, and he seemed to have trouble with it. He made one start, and his voice failed him, and he had to do it over. I enjoyed listening to him. He held the large congregation well. But it was all very quiet: there was none of the excitement and rush of Brooks, no such hanging on the lips of the preacher. I count myself fortunate in having heard in these two Sundays the three best preachers in England: Stanley, Liddon, and Vaughan. The Non-conformists I 74 THE UNKNOWN TEACHER do not count. Spurgeon I had not the slightest desire to hear, and I did not inquire whether he was preaching." In Paris he went loyally to Holy Trinity, the American church. "It gave me a sense of being at home," he wrote; "we were bearing witness to the sacredness of our nation- ality in a foreign land." The beauty of Paris laid hold of him. "Had St. John," he said, "lived in Paris, he would have found inspiration for his vision of heaven." But the horror of much in French history appalled him: "French- men must be made to forget rather than to remember," he said as he looked at the monuments. Speaking of Napoleon's splendid tomb, he added: "There is one side of the story which the French conceal; namely, the part of Wellington and St. Helena. You must go into the dark crypt of St. Paul's for that part of the story. England never would have deified a man who made such a failure in the end. In England the Nation is always greater than its distinguished men; in France Napoleon seems greater than the Nation." In Geneva it swept over him what a large part, through Calvin, France played in the Reformation in spite of itself. Coming home from Calvin's house he was amazed to run upon Phillips Brooks, and spent the evening with him, talking of Servetus and Calvin and Boston and Cambridge. After Italy and Germany, he was again in England. He heard sermons from Llewellyn Davies, Canon Lightfoot (whom he thought a better preacher than Liddon, though inferior in voice), and Manning. "Manning," he wrote, "looked majestic in his Cardinal's dress and hat of scarlet. I don't wonder that he draws a crowd. The sermon was very able in its way — though I did not like the way. It was subtle, cool, and self-possessed. There was no trace of his Anglican training." The Marathon brought him into Boston, October i, rested, refreshed, grateful. His imagination grasped more firmly the history he was set to teach. GENERAL CONVENTION OF 1877 75 The new year at the Theological School had already begun when he reached Cambridge, with ten new students. To his school work, and his services at the Somerville Asylum, he now added the charge of the mission at East Cambridge, known as the Church of the Ascension. With all these duties on his hands, it is not strange that he found it hard to go to the General Convention, which met in Boston in the fall of 1877. "De Koven," he wrote to his mother, "has been giving his reasons for changing the name of the Church, and does not see why the 'Lows' should make any opposition, when they have already prefixed the new and more desirable name to their missionary association, which is known as the American Church Missionary Society. It is a very good hit, to say the least of it." The early summer of 1878 was a tragic period at 6, Ash street (which was Mr. Allen's home from 1876 to 1882). The little daughter, so longed for, came, but passed almost immediately, and Mrs. Allen was close to death. "For a week," Mr. Allen wrote to Mr. Taylor, "she lay uncon- scious; then the doctor gave her up, and we all met in her room to take, as we supposed, our farewell to her, expect- ing the end at any moment. But she rallied, when life was almost gone, and now she is on the highroad to a com- plete recovery. It was a dreadful tragedy to go through; but, as I write about it now, it seems as though it were a long time ago, and more like a dream than reality. It has been a year filled with reminders of death. The death of Ed. Stanton and Murray Davis touched me very much, particularly Stanton's." In another letter to Mr. Taylor he confessed that he still read The Nation. "It has not the charm that it had during the year before the election, but it commends itself to my judgment as doing a great work for the country. Some of those who ought to read it are giving it up, because they cannot afford to be disturbed by its weekly 76 THE UNKNOWN TEACHER growls and cynicism. But beneath its sarcasms there lies a deep, sincere, and noble purpose. When I want the best illustration of the old Hebrew prophets, in modern times, I think of The Nation:' Commencement Day was June 19, and Bishop Hunting- ton was the preacher. "He spoke," wrote Mr. Allen, "of two theories of the ministry: one that it comes from above downward; the other that it comes from below upward. I make the criticism that in spiritual things, speaking precisely, there is no such distinction: all that is good comes from God, the Indweller, the Immanent." Under July 1, he made this record: "I found a letter on coming down to breakfast, announcing that the degree of Doctor of Divinity had been conferred upon me by Kenyon College. I was quite astounded. I could not but feel kindly to Kenyon for doing a kind act to an old graduate, little as I esteem degrees, or like making these distinctions among the clergy. If it were a scholastic thing, given on examination, I should feel differently. I must accept it, I suppose, in the same spirit in which it is given. But Steenstra ought to have the same compliment, and Henry still more. I think I shall not use the title till Steenstra gets one." He noted in his journal some of the books he was read- ing this summer. Mozley's Ruling Ideas he liked: "His drawing of Augustine is good: he corrects the misconcep- tion that he was deep. He was popular and had a wonder- ful power of gauging the popular mind, of just striking it. Otherwise he would not have been great." Dixon's His- tory of the Church of England Mr. Allen found interesting. "Dixon thinks the whole course of things has been wrong since the Reformation began, and a great mistake it all seems to have been. The question, 'Where is God, and what is His connection with the course of events ? ' never seems to have occurred to him. The whole book is a commentary on Emerson's expression, 'Poor God.' God HARD WORK 77 had no one to help Him, so things went to the dogs in the matter of the Church and clergy." The impression of these years in the middle seventies is one of patient, unceasing toil. "Whatever I may be," he said to Mr. Taylor, "I am not an idle clergyman. In addition to my professorship, which takes twelve hours every week, I hold two other 'livings': one the chaplaincy of the Asylum at Somerville, the other the incipient Church at East Cambridge. If it were not for the renewed health which Europe gave, I should not be equal to the work." CHAPTER VII BECOMING KNOWN 1879-1881 NEWMAN fixed upon a certain year when he felt that he was becoming known. There is no trace of such a self-conscious glow in the life of Mr. Allen, but if one were to fix upon such a year when he might have boasted that he was becoming known, it is the year 1879. He had won the affection and admiration of small classes of students; he was gaining the respect of thoughtful and mature men who heard his papers at small clubs. But in 1879, as Newman would say, he came out of his shell. A considerable number of people began to feel his power. On a day in February at St. Paul's Church, he gave his first public lecture in Boston. His subject was " The Conquest of the Church by the Papacy." "My lecture on the Papacy," he wrote his mother, "came off last Tuesday, as you will see on the first page of Wednesday's Transcript. There was a good congregation and though my lecture occupied an hour and fifteen minutes, no one went out. They stayed and listened. I cantered through it with immense rapidity. It would have taken two hours if read at an ordinary pace. I am to deliver another lecture in Boston on the twenty-fourth on ' Monasticism : its Lights and Shades.' These extra efforts are using up time and strength." Immediately there came the request, informally presented through Percy Browne, that he deliver five public lectures in Boston on any topic connected with the History of the 78 BOSTON LECTURES 79 Christian Church. In May this request was made formal and signed by Bishop Paddock, Phillips Brooks, Alexander H. Vinton, and other chief clergymen of Boston. Tickets were sold at a dollar for the course of five, and since the lectures were to be given in Trinity Chapel, they were limited to 500, the capacity of the Chapel. The tickets were all sold long before the lectures were given, owing partly to the emphatic notices given out by the rectors of the various parishes and the favourable words of the news- papers. The lectures were anticipated almost with excite- ment. This expectation was a keen incentive to Mr. Allen, and the lectures were upon his mind all through 1879. He seems never to have put off upon these larger audiences, at any time in his life, the mere repetition of what he had been giving his classes. The material was recast in a new form, and the wider opportunities made him grow. Telling his mother of these proposed lectures, he added: "I have also received an invitation from the Secretary of the Church Congress to read a paper at the next meeting, in Albany, in October. But I think I must decline. My subject was to be 'The Relations of Communism to the Republic' " He did not subordinate the work at the School to these new undertakings. In these years he was wont to spend many evenings with this or that student in his room, especially when he suspected that the student was in per- plexity or doubt. Many men have told how of a winter evening they heard a knock at the door, and the professor of history came in, as if by God's bidding, to straighten out their faith and to give them a new start in life. The fact that the School was suspected of heterodoxy in some quarters made men who were not quite sure of their ortho- doxy willing to come, because they someway believed help and sympathy would be given them. When the students called upon him in his study, they enjoyed the evening, but it was a part of education ; for he records in his jour- 80 BECOMING KNOWN nal such fragments as this: "Mr. Saltonstall called in the evening; we talked on Revelation and the Trinity." The summer of 1879 he took Mrs. Allen and the children to Plymouth, then to New Hampshire; and he remained for the most part in Cambridge to work upon his Boston lectures. "I have a most devoted pussy," he told his mother, " and she is my companion. She insists on sitting down on the table where I am writing, or else getting up on my shoulder and watching me, and then going to sleep there. She has blotted this letter a little." The intimacy with Phillips Brooks was deepening. After a Cambridge sermon Mr. Brooks was wont to go to Mr. Allen's for a friendly talk, and a call on Mr. Brooks was frequently the reason for an afternoon walk to Boston. "To-day," he wrote in November, "I took little Jackie into Boston to call on the Rector of Trinity. Brooks was much pleased with him and entertained him beautifully. And Jackie was quite at home : he stood up and sang two verses of The Son of God goes forth to War in the most delightful way." In 1879 Mr. John Appleton Burnham built the Refectory, thus adding one more building to the attractive School group. Mr. Mason, who gave the Chapel, died this year, and left a generous bequest to the School. During January, 1880, Mr. Allen delivered five lectures in Boston: I. The Church and the World in Conflict; II. Union of the Church with the Roman State; III. The See of Rome and the Empire of Charlemagne; IV. The Period of Papal Supremacy; V. The Dawn of a New Day. He sent bulletins of the lectures to Rehoboth with the frankness which he knew his mother would desire. "The first lecture," he said, "was yesterday at four. Trinity Chapel was crowded, and many had to go away. It was the finest audience I ever addressed." January 27, he wrote with evident relief: "I came up to the scratch yesterday for the fourth time. The audience showed no ELISHA MULFORD 81 signs of flagging. The bishop has been present at every lecture, and, I hope, finds the teaching to his mind." February 3, he reported the end: "It has been a long hard pull for six weeks. The children seem to think it a great occasion to be done with the lectures, for they have been shut out of the study, and now they think they have a right to come back." In February, 1 881, he wrote: "I have struck up quite an intimacy with Rev. Dr. Elisha Mulford, who has recently come to Cambridge to live. He is a distinguished author and philosophical lecturer. He was here last night till twelve. He is very deaf and I have to talk with him through an ear trumpet. Margaret was awakened by his departure, and thought it burglars. We talked of Dr. Washburn, Blake, Shelley, Whitman, et c7." This friendship with Dr. Mulford was a factor in Mr. Allen's life. The old heroes had been Coleridge and Mau- rice; in Brooks and Mulford he now found living heroes, to whom he gave not only friendship, but intellectual respect. In a way he followed them, though he was not aware that they also were following him. His modesty and shyness were constitutional, and it was a comfort to him to find men leading by confident words. Elisha Mul- ford was a graduate of Yale; he had entered the ministry, but his increasing deafness prevented ordinary parish work. He therefore retired to a farm with Aristotle and Hegel. The world was more and more shut out, and daily he delved deeper into the secret of these men. He was strikingly handsome, his face telling a story of fine living and profound thought. Mr. Allen reverenced him from the start, and the friendship grew rapidly. He would drop into Mr. Allen's study generally about eleven at night, and there he would sit in silence for a moment. Then Mr. Allen would throw into the speaking-trumpet a word that would stir him up. Thereupon Mulford would launch forth on high talk, not at all concerned because no one 7 82 BECOMING KNOWN troubled to talk back. Mr. Horace E. Scudder, of the Riv- erside Press, used to tell that Mulford was indignant with the publishers because they did not keep the news- stands at railway stations supplied with his abstruse and difficult book on The Republic of God : he felt sure that if people had a chance to get at it, it would have enormous influence on the fall election. But when asked through the trumpet what he meant by a certain passage in his book, he replied that he really didn't know: he had not read it since it was printed. "I went to Narragansett to the Clericus," Mr. Allen said in June, "where were present Bishop Clark, Brooks, Richards, Locke, Percy Browne, Learoyd, Mulford, Newton, Dr. Wharton (the host), Fred Allen, and Cunningham. A heavy lunch at Dr. Wharton's was followed by a paper by Dr. Wharton on 'Legal Analogies in Religion.' Dr. Mul- ford opened up well. The next morning I read a paper at Newton's house on 'English Deism in the Eighteenth Century.' Then an hour out upon the rocks, then lunch, and home." Later he wrote: "I have been to-day to hear Wendell Phillips's <£BK oration. It was a grand oration, one of the finest things I ever heard in my life." He often spoke to his students in after years of this oration as a most remark- able example of persuasion. The orator began with an audience out of sorts with his enthusiasms, cold, even hostile. Before the close, he had won them all: he had cast his spell upon them. To his brother he wrote about Mulford: "I was glad to receive your elaborate criticism upon Mulford 's Republic. He is living in Cambridge and we have become quite inti- mate. He spends a great many hours in my study dis- cussing theology, and I went over a great part of his book with him before it came out. What you say about his being a mystic interests me. I long since recognized that I was one. So is he. But then I recognize that the A MYSTIC 83 name mystic does not convey any exact description of a thinker, as rationalist does. Moreover it is applied from the standpoint of the formal orthodoxy, to which its methods and conclusions are necessarily inexplicable. Also while Philo and others are mystics, yet there are mystics and mystics, and not even their method is common, much less their results. But they are all alike in one respect; namely, that they do not believe that the literal historical statement is the measure of truth, any more than the formal report of a battle in dry military records is the measure of all it implied. Shakespeare is truer as an historian than any of the mediaeval chroniclers, who gave the bare record of the events which he has worked up in his plays, or rather he is the truest interpreter of the history. For the literal statement needs an interpreter. So I think, on the whole, that while the rationalist has a work to do, which is important, there is work which he cannot do by the very limitations of his position. Further than this I think any effort to define mysticism ends in failure, and I generally know what any writer is worth when he attempts its definition. "I agree with you in your general praise of the book, and also as to the style — which is barbarous. It is most surprising that a man with his fine literary culture should perpetrate such a monstrosity. But despite all this it is a great book and is sure to be read. Mulford has been working away at it for fifteen years. Although I admire the book and the author, I am inclined to think that there are ' some unexplained remainders ' — as Joe Cook calls them — in Mulford's mind. But you cannot take the measure of such a man easily or rapidly. "Our Commencement was yesterday with Morgan Dix as preacher. There was no triumphant hopefulness about the sermon, rather a sweet melancholy. To him the world was a godless place: he and his friends were on some vessel anchored in the harbour. It was a cloudy sky, por- 84 BECOMING KNOWN tending storms, and all small craft would be driven out to sea in the gale — but it was probable that the old ship would hold to her moorings." It was in 1881 that Dr. Bartol, standing with Phillips Brooks in the new Trinity, had looked up to the Apostles' Creed on the wall, and had said, "Of course, Brooks, you don't believe that!" Mr. Brooks's indignation found expression at the time and also afterwards as he told the incident to his friends. He and Mr. Allen had talked of it, and they were led to speak of the whole subject of creeds. After one of these conversations Mr. Allen wrote to his friend, seeking to make his own position clear. "I look upon the recitation of the Creed," he said, "as primarily a religious act, and therefore as calling for some- thing more than intellectual veracity. The words 'I believe' do not express the results of a mental process by which the articles of the Creed having been examined are made to appear credible or demonstrably true, but they stand for what is sometimes called ' an act of faith.' They include the devotion of the heart, the consecration of the will. They include such expressions as ' I love and adore, ' 'I vow obedience,' 'I consecrate myself to.' The words in the Communion Office, 'Here we offer and present our- selves to be a holy, living sacrifice,' are another statement only of the same act. The Creed standing where it does in the services forms the culmination of worship. It is the great act of self-consecration on the part of the wor- shippers. "The Creed can be rightly and honestly repeated by those who have little or no knowledge of the real meaning or importance of its subordinate clauses, or who attach no definite meaning to them, or who use them in some vague way, or who attach unworthy or even wrong ideas to them; as, for example, the Holy Catholic Church; the Commun- ion of Saints; the Resurrection of the Body; or the Descent into hell (which at best is obscure in its meaning). THE CREED 85 "For the essence of the Creed lies in the simple formula of which it is the expansion, and which in itself is the com- plete summary of Christian faith. So the Church cate- chism puts it, that we learn from the Creed three things, etc. According to this statement the Creed is not pri- marily a collection of notions and opinions or statements about the Christian faith, or a summary of historical facts, as some like to put it, upon which the Church is based, but rather an act of faith in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "The trouble with Dr. Bartol, et id omne genus, is that they do look upon it in this lower way, as a mere category of statements, and for this reason they are so ready to cast a slur upon the intellectual veracity of those who repeat it, because they think their opinions or interpretations of these statements do not accord with some other or earlier set of opinions. And a great many in the Church are ready to do the same, and to suspect of unveracity, because of divergencies of opinion. And I constantly hear of those who think they cannot honestly repeat the Creed because their opinion about some clause is not in harmony with what the Church teaches; e.g., ' the resurrection of the body.' "So, for myself, I have great charity for all who repeat the Creed, drawing from it the three things which, accord- ing to the Church catechism, it is given to teach, however weak or vague they may be about the subordinate clauses. For none of us fully comes up to all the meaning they contain, or ever will. And I think an intellectual self- consciousness in reference to them a hindrance rather than an advantage — a positive hindrance if it stand by itself. "But if a man is in this lower mood, entangled with negations, and conscious of having reached fixed dogmatic conclusions, which contradict the letter as well as the spirit of these articles, as, for example, that the resurrec- tion of Christ from the dead is untrue and impossible, I do not see how he can reconcile it with his conscience to repeat 86 BECOMING KNOWN the Creed. Or, if a clergyman, thinking in this way, stands up to lead the devotions of a congregation, on the ground that it is a mere official act, it seems to me that he is in the last degree dishonest." The fall of 1881 found the School with seventeen new students, making thirty in all. The larger classes, together with the recognition from without, gave to Mr. Allen added zest in teaching. It was during the early eighties that he reached his full power as a teacher — a power which all his students felt that he maintained to the end. His pupils were always his first thought. No glitter of wider fame ever blinded his eyes to his real task. Old friends, calling of an evening, were perplexed and sometimes an- noyed to find that when a student came in, the conversa- tion was at once readjusted to take the student in, and to be made to minister to the student first of all. There are in this period many notebooks filled with reflections upon the life and books of the day. A few excerpts will show their tenor. "The desire for organic unity to-day is not an altogether wholesome sign. It proceeds from the more feminine habit which shrinks from struggle and difference — which are the grounds of growth. Unity would be stagnation, loss of liberty, death. Struggle, constant conflict, is the sign of progress. It is the condition of it." "The Christians want their Mallock and their Cook — they must not be surprised if they find that they have to take also their Ingersoll. I don't know that the latter misrepresents Christianity more than the two former misrepresent the forces and school of thought which they satirize." "The feelings versus the Sacraments. This is not the only alternative. Christianity is a life, not a religion of feeling, or a religion of external rites. The test of the life is not an emotion toward God, which is fluctuating, but the principle of obedience. 'He that doeth My commandments, he it is that loveth Me.' " NOTES 87 "Dr. Mulford suggests the need of a history of the American Episcopal Church. It should be written from a national point of view, bringing out the democratic character of its Episcopate, how the moment when it was organized was a fortunate one — the hour of the birth of a great nation. How it must be a com- prehensive Church, and the idea must be brought out that if any other Church contains elements of strength we must have them, or else we justify their existence. It should trace the rise and growth of parties. How the people are the final referee. It would contain the lessons learned from the history of the English Church, but we also took a lesson from the French Revolution." "Each of the great separatist movements of the 17th century in England was a wave of reinforcement to the cause of Liberty of the Church and so of the Nation. (1) The Presbyterians, the liberty of the clergy; (2) The Independents, the liberty of the laity; (3) The Baptists, religious toleration — in self- defence; (4) The Quakers, the freedom of the Spirit. The Quakers must have given the impulse to the great Liberal Theologians of the 17th century." "The nearness or presence of God does not mean a physical nearness or presence, about which we cannot know anything; but it is a moral or spiritual nearness, which is conditioned by love. Love brings things near that are separated by space. So with friends. So with God. Love is the basis of the Com- munion of Saints. Those whom we love are always near, always present." "To study history is to bring one near to the process of God; i.e., the study of it upon a large scale, which takes in great reaches of events. 'The undevout astronomer is mad.' The same might be said of the undevout historian." " 'A most Athenian gentleman, dreadfully at his ease in Zion ,' seems to me to hit off Plato to the life. There is none of the yearning over men's sins which expresses itself in, 'Tears run down my cheeks because men keep not Thy law.' " 88 BECOMING KNOWN "Professor Fisher remarked to me that the Presbyterians never gave Edwards anything but the smallpox." "The Personal Christ is in Himself our religion, and our authority. Christ is Christianity. The relationship of the individual soul to the Personal Christ in faith and love and obedience is the ground of salvation and of hope for mankind. This is the inspiration alike for the study of the Bible, of history, and of theology." CHAPTER VIII RECOGNITION 1882-1884 JANUARY 13, 1882, Dr. Stone died. His work had been in Dr. Gray's hands for several years, but his going was a change for the School and especially for Mr. Allen. "He died yesterday morning," Mr. Allen wrote to his brother, "from an attack of apoplexy. It was a short, quick transit. All Thursday night he lay Breathing with great difficulty : I could only think of him as having begun a long journey, a toilsome ascent, which he was labouring hard to accomplish. For the last few weeks he has been serene and cheerful as a child. It is hard to realize that he has actually gone. He died in the study, with which he was so identified, and lies there now. It seems strange to go in without speaking to him, as he seems only asleep and would awake in a moment. It was striking to note how his face became composed when all was over. The features took on the most beautiful ex- pression, and he looks handsomer and younger than when I first began to know him." So passed this saint of the old Evangelical School. Mr. Allen owed him much. The year 1882 opened with a heavy burden of work. This he confessed to his mother: "I am living under a good deal of pressure. I have about finished my Prince- ton article on Dr. Mulford's book, but it has yet to be copied. In two weeks I begin a course of Church History lectures at Harvard University, which are to be open to the public. I suppose some of the dons may be present. 89 9 o RECOGNITION I am not making much preparation for them, for I have been too busy, and I shall have to go it ex tempore. So I dread them a little. But every one tells me they will be a success; so I am trying to take courage. There will be five of them in all, an hour and a quarter in length, and all other lectures in the University will be suspended while they go on. It is regarded as quite a significant move that a Churchman should be lecturing at Harvard and above all on Church History. I suppose they take for granted in the faculty that I shall not attempt to prose- lyte or abuse anybody, which is true. ... I have also been invited to consider the question of writing a biogra- phy of Dr. Stone. He has left a good many papers, and when I have looked them over, I am to decide. He ought to have a biographer, but I am not sure that I should do it well." He read the first draft of his Princeton Review article at the Ministers' Club in January; then rigorously revised it. "It has become," he told his brother, "a much larger treatment than I originally intended. The point which I am trying to make is that theology is conditioned in all its departments by the conception of God with which it starts. The old theology which came down through the Middle Ages to Protestant thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries was substantially the same, because it started with the same assumption, as to the nature of Deity. It was not a thing reasoned out, but was rather a natural deduction from premises assumed, and so it grew, and, so far as it was defended to reason, the reasoning was worth no more than the original premise. This I propose to apply to Mulford and to show that modern theology, which he represents, simply changes the interpretation on any point because it starts with a different theistic princi- ple. These principles are, on the one hand, the distant Deity, separate and remote from the world; and, on the other, Deity immanent, indwelling in the world. Where BOXFORD 9 i these ideas came from I also undertake to show. But to formal reasoning I am attaching little importance in the process. I am trying to show that Mulford is not hurling a mass of gratuitous intuitions at one's head, but that modern theology, granting its principle, is seen to grow in such directions." Boxford, which this year began to be his summer home, proved hot and sleepy, but otherwise delightful. To forget the heat, he studied with unusual diligence. From this quiet retreat he was looking out upon the world. "I quite agree with you about the troubles in Egypt," he said to his mother. "I should like to see England go in and take possession of the country with a strong hand. The country will never thrive, or have even a decent, settled government under Mohammedan fanatics. I dislike the Arabs: they are a mean, treacherous set, worse than the Jews, to deal with. They have had possession of Egypt for 1 200 years, and have taken on no civilization in all that time, and are not likely to do so by themselves in the future. . . . There is no news with us: the place is too quiet for anything. The main sensation is the mail at four o'clock each day." The year 1882 was marked by Dr. Wharton's resignation from the faculty, and Mr. Nash's election as an instructor. Judge Bennett was elected trustee to fill Judge Putnam's place; and Mr. Winthrop succeeded Mr. Rand as presi- dent of the trustees. Mr. Lawrence, a generous and patient treasurer, resigned, and was succeeded as treasurer by Mr. Burnham. There was diversion when the November number of The Princeton Review brought out the first of the articles on The Theological Renaissance. "I am glad," he said to his mother, "to find myself in such highly respectable com- pany as Dr. McCosh and Goldwin Smith. I was much surprised to receive this morning a letter from Henry Ward Beecher, in which he thanks me for the article; says that 92 RECOGNITION it will help him in his preaching, and that it clears up his mind, etc., that he looks forward to the second article with intense interest. I don't exactly know whether to feel complimented or not. I want to hear from the more ortho- dox sort, that it has led them to abandon their idols, etc." During November Mr. Allen received an invitation to deliver the Bohlen Lectures in Philadelphia in 1883. In December he wrote: "I have received a letter from Phillips Brooks, asking me to put my Princeton article in book form. 1 I think somewhat of doing so. If it were not that I had the Bohlen Lectures on my shoulders, I should have no trouble." As a result of the various sug- gestions, the Life of Dr. Stone and the publishing of the Church History Lectures were never accomplished, and the Bohlen Lectures became the expansion of the ideas set forth in the November article in The Princeton Review. The second article, which was more exclusively a review of Dr. Mulford's Republic of God, appeared in the Review for January, 1883. His mother read the Princeton article with scrupulous attention. "You seem to be complimented," she wrote, "by noted persons who, I am sorry to say, are not soundly orthodox. Poor Ward Beecher seems to be coming out a Darwinian. I am afraid I should not value the opinion of the great Dr. Brooks as highly as you do. . . . Now I should like to have you receive some complimentary notes from such men as Dr. Dyer or Dr. Cuyler or Dr. Park, who I think are soundly orthodox. ... I am anxious to see the second article. I hope you have not said anything that you may regret or that may injure the Evangelical School in which you are a professor. I say all this with the deepest interest in the welfare of my darling child." The Bohlen Lectures hung over him all summer like a cloud. "My head is full of ideas," he wrote to Mr. Taylor 1 Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks, vol. ii. p. 344. BOHLEN LECTURES 93 from Boxford, "but I have an unusual reluctance to touch pen to paper. I just came across a passage in Renan's Reminiscences to the effect that he thought like a man, felt like a woman, and acted like a child. That describes other people besides Renan." He went down to Boston the last Monday in September to be present at a dinner given to Phillips Brooks by his friends to welcome him from his year abroad. The fol- lowing Wednesday the School opened, but Dr. Steenstra, with characteristic friendship, arranged among other mem- bers of the faculty to have Mr. Allen's hours taken, so that he might be free to remain in Boxford to write upon his lectures. "Now," he wrote, "you must give yourself to the lectures wholly, solely, and exclusively. When I think of the little time you have left I almost get nervous for the honour of the School. And I am much afraid that if you move into Cambridge now, your energies will be fatally distracted. You had better stay in Boxford. . . . I have grateful memories of a perfect autumn day there." So for a month longer he remained in Boxford, and even after his return to Cambridge he was excused from his School work till after the Bohlen Lectures were delivered in December. It was an important year for the School. Mr. Nash so quickly proved his power that he was made a full professor. Of the trustees, Mr. Burnham died this year, and his place was filled by the election of Mr. Robert Treat Paine. On November 10, 1883, he wrote in his diary: "This day the house at No. 2, Phillips Place was finally vacated by Mrs. Stone's departure, and we enter it as our home. The day is memorable otherwise as the 400th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther." Henceforth, to the end, No. 2, Phillips Place was his home. The large drawing- room, and the study even more, were havens of rest for perplexed and troubled students. The study held his books, bought always with sacrifice. The first picture he bought 94 RECOGNITION was there — an engraving of Joseph presenting his breth- ren to Pharaoh. There he used the desk given by his parishioners at the Church of the Ascension, East Cam- bridge. There he kept the prints or photographs of his heroes and friends. He delighted in two queer prints of Gladstone and Disraeli, which he framed together: "Yes," he would say as a student went over to see it, "there is the Country's William, the good boy, with the flower in his buttonhole and with the treasure-chest before him — he's explaining the budget, and Dizzy sits ineffably bored." Over the fireplace hung at first a portrait of Dr. Stone, and later (when the portrait was hung in the School) Kaul- bach's Heroes of the Reformation. He liked to point out this face and that. His love of bright red was symbolized by the red wall-paper, which gleamed between the pic- tures. Probably there was not a thing in the room which in the eyes of the world had any money value. Yet all who entered felt instantly the charm and power of the room. The day after Christmas Mr. Allen wrote to his mother: "I am happy to say that the Bohlen Lectures are over, and as you see I have returned safe to Cambridge. I stayed with Henry most of the time I was in Philadelphia and became quite well acquainted with Glen Loch. Now I have to go to work to get out my book, which accord- ing to my agreement ought to be out in four months. I shall try to have it ready by that time." But it was not ready in four months. When he thought of printing the lectures, his ideal for the book was so far beyond them, that he was in despair. The book was not published till November 15, 1884, and the year 1884 is the chronicle of responsibility for a great and necessary idea which he felt that he was commissioned to speak to the Church. One day this winter he wrote to his brother in reply to a question asking what he had said in his lectures about PROBATION 95 probation: "I can't remember what I said. I have not yet read them over, or touched them since I came back. . . . There is a remark of Erskine's which he is said to have made to everyone who came to talk with him, to the effect that it is the greatest mistake in religion to speak of life as a probation, that it is more truly an education. The idea of life as a probation seems to have been made promi- nent in the 17th century theology, when Luther's doctrine of Justification by Faith had lost its original significance, and when Calvin's doctrine of Election had also lost its original quality, in which it was like Luther's idea of fiducia; for Calvin's doctrine of election implied that the elect knew that they were elect. But the theology of the 17th century had reverted in this respect to the mediaeval principle, that no one could be sure of salvation, or ought to want to feel so. And Luther's doctrine was condemned at Trent under the heading of the 'Vain confidence of heretics.' But there was such vain confidence in the idea of life as a probation. It seems to me, further, that the idea of probation rests upon the old postulates of a distant Deity, and of humanity as independent of God, and of salvation as an escape from a certain physical doom. An immanent Deity, life organized upon a moral plane, humanity as dependent upon God, and akin to Deity in its highest essence, and Salvation as consisting in the free imitation of the Divine — all these lead to another conception of life ; namely, that it is an education. The element of probation may still be regarded as inhering in this idea, but it no longer implies that man's failure is irreparable. The Divine Teacher has forces at His disposal, if not here, elsewhere, which can be brought to bear upon the slow pupil. I quoted a passage from the Bishop of Argyle which puts the two views of education and probation in clear contrast — ' God does not teach in order that He may judge, but He judges in order that He may teach.' It seems to me that the clearer conception of God as the 9 6 RECOGNITION Father necessarily leads to the same conclusion. But all this is as clear to you as to me, and you can put it better." In February he sent his mother Munger's new volume of sermons with the comment: "I think that they are the finest sermons I ever read; but I may be partial, for I am mentioned in one of the foot-notes." His mother gave grudging approval, saying that they were better than she expected to find them. "Carlyle," she added, "used to tell his poor anxious mother, who felt so deep an interest in his spiritual welfare, that he believed as she did, only he expressed himself differently. But his mother could never be satisfied with his different explanation. It seems to me that the New Theology has built a little skiff by the side of the Gospel Ship, which is not a safe craft upon the Ocean of Life. St. Paul says, 'If ye abide not in the ship, ye cannot be saved.' Now I think that one of Moody's plain simple Gospel sermons might be the means of saving more souls than volumes like Munger's. One addresses himself to the heart and conscience, the other to the understand- ing by philosophical reasoning." The son reverently took note: both as teacher and as writer he strove to make his appeal to both heart and mind. A month later he told her that he was working at his book as hard as he could, but he could get little time. "I find that I am constantly tempted," he said, "to do little odd jobs about the house, and they are much more inter- esting than my literary work. I have got several kinds of paint, and go round touching up the woodwork of the windows and other places where the paint is worn off." The School Commencement of 1884 was marked by the resignation from the trustees of Mr. Lawrence, who, after the founder, was the chief benefactor of the School. His place was filled by the election of Mr. Harcourt Amory. In June the trustees lost by death Mr. J. S. Amory. The School was strengthened by the election of Dr. Phillips Brooks to the Board of Visitors. This year the Seniors THE CONTINUITY 97 had a "retreat" at Concord. They invited Mr. Allen. "Thank you: no," he said, "I prefer to advance." Commencement Day past, the freedom of Boxford enabled Mr. Allen to write to his brother, August 6: "I came down to Boston to-day and brought with me the manuscript of the new book and put it into the hands of the publisher. The printing of the book, which is to be called The Continuity of Christian Thought, will begin next week. It has been a dreadful job, and I don't think I am likely soon to undertake another of the same kind. For more than a year I have been at it, and have been practi- cally out of the world; for I have thought of little else. . . . Still I manage to keep an eye open for politics. I am agin Blaine, and I don't think he can be elected. I was much interested in your last letter in which you give your views upon the political situation. The Advertiser is pretty sound upon the subject. It won't say much for Cleveland, but it tells the truth about James Gillespie. I am sorry the book is coming out in the midst of a presidential campaign, for I am afraid it will withdraw too much attention from the political issues!" After he began to read the proof, he asked Dr. Brooks if he might inscribe the new book to him. "I shall be proud and thankful," Mr. Brooks replied, "to see the in- scription which you propose for your new book. I have no right to it, none whatever, but I am too heartily pleased at the thought of having my name so cordially associated with yours in your work to argue my desert. I thank you with all my heart, and I shall count this friendly act of yours one of the things to be most proud and glad of in my life." "You will be glad to hear," he told his mother, October 15, "that the book is at last finished. When I became aware that I was actually writing the last page I sent for Bessie and the children to come into the study to see me write the delightful words, The End" 98 RECOGNITION Part of the agony of allowing anything which he had written to be printed was his discontent with its form. The first concern was for the substance; but the concern for the form was insistent. It was probably the musical temperament in him — which he saw that he must stifle. When one cold night in his student days he was conscious that he had over-used his voice and he never could sing again in the old way, he was in despair. Later he used to say that it was the best thing that could have happened to him: with his voice unimpaired he never would have amounted to anything. "It didn't matter," he once told a friend, "what I said in those days — because my voice was so beautiful." Still the musical temperament besieged him, and finally he closed the piano, as a sort of ceremonial last act. Even on Sunday evenings when the family gathered around the piano to sing hymns, Mrs. Allen would play, except very rarely when the boys especially begged him to play because he made "such nice rumbly noises" to supply the parts the voices could not take. Towards the end he even ceased to hear the symphony orchestra. He had always satisfaction in reading over music in silence: his quick imagination heard it all. His life, and especially his writing, cannot be understood without remembering this steady battle against the passion for music within him. It beckoned him to an ideal harmony, but his stern New Englandism told him that he must act, he must speak, even if action and utterance be imperfect. The agony of allowing the first book to be printed was repeated again and again as later books and articles appeared. Here, on the eve of the publication of The Continuity of Christian Thought it is well to pause. From January, 1882, beginning with the loyal intention to honour a friend's book, he was led to the development of a great idea — the grip on history of men's conception of the Divine Imma- nence. The Princeton articles, the Bohlen Lectures, the necessary book, all were incidents. He was being driven WESTCOTT'S MESSAGE 99 to do what he had not precisely planned to do. He rev- erently bowed before God's leadership. He often said to those nearest him that he felt himself under compulsion. Outwardly these were years of recognition. "Tell Dr. Allen," Westcott said to Endicott Peabody, this summer in Cambridge, "that I warmly welcome his effort to put the emphasis upon Greek Theology." The Princeton article had warned the theological world that he must be counted as an authority. CHAPTER IX FAME 1885-1886 UNDER the date November 15, 1884, Dr. Allen wrote in his diary: "This day was published The Con- tinuity of Christian Thought." The first to speak was Dr. Brooks: — "Sunday evening, November 16, 1884. "My dear Allen: " I spent last evening with your Book and sat up late in my enjoyment of it. You may be sure I think that you have made the thought which is in your mind profoundly interesting to all who open your pages intelligently, and it is so much to have done that with thought as deep and true as yours. I congratu- late you with all my heart on your success and on the delight your Book must bring and the light which it must open to many thoughtful and earnest minds. It was well worth waiting for, and its value and interest will not be for a day. I cannot tell you what a pride and pleasure it is to me to be associated with your work by my name's appearing in its dedication, in token of a friendship which I prize more and more. "Affectionately yours, "Phillips Brooks." To his brother Dr. Allen wrote: "It is a queer experi- ence sending out a book, an experience which is a decided sensation. First comes the sense of relief when it is done. Then follows a dreadful reaction from all the excitement and pressure you have been under for months. I can't do anything or put my mind to anything. Life seems to have BISHOP SEABURY 101 lost its interest. Meantime, you become aware that you have done something and grow wondrously sensitive about it. It has seemed to me for the last ten days as though there were an awful silence, and I was waiting to hear the world's verdict. Then come these trumpery little notices, as though you had done some commonplace thing and even that not very well. I suppose I shall be in this mood for months yet. If the reviews notice the book, I shall be undergoing dissection till spring. Then the book is to be republished in England and I shall be on the lookout for what the Spectator and Saturday and Westminster have to say. My feeling is one of so great modesty that I don't think they will notice me." "I was much pleased," he wrote his mother, December ii, "with what you say about the book, very much indeed. ... I hope to send down Maurice's Life soon. I send the papers pretty regularly. There isn't much in them at present. The Seabury Centennial seems to fill the imagi- nation of The Churchman. I imagine Seabury was one of the most obnoxious men of the Hard Church type who ever wore the mitre. It must have required all of Bishop White's piety and humility to get along with him. One would now think that Seabury was a sort of supernatural being, to hear them talk, and that the Church could not show gratitude enough to heaven for having vouchsafed him. The argument seems to be that we should appre- ciate more highly all our bishops, and treat them as if they had angelic wisdom and power." The time of " silence " soon passed. All sorts of people, known and unknown, sent him words of gratitude in the early months of 1885. Very few of the letters sounded any note of partisanship; nearly all spoke of the giving of faith and courage, because the book made clear the historic necessity of trusting God's Love. Edward Clifford, the English artist who revealed Father Damien, happened that January to be in Boston. Some 102 FAME one put The Continuity into his hands. When he had read the first hundred pages and the last chapter, he sat down at once and asked Dr. Allen if he might call to see him before he returned to London. "I am reading your book," he wrote, . . . "I feel that its value can scarcely be over- estimated." John C. Ropes, the historian, wrote to Dr. Allen, in the midst of a long letter of gratitude for the help the book had brought him: "It seems to me the most important contribution to Christian history and Christian thought made in our time. With wonderful clearness and point, and with perfect impartiality and temper, you have reviewed the history of the Church." Mr. Ropes insisted on his coming to dinner, that he might introduce him to certain friends. "We sat down," wrote Dr. Allen to his mother, "a party of twelve gentle- men. I had the seat of honour next Mr. Ropes. He talked about the book. He made many inquiries regard- ing my antecedents, wanted to know the town where I was born, wondered how I came to go to Kenyon College — which I found it hard to explain and finally owned up to the economy of the thing. He is a true Bostonian, and is therefore inclined to be amazed at anything good coming out of any other country. I finally said that I came of old Puritan stock, had ancestors at Hingham as early as 1636, and with that he seemed satisfied, as though I had justified my right to make a book which amounted to anything." "You are kind to write me such a charming letter about my book," Dr. Allen wrote to his friend Dr. Huntington, of Grace Church, New York. "I think you have a certain affiliation with the Greek Theology. My argument is, not that the Latin is of a peculiar genus separated by an impassable gulf from the Greek, but that when he begins to use his reason — which he has been taught is danger- ous for the well-being of authority — he comes under the Greek spell, which is nothing else but the highest reason — 'Truth for authority, and not authority for truth.' . . . PRAYER BOOK REVISED 103 The worst usurpation in history was not the papal, but the Augustinian, by which the West in its barbarism con- demned the higher, more ancient theology as heresy." Then he turned to Dr. Huntington himself: "When I last had the pleasure of seeing you, you were worn down with your great work in the Convention, and were about going abroad to recruit. I was then so absorbed in my task that I had not fully realized the greatness of the task which you had actually accomplished. Now that I appre- ciate it, I want to congratulate you on doing a work which is the most remarkable that has been accomplished since the Reformation. I don't believe that any other man in the Church could have accomplished it but yourself. I imagine that it will not stop with America, but will influence the whole Church of England. That certainly is enough as a life-work for any one man to have done; it is a mar- vellous thing to have accomplished. The Church has hardly yet recovered from the surprise that so great a change as revising the Prayer Book, or rather touching the book at all, has really been effected, and that we are all the gainers by it." The summer of 1885 at Boxford was a real vacation. In August he said to his brother: "The days slip by so fast here, each with its work or play so full, that I don't seem to find time to do anything so literary-like as writing a letter." His brother asked him why the book did not start with the New Testament. "It would have been hopeless," he replied, "if I had allowed myself to get en- tangled with the New Testament. I took up the history with the first writers in the Post-Apostolic Age, and I did not find them doing anything with St. Paul, either quoting him or exhibiting any trace of his influence. So I omitted him — as a factor of which I needed to take no account. I very much question whether his influence was so great as Baur and Pfleiderer suppose. He was more studied in the Pre-Reformation Age than he ever was in the Ancient 104 FAME Church. Another reason why I thought I might pass over the Apostles and New Testament with impunity, was my belief that when they began in the third and fourth cen- turies to study Scripture, they used it only to confirm beliefs and practices, or rather to illustrate them, rather than to draw from it as a source of belief and practice. This is a difficult point, I know. Steenstra does not agree with me altogether in regard to it. But I argue from our own age, when we do pretty much the same, and so I think they did then. This is, however, one of my defects, that I have not connected the beliefs of the Church with Scripture, or tried to do so. . . . I start with this point that there were two independent traditions of the Teaching of Christ, of equal antiquity, and, so far as that goes, of authority. Their relation to each other is that of the lower to the higher. The completely emancipated mind, whether Jewish or heathen, is represented in the tradition of the Fourth Gospel. This I believe, barring many literary defects or crudities in its form, is the higher and truer presentation of the Person of Christ. The other and lower tradition saw in Him a sage, and worked up its presentation of His teaching regarding Himself accordingly, but with many passages which point to the higher conception. . . . St. Paul therefore did not originate in a mental process this way of looking at Christ and His teaching. He rather illustrates the process by which one reached it from Juda- ism. He never really got hold of this higher conception as the Fourth Gospel, nor did he retain it as consistently. His value lies in making the bridge between them. ... I do not find that Clement made any use of St. Paul. He has nothing to say of him personally. He does not seem to be aware that he owes anything to him. But he does use the Fourth Gospel constantly, and all his thought is only its reproduction and enlargement. It is much the same with Origen, though there I cannot speak so positively. . . . The Fourth Gospel and the Alexandrian theology MYSTICISM !