LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 VIS 
 

SAM HOBART, 
 
 THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER. 
 
 A WORKINGMAN'S SOLUTION OF 
 THE LABOR PROBLEM. 
 
 BY 
 
 JUSTIN D. FULTON, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR or "TIMOTHY GILBERT," "WOMAN AS GOD MADE HER," "SHOW YOUB 
 COLORS," "THE WAY OUT," ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, PUBLISHERS, 
 10 AND 12 DEY STREET. 
 
 TTTV - r ^v rMT r* A T TTT/^T>-KTT A 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 
 
 JUSTIN D. FULTON, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C. 
 
TO 
 
 OFFICERS AND EMPLOYES 
 
 OP 
 
 THE GREAT RAILWAY SYSTEM 
 
 THIS STORY OF A LIFE IS 
 
 BY ONE WHO APPRECIATES THE RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 OF YOUR POSITION AND DESIRES 
 
 YOUR PRESENT AJ*D 
 
 ETERNAL HAPPINESS. 
 
CONTENTS.- 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE MAN AND THE HOUR, ........ 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 His BOYHOOD, ....... . . .21 
 
 The Surroundings of his Birthplace, Brighton His Early Home 
 The Homes of the Poor Parental Influence Investments in 
 Youth. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HE BECOMES A MACHINIST AND A FIREMAN, ..... 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SAM BECOMES A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER, ...... 30 
 
 THE WORKING MAX, ......... 40 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE HENRY WARD BEECHKR 
 
 MEETS HIM AND DESCRIBES HIM - THE GLORY OF HIS CONVERSION, 4ti 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 SAM'S TACT IN PREACHING TEMPERANCE, ..... C4 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 SAM AT WORK FOR GOD, ........ 75 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS, .... 83 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL, .... 110 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE REPRESENTATIVES OP OUR COMMERCIAL LIFE THEIR OPPORTUNITY, 126 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 SAM'S FAITH, OR WHOM SHALL WE TRUST? ..... 136 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WORK AMONO RAILROAD MEN THE NEED OF THIS WOPK ED- 
 WARD D. INGERSOLL, THE STORY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK CHRIST 
 A NECESSITY FOR MEN WHO TOIL, 146 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE WASTED SUBSTANCES THE STORY OF EDWARD H. UNIAC'S FALL 
 
 AND SOME OF THE SAD INCIDENTS IN SAM'S WORK, . . .173 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TEMPERANCE AN ADDED FORCE HENRY WILSON THE PERIL IN WILD 
 
 OATS LESSONS LEARNED AT THE FARM SCHOOL, . . .185 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A PROBLEM HARD TO SOLVE: Is INTEMPERANCE A DISEASE OR A 
 
 CRIME? 195 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SAM'S LOVE FOR THE YOUNG BARZILLAI SNOW, HIS BROTHER-IN- 
 LAW, DYING LIKE A HERO, ....... 206 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART AND OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS AS 
 A CLASS JOSEPH A. SEEDS, OF PENNSYLVANIA CENTRAL ; JOHN 
 MARROT, OF ENGLAND, AND OTHERS, 219 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 SAM'S LAST RIDE THE ENGINEER AT REST, 234 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE life of Sam Hobart, the locomotive engineer, is written 
 to portray the possibilities of happiness and usefulness within 
 the reach of a workingman content to fill the sphere of useful- 
 ness awarded him, and willing to lend a helping hand to do work 
 for God and man lying near him and waiting for him. 
 
 Charles Lamb served as a clerk in the East India Company, 
 and filled such a place in literature and in society as makes us 
 forget how he earned his living, and remember only that he 
 wrote the " Essays of Elia," and lived and labored and com- 
 panioned with the great of his time, and in so doing became a 
 benefactor for all time. Elihu Burritt was a blacksmith, and 
 became learned in languages and rich in healthful influences 
 that have blessed American civilization, and help now to glorify 
 it in the eyes of the peoples of all lands, and he remained the 
 Learned Blacksmith to the last. 
 
 George Stephenson, born in Wylam-on-the-Tyne June 9th, 
 1781 the engineer of a coal mine, the inventor of the locomo- 
 tive in 1815, first to drag coal-cars along a tramway, and 
 afterward fastened to a passenger coach in 1828, the year Sam 
 Hobart was born developed into one of the ablest of engineers 
 and one of the greatest of inventors, and was content thus to 
 remain to the day of his death. When asked to stand for 
 Parliament, he declined, saying, " Politics have no stability ; 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 they shift about like the sand of the sea ; they are all matters 
 of fancy, matters of theory, and I should feel out of my ele- 
 ment among them ;" and so he remained George Stephenson 
 the engineer. 
 
 Sam Hobart was willing to be an engineer. Tie might have 
 gone West and occupied great positions of trust, but he was 
 content to allow others to be president, superintendent, or 
 heads of department, and he remain engineer and work as best 
 he could. As such a life is a necessity in the perfection and 
 working of the railway system, the most complete and exten- 
 sive in the world a system extending its lines of communica- 
 tion from ocean to ocean and from the Lakes to the Gulf ; a 
 system which is even now pushing its way through Mexico, and 
 must ere long embrace South America, bringing to our tables 
 the grapes and fruits grown in the gardens, vineyards, and 
 orchards of the Pacific coast, beef from the great pasture fields 
 of Texas, coal from the coal-fields, minerals from the moun- 
 tains, and traffic from India, China, Japan, and South America, 
 because confidence in commerce is built not on money, not on 
 brain, but on Christian character the writer will be pardoned 
 for believing that this attempt made to portray a railroad man, 
 at work as a railroad man while he earned his livelihood, then 
 occupying spare time and energy in the promotion of such in. 
 terests as are identified with the weal of humanity, is a health- 
 ful contribution to the working capital of the Christian Church, 
 which if properly used must fulfil an important mission among 
 the men of toil, and gird with confidence and hope those con- 
 fronting fields white with harvests or standing in doors opening 
 to marvellous and unreached possibilities. It is known that 
 over a million of men are employed upon the 125,000 miles of 
 railway in America. Over a fortieth of the population are. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 engaged in railroad work. The men called and known as railway 
 kings are not the creatures of chance or the accidents of the 
 hour : they are men of destiny, created to untie the perplex- 
 ing knots which smaller men have tied in the hope of selfishly 
 checking the tide of emigration and traffic, which by their aid 
 has burst through every opposing obstacle and streamed outward 
 and onward, like an unbanked river, rejoicing in its ongoing 
 flow. These men dared to expect great things, and so they went 
 forward to achieve them. They cannot work alone. To make 
 this railway system a success, true and trustworthy men must 
 be found to do the work required. How shall these be grown ? 
 is the problem of the future. This book tells how one s*joh 
 man was grown. Let us hope that it may help to build many 
 more. J. D. F. 
 
SAM HOBART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MAN AND THE HOUR. 
 
 SAM HOBART was associated with power, and believed in 
 power. Like Abraham Lincoln, he had great respect for 
 augers that would bore, and augers that would not bore he had 
 no use for. He had no place in his heart or in his home or on 
 his locomotive' for the merely ornamental. To the useful he 
 was a devotee. A mere dilettante, a man who follows an art or 
 a calling without a purpose, was to him utterly valueless. He 
 was a man of purpose. He was well built. He had a stalwart 
 frame, a broad chest, a big arm and leg, thick neck, good- 
 sized head, in voice at times a son of thunder, and at other 
 times soft and sweet-toned as a child ; a large blue eye, auburn 
 hair, upper lip shaved, a long flowing red beard beneath it ; the 
 step of a giant, the will of a despot, and withal with those he 
 loved the heart of a woman. 
 
 In an audience he would attract attention by his gravity of 
 demeanor, a look of being ready for business. He could not 
 bear trifling. He had no wit. He cared nothing for a story 
 that would make people laugh. He was quiet as a locomotive 
 unfired when off duty. But light him up with a purpose, and 
 he moved in such a way and with such a bearing that instinc- 
 tively men gave way before him. He was distinguished for 
 hard sense and an immense business faculty. As I think of 
 him when first I saw him, I am reminded of the hull of a 
 
14 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 steamer brought to the dock to receive its motive power. Natu- 
 rally he had the framework of a great man. He did his man- 
 ual labor as did thousands of others. But there was nothing 
 special to write about or think of until he received Jesus Christ 
 into his heart. Then power came to him to become a son of 
 God, " which was born not of blood, nor of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of tie will of man, but of God," and the word in 
 him was made flesh, and dwelt among us. Men saw it and felt 
 it. Before this great event he was bold, reckless, hard, and 
 pushing ; after the machinery of redemptive grace was set up in 
 his soul, he was thoughtful, prudent, wise, indomitable and 
 benevolent in look, in action, and in purpose. Henceforth he 
 had no ambition in business directions to be more than an 
 engineer. He did not seek or desire promotion. He was con- 
 tent to do his work, and that finished he delighted to engage in 
 philanthropic and Christian enterprises. He was not an in- 
 ventor, nor had he claims to rank as a genius. He never ac- 
 quired a competence. He died as he lived, poor in purse, but 
 rich in faith and in good works. He was everybody's man, 
 because he worked for everybody. He was God's man in 
 what he believed to be God's world, and served him with dili- 
 gence and with delight. He believed in the brotherhood of 
 man. He was not a Chartist, nor a Socialist, nor a Communist. 
 He was an engineer of the Boston and Albany Railroad, capa- 
 ble of fulfilling his high trust and of earning his money, and 
 entitled to his opinions. Anywhere and everywhere he dared 
 avow them, and if men interfered with his prerogatives they did 
 so at their own risk. He loved great, strong, and true men, 
 and mated with the sturdiest characters in the realms of poli- 
 tics, of finance, and of religion, as if they were yokefellows. 
 Henry Ward Beecher, who frequently rode with him on his 
 locomotive, recently said : " If I could have written down in 
 the words used by him the remarkable utterances he made to 
 me regarding God's love for man, and the way to bring men to 
 obtain just and right conceptions of God ; if I could record his 
 experiences in seeking to help men and lead them to a higher 
 
THE MAN AND THE HOUR. 15 
 
 life, I could give to world ngmen the best book ever written 
 for them." 
 
 Rev. J. O. Peck, D.P., of the Methodist Church, for years 
 settled in Worcester, gave a similar testimony; and Edwin I). 
 Ingersoll, Railroad Secretary of the Y. M. C. A., who trav- 
 ersed the field of his labors years after he went higher, said : 
 " I meet with his Christian influence even now, everywhere in 
 New England, and hundreds of railroad men trace their con- 
 version to his labors." 
 
 As a railroad man he believed himself to have been born at 
 a propitious time in what he regarded as the railroad century. 
 
 It is a significant fact that, though the conception of a road- 
 way on which to move heavy blocks of stone dates back to the 
 time when the Pyramids of Egypt were built ; though the Ap- 
 pian Way of ancient Rome, made of solid blocks of stone laid 
 in parallel lines, was the thought, born of necessity, which 
 pointed forward to the railway system now in vogue ; though 
 the Dutchmen in Albany, N. Y., and the Yankees at Quincy, 
 Mass., constructed a roadbed, modelled after the Appian Way, 
 from Albany to Schenectady, and from the quarries of granite 
 to the river, yet the world waited until about the year Sam was 
 born before charters were given in England, France, and the 
 United States to construct railways worthy of the name. In 
 1826 charters were granted by the Parliament in England and 
 by the legislatures of States in the Western Republic to con- 
 struct railroads. On July 4th, 1828, the year in which Sam 
 Hobart was born, the first blow was struck in the construction 
 of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and in 1830 the Albany 
 and Schenectady Railroad was commenced. In 1831, 384 pas- 
 sengers were dragged daily by horses over its limited line. In 
 regard to the introduction of the locomotive, there is some- 
 thing quiet as strange. The story of George Stephenson's 
 life was a favorite book with the Boston engineer. He never 
 tired of speaking of that boy of the collieries, who was temper- 
 ate while others were dissipated, frugal while others were profli- 
 gate, and industrious while others were idle, used of God to 
 
10 SAM 1IOHAKT. 
 
 bring to comparative perfection the instrument which lias had 
 more to do with promoting the civilization of the million than 
 any other agency apart from the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 J. F. Loyson, in his life of Stcphenson, gives this graphic 
 sketch of this wonderful fact : " More than two centuries ago a 
 visit was paid a French madhouse by an English nobleman, the 
 Marquis of Worcester. As he passed through the wards, con- 
 taining the cages wherein the most unfortunate of their species 
 were confined like so many wild animals, the attendant who 
 accompanied him described the various hallucinations peculiar 
 to the inmates of that abode of the hopeless. As they ap- 
 proached one of the caged cells, the steps of the visitor were 
 suddenly arrested by a pitiful cry and the terrible appearance 
 of a man whose cadaverous and careworn countenance peered 
 through the massive bars which his thin, bloodless hands tremu- 
 lously clutched. The ashy lips from which the cry had pro- 
 ceeded again parted, and a voice hoarse and husky, but fierce 
 in its earnestness, exclaimed, ' I am not a madman. I am the 
 discoverer of a power of incalculable moment to mankind/ 
 
 " ' What has this man.discovered ? ' inquired the marquis. 
 
 " ' A mere trifle,' the keeper answered derisively ; ' but he 
 wrote a book about it nevertheless. Why, you would never 
 guess what the discovery was to use the steam of boiling water 
 for the navigation of ships, the driving of carriages, and a host 
 of other miracles which are equally incapable of performance." 
 Such was the fate of him who, in all probability, projected the 
 idea of steam locomotion, Solomon de Cans, a native of Nor- 
 mandy, and such the reception given to a discovery calculated 
 to confer stupendous benefits not only upon France but the 
 world. The age was not, however, propitious to scientific or 
 mechanical research. Supineness in the court and superstition 
 in the Church, together with the antagonism of officials toward 
 anything which took the shape of innovation, conspired to hold 
 back from society for a time the advantages which have since 
 attended the construction of the steam engine. 
 
 Confident in the soundness of his conclusions, poor Solomon 
 
THE MAX AND THE HOUR. 17 
 
 de Cans had laid a description of his plans before the King of 
 France ; but the mind of the monarch was not fitted to deal 
 with such complicated details as were therein presented, and 
 the readiest way to dispose of the matter was to treat the Nor- 
 man genius and his discovery with contempt. Turned over 
 to a cardinal of the Church, who became exasperated by re- 
 peated and urgent appeals, he consigned him to a madhouse. 
 And Soloman de Caus and his premature project was lost to 
 his country and mankind. It was reserved for the nineteenth 
 century to give a welcome to the locomotive. There is reason 
 to believe that the locomotive was an American invention. It 
 is certain that in 1782 Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, patented 
 a steam-wagon, the drawings and specifications of which were 
 sent to England in 1787, and again in 1794-95. In 1784, two 
 years after Evans's invention in America, Watt patented a 
 locomotive. 
 
 Little or nothing was done with them. For some reason 
 everything seemed to wait the dawn of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Richard Trevethick, born in the parish of Illogan, Cornwall, 
 April, 13th, 1771, was an inventor of whom the world has 
 heard much. Though a child of genius, he died penniless. In 
 
 1801 he started the iron horse on the public highway ; in 
 
 1802 he obtained a patent for a locomotive. It was on the 
 28th of December, 1801, the travelling engine took its depart- 
 ure fom Camborne Church town for Tehidy. ' ' The carriage/' 
 says Mr. Davies Gilbert, " broke down, after travelling very 
 well about 400 yards. Then it was forced under some shelter, 
 and the parties adjourned to the hotel and comforted their 
 hearts with a roast goose and drinks, where, forgetful of the en- 
 gine, its water boiled away. The iron became red-hot, and 
 nothing that was combustible remained either of the engine 
 or the house, thus falling a victim to the punch-drinking pro- 
 pensity of the period. " 
 
 A similar result might have been reached had not the foster- 
 father of the locomotive been temperate in habit and irrepressible 
 because of his determination and pluck. The steam locomo- 
 
18 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 tive, the material transformer of the world, has a remarkable 
 history. As has been said, " It was not born on the rails, but 
 on the common road ; and a tremendous baby-giant it was, tear- 
 ing up its cradle in such furious fashion that men were terrified 
 by it, and tried their best to condemn it to inactivity, just as a 
 -weak and foolish father might lock up his unruly boy and re- 
 strain him perforce, instead of training him wisely in the way 
 he should go.' 7 But the progenitors of the iron horse were like 
 their herculean child, men of mettle. They fought a gallant 
 fight for their darling's freedom, and came off victorious ! As 
 with the railroad, so with the locomotive. They attained their 
 place in or near 1828. Then it was that a premium was offered 
 of 500 for the best locomotive that could be produced, in 
 accordance with certain conditions. These were : 
 
 " That the chimney should emit no smoke ; that the engine 
 should be on springs ; that it should not weigh more than six 
 tons, or four and a half tons if it had only four wheels ; that it 
 should be able to draw a load of twenty tons at the rate of ten 
 miles an hour, with a pressure of fifty pounds to the square 
 inch in the boiler ; and that it should not cost more than 
 500." 
 
 The iron horse was now at last about to assume its right posi- 
 tion. It was no longer an infant, but a powerful stripling, 
 though still far from its full growth as far as six tons is from 
 sixty. 
 
 It was October 6th, 1829, when the memorable trial of loco- 
 motives took place. It was to continue eight days. The four 
 exhibited were the " Novelty," " Sanspareil," "Rocket," 
 and "Perseverance," built respectively by Messrs. Braithwaite 
 & Ericsson, Timothy Hackworth, 11. Stephenson & Co., and 
 Burstall. 
 
 The Rocket looked as if it were all funnel a stunted body 
 with a long, very long neck. Along a level stretch of railroad, 
 two miles long, each engine was required to make twenty double 
 journeys during the day, at an average speed of not less than 
 ten miles per hour. The Rocket made the time and more, but 
 
THE MAX AND THE HOUR. 19 
 
 was not at the outset a favorite ; as people said; " Its appear- 
 ance was against it." 
 
 The Novelty was a favorite with spectators and judges. It 
 looked compact and handy, and its lines were harmonious and 
 in keeping with the purpose for which it had been built. Its 
 water and fuel were carried without the aid of a separate 
 tender, and the weight of the whole was less than three tons. 
 While tiavelling its experimental journey it occasionally moved 
 at the rate per hour of twenty-four miles, but on the second 
 day of the trial the blast bellows gave out The boiler of the 
 Sanspareil also showed a defect, and the Perseverance failed 
 because it could not go faster than six miles an hour. The 
 Rocket won the day because it had the " go" in it. It not 
 only made thirty miles an hour, but it drew thirteen tons 1 
 weight in wagons at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. The 
 old engine grew handsomer every moment, and before the third 
 day was over people said, " She did not look so bad after all." 
 The Novelty tried it again, but bursting its pipes ended its 
 hopes. The Sanspareil was similarly unfortunate, and the 
 Rocket, by Stephenson, received the prize. 
 
 Could a man at that time have seen in a vision of the future, 
 as Henry George says, " the steamship taking the place of the 
 sailing vessel, the railroad train of the wagon, the reaping- 
 machine of the scythe, the threshing-machine of the flail ; could 
 he have heard the throb of the engines that in obedience to the 
 human will and for the satisfaction of human desire exert a 
 power greater than all the men and all the beasts of burden of 
 the earth combined ; could he have seen the forest tree trans- 
 formed into finished lumber into doors, sashes, blinds, boxes, 
 or barrels, with hardly the touch of human hand ; the great 
 workshops where boots and shoes are turned out by the case 
 with less labor than the old-fashioned cobbler could have put 
 on a sole ; the factories where, under the eye of a girl, cotton 
 becomes cloth faster than hundreds of stalwart weavers could 
 have turned it out with their hand-looms ; could he have seen 
 steam hammers shaping mammoth shafts and mighty anchors, 
 
20 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 and delicate machinery making tiny watches ; the diamond 
 drill cutting through the heart of the rocks and coal-oil sparing 
 the whale ; could he have realized the enormous saving of labor 
 resulting from improved facilities of exchange and communi- 
 cation sheep killed in Australia eaten fresh in England, and 
 the order given by the London banker in the afternoon executed 
 in San Francisco in the morning of the same day ; could he 
 have conceived of the hundred thousand improvements which 
 these only suggest, what would he have inferred of the social 
 condition of mankind ? His heart would have leaped and his 
 nerves would have thrilled, as one from a height beholds just 
 ahead of the thirst- stricken caravan the living gleam of rustling 
 woods and the glint of living waters." Upon this vision, 
 realized and fulfilled, Sam Hobart looked with pleasing satis- 
 faction and with exuberant hope. 
 
CHAPTER IT. 
 
 SAM AS A BOY. 
 
 The Surroundings of His Birthplace, Brighton His Early 
 Home From Cattle- Driver to the Machine- Shop and the 
 Locomotive Some Notions he Fought when a Boy. 
 
 SAMUEL BROOKS HOBART was born iji Brighton, Mass., Octo- 
 ber 12tli, 1828. Brighton is the cattle-market of Boston. In 
 the olden time it was more of a centre of influence than it is at 
 the present time, Then drovers gathered their cattle from the 
 hillsides and valleys of New England and brought them to 
 Brighton and distributed them east and west, as the case might 
 be. Railroads were unknown, and the cattle were driven, not 
 brought. Many an emigrant going to the Far West bought there 
 his team and cows, the one to bear his household to their dis- 
 tant home, the other to supply the wants of their table in the 
 wilderness. To the South cattle and mules were driven, and 
 Brighton was the cattle-market most widely known. The dro- 
 vers, as we have intimated, did business on a smaller scale and 
 on a different basis than at present. Though their responsibil- 
 ities were not as great or their business so large, they were 
 more exacting, often very profane and dissipated. They 
 worked hard, kept " their eye-teeth cut," and were sharp in 
 trade, and sometimes not over-honest in deal. Into such soci- 
 ety this boy came as soon as he could walk. lie grew up to 
 be hard, smart, and ready for a job that brought pennies to his 
 pocket and pleasure to his life. 
 
 He was not a bad boy, as the word goes he did not lie 
 nor steal ; nor was he specially a good one. It was said of him 
 while very young, " That boy will take care of himself." He 
 did do this, and much more. He took care of whatever was 
 
22 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 given him to do. He was naturally a success, because lie inade 
 a success of whatever was committed to his caro. He could 
 fight his way. He somehow came out first, no matter when he 
 started in. He was hard to manage. His mother was proud 
 of him. She believed in honesty, in industry, and scorned 
 lying and meanness. She would not take advantage. Sam 
 agreed with her. Sain was a dutiful son. He would never 
 shirk a task. He was as faithful when alone as when at work 
 under the eye of a master. lie became a favorite with the 
 drovers. He would get as good time out of a drove of cattle 
 as any man around. He was a favorite about the yards because 
 he was trustworthy. He was utterly fearless. A wild bull or 
 an infuriated cow found in his unterrified look, his command- 
 ing speech, and determined bearing that before which they 
 must yield. As with beasts, so was lie with men. Rouse him, 
 get him into motion, and nothing could daunt him. He has 
 entered houses full of fighting, of cursing, and where wild and 
 crazed drunkards were in almost the act of murder, and he was 
 as calm and self-possessed as a rock amid the wild surges of a 
 boisterous sea. He could take a mighty man by the throat 
 with one hand, hold another off, and put down a fight as a man 
 would trample out a lire just kindling into flame. 
 
 His schooling was picked up at intervals in the New England 
 school-house. He could read, write and cipher. His book 
 knowledge was limited. His knowledge of men was most 
 profound. He seemed by instinct or intuition to know what 
 was in men. He admired boldness, fearlessness, and fidelity. 
 David Crockett's motto was his : " Be sure vou are ri^ht, and 
 then go ahead. 7 ' 
 
 A boy ran a great risk that interfered with his or with his 
 friends' rights. He never looked mad when he was going to 
 do a desperate deed. He would come up to a boy that was 
 playing bully over some weaker party, and in a polite way inti- 
 mate that it would be advisable to " let up" on him and " take 
 some one of his size." " Perhaps you would like to take it 
 up." ' No objection," Sam would reply, and with a smile on 
 
SAM AS A BOY. 23 
 
 his face and with desperation in his heart would go in and do 
 his best. There was no fear in his composition. He expected 
 to win. He had great dignity of character, and enjoyed it in 
 others. He never desired that men should try and get down 
 to him ; he much preferred climbing up to them, if indeed 
 climbing was necessary. He became a judge of cattle, of their 
 weight and condition ; was consulted in the yards when a boy 
 as if he had been an owner. He believed in right as right, and 
 that right was might. He was trustworthy to his employers 
 and obedient to his mother. She could rely on him. This 
 characteristic made him largely what he afterward became. 
 His employers rested with faith upon his ability to brush away 
 difficulties and almost defy impossibilities. 
 
 He was not the person to give up his purpose if his mind 
 was once set upon having or doing a certain thing. Men saw 
 this in his looks, they heard it in his voice. Believing that it 
 was manly to smoke, he acquired the habit of using tobacco, 
 and thinking it brave to take the name of God in vain, he be- 
 came when a youth terribly profane. 
 
 A friend writes of Sam as a boy in these words : 
 
 " He was energetic, never lazy, would travel on foot miles 
 to aid a drover with his cattle for a few pennies, and then be 
 rewarded, a k s he has often told me, by the man's taking a 
 handful of change from his pocket, and, looking it over, and 
 selecting the smoothest fourpenny bit he could find, and hand- 
 ing it to Sam. Sam would take the poor little piece and rub it 
 industriously on his jacket sleeve to try to bring out the pillars 
 to plainer view, so that he could pass it for six cents, what he 
 feared no person used to handling money would count worth 
 more than five. 
 
 u He labored hard when a boy. He would rise early in the 
 morning, and go off on any errand that promised him remunera- 
 tion. How tired he got, as he walked mile after mile, occa- 
 sionally running after refractory cattle ! Boys do not work 
 now as he worked ; they would think they would be killed, he 
 said, with half the labor he performed. This helped to make 
 
'24 SAM II 015 A KT. 
 
 him the energetic, persevering man that lie eventually became. 
 His indomitable will would carry all before it. Naturally of a 
 hasty, impulsive temperament, he could not brook delay or any 
 obstruction in his path, and if such occurred he would swear 
 till all quailed befor him." 
 
 No one can look upon that brave, struggling boy without 
 regretting that some large hearted Christian man had not seen 
 him and invested in him. A Sabbath-school and a Chris- 
 tian teacher of tact and ability would have been of inesti- 
 mable value to him. Few think of the difference between the 
 growth of a tree that was in rich soil and had good care from 
 the beginning, and a tiee un watched and untended, broken by 
 storms, scarred by rude treatment, and left without being 
 grafted to grow only such fruit as is natural, and is usually 
 small if not mean. There is meaning in the words, li As the 
 twig is bent the tree is inclined." Sam was warm-hearted. 
 lie grew up to hate strong drink. But his mind was uncult.- 
 u red and undeveloped to an extent that always gave him a 
 sense of poverty in mental calibre and filled him with sorrow. 
 
 Investments in youth pay as do no other investments. It is 
 a noticeable fact that in Great Britain and in the older port 
 of the United States men are bestowing thought upon the de- 
 velopment of the brain, and the culture of the young life com- 
 mitted to their caie. The history of the Adams family in 
 Massachusetts livals anything in the annals of English life, 
 where the elder Pitt wrought in the younger and made him at 
 twenty-three the best Minister of State England ever li 
 The same spirit lived in and blessed Disraeli, whose father 
 lived and wrought in his boy and made him the glory of au 
 empire on whose realms the sun never sets. The same is true 
 of the Gladstone of the past, and of the Premier whose name 
 and fame will forever be associated with the brightest annals of 
 English history. 
 
 Gardner Colby came to Boston the poorest of the poor. 
 His mother believed in him and built on him. Having gi 
 his heart to Christ in his youth, his whole nature opened south- 
 
SAM AS A BOY. 25 
 
 ward, and the warm breath of heaven made flowers of beauty, 
 of culture, of love and of service for Christ and man bud and 
 blossom in his young life. He lived for the youth of America, 
 and so gave his name to the college in Waterville, Me., where 
 he was born, and wrought in the Theological Seminary of New- 
 ton, where he lived, and, dying, left children cultured, benevo- 
 lent, and enterprising, to perpetuate his name and widen the 
 channel of his beneficent thought. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., holds to her heart the name and fame of 
 one of the most modest and unassuming of men, who has given 
 to colleges, to hospitals, to retreats for the young, the aged, 
 sums of money that astonish by their magnitude and at the 
 same time inspire by their large-mindedness and comprehensive- 
 ness of aim. People everywhere who had admired the giver 
 \vere made to prize as never before the value of early training, 
 when they learned that an unpretentious Methodist minister 
 was his father, after whom he named a hospital that shall for 
 ages attest the son's devotion to the memory of one who led 
 him when a youth into the paths of promise, and of devotion 
 also to the needs of humanity for whom Christ died. 
 
 Seth Low is the product of home training as well as of the 
 money of A. A. Low. Wm. H. Vanderbilt, with his culture 
 and large nature, has carried into a nobler and higher realm the 
 name and fame of his father Cornelius, and is doing a still 
 grander work in building up boys not only to be millionaires 
 capable of managing great affairs, but in seeing to it that they 
 are fitted to welcome great trusts and become pillars on which 
 society builds its noblest superstructures. Time and space 
 alike forbid our dwelling longer upon what investments in 
 youth are to humanity and to Christianity. Had Sam Hobart, 
 with his might, with his genius for being good and doing good, 
 been blessed with early advantages similar to those placed 
 within the reach of many who secure them, and, thank God, 
 of many who welcome them, it is impossible to describe what 
 might have come from it. 
 
 Wm. E. Dodge has just gone home to God, rich in fame and 
 
26 SAM HOBART. 
 
 in good works. Forget it not : the tree was cared for from 
 the start. He gave his heart to Christ when a boy of eleven. 
 He grew up with Christ and in Christ, and blessings came to 
 him because he knew how wisely to use them, and like a foun- 
 tain on a mountain that sends forth streams on every side, he 
 blessed humanities everywhere, and was God's benefaction to 
 all men. Sam Hobart, deprived of such watch care and cult- 
 ure, had to get on as best he could. He had love as good and 
 as strong as the richest and the best. In the homes of the poor 
 are compensations which outweigh in value all that wealth can 
 bring. There are no poorer children than some of the children 
 of our wealthiest people. Business, fashion, and the responsi- 
 bilities of life cause them to commit the care of children to 
 servants while they give themselves up to society. The mother 
 of wealth who, on one occasion being compelled to put her 
 child to bed, learned by the language and conduct of the child 
 that he was being exposed to terrible temptation, and clasping 
 him to her heart resolved that henceforth society should bo 
 poorer that the child might be enriched with love, with care, 
 with kindness, became wise none too soon for her own good 
 and the happiness and prosperity of her child. The children 
 of the poor at least can have their mother's society, and if their 
 mothers be cultured, ambitious, and withal Christian, they are 
 rich indeed. It is not money, nor libraries, nor horses, nor 
 great opportunities that make great men and women. It must 
 be in the child, if greatness ever distinguishes him. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln delighted to dwell upon his obligations to 
 that stepmother who helped him to books, to schooling, to 
 society, for which his soul longed while living in the log-cabin 
 with a father who thought little of the boy's great need ; while 
 as long as there is a place in the world's history for what is 
 noblest and best in our life the memory of the mothers of 
 Washington and of Garfield will remain as illustrations of the 
 way in which there has passed into the highest place of renown, 
 that which glorifies the family and the school-house of America. 
 Some of the noblest young men in our colleges come from some 
 
SAM AS A BOY. 27 
 
 of the poorest of our homes, and are sons of mothers who kept 
 their boys with them, breathed into their ears the story of their 
 ' ambitious dreamings until they resolved to climb the steeps of 
 success. All this Sam had. His mother was an unambitious, 
 strong-minded New England woman, and her boys fill honor- 
 able places, because of the mainspring of purpose that came 
 from her resistless will. In her society he learned to scorn 
 meanness and to hate servility* Would that she had led him 
 to Christ ! Then might he have carried into the places of 
 honor and trust the influences acquired at the hearthstone, to 
 be practised round the world. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MACHINIST AND FIREMAN. 
 
 FROM the stock-yard and cattle-pen Sam passed to the ma- 
 chine-shop. His ambition was to become a locomotive engi- 
 neer. To reach that position preparation was a necessity. He 
 carried into the shop a tough and wiry frame, a good eye, a 
 hand that only needed training to find skill. In a short time 
 he made himself friends and a name. With open eye and with 
 attentive brain he took in all that passed before him. 
 
 The fireman was the engineer in embryo. In that responsi- 
 ble place his mettle was tested and his skill was developed. 
 There are firemen who work by the day or month as firemen. 
 Sam was never among them. From the day he crossed the 
 threshold of the machine-shop, indeed from the day he first 
 saw the locomotive careering over the highway prepared for 
 the fiery steed, he determined to ride it, to master it, and to 
 be identified with it. He wanted to be an engineer, a locomo- 
 tive engineer, and that satisfied him. Can we believe in such 
 a nature ? There are millions such, or society would be a 
 wreck. There are men who desire to drive horses, and care 
 not to own them. These men win fame as drivers. They 
 have a place in the world which they like, and which other 
 men covet, because they can drive. Their ambition is to drive 
 a horse on the race. They care for nothing else. They 
 exercise the horses, live with them and for them, that on the 
 course, in the eye of thousands, amid cheers and wild huzzahs 
 they might first cross the line and be crowned as victors. A 
 locomotive to a man that loves it is like a fleet courser. Now, 
 horses are not all alike. Every one is peculiar to himself. He 
 has his moods, his way of working, his spirit, his gait, the 
 
THE MACHINIST AND FIREMAN. 29 
 
 moment when he will stretch himself to his utmost capacity, 
 and when all the go in him comes out of him. 
 
 Men that own horses delight in them. Owners love their 
 horses as though they were human. They call them pet 
 names. They like to drive them occasionally, and feel the 
 tingle in the hands which comes from the mouth of the steed 
 to the hand of the master. But there is a man nearer to the 
 horse than his owner, and that is his driver. The horse and 
 man are almost one and inseparable. 
 
 Enough has been said to reveal the idiosyncrasy of this man 
 of the locomotive. That matchless piece of mechanism was to 
 Sam Hobart a poem, meat and drink. He studied it. He un- 
 derstood it through and through, from boiler to throttle- valve. 
 
 Every locomotive has its peculiar nature. There are some 
 locomotives that always want to run away. There are others 
 that always seem to be getting ready to stop. There are times 
 when a locomotive will do marvellously well, and there are 
 other times when it does marvellously ill. Then the fireman is 
 alert. He puts oil here and there, tightens a nut or loosens it, 
 puts coal in, or what it requires, and at last the thing is all 
 aflame with energy. As fireman Sam was a success. He was 
 lithe of limb, quick of eye, and ready of hand. He could be 
 all over a locomotive when at its utmost speed. 
 
 From the first he worked for his engineer, and his engineer in 
 a short time began to work for him. Gently he backed out the 
 machine. The puffs of steam were given as intimations rather 
 than as threats. From the machine-shop to the position of 
 fireman seemed to him like promotion. It was a step on. He 
 delighted to see his locomotive in perfect condition. A fire- 
 man's position is peculiarly responsible. On our best roads he 
 does not clean the engine. Wipers do that. But he sees to 
 it, and superintends it. He mounts the engine when fired up, 
 and takes it from the round-house to the track. He waits for 
 the signal. Then the engineer steps on board and takes, as we 
 might say, the reins. As fireman Sam gave his engineer a 
 cordial greeting, and ministered to him without waiting for 
 
30 SAM HOBA.RT. 
 
 suggestion, direction, or command. Superintendent, president, 
 and directors, or whoever saw his engine saw that labor had 
 been bestowed upon it. Its brasses shone with golden lustre, 
 its iron rods and bars and cranks and pistons glistened with 
 silvery sheen, and its heavier parts and body were made as 
 beautiful and bright and fresh-looking as possible. Before he 
 took the machine out, every screw and nut and lever and 
 joint were examined and oiled. We can imagine Ginery 
 Tvvitchel, whose eye never omitted any detail, saying to the 
 engineer, u Your locomotive looks well this morning/' " Yes. 
 It is Sam's pride. He keeps it in apple-pie order. 77 Thus the 
 ambitious fireman was rewarded. This faithfulness and service 
 opened the path to promotion. The engineer took pains with 
 him, and helped him on. Sam soon came to know how to 
 handle the monster with safety and skill. The locomotive was 
 his passion, whether at rest or fired up and quivering with the 
 tremendous energy, which if unbound would wreck whatever 
 was near, and under control was the servant of man. It was 
 the embodiment and personification of power while fiying on 
 its iron way, or while standing at the station snorting like a 
 war-horse, as if smelling the battle from afar. A fireman's 
 position requires nerve, a clear head, a quick brain, coolness in 
 the midst of peril, a steady hand when dangers have to be met 
 Now he is throwing wood or coal into the furnace, which 
 devours material with fierce rapacity ; then he is compelled to 
 walk out on the side of the heated bounding force to give a 
 little oil where the friction is great ; then back he flies to his 
 place to ring the bell while crossing a highway or dashing 
 through a town. 
 
 Enter the round-house where the locomotives are kept, and 
 there is much to interest. In it are these tremendous engines, 
 with that in them which if neglected might wreck the building 
 and the engines, of which there are usually a multitude. Sam 
 has just come in from the road, where with lightning speed 
 they have men fulfilling their mission and are now disgorging 
 their fire and water and preparing to rest ; some are letting off 
 
THE MACHINIST A3STD FIREMAN. 31 
 
 steam with a fiendish yell unbearably prolonged ; some are in 
 the hands of the wipers, the firemen superintending and per- 
 haps attending to some needed minutia ; others are undergoing 
 the necessary repairs, and a few are ready for instant action. 
 
 Among these helpers Sam was a hale fellow well met. He 
 was quick to learn because ready to take a suggestion, and 
 thorough in the performance of the duties enjoined upon him. 
 His engineer could repose implicit confidence in his discretion, 
 fidelity, and trustworthiness, and so took pride in him. From 
 his boyhood up " he studied to be quiet, to do his own busi- 
 ness, and to work with his own hands," as the apostle com- 
 mands. He believed there was a place for him, work for him 
 to do, and that he had a mission to fulfil. What was true of 
 him he felt to be true of every other man. In his estimation 
 the dignity of labor finds its exponent in the fact that every 
 trade, profession, art, and employment is an essential link in the 
 chain that binds society together. He felt that it was a mis- 
 taken notion that forever, associates labor with a curse. He 
 was not miserable, because he had something to do. He had 
 only contempt for loafers, and wasted no pity upon those who 
 were ever harping upon the miseries of the workingman. He 
 denied that there were menial employments, in the sense in 
 which the term is used. We all serve. Menial pertains to 
 service. The employer serves his servant as much as the ser- 
 vant serves the employer. Christ illustrated this truth when 
 he washed his disciples' feet and said, " Let him that is 
 chief be as he that doth serve." This was the secret of the 
 success of young Hobart. 
 
 As a fireman he was faithful and trustworthy. He made his 
 engine his pride. He was prompt, respectful, and obliging. 
 He filled his place, and sought to fill no one else's place. He 
 did not seek to be superintendent or president, but simply fire- 
 man, and desired to learn all that could be known about the 
 management of the engine. He never saw an open door that 
 he did not enter it. His engineer reported him to the superin- 
 tendent as fitted for an engine, while Sam was bus} r with his 
 
32 SAM HOBART. 
 
 work and not dreaming of promotion. He went higher because 
 the place called for him. He did not cry for the place. There 
 was not a lazy hair in his head, nor a lazy bone in his body. 
 In his estimation, the most miserable men on earth are those 
 who have nothing to do. They are in the way when they seek 
 society, for society has bread to earn and duties to discharge. 
 At home they are miserable. Idleness is the sepulchre of a 
 living man. Every individual is so constituted that if he will 
 not work he shall hasten to destruction. It is the grain be- 
 tween the upper and nether millstones which saves the machin- 
 ery from ruin. So it is the work placed before us that keeps 
 the machinery of life in running order and makes men happy. 
 " Look/' said Sam to a comrade when a fireman,' 44 at the 
 laborer confined to his house. He has bread and sources of 
 comfort, but he pines for occupation. 4 The sleep of a labor- 
 ing man is sweet. ' ' Sam had no sympathy with one who was 
 wishing he had nothing to do, that he had money enough to 
 live without work. He said, " You are mistaken. Imagine 
 yourself inheriting money on the condition that from this time 
 you ceased laboring. Hitherto you have been engaged in a 
 machine-shop. Your companions and friends are there. But 
 you can no more be permitted to touch or use a tool. You try 
 staying at home. Your mother complains that you are in the 
 way. They wish to clean up the house, and want you out of 
 it. You saunter forth and enter a store ; the merchant is busy. 
 He will wait on you, but cannot afford to have you lounging 
 around. You go back to the shop. Your companions have 
 no time to waste upon an idler, and no respect for a drone in 
 the great human hive. You try reading, and are not used to it. 
 Your bones ache, your head feels uncomfortable. The world 
 is busy, and you are unemployed. There is one of two things 
 that would occur in one month's time. You would rush into . 
 dissipation to drown your bodily suffering, or you would put 
 your inheritance to use and go to work." Sam was right. 
 Food received in the body requires exercise to aid the digestive 
 organs. It is equally true of mental food. There is no place 
 in this wide world for an idle man. He is refuse, and the 
 
THE MACHINIST AND FIREMAN. 33 
 
 sooner he finds it out the belter, when the money he keeps 
 from circulating will find its way into the channels of useful- 
 ness. The man who does not labor, for its own sake and the 
 blessings that follow in its train, is diseased either in body or 
 soul. Dissipation may destroy the constitution and rob the 
 body of its strength and energy, and for a time the system 
 may need repose ; but as soon as it regains health it will de- 
 mand occupation. The bees understand it : they kill off the 
 drones. 
 
 4< No," said the friend, " that theory must be given up." 
 " Well," said Sam, " I don't believe it. If the bees don't do 
 it, then all I have to say is, I shan't think so much of the bees. 
 ' For he that will not work, neither shall he eat. ' ' 
 
 Another mistaken notion which Sam was fond of fighting 
 was that men are unhappy because of their peculiar occupation. 
 He declared that his acquaintance with men forced upon him 
 the conviction, that with rare exceptions, every man is doing 
 that which under all the circumstances he is best adapted to do, 
 and that he would not be as happy anywhere else as where he 
 is. He knew there were places he could not fill. He was very 
 proud of Hon. Ginery Twitchel, who passed from a stage- 
 driver up the grade to being railroad president, and then grad- 
 uated and went to Congress. He was familiar with the history 
 of Tom Scott, the railroad king of the Pennsylvania Central, or 
 of Cornelius Vanderbilt, both of whom climbed up from the 
 humblest of beginnings to their distinguished positions ; but 
 Sam Hobart knew that he was plain Sam Hobart, and that he 
 could not do their work. So when a boy he sought to fill his 
 place, and filled it to the satisfaction of all parties. He believed 
 that in his humble sphere God gave to him just as many sources 
 of innocent happiness as he had given to anybody. Happiness 
 r is within, and not without. The discontented imagine that 
 happiness must be found in a change of position or of occupa- 
 tion rather than in a change of opinion. There is no good 
 reason why the coachman should not be as happy as the dainty 
 lady whom he serves. There is no reason why the hod-carrier 
 may not be as happy at his toil as is the mason whom he waits 
 
34 SAM 1IOBAKT. 
 
 upon, or the architect in accordance with whose plan he helps 
 to build. It was Sam Hobart's feeling that the duties and 
 responsibilities of the president of the railroad would be too 
 much for him. Would that his faith was more widely diffused. 
 Society would hear less of complaint. There would be fewer 
 grumblers and less tumult. Now, alas, in many instances a 
 mechanic acquires wealth. His son inherits his traits of char- 
 acter and habits of mind. But the father scorns the idea of 
 bringing the boy up to business. He must make a gentleman 
 of him. God makes the gentleman. Man oftentimes makes 
 of a good youth, by false training, a spendthrift, and mayhap 
 a prodigal and a drunkard. The ocean of the mercantile world 
 is strewn with the wrecks of young men who ruined their 
 hopes because their parents- had heaped up fortunes for them. 
 Happy had it been for them had they been constrained to toil 
 as their fathers toiled before them, and to make their fortune 
 that they might enjoy it. Providence rights the wrongs of the 
 workingman by building up those who toil and by casting 
 idlers down. It is known that the sons of wealth who with 
 competences have inherited sloth come to want, as a rule, in the 
 course of three generations, while " the thoughts of the dili- 
 gent tend only to plenteousness. " From them come the inven- 
 tions which lighten labor and hasten on the chariot of plenty. 
 From them come those vast schemes which have belted society 
 with the bands of prosperity and girded society for its benefi- 
 cent tasks. Said the great Alexander : " It is a slavish thing 
 to luxuriate, but a most royal thing to labor. The man that 
 luxuriates is the man who is a slave. The man who labors is in 
 truth the king, for he alone is king of himself, while the king 
 who is not king of himself is but a royal slave. The entire 
 truth is summed up by the wise man : " Seest thou a man dili- 
 gent in his business : he shall stand before kings, he shall not 
 stand before mean persons.' 7 That is, diligence shall cause 
 him to be a necessity to society. The world stands in need of 
 the product of honest toil, and the vineyard waits for laborers. 
 So there was a place for Sam Hobart. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SAM BECOMES A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER. 
 
 SAM is twenty years of age, and is promoted from being fire- 
 man to being put in trust of a locomotive. It was 1848. Rail- 
 roading was then in its infancy in the West. The East was edu- 
 cating the West. The men of the East were sought to fill places 
 of trust in the West. Sam's eyes soon saw the laying of the 
 first track on the road that was in due time to bind Boston and 
 San Francisco together with bonds of iron. Then it was pro- 
 nounced visionary to attempt to climb the Berkshire hills, and 
 when achieved and the road was completed it was regarded as 
 great an exploit as to build the Pacific Road and climb and 
 scale the Rocky Mountains. A boy of twenty in charge of a 
 locomotive was a novelty. Jealousies were kindled into flame 
 by it, and men of age were not happy at the progress made by 
 the youngster. Sam was compelled to conquer his place, and 
 to hold it by reason that he was equal to the position. He did 
 not step to the first place at once. He crept up. He walked 
 in due time ; he was content. He knew that " A rolling stone 
 gathers no moss," and a man who often changes his business 
 is most likely to remain poor. Said the sagacious Richard : 
 
 " I never saw an oft-removed tree, 
 Nor yet an oft-removed family, 
 That throve so well as those that settled be." 
 
 It is not because of any property he acquired by remaining 
 in one place and contenting himself with one kind of employ- 
 ment, but because of the influence he acquired by maintaining 
 a good character through all these years, that he deserves men- 
 tion. 
 
36 SAM HOBART. 
 
 At the commencement he was put in charge of a locomotive 
 as a guard, then on a freight, and soon on a passenger train ; 
 and so he went on until at last by common consent the best 
 place was assigned him. It was said of him that his train was 
 sure to pull through. In the midst of terrific storms, when 
 deep snows impeded their progress or blocked their path, and it 
 was known that Sam was with the train, people said : "She 
 will come through if it's among the possibilities." Men were 
 accustomed to speak of the fertility of his inventive genius, his 
 powers of endurance, his good-nature and indomitable pluck. 
 
 He believed in success. There is sense in the saying, " Keep 
 thy shop and thy shop will keep thee." He stuck to the one 
 business ; he meddled with nothing else. He was master of 
 every department. He knew how to calculate for frost and 
 heat, for rain and snow, for the spring of the road and for the 
 lack of it. He knew little of what the books said of it, but 
 everything which experience and observation could teach. As 
 a result, he knew that he knew what to do and how to do it. 
 
 ' ' Perseverance is a Roman virtue 
 That wins each godlike act and plucks success, 
 Even from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger. " 
 
 As a manager of the locomotive he was an expert, and for 
 many years he had the latest improvements submitted to his 
 inspection and committed to his charge. He loved a good 
 engine as other men love a horse, or a dog, or a gun. It was 
 his joy to be with it. He liked the regularity with which it 
 ran to and back from Worcester to Boston like the beat of a 
 pendulum swinging through its iron arc. He loved the excite- 
 ment of seeing the train loaded up, the hurrying of passengers, 
 the rolling of the baggage, the start, and best of all, the race. 
 He delighted in the bound and speed of the fiery steed. He 
 would touch the levers as delicately and with as much grace as 
 a good reinsman would handle the lines. The sound of the 
 whistle, the clip-clap of the wheels rattling on the iron track 
 had a music for him more enlivening and bewitching than ever 
 
SAM BECOMES A LOCOMOTIVE EXGIHEER. 37 
 
 accompanied the organ's peal. It is not strange, for a wonder- 
 fill thing is that engine, the emblem and exponent of the hour, 
 " the thing of iron and of fire, with a banner of light, an eye 
 like a star ; with sinews of brass and steel, and breathings of 
 flame." See it standing on the track, pipe puffing, steam fret- 
 , ting to be free, reminding one of the horse described in Job, 
 whose neck is clothed with thunder, which paweth in the valley 
 and rejoiceth in his strength. He saith among the trumpets, 
 Ha, ha ! and he smelleth 'the battle afar off, the thunder of 
 the captains and the shouting, and is impatient to go forth to 
 battle. " It glides upon those two iron bars from winter to 
 summer, from day to night, from morning to evening. " " It 
 plunges like a strand of thunder through the mountain gorges ; 
 it Ikaps across the wide valley. Its shaft glitters in the mines ; 
 its voice is heard in the shop ; its banner is everywhere. It has 
 forced its way to the far hamlets in the quiet vales, and they 
 have felt the thrill and the jar of the great world." It is won- 
 derful how that hissing, panting thing of iron has revolution- 
 ized the world. Benjamin F. Taylor has in his wonderful way 
 written of the engine, and asked, " Did you ever creep gingerly 
 should there be another ' ly ' to the gingerly ? up to the 
 deck of a railway car when the train was moving, say twenty- 
 five or thirty miles an hour ? And did you look way on be- 
 yond the train, where the two iron bars that noblest couplet 
 in the great epic of the time were welded lovingly together, 
 without hammer or furnace or pin, but just beneath the won- 
 derful, invisible fingers of distance, till they lay there a huge V 
 upon the bosom of the prairie ? And how marvellously, as the 
 train moved on, those stubborn "bars swayed round to a parallel, 
 as lightly and noiselessly as a brace of sunbeams, flung from a 
 mirror swinging in the wanton wind, sweep round *in the blue 
 air ! And did you ' mind, 7 not a spike wrenched from its 
 good hold, not a tie ?mtied, not a timber splintered ! There 
 must be a charm in those fingers indeed." 
 
 No one that ever rode upon the engine can forget the sensa- 
 tion of pleasure, of exultation, of exuberant joy experienced, as 
 
38 SAM HOBART. 
 
 fear is forgotten, and one is given up to the excitement incident 
 to the situation, when in fancy you keep time with Saxe in his 
 Rhyme on the Rail, as you go 
 
 " Singing through the forests, 
 
 Battling over ridges, 
 Shooting under arches, 
 
 Humbling over bridges, 
 Whizzing through the mountains, 
 
 Buzzing o'er the vale, 
 Bless me ! this is pleasant, 
 
 Biding on the Bail." 
 
 At times you feel like shouting, ' i Stop the train ! Let us 
 off ! Conductor, captain, somebody, anybody, there's a vil- 
 lage on the track. The meeting-house, the grave-yard, fed- 
 faced stores, presto, you are there, they recede, and you pass 
 on. Every one has looked up. The very ground has shaken 
 beneath giant structures, and you, the freest, the wildest, the 
 most impetuous creature that ever moved through space, are 
 identified with this marvellous product of skill. Look again.. 
 This time there is surely something on the track again. It's a 
 fly, it's a frog, it's a child, it's a man six feet high a D.D., 
 a P.M., an M.C. On we go. We have passed him, we have 
 left him. Five feet high ; four feet high ; a child, a frog, a 
 bug, a nothing. The D.D, dwindled down ; the P.M. is past 
 minding, and the M.C. is microscopic curiosity." 
 
 " Lo ! there * the breathing thought' 
 
 The poets sang of old, 
 And there ' the burning word ' 
 
 No tongue had full\ T told, 
 Until the magic hand 
 
 The bold conception wrought 
 In iron and in fire it stands 
 
 The world's embodied thought. 
 
 " Lo ! in the panting thunders, 
 Hear the echo of the Age ! 
 Lo ! in the globe' s broad breast, behold 
 The poet's noblest page ! 
 
SAM BECOMES A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER. 39 
 
 For in the brace of iron bars, 
 
 That weld two worlds in one, 
 The couplet of a nobler lay 
 
 Than bards have e'r begun !" 
 
 The locomotive engineer rides this poem, this epic, or this 
 monster call it what you will he rides it as a thing of life. 
 The signal comes to him, not in a loud shout of command, or a 
 trumpet-blast, but by the silent hand of time as indicated on 
 his chronometer. But how, it may be asked, does he know 
 precisely the hour at which he has to start, the stations he has 
 to stop at, the various little acts of coupling on and dropping 
 off carriages and trucks, and returning within fixed periods so 
 punctually, that he shall not interfere with, run into, or delay 
 the operations of the hundreds of drivers ; whose duties are as 
 complete, wise, important, and swift as his own. The reply is 
 framed in the perfection of system attained in railroad manage- 
 ment. Without this there would be endless confusion and un- 
 told and unnumbered disasters. 
 
 Sam recognized this fact, and made use of it. The responsi- 
 bility of making a time-table devolved upon another. The 
 obeying of it devolved upon him. He knew that the difficulty of 
 running so many trains and making them dovetail into one an- 
 other so that the regular traffic be not interfered with, and that 
 excursion, special, and other irregular trains be provided for, re- 
 quired a calculation, a skill, a comprehension of detail, for which 
 he had neither ability nor ambition. Being carefully hedged in, 
 as we have shown, with strict rules and regulations, the engineer 
 knowing his duties well, and feeling perfect confidence in him- 
 self and his superiors, looks at his chronometer, and at the 
 proper time mounts to his place. The fireman, putting a finish- 
 ing drop of oil into some part of the machinery, takes his sta- 
 tion beside his mate, eases off the brake, looks at the fire and 
 waits upon the monster, as the engineer waits for the signal to 
 start. The clock strikes. Sam lets off his shot whistles and 
 lets on the steam. The first is a soft pulsation, a mere puff ; 
 but it was enough to move the ponderous engine as if it had 
 
40 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 been the spirit of life. Another, and gently it pulls out the 
 train. All are aboard. Everything is ready. Another puff of 
 greater strength sends forward the engine with -a sudden gran- 
 deur of action that enables the engineer to show off the points 
 of the powerful steed. 
 
 As an engineer, he began first in the yard. Then he took a 
 freight train. It was seen that he could move a train and not 
 jerk it. He never went too far or stopped too soon. He was 
 expeditious. ' He was safe. He attended to his business. At 
 length, an engineer being sick, he was placed on a passenger 
 train for the day. The skill acquired in the yard and with 
 freight trains enabled him to move out of the depot quickly 
 and stop at the stations without a jar. That night the con- 
 ductor reported him as a success for the passenger train. 
 " Why," said he, " no old engineer that I know of can do any 
 better, if as well. He did not seem to start, but to insinuate the 
 idea of motion to his iron steed, and so glide softly away. As 
 a result he was transferred to the passenger trains, and kept his 
 place for evermore. He never forgot his obligations to the 
 men who advanced him, and in this showed good sense. 
 
 America in 1 848 was the El Dorado of the workingman. 
 Here was thrift and plenty, while terrible convulsions were 
 shaking the old world. Italy, France and Hungary were being 
 ploughed with excitements that gave birth to republics and 
 shook the foundations of time-honored despotisms, papal and 
 other. In England the working classes were crying out for de- 
 liverance. It was on the 10th of April, 1848, the great peti- 
 tion for the charter became the jest and sport of men. How 
 wild their hope, how bitter their despair. One wrote in behalf ' 
 of the charter these words : " Had not freedom, progression, 
 expanding, descending, been the glory and the strength of 
 England ? Were Magna Charta and the Habeas Corpus Act, 
 Hampden's resistance to ship-money, and the calm, righteous 
 might of 1688 were they all futilities and fallacies ? Ever 
 downward for seven hundred years, welling from the heaven- 
 watered mountain peaks of wisdom, had spread the stream* 
 
SAM BECOMES A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER. 41 
 
 of liberty. The nobles had gained their charter from John ; 
 the middle classes from Wiiliam of Orange ; was not the time 
 at hand, when from a queen, more gentle, charitable, upright, 
 spotless than had ever sat on the throne of England, the work- 
 ing masses in their turn should gain their charter?" They 
 were to go in a procession 250,000 strong to the very doors of 
 the House of Commons, and demand their rights. 
 
 The day came. All England was aroused. Thousands of 
 special constables were enrolled. The practical common-sense 
 of the people refused to side with outlaws, and to expose 
 themselves to French and Irish interference, and so the masses 
 would not rise. Whatever sympathy they had with Chartists, 
 they did not care to show it. And then futility after futility 
 exposed itself. The meeting, which was to have numbered its 
 hundreds of thousands, did not number its tens of thousands. 
 The broadest and the wisest saw that all was up, and cried, We 
 are all " humbugged and betrayed," and the meeting broke 
 up pitiably, piecemeal, drenched and cowed, body and soul, by 
 pouring rain on its way home for the very heavens mercifully 
 helped to quench the folly while the monster petition crawled 
 ludicrously away in a hack-cab to be dragged to the floor of the 
 House of Commons amid roars of laughter " inextinguishable 
 laughter. ' ' 
 
 Thus wrote Charles Kingsley in '* Alton Locke," of a move- 
 ment engaging the world's thought when Sam Hobart at the age' 
 of twenty, became a locomotive engineer. Boston is the work- 
 ingman's paradise. Here every improvement is welcomed. The 
 inventive spirit is encouraged. The man of the forge or of the 
 loom, of the spindle, of the shoe-shop, and of the carpenter's 
 bench, comes into association with the noblest, the most enter- 
 prising of the land. Sam felt it and gloried in it. He was an 
 American out and out. He saw the possibilities within reach, 
 and the open doors to usefulness and power inviting attention 
 at every turn. Some one has said : " Everybody has his ani- 
 mal period, when he can only eat and sleep ; intelligence slowly 
 dawning on his mind. Then comes his savage period, when he 
 
42 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 knows nothing of rights, when all thine is mine, if he can get 
 it. Then comes the barbarous period, when he is ignorant and 
 dislikes to learn ; study and restraint are irksome. Nothing is 
 sacred to him no time, nor place, nor person. He grows up 
 wild and reckless/ 7 Through these periods, companions say, 
 Sam passed. Some called him a " boy," claiming that he got 
 more than his share, as they thought, and was selfish, grasping, 
 and unfeeling. Well, if that was true of him at any time he 
 soon passed beyond this stage. The pushing boy that would 
 not be sat down on that as apprentice, as fireman and as 
 engineer, did his best soon attracted notice. Discouragement 
 had never entered his soul. He knew what it was to be an 
 apprentice, and he misjudged. He knew also what love, confi- 
 dence and respect from those set over him was. He never for- 
 got it. The story is told of John -Morrissey and Tom Hyer. 
 Both were fighting men. Friends were anxious that they 
 should have " a mill," or prize fight. Tom Hyer never came 
 to time in any way pleasing to Morrissey. One day they were 
 on a steamer sailing up the Hudson, and John said to Tom, 
 " Do you know why you and I have never fought ?" " No." 
 " Well, I do." " Why ?" " Because there are just two men 
 in this world," said Morrissey, " who know that I can whip you 
 one is you and t'other one is me." He believed that he was 
 equal to the situation. 
 
 Some declare that when his work was done he went the 
 rounds with wild and rude associates visiting theatres, brothels, 
 dance-houses, and the like. Nothing could be further from 
 the truth. Such men never climb the steep ascent to positions 
 of trust. They go down and they end in disgrace. Their 
 wrecks line the shore of life's sea. It is easy to go down. 
 The broad road is an inclined plane. The descent is easy and 
 natural. The current in Niagara River is not more certain 
 making toward the cataract and the headlong plunge to utter 
 ruin than is the path of the young mechanic that squanders his 
 evenings and wastes his opportunities. 
 
 Sam became a Freemason when young. He was welcomed 
 
SAM BECOMES A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER. 43 
 
 to the association by men who appreciated his worth. The 
 symbols, the humanities, the fraternity, the stand-up-to-a- tire- 
 ness of the order delighted him. He travelled through the 
 West as an engineer. To the shops, to the depots of the great 
 railways he went no more certainly than he visited the lodges of 
 the fraternity. In this order he learned the value of brother- 
 hood and how to minister to the distressed and afflicted. For 
 years this was his religion. , He fought his way through diffi- 
 culties made strong by the fact that the eye of a great order 
 was on him, and that within the lodge- room he had bosom 
 friends. His reverence for his mother and for himself made 
 him respect women. Lectures he loved on scientific subjects. 
 As the years went on, Boston became the battle-ground of 
 liberty. Faneuil Hall and Tremont Temple, the Meronian, 
 where Parker preached and where Channing and Culver and 
 Gilbert and others met to compare notes and plan for the pro- 
 tection of the weak, were favorite resorts for the young and 
 aspiring engineer. All this time he was the champion of the 
 work that had fallen to him to do. He believed in, the man- 
 agement and in the road he served. When other men would 
 find fault with the company, with the road, with the equip- 
 ments, Sam would stand by them and defend them. He knew 
 enough to praise what he had and make the most of it. That 
 fact became known. When his brother engineers would de- 
 clare that on such and such roads men were treated better or 
 paid more wages or had less hours, Sam would reply, " Boys, 
 I have seen many of them, and to me there is no place like 
 home." 
 
 " Easy enough for you to say that, Sam Hobart, who are 
 advanced and petted and favored by every one," replied an 
 associate. Sam's reply was, " Boys, I get what I can. If I 
 have won confidence, I try to deserve it. I am grateful for the 
 friendship of my superiors in position, but after all this is not 
 all. This is a good road. There is not an improvement which 
 we do not have, and not one of you makes any special time but 
 it is noticed. 
 
44 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 " Do you remember how, when the yard was full of trains 
 during the last snow blockade, the call came for men to work 
 extra time ? You know who found excuses for not going. 
 Those of us who went and who worked all night and helped to 
 clear the yards, and took the kink out of the tangle of tied-up 
 trains, were thanked by the superintendent, who was out all 
 night and worked with us as if he were one of us. For one, 
 I like such employers, and am going to stand by them. 57 
 
 As when Jesse sent David to find out how his soldier 
 brothers were getting on, green-eyed jealousy was suspicious, 
 insinuating, and mean, so then and there men were found who 
 saw in Sam's willingness to help, only a spirit that sought pro- 
 motion. Nothing was further from the truth. The spirit of 
 help was in the man. He enjoyed the excitement of desperate 
 and difficult work. He went at it with a will, and kept at it 
 until victory was achieved. * l Napoleon, " it is said, ' ' on the 
 battle-field was equal to thirty thousand men." Sam, on au 
 engine in a snow blockade, was an inspiration to all called to 
 work. He was master of the situation, and superintendent and 
 directors knew that everything possible would be done. Let 
 one man or a half dozen men arise, who believe that the world 
 is not the devil's world at all, but God's ; that the multitude of 
 the people is not the ruin, but, as Solomon avers, the strength 
 of the rulers ; that men are not meant to be beasts of prey, eating 
 one another up by competition, as in some confined pike pond 
 where the great pike, having despatched the little ones, begin to 
 devour each other, till one overgrown monster is left alone to 
 die of starvation ; but rather, that every man has his place, and 
 a right to fill it. Let a few men who have brains and believe 
 that, arise to play the men, and there is a place for them in 
 this great, free-hearted world. Sam believed it, and in the 
 heartiest way gave assistance to all in his power. Prompt to 
 the moment, quick to discern a difficulty and find out a 
 remedy, brave in the midst of peril, and always pushing for the 
 main chance, he came to be recognized as one on whom, in an 
 emergency, men might lean. Having achieved this, he was 
 
SAM BECOMES A LOCOMOTIVE ESTGIKEER. 45 
 
 satisfied. He dare be true to his own class and seek such im- 
 provement as came within his reach. He sought to befriend 
 the helpless and improve the condition of those about him. 
 This made him friends in his own circle, and gave him introduc- 
 tions to society about him. It is not who a man is thought to 
 be, but what he is within, that determines his position in 
 society. The world knows us better than we think, and weighs 
 us with wonderful precision 4 . 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 
 
 IF this were a romance instead of a biography, I would de- 
 scribe Sam at this period of his life in the railroad world as 
 being what Stephenson had been in England, or what Elihu 
 Burritt, in another sphere, became in America. I would picture 
 him mastering arithmetic, algebra, philosophy, and the higher 
 mathematics, until he attained the power of weighing a star, 
 calculating an eclipse, or telling how many cubic feet of earth 
 there was in an embankment, or what proportions were essential 
 to the solidity of a bridge. But this cannot be done, because 
 it was not true. 
 
 The time for free libraries and free reading-rooms had not 
 come. Railroading was not then what it is now. There was 
 then no room for the engineer where, apart from wicked com- 
 panions, he might culture his brain and find that for which his 
 heart yearned. Sam was an engineer. At the outset rough, 
 profane, faithful to the road, and kind to his companions, but 
 not a genius, not a model. Afterward, how he regretted wasted 
 opportunities all know who heard him speak. 
 
 " Young men," he would say, "what are you doing? 
 Books are within your reach. Are you not living without 
 them and growing up in ignorance as if they were not ? If so, 
 you will regret it. What you neglect now can never be made 
 up to you. What you obtain now of knowledge, of science. 
 and of the wisdom which is from on high, will always enrich 
 you." Later on he went in for improvements. It is not 
 necessary that we enter into the particulars of his private life. 
 His mother is still living, though in enfeebled health, and he 
 has several brothers and a sister. His wife writes : 
 
THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 47 
 
 u A kinder, truer, more loving husband than Samuel Brooks 
 Hobart ever and always was, would be difficult to find ; and 
 better companions to a man's earthly lot, than Sarah Jane 
 Marston, of Newton, Mass., and Annette Snow, of Lunen- 
 burg, Vt, , the world does not furnish. They lie side by side 
 with him at Mt. Auburn, and share with him, I trust, the 
 blessedness of the heavenly home ; and what does it matter to 
 the world that I unceasingly mourn his loss ? 
 
 " Yours in sorrow deep, 
 
 " MARY J. HOBART. " 
 
 From the first his home was to him a delight. He lived for 
 it and lived in it. He was glad, when the day's work was done, 
 to give his arm to his wife and walk out to gaze upon the beau- 
 ties of sea and land, of garden and field. 
 
 Boston, then as now, was beautiful. Nature had blessed it, 
 and art came to adorn it as best it could. He delighted to visit 
 the hill in South Boston which overlooks the harbor, and de- 
 scribe the scenes of the Revolution, where Putnam was in Cam- 
 bridge, Warren at Bunker Hill, and where a camp of our revo- 
 lutionary sires saw from the Heights the British furl their flags 
 and steal away, because of the tactics of Washington and the 
 bravery of those that stood about him. The monument at 
 Blinker Hill thrilled him with patriotic emotions. Boston is 
 the workingman's paradise. There a man is a man. Faneuil 
 Hall, consecrated to free speech ; the Capitol, in which the 
 noblest orators living or dead have spoken ; Tremont Temple, 
 where Nathaniel Culver preached, and Music Hall in which 
 Theodore Parker stood forth as the prophet of liberty ; churches 
 in which Sharp and Neal and Stone and Pierpoint and Chan- 
 ning made the welkin ring with words that leaped in echoes 
 round the world these were his delight. 
 
 Mt. Auburn, too, he loved. The chapel in which the statues 
 of Otis and John Adams will ever instruct and inspire, Harvard 
 College and the gallery of portraits in which are pictures of 
 Bowdoin, Franklin, Whitefield and others, these places were 
 known to him and were loved by him. 
 
48 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 Fifteen months of wedded bliss came and went, bearing with 
 them wife and child, and he was a widower and alone. It was 
 to him a sad and empty world. He needed Christ. He was 
 like parts of a machine not joined, and so not at work. For- 
 tunately, God gave him in Miss Snow, of Lunenburg, Vt., a 
 second wife who proved to be a great blessing. The woman's 
 life introduced him to the Green Mountain State, and its won- 
 derful scenery, enlarged the range of his vision, and gave him 
 an acquaintance with improving friends. He loved her and 
 all that belonged to her. He delighted to take his vacations 
 by going with her to the old home. At last she sickened. 
 Through her I came to know her husband. Dr. O. S. Saun- 
 ders said one day, " You have a great friend in Sam Hobart, 
 an engineer of the Boston and Albany Road, and his wife is 
 very sick. I wish you would go and see her.' 7 I went. I 
 found her sitting in her large rocking-chair beside the window 
 that overlooked the railroad, waiting for Sam's return. Soon 
 the whistle sounded. Her eye brightened. She looked out of 
 the window, kissed her hand to the red-haired engineer who, 
 with his cap and overalls on, looked the workingman. Quick 
 as a flash he went past. She turned with a pleasant, proud 
 smile saying, " He always looks for me, poor fellow. I can't 
 wait here much longer for him." The scene reminds us of 
 William Guild, who was engineer of the train. which plunged 
 into Meadow Brook, on the line of the Stonington and Provi- 
 dence Railroad. It was his custom, as often as he passed his 
 home, to whistle an "All is well" to his wife. He was 
 found, after the disaster, dead, with his hand on the throttle- 
 valve of the engine. Bret Harte thus describes the scene : 
 
 " Two low whistles, quaint and clear, 
 That was the signal the engineer 
 
 That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said 
 Gave to his wife at Providence, 
 As through the sleeping town and thence 
 Out in the night, 
 On to the light, 
 Down past the farms lying while he sped ! 
 
THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 49 
 
 " As a husband's greeting, secret, no doubt, 
 Yet to the woman looking out, 
 
 Watching and waiting, no serenade, 
 Love song, or midnight roundelay 
 Said what that whistle seemed to say, 
 To my trust true, 
 So love to you, 
 Working or waiting, good-night it said." 
 
 So was Sam Hobart's greeting to her. How sad she was 
 when she said, " By and by there will be no one at the window 
 here waiting for him." Then turning to me, I said, " Are you 
 ready to go ?" 
 
 " Would be, if he were ready to follow on." 
 
 " Is he not a Christian ?" 
 
 " No, far from it ; but as good a man as ever breathed to 
 me and mine." After prayer I went forth to other duties, and 
 forgot the incident. In a day or two I received a message 
 from the engineer, asking me to take a seat on his locomotive 
 the next time I went to Worcester, as a recognition of my 
 kindness to her he loved. 
 
 His home life was the theme of remark, not only among his 
 comrades and friends, but among men of wealth and position. 
 His widow delights to think of his goodness, and to describe him 
 as being the most tender and devoted of husbands. She writes : 
 
 " His second wife was an invalid for years. Consumption 
 was her disease. Nothing could exceed the kindness with 
 which he ministered unto her every want. Nothing that her pal- 
 ate craved or her necessities required was ever denied her. A 
 mother could not have watched over an infant with greater 
 solicitude. Attentions paid to her were never forgotten. 
 
 ' This devotion so impressed his friends that one of them 
 wrote him the following letter, inclosing one hundred dollars, 
 which he well knew Samcould find abundant use for : 
 
 1 MY DEAR SIR AND BROTHER i Inclosed please find my 
 check for $100, which you will please accept as a slight token 
 of sympathy and regard. The fidelity you have shown to your 
 
50 SAM HOBART. 
 
 wife during her seven long years of suffering is truly commend- 
 able, and excites the warmest admiration of your friends. 
 That you will get your reward both here and hereafter, there 
 cannot be the slightest doubt. I can but refer, my dear sir, to 
 your kind attentions to me in my last sickness with feelings of 
 unmixed gratitude ; for these, and for your unvarying friend- 
 ship during the whole of our acquaintance, I feel I owe you a 
 debt that money does not pay. With these greetings I can 
 but express my hearty sympathy with you and your beloved 
 wife, and with an earnest prayer that she may be yet spared to 
 you many years, I remain 
 
 " ' Yours fraternally. 
 " ' WORCESTER, April 21, 1868.' 
 
 " The same friend presented him in 1869, just as he was 
 about uniting with the Church, with a copy of the New Testa- 
 ment, beautifully printed in large clear type, and bound in 
 four volumes. These books were a great comfort to him, as 
 he ever after in his daily home readings read from them. 
 They must have been read through many times." 
 
 At home Sam wore a troubled look. His wife was full of 
 anxiety about him. Though at times he was desperate and gave 
 loose rein to passion and profaned God's name in the most ter- 
 rible way, so that those next him turned from him and left 
 him to blow out (as they say of a locomotive), he felt humili- 
 ated by his conduct, and saw that he had disgraced himself and 
 offended God. His wife's sweet ways and fervent prayers 
 were telling on him. Months before I spoke to the engineers, 
 the impression came upon him that he must go to church. He 
 dressed in his best and started, not vouchsafing to tell whither 
 he was going. Passing down Harrison Avenue he came first 
 to Harvard Street Church. This was closed for repairs. Now, 
 thought he, I have one more Sabbath. I will go home, and 
 turned to do so. Instantly a voice seemed to say to him, "Go 
 on. 19 He dared not resist. He continued down the avenue 
 until he came to Howe Street Church, into which he walked, 
 was shown to a seat, and listened attentively to a sermon deliv- 
 ered by Baron Stone, D.D. The next Sabbath, Harvard Street 
 
THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 5J 
 
 was opened, and it being the chosen place of worship of his 
 wife, he took a seat and made that his Sabbath home. 
 
 In the Christian Union of November 19th, 1870, among the 
 Lecture Boom Talks, by H. W. Beecher, is this reference to 
 Sam Hobart. 
 
 " I think some of my pleasantest experiences in life, in a 
 common way, are likely to be on locomotives. I had the 
 pleasure, yesterday morning, of riding out of Boston as far as 
 \Vorcester on one of the locomotives ; and on going up to 
 South Framingham I was reminded of a conversation I once 
 had there. I was reminded of it, indeed, before I left Boston, 
 because I met in the Boston depot the man with whom I had 
 it. Several years ago, I was waiting to go over to Marlboro. 
 A } T oung man asked me if my name was not Henry Ward 
 Beecher. I said it was. He asked me if I had any objections 
 to riding with him on the machine. I said, ' None at all. ' I 
 accordingly went forward with him, and before the train started 
 he broke the matter which he had on his mind. He said he 
 had a great deal of trouble in regard to his soul's salvation, 
 that he did not seem to get much rest, and wanted some in- 
 struction. And so, having such a ride as Philip never had 
 with the eunuch in the chariot, I rode over the hills and along the 
 vales with him, preaching Christ. After coming home I sent 
 him a number of religious books. When he came to me yes- 
 terday, in the station house in Boston, I remembered him, 
 though he commenced to explain who he was, and that we had 
 once had some conversation. He was my blood-brother, and I 
 felt the kinship. I went forward to see his engine, for I take 
 more pleasure in riding if I see the machine that is going to 
 draw me. I wanted to see what its name was, where it was 
 built, what its peculiarities were, and so on, and then, too, who 
 was its engineer. I knew him of old. He is a large, florid- 
 faced, frank, but firm man. You would not like to run against 
 him, but you would like to lean against him. The moment he 
 saw me, he called to me and said, l Come, get up and ride with 
 me.' ' Certainly I will,' I said, and I had hardly sat down 
 
52 SAM HUB ART. 
 
 before he broke out to tell me what the Lord had done for his 
 soul. He gave me a very interesting history of his experience. 
 He told me how he had been for some years secretly believing 
 that he was a disciple of Christ, and doing many things which 
 he recognized as belonging to a Christian's life, though he was 
 not willing to come out and make a profession of Christ before 
 men. How at last his heart became so full that he could not 
 conceal his faith any longer, and he went and joined a Baptist 
 Church. He said he had * gone down into the water (I knew 
 what he meant), * and that now he was a joyful and earnest 
 Christian.' He told me in the course of our conversation a 
 very interesting fact, which I will repeat. 
 
 " ' There was a time,' he said, ' when there was not a man 
 on that road that he knew of who professed Christ ; but now, ' 
 he said, * we have fifty men on this road who are professing 
 Christians ; men that do not drink, that do love God, and pro- 
 fess his Son, Jesus Christ. And more are coming.' And then 
 he told me how he worked with them. Said he, 4 It does not 
 seem as if it was right to try and give a man the whole of relig- 
 ion at once, all in a heap. He will not read a full chapter, but 
 if you take him right ho will read one verse, and after a while 
 he will read two verses on his own account, and then he will 
 read on a little more. And so he will go along step by step. 
 Get him to leave off tobacco, and then he will leave off some- 
 f thing else. And when he gets agoing, shove him along, and 
 keep him a-moving. ' 
 
 " He showed good mother-wit in the methods he pursued in 
 working for men. He took men on the subject of religion as 
 merchants and others take men in business. They do not come 
 up to a man at any time and disclose their whole plans at once. 
 They study their times and plans. They frequently confer to- 
 gether as to the best way to approach a man, and gradually win 
 him over and carry him along with them. He said he had 
 studied men to get at the best mode of dealing with them, and 
 had exercised his skill and judgment in reaching their convic- 
 tions, and then when he had got them started on the right 
 
THE RAILROAD EKGIXEER TAKES A WIFE. 53 
 
 path, had kept them moving along, and finally brought them to 
 Christ. So we went to Worcester, talking all the way ; and it 
 * was a good meeting to my soul." 
 
 It was during the time intervening between Mr. Beecher's 
 sending him the books and when he last saw him, that I met 
 him, and saw him surrender his soul unconditionally to Christ. 
 One night I remember to have seen him in the Temple prayer- 
 meeting. Great numbers of workingmen came, and he came 
 with them occasionally. There was a good deal of feeling in 
 the congregation. Sinners were coming to Christ. 
 
 Seeing him while a hymn was being sung, I went to him and 
 spoke to him about his soul. My rebuff I will never forget. 
 The sequel makes it bearable, and may help some who are dis- 
 couraged by the reception given to their earnest pleadings to 
 go on. 
 
 " Have you made a profession of religion ?" I asked him. 
 He said with some emphasis, "/ have not." 
 
 " Have you given your heart to God ?" 
 
 " No, sir, and don't want to do so at present." 
 
 I could say no more, and went on with a great sorrow in my 
 heart. It did not drive him away. He always seemed to feel 
 that I was his friend, and afterward he thanked me for coming, 
 saying, " When you spoke to me, I did not want to be made 
 an example of, but when going home I blamed myself for my 
 rudeness ; I could see by your looks that it cost you a great 
 deal of love for your Master and for souls to come to me, and 
 that you deserved something better than a repulse, and in my 
 heart I thanked you, and rejoiced that some one had taken an 
 interest in me. 
 
 u I was then under conviction. My wife was dying. My 
 heart was breaking. When she told me of your prayer in my 
 behalf I determined to see you. The result was I was ready 
 for you when you came. I had spoken of you to my wife, 
 told her how your appeals to sinners affected me, and yet how 
 blind I was. My heart revolted. I did not want to be con- 
 verted in God's way, but in my own." 
 
54 SAM HOB ART 
 
 It was in the fall of 1867 that I accepted his invitation to 
 take a ride on his locomotive. I knew that Mr. Beecher was 
 interested in him, that he had sent him books and had given 
 him money to aid poor families in distress, whose husbands he 
 was helping on to their feet. 
 
 All this struggling for a higher and better life told on his 
 looks. It softened him. He spoke in a lower tone and with 
 more gentleness. He was master on the locomotive, whatever 
 he might be elsewhere. You saw it in his stride and heard it 
 in his voice. Never can I forget his bearing on that crisp and 
 cold November morning when I entered the depot, thinking if 
 all was well I would ride to Worcester on his locomotive. 
 
 On inquiring, I found that it was his train, and went up and 
 spoke to him as he stood in the door of the depot waiting for 
 the fireman to bring up the engine. He was well dressed, and 
 looked as if he might be going to take a seat in a palace car. 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Hobart," I said. He looked round, 
 recognized me, and said, "Good-morning," with a great heart 
 in his salutation. " Going to Worcester ?" " Yes." " Take 
 a ride with me?" "If agreeable." "Perfectly." The 
 engine was coming up. Taking my satchel he introduced me 
 to his assistant. The boy bowed without noticing the new- 
 comer. Sam saw it, and said : 
 
 "Take off your hat." He took it off. " Take off your 
 glove." He did so. " Shake hands with the gentleman. 
 This is the minister that visited ray wife." 
 
 At once the fireman put his heart into look and hand-shake 
 as he said, " I am glad to sec Mr. Hobart' s friend." 
 
 My satchel and umbrella were placed in the chest or box 
 where the engineer carried his clothes and dinner. Then the 
 fireman took a piece of cloth and spread it on the seat at the 
 right of the locomotive and asked me to be seated, to put 
 my feet up so. I put my feet up so to hold my hands in 
 such a position. I held them as directed and waited, not 
 knowing more than Paul what was to befall me. Sam then put 
 on his overalls, cap and gloves, and was ready for business. 
 
THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 55 
 
 The half -past eight bell struck. The whistle sounded, the train 
 started. Coming by the house near the track on the right, I 
 remembered the window, as I saw the engineer looking for a 
 farewell from his wife. His face was out at the door, hers was 
 at the window. He bowed, she kissed her pale hand, and he 
 went to his work. At the Providence crossing all came to a 
 stand-still. Flagmen, trackmen, and others saluted him, and he 
 bowed or spoke to men, never as a sycophant, but always as a 
 friend. Across the Providence track we went at regulation 
 pace, then we started to make time. How we flew ! Towns 
 were like beads strung upon the thread of this railroad track. 
 The foliage of the trees was in variegated colors. Every- 
 thing was robed in beauty ; distant mountains, " blue hills," 
 quiet lakes, all attracted notice as we dashed on. I have said 
 he was proud of his locomotive. I think he loved it as a 
 friend. He handled the machine with great strength. The 
 sensation produced was delightful and soul -inspiring. We 
 passed Brighton and the Newtons, and were just making for the 
 open country, when I saw him spring. He whistled up the 
 brakes. He had no air brake then. There was commotion 
 everywhere. The fireman grew white. As soon as I could 
 speak I inquired the cause, and he replied in his quick way, 
 " See the flag !" I had not seen it. It was too far away for 
 my unpractised eye. But the engineer saw it, and stopped in 
 a brief time. Soon a man came, saying, " A train is on this 
 track? and is trying to get back. " Sam at once replied, " All 
 right !" and, turning to me, said, " No danger. That train 
 cannot stay on this track. There is some trouble. I will go 
 and help them ;" and, whistling up the brakes, he took the 
 flagman on, asked him about matters, and crept on at a slow 
 pace. In a few moments we reached the curve. He sent 
 the man on, and, almost before we had turned the curve, he 
 whistled up the brakes, and we swept on. Turning to me, he 
 said, " This comes from having a clear brain. A man mud- 
 dled with beer or whiskey is not safe in such a place." My ad- 
 miration for the man kindled into a glow, and I said to him, 
 
56 SAM HOBART. 
 
 as soon as we got straightened out, and were flying on again : 
 " Sam, why don't you let the Lord Jesus run you as you run 
 this locomotive ?" " Can't do it, can He ?" " That is what 
 He is for." " You don't know me. I am a very profane and 
 wicked man." " Yes ; but He wants you, and died for you, 
 and God says, ' He came unto His own, and His own received 
 Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He 
 power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on 
 His name ; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of 
 the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' " " Where is 
 that promise ?" "In John's gospel, first chapter, eleventh to 
 the thirteenth verse, inclusive." " Can I pray?" "Jesus 
 commands you to try, saying, ' Ask, and ye shall receive, seek, 
 and ye shall find.' ' " But I am terribly profane." " Yes ; 
 but if you will give Christ welcome to your heart, He will take 
 that all out of you. Try it." 
 
 In due time we reached Worcester, and we parted, with the 
 assurance from him that he would bend his knees in prayer be- 
 fore God that day in his room at twelve o'clock M., and I was 
 to meet him at the throne of grace. That day Jesus came to 
 his help, and he never uttered another profane expression. 
 
 The next night, on his return from Worcester, he came to my 
 house. He wore a changed look. We went direct to the par- 
 lor, when I inquired as to how he had got on. His reply I can 
 never forget. "The profanity is gone, but I am in hell." 
 " Not if you will confess Christ with your lips, and believe on 
 Him in your heart, for with the heart man believeth unto 
 righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto sal- 
 vation." His reply was, " I am ready for this." " Then let 
 us pray." Down he dropped upon his knees, confessed Christ 
 as a Saviour, and gave himself to Christ. 
 
 He did not at once make a profession. He did not attend 
 the Temple. The wife he loved was a member of Harvard 
 Street, and out of respect to her, and because of his sincere love 
 for her pastor, he continued to. worship there. His wife died 
 October 5th, 1868. After this he was much with us. He 
 
THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 57 
 
 often spoke. But he did not join our Church. He presented 
 himself for membership, and was baptized by Rev. S. W. Fol- 
 jambe, on the first Sabbath of 1869. It was to him a won- 
 derful day. Then he was buried to the world and rose to a 
 newness of life. He had been a lion for Satan. He was 
 henceforth to be a lion for Christ. He was, said a judge of 
 human nature, " A man you would not like to run against, but 
 one you would like to lean upon." 
 
 In due time he married again. This third wife is now his 
 widow. She had been a school-teacher, and was blessed with 
 advantages which were of incalculable benefit to her husband. 
 He was proud of her gifts, and gloried in her graces. To her 
 pen we are indebted for this sketch. She said : 
 
 " He found his work all around him, his meat and drink it 
 was to do the Master's will. Stronger than any earthly love 
 was his love for Christ. Sweeter than food or rest or any 
 earthly enoyment was labor in his Saviour's cause. 
 
 " He was ever obliging and willing to do any favor for any 
 one needing it. I never knew him to give reluctant consent or 
 to deny his efforts, if it were possible for him to give them, 
 even though at sacrifice on his part. Only the last Thanksgiv- 
 ing Day, he declined taking from home his usual dinner, be- 
 cause a friend in Worcester had engaged him to dine with him. 
 Hearing of a family in distressed circumstances the husband 
 and father sick with rheumatism for six years he gave up his 
 Thanksgiving invitation, and spent all his leisure time in visit- 
 ing this family and talking with them of Jesus, returning home 
 wonderfully blessed in spirit though, after his two long rides 
 and his all day fasting, physically weary and hungry. 
 
 " He would often, after his day's labor was ended, walk a 
 mile or two to see people in whose case he had become inter- 
 ested, or to help in the conduct of a meeting of any evangelical 
 denomination. Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Ad- 
 ventists, all were glad of his cheerful help, and all loved him as 
 a dear brother in Christ. His labors in the temperance cause 
 were unwearied. He always felt that he did not know how to 
 
58 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 address a temperance meeting, from the want of personal knowl- 
 edge, having never been a drinking man ; but he could see the 
 effects upon others, and he felt the deepest sympathy for those 
 whose appetite was becoming their ruin, and he labored for 
 them individually with the greatest patience. 
 
 " He grew in grace daily, his progress was wonderful. He 
 lived very near to Christ. By prayer, by reading the Bible, 
 and comparing passage with passage, he became acquainted 
 with what God requires of His children. 
 
 " He had a little room in his home which he made a very 
 Bethel of. Every morning he retired to it, and the tones of his 
 voice could be heard in earnest pleadings with his God, as a 
 man talketh face to face with his friend ; and from this room 
 he would come forth with eyes suffused with tears, while his 
 countenance glowed with joy, and the tenderness of his manner 
 would tell of the sweetness of his communion with his heavenly 
 Father. Thus fortified and prepared, he would go forth to his 
 daily labor. 
 
 " He carried all things to God in prayer, and acknowledged 
 God's interest even in the most trivial affairs of life. It was 
 his custom to kindle the kitchen fire every morning, and for 
 this purpose he would always collect together his shavings, 
 wood and coal the night previous. One morning being in un- 
 usual haste, things, as we say, wouldn't work : the wood was 
 green, and the fire refused to start. Immediately his thought 
 went forth to God, and he prayed, * O Lord, Thou knowest I 
 am in haste ; Thou canst make even green wood to burn as well 
 as dry ; if it be Thy will, aid me now. J Need we say the sim- 
 ple, child-like prayer was accepted of the loving Father, and 
 the fire immediately kindled ? It was even so. 
 
 " And this was only one of many, many instances of direct 
 answers to his prayers. 
 
 1 When the Westinghaus brake was first applied to his 
 engine, he felt some fear of trusting it, especially at one place 
 the Providence crossing, I think, where it had never been 
 tried, and where much depended on the perfection with which 
 
THE KAILROAD ENGINEEB TAKES A WIFE. 59 
 
 the train was brought to a stand-still. He asked for permission 
 to use the brake at this place, and it being granted, he made 
 this a subject of earnest prayer, well knowing that things 
 which to man were new and strange, to God were all open as 
 day. He then made the attempt, with his reliance on God, 
 and was successful ; and to God he gave all the praise. ' He 
 left his dying testimony that his Bible had enabled him to run 
 his train in the name and fear of God, and that he never went 
 around a curve in the road without asking for the guidance and 
 sight of ^hat eye which goes in advance of all earthly vision, 
 and had never pulled the throttle of his engine without feeling 
 a responsibility to God for the long train of immortal souls 
 under his care and guidance.' 
 
 1 i It was not enough for him to read his Bible at home, but 
 he requested one to be purchased to carry on his engine. This 
 was done about five years ago, and ever since it has been his 
 daily companion ; several times read through, as pencil marks 
 indicate, and the sweetest passages appropriated, as other pencil 
 marks show now blackened by smoke, and worn with use, it 
 is cherished as a sacred treasure by one who, in Worcester, 
 was associated with him in Christian work. 
 
 " When he reached Worcester, it was his custom to repair 
 to the bath-room where, after removing the smoke and dust 
 gathered in his ride, he would have another season of prayer 
 and reading ' God's Word ;' and then to the room where the 
 * Young Men's Christian Association ' held a noon prayer-meet- 
 ing, conversing on the way with any whom he met. His 
 power of illustration was very great, and he was never at a loss 
 for a simile to point his argument, nor for words to clothe his 
 thoughts ; and so, his 4 glowing utterances thrilled all hearts/ 
 and helped to give life and interest to the meetings. 
 
 " Often after the meeting closed, he would talk with one and 
 another till three o'clock, before he would get the opportunity 
 to eat the little cold dinner which it was his custom to carry 
 daily. Then taking charge of his engine at half -past three, he 
 was due in Boston shortly before five, and he reached his home 
 
60 SAM HOBART. 
 
 usually by half-past five ; then supper and a little rest, and he 
 was again off to attend some religious meeting, or to visit some 
 family in sickness or poverty. 
 
 " Thus he spent his days, rising early, that he l might havo 
 more time to pray,' as he often said, and retiring late after a 
 day filled with good works. As one recently said of him, * lie 
 has done the work of two men for more than a year past.' 
 And this very extra labor, coupled with disease, made him an 
 easy prey, and ere we thought of it the Lord pronounced his 
 work done, and called him home. 
 
 " His general intelligence was remarkable, his eyes and cars 
 were ever open, and he managed to acquaint himself with 
 almost everything that was going on. His argumentative power 
 was so great that we often thought what a capital lawyer he 
 would have made ; or, better still, as we saw love to Jesus so 
 shine out in his character, what a preacher might he have be- 
 come ! Indeed, one of his dreams was of some day retiring 
 from the road, and securing a little place in the country, with 
 a small patch of ground to cultivate for support, and to go 
 around in the towns and villages, as layman, seeking to lead 
 souls to Christ. But the dream is past the Lord has done 
 better for him and taken him to the mansion of which he so 
 often and so confidently spoke. A few months ago, he 
 removed from one residence to another, which was, in some 
 respects, more eligible. After he had got things settled to his 
 mind, he met a friend one day to whom he told how pleasantly 
 he was situated, and what a nice home it seemed ; but then, 
 said he, what is that to my heavenly home the mansion my 
 Saviour is preparing for me ! So heavenly-minded was he, 
 that almost his entire conversation was of divine things. 
 
 " He lived religion in his home. He never went into the pres- 
 ence of his wife in dirty garments or with soiled hands. His 
 home was his castle. His wife was the pride of his life. As 
 he arrayed himself in his best garments to win her love when 
 he wooed her, he entered his home, and walked the streets as a 
 well-dressed gentleman. As a result his wife was proud of his 
 
THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 61 
 
 attentions. Flowers he loved, the fruits of earth told him of 
 God. 
 
 " Ono friend who met him but once, and then only for a 
 short time, writes : i How often I have thought of what Mr. 
 Hobart said about the tomato. That if we got a plant and set 
 it out, we should not go in the morning to look for a tomato, 
 but that first we should look for the blossom, then the bud, and 
 then for the tomato ; he said it was just so in coming to Christ, 
 do not at first try to do some great thing, but fiist believe, and 
 then, before you know it, you will be working for Him, and 
 bringing forth fruit to His glory. ' 
 
 " Also, in speaking of using the light you have at first in 
 divine things, without waiting for an increase, he said : l When 
 I first began to run upon the railroad we had a very little 
 light, a mere lantern, to see by, and we did the best we could to 
 run by its light ; now we have those large head-lights, which 
 all have seen, and which throw their rays for a long distance 
 upon the track.' 
 
 " Since his death we have heard of one friend who in pre- 
 senting himself for church-membership said that a few words 
 which Mr. Hobart said to a company of inquirers, gathered to- 
 gether in a little room in Tremont Temple, were the means, by 
 God's blessing, of letting light into his mind. Mr. Hobart 
 said : 4 All you have to do is to believe and receive ; the friend 
 did this, and immediately rejoiced in salvation.' 
 
 " Once, visiting in Vermont a Christian woman, be found her 
 mind beclouded, worrying because heaven was not open to her 
 view. He said : ' When wife and I started for this mountain- 
 ous region we journeyed along for some time through a very 
 flat country, talking pleasantly of the things that presented 
 themselves. We knew where we were coming to, and that by 
 and by the mountains would rise before us, but we did not try 
 to see them till we came to them, and then in all their grandeur 
 they stood on every side, and we could not help seeing them if 
 we would. So now in our Christian life let us take and enjoy 
 the comforts God gives us day by day, and live upon Him 
 
62 SAM HOBART. 
 
 wholly, trusting that by and by, when in our life's journey we 
 reach the borders of that heavenly country, the eye of faith, 
 trained to spiritual vision, will clearly distinguish and accept the 
 home prepared for us by Him who loved us and gave Himself 
 for us/ 
 
 " His humility was very marked. * He sought not for great 
 opportunities of usefulness, but was willing to do the little 
 things.' It had been his custom for years past to take a fort- 
 night's vacation at the end of summer, and among the green 
 hills of Vermont to seek renewed strength. But his zeal in 
 the Master's cause allowed him but little rest. He would hear 
 of one and another whom sickness had laid aside, or whose 
 heart had grown cold in the service of Christ, and he must be 
 off to see such, and conversing with them try to lift their hearts 
 above tlieir sufferings in the first instance, and to stimulate to 
 renewed consecration in the second. And then he would use 
 his influence for an increase of meetings for conference and 
 prayer, and these would be held and well attended, and much 
 interest would prevail. The last season he was absent from 
 Boston fourteen days, including the two days spent in journey- 
 ing to and from his destination, and in that time he attended 
 fifteen different meetings, besides visiting and holding direct 
 personal religious conversation with a large number of individ- 
 uals, both those professing Christianity and those who made no 
 profession. He felt that he had done the Lord's service, but 
 he failed to secure that rest which his physical nature required. 
 And so he lived. He daily prayed that he might ' put his hand 
 in the Saviour's hand, and be led by Him,' and the prayer was 
 truly answered, for no one could live nearer to the heart of 
 Jesus than he manifestly did. 
 
 " He was benevolent so far as his means allowed him to be. 
 Never allowed the contribution box to pass him unheeded, and 
 never turned away from the plea of poverty and distress, if he 
 could conscientiously relieve it. On one occasion Rev. H. W. 
 Beecher in riding with him became so interested in his ac- 
 count of drunkards trying to reform, and others in distress, 
 
THE RAILROAD ENGINEER TAKES A WIFE. 63 
 
 that, on leaving him, he handed him twenty dollars to be ex- 
 pended, as he thought best, for the relief of such distressed per- 
 sons. This money, with five dollars given some time after by 
 another minister, was most sacredly devoted to the use designed. 
 He kept a record of every dollar's outlay. Whenever he gave 
 any of it away, he would say, i That is the Lord's money. I 
 have prayed over that, be careful how you use it' ; the last dol- 
 lar of this money was given away about two months and a half 
 before he was taken ill." 
 
 Sam having become a Christian led a Christian life. He car- 
 ried the golden thread of Christian love through all the web 
 and woof of his existence. We have seen him as he appeared 
 to Mr. Beecher, to his wife and friends. He appeared a Chris- 
 tian because he was one. His Christian power was a growth. 
 He became a potential force among railroad men, and was 
 known far and near as the Christian engineer. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SAM'S TACT IN PREACHING TEMPERANCE. 
 
 SAM had tact as well as talent. This was shown quite as 
 much in his enthusiastic admiration of other people as in his 
 influence over those who needed help to get out of the mire 
 and get upon the rock. There are men who desire to appear 
 as bottom, sides, and top to every enterprise with which they 
 are identified. It was never so with Sam. He was as good a 
 listener as he was a talker. Nothing pleased him more than to 
 hear railroad men praised for being valiant for the truth. The 
 Christian engineers on the different roads were brothers indeed. 
 On my return from England I told him of an experience I had 
 coming one night from London to Liverpool, which pleased 
 and encouraged him. It was on the evening of September 1st, 
 1868, after having met in the great temperance fete at the 
 Crystal Palace some 35,000 temperance people, who had come 
 from all parts of Great Britain, to plan for further work and to 
 report on what had been achieved. It had been a wonderful 
 day. I had attempted to speak to the great crowd and, weaned 
 with toil, had sunk back in the corner of the car to sleep. After 
 a time I was disturbed by a man saying : 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir. Nobody wants 
 to ride in a car scented up with the smell of whiskey. It is a 
 disgrace and a shame to see a man pull a bottle and drink in an 
 open car like this." 
 
 I opened my eyes and saw that a finely- dressed man had un- 
 corked a bottle of whiskey, and was handing it to gentlemen in 
 the car prior to helping himself. 
 
 The man replied, " What business is it to you ?" 
 
SAM'S TACT IN PREACHING TEMPERANCE. 65 
 
 " Business to me ! I will tell you what business it is to 
 me. I am a passenger on this car and have a right to ride in 
 safety. Who knows what peril may sleep in that bottle ! It 
 may make you a demon. It may make your neighbor a con- 
 spirator. There is enough of devil in that bottle to convert 
 this place in an hour into a hell. Business, sir ! I would have 
 a right to fight a rattlesnake let loose, or hinder you from letting 
 one loose. I tell you there is a venom in strong drink as per- 
 ilous as there is in a rattlesnake." 
 
 The man protested against such treatment, but his antagonist 
 appealed to us if he was not in the right. 
 
 One man replied, " I think whiskey may be good as a medi- 
 cine." 
 
 1 Yes," said the first man, " my physician orders me to 
 drink." 
 
 " Nonsense," said the champion of temperance. " A plenty 
 of men have followed such prescriptions and are in a drunk- 
 ards' hell to-night. They are wailing in a drunkards' hell, 
 sir, " said the man, slapping his knee. 
 
 Things looked desperate. Then I was appealed to. I stood 
 by the advocate of temperance, and in speaking had to strain 
 my voice as hard as when I spoke in the Crystal Palace. 
 
 " Give me your hand, stranger. I heard you to-day. Now 
 help, sir. Let us persuade these young men to toss the bottle 
 out of the window." 
 
 He then told them his experience. It was a familiar one. 
 He thought liquor would do him good, would steady his nerves, 
 would help him to hold a place ; " but," said he, " gentle- 
 men, it lost me everything and it nearly cost me my life. Then 
 a man came to me in the shape of a minister of Christ, though 
 he wore a smock frock and was a working-man as I am, but he 
 came fearlessly and determinedly, and he said, ' Joe, stop ! ' I 
 said, i I can't.' ' With God's help you can.' ' How will I 
 get that help ? ' 'By prayer. ' ' When will I pray ? ' ' Now. ' 
 I tried it and got over it, and have kept on by the help of God 
 fifteen years." 
 
66 SAM H01JAKT. 
 
 " Who are you?" 
 
 "I am the engineer that runs the officers' train. When 
 they want to make great time I make it, and they keep me for 
 their train." 
 
 Before he had completed the story the bottle had dropped 
 out of the window. 
 
 " It was a great victory," said Sam, " and it came because 
 the man was utterly fearless in standing by what he believed. 
 He told the truth in regard to what was in that bottle. There 
 was not only misery and poverty in it, but he was right when 
 he said there might be murder in it." 
 
 " Then he described a man whom he knew well and had just 
 come from helping. He came home, sober and in his right 
 mind. A neighbor came and invited him to take a walk. He 
 had formerly drank, but for some time had been an abstainer. 
 His neighbor insisted that he should take a single glass of ale. 
 He did so. The appetite was roused within him. In a 
 moment it flamed up and swept him away from his moorings. 
 He suddenly asked for whiskey. His friend remonstrated. It 
 was too late. He claimed that he was his own master. He 
 drank it. He called for more. His friend saw that he had 
 cut loose, and naturally became alarmed. He tried to get him 
 home. He might as well have tried his hand on an infuriated 
 tiger as upon this madman. He grew more and more furious. 
 At last his friend became his enemy, and he tried to kill him. 
 He was arrested, thrown into prison, and the next morning the 
 friend took the blame upon himself, and asked that his friend 
 be discharged. It was done. But the injury went on. The 
 appetite demanded more, and I have just come from his house, 
 where he is raving with delirium tremens ; and it ail finds its 
 origin in that glass of ale." 
 
 Then he expressed his mind very freely in regard to those 
 temperance lecturers who are ever seeking to make a plaything 
 of drunkenness and a sport of the drunkard. He could not 
 bear it. He believed that drinking was a crime as well as a 
 disease. Men knew that when they tampered with strong drink 
 
SAM'S TACT IN PREACHING TEMPERANCE. 67 
 
 they surrendered to something stronger than themselves, and 
 which was only bent upon their destruction. The engineer 
 was very radical in his views on this subject. 
 
 He opposed the use of tobacco because it leads to temptation. 
 It was amusing to see him call up a fireman or brakeman and 
 argue against the habit. They would claim it kept them from 
 strong drink because when asked to indulge they could take a 
 cigar instead of beer or whiskey. " Yes," he would say, 
 " but why tamper with appetite ? To acquire the habit a 
 deathly nausea must be overcome, and when the victory is won 
 it reduces the strength, beclouds the intellect, stunts the growth, 
 and renders men brutal in their habits. No one can enter a 
 srnoking-car without feeling that men degrade themselves by 
 the use of tobacco almost as much as by the use of strong 
 drink. They purchase cigars in saloons where liquors are 
 sold, and very often a man who goes in to purchase a cigar is 
 induced to drink before he comes out. The fact that a man 
 enters such a place is damaging to him. 
 
 " Besides, a man cannot ask God's blessing upon this self-in- 
 flicted curse. If he has ever used intoxicating beverages the very 
 sight of the decanters, the smell of the liquors, become an over- 
 mastering tempation, and he falls, perhaps not to rise again." 
 
 Sam knew that when, in Tremont Temple, a plea was made 
 against liquor and tobacco, men have come forward and given 
 up tobacco which would fill a peck measure. They would 
 sign the pledge and agree to abstain from the use of all intoxi- 
 cants, opium, and tobacco. As a rule the men who went back 
 to tobacco went back to rum. They who kept the appetite for 
 tobacco under were masters of the situation. 
 
 Tobacco, previous to his conversion, was his solace, and the 
 pipe his companion. To the use of tobacco he charged the 
 violation of the command which reads, "Thou shalt not take 
 the name of the Lord thy God in vain ; for the Lord will not 
 hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain." He be- 
 lieved that if railroad men would give up tobacco they would, 
 as a rule, abandon profanity. They congregate together, 
 
68 SAM HOBART. 
 
 smoke, tell stories, and indulge in the use of language which 
 destroys their influence and dwarfs their powers. He joined 
 the Temperance Society of Tremont Temple, whose pledge 
 was : 
 
 " For the sake of God and humanity we promise to abstain 
 from the use of intoxicating liquors, opium, and tobacco. " 
 
 Hundreds took this pledgeat various times and broke it, but 
 Sam kept it. When he gave up tobacco, lie gave it up. No 
 one ever saw him petting his sin or tampering with it after- 
 ward. He broke off all connection with it and fought it as an 
 enemy. It was his theory that the use of tobacco is the first 
 step in the ruin of uncounted numbers of the youth of the land. 
 Tobacco he regarded as an abomination and next to rum. He 
 delighted to relate how his pastor gave it up because of his 
 influence, so that he could say with Paul, " Be ye followers of 
 me, even as I am of Christ. " He traced the downfall of many 
 a minister to the inordinate love of tobacco, which awakened 
 an appetite that made a demand for beer or wine for the clergy, 
 and beer and whiskey for the working-man. It was a source 
 of gladness that in Tremont Temple, when the floor under the 
 regime of a minister who used tobacco was a disgrace, because 
 of the influence of his pastor, became clean, and the church in 
 which were members whose example favored the use of the 
 stimulant, as a rule became abstainers and put their shoulders 
 to the wheel of the car of prohibition and became a power in 
 the cause of temperance. The popular pastor of a neighboring 
 church used the weed. Sam loved the man. He often had 
 him ride with him on his locomotive that he might talk to the 
 man who preached to an immense multitude on Sabbath and 
 lectured to vast numbers in the cities and towns of New Eng- 
 land during the week. The fact that he unblushingly entered 
 the smoking car, lit a cigar ; that he would sit around stables 
 and talk and smoke with horsemen, hurt Sam. He told him 
 so. He said, u I have no need for your preaching until you 
 illustrate in your life the gospel of my Master." 
 " Plain talk, Sam." 
 
SAM'S TACT IN PREACHING TEMPERANCE. 69 
 
 " Ah, sir, if you knew the injury your example is doing, 
 and that thousands are forgetting your words and are putting 
 their feet in the tracks you make in the broad road to death, 
 you would feel that what I have said is true. M^n follow what 
 you do, not what you say. ' ' 
 
 The warning was unheeded, but the subsequent history of 
 the man shows how much it was needed. He lost his place in 
 the church, went to a hall, drew a motley crowd of pleasure- 
 seekers about him, held them for a time, and then broke away 
 from all restraints of the Gospel and went into exile ; where he 
 remains, unhonored of men, and lost to usefulness. 
 
 Sam lived the Gospel of Christ. On one occasion, when in 
 Vermont, he was welcomed by a minister whose mouth was full 
 of tobacco. 
 
 " Glad to see you, Mr. Hobart. There is great need of a 
 movement in favor of temperance up here. " 
 
 Sam eyed him, saw him expectorating tobacco juice, and in 
 a polite and quiet way walked on. At night he was to speak. 
 The house was crowded. The minister presided. Sam told 
 this story : 
 
 " My pastor was up in the northern part of New York to 
 speak on temperance. A minister of great prominence wel- 
 comed him. The minister was an inveterate user of tobacco. 
 My pastor gave up tobacco to save a son of a deacon from mak- 
 ing him an excuse for intemperance. He has fought 
 tobacco as relentlessly as he fights rum, because by striking 
 tobacco he hits the idol of vast numbers in the church." 
 
 The minister who was by his side began to move uneasily. 
 His mouth was full of tobacco and he could not expectorate 
 without drawing attention to himself. Sam went on : 
 
 " My pastor told this story : A man given up to strong 
 drink, who was bringing ruin upon his family, was remonstrated 
 with by a man who used tobacco. He said : 
 
 " ' Neighbor, 1 have come to see you. All the neighbors 
 are worried about you/ 
 
 " * Why ? ' 
 
70 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 " 4 Because you are drinking up health, property, and hap- 
 piness/ 
 
 44 * I am no worse than you/ 
 
 * 4 * Than me ; what do you mean ? 9 
 
 44 * Simply this. You use tobacco and I use rum. Your 
 wife knows that you dirty your house more than I do mine ; 
 and when they ask you to give up tobacco you say it is neces- 
 sary to you. That is what I say about rum. ' 
 
 44 The man went home under conviction. He called to his 
 wife and inquired : 
 
 " 4 Have you been telling of my filthy habit ? ' 
 
 44 * Certainly ; I was telling the wife of our neighbor who 
 drinks not to think she had all the trials ; that I had mine, and 
 that I thought the use of tobacco was worse for the house than 
 drinking, but not so bad for the man. Look at that spittoon. 
 Think how our clothes are scented by the fumes of tobacco. 
 You don't get crazy from the use of the weed, but go without 
 it and you act like a fool or a madman, and it must be had.' 
 
 44 4 Wife, you are right. Bring my box and pipes.' 
 
 44 She brought them. He worked at the lire diligently while 
 she was away, and when she came he had got up a good blaze. 
 Taking the box of tobacco and pipes he threw them on, and 
 while his idols were burning he asked his wife's pardon for 
 having been so oblivious to the comfort and neatness of his 
 home. The next morning he called again upon his neighbor. 
 
 44 4 Good-morning, my friend.' 
 
 44 * Good-morning.' 
 
 44 4 I have come to talk to you about your peril because of 
 the use of strong drink. Its effects are telling on you.' 
 
 44 l No worse than yours.' 
 
 44 'Why?' 
 
 44 4 You use tobacco and I use rum. Yours is as much an 
 appetite as mine, and I think quite as disgusting.' 
 
 44 4 You are mistaken, neighbor.' 
 
 44 4 In what?' 
 
 * 4 4 I don't use tobacco.' 
 
SAM ? S TACT IN PREACHING TEMPERANCE. 71 
 
 " ' Since when ? ' 
 
 " ' Since yesterday. I gave up the practice that I might 
 have power with you. Now, neighbor, let us both be clean. 7 
 
 " 'Agreed/ 
 
 " The men signed the pledge and kept it, and the minister 
 who had greeted my pastor so warmly felt the rebuke and be- 
 came a champion of cleanliness which is next to godliness." 
 
 " Hold up, Mr. Hobart. I am converted," said the minis- 
 ter in the desk with Sam. " Henceforth I will be free." 
 
 He gave up tobacco and his influence has been ever since of 
 the most salutary character in Vermont. His signature was the 
 beginning not only of a temperance revival which opened the 
 eyes of many Christians to the evils of tobacco, but led great 
 numbers to believe in a Christianity that demands a clean body 
 as well as a soul washed and made white in the blood of the 
 Lamb. 
 
 Neal Dow describes an interview with a tobacco-smoker, and 
 he pictures this scene : 
 
 " Suppose that I begin the practice. My lips are livid, my 
 face is pale, the anguish of a most painful death agony comes 
 upon me. You are standing by and encouraging me, and doing 
 your best to keep my courage up. You speak of the rewards 
 sure to come. An appetite that is injurious, health-ruining, 
 and beauty-blighting." The man laughed at the ridiculousness 
 of the position, yet thousands by their example are leading 
 millions astray. God purposes to bear us triumphantly over 
 temptation and not sink down into it, and the slavery to 
 tobacco with many is but a prelude to the rule of strong drink. 
 
 In speaking of this, Sam said: * ' Christ, who associates us 
 with Himself in the words 4 Lead us not into temptation,' 
 understood the full force of its meaning. We do not ; we 
 cannot. With God's clear vision which ranges through the 
 infinitudes of measureless space, which looks down upon the 
 heights of heavenly fruition and up through all grades and 
 classifications of untold and hellish misery Christ saw tempta- 
 tion in its fierceness, in its malignity, and in its ubiquity. He 
 
72 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 believed that the prayer implied peril. He knew that perils 
 existed for railroad men to an extent that few appreciate. 
 
 Temptations are within and without. They come from the 
 lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the spirit. Every individual 
 is exposed to peculiar temptations. The smoking-room is. 
 made foul in many ways. As a rule those who frequent it are 
 impure. Their conversation reveals it. Hence Sam would 
 advise the young men to rest with a book instead of with a 
 pipe. Such a statement as this concerning a State Inebriate 
 Asylum impressed him. Since its establishment 39 ministers, 
 8 judges, 40 merchants, 226 physicians, 240 gentlemen, and 
 1300 women have been ministered unto, and without exception 
 all trace their fall to the yielding to temptation. 
 
 To Sam there was significance in the supposition that the 
 word "lead" should be translated into "leave." " Leave 
 me not in temptation" is a prayer which many young men 
 need to make. They are surrounded with the impure and un- 
 clean. Their language is profane and vile. As has been said, 
 after his conversion he found his happiness and chief occupation, 
 when away from his place of business, in seeking to comfort 
 the afflicted and the distressed, and save the lost. He had for 
 many years a passion for souls. He sought to save drunkards 
 and sinners of every class through Christ. He believed in the 
 blood that washes sins away. At the noontime hour, in the 
 daily prayer-meeting at Worcester, at eventime when laborers 
 were going home, he was ever on the alert for the lost and 
 undone, and in the morning at the opening of the day he was 
 known to go to men and give them a good start by a word of 
 encouragement and an assurance that he should be around to 
 see how they got on. He was instant, in season and out of 
 season, striving to save men. 
 
 Though a locomotive engineer he was more than that in the 
 estimation of every one. Christ was added to the man. The 
 people saw it and were glad. The head of the freight depart- 
 ment, the superintendent of the shipping department, the men 
 of position and the men of toil alike, recognized his worth, and 
 
SAM'S TACT IX PREACHING TEMPERAXCE. 73 
 
 paid him that respect which is born of merit and esteem. He 
 .was not a politician and cared nothing for ward caucuses. 
 
 He was a Mason. He attained distinction in the order, but 
 after his conversion he gave his heart to other service, and 
 without doing anything against the order which once claimed 
 his affections, he told those who came to him that he found 
 more complete satisfaction in Christ and in the church. 
 
 He was a reformer. He was 1 a natural enthusiast in what- 
 ever he gave his heart to, and he gave his heart to advocating 
 temperance. He had a fondness for personal visitation. Like 
 Thomas Guthrie, D.D., he was fitted to get the best out of bad 
 men. He knew that they had a good side, and how to reach it. 
 One morning he met a man who had once been the owner of 
 several carts and wagons, and who had hauled vast amounts of 
 freight ; but had lost nearly all through drink. Sam had been 
 in his house, helped the family, and provoked by his kindness 
 the wrath of the drayman. The threat had been made that if 
 he met Sam Hobart he would " hammer" him. The engineer 
 saw his man coming toward him in the early morn. The dray- 
 man was cross and nervous. The engineer was kind and calm. 
 
 " Good-morning," said Sam ; and he stretched out his hand. 
 
 " You were in my house ?" said the drayman. 
 
 " I was, and a sorry house I found it. Come, stop drink 
 and build up. You have poured horses and carts enough down 
 your throat ; by sobriety and industry get them back and 
 rebuild your home." 
 
 The words, so full of the inspirations of hope, touched the 
 heart of the man. He asked him to forgive him for his rude- 
 ness; he told him his troubles and wet the sidewalk with his tears. 
 Sam encouraged him, got him reinstated as a drayman, watched 
 over him, and had the pleasure before he died of seeing him 
 thrifty and prosperous once more. It was the most lovable feat- 
 ure in his character that he knew how to appreciate that which 
 was praiseworthy in others, even if by praising the faulty he 
 revealed his own lack. His exceeding gentleness, his patience, 
 his consciousness of the difference between womanly weakness 
 
74 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 and manly strength, must have made him a very lovable man, 
 the memory of whose kind actions forms a legacy of priceless 
 value. Once in our house, I remember that he called with his 
 wife and found the house full of company. They were urged 
 to lay aside their wraps. But the wife saw that they were not 
 dressed as she felt they should be, so expressed a desire to go 
 home. The objection was brushed away in his mind, but not 
 in hers. Never will I forget how delicately he approached her 
 and said, " I think you look very nicely ; plenty well enough ; 
 but if you feel uncomfortable, we will go home." Her an- 
 swering look of gratitude is in my mind's eye now, and soon 
 she laid aside her objections and they both enjoyed the even- 
 ing. There was a man, some might call a rough mechanic one 
 who could breast any storm or dare any danger or endure any 
 hardness as pliant, as thoughtful, and as yielding to this loving 
 wife as it was possible for a young lover to be in the first flush 
 of boyish excitement. 
 
 This was the man in action. It will repay us to go with 
 him into the new life opening to him. Religion joined the 
 different parts of this strong nature ; the stone which he had 
 rejected became the head of the corner, and made him a work- 
 ing force for God among men. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SAM AT WORK FOR GOD. 
 
 SAUL of Tarsus was a leader in the ranks of sin and Satan. 
 Converted to Christ, Paul the apostle became a leader in the 
 work of saving men. The lion in the ranks of the ungodly 
 did not become a lamb. He remained a lion, only he changed 
 sides. The power, the courage, the push he put into the ser- 
 vice of Satan he gave to Christ. In Jerusalem, in Antioch, in 
 Rome, in Athens everywhere he was a stalwart for God. 
 
 Sam Hobart was like Saul of Tarsus in the world, and, when 
 converted, Paul himself was not more resolute, more self-deny- 
 ing, more indomitable in purpose than was this railroad 
 engineer. He began doing the work next to him. At that 
 time it was not fashionable to profess Christ on railroads. 
 
 Sam was converted in 1867. He joined the church in 1869. 
 He got to work as soon as he could. But his way was hedged 
 up. Well do I remember his doming to me and saying, " I 
 can't do anything with railroad men in the church. They are 
 not wanted. " I replied, "You are mistaken. We all want 
 you. We know what you are worth what religion will do 
 for you and what you can do for religion. M He smiled that 
 incredulous smile and said, " The railroad men understand it." 
 I said, " Bring them to the Temple, and we will welcome you 
 with enthusiasm." Sam said, " I will try you." Soon he 
 came. About sixty men followed him one night into the Mei- 
 onian. I heard their soldier-like tramp as they came down the 
 hall. Soon the face of Sam Hobart was seen in the door. The 
 engineer with a door for the frame made a picture never to be 
 forgotten. I was in the midst of the sermon. I stopped and 
 
76 SAM HOBART. 
 
 said: " Come on, Mr. Hobart." He gave the invitation, 
 " Come on." I asked that the front seats be cleared of people 
 and given up to the railroad men. In they came. Some with 
 their hats on, some with them off. They filled up the seats. 
 I said : 
 
 " Well, Mr. Hobart, what is your desire ?" 
 
 " That you should pray with these men." 
 
 " Kneel down then," was rny request. 
 
 " Kneel," said Sam. 
 
 Down they went like soldiers. Some of them had still their 
 hats on. Sam shouted : 
 
 " Take off your hats. Don't you know enough to take your 
 hats off before God ?" 
 
 Off came their hats. All bent their heads in prayer. 
 
 " Pray, Brother Hobart, " was my request. He prayed. And 
 what a prayer ! He was at home at last. The entire congre- 
 gation had bowed with him. Sam pleaded like a mother for a 
 child. His soul was melted into exceeding tenderness. Tears 
 ran down his cheeks. He told of the men, of their struggles, 
 of what religion had done for him, of what it would do for all. 
 
 Others followed. Then, when we arose, after a few remarks 
 explaining the way to take Christ for help, for victory, for 
 restraint, for guidance, we had testimonies, and some wonderful 
 conversions followed. This opened Sam's eyes. He believed 
 in a free church for the people, and despite of all that could be 
 said, he joined it. It was up-hill work in Boston. It is fash- 
 ionable to believe in morality, but not in Christianity. The 
 faith in temperance was great, but not in much besides. Sam 
 saw men being mowed down in great swaths by ungovernable 
 appetites, and believing that nothing apart from faith in Christ 
 and the help resulting therefrom could save them, he contended 
 with all his might for the reception of Christ into the heart, 
 that they might obtain the power to put temptation and appe- 
 tite and inclination down. 
 
