GEORGE 
 
 H-PON
 
 
 
 

 
 OF GALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 X
 
 THE OLD 
 MEETING HOUSE 
 
 AND 
 
 VACATION PAPERS 
 HUMOROUS AND OTHER 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. A. M. COLTON 
 
 COLLECTED FOR PUBLICATION BY HIS BROTHER 
 
 G. Q. COLTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 
 
 1890
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY 
 G. Q. COLTON. 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co, 
 Astor Place, New York.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 DURING his long and active ministry 
 of fifty years, my brother now in his 
 eighty-first year has written quite a 
 number of papers, which have been 
 published from time to time in news- 
 papers and magazines, and which have 
 greatly delighted his relatives and 
 friends. 
 
 Some of these papers were prepared 
 for special occasions, while others were 
 thrown off during summer vacations. 
 These latter are full of boyhood life 
 and reminiscence. 
 
 3 
 
 2128907
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Many friends have united in a re- 
 quest that these papers or the best 
 of them be collected and published 
 in book form, believing that, as they 
 had afforded pleasure to his friends, 
 they would give a like pleasure to a 
 larger reading public. 
 
 These papers are too valuable to be 
 forgotten and lost. They are instinct 
 with life and living properties ; bright, 
 fresh, breezy, wholesome, like his and 
 my own native Green Mountain air. 
 Humor has an accepted home-berth in 
 all good speech and print. Shake- 
 speare tells us of 
 
 " Mirth and merriment, 
 
 Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens 
 life."
 
 Introduction. 
 
 And the good Book says : "A merry 
 heart doeth good like a medicine." We 
 have tears enough in our human life at 
 its best. Let us have more of sun- 
 shine, if we may ; or, if tears, then 
 sunlight through them, and that will 
 make rainbows. 
 
 In urging upon my brother the pub- 
 lication of these papers, I told him that 
 one distinguished clergyman, uniting 
 in the above request, had said to me 
 that many worthy ministers of the 
 olden time are remembered to-day 
 as much for the fine vein of humor 
 running through their writings as 
 for anything they have left behind 
 them. 
 
 My brother finally gave me the pa
 
 Introduction. 
 
 pers, to do with them as I might think 
 best. 
 
 I have selected from the large num- 
 ber such as I thought would best please 
 the reader. 
 
 The more sedate and sober read- 
 ers will, likely, be best pleased with 
 "Touches of the Hampshire County 
 Ministers," and " Letter read at the 
 One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniver- 
 sary of the First Church in Amherst;" 
 while those who seek betimes a need- 
 ful rest and relish in some "gayer 
 hours" and "merry mild," or, per- 
 chance 
 
 " Mirth that wrinkled Care derides, 
 And Laughter holding both his sides " 
 
 will find, maybe, their mood and occa-
 
 Introduction. 
 
 sion best met in those brisker touches, 
 "The Old Meeting-House," "The 
 Colton Tribe," " Reminiscences of 
 Boyhood Life," and " New and Old." 
 In his apology for printing " The 
 Pilgrim's Progress " John Bunyan 
 wrote : 
 
 " Some said, John, print ; others said, Not so : 
 Some said, It might do good; others said, No." 
 
 G. Q. COLTON.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE 1 1 
 
 THE COLTON TRIBE. LONGMEADOW PAPER.. 37 
 
 THINGS NEW AND OLD 58 
 
 TOUCHES OF THE HAMPSHIRE MINISTERS 79 
 
 THE OLD WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK 103 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF BOYHOOD LIFE 126 
 
 LETTER READ AT THE ONE HUNDRED AND 
 FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF AMHERST, 
 MASS 144 
 
 REMARKS MADE AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH 
 ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE 
 " HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE " 170 
 
 A LEAF OR Two FROM MY NOTES OF TRAVEL 
 
 FORTY YEARS AGO 182 
 
 9
 
 io Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TOUCHES AND RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ED- 
 WARDS CHURCH 194 
 
 REMARKS AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 
 OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE WEST- 
 HAMPTON CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 213 
 
 PAPER READ BEFORE THE CONGREGATIONAL 
 CLUB AT GREENFIELD, MASS 226 
 
 SHOALS LETTER, No. i 248 
 
 SHOALS LETTER, No. 2 260 
 
 A SERMON ON THE POWER OF HABIT 270
 
 THE 
 
 OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 
 
 BOYHOOD RECOLLECTIONS 
 OF 1812-20. 
 
 WHAT a grand sight it was to our 
 young eyes ! With steps like a chick- 
 en's, we rounded the hill three-quarters 
 of a mile off, and there, bursting upon 
 our sight, was the village, with the 
 old meeting-house in the centre. The 
 village! What a wonder that was! 
 More than twenty houses in plain 
 sight ! Those village people must be 
 great folks. High life, surely, to live 
 in a village. The marvel was how 
 
 ii
 
 12 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 so many folks could contrive to live 
 at all so near each other as many 
 as four houses within a quarter of a 
 mile ! 
 
 But the great thing was the meet- 
 ing-house. That was a sight to us it 
 was. Just look at that steeple, 'way up 
 there, seeming as if it would almost 
 touch the stars ! It was a huge house 
 (so we thought) " longer than it was 
 broad " and our eyes fairly swam with 
 dizziness as we looked up from under 
 the eaves. It wasn't painted outside 
 nor in. No matter : we hadn't reached 
 the conception of that, and so there 
 was no drawback to our admiration. 
 We hadn't read Mrs. Opie on white- 
 lying, nor had we then seen white- 
 lead. It was our meeting-house, and 
 nothing could surpass it.
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 13 
 
 And then to go inside ! " And still 
 the wonder grew." Pulpit, pews, and 
 pillars ; stairs, galleries, walls, ceilings 
 all of them wonderful. Ceiling in 
 sight, if you looked up far enough, and 
 galleries midway; pulpit close, stiff, 
 angular, straight, orthodox (in the lit- 
 eral sense), yet grand because so high. 
 It seemed almost perilous for one to 
 stand up there so high, and throw 
 down words as boys do stones from a 
 hill-top. But there was a sublimity 
 about it that awed us. And our seat 
 by that pillar in the north gallery, 
 where First Person Singular sat, and 
 saw, and wondered and listened to 
 the minister, 'tis said, with ears, eyes, 
 and mouth all open ! Better that than 
 be sleeping in such a place. 
 
 And then the singers' end of the
 
 14 The Old Meeting- House. 
 
 gallery. Old Deacon H. and pitch- 
 pipe giving off those now venerable 
 but almost fabulous antiquities Ma- 
 jesty, Lenox, Exhortation, Greenwich, 
 and " Fly swifter round " (we've for- 
 gotten the name) fugues, where one 
 party started off alone, and another 
 followed on, and then another and an- 
 other bass, treble, tenor, counter, in 
 most admirable confusion, leaving one 
 in doubt how or where they would 
 fetch up. And then to look down into 
 those pews, lots of them, and lots of 
 people in them. No chapel of ease 
 this. No fire in winter, except the 
 many in the foot-stoves. Not one 
 cushion in the house. The people 
 meant to "endure hardness." Backs 
 of pews bolt upright, and high as the 
 head wise precaution, no doubt, and
 
 Boyhood Recollections. i5 
 
 seemingly with the same intent with 
 which, in the case of the literal flock, 
 the farmer adds the sixth rail. Good 
 landmarks and fences are something. 
 Large, square pews, for three times 
 four, comfortably. And the seating 
 one-third part facing the minister, 
 this and another third facing each 
 other, and the remaining third facing 
 the north or south, while the preacher 
 was in the east. Thus all points of the 
 compass received due attention. We 
 have a dim speck of a recollection that 
 it seemed to us a little queer to see 
 people (the odd third in the pew) 
 looking off on vacancy northward, lis- 
 tening to sounds coming from the 
 direction of sun-rising. But we ought 
 to have considered that faith cometh 
 by hearing. This pew arrangement
 
 1 6 The Old Meeting- House. 
 
 was not without its advantages. Peo- 
 ple should be honest in the week, 
 to look each other in the face in the 
 meeting-house on Sunday. And for 
 the other third part, suggesting the 
 fear that more than that proportion 
 are wont to be looking off mentally on 
 things outside. But so uncharitable a 
 thought did not trouble us in those 
 days. 
 
 "If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." 
 
 That old meeting-house was never 
 used as a chess-board. People were 
 not moved about in the house, now to 
 this part and now to that. They owned 
 and occupied their pews, as they did 
 their farms, in perpetuity. A family 
 pew was a possession and a fixture. 
 There, year after year, sat old Squire
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 17 
 
 T., and there Captain B. almost all 
 were squires or captains, except the 
 uncles. We uncled nearly all in our 
 neighborhood we mean the men. It 
 was Uncle Roger, and Uncle Jesse, 
 and Uncle Joe the latter affection- 
 ately and well-intended, certainly, but 
 seeming, perhaps, to an outsider to be 
 a little wanting in proper respect. 
 
 And our minister, Mr. D. " Rever- 
 end" had a meaning then. He was a 
 godly man ; we thought so then, and 
 think so still. Our veneration of him 
 went up almost to the degree of awe. 
 Never, in passing us in the road (streets 
 we hadn't heard of then) did he get 
 within five rods of us without finding 
 our voices hushed, and our caps doffed. 
 Courtly and condescending, grave but 
 not austere, " affectionate in look and
 
 1 8 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 tender in address," thinking great 
 thoughts, and noticing small children, 
 and, wherever meeting us, calling us all 
 by our names. Small book in his left 
 hand, and smaller sermon in the book 
 (smaller in square inches), held up be- 
 fore him, and read from. Read "coldly 
 correct and critically dull ?" Not so at 
 all ; but with such varied tones and 
 emphasis, such chastened fervor, such 
 tremulous energy and earnestness, as 
 did not fail to win the ear, inveterate 
 sleepy-heads always excepted. Sel- 
 dom an open gesture, and never a 
 broad sweep of the hand ; but the soul 
 of eloquence was there, and came out 
 not much helped nor hindered by 
 " the bodily exercise which profiteth 
 little." 
 
 We may as well confess a foible.
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 19 
 
 " Three weeks from next Tuesday, and 
 then June Training!" Expectation 
 on tiptoe. The days counted, and the 
 hours exactly, and no mistake. Stints 
 done better than usual. The distance 
 grows " small by degrees and beauti- 
 fully less." And Sunday afternoon 
 before the Tuesday. " There's the 
 Captain ! " Sure enough, Captain L. 
 He was seldom at church on other 
 Sundays. Why on this ? Had we 
 been older, we should perhaps have 
 almost suspected a lurking vanity, as 
 if he came this time not to hear, 
 but to be seen. Possibly, to some of 
 the knowing ones, it did seem as if 
 the real meaning was " Here am I, 
 the Captain L.; attention the whole!" 
 But we hadn't then got along so far 
 into superfluity of naughtiness as to
 
 2O The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 be troubled much with such hard 
 thoughts. Our childish simplicity 
 didn't dive below the surface of the 
 matter. Not unlikely we were too 
 full of the Captain and the training 
 (Sunday though it was) to allow of 
 our philosophizing or moralizing very 
 profoundly. 
 
 And now for the surroundings of 
 the old meeting-house, especially the 
 " Green " and the trainings on it. 
 Training day ! Long morning that 
 from four to nine. Lucky we if 
 chancing to fall in with a trainer hav- 
 ing gun, cartridge-box, knapsack, and 
 canteen ! We were somewhat filled 
 with his company in that mile or 
 more. It seemed three miles to our 
 eagerness. Codger in dress and gait 
 (not we, but our trainer), but valor-
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 21 
 
 cms, no doubt ; and bravely did he 
 march up to Lieutenant J.'s, and, with 
 gun pointing downward at an angle of 
 forty-five degrees, give the customary 
 salutation in honor of his superior. 
 And now please walk in. Pine table, 
 stone jugs, glass decanters and tum- 
 blers, unless pewter and enough for 
 all, trainer and satellites. And then 
 to reach the brow of the hill and lis- 
 ten ! Shrill fife with Yankee Doodle, 
 and drums with rub-a-de-dub. How 
 the ears tingled, and the pulse quick- 
 ened, and the steps our steps- 
 bounded on in double-quick time ! 
 And there were the companies two 
 foot and one horse Light Infantry, 
 Floodwood, and the Troopers. We 
 somehow liked the looks of the troop- 
 ers when in motion. But cui bonof
 
 22 The Old Meeting- House. 
 
 Their manoeuvrings were a thing 
 past our comprehension. An array 
 somewhat imposing horses, saddles, 
 holsters, pistols, bridles, martingales, 
 spurs, and such lots of brass ; but 
 chiefly the flannel red coats, and huge 
 caps of bearskin, where the hair ought 
 to grow. But how they could do 
 much in real fight, was a puzzle. The 
 horses could run away, if fed, and not 
 wounded ; and if they carried their 
 riders with them, that was something. 
 Safety in flight might come to be 
 the main chance. The horsemanship 
 didn't get its excellence from drilling 
 in riding-schools. Those diverse jolt- 
 ings and hitchings and losings of stir- 
 rup didn't tell of assiduous culture in 
 the science and art. The great thing 
 seemed to be not to fall off, which in
 
 Boyhood, Recollections. 23 
 
 an unpleasant sense would have been 
 " ground and lofty tumbling." The 
 horses were not very orderly in their 
 movement. Probably they did not 
 understand as well as their riders did 
 what all this meant, nor whereunto it 
 would grow. War horses they cer- 
 tainly were not, in mien and mettle. 
 They had snuffed more of harrow-dust 
 than of villanous saltpetre. But the 
 foot companies were a thing more 
 comprehensible. Our town could 
 boast of the best drumming in the 
 whole regiment. We had the drum- 
 major honor enough for one town. 
 But in our common soldiery, the rank 
 and file, there was nothing remarkably 
 good, nothing very orderly, except the 
 orderly sergeant. When in line, the 
 line was more a zig-zag, like a
 
 24 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 Virginia worm-fence. The platoon 
 wheeled round, and round it would 
 have been, had it not been more a hol- 
 low square. It was always a mystery 
 to us, that with such music, so much of 
 it and so good, the soldiers in march- 
 ing did not keep step better. The 
 timing was really little short of exe- 
 crable, especially in Floodwood. We 
 had a notion that a soldier's air and 
 movement should show a something 
 spruce and prim, should be elate, reso- 
 lute, precise, prompt. But our sol- 
 diers, many of them, stooped, and lag- 
 ged, boggled, and jogged on badly. 
 Some of them probably didn't care 
 much if it was so, so they might es- 
 cape the fine. Certainly, two of them, 
 R. C. and J. G., whether in line or 
 march, were always full of waggish-
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 25 
 
 ness and drollery, making wry faces 
 and poking fun. It was a great shame. 
 
 The election of officers came, and 
 that was a great affair. To see Mr. 
 Such-a-One trudge out from the 
 ranks, turn and face the company, 
 take off his hat, and, with a jerk of the 
 head as perilous as it was graceful, 
 begin by thanking his " fellow-sol- 
 diers " for the honor they had con- 
 ferred on him in choosing him to be 
 corporal, and end with a promise to 
 " serve them to the best of his abil- 
 ity." It was a set speech, formal and 
 stereotyped, though never seen in 
 print. This, in the manner of it, was 
 the most starchful thing ever seen in 
 Floodwood. 
 
 We remember to have experienced 
 a slight feeling of the comical at hear-
 
 26 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 ing some of the " orders " which were 
 given out. " Eyes right ! " " Eyes left ! " 
 What could that mean ? And then, 
 " Shoulder arms ! " " Order arms ! " 
 " Ground arms ! " "and " Rest ! " fol- 
 lowed by the scattering ding and 
 racket. 
 
 But our most vivid recollections 
 are the captains the special attrac- 
 tion how they looked and carried 
 themselves in full regalia. How Cap- 
 tain E., though tall, was pale-faced, 
 round-shouldered, stooped, and lacked 
 presence. How Captain T. was straight, 
 and vertical, even to bending back- 
 ward ; was pompous, pert, and jerk- 
 tongued, and was nothing but pres- 
 ence. How Captain H. was small 
 in stature, but made up for this defect 
 by a strut so resolute and forceful as
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 27 
 
 almost lifted him off from the ground. 
 How Captain B. had a swaggering 
 gait, like a Missourian, and swayed his 
 head from side to side, thus showing to 
 better advantage " the waving plume." 
 How Captain L. was freckle-faced, 
 but smart, and attended meeting one 
 half-day in the year. The Captain 
 T. was notedly a very close man in 
 money matters. Stingy, they called 
 him. And when the " treat " came, 
 and the bottle of new rum went round, 
 one soldier tasting, cast a significant 
 look at another, saying (in whisper) : 
 " Not the choicest, but cheap ! " 
 
 Memorable days to us, those train- 
 ings, and memorable place that meet- 
 ing-house Green. Great days those for 
 the taverns and stores. The toddy- 
 stick went faster than the pump-handle.
 
 28 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 The town pump was mainly supple- 
 mental, to put out the fires. Old and 
 young drank alike ; many to mellow- 
 ness, some to fuddleness, some few to 
 the ditch, and all (nearly) to shame. 
 Sad results to that people wrecks and 
 ruins, and many a drunkard's grave. 
 May the fifth generation from that be 
 so happy as to find, if possible, its 
 blood run clear of the hereditary taint 
 of rum and gin ! The trainings have 
 gone by, and with them {par nobile 
 fratrum) the taverns and tipplings 
 mostly. Go they may, and be 
 choked in the sea. We shall shed 
 no tears over that part of the matter. 
 In those early days the old Green 
 was under two regencies, both of them 
 arrogant and despotic : the trainers 
 having dominion two days of the year,
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 29 
 
 and the geese the rest. Now the geese 
 are monarchs of the entire sweep. 
 Both companies bipeds ; both with 
 regimentals, the latter having their 
 own feathers, and the plain, plebeian 
 shingle yoke ; both warlike in aspect, 
 and ready upon occasion to show 
 fight ; both with marchings and -strut- 
 tings and music of their own ; and 
 both somewhat addicted to the pool. 
 Which of these two classes of bipeds 
 were most needful to the public weal, 
 or have done most to save the country 
 from war, is a question for a debating 
 club. The War of 1812 was then 
 over ; and certain it is not one of 
 those " fellow-soldiers" has ever seen 
 Florida, or Mexico, or Kansas, or 
 Utah. Perhaps the House of Repre- 
 sentatives in Washington have struck
 
 30 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 for consolidation, and intend to mo- 
 nopolize the country's fightings, doing 
 the whole themselves, representatively 
 and sufficiently. 
 
 We should like, before taking off 
 these yarns from the reel, to say a 
 word about some of the men who in 
 that olden time figured prominently in 
 that place. One only will we name- 
 Squire Blodget. Square Blodget was 
 the title he went by. He was decid- 
 edly a character almost an institution. 
 Coarse and gruff, inside and out ; pas- 
 sionate, pugnacious, and nettlesome ; 
 vexing himself with his own prickles, 
 like a hedge-hog rolled up the wrong 
 way ; bushy head, thick lips, pug nose, 
 small eyes ; wrinkled, vinegar-faced, 
 short-bodied, and, like the razor-seller, 
 " with voice most musical, and not un-
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 31 
 
 like an Indian yell." We have never 
 since been able to read or think of 
 old Diogenes, the cynic and snarling, 
 without coupling (mentally) the re- 
 nowned original and the unworthy 
 copy together though the tub part 
 would never have answered for Squire 
 Blodget, so restless was he, and in 
 such perpetual motion. We supposed 
 he must have slept, as other men do ; 
 Tor such wear and tear must have de- 
 manded rest, at least semi-occasionally. 
 He was (to speak within bound) about 
 the Grossest, crookedest, crabbedest 
 stick we ever set eyes on. He had a 
 sort of ubiquity for all gatherings, 
 large or small. Whoever else was not 
 there, Squire Blodget was. He had 
 one standing topic of talk, was famil- 
 iar with it, and he never tired of it.
 
 32 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 In all times and places he was ever- 
 lastingly sputtering about " Jefferson 
 and democracy." Sometimes he came 
 to meeting of a Sunday, though sel- 
 dom. But when he did come, it was 
 to have, if possible, a talk with some- 
 body about Jefferson and democracy. 
 It was so much gained if, using all dili- 
 gence, he got there in the morning ; 
 for that would give him the whole 
 noon-time, at the tavern across the 
 way, to talk against the forenoon ser- 
 mon, and/0r Jefferson and democracy. 
 The sermon was used for an exordium, 
 but it somehow opened out straight 
 and quick into Jefferson and democ- 
 racy. The versatility seemed marvel- 
 ous ; but he had it, and it was equal 
 to all exigencies. But June training 
 was a long day, and then he had full
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 33 
 
 swing, and was autocrat and inexor- 
 able. There was no escaping him. 
 Whatever knot of men or boys might 
 have gathered at the corner of the 
 meeting-house, and might be talking 
 quietly and cozily of common mat- 
 ters, in would come old Squire Blodget 
 to have his say, and all the say, and 
 always about Jefferson and democracy. 
 The mustard-pot fell into the milk-pan. 
 He was great for any discussion hav- 
 ing only one side, and that his. He 
 was " First Disputant " and " Senior 
 Wrangler " in one. 
 
 Do not think, reader, that our Squire 
 Blodget was the worst man extant. 
 Not so. He had good qualities. He 
 was frank-hearted and out-spoken. 
 What he was at all, he was openly. 
 He was himself, neither less nor more, 
 
 3
 
 34 The Old Meeting-House. 
 
 and not somebody else in disguise. 
 Politician he was, but without the 
 artifice and snakiness. You knew 
 just where to find him him himself, 
 the genuine article, most unmistakably 
 the real and redoubtable old Squire 
 Blodget. 
 
 The old meeting-house has v a se- 
 quel a painful part, and a pleasant. 
 When the warlike demonstrations 
 around it began to pass away, then 
 came " fightings within." Two oppos- 
 ing sects claimed the house, and con- 
 tended vehemently for the possession 
 and use. Long and bitter was the 
 feud. " From words they almost came 
 to blows." But they became sick of 
 the strife. The business didn't pay, as 
 it never does. The parties, agreeing 
 to differ, at length left off the conten-
 
 Boyhood Recollections. 35 
 
 tion, and left the house, and built 
 anew, each for itself. Then (some 
 years later) the town, all parties unit- 
 ing, voted, with most commendable 
 public spirit, to repair the house, paint 
 it handsomely, new shingle it, and 'let 
 it stand, and tell their children's chil- 
 dren of what their fathers were and 
 did. And there " the old white meet- 
 ing-house " does stand to-day : me- 
 mento, silent, yet expressive, eloquent, 
 instructive one of the costliest, grand- 
 est, goodliest structures of the Green 
 Mountain State. 
 
 We now and then go back to revisit 
 the scene. We love to tread that 
 same old Green in some calm hour 
 toward sunset of a summer's day. We 
 wish to go there alone, that we may 
 the better indulge in musings and
 
 36 The Old Meeting- House. 
 
 memories of other days. We go 
 around the house, now looking up to 
 the eaves, now leaning against the 
 brown-stone corner, and now seat- 
 ing ourselves on the steps in front. 
 Home! our town and our meeting- 
 house place where we were born, 
 and, we hope, were born again. Not 
 another spot on earth so sets us to 
 thinking. Loved scene to us, and 
 
 " Meditation here 
 May think down hours to moments." 
 
 " Here much I meditate, as much I may, 
 With other views of men and manners now 
 Than once, and others of a life to come."
 
 THE COLTON TRIBE. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE LONGMEADOW CENTENNIAL, 
 OCTOBER 17, 1883. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT AND GOOD FRIENDS : 
 
 In our present quest we do not 
 propose to go back to Adam, nor to 
 Noah. We stop this side of the Flood 
 and of the Red Sea. We begin at 
 Moses our Moses, my Moses, Mr. 
 President otherwise named Quarter- 
 master George Colton. Let alone 
 Egypt. Let alone England, except 
 just to say that the said George afore- 
 said came over from Sussex, a south- 
 east county in the Fatherland, about 
 the middle of the seventeenth cen-
 
 38 The Colton Tribe. 
 
 tury. No matter for anything beyond. 
 Enough, and good enough, this side. 
 No great concern whether the first 
 man ever named Colton was Norman, 
 Swede, Celt, or Turk. Don't propose 
 to go into fits over the question 
 whether the Coltons across the brine 
 were of princely blood or plebeian. 
 That is no great shakes anyway. The 
 real point is, What are we, and what 
 do we ? All else is fustian and pru- 
 nella. We make personal confession, 
 that for groping one's way by light of 
 a tallow candle through " endless gen- 
 ealogies " we have, in this short life, 
 no time, tact, nor taste. Had indeed 
 a little rather not have come up (or 
 down) from ape, tadpole, or clam, as 
 the evolutionists would have it. 
 
 Quartermaster George Colton on
 
 The Co It on Tribe. 39 
 
 him we plant ourselves, and shake 
 fists at all questioners and comers. 
 We have in him an honorable and 
 auspicious beginning. He is found a 
 magistrate in Springfield at almost its 
 earliest, and before Longmeadow is 
 even a precinct, or is more than a pas- 
 ture for flocks. Came among the first, 
 if not the first, to what is now this 
 goodly place and name. Was a wise 
 master-builder, and laid here good 
 foundations, whereof we this day are 
 witnesses. Had nine children, and 
 that was auspiciovis prophecy. And 
 famous children they were altogether 
 redoubtable. Isaac, Ephraim, Mary, 
 Thomas, Sarah, Deborah, Hephzibah, 
 John, and Benjamin. There ! Scrip- 
 tural, Biblical, every one patriarch 
 and evangelist face to face ; both Tes-
 
 40 The Cotton Tribe. 
 
 laments drawn from, not to say ex- 
 hausted ; not a heathen name among 
 them. If, from all the hoary regis- 
 ters of time, any man can cite the 
 equal family record, let him stand up 
 and be counted. 
 
 And if Quartermaster George was 
 great, a still greater than he, perhaps, 
 was his son Thomas, our Joshua, Cap- 
 tain Thomas Colton like John Gil- 
 pin, 
 
 " A citizen 
 
 Of credit and renown, 
 
 A train-band captain eke was he." 
 
 He was the hornet against the peo- 
 ple who had dwelt in the land. For 
 it came to pass when they set them- 
 selves to overcome him, he joined bat- 
 tle and fought against them ; yea, he 
 drave out from before him the Jebu-
 
 The Colton Tribe. 41 
 
 sites, the Hivites, and the Hittites 
 (or subdued them under him), and 
 gave their lands for a possession unto 
 your fathers, and unto you, as it is this 
 day. It was said of him that he could 
 scent an Indian from as far as he 
 could shoot one and that was at long 
 range. Turning to the old records, I 
 find a- minute in these words : " Capt. 
 Thomas Colton died September 30, 
 1728." On the 6th of the following 
 October Dr. Williams preached a ser- 
 mon in which he gave Captain Colton 
 a very extraordinary character, espe- 
 cially in the Indian wars, and " as a 
 man of eminent piety." Reminds one 
 of the centurion, and of Havelock ; a 
 soldier, yet fearing God with all his 
 house. His monument, in the burial- 
 ground near by, a stone slab, large,
 
 42 The Colton Tribe. 
 
 strong, durable, of such fine grain and 
 texture as to have withstood, without 
 fleck or flaw, the storms and sunshines 
 of a century and a half, testifies to 
 this same high estimate and appreci- 
 ation. And then Captain George Col- 
 ton, son of Thomas, worthy son of 
 worthy sire. Thus we have it these 
 military spangles and splendors 
 Captain, Lieutenant, Ensign, Sergeant, 
 etc. And then as to actual service 
 the tug of war. My grandfather 
 Aaron, with several others of the 
 name, bore a part in the struggle 
 for our independence. Sergeant Eb- 
 enezer Colton, with his company of 
 minute-men, marched from here as far 
 as to Brookfield for the rescue of Lex- 
 ington, but was countermanded with 
 the intelligence that the peril was past.
 