°5 are alike inexplicable from the point of view of the Tubingen School, which dismisses them as the product of mysticism. . . . There are in every writer words used freely but never defined, which represent the unexplored regions of his own mind. By means of these words he disposes of, or relegates to obscurity, all the difficulties which he cannot explain. It is strange that the word which of all others most needs denning — the word which has never been denned — should be rattled off with such flippant ease, as if, whatever theologians or others did not know, there was one thing which all did know and understand without definition, and that was mysticism. I noticed it again in Pfleiderer. The word turns up wherever there is necessity for burying the unknown. . . . There is the same ob- jection against the word poetry. We use it freely to cover the unanalysed parts of thought or experience. ... I object to taking refuge in these words. They do not help. They retard us in any effort to get at the bottom of things." Those who did not know Hegel well, often thought Dr. Allen an Hegelian. He valued Hegel to a degree. In this same letter he touched upon Hegel. "Hegel's ten- dency," he said, "if unchecked, would be to hamper the mind and stereotype the process at some point as final, so that all truth should be enclosed in the formula for this world and for the world to come. But, on the other hand, the tendency of regarding it as subjective is to lead to scepticism as to any reality corresponding with our thought. The mind is free, to be sure, and progress the law of its action, but all this goes for nothing, without the infusion of something of Hegel's spirit, that we are in contact with realicy by our thought." At the end of the summer Dr. Allen wrote his mother: "We were all reluctant to leave Boxford. The children would much prefer to live there all the year round, so they say. They have had a small piece of ground where they 106 FAME have played at farming, with the houses and barns and farming tools. The thing has attracted a good deal of attention as something quite remarkable in the history of child-life, and we have had a call from Dr. G. Stanley Hall of Johns Hopkins University, who came up from Boston on purpose to see it and if possible get it photographed. He thought I ought to write an account of it for The Cen- tury Magazine, and have it illustrated with photographs. I may do it another year perhaps." He did not write the article, but Dr. Hall wrote a monograph upon it, called The Story of a Sand- pile. 1 John Fiske gave The Continuity a chance to find those who read his popular philosophy by quoting it at length in his Idea of God. "He reproduces the greater part of my argument," Dr. Allen wrote gratefully to his mother, "treating my book as if it were a final authority." But all books were forgotten in a great sorrow. "The chief event with us here in Cambridge," Dr. Allen wrote, December 13, "is the death of Dr. Mulford. We shall miss him greatly. He usually spent two or three evenings each week in my study. He was the most interesting man I ever knew. We all went out to Concord for the inter- ment — a spot not far from where Emerson is buried." Early in 1884 the Rev. William Lawrence had come from his parish in Lawrence to be a professor in the School; and this fall, 1885, his father, a trustee who had done much to make the School efficient, died. In January, 1886, Dr. Allen wrote to his mother: "I think I sent you a Churchman with the notice that the Lord Bishop of Rochester has recommended my Conti- nuity to the clergy of his diocese. He is one of the most delightful and Evangelical of the English prelates. I have also been told that the Professor of Church History in the New York General Seminary, who is the stiffest of High Churchmen, recently gave an account of The Continuity *New York: E. L. Kellogg & Co., 1897. SENSE OF TRAGEDY 107 and recommended the book to his class. ... I have been elected a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which I regard as a very high honour. It is a society nearly a hundred years old, and its membership is the cream of Boston. These are my honours. They would be worth nothing, if there were no one at home to write them to." To his mother, sister, and brother, who loved him better than themselves, he told without reserve all that came to him : he knew that they would rejoice and care, more than he himself. There was no vanity in him, whatever else his faults were. One of his old friends at the Church of the Ascension, happening on a photograph of him, was moved to write a letter this very day. "What a wonderful art is photography!" wrote Mr. J. W. Preston; "the passing sentiment, the thought, the word of the moment caught and fixed for ever! The sight of your picture brings the tears to my eyes. I think I perceive a shade of sadness upon it; and now that I think about it, it seems to me that when in repose or in thought, there is an expression of melancholy on your face. The gaze pro- duced in me a sort of regretful memory, a yearning which I cannot disclose." These words of the good friend are true. There was all through his peaceful life, happy as it certainly was, a strain of sadness, which the sorrows could not explain. He was light-hearted, a Grecian, like his beloved Clement; but the sternness and coldness of New England gave him a sense of the tragedy in life. During the year 1886 most of the more elaborate reviews of The Continuity appeared. Both in America and in England the reviews were long, and were for the most part respectful. There were only two or three bitter attacks upon the book, and these were by partisans, on the one side by Unitarians and on the other by one or two Hard Church- men, as Dr. Allen called them — not High Churchmen, for High Churchmen found too much in the book to be thankful for. His old teacher, Dr. Egbert Smyth of 108 FAME Andover, reviewed it critically in The Andover Review, find- ing, with a good deal of justice, that St. Augustine had been badly used. Moreover, he pointed out, whatever Clement's excellence, he never dominated the East as Augustine dominated the West. Dr. Allen was always sensitive to criticism, and the Andover article was the subject of many long letters between the Allen brothers. "Smyth seems to think,'* said Dr. Allen, "that the Greek Theology went on develop- ing to the time of Basil and Chrysostom. I think it began to deteriorate from the time of Clement. Its only creative work after Clement was to fix an intellectual statement of the Person of Christ. But the very fact of the con- troversy with the Arians, and the necessity of emphasizing one truth, was to give a twist to Christian thought. None of them have the symmetry of Clement, not even Athana- sius. He began to admire asceticism, as had Origen before him. As for Basil and Chrysostom, they were preachers and rhetoricians and administrators, and not creative theologians. Smyth thinks that Clement did not sustain the same relation to Greek Theology that Augustine did to Latin. I have said that Clement was almost forgotten in consequence of the great controversy on the Trinity. But to the eye of thought, he was its founder. Greek Theology never departed so widely from his attitude as mediaeval thought did from Augustine." While the adverse, unsympathetic criticisms were ap- pearing, he recognized that he must not enter the fray; for that, he said, would be only to kick up a dust; but he meditated making a reply in a general way in another book, which he would call The Spirit of Worship. "My plan," he said to his brother, in November, 1885, "would lead me to review the history from the point of view of Christian feeling and instinct, the unformulated consciousness, as it seeks expression in worship, ritual, etc., as compared with formal theology. You asked me in one of your letters THE INCARNATION 109 whether I was not unjust in making the doctrine of the Atonement appear for the first time so late as Anselm. I should say not from the standpoint of formal theology. But in liturgies it came much earlier, indeed as early as there were liturgies at all. But the idea is still general and vague until Anselm elevates it to a theological principle. Anselm marks, to my mind, a decided advance, and yet a decided retrogression. He made Atonement as a theo- logical principle take the place of the Incarnation in a formal way. In this sense he marks the mediaeval revolu- tion in theology. "The Incarnation was to Greek Theology the primary truth, the one representative, all-inclusive principle of Christianity. God and man, heaven and earth, the human and the divine, were shown or revealed as united and reconciled by the Incarnation. This was the one great positive truth or aspect of Christianity. That God could so enter humanity was a fruitful idea, from which every- thing must be deduced and by it regulated. But — there appears, almost from the first, the negative effort to set forth and impressively realize to the imagination and to the feeling what that condition of the world and humanity was from which Christ had redeemed it by the Incarnation. For, until that was done, it would be impossible to hold clearly and intelligently to the Incarnation. This is the Rhetorical aspect therefore of the subject — so to conceive and represent to the congregation the negative aspect, the condition in which Christ found the world by sin, and also the individual, as to enable a man to appreciate the full meaning of the great positive truth of the Incarnation." But the book never was written; for, within three months, circumstances were impelling Dr. Allen to a task which was to lead at length to a book of a quite different sort. Washington's Birthday, 1886, he wrote to his mother: "I have been much preoccupied the last few weeks with the commemorative sermon on Mulford. I no FAME delivered it last Thursday evening before a congregation consisting very much of clergy of different bodies, and a good many representative Cambridge people. We had just been having an anniversary, the 250th, of the founding of the First Church in Cambridge, with much glorification of the Puritans. I took the occasion to speak a word for the Church of England, which I think surprised some. . . . "I went to Andover a few weeks ago to officiate one Sunday for the Rector in the old Episcopal church. I was greatly taken aback on going into church to find Professor Park in a prominent seat in front. But the congregation was greatly moved also, for he had not been there before — within the memory of a generation. In the afternoon I went to call on him, and spent several hours. He was very interesting." It is to be regretted that the sermon on Mulford was not printed exactly as preached; but Dr. Allen withheld it, wishing to make it worthier his friend. Then as he worked, he saw Mulford as the end of the stream of New England Theology, and he began to think of a book, dedicated to him, which should give a history of New England Theology. This was a great task, and required long time. And then his friend, Mr. Scudder, came in with a request — but all this will appear in due course. It is now sufficient to say that the only printing of the sermon was a long extract in The Christian Union for March n, 1886. In painting Mulford he was unconsciously giving, in many instances, his own portrait. "He treated his stu- dents with reverence," ran the sermon, "as if there were in each an idea of God incorporated, which could be safely entrusted to him, which it was most important that he should know. If he was interested in a man, he never let him go until he felt that he had read him and knew all that was best in him. . . . He idealized his friends and the world about him, so that life seemed to glow with beauty and divineness. And yet it was not so much that he MULFORD in idealized as that he believed that the world and humanity had been already idealized through the Incarnation. " How he watched and studied the world of thought for the recognition of the great principles in which he was interested! He was constantly on the lookout, on the tower of observation, scanning the horizon as eagerly as an astronomer the heavens, and always for the fuller confirmation of the laws of the spiritual universe. . . . Things that others would have passed by as not worth attention he discerned as significant symptoms. . . . What you imparted to him he returned, enriched in the process of having passed through his own mind. . . . It was a full life, a most real life, seeing that it was lived in the consciousness of God." June 23 found the Allen family established for the sum- mer in B oxford. The school year was marked by the election of Governor Rice as a trustee, and Mr. Kellner as an instructor in Hebrew. In October, the Boxford days past, he reported to Mr. Scudder the results of his summer study: "I have been obliged to abandon the Mulford memorial. The subject has grown upon me till I have made my work a critical review of American Theology, with the inward connections between the great leaders, from Jonathan Edwards down to Bushnell and Parker, including the rise of Unitarian- ism. The difficulty is how to connect the work with Mulford: I have thought that I should inscribe it to his memory. . . . Half of the book is written, I should say, and I think it might be ready by spring. I should like to know if the plan commends itself to you." "I have been very busy getting settled," he wrote to his mother, October 7; " and to our surprise we find ourselves taking boarders. Professor Palmer, an old friend of mine, asked if he could come and take his meals with us for a few weeks, as he has no home of his own, but said he would not come unless he were allowed to pay. And now an ii2 FAME Annex girl, a daughter of Professor Gardiner of the Berke- ley Divinity School, has come very much in the same way. We had plenty of room and there was no reason why we should decline except that our pride stood a little in the way. That we swallowed." Then came an event, crowning the approval of The Con- tinuity of Christian Thought. On the greatest day of Har- vard, when representative men were gathered from both Europe and America to keep the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the College, Dr. Allen received the doctor's degree. "It was a grand occasion," he wrote his mother, November 15. "I stood up for my degree before the President of the United States who sat only a few feet from me, with most of the members of his cabinet — also our great Senator Hoar, and all the distinguished scholars whom Harvard could muster, among whom were Professor Park and President McCosh. The oration was by James Russell Lowell and the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes; and both were fine. But it was a thing one must see and hear to appreciate." A little later he wrote: " The Church papers are disgusted with Harvard because she conferred no honorary degrees on any of the prelates of the Church. They hardly seem to think that I am worth mentioning, and their tone is one of grievance that the Church has been snubbed. But it is just as well that the Church should be told that, in the great world, official dignity does not go for everything." When, in 1904, an Archbishop of Canterbury was in this country for the first time, he preached in St. John's Chapel, the chapel of the School. In the robing-room Bishop Lawrence presented the different members of the faculty, and the Archbishop made his formal bow to each of them. As Dr. Allen moved away to put on his surplice, the Bishop said, "That is Dr. Allen who wrote The Continuity of Christian Thought:' "Is that Allen of Continuity? " the Archbishop said, and went instantly over to him and THE CONTINUITY 113 shook hands with him. It was a symbolic act of English appreciation of an American contribution to theology. Many thousand copies of The Continuity of Christian Thought have been sold. A good many conservative critics hold it to be the most significant book of theology thus far written by an American. It would be easy to point out its limitations. It is more difficult to measure the scope of the work it has done, and is still doing, towards a constructive and solid faith in all that is most lovable and strong in life. "What I got from it," wrote a young man, 1 "was a point of view and an historical method. It taught me to see the Christian movement in the large, and it gave me my first notion of a difference of type in Christian religious thinking." 1 Rev. J. E. Frame, Professor at Union Seminary. CHAPTER X A THEOLOGICAL PORTRAIT 1887-1889 ON a February evening at a meeting of the Ministers' Club at Dr. J. H. Thayer's, Dr. Allen read a paper on "Jonathan Edwards and the New England Theology." In the evolution of his work on American Theology it was an indication that he would have to devote much space to Jonathan Edwards. Dr. George A. Gordon, prevented from coming, wrote at once his disappointment, for he had, he said, been feeling for some time "how much service might be rendered by some competent scholar to Christian thought by a sympathetic study and interpretation of New England Theology." "I was disappointed," answered Dr. Allen, "when I did not see you there. . . . My paper on Edwards was scarcely more than an introduction to the subject. But it is part of a plan to try to estimate sympathetically the leaders of the New England Theology, to show what they did and what they failed to do, and why ; also to connect them with the stream of later history. I have been study- ing them for some time: indeed, since I was at Andover under Park, I have always kept the thing before me. My admiration of the men grows as I become better acquainted with them, and it has been a grand thing for New England, I think, that it has had this substratum beneath the workings of its later thought. It constitutes a promise of an exceptional distinction in her future history. Not that I like or accept much of the New England Theol- 114 NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY 115 ogy, for it is often obnoxious and even repulsive in its formal statements. But its motif is good and makes the only foundation for religion. These men were the prophets of an age in the past who had their faces towards the light, though they died without the sight of that which they laboured and longed for. For Jonathan Edwards I have affection as well as admiration. "But I distrust my power of doing the thing as it ought to be done. I need criticism at every point and I ought to get as much as I can before I appear to the public, rather than to have it afterwards. For this reason I wanted yours." The spring of 1887 his mother was growing very feeble, but she kept vigilant watch over both Dr. Allen's health and his theology. She urged him to work less, and to eat a light supper; and she begged him not to become entangled with the Andover troubles. "You need not worry," he replied assuringly, " about my getting mixed up with the Andover heretics. I am all right. Some of the bishops in our own Church might have been glad to see me burn as a heretic, but since my Lord Bishop of Rochester has commended me, there is no danger. He has always borne the reputation of an especially sound divine. If I ever get my book done on the New England Theology, it will be an effort to show the Unitarians and the Universalists how wrong they are, and that they had better give up and come back. As to second probation, the poor Andover men have, I think, made a blunder. But it is not likely that anything will be done." "The School closed on Wednesday," he wrote, June 17, " I attended the Commencement here in the morning, and in the afternoon went to Andover and delivered my address on Christian Union." A contemporary report said that at a turn of thought in the address the men were profoundly impressed. "It is," said Dr. Allen at this place, "within the range of imagina- n6 A THEOLOGICAL PORTRAIT tion to conceive some powerful motive whose working would hasten the process of Christian unity. A great sentiment may take possession of Protestant Christendom which would imperatively demand that all artificial restric- tions be dropped in the presence of some grave danger. It may be that beneath the present desire for unity there is lurking some instinctive sense of impending evil which will try men's souls, as the barbarian invasion of which we read in history. Under such circumstances we shall realize that our strength lies in union. We should then realize that the strongest bond which can unite is our common humanity for which Christ died, the only basis for the fellowship of Christian love. It is vain to think that lasting union or organic unity can be reached by ignoring or suppressing theological distinctions. A truer method would compel each denomination to review its origin and career in order to the better knowledge of its work and place in history, and then in the interest of the same purpose to study the history of other Churches." In September Miss Allen wrote that her mother was constantly falling, and would probably have to give up trying to walk; and, as usual in times of trouble, she wanted her son Alexander. He went as soon as he could; and he wrote cheerful letters, adding the life of Cambridge to the quiet of Rehoboth. "The School opens with larger numbers than ever before in its history: there will be nearly twenty new men and they are a bright looking, gentlemanly set of fellows. So I do not think that The Continuity has hurt the School, but rather helped it." This fall Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, and Company warned Dr. Allen that they intended to issue a series of volumes under the title, American Religious Leaders. "Unquestionably," they said, "the foremost man in theol- ogy is Jonathan Edwards. We desire the series to begin with him and to have you write the volume." His friend, Professor Palmer, was disgusted. Speaking DEATH OF LYDIA ALLEN 117 to a common friend, Mr. Palmer said: "Allen ought to have carried out his original plan and given us the history of Puritan Theology. He could have done it as no one else. He had read all of Emmons, Hopkins, and the rest. Then Scudder got hold of him and begged him to finish it all up in Edwards! Allen's lazy streak got hold of him, and he consented." The accusation is probably just — there was the "lazy streak." Writing to Mr. Taylor, while at work on The Continuity, Dr. Allen had admitted, "I am aware of a strange reluctance every now and then to buckle down to my task." On the other hand, with his exceedingly nervous and sensitive temperament, it may be that he could not have done his work had he not dropped theology at times, to go about the house setting glass in the windows and putting buttons on the doors; and at other times, even when he clung to his art, to reduce the size of his canvas. His friends often felt that he as well as they regretted that he had not persisted in the more audacious undertaking. Indeed he sometimes admitted it. However this all may have been, it was now definitely determined that the end of the sermon on Mulford should be a biography of Jonathan Edwards. In February, 1888, his mother's increasing frailty bore her out of this life. As after his father's death, he was prostrated with grief. The last visit before the fatal illness, the solicitude for his health had gone, and he knew that the end was near. "I went away in the rain," he said, "and she never spoke of it." The letters chronicling, with a playful conceit, his achievements, whether petty or large, now stop: there was no one who would so exult in their telling. His sister now came to live with him for a year. In August he wrote to Mr. Scudder who was urging him to send copy for the new book: "There are hundreds of ministers in the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches who could easily point out my mistakes, if I allowed myself to be careless or to speak at random. I n8 A THEOLOGICAL PORTRAIT have had to read over Jonathan's very voluminous works several times. All the time that I have been writing I have felt that Dr. Park's awful eyes were on me, glowering indignantly at my presumption in trespassing on his pre- serves. It is in his power to kill the book, unless it is carefully done. He knows more about Edwards than any other man living. But on the other hand I have not con- fidence in his honesty, and I have in my own. I have not attempted to excite admiration for Edwards, nor to condemn his theology as execrable. I have taken it for granted that there is a deep interest in the man and his work: and I have made it my aim to tell what he thought and how he came to think as he did. I have tried to write a conciliatory book and one which the Puritans would feel obliged to read. It is one good thing about them that they are generally willing to read." March 15, he wrote in his diary: " Finished Life of Jona- than Edwards, and dated the Preface March 22, 1889 — Bessie's Birthday." "My impression," he said, "is that the book is much improved by the revision." It was during this revision that he read aloud the manuscript — which was the occasion of family pride. Miss Gardiner was now a congenial member of the family, a great help to Mrs. Allen, who, in spite of radiant cheerfulness, had never really been well since the desperate illness in 1878. Be- cause her illnesses were increasingly frequent, there was a vague sense of dread of what might befall — but no one spoke of that dread. The house was always gay. The boys talked freely, and Dr. Allen averred that the younger had "views." After dinner all went directly to the study for half an hour before the children went to their books. Though Jonathan Edwards was in process, there was no sense of pressure. Mrs. Allen sat with her work and Dr. Allen had his after-dinner pipe — and all talked. "Oh," he would say, "this making of books — it's a dog's life." Then he might read some verses he cared for — HOME LIFE 119 from Wordsworth, Tennyson, or Matthew Arnold. He liked to read The Angel in the House. Then turning to the Bible, "That is beautiful," he would say, "that vision of St. Stephen — standing on the right hand of God." Once when he said to one of his pupils that what Luther stood for was the right of manhood, of freedom, the student replied, "Yes, but he couldn't have stood so, unless justi- fication by faith had been the marrow of his life." And Dr. Allen smiled, with a searching look, and said, "Do you think so?" It was such a reply as he loved to get: it was for such response that he taught. To his own sons while they still were boys he found it hard to talk of what he most longed to speak. With great effort and real distress he said one day, "I cannot talk to the boys of religious things." To Mr. Taylor he said about this time, "I don't get all the money I should like to have, but I forget these sublunary considerations in the pursuit of an idea which may be a delusion, but which is profoundly inter- esting, and gives point to life." Again speaking of the sense of calling as forming a man's life, he added, as if to himself, "And it keeps a man pure." He did not like to be called prosperous: he liked humility. He felt the dangers of prosperity. Such parts of the morning as were not devoted to lectures, he gave to his reading and writing; and generally most of his afternoons and evenings besides. On his return from Chapel and before his first lecture he read his news- paper. He rarely put it down without noting something to which indirectly or directly he wished to call the atten- tion of his classes. Most often this was accomplished by a mere allusion. One morning he said to the Senior Class, in passing, "I notice that at the New York Church Club last night Mr. announced that he and a few other good laymen in New York were about to set out to redeem the world. It's all very interesting — but I had under- 120 A THEOLOGICAL PORTRAIT stood that the world had been redeemed — some nineteen hundred years ago." He kept always a pile of books open on his table, one over another. He might not be reading all of them, but there was in each some passage to which he intended to refer. He read long books thoroughly when he believed them worth it; he read many books to dig out here or there the valuable bit which might be hard for any but one with a trained scent to run down. He did not disdain short cuts. If he wanted Wyclif, for instance, he would take Lechler's book, consulting Wyclif first- hand if he needed the context for a quotation. He made constant use of the Britannica. He had a robust confidence that he could tell when a man's judgment was accurate. When a pupil, choosing Anselm for the subject of a thesis, read the correspondence between Anselm and the popes and also the Latin life of Anselm, he made notes in confir- mation or illustration; but it was the Cur Deus Homo? upon which he spent his thought. He was on his guard always that he be not entangled in details and lose thereby the man's real message. Even with a man like Luther, he would not sit down to read everything. Having got word from some trustworthy authority what was his most significant writing he would meditate this intensely: he would not clog his mind with what did not belong to the man's genuine self-expression. When he felt that a man had not before been adequately read, he read everything within reach, as in the case of Edwards. But he believed scholarship a co-operative matter, and not a vocation for accomplishing a great mass of independent reading. He might have read fewer pages of the "sources" than other scholars. To those sources which he believed most truly representative he gave more hours of thought, and more vigorous thought, than most men who work with sources. The early years of teaching in Cambridge were years of accumulation: these years of drudgery had given him what he called "the picture." He sent his pupils to the THE DAILY WALK 121 Patrologia, but warned them that there was no under- standing of one age without the others. At the end of the afternoon he would go out for his walk. Ordinarily he went up North Avenue, because less fre- quented by people he knew. Sometimes Professor Law- rence went with him, sometimes Professor Palmer, more rarely Professor Royce. Sometimes a theological student or Miss Gardiner became his companion. He was apt to save Saturday afternoons to wander among the Boston book-shops. He liked to see the titles of books and arti- cles: it told him what the world was thinking about. Genius has been denned as the infinite capacity of taking pains, and also as the power of making a very little experi- ence reach an enormous way. Dr. Allen could be judged a genius by both definitions. He read a whole train of historic thought in the careless item of a morning paper, and he could also spend months in reading Jonathan Edwards from beginning to end, over and over. Requests for outside work poured in upon him. Presi- dent Eliot wrote to him in April asking him if he would take Professor Emerton's courses at Harvard the next year. This invitation he accepted. In May he delivered before the New York Church Club a lecture on The Norman Period of the British Church, which was published the fol- lowing year. In response to Mrs. Wharton's request, he did the chapter in Dr. Wharton's Memoir on the Life in Cambridge. Even with Jonathan Edwards done, these were busy days. Dean Gray died in August 1889, and Dr. William Law- rence was chosen dean in his place. Edward Staples Drown, a brilliant philosophical student at Harvard and a recent graduate of the School, became instructor in Theology. Dr. Allen wrote at length of Dr. Gray in The Church of To-day. He found Dr. Gray's power in his devotion to the Personal Christ, passing out of all that was narrow in the Old Evangelical attitude, and retaining its 122 A THEOLOGICAL PORTRAIT warmth even in the cold of New England, "inspiring such deep religious feeling into his work as to give it a character and charm of its own." His appeal to the honour and reason of his students made a large contribution to the history of the School. Dr. Allen did not forget to record his goodness to Harvard students, to many of whom, through his own kindness and Mrs. Gray's, his home became both shelter and inspiration. He was a loving shepherd to many souls. In September Jonathan Edwards appeared. It was instantly recognized as a thorough piece of work, a perma- nent book. Oliver Wendell Holmes read it at once, and said, "He was an interesting old saint — not so old either as some folks — but he had swallowed a logical poker and all the devils in theology couldn't straighten it out." Phillips Brooks came forward with his praise: "We can no longer talk of Edwards as a Babe-damning Monster. He is a true man with terrible ideas, but greater than these always and capable of a redeeming tenderness which makes us love him as we read. Love for Jonathan Edwards is a new emotion which is worth the having." An article in The New World marvelled at Dr. Allen's studious care not to poke fun at Edwards, even omitting vulnerable sentences. It thought Dr. Allen too consid- erately blind to humourous aspects of the Great Awaken- ing. Since Edwards believed children "infinitely more hateful than vipers," the reviewer found it odd that "he chose to warm eleven of these vipers in his bosom." The reviewer would have marvelled still more, if he had known how amusing Dr. Allen could have made all these foibles, had he not deliberately given himself with a reverent intention to know the very soul of Edwards. He could not have made light of what in another he might have seen cause for jest. It was perhaps a defect in Dr. Allen that in persons of whom he thought very highly — Maurice, Edwards, Brooks — it hurt him to think of any situation REVERENCE FOR EDWARDS 123 in which they were unconsciously ridiculous. He protected Edwards because he had great reverence for his personality. The most significant review of the book was by Professor Fairbairn, of Oxford, in the London Spectator} The words of Dr. Allen quoted as most characteristic in nearly all the reviews were these: "The great wrong which Edwards did, which haunts us as an evil dream throughout his writings, was to assert God at the expense of humanity. Where man should be, there is only a fearful void. The protests which he has evoked have proclaimed the divine- ness of human nature, the actuality of the redemption in Christ for all the world." 1 January 11, 1890. CHAPTER XI THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW 1890-1892 THE Harvard course on the Protestant Reformation, given in 1889-90, was a decided success. Friends familiar with Dr. Allen's gifts as a teacher of small sym- pathetic classes of divinity students wondered how far he would appeal to the more carnal minds of Harvard under- graduates. Forty-seven men, mostly Seniors, took his course, and were enthusiastic, markedly so that man of promise and early death, Philip Abbot. They gave to him a sort of discipleship at once. He gave to them visions of the purposes working out in the history which no mere accuracy could impart. A large part of his strength he gave to old pupils and strangers asking him for mental or spiritual help. One letter was about miracles; another was about the Trinity; another, about Robert Elsmere; another, from a physician, about the Virgin Birth; and still another, from a former student who was teaching in a college where an ecclesias- tical panic had brought death to the institution. To all these letters he wrote grave and careful answers. Even the strangers were apt to receive several letters; that Faith in them might grow through the teacher's explana- tions. "That you have made progress, I shall be glad to know," he wrote to one, "but it is a slow task and requires the patience of hope. We must believe that there is a way out even when we cannot find it. This is better than to acquiesce in a cheap explanation or negation." The Jonathan Edwards went into a second impression in 124 A NEW BOOK 125 January, and the publishers wrote that he must make any changes he wished at once, since they expected a third impression to be necessary not later than May. One of the Andover trustees reviewed it spitefully, using it as a thin veil through which to glare at certain Andover professors, who were then on trial. Dr. Allen wrote Dr. Smyth that he would reply in behalf of the Seminary, but Dr. Smyth, recognizing the chivalry, forbade him to soil his sword on such an adversary. Dr. Allen wrote to Mr. Taylor early in June: fr My year's work has practically come to an end, and I have a half feeling of freedom. But I suppose I shall be under the yoke again in some form or other." His presentiment proved true. Immediately Dr. Briggs came to ask him to do Christian Institutions in The International Theologi- cal Library. Dr. Allen foresaw that such a book would require vast labour. The attraction was that his method of teaching had always been to weave external history into institutions and doctrines. Dr. Gray had once said that the School did not need a course on Systematic Divinity : "Allen," he laughed, "teaches theology and everything else." The courtesy and insistency of Dr. Briggs com- pelled assent, and June 24, he said that he would undertake the volume. A great sorrow came this summer, in the death of Mrs. Allen's brother, Philip S. Stone. "I never knew," wrote Dr. Allen, "what a comfort Brooks could be until the funeral of Philip Stone. It was a good deal to ask of him to give up a whole day to us, as he had to leave his retirement at North Andover and come back to the house and city which he has deserted. But his presence was an immense support to the whole family. Life seemed to resume its normal aspects under the inspiration of his presence, voice, and manner. The words kept recurring to me, 'A man shall be an hiding place from the tempest, a covert from the storm ' (I do not quote accurately)." 126 THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW In July he wrote to Miss Gardiner: "So I have finished up Harvard College and the Annex, making another chap- ter closed. I think the marking business alone will deter me from attempting anything of the kind again. Ward- ner was A plus, but there was a little fellow who was desperately anxious to get A. He was miles away from W., but he sent in the most elaborate paper on the Council of Trent, two or three hours' long, without one particle of original work. It was so painfully and laboriously done that I gave him A minus with a conviction that marks had little significance. . . . The only thing I have done has been to read Marie Bashkirtseff. If you haven't it, I will send it to you when the others get through with it. I must confess that it impresses me deeply; I was moved by this self-revelation of a young girl. But perhaps I am too much of a humanist. I mentioned it to Brooks and to Palmer, and they both rather sniffed at it. But they look at things from the pedagogical point of view. I suppose Palmer found no place for it in his ethics. But it has a place in the philosophy of history." To a pupil he said a few days later: "One of the blessed things is waiting for a mission when one is still uncertain where to turn. The calling slowly appears. One of the most impressive things about Loyola, whom we had so much of last year, was those years when he seemed to be drifting, not knowing exactly what he wanted to do, only that he must do something. So it was with Luther, and so it was with John Calvin. . . . You ask me if I still abide by the attitude I took in The Continuity. Do I still think that 'with Augustine's help the mediaeval Church, got on a wrong track? I not only think so; I am sure of it. What I congratulate myself on having done is to make a protest against the historical optimism which runs through so much historical work as if there could be nothing wrong in history, as though the evolution moved on with fatalistic accuracy and no attempt must be made to do anything but MEANING OF CONTINUITY 127 grow. But I had also in mind from beginning to end the Hegelian principle of contradiction — the continuity as including the contradiction which has puzzled so many, and made them feel as though I had shown only the dis- continuity. But the law of continuity means more. It includes the affirmation, the negation, the reaffirmation; the occupation, the loss, the reoccupation. The life of the individual is a type of the process. I like to think of the Book of Job as the standing illustration. It is not a theodicy, a treatise on the nature of affliction. The doc- trine of it is that a man is richer and in fuller possession who, once having all things, loses them all and then re- gains them. He did not know their value until he had lost them. When they come back to him again, he holds them at their real value. The ancient Church started with the occupation, the mediaeval lost it, the struggle of the Reformation and since has been to regain the ancient heritage. That is continuity." "Thank you," he said to Mr. Scudder in August, "for sending me the 'Address at the Dedication of the Mark Hopkins Memorial.' I have read it with deep inward assent. It is time to protest in behalf of the 'Humanities.' We have gone a long way in their abandonment. There is such a thing as 'Nature being too much with us.' The maligned 18th century had some ideas. Pope may have been a parrot, but he uttered one thing which will bear repeating with emphasis — 'The proper study of mankind is man.' One can even understand Dr. Johnson's love of the city, where he could study humanity, which has so vastly higher an object of interest than any natural sce- nery in Scotland. The reaction against this bondage to Nature is sure to come, and you herald it clearly and courageously, for it takes some courage, with Harvard and Johns Hopkins and Cornell giving so much prominence to scientific work. Even Clark University is tamely follow- ing suit, and physiological psychology is thought to be the i28 THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW surest way of studying man — as though literature and art and, let us add, theology were not a truer and fuller revelation of man. I heard Dr. Mark Hopkins preach once, and remember being more impressed with the man than with the sermon. Indeed the latter put me to sleep, but I came away with a feeling of satisfaction in having seen and heard him." Mr. H. M. Alden revealed himself in the spring of 1891 to Dr. Allen as the author of God in His World, and ac- knowledged his indebtedness to him for his reaction against the characteristic tendencies of Latin Theology. As John Fiske's Idea of God has spread Dr. Allen's message far on one side, so Mr. Alden's extremely popular book brought the idea to another large body of readers. This same spring Rev. J. B. Heard, an English admirer of The Con- tinuity, wrote that he had been chosen to give the Hulsean Lectures at the English Cambridge, and he was frankly and avowedly basing his lectures on the root idea of The Con- tinuity. All this is an interesting illustration of the indirect but quick method by which a vital word is passed forward in history, when brothers in the craft of writing books catch it up. In March, 1891, the Rev. Minot J. Savage preached a sermon in Boston on the MacQueary trial, saying that not one in ten of the Episcopal clergy believed in its entirety the Apostles' Creed. Dr. Allen felt this to be an insult to the Church and departed from his rule, and under the name of "Cambridge" wrote an open letter to The Boston Post, which was then a dignified journal. "I am sure it is not true," said Dr. Allen in the course of the letter, "but if some unenlightened preacher should say of the Unitarian clergy that not one in ten of them believed in God, it would be just as true as to say that not one in ten of the Episcopal clergy believes in the Apostles' Creed in its entirety. And, indeed, Mr. Savage no doubt has twisted and stretched the word God till it means something very CHURCH HONESTY 129 different from what the common people mean, or his own ancestors meant. If he were consistent, or honest as he prefers to call it, he would drop the word to which on his own principles he is not entitled, and find some other." Dr. Allen proceeded to show what was legitimate in growth of interpretation, what not; and then went straight to miracles: "Mr. Savage assumes that miracle is impos- sible in the nature of things. . . . Mr. Savage lives in an atmosphere of his own, which has very little in common with the spirit which prevails in an organic his- toric Church. There we have a very different conception of progress from that which he entertains, a very different view also of what is necessary for the cause of truth and the well-being of humanity. In that Church it is not an axiom that the miracle is impossible. And even those who feel the difficulties of modern science may still be very far from rejecting the miracle as impossible: they would still be restrained by the influence of an historic Church which perpetuates the Christian spirit and motive in ways of which the individual preacher, measuring truth by his own individual reason, in this particular age of the world's history, does not even dream. They can make allowances for him, which it is impossible that he should make for them. We have become so accustomed to this attitude of radical reformers who have cut loose from the large truth of the Christian revelation in the Christian Church, that we are inclined to be silent when they insinuate their accusations of dishonesty. But if we cannot make them understand our position, we are driven to ask if they realize what they are saying." Mr. Savage replied the next day that the newspaper report was poor, he was misrepresented — nevertheless Episcopal clergymen were dishonest. March 26, "Cam- bridge" gave his final blow to these so-called "liberal Chris- tians." "I had hoped," said Dr. Allen, "that he would have qualified his language, if not withdrawn it altogether. i 3 o THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW . . . Mr. Savage must know that the accusation he makes is a stale and hackneyed one. From the time of St. Paul down to our own, and in the case of almost every great religious leader or reformer, we hear the charge of dishonesty. . . . Least of all, as it seems to many, can the Unitarians plead exemption from the common lot. Least of all, are they entitled to cast the first stone. To those who are familiar with the rise of Unitarianism in this country, it is needless to recall the pestilential air of coward- ice and concealment and actual falsehood in which, ac- cording to their orthodox opponents, the sect of Unitarians took its rise. To this day they are accused by their so- called orthodox brethren of stealing church buildings and other property, of perverting funds. ... To be sure, Unitarians were acquitted by the courts, but it was by means of these 'legal fictions,' these ' word-twistings ' for which Mr. Savage has no intellectual respect. Now and then we hear a voice from some ancient orthodox Congre- gational pastor who is familiar with the past, to the effect that the Unitarians will never prosper until they restore the property they have stolen. I do not bring these charges — I do not believe them. . . . But if Mr. Savage insists upon accusing the Episcopal Church of dishonesty, then upon his own principle he belongs to a body against which he is unable to repel a charge of much worse kind." Dr. Allen now turned to appeal, pointing out the evil done by this mutual suspicion and recrimination: "What is the influence upon young men when they hear their spiritual pastors and masters denounced as dis- honest, and yet see them retaining the respect of the com- munity? Does all this denunciation contribute to the well-being of the social order, where honesty is the only bond of faith or security? It is not the word-twisting which does the mischief. The growth of language by the interior changes of thought is not word-twisting. That is mere theological accusation, in order that one party BROOKS A BISHOP 131 may get the better of another. What does the mischief is that the common people draw one of two inferences — either that the whole business of theological accusation is the mere Pickwickian use of language, or else that honesty is not so important after all." The correspondence shows how Dr. Allen would have written had he been a controversialist. His books were not controversial; they were never meant to be. In April, 1891, he consented to deliver the Lowell Lectures the follow- ing winter, choosing for a subject Christian Institutions. In May Phillips Brooks was chosen Bishop of Massa- chusetts. This was an event of importance to both Dr. Allen and the School. In the opposition stirred up against Dr. Brooks's confirmation by the Standing Committees and Bishops, Dr. Dix had been appealed to as a suitable leader, but with great dignity refused to have any part in it. "Of course he would not soil his hands," said Dr. Allen, "for he's a gentleman, but the way he bears himself is very fine." Dr. Allen always spoke of Dr. Dix with affection after this: he had always respected him. He had met Bishop Clark and the Bishop-elect at the June Clericus, when the subject discussed was Prayers for the Dead. "It gave me points for Christian Institutions ," he said. "There seemed to be a general undercurrent of approval for the practice, which to some extent I criti- cized and opposed. But the modern tendency rests on a different principle from the mediaeval practice; that is, the sense of common humanity, through all the ranges of existence." In the letter in which he told of this, he reported that Mr. Mabie had renewed a request for the three articles on the Bible. "I think his offer to pay so generously paralysed any will I might have had to accept. I have decided not to mix myself up in a controversy that belongs to another religious body. There is enough to do at