 It is said that the Ohio finds its origin in a fountain among 
 the Alleghenies, so small that an ox can drain it at a draught. 
 
SAM AT WORK FOR GOD. 77 
 
 May it not be true that the mighty movement among railroad 
 men found its origin in the prayers of Sam Hobart ? The Bos- 
 ton and Albany road had a library and reading-room for men. 
 There was no Christ in it, and no room for Christ. Sam be- 
 lieved in a personal God for the person of a man. He said it. 
 At times he would picture the needs of the men about him and 
 the difficulty of reaching them. 
 
 Now all is changed. Then all was deadness. Sailors had 
 chaplains on men-of-war, and Bethel stations and chaplains on 
 shore for the men of the sea. But railroad men as a class might 
 say, " I looked on the right hand and on the left, and behold, 
 but there was no man that would know me ; refuge failed me ; 
 no man cared for my soul." 
 
 M. R. Davenport, of Erie, Pa., in speaking of this time, 
 said : " I remember well being at a convention of Young Men's 
 Christian Associations in a town I will not name, where we 
 wished to hold an open-air service for railroad men. There 
 was one place in the town well adapted for the purpose an 
 open platform covered by a roof, a place used for a railroad 
 passenger depot. A request was made for it. No man on 
 the road dared grant it. They did not want it noised abroad 
 that they had refused to grant it. I think they would have 
 responded favorably to an organ-grinder, but they refused us." 
 
 That town was no exception. Christ was ruled out. 
 
 Sam's conversion meant that Christ had gained admission to 
 the ranks. He pleaded the cause of his fellow-men. 
 
 Methinks I hear him now, almost in the words which O. R. 
 Stockwell, of the Railroad Branch of the Young Men's Christian 
 Association of the City of New York, used in London in 1881, 
 when, in answering the question why we should be interested in 
 railroad men, he said : 
 
 " A large proportion are young men, many from homes 
 where they have been taught the Word of God ; not a few of 
 them have Christian parents, and large numbers are graduates 
 from Sunday-schools. We only see the external of the man as 
 we are brought into contact with him ; the very nature of his 
 
78 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 work, always exacting, often exasperating, leads to profanity, 
 and the work he must of necessity perform on the Lord's day 
 in a very short period tends to a disregard of that day we are 
 commanded " to keep holy. 7 ' 
 
 Satan's agents are at work all along their lines of travel, 
 seeking to throw them from the straight and narrow way. It 
 is the influence of his surroundings that has a tendency to lead 
 him downward. He is almost entirely isolated by his circum- 
 stances from elevating influences. I have found, from an associ- 
 ation of over fifteen years with this class of men, that they are 
 superior in judgment and common-sense. Their mode of life 
 is a training-school ; they are men of quick perceptions, reach 
 conclusions very readily, and when fully convinced what is the 
 right step, generally take it ; conscientious many times to a 
 fault, yet they appear hardened to almost every one but the 
 close observer. One reason of this is, they feel that their ser- 
 vices are not appreciated by the public. They very seldom 
 receive any recognition for their faithfulness. It is not every 
 man who is willing to make the sacrifices that many of these 
 employes do. And we are but poorly paying a debt of grati- 
 tude when we attempt to do anything that contributes to their 
 welfare and happiness. It is only within the past few years 
 that the attention of the associations of the United States has 
 been turned in this direction, little realizing the great magnitude 
 of their work and the large number of employes. Nearly one 
 fortieth of the population of the United States are employes of 
 the railroad corporations, and there are very few towns or cities 
 without representatives from this class. The effort to provide 
 a moral and social influence among them is not a new thing. 
 In 1854 Messrs. Peto, Betts & Brossy, the contractors of the 
 Victoria Bridge, opened a reading-room for their employes at 
 Point St. Charles, Montreal, Canada, believing that the char- 
 acter and service of their men would be improved if this pro- 
 vision was made for their leisure hours. Other rooms were 
 opened. But the project languished for want of adequate care. 
 In 1872, in Cleveland, Ohio, a movement was made by the 
 
SAM AT WORK FOR GOD. 79 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association for railroad men. Mr. R. 
 F. Smith, Assistant General Manager of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road Company, in a letter commends the movement, and says it 
 was the first room of the kind opened where the religious 
 element was introduced. And herein was the hiding of its 
 power. The General Superintendent of the New York Central 
 and Hudson River Railroad, at a reception given to Mr. Charles 
 Fermond during his visit ^to the United States, said in 1879, 
 " Fifteen years ago it was a common thing to see railroad em- 
 ployes go out upon their trains under the influence of liquor, 
 and profanity was characteristic of railroad men." It was 
 at this time Sam established in Worcester a daily prayer- 
 meeting for railroad men. It is believed to be the first. He 
 and those with him called on God in faith. Special subjects of 
 prayer were brought before them. 
 
 An instance is before me. Sam came and said : " I want 
 you to go with me and see an official on one of our railroads. 
 He is drinking fearfully. He is on my heart. We are pray- 
 ing for him. But I cannot go alone. You know the Master 
 sent his disciples out two by two. I want eome one with me 
 for this job." I went to the office, and saw the head man in 
 liquor. His brain was not seemingly affected, but his counte- 
 nance showed dissipation. As we entered, the man in a gruff 
 voice said, u Well, Sam, what is wanted ?" 
 
 " Just a moment of your time/' said Sam, with a face full 
 of suppressed emotion. 
 
 The man came out from behind the desk and said, '*' Well ?" 
 
 " Permit me to introduce you to my pastor ; we have come 
 to see you on a very important matter." 
 
 Turning to me he said, " Well, sir, what is wanted ?" 
 
 I replied, " Sir, my friend Mr. Hobart has teen greatly 
 troubled because of your intemperance. He feels that you 
 stand on the verge of ruin, soul and body. He has tried to 
 speak to you and failed, and has asked me to come and say a 
 word in the name of our common Master." 
 
 The man looked dumbfounded for a moment, and turning to 
 
80 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 Sam said, " Good friend, I am obliged to you. If ever a man 
 needed prayer, it is me. Appetite has me in its grasp, and I 
 seem unable to master it." 
 
 " You can't hope to do it in your own strength, and so we 
 have been praying that you might turn to the great Helper, our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, " said Sam. 
 
 " What do you want me to do ?" 
 
 " Sign this pledge, and rest in God for help." 
 
 " I will doit." 
 
 He signed the pledge, and had help of God, and won the 
 victory. It was the beginning of a movement among officials 
 and among the men. 
 
 The work begun by Sam alone was taken up by the Young 
 Men's Christian Associations, first in Cleveland and afterward in 
 different portions of the country, until the seedling planted in 
 faith has grown into the banyan-tree of hope, and at this hour 
 thousands gather beneath the sheltering shade of blessed and 
 immortal hope. 
 
 Sam's prescience was wonderful. He believed that Christian 
 railroad men must carry the interests of railroad men in their 
 hearts. He claimed that the officials of the railroad lines ought 
 to take an interest in their operatives. While it is wise to 
 house locomotives, it is unwise to leave the men who run them 
 out in the cold, cold world, to go to places of vice such as curse 
 every large city. 
 
 He saw that there were two classes of men who are weak and 
 little : one is weak and little by nature, consisting of such as 
 are born with feeble powers, not strongly capable of self-help ; 
 the other is little by position, comprising men that are perma- 
 nently poor and ignorant, and it was his belief, even before he 
 knew God, 4hat ' ' it is not the will of our Father who is in 
 heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Hence he 
 was a philanthropist before he was a Christian. He saw and 
 felt that in a society wherein there is a preference for the 
 mighty, where power is worshipped, where selfishness has such 
 room to swing in, trampling upon the good if they be weak, 
 
SAM AT WORK FOE GOD. 81 
 
 and helping the bad if they be strong ; where justice is little 
 honored though much talked of, it comes to pass that a great 
 many little ones from both these classes actually perish. Theo- 
 dore Parker expressed his mind when he said, " You go to our 
 churches ; the poor are not in them, they are idling and loung- 
 ing away their day of rest like the horse and the ox." This 
 class of men are perishing yes, perishing in the nineteenth 
 century perishing soul and body, contrary to God's will, and 
 perishing all the worse because they die slow and corrupt by 
 inches. Many of our houses of public worship would be well 
 named il churches for the affluent." Yet religion is more to 
 the poor man than to the rich. What wonder, then, if the poor 
 lose self-respect when driven from the only churches where it 
 is thought respectable to pray ? 
 
 " Here are the sons of the poor, vagrant in your streets, shut 
 out by their misery from the culture of the age, growing up to 
 fill your jails, to be fathers of a race like themselves, and to be 
 huddled into an infamous grave. Here are the daughters of 
 the poor cast out and abandoned, the pariahs of our civilization, 
 training up for a life of shame and pollution, and coming early 
 to a miserable end." These facts were patent to him. They 
 made him uncomfortable. They taught him that in the realm 
 near him were unsolved problems which had to do with his 
 inner life. He knew that there was work waiting for him. 
 Christianity, like the eagle's flight, begins at home. He knew 
 that he ought to be pure and Christian as well as manly, and 
 be booted and girded and road ready for the work waiting to 
 be done. Such sentiments thrilling along the lines of human 
 thought sought admission to his heart and caused him to enter 
 the Masonic lodge, the Workingmen's Club, the Brotherhood 
 of Locomotive Engineers, and whatever other organization gave 
 opportunity to proffer a helping hand to men that were down, 
 and to find companionship for his soul with those who were 
 bent on doing good. 
 
 He loved the Christian Church, and denied the premise that 
 Christian churches were not open to all, and that Christian 
 
S2 SAM JIOBAUT. 
 
 ministers were not anxious to save all. He pointed to the 
 churches he knew, with their wide welcome, and to the ministers 
 who preached u Christ the workingman's Friend and Saviour, 
 the great Reformer and the true Conservative, the inspirer of 
 all new truths, revealing in his Bible to every age abysses of 
 new wisdom as the times require, and yet the Vindicator of all 
 that is ancient and eternal ; the true demagogue, the champion 
 of the poor, and yet as the true King, above and below all 
 earthly rank ; on whose will alone all real superiority of man 
 to man, all the time-justified and time-honored usages of the 
 family, the society, the nation stand, and shall stand, forever. " 
 He did not believe in trying to do God's work with the devil's 
 tools. With the friend of workingmen in England he could 
 exclaim, " These are strange times. I thought the devil used 
 to befriend tyrants and oppressors, but he seems to have 
 profited by Burns' s advice to * tak a thought and mend.' I 
 thought the struggling freeman's watchword was, 4 God sees my 
 wrongs.' He hath taken the matter into his own hands. The 
 poor committeth himself unto him, for he is the Helper of the 
 friendless. But now the devil seems all at once to have turned 
 philanthropist and patriot, and to intend himself to fight the 
 good cause, against which he has been fighting ever since 
 Adam's time. I don't deny that it is much cheaper to be 
 reformed by the devil than by God, for God will only reform 
 society on the condition of our reforming every man his own 
 self, while the devil is quite ready to help us to mend the laws of 
 earth and heaven without ever starting such an impertinent and 
 personal request as that a man should mend himself." Against 
 the gospel that demands the surrender of the carnal heart he 
 stood for years immovable and in favor of the gospel that flat- 
 tered the human heart and paid a premium on morality and 
 o-ood works. Now he knew better. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 
 
 THIS mighty organization, which at one time had 13,000 
 engineers on its roll, was formed in the city of Detroit in 
 August, 1863, as the Brotherhood of the Footboard. Its 
 motto is, " Sobriety, Truth, Justice, Morality ;" and its rule, 
 " Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you, 
 and so fulfil the law." To become a member, a person must 
 be twenty-one years of age, must be able to read and write, 
 and must be of good moral character, temperate in his habits, 
 and a locomotive engineer in good standing. Every member 
 must so conduct himself as to secure the confidence and esteem 
 of his employers. If a member wilfully or maliciously injures 
 his employer's property, or defrauds any one, or engages in the 
 traffic of intoxicating liquors, he is subject to expulsion. The 
 insurance department of the Brotherhood has been very useful. 
 At the death of a member his widow or heirs receive $3000. 
 They claim to have paid nearly one million dollars to the in- 
 sured, and disbursed to the needy out of their hard earnings 
 50,000. " We have reclaimed the fallen, reformed the 
 drunkard, and furnished the public and railroad companies 
 with a better, more skilled, and trustworthy class of engineers 
 than they had previous to the inception of the Brotherhood. ' ' 
 
 This is the process of action taken by the Brotherhood when- 
 ever a difference arises between a company and its men. The 
 men are instructed first to exhaust all their own efforts in coming 
 to an amicable settlement with the company. Failing in that, 
 they send for the Grand Chief. It is his duty then " to go and 
 use all honorable means in his power to prevent rupture be- 
 tween the company and engineers." There is a committee of 
 
84 SAM HOBART. 
 
 thirteen, selected u for known ability and judgment." If the 
 Grand Chief fails, this committee is convened, and the matter 
 laid before them. If they by a two thirds vote decide that the 
 men have good grounds for striking, the men are so notified, 
 and that entitles them to be sustained by the whole Brother- 
 hood. 
 
 President Arthur, Chief of the Brotherhood in 1877, argued 
 that this opportunity for combination is the only weapon 
 engineers have against the oppression to which they would be 
 subjected if left to face immense corporations only as individ- 
 uals. He claims that the method of operation is such that a 
 strike will only occur in an extreme case, and he says he be- 
 lieves strikes have been averted by it on thirteen different roads 
 in the last three years. He charges railway managers with 
 tyrannical and unreasonable conduct, abusing their men, dis- 
 charging them without a hearing, etc. As long as this over- 
 bearing spirit is manifested, he says, we shall have strikes. 
 " I would say to railroad managers, be honest and just toward 
 each other and to your employes. Cease your suicidal policy 
 of cutting rates, and submit all differences that may arise be- 
 tween you and your employes that you cannot adjust to a board 
 of arbitration composed of three disinterested men, one to be 
 chosen by each party and the two to select the third, and their 
 decision to be final. In my opinion it is the only fair way of 
 settling disputes and a sure prevention of strikes." 
 
 In conclusion, after some references to the strength of the 
 Brotherhood, he says : " Our meetings are opened with prayer, 
 and the open Bible upon our altar, which we recognize as the 
 emblem of our Order, and upon which our institution is 
 founded, and by it we are taught. * Come, and let us reason 
 together.' " 
 
 In 1865 it took the name it now bears, and became a Brother- 
 hood of Locomotive Engineers. At the outset Sam joined it. 
 In 1865, when the trouble arose with the Michigan Southern 
 and Northern Indiana Railroad, and the conflict came on be- 
 tween the employers arid the employed, Sam, who through this 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS, 85 
 
 organization sought to elevate the character of the class of 
 workmgmen to which he belonged, and not to interfere with the 
 vested rights of capital, called a halt and determined for himself 
 to be true to his class and at the same time remain faithful to 
 those who had trusted and befriended him. He kept his love 
 for both classes, and was alike trusted by both. In 1866 the 
 Brotherhood came to Boston. They uncovered their purpose. 
 The press proclaimed it. The citizens one and all indorsed it. 
 They saw in it a movement which, headed right, would make 
 locomotive engineers self-respecting and self-sustaining, causing 
 them to seek to promote temperate habits and develop manly 
 characteristics. To them as a class are intrusted interests im- 
 measurably great. As General B. F. Butler said, in his address 
 when he welcomed them to Lowell, Mass. : 
 
 " The locomotive is the great precursor and herald of civili- 
 zation. More has been and will be done to bring out the re- 
 sources of this country by the extension of railroads than any- 
 thing else. 
 
 11 To the men who are put upon the engines, to whose 
 fidelity, capacity, integrity, sobriety, and coolness the lives of 
 more men are intrusted every day than were ever intrusted to 
 the commanders of any army, is the country most indebted. 
 [Applause.] It only requires one ride on the engine to see the . 
 necessity for all those great qualities in the men who control 
 the trains. 
 
 " It has been proved by statistics that there was greater loss 
 of life, in the proportion to the amount of travel, by the old 
 stage coaches than occur now by the railroad. There can be 
 but one answer to that, and in this place I would say that I 
 have just returned from travelling forty-five hundred miles by 
 railroad, without an accident or shock in any form, and there- 
 fore when I was told that you desired to have a word from me 
 I felt it my duty to come. ' ' 
 
 Charles Wilson, G.C.E., recognized the support of the rail- 
 road officials who had taken the time to investigate the work- 
 ings of the institution. 
 
80 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 " They have approved of what appeared to them to be a 
 guarantee for the good behavior of their engineers, and now 
 are apparently anxious for the success and perpetuity of the 
 Brotherhood. They desire that the fact that an engineer be- 
 longs to the Brotherhood should be a sure recommendation 
 that he can fill any position for which he might apply. 
 Nothing can accomplish this end so quickly as the hearty 
 co-operation of the railroad officials with the efforts of the 
 Brotherhood. 
 
 " Let it be understood that the official under whom you are 
 working holds you strictly accountable for the good conduct of 
 your associates or fellow-employes, and you will be very cautious 
 whom you admit as members of the Brotherhood. I am pleased 
 to see that some divisions take action in regard to the miscon- 
 duct of their members while on the road. I lately received a 
 notice of the expulsion of a member, and the cause assigned 
 was that he had been guilty of running on the time of a pas- 
 senger train. I was forcibly impressed with the justice of the 
 decision in this case, and I think all neglect in the performance 
 of duties to the company should be immediately noticed in the 
 division. In this way you will carry out your professions, and 
 command the respect of all. 
 
 " The public have manifested a great interest in our success. 
 The good impression your delegates made in the city of Roches- 
 ter during our last annual session will not soon be forgotten by 
 its citizens. The contrast your delegates presented to a like 
 number of locomotive engineers that could have been collected 
 a few years since was apparent to every one, and the advantage 
 of having such men to occupy the responsible position of 
 engineer commended itself to all. 
 
 " I do not wish to be understood as claiming that an engi- 
 neer cannot be a well-behaved man without he belongs to this 
 organization ; but all engineers of much experience very well 
 know that a few years ago, when a party of engineers met, the 
 first thing thought of was to * come and take a drink.' 
 Although I am obliged to confess that this is too much the case 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 87 
 
 now, yet all will agree that great improvement has been made 
 within a few years ; and I think this Brotherhood is entitled 
 to full credit for what has been accomplished in this reform. 
 If any position requires sober men it is that of locomotive 
 engineers, and everything should be done to secure such men 
 to run train's. The engineer that uses intoxicating drinks to 
 excess is not fit to be intrusted with the lives and property of 
 the travelling public. The public fully appreciate the advan- 
 tages of having good men, and I think that you can safely rely 
 upon them for their influence and support, if you merit it by 
 your good conduct. 
 
 " It is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of your posi- 
 tion to have a sentiment inculcated and universally acknowl- 
 edged that the position of a locomotive engineer is of such a 
 responsible character that no railroad official will be justified 
 under any circumstance in employing any man to fill that posi- 
 tion unless he shall be a man that possesses every requisite 
 quality, both moral and mechanical. 
 
 " I have been led to make these remarks from the fact that 
 many men are hired to run engines that are universally known 
 to be men of no moral character, some of them apparently not 
 having much regard for human life, and with no mechanical 
 knowledge of the powerful engine intrusted to their care. It 
 is idle for managers to deny this, as the proof is abundant, 
 showing how these irresponsible men get positions, and are 
 retained in them to the exclusion of good and reliable men. If 
 this class of irresponsible men are just as good engineers as you 
 are, then your efforts are all for nought ; and the official does 
 not perform his duty by hiring good men and paying liberally, 
 as there are plenty of those ready-made engineers that can be 
 hired for half price. The knowledge acquired by years of ex- 
 perience is in emergencies worth more to the company, as well 
 as to the passengers on the train, than all the wages the engi- 
 neer will ever receive while running an engine. 
 
 ' The truth is, there is not importance enough attached to 
 your position ; neither are you held to as strict accountability 
 
88 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 as you ought to be. If it were possible to make yonr position 
 properly respected, and you were paid wages sufficient to 
 enable you to save a surplus for old age, and ample time was 
 allowed to keep your mind as well as your engine in good 
 repair I say, with these facilities and privileges offered you, 
 you ought never to ask to be excused for neglect <ff duty on 
 your part. You should not attempt to perform the duty of 
 running an engine without a thorough understanding of all that 
 pertains to that important position ; and any answer or act on 
 your part that indicated incompetency should be a sufficient 
 reason for your rejection or dismissal. I cannot imagine any 
 position in which a man can be placed tht requires better 
 judgment, and fuller knowledge of the duties he will be called 
 upon to perform than that of a locomotive engineer. 
 
 " The recent railroad difficulty has been the cause of some 
 slight trouble within our ranks ; but all will eventually admit 
 that it has afforded us a lesson that will be of great advantage 
 to us in all our future proceedings. It has developed resources 
 that no one could have anticipated.'* 
 
 The w'ords " to excess' 7 in the address Sam did not like. He 
 claimed that they were misleading. " It is impossible to play 
 or tamper with strong drink and remain safe. No one knows 
 what is l to excess.' At one time a man can stand more than he 
 can at another time. What would not be l to excess 9 in health 
 and strength might overcome and overturn him in sickness 
 and weakness, and yet it is in weakness and sickness his need 
 for it appears to be greatest. No ; leave liquor alone," said 
 Sam. " Sleep, rest, keep well in body and sound in mind, 
 and trust to the Lord and not to stimulus." 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO DEAN RICHMOND. 
 
 " In calling to mind the men that have been our friends and 
 upon whom we have leaned in every emergency to assist in 
 maintaining the right, I know you will pardon me if I mention 
 the name of Dean Richmond. He was emphatically the poor 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 89 
 
 man's friend. To him we are indebted in a measure for the 
 good standing we occupy to-day. I think that the example of 
 organization on the New York Central Railroad has had a good 
 influence upon other sections of the country. He was the 
 president of the road throughout the whole history of our 
 organization, and no narrow suspicion ever entered his mind 
 that the engineers would make unreasonable demands if they 
 were combined in a Brotherhood. He took as much pride in 
 the improvement made in the j conduct of the engineers as any 
 member of the Order. Death has removed him from labor on 
 earth, but his memory will ever be cherished with the most 
 grateful recollections by all engineers who had the pleasure of 
 his acquaintance, and who have been partakers of his liberality 
 in the capacity of employes under him on the New York Cen- 
 tral Kailroad. It is fitting for all to pause at the death of one 
 that, possessing both power and wealth, apparently did not 
 enjoy either when the one deprived the humblest of his rights, 
 or. the other deprived the poor of the necessities of life. 
 
 " I regret that we have so few engineers that seem to feel 
 any interest in the welfare of their old associates. H. G. 
 Brooks, Esq., General Superintendent of the motive power of 
 the New York and Erie Railroad, with a few others, are honor- 
 able exceptions. Let us resolve that we will not disappoint the 
 sanguine expectations of our friends, so that they, seeing our 
 good intentions, will be willing and desire to assist us in every 
 laudable undertaking. ' ' 
 
 These words struck a responsive chord in the breast of the 
 great-hearted engineer. He believed in men. He believed in 
 a place for every man, and every man for his place. He was 
 content to be an engineer. He did not seek to be superin- 
 tendent or president, but simply engineer. It was his ambi- 
 tion to be the best engineer on the road. He felt the weight 
 of responsibility committed to his keeping. When he drew 
 out of the depot with a train crowded with passengers, among 
 whom were some of the noblest in the land, though they never 
 thought of the engineer, the engineer thought of them, and 
 
V)U SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 recognized the fact that their lives were committed to his care. 
 His faith in man came to him before he reposed faith in Jesus 
 Christ. He gladly applauded the reference of the G. C. E. to 
 Dean Richmond, and proudly claimed that Boston and Worces- 
 ter could match his devotion and kindness in the unselfish 
 life of Ginery Twichell a man who began as stage-driver and 
 grew to be one of the first railroad presidents of the Union. 
 Sam believed in railroad men as a class, and sympathized with 
 the sentiment expressed by 0. T. Johnson, F. G. E., when 
 he said : 
 
 41 A fraternal relation is one around which cluster the best 
 feelings of our nature, and the brother who becomes duly im- 
 pressed with a true sense of the obligations of this relationship 
 can neither be controlled by selfishness nor indifference. 
 Brothers, let there be an end to strife which may have hereto- 
 fore existed between us, for we are brethren ; yea, let us leave 
 off contention before it is meddled with. 
 
 " We must, if we would be men, be sober, temperate, and 
 chaste. The drunkard is a curse to himself, his family, his 
 friends, and the world. He renders himself wretched in this 
 life, and unfitted for the life hereafter. The intemperate man 
 is only one step behind the drunkard ; if he does not pause, he 
 must shortly overtake him. The unchaste man must bring 
 upon himself certain disgrace ; he is a scandal to his kind, and 
 will be despised by the good and pure. Brotherly love should 
 dwell among those who meet with us here, and among the 
 entire fraternity of engineers wherever it exists. Kindly 
 sentiments for each other, for the world, should illuminate 
 their hearts, and burn brighter and brighter throughout all 
 time. 
 
 " We profess principles which should destroy the stubble and 
 chaff of dissension, and refine the powers and faculties which con- 
 stitute the dignity and glory of man. In i union is strength ' is a 
 common axiom. We must be united in the cause, not only in 
 our corporate capacity, but in our deeds. A single member, if 
 he labor with a will, may accomplish much in the field of frater- 
 
THE BKOTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 01 
 
 nity ; but a host, united in a perfect phalanx in the service of 
 the Brotherhood, may revolutionize the world, and in the course 
 of human events we shall find our hope fully realized and our 
 labor crowned with success. The Brotherhood will be equal to 
 if not foremost in the ranks of other organizations already 
 established for the good of mankind. 
 
 *' To enjoy more fully the desirable connection which our 
 frequent intercourse affords, we should ever grace our conduct 
 to each other with mildness, ^generosity, frankness, and confi- 
 dence, and ever be ready to perform the same office to others 
 as far as in our power, without pride and arrogance, always 
 remembering that cordial affability generally begets esteem. 
 To those that are erring from the strict path of rectitude, we 
 should be assiduous in imparting warning, reproof, and instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 4 * Toward those who are elected our officers, let us exercise a 
 beseeming degree of respect and deference, that they may find 
 we have set no idle value upon the offices they fill. By our 
 own voice they preside over us ; as such, consequently, we virtu- 
 ally engage to accept their instructions in all that pertaineth to 
 the good and welfare of the Brotherhood. Hence, members 
 of the Order are expected to welcome official admonition, re- 
 proof, and advice. I mean no slavish, mental, or bodily fear, 
 or adulation, no sacrifice of conscience or judgment, but a 
 readiness to hear the inculcations of the true principles of the 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. " 
 
 Through Sam Hobart's influence the following address was 
 delivered to the Brotherhood in Boston, Nov. 18th, 1866 : 
 
 "And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate." 1 
 Con. 9 : 25. 
 
 * ' The words of the apostle deserve to be imprinted on the 
 memory and engraven on the body of every workingman. 
 
 " Temperance is scorned because its value is overlooked. 
 Men fail to appreciate what it helps them to win. They ignore 
 
92 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 the truth, that every man that striveth for the mastery is tem- 
 perate. 
 
 " We know that the combatant for the prizo ring is temperate. 
 That he abstains from the use of intoxicating drinks, and from 
 tobacco ; that he eats sparingly and very carefully, in order 
 that his blood be not weakened, and that his strength be not 
 injured. 
 
 " We know that men who climb the hill of distinction, and 
 are to-day the foremost men of the times, won the mastery, not 
 by dissipating their strength, but by husbanding it. They held 
 themselves in check, or in restraint, in order that they might 
 employ their force in a given direction. 
 
 "The idea contained in the word Temperance is habitual 
 moderation in the indulgence of the natural appetites and pas- 
 sions. The purpose of this moderation is set forth by the 
 champion of the cross. It is to win the mastery. A temper- 
 ate man is not an indolent man, nor is he a moderate man, in 
 the common acceptation of the term. He may make good time ; 
 indeed, he can make the best time because he is temperate. 
 This thought is not welcomed, nor is it believed in this land of 
 wild enterprises and gigantic undertakings. More than that, 
 and worse than that, it is ignored. Men drink to obtain the 
 mastery. Intemperance could not be tolerated if this opinion 
 did not prevail, that stimulus is conducive to success. The 
 theory prevails, in the West more than in the East, that stimu- 
 lus is essential to success. How large a proportion use intoxi- 
 cating drinks and how many use tobacco is best known to you. 
 The reason for this indulgence in rum and tobacco is to win 
 the mastery. You claim it steadies the nerves, clears the brain, 
 takes away all thoughts of danger, and enables you drive your 
 heated courser along his iron way with lightning velocity. 
 
 " Statistics assure us that a large proportion of the accidents 
 on railroads and rivers are the result of stimulus. We have 
 seen it on the steamer as on the rail -car. The engineer gets 
 excited. He is asked to compete ; the fire burns within ; the 
 brain feels it, and at once the steam is turned on and every- 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 93 
 
 thing is pushed forward with all possible haste. The effect is 
 so apparent that on some of our best managed roads an en- 
 gineer is not employed who is accustomed to the use of intoxi- 
 cating liquors. Statistics prove that temperance is the key to 
 success in avoiding accidents, in protecting life, and in promot- 
 ing the interests of the public. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the lesson taught by figures, men at their 
 toil preach that they who would gain this mastery must be in- 
 temperate. Benjamin Franklin proved the contrary when he 
 worked as a printer in London. The English printers drank 
 their beer. He drank clear, cold water. At length an English- 
 man accosted him with the question, 4 Why don't you drink 
 beer?' * Can't afford it,' was the reply. * You have more 
 money than I have, but I can't afford the strength I desire to 
 keep myself strong.' * Ah,' said the Englishman, ' beer makes 
 strength. ' ' No it doesn't, ' said Franklin. * It does, ' replied the 
 Englishman ; 'this makes me drink it. ' ' Then I will show you, ' 
 said Franklin, ' that I am stronger without beer than you are 
 with it.' There were printer's forms made up, type enchased 
 in iron, and ready for the press. ' Carry that across the shop,' 
 said Franklin. The beer-drinking Englishman attempted it, and 
 with great difficulty, succeeded in carrying a single form. 
 Franklin took two forms, one in each hand, and bore them 
 without difficulty. The proof was apparent, and a reform was 
 worked in the shop. 
 
 '* This lesson is taught by the All- Wise Ruler in various 
 ways. The universe pushes on toward its distant goal, because 
 of restraining forces which hold each star and sun and planet in 
 its given orbit. 
 
 " A star or a planet bent oh self-indulgence and breaking 
 forth from the restraints of gravitation, would, unless checked, 
 shatter into atoms the systems which sweep on in their shining 
 pathway which the Creator has prepared for them. 
 
 " Do we turn to nature, we find this truth illustrated in 
 many ways. 
 
 " Undue excitement reacts, and begets weakness. Temper- 
 
94: SAM HOB ART. 
 
 ance and moderation is health. A field can be forced to yield 
 great crops, but unless its wasted energies are supplied by rest, 
 its strength departs and barrenness ensues. An apple-tree seems 
 to possess intelligence It will tell by the tinge of its flower, 
 and by the brightness of its leaf, and by the quality of its fruit, 
 whether it has been intemperate or not. If this year it is in- 
 temperate in yield, next year it will resemble the drunkard 
 getting over the effects of his debauch, and will be unable to 
 perform the task allotted to it. In its growth we see the same 
 truths. A restraint upon those forces which seek undue indul- 
 gence, such as in limbs seeking to disturb the equilibrium of 
 the parent, or in a disposition to pour all of its rich fluids into 
 the harvest of a single year, will detract from the symmetry, 
 beauty, and health of the tree. Hence a wise horticulturist will 
 preach Paul's sermon to his orchards, vines, and plants, claim- 
 ing that they who would win the mastery must be temperate. 
 Hence he will watch his trees and shrubs, and when they are 
 unduly excited, will bud, and check their proclivities, knowing 
 that by so doing he protects the future from the disasters re- 
 sulting from the imprudence of to-day. 
 
 " These thoughts were suggested by a contemplation of the 
 object of this and kindred organizations. You desire to pro- 
 mote the growth, intellectually, morally, and physically, of 
 the class of which you are representing. In no way can you 
 do so better than by conforming to the principles enunciated 
 in the words, ' And every man that striveth for the mastery 
 is temperate. ' The words do not declare that every man who 
 desires the mastery is temperate, nor that every man who is 
 trying to obtain the mastery is temperate, but that every man 
 who rationally and truly striveth for the mastery is temperate. 
 Perhaps we should gain a better idea of the mastery to be won 
 by considering very briefly the railroad interest represented by 
 you. 
 
 " Some may object to this language, and claim that locomotive 
 engineers do not represent the railroad interest. We all remem- 
 ber the story of the organist and the boy that filled the bellows. 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 95 
 
 At the close of the performance the boy came round and said, 
 * Didn't we play splendid ?' ' We ! What did you have 
 to do with the playing?' 'I Mowed,' replied the boy. 
 4 Go away,' said the organist, 'you didn't do anything with 
 the playing. ' The next occasion that presented itself the boy 
 thought he would see whether or no he was of any importance. 
 So, in the midst of a splendid performance he stopped blow- 
 ing, and of course the musio collapsed. * Blow ! blow ! ' he 
 cried. ' Say ive, then,' said the boy, and the organist was 
 compelled to shout ' We,' before he could go on. It needs no 
 argument to prove that our railroad system depends upon the 
 character of our locomotive engineers more than any other 
 class. The Worcester Railroad makes temperate habits a sine 
 qua non in its engineers, and so perhaps do other roads. The 
 result is seen in the fewness of accidents and in the regularity 
 of trains. 
 
 " The locomotive is a school ever crowded with scholars, who 
 graduate from it to fill other important positions in other ranks 
 of life. During the engineers' strike on the Michigan Southern 
 Railroad it surprised every one to see how many conductors, 
 master mechanics, and other officials had served their time on 
 the locomotive. 
 
 " During the early history of the war, all remember the inci- 
 dent when General Butler found an old locomotive in the shop 
 at Annapolis, out of repair, but essential to their march. 
 ' Does any one here know anything about this machine ? ' 
 Charles Homans, a private of Company E, of the Massachusetts 
 Eighth, eyed the machine for a moment, and said, ' Our shop 
 made that engine, General ; I guess I can put her in order and 
 run her. ' * Go to work and do it. ' Charles Homans picked 
 out a man or two, and began at once to obey the order. Loco- 
 motive engineers are found in every rank of railway life. 
 Their very education enables them to take responsibilit} 7 ; 
 to keep their wits about them ; and if they have an inclina- 
 tion to study mechanical engineering, there is no limit to 
 their acquisitions, nor to the doors thrown open before them 
 
96 SAM HOBART. 
 
 for advancement. In 1860 there were 31,185 miles of rail- 
 road, in 1883 over 125,000. A railroad map discloses at a 
 glance the extent of this system. It interlaces New England ; 
 its iron bands unite the East to the West, and will, ere-long, 
 pass through the gates of the mountains and belt the continent. 
 This has been the product of less than forty years. In 1826 
 the first sod was cut on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- 
 road. It was on the 4th day of July, our natal day in more 
 senses than one. The road was originally planned for a horse 
 track only ; but the introduction of steam locomotives from 
 England encouraged the attempt to run them on the line, and 
 in 1830 a small engine constructed at Baltimore was put upon 
 the road, which still exists and is preserved in the company's 
 workshop as a very interesting relic. Although the traffic was 
 great, the engine appears to have been only partially worked, 
 the trains having also been moved by horses. 
 
 "Contemplate the fact. In 1826 Stephenson was compelled, 
 against obloquy, to oppose the attempt to draw trains by station- 
 ary engines by the aid of ropes, and his prophecy that this iron 
 horse would yet be completed to move at twelve miles an hour 
 and drag a load after him was received with roars of laughter. 
 In 1830 the New York Central Railroad was begun. In 1831 
 twelve different railroad companies were incorporated, and 
 from this time railroad enterprises were multiplied with great 
 rapidity. In 1832 the most important lines were commenced 
 in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Behold the 
 tree grown from the seedling. To-day the West and East are 
 neighbors. We build the factories, weave the cloth, make the 
 shoes, and other notions ; the West grows the wheat and corn 
 on which we feed. Were it not for the railroad, there can be 
 no doubt cities would still hug the Atlantic border and the 
 banks of rivers, and the vast West with its inland towns would 
 have remained an uninhabited wilderness. 
 
 " We read much of the famine in India, in which over two 
 millions of human beings have starved to death. What is the 
 cause ? The answer is plain. There is no means of communi- 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 97 
 
 cation, and so, while food abounds in one department it fails 
 in another, and they starve for lack of means of communica- 
 tion. Imagine our railroad system broken off. The East 
 would starve and the West would be reduced to first principles, 
 and would become naked as savages before they could protect 
 themselves. 
 
 " Years ago the surplus products of Ohio had accumulated 
 beyond the means of transport, and wheat sold in the interior 
 at thirty-seven cents and Indian corn at ten cents. When the 
 Erie Canal was opened, and soon after the Ohio Canal, 
 prices were raised more than fifty per cent. Now that the 
 means of transportation have increased, the price of flour in 
 the interior has more than trebled, while on the seaboard it is 
 higher than ever before. 
 
 " Land has risen because of railroads, from $1.25 to $20 and 
 $30 per acre. Between 1850 and 1860, the prices of farms 
 throughout the West have doubled. And of about 9,000,000 
 tons, the produce carried from the W T est to the East, the rail- 
 roads carry two thirds. All the lines are stocked with freight, 
 and at times places like Toledo or Cleveland get blocked with 
 produce. We have hardly an idea of the elevators and of the 
 means employed to lighten labor. The future resources of 
 America are such that, with all the products of skill we shall be 
 unable with our present facilities to do the business that presses 
 upon us at every turn. 
 
 " As has been said, ' A vast amount of produce is destroyed 
 yearly from the inability of the carriers to carry it forward. 
 The owners are ruined. The parties in the Eastern States who 
 advance money on their produce charge excessive rates to 
 cover the risks of failure.' The result is, the producer, the 
 merchant, the railway company, and the consumer are all 
 directly injured ; but the indirect injury extends far beyond 
 this. The whole produce of the West, and consequently the 
 entire cultivation of America, is affected. If the produce cannot 
 be carried, it can only find local markets. If it only find local 
 markets, prices must abate. If prices abate, the stimulus to 
 
98 SAM HOBAUT. 
 
 cultivation of land is lost. If the land is not required for cul- 
 tivation, in the same proportion it diminishes in value. The 
 prosperity of the West, the value of its produce, the value of 
 its land, and the extent of land cultivated and the provisions in 
 the East, together with the demand for the product here pro- 
 duced all depend upon the increased facilities for the convey- 
 ance of produce, and those facilities railroads must afford. 
 
 " The occasion, then, that invites our thought materially in- 
 terests all classes of men. Without railways the States of the 
 great West would have been nothing. With railways they are 
 what they are. With a proper development of the railway 
 system, they may be ten times, nay a hundred times greater 
 than they are. 
 
 " The want has been expressed for a combination for the due 
 development of traffic. It is proposed to bring the immense 
 chain- work of Northern railroads into closer communication 
 with the Southern system, and to establish railway intercourse 
 across the continent from the shores of the Atlantic to the 
 shores of the Pacific. 
 
 41 Napoleon tried to grasp the key of commerce and compel 
 the nations of the earth to pay their toll for the transportation 
 of goods and people into their treasury. The failure of his 
 Mexican scheme and the opening of that land to the energy, 
 the enterprise, and the civilization of the United States, proves 
 that God's purpose is to keep the control of this Western con- 
 tinent in the hands, not of the Latin, but of the Anglo-Saxon 
 races. Sir Morton Peto, in his invaluable treatise on the rail- 
 way future of America, expresses a conviction which deserves 
 consideration. He declares the great means of developing the 
 railway system is co-operation. A system which will place the 
 various great lines of railway in a position to carry any amount 
 of passengers and freight traffic is essential to the prosperity 
 of railways and the advancement of this country. 
 
 " 4 The fact is, the American railways have been made and 
 are conducted too much in detached portions, and too little on 
 a large and liberal system of co-operation. The wide extent, 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 99 
 
 the enlarged resources, the rapid development of this territory 
 accounts very much for this. But the American railways must 
 be worked as one system. This result may be accomplished 
 by substituting for a system of jealousy, rivalry, and opposi- 
 tion, one of common understanding, comprehensive alliance, 
 friendship, mutuality, and interchange each line acting as a 
 part of one great entire whole the railways in fact consider- 
 ing themselves not a system of States, but a system of United 
 States. ' 
 
 *' That this result is being achieved there can be no doubt. 
 The railroad conventions prove it. The gathering of different 
 organizations similar to your own establish the conclusion that 
 a community of interest is felt to be an element and source 
 of strength. 
 
 1 ' Let the work go on. Let schools be established for the per- 
 fection of men in the practical work at hand, and for the edu- 
 cation of the mind in all that appertains to their given pursuits, 
 and great good will be obtained. 
 
 u From this hasty sketch of railway interests it is evident that 
 the highest incentives to exertion, to temperance, to the obtain- 
 ing of skill, of information and of culture, is held out to those 
 who have turned their attention to this important branch of 
 industry. 
 
 " In engineering, as in all other employments, culture pays. 
 The man who labors with his hands and does not work his 
 brain must forever live from hand to mouth. It is brain work 
 attended with hand work that makes Titans of men. The 
 physical necessity of mental activity in every practical sense 
 confers upon the mind the power to determine our stature, 
 strength, or longevity, to multiply our organs of sense and in- 
 crease their capacity in some cases to 30,000,000 their natural 
 power. 
 
 11 George Stephenson, born June 9th, 1781, near the Wylau 
 Colliery, was the son of the fireman of the pumping engine. 
 At eighteen years of age he could neither read, write, nor 
 cipher. He had mastered the steam-engine, could take it in 
 
100 SAM HOBART. 
 
 pieces, but he could not read. AJI evening school was started 
 in the colliery. He seized the opportunity, broke the fetters 
 that bound him, and became a master mechanic. His skill in 
 applying ideas at last arrested the attention of the owners of 
 the colliery, and he received the appointment of chief engineer 
 at 100 per annum. From that moment his progress was 
 rapid. He built his first locomotive, obtained the prize, and 
 became the founder of the railway system. What was the 
 secret of his success ? lie was temperate. In the midst of his 
 occupations he cultivated his powers and became a gentleman. 
 The result was, he became conscious of his power and possessed 
 confidence in his own judgment, which enabled him to carry 
 out principles to their legitimate extent, but from which feebler 
 or more practical minds usually shrink. 
 
 44 Instances abound in this country more surprising than this. 
 How many a poor boy has kept himself aloof from society that 
 would degrade him, has husbanded his resources, his time and 
 money, until he has worked his way from the lowest to the 
 most exalted positions? 
 
 44 In my mind I see a man who is the president of a Western 
 road who began as a brakeman. But he was an elegant 
 brakeman. His work done, he sought pleasure in study, and 
 attracted the attention of a railroad official, who promoted him, 
 and on and on he went until he has won the name of Railway 
 King. 
 
 14 Forget not that in this country every railroad constructed 
 calls into development vast areas of unworked wealth ; it also 
 calls for men to manage and control it. Men are the powers 
 that carry forward enterprises. 
 
 " Clang, clang, the massive anvils ring ; 
 Clang, clang ! a hundred hammers swing ; 
 Like the thunder rattle of a tropic sky, 
 The mighty blows still multiply ; 
 
 Clang, clang, 
 
 Say, brothers of the dusky bro\r, 
 What are your strong arms forging now ? 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 101 
 
 " The world asks that question, and listens for a reply. 
 
 " How truthfully Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith, de- 
 scribes the movement of the Iron Horse, with bones of steel 
 and muscles of brass, that will run against time with Mercury or 
 any other winged messenger of Jove. 
 
 " He brings out his huge leviathan hexoped upon the track. 
 How the giant creature struts forth from his stable, panting to 
 be gone. His great breast is a* furnace of burning coals ; his 
 lymphatic blood is boiling in his veins ; the strength of a thou- 
 sand horses is nerving his iron sinews. But his master reins 
 him in with one finger, till the whole of some Western village 
 men, women, children, and half their horned cattle, sheep, 
 poultry, wheat, cheese, and potatoes has been stowed away in 
 that long train of wagons he has harnessed to his fiery steed. 
 And now he shouts, interrogatorily, All right ? and applying a 
 burning goad to the huge creature, away it thunders over the 
 iron road, breathing forth fire and smoke in its indignant haste 
 to outstrip the wind. More terrible than the war-horse in 
 Scripture, clothed with loud thunder, and emitting a cloud of 
 flame and burning coals from his iron nostrils, he dashes on 
 through dark mountain passes, over jolting precipices and deep 
 ravines. His tread shakes the eaith like a trembling Niagara, 
 and the sound of his chariot-wheels warns the people of the 
 distant town that he is coming. 
 
 " Think of it : on these fiery coursers ride these men, now 
 down to peril, if not to death, and now on to safety and 
 repose. Such men should be self-restrained. Their brain 
 should be cool, their nerves under supreme control ; and only 
 the temperate attain this mastery. Contemplate the scene. 
 In the night time, as in the day, their iron horses rattle on 
 their iron way. It is a luxury to listen to the chime of that 
 mighty chronometer. We hear the beat of great pendulums 
 swinging through their iron arks East and West Boston and 
 Chicago further to the westward still goes the train 
 
 " Swinging through the forests, 
 Rattling over ridges, 
 
102 SAM HDBART. 
 
 Shooting under arches, 
 Rumbling over bridges, 
 Whizzing through the mountains, 
 Buzzing through the vale, 
 
 and pushing on through the Golden Gate to the shores of the 
 blue Pacific. 
 
 44 Whether we sleep or wake, whether we journey or stay at 
 home, the morning train, like the flying spindle, is carrying 
 the thread of traffic through the woof of commerce. As 
 regular as the sun rises or sets this work goes on. To the en- 
 gineer more than any one else we intrust our property and our 
 lives. Commerce and humanity are alike interested in promot- 
 ing your mental and moral welfare. 
 
 " But there are other interests. Christ has claims upon you. 
 Your immortal souls are to be saved or lost. Your influence 
 on earth and your happiness in eternity depend upon your ac- 
 ceptance or rejection of the Gospel. 
 
 44 You know the value of that single burning lamp of the 
 locomotive as you plunge into the darkness of the natural 
 night. 
 
 44 There is a moral night of denser gloom. It is rayless only 
 as the light brought by Christ sheds its radiance upon your 
 path. 
 
 44 You know the value of the signal when danger threatens 
 you. Christ has given you the signal. A while ago a terrible 
 storm gathered in the sky, and the torrent filled the streams 
 which in maddening fury swept away the bridges. There were 
 but a few moments between the crash and the coming of the 
 express train. A poor frail woman left her child, took her lan- 
 tern, and, amid the driving wind and pelting rain, swung the 
 light and gave the signal. Yonder comes the train. Behold 
 her in the path, swinging her light. The fiery horse conies on. 
 Nearer and nearer it comes. At last the whistle sounds Down 
 with the brakes ! and that passenger train is saved. That work 
 can be understood. Christ has encountered greater peril than 
 that frail woman. He stood in the path and permitted the 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 103 
 
 bolt to fall upon him, that he might sound the alarm and kindle 
 . in the path of danger the warning light. 
 
 " It is said that on the Dayton and Cincinnati road, during 
 one of the freshets of the spring, a bridge was washed away by 
 the swollen stream. The track-master failed to ascertain the 
 fact, and so the signal -master telegraphed all right to the Day- 
 ton office, and the train left the depot. Soon the peril was dis- 
 covered, and a report was sent on, but it was now too late. 
 There was no intermediate station, and the train was doomed 
 unless some unlooked-for Providence should save them. Alas, 
 no help came, and blindly at full speed the locomotive leaped 
 into the chasm, and many lives were sacrificed. Imagine the 
 feelings of that track- and signal -master. They should have 
 known the peril and sounded the alarm. 
 
 "Would you win the mastery on earth? be temperate. 
 Would you win the crown that never fadeth ? then add to your 
 temperance, patience ; and to patience, godliness ; and to god- 
 liness, brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, charity. 
 
 " Accept Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the light, 
 remembering that whatsoever worketh in this way worketh 
 safely ; whosoever believeth this truth, obtaineth thereby eter- 
 nal life, and whosoever accepts the guidance of this light enter- 
 eth a path which shall grow brighter and brighter unto the per- 
 fect day. Do this for the world's sake as well as for your 
 own. You must exert an important influence over those with 
 whom you mingle. Let it be felt in the cause of Christ, and 
 thus shall you secure the broadest, fullest, and freest develop- 
 ment on earth, and the trials and cares endured here will form 
 a fitting prelude to the rest prepared for the people of God 
 hereafter. ' ' 
 
 The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opposed the organization 
 of the Brotherhood, and substituted an Employes Relief Asso- 
 ciation instead, in accordance with this following plan. It was 
 organized May 1st, 1880, and incorporated by an act of the 
 Maryland Legislature May 3d, 1882. 
 
104 SAM HOHART. 
 
 The object of this association is to provide a fund for relief 
 in cases of sickness, injury, old age, or death, to the Baltimore 
 and Ohio Railroad employes and their families. The full pay- 
 ment of all benefits for sickness, accident, or death is guaranteed 
 by the company, which at the outset gave the sum of $100,000 as 
 a basis of operations, which amount is invested in securities which 
 yield a revenue of six per cent per annum. This, together wit!, 
 amounts received from members as dues, forms a fund to meet 
 the demands made by members upon the funds of the associa- 
 tion for the payment of benciits. Every able-bodied employe 
 of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad not over the age of forty- 
 five years, and who passes a satisfactory physical examination, is 
 eligible for membership. Blank forms are supplied by the 
 officers of the road, which must be filled out, giving the name, 
 residence, age, occupation, department of the road employed 
 in, the amount be deducted monthly from his pay as dues, 
 and the name of the person or persons to whom, in case of his 
 death, his benefits shall be paid ; and all applications made by 
 minors must bear the written consent of the parent or guardian 
 before the applicant can become a member or enjoy any of 
 the benefits of the society. 
 
 When the association was organized it was optional with the 
 men to join or not, but by a later order of the Baltimore and 
 Ohio Company all new employes must subscribe to the relief 
 features before they can be taken into the service of the com- 
 pany. 
 
 MEMBERSHIP ASSESSMENTS. When a man passes the physi- 
 cal examination referred to, his application is forwarded to the 
 secretary, and in return the applicant recei-ves a certificate of 
 membership stating the number of benefits the holder is en- 
 titled to receive. The company grants to all its employes who 
 are members of the relief association and to their families trans- 
 portation over the line of the road at half rates, and to secure 
 this half-rate ticket the employe is furnished with an order by 
 his superior officer to the nearest ticket agent, stating to what 
 point and for whom he desires this ticket, the department of 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 105 
 
 the road employed in, his occupation, and the number of his 
 certificate of membership ; but he cannot secure this ticket 
 unless he can produce his certificate of membership, showing 
 that he is the person who is entitled to receive it. 
 
 The assessments, which are deducted from the pay of the 
 members on the pay-rolls, are divided into two classes, known 
 as first and second class. The first class consists of men who 
 are connected with the runnjng of trains, such as engineers, 
 firemen, conductors, baggage-masters, brakemen, switchmen, 
 and flagmen ; the second class, of officers of the road, clerks, 
 agents, telegraph operators, machinists, and all others not con- 
 nected with the running of trains. As members of the first class 
 run a much greater risk of meeting with accidents than those 
 in the second class, they are assessed more per month than the 
 latter. The amounts thus collected from the pay-rolls are de- 
 posited with the treasurer of the Baltimore and Ohio Company, 
 upon whom all requisitions for disbursements are drawn, and 
 the vouchers thus drawn, after receiving the signature of the 
 chairman of the Committee of Management and the secretary of 
 the association, are payable by any agent of the Baltimore and 
 Ohio Company or can be negotiated through any banking insti- 
 tution. 
 
 The members are assessed in proportion to the salary received 
 by them, under the following schedule : 
 
 First Class. Those receiving $35 and under, $1 per month ; 
 those receiving $35 and not over $50, $2 per month ; those 
 receiving $50 and not over $75, $3 per month ; those receiving 
 875 and not over $100, $4 per month ; those receiving $100 
 and upward, $5 per month. 
 
 Second Class. Those receiving $35 and under, seventy- five 
 cents per month ; those receiving $35 and not over $50, $1.50 
 per month ; those receiving $50 and not over $75. $2.25 per 
 month ; those receiving $75 and not over $100, $3 per month ; 
 those receiving 1 $100 and upward, $3.75 per month. 
 
 BENEFITS DERIVED. Take the case of a brakeman who, say 
 in coupling a car, gets his thumb mashed and is unable to per- 
 
106 SAM HOBART. 
 
 form any manual labor for a period of twenty-five days, exclud- 
 ing Sundays. He reports the accident to a medical inspector, 
 who examines the case and reports it to the secretary. For 
 this the sufferer receives from the association the sum of $25, 
 and as railroad companies pay only for service actually per- 
 formed, the man gets from the relief association fund what he 
 would not otherwise have the means to support his family 
 while he is unable to work. He is under no expense for medi- 
 cal attendance, as the association has an able corps of medical 
 inspectors, besides contract physicians along the line of the 
 road, and, when attended by one of the latter, the bill for at- 
 tendance is not rendered to the individual, but to the Relief 
 Association. 
 
 But should a brakeman be killed after the fact has been 
 proved that he was killed while in the discharge of his duty, 
 the association pays to his widow or the beneficiary named in 
 his application for membership, the sum of $1000. There are 
 two rates for accidental death, one rate being $500. For this 
 he paid the association at the rate of $2 per month. It is pro- 
 vided, however, that no claims for accidental death can be 
 paid until all the heirs of the deceased file with the secretary a 
 paper satisfactory to him releasing the Baltimore and Ohio 
 Company from damages ; and if a member while in the dis- 
 charge of his duty should receive any injury, and files a suit in 
 any court against the company, he will not be, according to the 
 constitution of the association, entitled to receive any of the 
 benefits promised by the association. Take the case of an en- 
 gineer who in the discharge of his duty is injured and is totally 
 unable to perform any manual labor for a period of twenty 
 days. He pays into the association the sum of $4 per month, 
 and is therefore entitled to receive twice the number of bene- 
 fits received by a brakeman, and he receives the sum of $2 for 
 every day thus totally disabled. Should he meet with an ac- 
 cident which would cause his death while in the discharge of 
 his duty, his heirs would receive the sum of $2000. A con- 
 ductor pays $3 per month, and if sick twenty days would re- 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 107 
 
 ceive the sum of $30, and were lie to meet with death by acci- 
 dent, his heirs would receive the sum of 1500. There is 
 insurance for sickness as well as accident. Take the case of a 
 brakeman who is sick for a period of ten days, and unable to 
 perform his usual duties ; he will receive the sum of $10, and 
 were he to die from natural causes his heirs would receive the 
 sum of $200, being at the rate of $100 for each rate. An 
 engineer dying from natural causes, his heirs would receive the 
 sum of $400, being four rates at $100 each. 
 
 All claims presented and allowed by the association on ac- 
 count of death are paid within sixty days from the date or 
 receipt of notice of death. 
 
 MEDICAL ATTENDANCE. The association is under contract 
 with three hundred and eighteen physicians along the line of 
 the road to attend upon members in case of accidents, and also 
 with the most prominent hospitals in Baltimore, Washington, 
 Wheeling, Pittsburg, Columbus, and Chicago, where disabled 
 members may be treated at greatly reduced rates, and also with 
 the Baltimore Eye and Ear Infirmary, where members receive 
 board and indoor treatment at the rate of $4 per week. They 
 also receive board and the best of medical treatment at the 
 hospitals referred to above at the rate of $2.50 per week, which 
 amount may be paid out of the allowance from the association. 
 
 As shown by the first report of the secretary, dated May 1st, 
 1881, there had been issued 14,439 certificates of membership, 
 and the gross receipts to December 31st, 1880, amounted to 
 $88,543.26 ; the disbursements to $41,503.14 ; leaving a 
 balance of $47,040.12, which amount was used to liquidate 
 claims made or to be made on account of disbursements to 
 members prior to December 31st, 1880. 
 
 All the salaries of the secretary, medical inspectors, clerks, 
 and all other expenses of the association are borne by the Balti- 
 more and Ohio Company, and therefore the funds of the associa- 
 tion are under no other expense than for the payment of allow- 
 ances to members and physicians' fees for attendance upon 
 disabled members. 
 
108 SAM HOBART. 
 
 FINANCIAL REPORT. Between May 1st, 1880, and December 
 31st, 1880, 1685 claims for allowance and 352 bills for medical 
 attendance were paid, the whole aggregating $41,503.14 ; and 
 from December 31st, 1880, to April 30th, 1881, 699 claims 
 for allowance and 182 bills for attendance of physicians were 
 examined and paid, amounting to $25,077.48, making a total 
 disbursement of one year of $66,580.62. 
 
 The second annual report of the secretary, dated October 1st, 
 1882, covered a period of twenty-one months, as the fiscal year 
 of the association was changed so as to correspond with the 
 fiscal year of the Baltimore and Ohio Company. This report 
 shows a balance on hand, December 31st, 1880, of $47,040.12, 
 and receipts from all sources, $345,088.30 $322,038.20 of this 
 amount being received from the members as premiums. The 
 disbursements for the same period were $302,617.69, leaving a 
 balance of $89,510.73, and six months' interest, $2500, mak- 
 ing a balance, September 30th, 1882, of $92,010.73. But this 
 amount does not represent the actual balance, for from it were 
 to be deducted $40,473.60 for benefits due and not yet paid, 
 and $21,424.46 insurance reserve, leaving a net balance of 
 $30,112.67 ; and this balance, by the provisions of the consti- 
 tution, is to be used " to reduce the next year's contributions 
 or to increase the allowance for natural death or in promoting 
 the interests of the association/' By this report the number 
 of members of the association is stated at 28,706, embracing 
 " ninety-four per cent of all employes in the service." 
 
 By these two reports the association has paid 91 claims of 
 accidental death, amounting to $94,500 ; 189 claims of natural 
 death, amounting to $48,300 ; 3972 claims of disablement 
 from injuries, amounting to $50,520.67 ; 2606 cases of physi- 
 cians for services rendered in above cases, amounting to $20,- 
 096.29, and 9094 claims from disablements by sickness or in- 
 juries not received in discharge of duty, amounting to $127,- 
 689.39, making a total number of claims examined and al- 
 lowed of 15,952, and a total amount paid of $341,106.35. 
 
 The affairs of the association are controlled by a committee 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS. 109 
 
 of management, which includes the president of the Baltimore 
 and Ohio Company and nine other members, four appointed by 
 the company and five elected by the contributors. The imme- 
 diate management is under the control of a secretary, who is 
 elected by the committee, and to whom all the business of the 
 association is intrusted. 
 
 SAVINGS FUND AND BUILDING FEATURES. There is also con- 
 nected with the Relief Association another feature known as 
 " The Savings Fund and Building Features," whereby all 
 members of the Relief Association or their families may deposit 
 any sum over $1 and receive interest upon it at the rate of four 
 per cent per annum. The association will also advance to 
 members sums ranging from $100 upward at the rate of six per 
 cent per annum, which advances can only be used for the pur- 
 pose of purchasing or building homes. The Baltimore and 
 Ohio Company is responsible for all moneys deposited, as also 
 for the prompt payment of the interest on money deposited. 
 Every subscriber to this feature is provided with a pass-book. 
 When he wishes to make a deposit, it is made to a bonded 
 agent of the Baltimore and Ohio Company, and when the 
 depositor wishes to withdraw money he draws a check upon 
 the association or an order upon the secretary. The secretary 
 furnishes him with a check or voucher, which is payable in the 
 same manner as vouchers for sickness or disablements in the 
 relief features. 
 
 The company also extends to the members of the savings 
 fund who wish to secure homesteads along the line of the road 
 or improve those already owned, " a reduction of twenty-five 
 per cent from its regular rates on all building material entering 
 into the construction or improvements of such homesteads and 
 on all household effects. ' ' 
 
 If from the undefined and crude hopes of the engineer strug- 
 gling for a place in the railroad system, such a system could 
 find general acceptance, we can see that it would be helpful to 
 the many and injurious to none. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 The Principle that ruled his Life and made him a Blessing. 
 
 SAM was in a tumult. He was a man of influence, yet he 
 seemed left to himself. His wife, the idol of his heart, was in 
 consumption. His hope built on everything else than Jesus' 
 blood and righteousness was failing him. Masonry brought 
 him but little comfort. His relations with workingmen were 
 not satisfactory. Sam was not a Communist nor a Socialist nor 
 an International. He was an engineer on the Boston and 
 Albany Railroad, and was true to their interest. 
 
 It is said that a drop of water falling into a bay changes the 
 tide-currents of the ocean, and that the sound of the human 
 voice changed into echoes passes through waves of air and dis- 
 turbs the condition of society and the destinies of men. Cer- 
 tain it is that the conflicts ravaging Europe produced an 
 impression upon the minds and hearts of the workingmen in 
 America. Communism was in the air. Agitation was the 
 rule. " Organization " and " combination" were the talis- 
 manic words ever on the lips of the discontented and the ambi- 
 tious. Sam believed in doing his duty, and being content with 
 filling the sphere in which circumstances placed him. On one 
 occasion, when in a company of workingmen, one had con- 
 tended that the engineers and brakemen ought to share in the 
 profits of the road, and " that all legalized charter corporations, 
 such as railroad, banking, mining, manufacturing, gas, etc., 
 under the present system of operation, were the most despotic 
 and heartless enemies of the working classes ; that their acts of 
 tyranny and oppression have been the cause of demoralizing 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. Ill 
 
 thousands of honest workingmen, thereby driving them to acts 
 of madness, desperation, and crime. " Sam shouted out, 
 " There, you have copied that from the charter of the i Inter- 
 nationals/ and it never ought to be permitted to take root in 
 American soil." 
 
 " You are too late," said another. " It has taken root in 
 my heart, and in the hearts of thousands more." 
 
 " Go slow, boys," said Sam, with that pleasant smile which 
 preceded his best utterance^ as the lightning's flash precedes 
 the thunder's roll. Then pulling a printed slip from his pocket, 
 he said : " Here are the words that our young friend quoted, 
 and many more like them. In it we are earnestly requested 
 to unite as speedily as possible for the purpose of forming a 
 political party, based on the natural rights of labor. l Let us 
 make common cause against a common enemy. ' These are dan- 
 gerous words," said Sam. " Dangerous for us who have only 
 our labor as capital, dangerous for our employers who intrust 
 their capital to our keeping. This avowal reveals the milk in 
 the cocoanut and deserves to be pondered and condemned." 
 Again he read : " It is the purpose of the workingmen's party 
 to confiscate, through legislation, the unjustly gotten wealth of 
 these legalized and chartered corporation thieves that are back- 
 ed by the Shylocks and moneyed syndicates of Europe and 
 this country." Then folding up the paper he looked the men 
 in the eye and said : " That is Communism. That means 
 blood. It means the loss of confidence on the part of the em- ' 
 plovers and spending the strength for nought on the part of the 
 workingmen. You are being misled by agitators. The devil 
 is at the bottom of the whole business. There is no love in it, 
 no kindness, no honor. It is pandering to the worst element 
 in our natures, and no one knows what will grow out of it. 
 They have just gone through a crisis in Europe. The result is, 
 thousands of the dissatisfied are pouring into this country. The 
 war has given them a field suited to their bloodthirsty natures. 
 They could join the army, though, as a rule, they made poor 
 soldiers, because they object to government and authority, and 
 
112 SAM HOBART. 
 
 in the army there must be discipline. Hence they desert, take 
 a new name, and become bounty-jumpers. 
 
 " We had two of them on the train the other day. For a 
 time it seemed as if they would clean out the officials and take 
 possession." 
 
 " Tell us about it," shouted a half dozen at the same time. 
 
 " Well," said Sam, " I saw then what it was to contend with 
 an unchained devil. They had boarded the train at Framing- 
 ham. The conductor came to collect the fare. They replied : 
 
 " ' Guess this road can afford to carry us free. 7 
 
 " ' Fare, gentlemen,' said the conductor. 
 
 " The men looked up, and with an oath told him to go to 
 perdition. The conductor called a brakeman, and demanded 
 the fare. They refused. The train was stopped, and they 
 attempted to put them off. Out came their revolvers. Then 
 came the fight. The bell-rope was pulled. The engine was 
 stopped. I was called in. There was a train full of passen- 
 gers, frightened and helpless. Every one was afraid of being 
 shot, and no one wanted to mix in the fight. The conductor 
 and brakeman were being beaten, and the car was being emptied 
 of men and women " 
 
 u Well, what did you do?" 
 
 " I took hold as best I could, and saved the conductor's life 
 and endangered my own. One of the men I threw off the train 
 in a disabled condition, and the other we took to Worcester 
 and locked him up. Imagine ten thousand such desperadoes 
 loose in a town. That is what this doctrine of the Interna- 
 tionals means, and the time will come when, if this doctrine 
 spreads, America will have trouble. I am in sympathy with the 
 words posted on the gate where a crowd of these workingmen, 
 so called, were to assemble to listen to inflammatory appeals. 
 
 1 Stand still where you are,' said the paper, ' and think 
 before going further in this path of danger. An hour's work 
 may cost millions of money and hundreds of lives. All the 
 lives lost will not be on one side only, and the money will come 
 back on the people to be paid out of the taxes to be imposed 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 113 
 
 on all. Powder burns more than one hand when it is used. 
 Keep on the side of law, and keep the law on the side of 
 laborers. If they want to right their wrongs, they must keep in 
 the path of right. ' This is true. There is a great deal of talk 
 about capital being the enemy of labor. That is not true. 
 Capital and labor must work together. The capitalist and the 
 laborer are partners now in business, and it requires good faith 
 on both sides to make business profitable. Neither prospers 
 alone. It is my faith, men, that we should beware of men who 
 talk violence, riot, and bloodshed." 
 
 " Are you not a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive 
 Engineers ?" 
 
 "/a**" 
 
 " Would you as an engineer give up your engine if ordered 
 to do so for the good of the Order ?" 
 
 " What ! betray a company that took me when a boy into 
 their employ, and have brought me up and opened every path 
 of promotion and prosperity to me, treating me with uniform 
 kindness from the first to the present ? Would I leave this 
 company's interests to be sacrificed and join a party determined 
 to make war upon them because of the behest of some one at a 
 distance ? / would not. ' ' 
 
 " Then you are not worthy to belong to the Order. " 
 
 " / am," said Sam. " My reason for saying so is this : A 
 man must be true to the trust given him if he would be of 
 value anywhere. Some claim because I am a Mason that I am 
 bound to do wrong. I would not do wrong for Masonry, 
 knowingly, nor for anything else. A false man is never a true 
 man. In joining the Brotherhood I joined to help my fellow- 
 craftsmen, not to injure the company. It is my faith that the 
 better engineers we are, the more value we are to the company. 
 If we let go of this purpose we are lost. It seems to me that 
 you are all in peril. At times I have been under conviction. 
 Those words of the preacher in his sermon to us still ring in 
 my ears, ' Accept Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the 
 life. Jesus was true to God and true to men. Whoever 
 
114 SAM HOBART. 
 
 accepts the guidance of this light entereth a path which shall 
 grow brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Do this for 
 the world's sake as well as your own.' ' 
 
 " You a preacher, Sara ?' " 
 
 " No ; but I am thinking that we are treading very close to 
 danger. The best way for us is to work on, keep the wheels 
 moving, and avoid everything that makes an unfriendly feeling 
 with those who have all the risks of business both for them- 
 selves and for workingrnen. Turn away from bad advisers, and 
 above all, don't unchain the tiger. " 
 
 These words cost him much sorrow of heart. The isolation 
 of a man that will not bow down to the image set up by other 
 hands, gets into trouble in Boston as in Babylon, where, be- 
 cause of such a refusal, Daniel was cast into the lion's den. 
 
 Sam's apprehensions were well founded. It was in 1866 
 when these words were spoken. He had defined his position. 
 He stood with the men who stood with him. 
 
 Let us close this chapter by quoting from " The Annals of 
 the Great Strikes in the United States," by Hon. J. A. Dacus, 
 Ph.D., in which the battle between capital and labor of 1877 
 is described. Truly did he say the events where phenomenal. 
 
 " A republic still regarded in the light of an experiment, hav- 
 ing lately terminated a long and fierce sectional conflict by en- 
 gaging in one of the greatest wars of modern times ; having 
 achieved order, reconciliation, and peace between all sections ; 
 having demonstrated the greatness and magnanimity of the 
 people ; having extorted from the enemies of liberal institutions 
 acknowledgments that self-government was a possibility ; hav- 
 ing accomplished all these things, this republic suddenly startles 
 the world, drowns the noise of strife on the Bulgarian plains 
 and among the Balkans, and draws exclusive attention to a 
 social emeute on this side of the Atlantic, unparalleled in the 
 annals of time." . . . 
 
 11 Sudden as a thunderburst from a clear sky the crisis came 
 upon the country. Hundreds of thousands of men belonging 
 to the laboring classes, alleging that they were wronged and 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 115 
 
 oppressed, ceased to work, seized railroads, closed factories, 
 foundries, shops, and mills, and laid a complete embargo on 
 all internal commerce, interrupted travel, and bid defiance to 
 the ordinary instrument of legal authority. Commencing at 
 Camden Station, Baltimore, July 17th, 1877, and at Martins- 
 burgh, West Virginia, in three days the movement had extended 
 to Pittsburgh, Newark, Ohio, Hornelisville, N. Y., Fort Wayne 
 Ind., and a hundred other -points. State militia forces were 
 encountered and repelled. The whole country seemed stricken 
 by a profound dread of impending rum. In the large cities 
 the cause of the strikers was espoused by a nondescript class of 
 the idle, the vicious, the visionary, and the whole rabble of the 
 pariahs of society. No standing army was available, and these 
 classes absolutely controlled the country." 
 
 PITTSBURGH IN THE HANDS OF THE MOB. 
 
 Without attempting to give a history of the strike, let us, as 
 an illustration of the manner in which Sam's forebodings were 
 realized, glean some of these terrible facts from the narrative. 
 " At noon Friday, July 20th, the strikers and other workingtnen 
 held a meeting in the yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
 pany, which was attended by a vast crowd of people. Then the 
 State militia came in and took their places along the tracks. 
 The citizens of Pittsburgh as a mass were decided in expres- 
 sions of sympathy with the strikers. The spirit of the Inter- 
 nationals was revelling in fiendish delight. Women taunted 
 soldiers and encouraged the canaille to deeds of violence. It 
 was a repetition of the scenes witnessed in Paris, in those terri- 
 ble days when the Commune rose in 1871, only on a less scale. 
 It was a new experience to meet with women in mobs. But 
 they were abroad now, and exerted an influence for evil that 
 can scarcely be estimated. All night the uproar was contin- 
 ued. Pittsburgh was fast becoming drunk with passion dark, 
 unrelenting, devilish passion, that would hesitate to commit no 
 crime, shrink not from any deed of horror. . , . The law- 
 
116 SAM HOBART. 
 
 abiding citizens were in a state of alarm and trepidation. ' They 
 stood,' in the language of Statins, ' in silent astonishment, 
 and waited for the fall of the yet doubtful thunderbolt. ' But 
 the surging masses of the strikers and the mob were neither 
 silent nor astonished. They neither knew when, nor cared 
 how, the impending bolt would fall. Vast multitudes of men 
 of the lowest character, largely of boys from sixteen to twenty, 
 actuated by the most brutal passions, were assembled for the 
 sole purpose of inaugurating a reign of terror among the people, 
 and to light the torch of destruction in the city. Clamoring 
 for a redress of grievances which they were unable to formulate 
 or distinctly specify, the mighty throngs of uneasy spirits who 
 had been called into action in consequence of the railroad 
 strikes, were preparing to commit the most heinous crimes 
 against the peace and order of society. These men had no 
 grievances to be redressed. They were the vagrants of our 
 modern social organization. They prated of the downfall of 
 liberty, when in truth they did not have a comprehension of the 
 meaning of the word. Liberty is a proud spirit ; it regards 
 government as the true instrument of human happiness, and re- 
 sists it only when it becomes manifestly prejudicial to happi- 
 ness. It is consistent with a sense of duty and a willingness to 
 bear just restraint, and uncombined with these it achieves noth- 
 ing lasting. 
 
 " It was an hour fraught with momentous events. A city con- 
 taining a population of more than 120,000 was without law, in 
 the complete possession of a vast mob, armed, vindictive, and 
 cruel. The demoniac yells, the laud profanity, the terrible 
 threats, were united to swell the awful volume of angry noises. 
 It seemed as if the infernal regions had been emptied of its 
 myriads of fiends, who were released for the purpose of enact- 
 ing on earth the orgies of hell. Men, women, old and young, 
 high and low, both sexes, all conditions, all orders, all classes 
 in life, came forth and joined the angry, surging tide of 
 humanity that incessantly ebbed and flowed through the streets 
 of the fated city. 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 117 
 
 The strikers were resolute and determined. But the chief 
 danger was in the presence of an immense number of vagrants 
 and tramps, idle miners and roughs of every character. 
 Strange to say, there was a large element in the population of 
 Pittsburgh, who had the reputation of being respectable people 
 tradesmen, householders, well-to-do mechanics and such 
 who were witnesses of the progress of the turbulent mob, and 
 who not only did not protest against their proceedings, but 
 openly mingled with them and encouraged them to commit 
 deeds of violence. 
 
 " Stores full of arms had been burst open and robbed. Whis- 
 key flowed in streams, and men and women drank to their fill. 
 Immense amounts of valuable property, arrested in transit, filled 
 long lines of freight cars on the railway tracks and were 
 burned. Splendid stores and luxuriously appointed mansions 
 were all placed at the mercy of a mob which had set law at 
 defiance. Municipal government was at an end, police 
 authority despised, and even the government of a great State 
 openly defied. 
 
 THE STORM BURSTS. 
 
 "It was half past one o'clock Sunday morning, July 22d, 
 when the fire-bells rang out ; the awful announcement was 
 made that the depot and cars and city were being fired. The 
 militia were driven out of the city. The machine-shop, eleva- 
 tors, car- sheds filled with freight cars, the great hotels were on 
 fire. 
 
 " About noon Sunday a mass-meeting of citizens was called 
 and a committee composed of bishops, clergymen, and others 
 was appointed to confer with the mob. They would not hear 
 them. The property of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
 was being wholly consumed, and the mob would not allow one 
 drop of water to be thrown upon the burning, seething mass. 
 Then the work of pillage began. Cars were broken open and 
 every one helped themselves as they desired. Fat Irishwomen 
 were seen carrying a pair of white slippers suited to a delicate 
 
118 SAM HOBART. 
 
 lady ; another would roll a barrel of flour along the sidewalk ; 
 boys hurried through the crowd with large-sized family Bibles 
 as their share of the plunder, while scores of females took and 
 carried off whatever they could lay their hands on, without 
 regard to utility, and thus it went on until at last the citizens 
 arose, formed a vigilance committee, and prevented further 
 incendiarism. The reign of the mob was over. It came to all 
 that hell was not paradise. The citizens who were in sympa- 
 thy with the strikers at the outset had been alienated from 
 them by the deeds of the communistic mob, and the revulsion 
 was so marked and so dangerous in its symptoms that the law- 
 breakers naturally felt alarmed. Thus this spirit of violence 
 sped westward. In Kansas City, Mo., reason resumed its 
 sway, and at a meeting held on July 24th, between the execu- 
 tive committee appointed by the strikers and the arbitration 
 committee, the strikers passed a resolution declaring their de- 
 sire to see business resumed on all the railroads throughout the 
 land, and expressing confidence in the justice and fair-minded- 
 ness of the railroad managers, and declaring their readiness to 
 resume work ; and so the strike which began without reason 
 ended without redress of injuries or advancement of wages." 
 
 Had Sam's advice been taken when he plead for brotherhood 
 among engineers and for respect of property and law, this 
 strike had been avoided. 
 
 The charge is made that Colonel Thomas A. Scott was re- 
 sponsible for the destruction of property at Pittsburgh. ' i He 
 could/' says a writer, " have arrested the progress of the 
 strike ; he could have ended the conflict ; he could have 
 calmed the rising storm of heated passion ; he could have 
 swept away the volumes of human misery that were rolling on ; 
 he could have extinguished the little flame that threatened to 
 become a conflagration ; aye, with a word he could have stayed 
 the stroke of the angel of death which waited to descend upon 
 scores of wretched beings, driven by hunger to desperation. 
 But he would not." That is one side. Let us behold the 
 other. In a letter published in the New York Herald July 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 119 
 
 25th, 1877, he says : " I see an account of an interview with 
 P. M. Arthur, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, in 
 which he states that if Thomas A. Scott had gone himself to 
 Pittsburgh, bloodshed and arson would have been averted. 
 4 Whenever the officers of a road have met the Brotherhood and 
 have evinced a disposition to treat with us, we have had no 
 strike ; it is only whenever they have refused to arbitrate with 
 us that we have had a strike as the only means of redress.' ' 
 
 " In response to this permit me to say," said Thomas A. 
 Scott, " that this whole statement is most unfair to me and the 
 company. The first intimation of this strike was given me 
 after I had retired for the night at a point on the Delaware 
 River twenty miles from Philadelphia, and the strike was in- 
 augurated without any attempt to have a conference with the 
 officers of the company. So much was this the case that the 
 Superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division had started East 
 with his family and was on his way to Altoona, where the 
 strike took place, and the trains of the company were stopped. 
 . . . At all times and under all circumstances, when the 
 men in the service of our company have come to meet the 
 officers of the road for conference they have been promptly 
 and courteously met. It is not more than a month since a 
 large delegation of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers 
 had a conference with me at the office in this city, where every- 
 thing pertaining to the question of reduction was fully dis- 
 cussed, the result of which was that the men, representing, as 
 they stated to me, the engineers and firemen, addressed me a 
 letter stating that the reason given for the reduction of wages 
 caused by the great depression of the business of the country 
 was entirely satisfactory to them, and that they would stand 
 thoroughly and firmly by the company." 
 
 This proves, as Sam delighted to say, that there was no 
 trouble in getting on with employers, if employes would 
 remember that the interests of capital and labor are identical, 
 and that men occupying positions of responsibility have often- 
 times more trouble than those whose responsibilities are less. 
 
120 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 The riot at Pittsburgh and the disasters which came upon the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad Company broke the heart of President 
 Scott. It is said that when he visited the Iron City after the 
 calamities had come upon it, as he rode through the streets he 
 wept like a child, and exclaimed, "This is enough to break one's 
 faith in human nature." The iron entered his soul. He was 
 never the same man after it. He who had served the nation 
 as assistant secretary of war and had revealed traits of character 
 so invaluable that the nation without him would have been 
 poor, and who had built up the Pennsylvania Railroad and 
 planned connections for it through the south and west, which 
 made it a felt power in the nation, saw in the four million of 
 dollars of property consumed because of the lawlessness of men 
 that which blocked the path to enterprise and put far off the 
 consummation of the hopes of which he had dreamed and for 
 which he had toiled. 
 
 THE FAITH OF WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT REWARDED. 
 
 On the New York Central Railroad every effort was made to 
 induce the employes to swerve from their loyalty and surrender 
 to the communistic spirit of the hour. Those who remember 
 the faith of William H. Vanderbilt, the president of the road, 
 in the men who worked it, will recall how he stood almost 
 alone in the nation, unshaken in purpose and undismayed by 
 disaster. Though commerce was arrested and industry para- 
 lyzed and property was being reduced in value or rendered 
 utterly worthless, he remained uncompromising and firm. 
 Henry George in " Progress and Poverty," p. 84, described 
 the condition of affairs when he said : u A strike, which is the 
 only recourse by which a trades-union can enfore its demands, 
 is a destructive contest ; just such a contest as that to which an 
 eccentric called the i Money King' once in the early days of 
 San Francisco challenged a man who had taunted him with 
 meanness, that they should go down to the wharf and alternately 
 toss twenty-dollar gold pieces into the bay until one gave in. 
 The struggle of endurance involved in a strike is really what it 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 121 
 
 has often been compared to a war ; and like all war it lessens 
 wealth. And the organization for it must, like the organiza- 
 tion for war, be tyrannical. As even the man who lights for 
 freedom must, when he enters an army, give up his personal 
 freedom and become a mere part in a great machine, so must 
 it be with workmen who organize for a strike. These combina- 
 tions aTe, therefore, necessarily destructive of the very things 
 which workmen seek to gain through them wealth and free- 
 dom. " Every one saw this truth standing forth in startling 
 proportions. Peril was in the air. The country became 
 alarmed. The trunk line of the Pennsylvania Road was 
 broken. The Erie Road was in the hands of the mob. So 
 was the Baltimore and Ohio. Let the New York Central go 
 and all was gone. New York, Philadelphia, and even Washing- 
 ton were at the mercy of men without character, without prop- 
 erty, without responsibility. William II. Vanderbilt saw the 
 peril and stood like a rock in mid-ocean, undaunted and undis- 
 turbed by the wild waves of riot that threatened him. It was 
 then proven that nothing is so great as greatness, and nothing 
 is so small as smallness. As in the days when John Jacob 
 Astor was in the zenith of his power, men came to him and de- 
 manded that he should divide his property with the mob. His 
 reply was, " That would do you no good. You don't know 
 enough to keep wealth if you had it. I should get it back in a 
 little time, if I gave it to you. I am now but your agent, and I 
 am doing the work so well that I keep the wolf from your door. 
 You had better let me alone. You will make by it. " The old 
 man spoke wisely. So William II. Vanderbilt grasped the 
 situation and became the big brother of the concern. While 
 Pittsburgh was in flames and the riot was in progress, William 
 II. Vanderbilt telegraphed his superintendent, J. W r . Tilling- 
 hast, then in Buffalo, saying : " I have every confidence in the 
 good sense and stability of a large majority of our employes. 
 The whole country is now looking most anxiously on them, and 
 I feel confident that they will sustain their reputation and that 
 of the road by making common cause ; having the fullest 
 
122 SAM HOBART. 
 
 assurance that when the business of the country will justify it, 
 they will receive compensation accordingly." 
 
 Z, C. Priest telegraphed that " on the Eastern Division a large 
 majority are well informed and have a reputation they do not 
 wish to tarnish." This faith held them. President Vander- 
 bilt was at Saratoga and stood firm. July 23d came. Though 
 his men had been driven out from their shop and the demand 
 had been made for a restoration of the former rate of wages, he 
 said, u The proposition could not be entertained for a moment. 
 The owners of the road could not consent to let the employes 
 manage it." <5 There is a great principle involved in this 
 matter," said Mr. Vanderbilt, " and we cannot afford to yield, 
 and the country cannot afford to have us yield." " I put 
 great confidence in our men. There is a perfect understanding 
 between the heads of departments and the employes, and they 
 appreciate, I think, so thoroughly the identity of interest be- 
 tween themselves and us that I cannot for a moment believe 
 they will have any part in this business. I am proud of the 
 men of the Central Road, and my groat trust in them is 
 founded on their intelligent appreciation of the business situa- 
 tion at the present time. If they shall stand firm in the present 
 crisis it will be a triumph of good sense over blind fury and 
 fanaticism. Our business relations with all our men on the 
 Central are shaped, as they fully understand, by the emergen- 
 cies of the business situation. Their hope, like ours, is for 
 better times. We have simply done what wo have been 
 obliged to do, and they comprehend this thoroughly." 
 " In case of trouble, what then, Mr. Vanderbilt ?" 
 " We shall run trains just as long as the public authorities 
 afford us protection from desperadoes. The railroad is an in- , 
 stitution for the accommodation of the public, and as such is 
 entitled to public protection. When we can no longer run our 
 trains we shall close our shop, but we shall control our roads 
 so long as we run them. No demand made in a juncture like 
 the present or accompanied by a display of force or intimida- 
 tion, will receive any consideration at our hands, and so far as 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AXD CAPITAL. 123 
 
 the Central is concerned we do not expect any trouble. The 
 persons, I notice, who are doing much of the mischief 'are not 
 railroad men at all, and I expect that our Central employes 
 would defend the property of the railroad rather than take 
 sides with the rioters. They are men generally who are proud 
 of their road, and whose instinct would lead them to fight for 
 It rather than against it." Notwithstanding there was said to 
 be a strike, Mr. Yanderbilt did not believe it. He stood by 
 the men and said, u I am not informed of any strike on the 
 part of Central employes. They had been driven out of tho 
 shop by a crowd of rioters and had been forced to stop work. 
 That was all there was of it." 
 
 REPORTER. li What about the demand for an increase of 
 twenty-five per cent in wages ?" 
 
 MR. VANDERBILT. " I have received no such demand from 
 the men of the Central. A despatch was received last night 
 embracing something of the sort, but I would not insult the 
 men of the Central by attributing it to them. He believed 
 that the rioters belonged to the communistic classes who were 
 determined to pillage and destroy, and the government must 
 protect business. He still had confidence in his men.* The 
 conditions of law and order are to be sought for. The entire 
 
 * As the proof-sheets of this book come before me I read on this 
 May 3d, 1883, the story of his retirement from the position of rail- 
 way president, after expressing his sincere thanks to all the employes 
 of the different companies for the assistance and co-operation they 
 have rendered him in the performance of his dnties, and the following 
 timely words of regret from the directors associated with him : 
 Resolved, That the directors learn with regret the determination of 
 William H. Vanderbilt to no longer act as president of the company. 
 For nineteen years his administration first of the Hudson Kiver Rail- 
 road Company and subsequently of the consolidated New York Cen- 
 tral and Hudson River corporation has met the unanimous approval 
 of the stockholders. The record shows a business success unexam- 
 pled in the management of companies of this character, due mainly 
 to the skill and fidelity with which he has conducted the affairs of the 
 corporations. 
 
124 SAM HOBART. 
 
 difficulty springs from outsiders, and should be so dealt 
 with." 
 
 The country became alarmed. Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, 
 and Baltimore had been terrorized and threatened by the mob. 
 In the mean time the inhabitants of the great cities saw that the 
 public was quite as dependent upon the railroads as the rail- 
 roads were upon the public. The famine of India would be 
 reproduced in America in four weeks if the lines of railways 
 were broken. They hold the keys to our warehouses. They 
 control our supplies of fuel and food. Sam Hobart saw it in 
 1867. Everybody saw in 1877 that if the capabilities of the 
 railroads were destroyed, in a short time bread riots, starvation, 
 bloodshed, carnage, and suffering would become terrible facts. 
 Hence all breathed freer when the words, ' ' The strike is 
 ended," were seen on the head-lines, and it was known that 
 danger was averted for the moment. It might spring up again 
 any moment. Confidence in employers and in employes was a 
 necessity, and the religion of Christ can alone meet this felt 
 want. 
 
 Among the utterances Sam delighted to quote was this : 
 " One set informs the world that it is to be regenerated by 
 cheap bread, free trade, and that peculiar form of the freedom 
 of industry which in plain language signifies, ' the despotism 
 of capital ' and which, whatever it means, is merely some out- 
 ward system, circumstance or * dodge ' about man and not in 
 him. Another party's nostrum is more churches, more schools, 
 more clergymen excellent things in their way, better things 
 than cheap bread or free trade, provided only that they are ex- 
 cellent that the churches, schools, clergymen, are good ones. 
 For my part, I seem to have learned that the only thing to 
 regenerate the world is not more of any system, good or bad, 
 but simply more of the Spirit of God." 
 
 Though when the storm broke upon the land Sam Hobart 
 was in his grave, it is apparent that had he been in health and 
 strength he would have been a peacemaker between employers 
 and employed, and if peace had been impossible he would 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 125 
 
 have stood with those who stood with him and who leaned 
 upon him with assuring confidence, as the men of the New York 
 Central stood with Mr. Vanderbilt. Such men are invaluable 
 at any time and in any place. On men thus principled busi- 
 ness interests rest with assuring confidence, and to them rewards 
 for well-doing come in time and in eternity. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVES OF OUR COMMERCIAL LIFE THEIR 
 OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 ENOUGH is not made of the men who bear the burdens of our 
 commercial life. They are the " epistles" of the nation, known 
 and read of all men. They are composed of employers and of 
 employed. Of men who produce, whether in the factory or in 
 the field, and who handle commodities, whether in the store, in 
 the warehouse, or on the thoroughfares of transportation and 
 exchange. All are linked together. Try as much as men 
 choose, it is found that society is composed of a system of 
 mutual interdependence. The president of the railroad and 
 the switch-tender, the engineer and the fireman, the conductor 
 and the brakeman, the manufacturer and the operator, the 
 people who buy and the people who sell, the people who raise 
 grain and they who eat it, are identified in interest. This 
 truth we are apt to forget. Ever and anon Providence lifts the 
 cover off from society, and humanity stands unroofed before the 
 people as it always is before God. We see the palpitating 
 heart, the active brain, the implacable will, and get conceptions 
 of the forces which influence, mould, and fashion the destinies 
 of men. We look down into depths of struggle, of strife, of 
 poverty, of trial, of wearying care, of distress, of perplexity, 
 and of doubt, of which we had no conception. Every individ- 
 ual knows much about his own troubles, but he knows very 
 little of those which beset and give distress to his neighbor. 
 
 It is natural for all to think much of their own cares and not 
 to think of those which come to their neighbors. 
 
 The sorrows of the poor are on the world's broad tongue. 
 They can be heard. Society's ear is open to them. The press 
 
REPRESENTATIVES OF OUR COMMERCIAL LIFE. 127 
 
 voices their murmurs and articulates their distress. At times 
 the opinion prevails that there are no other sorrows except 
 those endured by the struggling sons of toil. Few think of 
 the sorrows of the rich. Little is said about the perplexities 
 of the employer. We forget that capitalists are compelled to 
 contend with capitalists as man contends with his fellow. 
 That a railroad president, representing millions of money and 
 thousands of men who seek employment and stock held as a 
 chief dependence by widows and orphans, is compelled to cope 
 with another president as an individual and as the head of a 
 rival corporation, while at the same time he is under obliga- 
 tions to protect the interests of stockholders as though he was 
 personally interested in their individual profits and losses. 
 Who ever thinks of the cares that infest the rich, that rob them 
 of rest, and that fill them with anxiety, more because of those 
 dependent upon them than because of themselves ? And yet 
 these men who stand at the head of affairs in banks, in stores, 
 in factories, in railroads, and in numberless other positions of 
 trust, are our epistles as much as are the men who march in 
 trades- unions or who clamor against a fall in wages. 
 
 This society forgets, and yet it deserves to be remembered, 
 that the helpless may be helped, the wants of the needy sup- 
 plied, energies directed, and efforts to better one's condition 
 encouraged. It is often said that Christianity and trade do not 
 go well together. It is beginning to be apparent that trade can- 
 not get on satisfactorily without Christianity. There is a moral 
 law. There is a spiritual realm. It surrounds us. It is a part 
 of us. Violate its laws and society is dismembered. If em- 
 ployers ignore the rights of the weak and the poor, God be- 
 comes their champion and spoils those who spoiled them. 
 
 If the employed trample upon the rights of employers, burn, 
 rend, and destroy in their mad folly, and they are not restrained, 
 society is robbed of every claim to respect. An opportunity 
 has come to unbend. In the past there has been growing up a 
 caste feeling ; workingmen have divided themselves off into 
 classes. These men have acted as though they lived in a world 
 
128 SAM HOBART. 
 
 by themselves, and somehow could manage and control the 
 business which devolved upon others. All this Sam fought 
 with all his might. lie did not believe that boards of direction 
 could afford to ignore the interests of those represented. He 
 felt that the true rule was the golden rule, " As ye would that 
 others should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." This 
 he said has been understood to apply to those who stood on a 
 level, but not to reach up or down. Moral law plays like a 
 piston, up and down. It comes from God and descends to the 
 lowest, the weakest, and the most dependent. The time has 
 come when employers should put themselves in the place of the 
 employed, and when the employed should put themselves in 
 the place of the employer. The noble manner in which this 
 principle has been illustrated in the management of some of the 
 great manufacturing interests of the land deserves all praise. 
 No greater mistake was ever made than the one contained in 
 the supposition that men of property have no interest in the 
 people who toil. How absurd the theory. The most of them 
 came up from the small to the large, because they proved trust- 
 worthy. Society has to lean on something, and will lean on 
 the best it can find. If you want confidence, deserve it and 
 you will have it, was Sam's principle of action. Could work- 
 ingmen hear how they are praised in the home-circle for well- 
 doing ; could they understand how true it is that the men who 
 are successful employers must be in sympathy with the wants 
 of men employed, I am sure thousands of hearts would be 
 opened toward them which are now closed. 
 
 Each class of employments has its peculiar advantages and its 
 peculiar dangers. As each approaches the highest point of de- 
 velopment, they draw nearer and nearer toward one another as 
 the opposite sides of a pyramid, far apart at the base, meet at 
 the top. 
 
 There are those who make ignorance of everything outside 
 of their business their glory. They shut their doors to all the 
 world beyond a narrow circle. Over the gates of their minds 
 they write "No admittance except on business." They live in 
 
REPRESENTATIVES OF OUR COMMERCIAL LIFE. 129 
 
 a narrow world. History is a blank, poetry an untravelled 
 wilderness, and science an unexplored realm. Books and 
 knowledge and wise discourse and the amenities of life are like 
 words in a strange tongue. To the hard, smooth surface of 
 their souls, nothing genial, graceful, or winning will cling. 
 They cannot afford thus to live. God is above them and asks 
 for love. Humanity is beneath and around them and cries for 
 help. 
 
 Suppose men of wealth should strike. Suppose the owners 
 of railroads should refuse to run them, the men who handle 
 grain should refuse to buy it ; suppose the men of wealth 
 should imitate the men of poverty, what would become of us ? 
 It is a fact that a man worth millions is under no greater obli- 
 gations to use the means in his possession wisely than is the 
 man who only has his labor to depend upon. The man with 
 five talents who used them did wisely ; but the man with one 
 talent who hid it in the earth did foolishly. If men of wealth, 
 of position, and of power should refuse to put forth exertion, 
 our cities would be filled with starving multitudes, our farmers 
 would be impoverished because of the lack of ability to ex- 
 change their crops for money necessary to supply the waste of 
 machinery ; our miners would be out of employ, and death 
 and destruction would come upon all classes. 
 
 The value of commercial integrity as a source of thrift is 
 overlooked. There are those who trust to shrewdness and 
 sharpness, and suavity rather than to honor, honesty, and up- 
 rightness. It is a mistake. The merchants who deal with 
 men as if they never expected to see them again, cannot com- 
 pare with those who seek to do a safe business by giving satis- 
 faction as an inducement to trade on the morrow. The mer- 
 chants of France and Italy are not expected to tell the truth. 
 The result is apparent in the lack of wholesale establishments. 
 Paris and Rome are not commercial centres and never can be 
 until truthfulness and integrity become their characteristics. 
 The same is true of men who toil. The man who seeks to do 
 no more than he agreed to do, who is ever playing sharp and 
 
130 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 shrewd with his employer, will not be able to compete with the 
 man or men who make the interest of their employer their in- 
 terests. 44 What is the secret of your success ?" said a man to 
 Deacon John G. Whipple. <4 My employers know that I 
 Httend to their business and that on quarter day they get every 
 dollar that is due them." That was only a part of the truth. 
 He was as true to the men with whom he did business as to 
 those who employed him. Every one trusted him because he 
 was true to every one. 
 
 Such a man is a success no matter where he begins. A man 
 who does with perfect accuracy and thoroughness what his 
 hand finds to do, what is ordinary and established in the 
 routine of business, and has always a sure and piercing glance 
 ahead and around, is sure of success. In every walk of life 
 there are certain minutiae which are visible only to the man of 
 insight, and to be seized only by the man of tact, but which 
 are yet the tender, scarce perceptible filaments leading to for- 
 tune's mines. If you know not how to seize those, no matter 
 where you start, you are sure to meet with defeat ; but if you 
 know how to seize them, start where you may, the smiles of 
 fortune may be secured. 
 
 Let love exist and let it be without dissimulation. Cleave to 
 ' that which is good and right and true, and abhor that which is 
 evil. This do because such characteristics ennoble and enlarge 
 men. 
 
 " Do you not believe that the illustration of the teachings of 
 the gospel is the main safeguard of the country ?" said a father 
 to his son. 
 
 44 I do," was the reply. 
 
 44 Why, then, do you not seek to help the country by living 
 in conformity with the teachings of the Word of God ?" 
 
 44 Because I am not pious. " 
 
 44 But you ought to be pious." 
 
 44 I know that ; but I am not, and until I am I will not enter 
 upon such a life." 
 
 Does not that opinion prevail ? Is not God's government 
 
REPRESENTATIVES OF OUR COMMERCIAL LIFE. 131 
 
 ignored because men do not profess religion ? We cannot 
 afford to have it ignored. This is professedly a Christian 
 'land. Is it so ? Does a youth find here an open door to be 
 and do all that he finds within himself the capacity of being 
 and doing ? All know he does not. The way to apprentice- 
 ship, to trades, is blocked by men who object to new-comers 
 because of the peril threatening wages. The dog in the 
 rnanger that could not eat hay and would not let the ox do it 
 was as generous, as wise, as far-seeing as is such a man. 
 
 Despotism in the small lives in communities. It is seen 
 among men who control wages as well as among men who pay 
 wages. It is impossible for liberty to exist in the large when 
 it is rejected by the individual. Hence the make-up of our 
 great cities creates uneasiness and apprehension. A city is 
 connected by a myriad net-work of electric communication 
 with all parts of the country, and the powerful and assimilative 
 influence of intercommunication with all parts of the country is 
 ever operating. The nerves of the social body, diverging from 
 the sensorium, lie along the channels of commercial, literary, 
 and religious correspondence, affiliating every village, neigh- 
 borhood, and hamlet in sympathetic and dependent existence, 
 and diffusing the influence of wealth and arts and letters to the 
 farthest bounds of the state, and a reacting influence of every 
 event occurring in every part of the land, and almost of the 
 world, vibrates along these nerves and is tremblingly felt at the 
 centres of trade. Let us remember this. Let not the head 
 ignore the hand or the heart or the foot. Let the head, the 
 heart, the hand, and the foot be in accord. u Charge them 
 that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor 
 trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us 
 richly all things to enjoy ; that they do good, that they be rich 
 in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate ; 
 laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the 
 time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life." * 
 Honor all men and cultivate respect for all classes. Poets, 
 
 * 1 Tim. 6 : 17. 
 
132 SAM HOBART. 
 
 orators, sculptors, painters, artists, writers, mechanics live and 
 thrive in cities and in the land because each is necessary to all. 
 The providence of God summons the representatives of our 
 commercial life to posts of responsibility and of influence such 
 as the men of Babylon, Tyre, and Sidon never knew. When 
 I think of what is to be the future of America, if the men who 
 now live shall find it in their hearts to respect the rights of 
 their fellows ; when her wildernesses shall be converted into 
 fruitful fields, and her deserts are made to bud and blossom as 
 the rose ; when the mineral, the agricultural, and the manufact- 
 uring wealth of the nation is developed ; when cotton-fiuld shall 
 wave greetings to wheat-field ; when the toilers in the South 
 shall vie with the laborers of the North in promoting the ad- 
 vancement of every healthful enterprise ; when the men who 
 stand at the gateways of traffic in the East shall faithfully repre- 
 sent the men who work on the vast prairies and deep-flowing 
 rivers, among the mines of the Western mountains, and on the 
 shores of the Pacific, then shall come such a largeness of bless- 
 ing as shall fill the garner of national hope, and glorify a people 
 called of God to lead the highest and best thought of the ages. 
 
 An opportunity to proclaim the friendship of God to all has 
 come. God cares for the poor. Proof of this fact is found in 
 the very construction of society and in the declarations of the 
 Bible, from Deuteronomy to Revelation. 
 
 God also cares for the rich. The crown of the wise is their 
 riches. To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
 more abundantly. They are held responsible for the use or 
 abuse of their trust. If they are not faithful in the unrighteous 
 Mammon, He will not commit to them the true riches. God 
 holds all responsible for the use or misuse of their powers. 
 No man, no city, no state occupies an isolated position. 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh and Babylon went to the wall, 
 not because they lacked position or were not well situated for 
 trade, but because they neglected opportunities to advance the 
 interests of the race. 
 
 Trade finds its foundation stone and its security in confidence 
 
REPRESENTATIVES OF OUR COMMERCIAL LIFE. 133 
 
 derived from conduct which harmonizes with the claims of the 
 gospel. Commercial honor is a power as well as a praise. 
 With that preserved inviolate, a man may be poor in purse but 
 of inestimable value in the community. To sustain and help 
 such fortunes are pledged. It is possible for all to obtain the 
 . boon. These opportunities are within more than without. 
 The country holds thousands who are ready to pay for capacity 
 linked to honor aud trustworthiness. Have you that which 
 meets the demand ? New doors to usefulness are opening every 
 hour. Grand opportunities are ever presenting themselves to 
 men who have the discernment to see them and the capacity to 
 meet the requirements of the position. Let us rejoice that 
 there are about us so many models of excellence. Christian 
 men stand as pillars of support in this land which uphold the 
 nation's name and fame. Be workers with them. Lead for- 
 ward in the way of life. 
 
 " Ah, the wrongs that might be righted, 
 
 If we would but see the way ; 
 Ah, the pains that might be lightened 
 
 Every hour and every day, 
 If we would but hear the pleadings 
 
 Of the hearts that go astray. 
 Le us step outside the stronghold 
 
 Of our selfishness and pride ; 
 Let us lift our fainting brothers, 
 
 Let us strengthen ere we chide. 
 Let us, ere we blame the fallen, 
 
 Hold a light to cheer and guide. 
 Ah, how blessed, ah, how blessed 
 
 Earth would be, if we would try 
 Thus to aid and right the weaker, 
 
 Thus to check each brother's sigh ; 
 Thus to walk in duty's pathway 
 
 To our better life on high." 
 
 An opportunity for the display of love has come. Let it 
 exist. There is but little of it in comparison with what there 
 should be. That man that manifests an interest in another's 
 
134 SAM HOI3ART. 
 
 welfare, that greets employer or employed with a smile, that is 
 not afraid to sacrifice self for the good of another, will succeed. 
 
 This insight is the gift of God. Believe in him and serve 
 him, and it shall be welL Refuse to serve him, and it shall not 
 be well. God never forgets. How wonderful the words of 
 Jacob to Simeon andLevi at the last : " Instruments of cruelty 
 are in your habitations. O, my soul, come not thou into 
 their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou 
 united : for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self- 
 will they digged down a wall." 
 
 "Will the conduct of men be forgotten, who for selfish pur- 
 poses have turned back the wheels of progress and brought 
 starvation and penury to thousands of homes ? Will he not 
 say again : "Cursed be their anycr for it was fierce, and their 
 wrath for it was cruel " ? 
 
 The key to prosperity is within our reach. It is knocking 
 at the door. It is ready to enter in and shed the glad smile of 
 its benefaction over home and workshop, over store and fac- 
 tory, over field and mine. It has been ordained that honesty, 
 industry, integrity, fair dealing, and brotherly kindness enable 
 any man to unlock the gates which to others are locked and 
 barred, providing the conditions of honesty are met. It is 
 never found in unsettling values nor in dishonest practices. 
 Just balances and just weights are essential to the prosperity of 
 all classes. Honesty is more than the best policy ; it is duty. 
 Take from the nation " the wisdom of the wise and the under- 
 standing of the prudent, and it hasteneth to ruin." God holds 
 each one responsible for using time, talent, and money for the 
 advancement of man's highest interests. God summons his 
 children by the voice of truth to sublime endeavor. It is be- 
 cause God does not die, but lives in the darkness as in the 
 light, and watches from on high to reward honesty and integrity 
 and to frown upon trickery and fraud, that no matter how the 
 pendulum swing of human opinion falls away from the correct 
 standard, it must come back, and that society learns that noth- 
 ing is surely and safely settled until it is settled right. In a 
 
REPRESENTATIVES OF OUR COMMERCIAL LIFE. 135 
 
 room filled with pianos, whoever strikes a key causes every 
 similar chord to yield a responsive tone, and so good deeds 
 exert their influence. Christ touching the key-board of our 
 lives strikes chords that run through the world. 
 
 A missionary mingling with all classes declared that in his 
 opinion nothing was wanting to secure continued prosperity but 
 that each man would go to the help of his fellow, according to 
 God's law of brotherly kindness. Let fidelity characterize 
 capacity, let honor distinguish the trusted. Sam used to love 
 to say that because these principles find embodiment in human 
 action there is prosperity. Nearly every good and trusty me- 
 chanic has all he can do. Let laborers of every class make it 
 for the interest of capital to employ labor and there will be no 
 hard times. The winter of neglect will change to the summer 
 air of brotherly kindness. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SAM'S FAITH, OR WHOM SHALL WE TRUST ? 
 
 IN Sam's estimation, nothing was nobler than a trustworthy 
 man, and he believed that in answering this question " Whom 
 shall we trust ?" we permit the noblest characteristics of man- 
 hood to engage the thought, and give to the possession of the 
 individual the key which unlocks the riddle of another's life 
 and solves the mysteries of his own. 
 
 Trust, whether exercised in another or reposed in one's self, 
 is never an accident. It is a plant of slow growth, reared with 
 diligent and unwearying care, and is easily injured, and may be 
 quickly destroyed. It is essential to life. The fact meets us 
 at the threshold of existence, and in many ways occupies our 
 attention from the cradle to the grave. Men are strong or 
 weak, noble or mean, brave or cowardly, because of what they 
 confide in or trust. Faith grows out of trust. Government 
 finds here its corner-stone, and its administration depends 
 entirely upon what men build their hopes upon and in whom 
 they trust. No question can be freighted with graver respon- 
 sibilities, no matter where asked or by whom answered. Man 
 is so constituted that independence in an absolute sense is an 
 impossibility. Circumstances beyond our reach control us. 
 Ties which other natures have interlaced with our own being 
 bring us into subjection. Trust is essential to individual life. 
 Society is its outgrowth, civilization and Christianity its fruit. 
 Trust is the girdle of strength for individuals and nations. 
 Diffuse it broadcast, and there is peace. Destroy it, and there 
 is war. Trust makes fraternity, freedom, and prosperity possi- 
 bilities. Distrust uproots the foundations of social order, racks 
 
SAM'S FAITH, OR WHOM SHALL WE TRUST ? 137 
 
 society with revolutions, and writes its plaintive story on the 
 faces of men, on the street and in the home. Laws regulate 
 and govern its growth. Obey them and life becomes fruitful 
 of buds and flowers. The soul twines its tendrils about strong 
 supports, which carry the fruitage of life into the ripening 
 sunshine of love, and cause the child of promise to walk the 
 roadways of God. 
 
 Disobey these laws, trifle with this instinct of the human 
 soul, and you wound and demoralize the spiritual nature, 
 change society from being an Eden into a desert, and convert 
 the heir and prop of your existence into an Ishmael, whose 
 hand shall be against his fellow because he has learned to 
 regard the world as his hunting ground and man as his foe. 
 No trust tells a sorry story, whether seen on the sign of the 
 village store, on the shrewd and suspicious look of a commu- 
 nity, or in the revolutionary and unmanageable spirit that dis- 
 tinguishes so large a portion of the world. Society is made up 
 of systems of mutual dependencies. In a civilized state men 
 and women must trust. Only savages can profess indepen- 
 dence, and they are savages and are not independent. The Indian 
 warrior links his interests with those of his tribe, compels his 
 wife to carry his game, cook his meal, and hoe his field. 
 Whom shall ive trust ? has sounded all along the centuries. It 
 was heard in Eden, and its voice reverberates over desert wastes. 
 It is a personal question. As trust in the individual comes 
 from what God has done for him and from what he has by 
 God's help achieved for himself, so when we ascertain who are 
 worthy of trust, we find out the individuals with whom God is 
 well pleased, and who are honored as instruments in carrying 
 forward enterprises which benefit mankind and bless the world. 
 Every Christian man or woman may say by action as well as by 
 speech, " I am no accident. As creation implies a purpose, 
 my being here means something. I am part of the plan. I 
 am a link in a chain. I am a unit of universal being. God 
 has use for me. There is something for me to do. Some- 
 thing that would have been left undone had I not come. 
 
138 SAM HOBART. 
 
 There is a place which I can fill better than any other man in 
 the universe. Let me do my duty, improve my opportunity, 
 develop all of my powers of body, of mind and soul, and use 
 them skilfully and wisely, and God will be honored and 
 humanity will be helped. " 
 
 The recognition of this truth concerning himself and his 
 place enables him to regard with favor the mission of every 
 other man and the importance of his place. Trust is, then, a 
 seed of God's own sowing. The more of it there is in the 
 world, the more will earth become like heaven. The more will 
 God rule and the louder will grow the refrain, " Trust in the 
 Lord and do good ; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily 
 thou shalt be fed." This was Sam's faith. This faith made 
 the man. He had no sympathy with those who believed that 
 the old times were better than these, and who are ever wishing 
 that they had from the graves some of the men who, being 
 dead, yet speak. Often he would say to the men about him, 
 his face glowing with serene satisfaction and happiness, " Never 
 were there better times than these. Never were the boughs of 
 the tree of life so full of flowers and fruit. Never were there 
 so many trustworthy men on the earth. Never was there so 
 much of moral influence permeating the affairs of men. " Of 
 the extent of trust it is impossible to form an adequate concep- 
 tion. It is the bond of union among men. It is the soul of 
 commerce, the parent of enterprise, and the reward of toil. It 
 whitens every sea with our mercantile marine. It nets the 
 continent with railways, it girdles the globe with its electric 
 bands. 
 
 The lighthouse system, so perfect and so extensive, illustrates 
 this principle. Because of it men dare the perils of the deep, 
 and put their lives and fortunes into the keeping of those un- 
 known to them. Sam often referred to it, and grew enthusiastic 
 one night, as from Narragansett Beach he saw the revolving 
 light, warning off " The Graves," where so many good ships 
 had gone down. 
 
 " But," said he, " we would be nothing without trust. 
 
SAM'S FAITH, OH WHOM SHALL WE TRUST ? 139 
 
 Every engineer who drives Ins locomotive out on the iron track 
 feels that eyes are on him and that every one trusts him. He 
 lias in his hands the lives of hundreds of confiding men and 
 women. Switchmen, flagmen, and men at other points are all 
 working under one law." 
 
 Pulling a letter from his pocket, he said : tl This is wonder- 
 ful. It came to me from the other side of the globe. It can- 
 not speak nor walk nor move, and yet it is carried by men of 
 other languages and of other systems of faith, because trust- 
 worthy men live all along the way. Why/' said Sam, " it is 
 possible to draw a check on this bank almost anywhere and 
 find it honored. The other day in the horse-cars, I saw an 
 Irishwoman approach the car and unwind a bundle. Out 
 rolled a great, red-faced, chubby-cheeked boy. * Put him out 
 at such a street, conductor,' said the woman. The little fellow 
 had perfect faith, and rode without fear. Two old women 
 w r ere in the car. They both took the boy in charge and pep- 
 pered the conductor with questions as to whether they had 
 reached the street, whenever they approached a new corner ; 
 and though the conductor told them the place was a mile away, 
 they kept saying in their softest tones, * You are not forgetting 
 the boy, conductor ? ' And when at last the street was reached 
 he shouted out the name, lifted out the boy, and found the old 
 grandmother at the crossing waiting for him, because trust is a 
 fact at both ends of the route. To the steps of a rail-car 
 conies a blind father, led by the hand of a loving daughter. 
 She has only time to open the door, bid him good-bye, and 
 s-iy, 'Some one will give you a scat, 7 and leap off the train. 
 The car is full of men. Nearly all rise, and prove that the 
 daughter's faith is not misplaced. This faith and trust is the 
 birthright of love. In the home it came to us and taught us 
 trust in every form. It is this that makes a mother of a refined 
 and cultured nature, who is a companion to her children, who 
 lives with as well as lives for them, who obtains arid keeps the 
 confidences of the child a blessing beyond compare, the most 
 precious of earth. " It was way back there in childhood," said 
 
140 SAM HOBART. 
 
 Sam, " my mother implanted in my heart this principle of 
 trustworthiness. She believed in me and, in the home, wove 
 linked armor for my soul. ' ' 
 
 Sam used to be often asked to look after some young man 
 that came to Boston. Frequently he would say, " This is not 
 the place to do that work ; it is among the hills of New Eng- 
 land. A boy trustworthy at home will be trustworthy here. 
 A boy that cares not for home, for his word, for trusts there, 
 will be a scoundrel here." It is possible to stand by a boy, to 
 take stock in him and thus to aid him. This story touched 
 Sam's heart : A father related to him his failure to stand by 
 his boy. " When quite a lad," he said, " my son came home 
 from school with a flushed face and with a distrusted look. 
 He had his books with him. I asked him what was the mat- 
 ter. He replied : ' I have been wrongly treated by my 
 teacher, and am not going to school again. ' I rebuked him, 
 took ground against him, sided with his teacher, and said : 
 * You will go to school to-morrow morning, and I will see 
 that you do so.' My boy pleaded earnestly and tried to prove 
 he was right. I would not listen to him, and the next 
 morning compelled him to go with me. On entering the vesti- 
 bule of the house, with a strange look in his eye which I never 
 saw before, he stopped and said, ' Father, I cannot enter that 
 schoolroom until they set me right. / would die first. ' I 
 turned and looked at him, and saw something about the boy 
 which told me to stop. I paused to think. This gave him a 
 moment to explain that there were several boys who knew all 
 about the case, and if I would go in and ask them to tell the 
 story before the teacher I would learn the truth. In I went, 
 and frankly told the teacher what had occurred. He called up 
 the boys. They confirmed my son's story. The teacher saw 
 his mistake and at once went out and brought him in, and set 
 him right before all the school. He did it so handsomely that 
 my son never afterward felt any bitterness toward him ; but I 
 have ever been conscious that from that day to the present my 
 son has never felt toward me as before. 
 
SAM'S FAITH, OR WHOM SHALL WE TRUST ? 141 
 
 " If, on the other hand, I had said, ' I will see about this. I 
 hope there is no mistake about it, and if there is not you shall 
 be upheld, ' the boy would have been satisfied and he would 
 have been bound to me with hooks of steel." 
 
 u I can understand it," said Sam, " and well remember 
 when a man said to me he had faith in me, and that I was to be 
 advanced because of it. ' ' 
 
 i( Trust is a duty," said Sam. " No one is fit to live who 
 refuses to exercise it, and 'yet it is easily wounded, and when 
 once injured can never be repaired or restored. The wonder 
 of human skill is the Etruscan vase, once shattered into a thou- 
 sand fragments and yet apparently restored. It is still a 
 broken vase. You feel it, if you cannot see the fractures ; but 
 you know they exist and that it is not what it once was. Trust 
 once shattered is ruined, because a portion of its component 
 parts is destroyed. Lose confidence in an individual and you 
 cannot get it back. You may act as if you had it back, but it 
 is pretence, and a hollow mockery. You may strive to look it, 
 but he knows you are acting a part. To tamper with trust is 
 to trifle with one of the most precious qualities with which life 
 can be enriched. 
 
 Convince a man that he cannot succeed and his muscles 
 relax, his arm is paralyzed, his will loses its mastering volition. 
 Endow him with trust, and what cares he for seeming impossi- 
 bilities. He laughs at them and cries with Job, " Though lie 
 slay me yet will I trust him, and will maintain mine ways be- 
 fore him," and with Job holds on in the world's despite, while 
 fortune mocks, and wealth betrays, and friends desert, and 
 kindred turn their back upon the suffering one, knowing that 
 in God's good time, not a moment too soon, not a moment too 
 late, it shall be found that those who trust in the Lord shall be 
 as Mount Zion ; for as the mountains are round about Jerusa- 
 lem, so is the Lord round about them that fear him and that 
 put their trust in him. The mountains may depart with the 
 mists that hang about their summits, the heavens may be rolled 
 
142 SAM 1IOBAKT. 
 
 together as a scroll, yet he that keeps his trust in God and 
 truth shall not be confounded. 
 
 The older Sam grew and the more he mingled with men, tho 
 more he felt that he could trust men whose faith and life 
 enabled them to repose trust in God. " A man," said Sam, 
 " who so lives that he can expect God to bless him, will find 
 support. God is a shield to them who put their trust in him." 
 By this Sam did not imply Christian characteristics alone. 
 There is a faith which comes to men in critical times. Irving'a 
 story of Columbus sailing over an unknown sea, and despite th-.; 
 objections of his crew and the opposition of his companions 
 resolved to keep one bold course westward until he should reach 
 land or get back to Spain, was the personification of trust. 
 
 It is impossible to follow him as he sails in among seaweed, 
 which resembled submerged meadows, and listen to the crew at 
 open defiance as they call to mind some tale of a frozen ocean 
 where ships were said to be sometimes fixed immovable, or of 
 the sunken island of Atlantis, fearing that they were at that 
 part of the ocean where navigation was said to be obstructed 
 by drowned lands and the ruin of an engulfed country ; to see 
 him pass day by day in pressing westward, believing that he 
 should succeed because God willed it ; and when the dangers 
 thickened and perils increased, who can fail to gaze with de- 
 light upon the man as he rises in the majesty of faith and tells 
 them it is useless to murmur, that he is determined to persevere 
 until, by the blessing of God, he shall accomplish the enter- 
 prise. 
 
 No wonder he bowed himself before God when the cry of 
 ^ Land ! LAND ! LAND !" rang through the night air. In 
 spile of every difficulty and danger he had accomplished hie 
 object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed ; his 
 theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly 
 vindicated ; he had secured to himself a glory durable as the 
 world itself. We rejoice with him as on Friday morning, 
 October 12th, 1492, he first beheld the New World. His 
 
SAM'S FAITH, oft WHOM: SHALL WE TRUST ? 143 
 
 victory was complete. His thoughts and feelings must have 
 been, as Irving declares, tumultuous and intense. 
 
 This faith helped Abraham Lincoln, when the stars of hope 
 had almost faded out of the nation's sky, to hold on and still 
 hold on. The Governor of Illinois had sent him a despairing 
 telegram, saying, " Man the forts with raw recruits, and send 
 every soldier ready for action to the field. ' ' Lincoln telegraphed 
 back, " Hold on, Dick, and see the salvation of God." 
 
 It was this faith which made Nathan Hale, in the gray morn- 
 ing, on the ladder leaning against the tree from which his life- 
 less body was so soon to hang, say as he looked at the weeping 
 women and tear-dimmed eyes of the wagon-boys, " I regret 
 that I have but one life to give my country. " 
 
 It was this faith that enabled Stephen to talk with God while 
 stones hurtled through the air, and to pray, " Lay not this sin 
 to their charge.'' Just as did his Master when hanging on the 
 accursed tree cry, " Father, forgive them, they know not what 
 they do." 
 
 It was one of Sam's quaint say ings, " There is nothing smaller 
 than a small man, and nothing poorer than a poor man. He 
 is small in brain power, in will power, in capacity. He is poor 
 because of this. Poor in purpose and in plan." 
 
 The great man has all the powers of manhood in large meas- 
 ure. He has great affections, great thoughts, good judgment, 
 mighty force of will, great foresight, marvellous impulses, 
 and tremendous self-control. There have been great wrecks 
 because some man great in almost everything weakened when 
 he came to hold the helm in the midst of great temptations. In 
 the oft-quoted words of Sidney Smith : " The meaning of an 
 extraordinary great man is, that he is eight men, not one man ; 
 that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much 
 sense as if he had no wit ; that his conduct is as judicious as 
 if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as 
 brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. Having this many- 
 sided nature his sympathies are broad. He touches life at all 
 
144 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 points ; he feds with the child, with the mother, with the 
 veteran, with the feeble, with the strong, with the joyous, with 
 the afflicted, as the broad ocean holds in its close embrace the 
 island and the continent. 
 
 " The great man forgets himself. The man whose eye 
 Is ever on himself doth look on one 
 The least of nature's works, one which might move 
 The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds 
 Unlawful ever." 
 
