*, s 
 
 MLO*
 
 *\\ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 X'*
 
 MEMORIES, 
 
 COUNSELS, AND REFLECTIONS. 
 
 BY AN OCTOGENARY. 
 
 ADDEESSED TO HIS CHILDREN AND DESCENDANTS, 
 AND PRINTED FOR THEIR USE. 
 
 '.--- 
 
 
 
 ' The father to the chUdren shall make known thy truth." Is. xxxriii. 19. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 METCALF AND COMPANY, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 1857.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SERMON FIRST . 1 
 
 SERMON SECOND 21 
 
 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 I. AUTOBIOGRAPHY 45 
 
 II. ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE .... 65 
 
 III. ACKNOWLEDGMENT 84 
 
 IV. SATAN A PERSON 86 
 
 V. CREED 93 
 
 VI. GENEALOGIES 95 
 
 VII. REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON . 104
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 3, for ELIZABETH P. SESSIONS, read ELIZABETH HUNTINGTON SESSIONS. 
 " 54, line 6, far Rollins, read Collins.
 
 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 HADLEY, October 11, 1857. 
 
 MY DEAR CHILDREN : 
 
 The history of what I have here to say is briefly 
 this. Some of your number sent me a nice portfolio, 
 with paper in one of the pockets, designed as a birth- 
 day present. What I wrote upon that paper I in- 
 tended for them and theirs, as a birthday present in 
 return. 
 
 It was a sermon which I intended to have ready for 
 them October 11, 1854. During that period, I found 
 that the date would be the beginning, and not the 
 close, of my eightieth year, as I intended it should 
 be, and that a more appropriate discourse for the 
 occasion might be provided, with a different date, 
 and from another text. 
 
 The text which I have now selected is, " I am this 
 day fourscore years old," the words of BARZILLAI to 
 DAVID, 2 Samuel xix. 35. 
 
 What I have to say from the passage is sermon- 
 wise, though it is many years since I have written a
 
 2 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 sermon entire ; and it is leading me, I perceive, to 
 be somewhat egotistical. It is necessarily so. The 
 first word of the text, being the first person of the 
 personal pronoun, gives a personal interest in what 
 follows. Appropriating to myself the words of the 
 text, therefore, much of what I have to say from it 
 is unavoidably autobiography. This may seem to 
 require an apology. If what I shall write is un- 
 worthy of the notice of my children, it is vainglory. 
 If old age is, however, a blessing, there must be 
 many things, in the probation of an octogenary hav- 
 ing lived as he ought, worthy the attention of those 
 who are following on. His experience places him on 
 an elevation favorable to reflection and observation. 
 You will excuse me, then, if I repeat the text : " I 
 am this day fourscore years old." 
 
 It is a great age, we are ready to say ; but many 
 live to a still greater. " I am fourscore " : my father 
 lived till he was fourscore and four : his father lived 
 till he was fourscore and fourteen. Of the six chil- 
 dren of my father's family, three were living when 
 I began this sermon, of whom I am the youngest. 
 Their average age was eighty-four ; the total was two 
 hundred and fifty-two. The ages of these and other 
 relatives, living at the same time, contemporary with 
 and including myself and my children, and their par- 
 ents by marriage, are seventeen hundred and seventy- 
 six years. Whether their and our number be greater 
 or less, our lives longer or shorter, be it the great 
 truth ever to be realized, that our responsibilities are 
 according to our privileges, and that of those to 
 whom much is given, much must be required.
 
 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 As to family relations, further extended, within my 
 personal knowledge, I find myself on the dividing 
 point of two extremes; my grandfather, Deacon 
 SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, in the retrospective, and a 
 great-granddaughter, ELIZABETH P. SESSIONS, in the 
 prospective. My grandfather was ninety-four years 
 old when he died, and eighty-four when I was born, 
 living, of course, ten years after my birth. Being 
 myself born 1774, he must have been born 1690. 
 If the length of time between his birth and his 
 grandfather's had been the same, that grandfather of 
 his would have been ten years old at the time of the 
 landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1620. If the 
 great-grandchild, spoken of in the other extreme, 
 should live as long as I have, she might be able to 
 say then, as I do now, " I am this day fourscore years 
 old," and might be able, with the telescope here pre- 
 sented her, to go back very directly to the first settle- 
 ment of New England, with innumerable intervening 
 and interesting events, some of more, others of less 
 importance, embracing a lapse of time between us of 
 one hundred and sixty years. 
 
 If the population of our country, at the time of 
 iny birth, was three millions, and is now ten times 
 that number, which is not far from the truth, when 
 ELIZABETH P. SESSIONS becomes an octogenary, if she 
 ever does, by the same ratio of increase the number 
 of inhabitants will be three hundred millions. This, 
 though in part hypothetical, is not entirely visionary. 
 
 To come now to the positive, I repeat the text : " 1 
 am this day," October llth, 1855, "fourscore years
 
 i SERMON FIRST. 
 
 old." A long life indeed ; and yet, in the words of 
 another, 
 
 " How short it seems 
 Since I was but a sportive child, 
 Enjoying childish dreams." 
 
 " O, I am glad I 'm growing old ; 
 
 For ever)' day I spend 
 Shall bring me one day nearer that 
 Bright day that has no end." 
 
 A long life ; and the text now calls us to a brief re- 
 view. 
 
 The first event of my life, with which, of course, 
 I have been made acquainted by others, was my dedi- 
 cation in baptism, under the ministry of the venerable 
 SOLOMON WILLIAMS, D. D., in Lebanon, Connecticut, 
 for which ordinance I have ever entertained the high- 
 est reverence. 
 
 Nearly contemporary with my birthday was the 
 commencement of the political existence of my coun- 
 try. I was born in the reign of George III., King 
 of England, and continued a year or two, if not a 
 quiet, doubtless a loyal subject. 
 
 The cause of the Revolution I need not dwell 
 upon. The Colonies had long considered themselves 
 an oppressed and injured people. They remonstrated 
 in vain for a redress of their wrongs. Not finding 
 it, they erected their standard for Independence and 
 Liberty, July 4th, 1776. Under the smiles of a pro- 
 pitious Providence, they found what they sought. 
 They did not rise, like the fabled Phoenix, from their 
 own ashes, nor were they the decayed branches from
 
 SERMON FIRST. 5 
 
 a feeble stock ; but more like the mistletoe, with its 
 flourishing. boughs, and designed to thrive upon its in- 
 trinsic vigor. From that time to the present, the 
 government of the people of the United States has 
 been a government of their own framing, under the 
 auspices of Liberty and Law. It was considered, 
 from its origin, an experiment, and has hitherto 
 been thought admirably successful. 
 
 A race of Nature's noblemen, in Church and State, 
 was raised up apparently for the work in review 
 before us ; a constellation of genius and moral worth 
 and weight of character, such as has seldom been 
 seen, before or since, in this or any other country. I 
 remember many of the number well. Governor 
 TRUMBULL, of Connecticut, Brother Jonathan, the 
 original of the Yankee sobriquet, the confidential 
 friend and counsellor of Washington, was one of 
 them, a venerable townsman, whose presence I shall 
 never forget. Nor shall I ever forget the sobs and 
 sighs and tears of my school-fellows, at the old brick 
 school on the green in Lebanon, at the ringing of 
 the alarm bell summoning the fathers and the broth- 
 ers of those at school to the burning of New London 
 by the Regulars, about twenty miles distant. My 
 father, with the company of militia which he com- 
 manded at that time, was among the number ; and 
 while he was absent, we saw at home the smoke of 
 the conflagration, not knowing but he and they were 
 among the wounded and the dying. 
 
 This was but one of the notable scenes enacted on 
 the stage of the fourscore years of the text. Such
 
 6 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 were the common events of the country. I was born 
 in the midst of its bloodshed and battles ; and I 
 know not if I thought it would ever be otherwise. 
 Carnage and slaughter made the common news of 
 the day. The first questions among neighbors, as 
 they met in the streets and in each other's houses, 
 were, " What news from head-quarters ? Has there 
 been fighting of late ? How many were killed I 
 Who were they 1 On which side was the victory 1 " 
 Such was the dreadful routine from day to day, from 
 month to month, and from year to year. At length 
 came the tidings of peace. Peace, peace ! was the ju- 
 bilee, from the highways and house-tops and firesides, 
 from Province to Province through the land. Roused 
 from a comfortable nap in the chimney-corner to 
 partake in the general joy, not knowing what it all 
 meant, I sought relief, as soon as possible, by return- 
 ing to the quietude in which the uproar found me. 
 
 From this time we began to enjoy the blessings of 
 the independence not yet achieved. And oh! how 
 great the change ! It was felt in every bosom, and 
 every department of life. 
 