 The Cotton Tribe. 43 
 
 But the Colton name fills a much 
 larger space in the civil list and life 
 of this grand old town. For a hun- 
 dred years one-half, less or more, of 
 the moderators of the meetings of 
 
 o 
 
 precinct and town were Coltons. How 
 readest thou ? " At a meeting of the 
 inhabitants of the precinct of Long 
 Meadow, March i5, 1/56, Capt. Isaac 
 Colton was appointed Moderator ; 
 Sergt. George Colton, Ensign ; Simon 
 Colton and David Burt were chosen 
 Committee, and Samuel Colton, As- 
 sessor" Coltons four to one. One 
 more instance out of many in the 
 record. At the first meeting of Long- 
 meadow as a town, Festus Colton 
 was chosen Surveyor of Highways, 
 and Luther Colton, Fence Viewer. 
 So were the powers and prerogatives,
 
 44 The Colton Tribe. 
 
 the honors and emoluments of high 
 official station heaped upon the Col- 
 tons as the most capable and worthy 
 among the people ! 
 
 If now any one shall, in malicious 
 and mischievous depreciation, insinu- 
 ate that the Coltons were all the peo- 
 ple, and had the honors of office as 
 the college boy did the valedictory, 
 being himself the whole class, we shall 
 not stop to answer that despiser of 
 dignities, except by the silence that 
 means disdain. 
 
 And then, coming down, or rather 
 up, to the queenly matron, ever vener- 
 able and fair this church. Of the 
 sixteen persons joining to organize 
 this church one hundred and sixty- 
 seven years ago, six were Coltons 
 four women and two men.
 
 The Cotton Tribe. 45 
 
 I have just now alluded to numbers. 
 If you carp at the Colton quality, we 
 can easily balance the account by 
 quantity. Those early family records 
 quivers full. We have looked at 
 them, and have sat astonished one 
 hour. Quartermaster George is found 
 to have had nine children ; Thomas, fif- 
 teen ; Ephraim, of the second genera- 
 tion, seventeen ; Benjamin, of the third 
 generation, fifteen ; and Benjamin, of 
 the fourth generation, ten. Prophets 
 and prognosticators of omen good or 
 ill ! Census bureau and the mul- 
 tiplication table ! But take comfort. 
 This is a great country, with terri- 
 torial domain sufficient for a good 
 many Coltons and some few others 
 a remnant at least. Glad to have 
 it so ; for we seem to hear voices
 
 46 The Colton Tribe. 
 
 saying, Give us room, that we may 
 dwell. 
 
 Well, then, the just claim of the 
 Coltons to precedence and preemi- 
 nence before all the other Longmead- 
 owers, here and elsewhere : i. We 
 were first in the field, and possession 
 is nine points of the law. 2. We are 
 fullest in numbers are the majority 
 are the people not to insist that wis- 
 dom will die with us. 
 
 And then as to the parts the Col- 
 tons have played and are playing in 
 the field of the world. True, we can- 
 not point to a Colton as chief execu- 
 tive of the nation, nor of this Com- 
 monwealth. No matter. The greed 
 and scramble for office, as now seen, 
 would only soil our ermine. But we 
 stand well on the roll. One or two
 
 The Co lion Tribe. 47 
 
 governors or alcaldes, one or two pres- 
 idents of colleges, several college pro- 
 fessors, educators not a few, physicians 
 many, clergymen a goodly number, 
 judges rare, lawyers a sufficient and 
 satisfying scarcity. 
 
 But, after all, our grand distinction 
 and boast is of our deacons. DEACON 
 COLTON. Here, on this eminence, we 
 plant ourselves, and boldly challenge 
 all competition and comparison. We 
 are owners of the deaconship here and 
 elsewhere, 
 
 " From the centre all round to the sea." 
 
 We are born deacons, as princes are 
 dukes to the manor born. Deacon 
 is our escutcheon heraldic, our ensign 
 armorial. True, indeed, in this demo- 
 cratic, leveling age and country, where
 
 48 The Cotton Tribe. 
 
 men have such petty jealousies and 
 prejudices against office-bearing and 
 authority, it may perhaps be as well, 
 for the sake of peace and good-will, to 
 allow the people the privilege of a 
 voice and vote in putting Coltons into 
 this as into other offices. But a Colton 
 is a deacon any way, and every time, 
 vote or no vote. He is deacon by 
 very virtue of his being a Colton. To 
 say of a Colton that he is a deacon is 
 only to pronounce him a little more a 
 Colton an Hebrew of the Hebrews. 
 In fact, we don't need the title ; we 
 are deacons without it, all the same. 
 To think of distinguishing one Colton 
 from another Colton by saying that 
 one of them is a deacon, would be 
 about as lucid an identification as to 
 say of one John Smith that he is
 
 The Cotton Tribe. 49 
 
 brother of James. Not to count from 
 other branches of our genealogical tree, 
 but only from my own especial bough 
 or twig, I once found here thirteen 
 deacons living contemporaneously, and 
 a blessing to their time. My grand- 
 father Aaron was deacon ; two or 
 three uncles of mine were deacons ; a 
 half-score of cousins were deacons ; my 
 father was deacon ; three brothers of 
 mine were deacons ; and a son of mine 
 is deacon. Presumably this branch is 
 no exceptional one, but is a fair sam- 
 ple of the entire ancestral tree. 
 
 I have not claimed, may it please 
 you, that all the good deacons in the 
 world are Coltons. I am too modest 
 for that. I magnanimously and cheer- 
 fully concede that there are good peo- 
 ple, some few at least, outside of the
 
 5o The Colton Tribe. 
 
 Colton fold. I benevolently wish 
 there were more of them. And here, 
 while I am in this charitable and 
 hopeful mood, and before I lose it, I 
 may just add and admit that, since an 
 humble self-estimate is a grace becom- 
 ing in all, even in the best, it is con- 
 ceivable that we Coltons, all of us, 
 might not do amiss to wish ourselves 
 a little better than we are. There is 
 always room at the top. 
 
 And then, as to issues and re- 
 sults of intermarriages and interfu- 
 sions, cross-currents and comminglings 
 of blood and quality ours, with the 
 other tribes, the Elys, Cooleys, Blisses, 
 Morses, Morrisses, Keeps, Chapins, 
 Burts, Williamses, Bridgmans, Kings- 
 leys, Goldthwaites, Storrses, Wrights, 
 Lawtons, Brockways, and I know not
 
 The Gallon Tribe. 5i 
 
 how many more ; whether in all this 
 the Coltons have gained most, or 
 given most of whatsoever things are 
 lovely and of good report, may prop- 
 erly be left to any man's conjecturing. 
 It is presumable, however, that our 
 debtors they are. 
 
 From this account it is very plain, 
 first, that the Coltons are a modest 
 race, thinking others better than them- 
 selves ; and, second, that there are 
 among them no humorists. How 
 could there be ? Being deacons all of 
 us, we are too sedate and solemn to 
 relax into mirthfulness and levity. 
 " Sober as a deacon !" 
 
 But I must draw to a close. 
 
 AN AVERAGE COLTON. 
 A plain man, of medium stature ;
 
 52 The Cotton Tribe. 
 
 rather spare in flesh ; hair brown, and 
 scant as age advances ; small eyes ; 
 prominent nose and chin, denoting 
 push and persistence ; complexion red, 
 white, and blue ; circulation and tem- 
 perament a trifle slow ; not the quick- 
 est in catching an idea, but good 
 at keeping it ; modest, as we have 
 already said and sung, yet somewhat 
 self-opinionated and set not to say 
 stubborn ; second or third cousin, 
 maybe, to the Mr. Will-be- Wills ; of 
 cheerful turn, and not addicted to 
 long face and low murmurs ; laughs 
 moderately, but laughs ; prefers to live 
 in the south side of the house ; is 
 sociable and neighborly ; likes to do 
 obliging things, and does them ; 
 thinks comfortably well of himself, 
 and likes to have others think the
 
 The Cotton Tribe. 53 
 
 same of him ; is affectionate in dispo- 
 sition ; loves his kindred and friends, 
 and is given to hospitality ; loves a 
 good story, and is apt to be a little 
 prolix and tiresome in telling it ; 
 is pretty sure to be found a singer, 
 and no marvel if a chorister ; is 
 neither a sun to blind your eyes, nor a 
 comet to be gazed at wonderingly; 
 wouldn't excel in metaphorical pyro- 
 technics and gymnastics ; is not given 
 to minding high things, but is reason- 
 ably content to pursue a quiet and 
 even tenor ; is patient of toil, working 
 with his own hands that which is 
 good ; is fair-minded and fair-handed 
 in business dealings ; has half an eye 
 open for the main chance, but doesn't 
 clutch frantically for the everlasting 
 more ; is neither a millionaire nor a
 
 54 The Colton Tribe. 
 
 pauper ; is not crowned king, nor 
 hanged a culprit ; is seldom found in 
 a palace, and more rarely in a prison ; 
 is a Democratic Republican in poli- 
 tics ; is found among a gentler com- 
 monalty, the middling interest, the 
 middle extreme in society the upper 
 middle, if you please ; is not a saint 
 by natural birth and blood (no man 
 is), but is blessed with such make 
 and molding, such natural disposition, 
 aptitudes, tendencies, as fits one (if 
 there be such fitting in any) to receive 
 God's free grace, and be molded by 
 it to diviner patterns, even the spiritual 
 and heavenly. 
 
 On the whole, a fair sort of a man, 
 this average Colton, found respectable, 
 faithful, useful; serving God and doing 
 good to men, and as likely as most to
 
 The Cotton Tribe. 55 
 
 be saved finally by grace divine and 
 grace alone. 
 
 We should not boast, and we need 
 not blush, manward, over what the 
 Colton race and name have been and 
 done here in this dear old home, our 
 Jerusalem, Longmeadow, name ever 
 dear, and mother of us all ; and have 
 done also in the 
 
 " Land of our fathers, wheresoe'er we roam." 
 
 And may I add one word in the 
 name of all the tribes and families rep- 
 resented here to-day? To the Long- 
 meadow residents, people and their 
 honored pastor, having here and now 
 their beautiful home and habitation, 
 we tender, on this memorial anniver- 
 sary, our hearty greetings and gratula- 
 tions. All hail and farewell ! our dear
 
 56 The Colton Tribe. 
 
 old Longmeadow, venerable with age, 
 and crowned with beauty ! Her chil- 
 dren rise up and call her blessed. May 
 other generations of men and women, 
 the good and gentle, the true and 
 brave for the right, rise up here to 
 bless the ancestral home, the nation, 
 the world. Our ancestors here : we 
 seem to see their venerable forms. 
 We tread reverently by the graves 
 where they lie in glory, every one in 
 his own house. We sit, to-day, be- 
 neath the roof, and within the walls, 
 where they worshiped the ever-living 
 and loving God, theirs and ours. We 
 walk beneath the elms that to them 
 were a shadow from the heat. We 
 tread on hallowed ground. 
 
 " A charm from the skies seems to hallow us 
 here."
 
 The Colton Tribe. 67 
 
 We feel here an inspiration and up- 
 lifting to good endeavor to do well 
 our part, and so be followers of them 
 who through faith and patience inherit 
 the promises. 
 
 " Our boast is not that we deduce our birth 
 From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth ; 
 But higher far our proud pretensions rise, 
 The sons of parents passed into the skies."
 
 "BRINGETH FORTH OUT OF HIS 
 TREASURES THINGS NEW AND 
 OLD." 
 
 ONE who has passed into the off- 
 side half of his eightieth year, if he 
 has had eyes, and has used them, must 
 have seen some things, and some 
 more. 18091889 the sweep of the 
 century, and such a century ! Likely 
 enough he will be found thinking 
 and speaking of things that used to 
 be, and so contrasting those of once 
 with those of now. And no marvel 
 if, pondering over the changes he 
 has seen, and been a part of, there 
 come over him now and then an 
 inkling of doubt, whether he be him. 
 self or somebody else. " The times
 
 Things New and Old. 5 9 
 
 have changed, and we've changed in 
 them." 
 
 As to size of families : From 
 quivers full in the hands of the 
 mighty, to arrows few in the hands of 
 the weak. From hearing the last gun 
 in the War of 1812, under the admin- 
 istration of James Madison, to voting 
 for Benjamin Harrison, in 1888. 
 From childhood to old age, and re- 
 turn : now Jamie, shaking his rattle, 
 and now grandpa, leaning on his staff. 
 From "playing horse" with boy and 
 towstring, to " fears by the way," and 
 to finding, or fancying, that " a horse 
 is a vain thing for safety." From the 
 ninepence silver piece, achieved for 
 excellence in spelling, to diverse 
 " sheepskins," college and other, 
 stowed away somewhere safely, unless
 
 60 Things New and Old. 
 
 the rats, ambitious of fame, have car- 
 ried off the honors. From evenings 
 worthily spent at home or in spelling- 
 school, to evenings worthlessly thrown 
 away on burnt-cork minstrels and 
 comic operas to say nothing now of 
 the nightly haunts and hiding-places 
 of bad boys, waxing worse and worse. 
 From wood-pile to coal-bin. From 
 tinder-box to friction matches. From 
 tallow candle and pine-knots to kero- 
 sene and electric lights. From and- 
 irons, and back-log, and blazing hearth, 
 roasting one side of you, to furnaces, 
 warming the whole house. From 
 crane, and hooks, and kettle, and 
 skillet, fixings and furnishings of the 
 open fireplace, to ranges and stoves 
 of a dozen patterns, every one of 
 which is " better than all the others
 
 Things New and Old. 61 
 
 put together, sure as you live." From 
 short-cake in spider, crossed off with 
 fork, and turned up to the fire, for 
 Aunt 'Rusha's visit this whole after- 
 noon, to Frenchified bills of fare, 
 lading and .loading, for clubs, clans, 
 and cliques, various, and too many. 
 From barreled apple-sauce, hard-frozen 
 in attic in winter, to Barr's ice-creams, 
 all the year round. From home-living 
 and " hamely fare," to Delmonico's. 
 From homespun and " hodden-gray 
 and a' that," to merinos, superfines, 
 and soft clothing from Great Britain 
 and Hail Columbia. From handicraft, 
 tax and strain of human muscle, to 
 enginery and horse-power by water 
 and steam perhaps by electricity, the 
 other motors being too weak and slow. 
 From musical scythe and whetstone,
 
 62 Things New and Old. 
 
 to ding and clatter of mowing-ma- 
 chines. From plain and sensible hand- 
 rake, to land lobster, or something re- 
 sembling it, and named horse-rake, 
 with its pranks of kick-up and touch- 
 down. From spinning-wheel and dis- 
 taff, presided over by grandmother, in 
 her might, majesty, and dominion, 
 to power-looms and spinning-jennies, 
 tended by children who ought to be at 
 school. From splitting oven-wood for 
 mother, and receiving the promised 
 "turn-over" in sumptuous payment 
 therefor, to having seen brick ovens 
 gone far past into innocuous desue- 
 tude. From that nondescript, ineffable 
 piece of humanity, a boy of sixteen, 
 with swarms of whims and fancies 
 playing round his head, to an octoge- 
 narian, sobered, solidified, settled into
 
 Things New and Old. 63 
 
 facts and full persuasions, which no 
 battering-ram can shake. From mild- 
 mannered toot-toot of tin horn, an- 
 nouncing to all the world and the rest 
 of us the coming in of mail coach once 
 a day, to screech and shriek of car 
 whistle nearly all the time. From 
 neck-breaking, all-night jouncing in 
 stage coach over the sham and sem- 
 blance of highways, to palace and 
 sleeping-car on smooth and level iron 
 paths. From journeying diligently six 
 days from present to native home, to 
 compassing the same distance in one 
 night keeping pace the while with 
 the growth of Jonah's gourd, and 
 sleeping all the way. From adze and 
 broad-axe, hewing timbers, ushering in- 
 an epoch, a half-day house-raising 
 to say nothing of doughnut and demi-
 
 64 Things New and Old. 
 
 John to circular saws and scantling, 
 beams and posts, that set the winds 
 a-snickering, and bid the bibulous, if 
 any, stay at home and be dry. From 
 training-days and musters mimicry of 
 war, but surely bound to save the 
 country to the country saved in and 
 through the actual and terrible strife, 
 and that too by minute-men and volun- 
 teers. 
 
 From city and country stores selling 
 liquors to young and old, with other 
 goods reputably, to saloons, a nui- 
 sance, execrated, and going into perdi- 
 tion. From the monarchy of blood- 
 letting and calomel for all aches and 
 ailments, to the democracy of the 
 "pathies," ministered by wise men, 
 and by men otherwise. From the 
 small four-page weekly, coming from
 
 Things New and Old. 65 
 
 far, to the large eight-page dailies, 
 brought to your door morning and 
 evening, and taxing too heavily your 
 time and reading. From reading 
 London news fifty days old, to read- 
 ing at our breakfast-table this morn- 
 ing, this morning's doings in Parlia- 
 ment in that city. From high pulpits, 
 beetling cliffs, to platform level, allow- 
 ing preacher a hand-to-hand grapple 
 with hearer in the good fight of faith. 
 (Sounding-boards had not ventured 
 into the high latitudes of us and the 
 North Star.) From the high-backed, 
 and doored, square pews for hearers, 
 facing three of the four winds, to low 
 and open slips facing both minister 
 and music, and saying to the stranger, 
 "Come, and welcome." From shy- 
 piping bass viol, if tolerated, to high- 
 
 5
 
 66 Things New and Old. 
 
 sounding organ, rejoiced in. (Fiddle, 
 if introduced, would have raised a cir- 
 cus.) From old Mear, Windham, All 
 Saints, St. Martins, and Dundee, sub- 
 stantial and satisfying melodies, to 
 swarming music-books, with tunes, so- 
 called, some of which are good, some 
 very good, and some altogether lighter 
 than vanity. From the grand fore- 
 fathers and foremothers, with their 
 stanch and vertebrate beliefs and con- 
 victions, to I will not say magpies, 
 standing around, and chattering at 
 whom and what they neither attain to 
 nor comprehend. Let us rather think 
 and say with the incomparable Lin- 
 coln, ''With charity for all, with mal- 
 ice toward none." And still, no duty 
 binds or bids us shut our eyes and 
 ears to the facts in this matter. " For
 
 Things New and Old. 67 
 
 as concerning this sect, we know that 
 everywhere it is spoken against." 
 
 Any amount of misconception and 
 misrepresentation. Some are telling 
 us that people, clerical and lay, of our 
 olden time, were fed on Calvinism 
 and catechism, bitter herbs and un- 
 leavened bread, and were thereby made 
 sour, gloomy, unhappy. The allega- 
 tion is fictitious and false. Read, on 
 this point, " Sprague's Annals," and 
 stand corrected. With them, indeed, 
 were the catechism and the Puritan 
 theology, which had stood, and still 
 stands, the test of time and trial doc- 
 trines, not the travesty and caricature 
 of them, quite too often charged to 
 their account. And men didn't die of 
 the catechism. The writer of these 
 lines was instructed in that old symbol,
 
 68 Things New and Old. 
 
 and, marvel to say, is alive still, not- 
 withstanding. The people of West- 
 hamptoh are said to have been 
 " brought up on the catechism." 
 Thank you. I wish there were more 
 Westhamptons the clear heads and 
 bright hearts, the Bible-reading, the 
 Sabbath-keeping, the society and so- 
 cial life, the intelligence and thrift, 
 and whatsoever things are honest, and 
 true, and of good report. It is in no 
 spirit of bitterness that a passing refer- 
 ence is here made to two or three 
 things, the heaviest and hardest, still 
 charged against the beliefs of the evan- 
 gelical orthodox in time past and pres- 
 ent ; men of the present punished for 
 Adam's sin ; glorified saints in ecsta- 
 sies over the suffering of the lost ; 
 willingness to be a castaway a prime
 
 Things New and Old. 69 
 
 evidence of piety ; " hell paved with " 
 but I stay my hand. Now, as to 
 these things so persistently pressed 
 against the memory of those whom we 
 should revere : If one who was there 
 and is here, one who sat for years un- 
 der the teachings of Leonard Woods, 
 Moses Stuart, and Edwards A. Park, of 
 Andover ; one who heard the preach- 
 ing of Revs. Nettleton, Finney, and 
 Burchard ; and has listened to thirty 
 and more of our college presidents, to 
 perhaps as many theological profes- 
 sors, and to a hundred, less or more, 
 of our most noted preachers, masters 
 in our Israel, from Beersheba even 
 unto Dan, during a long day of our 
 short life if such an one, speaking for 
 himself only, of what, in these matters, 
 he has or has not seen and heard, may
 
 70 Things New and Old. 
 
 be allowed to give and leave his per- 
 sonal testimony, then this deponent 
 saith : that it has never once fallen to 
 him to hear, from one of the above- 
 named men, one line or syllable in 
 inculcation or endorsement of one of 
 the hard things referred to above. 
 Bible doctrines, may it please your 
 honors, not the falsehoods and fictions 
 in place of them, or connected with 
 them. There shall be here no plea 
 for aught that was wrong or weak in 
 what the fathers held and taught. 
 They were not perfect. None are. 
 I am afraid they are but poorly un- 
 derstood. A style of piety sedate, 
 but not gloomy ; a little rugged, but 
 kindly ; not so fine and nice, but of 
 firm texture and enduring ; not confi- 
 dent and assertive, yet intelligent,
 
 Things New and Old. 71 
 
 rooted in convictions, and ready always 
 to render a reason ; a piety built up on 
 both Testaments, the Old and the 
 New ; a piety to which those grand 
 words, Law and Righteousness, meant 
 something ; a piety drawing strength 
 and sweetness from the One Hundred 
 and Nineteenth Psalm, and from John's 
 First Epistle ; a piety thankfully testi- 
 fying with the Psalmist, " Thy statutes 
 have been my songs in the house of 
 my pilgrimage." 
 
 Does a voice come, saying, These 
 terrible things were held and taught 
 in this or that century back of our 
 present ? Oh ! sirs, it hadn't occurred 
 to us as a thing of practical moment 
 to us to go back and give answer for 
 all the wrongs of all time. We were 
 speaking of the present century and
 
 72 Things New and Old. 
 
 the men in it ; and all we claim for 
 them is that they were good and noble 
 for their time and the light given 
 them. It is not given to one age to 
 have the wisdom of all the ages. We 
 have not all of us lived forever; and 
 it is just possible that some of us to- 
 day are still a little short of perfection 
 absolute. Let us try to be modest. 
 
 Easy enough to sit back in our soft 
 chairs, and be self-complacent, and 
 wish our fathers had been wiser. Not 
 so easy to be ourselves climbing 
 "Hills Difficulty." Most of us find 
 it about as much as we can do to 
 keep ourselves somewhere. If our 
 fathers came short, let us out-do them 
 in all goodness, and righteousness, 
 and truth, if we can. Likely enough 
 we can, if we will. Why this interest
 
 Things New and Old. 73 
 
 so great in the old-time beliefs and 
 teachings ? Are we better than the 
 fathers? If we are, let us not boast, 
 but be thankful. If we are not, let 
 us strive for the mastery. Till we 
 are, it is hardly a handsome thing in 
 us to be throwing stones. If we 
 would be better, the law is open, and 
 there are deputies. There is always 
 room at the top. 
 
 I have spoken of progress in ma- 
 terial things. If now one ask : Has 
 there been a like progress in religious 
 things ? Have we gone on with 
 equal step from old to new in moral 
 and spiritual wisdom and goodness ? 
 Have we left the fathers lagging and 
 late in the greater concerns of man ? 
 To questions of this sort our answer 
 is, Yes and No ; and each in its sev-
 
 74 Things New and Old. 
 
 eral respects. No, as to Bible, the 
 one Book, and lived upon ; as to the 
 law-work and breaking up of the fal- 
 low ground in conviction of sin and 
 conversion to Christ ; as to Sabbath 
 observance and sanctuary attendance ; 
 as to nurture of the religious affec- 
 tions, the inward, spiritual life by medi- 
 tation and prayer ; as to keeping the 
 home and heart with all diligence ; as 
 to reverence for sacred things ; as to 
 contentment with slow and honest 
 gains ; as to careful avoidance of 
 worldly amusements, frivolities, plays, 
 and pastimes ; -as to consistency, well 
 looked to, between our manner of liv- 
 ing and our prayer " that we may 
 hereafter lead a godly, righteous, and 
 sober life." In these and the like 
 things, No.
 
 Things New and Old. 
 
 And now the Yes : Larger windows 
 to let in sunshine ; better under- 
 standing and acceptance of the grand 
 rule, " In essentials, unity ; in unessen- 
 tials, liberty ; in all things, charity ; " a 
 happier blending and proportioning of 
 law and gospel in preaching, appeal- 
 ing not less perhaps to fear of God's 
 wrath, but more to his love in Jesus as 
 preeminently the constraining motive 
 to repentance and holy living ; not 
 now a reserve standing on cold con- 
 ventional proprieties, but, instead, a 
 warmth and glow of manner, showing 
 the preacher affectionately desirous of 
 you, and bent on plucking you as a 
 brand ; a larger union and fellowship 
 among Christians of different names ; 
 care and cultivation of those little 
 courtesies, civilities, amenities, throw-
 
 76 Things New and Old. 
 
 ing a charm over the social life ; insti- 
 tutions founded and endowed liberally 
 for relief of all manner of misfortune 
 and want ; the Sisters of Charity going 
 everywhere, carrying gifts and heal- 
 ing ; brotherhood and sympathy, lend- 
 ing solace and succor to fellow-men in 
 every clime, on every shore ; grand 
 organizations for mission work and 
 moral reform ; slavery, so recently our 
 curse and reproach, now wiped out, as 
 one wipeth a dish, and turneth it up- 
 side down ; the wondrous uprising 
 against that devouring monster, Intem- 
 perance, and all his myriad aids and 
 abettors ; uplifting forces all around 
 us, intended and adapted to make this 
 world brighter, happier, better a 
 paradise regained. 
 
 Yes and No, then. No, as to depth;
 
 Things New and Old. 77 
 
 Yes, as to breadth. No, as to stand- 
 ing firmly on the feet ; Yes, as to 
 reaching out long arms. No, as to 
 rich soil prepared ; Yes, as to the 
 flowers appearing the roses of 
 Sharon and the lilies of the valley. 
 And so we say : On the whole, Yes, 
 and with gladsome emphasis. Strange 
 if it were not so, with the world's his- 
 tory for our instruction, and the world's 
 hope for our inspiration ; the night far 
 spent ; the day-star rising. 
 
 " Watchman ! does its beauteous ray 
 Aught of joy or hope foretell ? 
 Traveller ! yes ; it brings the day 
 Promised day of Israel." 
 