 Trust the trustworthy, was to Sam a privilege quite as much 
 as a duty. 
 
 There is a minister of Christ who well remembers and often 
 refers to his fidelity when another minister betrayed him, and 
 when brethren on whom he had leaned with absolute confidence 
 failed him. Then Sam arose in his might. He revealed his 
 greatness, his faith, his constancy, and his nobility. He sai-l 
 then, with an emphasis that will never be forgotten by those 
 who heard him, " We should trust those who voice by thdr 
 speech and illustrate by their conduct the purposes of Almighty 
 God. 11 Faith is God's measure of a man. It ought to be 
 ours. The victors to-day are those who believed in God in 
 spite of failure, obloquy and reproach. They saw their work 
 in the light of duty and moved on 'in the strength of God. 
 Monuments begin to thicken on our squares and in our parks, 
 built to perpetuate the memory of those titled sons of God who 
 have wrought a great work and obtained their crown. Lafay- 
 ette is immortal because he early saw in this new world an area 
 for freedom, and left behind him the splendors of his palatial 
 home that he might enter the wilderness, as did Jonathan of 
 old, and strengthen David's hand in God. Howard is immor- 
 tal because in the poorest prisoner he saw a brother, and in the 
 pest-infected city he heard the wail of suffering and want and 
 went to its relief. Our best and noblest men are not trusted 
 because of any claim of infallibility, but rather because of a 
 humility and of a felt dependence upon God, which makes 
 
SAM'S FAITH, OR*\VHOM SHALL WE TRUST ? 145 
 
 them, no matter what their purpose be to-day, determine to 
 keep their heart open for a better purpose to-morrow. It was 
 these acts of Sam Hobart, unnoticed at the time and apparently 
 unthought of by the men, that come out and shine in the clear 
 light now that the actor is removed, as do the stars shine forth 
 when the sun retires from view ; which make him immortal in 
 the love of all who knew him, and deserving to have his name 
 enrolled among the titled ones of earth. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 
 
 The Need of the WorkEdioard D. IngersollThe Story 
 of His Life and Work. 
 
 CHRIST is a necessity for men who toil. This Sam be- 
 lieved and this faitli he avowed. How dark was the hour 
 before the dawn ! The uprising had not then taken place. 
 Dwight L. Moody was sounding the alarm, and Ira D. San- 
 key and P. P. Bliss and many more were beginning to fill 
 the air with notes of enlivening song. Little was done. Much 
 was hoped for, and supplications earnest and fervent were 
 being poured into the ear of God. There was need of it. It 
 was seen that Europe is pouring upon our shores, by the tens 
 of thousands, men trained to wrong ideas under its despotisms. 
 These men become a disturbing element in our midst ; they are 
 gathering to-day in our great cities ; they are forming secret 
 societies which hold that the greatest crime which can be com- 
 mitted is that of owning property and being prosperous above 
 themselves. These men claim that all men should share alike ; 
 and if by the end of the first year, one should spend his patri- 
 mony, and another should double his, there should be a new 
 divide for the next year. These men, whose doctrine is that 
 right in property is wrong in principle, are teaching it to 
 wrong-headed men, who are operating our railroads and work- 
 ing in our manufactories. They are fomenting disturbance, 
 teaching that there is between capital and labor an irrepressible 
 conflict. They are sowing the wind, and expect to reap in the 
 whirlwind. They fatten on spoil ; they delight in riot. They 
 have nothing to lose and everything to gain by disturbance. 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 14-7 
 
 Railroad men became convinced of the need of Christ to 
 resist this influence. As W. R. Davenport, of Erie, Pa., said, 
 " they have seen that they cannot afford not to invest their 
 money that this work may be carried on among their employes. 
 
 " You remember that, more than three thousand years ago, 
 a shrewd Egyptian monarch observed that a certain young 
 prisoner was a wonderfully ' lucky fellow/ that what was in his 
 hand prospered, and this monarch took this young man out 
 of prison, lifted him up to be his prime minister, and put every- 
 thing under his hand, and only in the matter of the throne 
 was the monarch the greater ; and the Lord prospered every- 
 thing under this young man's hand. Now, railroad corpora- 
 tions seem to have made a similar discovery of late and have 
 been calling Christian men from one place and another and 
 placing them in the highest positions of trust ; trying the ex- 
 periment tried so long ago by this old heathen. And what has 
 been the result ? It is astonishing. These men, without fear 
 of God before their eyes, but having a great deal of regard for 
 the stockholders, have found that what has been placed in the 
 hands of these sons of God has prospered ; therefore, they 
 search out these Christian men and put them in the highest 
 positions, and then reap a reward of gold, verifying that which 
 the Word of God says : 4 Godliness is profitable unto all 
 things, having promise of the life that now is.' The Inter- 
 national Committee can tell all how wonderfully the Lord 
 has brought about an affirmative answer to this question, from 
 East and West, from North and South. And no longer do 
 the officials ask it with doubt. The shrewdest men, the most 
 careful managers, are now ready to appropriate money for this 
 purpose ; and the response they make to their stockholders is : 
 4 We are making money for you by it.' ' 
 
 Christianity as a police force is seldom praised. It is a 
 great mistake to forget our obligations to what is being done 
 by the churches of Christ in creating a moral sentiment that 
 acts like a breakwater against the increasing waves of barbarism. 
 
 " Can you protect a railroad? Tell me that. What will 
 
148 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 protect one train and get it over the road in safety, if there is 
 a band of ten men on the length of the line determined to ditch 
 that train ? Tell me, if a hundred men cannot on a thousand 
 miles of railroad make it impossible to operate that line ? 
 
 u Gentlemen, I want to repeat here, to-night, that the most 
 dangerous, the most difficult property to handle on this con- 
 tinent, is the railroad property, and there is no class of property 
 in which we have a deeper interest. 
 
 il l Now, then, what is the fuss about this matter?' The 
 fuss about this matter is just here : that Europe is emptying 
 her people, that she does not want, here her convicts, her 
 Communists, her Nihilists by the ten thousands ; they are 
 coming here for no good, and they seek the employment con- 
 genial to them. You say : ' What is to be done ? They will 
 get employed/ Yes, they will get employed. 4 Our railroads 
 will not know them, and so will hire them/ Yes, they will 
 hire them. And then these men will foment disturbance ; 
 they will strive to create strikes ; they will strive to embarrass 
 all healthy business operations ; they will do it secretly ; dark- 
 ness is what they like. * Well, then, what is the remedy ? * 
 I asked a business man this question last night a man of large 
 experience and extensive travel. I spread this thing out before 
 him carefully, and said: * Now, sir, what is the remedy V 
 He was not a Christian. He moved uneasily in his seat two or 
 three times, and said : * There is none ; I do not see any.' 
 But, friends, there is just one remedy ; I see no other. This 
 country can be saved from this thing only in one way by the 
 Power that upholds the world, and by no other power. We 
 must oppose this satanic influence by that Power which alone 
 has proved greater than the power of Satan." 
 
 Receiver J. H. Devereux, of Cleveland, attended, as deputy 
 from Ohio, the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, held in Boston, October, 1877. Alluding to the rail- 
 road strikes of last summer, and the call suggested by them 
 for greater effort by the churches among certain classes in the 
 community, Mr. Devereux said : 
 
THE WOKK AMO^G RAILBOAD MEW. 149 
 
 " I propose to give you, at the instance of sundry members 
 of the Convention, some personal experience and some per- 
 sonal knowledge on the subject covered by the resolution in- 
 troduced by the Lay Deputy from Pennsylvania. 
 
 " West of Pittsburg, and a little north of it, upon the lake 
 shore, is a city of 150,000 inhabitants, with a suburban popula- 
 tion of perhaps five thousand. The main trunk lines of railroads 
 running through tho country traverse it. It is well known as 
 a prosperous commercial and manufacturing centre. 
 
 " Now, right here, gentlemen of the Convention, understand 
 that the class I am speaking of at this time is not the pauper 
 or the vicious element. It is a vast assembly of men, scattered 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, 
 numbering half a million or more. The politicians will tell you 
 they are voters. They are a class of men who, less than any 
 others, have no opinion that is forced upon them by prescription. 
 Particularly is this true in regard to their religious opinions. 
 You must give a reason, and a very good one, for whatever 
 belief you arc desirous to impress upon them. I am speaking 
 of a class of men who are mighty in their passion when they 
 are aroused, and gentle when their hearts are touched. On 
 Monday morning, in this city that I am speaking of, a railway 
 officer, responsible for two roads and for about six thousand men 
 upon them, went to his office. Of course he knew much that 
 had happened before he went there. He heard on that Mon- 
 day morning, that on the public square of that city, the Satur- 
 day night before, there had been a meeting of so-called laboring 
 men, though they were not so, in the higher sense. There 
 had been some twenty-five hundred men assembled there, and 
 it had been deliberately proposed to go from there to Euclid 
 Avenue, and sack the city. The next morning (Sunday) came 
 the news from the City of Pittsburg. 
 
 " On Monday morning, the air was quivering with excite- 
 ment, the whole city seemed to be paralyzed ; and well it might 
 be> for there were in that city only two hundred policemen, 
 and no military force worth speaking of. Two lines of road 
 
150 SAM HOBART. 
 
 were in the hands of those who were called * strikers.' Not a 
 single wheel was moved, business was paralyzed, and apprehen- 
 sion sat upon the face of every man. 
 
 " When this railroad officer found out how things were, and 
 how the men upon the other road were taking things into their 
 own hands, he also learned that his own two roads, upon which 
 his men yet stood firm, were being threatened by a mob, or a 
 crowd, if you please, from the striking roads ; and he learned 
 that they were coming down there to force his men to quit 
 work, and to enforce what they called ' their rights/ That 
 was a supreme moment ; it was a moment for action. It took 
 but a short time to determine that, God helping him, that 
 President would prevent the mass meeting which it was deter- 
 mined by these men that they should hold on the square. Ten 
 thousand men, at least, would have been there, more or less 
 excited, more or less drunk, more or less angry. What could 
 two hundred policemen do against such a force as that ? It 
 was not a crowd of men who could be driven by clubs. Many 
 of them had been soldiers, and were used to arms. Moreover, 
 they were ignorant, and they believed they were right ; and if 
 a man believes he is right, he will sometimes sacrifice his life. 
 I firmly believe that if force had been used at that time, a great 
 amount of blood would have been shed, and Cleveland would 
 have been in ashes. I draw no fancy picture. 
 
 " What did this railway officer do ? He went down sub- 
 stantially alone, only one officer of the road going with him. 
 As he approached the shops, he saw the procession, and his 
 own men being forced out two by two. It looked bad enough. 
 Men from the other roads had determined that the men em- 
 ployed upon his roads should not work. They were gathered 
 in the machine-shop. There were some three thousand. The 
 railroad officer stood upon a platform. And what did he urge ? 
 Simply the gospel of Jesus Christ. He held up Christ to these 
 men, and appealed to them as Christian men, urging the prin- 
 ciples of the gospel as his argument against their proceedings. 
 
 " The passions of the men were very strong, but he had not 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 151 
 
 spoken long before sour faces grew brighter, and the evidence 
 of passion died out. All went down, for Jesus had been ap- 
 pealed to. Jesus spoke to these men. They became silent, 
 and when the matter was put to vote by the leader of the 
 crowd, i Will you stand by the proposition of the President ? ' 
 there was a loud shout of 4 Aye ! ' When the question came 
 whether any were opposed to the proposition of the President, 
 there was the silence of the grave. Then this railroad officer 
 said to these men, ' Now that you know you are in the right 
 way, I want you to swear to me an oath this day. Those men 
 who will regard the law, who will not commit any acts of vio- 
 lence, who will protect every life and every piece of property in 
 this city, as if it were his own, hold up your right hand. ' And 
 every man's hand went up. 
 
 * ' That was the wall that was drawn around that city, and I 
 tell you, no set of men could prevail against it. 
 
 " I shall not go into detail, although I want it to be under- 
 stood generally that there was no miracle about this. This 
 work was not the outgrowth of a moment, but of years. These 
 men were ready to hear this word, for they had been prepared 
 to hear it. One man's conversion had been the cause of lead- 
 ing thousands of railroad men to Christ, and thus it was easier 
 to address them. I have been reproached since I have been 
 here, because I have given encouragement to the Young Men's 
 Christian Association. It was through their influence that this 
 change had been brought about. I am here neither to praise 
 nor to apologize for any institution. I am here because I am 
 of the Church of Christ of this church ; and I am speaking of 
 the progress of the work of the church, and of the need of mis- 
 sionary effort existing in the West. 
 
 " Now, what we propose to do is this : to extend this rail- 
 road department of the Young Men's Christian Associations 
 throughout the country among the railroad men ; and we say 
 to the railroad officials : ' Gentlemen, if you have a right to 
 build a snow-shed with the company's money, when your line 
 runs through the Sierras ; if you have a right to expend money 
 
152 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 in any other way to prevent destruction and detention, then 
 you have the right, yea, more, you are solemnly bound to pro- 
 tect us whose interests have been handed over into your hands 
 our bodies, our property, our families, everything. And 
 you not only have the right, but a solemn responsibility to take 
 care that these influences which have been found to be saving 
 influences in the past shall be perpetuated and extended on 
 every line of railroad that carries our food and our fuel to us. 
 We demand it of you. ' And what reply shall they make ? 
 The logic of events has closed the mouth of every one to any 
 other reply than ' Yes/ There is no other answer. " 
 
 FURTHER TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE LATE RAILROAD 
 STRIKES. From the report of the Pennsylvania State Young 
 Men's Christian Association Convention (October, 1877), in 
 Harper's Weekly, we extract the following : 
 
 " Mr. W. R. Davenport, an old railroad man, gave the testi- 
 mony that, during the Pennsylvania Railroad strike, the Chris- 
 tian men were those upon whom the railroad officers relied. 
 The most influential men were the Christians, and their in- 
 fluence was greatly felt." Another officer, holding a position 
 of responsibility in railroad service at a place where the Rail- 
 road Young Men's Christian Association has long been active, 
 writes : " In regard to the part Christian men took in the 
 strike, I can speak of what I know. These men were forced 
 to quit work, but openly denounced the action of the strikers ; 
 and all went to their homes, except a few who stayed among 
 the strikers to wield all the influence for good that lay in their 
 power. Through the influence of these men the saloons were 
 closed, and all riotousness was kept down. Men who are not 
 Christians have come to me personally, and of their own free 
 will said the Christian work among railroad employes has saved 
 more than it will cost to prosecute this work for a hundred 
 years. Religious services were held every day and evening 
 during the strike ; and I believe many of the men will date 
 their conversion from those meetings. It was through the in- 
 fluence of Christian railroad men that strikers returned to 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 153 
 
 work." An officer of two railroads in Columbus, Ohio, 
 writes : " The Christian railroad men in this place did not, to 
 my knowledge, take any part in the strike. " A Christian 
 gentleman, who had the best opportunity to see and know, 
 writes from the same place : " I do not know of a single rail- 
 road man, who professes to be a Christian, that took any active 
 part in the strike. One was arrested for participating in it 
 but, upon trial, fully exonerated." A manager of an impor- 
 tant railroad in one of our large cities, where there was a total 
 suspension of trains, writes : " All' of our men known to be 
 pronounced Christians had no sympathy with any lawlessness, 
 and kept clear of it. They freely expressed their disapproba- 
 tion of all such proceedings, and openly declined to take part 
 in the same. There were those among them who took occa- 
 sion respectfully to join in a request for an advance in wages ; 
 but it was in the more excellent way ; and when a respectful 
 answer was returned, showing good reasons why their request 
 could not be granted at this time, they cheerfully accepted the 
 situation, and continued to perform their duties. These care- 
 fully disclaimed any intention to strike, and though compelled, 
 during the most threatening period, to quit work, they returned 
 when notified, without waiting fora reply to their petition." 
 An officer of the Pennsylvania Company, in the same city, 
 writes : " I have to report that the inquiries started to find 
 out what part the Christian railroad men took in the strike 
 have resulted in obtaining very satisfactory reports ; and that 
 is that not one of the men who attend the noon-day meetings 
 at our shops took any part whatever in the strike or, either by 
 word or action, encouraged the strikers, but, on the contrary, 
 they kept up their prayer-meetings throughout all the excite- 
 ment." A gentleman of Martinsburg says of the meeting of 
 the Railroad Young Men's Christian Association, on the Sab- 
 bath afternoon when the trouble was most serious: "The 
 attendance was large, and the meeting one of the most impres- 
 sive I ever attended. What touched me particularly was the 
 many earnest prayers of the railroad men for the officers of the 
 
154 SAM HOBART. 
 
 railroad company, that they might be given wisdom to guide 
 them in their trying positions, to do just what was right, and 
 that they, as employes, might be restrained from all excess and 
 violence, and prove faithful to their duties." A railroad man 
 in Baltimore writes : " I am satisfied that none who were 
 looked up to as Christian men before the strike were at all en- 
 gaged in it. " A member of the Railroad Young Men's Chris- 
 
 on o 
 
 tian Association, of Altoona, Pa., writes : " It is with gn at 
 pleasure that I bear testimony to the calmness, discretion, and 
 good conduct of our Christian railroad men during the excite- 
 ment caused by the strike. Our religious meetings were held 
 as usual, and were quite well attended. Although quite a 
 number of railroad employes have been discharged for taking 
 part in the strike, I am glad to say that no active member of 
 our Association is among the number/' A superintendent in 
 the extensive railroad shops of one of the trunk lines writes : 
 44 I don't know of one Christian that took part in the strike. 
 We found the Christian men ready to work ; and those that 
 were made watchmen during the week of the strike were chiefly 
 the Christian men." From the same point, one who has been 
 in the employ of the company twenty-five years writes : 
 " There was not one of the Christian men here, who, during 
 the strike, was not on duty. They went home peaceably, 
 and stayed until sent for to come to work." 
 
 These facts make us turn with delight to the origin and 
 growth of the Railroad Department of the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association as outlined in the report of Edwin D. Inger- 
 soll, Railroad Secretary of the International Committee. 
 
 " A library for railroad men was established by officers of 
 the Passumpsic Railroad Company at St. Johnsbury, Vt., in 
 1850, another by officials of the Vermont Central Railroad 
 Company, at Northfield, Vt., in 1852, and another by Messrs. 
 Peto, Betts & Brassey, contractors, while building the Vic- 
 toria Bridge at Montreal, in 1854. Many others have since 
 been established throughout the country. A few of them sur- 
 vive. The great majority of these library organizations are 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 155 
 
 dead, and in many cases nothing can now be found to show 
 that they ever existed. With possibly one or two exceptions, 
 the interest in and use of the libraries that are still in existence 
 are less than they were at first. As a rule, they were used 
 only by men of good habits and of some literary taste. There 
 was not sufficient social or other influence connected with them 
 to draw men away from evil resorts ; there was no aggressive 
 reformatory force. 
 
 " At Cleveland, O., in April, 1872, there was a union 
 formed on this old plan of reading-rooms and libraries for rail- 
 road men, with the active Christian work of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association. A secretary was employed to do what 
 one man could do to make the library and reading-rooms 
 attractive to railroad men. He went out after men who did 
 not come to the rooms until personally invited, or until they 
 came to return the repeated calls of a personal friend. He 
 visited them in their homes and in the places of their daily 
 toil : on the engine, in the caboose, in office, shop, yard, or 
 switch house. Wherever a railroad man could be found, he 
 got a pleasant word and a hearty invitation to come to the 
 rooms when off duty. If sick or injured, at home or home- 
 less, whatever his position, creed, or nationality, the railroad 
 employe received, not only the best surgical and hospital attend- 
 ance, but the loving personal service of Christian brotherhood. 
 
 '* But this service was not limited to one man's ability. The 
 Association idea was developed and utilized, and the efforts of 
 Christian men in railroad service united, to carry out and put 
 in operation the means and methods of the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association. Committees were formed, trained, and set 
 at work. Gradually, but steadily and surely, the secretary 
 multiplied his effort and ability, thirty, sixty, or a hundred 
 fold, by the voluntary efforts of men, whom he had interested 
 one by one, and then formed into working committees. The 
 secret of his power was found to be not so much in his personal 
 work as in his ability to find, train, stimulate and help other 
 men, and set and keep them at work. Now, committees have 
 
156 SAM HOBART. 
 
 charge of Sunday services and cottage meetings in the homes 
 of railroad men ; committees of their comrades visit and 
 minister to sick and injured men ; committees procure libra- 
 ries ; committees arrange entertainments, lectures, concerts, 
 medical talks, and practical talks on topics relating to railroad 
 service. In short, the moral power of the best men in railroad 
 service is united and made an effective force to reach and in- 
 fluence the whole body of railroad men, including employes of 
 express, telegraph and palace car companies. Educational 
 classes are formed, or secretaries and their assistants give pri- 
 vate instruction to men who cannot attend classes in penman- 
 ship, arithmetic, telegraphy, stenography, mechanical and free- 
 hand drawing. Many men whose early educational advantages 
 were limited have been helped to hold their positions, or to 
 promotion. Men physically disabled for train service have been 
 taught telegraphy or stenography, and so are earning better 
 support for themselves and their families than they earned as 
 brakemen before they were crippled. Enthusiasm is kindled. 
 The rooms of the Railroad Branch of the Association become 
 social headquarters for railroad men ; conversation and amuse- 
 ment rooms attract men who have no use for prayer-meetings, 
 classes, or even for reading-rooms and libraries. Gradually 
 they become interested in social or musical entertainments, or 
 in illustrated newspapers and magazines. Each is encouraged 
 by the secretary to read something, and his attention is called 
 to something that will interest him. Soon amusements are less 
 attractive or needful. He has learned to desire and use some- 
 thing better. Thought is stimulated. His social instincts are 
 satisfied with healthful associations. Beer gardens and billiard 
 rooms are less attractive than our rooms. The man becomes a 
 better man, a better citizen, a more intelligent, faithful and 
 loyal servant of the corporation. 
 
 " Such results in various places have led railroad managers 
 to say of this work, ' It pays spiritually, it pays morally, and 
 it pays financially/ and to emphasize this testimony by largely 
 increased appropriations. 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 157 
 
 11 The true place of these organizations, as branches of the 
 Young Men's Christian Associations in their respective cities, 
 has been definitely settled. After numerous experiments in 
 other directions, both by the companies and by the men now 
 in the opening of reading and bath rooms independent of all 
 .religious influence or control, again in the establishment of 
 separate organizations, without affiliation with the local Asso- 
 ciation or the International Committee of these societies the 
 great advantages in stability atid efficiency to be derived from 
 union with the Associations are at present almost universally 
 recognized and appreciated by both employes and officials. 
 
 " During the first five years, 1872-' 77, organizations were 
 formed at Altoona, Pa., Baltimore, Md., New York, Colum- 
 bus, O., and Detroit, Mich,, the two latter employing secreta- 
 ries. Interest was awakened and something done toward or- 
 ganization at Jersey City, N. J. , Springfield and Boston, Mass. , 
 and at Toronto, and St. Thomas, Ont. Mr. Lang Sheaff, 
 whose salary was paid by a few gentlemen of Cleveland, visited 
 these places in 1875-' 76, under the direction of the Inter- 
 national Committee. The good results of that visitation are 
 still apparent. 
 
 " In January, 1877, Mr. Morris K. Jesup, of the Interna- 
 tional Committee, procured from the President and Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the New York Central and Hudson River, and the 
 Presidents of the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio 
 Railroad Companies, contributions, which, with his own, justi- 
 fied the Committee in employing their present Railroad Secre- 
 tary. 
 
 ' ' At that time only three local secretaries were employed 
 at Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit ten railroad companies 
 contributing less than $3000 a year toward their support. 
 
 " In the past five years, 1877-'82, the principal railroad 
 centres of the United States and British Provinces have been 
 visited, many of them very many times. Several strong or- 
 ganizations have been formed, employing from one to five 
 secretaries and assistants. The number of secretaries and 
 
158 8AM HOBART. 
 
 assistants is now (June 5th, 1882) forty-six, with money waiting 
 for six more, and support partially secured for ten or twelve 
 more. Contributions of more than $50,000 are already secured 
 for the support of the local work for the current year. 
 
 " There have been some wrecks, and some other organiza- 
 tions have failed to come up to the measure of their need or 
 opportunity. 
 
 " The service on the part of secretaries has been greatly im- 
 proved. The standard of five years ago no longer satisfies rail- 
 road officials or the International Committee. Some men of 
 rare tact, consecration, and ability have been led into the work, 
 and are being greatly blessed in it ; others have been moder- 
 ately successful and are trying faithfully to meet the demands 
 of the work. Those who think that they know all that there 
 is, or that they need to know, or whose education is deficient, 
 or who do not manifest tact or adaptability to this peculiar 
 work, or who are not born leaders, are gradually dropping out of 
 the service. On the whole, the secretarial force in this depart- 
 ment is not only all that can reasonably be expected for the 
 salaries paid, but is a vigorous, able, and consecrated band of 
 pioneers in a new field of Christian effort, whose labors have 
 already called out strong testimonials to the value of the results 
 accomplished. 
 
 " In Chicago, eleven Presidents, Vice-Presidents, General 
 Managers and General Superintendents of leading Railroad 
 Companies, compose the Advisory Committee of the Railroad 
 Department of the Young Men's Christian Association. They 
 testify in the strongest terras to the value of the work done, 
 and recommend that the amount expended last year ($7500) in 
 this department of the Chicago Association be largely increased. 
 
 " In Albany and Troy, N. Y., Springfield, Mass., Rutland, 
 Vt., and other places, leading citizens are ser\ 7 ing on commit- 
 tees with railroad officials and men in the management of this 
 work. 
 
 " At Galion, 0., East St. Louis, 111., and Elmira, N. Y., 
 buildings have been erected specially for and dedicated to the 
 
THE WORK AMOXG RAILROAD MEN. 159 
 
 work of Young Men's Christian Associations among railroad 
 men. Similar buildings are about to be erected at Troy, N. Y., 
 and St. Albans, Vt. 
 
 " In Toronto, at the house of Hon. William McMaster, sena- 
 tor, some seventy-five leading citizens met the secretary to hear 
 reports of and consult about this work. The result was the 
 appointment of a large committee of the most influential men in 
 public and private life in Toronto, Col. C. S. Gzowski, A. D. C., 
 chairman, to present facts and testimonials of this work to 
 Managers of Canadian railways, and to presidents and direc- 
 tors in England, and to ask for similar appropriations for the 
 support of this work on their roads. At the request of this 
 committee, the International Committee wrote to leading offi- 
 cials and directors of railroads, at places where this work had 
 been in operation long enough to enable them to estimate its 
 worth, for their opinion of the value of the work as an invest- 
 ment by railroad companies. Replies came from every point, 
 and are unanimous in tenor and spirit, all testifying to the 
 value of the work and its wholesome influence upon railroad 
 employes. Similar testimony to the value of the work spirit- 
 ually, in additions to churches of men who were beyond the 
 reach of the church in any other department of its effort, and 
 of church members aroused to newness of life and service, 
 comes from pastors and church officers in all parts of the 
 country. 
 
 " The secretary has travelled more than 30,000 miles a year, 
 made public addresses, held conferences with officials and men, 
 and written letters till it was impossible to keep a record of their 
 number, and yet is utterly unable to meet the calls that come 
 for help in the organization and supervision of this work. 
 
 " Men are willing and anxious to take hold of the work, 
 money is forthcoming to support secretaries and erect build- 
 ings for local work at various points, promising young men 
 are giving themselves to the work for life as secretaries, and 
 results are delayed for want of intelligent aid and guidance in 
 organization. Some places have already suffered, mistakes 
 
100 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 have been made, and partial failures warn us to he more watch- 
 ful and helpful. The best results appear where this supervi- 
 sion has been most constant. There is work waiting and 
 urgent, for at least three secretaries in this department, while 
 as yet the Committee has means to support but one." 
 
 A brief history of the railroad secretary and the work 
 achieved will appropriately conclude the chapter. 
 
 Edward D. Tngersoli in 1877 was appointed Secretary of the 
 Railway Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association. 
 He was born in Stockbridge, Mass., June 12th, 1836. His 
 father was a minister and related to the great preacher who is 
 known as the father of the man that has by his infidelity 
 earned the right to wear the mantle of Thomas Paine. As the 
 railroad secretary says, " the man rejected Christ, trampled on 
 the overtures of mercy, and has gone on from bad to worse 
 until he has fought with all his might against God, as is in the 
 nature of an Ingorsoll." 
 
 This trait of character was illustrated by a locomotive engin- 
 eer by the name of Ingersoll on one of the^roads in Ohio. He 
 was ordered to wait for the superintendent's car at a given 
 station. He was told to take it to a given pkce as fast as pos- 
 sible. There was no bell-rope to the engine, and the superin- 
 tendent sat in his car alone. The engineer started, put on 
 steam, and opened the valves and let her go. The passenger 
 coach bounded and leaped, swaying from side to side, causing 
 the superintendent to be thrown from side to side and bob up 
 and down like a ball shaken in a bottle. Reaching the station 
 the superintendent came out, his hair on end and his face pale 
 with fright and rage, saying, " What on earth did you go at 
 that rate for ?" " You told me," said the engineer, " to go 
 as fast as I could, and you ought not to tell an Ingersoll to do 
 that unless you meant it." 
 
 The characteristics of the engineer have been conspicuous in 
 the life of the secretary. He began his career as a wild and 
 wayward young man. He entered Union College and enjoyed 
 for a time the watchful care of Eliphalet Nott. its illustrious 
 
THE WOliK AiiOXU KA1LROAD MEX. 101 
 
 president. He was converted in 1856 and joined the church, 
 but did nothing for years. He had a name to live hut was 
 dead. In 1872 he was living in Cleveland. Lang Sheaff, the 
 Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, failing to 
 get workers to go to Norwalk, Ohio, because he had no better, 
 asked him to go and help in a meeting. This was said on 
 Tuesday. Ingersoll thought little of the invitation. Friday 
 came and he was urged again to go. He went. On his way 
 the responsibilities of the work touched his heart and awed his 
 spirit. Depressed and bent with the weight of the great trust 
 reposed in him he entered the hall and took his seat upon the 
 platform. The room was crowded to the doors. He spoke. 
 God owned him. Souls were struck under conviction. They 
 made him stay. Business to him became of no account. His 
 work surprised and enthused him. From Sunday to Thursday 
 he spoke every day with increasing power. Railroad men were 
 converted in large numbers. A patent case claimed his atten- 
 tion in Cleveland. lie returned, but God loosened the chains 
 of his captivity in business and permitted him to enter into the 
 service of the Master untrammelled. He returned to Norwalk 
 and stayed a month. His destiny was sealed. His course in 
 life was determined for him. In 1874 he came to Syracuse and 
 became the leader of the work for the Young Men's Christian 
 Association. There he developed and revealed his power to 
 organize for victory, and there he remained until January, 
 1877, when he became railroad secretary in accordance with a 
 resolution of the International Committee passed in 1875. To 
 him we are largely indebted for the interest taken in work 
 among employes by railroad corporations. He knows how to 
 appeal to employes and at the same time how to represent their 
 interests to employers. To-day the great railroad corporations 
 give their support to this work to an extent which promises 
 great future harvests. The leaders recognize the fact that drill 
 a man as best you may still you must depend in the last resort 
 on his own intelligence and will. Sobriety and moral principle 
 contribute their quota toward the production of dividends, and 
 
162 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 a good workman who is also a good man counts for something 
 in financial estimates. It is important that the hand on the 
 throttle-valve be not guided by a brain muddled with drink. 
 " No position, not even leadership in battle, calls more impera- 
 tively for firm nerves, well-poised faculties and entire self- 
 command. Railway corporations have souls enough to know 
 what affects their purses, but we should fail to do justice to 
 many of the managers of the great lines if we did not concede 
 to them a sincere interest in the welfare of men. When Will- 
 iam H. Vanderbilt distributed one hundred thousand dollars 
 among the servants of the company of which he is the head, as 
 a token of his appreciation of their fidelity during the week of 
 the riots, he showed his sense of the value of moral principle in 
 men who work for daily wages. There are instances of hero- 
 ism in the lives of these men, and often in their dying."* 
 
 Doc Simmons, the engineer on the New York Central and 
 Hudson River Railroad, who at the disaster at New Hamburg 
 went down with his locomotive and would not leave it and was 
 found with his hand on the throttle ; Gould, the brave engin- 
 eer on the Boston and Stonington Railroad, who loved his wife 
 and signalled to her by the whistle at night as Sam Hobart 
 kissed his hand to his when he passed, preferred death at his 
 post to an escape with added risk to the passengers are thus 
 referred to by Bret Harte : 
 
 " And then one night it was heard no more, 
 From Stonington on Rhode Island shore ; 
 And the folks in Providence smiled and said, 
 As they turned in their beds, " The engineer 
 Has once forgotten his midnight cheer. 
 
 One only knew, 
 
 To his trust true, 
 Gould lay under his engine dead !" 
 
 Heroism is heroism in men begrimed with oil and smoke, as 
 well as in men who carry swords and epaulets. And if the 
 
 * Harper's Magazine for Jan. 1882, pp. 264-5. 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN". 163 
 
 Christian Association address the better side of the natures of 
 this large and growing class of workers, they will render an 
 essential service to society. The interest in their welfare has 
 taken a very practical form. In June, 1882, there were read- 
 ing-rooms at thirfy-three railroad centres for railroad men, of 
 each of which a secretary has charge. An aggregate of 
 $30,000 is annually appropriated by the companies for this 
 truly Christian labor. 
 
 " Mr. Ingersoll," says a leading railroad manager, " is in- 
 deed a busy man. Night and day he travels. To-day a rail- 
 road president wants him here ; to-morrow a manager summons 
 him there. He is going like a shuttle back and forth through 
 the country, weaving the web of the Railway Associations. In 
 Indianapolis twelve railroad companies aid in the support of 
 this work of benevolence. In Chicago, the president of one of 
 the leading roads, the general superintendent of another, and 
 other officials, have served and are serving actively on the Rail- 
 way Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association. 
 The stuff these men are made of may be seen from some of the 
 reports to the Altoona Convention. One spoke thus : " About 
 twelve years ago we organized, in Stonington, Conn., a mid- 
 night prayer-meeting of railroad men. It was the hour before 
 the starting of the steamboat night train. The first night one 
 man was soundly converted, and continues a living witness for 
 the truth. I run a midnight train from Providence, and speak 
 "almost every Sunday, and many of our railroad men attend. I 
 am forty-six years of age, and have been twenty-seven years on 
 the road and four years at sea. My engineer is a Christian, and 
 I feel safe behind him." Are the passengers of the midnight 
 train worse off because the engineer and conductor are such 
 men as these ? A railroad secretary who represented Indian- 
 apolis said : " A member of our association was killed last 
 week, and I was called on to bury him. It was a very sad 
 duty. He was a Christian boy, and there are men here who 
 heard him pray. Going home from the funeral, one of the 
 boys, not a Christian, said : ' The Railroad Christian Associa- 
 
164 SAM HOHART. 
 
 tioii is doing more for our railroad men than anything else in 
 the world. '" 
 
 From the Third International Conference Railroad Depart- 
 ment of 1882, we make liberal extracts which bear upon this 
 subject. R. B. Paul, Librarian of the New York City Associ- 
 ation, says : 
 
 " The founders and friends of Young Men's Christian 
 Associations have wisely regarded the library as an important 
 agency in their work. It is a tool indispensable to the best 
 and complete working of a railroad association. What shall 
 we aim to make the peculiar feature and excellence of this 
 library for railroad men ? Evidently it should not be com- 
 posed of books suitable for scholars, philosophers, and men of 
 studious life ; nor will mere sentimental works like the latest 
 sensational novels answer. But the books should be adapted 
 to the tastes of practical men of common sense, who are grap- 
 pling with the stern realities of life, and who want to devote 
 their spare moments to reading which will help to advance 
 them in their work, and give them agreeable pastime. The 
 aim should be to make the library exert an elevating influence 
 on the men. In order to do this the grade of books should be 
 a little above the average grade of the readers, not below them. 
 It will then be educating in its influence. We will not attempt 
 here to specify the works on general literature, science, etc., 
 which should characterize such a library, but will content our- 
 selves with naming that class of books which will be specially" 
 practical in a railroad library and interesting to railroad men. 
 It will not be amiss to say that experience shows that the Bible 
 is the favorite book. Hence there should be shelves for the 
 Bible in as many languages as there will be; found readers, and 
 such popular expositions as will invite a closer study of the 
 W r ord of God and aid those who are engaged in Christian 
 work. It is, however, to the professional feature of books that 
 will be of practical service to engineers, mechanics, firemen, 
 and other employes, viz.: books which relate to the steam- 
 engine, telegraphy, civil engineering in some of its branches, 
 
TUP: WORK AMOXG RAILROAD MEN. 165 
 
 car building, track-laying, iron, steel, color-blindness, etc. 
 Such books on the shelves will entice many men in subordinate 
 positions to work their way up by study and application. 
 
 "We will mention a few authorities on Railroad Science, 
 naming those first which are published at a moderate price, 
 below five dollars : 
 
 " RAILROAD SCIENCE. Auchincloss's Link Valve Motion ; 
 Bourne's Catechism of Steam Engine ; Bourne's Recent Im- 
 provements in the Steam Engine ; Bourne's Hand-Book of 
 Steam Engine ; Barlow's Strength of Timber ; Bender's Pro- 
 portions of Pins Used in Bridges ; also, Proportions of Continu- 
 ous Bridges ; Barry's Railway Appliances ; Bauerman's Metal- 
 lurgy of Iron ; Baker's Actual Lateral Pressure of Earthworks ; 
 Cluman's R.R. Engineer's Practice ; Cooke's The New 
 Chemistry ; Combustion of Coal ; Car Builders' Dictionary 
 (R. R. Gazette); Clark's Works on Iron Bridges and Roof 
 Structures ; Chevereul's Contrast of Colors ; Davidson's 
 Linear Drawing and Practical Geometry ; Davidson's Linear 
 Drawing and Projections ; Davidson's Drawing for Machinists 
 and Engineers ; Dresser's Principles of Decorative Design ; 
 Ede's Management of Steel, 5th ed., 1873 ; Engineering 
 Specifications and Contracts ; Fairbairn's Iron : its History, 
 Properties and Process of Manufacture ; Forney's Catechism 
 of the Locomotive ; Ganot's Physics, last edition ; Hamil- 
 ton's Useful Information for Railroad Men ; Haswell's En- 
 gineer's and Mechanic's Pocket-Book ; Kirkman's Railway 
 Accounts, Revenue ; also Railroad Expenditures ; Lardncr's 
 Scientific Hand-Books ; Mahan's Civil Engineering ; Moore's 
 Universal Assistant, 100,000 Receipts ; Molesworth's Pocket- 
 Book of Engineering Formula ; Pope's Modern Practice . of 
 the Telegraph ; Richards' Steam Engine Indication, by C. T. 
 Porter ; Reynolds's Locomotive Engine ; Reynolds's Railway 
 Brakes ; Rankine's Rules and Tables ; Rood's Modern Chro- 
 matics ; Shreve's Treatise on the Strength of Bridges and 
 Roofs; Simms's Practical Tunnelling; Spon, E., Workshop 
 Receipts ; Stewart, Balfour, Lessons in Elementary Physics ; 
 
166 . SAM HOBAUT. 
 
 Stewart, Balfour, Conservation of Energy ; Stewart, Balfour, 
 Elementary Treatise on Heat ; Thurston's History of the 
 Growth of the Steam Engine ; Thurston's Frictions and Lubri- 
 cation ; Thrnpp's History of Coaches ; Tyndall on Heat as a 
 Mode of Motion ; Welch's Designing Valve Gearing ; Wilson 
 (Robert), Treatise on Steam Boilers. Two works by F. B. 
 Gardner, published by the Hub Publishing Co., New York, 
 will, we doubt not, be found useful to painters, viz : 44 Les- 
 sons in Lettering/' and "Studies in Scrolling." A few 
 higher priced works are very desirable ; we append the prices : 
 Appleton's Encyclopaedia of Drawing, $10 ; Ball's F^lementary 
 Mechanics, $4; Clark's Manual of Rules, Tulles, etc., for 
 Mechanical Engineers, $7.50 ; History and Description of the 
 Pennslyvania R.R., illustrated, $20 ; Rankine's Civil Engineer- 
 ing, $6.50 ; Stoney's Theory of Strains in Girders, $12.50 ; 
 Trautwine's Civil Engineer's Pocket-Book, $5 ; Vose's Man- 
 ual for R.R. Engineeis and Engineering Students, $12.50. 
 To these should be added : Knight's Mechanical Dictionary, 
 $24, or Appleton's ; Spon's Dictionary of Engineering, say 
 $45 ; Weale's Series of Scientific Works contain a number 
 that would be suitable for such a collection. 
 
 44 The question of color-blindness among railroad men is one 
 of vital importance to the great travelling public, one in which 
 personal safety or peril is involved. We know of but two 
 treatises in English on this subject, but every railway library 
 should have one or both. The earliest treatise is by Prof. 
 Holmgren, of Upsala, Sweden, and was published in 1877, 
 entitled, 4 Color Blindness and its Relations to Railroads and 
 the Marine.' A translation was published in the report for 
 1877 of the Smithsonian Institute. Since Prof. Holmgren's 
 work was published we have had Dr. Jeffries' * Color Blind- 
 ness, its Dangers and its Detection,' in which he copies a good 
 part of Prof. Holmgren's book ; but Dr. Jeffries has made 
 10,000 tests of his own, of which he gives the results. 
 
 44 But we must not forget works of a more entertaining 
 and general character, that will relieve the leisure hours 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 167 
 
 of the railroad man, and awaken in him more ardor for his 
 work. 
 
 " RAILROAD LITERATURE. Adams, C. F. Jr., Railroads : 
 Their Origin and Problems ; Adams, C. F. Jr., Chapters of 
 Erie ; Adams, C. F. -Jr., Notes on Railroad Accidents ; Audu- 
 bon, Life of ; Beckrnan's History of Inventions ; Black we! Pa 
 Great Facts ; Brassey, Thomas, Life of ; Brunei, Isambard K., 
 Life of ; Brunei, Mark Isambard, Life of ; Craik's Pursuit of 
 Knowledge under Difficulties ; Edgar's Boyhood of Great 
 Men ; Edison and his Inventions ; English Hearts and English 
 Hands ; Fouchaud's Lives of Illustrious Mechanics ; Howe's 
 Memoirs of the most Eminent Mechanics ; Light for the Line, 
 or Life of Thomas Ward ; Locke, Joseph, Life of ; Men who 
 have Made Themselves ; Railways (in Library of Wonders) ; 
 Read, Nathan, His Invention of the High Pressure Engine ; 
 Reynolds's Engine Driving (English book) ; Reynolds's The 
 Model Locomotive Engineer (English book) ; Rogers's The 
 Law of the Road, or Wrongs and Rights of a Traveller ; 
 Smiles's Brief Biographies ; Smiles's Industrial Biography ; 
 Smiles's Lives of the Engineers, in 5 vols. $12.50 ; Smiles's 
 Self-Help, Character ; Smiles's Thrift ; Stephenson, Robert, 
 Life, by J. C. Jeaifreson ; Stimson's History of the Express 
 Companies and Origin of American Railroads ; Stuart, C. R., 
 Lives of Civil and Military Engineers of America ; Taylor's 
 The World on Wheels ; Timbs, J., Inventors and Discover- 
 ers ; Timbs, J., Wonderful Inventions ; Trevithick, Robert, 
 Life of, with an Account of his Inventions, by F. Trevithick ; 
 Tweedie's The Life and Works of Earnest Men ; Worcester, 
 Second Marquis, Life of, with Century of Inventions ; Wrig- 
 ley's The Workingraan's Way to Wealth ; Wynne, J., Emi- 
 nent Scientific Men. 
 
 " Many, if not all, of the scientific publications named, can 
 be purchased at Van Nostrand's Scientific Bookstore, or at 
 E. Spon's, New York City. We have indicated with as much 
 fulness as our space will allow the lines of books for such a 
 library as will meet the requirements of railroad men." 
 
168 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 O. R. Stockwell, Railroad Secretary, New York, gives his 
 experience : 
 
 " When I went as secretary to New York City, the Rail- 
 road Branch had no membership. The Company was contrib- 
 uting liberally, but some felt that the men would be driven 
 from the rooms if they were asked to contribute to the work. 
 We arranged for a sustaining membership, the men contribut- 
 ing just as they feel able ; and the result is that we have 
 secured a membership of 250, the annual income from which is 
 about $600. The attendance, which the year previous was 
 about 2500 monthly, has now increased to over 3000. 
 
 " In attempting a Bible Class we at first tried it on Sunday, 
 but we found that we could command a better attendance 
 Wednesday noon, and so changed to that time. Through its 
 influence many Christian men have been stimulated to work 
 for others. We have a circulating library of 540 volumes. 
 
 " I feel that the library is one of the most important ad- 
 juncts in our work. We do not want books that will please 
 and cater to a low order of intelligence, so much as books that 
 will educate, refine and cultivate a moral sentiment in a man's 
 heart. While I was secretary of the Columbus Association a 
 brakeman asked me to select him a book from the library. Ho 
 was given to drink. I selected a book that would be enter- 
 taining, and yet would exert the right influence ; and when he 
 brought it back, he said : 4 Stockwell, any man who reads that 
 book will never touch another drop of liquor.' I have often 
 placed the same book in the hands of young men in New York 
 City, some of them Roman Catholics, although it is written by 
 a Baptist minister's wife, and they say that they never read as 
 good a book before, or one with a better moral. We don't 
 want books simply that at the end of the month we can make 
 a good report. We could get any amount of yellow-covered 
 literature that would be read with avidity. But we want 
 books that will be like an electric light in a dark corner, and 
 that will make a man better for his family and for the com- 
 munity, not books that will lead men downward." 
 
THE WORK AMOJ^G RAILROAD MEK. 169 
 
 Frank W. Smith, of Toledo, said : 
 
 " In our place we asked for magazines, Harper's, Scribner's, 
 and All the Year Round, and we received something over 
 a thousand copies. They were placed in the switch-houses 
 and round-houses, and were not to be returned, but to be 
 passed from one man to another. Among the magazines were 
 a few religious peridoicals. The devil said : * Frank, don't 
 put in that religious magazine ; the boys will not read it.* I 
 said : ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' and then I put the maga- 
 zine on top. This was one of the strongest temptations I had 
 when I sent out these magazines, and I conquered it only by 
 placing the religious magazines on the top." 
 
 W. J. Orr said : 
 
 " I visited a man on the Great Western Railway who had 
 been sick for three weeks. He was a Roman Catholic, and 
 was fond of reading. I took Scribner's Magazine and slipped 
 inside some little religious papers. I said to him : ' Here is 
 Scribner^s, and I have slipped a couple of tracts inside, you do 
 not object ? ' and he said : * No.' 
 
 H. F. Williams said : 
 
 " Railroad men need an intelligent understanding of the 
 work they have in hand. The man who has a practical educa- 
 tion will better fill any position he is called to than he would 
 without it. The employes of a road give character to the 
 road ; and when we elevate them to a higher standard we are 
 doing that much toward giving to the stockholders an equiva- 
 lent for the money they contribute for the support of our 
 work. The tendency of any man's life who is a specialist is to 
 narrow him down. Put a man at the throttle of an engine, 
 let him stand there year after year, doing the same work, run- 
 ning over the same road, even whistling at the very same 
 points, and that man's life is being contracted by constantly 
 doing this one work. We ought to offer a helping hand to 
 such men to break the treadmill monotony of their lives. The 
 word education means to draw out as well as to put in knowl- 
 edge : the educational part of our work should both put some- 
 
170 SAM HOBART. 
 
 thing into a man's life and draw something out, making him 
 not only useful to himself, but useful to others. 
 
 " I know there is a temptation to make the Association 
 room simply a pleasant place of resort, but wo want our rooms 
 to be more than that : we want them to be educational centres. 
 The very pictures on the walls should be made a means of edu- 
 cation. Instead of getting railroad advertisements around our 
 rooms, we ought to seek, as many Associations are wisely seek- 
 ing, to put the right sort of pictures before the men, and thus 
 put good thoughts into their minds which may be drawn out to 
 a purpose by and by. We cannot maintain classes in the 
 railroad work in the same way that we can in the city work. 
 Our men are not permanent, but are liable to be moved from 
 division to division, and so we have to do the educational 
 work in such a way that each lesson will be complete in itself. 
 
 " One day a Division Superintendent came into our rooms, 
 who was interested in a car-coupling arrangement. I suppose 
 there are hundreds of different kinds of car-couplings. This 
 gentleman had thoroughly familiarized himself with the 
 different patterns of couplings, and at my request he promised 
 to tell us something about them. We called a meeting, 
 endeavoring especially to reach the brakemen ; and it was one 
 of the most interesting meetings we ever had, both to the 
 superintendent and the men. He enjoyed it quite as much as 
 they did. I heard them talking about car-couplings many 
 times afterward in the yard. This shows that other lines of 
 work may be taken up besides class-work. A vocal music 
 class, for instance, could be very well maintained. An occa- 
 sional lesson in penmanship may be given. I have also 
 thought I would like to try a class in business forms. I was 
 connected once with a very interesting spelling class, using a 
 little book with specimen words in it. We combined spelling 
 with penmanship by having the pupils write out the words. 
 We have a very careful and conscientious surgeon connected 
 with the road, who gave us some very practical lessons, ex- 
 plaining from charts the circulation of the blood and describing 
 
THE WORK AMONG RAILROAD MEN. 171 
 
 the most prevalent kinds of injuries. He rolled np tlie men's 
 sleeves and tied up their arms and showed them how to stop 
 ' the flow of blood. He gave them a prescription for a liniment, 
 and I was very much interested afterward to find how many of 
 the men were carrying it with them. But let us never forget 
 that we want to show the men the Lord Jesus Christ. It is 
 far easier to reach worldly people through our educational feat- 
 ures than by presenting Christ, and we are tempted to be 
 drawn away too much to the secular side. The Lord has 
 given us golden opportunities to get hold of men through this 
 educational interest, and let us make these but stepping-stones 
 to better things. 
 
 " How can this work be organized ? or, What can the secre- 
 tary of a local organization do for railroad work, where a 
 branch has not been established ? That is to say, How is the 
 railroad work to be commenced in a new place ?" 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll. The first thing is for the secretary of the 
 city Association to make* the acquaintance of Christian rail- 
 road men. Seek them out. Go to the pastors and ask them 
 if they have any railroad men in their churches. You will 
 always find one or more, and every one you find will give you 
 the name of another one. In that way you will get track of a 
 number of Christian railroad men. Then, in personal inter- 
 course with these men, one at a time, get them into this work, 
 and afterward get them together. Give them the literature 
 pertaining to the railroad work of our Associations ; reports of 
 conferences held, bulletins of railroad branches, anything bear- 
 ing upon the work that would interest them, and give them a 
 clear idea of what is being done in this department and how it 
 is done. Seek to impress them with the fact that the Chris- 
 tian railroad man has more influence over his unsaved comrades 
 than any one else has. Bring the matter to their conscience as 
 a duty that no one else can perform. Show them what has 
 been done by Christian railroad men in other places, and say : 
 " Don't you think that such a work ought to be done here ?" 
 They will say : " Yes." Then ask : " Don't you think yon 
 
172 SAM HOBART. 
 
 ought to do it V 9 It will not be long before the Lord will 
 help you to lay it upon the hearts of one or two, or more. 
 Then you have a nucleus for your committee. The first and 
 simplest work for them to do is to hold cottage meetings in the 
 homes of other men. Two Christian men can commence that 
 work anywhere. It does not involve any expense ; it needs 
 nothing but willingness and love for souls. I don't care how 
 hard a case a railroad man may be, two Christian comrades 
 can get his house for a little prayer-meeting ; and no kind of 
 effort has been more wonderfully blessed in our railroad 
 branches than this same work. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE WASTED SUBSTANCES. 
 
 The Story of Edward H. Uniac's Fall and some of the sad 
 Incidents in Sam 1 s Work. 
 
 SAM lived amid the surging currents of evil. Though the 
 prohibitory law had been nominally enforced, this truth 
 pressed upon his attention and gave him alarm, viz., that men 
 were in danger of going wrong because they were wrong, they 
 loved evil. In the story of the Prodigal Son, the younger boy 
 is called, by common consent, " The Prodigal Son," because 
 he " wasted his substance in riotous living. " He deserved 
 the name. Such a man is prodigal. A man that lives for self ; 
 that consumes his substance in gratifying inclination or appe- 
 tite ; who reads, not for improvement, but for pleasure ; who 
 worships God, even without a thought of helping any one, is a 
 prodigal. 
 
 There are those who, for God's cause and man's good, give 
 their all, and leave themselves impoverished in purse, though 
 enriched in character, who are called prodigal by those who 
 regard as saved what they enjoy, and as lost what they bestow 
 upon others. These make a mistake. Christ said, " Freely 
 ye have received, freely give." The man that does this 
 wisely, carefully, and discriminatingly, is a benefactor, but no 
 prodigal. A prodigal is one who expends money on other 
 1 things without necessity and foolishly. Wasting substance is 
 prodigality. The word is sometimes misused. We speak of 
 the man of genius as one on whom nature has been prodigal in 
 the bestowment of her gifts. This can never be true. When 
 the man misuses these gifts, then he is prodigal of his genius. 
 
174 SAM 1IOBAKT. 
 
 Yet it is not nature that is prodigal, but the man. Nature is 
 liberal in the bestowment, man is prodigal in the expenditure. 
 We justly speak of a spendthrift as prodigal, because he wastes 
 what he distributes. 
 
 There is a thought suggested by the words " wasted his sub- 
 stance/' which saddens the mind and pains the heart. The 
 word implies recklessness, thoughtlessness, if not absolute and 
 intrinsic wickedness. A man cannot become prodigal so as to 
 spend his time or squander his talent or his money without 
 necessity and without a purpose to do good except he first cut 
 loose from moral restraint and determine upon a career of per- 
 sonal gratification without regard to future responsibilities or 
 opportunities. The career of the prodigal is easily traced. 
 His pride led him to say, " I know the world better than 
 others. The advice of the aged is very well for those who 
 need it, but I need it not, and will have none of it. Money is 
 made to be used. The only use fit for it is to procure enjoy- 
 ment. I can get more pleasure out of my money away from 
 home than at home." Indeed, the restraints of home arc un- 
 bearable to the child so soon as sin takes full possession of the 
 heart. Is there a boy who feels that a mother's eye gives 
 pain, a sister's confiding look brings reproach, who dislikes 
 family prayers, who hurries away so as to avoid them ? such a 
 one is becoming a prodigal. He feels that home is a prison, 
 and the rendezvous of the wild and dissipated, paradise. Such 
 are in danger. The prodigal went into a far country and there 
 wasted his substance. There was no purpose to do well. It 
 is possible to lose a fortune and not be blamed for it. It is 
 impossible to waste a fortune and not be called a prodigal. 
 The wrecks of misfortune line the shore of life's sea. The 
 number of mistaken and disappointed men is legion. They 
 are everywhere. Success is the exception and not the rule. 
 But this utterance does not condemn mankind. Thousands 
 of our most successful men have clambered to the heights of 
 success up the steeps of difficulty and amid the pitfalls of fail- 
 ure, and have won position, distinction, and fortune. Others 
 
THE WASTED SUBSTANCES. 175 
 
 that have toiled just as hard and just as wisely have been over- 
 whelmed by misfortune and are regarded as failures, but are 
 not prodigals. 
 
 Some of the men who have gone down into the vortex of 
 bankruptcy have been far-seeing, prudent, economical, and 
 wise. But business is dependent upon others. There is a net- 
 work of influences which distinguishes financial transactions, 
 which extend far and wide beyond the reach and control of the 
 individual. Ships freighted' with rich cargoes may go down 
 into the sea. Railroad stocks, promising great dividends in 
 the future, may prove worthless at a given time. Men in 
 whom unlimited confidence has been reposed suddenly fail and 
 become bankrupt in character as in purse. A failure under 
 such circumstances may be all that is left to honor. A man 
 might deceive and become rich. If he is true he must go to 
 the wall, not necessarily to stay there. 
 
 The business man learns by his mistakes quite as much as 
 by his successes. It is not dishonorable to fail. It is dishon- 
 orable to squander and waste. Whoever tries and fails, reveals 
 a purpose which is commendable, and is honored ; and though 
 such a one becomes bankrupt, yet, if he does as well as he 
 can, society covers him with the mantle of charity, and, hoping 
 for the best, lends with pleasure the helping hand. 
 
 Not so does society feel toward the man who squanders 
 opportunity and patrimony, and by inattention to business and 
 by riotous living sows his fortune to the wind, and in due time 
 reaps the whirlwind of disappointment, chagrin, and want. 
 
 You feel that a prodigal is destitute of self control, of a 
 beneficent and ennobling purpose ; that he tries not to help, 
 not to build up, but to injure, to tear down, and demolish. 
 Well can I recollect the impression made upon my young heart 
 by a prodigal son whom I saw when a boy. He was the heir 
 to a fortune, and married a fortune with his wife. He seemed 
 to feel that there was no end to his income. He drank fiercely 
 and squandered lavishly. For a time he was the ringleader of 
 a class of dissipated followers. He was notorious for having 
 
176 SAM UOBAKT. 
 
 spread a hundred-dollar bill on a slice of bread and butter and 
 eating it in the midst of a drunken revel. He died from the 
 effects of his dissipation, and was buried. The remembrance 
 of the manner in which he was despised is still fresh. His 
 widow, impoverished by his prodigality, was compelled to 
 live in penury, and her life was overshadowed by the ter- 
 rible disgrace. 
 
 In his life there was not a single redeeming trait. His com- 
 panions were ashamed of him, and his former friends left him 
 in disgust. Self was his idol, drink his passion, and pleasure 
 his highest aim. He lived like a brute and died like a brute. 
 
 All have possessions with which they may be prodigal. 
 They may have talents, and by using them foolishly and for 
 unwise purposes, waste them. An individual is under obliga- 
 tions to hold all his powers of body, mind, and soul in abey- 
 ance to the highest needs of God and humanity. Whoever 
 refuses to do this is prodigal. There are individuals prodigal 
 of opportunities. They are placed in stores, in shops, and 
 offices. They have been trusted. They prove false to the 
 trust reposed in them. They neglect to do as well as they 
 can. They do what they are required to do, and no more. If 
 asked to do a favor outside of their peculiar place, they regard 
 it as an insult. The result is, they are dismissed when there is 
 a slack of employment. Their narrowness and meanness has 
 made them prodigal of their opportunities. They have wasted 
 them in attending to self-interests. They have themselves to 
 blame for their being out of employment. They regarded to- 
 day's privileges as of no consequence, and seemed to feel that 
 the time for distinguishing themselves was coming, and so by 
 inattention and by negligence they extinguished the fires of 
 hope and squandered the blessings intrusted to their keeping. 
 Whoever acts thus is prodigal and will come to want. On the 
 other hand, we have seen a man in a store who could and 
 would do anything that needed to be done. He was a man of 
 all work. He could keep books, collect accounts, lift a pack- 
 age, run an errand, stay late and get up early. He was careful 
 
THE WASTED SUBSTANCES. 17? 
 
 to improve every opportunity and to use his talent for his em- 
 ployer's advantage. Such a man cannot be spared. The 
 chances are that he will become a partner in the business. 
 Such succeed. Their success is a certainty. 
 
 Christian loafers are pious prodigals, and are great pests. 
 They have nothing that they will do, but sponge a living under 
 the pretence that they have a call which forbids their working. 
 The world is fuli of them. They make a zeal for God a cloak 
 for dishonesty toward men. They borrow money without a 
 thought of paying it, and claim that they are giving their time 
 to the church, and so are justified in cheating you. Such dis- 
 grace Christianity, and waste their little substance because of 
 their false views of duty and right. 
 
 Consider what was the substance of the prodigal. His 
 substance consisted not alone of the money he carried 
 with him from his father's house, but largely in what he 
 had in himself, apart from money. He had something in 
 and of himself. The health of body which gave a tinge of 
 beauty to his cheek and elasticity to his limb, and strength to 
 his frame, was a part of his substance which he was under ob- 
 ligation to himself and to God to husband with care. He 
 wasted it. Dissipation tells its sad story for him as for others. 
 It always tells its sad story. Hide it* you cannot. Compare 
 the look of the dissipated youth, who wastes his nights in 
 revels, who invades his hours of sleep, who changes night into 
 day and day into night, whose haggard look and hollow cough 
 and laggard step point unmistakably to an early grave ; with 
 the bright eye, the quick step, the hearty laugh, the joyous 
 face of the man whose evenings are passed at home, with pleas- 
 ant books for companions, to whom sleep brings rest and re- 
 freshment, and to whom the morning comes with cheery voices 
 sounding in the ear, and pleasant duties engaging the thought 
 this man is frugal of his strength and time, the other is a 
 prodigal. 
 
 Vigor of mind is also a part of a man's capital. Whatever 
 clouds, deadens, or impairs the intellect, or distracts the mind, 
 
178 BAM HOB ART. 
 
 wastes a man's substance, and impoverishes him as surely as 
 does the scattering of money or destroying of property. 
 
 Let us ask whence comes this tendency to prodigality ? 
 The answer is at hand. Not from what is without a man so 
 much as from what is within. Dram shops abound and will 
 abound so long as society remains at heart what it is. But 
 they would not last a week if society could be Christianized. 
 But do not Christians indulge their appetites, and make drink- 
 ing respectable ? We answer a thousand times no. There 
 may not be moral power enough in churches to throw off the 
 body of this death, and wine-drinking and intemperance may 
 be tolerated ; but intemperance is a sin, and whoever is intem- 
 perate is a sinner, and it is a shame for him to do the devil's 
 work in the garments of a professed Christianity. Prodigality 
 comes from forgetfulness of God, from ignoring the responsi- 
 bilities of life, from seeking the things of self, and from living 
 selfishly rather than for God. 
 
 INTEMPERANCE A CURSE. 
 
 Boston and New England were startled by the fall of Edward 
 H. Uniac. His story interested Sarn and enabled him to 
 portray the peril in strong drink with tremendous power. Sam 
 declared that strong drink was a devil. He described not only 
 the insidious approach of the destroyer, but the cunning it 
 gives its victim and the utter overthrow of truthfulness, of 
 honor, of uprightness. 
 
 Edward H. Uniac left Ireland for America a boy of fifteen. 
 He ran away from home. The hot Celtic blood that coursed 
 his veins predisposed him to temptation. On board ship he 
 obtained his first sip of grog. A sailor gave it to him, and he 
 drank it from a dipper with the men. He liked it. He 
 wanted more. He landed in New York with a purpose to see 
 the sights and enjoy the world. Intemperance was the gate to 
 pleasure, and he entered it. The broad road to rum may be 
 entered anywhere and at any time. That young man is the 
 representative of a great class. Sam felt it. On one occasion. 
 
THE WASTED SUBSTANCES. 179 
 
 when the wreck and ruin of this bright young life was engaging 
 public thought, Sam in the presence of a great number of rail- 
 road men sketched the story of the young man and plead with 
 them to shun the rock on which his bark of life went down. 
 This is the story in outline. Uniac came to America fresh 
 from the blessings and benedictions of a Christian home, 
 endowed with ability to climb to the highest round of the lad- 
 der ; he yielded to temptations, and afterward in a letter 
 wrote : " When I think of the advantages that were presented 
 to me in my young days and see how much I might have ac- 
 complished had I been true to my home education, I feel keenly 
 the truth of Whittier's words when he says : 
 
 ' ' Of all sad words of tongne or pen 
 The saddest are these, ' it might have 'been.'" 
 
 " The light of the wicked shall be put out." " The truth of this 
 text," said Uniac, " I know and can verify. I have walked 
 for years in darkness without one single ray to light my path- 
 way of sin and crime. There was a time when I walked in the 
 light, when the songs of birds were hymns of praise and the 
 \yinds sighed the love and greatness of God. Mine was the 
 peaceful life of innocent childhood. I had a mother to direct 
 me into the paths of piety. I had a Christian father, and every 
 Sunday found me at the foot of the altar, filling up my young 
 soul with divine truth and love. But how sad the story ! I 
 turned from the right to the wrong, and entered the ways and 
 wickedness of the world. I followed its luring phantoms until 
 my light was extinguished and I groped amid the dark debris, 
 plunging ever down into places of still deeper darkness." 
 
 He studied law and won position at the bar. Drink under- 
 mined his strength. He married and became the father of two 
 children. Drink broke up his home. His wife parted from 
 him. He enlisted as a soldier. He was promoted over and 
 over again for valor and reduced to the ranks because of drink. 
 He was wounded. He was captured. He was carried to Rich- 
 mond and suffered in Libbv and Belle Isle. In six months 
 
180 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 starvation took him down from weighing one hundred and 
 thirty-eight pounds to weighing less than eighty pounds. Still 
 the love of drink held him. He was exchanged. He went to 
 Camp Distribution. There John B. Gough saw him and de- 
 scribed him. " His hair was matted, a dirty rag was bound 
 about his head, his eye was bloodshot, his face bloated and his 
 whole appearance spoke of utter neglect. " Being interested 
 in his apparent abandonment, Gough inquired of an officer who 
 he was. His reply was : " He is the worst man in the com- 
 pany and the most brilliant, but is so given to intemperance 
 that nothing but a miracle can save him." Uniac heard 
 Gough and came to himself. On the way to the meeting he 
 overheard a soldier say, "There goes a subject for Gough 's 
 lecture. 77 These words cut him to the quick, and he thought 
 to himself, "Is it possible ? Have I sunk so low in the scale 
 of humanity as to be pointed at by my companions in crime ? 
 By God's help I will try to be a man once more.' 7 
 
 His description of the scene is worthy of being ^introduced. 
 He said, " Gough was in the midst of one of his most power- 
 ful appeals. When pointing his finger almost directly at me, 
 he said, ' You can be a man ; you have an immortal spirit 
 beating in your bosom which must live forever. Will you try ? 
 God will help you. Good angels will help you, the prayers of 
 God's people will help you, and you will be successful in the 
 struggle. 7 7 He signed the pledge. Mrs. Gough offered him 
 her hand, saying, "God help you to keep it. 77 He replied, 
 " Thank you, madam, I will remember that. 77 
 
 He won a victory. He enlisted as a worker in the Christian 
 commission. He came to Boston, and in the lecture field be- 
 came the rival of Gough. He went from town to town and 
 State to State. He never overcame his appetite, and here it 
 was that Sam Hobart became interested in him. He often saw 
 him on the train. He often listened to him. He recalled with 
 horror the fact that when weak and faint he went into a drug 
 store in Boston, and in accordance with the recommendation of 
 a friend asked for quinine bitters. The clerk took down a 
 
THE WASTED SUBSTANCES. 181 
 
 bottle, and Uniac taking it in his hand said, " Do you know 
 me, sir." 
 
 The man said, " Yes ; this is Mr. Uniac, the temperance 
 orator. ' ' 
 
 " Well, then, you know," says Uniac, " that I can take 
 nothing that has alcohol in it ; have these bitters anything of 
 the kind in them ?" 
 
 The apothecary answered, " Not enough to hurt anybody, if 
 there is any. There may have been a few drops when they 
 were first made, put in to keep them ; but, still, knowing you, 
 I can cordially recommend them to you." 
 
 Uniac bought them, tasted of them, and went to Connecti- 
 cut. He spoke and fainted. Brandy was given to him, which 
 caused every nerve of his stomach to open its mouth and cry 
 for drink. He came the next morning back to Providence, 
 went into a saloon, drank nearly a tumbler full of raw whiskey, 
 and taking a bottle with him came to Boston drunk. Sam 
 wept over hjs fall. So did thousands. The story of his relapse 
 ran like wildfire. Uniac went from bad to worse. He at 
 times gained a mastery for a day, and then went down for a 
 week. He came to the Temple one Sabbath morning. The 
 pastor saw him, and calling a deacon said : " In yonder corner 
 is Uniac ; go to him and stay with him until the close of the 
 meeting, and bring him to my room." 
 
 It was done. Then and there his weakness was revealed. 
 He would not take Christ for strength. The devil held him 
 and made him reject the offered help of God. How we prayed 
 for him. How Sam described the weakness of the inebriate as 
 he related this story of his persisting in obtaining strong drink. 
 It was on an April morning in 1869 that a friend started with 
 him to go to John B. Gough's near Worcester. When they 
 arrived at South Framingham Uniac wanted drink, and was so 
 determined to have it that force was required to resist him. 
 At Worcester he was threatened with delirium tremens. In 
 accordance with medical advice wine was given him. He then 
 escaped and drank freely. He went to Mr. Gough's, ate din- 
 
182 SAM HOBART. 
 
 ner, came back, went to the theatre, and then escaped his 
 friend and was found in the bar-room just raising the liquor to 
 his lips. " Stop !" cried the friend. This is the description 
 of the scene : " I spoke sharply and told him that I had lost 
 all confidence in him. He appeared to feel very badly, and 
 wept like a child and said, * If you cannot trust me, there 
 is no use of ray trying to reclaim my lost position/ I talked 
 plainly, telling him, if he did not try I should, and that he 
 could not have any more drink. He gave me one of his defiant 
 laughs, and said he would have it if he lived, and that I did 
 not know the cunning of the inebriate. I told him that if that 
 was the case he would not live, for he should go to Boston 
 dead or alive without liquor. For two mi antes he looked me 
 in the eye, as only a drunken man can. At length, with his 
 eyes still fixed on me, he said, 'Do you mean that?"* I an- 
 swered firmly, * I do. 1 He said, in a subdued tone, ' I am ready 
 to go. 7 ' They came to Boston. In the morning he got up 
 early and said he was going to the Maine Depot to meet a 
 friend. The next heard of him he was intoxicated. They 
 found him. They put him on his feet. Back to drink he 
 went. Matters went on in this way until one morning a friend 
 received a note saying, " A man in the police station desires to 
 see you." The friend hastened thither. The prisoners were 
 in the dock. He looked in and among the array stood Uniac ; 
 his face bloated, his eyes bloodshot, hair dishevelled, clothes 
 torn and dirty, and a look of despair in his eyes. He was 
 taken out, carried to a private asylum ; the light of hope once 
 more flickered in the socket. It was but for a moment. He 
 used opium. He went and drank, came back and slept the 
 sleep that wakens only upon the dread realities of eternity. 
 
 This long story was known to the engineer. It nerved him. 
 It made him more desperate with weak men. It fired his im- 
 agination. It caused him to pray against rum at the Bethel 
 temperance meetings, in the Temple, at Worcester, and every- 
 where. If a man belted with friends as was Uniac could be 
 carried down, none were safe out of the arms of Jesus. This 
 
THE WASTED SUBSTAXCES. 183 
 
 Sam saw. This he said, clinching his exhortation with the 
 words, " He that trusteth his own heart is a fool. Let him 
 that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 
 
 On another occasion he came into the meeting and with 
 thrilling effect related this incident. A young man fresh from 
 the country was gazing one evening listlessly at the windows of 
 a pleasantly lighted room when he felt a gentle tap on the 
 shoulder. He turned. A friend said, " Come. I am going 
 in for a few moments ; will you not come ?" He hesitated ; 
 his mother rose before him as on her dying bed he promised 
 her that he would never sit at a gaming-table, nor look upon 
 the wine-cup. Notwithstanding this promise he went in, again 
 and again ; he was in a good position. He has lost it. I 
 have just come from him. He has the* delirium tremens. I 
 have seen him pointing his attenuated finger toward the door 
 and exclaiming, 4< There they are. Don't you see them ? Oh, 
 keep them off. There they come. They are on me. They 
 have got me." He shrieks and promises, "Yes/ YES ! I 
 will play one more game with you, for you have my soul. I 
 know you have. " Contrast that man with our honored deacon, 
 George W. Chipman, who came as a young man to the city 
 from Marlboro. The first night he went out, his companions 
 led him to the threshold of a theatre. He stopped. He 
 stood. He saw his mother's beautiful face and, turning, said, 
 " I promised her not to go there, and I will not." He was 
 asked to drink. His vow kept him as he strode on to useful- 
 ness and to eminence. Temptation is a fact. It meets us 
 everywhere. It sounds like the great sea to some. It is like 
 the great sea to millions. Every man may be broken by it, 
 unless God keep him. Every enterprise may be wrecked by it, 
 unless God delivers it. Only those who take Jesus for strength 
 get the victory. There is no temptation taken you but is com- 
 mon to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be 
 tempted above that ye are able to bear, but will with the temp- 
 tation make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it. 
 Faith in God would have saved Uniac. Well has it been said : " 
 
184 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 " I would not give much for that virtue which has never been 
 tried. Give me rather the virtue whose battered and bruised 
 shield has arrayed itself against the hosts of evil. Give me the 
 man who has been baptized in the lire of temptation and come 
 out like refined gold. ' 7 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TEMPERANCE AN ADDED FORCE. 
 
 Henry Wilson The Peril in Wild Oats Lessons Learned 
 at the Farm School. 
 
 SAM delighted to do honor to those who deserved honor. 
 Foremost among these in his estimation stood Henry Wilson, 
 an illustration, known and read of all men, of the fact that tem- 
 perance was an added force. 
 
 Henry Wilson began at the bottom. His parents knew pov- 
 erty because of the curse of rum. He once said in Tremont 
 Temple, " From my cradle to this hour I have seen, felt, and 
 realized the curse of intemperance. When my eyes first saw 
 the light, when I came to recognize anything, I saw and felt 
 some of the evils of intemperance ; and all my life long to this 
 hour and now, my heart has been burdened with anxieties for 
 those of my kith and kin that I loved dearly. ' ' 
 
 Sam dwelt sadly on this great sorrow in the life of the son, 
 Henry Hamilton Wilson, which illustrates the danger in strong 
 drink. Mr. Wilson's father loved liquor. He did not. He 
 had no relish for it. But his boy suffered from his grand- 
 father 9 B weakness and, giving way to the use of intoxicants, 
 went to an untimely grave. 
 
 This fact stares all workers in the face. In Brooklyn, N. Y., 
 was a man perfectly temperate. His three boys were hopeless 
 drunkards, as was their grandfather before them. Mr. Beecher 
 described the condition of them, saying sometimes for days the 
 peril threatened them. They bemoaned it. They fought 
 against it. They yielded to it. They died drunkards because 
 of their grandfather's sin. Uniac over and over again would 
 
18G bAM HOBAKT. 
 
 go to a friend and cry for help. He would not dare go alone. 
 The approach of the devil was like an armed guard. It was 
 impossible to obtain deliverance unaided. 
 
 Temperance is an added force. Hence the apostle says : 
 " Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, and to knowl- 
 edge temperance. " 
 
 " Temperance," Sam would say, " is not religion. It can- 
 not take the place of religion. It is one feature of religion. 
 It is a strand in the rope, a block in the superstructure, a 
 branch of the tree. Faith is the foundation of Christianity. 
 Love is the dome of the grand superstructure, through which 
 the light of God irradiates the building from which comes the 
 glory and the mantling of beauty. " 
 
 Temperance is essential to manliness. Nothing is more 
 common than to see the young refuse to heed the injunction : 
 Add temperance to other virtues. Sam could not abide the 
 tendency in young boys to use tobacco. He protested against 
 the keeping of cigar-stores open on the Sabbath, where thousands 
 of children take the pennies designed for the treasury of the 
 Lord and drop them into the tobacconist's hands for that which 
 threatens to stunt the growth and destroy the promise of those 
 who otherwise would be the hope of the church and the world. 
 " I know what you think, " said Sam. " You declare we want 
 to know the world. We want to have a good time. We have 
 not sounded the depths of pleasure. W^e are not ready to give 
 up pleasure for piety and the world for Christ. How Christ 
 mourns over the fact that so many parents side with this ten- 
 dency to sin, saying, 'Boys will be boys,' and declaring that 
 children must not be brought up in the nurture and admonition 
 of the Lord, and must not be held by too tight a rein while 
 young, and that they will get over their folly when they have 
 sowed their wild oats. Alas, wild oats grow. They bring 
 forth harvests, as the weak and dissipated wrecks of humanity 
 about us on every side declare." The poor were not, in Sam's 
 estimation, in greater danger than the rich. How he delighted 
 to describe the life of Senator Wilson. Beginning the poorest 
 
TEMPERANCE AJST ADDED FOKCE. 187 
 
 of the poor. Early learning to read. Receiving as his first 
 text-book and as the guide of 'his youth a New Testament, he 
 started out under the benediction of the heavenly hand. Hav- 
 ing reached his majority he learned the shoemaker's trade, and 
 became .a good manufacturer. While others were idling away 
 their time, he was reading and working. At twenty-one he was 
 conversant with American history and with wide realms of 
 literature. As soon as he earned money he went to school. 
 He worked for his board that he might discipline his mind. 
 He grew mentally as he grew physically. He joined a debating 
 society and learned to think on his feet. He became a power 
 in his neighborhood, in the town, in the State and in the nation, 
 because of his growth intellectually and morally. 
 
 He was temperate. After he had been a member of the 
 Legislature and while the excitement of anti-slavery agitation 
 swept the land, he went to Washington to carry a petition 
 against the admission of Texas as a State into the Union. He 
 was asked to dine with John Quincy Adams. At the table, 
 wine was urged upon the rising politician. Henry Wilson 
 refused it, and, imitating Daniel at the court of Babylon, won 
 favor with God and man. Wilson spoke of this as one of the 
 strongest temptations of his life. Mr. Adams afterward 
 heartily commended him for his consistency. When elected 
 to the United States Senate he gave his friends a dinner at 
 Young's Hotel. On that occasion some jeeringly asked, 
 " Where are the wine-glasses ?" and spoke of the occasion as 
 a dry affair. Henry Wilson rose and with a great deal of feel- 
 ing said : " Gentlemen, you know my love for you, my qbliga- 
 tions to you. Great as they arc, they are not great enough to 
 make me forget 4 the rock whence I was hewn and the pit from 
 which I was dug. ' Some of you know how the curse of intem- 
 perance overshadowed my youth. That I might escape I fled 
 my early surroundings and changed my name. For what I am, 
 under God, I am indebted to my temperance vow and my adhe- 
 rence to the same. Call for what you want to eat and, if this 
 hostelry can provide it, it shall be forthcoming. But wines and 
 
188 SAM HOBAUT. 
 
 liquors cannot come on to this table with my consent, because 
 I will not spread in the path of another the snare from which I 
 have escaped/' 
 
 All applauded him, and Senator Wilson became the pride of 
 the workingmen and the stalwart leader in the cause of temper- 
 ance in Washington as in Boston, and for him Sam Hobart had 
 unbounded admiration. Senator Wilson had a warm place in 
 his heart for the brave and faithful engineer. In some things 
 they were alike. They loved God and delighted to work for 
 men. The necessity of adding temperance to other Christian 
 and manly virtues was ever a present fact with this worker for 
 God. He knew that it was fashionable to be intemperate. 
 Intemperance is not regarded as a sin, but rather as a sign of a 
 generous nature. Temperance is looked upon as an evidence 
 of narrowness, of weakness and puerility, instead of being 
 proof of wisdom, of strength, of manliness. Drinking customs 
 have invaded society. They threaten the thrift and prosperity 
 of the men of toil. Many a man drinks up chairs, sofas, mir- 
 rors, wife's clothes, children's shoes, and goes on in poverty, 
 whereas he might with temperance enjoy it all. 
 
 This story illustrated the truth in one of Sam's talks : " An 
 engineer, through rum -drinking, had lost his place. He was 
 turned away. Railroad men cut him on every side. One day 
 he was leaning on the counter and was about to drink as Sam 
 entered the saloon in search of him. The wife of the saloon- 
 keeper brought in her beautiful child and stood her upon the 
 counter, saying, l Papa, see baby's shoes.' Just then the little 
 barefooted child of the engineer came in and said, ' Papa, 
 come home. 7 Sam, looking at the little red feet, said : * Bob, 
 your girl needs shoes quite as much as the saloon-keeper needs 
 your money.' The man looked at his child. He broke down 
 in grief and said : 'Sam, I am done.' He took the little child 
 in his arms, put her cold feet in his bosom, and carried her 
 home ; signed the pledge and that night Sam gathered a little 
 collection to give them a start. " " Temperance," said Sam, 
 on another occasion, " is essential to manly development. In- 
 
TEMPERANCE AIT ADDED FORCE. 180 
 
 temperance weakens the system, destroys the intellect, and 
 ruins the sonl. Contrast the offspring of the temperate and 
 intemperate parents.' 1 Sam had visited the Reform School at 
 West Borough, and his attention was called to the diminutive 
 forms of the children of intemperate parents. The devil 
 knows it ; and as this Republic has to do with the world's prog- 
 ress Sam saw in the use of ardent spirits the degeneracy and 
 the destruction of thousands who otherwise might aid in pro- 
 moting its interests. Temperance gives skill to 'the hands, 
 clearness to the perception, value to the judgment, and power 
 to the will. Intemperance destroys it all, and casts down its 
 votary into the vortex of ruin. Parents should think of this. 
 " Recently, in a neighbor's house I saw," said Sam, " a boy 
 reeling around the room. 
 
 4 ' l What are you doing ? ' shouted the father in anger. 
 
 is ' Doing ? ' said the lad, t I am walking as father walked 
 last night/ " 
 
 It was as good as a picture to see the tear in Sam's eye as he 
 told the story and asked prayers that the father might feel the 
 terrible rebuke which came from the lips of his child. Such 
 facts as these illustrated the truth that temperance promotes 
 clearness and vigor of intellect. Daniel Webster achieved his 
 noble stature and his magnificent frame previous to his surren- 
 der to the use of intoxicants. Havelock and his regiment 
 proved that the temperate are more healthy, more ready for 
 duty, and more enduring than the intemperate. In Russia 
 when soldiers are sent north, an officer smells the breath of 
 every man and keeps home every one who drinks intoxicants. 
 
 Thousands perished in our army because of drink. Defeat 
 after defeat came to our arms because of the indulgence on the 
 part of the officers in strong drink. General Butler found that 
 drunkenness was sapping the strength of his army. He found 
 that soldiers concealed liquor in gun barrels, and in one way or 
 another thousands wer~ drinking. He issued an address. He 
 plead with officers and men to abandon the use of liquor for 
 the sake of the flag as well as for thoir own safety, and led the 
 
190 SAM HOBAIIT. 
 
 way in total abstinence. The tide of drunkenness threatened 
 everything. When checked, victories came. It is probahle 
 that Commodore Foote did no \vork as valuable on his gunboat 
 at Fort Donelson as when on his way he held up before U. S. 
 Grant the importance of his abstaining from every form of 
 intoxicating beverages. 
 
 It is admitted that indulgence in drinking may unduly excite 
 the intellect for the moment and aid it in bearing an undue 
 strain for a time ; but no man that uses tobacco or intoxicants 
 understands the pleasure derived from the play of the united 
 forces of mind and body and soul as does the temperate man 
 whose imagination kindles under the inspirations of truth and 
 under the direction of the Spirit of God. Temperance enables 
 the individual to use the powers committed to his keeping. A 
 man falls into the gutter overcome by liquor. Liquor over- 
 comes. It does not help. It disgraces women, no matter how 
 wealthy or how refined, as it disgraces the ignorant sot. This 
 fact Sam illustrated by an incident which had just come to his 
 notice. A friend, knowing his skill in managing the intemper- 
 ate, invited him to an elegant home. He entered a parlor more 
 beautiful than anything he had before seen. Around him was 
 all that wealth, guided by an elegant taste, could desire. 
 Large and comfortable chairs, sofas of the most costly descrip- 
 tion, and book-cases filled with rare books surprised and de- 
 lighted him.. On the walls were the most costly of paintings 
 purchased in Europe, where the appetite for strong drink was 
 acquired, not by the man, but by the woman. To her he was 
 introduced. She admitted her degradation and contended that 
 she was utterly helpless. Sam took her at once to Christ. 
 u Take my Lord, madam, for temperance as I took him to 
 overcome profanity, and you will be all right. You know 
 Paul said, ' Every one who striveth for the mastery is temper- 
 ate.' You are to make a struggle to be temperate. " 
 
 " Yes ; that is the difficulty. I cannot live without stim- 
 ulus/' 
 
 " Die, then,'' said Sam. 
 
TEMPERANCE AX ADDED FORCE. 191 
 
 " And be damned and go to hell ?" said the lady. 
 
 " No," said Sara, with the pleasantest of smiles, " die and 
 go to heaven, and get out of hell." 
 
 " Wouldn't I be damned if I should die as I am ?" 
 
 " Yes, but you need not die as you are. Whosoever con- 
 fesses Christ as a Saviour shall be confessed by Christ before 
 his Father and his holy angels. Confess Christ and then take 
 him for strength, and you won't be sick and you won't be 
 harmed. But if you should 3 be sick and die Jesus will take 
 you to himself. You see you are his after you give yourself 
 to him, and he is responsible for your salvation and preserva- 
 tion." 
 
 " It is a new view, Mr. Hobart. I see my way out through 
 God's help." 
 
 Together they prayed, and she began the fight in the name of 
 God, and won the victory, and the home was saved. 
 
 Ever after, that woman welcomed Sam, not as a railroad 
 engineer, but as her deliverer and benefactor in the Lord. 
 
 In Sam's estimation temperance was essential to piety. He 
 had no use for an intemperate minister or for a physician that 
 for any reason would prescribe the use of stimulants. He be- 
 lieved more were ruined than helped by it. 
 
 Add temperance to the attainments of childhood because of 
 the influence a child can wield. Sam met a little girl carrying 
 a pail of beer home. He spoke to her and said, " I am sorry 
 to see you in such business." 
 
 " I am sorry to be in it, Mr. Hobart. Come with me and 
 persuade my parents to give up drink." 
 
 Sam accepted the invitation. He found father and mother 
 thirsting for drink and eagerly waiting for their child's return. 
 Hearing the footfall of a man they feared punishment for send- 
 ing their child for drink. In went the child, after her came 
 Sam, with his pleasant, cheery smile, " We have brought your 
 beer." 
 
 " Have some with us, Mr. Hobart." 
 
 " Can't afford it" 
 
192 8AM IIOBART. 
 
 " Why, you are better off than we are, and yet we afford it ; 
 don't we, mother ?" 
 
 " We use it." 
 
 " Yes, and pay for it." 
 
 " Yes, and go without much else. Look at me," said Sam. 
 " I have good clothes. You have not. If I drank my clothes 
 up I wouldn't have them, would I ?" 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 " I have good furniture ; you have not. I would not have 
 it if I drank it up. I have a good business. You have not. 
 I would not have it if drink made me untrustworthy. I have 
 the respect of children. You have not, because you drink. 
 Friends, give it up ; save what you waste in drink, and in time 
 you will have a good home, a good position, and a pleas- 
 ant life." Turning to the little girl he said : " Now let me 
 empty out the beer. I will give you what it cost ; and with that 
 start and go on to victory." 
 
 They refused, and drank the beer, and Sam came and told 
 the story and asked us to pray that the seed sown might bring 
 forth fruit. Weeks went on. The little girl came to our 
 school. She learned the song, " Put away the bowl," and one 
 day sang it with wondrous power. The arrow entered the 
 mother's soul. She gave up drink. The father came home. 
 He was sober. He heard the child sing, " Jesus, lover of my 
 soul." It awakened memories in his heart. He called his 
 child to him. She sang for her father. She asked them to 
 come to church. They came. Sam met them. All sat to- 
 gether in the house of God. They were pricked to the heart. 
 They turned to Christ. They were redeemed, and Sam rejoiced 
 because of what a child can do when temperance was an added 
 force. Sam believed and therefore spoke. He believed in 
 standing together with Christ. Hence he worked with God as 
 lie worked with men. Sam believed in the pledge. He always 
 had one in his pocket and asked men to sign it, promising to 
 pray for all on the list. He said we must stick together, and 
 .told how in climbing the Alpine glaciers the guide fastens to 
 
TEMPERANCE AN ADDED FORCE. 193 
 
 himself the rope and fastens it to every other man, believing 
 that there will be strength in mutual support. If one slips, all 
 .the rest hold him up. What that rope is to the men going 
 down, that a pledge and agreeing to stand for each other is to 
 a temperance organization. Gough was saved in this way. It 
 was because when he signed the pledge the man said, "Come 
 and sign and be one of us," that he went home saying, "/ am 
 one of them." All that night he struggled. The next morn- 
 ing, very weak, he went to his work, saying to the man in the 
 office, 
 
 " I have signed the pledge. " 
 
 The man replied, in a brutal way, " I have heard so." 
 
 " I intend to keep it." 
 
 " So they all say," replied the brute. 
 
 Gough was alone. Wife dead, child dead ; and deader than 
 all was the man in the office from whom he expected help. 
 He went to his task faint-hearted. He began to work. He 
 held in his hand the piece of iron to turn the screw in the 
 clamp that held the book, for he was a bookbinder by trade. 
 The iron changed into a snake. On one end was a tail which 
 began to twist and turn. On the other' end came a serpent's 
 head with open mouth. In his hand the writhing thing moved 
 and struggled. It nearly tore out the palm. He saw his peril. 
 He cried for help. Just then, as he looked into the vortex of 
 delirium tremens, he heard a step and a man cried out : 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Gough. Glad to see you. Came 
 round to see you. You know you are one of us, and I came 
 to see you and to say that my name is Jesse W. Goodrich, and 
 that I will always be glad to help you. How are you ?" 
 
 Gough looked up. The iron was iron. The words had 
 lifted the falling man to his feet. He stood upon the rock of 
 temperance, and was helped to save thousands because on that 
 eventful morning Goodrich stood by Gough. " There is," 
 said Sam, <4 in one of our towns a movement that promises to 
 spread. They work and pray for the intemperate. The result 
 is the saloons are being closed up, and notwithstanding the hard 
 
194 8AM HOBART. 
 
 times there is but little suffering among the working people. 
 A reading-room well supplied with books and papers and made 
 attractive in many ways has been opened day and evening, and 
 is preferred to the saloon. Families have been reunited, men 
 have become able to support those dependent upon them, 
 public charity has been less needed. The sots of the gutter 
 appear in good clothes once more, and the houses of God are 
 filled with devout worshippers. 
 
 " God will help us all," said Sam, " if we will all help God. 
 The power to do well is within our reach. " This illustration 
 pleased him, and to it he often referred. A castaway ship was 
 floating on an apparently shoreless sea. The cry was for 
 " Water, water !" A ship came in sight. It approached 
 them. They signalled for help. 
 
 " What do you want ?" asked the captain. 
 
 " W T ater," was the reply. 
 
 " Dip and drink. You are sailing on the Amazon, and have 
 been there for days. ' ' 
 
 So with us all. God is about us. Cry unto Christ, and 
 temperance can become an added force. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A PROBLEM HARD TO SOLVE. 
 
 "Is intemperance a disease or a crime?" asked Sam one day. 
 
 " A mighty problem, Sam," was the reply. 
 
 " Ah, but I want to know," said Sam. " That it is a sin 
 there can be no question, for Paul says, ' Know ye not . . . 
 that drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God " 
 (2 Cor. 9 : 10). 
 
 u What is a drunkard ? Is it a man who gets drunk ? If 
 so, millions go to hell. Or is it a man that chooses the wrong 
 in preference to the right and puts his heart into disobeying 
 God and wrecking his hopes here and hereafter ?" 
 
 " Well," said Sam, " without deciding as to who is guilty 
 of the sin of drunkenness, were there no other reason for press- 
 ing the claims of temperance upon the attention, that were 
 enough. The drunkard is shut out of heaven and is doomed to 
 an eternal hell. Whether all intemperate people can be classed 
 with drunkards must be decided at a higher tribunal." 
 
 Sam was full of this theme. He had just come from an 
 engineer's home who was fast hastening to ruin. He had 
 promised reformation again and again. He had signed the 
 pledge and yet he was down once more. Intemperance is 
 horrid in its workings and more horrid in its results. The 
 Bible is full of warnings for the imperilled, and of offers of 
 help to the degraded and the fallen. For the wounded it fur- 
 nishes the balm of Gilead, and to the sick it sends Christ, the 
 great Physician. The apostle ranks drunkenness with other 
 gross sins and crimes. Society at the present time is disposed 
 to treat it as a disease, and to class drunkards not with crimi- 
 
1'JG SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 nals, but with unfortunates, with lunatics, with paralytics, with 
 half-witted people. Intemperance, in other words, is spoken 
 of as a disease. Drinking is not regarded as a sin, so long as 
 it is held in check and is under restraint. 
 
 A drunkard's peril is felt to begin when drinking passes into 
 intemperance, and when appetite gains control of the victim. 
 Is this a safe view ? Is it the correct opinion to hold and to 
 proclaim ? Or does the individual begin to be intemperate 
 when he begins to indulge in the use of intoxicants. In ap- 
 proaching this subject, I do it with the sincere desire of doing 
 good. 
 
 Differences of opinion abound. I will not characterize nor 
 describe them. Let us call attention to this question, Shall in- 
 temperance be treated as a disease or as a crime ? That it 
 resembles disease none can doubt. It produces terrible and 
 loathsome sickness. Nothing is more repulsive than the 
 drunkard getting over his debauch. He has been locked in 
 the embrace of a stupid sleep. He begins to come back to 
 consciousness. He yawns. His stomach can retain the poison 
 no longer, and ejects it. 
 
 He cannot bear water. His whole diseased nature cries out 
 for rum to satisfy the wants of a prostrate system. His fancy 
 is distempered. His nerves are unstrung. He is miserable, 
 and would be an object of pity were it not that he went into 
 danger warned and made the bed willingly on which the laws 
 of nature compel him to recline. That intemperance produces 
 disease there can be no question. The symptoms are very 
 manifest. These are some of them : It creates an appetite and 
 forms a habit which induces a man to drink at stated periods. 
 At times it is moderate in its demands. It asks for wine only 
 at dinner. Again it makes periodical attacks. Some men 
 drink to intoxication once a week, others once a month, and 
 others once a year. But the watcher within rings his bell at 
 the moment and sends the victim after his potion. If there 
 is one that begins to give way to the rule of appetite the fact 
 may be known, because it bestirs itself at certain times and in 
 
A PliOBLEM HAKIJ TO 6ULVK. 197 
 
 certain places. Whoever finds the desire for drink returning 
 at stated intervals, is warned of his danger. He must deny 
 himself if he expects to escape confirmed intemperance. If he 
 associates drinking with sports and pastimes, if he looks for- 
 ward to convivial pleasure with anticipation of delight, he is in 
 peril. Some contend that they are safe, because they only 
 take the social glass when the day's work is done. Is any one 
 safe ? Millions are to-day wailing in a drunkard's hell because 
 they once fearlessly trod the edge of this precipice. They 
 went one step too far, and went down. A distinguished 
 United States Senator wrecked here his bark of hope. He 
 began to use wine with jovial companions in the evening, after 
 business was over. He began to be a drunkard then. Noth- 
 ing is better known or more absolutely proven than the inviola- 
 bility of nature's laws. Now, drinking intoxicants, no matter 
 how small the quantity, produces an appetite. That appetite 
 influences the individual. If tampered with, it produces a dis- 
 eased state of the system. Men who drink tell us that there 
 are hundreds of nerves that seem to rouse up like beasts, and 
 cry with one voice at certain periods for drink. They will not 
 be content with anything else. The stomach becomes dis- 
 eased this affects the imagination. Pain, uneasiness, and 
 distress is the result. Intemperance, if it deserved to be called 
 a disease, is the product of sin. Some one asks, Can that be 
 disease which people insist upon having ? Whoever saw a man 
 expose himself recklessly for the purpose of taking a malignant 
 disease ? Yet here is an ailment which destroys men and 
 women by the thousand ; it produces poverty, distress, cruelty, 
 and death to all the nobler powers of the mind and heart ; it 
 wrecks the frame, breaks down the constitution, and places 
 some of the noblest of the land in the vortex of ruin, and yet 
 many forget to warn against it. We warn against yellow 
 fever, against malignant forms of disease of every class. We 
 build up great institutions and make ships lie by in quarantine, 
 and yet permit this plague of intemperance to go on unwarned 
 
]98 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 against, and see children, men, and women expose themselves 
 without remonstrance. 
 
 The objections to treating intemperance as a disease are 
 many, and some of them are well taken. The moment you 
 talk about it as a disease rather than as a sin against God and a 
 crime against man, you pity it, if you do not pet it. You 
 throw away moral power which you need to combat the influ- 
 ence of the monster. A man has the fever and ague. He 
 does not feel disgraced by it. He is diseased. He is sick, 
 and feels that he ought not to be found fault with because of 
 that. Call his intemperance a disease and you place him in 
 the same situation. Call it a sin. Denounce it as a sin. 
 Take ground against it, and you may save the man. 
 
 By so doing we tell the truth by act as well as speech. We 
 do not abandon moral suasion for legal suasion, nor do we turn 
 the minds of the people away from their duty of remonstrating 
 against indulging in drink because we at the same time oppose 
 those who place the pitfall of destruction in the path of the 
 unwary. By treating intemperance as a crime you array 
 society against it. You destroy the feeling of commiseration 
 which the victim delights to cherish. You array the nobler 
 nature against the baser, the higher against the lower. 
 
 "The trouble is," said Sam, " the drunkard don't care 
 whether you call his appetite a disease or a crime. His heart 
 is gross, his ears are dull of hearing, and his eyes are closed 
 lest he should be saved. He wants drink, and drink he will 
 have, cost what it may. ' ' 
 
 " Not always, Sam." 
 
 Then I told him of my experience with a man who was the 
 son of a Congregationalist deacon, who had married a beautiful 
 woman for a wife, and began to drink. Children grew up about 
 him. His home was a wreck ; never will I forget the sight 
 my eyes beheld, as I entered it for the first time. The man 
 was a confirmed infidel, so called, when sober, and when drunk 
 was apparently religious. Hence his wife, at the close of a 
 sermon said : 
 
A PROBLEM HARD TO SOLVE. 199 
 
 " The next time my husband is drunk I want you to come 
 and see him." 
 
 I replied, " I don't want to see your husband when drunk ; 
 let me see him when sober." 
 
 She said, 4< No. When sober he hates you. When drunk 
 he likes you and imagines you could deliver him. " 
 
 " All right, I will go." 
 
 In a few days, on a snowy day in November, a little bare- 
 footed boy rang the door-bell. The girl told of the pitiable 
 object. I went and saw him. He said : 
 
 " My father is drunk, and my mother says you said you 
 would come and see him." 
 
 Calling the little fellow in and after getting him a pair of 
 stockings and shoes we started for the drunkard's home. We 
 found him sitting on a broken chair at a broken table, eating 
 from broken dishes a drunkard's meal. He was wild with 
 drink. His abode was a drunkard's home. 
 
 A little pale-faced child lay on a broken lounge, covered by 
 the thin dress of the mother. The children crept about the 
 room in fear of their natural protector, who had been changed 
 by strong drink into a tyrant. We talked about his sin. We 
 did not pity him we condemned him. We pointed out the 
 result of his sin. He began to apologize for it. He said ap- 
 petite had mastered him. He could not pass a rum-shop with- 
 out entering it. We called the longing for drink sin as the 
 desire for murder is sin. The act of drinking is a crime as the 
 commission of murder is a crime. Then we held up to him 
 the picture of the past and the possibility of the future, and 
 asked him to stand with us in opposition to his sin. He did 
 so and was saved, though the appeal to him as an unfortunate 
 had ever failed. It is true that if you cannot get men to feel 
 that drinking is a sin and a crime, it is impossible to exert a 
 restraining influence over them. 
 
 " All right," said Sam, " go with me and see my friend. 
 Try him. He hates rum when he is sober. He will for days 
 tell me of his fear, as would Uniac, and then he will go down. 
 
;>(JO SAM HUBAKT. 
 
 He is not one of your animal drunkards who drinks to be 
 drunk, nor a rowdy drunkard who goes on a spree to smash 
 things, but he buys it and goes home with a sad look in his 
 eye, shuts himself up in his room, and drinks. He is there 
 now. Come and see him. M 
 
 Never can I forget the look of his wife as we entered. The 
 home was neatness itself. The man was in a room alone. As 
 we entered Sam said : 
 
 44 John, I have brought my pastor to see if we can't help 
 you. We have been asking whether intemperance was a 
 disease or a crime." 
 
 4 * It is both," said John. 
 
 "Both?" 
 
 " Yes, both. It begins a sin, and it ends as a dis- 
 ease." 
 
 " True ; but the sin does not die while the disease is 
 active." 
 
 " No ; it is both a disease and a sin." 
 
 " Well, then, of one thing you may be sure. The Lord 
 Jesus was a Saviour from sin and a healer of disease." 
 
 " Drink is a devil," said John. " It is a sin, a disease, and 
 a devil." 
 
 44 Well, Jesus cast out devils." 
 
 44 Is he in the business yet ?" 
 
 44 Yes." 
 
 44 Then I am his man." 
 
 44 Agreed," said Sam. 44 Will you obey orders ?" 
 
 4< Yes," replied John, as if he meant it. 
 
 Sam turned to me and said : 
 
 44 Pastor, will you take the job off from my hands ?" 
 
 44 We will take it to our Lord." 
 
 Then opening to Mark 5 : 2 I read of the man who met 
 Christ coming out of the tombs with an unclean spirit and no 
 man could bind him, no, not with chains. 
 
 44 He is worse than you, John ?" 
 
 " Yes ; worse until the delirium comes on." 
 
A PROBLEM HARD TO SOLVE. 201 
 
 Now this man went and worshipped Christ. Let us do the 
 same thing. 
 
 John looked and said, " But I am half drunk. " 
 
 " God knows it," said Sam. 
 
 After a moment I added, " Let us pray together." 
 
 All bowed, and after a short prayer we asked the man to take 
 Christ as his Saviour from the power of rum. 
 
 He did so, and we came away. Months passed. The man 
 was saved for a time. At length, to finish the story, Sam came 
 and said : li John has begun again." 
 
 " Begun to drink?" 
 
 " No ; but he is being tempted. He says he dare not go by 
 a certain saloon." 
 
 " Bring him here." 
 
 He came. His face wore a troubled look. He told his 
 story. " I always begin to drink at one place. It has been 
 so for two days that I dare not walk that way." 
 
 I said, li Give Jesus glory right there. Call on him in 
 prayer at the very door of the saloon, and let him deliver you 
 and shame this lurking devil." 
 
 The next day at high noon in the crowded streets a man was 
 seen on his knees crying to God for help. Men came out from 
 the saloon and found John in prayer. They asked him what 
 was the matter. He told them. His old companions helped 
 him on his feet, walked him off, and he was victor once more. 
 
 There are many kinds of drunkards. There is the social 
 drunkard, who will not drink or smoke alone. With him it is 
 not a desire. It must be a sin. Then there is the respectable 
 drunkard, who drinks as a help in business or because it is 
 fashionable. If he can be persuaded that he is mistaken he 
 can be made an apostle for the cause. The literary drunkards 
 are the men who drink in order that through the exciting and 
 stimulating effects of intoxicating fluids, whose effects alone 
 they seek, the " intelligence may keep pace with, and on cer- 
 tain occasions be made to outstrip itself. " Such forget the 
 law, " that they who gain the mastery are temperate." 
 
202 SAM HOliAKT. 
 
 The use of ardent spirits, employed as an auxiliary to labor, 
 -is the most fatal, because the most common and least suspected 
 cause of intemperance. It is justified as innocent ; it is in- 
 sisted on as necessary. But no fact is more completely estab- 
 lished by experience than that it is utterly useless and ultimately 
 injurious, besides all the fearful evils of habitual intemperance 
 to which it so often leads. 
 
 There is no nutrition in ardent spirits. All that it does is to 
 concentrate the strength of the system for the time beyond the 
 capacity for regular exertion, It is borrowing strength for an 
 occasion which will be needed for futurity, without any pro- 
 vision for payment, and with the certainty of ultimate bank- 
 ruptcy. 
 
 Among this class are the mightiest intellects of the time and 
 age. They are in the immediate and active performance of the 
 highest works of their calling, and the most arduous tasks of 
 their brain. Names like Webster and Byron and Edgar A. Poe 
 give dignity to their class. Their tasks are herculean and their 
 gifts of intelligence almost superhuman. Now they begin to 
 see, to feel, to know, that there is yet the unattained within 
 the scope of their minds, greater speed in their mental ma- 
 chine, that cannot, they think, be reached without the addition 
 of extra fire, over and above that immense evolution of the 
 latent powers, set in motion by the undying forces of an im- 
 mortal mind. 
 
 They do not drink in crowds. They take their bottle of ale 
 to the study and drink it off quietly and deliberately, and de- 
 light themselves in the beautiful fancies that come and go flit- 
 ting before them, creatures of the brain waiting to tenant the 
 world as creations of the pen or of the speech. 
 
 This class must be treated carefully. The world wants their 
 power and is willing to pay any price for it. You see repre- 
 sentatives of this class among the paid contributors to the 
 press. You will find them in retreats for drunkards, in insane 
 asylums, and in prisons. Some of them have fallen very low. 
 They are brilliant with the pen and in speech. Their produc- 
 
A PROBLEM HARD TO SOLVE. 203 
 
 lions are eagerly caught up by the press. They work with 
 resistless energy. They seldom fall very low or commit great 
 excess. The same great mind which called for stimulants bids 
 them beware, and continues to be their controlling power. 
 They drink for their brain power, forgetful of the fact that the 
 world can get on without their splendid productions while it 
 ought not to be compelled to get on without a decent character 
 behind their brilliant reputation. To save them requires great 
 wisdom and friendly remonstrance, backed by deeds of love. 
 No taunts, no discouragements, nor bars, nor bolts ; but a never- 
 failing, never- wearying, affectionate care unto the very end, 
 though he " sin seventy times seven. " They are not as easily 
 reached by human sympathy or appeal. 
 
 Another species is described as the inner-man drunkard. 
 They are endowed with the highest types of intelligence, but 
 superadded to that and towering far above it, and domineering 
 over it, is the most exquisitely sensitive organization of the 
 inner man that is created, and it is born unto grief and sorrow 
 as the sparks fly upward. 
 
 This form is accompanied by the most terrible moral suffer- 
 ings orr earth, and if unwashed of sin and unredeemed, their 
 anguish in hell must be indescribable and beyond compare the 
 most intense of all. 
 
 Is there a talented and witty youth that finds in the delirium 
 of intoxication, whether of tobacco or ram or opium, a pleasure 
 that is indescribable ? Your joy is the prelude to a terrible 
 sorrow, and the heaven you find in intoxication points to a 
 dreary drunkard's hell. The sorrows already experienced are 
 as nothing in comparison with those ready to begin. 
 
 Abstinence from drink puts to sleep the nerves that, when 
 aroused, like a million of serpents open their mouths and cry 
 for drink. One glass wakens them and makes the man their 
 victim. Call it a crime. Treat it, as does God, as a sin. Put 
 it on a par with fornication, idolatry, adultery, abusers of 
 themselves with mankind. Place the drunkard where God 
 places, him, among thieves and outlaws and revellers and extor- 
 
204 SAM HO BART. 
 
 tioners, and then you may reach him by law as well as by 
 moral suasion. Call it a crime, and what looks worse ? 
 
 What sin compares with it in harvests ? Look at the reports 
 of the police, and see that it furnishes nearly all of the occa- 
 sions of arrest. Its fires feed and sustain the brothel. It arms 
 the midnight assassin and gives courage to the garroter. Of 
 twenty-four men in Charlestown prison for wife-murder twenty, 
 three were drunk. It was this that steadied the hand that 
 aimed the pistol whose bullet pierced the heart of Abraham 
 Lincoln. It binds shackles about the limbs, and turns the key 
 that pushes the bolt of the prison. And yet men say, " I am 
 going to enjoy my liberty, and drink. " Follow him. 
 
 I chanced to be in a station-house when a fine-looking man 
 was led in. His name was called. The flask of rum was 
 taken from him, and he was remanded to his cell. How cruel 
 to treat a sick man thus. 
 
 Treat intemperance as a sin and a crime, and you can hold 
 up their only remedy. Then men will preach against it in 
 pulpits and talk against it in Sabbath-schools. 
 
 Think of the picture presented by the Rev. William M. 
 Thayer of the Alliance. He was speaking to a Band of Hope, 
 when a young man of thirty-two entered, took a seat, and 
 listened, and at the close of the meeting walked up to say, " I 
 am a drunkard beyond recovery. " 
 
 He was of a wealthy family. He had formed the habit of 
 drink. Since his return from the army he had pawned clothes 
 for rum. He was then shirtless and stockingless. Poor man. 
 He is but a specimen of a mighty class. He wept because he 
 had not been warned when young. Let not our young thus 
 speak in after years. 
 
 Remember, three fourths of the crimes committed are the 
 result of intemperance among the old and the young alike. 
 
 " The remedy, " said Sam, " is to stop drinking by the help 
 of God in the same way that any other sin is abstained from. 
 You are to break off your sins by righteousness, by Christ's 
 help." 
 
A PROBLEM HARD TO SOLVE. 205 
 
 True ; and yet the misfortune is that such is the effect of 
 drink, that when a man is free from it he thanks himself, and 
 when drunk he prays to God for help. 
 
 Then get men to take Christ as a Saviour against all that 
 destroys and as a helper to do good in the world, and drunkards 
 will be redeemed and go battle-harnessed into the fight for 
 temperance and for whatever glorifies God and helps man. On 
 this ground Sam came and took his stand, and became a poten- 
 tial force in the fight against the demon in strong drink. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SAM'S LOVE FOR TEIE YOUNG. 
 
 Barzillai Snow, his Br other -in-laio, Dying like a Hero. 
 
 SAM'S love for the young was a distinguishing trait in his 
 character. He delighted to twine the tendrils of their young 
 natures about the rugged strength of his life. 
 
 The story is told of Daniel Webster, that on one of his 
 summer excursions into the wilds of New Hampshire, he 
 became interested in his guide who led him to the best brooks 
 for trout, and placed him at the best points on the runways 
 for deer. The guide was not only expert as a sportsman, but 
 evidenced an inquiring mind which charmed the great states- 
 man, and so he revealed himself to the stranger, told him that 
 he was a senator from Massachusetts, and offered to show him 
 the wonders of the Capitol in return for the expert manner he 
 had exhibited to him the glories of the wilderness. 
 
 Months passed. At last, one morning, a tall, awkward- 
 looking man was seen at the Capitol, inquiring for Daniel 
 Webster. Men jeered at him, but he heeded them not, for he 
 was content with his acquaintance, and knew that in due time 
 he should receive a welcome. Hours passed. At length the 
 Senate was in session, and this uncouth and quaint-looking 
 backwoodsman stood at the door of the Senate and inquired, 
 " Is Daniel Webster in ?" " He is," replied the door-keeper. 
 " Please give him this card." It was done. No sooner had 
 the noble statesman glanced at it than he rose, went to the 
 door, grasped his friend by the hand, placed him beside him 
 at his desk, and after a little time went with him to the cloth- 
 
SAM'S LOVE FOR THE YOUNG. J>0? 
 
 ing-store, dressed him up in new clothes, took him to his house, 
 and lifted the unknown stranger to his own high companion- 
 ship, and proved himself as good a guide in Washington as the 
 guide had proven himself to be in New Hampshire. This may 
 be fable ; it may be fact ; but it illustrates the feeling that 
 thrilled the heart of Sam Hobart when he invited his brother- 
 in law, whom he had learned to love, up among the hills of 
 Vermont, to come to Boston and engage in railroad work. 
 
 Barzillai, son of Zenas and Roxanna Snow, was born in Lunen- 
 burg, Vermont, December 3d, 1840. His mother died when 
 he was four years old. He remained with his father on the 
 farm until he was twenty-one years of age, in accordance with 
 the good old fashion, after which he went from home to work 
 for wages. During the war he enlisted as a nine-months man 
 in the 13th Vermont Regiment, Company K, Capt. Ford. 
 This regiment was present at the battle of Getty sburgh and 
 helped drive Lee across the river, being in the front ranks. 
 Though Gettysburgh was the culminating battle of the war, it 
 was by no means the end of the rebellion. New York was full 
 of riot, and her foreign population, led on by infuriated trai- 
 tors, not only burned orphan asylums and trampled upon inno- 
 cent children, but determined to resist the draft, by which it 
 was hoped the depleted ranks of the army might be filled up 
 and the war brought to a speedy close. As a result, Gen. B. 
 F. Butler, the terror of the enemies of the Republic, was 
 ordered to New York to quell the riot and hold the city in sub- 
 jugation. The 13th Vermont accompanied him and evidenced 
 in the city the same characteristics which had distinguished 
 them in Virginia and at Gettysburgh. Their term of service 
 expired in August, 1863, but they cheerfully remained until 
 their work was done, after which they received their discharge 
 and returned home. In September of the same year, Mr. Snow 
 came to Boston and engaged as fireman for the Boston and 
 Albany R. R. at the invitation of Mr. Samuel B. Hobart, his 
 brother-in-law, and at the urgent request of his sister. For one 
 week he worked as fireman under the eye of him who had 
 
208 SAil HOBAUT. 
 
 loved him from his youth. He was an adept at work, and soon 
 mastered the business and became able to guide the iron horse, 
 and so entered upon the discharge of the responsibilities of his 
 profession as eng'neer. 
 
 John Smith was his second teacher. Mr. Bacon was his 
 third. All were kind to him and were held in high esteem by 
 him. The young man did his work well. He did not se.'k to 
 get on too fast, nor did he shirk any task or responsibility in- 
 cident to his position. 
 
 His advancement was rapid. The eye of Mr. A. B. Under- 
 bill, the Master Mechanic, was on him, and he was soon sum- 
 moned to come up higher, I believe against the protest of his 
 brother-in-law, who feared he was not ready for the offered 
 position. 
 
 There are some facts connected with this portion of his ap- 
 prenticeship which deserve mention. He neither used tobacco 
 nor spirituous liquors. He was pure in thought and speech. 
 He was once complained of for using profane language to one 
 above him. When summoned before the Superintendent, the 
 manner in which he said " I never swear" convinced the officer 
 that there was a mistake, and the charge was dropped. 
 
 He had his eyes and ears open to acquire knowledge of his 
 business. He soon mastered the locomotive, inside and out, 
 and understood it. He loved his work and became an enthu- 
 siast. Asa fireman he would do his best to keep the engine 
 up to time, and as an engineer he was prompt and attentive to 
 business. As engineer he went first upon a switching engine 
 and moved freight for some time in the railroad yard. 
 From there he went on to the night freight, and was after- 
 ward placed as engineer on the Grand Junction, running from 
 Cottage Farm to East Boston, and connecting with the Fitch- 
 
 o ~ 
 
 burg, Lowell, Boston and Maine and Eastern Railroads. He 
 was economical. lie saved his earnings, and husbanded not 
 
 O ' 
 
 for himself but for others. His father and brother both were 
 helped by him, and their farms are to-day more secure to them 
 because of the diligence, economy and forethought of this 
 
SAM'S LOVE FOH THE YOUXG. 209 
 
 busy engineer. He loved. This was his chief characteristic. 
 His friends were to him all the world. Those who befriended 
 him were never forgotten, and by industry and calculation he 
 sought to deserre the confidence and regard of those with 
 whom he labored as well as those by whom he was employed. 
 As a result, his promotion was rapid. The position he held 
 when lie died was one of great responsibility, and he filled it to 
 the satisfaction of all. He never grumbled or complained. 
 When a conductor had been all night battling with sleet and 
 snow and tempest, in the morning when they came off con- 
 queror he said, " that engineer did his work in a superb man- 
 ner. He never found fault or got excited during the entire 
 night y but met difficulties and mastered them and brought us 
 through." It was a splendid compliment and faHy and bravely 
 won. Judging from what he had accomplished, there is hardly 
 anything he could not have been. 
 
 He was converted in his youth, but had wandered. The 
 gospel as preached in the Temple touched his heart, and he re- 
 turned to his first love. His coming into the light of Christ's 
 love was a wonderful joy to him and to those who loved him. 
 In the house of his brother-in-law they felt like " killing the 
 fatted calf." At this time we became acquainted. Well do I 
 remember his clearness of statement, his unqualified determina- 
 tion to do his duty. He was convinced that the gospel com- 
 manded him not only to believe but to be baptized. He had 
 believed but had not obeyed this command. He came to do 
 so. His experience was noteworthy, and attracted the atten- 
 tion of the Committee and Church. He believed the gospel. 
 He saw himself lost, undone, without Christ and without 
 hope. He repented of his misspent life. He confessed his 
 sins. He had no faith in good works. He believed that Jesus 
 Christ was the way, the truth and the life ; and as he knew that 
 he could not drive his locomotive to Worcester from Boston 
 without the track, so he felt that though he might seek to be 
 good and moral and exemplary, he could not go to heaven 
 without Jesus, who is the way. Jesus was therefore to him his 
 
SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 all and in all. He accepted the gospel as authority and gladly 
 submitted himself to its commands. 
 
 Having made Christ master, he sought to become a faithful 
 servant. He was enthusiastic in this service. His face shone, 
 his eye sparkled, his words gleamed with love, as he stood 
 before us and asked baptism at our hands. On Sabbath, March 
 5th, 1871, he followed Christ in His ordinance. Well do I 
 remember his appearance as he descended into the baptismal 
 grave. Around him was a vast multitude. I spoke of him as 
 a railroad engineer, and of the talk I had held with his 
 brother-in-law as I rode beside him on his locomotive, and 
 how he had led the way and was permitted to rejoice to-day in 
 seeing his youthful companion gathering beneath the banner of 
 the cross, and giving himself up to the service of Christ. 
 
 In the few intervening months he has kept step with the 
 Church, and on the Tuesday night previous to his injury was in 
 his accustomed place in the house of God. 
 
 On Friday noon, June 30th, he had lain down to rest, as 
 was his custom, on a board placed against the track in the 
 engine-house. Unexpectedly to him, if not to others, an 
 engine backed in upon him. The place seemed secure. 
 Around him were friends. The bell of the engine was 
 sounded, yet he slept ; and the first that was known of his 
 peril came to them and to him, when the board on which he 
 lay was crushed under the iron tread of the locomotive, and he 
 and they awoke to see him wounded in both feet and his life 
 imperilled. He died July 4th, and was buried July 6th, 
 1871, from his place of baptism and love. The facts con- 
 nected with his life and death deserve consideration. He 
 became a power by being faithful in little things. He never 
 did any one thing calculated to acquire special fame, and yet 
 Sam treasured the memory of his little acts, so full of thought- 
 fulness and love, like leaping to help him on with his coat, car- 
 rying his pail home from the Round House, being always 
 prompt at the meetings, being devotedly fond of sister and of 
 friends, and so living with engineers, firemen and workingrnen, 
 
SAM'S LOVE FOR THE YOITNTG. 211 
 
 that they declared themselves impoverished by the withdrawal 
 of his quiet and undemonstrative piety. Though unknown to 
 the world, he was well known to Christ and to Christians ; and 
 so died in the ripeness of his strength, and went as a shock of 
 corn in its season. 
 
 In this fact there lies a lesson which ought not to be over- 
 looked. 
 
 It proves that the key to success lies close beside us and 
 within reach of all, and is obtained by patient continuance in 
 well-doing. There is in every nature a prophet for the future. 
 In other words, each individual has a talent for doing certain 
 work which must be observed if he would exert his highest 
 and best powers. Do well what you are required to do, and 
 your success is sure to be commensurate with your talent and 
 diligence. Duty is ours, not consequences ; and, as is inti- 
 mated in the words of Christ, there is One who keeps watch 
 and ward over us, who sees to it that faithfulness is rewarded, 
 that skill and culture and character are commodities in the 
 world sure to produce advancement. 
 
 Study the history of the successful everywhere, and we per- 
 ceive that success is an outgrowth and an accumulation. Eep- 
 utation is but an aggregation of particles. The pearl which 
 glistens in the sunlight resembles the material lying hidden in 
 the shadow. It is because of this truth that the sure awards of 
 the future supply a healthy stimulus to action. They call out 
 with a voice that is unmistakable, saying : " Discipline, culture 
 and the faithful discharge of present obligation furnish the 
 mainspring of power and the earnest of success." 
 
