Recollections of a Long Life
by
Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
Part 2 out of 4
whole heart, said to the superintendent of our Mission Chapel: "What a
nice place this is to hold some meetings in." He was cordially invited;
and at the end of a week about twenty persons had been mustered together
on the sharp winter evenings. "This seems slow work," I said to him.
"Very true," replied my sagacious brother. "It is slow, but if you want
to kindle a fire, you collect a handful of sticks, light them with a
match, and keep on blowing till they blaze. Then you may heap on the
wood. I am working here with a handful of Christians, endeavoring to
warm them up with love for Christ; and, if they keep well kindled, a
general revival will come, and outside sinners will be converted." He
was right; the revival did come. It spread into the parent church, and
over one hundred converts made their public confession of Christ before
our communion table. It was in those little chapel meetings that my
beloved brother, Moody, prepared his first "Bible Readings," which
afterward became so celebrated in this country and in Great Britain. A
few months afterward I met Mr. Moody in London. Coming one day into my
room, he said to me: "They wish me to come over here and preach in
England." I urged him at once to do so; "for," I said, "these English
people are the best people to preach to in the world." Moody then said,
"I will go home,--secure somebody to sing, and come over and make the
experiment." He did come home,--he secured my neighbor, Mr.
Sankey,--returned to England, and commenced the most extraordinary
revival campaign that had been known in Great Britain since the days of
Whitefield. I cannot dismiss this heaven-honored name without a word of
honest, loving tribute to the man and his magnificent work. D.L. Moody
was by far the most extraordinary proclaimer of the Gospel that America
has produced during the last century, as Spurgeon was the most
extraordinary in Great Britain. Those two heralds of salvation led the
column. They reached millions by their eloquent tongues, and their
printed words went out to the ends of the earth. The single aim of both
was to point to the cross of Christ, and to save souls; all their
educational and benevolent enterprises were subordinate to this one
great sovereign purpose. Neither one of them ever entered a college or
theological seminary; yet they commanded the ear of Christendom. The
simple reason was--they were both God-made preachers, and were both
endowed with immense common sense, and executive ability.
CHAPTER VIII
AUTHORSHIP
Printers' ink stained my fingers in my boyhood; for, at the age of
fifteen, I ventured into a controversy on the slavery question, in the
columns of our county newspaper; and, in the same paper, published a
series of letters from Europe, in 1842. During my course of study in the
Princeton Theological Seminary, I was a contributor to several papers,
to _Godey's Magazine_ in Philadelphia, and to the "New Englander," a
literary and theological review published at New Haven. I wrote the
first article for the first number of the "Nassau Monthly," a Princeton
College publication, which still exists under another name. Up to the
year 1847 all my contributions had been to secular periodicals, but in
that year I ventured to send from Burlington, N.J., where I was then
preaching, a short article to the "New York Observer," signed by my
initials. This was followed by several others which, falling under the
eye of my beloved friend, the Rev. Dr. Cortland Van Rensellaer, led him
to say to me: "You are on the right track now; work on that as long as
you live," and I have obeyed his injunction. Within a year or two I
began to write for the "Presbyterian" at Philadelphia. Its proprietor
urged me to accept an editorial position, but I declined his proposal,
as I have declined several other requests to assume editorial positions
since. I would always rather write when I _choose_ than write when I
_must_, and I have never felt at liberty to hold any other position
while I was a pastor of a church. My contributions to the press never
hindered my work as a minister, for writing for the press promotes
perspicuity in preparing for the pulpit.
In the summer of 1853 I was called from the Third Presbyterian Church of
Trenton to the Market Street Reformed Church of New York City. As a
loyal Dutchman, I began to write at once for the "Christian
Intelligencer," and have continued in its clean hospitable columns to
this day. At the urgent request of Mr. Henry C. Bowen I began to write
for his "Independent," and sent to its columns over six hundred
articles; but of all my associate contributors in those days, not a
solitary one survives. In May, 1860, My first article appeared in the
_New York Evangelist_, and during these forty-two years I have tested
the patience of its readers by imposing on them more than eighteen
hundred of my lubrications. As I was preparing one of my earliest
articles, I happened to spy the blossoms of the catalpa tree before my
window, and for want of a title I headed it "_Under the Catalpa_." The
tree flourishes still, and bids fair to blossom after the hand that pens
these lines has turned to dust. I need not recapitulate the names of all
the many journals to which I have sent contributions,--many of which
have been republished in Great Britain, Australia and other parts of the
civilized world. I once gave to my friend, Mr. Arthur B. Cook, the
eminent stenographer, some statistics of the number of my articles, and
the various journals in which they had appeared in this and other
countries. He made an estimate of the extent of their publication, and
then said to me: "It would be within bounds to say that your four
thousand articles have been printed in at least two hundred millions of
copies." The production of these articles involved no small labor, but
has brought its own reward. To enter a multitude of homes week after
week; to converse with the inmates about many of the most vital
questions in morals and religion; to speak words of guidance to the
perplexed; of comfort to the troubled, and of exhortation to the saints
and to the sinful--all these involved a solemn responsibility. That this
life-work with the pen has not been without fruit I gratefully
acknowledge. When a group of railway employees, at a station in England,
gathered around me to tender their thanks for spiritual help afforded
them by my articles, I felt repaid for hours of extra labor spent in
preaching through the press.
My first attempt at book-making was during my ministry at Trenton, New
Jersey, when I published a small volume entitled "Stray Arrows." This
was followed at different times by several volumes of an experimental
and devotional character. In the spring of 1867 one of our beautiful
twin boys, at the age of four and a half years, was taken from us by a
very brief and violent attack of scarlet fever. We received a large
number of tender letters of condolence, which gave us so much comfort
that my wife suggested that they should be printed with the hope that
they might be equally comforting to other people in affliction. I
accordingly selected a number of them, added the simple story of our
precious child's short career, and handed the package to my beloved
friend and publisher, the late Mr. Peter Carter, with the request that
they be printed for private distribution. He urged, after reading them,
that I should allow him to publish them, which he did under the title of
"The Empty Crib, a Book of Consolation." That simple story of a sweet
child's life has travelled widely over the world and made our little
"Georgie" known in many a home. Mrs. Gladstone told me that when she and
her husband had read it, it recalled their own loss of a child under
similar circumstances. Dean Stanley read it aloud to Lady Augusta
Stanley in the Deanery of Westminster; and when I took him to our own
unrivalled Greenwood Cemetery he asked to be driven to the spot where
the dust of our dear boy is slumbering. Many thousands have visited that
grave and gazed with tender admiration on the exquisite marble medallion
of the childface,--by the sculptor, Charles Calverley,--which adorns the
monument.
Fourteen years afterwards, in the autumn of 1881, "the four corners of
my house were smitten" again with a heart-breaking bereavement in the
death, by typhoid fever, of our second daughter, Louise Ledyard Cuyler,
at the age of twenty-two, who possessed a most inexpressible beauty of
person and character. Her playful humor, her fascinating charm of
manner, and her many noble qualities drew to her the admiration of a
large circle of friends, as well as the pride of our parental hearts.
After her departure I wrote, through many tears, a small volume entitled
"_God's Light on Dark Clouds,"_ with the hope that it might bring some
rays of comfort into those homes that were shadowed in grief. Judging
from the numberless letters that have come to me I cannot but believe
that, of all the volumes which I have written, this one has been the
most honored of God as a message-bearer to that largest of all
households--the household of the sorrowing. Let me add that I have
published a single volume of sermons, entitled "The Eagle's Nest," and a
volume of foreign travel, "From the Nile to Norway"; but all the
remainder of my score of volumes have been of a practical and devotional
character. Of the twenty-two volumes that I have written, six have been
translated into Swedish, and two into the language of my Dutch
ancestors. Thanks be to God for the precious privilege of preaching His
glorious Gospel with the types that out-reach ten thousand tongues! And
thanks also to a number of friends, whose faces I never saw, but whose
kind words have cheered me through more than a half century of happy
labors. I cannot conclude this brief chapter without expressing my deep
obligations to that noble organization, the "American Tract Society,"
which has given a wide circulation to many of my books--including
"Heart-Life," "Newly Enlisted; or, Counsels to Young Converts"--and
"Beulah-Land," a volume of good cheer to aged pilgrims on their journey
heavenward.
CHAPTER IX
SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD.
_Gladstone.--Dr. Brown.--Dean Stanley.--Shaftesbury, etc._
In a former chapter of this volume I gave my reminiscences of some
celebrities in Great Britain sixty years ago. In the present chapter I
group together several distinguished persons whom I met during
subsequent visits. The first time I ever saw Mr. Gladstone was in
August, 1857, when Lord Kinnaird kindly took me into the House of
Commons, and pointed out to me from a side gallery the most prominent
celebrities. A tall, finely formed man, in a clear resonant voice,
addressed the House for a few moments. "That is Gladstone," whispered
Lord Kinnaird. Mr. Gladstone had already won fame as a great financier
in the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer; but was at this time out of
office, occupying an independent position. He was already beginning to
break loose from Toryism, and ere long became the most brilliant and
powerful leader that the British Liberal party has ever followed. As an
orator he is ranked next to Bright; as a party manager, he was always a
match for Disraeli, and as a statesman he has won the foremost place in
British annals during the last half century.
In June, 1872, I happened to be in London at the time of the great
excitement over the famous "Alabama difficulty." The Court of
Arbitration was sitting at Geneva; things were not going smoothly, and
there was danger of a rupture with the United States. At an anniversary
meeting at Exeter Hall I had made a speech in which I spoke of the
cordial feeling of my countrymen, and their desire to avoid a conflict
with the mother country. It was suggested to me that I should call on Mr.
Gladstone, who was then Premier; and my friend, Dr. Newman Hall,--who
had always had a warm personal attachment to Gladstone,--accompanied me.
The Premier then occupied a stately mansion in Carlton House Terrace,
next to the Duke of York's column. We found him in his private sitting
room with a cup of coffee before him and a morning newspaper in his
hand. Fifteen years had made a great change in his appearance. He had
become stouter and broader shouldered. His thin hair was turned gray,
and his large eyes and magnificent brow reminded me of Daniel Webster.
He received me cordially, and we spent half an hour in conversation
about the difficulties that seemed to be obstructing an amicable
settlement of the Alabama controversy. Mr. Gladstone appeared to be
puzzled about a recent belligerent speech delivered by Mr. Charles
Sumner in our Senate chamber, and I was glad to give him a hint or two
in regard to some of our eloquent Senator's idiosyncrasies. What
impressed me most in Gladstone's free, earnest talk was its solemn and
thoroughly Christian tone--he was longing for peace on principle. On my
telling him playfully that the time which belonged to the British Empire
was too precious for further talk, he said: "Come and breakfast with me
to-morrow morning, and we will finish our conversation." The next
morning Dr. Hall and myself presented ourselves at ten o'clock in Mr.
Gladstone's parlor. We had a very pleasant chat with Mrs. Gladstone (a
tall, slender lady, whose only claim to beauty was her benevolent
countenance), about the schemes of charity in which she was deeply
interested. At the breakfast table opposite to us were the venerable
Dean Ramsey, of Edinburgh, and Professor Talbot, of Oxford University.
The Premier indulged in some jocose remarks which encouraged me to tell
him stories about our Southern negroes, in whom he seemed to be much
interested. He laughed over the story of the eloquent colored brother
who, when asked how he came to preach so well, said: "Well, Boss, I
takes de text fust; I splains it; den I spounds it, and den _I puts in
de rousements_." Gladstone was quite delighted with this, and said it
was about the best description of real parliamentary eloquence. He told
us that one secret of his own marvelous health was his talent for sound,
unbroken sleep. "I lock all my public cares outside my chamber door,"
said he, "and nothing ever disturbs my slumbers." While we were at
breakfast a package of dispatches was brought in and laid beside Mr.
Gladstone's plate. He left them quietly alone until the meal was over
and then, taking them to a corner of the parlor, perused them intently.
I saw that his face was lighted up with a pleasant smile. Beckoning me
to come to him he said, with much enthusiasm: "Doctor, here is good news
from the arbitrators at Geneva. The worst is over. I do not pretend to
know the purposes of Providence, but I am sure that no earthly power can
now prevent an honorable peace between your country and mine." It has
always been a matter of thankfulness that I should have been with the
greatest of living Englishmen when his warm heart was relieved of the
apprehension of the danger of a conflict with America. After entering
our names in the autograph book on the parlor table, we withdrew, and at
the door we met the Duke of Argyll, a member of the Premier's Cabinet,
who was calling on official business.
[Illustration: DR CUYLER AT 50.]
My next meeting with Gladstone was a very brief one, in the summer of
1885. He had lately resigned his third Premiership; his health was badly
impaired, his splendid voice was apparently ruined by an attack of
bronchitis, and the world supposed that his public career was ended. I
called at his house in Whitehall Terrace, and the servant informed me at
the door that the physicians had forbidden Mr. Gladstone to see any one.