 Having accomplished the work assigned, the army 
 was disbanded, and its soldiers returned to their 
 homes, not laden with the spoils of victory, but elated 
 with hope, and not the less heartily welcomed by the 
 benedictions of their friends. How much they were 
 venerated as heroes, almost as much as a higher 
 race of beings, was shown by the boy who had 
 heard that General WASHINGTON was to pass that 
 way, and went out to meet him, as he supposed, at
 
 SERMON FIRST. 7 
 
 the head of his army. Instead of that, he met a 
 man alone, on horseback, of whom he inquired if 
 General WASHINGTON was coming. The General 
 replied, " I am the man" In astonishment, the boy, 
 not knowing what to do or say, pulled off his hat, 
 and with great violence threw it at the feet of the 
 horse, running back at the same time, at full speed, 
 and crying at the top of his voice, " God Almighty 
 bless your Majesty ! " 
 
 But what is to be done ? The war is over. The 
 work, after a ten years' conflict, is accomplished ; but 
 at a great sacrifice of blood and treasure. The sol- 
 dier is at home again, and with his family around 
 him ; but covered with scars and wounds, half starved 
 and half naked, without cash or credit : no loan of- 
 fice, and no bank. He has soldiers^ notes, but who 
 wants them 1 ? The country is rich in its victory; 
 flush in its paper ; but poor in purse. The derange- 
 ment of all regular business, the depreciation of con- 
 tinental currency, and the prostration of trade, make 
 " hard times." 
 
 But, the fire of patriotism burning in their bosoms, 
 the virtues and intellectual resources of those who 
 fought their battles and guided their counsels still 
 continued ; and, with here and there a few to animate 
 them by their presence, enterprise is again awakened 
 in every department of life. The ploughman is in 
 the field, the artisan in his office, the manufacturer 
 at his workshop, and the hands of the wife and daugh- 
 ter are at the distaff and the spindle. The immediate 
 wants of the laborer are again provided for. The
 
 8 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 question, What is to be done 1 then, need no more 
 be asked. What has taken place within the range 
 of our observation, during the fourscore years just 
 passed, is now history, read and taught in our pri- 
 mary schools and colleges. The mystery is unfolded. 
 General enterprise is on the wing. The miracle is 
 wrought. We were " cast down, not destroyed." 
 The wheels of industry and art are again rolling in 
 prosperity and independence. A new epoch has 
 commenced. We have a constitution and a govern- 
 ment of our own. " I am this day fourscore years 
 old" and, by the good-will of our God, have seen our 
 beloved country rising from oppression and poverty 
 to high distinction among the nations, with peace in 
 our borders, and plenty in our habitations. " Happy 
 art thou, O Israel ! Who is like unto thee, O people ? 
 saved of the Lord, the shield of thy help, and the sword 
 of thy excellency." And happy may it be for us if 
 the plague-spots that remain of violence and wrong, of 
 sensuality and sin, of oppression and misery, may be 
 wiped from our skirts. Not only in military prowess 
 and in political skill has God shown himself merci- 
 ful in our day, but more abundantly in the arts and 
 sciences that adorn and advance civilized society. 
 
 The light which our ancestors had brought with 
 them had continued to shine, and gradually increased ; 
 but during our Revolutionary troubles, O how ob- 
 scured ! We had our poets and our painters, our 
 statuaries and architects, our philosophers and profes- 
 sors, those distinguished in the learned professions, 
 those who were eminent in their day in our courts of
 
 SERMON FIRST. 9 
 
 justice, and in the halls of legislation; but our com- 
 mon-school education was at a low ebb. Our col- 
 leges and academies were in their infancy ; their en- 
 dowments were small; their attainments and their 
 standards were equally low. There was a reason for 
 it. The attention of our young men of promise was 
 attracted more immediately to the necessities of their 
 country, in the defence of their rights. This, and 
 the want of means for a more liberal course, would 
 naturally show itself in its effects upon our literary 
 institutions, of every grade. They felt it, severely, 
 for a time. With the healing influence of peace and 
 prosperity, under the watchful patronage of the good 
 and the great who survived the Revolutionary strug- 
 gle, however, they soon revived, and have hitherto 
 continued to flourish. 
 
 In the hands of such men, it was impossible that 
 the great concerns of society should be lost sight of. 
 The all-absorbing concern had been to obtain their 
 rights, which, as we have seen, was now accomplished. 
 Others soon came forward, co-workers with the fathers. 
 Genius, taste, learning, piety, and patriotism had now 
 ample scope for development. The work was the 
 Lord's, and, though marvellous in our eyes, it must be 
 accomplished. Looking at the characters brought for- 
 ward for it, just at the time they were wanted, it is no 
 more wonderful, though all great. Immured, as they 
 had been, in their offices, within the walls of science, in 
 their professional enclosures, in their shops and fields, 
 the TRUMBULLS, the ADAMSES, the WOLCOTTS, the 
 PARSONSES, the REEVES, the OTISES, the ELLSWORTHS,
 
 10 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 the DAVENPORTS, and the PICKERINGS, among the ci- 
 vilians ; the BELLAMYS, the EDWARDSES, the DWIGHTS, 
 the GOODRICHES, the LATHROPS, and BACKUSES, and 
 STRONGS, and EMMONSES, among the Doctors of Di- 
 vinity ; FRANKLIN, FULTON, RITTENHOUSE, and others 
 without number, naturalists and ingenious inven- 
 tors, now step forth from their retirement to the 
 respective fields of action to which they were before 
 ordained ; wonderful men and women, by whom the 
 laws of their country have been explained and en- 
 forced; by whom the sanctions and the claims of 
 Sinai and Calvary have been set forth in their solem- 
 nity ; by whom time and space have been compara- 
 tively annihilated, on the land and on the ocean, by 
 the application of steam, and magnetism, and electri- 
 city to the arts of life ; by whose skilful and active 
 powers the world has been both astonished and glad- 
 dened. Thus the dark places of the land, which, 
 since I remember, were full of the habitations of cru- 
 elty, have been converted into fruitful fields ; the 
 desert and the swamp, the haunt of savage beasts and 
 more savage man, have become, as by enchantment, 
 flourishing cities ; and the wilderness has been made 
 to rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
 
 In the assistance afforded in the scientific prepara- 
 tion of the compost-heap, by the knowledge obtained 
 from the help of chemical affinities, by the importa- 
 tion of guano, as well as in labor-saving machines of 
 every sort, the accomplished husbandman is permit- 
 ted to comfort himself with cent per cent profit, in 
 many branches of tillage, and thus be rid of the mor-
 
 SERMON FIRST. 11 
 
 tification of so often repeating, as he has been known 
 to do, Whatever besides may be said of farming, it is 
 no money-making business. So our merchant princes 
 have come to know the benefits of steam. Like the 
 " swift messengers " of the prophet, not in their " ves- 
 sels of bulrushes," but in iron steamboats, they go in 
 all directions to distant ports, and in a few days re- 
 turn, unobserved, richly laden with treasures, a lux- 
 ury to themselves and to those with whom they traffic. 
 
 Indeed, the eiFect of our Revolution is everywhere 
 felt. It is apparent in the gleamings of light and lib- 
 erty in the Old World, even in the dominions of the 
 Roman Pontiff. Usurpation and tyranny, in some 
 places, and in some degree, have lost their power. 
 The Bastile is uprooted, and the Inquisition is shorn 
 of its terrors. The great doctrine and discipline of 
 the Reformation, the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and 
 the right of private judgment, have been, and are now, 
 extensively felt as they never were before. Great 
 moral principles have been broached and discussed, 
 regardless of a corrupt conservatism, in respect to in- 
 temperance, slavery, war, and general licentiousness, 
 which, in this and other lands, are in a fair way to 
 accomplish a desired reform. Those who glory in 
 the cross of Christ are not ashamed nor afraid to 
 avow it. 
 
 The attention of our youths, at home in our large 
 towns, attracted by the help of well-selected libraries, 
 associations, and lectures, lyceums, healthy recrea- 
 tions and amusements, and reading-rooms with their 
 magazines, the society of the good and virtuous, is 
 to be regarded with admiration and transport.
 
 12 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 The same may be said of the charities, and hospi- 
 tals, and asylums for the unfortunate and the friend- 
 less, the mutes, the deranged, the diseased, the des- 
 titute, the helpless old men, and women, and chil- 
 dren, almost without number. Add to these the 
 generous contributions for the support of Bible so- 
 cieties, missionary societies, and tract societies, from 
 which it might seem that the Angel having the ever- 
 lasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the 
 earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and 
 people, had actually begun his fight, and that a second 
 Pentecost must be near at hand. Who knows, but 
 some among my children may live to see it, and to 
 have a part in it? If not, our hearts have been 
 warmed and elevated with the prospect. 
 
 I have, just for my own amusement, been writing 
 the venerable names of some of the old divines con- 
 temporary with him who sprinkled me with the bap- 
 tismal water, together with those who were contem- 
 porary with myself, at the time of my ordination; 
 Connecticut ministers, most of whom were either rel- 
 atives or associates, whom I often entertained at my 
 own table, and who were each to the other both the 
 guest and the host; all, so far as I recollect, men 
 highly respected and useful in their stations, such as 
 have not often been seen together, within the same 
 limited time and space, the writing and audible re- 
 peating of whose names has been a brief but a fresh 
 memorial of their virtues, enkindling emotions not 
 very unlike a hearty shake of the hand ; a preliba- 
 tion, it may be, of what will be more fully realized
 
 SERMON FIRST. 13 
 
 hereafter, if we are so happy as to meet again, in the 
 more immediate and joyful presence of Hun whom 
 we profess to have served in the present life 
 
 " A cloud of witnesses that point to bliss." 
 