 We have what we earn and are to a large extent what we 
 have endeavored to become, not what we have dreamed we 
 should become. Hence the What am I ? not in appearance 
 but in fact is the determining question for every man. The 
 victory of an hour is not won in an hour. Into it there enter 
 long years of patient toil and waiting. Its value is the greater 
 in the world's esteem because of the cost of the production. 
 This truth might be abundantly illustrated by a reference to the 
 
vM;J SAM HOIiAjii, 
 
 lives of the worthies of the past, or by those who are gathered 
 with us at this hour and have attained to distinction, because 
 they were faithful to the trusts reposed in them, and in being 
 faithful in little things earned a right to be trusted with great 
 responsibilities. 
 
 This habit of being temperate, formed in his youth, proved 
 to be of value when the waves of temptation which sweep 
 across city life struck against him. Right within, he was 
 right without. Sound at heart, he was true in life. Tempta- 
 tion is only powerful when inclination meets the tempter on the 
 threshold of the heart and gives it welcome. It is what a man 
 is within that weakens or strengthens him. This truth should 
 be remembered and pondered. 
 
 The character brought from the green hills of Vermont 
 helped him and held him in Boston life. Ah, it is not what 
 men meet in the city that imperils them, but what they 
 brought from the country that threatens them with destruction. 
 This young man came here and was tempted to drink and smoke 
 and wander in forbidden paths, but his resolution was formed, 
 and the waves that beat against the rocks of Cohasset have no 
 more promise of entrance within, than had the seductiveness of 
 sin, of conquering Bar/illai Snow. 
 
 Are there those who have fallen, and who resemble broken 
 and dismantled wrecks, tossed on the shore and pinioned on 
 the rock through which waves come and go at pleasure ? The 
 reason is found within and not without. As a man thinketh 
 so is he. Character tells. You are to the world at last what 
 you are to God in fact. If pure and trustworthy, and temper- 
 ate and conscientious, you need not declare it. The world will 
 know it in good time. A friend writes of him : " In his 
 home-life he was always correct and moral, never desecrated 
 the Sabbath by going on excursions, never visited the theatre 
 nor other places of forbidden amusement, never swore, never 
 used intoxicating drinks was ever kind, pleasant and oblig- 
 ing, so that those who knew him best loved him most. M Into 
 
HAM'S LOVE FUR TIIK YOI:XG. 213 
 
 these sentences, facts are crowded, which explain the tnan and 
 reveal his grand and distinguishing traits, so that his loss to the 
 railroad corporation, to society and the church, is a public 
 calamity. 
 
 His education acquired in his youth was a help to him as an 
 engineer. Here we reach a truth upon which all may dwell . 
 with profit. Many suppose that they need not study geology, 
 or chemistry, or higher mathematics^ or the languages, unless 
 the pursuit in life chosen requires it. In this regard they make 
 their life mistake. No young man or woman can afford to 
 grow up ignorant of any truth which, by any possibility he cati 
 acquire. 
 
 The studious or reflective youth is cheered by the radiance of 
 hope which never illumines the sky of the indolent and the 
 thoughtless. Culture pays. It gives momentum and solidity 
 to thought and expression. It supplies solitude with society, 
 and makes periods of rest seasons of intellectual refinement. It 
 is said that at the battle of Gettysburg, there was a moment 
 when it seemed as though the column, some hundred yards in 
 breadth, sweeping down upon our forces, must crush and 
 master them. But the Pennsylvania Reserves, which breasted 
 this battle wave, had among them a largo number of the grad- 
 uates of colleges, and were in moral and mental standing the 
 superiors of the foe. To this fact, more than to all others, we 
 are indebted for that lifting up of prowess, and that flash of 
 patriotism, which appalled the rebel host and caused them to 
 praise in their apparently resistless march. It is not surpris- 
 ing. As the eye of a man can awe the beast, it is not surpris- 
 ing that the look of an intellectual man influences his inferiors. 
 It is known and felt everywhere that culture and education tell. 
 Men are stronger, broader and healthier because of it. In the 
 studies of geology which have characterized our morning ser- 
 mons, Barzillai Snow was among the most attentive of listeners, 
 and well do I remember how eagerly he drank in the lessons of 
 science as they were used to illustrate and explain the teachings 
 
SAM HOB ART. 
 
 of Scripture. He understood the joy experienced when a new 
 thought kindles its immortal flame in the mind, and so he 
 could sing, 
 
 " Climb, O my soul, toward God's high things, 
 
 And He will take thy part, 
 Yea, though thou slumber in His hand, 
 He'll lift thee to His heart. 
 
 11 Dare to aspire to lofty heights, 
 
 Look up with eagle eyes, 
 For high as thou dost dare to gaze, 
 So high 'tis thine to rise." 
 
 A hope in Christ, which is like an anchor to the soul, ap- 
 pears in its true light at such a time. When told of his injury, 
 at once the thought came rushing into the mind, " Thank God, 
 let come what will, he is prepared. " That thought came to 
 him in like manner when first injured, and he said, " If it is 
 God's will that I go home from such a cause, I am ready." 
 When on Saturday morning I stood beside him, I felt sure he 
 was not long for this world, but there was no trepidation or 
 alarm. He was ready. That work of preparation was 
 finished. His name was written on the palms of Christ's 
 hands. He thanked God, and was content with his hope. As 
 I quoted those words, " Let not your heart be troubled, ye 
 believe in God, believe also in me ; in my Father's house are 
 many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you. I go 
 to prepare a place for you/' I felt and saw that they dropped 
 into a prepared place in his heart, and fitted in perfectly with 
 his thought and hope. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the pleasure that comes to a 
 minister at such a moment. Tears were exchanged for smiles 
 as the dying Christian said, " Yes, it is all right." " If it be 
 God's will, I am ready." Whenl asked, " Does religion seem 
 all it claims to be, and all you hoped it would be ?" he replied, 
 " Yes, more than I thought it possible." He was on the 
 rock cleft for him, and was sheltered from the storm. He 
 could sing, 
 
SAM'S LOVE FOR THE YOUNG. 215 
 
 " Affliction is a stormy deep, 
 
 Where wave resounds to wave ; 
 Though o'er our heads the billows roll, 
 We know the Lord can save. 
 
 " Here will we rest, here build our hopes, 
 
 Nor murmur at His rod ; 
 He's more to us than all the world 
 Our health, our life, our God." 
 
 There is in the circumstancfes of his death a lesson. He was 
 Killed because he was asleep. Men were about him who loved 
 him, the bell rang to warn him, but he was killed because he 
 was asleep. How suggestive this fact. How impressive the 
 thought. Is there not a lesson for each one ? Will men heed 
 it? Do we not hear the admonition, " Awake, thou that 
 sleepest !" Are not men all about us asleep, spiritually, who 
 are in great peril 1 They are trusting to friends, to good 
 and exemplary lives, but the danger is upon them, because they 
 are asleep. Brother, out of Christ, give me your ear for a 
 moment. That sleeping engineer, that approaching danger, 
 the calamity and the result, are full of meaning. Who dare 
 refuse to heed the lesson ? 
 
 The very genius of the gospel is set forth in the light of this 
 mysterious Providence. God's proclamation is based on the 
 supposition that men have eyes to see and see not, ears to hear 
 and hear not, because their spiritual natures are asleep. They 
 are conscious of their danger. Hence the command, " Run, 
 speak to that young man." " Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature." 
 
 The gospel must be given to individuals by individuals, as 
 particles of leaven act upon particles of flour. The engineers 
 who are in earnest in seeking the salvation of souls of those 
 near them, are right. Barzillai Snow was crushed beneath the 
 iron wheel because no one spoke to him. A word addressed 
 to him as an individual would have roused him. The slightest 
 touch would have caused him to rise. Christians, forget it 
 not. Men on every side of us are asleep. Sin benumbs their 
 
216 SAM HOBART. 
 
 faculties. Death is on their track. To-morrow may find 
 them in eternity. Speak to them now. Speak to the ones 
 next to you. 
 
 Let us do more than give advice to others. Let us say to all 
 who shall read these words, This is God's time. Brother out 
 of Christ, you are in peril. Let me rouse you. You need 
 Christ. Death may not come to you as it came to our brother. 
 Never do I see one of those flying engines, and think of the 
 man who holds life and property in his skilled hand, and of the 
 dangers that environ him on every side, but I think such a 
 man needs Christ. How many go into eternity on a bound. 
 The approaching train is seen, coming with lightning speed. 
 There is no escape ; the coming and the going train are on the 
 same track. Meet they must. Hark ! there is a crash an 
 explosion death ; and another soul stands before God. Are 
 you not thus confronting God ? How can you escape if you 
 neglect so great a salvation ? Now, my brother, in your heart 
 you feel that you need Christ. You need Him for what He 
 does for you, and for what He helps you to do for others. 
 
 Think of jour opportunity to serve Christ. First with those 
 next to you, and so on. Is it not an encouraging fact, worthy 
 of notice, that for months a company of railroad men have 
 been praying for officers and men on railways ? Think of it, 
 ye who are without a hope in Jesus Christ. Your names are 
 mentioned before the Mercy-Seat every day. What excuse 
 will you have if you go to God unprepared ? Think of the 
 readiness to die a hope of Christ secures. When young Snow 
 beheld his situation, and he was being carried to the hospital, 
 he talked of Christ, of his preparation and of his readiness to 
 die. When his brother-in-law and pastor visited him, he de- 
 clared himself ready. The friends all felt a Christian is on 
 his way home to meet his God, and those gone before. What 
 would you not give, impenitent man, to be able to pronounce 
 those three words, " / am ready " ? What makes one ready ? 
 Simply the assurance that through Christ you have been recon- 
 ciled to God ; that your sins have been washed away in the 
 
SAM'S LOVE FOR THE YOUNG. 217 
 
 blood of Christ. How can this be secured ? Nothing is more 
 simple. Ask, and it shall be given ; seek, and ye shall find. 
 " Behold," says Christ, " I stand at the door a.nd knock. " 
 The bloody hand of the slain Christ is now on the handle of 
 the bell. He rings. Answer it, and bid Him welcome. Make 
 Him your Guest. Let Him in. Give Him room. Serve 
 Him. Confess Him with your mouth, and believe in your 
 heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, and thou shalt 
 be saved. 
 
 When I think what religion has done for the faithful engi- 
 neer, how it lifted the workingman out of his garb, clothed him 
 with the sgotless robe of Christ's righteousness, made him an 
 heir of God and a joint heir with Christ, lifted him to a place 
 above that occupied by kings or millionnaires if they know not 
 Christ, and on a level with them if they do, saved him from 
 hell and made him an inhabitant of heaven when I think of 
 it, I am led to wonder that any one will forego this boon or 
 deny themselves this blessing. 
 
 Finally, he was faithful to his promises. His marriage shows 
 it. He was true to her he loved. His life in the church 
 shows it, as does his life in his closet and with his comrades. 
 
 It is said of one of the old masters at work upon a statue 
 for the niche of a temple close against the sky, that when 
 asked why he was so particular about the back part of the head, 
 which must forever remain hidden from view, replied, God can 
 see it. 
 
 The man that thus acts, conscious that he is under the eye 
 of God, illustrates this gospel and permits its truths deep in 
 the heart to blossom into action, will never slight the task as- 
 signed him, but will walk in the shadow as in the light, remem- 
 bering that God stands for those who stand for Him, and that 
 the radiant crown is in reserve for those whose life record is 
 they did what they could, and so secured the welcome utter- 
 ance, " #000? and faithful ones, well done." 
 
 How proud Sam was that when his leg was spouting blood 
 and they thought he would die, a friend uncorked a flask of 
 
218 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 brandy and asked him to drink from it. He pushed it away, 
 saying, " No I don't need it. I may die. If I do I want to 
 go up to God with a clear brain as well as with a believing 
 heart." He died with a clear brain. Railroad men printed 
 this record of him, and made lamentation over him. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART, AND OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS 
 
 AS A CLASS JOSEPH A. . SEEDS, OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 CENTRAL J JOHN MARROT, OF ENGLAND, AND OTHERS. 
 
 " How near could you drive to that precipice ?" asked a 
 Scotchman of three men, one of whom he thought of hiring as 
 a driver of the family carriage. 
 
 One said, " Within a foot." The other, " Within a foot 
 and a half." The third one said, l< Well, sir, I should keep 
 as far away as I could." 
 
 4i Well, my man, I will take you." 
 
 Sam Hobart was courageous. No man can climb to the 
 
 o 
 
 position he attained as the safest and the most skilful engineer 
 of the road without courage. But he kept away as far as pos- 
 sible from the brink of the precipice all his life. Not that he 
 never ran risks. Every engineer runs them. Not that he 
 never escaped peril by almost superhuman exertion and by a 
 quickness of thought and steadiness of nerve that excited 
 applause at the time and the bare recital of which now thrills the 
 soul with inexpressible emotions. Time would fail to recount 
 how on one occasion a collision was avoided that seemed immi- 
 nent. How on another day he kept out of the way of an 
 engineer excited with passion who tried to place him at a dis- 
 advantage. We could follow him into a storm that blocks the 
 path of the locomotive. On one such night the New York 
 train was three hours late at Worcester. A driving gale full 
 of snow and sleet was coming in from the ocean. Sam had to 
 face it. He draws out his locomotive after spending some 
 'ime with God in prayer. 
 
220 SAM HOBART. 
 
 " A bad night, Sam," shouts the switchman. 
 
 " Can't well be worse, my boy ; but we must go through if 
 we can," said Sam, as cheerily as if he were on his way to his 
 home. 
 
 They start. It is pitch dark. Out into the night rolls the 
 thundering train. Every one wonders if they will get through. 
 The conductor is besieged by questions. 
 
 " Who is on the locomotive, conductor 1" asks a merchant 
 prince, belated and very anxious to get through. 
 
 " Sam Hobart," was the reply. 
 
 " Then we'll go through if it is possible." 
 
 " Yes, if it is possible ; but it is a wild night." 
 
 And a wild night it was. I was on the train. We had gone 
 but a few miles when the whistle sounded and all knew that 
 dangers were about us. The train stopped. Soon we learned 
 that there had been a smash-up. The train before us was 
 broken up by a train that followed, and we were in the midst 
 of the debris. Out into the night many went. Beyond was 
 Sain with his lantern, giving advice and breathing good cheer 
 into the ears of those not as wise or brave as himself. In due 
 time the track was cleared, and we went on. The man at the 
 throttle-valve, wet through to the skin, his eye at the look-out, 
 and we, way on in the night, rode into the depot at Boston 
 sleepy and disappointed, while Sam was tired and faint. Bid- 
 ding him good-night, never can I forget the expression of grat- 
 itude to the great Giver of every blessing for the deliverance. 
 With Sam it was not luck or chance that brought him through, 
 but God. It may be that such courage as was that night dis- 
 played may not parallel the act of Garfield when he grasped 
 the wheel of the steamer and gave orders to cut loose that she 
 might defy the terrific current of the Tennessee in carrying 
 food to the beleaguered garrison, but the same kind of metal 
 was necessary in the engineer and the general. 
 
 4 ' It may be a weakness, ' ' said President Tuttle, of Wabash 
 College, " yet I confess to a high admiration of a class of men 
 to whom a vast burden of responsibility in the matter of 
 
THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART. 221 
 
 human life is constantly intrusted ; I refer to our railroad 
 engineers. The locomotive in itself is a marvel of ingenuity 
 and power. Compact, perfect in form and adaptation, indis- 
 pensable to the wants of civilization, it is one of the finest in- 
 struments. The man who controls these thirty tons of organ- 
 ized iron, which we call a locomotive, must secure both self- 
 respect and self-confidence. I have sometimes stood beside 
 the track when a train has come flying along and have observed 
 with boundless admiration the man on whose vigilance, skill 
 and pluck the safety of that train so largely depended. His 
 left hand on the lever, his right on the reversing lever if that 
 fce its name his body bent forward eagerly, and his eye 
 keenly scrutinizing the track ahead lest the tremendous mo- 
 mentum of his train, meeting with some obstacle, should dash 
 itself in an instant into a horrible wreck. How, now, can a 
 man be weighed down with such a responsibility and not be a 
 stronger and more self-reliant man ? 
 
 " Some of the most remarkable exhibitions of courage have 
 been made by men of this class. A few years ago, Osborne, 
 an engineer on the Morris and Essex Railroad for twenty years 
 at least, was once delayed by snow on the track for several 
 hours ; but received explicit orders from the superintendent 
 ' to go ahead,' for the road was clear, no other train was on 
 the track. After satisfying himself that he had not misunder- 
 stood the order, he left the summit on a steep down grade, and 
 in rounding a sharp curve came on a train that was ascending 
 the same grade under full head of steam. In an instant he 
 whistled down the brakes and reversed his engine. The noble 
 thing under such a tremendous strain as if fully aware of the 
 danger, obeyed and threw itself back to avert the catastrophe. 
 Meanwhile the other engineer had done the same thing with his 
 locomotive ; but it was possible only to modify the shock. 
 Together rushed those two panting and reluctant giants, their 
 joint weight not less than sixty tons, with the gathered mo- 
 mentum of their following trains. They rose like two furious 
 animals in fight, standing on end and in a trice the two splen- 
 
222 SAM HOBART. 
 
 did machines were in ruins. The cars behind them were also 
 badly crushed. Osborne did not leap from his engine ; but 
 never moving his hands from the lever which controlled it, he 
 stood as resolute as a rock at his post until the shock came and 
 then quick as thought adjusted his valves to allow the steam to 
 escape without explosion. Man can furnish no clearer proof 
 of the finest courage. Daring the war an incident occurred on 
 the Pennsylvania Central. A regiment of soldiers was on a 
 train, stopped by a freight-train off the track. It was in the 
 night, and most of the thousand men were asleep. Four 
 heavily loaded coal cars belonging to a train ahead had by acci- 
 dent become detached and had begun the descent from the sum - 
 in it toward Johnstown. The engineer heard the roar of the de- 
 scending cars and, surmising what was the matter, put on steam 
 to meet the approaching line, if possible, to break its force and 
 save the train. His locomotive was a large freight, and he had 
 moved several rods ahead when the cars struck him like a 
 thunderbolt and crushed his engine back on the train ; but his 
 heroic courage had saved many lives. The man's name was 
 Strong, and his grateful beneficiaries presented him some ele- 
 gant silver plate, with the deed itself and their names engraved 
 on the pieces. When asked why he did not abandon his train, 
 he replied, " Quick as lightning I thought I had better die than 
 to have those runaway cars cut clean through the train destroy- 
 ing hundreds. ' ' It was an heroic answer. 
 
 On the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad formerly were a 
 number of trestle bridges. The funds were low. The men 
 were not paid. A train with the directors on board was going 
 over it. A miscreant determined to throw it off and kill them 
 all. The engineer discovered the obstruction. He seemed to 
 know instinctively that the momentum was too great to save the 
 whole train, and he signalled the brakes down and reversed the 
 engine to stop, if possible, the cars before reaching the chasm. 
 Then opening the throttle-valve his engine sprang forward so 
 violently as to break the connection with the train, and dashed 
 to the awful leap. The bold man as this was going on ran 
 
THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART. 223 
 
 out of his window on the engine and opened the escape-valve. 
 While standing there the engine went over with him and, mar- 
 vellous to relate, he, falling under the huge weight, was pre- 
 served from being crushed by the engine-bell at his side. The 
 train for the rescue of which he had exhibited such incredible 
 pluck, stopped just soon enough to escape the horrible leap 
 after the engine. 
 
 That the roll-call of heroes is constantly filling up was proved 
 on Sunday, October 22d, 1882, as a train composed of ten pas- 
 senger cars containing over six hundred persons passed through 
 Bergen Cut on the Pennsylvania Central at the rate of thirty 
 miles an hour, "ffirel FIRE !" was shouted by conductor 
 and passengers as a volume of smoke and fire suddenly burst 
 through the open door of the smoking-car next to the tender. 
 Great consternation instantly prevailed among the passengers of 
 the crowded car. Their alarm became a panic when the fire- 
 man came clambering over, the tender into the car and it was 
 found that the train was dashing wildly on with the engine 
 pouring forth flames which, if not promptly checked, must 
 speedily involve all the cars in destruction. The speed of the 
 train made it hopeless to think of escape by leaping off, and 
 the passengers began to contemplate the possibility of death in 
 one of the most horrible forms which the imagination could 
 possibly conceive. 
 
 16 Shut the door ! Shut the door !" was shouted. The 
 door was closed, but almost immediately it flew open again, 
 and the engineer and the fireman emerged from the fire and 
 smoke and stumbled into the car. The train dashed on with 
 no one to govern the engine. Men rushed to the rear platform 
 and there met a frightened crowd from the next car. Others 
 raised windows only to realize at what speed the train was 
 going, and to know that to jump out would be death. " Get 
 to that closet," shouted Engineer Joseph A. Seeds to the fire- 
 man, pointing to the rear of the car, " and work the air 
 brakes." But the passage was blocked with passengers and 
 the fireman found it impossible to make headway. 
 
224: SAM HOBART. 
 
 " What is going to be done ?" asked one, of the engineer. 
 
 Seeds made no reply. There was no time to talk. Action 
 was now the imperative necessity. See him. He is well. He 
 is in the prime of life. In face and form he has a comely ap- 
 pearance. All is forgotten. The lives of six hundred pas- 
 sengers are in his hands. He must dare death that they may 
 have life. He does not hesitate, but plunging into the seething 
 sea of fire he climbs upon the tender and disappears. The 
 flames originated from the " blow back " on the engine, forcing 
 the flames out of the furnace when the door was opened. 
 Seeds must go through the flames to reach the air-brake and 
 the throttle-valve. He went through. He reached the throttle- 
 valve and with burning hand pulled the " air-brake" and re- 
 versed the engine. He knew that, whatever came to him, the 
 train would stop and its precious load be saved. Nearly a 
 minute passed and then the train came to a stop on the bridge 
 over the Hackensack River, and all knew that the brave man had 
 put on the " air brake" and reversed the engine. This done, 
 he tried to save himself ; ran back to the tender, lifted the 
 lid off the water-tank, and leaped in. 
 
 In the mean time the peril was past. The passengers, wild 
 with delight, began to wonder what had befallen the engineer. 
 Rushing forward to the engine they found that the cab was still 
 enveloped in flames, while the head and shoulders of a man 
 appeared above the water-tank on the tender. Up they sprang 
 to drag him out. They found him weak and half unconscious. 
 His clothes were completely burned from him. His face was 
 disfigured and his hands were shockingly burned. His body 
 was .blistered so badly that some of the flesh stripped off in 
 moving him. Tenderly they cared for him. To the Jersey 
 City Hospital they bore him, and there he died four days after- 
 ward. No wonder that little children and mothers and friends 
 have united in contributing money to create a fund for his 
 family in Philadelphia. Such heroism deserves to be rewarded. 
 
 Seeds' s deed recalled another notable act. 
 
 It was in Scotland that this memorable achievement took 
 
THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART. 225 
 
 place. A drunken engineer started his engine on the wrong 
 track, and exposed hundreds of people to sudden death. An- 
 other engineer, Campbell, boarded a locomotive on the parallel 
 track in pursuit. Both throttles were wide open ; the fated 
 train flew to disaster at the rate of sixty miles an hour ; the 
 pursuing engine followed faster. Fifteen miles down the road 
 the engine caught up with the first one ; heedless men were 
 sitting in their carriages reading their papers as the engine 
 slowly gained on the object of its pursuit. Then, when 
 the two were abreast, Campbell leaped across tracks, from his 
 own to the other, staggered, held on, reversed the machinery, 
 flung the drowsy drunkard to the track ; and then the Scotch 
 express, coining the other way, struck his engine and nearly three 
 hundred lives were sacrificed. The drunken engineer was not 
 killed. Campbell was smashed to a jelly in the performance of 
 one of the most extraordinary feats in the history of the human 
 race. 
 
 Seeds's name deserves to be perpetually coupled with that of 
 the gallant Scot whose sacrifice was too late to save any other 
 life than that of the worthless cause of the accident. Reading 
 of such deeds of heroism performed by humble men, can one 
 for a moment beliove that the age of chivalry has gone by ? 
 
 And now that we are on this subject let us transfer a word- 
 picture of Ballantyne from " Life on the Rail," which was 
 equally daring and yet unattended by such terrible disasters. 
 
 In the book referred to,* the story is told of a lunatic leaping 
 on a locomotive all fired up and ready to be coupled to the 
 train. He felled the driver, who was outside the rail oiling 
 some of the machinery, seized the handle of the regulator, and 
 turned on full steam. The driving-wheels revolved at first 
 with such tremendous rapidity that they failed to '* bite, " and 
 merely slipped on the rails. The madman was engineer 
 enough to understand why, and at once cut off part of the 
 
 * " The Iron Horse ; or, Life on the Bail." By B. M. Ballantyne, 
 . 325. 
 
226 SAM HOBAKT. 
 
 steam. Next moment he shot out of the station, and again 
 letting on full head of steam rushed along the line like an 
 arrow. It chanced that the passenger superintcTident was on 
 the platform at the time. That gentleman had everything con- 
 nected with the traffic by heart. He saw that the points had 
 been so set as to turn the runaway engine on to the down line, 
 and in his mind's eye saw a monster excursion train, which 
 had started just a few minutes before, laboring slowly forward, 
 which the light engine would soon overtake. A collision in a 
 few minutes would be certain. In peculiar circumstances men 
 are bound to break through all rules and regulations and act in 
 a peculiar way. Without a moment's hesitation he ran to 
 John Marrot and said, in an earnest, hurried voice, " Give 
 chase, John ! Cross over to the up line, but don't go too far." 
 
 " All right, sir," said John, laying his hand on the regu- 
 lator. 
 
 Even while the superintendent was speaking, Will Gar- 
 vie's swift mind had appreciated the idea. He had leaped 
 down and uncoupled ''''The Lightning" from its train. John 
 touched the whistle, let on steam, and off they went, crossed 
 to the up line (which was the wrong line of rails for any engine 
 to run in that direction), and away he went at forty fifty 
 seventy miles an hour ! John knew well that he was flying 
 toward a passenger train, which was running toward him at 
 probably thirty-five or forty miles an hour. He was aware of 
 its whereabouts at that time, for he consulted his watch and 
 had the time-table by heart. A collision with it would involve ' 
 the accumulated momentum of more than a hundred miles an 
 hour. The time was short, but it was sufficient ; he therefore 
 urged Will to coal the furnace until it glowed with fervent heat, 
 and opened the steam-valve to the uttermost. Never since 
 John Marrot had driven it had the Lightning so nearly resem- 
 bled its namesake. The pace was increased to seventy-five and 
 eighty miles an hour. It was awful. Objects flew past with 
 flashing speed. The clatter of the engine was deafening. A 
 stern chase is proverbially a long one ; but in this case, at such 
 
THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART. 227 
 
 a speed, it was short. In less than fifteen minutes John came 
 in view of the fugitive, also going at full speed, but, not being 
 so powerful an engine, and not being properly managed as to 
 the fire, it did not go so fast ; its force might have been forty 
 or forty-five miles an hour. 
 
 " Will," shouted John, in the ear of his stalwart fireman, 
 " you'll have to be sharp about it. It won't do, lad, to jump 
 into the arms of a madman with a fire shovel in his hand. 
 When I takes a shot at 'im with a lump of coal, then's yer 
 chance go in an' win, lad and whatever you do, keep cool." 
 
 Will did not open his compressed lips, but nodded his head 
 in reply. 
 
 *' You'll have to do it all alone, Bill ; I can't leave the 
 engine," shouted John. 
 
 He looked anxiously into his mate's face, and felt relieved to 
 observe a little smile curl slightly the corners of his mouth. 
 
 Another moment and the Lightning was up with the 
 tender of the runaway, and John cut off steam for a brief 
 space to equalize the speed. The madman at that instant ob- 
 served for the first time that he was pursued. He looked back 
 with a horrible glare, and then, uttering a fierce cheer or yell, 
 tugged at the steam handle to increase the speed, but it was 
 open to the utmost. He attempted to heap coals on the fire, 
 but, being inexpert, failed to increase the heat. Another sec- 
 ond and they were abreast. John Marrot opened the whistle 
 and let it blow continuously, for he was by that time drawing 
 fearfully near to the train that he knew was approaching. See- 
 ing that escape was impossible, the madman would have thrown 
 the engine off the rails, if that had been possible ; but as it was 
 not, he brandished the fire shovel and stood at the opening be- 
 tween the engine and the tender with an expression of fiendish 
 rage on his countenance that words cannot describe. 
 
 " Now, Bill, look out !" said John. 
 
 Will stood like a tiger ready to spring. John beside him 
 with a huge mass of coal in one hand concealed behind his 
 back. There was a space of little more than two feet between 
 
228. SAM HOB ART. 
 
 the engines. To leap that in the face of a madman seemed 
 impossible. 
 
 Suddenly John Marrot hurled the mass of coal with all his 
 might. His aim was to hit Thomson on the head, but it 
 struck low, hitting him on the chest and driving him down on 
 the foot-plate. At the same instant Will Game bounded 
 across and shut off the steam in an instant. He turned then to 
 the brake wheel, but before he could apply it the madman had 
 risen and grappled with him. Still, as the two strong men 
 swayed to and fro in a deadly conflict, Will's hand, that 
 chanced at the moment to be nearest the brake-wheel, was seen 
 ever and anon to give it a slight turn. This much John Marrot 
 observed when he saw a puff of white steam on the horizon far 
 ahead of him. To reverse the engine and turn full steam on 
 was the work of two seconds. Fire flew in showers from the 
 wheels, and the engine trembled with the violent friction. 
 Nevertheless, it still ran on for a considerable way, and the ap- 
 proaching train was within a comparatively short distance of 
 him, before he had got the Lightning to run backward. It 
 was not until he got up speed to nigh forty miles an hour that 
 he felt safe, looked back with a grim smile, and breathed 
 freely. 
 
 Of course the driver of the passenger train, seeing an engine 
 on the wrong line ahead had also reversed at full speed and 
 thus prevented a collision, which would inevitably have been 
 very disastrous. 
 
 John now ran back to the crossing, and getting once more 
 on the down line again reversed his engine and ran cautiously 
 back in the direction of the runaway locomotive. He soon 
 came in sight of it, and reversed again and went at such a pace 
 as allowed it to overtake him gradually. He saw that the 
 steam was still cut off and that it had advanced that length in 
 consequence of being on an incline, but was somewhat alarmed 
 to receive no signal from his mate. The moment the buffers 
 of the Lightning touched those of the other engine's tender, 
 he applied the brakes and brought both engines to a stand. 
 
THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART. 229 
 
 Then leaping off he ran to see how it had fared with Will 
 Garvie. 
 
 The scene that met his eyes was a very ghastly one. On 
 the floor-plate lay the two men, insensible and covered with 
 blood and coal dust. Each grasped the other by the throat, 
 but Will had gained an advantage from having no neckcloth on, 
 while his own strong hand was twisted into that of his adversary 
 so firmly that the madman's eyes were almost starting out of 
 their sockets. John Marrot at once cut the kerchief with his 
 clasp-knife ; and then feeling that there was urgent need for 
 haste left them lying there, ran back to his own engine, 
 coupled it to the other, turned on full steam, and in a short 
 space of time was back to his station. Here the men were 
 removed to the waiting-room and a doctor was called in. It 
 was found that although much bruised and cut, as well as ex- 
 hausted by their conflict, neither was seriously injured. After 
 a few restoratives had been applied one was conveyed to his 
 home and the other was lodged in an asylum. 
 
 The presence of mind of the superintendent, the alertness of 
 John Marrot, the bravery of Will Garvie, bring out into bold 
 relief the qualifications which fit men for the responsibilities of 
 the railway, and bring forcibly before us the perils that sleep 
 and may be wakened any moment on any road. 
 
 The story of the help found in God's Word is beautifully 
 illustrated by this incident. 
 
 Said a Bible-reading railroad engineer : 
 
 " I have never met with an accident that was attended with 
 serious results, thank God," he replied, not in the brawling 
 tone of an oath, but reverently, " and I think that one reason 
 of it comes from the fact that I always carry my Bible in the 
 cab. Do you see it up there ?" and he pointed up to the 
 prettily upholstered cab where, just in front of the engineer's 
 seat, between the steam-gauge and the lookout window, on a 
 bracket-like device, a small Bible was held open where the eyes 
 of this Christian engineer could fall upon its pages at any mo- 
 ment. 
 
230 SAM HOBART. 
 
 " I have read the good book from back to back several 
 times at home, M continued he, " and by having it placed here 
 in this manner before me I have been able to commit many 
 passages to memory. Sometimes it has been a wonderful com- 
 fort to me ; one time in particular, the strength as well as 
 comfort I derived from one glance at a passage on the open 
 page was astonishing. " 
 
 " How was that ?" I asked, greatly interested. 
 
 il You see I was running on the lower end of the road at the 
 time, and my train was an ' express passenger/ which came 
 out of the city before nightfall, usually with a dozen or so 
 heavily laden coaches. Perhaps you remember, if you have 
 
 been over the road so much, where the track crosses the 
 
 River, which, you know, is the inlet to the harbor. Being a 
 port of considerable importance, of course provision has to be 
 made for the shipping to pass above. 
 
 " There was a man stationed at this post to signal to the ap- 
 proaching trains whether the bridge was open or not. Yes, it 
 was a dangerous place (the means to avert danger there are 
 better now), but after I had run over the bridge twice a day 
 for eighteen months or more, and had always found everything 
 all right, I came to look upon that point the same as I did 
 upon any other piece of the road. 
 
 " My express was a fast train always, and on the night of 
 which I am speaking I was a little behind time, and so running 
 even somewhat faster than usual in order to make up. As I 
 approached the bridge I looked for the signal, as it was second 
 nature for me to do. The flagman gave the customary all-right 
 signal, standing as usual on a rock at the point of a curve of 
 the track leading around to the river. 
 
 " I had no more time than barely to notice that the man was 
 a new hand, in place of * Lame Jim, 7 whom I had without a 
 single exception always found at that post, before we came in 
 full view of the bridge. To my horror it was wide open, and 
 a gulf of nearly fifty feet in depth was yawning before ine and 
 my ponderous train. 
 
THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART. 231 
 
 " I glanced up to my open Bible and my eyes fell upon the 
 word, i I will never leave thee, nor forsake tbee. ' The be- 
 numbing sense of utter helplessness that for the instant had 
 pervaded both soul and body, as it were, all vanished now, 
 and I became as calm as you see me at tbis moment. 
 
 " You know, madam, that the duties of a locomotive 
 engineer are such that oftentimes he has to decide (it may be 
 only on a mere movement of his hand, or the kind of a look 
 he gives his fireman) in such a terrible exigency, especially in 
 the shortest conceivable space of time. In this instance I had 
 no time to consider, and if I had, I suppose I should have 
 done exactly as I did, whistle for brakes (it was before air 
 brakes came into use) and reverse my engine. 
 
 " The fireman did not need to be told to do his best upon 
 the tender brakes, as he rapidly tightened them up with the 
 whole swinging force of his large body. It was a clean, dry 
 track, everything in good condition, and I think never a train, 
 with like facilities, was brought to a standstill on shorter 
 notice. For that first, almost bewildering instant to me, the 
 belief in the possibility of escaping that imminent, fearful 
 plunge, so possessed me with a cold feeling like the coils of a 
 snake down my back, that it was with an almost superhuman 
 effort that I mustered muscular force to raise my hand to the 
 whistle-valve cord, reach the regulator, or grasp the reversing 
 handle. 
 
 " But we came to a dead halt just as the point of the cow- 
 catcher overlapped the frightful chasm ! Had the impelling 
 force of that long passenger train carried us a few feet farther 
 on, there would .have been the worst railroad catastrophe that 
 ever happened in America, and my name would surely have 
 swelled the list of the drowned and mangled ones that would 
 have appeared in the newspapers. 
 
 44 As it was, the escape never got into the papers at all. 
 The bridge was swung into place so quickly, and we were 
 under way again so soon after the customary stop at the draw, 
 that I suppose that very few of the passengers ever knew of the 
 
232 SAM HOBART. 
 
 threatened peril. We were miles away before the reaction 
 came to me as I sat trembling on my seat with the full, appre- 
 hending sense of our escape tiding through my brain. 
 
 " The flagman ? oh, yes, he was drunk. You see there had 
 been a new superintendent chosen, and he had commenced 
 business by turning off some of the old employes and putting 
 in new ones. Poor, faithful * Lame Jim ' had been discharged, 
 and this fellow installed in his place. He was celebrating his 
 appointment to this responsible post over a jug of rum which 
 was found afterward in the little signal house near by. 
 
 " Jirn was reinstated next day, but the company was so cha- 
 grined over the unwarrantable action on the part of the super- 
 intendent that the matter was kept as close as possible. I 
 went to the office the next morning and resigned my position ; 
 I couldn't bear to run over that end of the road again. They 
 would not let me off the road, but gave me this train on this 
 end of the route. 
 
 " No, I don't suppose I have quite got over the shock to my 
 nerves, for frequently, when I go to bed more tired than usual, 
 I wake with a start from a sort of far-off dream of that event- 
 ful nightfall trip, the uncertain light, the still shimmering water 
 and the white, scared face of my fireman. My hair was as 
 black as coal then ; in three months it became as gray as you 
 eee it." 
 
 We glorify our heroes of the battle-field and the sea, we stand 
 all agog if some foolish man or more foolish woman as- 
 cend Mont Blanc just for the name of the feat. We talk 
 about Alexander and Bucephalus, about Caesar in the boat when 
 the tempest threatened him ! Why may we not glorify the 
 heroes of the locomotive engine, who exhibit as noble and 
 praiseworthy a daring as any heroes in other fields ? And 
 they do this in the constant service of the thousands of fami- 
 lies who every hour of the twenty -four are represented on the 
 railways. 
 
 Somewhere there is a terrific storm raging at this moment. 
 Swollen streams endanger the safety of bridges and the lives of 
 
THE COURAGE OF SAM HOBART. 233 
 
 passengers every hour of the twenty-four. At the front, in the 
 darkness and in the light, is the brave engineer doing his work 
 as best he may, glad of an appreciative word from employer or 
 of a recognition from those he has so bravely served. Such a 
 man was Sam Hobart. Such men now live and serve. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SAM'S LAST RIDE THE ENGINEER AT REST. 
 
 IN March, 1874, Sam Hobart took his last ride. It was a 
 fearful Saturday night. The storm of sleet and rain was on 
 the land. Sam came into the Boston Depot wet through. He 
 went home tired and almost sick. He rose on Sabbath morn- 
 ing and went to church. In the afternoon the pain in his 
 limbs increased. Monday morning he could not rise. He 
 had lost forever the use of one limb. " Well,' 7 in as cheerful 
 a tone as possible, he said, " let us thank God for the leg that 
 is left." Soon that was attacked. He thanked God for his 
 hands. Then he lost the use of them, and thanked God for a 
 clear brain. On Wednesday he was better. On Thursday 
 morning he had his breakfast brought to him for the last time. 
 It was placed in a chair before him. He folded his hands like 
 a little child, asked God's blessing on it, and prayed that he 
 might be kept from harm, from wandering thoughts ; and in 
 the love of God ate his food. The story of his sickness 
 had got abroad. The officials of the railroad, men who were 
 his comrades, members of the church, and people of every class 
 and grade heard with sympathy and sorrow of his sufferings. 
 
 Charles Sumner had just died in Washington. His remains 
 were to be brought to Boston, the city of his love, and a public 
 funeral was to be awarded to him. Notwithstanding this, thou- 
 sands talked and thought of the Christian engineer. The men 
 of the yard went up in a body to his house to tender him their 
 sympathy and offer their services. They were not permitted 
 to see him. He was too sick. Two were appointed to go in 
 and ask him " if the religion of Christ was all to him he 
 thought it would be ?" They wanted to know from him. 
 
SAM'S LAST RIDE. 235 
 
 This roused the dying hero. He turned and said, " Tell the 
 boys once I was afraid of the cable, but I am afraid no more. 
 I have tried every link in the chain and she holds. The cable 
 and the anchor are alt right, and I am safe." 
 
 The men had hardly left him when the change came. He 
 fell back upon his bed. The film came over his eyes. His 
 legs stiffened. He cried, " Open the door," and before there 
 could be an answer Jesus spoke to him saying, " I know thy 
 works, behold I have set before thee an open door and no man 
 can shut it, for thou hast a little strength and hast kept my 
 word, and hast not denied my name." No man could shut 
 it. The physician came to his bedside, looked at him, and 
 said, " He is in better hands." He died March 12th, 1874. 
 
 When they came to dress him for his burial there fell out of 
 the Sabbath vest a piece of paper on which he had written 
 these words, " The Lord is my strength and my song, and He 
 is become my salvation." They seemed to those about him 
 and to all who knew him as his message from the eternal 
 world. 
 
 On the 15th of March, 1874, we buried him from the Har- 
 vard Street Baptist Church. The pastor, Rev. L. L. Wood, 
 assisted at the service. These resolutions were read. They 
 had been passed by the railroad engineers and other employes 
 of the Boston and Albany Railroad, presided over by Hon. 
 Ginery Twitchel : 
 
 WHEREAS, In the providence of Almighty God we have had 
 removed from our midst our friend and brother, Samuel B. 
 Hobart, 
 
 Resolved, That in Samuel B. Hobart we have long recog- 
 nized the 4t workman who needeth not to be ashamed of his 
 work," a cherished friend, and a man of large and ennobling 
 influence. 
 
 Resolved, That by his loss death has robbed us of one whom 
 we hold in the highest esteem and confidence, and whose 
 memory we shall ever cherish as one who lived to help and 
 save others ; that his daily life was such as would tend to ele- 
 
236 SAM HOBART. 
 
 vate those around him, and stimulate them to throw off the 
 burden of sin and put upon them the armor of our Lord and 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ. 
 
 Resolved, That while deeply lamenting our great loss, and 
 tenderly sympathizing with his afflicted widow and others 
 nearer than ourselves by ties of kindred, we would remember, 
 as he did, that death is not the end, but he that loves so faith- 
 fully continues hereafter. 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize it as a duty and a privilege to 
 express here and now our high sense of his long and successful 
 labors, in season and out of season, in behalf of the cause of 
 temperance ; and we bear willing testimony also to the fervor 
 with which he labored to have all share in his own love and 
 devotion to the Church of Christ. 
 
 On the last day before he died he spoke of his happiness in 
 having made his peace with God when he was well. Said he, 
 44 1 cannot think now. I mix things. I cannot pray. " This 
 faith took away the sting of death and robbed the grave of 
 victory. His untimely death filled all hearts with sorrow. He 
 was the friend of the poor, and they mourned him as a brother 
 gone. Freely he gave of love. Freely of love he received. 
 Women whose husbands were intemperate came to him for 
 sympathy and strength. How their tears rained on his white 
 face in the open coffin will always be a memory with some. 
 He was a model husband. As I think of his delicacy, of his 
 thoughtfulness, of his strength, and of his tenderness toward 
 those who leaned on him and trusted him, I find no words in 
 which to express my admiration. It was this which made men 
 love him. He was a genuine. There was not an ounce of 
 waste material in his nature. He was true all through. He 
 dare say what he thought. He had the feeling that God spoke 
 through him, and that he must live as seeing him who is invisi- 
 ble. Hence, to hundreds of stalwart men he was a companion 
 and a friend. He dare be plain with men above him in posi- 
 tion, as they dare be plain with him. He loved as a man loves, 
 with a great, strong, robust love. 
 
SAM'S LAST RIDE. 237 
 
 His influence lives. It permeates New England, and it is 
 reaching thousands in the great world beyond. It shows that 
 it is possible to die and not suffer harm. It is possible to die 
 and gain by it. Death is not necessarily a calamity ; it may 
 be but the taking down the scaffolding which conceals the 
 building, so that the structure the master hath planned, built, 
 and beautified shall stand forth in perfected beauty, the glory 
 of humanity, and the grandest triumph of the handiwork of 
 God. 
 
 God draws by the cords of a man. Jehovah influences the 
 world by living men. They are his epistles known and read of 
 all men. They are sent forth to fulfil an individual mission 
 and to accomplish a specified work. When that mission is ful- 
 filled and that work is accomplished, is it strange that it should 
 be written of them as of Enoch, " They walked with God ; and 
 they were not, for God took them. ' ' They belonged to God 
 even while they toiled among men ; and as God loves his own 
 and delights in having his beloved ones near him, we are not 
 surprised that the promise is fulfilled and that such came to the 
 grave in a full age, " like as a shock of corn cometh in his 
 season." 
 
 The design of death is to complete the work assigned to 
 earth. Life has its seed, its plant, its growth, its blossom, its 
 fruit, and its harvest. 
 
 " There is a reaper whose name is Death.** 
 
 This work is not to be regarded with sorrow even. It is 
 necessary to our comfort. Heaven is the best place for a 
 rounded life and for a ripened fame. Old age, with its pains, 
 its weaknesses, its painful neglects, its being set aside and 
 written down as useless, its being ignored in the affairs of life, 
 is without much to relieve it. Death, which is to the Chris- 
 tian a release from care and anxiety, from depression and sor- 
 row, may be welcomed as a loving messenger from God, 
 
 Standing under the shadow of these truths, we feel that we 
 are enriched by them. AVe resemble pilgrims beneath the 
 
238 SAM HOB ART. 
 
 palm trees of the desert, at whose feet run the waters of an un- 
 failing spring, and above whose heads is heard the sweet carols 
 of singing birds. 
 
 God takes marvellous care of his own. Believe it or not, it 
 is safe to trust God and to serve him. The reputation of a 
 true man, even in this world, is under the special protection of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 It will be all right at last with the true, was his faith. The 
 last time I saw him alive we rode together on the engine from 
 Boston to Worcester, and he told me of the trouble of a friend 
 who could not see clear into heaven. He comforted him in 
 this beautiful and suggestive way, saying : " When. wife and I 
 started for the White Mountains I gave her a good seat, sat by 
 her and talked many hours. I did not tell her at the outset to 
 look at the mountains, but at the sea, for we were by the sea 
 and were far away from the mountains. But when just at 
 sunset we reached the right place, I said, ' Look at the moun- 
 tains,' and she saw them. Don't try and see heaven until you 
 get there. " He lived for heaven every day, but did not try 
 and see it until the hour of release came. Our last ride was 
 our best ride. The whole talk was about Jesus, about the 
 littleness of earth and the glory of heaven ; about the fidelity 
 of Christ in loving, in keeping his promises and in giving joy 
 to his children, even when misunderstood and perhaps 
 maligned. The dear old face glowed with love for Christ and 
 men. It was grand to see him. Suddenly he said again, " I 
 am not going to last long. If anything comes to me you will 
 come ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He then kissed me, and Worcester coming in sight, we rode 
 into town, our eyes wet with tears. 
 
 He went on with his work on the road, in the daily prayer- 
 meeting at Worcester, in the church, until at last he was not, 
 for God took him. 
 
 My vow is kept. My task is done, Samuel Brooks Hobart, 
 
SAM'S LAST RIDE. 239 
 
 the locomotive engineer, goes forth a benediction and a blessing 
 to all who shall feel the inspiration of his noble life, and be 
 . brought thereby into association with Him who saved him, who 
 loved him, and now keeps him as a star in the crown of His 
 rejoicing. 
 
BEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Adams, family, 24 ; John, statue ot, 
 34 ; John Quincy, 187. 
 
 Alexander, quoted, 34. 
 
 Arthur, President, chief of the Brother- 
 hood, 84 ; address to Brotherhood, 
 84. 
 
 Astor, John Jacob, words to working- 
 men, 121. 
 
 B. 
 
 Ballantyne, life on the rail, 225. 
 
 Beecher's, Henry Ward, estimate of 
 Hobart, 14 ; his description of Ho- 
 bart, 51, 52. 
 
 Bible, Reading of, on the rail, 229. 
 
 Books for R.R. men, 165. 167. 
 
 Boston, battle ground of Liberty, 43. 
 
 Bowdoin, Picture of, 47. 
 
 Braithwait, builder of the Novelty, 18. 
 
 Brotherhood, The, of locomotive en- 
 gineers, 83 ; address to the, 91 ; op- 
 posed by the B. & O. R. R., 103. 
 
 Butler, B. F., Speech of, 85 ; ordered to 
 New York, 207. 
 
 C. 
 
 Camden station, 115. 
 
 Capital and lat>or, Conflict between, 
 
 110. 
 
 Caus, Solomon de, first inventor, 16. 
 Columbus, Irving's story of, 142. 
 Chipman, Geo. W., 183. 
 Christianity as a police force, 147. 
 Communism, 111. 
 Commercial life, Representatives of, 
 
 126 : integrity, its value, 129. 
 Crystal Palace temperance meeting, 
 
 64. 
 
 D. 
 
 Davenport, M. R., quoted, 77 ; again, 
 147. 
 
 Despotism, 131. 
 
 Devereux, J. H., on the railway 
 strikes, 14(K 
 
 Different kinds of drunkards, 196, 120. 
 
 Disraeli, 24. 
 
 Dow, Neal, interview with a tobacco- 
 smoker, 71. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eldorado, 40. 
 
 Employes' Relief Association or- 
 ganized May 1st, 1880, 103 ; member- 
 ship, etc., 104. 
 
 Engineer, The, at rest, 834. 
 
 Erie, Pa,* 147. 
 
 Ericsson, 18. 
 
 Extracts from the third International 
 
 Conference R. R. Dept., 164 
 Evans, Oliver, 17. 
 
 P. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, 43. 
 
 Foote,Commodore, and General Grant* 
 190. 
 
 Fort Wayne strikes, 115. 
 
 Franklin, Picture of, 47. 
 
 Free libraries, 46. 
 
 Fulton's account of Hobart's conver- 
 sion, 54. 
 
 G. 
 
 George, Henry, 19. 
 
 Gilbert, 43. 
 
 Gladstone, 24. 
 
 Gough, how he was saved from intem- 
 perance, 193. 
 
 Grant. U. S., 90. 
 
 Guthrie, Thomas, D.D., 73. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hobart, Sam, his personal appearance, 
 13 ; as a boy, 21 ; his early history, 
 21 ; becomes a machinist, 28 ; be- 
 comes a locomotive engineer, 35 ; his 
 love for his calling, 36 ; becomes a 
 Free Mason, 42 ; his reverence for 
 his mother, 43 ; he takes a wife, 46 ; 
 becomes a widower, 48 ; becomes a 
 Christian, 57 ; marries again, 57 ; his 
 tact in preaching temperance, 64; 
 opposes the use of tobacco, 67; at 
 work for God, 75 ; how he treated 
 two communists, 112 ; Sam's faith, 
 or whom to trust, 136 ; instances of 
 his courage, 219 : his love for the 
 Bible. 231 ; his last ride, 234 ; account 
 of his funeral, 235. 
 
 I. 
 
 Idlers, No place for, 32. 
 
 Incident, A thrilling. 222. 
 
 Ingersoll, Edward D., 160 ; a busy man, 
 163. 
 
 Intellects. The mightiest, ruined by 
 liquor, 202. 
 
 Intemperance, a curse, 178 ; as a dis- 
 ease, 198. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jesse, 44. 
 
 Johnson's, o. T., words to the Brother- 
 hood, 00, 
 
242 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kansas City, strike ended, lia 
 Key to prosperity, 132. 
 Kingsley, Charles, 41. 
 
 . 
 Library for R. R. men, when and where 
 
 established, 154. 
 Lincoln's, Abraham, faith, 143. 
 Loafers, Christian, 177. 
 Locomotives, an American invention, 
 
 17 ; trials of, 18 ; nature of, 29. 
 Low, Seth, 25. 
 Loyson's, J. P., Life of Stephenson, 16. 
 
 MacMaster, Hon. Wm., 159. 
 Magna Charta, 40. 
 Man, The great, 143. 
 Marston, Sarah Jane, 47. 
 Mistakes, Learning by, 175. 
 Moody, D. L., 146. 
 Morrissey, John, 42. 
 Mothers, their value, 26w 
 
 N. 
 
 Napoleon, 44. 
 New England women, 27. 
 New York Central begun, 96. 
 Newark, Ohio, strikes, 115. 
 Nihilists, 148. 
 
 Novelty, a favorite model, but failed, 
 19. 
 
 O. 
 
 Orange, William of, 41. 
 Orr, W. J., quoted, 169. 
 Osborne, Engineer, 221. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paris, under the Commune, 115. 
 Parker, Theodore, on chnrch-going, 81. 
 Peck. Rev. Dr., quoted, 15. 
 Pennsylvania Central. 33. 
 Peto, Sir Morton, on strikes, 115. 
 Pittsburgh in the hands of a mob, 115; 
 
 riot at, 117. 
 
 Poor, God cares for, 132. 
 Problem, A, hard to solve, 195. 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, General 
 
 convention of, 148. 
 Providence rights wrongs. 
 
 Q. 
 Questions of importance, 195. 
 
 Railroads, Baltimore & Ohio, 15; in 
 
 1860 and 1883, 96. 
 
 Railroads strikes commenced, 115. 
 Railroad men. The \v.ork among, 146 ; 
 
 the need of it, 147. 
 Resolutions concerning llooart, 235. 
 Richmond, A tribute to Deau, 88. 
 Rich, God cares for, 132. 
 Rocket, first successful locomotive, 18. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sabbath School a blessing. 24. 
 Simmons, Doc, his heroism, 162, 
 Smith, Frank W., quoted, 169. 
 Snow, Barzillai, dying like a hero, 214. 
 Stephenson, George, 15, 18, 96. 
 Stockwell, his experience, 168, 
 
 T. 
 
 Taylor, B. F M 57. 
 
 Temperance, an added force, 185. 
 Tremont Temple, 43. 
 Train, A, on fire, 227. 
 Trevethick, Richard, 17. 
 
 U. 
 
 Uniac, Edward H., the story of his fall. 
 
 Underbill, A. B., master mechanic, 20S. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vanderbitt, W. H.. his faith rewarded, 
 120 ; Cornelius, 25 ; W. H. distributing 
 $100,000, 162. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wasted Substances, 173. 
 Watt, patented locomotive, 17. 
 Webster, Daniel, 89, 06. 
 Whitefield, Picture of, 47. 
 Wild Oats, 186. 
 Williams, H. F., quoted, 169. 
 Wilson, Charles, speech of, 85. 
 Work among R. R. men, 146. 
 Woman, A drunken, 190. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Young, Sam's love for, 206. 
 
 Young men, where to look after them, 
 
 140. 
 Young Men's Christian Association, 
 
 Railwav department of, 154. 
 Young's Hotel, a scene, 187. 
 
LIVES OF ILLUSTRIOUS 
 
 SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 BT 
 
 WILLIAM EDWARD WINKS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, PUBLISHERS, 
 10 AND 12 DEY STREET. 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 TIME out of mind The Gentle Craft has been invested with 
 an air of romance. This honorable title, given to no other 
 occupation but that of shoemakers, is an indication of the high 
 esteem in which the Craft is held. It is by no means an easy 
 thing to account for a sentiment of this kind, or to trace such 
 a title to its original source. Whether the traditionary stories 
 which have clustered round the lives of Saints Anianus, 
 Crispin and Crispianus, or Hugh and Winifred, gave rise to 
 the sentiment, or the sentiment itself is to be regarded as 
 accounting for the traditions, one cannot tell. Probably there 
 is some truth in both theories, for sentiment and tradition act 
 and react on each other. 
 
 Certain it is, that among all our craftsmen none appear to 
 enjoy a popularity comparable with that of " the old Cobbler" 
 or " Shoemaker." Most men have a good word to say for 
 him, a joke to crack about him, or a story to tell of his ability 
 and " learning," his skill in argument, or his prominence and 
 influence in political or religious affairs. Both in ancient times 
 and in modern, in the Old World and in the New, a rare inter- 
 est has been felt in Shoemakers, as a class, on account of their 
 remarkable intelligence and the large number of eminent men 
 who have risen from their ranks. 
 
 These facts, and especially the last which has been the 
 subject of frequent remark may be deemed sufficient justifica- 
 tion for the existence of such a work as this. 
 
 Another reason might be given for the issue of such a book 
 as this just now. A change has come over the craft of boot 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 and shoe making. The use of machinery has effected nothing 
 short of a revolution in the trade. The old-fashioned Shoe- 
 maker, with his leathern apron and hands redolent of wax, has 
 almost disappeared from the workrooms and streets of such 
 towns as Northampton and Stafford in Old England, or Lvnn 
 in New England. His place and function are now, for the 
 most part, occupied by the " cutter" and the " clicker," the 
 " riveter" and the " machine-girl." The old Cobbler, like 
 the ancient spinster and handloom weaver, is retiring into the 
 shade of the boot and shoe factory. Whether or no he will 
 disappear entirely may be questionable ; but there can be no 
 doubt that the Cobbler, sitting at his stall and working with 
 awl and hammer and last, will never again be the conspicuous 
 figure in social life that he was wont to be in times gone by. 
 Before we bid him a final farewell, and forget the traditions of 
 his humble yet honorable craft, it may be of some service to 
 bring under one review the names and histories of some of the 
 more illustrious members of his order. 
 
 Long as is the list of these worthy " Sons of Crispin," it 
 cannot be said to be complete. Only a few examples are 
 taken from Germany, France, and the United States, where, in 
 all probability, as many illustrious Shoemakers might have been 
 met with as in Great Britain itself. And even the British 
 muster-roll is not fully made up. With only a few exceptions, 
 living men are not included in the list. Very gladly would the 
 writer have added to these exceptions so remarkable a man as 
 Thomas Edward, the shoemaker of Banff, one of the best self- 
 taught naturalists of our time, and, for the last sixteen years, 
 an Associate of the Linnasan Society. But for the Life of this 
 eminent Scotchman the reader must be referred to the interest- 
 ing biography written by his friend Dr. Smiles. 
 
 In writing the longer sketches, free and ample use has been 
 made of biographies already in existence. But this has not 
 been done without the kind consent of the owners of copy- 
 rights. To these the writer tenders his grateful acknowledg- 
 ments. To the widow of the Rev. T. W. Blanshard he is 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 
 
 indebted for permission to draw upon the pages of her late 
 husband's valuable biography of " The Wesleyan Demos- 
 thenes, " Samuel Bradburn ; to Jacob Halls Drew, Esq., 
 Bath, for his courtesy in allowing a liberal use to be made of 
 the facts given in his biography of his father, Samuel Drew, 
 " The Self-Taught Cornishman ;" and to the venerable 
 Thomas Cooper, as well as to his publishers, Messrs. Hodder & 
 Stoughton, for their kind favor in regard to the lengthy and 
 detailed sketch of the author of " The Purgatory of Suicides." 
 This sketch, the longest in the book, is inserted by special 
 permission of Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton. 
 
 The minor sketches, have been drawn from a variety of 
 sources. One or two of these require special mention. In pre- 
 paring the notice of John O'Neill, the Poet of Temperance, 
 the writer has received kind help from Mr. Richard Gooch of 
 Brighton, himself a poet of temperance. Messrs. J. & J. H. 
 Rutherford of Kelso have also been good enough to place at 
 the writer's service but, unfortunately, too late to be of much 
 use a copy of their recently published autobiography of John 
 Younger, the Shoemaker of St. Boswells. In the all-too-brief 
 section devoted to American worthies, valuable aid has been 
 given to the author by Henry Phillips, Esq., jun., A.M., 
 Ph.D., Corresponding Member of the Antiquarian Society of 
 Philadelphia, U.S. A. 
 
 In all probability the reader has never been introduced to so 
 large a company of illustrious Sons of Crispin before. It is 
 sincerely hoped that he will derive both pleasure and profit 
 from their society. 
 
 WILLIAM EDWARD WINKS. 
 
 CARDIFF, 1882. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE iii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Sir Cloudesley Shovel : The Cobbler's Boy who became an Admiral. . 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 James Lackington : Shoemaker and Bookseller 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Samuel Bradburn : The Shoemaker who became President of the 
 
 Wesleyan Conference 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 William Gifford : From the Shoemaker's Stool to the Editor's Chair. . 75 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Robert Bloomfield : The Shoemaker who wrote "The Farmer's Boy," 93 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Samuel Drew : The Metaphysical Shoemaker 109 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 William Carey : The Shoemaker who Translated the Bible into Ben- 
 gali and Hindostani ' 129 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 John Pounds : The Philanthropic Shoemaker 151 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Thomas Cooper : The Self-educated Shoemaker who " Reared his own 
 
 Monument " 165 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 A Constellation of Celebrated Cobblers 189 
 
 ANCIENT EXAMPLES. 
 
 The Cobbler and the Artist Apelles 191 
 
 The Shoemaker Bishops : Annianas, Bishop of Alexandria, and Alex- 
 ander, Bishop of Comana 1 92 
 
 The Pious Cobbler of Alexandria 193 
 
 "Rabbi Jochanan, The Shoemaker" 194 
 
 EUROPEAN EXAMPLES : France. 
 
 SS. Crispin and Crispianus: The Patron Saints of Shoemakers 197 
 
 " The Learned Baudouin " 200 
 
 Henry Michael Buch : "Good Henry " 201 
 
 Germany. 
 
 Hans Sachs : " The Nightingale of the Reformation " 203 
 
 Jacob Boehmen : The Mystic 205 
 
 Italy. 
 
 Gabriel Cappellini : " il Caligarino " 207 
 
 Francesco Brizzio : The Artist 208 
 
 Holland. 
 
 Ludolph de Jong : The Portrait-Painter 209 
 
 Sons of Shoemakers 209 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 "Ye Cocke of Westminster" 210 
 
 Timothy Bennett: The Hero of Hampton-Wick 212 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 Military and Naval Heroes. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Souters of Selkirk 213 
 
 Watt Tinlinn 214 
 
 Colonel Hewson : The " Cerdon " of Hudibras 215 
 
 Sir Christopher Myngs, Admiral 218 
 
 Astrologers and others. 
 
 Dr. Partridge ' 220 
 
 Dr. Ehenezer Sibly, F.R.C.P 222 
 
 Manoah Sibly, Short-hand Writer, Preacher, etc 224 
 
 Mackey, " the Learned Shoemaker" of Norwich, and two other Learned 
 
 Shoemakers 225 
 
 Anthony Purver, Bible Revisionist 226 
 
 The Poets of the Cobbler's Stall. 
 
 James Woodhouse, the Friend of Shenstone 228 
 
 John Bennet, Parish Clerk and Poet 229 
 
 Richard Savage, the Friend of Pope 230 
 
 Thomas Olivers, Hymn-Writer '. . 231 
 
 Thomas Holcroft, Dramatist, Novelist. . . 234 
 
 Joseph Blacket, " The Son of Sorrow " 236 
 
 David Service and other Songsters of the Shoemaker's Stall 242 
 
 John Struthers, Poet and Editor 243 
 
 John O'Neill, the Poet of Temperance 244 
 
 John Younger, Fly-Fisher and Corn-Law Rhymer 246 
 
 Charles Crocker, " The Poor Cobbler of Chichester " 247 
 
 Preachers and Theologians. 
 
 George Fox, Founder of the Society of Friends 249 
 
 Thomas Shillitoe, the Shoemaker who stood before Kings 251 
 
 John Thorp, Founder of the Independent Church at Masboro' 255 
 
 William Huntingdon, S.S 257 
 
 Robert Morrison, D.D., Chinese Scholar and Missionary 258 
 
 Rev. John Burnet, Preacher and Philanthropist 259 
 
 John Kitto, D.D., Biblical Scholar 261 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 Science. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 William Sturgeon, the Electrician 264 
 
 Politicians. 
 
 Thomas Hardy, of " The State Trials " 265 
 
 George Odger, Political Orator 2G6 
 
 AMERICAN EXAMPLES. 
 
 Noah Worcester, D.D., " The Apostle of Peace " 271 
 
 Roger Sherman, the Patriot ; 274 
 
 Henry Wilson, the Natick Cobbler 276 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier, " The Quaker Poet " 277 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SIK CLOUDSLEY SHOVEL, 13 
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON, 25 
 
 REV. S. BRADBURN, 49 
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, 89 
 
 SAMUEL DREW, M.A., 105 
 
 WILLIAM CAREY, 125 
 
 THOMAS COOPER, 161 
 
 JOSEPH BLACK ET, 237 
 
 J. G. WHITTIER, 269 
 
SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL 
 
THE COBBLER'S BOY WHO BECAME AN ADMIRAL. 
 
 " Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
 
 Fortune in men has some small difference made, 
 
 One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade ; 
 
 The cobbler aproned and the parson gowned, 
 
 The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned. 
 "What differ more' (you cry) 'than crown and cowl?' 
 
 I'll tell you, friend, a wise man and a fool. 
 
 You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, 
 
 Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk ; 
 
 Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; 
 
 The rest is all but leather or prunella." 
 
 POPE, Essay on Man. 
 
SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL. 
 
 ON the south side of the choir of Westminster Abbey may 
 be seen a very handsome and costly monument, on which 
 reclines a life-sized figure in marble, representing a naval com- 
 mander. The grotesque uniform and elaborate wig are of the 
 style of Queen Anne's time. The commander himself has all 
 the look of a well-bred gentleman and a brave officer. He is a 
 capital type of the old school of naval heroes, stout in person, 
 jolly in temper, but terrible in action, by whom our shores 
 were defended, our colonies secured to us, and the power and 
 stability of the British Empire were established for centuries to 
 come. These men had, in many instances, risen from the low- 
 est social status, and had been compelled to begin their nautical 
 career in the humblest fashion, accepting the most menial posi- 
 tion the naval service could offer them. When they came to 
 hold positions of command, they had, perhaps, no culture nor 
 general education ; the little knowledge they possessed was 
 confined to the arts of navigation and warfare, and this they 
 had picked up in actual service. Such knowledge served them 
 well, and made them equal to any emergency. It made them 
 capable of deeds of valor and enterprise, that brought renown 
 to their own name and honor to their country. They could 
 sail round the world ; they could, by their discoveries, add 
 new territories to the British crown, and open up splendid 
 fields for commercial enterprise ; they could keep their vessels 
 afloat in a gale of wind, get to windward of the enemy if they 
 wanted, pour a broadside into him, board and capture his 
 vessels or blow up his forts ; and, very often fighting against 
 fearful odds, beat him by dint of superior skill in seamanship 
 and greater courage in action. Such a commander was " old 
 Benbow," whose name appears so often in the nautical songs 
 of the last century ; and such a commander was his contem- 
 porary, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, to whose memory the handsome 
 monument just referred to is erected. Let us pause for a 
 moment to read the inscription. It runs thus : 
 
 " Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Knt., Bear- Admiral of Great Britain, 
 Admiral and Command er-in-Chief of the Fleet : The just reward of 
 
18 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 long and faithful services. He was deservedly beloved of his country, 
 and esteemed though dreaded by the enemy, who had often experi- 
 enced his conduct and courage. Being shipwrecked on the rocks of 
 Scilly, in his voyage from Toulon, the 22d of October 1707, at night, 
 in the fifty-seventh year of his age, his fate was lamented by all, but 
 especially by the seafaring part of the nation, to whom he was a 
 worthy example. His body was flung on the shore, and buried with 
 others in the sands ; but being soon after taken up, was placed under 
 this monument, which his royal mistress has caused to be erected 
 to commemorate his steady loyalty and extraordinary virtues.'* 
 
 If a stranger to Sir Cloudesley Shovel's history were to stand 
 looking at this fine monument, admiring the fine figure which 
 adorns it and reading the glowing epitaph, he would no doubt 
 be greatly amazed if the intelligent verger by his side were to 
 whisper in his ear, " That man was once a cobbler's boy ; the 
 first weapons he ever used in fighting the battle of life were 
 the awl and hammer and last." 
 
 Yet such was really the case. It is true he did not remain 
 long at his humble craft. He left it, indeed, sooner than any 
 of the notable men whose life-story we have to tell in this 
 book ; yet he wore the leathern apron long enough to en- 
 title him to a place in the category of Illustrious Shoe- 
 makers. 
 
 Cloudesley Shovel was born in the county of Norfolk in the 
 year 1650, at a village called Clay, lying on the coast between 
 Wells and Cromer. His parents are said to have been in but 
 " middling circumstances ;" but it is to be feared that even 
 this modest term describes a better position than they actually 
 held. They were evidently of the humblest class, and had no 
 means of giving their boy either a good education or a good start 
 in the way of business. Cloudesley came by his rather singular 
 name as no doubt thousands had done before his time, and 
 have done since. It was given him in honor of a relative who 
 was in good circumstances, and in the hope that it might 
 probably be a " means of recommending him to this rela- 
 tive's notice." But fortunately, as it proved for him, and 
 proves also for many others, no fortune was left him. His 
 parents were glad to send him to the village shoemaker to 
 learn the art and mystery of making and mending boots and 
 shoes. 
 
 Finding the drudgery of a sedentary occupation and the flat- 
 ness and quietude of village life irksome to his active tempera- 
 ment and aspiring spirit, after a few years' work at shoemak- 
 ing, he made off to sea. His taste lying in the direction of the 
 
SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL. 19 
 
 royal r.aval sendee, be went and joined himself to a man-of- 
 war. Here he had the good fortune to come under the care 
 and command of Sir John Narborough. This distinguished 
 officer had once been in Cloudesley's position as a man-of-war's 
 cabin-boy, and having shown himself a smart sailor and an 
 industrious student of navigation, had been rapidly promoted 
 by his generous captain, Sir Christopher Myngs. Sir John 
 Narborough was therefore well disposed, by his kindly disposi- 
 tion and his own early experience, to favor any youth of prom- 
 ise placed in similar circumstances to those through which he 
 himself had passed. In young Cloudesley the gallant captain 
 seems to have seen his own character portrayed and his own 
 career enacted over again. The lad was smart at seamanship, 
 and uncommonly diligent when off watch in the study of any 
 nautical books he could lay hands on. He seems to have 
 found out very early in his course that the secret of success in 
 life lies in being ready, when the time comes, to seize and use 
 the great opportunities of fortune which sooner or later come 
 in every one's way ; that fortune waits on diligence and cour- 
 age ; and that the future is pretty secure to the man who, 
 whatever be his position, works hard and does his plain duty 
 every day. 
 
 The first incident in his naval career is an illustration of this. 
 He was on board the flag- ship commanded by Admiral Sir 
 John Narborough in one of the most hotly contested battles 
 fought between the English and the Dutch. The masts of 
 the flag-ship were shot away early in the engagement. The 
 admiral saw that his case was hopeless, however bravely his 
 men might fight, unless the English reserve, which lay some 
 distance oif to the right, could be brought round to his aid. 
 The thing wanted was to get a message conveyed to the captain 
 of the reserve. Signalling was out of the question, of course ; 
 the message must be carried to the ships somehow. Yet he 
 saw plainly that in such a hurricane of shot and shell, and with 
 so many of the enemy's vessels close at hand, no boat could 
 hope to reach the English ships. But a man might swim to 
 them ! Acting on this thought, Sir John wrote an order and 
 called aloud for volunteers to swim with it, under the fire of 
 the enemy, to the neighboring ships. Among the able- 
 bodied sailors who presented themselves for the terrible duty 
 young Cloudesley stood forth. Looking at him with admira- 
 tion mingled with something like pity, the admiral exclaimed, 
 " Why, what can you do, my fearless lad ?" " I can swim, 
 
20 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 sir," said young Cloudesley, and added in the spirit of a 
 patriot and a hero, "If I be shot, I can be easier spared than 
 any one else." After a moment's hesitation on the part of 
 the tender-hearted admiral, the paper was handed to the boy, 
 who placed it between his teeth and plunged into the water. 
 Cheered by his comrades, he swam on through a perfect hail 
 of shot, bearing, as it seemed, a charmed life, until at length 
 the smoke of battle concealed him from their view. The gal- 
 lant Sir John and his brave crew held on in the most deter- 
 mined manner until it seemed that no hope was left that the 
 brave lad had reached the friendly vessels in safety and de- 
 livered the message. They were beginning to think of him 
 and of themselves as lost, when a sudden and terrific roar of 
 cannon on their right announced that the English vessels were 
 bearing down on the Dutch. In a few hours the enemy was 
 flying in all directions. The cabin-boy was not forgotten 
 when the honors and rewards of victory came to crown the 
 events of that terrible day, for all agreed that he had done a 
 deed that deserved well of his country. When the sun was 
 setting on the sad scene of wreck and ruin, the courageous yet 
 modest youth came and stood once more on the deck of the 
 flag-ship. As soon as the old admiral saw him he spoke to 
 him a few words of generous appreciation and sincere thanks, 
 finishing with the significant remark, " I shall live to see you 
 have a flag-ship of your own." The prediction came true, as 
 we shall presently see. 
 
 Not very long afterward Cloudesley Shovel was made lieu- 
 tenant of His Majesty's navy. The first opportunity he had of 
 distinguishing himself in this capacity was on an expedition 
 sent out by the British to punish the corsairs of Tripoli. These 
 lawless and daring rogues had long infested the Mediterranean, 
 doing immense mischief to commerce and committing sad dep- 
 redations all along the coast, wherever they found it possible 
 to land with safety. No vessel or port, from the Levant to the 
 Straits of Gibraltar, was safe from their attack. Sir John Nar- 
 borough was therefore commissioned to bring them to terms or 
 effectually punish them. Arriving before Tripoli, their head- 
 quarters, in the spring of 1674, he found the enemy in great 
 strength under the shelter of their formidable forts, and de- 
 cided, first of all, according to his instructions, to try the 
 effect of negotiations. Lieutenant Shovel, then only twenty- 
 four years of age, a tall thin young man, with little on his face 
 to indicate that he had come to manhood, was sent with a mes- 
 
SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL. 21 
 
 sage for the Dey of Tripoli, asking for satisfaction for the past 
 and security for the future. This message was delivered in a 
 spirit becoming a British sailor acting on behalf of the interests 
 of his country ; but the Dey, a haughty and imperious man, 
 refused to treat with such a youth, and one, too, who held so 
 subordinate a position, and after treating him with insolence, 
 sent him back to his admiral with an indefinite answer. The 
 wily ex-cobbler, however, had kept his eyes open while on 
 land, and on returning to Sir John, gave him so good an ac- 
 
 ' count of the character of the fortifications and the disposition 
 of the pirate fleet, that he was sent back to the Dey with a 
 second message, and instructed to make further observations. 
 He was treated on his second visit with even greater insolence, 
 but took all quietly, not caring how much he was detained by 
 the Dey's abuse, so long as he could look round him and 
 obtain a good view of the enemy's strength and position. 
 Coming back once more to his vessel, he explained the whole 
 situation, and described a plan of attack which he felt confident 
 would be successful in destroying the vessels lying at anchor in 
 the bay. The admiral was so much pleased with his lieutenant's 
 smartness, and so satisfied that his plan was practicable if con- 
 ducted with skill and courage, that he decided to intrust the 
 execution of it to " his boy Shovel." On the night of the 4th 
 of March the young lieutenant took command of all the boats 
 of the fleet, which had been filled with combustible material, 
 rowed quietly into the harbor under cover of the darkness, 
 made straight for the guard-ship, which he set on fire and 
 thoroughly disabled, thus preventing it from giving orders to 
 the other ships, and, before the enemy could prepare for 
 action, fired and blew up his vessels one after another, and 
 then leaving them in a state of the utmost confusion and dis- 
 tress, brought all his boats back to the British fleet without the 
 loss of a single man. It was a brave exploit, cleverly conceived 
 and brilliantly executed. As a wholesome castigation of these 
 impudent pirates it was of the utmost value ; and more than 
 this, it crippled their power for mischief for a long time to 
 
 'come. 
 
 The generous Sir John Narborough fully appreciated the cour- 
 age and skill of his youthful subordinate, and gave him the 
 most honorable mention in the official letters sent to the 
 authorities at home. He was at once promoted to the rank of 
 captain. This office he held for eleven years, until the death 
 of Charles II. in 1685. During the three years of James II. 's 
 
22 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 reign, Captain Shovel is said to have been in every naval en- 
 gagement that occurred. He had therefore ample opportunity 
 of distinguishing himself and obtaining still further promotion. 
 Soon after the accession of William III., Captain Shovel was 
 conspicuous by his daring and clever manoeuvring at the bat- 
 tle of Bantry Bay. He was then in command of the ship 
 " Edgar," and the favorable notices he had received from 
 Admiral Hobart brought his gallantry before the attention of 
 his monarch, who conferred upon the brave captain the honor 
 of knighthood. Captain, now Sir Cloudesley Shovel, was 
 held in high esteem by King William III., who intrusted 
 him with the difficult and responsible duty of conveying the 
 troops to Ireland in 1690, on the occasion of the Irish rebellion 
 which terminated in the bloody battle of the Boyne. This 
 duty was discharged with so much ability that the King de- 
 cided to promote Sir Cloudesley to the rank of " rear-admiral 
 of the blue." In conferring this reward upon the gallant com- 
 mander, the grateful monarch marked his sense of the value of 
 the service rendered by delivering the commission with his 
 own hands. Before the year came to a close Sir Cloudesley 
 added one more item to the long list of his services by giving 
 timely assistance to General Kirke at the siege of Waterford. 
 This town was held by the adherents of James II., and had 
 long defied all attempts of General Kirke to take it. The chief 
 strength of the town lay in Duncannon Castle, on which an 
 attack was made by Sir Cloudesley 's ships and men. A sur- 
 render was speedily negotiated, and the influential town of 
 Waterford fell into the hands of the English. Two years after 
 this the King declared him k< rear-admiral of the red," giving 
 him at the same time the command of the squadron which was 
 to convey the King to Holland. 
 
 Soon after his return from Holland ho was ordered to 
 join the fleet then under the command of Admiral Russell, 
 and bore a very important part in the brilliant naval victory 
 known as the batttle of La Hogue. His last services during 
 the reign of William III. were rendered in connection with 
 the bombardment of Dunkirk, which he undertook at the 
 King's express command. The author of the " Lives of 
 British Admirals,"* referring to the esteem in which Sir 
 Cloudesley Shovel was held by his king and country at the 
 close of this reign, says, " He was always consulted by 
 
 * See Campbell's " Lives," etc., vol. iv. p. 247. 
 
SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL. 23 
 
 His Majesty whenever maritime affairs were under considera- 
 tion. " 
 
 His first service in the reign of Queen Anne was performed 
 as t4 admiral of the white." The town of Vigo in Spain had 
 been captured by Sir George Rooke, and Sir Cloudesley was 
 ordered to go out and bring home the spoils of the united 
 Spanish and French fleets, which lay disabled in the harbor. 
 This difficult task was accomplished with a rapidity and dash 
 which made so favorable an impression on the court, that on 
 his return " it was immediately resolved to employ him in 
 affairs of the greatest consequence for the future. " In J703 
 he was put in command of the grand fleet, and protected the 
 interests of England from the hostile attempts of the French and 
 allied powers in the Mediterranean. At the battle of Malaga 
 in 1704, Sir Cloudesley 's division of nine ships led the van, 
 and had to bear the brunt of the enemy's attack to such an ex- 
 tent, that at the beginning of the engagement he was almost 
 entirely surrounded by the French, and more than 400 of his 
 men were either killed or wounded. On his return home he 
 was presented to the Queen by Prince George, and shortly 
 afterward received the appointment of commander-in-chief and 
 rear-admiral of the English fleet. As Admiral Shovel he won 
 great credit for the part he took in the capture of the impor- 
 tant city of Barcelona in 1705. 
 
 In the month of October, 1707, after bearing an 'honorable 
 part in the expedition under Prince Eugene against Toulon, 
 he set sail with ten ships of the line, five frigates, and other 
 war vessels for the shores of England. But he was destined 
 never to see again the country he had served so nobly and 
 loved so well. By some strange mischance, which has never 
 been fully accounted for, his own vessel and several others, on 
 the night of the 22 d of October, struck on the rocks of the 
 Scilly islands and perished. The brave admiral and his three 
 sons-in-law, who were on board his vessel, besides a large num- 
 ber of officers and seamen, were drowned. The body of Sir 
 Cloudesley Shovel was washed on shore, and having been 
 found by a number of smugglers, was stripped of an emerald 
 ring and other valuables, and buried in the sand. On attempt- 
 ing to sell their booty, the miscreants found that the ring they 
 prized so much betrayed their guilty secret. They were com- 
 pelled to point out the spot where the body had been concealed. 
 England, of course, could not allow one of her noblest sons to 
 lie in so ignominious a grave. The body was at once removed 
 
24 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 to London by express order of Her Majesty Queen Anne, and 
 laid in the most honorable grave the nation had to give 
 
 " In the great minster transept, 
 Where the lights like glories fall, 
 And the organ rings and the sweet choir sings 
 Along the emblazoned wall." * 
 
 * Sir Cloudesley Shovel sat for several years a member of Parlia- 
 ment for the city of Kochester. In the Guildhall of that city there 
 is an interesting portrait, representing the gallant sailor as Rear- 
 Admiral. A tablet states that the hall was painted and decorated by 
 his desire and at his expense, 1695-6. The portrait from which our 
 engraving is taken is by Michael Dahl, and was originally at Hampton 
 Court. It was presented by George IV. in 1824 to Greenwich Hospital. 
 Sir C. Shovel at the time of his death was one of the governors of 
 Greenwich Hospital. 
 
JAMES LACKINGTON 
 
James ILacfcington, 
 
 SHOEMAKER AND BOOKSELLER. 
 
 Sutor Ultra Crepidam Feliciter Ausus. 
 
 Latin Motto, Quoted on Frontispiece to 
 ' * Lackingtorfs Memoirs" 
 
 I. LACKIXGTON, 
 
 Who a few years since began Business with five Pounds, 
 Now sells one Hundred Thousand Volumes Annually. 
 
 From Frontispiece to First Edition of "Memoirs 
 and Confessions" 1791-92. 
 
 " I will therefore conclude with a wish, that my readers may enjoy the 
 feast with the same good humor with which I have prepared it. ... 
 Those with keen appetites will partake of each dish, while others, more 
 delicate, may select such dishes as are more light and better adapted to 
 their palates ; they are all genuine British fare ; but lest they should be at 
 a loss to know what the entertainment consists of, I beg leave to inform 
 them that it contains forty-seven dishes of various sizes, which (if they cal- 
 culate the expense of their admission tickets] they will find does not amount 
 to twopence per dish ; and what I hope they will consider as immensely 
 valuable (in compliance with the precedent set by Mr. Farley, a gentleman 
 eminent in the culinary science), a striking likeness of their Cook into the 
 Bargain. 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen, pray be seated ; you are heartily welcome, and 
 much good may it do you." From Preface to Lackingtoii's "Memoirs and 
 Confessions," published 1826, 
 
JAMES LACKINGTON. 
 
 ONE of the most successful booksellers of the last century 
 was James Lackington, whose enormous place of business at 
 the corner of Finsbury Square, London, was styled somewhat 
 grandiloquently " The Temple of the Muses." A flag floated 
 proudly over the top of the building, and above the principal 
 doorway stood the announcement, no less true than sensa- 
 tional, " The Cheapest Bookshop in the World. " Lackington 
 was an innovator in the trade, and had introduced methods 
 and principles of doing business which at first awaked the ire 
 of the bookselling fraternity, but were at length generally 
 adopted, thus inaugurating a new era in the history of this im- 
 portant business. His name cannot be omitted from any com- 
 plete history of booksellers, and it is none the less deserving 
 of a place in the category of illustrious shoemakers ; for Lack- 
 ington commenced life as a shoemaker, and for some time 
 after he had entered on bookselling speculations continued to 
 work at the humble trade to which he had served an apprentice- 
 ship. 
 
 When Lackington was about forty-five years of age, and had 
 made a considerable fortune in the bookselling trade, he wrote 
 and published a singular book, in which he narrated the princi- 
 pal events in his life, under the form of " Letters to a 
 Friend." This book bears the title " Memoirs and Confes- 
 sions," and is certainly one of the most remarkable autobiog- 
 raphies ever presented to the world. What portion of its con- 
 tents may be referred to by the term " memoirs" as distin- 
 guished from " confessions" it is impossible to say, but cer- 
 tain it is that there are many things in the book which its 
 author would have done well to blot as soon as they were 
 written, and of which he was no doubt heartily sorry and 
 ashamed in after-life. Among the worst of these were his 
 strictures and reflections on the Wesleyan Methodists, to whom 
 he had belonged in early life, and from whom he had received 
 no small benefit, temporal as well as spiritual. When the 
 second edition of his memoirs came to be printed in 1803, his 
 character had undergone a happy change. He then saw 
 
30 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 things in a different light, and made full and complete ac- 
 knowledgment of the faults which marked the first edition ; 
 expressed in very decided albeit very conventional terms his 
 faith in Christian truth, and his debt of obligation to the relig- 
 ious people whom he had so sadly maligned. But words 
 were not enough to satisfy his ardent, thorough-going nature. 
 His benefactions to the Wesleyan Society were very consider- 
 able, and he seemed toward the close of his life to have found 
 great satisfaction in making the best use of the ample means at 
 his disposal. With all his faults he was an estimable man, 
 honest, truthful, and generous. He was never ashamed of his 
 lowly birth and humble apprenticeship, nor turned his back on 
 his poor relations, but ever sought them out and helped them 
 when he had the power to do so. His success in business was 
 owing to his shrewd common-sense, his rare insight into char- 
 acter, his good judgment as to the public taste and require- 
 ments, his capital method of assorting and classifying his stock 
 and strict keeping of accounts, his courageous yet prudent pur- 
 chases, and his strict adherence to a few sound maxims of 
 economy and thrift. None but a man of original and uncom- 
 mon powers of mind could have launched out on new specula- 
 tions and adventures as Lackington did with the same uniform 
 and certain success, and none but a man of good sense and 
 lofty feeling would have been proof against the ill effects 
 which so often attend on success. There is a touch of vanity 
 in his memoirs, it is trne, but it is not the vanity of a man 
 who is vain and does not know it ; lie is quite conscious of his 
 egotism, and indulges in it with thorough good-humor as a 
 hearty joke. He was rather fond of display, kept a town- 
 house and a country-house when he could afford it, and set up 
 a " chariot," as the phrase went in those days, and liveried 
 servants. Yet it was not many men in his position who would 
 have taken for a motto to be painted on the doors of his car- 
 riage the plain English words which express the principle on 
 which his business had been made to bear such wonderful results. 
 " But,' 7 he remarks, " as the first king of Bohemia kept his 
 country shoes by him to remind him from whence he was taken, 
 I have put a motto on the doors of my carriage constantly to re- 
 mind me to what I am indebted for my prosperity, viz., 
 
 " SMALL PROFITS DO GREAT THINGS." 
 
 The Lackington family had been farmers in the parish of 
 Langford, near Wellington, in Somersetshire. They were 
 
JAMES LACKINGTOST. 31 
 
 members of the Society of Friends, and held a respectable 
 position in the locality. For some cause, not fully explained in 
 the memoirs, James Lackington's father was apprenticed to a 
 shoemaker at Wellington. He made an imprudent marriage, 
 and for a time forfeited his father's approval and favor ; but 
 when the good-wife proved herself to be a very worthy and 
 industrious woman, the old man relented and set his son up in 
 business. This, however, was of no advantage to him ; in 
 fact, it proved his ruin. He might have remained a steady 
 and hard-working man, bringing up his children honorably, if 
 he had remained a journeyman. The position of a master pre- 
 sented temptations that were too much for his weak disposi- 
 tion. Lackington's own words will best describe his unhappy 
 circumstances in youth and the character of his father. " I 
 was born at Wellington, in Somersetshire, on the 31st of 
 August (old style), 1746. My father, George Lackington, was 
 a journeyman shoemaker, who had incurred the displeasure of 
 my grandfather for marrying my mother, whose maiden name 
 was Joan Trott. . . . About the year 1750, my father having 
 several children, and my mother proving an excellent wife, my 
 grandfather's resentment had nearly subsided, so that he sup- 
 plied him with money to open shop for himself. But that 
 which was intended to be of very great sendee to him and his 
 family eventually proved extremely unfortunate to himself and 
 them ; for as soon as he found he was more at ease in his cir- 
 cumstances he contracted a fatal habit of drinking, and of 
 course his business was neglected ; that after several fruitless 
 attempts of my grandfather to keep him in trade, he was, 
 partly by a very large family, but more by his habitual drunk- 
 enness, reduced to his old state of a journeyman shoemaker. 
 Yet so infatuated was he with the love of liquor, that the en- 
 dearing ties of husband and father could not restrain him : by 
 which baneful habit himself and family were involved in the 
 extremest poverty ; so that neither myself, my brothers, nor 
 sisters, are indebted to a father scarcely for anything that can 
 endear his memory, or cause us to reflect on him with pleas- 
 ure. ' ' 
 
 James, as the oldest child in the family, fared for a time 
 rather better than the rest. He was sent to a dame-school and 
 began to learn to read ; but before he could learn anything 
 worth knowing, his mother, who was obliged to maintain her 
 children as best she could, found it impossible to pay the two- 
 pence per week for his schooling. For several years his time 
 
32 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 was divided between nursing his younger brothers and sister* 
 and running about the streets and getting into mischief. At 
 the age of ten he began to feel a desire to do something to earn 
 a living. His first venture in this way showed his ability and 
 gave some promise of his success as a man of business. Hav- 
 ing noticed an old pieman in the streets whose method of sell- 
 ing pies struck the boy as very defective, the boy was con- 
 vinced that he could do the work much better. He made 
 known his thoughts to a baker in the town, who was so pleased 
 with the lad's spirit that he at once agreed to take the little 
 fellow into the house and employ him in vending pies in the 
 streets, if his father would grant permission. This was soon 
 obtained. In this queer enterprise young Lackington met with 
 remarkable success. He says : " My manner of crying pies, 
 and my activity in selling them, soon made me the favorite of 
 all such as purchased halfpenny apple-pies and halfpenny plum- 
 puddings, so that in a few weeks the old pie merchant shut up 
 his shop. I lived with this baker about twelve* or fifteen 
 months, in which time I sold such large quantities of pies, 
 puddings, cakes, etc., that he often declared to his friends in 
 my hearing that I had been the means of extricating him from 
 the embarrassing circumstances in which he was known to be 
 involved prior to my entering his service. " 
 
 Such a story is a sufficient indication of character. It ex- 
 hibits the two qualities which distinguished him as a man 
 good sense and courage. Another story of his boyhood is 
 worth telling for the same reason. He was about twelve years 
 of age when he went one day to a village about two miles off, 
 and returning late at night with his father, who had been 
 drinking hard as usual, they met a group of women who had 
 turned back from a place called Rogue Green because they had 
 seen a dreadful apparition in a hollow part of the road where 
 some person had been murdered years before. Of course the 
 place had been haunted ever since ! The women dared not go 
 by the spot after what they had seen, and were returning to 
 the village to spend the night. Lackington and his father 
 laughed at the tale, and the dauntless boy engaged to walk on 
 in front and go up to the object when they came near it in 
 order to discover what it was. He did so, keeping about fifty 
 yards ahead of the company and calling to them to come on. 
 Having walked about a quarter of a mile, the object came in 
 sight. " Here it is !" said he. " Lord have mercy on us !" 
 cried they, and were preparing to run, ' i but shame prevented 
 
JAM US LACKIXGTOX. 13 
 
 them." Making a long file behind him, the order of proced- 
 ure of course being according to the degree of each person's 
 courage, they moved on with trembling steps toward the ghost. 
 Although the boy's " hat was lifted off his head by his hair 
 standing on end," and his teeth chattered in his mouth, he was 
 pledged in honor and must go on. Coming close to the 
 dreaded spectre, he saw its true character " a very short tree, 
 whose limbs had been newly cut off, the doing of which had 
 made it much resemble a giant." The boy's pluck was the 
 talk of the town, and he " was mentioned as a hero." 
 
 His merits as a pie vender had made him a reputation, and 
 now an application was made to his father to allow James to 
 sell almanacs about the time of Christmas and the New Year. 
 He rejoiced immensely in this occupation and drove a splendid 
 trade, exciting the envy and ire of the itinerant venders of 
 Moore, Wing, and Poor Robin to such a degree that he speaks 
 of his father's fear lest" th'ese poor hawkers, who found their 
 occupation almost gone, should do the daring young interloper 
 some grievous bodily harm. 4< But," he says, " I had not the 
 least concern ; and as I had a light pair of heels, I always 
 kept at a proper distance. ? ' 
 
 At the age of fourteen he was bound for seven years to 
 Mr. Bowden of Taunton, a shoemaker. The indentures made 
 Lackington the servant of both Mr. and Mrs. Bowden, so 
 that, in case of the death of the former, the latter might claim 
 the service of the apprentice. The Bowdens were steady, 
 religious people who attended what Lackington calls " an 
 Anabaptist meeting," i.e., we presume, a Baptist chapel, for 
 the Baptists long bore the opprobrious epithet which was first 
 given to them in Germany and Holland at the time of the Ref- 
 ormation. The Baptists of Taunton in 1760 seem to have 
 been a dull, lifeless class of people, if we may judge from the 
 type presented in the family of the quiet shoemaker with 
 whom James Lackington went to live. Yet they were on a par 
 with the vast majority of churches, established or non-estab- 
 lished, in that age of religious apathy in England. The boy 
 accompanied the family twice on the Sabbath to the " meet- 
 ing," and heard, yet not heard, sermons full of sound moral- 
 ity, but devoid of anything like vigorous, soul-searching, and 
 soul-converting gospel truth, and delivered, withal, in the flat- 
 test and most spiritless manner. The ideas of the family were 
 as circumscribed as their library, and that was small and 
 meagre enough, in all conscience. It may be worth while to 
 
34 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOKMAKKKS. 
 
 give an inventory of its contents. It will cover only a line or 
 two of our space, and will be of some use to those, perhaps, 
 who are apt to mourn their own poverty as regards books, and 
 their small advantages, though, perchance, they may have ac- 
 cess to free libraries or cheap subscription libraries, or may 
 be able to buy or borrow all they could find time to peruse if 
 only they had the wish to read. Imagine a youth with any 
 taste for literature living in a sleepy town like Taunton in 
 1760, and looking over his masters bookshelves and finding 
 there a school-size Bible, 44 Watts 7 Psalms and Hymns," Foot's 
 44 Tract on Baptism," Culpepper's 4t Herbal," the " History 
 of the Gentle Craft," an old imperfect volume of receipts on 
 Physic, Surgery, etc., and the 44 Ready Reckoner." Bowden 
 was an odd character, evidently. One of his strange customs 
 is thus described : " Every morning, at all seasons of the year 
 and in all weathers, he rose about three o'clock, took a walk by 
 the river's side round Trenchware fields, stopped at some place, 
 or other to drink half a pint of ale, came back before six 
 o'clock and called up his people to work, and went to bed 
 again about seven." 
 
 44 Thus," says Lackington, 4< was the good man's family 
 jogging easily and quietly on, no one doubting but he should 
 go to heaven when he died, and every one hoping it would be 
 a good while first." 
 
 The visit of " one of Mr. Wesley's preachers" led to the 
 conversion of the two sons of Lackingtori's employer, and set 
 the young apprentice on a train of thought and inquiry which 
 eventually led him also to cast in his Jot with the Methodists. 
 He was then about sixteen years of age, and had so little knowl- 
 edge of reading that he gladly paid the three halfpence per 
 week which his mother allowed him as pocket-money to one of 
 the young Bowdens for instruction. Yet he had at this time 
 no literary taste, and no thought beyond the limited round of 
 devotional reading, which consisted chiefly of the Bible, and 
 the tracts, sermons, and hymns of the Wesleys. His desire to 
 hear the Methodist preachers was so great at this time, that 
 one Sunday morning, when his mistress had locked the door 
 to prevent his going out for this purpose, he jumped out of the 
 bedroom window, fondly imagining that the words of the ninety- 
 first Psalm, the eleventh and twelfth verses, which he had just 
 been reading, would be sufficient guarantee of his safety in 
 perpetrating such an act of rashness and folly. The last three 
 years of his apprenticeship were spent in the service of his 
 
JAMES LACKIXGTOX. 35 
 
 master's widow, Mr. Bowden having died when Lackington 
 liad served about four years. When he was just twenty-one, 
 and about six months before the expiration of his time, a severe 
 contest for the representation of Taunton in Parliament took 
 place, and the friends of two of the candidates purchased his 
 freedom from Mrs. Bowden's service in order to secure both 
 his vote and his services. The scenes of excitement and dissi- 
 pation into which he was thrown at this time unsettled his 
 mind, and for a time entirely ruined his religious character. 
 The election over, he went to live at Bristol, and lodged in a 
 street called Castle Ditch, with a young man named John 
 Jones, a maker of stuff shoes, who led him into dissipation. 
 Jones, however, had been pretty well educated, and managed 
 to awaken in Lackington's mind a desire for more knowledge 
 than he then possessed. He was, indeed, wofully ignorant, 
 had no idea of writing, and when he began to feel a thirst for 
 general reading, confesses that he dared not enter a book- 
 seller's shop because he did not know the name of any book to 
 %sk for. His friend Jones picked up at a bookstall a copy of 
 Walker's " Paraphrase of Epictetus," which seems to have 
 charmed the young shoemaker immensely, and to have turned 
 him for a time into a regular stoic. 
 
 The taste for reading once awakened, he soon grew weary of 
 a life of sin and folly. One evening he turned into a chapel 
 in Broadmead to hear Mr. Wesley, who was preaching there. 
 The old fire of religious enthusiasm was once more enkindled, 
 and burned as fiercely as ever. His companions were soon 
 brought to join the Wesleyan Society, and for a time the little 
 knot of shoemakers working together lived a life of intense re- 
 ligious devotion, working hard and singing hymns or holding 
 religious conversation all day, reading the works of leading 
 evangelical divines during the greater part of the night, and 
 seldom allowing themselves more than three hours' sleep. 
 
 The religious was combined with the philosophic mind. He 
 bought copies of such books as Plato on the " Immortality of 
 the Soul," Plutarch's " Lives," the " Morals of Confucius," 
 etc.; and, speaking of this time, he says : " The pleasures of ' 
 eating and drinking I entirely despised, and for some time 
 carried the disposition to an extreme. The account of Epicurus 
 living in his garden at the expense of about a halfpenny per 
 day, and that when he added a little cheese to his bread on 
 particular occasions he considered it as a luxury, filled me with 
 raptures. From that moment I began to live on bread and tea, 
 
36 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 and for a considerable time did not partake of any other viand, 
 but in that I indulged myself three or four times a day. My 
 reasons for living in this abstemious manner were in order to 
 save money to purchase books, to wean myself from the gross 
 pleasures of eating, drinking, etc., and to purge my mind and 
 make it more susceptible of intellectual pleasures." 
 
 Leaving Bristol in 1769, he lived for a year at Kingsbridge, 
 Devonshire, where he worked as a maker of stuff and silk 
 shoes. In 1770 he went back to Bristol, and lodged once 
 more with his old friends, the Joneses. At the end of that 
 year he married Nancy Smith, an old sweetheart, whom he had 
 fallen in love with seven years previously, " being at Farmer 
 Gamlin's at Charlton, four miles from Taunton, to hear a 
 Methodist sermon." Nancy was dairymaid then, and was ac- 
 counted handsome ; she was a devout Methodist, and an 
 amiable, industrious, thrifty woman. But they were wretch- 
 edly poor at the time of their marriage, and had to go and 
 live in lodgings at half a crown a week. " Our finances," 
 he remarks, *' were but just sufficient to pay the expenses 
 of the (wedding) day, for in searching our pockets (which we 
 did not do in a careless manner), we discovered that we had 
 but one halfpenny to begin the world with. 'Tis true we had 
 laid in eatables sufficient for a day or two, in which time we knew 
 we could by our work procure more, which we very cheerfully 
 set about, singing together the following strains of Dr. Cotton : 
 
 ' Our portion is not large indeed, 
 But then how little do we need ! 
 
 For Nature's calls are few. 
 In this the art of living lies, 
 To want no more than may suffice, 
 And make that little do.' 
 
 " The above, and the following ode by Mr. Samuel Wesley, 
 we did scores of times repeat, even with raptures : 
 No glory I covet, no riches I want, 
 Ambition is nothing to me : 
 The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grant 
 Is a mind independent and free. 
 
 ' By passion unruffled, untainted by pride, 
 By reason my life let me square ; 
 The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied, 
 And the rest are but folly and care. 
 
 ' Those blessings which Providence kindly has lent 
 I'll justly and gratefully prize ; 
 While sweet meditation and cheerful content 
 Shall make me both healthy and wise. 
 
JAMES LACKINGTOtf. 
 
 ' How vainly through infinite trouble and strife 
 The many their labors employ ; 
 When all that is truly delightful in life 
 Is what all, if they will, may enjoy. ' ' 
 
 Sound sense and true philosophy this ; and sorely did the 
 young shoemaker and his much-enduring wife feel the need of 
 such philosophy to hearten and console them when four and six- 
 pence a week was all they had to spend on eating and drinking, 
 and when, as he states, " strong beer we had none, nor any 
 other liquor (the pure element excepted); and instead of tea, or 
 rather coffee, we toasted a piece of bread, at other times we 
 fried some wheat, which, when boiled in water, made a tolera- 
 ble substitute for coffee ; and as to animal food, we made use 
 of but little, and that little we boiled and made broth of.' 7 
 That the cheerful sentiments with which they set out in life 
 did not fail them under the stress of such hardships as these is 
 sufficiently shown by the statement with which he closes the 
 chapter which deals with this part of his history : " During 
 the whole of this time we never once wished for anything that 
 we had not got, but were quite contented, and with a good 
 grace in reality made a virtue of necessity. " 
 
 After three years Lackington resolved to go to London in 
 the hope of meeting with better work and pay. It was indeed 
 dire necessity that drove him to take this step. Incessant 
 suffering and semi-starvation seemed inevitable if he remained 
 in Bristol. His wife had been extremely ill almost from the 
 beginning of their residence in the city, probably owing to the 
 change from country air and active employment to the close 
 atmosphere and sedentary occupation to which she was now ac- 
 customed. Her continued illness and his own hopeless state 
 of poverty drove him to make the venture. Accordingly, hav- 
 ing given her all the money he could spare, he set off for the 
 metropolis, and arrived there in August, 1774, with half a 
 crown in his pocket. 
 
 Once in London, the tide of his fortune turned. He soon 
 found plenty of work and got good wages. In a month his 
 wife was sent for, and the two worked so industriously and 
 lived so economically, that before long Nancy changed her 
 cloth cloak for one of silk, and her worthy husband indulged 
 in the luxury of a greatcoat, the first he had ever worn. When 
 he had been in London about four months he received tidings 
 of the death of his grandfather, who had left ten pounds 
 apiece to each of his grandchildren. He was so ignorant of 
 
38 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 money matters that he had no notion of obtaining the money 
 except by going down to Somersetshire to fetch it, and the sum 
 was accounted so prodigious, that he at once set off to claim 
 his property ; " so that," he says, " it cost me about half the 
 money in going down for it and in returning to town again. " 
 " With the remainder of the money, " he adds, " we pur- 
 chased household goods ; but as we then had not sufficient to 
 furnish a room, we worked hard and lived hard, so that in a 
 short time we had a room furnished with our own goods ; and 
 I believe that Alexander the Great never reflected on his im- 
 mense acquisitions with half the heart-felt enjoyment which we 
 experienced on this capital attainment." Now and then he 
 visited the old bookshops and added a few books to his small 
 library. One Christmas Eve he went out with half a crown 
 in his pocket to purchase the Christmas dinner. Passing by 
 an old bookshop, he could not resist the inducement to turn in 
 and look over the stock. He intended to spend only a few 
 pence on some book ; but a copy of Young's " Night 
 Thoughts," which he very much coveted, was so tempting a 
 prize, that, without hesitation, he laid down his half-crown for 
 the purchase of it. On returning home, he had no slight diffi- 
 culty to persuade his wife of " the superiority of intellectual 
 pleasures over sensual gratifications." " I think," said he to 
 his patient spouse, " that I have acted wisely ; for had I 
 bought a dinner j we should have eaten it to-morrow, and the 
 pleasure would have been soon over ; but should we Jive fifty 
 years longer, we shall have the ' Night Thoughts' to feast upon." 
 In June, 1775, one of his Wesleyan friends looked in on 
 Lackington and his wife as they sat at work making boots and 
 shoes, and told them of a " shop and parlor" which were then 
 to let in Featherstone Street, where it was suggested Lack- 
 ington might obtain work as a master-shoemaker. He at once 
 fell in with the proposal, and added that 4< he would sell books 
 also." He does not seem to have formed any intention of 
 bookselling previous to this interview, but the prospect of hav- 
 ing a shop of his own led him to think how easy and pleasant 
 it would be to combine the two kinds of business. He says 
 in his own naive manner : t4 When he proposed my taking the 
 shop, it instantly occurred to my mind that for several months 
 past I had observed a great increase in a certain old bookshop, 
 and that I was persuaded I knew as much of old books as the 
 person who kept it. I further observed that I loved books, 
 and that if I could but be a bookseller, I should then have 
 
JAMES LACKiNGTON. 3^ 
 
 plenty of books to read, which was the greatest motive I could 
 conceive to induce me to make the attempt." His friend en- 
 gaged to procure the shop, and Lackirigton bought "a bag full of 
 old books, chiefly divinity, for a guinea," which, together with 
 his own little library and some scraps of old leather, were worth 
 five pounds. With this stock he " opened shop on Midsummer 
 Day, 1775, in Featherstone Street, in the parish of St. Luke." 
 
 He borrowed five pounds from a fund which Wesley's peo- 
 ple had raised for the purpose of lending out on a short terra 
 to men of good character who were in need of help in business 
 or domestic difficulties. No interest appears to have been re- 
 quired, and he states that the money was of great service to him. 
 At this time they lived in the most economical and sparing 
 manner, " often dining on potatoes, and quenching their thirst 
 with water," for they could not forget the trials through which 
 they had passed, 'and, haunted by the dread of their recurrence, 
 were determined, if possible, to provide against them. 
 
 After six months his stock had increased to 25. " This 
 stock I deemed too great to be buried in Featherstone Street ; 
 and a shop and parlor being to let in Chiswell Street, No. 46, 
 I took them." His business in the sale of books proved so 
 prosperous, that, in a few weeks after removing to Chiswell 
 Street, he disposed of his little stock of leather and altogether 
 abandoned the gentle craft. At this time his stock consisted 
 almost entirely of divinity, and for a year or two he <l consci- 
 entiously destroyed such books as fell into his hands as were 
 written by free-thinkers : he would neither read them himself, 
 nor sell them to others." He makes some curious and saga- 
 cious remarks on bargain -hunters who frequented his shop at 
 this time, while his stock was low and poor, and who in their 
 craze after " bargains" often paid him double the price for 
 dirty old books that he afterward charged when he had a 
 larger stock, and had adopted the principle of selling every 
 book at its lowest paying price. These people, he observed, 
 forsook his shop as soon as he began to introduce better order 
 and to appear " respectable !" * He had not been long in 
 
 * " Bibliomaniacs" will be interested to learn the price of certain 
 books at this date, 1775. Lackington says : " Martyn's Dictionary of 
 Natural History ' sold for 15 15s , which then stood in niy catalogue 
 at 4 los.; Pilkington's 'Dictionary of Painters,' 7 7s., usually sold 
 at three ; Francis's 'Horace, ' 2 11s. At Sir George Colebrook's 
 sale the 8vo edition of the 'Tatler' sold for two guineas and a half. 
 At a sale a few weeks since, Rapin's History in folio, the two first 
 vols. only, sold for upward of 5." 
 
40 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKEUS. 
 
 Chiswell Street, before both his wife and himself were seized 
 with fever. She died and was buried without his having once 
 seen her after her illness. The shop was left in the care of a 
 boy, his house was put in charge of nurses, who robbed him of 
 his linen and other articles, kept themselves drunk with gin, 
 and would have left him to perish. The timely presence of his 
 sister saved his life, and several Wesleyan friends saved him 
 from ruin by locking up his shop, which the nurses and boy 
 together would soon have emptied. Although he wrote the 
 whole story in after-years in a vein of flippant sarcasm and ir- 
 reverence for religion, he was constrained to acknowledge his 
 great obligation to the friends whose religion prompted them 
 thus to act the good Samaritan to him in his dire extremity. 
 " The above gentlemen, 71 he says, '* not only took care of my 
 shop, but also advanced money to pay such expenses as occur- 
 red ; and as my wife was dead, they assisted in making my 
 will in favor of my mother." " These worthy gentlemen," he 
 adds, " belong to Mr. Wesley's Society (and notwithstanding 
 they have imbibed many enthusiastic whims), yet would they 
 be an honor to any society, and are a credit to human nature. ' ' 
 
 In 1776 he married Miss Dorcas Turton, a friend of his first 
 wife. It seems to have been her influence, to a large extent, 
 that drew him away from Wesleyanism and religion. She was 
 a woman of considerable education, and a great reader, kindly 
 and affectionate in her disposition, a dutiful daughter to her 
 aged and dependent father, whom she had supported after his 
 failure in business by keeping a school. But she seems to have 
 had no thought of religious truth as a basis for character and 
 an impulse to right conduct, and her absolute indifference to 
 religion soon told on the mind of a sensitive and impulsive man 
 like Lackington. '* I did not long remain in Mr. Wesley's 
 Society," he writes, referring to this same year 1776, " and, 
 what is remarkable, I well remember that, some years before, 
 Mr. Wesley told his society in Broadmead, Bristol, in my i 
 hearing, that he could never keep a bookseller six months in 
 his flock." 
 
 Two years afterward Lackington entered into partnership for 
 three years with Mr. Denis, an honest man, as he is emphati- 
 cally styled, who brought a considerable sum of money into 
 the business, by means of which the stock was at once doubled, 
 and the sales vastly increased. Lackington now proposed the 
 issue of a sale catalogue, to which his partner reluctantly con- 
 sented. Both partners were employed in writing it, but the 
 
JAMES LACKINGTCm. 41 
 
 larger share fell to Lackington, whose name alone appeared on 
 the title-page. It was issued in 1779, and the first week after 
 its publication the partners took, what they regarded as the 
 " large sum" of twenty pounds. Denis, finding his money 
 pay better in business than in the Funt&, invested a larger sum 
 in stock, but when Lackington, who according to the terms of 
 the agreement was sole purchaser, began to buy, as his partner 
 thought, too largely, they had a dispute over the matter and 
 dissolved partnership on fripndly terms a year before the term 
 of partnership had expired. Denis, to the end of his life, re- 
 mained friendly with Lackington, and used to call in every day 
 on passing his shop to inquire what purchases and sales he had 
 effected, and now and then the honest man lent his old partner 
 money to help in paying bills. 
 
 In ] 780 he resolved to give no credit to any one, and to sell 
 all his books at the lowest price bearing a working profit. The 
 effect of this new method of doing business was remarkable in 
 many ways. Long credit seems to have been common in the 
 trade in those days, most bills were not paid within six 
 months, many not within a twelvemonth, and some not within 
 two years. " Indeed," he adds,-" many tradesmen have ac- 
 counts of seven years' standing ; and some bills are never 
 paid " (!) After recounting the disadvantages of the credit sys- 
 tem, he says : " When I communicated my ideas on this sub- 
 ject to some of my acquaintances, I was much laughed at and 
 ridiculed ; and it was thought that I might as well attempt to 
 rebuild the Tower of Babel as to establish a large business with- 
 out giving credit. " The offence given to some old customers 
 was very great, and for a time he lost them, but they soon re- 
 turned on learning how much lower his books were now marked 
 than those of other booksellers. As to others who would only 
 deal on credit, he cared little when he observed their anger, 
 very wisely remarking that il some of them would have been as 
 much enraged when their bills were sent in had credit been 
 given them." The booksellers themselves were not a little an- 
 noyed by the innovations of the dauntless trader, and appear to 
 have said some bitter things about him and his stock. Some 
 of them were " mean enough to assert that all my books were 
 bound in sheep," and he adds, in language that does him 
 credit, " As every envious transaction was to me an additional 
 spur to exertion, I am therefore not a little indebted to Messrs. 
 Envy, Detraction & Co. for my present prosperity, though, 
 I assure you, this is the only debt I am determined not to pay." 
 
42 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 This adoption of the u no credit" system was the first de- 
 cided step toward Lackington's wonderful success in business. 
 In five years his catalogues contained the names of thirty thou- 
 sand books, and these were generally of a much better descrip- 
 tion. ^"* 
 
 The most startling innovation he made in the trade of book- 
 selling, and the one which led to the largest amount of opposi- 
 tion on the part of his fellow-tradesmen, was in regard to the 
 way of dealing with what are called " remainders. 11 When a 
 bookseller found a book did not sell well, it was his custom to 
 put what remained into a private sale, " where only booksellers 
 were admitted, and of them only such as were invited by 
 having a catalogue sent them." 44 When first invited to these 
 trade-sales," he says, 44 I was very much surprised to learn 
 that it was common for such as purchased remainders to de- 
 stroy one half or three fourths of such books, and to charge 
 the full publication price, or nearly that, for such as they kept 
 on hand. For a short time I cautiously complied with this 
 custom." But he soon became convinced of the folly of this 
 practice, and resolved to keep the whole stock of books and 
 sell them off at low prices. By this means he disposed of hun- 
 dreds of thousands of volumes at a small profit, which amounted 
 to a larger sum in the end than if he had destroyed three out 
 of four and sold the rest at the original retail price. This 
 course made him many enemies in the trade, who tried to in- 
 jure him, and even did their best to keep him out of the sale- 
 rooms. It was, however, of no avail : his business increased 
 enormously, his customers appreciating his method, whether 
 the booksellers did or not. He often bought enormously ; 
 44 W r est says he sat next to Lackington at a sale when he spent 
 upward of 12,000 in an afternoon." * It was no uncommon 
 thing for him to buy several thousand copies of one book, and 
 at one time he had ten thousand copies of \Vatts' Psalms and 
 the same number of his Hymns in stock. Of course he found 
 it necessary to sell out rapidly, or business would soon have 
 come to a dead-lock ; for, as he justly observes, 4t no one that 
 has not a quick sale can possibly succeed with large numbers." 
 14 So that I often look back," he remarks, t4 with astonish- 
 ment at my courage (or temerity, if you please) in purchasing, 
 and my wonderful success in taking money sufficient to pay the 
 extensive demands that were perpetually made upon me, as 
 
 *" History of Booksellers," by H. Curvven, p. 73. Chatto & Windus. 
 
JAMES LACKINGTOK. 43 
 
 there is not another instance of success so rapid and constant 
 under such circumstances." It is interesting to notice how 
 trifling a circumstance it was which led him to adopt the plan 
 of selling every article at the lowest remunerative price. 
 " Mrs. Lackington had bought a piece of linen ; when the 
 linen-draper's man brought it into my shop three ladies were 
 present, and on seeing the cloth opened asked Mrs. L. 
 what it cost per yard. On being told the price, they all 
 said it was very cheap, and each lady went and purchased 
 the same quantity ; those preces were again displayed to their 
 acquaintance, so that the linen-draper got a deal of custom from 
 that circumstance ; and I resolved to do likewise." He 
 admits that he often sold a '* great number of articles much 
 lower than he ought, even on his own plan of selling cheap, 
 yet that gave him no concern," " but if he found out that he 
 had sold any articles too dear," he declares that " it gave him 
 much uneasiness." He reflects in his own simple fashion : 
 " If I sell a book too dear, I perhaps lose that customer and 
 his friends forever, but if I sell articles considerably under 
 their real value the purchaser will come again and recommend 
 my shop to his acquaintances, so that from the principles of 
 self-interest I would sell cheap." 
 
 The following observations of a shrewd observer are worth 
 quoting as a testimony to the change which had begun to come 
 over the minds of the people of this country in regard to read- 
 ing, about a hundred years ago : " I cannot help observing 
 that the sale of books in general has increased prodigiously 
 within the last twenty years [1791]. According to the best 
 estimation I have been able to make, I suppose that more than 
 four times the number of books are sold now than were sold 
 twenty years since. The poorer sort of farmers, and even the 
 poor country people in general, who before that period spent 
 their winter evenings in relating stories of witches, ghosts, 
 hobgoblins, etc., now shorten the nights by hearing their sons 
 and daughters read tales, romances, etc. ; and on entering their 
 houses, you may see ' Tom Jones,' ' Roderick Random,' and 
 other entertaining books stuck up on their bacon-racks, etc.; 
 and if John goes to town with a load of hay, he is charged to 
 be sure not to forget to bring home ' Peregrine Pickle's Ad- 
 ventures ;' and when Dolly is sent to the market to sell her 
 eggs she is commissioned to purchase * The History of Pamela 
 Andrews.' In short, all ranks and degrees now READ. But 
 
44 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOF.MAKEKS. 
 
 the most rapid increase of the sale of books has been since the 
 termination of the late war.'* * 
 
 He tells the story of his going to reside in the country and 
 set up a carriage, horses, and liveried servants in his own quaint 
 and self-complacent style. " My country lodging by regular 
 gradation was transformed into a country house, and the incon- 
 veniences attending a stage-coach were remedied by a chariot. 1 '' 
 This house was taken at Merton in Surrey. Referring to the 
 captious remarks of his neighbors, he says: "When by the 
 ndvice of that eminent physician, Dr. Lettsom, I purchased a 
 horse and saved my life by the exercise it afforded me, the old 
 adage, ' Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil, 1 
 was deemed fully verified ; they were very sorry to see people so 
 young in business run on at so great a rate !" The occasional 
 relaxation enjoyed in the country was censured as an abomi- 
 nable piece of pride ; but when the carriage and servants 
 in livery appeared, "they would not be the first to hurt a 
 foolish tradesman's character, but if (as was but too probable) 
 the docket was not already struck, tjie Gazette would soon settle 
 that point." It appears that some of these wiseacres specu- 
 lated as to the means by which the fortunate bookseller had 
 made his large fortune. Some spoke of a lottery ticket, and 
 others were sure that lie must have found a number of "bank- 
 notes in an old book to the amount of many thousand pounds, 
 and if they please can even tell you the title of the old book 
 that contained the treasure." "But," he jocosely remarks, 
 "you shall receive it from me, which you will deem authority 
 to the full as unexceptionable. I found the whole of what I 
 am possessed of, in SMALL PROFITS, bound by INDUSTRY, and 
 clasped by ECONOMY." 
 
 It is curious to notice the frank and simple manner in which 
 he speaks of his profits, and of the way in which he did his 
 business. " The profits of my business the present year [1791] 
 will amount to four thousand pounds," he writes, and goes on 
 to say that "the cost and selling price of every book was 
 marked in it, whether the price is sixpence or sixty pounds, 
 is entered in a day-book as they are sold, with the price it 
 cost and the money it sold for ; and each night the profits of 
 the day are cast up by one of my shopmen, as every one of 
 
 * Articles of Peace with the United States were signed Nov. 30th, 
 1782 ; and the Peace of Versailles, between France, Spain, and Eng- 
 land, was made Jan. 20th, 1783. It is to this, no doubt, that Lacking- 
 ton refers. 
 
JAMES LACKINGTON. 45 
 
 them understands my private marks. Every Saturday night 
 the profits of the week are declared before all my shopmen, 
 etc., the week's profits, and also the expenses of the week, then 
 entered one opposite another ; the whole sum taken in the 
 week is also set down, and the sum that has been paid for 
 books bought. These accounts are kept publicly in my shop, 
 and ever have been so, as I never saw any reason for conceal- 
 ing them." He speaks in the same letter of selling more than 
 one hundred thousand volumes annually, and adds, in his own 
 complacent manner, " I believe it is universally allowed that 
 no man ever promoted the sale of books in an equal degree !" 
 
 Lackington at length quitted Chiswell Street, and took the 
 enormous building at the corner of Finsbury Square, which was 
 styled " The Temple of the Muses," and to which the public 
 were invited as the cheapest bookshop in the world. He 
 declared in his catalogue that he had half a million of books 
 constantly on sale, "and these were arranged in galleries and 
 rooms rising in tiers the more expensive books at the bottom, 
 and the prices diminishing with every floor, but all numbered 
 according to a catalogue which Lackington compiled by him- 
 self." * His profits on the first year's trade at "The Temple 
 of the Muses" amounted to 5000. He retired from business 
 in 1798, having made a large fortune. 
 