I handed in my card, and said to the servant: "I leave for America
to-morrow, and only called to say good-bye to Mr. Gladstone." He
overheard my voice (not one of the feeblest), and, coming out into the
hall, greeted me most warmly, but in a voice almost inaudible from
hoarseness. I told him: "Do not attempt to speak, Mr. Gladstone; the
future of the British Empire depends upon your throat." He hoarsely
whispered, "No, no, my friend, it does not," and with a very hearty
handshake we parted. My prediction came true. Within a year the
marvelous old man had recovered his voice, recovered his popularity,
resumed the Liberal leadership, and for the fourth time was Prime
Minister of Great Britain.
I supposed that I should never see the veteran statesman again, but four
years afterward, in July, 1889, he kindly invited me to come and see
him, and to bring my wife. It was the week before the celebration of his
golden wedding. He was occupying, temporarily, a house near Buckingham
Palace. Mrs. Gladstone, the good angel of his long life and happy home,
received us warmly, and, bringing out a lot of photographs of her
children and grandchildren, gave us a family talk. When her husband came
in, I was startled to observe how much thinner he had become and how
loosely his clothes hung upon him. But as soon as he began to talk, the
old fire flamed up, and he discoursed eloquently about Irish Home-Rule,
the divorce question, (one of his hobbies), and the dangers that
threatened America from plutocracy and laxity of wedlock, and the
facilities of divorce that sap the sanctities of domestic life. It was
during that conversation that Gladstone tittered the sentence that I
have often had occasion to quote. He said: "Amid all the pressure of
public cares and duties, I thank God for the Sabbath _with its rest for
the body and the soul_." One reason for his wonderful longevity was that
he had never robbed his brain of the benefits of God's appointed day of
rest. After our delightful talk was ended, the Grand Old Man went off in
pursuit of an imperial photograph, which he kindly signed with his
autograph, and gave to my wife, and it now graces the walls of the room
in which I am writing.
Many men have been great in some direction: William Ewart Gladstone was
great in nearly all directions. Born in the same year with our Lincoln,
he was a great muscular man and horseman; a great orator, a great
political strategist, a great scholar, a great writer, great statesman
and a great Christian. The crowning glory of his character was a
stalwart faith in God's Word, and in the cross of Jesus Christ. He
honored his Lord, and his Lord honored him. Wordsworth drew a truthful
picture of Gladstone when he portrayed
"The man who lifted high
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won;
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause."
Who has not wept over the brilliant and beloved Dr. John Brown's
unrivalled story, "Rab and His Friends," and been charmed with his
picture of "Pet Marjorie"? What student of style will deny that his
"Monograph" of his father is the finest specimen of condensed and vivid
biography in our language? When his "Spare Hours" appeared in America I
published an article in the "Independent" entitled, "The Last of the
John Browns," several copies of which had been forwarded to him by his
friends in this country. On my arrival in Edinburgh, July, 1862, he
called on me at the Waverly Hotel and invited me to breakfast with him.
He had the fair Saxon features of Scotland, with a smile like a Summer
morning. Not tall in stature, his head was somewhat bald, and he bore a
striking resemblance to our ex-President, Van Buren. He showed me in his
house some choice literary treasures; among them a little Greek
Testament, given to his great-grandfather, the famous John Brown, of
Haddington, the eminent commentator. Its history was curious: Brown of,
Haddington, was a poor shepherd boy, and once he walked twenty miles
through the night to St. Andrews to get a copy of the Greek Testament.
The book-seller at first laughed at him and said: "Boy, if you can read
a verse in this book, you may have it." Forthwith the lad read the verse
off glibly, and was permitted to carry off the Testament in triumph. You
may well suppose that the little volume is a sacred heirloom in the
Brown family, which for four generations has been famous. Of course, the
author of "Rab and His Friends" had several pictures of the illustrious
dog that figured in his beautiful story, and I noticed a pet spaniel
lying on the sofa in the drawing room. A day or two after, Dr. Brown
called on me, and kindly took me on a drive with him through Edinburgh;
and it was pleasant to see how the people on the sidewalk had cheery
salutes for the author of "Rab" as he rode by. We went up to Calton
Hill and made a call on Sir George Harvey, the famous artist, whom we
found in his studio, with brush in hand, and working on an Highland
landscape. Sir George was a hearty old fellow, and the two friends had a
merry "crack" together. When I asked Harvey if he had seen any of our
best American paintings, he replied "No, I have not; the best American
productions I have ever seen have been some of your missionaries. I met
some of them; they were noble characters." On our return from the drive
Dr. Brown gave me an elegant edition of "Rab," with Harvey's portrait of
the immortal dog, whose body was thickset like a little bull, and who
had "fought his way to absolute supremacy,--like Julius Caesar or the
Duke of Wellington."
When in Edinburgh ten years afterwards, as a delegate to the General
Assemblies, I was so constantly occupied that I was able to see but
little of my genial friend, Dr. Brown. I sent him a copy of the little
book, "The Empty Crib," which had been recently published, and received
from him the following characteristic reply:
25 RUTLAND STREET, EDINBURGH, May 25, 1872.
_My Dear Dr. Cuyler_
Very many thanks for your kind note, and the little book. It will
be my own fault if I am not the better for reading it. I have seen
nothing lovelier or more touching than the pictures of those _twin
heads_ "like unto the angels"; even there Georgie looks nearer the
better world than his brother. There is something perilous about
his eyes with their wistful beauty. With him "it is far better"
now, and may it be meet for Theodore to be long with you here. I
hoped to leave with you a book of my father's on the same subject,
entitled, "Comfortable Words," but it is out of print. If I can get
a copy, I will send it you. There are some letters of Bengel's
which, if you do not know, you will enjoy.
I send you a note of introduction to John Ruskin, and I hope to
hear you to-morrow in Mr. Candlish's church.
With much regret and best thanks, yours very truly,
JOHN BROWN
P.S. I was in Glen-Garry the other week, and quite felt that look
of nakedness, and as if it just came from the Maker's hand; it was
very impressive
During the closing years of the Doctor's life he was often shadowed by
fits of deep melancholy. One day he was walking with a lady, who was
also subject to depression of spirits, and he said to her: "Tell me why
I am like a Jew?" She could not answer and he replied: "Because I am
_sad-you-see_" Tears and mirth dwelt very closely together in his keen,
fervid, sensitive spirit. It is remarkable that one who devoted himself
so assiduously to his exacting profession should have been able to
master such an immense amount of miscellaneous reading, and to have won
such a splendid name in literature. It is the attribute of true genius
that it can do great things easily, and can accomplish its feats in an
incredibly short time. He affirms that the immortal story of "Rab" was
written in a few hours! The precious relics of my friend that I now
possess are portraits of his father and of Dr. Chalmers, and of Hugh
Miller, which he presented to me, and which now adorn my study walls.
While I have always dissented from some of his theological views and
utterances, I have always had an intense admiration for Dean Stanley, in
whose character was blended the gentleness of a sweet girl with
occasional display of the courage of a lion. Froude once said to me: "I
wish that Stanley was a little better hater." My reply was: "It is not
in Stanley to hate anybody but the devil." My acquaintance with the Dean
of Westminster dates from the summer of 1872. The Rev. Samuel Minton, a
very broad Church of England clergyman, was in the habit of inviting
ministers of the Established church and non-conformists to meet at lunch
parties with a view of bringing them to a better understanding. One day
I was invited by Mr. Minton to attend one of these lunch parties, and I
found that day at his table, Dr. Donald Frazer, Dr. Newman Hall, Dr.
Joseph Parker, Dean Stanley and Dr. Howard Wilkinson, afterwards Bishop
of Truro. Stanley felt perfectly at home among these "dissenters" and
asked me to give the company some account of a remarkable discourse,
which, he was told, Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, had recently delivered in
my Lafayette Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, on "Christian Unity." In the
discourse, Bishop McIlvaine had said: "The only difference between the
Presbyterian denomination, and Episcopal denomination, is their
difference as to the orders of the ministry." The Dean was delighted
with my account, and said: "Just imagine the Bishop of London preaching
such a sermon in Newman Hall's or Spurgeon's pulpit; it would rock the
old dome of St. Paul's." In all of his intercourse with his dissenting
brethren the Dean never put on any airs of patronage, for though a loyal
Episcopalian, he recognized their equally divine ordination as ministers
of Jesus Christ.
A few days afterwards I went up to get a look at Holly Lodge, the
residence of Lord Macaulay, in a side street just off Campden Hill. I
met the Dean just coming out of the gate. He had been attending a garden
party given by Lord Airlie, who then occupied the lodge. It was a
pleasant coincidence to meet the most brilliant ecclesiastical historian
at the door of the most brilliant civil historian of England. The Dean
stopped and chatted about Macaulay, of whom he was very fond, and then
said: "Just beyond is Holland House." We went a few paces and got a
glimpse of the famous mansion in which Lord Holland had entertained the
celebrities of America and Europe. One of the best hours I ever spent
with Stanley was at his own table in the Deanery. He was the most
delightful of hosts. Lady Augusta Stanley, daughter of the Earl of
Elgin, had been a favorite Maid of Honor to the Queen, and the Dean had
accompanied the Prince of Wales on his tour to the Orient. The Queen
quite frequently slipped away from the palace for a quiet chat at the
Deanery with this pair whom she so loved. A marble bust of Victoria, by
her daughter, the Princess Louise, stood in the parlor, a gift of the
Queen. If the Dean was very broad in his theology, his cultured wife was
as decidedly evangelical in hers and her religious influence was very
tonic in all respects. After lunch that day the Dean very kindly took me
into the famous Jerusalem chamber and showed me where the Westminster
Assembly had sat for six years to give birth to our Presbyterian
Confession of Faith and Catechism. I was surprised at the small size of
the room that had held seventy or eighty commissioners.
As I was very desirous of hearing the Dean preach in the Abbey, he sent
me a very kind invitation to come on the next Sabbath to the Deanery
before the service, and on account of my deafness Lady Augusta would
take me into a seat close to his pulpit. Accordingly she stowed me in a
small box-pew, which was close against the pulpit, and within arms'
length of the Dean. His sermon was a beautiful essay on Solomon and
great men, and in the course of it he said: "Such was the greatness of
our Lord Jesus Christ." I felt so pained by _what he did not say_ that I
ventured to write him a most frank and loving note, in which I expressed
my deep regret that when he referred to the "greatness" of our Saviour
he had so entirely ignored what was infinitely His most sublime
work,--that of our human redemption by His atoning death on Calvary. The
dear Dean, instead of taking offense, accepted the frank letter in the
same spirit in which it was written. A day or two after he sent me a
characteristic note, whose peculiar hieroglyphics, after much labor, I
was able to decipher; for it has been often said that the only reason
why he was never made a bishop was that no clergyman in his diocese
would ever have been able to read his letters.
THE DEANERY OF WESTMINSTER,
July 22, 1872
Dear Doctor---Pray accept my sincere thanks for your
very kind note. I quite appreciate your candor in mentioning
what you thought a defect in my sermon. It arose
from a fixed conviction which I have long formed, that
the only chance there is of my sermons doing any good is
by taking one topic at a time. The effect and the nature
of the death of Jesus Christ, I quite agree with you in
thinking to be a most important part of the Christian doctrine,
and Christian history. But as my sermon was on a
different subject--that of the right use of greatness--I felt
that I could not speak, even by way of allusion, to the
other great doctrine on which I had often preached before.
I sincerely wish that I could come to America. Every
year that passes increases the number of my kind friends
in the New World, and my desire to see the United States.
Farewell; and may all the blessings of our State and
Church follow you westward
Yours faithfully,
A.P. STANLEY.
When Dean Stanley visited America in the autumn of 1878, I met him
several times, and he was especially cordial, and all the more so
because of my out-spoken letter. The first time I met him was at the
meeting of ministers of New York to give him a reception, and hear him
deliver a discourse on Dr. Robinson, the Oriental geographer. He
recognized me in the audience, came forward to the front of the
platform, beckoned me up, and gave me a hearty grasp of the hand. I
arranged to take him to Greenwood Cemetery on the morning before he
sailed for home, and after breakfasting with him at Cyrus W. Field's we
started for the cemetery. Dr. Phillip Schaff and Dr. Henry M. Field met
us at the ferry, and accompanied us. When we entered the elevated
railroad car, Stanley exclaimed: "This is like the chariots on the walls
of Babylon." With his keen interest in history he inquired when we
reached the lower part of the Bowery, near the junction of Chatham
Square "Was it not near here that Nathan Hale, the martyr, was
executed?" and he showed then a more accurate knowledge of our local
history than one New Yorker in ten thousand can boast! That was probably
the exact locality, and Dean Stanley had never been there before. Before
entering the Greenwood Cemetery he requested me to drive him to the spot
where my little child was buried, whose photograph in "The Empty Crib" I
have referred to in a previous chapter. When we reached the burial lot
he got out of the carriage, and in the driving wind, of a raw November
morning, spent some time in examining the marble medallion of the child,
and in talking with my wife most sweetly about him. I could have hugged
the man on the spot. It was so like Stanley. I do not wonder that
everybody loved him. We then drove to the tomb of Dr. Edward Robinson
and the Dean said to us: "In all my travels in Palestine I carried Dr.