 There were other ministers who were on the stage 
 of action with me in Connecticut, between three and 
 four hundred in the whole, whom I always met pleas- 
 antly, on public occasions and in private circles, most 
 of whom are now gone, whose names and characters 
 are still as " ointment poured forth." At the Com- 
 mencement in New Haven, three years since, I could 
 not learn that there were more than half a dozen 
 ministers in the churches in Connecticut where I had 
 left them thirty years before, if then living. May 
 the names of those who have gone on to glory be still 
 a light to the churches where they have labored, and 
 the presence of those that remain a treasure long to 
 be enjoyed ! 
 
 Few things are more interesting than the recollec- 
 tion of days bygone, and of those eminent personages 
 who, having fulfilled their important destiny, have 
 passed from the earth, and gone on to their reward. 
 The places that knew them shall know them no more. 
 How sadly, how silently, yet how instructively, one 
 after another, they pass away from the memories of 
 men ! It is, therefore, much as another has well ob- 
 served, not less a melancholy pleasure than a solemn 
 duty, for those that are left, to arrest their progress 
 to oblivion, and to preserve for future ages, not only 
 the remembrance of their names, but the lustre of
 
 14 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 their virtues. My prayer is, that the great length 
 of years which God has given me to become more or 
 less acquainted with many such distinguished charac- 
 ters, may not be wholly in vain. 
 
 We ought to be reminded, also, by our subject, 
 that a life protracted to fourscore years, properly im- 
 proved, is calculated to wean us from the world, and 
 to lead us more intensely to contemplate with delight 
 the Higher Life, on which, if prepared, we are so 
 soon to enter. This, at least, has been' my experience. 
 In youth, death was to me the king of terrors. It is 
 so, proverbially, I believe, to many. The good hope 
 of the Gospel does not always afford relief. It too 
 often seems to be otherwise. The " dark valley of 
 the shadow of death," and the " gloomy confinement 
 of the grave," are images used in presenting it to the 
 youthful mind, and others that make it revolting, and 
 still more so, as we know it to be nearly approaching. 
 We are well acquainted with this world, and, through 
 habit and heedlessness and a lack of faith, become 
 loth to exchange it for one unseen. For this there is 
 a remedy provided in reason, as well as in revelation, 
 in which, in accordance with my own experience, the 
 philosophy of the age, and the good hope of the Gos- 
 pel, are rather in advance of former years. 
 
 When our work is done in the world, it is our priv- 
 ilege to leave it. The change herein to be undergone 
 is solemn. Among the multitudes who have tried it, 
 in its inconceivably varied forms, not one of our race 
 has returned to inform us what it is. What we learn, 
 we must know personally. And of that we are not
 
 SERMON FIRST. 15 
 
 left in ignorance. There is nothing in it that is fright- 
 ful, of course. It is all in good hands, and wisely 
 ordered. If others choose to dwell upon " the pains," 
 be it mine to know " the bliss," of dying. In a late 
 publication I have seen, it is ably advocated, that 
 sleeping and waking are, and are designed to be, daily 
 and stated pleasant and profitable monitions of death 
 and the resurrection. In the Epistle of Paul to the 
 Corinthians, it is thus written : " I protest by the re- 
 joicing I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily." 
 In whatever sense he meant it, the words state a fact, 
 and they will as well apply to other Christians as to 
 the Apostle. At any rate, sleep is a very striking em- 
 blem of death. In sleep, ratiocination, perception, 
 judgment, imagination, locomotion, the voice, sensa- 
 tion, consciousness, and memory, are, at times, en- 
 tirely suspended, the three latter as much so as in 
 death ; and if death should thus ensue, how delight- 
 ful ! The wearied body has quietly retired to its rest, 
 and has found it. The soul is abroad in the " Better 
 Land." When the whole conscious being is thus en- 
 folded in repose, apparently as much so as in death, 
 if death should prove to be the event, it never would 
 be known at the time by the observer, nor in the ex- 
 perience of the subject till realized by him in the 
 resurrection body, in the future state ; in other words, 
 in the development of the higher life. Thus death, 
 to the believer, is " great gain." How merciful ! thus 
 unexpectedly to be relieved from anxiety and anguish ! 
 Thus we die easily ; we die often ; we die every day, 
 to rise again. We die at last to rise again, and sleep
 
 16 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 no more. Thus to die, is gain to us, in proportion 
 to the period of our probation, or as we have oppor- 
 tunity of proving its reality by the length of its con- 
 tinuance. Rightly improved, fresh hopes are inspired. 
 Tottering on the brink of the grave, we are cheered 
 with the life and immortality thus illustrated, till 
 " clothed upon with our house which is from heav- 
 en," until " death is swallowed up in victory." Is it 
 possible that any can live and die in insensibility, 
 under such oft-repeated, instructive, and consoling 
 suggestions 1 May we not hope, rather, that to the 
 greater number it is heaven already begun "? What 
 an argument, this, for our being contented to live out 
 our appointed time ! 
 
 But what do we read in connection with this 1 ? 
 Not, indeed, that the fourscore years always secure 
 the blessing. " The days of our years are threescore 
 years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be 
 fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow" 
 It is so indeed sometimes to the libertine, and some- 
 times to the virtuous, showing us that it is not ours 
 at any time to sit as self-appointed censors, either of 
 ourselves or of our fellows. The labor and sorrow 
 that are sometimes the attendants of old age are no 
 evidence of the displeasure of Him who appoints 
 them. It is good for us all to know the advantages 
 of discipline. The last years of the octogenary may 
 be so sanctified by discipline and reflection, as to 
 " yield to him the peaceable fruits of righteousness " 
 more abundantly, and become to him habitually the 
 " light that shineth brighter and brighter to the per-
 
 SERMON FIRST. 17 
 
 feet day." It is thus, that in the Bible old age is 
 described as one of the richest rewards of virtue. 
 " Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings : and the 
 years of thy life shall be many. Length of days is 
 in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and 
 honor. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold 
 upon her, and happy is every one that retaineth her." 
 Taking leave in early life of an aged and reverend 
 father, with whom I had just enjoyed a pleasant in- 
 terview, without rising from his seat he gave me his 
 hand, excusing himself, saying, " Feeble and helpless 
 as we old folks are, I suppose we appear to you very 
 miserable ; but I tell you, my friend, old age has its 
 comforts, and our Heavenly Father lets us down into 
 the grave much more easily than you, who are in the 
 midst of life, imagine." And so I have found it, and 
 am thankful that my life is spared to fourscore years, 
 to add from my own experience my testimony to 
 the truth of what the venerable old gentleman said : 
 "O/d age lias its comforts" If at another time he 
 had said, ''Old age has its trials" I might have said 
 the same, and both might have spoken the truth, 
 and might have added, " Our trials, rightly improved, 
 become our comforts" "If a man live many years, 
 and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the 
 days of darkness, for they shall be many." Our 
 days of darkness, labor, and sorrow may be days of 
 light, of rest and rejoicing, according to our improve- 
 ment of them, and so vice versa. The secret of liv- 
 ing rightly is to see the hand of God in everything, 
 and to glorify him in the day of his visitation.
 
 18 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 In what I have been saying of old age, I have 
 dwelt rather on the " sunny side " ; it has also its 
 "shady side." Every period of life has its enjoy- 
 ments. While " some affect the sun, and some the 
 shade," all may find their appropriate results in hum- 
 ble submission, living to the Lord, and filling up life 
 with duty and usefulness. 
 
 I am about through with what I had purposed to 
 say from my text, which I will again repeat. " This 
 day I am fourscore years old." It contains no doc- 
 trine. It is an isolated and egotistical fact, sugges- 
 tive of relations and events, however, personal and 
 social, civil and religious, on the whole constituting 
 an era interesting to us all, of which I have now 
 given you some of the outlines. 
 
 We have been together to-day, my dear children, 
 looking at some of the events and relations of a pil- 
 grimage of eighty years. Permit me, as we are here 
 about to separate, to turn your attention for a mo- 
 ment to a family monument, near the gate- way of the 
 burying ground in Hadley, having on its plinth the 
 name of " Huntington," and on its shaft the word 
 Excelsior. The shaft and the inscription, both point- 
 ing upwards, show us where we may always look in 
 confidence, both in trouble and in joy. Our earthly 
 tendencies we have all found are too often downward. 
 Bad examples entice and lead us astray. Unavailing 
 efforts discourage us. Delusion and seduction in 
 their thousand forms, entering through the evil heart 
 of unbelief, drag us by their deadly weight to grovel 
 in the dust. What shall we do ? These bodies of
 
 SERMON FIRST. 19 
 
 sin and death and darkness confine and crowd out 
 the higher life. What can deliver us from these 
 overpowering lets and hinderances ? You have it on 
 the memento here before you, EXCELSIOR. It is in 
 a single word. You may advantageously carry it 
 with you, wherever you go. You remember how it 
 animated the aspirations of the youth, in a popular 
 ballad of the day, enabling him to outbrave the tem- 
 pest, the torrent, and the avalanche, in his ardent 
 desire to rise above the world. Who knows but the 
 same device on the escutcheon of thousands of other 
 youths, at their outset in life, may have animated 
 them in their resolutions and efforts to sustain their 
 infirmities, and accomplish their object ; and that, if 
 it is duly observed, you may become partakers in 
 their joys? 
 