home. Then I don't feel that I quite agree with Dr. Briggs. My face is in another direction. Do you know i 3 2 THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW I am beginning to have the faintest apprehension, which I have yet hardly admitted to myself, that I am changed or changing from the mood in which I wrote Continuity. I wonder that the critics of Jonathan Edwards didn't notice something of a difference, for I think there was one. I spoke of Calvinism more kindly and moderately than I could have done in the first book. I haven't retracted anything to myself: it was all true, and I'm glad I did it then, for I couldn't do it now. But the growth of the tendency to interpret everything in some positive, credit- able-to-humanity way is what I notice in myself. I fear it a little, for it can be easily carried too far. Humanity has made some big mistakes and failures, and it has its evil sides. But I feel every now and then as though I had gone back on myself, or such a man as Mr. Mabie, intelli- gent and appreciative, wouldn't take it for granted, as he does from reading my books, that I am in sympathy with Dr. Briggs and could easily write just the articles he wants. But I wouldn't have you think I retract anything of my thought. There is a change of outlook — but I don't express myself clearly. Perhaps you will understand. . . . I am going to dine with Brooks next Thursday — we four, Brooks, Browne, Parks, and I. Brooks seems chastened and subdued, but shows no consciousness of what is going on." Miss Gardiner asked him to explain the word " idealizing." "The word 'idealizing,'" he said, "is objectionable be- cause it seems to imply mere creative activity on one side, as if there were no knowledge in the nature of things behind it. To endow a being with all possible attributes of per- fection, and then to wake up to the reality, as far remote from the vision, is sure to lead either to loss of faith in goodness or to the discarding of reality. ... In every soul lies this divine capacity for beatification. It is the ground of the Sacrament of Baptism — that to the eye of divine love every child is pronounced regenerate and THE UNIVERSAL REASON 133 endowed with an affiliation for the highest. So human love seems to be following a universal law. Was not Dante's case the most supreme, beautiful illustration of it? . . . Again, have we not here the force and significance of that doctrine of original sin which Augustine insisted upon in the face of the persistent idealizing of the Greeks? The world and the Church took it from him, and it became the law of estimating humanity in the Middle Ages, till Dante burst away from it and restored, by its side, a primitive and higher level which had been overlooked or denied. I really think I must put this idea into Christian Institutions. What we need in theology is to illustrate these obscure dogmas by the facts of our deepest, most common experiences." He answered more questions on June 21. "We had our Commencement on Wednesday," he wrote, "and our Alumni dinner the night before. Bishop Clark was there and Bishop-elect Brooks, whom I had the pleasure of sit- ting next to at dinner. We all made our speeches, and I made mine, in which I took occasion to put very briefly my position regarding the relation of Church and Bible to reason. You asked me for my opinion, and in turning it over for you, I found that I had made a speech for Com- mencement. Dr. Briggs says that the Bible, the Church, and the reason are co-ordinate sources of authority for divine truth. . . . The point I make is that there is only one means of revelation: the medium through which God speaks to man is the divine reason. The Church and the Bible are alike the expression of the reason, not merely of the individual man in any one age, but of the devout reason of humanity, and so true for all ages. . . . All this has been obnoxious to many because they cannot think of any but the individual reason, with its limitations, rejecting or accepting in its arbitrary way. So it was with the 1 8th century — the reason of one age unenlightened by a full knowledge of history or of man. That we call i 3 4 THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW rationalism, which has become a stigma of reproach. We must learn to live in the universal reason, and so enlarge our narrow experience. . . . The instinct of man, which is God speaking in the soul, expresses itself in the Church, in the Book, etc. That makes them authoritative in the final enduring way. And Christ Himself is the reason of God, the Logos, the manifested Reason. . . . This is quite a theological letter, but you asked me for my view, and then you are a theological girl and you can stand it. Bishop Clark brought in Continuity by name in his sermon and reproduced the doctrine of Immanence. Ah, well! those things were true, but there is still other important truth to be spoken. What I am going to insist upon in Christian Institutions is the modifications which have been effected by the rise, decline, and fall of the Roman Empire. That is fast becoming the controlling thought in my mind, as I revolve the various points of organization, discipline, etc. — and then humanism as the issue of the Reformation." "We are a broken family," he wrote in August. "Jack, alone of the family, has gone to church to-night. He has taken a great notion to doing the religious as an avenue to the social — at least so Harry thinks. He goes to Wednesday evening prayer-meetings, and three times on Sundays. He is quite serious about it all, tolerates no joking or winking; but there is a girl in the case, I know. Ay de mi, as Carlyle put it, it is only my own story right over again, and Jack does not know it. He pities me sometimes as having had no opportunities. Life seems to mean so much to him, it is so rich and enthralling — while I sit in my study and write or pore over dreary books. And when I was at his age I never dreamed that I should come to it. . . . This is to be a great week in Boxford. The Town Hall is to be dedicated, by a speech in the afternoon for the oldsters, and a ball in the evening for the youngsters. Oh, you can't imagine what an occasion it is for Jack! He is going to dance, and is determined to SYMPATHY WITH YOUTH 135 keep it up to the last moment, which it is thought will be 2 or 3 a.m. The great question is about his girl. As far as I can find out, he has not got her yet, and for the matter of that does not know her. He has the promise of an introduction, when she gets there, for her father is expected to bring her from the remote end of the town. But she is to be the prettiest girl of the whole assembly. These things I gather in snatches of conversation with Harry, which I chance to overhear. Jack does not take me into his confidence. Perhaps he would if I solicited it, but I don't know that I want it. And there are draw- backs too which make him a little uncomfortable and uncertain. His clothes are not quite to his mind, and it is too late now to make them what they should be. Poor dear Jackie! And all this is confidential. It moves me deeply. What creatures we are. This occasion exists only for him: he is the centre; it is as if the Town Hall had been built and the people came solely for his triumph. We carry the world with us, and it is only what we make it. What a divine gift to remake the world for our indi- vidual selves, from our infancy on, till I suspect in old age, when we have got through with it, it seems to us only rational that with us it should cease to be. "I have had to give up my first plan for Xn. Ins. I could not emancipate myself from history so that each chapter would begin with the first and end with the nine- teenth century. The whole thing is, after all, movement. The dogmatic and pragmatic ways are alien. One century is as real to me as any other. Sometimes I think those that are gone are more real than the present. So Xn. Ins. will be Continuity in a new form." Miss Gardiner asked him what to think about the place of music in life. "I am confused about music," he wrote. "It seems to me the revelation of a deep and beautiful mystery round about us, but what I am after is the meaning of the secret, so that music does not help me 136 THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW always, and sometimes pains me. Do they create music, or does it already exist and do they extract it from the depth of nature? I have lately been impressed with Carlyle's talk about the silences. Does the earth make any noise as it spins? Is it silent, or is it furnishing part of the music of the spheres which they talk about? Do the sounds that we hear include the whole of nature? I have a notion that public worship in the Church is encircling the earth gradually with a music interpreted by words: often in the daily services in the Chapel the thought occurs to me that we are putting the true interpretation upon God's universe which may be audible to saints and angels and the spirits of the just made perfect, so filling up the silences of nature, as if it were a void which man was made to fill. There is so much to see on every hand, so very little that is beautiful to hear. This may include poetry, and sometimes preaching. But music is to me in itself rather the revelation of a deeper mystery, than the lifting of the veil from the mystery. I have read lately Hegel's chapter on Music, but it gave me no great light. . . . Gray expressed it — to leave the warm precincts of the cheerful day, and cast no lingering, longing look behind. That must be the doctrine of the Resurrection. . . . This is an intensely quiet Sunday afternoon." Early in September he finished an article on Hopkins, which appeared in the December Atlantic under the title, The Transition in New England Theology. In it was a favourite phrase, "He found his freedom." When a friend came home from making a speech or preaching a sermon, he would ask, "Well, did you get your freedom?" "Mrs. Allen and the boys," he wrote, "expressed great joy when Samuel Hopkins was out of the house. This surprised me for I was not aware of having groaned over it aloud. But they seemed to feel that the absorption made me uncongenial. ... I inwardly determine never to do another piece of work, not even a newspaper article. And NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGIANS 137 yet I know I am in for it for life, and when I stop, things will stop altogether. It reminds me of the sailors at Nantucket, who took their voyages around Cape Horn, for four years at a time, and who always resolved if they got safely through they would never take another. But when they got home they found that they were unsuited to life on the land, and before they knew it they were off again. This in view of your advice not to trifle any further with the New England Theology. But the writing of Hopkins has just given me a clear view of Emmons and Murray and the rest, and I have a feeling that I must do them, and carry out that old plan of mine. Some one will do it in an inferior or wrong way, and I may be conceited but I feel sure I can do it better. Why couldn't I do them one by one as a change from other work, making short articles for The Atlantic or The Andover now and then? Perhaps Samuel H. will shut off a rival, and I shall have the field to myself at my leisure. Scudder says he will take them for The Atlantic. I shall wait and see if Samuel H. gives any reasonably 'good satisfaction.' Then there are Murray, Ballou, Emmons, Bushnell, Channing, Parker, and Mulford. We shall see what we shall see. "Kent Stone is with us at last, and is unusually well and interesting. I asked him to prayers this morning, and he said he too would go to prayers — his own — so he went for his Breviary. I have no doubt that the Breviary is a good thing for the Roman clergy, and perhaps it is good for them that they have to read it every day. I have no doubt either that it might do me good; but to have to use it under heavy penalties on one's conscience and eccle- siastical law — that I couldn't stand. The Church of England has been wise in requiring no such use." At the October meeting of the Clericus, the Bishop-elect resigned his presidency. At the Consecration service a few days later, Dr. Allen was moved by the serene ear- nestness of his great friend, who, sweetened rather than 138 THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW embittered by his foes, stood up bravely for the task that was shortly to kill him. To Father Hall, who had played a noble part in the days of strife, Dr. Allen sent an affectionate letter, and received a grateful reply. The Lowell Lectures, fully written out, were delivered in February, 1892. The subjects of the lectures were: I. The Catholic Ideal; II. The Ascetic Ideal; III. The Imperial Ideal; IV. The National Ideal; V. The Ethical Ideal; VI. The Social Ideal; VII. The Secular Ideal; VIII. The Intellectual Ideal. Under these heads he re- viewed the various institutions in the light of Christian history. Intended to form the basis for the book on Christian Institutions, the lectures are quite different from the outcome in both matter and form, though con- tributing to the outcome at every step. As read in their distinct manuscript pages they are direct and illuminating, and one imagines how they would have delighted the classes in Dr. Allen's small lecture room; but his voice was quite lost in Huntington Hall, and as public lectures they were a failure. It would be singularly sad to place the labour beside the public failure had it not led to a larger success at last. The winter was trying. Mrs. Allen had been ill fre- quently, and the anxiety so wore upon Dr. Allen that even his handwriting declared his discouragement, which he tried to conceal. A brief visit to Mr. Taylor was a help. Bishop Brooks delivered his only Diocesan Convention Address, May 18. It had unusual meaning to Dr. Allen, because it gave public expression to his estimate of the School. "We may well be specially and profoundly thankful," he said, "that we have in our great Seminary at Cambridge a home and nursery of faith and learning . . . which no school of our Church has ever surpassed. Full of deep sympathy with present thought; quick with the spirit of inquiry; eager to train its men to think and reason; equipped with teaching power of the highest order; THE SCHOOL 139 believing in the ever increasing manifestation of the Truth of God; anxious to blend the most earnest piety with the most active intelligence, and so to cultivate a deep, enthu- siastic, reasonable Faith, the Cambridge School stands very- high among the powers which bid us hope great things for the work which the servants of Christ will do for His glory and the salvation of the world in the years to come." To have had a share in making a school of which that could be said by such a man as Brooks was comfort amidst the forebodings. At the School Commencement this year Dr. Steenstra and Dr. Allen were each presented with $500.00 from the Alumni to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of their teaching. The words that were spoken at the Alumni dinner were more gratifying than the money. The year was marked in the School by the lectures of Dr. Alexander, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe; by the building of Winthrop Hall — the gift of many friends; and by the gift from William R. Huntington of his liturgical library. The summer at Boxford was as hard as the winter had been. He wrote: "The boys and I have been in much dis- cussion over the Homestead affair and the Borden case. I like to hear the boys talk, with their dawning reason, on these things. ... I don't think it is of much use to inquire in any special case like Homestead who is at fault. It is much like the prolonged chronic state of war between England and France in the 14th century. There was always enough provocation on either side to justify it. It was a sensitive condition, and when either side felt strong it made war. Isn't it about so now in the relations be- tween capital and labour? There are plenty of old grudges even if no new causes — a chronic state of disaffection, and if either side sees an opportunity it takes it. So it seems to me we are about entering a new stage in history, when social issues will be uppermost. . . . There is a chance for the Christian Church to act, for the problem i 4 o THE APPROACH OF A GREAT SORROW is too complicated for legal settlement: it touches the ethical and spiritual. . . . Have you read the criticism upon Dr. Royce's book in The Nation ? It is supercilious, disgustingly so, I think, and rude, which is so utterly unnecessary. Why cannot that contemptible sheet take a kinder tone? One can be quite as severe, quite as clear in expressing disapproval. . . . The Nation is a paper of grievances, which pass for criticism. It has done great injury in America. As to the criticism on Royce, I am rather glad to see some one who is not in awe of him, but I think Royce is in some respects right, and I like his 'timeless choice' idea." One day in October, Mrs. Allen, seemingly better, went to Poland Springs with a friend for a few days. She waved her good-bye from the carriage door to an invalid across the street, whom she had been visiting daily since her return to Cambridge. She wrote a letter that evening from her destination, telling of a long walk through the woods. But before the letter reached Cambridge, there was a telegram saying that in the night she had died, passing from the rest of sleep to the peace of death. The dreaded day had come. "Baltimore, October 15, 1892. "My dear Allen: "What can I say to you that will let you know at all how my whole heart of love is with you in the strange sorrow which has come to you. You know it without my telling you, do you not, my dear friend? "It seems like such a few years ago that I knew your wife in her bright girlhood in her father's house in the old Philadelphia days. And during all these years which have come since, your happiness and hers made one of the pictures on which I have delighted to dwell and which have made the world seem, at least at one spot, what one would want to have it be. My first thought is thankfulness to God for all that He has given you in her through all these years. "That He does not take away what He thus gives into the MRS. ALLEN'S DEATH 141 heart of hearts of His children you know full well. You have taught us all to know it very deeply. I cannot but believe that the knowledge of it is clearer and sweeter to you today than it has ever been. "You will forgive me, I am sure, for claiming the privilege of speaking to you. Our friendship is so old and has been so much to me for so large a portion of my life that I cannot see my dear friend in his great sorrow and not say to him ' God help you! ' " So I do say to you and to your boys, May the great Light and Love and Peace be with you. "Affectionately yours, "Phillips Brooks." In the small book in which Dr. Allen entered the more important events of his life he wrote on one page, "October 14th, 1892." Otherwise the page is blank. CHAPTER XII TRIALS AND VICTORIES 1893-1895 DR. ALLEN bore his grief with a dignity and force that awed his friends. To the outsider he seemed to pursue his studies with the same energy. But the loss was more than personal. The world was a great way off, and he could not get at things. The Boxford house, unspeak- ably dear to him, he never lived in again; it was twelve years before he could even see it. His hair grew white; but there was the same smile, only more full of tenderness and sympathy. A Senior in the School wrote to a graduate, "Dr. Allen is better, gentler, sweeter than ever." The depth of his nature received the hard lesson, and he was to teach to young men as never before God's Infinite Love. Old pupils wrote with diffidence their sympathy. Know- ing his reserve and feeling his strength to endure, they said little, but they reminded him what his teaching was to them, how it bore them up with its confidence and inspira- tion. One wrote from England that visiting the Palace at Ripon he heard Bishop Boyd-Carpenter say that he had prescribed The Continuity as a text-book for the candidates for the ministry in his diocese: "Dr. Allen," he said, "is doing a great work for the general Church." But such words made almost a wound: there was only the thought what pleasure they would have brought to the home a few months before. The middle of January, Dr. Postlethwaite, who had just lost a son, came to comfort and be comforted. "I want to 142 DEATH OF BROOKS 143 thank you," Dr. Postlethwaite wrote, January 22, "for the real comfort you gave me in our long talks together. I told Sally it was all sad but sacred and a holy communion one with another indeed. It did me good to hear you talk so naturally and so sweetly of Bessie. It increased my faith in heaven, in eternity, in the real and unseen. ... I was glad you took me to see Brooks. It was a strange impression he made upon me — the rushing out in the hall to see us, the rush of talk he kept up all the time, the getting up and down out of his chair, the talking all the way to the door, his gentleness with you (not saying a word of sympathy and yet breathing out sympathy for you all through his bearing and manner towards you)." That was Wednesday. The next Monday, January 23, 1893, word flashed over Cambridge that Phillips Brooks was dead. Scarcely any one knew of his brief illness. Men stared at one another, and said that it could not be. To young men who had felt that for once they had seen a man of the stamp of Plato or Dante — one of the few greatest souls of all time — it seemed as if the props of the world had fallen away. Dr. Allen, as the intimate of young men, had this ardent, extravagant loyalty to Brooks's greatness. Added to it was the Bishop's warm personal friendship, given in these months, when most needed, as never before. Once more, within a few short weeks, sudden death came very close. "Do not think me only an editor," wrote Mr. Scudder, the day of the death, "when I write at once to lay before you the serious task of writing for The Atlantic a paper on the Bishop. I must find some sort of expression for this great, this unspeakable loss, and I turn at once to you as the one man who can speak for me. I shall come to see you. Do not answer this." "The death of Phillips Brooks," Dr. Allen wrote to his brother in March, "is a sad and awful loss to us. Things seem to be broken up without him. I have written an 144 TRIALS AND VICTORIES article for The Atlantic — a tribute mainly, which I will send you when it appears. It was written at a single sitting, and has the merits and defects of such an attempt. But it was done in a hurry to get it into the April number. There are some things in it which have not yet been said. . . . Just at present we have a case of scarlet fever in the house, little Kent Stone. His mother is Philip Stone's widow. She lives with us at present, taking care of Mrs. Stone and running the house. Mrs. Stone is fairly well, but she declines in strength. The present arrange- ment is therefore precarious. What will follow is very uncertain. For the first time in my life I don't look for- ward to the coming of spring or summer. I think I shall bury myself somewhere in New Hampshire and work on Christian Institutions. But the motive for work is gone. ... I am a little anxious about the impending Epis- copal election. Huntington was the man, and he could have been elected, but he declines. ... I keep fairly well, and keep on with my work at the School as usual. But it is a wonder to me that one can live through these things. Life is changed and the dark corner turned. . . . The bells are ringing for evening service. They do not speak to me as they did to Janet. They depress me. But then almost everything does in these days. They told me it would come easier after a while, but I do not find it so: it grows harder as the months go by. The death of Phillips Brooks would have been enough of itself to change the aspect of the world and make it hard to live. We are a bereaved set when we get together now, who used to find so much in him. He was so much above all other men about whom one has learned in history, or met in one's own world, that he cannot be compared with them. ' When they heard him, they were astonished, for he spoke as one having authority.'" One evening, in the reading-room of Lawrence Hall, Dr. Allen read his Atlantic article to the faculty and ESSAY ON BROOKS 145 students of the School. He sat in his chair and read in a subdued voice; and the air was full of devotion — to the Bishop, to him, to the Master of both. There was much of himself in the article though he was unconscious of it. The penetration beneath the formula, the attitude towards the institution, the institution of the Christian Man — all revealed his own spirit. When the article came out Mrs. Deland said to him what the students felt that night; she spoke of "its beautiful dignity and that great pressure of reserve." She added that he had said what she fancied all had felt but had not known how to say, "that his effect upon this generation stands for a spiritual fact, greater even than his preaching or himself." To many men in that room that night Allen stood with Brooks as master, one in the realm of action, the other in the realm of thought. Men went away in silence as if they had been at some solemn service. In the spring of 1893 tne Diocese elected Dean Law- rence Bishop of Massachusetts. He had barely begun his deanship, but he had proved his quality; and the School, for a larger good, gave him to the diocese. Dr. George Hodges, elected October 4, paid the School the high tribute of leaving his great parish in Pittsburgh and became dean the following January. Declining an invitation to hear the speech of one he cared for, Dr. Allen said: "It is our Commencement Day: even to that I am not equal. My place at present is outside of things. Church History goes on, but that is sheer force of habit mingled with necessity." He went alone, as he expected, into New Hampshire for his summer, finding the pleasant glen at Waterville. There also he found some Harvard students who instantly adopted him as master, and there too he found the congenial family of the late Charles Loring Brace, who understood him and gave him their own fine friendship. The people at the inn requested him to have prayers each morning, and they all i 4 6 TRIALS AND VICTORIES gathered after breakfast to hear him read a chapter and join with him in a few collects; and then he was off in the woods, sometimes alone, sometimes with one of these new friends. "It made me forget for a moment," he wrote, "that life had its other side." Miss Brace was writing the life of her father, and Dr. Allen gave her suggestion and help. He wrote to her from Cambridge about this biography and then went on: "Since the School opened my time has hardly been my own. In the absence of a dean, much extra work has fallen upon me. Dr. Lawrence was consecrated yesterday with all the impressiveness that the function can command. He stands for the Cambridge Theological School and its triumph. But the ceremony was haunted throughout by the memory of Phillips Brooks, who stood in the same place for the same function just two years ago. ... I have just finished a new preface for my book on Continuity, which goes to a new edition this fall, with some changes. It is a curious circumstance that the book does not seem to belong to me any longer, so that I can hardly recognize that I wrote it. When one gives one's thought to the world one's own proprietorship in it ceases. ... I have not yet recovered from Water- ville. The life there continues to hang around me as if more real than the life here. It was such a total change from my summer routine of the last few years; so intense, too, with such overpowering influences of woods and mountains and natural beauty that I find myself longing to return to it, if only for a moment. I am recalling now that scene from the bluff, which was one of the last pictures stamped upon my mind. I thank you very deeply for your kind words of sympathy." Dr. Hodges, on coming to Cambridge, had demanded that the salaries of all the professors be raised; he rightly judged them lamentably inadequate. So in January, 1894, Dr. Allen received formal notice that his salary had been increased by five hundred dollars to twenty-five hundred a year. METHODS OF TEACHING 147 Money was a thing of which he had small understanding; and he was almost completely indifferent to it. But at the side of this letter he wrote, with a depth of pathos which can be imagined: "And oh! that it had only come earlier!" This year he had the largest Senior class in the history of the School, and he gave himself to them with the more complete devotion because of his loneliness. Dr. Everett having induced him to review Dean Stanley's Life for The New World, had secured for him the advance sheets from the publishers. The students felt that since Stan- ley's Arnold, there would not have been such a delightful book as this was likely to be; therefore, since the book was not yet published and accessible to them, each morning before he addressed himself to his lecture, Dr. Allen would say something of Stanley and his friends, as the book was revealing them to him. The biography covered a period with which he was largely familiar in his own experience. It gave him new clews — as when Stanley, visiting New- man, received from him the appeal, "Criticize the Old Testament, but don't touch the New": Newman had the instinct for criticism but lacked faith to follow it out. With a ripple Dr. Allen told of the message the Pope gave Stan- ley for Pusey: "You know Pusey?" asked the Pope. "Well, when you see him tell him from me that I compare him to a bell which always sounds to invite the faithful to Church, and itself always remains outside." When Dr. Allen told of Stanley's goodness in showing the Abbey to working-men he added: "I too had that privilege." Once when he had finished the few minutes' talk on this absorb- ing subject, he opened his note-book with the low words, as if to himself: "Now having had what Joseph Cook calls a prelude, we'll turn to Anselm." He brought into the lecture room always a number of books; sometimes not opening any of them, but more fre- quently having them all open before him. Ordinarily 148 TRIALS AND VICTORIES they were books in which a luminous passage bore upon his lecture. Sometimes they were symbols to remind him of an attitude which he wished to bring out. He believed in having certain books in a library as symbols, not to be read but to remind one of an epoch or a way of looking at things which had once been valuable — like Scott's com- mentaries, for example, which he said used to be given to theological students and were excellent for the lower and less accessible shelves of young clergymen's libraries. Sometimes the books contained a passage from a current biography, which, as in Stanley's case, had no bearing on the immediate lecture, but had distinct bearing on the equipment of men preparing for the ministry. The stu- dents looked forward to his lectures as the great pleasure and inspiration of the day. They were interesting, but the one , permanent benefit which they imparted was, through the history, to make men feel how tight a hold God has upon human affairs. They gave to men coming from the wide speculations of Harvard, for instance, the depth and steadfastness of impregnable Faith. They did this the more because there was nothing that suggested argument or apologetic: it was simply the straight, broad communication of a simple-hearted trust. Not all the men were of Dr. Allen's Churchmanship. There was quite apt to be at least one man in a class who sat guard over his assertions as a cat watches a mouse. Dr. Allen tried to be accurate, and believed it very im- portant; but his chief business was to show men what the facts meant. He expected them to get the facts before- hand from their reading. Kurtz, dull and dry, was gen- erally advised as a handbook; but, as he turned each corner in the course, he gave lists of important books, from which he expected the men to be reading. At this time there were no recitations. Since most of the men had university training, and needed no pushing, they came to the lecture room with reasonable acquisitions from reading. SEMINARS 149 For many years he held with the Middle and Senior Classes, separately, fortnightly evening seminars. When the classes were sufficiently small, they were in Dr. Allen's study; at this time they were in the large Reading Room of Law- rence Hall. At this time, too, he allowed the men to smoke their pipes during the evening, but no pipe was lighted till Dr. Allen had come. When he sat down before the large table, and had touched a match to his tobacco, there was general scratching of matches. No one had suggested this bit of ceremony — it was the instinctive respect for him. The evening was apt to be sufficiently interesting to make the smoking very light, and many pipes went out, and many men did not smoke at all. But it all made for informality and comradeship, though there was always dignity and a certain solemnity. Later he stopped the smoking : if the Romans or the Puritans, he said, who were always watching, should hear of it they would say that the School was worldly. There was no harm in it, but it was not expedient. Of an evening generally three papers were read, each paper covering a good deal of reading, and exhibiting a student's power of assimilation, insight, and expression. The night when Augustine's correspondence with Jerome was reviewed was apt to be hilarious; and the Martin Luther evenings were sure to be intense — for Dr. Allen always contrived that the members of the class who disliked Luther had full chance to give their reasons. The attention and appreciation of Dr. Allen were both encour- aging and humiliating, making a man strive to do his best; and the class was appreciative too. It was like a very fine club, with a master to applaud and upbraid. The master's own comments were what all waited for, starting from the paper just read and thrusting out into history and experience, into books old and new, into life and faith. He could sometimes be severe, even cutting. One night when a man had read a very thin paper, Dr. Allen asked question after question to draw him out, getting flat 150 TRIALS AND VICTORIES ignorance every time. Finally, disheartened, half-tenderly, he asked, "Tell me something you do know — no matter how small." He saw to it that there were no cant phrases — not by correction of them, but on some later occasion by coyly poking fun at them. "Well," he would begin, "humanly speaking, as they say in Brooklyn.". . . Or, when a man had been ostentatiously up to date, he would speak incidentally of "this so-called nineteenth century." He was as a father to his men. It was worth to them very hard work to hear him say at the end of a paper: "Well, there is nothing more to be said." He treated them as if they were his equals: he never talked down to them. If he blamed or praised, he did it as one who counted them at least as capable as himself. It was his faith in them. A Boston rector, had he been allowed to be present, would have laughed to see such faith in raw material; but his eyes would have sparkled with a new light had he seen how the men dared to aspire to be worthy of that amazing faith. In nothing was his power as a teacher more mani- fest: it was the Christ in him, believing in blundering Simons and diffident Johns. In March of 1894 he delivered at Yale two lectures on Religious Progress. Dr. Fisher, in thanking him for them, hoped that they would be printed. This Dr. Allen decided to do; but he could not bring himself to allow them to go to press as they were. This month, too, the article in The New World appeared, under the title Dean Stanley and the Tractarian Movement. In one passage he described himself even more than Stanley: "In all his journeys and his explorations ... he carried the in- spiration of a great theological principle — the convic- tion that the divine is revealed in and through the human, that God is revealing himself in human experience, in the crises of human activity. ... It was this conviction . . . that explains his joy, his intense delight in life; it impressed him also with the dignity and the spiritual EDINBURGH 151 significance of the pageants of history, those ceremonials of Church and State into which were poured a people's emotion. In great epochal events of the past or the present, he discerned a spiritual halo, as if he were moving in some supernatural sphere, hints of an unearthly meaning, pledges of a celestial fulfilment." He sailed for England early in July. He divided the time among Edinburgh, London, and the Lake Country. He sat on a bench in Grasmere Churchyard, reading The Excursion. "This visit to the Lakes," he said, "was the most beautiful thing I ever did." As he sat in the Abbey one Sunday afternoon, he felt the reality of English history: the preacher in his surplice was hardly distinguishable from the statues about him: all England from the twelfth century was there. In Edinburgh he stayed longest. He bought many pictures of Scott and Burns and Queen Mary. "She is still alive," he wrote, "and I have become almost a convert to the Scotch view that so much beauty is simply incompatible with sheer wickedness, as otherwise we must believe." He often said that people who thought Prot- estantism a failure had better visit Edinburgh and see its order, refinement, and spirituality. Ecclesiastics were almost as numerous on the streets as in the Middle Ages. The prevalence of the shovel hat on Presbyterian heads amazed him : it spoke much for the clergy, he thought, that they could survive its depressing effect. The congrega- tion of Dr. Dods's Church interested him: there was no preaching down to them, for they sat like a jury in a box — that is, looking to see there was no heresy — the whole fifteen hundred of them. The sermon was on a delicate Scotch subject — the Sabbath. The deepening of his friendship with Dr. George A. Gordon was also part of Edinburgh. Dr. Allen sent him a book associated with Edinburgh when he returned, and in thank- ing him Dr. Gordon said: "I am going to put your note inside as an evidence and memorial of beautiful hours, and 152 TRIALS AND VICTORIES of a friendship, which, if I may claim it, I count an honour and am profoundly thankful for. . . . You spoke of the absence from the theological world to-day of a repre- sentative, revealing voice. Let me say, in all sincerity, that you seem to me such a voice. The work that you do, whenever it carries your stamp, speaks to my reason in religion as almost no other voice does. Pardon me for saying this, but sometimes it is better to be bold." So the students at Cambridge were not alone in their estimate. The year at the School was marked by the death of Mr. Winthrop, who was succeeded, as president, by Judge Bennett, and as trustee by Mr. E. L. Davis. The chapel received from certain alumni the bronze bust of Phillips Brooks, which was placed near the pulpit. Religious Progress came out in November, 1894, and from the world's view was a failure. The reviews were short and inconsequent. Only one was good — Mr. Ludlow's two columns in the London Spectator, which gave full appreciation. To most the title seemed trite, and those who opened the book at all were perplexed because the author gave neither definition nor theory. He had been mulling the subject ever since in boyhood, at Guilford, he had debated on whether the world is growing better; and now he put down some of the elements which he thought must go to an ultimate solution some ages hence. It was the book of a scholar, not of a preacher, not of an apologist. It is probably overpolished from a literary standpoint: its extreme refinement of style concealed how much he cared for many of the issues — perhaps this was intentional: when he felt very deeply he was wont to assume a rather careless exterior, as if his emotions might carry him too far. Old pupils liked the book and compared it with Brooks's Tolerance, which they thought it excelled, and they found in it favourite ideas, such as these: great words cannot be defined; the supreme problem of religion is how to relate the past to the present; in times of crisis RELIGIOUS PROGRESS 153 men fall back on the mysterious instincts of their nature; the ideas of one's early years tend to reassert themselves; consistency may reduce personality; theories shrivel in the presence of the world of common life; progress is thus a going back to penetrate more deeply the past formulas of men, which attest the immortal convictions of the soul. For a little book it probably went too far afield. It is such a book as is often passed over to become, a century hence, a classic. It serves no immediate purpose or cause, but it tells of a soul apprehending the Truth. He knew it failed in its day, and, since he was sensitive, its failure depressed him. Dr. Gordon gave him criticism as well as appreciation. "Your criticism," Dr. Allen wrote, in a prompt rejoinder, "goes straight to the heart of the subject. It encourages me that you see that the subject is a difficult one. I quite agree with you about the Hegelian contradiction. We are all tired of it, and Hegel was a good deal in the air. But the word has its place in the popular logic: that was where I encountered it. I only hope that I am not discouraging, for if that should be the result, I should know that I was wrong." In the fall of 1894 a committee of six bishops issued a Pastoral Letter, intended to be reassuring, but tending to confusion. "I quite agree with you," wrote Dr. Allen to his brother in February, 1895, "in all you say about the Bishops' Pastoral. It is an outrage. The worst thing about it is not its opinions and statements, but the fact that a few bishops have got together and attempted to define the doctrine of the Church. There never was such an open violation of all ecclesiastical order before in the history of the Church. When Councils have met to define doctrine there has been discussion, and a unanimous vote has been required. They have been required to be called with all solemn formalities, so that the Church knew what was happening. But all these things are wanting here. 154 TRIALS AND VICTORIES The bishops got together and appointed a committee to write a Pastoral and then off they go without seeing or knowing its contents. But, further, they have no more right to define doctrines than presbyters. Really the only body with authority is the General Convention, and that has no right to touch doctrine." The New World, suspecting his attitude on this Pastoral Letter, asked for an article for the July issue; but that was another matter. He would not publish to the world what he felt to be a subject to be settled within the fold. Late in April he wrote to an old pupil who had been reading the Life of Dean Church: "I haven't read it, but I think I know the man, He had greater limitations than Stanley. He was so enamoured of a spurious Catholicity that he didn't see the true character and greatness of the Church of England. I shall read it of course. I read his account of the Oxford Movement, though it threw no light on that strange, perverse movement in English Christian- ity. What dense ignorance and prejudice was Pusey's, and how untrue he was — and his confreres — to the real Church of England. Sometime it will be seen, and then it will be meted out to him as he deserved. Church was as bad as the rest of them, even worse it may be, for he sinned against greater light. Pusey might plead ignorance in the day of judgment, but Church should have known better. They have, between them, confounded Cathol- icity and Romanism — so ministering to intellectual dis- honesty. The time is near, I hope, when a good, honest, bracing Protestantism may get a public hearing. . . . You needn't worry about anything the future contains. You have only to be yourself. May God bless you." At the Commencement in June, 1895, Dr. Allen in his speech took occasion to speak of the Bishops' Pastoral and the general unrest in the Church. These informal speeches year by year were eagerly heard by the alumni: he brought them back to his class room, as it were, and COMMENCEMENT SPEECH 155 reviewed great issues in the light of passing events. He always struck deep, with careful preparation, and pleaded for the highest things. "Now the lesson," he said, "is charity and meekness, and our duty towards those within, but holy boldness also in maintaining the Protestant character of the Church of our Fathers." He told how the School had tried to deal with young men who had difficul- ties: it was with great sympathy and patience. He recalled the story of the bishop and the master of theology in the days of St. Louis of France: "If, Master," said the Bishop, "the King were to give you the Castle of Rochelle nearest the frontier, and to me a safe castle on the interior, which would be esteemed greater?" "I," answered the Master of Theology. "Yes," said the Bishop; "and, Master — my heart is like the safe port on the interior, for I have no temptation to doubt. God will give you four times what he gives me, if you keep your heart safe in the war of tribulation. Believe me, you with your doubts are more pleasing to our Lord, than I without them." He went on then to speak of subscription. He regretted that men were not asked to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. There is freedom in strict subscription, and one gets rid of vague standards, such as that which some men call Cathol- icity. In speaking of the Pastoral, he astonished the men by saying that he had no objection to the most criticized sentence: "Fixedness of interpretation is of the essence of the Creed." Of course there were different aspects of the same truth, and the Pastoral does not deny that; but, down deep beneath the surface of the central doctrines, there is one unvarying motive. Then he spoke at length of the Virgin Birth. And then he made his appeal: "Have peace with authority, no man forbidding you. Dear brethren, dear friends, dear children! take to yourselves the great words of Scripture as your own: 'O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thee . . . hold fast the form of sound words.' Remember the words of Christ: 156 TRIALS AND VICTORIES ' As My Father hath sent Me ' . . . And He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whosoever sins ... Go ye into all the world." . . . Once more it was as if one had been in church at a great service, and all hearts were lifted up. But Bishop Whitehead, who was present as the Commencement preacher, wrote a few days later that a brother bishop had asked him for the substance of his remarks, which he had heard were very radical. This Bishop Whitehead refused to do, but asked Dr. Allen if he cared to do anything about it. Dr. Allen willingly wrote down what he had said about the Virgin birth, and, thanks to this incident, that part of his speech may be reproduced in his own words: "My remarks opened with an affirmation of my belief in the Creed and Articles and other Formularies of the Church; more particularly of my belief in the article of the Creed which asserts the Virgin Birth, taking the words, 'He was conceived by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,' to mean that our Lord's con- ception was after a unique, miraculous manner. I also affirmed the vital relationship of the cycle of miraculous facts to the doctrine of the Incarnation; viz., the Virgin Birth, the Resur- rection, and Ascension. Also that the Ancient Creeds which affirm these things as central truths are to be believed because they may be proved by most sure warrant of Holy Scripture. "I then went on to say that the doctrine of the Virgin Birth had received such speculative treatment in the Roman Church, and such additions or glosses, as to minister to the glorification of Mary rather than of Christ. This tendency appeared among the Gnostics of the second century, who wrote the Apocryphal Gospels for the purpose of introducing these glosses, according to which Mary was represented as sinless, or as not dying a natural death, but taken up into heaven, after the analogy of Christ's Ascension. This disposition to magnify Mary as if a divine being continued to develop in the Roman Church during the middle ages until Mary was practically deified, and more commonly regarded as the mediator between God and man than our Lord Himself. The Commemoration of Mary occu- THE VIRGIN BIRTH 157 pied a large proportion of the Christian Year, almost rivalling that of our Lord. She had her Psalter and her Te Deum. "The Reformers of the Church of England in the 16th cen- tury regarded the worship of Mary as idolatry and returned in this respect to the teaching and practice of the Apostolic Age or the Early Church. These English Reformers who revised or remoulded the Services and formularies of the Church of England, giving them their present shape, one and all affirmed the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, and held the Virgin Mother in special veneration. But, also, they held the article of the Virgin Birth in some different way from that of the Church of Rome: they did not give it the same prominence; e.g., in the Catechism of the Council of Trent several pages are devoted to a speculative expansion of the subject, and so also of the later Confessions of the Greek Church. The Reformers of the Church of England refrain from any speculative exposition of the subject either in the Catechism or the Articles. "It would be unjust to argue that because the Anglican Reformers do not give this fact of the Virgin Birth the promi- nence which it possesses in the Roman Church, or do not attempt to speculate upon or expand it, therefore they do not hold the doctrine. We must apply the same caution to the case of St. Paul. It has been said that because St. Paul gives the doctrine no prominence in his Epistles or no theological exposition, therefore he could have attached no importance to it, even if he accepted it at all. But we must hold that St. Paul assumes it, takes it for granted and builds upon it. A recent writer, Professor Ropes, has shown I think that he undoubtedly refers to it. In the same way must be explained the fact that this Article of the Virgin Birth was not contained in the Creed of Nicaea — an omission which Dr. Pusey in his book on the Councils confessed his inability to explain. Here again we must assume that it was taken for granted. That the bishops present at the Council believed in the Virgin Birth cannot be doubted. There was no question of its denial; even Arius accepted it. "The same caution should apply to works in theology by Protestant writers treating of the Person of Christ or of the In- carnation in which no prominence is given to the Virgin Birth, or where it is even rarely alluded to; e.g., Mr. Wilberforce's 158 TRIALS AND VICTORIES book on the Incarnation, or Lux Mundi, which is a treatise on the same subject. The doctrine is assumed, taken for granted, even when not mentioned. "Another difference between the Anglican Reformers and Roman Catholic theologians was this: the former held Mary to be a sinner like all others, while the latter held that she had been exempt from actual sins as well as from original sin. In their controversial writings, the Anglican Reformers are occu- pied with maintaining this thesis — that Mary was a sinner like all others and that she was saved as all others are by faith in Christ as a Redeemer. This necessity of their argument may seem to give a certain negative tone to their teaching, but this is in appearance only: they were not deprecating the dignity or sanctity of the Virgin Mother, nor did they cease in consequence to hold her in special veneration. "The Anglican Reformers seem also to have been unanimous in affirming the importance of what they designated ' the spirit- ual motherhood' as compared with what they called the 'nat- ural' or 'carnal motherhood.' With noticeable uniformity do they refer to the passage in the Gospel of St. Mark (iii. 32 ff .) or the parallel passages in St. Matthew and St. Luke, when they are endeavouring to overcome the tendency to exalt Mary to divine honours. When Christ was informed that His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him, He looked round about on those who sat with Him and said, 'Who is My mother who are My brethren: whosoever doeth the will of My Father in heaven, the same is My mother and sister and brother.' The Anglican