 The old and past, whatever it was 
 made or was, is gone from us. The 
 new and now is ours is open door
 
 78 Things New and Old. 
 
 and opportunity, the grandest ever 
 known. Let us, then, in joyful trust, 
 and loving loyalty, commit ourselves 
 to Him, our gracious Lord, in whom 
 are all our springs 
 
 " Our high endeavor, and our glad success, 
 Our strength to suffer, and our will to serve." 
 
 The age we live in, like the natural 
 world around us, is full of wonders. 
 Let us be wakeful, observant, reflec- 
 tive, reverent, not disobedient unto the 
 heavenly vision, ready unto all good 
 works. Let us not sleep as do others. 
 Let us not be dull of seeing. 
 
 " Earth's crammed with Heaven, 
 And every common bush afire with God ; 
 But only he who sees takes off his shoes : 
 The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries." 
 
 EASTHAMPTON, MARCH 28, 1889.
 
 BRIEF TOUCHES CONCERNING SOME 
 OF THE MINISTERS OF THE HAMP- 
 SHIRE, MASS., ASSOCIATION FIFTY 
 YEARS AGO OR NEARLY. 
 
 HEMAN HUMPHREY, D.D., PRESIDENT 
 OF AMHERST COLLEGE, 
 
 WAS passing his grand climacteric. 
 Had parted with his strongest years, 
 yet retained not a little of his best 
 self. Of medium stature. Slightly 
 inclining to stoop. Meek bearing. 
 Head carried a little to his left side. 
 Eyes toward the ground in walking. 
 Of pleasant manners. Of a quiet "hu- 
 mor. Fatherly, like President Day, of 
 Yale : par nobile fratrum : they two, 
 with President Griffin, of Williams, 
 forming a triumvirate perhaps just 
 
 79
 
 8o The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 the style of men for that special time 
 and duty. Dead line not yet drawn 
 at forty. " I said Days should speak." 
 Sound mind. Strong common sense. 
 An excellent counselor. A sound and 
 instructive preacher. Didn't " fire up," 
 as do some, though seen at times un- 
 der a power of feeling which, but for 
 result of conventionality and early 
 habit, would likely have come out in 
 eloquence impassioned and grand. 
 Early training under the old, but wan- 
 ing, dispensation and glory of pow- 
 dered hair and knee-buckles ; and so, 
 dignity, restraint, reserve, repression. 
 Break those bands in sunder, beloved, 
 and cast away those cords from you. 
 " Please be seated," always his word of 
 greeting, on your entering his room. 
 Gave me a cordial welcome on my
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 81 
 
 coming to Amherst. Was never want- 
 ing to me. Was moderator of council, 
 and gave the address to the people 
 at my ordination. Noble family of 
 children. Humphrey Porter; good 
 blood and stock a genuine nobility. 
 May other such arise ! 
 
 REV. NATHAN PERKINS, OF SECOND 
 CHURCH, AMHERST. 
 
 Son of a minister, Dr. Nathan Per- 
 kins, of West Hartford, Conn., whom 
 I remember to have seen and heard in 
 my college days. Stately and vener- 
 able form, -a little bent. Bland, open 
 face, and clean shaven. Skin soft and 
 smooth as an infant's. Hair of light 
 color, scant, and well combed. Scru- 
 pulously neat in person and dress. Of 
 pleasant manners. Always cheerful.
 
 82 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 Lived in the south side of the house. 
 Never saw a frown or wrinkle on him. 
 A fair preacher. Made for me the 
 ordaining prayer. Was every way a 
 pastor to his flock. Interested him- 
 self, and was helpful to them, in all 
 their affairs. Was " Father Perkins " 
 before he was fifty ; and, when taken 
 up suddenly at the age of sixty-two, a 
 sorrowing people said : " My father, 
 my father, the chariots of Israel, and 
 the horsemen thereof." 
 
 If " father " and sixty-two be old, 
 what is eighty ? I don't know, and 
 you needn't tell me. 
 
 OF REVS. REID, OF BELCHERTOWN, 
 AND DANFORTH, OF HADLEY, 
 
 I saw but little. The former, tall 
 and of dark complexion, may have
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 83 
 
 been of silent and moodish turn. 
 Gave charge to pastor. Mr. Dan- 
 forth, of heavier mold, physically 
 perhaps not stronger of the two, men- 
 tally. Made the introductory prayer. 
 Was blessed with a comfortable meas- 
 ure of simplicity and unwisdom : be- 
 gan to build a house for a settled 
 home, and the people began to talk 
 about another minister. Charles Lamb 
 says, that " a man who has not a drachm 
 of folly in his mixture, has pounds of 
 much worse matter in his composition." 
 
 REV. GEORGE COOKE, OF NORTH 
 AMHERST, 
 
 My near neighbor and good brother. 
 Of notably fine physique. A hand- 
 some man. Those locks, pendent from 
 his brow, were proud of him, perhaps
 
 84 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 he of them, though he was not given 
 to childish vanity. A sterling mind 
 powers above the common mark. 
 Sound judgment. You might " lean 
 hard " on the advice he gave you in 
 practical affairs. Of wide intelligence 
 well posted in goings-on in church 
 and state. A manifoldness and many- 
 sidedness. Could have filled well any 
 one of a half-dozen of our callings in 
 life. Would have made an admirable 
 teacher it was in his blood and tribe. 
 Impressed you as one knowing more 
 about your business than you did. 
 Handy and handsome, wasn't it, to 
 have for our minister a man so broad- 
 minded, so excellent in counsel in our 
 own every-day concerns? Here was 
 half his hold on his people. A little 
 allowable pride and don't blame them
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 85 
 
 for it. Was wiser and greater for 
 others than for himself. Could write 
 an admirable essay for Association. 
 Did so, once and again. Sermon writ- 
 ing was irksome to him. Said he 
 couldn't, till pressed and pushed to it 
 for to-morrow's service. I have found 
 him at tea-time on a Saturday P.M. 
 with preparation of less than half of 
 the first sermon of the two. His exe- 
 cution was marvelously rapid. When, 
 at the late exigent hour, he did take 
 his pen, there was work indeed. No 
 flutter, no hysteric energy, but a calm 
 and sustained bent and concentration 
 of strong powers, well in hand. Bet- 
 ter, I think, could it have been so with 
 him, better for both sermon and self, 
 the patient quill-driving through earlier 
 and longer hours. We are differently
 
 86 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 made, I know ; but there is a best way 
 for "the generality of mankind in gen- 
 eral." I never felt reconciled to his 
 leaving his people and the ministry, 
 when so loved and so strong. I sadly 
 missed him from his place. I once 
 sought him out at the Custom House 
 in Boston. I could not bring myself 
 to feel that a clerkship there was the 
 place for one of his talents and train- 
 ing. I have known but little of his 
 movements in these later years. Shad- 
 ows fell upon him ; he was afflicted 
 very much. He held and filled a place 
 of honor the presidency of a college, 
 for a time, and was variously useful. 
 I am afraid his later years had little of 
 sunshine. I am hoping and expecting 
 to learn that his end was fulness of 
 peace and joy.
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 87 
 
 REV. JOHN MITCHELL, OF THE ED- 
 WARDS CHURCH, IN NORTHAMPTON. 
 The Association's umpire on all 
 questions of ecclesiastical polity and 
 usage. A scholarly man. A thinker. 
 A calm man strength in sitting still. 
 Did a thing thoroughly, or let it alone. 
 Words few, and directly to the point. 
 His contributions of essay or criticism 
 always highly valued, and felt to be 
 too seldom. You would shrink from 
 reading a shallow and slipshod paper 
 in his presence. He would kill you if 
 you did would do it with infinite gen- 
 tleness and goodness, but would do 
 it making an end of it and you. 
 Didn't laugh, but smiled. Bland, pale 
 face, mirroring the whole man. The 
 Edwards Church have had grand men. 
 A highly favored people ; but among
 
 88 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 all their ministers (and I have known 
 them all), perhaps by no one better 
 than by him have they been nourished 
 up in the words of faith and good doc- 
 trine. A more vigorous, forceful man- 
 ner in the pulpit might have been well, 
 but the richness of the matter went 
 far to content those with whom the 
 substance is more than the sound. 
 That pallid face didn't bespeak robust 
 health, or possibility of vehemence 
 anywhere. The shaking would have 
 torn him. 
 
 REV. JOSEPH D. CONDIT, OF SOUTH 
 HADLEY. 
 
 Of tall and slender frame ; erect 
 and straight, but no strain nor stiff- 
 ness. Thin, pale face. Not strong in 
 health. Graceful, not gracious, in his
 
 The Hampshire Ministers, 89 
 
 manners. A chastened ease and affa- 
 bleness. No hint of the courtly or the 
 patronizing. A born gentleman, in 
 the best sense of that term. The to 
 propon was in every nerve and vein of 
 him. A sweet saintliness, a singular 
 delicacy and refinement, shrinking 
 from touch or sight of anything gross 
 or rude. A coarse jest or word would 
 have hurt him like a blow. You 
 wouldn't speak that word to him. It 
 was " awful goodness," without the 
 awfulness. " A bishop blameless ; " 
 and, in saying it, you meant singu- 
 larity and emphasis. He was human. 
 We all are. But most of us are very 
 human. Providential indeed so we 
 all said that one so refined, so pure, 
 so saintly, was sent to South Hadley, 
 a plastic power there, so helping to
 
 90 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 mold the Mount Holyoke Female 
 Seminary from its beginnings to the 
 grace and goodness for which we give 
 it all praise. 
 
 REV. CHARLES WILEY, OF FIRST 
 CHURCH, NORTHAMPTON. 
 
 Of medium stature. Of agreeable 
 manners, perhaps a little more spruce 
 and nice in his ways than most. Did 
 and said things aesthetically. Didn't 
 thrust his hand toward you at greet- 
 ing, but presented it gingerly. Didn't 
 say bluntly, " How are you, Billings ?" 
 but said blandly, " How do you do, 
 sir?" Of fine mind, and well trained 
 and stored. Had his elect model of 
 style in Robert Hall, and followed 
 him afar off, of course but as 
 closely, perhaps, as is well for the best
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 91 
 
 effects. That murmur and musical 
 flow, the stately and sustained move- 
 ment, and the well-rounded periods 
 not healthful to common mortals. 
 High, moreover, and they cannot at- 
 tain unto it. Most of us are not 
 giants, and Saul's armor is for giants. 
 Better for our best fighting, as fight- 
 ing is nowadays, better the sling and 
 five stones from the brook stones 
 smooth, or not so smooth. But not to 
 judge another in a matter of this sort. 
 Every man in his own order. Brother 
 Wiley was an excellent preacher. 
 Ranked high as a sermonizer. Was 
 laborious in sermon writing. 
 
 REV. GEORGE A. OVIATT, OF THE 
 BRAINERD CHURCH, BELCHERTOWN. 
 Of slight, fragile mould, pliant, yet
 
 92 7^ke Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 resilient ; one of those tender plants 
 that bend under the wind, and lift them- 
 selves when the pressure is off. Of 
 fair abilities ; and the five talents, put 
 to usury, gained other five talents be- 
 sides them. Came direct from Yale 
 Theological Seminary to Brainerd 
 Church as their first pastor. Was 
 happy in his relations here, and pros- 
 pered in his work. Perhaps never 
 great, as some men count greatness, 
 but good, all through and always. 
 Kind, gentle, tender-hearted, sympa- 
 thetic, a Barnabas, masterful and a 
 charmer wherever sorrow was. A 
 clinging vine that crept up around 
 thousands of hearts, and whose ten- 
 drils, once fixed, didn't lose their hold. 
 Served the Master worthily in six 
 churches in turn, until, wearied by his
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 93 
 
 toils, not weary of them, the springs 
 of life worn out, he passed peacefully, 
 not long ago, to his home and rest in 
 heaven. 
 
 One especial thing should be told 
 for a memorial of this brother. There 
 had been bitter strifes in the Old 
 First Church in Belchertown. A por- 
 tion of the members left, and were or- 
 ganized to be a new Congregational 
 church, the Brainerd, to which young 
 Oviatt was called. Thus two churches, 
 of the same order, side by side, after 
 and because of such alienation and di- 
 vision. Time passes, and the Old 
 Church is found dismissing their own 
 pastor, and inviting the Brainerd 
 Church to return home, and bring their 
 pastor with them, to be the shepherd 
 of the reunited flock. 'Twas done ;
 
 94 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 and of that flock, so drawn together, 
 Brother Oviatt was for years the sole 
 pastor, happy in his work, success- 
 ful, beloved, cherished. Rare the in- 
 stance ; and rare in the brother that 
 combination of qualities, wisdom, pru- 
 dence, worth, and work, which could 
 make the instance possible and actual. 
 Vale, vale, Oviatt, my Yale classmate 
 and brother beloved. 
 
 REV. MORRIS E. WHITE, OF SOUTH- 
 AMPTON. 
 
 Of massive, solid mold, physically"; 
 shoulders as if to bear up an Atlas. 
 Could quickly have floored the stout- 
 est of us at wrestling. Was an able 
 preacher, and for years was greatly 
 favored in his work. Mighty shakings 
 in Southampton, and rich ingather-
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 95 
 
 ings. But by and by a frost touched 
 him, a killing frost, and nipped his 
 root, and then he fell. His beloved 
 wife was snatched from him by the fell 
 destroyer. Woman of rare beauty 
 and loveliness and culture. He found 
 her in Andover, the favorite teacher 
 in Abbot Female Academy. He had 
 the sense and sentiment to know her 
 worth. Her removal was to him a 
 stunning and bewildering stroke, which 
 quite unmanned him. Months after the 
 storm broke upon him, calling at my 
 house in Amherst, and seeing my wife, 
 and told that she was once a pupil of 
 his wife, in Andover, he burst into 
 tears, and wept for an hour like a 
 child. Some here present can recall 
 the sad story. A pulpit charge still 
 upon him, and a people accustomed to
 
 96 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 look for good preaching ; Sunday will 
 come, and the sermons must. Pressed 
 as under a mountain weight ; his home 
 desolated ; nerves unstrung ; the very 
 air of his study freighted with gloom ; 
 sense of utter impotence and impos- 
 sibility to so much as think anything 
 as of himself ; and now a drop from 
 the cup, a convenient extract from 
 another's pen, and next time, likety, 
 the same, and a little more, just to 
 ease the burden this once ; and with no 
 thought, or little thought, of the issue 
 that will come, and will not tarry. The 
 inevitable did come ; the complaint, 
 the council, the trial, the dismission, 
 the demission from the sacred office. 
 Years have since passed. I make no 
 plea for the things charged the cup 
 or the quotation. I make no question
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 97 
 
 that the council did wisely and rightly. 
 And yet, to-day, in recalling to mind 
 the scenes and the man, I think, and 
 care to think, of little else but of the 
 blow that crushed him to the earth. 
 Chanty never faileth. Gently, my 
 friends, gently toward a reed, not 
 shaken only, not bruised only, but 
 broken in the midst. 
 
 REV. HENRY NEIL, OF HATFIELD. 
 
 Of about medium stature. Of pe- 
 culiar build. Shoulders drawn up 
 around his neck as it had been a 
 blanket shawl. A great favorite in 
 scenes of college life. Captured and 
 carried off one of President Humph- 
 rey's daughters a prize indeed. I 
 was present at the nuptials. Lively as 
 a cricket. Something of the French-
 
 98 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 man in looks and ways. Genial and 
 jovial among familiars, bubbling up 
 and brimming over with good humor. 
 A fine mind, and finely furnished. A 
 quick and keen discernment. Ready 
 of speech. Great in an off-hand criti- 
 cism on sermon or essay ; beginning 
 and ending his apt remarks, while 
 most of us were getting ourselves to- 
 gether. An able and instructive 
 preacher. Wrought a good work in 
 Hatfield, and left us all too soon. 
 
 And now, per contra, 
 
 , . 
 
 REV. WARREN H. BEAMAN, OF NORTH 
 HADLEY. 
 
 Behold the man. A patient, plod- 
 ding toiler, faithful for the Master, 
 with good will doing service, and 
 heartily, as unto the Lord. Took
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 99 
 
 charge of a small church, and had 
 the joy of seeing that his labors were 
 not in vain in the Lord. Much to 
 discourage him in frequent deaths and 
 removals, yet patiently toiling on to 
 strengthen the things that remained. 
 In all things showing himself a pat- 
 tern of good works ; in doctrine, un- 
 corruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound 
 speech ; an example of the believers 
 in word, in conversation, in charity, in 
 spirit, in faith, in purity. Preached 
 the Word preached the Gospel ; not 
 about the Gospel, nor about the plu- 
 mage of birds, and the rings of Saturn, 
 and " the thingness of the this." And 
 now, after a well-spent day, still hon- 
 ored, and still useful variously, he is, 
 as a gracious reward, enjoying a serene 
 and tranquil evening, in prospect of
 
 ioo The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 the blessed to-morrow the crown, the 
 white robes, the everlasting song. And 
 we heartily salute him with our Serus 
 in coelum redeas. 
 
 And now, last, not least, 
 
 REV. JOHN H. BISBEE, OF WORTHING- 
 
 TON. 
 
 Our mountain man and minister. 
 And the minister whose pendulum of 
 journeyings swung patiently between 
 Worthington and Chesterfield during 
 the millennium of twenty-eight years 
 to say nothing now of the far more 
 of home and parish travel over hill 
 and dale, and 
 
 " On the mountain tops appearing " 
 
 ought long ago to have received a 
 veteran's life pension of a thousand
 
 The Hampshire Ministers. 101 
 
 pounds a year. Head of a large and 
 flourishing church : for, in those early 
 ages, his and mine, our neighbors, 
 Japheth and Arphaxad, had no craze 
 for gold mines, no craving for a home 
 in sight and hearing of rail and 
 whistle ; nor were our hill-tops and 
 hill-sides made bare of choice trees 
 and saplings to feed prairie fires and 
 fevers. Grand old town, this Wor- 
 thington Hebron of Hampshire ! and 
 well did the shepherd there feed his 
 flock, and gather the lambs. And his 
 works do follow him. To-day a man 
 has no right to be buried or born 
 there without Brother Bisbee's leave 
 and blessing. Retiring after a toil- 
 some day to rest himself a little for 
 the longer journey and the better 
 land, he has left behind him upon his
 
 iO2 The Hampshire Ministers. 
 
 beloved people his own rare personal- 
 ity and impress, to remain there till 
 the mountains be removed, and be 
 carried into the midst of the sea. 
 His footprints still on every rood 
 and rod of that domain ; his tears 
 still enriching the soil ; his hand still 
 carrying bread and balm ; his voice 
 and smile of sympathy and glad- 
 ness, and the soft memory of his vir- 
 tues, lingering yet, 
 
 " While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains 
 Repeat the sounding joy."
 
 THE OLD WEBSTER'S SPELLING- 
 BOOK. 
 
 THIS gray goose-quill has already 
 scrawled for the Gazette some few 
 things that were, or seemed to be, in 
 my Vermont home and life, in my times 
 of old : the scenery and scenes ; the 
 village green ; the meeting-house, and 
 minister and music ; the trainers and 
 troopers ; the tavern and tippling ; the 
 old school-house, thoroughly warmed 
 once, and once for all ; the school- 
 ma'am, venerable for antiquity and wis- 
 dom so she seemed ; the pastimes 
 and plays husking, paring, and other 
 " bees ; " the thousand and forty-seven 
 fictions and fancies that play round a 
 boy's head, both when he sleeps and
 
 IO4 Webster s Spelling-Book. 
 
 when he wakes, or, the kinks within it, 
 and hard to be straightened out. 
 
 But there is yet one thing more, a 
 thing masterful and preeminent, whose 
 high praises are specially deserving to 
 be said and sung, namely : 
 
 OUR OLD WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK. 
 It lies before me, the genuine arti- 
 cle : not the identical copy I used and 
 was brought up on, long time ago, 
 but of the same edition. It looks old, 
 as do the rest of us, old people. It is 
 nearly as old as I am, and has come 
 spelling its way along down through 
 two-thirds of a century, to these odd 
 times. How long it had lain in the 
 Boston Antiquarian bookstore where I 
 found it thirty-five years ago, I cannot 
 tell. It is an institution yes, a uni-
 
 Webster 's Spelling-Book. io5 
 
 versity. It has trained and strained 
 more heads than any other book of the 
 kind ever did, or perhaps ever will. 
 Later editions have been sent out ; but 
 give me the old wine, which to my lik- 
 ing is better. Very plain, even homely, 
 in outward appearance. Never mind. 
 Homely people are generally the best. 
 They have to be making up for the 
 homeliness without by the handsome- 
 ness within. It is a blessed necessity. 
 The back of the cover is of coarse 
 linen cloth very coarse threads 
 within sight of each other. The sides 
 of cover are of layers of brown paper, 
 with an over-all of thin, blue paper. 
 The paper and pages within look as 
 if they might have come from a mill 
 using bleached straw and slacked lime, 
 with a little sulphur thrown in to give
 
 io6 Webster's Spelling-Book. 
 
 the tinting. No evidence of iron- 
 board and smoothing-plane. Please 
 do not bring here your microscope, 
 .nor criticise sharply. One excellence 
 the paper certainly has : it is tough 
 and strong like the rugged and sturdy 
 virtues of people in the olden time 
 which is more and better than can be 
 said of much of our modern letter- 
 press. 
 
 And now as to the contents, the 
 meat and marrow. Quite a book in 
 size one hundred and sixty-eight 
 pages, and nuts of things in it, all 
 through. The Preface we didn't have 
 to read. But the next half-dozen 
 pages " Analysis of Sounds " we, in 
 our school, had to commit to memory 
 and recite. This amazed us, and does 
 still. Just to think of a child eight or
 
 Webster s Spelling-Book. 107 
 
 nine years old required to recite un- 
 derstandingly the opening sentence : 
 " Language, in its more limited sense, 
 is the expression of ideas by articulate 
 sounds." 
 
 You might about as well set that 
 child to comprehending those vast 
 themes, verities so important, but how 
 profound, viz.: The wherefore of the 
 why, the thingness of the this, and the 
 thusness of the though. Makes one 
 think of Horace Greeley, who, after 
 reading a grandiloquent communica- 
 tion sent to him for the press, said of 
 it, that it " obfuscated all his intellects, 
 and circumgumfrigobrighisticated all 
 his comprehensibilities." 
 
 And come to the A, B, C page. In 
 my times of old we children learned 
 our A, B, C's at school, and not at
 
 io8 Webster s Spelling-Book. 
 
 home, from lettered blocks and other 
 knick-knacks, as in these latter days. 
 Some of those first things at school 
 were quite impressive to the looker-on 
 and listener. One case we well re- 
 member, and a case it was. Stubby 
 boy, round-faced and ruddy. Leaned 
 up hard against school-ma'am. Began 
 low. Teacher said, " A little louder, 
 Jamie." And didn't he ! " A-yah, 
 B-yah, C-yah ; " and with suck vehe- 
 mence ! No blame if you shall think 
 that the ceiling shook, and the air was 
 torn, and that the black ants, foraging 
 on his dinner in the entry, lifted up 
 their heads, startled, and wondering 
 whether it was thunder, or only an 
 earthquake. It might have been both. 
 And see the chap fixing his lips for 
 the next explosion. Or perhaps he is
 
 Webster s Spelling-Book. 109 
 
 looking around to see if his splendid 
 achievement is duly appreciated. If 
 so, up comes the school-ma'am's hand 
 pointing penknife between fingers 
 and deftly touches the side of his 
 head, and swings that head around to 
 right front, and to the great business 
 in hand preparing this blossom or 
 bud of possibilities for his high voca- 
 tion perhaps of field-driver, or con- 
 stable, or corporal, or President of the 
 United States who can tell? 
 
 High day when we advanced to 
 Table No. 2 bag, big, bog. But the 
 almost dizzying elevation when we 
 ascended and attained to Table No. 4 
 baker, brier, cider, crazy. It is 
 very observable, this placing crazy 
 next after cider. Here are fact and 
 philosophy, cause and effect; indeed,^
 
 no Webster s Spelling-Book. 
 
 temperance lecture entire. How those 
 tables of spelling lessons, once mas- 
 tered, cling to the memory ! The first 
 word given you, and your memory 
 runs on to the next, and the next : 
 much as in a line of bricks set up on 
 end, and set a-going. The rough and 
 tumble of threescore years and more 
 have scarcely dimmed the page. 
 
 Our spelling-book we mean the 
 one we bought in Boston has about 
 it a look of yellow sorrowfulness ; in- 
 duced, no doubt, from its frequent 
 failures to make good spellers, not- 
 withstanding its having done its best ; 
 very much as with the moon, her sad 
 face, because of the sad sights she has 
 been compelled to see with those great 
 eyes looking down nightly on this 
 mundane sphere. You will be told
 
 Webster s Spelling- Book. in 
 
 that some men, and some maidens, 
 too, haven't the capability to become 
 good spellers, just as some have no 
 ear for music. Some will suggest that 
 good spellers, like good poets, are 
 born, not made. Waiving this point, 
 one thing is certain : the orthograph- 
 ical limb of dear old King's English 
 often gets wofully wrenched, and 
 goes lame and limping, and begging 
 for crutches. Hard usage indeed, as 
 with the man who went down from 
 Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among 
 thieves, who stripped him of his rai- 
 ment, and wounded him, and left him 
 half dead. Some letters, spelled as 
 you have seen, and, at seeing, have 
 been astonied one hour. Sorry for 
 postmasters and the postal service. 
 Have pity, oh, my friends, on the
 
 112 Webster s Spelling-Book. 
 
 printers ; what a time they must have 
 of it ! No marvel if those mail-bags 
 blush blood red, and do groan, being 
 burdened. Is the mail-wagon an am- 
 bulance or a hearse for carrying the 
 wounded or dead ? And not only in 
 such hard usage does the King's Eng- 
 lish receive wrong ; it inflicts wrong. 
 "The letter killeth." We read of 
 dead languages. Sometimes in read- 
 ing a letter or book you wonder with 
 a very sore amazement. A few days 
 ago I received from a college graduate 
 and writer of books a letter in which 
 two words were misspelled. How 
 many of your letters give you Febru- 
 ary as Febuary f how many, separate 
 as seperate f And one church member 
 complaining of another member in the 
 " churtch"
 
 Webster s Spelling-Book. 1 1 3 
 
 Well, let us spare our censure, and 
 say, pity and charity. A great misfor- 
 tune, this we speak of utterly a fault 
 in any man, and especially in any per- 
 son pretending to be a lady, and 
 should be shunned by all manner of 
 means. In my ancient times the spell- 
 ing lesson was studied, column by 
 column, from the spelling-book, and 
 spelled by the classes, old and young 
 alike, standing on the floor the scholar 
 taking his place, and keeping it if he 
 could, the month in and out, without 
 having his head cut off every night a 
 rather discouraging operation to an 
 aspiring lad or lass. But here we 
 come to debatable ground, and will 
 call a halt. As to aim and achieve- 
 ment in this line if the personal men- 
 tion may be allowed. One winter
 
 1 14 Webster s Spelling-Book. 
 
 is remembered when boy kept such 
 headship all through the term, and 
 carried off the great prize, a punched 
 and pendant silver ninepence, tow- 
 string and all. Perhaps less of sliding 
 down hill in those months. Or, with 
 your farther indulgence. A noted 
 spelling match in a neighboring town. 
 Visitors invited to give in their names, 
 and take part in the contest. Sides 
 chosen. Came out even at 8 P.M. 
 Another choosing up. Came out even 
 again at 9. " Let us have this out." 
 One from each side must go upon 
 the floor, and spell for the side. 
 Against aforesaid boy was placed 
 an older person, Miss H. L'., who 
 had taught school four summers. 
 Plied and pumped with the spelling- 
 book fore and aft, and aft and fore.
 