 His capacity for business was remarkable. Until he was 
 nearly thirty years of age he had no opportunity of exercising 
 it. But once having given up the gentle craft, in which he 
 was no great proficient, he proved himself one of the smartest 
 and cleverest business men in London. We can readily par- 
 don the simple vanity of the self-made and self-taught mer- 
 chant prince who writes about his recently acquired chariot 
 in the following strain : " And I assure you, sir, that reflect- 
 ing on the means by which the carriage was procured adds 
 not a little to the pleasure of riding in it. I believe I may, 
 without being deemed censorious, assert that there are some 
 who ride m their carriages who cannot reflect on the means by 
 which they were acquired with an equal degree of satisfac- 
 tion." For several years, both before and after he retired 
 from business, he made a journey through different parts of 
 England and Scotland, calling at the chief towns, such as York, 
 Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Carlisle, Lancaster, Manchester, 
 Bristol, and inspecting the bookshops. His observations arc 
 
 * "History of Booksellers, " see above, p. 74. 
 
46 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 of the most quaint and out-of-the-way character. At New- 
 castle he found nothing more remarkable to record than "the 
 celebrated crow's nest affixed above the weather-cock on the 
 upper extremity of the steeple in the market-place,'* and the 
 famous brank, an iron instrument, shown in the town-hall, and 
 used in olden time to punish notorious scolds. At Glasgow 
 the most notable spectacle, and one that calls forth a consider- 
 able amount of remark, is that of the washerwomen, whose 
 practice of getting into their tubs, placed by the river-side, and 
 dollying the linen with their bare feet, awoke his profound 
 astonishment. Of his visits to Bristol and the west of Eng- 
 land, the scene of his early life, he gives the following curious 
 and interesting account: "In Bristol, Exbridge, Bridgewater, 
 Taunton, Wellington, and other places, I amused myself in 
 calling on some of my masters, with whom I had, about twenty 
 years before, worked as a journeyman shoemaker. I addressed 
 each with, ' Pray, sir, have you got any occasion?' which is 
 the term made use of by journeymen in that useful occupation 
 when seeking employment. Most of those honest men had 
 quite forgot my person, as many of them had not seen me 
 since I worked for them, so that it is not easy for you to con- 
 ceive with what surprise and astonishment they gazed on me. 
 For you must know that I had the vanity (I call it humor) to 
 do this in my chariot, attended by my servants ; and on telling 
 them who I was, all appeared to be very happy to see me. 
 And I assure you, my friend, it afforded me much real pleasure 
 to see my old acquaintances alive and well." Coming to Well- 
 ington, his birthplace and home during boyhood, he says : 
 " The bells rang merrily all the day of my arrival. I was also 
 honored with the attention of many of the most respectable 
 people in and near Wellington and other parts, some of whom 
 were pleased to inform me that the reason of their paying a 
 particular attention to me was their having heard, and now 
 having themselves an opportunity of observing, that I did not 
 so far forget myself as many proud upstarts had done ; and 
 that the notice I took of my poor relations and old acquaintance 
 merited the respect and approbation of every real gentleman/' 
 Lackington's kindness to his own relatives, and to the poor, 
 was one of his best qualities. In fact, he declares in 1791 that 
 he would have retired from business five jears previously if it 
 had not been for the thought of his poor relations, many of 
 whom were helpless, and whom he felt bound to relieve and 
 protect. Besides supporting his 4i good old mother" for many 
 
JAMES LACKINGTON. 47 
 
 years, he says, " I have two aged men and one aged woman 
 whom I support : and I have also four children to maintain and 
 educate ; . . . many others of my relations are in similar cir- 
 cumstances and stand in need of my assistance.' 7 He also 
 made provision for the support of the very aged parents of his 
 first wife, Nancy. 
 
 On abandoning business he left his third cousin George 
 Lackington at the head of the firm, while he and his wife went 
 to live at Tiiornbury in Gloucestershire, in order to be in the 
 neighborhood of the Turtons, his wife's relations. He bought 
 two estates in Alvestone, on one of which was a genteel house, 
 where he lived in good style for several years. Here he em- 
 ployed his time in visiting the sick and poor, and sometimes 
 in preaching. For he had now returned to the faith of a 
 Christian, and threw himself with his accustomed ardor into 
 all kinds of religious work. His contrition for the severe 
 and ungracious things he had said of the Wesleyans in the first 
 editions of his " Memoirs" was evidently very deep. He ac- 
 knowledges in plain terms that he owed to them all his early 
 advantages, and the moral and mental awakening which opened 
 before him a new path in life. He says, in the introduction 
 to his last edition of his book, " If I had never heard the 
 Methodists preach, in all probability I should have been at this 
 time a poor, ragged, dirty cobbler. . . . It was also through them 
 that I got the shop in which I first set up for a bookseller. " 
 
 He built a small chapel at Thornbury on his own estate, 
 where the Wesleyan ministers regularly officiated. In 1806 he 
 removed to Taunton, where he resided for about six years, built 
 a chapel at a cost of 3000, adding 150 a year for the minister. 
 
 On the decline of his health in 1812, he went to live by the 
 seaside at Budleigh Sulterton, in Devonshire. Here also he 
 erected a chapel which cost 2000, and endowed it with a 
 minister's stipend of 150 per annum. 
 
 James Lackington died of paralysis in the seventieth year of 
 his age, on the 22d of November, 1815, and was buried in the 
 Budleigh Churchyard. None will deny the successful book- 
 seller the right to the Latin motto with which he has adorned 
 the frontispiece to the first edition of " Memoirs and Confes- 
 sions," viz., Sator ultra crepidam feliciter ausus.* 
 
 r * The shoemaker happily abandoned his last." It may be interest- 
 ing to note that the writer's copy of this curious book once belonged 
 to Henry Thomas Buckle, author of "The History of Civilization." 
 On the fly-leaf are memoranda of Wesleyan and Jonsonian anecdotes 
 which Buckle had evidently made for his own use. 
 
REV. S. BRADBURN 
 
Uratrfcurn, 
 
 THE SHOEMAKER WHO BECAME THE PRESIDENT OF THE 
 WESLEYAN CONFERENCE. 
 
 "I was a poor ignorant cobbler." Samuel Bradburn, Life of Samuel 
 Bradburn, p. 227. 
 
 " During forty years Samuel Bradburn was esteemed the Demosthenes 
 of Methodism." Abel Stevens, LL.D., quoted on title-page of Life of S. B. 
 
 " I have never heard his equal ; I can furnish you with no adequate 
 idea of his powers as an orator; we have not a man among us that will 
 support anything like a comparison with him. ... I never knew one 
 with so great a command of language." Dr. Adam Clarke. 
 
 " The generous and noble-minded Samuel Bradburn, whose ability as a 
 public speaker was all but unrivalled." Rev. Thomas Jackson, President 
 of the Wesleyan Conference. 
 
SAMUEL BRADBURN. 
 
 IN the winter of 1740 the press-gang men were busy at their 
 abominable work in most of the maritime and inland towns of 
 England, and, among other places, Chester seems to have sent 
 certain unwilling recruits to make up the rank and file of the 
 army, and replenish the navy of His Majesty King George II. 
 Many are the tales of cruelty which belong to this miserable 
 period in the history of our army and navy. Thousands of 
 able-bodied men were carried away by main force from their 
 peaceful occupations, from home and friends, and everything 
 that was dear to them, and compelled to do duty for their 
 country in foreign climes. Sons, husbands, fathers of families, 
 steady, honest, industrious, law-abiding citizens, or worthless 
 waifs and strays, it mattered not all who might be of service, 
 and could be easily caught, were seized and hurried off to the 
 nearest military or naval depot, and were soon lost sight of by 
 their distressed relations, and were, perhaps, never heard of 
 again until their names were reported in the list of killed and 
 wounded in battle. Now and then the life of enforced military 
 or naval service was tolerable and even pleasant from a sol- 
 dier's or sailor's point of view and ended happily enough with 
 an honorable discharge and pension. A wretched beginning 
 had not always a wretched course and a miserable ending, for 
 the Briton of those days was a much-enduring creature, and 
 had strong notions about " serving his country," and soon 
 learned to tolerate and even enjoy a condition of things which, 
 to say the least, was unjustifiable and tyrannical. 
 
 An incident connected with the life-story of the subject of 
 this sketch will illustrate some of the worst features of the 
 system referred to, and show the sort of hardship and injustice 
 to which " the free and noble sons" of Britain were exposed 
 up to a time almost within the memory of men still living. 
 Two men sat drinking and chatting in a friendly manner in an 
 ale-house in Chester one night early in the year 1740. It does 
 not seem that either of them was the worse for liquor, or that 
 anything unpleasant had passed between them to spoil the 
 pleasure of their intercourse. In fact, the two men had known 
 
54 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 each other years before, and both seemed glad to renew their 
 acquaintance. The younger of the two was only twenty- one 
 years of age, and had been married but a few days previously 
 to a young woman of nineteen summers, to whom he was 
 deeply attached. After staying as long as he deemed expedi- 
 ent he rose to go home, when to his amazement the pretended 
 " friend" and old acquaintance turned upon him with the 
 words, '* You shall not leave this room to-night ; you have 
 now no master but the king, and you must serve him, as you 
 have taken his money." Guessing what was meant, the poor 
 fellow felt in his pocket and found that his companion had 
 secretly slipped three guineas into it as king's bounty. It 
 was vain for the enraged and distracted young man to throw 
 the money on the floor, and declare he would none of it nor the 
 king's service, that he was but just married, and had no wish 
 to be a soldier, for armed men stood round the door and pre- 
 vented escape. It was vain also to appeal to the magistrates of 
 that day, for though they must have been perfectly well ac- 
 quainted with the nefarious tricks of pressmen and recruiting 
 officers, they accepted the evidence of the officer against the 
 recruit, and adjudged him a legal soldier, because, forsooth, 
 he had received the king's bounty and so enlisted. Such was 
 the experience of Samuel Bradburn's father, and in two days 
 after the event just narrated he was hurried off to his regiment, 
 without a chance of saying good-by to his fiiends or making 
 any further efforts for his own release. Their grief, and the 
 agony of mind endured by the young bride, may be imagined. 
 She had no choice but to part from him, perhaps forever ; or 
 to get permission to attach herself to the regiment, and follow 
 her husband's fortunes as a soldier. No true woman and 
 worthy wife would hesitate long, and the noble-hearted Welsh 
 girl * soon resolved not to leave her husband. The regiment 
 was ordered to Flanders, and took part in several battles, in one 
 of which Bradburn was severely wounded, and on the conclu- 
 sion of the war in 1748 ordered to Gibraltar, where Samuel was 
 born, 5th October, 1751, and where he spent the first twelve 
 years of his life. 
 
 The soldier's family numbered thirteen children, and as his 
 pay was but scanty, it may be supposed that the education of 
 each of its members could not have been a very important or 
 costly affair. In short, we have another story to add to those 
 
 * Mrs. Bradburn was the daughter of Samuel Jones, of Wrexham. 
 
SAMUEL BRADBURN. 55 
 
 already told of a life of singular devotedness and usefulness 
 which had no fair foundation of sound and thorough educa- 
 tion. Bradburn himself declares that he went to school for 
 only a fortnight during his twelve years' life at Gibraltar. The 
 fee was a penny a week, and on its being raised to three half- 
 pence the boy was removed, for the father's poor pittance 
 would not allow of the extra strain upon it of a halfpenny per 
 week. And so, says the biographer, almost with an air of 
 triumph, " the education of one of the greatest modern pulpit 
 orators cost only twopence!'''' 
 
 Bradburn's father appears to have been a remarkably 
 thoughtful and exemplary sort of man for a soldier, in those 
 days. Though he never united with the Methodists, he was 
 much attached to them, and had derived great profit from their 
 preaching at the camp in Flanders. His children were 
 brought up in a strictly religious manner, always going to ser- 
 vice on Sunday, and being compelled to read a daily portion 
 of Scripture, and repeat a Scripture lesson from week to week. 
 According to his light, he did his best to bring his children up 
 well ; and one of them, at all events, profited by his training, 
 for Samuel became very thoughtful and serious, and was ac- 
 counted, by his neighbors, one of the best boys in the town. 
 
 On his discharge from the army Bradburn went to live in 
 the old city from which he had been so cruelly carried away 
 about twenty-three years before. Samuel was then nearly thir- 
 teen years of age, and a situation was soon found for him as an 
 out-door apprentice to a shoemaker, to whom he was bound for 
 eight years. Brought up under the influences of Methodism, 
 and accustomed to listen to a class of preachers who had done 
 more than any others to awaken and keep alive the flames of 
 religious revival and zeal, young Bradburn's mind was always 
 more or less under the influence of deep religious conviction. 
 His history, as a youth, presents the most astonishing contrasts 
 of religious fervor and sinful excess. Yet his worst moods did 
 not last long, and, however far he went in the way of transgres- 
 sion, his consciousness of the evil of sin never left him, and he 
 had always sufficient moral sensibility left to make him pro- 
 foundly miserable when he dared to reflect. Acts of daring 
 wickedness, and defiant or profane language, only served as a 
 cover to a troubled heart and a restless conscience. The story 
 of his early life, with its alternate seriousness and folly, anx- 
 iety about his soul's welfare and mad recklessness, reads won- 
 derfully like that of John Bunyan. How like the records of 
 
56 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 the life of the Bedford tinker are these entries in the diary of 
 the Chester shoemaker : " One evening, being exceedingly cast 
 down, and finding an uncommon weight upon my spirits, I 
 went to preaching, and while Mr. Guilford was describing the 
 happiness of the righteous in glory, my heart melted like wax 
 before the fire. In a moment all that heaviness was removed, 
 and the love of God was so abundantly shed abroad in my 
 heart, that I could scarcely refrain from crying out in the 
 preaching-house." . . . " When preaching was over, I went 
 into a place near St. Martin's Churchyard, which adjoined the 
 preaching-house, and there I poured out my soul before the 
 Lord in prayer and praise, and continued rejoicing in God my 
 Saviour most of the night. " lie. was then less than fourteen 
 years of age ; his companions at the work-room were of a god- 
 less sort, and after a few months' enjoyment of mental peace 
 and joy, their injurious influence began to tell upon him. By 
 degrees he abandoned his prayerful habits, and surrendered 
 himself to the power of evil, until at length he " became ac- 
 quainted with the vilest of the vile," and imbibed their spirit 
 and followed their example. To what depths he sank the fol- 
 lowing sentences from his diary will show : " It is impossible 
 to express the feelings of my mind, on some occasions during 
 this apostasy from God ; especially once, when one of the 
 greatest reprobates I ever knew was constrained to own that he 
 was shocked to hear me swear such oaths as I often did.* . . . 
 For a moment I felt a degree of compunction, but gave away 
 to despair and drowned the conviction." The reproof which 
 Banyan received under similar circumstances led him to drop 
 the practice of swearing ; but Bradburn went on in his evil 
 ways as resolutely as ever. For several years he seems to have 
 led a reckless life, joining in vicious company, indulging a pas- 
 sion for "gaming," or gambling, to such an extent that he 
 would even go to bed and rise and dress again when the rest of 
 the household were asleep, in order to go out through the 
 window and join his gambling and betting companions. At 
 last he became so enamoured of sinful follies that he snatched 
 
 * This incident will remind readers of the following account given 
 by Bunyan of a similar incident in his early life : ' One day, as I was 
 standing at my neighbor's shop -window, and there cursing and swear- 
 ing, after my wonted manner, there sate within the woman of the 
 house and heard me, who, though she was a loose and ungodly wretch, 
 protested that I cursed and swore at such a rate that she trembled to 
 hear me. ... At this reproof I was silenced and put to secret shame, 
 and that too, as I thought, before the God of heaven." 
 
SAMUEL BBADBUKN. 57 
 
 the opportunity, which a few words of complaint from his 
 father afforded, to take offence and leave home, " in order to 
 go and lodge with some abandoned young men, in order to 
 have his full swing without being curbed by any one." His 
 wages were but small, and as he took half of them home he had 
 but a small pittance to live upon : yet such was his craze at this 
 time for bad company and " gaming," that he lived often for 
 two days on a penny loaf, and went in rags rather than confess 
 his error to his parents and ask their aid. One good quality 
 kept him from utter ruin at* this time, and it seems to have 
 been the only one that remained in a lively state. He speaks 
 of " the affection he had for his mother, whom he still loved as 
 his own soul." He could not endure her tears and tender re- 
 proofs, and left his home in order that he might not have to 
 suffer the constant reproach of her good character and loving 
 entreaties. To such lengths will a passion for sinful amuse- 
 ments drive even a youth of sensitive nature and generous dis- 
 position. Nothing can be more deplorable than the account 
 he gives of his sinful infatuation at this the worst period of his 
 youthful career. " I spent almost a twelvemonth in this truly 
 pitiable way of life, and during that time do not remember en- 
 joying one satisfactory moment. My clothes were now almost 
 worn out, and my wages were not sufficient to supply me with 
 more ; yet, such was my folly, I still persisted in the same way, 
 glorying even in my shame, till my life seemed nearly finished, 
 and the measure of my iniquity almost full ; and, to all appear- 
 ance, there was but a step betwixt me and everlasting death." 
 At eighteen years of age this miserable course of sin came to 
 an end. Bradburn was led " by the hand of Providence to 
 work in the house of a Methodist." He had about this time, 
 also, become so weak and ailing in health, as the result of his 
 pernicious habits, that he was compelled to yield to his parents' 
 entreaties to go and live at home. Good example, kind words, 
 and wise counsel, combined with the beneficial effects of sepa- 
 ration from his old companions, soon began to tell upon his 
 conscience. As might be expected, the sense of sin, when 
 once it was awakened in him, was most intense. It was no 
 wonder that such a youth as Samuel Bradburn should have 
 44 experiences" which men of a milder temperament are strangers 
 to, and cannot perhaps appreciate. After he had mused for a 
 time, and thought upon his ways, he became suddenly, and, as 
 it seemed then, most unaccountably convinced of sin, and led 
 to cherish the most anxious concern to find peace with God. 
 
58 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 u One evening," he writes in liis diary, " at the close of the 
 year 1769, while I was making a few cursory remarks on the 
 season, and looking at some decayed, flowers in a garden ad- 
 joining the house I worked in, I was suddenly carried, as it 
 were, out of myself with the thought of death and eternity. 
 . . . My sins were set as in battle array before me, particu- 
 larly that of ingratitude to a good and gracious God. This 
 caused my very bones to tremble, and my soul to be horribly 
 afraid. Hell from beneath seemed moved to meet me. . . . 
 The effects of those convictions were such that I could scarcely 
 reach home, though but a little way off. I went to bed, but 
 found no rest. I sunk under the weight of my distress, gave 
 myself up to despair, and for some time lost the use of my 
 reason." For several days the poor sin -stricken youth lay as 
 if in a high fever, and raved of judgment and perdition. It 
 was three months ere he entered into a state of quiet, firm, in- 
 telligent, Christian faith, bringing peace and rest to his miml. 
 His excellent and godly master helped him somewhat during 
 this long and terrible struggle in the " slough of despond." 
 Several " evangelists," in the character of gospel ministers, 
 pointed out the way of life to him, but they were not of so 
 much service as might have been expected. A *' roll which he 
 carried in his hand," on which was written, " The Door of 
 Salvation Opened by the Key of Regeneration," was of great 
 value in showing the way to the blessedness he sought. In 
 fact, it was during the reading of this little treatise on the life 
 of faith that his spirit first seemed to hear the divine words, 
 " Peace, -be still." There could be no mistake about the young 
 shoemaker's conversion. Account for it as men 'might, the 
 change was marvellous, and infinitely beneficial, as we shall see, 
 no less to his neighbors than to himself ; for Samuel Bradburn 
 was intensely social, and bound to influence his friends in one 
 way or another, as well as to be influenced by them. It was 
 impossible for him to remain inactive when a great impulse 
 moved within him. The desire to go out and speak of the joy 
 he had found, and the means by whioh he had found it, soon 
 became a ruling passion. It is the desire which makes the 
 philanthropist, the preacher, the missionary. The language in 
 which he attempts to describe that indescribable joy of the re- 
 newed heart is but another reading of the old gospel truth : 
 " If any man be in Christ he is a new creature : old things are 
 passed away ; behold, all things are become new."* Alluding 
 
 * 2 Cor. 5 : 17. 
 
SAMUEL BRADBURN. 59 
 
 to the reading of the little book above mentioned, he says : 
 ** Such an unspeakable power accompanied the words to my 
 soul, that, being unable to control myself, I rose from my seat 
 and went into the garden, where I had spent many a melan- 
 choly hour ; but, oh, how changed now ! Instead of terror 
 and despair I felt my heart overflowing with joy, and my eyes 
 with grateful tears. My soul was in such an ecstasy that my 
 poor emaciated body was as strong and active as I ever remem- 
 ber it, and not at that time only, for the strength and activity 
 remained. I had now no fear of death, but rather longed to 
 die, knowing that the blessed Jesus was my Saviour ; that God 
 was reconciled to me through Him ; that nothing but the 
 thread of life kept me from His glorious presence. Now the 
 whole creation wore a different aspect. The stars which shone 
 exceeding bright appeared more glorious than before. Such 
 was my happy frame that I imagined myself in the company 
 of the holy angels, who, I believed, were made more happy on 
 my account, and doubtless those ministering spirits did feel new 
 degrees of joy on seeing so vile a sinner, so wretched a prodigal, 
 come home to the arms of his heavenly Father.* O Thou eternal 
 God !" he exclaims, " Thou transporting delight of my soul ! 
 preserve and support me through life, that I may at last enjoy 
 the heaven of love which I then felt overpowering my spirit. " 
 
 Bradburn at once joined the Methodist Society at Chester. 
 His master's son, a boy of twelve, and many other young peo- 
 ple, began to attend the " class-meetings" about the same 
 time. Among his work-fellows, also, there were some who 
 rejoiced in the light which now filled young Bradburn's soul, 
 and their conversation and hymn-singing while at work, and 
 their union in prayer before quitting the workroom at the close 
 of the day, made the new time a perpetual Sabbath, and the 
 shoemaker's room " a perfect paradise." In March, 1770, 
 after the usual period of probation, he was admitted to full 
 membership, and received what the Methodists call " his first 
 ticket." He was not long in discovering, as every one else 
 has done in similar circumstances, that the change, though 
 genuine, was not complete. An outburst of passion, and a 
 growing desire after disputation on theological matters, in 
 which he found himself contending for mastery rather than 
 truth, gave him to see that a sound and secure religious charac- 
 ter is a matter of growth and culture and can only be main- 
 
 * There was surely a Scriptural reason for this feeling. See Luke 
 15 : 7, 10, and Heb. 1 : 15. 
 
00 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tained by watchfulness and prayer, and the careful formation 
 of habits of piety. And as Thomas a Kempis finely says, 
 " Custom is overcome by custom," so Bradburn found it, and 
 in order to put a bar between his spirit aand possible tempta- 
 tions, changed his way of living, his companions, and his 
 books. One day, when John Wesley was administering the 
 Lord's Supper in the little chapel at Chester, Bradburn was 
 seized with the idea that he must become a preacher. For a 
 long time he strove hard to drive it from his mind. But the 
 more he did so the more it seemed to possess him. His sense 
 of unfitness for so great an office as that of the preacher, his 
 exalted notions of the sac redness and responsibility attaching 
 to the office, and his own deepening conviction, which nothing 
 could resist, that it was his duty before God to devote himself 
 to the work, made him for a time positively wretched. He 
 tried the effect of change of residence upon his feelings in the 
 matter. He was now twenty years of age, and out of his 
 time. But on visiting his relations at Wrexham, he found 
 that they and their friends of the Wesleyan Society, to whom 
 he was introduced, had a common feeling that such a young 
 man ought surely to exercise his gifts as a speaker. In answer 
 to their entreaties he spoke several times in their meetings, and 
 thus made his first start in public speaking. Still the question 
 of preaching was left unsettled, and disturbed his mind night 
 and day. It became a positive burden to him " the burden 
 of the Lord," indeed, and no power of his own could remove 
 it. Six months after this brief visit to Wrexham, he obtained 
 a situation, and went to reside in Liverpool, where he fell in 
 with people much to his mind, who were exceedingly kind to 
 him. They, however, no sooner came to know him than their 
 opinion was strongly expressed to the same purport as that of 
 his friends in Chester and Wrexham. In four months he left 
 Liverpool and returned home, the great life-question still upon 
 his mind. He dare not settle it, in one way or the other ; all 
 he could do was to resolve to live as near to God as possible, 
 commit his way unto Him, and submissively wait for the direc- 
 tion of Divine providence. In this condition of mind he 
 passed the rest of the year 1772. At the beginning of the fol- 
 lowing year he found employment at Wrexham, and there took 
 np his abode in the congenial society of his relations and relig- 
 ious friends. Soon after this the event occurred which decided 
 the severe and agonizing mental struggle to which he had been 
 subjected for the last twelve months, and determined the whole 
 
SAMUEL BRADBURN. 61 
 
 course of his life, and the employment of liis rare gifts as a 
 preacher of the Gospel. On Sunday, February 7th, 1773, the 
 preacher for the day failed to appear. Young Bradburn was 
 invited by the leaders of the congregation to take the service. 
 Trembling from head to foot, almost blind with fear and ex- 
 citement, and casting himself on divine aid, he mounts the pul- 
 pit stairs. The opening part of the service gives him confi- 
 dence, and when the time for preaching comes, he is able to 
 speak with much freedom and fervor to an appreciative and 
 thankful audience. In the" evening he is once more asked to 
 occupy the pulpit, and this time he delivers a discourse which 
 is not too long for the hearers, though it lasts for more than 
 two hours. The next week he preaches to the same people 
 three times ; and now the question is settled, and settled, as 
 he and his friends are fain to believe, in a providential way : 
 Samuel Bradburn is called to be a preacher, and a preacher of 
 no ordinary power. He has not waited all these long months 
 for nothing. He has not run before he was sent. He has not 
 tarried in the desert like Moses, like Elijah, like Saul of Tarsus, 
 to learn the truth and will of God, with no beneficial results. 
 He has been called of the Holy Spirit to the work, and to the 
 work of preaching he must now give himself and his very best 
 powers, or a woe will rest upon him. He and his Methodist 
 friends would not trouble themselves for one moment about the 
 question of his being a shoemaker, or remaining a shoemaker, 
 if he is to become a preacher. One apostolic precedent was as 
 good as twelve to them in a matter of this kind, and Paul did 
 not cease to be a tent-maker when the Holy Ghost said to the 
 church at Antioch, " Separate me Barnabas and Saul to the 
 work whereunto I have called them." * 
 
 Soon after the events just referred to, Bradburn resolved to 
 go and see the Rev. John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley in Shrop- 
 shire, the friend of Lady Huntingdon, and Benson, and John 
 Wesley. Fletcher had a reputation for piety and usefulness 
 which few men in his day could equal and none surpass. He 
 was a great favorite with the followers of John Wesley, not 
 alone because of his friendship with their leader, but on ac- 
 count of his saintly life, his evangelistic zeal, and his rare 
 catholicity of spirit. None worked more faithfully and dili- 
 gently than he at the College of Trevecca in Whales, of which 
 he was for several years the president. Yet he received no 
 emolument for his labors. " Fletcher was no pluralist, for he 
 
 * Acts 13 : 2. 
 
62 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 did his work at Trevccca without fee or reward, from the sole 
 motive of being useful."* It is said of his apostolic work at 
 Madeley, that " the parish, containing a degiaded, ignorant, 
 and vicious population employed 111 mines and iron works, 
 became, under his diligent Christian culture, a thoroughly 
 different place. His public discourses, his pastoral conversa- 
 tions, his catechising of the young, his reproofs to the wicked, 
 his encouragements to the penitent, his accessibility at all 
 hours, his readiness to go out in the coldest night and the deep- 
 est snow to see the sick or the sorrowing, his establishment of 
 schools, and his personal efforts in promoting their prosperity 
 in short, his almost unrivalled efforts in all kinds of ministerial 
 activity, have thrown around Madeley beautiful associations not 
 to be matched by the hills and hanging woods which adorn that 
 hive of industry. "f Bradburn was lovingly received at the 
 Madeley vicarage, stayed for several days with the family, and 
 preached in one of the rooms of the house to a congregation of 
 villagers. If Fletcher could not ask his shoemaker friend to 
 officiate in the church, seeing that he had taken no holy orders, 
 the good vicar had no difficulty or scruple in regard to his 
 guest's preaching the Gospel in the house. On leaving, young 
 Bradburn carried away, as a precious treasure of the heart, a 
 deep sense of Fletcher's holy character, and never forgot the 
 good man's characteristic remark, " If you should live to 
 preach the gospel forty years, and be the instrument of saving 
 only one soul, it will be worth all your labor." Returning 
 home, he went on with his work as a shoemaker, preaching on 
 Sundays in the chapels at Flint, Mold, Wrexham, etc., until 
 the beginning of the following year, when he went to reside 
 with friends at Liverpool. Here his preaching was so much 
 enjoyed by the congregations of the " circuit" that he was 
 pressed to stay and minister to them till July, when it was 
 hoped that some arrangement might be made by the Confer- 
 ence in London by which he would be permanently and offi- 
 cially appointed to labor among them. Although he had 
 become somewhat popular by this time, and was warmly wel- 
 comed wherever he went on account- of his earnestness and 
 rough eloquence, he was sometimes regarded with distrust 
 because of his youthful and unclerical appearance and manner. 
 One good man, who generally entertained the preacher on his 
 
 * See Benson's "Life of Fletcher." 
 
 f " Keligion in England under Qneen Anne and the Georges." By 
 John Stoughton, D.D., vol. ii. pp. 158, 159. Hodder & Stoughton. 
 
SAMUEL BKADBURN. 63 
 
 visits, was so annoyed at the sight of " a mere lad" " travel- 
 lino- the circuit, that he sent young Bradburn to take his meals 
 and sleep in the garret with the apprentices. " After the 
 morning sermon, however, which surprised and delighted all 
 who heard it, " he was judged worthy to sit in the preacher's 
 chair" at the table of his host, and at night was allowed to 
 sleep in the " prophet's chamber." In September of that 
 year he was not a little surprised to find himself appointed by 
 the Conference as a regular " travelling preacher on the Liver- 
 pool circuit." It was about this time he had his first inter- 
 view with John Wesley. The veteran evangelist's simple and 
 kindly manner affected the young preacher deeply, and his ad- 
 vice was wonderfully like him : '* Beware," said Wesley, 
 holding young Bradburn by the hand, <k beware of the fear of 
 man ; and be sure you speak flat and plain in preaching." 
 
 In these early days of Methodism, when the denomination 
 was undergoing the process of rapid growth, it was impossible 
 to wait for men, to meet the urgent need of the churches, who 
 had gone through a regular process of ministerial education and 
 training. Such as had the requisite character and the gift of 
 speech were " called out" and placed over churches in a man- 
 ner that would not have been tolerated in later times, when 
 colleges had come to be established. Yet the work done by 
 men of "Bradburn's stamp was genuinely apostolic, and served, 
 under the divine blessing, to lay broad and deep the founda- 
 tions of that Wesleyan denomination which, in the present 
 day, yields to none of the so-called " sects" in the culture and 
 moral power of its ministry. It is not to be supposed that the 
 fluent young shoemaker was insensible to his need of education. 
 The first year's work in Lancashire taxed his mental resources 
 severely, and set him wondering many times whether he should 
 be able to go on preparing new sermons in order to preach 
 repeatedly to the same congregation. It was consequently an 
 immense relief to him when the year came to an end, and he 
 found that the Conference at Leeds had set him down for an 
 entirely new field of labor, at Pembroke, in South Wales.* 
 
 * Bradburn's mother died during his first year's ministry. In con- 
 nection with this event he mentions a circumstance which enabled 
 him to be resigned to the bereavement, and which many readers will 
 regard with unusual interest. ' ' God spared her life, nearly twelve 
 years, in answer to a prayer which I offered up when she seemed to be 
 dying, in which I begged that she might live twelve years exactly. I 
 was then very young, and could not bear the thought of losing her, 
 but imagined I should be able to part with her after those years." 
 
04 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Bradburn felt his poverty in more ways than one. Wcsleyan 
 ministers were then but poorly paid, and men of his generous 
 character, who found it easier to give to the needy than to 
 economize and save, were often in great straits for funds. On 
 his way down to Pembroke he was reduced to his last shil- 
 ling, and, but for this meeting with Wesley at Brecon, might 
 have found it an awkward matter to reach his destination. 
 44 Apply to me when you want help," said Wesley to his 
 friend, and very soon proved his sincerity by prompt assistance 
 when the young pastor made known his straitened circum- 
 stances. The following story is too good to be omitted. 
 In reply to Bradburn ? s appeal W r esley sent the following short 
 letter, inclosing several five-pound notes : 
 
 44 DEAR SAMMY : Trust in the Lord, and do good ; so shalt 
 thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Yours 
 affectionately, JOHN WESLEY. " 
 
 To which Bradburn replied : 
 
 44 REV. AND DEAR SIR : I have often been struck with the 
 beauty of the passage of Scripture quoted in your letter, but I 
 must confess that I never saw such useful expository notes upon 
 it before. I am, Rev. and dear Sir, your obedient and grate- 
 ful servant, S. BRADBURN. " 
 
 The year spent in South Wales was happy and prosperous, 
 and the churches at Pembroke, Ilaverfordwest, and Carmarthen 
 were greatly increased and well organized under the care of 
 Bradburn and his colleague. By the Conference in 1776 he 
 was sent to Limerick, and from thence, in four months, such 
 was the severity of the strain upon his health, he was removed 
 to Dublin. Here he had met, on first landing in Ireland, with 
 the young lady who was afterward to become his wife. It 
 was a case of 44 mutual admiration" and 44 love at first sight." 
 Bradburn was a passionate lover, and could ill brook the delay 
 of two years which had to pass away before he took the beauti- 
 ful Miss Nangle to his own home. In one of his anxious 
 moods, when sick of love and hope deferred, he rose from his 
 sleepless bed to pray for divine guidance and favor in regard to 
 the serious business of courtship. It was his custom to pray 
 aloud, and supposing his colleague, who occupied the same 
 bed, to be fast asleep, he did not balk his prayer in this 
 instance, finishing a fervent appeal for divine direction with the 
 simple words, 44 But, Lord, let it be Betsey." His bedfellow 
 
SAMUEL BRADBURY. 65 
 
 humorously responded, " Amen," and broke out into a hearty 
 laugh at poor Brad burn's expense. John Wesley, who favored 
 the match, and generously interceded in his friend's behalf, 
 both with a much-dreaded stepmother and the fair one her- 
 self, conducted the marriage ceremony in the house of a 
 friend. He had invited the bride and bridegroom-elect, and 
 Mrs. Karr the stepmother, " to breakfast with him at Mrs. 
 King's,* the morning after his arrival, being his birthday ; as 
 soon as she (Mrs. Karr) entered he began the ceremony and 
 married us in the parlor. Pride would not let her affront Mr. 
 Wesley, and she was forced to appear satisfied." " Wesley," 
 says Bradburn's biographer, ) " more than once took up 
 cudgels for his preachers when in difficulties of this kind, but 
 not in such a summary manner." 
 
 Relegated to the Cork and Bandon circuit, he had a very 
 trying time of it for about a year. One of his memoranda 
 made at this time gives us a glimpse of his acquirements from 
 his own common-sense point of view, for Bradburn was a 
 thoroughly sensible and humble man, who never yielded to 
 ignorant flattery of his pulpit eloquence, nor gave way, as some 
 self-made men and popular preachers have done, to vanity and 
 conceit. Self-examination was with him a genuine business, 
 conducted in a reverent spirit and an honest and altogether 
 healthy fashion. By this means he came to know himself and 
 act accordingly. Not many men in his position would have 
 written so sensibly as this: " Cork, March 31st (1779). I 
 have read and written much this month, but sadly feel the 
 want of a friend to direct my studies. All with whom I have 
 any intimacy, know nothing of my meaning when I speak of 
 my ignorance. They praise my sermons, and consider me a 
 prodigy of learning ; and yet what do I know ? a little Latin, a 
 little philosophy, history, divinity, and a little of many things, 
 all of which serves to convince me of my own ignorance !" 
 At this time, and for many years after, he preached forty ser- 
 mons a month, and sometimes fifty. Even if they were all old 
 sermons, which would not often be the case, how could a man 
 so employed find time or energy for close and continuous 
 study ? The next four years are spent at Keighley, Bradford, 
 and Leeds in Yorkshire. When at Keighley he " travelled" 
 
 * Bradburn' s lodgings. 
 
 f "Life of Samuel Bradburn." By T. W. Blanshard. P. 68. 
 Elliot Stock, 1870. A most interesting biography of the famous Wes- 
 leyan preacher. 
 
66 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 for a time with Wesley, and had an opportunity of observing 
 the way in which that sainted man wholly devoted his gifts, 
 his time, and his money to the service of God and his fellow- 
 men. Wesley's stipend from the Society in London was 30 
 a year, but the sale of books, the generosity of the friends at 
 Bristol, and occasional preaching fees and sundry legacies, 
 brought his yearly income up to 1000 or 1200 ; yet he 
 rarely spent more for himself than his meagre stipend, and reg- 
 ularly gave away all the rest. " Thus literally having nothing, 
 he possessed all things ; and though poor, he made many 
 rich." * At Leeds, Bradburn was offered the pastorate of an 
 Independent Church with a greatly increased salary, but the 
 loyal Methodist refused the tempting offer. His next appoint- 
 ment was to Bristol, where he had the misfortune to lose his 
 darling Betsey, who died of decline in her twenty-ninth year. 
 His colleague had suffered a similar bereavement, and the stern 
 yet tender-hearted Wesley, then in his eighty-third year, 
 actually set off from London " in the driven snow" to go down 
 to Bristol and comfort the two sorrowing preachers. Bradburn 
 did not long remain a widower. At Gloucester he met Sophia 
 Cooke, li the pious and godly" Methodist to whom Robert 
 Baikes of Sunday-school fame had spoken about the poor chil- 
 dren in the streets, and asked her, " What can we do for 
 them ?" Miss Cooke replied, " Let us teach them, and take 
 them to church !" The hint was acted upon, and Raikes and 
 Miss Cooke " conducted the first company of Sunday scholars 
 to the church, exposed to the comments and laughter of the 
 populace, as they passed along with their ragged procession." 
 A better wife for the earnest Methodist preacher could not have 
 been found than the woman who thus showed her good sense, 
 her piety, and her courage, in starting the Sunday-school 
 movement. In 1786 W^esley showed his appreciation of Brad- 
 burn's excellent qualities by getting him appointed to the 
 London Circuit in order to have his assistance in superintending 
 the affairs of the Connection. Here he met with Charles 
 Wesley, and, at the time of his death in 1788, Bradburn stood 
 by the dying man's bed offering up earnest prayer for him, and 
 calling to his mind the truths of that Gospel which he had done 
 so much to spread throughout the world by his unrivalled 
 hymns. John Wesley himself died three years afterward, 2d 
 March, 1791, and Bradburn, then at Manchester, published a 
 
 * Bradburn's Life, see above, pp. 85, 86. 
 
SAMUEL BRADBURN. 67 
 
 pamphlet entitled, "A Sketch of Mr. Wesley's Character,'* 
 in which he gave a most interesting epitome of the chief points 
 in the history and labors of his father in the Gospel. Brad- 
 burn, now looked upon as one of the foremost men in the Con- 
 nection, united with eight others in issuing a circular giving an 
 outline of policy for the guidance of the Conference at its next 
 session. The utmost care and wisdom were needed in order to 
 keep the various elements of Methodism together ; and few 
 men in those days were more conspicuous and useful than Brad- 
 burn in guiding the counsels of the assembled ministers. He 
 was elected to preach before the Conference at its next session 
 in Manchester, and so moved his audience by his impassioned 
 appeal for unity and loyalty to the good cause that had now 
 lost its earthly leader, that all in the chapel rose to their feet 
 in response to his stimulating words. In 1796, when stationed 
 at Bath, he was made secretary of the Conference, and held the 
 office three years in succession. In 1799 his brethren showed 
 their esteem for him by choosing him as President, and thus 
 giving him the highest honor which they had it in their power 
 to bestow. 
 
 Among Methodists Bradburn is regarded as one of the most 
 eloquent and powerful preachers the denomination has pro- 
 duced. He had all the natural gifts of a great orator, and 
 these, combined with fervent piety and a single and lofty pur- 
 pose in preaching, invested his discourses with a charm and an 
 influence rarely wielded by public speakers. " Possessed of a 
 commanding figure, dignified carriage, graceful action, mellow 
 voice, ready utterance, correct ear, exuberant imagination, an 
 astonishing memory, and an extensive acquaintance with his 
 mother tongue, he could move an assembly as the summer 
 breeze stirs the standing corn."* This elocutionary power was 
 not gained without much care and diligent labor. He was a 
 hard reader, and a most painstaking sermonizer, for though he 
 never used the manuscript in the pulpit but preached extem- 
 pore, after the fashion of the times, he nevertheless prepared 
 his discourses with great skill and labor. The following sen- 
 tences from his biography will sufficiently illustrate this point, f 
 " His own bold, easy, and correct English was such as no man 
 acquires without perseverance in a right use of means. His 
 diligence may be inferred from one of his reported sayings on 
 leaving Manchester that he had twelve hundred outlines of 
 
 * Bradburn's Life, pp. 177, 178. f Ibid., pp. 183, 184. 
 
68 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 sermons untouched (not used in preaching in the circuit) at the 
 end of three years' ministrations. The result of such endow- 
 ments, improved, with such assiduity, amid all the hindrances 
 and discouragements of a laborious and harassing vocation, 
 was, that to be comprehensive and lucid in arrangement ; beau- 
 tifully clear in statement or exposition ; weighty, nervous, and 
 acute in argumentation ; copious, various, and interesting in 
 illustration ; overwhelming in pathos ; to wield at will the 
 ludicrous or the tender, the animating, the sublime, or the ter- 
 lible seems to have been habitually in his power." The Rev. 
 Richard Watson, author of the " Institutes," " walked 
 twenty milts to hear the far-famed Mr. Bradburn preach ; and 
 he never lost the impression which that distinguished orator 
 produced." Watson thus describes his impressions : " I am 
 not a very excitable subject, but Mr. Bradburn's preaching 
 affected, my whole frame. I felt a thrill to the very extremity 
 of my fingers, and my hair actually seemed to stand on end." 
 The biographer of the Rev. Jabez Bunting says of Bradburn : 
 " His career was brilliant and useful ; and perhaps more men 
 longed, but durst not try, to preach like him than like any 
 other preacher of his time. . . . Bradburn was without excep- 
 iion the most consummate orator we ever heard." And the 
 author of Bradburn's life concludes the citation of a number of 
 testimonies with the following strongly expressed opinion of 
 his merits as a pulpit orator : " Methodism has produced a 
 host of preachers renowned for pulpit eloquence. The names 
 of Benson, Lessey, Watson, Newton, Beaumont, and others, 
 stand out in bold relief on the page of her history, but the 
 highest niche in her temple of fame belongs, most unquestion- 
 ably, to SAMUEL BRADBURN." 
 
 Like most men of genius he had a strong sense of humor, 
 enjoyed a joke most heartily, was ready and pithy in repartee, 
 and seldom at a loss for spirit and tact in extricating himself 
 fiom difficulties. Many a good story might be told, did space 
 allow, in illustration of this feature of his character. One or 
 two must suffice. Perhaps the smartest thing he ever did in 
 outwitting the early opponents of Methodism was done in a 
 certain small town, in one of his own circuits, where, in the 
 early days of the movement, the preacher and his friends had 
 often u been driven off the field by a mob, headed by the 
 clergyman." Bradburn understood the state of affairs thor- 
 oughly, and resolved to go down to the parish &nd preach 
 in the open air. Notice of his coming was duly forwarded, 
 
SAMUEL Bil AUBURN. 69 
 
 and the clergyman ordered constables and others to be in at- 
 tendance at the time and place appointed for the service. 
 Meanwhile Bradburn having " provided himself with a new suit 
 of clothes, borrowed a new wig of a Methodist barber," and 
 " went to the place, put his horse up at the inn, attended the 
 morning service at church, placed himself in a conspicuous 
 situation so as to attract the notice of the clergyman, and, when 
 the service was closed, he went up to him on his way out, ac- 
 costed him as a brother, and thanked him for his sermon. The 
 clergyman, judging from his appearance and address that he 
 was a minister of some. note, gave him an invitation to his 
 house. Bradburn respectfully declined, on the ground that lie 
 had ordered dinner, and expressed a hope that the clergyman 
 would dine with him at the inn. He did so, and Bradburn 
 having entertained him until dinner was over with his extraor- 
 dinary powers of conversation, managed to refer to the open-air 
 service which was to be held, and the clergyman stated his in- 
 tention to arrest the preacher and disperse the congregation, 
 and asked Bradburn to accompany him, which he did. On 
 arriving at the appointed place they found a large company 
 assembled ; and as no preacher had made his appearance, the 
 clergyman concluded that fear had kept him away, and was 
 about to order the people to their homes when Bradburn re- 
 marked that it would be highly \mproper to neglect so favor- 
 able an opportunity of doing good, and urged him to preach 
 to them. He excused himself by saying that he had no ser- 
 mon in his pocket, and asked Bradburn to address them, 
 which, of course, he readily consented to do, and commenced 
 the service by singing part of the hymn beginning 
 
 ' Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing 
 My great Redeemer's praise,' 
 
 and, after praying, delivered an impressive discourse from 
 Acts 5 : 38, 39, ' And now I say unto you, Refrain from these 
 men, and let them alone ; for if this counsel or this work be 
 of men, it will come to nought : but if it be of God, ye cannot 
 overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.' 
 This not only deeply affected the people, but so delighted the 
 clergyman, that although he knew, as the service proceeded, that 
 he had been duped, he heartily thanked Bradburn for the decep- 
 tion he had practised on him, and ever afterward, to the day of 
 his death, showed a friendly disposition toward Methodism." * 
 
 * Bradburn's Life, pp. 233-235. 
 
70 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 The same readiness of resource and good humor wore shown 
 in the management of the affairs of the society in his capacity 
 as a pastor. On one occasion, when he resided in Manchester, 
 two ladies, district visitors, went to the house of an old woman, 
 a member of the society, who was a laundress, and finding her 
 hard at work accosted her with the remark : " Betty, you are 
 busy." " Yes, mum/' said Betty, " as busy ;is the devil in a 
 whirlwind !" Shocked by such an indecorous speech, the vis- 
 itors threatened to report it to Mr. Bradbuin. Afraid of what 
 she had .done, and the consequence, if it should come to the 
 preacher's ears, Betty, as soon as the ladies had gone away, 
 set off by the quickest route to see Mr. Bradburn and relate 
 the whole affair, and thus anticipate the report from the ladies 
 themselves. She found Bradburn " engaged in his vocation 
 as cobbler for his family." " He listened to Betty's simple 
 story, and engaged to put the matter right, if she would try to 
 be more guarded in the future. She had scarcely got clear 
 away when the two ladies arrived with their melancholy story 
 of Betty's irreverence. They were asked into the room, and 
 seeing him at his somewhat unclerical employment, one of them 
 observed quite unthinkingly, ' Mr. Bradburn, you are busy ! ' 
 * Yes,' returned Bradburn, with great gravity, * as busy as the 
 devil in a whirlwind ! ' This remark from Betty was sufficient- 
 ly startling, but from Bradburn it was horrifying. Seeing 
 their consternation, he explained how busy the devil was in 
 Job's days, when he raised the whirlwind which * smote the 
 four corners of the house,' where the patriarch's children were 
 feasting, and slew them. It is, perhaps, needless to add that 
 the two ladies left without mentioning the object of their 
 visit."* 
 
 Hating the false pride which leads *a man to forget his hum- 
 ble origin, and the canting way in which some men talk of 
 their sacrifices in entering the ministry, he once severely re- 
 buked two young men who made a parade in company of hav- 
 ing " given up all for the ministry." " Yes, dear brethren," 
 said he, " some of you have had to sacrifice your all for the 
 itinerancy ; but we old men have had our share of these trials. 
 As for myself, I made a double sacrifice, for I gave up for the 
 ministry two of the best awls in the kingdom a great sacri- 
 fice, truly, to become an ambassador of God in the church, and 
 a gentleman in society !" His ready wit was sometimes dis- 
 
 * Bradburn 's Life, pp. 228, 229. 
 
SAMUEL BRADBURN. 71 
 
 played like that of Hugh Latimer, Dean Swift, and Sydney 
 Smith, in the selections of texts for sermons on special occa- 
 sions. Preaching at the opening of a chapel entirely built 
 with borrowed money, he took as a text the words of the 
 young man to Elisha the prophet : * " Alas, master, for it 
 was borrowed. " On a snowy winter's day, when the congre- 
 gation was very small, he selected the words which describe the 
 character of the virtuous woman, j " She is not afraid of the 
 snow." 
 
 That Samuel Bradburn was not perfect none will need to be 
 told, yet it will surprise and pain every one to read that so 
 great and good a man, honored and beloved of his brethren for 
 many years, and useful beyond computation as a preacher, 
 should have been " overtaken in a fault, " for which the Con- 
 ference, in the exercise of a rigorous discipline, saw fit to sus- 
 pend him for a year. After the lapse of this time he came 
 back again to his old position, penitent and humble, like 
 David or Peter, and like them fully restored to the Divine 
 favor. This singular and melancholy event appears to have 
 been due as much to mental as moral derangement, and in a 
 short while, such was the sincerity of his sorrow and the 
 blameless character of his after-life, his brethren were thankful 
 to forget it, and to place him once more in positions of high 
 trust and honor in the Connection. The last ten years of his 
 life were spent in the important circuits of Bolton, Bath, 
 Wakefield, Bristol, Liverpool, and East London. He died in 
 London, July 26th, 1816, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 
 At the time of his decease the Conference was sitting in 
 London. As a token of esteem and affection all its members 
 joined in the funeral service at the New Chapel, Cit} r Road. 
 He was buried in Old Methodist graveyard, City Road, .by the 
 side of his friend John Wesley, in the last resting-place of 
 many of the fathers and founders of the Wesleyan Connection. 
 
 * 2 Kings 6:5. f Proverbs 31 : 21. 
 
fflSiUltam iffortr, 
 
 FROM THE SHOEMAKER'S STOOL TO THE EDITOR'S CHAIR. 
 
 " Not mine the soul that pants not after fame 
 Ambitious of a poet's envied name, 
 I haunt the sacred fount, athirst to prove 
 The grateful influence of the stream I love." 
 
 TheBaviad; William Gi/ord. 
 
 " It is on all hands conceded, that the success which attended the 
 4 Quarterly ' from the outset was due, in no small degree, to the ability and 
 tact with which Gifford discharged his editorial duties." Encyclopedia 
 Britannica. 
 
 " I am not more certain of many conjectures than I am that he never 
 propagated a dishonest opinion, nor did a dishonest act." Writer in the 
 Literary Gazette. 
 
WILLIAM GIFFORD. 
 
 THE field of literature seems always to have had a special 
 charm for shoemakers. If the reader will glance for a moment 
 at the list of names given at the- end of this book, this fact will 
 be at once apparent. Half, or more than half, the names 
 given in that list are in some way or other connected with 
 literature. The connection is but slight in many instances, 
 perhaps, and the reputation it conferred only local and tem- 
 porary. Few of our shoemakers, even though we have 
 thought well to style them " illustrious," can be said to have 
 made a great and lasting name in the world of letters ; and 
 none of them it must be confessed have attained to first rank 
 as prose or poetical writers. But there are worthies in our list, 
 associated alike with the humble craft of shoemaking and the 
 higher walks of literature, whose names the world will not will- 
 ingly let die, and we venture to think that the subject of this 
 sketch is one of the number. 
 
 William Gifford was the first editor of the London Quar- 
 terly Review. The high and influential position held by this 
 journal was mainly due in the first instance to Gilford's tal- 
 ent and excellent management. The London Quarterly was 
 started in opposition to tlie famous Edinburgh Quarterly ; 
 George Canning, the celebrated statesman, and Sir Walter 
 Scott, the great novelist, being the prime movers and early 
 patrons of the enterprise, for the Edinburgh, tinder the clever 
 management of Jeffrey, and supported by such writers as Sydney 
 Smith and Brougham, was then too liberal in its tone to suit 
 the taste of the brilliant Foreign Secretary and his Tory friends. 
 It was no slight testimony to the abilities of the man who was 
 chosen as the first editor of the new Quarterly that his election 
 should have been cordially approved by the first of Scottish 
 novelists, and one of the most influential of English statesmen. 
 
 Gifford was the author of two satirical poems, the " Baviad" 
 and " Maeviad," directed against the tawdry and sentimental 
 rhymesters of a certain school which flourished in his day.* 
 His scathing satire succeeded in putting an end to their trash. 
 
 *The " Delia Cruscan school." See below. 
 
70 ILLUSTKIOUS SIIOKMAKKIIS. 
 
 Gilford published also a translation of the Latin poets, Juvenal 
 and Persius. To the latter he prefixed the story of his own 
 early life as a poor cobbler's apprentice. From this interesting 
 autobiography the materials for the following sketch have been 
 chiefly selected. William Gilford's best title to fame was, no 
 doubt, his edition of the " Early English Dramatists" Ford, 
 Massinger, Shirley, and Ben Jonson. His generous and able 
 vindication of Jonson reflects credit both upon the critic and 
 the poet. It should be added that Gilford's editorship of the 
 Quarterly extended over fifteen years, and that during the 
 whole of this period he was the writer of a large number of its 
 most able articles. 
 
 Having taken a glimpse of the work accomplished by 
 William Gilford as a critic, a scholar, and an editor in the latter 
 years of his life, let us turn to look at his circumstances in boy- 
 hood and youth, when, as a miserable cobbler's apprentice, 
 he began to yearn after knowledge and to cherish ambitious 
 dreams. The contrast between the first mid last scenes in the 
 drama of life could hardly be more wonderful than that which 
 is presented in the history of the man who passed from the 
 cobbler's stool to the editor's chair. 
 
 William Gilford was born at the small town of Ashbuiton, 
 in South Devon, in 1757. His father, who was a man of 
 spendthrift and profligate habits, died of the effects of his evil 
 conduct before he had attained the age of forty. In twelve 
 months afterward Gilford's mother died, leaving William, 
 and a little brother two years old, orphans, and, it would 
 seem, penniless. As no home could be found for the infant, 
 he was sent to the workhouse. William, then thirteen years 
 of age, fell into the hands of a man named Carlisle, who had 
 stood as his godfather, a worthless fellow, who had appropri- 
 ated the few things left by the mother, on pretence of claiming 
 them for debt. This man put William to school, where he 
 began to show signs of ability ; but he was allowed no chance 
 of making progress ; for, at the end of three months, grudging 
 the slight cost of his tuition, Carlisle took the boy from his 
 books and playmates, and put him to the plough. It was soon 
 found that he was too weak for such heavy work. Ills guar- 
 dian now tried to get the boy out of hand altogether, by send- 
 ing him off to Newfoundland as an errand-boy in a grocery 
 store. This unkind project, however, being doomed to fail- 
 ure, it was resolved that the troublesome charge should be got 
 rid cf bv making him a sailor. 
 
WILLIAM GIFFORD. 7? 
 
 We give the account of what happened at this period in his 
 own words : ll My godfather had now humbler views for me, 
 and I had no heart to resist anything. He proposed to send 
 me on board one of the Tor bay fishing-boats. I ventured, 
 however, to remonstrate against this, and the matter was com- 
 promised by my consenting to go on board a coaster. A 
 coaster was speedily found for me at Brixham, and thither I 
 went when little more than thirteen years of age. It will 
 easily be conceived that my life was a life of hardship. I was 
 not only a ship-boy on the Jngh and giddy mast, but also in 
 the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot. Yet if I 
 was restless and discontented it was not. so much on account of 
 this as of my being prevented reading, as my master did not 
 possess a single book of any description, excepting a Coasting 
 Pilot" 
 
 Gifford was on board this vessel for about twelve months, a 
 time of untold suffering and degradation. In fact, his position 
 was so deplorable that some women from Ash burton, who went 
 down to Brixham to buy fish, shocked to see the boy running 
 about the beach in ragged clothes, spoke so plainly on their 
 return home about the hardship of his lot, that his godfather 
 was compelled for very shame to send for him home again. 
 He was once more put to school, and now made such rapid 
 strides, in arithmetic that on an emergency he was invited to 
 assist the school -master. He goes on in his own narrative to 
 say that these encouragements led him to entertain the idea 
 that he might be able to get his own living by teaching, and as 
 his first master " was now grown old and infirm, it seemed un- 
 likely that he should hold out above three or four years, and I 
 fondly flattered myself/' he adds, " that notwithstanding my 
 youth I might possibly be appointed to succeed him." It is 
 worth while to notice that he was but a boy in his teens when 
 he first began to feel the noble spirit of ambition stir within 
 him, and to cherish the laudable desire to rely upon his own 
 efforts for his maintenance. It was this lofty and self-reliant 
 spirit which carried him past all his difficulties ; and, truth to 
 tell, no one has ever done anything remarkable in the world 
 without it. The youth who is altogether destitute of ambition, 
 and is ever on the look-out for the help of friends, lacks the 
 first elements of success in life. But Gifford' s bravery and 
 persistence of mind had to be severely tested before meeting 
 with their due reward. 
 
 Proceeding with his pathetic story, he says : " I was about 
 
78 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 fifteen years of age when I built these castles in the air. A 
 storm, however, was collecting, which unexpectedly burst upon 
 me and swept them all away. On mentioning my plan to my 
 guardian, he treated it with the utmost contempt, and told me 
 he had been negotiating with his cousin, a shoemaker of some 
 respectability, who had liberally consented to take me, without 
 fee, as an apprentice. I was so shocked at this intelligence 
 that I did not venture to remonstrate, but went in sullemn >> 
 and silence to my new master, to whom I was bound till 1 
 should attain the age of twenty-one. At this period I had read 
 nothing but a romance called ' Parismus,' a few loose maga- 
 zines the Bible, indeed, I was well acquainted with ; these, 
 with the 4 Imitation of Thomas a Kempis,' which I used to 
 read to my mother on her death-bed, constituted the whole of 
 my literary acquisitions." 
 
 The account which follows has few things to equal it in the 
 records of struggling genius. It will serve to show how abject 
 and apparently hopeless was his condition as a student at this 
 time of his life, and will show also, what it may be hoped no 
 youth who reads these pages will fail to learn, how marvellous 
 is the power of energy and perseverance to triumph over appar- 
 ently insuperable obstacles. 
 
 " I possessed, " Gifford writes, " at this time but one book 
 in the world ; it was a treatise on algebra given to me by a 
 young woman who had found it in a lodging-house. I consid- 
 ered it a treasure ; but it was a treasure locked up, for it sup- 
 posed the reader to be acquainted with simple equations, and I 
 knew nothing of the matter." He then speaks of meeting 
 with a book called Fenning's " Introduction" belonging to his 
 master's son, who, by the way, was discovered afterward to 
 have been all through this time a secret rival for the head-mas- 
 tership. This t4 Introduction" gave Gilford just the informa- 
 tion required to carry him forward into the study of algebra. 
 But he was compelled to study it by stealth, lest it should be 
 taken from him, and he goes on to say : " I sat up for the 
 greater part of several nights successively and completely mas- 
 tered it. I could now enter upon my own, and that carried me 
 pretty far into the science. This was not done without diffi- 
 culty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me 
 one ; pen, ink, and paper, therefore, were for the most part as 
 completely out of my reach as a crotfn and sceptre. There 
 was, indeed, a resource, but the utmost caution and secrecy 
 were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather 
 
WILLIAM GIFFORD. 79 
 
 as smooth as possible and wrought my problems on them with 
 a blunted awl ; for the rest my memory was tenacious, and I 
 could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.' 7 
 
 Strange to say, although he displayed so much ability and 
 zeal in the study of mathematics, he was not destined to achieve 
 distinction in that department of study. A very trifling inci- 
 dent led to the exercise of new gifts, and turned the tide of his 
 evil fortune. A shopmate had made a few verses on the 
 blunder of a painter in the village who was engaged to paint a 
 lion for a sign-board, and had produced a dog instead. Gifford 
 thought he could beat the verses of his shopmate, and accord- 
 ingly tried his hand at rhyme. His associates all agreed in 
 pronouncing young Gifford's verses the better of the two. 
 This encouraged him to try again, and in the course of a short 
 time he had composed about a dozen pieces. He says : 
 4< They were talked of in my little circle, and I was sometimes 
 invited to repeat them out of it. I never committed a line to 
 paper first, because I had no paper ; and, second, because I 
 was afraid, for my master had already threatened me for inad- 
 vertently hitching the name of one of his customers into a 
 rhyme." The rest of this account of his poetical adventures 
 would be amusing if it were not for the pathos which underlies 
 it, and the fact that it is the prelude to one of the most pain- 
 ful incidents in the sad story of Gifford's early life. Referring 
 to these recitals of his poetical pieces he says : " These repeti- 
 tions were always attended by applause, and sometimes by 
 favors more substantial ; little collections were now and then 
 made, and I have received sixpence in an evening (!). To one 
 who had long lived in the absolute want of money such a 
 resource seemed a Peruvian mine. I furnished myself by de- 
 grees with paper, etc., and, what was of more importance, with 
 books of geometry and of the higher branches of algebra, 
 which I cautiously concealed. Poetry even at this time was no 
 amusement of mine. I only had recourse to it when I wanted 
 money for my mathematical pursuits. But the clouds were 
 gathering fast. My master's anger was raised to a terrible pitch 
 by my indifference to his concerns, and still more by my pre- 
 sumptuous attempts at versification. I was required to give up 
 my papers, and when I refused, was searched, my little hoard 
 of books discovered and removed, and all future repetitions pro- 
 hibited in the strictest manner. This was a severe stroke, I 
 felt it most sensibly, and it was followed by another, severer 
 still, a stroke which crushed the hopes I had so long and fondly 
 
80 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 cherished, and resigned me at once to despair. Mr. Hugh 
 Smerdon, the master of the school on whose succession I had 
 calculated, died and was succeeded by a person not much older 
 than myself, and certainly not so well qualified for the situa- 
 tion." 
 
 Poor Gifford ! hard, indeed, was thy lot ; an orphan without 
 friends, helpers, or sympathizers, having no proper leisure or 
 means for study or recreation, and even the little pleasure and 
 profit wrung from a few ciphering books and doggerel verses 
 snatched away by cruel hands ; trodden down like a worm in 
 the mire, and every particle of talent and ambition threatened 
 with extinction ! For six long years this misery lasted in one 
 form or another, while he strove to hope on against hope, and 
 found himself compelled to labor at a trade which he declares 
 he hated from the first with a perfect hatred, and never, conse- 
 quently, made any progress in. What could be more miser- 
 able and disheartening ? But to the industrious and patient, as 
 *' to the upright, there ariseth light in the darJcinxx.*' 
 darker hour occurred in all Gilford's miserable boyhood and 
 youth than that which is described in the sentences just quoted. 
 And now the light is about to appear. A friend comes upon 
 the scene, to whose generous interference the unhappy cobbler 
 owed the educational advantages he afterward enjoyed. Jlis 
 obligations to this benefactor were always most readily and 
 warmly expressed ; for whatever faults GifTord might have, he 
 was never charged with the meanness of forgetting his lowly 
 origin, and the generous friend by whom he had been rescued 
 from a "wretched condition and introduced to a happier state of 
 life. He speaks of his benefactor as bearing " a name never 
 to be pronounced by him without veneration." This gentle- 
 man, Mr. Cooksley, w r as a surgeon in the neighborhood. He 
 had accidentally heard of the young cobbler's poetry, and 
 sought an interview with him. Gifford went down to the sur- 
 geon's house, and, encouraged by the kindness he received, 
 told the story of his attempts at self-culture, and of the hard- 
 ships he had undergone. Deeply moved by the touching 
 story, and convinced of the young man's natural abilities and 
 desert of encouragement, Mr. Cooksley resolved, there and 
 then, on liberating the youth from the thraldom of his situa- 
 tion. The first thing was to free him from the bonds of his ap- 
 prenticeship, and the next to give him the advantages of regu- 
 lar instruction. He was then twenty years of age, and he says, 
 44 My handwriting w r as bad, and my language very incorrect." 
 
WILLIAM GIFFOHD. 81 
 
 Accordingly, a subscription was started to furnish funds for this 
 twofold purpose. It read as follows : " A subscription for 
 ' purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gilford, and 
 for enabling him to improve himself in writing and English 
 grammar. 1 ' The kindness of Cooksley and a few other 
 friends, whose sympathies were enlisted by his generous zeal 
 for the youth, enabled him to receive two years' instruction 
 from a clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Smerdon, who resided in 
 the locality. Such was the progress made by Gifford, that at 
 the end of that time his instructor pronounced him quite pre- 
 pared for the university. Again Mr. Cooksley proved a friend. 
 By his efforts and promises of support Gifford was entered at 
 Exeter College, Oxford. Unfortunately his noble patron died 
 before Gifford could take his degree. But he was not suffered 
 to leave Oxford on account of Mr. Cooksley's death. He 
 found a second patron in Lord Grosvenor, by whose aid the 
 grateful undergraduate was enabled to finish his term. The 
 culture which he received in the university must have been very 
 thorough and complete, evincing itself in refinement of man- 
 ner as well as scholarship of no ordinary degree, for in the 
 course of a few years after leaving Ashburton, we learn that the 
 late shoemaker was taken into the family of Lord Grosvenor as 
 private tutor and travelling companion to his son Lord Bel- 
 grave. The circumstance which led to Lord Grosvenor's pat- 
 ronage of Gifford was remarkable, and deserves to be recorded 
 as a* Illustration of the fact that an accident may lead to tho 
 most important events in our history. But we must premise, 
 first of all, as a safeguard against a false inference or false hopes, 
 that such accidents are sure to come in the way of industrious, 
 clever and deserving men. If they occur to men of a different 
 stamp they are of no avail. If William Gifford had not been a 
 hard-working student, such a circumstance as the accidental pe- 
 rusal of one of his letters by a person for whom it was not in- 
 tended could not have helped his fortunes in the least. It ap- 
 pears that he had been in the habit of corresponding with a 
 friend in London on literary matters. His letters to this friend 
 were sent under covers, and in order to save postage were left 
 at Lord Grosvenor's. One day the address of the literary friend 
 was omitted, and his lordship, supposing the letter to be for 
 himself, opened and read it. The contents excited his admira- 
 tion, and awakened his curiosity to know who the author could 
 be. He was sent for, and after an interview, in which, for the 
 second time in his life, he told the story of his early strug- 
 
82 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOE. MAKERS. 
 
 gles to willing and sympathizing ears, he was invited by Lord 
 Grosvenor to come and reside with him. 
 
 It is deeply gratifying to record instances of disinterested 
 generosity of this kind, and to read the glowing language in 
 which the thankful young student refers to the kindness of his 
 noble patron. Referring to the invitation to live with Lord 
 Grosvenor, and his promise of honorable maintenance, Gifford 
 says, " These were not words of course, they were more than 
 fulfilled in every point. I did go and reside with him, and I 
 experienced a warm and cordial reception, and a kind and 
 affectionate esteem that has known neither diminution nor in- 
 terruption, from that hour to this, a period of twenty years/ 7 
 
 In 1794, his " Baviad " was published, in imitation of the 
 satires of Persius, and in the following year the " Ma3viad," 
 after the style of Horace. These names were taken from the 
 third Eclogue of Virgil 
 
 " He may with foxes plough and milk he-goats, 
 Who praises Bavins or on Mcemus dotes." 
 
 These terribly virulent satires, like those of Boileau and Pope, 
 were aimed at contemporary poets of an inferior order, and like 
 them, too, were most crushing in their effect. The Delia Cms- 
 can School* never smiled, or rather smirked, again after the 
 issue of the Baviad and Maeviad. But it is a rare thing to meet 
 with a critic or a satirist who escapes the danger of committing 
 a fault in condemning one. Gifford did not escape this dan- 
 ger. His lines certainly did not answer to the epigram 
 
 " Satire should, like a polished razor keen, 
 
 Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen." 
 
 His unhappy victims were hacked and hewed in pieces in a mer- 
 ciless and barbarous manner ; while the spectators enjoyed the 
 savage sport, and accorded the cruel executioner a wreath of 
 laurel for the vigor and talent displayed. in his unenviable task. 
 These satires first made Gifford's name in the world of letters. 
 But his fame as a scholar was established chiefly on his transla- 
 tions of Persius and Juvenal, and his excellent editions, with 
 valuable notes, of the early " English Dramatists." Speaking 
 of Gifford's edition of Ben Jonson's dramatic and other works, 
 John Kernble, the most accomplished actor of his day, says, 
 
 * The name Cruscan was taken from the Florentine Academy, by 
 Robert Merry, the founder of this school of mawkish and affected 
 poetasters. 
 
WILLIAM GIFFORD. 83 
 
 " It is the best edition, by the ablest of modern commentators, 
 through whose learned and generous labors old Ben's forgotten 
 , works and injured character are restored to the merited admira- 
 tion and esteem of the world.' 7 
 
 The celebrity thus obtained, along with the friendship of the 
 leading Tory politicians of the day, secured for Gifford the po- 
 sition of editor of the London Quarterly. It ought to be stated 
 that when Mr. Channing started the Anti-Jacobin in 1797, 
 Gifford was entrusted with the conduct of that journal, and had 
 thus acquired a little experience of journalism. His connection 
 with this paper, which came out weekly, lasted only for a year. 
 But he managed the Quarterly, as we have said, for fifteen 
 years, that is, from 1809, the date of its commencement, to 
 1824, when ill-health compelled him to lay his pen aside. 
 
 The plan of this new journal had originated with John Mur- 
 ray, the famous publisher, and had received the hearty support 
 of Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Canning, Rose, Disraeli, 
 and Hookham Frere. The first number, containing three arti- 
 cles by Walter Scott, was published on the 1st February, 1809, 
 and was immediately sold out, a second edition being called for* 
 Canning wrote for the second number, and Southey became a 
 constant and most prolific contributor. " For the first hundred 
 and twenty-six numbers he wrote ninety-four articles, many of 
 them of great permanent value.' 7 * At John Murray's " draw- 
 ing-rooms," where the leading literary men of the day were 
 wont to assemble at four o'clock, Gifford met with a brilliant 
 assemblage of poets, novelists, historians, artists, and others. 
 Murray the publisher delighted " to gather together such men 
 as Byron, Scott, Moore, Campbell, Southey, Gifford, Hallam, 
 Lockhart, Washington Irving, and Mrs. Somerville ; and, more 
 than this, he invited such artists as Lawrence, Wilkie, Phillips, 
 Newton, and Pickersgill, to meet them and paint them, that 
 they might hang forever on his walls." f It was in reference 
 to one of Murray's " publishers' dinners" Byron wrote the 
 lines in which occurs the following allusion to Gifford : 
 
 o 
 
 " A party dines with me to-day. 
 All clever men who make their way ; 
 Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey 
 Are all partakers of my pantry. 
 
 * History of Booksellers." H. Curwen. Chatto & Windus. P. 175. 
 f "Ibid., pp. 180, 181. 
 
84: ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 My room's so full we've Gifford here, 
 Reading MS. with Hookham Frere, 
 Pronouncing on the nouns and particles 
 Of some of our forthcoming articles." 
 
 A writer in the Literary Gazette,* who had the pleasure of 
 Gilford's personal acquaintance, has made the following inter- 
 esting notes upon his private character, and his conduct as an 
 editor. " He never stipulated for any salary as editor ; at first 
 he received 200, and at last 900 per annum, but never 
 engaged for a particular sum. He several times returned 
 money to Murray, saying ' he had been too liberal/ Perhaps 
 he was the only man on this side the Tweed who thought so ! 
 lie was perfectly indifferent about wealth. I do not know a 
 better proof of this than the fact that he was richer, by a very 
 considerable sum, at the time of his death than he was at all 
 aware of. In unison with his contempt of money was his dis- 
 regard of any external distinction ; he had a strong natural 
 aversion to anything like pomp or parade. Yet he was by no 
 means insensible to an honorable distinction, and when the 
 University of Oxford, about two years before his death, offered 
 to give him a doctor's degree, he observed, * Twenty years ago 
 it would have been gratifying, but now it would only be writ- 
 ten on my coffin.' 
 
 " His disregard for external show was the more remarkable, 
 as a contrary feeling is generally observable in persons who have 
 risen from penury to wealth. But Gifford was a gentleman in 
 feeling and in conduct, and you were never led to suspect he 
 was sprung from an obscure origin except when he reminded 
 you of it by an anecdote relative to it. And this recalls one of 
 the stories he used to tell with irresistible drollery, the merit 
 of .which entirely depended on his manner. It was simply 
 this : At the cobblers' board, of which Gifford had been a mem- 
 ber, there was but one candle allowed for the whole coterie of 
 operatives ; it was, of course, a matter of importance that this 
 candle should give as much light as possible. This was only 
 to be done by repeated snuffings ; but snuffers being a piece of 
 fantastic coxcombry they were not pampered with : the mem- 
 bers of the board took it in turn to perform the office of the 
 forbidden luxury with their finger and thumb. The candle was 
 handed, therefore, to each in succession, with the word 4 sneaf 
 (Anglice, snuff) bellowed in his ears. Gifford used to pro- 
 
 * Quoted in "The Lives of Eminent Englishmen." Fullarton & 
 Co., Glasgow, 1838. Vol. viii. pp. 317, 318. 
 
WILLIAM GIFFORD. 85 
 
 nounce this word in the legitimate broad Devonshire dialect, 
 and accompanied his story with expressive gestures. Now on 
 paper this is absolutely nothing, but in Gifford's mouth it was 
 exquisitely humorous. I should not, however, have mentioned 
 it, were it not that it appears to me one of the best instances I 
 could give of his humility in recurring to his former condition. 
 ... He was a man of very deep and warm affections. If I 
 were desired to point out the distinguishing excellence of his 
 private character, I should refer to his fervent sincerity of heart. 
 He was particularly kind to- children and fond of their society. 
 My sister, when young, used sometimes to spend a month with 
 him, on which occasions he would hire a pianoforte, and once 
 he actually had a juvenile ball at his house for her amusement. 7 ' 
 
 Speaking of the spirit he displayed as editor of the Quarterly, 
 the same writer says : " He disliked incurring an obligation 
 which might in any degree shackle the expression of his free 
 opinion. Agreeably to this, he laid down a rule, from which 
 he never departed, that every writer in the Quarterly would re- 
 ceive at least so much per sheet. On one occasion, a gentle- 
 man holding office under Government sent him an article, which, 
 after undergoing some serious mutilations at his hands prepara- 
 tory to being ushered into the world, was accepted. But the 
 usual sum being sent to the author, he rejected it with disdain, 
 conceiving it a high dishonor to be paid for anything the in- 
 dependent placeman ! Gifford, in answer, informed him of 
 the invariable rule of the Review adding, that he could send the 
 money to any charitable institution, or dispose of it in any 
 manner he should direct, but that the money must be paid. The 
 doughty official, convinced that the virtue of his article would 
 force it into the Review at all events, stood firm in his refusal ; 
 greatly to his dismay the article was returned. He revenged 
 himself by never sending another." 
 
 Speaking of his relation to the Tory Government of the day, 
 the writer says : " It is true his independence of opinion might 
 seem to be interfered with by the situations he held, but they 
 were bestowed on him unsolicited, and from motives of per- 
 sonal regard. I am sure every one acquainted with him will 
 admit that he would have rejected -with scorn any kindness 
 which could be considered as fettering the freedom of his con- 
 duct in the smallest degree. I am not more certain of many 
 conjectures than I am that he never propagated a dishonest 
 opinion nor did a dishonest act. ... If the united influence 
 of the Anti-Jacobin and the Quarterly be considered, we may 
 
86 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 probably be justified in assigning to Gilford's literary support 
 of Government a rank second only to Burke." 
 
 William Gifford died worth a considerable fortune, which he 
 left, as a token of undying gratitude, to Mr. William Cooksley, 
 the son of his first generous patron and benefactor. 
 
 We append a few selections Iroin GifTord's poetical works, 
 as samples of his style and quality as a writer. The first is 
 from the 4t Baviad," and represents him in the character of a 
 satirist exposing the vanities of the " Delia Cruscan" school of 
 poets ; and the second, taken from the '* Biffiviadj*' exhibits 
 him in the more genial light of a faithful friend, commemorat- 
 ing his early intercourse with his companion and fellow-student, 
 Dr. Ireland, Dean of Westminster : 
 
 " For I was born 
 
 To brand obtrusive ignorance with scorn ; 
 On bloated pedantry to pour iny rage, 
 And hiss preposterous fustian from the stage. 
 
 Lo, Delia Crusca ! In his. closet pent, 
 He toils to give the crude conception venfc. 
 Abortive thoughts that right and wrong confound, 
 Truth sacrificed to letters, sense to sound, 
 False glare, incongruous images combine ; 
 And noise and nonsense clatter through the line, 
 'Tis done. Her house the generous Piozzi lends, 
 And thither summons her blue- stocking friends ; 
 The summons her blue- stocking friends obey, 
 Lured by the love of poetry and tea. 
 
 The bard steps forth in birthday splendor drest, 
 His right hand graceful waving o'er his breast, 
 His left extending, so that all may see 
 A roll inscribed, ' The Wreath of Liberty.' 
 80 forth he steps, and with complacent air, 
 Bows round the circle, and assumes the chair ; 
 With lemonade he gargles first his throat, 
 Then sweetly preludes to the liquid note : 
 And now 'tis silence all. ' Genius or muse ' 
 Thus while the flowery subject he pursues, 
 A wild delirium round th' assembly flies ; 
 Unusual lustre shoots from Emma's eyes ; 
 Luxurious Arno drivels as he stands ; 
 And Anna frisks, and Laura claps her hands. 
 
 Hear now our guests : ' The critics, sir, they cry, 
 
 Merit like yours the critics may defy ;' 
 
 But this indeed they say, ' Your varied rhymes, 
 
 At once the boast and envy of the times, 
 
 In every page, song, sonnet, what you will, 
 
 Show boundless genius and unrivalled skill.' 
 
WILLIAM GIFFORD. 87 
 
 Thus fooled, the moon-struck tribe, whose best essays 
 
 Sunk in acrostics and in roundelays, 
 
 To loftier labors now pretend a call, 
 
 And bustle in heroics one and all. 
 
 E'en Bertie burns of gods and chiefs to sing 
 
 Bertie who lately twittered to the string 
 
 His namby-pamby madrigals of love, 
 
 In the dark dingles of a glittering grove, 
 
 Where airy lays, wove by the hand of morn, 
 
 Were hung to dry upon a cobweb thorn ! 
 
 Happy the soil where bards like mushrooms rise, 
 
 And ask no culture but what Byshe supplies ! 
 
 Happier the bards who, write whate' er they will, 
 
 Find gentle readers to admire them still ! 
 
 Oh for the good old times ! when all was new, 
 
 And every hour brought prodigies to view, 
 
 Our sires in unaffected language told 
 
 Of streams of amber, and of rocks of gold ; 
 
 Full of their theme, they spurned all idle art ; 
 
 And the plain tale was trusted to the heart. 
 
 Now all is changed ! We fume and fret, poor elves ; 
 
 !Less to display our subject than ourselves : 
 
 Whate' er we paint a grot, a flower, a bird, 
 
 Heavens ! how we sweat, laboriously absurd ! 
 
 Words of gigantic bulk, and uncouth sound, 
 
 In rattling triads the long sentence bound ; 
 
 While points with points, with periods periods jar, 
 
 And the whole work seems one continued war !" 
 
 Not less poetical, and certainly much more pleasant in its 
 tone, is this reminiscence of his early friendship with Dr. 
 Ireland : 
 
 *' Chief thou, my friend ! who from my earliest years 
 Hast shared my joys, and more than shared my cares, 
 Sure, if our fates hang on some hidden power, 
 And take their color from the natal hour, 
 Then, Ireland, the same planet on us rose, 
 Such the strong sympathies our lives disclose ! 
 Thou knowest how soon we felt this influence bland, 
 And sought the brook and coppice, hand in hand, 
 And shaped rude bows, and uncouth whistles blew, 
 And paper kites a last great effort flew : 
 And when the day was done, retired to rest, 
 Sleep on our eyes, and sunshine in our breast. 
 In riper years, again together thrown, 
 Our studies, as our sports before, were one. 
 Together we explored the stoic page 
 Of the Ligurian, stern though bearless sage ! 
 Or traced the Aquinian through the Latine road. 
 And trembled at the lashes he bestowed. 
 
;S ( S ILLUSTRIOUS S1IOKM A K KUS. 
 
 Together, too, when Greece unlocked her stores, 
 We roved in thought o'er Troy's devoted shores, 
 Or followed, while he sought his imtive soil, 
 * That old man eloquent ' from toil to toil ; 
 Lingering, with good Alcinous o'er the tale, 
 Till the east reddened and the stars grew pale." 
 
 The tenderness of his nature is also shown in the lines he 
 wrote for the tombstone of his faithful servant Ann Davies : 
 
 " Though here unknown, dear Ann, thy ashes rest, 
 Still lives thy memory in one grateful breast, 
 That traced thy course through many a painful year, 
 And marked thy humble hope, thy pious fear. 
 Oh ! when this frame which yet while life remained, 
 Thy duteous love with trembling hand sustained, 
 Dissolves as soon it must may that blest Power 
 Who beamed on thine, illume my parting hour ! 
 So shall I greet thee where no ills annoy, 
 And what was sown in grief is reaped in joy ; 
 Where worth, obscured below, bursts into day, 
 And those are paid whom earth could never pay." 
 
RORERT Rt.OOMFIEI-D 
 
THE SHOEMAKER WHO WROTE "THE FARMER'S BOY." 11 
 
 " Crispin's sons 
 
 Have from uncounted time, with ale and buns, 
 Cherished the gift of 'song, which sorrow quells ; 
 And, working single in their low-built cells, 
 Oft cheat the tedium of a winter's night 
 With anthems." 
 
 CHARLES LAMB: Album Verses, 1830, p. 67. 
 
 " I have received many honorable testimonies of esteem from strangers ; 
 letters without a name, but filled with the most cordial advice, and almost 
 parental anxiety for my safety under so great a share of public applause. 
 I beg to refer such friends to the great teacher, Time ; and hope that he 
 will hereafter give me my deserts, and no more." Robert Bloomfield, Pref- 
 ace to "Rural Tales," Sept. 29, 1801. 
 
 " No pompous learning no parade 
 Of pedantry and cumbrous lore, 
 On thy elastic bosom weigh' d ; 
 Instead, were thine, a mazy store 
 Of feelings delicately wrought, 
 And treasures gleaned by silent thought. 
 
 " Obscurity, and low-born care, 
 Labor, and want all adverse things, 
 Combined to bow thee to despair ; 
 And of her young untutor'd wings 
 To rob thy Genius. 'Twas in vain: 
 With one proud soar she burst her chain ! " 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1823. 
 
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 
 
 WE have now to speak of a shoemaker poet. The name of 
 Robert Bloomfield, the ajithor of the " Farmer's Boy/' is 
 known and held in honor wherever the English language is 
 spoken. All classes of readers admire his poetry, although it 
 is not of the highest order of merit. It has, however, a genu- 
 ine quality which no one possessed of poetical taste can fail to 
 recognize. Its chief features are delightful rustic simplicity 
 and naturalness, faithful reflection of the beauties of nature, 
 and the charms which belong to rural occupations. The ro- 
 mantic side of the life of a farmer's boy is given in the poem 
 bearing that name, as we have it nowhere else in all our poetic 
 or prose literature. 
 
 Bloomfield, though surrounded by the most unfavorable con- 
 ditions, as a writer of poetry seems to have experienced no 
 difficulty in executing his task. His was indeed a case in 
 which the adage is well illustrated poeta nascitur non fit a 
 poet is born, not made. He was born with the gift of song. 
 It would have been difficult for him to restrain its exercise. 
 He made poetry, as the song-birds sing, by instinct and irre- 
 sistible impulse. For him the words are quite as true as they 
 are of the greater poet who wrote them,* 
 
 " I do but sing because I must, 
 And pipe but as the linnets sing.'* 
 
 Robert Bloomfield was born and brought up in the lovely 
 neighborhood of Honington, Ixworth and Sapiston, in the 
 northern ,part of the county of Suffolk. An idea of the quiet 
 beauty of the woodland scenery of Suffolk may be obtained 
 from the paintings of Gainsborough, another notable man 
 whom this county has produced. Gainsborough, as a boy full 
 of yearnings after art, loved to spend his time in the woods 
 and pastures round Sudbury, sketching trees, brooks, meadow- 
 landscapes, cattle, shepherds, or ploughmen at their work in 
 the fields. He was at the height of his fame as a painter 
 when Bloomfield was a farmer's boy at Sapiston, on the Graf- 
 
 * Tennyson, ' ' In Memoriam, ' ' stanza xxi. 
 
94 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ton estate. It is interesting to know that these two Suffolk 
 men were contemporary, t4 the first truly original English 
 painter/ 7 who took his lessons direct from nature, and the first 
 genuine poet of the English farm and field. 
 
 Bloomfield's father was a tailor at Honington, near Bury 
 St. Edmund's. Robert was born in 1760. His father died at 
 the end of the following year, leaving Robert and five other 
 children to the care of their mother. She was a worthy, esti- 
 mable woman, who managed by lier own unaided efforts 
 not only to maintain her little family, but to give each 
 of her children the rudiments of an education. This she 
 accomplished by opening a school, and teaching her own chil- 
 dren along with the rest. With the exception of a few 
 months' instruction in writing from a schoolmaster at Ix worth, 
 the future poet learned from his mother all he knew when lie 
 left his home to earn his own living. This he did at the age 
 of eleven, his mother, who had married again, being no longer 
 able to keep him at home, or put him to a good school. His 
 maternal uncle, a Mr. Austin of Sapiston, agreed to take him 
 as a boy about the farm, and allow him to live in the house 
 with the rest of the family. He appears to have received no 
 wages, his " board " being the only allowance made for the 
 work he did as a farmer's boy ; and this could hardly be much 
 at such an age. He remained in this situation four years, until 
 he was fifteen. It was during these four years of boyhood he 
 picked up the knowledge of farm- life, and made the observa- 
 tions on the varied phases of nature and the seasons which are 
 delightfully interwoven in the four books of his well-known 
 poem, " The Farmer's Boy." How observant he must have 
 been, how eagerly he must have entered into the pleasures of 
 rural life, how keen must have been his boyish sense of the 
 beautiful and romantic, may be imagined by those who con- 
 sider the circumstances in the midst of which, in after-years,, 
 he composed that charming poem. 
 
 His mother had undertaken to provide him with clothing 
 while with his uncle at the farm ; but this small expense was 
 found to be too much for her scanty means. Robert at that 
 time had two brothers, George and Nathaniel, living in Lon- 
 don, and working, the one as a journeyman shoemaker, and the 
 other as a tailor. To them the anxious mother applied for help 
 in her difficulties, stating in her letter that Mr. Austin had said 
 Robert was so small and weakly, it was to be feared he would 
 never be able to obtain his living by hard out-door labor. The 
 
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.. 95 
 
 brothers at once agreed to take liim under their care, find him 
 in food and clothing, and teach him the <3raft of shoemaking 
 until he should be able to obtain his own livelihood. Full of 
 solicitude for his safety .and well-being, the good woman took 
 him up to London herself, and handed him over to the guar- 
 dianship of her two eldest sons, begging them, " as they valued 
 a mother's blessing, to watch over him, to set good examples 
 for him, and never to forget that he had lost his father." 
 
 ' George Bloomfield and his brother were then living .at No. 7 
 Pitcher's Court, Bell Alley, Coleinan Street, in a garret which 
 served both as workshop and bedroom. The place was dingy 
 and gloomy, and presented to the bright, thoughtful Suffolk 
 lad "a mournful contrast to the pleasant surroundings in the 
 old farm-house at Sapiston. Nor could it have been a very 
 healthy abode, for five workmen occupied the room during the 
 day, ' 4 clubbing together, ' ' after the fashion of such workmen 
 in those days, to lighten the burden of rent. 
 
 At first the new-comer was chiefly employed by the older 
 men as their errand-boy, being rewarded for his trouble by 
 receiving lessons from the workmen in the art of shoemaking. 
 These men, like so many of their craft, were of a thoughtful 
 turn of mind, and very eager for the news of the day. It had 
 been their custom to have the yesterday's paper brought in with 
 their dinner by the pot-boy from a neighboring public-house. 
 Until Robert came they bad been in the habit of reading it by 
 turns, but now, as his time was less valuable than theirs, the 
 office of reader was permanently handed over to him. This 
 duty was of much service to him, for the information he gained 
 by reading disciplined his young mind to close and continuous 
 thought, and enlarged his knowledge of his own language. The 
 simple account, given by his brother George, of these social 
 readings in the cobblers' workroom, and other means of instruc- 
 tion of which Robert availed himself, is full of interest. George 
 Bloomfield says : " He frequently met with words that he was 
 unacquainted with ; of this he often complained. I one day 
 happened at a book-stall to see a small dictionary which had 
 been very ill-used. I bought it for him for fourpence. By the 
 help of this he in a little time could read and comprehend the 
 long and beautiful speeches of Burke, Fox, or North." And 
 again : " One Sunday, after a whole day's stroll in the coun- 
 try, we by accident went into a Dissenting meeting-house in 
 the Old Jewry, where a gentleman was lecturing. This man 
 filled Robert with astonishment. The house was amazingly 
 
96 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 crowded with the most genteel people ; and though we were 
 forced to stand in the aisle, and were much pressed, yet Robert 
 always quickened his steps to get into the town on a Sunday 
 evening soon enough to attend this lecture. The preacher's 
 name was Fawcet. His language was just such as the i Rambler ' 
 is written in. ... Of him Robert learned to accent what he 
 called hard words, and otherwise to improve himself, and 
 gained the most enlarged notions of Providence." 
 
 Bloomfield's reading was not very extensive nor diversified 
 during these early years of his London life, yet it was sufficient 
 to whet his appetite for mental improvement, and give him no 
 small degree of literary taste and skill. The brothers took, in 
 sixpenny numbers, such works as a " History of England," 
 44 the British Traveller," and a "Treatise on Geography." 
 These were read aloud to the little company of busy listeners, 
 several hours of the day being occupied with the task. His 
 first poetic impulse was awakened by the perusal of the London 
 Magazine, which found its way at this time into the cobblers' 
 garret. Robert always read it with zest, carefully scanning the 
 reviews of books, and never failing to look into the 4< Poets' 
 Corner." One day he surprised his brother by repeating a 
 song which he had composed after the manner of Burns and so 
 many other graceful songsters, " to an old tune." George was 
 as much delighted as surprised at his young brother's smooth 
 and easy verses, and encouraged him to try the experiment of 
 sending them to the editor. This he did with many fears and 
 hopes, and nervously awaited the issue of the next number. 
 To his intense delight, and the pardonable pride of the whole 
 company, the verses appeared in print. As a specimen of his 
 first literary attempt, every youth will deem them worth record- 
 ing, and will read them with pleasure. They bear the modest 
 title " A Village Girl," and are signed with the letters R. B. 
 
 " Hail May ! lovely May ! how replenished my pails, 
 The young dawn o' erspreads the broad east streaked with gold ! 
 My glad heart beats time to the laugh of the vales, 
 And Colin' s voice rings through the wood from the fold. 
 
 The wood to the mountain submissively bends, 
 Whose blue misty summit first glows with the sun ; 
 See ! thence a gay train by the wild rill descends 
 To join the mixed sports : Hark ! the tumult's begun. 
 
 Be cloudless, ye skies ! and be Colin but there ; 
 Not dew-spangled bents on the wide level dale, 
 Nor morning's first smile can more lovely appear, 
 Than his looks, since my wishes I cannot conceal. 
 
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 97 
 
 Swift down the mad dance, whilst blest health prompts to move, 
 We'll count joys to come, and exchange vows of truth , 
 And haply, when age cools the transports of love, 
 Decry, like good folks, the vain follies of youth." 
 
 Another piece called " The Sailor's Return'' found a place 
 in the " Poets' Corner." These efforts were enough to prove 
 his taste and gifts as a versifier. The poetic power was latent 
 in his mind, and only needed sufficient stimulus to bring it into 
 full exercise. This stimulus came, as was natural, from the 
 reading of poetry itself. A- copy of Thomson's " Seasons" 
 and Milton's " Paradise Lost" fell into his hands when he was 
 about seventeen years of age. They belonged to a Scotchman 
 who lived and worked at a house in Bell Alley, to which the 
 shoemakers removed about this time. The eager youth read 
 them with the passion of a born poet ; and, as he read, the fire 
 burned within. His imagination was now fairly awakened, 
 and it was plain to all who watched him intelligently at this 
 time, that melodies were being awakened in his heart that 
 sooner or later must find their expression in song. The " Sea- 
 sons" was his favorite poem. He read and re-read its glowing 
 descriptions of nature, committed favorite portions to memory, 
 and never tired of recounting its beauties in the hearing of his 
 sympathetic friends. The " Seasons" struck the key-note of 
 the " Farmer's Boy," though Bloomfield was no imitator of 
 Thomson, nor of any one else, in either matter or manner. The 
 thought and style of these two poets of nature are as unlike as 
 their kindred subjects would allow them to be. Thomson's 
 music is that of a majestic and stately oratorio, while Bloom- 
 field sings a sweet and simple pastoral symphony. 
 
 But the young poet was not yet to enter on his great task. 
 Fourteen years passed away before his first and best published 
 poem, the " Fanner's Boy," saw the light. During this time 
 several important events in his history occurred. In his eigh- 
 teenth year, in consequence of certain disputes in the shoe- 
 makers' trade about the legality of employing boys who had 
 not been bound as apprentices, he went back again to Suffolk 
 for a short time, and was taken into the home of his uncle and 
 former master, Mr. Austin of Sapiston. Here for two months 
 of happy leisure he roamed the fields where he spent so much 
 of his time as a boy, reviving old impressions, and deepening in 
 his mind that keen sense of the beautiful which city life and 
 the imprisonment of a shoemaker's occupation had not been 
 sufficient to destroy. His companion at this time was still the 
 
98 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 favorite " Seasons," from which, in the presence of the very 
 charms which Thomson describes, the ardent youth derived 
 new pleasure and inspiration. 
 
 The trade difficulty was got over by his becoming an appren- 
 tice for the remaining three years of his minority to a Mr. 
 Duddridge, brother to George's former landlord. At the n\i -. 
 of twenty he was left alone in London, George having rein 
 to Bury St. Edmund's in his own county, and Nathaniel having 
 married and gone into housekeeping. Robert now took to tho 
 study of music, and became an expert player on the violin. At 
 the age of twenty-four he married the daughter of a boat- 
 builder at Woolwich named Church. " I have sold my fiddle 
 and got a wife," he humorously writes to his brother. At first 
 his home was in furnished lodgings, but by dint of hard work 
 and strict economy he managed in a short time to furnish one 
 room on the first floor of a house in Bell Alley, Coleman Street, 
 the old quarters to which he had come fresh from the country 
 on his first becoming a shoemaker. Ills landlord kindly 
 allowed him the free use of a garret to work in during the day. 
 " In this garret," says his brother, " amid six or seven other 
 workmen, his active mind employed itself in composing the 
 4 Farmer's Boy.' ' How long his mind was occupied in this 
 task we cannot tell. One could hardly wonder if the process 
 of composition was slow in the midst of such distracting and 
 unfavorable circumstances. The marvel is that it should have 
 been composed at all under such uncongenial and difficult con- 
 ditions. So hard pressed for time was the poor poet-shoe- 
 maker, and so unable to find the proper materials for writing, 
 that he is said to have made up and kept in his mind no less 
 than 600 lines, that is, about the half of his poem, before he 
 could manage to write it down. And when he did this, he was 
 glad to lay hold of any odd scrap of paper for the purpose ; the 
 back of a letter or a printed bill, the margin of newspapers, 
 pieces of pattern-paper, were seized as they came to hand and 
 covered with writing, and then hidden away in cupboards, and 
 occasionally even in some chink in the wall, until they could be 
 collected and arranged for a fair copy, suitable to go into the 
 hands of the printer. It was indeed a wonderful exhibition of 
 mental abstraction and retentive memory. Few, even among 
 poets, could have wrought to any purpose amid the din and 
 conversation of a shoemakers 7 workroom, and still fewer, even 
 if the excitement of poetic thought had enabled them to com- 
 pose, could have treasured up their productions in the memory 
 
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 99 
 
 until they amounted to 600 lines. A friend of Bloomfield 
 named Swan, writing to Mr. Cape! Lofft, says, " Bloomfield, 
 either from the contracted state of his pecuniary resources to 
 purchase paper, or for other reasons, composed the latter part 
 of ' Autumn ' and the whole of ' Winter ' in his head, without 
 committing one line to paper ! This cannot fail to surprise the 
 literary world, who are well acquainted with the treacherous- 
 ness of memory, and how soon the most happy ideas, for want 
 of sufficient quickness in writing down, are lost in the rapidity 
 of thought. But this is not all he went a step further ; he 
 not only composed and committed that part of his work to his 
 faithful and retentive memory ; but he corrected it all in his 
 head ! ! ! and, as he said, when it was thus prepared, ' I had 
 nothing to do but to write it down.' By this new and won- 
 derful mode of composition, he studied and completed his 
 rmer's Boy,' in a garret, among six or seven of his fellow- 
 workmen, without their ever once suspecting or knowing any- 
 thing of the matter !" * 
 
 Bloomfield was thirty-two years of age when his poem was 
 complete and attempts were being made to find a printer and 
 publisher. These attempts were for a time fruitless. One 
 after another the publishers rejected the ** copy" of the un- 
 known writer. At length, it was sent by George Bloomfield, 
 who always had full confidence in Robert's powers, to a gentle- 
 man of literary tastes living at Troston Hall, near Bury, in 
 Suffolk Mr. Capel Lofft. This gentleman had the good sense 
 at once to perceive the genuine merits of the poem submitted 
 to his judgment, and to recommend its publication. By his 
 kind influence and aid a publisher was soon found. Messrs. 
 non <fc Hood paid the poet 50 for his copy, and afterward, 
 when the poem proved a success, honorably advanced an addi- 
 tional 200, besides giving the author an interest in his copy- 
 right. 
 
 The success of the poem was immediate and complete. It 
 was warmly received by the public, and praised in all quarters 
 as a masterpiece of natural poetic simplicity and beauty. 
 Twenty-six thousand copies were sold in the first three years of 
 its issue, seven editions having been called for. The position 
 secured by the " Farmer's Boy" on its first publication has 
 been held until the present day. All lovers of poetry read it 
 
 *" Lives of Eminent Englishmen," Fullarton & Co., 1838. Tol. 
 Tiii, p. 245. See also ' Views Ulustiative of Works of Robert Bloom- 
 field," by E. W. Brayley. London : 1806, p. 17. 
 
lUU ILLt'STRK)i;,S SUOKMAKKIJS. 
 
 with delight. It is natural and graceful as the song of a bird 
 " warbling his native woodnotes wild." When the English 
 song-bird sings in captivity there seems to be a touch of pathos 
 in his note ; and one can hardly resist the same impression in 
 reading these sweet rustic melodies in verse which came from 
 the lips of the shoemaker-poet imprisoned in a London garret. 
 Yet there is something much more stimulating in Bloomfield's 
 lines than this. They are sweet and joyous, and full of that 
 glowing enthusiasm for beauty which all fine natures feel. Be- 
 sides the editions sent forth in this country, the " Farmer's 
 Boy was printed at Leipsic, and was translated into French, 
 Italian, and Latin. 
 
 Bloomfield now had many friends as well as admirers. The 
 I) like of Grafton, on whose estate he had been employed as a 
 boy, settled upon him a small annuity, and used his iiifluencc to 
 obtain for him a post at the seal-office at Is. per day. In 
 addition to this, Bloomfield received frequent presents from 
 the nobility, and even from members of the royal family. To 
 the poor shoemaker, accustomed to the utmost obscurity, all 
 this success, and popularity, and patronage " appeared," to use 
 his own language, 4k like a dream." 
 
 In after-years he issued a number of small volumes of poetry, 
 in which are found several shorter pieces of great merit, such 
 as the two descriptive or ballad pieces " Richard and Kate," 
 " The Fakenham Ghost," or the exquisitely simple piece called 
 " The Soldier's Return." The first of these is one of the best 
 modern ballads in the language, as it is certainly among the 
 most, if it be not the most, spirited and original of his compo- 
 sitions. Of the last of the three just mentioned, Professor 
 Wilson says : " The topic is trite, but in Mr. Bloomfield's 
 hands it almost assumes a character of novelty. Burns' * Sol- 
 dier's Return ' is not, to our taste, one whit superior." 
 
 The titles of the volumes that followed that by which his 
 fame was established are " Rural Tales," published in 1801 ; 
 "The Banks of the Wye," 1811 ; "Wild Flowers," and 
 " May Day with the Muses," 1822. " Hazelwood Hall, a 
 Village Drama, in Three Acts," was published 1823, the year 
 of his death. All these poems have since been issued in one 
 volume, to which is attached a short sketch of the poet's life, 
 and the circumstances which attended the publication of " The 
 Farmer's Boy." This account, given by Mr. Capel Lofft, 
 Bloomfield's kind friend and patron, is full of interest. It 
 serves to show the value of a judicious^ friend to a young 
 
KOBEKT liLUUMFIELU. 101 
 
 aspirant for literary fame,.whose talents deserve recognition, but 
 whose position in life prevents him taking the necessary steps 
 to become known to the world. 
 
 The last twenty years of Bloomfield's life were embittered by 
 affliction and misfortunes in business. He did not long retain 
 his position at the Seal Office, being obliged to abandon it 
 through continual ill-health. After resuming the trade of a 
 shoemaker for a short time, he was induced to open a shop as 
 a bookseller, but this speculation brought him only disappoint- 
 ment and loss. His son, wiio was a printer, states that about 
 this time the poets Rogers and Southey took a deep interest in 
 the welfare of their poor suffering brother poet. Rogers, it 
 seems, tried to obtain him a government pension, but without 
 success. At length he removed from London to try the effect 
 of the fresh air and quietude of country life. His last years 
 were spent as a shoemaker at Shefford-cum-Campton, Bed's. 
 Toward the close of his life he was in great want and distress, 
 having reaped little permanent gain from his numerous and 
 popular poems. So intense was the strain of mind he endured 
 from overwork, ill-health, and anxiety, that his friends enter- 
 tained grave fears of his becoming insane. Death was prefera- 
 ble to such a life the death which is for men of Christian faith 
 and character, like Bloomfield, the gate to a higher and happier 
 life. Providentially for him, that gate was opened when life 
 here had become a burden too grievous to be borne. He died 
 at Shefford, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, August 19th, 
 1823, and was buried in the Campton churchyard. 
 
 Bloomfield's character, unlike that of many of the more cele- 
 brated poets of his own day, exhibited a fair and lovely type of 
 moral excellence. He was genuinely modest, affectionate, in- 
 dustrious, and pious. None regarded him with more respect 
 and love than those who knew him most intimately. This fact 
 speaks strongly for his real worth. His own brothers held him 
 in the greatest esteem, and felt the most generous and hearty 
 pleasure in his literary success. His generosity to his needy 
 relatives, who were very numerous, often crippled his resources, 
 and, indeed, left him at times as poor as those he had be- 
 friended. We have noticed how much he owed in early life to 
 the loving care and good sense of an excellent mother. Bloom- 
 field never lost sight of this fact. Like all good men, men 
 whose lives are worth study and imitation, he was deeply 
 attached to his mother; and it is well deserving of record that, 
 like Buckle, the eminent philosophical writer, the young poet 
 
102 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 felt a more exquisite pleasure in placing his first published work 
 in the hands of his mother than in the anticipation of any fame 
 or advantage it might secure for himself as the author. When 
 the first edition was issued a copy of it was sent to his mother, 
 accompanied by these simple lines, which faithfully reflect at 
 once the character of the true mother and the devoted son : 
 
 " * To peace and virtue still be true,' 
 
 An anxious mother ever cries, 
 Who needs no present to renew 
 Parental love which never dies." 
 
 Many tributes of esteem, both in prose and verse, were paid 
 to Bloomfield during his life and after his death. None of 
 these was of more value than the brief sentence written by his 
 constant friend and first literary patron, Mr. Capel Lofft, who 
 says, " It is much to be a poet, such as he will be found : it is 
 much more to be such a man." The lines which appeared in 
 Blackwood* s Magazine, the month after Bloomfield's death, 
 exactly describe the chief features of the poet's life and work : 
 
 " No pompous learning no parade 
 
 Of pedantry, and cumbrous lore, 
 On thy elastic bosom weighed ; 
 
 Instead, were thine a mazy store 
 Of feelings delicately wrought, 
 And treasures gleaned by silent thought. 
 
 Obscurity, and low-born care, 
 
 Labor, and want all adverse things, 
 
 Combined to bow thee to despair ; 
 And of her young untutored wings 
 
 To rob thy genins. 'Twas in vain : 
 
 With one proud soar she burst her chain ! 
 
 The beauties of the building spring ; 
 
 The glories of the summer's reign ; 
 The russet autumn triumphing 
 
 In ripened fruits and golden grain ; 
 Winter with storms around his shrine, 
 Each, in their turn, were themes of thine. 
 
 And lowly life, the peasant's lot. 
 Its humble hopes and simple joys ; 
 
 By mountain-stream the shepherd's cot, 
 And what the rustic hour employs ; 
 
 White flocks on Nature's carpet spread ; 
 
 Birds blithely carolling o'erhead ; 
 
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 103 
 
 These were thy themes, and thou wert blessed 
 Yes, blessed beyond the wealth of kings. 
 
 Calm joy is seated in the breast 
 Of the rapt poet as he sings, 
 
 And all that Truth or Hope can bring 
 
 Of Beauty, gilds the muse's wing. 
 
 And, Bloomfield, thine were blissful days, 
 (If flowers of bliss may thrive on earth); 
 
 Thine were the glory and the praise 
 Of genius linked with modest worth ; 
 
 To wisdom wed, remote from strife, 
 
 Calmly passed o'er thy stormless life." 
 
 During the lifetime of Bloomfield, another young and ob- 
 scure poet, Henry Kirke White of Nottingham, was indebted 
 to Bloomfield' s patrons, Mr. Lofft and Robert Southey, for his 
 introduction to the public. After reading " The Farmer's 
 Boy" and " Rural Tales," White wrote the following clever 
 epigram, the sentiment of which all admirers of the shoemaker- 
 poet will heartily indorse : 
 
 " Bloomfield, thy happy omened name 
 Ensures continuance to thy fame ; 
 Both sense and truth this verdict give, 
 While fields shall bloom, thy name shall live." 
 
SAMUEL DREW, M. A. 
 
j&amuei 
 
 THE METAPHYSICAL SHOEMAKER. 
 
 "Secure to yourself a. livelihood independent of literary success, and 
 put into this lottery only the overplus of time. Woe to him who depends 
 wholly on his pen ! Nothing is more casual. The man who makes shoes 
 is sure of his wages : the man who writes a book is never sure of any- 
 thing. " Marmontel. 
 
 " Hereafter, I believe, some metaphysical Columbus will arise, traverse 
 vast oceans of thought, and explore regions now undiscovered, to which our 
 little minds and weak ideas do not enable us to soar." Samuel Drew. 
 
SAMUEL DREW. 
 
 THE life of Samuel Drew, the author of a once famous book, 
 " The Immateriality and Immortality of the 'Soul," is in some 
 respects as remarkable a& that of William Gifford,* and in 
 others even more so. For Drew, unlike Gifford, received no 
 collegiate training, nor was he ever favored with the rudiments 
 of education in an ordinary boys' school. In his childhood he 
 was sent to a school along with his brothers, but his childish in- 
 difference to learning and his removal before he was eight years 
 of age prevented his making any progress worth speaking of. 
 His life, published by his son, speaks of him, with perfect 
 truth, as the " Self-Taught Cornishman." 
 
 His reply to Paine' s *' Age of Reason," and his book on the 
 " Immortality of the Soul," both of which were written and 
 issued from the press during his life as a shoemaker, brought 
 him into notoriety, and obtained for him a name as an acute 
 thinker and able controversialist. He afterward published 
 several theological works of great merit, edited and wrote the 
 chief portion of a history of Cornwall, and finally became an 
 editor on the staff of the Caxton press in Liverpool and Lon- 
 don. His contributions to^the literature of his own religious 
 denomination, the Wesleyan Methodists, were very numerous ; 
 and for many years he was a constant writer in the Eclectic 
 Review. From the beginning to the close of his public life he 
 was held in high esteem as a preacher in the " circuits" of 
 Cornwall, Liverpool, and London. The two universities of 
 Aberdeen and London paid him a valuable compliment ; the 
 one conferring on him the degree of A.M., and the other, 
 through certain members of the council, requesting him to be 
 put in competition for the Chair of Moral Philosophy. 
 
 But before all these things he was an earnest, high-souled, 
 useful Christian man, who found his principal delight in diffus- 
 ing around him the influence of a good example and a benevo- 
 lent Christ-like spirit. His best memorials were inscribed on 
 the hearts of the people among whom he spent his valuable life. 
 His writings may now be but little read, and his name but lit- 
 
 * See Chapter IV., William Gifford. 
 
110 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tie known outside the Christian community to which he was at- 
 tached, yet he made a record as a faithful servant of God that 
 will never perish, and obtained a memorial for his name that is 
 safe against all the influence of time and change. 
 
 The subject of this sketch was born at St. Austell, in Corn- 
 wall, on the 3d March, 1765. His parents were both members 
 of families long resident in Cornwall. They were in but poor 
 circumstances, the father being employed chiefly as a farm- 
 laborer. Now and then he worked in connection with the tin 
 mines of the neighborhood. Hard work, scant fare, and great 
 economy were necessary to enable the parents to bring up their 
 young family respectably. We may judge of their circum- 
 stances by the fact that the father found it not at all an easy 
 thing to carry out a worthy determination he had formed to 
 send his three children to school, where the fee for each scholar 
 was only one penny per week. Little Sammy's progress hardly 
 compensated for this small outlay, for he was dull and careless 
 and shockingly fond of playing truant. However, his school 
 life did not last long. He was removed at the age of eight, as 
 already stated, and put to work as a buddle-boy. The pits in 
 which the tin-ore is washed after being broken up are called 
 buddies, and it was the business of the buddle-boy to stir up the 
 sediment of ore and metal at the bottom of the pit, in order 
 that the stream of water which passed through it might carry 
 off the sandy particles and leave the mineral behind. For this 
 work Samuel was to receive three halfpence a week. But the 
 poor little fellow was early taught the meaning of the terms 
 " bad debt" and " failure in business." His master kept the 
 wages back, intending to pay them, as was customary, to the 
 father. At the end of eight weeks the employer failed, and 
 Samuel never received his first instalment of wages. When 
 another man took the business, shortly after, the boys were paid 
 twopence per week, and for the two years in which he continued 
 at this work, the little buddle-boy never received more than this 
 miserable pittance. It must be confessed that Samuel was a 
 wilful, headstrong fellow. The circumstances which led to his 
 removal from home were hardly to his credit. His own mother 
 died when he was nine years old. She was a good woman, and 
 took great pains to save her boy from the bad influence of low 
 company at the tin-works. Samuel, though young and reck- 
 less, cherished a deep regard for his mother. About a year and 
 a half after her death the father married again, and Samuel, 
 not liking the idea of having a 4< new mother," made himself 
 
SAMUEL DREW. Ill 
 
 as obnoxious to her as he could. This improper conduct could 
 not be permitted, and it was especially wrong in this instance, 
 as the " new mother" was very attentive and kind to the 
 children. 
 
 " At the age of ten and a half," says his biographer, Samuel 
 " was apprenticed for nine years to a shoemaker, living in a 
 sequestered hamlet about three miles from St. Austell. His 
 father and family at this time were not far distant, but remov- 
 ing soon after to Polpea, in Tywardreath, the poor lad's inter- 
 course with his relatives was, in a great measure, suspended, and 
 he felt the loneliness of his situation." 
 
 Drew's apprenticeship life was well-nigh as miserable and un- 
 profitable as it could be. In an account of the hardships he 
 endured at this time he himself says : " My new abode at St. 
 Blazey and new engagements were far from being agreeable. 
 To any of the comforts and conveniences of life I was an entire 
 stranger, and by every member of the family was viewed as an 
 underling, come thither to subserve their wishes, or obey their 
 mandates. To his trade of shoemaker my master added that 
 of farmer. He had a few acres of ground under his care, and 
 was a sober, industrious man ; but, unfortunately for me, 
 nearly one half of my time was taken up in agricultural pur- 
 suits. On this account I made no proficiency in my business, 
 and felt no solicitude to rise above the farmers' boys with whom 
 I daily associated. While in this place I suffered many hard- 
 ships. When, after having been in the fields all day, I came 
 home with cold feet, and damp and dirty stockings, I was per- 
 mitted, if the oven had been heated during the day, to throw 
 them into it, that they might dry against the following morn- 
 ing ; but frequently have I had to put them on in precisely the 
 same state in which I had left them the preceding evening. 
 To mend my stockings I had no one, and frequently have I 
 wept at the holes which I could not conceal ; though, when 
 fortunate enough to procure a needle and some worsted, I have 
 drawn the outlines of the holes together, and made, what I 
 thought, a tolerable job." 
 
 i4 During my apprenticeship," he continues, " many bicker- 
 ings and unpleasant occurrences took place. Some of these 
 preyed so much on my mind, that several times I had deter- 
 mined to run away and enlist on board a privateer or man-of- 
 war. ' ' He seems to have had little inclination for reading dur- 
 ing these unhappy days ; and if he had been disposed for study 
 there were but few books within his reach. Accident put into 
 
112 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 his hands a few odd numbers of a publication circulated in the 
 West of England called The Weekly Entertainer. He read 
 and re-read the histories of " Paul Jones," " The Serapis," 
 and " Bon Homme Richard, " until his imagination was in- 
 flamed with the thought of joining a pirate, and leading the 
 jolly abandoned life of a sea-rover. Such reading as this did 
 very little good for him. The only other book he seems to 
 have met with during these days of servitude was " an odd 
 number of the ' History of England ' about the time of the 
 Commonwealth." But this spell of reading lasted only a short 
 time. The odd volume of history, which charmed him at first, 
 soon grew monotonous and wearisome, and was thrown aside. 
 " With this," he says, " I lost not only a disposition for read- 
 ing, but almost the ability to read. The clamor of my com- 
 panions and others engrossed nearly the whole of my attention, 
 and, so far as my slender means would allow, carried me on- 
 ward toward the vortex of dissipation." 
 
 Much of his time was occupied with wild companions, 
 among whom he was foremost in daring and mischief. Bird- 
 nesting, orchard-robbing, and even poaching and smuggling 
 were resorted to for amusement and profit. On one occasion 
 he nearly lost his life by following sea-birds to their haunt on 
 the edge of a lofty cliff overhanging the sea. At another time, 
 in the dead of the night, when he and a number of men and 
 boys were out on a poaching expedition, he and his companions 
 were nearly scared out of their wits by some apparition, which 
 confronted them with large fiery eyes, and suddenly disap- 
 peared. 
 
 Spite of these doubtful amusements his life at St. Blazey was 
 becoming intolerable. He compares his position to that of " a 
 toad under a harrow ;" and declares that his master and mis- 
 tress seemed bent on degrading him. At last, when he could 
 brook his degradation no longer, he resolved to abscond, and 
 accordingly, at the age of seventeen, after enduring six and a 
 half years of bondage and cruelty, he ran off, intending to go 
 to sea. But his plans were happily frustrated. On his way 
 from St. Blazey to Plymouth he called at his old home, and as 
 his father was absent his stepmother refused to give him money 
 to assist him in his mad project. He then made off for Plym- 
 outh with only a few pence in his pocket. Passing through 
 Liskeard he chanced to meet with a good-natured shoemaker, 
 and entered into an engagement as a journeyman. In a short 
 time he was discovered in his retreat, and persuaded to return 
 
SAMUEL DREW. 113 
 
 to his father's roof. He agreed on condition that he should 
 not be sent back to his old master. This being arranged, a sit- 
 uation was found for Drew at Millbrook and afterward at 
 Kingsand and Crafthole. 
 
 It was during his stay at the last place that the event occur- 
 red which led to the most important change in his life. He 
 had often engaged in smuggling expeditions during the time of 
 his apprenticeship, these unlawful practices not being regarded 
 as disgraceful in out-of-the-way places on the coast a century 
 ago. The rough villagers were rather disposed to make a boast 
 of their success in evading the law ; and few, if any, of their 
 neighbors offered any opposition or remonstrance. One dark 
 night in December, 1784, when Samuel Drew was about nine- 
 teen years of ago, a vessel laden with contraband goods made 
 signals to have her cargo fetched on shore ; and the daring 
 youth agreed to form one of the boat's crew for this purpose. 
 The night was so stormy and dark that the captain of the vessel 
 had been obliged to stand off a considerable distance from the 
 shore. The smugglers were two miles out at sea when one of 
 their number, in attempting to catch his hat, upset the boat. 
 Three men were immediately drowned ; Drew, who was a first- 
 rate swimmer, managed by dint of the most violent effort to 
 reach the rocks, and was picked up by some of his companions 
 4 more dead than alive,' and carried to a farm-house, whose oc- 
 cupants were compelled, much against their will, to allow the 
 half-drowned youth to be brought in and laid before the 
 kitchen fire. A keg of brandy from the vessel was opened, and 
 a bowlful of its contents placed to his lips. He had sense 
 enough not to drink much, though recklessly urged to swallow 
 it all ! After lying by the fire until circulation was pretty well 
 restored, he was able, with the help of friendly arms, to crawl 
 to his lodgings, a distance of two miles, the ground being cov- 
 ered with snow. 
 
 It was a mad adventure, and nearly cost him his life, but 
 proved, instead, the occasion of opening the way to a new life, 
 brighter and better and happier than the one he had spent in 
 thoughtless and sinful amusement. ' 4 Alas ! what will be the 
 end of my poor unhappy boy ?" said his father, on hearing of 
 Samuel's narrow escape. Very wisely it was resolved to have 
 him removed from his sinful companions at Crafthole, and a 
 good situation was found for him under a steady master at St. 
 Austell. 
 
 This little town was one of the numerous places in Cornwall 
 
114 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 that had derived much benefit from the ministry of John and 
 Charles Wesley ; a " society " had been formed and a chapel 
 built. Drew began to attend the services in this chapel soon 
 after going to live at St. Austell. Here he heard the popular 
 young preacher, a mere stripling, Adam Clarke, afterward well 
 known to the world as the learned commentator, Dr. Adam 
 Clarke. The fervid discourses of this young man, combined 
 with the effect produced by the death of a gifted and pious 
 brother, which happened at this time, brought about that change 
 in Samuel Drew which the Saviour speaks of as the new birth, 
 without which, He tells us, no one " can enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven. ' ' The change in Samuel Drew was complete. 
 Body, mind, and spirit shared and rejoiced in it. The latent 
 faculties of a great mind and noble heart were awakened and 
 developed by the heavenly light and heat which now fell upon 
 them. He felt at once a strong passion for self-culture and the 
 devotion of his gifts to useful purposes. The first thing was to 
 pick up again his almost lost knowledge of the arts of reading 
 and writing ; for describing his accomplishments in this way at 
 the time of his conversion he says, u I was scarcely able to read 
 and almost totally unable to write. Literature was a term to 
 which I could annex no idea. Grammar I knew not the mean- 
 ing of. I was expert at trifles, acute at follies, and ingenious 
 about nonsense." As for his writing, a friend compared it to 
 the traces of a spider dipped in ink, and set to crawl on paper. 
 In this respect, sooth to say, it was neither better nor worse 
 than the writing of many men whose education is not supposed 
 to have been neglected. This description of Samuel Drew's 
 accomplishments, or rather want of them, refers to the begin- 
 ning of the year 1785, when he was in his twentieth year. It 
 is well to note this fact, as it will show how much of his time 
 was wasted in youth, and how great must have been his indus- 
 try in the work of self-culture after this date. Practically his 
 education did not begin until he stood on the threshold of man- 
 hood, and even then it was not carried on in any thorough and 
 systematic fashion. He had to help himself in the matter as 
 best he could. At first he had no counsellors, no store of books, 
 and no well-arranged course of reading. All depended on his 
 good fortune in borrowing ; and, what proved in his case as in 
 so many others the best thing in the world, all depended on his 
 following his own bent and satisfying his own taste in the choice 
 of subjects for study. This in the majority of cases proves to 
 be the secret of success in life. For our taste for a subject is 
 
SAMUEL DREW. 115 
 
 the result of our having a special aptitude for it. We like to 
 do what comes easiest to us. The born artist, as he is termed, 
 likes to draw and. sketch because he can draw and sketch better 
 than he can do anything else ; the arithmetician enjoys work- 
 ing out problems in figures ; the poet loves to indulge his fancy 
 and clothe his imaginations in the guise of poetry ; and the 
 metaphysician is happiest when employed in the task of defini- 
 tion and reasoning. 
 