Robinson's volume, 'Biblical Researches,' with me on horseback or on my
camel; it was my constant guide book."
Three years afterward, on my arrival in London, from Palestine I learned
that Stanley was dangerously ill. On the door of the Deanery a bulletin
was posted: "The Dean is sinking." That night the good, great man, died.
On the 25th of July the august funeral service took place in
Westminster Abbey. Outside the Abbey thousands of people were assembled,
for the Dean was loved by all London. From a small gallery over the
"Poets' Corner" I looked down on the group, which contained Gladstone,
Shaftesbury, Matthew Arnold, and scores of England's mightiest and best.
After the "Dead March," began a long procession headed by Stanley's
lifelong friend, Archbishop Tait, of Canterbury, and the Prince of Wales
(his pupil), and followed by Browning, Tyndall, and a long line of
bishops, and poets and scholars moved slowly along under the lofty
arches to the tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel. A fresh wreath of flowers
from the Queen was laid on the coffin. Many a tear was shed on that sad
day beside the tomb in which the Church of England laid her most
fearless and yet her best beloved son. I never have visited the Abbey
since, without halting for a few moments beside the chapel in which the
Dean and his beloved wife are slumbering. Greater than all his books or
literary achievements was Arthur Penryn Stanley, the modest,
true-hearted, unselfish, childlike, Christian man.
Soon after I had begun my pastorate in New York, I became a member of
the Young Men's Christian Association, which was one of the first that
was organized in this country. Since that time I have delivered more
than one hundred addresses, in behalf of this institution, in my own
country and abroad. In June, 1857, the New York organization honored me
with what was then a novelty in America--a public breakfast, and
commissioned me as a delegate to the original parent association in
London. I there met that remarkable Christian merchant, Mr. George
Williams, who was the founder of the Association, and who had got much
of his first spiritual inspiration from reading the writings of our
American, Charles G. Finney. He is now Sir George Williams, my much
loved friend, and I do not hesitate to say that there is not another man
living who has accomplished such a world-wide work for the glory of God
and the welfare of young men. The President of that first organized
London Association was the celebrated philanthropist, the Earl of
Shaftesbury, a man whom I had long desired to meet. My acquaintance with
him began in Exeter Hall, at a Sabbath service held to reach the
non-church going classes. With one or two others we knelt together in a
small side room to invoke a blessing on the service in the great hall,
and he prayed most fervently. The Earl of Shaftesbury was not only the
author of great reformatory legislation in Parliament, and the
acknowledged leader of the Low Church Party in the Established Church.
He was also a leader of city missions, ragged schools, shoe-black
brigades, and other organizations to benefit the submerged classes in
London. He once invited all the thieves in London to meet him privately
in a certain hall, and there pleaded with them to abandon their wretched
occupation, and promised to aid those who desired to reform. He was fond
of telling the story of how, when his watch was stolen, the thieves
themselves compelled the rascal to come and return it, because he had
been the benefactor of the "long-fingered fraternity." The last time
that I saw the venerable philanthropist was just before his death (at
the age of eighty-four years). He was presiding at a convention of the
Young Men's Christian Association in Exeter Hall. In my speech I said:
"To-day I have seen Milton's Mulberry Tree at Cambridge University, and
the historic old tree is kept alive by being banked around with earth
clear to its boughs; and so is all Christendom banking around our
honored President to-night to keep him warm and hale, and strong, amid
the frosts of advancing age," The grand old man rewarded me with a bow
and a gracious smile, and the audience responded with a shout of
appreciation.
CHAPTER X
SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME.
_Irvin,--Whittier.--Webster.--Greeley, etc_.
Washington Irving has fairly earned the title of the "Father of our
American Literature." The profound philosophical and spiritual treatises
of our great President Edwards had secured a reading by theologians and
deep thinkers abroad; but the American who first caught the popular ear
was the man who wrote "The Sketch Book," and made the name of
"Knickerbocker" almost as familiar as Sir Walter Scott made the name of
"Waverly." During the summer of 1856 I received a cordial invitation
from the people of Tarry town to come up to join them in an annual
"outing," with their children, on board of a steamer on the Tappan-Zee.
I accepted the invitation, and on arrival found the boat already filled
with the good people, and two or three hundreds of scholars from the
Sabbath schools.
To my surprise and delight I found Washington Irving on board the
steamer. The veteran author had laid aside the fourth volume of the
"Life of Washington," which he was just preparing, to come away for a
bit of rest and recreation. I had never seen him before, but found him
precisely the type of man that I had expected. He was short, rather
stout, and attired in an old fashioned black summer dress, with "pumps"
and white stockings, and a broad Panama hat. As he was no novelty to his
neighbors I was able to secure more of his time; and, like the apostle
of old, I was exceedingly "filled with his company." He took me to the
upper deck of the steamer, and pointed out a glimpse of his own
home--"Sunnyside"--which he told me was the original of Baltus Van
Tassel's homestead in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." He pointed out the
route of poor Ichabod Crane on his memorable night ride up the valley,
and so on to the Kakout, where his horse should have gone to reach
"Sleepy Hollow." Instead of that, obstinate Gunpowder plunged down over
that bridge where poor Ichabod encountered his fatal and final
catastrophe. The good old man's face was full of fun as he told me the
story. Irving was so exceedingly shy that he never could face any public
ovation, and yet he had a great deal of quiet enjoyment of his own
popularity. For example, one day when he was going with a young relative
up Broadway, which was thronged with omnibuses, he pointed out one of
the old "Knickerbocker" line of stages to the lad and said: "Billy, you
see how many coaches I own in this city, and you may take as many rides
in them as you like."
After refreshments had been served to all the guests on board, we
gathered on the deck for the inevitable American practice of speech
making. In the course of my speech I gave an account of what was being
done for poor children in the slums of New York, and then introduced as
many Dutch stories as I could recollect for the special edification of
old "Geoffrey Crayon." As I watched his countenance, and heard his
hearty laughter and saw sometimes the peculiar quizzical expression of
his mouth, I fancied that I knew precisely how he looked when he drew
the inimitable pictures of Ichabod Crane, and Rip Van Winkle. When the
excursion ended, and we drew up to the shore, I bade him a very grateful
and affectionate farewell, and my readers, I hope, will pardon me if I
say to them that dear old Irving whispered quietly in my ear, "I should
like to be one of your parishioners." Three years afterwards, Irving was
borne by his neighbors at Tarrytown to his final resting place in the
old Dutch churchyard at the entrance of Sleepy Hollow.
Twenty years afterwards my dear friend, Mr. William E. Dodge, drove me
up from his summer house at Tarrytown to see the simple tomb of the good
old Geoffrey Crayon, whose genius has gladdened innumerable admirers,
and whose writings are as pure as the rivulet which now flows by his
resting place.
The pleasant little town of Burlington, N.J., in which I spent my
earliest ministry, was the headquarters of orthodox Quakers. I was
thrown much into the society of their most eminent people, and very
delightful society I found it. The venerable Stephen Grellet, their
apostle, who had held many interviews with the crowned heads of Europe,
resided a little way from me up the street; and I saw the good old man
with broad brimmed hat and straight coat pass my window every day.
Richard Mott lived but a little way from the town, and on the other side
resided the widow of the celebrated Joseph John Gurney. The wittiest
Quaker in the town was my neighbor, William J. Allinson, the editor of
the "Friends Review," and an intimate friend of John G. Whittier. One
afternoon he ran over to my room, and said: "Friend Theodore, John G.
Whittier is at my house, and wants to see thee; he leaves early in the
morning." I hastened across the street and, in the modest parlor of
Friend Allinson, I saw, standing before the fire, a tall, slender man in
Quaker dress, with a very lofty brow, and the finest eye I have ever
seen in any American, unless it were the deep ox-like eye of Abraham
Lincoln. We had a pleasant chat about the anti-slavery, temperance and
other moral reforms; and I went home with something of the feeling that
Walter Scott says he had after seeing "Rabbie Burns," Whittier was a
retiring, home-keeping man. He never crossed the ocean and seldom went
even outside of his native home in Massachusetts. During the summer of
1870 he ventured down to Brooklyn on a visit to his friend, Colonel
Julian Allen. On coming home one day, my servant said to me, "There was
a tall Quaker gentleman called here, and left his name on this piece of
paper." I was quite dumb-founded to read the name of "John G. Whittier,"
and I lost no time in making my way up to the house where he was
staying. When I inquired how he had come to do me the honor of a call,
he said: "Well, yesterday, when I arrived and my friend Allen drove me
up here, we passed a meeting house with a tall steeple, and when I heard
it was thine, I determined to run down to thy house and see thee." As I
was to have the "Chi Alpha," the oldest and the most celebrated clerical
association of New York at my house the next afternoon, I invited him to
come and sup with them. He cordially consented, and it may be supposed
that the "Chi Alpha" was very glad to put aside for that evening all
other matters, and listen to the fresh, racy and humorous talk of the
great poet. Underneath his grave and shy sobriety, flowed a most gentle
humor. He could tell a good story, and when he was describing the usages
of the Quakers in regard to "Speaking in Meetings," he told us that
sometimes the voluntary remarks were not quite to the edification of the
meeting. It once happened that a certain George C---- grew rather
wearisome in his exhortations, and his prudent brethren, after solemn
consultation, passed the following resolution: "It is the sense of this
meeting that George C.---- be advised to remain silent, until such time
as the Lord shall speak through him _more to our satisfaction and
profit_." A resolution of that kind would not be out of place in some
ecclesiastical assemblies, nor in certain prayer gatherings that I wot
of. After the circle broke up I told him that in addition to the kind
and characteristic letters he had written to me I wanted a scrap of his
poetry to add to those which Bryant and others had contributed to my
collection of autographs. "What shall it be?" he said. I told him that,
while some of his hymns and devoutly spiritual pieces, like "My soul and
I," were very dear to me, and while "Snow Bound" was his acknowledged
masterpiece, yet none of his verses did I oftener quote than this one,
in his poem on Massachusetts, He smiled at the selection, and
accordingly sat down and wrote:
"She heeds no skeptic's puny hands,
While near the school the church-spire stands,
Nor fears the bigot's blinded rule,
While near the church-spire stands the school."
Our walk to his place of sojourn in the moonlight was very delightful.
On the way I told him that not long before, when I quoted a verse of
Bryant's to Horace Greeley, Mr. Greeley replied: "Bryant is all very
well, but by far the greatest poet this country has produced is John
Greenleaf Whittier." "Did our friend Horace say that?" meekly inquired
Whittier, and a smile of satisfaction flowed over his Quaker
countenance. The man is not born yet who does not like an honest
compliment, especially if it comes from a high quarter. In the course of
my life I have received several very pleasant letters from my venerable
friend, the Quaker poet; but immediately after his eightieth birthday he
addressed me the following letter, which, believing it to be his last, I
framed and hung on the walls of my library:
OAK KNOLL,
12th month, 17th, 1887.
_My dear Dr. Cuyler_,
I thank thee for thy loving letter to me on my birthday,
which I would have answered immediately but for illness;
and, my friend, I wish I was more worthy of the kind and
good things said of me. But my prayer is, "God be Merciful
to me." And I think my prayer will be answered, for
His Mercy and His Justice are one. May the Lord bless
thee. Thy friend sincerely,
JOHN G. WHITTIER
This note, so redolent of humility, was written a few days after he had
received a most superb birthday ovation from the public men of
Massachusetts, and from the most eminent literary men in all parts of
the nation.
In the days of my boyhood the most colossal figure, physically and
intellectually, in American politics, was Daniel Webster. I well
remember when I first put eye upon him. It was when I was pursuing my
studies in the New York University Grammar School in preparation for
Princeton College. I was strolling one day on the Battery, and met a
friend who said to me: "Yonder goes Daniel Webster; he has just landed
from that man-of-war; go and get a good look at him." I hastened my
steps and, as I came near him, I was as much awe-stricken as if I had
been gazing on Bunker Hill Monument, He was unquestionably the most
majestic specimen of manhood that ever trod this continent. Carlyle
called him "The Great Norseman," and said that his eyes were like great
anthracite furnaces that needed blowing up. Coal heavers in London
stopped to stare at him as he stalked by, and it is well authenticated
that Sydney Smith said of him, "That man is a fraud; for it is
impossible for any one to be as great as he looks."