 Webster's Spelling-Book. 1 1 5 
 
 " The combat deepens." By and by 
 the word apropos was put to the fairer 
 and gentler, and she spelled it appro- 
 pos, putting in one too many p's, and 
 boy, getting it right, carried off the 
 glitter. But we will not boast of 
 things without our measure. 
 
 And what a day that was when we 
 stood on the hill-top of human great- 
 ness, and grappled with our first read- 
 z#--lesson ! " No man may put off the 
 law of God ; " " My joy is in his law 
 all the day." See that boy, in his 
 mighty wrestlings to spell out the 
 words ! Lips moving vigorously ; 
 brow knit, book turned this way and 
 that, to give room for the great idea to 
 come in ; his whole frame writhing, and 
 screwed down hard and tight to the 
 supreme task. Perhaps he will " fetch
 
 1 1 6 Webster s Spelling-Book. 
 
 it," perhaps not ; but will come out of 
 the throes as an older boy did from 
 the word picturesque pronouncing it 
 picture-squee. But don't you give that 
 small boy up. There is promise for 
 him in such an energy and bent as 
 that. 
 
 Then a succession of easy and fa- 
 miliar lessons ; " The time will come, 
 etc. ; " " The dog growls and barks, 
 etc. ; " " William, tell me how many 
 mills make a cent, etc. " (Some 
 " mills " do not make a cent at all, 
 but lose money all the time.) One of 
 these commands impressed us special- 
 ly, and does still ; " Henry, hold up 
 your head, and speak loud and plain." 
 Herein is philosophy. All the success 
 in General Jackson's administration 
 all that it had is told in his four
 
 Webster *s Spelling-Book. 117 
 
 words : " / take the responsibility" 
 That lad, speaking softly and parting 
 his hair in the middle, and carrying 
 his head one side, and himself stoop- 
 ingly another dude has already lost 
 half the battle of life. 
 
 Then in our spelling-book those 
 beautiful little sonnets ; The Rose, The 
 Lamb, The Goldfinch starved in a cage ; 
 all admirably adapted to cultivate in a 
 child, or man, the finer feelings ; sensi- 
 bility, sympathy, gentleness, kindness. 
 A boy taking home to his heart those 
 four little songlets, would never after- 
 ward rob a bird's nest, nor " needlessly 
 set foot upon a worm," but, " having 
 humanity, , forewarned, would step 
 aside, and let the reptile live." 
 
 But come to the fables and the pict- 
 ures / Here is richness. "Of the
 
 1 1 8 Webster 's Spelling- Book. 
 
 boy that stole apples." See that old 
 man under the tree. Continental coat 
 and hat ; that determined attitude ; 
 arm drawn back to a fearful tenseness ; 
 2O-horse power of will in that elbow ; 
 hand gripping the stone (grass has 
 been given up) .which is to make " the 
 young sauce-box hasten down from the 
 tree, and beg the old man's pardon." 
 And the moral appended, " If good 
 words and gentle means will not re- 
 claim the wicked," etc. Then Fable 
 No. 2. " The country maid and her 
 milk-pail." Pail upset, and milk 
 spilled, and maid, like Niobe, " voice- 
 less in her woe " : 
 
 " Ferlorner 'n a musquash ef you've 
 took and dreened the swamp." 
 
 Don't blame her. Many a maid has 
 made a worse ado about a smaller
 
 Webster s Spelling-Book. 1 1 9 
 
 mishap than that. And Fable No. 3. 
 " The fox and the swallow." Fox 
 with water under him, to drown him, 
 flies above him to devour him, and feet 
 tangled in weeds most decidedly a 
 predicament, yet declining the swal- 
 low's aid, choosing rather to endure 
 the present swarm, already half gorged, 
 than be assailed by another and hun- 
 grier. And Fable 4. That cat, cov- 
 ered with meal, and hanging by her feet 
 as if dead, and thus deceiving the rats 
 and mice to their undoing. But of all 
 these Fables, the 8th and last hits our 
 common life oftenest and hardest ; sel- 
 fishness and sense of justice getting 
 here muddled and mixed up in ludi- 
 crous confusion on the question, 
 Whether it is your bull that has gored 
 my ox, or mine yours ? About once a
 
 I2O Webster's Spelling-Book. 
 
 week through his lifetime is that fable 
 brought to recollection by what a man 
 sees and passes through in " this poor 
 miserable world." 
 
 Putting on the spectacles of my an- 
 cientness, I have been looking anew 
 through the old spelling-book to see 
 how, on the whole, the old friend 
 would appear to me now in these lat- 
 ter days to which it and I have come 
 down. Grandly, sir, is my ready an- 
 swer ; never before handsomer than 
 now I mean the book. And so will 
 it appear to you, my friend, from the 
 glance or the scrutiny, if you be the 
 sensible man I take you for. Useful 
 lessons on weights, measures, coins, 
 seasons, and times ; choice maxims, to 
 guide our conduct every day ; obser- 
 vations on domestic economy ; a finely
 
 Webster s Spelling-Book. 121 
 
 drawn picture of rural and farm life ; 
 just as Cowper tells us that God 
 made the country, and man the town. 
 Admirable collection and grouping 
 of things, coin and currency, ready 
 unto all good works. You observe 
 throughout the book a high 'moral 
 and religious tone and tonic, yes, 
 a Biblical and Christian tone and 
 teaching. 
 
 Our old spelling-book has its clos- 
 ing and coronation in an excellent 
 " moral catechism," eight pages, on 
 these themes : " Of Humility, Mercy, 
 Peace-makers, Purity of Heart, Anger, 
 Revenge, Justice, Generosity, Grati- 
 tude, Truth, Charity and giving of 
 Alms, Avarice, Frugality and Econ- 
 omy, Industry and Cheerfulness." 
 These, surely, are excellent things to
 
 122 Webster s Spelling-Boo k. 
 
 be learned in schools and elsewhere. 
 And the earlier the better. 
 
 I said Scriptural and Christian. 
 Our spelling-book gave us Bible max- 
 ims in Bible words. We were not 
 frightened in those days by alarm- 
 cries of " church and state." Nobody 
 was wise enough to tell us that to save 
 the land from utter rottenness and 
 putrescence the Bible and prayer must 
 be excluded from the public schools. 
 We were not taught that to be good 
 patriots we must be infidels. We were 
 simple enough to believe that to train 
 a tree to grace and beauty we must 
 begin with its early growth. Our old 
 English Reader told us that "Just as 
 the twig is bent the tree's inclined ; " 
 and we had so little sense as to believe 
 it. We hadn't attained to the wisdom
 
 Webster s Spelling-Book. 123 
 
 of thinking that the best method in all 
 education is to let the devil have the 
 making of your children, and leave to 
 you the mending of them as best you 
 can. We hadn't received the new ver- 
 sion it isn't yet quite ready for the 
 press giving the translation as from 
 the Hebrew : Train up a child in the 
 way he should not go, and when he is 
 old he will come out all right. True, 
 there is the FAMILY, which is fans et 
 princeps in all good nurture and cult- 
 ure. There are also the sanctuary 
 and Sabbath-school ; blessed minis- 
 tries. But all these three agree in 
 one, and are built up upon one the 
 Word of God. The Pilgrim and Puri- 
 tan Fathers, coming to these shores, 
 were right early in rearing the school - 
 house, and placing the Bible in it, as
 
 124 Webster s Spelling-Boo k. 
 
 beyond comparison the best of all 
 books. School-house and Bible in it- 
 meeting-house, and minister, and town 
 meeting; from thence the shepherd, 
 the stone of Israel our New England 
 Israel, as it is, or was. If the Bible 
 is not in our public schools now, as 
 aforetime, it is because it has been put 
 out, thrust out. But not to sermonize 
 farther now and here. 
 
 The school-house and our old spell- 
 ing-book all hail and farewell ! The 
 closing words of the spelling-book 
 shall be my closing here : " Q. What 
 has Christ said concerning gloomy 
 Christians ? A. He has pronounced 
 them hypocrites ; and commanded his 
 followers not to copy their sad coun- 
 tenances and disfigured faces ; but 
 even in their acts of humiliation to
 
 Webster s Spelling- Book. 125 
 
 anoint their heads and wash their 
 faces. Christ intended by this, that 
 religion does not consist in, nor re- 
 quire, a monkish sadness and gravity ; 
 on the other hand, he intimates that 
 appearances of sanctity are generally 
 the marks of hypocrisy. He expressly 
 enjoins upon his followers marks of 
 cheerfulness. Indeed, the only true 
 ground of perpetual cheerfulness is a 
 consciousness of ever having done 
 well, and an assurance of divine favor. 
 Finis."
 
 REMINISCENCES OF BOYHOOD LIFE 
 IN VERMONT SIXTY AND MORE 
 YEARS AGO. 
 
 No place on earth like your old and 
 early home to set you musing and 
 mumbling. Wonderful the magic 
 spell under which you shake off years 
 from your shoulders, and, for a little, 
 live your young life over again. 
 Everything you see talks to you, 
 and you to it. The stone, the stump, 
 the stream, the apple-tree that hung 
 temptingly over the school-ground 
 fence, and laden with forbidden fruit ; 
 the spot where the old strutting "gob- 
 ble turkey," seeing your red cap, gave 
 chase, and came off second best ; the 
 spot where, in a nightmare, you saw,
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 127 
 
 crossing your path, a huge bear, with 
 a long fence-rail in his mouth, and 
 glaring at you ; the place of the sheep- 
 pen, and the annual washings giving 
 you the shudders, in seeing and pity- 
 ing ; the spot by the house-corner 
 where, on Sabbath afternoon, Septem- 
 ber n, 1814, you sat with brother and 
 sister, and heard the cannon-firing in 
 the battle of Lake Champlain prop- 
 erly the closing battle in the War of 
 1812, so-called; the brook and rocks 
 where stood the bark-mill into which, 
 a few days later, you ran, and saw 
 shiveringly through the cracks in the 
 mill and in your eyes those awful, 
 horrid men, Britishers, red-coats, pass- 
 ing on their way home from Burlington 
 to Canada ; the piece of road over 
 which you led old Mr. Murray, the
 
 128 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 blind man, and for which distinguished 
 service he paid you munificently, mak- 
 ing over to you and your heirs and 
 assigns forever all his right and title 
 (five dollars) to the school-house you 
 were just then passing. True, the 
 house was not palatial in size and 
 looks, and was innocent of having so 
 much as dreamed of such superfluities 
 as paint and stove ; and in no long 
 time an incendiary fire made the room 
 warmer than it had ever before been. 
 Not a vast estate, to be sure ; but it 
 was " yourn," and, while it lasted, was 
 of as much use to you as many another 
 and prouder possession has been to an 
 older but not wiser than you. Hap- 
 pily, before the conflagration, you had 
 gotten from the house the best it could 
 give the first run of sap, so to speak.
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 1 29 
 
 Those high writing benches, and on 
 them the names graven by art and 
 man's device, and thus made illustrious 
 for all time. But that masterpiece of 
 tyranny and torment, those under- 
 benches, narrow and cramped, where, 
 bolt upright, and with feet dangling, 
 the youngest America sat, or fell off 
 you did both by turns it would take 
 twenty languages to execrate ade- 
 quately this part of that school-house's 
 conveniences and accommodations. 
 
 And then our "school-ma'am" of 
 that ancient time. We go back to an 
 almost fabulous antiquity to have one 
 more look at her not that you your- 
 self are so old. Miss P. H. We seem 
 to see her now tall, straight, stately, 
 slim, spruce, staid, and sedate ; face 
 open, placid, bland, like Washington's ; 
 
 9
 
 130 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 eyes blue ; hair of hue somewhere be- 
 tween saffron and sulphur ; of gentle 
 and condescending ways ; strict with- 
 out sternness in discipline : " You must 
 go straight home, and not loiter by the 
 way ; must take off caps and make 
 your bow to every one passing you on 
 the road." Sidewalks were none 
 and roads themselves were rudimental 
 and primitive. The custom or act of 
 whistling, when passing people in the 
 street, or in their presence anywhere 
 mark of the rustic and the boor, 
 indicating low breeding and a low 
 plane of life didn't, in that early day, 
 set one questioning whether his home 
 was among Fiji Islanders, or among a 
 people having some idea of good man- 
 ners, gentility, decency, decorum. 
 But returning to our school-ma'am.
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 1 3 1 
 
 We have since that early time met 
 with teachers many and various some 
 very good, and some indifferently good 
 some wise and some otherwise. But 
 this one, our own and primeval, ex- 
 celled them all. She was peerless, 
 transcendent, ineffable. 
 
 " And still you gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
 That one small head could carry all she knew." 
 
 You go back in fancy to those be- 
 ginnings with the good dame, and of 
 your own grand march of mind : 
 
 " Propt on the marsh, a dwelling now I see, 
 The humble school-house of my A, B, C, 
 Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire, 
 Waited in ranks the wished command to fire ; 
 Then all together, when the signal came, 
 Discharged their a-b abs against the dame." 
 
 When you are seven years of
 
 132 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 the family home is changed from the 
 North District to the East, the pleas- 
 antest in the town. Here your boy- 
 hood its ups and downs, its day- 
 dreams and night-visions, the mirth 
 and the melancholy, the alternations of 
 schooling and work. Boyhood ! The 
 apostle, in i Cor. xiii., speaks of only 
 two life periods the childish and the 
 manly. But can you not conceive of a 
 something wedged in between that 
 oddity and nondescript, the average 
 boy? Have poets or painters any- 
 where pictured him farther than in 
 roughest outline ? You may as well 
 give it up. He is a puzzle and a mys- 
 tification. 
 
 But your boyhood, and the scenes 
 revisited and remembered by you from 
 over the interval of nearly sixty years.
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 133 
 
 You sit again on that boulder, and 
 stand by the brook, now dry, or push 
 into " the sugar works," 
 
 " And the tree is your seat, that once lent you 
 a shade." 
 
 The slope where you slid down hill 
 in winter. The interminable half- 
 mile to school. The school-house 
 for once on a sightly, pleasant spot, 
 and not penuriously shoved off into 
 some swampy or rocky corner, where 
 the land is good for nothing else. 
 The meeting-house hill you had to 
 climb in going home on Sundays. 
 The copse of wood where you searched 
 diligently for a straight stick from 
 which to make a broom, or a crooked 
 one for sled-runners. The tall black 
 cherry tree in the upland pasture,
 
 134 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 where you heard those midgets, Ed- 
 gar and Willie, explain philosophically 
 why the gray squirrel, shot dead, didn't 
 come down quickly "Coz he thought 
 he was alive." The " Sodom " (next 
 to " Snarlsboro ") to which you were 
 sent to mill on horseback, large bag 
 strung across, and small boy perched 
 on top. The west meadow, peopled 
 by a community of bumble-bees, clad 
 in their regimentals, and affording to 
 boydom on rainy days in haying-time 
 a field for heroism and enterprise in 
 breaking up their habitations. And, 
 not least, the brick school-house at the 
 centre, where, on a well-remembered 
 afternoon, you, with J. W., were de- 
 livered of your first Latin translation 
 (of terra est rotunda], and thereby 
 gained an elevation from which to be
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 136 
 
 sorry for all such of mankind as were 
 not familiar with Latin literature. 
 
 Of all the notable places in our 
 town, the Village Green easily bore 
 off the palm. Large and level, not 
 smooth, nor adorned with shrubbery 
 and sidewalks and sylvan shades 
 arbor days and village improvement 
 societies hadn't been dreamed of. But 
 the grand meeting-house was upon it 
 centrally, then and since one of the 
 costliest and goodliest in Vermont, 
 and now, in its almost hundredth year, 
 the town's occupancy and pride. To 
 our young vision it was a veritable 
 St. Peter's of Rome. 
 
 Our calendar in those early ages 
 didn't blaze numerously with holidays. 
 But we had notably two in the year, 
 the training days, June and Fall, and
 
 136 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 the coming of these was calculated 
 with an accuracy and a definiteness 
 unsurpassed by astronomers in their 
 great vocation and their greatest 
 achievements. Two mornings in the 
 year, certainly, on which boys didn't 
 need to be shaken violently out of 
 sleep. 
 
 But the Green ! Ruled sovereignly 
 by the geese all the year round, ex- 
 cepting two days, and patriotically 
 abdicated by them on those two days, 
 on behalf of the trainers and troopers 
 and gingerbread stands, and for the 
 saving of the nation. Hail Columbia ! 
 Evidently the trainers had not been 
 drilled at West Point, and the troopers 
 had not graduated from a riding- 
 school. " Light Infantry " deemed 
 themselves a little prim in dress and
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 137 
 
 movement, but " Floodwood " jogged 
 on miscellaneously, every one for 
 himself, a sort of royal democracy. 
 But we had not grown critical ; and 
 the trappings and tinsel martingales, 
 spurs, epaulets, guns, drums, plumes, 
 knapsacks, and canteens were quite 
 imposing, not to say "exceeding mag- 
 nificat," to young eyes. 
 
 And then the tavern across the 
 way " hotel " was reserved for a 
 more advanced civilization. With us 
 it was tavern, and on training days 
 our tavern was by a long reach the 
 busiest place in town ; and, to say 
 truth, threescore years, since passing, 
 have not in this town effaced wholly 
 the calamitous effects. But the demi- 
 johns and decanters and tumblers and 
 toddy-sticks long ago took leave of
 
 138 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 that house glad riddance and to- 
 day, in their stead, is the Post-Office, 
 with boxes and benches for the better 
 use and service. 
 
 "There's a good time coming, boys ! 
 Wait a little longer " wait and work. 
 
 The temperance cause, most glori- 
 ous of causes, is grandly marching on, 
 good angels helping, and is sure of 
 the ultimate triumph. God and con- 
 science, and truth and right and 
 reason, and the Gospel entire, and the 
 eternal years, are for it, and are against 
 all those who, in this day of light, are 
 doing the evil. Sure as the alterna- 
 tion of day and night, the day is 
 speeding towards us when this whole 
 business of rum-selling and its fruit 
 and issue, the making of drunkards,
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 139 
 
 will be universally an astonishment 
 and an hissing the world's amaze- 
 ment that such a thing could ever 
 have been. Good friends, better quit 
 that business, if engaged in it, and that 
 right early. There certainly is some- 
 thing better for a humane and manly 
 man to be doing in this world, as 
 preparation for the to-morrow and 
 to-morrow before him, than to be 
 kindling and feeding these death-fires 
 in his fellow-men. All honor to my 
 native town of to-day, for the good 
 fight it has fought against the rum- 
 fiend, and for its present stand and 
 name as a temperance town in a 
 temperance commonwealth. 
 
 I meant to have said a word about 
 the land here. Look upon those 
 wheat-fields. I have not seen richer
 
 140 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 in Illinois. In comparison of the 
 loamy and generous mould here, the 
 soil in Massachusetts, much, if not 
 most of it, is thin, stingy, and grudg- 
 ing, as if intent on solving the problem 
 of how to get from the farmer the 
 most in sowing, and give him back the 
 least at reaping. " If this be treason 
 (to Massachusetts), make the most 
 of it." 
 
 Our visit has, of course, its pathet- 
 ic side. We miss the once-familiar 
 forms and faces. The landscape, 
 hills, vales, meadows, streams, River 
 Lamoille, beautiful Lake Champlain, 
 and the Adirondacks beyond Nature 
 in her best attire and moods. 
 
 " Heavens ! what a goodly prospect 
 spreads around ! " All these are 
 much as of old. But of the people
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 141 
 
 there remain but a scanty few, 
 scarcely more than half a dozen, who 
 had attained to adult years when, in 
 1827, we left for academy and college, 
 and regions beyond. The many have 
 passed. We visit their graves, and 
 let memory have scope, without put- 
 ting on sackcloth, as if disappointed 
 at finding that the prophets do not 
 live always in this world. There is 
 another and better. " And now 
 abideth faith, hope, charity these 
 three " a strong consolation ; and, 
 with good old Dr. Watts, we will sing 
 again : " Let every tear be dry." 
 Most affecting of such places are the 
 Machpelahs of parents, brothers, 
 sisters. 
 
 The dear old town ! We could 
 wish there were more of public spirit
 
 142 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 
 
 and enterprise to beautify and adorn, 
 where nature has been so lavish of 
 her gifts. But we are not in a fault- 
 finding humor. " With all thy faults 
 I love thee still." It was our early 
 home. 
 
 " The earliest tie that binds the heart, 
 
 Will ever be the brightest, strongest, 
 And though the treasured links may part, 
 Their memory will linger longest." 
 
 Here we were born, and, we hope, 
 were born again. Here, and espe- 
 cially in that inner sanctuary, holiest 
 of all, the family household, were 
 vouchsafed us those plastic influences 
 which, more than all things upon us 
 since, have molded us to what we 
 are, and have been and done, for 
 better or for worse. 
 
 A Christian family the thousand
 
 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 143 
 
 and one accidents and incidents- 
 God lifting up the fallen sparrow the 
 cares and toils, the loves and longings, 
 the partings and the welcomes home, 
 the Bible-reading and Sabbath-keep- 
 ing, the old bass-viol, the singings 
 often, and the praying alway ; and 
 now, how the fond recollections are all 
 the more an enchantment and a power 
 upon us for the years and changes 
 that have come and gone, 
 
 l< As streams their channels deeper wear." 
 
 I close these jottings with a stanza 
 from a sweet hymn composed by my 
 Yale classmate, Coxe, late Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Maryland : 
 
 " How such holy memories cluster, 
 
 Like the stars when storms are past ; 
 Pointing up to that far heaven 
 We may hope to gain at last."
 
 LETTER READ AT THE ONE HUN- 
 DRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVER- 
 SARY OF THE FIRST CONGREGA- 
 TIONAL CHURCH OF AMHERST, 
 
 MASS. 
 
 THE authorities here bid me use the 
 utmost freedom in personal reminis- 
 cences. The egotism involved must 
 be borne with. 
 
 Well remember my first journey 
 hither, specially the ride from Palmer ; 
 the muddy roads, the shell and shackle 
 of a coach, with more than a mild 
 flavor of antiquity about it ; harness 
 giving out three times before we 
 reached Belchertown ; our Jonathan of 
 a driver well equipped with straps and 
 strings against contingencies. No 
 " Sheridan's Ride " that. Called, as by
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 direction, on Edward Dickinson, Esq., 
 then occupying the east part of Gen- 
 eral Mack's house. After tea with 
 him, a Mr. Luke Sweetser came with 
 lantern, and led me up through a piece 
 of woods to his house among the trees. 
 Sabbath morning, and a nervous head- 
 ache. Asked Rev. Mr. Spofford to sit 
 with me, and offer the long prayer. 
 And what did he pray for ? One thing, 
 certainly : " that in the question and 
 trial now before us, thy young servant 
 and this people may be guided by the 
 wisdom from above, and be led to such 
 a conclusion as, will be for the glory 
 of God, and the best interests of his 
 kingdom." Good man, this Mr. Spof- 
 ford; I forgave him, and forgive now. 
 But oh ! and alas ! to be strung up 
 like that to begin with ! 
 
 10
 
 146 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 Got through that day and evening 
 somehow. The next morning, the 
 church and parish committees met at 
 the office of Edward Dickinson, Esq. 
 I was asked to be present. They had in 
 some way rightly learned that in com- 
 ing I had in mind to stay but two 
 Sabbaths at most. Against this they 
 strongly protested. My own mind 
 was unalterably fixed. Candidating ! 
 Whereunto shall I liken it ? Behold 
 and consider a fish caught with a hook, 
 and hung up by the gills. To think of 
 it : a man standing in a pulpit before 
 a people all eyes and ears, eagerly 
 intent on learning what manner of 
 man this is, and himself, if it be so 
 with him, saying, impliedly : " Won't 
 you, beloved, take me for your min- 
 ister ? Do, please." Well, some
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 147 
 
 persons, strung and tuned humanly, 
 can do some things which others can- 
 not. A public sentiment just now is 
 worthily asking that our executions for 
 murder be by electricity, and so be as 
 short and painless as possible. The 
 letter to me said, "Supply ; " and I had 
 come with thoughts as far from can- 
 didating as I could be, and yet be 
 here. 
 
 After nearly a two hours' talk, it 
 was decided that I should remain and 
 preach on the following Sabbath, and 
 that, in the meantime, I should call on 
 the families of the parish the commit- 
 tees taking turns in leading me about. 
 Of that week's work Esquire Dickinson 
 was said to have said : " That Colton 
 is a marvel of a man to visit two 
 hundred families in one week, and tire
 
 148 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 out seven committee-men, and pat 
 every woman's baby." 
 
 The two Sabbaths I have now 
 spoken of were the first and second 
 in March, 1840. The call came in due 
 time. June loth following was ap- 
 pointed for my ordination. 
 
 I here reach a point in personal 
 experience memorable indeed to me. 
 I had come to Amherst, was counseled 
 to come by the Andover Seminary 
 faculty ; came to a large church and 
 parish, to a people intimately con- 
 nected with a chief New England col- 
 lege, of which I had not been a 
 member ; came from long and close 
 seclusion of student life, to new scenes, 
 cares, toils, burdens. Could I prove 
 equal to the demands ? Many, my 
 best friends, were in doubt of me.
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 149 
 
 Wouldn't it have been better to begin 
 with a less exacting charge ? 
 
 Tuesday, June 9. Came from Bos- 
 ton with my preacher, Rev. Wm. M. 
 Rogers of that city. Council waiting 
 for us at the house of Mr. Gideon 
 Delano, in Amity Street. Council 
 organized at 2 P.M., with President 
 Humphrey as moderator. Docu- 
 ments presented and approved. 
 Then the march to the church mod- 
 erator and candidate arm in arm, and 
 followed by a large company, repre- 
 sentatives of the churches. Some- 
 thing of form, if not of comeliness, in 
 the times of old. Large gathering in 
 the church. Stood nearly two hours 
 for examination. Whether I stood 
 the examination itself, I do not say. 
 Coming out of the church after that
 
 i5o Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 ordeal, I was met at the door by a 
 Mr. Clark Green, asking me to come 
 to his house on the evening of the 
 next day (ordination day) and marry 
 his daughter. Well, well, didn't this 
 mean business and binding? 
 
 Ordination day, Wednesday, June 
 10. Charming day. Great number 
 of friends from down the river. 
 Church filled. The Hampshire Ga- 
 zette of the following Tuesday said : 
 " All the parts were listened to with 
 very unusual interest. The sermon was 
 masterly in matter and manner. Dr. 
 Humphrey, giving charge to the peo- 
 ple, said : ' When your pastor comes, 
 receive him wherever you may be. 
 Disturb no dust, make no apologies. 
 Do not spend the first half of the visit 
 in complaining because he doesn't
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. i5i 
 
 come oftener, and the last half because 
 it is so short ; but make his visit so 
 pleasant that he cant stay away." 1 
 
 Thus the great day and occasion 
 great to me. At evening twilight I 
 was on my way to the wedding in Mill 
 Valley. Met Judge Dickinson in the 
 road opposite the president's house. 
 Saw at once from his dress and un- 
 shaven face that he had not attended 
 my ordination. Was it come to this at 
 my beginnings here ? Deacon in the 
 church, college educated, one of the 
 wealthiest in the town. But no mat- 
 ter now for the reasons, if I ever knew 
 them, of this holding back. Enough 
 my grateful testimony, that Judge 
 Dickinson became, in no long time, 
 and continued to the last to be, one of 
 my best friends and helpers.
 