Reformers maintained that this relationship to Christ, which they called 'spiritual mother- hood' was a higher relationship than the 'natural motherhood.' For example, Bishop Latimer speaking of Mary said, 'She was not saved because she was His natural mother, but because she was His spiritual mother.' So also Bishop Jewell of Salisbury, in his controversy with Harding the Jesuit, 'To be the child of God is a great deal greater than to be the mother of God.' It may have seemed to their opponents in the Roman Church as if the Anglican Reformers were here spiritualizing away the his- toric fact of the Virgin Birth or depreciating its significance. But they were doing nothing of the kind. They held the doc- CHOSEN BROOKS'S BIOGRAPHER i 59 trine as most true and important. They retained the Ancient Creeds which bore witness to it and gave them a more prominent place in the common worship than they had in the Roman Church. "These Creeds contain the essential articles of Christian belief. As it would be wrong to detract from them by denial, so also we must guard against the opposite danger of adding to them by our speculations, wherein also the Church of Rome has erred. It is possible to neutralize the power of the Incarnation in either of these ways, by addition as well as by subtraction." In sending this, Dr. Allen made only one request — that it should not get into print, since he believed it too brief and inadequate for that purpose. During August he wrote to his brother: "I have re- ceived a letter from Mr. William Brooks, Phillips Brooks's oldest brother, and another from Mrs. Arthur Brooks, saying that they have fixed on me to take up the Memoir and complete it — and me already up to the neck in work which I cannot accomplish! I have two minds about it. I can see that this is a great opportunity for straightening out the tangle in the Church. But to take the Memoir in addition to Christian Institutions seems almost suicidal." Later he told his brother: "I spent the first week in October with Mrs. Arthur Brooks in New York, going over Arthur's MSS. and reading letters and various papers. The result of which is that I have come to the conclusion to take up the Biography. Arthur's work will stand by itself, though it will need much labour in editing. It is a first rough draft. ... So my work is laid out. Xn. Ins. is to be finished in a hurry, and if possible finished next spring: on that I work every morning. Afternoons and evenings — some or most of them — I am to give up to reading the Brooks papers, in order to familiarize myself with the material. Perhaps it is unwise. I don't feel sure that it isn't, but it all interests me again, as I haven't been for a long time, and I feel equal to it at present. I 160 TRIALS AND VICTORIES shouldn't have taken the Biography if I hadn't felt from what I saw of the documents that it might be made an interesting book. But it is an awesome sort of thing to be admitted in this way to the sacred penetralia of a man's life." Meantime an article entitled Samuel Taylor Coleridge appeared anonymously in the September Atlantic. Other pupils of Coleridge wrote to the publishers to know who this was who could so deftly paint their teacher. Those who knew him best suspected him at once. He revealed himself in the words about reading the human face, in the gentleness of his moral judgments, in the high value put upon imagination, which he afterwards said was only the power of clear sight. As we read, "His constitution was delicate and highly organized," we think of the author of the article more than of Coleridge. He declared his love of Coleridge's verse, but more than all he bowed before his "endless suggestiveness." In all this work for the larger public he was not forgetting his first duty — the responsibility to his pupils. To a pupil whose ordination, because of his mental difficulties, now proved impossible, he wrote words of sympathy and encouragement. "I know," he said, "how great a trial it must be to you, and what a great demand it makes upon the whole man to meet it. . . . All the higher intellec- tual fields offer a sacred calling, and the opportunity for spiritual influence. ... It has been a very painful year in the Church. Suspicion and misrepresentation and accusations without grounds have been the difficulties we have had to contend with. ... I may assure you of my confidence in your powers to do a great and most useful work, even if it be not the ministry that gives you the opening. All this trial will, I am sure, in the long run prove to have been of the highest service in the develop- ment of character and disinterested sincerity. May God bless you and be with you, as indeed we know He is." So he turned a soul from bitterness. MAURICE 161 To another former pupil he wrote: m "Cambridge, November 16, 1895. .Dear • "I feel ashamed of myself in neglecting so long to write to you. Last summer I unfortunately got malaria at West Point, which made even the slightest effort a burden. Since I got back to Cambridge I have been immersed in work, writing on Xn. Ins. and reading up for the Brooks Memoir, which I never should have taken. I have also promised an article for Lyman Abbott for The Outlook — one of a series on The Prophets, as he calls them, in which Maurice figures, on whom I am to write. As I have been turning the subject over in my mind it occurred to me that your impressions of Maurice would be a help to me. I have read him so much at intervals that it is hard to disentangle him from my own thought and to present him as a distinct figure. I am inclined to fasten on: (1) His home life, the reconciliation of the father and the mother, whom he postulated as both right however they differed or contra- dicted each other; then (2) the influence of Coleridge, who passed from a sort of Pantheism to the Divine Personality, and from the predominance of the intellect to the practical con- science as revealing the Divine Will; (3) the Doctrine of the Trinity as Maurice's great dogma — and as including his doc- trine of Sacrifice; (4) retention of the Evangelical principle in his conception of the proclamation of the Gospel as a message of deliverance — which was the main substance of his preach- ing — but deliverance viewed in its world relations, as well as in individual; (5) the idea of the Divine Fatherhood as an actual relationship, antecedent to its recognition, and existing even when its moral obligations were ignored — hence his view of Baptismal Regeneration and of human sonship; (6) the prepara- tion of his work as a thinker and teacher, in his studies, espe- cially in Church History, of which he was Professor in King's College, where his teaching brought on the crisis, in his doctri- nal attitude toward endless punishment. (He not only indulged a pious hope of the restoration of all men, but he positively affirmed that the very nature of God and his relationship to the soul made the doctrine of endless punishment for any soul impossible); (7) his intellectual freedom and open hospitality 162 TRIALS AND VICTORIES to all exercise of the intellect, as always of a positive character and as representing aspects of the great reality. That word 'aspects,' which is the modern word in Church History, he was one of the first to anticipate. He seems to me to have retained the Calvinistic, which is the monistic, principle as perhaps the most influential motive in his experience — and also its supreme exaltation of the Scriptures. But how does the freedom come in, unless in and through the Incarnation, which the Calvinists did not hold, but subordinated to the Atonement ? "The only things which he seems to have hated were Pusey and his dogmatism, which he regarded as atheistic, and so of the whole sacerdotal system. " How does this strike you, and would you recognize the man? "I think you must read Coleridge's A nima Poetae, just pub- lished. Coleridge was the man from whom this whole move- ment proceeds, and one gets it most clearly in some of its features by going back to its source. It seems to me as though what was needed to-day on the part of those who are alive and think, is that they should restate for the benefit of their benighted brethren, how they come to be where they are. Why is it that we have such a profound aversion to Pusey and his dogmas ? I should say, because he shuts up God and His Revelation some- where in the distant past, making of the Church a sort of dun- geon for the human soul — from which the light is excluded or comes through narrow chinks. Maurice had the Coleridgean idea of all life as the medium of the divine revelation; and the events of life, and human experience also, as the agencies by which doctrines are exploited and seen to express the eternal aspects of the reality. "I have found it difficult to explain or account for the obscurity in Maurice's writings. One must admit the charge — so many have made it. Whatever the explanation, it did not come from lack of clear mind or clear convictions, or literary ability of expression; nor from lack of knowledge, or of having thought out processes, etc. I don't think it embarrasses those any longer who are in sympathy with his ruling ideas. Was it that the truth he saw was too complex, just as life itself is, for its easy reduction to a formula? And is there not, after all, some mysterious difficulty in the adjustment of thought and OBSCURITY OF MAURICE'S STYLE 163 reality which always requires effort? There is one standing comparison for the combination of the spiritual and intellectual life — in the outer world — that the sun should appear to the natural vision to go round the earth. It has required an effort now these 300 years — and I think always will require it — to correct the natural vision by the knowledge of the actual fact. The difficulty has entered into the construction of human language, and even our speech remains in error. "Some such comparison explains perhaps how it is that the short and easy natural mind is thrown into confusion in the theological sphere by the effort to read Maurice, who places the earth of human experience into true relations with the revealing Light of God. "I hope all this will not bore you to read. It is written too rapidly and carelessly, but if it moves you to any criticism, I shall be grateful. I hope you are enjoying your work at and are as happy as you can be, even if not quite contented, as no man ought to be. "Ever affectionately yours, "A. V. G. Allen." To this same pupil he wrote a week later: u < " Cambridge, November 24, 1895. "Thank you for your beautiful letter about the Memoir, which delighted me, but also saddened me, because I know so well my limitations — the impossibility of my realizing your expectations or ideal. But it encourages and helps me that you think I can do it. I have not begun to write yet, but am studying the materials for the picture. And I will say that it begins to stand out in my imagination in the beauty of its detail, and in the impressiveness of the grand total, as I hardly thought I should be able to see it. A biography is like a painting, or some work of art, which requires skilful treatment of lights and shades, apart from one's knowledge of the material. The first thing to do is to see the man clearly, unembarrassed by what you think you know of him. It takes time to let the minute knowledge, gained by coming into the intimacy of his life, sub- side into its proper relation. I am surprised as I study the note-books, of which he kept so many, to find how much he is 164 TRIALS AND VICTORIES contributing to his own portraiture. The whole process of his life opens up there as it does not elsewhere in his writings. He began these note-books, in which he recorded his own thoughts, observations on books, and especially on life, together with quotations which struck him, when he was in the Seminary, and he kept them up till the last year of his life. He did not put so much of himself into his correspondence. Nor in his note- books is he very subjective, as we call it. He kept no religious journal, as it used to be fashionable to do, and it would not have been like him to do so. Those religious journals were always an anomaly, for neither the reader, nor the writer himself even, is able to say whether they are intended for the eye of God alone, or whether they are so put that the public may be allowed to see them. There is a note of hollowness, or affectation, or possible insincerity, or else a note of economy, in them all, more or less from Augustine, who started them, down to our own day. " But I must not allow myself to dwell on the Memoir, or I shall begin writing it before I am ready. "Thank you for the letter on Maurice, which is just what I wanted, and has given me some things which I should have neglected. Have you ever felt the deficiency in him, that he seems to have had no love of nature? Do you know any allu- sions in his books which would show appreciation of its beauty or love of its life? I think he was shut up to the things of the spirit, and perhaps too exclusively. This was his Calvinistic inheritance. Robertson, I think, loved nature for its own sake, which not only lends richness and body to his theology, but gives him a comprehensive relation to issues in theology which Maurice neglected. I find that question of the mutual dependence of spirit and matter underlying all the institutions of the Church. "Thank you again for your beautiful and helpful letters, which are like you, and believe me, "Ever sincerely and affectionately yours, " A. V. G. Allen." Thus -he followed his pupils, giving them encouragement and trust. They were always much to him; perhaps TWO GREAT TASKS 165 they were most in these loneliest years of the middle nineties. And so the year 1895 came to a close. Towards the end of it the School lost by death one of its trustees, Governor Rice; and the financial situation was strained, in spite of Mrs. Augustus Lowell's bequest of $10,000. The year to Dr. Allen personally had been quite as hard as the two years just before it, but the task of writing the Life of Phillips Brooks was an enormous boon. What seemed a burden became an increasing joy. Day after day he lived with his friend, as never even in the beautiful past. There was tyranny of servants in the kitchen, to which he sub- mitted meekly; there was low thunder from the ecclesias- tical firmament without; but the hours of poring over Phillips Brooks's letters and journals were hours of happi- ness and peace. In them he found, as Brooks himself had told him, that God gives his good gifts for ever. The power to do returned. He was to work upon two great tasks, after finding one alone impossible; and he knew that he should accomplish them. CHAPTER XIII CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS 1896-1898 THE year 1896 opened with a new sorrow. January 10, Dr. Allen wrote to Mr. Taylor : " I got the telegram telling me that Posie was gone, at one o'clock. . . . To- night as I sit here alone in the house, I feel that your thoughts and mine are running on the same subject, that the news comes to you, as to me, an awful sorrow. It was a beautiful life, and how we loved him ! How good he was, and true, and faithful. I am thinking how the love is going out from our lives, yet perhaps it is only intensified. He will not forget his friends. . . . Well, I only meant this for my relief, — there is no one here to listen." Then, very late that night (evidently he could not sleep), he wrote to his brother: "I have a few hours to wait before starting, in which I find I can do nothing, so I write of him. We became intimate friends thirty-seven years ago, and nothing has interrupted the intimacy all that time. He was good in every pore of his being, honest, never did a mean thing in his life, true as steel in his friendship. He was rather a proud man, proud of his family; he liked riches; he thought much of the esteem of the world; yet all went for nothing compared with his interest in religion. Once a year at least during all these years we have met, and it was always a pure delight to be with him. . . . Well, you must excuse this letter." Again he wrote to the pupil with whom he had corresponded about his impressions of Maurice: "I have 166 BROWNING 167 finished and sent off the Maurice article after spending a most disproportionate amount of time on what seems like a slight effort. I had to rewrite it three times, for it was not till the last moment that I began to see clearly the man whom I thought I had known all my life. Then it dawned upon me that he was not a voice out of any age, but out of what was most distinctive in the nineteenth century, and that he must be painted with his age as a background. I also saw what never occurred to me before — that he never really struggled with the question of the miracle, which has been the crux of modern religious inquiry. But this I didn't treat in my article, for there was no space, and I couldn't have made it clear. Do you know of any place where he goes into the miraculous? He accepted the miracle of course, and had no difficulty with the Creed on that score. He tries in a letter to Hutton to show its sig- nificance. But it is evident Hutton was not satisfied. "And now as to Browning. I wish I knew more than I do. I have made many ineffectual efforts to read him. I do read him, but only now and then. If he found me, of course I should read him more. I wonder what the trouble is. There are things of his which I profoundly admire, such as Saul and The Grammarian 's Funeral. But I have a feeling that those who read and study him most seem to stop there, and take him for life itself, and study life in him and his writings, and don't do it for themselves. What one wants is the clew and motive to do what Browning does for one's self. I know several Browning men who are great in Browning Societies, but don't get any farther. He seems to satisfy them and is so inexhaustible that they go about proclaiming him; and the fresh mystery before their eyes they do not see. How far I am right in all this you will know. Perhaps it is a very wrong impression, and the men whom I am inwardly criticizing and condemn- ing might not have done as much as they have if it had not been for him. But it does not seem to me that any of 168 CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS them touches bottom for himself. And there is where a man like Coleridge comes in with an endless suggestiveness, which never satisfies, but he got glimpses all round in every direction. Browning was too comfortable and smug and enjoyed life too much as a man of the world to be the greatest prophet. Now write and tell me where I am wrong. "I had a very painful duty a week ago in saying the Church service over my oldest and best friend as he lay in his grave. His death has been a heavy blow. These things depress me, but life was meant to be cheerful, and the cheerfulness and unconscious joy of childhood is the true attitude — the truest interpretation of the two worlds. "I have just done a notice of Reville's Origines de VEpiscopat for The New World. You must read Reville's book." His older son, now fitted to be an electrical engineer, was at home for a few months awaiting an opportunity, to his father's great comfort. "I try to understand it all," Dr. Allen wrote to Mr. Taylor, "and to talk sympathetically, but, oh! how foreign it is to what has been my life work — dealing with ideas and subtle interpretations of historical experience. . . . Now I am trying to interpret 'things' and find a place for them in my system, but it is not easy. It comes too late." To a recent graduate, who was going to a distant field, where ecclesiastical panics had been known, he wrote this fall: "If you go, God keep you from being wounded in any of these bitter ecclesiastical ways which are so hard to endure and forgive and forget." Evidently he was think- ing of Nantucket once more. "I have spent the summer here in Cambridge," he wrote to his brother in August, "at work on Christian Institu- tions. I began the book de novo last November. I had to discard all I had written, for I had outgrown my earlier THE POPE ON ORDERS 169 plan. I have worked with a sense of haste. The stock of manuscript lies before me, and I hardly know what it contains or what I think of it. I would give a good deal to have you here to give a candid opinion of it." In October he delivered a lecture on Ancient Liturgies at Union Seminary. "They are prepared there for a good deal of ceremonial, I thought," he afterwards wrote, "as ready with their gowns and hoods as in our own Church. Nor are they afraid of ritual. The world is changing in that respect, towards more form in every direction, Church and State alike. It must be part of a process which means something — the effort to increase reverence and respect for institutions — a check, it may be, to revolutionary tendencies in society. ... I suppose you encounter the silver sentiment where you are: here it is almost wholly wanting. But what a grand process it has been to witness a great Nation setting itself to learn the principles of finance. It has surely its ideal, hopeful side. "Have you read the Pope's encyclical on Anglican Orders? It seemed to me as if he finally closed the Oxford Movement. It is a severe blow to High Anglicans or Ritualists, more so than they will at first perceive. It destroys their ideal and aspiration. Of late they have been drawing very close in spirit to the Holy Father (in Rome), and now he spurns them. They have no objective point, they cannot hope to remake the Anglican Church. It seems to me the only alternative now is submission to Rome or a return to Protestantism. Now perhaps things may be discussed on their merits." In The Outlook for November 7, 1896, he contributed an article on The Pope's Bull. His conclusion was that the Pope's declared attitude would help the Anglican Church because, now more than ever, so far as those who respected Rome were concerned, the argument for the validity of Anglican orders and sacraments must rest upon an inward and spiritual conviction. We shall know them by their 1 7 o CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS fruits; we shall know by an inner experience that they are valid, because they minister to our spiritual life." He wrote in November to Miss Brace, who was in Italy studying St. Francis: "You are right in thinking him a more modern man than any other of his time, or for a long time after. He has grown very much of late in the estima- tion of those who are seeking to explain the philosophical movement of history, as the greatest reformer before the Reformation. Everything seems as if it should be traced back to him. What made him great — and modern too — was his conception of doing good for good's sake, without hope of reward. All the Saints before him, the very in- spiration of the Christian Life, seem to have been doing good, or giving alms, because it would add to their treasure in heaven." Early in January, 1897, Dr. Allen wrote to Mrs. Brooks: "Life is passing while I am absorbed in this endless work, and I don't realize it. Perhaps, however, that is the way to take it, instead of trying to cultivate it as a fine art, and becoming self-conscious of the flying years. It is character- istic that I have never lived in the past, as so many of my friends incline, but always in the future. It is no pleasure to me to indulge in reminiscence." On February 16, being the four hundredth anniversary of Melanchthon's birth, he read a paper on Melanchthon to the Massachusetts Historical Society. He spoke of the succession of scholars in Germany, ending with Harnack. "In one sense," he said, "these men constitute a noble army of martyrs for a cause so high that they get no popular recognition. They constitute also a succession in the higher life of humanity which is more precious than all else besides. They stimulate and they beckon onward; they hold out a reward, the pursuit of truth for truth's sake." Dr. Gordon read the report of the speech and said what NOBLE LECTURESHIP 171 he thought of it. Dr. Allen replied immediately: "Thank you for your very kind letter, which is worth much more than anything I said about Melanchthon. . . . We must have a long talk some day, and I hope soon. You are right about the Miracle. The issue grows clearer, and it becomes the final battle-ground in theology. Harnack and most of the Ritschlian School have given it up. It bothers the students. It is very difficult to defend, and yet it is the key of theology and religious history. The whole thing goes, without it; but it need not be defended as necessary to individual piety or the soul's salvation." This spring an appeal came which instantly won his con- sent. William Belden Noble, a Harvard graduate and for a short time a member of the School, died at the beginning of his career. He had two heroes in the flesh, Bishop Brooks and Dr. Allen; and after his death his widow asked Dr. Allen to devise a memorial lectureship at Harvard which would associate Noble's name with that of Brooks. Dr. Allen put himself to eager effort to work out the con- ditions of the lectureship in a way to satisfy the University, Mrs. Noble, and his own ideals of one more means of bringing religion before intelligent youth. The work of writing the last part of Christian Institu- tions went on as the early parts of the book were going through the press. It was only on June 27 that he an- nounced to his son that the book was finished. When his brother returned the proof, he invariably sent his appre- ciative comments. "Thank you ever so much," Dr. Allen wrote, June 28, "for your encouraging words. I shall be most severely criticized for running my distinction between the 'secular' and the 'religious,' the bishop and the monastery, into the sphere of theology and the creeds. Only this would justify me in having invaded the theologi- cal sphere at all. If it had not been for my main thesis that the bishop and the monastery represent distinct phases of Christianity, which have mutually acted on each other, 172 CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS I should not have been justified in introducing theology at all. It did not dawn upon me that I was running this parallel, or that it existed so clearly until I was well under way. If I were to rewrite, I should lay it down as my thesis in the Introduction. But as it is, it ought to crop out pretty clearly. Unfortunately I have reached my limit now, and cannot work it in the worship as I should like. I have dealt with Catholic worship and ritual, and have had to let the Breviary slide with a brief mention. Really, Briggs did not know what he wanted when he asked for a book on the subject, nor did I know. It has become practically a treatise on the external aspects of Christianity, with a constant tendency to get inside to the thought and principle. It is not satisfactory to me, and I have had to omit large sections — such as Christian Art involves — with no reference to them at all. Marriage and the Family I should have done something with if I had had the space. It has been a long, tiresome job, not wholly con amore, too often perfunctory. Still you encourage me a little." In August he wrote to Mr. Taylor: "For these last months, since last November in fact, I have worked like a dog. I had no Christmas vacation, none at Easter, and since School closed in June, I have been hard at it. Now I am expecting to get away for some six weeks at Lake Champlain. . . . My brother has been here for a couple of weeks. We did together the most impressive, memorable thing in my life: we went together to Otis, where we were born. I was five years old when we left it, and had not seen it since — a beautiful village among the hills with the picturesque river, the Farmington, flowing through it. Its isolation — twelve miles from a railway station — had kept it unchanged. We went to the old Church where my father was Rector for ten years, and were in it alone for half an hour before the Service began. It too was unchanged. But we went none too soon; the feudal overlord will be there any day; they are expecting him." CHEYNE 173 To one of his pupils he wrote at this time: "Christian Institutions is printed, and the publishers wait for the fall as the fitting moment to introduce it to the world. It is far from being what I might have made it if only I could have seen the end from the beginning. One never knows what one is going to do when one sits down to make a book. You may mean to do one thing and a spirit which you can't control gets possession and drives you to do its own behest; you seem to conjure it up out of the mighty deep, and call it thought, but it is not yourself; you have invoked it, and it has come as it seems at your bidding, but not to do your bidding. You are subject to its im- pulsion. Such has been my experience. It is like daring to receive a revelation. It is not your own, it comes to you. ... I have been very much shut out from the world and shut up to myself, this last year, with hardly an hour that I could call my own. Bishop Brooks's Life will be work of a different kind, which calls one back into the world." To one of his former pupils he wrote in December: " Everything looks as if you were happy and contented in your work, and I am happy that it is so. Happiness is almost essential to doing the best work in the ministry, which is so jealous a profession that it seems to claim all the wondrous gifts of God in order to its harmonious, successful exercise. But one never loses the need of constant care and watchfulness. . . . We are having a treat here at present in Canon Cheyne who is delivering the Lowell Lectures on the Post-Exilic Age of Jewish History. He is the type of the scholar through and through: he might have stood for Browning's Grammarian. But how radical he is, and what a world gulf now separates us from the old way of studying Jewish History. The scapegoat, which once entered so largely into Evangelical experience, he treated with peculiar contempt, dismissing it as a late and discreditable imitation of some low, obscure savage i 7 4 CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS ritual. He told me that he had been brought up an Evangelical. A number of Jews were in his audience, some of whom seem to have been offended by his treat- ment of the scapegoat and left the hall. ... I am glad the Lambeth Conference should have taken such a just view of the Higher Criticism." He was not content even with the vast amount of material for the Memoir, but sought information right and left. He set down on paper questions he wished answered about Brooks's college life: "Was he ambitious? Why did he drop off in his studies after the Freshman Year? Was he in revolt against authority as some young men of powerful will and personality were — was there anything of Shelley in his make up? Was he a hard student in his own way or line? Was there anything exceptional about him — any eccentricity such as goes with genius? Why didn't they recognize his power, or didn't he show it? Would they call him religious? How about his oratory, his appearance ? How did he recite in the class room? Did any one influ- ence him in the faculty? When they first heard him, how did he impress them — could they trace his power to college days and see then what they didn't see at the time? Did he show any philosophical capacity?" Miss Alice Smith of Mt. Vernon street, during a long illness had been constantly visited by Dr. Brooks, after as well as before his bishopric, and Dr. Allen was told what valuable material she must have stored in her memory, for her own brilliancy had drawn out his. "Thank you, very much," Dr. Allen wrote to her this fall, "for the trouble you took in getting for me the remarks of Bishop Brooks on the subject of restricting immigration." Writing to his brother, he said, December 30: "As to Harnack, I don't see why I should have used him more in Christian Institutions. I have referred to him often enough to show my respect. Without saying so, I am fighting Harnack's whole theory of the Church and its history. CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS 175 What he calls secularization of the Church, I am presenting as a true, if not the highest, phase of Christianity. Har- nack cannot get over the idea that Luther stands for Christianity, and that his experience is universally repre- sentative. I incline to the Anglican type of Reformation, which Harnack in his heart despises." The year 1898 was marked by the more serious criticism of Christian Institutions. Most of the reviews are worth- less, and not one is really good. A few men, competent to judge Dr. Allen's intricate estimate of one period, reviewed the book; but the men who have reflected on the details of the long process of Christian development are few. Such men found in Dr. Allen's book too much both to appreciate and to question to be willing to speak at once. Almost all the more nearly adequate reviews mistook the scope of the book. It was not intended to be an account of the facts of Christian history: those were assumed, as modern historical scholarship has revealed them. What Dr. Allen was concerned to do was to reveal the inner meaning of the changes through which the three great institutions of the Church had passed — the officers, the creeds, the worship. He left it to others to define institu- tions; what he wished to show was what aspects of the human spirit were declared in them. Christian Institutions is a book open to very serious criticisms. A book so daring, covering speculations about the inner reasons for so much in Christian history, could not fail in many places to be fanciful. The best word to use for the book is the word Dr. Allen liked for Coleridge: it is suggestive. It opens the imagination. Some scholars would feel that Dionysius the Areopagite has too large a place, and many would begrudge to the heathen mysteries so large an influence upon the Christian cultus. But all through the book one catches one's breath with awe before the inevitable reaching out of the human soul for God 176 CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS through the diverse means of Christian Institutions. The book is full of personal experience. It was written in tragic and lonely years. It speaks sometimes of fatigue. It is no glib marshalling of facts. It assumes them for the most part, and from the depths of life's mystery asks what man means, what God means, by the outward manners of a divinely guided human history. "I have not read Dr. McGifTert's book through," he wrote in January, "but here and there I have turned to its chapters. I feel the force of your criticism. It is a strong, scholarly book: there can be no doubt of that; and it is honest and courageous. But as a presentation of Chris- tianity, it is thin and rather bloodless. It goes upon the supposition that the New Testament tells the whole story, and it does not seek to interpret the New Testament by the later life of the Christian Church, which is after all a commentary, and the best commentary, upon it. I fan- cied a tendency in it to make St. Paul the highest and last test of Christian teaching. But there were other aspects of the revelation which St. Paul did not enforce. I couldn't quite agree with his presentation of the Resurrection or his treatment of the Lord's Supper. But I have a high opinion of McGifTert's ability. "By this time you will have read Canon Gore's criticism on Christian Institutions. It was rather hard on that gentle Johannine soul to have to read through such a book, which contradicts root and branch all of the naive presup- positions in theology as he has received it from Pusey; or history as he has learned it from Newman, whose interpre- tation of the ancient Church and of the ecclesiastical out- look is to him the last word and the rock on which he builds. But Canon Gore has the defects of the Johannine tempera- ment — the flashes of indignation at being disturbed in his reveries. So it was pretty hard to have to read the book through, in order to review it. "I am glad that I am busy and absorbed with another DANGER IN SOLIDARITY 177 piece of work, so that I sometimes feel as if Christian Institutions were no business of mine. And yet I would gladly have had it otherwise; I would like for once to have written something that would please the Churchmen, and have the bishops smile on me. Sometimes I feel like com- plaining that these other men in the Church don't do something. But they stand off and look on, not without sympathy I suppose, but they keep quiet, and leave me to do the fighting alone. However, there is a sort of fate about these things. The occult influences and conjunc- tions of stars in the ecclesiastical horizon when I was born were Tract XC and Newman's perversion. I have been watching that thing all my life. It has tended to destroy the freedom of the Church. My sin is in putting my hand on the weak spot, and crying, See here! It is one of Dr. Hort's remarks that so many great truths in historical religion are so often identified with what is false and absurd." At the regular Sunday service at Appleton Chapel, March 20, 1898, Dr. Allen inaugurated the Noble Lectures at Harvard by preaching on " The Message of Christ to the Individual Man." The lecture was published the following autumn with the other lectures in the course, under the title, The Message of Christ to Manhood. The Easter number of the New York World contained a symposium on The Religious Outlook of the Twentieth Century, by Bishop Westcott, Bishop Huntington, Cardinal Gibbons, Dr. Allen, and others. Though Dr. Allen found the close of the century marked by heroic sacrifice of money and men to spread the faith in Christ, and though he found Biblical and historical criticism purifying Chris- tianity of false accretions and popular misinterpretations, he also found the principle of solidarity pushed to a dangerous extreme, "weakening the sense of personal responsibility and limiting individual freedom. The ideas of God and immortality have thus been temporarily weakened as motives of life." Then touching the subject 13 i 7 8 CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS of Church unity he went on: "The divisions of Christen- dom engender great evils, but they also prevent the domination of the State by the Church, and for this end are not too great a price to pay. There is here also a certain guarantee for individual freedom. . . . Christian unity based upon a solidarity of numbers and of power would be a misfortune." The Rev. A. E. Whatham, a clergyman of the Church of England, working in Quebec, thinking and writing of many of the questions dwelt upon in Christian Institutions, turned to Dr. Allen for guidance as soon as he had read the book. He was typical of the large number of thoughtful persons who in these years wrote to Dr. Allen for such help. Instantly Dr. Allen pushed aside the mass of ma- terial for the Brooks biography that covered his desk and wrote his careful answers. "The doctrine of the Kenosis," he wrote to Mr. Whatham, one day in March, "is too vast to touch upon. I do not feel sure that the present contro- versy on the subject will lead to results of any positive value. It is not with me a starting-point in endeavouring to determine the personality of Christ. I think that He was growing into the divine from the human point of view ever more and more — into its omnipotence and omnis- cience as well as into its moral attributes. But I assume that Christ knew what He meant to do, what He came into this world for, and knew it all when He began to preach." In April he wrote to Mr. Taylor: "What fools our con- gressmen are making of themselves. It reminds me of Gambier on a small scale. It is becoming more and more evident that personal government will ultimately be called for. Congress is becoming a nuisance and an injury to the country. I think on the whole is the biggest fool of them all. He has his eye on the Presidency, but he will never get it. He irritates me more than the others. Most of them are turkey gobblers, strutting for public admiration. THE BIOGRAPHER'S METHOD 179 But as to the war, I am inclined to think it must and ought to come, unless Spain gets out of Cuba; and she can hardly do that with dignity. There is in it all this essence of an inevitable conflict. . . . My article is in the World of April 3. It is rather disgusting to be in such a paper with fine company on one side and ballet dancers on the other. The good and wise New York Nation read us a sharp lecture on the subject." "Next week," he wrote, at the end of May, " I give my last lecture in the School for the year, and then I am in for another hard summer's work on the Brooks Memoir. Where I shall go I don't know. Probably I shall stay in Cam- bridge and work through July and August. . . . Jack is now drilling every day in one of the College companies. He wears a cowboy hat and white gloves and really looks medium fierce." To a pupil who was undertaking a biography he wrote words of counsel which defined his own method: "You may be tempted, as I have been, to try to say everything at once, but it is a mistake. Let the subject grow, as it will, with a deep motive and purpose in view. Instead of say- ing, I will show what a man is and can do who has such and such convictions, it is better to let the man appear for himself, making only such allusions as are necessary; and then when the man has appeared, show why he was strong by summing it all up with reference to the great motive. And if you can avoid it — which is difficult — don't be anxious to show what he didn't believe. That will come out in his life. It is all like painting a picture, and depends on how you put in the touches of the brush. You want to browse over some things till you see their meaning and how they can be used with effect. One doesn't always see the significance of an event or statement at the first glimpse. One wants to get inside the life of a man and study it from within, and then act as interpreter. The ideal estimate is always the truest, and a biographer should be full of 180 CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS enthusiasm. But excuse all this. ... I have been here in the Adirondack^ trying to recuperate after a good deal of hard work." In September he wrote again to this pupil: "I have just returned to Cambridge. The prospect for the School is good. Some twenty men are enrolled for entrance in the Junior Class. This for us is large." This period from 1896 to 1898 saw changes both of loss and gain in the School. The end of each year had its appeal for necessary money. In 1897 Mr. W. H. Lincoln was elected a trustee, and in 1898 two trustees died, Judge Bennett and Mr. Fay. Mrs. Gray this year gave the Deanery in memory of Dean Gray, and Mr. Paine became president of the board. The vacancies were filled in 1899 by the election of Mr. Horace E. Scudder and Mr. W. C. Endicott. In addition to his School work Dr. Allen was working hard upon the Memoir. One September afternoon Mr. Brush came into his study to find him surrounded with all the Brooks note-books. "I have just found an illuminat- ing sentence in a letter," said Dr. Allen, "and I am reading all the note-books in the light of it." November 10, he wrote to his son, "There is no news here, except that I am awfully lonely most of the time these days." Pupils, past and present, stayed him these lonely, driv- ing years. "I sometimes think," wrote a man just gradu- ated, "that I am the only one my preaching is saving so far. I sit down to write a vague idea about some truth taught by the Incarnation. And, almost without excep- tion, when that sermon is finished I see deeper into the wonderful depth of the Christ. I more and more see what you told me is in the message of the Father and the Son — 'endless richness and variety.'" For such response the life of a teacher was infinitely worth while. In his note- book he put down this fall the saying of Jowett: "Any one who labours among young men will reap his reward in an affection far beyond his deserts." PERSONAL REVELATION 181 The note-book for this period covers chiefly biographies, which he was reading to test his own methods. A few extracts will show characteristics of his methods and thought: '"Nothing can bring peace but the triumph of principles.' — Emerson. This is untrue, dangerous. It is in following it that Puritanism becomes a danger to the country. The English have hardly a principle, but more peace than we." "Pusey's Life: vol. iv. These are the pages containing remarks I may wish to refer to: pp. 60, 89, 99, 102, 161, 172, 207, 214, 218, 224, 231, 235, 257, 361." "Ventura said, 'If the Church keeps not pace with the world, the world will go beyond and turn around and teach her.' This is illustrated in the age before Hildebrand, when the State first rose, and then turned and helped up the Church." But the most distinct revelation of these years is after all in Christian Institutions. There he had spoken of "the fellowship of human souls bound together by the tie of love, which is both human and divine." Again he must have thought of himself as he wrote, "In this emergency of the soul there was no man that could help him." "Personal conviction," he said on another page, "which is only another name for private judgment, does not mean that a man picks and chooses what he likes, but that he allows the stream of human experience to flow through his soul and produce its legitimate result. ... If a man would know what he believes, he must know what the Church has believed in every age and the ground on which its belief has rested." Forced to suffer as never before, he felt as few have felt the disgraces of history. It was with profound meaning that he would introduce the reference to some shabby ecclesiasticism with the words, "It is still painful to recall." And out of the depths he had looked to the hills whence his help had come; for he spoke of "the vision by which 182 CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS each soul may see Christ for himself through direct and immediate communion with the Spirit of God, that Spirit whose testimony within the soul is the supreme authority and ground of certitude, who takes of the things of Christ and reveals them to men with fresh power and new con- viction." These expressions of his inner life he could not have uttered directly. In the pages of a book his reserve found a confessional. CHAPTER XIV THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS 1899-I9OI I AM now working steadily at the Memoir," Dr. Allen wrote to his brother, January 2, 1899. "It will be in two large octavo volumes of some 600 pages each. The first volume is considerably more than done, i.e., will have to be cut down. I am now some way in the second." On February 24 he wrote again to his brother: "What a time they are having in England over the Ritualists! It has come at last, and I think it means they must go. We have waited a long time for it, these dreary years, and it strengthens my faith in a divine order. That Romanism should be at liberty to remake the English Church was too much. I don't believe the movement will decline in vehemence till it has accomplished its work. Nor do I believe there is much danger in disestablishment. I attrib- ute the movement in part to the Memoirs of Manning and of Pusey, and to the Pope's Encyclical on Anglican Orders and to the rise of the national spirit since Gladstone's failure and the coming in of the Tories. It will gradually affect this country, because we take our cue from England. The Roman Catholic reaction at last is over. It has been a mean thing ever since the days of Dr. at Otis. Father suffered from it. . . . As to Imperialism, I think we must make up our minds to it. It will be costly and give us no end of anxiety and trouble. It is going to revolutionize America, so that it will never again be quite 183 184 THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS the same country with the same old watchwords. But there may be compensations: agitations for protective tariffs, free silver, woman's suffrage, prohibition, Irish ques- tions, labour and capital, sectional antipathies — these may lose their prominence; which will be a gain. Govern- ment is an artificial thing, and a country needs some interest in life, apart from plodding duties. I find mine in reading The Boston Transcript, and pottering about little improve- ments in the house. The American Congress may find it in managing the Filipinos, and learn to leave the other issues to take care of themselves." Miss Alice Smith, from her invalid's room in Mt. Vernon street, continued to give him help for the Memoir. And her sister, Miss Paulina, added her remembrance of the Bishop. The acquaintance thus begun ripened into friend- ship, and it came to be Dr. Allen's custom to spend part of each Saturday afternoon at this pleasant house, talking of Bishop Brooks, and then of theology in general. They came to speak of the afternoons as seminars : and he him- self named the event Law's Serious Call. "The Memoir goes on steadily," he wrote, July 17; "I have just revised the typewritten copy of the first volume, and it is ready for the press, but I have found weak spots in it, which I have not time to correct. I have told the story as best I could. The public will feel that they have not quite got the man, that there is some unexplained element in his personality and will not accept my expla- nations. But it is better not to try to explain, and some- times I wish I had not attempted it at all." The temptation to turn aside continued. The most beguiling was the urging of Mr. Scudder and Mr. Perry to review Dr. Munger's Bushnell, in The Atlantic, making it an excuse for another chapter in his New England Theology. But he had strength to say No. His pupils he did not resist. They came to see him, and he talked Brooks with them, drawing out their immaturity to find how Brooks SUMMER WORK 185 had won them. An old pupil wrote that he was reading Continuity for the tenth time. Another pupil was invited to spend a Sunday with him at Sharon with friends they had in common. Dr. Allen had gone to the early service at Christ Church, expecting to join his friends in Sharon in time for a service in the village church. He did not come till afternoon, explaining that, missing his train, he had gone to a Baptist church in Boston. ''Very strange, these Baptists," he said; "the minister illustrated his text by hollyhocks. He had planted two beds, single and double. The seed of the double blew over into the bed of the single, and next season they all came up double; so that the single hollyhock might say, ' It is no longer I that live, but the double hollyhock liveth in me.'" It was like him to be adding to his knowledge of human varieties. His younger son having been graduated from Harvard, and being out in the world, Dr. Allen was now quite alone. In August, he wrote: "I have invited Mr. Winthrop Scud- der, a nephew of Mr. Horace Scudder, to spend the coming year at 2, Phillips Place. I think I shall find it an agreeable arrangement. I want some one with me in the house. . . . I go up every night to Arlington Heights, get my dinner there, go to bed about 8.30; get up at 6 and break- fast at 6.30, getting down to Cambridge about 7.15. I think I make better progress in consequence on the book." He wrote in September to Mr. Taylor, who was to make him a visit for a day, urging him not to come until after- noon that the morning might be free for the book. It shows how strictly he gave himself to his task, that even his closest friend was shut out. "You will excuse me I know," he said. "The first volume goes to press this week, and a large part of the second volume remains yet to be written." In December he had still four chapters to do. An old 186 THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS pupil had heard that he meant to pass over Brooks's epis- copate lightly, and appealed for space, because a great bishop satisfied the imagination. "As to bishops," Dr. Allen wrote him, this month, "you and I understand it perfectly. They are the supernatural element in the P. E. Church, just as revivals and conversions are among the sects. Ours would be a tame colourless Church without them, with nothing to strike the popular imagination. As it is, they canonize the commonplace, but they may do more — canonize good common sense. As angels they should not soar high, for we want them in reach of the people, with a Christianity that can be understood. And as a rule they are good men. They must be if they would give the supernatural impression. The people cannot long be deceived on that point. and were fail- ures, contradicting the first principles of Episcopacy, 'blameless ... of good behaviour . . . patient, not a brawler' (i Tim. iii). Now and then a mistake is made and a novice gets into the office, with a fearful danger — 'being rifted up with pride, he fall into condemnation of the devil.' What the bishop must have is a good heart, and my experi- ence is that this gradually enlarges the mind, or becomes a substitute for mental activity and insight. Now and then we have that rarest of sights — the great man in the office — that was Brooks." Having written all this, he did not send the letter. He was apt to write long letters: and then for some reason fail to send them. Perhaps he thought this one would lessen the respect of his pupil for his particular bishop. December 29 was the ninetieth birthday of Professor Park, of Andover; and Dr. Allen was invited to join with his other friends in writing to him on that day. In speak- ing of his debt to Dr. Park, he said: "It is good for a young man to come reverently and in a devout and docile spirit to learn from a teacher who commands his respect and admiration, not to criticize but to receive in glad submis- CHARACTER OF BROOKS 187 sion. A great part of our best training comes through admiration and affection for the teacher. Such a teacher is very rare, coming but once in an age, and such a teacher you were to us." The end of 1899 found the first volume of the Memoir in plates, and the second volume was nearly done. But there had been delays with the publishers. There were also the inevitable discussions with members of the family over omissions of personal matters, and though the family were considerate and open to conviction, the pleas for a full story consumed time. One gets a vision of the enormous expenditure of heart and mind which Dr. Allen put into this biography. Dr. Allen felt keenly the difficulty of his work. "Brooks is a hard character to treat," he wrote this winter to Bishop Lawrence, "because of that double personality." When Brooks dealt hard blows against people, Dr. Allen under- stood. But Brooks's boisterous merriment over his saints shocked his biographer. The men were quite different in this respect; but the real reason for the jocularity Dr. Allen did not understand, because he had never been the shepherd of a great flock. Had he received day by day the confessed troubles of many souls, had he given his sympathy till the troubles became his own, he would have known that he would have to rattle on with badinage in familiar intercourse even to the threshold of the church, else his own heart would break. The people to whom men trust their souls, as Lincoln, must have a safety valve. Dr. Allen was a shepherd of souls, but the multitude did not look to him for guidance. And the Puritan strain, faint as it was, marked him. It amused him that Mrs. Brooks said to her son, "Phillips, not so much noise: remember, it is Sunday." In his heart his biographer wished to say it too. It was an "unexplained element " in his hero: frivolity and the hush of God came, he thought, too close. 