 Here, then, in the midst of the silent mansions of 
 the dead, where everything around us inspires solem- 
 nity, we will once more, as we part, turn our eyes 
 both upon the monition and consolation of our motto, 
 Excelsior, Upward! "upward and onward," and in 
 happy affinity with a memento of higher authority, 
 and which, I hope, we have every day before us, in 
 our hands and in our hearts, "Set your affections on 
 things above, and not on things on the earth," enforced 
 by the consideration, that " the things ivhich are seen 
 are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eter- 
 nal^ 
 
 " Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, 
 
 Thy better portion trace ! 
 Rise from transitory things 
 
 Towards heaven, thy native place ! "
 
 20 SERMON FIRST. 
 
 Towards heaven, thy native place ! There God is, and 
 the throne of his grace. There Christ is, with open 
 arms, ready to receive every returning sinner : the 
 Resurrection and the Life, the Light and Joy of 
 every true believer. There look and listen, and 
 find the rest, the peace, and glory, that we seek in 
 vain here below. 
 
 " Ever upward let us move, 
 Wafted on the wings of love, 
 Looking when our Lord shall come, 
 Longing for our heavenly home."
 
 SEEMON SECOND. 
 
 COME WITH ME FROM LEBANON, MY SPOUSE, WITH ME FROM LEBA- 
 NON : LOOK FROM THE TOP OF AMANA, FROM THE TOP OF SHENIR 
 AND HERMON, FROM THE LIONS' DENS, FROM THE MOUNTAINS OF 
 
 THE LEOPARDS. Song of Solomon, iv. 8. 
 
 MY text, from a passage containing the name of a 
 town familiar to me as the place of my birth and 
 early education, naturally reminds me of that part of 
 my own experience there, in childhood and youth, in 
 relation to which I would address those who are com- 
 ing after me on to the stage of life. 
 
 The lofty cedars of Lebanon, the enchanting scen- 
 ery of Amana, Shenir, and Hermon, the lair of the 
 lion and the leopard, such figuratively may be the 
 language of the Great Head of the Church, caution- 
 ing us of the dangers and difficulties, of the snares 
 and temptations, of the blandishments and trials, 
 that arrest us in the period of our probation. Here, 
 at ease, wandering inconsiderately among the moun- 
 tains and the valleys around us, we are in danger of 
 being led astray and lost, all our high hopes and
 
 22 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 prospects notwithstanding. A voice reaches us to- 
 day from Him who is rich in mercy, to all who will 
 listen and obey. " Renouncing the world, with its 
 delusions and vanities, look unto me and be saved, 
 all ye ends of the earth." " My son and my daugh- 
 ter, give me thine heart." " Come unto me, all ye 
 that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest." Or, in the words of the text, " Come with me 
 from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon." 
 For " my spouse," read " my children," and the invi- 
 tation here given adapts itself as well to me and my 
 family, as to Solomon and those to whom it was origi- 
 nally sent. As the stated pastor of two churches, 
 and in the labors of an evangelist, I have addressed 
 more than fifty religious societies. So far as these 
 services may have been of spiritual benefit to any, I 
 love to think of those that received them as chil- 
 dren, in the faith and fellowship of the Gospel. T\~e 
 are here, my children, in " the lusts of the flesh, the 
 lusts of the eye, and the pride of life " : these are 
 prominent among our spiritual enemies, described in 
 the New Testament, from which we are to turn away 
 with disgust. They are the same in the Old Testa- 
 ment, under different images and illustrations. Thus 
 Lebanon, in the text, alluded to as among the lofti- 
 est heights of the surrounding country, becomes a fit 
 type of the loftiness of pride, that most odious and 
 easily besetting sin. Consider a moment what pride 
 is, my children. It is all along, in the Bible, spo- 
 ken of as that which exalteth itself " above all that 
 is called God." It was the sin by which the angels
 
 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 fell. It drove our first parents from their paradise of 
 bliss, and to the present time makes those of their 
 descendants who yield to its dictates what, in the 
 word of God, they are described to be, " hateful and 
 hating one another." By common consent, it is an 
 odious inmate in the human heart, in the sight of 
 God and man. I will quote you a few passages, as a 
 specimen of what is said of it, in the word of God. 
 " The day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every 
 one that is lofty and proud, and every one that is 
 lifted up, and he shall be brought low: and upon 
 all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted 
 up. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and 
 the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, and 
 the Lord alone shall be exalted." "A high look and 
 a proud heart is sin." "Him that hath a proud 
 heart will I not surfer." " God resisteth the proud, 
 but giveth grace unto the humble." O how often 
 do we find ourselves inflated with that temper, which 
 influences us to look down with indifference, at least, 
 upon the repentance, submission, and humility of the 
 Gospel ! There are other forms of pride, almost in- 
 numerable, which, if less manifest, are not less odious. 
 We see it in the importance assumed by supposed 
 talents and attainments, whatever they may be. In 
 one, it is intellectual strength, in another physical, 
 in another moral. One is proud of his person ; an- 
 other, of his mind; another, of his dress; another, 
 of his riches ; another, of his home ; another, of his 
 family; another, of his equipage; and another, 
 strange as it may seem, is proud of his religion,
 
 24 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 Whatever may be its developments, its hateful cog- 
 nates are the pride of opinion, the pride of educa- 
 tion, fame, office, denomination, embracing creeds, 
 forms, ceremonies ; stirring np the sediment of the 
 human heart ; engendering a spirit of sectarian acer- 
 bity, altogether hostile to that spirit of love which is 
 the bond of perfectness ; involving the violation of 
 individual and social rights and compacts ; enduring 
 oppressions, relentless persecutions, and bloody wars. 
 All this we know ; but still our hearts, O how inflat- 
 ed with evil passions ! And in how many instances 
 do they remain wholly unmoved ! We hear the in- 
 viting voice from above, and often with fixed atten- 
 tion and apparent tenderness ; and all this notwith- 
 standing, we dismiss the subject, and with a " Go thy 
 way for this time," we succeed in getting rid of it. 
 " We are gods," is the language of our hearts. 
 "We will come no more unto Thee." "Who are 
 we, that we should stoop to the cross of the despised 
 Nazarene I " " Who are we, that we should be num- 
 bered as brethren with those so far beneath us in 
 life 1 " " Who are we, that we should be preached 
 to and admonished upon these subjects 1 " " Leave 
 us to ourselves." " We are safe enough." " WTien 
 we want advice, we will ask it." Thus exposed are 
 we often found, when we begin to reflect and realize 
 our destitution and danger, living " without God and 
 without Christ in the world," and strangers to the 
 good hope of the Gospel. 
 
 What I would impress upon the minds of those 
 who thus feel and thus speak is, that it is pride that
 
 SERMON SECOND. 25 
 
 thus keeps them ashamed of the cross, and thus in 
 bondage to sin. From all these proud heights of 
 Lebanon, my young friends, we are called upon to 
 rise and come away. "Come with me from Leb- 
 anon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon." 
 
 Not only from the proud heights of Lebanon are 
 we invited to come, down, but to look away from 
 the pleasant tops of Amana. Both the pride and 
 the pleasures of the world are to be renounced. 
 They are both, in one view of them, our enemies. 
 In the view we have taken of pride, it is odious en- 
 tirely and without mitigation. At the same time, 
 there is something we often meet with in life so ex- 
 tremely resembling it that both are taken for one 
 and the same thing. It is the eye of God that 
 discerns the difference, and to those who look to 
 Him, light will arise out of darkness. No one 
 need be mistaken. So, in the profusion of the 
 blessings that surround us, there is danger lest the 
 heart be lifted up, and led away, by innumerable 
 enchantments; and that thus the great work of 
 life should be forgotten. Hence the necessity of 
 searching the heart with all diligence, that we may 
 know, and that others may know, " what manner of 
 spirit we are of." 
 
 Having thus seen some of the dangers to which 
 we are exposed, taught us by the proud cedars of 
 Lebanon, we are prepared to consider what may be 
 represented by the delights of Amana. " Look from 
 the top of Amana." 
 
 When reading and speaking of " the world," we
 
 26 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 are to do it with suitable discrimination. Thus we 
 come to consider it both our enemy and our friend, 
 as, on the whole, we choose to have it. When we 
 contemplate it as to be renounced and forsaken, we 
 consider it our enemy. In this we judge for our- 
 selves, and take the responsibility. 
 
 We will bring into view, then, a few thoughts, that 
 show us when the world is our friend. It is God's 
 world, this that we see around us. It is just what 
 he designed it to be. It is exactly adapted to our 
 condition, as moral agents and immortal beings. It 
 is a world of life and light and liberty and blessed- 
 ness. Over our heads, in the heavens, the greater 
 light he gives to rule the day ; the lesser light to rule 
 the night ; and the stars to extend our thoughts to 
 the immensity that awaits us beyond. 
 