 1 52 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 Leaving the wedding party, I 
 returned to the Amherst House, to 
 my room, south front, directly over 
 the office. But there was no sleep for 
 me that night, nor lying down. Two 
 such days, with their draughts on 
 nature, the exactions and exhaustions. 
 The strain was nigh to breaking. 
 Once in the night I said to myself, 
 " This is all a dream, and I shall wake, 
 and be relieved." But, the curtain 
 turned aside, and the full moon shin- 
 ing brightly, and down there in plain 
 sight were the signs on offices and 
 stores. " This certainly is no dream." 
 Then a more than half purpose to 
 leave Amherst before morning. Knew 
 and said, " There will be a noise over 
 this. Strange freak, man called and 
 settled, and ran away the first night."
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 But then there were five reasons which 
 might satisfy my friends chiefly this, 
 that I had been unwisely counseled 
 to come here, instead of taking one of 
 the lighter charges that had been 
 offered me. Then there were thoughts 
 of dark and desperate expedients. 
 Blessed thing, that morning follows 
 night. But that morning brought no 
 relief to me. At 10 o'clock Mr. J. S. 
 Adams called. Saw I was cast down. 
 His gentleness of voice and ways, some 
 of you can remember. But there was 
 as yet no easement. Providential that 
 the weekly church prayer-meeting 
 came that (Thursday) afternoon. 
 Large attendance at the church. 
 Took my place behind the communion 
 table, invoked a blessing, read a brief 
 Scripture, then said, I had always
 
 1 54 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 thought that, in assuming a pastoral 
 charge, one took upon himself a great 
 burden, but I never felt it as I did 
 now. I was not able to speak further. 
 Deacon Mack quickly rose and said : 
 " Oh ! our pastor mustn't think so ; the 
 burden is mutual ; it is on us all as 
 well as on him, and we all, pastor and 
 people, will help each other all we can. 
 And, best of all, God will help us, and 
 we shall be stayed up." 
 
 Then he prayed for " Our Pastor;" 
 and another prayed, and another. The 
 meeting closed. On my way to my 
 room, at a spot between the homes of 
 Professor Fowler and Mrs. Moore, the 
 terrible load rolled off suddenly and 
 wholly, and if I ever went to my knees 
 and thanked God for a great deliv- 
 erance, I did so then. I have seen
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. i55 
 
 something of care and toil and pain, 
 but such a horror of great darkness 
 has so far been but once upon me, and 
 I hope and pray that the same, or like 
 of it, may not come on me again. 
 
 Perhaps I am wrong in saying all 
 this here and now. If so, it can be 
 forgiven me. I have never before 
 spoken it in public, excepting once, 
 and in part in giving the right hand 
 to a young brother assuming a similar 
 charge. 
 
 A year or two before I came here, 
 the parish had voted that the pastor, 
 Mr. Bent, receiving presents from 
 non-parish members of the congrega- 
 tion, should account for the same to 
 the parish. I had been here but a 
 few weeks, when a handsome travel- 
 ing valise was sent me. I well divined
 
 1 56 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 it was a tester to see what the new 
 man would do about it. I returned 
 the gift, and with it as pleasant a 
 letter as I knew how to write ; thank- 
 ing the donor for his kindness, and 
 adding, that I could not give to the 
 parish the present he had sent to me, 
 and that it would not do for me to 
 break a parish rule. To the first 
 meeting of parish thereafter I sent 
 word that the rule was embarrassing 
 me in my parish visitation. The rule 
 was rescinded, and then the men who 
 had signed off returned to their place 
 and part, and so that ripple sank from 
 view. 
 
 Perhaps some of the ancients here 
 can call to recollection the old pulpit 
 in our meeting-house in 1840. Of 
 pine wood, narrow, doored, and ach-
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. i5f 
 
 ingly plain. Man up there had to 
 look well to his elbows in essaying a 
 gesture. High, and closed against all 
 assaults ; but so were the old Bastile 
 towers in which prisoners were im- 
 mured. 
 
 In 1842 or '43 the parish obtained 
 from Boston a new pulpit the same 
 now in the house a costly and very 
 comely affair for those times. Then 
 there were other fixings and furnish- 
 ings. Then the grounds around the 
 church must be graded and put in 
 shape a labor of days and many 
 hands. You might have seen Lawyer 
 Osmyn Baker, coat off, and axe in 
 hand, pleading three hours in master- 
 ful logic for the ejectment of a stump 
 from its ancient tenure and holding on 
 domain of the said church aforesaid.
 
 1 58 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 There was admirable enterprise. The 
 people had a mind to work. 
 
 I am not able to boast that, in com- 
 ing here, I found a church and parish 
 weak, and, in leaving, left them strong. 
 They were strong from the first of my 
 knowing them, or knowing of them. 
 Perhaps the parish has never since 
 been stronger as to number, character, 
 wealth, and standing of chief men. 
 To show this to one whose memory 
 can stretch itself to the men and 
 things here fifty years ago, one has 
 only to speak some of the names then 
 found here. Deacons, Eleazar Gay- 
 lord, John Leland, John Dickinson, 
 David Mack, and Isaac Hawley ; law- 
 yers, Edward Dickinson, Osmyn 
 Baker, Lucius Boltwood, and, a little 
 later, Charles Delano and Samuel T.
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. i5g 
 
 Spaulding ; doctors, Sellon, Gridley, 
 Dorrance, and Cutler ; merchants, 
 Mack & Son, James Kellogg & Son, 
 Sweetser & Cutler, Pitkin & Kellogg 
 and Holland; reverends, Sanford and 
 Spofford ; teacher, Nahum Gale, of 
 the academy ; editor, J. R. Trumbull ; 
 Mr. Green and Joseph Sweetser, of 
 the Amherst Bank ; Messrs. Fiske Cut- 
 ler, Andrew Wilson, Thomas Jones, 
 J. S. and C. Adams, S. C. Carter, Sim- 
 eon Clark, Newton Fitch, Linus Green, 
 Aaron Belden, Horace Smith, Martin 
 Kellogg, Chester Kellogg, Seth Nims, 
 Postmaster Strong, the Smiths, Bak- 
 ers, Boltwoods, Kelloggs, Dexters, 
 and Williamses of Mill Valley ; the 
 Cowles, Hawleys, and Nashes, of 
 Plainville ; and the names Cowles, 
 Angier, Bangs, Ayres, Eastman, and
 
 160 Anniversary at Amkerst. 
 
 Dickinson of the North Roads ; these 
 and more for I draw from memory, 
 and must stop somewhere. 
 
 Surely a field, this, to call for and 
 call out the best and most that any 
 minister could have and give. 
 
 As to those my deacons, specially 
 the first four ; venerable men in form 
 and aspect, all verging toward seventy 
 years of age, crowned with hoary 
 heads men of affairs, and wise in 
 counsel. Happily for us, we didn't 
 then turn off our deacons every year 
 or two a practice I never believed in, 
 and never shall. 
 
 Don't you, now, be too hard on 
 a young minister, if, unawares, there 
 sometimes stole into his heart a tim- 
 orous fragrance, just a bit of sly 
 elation at seeing those venerable
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 161 
 
 forms, his deacons, pass round with 
 the bread and wine in the communion 
 hour and service. We are human 
 still some of us are having, I hope, 
 a little of grace with our much of 
 nature. 
 
 It was a point of trial in those days, 
 that this church and parish had no 
 parsonage, no chapel, nor vestry. 
 Our evening meetings were held in 
 the Academy building, then in care of 
 a student, aided and aiding himself in 
 preparation for the ministry the late 
 Rev. Dr. Isaac Bliss of Constanti- 
 nople. Happily for pastor and people, 
 and in the behoof of all that is fair 
 and right, those aching voids here 
 have been filled, to the joy and praise 
 of many. 
 
 And then, as to the old meeting-
 
 1 62 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 house on the hill, whither 'the tribes 
 went up. Homely in outward looks, 
 doubtless, but handsome within so we 
 felt. The Lord was there in the beauty 
 of his holiness ; and his presence will 
 make any place beautiful. As for the 
 rest, I, for one, was never kept awake 
 o' nights. Rowland Hill once said : 
 " Never mind for the hive ; give us 
 the bees." I give joy to my suc- 
 cessors, my brethren beloved, that 
 they have the hive, and the bees, and 
 the handsomeness all through and 
 around. 
 
 In those times of old there were 
 here a few spots a little steep and 
 rough in a minister's work. One was 
 his having to preach two sermons on 
 Fast Days. Another was his having 
 to preach two sermons on Communion
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 163 
 
 Days, administer the sacrament at 
 noon, and a last straw attend a 
 prayer-meeting in the evening. And 
 the tired toiler betook himself, as best 
 he could, to the soothing persuasion, 
 " Mollifying Ointment," that he was 
 obeying the -apostle's injunctions : 
 " Make FULL proof of your ministry," 
 and u Endure hardness as a good sol- 
 dier of Jesus Christ." Once the sug- 
 gestion was made by some one to have 
 the Communion Service occupy the 
 afternoon. But there was opposi- 
 tion to this, and the matter was 
 dropped. It was the "custom" here, 
 and in some places hereabouts, and cus- 
 tom, you know, is law, and law is law, 
 and what is not law is something else. 
 " Innocuous desuetude " had not 
 arrived in these parts. A somewhat
 
 164 Anniversary at Anther st. 
 
 of the strict and rigid, you will say, in 
 these things of the olden time. Per- 
 haps so ; but possibly the pendulum is 
 now swinging to the other and not 
 better extreme. 
 
 It is not my part to-day to give the 
 history of this church. Another will 
 do this. But I may, I think, and 
 should, refer in a word to the Revivals 
 here in 1841, '45, and '50. This last 
 was a work of marked depth and 
 power. The incidents and influences 
 leading to it are quite instructive. 
 Early in January of this year (1850), 
 the prayer-meetings were notably 
 fuller and more solemn. A cloud of 
 mercy seemed to hang over us, and 
 ready to drop down fatness. Days 
 and weeks passed, but no conversions. 
 What was the hinderance ? Once and
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. i65 
 
 again the church standing committee 
 the deacons met in the pastor's study 
 to talk and pray over this question. 
 Oppressing fear was felt, lest our 
 dawn should shut down in darkness. 
 The trouble, we came at length to 
 believe, was in the rum places in the 
 village, with fires of hell in full blast. 
 What could be done ? My counselors 
 did wisely in advising prudence, for we 
 were told the rum men were desperate. 
 Kind words had been used, but availed 
 nothing. You can imagine a pastor's 
 anxieties in such an emergency. 
 March Town meeting was close by. I 
 drew up two articles, and obtained five 
 signatures, asking for their insertion in 
 the warrant : First, to see if it be the 
 wish of the town of Amherst that places 
 be kept open here for the sale of intoxi-
 
 1 66 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 eating drinks, in violation of law ; and, 
 second, to see if the town will author- 
 ize and instruct their selectmen to 
 close such places, if such there be in 
 the town. (I quote from memory and 
 for substance.) I went to Lieutenant 
 Dickinson of the South Parish, and 
 Judge Conkey of the East, and Daniel 
 Dickinson of the North, and President 
 Hitchcock of the college. They all 
 promised to give a helping word Dr. 
 Hitchcock to speak last. The meeting 
 came. Sweetser's hall was crowded 
 to the stairs. There was much excite- 
 ment. A man from South Amherst 
 moved that the articles be dismissed. 
 This was voted down. Then the main 
 question, and now the speaking as pre- 
 arranged Dr. Hitchcock closing 
 and a more affecting and effective
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 167 
 
 appeal than his I have never heard. 
 He said in substance : " The people 
 of Amherst are aware that I have not 
 been in the habit of meddling in the 
 affairs of the town. I feel that the 
 interests of myself and my family are 
 safe in the care of the town, and I am 
 confident that the good people here, 
 who have done so nobly for the col- 
 lege, will not allow the institution to 
 suffer injuries from evil causes among 
 us ; " and then, with an emphasis that 
 fairly choked his utterance, he added : 
 " But it were better that the college 
 should go down, than that young men 
 should come here to be ruined by drink 
 places among us" Then the voting 
 four hundred hands shot up for abating 
 the nuisances so it was said. Contra- 
 ry minds just one hand, and one only
 
 1 68 Anniversary at Amherst. 
 
 and alone. The next morning at ten 
 o'clock the selectmen went to those 
 rum resorts, and shut them up. 
 
 Then the heavens gave rain 
 blessed showers and there was a great 
 refreshing. That revival work con- 
 tinued till late in summer. More than 
 one hundred and fifty professed hope 
 in Christ ; sixty-eight persons joined 
 this church, on profession, on one day 
 August ii. Others came later; 
 some joined elsewhere. 
 
 I cannot let this opportunity pass, 
 without expressing my very great obli- 
 gations to the faculty of Amherst Col- 
 lege for their unvarying courtesy and 
 kindness to me from first to last of 
 my labors here. Fathers and brothers 
 could not have been more friendly and 
 helpful. One member of the faculty,
 
 Anniversary at Amherst. 169 
 
 Professor William S. Tyler, revered 
 and beloved, is still spared to us ; and 
 my best impulses prompt me to say, 
 that a kinder heart than his I have 
 never found. 
 
 It has providentially been my fav- 
 ored lot to minister to two peoples, 
 and only two, in the Gospel of Christ. 
 They were and are good peoples. I 
 never desired any better peoples. I 
 never sought nor desired any other 
 peoples. These have I loved, and I 
 love them still. If any one be curious 
 to ask which of my two peoples I love 
 most and best, my instant answer is 
 both.
 
 REMARKS MADE AT THE ONE HUN- 
 DREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
 FOUNDING OF THE HAMPSHIRE 
 GAZETTE. 
 
 I HAVE known personally most if not 
 all of the editors of the Hampshire 
 Gazette and Gazette and Courier for 
 the last forty-six years. On June 10, 
 1840, I was introduced to Mr. Wm. A. 
 Hawley, then editor and proprietor 
 of the paper. I knew him afterward 
 somewhat familiarly. A charming 
 man ; gentle, genial, the very soul of 
 pleasantness ; of sensibilities tender as 
 a woman's. That sparkling eye and 
 sweet smile of his to have seen them 
 once is to remember them forever. 
 Too soon for us did the fell destroyer, 
 consumption, pluck that flower.
 
 Remarks at Anniversary, iji 
 
 With Mr. Thomas Hale my ac- 
 quaintance was slight. In January, 
 1858, I read to him some jottings 
 of mine, entitled " The Old White 
 Meeting-House," which were kindly 
 accepted by him, and printed in the 
 Gazette of that month. 
 
 Mr. J. R. Trumbull was for some 
 time a member of my Amherst congre- 
 gation. I have kept track of him in 
 years since have seen him worked, 
 and worn, and wasted, physically, to a 
 thinness too tenuous to cast a shadow. 
 A very able and acceptable service to 
 the public has been rendered by him ; 
 and for that service, and for his intrin- 
 sic worthiness, this city, by her suf- 
 frages, is doing him deserved honor. 
 Long live Mr. Trumbull ! 
 
 Then the Northampton Courier, be-
 
 172 Remarks at Anniversary. 
 
 fore its merging in the Gazette not a 
 mustard-pot falling into a milk-pan 
 for neither paper was mustard nor 
 milk, but meat for strong men. Mr. 
 A. W. Thayer ardent, open, frank- 
 spoken, carrying his whole soul in his 
 face. I see him walking those infirm, 
 unsteady, straggling steps, almost as 
 if about to surrender him to the floor 
 or pavement. A pleasant man. I 
 thank him to-day for his hand-shaking, 
 and for his kind, encouraging word 
 spoken to me as I came down from the 
 infinite altitude of the Old Church 
 pulpit, as that pulpit was forty-five 
 years ago. That word didn't harm the 
 young preacher it did him good it 
 braced his resolution to try again. 
 
 Mr. Lewis Ferry, another of the 
 worthy editors, was of my Easthamp-
 
 Remarks at Anniversary. 173 
 
 ton parish. I attended him in his 
 decline and death. 
 
 And now our generous friend and 
 host, Mr. Henry S. Gere. I cannot 
 tell how many years the Northampton 
 press or presses and peoples have had 
 his toils. Veteran editor ; and veteran 
 SOLDIER also, content with having 
 served his country as best he could in 
 her supreme peril, and not vilely cast- 
 ing away his shield of honor afterward 
 by asking for a pension. In stature 
 proudly eminent ; yet stoops a little, 
 not from age or aches, certainly not 
 from fear of anybody, but, I ween, from 
 work and overwork ; patiently plod- 
 ding at his task the year in and out, to 
 serve and please and profit a host of 
 intelligent readers, who look to him 
 and his work as a sort of oracle with-
 
 174 Remarks at Anniversary. 
 
 in his line and sphere. Plains and 
 valleys, village and villa, mountains 
 and all hills, echoing with carrier bell- 
 call ; and such ready response in open- 
 ing door and gate to bring in our old, 
 familiar and ever-welcome friend, the 
 Hampshire Gazette. 
 
 Now, these men of the Gazette from 
 first till this present ; men good and 
 brave always on the side of the true 
 and right ready unto all good works 
 leading men, resolutely and worthily 
 serving in town, church, parish, and 
 school affairs, as well as in their more 
 strictly professional sphere. Tribute 
 to whom tribute is due. If I make 
 any exception to this good rule, it shall 
 be in the case of Mr. Gere, who stole 
 one of the choicest of my Easthamp- 
 ton flock a little while before my as-
 
 Remarks at Anniversary. 176 
 
 suming the charge there. For that I 
 never thanked him, and I never will. 
 
 And now, turning, if I may, for a 
 moment, from the men of the Gazette, 
 to their calling and work. It is quite 
 observable, how many the points in 
 which two of the leading professions 
 are much at one. The editor and the 
 minister. The press and the pulpit. 
 The paper and the sermon. Sunday 
 forenoon and Tuesday afternoon. 
 Both callings are honorable. Both are 
 powers among a people. Think of 
 14,000 newspapers and periodicals, 
 sending forth two and a half billion 
 copies as annual aggregate circulation 
 in this our land. And think of single 
 presses that can strike off 24,000 
 copies an hour. What a mighty en- 
 ginery is here ! Seest thou a man
 
 1 76 Remarks at Anniversary. 
 
 defying the press ? Mark him. He is 
 already upon the ragged edge of des- 
 peration. 
 
 Both callings are conservators of 
 good ; are patrons of industry, order, 
 good taste, morals, and manners ; of 
 virtue, knowledge, temperance, godli- 
 ness are indeed indispensable to a 
 republican and Christian civilization. 
 Instance the Gazette's staunch advo- 
 cacy of the Temperance cause week by 
 week. And the Springfield Republi- 
 can in its splendid fight against the 
 rum-demons Grog and Magrog, de- 
 vouring locusts ; ''and they have tails 
 like unto scorpions, and there are 
 stings in their tails ; and their power 
 is to hurt men. And they have a king 
 over them, who is the angel of the bot- 
 tomless pit, whose name in the He-
 
 Remarks at Anniversary. 177 
 
 brew tongue is Abaddon, but in the 
 Greek tongue he hath his name Apol- 
 lyon." All honor to the Gazette and 
 the Republican for their noble fight 
 against this curse of curses. So of 
 our presses at large ; with all their 
 faults, they are still a terror to evil- 
 doers, and a praise to them that do 
 well. 
 
 Both callings, the editorial and cler- 
 ical, demand a good equipment of tal- 
 ents and culture must interest all 
 classes must be educators and re- 
 finers of public sentiment must re- 
 prove and rebuke must have a voice 
 of gladness and a smile for everybody, 
 and some others must have their 
 own convictions, and the courage of 
 them must be fair and unbiased, 
 without partiality or prejudice must 
 
 12
 
 178 Remarks at Anniversary. 
 
 not take sides in controversies and 
 quarrels must be on our side in any 
 event, and every time. 
 
 Both places will have plenty of 
 counsel how to do your work, and 
 plenty of criticism of that work when 
 you have done it the best you 
 could. Both places involve an inexo- 
 rable constancy of exacting toil. Sun- 
 day will come, and Tuesday will come, 
 and must be prepared for. That tired 
 worker, almost collapsed and caved in 
 as he is on Sunday evening, or Tues- 
 day evening, is already, quite likely, 
 boosting himself up to think out a 
 something seasonable and good for the 
 next issue of sermon or paper. That 
 constant, patient, plodding, persistent 
 toil such tax and levy upon brain and 
 nerve, with scarcely so much as a let-
 
 Remarks at Anniversary. 179 
 
 up and release once a year to go a-fish- 
 ing. Why, even our fevers are mostly 
 intermittent, and our present and pop- 
 ular malaria deals a little more gently 
 with us every other day. 
 
 In one particular, men of the cloth 
 have, perhaps, an advantage over men 
 of the quill and scissors. Look at 
 that editor at the foot of one of those 
 Hills Difficulty, which he has to get 
 over or get around. I see him sitting 
 in his z^easy chair, with clinched teeth 
 and knit brow, pestered, puzzled, per- 
 plexed, in sore quandary what to do 
 with that communication which some 
 one of us, aspiring wights, has sent in. 
 To print, or not to print ; to make one 
 mad, and stop his paper, or to set many 
 wondering what in the world the editor 
 could have been thinking of, to put
 
 180 Remarks at Anniversary. 
 
 that into his paper. And specially 
 the poetry, wedding and otherwise 
 here's the rub. Some good, some 
 very good, if you please, and some 
 well, perhaps, not equaling Bryant's 
 or Longfellow's, but giving a certain 
 jingle; and so do brass bells on a mule, 
 dragging a pung through sleet and 
 slush. Not that we, the sometime 
 scribblers for the press, are mules ; not 
 by a long way. We fling back the 
 insinuation. But gently and softly 
 here, lest you throw frost upon that 
 blossoming or budding nondescript 
 ineffable something, named GENIUS. 
 
 What manner of man, then, the 
 editor or minister must be ! a very 
 bundle and jumble of incompatibilities 
 and impossibilities rolled together, and 
 rounded into a human personality !
 
 Remarks at Anniversary. 181 
 
 On this anniversary occasion we ten- 
 der our hearty congratulations to Mr. 
 Gere on his place and position as to-day 
 the editor and proprietor of his and 
 our Hampshire Gazette a paper count- 
 ing and crowning to-day its Hundred 
 Years of honorable history, and giving 
 promise of an equally honorable 
 career for a hundred years to come.
 
 A LEAF OR TWO FROM MY NOTES OF 
 TRAVEL FORTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 APRIL 28, 1846. Left Fredericks- 
 burg, Va., at 6 A.M., by steamer 
 Planter, down the Rappahannock ; 
 Baltimore, Md., at 6 A.M., April 29. 
 Hotel on Light Street. After break- 
 fast, went to Mr. Rowe's, on Green 
 Street. Had talk with Rev. Mr. 
 Snow, a boarder there Mr. S., once 
 minister in Whately, and afterwards in 
 South Hadley Falls. Obtained from 
 him a note to Mr. Johnson, War- 
 den of Maryland Penitentiary this 
 note to open the way for me to see 
 Rev. Charles T. Torrey, a prisoner 
 there. The warden a polite and 
 obliging official. Mr. Torrey dying of
 
 Notes of Travel. 183 
 
 consumption. The physician was on 
 the ground, and readily consented to 
 my going in. But first I must open 
 the box (large, square, paper box) con- 
 taining the shroud in which Mr. Tor- 
 rey was to be laid out. I carried this 
 to the prison at the request of Mr. 
 Snow, as it was thought that Mr. T. 
 might not live a day longer. Left my 
 charge, after opening it, in care -of 
 warden. Went with him through sev- 
 eral massive doors, and up two flights 
 of stairs. Entered at last a long 
 room, evidently designed for the sick, 
 there being a succession of iron pallets 
 or cots, two feet high from the floor, 
 and each separated from its neighbor 
 by hanging screens. Each room very 
 narrow. Passed several of these be- 
 fore I came to Mr. Torrey's. Recog-
 
 184 Notes of Travel. 
 
 nized him instantly. Same fine face 
 and expression intelligence refine- 
 ment decision ; always beautiful, but 
 never more so than now. Peculiar 
 expression of eyes, which were con- 
 sumptively bright. Warden asked 
 him if he remembered me. T. said 
 he did. We were in Yale College 
 together. I had last seen him at 
 Andover Seminary, on a visit of his 
 there in '36. He had studied theology 
 there, and was at that time pastor in 
 Providence, R. I. Torrey said he was 
 glad to see me. Held me steadily by 
 the hand. I alluded to his feeble bod- 
 ily condition, and said I hoped it was 
 better with his soul. He smiled and 
 said, " Oh ! yes." I asked him if he 
 suffered pain. He replied, " No, but 
 little." I spoke of Judge Dickinson
 
 Notes of Travel. 185 
 
 and Lucius Boltwood, Esq., noted 
 abolitionists, my parishioners in Am- 
 herst. He smiled, and said, " I re- 
 member them well ; they were good 
 friends." He added, "There is 
 another good friend in Amherst, a 
 Dr." he hesitated, his brow showing 
 effort to recall the name. I said, " Dr. 
 Gardner Dorrance." His countenance 
 lighted up as he quickly replied, "Yes, 
 yes, that is the one." I spoke of Dr. 
 D. as a man of large frame, and of a 
 soul as large. He smiled almost to a 
 laugh, and said, with great energy, 
 ''Larger!" I spoke of the proba- 
 bility of his being near his end. After 
 a moment he replied, with great 
 emotion, his chin quivering as he 
 answered, " Yes." I said I hoped he 
 was happy in the prospect of the
 
 1 86 Notes of Travel. 
 
 release here, and of the joy beyond. 
 He said, "Yes, I am." I said I hoped 
 he recognized in all he was passing 
 through the all-wise and good ordering 
 of Him who chastens whom He loves, 
 and makes all things work together for 
 their good. He replied, " I think I 
 do." I said, " If we are children of 
 God, then all is well." He replied with 
 energy, " Yes, indeed." He requested 
 me to pray with him. I did so, kneel- 
 ing by his cot the warden uncover- 
 ing, and sitting still at the foot of the 
 cot. Once, in the prayer, Torrey gave 
 an audible response. It was when I 
 prayed that Christ, the sympathizing 
 Friend and Saviour, would manifest 
 himself to him in his loveliness and 
 glory. After prayer, I said I was 
 afraid I had stayed too long. He
 
 Notes of Travel. 187 
 
 answered, " Oh, no ! " Said he was 
 " very glad I had called " smiling 
 the while, and still holding me by the 
 hand. As we bade each other good- 
 
 o 
 
 by he seemed to be struggling with 
 emotions that didn't find utterance. 
 