188 THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS During the fall of 1899 Dr. Allen had been excused from lecturing to his classes, while he gave himself altogether to the effort to finish the Life in the hope that it might be out for Christmas. But it was in vain. Another year of con- tinuous work was before him, before the book could be issued. So, in January, 1900, he began his work in the School again. "It seemed natural, easy, and delightful," he wrote in his diary. He was on the side of the German Emperor against the Pope in the discussion on the beginning of the twentieth century. He held that it had begun. " The true analogy," he wrote, "is the life of a man, which begins with zero." The turning of the century appealed to his imagination, and he wrote of it again and again in his letters this year. To the outsider Dr. Allen's life seemed uneventful. To those who knew him intimately it seemed full of action. Every moment now had to be planned for; and he wrote his son that he had to be in training as if he were an athlete, so that he could do the greatest amount of work in a given time. Moreover the opportunity to touch the world at different points seemed unlimited. On a single morning (January 16) the post brought him five invitations: to make the chief address at the 150th anniversary of the banishment of Edwards from Northampton; to write an article on Martineau for The Atlantic; to dine with a small group of distinguished men in Boston; to preach in Hartford; to share in the dedication of Brooks House at Harvard. And yet the neighbours pitied him, because he seemed to them a secluded scholar, with no chance to face the issues of everyday life. Not the busiest of them had his chance to speak either directly or through the printed page to his time. Even The Continuity, out for sixteen years, had sold 108 copies during the last half year. "I wonder," he said, "who buys it." In June he read his paper at Northampton on The Place of Edwards in History, THE INFALLIBLE CHRIST 189 which was published with the other papers of the day in a volume entitled Jonathan Edwards: a Retrospect. In spite of this larger opportunity, it was the individual of whom he was thinking. The wheels would stop, while he wrote a letter to a perplexed questioner, pupil or stranger. "My criticism," he wrote to a man who had put to him his views of Christ, "springs from an innate deep unwillingness to allow for a moment that Christ changed His mind about His mission to the world. I assume that He knew what He came for, and worked and taught and lived directly to this end. I prefer to assume that His disciples did not under- stand Him always, and so represented Him as saying things which do not do Him full justice, or make Him seem con- tradictory in His utterances. In other words, between an infallible Christ and an infallible book, I always choose the former." One of the people who gave him most assistance this last year of the preparation for the Memoir was the Rev. Reuben Kidner, who had been associated with Phillips Brooks in Trinity Church. For love of both men Mr. Kidner sought out difficult information which Dr. Allen could not pause to find. He made the index also. " Thank you," he wrote to Mr. Kidner in February, "for allowing me to read Dr. 's letter. He is right in speaking of the collapse of Unitarianism when Brooks came to Boston. But others speak of the collapse of that phase of Orthodox Puritanism which Dr. represents. He is profoundly right in maintaining that the doctrine of forgiveness of Christ is of the inmost essence of the Gospel and lies also at the root of Christian civilization. Brooks accepted this as profoundly true; but he was an Anglican, not a Puritan. He maintained that all mankind has been redeemed. From the Anglican point of view, Orthodox Puritanism and Roman Catholicism share in common the stupendous error of denying virtually the Atonement of Christ, because denying the actuality of its effect — a redeemed humanity. i 9 o THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS They agree that the world in which we live is still a lost and ruined world. What the world wanted in Brooks's day was the reality, and he brought it. And how the world did listen to him! He had but one sermon, as he said: 'You are saved of God by nature and by grace. Rise up and claim your heritage with all its possibilities. Stand up before God, and acknowledge yourselves children of the Eternal Father."' Of all helpers, however, Bishop Lawrence proved the most valuable. To no one did he write so freely about the Life; and the hardest problems, especially about parts to be omitted, were submitted to him. "When the book is fin- ished," Dr. Allen said to the Bishop, "I want to have a talk with you and to tell you many things which will make the story clearer." Dr. Allen remained in Cambridge all summer, hoping to finish the work by September. Then the printers mislaid a large quantity of the manuscript, and could not find it for a month. Even so, he hoped to be done with the work when school opened. But it was not till November 21, 1900, that he wrote in his diary: "On this day I wrote the words 'The End' to the last page of MS. for the Life of Phillips Brooks. It is three years and two months since I sat down in the parlour at Harry's table and began the first chapter. But I was alone and no one with me as I wrote the end." December 15, he wrote: "Mr. Coolidge of the Riverside Press called at 8 a.m. and left the first bound copy of the Life of Phillips Brooks." The biogra- phy was out for the Christmas of 1900. "The book will sell, I think, " he wrote to his son, in De- cember, "but they hold it at a high price. The first edition of 5000 copies is already taken, although the book is not yet on the shelves of the book-shops. There is a large paper edition in five volumes. That is to be given to me by Mr. Robert Treat Paine, finely bound. He is also sending a copy to Her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain CRITICISM OF BROOKS'S BIOGRAPHY 191 and Empress of India. Well, well! . . . Now that I am through I do not know what to do with myself. It is hard to catch at anything. They say there is some danger of relapse after such long tension. If there is, I don't know what can be done to prevent it." To Mr. Learoyd he wrote three days later: "The book is done, the struggle is over. I have not done just what I meant to do. But it was impossible to do it, when I was locked up in type as fast as I proceeded. However, it is done after a fashion, and that is something. It will be out next week." The evening of December 10 found Dr. Allen with Dr. Munger and Mr. Scudder in Concord speaking on Dr. Mulford. It was the fifteenth anniversary of his death. He concluded his speech with a eulogy on the missionary. "One good thing about the German Emperor," he said, "is that he believes in God and Germany and missions. He will put the whole state at the defense of one solitary missionary. Germany has much to teach us. Do you suppose that the Emperor would have let the Pope say that German orders were invalid?" Immediately, with the new year of 1901, letters of grati- tude for the Life of Brooks began to come to Phillips Place. They gave Dr. Allen intense pleasure. The Cleri- cus Club gave a dinner to him at the Union Club, January 7, and Bishop Brooks's more intimate friends made warm- hearted speeches of thanks, to which the guest of honour made response at the end. Dr. Huntington's contribution was a poem. "It was like sitting down in the Kingdom of Heaven," the Rev. Augustine Amory said afterwards. The judgment of the world at large — which was promptly given in both England and America in papers and reviews — was first of all on the great length of the book. The English, forgetting the four ponderous tomes of Dr. Pusey's Life, were especially contemptuous of 1 92 THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS American prolixity. The Scotch said that, trying to honour his hero, the author had buried him under a pyramid. Many, too, on both sides of the ocean felt the invariable atmosphere of praise. "On every page," said an Ameri- can review, "are heard the trumpets and shawms." This, said some in disgust, is not the life of a man, but of a god. "Brooks," said a fiery New York rector, "if he were alive, would put the book in the fire." The book is open fairly to both criticisms: it is long; it is unbounded appreciation, without a line of criticism. The author knew both defects, when he wrote the book. But he was writing under compulsion in more ways than one. "What you say about him," he said to Dr. Gordon, "is profoundly true: we suppress the critical tendency when we think of him. I found I must do it, in order to get my freedom, trusting to a certain instinct to guide me, as to what should be inserted or rejected." The severest judges of books among American journals, The Nation and The Atlantic, had only unqualified appre- ciation in their long reviews. And the dictum of Dr. Abbott in The Outlook — "The book of a genius by a genius" — made an impression. But the busy multitude fretted itself over the 1600 full pages, and was scornful. It is worth while, however, to cite a few of the personal letters to see what it did for capable and patient critics at the time. "It is inconceivable," said Dr. Donald, of Trinity, "that it could have been done so well. . . . Very likely some folk may fault you for giving so copious extracts from the Note-Books, but in my judgment you have thereby shown your rare competence to write the Life. . . . The Note- Books and the chapter on his theology together would alone make the Life notable. . . . But I should not be quite frank did I not regret a defect in the book. It would have been better had something been said of B's limita- tions. He had them. He was contemptuous of mediocrity, LITERARY ESTIMATE 193 of dignitaries, and of ritual beauty. He had a splendidly violent temper, and he was not sympathetic with certain valuable phases of the work scientific men are doing. If these had been given a place, his innumerable shining gifts and achievements and virtues would look both more human and more real." That is a good letter. But Dr. Allen was under the spell of Brooks, and he wrote as he had to write. A keen pupil, comforting him, reminded him that it is only the appreciative books that live: the contemporary reviewers of Boswell would be ridiculous reading now, he said, if they could be got out from under the dust of years. This man knew that Dr. Allen had deliberately chosen Boswell as his model. Distinctly literary judges gave their verdict. "I thank you," wrote Dr. Weir Mitchell, "for a life picture which must, I think, rank with the few competent histories of a great man. . . . Your book ought to be in a number of handy octavos. It will live." It had been one of Dr. Allen's dreams that sometime the book might be printed in eight or ten little volumes — in this respect, too, like Boswell's Johnson — so that a theo- logical student, going on a journey, might tuck a volume in his pocket — any volume at random — and find food for thought of the ministry that should be his at last. At the Commencement dinner in June, Dr. Allen explained that he had not written the book for the general public, it was for theological students. Dr. Mitchell's suggestion, therefore, touched a familiar and cherished hope. Mrs. Deland gave her estimate. "It is a great biogra- phy," she wrote, "a noble book, a wonderful piece of work! Little by little, with one powerful stroke after another, you have drawn on this great canvas the living man — more ! the living soul! One thing I question: was it absolutely impossible to suggest that dreadful and heart-breaking ex- perience with Mr. ? If you remember, that was an 14 i 9 4 THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS awful winter; his sermons, especially in the autumn, stand out in my memory with the cruel distinctiveness of suffer- ing. It seemed to me his head whitened, and his shoulders bent that winter. No doubt you are right, and it could not have been spoken of without too much pain to others; yet it certainly was one of the critical times in his life." The letters for which Dr. Allen cared most came from his pupils. For had he not written for them most of all? "The increasing greatness of your book," said one, ''lies in your love for your unknown reader, that you have taken such infinite pains to tell him concretely and exactly how noble a life man can live. It is like that love of Brooks for his congregation of which you speak. It is what saves us all. It is Justification by Faith, isn't it? " These seem to have been the words which he most wished to hear, for he replied: "No other letter gave me such pleasure as those two you wrote me on my Life of Brooks. They were hardly letters to be acknowledged in any formal way, and even now I cannot tell you the deep satisfaction and inward delight they gave me. Oh! why is it that we cannot speak out and say what we feel? Well! it is this New England reserve which we inherit. Brooks got rid of it in the pulpit, but never outside the pulpit. And so it is such a pleasure to me when it is broken to say to you, that there never was any one here in the School to whom my heart went out as it did to you, in those well-remem- bered days." He wrote to his son in May: "Last week I engaged my passage on the Ivernia, for July 6, to be gone a year and three months. Then — this Sunday morning — there came a letter from President Hadley, saying that Yale University proposed to confer on me the degree of D.D. at the 200th anniversary of the college, which is to be the greatest occasion in its history, the 2 2d of October. So there I am. To go away to Europe looks like underestimating the honour. I hold the degree from A SUMMER IN CANADA 195 Harvard, and to hold it also from Yale would please me, for it would show that I had done what I had always tried to do — meet the conservative and the progressive attitude. Nothing must be said about this, but you can tell me what you think." Four days later he wrote to Dr. Hadley that he would accept the degree. To Miss Brace he wrote in June: "I have challenged the great world with a big book devoted to religion, when it is accustomed to small books, and prefers that even these should be introduced with a meek apology, when they relate to the religious life. I have also taken it for granted that a man in his simple manhood is more important than a movement or a school of thought. The movement, like the ' Evangelical ' or the 'Oxford,' may pass and be forgotten, but the man remains a permanent interest and influence, if he is really great." At the Commencement of the School, June 17, Dr. Allen had a strange sense of loneliness in the thought that he should not be part of its life for more than a year. The trustees arranged that his work should be taken by J. W. Suter and H. B. Washburn, 1 two of his former pupils. He put away his more personal belongings, and turned his house over to Mr. Winthrop Scudder. In the blazing heat of a day in mid- July, he fled to North Hatley, in Canada, a place as he said to Mr. Taylor, suited to his genteel impecuniosity. The place reminded him of Windermere, with its lake, its hills, and its rain. There were many visitors from the south, but he struck a Cana- dian vein when he first arrived. "I found it difficult," he said, "to get on with them, for we seemed to have nothing in common until I resorted to asking all conceivable ques- tions about their country. Then I became interested. I could now deliver a lecture on French Canada. I have done a large amount of reading." 1 Mr. Washburn was elected Dr. Allen's successor in the Chair of Church History in August, 1908. 196 THE LIFE OF PHILLIPS BROOKS "I had intended leaving here long before this," he wrote, in August, "but an interesting family has turned up — the Brintons from Philadelphia. Dr. Brinton is professor of anatomy and surgery. He refuses to read, so now for a week we have sat and talked all day on the piazza, and the stream of talk is far from exhausted. If it gives out, I shall leave at once. He is curious about many points in theology, and I have my reprisals in drawing him out on medicine and surgery. I don't know which displays the more deplorable ignorance." A month later, he reported a journey up the Saguenay. "For two hours," he wrote, "the panorama went on; then came sunset, and the sun looked at us through the gorge in the mountains with an indescribable splendour, and, as it set, it lit up the dark mountains and the surface of the river with such exquisite combinations of colour never seen before, that we were held entranced in the hour before the vision faded. But just to think of that wonderful spectacle taking place there every day at sunset with no one to witness it; for it was an exceptional thing, owing to the tide, that we encountered it. But there it is, a revelation it seemed to me, of the glory of heaven itself, or what one pictures heaven might be. And it followed us so long, as if it were anxious to stamp the picture so that it should never fade from memory. Then the night began to come on, as we passed the two great mountains, two thousand feet high from the level of the river and two thousand feet below. They have called them Trinity and Eternity. They rise straight up, solid masses of granite. As we passed them in the rapid current, no one spoke: they seemed to command silence and awe as the only possible tribute. After that we went on for two hours more till we came to the mouth of the solemn river where it enters the St. Lawrence. Ah well, it was worth coming to Canada for. I wonder if all this sounds like an effort of fine writing." THE YALE DEGREE 197 Reaching home, Dr. Allen wrote: " Percy Browne lies at the point of death. I went to the house in Roxbury this morning, and said the Commendatory Prayer, as he lay unconscious. He may possibly live through the day. Mrs. Browne wants me to take charge of arrangements, so I remain here till after the funeral." Immediately, then, he went to Glen Loch, to be for three weeks with his brother. "Last Sunday," he wrote, October 16, "I preached for the first time in more than a year. Now the news has just come that the General Convention has rejected the proposed Canon on Divorce, for which I am thankful and take courage. It would have hurt the Church and society as well, and the highest interests of religion and morality would have been alike imperilled. The position is a difficult one, but the proposed canon was not the right way out." In October, he received his degree from Yale. As he was honoured on Harvard's greatest day, so the honour from Yale came on its highest festival. He was frankly pleased. "I sail next Tuesday, October 29," he wrote to Mr. Learoyd, "and go direct to Paris. Think of me then, my dear friend, for a moment, for I shall be grateful for the remembrance. Our ranks are growing smaller. May God bless and protect us all." CHAPTER XV ROME 1901 - 1902 THE year abroad became practically a year in Rome. As he saw the history of the centuries in Rome, Dr. Allen felt that all his life had been a preparation for comprehending its meaning. On the ship he set himself to review Scudder's Life of Lowell for The Atlantic. "Lowell to me," he said, "is not interesting and never was. There is a crudeness about him, affectation, desire for smartness, and some vanity. These things waited on his youth and never quite deserted him. The great art in writing is to say things in the very simplest way possible and trust to what you have to say to make an impression." During the voyage, too, the Yale Commemoration was running in his mind. He spoke of interesting talks with Bishop Potter, who clung to him all through the occasion. He was pleased and grateful, ingeniously explaining, "It is a peculiarity of bishops that they do not like to be alone." "I was constantly thinking," he added, "of the difference between Harvard and Yale. Yale is democratic, religious, institutional; Harvard is aristocratic, literary, individual- istic; but both of them are idealistic in an emphatic Puritan way." From Paris, he wrote in November: "I was in the Catacombs last Saturday and cannot get the picture out of my mind — thousands and thousands of human skulls ranged in rows along the narrow passage. All the time the AT AVIGNON 199 words kept recurring of the Good Shepherd 'who calleth them all by name.' It was hard to believe the words there." At Avignon he deepened his acquaintance with the half- dozen popes associated with it. "When I lecture on John XXII again," he said, "it will be much more to the point." The old monastery at Cannes took him back to the fifth century. "It is so wonderfully beautiful all about here," he wrote, "that even the monks of Lerins must have had poetry in them when they wrote what so many regard as the savage, fiendish Athanasian Creed. It must be possible to put some interpretation upon it which makes it poetic and free. Then there is the endless charm of this tideless sea, which is the centre of the whole world, as well as its joy. What a grand conception it was of the Roman Empire to conquer every country which borders on it. But, after all, the thing which most distinctly (as they say at Harvard) satisfied me was a service at the Russo-Greek Church in Paris, where I stood for an hour and a half and listened to the Divine Liturgy. The music has been run- ning in my head ever since: I don't think I ever heard singing to equal it. It was far more impressive than the Roman Mass. In the Mass, Christ is absent until the priest brings Him down on the Altar. In the Greek Liturgy the whole service is said in His presence, He looking down upon it all, and they trying to show that they have profited by His teaching. A large picture of Christ looks out from the Sanctuary — not the dead or dying Christ as in the Roman Mass, but Christ the Teacher and the Friend. The effect of painting compared with statuary is to give life and warmth. The Greeks will have nothing to do with statuary, not even a crucifix. ... I hope you will not think I have copied from a guide book. I made it all up myself." Then came one of the great sorrows of his life. December 7, he wrote: "Last Wednesday, three days ago, I had a 200 ROME cable message telling of the sudden death of my only brother. We had been intimate friends all our lives with never the shade of a misunderstanding. It is a comfort to think I was with him for three weeks before I sailed. He has always been from childhood a teacher to whom I looked up, from whom I learned more than from any other. He was without ambition, except to do his duty. He received none of what the world calls honours, and he seemed to me the greater without them. It humiliated me to go from his house to New Haven, knowing his superiority as a theologian. I never knew anyone who could be so kind. His kindness has enveloped me as an atmosphere ever since I can remember. I have been saddened beyond expression. The heart is gone out of me, and I have no interest in further travelling, but I shall keep on for the form's sake. I wish I could return, but I cannot: my work is taken, my house is rented." He was in Rome before Christmas. "The Riviera has no intellectual or religious or moral interest. Here it is different. I am at home at every point: it is simply a continuous panorama of Church history. I have studied about it all my life, and at last I have the reality. I watch the monks from my window, wondering whether I might not be admitted to the monastery for a few days. . . . But good-bye. I am to keep Christmas in Rome, where Charlemagne kept his, one thousand years and more ago." His sorrow was helped by friends who chanced to be in Rome. Among others he found his pupil, Roland Cotton Smith; also Dr. Briggs, and Dr. Locke of Bristol. Miss Froude, a daughter of the historian, who was in the same hotel, said one morning to Miss Briggs, "I don't know what I shall do: they've put a man into the room next mine — and he smokes." The next day, she said, "Don't say a word about it: I've met him!" "The man" not only continued to smoke, but at her request he often had his PREACHING IN ROME 201 after-dinner smoke in her sitting-room. "I have struck up," wrote Dr. Allen, "a most extraordinary, intimate friendship with her. I was introduced to her, and asked if she was a relation, etc.; and she said, 'Why, he is my own father.' And then I said things which must have pleased her. She invited me to lunch at her table, for she wanted me to meet 'her dear friend,' Lady Skelton, and after luncheon we adjourned to her rooms for coffee and a long talk; and I am going to her room this evening for another effort to settle the universe." After the New Year, he wrote to friends who like himself had been in trouble: "I have a certain feeling of inward reproach that I can enjoy Rome, and find myself profoundly interested in some special research after a great change has passed over life. There must be some deeper meaning in the familiar teaching that Christ has abolished death, if we only knew how to formulate it. Meantime there is the sorrow of the parting, the sense of loneliness. Time will in measure heal the wound, and, it may be, is one aspect of the Grace of God. But — ah, well! I thought of you at Church in the prayers, and again in the Communion Office. . . . There has never been in so short a time so many losses and gaps in the circle in which I move : Percy Browne, my own brother, Professor J. H. Thayer, and now Horace Scudder. Yet with all the sense of inward reproach at being away, which I cannot overcome, I feel it providential that I should be in Rome. One gets here as nowhere else the sense of the instability of human things and yet the corresponding sense of their eternal significance. They all continue to live : this life and the coming life seem to make but one existence. . . I preached last Sunday morning at St. Paul's-within-the-walls. It is a veritable sensation to be standing up in a Christian Church in the place where St. Paul was anxious to come. His memorials are all about here. But the great trouble with Roman religion is that it has lost Christ. He is never more to 202 ROME these Romans than an infant of two years in his mother's arms. Mary has completely taken His place, and the thought of God has receded into the remote background. Religion here has degenerated into effeminacy." On St. Paul's Day, after going to St. Paul's-without- the-walls, he wrote: "My contempt for the Oxford Move- ment grows upon me here. To think that Englishmen ever should have descended so low as to despise their nationality and grovel at the feet of the Pope! Cardinal Manning for example, while still an English clergyman, getting down on his knees in the mud in one of the Roman streets when Pio Nono passed by! It is worse than the humiliation of England by King John — the precursor, I fear, of England's decline and its loss of prestige among the nations of the world. If that should prove to be true, I should attribute it in great measure to the fatal influence of Pusey, Newman, Keble, et id omne genus, who in the critical moment were thinking of Rome instead of England, and were treacherous to the interests of England's Church, which should have been the bulwark of England's nationality." A letter to Miss Froude is full of suggestion for estimat- ing his own place as an historian. "Your father," he wrote, " has done an important piece of work in his History of England, which does not wholly depend for its value upon strict accuracy of scholarship so much as upon its profound insight into a great period of English history which has come, in the course of generations, to be misunderstood and misrepresented; and, in addition to this, he has told the story with great charm of the literary imagination. He has succeeded in reversing the judgment of the period, and that is a great work to have accomplished. His history takes its place by the side of Hume and Macaulay, both of whom had similar gifts to his own, and, like them, he will long continue to be read; for these gifts are rare. Both Hume and Macaulay are denounced for their errors and prejudices ; but it makes no difference in the demand for their work, nor FROUDE 203 does it lessen their influence. They have passed into literature. "There are, as you know, two schools or methods of his- torical study, one of which seeks for larger views of the course of history, based upon insight into general principles, with the object of drawing moral lessons from the movement of events and of telling the world what its history means. The other method waives all this, and follows antiquarian research with microscopic eye for details and a conscientious- ness about the fact, which seems almost morbid. It would be well if these two methods could be combined, thus giving us the ideal result. But they rarely or never meet in the same writer. It is beyond the scope of human powers that they should ever be thoroughly represented by any one, for, if they were, no history could ever be written — only detached monographs with no relation to the larger movement of events. It has been for a long time the usage of the critical antiquarian school to denounce the other method as valueless and not entitled to be called history. "Let the work stand as he has left it. If he is inaccurate in details it does not affect the general value of his work. If his work is otherwise of permanent value, as I feel sure it is, the great world will in the long run lay stress on the positive merit and where there are deficiencies will grate- fully overlook them, just as nature kindly conceals or overgrows whatever is unsightly, and gives the large and pleasing impression. Is it not the same question which divides artists, which makes Turner, for example, the symbol of all that is most obnoxious to the opposite school? You must not regard me as deprecating the importance or necessity of accuracy, though anyone is liable to that charge who defends the larger method of writing history against the near-sighted school, who have another aim. And even they fight and differ among themselves and pull to pieces each other's work." He felt increasingly that Christian Rome was a continua- 204 ROME tion of pagan Rome; the popes consciously succeeding the Caesars. But there was a difference. Pagan temples were glorious without, bare within; Christian temples the reverse. "May it not be that the essential distinction," he said, "is written here: one religion dealing with the body, the other with the spirit? . . . " There is another fact. For the first thousand years the altars were so placed that the clergy in the services faced the congregation, instead of standing with their backs to the people." Throughout Italy and Germany he studied the forms of the altars. The side altars were almost invariably tables. These in most cases were the original altars of the Churches, the more elaborate high altars displacing them. He sought out chapels in crypts, to which older furniture might be relegated; and there too he found the tables. At every step he was convinced that the table and the doctrine of the Sacrament for which it stood belonged to the ages of faith. "It looks," he wrote in a note-book, "as though the altar survived in its form as a table, until the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Then two causes combined to the change: (i) the Renaissance with its desire for rich decoration and showy effect, to which the table did not lend itself; and (2) the attack on Tran- substantiation which was going on through the fifteenth century by thinkers and nominalists, on the one hand, and by the artists, on the other, who were producing ' cenacolas ' or 'Last Suppers,' which had the effect of weakening the miracle of the Mass. The altar then came as a protest and assertion of the doctrines of the Church, in face of the Protestant Movement. And from the sixteenth century, it grew to be almost universal. But they did not destroy the tables: they relegated them to an inferior position. Still it was fine in the Dome at Florence to see the tables lining both sides of the Church with hardly, I think, an exception." St. Peter's did not move him. It had no historic distinc- DUCHESNE 205 tion for him: nothing of importance to the Church or the world had taken place in it. No great popes were asso- ciated with it. It represented only a reduced Latin church. Instead of glorifying the great popes, men like Leo and Gregory and Innocent, it put up heroic figures of the poor popes of the 17th and 18th centuries. And Paul V's name on the facade was an offence. One afternoon he walked to the spot where Constantine had his vision, and was enthusiastic over the beauty of the view. "How the vision," he exclaimed, "seems to wait upon the beauty of the outward world, — Wordsworth in the Lake Country, the rise of the Renaissance in the Riviera, and Constantine with this exquisite picture of Rome and the Campagna and the Tiber flowing at his feet. The magnificent villa here, now decaying, was built for Clement VII, who summoned Henry VIII in vain. The only vision he had here was the departure of England from the papal fold. . . . "I made a call yesterday on the Abbe Duchesne, one of the best type of ecclesiastics. He has no great respect for what they do at the Vatican, none at all for their flum- meries. But he clings to the Pope, and believes greatly in Christian unity. All other questions seem to him quite unimportant. I couldn't tell him how utterly hopeless his vision was. . . . The Episcopal Bishop of Ohio is here making a visitation, but Rome does not appear to be moved." "You must not get too High Church!" he wrote to a pupil. "When you talk of the Corporate Church, I get a little afraid for you, because the Protestant Episcopal Church is such a small fragment of the common Christen- dom. One gets here in Rome the 'Corporate Church' in its magnitude and power to such an extent as to overawe the imagination. I went last Monday to the Papal Jubilee in St. Peter's. The vast Cathedral was full with 50,000 people, the Pope came in borne aloft in his chair waving 2 o6 ROME his benediction, and the trumpeters in the dome heralded his advent. Then the choir began the 'Tu es Petrus,' and he came slowly up the nave with handkerchiefs waving and voices shouting, 'Viva il papa re.' I had the best seat in the Church. Opposite to me were the Cardinals from all parts of the world. Then the bishops were there by the hundreds, but in the presence of the princes of the Church they were in the background. I was opposite the diplo- matic representatives of Europe, and among them came one (I am sorry to say) from England, bearing a letter from Edward VII. Nowhere but in St. Peter's could such a function be reproduced with such thrilling effects. But it leaves me where it found me, with the conviction of Luther that the just shall live by faith. I am inclined to think that the Corporate Church will take care of itself, but the highest effect of the faith is the struggle of the individual man. Do you not agree with me?" One day, he wrote that he believed that he had seen the beginning of the Madonna tendency in art. "It was," he said, "in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla — a tiny picture in a dark corner. It seems to be introduced somewhat timidly, as a new symbol. The prophet Isaiah is in the background, announcing the birth of the Child. Both faces have a natural human expression, with a wistful, chastened look, with no attempt to give the divine or supernatural. To me it was a thrilling discovery." Early in May he went away from Rome with infinite regret. "But," he said, "I have the feeling that I have done something of more importance than I yet realize, in getting down to the sources of history and of life." Then came Assisi, where he delightedly followed up the haunts of St. Francis. "It confirms my observation," he wrote, "that the visions come in beautiful places. One feels the contrast between the small house in the narrow lane and the world-wide recognition St. Francis has gained, greater to-day than ever, and still growing." Perugia, asleep for DISLIKE OF GOETHE 207 five hundred years, unchanged for the worshippers of the mediaeval, seemed to him beautiful beyond description. As he reflected upon resplendent churches he was inclined to believe that no church building had yet succeeded in symbolizing worship. "They all fail somewhere," he said. "When one gets over the worship of the Gothic, one must admit that the ideal of a building which shall enshrine the thoughts of the heart is unattainable." "You can't get Truth," he meditated in Florence, "by elaborate and well-directed research, no matter how painful and continuous; but it comes to some modest toiler who does not expect it, at some moment when he is not thinking of its revelation. It comes by a flash, and stealthily, and you hardly know that you have had the vision. As Coleridge says, you either see it, or you do not see it. To this I may add that when you are sure, then you don't see it; and when you are not sure, it is more likely." At Frankfurt he carefully examined Goethe's house, and found reasons for Goethe's selfishness in the indulgence of his parents, who gave him a whole floor of the house, and his sister only a little back room. He studied the parents' portraits, and deduced from them that the father was formal, self-important, mechanical, obstinate, sure that he knew how sons should be brought up, and that the mother was conscious of the joy of life, easygoing, appreciative of pure pleasure. But even so, he did not see how two such faces prophesied Goethe. He imagined the father watching Goethe from his window, "using the window for all it was worth." And, respectable as the home was, it was oppressive. August 1 found him in Eisenach, and, August 7, he was writing letters from Dresden. "This evening," he wrote, "I leave for Wittenberg and shall spend all to-morrow 'doing' that blessed little town. These later days can only be compared to Rome. Erfurt and Eisenach were 2 o8 ROME inspiring, and Weimar had its fascination, but I have concluded that I don't like Goethe. On the other hand, Luther grows larger. It gives one a thrill of delight to see his statue everywhere." A week later, he reached Amsterdam: "The visit yes- terday to Monnikendam, one of the dead cities, has suggested a subject for a sermon on the relation between individualism and the institution. If there had been a man in Monnikendam when the crisis in its fortunes came, it might to-day be greater than Amsterdam. God would have spared the city as in Abraham's time. . . . What a great occasion the coronation of the English King has been. As I read in the English Times the glowing story, I almost wished I had been there. Only it was not American, indeed it was the glorification of all that America was called into existence to condemn and remove from the face of the world. The spirit of the Puritan survives in me more than I knew. I was disquieted at Berlin with the Brandenburg strut and pose. The Emperor has lined one of the avenues in the Park with some fifty statues of his predecessors — the margraves of Brandenburg, who cul- minated in Kaiser Wilhelm I. But until the 18th century there was not one of them who did anything which the world valued or ever heard of. But all the same there they stand in the most imposing attitudes, and the really great ones are placed behind them as if only ministering servants to their high mightinesses — Kant and Luther, Bismarck et air From the English Cambridge, Dr. Allen wrote, August 27: "The long year is over. It seems like a dream — ■ those distant days in Rome and other towns in Italy. That was the best part of it all, and I hope, when I come to revise it, that something will remain among my impressions of permanent value." CHAPTER XVI WARNINGS 1903 -1904 THE fall of 1902 was very domestic. "In No. 2, Phil- lips Place," Dr. Allen wrote, "there has been a revolution, the overthrow of the old dynasty and the coming to the throne of new rulers in the presence of a man and his wife. Their only fitness for the position is called in the language of that department 'willingness.' The worst thing, casting a dark shadow over the situation, is this coal famine. I have thought and read more of that problem than of anything else since I came home, but with no practical result." An unusual number of old pupils and friends came to call on him after his long absence; and as they sat in his study, hearing him discourse of Rome and Raphael and St. Peter's and altars which were tables, they found him as peaceful and gentle as ever, and envied the calm of the scholar's life, little dreaming the confusion in the domestic part of his mind. But he felt it himself, and for weeks stayed at home. "It is just as well," he explained, "that I cannot come; for you would see a bewildered individual, living between two worlds, and not just at home in either." Before Christmas the coal famine and the kitchen caused him to close his house and flee to Riverbank Court — a hotel on the banks of the Charles. "I have been meaning to write almost every day," he wrote to Mr Taylor, January 6, 1903, "to tell you how things were going with me. To take up the story where we left it, last September, 15 209 210 WARNINGS I got a man and his wife. He was a German, and she English. Things went fairly well for about ten weeks, when she gave me notice she was going back to England in a week. It seemed they had only intended to stay long enough to raise the money. She also was taking leave of him as well as of me, for she had discovered that he had deceived her: he was not only a German, but a German Jew, and she could not abide the situation. . . . Then there was the difficulty of getting coal. ... So I fled precipitately from my sea of troubles and, for the time, am in a safe harbour. One can't get exactly what one wants in this world, and here — if I might venture a criticism — it is too warm; but perhaps, under the circumstances, that is an ungracious remark." He even missed his domestic troubles : he said that he hated having everything done for him, and he longed to have some one ask him to go down to the Square for a plumber. But he still could sew. "And I sew well, too," he would say with his indescribable chuckle; "when I sew a button on a shirt, the shirt may come off — the button, never." In March, when he had returned to his house, he wrote to his son: "I am going to make an address to the Boston Clergy, and my subject will be The National Aspects of the Protestant Reformation." In this speech he showed that the Reformation was practically accomplished by the rebirth of modern nations long before Luther. When each man ceased to think of himself as belonging to Christendom, and belonging rather to a Nation, that moment the Refor- mation had come. Rome is afraid of the Bible, because the Old Testament is the history of a Nation, and the New concludes with imprecations against the Empire, exalt- ing the Nations before God in its final scene. So he ex- horted the Church to cherish the Reformation in the new century; for as the last century's watchword was Humanity, that of the new was Nationality. The Nations were to live and to hold one another in check for the common good. NAME OF THE CHURCH 211 The last day of March, he wrote to a pupil: "As to the change of name of the Church, it interests me to watch the movement without rousing me to take any part in it. Those who dislike the old name, do not so far allege any sufficient reasons for abandoning it. Their objection seems to spring from a dislike to be classed with sects which arose in the 17 th century, after the Reformation was over, and which are known as Protestant. One can sympathize with that feeling and respect it. It may be that this demand for a change is one of those peculiarly American movements, which finds analogies to a certain degree in the parliament of religions — some larger Church, which can be attained by dropping all reminders of old con- troversies, such as Presbyterian, and Congregational, and Episcopal. In the course of 300 years these distinctions have grown dim, and to many now seem unimportant or unmeaning. I should not be surprised, if we change our name, if the other Churches should be incited to a similar movement. If Christianity is going to make a great united forward movement and sects to coalesce, it may be changing names will be the beginning of it. "On the other hand, we should lose something by the change, and our name would no longer express our lineage, which is valuable and not to be ashamed of. 'Protestant' is a greater word in many ways than 'Catholic,' and carries the traditions of the great nationalities, who, in breaking away from Catholic Christendom, created the modern world. 'Catholic' carries the traditions of people in their leading strings, who had not yet the consciousness of national independence and freedom. Protestantism and Nationalism are synonymous, and the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, against which the nations protested, still regards nationality as a defect or evil to be tolerated, having its origin only in human authority and not in Divine. The tendency of the Roman Church if unchecked would bankrupt any nation, so that we are really all 2i2 WARNINGS united from the national point of view in our everlasting protest against it. The word Catholic is essentially a word which the Roman Church has a right to think peculiarly its own. The Greek Church has never made much of it, and cannot, for it sanctions the idea of national Churches. In all recent investigations in Church History it grows more evident that the Roman Church originated most of the features which we call Catholic. It would be quite impossible, and it might be dangerous for us to take the word Catholic, if it were possible. But it would require more explanation to show why we were Catholic as well as the Roman Church, than it does now to explain Protestant Episcopal. I should be afraid we should play into Roman hands if we tried to appropriate the title. Nobody could tell in advance what would happen, I suppose, but the risks would be great. We should have to correct the usage of centuries; histories and dictionaries would have to be corrected in order to prevent misunderstandings. It would be a mistake to take that as our title, even with American as a prefix. The only other word which could neutralize its sinister force would be Protestant. But if any one were to suggest The Protestant Catholic Church of America, he would not be taken seriously, I suppose. Reformed Catholic is another possible title, but I have not heard it suggested. American Church does not quite suit, for it carries no distinctive meaning. We understand and can use it freely among ourselves as the correlative of The English Church, which we carry in our consciousness. But the great majority of the people would not understand or like it, and I fear Episcopal would still cling to us, despite our efforts to get rid of it. And so, as I said, it is interesting to watch the discussion of the question of changing our name to see what it reveals of the inner moods of our Church life. The reasons for changing are not irra- tional, but the difficulty of finding a substitute seems insuperable. The truth is, names are given in baptism ILLNESS 213 and not coined to order or reason. And we might find if we changed our name that the power and influence of the sects (including the Roman) were too much for us. They might insist on naming us according to their preference. Indeed there is danger lest we make ourselves ridiculous. But the ventilation of the whole question will not be bad." Into his plans for the spring an attack of the grip inter- posed itself; and, added to the grip, was the anxiety caused by the sudden and prolonged illness of his son Harry at Albany. As soon as he was well, he went to Albany; and later sent daily letters rilled with a tenderness that seems a mother's and a father's in one. He learned from his own sick-room that his faithful old carpenter was desperately ill; unable to go to him he wrote him this letter: — " Cambridge, April 21, 1903. "Dear Mr. Anderson: "I am very sorry to know that you have given up the business which I have associated with you for these thirty years, and that you have been obliged to leave it on account of ill health. I have been ill myself and not yet able to go out much or I should have called to see you. But as I cannot hope to do so at present I send this line to assure you of my deep sympathy, of my prayer that God will deal most gently with you. As I look back on all these years of my residence in Cambridge, I see you always faithful in the service of your fellow-men, doing honourably a man's work and a man's part in life. All such service is done in God's sight and brings with it His reward. May He bless you with a sense of His goodness and His protecting care. " Your sincere friend, "Alexander V. G. Allen." The man died. But his wife said that the letter was a comfort to him at the last, and now it comforted her in her desolation. 