 For us are " the chief things of the ancient moun- 
 tains and the precious things of the lasting hills ; 
 the pastures clothed with flocks, and the valleys cov- 
 ered over with corn ; rain from heaven, and fruitful 
 seasons " ; and, above all, the good-will of Him 
 whose hand is in all these manifestations of his love, 
 showing us that this world of his was not designed 
 to be our enemy. Add to these, the means of im- 
 provement which we enjoy in social life ; our civil 
 and religious privileges ; our hopes and our fears ; 
 our joys and our sorrows ; our pleasures and our 
 pains ; our prosperity and our adversities ; the pleas- 
 ures of home ; the endearing realities of life ; the en- 
 joyment of friends ; society, the society of rational, 
 immortal minds ; the material world, this beautiful
 
 SERMON SECOND. 27 
 
 world of ours, not in the uppermost room of the 
 heart, but under our feet, what is it but the very 
 image of heaven I It is all our hearts can desire. 
 It is heaven already begun. I say it is a good world, 
 and if you will take the word of God for it, you may 
 enjoy it. " Using the world as not abusing it," its 
 honors, its profits, its pleasures, its recreations, its 
 labors, are all yours, and may become conducive to 
 the health and happiness of both body and soul, for 
 time and eternity. To the Christian world it is pro- 
 claimed, again and again, "All things are yours, 
 whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, 
 or life, or death, or things present, or things to 
 come, all are yours " ; you may enjoy it. 
 
 Many of the things here mentioned, notwithstand- 
 ing, are confessedly enemies. They become so by our 
 inattention and indifference ; in other words, by our 
 abuse of them. Contradictory as this, at first view, 
 may seem, it is all intelligible to the ingenuous mind 
 and the careful reader. Paul and Apollos and Ce- 
 phas were able, eloquent, and faithful men, in their 
 stations, and in their endeavors to convince the world 
 of the evil of sin ; of the necessity of holiness ; and 
 of the awards of the judgment of the great day : but 
 if their hearers persisted in turning the deaf ear, the 
 blind eye, and the hard heart, and died, at last, in 
 impenitence and pride, they, and those who labored 
 in vain with them, for the spiritual good of such 
 hearers, will appear as swift witnesses against them. 
 We, my children, have our Paul and our Apollos and 
 our Cephas ; we have our privileges and responsibil-
 
 28 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 ities ; we have life and death set before us, and we 
 might choose for ourselves. 
 
 Life and death are words of high import in the 
 Bible. The life of the body is a boon, highly prized 
 by all; but the life of the soul, the higher life! 
 What doth it profit a man, though he gain the whole 
 world for the enjoyment of the body"? The one 
 thing needful lacking, things present and things to 
 come all amount to nothing, in the great concern of 
 the soul's salvation. 
 
 Death is sometimes ranked among our enemies, in 
 the Bible : at the same time it is our best friend. If 
 it is our enemy, it may be a conquered enemy. It 
 not only does no harm to the believer ; it is to him 
 great gain. By means of it, he is introduced to a 
 higher happiness, to an immortality of unspeakable 
 bliss. 
 
 Our passions and appetites, improperly indulged, 
 are degrading and ruinous ; but in the sphere of ac- 
 tion here allotted us, we could not do without them. 
 
 Our sleep, and other indulgences, are refreshing 
 and are conducive to health and usefulness : too far 
 indulged, they imbrute the faculties, and ruin the 
 soul. I ask your particular attention to this sub- 
 ject, my young friends, because, when the world 
 has been spoken of from the pulpit, it has too often 
 been spoken of and thought of only as our enemy. 
 Many have been so puzzled and blinded by this lan- 
 guage, as to be tempted to fold their hands in de- 
 spair, and to sink into inactivity and indolence. 
 Everything like amusement and recreation has been 
 considered wrong of course.
 
 SERMON SECOND. 29 
 
 I am loth thus to leave the subject. I am free 
 to say, and I am glad to have the opportunity to 
 say, that children and youth must have their amuse- 
 ments. So far from its being the truth, that there 
 are no lawful amusements, it appears to me that 
 the kind Author of our Being has provided, merci- 
 fully provided them, not only for children and youth, 
 but for all ages and conditions of men. The com- 
 mon and necessary business of life has its amuse- 
 ments closely attached to it. It is wisely ordered, 
 as a part of our probation, that it should be so. 
 
 The husbandman, upon his farm; the mechanic, 
 in his shop ; the merchant, in the exchange of his 
 commodities ; all these, both at home and abroad, 
 in providing for themselves and their families " things 
 honest in the sight of all men," find abundant amuse- 
 ment. Professional men find an elevated satisfac- 
 tion in doing good to the souls and bodies of 
 men. The artist, in the finish of the chisel, the 
 palette, and the lath, is rapt from hour to hour, 
 and from month to month. The mathematician is 
 not less so. The man of science, in the concate- 
 nations of his comparisons and proofs to bring out 
 the results of his problem, in his investigations in 
 geology and chemistry, in the magic of electricity 
 and magnetism, in the profound calculations of 
 natural philosophy and astronomy, has sublime sat- 
 isfaction. The poet finds his amusement in reduc- 
 ing the creations of imagination to the chime and 
 measure of verse. The man of leisure and wealth, 
 in the midst of life, finds his amusement in books
 
 00 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 and business at home ; or, abroad, in travel ; in the 
 bracing atmosphere of the mountains, in partaking 
 of the exhilarating draught of the crystal fountain. 
 Others, with more limited means, have high enjoy- 
 ment in visiting those they love, and in receiving 
 their visits, in return. Thus all, in advanced life, 
 are provided with amusements, in their different 
 employments, which are not only innocent but use- 
 ful. I am thankful, I hope, that to a still more ad- 
 vanced period my life is spared, to testify from my 
 own experience, that old age has its comforts in 
 this way. Peculiar comforts have their mission for 
 others ; why not for those in the morning of life? 
 Why should there not be an appropriate provision, 
 from the same kind hand, for the enjoyment of our 
 children and youth, in the way they so highly relish, 
 and for which they seem to be formed, and which 
 are so conducive to the health, both of the body 
 and the soul 1 ? Their employments, for the present, 
 are for the most part in the family, at school, and 
 apprenticeships, which, though not professedly utili- 
 tarian, are pursued with reference to future useful- 
 ness. Is it not right, then, that in their seasons of 
 leisure they should be indulged in recreations pro- 
 vided for them by their Maker; and which have 
 been so generally and cordially allowed them, by 
 their guardians and their parents'? Why may not 
 that which is lacking in the utile. be made up in 
 the dulce? in the calisthenics and gymnastics of 
 the school and the play-grounds? 
 
 In renouncing the guilty pleasures of the world,
 
 SERMON SECOND. 31 
 
 we must not forget that the language of the Bible 
 on the subject is decided, of deep and solemn im- 
 port. To be understood, it must be read and prayer- 
 fully pondered. We have seen how the world is 
 our friend. We are now to see how it becomes 
 our enemy. As God gives it to us to enjoy, it is the 
 former. As we abuse and pervert it by the wrong 
 use of it, it is the latter. 
 
 " The friendship of the world is enmity with God." 
 This explains the whole difficulty, as to any apparent 
 contradiction. It is an idolatrous affection to the 
 world that makes it our enemy. When the ameni- 
 ties of the world become our idols, they then become 
 a snare. 
 
 With the aged, and those in the midst of life, gold 
 is more commonly the idol. Pleasure, in its thou- 
 sand forms, is more commonly the seducer of those 
 in the morning of life. To this become subservient 
 the intoxicating glass, unnatural stimulants, foolish 
 thoughts, the offspring of gay and jovial hearts, idle 
 words which have commonly neither wit nor common 
 sense to recommend them, cruel sports, and games of 
 chance, in which time and treasure are both haz- 
 arded and misspent, evil surmisings, falsehood, 
 sloth, the indulgence of foolish and hurtful lusts ; all 
 combining, by habit, to make us insensibly the willing 
 captives of the destroyer, and, if persisted in, drown- 
 ing the soul in perdition. From these we are called 
 upon to turn away. Turn away we must, either 
 from Christ or an ensnaring world. We cannot love 
 supremely both God and Mammon. And, in this
 
 32 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 case, as in every other, our duty will be our pleasure. 
 In cheerful obedience to the behest of God and of 
 conscience, you will delight to turn your backs upon 
 all forbidden, soliciting, sinful indulgences. In such 
 an alternative, the world has lost its charms. It is 
 comparatively empty of enjoyment. It affords noth- 
 ing for the nobler powers to act upon as the supreme 
 good. What you once may have termed pleasure, 
 and pursued as such, has now lost its relish. Hav- 
 ing a new taste inspired, and the nobler powers of 
 the soul sanctified and quickened, what was once 
 sweet to the taste is now bitter ; what was once good 
 is now evil. Looking away from the world will be 
 no self-denial. I wish you, now., thoroughly to " count 
 the cost " of being Christians, so as never to have oc- 
 casion hereafter to accuse yourselves of rashness, or 
 to repent of what you have done, or left undone, to 
 perfect your character. And if there is any sacrifice 
 you are unwilling to make for Christ and your souls ; 
 if there is any favorite amusement, or gratification, 
 you are not willing to dispense with ; if there is any 
 article of superfluity in which you are not willing to 
 retrench as there is a proper call for it, will you 
 give the subject due consideration, and take firm and 
 decided ground "? Let it be ' seen, in public and in 
 private, that the religion of the cross produces a de- 
 cision of character which is unwavering. Do not 
 suffer the sons and daughters of a vainglory ever to 
 approach you, on the subject of their sensual and 
 sordid pleasures, without improving the occasion to 
 manifest to them, that you have made up your mind
 
 SERMON SECOND. 33 
 
 upon principle; that you are fixed; and that you 
 consider them in a course of danger. " My son, my 
 daughter, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." 
 Not only do not go with them, but let them know 
 the reason of it. A gentle rebuke, administered in 
 a way of tenderness and feeling, will possibly do 
 more in carrying conviction to the thoughtless, than 
 a long sermon. A word in this way, fitly spoken, 
 how good is it ! 
 