 Torrey's room was well lighted and 
 aired. His face and hands were clean 
 and white. His shirt was very coarse 
 unbleached linen prison cloth. Bed- 
 clothes otherwise not particularly 
 noticeable. A man looking like a 
 prisoner was in the room, mixing 
 medicines. The warden came with me 
 to the outer gate, and, giving me his 
 hand, said, with evident emotion, " I 
 do wish he were away from here." A 
 man in Mr. Torrey's condition, yet so 
 calm and resigned, no word of com- 
 plaint and such recognition of God's
 
 1 88 Notes of Travel. 
 
 good hand as all in all. Leaving the 
 prison, I went to the top of Washing- 
 ton (Baltimore) Monument, and jotted 
 down as accurately as I could the 
 words and incidents of the prison in- 
 terview. Had indescribable emotions. 
 Abhorred slavery. I had a few days 
 before seen, from the dome of the Cap- 
 itol in Washington, a gang of slaves, 
 chained or tied together, and, under 
 an overseer, whip in hand, going, " like 
 dumb, driven cattle," to their daily 
 task. And all this in a land boast- 
 ing of freedom and equal rights ! I 
 had, five years before this, preached at 
 King George Court-house, Va. My 
 brother took the precaution to look my 
 sermon over carefully before I went 
 into the pulpit (the judge's bench, in 
 a court-house) to see if there was in
 
 Notes of Travel. 189 
 
 it anything fatefully anti-slavery ; he 
 very kindly wishing to ward off from 
 me any likelihood of lynching, and 
 myself also having no special desire 
 for that sort of thing. 
 
 Well, well, the times have changed, 
 and we've changed in them. The spot 
 and region of that court-house have 
 since been overrun, burnt, and black- 
 ened by both armies, the Confederate 
 and the Federal, and have for a time 
 since been little better than a howling 
 waste. And slavery itself, abhorred of 
 God and man, has been swept from 
 there, and from the land torn up 
 and rooted out by the very means 
 adopted and pursued by the South 
 to spread and perpetuate the curse 
 upon the nation, North and South 
 together.
 
 i go Notes of Travel. 
 
 " There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 I should here add a word or two 
 respecting Mr. Torrey. He died two 
 or three days, I think, after my visit 
 with him. I was told at the time, 
 that his friends from Massachusetts 
 petitioned Governor Pratt to allow 
 Mr. Torrey to be carried to a neigh- 
 boring house, and die there, and not 
 within prison walls. This, within a 
 week of his death, and after the physi- 
 cian had said that recovery was wholly 
 out of the question. The governor's 
 reply, as reported, was : "If it was a 
 case of murder, I would, but as it is, I 
 will not ; this running slaves away has 
 got to be stopped." 
 
 As to Mr. Torrey's " crime : " I do 
 not know the reasons of his going to
 
 Notes of Travel. 191 
 
 reside in Baltimore. I have never seen 
 evidence that he went there with the 
 intention of assisting slaves to escape 
 from their thralldom. Two slaves, al- 
 ready miles on their way of escape, 
 found him in the city, and asked his 
 aid. Obeying an impulse, springing 
 up from his long-cherished hatred of 
 slavery, he took the two men into a 
 wagon, and carried them ten miles on 
 the way to Pennsylvania and freedom ; 
 and they, naturally thinking that a man 
 is himself, and that his legs are his own, 
 unpopular as the doctrine has been, 
 somehow found themselves pushing 
 toward the North Star. This was the 
 whole head and front of Mr. Torrey's 
 offending. Nothing more or else was 
 charged against him. For this he must 
 languish and die within prison .walls.
 
 192 Notes of Travel. 
 
 Mr. Torrey was buried in Mount 
 Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. 
 A granite column marks his resting- 
 place in a beautiful dell not far from 
 the entrance gate. A profile of him, 
 cut in stone, is at the head of the col- 
 umn. The figure of a slave is at the 
 base, his face turned up toward the 
 face of his deliverer, his arms also, 
 and from them are chains falling to 
 the ground. 
 
 Often as I am able, I go to that 
 beautiful cemetery I know of no 
 other the equal of it on the whole, 
 though I have been in many of the 
 best and doing so, I never fail to visit, 
 first and dearest to me, the grave of 
 my martyr friend, Rev. Charles T. 
 Torrey. 
 
 I may add, that Mr. Torrey's wife
 
 Notes of Travel. 193 
 
 was Mary, daughter of Rev. Dr. Ide, 
 of Medway, Mass. She was a highly 
 cultivated lady, and survived him a 
 few years, a deep mourner over his 
 cruel taking off. 
 
 A. M. C. 
 
 EASTHAMPTON, March i, 1887.
 
 A FEW TOUCHES, IMPRESSIONS, AND 
 RECOLLECTIONS LESS OR MORE 
 ACCURATE, CONCERNING THE 
 MINISTERS OF THE EDWARDS 
 CHURCH AND PARISH IN NORTH- 
 AMPTON. 
 
 REV. JOHN TODD, D.D. He was 
 himself, and not another, and not much 
 like any other. It would be difficult 
 to conceive of two John Todds as 
 inhabiting simultaneously this mun- 
 dane sphere. Of large frame loose- 
 jointed, not so closely knit and com- 
 pact as some. Strong and stalwart. 
 Face with great protruding ridges 
 and 'mountains imply valleys. Lips 
 prominent and compressed as much 
 as to say, " This thing has got to go,
 
 A Few To^lches, 195 
 
 anyway." Hair bristling and stiff- 
 perpendicular, horizontal every way 
 except downwards. His head, in its 
 whole contour, looking not a little like 
 the Charter Oak, with its branches 
 scraggy and defiant. And yet a hand- 
 some man, if handsome is that hand- 
 some does. The nuts of roughest 
 bark are apt to be of sweetest meat. 
 Get within. Mind, like a Corliss 
 steam-engine and moving any num- 
 ber of wheels. Of multifarious read- 
 ing, and for such reading an appe- 
 tite omnivorous, insatiable, devouring 
 every green thing, and digesting 
 and assimilating the same ; and so, 
 in no long time, out it came, foliage, 
 flower, fruit, some truth graven in- 
 effaceably upon your memory and 
 heart. As to his will and purposes,
 
 196 A Few Touches. 
 
 reminding one of what John Foster 
 ascribes to John Howard all Johns 
 "an untamable efficacy of soul." 
 And an affectionate nature withal, 
 loving, as he did, every good body and 
 thine, with his might, and loving unto 
 the end. Of a many-sided nature 
 not equilateral, not rounded out to 
 fullness in all its parts, but more com- 
 plete in some parts than others and 
 where on earth is the perfect man ? 
 I know not any. In simplicity a 
 child ; was taken in, cheated many 
 a time, by the sharper than he. Not 
 skilled in the arts of diplomacy or 
 finesse. He was artless as any child. 
 He hadn't the training nor the in- 
 stinct to untwist all the small knots 
 in a Yankee's head. He hadn't, as 
 some have, the keen, quick sense to
 
 A Few Touches. 197 
 
 discover, nor the care to know, all the 
 hidden springs of human action. He 
 took men as he found them, not bur- 
 rowing in the dirt, but above ground. 
 He was not a trapper nor snarer. He 
 shot birds flying. He took the fox 
 on the foot. He caught the fish as 
 it came along. He was like Nimrod, 
 a mighty hunter ; and he was a fisher 
 as well a fisher of men. And what 
 a prodigious worker ! exemplifying, in 
 his own life and labors, what I remem- 
 ber to have read in his Student's 
 Manual, more than forty years ago, 
 viz., that you cannot have too many 
 irons in the fire at once put in 
 shovel, tongs, poker, everything. 
 "Well, John," said his college and 
 seminary classmate, as they came out 
 of the chapel of Andover Seminary,
 
 198 A Few Touches. 
 
 at the close of the graduating exer- 
 cises "Well, John, what now are 
 you going to do in the world ? " The 
 answer came instantly, " I am going 
 to make a noise." And he has made 
 it, and the sounds are prolonged, and 
 will never die. To-day his works are 
 read in a score of languages. Por- 
 tions of his writings were found among 
 the effects of Sir John Franklin in the 
 Arctic seas. A great and good man 
 a rare man take him for all and all. 
 Oh, for a thousand like him, to bless 
 the church and the world ! 
 
 The next minister was the Rev. 
 John Mitchell. I knew a something 
 of him. I met him in one or two of 
 the associational meetings, before the 
 association was divided. He was the 
 acknowledged oracle and authority
 
 A Few Toitches. 199 
 
 with the old Hampshire Association 
 on all questions of church rule and 
 government. Of infirm health pale 
 bland and pleasant expression of 
 face. Stooped a little . in walking 
 kept his eyes on the ground, as if in 
 deep study, as he probably was. Was 
 a clear thinker carried his thoughts 
 to conclusions, convictions, principles. 
 Carried a level and cool head. Was 
 quite conservative in his opinions of 
 men and matters. Wouldn't have 
 done much as a radical reformer had 
 more of caution than of push and dar- 
 ing. Was, I think, a better writer 
 than speaker. Hadn't the physical 
 force to throw out adequately what 
 was upon the carefully written pages 
 before him. A very instructive 
 preacher he certainly must have been.
 
 2OO A Few Touches. 
 
 An excellent counselor. A true man. 
 A sincere Christian holding the faith 
 in a good conscience. A faithful 
 minister a bishop blameless. He 
 sowed good seed here, and the reapers 
 will be gathering in the harvest of it 
 in long years yet to be. Judge noth- 
 ing before the time. " Stillest streams 
 oft water fairest meadows, and the 
 bird that flutters least is longest on 
 the wing." 
 
 And now the next pastor, Rev. E. 
 P. Rogers, D.D., as different from 
 the last as could well be imagined. 
 Bright-hearted, healthy, hale, and well 
 met. Handsome in form, face, feat- 
 ures. Of easy and graceful manners. 
 Ready in speech. Had on his lips a 
 pleasant word for every passer-by. 
 Knew everybody, man, woman, child
 
 A Few Touches. 201 
 
 knew them by name, and called 
 them all by their names. Never 
 passed people in the street without 
 noticing them. Was never caught 
 looking on the sidewalk, and wrapped 
 in brown study never that. He 
 would have made a poor monk, to 
 wear a cowl, and be silent and sullen. 
 He would quickly drive the moths and 
 spiders from that cell. " The stones 
 would cry out of the wall, and the 
 beam out of the timber would answer 
 it." Think of Brother Rogers as 
 thrust into an inner prison at mid- 
 night. He would sing those prison- 
 doors open, as Paul and Silas did. 
 He is a child of the light and of the 
 day a good man and a good friend 
 to meet anywhere. He could throw 
 a salutation to you fifty rods with the
 
 2O2 A Few Touches. 
 
 utmost grace and ease. He was the 
 cheerfulest of shepherds a quality 
 too rare, but a power specially with 
 children, who love cheerful folks. It 
 was a good change from Mr. Mitchell, 
 who in his way was perhaps just as 
 good. Parishes, like other peoples, 
 incline to contrasts and opposites. It 
 is well, else they would get their ways 
 into those ruts which are a hinderance 
 to good wagoning, as wagoning is in 
 this world. In one respect, Brother 
 Rogers surpassed any preacher I have 
 ever known viz., in his easy and 
 fluent use of a manuscript reading 
 as if he didn't read catching the 
 words by glances so quick as to leave 
 you in doubt whether he takes his 
 eyes off you at all. And he has, in 
 admirable degree, that quick and off-
 
 A Few Touches. 203 
 
 hand readiness in all his mind and 
 manners. Bright-minded ; cup full 
 and running over of the oil of glad- 
 ness. He lives on the south side of 
 the house. Coming from Amherst, 
 and meeting him on the corner of 
 Bridge and Market Streets, at a time, 
 many years ago, when incendiary fires 
 were here almost every other night, 
 I said, " Brother Rogers, what in the 
 world are you coming to here in 
 Northampton?" Quick as a flash was 
 the answer, " Coming to ashes, as fast 
 as possible." Having served several 
 churches, North and South, in the 
 good work, Dr. Rogers is now, and 
 has been for a goodly number of years, 
 the accepted and beloved pastor of a 
 large and influential Dutch Reformed 
 Church on Fifth Avenue, New York.
 
 2O4 A Few Touches. 
 
 And late be the day of his trans- 
 lation ! 
 
 Then came a pastor of still another 
 pattern Rev. George E. Day, D.D. 
 A still and quiet man scholarly, and 
 much addicted to books. Blameless 
 and harmless, a son of God, without 
 rebuke. Loving his people, and loved 
 by them all. An able preacher, bring- 
 ing beaten oil into the sanctuary 
 sermons that had cost him many hours 
 of patient study. You never had from 
 him a crude address. It would have 
 been to him as the breaking of his 
 bones to find himself closing a clumsy 
 or an awkward sentence. Everything 
 must have the finishing touch. He 
 was not, like General Taylor, " Rough 
 and Ready." He must have time for 
 perfecting his works. He wouldn't
 
 A Few Touches. 2o5 
 
 have made a great Methodist and 
 that people are of the best. He wasn't 
 as well fitted as some for roughing it 
 in out-door work. I think of him as 
 carefully searching out the usages and 
 meanings of the Greek particles and 
 the Hebrew vowel-points. The mar- 
 vel to me is, how, with his studious 
 turn, and his fondness for the library 
 and its attractions, he could have 
 served this people so long, so ably, so 
 efficiently, and so acceptably, in the 
 practical and every-day duty and work 
 of a Christian minister. 
 
 A good work he did here, and a 
 good name he has left here, and the 
 remembrance of him is fondly cher- 
 ished in loving hearts. Enemies he 
 had none ; he couldn't have ; it wasn't 
 in him to make enemies. He is one
 
 2o6 A Few Toiiches, 
 
 of the gentlest one of the Johns a 
 disciple whom Jesus loves. And hav- 
 ing done his work well and worthily 
 among you, whereof you are witnesses, 
 he is now serving the Master with 
 equal ability and acceptableness in 
 another sphere of Christian labor as 
 professor in Yale Theological Semi- 
 nary. 
 
 Well, we have come down in the 
 succession from Adam to Enoch 
 walking with God, but not translated 
 not yet. I don't care for the number 
 in the succession, whether seventh or 
 fifth from Adam. I was thinking how 
 good a man Enoch was that was all. 
 
 Rev. Gordon Hall, D.D. I shall 
 not say many things concerning him, 
 to his face things I would say if I 
 might, consistently with sparing his
 
 A Few Touches. 207 
 
 modesty and blushes. I have a score 
 against him, which I wish were cleared 
 off ; and I may as well take the sweet 
 revenge now. In giving me the 
 charge at my installation in Easthamp- 
 ton, twenty-four years ago last March 
 both of us standing in the pulpit 
 Mr. Hall looked at me over his spec- 
 tacles with his sharp eyes, and as he 
 spoke, moved his head somewhat thus 
 . My little daughter in the front 
 pew down there went to weeping. 
 When asked, on arriving at home, 
 what she cried for, she replied : 
 " Because Mr. Hall was scolding at 
 father." I can forgive Brother Hall 
 that one offense. It isn't in him to be 
 inflicting wounds on anybody not if 
 he can help it. A thorough scholar- 
 Valedictorian of his class at Yale Col-
 
 208 A Few Touches. 
 
 lege, and subsequently a tutor there 
 a graduate from Yale Theological 
 Seminary, and for some years pastor 
 of the church in Wilton, Conn. the 
 native home of Professor Moses 
 Stuart, of eminent fame Mr. Hall 
 came here thoroughly furnished unto 
 all good works prepared' to bring 
 forth, out of the treasures of God's 
 Word, not things old and old, but 
 "things new and old." And thus, for 
 a quarter of a century, as a good shep- 
 herd, he has been feeding this flock 
 of God feeding you with knowledge 
 and understanding. And not feeding 
 merely, but watching over you in the 
 Lord a grand, good pastor, teacher, 
 counselor, guide, comforter, and friend. 
 A very discreet adviser ; slow to 
 speak, and slow to wrath ; patient to
 
 A Few Touches. 209 
 
 wait and hear any side, and all sides ; 
 and then forming and giving out a 
 judgment which is about as sure to 
 be right as anything human is so. 
 Preserving, perhaps, the golden mean 
 between McClellan's caution, and 
 Sheridan's dash. You never find him 
 expressing a hasty opinion regarding 
 an important matter. He thinks once, 
 twice, three times, before he gives you 
 his conclusion. " A fool uttereth all 
 his mind : but a wise man keepeth it 
 in till afterward." And how holily and 
 unblamably he has behaved himself 
 among you ; how he has borne you on 
 his heart and in his toils and what 
 rich, ripe fruits have here been grown 
 and garnered for your profiting and 
 God's glory ; and how, under his min- 
 istry, you have been prospered, 
 14
 
 2io A Few Touches. 
 
 exchanging the former sanctuary for 
 this one, more comely and convenient 
 and how, best of all, this church 
 has been visited from on high with 
 showers of blessings, and been built 
 up a spiritual house, to offer up spirit- 
 ual sacrifices, acceptable, well-pleasing 
 to God all this is known to you and 
 to many, who rejoice with you to-day 
 this Silver Wedding-day of this 
 pastorate here. 
 
 A twenty-five years' ministry among 
 the same people, and the mutual affec- 
 tion between pastor and people never 
 stronger nor fresher than to-day 
 never more radiant with all brightness, 
 and redolent of all sweetness. Twenty- 
 five years and here he is, still at his 
 post, watching for the souls of the men 
 and women born into this world during
 
 A Few Touches. 211 
 
 his life among you, and marrying the 
 children of those whom he baptized in 
 infancy. Twenty-five years great ad- 
 vantage time for the growth of ac- 
 quaintance, good esteem, and confi- 
 dence, telling, better than words can 
 tell, of the grand beneficence and bene- 
 fit of a permanent ministry. And God 
 grant, if in his good pleasure, that the 
 sacred relation may yet continue a 
 blessing and benediction in long years 
 to come ! 
 
 I find, on looking back, that I have 
 spoken of " wouldn't bes or have 
 beens." Dr. Todd would not have 
 been a good diplomatist ; Mr. Mitchell 
 would not have been a good reformer, 
 image breaker ; Dr. Rogers wouldn't 
 be a good monk, nor Professor Day 
 a good Methodist ; and Dr. Hall
 
 212 A Few Touches. 
 
 wouldn't be well, I don't know what 
 he wouldn't or couldn't be and do, with 
 God's blessing, in any line of Chris- 
 tian and ministerial goodness. 
 
 Twenty-five years and what a hold 
 Gordon Hall has on this people and 
 the people of this region ! I am 
 thinking of one of your grand old 
 elms, that by time and trial has struck 
 down deep into the ground its thou- 
 sand tough and stringy roots. Long 
 may he be spared to you, and late his 
 departure for the skies. So shall he 
 
 " Be the sweet presence of a good diffuse, 
 And in diffusion ever more intense ; 
 "So shall he join the choir invisible, 
 Whose music is the gladness of the world."
 
 REMARKS MADE AT THE CELEBRA- 
 TION OF THE CENTENNIAL OR- 
 GANIZATION OF THE WESTHAMP- 
 TON CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN : In responding to 
 the sentiment you have assigned to 
 me, I regret my inability to charac- 
 terize suitably the men who have 
 labored here in the Gospel ministry. 
 My knowledge of them is too imper- 
 fect ; and there are here those who 
 knew them much better. Abler tongues 
 and pens have done them reverence ; 
 and their praise is in all our churches. 
 Highly favored this people have been, 
 and are, in respect of their pastors and 
 teachers.
 
 214 Remarks at Centennial. 
 
 Good men and true, every one of 
 them, from first till now, and now 
 also. 
 
 And able men educated, studious, 
 scholarly ; wise in counsel, and excel- 
 lent in working workmen that needed 
 not to be ashamed. Father Hale, for 
 example : a Yale graduate ; massive 
 judgment and common sense ; clear 
 and cool-headed, self-poised, sagacious ; 
 knowing perfectly when to speak, 
 and when to be silent ; eminent as a 
 peace-maker, and making peace in all 
 this region. 
 
 And earnest men ; staid and quiet, 
 yet with fire in their bones, and doing 
 with their might. Foster and Bissell : 
 with a force and fervor eager for any 
 good fight and fray : steam-engines, 
 yet well controlled ; a hiding of a
 
 Remarks at Centennial. 2i5 
 
 power, and a showing of it, upon fit 
 occasions. 
 
 And pleasant men. Coggin and 
 Allender : affectionate, gentle, cheer- 
 ful ; living in sunny-side, and leaving 
 behind them fragrant memories that 
 shall long continue with us, 
 
 " Embalmed with all our hearts can give 
 Our praises and our tears." 
 
 Mr. Drury, when preparing for the 
 ministry, taught -in my native Vermont 
 town, during a winter, a day-school 
 and an evening singing-school. I well 
 remember his custom of closing the 
 singing-school exercise with the jubi- 
 lant tune and hymn his favorite 
 
 " Ye tribes of Adam join." 
 With those early impressions, I
 
 216 Remarks at Centennial, 
 
 cannot now think of him otherwise 
 than as a very pleasant man and 
 minister. 
 
 And, not least, men sound and 
 strong in the Christian faith. In this 
 matter Father Hale struck the key- 
 note, and his successors, in their sing- 
 ing and preaching here, have strictly 
 kept the time and tune. " But here," 
 says one, " you lug in the old cate- 
 chism and primer." Well, what of that? 
 This people are not hopelessly spoiled 
 not quite not yet. Doctrine and 
 dogma : the terms have no terror to 
 me. And if any man, standing on this 
 hill of Zion, "beautiful for situation," 
 think men die of the Assembly's cate- 
 chism, let him look around. Men do 
 not die in that way, nor droop. Some 
 of my pleasantest recollections cluster
 
 Remarks at Centennial. 217 
 
 around that old and venerable symbol. 
 And some of my queerest and quaint- 
 est. I well remember, in my early 
 childhood, being a good deal puzzled 
 with those first two lines in the primer : 
 
 " In Adam's fall 
 We sinned all." 
 
 "Sinnedall!" What sort of a craft 
 could that be ? I may be told that 
 such teaching and preaching makes a 
 people sour, unsocial, demure. Not 
 a bit of it. If I were in search of a 
 man who carries about with him 
 
 " wreathed smiles, 
 Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 
 And love to live in dimple sleek," 
 
 I would look for him in Westhamp' 
 ton. The catechism taking the juices
 
 218 Remarks at Centennial. 
 
 out of a man, and leaving him a grim 
 skeleton or a dry, hard stick ? Beg 
 your pardon. Just look at Dr. Dorus 
 Clark ! Bright as high-noon, and green 
 and fresh as any amaranthine flower, 
 and yet an octogenarian and, oh, mir- 
 acle and marvel ! a lover, defender, and 
 advocate of the Westminster Assem- 
 bly's Catechism ! Will wonders never 
 cease ? Sedate and sober-minded this 
 people may be, but not glum and 
 moody, not fretful and peevish, and 
 creeping into the jaundice. " Like 
 people, like priest." Did a mortal man 
 or woman ever see Rev. David Coggin 
 mope about a whole day in sulks and 
 duskiness, a walking mummy ? I 
 trow not. " A merry heart doeth good 
 like a medicine." This people have 
 been fed with " food convenient "
 
 Remarks at Centennial. 219 
 
 with knowledge and understanding, 
 ministering to good health, heartiness, 
 humor, whole-souledness, hospitality. 
 Look upon these tables ; eat, drink, 
 and be merry. I wonder if anybody, 
 leaving this town, ever felt in him the 
 sensation of hunger ? 
 
 But, really, isn't it a little hard to be 
 brought up on such fare such a pro- 
 portion of doctrinal preaching for 
 nobody charges that the practical has 
 been left out in the preaching here 
 and the true practical has, and must 
 have, its foundation in doctrine. The 
 Irishman didn't succeed in building his 
 chimney from top downwards. True 
 it is, some men are weary to bear these 
 hard doctrines, so-called. It is told 
 of the old minister of the 34th Massa- 
 chusetts Regiment, that he sometimes
 
 22O Remarks at Centennial. 
 
 preached a whole half-hour on the 
 doctrine of predestination ; and that 
 the soldiers, before the close of the 
 service, were afflicted with such dread- 
 ful coughs as might have made a 
 stranger fear for the health of the com- 
 mand. That will do for a war legend ; 
 and for such let it pass. Soldiers can 
 be brave, and believing, and blithe- 
 some. In 1862, that blackest time 
 in our late war, I heard Rev. Cap- 
 tain Bissell afterward captain, and 
 since doctor of divinity, missionary, 
 author, and what more say that he 
 could not study ; that he was aching 
 in his very bones to enlist and push 
 to the front. And push he would and 
 did. But that was heroism, not hypo- 
 chondria. 
 
 " Strong meat belongeth to them of
 
 Remarks at Centennial. 221 
 
 full age." This the people of West- 
 hampton have demanded, and have 
 had, and the demand and supply prove 
 and approve each other. And it isn't 
 going much farther to say that the 
 people here have demanded sermons as 
 are sermons not rambling, off-hand 
 talk. Get, if you can, so much as the 
 conception of this people, sitting Sab- 
 bath after Sabbath, listening delight- 
 edly, or even patiently, to flippant 
 volubility, " sound and fury, signifying 
 nothing." No ; they have not lived on 
 sea-foam, and snow-broth, and whipped 
 syllabub. They have had better fare, 
 more substantial and sustaining and 
 satisfying the "sincere milk," and 
 the " strong meat " and have grown 
 thereby. The written sermon, and de- 
 livered from the manuscript, most of
 
 222 Remarks at Centennial. 
 
 the time, if not all the time. The 
 best hours and the best thoughts of 
 the week through. " And moreover, 
 because the preacher was wise, he still 
 taught the people knowledge ; yea, he 
 gave good heed, and sought out, and 
 set in order many proverbs. The 
 preacher sought to find out acceptable 
 words : and that which was written 
 was upright, even words of truth." 
 You may liken the quill or pen to 
 the Michigan plough ; and the man 
 using it in patient plodding work dur- 
 ing the week "is like unto a man 
 that is an householder, who bringeth 
 forth out of his treasure "-not things 
 old and old, but " things new and 
 old ; " while the off-hand extemporizer, 
 ten to one, is shallow and superficial, 
 scratching the surface ; or, as we.
 
 Remarks at Centennial. 223 
 
 when boys, in throwing small, thin 
 stones upon the water, called it skit- 
 tering. From my door at home I 
 have often looked off westward and 
 seen the glorious sunset, and the beau- 
 tiful Westhampton church-spire peer- 
 ing up above its sylvan and green 
 surroundings ; but I have not seen in 
 this quarter any pyrotechnics or fire- 
 works, material or metaphorical or ora- 
 torical. Some men may tell me they 
 spend as much time upon their ser- 
 mons withoiit the writing as others 
 do with it. To such I would not say 
 bluntly, " You lie ! " but more blandly 
 I would put it, " My dear, good friend, 
 I very much want to believe you ; 
 I would if I could ; but, pardon 
 me, I can't and don't." All honor 
 to this people and their pastors
 
 224 Remarks at Centennial. 
 
 for their choice and custom in this 
 matter. 
 