Mr. Webster, as I saw him that day, was in the vigor of his splendid
prime. When he spoke in the Senate chamber it was his custom to wear the
Whig uniform, a blue coat with metal buttons and a buff waistcoat; but
that day he was dressed in a claret colored coat and black trousers. His
complexion was a swarthy brown. He used to say that while his handsome
brother Ezekiel was very fair, he "had all the soot of the family in his
face." Such a mountain of a brow I have never seen before or since. I
followed behind him until he entered the carriage of Mr. Robert Minturn
that was waiting for him, and as he rode away he looked like Jupiter
Olympus. Although I saw Mr. Webster several times afterwards, I never
heard him speak until the closing year of his life. The Honorable Lewis
Condit, of Morristown, N.J., was in Congress at the time when Webster
had his historic combat with Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, and was
present during the delivery of the most magnificent speech ever
delivered in our Senate. He described the historic scene to me minutely.
Before twelve o'clock on the 26th day of January, 1830, the Senate
chamber was overflowing into the rotunda, and people were offering
prices for a few inches of breathing room in the charmed enclosure.
Senator Dixon H. Lewis, from Alabama, who weighed nearly four hundred,
became wedged in behind the Vice President's chair, unable to move, and
became imbedded in the crowd like a broad-bottomed schooner settled at
low tide into the mud. Being unable to see, he drew out his knife and
cut a hole through the stained glass screens that flanked the presiding
officer's chair. That aperture long remained as a memorial of Lewis's
curiosity to witness the greatest of American orators deliver the
greatest of American orations. The place was worthy of the hour and of
the combatants. It was the old Senate chamber, now occupied by the
United States Supreme Court, the same hall which had once resounded to
the eloquence of Rufus King, as it afterwards did to the eloquence of
Rufus Choate, and which had echoed the bursts of applause that once
greeted Henry Clay of Kentucky. On that memorable morning the
Vice-President's chair was occupied by that intellectual giant of the
South, John C. Calhoun. Before him were Van Buren, Forsyth, Hayne,
Clayton, the omniverous Benton, the sturdy John Quincy Adams, and, in
the seething crowd, was the gaunt skeleton form of John Randolph of
Roanoke. Mr. Condit told me that when Webster exclaimed: "The world
knows the history of Massachusetts by heart. There is Lexington, and
there is Bunker Hill and there they will remain forever,"--the group of
Bostonians seated in the gallery before him, broke down, and wept like
little children. Quite as effective as his eulogy of the "Old Bay
State," was his sudden and awful assault upon Senator Levi Woodbury, of
New Hampshire. This representative of Webster's native State had
supplied Colonel Hayne with a quantity of party pamphlets and documents
to be used as ammunition. Webster knew this fact and determined to
punish him. Turning suddenly towards Woodbury, he thundered out in a
tone of indignant scorn, as he shook his fist over his head: "I employ
no scavengers;" and the poor New Hampshire Senator ducked his bald head
as if struck by a bombshell. The closing passage of that memorable
speech could not have been extemporized. No mortal man could have thrown
off that magnificent piece of Miltonic prose at the heat, without some
deep premeditation. It is well known now that Mr. Webster afterwards
pruned, amended and decorated it until it is recognized as one of the
grandest passages in the English language. I take down my Webster and
read it occasionally, and it has in it the majestic "sound of many
waters." That great passage is the prelude of the mighty conflict which
thirty years afterwards was to be waged on the soil of Gettysburg and
Chickamauga. It became the condensed creed, and the battle-cry of the
long warfare for the nation's life. Well have there been placed in
golden letters on the pedestal of Webster's monument in Central Park the
last sublime line of that sentence: "Liberty and Union, now and forever:
one and inseparable." Mr. Webster's power in sarcastic invective was
terrific. After he had made his angry and ferocious rejoinder to the
charges of Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, the witty Dr.
Elder was asked, when he came out of the Senate chamber: "What did you
think of that speech?" Elder's reply was: "Thunder and lightning are
peaches and cream to such a speech as that." Mighty as Webster was in
intellectual power he had some lamentable weaknesses. He was indeed a
wonderful mixture of clay and iron. The iron was extraordinarily
massive, but the clay was loose and brittle. He had the temptations of
very strong animal passions, and sometimes to his intimate friends he
attempted to excuse some of his excesses of that kind. There has been
much controversy about Mr. Webster's habits in regard to intoxicants.
The simple truth is that during his visit to England in 1840 he was so
lionized and feted at public dinners that he brought home some convivial
habits which rather grew upon him in advancing years. On several public
occasions he gave evidence that he was somewhat under the influence of
deep potations. I once saw him when his imperial brain was raked with
the chain-shot of alcohol. The sight moved me to tears, and made me hate
more than ever the accursed drink that, like death, is no "respecter of
persons."
I heard the last speech that Mr. Webster ever made. It was a few months
before his death in 1852. The speech was delivered at Trenton, N.J., in
the celebrated India rubber case, Goodyear _vs. _ Day, in which Webster
was the leading counsel for Goodyear, and Rufus Choate headed the list
of eloquent advocates in defense of Mr. Day. In that speech Webster was
physically feeble, so that after speaking an hour, he was obliged to sit
down for a time, while Mr. James T. Brady made a new statement with
regard to a portion of the evidence. At that time Webster was broken in
health. The most beautiful passage in his speech was his tribute to
woman, and at another point he indulged in a very ludicrous description
of the character of the first India rubber, which was offered as a
marketable article. He said: "When India rubber was first brought to
this country we had only the raw material, and they made overshoes and
hats of it. A present was sent to me of a complete suit of clothes made
of this India rubber, and on a cold winter day I found my rubber
overcoat was frozen as rigid as ice. I took it out on my lawn, set it
upright, put a broad brim hat on top of it, and there the figure stood
erect, and my neighbors, as they passed by thought they saw the old
farmer of Marshfield standing out under his trees." Some of his
sarcastic attacks upon Mr. Day were very bitter, and when he showed his
great, white teeth he looked like an enraged lion.
A few months after that Trenton speech in October, 1852, he went to his
Marshfield home to die. His spirits were broken and he was sore from
political disappointments. His last few days were spent in a fight by
his powerful constitution against the inevitable. The last time he
walked feebly from his bed to his window he called out to his servant
man: "I want you to moor my yacht down there where I can see it from my
window; then I want you to hoist the flag at the mast head, and every
night to hang the lamp up in the rigging; when I go down I want to go
down with my colors flying and my lamp burning." He told them to put on
his monument, "Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief." In the final
moment he started up from his pillow long enough to say: "I still live."
He does live, and will ever live in the grateful memories of his
countrymen.
While no one can deplore more than the writer the weaknesses and
mistakes of Daniel Webster, yet when I remember his intellectual
prowess and his magnificent services in defense of the Constitution, and
the integrity of our national union, I am ready to say: "Let us to all
his failings and faults be charitably kind and only remember the
glorious services he wrought to the country he loved."
During the summer of 1840, when I was a college student at Princeton, I
went with a friend to the office of the _Log Cabin_, a Whig campaign
newspaper then published in Nassau Street, New York. It was during the
famous Tippecanoe campaign, which resulted in the election of General
Harrison. I was introduced to a singular looking man in rustic dress. He
was writing an editorial. His face had a peculiar infantile smoothness,
and his long flaxen hair fell down over his shoulders. I little dreamed
then that that uncouth man in tow trousers was yet to be the foremost
editor in America, and a candidate, unwisely, for President of the
United States. Horace Greeley, for it was he, who sat before me, has
been often described as a man with the "face of an angel, and the walk
of a clod-hopper." Ten years later I became well acquainted with him,
and from that time a most cordial friendship existed until his dying
day. He visited me as a speaker at our State convention in Trenton, N.Y.
I had him at my house at supper when my mother asked him if he would
take coffee. His droll reply was: "I hope to drink coffee, madame, in
heaven, but I cannot stand it in this world." After supper I informed my
guest that it was customary for my good mother and myself (for I was not
yet married), to have family worship immediately at the close of that
meal and asked him whether he would not join us. He cordially replied
that he would be most happy to do so, and it is quite probable that I
may be one of the few,--perhaps the only--clergyman in this land who
ever had Horace Greeley kneeling beside him in prayer. He attired
himself in the famous old white coat, and shambled along with my mother
to the place of meeting. He quite captivated her with a most pathetic
account of his idolized boy "Pickie," who had died a short time before.
Mr. Greeley was one of the most simple-hearted, great men whom I have
ever met; without a spark of ordinary vanity he was intensely
affectionate in his sympathies and loved a genuine kind word that came
from the heart. He relished more a quiet talk with an old friend in his
home at Chappaqua than all the glare of public notoriety. "Come up," he
often said to me, "and spend a Saturday at the farm. The good boys do
come and see me up there sometimes." Probably no man lived a purer life
than Horace Greeley. He was the most devoted of husbands to one of the
most eccentric of wives. His defenses of the spiritual sanctity of
marriage in reply to Dale Owen are among the most powerful productions
of his ever powerful pen. It were well that they should be reproduced
now at a time when the laxity of wedlock and the wicked facilities for
divorce are working such peril to our domestic life.
John Bright once said: "Horace Greeley is the greatest of living
editors." He once told me that he had written editorials for a dozen
papers at one time. He also told me that while he was preparing his
history of the "American Conflict" he was in the habit of writing three
columns of editorials every day. His articles were freighted with great
power, for he was one of the strongest writers of the English language
on this continent. They were always brimful of thought, for Mr. Greeley
seldom wrote on any subject which he had not thoroughly mastered.
Speaking of a certain popular orator, who afterwards went as our
minister to China, he said to me: "Mr. B.---- is a pretty man, a very
pretty man, but he does not _study_, and no man ever can have permanent
power in this country unless he _studies_"
Mr. Greeley prided himself upon his accuracy as an editor, but one day,
when writing an editorial, in which he denounced some political
misdemeanor in the County of Chatauqua, by a slip of his pen he wrote
the name of the adjoining county Cattaraugus. The next morning when he
saw it in the paper he went up into the composing room in a perfect rage
and called out, "Who put that Cattaraugus?" The printers all gathered
around him amused at his anger until one of them pulling down from the
hook the original editorial showed him the word "Cattaraugus" "Uncle
Horace," when he saw the word, with a most inexpressible meekness,
drawled out: "Will some one please to kick me down those stairs?"
He abominated mendicancy and, although his native goodness of heart
often led him to give to the hundreds who came to him for pecuniary aid,
he one day said to me: "Since I have lived in New York I have given away
money enough to set up a merchant in business, and I sometimes doubt
whether I have done more good or harm by the operation. I am continually
beset by various clubs and societies all over the land to donate to them
the _Tribune_. I always tell them if it is worth reading it is worth
paying for. The curse of this country is the deadhead. I pay for my own
_Tribune_ every morning."
From my old friend's theology I strongly dissented, but in practical
philanthropy he gave me many a lesson and still better stimulant of his
own unselfish example. He was always ready to work in the cause of
reform without pay and without applause. When temperance meetings were
held in my church he very gladly lent his effective services, refusing
any compensation, and there was no man in the city whose evening hours
were worth more in solid gold than his. It is said that he was once
called upon, in the absence of his minister, in a Universalist Church,
to go into the pulpit. He did so, and delivered a very pungent sermon on
the text, "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." The
strongest points made by Mr. Greeley in the best of his printed essays
are those which emphasize the authority of God. A letter in his
characteristic hieroglyphics, the last one he ever wrote to me, and
which now lies before me, was in reply to one of mine, criticising the
_Tribune_ for speaking of Dr. Tyng's as a "church" and of Dr. Adams's
house of worship as a "meeting house." I told him if one was a church,
then the other was equally so. He replied: "I am of Puritan stock, on
one side, in America since 1640, and on the other since 1720. My people
worshiped God in a meeting house; they gave it the name, not I, and they
called the body of believers who met therein 'a church.' Episcopalians
speak otherwise. It is a bad sign that we do not seem disposed to hold
fast the form of sound words."
I am not aware of any Scriptural authority for calling a steepled house
"a church."