 Drew's capacity, and therefore his taste, lay in the direction 
 of metaphysics, and it is curious to notice how the future logi- 
 cian and theologian manages to make his most ungenial and un- 
 toward circumstances as a shoemaker in an obscure country 
 town serve his purpose and help him forward to the accomplish- 
 ment of his life-destiny. All this was partly the result of 
 natural gifts and partly the fruit of strenuous application and 
 toil. Men who have done notable things in the world have been 
 spoken of as belonging to two classes. There is the man who 
 41 seems to have what is best in him as a possession ;" and the 
 man who " seems to show that what is regarded as an inspira- 
 tion may come as the result of labor. " * This is but another 
 method of stating the old distinction between " genius and tal- 
 ent." If Samuel Drew must be classified at all, we should cer- 
 tainly place him in the former category. What was best in him 
 was indeed a possession, not an acquirement. Yefe, like all 
 men of mark, he owed much. to close study and hard work. 
 Without these his fine natural gifts would have been useless. 
 
 Drew's master at St. Austell combined the three somewhat 
 kindred businesses of saddler, shoemaker, and bookbinder. 
 His shop was also a regular meeting-place for the gossipers of 
 the town ; and as St. Austell was then in a ferment of religious 
 excitement, most of the talk ran on religious topics. The Cal- 
 vinist and Arminian divided the field between them, and in 
 their contests, sometimes as arbiters, and sometimes as the 
 champion of a party, Drew was often called in to contribute to 
 the discussion. Here he found the first arena for the exhibi- 
 tion of his natural powers as a debater, and gained for himself 
 no small renown. 
 
 About this time also a book came in his way, which seems to 
 have made a revolution in his mind. This was Locke's famous 
 ' 4 Essay on the Human Understanding, ' ' a copy of which was 
 brought to Drew's master's to be bound. The young shoe- 
 
 *Athenceum, No. 2770, Nov. 27, 1880. p. 719. 
 
116 ILLL'STKLOt'S SHOKMAKKKS. 
 
 maker had read nothing of the kind. It opened to his mind a 
 world of thought that was new to his experience, yet one that 
 seemed familiar on account of his natural aptitude for such 
 studies. He read the luminous pages of the great philosopher 
 with the utmost avidity. Henceforth reading became with him 
 an intense appetite. Nothing came much amiss, but such 
 books as led him into the ample domains of philosophy and 
 religion afforded the greatest delight. He says, " This book 
 (Locke's Essay) set all my soul to think. ... It gave the 
 first metaphysical turn to my mind, and I cultivated the little 
 knowledge of writing which I had acquired in order to put 
 down my reflections. It awakened me from my stupor, and in- 
 duced me to form a resolution to abandon the grovelling views 
 which I had been accustomed to entertain." 
 
 For two years after the change we have noticed Drew con- 
 tinued working industriously at his trade, and rilling up all his 
 spare moments by reading such books as came to the shop to 
 be bound, or any others he could borrow from friends. At- 
 tracted by one science after another, and rinding, as most eager 
 minds do, a charm in each, he finally settled to metaphysics, 
 because, as he sometimes shrewdly observed, among other rec- 
 ommendations it has this, that it requires fewer books than 
 other branches of study, and may be followed at the least ex- 
 pense. * 4 It appeared to be a thorny path ; but I determined 
 nevertheless to enter and begin to tread it," he remarks ; and 
 adds, " To metaphysics I then applied myself, and became 
 what the world and Dr. Clarke call a METAPHYSICIAN." 
 
 By the advice and help of friends he resolved, in January, 
 1787, to commence business on his own account. His savings 
 at this time amounted to only fourteen shillings. He was there- 
 fore compelled to borrow capital, or remain a journeyman. It 
 was not difficult, however, to find a man in St. Austell who was 
 willing to trust the now steady and hard-working shoemaker. 
 A miller advanced him 5 on the security of his good character, 
 saying, " And more if that's not enough, and I'll promise not 
 to demand it till you can conveniently pay me." Fortunately 
 for him, at this time Dr. Franklin's " Way to Wealth " came 
 into his hands, and impressed him deeply with its sage maxims 
 and sound principles of business and thrift. On one maxim, 
 though severe, he often at this time acted literally, u It is bet- 
 ter to go supperless to bed than to rise in debt." The account 
 which he gives of the hard work and rigid economy, and the 
 good fruits they bore, during his first year's experience of busi 
 
SAMUEL DREW. 117 
 
 ness, is highly creditable to him, and will he best told in his 
 own words : " Eighteen hours out of the twenty-four did I regu- 
 larly work, and sometimes longer, for my friends gave me 
 plenty of employment, and until the bills became due I had no 
 means of paying wages to a journeyman. I was indefatigable, 
 and at the year's end I had the satisfaction of paying the five 
 pounds which had been so kindly lent me, and finding myself, 
 with a tolerable stock of leather, clear of the world. " This 
 wise resolve to pay his way and to live within his means, so vig- 
 orously carried out from the very beginning, was of the utmost 
 service to him all through life, and saved him from the worry 
 and discredit by which so many men of genius and literary gifts 
 have been hampered and thwarted in their work. When once 
 the resolute shoemaker had made a fair start and conquered the 
 difficulties of early business-life, he was always at liberty to de- 
 vote his mind to his favorite pursuits. He was poor enough, it 
 is true ; but he was comparatively independent, for he was free 
 from debt. Nor did he forget others in their need. Many 
 stories are told of his generosity. He was never rash and prod- 
 igal in his giving, but acted on the best rules of common sense 
 and high principle. He would not give while he was himself 
 in debt, sticking closely to the rule, " Be just before you are 
 generous," yet never making that wise adage a cloak, as some 
 do, for stinginess. Nothing could be mere characteristic of his 
 wisdom and kindliness than the story told by his sister of his 
 coming home after being invited to dinner with a friend, and 
 saying, " The people at the place where I have been very kindly 
 invited me to dinner ; I can now honestly give away my own. 
 Bring out what meat you have left ; cut from it as much as you 
 think I should have eaten, and carry it to Alice H. " At an- 
 other time he observed a poor woman, " with an empty basket 
 on one arm and a child on the other, looking wistfully at the 
 butchers' stalls ;" and adds, " I guessed from her mariner that 
 she had no money, and was ashamed to ask credit : so as I 
 passed her I put half a crown into her hand. The good woman 
 was so affected that she burst into tears, and I could not help 
 crying for company. " Having been enabled to start in busi- 
 ness by a loan of money, he showed his gratitude by helping 
 others in the same position, and, strange to say, a change of 
 fortune having overtaken his old friend, the miller, Drew had 
 the satisfaction of helping him in his time of need. 
 
 An incident which happened about this time will show to 
 what dangers his social disposition and fondness for debate ex- 
 
118 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 posed him, and how slight an incident saved him from the 
 snare. He had become enamoured of political matters, and dis- 
 cussed them very vigorously with his customers and others who 
 made his work-room a meeting-place where they might hear and 
 debate the latest news. Sometimes these discussions drew him 
 from home into the house of a neighbor, and so absorbed his 
 time that he found himself at the end of the day far behind in 
 his work, and obliged to sit up till midnight in order to finish 
 it. One night, however, he received a severe rebuke from 
 some anonymous counsellor, which effectually put a stop to this 
 bad habit. As he sat at work after most of the neighbors were 
 in bed, he heard footsteps at the door, and presently a boy's 
 shrill voice accosted him through the keyhole with this sage re- 
 mark : " Shoemaker, shoemaker, work by night, and run about 
 by day !" " And did you/' inquired a friend to whom Drew 
 told the story, " pursue the boy and chastise him for his inso- 
 lence ?" " No, no," replied Drew, who had the wisdom to 
 see that there was more fault in himself than the boy, and had 
 also the moral courage and firmness of character to turn the an- 
 noyance to profitable account " No, no. Had a pistol been 
 fired off at my ear I could not have been more dismayed or con- 
 founded. I dropped my work, saying to myself, ' True, true, 
 but you shall never have that to say of me again !' ' Right 
 well did he keep to his resolve, and with what results we shall 
 see. 
 
 In 1791, at the age of twenty-seven, he married Honor Halls 
 of St. Austell, and now, fairly settled in his domestic affairs, he 
 devoted his attention and leisure time, such as he could snatch 
 from intervals of work, to careful reading and thought on phil- 
 osophical and religious subjects. His first literary productions 
 were, according to rule in such cases, in the shape of poetry. 
 " An Ode to Christmas," dated 1791, and " Reflections on St. 
 Austell Churchyard," dated 1792, appear to have been his ear- 
 liest attempts. Though he had fine poetic feeling and consid- 
 erable readiness in expression, he was not destined to shine in 
 this field of literature. His first venture in print was entitled 
 " Remarks on Paine's * Age of Reason.' " This infidel work 
 by the notorious Tom Paine had many readers and great influ- 
 ence among the working class at the close of the last century. 
 It appears that a young surgeon who had been in the habit of 
 visiting the thoughtful and well-read shoemaker, had procured 
 a copy of the " Age of Reason," and had read and endorsed 
 its atheistic doctrines. He strongly urged Drew to read the 
 
SAMUEL DREW. 119 
 
 book, in order that they might discuss its contents together. 
 The two disputants met night after night, the shoemaker attack- 
 ing and the surgeon defending the principles of the famous 
 intide! book. At length the discussion came to an end by 
 the surgeon giving up his faith in Voltaire, Kousseau, Gibbon, 
 Hume, and Tom Paine, and accepting the teaching and consola- 
 tion of the religion of Jesus Christ. The young man died soon 
 after this occurrence, and confessed to the great service which 
 had been rendered him by Samuel Drew in removing doubt and 
 laying the basis for Christian faith. On showing his notes of 
 this discussion to two Wesleyan preachers then stationed at St. 
 Austell, he was advised to publish them, and did so in 1799. 
 This pamphlet had a rapid sale. It was, as we have said, 
 Drew's introduction to the world of literature, and it brought 
 him no little fame and credit in the religious world of his day. 
 Great was the astonishment evinced when it was known that the 
 writer of what was deemed a masterly piece of argument in 
 good, clear, forcible English was a " cobbler" and an entirely 
 self-taught man. The flattering reception and notice given to 
 this pamphlet emboldened him in the following year to venture 
 on the publication of an ode on the death, by accident, of an 
 influential townsman. A literary friend, who had praised his 
 tirst attempt very highly, spoke so plainly yet kindly of this 
 production that Drew very wisely abandoned the muse and 
 stuck to metaphysics and prose. In the same year also he 
 wrote a pamphlet which, in the locality of St. Austell, at all 
 events, sustained his fame. This was a reply to some asper- 
 sions cast on the Wesleyan Methodists by a clergyman, the 
 then vicar of Manaccan, Cornwall. So completely did the 
 worthy Methodist local preacher disprove the statements of the 
 clergyman, and withal in so temperate a spirit, that the latter 
 eventually not only confessed his defeat in a generous and manly 
 spirit, but very gracefully acknowledged his obligations to his 
 humble antagonist. Drew had now a greater task in hand 
 which was drawing near its completion. For several years ho 
 had occupied his mind with the subject of the immortality of 
 the soul, having read every book he could procure on the sub- 
 ject. None of these books quite satisfied him. " He imag- 
 ined," as he says, that the immortality of the soul admitted of 
 more rational proof than he had ever seen. Accordingly in 
 1798 he resolved to make notes of his thoughts on this vast 
 theme. In 1801 these were fully prepared for the press and 
 submitted to the judgment of the judicious friend referred to 
 
120 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 above Rev. John AVhittaker, of Ruan Lanyhorne, in Corn- 
 wall. By his advice Drew committed the work to the press, 
 with the title, " The Immateriality and Immortality of the 
 Soul." It was published by subscription ; " the best fam- 
 ilies" in the county giving their names as subscribers. The first 
 edition numbered 700 copies, of which subscriptions were en- 
 tered for 640. A few weeks after its publication, Drew re- 
 ceived a letter from a publisher in Bristol asking the author to 
 state his terms for the copyright. Twenty pounds and thirty 
 copies of the new edition was all he asked, so little did he sus- 
 pect the popularity his work would attain, and so low did he 
 rate his own abilities as an author. A pleasing circumstance 
 deserves mention here in connection with the appearance of the 
 first edition of this essay. A highly favorable review of it ap- 
 peared in the Anti-Jacobin, which Drew afterward discovered 
 to have been written by no other than Mr. Polwhele, the cler- 
 gyman whose pamphlet anent the Wesleyans Drew had so reso- 
 lutely and successfully attacked. Such an act of grace was in- 
 finitely creditable to the critic as well as gratifying to the 
 author. In regard to the history of this essay, the following 
 note, written by Samuel Drew's son,* is full of interest : 
 " After passing through five editions in England and two in 
 America, and being translated and printed in France, the ' Es- 
 say on the Soul/ the copyright of which Mr. Drew had disposed 
 of on the terms just named, and which, before its first appear- 
 ance, a Cornish bookseller had refused at the price of ten 
 pounds, became again his property at the end of twenty-eight 
 years. He gave it a final revision, added much important mat- 
 ter, and sold it a second time for 250." 
 
 The literary reputation of the metaphysical shoemaker was 
 now established. Journals and reviews spoke in terms of high 
 praise. Literary men, clergymen, and ministers of various de- 
 nominations, wrote in congratulatory terms, and proffered 
 friendship and assistance. The best libraries in the locality 
 were placed at his service, and invitations or visits came so thick 
 upon him, that the modest shoemaker was at times fairly bewil- 
 dered by them. A little book, issued in 1803, the year after 
 Drew's essay appeared, brought his circumstances before the 
 public. It was entitled, ' * Literature and Literary Characters 
 of Cornwall," and was edited by the above-named Mr. Polwhele. 
 To this book Drew, by request of the editor, sent a short auto- 
 
 * Samuel Drew, M.A., the self-taught Cornishman." By his Eldest 
 Son. P. 102. London : Ward & Co. 
 
SAMUEL DREW. 121 
 
 * 
 
 biographical sketch. " His lowly origin, " says his son, " and 
 humble situation being thus made public, the singular contrast 
 which it presented to his growing literary fame attracted much 
 attention. St. Austell became noted as the birthplace and res- 
 idence of Mr. Drew, and strangers coming into the county for 
 the gratification of their curiosity did not consider that object 
 accomplished until they had seen ' the metaphysical shoe- 
 maker/ ' Referring to those flattering attentions, he once 
 shrewdly observed : " These gentlemen certainly honor me by 
 their visits ; but I do not forget that many of them merely wish 
 to say that they have seen the cobbler who wrote abook." 
 
 The following picture of the literary shoemaker during this 
 period of his life must not be omitted here, for it gives us a 
 glimpse of his method of working at this time when employed 
 on his double task " of making boots and books. It recalls the 
 sketch given in the life of Bloomfield, much of whose poetry 
 was composed under similar conditions. Indeed, it were hard 
 to say who had the worst of it, the poet in the crowded garret 
 or the theologian in the noisy kitchen. The first paragraph is 
 written by Samuel Drew himself, and the second by his son. 
 
 " During my literary pursuits I regularly and constantly at- 
 tended on my business, and I do not recollect that through 
 these one customer was ever disappointed by me. My mode of 
 writing and study may have in them, perhaps, something pe- 
 culiar. Immersed in the common concerns of life, I endeavor 
 to lift my thoughts to objects more sublime than those with 
 which I am surrounded ; and, while attending to my trade, I 
 sometimes catch the fibres of an argument which I endeavor to 
 note, and keep a pen and ink by me for that purpose. In this 
 state what I can collect through the day remains on any paper 
 which I may have at hand till the business of the day is de- 
 spatched and my shop shut, when, in the midst of my family, 
 I endeavor to analyze such thoughts as had crossed my mind 
 during the day. I have no study, I have no retirement. I 
 write amid the cries and cradles of my children ; and frequently 
 when I review what I have written, endeavor to cultivate 4 the 
 art to blot.' Such are the methods which I have pursued, and 
 such the disadvantages under which I write." 
 
 " His usual seat," adds his son, " after closing the business 
 of the day, was a low nursing-chair beside the kitchen-fire. 
 Here, with the bellows on his knees for a desk, and the usual 
 culinary and domestic matters in progress around him, his 
 works, prior to 1805, were chiefly written." 
 
122 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tf 
 
 Samuel Drew's life as a shoemaker came to an end with the 
 year 1805. It will not be possible for us to give in detail the 
 events which fill up the remainder of his honorable career. 
 Nor is it needful ; the chief interest of his history lies in that 
 portion of it which shows us the self-taught Coruishman plying 
 his lowly craft while he lays the foundation for his fame as a 
 theologian. His preaching engagements were very numerous 
 from the time when he was first put on the Wesleyan preachers' 
 "plan," and they were never suspended until within a few 
 weeks of his death. His status as a local preacher was of the 
 very best, and frequently brought him into the company of the 
 leading men of his denomination. His friendship with Mr., 
 now Dr., Adam Clarke, one of the leading men among the 
 Wesleyans, had been maintained from the time when Clarke 
 was on the St. Austell circuit. The good name acquired by 
 Drew as a literary man, and his high standing among his own 
 religious society, led to his appointment under Dr. Coke, the 
 founder of the Wesleyan Methodist Missions. The shoemaker 
 now abandoned the awl and last for the pen, and devoted him- 
 self, as a secretary and joint-editor, entirely to literary work. 
 He assisted Dr. Coke in preparing for the press his " Com- 
 mentary on the New Testament," " History of the Bible," and 
 other works. In 1806, through Dr. Adam Clarke's influence, 
 Drew began to contribute to the Eclectic Review. Before he 
 had abandoned the shoemaker's stall the materials for another 
 theological work had been collected and partly prepared for 
 publication. Having treated the question of the Immortality 
 of the Soul, he had wished, and was strongly urged by several 
 clerical friends, to take up the subject of the 4< Identity and Res- 
 urrection of the Human Body." A work bearing this title ap- 
 peared in 1809, having been submitted in manuscript to his old 
 friends the Revs. Mr. Whittaker and Mr. Gregor, and to Arch- 
 deacon Moore. It was not a little remarkable that men of this 
 class should have been the foremost to patronize and aid the 
 Methodist shoemaker in his .literary enterprises, and that one 
 of them should call himself t4 friend and admirer," while an- 
 other spoke of feeling ' 4 a pride and pleasure in- being employed 
 as the scourer of his armor." The most extensive work Drew 
 ventured to publish was entitled " A Treatise on the Being and 
 Attributes of God." This was undertaken at the earnest solic- 
 itation of Dr. Reid, then Professor of Oriental Languages at 
 the Marischal College, Aberdeen, as a competition for a prize 
 of 1500 offered for the best essay on that subject. Though 
 
SAMUEL DREW. 123 
 
 this work failed to gain the first place in the list, it stood very 
 high, and, certainly, it was no small testimony to its worth 
 that it should have been deemed worthy to rank as a close com- 
 petitor with the successful works of Dr. A. M. Brown, Principal 
 of Marischal College, and the Rev. J. B. Sumner, afterward 
 Bishop of Chester and Archbishop of Canterbury. Drew's 
 treatise was not published till 1820, when it came out in two 
 octavo volumes. In 1813 he published a controversial pam- 
 phlet on the Divinity of Christ, which had a large sale, and for 
 which, such was the value now set on his writings, his pub- 
 lisher, Mr. Edwards, paid as much as he had previously given 
 for the Essay on the Soul. Under the direction of F. Hitch- 
 ens, Esq., of St. Ives, Drew now took up a laborious task which 
 had been in that gentleman's hands for several years, and 
 brought it to completion. This was the publication of a His- 
 tory of Cornwall. It appeared in 1815-17, and consisted of 
 1500 quarto pages, all of which " was sent to the printer in 
 his/ 1 Drew's, " own manuscript." At the request of the ex- 
 ecutors of Dr. Coke, Drew published a memoir of his friend, 
 whic'h appeared in 1817. This task made a visit io London 
 necessary. Here the learned shoemaker met with the Rev. 
 Legh Richmond, author of " The Dairyman's Daughter/' and 
 with Dr. Mason of New York. He was, of course, asked to 
 preach in several London " circuits/' where his fame as a 
 writer had preceded him. His '* uncouth and unclerical ap- 
 pearance," for he wore top-boots and light-colored breeches, 
 excited no small curiosity ; but his excellent preaching and de- 
 lightful simplicity and modesty of manner awoke universal re- 
 spect. The preacher was fifty years of age (1815) when he 
 paid this visit to the metropolis, and it was the first time he had 
 travelled more than a few miles from the locality where he was 
 born. 
 
 But a journey of more importance still was taken in 1819, 
 when he went down to Liverpool to negotiate for the editorship 
 of a new magazine to be issued from the Caxton Establishment, 
 then in the hands of Mr. Fisher. Drew was finally engaged as 
 permanent editor on this establishment, and the publication of 
 which he had the management, bearing the title, The Imperial 
 Magazine, became a complete success. Though sold at one 
 shilling, it had a circulation of 7000 during the first year. The 
 destruction of the premises by fire compelled the removal of the 
 Caxton Establishment to London, where Drew remained at the 
 post of editor for the rest of his life. In 1824 the degree of 
 
1X ; 4 ILLUSTRIOUS. SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 A.M. was conferred on him by the Marischal College, Aber- 
 deen. We have alluded to the request made by some members 
 of the Council of the London University, that he would allow 
 himself to be nominated for the Chair of Moral Philosophy. 
 This request was made in 1830 ; but Samuel Drew, who was 
 now sixty-five years of age, was beginning to feel the effects of 
 his long life of hard work, and to sigh for rest. His chief 
 wish was to end his days in his native county, among the scenes 
 of his boyhood and youth, and amid the associations that clus- 
 tered round the place where he had first learned to think and 
 write, and make for himself a name in the world of letters. 
 This wish was hardly fulfilled ; for, holding on to his daily 
 routine of office work from year to year in the hope of retiring 
 with a competence for himself and his children, he was at 
 length compelled on 2d March, 1333, the last day of his sixty- 
 eighth year, to lay down his pen. His life-work was now over. 
 Within a few days he left London for the home of his daughter 
 at Helston in Cornwall, where on the 29th of March he died. 
 It was his comfort, during the last days of his life, to be sur- 
 rounded by a circle of deeply attached relatives, and on several 
 occasions, when his head was supported by one of his children, 
 he repeated the lines of his favorite poem, the " Elegy" by 
 Gray : 
 
 " On some fond breast the parting soul relies : 
 Some pious drops the closing eye requires." 
 
 His faith in the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, which 
 he had so ably advocated, afforded him profound consolation in 
 his last hours. On the day before his death he said, with all 
 the eagerness of keen anticipation, " Thank God, to-morrow I 
 shall join the glorious company above !" 
 
 Monuments to his memory were erected over the grave in 
 Helston Churchyard, and in the Wesleyan chapel and parish 
 church at St. Austell. On each of these the inhabitants of his 
 native town and county bore strong testimony to the affection 
 and regard felt by all who knew him for the " self-taught Cor- 
 nish metaphysician. ' ' 
 
WILLIAM CAREY, D. D. 
 
OTarcg, 
 
 THE SHOEMAKER WHO TRANSLATED THE BIBLE INTO 
 BENGALI AND HINDOSTANI. 
 
 "Xo, sir! only a cobbler." Dr. William Carey. 
 
 " I am indeed poor, and shall always be so until the Bible is published 
 in Bengali and Hindostani, and the people want no further instruction." 
 Dr. William Carey, Letter from India, 1794. 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 
 
 BETWEEN the years 1786 and 1789, when William Gifford, 
 just liberated by the generous interference of a friend from the 
 yoke of apprenticeship to a, cruel master, was receiving in- 
 struction frorrAhe Rev. Thomas Smerdon, when Robert Bloom- 
 field, a journeyman shoemaker in London, was preparing in his 
 mind the materials for the '* Farmer's Boy," and when Samuel 
 Drew, the young shoemaker of St. Austell, was reading " Locke 
 on the Understanding, " and learning to think and reason as a 
 metaphysician, there lived at Moulton in Northamptonshire a 
 poor shoemaker, school-teacher, and village pastor, who was 
 cherishing in his great heart the project of forming a society 
 for the purpose of sending out Christian missionaries to the 
 heathen world. This poor young man, in spite of his obscure 
 position, his meagre social influence, his limited resources, and 
 his lack of early educational advantages, became the originator 
 of the great foreign missionary enterprises which constitute so 
 remarkable a feature in the religious history of this country at 
 the close of the last and the beginning of the present century. 
 He was the first missionary chosen to be sent out by the com- 
 mittee of the society he had been the means of establishing. 
 His field of labor was India, where for more than forty years, 
 " without a visit to England or even a voyage to sea to recruit 
 his strength," and without losing a vestige of his early enthu- 
 siasm for his Christian enterprise, he toiled on at the work of 
 preaching the gospel and translating the Sacred Scriptures. 
 From 1801 to 1830, Ii3 was Professor of Oriental Languages in 
 a college founded at Fort William by the Marquis of Wellesley, 
 Governor-General of India. As an Oriental linguist he had few 
 equals in his day, and few have ever exceeded him in the 
 extent and exactitude of his acquaintance with the languages of 
 India. He compiled grammars and dictionaries in Mahratta, 
 Sanskrit, Punjabi, Telugu, Bengali, and Bhotana. But his 
 chief work was the translation of the Scriptures into Bengali 
 and other languages. No less than twenty-four different trans- 
 lations of the Bible were made and edited by him, and passed 
 through the press at Serampore under his supervision. One 
 
130 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 account speaks of " two hundred thousand Bibles, or portions 
 thereof, in about forty Oriental languages or dialects, besides a 
 great number of tracts and other religious works in various lan- 
 guages ;" and adds that " a great proportion of the actual liter- 
 ary labor involved in these undertakings was performed " by 
 this prodigious worker. A truly noble life-work was* this for 
 any man. It may be questioned if more work of a solid and 
 useful character was ever pressed into one human life. Wliat 
 monarch or ruler of a vast empire, what statesman or judge, 
 what scientific or literary worker, what man of genius in busi- 
 ness or the professions, has ever thrown more Energy into his 
 life-work or achieved more worthy results for all his toil than 
 this humble shoemaker and village pastor from Northampton- 
 shire, who first gave to the various races of Northern India the 
 Bible in their own language ? 
 
 No one who is at all familiar with the work of the Christian 
 Church in the present century, will need to be told that we are 
 speaking of the famous pioneer missionary to Bengal, Dr. Wil- 
 liam Carey. And surely no list of illustrious shoemakers would 
 be complete that did not include the name of this good man. 
 His experience of the *' gentle craft " was somewhat extensive. 
 He was bound apprentice to the trade, and afterward worked 
 as a journeyman for more than twelve years. When he became 
 known to the world, he was often spoken of as " the learned 
 shoemaker." Indeed, he was not always honored with so re- 
 spectful a title as this. More often than not he was alluded to 
 as " the cobbler, " and his own strict honesty and modesty of 
 spirit led him to prefer the latter epithet. His humble origin 
 and occupation were sometimes the occasion of an empty sneer 
 on the part of men whose class feeling and religious prejudice 
 prevented their appreciation of his splendid mental gifts and 
 high purpose in life, and who consequently endeavored, but in 
 vain, to bring his grand and Christ-like undertaking into con- 
 tempt. That famous wit, the Rev. Sydney Smith, sometime 
 prebendary of Bristol and canon of St. Paul's, tried to set the 
 world laughing at the u consecrated cobbler/' It was a sorry 
 joke, and quite unworthy of a Christian minister, and must have 
 been sorely repented of in after-years. One would have 
 thought that Sydney Smith's undoubted piety, and natural 
 kindliness of heart, let along his strong bias in favor of all that 
 was liberal in religion and politics, would have saved him from 
 such a cruel and flippant sneer. But wit is a brilliant and dan- 
 gerous weapon, and few men know how to use it as much as 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 131 
 
 * 
 
 Sydney Smith did without injury to their own reputation or 
 the feelings of other people. 
 
 Carey, as we have said, did not object to being called a 
 " cobbler," although the term did not accurately describe his 
 degree of proficiency in the trade. It was reported in North- 
 amptonshire that he was a poor workman, the neighbors declar- 
 ing that though he made boots, he " could never make a 
 pair." * In a letter to Dr. Ryland he contradicts this report 
 and says : " The childish story of my shortening a shoe to 
 make it longer is entitled to no credit. I was accounted a very 
 good workman, and recollect Mr. Old keeping a pair of shoes 
 which I had made in his shop as a model of good workman- 
 ship.' 7 He cautiously adds, " But the best workmen some- 
 times, from various causes, put bad work out of their hands, 
 and I have no doubt but I did so too." f This is more than 
 likely, for he was subject to long fits of mental abstraction as he 
 sat at the stall : 
 
 "His eyes 
 Were with his heart, and that was far away." 
 
 He pined for the field of missions and chafed against the cruel 
 " bars of circumstance" that kept him in his native land. 
 While engaged in shoemaking, he was so intent on learning 
 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew that he often forgot to fit the shoes 
 to the last. No wonder if shoes were not " a pair," and were 
 sometimes returned ; no wonder that while he became one of 
 the first linguists in the world in his day he was spoken of by 
 his neighbors as nothing more than " a cobbler !" With ref- 
 erence to his poor abilities in the craft a good story is told of 
 the way in which he silenced an officious person whose " false 
 pride in place and blood" had betrayed him into some dis- 
 paraging remarks about Carey as a shoemaker. His biog- 
 rapher J says : " Some thirty years after this period, dining 
 one day with the Governor-General, Lord Hastings, at Barrak- 
 pore, a general officer made an impertinent inquiry of one of 
 
 * "Baptist Jubilee Memorial." London : Simpkin, Marshall, 1842, 
 p. 83. 
 
 f" Memoir of Dr. Carey," by the Rev. Eustace Carey. London : 
 Jackson & Walford, 2d edition, 1837, p. 16. 
 
 J J. C. Marshman, in " The Story of Carey, Marshman, and Ward ;" 
 London, J. Heaton & Sons, 1864, p. 6. See also an account of 
 Carey's life and work in ' ' The Missionary Keepsake and Annual, " by 
 Eev. John Dyer ; London, Fisher & Co., 1837 ; and " The Life of Dr. 
 Carey," by the Rev. Eustace Carey ; London, 1837. 
 
132 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 4 
 
 the aides-de-camp whether Dr. Carey had not once been a shoe- 
 maker. He happened to overhear the conversation, and im- 
 mediately stepped forward and said, " No, sir ; only a cob- 
 bler !" 
 
 In the brief story we have to tell of the life of this remarka- 
 ble man, we shall, as seems most appropriate to our purpose, 
 confine our remarks almost entirely to the work he accomplished 
 before he ceased to be a shoemaker. His father and grand- 
 father held the position of parish clerk and schoolmaster at 
 Pury, or Paulersbury, in Northamptonshire, where William 
 Carey was born, 17th August, 1761. His only education was 
 received in the village school, and this was very slight and rudi- 
 mentary ; yet it was sufficient to give him a start in the work 
 of educating himself. As a boy he was always fond of reading, 
 and chose such books as referred to natuial history. Botany 
 and entomology were favorite subjects. His bedroom was 
 turned into a sort of museum, chiefly remarkable for butterflies 
 and beetles. Of books of travel and accounts of voyages he 
 never seems to have wearied ; the history and geography of any 
 country also afforded him special delight. lie was a bright, 
 active, good-looking, intelligent boy, by no means a recluse 
 and bookworm, caring nothing for out-door exercise and 
 sports. He was as fond of games as any boy in the village, and 
 as clever at them, and so became a general favorite. His quick- 
 ness of intellect and perseverance with any hobby he took up 
 often led the neighbors to predict success for him in future 
 life. The perseverance and courage, which were such marked 
 features of his character as a man, were shown in his boyhood 
 by a curious incident. Attempting to climb a tree one day, he 
 fell and broke his leg, and was an invalid for six weeks. As 
 soon as he could crawl to the bottom of the garden, he made 
 his way to the very tree from which he had fallen, climbed to 
 the top of it, and brought down one of the highest branches, 
 which he carried into the house, exclaiming, " There, I knew 
 I would do it !" 
 
 At the age of twelve he showed the first signs of a taste and 
 capacity for the acquisition of languages. A copy of Dyche's 
 Latin Grammar and Vocabulary had come into his hands, and 
 he at once set to work, of his own free will and choice, to study 
 the introductory portion, and to commit all the Latin words, 
 with their meanings, to memory. Such an incident as this was 
 quite enough to show that he was a boy of no common mind, 
 and that he would well repay any outlay that might be made in 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 133 
 
 giving him a classical training. But that was out of the ques- 
 tion ; the village school could not afford such a training, and 
 anything better, in the shape of grammar-school or college, was 
 not to be had, for his friends were poor and had no patrons to 
 assist them. What he might have done in an university it is 
 idle to suppose. Undoubtedly, he would have distinguished 
 himself, but it may be reasonably doubted whether he would 
 have been led into the path of Christian philanthropy and use- 
 fulness which the stress of circumstances at Moulton led him to 
 think and adopt. It must have been painful for his parents, 
 with their sense of the boy's merits and ambition as a scholar, 
 to see him languishing at hoine, unable to find sufficient food 
 for his hungry and capacious young mind, while they also were 
 unable to satisfy his passion for books, or send him to a school 
 adequate to his requirements. And doubly painful must it have 
 been for him as for them, when they felt that the time had 
 come for him to learn a trade, and the thought of further 
 schooling must be given up. 
 
 One can imagine his feelings when told that he must be ap- 
 prenticed to a shoemaker. Not that such an occupation was 
 necessarily a bugbear to a boy in his position, for thousands of 
 village lads would not have regarded it in that light ; but it 
 was so to him. His heart had been set on a very different kind 
 of occupation. He was eager for study, and felt within him 
 the movement of an impulse to do something great in the 
 world, and this apprenticeship was a bitter disappointment, sad- 
 dening his young heart, and quenching for a time all his bright 
 hopes. But only for a time did he lose heart. He was one of 
 those who are no friends to despair, who do not understand 
 defeat, and whose spirit and determination rise in the face of 
 difficulties. It was not to be expected in his circumstances that 
 life could offer him any position of greater honor or advantage 
 than a cobbler's stool. He would not, therefore, murmur at 
 his necessary lot. He would rather take to it with as good a 
 grace as possible, and make the best of it. He would use every 
 means and chance of self-improvement, and if he could not 
 have his heart's desire in the way he had intended, he would 
 have it in some other way ; anyhow he would have it. A 
 broken purpose should no more stand in the way of his climb- 
 ing the " tree of knowledge" than a broken leg had prevented 
 his climbing to the top of the tree in his father's garden. 
 
 So he settled to his work with Charles Nickolls of Hackleton 
 at the age of fourteen, with no prospect but that of being 
 
134 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 bound to wield the awl and bend over the last until he had come 
 to be twenty-one years of age. Soon after entering the shoe- 
 maker's room he found a copy of the New Testament, in the 
 notes to which occurred a number of Greek words. This 
 opened up another field of study, and he determined to enter 
 upon it. Copying out the words, he took them for explanation 
 to a young man who was a weaver in the village where his 
 father lived. This weaver came from Kidderminster, had seen 
 better days, and had received a good education. He assisted 
 young Carey, then fifteen years of age, in mastering the rudi- 
 ments of Greek. With such a start he did not rest until he 
 had procured and could read the Greek New Testament. In 
 the second year of his apprenticeship his indentures were can- 
 celled on account of the death of his master, and Carey became 
 a journeyman, of course at very low wages, under Mr. Old. At 
 this time there lived in the neighborhood a clergyman who was 
 one of the lights of a dark period in the religious history of 
 this country the Rev, Thomas Scott, the popular evangelical 
 preacher, writer, and Bible commentator, llis own career was 
 very remarkable. From the position of a laboring man he had 
 risen to oocupy good rank as a clergyman, and with very mea- 
 gre advantages in early life he had become, or was rapidly be- 
 coming, one of the best sacred classics in the country. The 
 man who had laid aside the shepherd's smock for the clergy- 
 man's surplice, and who on one occasion doffed his clerical at- 
 tire, donned the shepherd's clothes again, and sheared eleven 
 large sheep on an afternoon, was not likely to neglect or over- 
 look a youth of more than ordinary intelligence and application 
 to study because the youth happened to spend his days at the 
 shoemaker's stall. Mr. Scott on his visiting rounds now and 
 then turned in at Mr. Old's, and was struck with the boy's 
 bright look and rapt attention to any remarks that the visitor 
 might make. Occasionally young Carey would venture to ask 
 a question. So appropriate and far-seeing were his inquiries 
 that Mr. Scott discerned his young friend's uncommon powers, 
 and often declared that he would prove to be 4 * no ordinary 
 character.' 7 In later years, when William Carey was known 
 throughout England as a pioneer in mission work, as a great 
 Oriental linguist, and the first translator of the New Testament 
 into Bengali, Mr. Scott, as he passed by the old room where the 
 thoughtful and studious young shoemaker had once sat at work, 
 would point to it and say, " That was Mr. Carey's college." 
 But with all this mental activity and zest for knowledge there 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 135 
 
 was no moral purpose in his life, and as lie grew older he be- 
 came more and more loose and careless in his habits, and, as 
 he himself would have it, even vicious, until he came to be 
 about eighteen years of age. But there is no proof of any evil 
 conduct to justify the use of such a term as u vicious" in de- 
 scribing his life at this time. He spoke of himself, no doubt, 
 after the religious fashion of the age, and judged his early con- 
 duct by the severe moral standard adopted by his co-religion- 
 i<ts. His complete mental awakening, like that of Samuel 
 Drew, seems to have come as a result of the moral change 
 wrought in him at the time of'his religious conversion. A vari- 
 ety of causes, as is the rule, led to this crucial event in his life, 
 " that vital change of heart which laid the foundation of his 
 Christian character." First of all he was indebted to the good 
 example of a fellow- workman, then to the earnest preaching of 
 the Rev. Thomas Scott. Mr. Marshman says, ki It was chiefly 
 to the ministrations of Mr. Scott that Carey was indebted for 
 the progress he made in his religious career, and he never 
 omitted through life to acknowledge the deep obligation under 
 which he had been laid by his instructions." Brought up as a 
 strict Churchman, he was confirmed at a suitable age, and reg- 
 ularly attended the services at the parish church. But at the 
 time we are speaking of, when personal religion became the 
 chief subject of his thoughts, he sought light and help by every 
 available means. The little Baptist community, among whom 
 he had many friends, showed him much sympathy : he began 
 to attend their meetings for prayer, and eventually cast in his 
 lot among them. They encouraged him to become a preacher, 
 and his first sermon, delivered at Hackleton when he was nine- 
 teen years of age, was delivered in one of their assemblies. 
 For three and a half years he was on the preachers' plan, and 
 regularly li supplied the pulpits" in this village and Earl's Bar- 
 ton as a kind of pastor. " It was during these ministerial en- 
 gagements," says his biographer, " that his views on the sub- 
 ject of baptism were altered, and he embraced the opinion that 
 baptism by immersion, after a confession of faith, was in ac- 
 cordance with the injunctions of Divine Writ and the practice 
 of the apostolic age. He was accordingly baptized by Dr. John 
 Kyland, his future associate in the cause of missions, who subse- 
 quently stated at a public meeting that, on the 7th of October, 
 1783, he baptized a poor journeyman shoemaker in the river Nene, 
 a little beyond Dr. Doddridge's chapel in Northampton." * 
 
 * " The Story of Carey, Marshman, and Ward," p. 4. 
 
j;36 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 During these years he was diligently prosecuting his studies, 
 and read the Scriptures in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Like 
 many another poor student, he was fain to borrow what he 
 could not buy in the way of books, and " laid the libraries of 
 all the friends around him under contribution." Notwith- 
 standing his extraordinary abilities and diligence, he does not 
 seem to have displayed any marked qualities as a preacher. It 
 was with difficulty he got through his trial sermons before the 
 church of which he was now a member. The very decided 
 " personal influence" of the pastor, the Rev. John Suttcliffe, 
 was required to enable the modest young shoemaker to obtain 
 the church's sanction to his receiving " a call to the ministry." 
 The church to which he ministered at Earl's Barton was poor, 
 and scarcely able to keep its pastor in clothing, much less pro- 
 vide for his entire maintenance. For this he was dependent on 
 his trade, and as the times were now very bad he was obliged 
 to travel from village to village to dispose of his work and ob- 
 tain fresh orders. Nothing but the assistance of his relatives 
 saved him at this time from destitution. 
 
 And here we are bound to pause arid notice the greatest mis- 
 take Carey made in all his life. We refer to his marriage at 
 the age of twenty to the sister of his former employer. 
 44 This imprudent union," it is said, 44 proved a severe clog on 
 his exertions for more than twenty-five }ears. " The match was 
 about as unfortunate and unsuitable as a match could be. Mrs, 
 Carey was much older than her husband, ill-educated in mind 
 and temper, and quite incapable of sympathizing with her hus- 
 band's studies and projects. How he came to contract such a 
 miserable union passes comprehension, for he was remarkably 
 sensible and business-like in common affairs. But there are 
 those who can cultivate another man's vineyard while they 
 neglect their own, wise for others and simple for themselves ; 
 and in regard to this particular business, as Fronde the histo- 
 rian has well said, some men are apparently " destined to be un- 
 fortunate in their relations with women." The judicious 
 Hooker was judicious in everything else but the choice of a 
 wife, for he married a jade who was wont to give him the baby 
 to nurse and stand and scold him into Hhe bargain, as he sat 
 writing the works that were destined to make his name illustri- 
 ous for all time. Moliere, who exposed in the most masterly 
 manner in his plays the follies and foibles of the women of 
 Parisian society in his day, married, to his bitter regret, as 
 weak and vain a woman as any that figures in his own works. 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 137 
 
 Milton's second wife went home again within three months of 
 their wedding-day ; and John Wesley's wife left him a short 
 while after their marriage. But if these good men made a mis- 
 take in their choice, they one and all acted with good sense and 
 feeling in their treatment of their ill-matched partners. Noth- 
 ing could be better than the common -sense of stern John Wes- 
 ley in his reply to a friend who asked him if he would not send 
 for his truant wife home again. He answered in Latin, but 
 this is what his words mean, " I did not send her away, and I 
 will not fetch her back again*" Carey acted with much kind- 
 ness and discretion toward his miserable partner ; but he 
 found it harder to transform her into a sensible woman than 
 to transform his own Baptist Conference into a missionary 
 society.* 
 
 In 1786, he took the pastorate of a small church at Moulton ; 
 yet, even here, he was obliged to eke out his poor living by 
 shoemaking, and even to alld to his other labors the task of 
 teaching a school. For this task he was utterly unfit. How- 
 ever well he might teach himself, he could never teach boys. 
 He knew this, and was accustomed to say, " When I kept 
 school, it was the boys who kept me." His circumstances at 
 this time ought to be fully stated in order that the reader may 
 form borne idea of the hardship Carey had to endure and the 
 absorbing personal duties and cares in the midst of which he 
 began to cherish his great purpose " to convey the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ to some portion of the heathen world." His min- 
 isterial stipend from all sources and the proceeds of his school 
 would not together put him in the position of Goldsmith's ideal 
 village pastor, who was l i passing rich on forty pounds a year. ' ' 
 So that he was obliged, even at Moulton, to have recourse to 
 shoemaking. A friend of his at the time remarks, " Once a 
 fortnight Carey might be seen walking eight or ten miles to 
 Northampton, with his wallet full of shoes on his shoulder, and 
 then returning home with a fresh supply of leather.'' 
 
 The time spent at Moulton was, in spite of its many cares 
 and hardships, a time of great progress in study. It was dur- 
 ing these years he adopted the plan of allotting his time, a 
 plan to which he rigidly adhered all through his life, and by 
 
 * It ought to be said that in 1808, about a year after the death of 
 his first wife, Carey married Miss Bhumohr, a Danish lady of good 
 family and education, who proved a most congenial companion and 
 helper in his work. He was three times married : his third wife, who 
 survived him, was an excellent partner for a missionary. 
 
138 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 means of which he was able in after-years to accomplish tasks 
 which seemed to onlookers sufficient for the energies of two or 
 three ordinary men. Now began also the acquaintance with 
 men whose friendship was of the greatest service to a man like 
 Carey, and largely influenced and helped him in his life-work 
 Mr. Hall (the father of the eminent pulpit orator Robert Hall), 
 Dr. Ryland, John Suttcliffe, and Andrew Fuller. All these 
 lived within a few miles of each other, and belonged to the same 
 association of Baptist churches, called the Northamptonshire As- 
 sociation. It was at one of the meetings of this association 
 that Fuller first met with Carey and heard him preach. So de- 
 lighted was Fuller with the devout thoughtfulness and Christian 
 catholicity of Carey's discourse, that he met the preacher as he 
 came down from the pulpit and thanked him in the warmest 
 manner. In this cordial meeting commenced a friendship and 
 fellowship in Christian work which lasted for twenty years 
 until Fuller's death, and which proved a source of untold bless- 
 ings to the heathen world. 
 
 Carey's first thought of missions came into his mind when 
 reading Captain Cook's account of his voyage round the world. 
 He was in the habit of blending study with his task as a shoe- 
 maker, or while sitting among his boys at school. This book 
 impressed his imagination, and stirred his compassion to the 
 utmost, as he contemplated the vast extent of the world and 
 the large proportion of its inhabitants who were living in ignor- 
 ance of the true God, and of the Saviour of mankind. In or- 
 der to realize the facts more vividly, he constructed a large map 
 of the world, and marked it in such a manner as to indicate 
 the numerical relation of the heathen to the Christian nations. 
 This map was fixed on the wall in front of his work-stool, so 
 that he might raise his head occasionally and look upon it as 
 he sat at his daily toil. While he mused on the map and the 
 facts it represented, " the fire burned." It was the means of 
 inspiring in him the purpose never to tire nor rest until he and 
 others had gone out to convey the good news of the Gospel to 
 his suffering fellow-men in distant lands. It was to this cir- 
 cumstance that William Wilberforce alluded, in a speech made 
 in the House of Commons twenty years after, when, urging 
 Parliament to grant missionaries free access to India, he said : 
 " A sublimer thought cannot be conceived than when a poor 
 cobbler formed the resolution to give to the millions of Hin- 
 doos the Bible in their own language." 
 
 With this purpose in mind, Carey went to the meetings of 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 139 
 
 his brethren, longing for an opportunity of expressing his 
 thoughts and calling forth their sympathies. But he had to 
 endure a terrible trial at the outset a trial which only Chris- 
 tian faith and love could endure. The older men, who ruled in 
 an almost supreme manner in these councils, sternly rebuked 
 his presumption, as they deemed it, and called him an " enthu- 
 siast " a term employed very recently by a noble duke in the 
 House of Lords in the same connection. No term could have 
 described Carey more correctly. It was a term of honor, 
 though meant in reproach and condemnation. The word 
 means one inspjred by God, and surely Carey's Christlike 
 thought and zeal for his fellow-men was an inspiration. He 
 was an enthusiast of the type of Robert Raikes of Gloucester, 
 who only six or seven years before * had begun the work of 
 Sabbath-schools in that city ; or John Howard, whose great 
 work, published within a year orjtwo of this time,} on the con- 
 dition of the prisons in Europe, and especially in England and 
 Ireland, created a merciful revolution in the treatment of our 
 criminal class ; or Thomas Charles of Bala, whose pity for the 
 Welsh girl who had no Bible of her own, and had been unable 
 to walk six or seven miles to a place where she could have ac- 
 cess to one, led him to take steps which resulted in the forma- 
 tion of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The founder of 
 the Baptist Missionary Society was a man of this type, and such 
 men are the greatest benefactors of their race, no matter whether 
 they be clergymen like Charles, or country gentlemen like How- 
 ard, or cobblers and Nonconformist village pastors like Carey. 
 
 At the first meeting in which Carey ventured to submit the 
 subject of Christian missions, the senior minister present spoke 
 in the following oracular manner : " Brother Carey ought cer- 
 tainly to have known that nothing could be done before 
 another Pentecost, when an effusion of miraculous gifts, in- 
 cluding the gift of tongues, would give effect to the commis- 
 sion of Christ, as at the first ; and that he (Mr. Carey) was a 
 miserable enthusiast for asking such a question." And then, 
 as if to settle the whole question once for all, and shut the 
 mouth of Mr. Carey forever, the stern old man turned to the 
 humble young pastor and said, " What, sir ! can you preach 
 in Arabic, in Persic, in Hmdostani, in Bengali, that you think 
 it your duty to preach the gospel to the heathen ?" Little did 
 the speaker imagine that he was addressing the very man who 
 
 * The first Sunday-school was opened in Gloucester in 1780. 
 f Viz., 1789. 
 
140 ILLL'STKiOl'S SHOKMAKKKS. 
 
 would subsequently hold the office of Professor of Oriental Lan- 
 guages at Fort William for twenty years, become one of the 
 greatest proficients the world has known in two of the very lan- 
 guages he had named, and not only preach in them but trans- 
 late the Scriptures into them, as a boon and legacy of love to 
 the people of Hindostan. When on another occasion Carey, 
 nothing daunted by his first repulse, and willing to forgive and 
 forget his rebuff for the sake of the cause he cherished, asked 
 his brethren once more to consider the question of missions, the 
 same stern voice exclaimed, *' Young man, sit down ; when 
 God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your 
 aid or mine." 
 
 But the old man was not a prophet. God did not choose to 
 work without the aid of William Carey, though the time was 
 not yet. The undaunted moral hero had other battles to fight 
 before he stood on the field of missions. 
 
 In- 1789 Carey became the pastor of a church in Leicester. 
 For four years he labored zealously at his ministerial duties, 
 studied with great diligence, availing himself of new and valua- 
 ble friendships for this purpose, and never failing to bring up 
 his favorite theme for discussion at the meetings of the Baptist 
 ministers. Before he left Moulton, as we have seen, he began 
 to raise the question in the public assemblies. On one occasion 
 the debate ran on the question he had introduced, " Whether it 
 were not practicable, and our bounden duty, to attempt some- 
 what toward spreading the gospel in the heathen world ?" 
 Not satisfied with the result of such discussions, the village 
 shoemaker and pastor sat down to write ^a pamphlet on this sub- 
 ject, entitled " Thoughts on Christian Missions." When he 
 showed this pamphlet to his friends Fuller, Suttcljffe, and Ry- 
 land, they were amazed at the amount of knowledge it dis- 
 played, and deeply moved by Carey's zeal and persistence in 
 the good cause ; but all they could do in the matter was to put 
 him off for a time by counselling him to revise his production. 
 It appears that at the time this brochure was penned the poor 
 shoemaker with his family were " in a state bordering on star- 
 vation, and passed many weeks without animal food, and with 
 but a scanty supply of bread." 
 
 In the year 1791, at a meeting held at Clipstone in North- 
 amptonshire, Carey again read his pamphlet, and was requested 
 to publish it. This was a decided step in advance, and pre- 
 pared the way for the events of the following year, when the 
 desire of his- heart was accomplished in the formation of a mis- 
 
\TILLt Ati 'CAREY. 141 
 
 sionary society. In May, 1*792, he preached the famous sermon 
 which is said to have done more than anything else to consum- 
 mate this missionary enterprise.* The two main propositions 
 of this discourse have passed into something like a proverb on 
 the lips of missionary advocates : " Expect great things from 
 God ; attempt great things for God. ' ' Although the discourse 
 made a deep impression, Carey was distressed beyond all self- 
 control when he found his friends were about to separate with- 
 out a distinct resolution to form a society. He seized Andrew 
 Fuller's hand " in an agony of distress,' 7 and tearfully pleaded 
 that some steps should at once' be taken. Overcome at last by 
 his entreaties, they solemnly resolved on the holy enterprise. 
 
 After this the history of the Society is a record of meetings, 
 committees, travels, and labors, of deputations to the churches, 
 difficulties and embarrassments, in the midst of which no one 
 was more devoted and useful in ^bringing the plans of the 
 young Society into working order than Carey's valuable friend, 
 Andrew Fuller. The first subscription list was made up at 
 another meeting of the Association, held at Kettering, in Carey's 
 own county, in the autumn of the same year. Its promises 
 amounted to 13 2s. 6d. This little fund was the precursor 
 of the tens of thousands which have since flowed into the treas- 
 uries of our modern Christian Missionary Societies. In twenty- 
 nine days after the fund was started at Kettering, Birmingham 
 followed with the noble gift of 70. 
 
 The Society was now fairly started, with the resolution for- 
 mally recorded on its minute-books " to convey the message of 
 salvation to some portion of the heathen world." On the 9th 
 of January, 1793, Carey and a colleague were appointed by the 
 Committee to proceed at once to India. Carey's colleague was 
 a man of extraordinary missionary zeal, who had ** lately re- 
 turned from Bengal, and was endeavoring to establish a fund in 
 London for a mission to that country." f He was a Baptist, 
 
 * The text of this discourse was Isaiah 54 : 2, 3 : " Enlarge the place 
 of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: 
 spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes ; for thou shalt 
 break forth on the right hand and on the lef fc ; and thy seed shrill in- 
 herit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited." 
 
 f Quarterly Review, Feb. 1809, p. 197. This generous article on 
 "The Periodical Accounts of the Baptist Missionary Society" is 
 known to have been written by Southey. See below. Some idea of 
 Thomas's passionate zeal may be formed from certain expressions in 
 the letters sent home after Carey ai}d he had arrived in India. He says, 
 " Never did men see their native land with more joy than we left it; but 
 this is not of nature, but from above," etc. See p. 223 of same article. 
 
142 ILLUSTKIWS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 and on hearing of the schemes of his brethren in England, he 
 readily fell in with their proposal that he should accompany 
 Carey to India. But the question of finding a berth on an 
 English vessel was not easily settled. No English captain dare 
 take them out without a government license, and to obtain a 
 license as missionaries was not to be thought of. Having at 
 one time gone on board a vessel with all their baggage, they 
 were obliged by the captain, who felt that he was risking his 
 commission in taking them on board, to land again and return 
 to London. They were compelled at length to have recourse 
 to a Danish vessel, the Cron Princessa Maria, whose captain, 
 an Englishman by birth, though naturalized as a Dane, looked 
 favorably on their enterprise. On the 13th of June, 1793, 
 Carey and his companion set sail from the shores of England, 
 their expedition as ambassadors for Christ as little heeded by 
 the world at large as that of the Cilician tentmaker and his lit- 
 tle band of preachers who set sail seventeen centuries before 
 from the port of Alexandria Troas for the shores of Europe. 
 
 The story of Carey's life and work in India cannot be fol- 
 lowed in detail. We have come to the close of that portion of 
 his history which properly belongs to these brief sketches of 
 illustrious shoemakers. A few sentences must suffice to give a 
 picture of his labors as a missionary and the result of those 
 labors. For six or seven years Carey and hisfiiepds had to en- 
 dure much hardship, and their proceedings weie hampered by 
 difficulties of various kinds. To begin with, they had no legal 
 standing in the country, and were forced at length to take up 
 their quarters under the Danish flag at Serampore. t4 Heie 
 they bought a house, and organized themselves into a family 
 society, resolving that whatever was done by any member 
 should be for the benefit of the mission. They opened a 
 school, in which the children of those natives who chose to send 
 them were instructed gratuitously/'* The funds supplied 
 from home were but scanty, and they were compelled to resort 
 to trade for their livelihood and the means of carrying on their 
 work. " Thomas, who was a surgeon, intended to support 
 himself by his profession. Carey's plan was to take land and 
 cultivate it for his maintenance."! At one time, when funds 
 were exhausted, Mr. Carey " was indebted for an asylum to an 
 opulent native ;" at another time, driven to distraction by 
 want of money, by the apparent failure of his plans, and the 
 
 * Quarterly Review, Feb. 1809, p. 197. f Ibid. 
 
WILLIAM CAKKY, 143 
 
 upbraidings of his unsympathetic partner, he removed with his 
 family to the Soonderbunds, and took a small grant of land, 
 which he proposed to cultivate for his own maintenance ; and, 
 later on, he thankfdly accepted, as a way out of his difficulties 
 and a means of furthering his missionary projects, the post of 
 superintendent of an indigo factory at Mudnabatty. This post 
 he held for five or six years. No sooner had he got into this 
 position of comparative independence than he wrote home and 
 proposed that <; the sum which might be considered his salary 
 should be devoted to the printing of the Bengali translation of 
 the New Testament. " This generous proposal is a fair illus- 
 tration of his self -sacrificing spirit from the beginning to the 
 end of his missionary life. To the work of translating and cir- 
 culating the Scriptures in the languages of India he devoted not 
 only all his time and his vast mental powers, but whatever pri- 
 vate funds might be at his command. As the work proceeded, 
 and he became known and employed by the government in va- 
 rious professorships, these funds were often very considerable. 
 In 1807, when Carey held the Professorship of Oriental Lan- 
 guages at the Fort William College, at a salary of 1200 a 
 year, Mr. Ward, one of his colleagues, wrote, in reply to some 
 unfriendly remarks made in an English publication, that Dr. 
 Carey and Mr. Marshman 4 ' were contributing 2400 a year," 
 and receiving from the mission fund " only their food and a 
 trifle of pocket-money for apparel." 
 
 In 1800 the missionary establishment, now strengthened by 
 the two worthy colleagues just named, was removed to Seram- 
 pore, a Danish settlement about fifteen miles from Calcutta. A 
 printing press aud type were purchased, and the work of print- 
 ing the Scriptures commenced. Carey had been quietly but 
 most diligently going on with the translation of the Scriptures 
 into Bengali during the previous years of anxiety and varied 
 missionary labor. Whatever cares weighed on brain and heart, 
 the true work of his life, to which he had devoted himself, was 
 never relinquished. 
 
 On the 18th of March, 1800, the first sheets of the Bengali 
 New Testament were struck off, and on the 7th of February in 
 the following year, " Mr. Carey enjoyed the supreme gratifica- 
 tion of receiving the last sheet of the Bengali New Testament 
 from the press, the fruition of the ' sublime thought ' which 
 he had conceived fifteen years before." It is not surprising 
 that we should read the following record of the manner in 
 which these humble missionaries expressed their devout grati- 
 
144 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tude to God on the consummation of this part of their Christian 
 labors : " As soon as the first copy was bound, it was placed 
 on the communion table in the chapel, and a meeting was held 
 of the whole of the mission family, and of the converts recently 
 baptized, to offer a tribute of gratitude to God for this great 
 blessing." In 1806 the New Testament was ready for the 
 press in Sanskrit, the sacred language of India, the language of 
 its most ancient and venerated writings, and the parent of near- 
 ly all the languages of modern India. Simultaneously with 
 this were being issued proof-sheets of the New Testament in 
 Mahratta, Orissa, Persian, and Hindostani, besides dictionaries 
 and grammars, and other publications for the use of students. 
 It is well-nigh impossible to form a correct idea of the amount 
 of religious zeal, mental energy, and physical endurance in- 
 volved in labors like those of Dr. Carey, extending over forty 
 years in the climate of Bengal. He is said to have regularly 
 tired out three pundits, or native interpreters, who came one 
 after the other each day to assist him in the correction and re- 
 vision of his translations. A letter written in 1807, when the 
 degree of D.D. was conferred on Mr. Carey by the Brown Uni- 
 versity, United States, gives a graphic sketch of the ordinary 
 day's work performed by him at this period : " He rises a Jit- 
 tie before six, reads a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and spends 
 the time till seven in private devotion. He then has family 
 prayer with the servants in Bengali, after which he reads Per- 
 sian with a moonshee who is in attendance. As soon as break- 
 fast is over he sits down to the translation of the Ramayun 
 with his pundit till ten, when he proceeds to the college and 
 attends to its duties till two. Returning home, he examines a 
 proof-sheet of the Bengali translation, and dines with his friend 
 Mr. Rolt. After dinner he translates a chapter of the Bible 
 with the aid of the chief pundit of the college. At six he sits 
 down with the Telugu pundit to the study of that language, and 
 then preaches a sermon in English to a congregation of about 
 fifty. The service ended, he sits down to the translation of 
 Ezekiel into Bengali, having thrown aside his former version. 
 At eleven the duties of the day are closed, and after reading a 
 chapter in the Greek Testament and commending himself to 
 God he retires to rest. ' 7 * 
 
 Strangely enough, about this time a controversy was going on 
 
 *" Carey, Maishman, and Ward," by J. C. Marshman. London ; 
 J. Heaton & Son. 1864. 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 145 
 
 in certain English journals as to the value of the work that 
 Carey and his coadjutors were doing in India. We have no 
 wish to speak bitterly of the satire and severity of the articles 
 written by Sydney Smith in the Edinburgh Review. They 
 "were not simply sallies of wit, but serious essays, written in 
 a spirit of deliberate hostility to this missionary enterprise. 
 What else can be thought of an article commencing with words 
 like these : " In rooting out a nest of consecrated cobblers, and 
 in bringing to light such a perilous heap of trash as we are 
 obliged to work through in our articles on Methodists and mis- 
 sionaries, we are generally considered to have rendered a useful 
 service to the cause of rational religion." Such articles con^. 
 demncd themselves ; and it is fair to add that their author 
 himself lived to regard them as a mistake, and to express 
 to Lord Macaulay his regret that he had ever written 
 them.* 
 
 But even in that day Carey and his heroic band of Christian 
 fellow-laborers had plenty of sympathizers and supporters both 
 in the Church of England and the Nonconformist denomina- 
 tions. Robert South ey the poet came forward with generous 
 enthusiasm in their defence, and in a carefully-written article in 
 the Quarterly^ Review \ vindicated their character and labors. 
 Among oth ir remarkable statements in their behalf, he was able 
 to say : 4 ' These 'low-born and low-bred mechanics' have 
 translated the whole Bible into Bengali, and have by this time 
 printed it. They are printing the New Testament in the San- 
 skrit, the Orissa, the Mahratta, the Hindostani, the Guzerat, 
 and translating it into Persic, Teligna, Carnata, Chinese, the 
 language of the Sieks and the Burmans, and in four of these 
 languages they are going on with the Bible. Extraordinary as 
 this is, it will appear still more so when it is remembered that 
 of these men one was originally a shoemaker, another a printer 
 at Hull, and the third the master of a charity-school at Bristol. 
 Only fourteen years have elapsed since Thomas and Carey set 
 foot in India, and in that tune these missionaiies have acquired 
 the gift of tongues. In fourteen years these 4 low-born, low- 
 bred mechanics ' have done more to spread the knowledge of 
 the Scriptures among the heathen than has been accomplished 
 or even attempted by all the world beside. A plain statement 
 of fact will be the best proof of their diligence and success. 
 
 *"' Carey, Marshman, and Ward," p. 137. 
 f Quarterly Review, Feb. 1809, pp. 221, 225. 
 
146 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 The first convert was baptized in December, 1800,* and in seven 
 years after that time the number has amounted to 109, of 
 whom nine were afterward excluded or suspended, or had been 
 lost sight of. Carey and his son have been in Bengal fourteen 
 years, the other brethren only nine. They had all a difficult 
 language to acquire before they could speak to a native, and to 
 preach and argue in it required a thorough and familiar knowl- 
 edge. Under these circumstances the wonder is, not that they 
 have done so little, but that they have done so much ; for it 
 will be found that, even without this difficulty to retard them, 
 no religious opinions have spread more rapidly in the same 
 time, unless there was some remarkable folly or extravagance 
 to recommend them, or some powerful worldly inducement. " 
 This liberal Tory an evangelical High Churchman goes on to 
 say : " Other missionaries from other societies have now en- 
 tered India, and will soon become efficient laborers in their 
 station. From Government all that is asked is toleration for 
 themselves and protection for their converts. The plan which 
 they have laid for their own proceedings is perfectly piudent 
 and unexceptionable, and there is as little fear of their provok- 
 ing martyrdom as there would be of their shrinking from it if 
 the cause of God and man require the sacrifice." 
 
 Having lived to see his desire accomplished in the establish- 
 ment of many other missionary societies besides his own ; hav- 
 ing been the means of translating the Sacred Scriptures in the 
 languages spoken probably by two hundred millions of people ; 
 this good man, working up to the close of his life, died at Cal- 
 cutta on the 9th of June, 1834. As he lay ill, Lady Bentinck, 
 the wife of the Governor-General, paid him frequent visits, and 
 good " Bishop Wilson came and besought his blessing. M He 
 instructed his executors to place no memorial over his tomb but 
 the following simple inscription : 
 
 WILLIAM CAREY, 
 
 BOEN AUGUST 1761 ; DIED JUNE 1834. 
 
 '* A wretched, poor, and helpless worm, 
 
 On Thy kind arms I fall." 
 
 Mr. Marshman, who had the best means of knowing Carey 
 
 * Viz., Krishnu, who was baptized at the same time as Carey's son 
 Felix. The ceremony was performed at the Ghaut, or landing-stairs 
 of the Mahanuddy, in the presence of the Governor and a crowd of 
 Hindoos and Mohammedans. 
 
WILLIAM (JAREY. 147 
 
 and his work,* says : *' The basis of all his excellences was deep 
 and unaffected piety. So great was his love of integrity that 
 he never gave his confidence where he was not certain of the 
 existence of moral worth. He was conspicuous for constancy, 
 both in the pursuits of life and the associations of friendship. 
 With great simplicity he united the strongest decision of char- 
 acter. He never took credit for anything but plodding, but it 
 was the plodding of genius/' In all his work, however suc- 
 cessful, however honored by his fellow-men, William Carey was 
 modest and simple-hearted as a child. His unparalleled labors 
 as a translator of the Scriptures were performed under the 
 prompting of sublime faith in Divine truth, warm unwavering 
 love to souls, and an assured confidence in the ultimate triumph 
 of the kingdom of God. The shoemaker of Northamptonshiie 
 will be remembered till the end of the wofld as the Christian 
 Apostle of Northern India. 
 
 *John Clark Marshman was the son of Dr. Marshinan, Carey's 
 colleague at Serarapore. 
 
THE PHILANTHROPIC SHOEMAKER. 
 
 " His virtues walked their narrow round, 
 Nor made a pause, nor left a void ; 
 And sure the Eternal Master found 
 His single talent well employed." 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson. 
 
 " A young lady once said to him, ' Mr. Pounds, I wish you were rich, 
 you would do so much good ! ' The old man paused a few seconds and 
 then replied, ' Well, I don't know ; if I had been rich I might, perhaps, 
 have been much the same as other rich people. This I know, there is not 
 now a happier man in England than John Pounds ; and I think 'tis best as 
 it is.'" Memoir of John Pounds, p. 12. 
 
 " As unknown, and yet well known ; ... as poor, yet making many 
 rich." The Apostle Paul. 2 Cor. vi. 9, 10. 
 
 " Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
 least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Matt. xxv. 40. 
 
JOHN POUNDS. 
 
 IN 1837 there lived at Landport and Portsmouth two nota- 
 ble shoemakers. The Landport man combined with his daily 
 task as a shoemaker the delightful occupation of sketching and 
 patinting, and obtained a local fame as an artist. The Ports- 
 mouth ma-i found in the work of teaching poor ragged chil- 
 dren to read and write and cipher his great^t relaxation from 
 the drudgery of daily toil and his purest enjoyment, and lias 
 become known, we may safely affirm, throughout the Christian 
 world, as a philanthropist, and one of the first men in this 
 country who conceived and carried out the idea, of Ragged 
 Schools. The shoemaker-artist had a great admiration for the 
 shoemaker-philanthropist and painted a picture representing 
 him in his humble workroom, engaged in his double occupation 
 as shoemaker and schoolmaster, with a last between his knees 
 and a number of children standing before him receiving instruc- 
 tion. The artist's name was Sheaf, and his interesting picture 
 represented John Pounds occupied in his benevolent work as a 
 gratuitous teacher of the neglected children of his native town. 
 Sheaf sold his picture to Edward Carter, Esq., of Portsmouth, 
 a warm admirer of John Pounds, and one of his best friends 
 and helpers in his work. This picture was afterward engraved 
 by Mr. Charpenticr of Portsmouth, and it is to a copy of the 
 engraving the renowned Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh refers in the 
 following story : 
 
 4 ' It is rather curious, at least it is interesting to me, that it 
 was by a picture that I was first led to take an interest in Rag- 
 ged Schools a picture in an old, obscure, decayed burgh, that 
 stands on the shore of the Firth of Forth. I had gone thither 
 with a companion on a pilgrimage ; not that there was any 
 beauty about the place, for it had no beauty. It has little 
 trade. Its deserted harbor, silent streets, and old houses, 
 some of them nodding to their fall, give indications of decay. 
 But one circumstance has redeemed it from obscurity, and will 
 preserve its name to the latest ages. It was the birthplace of 
 Thomas Chalmers. I went to see this place. It is many 
 years ago, and going into an inn for refreshments, I found the 
 
152 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 room covered with pictures of shepherdesses with their crooks, 
 and tars in holiday attire, not very interesting. But above the 
 chimney-piece there stood a large print, more respectable than 
 its neighbors, which a skipper, the captain of one of the few 
 ships that trade between that town and England, had probably 
 brought there. It represented a cobbler's room. The cobbler 
 was there himself, spectacles on nose, an old shoe between his 
 knees, the massive forehead and firm mouth expressing great de- 
 termination of character, and below his bushy eyebrows benev- 
 olence gleamed out on a number of poor ragged boys and girls 
 who stood at their lessons around the busy cobbler. My curi- 
 osity was excited, and on the inscription I read how this man, 
 John Pounds, a cobbler in Portsmouth, taking pity - on the 
 poor ragged children, left by ministers and magistrates, and 
 ladies and gentlemen, to run in the streets, had, like a good 
 shepherd, gathered in the wretched outcasts ; how he had 
 brought them to God and the world ; and how, while earning 
 his bread by the sweat of his brow, he had rescued from mis- 
 ery, and saved to society, not less than five hundred of these 
 children.' 7 * 
 
 The biography of some of the best and most useful men the 
 world has known may be written almost in a sentence. In the 
 Old Testament there is a biography of this kind in the words, 
 '* And Enoch walked with God : and he was not ; for God 
 took him." f In the New Testament there is another of a sim- 
 ilar character in the brief sentence, " There was a certain man 
 in Cajsarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the 
 Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all 
 his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to 
 God alway. "J The life-story of John Pounds is told in the 
 last sentence of Dr. Guthrie's narrative ; yet a few farther de- 
 tails of the life and work of this noble-hearted man will be read 
 with interest by all who venerate true worth and take pleasure 
 in contemplating acts of Christ-like charity and mercy. 
 
 John Pounds was born at Portsmouth on the 17th of June, 
 1766. He was only twelve years old when his father, a sawyer 
 employed in the government dockyard, had him bound appren- 
 tice as a shipwright in the same yard. He was then a strong 
 active boy, and worked with his father in the yard until an ac- 
 
 * " Anecdotes and Stories," by Rev. Thomas Guthrie, D.D. Lon- 
 don : Houlston & Wright, pp. 156, 157. 
 f Gen. 5 : 24. 
 % Acts, 10 : 1, 2. 
 
JOHN POUNDS. 153 
 
 cident maimed him for life, and made him incapable of work- 
 ing as a shipwright. He fell into a dry-dock and broke one 
 of his thigh-bones, at the same time dislocating the joint. 
 Whether the fracture was neglected or not we do not know ; 
 but, from some cause or other, poor Pounds went lame ever 
 after. From the art of making ships he was now fain to turn 
 to that of making shoes, and finding an old man in High 
 Street, Portsmouth, who was willing to give the needful in- 
 struction, John Pounds, at the age of fifteen, became a shoe- 
 maker. Indeed, he would scarcely have claimed that title of 
 dignity for himself ; for his chief thoughts were given to other 
 affairs, so that he was never an adept at his cr^ft, and would in 
 all probability have preferred to be set down as " only a cob- 
 bler." It was not until 1804, when Pounds was thirty-eight 
 years of age, that " he ventured to become a tenant on his own 
 account of the small, weather-boarded tenement in St. Mary's 
 Street." It was in this humble abode that John Pounds lived 
 and worked and carried on his benevolent labors for thirty- 
 five years. The room appears to have been about the size and 
 shape of an open third-class railway carriage, and the entire 
 tenement had more the appearance of a shanty or hut than an 
 ordinary dwelling-house. Yet it was amply sufficient for the 
 poor cobbler' s purposes, and served as the field of operations 
 in all his benevolent enterprises. 
 
 Pounds lived alone in his snug little home ; and as his earn- 
 ings, though small, were more than enough to meet the require- 
 ments of a bachelor, he felt it right to do something to assist 
 his poor relatives. He had a brother a, seafaring man whose 
 family was large and stood in need of assistance. John ac- 
 cordingly proposed to take one of his brother's children and 
 clothe, board, and educate him as if he had been his own. 
 With characteristic generosity of spirit, he selected a poor little 
 fellow who was a cripple. The child's feet turned inward, 
 and, as he walked, he had to lift them one over another. The 
 tender-hearted cobbler could not endure to see the deformity, 
 and soon devised the means of remedy. A neighbor's child who 
 suffered in the same way had been provided by a surgeon with 
 a set of irons which straightened his feet and enabled him to 
 walk properly. Unable to purchase irons for his own little 
 charge, Pounds set to work to construct something in lieu of 
 them to answer the same purpose. His apparatus, made out of 
 old shoe soles, answered admirably, and he soon had the grati- 
 fication of seeing the little fellow entirely cured of his defect. 
 
15-4 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 This boy grew up under his uncle's care, was put apprentice to 
 a fashionable shoemaker, and lived with Pounds till the time 
 of his death. 
 
 When his nephew was old enough to begin to learn to read, 
 John Pounds resolved to do the work of a schoolmaster him- 
 self ; and, thinking that his little pupil would get on better if 
 he had a companion, he began to look round for some one to 
 share the benefit of his instructions. He selected a poor little 
 urchin, " the son of a poor woman who went about selling pud- 
 dings, her homeless children, unable to accompany her, being 
 left in the open street amid frost and snow, with no other shelter 
 than the overhanging shade of a bay-window." * Other pupils 
 were added in course of time, and the shoemaker soon began to 
 take great delight in the work of teaching. It was not very 
 difficult in Portsmouth to find plenty of children whose educa- 
 tion and training were entirely neglected by their parents, and 
 who were suffered to run about the streets in the most ragged 
 and destitute condition. The sight of these children moved 
 him to pity ; and, once embarked on the enterprise of reform- 
 ing and teaching them, Pounds could not rest content with hav- 
 ing half a dozen or a dozen of them under his care, but went 
 on gathering them into his room until he had, in the later years 
 of his life, an average of forty poor children under his charge 
 at a time. He loved his work all the more because it was en- 
 tirely gratuitous, and because he knew that if these poor chil- 
 dren were not thus taught they would never be taught at all, but 
 grow up in ignorance, misery, and vice. No amount of pains, 
 self-sacrifice, and anxiety was too much for this true disciple of 
 Christ to pay for the satisfaction of doing such children good, 
 and enriching and ennobling all their future lives. 
 
 The editor of the " Memoir of John Pounds" thus desciibes 
 the cobbler in the midst of his scholars : 4t His humble work- 
 shop was about six feet wide and about eighteen feet in depth, 
 in the midst of which he would sit on his stool, with his last or 
 lapstone on his knee, and other implements by his side, going 
 on with his woik and attending at the same time to the pursuits 
 of the whole assemblage some of whom were reading by his 
 side, writing from his dictation, or showing up their sums ; 
 
 * " A Memoir of JoliD Pounds." Foord, Stationer, Landport ; p. 9. 
 The writer is indebted to this brief memoir for most of the facts 
 stated in this sketch. He is also indebted for information to the 
 courtesy of Rev. T. Timmins, Portsmouth, pastor of the congregation 
 of which John Pounds was a member. 
 
JOHN POUNDS. 155 
 
 others seated around on forms or boxes on the floor, or on the 
 steps of a small staircase in the rear. Although the master 
 seemed to know where to look for each and to maintain a due 
 command over all, yet so small was the room, and so deficient 
 in the usual accommodation of a school, that the scene appeared 
 to the observer from without to be a mere crowd of children's 
 heads and faces/ 7 * 
 
 The smallness of his room made selection necessary when the 
 number of candidates for instruction became unusually large. 
 In this case he always chose the worst and most desperate cases, 
 preferring to take in hand " the little blackguards, " as he 
 termed them, and turn them into decent members of society. 
 At other times, " he has been seen to follow such to the town- 
 quay, and hold out in his hand to them the bribe of a roasted 
 potato to induce them to come to school. " f On fine warm days 
 the school " ran over" into the street, the children who be- 
 haved best being allowed to sit near the door, or on a bench 
 outside. 
 
 His method of teaching was of the simplest and most graphic 
 character, and seemed, although John Pounds, of course, knew 
 nothing of such things", to combine the features of the Pesta- 
 lozzian and Kindergarten systems. He would point to the 
 different parts of the body, get the pupil to tell their names, 
 and then to spell them. Taking a child's hand, he would say, 
 " What is this ? Spell it." Then slapping it he would say, 
 11 What did I do? Spell that." 
 
 With the older pupils he went as far as his knowledge would 
 allow of, teaching them to read by means of handbills, or mak- 
 ing use of such old school-books as he had been able to beg, or 
 buy cheap. Slate and pencils only were used for teaching 
 writing, " yet a creditable degree of skill was acquired, and in 
 ciphering, the Rule of Three and Practice were performed with 
 accuracy. ' ' 
 
 Pounds made efforts to clothe and feed as well as educate 
 his destitute pupils, many of whom were in a deplorable con- 
 dition of rags and dirt. He was anxious to take them with him 
 on Sundays to the meeting-house which he attended, and 
 would have them decently clad and properly washed. " In 
 one corner of his room was a bag full of all sorts of garments 
 for girls and boys, which he had begged and mended, to be 
 worn by his scholars on Sundays, and when they went with 
 
 * "Memoir of John Pounds," p. 10. f Ibid, p. 10. 
 
156 ILLUSTRIOUS SIIOKMAKKKS. 
 
 him to the house of God. The garments took the place of 
 worse ones ; for John took pride in the decent, clean appear- 
 ance of his pupils. Imagine him on a Sunday morning, with 
 his children round him, and his big bag open, and his handing 
 the garments round, with the soul of kindness in his eyes and 
 the joy of God in his heait !" * lie might often have been seen 
 on Saturday nights going round to the bakehouses to buy bread 
 for his poor children to eat on Sundays, gathering it into his 
 huge leathern apron, and, when his money was all spent, stand- 
 ing slill with a troubled look, searching in all his pockets for a 
 fow more coppers in order to secure yet one more loaf to add 
 to his store. 
 
 When he was in need of books for his pupils, lie did not hes- 
 itate to go to the houses of well-to-do citizens and explain his 
 case, and ask them for aid. For the most part, he met with 
 much kindness and sympathy, for many of the inhabitants of 
 Portsmouth and the neighboring towns knew the benevolent 
 cobbler of St. Mary's Street. But now and then he met with 
 rebuffs from those who did not know him, or fiom chuilish 
 souls who could not feel for the sufferings of the poor. If he 
 alone had suffered from these rebuffs, the brave and sensible old 
 man would have borne them calmly enough ; but a \vord spoken 
 against his helpless little scholars was enough at any time to 
 rouse his warmest feelings. Once he called on -a gentleman of 
 considerable means to ask the favor of a few old disused books 
 for the use of the pupils in reading. 4t Let them buy books !" 
 was the only response he got to his generous appeal. " Poor 
 little beggars !" he exclaimed ; " they can scarcely get bread, 
 let alone books," and turned away with ill-concealed disgust 
 from the gentleman's presence. 
 
 Pounds taught his pupils many other things besides " the 
 three R's. " Many of the boys received instruction in the use- 
 ful arts of shoe-mending and tailoring, so that when they grew 
 up they found their little knowledge of great practical utility, 
 lie even went so far as to teach the lads and lasses how to cook 
 their plain food, and make the best of everything. In fact, 
 nothing that children required to make them happy and com- 
 fortable, and to fit them for the duties of after-years, did the 
 good cobbler overlook or neglect. He made their playthings 
 bats, balls, crossbows, shuttlecocks, kites, what-not ; went out 
 with them on holiday and festive gatherings ; got them gifts of 
 
 * Rev. T. Timmins, Portsmouth, in a letter to the writer. 
 
JOHN POUNDS. 157 
 
 tea and cake, and had them assembled in a neighboring school- 
 room for public examination ; saw that they were included at 
 the public dinners, such as the celebration of Her Majesty's 
 coronation in 1837 ; and from year to year had the satisfaction 
 of seeing them grow up and take honorable and useful positions 
 in society. This, in fact, was his reward all he looked for, 
 all he ever had, except the approval of Him who said, " Inas- 
 much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ray breth- 
 ren, ye have done it unto Me." 
 
 It was no uncommon thing during the last years of John 
 Pound's life for some fine, manly fellow, soldier or sailor on 
 furlough, or workman passing through the town, to turn in at 
 the old room, where the good cobbler was still going on with 
 his good work, in order to shake hands with him, and thank 
 him, while the big tears stood in the eyes of both master and 
 pupil, as the latter spoke of his rescue fiom starvation, poverty, 
 or crime, and of the fair start in life which he had received at 
 the hands of the worthy cobbler. And to this day there are 
 men and women by the score, in respectable and comfortable 
 positions, who can tell the same tale. " During the seven years 
 I have been minister here," writes the pastor of the chapel in 
 the graveyard of which John Pounds was buried, " I have seen 
 paying a pilgrimage to his tomb a number of those who were 
 taught by him, and who, passing through the town, or coming 
 for a short time to Portsmouth (as they belonged to the army 
 or navy), thus showed their grateful feeling toward their ven- 
 erated teacher and friend. They have told me in touching lan- 
 guage, and almost sobbing the while, of the debt of gratitude 
 they owed him." 
 
 The useful life of this philanthropist came to an end on New 
 Year's Day, 1889. A few days previously he went to the 
 house of his friend Edward Carter, Esq., who then lived in 
 High Street, Portsmouth, to acknowledge certain acts of kind- 
 ness done in behalf of his little scholars. While there, he saw 
 the painting referred to at the beginning of this sketch, which 
 that gentleman had purchased of Mr. Sheaf, the shoemaker- 
 artist. The simple-minded man, whose love for dumb animals 
 and domestic pets was one of the most amiable features in his 
 character, seemed to be more pleased by finding his favorite cat 
 included in the picture than by any other part of the painting. 
 He then showed Mr. Carter the writing and ciphering lessons of 
 one of the pupils, and asked for aid in procuring copy-books. 
 A day or two after this John Pounds again called on his friend, 
 
158 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 and while conversing with him on matters connected with the 
 school, fell down as if fainting. Medical aid was called in, but 
 John Pounds was dead before the doctor arrived. The body 
 was conveyed to the little room in St. Mary's Street, where about 
 thirty children were waiting for their teacher to come and com- 
 mence the day's work, and " wondering what had become of 
 him." Terror and grief seized upon the minds of the children 
 when they saw the lifeless body of their kind teacher borne 
 into the room and laid upon the bed. On the following day a 
 group of children might have been seen standing at the door 
 weeping because they could not be admitted. Day after day 
 " the younger ones came, looked about the room, and not find- 
 ing their friend, went away disconsolate. " 
 
 Mr. Martell, the physician who had been called in when 
 Pounds was dying, asked the favor of being allowed to pay the 
 expenses of the funeral. John Pounds was buried in the grave- 
 yard of the chapel in High Street where he had been a constant 
 worshipper. A large number of people gathered round the 
 grave, among whom the most conspicuous and sincere mourners 
 were ihe children now bereaved of their teacher and best earthly 
 friend. 
 
 A tablet was placed on the wall of the High Street Chapel 
 bearing the following inscription : 
 
 ERECTED BY FRIENDS 
 As A MEMORIAL OF THEIR ESTEEM AND RESPECT 
 
 FOR 
 
 JOHN POUNDS ; 
 
 WHO, WHILE EARNING HIS LIVELIHOOD 
 BY MENDING SHOES, GRATUITOUSLY EDUCATED 
 
 AND, IN PART, CLOTHED AND FfiD, 
 
 SOME HUNDREDS OF POOR CHILDREN. 
 
 HE DIED SUDDENLY 
 
 ON THE FIRST OF JANUARY 1839, 
 
 AGED 72 YEARS. 
 
 " THOU SHALT BE BLESSED : FOR THEY CANNOT 
 RECOMPENSE THEE." 
 
 Over the grave a monument was erected, the cost of which 
 was defrayed, as the inscription states, " By means of penny 
 
JOHN POUNDS. 159 
 
 subscriptions, not only from the Christian Brotherhood with 
 whom John Pounds habitually worshipped in the adjoining 
 chapel, but from persons of widely differing religious opinions 
 throughout Great Britain, and from the most distant parts of the 
 world. ' ' Another memento took the form of a library for the 
 use of the poor people of the neighborhood in which the phil- 
 anthropic shoemaker lived and labored. A Ragged School has 
 also been built which bears his name, and in which the good 
 work he inaugurated in Plymouth is now carried on. In 1879 
 the " John Pounds Coffee Tavern' ' was opened. Happy are 
 they who can say with Lord Shaftesbury, in the closing words 
 of his speech at the opening of this institution 
 
 " I AM A DISCIPLE OF JOHN POUNDS." 
 
THOMAS COOPER 
 
!r TBE SELF-EDUCATED SHOEMAKER' 1 WHO "BEARED HIS 
 OWX MONUMENT. 1 '* 
 
 " I consuming fire 
 Felt daily in ray veins to see my race 
 Emerge from out the foul defiling mire 
 O&aniiual enjoyments that debase 
 Their nature, and well-nigh its Lineaments efface. 
 
 I burned to see ray species proudly count 
 Themselves /or more than brutes; and toiled to draw 
 Them on to drink at Virtue's living fount, 
 Whence purest pleasures flow. . . . 
 
 Canst thou blame 
 
 My course? I tell thee, thirst for human laud 
 Impelled me not: 'twas my sole-thoughted aim 
 To render Man, my brother, worthy his high name!" 
 
 Enipedvdes. in " The Purgatory of Suicides" 
 Stanzas 35-37. 
 
 " Few shrewder, kindlier men have fought the battle of life." London 
 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 " He is a man of vast reading, and indomitable courage. His Autobi- 
 ography is a remarkable book, well worth reading." Editor of " Charle* 
 Kingsleifs Life and Letter*? 
 
 *See closing sentences of preface to "Purgatory of Suicides," by 
 Thomas Cooper, early editions. 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 
 
 " THE Lord's will be done ! I don't think He intends tliee 
 to spend thy life at shoemaking. I have kept thee at school, 
 and worked hard to get -thee bread, and to let thee have thy 
 own wish in learning, and never imagined that thou wast to be 
 a shoemaker. But the Lord's will be done ! He'll bring it all 
 right in time." Such were the words with which the worthy 
 and excellent mother of Thomas Cooper gave her consent to 
 her boy's proposal that he should go and learn " the art, craft, 
 and mystery of shoemaking. " He had no particular love for 
 the craft, but he was anxious to do something for a livelihood, 
 and desirous of helping his widowed mother ; and, above all, 
 he was ashamed of being pointed at by his neighbors as li an 
 idle good-for-nothing. " That never was true of Thomas 
 Cooper either in school or out, at work or recreation ; and now 
 that he had left school and was turned of fifteen years of age, 
 he could not brook the insinuation that he was unwilling to 
 work ; so, good scholar as he was, and zealous for learning, 
 and not without ambition, he resolved on doing something, 
 however humble, to earn his bread, in order to shut the mouths 
 of tattling neighbors. His mother had tried to get him ap- 
 prenticed as a painter or a merchant's clerk, and failed for want 
 of a premium ; and he had made a brief experiment at sailoring 
 down at Hull, and had come home again utterly loathing the 
 cruelty and abuse to which a sailor-boy of those days was sub- 
 jected ; so there was nothing for him now but to take the first 
 chance of learning any trade that came in his way. He was an^ 
 only child, and his mother had been a widow eleven years, get- 
 ting her living as a dyer, in which occupation she had assisted 
 her husband during his lifetime. In the pursuit of his trade as 
 a dyer he had moved about from town to town, and had met with 
 his wife at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. Not long after their 
 marriage Mr. and Mrs. Cooper removed to Leicester, and took 
 a house in Soar Lane, conveniently situated by the river Soar. 
 Here Thomas, their only child, was born on the 20th of March, 
 1805. Twelve months afterward they went to live at Exeter, 
 where the father died when his little boy was but four years 
 
160 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS* 
 
 old. After this his mother at once went back to old Gains- 
 borough, where she would be near her relatives. Here she 
 remained for the rest of her life, and here the fiist twenty-nine 
 years of Thomas Cooper's life were spent. 
 
 The signs her boy had given of mental powers above the 
 average were quite enough to warrant Mrs. Cooper's pathetic 
 speech when he sought permission to become a shoemaker. 
 His memory was remarkably retentive, arid dated from a period 
 which must be regarded as exceptionally eaily. On the day 
 that he was two years old he fell into a stream that ran in front 
 of his father's house, and was nearly drowned. He declares 
 that he distinctly remembers being led by his father's hand over 
 St. Thomas's Bridge on the afternoon of that same day, and 
 how the neighbors 44 chucked him under the chin, and said, 
 How did you like it ? How did you fall in ? \Yhere have you 
 been to ?" Writing in 1871 he says, 44 The circumstances are 
 as vivid to my mind as if they only occurred yesterday." 
 Heading came to him almost by instinct, and at three years of 
 age his schoolmistress set him on a stool to teach a boy more 
 than twice his own age the letters of the alphabet. At the 
 same age he could repeat several of yEsop's fables. On their 
 removal to Gainsborough lie was seized with small-pox, which 
 fearful complaint marred his visage for life. This was followed 
 by other complaints which kept him an imalid for a year. On 
 his recovery he had to bear the annoyance, so bitterly painful 
 to a child, of being cither scouted or pitied for his altered 
 looks. But the kindness he failed to lind out of-doors was 
 more than doubled at home. The heait of a true mother and 
 a right noble woman warmed toward the child in his weakness 
 and sad disfigurement. Never had needy child a more devoted 
 parent. It was hard work for the solitary woman to make a 
 living and pay her way, yet she bore up bravely and did the 
 best she could for her child. The picture which is given by 
 Thomas Cooper in his Autobiography of his home at this time, 
 and of his own and his mother's position, has a pre-Raphaelite 
 simplicity about it, and well deserves a moment's attention. 
 44 Within doors there was no longer a handsome room, the 
 cheerful look of my father, and his little songs and stories. 
 \Ve had now but one chamber and one lower room, and the 
 last-named at once parlor, kitchen, and dye-house : two large 
 coppers were set in one part of it ; and my mother was at work 
 amid steam and sweat all the day long for half of the week, and 
 on the other half she was fully employed in 4< framing," iron- 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 167 
 
 ing, and finishing her work. Yet for me she had ever words 
 of tenderness. My altered face had not unendeared me to her. 
 In the midst of her heavy toil, she could listen to my feeble 
 repetitions of the fables, or spare a look, at my entreaty, for 
 the figures I was drawing with chalk upon the hearthstone. ' ' * 
 Returning to school again, he was, at five years of age, his 
 teacher's favorite pupil, for he could t; read the tenth chapter 
 of Nehemiah, with all its hard names, like the parson in the 
 church, as she used to say, and spell wondrously." Wander- 
 ing through the woods with ,his mother, or going with her on 
 her country business rounds when the weather was fine ; poring 
 over Baskervilla's quarto Bible with its fine engravings from 
 the old masters, when compelled on wet Sundays to stop in- 
 doors, the sensitive mind of the eager child received its first 
 impressions of the beautiful in nature and art. When he was 
 eight years of age his mother succeeded in getting him admit- 
 ted to a new Free School, recently opened in the town, and 
 little Tom was placed upon the foundation as a " Bluecoat" 
 scholar. The course of instruction at this school was neither 
 varied nor profound, consisting entirely of Scripture reading, 
 writing, and the first four rules of arithmetic ; but its frequent 
 repetitions of spelling and ciphering lessons were good as a be- 
 ginning, and laid a fair basis v for future learning. Obliged to 
 attend the parish church with the rest of the " Bluecoats," he 
 became enamoured with the stately service of the Church of 
 England, the superior singing, and the grand old organ ; and 
 great was his delight when he was chosen, on account of his 
 good voice and musical ear, to sit with six other boys in the 
 choir by the organ up in the gallery of the church. During 
 these three years, from the age of eight to eleven, he began to 
 read for pleasure or profit such books as the immortal " Pil- 
 grim's Progress," or Baines's " History of the War," " Pa- 
 mela/' and the " Earl of Moreland," and to revel in such 
 ballads as " Chevy Chase," which were committed to memory 
 and repeated when alone, and served to stir up in his young 
 heart the poetic or the warlike spirit. But these were years of 
 severe trial too, for the great wars were then raging on the 
 Continent ; taxes pressed with terrible weight on all classes, but 
 especially on the poor ; and, added to these troubles, were the 
 evils of bad harvests and winters unusually severe. It was hard 
 indeed for his mother to make a living in such times, and to 
 
 * " The Life of Thomas Cooper, Written by Himself." Hodder & 
 Stoughton, 1872 ; p. 7. 
 
108 1LLUST1UOUS fcilOKMAKKKS. 
 
 provide the barest subsistence for herself and child. ** At one 
 time," he says, t4 wheaten flour rose to six shillings per fit one, 
 and we tried to live on barley -cakes, which brought on a burn- 
 ing, gnawing pain at the stomach. For two seasons the corn 
 was spoiled in the fields with wet ; and when the winter came, 
 we could scoop out the middle of the soft distasteful loaf, and 
 to eat it brought on sickness. Meat was so dear that my 
 mother could not buy it, and often our dinner consisted of 
 potatoes alone. " In three yeais the little Bluecoat boy had 
 grown weary of the monotonous lound of teaching at the Free 
 School, and got his mother's consent to attend a better class of 
 school for boys, kept by a man who was known among his 
 pupils and the neighbors as *' Daddy Briggs." Here there was 
 talk of such abstruse subjects as mensuration and algebra ; 4< En- 
 field's Speaker' 7 was used for reading, and the scholars went 
 deeply into the histories of Greece and Rome and England, led 
 on by that profound and original historian, Goldsmith ! How- 
 ever, the school was an immense advance on the one just left, 
 and offered certain opportunities of intercourse with boys of 
 better position and culture than Tom had known before. 
 
 The boy must have made good use of his time at the Free 
 School, for, it seems, he went to Daddy Briggs' academy as 
 much in the character of a teacher as that of a pupil ; and he 
 says of this good-natured but not very accomplished master : 
 44 He took no school-fees of my mother, but employed me as 
 an assistant, for about an hour each day, in teaching the 
 younger children. He treated me less as a pupil lli.ui as a 
 companion, and I became much attached to him. Yet he was 
 never really a teacher to me. I .made my way easily without 
 help through WaikingLaine, part of Bonnycastle, and got a lit- 
 tle way into algebra before I left school." By this time he 
 had acquired an intense thirst for reading, and eagerly sought 
 out every book within reach. Now he borrowed the school- 
 books of his companions and read them through, and now he 
 resorted to the " cii dilating library," at the shop of an old 
 lady who supplied him with writing materials, and, as a great 
 favor, was allowed to read such books as were not immediately 
 required for circulation ; or, again, he seized upon the cheap 
 issues of educational works which were beginning to make their 
 appearance about this time, and were sold at the doors of the 
 good Gainsborough folk by that important personage " the 
 number man." At twelve years of age he had thus made the 
 acquuintance of the classic English poets, had lead " Cook's 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 169 
 
 Voyages, " the " Arabian Nights/ 7 the " Old English Baron," 
 besides " a heap of other romances and novels it would require 
 pages even to name." 
 
 At thirteen years of age the poetry of Byron made a deep 
 impression on his mind. Nothing in poetry but " Chevy 
 Chase" had ever moved his heart before. Of " Childe Har- 
 old " and " Manfred " he says, " They seemed to create almost 
 a new sense within me." Poetry was henceforth a passion 
 with him ; but few subjects came amiss : he read everything he 
 could lay hold of. 
 
 About this time, too, he showed tendencies in two direc- 
 tions, which were strongly developed subsequently, and, in 
 fact, formed the main features of his character in after-years. 
 The conversation of certain working-men politicians in a neigh- 
 boring brush manufactory, and the loan of " Hone's Carica- 
 tures" and " The News," set him off in the direction of poli- 
 tics, and made him, of course, a disciple of Radicalism. But 
 the other change in the current of his thoughts, which came a 
 little later on, was more important, if not more profound and 
 lasting. Deeply emotional and imaginative as a child, having 
 also a strong sense, of moral right and wrong, he was easily 
 moved by religious appeals. A band of Primitive Methodists 
 having come to the town, he was caught up by their enthusiasm 
 and zeal, and resolved to join them. After much religious 
 emotion, ending in no very settled state of mind, he left them 
 and united with the Wesleyan Methodists, whose services and 
 preaching were more to his mind. This brings us up to the 
 time of his leaving school at the age of fifteen, and his entrance 
 on the sterner work of life as a shoemaker. True, he had not 
 done anything very marvellous at present, but he had fine abili- 
 ties, a warm emotional nature, a rare poetic taste, a thorough 
 craving for books, and no little perseverance and industry. 
 Good Mrs. Cooper, therefore, showed something more than a 
 mother's fond fancy when she said, " The Lord's will be done ; 
 I don't think He intends thee to spend thy life at shoe- 
 making. ' ' 
 
 The society in John Clarke's garret, where young Cooper sat 
 down to learn his trade, was, like that of many similar places, 
 rather literary. This man Clarke, true to the reputation of the 
 followers of St. Crispin, was thoughtful and fond of reading. 
 The conversation ran on the poetry of Shakespeare and Byron, 
 and the acting of Kemble and Young and Mrs. Siddons the 
 stars of that day in the theatrical world. One of the fruits of 
 
170 ILLUSTKIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 this new poetic impulse was Cooper's first poem, made one 
 spring morning in his fifteenth year, as he walked in the fields 
 near Gainsborough. Quoting this short piece in his Auto- 
 biography, he says : " I give it here, be it remembered, as the 
 first literary feat of a self-educated boy of fifteen. I say self- 
 educated, so far as I was educated. Mine has been almost 
 entirely self-education all the way through life/' Great merit 
 or promise is not claimed for these lines, yet they are worth 
 quoting, if only for the sake of comparing them with the first 
 attempt of another young shoemaker, Bloomfield.* 
 
 A MORNING IN SPRING. 
 
 " See with splendor Phoebus rise, 
 And with beauty tinge the skies. 
 See the clouds of darkness fly 
 Far beyond the Western sky ; 
 While the lark upsoaring sings, 
 And the air with music rings ; 
 While the blackbird, linnet, thrush, 
 Perched on yonder thorny bush, 
 All unite in tuneful choir, 
 And raise the happy music higher. 
 While the murmuring busy bee, 
 Pattern of wakeful industry, 
 Flies from flower to flower to drain 
 The choicest juice from sweetest vein ; 
 While the lowly cottage youth, 
 His mind well stored with sacred truth, 
 Rises, devout, his thanks to pay, 
 And hails the welcome dawn of day. 
 
 Oh, that 'twere mine, the happy lot, 
 To dwell within the peaceful cot 
 There rise, each morn, my thanks to pay, 
 And hail the welcome dawn of day !' ' 
 
 Cooper stayed with Clarke for a year and a half, and, after 
 a brief interval, went to work with a " first-rate hand," who 
 was known in the shoemaking fraternity as Don Cundell. Here 
 the youth, more expert at his craft than many of his compan- 
 ions, learned before the age of nineteen to make " a really 
 good woman's shoe." j During this period he seems to have 
 
 * See above, p. 96. 
 
 f This seems to be a test of proficiency in the trade. Bloomfield's 
 brother says, ' 4 Robert is a ladies' shoemaker ;' ; and stories are told of 
 his receiving, after he became famous as a poet, many orders from 
 the nobility for ladies' boots. 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 171 
 
 settled in good earnest alike to his daily occupation and the 
 work of self-culture. Under the guidance of a friend named 
 Macdonald, who lent him books, he read such works as Robert- 
 son's " Histories of Scotland," " America/' and " Charles 
 the Fifth," Neale's "History of the Puritans," and a little 
 theology. Like multitudes of youths in a position similar 
 to his, Thomas Cooper derived much benefit from a Mutual 
 Improvement Society which was started in Gainsborough about 
 this time by a friend of his, a draper's assistant named Joseph 
 Foulkes Winks. In this society papers were read and discus- 
 sions held on all imaginably subjects, literary, historical, and 
 religious. " This weekly essay-writing," he says, " was an 
 employment which absorbed a good deal of my thought, and 
 was a good induction into the writing of prose, and into a 
 mode of expressing one's thoughts." On one occasion a prize 
 was offered for the best essay on " The Worst King of Eng- 
 land." The tug of war lay between Winks, who chose as his 
 subject James II., and Cooper, who eventually was adjudged 
 the victor, and had taken William the Conqueror as his ideal 
 of a bad king. The friendship thus commenced in amicable 
 rivalry lasted, as we shall see, through life. Not content with 
 self -improvement, these youths, with Macdonald and Wood, 
 banded themselves together in a resolve to instruct others less 
 favored than themselves, and an " Adult School " was formed. 
 This was one of the first if not the first school of the kind in 
 Lincolnshire, and must have proved a great benefit to the illit- 
 erate poor of the town, for by the end of the following year, 
 when this branch was admitted into u The Adult Schools 
 Society," the numbers on the books were 324. Friendships 
 with two other young men brought such books in his way as 
 Sibley's famous illustrated work on astrology, over which he 
 wasted much valuable time, Volney's " Ruins of Empires" and 
 Voltaire's " Philosophical Dictionary," over which his time 
 was worse than wasted. But the best piece of good fortune in 
 the way of reading came to him in the discovery that one 
 " Nathaniel Robinson, mercer," " had left his library for the 
 use of the inhabitants of the town." It seems that this boon 
 had been neglected or forgotten by the good folk of Gains- 
 borough. Once known to the ardent young shoemaker, it was 
 not neglected nor forgotten, at all events as far as he was con- 
 cerned. He pounced upon it with the avidity and excited joy 
 of a naturalist who lights upon a new or rare specimen. We 
 must let him speak for himself in the matter, and describe this 
 
11'J ILLUST1UOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 precious " find " in his own words. He says : " I was in 
 ecstasies to find the dusty, cobwebbed shelves loaded with 
 Hooker, and Bacon, and Cudworth, and Stillingfleet, and 
 Locke, and Jeremy Taylor, and Tillotson, and Bates, and 
 Bishop Hall, and Samuel Clarke, and Warburton, and Bull, 
 and Waterland, and Bentley, and Bayle, and Ray, and Der- 
 ham, and a score of other philosophers and divines, mingled 
 with Stanley's 'History of Philosophers, 7 and its large full- 
 length portraits ; Ogilvy's ' Embassies to Japan and China,' 
 with their large curious engravings ; Speed's and Rapin's folio 
 Histories of England, Collier's * Church History,' Fuller's 
 ' Holy War,' Foxe's ' Book of Martyrs,' the first edition, in 
 black letter, with its odd rude plates, and countless other curi- 
 osities and valuables." 
 
 Cooper now settled to reading in desperate earnest, and with 
 something like a fixed purpose to become a scholar, and per- 
 haps a writer, or a great political or religious orator, or, more 
 probable than all things else for the poetic fervor was very 
 strong just now a poet ! Yet he had no very definite notions 
 of what he was to be. All he was certain about was that he 
 must and would study, and fit himself for some higher walk in 
 life when the time came to enter on it. Let the reader keep 
 this fact in mind while reading the story we have to tell of close 
 application to study, lofty aspirations, and great attainments as 
 a scholar. Thomas Cooper during his shoemaker's life, in 
 which he laid the foundation of rare scholarship, never earned 
 more than ten shillings a week scarcely enough to buy food 
 and clothes. He had not become an apprentice, and therefore 
 the laws of the trade prevented the best masters employing 
 him. One 4< Widow Hoyle, who sold her goods in the market 
 cheap," was his only employer, so long as he remained at the 
 trade. If he was not, in these days of lowly toil and lofty 
 thoughts, 
 
 " Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown," 
 he well knew what it was to feel the restraint of 
 " Poverty's unconquerable bar." 
 
 Yet he had courage, an indispensable quality in a youth so 
 situated, and it was the courage that " mounteth with the occa- 
 sion," and all these bars to self -culture only acted as a stimulus 
 to more resolute toil. Strange to say, one of his greatest in- 
 centives to study at this time was an account of the life of Dr. 
 Samuel Lee, Professor of Hebrew in the University of Cam- 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 173 
 
 bridge, which the young student had read in the Imperial 
 Magazine, then edited by another of our illustrious shoe- 
 makers, Samuel Drew. Lee had been a carpenter, ignorant of 
 English grammar, had bought Ruddiman's Latin Rudiments, 
 and having mastered the book, had learned to read Caesar and 
 Virgil, and had taught himself Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac by 
 the time he was six-and-twenty years of- age ! Cooper said 
 within himself, " If one man can teach himself a language, 
 another can." So he went to work, following in Lee's steps 
 so far as to take Ruddirnan's book an/d commit "the entire 
 volume to memory notes and all !" Then came the study of 
 Hebrew with the help of Lyon's small grammar, bought for a 
 shilling at an old bookstall ; and a year after he was busy at 
 Greek, and created for himself a pleasing diversion by the 
 comparatively easy task of mastering French. All this time 
 his general reading was not neglected. By the advice of a val- 
 ued friend, John Hough, he fortified his mind against the scep- 
 tical thoughts which previous reading had awakened by going 
 carefully through the chief works on Christian evidences. Few 
 divinity students at the end of their course have read more 
 carefully or extensively than this occupant of a cobbler's stall 
 had done by the time he was twenty -three years old. Paley's 
 "Horse Paulime," " Natural Theology,'' and "Evidences," 
 Bishop Watson's " Apologies,'.' Soame Jenyns' " Internal Evi- 
 dences," Lord Lyttleton's "Conversion of St. Paul," Sher- 
 lock's " Trial of the Witnesses," besides profounder works like 
 Butler's "Analogy," Bentley's "Folly of Atheism," Dr. 
 Samuel Clarke's "Being and Attributes of God," Stilling- 
 fleet's " Origines Sacrae," and Warburton's " Divine Legation 
 of Moses," were as familiar to him as the " Paradise Lost" 
 and most of the plays of Shakespeare were to his companion 
 Thomas Miller.* The labors of this period, from 1824 to 
 1828, were tremendous, or, as one of Sir Walter Scott's char- 
 acters was wont to say, " prodigious." Cooper had left Don 
 Cundell's, and now worked at home, so that he could arrange 
 his time for study and work as he pleased. Like Drew, he had 
 learned to do a fair day's work and not to neglect the means of 
 earning his daily bread for the more fascinating occupations of 
 reading and study. But if ordinary work was not neglected, 
 it must be confessed that the work of the scholar was over- 
 
 * Thomas Miller, afterward known as a poet and novelist, and for 
 his charming descriptions of rural scenery, was an intimate friend of 
 Cooper from childhood to old age. 
 
174 ILLUSTWOUS SHOKMAKERS. 
 
 done. No one can live as Cooper lived from the age of nine- 
 teen to twenty-three without incurring fearful risk to body and 
 mind. Rising at three, or four at the latest, he read history, 
 or the grammar of some language, or engaged in translation till 
 seven, when he sat down to his stall. At meal-times he at- 
 tempted the double task of taking in food for the body and the 
 mind at the same time, cutting up his food and eating it with a 
 spoon that he might not have occasion to take his eyes off the 
 book he held in his hand ; at work till eight or nine, he was all 
 the while committing to memory and reciting aloud passages 
 from the poets, or declensions and conjugations, or rules of 
 syntax ; and when he rose from his stool, it was only to pace 
 the room, while he still went on with his studies, until at last 
 he dropped into bed utterly exhausted. This was his method 
 in spring and summer, but even in winter his hours were just as 
 long, and study in the early morning was not accompanied by 
 the invigorating influence of walking exercise and fresh air ; 
 for he says, " When in the coldness of winter we could not 
 afford to have a fire till my mother rose, I used to put a lamp 
 on a stool, which I placed on a little round table, and standing 
 before it wrapped up in my mother's old red cloak, I read on 
 till seven, or studied a grammar or my Euclid, and frequently 
 kept my feet moving to secure warmth or prevent myself from 
 falling asleep." * In this way Latin was so far mastered that 
 Caesar's " De Bello Gallico" could be read " page after page 
 with scarcely more than a glance at the dictionary/' and the 
 " Eneid " of Virgil became an intellectual love that lasted for 
 life. We have no space to describe the vast amount of histori- 
 cal and miscellaneous reading done at this time. It was surely 
 no small feat for a shoemaker, working hard for twelve or thir- 
 teen hours in the day, to go in a few years through Gibbon's 
 44 Decline and Fall/' Sale's " Preliminary Discourse to his 
 Translation of the Koran," Mosheim's " Church History," all 
 the principal English poets from Shakespeare to Scott and 
 Keats ; to read the " Curiosities of Literature," " Calamities" 
 and " Quarrels of Authors," Wharton's " History of Poetry" 
 and Johnson's " Lives of the Poets," Boswell's " Life of John- 
 son" and Lander's " Imaginary Conversations," Southey's 
 " Book of the Church," and Lingard's " Anglo-Saxon Antiqui- 
 ties," besides a host of books of travel, and quarterly and 
 monthly magazines innumerable. 
 
 * " Life of Thomas Cooper," pp. 60, 61. 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 175 
 
 We have said that Cooper overdid the work of study. Like 
 Kirke- White, he was so completely absorbed with the passion 
 for learning, that he set all the laws of health at defiance, and 
 " had to pay the penalty. Having a stronger constitution than 
 the Nottingham youth, Cooper managed to escape with his life, 
 and, after a period of bodily and mental prostration, with all 
 his old vigor restored to him ; but it was a narrow escape. 
 These excessive labors, coupled with the effects of scanty fare, 
 brought him to a state of extreme weakness. He says, " I not 
 unfrequently swooned away and fell all along the floor when I 
 tried to take my cup of oatmeal gruel at the end of my day's 
 labor. Next morning, of course, I was not able to rise at an 
 early hour ; and then very likely the next day's study had to 
 be stinted. I needed better food than we could afford to buy, 
 and often had to contend with the sense of faintness, while I 
 still plodded on with my double task of mind and body. 77 * 
 At length, after many premonitory symptoms, came a crisis. 
 One night he had to be carried to bed in a dead faint, and for 
 nine weeks he left his bed but for a short time each day. The 
 greatest fears were felt for his safety ; the doctor had little 
 hope, and once he was so prostrate, that a friend who was 
 called in sadly told his mother that the pulse had ceased to 
 beat, and he was dead ! This was at the end of 1827 ; by the 
 spring of the following year he had recovered sufficiently to 
 begin to think of going to work again. A brief spell at his old 
 occupation was enough to satisfy him that it would not suit 
 him in his altered state of health ; and, after a short rest and 
 more complete recovery, he took the welcome advice of two 
 friends and agreed to open a school. He had now done forever 
 with the trade of a shoemaker, after giving to it eight years of 
 the best part of his early life. 'These he confesses to have 
 been, on the whole, most happy years, and of the last four he 
 says with enthusiasm, *' What glorious years were those years 
 of self -denial and earnest mental toil, from the age of nearly 
 nineteen to nearly three-and-twenty, that I sat and worked in 
 that corner of my poor mother's lowly home !" He had cer- 
 tainly made wondrous progress as a self-taught scholar, and 
 now he was prepared to enter the world and make his own way 
 in it, with such a stock of learning and culture as few young 
 men in England, in his position, could boast of. We scarcely 
 dare venture to estimate his acquirements at this time. The 
 
 * "Life of Thomas Cooper," p. 67. 
 
176 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKKKS. 
 
 reader can easily judge from our account of his studies how 
 considerable they must have been. In English literature, from 
 Spenser and Shakespeare to the essayists and poets, such as 
 De Quincey, Hazlitt, and Charles Lamb, or Byron, Campbell, 
 and Moore, he was well versed. He had read extensively in 
 history, philosophy, theology, and Christian evidences. As to 
 mathematics, he had gone pretty deeply into algebra and 
 geometry ; and in the languages, besides his " easy French, 
 he had done something in Hebrew, could read his Greek Testa- 
 ment, and found delight in the Latin authors, such as Ca3sar, 
 Virgil, Tacitus, and Lactantius. This is no mean story to tell 
 of the accomplishments of a self-taught shoemaker, who has 
 never earned more than ten shillings per week. 
 
 School-teaching was a congenial employment for one so fond 
 of study and so apt to teach as Thomas Cooper. He threw his 
 whole soul into the work, and succeeded in establishing a first- 
 rate school of its class ; and that class of school was certainly a 
 vast improvement on the Free School of his own early days. 
 Everybody in Gainsborough knew the studious shoemaker who 
 had learned four languages at the cobbler's stall, read as much, 
 or more, than any one in the town of his own nge, had a marvel- 
 lous memory, and could repeat the whole of Hamlet and the 
 first four books of the " Paradise Lost !" Besides all this, he 
 was known and esteemed for a steady young man, who, though 
 he might incur a little suspicion among the strictly religious 
 folk by his neglect of public worship, was guilty of no waste of 
 time or money in vicious company and riotous living. And so 
 pupils flocked in ; a hundred names were entered on his books 
 by the end of the first year, and the school prospered to his 
 heart's content. Nor was the confidence of parents misplaced ; 
 never, surely, did a teacher give himself more completely to his 
 work. He gave even more than was bargained for, drilling all 
 the boys in Latin grammar, and carrying them on as far as pos- 
 sible in the higher branches of arithmetic. Five years were 
 thus spent most usefully and happily at Gainsborough, after 
 which he removed from the old town and settled in the cathe- 
 dral city of Lincoln. 
 
 But before quitting Gainsborough a vital change had taken 
 place in his thoughts and mode of life. Brought face to face 
 with death in his recent illness, the most serious thoughts had 
 been aroused within his mind, and on his recovery he was not 
 the man to abandon or drown such thoughts because the imme- 
 diate fear of death had passed away. The earnest conversations 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 17? 
 
 he held with the young curate of the parish, " the pious and 
 laborious Charles Hensley," and his two former friends, Hough 
 and Kelvey, strengthened his resolve to seek for peace of mind 
 in the belief of gospel truth and entire devotion to a religious 
 life. In January, 1829, he joined the Methodist Society. The 
 perusal of Sigston's " Life of William Bramwell " fired his 
 soul with a passion for holiness, and such was his intensity of 
 religious fervor for a time, that he is constrained to say in his 
 Autobiography : " If throughout eternity in^heaven I be as 
 happy as I often was for whole days during that short period 
 of my religious life, it will be heaven indeed. Often for sev- 
 eral days together I felt close to the Almighty felt I was His 
 own and His entirely. I felt no wandering of the will and in- 
 clination to yield to sin ; and when temptation came, my 
 whole soul wrestled for victory till the temptation fled. En- 
 tered on the local preachers' plan, he turned his rare gifts to 
 good account in ministering to the congregations which formed 
 the Gainsborough " circuit," and developed that faculty of elo- 
 quent speech which in later years has delighted the thousands 
 who gathered to hear his political orations as an advocate of the 
 " People's Charter" or his grand lectures on the evidences of 
 the Christian religion. Driven away from his old home by 
 unhappy disturbances in the Wesley an Society, he went, as we 
 have said, in November, 1833, to live at Lincoln, where once 
 more he occupied himself as a schoolmaster. 
 
 Just before leaving Gainsborough he was constrained to 
 gather a few pieces of his poetry together and publish them by 
 subscription in a small volume, with the title, taken from the 
 first piece, " The Wesleyan Chiefs." The book fell flat on 
 the market, and seems to have had very little merit. Its pub- 
 lication was chiefly remarkable for bringing the author into the 
 company of James Montgomery, who kindly undertook to read 
 the proof sheets. Only one of these selections seems to have 
 called forth a word of commendation from the veteran poet. 
 Against the lines addressed to " Lincoln Cathedral " he wrote : 
 " These are very noble lines, and the versification is truly worthy 
 of them. ' ' * Montgomery was then over sixty years of age, and 
 had published all the poems by which his name is known to fame. 
 
 Soon after going to reside in Lincoln, Cooper married Miss 
 Jobson, sister of Frederic James Jobson, afterward well known 
 as Dr. Jobson among the Wesleyan Methodists, and at one time 
 
 * These lines stand first among the minor pieces in "Cooper's 
 Poetical Works." London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1877. 
 
178 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 their honored President of the Conference. The religious 
 troubles at Gainsborough followed the local preacher to Lincoln, 
 for the superintendent with whom he had disagreed at the 
 former place would not suffer him to rest in his new home ; 
 and at length, soured and wearied by what he could not but 
 deem ill-usage, he threw up his appointment on the plan, and 
 finally cut himself off from the Methodist connection. Free to 
 devote his energies to other pursuits, he now flung himself very 
 zealously into the new Mechanics' Institute movement, took a 
 class in Latin, sought to perfect Limself in French pronuncia- 
 tion, and to acquire a knowledge of Italian under the tutorship 
 of Signor D'Albrione, " a very noble-looking Italian gentleman, 
 a native of Turin, who had been a cavalry officer in the armies 
 of Napoleon, had endured the retreat from Moscow, was at the 
 defeat of Leipzig," etc., and had become " a refugee in Eng- 
 land on account of his participation in the conspiracy of the 
 Carbonari. " German, also, was studied for a time ; but very 
 soon a new attraction arose in the formation of a Choral Society, 
 of which the zealous schoolmaster became the secretary and 
 chief manager, collecting its funds, enlisting by his persuasive 
 powers the best singers in the city, and arranging for its meet- 
 ings and public performances. His attendance at the lectures 
 of the Institute incidentally led to a new employment, in which 
 undoubtedly Thomas Cooper might have excelled and gained 
 no mean emolument and renown had he chosen to devote him- 
 self exclusively to it. Having sent a paragraph report of one 
 of the lectures on chemistry to the Lincoln, Rutland, and 
 Stamford Mercury, he was waited upon by the editor, Richard 
 Newcomb, and requested to supply intelligence weekly of any 
 affairs of importance in the city, and promised 20 a year for 
 his trouble. This was in 1834. In two years he gave up his 
 connection with the Choral Society, cultivated the newspaper 
 correspondent business to such an extent that he was advanced 
 to 100 per year, and so gave up his school. Having put his 
 hand to the work of newspaper correspondence, he did not do 
 it by halves. He exposed the abuses, as he deemed them, then 
 rife in the city, wrote sketches of the " Lincoln Preachers, " 
 and created such a stir by his lively and racy articles on munici- 
 pal and political matters, that the paper rapidly rose in circula- 
 tion, and he found himself for a time the most notorious man 
 in the city, feared by many, hated by not a few, and courted 
 by those who had favors to win or help to secure from the 
 lively correspondent. 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 179 
 
 In 1838, at the urgent 'request of Mr. Newcomb, he removed 
 to Stamford, under a verbal promise that when the editor 
 retired, which he intimated would be very soon, Cooper should 
 have the sole management. After remaining for a few months 
 in the position of clerk to Mr. Newcoinb, and finding to his 
 chagrin that the old editor gave no sign of keeping to his agree- 
 ment, he very rashly threw down his pen and gave notice to 
 leave. A little patience might have sufficed to gain his end, 
 but his mortification was extreme, and so a good situation, 
 worth, in all, 300 a year, was sacrificed. " On the 1st of 
 June, 1839," he writes, " we got on the stage-coach, with 
 our boxes of books, at Stamford, and away I went to make my 
 first venture in London." 
 