 Forty or more young men from this 
 little Bethlehem Judah, getting a lib- 
 eral education, and gone forth to bless 
 the world ! Come the wise man and 
 the scribe, and tell me how this is ? 
 How otherwise, than through a Chris- 
 tian church and a Christian ministry, 
 in long and bright succession min- 
 isters, godly men, faithful in all their 
 house, sound in doctrine, pure in life, 
 feeding the flock the sheep and the 
 lambs zealous, prudent, patient, con- 
 tented ; loving all and loving much, and 
 highly esteemed for their works' sake ; 
 " as unknown, yet well known ; as sor- 
 rowful, yet always rejoicing ; as poor, 
 yet making many rich ; " " bringing 
 many sons unto glory," and then
 
 Remarks at Centennial. 225 
 
 themselves receiving the glorious 
 crown. " Happy is that people that 
 is in such a case ; yea, happy is that 
 people whose God is the Lord." 
 
 15
 
 READ BEFORE THE CONGREGA- 
 TIONAL CLUB AT GREENFIELD. 
 
 WHA T were the influences or agen- 
 cies inducing men to enter the minis- 
 try a generation ago f 
 
 I shall not, I trust, be held too 
 rigidly to the question. There is a 
 negative side. There is a compara- 
 tive view. I stipulated for freedom in 
 consenting to write. 
 
 First and chief of those influen- 
 ces or agencies, Home and home life as 
 then. Parental yearnings and train- 
 ings. Children not turned off upon 
 Sabbath-school, as the manner of 
 some is. Parental hearts and hopes, 
 and prayers, that one of the many chil-
 
 Read at Greenfield. 227 
 
 dren in the family there were the 
 many in those days might be a 
 minister. Mother at home, her seat 
 and throne, best university in the 
 world ; her love and care and looks 
 and lips ; her high hope and low 
 whisper that little towhead Jamie at 
 her knee might some day be a great 
 and good minister. A half-dozen such 
 favored homes, and then, at school 
 near by, 
 
 " A little bench of heedless bishops here, 
 And there a chancellor in embryo." 
 
 Ambition, say you ? Put up thy 
 sword ; also thy microscope. We are 
 blessedly human, the best of us : cer- 
 tainly so when casting in our hearts 
 what manner of man, or minister, this 
 wonderful child of ours is to be. So,
 
 228 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 anciently, Hannah lending her Samuel 
 to the Lord. Elizabeth, hiding her- 
 self five months, and keeping up the 
 while a mighty thinking. Mary, 
 keeping all these things, and ponder- 
 ing them in her heart and perhaps 
 she. didn't keep them very closely, 
 either. 
 
 The ministers of our long ago 
 whence came they ? Chiefly from the 
 nursery and snuggery of such Chris- 
 tian homes. Dedication of children 
 to God ; the sign and seal ; the vows, 
 and prayers, and tears ; parents and 
 children together in the same cove- 
 nant and holy bonds. It is what used 
 to be heard almost invariably from 
 candidates in their examination for the 
 pastoral office, " My mother said and 
 did thus and so."
 
 Read at Greenfield. 229 
 
 2. Let us turn now from the home 
 to the house of God. Not the great- 
 est distance between. The preaching, 
 a generation ago, Gospel preaching ; 
 doctrinal, practical, plain, pungent, and 
 pressed home : a something that set 
 one pondering his wicked way, an'd 
 turning from it ; that went to the 
 heart, and fixed itself there ; that 
 set one asking, with Saul of Tarsus : 
 " Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
 do?"- that made a man take and 
 keep for his motto, Conscience and 
 Christ. Those great preachers, Fin- 
 ney, Nettleton, Burchard, Foote, 
 Lindsley, Humphrey, Hewitt, Hawes, 
 Lyman Beecher, N. W. Taylor, Ben- 
 net Tyler, Thomas H. Skinner, Joel 
 Parker, and Edward N. Kirk I have 
 heard them all, and do well remember
 
 230 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 their trend and drift. The sinner, 
 self-destroyed, ruined, utterly undone; 
 himself helpless, and his case utterly 
 hopeless, except as God in his sover- 
 eign, free, electing love, may see fit to 
 reach down his mighty arm and pluck 
 him as a brand. Sinai first, then 
 Calvary. There was the dying when 
 the commandment came. By the 
 terrors of the Lord men were per- 
 suaded. Nettleton's Village Hymns 
 " Awaked by Sinai's awful sound." 
 The storm seen gathering, and the 
 fleeing as a bird to your mountain. 
 The sinner, trembling and almost de- 
 spairing, and driven as well as drawn 
 to seek and find in Christ the one and 
 only Hiding-place. Darkest just be- 
 fore day. Penitential sorrow. Bow 
 on the cloud, of light, indeed, but of
 
 Read at Greenfield. 231 
 
 rain-drops also. The drops of grief 
 before the light of smiles. The law 
 our schoolmaster, and the law-work 
 thorough. The fallow ground broken 
 up, ploughed deeply, moistened, made 
 mellow ; and now a garden of spices, 
 plants of righteousness, strongest vir- 
 tues, sweetest graces humility and 
 holy zeal. Such a Rescue, and there- 
 fore now the glad and thankful con- 
 secration to God and his service. 
 None the less in those days the invit- 
 ing voices, the sweet sounds never 
 were sweeter but carefully in their 
 due place and order. After the fire, 
 the gentle, soft sound, as Tholuck 
 translates it. 
 
 Now the point and proof. In- 
 stance : that revival in Yale College in 
 i ; the depth and power, the
 
 232 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 passionate longing and pleading for 
 pardon and peace with God ; and such 
 numbers undergraduates, tutors, and 
 law-students devoting themselves 
 then and there to the ministerial 
 calling. So in my native town in Ver- 
 mont seven hundred inhabitants 
 revival in 1826, fifty conversions; 
 pungent convictions, great search- 
 ings of heart, the surrender and 
 rescue, the daring to hope, the still- 
 ness and chastened joy ; and of those 
 fifty converts seven in no long time 
 were found in our academies and col- 
 leges on their way to the Christian 
 ministry. You might have supposed 
 the good issue. It is in God's plan 
 and method. It is a deep philosophy. 
 It is plain law of cause and effect. It 
 is Scripture loving much because for-
 
 Read at Greenfield. 233 
 
 given much. It is song loving Him 
 who first loved me. 
 
 But again, 3, as to the ministry 
 itself- the high estimation in which it 
 was held, and of which in good part it 
 was worthy. In more senses than one 
 the calling was a high calling. The 
 pulpits were high. The minister 
 was the eminent man among a people ; 
 was the one educated man among 
 most peoples ; was revered, consulted, 
 deferred to ; was oracle and umpire ; 
 held the fort by a sort of divine 
 right ; was called a divine ; was divine, 
 in the Unitarian sense of divine; 
 heard, as others did, the high-sound- 
 ing cymbals, "venerandi ac reverandi" 
 Something of a prize to be coveted, 
 such a place and position among men ; 
 something of a goal of honor for you,
 
 234 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 perhaps, if, a little aspiring, you would 
 attain unto what Dr. Cox would have 
 called " the height of conspicuity." 
 Fortunately, or providentially, rather, 
 there was among the young men, 
 fresh from the revivals, the experi- 
 ences and consecrations we have 
 spoken of, a piety that could and did, 
 in good measure at least, resist the 
 temptations to arrogance and pride, 
 and putting on of airs albeit the tin- 
 sel and trappings of an earlier time, 
 the knee-buckles and powdered hair, 
 those prime essentials of dignity and 
 gravity not to say sanctity had not 
 yet quite faded from mortal vision. 
 The Parson and Divine. It is quite 
 conceivable that a good man and hum- 
 ble may covet earnestly a high posi- 
 tion as affording him the better field
 
 Read at Greenfield. 235 
 
 and freedom to serve God and his 
 generation. Certain it is, the young- 
 man, looking to the ministry in those 
 early days, was regarded as worthily 
 aspiring to place himself upon such 
 vantage-ground. " This is a true say- 
 ing, If a man desire the office of 
 a bishop, he desireth a good work." 
 Channing and Emerson agreed in 
 calling the ministry the finest of all 
 the professions. 
 
 4. The ministry in those days was 
 held to be the post and place for emi- 
 nent usefulness. If you want to do 
 great things for the Master, be 
 a minister. Mr. By-Ends and Mr. 
 Money-Love didn't edge up to you 
 with their soft suggestion, that you 
 could be just as good a man, and do 
 just as much good in the world, in some
 
 236 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 other sphere of life, in some shorter, 
 easier, cheaper means and methods 
 Christian Associations, temperance 
 work, Sabbath-school, and personal 
 effort. There were not then these 
 open doors, or they were not known* 
 and recognized as now. William E. 
 Dodge, cultivating, as he has done, a 
 vast and varied field of Christian ac- 
 tivities, would, in the earlier time, have 
 been looked upon as little better or 
 .other than a picturesque anachronism 
 out of time, place, propriety, proph- 
 ecy, or possibility a somewhat of a 
 sort with the man's conjecture that, in 
 killing Abel, Cain must have obtained 
 from Hartford, Conn., one of Colt's 
 revolvers. No. Instead, one highway, 
 cast up and prepared, a royal road, a 
 king's highway for you, if you would
 
 Read at Greenfield. 237 
 
 work and win strike for the goal and 
 the prize be a minister and preach 
 the Gospel. 
 
 Well now, a young Christian in the 
 early time ; his conscience and conse- 
 cration and good impulse. Can he 
 attain to the sacred office ? Should 
 he attempt it ? Some things will ever- 
 more seem adverse ; perhaps strait- 
 ened means ; state of family ; time of 
 life ; long toil of preparation ; long 
 waiting ; perhaps lady waiting ; advice 
 to the contrary ; uncertainty of suc- 
 cess ; burdens of work and care in the 
 ministry; impulse to cut across lots, or 
 climb up some other way some one 
 or more of these ready at all times to 
 hinder and dissuade. 
 
 i. Wanted then, as ever, an edu- 
 cated ministry.
 
 238 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 2. Such education, at the easiest, 
 costs not a little. 
 
 3. By far the greater number in the 
 ministry and adorning it are not from 
 the rich there were not the rich then 
 as now but from families of humbler 
 means, perhaps no means at all, ex- 
 cept their riches in Christ. It has al- 
 ways been so, and will be in this land. 
 
 Now, our young aspirant of forty or 
 fifty years ago. Many things favored 
 his wish and choice. Parents will toil 
 and economize to carry their dear boy 
 through and up to a place so honora- 
 ble, useful, and sure.. The Education 
 Society, a new thing and admirable, 
 with Dr. Cornelius and Professor B. 
 B. Edwards, rare men, with magnetic 
 force to push its work, brings its offers 
 and appeals, and throws into the ques-
 
 Read at Greenfield. 239 
 
 tion a moral and material weight 
 which, all things considered, it has 
 not done since, nor can again. Ex- 
 pense of education comparatively 
 small. Boy and family have not been 
 frightened at hearing of college clubs 
 and crews and contests, journeys, re- 
 gattas, class-suppers, and secret socie- 
 ties, etc. those abominations that 
 make desolate. The times, not of 
 telegraphs and rushing haste, but 
 more patient and plodding, slow and 
 sensible. Ten years not then so very 
 long a time for getting ready to 
 preach. Boy from plough, loom, or 
 anvil, in happy ignorance of luxurious 
 living ; had never crossed the Plain of 
 Ease, nor seen Vanity Fair, except 
 in Bunyan. Boy inured to toil, 
 and could endure hardness. William
 
 240 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 Goodell, on foot from Templeton to An- 
 dover, with trunk strapped to his back, 
 thereby gaining his bent form, a mark 
 of honor which he could well afford to 
 carry with him through life, as good 
 old Jacob could his lameness, after 
 having beaten that angel at wrestling. 
 Boy and family have not had their 
 eyes dazzled to blindness by visions of 
 sudden wealth. Boy and family have 
 not had their zeal frozen nor chilled 
 by scepticisms, suggesting doubts 
 whether this much ado about saving 
 men in the present life and present 
 probation, be, after all, so needful and 
 wise. Haven't heard disheartening 
 talk about the exacting demands of 
 the age how a minister must under- 
 stand all mysteries, must know every- 
 thing, and be everything and every-
 
 Read at Greenfield. 241 
 
 where must be Stuart, Woolsey, 
 McCosh, and Chadbourne, all in one 
 pastor, teacher, and evangelist, all 
 in one. Haven't heard a hue and cry 
 about a surplus of ministers a cry 
 eagerly caught up in a later day, and 
 sounded along the tribes from Be'er- 
 sheba even unto Dan : a great multi- 
 tude of impotent folk at the Pool of 
 Bethesda, or at a ministerial bureau of 
 Boston, waiting for an angel to come 
 down and put them in ; or, a trial 
 almost as humiliating, the walking 
 through dry places, seeking rest, and 
 finding none. Haven't read the para- 
 ble, how sixty men took cars from 
 Springfield for Boston ; got out at 
 each of twelve stations, and were 
 counted over again the same sixty, 
 every time and how, on arriving at 
 
 16
 
 242 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 Boston, the identical sixty had become 
 seven hundred and twenty a great 
 surplus of ministers ! Haven't seen, 
 week after week, a Monday's New 
 York daily, showing how pestered 
 and puzzled and perplexed a score of 
 ministers have been to find or frame a 
 something to preach upon, and enter- 
 tain, and draw; and how, in their 
 straits, they did, yesterday, preach 
 science, ethics, esthetics, culture, the 
 most advanced thought, marriage and 
 divorce, sphere of woman, moral re- 
 forms, evolution, every thing, almost, 
 except the Gospel of God's love and 
 grace to dying men or, as Mrs. Part- 
 ington has it, " Dispensed with the 
 Gospel." And, finally, the boy and 
 friends haven't been told, to their 
 amazement, that the average time of a
 
 Read at Greenfield. 243 
 
 minister in one place and pastorate is 
 about three and a half years ; then the 
 breaking up, and tearing up, and a 
 removal to who shall tell him where ? 
 
 No. The boy in those days, and 
 yearning to preach the Gospel, was 
 happily exempt from most of these 
 and the like dissuasives. The aspects 
 and prospects were brighter in these 
 regards at least. There were not seen 
 in those days these so many things of 
 a contrary part to dampen and depress 
 a youthful and Christian ardor. 
 
 Boy up there at his Vork, and with 
 his theme and hope : and so he walks 
 
 " in glory and in joy 
 Behind his plough upon the mountain side." 
 
 He is thinking thinking what to do 
 what he can and ought. He can
 
 244 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 think. The isolation and stillness help 
 him. He is not interrupted, and 
 thrown off the track on both sides at 
 once. He hears no railroad whistle. 
 He sees no excursion train. He is 
 not diverted to day-dreams about 
 sociables and suppers and picnics, 
 and festivals and concerts and lect- 
 ures. He can think on and clear 
 through to resolve. " Stillness ! " But 
 there is music ; the air is full of it. 
 Electrical currents, inspiration, up-lift, 
 impulsion. Those wonderful revivals, 
 and their baptism upon him. And 
 missions, new, strange, wonderful. 
 And Macedonian cries, and glad re- 
 sponses to them. The mountains la- 
 bored, and brought forth men and 'mis- 
 sionaries : Pliny Fisk of Shelburne, 
 Jonas King of Hawley, William
 
 Read at Greenfield. 245 
 
 Goodell of Templeton, and other 
 Christian heroes, of like precious faith. 
 The spectacle, as then looked upon : 
 young men taking their lives in their 
 hands, bidding farewell to kindred and 
 country, cheerfully consenting to bear 
 all the great perils and privations of a 
 life in heathen lands, and, not least, 
 never to return, never, no, never. And 
 the Calebs were heard saying, " Let us 
 go up at once, and possess it ; for we 
 are able to overcome it." Peter Par- 
 ker for China ; and the walls there to 
 fall immediately, were they not, as 
 those of Jericho had done. That grand 
 man, Rev. Leonard Bacon, as you 
 might have seen and heard him fifty 
 years ago. Look into his face, shin- 
 ing as it had been the face of an angel, 
 while, in notes almost divine, he sings :
 
 246 Read at Greenfield. 
 
 " See the glory-beaming star. 
 
 Traveller ! yes, it brings the day, 
 
 Promised day of Israel." 
 
 Hear Dr. Griffin, closing his mis- 
 sionary sermon with ecstasies and 
 transports : " I see, I see," etc., and 
 
 " Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." 
 
 Had not the millennium already 
 dawned ? 
 
 The situation as then ; the field, the 
 calls. Would not the young man, 
 loving and yearning, and come to the 
 kingdom at such a time, respond, 
 Here am I; send me? I think he 
 would. I think he did. 
 
 May an old man, in closing, say a 
 word personal to himself ? The min- 
 isterial brethren I love them more
 
 Read at Greenfield. 247 
 
 and more as the years come and go, 
 and more highly esteem them for their 
 worth and work's sake. If I might go 
 back, and choose my way of life again, 
 I would choose the Christian ministry, 
 as preferable by far to anything else 
 this world could offer me. I should 
 like right well to do my life-work over 
 again, and would do it better next 
 time, God helping me. I think I 
 would.
 
 FIRST LETTER FROM THE ISLES OF 
 SHOALS. 
 
 APPLEDORE HOUSE, 
 ISLES OF SHOALS, N. H., July 23, 1879. 
 
 SOMETHING of a transition from 
 northwestern Vermont, on Lake Cham- 
 plain, to this island, east from main- 
 land, out on the sea. And how to get 
 here. Take cars at Boston, on the 
 Eastern Railroad ; two hours' ride, 
 through Chelsea, Revere, Lynn, Bev- 
 erly, Ipswich, Rowley, Newburyport, 
 and Hampton, N. H., to Portsmouth ; 
 then a steamer, ten miles east by 
 southeast into the ocean, and you 
 are landed on this island of rocks 
 the largest of several equally rocky.
 
 Isles of Shoals. 249 
 
 Odd place, you say ; and so it is. 
 Rocks to grass as ten to one. One 
 hundred acres, and upon them four 
 calves, and not a sheep. The tradi- 
 tional New Hampshire sharpening of 
 the sheeps' noses would hardly keep 
 the creatures here above starvation. 
 No sea-beach here ; the huge waves 
 beat against the ledges. No surf sea- 
 bathing here water too cold. There 
 is somewhat of ^'//-water bathing in 
 two large ponds. Into these the 
 water at high tide is let in, and is 
 then kept in, by closing of gates, as in 
 the locks of a canal, till the water is 
 sufficiently sun-warmed for bathing. 
 
 You are ready to ask, What is there 
 here to attract visitors from city and 
 country? Very much specially to 
 those seeking health and invigoration.
 
 250 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 The sea all around "mighty mon- 
 archy of waters " the tonic breezes, 
 the coolness, the wildness, the waves, 
 and the fishing ; and this last, 
 you, Mr. Editor, would very likely 
 place at the head of the list. One 
 more, and chief of the attractions to 
 many, a finer Hotel than can be found 
 elsewhere on or near these eastern 
 shores. Kept by the Laighton Broth- 
 ers, who were trained to the busi- 
 ness, and inherited the property, the 
 island entire, from their father, who 
 died several years since. This Hotel, 
 besides cottages, has three main 
 buildings, the largest in the centre, all 
 in range, separated by narrow spaces 
 laterally, and united in front, west- 
 ward, by a common and continuous 
 piazza, five hundred feet long. The
 
 Isles of Shoals. 251 
 
 dining-hall will seat, comfortably, four 
 hundred at once. It is a first-class 
 house, and will compare favorably, as 
 to table and its appointments, with the 
 " United States" and "Grand Union " 
 in Saratoga. You would say so, were 
 I to send you a bill of fare. Prices 
 nearly the same in this as in those. 
 Buildings not so gorgeous, yet quite 
 sightly and comfortable. Best of beds 
 and bedding. Sixty rocking-chairs on 
 front piazza, besides one in each bed- 
 room. Abundance of sofas for loung- 
 ing and lolling. A full complement 
 and variety of fixings and furnishings 
 for ease, comfort, pleasure, and profit, 
 also, if you will. Bible in every bed- 
 room. Billiard-saloon, bowling-alley, 
 ball-room, band of music, and bar 
 this last in the rear basement. I have
 
 252 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 not seen it, please. There is, I think, 
 very little of rum-drinking here. I 
 have seen none, nor the effects or 
 signs. The island lies off against 
 both Maine and New Hampshire, and 
 as to liquor-laws, is, perhaps, amenable 
 to neither. The rooms are generously 
 supplied with books. Newspapers, 
 writing-desks, paper and envelopes, 
 all free, and as much as you will. 
 Theatre and concert-room, chapel 
 and hymn-books. No expense spared. 
 No pinching of image and super- 
 scription out of a penny. No at- 
 tempt to solve the problem of how 
 much to get from how little of giving, 
 or how to fleece most with feeding 
 least. The most courteous and oblig- 
 ing of landlords, intent to meet, and, 
 if possible, anticipate your every
 
 Isles of Shoals. 253 
 
 want or wish. Servants and service 
 in the dining-room the best. Small 
 table, and a trained waiter at each. 
 The two head-waiters young men, the 
 rest Yankee girls the comeliest-look- 
 ing set to be found in any dining- 
 room in America, so says my neighbor 
 mess-mate enthusiastically and truth- 
 fully. And you would say it. I didn't 
 mention card-tables and playing. 
 While I am writing this, a dozen men 
 United States Senator Thurman, of 
 Ohio, so likely to be our next president, 
 perhaps, among them are playing at 
 whist in the room next me. We have 
 a steamer from Portsmouth twice a 
 day, bringing mails from Boston, New 
 York, etc. To find yourself, of an 
 evening, reading the New York morn- 
 ing papers of the same day, away so
 
 254 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 far down east on the great and wide 
 sea ! What marvels ! What a contrast 
 to things old and vanished ! The first 
 mail-carrier between Washington and 
 Boston was placed under bonds to 
 achieve the distance in fourteen 
 days ! Now the pace of as many 
 hours is too lax and lagging. Shall a 
 man yet come to be so hasty and swift 
 as to run away from his shadow and 
 himself ? 
 
 And our company, at this hotel, now 
 three hundred. They are from far 
 and near St. Louis, Chicago, Phila- 
 delphia, New York, and many another 
 place. They are of the choicest. The 
 solid men of Boston are here in large 
 force, representing millions in wealth 
 solid men and solid women the 
 latter specially so, some of them
 
 Isles of Shoals. 255 
 
 freighting into the hundreds. The 
 Boston ton and upper-crust are here 
 real gentle-folk courteous, affable, 
 simple and natural in mien and man- 
 ner; no starchiness and "stuck up," 
 and putting on of airs, as in the 
 Saratogian shoddy from New York. 
 Dresses plain. No long trains, either 
 of cars or clothes. Dress as you 
 please. Free and easy. Never a 
 more agreeable set. The coarse and 
 rough, the pushing and pretentious, 
 are not here. Would they were no- 
 where. 
 
 We have preaching services on Sab- 
 bath, the last by Dr. Peabody, of 
 Harvard University. He gave us an 
 excellent discourse. Nearly all the 
 visitors were in attendance. Do you 
 ask how we while away the time ?
 
 256 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 Plenty of ways. Now the band. 
 Now songs by the best Boston voices. 
 Now a ramble on the rocks, and then 
 a sitting on the water's edge, to see 
 the monster waves swell and surge 
 and break at your feet, and the 
 whitening sails off at sea. And, in 
 the evenings, to look off landward, 
 and see the government light-houses 
 on a long stretch of shore. And then 
 the chat and stories, and the arrival of 
 steamer with mail, and letters from 
 home, and papers ; and the evening in 
 your room, and reading by best of 
 gaslight ; and the breakfasts and din- 
 ners and teas ; and then speak it 
 softly the splendid fishing, and 
 plenty of luck ! Have been out at it 
 two forenoons. Am not an expert, 
 but can lose, my bait, and get the hook
 
 Isles of Shoals. .267 
 
 into my fingers, and miss getting the 
 fellow up and out, as fast and often as 
 the very adepts. And the sun and 
 these winds, to put a new face upon 
 you, for better or worse mines 
 several shades nearer to well, I will 
 not slander the Africans, nor the 
 Indians, either. Every one in his own 
 order and color Mr. White, Mr. 
 Brown, Mr. Purple, Mr. Beach, and 
 myself just now somewhere in "the 
 middle extreme." I don't like fishing. 
 It involves the giving of too much 
 needless and profitless pain to creat- 
 ures that won't harm you, and can't 
 resent nor protest. I am ready to say 
 of fishing for mere sport as Cowper 
 says of hunting : 
 
 " Detested sport, 
 
 That owes its pleasure to another's pain." 
 17
 
 258 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 If I wanted the food, that might ex- 
 cuse. I do not read that Peter and 
 Andrew fished for the fun of it. And 
 they used the net, and not the hook. 
 Sentimentalism ! some one says. Let 
 him say it. " I, also, will give mine 
 opinion." 
 
 You may think we suffer here from 
 the cold. No, sir. Over-coat in morn- 
 ings, if needs be, with exercise, and 
 good wood fires in open grates in half 
 the evenings. Out in the open air 
 freely, with or without head-gear, and 
 clad less warmly or more, and yet not 
 one among all the three hundred 
 guests has a cold. The salt air ac- 
 counts for this. You couldn't begin to 
 bear the equal exposures on land with 
 the like impunity. The air is bracing. 
 You must stir about. No one here 
 complains of the cold. No one is set
 
 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 to shivering and teeth-chattering, or is 
 thrown into the slough of " Oh, dear 
 suzzes." Marvellous stories are told 
 of the health-lifting here in some in- 
 stances. Six pounds gained in one 
 week by an in-landsman who came 
 here a week ago, pale, stooping, and 
 wheezing heavily. Bethesda but the 
 pool is larger. 
 
 One week here. We, brother and 
 myself, propose, D. V., to start a week 
 from to-morrow for a week at Nan- 
 tucket, not for a better place, but for 
 another and variety, and soon home, 
 we hope home and friends. "No 
 place like home." No play so 
 pleasant as work. No friends so 
 beautiful as one's own as mine to 
 me. And so, as my good friends from 
 the Emerald Isle would say, " The top 
 of the morning to you."
 
 SECOND LETTER FROM THE ISLES 
 OF SHOALS. 
 
 APPLEDORE HOUSE, 
 ISLES OF SHOALS, August 16, 1883. 
 
 WITH a little time and pains-taking 
 curiosity one may find a good deal of 
 real interest in this group of islands. 
 Since writing you last I have been 
 rambling over " Star Island," a few 
 minutes' sail south of our Appledore. 
 In a religious point of view, I think 
 the "Star" must have stood eminent 
 above the other islands six in all 
 eight in low tide. Standing up on 
 high ground, or rather rock, is a little 
 church, "pointing with taper spire to 
 heaven "-little used now, but having
 
 Isles of Shoals. 261 
 
 a history. On the north outside, in- 
 serted in the wall, is a marble tablet 
 with this inscription : 
 
 " GOSPORT CHURCH. 
 
 Originally constructed of timbers from 
 the wreck of a Spanish ship, A.D. 1685. 
 Was rebuilt in 1720, and burned by 
 the islanders in .1790. This building 
 of stone was erected in 1800." Re- 
 liable tradition says that eight of the 
 wrecked men were buried near by. 
 This building very strong walls 
 nearly three feet in thickness, of heavy 
 stones and carefully laid, is neatly 
 kept. Plain benches, with backs 
 twenty-four in number these with 
 pulpit and platform of the same wood, 
 two chairs, straight-backed and cane- 
 seated the whole painted in deep
 
 262 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 red darker now for age. Once in a 
 while a preaching service is held there. 
 