2i 4 WARNINGS No record can be made of Dr. Allen's care for the poor. He did not believe in modern methods of charity. As he sat in his study he could see who came up the path, and certain faces appealed to him so irresistibly that he went to the door before the maid had time to answer the bell. Some one who saw would say, "You've been giving money again to that worthless man." He would simply blush at that. "Don't you know," the protester would add, "that his record isn't good?" "Yes," Dr. Allen would answer, "I know his record isn't good: that's why he comes to me." Mrs. Josiah Parsons Cooke received an appeal from a rough man one morning; asked why he came to her, the man answered simply, "Because I couldn't find Dr. Allen." Evidently, he was well known among the fraternity, but one wonders if such evident sympathy for distress was often imposed upon. A student recalls that one day about this time Dr. Allen asked him to remain after the class. When they were quite alone, he asked where was , a man employed by the School. The student said that he had heard that he was off on a "spree." Dr. Allen said that he had feared it. "Go and find him, and bring him back," he added, "and spend anything that is necessary: I shall gladly pay everything. Say nothing about this." Taunted with the objection that his methods were disap- proved by modern charity, he replied, "My commission is, 'Never turn thy face from any poor man.' " But only one or two knew his methods: they were in secret. Still in Cambridge, in spite of the doctor's warning that he must get away, he wrote, July 22, to Mr. Taylor, whose aged grandmother had just died: "What a blessing it is to be permitted to depart quietly is seen in the contrast of the Pope, who had to die in the glare of publicity, with every act and word chronicled, and in the midst of excite- ment on the part of attendants, hierarchy, Church, and world. It was a sort of official death, to be gone through with all the prescribed formularies and nothing omitted. w u < Pi EMERSON 215 And the dear old man felt in the same way, and yet how his simple humanity stood out in the whole process. . . . " I have been doing an immense amount of reading these last few weeks, amazed at myself at the ease and quickness large volumes are disposed of. I find I don't read any longer for the purpose of fixing opinion, for that has been fixed. It interests me to see how others look at things in comparison with my own views, and I note it as one of the distinct changes which time brings with it. "We have become very tired herewith the Emerson carou- sal, which turns out to be in reality the Unitarians' Cen- tennial, they having decided that they couldn't do better than tie to him as the exponent of religion. But the Free Religionists and the No Religionists have also shared in the movement, and generally the Boston crowd has made a fool of itself. Sanborn says that Emerson completed Plato; another man, that he surpassed Shakespeare in his poetry. That there ought to be an Emerson Chair in Harvard, and that he should be taught in the common schools, are among other notable utterances, none of which may reach Cin- cinnati without my telling you. My own impression is that he was a sort of Jacob Abbott, of a higher kind, who pushed the Rollo method into literature and other things." He wrote to his son in July from Woodstock Inn, Vermont: " Tis rather a fine place here, which I reached at five this afternoon. My first impulse on reaching such a place is to form a resolution to leave it the next day, but I shall give Woodstock a longer trial." Two of his former pupils came, G. H. Thomas and Samuel Tyler, and at once appropriated him, sitting on either side of him as he ate, and also as he smoked his pipe on the veranda. They kept him talking, to their great delight, and he enjoyed Woodstock after all. A younger brother of Thomas's, Arthur Thomas, a law student at Harvard, also sat at his feet, and later called him master, entering through him into parts of life which he had not hitherto discovered. 2i6 WARNINGS The next spring Dr. Allen prepared and presented him for Confirmation. Nor did he neglect students at a distance. One who was preparing a speech for the coming Church Congress asked advice. Instantly he answered: "I cannot contribute anything of importance, but there are points which rose in my mind as I read William James's book, which I have not seen mentioned. I thought that James's method was not a sound one, in making his appeal to individual experiences exclusively, and further in taking exaggerated cases as affording the best study of the subject. In fact he de- feated his own purpose by this method, and it was not sur- prising he could draw no conclusion. It is only when we recognize the universality of experience that we may be warranted in inferring a general law in regard to the work- ing of the soul in man, which points to some objective reality corresponding to it. Such for example is the sense of sin, the value of repentance, and the assurance of for- giveness. As seen in Bunyan, in such fearful intensity, it is not after all so impressive or convincing, as in the life of the Christian Church from the beginning, as incorporated in creeds, worked over in theology century after century from Anselm's time (to go no further back) down to our own. Books on the Atonement or kindred subjects form a library in themselves. All this James not only overlooks, but deliberately sets aside as not pertaining to the argu- ment. But there, it seems to me, lies the heart of the whole discussion. Individual exaggerated experiences, when toned down, confirm the main theme, but as they stand in their appalling intensity indicate a morbidness of consti- tution which is misleading and unreal in its results. One function of the organic Church is to modify these exuberant utterances of the individual. In this question of sin the Christian Church has laboured 'to keep the mean between ... too much stiffness in refusing and too much easiness in admitting ' — to insist upon the heinousness of sin, and WILLIAM JAMES 217 yet not carry it so far as to breed despair; to make forgive- ness not too easy lest it be despised, or too difficult lest no effort be made to secure it. James rejects all this as having no bearing on the problem, and takes extreme individual cases which have escaped this mediating healing influence. His book is intensely interesting, and strengthens one who already believes these things, but as an argument it is use- less. The testimony of humanity, of the race, is what we are after, if we can get it. And in the Christian Church we have this experience upon so large a scale, and under so much better auspices than in earlier and false forms of religion, that we may take it as typical and final. "As to Emerson ... he kicked away the scaffold, and hung in mid-air. We retain and value the process. . . . I must say there is much that is cheap and tawdry and untrue in Emerson; e.g., when he says the wonder is there have not been a thousand Christs, instead of one; which only shows that he did not know Him or measure the infinite influence that has gone forth from Him." "I have adopted a plan," he wrote in November, "of having the students come in by threes every Friday even- ing to dinner. They seem to like it, and I am sure I do. It takes a little while to thaw them sometimes, but when they fairly get going, they are interesting enough. . . . Things are very exciting now in politics, what with Tam- many and Panama. The Evening Post thinks Panama disgraceful, but I find myself on the whole in sympathy with Roosevelt and Hay. . . . Did I tell you that I had been invited to give the Dudleian Lecture at Harvard on the Roman Church? The terms of the foundation require that the lecture shall be devoted to 'the detecting and convincing and exposing the Idolatry of the Roman Church, their tyranny, usurpations, damnable heresies, fatal errors and abominable superstitions and other crying wickednesses in their high places; and, finally, that the Church of Rome is that mystical Babylon, that man of sin, that apostate 2 i8 WARNINGS Church, spoken of in the New Testament' — which the same seems to me rather strong language. I am to give it in a more genial modern way, and to show what the rational objections to the R. C. are to-day; i.e., if I give the lecture. And on that point I am doubtful." Through the year 1904 Dr. Allen went periodically to a Boston specialist to be examined. The doctor gave him encouragement, but life was still crowded. When an even- ing visitor stayed later than 11 o'clock, the next day was listless and hard; so, that day he would read The Church Times, The Guardian, and The Spectator for diversion. The Spectator was his favourite paper: he said he was in danger of putting it in place of the Bible. He tried to obey the doctor's injunction to rest, but demands were insistent. In March, through the death of Mrs. Reed, the wife of the founder, the School came into possession of its fortune; and the financial strain upon the trustees and faculty was materially relieved. It was one evening in March that Dr. Steenstra surprised him by a call: he had grown so deaf that he rarely went out, and Dr. Allen was delighted to have him in his study again. "It reminded me of old times," he wrote, "when we talked theology together." The next evening Dean Hodges came, and there was long and eager talk about the School. Mrs. Reed gave the School a bequest of $5,000. It was characteristic of the policy of the School that nothing should be done without Dr. Allen. The younger members of the faculty felt that it would be wise to modernize the curriculum, to introduce more electives, and to subdivide departments, giving him, for example, an assistant who should teach liturgies or canon law. But he would say, "We have worked very well in the old way," — and there the matter would drop. He had been working hard on the Dudleian lecture for three months. He had written and rewritten it, rejecting DUDLEIAN LECTURE 219 plan after plan. "You will be interested," he wrote to his son, April 7, "to know that I pulled through the Dud- leian last night in the Fogg Museum. I was very nervous about it, but I pulled through. It was my first appearance, so to speak, since my calamitous break-down just a year ago." He avoided words of condemnation, and confined himself to history, as the rational method of showing why the world could not submit to the Roman obedience. A few brief extracts from the long lecture will show its spirit. It is not published. "We must admit that the papacy was divinely called to its work. But as we make the admission, we must remember that if God calls an institution to do a certain work, he also with- draws this call when the work is done. He summons other agencies for the new tasks which the progress of the Kingdom of God in the world demands. . . . "The Church of Rome repeated the mistake of its prototype, the old Roman Empire, when it began the process of making martyrs. . . . The State gained by every martyr which the Church made. . . . Men looked to the secular power as en- titled to the supreme jurisdiction, as ministering justice with a fairer hand than the Church. . . . "There is danger in freedom, but if the process of free inquiry goes on without restriction, the errors become manifest, and are condemned by an enlightened judgment. To have no part in the process — that is the serious loss whose extent cannot be estimated. . . . "To the State belongs dominion. The function of the Church as related to the State is that of service. Religion, it has been said, makes a good servant but a bad master. ... It should be one of the tasks of the Church to present the State to the people as a sacred moral institution. . . . "A Sovereign Church existing for itself and seeking primarily its own success will in the end, if it succeeds, bankrupt any nation. The fear lest the Church should be dominated by the State or lose its spiritual freedom is minimized to the lowest degree, when the Church assumes ministerium as its role. . . . 220 WARNINGS "'And He said unto them, The Kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them. . . . But ye shall not be so; but he that is greatest among you, let him be ... as he that doth serve. . . . I am among you as he that serveth. "' In May he became president of the Boston Clericus, the club founded by Phillips Brooks, and remained president till his death. This club was his chief recreation. He had no give and take in the discussions, but he was at his best in the summary he was wont to give at the end, when he ranged through history and theology, bringing many reflections to bear on the topic of the evening. Here as always he was sensitive: depressed by adverse criticism, elated by appreciation; though at the time few understood. He cultivated a calm exterior when, often, the fires were raging within. It was part of his philosophy of life. " George Palmer called and read me from his forthcom- ing book on George Herbert," he wrote in June. "It was extremely interesting. It is likely to make a noteworthy book." Professor Palmer frequently came to Phillips Place to talk over George Herbert. It amused Dr. Allen at first that Mr. Palmer had captured Herbert for the Puritans; but afterwards he felt that he had not given due weight to the Churchman's standpoint. Still he never wavered in his admiration for his friend's workmanship: no other minor poet, he said, ever received such royal treatment. "The next great event," he wrote to his son in the fall, "is the General Convention of this Church, which meets in Boston the first week in October. It is to be honoured by the presence of His Grace, the Most Reverend, My Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. All the world is agog with interest, and even Boston shows signs of being a little flurried." Speaking of the Convention to Mr. Taylor in a letter of October 10, he said: "It quite turns my poor head. It has been a round of dissipations, receptions, luncheons, dinners, and calls. ... I have met the BISHOP OF RIPON'S LECTURES 221 Archbishop and was greatly pleased, for he paid me a stunning compliment to the effect that The Continuity of Christian Thought had been a handbook with him for twenty years. He said it out loud as if he were not at all ashamed, and the others gathered about and heard him as he proceeded to enlarge on the sacred theme. Then I met Harnack, of Berlin, and I paid to him immortal tribute, which quite overcame him. He drew himself up and gave a most profound acknowledgment. He was also kind enough to say he knew of me, and had asked to meet me when he came to Cambridge. He spoke of Con- tinuity. I wish I could have gone to St. Louis with him. If things had been otherwise favourable I should have done so, but I did not feel equal to it. I have never quite got over that illness of a year and a half ago. ... I lunched to-day with Bishop Lawrence, talking with the Archbishop and Bishop Brent and Stetson. I met the Bishop of Ripon too, who also spoke of The Continuity." When the Convention was over, he wrote: "We have been having a course of lectures by the Bishop of Ripon on The Witness of History to Christ. They produced a sen- sation at Harvard and ended in Sanders Theatre with a great crowd. I never heard anything before so thor- oughly satisfactory, 'soul satisfying,' as the old Evangelicals used to say. I don't suppose we shall ever get back again to the old Evangelical type of experience, but it looks as if we might get a larger and truer one, containing the essence of the old but meeting the needs of the spirit more fully. At any rate the subject is in the air. What was surprising about the Bishop of Ripon's lectures was that they capti- vated those of every school, High Church and Ritualistic, Broad Church and Evangelical, and even Unitarians. His marvellous oratory had much to do with it of course; but it was the oratory combined with the theme that consti- tuted the rare quality of the lectures. ... It has been a great time in Boston these last three weeks. I had con- 222 WARNING siderable talk with the Archbishop, who was a most de- lightful personality, the perfect flower of English life and culture. Ripon came close to him. Then we had Here- ford, who is a great radical; and, lastly, Dr. Sanday of Oxford, so different from the others in manner and form, the simple, earnest scholar, who is fighting in a great battle of which some of our right reverend fathers know almost nothing." In 1904 Mr. William V. Kellen succeeded Mr. Scudder as trustee of the School. The better fortunes of the School were shown by the entry in Dr. Allen's diary for December 15: "Map of the Roman Empire hung in Lecture Room after waiting for it 25 years." His boys were both away, and he ate his Christmas dinner with the Scudders. And so the year of 1904 came to an end — a year of frequent reminders that he was unable to work as in the past; but still happy. He loved his work. He would record that one class seemed stupid, and another most satisfactory; but his geese were all swans in the last analysis. "It has been beautiful, this year," he said, "to have the students come in so often." "Beautiful" was his favourite word. CHAPTER XVII CHICAGO 1905 IN spite of a dread of the West and a consciousness that he must husband his strength, Dr. Allen sent a message early in January that he accepted an invitation to lecture at the University of Chicago for the summer term of 1905. The plain truth was that for the obligations upon him his salary was insufficient, and he felt obliged to work through the summer holiday, which he needed for rest. Then he was writing and rewriting his article on Professor Palmer's Herbert: that was a labour of friendship, and he could not decline it. Even at best, life was still crowded. But he economized: when students came to see him in the even- ings, he read to them from the proof of Palmer's Herbert; they were elated to hear readings from an important book before it came out; they were enraptured to be taken into Dr. Allen's literary confidence — and meantime he himself was making ready for his article! He would throw in a few words about the War between Russia and Japan, or the Tucker murder case, at the end, for the sake of variety and to give an element of contemporary interest. February began with an attack of malaria and grip com- bined, but he stayed in for only a few days. He took this opportunity to write to one of his former pupils who had been offered the editorship of one of the Church papers: "I was much interested in that proposal about the editor- ship of . That you have done the right thing in declining I am inclined to agree; but my heart always 223 224 CHICAGO leaps at the possibilities of a great editor, as among the great opportunities for influencing the world. I should have liked to be a great editor. I got a taste for the thing when I was editor of The Western Episcopalian. Then for a couple of years in the early '70's I had charge of The Christian Witness. I then became aware that if anything was fitly said it was caught up and repeated everywhere without regard to party lines. What the world needs and craves is the truth, no matter from what source it comes. And there are so many dark places, so much in life and institutions, about which no one thinks of probing or asking questions. Godkin was a great editor in his way, and for a time had immense influence, but he lost it before he died. He did not expand himself as the years went on, but grew more intense in a narrowing sphere. He failed to see how things were going. He could not lead therefore: the world grew a little tired of him. . . . All this is a propos of the proposal made to you. But the subject is a large one and I shall drop it. "I have been impressed with the second volume of Creighton's Life. He had great insight into things and rare power of direct statement, great knowledge of life, manliness of character — of the English type of course, and that means striking defects — an Aristotelian through and through. But it is all most interesting. "I seem to note the shallows of which he is not aware, and it is because of these that he never could have become anything like a universal bishop. There is a striking combination of profound depths with commonplace con- ventionalities — so many things of which he never in- quired the reasons, assumed as true because they were in the air when he was a young man, conclusions assumed at an impressible moment which became identified with established facts. He never had any adequate training in theology, and of the history of theology he was for the most part ignorant. He had a specialty in European CREIGHTON 225 history from the 14th to the 16th century, and from that point of view he judged the world. Of what went before or came after he had only the cursory knowledge of the average man. It has always puzzled me that he could have written his history from the papal outlook, which made, of course, the Reformation and movements of reform seem incidental to an established and permanent order. Hence he could not explain Martin Luther and he lamented and groaned over his task of portraying him. Indeed Luther and the Reformation appeared to him in the same relative light as did Christianity and the Church to Gibbon in writ- ing the history from the point of view of the Roman Empire. You remember how in the Memoir Lord Acton was dis- appointed at the result of the book, and Creighton couldn't understand why. "Yet he assumed, when he became bishop, the attitude of one competent to pronounce final decisions on questions reaching out into spheres where he was ignorant. His assumption of Episcopal authority is one of the features in his career deserving study. He assumed for himself a complete understanding of what the Episcopal functions were without inquiring into history or the working of insti- tutions. His wearing of the mitre and cope, which had passed into disuse since the Reformation, is one of the puzzling contradictions in a man who was so sane and sensible. It stood with him for love of pomp and show, and also for the enforcement of discipline and authority. But I don't see why he should have objected to incense as he did. He said exquisite things about the Sacraments, forcible and spiritual, but he also admitted his conviction of a Presence in the elements. His going to Russia means much, and his subsequent study of the Russian Liturgy gave him light, but it all came rather too late. "The point at which I stuck most was his solemn asser- tion that no priest was competent or had any right to speak for the Church of England: that belonged only to 16 226 CHICAGO the bishops. This was one of his assumptions, for which he knew no reasons and gave none. If there is any ground for it, it must be the Episcopal vow to defend the Faith, taken in ordination. But the same vow is also taken by the Presbyter in the same words. In this respect the English Church differs from the Greek and Roman. It retained the Episcopate, but by one great stroke elevated the Presbyterate, emancipating it from blind subjection and giving it equal opportunity with the Episcopate. If the Church of England could have carried out this principle, there would have been no Presbyterian Church. . . . Had Creighton lived for twenty years longer I doubt if his influence would have strengthened the Church. "When he was in this country, I once took him for a long walk, and had a talk of several hours. He was 'para- doxical,' but very interesting. He said that he did not object to the doctrine of Purgatory as Pusey revived it, that it was in harmony with the idea of progressive stages of life. But when I dwelt on exactly what purgatory was in the mediaeval and the Puseyite conception, he rather backed off, and didn't want it. He did not like America and was a bit contemptuous, but did his best to conceal it. He upheld the national idea of the English Church, but did not see how the American Church could adopt that basis. He was a genuine Anglican." As he worked on with the Herbert, his opinion of Her- bert's ability decreased as his respect for his commentator grew. "Herbert strikes me as a rough versifier, sacrificing rhyme and rhythm to his conceits. He jolts over a rough road. . . . Herbert does not appear strong or great. . . . Palmer called in the evening, and was inspiring as usual over his work." In his diary under March 8, being Ash-Wednesday, he wrote: "Ash- Wednesday comes altogether too late this year, and that because of a stupid ecclesiastical arrange- ment. If there were Christian unity and there could be CHICAGO LECTURES AND PRAGMATISM 227 a council of the whole Church, it could be improved." He was still sensitive to weather: Lent and a certain kind of weather, to his mind, belonged together. He finished his lectures for the School year on May 26. " Finishing with the Seniors is always a little solemn," he said as he recorded his last lecture to them. Better than for two years, he spoke of his daily walks, "I can do three miles now without the symptoms of two years ago." At the Alumni Dinner, June 6, he dwelt upon the history of the School, and said grateful words of Dean Hodges, who had just declined a call to Leland Stanford University. "The students," he wrote to Mr. Taylor, after begin- ning his lectures at the University of Chicago, "seem to be interested, and listen with a keenness which is sometimes too intense. My impression is that they enjoy it, but on the other hand it is so different from what they are accus- tomed to, that it confuses some of them. The class room fills up with others who come in, and looks rather crowded. I sit in my chair and talk rapidly, without notes, for two successive hours." In his diary, under August 10, he wrote : "Young Roman Catholic girl asks about Matt. xvi. 18. She ought not to have taken the course." Again he reported in a letter to Mr. Taylor: "This is a tremendous city, and everybody I meet is simply obsessed with the idea of Chicago. They will talk about it at the slightest hint; they can't forget it; they seem to be think- ing about it all the time. ... I am through three weeks of my job, and have two more. It is harder than I expected. My old work has to be reconstructed and con- densed, so that I spend each day getting ready for the next. The more successful the lectures are the more they take out of me. And they are successful: there is no doubt, I think, about that. I never saw men more interested. . . . The circular you send interests me. It shows how quickly speculative ideas get translated into practical rules. I 228 CHICAGO will send you the book on Pragmatism, as soon as I can recall the author and the title. William James, one of its exponents, has just been giving a course of lectures here on the subject. I was impressed with the way you re- ceived my meagre account of it: so was I moved when I first heard of it. I accepted it at once on the mere sugges- tion, and have been applying it ever since in lecturing. I have one advantage in the scope of illustration. It un- locks the history. . . . "They are all alive in the subject of New Testament criticism out here. They have two able scholars, Dr. Burton and Shailer Matthews, who are publishing a good deal of independent advanced work. Matthews I like extremely, and hob-nob with him often. The club life is not without its charm. It is quite delightful to go down at breakfast and join one of these interesting men who know all about your own subject, and will talk, or let you talk, as the case may be. We linger long sometimes at the dinner table. "We are in the South side of Chicago, where the Uni- versity has a magnificent site of hundreds of acres near where the World's Fair was held in 1893. But I find it is regarded as a mistake that the University was not planted on the North side. It is something as if, to compare small things with great, the Episcopal Theological School had been placed in Cambridgeport. Of course the Port part of Cambridge is composed of the most excellent people, among whom it would be an honour to dwell, etc. So the people of the North side have that old feeling which existed way back in New Testament times — the doubt whether any highest good can come out of the South side. They send their sons to Harvard. But they are not missed among the 5000 or more students here." Writing from Cambridge, in September he said: "I have felt useless for any work. Some of my activity at Chicago was galvanized. ... I wish I could define to ADVICE TO A TEACHER 229 myself what is the difference between Chicago and Boston, or West and East. Less form, for one thing, and less reserve. Not so much care for details, or for accuracy. In some respects a simpler, more unsophisticated order, without the cosmopolitan touch — as in coeducation. I have come back with a good deal to think over and digest. I am glad I went: I am glad I am home again. ... I have not become a Baptist. Don't circulate that story, for there is no knowing what may happen if you do. But I have been in the atmosphere of 'tainted money,' which, I suppose, is worse. If my Churchmanship is in the slightest degree damaged, you must make every effort to repair it." "You must not feel frightened and inadequate," he said to a pupil beginning to teach, "at least not more than is necessary to stimulate to good work. I have never got over that feeling when I have anything to do, even my routine work. I suppose it to be a healthy accompaniment, trying as it is. And it is a great thing also to be learning from day to day, without being too far ahead of those you are teaching. You see I have myself been a teacher. You have every requisite for a successful teacher — ability, interest, enthusiasm — but I would keep just a little of that wholesome fright, the stage nervousness of every great actor." At the end of a November letter to a friend, he said: "Well, what interests me is the new age we are entering. I watch movements and men, and myself particularly, with reference to it. If we can hang to the past and fuse it with the future, it will be all right. There are those who will not; and there comes the difficulty. Half the world is moved by the logic of history; the other half seeks to escape it." Just before Christmas he received a book from Bishop Brent. "I think it quite fine," he said. "There is a vein of poetry in him." During the General Convention, Bishop Brent had written to him telling of his intention 2 3 o CHICAGO to give the Paddock Lectures on The Incarnation and Nationality; and asking for a chance to talk with him about various historical aspects of his subject. They did not see each other often, but Dr. Allen felt a keen interest in the Bishop which grew to affection. The next week he wrote to Mr. Taylor: "I met William James the other day and told him how much I liked Schiller and his Humanism. He was greatly pleased, so he said; for many of the critics had jumped on it. Santayana slammed the book shut, and said he never should look into it again. But James thinks that it is a very important book, apart from some superficial and evident defects, and that Schiller is one of the coming men. The trouble with Schiller is the difficulty he finds in demonstrating his thesis. He needs no demonstration, but only application, especially in history — where Schiller is not at home. But I am glad you like it. One gets something from it." The same day he wrote to his son: "You must be very careful to show no depression, and if possible feel none, or rather throw it off. Put on a cheerful face. ... It never does to show that we are down. The world moves pain- fully, and is grateful to the man who cheers it up. If we could all go into the cheering-up business, it would be a much happier world." How we see him in those words; for he wrote cheering letters to men who feared themselves failures, and they began anew in the light of his joy. And those who heard his quiet laughter in the old study at Phillips Place, with his whimsical commentary on the doings of Ritualists and Unitarians, Russians and Italians, little dreamed of the burdens that weighed upon his heart. He knew that the world was grateful to the man who tried to cheer it up, and he did his Christian best to be light-hearted. CHAPTER XVIII THE APPEAL FOR HELP 1906 THE essay for The Atlantic on Palmer's Herbert appeared in January, 1906. "Mr. Palmer is right," Dr. Allen said, in giving his final decision on Herbert's Church- manship, "in tracing a certain Puritan affiliation in Herbert, but this does not make him any the less a representative of High Anglicanism. There is a type of Anglican High Churchmanship, which is secular in its tone, and which, as in the Caroline Age, sought to strengthen the Church by an alliance with the crown. But there is another type, taking an ascetic view of life, disowning the State or seek- ing strength by separation from the State, and claiming to be superior to all civil relationships. This latter type, which became so prevalent in the last century, in conse- quence of the Oxford Movement, found its precursor in Ferrar of Little Gidding and in George Herbert, his inti- mate friend. Such kindred spirits in the seventeenth century might have recognized Keble in the nineteenth as having a common ideal. For the essence of this latter kind of High Churchmanship is identical with the spirit of Puritanism. Augustine and Hildebrand, Calvin and Knox, Newman, Pusey, and Liddon are at one in the dualism they assert between God and the world, in the view that religion consists in renunciation, rather than in consecration, of the world." In February he wrote to a pupil: "I have been trying to put in form a lecture for the Union Seminary on " Faith 231 232 THE APPEAL FOR HELP and Tradition." The point which I try to make is that a religion consists of two forces, and I think both divinely inspired, using the term inspiration in a large way. There is (i) the appeal — the revelation, historic fact, etc., as in the Synoptics ; and (2) the response of humanity — St. Paul, the Fourth Gospel, Christian Tradition, the Christ of Nicaea, and the whole history of the Church. "I think that Loisy has yielded too much in regard to the first, does not feel sure enough of the original appeal and its historic validity, nor see within it clearly enough the manifest germs which explain the later response. Hence he takes too much on trust as the outgrowth of the influence of a mysterious unknown, possibly unknowable, personality. And, secondly, he is not familiar enough with the later history of the Church to seize its strong points. His inability to include the Protestant movement makes him one-sided. But on the other hand he has got hold of a mighty truth, which some one will yet work out. Alto- gether I like his work, or rather his position, better than Harnack's. But the thing to be done is to bring the two attitudes together in organic relationship. Harnack is too much under extreme Protestant influence — I should say roughly, Calvinistic — to get that profound reverence for the tradition which inspires Loisy. You have the two ideas clearly before you in your scheme. "It is not necessary to throw off any of the tradition, but rather to interpret, in order to get the Christ principle, or idea which it embodied. It may be so presented as to have always a positive value, instead of this endless depreciation and negative criticism. "So the Church becomes a commentary on the person- ality of Christ, and one may even construct that personality out of the Church's consciousness, with a result throwing light and giving confirmation to the Christ of the Gospels. "Sanday is good, and safe — in the best sense. He sees clearly the weakness of German criticism, its too intense FAITH AND TRADITION 233 subjectivity. He recognizes a supernatural element in the process which the Germans balk at. I think we must reach this supernatural potency as a result, if we do not posit it from the start. "I wish I could talk the whole question over with you, for there is too much to be said in a letter. . . . How we are haunted still by that old Docetism. We can understand it better to-day, because the same conditions confront us — the same, yet greatly changed." A fortnight later he read his lecture on " Faith and Tra- dition" at the Union Seminary in New York. It is so important a summary of his historical convictions at this time that a few quotations from it must be given: "No greater misapprehension of the Nicene doctrine can be made than to think of it as the result of a mere dialectic pro- cess. . . . Beneath the dialectic, the logic, the philosophy, ran the life-blood of the Church. It is the heart of the Church, not merely its intellect, which is here responding to the love of Christ. The dialectic was forgotten before a hundred years had passed away, but the faith survived in the simple conviction that Christ was the co-eternal, coequal Son of the Father. . . . The personality of Jesus, and not His doctrine alone or taken by itself, has been set through the ages, and still to-day is set for the rising again of many. . . . "The Crusades were a great thank-offering for the Redemp- tion, an effort, crude indeed, on the part of plain and simple souls to show honour to the Christ. ... To imitate the life of Christ was the ideal of monasticism, which culminated in the beautiful career of St. Francis. . . . "The organization of the Church was to its life and doctrine what the form of poetry is to the excited emotion of the poet. It restrained and checked the Christian enthusiasm, which might otherwise have run riot and defeated its own end. To- day, as always, organization serves a constituent purpose in religion, in keeping the rhythm and balance of things, in promot- ing the consciousness of a sane, established, organic order of the world. The varieties of religious experience will not lead up 234 THE APPEAL FOR HELP to the reality of the religious life, unless supplemented by an organic order, which prevents the abnormal tendency of human souls from gaining the ascendancy. Religion in itself is not necessarily a good thing, or to be desired. It may be an evil. Our aspiration is for the increase of true religion. . . . "Imperfect, weak, and halting must be our religion, if while we get the Christ who works within, we lose the Christ who works without. There are great beliefs that have helped our race as a whole which we need somehow to adjust with our individual experience. In our attempt at the evaluation of the ancient creeds, it should be taken into consideration that they have been the inspiration by which the Church has made its greatest conquests in the past — conquests for civilization as well as for religion. We are neglecting sources of strength for the work before us, if we reject tradition and see no value in ancient formulas, because we cannot relate them to an inward personal experience." During the spring Dr. Allen worked upon the abridged Life of Brooks. His sister had a long convalescence, which she spent at Phillips Place, Mrs. Henry Allen kindly coming to care for her. He wrote constantly of his gratitude for this sisterly act. For the sake of these two sisters, more rarely than ever was he away for an evening, often omit- ting even his beloved Clericus. But the spring was full of noise from without. A paper based upon an English manifesto of liberty in the Church had been sent out with many good names appended, Dr. Allen's among them. Little attention was paid to this: it neither helped nor hindered the causes the signers had at heart. Dr Allen had small faith in such things. But the real conflict arose in the attack of a curate upon his rector's orthodoxy in Rochester, New York. Dr. Crapsey, formerly a very High Churchman, had spoken loosely of our Lord's divinity; and, being accused of heresy, felt obliged to make his hints and doubts into formal denials. He had further published a book; the Diocese of Western New York, with A HERESY TRIAL 235 a too ready will, rushed to a heresy trial; and Dr. Crapsey seemed to many a martyr. Sensitive men searched their hearts to see if they ought not to subject themselves to similar trials. Men old and young began to seek the quiet of Dr. Allen's study for advice, and among them came Dr. Crapsey himself, who had become excited and militant. Dr. Allen felt from the first that a trial could end in only one way. His interest was not in Dr. Crapsey, but in the truth, lest in zeal for historical doctrine, over-emphasis on one side should lead to the denial of counter truths equally vital. He was also concerned for men who really did not stand at all with Dr. Crapsey, but who felt moved by chivalry to range themselves at his side in his trouble. Some of these were connected with the School, and he was jealous for the School's position for candour and balance in days of excitement. His preference was to have nothing to do with the trial. He refused to go to it. But, against all his inclinations, he wrote hurriedly a brief for Dr. Crapsey's counsel, E. M. Shepard, Esq., and Mr. Shepard made this brief the basis of his defence. Dr. Crapsey was condemned, and his case was carried over to the court of appeals. Dr. Allen was disturbed when he learned that the brief had been passed about at Batavia, and many read it. Thereupon requests began to come for its publication. "I am reluctant," answered Dr. Allen, "to enter into controversy, and I am pretty sure such an effort on my part would mean controversy to be followed up. It was only at the earnest solicitation of that I was induced to write the notes. On the other hand I recognize that the time calls for some statement on the subject; the Church needs it; and young men especially, either in the ministry or thinking of it, ought to be in possession of a clear statement of the issue. "I think the court was entitled, in consequence of his confession, to condemn Mr. Crapsey, as denying an historic 236 THE APPEAL FOR HELP fact which is embodied in the creeds and formularies. But when they went further and condemned him for denying the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity, on the ground that these doctrines are based on the Virgin Birth, they went beyond the evidence, and condemn by implica- tion the very large body of clergy and laity who do not regard these doctrines as involved in the Virgin Birth. The evidence here is overwhelming against the court's decision, which rested upon the theory of a school within the Church, and that not the best accredited in the history of theology." Dr. Allen then wrote to a former pupil: "I am in- clined to think that when a man denies the Virgin Birth, it has become a case in pathology rather than in theology. And I regret very much that the clergy should have been in such evidence at the trial. Huxley and Sir Oliver Lodge and others who represent science in its more spiritual aspects, do not, as I understand them, maintain that the Virgin Birth is impossible. What they ask for is the evi- dence. But Dr. Crapsey, as I understand him, holds that it is impossible in the nature of the case — the theologian rushing in where the scientist fears to tread. Under such circumstances, the Church being what it is, I don't see how the result could have been other than condemnation. These other clergymen should never have identified their case with his. None of them has gene so far, and it is practical good sense as well as sound courage which holds them back. But Crapsey thinks we are all cowards. The Unitarian Register has been reading us a lesson on the right and hon- est use of creeds. It reminds one of the fox which had lost its tail (whom the Unitarians resemble in being a body without a creed). But when the tailless fox undertakes to instruct those who retain their tails as to how they are to use them, it becomes comical." The next day he wrote in his diary: " came out to-day in a sermon as a Crapseyite — which ends I fear ENGLISH AND GERMAN THEOLOGY 237 his influence. . . . Crapsey I regard as a tjnitarian, and I do not believe the Church will stand it, or ought to stand it. It would be a great declension from its high position." To one who was largely in sympathy with Dr. Crapsey, he wrote, May 29: "Now, please, are you not exaggerating a little when you speak of as you do? Or is that in- tended for rhetoric only? You speak of him as if with his great mind and by his thorough research into such mat- ters, he had been enabled to forecast a conclusion, in whose presence it became us, lesser mortals, to be modest and silent. ... In my humble judgment knows nothing about it, and is carried away by a passing emotion or the latest sciolism. ... I demur when he is placed upon a pedestal to be revered, or suggested as a model to be followed. "We are in the beginning of a controversy, which it may take another generation to bring to its conclusion. We must be patient and willing to wait, with an open mind, listening to what can be said on both sides, and especially on the conservative side, where there is much to be said, which has not yet been said. "The English are not going to follow the Germans, but will determine this issue in their own way; they have a great historic Church to carry with them, and the Germans have no baggage, lightly equipped for movement in the world of religious speculation. The English have a wor- ship and a religion to look after and maintain, as well as a Church. With the Germans religion consists in thinking." The work immediately before him was the preparation of four lectures for the Albany Cathedral Summer School of Theology. He had promised in midwinter to give the lectures, and now, with a month before him, he felt unwilling to give old lectures; so he fell to work upon new ones. One hard problem of this June of 1906 was the question whether his older son should accept a position in Atlanta. It meant much to him to have his son as near as Schenec- 238 THE APPEAL FOR HELP tady. "You have been," he said, "a sort of mainstay and support to us — Jack and me — and it will give a feeling of loneliness, to say the least, when you are beyond call." And then he referred to certain troubles his son had en- countered: "We all have these annoyances, be they less or greater, and they are sent by fortune, I suppose, not by God, for He allows them, in order to put a man to the test. God does not, I take it, send trouble to us, but He permits it for our trial, in order that, keeping our faith, we may come out of the trial stronger and purer and better men." The Albany lectures were given the last week in June on The Church and State in Conflict, The Creeds, The Trinity, and The Sacraments. To his more recent pupils he seemed less than in the School class room, somewhat restrained and hampered. But Dr. Nash, who was also one of the lecturers and who had not heard him lecture since his student days, twenty-five years before, remarked after one of the lectures that he had forgotten how wonderful Dr. Allen was. He returned to Cambridge at once to meet the demand of the Macmillans for a book on the present theological unrest in the Church. He faced this task reluctantly. He was not fitted for controversy. His hope was to give help to troubled minds, and with that hope in view he sacrificed another summer, which he needed more than ever for rest. All the year he had referred his frequent illnesses to the hard work at Chicago the previous summer. He knew quite what he was doing when he worked through the hot Cambridge days, in order to meet the demands of men old and young who appealed to him for some solution. 1 ' Thank you , " he wrote in July, ' ' for giving me the reading of Mr. 's letter. As I see his attitude, it is very evident that only by omitting or interpreting the Thirty-nine Articles in a false sense, can he reach what he calls the 1 Catholic ' sense of the creeds. When the vow was imposed of holding the doctrine 'as this Church hath received the PSEUDO-CATHOLICITY 239 same,' I am sure the authors of our formularies had in view the Articles, as showing how this Church received the Faith, in contradistinction from the Roman Church, or the 'Catholic' sense of the Faith. This is evident enough from the fact that down to our own day the English Church required subscription to the Articles from every member of the two Universities and from every incumbent of a bene- fice, but she never asked for subscription to the creeds, nor does the phrase, 'Catholic sense of the creeds,' occur in her formularies. Father Newman in his earlier Anglican days said to Copeland, 'Could you sign the Thirty-nine Articles? I could not.' That was after he had already signed them. And not many years later he undertook the task of imposing the sense of the Roman definitions of Trent on the Articles. England was aghast at the dishonesty of his position, and he was practically forced out of the Church. It is only by being untrue to the 'doctrine as this Church hath received the same' that Mr. — • — and other like-minded gentlemen are able to remain in the Church, and to denounce their brethren, more truly adherents of the doctrine of this Church than themselves, as 'traitors to God.' That seems to me the language of a bigot, of a maddened zealot, of a fanatic who places what he is pleased to call the 'Catholic' faith above charity. And he thinks he is doing God service! "There is another curious thing about Mr. . By some subjective process, familiar enough, he has reasoned himself into what he calls 'orthodoxy' or the 'Catholic sense ' of the creeds. Then it pleases him 'to objectify' it, to put it above himself, as something which he did not discover, and to demand that all others shall receive it as something apart from subjective method or criticism. It is the old cave, after all, into which the Roman Church retreats when she is cornered. She calls upon us by the exercise of private judgment to acknowledge her authority and she seeks to commend her doctrines to our reason. 240 THE APPEAL FOR HELP But when we have received them, she calls for the abne- gation of private judgment, as involving possible treason to the faith, and, I suppose she would say with Mr. , 'treason to God.' "What can one say to such an 'unhappy' man? "The trouble is that the 'liberal' Churchmen have thrown away the palladium of their liberties, the charter of the freedom of a Christian man, when they dropped The Articles of Religion. They laughed at them, they sneered at them, they joined with the 'Catholic' school in rejecting their authority. And this same 'unhappy' Mr. (and his friends) is the result. And now we are con- fronted with ' Catholic ' theology, and called dishonest and traitors to God. We ought to have seen that although the Articles were couched in a queer language, which seemed as old-fashioned as our grandmothers' garb, there was life there and vitality and, above all, freedom from this ' Cath- olic' theology which is now masquerading in the Church. "Sometimes I think it is really our friend, Mr. , who is worried and panicky, and not we ourselves. He could not use such strong language, if he were really secure in his position. 'Catholicism' is on the wane, but still has power to make mischief, and against that we must fight." "Sometimes," he wrote again, "I think I must be a reactionary, for my sympathies are with the Czar, rather than with the Douma. How strange these sympathies are: one cannot control or reverse them. I am a great believer in freedom as the great end towards which we are moving. But I suppose my sympathies here are con- trolled by a conviction that the Russians are not ready for freedom: if the Douma had its way, anarchy would result, and freedom would be lost." The last day of July, he wrote: "There is one thing very interesting in Cambridge, the advent of these young China- men. Most of them are handsome, they carry themselves well, with refinement in manner and the evidence of high A BIRTHDAY LETTER 241 breeding. It makes one feel that China has a future. I can understand as I look at them how dear old Pope Gregory the Great felt when he saw the Anglo-Saxons at Rome. He was eager to convert them, and it gives me a new interest in our Mission in China when I look at these attractive but pagan faces." In August he wrote a birthday letter to a friend: "It is one of the advantages of the old calendar of the saints (which this Church has wisely discarded) that it gives a standard of comparison. It enabled the late pope to pay such a tribute to his mother as was never paid before, putting her before all the Saints and second only in the Calendar: 'We also implore as mediators the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and our own much beloved mother, and that legion of Saints whom in our life we venerated.' It is something after all to have any human being say and think such things of us — whatever we may think of our- selves. When men grew uncertain about God's forgiveness, it was something to have a mortal man in the name of the common humanity to say, Ego te absolvo. And so I say, yours has been a beautiful life. It is a time to rejoice, for God now accepteth your work. The doctrine of the for- giveness of sins is the essence of the Gospel of Christ: it is the principle of life whether we believe it or not. It is almost too much to be believed, like all the richest, rarest gifts. It is most easily corrupted, and therefore not to be too easily vaunted." During the summer a presbyter in the Diocese of South- ern Ohio wrote a violent letter to a Church paper, which laid him open to the charge of heresy. His bishop came to talk the subject over with Dr. Allen, in the hope of helping the man, though not a pupil of Dr. Allen's. Bishop Vin- cent was eager to avoid a heresy trial. The Bishop did all that any one could do, but the case was formally brought to the Standing Committee of the Diocese, and so was out of his control. 