 Do not suffer yourselves to meet the libertine half- 
 way in your feelings, or to think there can be any- 
 thing tolerable in a gay round of thoughtless dissi- 
 pation. " Look away from the tops of Amana." 
 Avoid speaking, or even thinking, with approbation, 
 of what some may be disposed to call " innocent " 
 amusements, but what they and you know to be of a 
 doubtful character. What will be realized in the 
 bosom of every good man and woman, and what is 
 seen in their intercourse with the world, is beautiful- 
 ly described in the context. " The flowers appear on 
 the earth ; and the time of the singing of the birds 
 is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the 
 land." Heavenly affections are enkindled, and a 
 " new song is put into our mouths, even praise to our 
 God." The first comforts of the witnessing spirit 
 are set home to our hearts. "The fig-tree putteth 
 forth her green figs, and the vines, with their tender 
 grapes, give a goodly smell." 
 
 The first, immature fruits of righteousness begin 
 to show themselves, promising a rich and abundant 
 harvest. All the encouraging tokens of Divine favor, 
 
 5
 
 34 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 thus vouchsafed, operate as the most animating mo- 
 tives to press forward in the Christian course. The 
 wintry, barren joys of earth have no further charms ; 
 all the music with which she delighted us dies away 
 upon the ear, while we listen to the still, small voice, 
 saying to us, " This is the way, walk ye in it," and 
 we are, at times, swallowed up in the anticipations 
 of a life of glory, never to have an end. 
 
 Another class of our spiritual enemies is presented 
 by our subject, which, if not as numerous, is more 
 active, than the former. 
 
 Not only from the seductions of Amana are we to 
 look away, but from the frightful haunts of Shenir 
 and Hermon, the lair of the lion and the leopard, 
 those formidable beasts of prey, striking emblems of 
 the Devil and his emissaries. 
 
 In speaking to my children on such a subject, I 
 make no apology for introducing such a character as 
 the Devil, a character as distinctly delineated in 
 the Bible as any other, and who, in God's govern- 
 ment of the world, has a work assigned which can- 
 not easily be mistaken. Whatever that work may 
 be, each is to give heed to his own halting, looking 
 well to the evidence afforded him of his being num- 
 bered with the sincere followers of Him to whom all 
 devils are subject ; always remembering the Devil 
 will never harm those who will not harm themselves. 
 The command and the promise go together, " Resist 
 the Devil, and he will flee from you." 
 
 Among the enemies alluded to in the text are in- 
 cluded also wicked and wily companionships of our
 
 SERMON SECOND. 35 
 
 own, standing, visible and tangible, the emissaries and 
 agents of Satan. You may, at some times, have kept 
 their company, and turned a blind eye to their folly. 
 Now, avowedly leaving their ranks mortifies them. 
 Such will be their disingenuousness, they will readily 
 impute it to any other motive than the right one. 
 And if they find you hesitating, they will spread it 
 abroad to your hurt. By their thousand arts, they 
 will try to allure you again, and bring you back to 
 their follies and vanities. They will tempt you to 
 behave like themselves, in loose conduct, in vain and 
 trifling conversation, to try your steadfastness, and to 
 have it to say, that your scruples are all affectation. 
 They will try to surprise you into sin, by some false 
 report ; to ridicule, to drive, and to coax you out of 
 the right, and into the wrong course. They will be 
 glad to have it to say of you, that you are just as de- 
 voted to selfish indulgences as themselves. You will 
 accordingly have solicitations to join them in circles 
 of social merriment of a doubtful character. If you 
 refuse, they will call you precise and " righteous over- 
 much." You will be branded with religious fastidi- 
 ousness, and over-heated zeal, as the case may be, 
 especially if you plead a sense of duty. The " li- 
 ons " will roar, and the " leopards " will growl, at 
 one time ; they will fawn and cringe at another ; but 
 it will be your endeavor, by a prudent, a steady and 
 consistent course of conduct, to make it manifest how 
 little you regard either their smiles or their frowns. 
 He that calls you to come away, with the greatest 
 kindness, will notice your obedience. " The Lion of
 
 36 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 the Tribe of Judah " is able and willing to defend 
 from all otber lions all who will submit to his au- 
 thority. Hence the very seasonable and salutary 
 caution, if the profligate and profane say, " Come 
 with us," " Cast in thy lot among us," " My son, 
 walk not in the way with them " ; " listen not to 
 their counsel." " Refrain thy foot from their path." 
 " Go not in the way of evil men ; avoid it, pass not 
 by it, and turn away." 
 
 The subject is before you, my children: its admo- 
 nitions, its prospects, and its promises. It is sub- 
 mitted to you, as moral agents and immortal beings. 
 Still probationers, you have a life, you know not 
 how long, in prospect. While God is waiting to be 
 gracious, still look away from " Shenir and Hermon, 
 from the lions' dens, and the mountains of the leop- 
 ards." Leave them far behind in distant prospect. 
 Hoping you have already " the Day-dawn, and the 
 Day-Star in your hearts," live as " children of the 
 Light and of the Day." If you have accepted the 
 invitation of the text, lay hold on the promise it con- 
 tains. Never rest satisfied with present attainments, 
 when there is such a field before you for improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Wherever we open our eyes around us, we are 
 convinced, from what we see, that our Heavenly 
 Father is giving us instructive lessons, "in things 
 belonging to our peace." We see it in our gardens, 
 in our fields, and our forests. The poets tell us, 
 there are " books in brooks, sermons in stones, and 
 good in everything." In the text before us, we have
 
 SERMON SECOND. 37 
 
 allusions to the scenery of the country where it was 
 written. How has such scenery been prized in all 
 ages, by heathen nations as well as those who were 
 more refined ! The pagan mythology is full of it. 
 Their Elysium and Tartarus, how well they corre- 
 spond with the Sinai and Horeb, the Ebal and Geri- 
 zim, of the Israelites ! Lebanon and Amana, Shenir 
 and Hermon, of the Old Testament, Mount Moriah 
 and the Mount of Olives, Zion and Calvary, of the 
 New, are all familiar objects with the inhabitants 
 of the " hill country of Judsea," calculated to gratify 
 their taste, and elevate their devotions. 
 
 Prize, then, more than ever, my young friends, not 
 only the word of God, the light of reason and con- 
 science, but the light that shines everywhere in this 
 beautiful world. When abroad in the fields and 
 villages, either for labor or recreation, listen to the 
 voices that are coming to you from above and be- 
 neath, saying, " This is the way, walk ye in it." 
 " Wisdom's ways are pleasantness, all her paths 
 are peace." 
 
 Wherever you go, and whatever you do, be im- 
 pressed with a sense of that Presence which cqntin- 
 ually surrounds us; and as you are tempted to 
 wander from the straight and narrow way into the 
 forbidden paths of sin, always be ready to say, as 
 you are tempted, " Get thee behind me, Satan," and 
 " How can I do this, and sin against God? " 
 
 And as those older than yourselves are moving off 
 the stage of action, who have been near and dear to 
 you, let it not be forgotten, but ever be remem- 
 bered, that they have not ceased to care for you.
 
 38 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 Shortly, he who now addresses you will be no 
 more here. Looking back, through the long vista 
 of seventy or eighty years, I wish I could gather 
 up something profitable to those coming after. I 
 leave no monument of brass or marble. My EB- 
 ENEZER, " Hitherto the Lord hath helped me," Monu- 
 mentum ^Ere perennius, I leave with you, with the 
 assurance that " the Master we serve will ever help 
 those who will help themselves." Act upon this 
 motto, and you will have a good improvement of 
 the subject before us. They who love and serve 
 the Lord will enjoy his presence, and prosper. 
 
 In the mean time, let it be ever our fervent prayer, 
 " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do 1 " As good 
 an answer as we can have is, " Be diligent in busi- 
 ness, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 
 Having the hope of Christians, make it manifest 
 that you mean to be known as belonging to their 
 company. Let no time be lost in neglecting to 
 make a public profession of a proper kind. When 
 the path of duty is plain, there is nothing gained 
 by postponement. 
 
 " Diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving 
 the Lord," may we all be thankful for the past, 
 and for the future leave all with Him. 
 
 My powers and privileges, whatever they are, I 
 desire on this the day of my birth to devote afresh 
 to my Maker. If he has still, on earth, a work for 
 me to do, I ought willingly to stay and finish it. 
 