 Farther south, on this island, is the 
 graveyard in which "the rude fore- 
 fathers of the hamlet sleep." Two of 
 the graves are marked by large sand- 
 stone slabs, resting on piles of stones, 
 matching them in size and shape as 
 well as a rude but reverent masonry 
 could be looked to do such work. One 
 of the stones bears the name of Josiah 
 Stephens. Died July 2, 1804. 
 
 On the other stone is the name of 
 "John Tucke, graduate of Harvard in 
 1728; ordained July 26, 1732; died 
 here, August 12, 1773." The memorial 
 words over these two are singularly 
 affectionate and grateful ; the closing 
 line over Mr. Tucke, saying of him, 
 that he was " A careful physician, both
 
 Isles of Shoals. 263 
 
 of the bodies and souls of his people. 
 In memory of the just." 
 
 The rest of the graves have bould- 
 ers for headstones, with no traceable 
 inscriptions ; only here and there a 
 stone can be distinguished as noting 
 the sleeping-place of one who was 
 once, perhaps, a prince of the people 
 here perhaps " the manliest of ye 
 all." A few more years, and these 
 rude stones will give the stranger or a 
 dweller here no sign to distinguish the 
 " inches few " where the generations 
 here have their sleeping-places " the 
 last of earth." 
 
 Overlooking the sea, at the extreme 
 soutn end of the island, is a monument 
 on a granite pedestal, in memory of 
 "John Smith, who was Governor of 
 Virginia, and Admiral of New Eng-
 
 264 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 land. Was born in Willoughby, 
 England, in 1579; died in London 
 in 1631." "These islands, properly 
 called Smith's Islands, were discovered 
 by him in April, 1614, while, with 
 eight others, in an open vessel, he 
 was exploring the coast from the Pe- 
 nobscot to Cape Cod. Vincere est 
 vivere. " 
 
 A little way west of this, and over- 
 hanging the sea, is another tablet, 
 telling a story less grand, maybe, but 
 more touching and tragic. Clamber- 
 ing with care part way down the beet- 
 ling ledge, you find, pendent against a 
 perpendicular wall of rock, with a 
 something like a rocky seat beneath, a 
 board three feet square, painted, and 
 inscribed (the work carefully done in 
 paint) with these words :
 
 Isles of Shoals. 265 
 
 " Miss UNDERBILL'S CHAIR. 
 Miss N. J. Underbill, for two years 
 teacher of the youth on Star Island, 
 was dashed by the waves from this 
 rock, and was drowned, September n, 
 1848, and was much lamented by this 
 people." 
 
 I should add, that the sea must 
 have been at the topmost of its " rag- 
 ing " to reach her at that height ; for, 
 though down some way from the top, 
 the " chair" is still high above the sea's 
 usual Teachings. 
 
 One of the most touching things 
 I have met with at the Shoals is a 
 private burial spot, perhaps twenty 
 feet square, inclosed in a wooden, 
 picket railing the work said to have 
 been done by the father, Rev. Mr. 
 Beebe, with his own hands covered
 
 266 hies of Shoals. 
 
 all over now with a thick growth of 
 shrub willows ; a dell scooped out in 
 shape of a bowl ; gate shut and 
 locked ; yet a something is there 
 which the inclosure cannot, or does 
 not, keep from human feet and eyes 
 and hearts. Getting over the fence, as 
 others have done before me (I was 
 alone), and stooping my way along 
 under and through a tangle of willow 
 branches, I reached the centre and 
 lowest point of the plat, and there 
 found, what is almost hidden from an 
 outside viewer, a monument of finest 
 marble, four square, tapering slightly, 
 six feet or more in height, and resting 
 on a granite plinth. At the base of 
 this column (on all sides, I think) is 
 the name BEEBE. In a row, on the 
 east side of the ground, are three small
 
 Isles of Shoals. 267 
 
 headstones, perhaps eighteen inches 
 high, with the names of those and all 
 who have been buried there. Turning 
 back now to the column, and tracing 
 one side of it from top downward, 
 you read : 
 
 "JESSIE. Died May 30, 1863, aged 
 two years. 
 
 " You are, dear child, ' far, far away,' 
 
 Yet near in spirit, too ; 
 Welcome indeed will be the day 
 That brings us all to you." 
 
 " MILLIE. Died June 12, 1863, 
 aged four years. Dying, she kneeled 
 down and prayed, ' Please, Jesus, take 
 me up to the light place.' And he 
 did." 
 
 " MITTIE. Died June 23, 1863, 
 aged seven years. ' I don't want to
 
 268 Isles of Shoals. 
 
 die, but I'll do just as Jesus wants me 
 
 to." 
 
 Let the reader note the above 
 dates. On inquiry, I learn that the 
 parents, and so the whole family, have 
 passed. Mr. Beebe was greatly be- 
 loved in his labors on these islands. 
 The parents died and were buried else- 
 where. 
 
 What volumes, unwritten, except in 
 God's book of life and love, do those 
 few memorial words imply ! What 
 mysteries of Providence "a great 
 deep," "deep in unfathomable mines," 
 "deep as the boundless sea." What 
 sorrows and tears ! What hopes, that 
 cannot be crushed, or "crushed to 
 earth, will rise again." Standing, or 
 rather stooping, there, and tracing 
 those few simple lines, and letting
 
 Isles of Shoals. 269 
 
 fancy fill up the story as well as it 
 could poorly at best there came 
 with unwonted power to my heart 
 those blessed words of Jesus, " Suffer 
 the little children to come unto me, 
 and forbid them not : for of such is the 
 kingdom of Heaven."
 
 A SERMON ON THE POWER OF 
 HABIT.* 
 
 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his 
 spots ? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed 
 to do evil. Jer. xiii. 23. 
 
 . IN Scripture, and in our common 
 speech, there are two " cannots " : 
 one, meaning the want of power ; the 
 other, the want of will. I "cannot" 
 lift a mountain I haven't the power : 
 I " cannot " do this or that thing 
 you ask of me I am unwilling to 
 do it ; it is against my way of think- 
 ing, my principles, my habits, my cir- 
 cumstances and convenience. The 
 
 * This discourse was written with no thought of pub- 
 lication. It is inserted here at the particular request of 
 friends.
 
 The Power of Habit. 271 
 
 Ethiopian "cannot" change his skin; 
 it is impossible to him ; it is against 
 nature. A man accustomed to do evil 
 "cannot" cease from it; he has no 
 heart to stop and turn ; a habit upon 
 him holds him to the wrong. 
 
 I am to speak of the habits we form, 
 and which form us to good or evil. 
 
 The law of habit is a pervading law 
 of man, and runs through all the ele- 
 ments of his life, as do the arteries 
 and veins in his animal make. We see 
 its operation in the little things of our 
 everyday life things of the body, the 
 mind, the heart. It is a great achieve- 
 ment when an infant for the first time 
 toddles across the floor ! What a glee 
 the little hero has and gives, and how 
 he repeats the act from very exuber- 
 ance of delight ! He is a Columbus,
 
 272 The Power of Habit. 
 
 discovering a continent. The first 
 steps of going alone ! Was ever 
 wonder greater ? But, grown to man- 
 hood, he makes whole journeys in 
 almost utter unconsciousness of any 
 act of the will, without which a single 
 step cannot be taken. So of one's 
 gait in walking peculiarities of atti- 
 tude and motion, bend of the head, or 
 swing of an arm. 
 
 Thus it is with bodily habits they 
 cling to us they are part of us a 
 second nature. Your hand-writing 
 yours recognized and accepted as 
 yours, whether found in the hasty note 
 of to-day, or in your last will and 
 testament. 
 
 Now, the spiritual in man is far 
 more susceptible to influences giving 
 us a fixed moral form and pressure.
 
 The Power of Habit. 273 
 
 A mere dream leaves on you a shadow 
 which it takes you days, perhaps 
 weeks, to shake off. " Only a dream." 
 True ; but that something stays long 
 in spite of your philosophy. 
 
 Of these our habits, then, I remark : 
 i. They are necessarily formed. The 
 question is not of whether, but of 
 what. Habits of some sort you must 
 form you are forming, every day. 
 You couldn't help it if you would. It 
 is a law in our make and moulding. It 
 belongs inherently to all action, all 
 growth, all life. That child on the 
 floor boy, with two old shoes for 
 oxen, or girl with doll or kitten will, 
 with admirable ambition and enter- 
 prise, repeat an effort fifty times to fix 
 that thing just right. You wouldn't 
 repress this zeal in that child, your 
 
 18
 
 274 The Power of Habit. 
 
 child, noise or none of it. You might 
 be destroying a roll of grand prophecy 
 if you did. You might be undoing 
 the miracle of a tired mother's great 
 love and great hope. The child is 
 reaching up for excellence is follow- 
 ing after, if that he may apprehend. 
 He is in college already, and is learn- 
 ing faster than most college students 
 do. 
 
 So of all experimenting. So of all 
 apprenticeships in arts and trades. So 
 of learning to play on an organ or 
 piano this going over and over a 
 thing, till practice brings facility, mas- 
 tery, perfection. It is something very 
 wonderful and instructive, this pluck 
 and patience and persistence through 
 years and years to reach our palms 
 and prizes.
 
 The Power of Habit. 27 5 
 
 Nor one habit alone. The forming 
 of one renders easy and probable the 
 forming of other and kindred habits. 
 One virtue introduces a whole sister- 
 hood of virtues, as the evening star 
 leads the nightly train. One vice en- 
 folds a whole brood of vipers. Lying 
 or profanity is the Trojan horse, enter- 
 ing a city to destroy it. You look 
 upon the swearing boy as bad already, 
 perhaps all through. 
 
 2. Our habits are early formed in 
 great part in childhood and youth. 
 Then is the nature most impressible 
 and most flexible. Then we take our 
 shape and color. Then are the soft 
 clay and bird-tracks, which men of a 
 thousand years afterward shall be 
 looking upon with wondering eyes. 
 You cannot bend nor straighten an
 
 276 The Power of Habit. 
 
 old tree to your fancy. You must 
 begin with the sapling and tender 
 plant. " Just as the twig is bent, the 
 tree's inclined." "Train up a child 
 in the way he should go, and when he 
 is old he will not depart from it." Oh ! 
 the boon of a Christian home ! The 
 parental love, and care, and counsel, 
 the prayers, the Scripture reading, and 
 the songs of praise ! The silken cords, 
 the sweet captivity, holding you to the 
 right and true and good. Not often 
 is a young man, all right at twenty, 
 found afterward flying from his orbit, 
 and swinging blind amid storms of 
 error and profligacy. A good set- 
 ting out in life, we all say, is vastly 
 momentous. Oh ! how many his- 
 tories tell us that our early life is 
 formative and determinative ! Then
 
 The Power of Habit. 277 
 
 is the spring-time, and the seed- 
 sowing. 
 
 3. Our habits are silently and imper- 
 ceptibly formed. Much as in the great 
 forces of nature. The sun and stars 
 move in silent procession. So with 
 electricity, and magnetism, and gravita- 
 tion mighty forces, and marvellous in 
 their effects, but giving no sound. The 
 thunder is noise, but is harmless ; the 
 lightning is silent, but rends the moun- 
 tain. The ocean cable stirs no ripple. 
 You stand in a forest, and think of the 
 great miracle going on in silence 
 round you that forest growth ! and 
 
 " The sound of dropping nuts is heard, 
 While all the trees are still." 
 
 Or the grain-field in June marvellous 
 that process, the growth and ripening,
 
 278 The Power of Habit. 
 
 but there is no sound. Your clock 
 ticks off the moments for you : it is 
 the clock, not the moments, that you 
 hear. 
 
 " We take no note of time, but from its loss." 
 
 Much so, my friends, is it with our 
 habits a silent growth and proces- 
 sion. They steal upon us like a thief 
 in the night. They creep with soft, 
 velvety step. They take us unawares. 
 That unguarded youth is all uncon- 
 scious of the malign work going on 
 in him : not a suspicion that he is 
 forging chains and fetters with which 
 the Philistines shall some day make 
 him grind in their prison-house, and 
 use him for their sport. It is a sap- 
 ping and mining in the dark, at the 
 seat and citadel of life of all that
 
 The Power of Habit. 2 79 
 
 makes life worth living. Putting that 
 poison-cup to his lips not a thought 
 that he could ever be a slave to the 
 drink-fiend. Not he ; no, never, nor 
 possibility of it. " Why, man alive, do 
 you think I am not my own master ? " 
 But you see him afterward and 
 how changed ! how the demon has 
 him, and mocks his groans and tears. 
 Is this fiction ? I wish it were. But 
 no ; it is just what you and I have seen 
 and sorrowed over the young, and 
 beautiful, and strong, broken, wrecked, 
 slain upon their high places sunk to 
 depths from which we never see him 
 rise. " Died he not as the fool 
 dieth?" 
 
 4. Habits are rapidly formed. 
 Though silent and unperceived, the 
 process hastens to its issue. The bird
 
 280 The Power of Habit. 
 
 hasteth to the snare. There are " feet 
 that be swift in running to mischief." 
 There is, indeed, a diversity here, as 
 in nature elsewhere. There is in 
 botany the century plant. There is in 
 sacred history a Jonah's gourd. It 
 was miracle. But there is something 
 very like the miraculous in the swift- 
 ness with which vice sometimes leaps 
 to its goal in shame and sorrow. 
 There are coral islands which in- 
 sects have been centuries in building. 
 But islands have, in one hour, been 
 heaved up from the ocean's bed. Men 
 for ages have been repeating the Latin 
 poet's saying : " The descent to hell 
 is easy." Our down-grades give rapid 
 travelling. You have seen a young 
 man go down as it were by a bound, 
 from apparent virtuousness, into a
 
 The Power of Habit. 281 
 
 depth of villany, where none could 
 look upon him, except with mingled 
 pity and loathing. Probably the bitter 
 waters, which you saw come to the 
 surface, had for some distance been 
 coursing their way underground. The 
 tree which the wind blows over is 
 founcj to have rottenness at the root. 
 Very likely the process of degeneracy 
 and decline is usually more laborious 
 and gradual than it appears to be, to 
 one looking at its sad issue. Many a 
 one has to dig and delve to reach the 
 lower deeps. " The wages of sin is 
 death " that is, if you want perdition 
 you must work for it ; but the gift of 
 God is eternal life that is, if you 
 want salvation you can have it as 
 God's free gift, through Jesus Christ. 
 To reach the terrible doom, one must
 
 282 The Power of Habit. 
 
 force his way over mounds and barriers 
 that infinite love has reared to stop 
 him I mean, a youth brought up 
 under the sweetness and light of a 
 Christian home and nurture ; 
 
 " And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer," 
 
 perhaps " never to hope again." It 
 must be so, for our life itself is but 
 an inch or two. 
 
 5. Our habits, once formed, are apt, 
 are almost certain, to remain upon us. 
 They cling to us, and hold us as with 
 bands of steel. To say of one that he 
 has become habituated to an evil way, 
 is understood to be much the same as 
 saying he will go on in that way to its 
 goal and finish. 
 
 The drunkard, for instance : Oh, 
 the cords, and chains, and cables bind-
 
 The Power of Habit. 283 
 
 ing him, body and soul. Will he ever 
 free himself? Marvel if he does. 
 Dismantled wreck, and drifting. 
 Will-power gone. Would, but cannot. 
 That awful curse and thraldom. Better 
 to wear iron clamps on every limb of 
 his body. Only let the mind be free. 
 A human being and rational, made of 
 God and for God and glory, but made 
 himself a bond-slave to such a demon ! 
 Reason with him ? Reason with the 
 winds. Expostulate and entreat ? But 
 he knows, and feels too, more about it 
 than you do or can. Never did wolf 
 or tiger hold his victim more re- 
 morselessly. In our old school geogra- 
 phies was the picture of a horse and 
 his rider, struggling and dying within 
 the coils of an anaconda. Thus of 
 one habit. Much the same in all
 
 284 The Power of Habit. 
 
 courses of evil and sin this holding 
 and staying property and power. Once 
 entered on some evil way, and com- 
 mitted to it, and how hard it is to stop 
 and turn. Thus of idleness, falsehood, 
 profanity, keeping bad company, pro- 
 digality, profligacy in every form. 
 Once the mounds of virtue swept 
 away, and the bitter waters become a 
 desolating flood a Conemaugh horror, 
 shocking the world. 
 
 Bear in mind, my friends, this bond- 
 age of habit pertains to all sinful 
 ways. There is a habit of scepticism 
 and unbelief, a habit of cavilling and 
 contempt toward religion and its pro- 
 fessors, a habit of thoughtlessness, 
 prayerlessness, procrastination. " I 
 suppose I should attend to the subject 
 (religion) were it not for the wretched
 
 The Power of Habit. 285 
 
 habit upon me of putting off every- 
 thing to the last minute." Such the 
 answer not unfrequently given by a 
 man when pressed with the gracious 
 call. And doesn't the man live on 
 and die giving no sign ? Amaz- 
 ing thing that a man can so live 
 and so die under Gospel light. What 
 motives and mighty influences urge 
 that man to turn from his way and 
 live ! But in despite of all, and in re- 
 sistance of all, he presses on in the 
 " old way," trodden by the wicked in 
 years how many, and in numbers who 
 can count ? Runs that way blindly, 
 recklessly, madly ; and the end is 
 death. Oh, that they were wise, that 
 they understood this, that they would 
 consider their latter end ! Ah, my 
 friends, there is a " bondage of corrup-
 
 286 The Power of Habit. 
 
 tion " " a body of this death." " His 
 own iniquities shall take the wicked 
 himself, and he shall be holden with 
 the cords of his sins." 
 
 The text has led me to speak of 
 habits which bind to evil. But there 
 is a brighter side suggested. Good 
 habits : what they are, and what they 
 lead to. Wonderful the unanimity in 
 men's beliefs and confessions here, 
 whatever their own conduct and course 
 of life. That wickedest man is human 
 still. With choked voice, and with 
 tears, he says : " Go, my boy, go to 
 that city ; be brave and true, and shun 
 the evil. Play the man. Give us joy of 
 you." Divine preacher, for once," that 
 father, despite his own practice. I 
 thank him for his sermon. Astonishing 
 thing that a father could be less than
 
 The Power of Habit. 287 
 
 divine to his child anywhere, in any- 
 thing. 
 
 But these good habits : habits of 
 temperance, chastity, and that " clean- 
 liness " which, you often hear said, " is 
 next to godliness ; " habits of industry, 
 order, truthfulness and fair dealing ; 
 habits of candor, and charity, in judg- 
 ing ; habits of self-control, and the soft 
 answer which turneth away wrath; 
 habits of valiancy for the true and 
 right ; the courage to say, No, to all 
 askings of wrong ; habit of submit- 
 ting questions to second thought, and 
 conscience, and the Bible ; habits of 
 friendliness, courtesy, gentleness to- 
 ward all men ; habit of a pleasant look 
 and word to children, wherever you 
 meet them a whole mission in itself, 
 and of the best ; habits of keeping
 
 288 The Power of Habit. 
 
 at home, and improvement of time ; 
 habits of observation, of study and re- 
 flection ; habits of prayer, and Bible- 
 reading, and Sabbath-keeping, and 
 sanctuary - attendance. These good 
 habits rich cluster how they adorn 
 the person and life wisdom, more 
 precious than rubies, and than all the 
 things thou canst desire. 
 
 And then the little things we may 
 be doing to others every day things 
 having the quality of mercy, which is 
 twice blessed " it blesses him that 
 gives, and him that takes." 
 
 " If, in our daily course, our mind 
 Be set to hallow all we find, 
 New treasures still, of countless price, 
 God will provide for sacrifice." 
 
 These little blessednesses we may be
 
 The Power of Habit. 289 
 
 having and giving giving spontane- 
 ously, naturally, as a flower gives per- 
 fume, not because it makes an effort, 
 but because it is a flower little things 
 as they come to hand " the next step 
 in the path of God before you " : fill 
 some young life with sweetness ; 
 steady the tottering steps of the old 
 man and gray-headed ; send a note of 
 cheer to a sick one ; place a flower on 
 a craped door-handle ; lend a hand to 
 a tired toiler ; take back to your 
 neighbor the ox or sheep that is 
 going astray ; replace the rail that has 
 fallen from his fence ; " speak a word 
 in season to him that is weary ; " 
 smooth some brow furrowed with 
 care ; brush a tear from some sad 
 cheek ; kindle a fire on some cold 
 
 hearth ; bring some wanderer back 
 19
 
 290 The Power of Habit. 
 
 and home ; tell that wicked man that 
 Christ "loves him notwithstanding 
 all," and stands at his door, knocking, 
 and waits to come in and sup with 
 him ; give a cup of cold water only, if all 
 you can something, any thing, where 
 want is, and love can : oh ! to think 
 of it a life thus filled up " marked 
 with some act of goodness every day " 
 " some softening gleam of love and 
 prayer." Little things ? No ! they 
 are angelic, divine of sweet signifi- 
 cance, and mighty power pattern of 
 heavenly things a following of Him, 
 the adorable Source and Author, 
 
 " Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, 
 And wheels his throne upon the rolling 
 worlds." 
 
 " A whispered word may touch the heart, 
 And call it back to life ;
 
 The Power of Habit. 291 
 
 A look of love bid sin depart, 
 
 . And still unholy strife. 
 
 No act falls fruitless ; none can tell 
 
 How great its power may be, 
 Nor what results enfolded dwell 
 
 Within it silently." 
 
 In all this I am supposing a case, 
 yea, better, I am describing many an 
 actual case. A young man, a Chris- 
 tian, building himself up in all the vir- 
 tues and graces, coming to have, and 
 enjoy, and show them as the habit of 
 his life, as the character for which he is 
 known and honored ; and bringing him 
 at last to his crown in heaven. Silent 
 process, here again ; like footsteps of 
 angels, like the flight of time, like 
 growth in the trees. He isn't think- 
 ing of habits, but of duties how he 
 may please God, and do good to men.
 
 292 The Power of Habit. 
 
 He doesn't see the growth in him, 
 but in no long time finds and feels its 
 blessed force and effect virtue, a 
 freedom, a strength, a joy, a life, a 
 great salvation. See him give and 
 lend good heart, indeed, but good 
 habit also and thus the charm in 
 his alms-deeds the ease, naturalness, 
 spontaneousness. You would not like 
 to be told that your friend's gifts to 
 you have cost him a struggle : rather 
 say of him that the gifts were the easy, 
 spontaneous outcome from his good 
 nature his make up and measure -all 
 he is and is known for. Suicide means 
 an act, or a man doing it. Just so the 
 sound, giving the mere name of many 
 a man, is instant and inevitable sug- 
 gestion of whatsoever is good and 
 noble in heart and life. " A good
 
 The Power of Habit. 293 
 
 name is rather to be chosen than 
 great riches." And think of how 
 much such a name implies and stands 
 for, of first things, and last, and chief, 
 in our present and our forever. Care, 
 then, how we build. Or, changing the 
 figure : We reap as we sow, in kind 
 and in measure. "We sow an act, and 
 we reap a habit ; we sow a habit, and 
 we reap a character ; we sow a char- 
 acter, and we reap a destiny." 
 
 Two ways, and two ends, then sin 
 and sinful habits, a bondage ; or piety 
 and its habits, a freedom the liberty 
 wherewith Christ maketh free. That 
 bad habits do bind and enslave is what 
 we all see, is universally confessed. 
 Who denies that ? Not one. But, on 
 the other hand, there are many, espe- 
 cially of the young, to whom religion
 
 294 The Power of Habit. 
 
 appears little else but hardship, re- 
 straint a gloomy something, to be put 
 off, and pushed aside while we dare to 
 be submitted to when we must. Great- 
 est of mistakes this, and most calami- 
 tous Satan's master device. Moses 
 chooses his lot with God's people 
 prefers it before all the treasures 
 in Egypt. Did he ever regret that 
 choice, think you ? Mary chooses the 
 good part ; did she ever regret it ? So 
 of Ruth, and many another. To be 
 on the Lord's side, consciously a child 
 of his, and have all his yours ; to love 
 him, and serve him, in his glorious 
 kingdom to have in you the new 
 heart, and the new life life divine, 
 spiritual, mighty, eternal ; to love all 
 men, and to be doing them all the good 
 you can ; to have faith's victory, and
 
 The Power of Habit. 295 
 
 hope's anchor, and to know, that when 
 this life's inch or two is over, there is 
 for you the glory and bliss eternal in 
 heaven. Any bondage in this ? Oh, 
 no ; it is freedom, liberty, in the high- 
 est conception of it it is joy and 
 peace it is glory and blessedness. 
 You all know it is. There isn't in 
 this assembly one but says it is, and 
 but would act upon it, but for the lie 
 in his right, and those whisperings in 
 his heart the great enemy of souls, 
 " with all deceivableness of unright- 
 eousness " using his arts to deceive and 
 destroy. Take, again, this one Scrip- 
 ture verse : " The fruit of the spirit is 
 love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- 
 ness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
 perance : against such there is no law " 
 no law to condemn, nor to enslave
 
 296 The Power of Habit. 
 
 nor to restrain you even, except from 
 sin which does enslave and degrade. 
 " But then," says one, " religion implies 
 sacrifices, self-denials, crosses, war- 
 fare." Yes ; but think of the glorious 
 company with you and for you : God, 
 Christ, the Spirit, the church, and 
 all good angels all things yours a 
 mighty array and heaven at last. 
 " To him that overcometh." Is there 
 anything nobler than that ? "I have 
 fought a good fight ; I have finished 
 my course; I have kept the faith." 
 Oh ! to be able to say that ! to say 
 it now, and to say it when all the 
 shadows and shows and shams of this 
 vain world are gone as a dream 
 and then to add with the Apostle : 
 " Henceforth there is laid up for me 
 a crown of righteousness, which the
 
 The Power of Habit. 297 
 
 Lord, the righteous judge, shall give 
 me at that day." 
 
 A young man or maiden, planted in 
 the garden of the Lord garden of 
 lilies and spices and nourished there 
 by all the blessed agencies and influ- 
 ences of God's redeeming love and 
 plan ; and soon rooted, built up into 
 Christ in all things ; fruitful in every 
 good work, strengthened with all 
 might, according to God's glorious 
 power, unto all patience and long-suf- 
 fering with joyfulness." Beautiful 
 picture not mine, but the Bible's. 
 " And he shall be like a tree planted 
 by the rivers of water, that bringeth 
 forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf 
 also shall not wither ; and whatsoever 
 he doeth shall prosper." Battles 
 perhaps scars they are honorable
 
 298 The Power of Habit. 
 
 scars, and vjctory at last ; labors, and 
 then the heavenly rest; struggles, 
 conflicts, but the Delectable Mountains 
 in sight ; Jordan, but the sweet fields ; 
 the cross borne for a little, and then 
 the crown worn forever ; sighs, yet 
 singing : 
 
 " All our conflicts end in everlasting rest." 
 
 Gave up the pleasures of sin for a sea- 
 son, and gained the pleasures for ever- 
 more at God's hand. 
 
 My dear young friends, will you 
 not, like Moses, and like Mary, choose 
 the good part ? Will you not choose it 
 now, to-day, and so receive at last, and 
 how soon, the welcome, Well done ! 
 
 " They that be wise shall shine as 
 the brightness of the firmament ; and 
 they that turn many to righteousness, 
 as the stars for ever and ever."