The last evening I ever spent with him was at a temperance meeting of
plain working people, to which he came several miles through a snow
storm. He spoke with great power, and when I told him afterwards it was
one of the finest addresses I had ever heard from him he said to me: "I
would rather tell some truths to help such plain people as we had
to-night than address thousands of the cultured in the Academy of
Music." As he bade me good-night at yonder corner of Fulton Street, I
said to him: "Uncle Horace, will you not come and spend the night with
me?" He said, "No, I have much work to do before morning. I am coming
over soon to spend a week in Brooklyn with my brother-in-law, and I will
come and have a night with you." Alas, it was not long before he came to
spend a night in Brooklyn,--that night that knows no morning. On a
chilly November day, towards twilight, I was one of the crowd that
followed him to his resting place in Greenwood, and I always, when on my
way to my own plot, stop to gaze on the monument that bears the
inscription, _"Founder of the New York Tribune."_
CHAPTER XI
THE CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
An enormous quantity of books, historic and reminiscent, have been
written about our Civil War, which, both in regard to the number of
combatants engaged, and the magnitude of the interests involved, and its
far-reaching consequences, was the most colossal conflict of modern
times. Before presenting a few of my own personal recollections of the
struggle, let me say that when the struggle was over, no one was more
eager than myself to bury the tomahawk, and to offer the calumet of
peace to our Southern fellow countrymen and fellow Christians. Whenever
I have visited them their cordial greeting has warmed the cockles of my
heart. I thank God that the great gash has been so thoroughly healed,
and that I have lived to see the day when the people of the North feel a
national pride in the splendid prowess of Lee, and the heroic Christian
character of Stonewall Jackson, and when some of the noblest tributes to
Abraham Lincoln have been spoken by such representative Southerners as
Mr. Grady, of Georgia, and Mr. Watterson, of Kentucky. I had hoped ere
this to see the Northern and Southern wings of our venerable
Presbyterian Church reunited; but I am confident that there are plenty
of people now living who will yet witness their happy ecclesiastical
nuptials. Terrible as was that war in the sacrifice of precious life,
and in the destruction of property, it was unquestionably inevitable.
Mr. Seward was right when he called the conflict "irrepressible."
Abraham Lincoln was a true prophet when he declared, at Springfield,
Ill., in June, 1858, that "A house divided against itself cannot stand;
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half
free." When in my early life I spoke to my good mother about some
anti-slavery addresses that had been delivered, she said to me, with
wonderful foresight, "These speeches will avail but little; _slavery
will go down in blood."_ That it has gone down even at the cost of so
much blood and treasure is to-day as much a matter for congratulation in
the South as it is in the North.
My first glimpse of the long predicted conflict was the sight of the
Seventh Regiment,--composed of the flower of New York,--swinging down
Broadway in April, 1861, on its way to the protection of
Washington,--amid the thundering cheers of the bystanders. Before long I
offered my services to the "Christian commission" which had been
organized by that noble and godly minded patriot, George H. Stuart, of
Philadelphia, and I went on to Washington to preach to our soldiers. I
found Washington a huge military encampment; the hills around were white
with tents, and Pennsylvania Avenue was filled almost every day with
troops of horsemen, or with trains of artillery. While I was in
Washington I lodged with my beloved college professor, that eminent
Christian philosopher, Joseph Henry,--in the Smithsonian Institution, of
which he was the head. One night, after I had been out addressing our
boys in blue at one of the camps, and had retired for the night,
Professor Henry came into my room and, sitting down by my bed, discussed
the aspects of the struggle. His mental eye was as sharp in reading the
signs of the times as it had been when at Albany, thirty years before,
he made his splendid discovery in electro-magnetism. He said to me:
"This war may last several years, but it can have only one result, for
it is simply a question of dynamics. The stronger force must pulverize
the weaker one, and the North will win the day. When the war is over,
the country will not be what it was before; the triumph of the union
will leave us a prodigiously centralized government, and the old Calhoun
theory of 'State rights' will be dead. We shall have an inflated
currency--an enormous debt with a host of tax-gatherers, and huge
pension rolls. What is most needed now is wise statesmanship, and the
first quality of a statesman is _prescience_. In my position here, as
head of the Smithsonian, I cannot be a partisan! I did not vote the
Republican ticket, but I am confident that by a long way the most
far-seeing head in this land is on the shoulders of that awkward
rail-splitter from Illinois." Every syllable of Professor Henry's
prognostication proved true, and nothing more true than his estimate of
Lincoln at a time when there was too much disposition to distrust him.
As I have had for many years what my friends have playfully called
"Lincoln on the brain," let me say a few words in regard to the most
marvellous man that this country has produced in the nineteenth century.
His name is to-day a household word in every civilized land. Dr. Newman
Hall, of London, has told me that when he had addressed a listless
audience, he found that nothing was so certain to arouse them as to
introduce the name of Abraham Lincoln. Certainly no other name has such
electric power over every true heart from Maine to Mexico. The first
time I ever saw the man whom we used to call, familiarly and
affectionately, "Uncle Abe," was at the Tremont House in Chicago, a few
days after his election to the presidency. His room was very near my
own. I sent in my card, and he greeted me with a characteristic grasp of
the hand, and his first sentence rather touched my soft spot when he
said: "I have kept up with you nearly every week in the _New York
Independent_." His voice had a clear, magnetic ring, and his heart
seemed to be in his voice. Three months afterwards I saw him again,
riding down Broadway, New York (thronged with a gazing multitude), on
his way to assume the presidency at Washington. He stood up in a
barouche holding on with his hand to the seat of the driver. His
towering figure was filled out by a long blue cloak, and a heavy cape
which he wore. On his bare head rose a thick mass of black hair--the
crown which nature gave to her king. His large, melancholy eyes had a
solemn, far-away look as if he discerned the toils and trials that
awaited him. The great patriot-President, moving slowly on toward the
conflict, the glory and the martyrdom, that were reserved for him, still
remains in my memory, as the most august and majestic figure that my
eyes have ever beheld. He never passed through New York again until he
was borne through tears and broken hearts on his last journey to his
Western tomb.
I did not see Lincoln again until two years afterwards, when I was in
Washington on duty for the Christian Commission. It was one of his
public levee nights, and as soon as I came up to him, his first words
were: "Doctor, I have not seen you since we met in the Tremont House in
Chicago." I mention this as an illustration of his marvelous memory; he
never forgot a face or a name or the slightest incident. My mother was
with me at the Smithsonian, and as she was extremely desirous to see the
President I took her over to the White House late on the following
afternoon. In those war times, when Washington was a camp, the White
House looked more like an army barracks than the Presidential mansion.
In the entrance hall that day were piles of express boxes, among which
was a little lad playing and tumbling them about. "Will you go and find
somebody to take our cards?" said my mother to the child. He ran off and
brought the Irishman, whose duty it was to receive callers at the door.
That was the same Irishman who, when the poor soldier's wife was going
in to plead for her husband's pardon of a capital offense he had
committed, said to her: "Be sure to take your baby in with you." When
she came out smiling and happy, Patrick said to her: "Ah, ma'am, _'twas
the baby that did it_."
The shockingly careless appearance of the White House proved that
whatever may have been Mrs. Lincoln's other good qualities, she hadn't
earned the compliment which the Yankee farmer paid to his wife when he
said: "Ef my wife haint got an ear fer music, she's got an eye fer
dirt." When we reached the room of the President's Private Secretary,
my old friend, the Rev. Mr. Neill, of St. Paul's, told me that it was
military court day, when the President had to decide upon cases of army
discipline that came before him and when he received no calls. I told
Neill that my mother could never die happy if she had not seen Lincoln.
He took in our names to the President, who told him to bring us in. We
entered the room in which the Cabinet usually met--and there, before the
fire, stood the tall, gaunt form attired in a seedy frock-coat, with his
long hair unkempt, and his thin face the very picture of distress. "How
is Mrs. Lincoln?" inquired my mother. "Oh," said the President, "I have
not seen her since seven o'clock this morning; Tad, how is your mother?"
"She is pretty well," replied the little fellow, who was coiled up then
in an arm chair, the same lad we had seen playing down in the entrance
hall. We spent but a few moments with Mr. Lincoln, and when we came out
my mother exclaimed: "Oh, what a cruelty to keep that man here! Did you
ever see such a sad face in your life?" I never had, and I have given
this account of my call on him in order that my readers may not only
understand what democratic customs then prevailed in the White House,
but may get some faint idea of the terribly trying life that Mr. Lincoln
led.
Dr. Bellows, the President of the Sanitary Commission, once said to him:
"Mr. President, I am here at almost every hour of the day or night, and
I never saw you at the table, do you ever eat?" "I try to," replied the
President; "I manage to browse about pretty much as I can get it." After
the long wearing, nerve-taxing days were over in which he was glad to
relieve himself occasionally with a good story or a merry laugh, came
the nights of anxiety when sleep was often banished from his pillow. He
frequently wrapped himself in his Scotch shawl, and at midnight stole
across to the War Office, and listened to the click of the telegraph
instruments, which brought sometimes good news, and sometimes terrible
tales of defeat. On the day after he heard of the awful slaughter at
Fredericksburg, he remarked at the War Office: "If any of the lost in
hell suffered worse than I did last night, I pity them." Nothing but
iron nerves and a dependence on the divine arm bore him through. He once
said: "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming
conviction that I had nowhere else to go; my own wisdom and that of all
around me seemed insufficient for the day." We call him "Our Martyr
President," but the martyrdom lasted for four whole years!
The darkest crisis of the whole war was in the summer of 1862. I slipped
away for a few weeks of relaxation to Europe, sailing on the Cunarder
_China_, the first screw steamer ever built by that company. She was
under the command of Captain James Anderson, who was afterwards knighted
by Queen Victoria for his services in laying the Atlantic cable, and is
better known as Sir James Anderson. There was no Atlantic cable in those
days, and our steamer carried out the news of the seven days' battles
before Richmond, which terminated in the retreat of General McClellan.
We had a Fourth of July dinner on board, but between seasickness and
heart sickness it was the toughest experience of making a spread-eagle
speech I ever had. After landing at Queenstown I went to Belfast and
thence to Edinburgh. I found the people of Edinburgh intensely excited
over our war and the current of popular sentiment running against us
like a mill-race. For instance, I was recognized by my soft hat on the
street; a shoemaker put his head out of the door and shouted as I
passed: "I say, when are you going to be done with your butchering over
there?" The _Scotsman_ was hostile to the Union cause, and the old
_Caledonian Mercury_ was the only paper that stood by us; but it did so
manfully. On the day of my arrival a bulletin was posted in the
newspaper offices and on Change that McClellan and the Union army had
surrendered. The baleful report was received with no little exultation
by all who were engaged in the cotton trade. I sat up until midnight
with the editor of the _Mercury_, helping him to squelch the rumor and
the next morning expose the falsity of the news in his columns.
Dr. John Brown, the immortal author of "Rab and His Friends," had called
on me at the Waverly Hotel, and that morning I breakfasted with him. At
the breakfast table I made a statement of our side of the conflict and
Dr. Brown said: "If you will write up that statement, I will get my
friend, Mr. Russell, the editor of the _Scotsman_, to publish it in his
paper." I did so and sent it to the care of Dr. Brown. On the following
Sabbath afternoon I attended the great prayer meeting in the Free Church
Assembly Hall, and Sir James Simpson was to preside. There was a crowd
of over a thousand people present. Simpson did not come, and so some
other elder occupied the chair. During the meeting I arose and modestly
asked that prayer might be offered for my country in this hour of her
peril and distress. There was an awful silence! In a few moments the
chairman meekly said: "Perhaps our American friend will offer the prayer
himself." I did so, for it was evident that all the Scotchmen present
considered our cause past praying for.
On the morning of our departure my letter appeared in the _Scotsman_
accompanied by a long and bitter reply by the editor. Within a week
several of the Scotch newspapers were in full cry, denouncing that
"bloody Presbyterian minister from America."
After a hurried run to Switzerland I reached Paris in time to witness
the celebration of the imperial birthday and to see Louis Napoleon
review the splendid army of Italy with great pomp, on the Champs des
Mars. It was a magnificent spectacle. That day Mr. Slidell, the
representative of the Southern Confederacy, hung on the front of his
house an immense white canvas on which was inscribed: "Jefferson Davis,
the First President of the Confederate States of America." Our
ambassador, Hon. William L. Dayton, was a relative of mine, and I had
several conversations with him about the perilous situation of affairs
at home. Dayton said: "Our prospects are dark enough. All the monarchs
and aristocracies are against us; all the cotton and commercial
interests are against us. Emperor Louis Napoleon is a sphinx, but he
would like to help to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy. If he does
so Belgium and other powers will join him; they will break the blockade;
they will supply the Confederates with arms and then we must fight
Europe as well as the Southern States. Our only real friends are men
like John Bright, and those who believe that we are fighting for freedom
as well as for our National Union. Mr. Lincoln must declare for
emancipation and unless he does it within thirty days, I have written
to Mr. Seward that our cause is lost."
I returned to London with a heavy heart; all of our friends there with
whom I conversed echoed the sentiments of Mr. Dayton. One of them said
to me: "Earl Russell has no especial love for your Union, but he
abominates negro slavery, and is very reluctant to acknowledge a new
slave-owning government. Prince Albert and the Queen are friendly to
you, but you must emancipate the slaves."
My return passage from Liverpool was on board the _Asia_, and Captain
Anderson commanded her for that voyage. When we reached Boston, we heard
the distressing news of the second Battle of Bull Run, and our prospects
were black as midnight. Captain Anderson remarked to me, in a
compassionate tone: "Well, Mr. Cuyler, you Yankees had better give it up
now." "Never, never," I replied to him. "You will live to see the Union
restored and slavery extinguished." He laughed at me and bid me
"good-bye." A few years afterwards, I laughed back again when I met him
in New York.