 This world of ours is a world every way adapted 
 to our necessities, and we ought so to live in it, for
 
 SERMON SECOND. 39 
 
 the time allotted us, that we may be always in 
 readiness to leave it, and be prepared for a happy 
 entrance into that set before us in the Gospel. 
 
 Whether that event shall come sooner or later 
 is of small importance, compared with that of se- 
 curing a character which will, in any event, make 
 our state a safe one, " living or dying, the Lord's." 
 The character is everything, and all we want, for 
 time or eternity. 
 
 And, as what I am now saying is designed specially 
 for my family, permit me to say, in conclusion, as 
 encouragement in the way of well-doing, both in 
 a retrospective and prospective view, that I do not 
 find, in a long line of ancestors, many that do not 
 fairly sustain a good character. A good character, 
 you know, implies a life of good principles. A good 
 life is open to the choice or refusal of every one. 
 A good heart is known only to the Searcher of all 
 hearts. God gives us the standard ; each must judge 
 for himself, and be careful to judge righteous judg- 
 ment. TJie standard is, "A good man, out of the 
 good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good 
 things." Where good fruits are habitually visible, 
 it is always fair to infer, " the good and honest 
 heart." Let us be thankful that God has told 
 us, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 
 And let us make it the great concern of our life, 
 that we have the Spirit of God witnessing with our 
 spirits, that we are his redeemed children. Let me 
 see and know this, and I shall be prepared to say, 
 " Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in 
 peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."
 
 40 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 Old age, I find, is loquacious. The dear children, 
 then, and grandchildren, will bear with him who 
 now addresses them, while he adds another para- 
 graph. 
 
 While the world is opening around you, and other 
 things innumerable invite your attention, it gives 
 your aged father great pleasure to know, as he does, 
 that he is not forgotten. 
 
 Come and see us, as often as you can, all of you. 
 
 "The lines havp fallen to us in pleasant places," 
 and, in the good Providence of our God, " we have 
 a goodly heritage." Its inhabitants pass away, but 
 " the earth abideth." I hope that part of it which 
 was the inheritance of your ancestors will remain 
 in the hands of their descendants, for a great 
 while yet to come. So long as I am here, you will 
 find it one of your homes. As we occasionally meet 
 and ramble over its grounds, objects innumerable 
 present themselves, associated with pleasurable and 
 profitable reminiscences. Here may be seen graves 
 of the aborigines, with the implements of their til- 
 lage, their pestles, their arrow-heads, their stone 
 flesh-pots, and other domestic utensils. Their war- 
 whoop, I hope, will no more be heard, but, instead, 
 the voices of industry and thrift, of civilization and 
 refinement, and with them, "Glory to God in the 
 highest, on the earth peace and good-will to men ! " 
 
 The fish-pools in Heshbon, by the gates of Beth- 
 rabbim, are not here, nor the waters of Bethesda and 
 Siloam ; but we can show you our meadows with 
 their elms, threaded, for hundreds of miles, by their
 
 SERMON SECOND. 41 
 
 Connecticut, with its lovely banks and currents. The 
 stately mountains of Palestine, Lebanon and Amana, 
 Shenir and Hermon, are not here ; but peering 
 around the horizon may be seen, in the distance, 
 Hoosack, Greylock, and, nearer home, Mount Tom, 
 Holyoke, Sugar-loaf, and Mount Warner, with all 
 their goodly prospects, groves, and fields, and vil- 
 lages, with their churches, school-houses, and work- 
 shops, and railroads, and flocks and herds. 
 
 In doors, and around the old mansion, as you look 
 over its grounds and apartments, you observe heir- 
 looms in profusion of former times and former occu- 
 pants, both " pleasant and mournful to the soul." 
 
 Since my residence here, one generation has passed 
 away. Another stands tottering on the brink of the 
 grave, " the gleaning of the grapes, four or five, on 
 the outmost branches thereof." Four of your num- 
 ber, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, several 
 in infancy and childhood, have gone on before you, 
 showing us that youth, loveliness, and beauty plead 
 in vain for exemption from the sentence, " Dust thou 
 art, and to dust shalt thou return." 
 
 One those who have known never will forget. One, 
 who had been accustomed to meet you with smiles 
 and pleasant greetings, is no more visible. As you 
 go from one apartment to another, you do not find 
 her. Go with me, then, to our bedside. There is a 
 striking resemblance of what she was in the loveli- 
 ness of youth ; an affecting memorial of her, who 
 was the joy and delight of my life, to advanced age ; 
 the first object that strikes my eyes, as I awake in 
 
 6
 
 42 SERMON SECOND. 
 
 the morning, and the last, as I close them again in 
 sleep ; the image of her who received some of you 
 from the hand of our Heavenly Father to her bosom ; 
 carried you in infancy to the baptismal font ; in 
 childhood, bore you daily, in the arms of faith and 
 prayer, to the throne of grace ; and who led you 
 habitually, in youth, " into the green pastures," and 
 " beside the still waters " ; who nursed, and fed, and 
 clothed you in tenderness and love, when you were 
 unable to provide for yourselves, and has now gone 
 before, to welcome those who are prepared for a hap- 
 py reunion, in a better world. 
 
 " O that each, in the day 
 Of Christ's coming, may say, 
 ' I have fought my way through, 
 I have finished the work 
 Thou didst give me to do !' " 
 
 " O that each from the Lord 
 May receive the glad word, 
 1 Well and faithfully done ! 
 Enter into my joy, 
 And sit down on my throne ! ' '
 
 NOTES TO SERMONS.
 
 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 I. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 MY DEAR CHILDREN: 
 
 I was apprised, at the outset, that what I was about to say 
 must unavoidably run into Autobiography, and gave notice of it 
 accordingly. I am aware that, here and always, all boasting is 
 to be excluded. Some success in contending with our spiritual 
 enemies, if only in a few instances, and by slow degrees, gives ad- 
 ditional courage for resisting repeated assaults, as well as strength 
 for renewed efforts, on our part, to meet fresh encounters. On the 
 whole, in balancing the account, I venture to believe, that our 
 destiny, as moral agents, is hi good hands. I have something to 
 say, in addition to what I have already said, of myself in early 
 life. I had then religious impressions. I am not sure they were 
 of the right kind. I recollect more of fear, than I do of love. As 
 far back as I can remember, my mother used to take me away, 
 alone, and deal very faithfully with me, as a perverse and head- 
 strong child, telling me, with yearning tenderness, that she knew 
 nothing of what would become of me. She very early in life, at 
 the age of sixteen as I have been often told, went through a regu- 
 lar conversion, of the kind that have been common in later re- 
 vivals; joined the church in the town where we lived; and all 
 her life gave satisfactory evidence of being "born again." She 
 was indeed a happy and joyful Christian. I knew it; and sup- 
 posed that, if I had not evidence of a similar experience, a world 
 of woe must be my awful portion. When tempted to what I knew 
 was not right, it troubled me exceedingly ; but I still flattered my- 
 self, that I should somehow escape what I so much dreaded. One
 
 46 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 expedient was, I determined I never would die. Come what would, 
 I had made up my mind to draw one more breath, and so live on, 
 let it come ever so hard to breathe, till I could get into the habit 
 of breathing again freely as ever, thus hoping for a space of re- 
 pentance. I did not tell my mother of my plan ; she, of course, 
 did not withhold necessary discipline, as there was occasion for it. 
 The event was, that, with all my naughtiness, I continued to have 
 religious impressions, and some success in baffling the tempter. 
 
 After the death of Doctor Williams, the pulpit was supplied by 
 different preachers. Mr. Ely, who boarded at my father's, became 
 a candidate for settlement. 
 
 The first that I remember of a revival was about this time. A 
 number of young people came weekly to Mr. Ely's chamber, for 
 a conference meeting, which with us was entirely a new thing. In 
 an adjoining room through the door, I could hear all that was said 
 and done; where, hour after hour, I sat and listened with un- 
 speakable distress, sometimes rolling on the floor in a profusion 
 of tears. The trouble was not from any particular truth or senti- 
 ment spoken, but that they, the company of young ladies, associates 
 of my sisters, were there, invited guests, in the other chamber, to 
 be prepared to go to heaven, but the door was shut upon me, a 
 poor forgotten boy and a vile sinner, and that could never be 
 admitted as one of the chosen few. They were the elect, that I 
 had learned about in the catechism ; I was not one. I was afraid 
 that what my mother had told me might prove true at last, and 
 that a hopeless hell must be my eternal portion. 
 
 I had, all along, been flattering myself that I should be a minis- 
 ter, and knew I might be good ; and sometimes I knew I endeav- 
 ored to be so. Good old Master Tisdale who taught me my 
 A, B, C, and onward, far beyond ; who was the oracle of the day, 
 in all good learning, in the region round about ; and who could Jit 
 boys for college ; and who could teach navigation, and the art of 
 surveying used to tell me, that I must study my book, be a good 
 boy, and learn to be a minister. 
 