17 242 THE APPEAL FOR HELP "I am inclined to think the present trouble very serious," Dr. Allen wrote to Mr. Taylor. "I may be wrong in esti- mating the situation: it is so hard to tell a tempest in a teapot from a real storm." He wrote in September of his son's farewell visit to Cambridge before going to Atlanta: ''It was rather tragic. We sat on Monday night, after dinner, man-fashion, not saying anything, unable to do so. It became rather pain- ful, and he finally remarked that perhaps he had better start. It was earlier than was necessary by some two hours. And so he went. What is the meaning of this reserve of which we were both victims when we least wanted to be? A sort of safe-guard against breaking down, it may be. But I don't know. We don't tell each other what we think or feel, and the moment hurries away. It must be we read each other truly enough, and more truly, it may be, than words could express. But the words — 'In the beginning was the Word.' Somehow the mystery of things seems to be haunting me more than usual this summer. I think I am tired." The next day he wrote to his son: "Well, you must go with a brave heart, dear Harry, and full of courage and of hope for the future and the determination to win, and (in the old language) with faith in God, as though He were sending you, and were responsible for you. We use this language for religious occasions, but it applies equally well to business and secular things. ... I must confess to depression at your going, which has been hard to throw off. But the true way is to look at the brighter side, and I shall try to do so." This counsel he gave to a pupil studying the Old Testa- ment: "To go to it with a mind full of poetry is to see more deeply into its meaning. That is one great trouble with the clergy: they do these things without poetry, and then they sink down to a dreary dogmatic level. Calvinism never made poets." THE SUPREME VOW 243 After a few days in New Hampshire, he wrote from Cambridge, in October: "What says, not to be dis- respectful, is all rot, but he says it as well as any one. The idea that the Christian ministry has got down to that low point of a business corporation, making a bread and butter arrangement with its clergy on certain conditions fulfilled which may be made by any hypocrite! I want to say something on the evils of institutionalism; for they have begun to appear. The only clerical vow is in answer to the thrice repeated question of Christ to Peter, 'Lovest thou me?'" About this time a great joy came into Dr. Allen's life, but his friends did not at once know what it was. Only they were sure that the loneliness and toil were fused with a new buoyancy. "Joy and sorrow," he wrote, October 5, "are closely related. When we are deeply moved, we do not know whether we are laughing or weeping, and the tears come with laughter. I suppose I have acquired the habit of concealing the expression of feeling, a sort of safe- guard to a very sensitive nature. When writing the Memoir I thought Brooks was reserved. I think his reserve wasn't a shadow compared with mine." A little later he wrote that he feared that the work of the summer had been too much for him, because the excite- ment of it kept on, and unfitted him for work. But he was well, and the excitement was not quite explained. Pie dreaded the storm that he feared would follow the appear- ance of his book : less and less was the book his own choice. But God's will, he said, is clear, so that we run to fulfil it. He was anticipating, too, Professor James's lectures at the Lowell Institute this fall on Pragmatism, and told him so. In thanking Dr. Allen, Mr. James wrote: " is a regular pragmatist: I learn that from hearing him lecture last summer. If you're also one, we will scoop things." After keeping himself from great music for many years, Dr. Allen went this fall to hear The Elijah sung, and 244 THE APPEAL FOR HELP on coming home he wrote: "To be resigned to suffering I can understand. To go through life not asking for happi- ness, only for the grace to endure — that has seemed to me the truest wisdom. But where does the Bible say anything about the endurance of happiness, to be resigned to happiness, to feel that it is not a sin to be happy! It may be this old Puritan strain in the blood. Perhaps the contrast is needed in order to apprehend. What a culmi- nation — the rest in the Lord! I had forgotten it was there. We can take happiness from God, when we could not take it from fortune or any human source." The middle of November Dr. Allen told his more intimate friends that he had become engaged to Miss Paulina Cony Smith. To Miss Smith he wrote, November 10, giving her coun- sel for her Bible class: "What I mean is to get thoroughly this new Bible, which is like a revelation to the modern student, and, while receiving it, to reconcile it with the old Bible, read in the dear old way. We don't want either a mechanical method or reckless criticism. Why is it that women so often choose one of these alternatives, instead of the progressive conservatism, where the work is needed which is most important and will endure? The role of women, as Amiel puts it, is to 'slacken the combustion of thought, analogous to that of azote in vital air.' . . . Have I ever impressed the importance of Amiel on you and Alice? It is my favourite book: it sets me thinking, or it quiets and consoles." He was fond of talking of the six little books which expressed their age: Marcus Aurelius (which, he confessed, made him gloomy); Athanasius On the Incarnation; Augustine's Confessions; Boethius's Consolations of Philos- ophy (in which he cared especially for the passage on Fate and Providence) ; Anselm's Cur Deus Homo? and Thomas a Kempis's Imitation. The nearest approach to such a book in our own time, he thought, was In Memoriam. TAULER 245 One was often surprised, upon confessing an interest in a certain recent novel, to discover that Dr. Allen not only had read it, but had racy opinions upon all the characters, and was quite fastidious in his judgments of the author's workmanship. He was indeed, he said, a hardened novel reader. He wished that some one might write a really ecclesiastical and theological novel, using this popular form to teach a robust Christianity and a wholesome Churchmanship. Trollope introduced bishops and deans only as part of society. And Baring-Gould gave you no inkling that he was a clergyman. Mrs. Humphry Ward made him merry with Robert Elsmere, who, she averred, was saturated with history at the age of twenty-six; after- wards she captivated him with the stories that followed; then she lost her power, he thought, and he could not read her later books. The novel was one more avenue through which he approached a knowledge of life. In December he wrote: "I read to the class Tauler's Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent, a.d. 1361, as an expression of pure mysticism. I was struck with the re- semblance of 'Eddyism' to some of Eckhart's and Tauler's sentences. There is a vein of mysticism passing over the world to-day. Dr. Inge is in it." So the year 1906 passed — with the manuscript of a new book in the hands of the publishers, with a storm impend- ing, but with a sense of great happiness to meet whatever might come. CHAPTER XIX FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH 1907 THE year 1907 was a year of outward controversy and inward peace. Freedom in the Church was hurried through the press by the publishers and was issued in February. When the book was actually out of his hands, Dr. Allen began to feel the long strain which had robbed him of his summer rest. "I can't understand," he said to a friend, "this collapse which takes the life out of me, unless it is grip. I go to lectures and prayers and all other things which a Christian ought to do, etc., but the energy flags." The same day he wrote to one whose sister after years of illness was approaching death through the gate of in- sanity: "I see it all, and I can't explain it or don't want to try to do so. There may be some merciful provision by which you are not tried above you are able. So long as she continues in this way, she is not the real -, and yet you cannot mourn her as wholly lost; or it may be that the subconscious nature, which acts for us in emergencies when the mind is bewildered or incompetent, may now be taking the lead and tiding you over the saddest and most incomprehensible situation. The mourning must come and the lifelong yearning and sense of loss — but not yet." He then went on to speak of himself. "I am glad I don't lecture like Mr. or for you to hear me. If I attempted it, I should either adapt myself to a popular audience and not tell what I thought or interested me, or 246 SYMPATHY IN TEACHING 247 else attempt to do so and not be understood and fail. My mind does not move any longer with popular audiences, and I distrust the whole lecture system that does. With the students I can talk out, but I have prepared them to follow me and they know where I am. Perhaps it is too intense individualism; but I am always moving, as it seems to me, underground, beneath institutions and customs and for- mulas of thought, and trying to get at some deeper meaning. But I couldn't give it, if I tried, and I give only snatches of it in books. ... I am writing you a longish letter — and about myself too." Probably there is no better analysis of Dr. Allen's peculiar gift. Everything was secondary to his work in his class room. The best thing an old pupil could say of any of his books was that it faintly reminded him of his lectures at the School. There was an indescribable charm in the intimacy and dignity of the fellowship which the lecturer offered to young men who gave themselves to him that they might learn the highest message he could tell of God in history. On January 26 Dr. Allen was married in Trinity Church, Boston, to Miss Paulina Cony Smith. His friends were grateful to Mrs. Allen for the great happiness she brought to him after all his years of loneliness. Within a month Freedom in the Church appeared, sent as a gift to five thousand clergymen by a generous layman. Then the storm began to blow. But it did not reach the quiet study at Phillips Place, for Dr. Allen made it a rule not to read the reviews. He might sometime read them, but not yet. "If I do not win any gratitude for my work," he wrote to his son, "it begins to look as if I might gain some notoriety. It is all very obnoxious to me, but, as it can't be helped, I am resigned. I am glad the book is out of my hands, whatever may be its fate. It will be coldly received by the secular press, for it disputes the rights of the journalist or the man in the street to settle these things. 248 FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH Indeed much of our trouble is owing to them. They have played into the hands of extreme ecclesiasticism." All through the spring he was receiving letters about Freedom in the Church. The press in America ignored or condemned the book. In England The Spectator and The Nation praised it. The chief difficulty with the book was that it seemed popular and was not. The Church in America had been roused by heresy and rumours of heresy, and it was in no mood to weigh delicate questions. The old pupils missed Dr. Allen's appeal to the continuous influence of the Holy Spirit upon Church History and felt that he was making a special plea for a particular age. They recognized that it was, as one of them said, a "tract for the times," not " a statement of his conception of Chris- tian Doctrine or Christian Life in its entirety"; and they knew that partisans would ignore what he had written in other books, either through ignorance of them or through ecclesiastical forgetfulness, and would brand this partial view as his whole doctrine. "I have read the book with delight," the Rev. A. N. Peaslee wrote to the publishers, "as I read all that my best of teachers has written. But I have read it with sadness too. It will not be understood nor accepted among those who most, need its teaching; and its real arguments will be travestied by many who deem themselves his disciples. I am thankful for the book, but it will not touch the champions of orthodoxy. It may give some unquiet souls the much desired assurance that the Church is still their home." The book bears the marks of haste, but its main con- tention is sufficiently clear. All who were in sympathy with young men of thoughtful temper knew that some word from an authority was needed. The volume was written to recall the Church to a sense of proportion. It was written to help people to steady their faith in Jesus Christ. With the spirit of a scholar Dr. Allen drew attention to certain historical principles which a time of PROPORTION IN DOCTRINE 249 panic was apt to overlook. It was possible so to magnify the manner of our Lord's birth that His mother would come to have an undue prominence, and our Lord's hu- manity would be ignored, till He ceased to seem to men to be their Saviour. This had happened: it could happen again. He contended that the Incarnation is a vastly larger conception than the Virgin Birth, and not its equiv- alent. Finally, when men were throwing out insinuations of dishonesty sufficient to frighten conscientious youth from the ministry, it was well to consider that the Anglican traditions, to which we owed an immediate loyalty, put the Scripture above the Creeds — thus Scripture inter- preted the Creeds; and not Creeds the Scripture. Dr. Allen had no thought of saying the last word. He felt that much remained to be said in behalf of the Virgin Birth. When he said that he accepted the Virgin Birth as a fact of history he was as frankly honest as any man can be. He had no sympathy for the cheap denials of a well attested fact of history in the name of science or in the name of a priori theological notions of what is fitting. He had great sympathy for men who had trouble with the fact, and who wondered if they accepted it or not. He felt that if they could see the Incarnation first, and the fact of the Virgin Birth as an incident, all would fall into place. He felt too that blind zealots, seeking to defend one truth, were liable to deny another truth equally precious. He pleaded for the Christ who is at once very God and very Man. Dr. Allen's friends outside his own Church were divided in their opinion of the book. Dr. Gordon was heard to say in a book-shop, as he put his hand on the volume, " Yes, Dr. Allen is a great man; but he has allowed his love for the Church to run away with his critical judgment." There were a good many who were sorry that he had not denied what he could not deny. They could not under- stand his reverence for the institution as a valid witness to 250 FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH truth. If the Virgin Birth meant nothing to them they felt free to deny the fact. On the other hand, men like Professor Bowne, of Boston University, gave him full sympathy. "I have been a good deal pummelled in my life," he told his son, " and have got accustomed to it. Still I would rather write things that pleased, and perhaps now I may get into a quieter atmosphere. But it has been very trying these last six months or more. I do not agree with Crapsey and have no sympathy with him. But the method of the trial seemed almost like a farce compared with similar trials in England. The situation in the English Church ministers to comprehensiveness and freedom. In America we suffer from a certain doctrinaire tendency from which as a rule the English people are more nearly exempt. Besides we have no ecclesiastical lawyers, and in this case English precedents went for nothing." To a layman who wrote to him about miracles he replied in April: "I quite agree with you about the miracle and its importance. In a book of mine called Christian Institu- tions, should you care to take the trouble to look at it, you will find a chapter headed Miracles, with which I think you will find yourself in agreement. I also attach great importance to the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. As for clergymen who deny them, I do not see how they can comfortably officiate in this Church of ours. "But I meet a great many laity who cannot believe in the miraculous and who find themselves prevented in consequence from full communion in our Church. The tendency of science is to-day very intense and wide-spread, and it increases steadily. Are all these to be shut out alike from the Churches because of their inability to accept the miracle? That is the question which confronts all the Churches — the Roman Catholic as well as our own. The question is so grave that it fills one with perplexity. And apparently no solution is in sight. MIRACLES 251 "Meantime we cannot be wrong in attaching the greater importance to Christian Charity: 'By this shall all men know,' says our Lord, 'that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' Can there be danger of anarchy if we keep to that word of the Master? "As you may not have access to my book of which I spoke, I transcribe from it a passage which represents my own attitude: "Let us beware of wishing to force those who are already in possession of revelation to admit its miraculous origin and to make their salvation dependent on this belief. It is already much if the light of divine revelation shines upon them, and if they walk illuminated by this sun. If their convictions clash against miracles, I say to them: My friends, I do not wish to impose the faith in miracles upon you. Beneficia non obtru- duntur. Are you not able to accept them? Well, then, let them alone. It is for you to see how you will, without their aid, explain history and the course of events which we only under- stand by their means. For my part, I do not admit miracles from a sort of dogmatic cupidity, but in an historical interest; because in presence of certain incontestable facts I cannot do without miracles as furnishing the only truly rational expla- nation; not because they make gaps in history to our eyes, but because they rather help me to cross over yawning abysses." (pp. 391 f.) Another layman wrote to ask in what way the Bible was the supreme authority in the Church; and Dr. Allen answered him: "I should put the question in this way: The authority is Scripture — the Bible as the Word of God and as containing all things necessary to Salvation. But what primarily makes the Bible authoritative is that it contains the portrait of Christ, His teaching, His charac- ter, His life, His death and passion. In the Gospels we have not only Christ, but the impression made on His contemporaries, and we have the comment of apostles and evangelists on the meaning of His teaching, and His life. 252 FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH Hence, Christ, the Founder of our religion, is the Supreme Authority. "But mere assent to the teaching of Christ is not enough, though it is much. There is the effect of His teaching and life on the mind, which constitutes experience; and experi- ence, in turn, bears witness to the truth of His teaching and life, and the rightfulness of His claim to our allegiance. So if we are challenged for our authority, we may reply that it is our experience, the Christian consciousness begotten in us. "The Bible, Christ, our inward Christian consciousness or experience, are practically one. Sometimes, or as the occasion demands, we assert one or the other. Authority becomes a great religious process of growth. We turn constantly to Scripture for new light on the Person of Christ — on the deeper meaning of His words. There was never an age which drew more deeply on the divine sources in Scripture than our own. After a century of criticism we are coming at last to the rehabilitation of the Bible in the confidence of the Church. "But all this does not prevent our returning to other sources, to the experience and reflection of good men in every age of the Church. They are not authorities in the highest sense, but they supplement and confirm the authority. With our own knowledge of Christ as the way and the truth and the life, we may go safely to what others have found in Him, and so deepen our own experience. "What confuses the mind of people to-day is the effects of the old destructive criticism of the last century, which made men feel that they needed some other authority, and they substituted the Church, the creeds, tradition, as being more available authorities. The Roman Church ven- tured to add the infallibility of the Pope. But the mood which generated these substitutes for the highest authority has passed, or is passing away, with the recovery of the FORTIETH YEAR AS TEACHER 253 Bible and the new conviction of Christ as the world's Master and divine Leader. "The question is a large one to answer in a letter. I hope I have made myself clear, even if I have given you only the germ of an answer." The Commencement of June, 1907, became the celebra- tion of the fortieth anniversary of the Episcopal Theologi- cal School. Dr. Steenstra retired from active service, becoming Professor emeritus. It was announced that the Rev. Philip M. Rhinelander had been elected Professor of the History of Religion and Missions, an election made possible by the gifts and pledges of the alumni inaugurating a fund for this professorship. Mr. William C. Endicott resigned as trustee, and was succeeded the following year by Mr. John G. Wright. The School property was in- creased by the purchase of the J. Gardner White house, next Dr. Allen's, thus providing a home for another pro- fessor in the School precincts. An unusual number of alumni returned for the dinner the night before Commence- ment, and Dr. Steenstra and Dr. Allen were the centre of attraction; for their service spanned the whole forty years. Besides, it was Dr. Nash's twenty-fifth year of teaching in the School; he was absent through illness, but words of deep gratitude were spoken of him all through the evening. "We talk about forty years," said Dr. Allen in the course of his speech. "I suppose it is, and I understand that this is a definite period of time, but it is also a round number, and it is as a round number that I can best understand it. We do not know what time means. We can measure it better if we think of movements, and indeed when you come to long years a certain element of timelessness enters in: 'A thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years.' That element of timelessness is one of the important conclusions we reach in studying the history of the Church. It seems to me that the Council of Nicaea is always in session, proclaiming its great truth. Whenever the mind of the Church has not been quite 254 FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH satisfied, there the old controversies continue. There are always evils in the Church which call for reformation; and a reformation is always in order. Every age is an age of tran- sition. I suppose that to-day we are on the eve of one of the greatest transitions of the Church — but then every day is the same. Young men come up in each new generation with a different outlook, and someway they manage to impress it upon the world, and the world is changed. I can see the process to-day in the School, and in the men who come here: it is not quite what it was ten years ago. Things change more rapidly than they did. These questions that we have been debating in the past generation are questions of grave importance for the Church. Some have been settled; most of them have disap- peared; others — such as the explanation of Biblical difficulties — continue to embarrass. The problem of the miraculous is still a painful one. There has been the trouble about the Virgin Birth. No one knows the amount of time given here in trying to straighten out that difficulty or in maintaining the statement of the Creed. I think that difficulty also will disappear." Then he tried to define the position of the School: "I do not know," he said, "that I can put that position in a few words, but it is something like Raphael's 'School of Athens,' where Plato stands pointing to the heavens, and Aristotle stands, as in protest, with his hand pointing down to things as they are on earth. Such was the mediaeval interpretation of the mo- ment just before the Reformation, and I think it tells about the whole. We have constantly before us the problem of harmonizing the institution, things as they are, with the new truth that comes down from God Himself, God in direct com- munion with men. I am not saying that Raphael was the true interpreter of philosophy. It is the historical spirit with which we are concerned. This was the way men in Italy felt, and this is the way they felt in the English and German Reformation. God had a message to give, and the message must someway be incorporated with things as they are, or there was danger to the institution. Now we all believe in the institution, and it is one of the things to be grateful for that we are tied to it. But we do also believe that God is opening before us new ways of look- ing at the old truth, and we must be ready, we must keep the OXFORD MOVEMENT 255 open mind for the new vision. This School, you remember, arose at the moment when the Oxford influence was at its height, when the world and the Church had lost something of faith in God or in the Bible as the Word of God. I do not know what we should have done without the Oxford Movement. It called our attention to Church history, to the consciousness of the Church, to the profound truth that the influence of Christ is perpetuated in the Church, the continuance of His life through- out all ages. It is of course a dangerous thing to keep the open mind for the new truth, but everything is dangerous in this world. There will always be fanaticism; there will be per- versions of all kinds waiting upon this conviction that God speaks to the world and teaches us to-day. But in sound learn- ing, in good sense, in faith and charity, lies the hope for the Church and for the world. "In speaking then of this round period of forty years I think it is something to have kept the feeling, the faith, that better things are yet to come. The outlook for the Church and for us as individual men, as individual clergymen, is more wonderful than it has ever been before. The old feeling of the last century about the Bible, that it cannot be trusted, has gone by. We have come back again to trust it as the book from whose study we shall yet see God anew and hear God speaking. From its study great truths may yet be revealed to the Church. That is the attitude of the coming age. "It is amazing, if one keeps track of the literature — and modern literature is coming to mean something in Church history — that the best minds are going back to the study of the origin of the New Testament. There is Harnack, for example, who has dropped his study of history except that of the first and second centuries, and finds his absorbing interest in the original sources and the literature of the New Testament age. That is the spirit now working in the Schools. We are slowly getting nearer to the fountain light of all our being. We are getting back again to Christ as no other age in the history of the world has known Him. We begin to see Him — and even more clearly than those who walked with Him in the flesh — because we can read the influences that acted upon the time in a way in which the actors could not recognize them. We wait 256 FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH only for the spark of divine fire and a religious revival which shall shake the world. That I live hoping to see. Christ means more to us than we have hitherto seen. He means to us these two things in particular — the coming into the world of a love such as the world had never known before, and also a boundless hope." It was good that the men all stood as he rose to speak; it was good that he caught from their gleaming eyes the news that his message had kindled in them faith and hope and love; it was good that he went home that night very glad, in the consciousness that whatever was imperfect in his teaching would be lost and the best would be carried forward. For it was his last speech to the alumni. The Church at large had misunderstood him. His pupils had various opinions of his last book, but they had only one opinion of him. That night he knew once again their gratitude and their affection. " There were a great many men back," he said simply as he returned to his house. "I knew them all." When the School closed, once more the work of book- making began. The Life of Phillips Brooks must be reduced, and Dr. Allen could not rest till this was accom- plished. Mrs. Allen gave him constant help, and made the work easy for him. He wrote in September to an old pupil: "I am glad that you are at work on the commentary on . This com- bination of the practical parish minister with the scholarly worker is a good one, and it certainly is most rare, in this country at least. So I hope you will keep on in that line. ... I have been hard at work all summer, on the reduced Life of Brooks, and yesterday sent off the MS. to the pub- lisher. I have kept at the task with an uneasy feeling, for it prevented my doing other and much more important work. But I was under an obligation to do it, and as I was keeping others from doing it, the only thing was for me to undertake it. Great as the reduction is, the abridged Life THE CHURCH AND THE NATION 257 will be a book of over 600 pages. ... I have felt con- stantly, as I renewed my knowledge of Brooks's work, how much he belonged to a past generation, and yet how vital his message was for this or any age. This shows, I hope, that he is destined to live. It has often made me wonder, however, what kind of a man he would have been in this present day. . . . We have enjoyed the summer here at North Chatham. Part of the pleasure has been owing to the presence of Dean Robbins, of the General Theological Seminary, who has a bungalow here. He has not much changed since I knew him in the School at Cambridge; but he has proved immensely interesting in these long talks we have had every day, and three times a day." One day this fall Bishop Lawrence sought advice about a speech which he had been asked to make at Richmond during the General Convention. "The genius of the Anglican Church," Dr. Allen replied, "is best fitted to conserve national freedom as against Papacy which would limit or suppress, or as compared with Puritanism, which is interested chiefly in individual development. Anglican- ism seeks for individual development, but finds it through the freedom of the State, and aims at this latter therefore primarily and directly. I do not know any book more full of fertile hints than Bishop Creighton's The Church and the Nation. He illustrates the theme historically, and no man was better fitted to do so. It is this peculiarity of the Anglican Church which constitutes its power. . . . There is another book, Church and Empire, by Ellison and Walpole, which urges this principle as an incentive in the mission work of the Anglican Church. I was interested in it, because it made the subject practical, calling upon the Anglican Church to rise to its dignity and greatness. . . . I tried to get on this line in the Dudleian lecture at Harvard some three years ago, but was hampered, because I was speaking to an audience which had no sympathy with the Anglican Church." 18 258 FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH "I was glad to get your impressions of the General Con- vention," he wrote in November to an old pupil; "I have not followed it closely, because I have been pressed with work. I did not wholly like the preamble to the Consti- tution, because it raises many issues which it does not determine, and it is better to let them lie quietly if possible. It reminds one of the moment gone by some twenty years ago, and it no longer speaks to the present moment. Then it is a mistake to speak of the Apostles' Creed as a Catholic creed in the same sense as the Nicene, for it never has had any oecumenical recognition or author- ity. It is unknown to the Eastern Church. To speak of these two creeds as containing a 'sufficient' statement of the Christian faith, raises the question, ' sufficient for what? ' If for salvation, then it is requiring more than the Apostles required, when they admitted converts to baptism or to the Church. If it means 'sufficient for salvation in this modern day,' then to many the creeds seem inadequate. If it means 'sufficient without the Thirty-nine Articles,' I am still doubtful about the wisdom of saying so. The Creeds certainly were not sufficient to keep the Church in ancient and mediaeval times from all sorts of errors. These thoughts intrude into my mind against my will. To abolish the Articles, after having required candidates for Orders to stand an examination in them for a hundred years, is not an act calculated to strengthen faith in the Creeds. The Creeds will stand on the ipse dixit of the General Convention of 1907. "And then again, in regard to the ministry, it irritates our brethren of the various Churches to hear that statement : it does not reconcile. It is the 'antique' voice of scholar- ship in the 16th century, finding utterance in the Preface to the Ordinal. It passes over the learned investigations of the last 30 or more years, which have shown that the type of organization in the age of the Apostles, and from the time of the Apostles for some two generations, is not the TRANSUBSTANTIATION 259 organization of the American Church. If the Articles must go, this antique language of the Preface should also go. "But you must excuse me for saying again these weary things. I thought the Convention was fine for its Mission- ary enthusiasm and Christian feeling — and that is the great thing." The Bishop of London was in America for the Convention. " I have not met any one so charming," said Dr. Allen, "since Stanley." To Mr. Wright, who had sent him his Liberal Theol- ogy in the Fourth Century, Dr. Allen wrote this month: "You have shown quite clearly that Augustine took the symbolical view of the Eucharist. I have the impres- sion from reading Batiffol some time ago that he gave him up as hopeless, and so did the teachers of the later middle ages when they were evolving the doctrine of Transubstan- tiation. There are some things that are too strong and altogether too powerful for a healthful religious growth, and although something may be said for them in the way of a priori reasoning, yet the best instincts of the soul reject them as tending to limit and dwarf the religious life. Among them are verbal inspiration, transubstantiation, and, in modern life, what is known as spiritualism. They kill the interest in the normal life of man; they imply a supernatural, miraculous guidance and association which God does not mean we should have in this world. They are at war with the truly spiritual life, therefore, which is based on faith — as when Christ said, 'It is expedient for you that I go away ' — meaning in His bodily Presence with His disciples. The best thing that can be said for the Tractarian view of the Eucharist is that it may have kept spiritualism at bay, or from invading the Church. For that, I take it, is, after all, the essence of Pusey's view — the materialization of Christ on the altar. The strong, explicit words, 'Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them,' fade away and lose 2 6o FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH their value by the side of such teaching. The speculations about the Eucharist among early Church writers, and down the whole history of the Church have been to me the least profitable of all theological writing. They have been fanciful and unintelligible, undertaking to say what never can be said clearly, because they turn about a mys-, tery which is insoluble. But the natural man loves mystery, and so does the language of the Fathers appeal to him. The Roman Church at last said out what was latent in much that had been written, and then the process of recon- struction began. For that, as I see it, was one-of the leading issues of the revolt of the sixteenth century." The abridged Life of Brooks came out early in December, and was recognized as one more stage in the process of continuing the influence of a great Christian. With its appearance Dr. Allen felt that he could lie back on his oars for a season. He therefore gave himself up to his friends and his pupils with unusual freedom this winter. His talk was now of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill: the mediaeval Church in making the circle within which mar- riage was impossible had created modern society — every man had a circle of women with whom he could associate without the element of sex entering in: marriage was so complete that the wife's kin became as a man's own. Again, the talk was of the Bible. "Don't say," he said, '"Is it true?' but 'What has it done for the world, what is its value now?'" He called himself the first disciple of pragmatism. "Men," he said, "had been trying to put the universe into an intellectual formula. Pragmatism shows the will as supreme, and the will, like a hungry animal, seeking what it needs." The talk too was often of the Thirty-nine Articles: "Under their shell of theology there is a supreme devotion to Christ." Some one expressed surprise that a certain clergyman with a sour and ungen- erous personality could preach so well. "Oh," said Dr. Allen, "that's clear enough: it's his better self preaching KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE 261 to his worse self — it's no imaginary sinner he's pummel- ling." Coming home from chapel, where a preacher of an altogether different stamp had preached an uncommonly good sermon, he said: "Drown's sermon was beautiful; but it leaned to Patripassionism. I like the other idea — the looking into the vista at the bottom of which is free- dom from suffering — the beginning and the end, victory." Some one reported to him that Dr. had spoken of a woman's leading ''the religious life in the technical sense"; whereupon he burst out, "I suppose he meant that she made a fool of herself in some convent. Dr. 's crowd don't know what happiness is." Yet he was ordinarily gentle in his judgments. ' ' My point of view comes from knocking round the world and finding the bad in good people and the good in bad people." The pupil who heard him say this was inclined to be amused, thinking him quite ignorant of the noisier world. But one day finding himself in a great crowd which had gathered in a Boston street around two angry people in a fight, he looked up to see Dr. Allen standing on tip-toe, gazing intently at the whole proceeding; and the man knew instantly that his teacher of Church history gave his whole mind to the human story wherever he found it, in living men even more than in books. It sometimes seemed to Dr. Allen's pupils that in his evident goodness he did not feel the hardness of the struggle to resist the bad. "He was utterly unfair to Augustine," said one pupil; "Augustine's fierce moral agonies I think found no echoes in his own life." One young man, quite conscious of the struggle, recalls how Dr. Allen told him with a penitent shiver of a certain oral examination in the old school-days at Nantucket — when, seeing that a little girl was about to fail, he wrote the answer on his slate for her to see: even the sense of chivalry had not eased his conscience all the years. The young man wondered how Dr. Allen would have felt had he been confessing sins like 262 FREEDOM IN THE CHURCH his own. Dr. Allen had the gradual discipline towards righteousness which removes the Augustine-like conver- sions; but by a spacious humanism he entered into the struggle of the world. "After you have come close to drunkenness or insanity," he said, "life is never the same. I cannot regard nature as beneficent. It is not evil, but, under divine permission, there is evil in it. We cannot understand the purpose, but must accept it." Nor was it a mere aesthetic emotion. When some one was rejoicing one day that a wrong-doer was at last getting his due pun- ishment, Dr. Allen was silent; then, when asked if he felt no satisfaction, he answered, "No: when I hear that some one has done wrong, I feel as if I had done it myself." Even many of Dr. Allen's students and friends did not know how thorough his commiseration and sorrow were for all that was lame or crooked: his tenderness was indeed so complete that he steeled himself to conceal his true feeling lest he break down with emotion. A student who did newspaper work in Boston met him posting a letter late one night. Dr. Allen said, "We are out late; aren't we?" "Yes," the student said, "I have to be in Boston at my newspaper office very late." As he stood at the gate of 2, Phillips Place, Dr. Allen drew out the whole story of Newspaper Row at midnight and after — as bright and busy as in the day. A night or two later the student, getting off his car, ran into Dr. Allen, who had come from Boston on another car. " It is just as you said, " he explained. "I thought I would go and see it all. It is very interesting. Let me take your arm." He was evi- dently quite weary: but the chance of seeing a new phase of the life of the busy world was worth an uncomfortable following day. He was an indefatigable investigator. CHAPTER XX HAPPINESS AND PEACE 1908 IN January, 1908, Dr. Allen wrote to Carroll Perry: "You asked me a question the other night at the Club, which I did not answer, or, rather, I was getting ready to try to answer, when the conversation was diverted. If you care to know what I think, it is this — that Christ comes to expectant souls whenever and wherever they desire Him. And so He comes in the experience of con- version before Baptism, or after the rite if He is then looked for, in the fulness of His power and grace. He comes in the experience of the Eucharist to those who have been taught that His presence is conditioned by the sacred emblems of the body and blood, but comes alike to those two or three who are met together in His Name. I like to think this, because it is comprehensive, and does justice to all sincere and earnest souls in their aspiration for the highest good, and it covers all variations. It was the solution which Augustine offered in the Donatist contro- versy in regard to the baptism of heretics. Is there not some ground for it in the words of Christ, 'And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive'?" To Arthur Thomas he wrote, this winter: "You will surely know without my telling you how deeply grieved I have been to learn of your illness, and to know that you have been forced to give up work in order to regain your health. I have thought of you constantly. I am one of 263 264 HAPPINESS AND PEACE those who believe that recuperative power lies in two directions: in the care of the body, and in the strengthen- ing of the inner spirit by union and communion with the Divine Being in whose image we are made, whose life circulates in our life, — always therefore thinking of our- selves as in vital touch with the infinite life, locked up and supported by it, resting upon it, learning what is called the practice of the Divine Presence, i.e., never thinking of our- selves apart from God, who is our life and strength. Must not this be a source of recuperation? In moments of de- pression or isolation recall that this Infinite Life is yours, close to you and within you, closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. In this conviction I am looking for your recovery, and I hope the days will not prove tedious in which you wait for restoration. ... I look forward to long talks in the study. God bless and keep you." He had much trouble with his breathing this winter, and remained indoors more than usual. Pleasant days he would take his afternoon walk. He whimsically complained that Mrs. Allen dragged him out a great deal, and when she protested that it was seven calls in six months, he said, "Yes: one and one-sixth call a month, or one-fourth call a week." He was fond of going down to Harvard Square, looking in at the shop windows, and coming home with some trifling purchase, such as an ash tray. Never was his talk more lively, and the quiet, musical voice made its irresistible appeal to all who entered the study. His laughter, though almost silent, was never merrier: his whole frame shook with it. He was very happy. He talked of his favourite hymns. He put "Rock of Ages" first. "You know," he said, "I've always been an Evangelical." He loved Abelard's Quanta Qualia: "It has the scholastic ring." Faber's hymns held him to the end : he liked their note of personal loyalty to Christ, their frank expression of emotion. He hated "The Church's One Foundation" as vehemently as Archbishop Temple TABLE TALK 265 disliked it. "They always sing it at Conventions," he said; "and when they sing 'with heresies distrest,' they look at me." He laughed at Mrs. Eddy and "the next friends"; but, reading everything about Christian Science, pro and con, he studied its revelations of character and type. He did not sympathize with the modern interest in spiritualism. When told that Sir Oliver Lodge had gone over to it, he replied, "All the worse for Sir Oliver Lodge. To me the last word is the mystic scene on the Sea of Galilee, when Christ said with His divine solicitude, ' Children, have ye any meat?"' Neither could he understand the people who rose to great heights in time of deep sorrow: "I," he confessed, "can never get beyond the touch of the vanished hand." He helped Mrs. Allen in her preparations for her Bible class, giving her definitions such as these: "Special provi- dence is God's general providence revealed to the individ- ual;" "Grace is God's favour to the undeserving;" "Prayer is union with the Source of strength — when we get that, it is a small matter whether petitions are answered or not." He was intensely interested in all the modern study of the New Testament: "If the document Q was circulating in the year 50," he reflected, "how different it is from St. Paul's preaching. To find the relation between the two is the important thing. The Christian message came: St. Paul is the almost perfect response." When asked about the Talmud he replied that it stood to Judaism as the Coun- cil of Trent to modern Romanism. When the conversa- tion fell upon the headings in the Authorized Version of the Old Testament, such as "This speaketh of the Relation of Christ to His Church," he looked up suddenly and said "It's all true, too." Dr. Allen was an inspiration to many laymen. "I felt his catholic, hospitable spirit very much," said Mr. Joseph Lee, "and a sense of many chords that vibrated when he 266 HAPPINESS AND PEACE paused and smiled before answering a question. His view of the sacredness of the State was tremendously interesting to me, as coming from the other side from mine." His humour was a delight to such men as Mr. Bliss Perry; and a good many of the older professional men of Cambridge, including several Harvard professors, were in the habit of dropping into his study to have their religious views clarified. No man was ever less professional in his deep emotion and aspiration and loyalty. He regretted that the modern man did not give himself to family prayers and the Bible, as his ancestors had done; "but he sits down to his newspaper," he said, "and studies the secular world — that too is God's." And so he had forbearance and trust when the layman was not sure that he was religious. He changed his pew in St. John's Chapel because it was too near the font. "When I think of all the children," he said, "including my own two little white heads, who have been brought up there, the pathos of it all is too much for me." Years before, when his younger son was seeking a subject for a college theme, Dr. Allen had suggested "The Pathos of Little Children's Clothes." He never spoke of children without emotion — their ridiculous hats with their little cockades, their pleasure in small things, their disappointments. Affectation in any part of life was bad enough; in religion he found it intolerable. When the Chapel bell rang, just at the close of breakfast, he would say, with amused allusion to the title of a certain religious book, "Well, it ringeth to morning-song." He had a New England conscience in spite of himself. The telephone rang one morning, and Mrs. Allen went to answer it. "Don't," he said; but it was too late. "There," he added, "it is Kellner reminding me of faculty meeting, and I shall have to go." He often said that he had the Puritan feeling about the use of time, but not of money. When the bell of Dr. MacKenzie's church rang to prayer- PURITANISM 267 meeting Friday night, he would say, "There goes Mac- Kenzie's bell: what a hardening effect it has had on me all these years!" His boys persuaded him once to go to the theatre to see Willard in The Middleman. But he was uncomfortable: he felt that it was not the place for a clergyman. Yet he was in constant revolt against the Puritan temper. He had been disturbed the summer before by the talk of the railway merger, by which the Boston and Maine system should be ruled from New York. It stood to him for the decadence of New England. "The Puritan mind," was his comment, "does not take up large schemes, but devotes itself to petty reforms." When the Puritans were discussing tainted money, he at once fell back on history: "The Montanists took the extreme view of the Church; but the Catholic Church decided differently — and it was right." He talked of Anglicanism. "The old 'three- decker' pulpit was truly Anglican," said he, "proclaiming an equal prominence to preaching, Sacrament, and reading of the Word." One day he gave a book that he had been reading to a friend, with a glowing commendation. Bring- ing it back, the friend slyly remarked that he had found some of the pages uncut. "Well," said Dr. Allen, "this is awkward: the Jesuits have a way when they come to certain subjects of saying, 'Let this subject be passed over in silence.'" It irritated him to hear so much high-flown talk about anti-imperialism and peace movements. "There isn't wisdom enough in them all," he said, "to decide, for instance, whether Germany is to expand or not. Where does God come in? But Mrs. of Boston says she only has to organize the world — that's all!" When Mr. Stead was reproaching the Church with not doing more for universal peace, Dr. Allen said: "The Church is permeated with the idea of atonement, that you can't have anything without paying for it. As forgiveness 268 HAPPINESS AND PEACE can only be won by cost, so with national freedom. These peace people think in a Unitarian way that if you leave people alone to buy and sell, it will be all right. But we know that if a man belongs to a thing, he must be willing to pay for it with his life." It was arranged during the spring of 1908, at the joint request of the trustees and the alumni, that Dr. Allen's portrait should be painted. He refused at first, saying with a smile, "Pusey would never have his portrait painted — and Pusey was a great man. Neither would Plotinus." He afterwards consented, but the time for the sittings never was fixed. He had a bronchial cough, but recovered, and met his students as usual when the Easter term opened. He had all the old zest. Men recalled such sayings as these: "Plato was a New England Transcendentalist, Aristotle was a High Churchman; " " Scotus was a great heretic, but he was so profound that the Church didn't find it out for two hundred years;" "Gnosticism with its emanations was like the street lamps on Beacon street — each one getting more and more faint;" "So they condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia to join the select company of Origen in hell;" "L thinks the whole question of the Person of Christ ought to be discussed all over again — that would be a good thing, but I think the councils did pretty well on that question;" "We