 The six years spent at Lincoln had been a time of literary 
 activity in more ways than that of newspaper correspondence. 
 Many minor pieces, such as are found at the end of the col- 
 lected poems, were written, and the title and plan of his best 
 poetical work, " The Purgatory of Suicides," was decided 
 upon. But he had done more in the way of prose. The first 
 volume of a historical romance was finished ere he left Lincoln, 
 and now that he had come to London, he hoped to make his 
 way with this as an introduction to the publishers and the read- 
 ing world. But he very soon discovered, as thousands besides 
 have done, that he had little to hope from patrons, even though, 
 like Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, they might be men to whom 
 he had rendered some political service in days gone by, and 
 that his unlucky manuscript was a poor broken reed to lean 
 upon. After nine months' bitter experience of fruitless at- 
 tempts to find employment, and when all his stock of five hun- 
 dred books, the dear companions of the last ten years of earnest 
 study, had been sold, and even his father's old silver watch and 
 articles of clothing had been carried to the pawnshop, he was 
 fortunate enough to make an engagement, at 3 per week, as 
 editor of the Kentish Mercury, Gravesend Journal , and Green- 
 wick Gazette, of which Mr. William Dougal Christie was the 
 proprietor. He had held this office but a short time when dis- 
 agreement as to the management of the paper led him to give 
 notice of retirement from his awkward position. Strangely 
 enough, at this very juncture a letter reached him from a friend 
 in Lincoln enclosing another from the manager of a paper in 
 Leicester, asking to be informed of " the whereabouts of 
 Thomas Cooper, who wrote the articles entitled * Lincoln 
 Preachers' in the Stamford Mercury." Dropping the letter, 
 
180 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 he exclaimed to his wife, u The message has come at last the 
 message of Destiny ! We are going to live at Leicester/' thus 
 expressing a thought he had secretly cherished for years, " that 
 he had something to do of a stirring and important nature at 
 Leicester. " And so it proved, but that " something 77 was 
 very different from what he had ever anticipated. Answering 
 the inquiry in person, he agreed with the manager of the Lei- 
 cestershire Mercury to accept a reporter's place at a small remu- 
 neration, and in November, 1840, he went to reside in his 
 native town and prepare himself for his *' destiny." In Lon- 
 don he had met with his old friend Thomas Miller, who was 
 then writing " Lady Jane Grey ;" and here at Leicester he dis- 
 covered another Gainsborough youth, Joseph Winks, who had 
 been his companion and rival in the Improvement Society, and 
 was now ** a printer and bookseller, a busy politician, Baptist 
 preacher, and editor of three or four small religious periodi- 
 cals." * 
 
 Sent one night by the manager of the Mercury to attend and 
 report a Chartist lecture, he was introduced for the first time 
 to those poor but desperately earnest politicians who were at 
 that time making their pathetic and passionate voices heard 
 throughout the Midland and Northern Counties. From that 
 night Thomas Cooper was a Chartist ; and for the next three 
 years his best powers were devoted to the cause of the suffering 
 operatives and his life-interests bound up in the Chartist move- 
 ment. Nothing could be more pitiable than the condition of 
 the Leicester " stockingers" at this time. The average weekly 
 wages of a man who worked hard were four-and-sixpence ! 
 Ground down to the point of starvation by " frame-rent," pay- 
 ment for " standing," for u giving-out, " and for the " seamer," 
 and, worst of all, obliged to pay the full week's rent when 
 working on half-time, it is no wonder that his spirit was galled 
 to madness, and that he looked to something like a political 
 revolution for a redress of his wrongs. Lord Byron, in the 
 only speech he ever delivered in the House of Lords, had spo- 
 ken eloquently and generously in behalf of these suffering op- 
 eratives of the Midland Counties. 
 
 One cannot wonder that a man like Cooper, who had known 
 the pinchings of poverty, should have felt his soul stirred 
 
 "The Children's Magazine (next to the Teacher's Offering the first 
 magazine for children published in this country), the Christian 
 Pioneer, the Child's Magazine. He was also editor of . the Baptist 
 Reporter for many years. 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 181 
 
 within him. His sympathies and views soon drew him into 
 writing and speaking for the Chartists. This was an offence in 
 the eyes of his employers of the Mercury, and led to his sever- 
 ance from them. He now, at the request of the factory hands 
 of Leicester, became their political leader, and the editor of 
 their paper, the Midland Counties Illuminator, which fell into 
 his own hands after a few weeks, and was changed in style and 
 title, and made a new appearance as the Chartist Rushlight, and 
 afterward as the Extinguisher. Ti^, the midst of the dispute 
 between Whigs and Tories, Cooper was " nominated " by the 
 Chartists as their candidate, hot with any hope of being carried 
 at the poll, but rather as a means of spiting the Whigs, against 
 whom the working-men were intensely bitter, on account of 
 their unwillingness to support " The People's Charter." En- 
 deavoring to turn his leadership of the Chartists to some ac- 
 count apart from politics, he added to the task of regular ad- 
 dresses in the open air the conduct of a Sunday adult school 
 and Sunday-evening meetings ; and, when the winter came on, 
 gathered his friends together, and sought to lift their thoughts 
 above their daily care, and awaken in their minds a desire for 
 reading, by a course of lectures on literature and science. But 
 the bad times of 1842 put a stop to all this. The condition of 
 the stockingers grew worse and worse, and Cooper took to sup- 
 plying bread on sale or lortn, to meet the wants of the poor 
 starving creatures, and ran into debt by so doing. The poor- 
 house, or Bastile, as the working-men always called it, was 
 crowded to excess, and riots broke out now and again ; but 
 with these neither Cooper nor the Chartist Association had any- 
 thing to do. In August of the same year he was appointed by 
 this body as a delegate to the Chartists' Convention at Manches- 
 ter. On the way thither he lectured or spoke in the open air 
 at Birmingham, Wednesbury, Bilston, \Volverhampton, and at 
 length came to Hanley, where he addressed a vast crowd of 
 men at " the Crown Bank." His subject was the sixth com- 
 mandment, li Thou shalt do no murder," in which he spoke of 
 the violations of this law by conquerors and legislators, and by 
 masters who oppressed the hireling in his wages. The men 
 were now out on strike, and the excitement produced by this 
 and another address on the following night was intense. He 
 counselled perpetually " peace, law, and order," and bade the 
 men hold out in their strike until the People's Charter became 
 the law of the land. Riot and incendiarism broke out in a 
 short time, for which Cooper was in no way directly rcsponsi- 
 
182 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 blc, but had, on the other hand, distinctly endeavored to dis- 
 suade them from. lie was taken prisoner on his return from 
 Manchester, and having been tried for the crime of arson, was 
 acquitted, having pleaded his own case so eloquently that the 
 judge was evidently affected, and the ladies present at the trial 
 were even moved to tears. Tried again at the Spring Assizes on 
 the charge of sedition, he cross-examined the witnesses from 
 Monday to Saturday at noon, and then proceeded to sum up 
 his defence in a speech which altogether (Sunday intervening) 
 lasted ten hours. ' 4 I do not think," he rcmaiks, " I ever 
 spoke so powerfully in my life as during the last hour of that 
 defence. The peroration, the Stafford papers said, would 
 never be forgotten ; and T remember as I sat down, panting for 
 breath and utterly exhausted, how Talfourd and Erskine and 
 the jury sat transfixed, gazing at me in silence, and the whole 
 crowded place was breathless, as it seemed, for a minute.' 7 
 The case being removed by a " writ of cvrtinruri to the Court 
 of Queen's Bench, was tried on the 5th of May, 1843. In his 
 defence Thomas Cooper again delivered an eloquent speech, 
 five and a half hours long, and was again acquitted of the 
 charge of felony. Judge Erskine's notes of the trial had 
 " mistake" written alongside the evidence on that part of the 
 charge. But the eloquent Chartist orator was convicted on the 
 charge of sedition and conspiracy, and sent to Stafford jail for 
 two years. 
 
 There are few chapters in the Autobiography so full of in- 
 terest and so graphically written as those which describe 
 Thomas Cooper's prison experience. Galled to the quick by 
 the treatment he received for he was kept on low, miserable 
 fare and denied " literary privileges" he determined to break 
 down " the system of restraint in Stafford jail, and win the. 
 privilege of reading and writing, or die in the attempt." After 
 many manoeuvres he managed to get pen, ink, and paper, and 
 write a petition to the House of Commons, which was handed 
 in at the bar of the House by Mr. Duncombe, M.P. for Fins- 
 bury. All that he could reasonably expect was now granted 
 in answer to his appeal, and the remainder of his time was tilled 
 up with literary work. He revelled in the English poets from 
 Shakespeare to Shelley; read again the " Decline and Fall," 
 Prideaux's " Connexion," White's " Selborne," etc., etc. ; 
 fell passionately in love with the study of Hebrew, and almost 
 raved about the glories of the sacred language of the Old Testa- 
 ment ; and read two thirds of the Hebrew Bible, copying out 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 183 
 
 verbs and nouns as he went along. One day he was visited by 
 Lord Sandon, afterward Earl of Harrowby, who fell into con- 
 versation with the learned prisoner about the poetical books of 
 the Bible in the old German edition which lay open before him 
 on the table. A short time before his release the chaplain told 
 him that the way was open for him to go to Cambridge if he 
 would ; but the conditions were such as did *not suit the inde- 
 pendent mind of the political martyr. Cooper had a shrewd 
 suspicion that the visit of the nobleman had some connection 
 with this generous offer. 
 
 Cooper's best work in Stafford jail was the composition of 
 the well-known poem, " The Purgatory of Suicides." This 
 poem, he tells us, was the working out of a thought which oc- 
 curred to him ten years before, when he was sitting as a report- 
 er in the assize court at Lincoln. The historical romance, the 
 first part of which he had carried to London in 1839, was also 
 completed during his imprisonment, and he wrote during the 
 same period a volume of tales, afterward published under the 
 title, " Wise Saws and Modern Instances." " These,'' he 
 says, " I took out of prison with me as my keys for unlocking 
 the gates of fortune." 
 
 On his liberation, May 4th, 1845, he went up to London, 
 shedding tears of gladness aqd gratitude on the way as he 
 looked once more on the green fields and hedgerows of the 
 Midland Counties. His first care was to find a publisher for his 
 prison rhyme and tales. As soon as he was able he sought out 
 Mr. Duncombe, to thank him for his generous help in the mat- 
 ter of the petition t:> the House of Commons, and to ask for 
 counsel in seeking a publisher. Duncombe sent him to Mr. 
 D' Israeli, with the following note : 
 
 " MY DEAR DISRAELI, I send you Mr. Cooper, a Chartist, 
 red-hot from Stafford jail. But don't be frightened ; he wont' 
 bite you. He has written a poem and a romance, and thinks 
 he can cut out ' Coningsby ' and ' Sybil.' Help him if you 
 can, and oblige yours, T. S. DUNCOMBE." 
 
 It is gratifying to read of the kindness with which the shrewd 
 statesman, then a Tory of the Tories, received the 4C red-hot 
 radical." 4t I wish I had seen you before I finished my last 
 novel," said he ; " my heroine Sybil is a Chartist." With the 
 kindly help of Douglas Jerroldthe 44 Purgatory " was at length 
 published by Jeremiah How, Fleet Street, who undertook to 
 bear the cost and risk of printing. It came out in September, 
 
184 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKKKS. 
 
 1845, and the five hundred copies of the first edition were sold 
 off before Christmas. Cooper now began to write for Douglas 
 Jerrold's " Shilling Magazine." The volume of talcs called 
 " Wise Saws," etc., and a short poem, " The Baron's Yule 
 Feast," were issued about the same time. The tk Purgatory 
 of Suicides" had been dedicated, without leave asked, to 
 Thomas Carlyle, to whom the author sent a copy, and from 
 whom he received in acknowledgment a characteristic letter, in 
 which, among other kind and wise things, that greatest of all 
 the literary men of his age said, " I have looked into your 
 poem, and find indisputable traces of genius in it a dark Ti- 
 tanic energy struggling there, for which we hope there will be 
 clearer daylight by and by ;" and along with tiie letter came a 
 copy of 4t Past and Present," with Carlyle's autograph. In 
 1846 Cooper was at work on Douglas Jerrold's weekly paper, 
 visiting the Midland and Northern Counties as a sort ot" com- 
 missioner, and writing articles on the 4t Condition of the Peo- 
 ple of England." Passing through the Lake District, he 
 called on Wordsworth, and was most kindly received by the 
 " majestic old man." Great, however, was the Chartist's amaze- 
 ment to hear the " Tory" Wordsworth say with reference to 
 the Chartist movement, " You were right ; I have always said 
 the people were right in what they asked ; but you went the 
 wrong way to get it." On his return to London, Cooper en- 
 gaged to lecture on Sunday evenings at South Place, Finsbury 
 Square, and continued the work of public lecturer for the next 
 eight years. During this time he lectured through the winter 
 for various political and socialist societies in several large halls 
 in London, such as the John Street Institution and the " Hall 
 of Science," City Road, and filled up the time during the sum- 
 mer by lecturing tours throughout the kingdom. He had now 
 become a sceptic, i.e. doubter, and confined himself in his lec- 
 tures exclusively to secular topics, political or literary. The 
 misery he had witnessed in Leicester and the Potteries, the 
 failure of all his efforts to benefit the suffering poor, and the 
 long imprisonment he had endured as a disinterested champion 
 of their cause, had sorely shaken his faith in Divine Providence 
 and driven him to the verge of downright atheism, but only 
 to the verge : he declares that lie was never an atheist, nor 
 ever " proclaimed blank atheism in his public teaching. " * Y^et 
 it must be confessed he went far in this direction. The worst 
 
 * "Life of Thomas Cooper," p. 262, also pp. 356 367. 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 185 
 
 period of his life in this respect was the winter of 1848-49, 
 when, having become a disciple of Strauss, he engaged to give 
 a series of lectures on Sunday evenings in the " Hall of Science" 
 on the teachings of the " Leben Jesu. " He says : " There is 
 no part of my teaching as a public lecturer that I regret so 
 deeply as this. It would rejoice my heart indeed if I could 
 obliterate those lectures from the realm of fact. " * But for the 
 most part his addresses were on purely literary or historical 
 subjects, and marvellous indeed was tte versatility and extent 
 of learning they displayed. The enumeration of topics alone 
 would occupy several pages. Every one of the chief English 
 poets and their poems, the history of every European country, 
 the lives of great reformers, statesmen, generals, inventors, dis- 
 coverers, men of science, musicians, ancient philosophers and 
 modern philanthropists, negro slavery, taxation, national debt, 
 the age of chivalry, the Middle Ages, wrongs of Poland, the 
 Gypsies, ancient Egypt, astronomy, geology, natural history, 
 the vegetable kingdom these and scores of other topics were 
 treated during these years of lecturing life in London and the 
 provinces. In addition to these duties he had other cares and 
 toils. In 1848-49 he edited a weekly paper called the Plain 
 Speaker, and in the following year Cooper's Journal. His 
 1 Triumph of Perseverance" appeared in 1849, " Alderman 
 Ralph" and "The Family Feud," two novels, in 1853 and 
 1855 respectively. 
 
 Returning from a lecturing tour at the end of 1855, he was 
 conscious of a great and vital change which had for some time 
 been going on within his mind, and when he attempted to re- 
 commence his work at the City Hall in January, 1856, he found 
 it impossible to go on along the old lines. On a certain mem- 
 orable night, when announced to speak on " Sweden and the 
 Swedes," he could not utter a word. He turned pale as death, 
 and as the audience sat gazing and wondering what could have 
 come to the bold and fluent speaker, whose tongue was ready 
 on every theme, his pent-up feelings at length found vent. He 
 told the people he could lecture on Sweden, but must relieve 
 his conscience, for he could suppress conviction no longer. He 
 then declared that he had been insisting on the duty of morality 
 for years, but there had been this radical defect in his teach- 
 ings, that he had " neglected to teach the right foundation for 
 morals the existence of a Divine moral Governor." j In the 
 
 * " Life of Thomas Cooper," p. 316. f Ibid., p. 335. 
 
ISO ILLUSTRIOUS SHoKM A K KKS. 
 
 storm which followed he challenged them to bring the best 
 sceptics they could muster in the metropolis, and he would 
 meet them in debate on the being of God and the argument for 
 a future state. He kept his promise, and for four nights main- 
 tained his ground against Robert Cooper * and others in the 
 City Hall and the John Street Institute. 
 
 But though the battle was fought out bravely in public, he 
 had yet another conflict to wage and win ere his mind enjoyed 
 rest and peace in the faith of a true Christian. In this conflict 
 he received valuable aid from the Rev. Charles Kingslcy, f and 
 his old friend and relative, Dr. Jobson. Through the kind in- 
 terest of the Rev. F. I). Maurice, W. E. Foster, M.P., and 
 W. F. Cowper, President of the Board of Health, Cooper ob- 
 tained employment for two years under Government as a copy- 
 ist of letters. Returning to the City Hall, he now began a se- 
 ries of Sunday-evening lectures on Theism, and advancing stage 
 by stage, he took up such themes as the Moral Government of 
 God, Man's Moral Nature, the Soul and a Future State, Evi- 
 dences of Christianity, Atonement, Faith, Repentance, etc. 
 But his return to the truth of Christ and Christianity was grad- 
 ual, though sure. As he says, " I had been twelve years a 
 sceptic ; and it was not until fully two years had been devoted 
 to hard reading and thinking that I could conscientiously and 
 truly say, I am again a Christian, even nominally." Saved in 
 an extraordinary manner from death by a railway accident as he 
 was travelling to Bradford on the 10th May, 1858, he finally 
 and fully resolved to dedicate his powers to the service of God, 
 saying within himself as he stood looking on the mournful 
 sight of the ruined train and the dead and wounded lying 
 around, " Oh, take my life, which Thou hast graciously kept, 
 and let it be devoted to Thee. I have again entered Thy ser- 
 vice ; let me never more leave it, but live only to spread Thy 
 truth !" 
 
 He began at once not only to lecture on the evidences of 
 Christianity, but to preach, and received many solicitations to 
 join different religious societies. Dr. Hook of Leeds gener- 
 ously offered him an appointment as head of a band of Scrip- 
 
 *The charges of atheism and atheistic advocacy made against 
 Thomas Cooper have often arisen from confounding Thomas Cooper 
 the sceptic with Robert Cooper the infidel. See "Life of Thomas 
 Cooper," p. 357. 
 
 f See letters to Thomas Cooper in " Kingsley's Life and Letters." 
 London : Henry King & Co., 1877, pp. 183 and 221, etc. 
 
THOMAS COOPER. 187 
 
 tiire-readers, with freedom to go out on his own mission as a 
 speaker when he pleased. This offer he declined, with grate- 
 ful thanks to the worthy vicar. In the spring of the following 
 year he decided to join the Baptist denomination, and writes, 
 " Reflection made me a Baptist in conviction, and on Whitsun- 
 day, 1859, my old and dear friend, Joseph Foulkes Winks, im- 
 mersed me in baptism in Friar Lane Chapel, Leicester." 
 
 From that time to the present twenty-two years Thomas 
 Cooper has devoted his great powers to the work of preaching 
 and lecturing on the evidences of the Christian religion. The 
 energy and ability displayed' in this noble work by the veteran 
 orator have been remarkable. For months together he has 
 been known to travel long distances by rail, and lecture four or 
 five times in the week, and preach three times on Sunday. 
 After a two hours' lecture he was wont, during the first few 
 years of this period, to recite the first two or three books of 
 Milton's " Paradise Lost." Few, if any, that ever heard his 
 preaching can forget its rich spirituality of tone and delightful 
 purity and simplicity of style. The lectures it is hard to de- 
 scribe without seeming to exaggerate their rare merits. The 
 best testimony to their worth has been given by the hundreds of 
 thousands who have come together to listen to them as de- 
 livered in all the chief towns of England, Scotland, and Wales 
 for more than twenty years, and by their rapid and extensive 
 sale when published. Crowded with facts of history or science 
 which are clearly arranged and pressed into the service of logi- 
 cal argument, delivered extemporaneously in language of the 
 truest and homeliest Saxon type, and often marked by passages 
 of great eloquence, these lectures may be taken as ideals of 
 what popular lectures on religious evidence^ should be. Of 
 his present employment, Thomas Cooper, writing in 1872, says, 
 in his own simple fashion : " My work is indeed a happy work. 
 Sunday is now a day of heaven to me. I feel that to preach 
 4 the unsearchable riches of Christ ' is the most exalted and 
 ennobling work in which a human creature can be engaged. 
 And believing that I am performing the work of duty that I 
 am right my employment of lecturing on the * Evidences of 
 Natural and Revealed Religion,' from week to week, fills me 
 with the consoling reflection that my life is not being spent in 
 vain, much less spent in evil." Happy close of a strangely 
 eventful and checkered life ! May the stalwart old laborer of 
 seventy -five be spared to scatter many a handful of the seeds of 
 truth before he hears the summons which shall end his labors. 
 
188 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 We have spoken, in the title of this chapter, of Thomas 
 Cooper as " The self-educated shoemaker who reared his own 
 monument. 7 ' This sketch cannot be closed more appropriately 
 than by giving the titles of the works published during the last 
 eight years the stones which form the chief part of that 
 monument : 
 
 The Bridge of History over the Gulf of Time (1872), twentieth 
 
 thousand. 
 
 Plain Pulpit-Talk (1872), third edition. 
 The Life of Thomas Cooper, written by Himself (1872), twelfth 
 
 thousand. 
 
 The Paradise of Martyrs, or Faith Khyme (1873). 
 God, the Soul, and a Future State (1873), eight thousand. 
 Old-Fashioned Stories (1874), third edition. 
 The Verity of Christ's Resurrection from the Dead (1875), fifth 
 
 thousand. 
 The Verity and Value of the Miracles of Christ (1876), fourth 
 
 thousand. 
 The Poetical Works Purgatory of Suicides, Paradise of Martyrs, 
 
 Minor Poems (1877), Evolution, the Stone Book, and the 
 
 Mosaic Record of Creation (1878), third thousand. 
 The Atonement and other Discourses (1880). 
 
(ftottstellatton nf (Kelefcratefc (Eoftfclers. 
 
 " This day is called Ihe feast of Crispin : 
 
 And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 
 
 From this day to the ending of the world, 
 
 But we in it shall be remembered : 
 
 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers." 
 
 Shakespeare. King Henry Fifths Address 
 to the Leaders of the English Army on 
 the Eve of the Battle of Agincourt. Act 
 V. Scene 3. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP WHATELY once amused a clerical dinner-party by 
 asking the question, " Why do white sheep eat more than black 
 sheep ?" When none of his friends could answer the question, 
 the witty Archbishop dryly remarked that one reason undoubted- 
 ly was that * ' there were more of them. ' ' The question is often 
 asked, ' ' How are we to account for the fact that shoemakers 
 outnumber any other handicraft in the ranks of illustrious 
 men ?" * Perhaps this question may be answered in the same 
 way. At all events, the answer " there are more of them,'* 
 will go a long way toward a solution of this interesting social 
 problem. The sons of Crispin are certainly a very numerous 
 class, and it is but natural that they should figure largely in the 
 lists of famous men. But inquirers on this subject are not 
 generally satisfied by an appeal to statistics. It is felt that 
 something more is required in order to account for the remark - 
 
 * Among others, Coleridge observed that shoemakers had given 
 to the world a larger number of eminent men than any handicraft. 
 The philosophic was rather partial to shoemakers, from the time 
 when, as a boy at Christ's Hospital, he wished to be apprenticed to 
 the trade of shoeinaking. 
 
190 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 able proportion of shoemakers in the roll of men of mark. In 
 addition to this, it must be borne in mind that the reputation 
 of shoemakers does not depend entirely on their most illustri- 
 ous representatives. They have, as a class, a reputation which 
 is quite unique. The followers of " the gentle craft" have 
 generally stood foremost among artisans as regards intelligence 
 and social influence. Probably no class of workmen could, in 
 these respects, compete with them fifty or a hundred years ago, 
 when education and reading were not so common as they arc 
 now. Almost to a man they had some credit for thoughtful- 
 ness, shrewdness, logical skill, and debating power ; and their 
 knowledge derived from books was admitted to be beyond the 
 average among operatives. They were generally referred to by 
 men of their own social status for the settlement of disputed 
 points in literature, science, politics, or theology. Advocates 
 of political, social, or religious reform, local preachers, Method- 
 ist *' class-leaders," and Sunday-school teachers, were drafted 
 in larger numbers from the fraternity of shoemakers than from 
 any other craft. 
 
 How are we to account for such facts as these ? Is there 
 anything in the occupation of the shoemaker which is peculiarly 
 favorable to habits of thought and study ? It would seem to 
 be so ; and yet it would be difficult to show what it is that 
 gives him an advantage over all other workmen. The secret 
 may lie in the fact that he sits to his work, and, as a rule, sits 
 alone ; that his occupation stimulates his mind without wholly 
 occupying and absorbing its powers ; that it leaves him free to 
 break off, if he will, at intervals, and glance at the book or 
 make notes on the paper which lies beside him. Such facts as 
 these have been suggested, and not without reason, as helping 
 us to account for the reputation which the sons of Crispin enjoy 
 as an uncommonly clever class of men. 
 
ANCIENT EXAMPLES IN ASIA AND AFRICA. 
 
 THE COBBLER AND THE ARTIST APELLES, 
 
 " Let the cobbler stick to his last. 11 
 
 THE reputation of the shoemaker class is not confined to our 
 own country or to modern times. It is pretty much the same in 
 all countries, and reaches back to very ancient times. The prov- 
 erb, "Ne Sutor ultra crepidam" " Let the cobbler stick to 
 his last" is one of the oldest in existence. Few proverbs are 
 more universally and frequently quoted. It is based on a story 
 which comes down to us from the times of Alexander the 
 Great. Even if the story, as it is told in our Grecian histories, 
 be not authentic, it serves to show that even in times preceding 
 the Christian era cobblers were regarded as a shrewd and ob- 
 servant set of men. But there is no reason that we know of to 
 doubt the story, which is well worth repeating. It is told of 
 Apelles, one of the most celebrated of the old Greek painters, 
 who flourished about 300 B.C. He was the friend of Alexander, 
 and the only artist whom the great warrior would allow to paint 
 his portrait. Apelles, we are told, was not ashamed to learn 
 from the humblest critics. As Lord Bacon says, he did not 
 object to " light his torch at any man's candle." For this rea- 
 son, knowing that a good deal may sometimes be learned from 
 the observations of passers-by, he was in the habit of placing 
 his pictures before they were quite finished outside his house ; 
 and then, crouching down behind them, he listened to the 
 remarks of spectators. On one occasion a cobbler noticed a 
 fault in the painting of a shoe, and remarking upon it to a per- 
 son standing by, passed on. As soon as the man was out of 
 sight Apelles came from his hiding-place, examined the paint- 
 ing, found that the cobbler's criticism was just, and at once 
 corrected the error. Once more the picture was exposed, while 
 the artist lay behind it to hear what further might be said. 
 The cobbler came by again, and soon .discovered that the fault 
 
192 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 he had pointed out had been remedied ; and, emboldened by 
 the success of his criticism, began to express his opinion pretty 
 freely about the painting of the leg ! This was too much for 
 the patience of the artist, who rushed from his hiding-place, 
 and told the cobbler to stick to his shoes. Hence the proverb, 
 which for more than two thousand years * has expressed the 
 common feeling, that critics would do well not to venture be- 
 yond their legitimate province. 
 
 TWO SHOEMAKER-BISHOPS ANNIANUS OF ALEX. 
 ANDRIA, AND ALEXANDER OF COMANA. 
 
 If the shoemaker has found a place in classic history, it 
 must not be forgotten that he has a place in ecclesiastical his- 
 tory also. In two instances a shoemaker is said to have been 
 taken direct from the stall and elevated to the episcopal chair. 
 No doubt many shoemakers have been endowed with sufficient 
 piety and learning for this sacred and dignified office, and 
 probably not a few have deemed themselves fit, whether they 
 were so or not, to discharge its high functions ; but the in- 
 stances here given are, we believe, quite unique. The first is 
 that of Anianus or Annianus (A.D. 62-86), who is said to have 
 been appointed by St. Mark to assist him in the government of 
 the Church at Alexandria. On the outbreak of persecution 
 under Nero, Mark fled from the city ; and, as Eusebius says, 
 ** Nero was now in his eighth year, when Annianus succeeded 
 the Apostle and Evangelist Mark in the administration of the 
 Church at Alexandria." The historian adds, 4 ' He (Annianus) 
 was a man distinguished for piety, and admirable in every 
 respect.' 7 f He died in the fourth year of Domitian, 86 A.D. 
 He was the firstBishop of Alexandria, and filled the office twen- 
 ty-two years. J' To these simple statements of the historian are 
 added the stories which found a ready acceptance in later times. 
 To the fact that the worthy Alexandrian was a shoemaker tradi- 
 tion added the account of the miracle wrought upon him by 
 St. Mark. One account tells us that the Evangelist, on pass- 
 ing along the street, burst his shoe and turned in to get it 
 repaired, and so became acquainted with Annianus. Another 
 
 *It is used by Pliny, who died A.D. 79. 
 fEccles. Hist., "Book ii. cap. xxiv. 
 \ Ibid., Book iii. cap. xiv. 
 
THE PIOUS COBBLER. 193 
 
 version of the story declares that the cobbler, having hurt his 
 hand with an awl, uttered a not very pious exclamation, which 
 Mark overheard as he passed by, and going in to inquire the 
 cause, took the opportunity not only to heal the wound, but to 
 speak to the impatient workman of the trae and living God 
 whose name he had taken in vain. Annianus is commemorat- 
 ed in the Roman Marty rology with St. Mark on the 25th April.* 
 The other appointment of a shoemaker to the episcopate 
 was due to the piety and wisdom of Gregory Thaumaturgus, 
 the pupil and friend of Origen (220-270 A.D.). Gregory was 
 then Bishop of Xco-Ca3sarca in Asia Minor, and when a 
 vacancy occurred in the bishopric of Com an a in Cappadocia, 
 he defied all conventionalism and prejudice, and appointed " a 
 poor shoemaker named Alexander, despised by the world, but 
 great in the sight of God, who did honor to so exalted a 
 station in the Church." f He was chosen in preference to 
 scholars and men of good social status on account of his extraor- 
 dinary piety. This Alexander justified the choice thus made 
 by reason of his excellent discourse, his holy living, and a 
 martyr's death. He is honored in the Roman Calendar on 
 August llth. J 
 
 THE PIOUS COBBLER OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 Quite as good a man, no doubt, if not as fit to fill the epis- 
 copal chair, was the pious cobbler of Alexandria, of whom we 
 read that St. Anthony paid him a visit in consequence of a 
 voice from Heaven which said to him, 4t Antony, thou art not 
 so perfect as a cobbler that dwelleth at Alexandria." The 
 pious anchorite was in the habit of hearing such voices and 
 obeying them. All the leading events of his life were accom- 
 panied by a similar message from heaven, as he deemed it. 
 Accordingly he took his star!, and leaving his secluded retreat 
 in the desert, came down to the great city in search of the 
 pious cobbler. Arriving before his door, where the good man 
 
 * Annianus is regarded in some countries as the patron saint of 
 shoemakers. Campion's "Delightful History of ye Gentle Craft." 
 Northampton : Taylor & Son, 2d ed., 1876, p. 25. 
 
 f Pressense's "Early Years of Christianity." London : Hodder & 
 Stoughton, 1879, vol. ii. p. 355. 
 
 t Dr. Smith's " Diet. Christian Biog.," art. "Gregory Thaumatur- 
 gus." In this article Gregory is called a charcoal-burner. Probably, 
 like many other shoemakers, he followed more than one vocation. 
 
194 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 sat at work, Antony asked him for an account of himself and 
 his mode of living. 4 * Sir," answered the cobbler, " as for 
 me, good works I have none. My life is but simple, seeing I 
 arn but a poor cobbler. In the morning when I rise, I pray 
 for the whole city wherein I dwell, especially for all such 
 neighbors and poor friends as I have ; after that I sit me down 
 to my labor, where I spend the whole day in getting my 
 living ; and I keep me from all falsehood, for I hate nothing 
 so much as I do deceitfulness ; wherefore when I make any 
 man a promise, I keep it and perform it truly ; and thus I 
 spend my time poorly with my wife and children, whom I 
 teach and instruct, so far as my wit will serve rne, to fear and 
 dread God ; and this is the sum of my simple life." 
 
 RABBI JOCIIANAN THE SHOEMAKER. 
 
 Speaking of Alexandria reminds us of another worthy of that 
 city, the famous Jewish Rabbi Joehanan Sandalarius, or the 
 shoemaker. Learned Rabbins were common enough in Alex- 
 andria from the time of its foundation by Alexander the 
 Great, 332 B.C., down to its capture by the Arabs in the sev- 
 enth century A.D. And as it was the custom with even the 
 most learned Rabbins to learn a trade, it can be no matter of 
 surprise that many of the most eminent leaders of thought 
 among the Jews were employed in what are now regarded as 
 very humble occupations. The Delegate Chief Rabbi of Great 
 Britain, in an interesting article in the Nineteenth Century,* 
 tells us that " in the grand basilica synagogue of Alexandria, 
 separate portions of the building were assigned to the silver- 
 smiths, weavers, and other trades. . . . The Rabbins, the 
 authorized expounders of the law, deemed it derogatory to 
 receive any reward for the exercise of their spiritual, doctrinal, 
 or judicial functions, and maintained themselves by the labor 
 of their hands. And thus in the Talmud we meet, in curious 
 juxtaposition, the Rabbi and his trade in such phrases as 
 these : " It was taught by Rabbi Joehanan the shoemaker." 
 This illustrious Rabbi came from Alexandria to Palestine, at- 
 tracted by the great name of Akiba Ben Joseph, the famous 
 Rabbi, who was the chief teacher of the rabbinical school at 
 Jaffa at the close of the first century and the beginning of the 
 
 * December, 1881. 
 
RABBI JOCHANAN THE SHOEMAKER. 195 
 
 second. In this school there were said to be no less than 
 24,000 pupils. Akiba sided with Bar Cocheba in his revolt 
 against Rome, 132 A.D., acknowledged him as the Messiah, 
 and became his armor-bearer. On the death of Bar Cocheba 
 and the destruction of his army, Akiba was taken prisoner, and 
 remained in the hands of the Romans for a long time, until 
 his cruel death under Sevcms. During his imprisonment 
 Jochanan managed to get access to his cell, and receive in- 
 structions from him on questions which had not been settled. 
 Through Jochanan and Mei.r, Akiba greatly influenced the 
 teachers of the next generation. Jochanan was certainly one 
 of his most illustrious pupils, taking a leading part in the 
 theological discussions of the Tanaim, the authors of the Mishria 
 and Gamara, where his opinions are frequently quoted. In 
 the Mishna Aboth * " Rabbi Jochanan the shoemaker" is re- 
 ported to have made the following sensible remark, which re- 
 minds one of the counsel of Gamaliel to the Sanhedrim at 
 Jerusalem : f " An association established for a praiseworthy 
 object must ultimately succeed ; but an association established 
 without such an object cannot succeed. " 
 
EUROPEAN EXAMPLES. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 SS. CRISPIN AND CRISPIANTJS, THE PATRON SAINTS 
 OF SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 UNDOUBTEDLY the first shoemakers who obtained anything 
 like a general reputation were the famous brothers Crispin and 
 Crispianus, who are said to have lived in the third century of 
 our era. These saints have been regarded almost ever since 
 that early time as the tutelary or patron saints of shoemakers, 
 who are, to tell the truth, not a little proud of their romantic 
 title, " the sons of Crispin. " We must be careful how we 
 speak of these safnts, for it seems to be an open question 
 whether the story of their holy self-denying lives and martyr- 
 deaths be true or false. If the main features of the story be 
 true, they have been greatly distorted by fable. We give the 
 story as it is generally reported. 
 
 SS. Crispin and Crispianus were born in Rome. Having 
 become converts to Christianity, they set out with St. Denis 
 from that city to become preachers of the Gospel, travelled on 
 foot through Italy, and finally settled down at a little town, 
 now called Soissons, in the modern department of Aisne, about 
 fifty or sixty miles to the north-east of Paris. Here they arc 
 said to have devoted their time during the day to preaching, 
 and to have maintained themselves by working during most of 
 the night as shoemakers. This they did on the apostolic model 
 of Paul, who, while he carried on his mission as a preacher, 
 maintained himself by his trade as a tent-maker, that he might 
 be k< chargeable to no man/' Very little more can be told of 
 
108 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 the life of theso saintly shoemakers than this ; but this, surely, 
 is a great deal. The story goes that they suffered martyrdom 
 by the order of Rictus Varus, governor or consul in Belgic 
 Gaul, during the persecution under Diocletian and Maximinus, 
 on the 25th of October, 287. The 25th of October is still kept 
 in honor of these saints in some parts of England and Wales, 
 and in other European countries. The shoemakers of the dis- 
 trict turn out in large numbers and parade the streets, headed 
 by bands of music, and accompanied by banners on which are 
 emblazoned the emblems of the craft. 
 
 It is difficult, as already intimated, to tell how much of pure 
 legend has been imported into the history of the saints of Sois- 
 sons. One tradition declares them to have been of noble birth, 
 and to have adopted their humble trade entirely for Christian 
 and charitable purposes. Another story relates how they fur- 
 nished the poor with shoes at a very low price, and that, in 
 order to replenish their stock, and as a mark of divine favor, 
 an angel came to them by night with supplies of leather ; while 
 yet another fable, not very creditable to their morals, avows 
 that Saint Crispin stole the leather, so that he might be able to 
 give shoes to the poor. Hence the term Crispinades to denote 
 charities done at the expense of other people. To crown all, 
 it is averred on one authority that after suffering a horrible death 
 by the sword, their bodies were thrown into the sea, and were 
 cast ashore at Romney Marsh.* Such tales are worthless, ex- 
 cept as indicating the wide extent of popularity the shoemakers 
 of Soissons secured by virtue of their piety and benevolence, f 
 
 * On the beach at Lidde, near Stonend, " there is yet to be scene," 
 says Weever, in his "Funeral Monuments," "an heap of great stones 
 which the neighbour inhabitants call St. Crispin' sand St. Crisp inian's 
 tomb, whom they report to have been cast upon this shore by ship- 
 wracke, and from hence called into the glorious company of the saints. 
 Look Jacobus de Voraigne, in the legend of their lives, and you may 
 believe perhaps as much as is spoken. They were shoemakers, and 
 suffered martyrdom the tenth of the kalends of November (25th Oc- 
 tober), which day is kept holy to this day by all our shoemakers in 
 London and elsewhere." Quoted in " Crispin Anecdotes," Sheffield, 
 1827, p. 18. 
 
 ( For the legends of these saints, and much curious information 
 respecting the craft and its guilds in early times, the reader may con- 
 sult Lacroix, "Manners, Customs, and Dress in the Middle Ages ;" 
 " Histoire de la Chaussure," etc. That quaint old book, "The De- 
 lightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft," by 
 T. Deloney, 1678, gives the story of the princely and saintly brothers in 
 its English dress, and it is one of the strangest tales even in legendary 
 
. CRISPIN AXI) ( IlLSPlAXrS. 100 
 
 Mr-. Jameson, in her interesting work on " Legendary 
 Art," *says, " The devotional figures which are common in old 
 :<:h prints represent these saints standing together, holding 
 the palm in one hand, and in the other the awl or shoemaker's 
 knife. They are very often met with in old stained glass work- 
 ing at their trade, or making shoes for the poor the usual sub- 
 - in shoemakers' guilds all over France and Germany. 
 Italian pictures of these saints are rare. There is, however, one 
 by Guido, which presents the throned Madonna, and St. Cris- 
 pin presenting to her his brether, St. Crispianus, while angels 
 from above scatter flowers on the group. Looking over the old 
 French prints of St. Crispin and St. Crispinian, which are in 
 general either grotesque or commonplace, I met with one not 
 easily to be forgotten. It represents these two famous saints 
 proceed intr on their mission to preach the gospel in France. They 
 are careering over the sea in a bark drawn by sea-horses and 
 attended by tritons, and are attired in the full court-dress of 
 the time of Louis XV., with laced coats and cocked hats and 
 rapi 
 
 Probably many of these curious prints may still be seen in 
 the library of the cathedral at Soissons, famous for its rare MSB. 
 and books. But a better memoiial of these patron saints than 
 anv of the absurd representations of legendary art was the 
 church erected in their honor in the sixth century, and the re- 
 ligious house which stood on the traditionary site of their 
 n. This house was afterward transformed into a mon- 
 astery dedicated to St. Crispin, and in the year 1142 received 
 tiiL- sanction of Pope Innocent ILf 
 
 lore. This story, Deloney tells us, accounts for the term " gentle 
 craft " as applied to shoemaking, and explains the saying ' ' a shoe- 
 maker' s son is a prince born. ;> The Princes Crispin and Crispinian 
 becoming shoemakers sufficiently accounts for the former term, for 
 
 " The gentle craft is fittest then 
 For poor distressed gentlemen ;"' 
 
 and the marriage of Crispine to Ursula, the daughter of the Emperor 
 Maxim inus, and the birth of a son to the Prince, will explain the 
 latter. See the stories and ballads thereanent in Campion' s "Delightful 
 History of the Gentle Craft;' Northampton, Taylor & Son, 2d ed., 
 A most interesting and valuable little book on shoes 
 and shoemakers in ancient and modern times. 
 
 * Vol. ii. pp. 3< London, Longmans, 1848. 
 
 f Another memorial of the saints, of a very different character, was 
 the semi-sacred play entitled " The Mystery of St. Crispin an 1 
 Crispinian/' which used to be performed on St. Crispin's Day by the 
 Guilds or Brotherhoods of Shoemakers in Paris and elsewhere. 
 
200 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 THE LEARNED BAUDOUIN. 
 
 The eminent French antiquary, Benoit Baudouin, is by far 
 the most learned man who has risen from the ranks of the shoe- 
 maker class in France. A native of Amiens, he was born some- 
 where about the middle of the sixteenth century. His father, 
 who was also a cordonnier in that city, taught him the art and 
 mystery of the craft ; but the clever youth soon rose above his 
 lowly circumstances, and became first a theological studert, and 
 afterward the principal of the college in the old town of 
 Troves. Here the ancient and extensive library delighted him, 
 and his studies as a historian and antiquary were determined to 
 some extent by his former occupation as a shoemaker ; for, be- 
 sides a translation of certain ancient tragedies,* he is not known 
 to have written any original work excepting his " Chaussures 
 des Anciens," or " The Shoes of the Ancients." Baudouin 
 never blushed to own his former vocation, f and in writing this 
 remarkable work he was evidently moved by a desire to do it 
 honor. J A strange book indeed it must be, full of the most 
 curious and out-of-the-way learning and singular notions ; for, 
 not content with describing the various kinds of shoes worn by 
 Roman and Greek and other ancient peoples who have flour- 
 ished within the historic period, the enthusiastic and daring 
 scholar pushes his inquiry back to the days " when Adam 
 delved and Eve span," until, at length, he discovers the origin 
 of the foot-covering in the communication of the secret by the 
 Almighty Himself to tc the first man, Adam !" Spite of its 
 preposterous speculations, the work of the ex-shoemaker of 
 Amiens is learned and valuable, contains a vast amount of curi- 
 ous lore in regard to a not unimportant subject, and helps to 
 confirm his claim to the ambitious title of '* the learned Bau- 
 douin." The first edition of this work seems to have been pub- 
 lished in Paris, 1615. It was afterward issued at Amster- 
 dam, 1667, and at Leyden, 1711, and Leipsic, 1733, in Latin. 
 A writer in the Biographic Universelle says that Baudouin held 
 at one time the office of director of the Hotel Dieu at Troyes. 
 This illustrious French shoemaker died and was buried in that 
 own in 1632. 
 
 *"Biographie Universelle." Paris, 1811. 
 
 f Ibid. 
 
 t "Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique," torn. ii. 
 
 "Nouvelle Biographic Generale." Paris, 1853, torn. iv. p. 786. 
 
HENRY MICHAEL BUCH. 201 
 
 HENRY MICHAEL BUCH " GOOD HENRY. " 
 
 Whether the story of the shoemaker- saints of Soissons be re- 
 garded as apocryphal or not, it has undoubtedly had considera- 
 ble influence for good, either directly or indirectly, over the 
 minds of those who call themselves sons of Crispin. Much of 
 this has been due to the character and work of a man who was 
 evidently inspired by the story of St. Crispin. Through the 
 agency of this jnan a very important movement was begun in 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, which ultimately issued 
 in a widespread religious and social reform among the shoe- 
 makers and other operatives of Western Europe. We allude to 
 the foundation of a society called " The Pious Confraternity 
 of Brother Shoemakers," having as their patrons and models 
 the saints Crispin and Crispianus. The founder of this society 
 was Henry Michael Buch, who was known throughout Paris, in 
 his day and long after, as Good Henry. 
 
 Henry Michael Buch came from the Duchy of Luxemburg, 
 where he had been born, and where his parents, who were day- 
 laborers, had brought him up in a very simple manner. As a 
 child, Buch was remarkably gifted and very pious. He was 
 early apprenticed to a shoemaker, and was accustomed to 
 spend his Sundays and holidays in public worship or private 
 devotion. During his apprenticeship he began the work of 
 reform among the members of his own craft, for his young 
 heart was grieved to see them living in ignorance and vice. 
 Enlisting the help of the more serious among them in his good 
 work, he endeavored to instruct the apprentices of the town in 
 the doctrines of religion, to draw them away from ale-houses 
 and vicious company, and to persuade them to spend their time 
 in a sensible and profitable manner. Taking the patron saints 
 of the trade for a model, he cultivated habits of self-denial and 
 beneficence, went always meanly clad, abandoned luxuries in 
 food and clothing, and frequently gave away his own garments 
 in order to clothe some poor brother shoemaker. While 
 at Luxemburg and Messen, he lived chiefly on bread and 
 rrater, so that he might be able to feed the hungry and 
 destitute. 
 
 Having removed to Paris, his good deeds soon attracted the 
 attention of Gaston John Baptist, Baron of Renti, who was so 
 much impressed by the shoemaker's simplicity of manner, intel- 
 ligence, and missionary zeal, that he persuaded Buch to estab- 
 lish in that city a confraternity among the members of his own 
 
202 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 humble craft for the purpose of instructing them in the princi- 
 ples and practices of a holy life. With a view to strengthen his 
 hands for such a task, the freedom of the city was purchased 
 for him, and means were supplied him for starting in business 
 as a master shoemaker, " so that he might take apprentices 
 and journeymen who were willing to follow the rules that were 
 prescribed them." * 
 
 Seven men and youths having joined him on these terms, the 
 foundation of his Confraternity was laid in 1645, Good Henry 
 being appointed the first superior, f 
 
 Two years after this, the tailors of the city, who had noticed 
 the conduct of the shoemakers, and had been delighted with 
 the goodly spectacle presented in their happy and useful lives, 
 resolved to follow the example. They borrowed a copy of th 
 rules, and started a similar society in 1047. 
 
 These brotherhoods, but notably those of the shoemakers, 
 were spread through France and Italy, and were the means of 
 doing an immense amount of good among the members of the 
 two crafts. 
 
 The rules of the fraternity founded by Buch were assimilated 
 to certain monastic orders. They enjoined rising at five o'clock 
 and meeting for united prayer before engaging in work, prayeis 
 offered by the superior as often as the clock strikes, at certain 
 hours the singing of hymns while at work, at other times silence 
 and meditation ; meditation before dinner, the reading of some 
 devotional work by one of the number during meals ; a retreat 
 for a few days in every year ; assisting on Sundays and holy 
 days at sermons and u the divine oftice ;" the visitation of the 
 poor and sick, of hospitals and prisons ; self-examination, fol- 
 lowed by prayer together at night and retiring to rest at nine 
 o'clock. 
 
 Henry Michael Buch, the founder of this remarkable society 
 with its offshoots all over Western Europe, succeeded in mak- 
 ing the title Sons of Crispin something more than a name in 
 the case of thousands of his brother workmen. Bearing in 
 mind his humble birth and training, his scanty means, his so- 
 cial position, the unpromising materials he had to work with, it 
 will be allowed that the moral reform he inaugurated among 
 working-men deserves to be classed among the best things of 
 
 * Butler's "Lives of the Primitive Fathers, Martyrs, and Saints," 
 1799, p. 532. 
 
 f This society nourished until the outbreak of the French Revolu- 
 tion, 1789, when it was suppressed. 
 
HANS SACHS. 203 
 
 the kind of which we read in history. Buch died at Paris on 
 the 9th June, 1666, and was buried in the churchyard of St. 
 Gervaise. * 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 HANS SACHS, THE NIGHTINGALE OF THE 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 BEFORE Good Henry's day two famous shoemakers had ap- 
 peared in Germany, whose names are now much better known 
 than his : Hans Sachs, the shoemaker-poet of the Refoimation, 
 and Jacob Boehmen, the mystic. 
 
 Hans Sachs was the son of a tailor at Nuremberg, and was 
 born November 5th, ] 494. At the age of fifteen he was put 
 apprentice in his native town. His schooling had been but slight, 
 but he managed after school-days were passed to retain and add 
 to the little he had learned. His studies as an apprentice soon 
 lifted him considerably above the level of his class. All his 
 spare time was given to. poetry and music, in which arts he was 
 greatly assisted by a clever fellow named Nunnenbeck; a weaver 
 in the city. On attaining -his majority, Sachs, after the fashion 
 of the time, travelled as a workman from town to town through- 
 out Germany, in order to learn his trade perfectly and see what 
 he could of the wide world around him. In this expedition he 
 ^seems to have thought as much of poetry as of shoernaking, for 
 
 * If this were a history of the craft and trade of shoemaking, atten- 
 tion might be called to the genuinely illustrious shoemaker, Nicholas 
 Lestage of Bordeaux. This clever artisan having made a remarkably 
 fine pair of boots, presented them to the king, Louis XIV., on his visit 
 to Bordeaux, shortly before his marriage to the Infanta of Spain. 
 The fortunate son of Crispin was made shoemaker to his Majesty, and 
 rose rapidly to wealth and favor at court. In 1663 he presented to his 
 royal patron the famous boot " without a seam, " which was spoken of 
 as a " miracle of art," and of which it was declared that "the name of 
 a boot would fill the world." About a dozen years after Lestage suc- 
 ceeded in making this wonderful seamless boot, a small book of poems 
 was written to commemorate the extraordinary achievement. Among 
 other extravagant things said about " cette admirable chaussure," it 
 was affirmed that "neither antiquity nor the sun had ever seen its 
 equal," "that man was not its inventor," and its structure was truly 
 divine /" etc. 
 
204 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 lie never omitted, wherever he went, visiting the little poetical 
 and musical societies which then existed in nearly every town 
 in Germany. These societies were formed by the various trades 
 guilds, and their members were called meister singers. 
 
 On his return from this tour, Sachs settled down to work in 
 Nuremberg, and proved himself both an expert shoemaker and 
 a first-rate meistersinger. In fact, he outshone all his com 
 peers of the guild to which he belonged, and it was not long 
 before he earned the reputation of being the first German poet 
 of his day. The Reformation movement, led by Martin 
 Luther, was then in full vigor, and found a hearty sympathizer 
 and vigorous supporter in this " unlettered cobbler but richly 
 gifted poet," who was counted among the friends and admirers 
 of the great Reformer. Luther had few more valuable support- 
 ers in his work than the shoemaker of Nuremberg, whose sim- 
 ple, spirit-stirring songs were rapidly learned and readily sung 
 by the humbler sorts of people all over the country. 
 
 Sachs' writings were very numerous, both in prose and 
 verse. Few poets, indeed, have ventured to write and pub- 
 lish so much. He averaged more than a volume a year for 
 over thirty years. On an inventory being made of his literary 
 stock in the year 1546, when he was about fifty -two years of 
 age, it was found that he had written 34 volumes, containing 
 4275 songs, 208 comedies and tragedies, about 1700 merry 
 tales, and secular and religious dialogues, and 73 other pieces. 
 
 His best writings are said to be the " Schwanke" or merry 
 tales, the humor of which is sometimes unsurpassable. His col- 
 lected works were published by Wilier, 1570-79, in five folio 
 volumes. 
 
 Exactly two hundred years after Hans Sachs' death, Goethe,* 
 who was a warm admirer of the shoemaker-poet, published a 
 poem entitled Hans Sacks Erklarung eines alien Holzschnitts, 
 vorstellend Hans Sachs' poetische Sendung (Explanation of an 
 old woodcut representing Hans Sachs' poetical mission). This 
 tribute from the pen of Germany's greatest poet brought the 
 shoemaker of Nuremberg again into notice, and put him in the 
 right place in the temple of fame. Since the date of Goethe's 
 poem, Sachs' works have been published in various forms, and 
 are now as much read and as warmly appreciated as when they 
 were first published. Nuremberg, his native town, is proud of 
 her humble yet illustrious poet, and treasures up in her museum 
 every relic connected with his name, MS. copies of his writings, 
 poetical fly-sheets issued during his lifetime, or early editions 
 
JACOB BOEHMEN. 205 
 
 of his works. In the libraries of Zwickau, Dresden, and Leip- 
 sic similar relics of the poet may be seen. 
 
 No testimony to his merit could be higher than that of 
 Goethe, the prince of German critics in literature. It may be 
 of value, however, in addition to this, to give the opinion of 
 two very different men respecting Sachs. Dr. Hagenbach in 
 his " History of the Reformation" says : " A happy union of 
 wholesome humor and moral purity meets us in Hans Sachs of 
 Nuremberg ;" and Thomas Carlyle, in his own style, which 
 happily is " inimitable," speaks of him as a " gay, childlike, 
 devout, solid character a? man neither to be despised nor 
 patronized, but left standing on his own basis as a singular 
 product, and legible symbol, and clear mirror of the time 
 and country where he lived." 
 
 He died on the 25th of January, 1576, at the age of eighty- 
 two, in full mental vigor. He was busy writing verses and 
 tales almost to the last days of his life. His grave is still 
 shown in the churchyard of St. John's, Nuremberg. 
 
 JACOB BOEHMEN, THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Jacob Boehmen, or Boehme, was born at the village of Alt- 
 seidenberg, near Gorlitz, in Prussian Silesia, about a year be- 
 fore the death of Hans Sachs. A shoemaker for the greater 
 part of his life, Boehmen devoted the powers of a remarkable 
 mind to philosophical and religious speculation, and produced 
 works which, notwithstanding their mystical and well-nigh 
 unintelligible character, are declared by some of the best authori- 
 ties in Germany and England to have laid the foundation of 
 metaphysics and philosophy. It is impossible to give a true 
 idea of the writings of this extraordinary man except by a com- 
 plete review of his philosophy and its influence on German 
 philosophical writers. The most contradictory opinions have 
 been expressed in regard to the value of his productions. By 
 some critics he is set down as a rhapsodist who wrote nothing 
 but mystical jargon, and by others as a profound philosopher 
 whose thoughts and dreams are full of inspiration. Mosheirn, 
 e.g., says : " It is impossible to find greater obscurity than 
 there is in these pitiable writings, which exhibit an incongruous 
 mixture of chemical terms, mystical jargon, and absurd vis- 
 ions." On the other hand, it is curious to read the opinions 
 expressed by our own King Charles I., who of all the Stuarts, 
 
206 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 not excepting his own father, Jarnes L, that *' so learned and 
 judicious a prince, " was most capable of being a judge in such 
 matters. Charles is reported to have said of the writings of the 
 shoemaker of Gorlitz : ** Had they been the productions of a 
 scholar and a man of learning, they would have been truly won- 
 derful ; but if, as he heard, they were the productions of a 
 poor shoemaker, they furnished a proof that the Holy Ghost 
 had still a habitation in the souls of men." 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton was a student of Boehmcn, whose disserta- 
 tion on " The Three Principles" is said to have furnished hints 
 to the philosopher which put him on the track of some of his 
 great discoveries ; and Blake, the half-mad, half-inspired poet, 
 painter, and engraver, frequently spoke of him as a divinely in- 
 spired man. Before Blake's day the writings of Boehrnen had 
 been translated by William Law, author of " The Serious 
 Call," and published by Ward & Co. in two quarto volumes 
 (1762-84). Law's writings had immense influence over the 
 minds of John and Charles Wesley, and their followers, the 
 Methodists. Law, who was no mean judge of the worth of 
 Boehinen's writings, held them in high esteem. 
 
 But of more value than these opinions is the estimate formed 
 by philosophers themselves as to the works of this great mystic. 
 Spinoza frequently studied them, and acknowledged their influ- 
 ence on his own mind. Schelling, the idealist philosopher, 
 bears testimony to Boehinen's great merits as a thinker. Hegel 
 speaks of him as the 4i Teutonic philosopher," and adds, " In 
 reality, through him, for the first time, did philosophy in Ger- 
 many come forward with a characteristic stamp." S. T. Cole- 
 ridge in his " Literary Remains"* says: " I have often 
 thought of writing a book to be entitled 4 A Vindication of 
 Great Men Unjustly Branded/ and at such times the names 
 prominent to my mind's eye have been Giordano Bruno, Jacob 
 Boehmen, Benedict Spinoza, and Emanuel Swedenborg." In 
 the library of Manchester New College, London, is a copy of 
 the works of Spinoza with marginal notes written by Cole- 
 ridge, f and among them is the following note to Epistle 
 xxxvi. : " The truth is, Spinoza, in common with all metaphy- 
 sicians before him (Boehrne perhaps excepted), began at the 
 wrong end," etc., etc. Coleridge frequently spoke of Boeh- 
 men in the warmest terms of admiration. 
 
 * Vol. iv. p. 423. 
 
 j- This book once belonged to Henry Crabb Robinson : see H. C. 
 B. B Diary, etc., vol. i. pp. 400, 401, for the above quotation. 
 
GABRIEL CAPPELLiKI. 207 
 
 At a very early age Jacob Boehmen showed a disposition to 
 pious meditation and fancied himself inspired. He was poorly 
 educated as a youth, and nearly all his knowledge was self- 
 acquired. His first work was published when he was thirty- 
 seven years of age, and was entitled " Aurora/' or the morning 
 dawn. He was severely attacked by the religious leaders of 
 his day, but the court at Dresden patronized and protected him. 
 His death took place November 27th, 1624. His works have 
 been frequently published in Germany, Holland, and England, 
 where they are much more warmly appreciated now than they 
 were in his own lifetime. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 GABRIEL CAPPELLTNT, IL CALIGARINO, OR THE 
 LITTLE SHOEMAKER. 
 
 IF it be characteristic of Germany that one of her illustrious 
 shoemakers should be a poet and another & philosopher, it is no 
 less characteristic of Itafy and Holland that several followers of 
 the gentle craft in these countries should have distinguished 
 themselves as painters. We take three examples from the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 Gabriel Cappellini of Ferrara in Italy was more generally 
 known by the ^appellation // Caligarino, or the little shoe- 
 maker, a name derived from his original occupation. He is 
 said to have been led to throw down the awl and take to the 
 brush in consequence of a compliment paid to him one day by 
 one of the great family of painters called Dossi, who told the 
 shoemaker that a pair of shoes he had just made were so ele- 
 gant that they looked as if they had been painted. He became 
 a scholar of Dossi, and made a fair name as an artist in the 
 sixteenth century. He is praised by Barotti for <c the bold- 
 ness of his design and the sobriety of his color. M Several of 
 his paintings may now be seen in the city of Ferrara, the best 
 of which is in the Church of St. Giovannino. This is an 
 altar-piece representing the Virgin and Child with infant saints 
 attending upon them. In the Church of St. Francesco is a 
 
208 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 painting of SS. John and James. There is also an altar-piece 
 ascribed to him in the Church of St. Alesandro at Bergamo, 
 representing the Last Supper. A small painting of the same 
 subject is in the possession of Count Carrara.* 
 
 FRANCESCO BRIZZIO, THE ARTIST. 
 
 Francesco Brizzio (or Briccio) was the most eminent of the 
 three painters we have to name who began life as shoemakers. 
 He was born at Bologna in 1574. Up to the age of twenty he 
 worked as a shoemaker, and then, being free to follow his bent, 
 became at first a pupil of Passerotti, who" taught him design, 
 afterward of Agostini, who initiated him in the engraver's art, 
 and finally of Lodovico Caracci, under whom he became so 
 proficient that " by some he has been pronounced the most 
 eminent disciple of Caracci ;" and it has been affirmed of this 
 son of Crispin that of all Caracci 's pupils except Domenichino 
 he was gifted with the most universal genius. In perspective, 
 landscape, architecture, and figures, a competent critic, Andrea 
 Sacchi, the famous Roman artist, says, " Brizzio surpassed all 
 his rivals." Guido speaks highly of the beauty of his cherubs. 
 His extant paintings are an altar-piece entitled 4t The Corona- 
 tion of the Virgin, 77 which is very rich in coloring, and the 
 " Table of Cebes," a grand painting executed for the Angellili 
 family. Numerous engravings of his -are known to connois- 
 seurs, and highly prized as the work of an artist " who often 
 approaches Guido. " " His pictures were not only admired 
 for the truth of the perspective and the beauty of his color- 
 ing, but also for the grandeur of his ideas, the majestic style 
 of the architecture, the elegance of the ornaments, and the 
 noble taste of the landscapes which he introduced to set off his 
 buildings. 77 Brizzio died in 1623 at the age of forty-nine. f 
 
 * Lanzi's " History of Painting." London : Bohn, vol. iii. p. 200 , 
 and Bryan's "Dictionary of Painters." London : Bohn, p. 138. 
 
 f Lanzi's "History of Painting." London : Bohn, vol. iii. p. 126 ; 
 Bryan's "Dictionary of Painters." London : Bohn, p. 114 ; and 
 PilkiDgton's "Dictionary of Painters," p. 95 (1770 ed.). 
 
HOLLAND. 
 
 LUDOLPH DE JONG, THE DUTCH PORTRAIT- 
 PAINTER. 
 
 LUDOLPH DE JONG, was the son of a shoemaker at Oberschie, 
 a village near Rotterdam, and was born in the year 1616. His 
 father intended to bring his son up to his own humble trade, 
 but having been treated with great severity, Ludolph ran away 
 from home and bade good-by to the cobbler's stall, and 
 became soon afterward a pupil of Sacht Coen. After two 
 years spent with this master, he also studied under Palamedes 
 at Delft and Baylaert at Utrecht. Seven years of his life were 
 spent in France, where he gained renown as a portrait-painter, 
 in which branch of art he showed his best hand. From 
 France he returned to Holland and settled at Rotterdam, 
 where his skill and fame gained him much patronage and a 
 handsome fortune. His best work is at Rotterdam in the 
 Salle des Princes, and consists of portraits of officers belonging 
 to the Company of Burghers. 
 
 De Jong the younger, the clever etcher of battle-scenes, 
 who signs himself IMDI (Jan Martss de Jong), is generally 
 thought to be the son of the well-known painter.* 
 
 SONS OF SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Before leaving the continent of Europe to corne to Great Britain for 
 examples, we may here mention one or two instances in which boys 
 who have been brought up amid the humble surroundings of the 
 shoemaker's home have become illustrious in the field of literature, 
 or science, or theology. 
 
 Pope John XXII. (1316-1334), whose popedom was distinguished 
 by the existence of an anti-pope, was the son of a shoemaker living at 
 Cahors in France. 
 
 Jean Bapiiste Rousseau (1670-1741), the French poet, author of " Le 
 Cafe," " Jason, " "Adonais," " Le Flatteur," etc., was the son of a 
 well-to-do shoemaker in Paris. The poet was always rather ashamed 
 of his origin, and on one occasion treated his father in the most heart- 
 less manner because he stepped forward at the conclusion of the first 
 performance of a play to offer his warm congratulations to his clever 
 and popular son. "I know you not," said the proud poet, waving 
 
 * Sons of shoemakers have often become famous. See the list given 
 below, which might be greatly extended. 
 
210 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 his father off. The poor fellow retired in bitter grief and uncontrol- 
 lable anger. 
 
 Johan Joachim Wincklemann, the eminent art critic and writer, was 
 the sou of a humble member of the craft, who lived at Stendal in 
 Prussia. His father gave him as good an education as lay within his 
 reach, and was rewarded by the progress his son made in the study 
 of languages. From the position of teacher of languages in the Col- 
 lege of Seehausen he passed on to that of librarian to Count Bunan, 
 and finally to the curatorship of the Vatican Museum at Home, where 
 he published his famous works, " Ancient Statues," "Taste of the 
 Greek Artists, " " History of Art," and "Antique Monuments." He 
 died by the hand of an assassin at Trieste, 1768, aged fifty-two. 
 
 Hans Christian Andersen was born in 1805, at Adense in Denmark, 
 where his father worked as a shoemaker. While a mere boy he went 
 to Copenhagen in the hope of getting his living as a singer and writer 
 of plays, and eventually became known as the writer of incomparable 
 fairy tales, the joy and wonder of children, young and old, all over 
 the world. 
 
 The name of Dr. Isaac Watts, the hymnist, has sometimes been set 
 down in this category, on the authority of a line in Dr. Johnson's 
 "Lives of the Poets." But Johnson speaks only of " common re- 
 
 Eort, " making the father of Isaac Watts a shoemaker. Johnson says 
 e "kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen." He may have 
 done so and followed the gentle craft as well ; there is no knowing 
 to what occupation the shoemaker may aspire ! 
 
 If we go far enough back, we may find a very striking example of 
 ability displayed by a shoemaker's son in military affairs. Jphicrates 
 (4th cent. B.C.), one of the most capable and trusted Athenian generals, 
 rose from this humble position to the highest offices of command and 
 trust in the armies of Greece. His reforms in the arms, dress, and 
 tactics of the soldiers, formed an " epoch in the Grecian art of war." 
 He distinguished himself in battles fought against the Thracians and 
 Spartans, and in the service of the King of Persia in his Egyptian 
 campaign. 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 "YE COCKE OF WESTMINSTER. " 
 
 COMING now to Great Britain, we are able to select from the 
 records of history and biography illustrations for our purpose 
 which represent pretty nearly all the varieties of English life. 
 Practical philanthropy all men will allow to be one of the most 
 prominent and honorable features of the national character, 
 and to this shoemakers have contributed a good share. Our 
 
; * YE COCKE OR WESTMINSTER." *11 
 
 readers will remember the good work done by Drs. Carey 
 and Morrison, the pioneer missionaries to India and China, 
 and noble old John Pounds, one of the founders of ragged 
 schools in this country. Two examples, in a different field, may 
 be given here. One can easily understand how shoemaking 
 would pay better before the invention of machinery than it 
 does now, yet it appears strange to us to read of men making 
 anything like a fortune by so humble a craft. So it was, how- 
 ever, after a certain modest fashion ; and shoemakers, like men 
 whose fortune has been made on a larger scale, have shown 
 themselves veritable philanthropists in the use they have made 
 of their money. The two instances we refer to are wide apart 
 as to time, but closely related as regards the benevolent spirit 
 they exhibit. Holinshed has very properly thought it wortli 
 his while to chronicle the good deed of a benevolent old shoe- 
 maker who lived in Westminster in the reign of Edward VL 
 This true son and follower of Crispin bore the name of Richard 
 Castell, but was still better known, in his own day, by the 
 sobriquet, Ye Cockeof Westminster, not only " because he was 
 so famous with the faculty of his hands," but on account of 
 his early rising ; for every morning, all the year round, saw 
 him sitting down to his work " at four of the clock." His 
 skill and diligence in the craft brought him in a considerable 
 sum of money, which he invested in lands and tenements in the 
 neighborhood of Westminster, yielding a yearly rental of 42 
 not at all a poor living for a retired shoemaker three hundred 
 years ago. It appears that Castell greatly admired the gener- 
 osity of his monarch, Edward VI. , who had recently endowed 
 Christ's Hospital, and the shoemaker having no family to 
 whom he could bequeath his property, and being blessed, 
 moreover, with a wife as generously disposed as himself, resolv- 
 ed to leave his property to the endowment fund of this public 
 charity. It is much more than probable that the fame of the 
 kingly founder of the hospital has totally eclipsed that of his 
 humble subject, and for this reason it seems right for us to 
 find a place in our list of illustrious shoemakers for a worthy 
 man whose industry and benevolence are bearing good fruit to 
 this day, and who once, it may be, was not a little proud of 
 the honorable nickname of Ye Cocke of Westminster.* 
 
 *For this and one or two other examples of noted shoemakers the 
 writer is indebted to a series of most interesting articles entitled 
 " Concerning Shoes and Shoemakers," in the Leisure Hour, 1876. 
 
212 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 TIMOTHY BENNETT, THE HERO OF HAMPTON- 
 WICK. 
 
 It would be hard to find a name more worthy of being enroll- 
 ed in our Jist than that of the public-spirited and courageous 
 shoemaker of Hampton- Wick in Surrey named Timothy 
 Bennett,* who, early rn the last century, undertook, at his 
 own cost, to rescue a right of road from loss to the public. 
 This road ran from Hampton- Wick to Kingston- upon-Thames 
 through the well-known Bushy Park, belonging to the Crown. 
 Bennett was grieved to see the right of way infringed by the 
 Crown authorities, and to observe the consequent inconven- 
 ience to thousands of his neighbors. He determined, there- 
 fore, to go to law about the matter, and, if possible, put a stop 
 to the high-handed and unjust proceedings of the " Ranger of 
 the Park." He went to a lawyer and inquired as to the prob- 
 able chances of success in his project, and as to the cost, sav- 
 ing, " I have seven hundred pounds which I would be willing 
 to bestow upon this attempt. It is all 1 have, and has been 
 saved through a long course of honest industry." Satisfied on 
 both points, he resolved to carry out his plan. Lord Halifax 
 was then Ranger of Bushy Park, and having heard of Ben- 
 nett's intentions, sent for him. 4k Who are you, sir," de- 
 manded my lord, " that have the assurance to meddle in this 
 affair?" "My name, my lord, is Timothy Bennett, shoe- 
 maker, of Hampton- Wick. I remember, an't please your Lord- 
 ship, when I was a young man, of seeing, while sitting at my 
 work, the people cheerfully pass by to Kensington market ; but 
 now, my lord, they arc forced to go round about, through a hot 
 sandy road, ready to faint beneath their burdens, and I am 
 unwilling"(using a phrase he was very fond of) " to leave the 
 world worse than I found it. This, my lord, I humbly repre- 
 sent, is the reason of my conduct." " Be gone ! You are an 
 impertinent fellow 1" said the Ranger of Bushy Park. After 
 thinking the matter over in a calmer mood, Lord Halifax saw 
 the equity of the shoemaker's claim, and the certainty of his 
 own failure to justify his conduct, and gave up his opposition. 
 The road was opened, and remains open to this day, and is 
 used not only by those who pass on business between Hampton 
 and Kingston, but by thousands of pleasure-seekers from the 
 
 * Born 1676 ; died 1756. Bennett is placed out of his chronological 
 order because it seeins most fitting that he should follow the benevo- 
 lent Castell. 
 
"THE SORTERS OF SELKIRK." 213 
 
 busy and smoke-laden metropolis, who run down by rail in the 
 spring and summer to enjoy the sight of one of the finest 
 avenues of chestnut-trees in the world, or to breathe the sweet 
 country air, and rest beneath the refreshing shade of the trees 
 of the park. The good people who make constant use of the 
 road, which the worthy shoemaker has secured to them and 
 their descendants forever, can hardly be ignorant of the story 
 of LORD HALIFAX THE NOBLEMAN nonsuited by TIMOTHY 
 BENNETT THE SHOEMAKER ; yet the stranger who goes down to 
 the Park in May to see 
 
 " The chestnuts with their milky cones," 
 will probably never have heard of this 
 
 " Village Hampden, that with dauntless breast 
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood." 
 
 Bennett died an old man in 1756, having had his wish, at 
 least, to leave the world no worse than he found it. Assuredly 
 many who have more fame have done less to merit it. 
 
 MILITARY AND NAVAL HEROES. 
 
 " THE SOUTEKS OF SELKIRK." 
 
 The old Border song, sung at public dinners " when Selkirk 
 folks began to be merry" 
 
 ' Up wi' the souters of Selkirk, 
 
 And down wi' the Earl of Home ; 
 And up wi' a' the braw lads 
 That sew the single shoon. 
 
 " Fye upon yellow and yellow, 
 
 And fye upon yellow and green, 
 And up wi' the true blue and scarlet, 
 And up wi' the single-soled sheen. 
 
 " Up wi' the souters o' Selkirk, 
 
 For they are baith trusty and leal ; 
 And up wi' the men o' the Forest, * 
 And down wi 1 the Merse | to the deil," 
 
 * Selkirkshire, otherwise called Ettrick Forest 
 f Berwickshire, otherwise, called the Merse. 
 
214: ILLUSTIUOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 has made the * ' Souters of Selkirk' ' famous throughout Scotland. 
 The origin of the song seems to be lost. 'Whether it has refer- 
 ence, as the common tradition in Selkirk goes, to the part which 
 a gallant band of Selkirk men played at the battle of Flodden 
 Field, 1513, " when the flower of the Scottish nobility fell around 
 their sovereign, James IV.," which Sir Walter Scott and Mr. 
 Plummer assert,* or to " a bet between the Philiphaugh and 
 Home families" on a match of football 4t between the souters 
 u>r shoemakers) of Selkirk against the men of Home," as Mr. 
 Robertson in his " Essay on Scottish Song" declares, it is not 
 easy to determine. At any rate, whether the song point to the 
 historical event or not, the event itself is beyond dispute. Sel- 
 kirk did certainly send a brave band of eighty or a hundred 
 men to Flodden Field to support the cause of James. No 
 doubt a large proportion of these men were veritable souters, 
 for the chief trade of the town in the sixteenth century was 
 the making of " a sort of brogues with a single thin sole." 
 This local manufacture seems to have given a name to the in- 
 habitants of the burgh, who were called souters, pretty much as 
 natives of Sheffield might be called blades, or Birmingham 
 folk buttons. The people of Selkirk are not ashamed of the 
 designation, but rather glory in perpetuating the name and the 
 tradition on which it rests. " A singular custom," we are 
 told, is observed at conferring the freedom of the burgh. 
 Four or five bristles, such as are used by shoemakers, are at- 
 tached to the seal of the burgess ticket. These the new-made 
 burgess must dip in his wine and pass through his mouth, in 
 token of respect for the Souters of Selkirk. This ceremony is 
 on no account dispensed with.j- 
 
 WATT TINLINN. 
 
 That the souters of that time knew how to fight and win re- 
 nown by their valor and skill may be gathered from the story 
 which the author of " The Lay of the Last Minstrel" tells us 
 anent the reference to Watt of Liddelside in the fourth canto 
 of the "Lay" : 
 
 " Now loud the heedful gateward cried, 
 ' Prepare ye all for blows and blood ! 
 Watt Tinliim from the Liddelside 
 Comes wading through the flood. 
 
 * See "Border Minstrelsy." 
 
 (Scott's "Border Minstrelsy," foot-note. 
 
COLONEL HEWSON. 215 
 
 'Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knock 
 At his lone gate and prove the lock ; 
 It was but last St. Barnabright 
 They sieged him a whole summer night, 
 But fled at morning ; well they knew 
 In vain he never twanged the yew.' ' ' 
 
 This Watt was a shoemaker and a soldier, and if he had no 
 large field for the display of his skill and valor in the Border 
 skirmishes of his time, he nevertheless deserves a place among 
 his more illustrious brethren of the craft, if only for the sake 
 of the following note respecting him. " This person was in 
 my younger days," says Sir Walter Scott,* " the theme of 
 pmany a fireside tale. He was a retainer of the Buccleuch 
 family, and held for his Border service a small tower on the 
 frontiers of Liddesdale. Watt was by profession a sutor, but 
 by inclination and practice an archer and warrior. Upon one 
 occasion, the captain of Bewcastle, military governor of that 
 wild district of Cumberland, is said to have made an incursion 
 into Scotland, in which he was defeated and forced to fly. 
 Watt Tinlinn pursued him closely through a dangerous morass ; 
 the captain, however, gained the firm ground, and seeing 
 Tinlinn dismounted and floundering in the bog, used these 
 words of insult, " Sutor Watt, ye cannot sew your boots ; the 
 heels risp and the seams rive." f " If I cannot sew," retorted 
 Tinlinn, discharging a shaft which nailed the captain's thigh to 
 his saddle " if I cannot sew I can yerk." J 
 
 COLONEL HEWSON, THE " CERDON " OF " HUDIBRAS." 
 
 In the turbulent days of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, 
 when the lofty were laid low and the lowly were set in high 
 places, it can hardly be matter of surprise that the shoemaker 
 should have had his share of the favors of fortune. The cir- 
 cumstances of the time had led to the adoption of the rational 
 rule of granting promotion by merit. In an army commanded 
 by Cromwell it is not likely that any other rule would be 
 adopted. His two chief requirements were military capacity 
 and moral character. With men of this class he made up his 
 invincible Ironsides. One of his colonejs was John Hewson. 
 " This man," Grainger says, " once wore a leather apron, 
 
 *Note IV. to Canto IV., "Lay of the Last Minstrel." 
 
 \ Risp and rive, creak and tear. 
 
 jf. To twitch the thread as shoemakers do in securing the stitches. 
 
 g " Biographical History of England," vol. hi. 
 
216 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 and from a mender of old shoes became a reformer of govern- 
 ment and religion. He was, allowing for his education, a very 
 extraordinary person. His behavior in the army soon raised 
 him to the rank of a colonel ; and Cromwell had so great an 
 opinion of him as to intrust him with the government of the 
 city of Dublin, whence he was called to be a member of Bare- 
 bones'* parliament. He was a frequent speaker in that and 
 the other parliament of which he was a member, and was at 
 length thought a fit person to be a lord of the upper house. 
 He was one of the committee of safety, and was, with several 
 of his brethren, very intent upon a new model of the republic 
 at the eve of the Restoration. " Rugge, in his " Diurnal, " 5th 
 December, 1659, says that Hewson 4A was a very stout man,* 
 and a very good commander ;" and adds, " But in regard of 
 his former employment, they (the city apprentices) threw at 
 him old shoes and slippers, and turnip-tops and brickbats, 
 stones and tiles." He was the object of no end of lampoon- 
 ing on the part of the Royalists. Pepys, in his " Diary," 
 25th January, 1659-60, has an interesting memorandum in re- 
 gard to the notoriety of the cobbler-colonel : li Coming home, 
 heard that in Cheapside there had been but a little before a 
 gibbet set up, and a picture of Huson (Hewson) hung upon it, 
 in the middle of the street." f One of these squibs bore tho 
 title, *' Colonel Hewson's Confession ; or, a Parley with Pluto," 
 and referred to his removal of the gates of Temple Bar. Lord 
 Braybrooke informs us that Hewson " had but one eye, which 
 did not escape the notice of his enemies." Nor did the burly 
 cobbler-colonel escape the notice of Dr. Butler, who makes 
 him a conspicuous figure in the first part of " Hudibras" J 
 under the nickname of Cerdon : 
 
 " The upright Cerdon next advanc'd, 
 Of all his race the valiant'st : 
 Cerdon the Great, renowned in song, 
 Like Herc'les, for repair of wrong. 
 
 * The author of "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 127, says, "Praise-God 
 Barebones was a shoemaker, but from all the writer can learn he was 
 si leather-seller ; and Bloomfield is reported as saying that Secretary 
 Craggs was a chip of leather. On what authority it is hard to say. 
 His father, the postmaster-general, is more likely to have been in such 
 a position ; but his trade was that of a country barber." Grainger, 
 Noble's continuation, vol. iii. 
 
 f Pepys' Diary, note, January 25th, 1659-60. 
 
 {Part I. Canto II., 409-430, etc. 
 
COLONEL HEWSON. 
 
 He rais'd the low. and fortify' d 
 
 The weak against the strongest side : 
 
 111 has he read that never hit 
 
 On him in Muses deathless writ. 
 
 He had a weapon keen and fierce, 
 
 That through a bull -hide shield would pierce, 
 
 And cut it in a thousand pieces, 
 
 Though tougher than the Knight of Greece his, 
 
 With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor 
 
 Was comrade in the ten years' war. 
 
 Fast friend he was to reformation, 
 Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion ; 
 Next rectifier of every law, 
 
 j And would make three to cure one flaw. 
 
 Learned he was, and could take note, 
 Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote." * 
 
 Later on,f Hudibras describes the scene at the bear-gardens 
 when Hewson and the Puritan party endeavor to put a stop 
 to the savage sport of bear-baiting. The mob turn on the Puri- 
 tans, but as for the fat colonel 
 
 " Quarter he scorns, he is so stout, 
 And therefore cannot long hold out." 
 
 One of the squibs alluded to above was entitled " A Hymn 
 to the Gentle Craft; or, Hewson's Lamentation." J The 
 reader will observe that Hewson's one eye " does not escape the 
 notice of his enemies.' 7 This piece was sung as a ballad IE the 
 streets : 
 
 " Listen awhile to what I shall say, 
 Of a blind cobbler that's gone astray 
 Out of the Parliament's highway. 
 Good people, pity the blind ! 
 
 " His name you wot well is Sir John Howson, 
 Whom I intend to set my muse on, 
 As great a warrior as Sir Miles Lewson. 
 Good people, pity the blind ! 
 
 *' He'd now give all the shoes in his shop 
 The Parliament's fury for to stop, 
 Whip cobbler like any town-top. 
 Good people, pity the blind ! 
 
 *Part I. Canto II., 409-430, etc. 
 fPart I. Canto III., 118, 119. 
 
 \ Quoted in Chambers's " Book of Days, " August loth. W. & R. 
 Chambers, Edinburgh, 
 
VIS ILLCSTKlors Mlnl.M AKKItS. 
 
 11 ( HivtT made him a laiiuuis Lord, 
 Thai lie I'ore.ol his euttituvboard, 
 llul fio\\ his thread's t \\ isicd to a cord, 
 (!ood people, pity (he blind ! 
 
 " Snii^ hi, ho, llewsoii ! tlu> slate ne'er went upright, 
 Since eohhlers eould pray, preach govern, and lit'Jit ; 
 \\'e shall see what they'll do now \oifre out, of si-dit. 
 (iood people, pity tile blind ! ' 
 
 Ila\ini;- been one <d % the men who sat in judgment on I\in^ 
 
 < 'harles I., the Colonel was with other regicides condemned to 
 
 be ImiiLj October l-lth, llJtiO ;* but he is said to have escaped 
 ; 1 ly Hi^'ht, ami to have d'u-il at, Ainsterdain " in his 
 ohsi-urity," HJiiiM 
 
 SIR OHBIBTOPHEB MYNGS, ADMIIIAL OF Tin: KNCUSII 
 
 PLBET, 
 
 (liristophei- M viii^s (or Minns), " the son of an honest shoe 
 maker in London, from \shom hi' inherited nothing luit a n'ood 
 constitution, " | is said to have worn the leathern apron for ;i 
 short- time before he went to sea. Speaking of the men of 
 humble origin who, toward the end of the se\ eiiteent h century, 
 made their way to hi^h otliee hy their skill and hravery, Lord 
 Maea;i!av says: "One of the most eminent, of these oilieers 
 was Sir Christopher Min^s, who entered the sen ice as a. cahin- 
 boy, who fell ti^htin^ l>ravelv against the Putch, and whom 
 his crew, weeping and voxvini;- ven^i-anee, carried to tin 1 jjrave. 
 From him sprang, lv a singular kind of descent, a line of valiant 
 and expert sailors. Mis cal>in-l>oy was Sir John NarbofOUgh, 
 and the cahin-hov of Sir John Narhorou^h was Sir ( 1 lotnlesle\' 
 Shovel. To the. strong natural sense ami dauntless courage of 
 this class of men Mn^laml owes a debt never to he forgotten. ' 'g 
 Myn;;-s knew how to l>e familiar and friendly with his men, and 
 yet to keep his position and authority. Seamen learn to love 
 hraverv, and of this they saw enough in their gallant Admiral. 
 They had additional reason for their devotion in the care he 
 always took to see them well paid and fed, and the justice he 
 did them in the distribution of pri/es. It was in the great four 
 
 * Kvelyn's " hiary " of this date. 
 
 } IVpvs. see above. 
 
 { (i rammer's Itio^rnphii-al History of Kiu;land," vol. iii. 
 
 i< History of I'.n-laiid. ' vol. i. p. ;">!('. ^People's Kdition). 
 
SIR <:i!UisToi'iii;i; MY M;S. ^1!) 
 
 days' ji.-dit olT the l']n<dish coast,, June 1st 1th, 1 (',<;<;, bet ween 
 the Knidish and Dutch Herts, that, this brave man met, with his 
 death. The Kn<dish ileet, was commanded by the Dnke of 
 Albemarlc and Prince Rupert, and the Dutch by he liuyter 
 and Van Tnmip the younger. The battle was one of the tn<. I 
 memorable on record, both for its length and the valor dis- 
 played on both sides. 44 <>n the fourth day <>f the famous 
 battle that bc^an on the 1st of .lime, he received a shot, in the 
 neck ; after which, though he was in exquisite pain, he con- 
 tinued in his command, holding his wound with both his hands 
 for above an hour. At, length another shot, pierced his throat 
 and laid him forever at rest." * 
 
 The portrait, of Sir < 'hristopher Mynj^s is now in the I'ainted 
 Hal) Of Greenwich Hospital. It is a half length by Sir 1'eter 
 Lely, and came from Windsor ('astle, haxin^ been | 
 by (ieor^e IV. in IHiM.f 
 
 * (Jranc-ei' ; " liioj'raphieal HP lory "1 Kir-land," \<.l. in. < HUH 
 llHK an intenslin;' linl c concernili;', M \ lies, \\hicll\\ecainiol forl.iar 
 cop\ in;', : " I ;im rr<-dilly inlnniied lh;it when hr had lakrii a Spam h 
 niaii-ol -war and ; '.<'!' iiiinsiiider on I M. a I'd his :-hip, h< roiinnil 
 
 ted tin- can- ol him to ;i li< ul. -11:111!, \\ho \\jisdin-eted tool.. i\. In 
 Ix-liavior. Sliorlly al't r \\rd U;LS hroui'lil I.. M \ 114-;; 1 hal 1 In- Spaniard 
 was deploi Ing !n a|.tivity and woiidenii;'. \\ hat KT( at captain it could 
 
 be who had niiule Doll , w il h a Ion;' and 1 cd i >ic; ;.| i i n;- o! na UK . 
 
 and tit.lcH, his prisoner. The lieutenant \sas onh n-d lo ret inn ) 
 chur^<', and if the |)on peisist(d in Ins CIIIH.,I!\, to tell him that ' Kit 
 Minns 'had taken him. This dmnim! i\ < name ul t< rl v coniounded 
 the tili'ltidn, Ihrew him into an a IK I, and j-axelnm mon 
 
 acute pan;';: than all the rest of Ins milfoil in 
 
 | See the " I )escri pt l ve ('ataloj'iu- of the Portraits of Na\al OOBQ 
 inanderfs," ( tc., in the " Tainted Hall, (ireenuich Hospital," Her 
 Majesty's Stationery <Hlice, London, iHKl, j>. HI. The < ditor ol 1 h< <;,! 
 ulo^ue stales that. " I his portrait and tho- n um I .< i < d V, S. 1 7 !'., 102, 
 K). r >, 107, 110 1 P2 form li -f \al liable picl uies im nt i-'iied in 
 
 Pepys' ' Diary,' as follows : 'To Mr. Ldl\ s 1 In- painter's, and I 
 KUW the heads som<- tin i shed and all he j'ini el the lla;-;' m< n in the 
 l<ai iijdil \\ llh t he |)uke <>l Y' I he hutch. The I >u ke < .1 
 
 York hath them doin; to hanj; in Ins Hiainl.er, and \< r\ (im l\ th. 
 
 done indeed. Here are the Prince's ( Kllpert ... : 
 
 Sir Thomas Ted di man's, Sir Christ opher Myiij's', Sir Joseph .lord, 
 Sir William P.erkeli-y's, Sir Thomas Alhn's, and Captain Ham,, 
 as also the DukeoJ Alhemarles; and will be. jny Lord Sandwich's, 
 VSir W. J'(inis, and Sir ,1. r< my Sinilh'H.' " 
 
ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ASTROLOGERS AND OTHERS. 
 
 BE. PARTRIDGE, ASTROLOGER, PHYSICIAN TO HIS 
 MAJESTY, ETC. 
 
 IN the same age lived another noteworthy man, whose connec- 
 tion with the gentle craft was much more intimate, and, indeed, 
 of almost life-long duration. This man was an astrologer, and 
 blended with his study of the subtle influences of the stars 
 over human affairs the study of medicine. What relation there 
 is between these two things it were hard to tell ; but certain it 
 is, that for many yeais men who were not otherwise fools and 
 knaves believed in this relation ; and, combining the two 
 " professions," found very often that success in the one gave 
 them a certain prestige in the other. A lucky hit in li casting 
 the nativity" of a notable person, brought the li astrologer and 
 physician" endless patients and no small fortune. Probably 
 an appointment as physician to the king was due to no better 
 cause ; and, with such an appointment, of course the practi- 
 tioner's position was secure for life. This seems to have been 
 pretty much the case with John Partridge, who is spoken of 
 as a shoemaker in Covent Garden in 1680, and in 1682 is 
 styled physician to His Majesty Charles II. Here is a case, 
 then, of a cobbler who ventured ultra crepidam to some pur- 
 pose, and who might very well have taken James Lackington's 
 motto for his own.* Partridge, it must be allowed, was a 
 scholar of no mean attainments, whatever he may have been as 
 a physician, and his scholarship was self -acquired. During 
 his apprenticeship to a shoemaker he began the study of Latin 
 with a copy of Lilye's Grammar, Gouldman's Dictionary, 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses, and a Latin Bible. Having got a 
 sufficient knowledge of Latin to read astrological works, lie 
 betook himself to the study of Greek and Hebrew. Then 
 came physic, with the grand result of royal patronage. Pai- 
 tndge was a considerable author or editor, and the list of Ins 
 works shows the strong bent of his mind toward the occult 
 science. He published a " Hebrew Calendar" for 1678 ; 
 44 Vade Mecum," 1679 ; <l Ecclesile^ia, an Almanac," 1679 ; 
 the same for 1680 ; tk The King of France's Nativity ;" "A 
 Discourse of Two Moons ;" 4t Mercurius Coelestis," being an 
 
 * Sutor ultra crepidam feliciter ausus. See Lackington's Life, p. 45. 
 
DR. PARTRIDGE. 221 
 
 almanac for 1681 ; tl Prodomus, a Discourse on the Conjunc- 
 tion of Saturn and Mars;" "The Black Life of John Gad- 
 bury, 77 in which a brother astrologer is roundly abused, and 
 shown to be, as a matter of course, a rogue and impostor ; and 
 a' 4 Translation of Hadrianus a Mynsicht's Treasury of Physic," 
 1682. 
 
 The inscription over Partridge's tomb is in Latin, as 
 becomes the memorial of so learned a man and so eminent a 
 physician ! The visitor to the churchyard of Mortlake in 
 Surrey may still learn if tfce great destroyer has dealt gently 
 with the record how 
 
 JOHANNES PARTRIDGE, ASTROLOGUS 
 ET MEDICINE DOCTOR, 
 
 was born at East Sheen, in Surrey, on the 18th January, 
 1644, and died in London, 24th June, 1715 ; how he made 
 medicine for two kings and one queen, Carolo scilicet Secundo, 
 Willielmo Tertio, Reginceque Marice ; and how the Dutch Uni- 
 versity of Leyden conferred on him the diploma Medicince 
 Doctor. 
 
 Partridge seems to have given his MS. of the " Conjunction 
 of Saturn and Mars" to Elias Ashmole, who presented it in 
 1682, with other curiosities, to the University of Oxford, 
 where it may still be seen in the Ashmolean Museum.* 
 
 Partridge is alluded to in Pope's " Rape of the Lock," where 
 the poet speaks of Belinda's " wavy curl," which has been 
 stolen and placed among the stars 
 
 " This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, 
 When next he looks through Galileo's eyes ; 
 And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom 
 The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome." 
 
 11 What sacrifices," says the author of " The Book of 
 Days/ 7 " would many a sage or poet have made to be con- 
 nected through all time with Pope and the charming Belinda ! 
 Yet here, in this case, we find the almanac-making shoemaker 
 enjoying a companionship and a celebrity for qualities which, 
 morally, have no virtue or endurance in them, but quite the 
 reverse. 77 Swift, whose satire stung many an abuse to death, 
 made endless fun of Partridge and his absurd prophecies based 
 on astrology. In 1708 Swift published a burlesque almanac 
 
 * Elias Ashmole appears to have been given to astrology and alchemy; 
 see his " Way to Bliss," a work on the Philosopher's stone, published 
 1658. 
 
222 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 containing " predictions for the year, " etc., etc., the first of 
 which was about Partridge himself. Fancy the astrologer's 
 feelings when he read the following awful announcement : 4t I 
 have consulted the star of his nativity by my own rules, and 
 find he will infallibly die on the 29th of March next of a raging 
 fever ; therefore I advise him to consider it and settle his af- 
 fairs in time !'' 
 
 After the 29th of March was past, Partridge positively took 
 the trouble to inform the public that he was not dead ! This 
 he did in his almanac for 1709. Whereupon the cruel Dean 
 took the matter up again and tried to show Partridge his error. 
 He was dead, argues Swift, if he did but know it ; but thru 
 there is no accounting for some men's ignorance ! He says, 
 " I have in another place and in a paper by itself sufficiently 
 convinced this man that he is dead ; and if he has any shame, 
 I don't doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his ac- 
 quaintance." * Not content with this, Swift wrote an il Elegy 
 on the supposed Death of Partridge, the Almanac-maker," and 
 wound up the painful business by writing his epitaph too. 
 
 THE EPITAPH. 
 
 " Here, five foot deep, lies, on his back, 
 A cobbler, star monger, and quack, 
 Who to the stars, in. pure good-will, 
 Does to his best look upward still. 
 Weep, all ye customers, that use 
 His pills, or almanacs, or shoes ; 
 And you that did your fortunes seek, 
 Step to his grave but once a week. 
 This earth, which bears his body's print, 
 You'll find has so much virtue in't, 
 That I durst pawn my ear 'twill tell 
 Whate'er concerns you full as well, 
 In physic, stolen goods, or love, 
 As he himself could when above. ' ' 
 
 THE BHOTHERS SIBLY. EBENEZER SIBLY, M.D., F.K.C.P., 
 ASTKOLOGER, ETC. 
 
 Here also may be mentioned the once famous Dr. Ebenezer 
 Sibly, the physician and astrologer, and his brother Manoah, 
 
 * The Tatler, April 11, 1709. Steele and Congreve assisted in the 
 joke. Congreve pretended to take the side of Partridge by defending 
 him against the charge of * * sneaking about without paying his funeral 
 expenses !" See Tinib's " Anecdote Biog." vol. i. pp. 24 and 154. 
 
DR. PARTRIDGE. 223 
 
 who by turns was shoemaker, shorthand reporter, and preacher 
 of the " heavenly doctrines' * of the New Jerusalem Church. 
 However great a figure these men may have made in their day, 
 they have managed to drop so completely out of notice that no 
 encyclopaedia, biographical dictionary, or magazine * the writer 
 has met with contains any account of them. They are said to 
 have been born in Bristol, and to have been brought up to the 
 gentle craft. f The first edition of Ebenezer Sibly's " Astro- 
 logical Astronomy'' was published in 1789, in three vols. 8vo, 
 and was entitled " Astronomy and Elemental y Philosophy," 
 being a translation of Placidus de Titus. The various editions 
 of this work contain a collection of remarkable nativities, and 
 among them Sibly includes that of Thomas Chatterton, " the 
 marvellous boy" of Bristol. J Of course the astrologer sees in 
 the horoscope of Chatterton sure signs of remarkable genius. 
 Sibly was frequently consulted both for astrological and medi- 
 cal purposes, the two professions, astrology and medicine, be- 
 ing regarded as having a certain necessary i elation. At all 
 events, it answered the purposes of men like Sibly and Par- 
 tridge to associate them in their practice. Human credulity 
 dies hard, the race of fools sesms to be endowed with wondrous 
 vitality ; even as late as 182G Sibly's " Celestial Science of As- 
 trology," in two bulky 4to vols., was published in a twelfth 
 edition, and at that time there must have been many readers of 
 his costly works on the 4t Occult Sciences, comprehending the 
 Art of Foretelling Future Events and Contingencies by the As- 
 pect and Influences of the Heavenly Bodies." This work was 
 accompanied by a key to physic and the occult sciences. 
 " Many of my readers," says the author of " Crispin Anec- 
 dotes," u otherwise indebted to Dr. Sibly, may remember his 
 solar and lunar tinctures, and may probably have experienced 
 their efficacy in transmuting gold coin into AURUM POTABILE !" 
 In his astrological work", and his edition of '* Culpepper's Her- 
 bal," Sibly signs himself " M.D.," " Fellow of the Royal Har- 
 monic Philosophical Society at Paris," " Member of the Royal 
 College of Physicians in Aberdeen," etc., etc. The " Herbal " 
 is dated in the year of Masonry 5798, and is written from No. 
 
 * In regard to Manoah Sibly, see below. 
 
 f "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 85. The plates in E. Sibly's works are 
 by Ames, a Bristol name a century ago. His portrait in the 1790 
 edition is by Roberts. 
 
 \ His birth is set down as occurring 20th November, p.m., 1752. 
 
 They were published at two guineas. 
 
224 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 1 Upper Tichfield Street, Cavendish Square, London. \Vc 
 have no record of the death of this illustrious son of Crispin, 
 who, perhaps, had better have stuck to his last. lie is called 
 " the late E. Sibly, M.D.," in the 1817 edition of his " Ce- 
 
 Ic-slial Science." 
 
 MANOAH SIBLY, SHORTHAND WRITER, ETC. 
 
 Manoah Sibly appears to have been a man of more varied 
 and certainly of much more useful gifts than his brother " the 
 doctor ; M but it may well be doubted if he made as much cap- 
 ital out of them. He was born August 20th, 1757.* If the 
 writer above quoted be correct in saying that Manoah was a 
 shoemaker, he must have made good use of his spare time, and 
 even of his working hours, for at the age of nineteen lie is said 
 to have been teaching Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac. 
 During the greater part of his life he was a prominent preacher 
 in connection with the New Jerusalem or Swedenborgian com- 
 munity. For fifty-three years, from the time of his ordina- 
 tion in 1790, he held the pastorate of the congregation for 
 which the Friars Street Chapel, London, was built in 1803. 
 This congregation is now represented by the well-known Argyle 
 Square Church, King's Cross, where a tablet to his memory 
 has been erected. Manoah Sibly does not seem at any time 
 to have been wholly occupied with the work of preaching, 
 although he delivered two sermons a week for forty-three years, 
 and one a week for the remaining ten of his ministry. 
 Whether he dabbled in the muddy waters of astrology or no, 
 it is rather hard to tell ; probably he left the task of reading 
 the stars, for the most part, to his more astute brother, Ebe- 
 nezer. At any rate, a translation of Placidus de Titus is set 
 down in certain lists as having been published in his name in 
 1789 ; f and when he opened a shop as a bookseller, he dealt 
 chiefly in works on occult philosophy. In 1795 he is styled 
 shorthand writer to the City of London on the title-page of the 
 
 * The Secretary of the Swedenborg Society, Mr. James Speirs, has 
 obligingly supplied the writer with most of the facts given above, 
 which are taken from an obituary of M.S. in the Intellectual Repository, 
 a Swedenborg magazine for 1841. Mr. Speirs says that Manoah Sibly 
 was "presumably" born in London, but see above. 
 
 f The exact correspondence in title and date between this book and 
 the first edition of E. Sibly' s similar work creates a suspicion of error 
 in the name. 
 
MACKEY. 225 
 
 published reports from his own notes of the trial of Gillman and 
 of Thomas Hardy, the political shoemaker, whose trial and 
 acquittal created so great an excitement throughout the coun- 
 try. Two years after this he obtained a situation in the Bank 
 of England, which he held for no less than forty-three years. 
 In addition to all this multifarious work, he found time for writ- 
 ing and slight editorial duties. In 1796 a volume of sermons 
 preached in the New Jerusalem Temple appeared in his name, 
 and in 1802 he edited a liturgy for his own church, and wrote 
 a hymn-book. If in no other way, his memory will be per- 
 petuated among his coreligionists by the hymns that bear his 
 name. His first published work was a critical essay on Jere- 
 miah 38 : 16, issued in 1777 ; and his last, a discourse on 
 44 Jesus Christ, the only Divine object of Praise," delivered on 
 the forty-fifth anniversary of the promulgation of the 44 heavenly 
 doctrines," appeared fifty-six years after, viz., in 1833. Ma- 
 noah Sibly's long life of fourscore and three years came to an 
 end December 16th, 1840. 
 
 MACKEY, THE LEAENED SHOEMAKER OF NORWICH, AND 
 TWO OTHER LEARNED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 In this connection we may mention a curious instance of 
 learning in lowly life, mentioned in one of a series of inter- 
 esting articles in the Leisure Hour, already alluded to. The 
 writer says : " In that most entertaining miscellany Notes 
 and Queries (No. 215) we find an interesting account of a 
 very poor Norwich shoemaker named Mackey, whose mind ap- 
 pears to have been a marvellous receptacle of varied learning. 
 He died in Doughty 's Hospital, in Norwich, an asylum for 
 aged persons there. The writer of the paper found him sur- 
 rounded by the tools of his former trade and a variety of astro- 
 nomical instruments and apparatus, and he instantly was ready 
 for conversation upon the mysteries of astronomical and myth- 
 ological lore, the 44 Asiatic Researches oi Captain Wilford, " 
 and the mythological speculations of Jacob Bryant and Mau- 
 rice, quoting Latin and Greek to his auditor. He was called 
 " the learned shoemaker." His learning was probably greatly 
 undigested and ungeneralized, but it was none the less another 
 singular instance of the pursuit of knowledge under difficul- 
 ties, as is shown by his published works on mythological as- 
 tronomy and on 44 The Age of Mental Emancipation. " To this 
 notice of Mackey the writer in the Leisure Hour adds an amus- 
 
%2t\ ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ing story, which is too good to be omitted, of a brother of the 
 gentle craft (a cobbler) who, in order to eclipse a rival who 
 lived opposite to him, put over his door on his stall the well- 
 known motto, " Mens conscia recti" (a mind conscious of rec- 
 titude). But his adversary, determined not to be outdone, 
 showed himself also a cobbler in classics as well as in shoes, by 
 placing over his door the astonishingly comprehensive defiance, 
 " Men's and Women's conscia recti." 
 
 ANTHONY PURVER, THE SHOEMAKER WHO REVISED THE 
 
 BIBLE. 
 
 Another curious instance of extensive reading and remarkable 
 linguistic talent, somewhat similar to that of Dr. Partridge and 
 the learned shoemaker of Norwich, is that of Anthony Purver. 
 He was born at Up Hurstbourne in Hampshire in 1702. His 
 parents were poor, and put their boy apprentice to the art and 
 mystery of making and mending boots and shoes. When his 
 44 time was out," he betook himself to the leisurely and healthy 
 employment of keeping sheep, and began to study. His spe- 
 cial line in after-life was decided by his meeting with a tract 
 which pointed out some errors of translation in the authorized 
 version of the Bible. This led him to resolve that he would 
 read the Scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek. Taking 
 lessons from a Jew, Purver soon learned to read Hebrew. 
 After this he took up Greek and Latin, until he could read 
 with ease in either language. " On settling as a schoolmaster 
 at Andover, " we are told,* '* he undertook the extraordinary 
 labor of translating the Bible into English, which work he 
 actually accomplished, and it was printed at the expense of Dr. 
 Fothergill in two vols. folio. This learned shoemaker, shep- 
 herd, and schoolmaster deeply felt the need of the great work 
 which has been accomplished in our own day by the united 
 scholarship of England and America, In his own way he com- 
 pleted the Herculean task single-handed ; and if his translation 
 was not of any general and practical utility, it none the less de- 
 serves mention as a monument of self-acquired learning and 
 honorable industry. Purver died in 1777, at the age of sev- 
 enty-five. 
 
 * " Maunder 's Biographical Treasury." London : Longmans. 
 
POETS OF THE COBBLER'S STALL. 227 
 
 POETS OF THE COBBLER'S STALL. 
 
 In coming to speak of the poets of the cobbler's stall, the 
 task of selection is found to be by no means an easy one. It 
 is hard enough to tell where to begin ; it is harder still to 
 know where to leave off. " This brooding fraternity" of shoe- 
 makers, it is said, " has produced more ihymers than any 
 other of the handicrafts." * 
 
 ' ' Crispin's sons 
 
 Have from uncounted time with ale and buns 
 
 Cherisk'cl the gift of song, which sorrow quells ; 
 
 And working single in their low-built cells, 
 
 Oft cheat the tedium of a winter's night 
 
 With anthems. ' ' f 
 
 In the days of the revival of learning and the reformation of 
 religion in England, shoemakers had their share in the mental 
 and moral awakening. Many of them turned poets, and essayed 
 to write ballads and songs, of which we have a sample in De- 
 loney's " Delightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the 
 Gentle Craft." J Such a spirited songster as Richard Rigby, 
 " a brother of the craft," who undertook to show in his 
 " Song of Praise to the Gentle Craft " how ** royal princes, 
 sons of kings, lords, and great commanders have been shoe- 
 makers of old, to the honor of the ancient trade," also de- 
 serves to be mentioned. This song, beginning 
 
 " I sing in praise of shoemakers, 
 Whose honor no person can stain, " 
 
 is no mean performance ; its historic allusions may not be unim- 
 peachable, but its poetic ring is genuine. Scores of pieces of a 
 similar character have issued from the cobbler's room, and 
 either perished, like many another ballad and song of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, or found their way into odd 
 corners of our literature, where they are buried almost beyond 
 hope of resurrection. 
 
 Speaking of men who have aspired to be poets and have pub- 
 lished their productions, one is fain to begin with a name 
 which, if it could be proved to belong to the gentle craft, 
 would certainly have to stand at the head of the long list of 
 
 * Quarterly Review, January, 1831, p. 76. 
 
 f Charles Lamb, "Album Verses," 1830, p. 57. 
 
 t London, 1675 and 1725. 
 
 See Campion's " Delightful History," p. 51. 
 
22S ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 poetical shoemakers the Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Dck- 
 ker, who wrote " one of the most light-hearted of merry come- 
 dies,' 7 The Shoomaker'' s Holyday. One of the most prom- 
 inent characters in the play is Sir Simon Eyre, the reputed 
 builder of Leadenhall Market, London, and Lord Mayor of the 
 city.* Of this worthy, who lived in the time of Henry VI., 
 Rigby, in his " Song in Praise of the Gentle Craft," says 
 
 " Sir Simon, Lord Mayor of fair London, 
 He was a shoemaker by trade." 
 
 It is hard to think that the writer of The Shooinuker's 
 Holyday, in which the ways of shoemakers and the details of 
 the craft are described with all the ease and exactitude of fa- 
 miliarity, was not a brother of the craft.f When the famous 
 quarrel arose between the quondam friends and coworkers, 
 Ben Jonson and Dekkcr, Jonson in his Poetaxtcr satirized 
 the author of The Shooinuker's Holyday under the name of 
 Crispinus. This epithet may be simply an allusion to the sub- 
 ject of Dekker's well-known comedy ; but may it not also be 
 regarded as a veritable " cut at a cobbler ?" 
 
 JAMES WOODHOUSE, THE FKIEND OF SHENSTONE. 
 
 James Woodhouse stands first on our list in point of time, but 
 not in regard to ability. He evidently owed his little brief 
 popularity to the friendship of William Shenstone, author of 
 "The Schoolmistress/ 7 Shenstone lived at Leasowes, seven 
 miles from Birmingham, in a charming country-house sur- 
 
 * The author of " Crispin Anecdotes" mentions another shoemaker 
 who was made Lord Mayor of London, viz., Sir Thomas Tichbourne, 
 who was Mayor in 1656, during the Protectorate. "Crispin Anec- 
 dotes," p. 127. 
 
 f One is ready to ask who but a shoemaker could have gone so 
 heartily into the rollicking fun of the shoemaker's room, or asked such 
 a question as the following :- ' Have you all your tools ; a good rub- 
 bing pin, a good stopper, a good dresser, your four sorts of awls, and 
 your two balls of wax, your paring knife, your hand and thumb 
 leathers, and good St. Hugh's bones to smooth your work?" It may 
 be remarked here that St. Hugh is another patron saint of the craft. 
 Hugh, son of the king of Powis, was in love with Winifred, daughter 
 of Donvallo, king of Flintshire. Both were martyrs under Diocletian. 
 St. Hugh's bones were stolen by the shoemakers, and worked up into 
 tools to avoid discovery. Hence the cobbler's phrase, "St. Hugh's 
 bones." See Deloney's " Entertaining History." 
 
JOHN BENNET. 229 
 
 rounded by gardens, artistically laid out and cultivated with the 
 utmost care by the eccentric, fantastic poet. Woodhouse, who 
 was born about 1733, was a village shoemaker and eke a 
 schoolmaster at Rowley, two miles off. Shenstone had been 
 obliged to exclude the public from his gardens and grounds at 
 Leasowes on account of the wanton damage done to flowers and 
 shrubs. Whereupon the village shoemaker addressed the poet 
 in poetical terms asking to be 4< excluded from the prohibi- 
 tion." In reply Shenstone admitted him not only to wander 
 through his grounds, but to ^rnake a free use of his library. 
 Shenstone found/' says Southey, "that the poor applicant 
 used to work with a pen and ink at his side while the last was 
 in his lap the head at one employ, the hands at another ; and 
 when he had composed a couplet or a stanza, he wrote it on his 
 knee." Woodhouse was then about twenty-six years of age. 
 His lot must have been rather hard at that time, for, speaking 
 of his wife's work and his own, he says in one of his poems 
 
 " Nor mourn I mnch my task austere, 
 
 Which endless wants impose ; 
 But oh ! it wounds my soul to hear 
 My Daphne' s melting woes ! 
 
 " For oft she sighs and oft she weeps 
 
 And hangs her pensive head, 
 While blood her furrowed finger steeps 
 And stains the passing thread. 
 
 " When orient hills the sun behold, 
 
 Our labors are begun ; 
 And when he streaks the west with gold, 
 The task is still undone." 
 
 Five years after his introduction to Shenstone, a collection 
 of his poems was published, entitled " Poems on Several Oc- 
 casions." About forty years afterward he issued another 
 edition with additional pieces, such as " Woodstock, an 
 Elegy," " St. Crispin," etc. In the later years of his life he 
 was living near Norbury Park, and had found a generous patron 
 in Mr. Lock, who superintended the publication of his poetry, 
 and in Lord Lyttleton of Hagley. 
 
 JOHN BENNET OF WOODSTOCK, PARISH CLERK AND POET. 
 
 The name of Bennet occurs once more in our list, and in this 
 instance, if classed at all, it should be classed with the poets, 
 although it must be confessed that the claim of John Bennet to 
 
230 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 that honorable title would hardly be allowed in some quarters. 
 This little local celebrity inherited the office of parish clerk 
 from his father, and with it some degree of musical taste, for 
 his father's psalm-singing is said to have charmed the ear of 
 Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and sometime 
 curate of Woodstock. John Bonnet, junior, succeeded to the 
 clerkship in Warton's time, and thus came under the notice of 
 the kindly clergyman, who was a generous patron of men of 
 this class. When Bennet took to writing poetry and thought 
 of publishing, Warton gave him every assistance in his power, 
 A poor uneducated poet could scarcely have fallen into better 
 hands, for the young curate was geniality itself, if we may 
 judge from the estimate of him formed by Southey, who speaks 
 of his- " thorough good nature and the boyish hilarity which he 
 retained through life," and furthermore adds, "The Wood- 
 stock shoemaker was chiefly indebted for the patronage which 
 he received to Thomas Warton's good-nature, for my predeces- 
 sor was the best-natured man that ever wore a great wig."* 
 The shoemaker's poetry was " published by subscription" in 
 1774, and the long list of notable names speaks well for the in- 
 dustry and influence of the patron to whose efforts the splen- 
 did array of subscribers must be attributed. Bennet's poetry, 
 which was not of a very high order of merit, consisted chiefly 
 of simple rhymes on rustic themes, in which he does not for- 
 get to sing the praises of the gentleman-like craft to which he 
 belongs ; nor does he hesitate frankly to declare that his reason 
 for publishing his rhymes is 4 ' to enable the author to rear an in- 
 fant offspring, and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the 
 breast of a most amiable wife." Later in life he published an- 
 other volume, having for its chief piece a poem entitled " Re- 
 demption ;" and, as a set-off, a kindly preface by Dr. Mavor, 
 Rector of Woodstock. This honest parish clerk of poetical 
 fame died and was buried at Woodstock on the 8th of August, 
 1803. 
 
 RICHARD SAVAGE, THE FRIEND OF POPE. 
 
 A far better poet but a far less worthy man than Bennet of 
 W r oodstock or W r oodhouse of Rowley was Richard Savage, the 
 friend of Pope. From beginning to end the story of His life, 
 
 * See Southey's preface to "Attempts in Verse, by John Jones," 
 London, 1830 ; and article thereon in Quarterly Keview, January, 
 1831, p. 81. 
 
THOMAS OLIVERS. 231 
 
 as told by Dr. Johnson in his " Lives of the Poets, M is one of 
 the most romantic and melancholy biographies in existence. It 
 only concerns us here to say that Richard Savage, the reputed * 
 son of Earl Rivers and the Countess of Macclesfield, was, on 
 leaving school, apprenticed to a shoemaker, and. remained in 
 this humble position 4t longer than he was willing to confess ; 
 nor was it, perhaps, any great advantage to him that an unex- 
 pected discovery determined him to quit his occupation." Dr. 
 Johnson thus speaks of this discovery and its immediate re- 
 sults : " About this time his nurse, who had always treated 
 him as her own son, died ; and it was natural for him to take 
 care of those effects which, by her death, were, as he imagined, 
 become his own. He theretore went to her house, opened her 
 boxes, and examined her papers, among which he found some 
 letters written to her by the Lady Mason, which informed him 
 of his birth and the reason for which it was concealed. Dis- 
 satisfied with his employment, but unable to obtain either pity 
 or help from his mother, to whom he made many tender ap- 
 peals, he resolved to devote himself to literature. His first at- 
 tempt in this line was a short poem called * The Battle of .the 
 Pamphlets,' written anent the Bangorian Conlroversy ; and his 
 second a comedy under the title 4 "Woman's Riddle.' Two 
 years after appeared another comedy, 4 Love in a Veil.' In 
 1723 he wrote a drama, having for its subject certain events in 
 the life of Sir Thomas Overbury. Previous to the publication of 
 a small volume entitled ' A Miscellany of Poems,' Savage wrote 
 the story of his life in a political paper called The Plain 
 Dealer. His best poem, i The Wanderer,' in which are somo 
 pathetic passages referring to himself, was published in 1729." 
 For the story of the life of this unhappy man the reader must 
 be. referred to Johnson's " Lives." Savage died in the debt- 
 ors' prison, Bristol, August 1st, 1743. 
 
 THOMAS OLIVERS, HYMN-WRITER, FRIEND AND COWORKEK 
 WITH JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 It is a relief to turn from the thought of Savage to Thomas 
 Olivers, one of John Wesley's most intimate friends and zealous 
 coworkers. We have seen already how prominent a part 
 
 * For an able discussion of the question, " Was Richard Savage an 
 Impostor?" to which the writer, Mr. Moy Thomas, says, "Yes," see 
 Notes and Qiwries, 2d Series, vol. vi. 
 
332 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKKKS. 
 
 another shoemaker played in the Methodist revival ;* but 
 Olivers is perhaps better known to the general public than Sam- 
 uel Bradburn, for the latter has left no mark on our literature, 
 while the former has made a name among hymn- writers as the 
 author of several excellent hymns, and of one, in particular, 
 which holds a place of first rank in Christian hymnology. Oli- 
 vers' fame outside Methodism rests chiefly on the fine hymn 
 beginning 
 
 " The God of Abram praise, 
 
 Who reigns enthroned above, 
 Ancient of everlasting days, 
 
 And God of love. 
 Jehovah great, I Am, 
 
 By earth and heaven confest ; 
 I bow and bless the sacred name, 
 Forever blest." 
 
 One hymn may seem to be a very narrow basis on which to 
 build a reputation, yet the name of Olivers will as surely be 
 handed down to future generations, on account of this fine 
 sacred lyric, as it would have been if he had written a whole 
 volume of hymns of merely average merit. A dozen instances 
 might be cited in which a single brief poem- of rare excellence 
 has won an undying fame for the writer. Gray's " Elegy 
 Written in a Country Churchyard," and Michael Bruce's 
 44 Elegy Written in Spring," Wolfe's "Burial of Sir John 
 Moore," and Blanco White's single sonnet, " Night and 
 Death," and, in an inferior degree, poor Herbert Knowles' 
 " Lines Written in the Churchyard of Richmond, Yorkshire," 
 are cases in point. 
 
 Thomas Olivers in his autobiography f tells us that lie was 
 born at Tregonon in Montgomeryshire in 1725. After the 
 death of his father and uncle, Thomas was left in charge of an- 
 other relative named Tudor, who sent him to school and after- 
 ward bound him apprentice to a shoemaker. He was, by his 
 own account, idle, dissolute, and profane " the worst boy 
 seen in those parts for the last twenty or thirty years." His 
 evil conduct compelled him to fly from the scene of his early 
 dissipation as soon as he could ; and, after living a wild life at 
 
 * See Life of Samuel Bradburn, President of the Wesleyan Con- 
 ference. 
 
 f See a book of unusual interest, "Lives of the Early Methodist 
 Preachers," ed. by Rev. I. Jackson. Wesleyan Book-Boom, London, 
 3 vols. 1865. 
 
THOMAS OLIVERS. 233 
 
 Shrewsbury and Wrexham, he carne to Bristol. This city was 
 his spiritual birthplace ; for, under a sermon by George Whit- 
 field, the sinful, reckless young Welshman was converted, and 
 became as noted for piety and earnest Christian work as he 
 had once been for blasphemy and opposition to all religion. 
 Shortly after his conversion he removed to Bradford in Wilts, 
 where he joined the Methodists. On recovering from a terrible 
 attack of small-pox he went back to visit the scenes of his 
 early life. In this expedition he had a double object to ob- 
 tain a sum of money left him by his uncle, and then to go 
 round to all his creditors an'd pay his debts. This most Chris- 
 tian conduct won him golden opinions and formed a capital in- 
 troduction to the preaching of the Gospel ; for Olivers had now 
 begun to exercise his rare gifts in that direction. Returning to 
 Bradford, he was soon appointed by John Wesley as a travel- 
 ling preacher. After preaching in many parts of England and 
 enduring the usual amount of hardship and risk to life and 
 lirnb incident to the field-preacher's work in those days, he 
 finally settled in London as John Wesley's editor, having charge 
 of the Arminian Magazine, and other publications, for which 
 Wesley was responsible. This office he held for twelve years ; 
 but he was never quite fit for it, and his chief was reluctantly 
 compelled at last to put a more scholarly man in his place. 
 
 In the controversy between Wesley and Toplady on Pre- 
 destination, etc., a controversy marked by the worst features of 
 the time, the fiery Welshman was put forward to take the lead- 
 ing part on the Arminian side. Nothing could exceed the 
 severity of Toplady's remarks and the fierceness of his attacks, 
 both on the character and teaching of the veteran preacher, 
 John Wesley, whom all the world now agrees to honor as one 
 of the most devout, unselfish, and useful men who have adorn- 
 ed the Christian Church in any age. Right manfully did the 
 " Welsh Cobbler," as Olivers was contemptuously styled, stand 
 up for the doctrine of free grace. In his hands Wesley was 
 quite content to leave the work of reply to Toplady 'sZanckius, 
 quietly remarking, " I can only make a few strictures, and 
 leave the young man Toplady to be further corrected by one 
 that is fully his match, Thomas Olivers." 
 