On Sunday evening, September 7, I addressed a vast crowd in my own
Lafayette Avenue Church, and told them frankly, that our only hope was
in a proclamation for freedom by President Lincoln. Henry Ward Beecher
invited me to repeat my address on the next Sunday evening in Plymouth
Church. I did so and the house was packed clear out to the sidewalk. At
the end of my address Mr. Beecher leaned over and said: "The Lord helped
you to-night." When the meeting closed Mr. Henry C. Bowen said, "Will
you and Mr. Beecher not start for Washington to-morrow morning to urge
Mr. Lincoln to proclaim emancipation?" We both agreed to go before the
week was over, but could not before. On the Wednesday of that very week
the Battle of Antietam was fought, and on the Friday morning we opened
our papers and read President Lincoln's first Proclamation of
Emancipation. The great deed was done; the night was over; the morning
had dawned. From that day onward our cause, under God, was saved; but
that proclamation saved the Union. No foreign power dared to oppose us
after that, and Gettysburg sealed the righteous act of Lincoln, the
Liberator, and decided the victory.
At the beginning of this chapter I described the thrilling scenes at the
opening of the conflict; let me now narrate a still more thrilling one
at its termination. The war began by the surrender of Fort Sumter by
Major Anderson, April 13, 1861; the war virtually ended by the
restoration of the national flag by the same hand in the same Fort, on
April 14, 1865.
I joined an excursion party from New York, on the steamer _Oceanus_,
and we went down to witness the impressive ceremonies in Sumter. We
found Charleston a scene of wretched desolation, and General Sherman,
who had once resided there, said he had never realized the horrors of
war until he had seen the terrible ruins of that once beautiful city. At
the time of my writing, now, Charleston is crowded every day with
visitors to its industrial Exposition, and the President is received
with ovations by its people.
Our party went over to Fort Sumter in a steamer commanded by a negro,
who was an emancipated slave, but very soon became a member of Congress.
The broken walls of Sumter, brown, battered and lonely in the quiet
waves were hopelessly scarred, and all around it on the narrow beach lay
a stratum of bullets and broken iron several inches deep.
The Fort that day was crowded with an immense assemblage. Among them
were the Hon. Henry Wilson, afterwards Vice-President, and
Attorney-General Holt, Judge Hoxie, of New York, William Lloyd Garrison
and George Thompson, the famous member of the English Parliament, who
had once been mobbed for his anti-slavery speech in this country.
General S.L. Woodford was in command for the day. Dr. Richard S. Storrs
offered an impressive prayer, and the oration was delivered by
direction of the Government, by Henry Ward Beecher. When the speech was
completed, Major Anderson drew out from a mail bag the identical bunting
that he had lowered four years before, and attached the flag to the
halyards, and when it began to ascend, General Gilmore grasped the rope
behind him, and, as it came along to our part of the platform several of
us grasped it also. Mr. Thompson shouted, "Give John Bull a hold of that
rope." When the dear old flag reached the summit of the staff, and its
starry eyes looked out over the broad harbor, such a volley of cannon
from ship and shore burst forth that one might imagine the old battle of
the Monitors was being fought over again.
The frantic scene inside the Fort beggars description. We grasped hands
and shouted and my irrepressible old friend, Hoxie, of New York, with
tears in his eyes, embraced one after another, exclaiming: "This is the
greatest day of my life!" In the rainbow of those stars and stripes we
read that day the covenant that the deluge of blood was ended, and that
the ark of freedom had rested at length upon its Ararat.
On the next day I addressed a thousand negro children, and when I
enquired, "May I send an invitation to the good Abraham Lincoln to come
down and visit you?" one thousand little black hands went up with a
shout. Alas, we knew not that at that very hour their beloved
benefactor was lying cold and silent in the East room at Washington! At
Fortress Monroe, on our homeward voyage, the terrible tidings of the
President's assassination pierced us like a dagger, on the wharf. Near
the Fortress poor negro women had hung pieces of coarse black muslin
around every little huckster's tables. "Yes, sah, Fathah Lincum's dead.
Dey killed our bes' fren, but God be libben; dey can't kill Him, I's sho
ob dat." Her simple childlike faith seemed to reach up and grasp the
everlasting arm which had led Lincoln while leading her race "out of the
house of bondage."
Upon our arrival in New York, we found the city draped in black, and
"the mourners going about the streets." When the remains of the murdered
President reached New York they were laid in state in the City Hall for
one day and night, and during that whole night the procession passed the
coffin--never ceasing for a moment. Between three and four o'clock in
the morning I took my family there, that they might see the face of our
beloved martyr, and we had to take our place in a line as far away as
Park Row. It is impossible to give any adequate description of the
funeral--whose like was never seen before or since--when eminent
authors, clergymen, judges and distinguished civilians walked on foot
through streets, shrouded in black to the house tops. The whole journey
to Springfield, Ill., was one constant manifestation of poignant grief.
The people rose in the night, simply to see the funeral train pass by. I
do not wonder that when Emperor Alexander, of Russia (who was himself
afterwards assassinated) heard the tidings of our President's death from
an American Ambassador, he leaped from his chair, and exclaimed, "Good
God, can it be so? He was the noblest man alive."
Thirty-seven years have passed away, and to-day while our nation reveres
the name of Washington, as the Father of his Country; Abraham Lincoln is
the best loved man that ever trod this continent. The Almighty educated
him in His own Providence for his high mission. The "plain people," as
he called them, were his University; the Bible and John Bunyan were his
earliest text-books. Sometimes his familiarity with the Scriptures came
out very amusingly as when a deputation of bankers called on him, to
negotiate for a loan to the Government, and one of them said to him:
"You know, Mr. President, where the treasure is, there will the heart be
also." "I should not wonder," replied Lincoln, "if another text would
not fit the case better, 'Where the carcass is, there will the eagles be
gathered together,'" His innumerable jests contained more wisdom than
many a philosopher's maxims, and underneath his plebeian simplicity,
dress and manners, this great child of nature possessed the most
delicate instincts of the perfect gentleman. The only just scale by
which to measure any man is the scale of actual achievement; and in
Lincoln's case some of the most essential instruments had to be
fabricated by himself.
The first account in the measurement of the man is that with a sublime
reliance on God, he conducted an immense nation through the most
tremendous civil war ever waged, and never committed a single serious
mistake. The Illinois backwoodsman did not possess Hamilton's brilliant
genius, yet Hamilton never read the future more sagaciously. He made no
pretension to Webster's magnificent oratory; yet Webster never put more
truth in portable form for popular guidance. He possessed Benjamin
Franklin's immense common sense, and gift of terse proverbial speech,
but none of his lusts and sceptical infirmities. The immortal
twenty-line address at Gettysburg is the high water mark of sententious
eloquence. With that speech should be placed the pathetic and equally
perfect letter of condolence to Mrs. Bixby of Boston after her five sons
had fallen in battle. With that speech also should be read that
wonderful second Inaugural address which even the hostile _London Times_
pronounced to be the most sublime state paper of the century. This
second address--his last great production--contained some of the best
illustrations of his fondness for balanced antithesis and rhythmical
measurement. There is one sentence which may be rendered into rhyme:
"Fondly do we hope,
Fervently do we pray
That this mighty scourge of war
May soon pass away"
Terrible as was the tragedy of that April night, thirty-seven years ago,
it may be still true that Lincoln died at the right time for his own
imperishable fame. It was fitting that his own precious blood should be
the last to be shed in the stupendous struggle He had called over two
hundred thousand heroes to lay down their lives and then his own was
laid down beside the humblest private soldier, or drummer boy, that
filled the sacred mould of Gettysburg and Chickamauga. In an instant, as
it were, his career crystalized into that pure white fame which belongs
only to the martyr for justice, law and liberty. For more than a
generation his ashes have slumbered in his beloved home at Springfield,
and as the hearts of millions of the liberated turn toward that tomb,
they may well say to their liberator: "We were hungry and thou gavest us
the bread of sympathy; we were thirsty for liberty and thou gavest us to
drink; we were strangers, and thou didst take us in; we were sick with
two centuries of sorrow, and thou didst visit us; we were in the
oppressive house of bondage, and thou earnest unto us;" and the response
of Christendom is: "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the
joy of the Lord."
In closing this chapter of my reminiscences, I may be allowed to express
my strong conviction that our Congress, impelled by generous feeling,
and what they regarded as a democratic principle of government,
committed a serious error in bestowing the right of suffrage
indiscriminately upon the male negro population of the South. A man who
had been all his life an ignorant "chattel personal" was suddenly
transformed into a sovereign elector. Instead of this precipitate
legislation, it would have been wiser to restrict the suffrage to those
who acquire a proper education, and perhaps also a certain amount of
taxable property. This policy would have avoided unhappy friction
between the races, and, what is more important, it would have offered a
powerful inducement to every colored man to fit himself for the honor
and grave responsibility of full citizenship. At this time one of the
noblest efforts made by wise philanthropy is that of educating,
elevating and evangelizing our colored fellow countrymen of the South.
To help the negro to help himself, is the key-note of these efforts. The
time is coming--yea, it has come already--when to the name of Abraham
Lincoln, the grateful negro will add the names of their best benefactor,
General Samuel C. Armstrong (the founder of Hampton Institute) and
Booker T. Washington.
CHAPTER XII.
PASTORAL WORK.
The work of the faithful minister covers all the round week. On the one
day he teaches his people in the house of God, on the remaining days he
teaches and guides them in their own houses and wherever he may happen
to meet them. His labors, therefore, are twofold; the work of the
preacher and the work of the pastor. The two ought to be inseparable;
what the Providence of God and good common sense have joined together
let no man venture to put asunder. The great business of every true
minister is the winning of souls to Jesus Christ, and to bring them up
in godly living. In other words, to make bad men good, and good men
better. All this cannot be accomplished by two sermons a week, even if
they were the best that Paul himself could deliver; in fact, the best
part of Paul's recorded work was quite other than public preaching. As
for our blessed Master, He has left one extended discourse and a few
shorter ones, but oh, how many narratives we have of His personal
visits, personal conversation and labors of love with the sick, the
sinning, and the suffering! He was the shepherd who knew every sheep in
the flock. The importance of all that portion of a minister's work that
lies outside of his pulpit can hardly be overestimated. The great
element of power with every faithful ambassador of Christ should be
heart-power and the secret of popularity is to take an interest in
everybody. A majority of all congregations, rich or poor, is reached,
not so much through the intellect as through the affections. This is an
encouraging fact, that while only one man in ten may have been born to
become a very great preacher, the other nine, if they love their Master
and love human souls, can become great pastors. Nothing gives a minister
such heart-power as personal acquaintance and personal attention to
those whom he aims to influence; especially his personal attention will
be welcome in seasons of trial. Let the pastor make himself at home in
everybody's home. Let him go often to visit their sick rooms and kneel
beside their empty cribs, and comfort their broken hearts, and pray with
them. Let him go to the business men of his congregation when they have
suffered reverses, and give them a word of cheer; let him be quick to
recognize the poor and the children, and he will weave a cord around the
hearts of his people that will stand a prodigious pressure. His inferior
sermons (for every minister is guilty of such occasionally) will be
kindly condoned, and he can launch the most pungent truths at his
auditors, and they will not take offense. He will have won their hearts
to himself, and that is a great step toward drawing them to the house of
God and winning their souls to the Saviour. "A house-going minister,"
said Chalmers, "makes a church-going people." There is still one other
potent argument for close intercourse with his congregation that many
ministers are in danger of ignoring or underestimating. James Russell
Lowell has somewhere said that books are, at best, but dry fodder, and
that we need to be vitalized by contact with living people. The best
practical discourses often are those which a congregation help their
minister to prepare. By constant and loving intercourse with the
individuals of his church he becomes acquainted with their
peculiarities, and this enlarges his knowledge of human nature. It is
second only to a knowledge of God's Word. If a minister is a wise man
(and neither God nor man has any use for fools) he will be made wiser by
the lessons and suggestions which he can gain from constant and close
intercourse with the immortal beings to whom he preaches.
In Dundee, Scotland, I conversed with a gray-headed member of St.
Peter's Presbyterian Church who, in his youth, listened to the sainted
Robert Murray McCheyne. He spoke of him with the deepest reverence and
love; but the one thing that he remembered after forty-six years was
that Mr. McCheyne, a few days before his death, met him on the street
and, laying hand upon his shoulder, said to him kindly: "Jamie, I hope
it is well with your soul. How is your sick sister? I am going to see
her again shortly." That sentence or two had stuck to the old Christian
for over forty years. It had grappled his pastor to him, and this little
narrative gave me a fresh insight into McCheyne's wonderful power. His
ministry was most richly successful, and largely because he kept in
touch with his people, and was a great pastor as well as a great
preacher.