ought to judge men by the kind of man they want to be;" "Justification by faith is the great doc- trine. You men don't understand it now, and some of you don't like it; but by and by you'll preach nothing else." Just before their canonical examinations he coached the Seniors, speaking to them for nearly three hours contin- uously about the first three centuries. An old graduate, Theodosius Tyng, who chanced to be present, said that he never had heard anything so masterly as the way he separated and related all the lines of thought and action. And then, on May 1, came the first serious illness of CHURCH UNITY 269 his life. His heart, which had been weak for years, almost failed him. For days, in his unconsciousness, it was thought that he could not live. He gradually grew better, and as he came to himself he read and talked and did much thinking; and he responded to the May sunshine. "Evan- gelical fervour," he said, one day, laughing, "wore people out early. Neither Dr. Stone nor Dr. Vinton did any work after fifty. They excused themselves by saying that the world was hard for the Gospel." A member of the family came home one of the days of convalescence from a lecture on Buddhism, confessing that this type of religion made no appeal. "Why should it?" he said. "The Church fought that type of religion in Gnosticism. It is an anodyne for despairing people. It never has taken hold of any nation that has amounted to anything." He dipped into favourite books, among them Richard Rothe: "I read it to refresh my Protestantism," he said. He talked of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and spoke of one of Rossetti's girls as a girl with everything essential left out, — that is, religious faith. "They went back," he said, "to Botticelli, who had lost faith. The movement expressed a mood of yearning of the nineteenth century." One Sunday afternoon when Mrs. Allen was covering him up to take a nap, she asked him when a nap became part of the Sunday ritual. "Oh, very early," he replied: "the monks called it weariness of the world." At the suggestion of the Rev. Newman Smyth, A. P. Stokes, a graduate, wrote to Dr. Allen asking him how Phillips Brooks felt about plans for Church unity. Dr. Allen wrote his reply with a lead pencil, May 25: "If my impression is true, Brooks took no interest whatever in the subject of Christian unity when approached from an eccle- siastical side, as, e.g., in the Chicago-Lambeth platform. That is putting it rather mildly too. It irritated him as if assuming that when the Christian faith had proved a fail- ure in its normal presentation, it could be made to work by 270 HAPPINESS AND PEACE ecclesiastical adjustments. Hence his tone on the subject was apt to be severe, like Isaiah's denouncing a 'confed- eracy.' Where or when or how he had worked out the subject for himself with such positive emphasis, I found no evidence. . . . His idea was that Christian unity existed, and only awaited manifestation. He availed himself of every method and opportunity, and there he stopped. He would have gone further, but recognized prejudices. These were to be overcome by Christian charity, and by a truer, larger presentation of Christ. Once get Him, and the divisions would lose their separating power. ... I must not write more. I have been ill, so they say, but I am much better. . . . Anything you write about interests me, but I am afraid I do not sympathize on this point. It is a much larger subject and it goes deeper into life and history than those often think who fancy it is an easy thing to make adjustments." On May 29 he wrote to another pupil: "The portrait will not be done for Commencement, and I am sorry to say that I shall be absent as well as you. I have been quite ill, confined to my room for a month, but I am much better and hope to go downstairs to-morrow to the long neglected study. I have done a good deal of thinking and consider- able reading during this strange month of illness. Some of it, of course, has been rather inconsequent, as when I ex- pounded to one of the night nurses the necessity of getting you to edit some recently discovered MS. of Origen!" At Commencement time Dr. Allen was able to see one or two of the older men in his study, but it was whispered about among the alumni that he probably never would be able to take up his teaching again. And so it flashed through the minds of his friends and pupils what he had stood for: — He had asked one day at home for the definition of a paradox; and was told that he himself was the best known PERSONAL TRAITS 271 example. Never was a man more docile: he loved to follow. Now it was Maurice, now it was Brooks, and always it was Coleridge. "Coleridge had something to do with this," he said of a great happiness towards the end, "as he has had to do with every important event in my life." And yet he could be the most aggressive and independent of men: leading far ahead and quite alone. He was at once a recluse and a soldier. In all his tastes and sympa- thies, in his sensitiveness and reserve, he was an aristocrat; but from principle and conviction he was a thorough demo- crat. He sometimes seemed as innocent of business as a baby, he could not strike a bargain or remember how legal papers should be filled out; and then, at other times, he would be as practical and keen as a banker: Professor Palmer said that he often consulted him about men who had been under him, and he never knew his judgment to be mistaken; Bishop Lawrence, too, constantly consulted him, and found it wise to accept his counsel in difficult places. In conversation he was curious to learn other men's opinions, but with delicate-footed caution was tenacious of his own: he could not quickly get out of his scheme. The style of his books was shy and careful, almost timid; the centre of his books was always venture- some, original, audacious. He was devoted to persons: history and life seemed to him a pageant of lovable and masterful and silly and wicked people, awaiting praise or condemnation; and then the days would come when he spoke only of abstract problems, as if he cared for nothing else. He loved and craved love; but he was perpetually holding people at a distance, bluffing them with his sly and clerkly humour, so that they went away quite ignorant of his true enthusiasm. He was all on fire for the supreme truths he found enshrined in the life of the Church; but he could be as cold as ice towards what men proclaimed to him as the great Christian movement of the hour — Church Unity, Psychic Research, Cathedrals, or Psycho- 272 HAPPINESS AND PEACE therapy. When Psychotherapy was making its first vic- tories, he said of one of his old pupils, "I hope he won't take up this thing — he can make a success of the legitimate ministry." He had unlimited confidence in the funda- mental work of a clergyman, and a horror of what he called fads. So men said that he had limitations. Con- tempt played a large part in his life; yet when one went deeper into knowledge of him, one found unutterable compassion, tenderness, patience. He was a paradox. He was not a worshipper of consistency. He had warm affection and respect for his many friends among "the dissenters," as he playfully called them. Yet he always laughed when he quoted Jeremy Taylor's saying that a man could not be a Presbyterian and a gentleman. He would have been indignant if a modern bishop had said it. The people that most aroused him were narrow Unitarians, who made a boast of liberalism, and then scoffed at all positive faith, being tolerant only of negations and denials. "They have made religion so reasonable," he said, "that nobody can believe it." A certain rabbi rasped his nerves. "Some day," said Dr. Allen, "there will be Anti-Semitism in this country, and it will be the fault of the Jews — chiefly of Rabbi X." Or, again he would say, "Rabbi X, in his peregrinations about the country — which are not nearly so important as he thinks they are — is fond of addressing Unitarians and telling them that they stand on the same ground. And they don't like it." Once his sister spoke of some bigoted Seventh Day Baptists, hinting that they would make good High Churchmen. He was quite vehement, saying, "They would make the worst possible kind." Then he added gently, "But they have a great deal on their side historically — and how some peo- ple do love to be persecuted!" At another time he said, "It's my limitation — I don't care for Moody. I haven't yet forgotten my indignation at being asked about my personal religion at a revival when I was a boy." Yet at a AN INTERPRETER OF FACTS 273 hotel where the proprietor held extremely informal reli- gious services each morning, he would go to them, admit- ting, "I'm afraid I like them in spite of their crudeness: the truth is, any kind of sincere religion appeals to me." But of all "dissenters" the Quakers were nearest his heart. There was something in their mood akin to his own. He had once thought of having a book-plate made, using a detail from Raphael's Transfiguration; namely, the heads of St. John and St. Peter — St. John eager to receive without question, St. Peter waiting for proof. It was the contradictory story of his own soul — the eager, child-like trust linked with the philosopher's inquiring spirit. It is one secret why he won the confidence of intelligent youth. It explains why he could say that if he had not been a Churchman, he would have liked to be a Quaker. What place his pupils could give him as an historian is as difficult to tell now as it was in those first days when they felt that his active fife was done. Certainly he was not a chronicler of facts. He treated facts, it seemed to some, rather cavalierly at times. He did not mean to do so, but the criticism would not have much disturbed him. It was not his function to test facts, much as he respected the man who gave himself to that task. His function, we may safely say, was rarer: it was to detect the significance of facts, to discover the ruling idea of an age, and to relate this principle to the group of facts lying about it. That his generalizations should in every case prove sound is too much to hope of any human effort. That many of them have borne the stamp of true prophecy is shown by their appropriation by the teachers of teachers, whether writers or instructors or preachers, men of the calibre of John Fiske and Phillips Brooks, till opinions, first received with hostility, are now generally accepted by the most cautious. The Continuity of Christian Thought, judged by its ultimate influence on the thought of the Church, indirectly and directly, is his most significant book. The technical his- 19 274 HAPPINESS AND PEACE torian would doubtless put Christian Institutions before it, as a more thorough work; but technical judges must give way before the verdict of actual influence. Both books must continue to be read as contributions to theo- logical thought, each having the power of originality. The Jonathan Edwards seems likely to be the permanent esti- mate of one with whose theology his biographer had little sympathy — as remarkable for appreciation as for criti- cism. It seems unlikely that Dr. Allen's Life of Brooks will be superseded. Of Freedom in the Church, as a volume to be read in the future, it is impossible to speak. As time goes on, the main thesis of the book will gain a hearing in some form. That is certain. Dr. Allen's severest critics in later years were not con- servative, but radical, theologians. Christmas-eve, 1897, Dr. G. A. Gordon wrote to Dr. Allen: "I go to all your words with an eagerness and an expectation wholly excep- tional, and I find my spirit spoken to by you on the deep things of the Christian Faith, as it is spoken to by almost no other man." November 21, 1908, Dr. Gordon wrote to a common friend: "He did not meet issues boldly and frankly, e.g., his latest book. He grew extremely fan- ciful in a good deal of his work; and he showed less and less sympathy with the men who are thinking out the present problems of the Christian mind." Those are evidently honest opinions, separated by a period of less than eleven years. The explanation must come in Dr. Allen's devotion to the institution of the Church. What the Church had found valuable enough to proclaim its faith in, and had lived by for a long period, was worthy of special credence. That was one of his tests of truth. From the college days when he found fault with Bishop Mcllvaine and Bishop Bedell because they did not know why they were not Presbyterians, Dr. Allen was a strong Churchman. And one of the last words he wrote was a word upon this very subject: "Salvation is not an indi- A PROTESTANT CHURCHMAN 275 vidual thing: it is only accomplished by the fellowship of the Church. The principle of association enters into the religion of Christ as an essential factor. The spirit which saves men is a spirit of holy fellowship which seeks to unite them more closely together. It is essentially a spirit of love, and not of selfishness or division." He did not grant the right of a Christian man to begin Christian history anew, judging on a priori grounds what was satis- factory to him. And yet he often called himself an indi- vidualist. He disliked the modern way of having houses with rooms all opening into one another. "It is," he said, "part of the socialistic modern tendency: I am an individualist — I like 2, Phillips Place, where each room is separate." In the same way he liked the pew-system of the eighteenth century, where the family could assert its separation from the other families of the parish. He was a Churchman, but a Protestant Churchman; and he underscored, in his own mind, both words. With this instinctive characteristic he made his way through history. He never rejected any truth which good men held sacred : if it seemed to him inadequate, he found some larger truth, into which he could carry the partial truth. Some men around him were Churchmen only, accepting what was to them unintelligible and meaningless on the ground of a cold authority; others were merely Protestants, denying freely whatever for the moment displeased their present conceptions and needs. He was a Protestant Churchman; and so won the hostile criticism of both Churchmen and Protestants. Once more he was a paradox; even, as one of his pupils said, the high-priest of paradox. But those who knew Dr. Allen only in books did not know him at his best. Even those who heard him lecture at the Union Seminary or in some Harvard hall did not know his real power. This power he revealed to the few men whom year by year he taught in the Theological School. Men who had sat under Harnack and William 276 HAPPINESS AND PEACE James and the other great teachers of the day always said that they had never known such a teacher as Dr. Allen. "Those who sat at his feet in the days of his strength," wrote E. T. Sullivan, "can never forget the inspiration of those hours in his lecture room. He would bring out, by questioning, a mass of confusing facts, and then he had a characteristic way of saying: 'Now there are two remarks to be made about all this.' And he would throw out a great principle which, like the flash of a powerful search- light on a dark night, lighted up the events of the period and showed what they all meant. And while the mind was tingling with satisfaction, and revelling in that keen pleasure which comes from the impact of illuminating ideas, he would formulate his second 'remark,' usually a comple- mentary principle, showing what the students had not noticed, that the first flash had lighted up only one side of the facts, and that the two principles were needed to re- solve the seeming inconsistency of the story. This method kept the minds before him in a state of expectation, eager- ness, and wonder. It had also another effect. It made the students master the facts of the history beforehand. His task was to illuminate them; to interpret their sig- nificance to the period, and to indicate the value of the principle for all times. . . . He had a curious habit of turning away from himself and towards the students the face of the little clock on the desk. They might watch the minutes of that hour if they chose. He was dealing with the ages. And he was always surprised by the stroke of the bell. . . . Some of his lectures on the Doctrine of the Trinity left his students almost breathless at times, and they went silently out as from a religious service." The quality of his method, which was often criticized in his books, became his chief asset as a teacher. The fact that he was not, first of all, an anxious investigator of the actual course of events, but a kind of original speculator upon the past workings of the human mind, gave him CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHER 277 power to stimulate, awaken, and inspire his pupils. He made them study the facts to test his principles; and his suggestiveness created in them the imagination to look for meaning and purpose and God in all history. He did not command books to be read; but after giving his list for a certain period, he would add, "You will look these up if you are interested." His business he felt was to make men interested. He confessed to a teacher once that he kept his eye through the lecture on the one or two men who were ablest in the class. If their attention flagged, he changed the topic or his method of presenting it. But the bond of sympathy was so close that he was almost never forced to do this, though he never ceased his watchfulness. Part of his hold on men came from the intense personal feeling he had for the figures in history. When he said, "I like Gregory Nazianzen," men knew that it was not the theologian's approval, but the love of a friend. It was the same with Clement: "He was such a gentleman," Dr. Allen said one night in his study. The men, perforce, shared his own emotion when he told of the last of the Humanists, Minucius Felix, who described his walk along the curving shore of Ostia, the sinking of his feet in the sands, the crisp little waves running up the beach and making smooth again his footprints, the boys skipping stones, the beauty of the evening; then the students felt as their own his regret that all this pleasure in the beauty of the world was to fade for many generations. He con- fessed privately that he never entered on this time of the Dark Ages without a feeling of depression. And his relief on reaching the Renaissance was also contagious. "When at last the yoke of the Latin tongue was broken," he said, "all the world was singing of love." It was more than mere interest that he gave his men. "You would come to his class," said one of his pupils, " and he would, let us say, begin to talk about the Novatians. Up to that time you had probably not heard that there 278 HAPPINESS AND PEACE were such people as Novatians. Dr. Allen would explain their significance, and add, 'But there is one point about them still unexplained, a very important point, one that should be cleared up.' You would then go out of the class feeling that the most important thing for the welfare of the Church was that this point about the Novatians should be cleared up, and that probably you were the man to do it." That would seem to all his pupils thoroughly characteristic. He believed in his men in such a way that they believed in themselves. They saw visions of what they might do, and they dared to try. And yet he was no blind enthusiast. One day he asked a student if he had read' a certain book. The man said, "Yes"; whereupon Dr. Allen began to question him about it. When only ignorance was shown, Dr. Allen said softly, "You say, Mr. , that you have read this book?" "Yes," was the answer. "Ah, well," was the sweet rejoinder, "that is all that is nec- essary." One element of attraction in his personal talk and in his lectures came from his humour. It was of the inde- finable sort which does not depend on funny stories or smartness. It took odd ways to itself. For example, he liked to talk with people as though they were deeply inter- ested in subjects quite out of their line. He once found himself in a summer hotel with a Harvard professor and his wife who boasted that they did not believe in anything. "I loved to talk with them," he said, "as though they were profoundly interested in the state of the Church, and especially foreign missions." A student came to him one day to tell him that he had declined a call to N . "Well," he said, "you made a great mistake. All you need have done was to have sat there and waited, for Common- wealth Avenue runs right out there, and Boston would thus in time have reached you." It amused him to explain people. He was fond of William James, and said one day that he had the clue to him: "He was brought up a HUMOUR 279 Swendenborgian and got the visions. Then he got a scien- tific training, and tried to reconcile visions to science through psychology." Some one said to him, "I don't like that Evangelical saying, 'If hearts were uncovered, our dearest would shrink from us' — wouldn't 'our dearest' be as badly off as we, and the 'shrinking' be mutual?" "I suppose so," he answered; and then he went on, in a mus- ing fashion as if finding ways to make the principle general, "If all men's minds were uncovered — there would be a great deal of nothing disclosed." It was the courtesy and gentleness and scholar's dignity, mingled with the amused sense of human foibles, which gave his humour its peculiar flavour. Men sometimes felt that his love of grace gained a tyrannous hold over him, making him so cautious and considerate as to take the bold edge off his manners. It is true there was nothing abrupt in his written style or in his conversation : a certain sense of wholeness prevented. This too was part of his humour. Much of Dr. Allen's charm was in his face and his voice. "His face always appealed to me," a Harvard student said, "though I did not know him personally: it was full of sweetness and reserve power." And the voice was one of those rare voices which once heard can never be forgotten. It was like music, natural, reverent, vibrant. It was suited for the small lecture room of the School and for personal talk: for large spaces it was quite inadequate. Behind both face and voice was a strong will, which only those who were closest understood. He would drop a habit and make another, adapting himself with such ease that it seemed only a natural preference. He would after- wards confess that he maintained the new course only by constant effort, never allowing himself to look back. And behind the will was the inspiration that gave him control. He was once trying to define religious attitudes for a Jewess : "Do you love Moses?" he asked. "Love?" she faltered; "scarcely that: we Jews reverence Moses." "Well," said 280 HAPPINESS AND PEACE Dr. Allen, "that is the difference: we Christians love Jesus Christ." "That his students," said Bishop Lawrence, " should agree with him was of incidental moment; but that they should be open-minded, lovers of the truth, and loyal minis- ters of the Church which he loved and which he believed to be the purest interpreter of the truth, was his chief desire. Results have justified his methods. I doubt if any teacher of Church History or Theology in our day has seen a larger proportion of his students remain through life loyal to their Church and Ministry." Thoughts like these passed swiftly through the minds of his grateful pupils as they faced the prospect of losing him from the School. But they dreamed that by cherishing his health, by southern winters, and by freedom from pub- lic talk, he might still be their adviser, he might even write some of the books he had wished to write, on New England Theology, or on the Reformation. The earlier part of June he seemed to be gaining strength. He was interested in all that was passing in the outer world — in the moving of Andover Seminary to Cambridge, which he deeply regretted, in Bishop Brent's election to the Diocese of Washington, for which Dr. Allen thought him peculiarly fitted, in Mr. Taft's nomination, and in Mr. Cleveland's illness. He spoke of the glorification of the Roman Catholics in New York, and of the insinuations of certain people that Protestantism was a failure. "Mean- time," he commented, "no one seems to be saying any- thing of the great Protestant State which has been built up by Protestant principles and which has made the work of the Roman Catholics possible." He wrote one or two letters. He had been asked to be one of the seventy friends to share in a gift for Dr. William R. Huntington on his seventieth birthday, and he began a letter saying how gladly he would do this — but the letter was never SURSUM CORDA 281 finished, and he never wrote again. This was June seventeenth. Then his illness became acute again. Almost to the end he talked of the things that had always been dearest to him. "People now," he said, "are taking much more interest in religion than in science. . . . There is no such thing as Natural Religion — it is all revealed. ... I am hopeful about the world because of its interest in the Person of Christ." He asked Miss Allen if his mother did not have to stay in the house in the winter, and confessed to her that the last winter had been very hard for him, because of his breathing. Delirium came on; but still, in his unconsciousness, he talked of Church History, saying many times, " Harmony in the Church." And on the first day of July he fell asleep. Cambridge was deserted, and his pupils were scattered upon their holidays. But a little group of trustees, col- leagues, and old pupils gathered in St. John's Chapel. During the service the choir sang St. Bernard's hymn, — "Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills the breast; But sweeter far Thy face to see, And in Thy presence rest." At the grave in Mt. Auburn an old pupil said the last words, as the birds sang among the trees in the hot July noontide, and as a train rumbled by. The world did not understand, but those who had known him did understand. It seemed as if a beloved voice had said, "Lift up your hearts." And from hearts in which he had kindled deeper faith in Christ came the due response, "We lift them up unto the Lord." BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS "Continuity of Christian Thought; A Study of Modern Theol- ogy in the Light of its History." Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.; London: Ward, Lock, & Co., 1884. "Jonathan Edwards." Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1889. "Religious Progress." Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1894. "Christian Institutions." [In the International Theological Library.] New York: Charles Scribner's Sons; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1897. "Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks." [First edition in two volumes; subsequent editions in three volumes; a special edition in five.] New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.; London: Macmillan & Co., 1900. "Freedom in the Church: or the Doctrine of Christ as this Church hath received the Same according to the Command- ments of God." New York: The Macmillan Co., 1907. "Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893." New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1907. II ESSAYS AND ARTICLES "The Relation of Parishes to the Diocese and of Dioceses to the General Convention in Matters of Jurisdiction and Repre- sentation." Report of the Church Congress for 1881: T. Whittaker, 1882. 283 284 BIBLIOGRAPHY "The Theological Renaissance of the Nineteenth Century." Princeton Review, November, 1882, and January, 1883. "Elisha Mulford." Christian Union, March 11, 1886. "The Approach to Christian Union." Independent, March 29, 1888. "Christian Union." Independent, March 20, 1889. "Dr. George Zabriskie Gray." The Church of To-day, August, 1889. "The Church of England," "Episcopacy," "Episcopal Church in the United States," "Reformed Episcopal Church." [Articles in "Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge." New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889.] "Recollections of Kenyon under President Andrews's Adminis- tration." The Kenyon Book, edited by William B. Bodine. Columbus, Ohio: Nitschke Brothers, 1890. "The Norman Period of the English Church." [In "The Church in the British Isles."] New York: E. & J. B. Young & Co., 1890. "Life at Cambridge"— a chapter in Francis Wharton, A Memoir. Philadelphia, 1891. "The Transition in New England Theology." Atlantic Monthly, December, 1891. "Bishop White." Christian Union, January 14, 1893. "Phillips Brooks." Atlantic Monthly, April, 1893. "Dean Stanley and the Tractarian Movement." The New World, 1894. "Sundays in Edinburgh." The Outlook, August 31, 1895. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge." Atlantic Monthly, September, 1895. "The Pope's Bull." The Outlook, November 7, 1896. "Frederick Denison Maurice." [In "Prophets of the Christian Faith."] New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: James Clark & Co., 1897. BIBLIOGRAPHY 285 "Primitive Christian Liturgies." [In "Christian Worship." Ten Lectures delivered in the Union Theological Seminary, 1896.] New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897. "Philip Melanchthon; An Address before the Massachusetts Historical Society on the Occasion of the Four Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth." [In "The Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society," Volume XI, pp. 257-267.] "The Message of Christ to the Individual Man." [In "The Message of Christ to Manhood": being the Noble Lectures for 1898.] Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1899. "Protestantism." New York Sun, March, 1901. [Also Harper & Brothers, 1901.] "The Place of Edwards in History." [In "Jonathan Edwards: a Retrospect."] Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1901. "Mr. Scudder's Life of Lowell." Atlantic Monthly, February, 1902. "Horace Elisha Scudder: an Appreciation." Atlantic Monthly, April, 1903. "The Organization of the Early Church." American Journal of Theology, October, 1905. "Palmer's Herbert." Atlantic Monthly, January, 1906. "Pierre Batiffol's L'Eucharistie, la presence reelle." The American Journal of Theology, January, 1906. INDEX INDEX ABBOT, P. S., 124 Abbott, L., 192 Abelard, 264 Acton, Lord, 225 Affectation, Hatred of, 198, 266 Albany Summer School, Lectures at, 237/- Alden, H. M., 128 Alexander, W., 139 Allen, Adelaide L. (sister), 2, 12, 17, 53, 62, 116, 117, 234, 281 Allen, A. V. G., Birth, 1; Boyhood, 4jf.; Confirmation, 10; College 13/.; Theological education, (1) at Gambier, 28/., (2) at Andover, 38/.; Ministry at Lawrence, 40 jf.\ Ordered deacon, 42; Ordained priest, 49; Beginning of teaching in Cambridge, 55/.; Editor, 25, 29; 6qff.; Marriage to Miss Stone, 60, 63, 64; First in Europe, 72jf.; D. D. Kenyon, 76; Article in Princeton Review (beginning of reputation), 91$".; Continuity of Christian Thought, 97 jf.; D. D. Harvard, 112; Jonathan Edwards, 116 Jf.; Christian Institutions, 125 Jf.; Death of Mrs. Allen, 140; Relig- ious Progress, 152 jf.; Phillips Brooks, 159 if.; D. D. from Yale, 197; Year in Rome, 198 jf.; Abridgment of Phillips Brooks, 234 f.; Freedom in the Church, 246 jf.; Marriage to Miss Paulina C. Smith, 247; Serious illness, 268 J".; Character, 270/.; Death, 281. Allen, Elizabeth Kent (wife), 60, 63, 64, 75, 118, 138, 140/. Allen, Ethan (father), if., 6/., 14/., 24/., 34/., 52/. Allen, F. B., 82 Allen, John S., (son), 70, 72, 80, 118, 134/-, 179; 238, 267 Allen, Lydia C. B. (mother), 2 Jf., 12, 17, S°, S3, 92, 94, 961 97, i°5, i°9> 115, "°, 117 Allen, Henry J. W. (brother), 2, 12, 17, 28, 62, 64, 67, 82, 94, 100, 108, 171, 183, 197, 200 Allen, Mrs. H. J. W., 234 Allen, Henry V. D., (son), 65, 118, 134, 168, 194, 237/., 242, 267 Allen, Paulina Cony (wife), v, 184, 244, 247, 264, 265 Altars, Form of, 204 Amiel, H. F., 244 Amory, A. H., 191 Amory, Harcourt, 96 Amory, J. S., 96 Ancient Liturgies, 169 Andover, 38 Jf., 115, 125, 280 Anselm, 45, 109, 120, 244 Anti-Imperialism, Scorn of, 267 Apocryphal Gospels, 156 Apostolical Succession, 61, 68 Argyle, Bishop of, 95 Aristotle, 254 Arius, orthodox on Virgin Birth, 157 Arnold, M., 45, 119 Articles, The XXXIX, 4, 155, 157, 238/., 240, 258, 260 Assisi, 206 Athanasian Creed, 199 . Atonement, 109, 268 Augustine, St., 108, 126, 149, 231, 244, 259, 261, 263 Avignon, 199 BALLOU, H., 137 Baptists, 87, 185, 229, 272 Baring-Gould, S., 245 Bartol, C. A., 84 Bashkirtseff, M., 126 Basil, St., 108 Bates, E., 16 Batiffol, Pierre, 259 Baur, F. C, 30, 103 289 290 INDEX Bedell, G. T., 15, 20, 25, 29, 274 Beecher, H. W., 60, 92 Bennett, E. H., 91, 180 Bernard, St., 45, 281 Bible, The, 244, 249, 251/., 255, 260, 265, 266 Bibliography, 283 f. Biography, Method of Writing, 179 Bishops, 186, 225/. Blaine, J. G., 97 Boethius, 244 Bohlen Lectures, 92 Borden case, 139 BoswelPs Johnson, 193 Botticelli, S., 269 Bowne, B. P., 250 Boxford, 91, 93, 97, 103, 105/., in Boyd-Carpenter, W., 142, 221 Brace, Miss, 145/., 170, 195 Brent, C. H., 229/., 280 Breviary, Roman, 137, 172 Briggs, C. A., 125, 131, 133, 172, 200 Brinton, J. H., 196 Britannica, Use of the, 120 Brooks, Arthur, 159 Brooks, Mrs. Arthur, 159, 170 Brooks, Phillips, 5, n, 56, 59, 60, 68, 69, 73, 74, 79, 80, 82, 84, 92, 93, 96, 100, 122, 123, 125, 126, 131, 132, 137/., 140/., 143/-, 152, 159, 163, 165, 171, 173, 174, !77> J 79, J 8o, 183 f. (Chapter XIX), 220, 234, 243, 256, 257, 260, 269, 273, 274 Browne, Percy, 18, 38/., 50, 66, 70, 78, 82, 132, 197, 201 Browning, R., 167, 173 Bunyan, J., 216 Burnham, J. A., 80, 91 Burr, Jonathan, 2 Burr,Lydia Child, vide L. C. B. Allen Burton, E. D., 228 Bushnell, H., 45, 111, 137, 184 CALVIN, John, 74, 75, 126, 231 Cambridgeport, 228 Canada, 195 Canterbury, Archbishop of, 112, 220, 221 Carlyle, T., 35, 96, 134 Catacombs, 198 Channing, W. E., 137 Character of A. V. G. A, 270 Jf. Charity, Methods in, 214 Charlemagne, 200 Cheerfulness, Duty of, 230 Cheney, C. E., 60, 61 Cheyne, T. K., 173 Chicago, Lectures at University of, 223, 227/., 228 Children, Sympathy with, 266 China, Missions to, 241 Christian Institutions, 125, 131, 133, 134, i3S> 144, 159, 168, 171/., 175, 181, 245, 265, 274 Christian Witness, 60, 224 Chronological Table, xi Chrysostom, St. John, 108 Church buildings, 207 Church Congress, Founding of, 67 Church Unity, 86, 115/., 205,269,271 Churchmanship of A. V. G. A., 40/., 87,274/. Church, R. W., 154 Civil War, 20/., 28/. Clark, T.M., 82, 133 Clark University, 127 Clement of Alexandria, 63, 104, 108, 277 Clement VII, 205 Cleveland, Grover, 97, 112 Clericus Club of Boston, 60, 68, 69, 70, 82, 131, 137, 220, 234, 263 Clifford, E., 101/. Coleridge, S. T., 31, 32, 81, 160, 162, 175, 207, 271 Congregationalists, 87, 117, 189, 211 Confirmation of, A. V. G. A. 10 Congress, U. S., 178 Conscience, 267 Constantine, 205 Continuity of Christian Thought, 94, 97, 98, 106, 107, 112/, 128, 132, 134, 142, 146, 185, 188, 221, 273 Cornell University, 127 Crapsey, A. S., 234/. Creeds, The, 84/., 128/., 156/., 236, 238/., 249, 258 Creighton, M., 224/., 257 Cook, Joseph, 47, 86, 147 Cooke, Mrs. J. P., 214 Cunningham, H. C., 82 D ANTE, 133 Davidson, R. T., 112, 220, 221 INDEX 291 Davies, Llewellyn, 74 Davis, E. L., 152 Davis, M., 75 Dean Stanley and the Traclarian Movement, 150 Deism, English, 82 de Koven, J., 65, 75 Deland, Margaret, 145, 193 de Quincey, Thomas, 32, 44 Dionysius the Areopagite, 175 Disraeli, B., 94 Divorce, Canons on, 197 Dix, M., 83, 131 Docetism, 233 Dods, M., 151 Donald, E. W., 192 Donatists, 263 Dorner, I. A., 69 Doty, W. D., 16, 39 Doubt, Heroism of, 155 Douma, The, and the Czar, 240 Dresden, 207 Drown, E. S., v, 122, 261 Dualism, 231 Duchesne, Louis, 205 Dudleian Lecture, 217-219, 257 Dyer, H., 56, 69, 92 EASTBURN, M., 3, si; 49, 5', 63,65 East Cambridge, Church of the As- cension, 75, 77, 94, 107 Eddy, M. B., 265 Edinburgh, 151 Editor, A. V. G. A. as, 25, 29, 224 Edward VII, 206, 208 Edwards, Jonathan, 14, 45, in, 114, 116, 117, 118, 120, 124/., 132, 188/., 274 Egypt, 91 Elijah, The, 243 Eliot, C. W., 121 Eliot, George, 30, 62 Ellison, J. H. J., 257 Emerson, R. W., 71, 76, 181, 215, 217 Emerton, E., 121 Emmons, Nathanael, 137 Endicott, W. C, 253 England, Church of, 137, 239, 250, 267 English Theology compared with German, 237 Episcopal Church, 87, 205, 211 j$. Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, 55/., 63, 65, 66/., 68, 69, 75, 79, 80, 83, 86, 89, 91, 93, 96, 106, 112, 115, 119 fl., 122, 131, 138/., 143, 145, 146, 147/-, 152, 154/., 165, 180, 195, 217, 218, 222, 227, 245, 253^., 268, 270, 281 Essays and Reviews, 45 Everett, C. C, 147 FABER, F. W., 71, 264 Fairbairn, A. M., 123 Faith and Tradition, 232 jj. Fay, C. K., 180 Ferrar, N., 231 Feuerbach, L. A., 30 Fisher, G. P., 88 Fiske, John, 128, 273 Fourth Gospel, 104 Frame, J. E., 113 Francis, St., 170, 206, 233 Frankfurt, 207 Frederick Dcnnison Maurice, 161 /., 164, 167 Freedom in the Church, 238 Jf., 246^., 274 Froude, J. A., 45; Rank of, as his- torian, 202/. Froude, Miss, 200, 202 GARDINER, Henrietta, 118, 132, 13S General Convention, (1875) 67, (1884) 103, (1901) 197, (1904) 220/., (1907) 257, 258 Gibbons, James, 177 Gladstone, W. E., 94 Gnosticism, 268 Godkin, E. L., 224 Goethe, J. W., 45, 207 Gordon, G. A., 114, 151, 153, 170, 192, 249, 274 Gore, C, 176 Gothic architecture, 207 Gray, G. Z., Dean, 69, 89, 122, 125 Gray, Mrs. 180 Gray, Thomas, 136 Greek Church, 102, 104, 157, 199, 212, 258 Greer, D. H., 29 Gregory Nazianzen, 277 Gregory I, Pope, 241 INDEX 292 Gregory VII, 231 Griswold, A. V., i, 3 Guilford, 7/., 22 HALL, A. C. A., 138 Hall, G. Stanley, 106 Hard Church, 101 Harding, Thomas, the Jesuit, 158 Harnack, A, 170, 174/-, 221, 232, 255, 275 Harvard University, 89, 112, 121, 124, 126, 127, 171, 198 Hay, John, 217 Heard, J. B., 128 Hegel, G. W. F., 105, 127, 136 Herbert, George, 220, 223, 226, 231 High Church, 231 Hildebrand, St., 231 Historian, Place of A. V. G. A. as, 273/. History, The Study of, 87, 202, 281 Hoar, G. F., 112 Hodges, George, Dean, v, 145, 146, 218, 227 Holmes, O. W., 112, 122 Homestead, Riots at, 139 Hopkins, Mark, 127, 128 Hopkins, S., 136 Hulsean Lectures and Continuity, 128 Hume, David, 202 Humour of A. V. G. A., 278/. Huntington, F. D., 76, 179 Huntington, W. R., 51, 7°, 102/., 139, 191, 280 Hutton, R. H., 167 Huxley, T. H., 236 Hymns, Favourite, 71, 264 IDEALIZING, Meaning of, 132/. Immanence, 90, et vide Continuity Incarnation, The, 109 Ingersoll, R. G., 86 Ingram, A. F. W., 289 Insanity, Meaning of, 146, 262 Isaiah, 270 JAMES, William, 216/., 228, 230, 243, 276, 278 Japanese War with Russia, 223 Jerome, St., 149 Jesuits, 267 Jewell, John, 13, 158 Jews, 272 Job, 127 John XXII, 199 Johns Hopkins University, 106, 127 Johnson, Samuel, 127 Justification by Faith, 268 KAULBACH'S Heroes of the Reformation, 94 Keble, John, 45, 202, 231 Kellen, W. V., 222 Kellner, M. L., n 1, 266 Kempis, Thomas a, 244 Kenosis, 178 Kenyon College, 13/., 76 Kidner, R., 189 Kingsley, C., 45, 66 Knox, J., 231 Kurtz, J. H., 148 LAMB, Charles, 32, 44 Latimer, H., 158 Lawrence, Amos A., 63, 91, 96, 106 Lawrence, Arthur, 55 Lawrence, W., Dean and Bishop, v, 106, 112, 121/., 145, J 46, 187, 190, 220, 221, 257, 271, 280 Lawrence, City of, 40 Jf. Learoyd, C. H., 82, 191, 197 Lechler, G. V., 120 Lectures, Sympathy required for, 247 Lee, J. H., 69 Lee, Joseph, 265 Lent, 226 Leo XIII, 169, 214/. Lester, C. S., 57 Liddon, H. P., 73, 231 Lightfoot, J. B., 74 Lincoln, W. H., 180, 187 Locke, G. L., 200 Locke, John, 82 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 236, 265 Loisy, A., 232 London, 72/., 151 London, Bishop of, 289 Longfellow, H. W., 60, 66 Louis, St., of France, 155 Lowell, Mrs. Augustus, 165 Lowell, J. R., 112, 198 Lowell Lectures, 131, 138 Loyola, Ignatius, 126 Ludlow, J. M., 152 Luther, M., 17, 93, 95, 126, 149, 207/. Lux Mundi, 158 INDEX 293 MABIE, H. W., 131 Macaulay, T. B., 202 McCosh, James, 91, 112 McGiffert, A. C, 176 Mcllhenny, John J., 29 Mcllvaine, C. P., 16, 29, 274 McKenzie, A., 266 MacQueary, H., 128 Madonna in Art, Beginning of, 206 Mallock, W. H., 86 Manning, H. E., 74, 183, 202 Marcus Aurelius, 244 Mary, Queen of Scots, 157 Mason, R. M., 59, 80 Massachusetts, Bishops of, vide Griswold (Eastern Diocese), East- burn, Paddock, Brooks, Lawrence Massachusetts Historical Society, 107, 170 Matthews, Shailer, 228 Maurice, F. D., 32, 81, ioi, 123, 161, 167, 271 Melancthon, P., 107/. Mellish, J. H., 180 Message of Christ to the Individual Man, 177 Mill, J. S., 30 Ministers' Club, 68, 90, 114 Ministry, 258/. Minucius Felix, 277 Miracles, 167, 171, 250 /. Mitchell, S. W., 193 Mohammedans, 91 Monnikcndam, 208 Montanists, 267 Moody, D. L., 71, 72, 272 Mozley, J. B., 76 Mr. Scudder's Life of Lowell, 198 Mulford, Elisha, 81, 82/., 87, 89, 92, 106, no/., 137, 191 Munger, T. T., 96, 184, 191 Murray, John, Founder of Uni- versalists, 137 Music, 6, 8, 24, 98, 135/., 243/. Mysticism, 83, 105, 245 NAME of Church, 211/. Nantucket, 3-7, 53, 137, 261 Napoleon, 74 Nash, H. S., v, 91, 93, 238, 253 Nation, The New York, 61, 75, 140, 179, 192, 248 Nature, 127 Neo-Platonists, 63 Newman, J. H., 3, 78, 147, 177, 202, 231 New Testament, 265, et vide Bible Newton, W. W., 82 New York, Bishops of, vide Potter, Greer Nicaea, Council of, always in session, 253 Noble, W. B., 171 Noble Lectures, 177 Norman Period of the British Church, The, 122 North Chatham, 257 North Hatley, 195 /. Novatians, The, 277 Novel, Need of good ecclesiastical, OXFORD Movement, 154, 169, 182, 195, 202, 231, 239/., 255 Old Catholics, 70 Old Testament, 242, 265, et vide Bible Optimism, Protest against historical, 126 Orders, 169 Ordination of A. V. G. A., 42, 49 Organization in Church compared to Metre in Poetry, 233 Origen, 104, 268, 270 Otis, if., 172 PACKARD, GEORGE, 37, 56 Paddock, B. H., 65, 68, 79 Paine, Robert Treat, 93, 180, 190 Palmer, G. H., v, 44, in, 116, 121, 126, 220, 223, 226, 231, 271 Palmer's Herbert, 231 Panama, 217 Papal Jubilee, 205 Paradox, Living Definition of, 271 Paris, 74, 198 Park, Edwards A., 39^"., 46, 47/., 51, 52, 59, 92, no, 112, 114, 118, 186 Parker, Theodore, in, 137 Parks, L., 132 Pastoral Letter of 1894, 153 jf. Patrologia, Use of, 121 Paul, St., 2, 69, 96, 103/., 157, 176, 201 Payne, John, 15 Peabody, E., 99 Peabody, G. F., 247 294 INDEX Peace Movements, Contempt for, 267 Peaslee, A. N., 248 Perry, Bliss, 184, 266 Perry, Carroll, 263 Perugia, 206 f. Pfleiderer, O., 103 Phelps, Austin, 48 Phelps, J. W., 8, 53 Phelps, Helen, 8 Philippines, 184 Philip Melanchthon : An Address, 1 70 Phillips, Wendell, 82 Phillips Place became home of A. V. G. A., 93 Pius IX, 202 Plato, 87, 268 Plotinus, 268 Poetry, 32, 44/., 71, 119, 167, 264 Pope, A., 127 Popes, The, 127, 219, 241, 252 Pope's Bull, The, 169 Postlethwaite, W. M., 16, 19, 62, 63, 143, 166/. Potter, A., 58 Potter, H. C, 65, 198 Pragmatism, 227/., 260 Prayer, 40, 265; for the Dead, 131 Prayer Book Revision, Estimate of, 103 Preaching, 43 Pre-Raphaelites, 269 Presbyterians, 87, 117, 211, 226 Presbyters, 225 Presence of Christ, 263 Presence of God, 87 Preston, J. W., 107 Price Lectures, 51 Primitive Christian Liturgies, 169 Probation, 95 Protestantism of A. V. G. A., 275 Psychic Research, Attitude towards, 271 Psychotherapy, 272 Punishment, Endless, 45/. Purgatory, 226 Puritanism, 149, 208, 220, 231, 257, 267 Pusey, E. B., 147, i54, 157, 162, 181, 191, 202, 231, 268 Putnam, J. P., 55, 91 9 THE DOCUMENT called, how related to St. Paul, 265, Questions, Modern, Attitude towards 271 Quakers, 87, 273 RAND, E. S., 55, Qi Raphael, 254, 273 Rationalist, The, 83 Reason, The Universal, 133/. Reed, B. T., 55, 66, 218 Reed, Mrs. B. T., 66, 218 Reformation, The Protestant, 71, 157, 158, 210, 225, 254, 280 Reformed Episcopal Church, 61, 68, 70 Rehoboth 6/., 62, 116 Religious Progress, 152/. Renaissance in the Nineteenth Century, The Theological, 91 f., 99 Renan, Ernest, 93 Reserve of A. V. G. A., 242, 243 Reville, A., 168 Rhinelander, P. M., 253 Rice, A. H., in, 165 Richards, C. A. L., 82 Ripon, Bishop of, 142, 221 Ritchie, T., 106 Ritualists, 169, 182, 225 Robbins, W. L., 257 Robert Elsmere, 124, 245 Robertson, F. W., 22, 49, 164 Rochester, Bishop of, 106, 115 Roman Church, 149, 156, 199, 202, 204, 211/., 219, 239, 250, 252, 257, 260, 280 Rome, Winter of A. V. G. A. in, Rome, Pagan, 204 Roosevelt, T., 217 Rossetti, D. G., 269 Rothe, R., 269 Ropes, James H., 157 Ropes, John C, 102 Royce, J., 121, 140 Rubens, P. P., 72 SACRAMENTS, THE, 62, 84,86, 259/- Saguenay, The, 196 Saltonstall, L., 80 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 160 Sanday, W., 222, 232 INDEX 295 Santayana, G., 230 Savage, M. J., 128/. Schiller, F. C. S., 230 Scotch preaching, 151 S:udder, H. E., 82, 117, 127, 143, 180, 191, 198, 201 Scudder, W., 185, 195, 222 Seabury, Samuel, 101 Self-examination, 10 Seminars of A. V. G. A., 149 Servants, 209, 213 Shepard, E. M., 235 Smith, Alice W., 174, 184 Smith, Goldwin, 91 Smith, J. C, 60 Smith, Paulina C., vide Allen Smith, R. Cotton, 200 Smyth, E. G., 48, 107/., 125 Smyth, Newman, 269 Social Questions, 139 Somerville Asylum for the Insane, 64, 65, 77 . Sources in History, 120 Southey, R., 32 Spanish War, 179 Spectator, The, 152, 218, 248 Spiritualism, 259, 265 Spiritual Motherhood, 158 Stanley, A. P., 45, 60/., 72, 147, 150, 259 Stanton, E., 75 State, Protestant, 280 Stead, W. T., 267 Steenstra, P. H., 55, 56, 58, 93, 139, 218, 253 Stetson, F. L., 221 Stokes, A. P., 269 Stone, Elizabeth Kent, vide Allen Stone, John S., Dean, 55, 56/., 59 /., 68, 69, 89, 92, 94, 269 Stone, Mrs. J. S., 144 Stone, Kent, 57, 137 Stone, Philip S., 125 Stone, Mrs. P. S., 144 Strauss, D. F., 30 Sullivan, E. T., 276 Suter, J. W., 195, 277/. Sympathy of A. V. G. A., 37, 42, 79, 203, 240, 242, 261, 262, 266 TAFT, W. H., 280 Talmud, The, 265 Taylor, W. W., v, 18, 40, 44, 45, 49, 62, 70, 75, 77, 92, 119, 125, 166, 168, 172, 178, 185, 195, 209, 214, 220, 227, 230, 245, 272 Teaching, Experience and Methods of A. V. G. A. in, 11, 148/., 229, 247, 275 Temple, Frederick, 45, 264 Tennyson, A., 244 Thayer, J. H., 114, 201 Theodore of Mopsuestia, 268 Theology, New England, 280 Thomas, A., 215, 263 Thomas, G. H., 215 Thorold, A. W., 106, 115 Tract XC, 1, 177 Transcript, Boston, 184 Transition in New England Theology, The, 136 Transubstantiation, 204, 259 Trent, Council of, 95, 239, 265 Trimble, J-, 23 Trinity, Lectures on, 276 Trollope, A., 245 Tubingen School, The, 105 Turner, J. M. W., 203 Tyler, S., 215 Tyng, T., 268 u NION Seminary, 169, 231 Unitarianism, in, 128 /., i? 236 VAUGHAN, C. J., 73 Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, R., 45 Ventura, G., 181 Vincent, Boyd, 241 Vinton, A. H., 79, 269 Virgin Birth, The, 124, 155 Jf., 236, 249, 250 Visions, always in beautiful places, 205, 206 Visitors, Board of, 68, 96 Vocation, 126 Vow, The supreme, 243 TT7ARD, Mrs. Humphry, 124, Wardner, G., 126 Walpole, G. H. S., 257 Washburn, H. B., 195 Waterville, 145 Westcott, B. F., 99, 177 296 INDEX Western Episcopalian, The, 25, 28/., 224 Westminster Abbey, 72, 73, 151 Westminster Review, 30/. Wharton, Francis, 17/., 22/., 26/., 2Q> 37, 5i, 56, 58, 66, 68, 82, 91, 122 Whatham, A. E., 178 White, J. Gardner, 253 White, W., 58, 101 Whitehouse, H. J., 2 Wilberforce on The Incarnation, 157 William II, 188, 191 Winthrop, R. C, 55, 91, 152 Winthrop Hall, 139 Wittenberg, 207 Wordsworth, W., 32, 44, 151, 205 Worship, encircling the earth, 136 Wright, J. G., 253 Wright, G. F., 259 Wyclif, 120 Y ALE University, 150, 194, 197, ADVERTISEMENTS PRESENT DAY PREACHING By CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY Rector of Grace Church, New York Crown 8vo. Cloth. $1.00 net. By Mail $1.06 "... The book is of value not only to preachers, but also to laymen as well." — Evening Transcript. " Marked by practical wisdom and good sense. Preachers of all churches will be helped by their helpful suggestions." — Presbyterian Banner. "... The book is specially pertinent because it meets the needs of to-day and is readable on account of lively wit and happiness of phrase, and in addition to this it is full of whole- some thought and excellent suggestion." — St. Andrews Cross. 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President of the First Board of Indian Commissioners By CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY With 9 Portraits and Illustrations, and a Map Crown 8vo. $2.00 "Mr. Slattery has given us a graphic picture of a good man, whose face and figure were true symbols of his char- acter; he has made us acquainted with a noble soul. All such books are contributions to spiritual progress. They are precious possessions." — Dean Hodges in the Church Standard. LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., New York By the Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT, D.D. Bishop of the Philippine Islands ADVENTURE FOR GOD Crown, 8vo, $1.10 net ; by mail, $ 1.18 Contents: /. The Vision; II. The Appeal; III. The Response; IV. The Quest; V. The Equipment; VI. The Goal. "... The Bishop writes with great earnestness and enthu- siasm, and in a broad-mindedness that is especially manifested in his attitude toward heathen religions. He does not regard them as wholly false or evil, but as having some dim dawn- ings of truth, 'broken lights' of the great central orb of eter- nal righteousness. Bishop Brent's volume will be a welcome addition to the rapidly growing literature of missions." Christian Work. " . . . Bishop Brent is an enthusiast for the missionary qual- ity of Christian thought and life, and he enforces his theme with a delightful and masculine power and charm. ... In his handling of questions which concern other religions and their relation to Christianity, this breadth of vision has its most wholesome and winning effect, and swiftly gains the confi- dence of the reader. ..." The Congregationalism "This volume is of singularly living interest. Lectures on the Paddock foundation that have to deal rather with what may be called the poetry of missions than with theological pro- blems, afford, no doubt, a striking contrast to previous vol- umes of those lectures, but the contrast is not one in which the value of the present volume becomes lessened. We have here no direct discussion of missionary problems, but rather an original manner of treatment of the missionary life from the personal point of view. The volume is of interest quite as truly as of value." The Living Church. LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., NEW YORK By the Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT, D.D. Bishop of the Philippine Islands LIBERTY AND OTHER SERMONS Crown 8vo, $1.00 net. By mail, $1.08 Contents : Liberty; Truth in the Inward Parts; Health; Riot and Harmony; Compassion; Dedication; The Commendable Debt; Christmas Haste ; The Garden of the Lord; Opportunity and Risk; Two Shakespearian Sermons for the Times: (i) Portia Preaches; (ii) Othello Preaches; Two Addresses : (i) Patriotism; (ii) The True Corner-stone; L' envoi. " . . . The reading will disclose, with the terseness of the thought and its inherent vitality, a clarity of vision and con- sequently of style which entitle the least of the sermons and addresses in the volume to rank as literature. Finally, they have bieadth, both in the selection of topics for discussion, and in the views imparted during discussion. . . . The book is a contribution to the thought of the age that proves its own im- portance. . ." Chicago Daily News. ". . . Interwoven with all the practical grasp of conditions with the wide reading which follows the latest researches of physical, historical and psychological science with as eager en- joyment as the purely literary recreations afforded by present or past masters, there runs through the bishop's life and word the best that mediaeval chivalry has to offer, a vein of true romance, a dauntless battling with opposing foes and the fresh spirit of never-dying youth. . . ." Transcript, Boston. "... Shows his power as a preacher of righteousness who has the larger grasp and wider outlook of a true prophet of his age. The sermons are widely different in character, having been preached on various occasions to very different mixed congregations, but through them all runs the same clear vi- sion. . . ." The Churchman. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., NEW YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES This book is due on the date indicated below, or at the expiration of a definite period after the date of borrowing, as provided by the library rules or by special arrangement with the Librarian in charge. DATE EORROWEO DATE DUE 1 DATE BORROWED 1 DATE DUE C28 (747) MIOO -> c olUMBIi ;6R ABlES BTO» 1A8 937.09 kj[zi 937.09 k[zi Slattery Alexander Viets Griswold Allen. MAY 2 L BRITTLE DO NOT PHOTOCOPY 01 HY 4 1949