 Tyerman * speaks of Olivers as a man of high intellectual 
 power ; but "laments that the fiery Welshman undertook to 
 
 * " Life of Wesley," vol. iii. p. 108. London : Hodder & Stoughton, 
 1870. 
 
234 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 meet the furious Predestinarian with the not too respectable 
 weapons of his own choosing.' 7 What this means may l>c 
 imagined by the following sample of Toplndy's personalities in 
 this strife of tongues. He says, " Mr. Wesley skulks for shel- 
 ter under a cobbler's apron ;" and again, " Has Tom the Cob- 
 bler more learning and integrity than John the Priest ?" It 
 must be confessed that Cobbler Tom hit hard in reply. But 
 an end has now come to the discreditable and useless strife ; 
 and, happily, it is in no danger of revival ; while the hymns 
 written by the pious Calvinist * and the zealous Arminian are 
 both alike sung with devout emotion wherever the Saviour's 
 name is known and adored. 
 
 Besides several controversial tracts, Olivers wrote a number 
 of hymns, and is known as the composer of a number of Psalm- 
 tunes, f He continued his ministry in London till March, 1799, 
 when he died at the age of seventy-four. He was buried in 
 John Wesley's tomb, in the City Road Chapel Yard, London, 
 as a token of the esteem in which he was held by Wesley and 
 his friends. 
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT, DRAMATIST, NOVELIST, ETC.f 
 
 Thomas Holcroft was a much more noteworthy man. At 
 the time of the State Trials he had made a considerable name 
 as a writer of political novels. In his " Anna St. Ives" and 
 " Hugh Trevor" he had exposed the follies and vices of 
 society around him, and had set forth his own political views in 
 a manner well calculated to captivate the fancy of young and 
 ardent reformers. When the trial of Hardy began, Holcroft 
 surrendered himself in court, deeming it base and unmanly to 
 refuse to share the fate of those whose political views he had 
 warmly espoused. Both friends and foes honored him for his 
 chivalrous conduct in the affair. On the acquittal of his friends 
 he was discharged without a trial. 
 
 The life of Holcroft is as full of romance as any of those de- 
 picted in his novels. He was born in London in 1745. Dur- 
 
 *Toplady wrote the fine hymn "Rock of Ages," etc. 
 
 f " Helmsley" has been set down to Olivers ; but Mr. Benham says 
 it was composed by Martin Madan, Cowper's uncle, author of 
 " Thelyphthwa." See Cowper's "Poems," Globe Ed., Intro., p. 34. 
 
 J "Memoirs of the late Thomas Holcroft, written by Himself, and 
 Continued to the Time of his Death from his Diary," by W. Hazlitt. 
 The Traveller' s Library, vol. xvii. 1856. 
 
THOMAS HOLCROFT. 235 
 
 ing the first six years of the boy's life, his father was a shoe- 
 maker. Giving up this occupation in 1751, Holcroft, senior, 
 44 took to the road" as a hawker and peddler, and his poor child 
 led a vagrant, gypsy-like life, and passed through privations 
 which he could never afterward think of without shame and sor- 
 row. And yet he managed to turn this worst period of his life 
 to some account. The first-hand knowledge it afforded him of 
 nature and human affairs gave freshness and power to the com- 
 edies and dramas written in later years. During these early 
 years his father taught him to read out of the Bible, and such 
 was his progress, that in a little while the daily task consisted 
 of eleven chapters. These, he tells us, he could often have 
 missed by telling a falsehood, which his conscience never would 
 allow ; and, besides this, he had no wish to evade the task, for 
 the stories of the Old Testament were so fall of interest to his 
 boyish mind, that he was eager to go on to the end. While his 
 father and mother were engaged as hawkers, young Holcroft 
 was sent out to beg. In this miserable employment he became 
 quite an expert ; and, like many another unfortunate beggar, 'lie 
 was led to draw on his imagination for tales to answer his pur- 
 pose. On returning home he would recount his adventures, and 
 repeat the marvellous- stories he had invented, until his father, 
 who at first admired the lad's gift as a romancer, came to be 
 ashamed of allowing him to lead such an idle and mischievous 
 life, and put a stop to his escapades. 
 
 After this he was employed as a stable-boy and jockey at 
 Newmarket. The change in his circumstances thus brought 
 about was a very happy one, for he had now good fare, a com- 
 fortable bed to sleep on, decent or rather smart clothes, of 
 which he was not a little proud ; and, added to all this, a cer- 
 tain position in respectable society ! His father had a friend at 
 Newmarket who had a taste for reading, and followed the 
 " profession" of feeder and trainer of gamecocks for the pit. 
 This man was struck with Thomas Holcroft's natural ability, 
 and lent him books to read, such as the " Spectator" and 
 " Gulliver's Travels." While at Newmarket he was one day 
 passing a church, and stopped to listen to the music of the 
 choir, then engaged in practice. He ventured to enter the 
 church, and feeling a strong desire to learn to sing, spoke to 
 the leader. Mr. Langham, who, finding the stable-boy had a 
 good voice, admitted him into the choir. He threw himself so 
 heartily into this new and fascinating study, that it was not 
 long before he could read music and sing in good style. 
 
230 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 At the age of sixteen, he again went to live with his father, 
 who had once more returned to the shoemaker's stall, and lived 
 in London. Here he learned enough of the trade to earn a 
 livelihood, but he involved himself in premature cares by an 
 imprudent marriage when only twenty years of age. 
 
 And now the passion for a roving life got the better of him, 
 and quitting the monotony of a cobbler's room, he betook him- 
 self to the stage. For seven years he led the life of a strolling 
 player, 4< and sounded all the depths and shoals" of misery in- 
 cident to such a precarious existence. 
 
 It was not till after his thirtieth year that he began to acquire 
 settled habits of study, to learn the languages French, Ger- 
 man, and Italian in which he afterward became a ready trans- 
 lator, and to set about any kind of literary work. The first 
 products of his pen appeared in the Whitehall Evening Post. 
 He was in his thirty-fifth year when his first novel, k4 Alwyn, 
 or the Gentleman Comedian/' appeared. The year after 
 this saw the issue of his earliest comedy, Duplicity, which 
 was put on the stage at Covent Garden Theatre, and had a 
 good run of success. This was followed by some thirty dra- 
 matic pieces of one kind or other, in poetry or prose, comedies 
 and comic operas, dramas and melodramas, which last he had 
 the credit of introducing into England. The Road to Ruin is 
 accounted, by some judges of note, the best of his dramas. 
 Holcroft was a man of versatile powers and great industry. II is 
 natural gifts were remarkable, and his extensive knowledge was 
 almost entirely self-acquired. As already indicated, he was a 
 very prolific author. Besides the three novels and the plays 
 referred to above, he issued translations from the French of 
 Toucher d'Obsonville and Pierre de Long ; from the German, 
 Goethe's " Herman and Dorothea ;" and from the Italian. Her 
 spent much of his time in Germany and France, and his inter- 
 esting work, 4C Travels into France," is one of his most valued 
 productions. Thomas Holcroft died 23d March, 1809, at the 
 age of sixty-four, having crowded as much work into his event- 
 ful life as most of the leading men of his time. 
 
 JOSEPH BLACKET, POET, "THE SON OF SORKOW." 
 
 At the beginning of this century there were two young shoe- 
 makers in London who were spending their leisure time in hard 
 reading and attempts at musical composition. One of them, 
 
JOSEPH BLACKET 
 
JOSEPH BLACKET. 239 
 
 Robert Bloomfield, a sketch of whom has already been given,* 
 is known as widely as the English language itself. The other, 
 Joseph Blacket, made but little stir in the world, and is now 
 Avell-nigh forgotten. He took to writing poetry at a much ear- 
 lier age than Bloomfield, who wrote nothing before his six- 
 teenth year, while Blacket, if we may trust the notes in his 
 44 Specimens" and " Remains," began, very characteristically, 
 with " The Sigh," written at ten years of age. His unhappy 
 life was brought to a close when he was but twenty-four years 
 old. At this age Bloomfield had written very little poetry, and 
 44 The Farmer's Boy" was not begun. But if his genius ripen- 
 ed slowly, it produced fruits far more valuable than those pre- 
 sented to the world by the precocity of poor Blacket. There 
 is nothing of Blacket's to compare with 44 The Fanner's Boy," 
 or 4 ' Richard and Kate," or 44 The Fakenham Ghost." It is 
 interesting to know that the two poetical sons of Crispin were 
 acquainted, and cherished a high regard for each other. They 
 seem to have met at the house of Mr. Pratt, Blacket's patron 
 and editor, and afterward to have exchanged copies of each 
 other's works, accompanied by friendly letters. What Bloom- 
 field thought of his young friend may be gathered from the fol- 
 lowing portion of a letter : 44 The instant I received your vol- 
 ume I resolved to shake hands with you, by letter at least, and 
 to thank you for a pleasure of no common sort. The ' Con- 
 flagration ' is so truly full of fire that it almost burns one's fin- 
 gers to read it. 4 Saragossa ' is a noble poem. Choose your 
 own themes, and let the master-tints of your mind have full 
 play." 
 
 In a letter to his friend Mr. Pratt, Blacket says that he was 
 born in 1786 at Tunstill, five miles from Richmond, in York- 
 shire. His father was a day-laborer, who had eight children to 
 provide for at the time Joseph was old enough for school. \ It 
 was therefore fortunate for him that the village schoolmistress 
 took a fancy for him, and taught him for nothing. He stayed 
 
 * It may be thought by some readers that Bloomfield's brothers, 
 George and Nathaniel, ought to have a place in our list of illustrious 
 shoemakers. George, in his correspondence with Mr. Capel Lofft, 
 Robert's patron, showed himself a man of good sense and a fair writer. 
 See preface to Bloomfield's Poems. But Nathaniel, the author of a 
 little volume of poems, edited by Capel Lofft, 1803, entitled, "An Essay 
 on War/' in blank verse, and "Honington Green, a Ballad," was not 
 a shoemaker. He was a tailor, though not a few writers have made 
 Byron's mistake of classing him with "ye tuneful cobblers." 
 
 f Blacket s "Remains," preface, vol. i. pp. 62, 63. London, 1811. 
 
240 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 with her until he was seven, and then went to a school taught 
 by a master. At the age of eleven he was removed to London, 
 his brother John having engaged to provide a home for him and 
 teach him his trade during the next seven years. In this respect 
 his position was very similar to that of Bloomfield, whose 
 brother George became the guardian of the shy Suffolk lad 
 when he first went up to London.* John Blacket was so anxious 
 that his ward should not forget his little learning that he often 
 kept the lad at home to write on Sunday. There were such 
 books in John's library as " Josephus," " Eusebius* Church 
 History, " " Fox's Martyrs/ 7 all of which were read through by 
 the time Joseph was fifteen years of age, " At that time," he 
 says, t4 the drama was totally unknown to me ; a play I had 
 neither seen nor read." One evening a companion called on 
 him and begged him to go and see Kemble play Richard the 
 Third at Drury Lane. His brother John refused consent at 
 first, but yielded at last to the clever strategy of an appeal made 
 in a few impromptu verses, which so greatly pleased and sur- 
 prised the fond brother, that he at once " gave him leave tog<>, 
 together with a couple of shillings to defray his expenses." 
 From this time forth he devoted himself to the study of the 
 poets Milton, Pope, Young,* Otway, Rowe, Beattie, Thomp- 
 son, but especially, and for a time almost exclusively, to Shake- 
 speare. As a young poet it is said of him that " His anxiety 
 to produce something that should be thought worthy of the pub- 
 lic in the form of a drama appears to have surpassed all his 
 other cares. . . . Something of the dramatic kind pervades 
 the whole ma?s of his papers. I have traced it on hills, re- 
 ceipts, backs of letters, shoe patterns, slips of paper hangings, 
 grocery wrappers, magazine covers, battalion orders for the vol- 
 unteer corps of St. Pancras, in which he served, and on vari- 
 ous other scraps on which his ink could scarcely be made to 
 retain the impression of his thoughts ; yet most of them 
 crowded on both sides and much interlined." f 
 
 Like most ardent young students in poor circumstances, 
 Blacket was reckless of his health,, His hard work by day and 
 loss of nightly sleep sowed the seeds of the disease to which he 
 eventually fell a victim, lie married very young, and had the 
 misfortune to lose his wife when he was only twenty-one years 
 of age. A sister who carne to nurse her was taken ill of brain 
 
 . * Blacket's "Remains," preface, vol. i. pp. 27. 
 f Editor of Blacket's "Remains," Letters, pp. 9, 10. 
 
JOSEPH BLACKET. 241 
 
 fever, and nearly lost her life. " Judge of my situation," he 
 says to his friend Mr. Pratt, " a dear wife stretched on the bed 
 of death ; a sister senseless, whose dissolution I expected every 
 hour ; an infant piteously looking round for its mother ; cred- 
 itors clamorous, friends cold or absent. I found, like the mel- 
 ancholy Jaques, that i when the deer was stricken the herd 
 would shun him. ' ' In this wretched position he was obliged 
 to sell everything to pay his debts. No wonder that he became 
 a " son of sorrow," and that most of the poetry written after 
 this date bears the marks of gloom and distraction of mind. 
 Yet it must be confessed that' when the young poet sought to 
 enter on his literary career by the publication of his poems, he 
 had no cause to complain of want of friends. Mr. Marchant, 
 a printer, took kindly to him, and published his first copies of 
 " Specimens" free of expense. It was he who introduced the 
 young aspirant for poetical fame to Mr. Pratt, the editor of 
 the " Remains," who seems, from the letters published, to have 
 been a man of considerable means, but not of the best judg- 
 ment in literary affairs. This friend had the most exalted 
 notions of the " genius" of his protege, showed him the utmost' 
 kindness till the day of his death, and took charge of the funds 
 raised by the publication of his " Remains," investing them in 
 behalf of the poet's orphan child. In August, 1809, Blacket 
 removed to Seaham, Durham, to the house of a brother-in-law, 
 gamekeeper to Sir Ralph Milbanke of Castle Eden. The bar- 
 onet and his family were very kind to him ; a horse was lent 
 him ; dainty food was sent down for him from the castle ; 
 doctors were procured who attended him gratis ; Lady Milbanke 
 and Miss Milbanke, afterward Lady Byron, visited him con- 
 stantly, and interested others in his behalf ; among them the 
 Duchess of Leeds, who procured a large number of subscribers 
 to his volume of " Specimens." * No effort was spared by 
 either doctors or friends to save his life and to ensure his repu- 
 tation as a poet ; but to no purpose, as it seemed, in either 
 case. He died of consumption on the 23d of September, 1810, 
 at the house of his brother-in-law, and was buried in Seaham 
 churchyard by his friend Mr. Wallis, rector of the parish, who 
 had been a Christian counsellor and comforter to the young 
 poet during his long illness. At his own request, Miss Milbanke 
 
 * That these generous friends labored to some purpose may be 
 judged from the fact that after Blacket' s little legacies and funeral 
 expenses were paid, 97 10s. remained over for the benefit of his 
 child. " Remains," p. 101. 
 
ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 selected the spot for his grave, and caused a suitable monu- 
 ment to be placed over it, on which were inscribed the lines, 
 taken from his own poem, " Reflections at Midnight' '- 
 
 " Shut from the light, 'mid awful gloom, 
 Let clay-cold honor rest in state ; 
 And, from the decorated tomb, 
 Keceive the tributes of the great. 
 
 " Let me, when bade with life to part 
 And in my narrow mansion sleep, 
 Keceive a tribute from the heart, 
 Nor bribe one sordid eye to weep." 
 
 DAVID SEKVICE, AND OTHER SONGSTERS OF THE COB- 
 BLER'S STALL. 
 
 David Service of Yarmouth represents a pretty numerous class 
 of songsters of the cobbler's stall, worthy men in their way, 
 but writers of inferior merit, of whom much cannot be said. 
 Such writers were John Foster of Winteringham, Lincolnshire, 
 who owed the publication of his " Serious Poems," in 1793, to 
 the kindness of the vicar of the parish ; J. Johnstone, a Scotch- 
 man, who published a small volume of poems in 1823 ; the Rev. 
 James Nichol of Traquair, Selkirkshire, who in his shoemaking 
 days " published two or three volumes of poetry." Gavin 
 Wilson, of Edinburgh, who, MI 1788, published " A Collection 
 of Masonic Songs," of whom Campbell says : ** I knew Gavin 
 Wilson ; he wa^ an honest, merry fellow, and a good boot, 
 leather-leg, arm, and hand maker, but as sorry a poetaster as 
 ever tried a couplet." f James JJwlin, a man of versatile gifts 
 and most irregular habits, who by turns wrote poetry, corre- 
 sponded for the Daily News, and contributed to the Spectator, 
 Builder, and Notes and Queries, and died about twenty years 
 ago in poverty and obscurity. J These men, as regards their 
 literary merit and fame, excepting perhaps the last, are well 
 represented by the herdboy from the banks of the Clyde, who, 
 after serving his time asasutor at Greenock, journeyed south in 
 search of work, and settled at Yarmouth, Norfolk, and there, 
 at the age of twenty-seven, published a " Rural Poem," called 
 " The Caledonian Herdboy, " in 1802. Two years after he was 
 
 * "Crispin Anecdotes," pp. 87, 88. 
 
 f Ibid. 
 
 J "Campion's Delightful History, " p. 81. 
 
JOHN STRUTHERS. 243 
 
 encouraged by his friends to issue " The Wild Harp's Mur- 
 murs" and " St. Crispin, or the Apprentice Boy," the former 
 being dedicated to that friend of unknown young poets, Capel 
 Lofft, the friend of the Bloomfields and Kirke White. His last 
 adventure in this line bore the romantic title " A Voyage and 
 Travels in the Region of the Brain." This verse occurs in one 
 of his publications 
 
 " ' Apollo, why,' a matron cried, 
 
 * Are poets all so poor ? ' 
 
 * They write for fame,' Apollo cried, 
 
 * And seldom ask for more. ' ' ' 
 
 But this poet, it is to be feared, obtained neither wealth nor 
 fame. 
 
 He became an inmate of the Yarmouth Workhouse, and 
 died there on the 13th of March, 1825. And his " memorial," 
 like that of many another local celebrity, has well-nigh per- 
 ished with him. 
 
 JOHN STKUTHEKS, POET, EDITOK, ETC. 
 
 John Struthers, a Scottish poet, the friend of Sir Walter 
 Scott and Joanna Baillie, followed the trade of a shoemaker for 
 many years after he had begun to gain a literary reputation. 
 He was born at Kilbride in Lanarkshire in 1776, and learned his 
 trade in his own home, for his father was a member of the 
 same craft. Struthers is best known in Scotland as the author 
 of " The Poor Man's Sabbath," a simple, unpretentious poem, 
 which appeared in 1804, and rapidly passed through several 
 editions.* His success in this first venture led to the publica- 
 tion of "The Peasant's Death," in 1806 ; ' The Winter's 
 Day," in 1811 ; " The Plough," in 1816 ; " The Dechmont," 
 in 1836. He was the editor of a Scottish anthology, called " The 
 Harp of Caledonia," in three volumes, to which his friends 
 Sir Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie ' ' sent voluntary contribu- 
 tions." He wrote a history of Scotland from the Union, 
 17.07 to 1827, by which his reputation was greatly enhanced. 
 
 * Of " The Sabbath," a writer in the Quarterly Review, January, 
 1831 (p. 77), says it is "a poem of which unaffected piety is not the 
 only inspiration, and which but for its unfortunate coincidence of sub- 
 ject with the nearly contemporary one of the late amiable James 
 Graham e, would probably have attracted a considerable share of favor, 
 even in these hypercritical days." 
 
11.! LKKRS. 
 
 ^nsiderable number of the 1 
 of Illustrious Scotchmen" I ;i> pen. 
 
 he held the position of | 
 
 Oo., of Glasgow. In made librarian in S 
 
 Library, which office he held until within a few years of his 
 death in 1853. His poetical :.nd pub- 
 
 lished by himself in 1850. J lent 
 
 specimen of a shrewd, inte - minded Scotchman.* 
 
 JOHN O'NEILL, THE POET OF T 
 
 The name of John O'Neill is in: with that 
 
 of George Crniekshank in the work of temperance reform ; 
 
 >nly did < 
 
 shoemaker and poet by illustrating his lit: 
 Blessings of Temperance," but it is wit I 
 that these illustrations and the scenes depicted in the poem if 
 
 1 to the artist the \ i nit in 
 
 of plates entitled i4 Tbe Bottle." Some of these ski-: 
 for example, k< The Upas Tree" an-: :iia.' and 
 
 the Drivelling Fool," derive their titles from O'Neill's lam: 
 in the poem itself. So closely, indeed, do the grapi. 
 the artist and the poet correspond, t ill in the later edi- 
 
 tions of his li Cruiek- 
 
 shank's * Bottle.' " f On its ti: ance the poem was en- 
 
 titled 4t The Drunkard," and recei\ -able notice in the 
 
 pages of the Athenatum and the Spectator. ther journals 
 
 and papers of less literary merit. " The Drunkard" w.i> n->t his 
 first work, but it was his best, and the inch his name 
 
 came known and honored aiiMm; teetotallers. A- 321 
 
 lie had published a drama entitled ** Alva." '* The Sorro 
 Memory*' and a number of Irish melod Cer- 
 
 ent periods in his life ntle later. His friend the 
 
 Rev. Isaac Doxscy, in < of 
 
 Temperance/ >f O'Neill as the author 
 
 matic pieces, a collection of poems, and a novel called " Mary 
 of Avonmore, or the Foundling of the 1> nd of numer- 
 
 ous contributions to various periodicals. 
 
 * "Imperial Dictionary of Biography." Glasgow: Blackio 
 f "The Blessings of Temperance. II :i the Lift 
 
 ormation of the Drunkard : a Poem by Jolm O'NVill. etc., forming a 
 Companion to Cru: :u his pen 
 
 London : "W. Tweedie. 1851. Fourth edition. 
 
JOHN O XEILL. 240 
 
 Jolin O'Neill was an Irishman, born at Waterford on the 8th 
 of January, 1777. His mother was in wretched circumstances 
 at the time of his birth, having been deserted by a worthless 
 husband, who left her and her little family to the care of for- 
 tune. As a boy he was very slow to learn, and gave no indica- 
 tion of the gifts he afterward displayed. He and his brother, 
 much his senior, were apprenticed to a relative who acted as a 
 sort of guardian to the boy?. O'Neill's mind was first awak- 
 ened to a love for poetry by a drama in rhyme entitled " The 
 Battle of Aughrim," by a shoemaker named Ansell, which he 
 committed to memory. On leaving the service of his first mas- 
 ter he became an apprentice to his brother, but soon quarrelled 
 and the indentures Were thrown into the fire. During the Re- 
 bellion of 1798 and 1799, when food was at famine prices, he 
 lived in great poverty at Dublin and Carrick-on-Suir ; and in 
 the latter place, notwithstanding the miserable state of his 
 affairs, he found some one with love and courage sufficient to 
 enable her to become his wife. It was at this time also that he 
 began to read in earnest, chiefly poetry, though nothing came 
 amiss, and, as a matter of course, every book was borrowed. 
 The first-fruits of his poetic genius, if the term be permissible, 
 were presented to the world in a little satirical poem written at 
 Carrick, li The Clothier's Looking-Glass. " This was designed 
 to expose what was regarded as the cruelty and heartlessness of 
 the master-clothiers in uniting to reduce the wages of the men. 
 O'Neill was induced to contribute to this trade dispute by a man 
 named Stacey, a printer, under whose guidance the shoemaker 
 acquired some knowledge of the art of printing, and set up a 
 press. The press was a capital adjunct to the pen, which the 
 active young shoemaker and amateur printer was now using 
 pretty freely. 
 
 At this time he became a strong political partisan, and used 
 both his pen and press in an election contest in favor of General 
 Matthew, brother of the Earl of Llandaff. It was the Earl's 
 promise of patronage that induced O'Neill to leave Ireland and 
 settle in London, some time in 1812 or 1813. This promise 
 was never redeemed, for the Earl about this time became a res- 
 ident in Naples. Disheartened by his disappointment, the poor 
 shoemaker dropped for a time all reading and literary toil and 
 aspiration, and stuck doggedly and sullenly to his last. 
 
 For seven years he seems to have neither read nor written 
 anything. At length a long period of il enforced leisure," oc- 
 casioned by an accident which made work with the awl impos- 
 
246 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 sible, compelled him to betake himself to reading, and thus his 
 mind was roused from its torpor. An English translation of a 
 volume of Spanish novels fell in his way, and its perusal sug- 
 gested the subject for the drama Alva, which, as we have 
 said, he published in 1821. His other works are named 
 above. None of these seem to have brought him much profit, 
 neither were his attempts at " business for himself/' once as 
 a master-shoemaker and again as a huckster, at all successful. 
 On several occasions he was assisted by grants from the Liter- 
 ary Fund, and was thankful for the kindly aid afforded him by 
 his friends the teetotalers. 
 
 In spite of all his hard work as a shoemaker, and his many 
 little literary adventures (perhaps because of them), he was in 
 his old age a very poor man. Mr. Doxsey says in 1851, 
 44 John O'Neill and his aged partner dwell in a miserable gar- 
 ret in St. Giles's." In his poor earthly estate he had one com- 
 fort, at all events he did not 44 suffer as an evil-doer," and 
 he could feel pretty sure that he had done not a little by his 
 graphic pen and rude eloquence to turn many a sinner from a 
 life of misery and shame. His death occurred on the 3d of 
 February, 1858. 
 
 JOHN YOUNGER, SHOEMAKER, FLY-FISHER, AND POET. 
 
 In 1860 a charming little book on 4< River Angling for Sal- 
 mon and Trout " * was added to our extensive angling litera- 
 ture by a devout follower of Isaac Walton. The preface 
 showed that it was the work of a Lowland Scotchman, who was 
 accustomed to divide his time between the two " gentle" oc- 
 cupations of shoemaking and fishing, and that this man, John 
 Younger, had an enthusiasm for other things besides making 
 fishing-boots and fishing-rods and lines, and the sport of the 
 river-side. He was a zealous and, we had almost said, a des- 
 perate politician. He made corn-law rhymes, which came into 
 the hands and drew forth praise from the pen of Ebenezer 
 Elliott, who sent the best copy of his works as a present to the 
 poetical shoemaker. In 1834 Younger tried the public with a 
 volume of verse under the quaint title, " Thoughts as they 
 Rise." f But the public, like the shy fish of some of his own 
 Scottish rivers, would not " rise" to his bait, for the work fell 
 
 * Kelso : Rutherford. Edinburgh : Blackwood & Sons, 
 f Glasgow, 1834. 
 
CHARLES CROCKER. 247 
 
 uncommonly flat. He was much more successful with his 
 *' River Angling," which appeared first in 1840, and again, 
 with a sketch of his life, in 1860. In 1847 John Younger won 
 the second prize for an essay on " The Temporal Advantages 
 of the Sabbath to the Working-Classes," and it was a proud 
 day for him and his neighbors at St. BoswelPs when he set off 
 to go up to London to receive his reward of 15 at the hands 
 of Lord Shaftesbury in the big meeting at Exeter Hall. Young- 
 er, who was all his life a brother of the craft, was born at 
 Longnewton, in the parish of Ancrum, 5th July, 1785. He 
 died and was buried at St. BoswelPs in June, 1860. As' we 
 are writing we observe that his autobiography * has just been 
 published, concerning which a writer in the Athenceum re- 
 marks, j- 4t John Younger, shoemaker, fly-fisher, and poet, has 
 left a Life which is certainly worth reading;" and adds, 
 " There is something more in him than a vein of talent suffi- 
 cient to earn a local celebrity." With this opinion agree the 
 remarks of the Scotsman and the Sunderland Times, which 
 said of him at the time of his death, " One of the most re- 
 markable men of the population of the South of Scotland, 
 whether as a genial writer of prose or verse or a man of high 
 conversational powers and clear common-sense, the shoemaker 
 of St. BoswelPs had few or no rivals in the South ;" and 
 " Nature made him a poet, a philosopher, and a nobleman ; 
 society made him a cobbler of shoes." He was certainly a 
 most original character, and his originality and genius appear 
 in every chapter of his Autobiography. 
 
 CHAELES CROCKER, "THE POOR COBBLER OF 
 CHICHESTER. 
 
 Charles Crocker, who was born in Chichester, 22d June, 
 1797, was the son of poor parents, who could not afford to 
 send him to school after he was seven years of age, but they 
 were assisted by friends who procured him admission to the 
 Chichester " Greycoat School." He was sent before the age 
 of twelve to work as a shoemaker's apprentice. " This arrange- 
 ment," he says in the brief sketch of his life which is given in 
 
 * " Autobiography of John Younger, Shoemaker, of St. BoswelTs." 
 Kelso : J. & J. H. Rutherford, 1881. 
 f 6th May, 1882, p. 564. 
 
'.MS ILLI'STKIOLS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 the preface to his poems,* " was perhaps rather favorable than 
 otherwise to the improvement of iny mind, for the sedentary 
 labor necessary in this kind of employment, while it keeps the 
 hands fully engaged, gives little or no exercise to the mental 
 faculties, consequently the mind of a person so employed may, 
 without any hindrance to his work, find occupation or amuse- 
 ment in intellectual or imaginative pursuits." His youthful 
 days were spent in hard work and study. Spite of his school- 
 ing, grammar presented a great difficulty when he began to 
 apply himself seriously to literary work. lie even went so far 
 as to commit an entire book to memory in his efforts to master 
 the art. He mentions a lecture on Milton by Thelwail as 
 having given him much help in trying to understand the struct- 
 ure of English verse. Besides Milton, Cowper, Collins, and 
 Goldsmith became favorites, and he committed large portions 
 of their writings to memory, and so learned to frame a styl<>. 
 The first volume of his poems was published in 1830, and the 
 third in 1841. He also wrote u A Visit to Chichester Cathe- 
 dral," which passed through several editions. Crocker died in 
 1861. f 
 
 * " The Vale of Obscurity, and Other Poems," by Charles Crocker, 
 3d edition. Chichester : W. H. Mason, 1841. 
 
 f It is perhaps best, on the whole, not to speak of living men in such 
 a work as this. An exception has, however, been made to such a rule 
 in the rare instances of the famous politician, poet, and preacher 
 Thomas Cooper, and the American poet Whittier. If the writer did 
 not feel the necessity of adhering, in the main, to this rule, it would 
 be easy enough for him to cite many instances in proof of tin- state- 
 ment that the literary reputation of shoemakers is being well sustained 
 in the present day by writers in prose and poetry, who either have 
 been or still are working at the stall. Most Scottish sutors,oi}.e would 
 think, have heard of the author of " Homely Words and Songs" and 
 " Lays and Lectures for Scotia's Daughters of Industry" (Edinburgh, 
 1853 and 185G). London craftsmen know and honor the names of 
 J. B. Howe, a political writer and poet, and John B. Leno, the editor 
 of " St. Crispin," and author of the " Drury Lane Lyrics," " Tracts for 
 Rich and Poor," and "King Labor's Song-Book" (London, 1867-68 ; 
 see also ' ' Kimburton, and Other Poems," London, 1875-76) ; and the 
 shoemaker of Wellinborough, John Askham, by his " Sonnets of the 
 Months,"" Descriptive Poems," and "Judith" (Northampton : Tay- 
 lor & Son, 1863, 1866, 1868, and 1875), has made a reputation which 
 is not entirely confined to his own locality, nor to the members of the 
 craft to which he belongs. 
 
GEORGE FOX. 249 
 
 PREACHERS. 
 
 GEORGE FOX, FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 
 
 THE name of George Fox belongs to the list of practical 
 philanthropists ; for Fox may be said to have given himself 
 body and soul to the good of his fellow-men, and to have lived 
 the life of a martyr to the cause to which he felt called to 
 consecrate himself. He was bt>rn in 1624, the year in which 
 Jacob Boehmen died. We are the more inclined to notice 
 this coincidence because the character and work of George Fox 
 suggest a comparison between the two men. Both men were 
 pietists and mystics ; but in this alone are they alike. When 
 we look at their life-work, we are at once reminded of their 
 nationality. The German is speculative, the Englishman is 
 practical ; the one turns his dreams and visions into books, and 
 the other into acts.* 
 
 George Fox's early life was spent near his native place,* 
 Drayton, in Leicestershire, with a man who combined the occu- 
 pations of shoemaker and dealer in wool and cattle. After eight 
 years' service with this master, the young shoemaker, then at 
 the age of nineteen, clad in a leathern doublet of his own 
 making, went forth into the world as a preacher and reformer. 
 He was led to adopt this life by what he regarded as a voice 
 from heaven. He had been to a fair, and was grieved by the 
 intemperance of two of his youthful friends whom he saw there. 
 In his " Journal" he speaks of the effect this sight produced 
 upon his mind, and the resolve to which it led him. < 4 I went 
 away," he says, " and when I had done my business, returned 
 home ; but I did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, 
 but sometimes walked up and down, and sometimes prayed 
 and cried to the Lord, who said unto me, " Thou seest how 
 many young people go together into vanity, and old people into 
 the earth ; thou must forsake all, young and old, keep out of 
 all, and be a stranger to all.' ' After living the life of a wan- 
 dering preacher for a few years, he was induced to return home 
 for a short time, but the voice from heaven forbade his resist- 
 ing, and summoned him again into the Lord's vineyard. In 
 1648, when only twenty -four years of age, he began to preach 
 
 * All the writings of George Fox were published after his death. 
 See below. 
 
250 ILLUSTKIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 in Manchester, and to gather round him a number of adherents. 
 From Manchester he went on a tour through the northern 
 counties of England. Two years after this his followers began 
 to be known by the name of Quakers. This term was first 
 used by Justice Bennet of Derby, before whom Fox was cited 
 for disturbing the peace. In 1655 he was summoned to appear 
 before Cromwell, who dismissed the Leicestershire shoemaker 
 as a harmless enthusiast, whose attempts at moral and religious 
 reform could not do anything but good among the people. In 
 fact, Cromwell, a sturdy Puritan and a religious enthusiast 
 himself, was deeply moved by the spiritual fervor of the simple- 
 hearted preacher ; for Fox, who never feared the face of any 
 man, did not fail to speak his mind to Cromwell on religious 
 matters. As the preacher left the room, the Protector said to 
 him, " Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an 
 hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other." 
 In the reign of Charles II., when the anti-puritan reaction 
 set in, Fox fared far worse than before. Time after time he 
 was thrown into prison for speaking in the " steeple-houses" 
 (churches) and disturbing public worship. It was not at all an 
 uncommon thing for the rough preacher, clad in his leathern 
 doublet, to stand up in church while service was going on, and 
 rebuke the lukewarmness of the minister and the formalism of 
 the worshippers. This he conceived to be part of the mission 
 to which the spirit-voice had called him. Nor did he expect 
 to be allowed to discharge it without bringing down the hand of 
 the civil authorities upon his own head. But he had counted the 
 cost, and was prepared to suffer. A large part of his time was 
 spent in jail, where he underwent terrible hardships from want 
 of food and clothing. Nothing, however, could daunt his 
 ardor, or make him " disobedient unto the heavenly vision/' 
 He was no sooner at large than he began again to deliver his 
 message, calling on men to listen to the voice of Christ within, 
 and to reform their lives. Surely nothing could have been 
 more pure, more simple, and more unselfish than the life of 
 this devout and eccentric preacher of the gospel of love, peace, 
 and truth ; yet he was hounded from jail to jail by the bigots 
 of his day as if he had been a common vagrant or thief. The 
 sufferings he endured at the hands of furious mobs are often 
 recorded in his journal. These he bore with the utmost meek- 
 ness, as a firm believer in the doctrine of non-resistance to 
 evil. Once when he had been half killed, and the mob stood 
 round him as he lay upon the floor, he says, " I lay still a 
 
THOMAS SHILLITOE. 251 
 
 little while, and the power of the Lord sprang through me, and 
 eternal refreshings revived me, so that I stood up again in the 
 strengthening power of the eternal God, and stretching out my 
 arms among them, I said, l Strike again ! here are my arms, 
 my head, my cheeks ! ' Then they began to fall out among 
 themselves. " The distinctive principles of the Society of 
 Friends, of which George Fox was the founder, are too well 
 known to need description here. In 1669 Fox married the 
 widow of Judge Fell. After visiting Ireland, America, Hol- 
 land, Denmark, and Prussia, this apostle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury returned to England, and died in London, January 13th, 
 1691, at the age- of sixty-seven. 
 
 Spite of all his so-called vagaries, his want of education and 
 culture and grasp of intellect, the Leicestershire shoemaker, by 
 dint of moral earnestness and undaunted courage, succeeded in 
 laying the foundation of a religious society, which in propor- 
 tion to its numbers has exerted a greater moral influence than 
 any other denomination of Christians. His " Journal," which 
 is one of the most singular records of mental experience and 
 missionary adventure ever written, was first published in Itf94. 
 His " Epistles 7 ' were printed in 1698, and his " Doctrinal 
 Pieces" in 1706. 
 
 THOMAS SHILLITOE, THE SHOEMAKER WHO STOOD 
 BEFORE KINGS. 
 
 The term " calling," as applied to the trade or occupation a 
 man follows, is, or rather was, originally supposed to indicate a 
 belief that he is called and appointed of God to follow it. This 
 belief underlies the teaching of the Church Catechism, f How 
 far it prevails nowadays it would be hard to tell. The term 
 seems to have survived the belief which gave rise to it ; for one 
 does not often meet with instances outside the Christian min- 
 istry in which men regard their daily avocation as a veritable 
 " calling." This, however, was the case with Thomas Shil- 
 litoe, who was evidently as well satisfied of his " call" to be a 
 shoemaker as of his Divine commission to stand before kings 
 and rulers as a witness for the truth of God. This devout man 
 would have had no hesitation, we apprehend, in the simplicity 
 and strength of his conviction about the matter, to speak of 
 
 * See answer to the question, ' ' What is thy duty toward thy 
 neighbor ?" 
 
252 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 himself as " called to be" a shoemaker. He was a member of 
 the Society of Friends, a follower, and indeed a very close 
 follower, in the spirit and method of his life-work, of the 
 apostolic George Fox. Shillitoe's " Journal" will often remind 
 the reader of the records and experiences of the shoemaker of 
 Leicestershire. 
 
 Thomas Shillitoe was born in Holborn, London, in 1754. 
 His father, who had been librarian to the Society of Gray's 
 Inn, became the landlord of the *' Three Tuns" public house, 
 Islington, when Thomas was about twelve years of age. 
 " Merry Islington" was then a village, and a favorite resort of 
 idlers from the great city. Sundays were the busiest days of 
 the week, and were chiefly spent by the boy in waiting on his 
 father's customers. At the age of sixteen he became an ap- 
 prentice to a grocer, whose failure very soon compelled Thomas 
 to return home. About this time he began to attend the 
 meetings of the Society of Friends. This led to serious 
 thought and prayer, and the resolve to lead a Christian life and 
 unite himself with these earnest Christian people. " His 
 father, finding he was thus minded, was greatly displeased, 
 and told him he would rather have followed him to the grave 
 than he should have gone among the Quakers, and he was 
 determined he should at once quit his house." But the youth 
 was prepared for such a severe trial as this by that strong faith 
 in Divine Providence which formed the most marked feature 
 of his character throughout the rest of his life. Nor was his 
 faith unrewarded, for, on the very day on which he bade good- 
 by to his father's roof, a situation was offered him in a banking- 
 house in Lombard Street. Here he remained until he was 
 twenty-four years of age. 
 
 He was at this time very anxious to become a preacher, but 
 dreaded the danger of " running before he was sent," and there- 
 fore he waited for the Divine voice bidding him '* Go forth." 
 But before he could be made fit for this great work he must 
 learn to humble himself and take up the cross. The banking- 
 house and its surroundings must be forsaken ; he must go forth 
 like Moses into the land of Midi an, like Paul into Arabia, and 
 be prepared by simpler ways of life for the stern duties of the 
 ministry of God's word. And so it came to pass, he tells us, 
 that one Sunday while in earnest prayer that the Lord would 
 be pleased to direct him, " He in mercy, I believe, heard my 
 cries, and answered my supplications, pointing out to me the 
 business I was to be willing to take to for a future livelihood as 
 
THOMAS SHILL1TOE. 253 
 
 intelligibly to my inward ear as ever words were expressed 
 clearly and intelligibly to my outward ear that I must be 
 willing to humble myself and learn the trade of a shoemaker. 
 This caused me much distress of mind, as my salary had been 
 small, and having been obliged to make a respectable appear- 
 ance, I had but little means .to pay for instruction in a new line 
 of business. Yet believing I was to keep close to my good 
 Guide and He would not fail me, I entered on the work, though 
 for the first twelve months my earnings only provided me at 
 best with bread, cheese, and water, and sometimes only bread, 
 and sitting constantly on the seat made it hard for me, yet 
 both I and my instructor soon became reconciled to it. " His 
 diligence and thrift enabled him in a short time to open a shop 
 of his own in Tottenham, and to employ workmen. It was not 
 long after this that he received his first call to go forth 
 from his home and preach. It was no easy matter to obey 
 such a call at this time. His young wife knew nothing of 
 business, and the foreman was not very trustworthy. Still the 
 good man went out on a sort of missionary tour in Norfolk, and 
 returned home to find, as he avers he always did find on return- 
 ing from such a mission, that the words of Divine promise 
 spoken to his inward ear were verified : " I will be more than 
 bolts and bars to thy outward habitation, more than a master to 
 thy servants, for I can restrain their wandering minds ; more 
 than a husband to thy wife, and a parent to thy infant children." 
 After continuing at the craft as a master-shoemaker for about 
 twenty-seven years, Shillitoe in 1805 found that he had saved 
 enough to put him in a position to relinquish business, and to 
 devote himself more fully to the Christian and philanthropic 
 work to which he believed he had been called of God. He paid 
 several visits to Ireland, visiting the " drinking-houses" in 
 every town to which he went, and endeavoring to reform the 
 shocking abuses he met with in such places. First of all he 
 would speak with the " keepers" of these houses, and plead 
 with them to abolish the evils he saw around him ; and then, 
 turning his attention to the company of drinkers, revellers, and 
 dancers, he would speak to them in such tender loving tones, 
 that they were constrained to cease their rioting and listen to 
 the faithful servant of Christ. He and his companion were 
 rarely molested while engaged on these errands of mercy. In 
 some instances crowds followed them to listen to their message, 
 and where the company began by jeering and insulting the 
 visitors, they soon settled down into a quiet and respectful 
 
254 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 demeanor. When at Clonrnel in 1810, Shillitoe writes in his 
 journal : " My companion used often to say it seemed as if the 
 Good Master went into the houses before us to prepare the way. ' ' 
 Not content with visiting the " drinking- houses," we read, " it 
 was his practice to visit either the magistrates or the bishops 
 and priests, and sometimes he did not feel clear until he had 
 spoken faithfully to all." * To the bishops, Roman Catholic or 
 Protestant, he spoke in the most uncompromising manner about 
 their responsibility for the influence of their teaching and 
 conduct upon the people. Six hundred visits of mercy were 
 paid to the drinking. houses of Dublin alone in the year 1811. 
 The year after this his " Journal" records a remarkable visit 
 which he and a fellow- worker paid to " an organized company 
 of desperate characters, who for nearly fifty years had infested. 
 the neighborhood of Kingswood, who lived by plundering, 
 robbing, horse-stealing," and were a terror to the locality. 
 Even these men listened patiently to correction and instruction 
 from the lips of Thomas Shillitoe, and thanked him and his 
 friend for their good counsel. 
 
 From the lowest and humblest members of society he some- 
 times turned his attention to the highest and most influential. 
 He could not think of kings and emperors without remembering 
 their grave responsibility before God for the good government 
 of their people, and feeling that it was his duty to speak to 
 them upon the subject. In 1794 he and a friend named Stacey 
 went to Windsor intent on seeing and speaking with King 
 George III. It was early morning, when the King was in the 
 habit of visiting his stables. Shillitoe was about to follow the 
 King into one of the stables, when he was stopped by an 
 attendant. George III., hearing their remarks, came out ; 
 when Stacey said, " This friend of mine has something to 
 communicate to the King." On which his Majestv raised his 
 hat, and his attendants ranging on his left and right, Thomas 
 Shillitoe advanced in front, saying, " Hear, O King," and, in 
 a discourse of about twenty minutes' duration, pressed upon 
 the monarch the importance of true religion in persons of 
 exalted station, and the influence and responsibility attached 
 to power. The King listened with respect and emotion, 
 " tears trickling down his cheeks." f It was certainly a more 
 difficult thing to pay such a visit to the Prince Regent ; but 
 
 *" Select Miscellanies." London: Charles Gilpin, 1854, vol. iv. 
 p. 135. 
 
 f "Journal of Thomas Shillitoe," vol. i. p. 21. 
 
JOHN THORP. 255 
 
 even this the prophet-like Quaker accomplished at Brighton in 
 1813, and again at Windsor in 1823, when the gay Prince had 
 become King George IV. The missionary zeal of Shillitoe 
 carried him into Europe and America, where he never flinched 
 from delivering his message to men in any position, high or 
 low. 
 
 In Denmark he obtained an audience of the King, and spoke 
 to him some plain words regarding the desecration of the 
 Sabbath, and the evils attendant on Government-licensed lot- 
 teries. In Prussia he ventured to speak to the King in the 
 garden of the Palace of Berlin, and was graciously received, 
 the monarch promising to profit by the admonition he received. 
 In Russia he saw the Czar Alexander in 1825, and spoke to 
 hwn " of the abuses and oppressions that existed under his 
 government." Alexander, who had great respect for the 
 Friends, received his visitor very kindly, and conversed with 
 him for a long time on religious subjects in the most frank 
 and familiar manner. 
 
 After fifty years' faithful ministry, of the most singularly 
 pure and disinterested character, this good man died at the age 
 of eighty-two, 12th June, 1836. 
 
 JOHN THORP, FOUNDER OF THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH 
 AT MASBRO'. 
 
 The conversion and ministry of John Thorp, a shoemaker 
 at Masbrough, Yorkshire, may be set down among the most 
 extraordinary incidents connected with the eighteenth century 
 religious revival. Thorp's conversion was an indirect result 
 of the preaching of the Methodists, and occurred in such a 
 singular manner as to make the story worth telling, even if it had 
 led to no other results ; but in Thorp's case the results of 
 conversion were very noteworthy. Southey in his " Life of 
 Wesley" * gives the following account : " A party of men 
 were amusing themselves one day in an ale-house at Rotherham,f 
 by mimicking the Methodists. It was disputed who succeeded 
 best, and this led to a wager. There were four performers, 
 and the rest of the company were to decide after a fair speci- 
 men from each. A Bible was produced, and three of the 
 
 * " Bohn's Standard Library," p. 305. 
 
 f Rotherham and Masbro' are one town, only separated by the 
 River Rother. 
 
256 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 rivals, each in tarn, mounted the table and held forth in a 
 style of irreverent buffoonery, wherein the Scriptures were not 
 spared. John Thorp, who was the last exhibitor, got upon 
 the table in high spirits, exclaiming, 4 I shall beat you all ! ' 
 He opened the book for a text, and his eyes rested on tl 
 words, ' Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish ! ' Th<-M- 
 words at such a moment and in such a place struck him to the 
 heart. He became serious, he preached in earnest, and he 
 afterward affirmed that his own hair stood erect at the feelings 
 which then came upon him, and the awful denunciations which 
 he uttered. His companions heard him with the deepest silence. 
 When he came down not a word was said concerning the wager ; 
 he left the room immediately without speaking to anyone, 
 went home in a state of great agitation, and resigned himseJf 
 to the impulse which had thus strangely been produced. In con- 
 sequence he joined the Methodists, and became an itinerant 
 preacher ; but he would often say, when he related this story, 
 that if ever he preached by the assistance of the Spirit of God, 
 it was at that time." In the theological controversies which 
 sprang up in the society at Rotherham, Thorp took the 
 Calvinistic side. This roused the ire of the Anninian AYeslcv, 
 who sent off the Calvinistic cobbler to labor in a circuit a 
 hundred miles away. But though Wesley had the power to 
 drive Thorp from Rotherham, the autocrat had no power to 
 drive the cobbler away from his Calvinism. Wesley then (\\<- 
 missed Thorp from the Connection, and he returned to the 
 scenes of his conversion and first Christian work, to take charge 
 of a body of people who left the Methodists and formed an 
 Independent Church, 1757-60.* This little society rapidly 
 grew in numbers and influence, and is at the present time a 
 large and flourishing church at Masbro'. One of its tirst 
 members, Mr. Walker, an iron-founder, was a leading patron of 
 the school, which afterward developed into Rotherhani Colh-u'e 
 under the presidency of the learned Dr. E. Williams, j- " Tim* 
 to the pious zeal of an obscure shoemaker the Dissenters are 
 indirectly indebted for their valuable academical institution.'' 
 
 * " Masbro' Chapel Manual" for 1881, whence many of these i 
 ticulars are taken. See also Miall's * ' Congregationalism in York- 
 shire.*' 
 
 I Dr. Edward Williams became president in 1795. He edited the 
 Works of Jonathan Edwards, and was the author of a once famous con- 
 troversial treatise on "Divine Equity and Sovereignty." 
 
 J " Crispin Anecdotes," p. 18. 
 
WILLIAM HUXTIXGDOX, S.6. ^57 
 
 Thorp was regularly ordained to the pastorate, and a chapel 
 was built for his ministry, where he preached till his death, at 
 the age of fifty-two, 8lh November, 1V76. He was a friend 
 of the pious and eccentric John Berridge,* Vicar of Everton, 
 who gave his watch to Thorp as a token of esteem. John 
 Thorp's son, William, was a far more famous preacher than 
 his father, and held a conspicuous place at the beginning of 
 this century as pastor of the Castle Green Church, Bristol. 
 Representatives of the family belonging to a third and fourth 
 generation of preachers still hold an honorable position as 
 Established or Free Church ministers. 
 
 WILLIAM HUNTINGDON, S.S., CALVINISTIC METHODIST 
 PREACHEK. 
 
 One of the most eloquent and famous preachers in London 
 at the close of the last century and the beginning of the 
 present, when eloquent and famous preachers were by no means 
 rare, was William Huntingdon, whose portrait may be sepn in 
 the National Portrait Gallery, South Kensington, London. 
 Huntingdon's father was a farm laborer in Kent named Hunt. 
 How the name Hunt grew into the more dignified Huntingdon 
 (or Huntington) we cannot tell ; probably through some whim 
 of his own, for this eccentric man took liberties with his name, 
 as the reader will see presently. He seems to have combined 
 shoemaking with his other avocations, for one notice speaks of 
 him as by turns hostler, gardener, cobbler, and coal-heaver, f 
 
 Lie was not favored with any early education, but by careful 
 self -culture of his first-rate natural gifts acquired the rare art of 
 speaking with an ease and elegance and force that pleased all 
 sorts of hearers. Long after he had begun to attract crowds 
 by his eloquence he worked for his daily bread as a cobbler. 
 Many a sermon was made with his work on his lap and a 
 Bible on the chair beside him. A chapel was built for his. 
 ministry in Tichfield Street, London, and when it proved too 
 small, the congregation moved to a larger building erected in 
 Gray's Inn Road. 
 
 In his diary, 22d October, 1812, H. C. Robinson J says, 
 
 *" Crispin Anecdotes," p. 18. 
 
 f" Imperial Dictionary of Biography," vol. iv. Edinburgh: 
 Blackie & Son. 
 \ Vol. i. p. 402. 
 
258 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 " Heard W. Huntingdon preach, the man who puts S. S. 
 (sinner saved) after his name. He has an admirable exterior ; 
 his voice is clear and melodious ; his manner singularly easy, 
 and even graceful. There was no violence, no bluster ; yet 
 there was no want of earnestness or strength. His language 
 was very figurative, the images being taken from the ordinary 
 business of life, and especially from the army and navy. He is 
 very colloquial, and has a wonderful Biblical memory ; indeed, 
 he is said to know the whole Bible by heart. I noticed that 
 though he was frequent in his citations, and always added chap- 
 ter and verse, he never opened the little book he had in his lumd. 
 He is said to resemble Robert Robinson of Cambridge." * 
 
 In regard to the S.S. which he persisted in writing after his 
 name, Huntingdon says, " M.A. is out of my reach for want 
 of learning ; D.D. I cannot attain for want of cash ; but S.S. 
 I adopt, by which I mean ' sinner saved.' ' He married as 
 his second wife the wealthy widow of Alderman Sir J. Saunder- 
 son, once Lord Mayor of London. His death occurred in 
 1813, at'Tunbridge Wells. f One of his best known works is 
 entitled *' The Bank of Faith," an extraordinary record of 
 his own personal experience in illustration of the doctrine of 
 special providence. His sermons, etc., were published in no 
 less than twenty volumes. 
 
 KEV. EGBERT MORRISON, D.D. , CHINESE SCHOLAR AND 
 MISSIONARY. 
 
 A maker of wooden clogs and shoe-lasts is hardly a shoe- 
 maker, in the commonly understood sense of the term, yet he 
 stands in a very close relation to the gentle craft, and for this 
 reason we may not unfairly claim Robert Morrison of Newcastle 
 as a member of the illustrious brotherhood of the sons of St. 
 Crispin. Dr. Morrison was the pioneer of modern missions to 
 China, and did for the people and language of that country 
 what another shoemaker did for the people of Bengal. The 
 youthful Northumbrian had only a plain elementary education, 
 
 * The eminent Baptist minister of St. Andrew's Chapel, 1761-1790, 
 predecessor of Robert Hall. 
 
 f Huntingdon wrote his own epitaph, part of which reads "Be- 
 loved of his God but abhorred by men. The Omniscient Judge at the 
 Great Assize shall ratify and confirm this, to the confusion of many 
 thousands ; for England and its metropolis shall know that there hath 
 been a prophet among them." 
 
REV. JOHN BURtfET. 259 
 
 and after he became an apprentice, spent all his spare time in 
 reading religious books. At the age of nineteen he gave up 
 his humble trade and began to study under a minister, who 
 passed him on in two years to the academy at Hoxton, where 
 he made such progress, that in a short time he was sent to 
 London to study Chinese under Sam Tok, a native teacher, 
 with a view to his becoming a missionary to China, in connec- 
 tion with the London Missionary Society. In 1807, he sailed 
 for that country, and his rare gifts as a linguist were shown in 
 the publication of a Chinese version of the Acts of the Apostles, 
 after only three years' labor, in 1810. The Gospel of Luke 
 appeared in 1812, and the entire New Testament in 1814. 
 With the help of William Milne he issued the Old Testament 
 shortly after the last date. His labors w r ere not confined to 
 the translation of the Sacred Scriptures. His greatest work 
 was a *' Dictionary of the Chinese Language," published in 
 1818 by the Hon. East India Company at a cost of 15,000. 
 He also edited a Chinese grammar. The degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity was conferred on him by the University of Glasgow. 
 
 In 1817, Dr. Morrison accompanied Lord Amherstin his em- 
 bassy to Pekin, and afterward, as the last great work of a 
 noble life, founded an Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, to 
 whose funds he left the bulk of his property. On his return 
 to England in 1823 for rest and change, his great gifts and 
 labors as a linguist and a missionary were cordially recognized 
 in many quarters. The Royal Society made him a member, and 
 King George IV. honored himself, as well as his distinguished 
 subject, by seeking an interview with him. In 1826 he re- 
 turned to the field of his missionary labors. On his death at 
 Canton in 1834, England lost her best Chinese scholar, and one 
 of the most devoted, self-sacrificing, and useful missionaries 
 who ever left her shores. 
 
 THE KEV. JOHN BURNET. PREACHER AND 
 PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 The eloquent and popular minister of Camberwell Green 
 Congregational Church, the Rev. John Burnet, who divided his 
 time and energies between preaching and philanthropic labors, 
 is claimed by the craft as one of the most gifted and useful 
 men who have sprung from their ranks.* He was of Highland 
 
 * See Campion's " Delightful History," p. 83. 
 
ILLUSTRIOUS SHOK.MAKJ-:i:< 
 
 descent, and was born in Perth, 13th April, 1789. Hiscaily 
 education at the High School of Perth must have given him 
 great advantage over most youths of the tsouter fraternity. 
 How long he plied the awl we cannot say. Soon after his 
 union with a Christian Church in IVrth his friends discovered 
 his gifts as a speaker, and encouraged his adoption of the 
 ministry as a profession. To this end they supplied him with 
 funds, and for a time he studied with much advantage under 
 the Rev. William Orme of Perth. In 1815 Mr. Burnet re- 
 moved from Perth to Dublin, and soon afterward became an 
 agent of the Irish Evangelical Society. Hi* labors at Cork 
 proving acceptable to the Independent Church there, he was 
 invited to become their pastor, and for fifteen years was well 
 known by all the Protestants of the district as an eloquent and 
 faithful preacher. The growth of his congregation h-d to the 
 building of a handsome new chapel for his ministry in (It-- 
 Street. But his labors were not confined to these localities 
 (Cork and Mallow). His biographer states that "he COB* 
 tinually visited the other towns and places in the South of 
 Ireland, preaching in the court-houses, market-places, and 
 frequently in the halls of the resident nobility and gentry all 
 the Protestants gladly giving him the requisite facilities. On 
 these journeys he bad usually a free pass by the mails and 
 coaches, but he travelled a good deal on horseback. 99 * 
 
 It would have been an easy matter for Mr. Burnet to enter 
 Parliament, if he could have been persuaded to quit the min- 
 istry and devote himself entirely to political life ; for he was 
 popular with the Liberals of his dav, had rare gifts as a 
 speaker, and was thoroughly acquainted with politics. But the 
 best efforts of his friend Joseph Sturgc, and the offer of ample 
 means to maintain the position of a member of Parliament, 
 failed to induce him to accept the flattering offer. lie was 
 constantly employed as a platform speaker, and never refused 
 his aid to any cause " affecting the rights of the people or the 
 progress of humanity." 
 
 For many years he was on the Committee of the Bible 
 Society, the London Missionary Society, the Irish Evangelical 
 and the British and Foreign Sailors' Societies. Yet with all 
 this public work he never neglected the duties of the pastorate, 
 but occupied his pulpit efficiently from Sunday to Sunday, and 
 
 * "Congregational .Year-Book" for 1863, pp. 214-216. To the 
 obituary notice given in the Year-Book I owe the facts given in this 
 sketch. 
 
T)f;. KITTO. 261 
 
 lield several meetings during the week for the instruction of 
 his people. In 1845 his brethren of the Independent Con- 
 nection showed their esteem by electing him to fill the chair of 
 the Congregational Union. 
 
 In 1825 Mr. Burnet was summoned to give evidence before 1 
 a committee of the House of Lords on the state of the Catholic 
 population in Ireland. At first he declined to attend, saying 
 that he could not leave his work, for he had no one to supply 
 his place in his absence. But a second summons made it clear 
 that he was bound to obey orders, and he accordingly went up 
 to London and gave the committee the benefit of his extensive 
 acquaintance with the religious condition of the South of Ire- 
 land. His visit to London brought him again into the com- 
 pany of his old friend Mr. Orme, who introduced him to the 
 congregation, of which Mr. Orme was the pastor, at the Man- 
 sion House Chapel. On his death in 1830, Mr. Burnet was 
 invited to succeed his friend as the pastor of the church. This 
 pastorate he held for thirty-two years, till the day of his death. 
 In 1852 the new and costly building opposite Camberwell 
 Green was built, the congregation removing thither from the 
 old " Mansion House.' 7 
 
 Mr. Burnet was best known for his philanthropic labors, 
 chiefly in connection with the anti-slavery cause. In this 
 work he labored side by side, and on intimate terms of friend- 
 ship, with Wilberforce, Brougham, Zachary Macaulay, Lord 
 Macaulay, Sir T. F. Buxton, and other advocates of freedom 
 for the slave. " His labors,''' it is said, " in committee were 
 continuous and valuable, and his good sense and sound judg- 
 ment were not seldom needed in the conduct of this great 
 movement. He went frequently on deputations to the Govern- 
 ment, and was obliged to spend much time at the House of 
 Commons to be near the anti-slavery leaders in all times of 
 difficulty, and by this means became acquainted with the lead- 
 ing public men of the day, who admired his straightforward 
 character, readiness, and humor." He died at the age of 
 seventy -three, June 10th, 1862. 
 
 JOHN KITTO, D.D.,THE BIBLICAL SCHOLAR. 
 
 Very few illustrious men have been so heavily handicapped 
 in the race of life and the pursuit of knowledge as the eminent 
 Biblical scholar, John Kitto, who was born at Plymouth, 4th 
 
JLLrsTlilOl'3 -XHOKMAKI'HS. 
 
 December, 1804.* Added to poverty, the want of proper 
 food and clothing, he had to endure in early life the depriva- 
 tion of natural guardians and friends, terrible cruelty from a 
 master under whose care he was placed, and, worst of all, the 
 entire loss of the sense of hearing, so that from the age of 
 twelve to the day of his death he never could hear a sound of 
 any description. Deeply pathetic is the story of his early life 
 as told by himself in his journal and letters. His father was a 
 working mason at Plymouth, who had lost a good business by 
 intemperate habits. When John was only four years old, his 
 grandmother, who could not endure the sight of his misery at 
 home, engaged to bring him up. This good woman was the 
 guardian angel of Kitto's childhood, and did more, perhaps, 
 than any one else to mould his character. It was a sad day 
 for him when she was compelled by poverty and illness to break 
 up her home and go with her little ward to live with his 
 parents. He had already become fond of reading, and had 
 even tried his hand at writing tales for the amusement of his 
 childish companions and the more serious purpose of earning a 
 few pence to buy books. One day, when working with his 
 father, he fell from the top of a house thirty-five feet high, 
 and was carried home in a state of unconsciousness. After 
 lying in this state for a fortnight, he awoke to discover to 
 his dismay that he was absolutely deaf. He had asked for 
 a book which a neighbor had lent him just before the accident, 
 and when his friends found that he could not hear their reply, 
 one of them took up a slate and wrote upon it. " Why do 
 you not speak ?" he cried. " Why do you write to me ? 
 Why not speak? Speak, speak!" " Then," he tells us, 
 " those who stood around the bed exchanged significant looks 
 of concern, and the writer soon displayed upon his slate the 
 awful words, i You ARE DEAF ! ' Did not this utterly crush 
 me ? By no means. In my then weakened condition nothing 
 like this could affect me. Besides, I was a child ; and to a child 
 the full extent of such a calamity could not be at once appar- 
 ent. However, I knew not the future it was well I did not ; 
 and there was nothing to show me that I suffered under more 
 than a temporary deafness, which in a few days might pass 
 away. It was left for time to show me the sad realities of the 
 condition to which I was reduced." 
 
 * "Memoirs of John Kitto, D.D.," by R. E. Ryland, M.A. Edin- 
 burgh : William Oliphant & Sons, 1856. 
 
I) K. KITTO. 263 
 
 At the age of fifteen he was sent to the workhouse, scarcely 
 understanding what was being done with him. On realizing 
 his true position in this place, " his anguish was indescrib- 
 able." Yet in Kitto's time this place was hardly like an 
 ordinary modern workhouse. It had long borne the name of 
 The Hospital of the Poor's Portion, was founded in 1630 by 
 Gayer, Colmer, and Fowell, and endowed in 1674 by Lanyon 
 with 2000, and in 1708 was converted into a poorhouse by Act 
 of Parliament. It had apartments for boys, who were admit- 
 ted on Hele's and Lanyon's charities. Young Kitto was kindly 
 treated by the guardians, j even being allowed to go out every 
 day, and for a longtime to sleep at home. His occupation was 
 the making of list shoes, in which he became so proficient that 
 he was sent out as an apprentice to a shoemaker in the town, 
 who treated him so savagely that the humane guardians quashed 
 the agreement and took him again under their care. But even 
 in this wretched situation, where he was often compelled to 
 work sixteen or eighteen hours a day, the poor deaf boy 
 managed to go on with his studies ; and in his interesting work 
 called ic The Lost Senses, " published twenty years afterward, 
 he remarks, " Now that I look back upon this time, the amount 
 of study which I did, under these circumstances, contrive to 
 get through, amazes and confounds me." 
 
 About a year after his return to the poorhouse, certain 
 gentlemen in Plymouth, who had come to hear of his superior 
 abilities and passion for reading, drew up a circular asking for 
 funds to enable him to devote his time entirely to study. This 
 appeal was so successful that the poor workhouse boy was 
 placed under the care of a good friend, named Mr. Barnard, to 
 board and lodge, and allowed to go to the public library for 
 the purpose of reading and study. His course as a student 
 was now fairly open. In a few years he published his 
 first book, " Essays and Letters," with a short memoir of 
 the author. In 1825 his friend Mr. Groves of Exeter was the 
 means of sending him to the Church Missionary Institution, 
 London, where for a time he was employed as a printer. For 
 two years he resided at Malta in the service of this Society. 
 After this, an arrangement was made with his friend Mr. 
 Groves which proved of the utmost possible service to the dili- 
 gent student, whose mind had long been set on travelling as a 
 means of increasing his knowledge. Mr. Groves asked Kitto 
 to accompany him to the East. Five years were spent in a 
 journey through Russia, Persia, and Asiatic Turkey, during 
 
264 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 which " th ieaf traveller" obtained the vast stores of informa- 
 tion of which he made such good use in the various works 
 written on h : "eturn to England. In 1833 he was engaged by 
 Mr. Charles 1 light, the well-known publisher, to write for the 
 Penny Magazine, and wrote for that journal a number of 
 articles entitled " The Deaf Traveller.'' He contributed many 
 articles also to the Penny Cyclopaedia. His best known works 
 are " The Pictorial Bible," " The Pictorial Sunday Book," 
 44 Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature," "The Lost Senses," 
 " Journal of Sacred Literature," and * 4 Daily Bible Illustra- 
 tions," a work of great value, in eight volumes. In 1844 the 
 University of Giessen conferred on him the diploma of D.D., 
 and in the following year he was elected a Fellow of the Society 
 of Antiquaries. Notwithstanding hi* immense labors and the 
 great value of his writings, he was, toward the close of his life, 
 considerably embarrassed by pecuniary difficulties, which were 
 alleviated, but not entirely removed, by a Government pension 
 of 100 per year. John Kitto died and was buried at Cann- 
 statt, in Germany, 25th November, 1854, at the age of forty- 
 nine. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 WILLIAM STURGEON, THE ELECTRICIAN. 
 
 The name of William Sturgeon, so honorably connected 
 with the science of electricity and magnetism, has a fair claim 
 to be entered on this list. Sturgeon was a Lancashire man, 
 born at Wittington in that county in 1783. All his youth was 
 spent at the shoemaker's stall. On arriving at manhood he 
 abandoned this quiet, peaceful occupation for the life of a 
 soldier. After two years' service in the militia he enlisted in 
 the Royal Artillery. Like William Cobbett, he found it pos- 
 sible to read in the midst of the distractions of the barrack- 
 room. His chief attention was given to the study of electricity 
 and magnetism, which at that time were attracting a great deal 
 of attention on the part of men of science.* The first proof 
 Sturgeon gave of special and extensive knowledge on the sub- 
 ject was in the papers which he contributed to the Philosophi- 
 cal Magazine in 1823-24. In 1825 he published an account 
 
 * Magneto-electricity was discovered by Oersted in 1820. 
 
THOMAS HARDY. 265 
 
 of certain magneto -electric appliances, for which t] -v Society 
 of Arts awarded him their silver medal and a purse containing 
 30. About this time, that is, soon after leavin^ the army, 
 he was appointed to the chair of experimental pulosophy in 
 the East India Company's Military Academy at Addiscombe. 
 His pamphlet, published in 1830, on " Experimental Researches 
 in Electro-Magnetism and Galvanism, " described his own ex- 
 periments, which issued in an improved method of preparing 
 plates for the galvanic battery ; a method still found, in many 
 respects, to be the best. He invented the electro-magnetic- 
 coil machine, now used very frequently by medical men in 
 giving a succession of shocks to the patient, and still preferred 
 by the faculty to other instruments for this purpose. This 
 industrious and original investigator was also the inventor of a 
 method of driving machinery by electro-magnetism ; but he 
 little dreamt, it may be, of the extent to which electricity 
 would be employed in these days as a motive power and for 
 lighting purposes. He edited the " Annals of Electricity, 
 Magnetism, and Chemistry," and published his own works in 
 one volume a few years before his death. Like many inventors, 
 he never made a fortune, but died poor. A Government 
 pension of 50 per annum came to relieve him of his cares only 
 the year before his death, which occurred in 1850. 
 
 POLITICIANS. 
 
 THOMAS HAKDY, OF "THE STATE TRIALS." 
 
 The "gentle craft" has been as prolific of fiery politicians as 
 of peaceful poets. We have to speak now of two men who 
 were connected respectively with the political agitations of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 
 
 In the year 1794, when the events of the French Revolution 
 had convulsed the whole of Europe, society in England was 
 stirred to its depths, and grave fears were entertained by the 
 King and his Parliament lest the spirit of revolution should 
 break loose in this country. Such fears were not altogether 
 unfounded. Societies sprang up whose object was reform, by 
 legitimate means if possible, but if not, by violence and blood- 
 shed. One of the strongest of these societies existed in 
 London, and had carried its proceedings to such a pitch that 
 
266 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 four of its leading members were brought to trial on a charge 
 of treason and sedition. It is a remarkable fact that of these 
 four men Hardy, Horne-Tooke, Thelwall, and Holcroft the 
 first and last belonged to the class of shoemakers.* 
 
 Thomas Hardy was the secretary of the Association, and had 
 to bear the brunt of the trial, in which he was defended by 
 the Honorable Thomas Erskine. Speaking of these famous 
 state trials, Henry Crabb Robinson, who was then living at 
 Colchester, says, 4 4 1 felt an intense interest in them. During 
 the first trial I was in a state of agitation that rendered me 
 unfit for business. I used to beset the post-office early, and one 
 morning at six I obtained the London paper with NOT GUILTY 
 printed in letters an inch in height, recording the issue of 
 Hardy's trial. I ran about the town knocking at people's doors 
 and screaming out the joyful words. Thomas Hardy, who was 
 a shoemaker, made a sort of circuit, and obtained, of course, 
 many an order in the way of his trade. . . . Hardy was a 
 good-hearted, simple, and honest man. He had neither the 
 talents nor the vices which might be supposed to belong to an 
 acquitted traitor. He lived to an advanced age and died 
 universally respected." f Hardy died in the year 1831, in his 
 eighty-second year, having been born in 1751. At the close 
 of his life he was connected with the Wesleyan Methodists. 
 His monument may still be seen in the Bunhill Fields Burying 
 Ground, opposite the City Road Chapel, London. 
 
 GEORGE ODGER, POLITICAL ORATOR. 
 
 It has been remarked above, that shoemakers, whether 
 " illustrious" or not, have played a prominent part in connec- 
 
 * A story is told of Sir Robert Peel which is worth repeating here. 
 A deputation of working-men once waited on Sir Robert to lay the 
 wants of the trades' societies before him. The two speakers selected 
 by the deputation were shoemakers. On learning this interesting 
 fact, the statesman turned to the sons of Crispin and said, half in 
 earnest and half in jest, "How is it that you shoemakers are fore- 
 most in every movement ? If there is a plot or conspiracy or insur- 
 rection or political movement, I always find that there is a shoemaker 
 in the fray !" 
 
 It is a singular fact that the shorthand notes of Hardy's trial were 
 taken down by another illustrious shoemaker Manoah Sibly (see 
 above). There is a printed copy of these notes in the British 
 Museum, published 1795. 
 
 f H. C. Robinson's Diary, vol. i. pp. 26, 27. 
 
GEORGE ODGEK. 267 
 
 tion with religious and political reform. In proof of this we 
 have only to ask the reader to recall what has been said of 
 Henry Michael Buch, Hans Sachs, George Fox, Drs. Carey . 
 " and Morrison, and John Pounds, among moral and religious 
 reformers ; and such men as Hardy, Holcroft, and Thomas 
 Cooper, in the sphere of politics. The name of George Odger 
 deserves a place also in this list of reformers and improvers of 
 the world, for although his field of labor was a very humble 
 one, it was sufficient for the display of fine qualities of mind 
 and heart. Odger was one of the best specimens this country 
 has produced of a powerful ' class in modern society, called 
 " working-men politicians." His influence as a working-man 
 among the working-men of London was unrivalled in his day, 
 and was always of a wholesome and ennobling character. 
 Professor Fawcett said " he was as good and true a man as 
 ever lived," paid a warm tribute to his " rare intelligence and 
 power and eloquence," and added, moreover, that if the poor 
 shoemaker " had been born in circumstances in which he 
 could have had the advantages of education, there would have 
 been for him a career as distinguished as any Englishman had 
 achieved." John Stuart Mill also held similar opinions in re- 
 gard to Odger' s excellent character and remarkable abilities. 
 Other members of Parliament have done honor to Odgcr's worth, 
 and recognized his unselfishness and patriotism as a leader of 
 the people. He was no vulgar demagogue, pandering to 
 popular passion, and seeking fame and power at any cost. His 
 appeals were always maxle to the intelligence of his hearers, and 
 his demands for reform were based on what he conscientiously 
 regarded as principles of justice. Throughout the American 
 war, 186165, he sought to direct public opinion against the 
 slave-holding interest. 
 
 George Odger was born at Rogborough, near Plymouth, in 
 1813. His father was a Cornish miner, and so poor that he 
 was obliged to send his boy out to earn his living at shoe- 
 making as soon as he was able to work. It goes without 
 saying that under such circumstances he had no advantages of 
 education, and that he was indebted to his own efforts for any 
 measure of culture displayed in later life. In his youthful days 
 he made diligent use of every moment of leisure for the purpose 
 of study, and acquired an amount of general information which 
 was of immense service to him as a public speaker. His first 
 attempts at speaking were made in connection with the Reform 
 movement. He rapidly acquired influence among the working 
 
268 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 class, and was well known and respected both in London and 
 the provinces as a safe leader and counsellor of the people, so 
 that in the Liverpool and Kendal strikes he was accepted by 
 both masters and men as a mediator. In 1868 he stood for a 
 time as a candidate for the newly made borough of Chelsea, 
 and in the following year he was accepted by a large party as H 
 candidate for Stafford, but in each case he retired from the 
 contest lest his candidature should damage the interests of his 
 party. In 1870 and 1874 he contested Southwark as a work- 
 ing-man's candidate, but was not successful. In the former of 
 these contests he polled only 300 fewer votes than the elected 
 candidate. 
 
 George Odger never followed any other trade than that of a 
 shoemaker, and was always in very humble circumstances. 
 Shortly before his death a subscription was raised by the Trade 
 Union Congress at Newcastle to supply the wants of his declin- 
 ing years, and in consequence of the esteem in which he was 
 held, " the result was liberal and prompt." * After a long 
 illness he died at his residence, Bloomsbury, London, 3d 
 March, 1877. 
 
 The honor done him at his funeral was such as many a 
 nobleman might envy. The Times' report of the funeral says : 
 " The remains of Mr. Odger were borne to the grave at 
 Brompton Cemetery with all the honors of a public funeral. 
 The crowd around the house of the deceased was immense. " 
 The Shoemakers' Society, to which Odger belonged, held the 
 foremost place in the long procession which accompanied the 
 remains of this illustrious shoemaker to the grave. Members 
 of the House of Commons, and other men of position and 
 influence in the great city, stood side by side with the working- 
 men of Clerkenwell, Southwark, and Bloomsbury, to pay their 
 last tribute of esteem to the memory of this truly estimable 
 man. 
 
 * " The Oracle," vol. vi. pp. 154, 237. London : 155 Fleet Street. 
 
J. G. WHITTIER 
 
AMERICA. 
 
 NOAH WORCESTER, D.D., " THE APOSTLE OF 
 PEACE. 77 
 
 AMERICA has her share of illustrious shoemakers. The 
 United States can boast of men worthy to stand on a level with 
 the best examples of merit the gentle craft can produce in the 
 Old World. We select four *' representative men" from the 
 long list that might be named, to whom we shall chiefly devote 
 our remaining space. These men show in their character and 
 life-work the best features of the New England type of the 
 American citizen. They are men of sterling moral and religious 
 worth, intense haters of tyranny and slavery, and war and 
 intemperance, " sound as gospel' 7 in their political principles, 
 " clear as Wenham ice " in their transparency of character. 
 
 We are fain to believe that every intelligent person in the 
 United States knows the name of Noah Worcester, the "Apostle 
 of Peace," as he has been very justly styled. Every intelligent 
 person also on the British side of the Atlantic ought to know 
 something of this good man. He was one of the world's reform- 
 ers, and commenced a movement which is destined to deepen 
 and widen in its influence until it becomes universal, and 
 changes for the better the entire condition of mankind. We 
 allude to the establishment of the Peace Society of Massachu- 
 setts the parent of numberless similar societies in America and 
 Europe. " I well recollect," says Dr. Channing,* u the day of 
 its formation in yonder house, then the parsonage of this parish ; 
 and if there was a happy man that day on earth it was the 
 founder of this institution. This Society gave birth to all the 
 kindred ones in this country, and its influence was felt abroad. 
 Dr. Worcester assumed the charge of its periodical, and de- 
 voted himself for years to this cause, with unabating faith and 
 
 * Sermon entitled " The Philanthropist, a Tribute to the Memory 
 of the Eev. Noah Worcester, D.D." Channing's Works, People's Edi- 
 tion, vol. ii. p. 251, etc. Belfast : Simms & M'Intyre, 1843. 
 
272 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 zeal ; and it may be doubted whether any man who ever Jived 
 contributed more than he to spread just sentiment on the subject 
 of war, and to hasten the era of universal peace. He began 
 his efforts in the darkest day, when the whole civilized world 
 was shaken by conflict and threatened with military despotism. 
 He lived to see more than twenty years of general peace, and to 
 see through these years the multiplication of national ties, an 
 extension of commercial communications, an establishment of 
 new connections between Christians and learned men through- 
 out the world, and a growing reciprocity of friendly and 
 beneficent influence among different States, all giving aid to the 
 principles of peace, and encouraging hopes which a century 
 ago would have been deemed insane." 
 
 Noah Worcester, born at Hollis, New Hampshire, November 
 25th, 1758, was the son of a farmer, and until the age of 
 twenty-one worked on the farm. His father's means were 
 limited, and the education of the family was stinted in conse- 
 quence. When hostilities commenced between the American 
 Colonies and Great Britain, young Worcester, then only about 
 eighteen years of age, became a soldier and fought at the battle 
 of Bunker's Hill. It is said that his disgust with the vices of 
 soldier life, and horror at the awful sights of the battle-field, 
 drove him from the army and made him forever afterward 
 a hater of war and an advocate of peace. Returning to farm 
 life, he divided his time between outdoor labor and shoe- 
 making, which occupation he followed when the darkness 
 of night time or the cold of winter prevented his working in the 
 fields. He also betook himself earnestly to the work of self- 
 education. Like many another shoemaker, he made his work- 
 room his study. The materials for the improvement of his 
 mind lay all round his bench books, pens, ink, paper, etc. 
 An early marriage increased the difficulties of his situation as a 
 poor student, yet he managed by dint of extraordinary applica- 
 tion to improve himself and become fit for the ministry before 
 he had reached the age of thirty. His first church was small, 
 and his salary amounted to only two hundred dollars (45.) 
 Many of the members were poor, and the conscientious pastor 
 could not allow them to pay their share to his support. On 
 this account he often gave up as much as a quarter of his salary 
 in the year, getting through as best he could by a little farming 
 and a good deal of shoemaking. When times were bad he 
 turned his " study" into a day-school and taught the children 
 of his parishioners for nothing. u His first book was a series of 
 
XOAH WORCESTER, D.D. 273 
 
 letters to a Baptist minister, and in this he gave promise of the 
 direction the efforts of his life were to assume. ' ' Its aim was 
 to promote unity among men of different denominations. 
 Later on be published a remarkable book, which made no small 
 stir in its day, entitled <4 Bible News Relating to the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Spirit ;" and a second on the same subject, 
 under the title " Letters to Trinitarians/' u These works, " 
 says Channing, " obtained such favor, that he was solicited to 
 leave the obscure town in which he ministered, and to take 
 charge in this place (Brighton, Mass.) of a periodical at first 
 called the Christian Disciple, and now better known as the 
 Christian Examiner. ' ' * 
 
 At length he issued, in 1814, the famous pamphlet by which 
 his name became known and honored among Christian men 
 and lovers of peace throughout the world. It bore the title 
 " A Solemn Review of the Custom of War." No more 
 effective tract was ever printed. It was translated into 
 several of the languages of Europe. The impression it pro- 
 duced in America led to the formation of the " Peace Society 
 of Massachusetts." Worcester's views on war were identical 
 with those of the Society of Friends. " He interpreted liter- 
 ally the precept, ' Resist not evil,' and believed that nations as 
 well as individuals would find safety as well as fulfil righteous- 
 ness in yielding it literal obedience. . . . He believed 
 that no mightier man ever trod the earth than William Penn 
 when entering the wilderness unarmed, and stretching out to 
 the savage a hand which refused all earthly weapons in token 
 of peace and brotherhood." So absorbed was he in this great 
 theme, that he declared, eight years after his famous pamphlet 
 was issued, that " its subject had not been out of his mind when 
 awake an hour at a time during the whole period." He died 
 at Brighton, Mass., in his eightieth year, 31st October, 1838. 
 It was his wish to have written on his tombstone the words, 
 " He wrote the l Friend of Peace.' ' Dr. Channing's testi- 
 mony to Dr. Worcester's character is the highest one man can 
 bear to another. He says, "Two views of him particularly 
 impressed me. The first was the unity, the harmony of his 
 character. He had no jarring elements. His whole nature 
 had been blended and melted into one strong, serene love. 
 His mission was to preach peace, and he preached it, not on set 
 occasions or by separate efforts, but in his whole life. . . . 
 
 * Written in 1837. 
 
274 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 My acquaintance with him gave me clearer comprehension of 
 the spirit of Christ and the dignity of man." 
 
 Worcester received his degree of Master of Arts from 
 Dartmouth College, and his diploma of Doctor of Divinity 
 from Harvard. 
 
 ROGER SHERMAN, 
 
 ONE OF THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 Another famous American citizen, contemporary during the 
 early part of his life with Noah Worcester, was Roger 
 Sherman, who was born at Newton, Massachusetts, 19th April, 
 1721. Until the age of twenty-two he was a shoemaker, and 
 from the age of twenty supported his widowed mother and the 
 younger members of the family, and found the means to enable 
 two brothers to enter the ministry. At this time he devoted 
 his leisure to the study of mathematics and astronomy. In 
 1743 he laid aside the awl, and left his native place to settle at 
 New Milford, Connecticut, where he joined his elder brother 
 in keeping a small store. His accomplishments very soon led to 
 his appointment as surveyor of roads. While holding this 
 office he began the study of law, and made such progress that 
 in 1745, at the age of twenty-four, he was admitted to the 
 bar. In 1748 he began to supply the astronomical calculations 
 for a New York almanac. His life as a legislator commenced 
 with his membership of the Connecticut Assembly, where he 
 held a seat during several sessions. The appointment of Judge 
 of the Court of Common Pleas was given him in 1759, and 
 again in 1765, at New Haven, whither he had removed four 
 years previously. He was made an assistant in 1766, and held 
 the office for nineteen years. The judgeship was not resigned 
 until 1789, part of the time since his appointment having been 
 spent on the bench of the Superior Court. 
 
 Roger Sherman's connection with the American Congress was 
 long and highly honorable. He became a Congressman in 1774, 
 and served his country faithfully in that capacity for nearly 
 twenty years till the time of his death, at which time he held a 
 seat in the Senate of the United States. He was appointed also 
 as a member of the Council of Safety. During the last nine 
 years of his life he was Mayor of New Haven. For many years 
 he held the honorable office of treasurer of Yale College. 
 
BOGEK SHERMAN. 275 
 
 In the year 1766 Sherman was placed on the Commission 
 appointed to draught the Declaration of Independence, and 
 he was one of those who afterward signed the Declaration. 
 Having been one of those who framed the old " Articles of 
 Confederation," and a very useful member of the Constitutional 
 Convention of 1787, his services in obtaining the indorsement 
 or ratification of the Constitution by his own State Convention 
 (i.e., of Connecticut) were of the utmost value. 
 
 The foregoing statements will sufficiently show how well the 
 quondam shoemaker of Massachusetts earned the noble name of 
 Patriot. Few men in his 'day did more solid and lasting public 
 work. Although he was a man of remarkably cool, deliberate 
 judgment, he was none the less an enthusiast in the cause of 
 political freedom and independence. During the War of 
 Independence he urged his compatriots by every means in his 
 power to resist the English claims to impose taxation upon the 
 colonies. He never swerved for a moment from the view he 
 first took on the crucial question of '* taxation without repre- 
 sentation," but always avowed his firm conviction that " no 
 European Government would ever give its sanction to such 
 unfair legislation/' His rectitude and integrity were un- 
 impeachable, and his " rare good sense" made him a man of 
 mark even among the noteworthy men of the first Federal 
 Congress. Mr. Macon used to say of him, " Roger Sherman 
 had more common-sense than any man I ever knew ;" and 
 Thomas Jefferson was wont to declare that Roger Sherman 
 was " a man who never said a foolish thing in his life." To 
 this opinion of his judgment and mental qualities may be 
 added a valuable estimate of his moral and religious character. 
 Goodrich * says that Sherman * ' having made a public prof es- 
 sionof religion in early life, was never ashamed to advocate the 
 peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, which are often so unwelcome 
 to men of worldly eminence. His sentiments were derived from 
 the Word of God, and not from his own reason." 
 
 The life of this man of " patriot fame" f came to an end 
 July 23d, 1793. His good name is in no danger of being lost 
 to posterity, for in addition to his own personal claim to 
 immortality, he gave " hostages to fortune" in a family of 
 fifteen children, one of whom, his namesake, died in 1856 at 
 the patriarchal age of eighty-eight. 
 
 *In "American Biographical Dictionary." Boston : J. P. Jewett 
 & Co. 
 
 f See the allusion to Sherman in Whittier's lines, given below. 
 
276 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 HENRY WILSON, " THE NATICK COBBLER. " 
 
 Among the political leaders of modern times Henry Wilson 
 long held a conspicuous place in the United States. His early 
 connection with the gentle craft procured for him the familiar 
 and not unfriendly sobriquet " The Natick Cobbler. " Wilson 
 was born at Farmington, New Hampshire, February 16th, 1812. 
 From his schoolboy days until he entered on political life he 
 seems to have been connected both with shoemaking and farm- 
 ing, but chiefly with the former occupation. Part of his time, 
 viz., from 1832 to 1837, he was a thorough-going son of Crispin, 
 working on the stool from daylight till dusk. From 1837 to 
 1840 he was still connected with the trade, but in the more 
 ambitious position of a " shoe manufacturer. " In the year 
 1840 he devoted himself to the life of a politician. The office 
 of President of the Massachusetts Senate was held by him in 
 ] 851 and 1852. Three years after this he became a senator as 
 a representative of the same State. This honor he held for 
 seventeen years, that is, till 1872. In 1861 he was made 
 Colonel of the Twenty-second Massachusetts Volunteers. The 
 highest office to which he attained was that of Vice-President 
 of the United States, which post he held from 1872 to 1875, 
 the year of his death. Henry Wilson was held at the time of 
 his death in general and hearty esteem for the valuable services 
 which he had rendered for thirty-five years to his country. 
 Like many another famous son of St. Crispin, The Natick 
 Cobbler was a friend of freedom and a sworn foe to all kinds of 
 tyranny. For many years he stood side by side with the best 
 men in the Northern States, fighting the battle of liberation 
 for the slaves, and at last was permitted to rejoice with them 
 in the triumph of the good cause. 
 
 One is very much tempted to multiply instances of men like 
 Wilson, who, having begun life as shoemakers, found their 
 way into the Congress of the United States. Seven such men 
 at least have sat in Congress during the present century.* It 
 
 * These are Roger Sherman and Henry Wilson, already noticed, and 
 Daniel Shelf ey, Gideon Lee, William Claflin, John B. Alley, and H. P. 
 Baldwin. In answer to the question, " What shoemaker has risen to 
 political or literary eminence in the United States ?" a writer in the 
 Philadelphia Dispatch, besides speaking of the four remarkable 
 men we have selected as examples, says, "There are other famous 
 names of graduates from that profession. Daniel Sheffey of Virginia 
 
J. G. WHITTIER. 277 
 
 may also be mentioned here that Franklin in his Autobiography 
 speaks of a member of the Junto, a " William Parsons, bred a 
 shoemaker, but loving reading, who acquired a considerable 
 share of mathematics, " and " became surveyor-general ;" and 
 that Philip Kirtland, a shoemaker from Sherrington, Bucking- 
 hamshire, who settled at Lynn, Mass., in 1635, was the founder 
 of the immense trade in boots and shoes for which that city 
 has obtained an unrivalled name throughout the States. 
 
 J. G. WHITTIER, "THE QUAKER POET." 
 
 The last name we have to give in this long, but still in- 
 complete, list of illustrious shoemakers is that of John Greenleaf 
 Whittier, who happily is still living to charm and educate the 
 English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic with his 
 simple, spirit-stirring poetry. Whittier is frequently spoken 
 of in the States as the Quaker Poet. This designation is suffi- 
 ciently distinctive, for poets are not very numerous in the So- 
 ciety of Friends. Preachers, patriots, philanthropists, orators, 
 and writers of prose are numerous enough, but poets are very 
 hard to find in this intensely earnest and practical religious 
 community. 
 
 Like his coreligionists in every generation since the days of 
 George Fox and William Penn, W T hittier is " right on all 
 points" relating to social and religious reform. The assistance 
 his vigorous, thrilling lines have given to every philanthropic 
 
 learned the trade, and worked at it many years, andfrom 1809 to 1817 
 represented his district in the Congress of the United States. His 
 retort to John Randolph of Roanoke, who taunted him onthe floor of 
 Congress with his former occupation, was, ' The difference, sir, be- 
 tween my colleague and myself is this, that if his lot had been cast 
 like mine in early life, instead of rising, by industry, enterprise, and 
 study, above his calling, and occupying a seat on this floor, he would 
 at this time be engaged in making shoes on the bench. ' . . . Gideon 
 Lee, a mayor of New York City, and a member of Congress from about 
 1840 to 1844, was a working shoemaker, and afterward a leather 
 dealer. WUliam Clqflin, an ex-governor of Massachusetts and a mem- 
 ber of Congress, worked at the shoemaker' s trade when young, and is 
 now at the head- of a very large shoe-manufacturing firm. John B. 
 Alley, an ex-member of Congress from Massachusetts, was in the shoe 
 trade, as was also H. P. Baldwin, ex-governor of Michigan, and ex- 
 member of Congress from that State." 
 
278 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 movement in the United States is beyond calculation. For 
 many years he was the Hans Sachs or Ebenezer Elliott of the 
 Liberation cause, giving similar help by his songs to the work 
 of emancipation in America to that which the German gave to 
 the cause of Protestantism on the continent of Europe, and the 
 Englishman gave to the labors of the Anti-Corn Law League in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 His father was a farmer at Haverhill, Massachusetts, where 
 the poet was born in 1807. He remained on the farm until he 
 was nearly nineteen years of age, and divided his time between 
 field-work and shoemaking. In 1825 he was sent to a college 
 belonging to the Society of Friends. Four years after this he 
 became editor of The American Manufacturer, which office he 
 held for only twelve months, and then resigned in order to 
 take the management of the New England Weekly Review. 
 In 1832 he went back to the old home, worked on the farm, 
 and edited The Haverhill Gazette. Twice he represented 
 Haverhill in the State Legislature. All through life he has 
 been a strong and consistent anti-slavery advocate, and at 
 various times has been made secretary of societies and editor of 
 papers whose aim has been the abolition of slavery. About 
 1838-39 he became the editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman, 
 an ardent anti-slavery paper. It required no small amount of 
 courage to advocate freedom for the slave in those days. On 
 one occasion Whittier's office was surrounded by a mob, who 
 plundered and set fire to the building. His published works 
 in prose and verse are very numerous, beginning with the 
 " Legends of New England" in 1831, and coming down to 
 volumes of verse like " The King's Missive, Mabel Martin, 
 and Later Poems/' etc., * published within the last few years. 
 Through all his writings there runs a healthy moral tone, and 
 his poetry is no less distinguished for purity of sentiment than 
 
 * In a review of this last volume of Whittier's poems (Macmillan & 
 Co.), a writer in the AtJienaum (February 18th, 1882) gives the fol- 
 lowing just estimate of Whittier's character and merits as a man and a 
 poet : " The poems in this collection . . . show that delicate appre- 
 hension of nature, that deep-seated sympathy with suffering mankind, 
 that unwavering love of liberty and all things lovable, that earnest 
 belief in a spirit of beneficence guiding to right issues the affairs of 
 the world, that beautiful tolerance of differences in a word, all those 
 high qualities which, being fused with imagination, make Mr. Whit- 
 tier, not indeed an analytical and subtle poet, nor a poet dealing with 
 great passions, but what he is emphatically, the apostle of all that is 
 pure, fair, and morally beautiful. 
 
J. G. WHITTIER. 279 
 
 for sweetness of numbers and true poetic fire. No man in 
 New England, nor, indeed, in the States, has earned a better 
 title to the thanks and esteem of his fellow-countrymen than 
 the " Quaker Poet," who began the hard work of life by 
 blending the duties of the farm with the occupation of a shoe- 
 maker. Whittier College at Salem, Iowa, was established and 
 named in his honor. 
 
 Whittier has never forgotten his connection with the gentle 
 craft in early life ; nor has he been ashamed to own fellowship 
 with its humble but worthy members. What he thinks of the 
 craft itself, and of the spirit of the men who have followed it, 
 may be learned from his lines addressed to shoemakers in the 
 " Songs of Labor/ 7 published in 1850 : 
 
 TO SHOEMAKEES. 
 
 Ho ! workers of the old time, styled 
 The Gentle Craft of Leather ! 
 Young brothers of the ancient guild, 
 Stand forth once more together ! 
 Call out again your long array, 
 In the olden merry manner ! 
 Once more, on gay St. Crispin's Day, 
 Fling out your blazoned banner ! 
 
 Rap, rap ! upon the well-worn stone 
 
 How falls the polished hammer ! 
 
 Kap, rap ! the measured sound has grown 
 
 A quick and merry clamor. 
 
 Now shape the sole ! now deftly curl 
 
 The glossy vamp around it, 
 
 And bless the while the bright-eyed girl 
 
 Whose gentle fingers bound it ! 
 
 For you, along the Spanish main 
 A hundred keels are ploughing ; 
 For you, the Indian on the plain 
 His lasso-coil is throwing ; 
 For you, deep glens with hemlock dark 
 The woodman's fire is lighting ; 
 For you, upon the oak's gray bark 
 The woodman's axe is smiting. 
 
280 ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 For you, from Carolina's pine 
 
 The rosin-gum is stealing ; 
 
 For you, the dark-eyed Florentine 
 
 Her silken skein is reeling ; 
 
 For you, the dizzy goatherd roams 
 
 His rugged Alpine ledges ; 
 
 For you, round all her shepherd homes 
 
 Bloom England's thorny hedges. 
 
 The foremost still, by day or night, 
 On moated mound or heather, 
 Where'er the need of trampled right 
 Brought toiling men together ; 
 Where the free burghers from the wall 
 Defied the mail-clad master, 
 Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-call, 
 No craftsmen rallied faster. 
 
 Let foplings sneer, let fools deride 
 
 Ye heed no idle scorner ; 
 
 Free hands and hearts are still your pride. 
 
 And duty done your honor. 
 
 Ye dare to trust, -for honest fame, 
 
 The jury Time empanels, 
 
 And leave to truth each noble name 
 
 Which glorifies your annals. 
 
 Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, 
 
 In strong and hearty German ; 
 
 And Bloomfield's lay, and Gilford's wit, 
 
 And patriot fame of Sherman ; 
 
 Still from his book, a mystic seer, 
 
 The soul of Behmen teaches, 
 
 And England's priestcraft shakes to hear 
 
 Of Fox's leathern breeches. 
 
 The foot is yours ; where'er it falls, 
 
 It treads your well- wrought leather, 
 
 On earthen floor, in marble halls, 
 
 On carpet, or on heather. 
 
 Still there the sweetest charm is found 
 
 Of matron grace or vestal's, 
 
 As Hebe's foot bore nectar round 
 
 Among the old celestials ! 
 
J. G. WHITTIER. 281 
 
 Rap, rap ! your stout and bluff brogan, 
 
 With footsteps slow and weary, 
 
 May wander where the sky's blue span 
 
 Shuts down upon the prairie. 
 
 On beauty's foot, your slippers glance 
 
 By Saratoga's fountains, 
 
 Or twinkle down the summer dance 
 
 Beneath the crystal mountains ! 
 
 The red brick to the mason's hand, 
 
 The brown earth to the tiller's, 
 
 The shoe in yours shall wealth command, 
 
 Like fairy Cinderella's ! 
 
 As they who shunned the household maid 
 
 Beheld the crown upon her, 
 
 So all shall see your toil repaid 
 
 With heart and home and honor. 
 
 Then let the toast be freely quaffed, 
 In water cool and brimming 
 44 All honor to the good old Craft 
 Its merry men and women !" 
 Call out again your long array, 
 In the old time's pleasant manner : 
 Once more, on gay St. Crispin's Day, 
 Fling out his blazoned banner. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ADULT schools at Gainsborough, started 
 
 by J. F. Winks and T. Cooper, 171 
 Akiba, Ben Joseph, 194, 195 
 Alexander of Coniaiia, 193 
 Alexandria, the pious cobbler of, 19S 
 Alley, John B., 277 
 Andersen, Hans C , 210 
 Angling, book on, by Younger, 246, 247 
 Annianus of Alexandria, 192 
 Ansell and the battle of Aughrim, 245 
 Apelles and the cobbler, 191 
 Ashmole, Elias, and Partridge, 221 
 Askham, John, 248 
 Athenaeum, quoted from, 115, 247, 278 
 
 BALDWIN, H. P , 277 
 
 Baptist jubilee memorial, 131 
 
 Baptist missions commenced by Carey 
 and Thomas, 141, 142 
 
 Barebones, Praise God, 216 
 
 Baudouin, the learned, 200 
 
 Baviad and Mseviad, 75, 82, 86-7 
 
 Benbow and nautical songs, 17 
 
 Bennet, John, poet, 229 
 
 Bennett, Timothy,pf Harnpton-Wick,212 
 
 Bentinck, Lady, visits Carey when dy- 
 ing, 146 
 
 Bemdge, John, and John Thorp, 257 
 
 Blacket, Joseph, 236, 242 
 
 Blanshard's Life of Bradburn, 65, 66, 67, 
 70 
 
 Bloomfleld and Blacket, 239 
 
 Bloomfleld, George, 94, 95, 96, 238 
 
 Bloomfield, Nathaniel, 94, 96, 98, 239 
 
 Bloomfielcl, Robert, a farmer's boy at 
 Sapiston, 94 
 
 a ladies' shoemaker, 171 
 
 becomes a shoemaker, 94, 95 
 
 Birth and childhood, 94 
 
 his first poems, 96, 97 
 
 his mother, 94, 102 
 
 his last years, death, and burial, 
 
 101 
 
 life in London, 94, 101 
 
 list of his poems, 96, 97, 102-3 
 
 marriage of, 98 
 
 method of composing "The Far- 
 mer's Boy," 98 
 
 poetical tributes in "Blackwood." 
 
 etc., 102, 103 
 
 Bloomfield, Robert, publishes "The 
 Farmer's Boy," 99 
 
 Boehmen, Jacob, the mystic, 205-207 
 
 opinions of, by Charles I., William 
 
 Law, &c., 206 
 
 Bowden, Mr., of Tannton, Lackington's 
 
 master, 34 
 
 Bradburn, Samuel, and Charles Wesley, 
 66 
 
 and the clergyman, 68, 69 
 
 anecdotes of early preaching, 68 
 
 born at Gibraltar, 54 
 
 called to be a preacher, 61 
 
 circuits he travelled in, 64, 65, 66, 71 
 
 death and burial, 71 
 
 early life at Chester, 55-60 
 
 eloquence as a preacher, 67, 68 
 
 his conversion, 55-57 
 
 his father pressed into th-earmy, 54 
 
 his first sermon, 61 
 
 his marriage with Betsy Nangle, 65 
 
 his marriage with Sophia Cooke, 66 
 
 his mother a Welshwoman, 54 
 
 his mother's death, nte, 63 
 
 his wit and hamor, anecdotes of, 
 
 70,71 
 
 offered the pastorate of an Indepen- 
 dent Church, 66 
 
 overtaken in a fault, 71 
 
 President of Wesleyan Conference, 
 
 67 
 
 Brizzio, Francesco, 208 
 Bnice's " Elegy written m Spring," 322 
 Buch, Henry Michael, "Good Henry,' 1 
 
 201-203 ' 
 
 Banyan and Bradbum compared, 56 
 Burnet, Rev. John, 259-262 
 Bushey Park and Timothy Bennett, 213 
 Byron, Lord, allusion to Gifford, 93 
 
 CAMPION'S " Delightful History of ye 
 
 Gentle Craft," 193, 199,542,259 
 Capellini, il Caligarino, 207 
 Carey and Thomas sail for India, 142 
 Carey, Eustace, " Life of Dr. Carey," 131 
 William, abilities as a shoemaker, 
 
 131 
 
 and Rev. John Ryiand, 131, 138 
 
 an enthusiast, 131, 132 
 
 apprenticed to a siioeniaker, 133 
 
 baptized by Rev. J. Ryiand, 135 
 
 D.D. conferred on him by Brown 
 
 University, 144 
 
 first Bengali New Testament, 143 
 
 first marriage a mistake, 137 
 
 first sermon and pastorate, 135 
 
 first study of languages, 132, 133, 135 
 
 first thought of missions to heathen, 
 
 138 
 his death, 146 
 
284 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Carey, William his famous sermon at 
 Nottingham, 141 
 
 hi self-sacrificing spirit, 143 
 
 life briefly ricetcBtd, 129, 130 
 
 lifi; in India. 142, 146 
 
 lives at iMoulton, 137, 139 
 
 " Only a Cobbler," 133 
 
 pamphlet on Missions, 140 
 
 parentage and birth and childhood, 
 
 131, 132 
 
 Professor of Oriental Languages, 
 
 Calcutta, 129, 143 
 
 removes to Leicester, 140 
 
 Carlisle, Qifford's guardian, 205 
 Carlyle on Hans Sacks, 76, 77, 205 
 
 Thomas, and Thomas Cooper, 184 
 
 Carter, Edward, Esq., friend to John 
 
 Pounds, 151, 157 
 
 Cartel!, Richard, "Ye Cocke of West- 
 minster," 210 
 Caxton Printing Establishment and S. 
 
 Drew, 121 
 
 Chambers " Book of Days," 217 
 Channingon Noah Worcester, 271. 273 
 Charley Rev. Thomas, of Bala, I'.D 
 Chartists and Thomas Cooper, 170, 182 
 Chiirtiet Newspapers edited by Thomas 
 
 Cooper, 181 
 Christ's Hospital and Richard Cnstell, 
 
 121 
 Claflin, Wiiliam, Governor of Massachu- 
 
 se'ts, 277 
 Clarke, Dr. Adam, and Samuel Drew, 
 
 114, 122 
 
 Coke, Dr., and S. Drew, 122, 153 
 Coleridge, S. T., and Boehmen, 208 
 
 and shoemakers, 189 
 
 Cooksley, Dr., Gilford's friend, 80, 81 
 
 William, son of Dr. Cooksley, Gif- 
 
 ford's will in favor of, 86 
 Cooper, Robert, mistaken for Thomas 
 
 Cooper, 186 
 Cooper, Thomas, a copyist at the Board 
 
 of Health, 186 
 
 Cooper, Thomas, and " Stamford Mer- 
 cury," 178 
 
 a sceptic, his lectures as, 185 ; foot- 
 note, 186 
 
 as a lecturer on Christianity, 187 
 
 becomes a shoemaker, 169 
 
 birth and parentage, 165 
 
 childhood at Exeter, 165-167 
 
 early studies while a shoemaker, 
 
 169-175 
 
 Cooper, Thomas, editorship and author- 
 ship in 1848-49, 185 
 
 final conversion to Christianity, 
 
 185, 186 
 
 first poem, 170 
 
 his connection with the Methodists, 
 
 177, 178 
 
 his excessive studies, 175, 176 
 
 his first published poems, 17^ 
 
 in Stafford jail, 182-3 
 
 lecmres at City Hall, London, on 
 
 Theism, 186 
 
 life in Leicester, 180-3 
 
 life in Lincoln, 177 
 
 life in London, 179-180 
 
 Cooper, Thomas, list of his writings, 
 
 181-7 
 
 marries Miss Jobson, 177 
 
 professes Christianity in Baptism 
 
 by immersion, 185 
 
 schoolboy days, 168. 1C9 
 
 i-eis up t school, 110 
 
 the railway accident, 186 
 
 Trial at fctallord and in London, 
 
 182-3 
 
 Crag^s, Secretary, 216 
 Crispin andCrispianus, 197-199 
 Crispin anecdotes, 198-216, 223, 228, 242 
 Crocker, Charles, 247, 248 
 Cromwell and Fox, 249-51 
 Cruickshank and O'Neill, 244-6 
 Cnrwen's 4l History of Booksellers," 87, 
 
 45,83 
 
 D'ALBRIONE, Si<rnor, 178 
 
 Davies, Ann. Gifford's lines on, 68, 87 
 
 Dekker, Thomas, 228 
 
 Delia Cruscan School. 75, 82 
 
 Deloney's '-History of Gentle Craft,' 1 
 
 199.228 
 
 Dennis, friend of Lackington, 40 
 Devlin, Janies, 242 
 Di-y of Tripoli and Lieutenant Shovel, 
 
 2021 
 
 Disraeli, Mr., and Thomas Cooper, 183 
 "Dramatist^, Early English," cuiteu by 
 
 Gifford, 75, 82 " 
 
 Drew, Samuel, as a preacher, 122, 123 
 as editor and author, list of works, 
 
 130-141 
 
 apprenticeship days, 111-113 
 
 attempts at poetry, 118-119 
 
 begins to study, 114-115 
 
 birth and childhood. 110-111 
 
 competes for prize of 1500, 122 
 
 conversion, joins the Wesley ans. 
 
 114 
 
 Defence of the Methodists, 119 
 
 his generosity, 117 
 
 his method of writing books wh'.le 
 
 a shoemaker, 121 
 his works on immortality of tho 
 
 soul, 120 
 
 honors conferred on, 123, 124 
 
 last days, 124 
 
 lives in Liverpool and London, 124 
 
 marriage, 118 
 
 narrow escape from drowning, 113 
 
 quits the shoemaker's stall, 122 
 
 starts in business on 5, his thrift, 
 
 116 
 
 the midnight visitor, 118 
 
 writes "Remarks on Paine's Age of 
 
 Reason," 118 
 Duncombe, T. S., M.P., and Thomas 
 
 Cooper, 183 
 
 ELLIOTT, Ebenezer. and John Younger, 
 
 246 
 Eyre, Sir Simon. Lord Mayor of London, 
 
 22* 
 
 FLETCHER, vicar of Madely and Brad- 
 burn, 02 
 
INDEX. 
 
 285 
 
 Foster, John, 242 
 
 Fox, George, 249 
 
 Fullarton's "Lives of Eminent English- 
 men," 84 
 
 Fuller, Rev. Andrew, the friend of Carey, 
 138, 141 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH the painter, 93 
 
 Gentle Craft, etc., origin of the terms, 
 
 note, 193 
 
 George III. and Shillitoe, 254 
 Gifford, William, and Lord Grosvenor, 
 
 81,82 
 
 childhood and youth, 76, 79 
 
 editorship of London " Quarterly, 1 ' 
 
 75, 76, 83, 84 
 
 first attempts at verse, 79 
 
 his character, 83, 84 
 
 parentage and birth. 76 
 
 private tutor to Lord Belgrave,81 
 
 story of the candle, 84 
 
 translauons of Persius and Juve- 
 nal, 82 
 works his sums on pieces of leather, 
 
 73 
 
 Goethe's opinion of Hans Sacks, 204 
 Grat't.ou, the duke of, and Bloomfield, 
 
 100 
 Grainger's " Biographical History," 215, 
 
 218, 219 
 
 Gray's Elegy, 232 
 Gregory Thaumaturgns, 143 
 Grosveiior, Lord, a friend to Giflord, 81, 
 
 82 
 Guilds or fraternities of shoemakers in 
 
 Paris, 201-203 
 
 Guthrie, Dr., anecdotes and stories, 151 
 on John Pounds, 151, 152 
 
 HALIFAX, Lord, and Timothy Bennett, 
 212, 213 
 
 Hanley, Thomas Cooper's speech at, 182 
 
 Hardy, Thoma-s 265, 206 
 
 " Helmsley," the tune, who composed 
 it? 234 " 
 
 Hewson, Colonel, the Cerdon of Hudi- 
 bras, 21.5-217 
 
 Holeroft, Thomas, 234 
 
 Hook, Dr., of Leeds,, and Thomas Coop- 
 er, 186 
 
 Howard, John, 139 
 
 Hudibras and Colonel Hewson, 217 
 
 Hugh, Saint, 228 
 
 Huntingdon, William, S. S., 257-8 
 
 IMPERIAL Dictionary of Biography, 244 
 
 257 
 
 Iphicrates, 219 
 Ireland, Dr., Lines to, by Gifford, 96 
 
 JACKSON'S Lives of Methodist Preach- 
 ers, 232 
 
 Jameson, Mrs., on S. Crispin legendary 
 art, 199 
 
 Jefferson on Roger Sherman, 275 
 
 Jerrold, Douglas, and Thomas Cooper, 
 183, 184 
 
 Jochanan, Rabbi, 194 
 
 Johnstone, J., 242 
 
 Jones, John, friend of Lackington, 35 
 Jong, Ludolph de, 209 
 
 KETTERING, first collection for Baptist 
 
 . Missions, 141 
 Kingsley, Rev. Charles, and Thomas 
 
 Cooper, 186 
 
 Kirtland, Philip, of Lynn, Mass., 277 
 Kitto, Rev. John, D.D., 261-4 
 Knowles, Herbert, " Lines," etc., 232 
 Kri^hnu, Carey's first convert in India, 
 
 note, 146 
 
 LAW, William, and Boehtnen, 206 
 Lackington, James, and bargain-hunt- 
 ers, 39 
 
 apprenticeship. 33. 34 
 
 benefactions to Wesleyan denomi, 
 
 nation, 47 
 
 birth and parentage, 31 
 
 boyhood, vender of pies, almanacs, 
 
 etc., 32 
 
 business and profits in 1791, 44 
 
 buys Young's "Night Thoughts," 
 
 38 
 
 courage as a boy the ghost story, 
 
 32 , 
 
 death and burial, 47 
 
 extensive purchases, 42 
 
 first sale catalogue, 40 
 
 gives up shoelnakiug for book> 
 
 selling, 38 
 
 goes to London, 1774, 37 
 
 helped by the Week-yaii Fund, 39 
 
 kindness to his relatives, 46 
 
 life in Bristol, 35, 36 
 
 marries Nancy Smith, 36 
 
 " Memoirs and Confessions," 29 
 
 motto for the door of his carriage, 
 
 30 
 
 " No credit " system, 41, 42 
 
 reads Epictetus, etc., 35 
 
 retires from business, 1798, 45 
 
 second marriage, 40 
 
 sets up a " chariot " and " country- 
 house," 44 
 
 starts as bookseller, 38 
 
 strictures oruthe Wesleyans, 29 
 
 ' Temple of the Mnses," 29, 45 
 
 tour through England and Scot- 
 land, 45, 46 
 
 Lamb, Charles, on Shoemakers, 91, 227 
 Lacroix, " Manners and Customs of 
 
 Middle Ages,' 198 
 Lee, Dr. Samuel, 172 
 
 Gideon, Mayor of New York, 277 
 
 "Leisure Hour," articles on shoemak- 
 ers, 211 
 
 Leao, John B., 248 
 Lestage, Nicholas, of Bordeaux, 203 
 Let the cobbler stick to his last, 191 
 " Literary Gazette " on Gifford, 93, 94 
 Living examples of illustrious shoe- 
 makers, 248 
 
 Llandaif, Earl of, and O'Neill, 245 
 Lofft, Capel, 99, 239, 243 
 
 MACKAY. of Norwich, 225 
 
 Macon, Mr., on Roger Sherman, 275 
 
286 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Madati, Martin, and " Helmsley," 234 
 Marriage, remarks on, 136, 137 
 Marshman's " Carey, Marshinan, and 
 Ward," 131, 144, 145 
 
 John Clarke, author of "Carey, 
 
 Marshman, and Ward, 11 145 
 Mr., Dr. Carey's friend and col- 
 league, 143, 145 
 
 Meistersingers of Germany, 204 
 Men's and \V omen's conscia recti, 225-6 
 Milbanke, Miss (Lady Byron) and Black- 
 
 et, 241 
 Miller, Thomas, and Thomas Cooper, 
 
 173, 180 * 
 Montgomery. Jae., and Thomas Cooper, 
 
 177 
 
 Morrison, Rev. Robert, D.D., 258, 25? 
 Mutual Improvement Society at Gains- 
 borough and T. Cooper, 171 
 Murray, John, and Giflord's editorial 
 
 stipend, 83, 84 
 
 Murray, John, his " drawing-rooms," 83 
 Myngs, Sir Christopher, 19, 28, 219 
 
 NARBOROUGH, Sir John, 19-21, 219 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, and Boehmen, 206 
 Nichol, Rev. James, 239 
 Notes and Queries, 225 
 
 ODGER, George, 266-8 
 
 Olivers, Thomas, 234 
 
 O'Neill, John, temperance poet, 244-6 
 
 " Oracle," The, 268 
 
 PARSONS, William, of the Junto, 277 
 
 Partridge, Dr. ,220-3 
 
 Peace Societies, founded in America, 
 273 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, and shoemakers, 266 
 
 Polwhrle, Rev. Mr., and S. Drew, 120 
 
 Pope John XXII., 209 
 
 Pope and Partridge, 221 
 
 and Savage, 230 
 
 Portraits of naval officers at Greenwich, 
 219 
 
 Pounds, John, begins teaching poox chil- 
 dren, 153, 154 
 
 birth and childhood, 152, 153 
 
 gratitude of his old scholars, 156 
 
 his death, 157 
 
 his workroom described, 153, 154 
 
 kindness to his scholars, 156 
 
 memorials of, in Portsmouth, 158 
 
 method of teaching, 155-157 
 
 the roasted potato, 155 
 
 Pressgang, 53 
 
 " Purgatory of suicides," 179, 183 
 
 Purver, Anthony, 226 
 
 "QUARTERLY Review," 227, 243 
 
 on Baptist Missionary Society, 141, 
 
 142 
 Quarterlies, the Edinburgh and London,. 
 
 75, 83, 84 
 
 RAGGED schools, John Pounds a found- 
 er of, 151, 152 
 
 Raikes, Robert and Sophia Cookjp start 
 first Sunday-school, 66 
 
 Reading, growth of about 1790 ; Lack- 
 
 ington's remarks on, 43 
 Rigby, Richard, ballad-writer, 227, 228 
 Robinson, lienry Crabb, Diary, 206, 257, 
 
 266 
 
 Rousseau, Jean Baptiste, 209 
 Rowe, J. B., 228 
 Russell, Admiral, 22 
 
 SACHS, Hans, the Nightingale of the Ref- 
 ormation, 203-205 
 
 Sandon, Lord, and Thomas Cooper, 
 188 
 
 Savage, Richard, 230 
 
 Scott, Rev. Thomas, the Commentator, 
 and Carey, 113, 114 
 
 Service, David. 2-12 
 
 Sheaf, Mr., Shoemaker and artist, and 
 John Pounds, 151, 157 
 
 Sheffey, Daniel, of Virginia, 276 
 
 Shenstone and Woodhouse, 228 
 
 Sherman, Koger, 274. 275 
 
 Shillitoe, Thomas, 251, 255 
 
 Shoemakers and literature, 75 
 
 Shoemaker's holiday, the, 227 
 
 Shoemakers, largo proportion of emi- 
 nent men, 181), 190 
 
 Shovel, Captain, knighted by William 
 III., 22 
 
 Shovel, Cloudesley, made captain, 21 
 
 Shovel, Sir C , admiral of the Blue and 
 Red and White, 22 
 
 at battle of " La Hogue," 22 
 
 at battle of Malaga. 23 
 
 at capture of Barcelona, 23 
 
 at the siege of \Vateribi d, 22 
 
 death by drowning, 23, 24 
 
 epitaph, 17 
 
 exploit as cabin boy, 19, 20 
 
 > exploit as lieutenant, 20, 21 
 
 governor of Greenwich Hospital, 
 
 note, 24 
 
 M.P. for Rochester, note, 24 
 
 portraits of, 17, 24 
 
 presented to Queen Anne, 23 
 
 William III.'s opinion of, 23 
 
 Sibly, Dr. Ebenezer, 222, 223 
 
 Sibly, Manoah, 266 
 
 Smerdon, Rev. T., prepares Gifford for 
 Oxford, 81 
 
 Smith, Sidney, 75, 130, 145 
 
 Sons of shoemakers, 209 
 
 Souters of Selkirk, 213-215 
 
 Southey, Robert, 230, 255 
 
 Southey's article in "Quarterly Review" 
 on Carey, etc., note, 141, 142, 145 
 
 Strut hers, John, 243 
 
 Sturgeon, William, electrician, 264, 265 
 
 Sunday-school, the first, 66, 139 
 
 Sutclitfe, Rev. John, the friend of Ca- 
 rey, 136, 138, 140 
 
 Swift and Partridge, 222 
 
 TYERMAN'S Life of Wesley, 233 
 Toplady and Olivers, 233 
 Tinlinn, Watt, 214, 215 
 Timmins, Rev. T., remarks on John 
 Pounds, 154-156 
 
INDEX. 
 
 287 
 
 Ticlibotirne, Sir Thomas, Lord Mayor 
 
 oi' London, 227 
 Thorp, John, 255-7 
 Thomas, Mr., Carey's colleague in first 
 
 mission work, 141, 142 
 
 VALUE of books in 1775, note, 39 
 
 WARTON, Thomas, and John Bennet 
 
 229 
 
 Watts, Dr. Isaac, 210 
 Wesley, John, and Bradburn, 60, 63, 64, 
 
 65, 68. 71 
 
 and Olivers, 231-34 
 
 and Thorpe, 255 
 
 Weever's " Funeral Monuments," note, 
 
 Whately, Archbishop, 189 
 
 White, Henry Kirke, lines on Bloom- 
 field, 103 
 
 Whitefield, George, and Olivers, 232 
 
 Whittaker, Rev. John, and S. Drew 
 120, 122 
 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 227, 2*29 
 - lines to "Shoemakers, 1 ' 27S-281 
 Wilberibrce, William, remarks on Ca- 
 rey, 138 
 
 Williams, Dr. Edward. 256 
 Wilson, Jjishop, friendship with Carey, 
 
 Wilson, Gavin, 242 
 
 Wilson, Henry, the Natick cobbler, 
 
 Wilson, Professor, his opinion of Bloom- 
 field's poetry, 100 
 
 Wincklemann, J. J., 209 
 
 Winnifred, Saint, 227 
 
 Winks, Joseph, Foulkes, and Thomas 
 Cooper, 171, 180, 186 
 
 Wo'fe's ' Burial of Sir J. Moore," 232 
 
 Woodhouse, James, 228 
 
 Worcester, Noah, D.D., 271-4 
 
 Wordsworth and Thomas Cooper, 184 
 
 YE Cocke of Westminster, Richard Ca*. 
 Younger, John, 246-7 
 
 THE END. 
 
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