I determined from the very start in my ministry that I would be a
thorough pastor. A very celebrated preacher once said to me: "I envy you
your love for pastoral work, I would not do it if I could, I could not
do it if I would; for a single hour with a family in trouble uses up
more of my vitality than to prepare a sermon." My reply to him was:
"That may be true, but, after all, the business of a minister is to
endure these strains upon his nervous system if he would be a comforter,
as well as the teacher of his people."
My practice was this: I devoted the forenoon of every day, except
Monday, to the preparation of my discourses. My motto was: "Study God's
Word in the morning, and door-plates in the afternoon." I found the
physical exercise in itself a benefit, and the spiritual benefits were
ten-fold more. I secured and kept a complete record of the whereabouts
of all my congregation and requested from the pulpit that prompt
information be given me of any change of residence, and also of any case
of sickness or trouble of any kind. I encouraged my people to send me
word when there was any case of religious interest in their families or
any matter of importance to discuss with me. In short, I endeavored to
treat my flock exactly as though they were my own family, and to be
perfectly at home in their homes. I managed to visit every family at
least once in each year and as much oftener as circumstances required.
As I had no "loafing" places, I easily got through my congregation,
which, in Brooklyn, numbered several hundreds of families.
Spurgeon had an assistant pastor for his immense flock, but he made it a
rule to visit the sick or dying on as many occasions as possible. He
once said from his pulpit: "I have been this week to visit two of my
church members who were near Eternity, and both of them were as happy as
if they were going to a wedding. Oh, it makes me preach like a lion when
I see how my people can die."
It was always my custom to take a particular neighborhood, and to call
upon every parishioner in that street, or district, but I seldom found
it wise to send word in advance to any family, that I would visit them
on a certain day or hour, for I might be prevented from going, and thus
subject them to disappointment; consequently, I had to run the risk of
finding them at home. If they were out I left my card, and tried again
at another time. In calling on my people unawares, I found it depended
upon myself to secure a cordial welcome, for I went in with a hearty
salutation and asked them to allow me to sit down with them wherever
they were, regardless of dress or ceremony, and soon I found myself
perfectly at home with them. No one should be so welcome as a faithful
pastor. I encouraged them to talk about the affairs of our church, about
the Sabbath services, and the truths preached, and the influences that
Sabbath messages were having upon them. In this way I have discovered
whether or not the shots were striking; for the gunnery that hits no one
is not worth the powder.
Fishing for compliments is beneath any man of common sense, but it does
cheer the pastor's heart to be told, "Your sermon last Sunday brought me
a great blessing; it helped me all the week." Or better still, "Your
sermon brought me to decide for Christ." In a careful and delicate way,
I drew out our people in regard to their spiritual condition, and if I
found that any member of the family was anxious about his or her soul, I
managed to have a private and unreserved conversation with that person.
It is well for every minister to be careful how he guards the confidence
reposed in him. The family physician and the family pastor often have to
know some things they do not like to know, but they never should allow
any one else to know them.
This intimate, personal intercourse with my flock enabled me more than
once to bring the undecided to a decision for Christ. In dealing with
such cases, whether in the home or in the inquiry-room, I aimed to
discover just what hindrance was in the path of each awakened soul. It
is a great point also for such a one to discover what it is that keeps
him or her from surrendering to Christ. If it be some habit or some evil
practice, that must be given up; if some heart sin, that we must yield,
even if it be like plucking out an eye or lopping off a right hand. It
was my aim, and ever has been, to convince every awakened person that
unless he or she was willing to give the heart to Jesus and to do His
will there was no hope for them. We must shut every soul up to Christ.
I requested my people to inform me promptly of every case of serious
sickness, and I could never be too prompt in responding to such a call.
However busy I might be in preparing sermons or any commendable
occupation everything else was laid aside. For a pastor should be as
quick to respond to a call of sickness as an ambulance is to reach the
scene of disaster. I sometimes found that a parishioner had been
suddenly attacked with dangerous illness and even my entrance in the
sick room might agitate the patient. At such times I found it necessary
to use all the tact and delicacy and discretion at my command. I would
never needlessly endanger a sick person by efforts to guide or console
an immortal spirit. I aimed to make my words few, calm and tender, and
make every syllable to point toward Jesus Christ. Whoever the sufferer
may be, saint or sinner, his failing vision should be directed to "no
man save Jesus only" It is not commonly the office of the pastor to tell
the patient that his or her disease is assuredly fatal, but if we know
that death is near, in the name of the Master, let us be faithful as
well as tender.
There are many cases of extreme and critical illness when the presence
of even the most loving pastor may be an unwise intrusion. An excellent
Christian lady who had been twice apparently on the brink of death said
to me: "Never enter the room of a person who is extremely low, unless
the person urgently requests you to, or unless spiritual necessity
absolutely compels it. You have no idea how the sight of a new face
agitates the sufferer, and how you may unconsciously and unintentionally
rob that sufferer of the little life that is fluttering in the feeble
frame," I felt grateful to the good woman for her advice, and have often
acted upon it, when the family have unwisely importuned me to do what
would have been more harmful than beneficial. On some occasions, when I
have found a sick room crowded by well-meaning but needless intruders, I
have taken the liberty to "put them all forth," as our Master did in
that chamber in which the daughter of Jairus was in the death slumber.
A great portion of the time and attention which I bestowed upon the sick
was spent on chronic sufferers, who had been confined to their beds of
weariness for months or years. I visited them as often as possible. Some
of those bedridden sufferers were prisoners of Jesus Christ, who did me
quite as much good as I could possibly do them. What eloquent sermons
they preached to me on the beauty of submissive patience and on the
supporting power of the "Everlasting arms!" Such interviews strengthened
my faith, softened my heart, and infused into it something of the spirit
of Him who "Took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." McCheyne, of
Dundee, said that before preaching on the Sabbath he sometimes visited
some parishioner, who might be lying extremely low, for he found it good
"to take a look over the verge."
In my pastoral rounds I sometimes had an opportunity to do more
execution in a single talk than in a score of sermons. I once spent an
evening in a vain endeavor to bring a man to a decision for Christ.
Before I left, he took me up-stairs to the nursery, and showed me his
beautiful children in their cribs. I said to him tenderly: "Do you mean
that these sweet children shall never have any help from their father to
get to Heaven?" He was deeply moved, and in a month that man became an
active member of my church. He was glued to me in affection for all the
remainder of his useful life. On a cold winter evening I made a call on
a wealthy merchant in New York. As I left his door, and the piercing
gale swept in I said, "What an awful night for the poor!" He went back,
and bringing to me a roll of bank bills, he said: "Please hand these,
for me, to the poorest people you know of." After a few days I wrote to
him, sending him the grateful thanks of the poor whom his bounty had
relieved, and added: "How is it that a man who is so kind to his fellow
creatures has always been so unkind to his Saviour as to refuse Him his
heart?" That sentence touched him in the core. He sent for me
immediately to come and converse with him. He speedily gave his heart to
Christ, united with, and became a most useful member of our church. But
he told me I was the first person who had ever spoken to him about his
spiritual welfare in nearly twenty years. In the case of this eminently
effective and influential Christian, one hour of pastoral work did more
than the pulpit efforts of almost a lifetime.
CHAPTER XIII.
SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN.
_Binney.--Hamilton--Guthrie.--Hall.--Spurgeon.--Duff and others_
In attempting to recall my recollections of the eminent preachers whom I
have known, I hardly know where to begin, or where to call a halt. I
shall confine myself entirely to those who are no longer living, except
as they may live in the memory of the service they wrought for their
Divine Master and their fellow men. When I first visited London, in
early September, 1842, the two ministers most widely known to Americans
were Henry Melvill and Thomas Binney. Melvill was the most popular
preacher in the Established Church. His place of worship was out at
Camberwell, and I found it so packed that I had to get a seat on one of
the steps in the gallery. He was a man of elegant bearing, and rolled
out his ornate sentences in a somewhat theatrical tone, but the hushed
audience drank in every syllable greedily. The splendid and thoroughly
evangelical sermons which he orated most carefully were exceedingly
popular in those days, and even yet they are well worth reading as
superb specimens of lofty, devout and resonant oratory. On a very warm
Sabbath evening I went into the business end of London to the "Weigh
House Chapel" and heard Dr. Thomas Binney. He was the leader of
Congregationalism, as Melvill was of the Church of England. On that warm
evening the audience was small, but the discourse was prodigiously
large. Binney had a kingly countenance, and a most unique delivery. His
topic was Psalm 147th, 3d and 4th verses. "God is the Creator of the
universe, and the comforter of the sorrowing." He thrust one hand into
his breeches pocket, and then ran his other hand through his hair, and
began his sermon with the stirring words: "The Jew has conquered the
world!" This was the prelude to a grand eulogy of the Psalms of David.
He then unfolded the first part of his text in a most original style,
made a long pause, scratched his head again, and said: "Now then, let us
take some new thoughts, and then we are done." The closing portion of
the rich discourse was on the tender consolations of our Heavenly
Father.
Thirty years afterwards Dr. Binney was invited to meet me at breakfast
at the house of Dr. Hall, with "Tom Hughes," Dr. Henry Allon and other
notabilities. The noble veteran chatted very serenely, and offered a
most majestic prayer while he remained sitting in his arm-chair. His
physical disabilities made it difficult for him to stand; and very soon
afterwards the grand old man went up to his crown. When I was spending
two delightful days with Dr. McLaren, of Manchester, I described to him
Binney's remarkable sermon. "Were you there that night?" inquired
McLaren. "So was I, and though only a boy of sixteen, I remember the
whole of that discourse to this hour." It was certainly a rare pulpit
power that could fasten a discourse in two different memories for a
whole half century.
Do many of the Londoners of this day remember Dr. James Hamilton, the
pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Regent's Square? They should do so,
for in his time he was the most popular devotional writer of both sides
of the Atlantic; and during my visit to London, in 1857, I was very
happy to form his acquaintance. He was a most cordial and charming man,
slender, tall, with dark eyes and hair, and a beaming countenance. When
one entered Hamilton's study he would hurry forward, seize his hands,
and taking both in his, reply to your "How do you do, sir," with "Come
in, come in; I am nicely, I assure ye." Would that all ministers were as
cordial and approachable. When I attended his church in Regent Square
they were singing, when I came in, a Psalm from the old Scotch Version.
The choristers sat in a desk below the pulpit. The singing was general
through the church, and excellent in style. Dr. Hamilton preached in a
gown, and, as the heat grew oppressive in the middle of his sermon,
threw it off. The discourse was delivered with extremely awkward
gestures, but in a voice of great sweetness. The text was: "My soul
thirsteth for the Living God." He described an arid wilderness, hot and
parched, and down beneath it a mighty vein of water into which an
artesian well was bored, and forthwith the waters gushed up through it
and swept over all the dry desert, making it one emerald meadow. "So,"
said he, "it is the incarnate Jesus flowing up through our own dusty,
barren desert humanity, and overflowing us with Heavenly life and grace,
until what was once dreary and dead becomes a fruitful garden of the
Lord." The discourse was like a chapter from one of Hamilton's savory
volumes. Five years afterwards, I dined with Hamilton, and the Rev.
William Arnot (who afterwards was his biographer), and I went to his
church to deliver the preparatory discourse to the sacrament on the next
Sabbath.
On my way up to London, I halted one night at Birmingham, and while out
on a stroll, came upon the City Hall, which was crowded with a great
meeting in aid of foreign missions. The heroic Robert Moffat, the
Apostle of South Africa, was addressing the multitude, who cheered him
in the old English fashion. Two years before that, Robert Moffat had met
a young man in a boarding house in Aldersgate Street, London, and
induced him to become a missionary in Africa. The young man was the
sublimest of all modern missionaries, David Livingstone. Two years after
that evening, Livingstone married Miss Mary Moffat (daughter of the man
to whom I was listening), in South Africa, and she became the sharer of
his trials and explorations. After Moffat had concluded his speech, a
broad-shouldered, merry-faced man, with thick grey hair rose on the
platform. "Who is that?" I inquired of my next neighbor. With a look of
surprise that I should ask such a question in Birmingham, he said: "It
is John Angell James." He was the man whom Dr. Cox wittily described as
"An angel vinculated between two Apostles." He spoke very forcibly, in a
hearty, humorous vein, and I could hardly understand how such a jovial
old gentleman could be the author of such a serious work as "The Anxious
Inquirer." But I have since discovered that many of the most solemn and
impressive preachers were men of most cheery temperament who could laugh
heartily themselves when they were not making other people weep. Mr.
James looked like an old sea captain; but he was an admirable pilot of
awakened souls, whom thousands will bless through all eternity.
Dr. Thomas Guthrie, of Edinburgh, was once pronounced by the _London
Times_ to be "The most eloquent man in Europe." Ruskin, Thackeray,
Macaulay, and other men of renown joined in the crowd that thronged St.
John's Church when they were in Edinburgh; and a highland drover was
once so excited that in the middle of a powerful sermon he called out:
"Naw, sirs, heard ye ever the like o' that?" My good wife made a run to
Edinburgh while I was stopping behind in England, and on her return to
me almost her first word was, "I have heard Guthrie; I am spoiled for
every one else as long as I live." Guthrie, "Lang Tam" (as the toughs on
the "Cowgate" in Edinburgh used to call him), was built for a great
orator. He was more than six feet high, and would be picked out in any
crowd as one of God's royal family. I once said to him: "You remind us
Americans of our famous statesman, Henry Clay," There was a striking
resemblance in the long-armed figure, the broad mouth and lofty brow,
and still more in the rich melody of voice, and magnetic rush of
electric eloquence, "There must certainly be a personal likeness,"
replied the Doctor, "for not long ago I went into the house of Mr.
Norris, who came here from America, and said to myself, 'There is my
portrait on the wall,' but when I came nearer I espied under it the
name of 'Henry Clay.'" He used to say that in preaching he aimed at the
three P's: Prove, Paint and Persuade. His painting with the tongue was
as vivid as Rembrandt's painting with the brush. When I went to
Edinburgh, in 1872, as a delegate to the two Presbyterian General
Assemblies, Dr. Guthrie invited me to dine with him, and the gifted Dr.
John Ker, of Glasgow, was in the company. After dinner, Guthrie
literally took the floor, and poured out a flow of charming talk,
interspersed with racy Scotch anecdotes. Among others told was one about
the old Highland woman who said to him: "Doctor, nane of your modern
improvements for me. I want naething but good old Dauvid's Psalms, and I
want'em all sung to Dauvid's tunes, too." On the evening when I
addressed the Free Church Assembly, I was obliged to pass, on my way to
the platform, the front bench, on which sat the veteran missionary,
Alexander Duff, Principal Rainy, William Arnot, Dr. Guthrie and two or
three other celebrities. I have not run such a gauntlet on a single
bench in my life. When I had finished my address, Guthrie, clad in his
gray overcoat, leaped up, and kindly grasped my hand, and I went back to
my seat feeling an indescribable relief. Dr. Guthrie a short time after
attempted to visit our country, but was arrested at Queenstown by a
difficulty of the heart, and returned to Scotland, and lived but a
short time afterwards.
Sly personal acquaintance with Newman Hall began during the darkest
period of our Civil War, in August, 1862 Up to that time I had only
known him as the author of that pithy and pellucid little booklet, "Come
to Jesus," which has belted the globe in forty languages, and been
published to the number of nearly 4,000,000 of copies. When our Civil
War broke out, Dr. Hall (with John Bright and Foster and Goldwin Smith)
threw himself earnestly on the side of our Union He made public speeches
for our cause over all England, and opened his house for parlor meetings
addressed by loyal Americans who happened to be in London. He invited me
to address one of these gatherings, but the necessity of my return home
prevented my acceptance. Two years after the close of the war he made
his first visit to the United States. He was received with enthusiastic
ovations. Union Leagues gave him public welcomes, Congress invited him
to preach in the House of Representatives; he delivered an address to
the Bostonians on Bunker Hill; and every denomination, including the
Episcopalians and Quakers, opened their pulpits to him everywhere. But
the crowning act of his unique Americanism was the erection of the
"Lincoln Tower" on his Church in London, as a tribute to Negro
Emancipation, and a memorial to International amity. The love that
existed between my brother, Dr. Hall, and myself was like the love of
David and Jonathan. The letters that passed between us would number up
into the hundreds, and his epistles had the sweet savor of "Holy
Rutherford," When he was in America, my house was his home, when I was
in London, I spent no small part of my time in his delightful "Vine
House," up on Hampstead Hill. The house remains in the possession of his
wife, a lady of high culture, intellectual gifts and of most devout
piety. One reason for the close intimacy between my British brother and
myself was that we were perfectly agreed on every social, civil and
religious question, and we never had a chance to sharpen our wits on the
hone of controversy. Our theology was all from the same Book, and our
main purposes in life were similar. Many of my American readers heard
Dr. Hall preach during some one of his three visits to the United
States. What marrowy, soul-quickening sermons he poured forth in a
clear, musical voice, and with a most earnest persuasiveness. Preaching
was as easy to him as breathing. Including the Sabbath, he delivered
seven or eight sermons in a week. Undoubtedly he delivered more
discourses than any ordained minister during the nineteenth century.
Peers and peasants, scholars and dwellers in the slums alike enjoyed
his preaching of God's message to immortal souls. His favorite theme was
the sin-atoning work of Christ Jesus; and the numbers converted under
his faithful preaching were exceedingly great. One of his discourses in
this country on "Jehovah Jireh," was especially helpful, and one on
"Touching the Hem of Christ's Garment," was a gem of spiritual beauty.
He generally maintained an even flow of evangelical thought, but
sometimes he rose into a burst of thrilling eloquence, as he did in Mr.
Beecher's church, when he made his noble appeal for Union between
England and America. From his youth he was fond of street preaching. I
have seen him gather a crowd, and hold them attentively while he sowed a
few seeds of truth in their hearts.
I wish I had the space to describe some of the foregatherings that I
have had with my twin brother in the Gospel. We visited Italy together,
preached to "the Saints that are in Rome," and went down into that room
in the sub-basement of St. Clement's where Paul is believed to have held
meetings with them that were of Caesar's household. We roamed out on the
Appian Road, over which the great Apostle entered the Eternal City. So
conscientious was my brother Hall in his teetotalism that though tired
and thirsty, he never would touch the weak, common wine of the country,
lest his example might be plead in favor of the drinking usages. We
once went up to Olney and sat in Cowper's summer house, and entered John
Newton's church, and the old sexton told Dr. Hall that he had been
converted by "Come to Jesus." We went together to Stonehenge, and as we
passed over Salisbury Plain we recalled Hannah Moore's famous shepherd
who said: "The weather to-morrow will be what suits me, for what suits
God, suits me always." We spent a very delightful couple of days in
rowing down the romantic river Wye, stopping for lunch at Wordsworth's
Tintern Abbey. In his home he was a hospitable Gaius, with open doors
and hearts to friends from all lands. He had the merry sportiveness of a
schoolboy, and when our long talks in his study were over, he would
seize his hat and the chain of his pet dog, and cry out: "Come, brother,
come, and let us have a tramp over the Heath." He was a prodigious
pedestrian, and at three score and ten he held his own over a Swiss
glacier, with the members of the Alpine Club. He had hoped to equal his
famous predecessor, Rowland Hill, and preach till he was ninety; but
when he was near his eighty-sixth birthday he was stricken with
paralysis, and never left his bed again. Those last two weeks were spent
in the "Land of Beulah," and in full view of "The Celestial City." When
asked if he suffered pain, he replied: "I have no pain, and nothing to
disturb the solemnity of dying." On the morning of February fourteenth
he passed peacefully over the river, and, as Bunyan said of old
Valiant-for-the-Truth, "The trumpets sounded for him on the other side."
No monarch on his throne is so to be envied as he who now wears that
celestial crown.
Can anything new be said about Charles H. Spurgeon? Perhaps not, and yet
I should be guilty of injustice to myself and to my readers if I failed
to pay my love tribute to the most extraordinary preacher of the pure
Gospel to all Christendom whom England produced in the last century.
I heard him when he was a youth of twenty-two years, in his Park Street
Chapel; I heard him several times when he was at the zenith of his
vigor; I spent many a happy hour with him in his charming home. On my
last visit there I had a "good cry" when I saw his empty chair in its
old place in the study. I did not form any personal acquaintance with
him until the summer of 1872, and it soon ripened into a most warm and
cordial friendship. On each of my visits to London since that time I
have enjoyed an afternoon with him at his home. His first residence was
Helensburg House in Nightingale Road, Clapham, a Southwest District of
London. That beautiful home was his only, luxury; but he spent none of
his ample income on any sort of social enjoyment, and what did not go
for household expenses went for the support of his many religious
enterprises. On my first visit to him he greeted me in his free and
easy, open-handed way. I noticed that he was growing stouter than ever.
"In me," he jocularly said, "that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing," We spent a joyous hour in his well filled library; he showed me
fifteen stately volumes of his printed sermons which have since been
more than doubled, besides several of his works translated into French,
German, Swedish, Dutch and other languages. The most interesting object
in the library was a small file of his sermon notes, each one on a half
sheet of note paper, or on the back of an ordinary letter envelope. When
I asked him if he "wrote his sermons out," his answer was: "I would
rather be hung." His usual method was to select the text of his Sunday
morning sermon on Saturday about six or seven o'clock, and spend half an
hour in arranging a skeleton and put it on paper; he left all the
phraseology until he reached the pulpit. During Sunday afternoon he
repeated the same process in preparing his evening discourse. "If I had
a month assigned me for preparing a sermon," said he to me, "I would
spend thirty days and twenty-three hours on something else and in the
last hour I would make the sermon, and if I could not do it then I
could not do it in a month."
This sounds like a risky process, but it must be remembered that if
Spurgeon occupied but a few minutes in arranging a discourse he spent
five days of every week in thoroughly studying God's Word--in thorough
thinking--and in the perusal of the richest old writers on theology and
experimental religion.
He was all the time, and everywhere filling up his cask, so that he had
only to turn the spigot and out flowed the pure Gospel in the most
transparent language. A stenographer took down the sermon, and it was
revised by Mr. Spurgeon on Monday morning. He told me that for many
years he went to his pulpit under such nervous agitation that it often
brought on violent attacks of vomiting and produced outbreaks of
perspiration, and he slowly outgrew that remarkable sort of physical
suffering.
Twenty years ago Mr. Spurgeon exchanged Helensburgh House for the still
more elegant mansion called "Westwood" on Beulah Hill, near Crystal
Palace, Sydenham. It is a rural paradise. At each of the visits I paid
him there, he used to come out with his banged-up soft hat, which he
wore indoors half of the time, and with a merry jest on his lips. On my
last visit, accompanied by my brother Hall, I found him suffering
severely from his neuralgic malady, but it did not affect his buoyant
humor. When I told him that my catarrhal deafness was worse than ever,
he replied: "Well, brother, console yourself with the thought that in
these days there is very little worth hearing." He took my brother Hall,
and myself out into his garden and conservatory and down to a rustic
arbor, where we sat down and told stories. There were twelve acres of
land attached to "Westwood," and he had us into the meadow, where we
laid down in the freshly mowed hay and inhaled its fragrance. Mrs.
Spurgeon, a most gifted and charming lady, had a dozen cows and the
profits of her dairy then supported a missionary in London; and the milk
was sent around the neighborhood in a wagon labeled, "Charles H.
Spurgeon, Milk Dealer." After our return, the great preacher showed us a
portfolio of caricatures of himself from _Punch_ and other publications.
At six o'clock we took supper and then came family worship--all the
servants being present Mr. Spurgeon followed my prayer with the most
wonderful prayer that perhaps I have ever heard from human lips, and I
said afterwards to my friend Hall, "To-night we got into 'the hidings of
his power,' for a man who can pray like that can outpreach the world."
In the soft hour of the gloaming we took our leave, and he went off to
prepare his sermon for the morrow.
Spurgeon's power lay in a combination of half a dozen great qualities.
He was the master of a vigorous Saxon English style, the style of
Cobbett and Bunyan and the old English Bible. He possessed a most
marvelous memory--it held the whole Bible in solution; it retained all
the valuable truth he had acquired during his immensely wide readings
and it enabled him to recognize any person whom he ever met before.
Once, however, he met for the second time a Mr. Partridge and called him
"Partridge." Quick as a flash he said: "Pardon me, sir, I did not intend
to make _game_ of you," He was a man of one Book, and had the most
implicit faith in every jot and tittle of God's Word. He preached it
without defalcation or discount, and this prodigious faith made his
preaching immensely tonic. His sympathies with all mankind were
unbounded, and the juices of his nature were enough to float an ark full
of living creatures. Joined to these gifts was a marvelous voice of
great sweetness, and a homely mother-wit that bubbled out in all his
talk and often in his sermons. Mightiest of all was his power of prayer,
and his inner life was hid with Christ in God. As an organizer he had
great executive abilities. His Orphanage, dozen missionary schools and
theological training school will be among his enduring monuments. The
last sermon I ever heard him deliver was in Dr. Newman Hall's church on
a week evening. He came hobbling into the study, his face the picture of
suffering. He said to me, "Brother Cuyler, if I break down, won't you
take up the service and go on with it?" I told him that he would forget
his pains the moment he got under way, and so it was, for he delivered a
most nutritious discourse to us. When the service was over, he limped
off to his carriage, wrapped himself in the huge cushions, and drove
away seven miles to his home at Upper Norwood. That was the last time I
ever saw my beloved friend.
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