 An adventure happened, at the time of my first starting to go to 
 school, which I shall always remember. The time had come, and 
 to school I must go. My sisters, Rhoda and Eunice, promised to 
 take good care of me, and felt much pleased with their charge. It 
 was thought proper to have my first day's task an easy one, and 
 therefore to defer the debut till afternoon. The walk was about
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 47 
 
 a mile. Giving one hand to each sister, I had a pleasant time of 
 it, till within a few rods of the school-house. It was the time 
 of " Nooning." The noise of fifty boys, inside and out, racing and 
 roaring at the top of their voices, was something to me altogether 
 novel. I do not know that the noise of a thousand buffaloes, let 
 loose among the Rocky Mountains, would have been more fright- 
 ful. It was no school for me. With the twitch of both hands 
 simultaneously from my conductors, I made for home, without 
 hesitation; and, having no fear of truancy before my eyes, with 
 all possible expedition. Remonstrance and palaver were all in 
 vain. 
 
 Here the matter of going to school rested, how long it is no mat- 
 ter. After a while, however, I found myself pleasantly ensconced 
 with the good old Master Tisdale, in the " brick school-house," 
 where I fitted for college upon very good terms. After prayers, 
 heai-ing the Bible class, and seating the older scholars, for writing 
 and ciphering, the younger ones came under the more immediate 
 notice of the master. After hearing them read and spell their les- 
 son, he would occasionally indulge himself in a little chat with the 
 children, in their A, B, C. When through reading, he took me, 
 and in " great A, little a, -ron, Aaron," in my turn, betwixt his 
 knees, saying, " Dan, what do you intend to be, a minister, or a 
 plough-jogger ? " Without hesitating at all, I replied, " A minister, 
 sir." He burst out into a broad laugh. " Well," said he, rubbing 
 my head with his hand, and patting my shoulder, " sit down, Dan ; 
 study your lesson ; be a good boy, and we will see about your being 
 a minister." 
 
 I never lost sight of what seemed so much to please both the old 
 gentleman and his pupils ; and sometimes, on the Sabbath, when 
 left at home with the colored woman, Tamar, without waiting for a 
 more regular license to preach, I placed her, for an audience, on 
 the lower broad stair, taking the broad stair above for the pulpit. 
 What the doctrine was, or what the impression made on the con- 
 gregation, at the time, I am not able to say ; I am sure it was all 
 well meant. Tamar was a very grave woman, and treated the ser- 
 vices, at the time, very seriously, and frequently, afterwards, re- 
 minded me of them as very edifying. I presume it was all in good 
 harmony with confabulations with Master Tisdale and others on the 
 subject. At any rate, so far as I can recollect, it was in early life 
 my intention to make preaching my profession ; and this impression
 
 48 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 was an incentive, among others, to a proper preparation for it. 
 "What the preparation amounted to, in my own case, I pretend not 
 to say. I speak of its natural tendency. I am sure, children have 
 religious tendencies, and prepossessions, a natural bent, that ought 
 to be cultivated. I have always been pleased to find them in my 
 own heart, and to observe them in others. I have always thought 
 much of religious order in families, and the greater the strictness 
 and earnestness, the better. 
 
 My only brother, William, ten or twelve years older than myself, 
 married, about the time I am speaking of. In his life, he was a 
 very correct young man, but had not, at that time, made a profes- 
 sion, as it is called. I was afraid he would not observe family 
 prayers. My apprehensions on the subject amounted to anxiety. 
 It afforded me unspeakable relief, when I found he had not com- 
 menced housekeeping in the neglect of that duty. The relief of 
 the puerile mind was, that, if I had not begun the religious life 
 myself, it was still in the family, and that I should not be finally 
 overlooked. The old Calvinistic doctrine of Particular Election 
 had its salvos, and we lived on, in hope. 
 
 In the mean time, Mr. Ely became our settled minister in 
 Lebanon. He was laboriously faithful for the advancement of his 
 flock in the divine life. Former prejudices subsided. The con- 
 servatism of the day yielded to a commendable liberality, and 
 well-tempered zeal, showing itself in those meetings for religious 
 improvement during the week, called conferences, as well as in 
 greater freedom on the subject of religious experience. 
 
 From the day of the great Reformers, the Tennents, and the 
 Davenports, of Edwards, and Bellamy, and Whitfield, there had 
 been fears, if not prejudices, among our best people, against Separ- 
 ates, New-Lights, and the like, which had a reaction unfavorable 
 to true earnestness on the subject. This was done away in a short 
 time, under the ministry of such men as Mr. Ely. Instead of vain, 
 idle meetings of young people, it became common for them to meet, 
 in the evening, for reading, conversing, and singing ; inviting Un- 
 cle Oliver, or some such patriarch, in the absence of the minister, 
 to introduce the meeting with prayer. Peculiar intimacy of friend- 
 ship and confidence, with unusual anxiety, seemed to justify still 
 more private meetings for devotion. 
 
 "When I speak of former lukewarmness in our religious concerns, 
 in Lebanon, I would by no means intimate that before this there
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 49 
 
 was anything like a general laxity. It was eminently the reverse. 
 We suffered much, in this respect, as the whole country did, by the 
 ten years' war of the Revolution, military encampments, &c. All 
 the looseness of such a state of things notwithstanding, the relig- 
 ious society and there was but one in what was called the cen- 
 tral district flourished. The meeting-house, the largest I ever 
 saw, was filled to overflowing : the broad aisle, to the pulpit, being 
 filled with benches for the children. 
 
 They had made trial of the revival system, and it had left them 
 unharmed. The object of the travelling preachers was to do good 
 undoubtedly, but their measures had sometimes tended to the divis- 
 ion of peaceable societies. The doctors of the day were afraid of 
 them. Some of the more respectable of Doctor Williams's congre- 
 gation wished to have Mr. Whitfield himself invited. Doctor Wil- 
 liams, supported by Governor Trumbull, two who, like Moses 
 and Aaron, were together in all good enterprises, with a major- 
 ity of the church, were slow to believe that the labors of Whitfield 
 were on the whole desirable. At length, however, objections were 
 overruled, and, to make sure of an audience, Mr. Whitfield came 
 on, at the time appointed, accompanied by a goodly number of un- 
 tiring devotees, a Whitfieldian cavalcade. The morning services 
 were duly attended. The ministers, retiring at noon for refresh- 
 ment, left the congregation under the moderatorship of Deacon 
 Huntington, my grandfather, who remained for a religious exercise 
 among themselves. They very soon became noisy, frantic, head- 
 strong, and unmanageable. The Deacon hastened, as soon as pos- 
 sible, to resign his charge as moderator, reporting them to Mr. 
 Whitfield as worse than any mob he had ever seen or heard of ; 
 begging Mr. Whitfield to hasten back, and take care of them him- 
 self, as soon as possible. This I believe may serve as a specimen 
 of the revivals of the day. There were many signal conversions 
 apparently, the effect of powerful addresses to the passions, and 
 accompanied with a good deal of downright fanaticism, extrava- 
 gance, and censoriousness, not remarkably favorable to a state of 
 society such as, through grace, we hope to find in the better Land. 
 More like this is the specimen we sometimes have had of revivals 
 since the time of Whitfield and his fellow-laborers. 
 
 What I have known of revivals, as I have been personally ac- 
 quainted with them hi my native town and elsewhere, is decidedly 
 favorable. I am thankful, I trust, for what we have seen and
 
 50 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 known of them, as seasons of " refreshing from the presence of 
 the Lord." I am and ever have been the friend of well-conducted 
 revivals. I hope my dear children and grandchildren may know 
 experimentally, if necessary, the hopes and comforts thence de- 
 rived. 
 
 Where I first settled in the ministry, Litchfield, Connecticut, re- 
 ligion, in its power and purity, had been greatly neglected for many 
 years. There was unusual attention in neighboring towns; at 
 length we became partakers of it. It pervaded all classes, and 
 there was great joy and gladness amongst us. It lasted more than 
 two years. In the several denominations of Christians, about three 
 hundred publicly professed themselves subjects of the Gospel hope, 
 among whom I never knew an instance of apostasy or backsliding. 
 In saying this, I must explain myself. 
 
 More that was visibly valuable, at the time, may be fairly at- 
 tributed to the previous discipline of families and schools, and to 
 the training of Sabbatical institutions, and the good examples, and 
 other means, around them, than to anything new they saw, or heard, 
 or felt, in the time of the revival. "Where God and his Son are 
 known and adored, and loved, and served, in common life, and out 
 of sight of the world, is not this pure religion? Thousands en- 
 joy religion, who do not see their way clear to make a profession. 
 Keligion as it encounters a censorious world is of a retiring charac- 
 ter. The sensitive mind dreads peculiar notice. It is afraid also 
 of self-deception. It trembles at the thought of entertaining a false 
 hope. It shrinks from the charge of saying, " Lord, Lord," while 
 living in disobedience or indifference. It is reluctant to encounter 
 the sneers of the scoffer. It cannot subscribe to the forms of secta- 
 rians and errorists. And where there is no immediate excitement, 
 it is difficult to see one's way clear, in taking a step that attracts 
 notice. 
 
 Now, seasons of special attention remove such objections. Re- 
 ligion becomes fashionable, so to speak. A great deal to be said, 
 and done, becomes the order of the day, rather than too much re- 
 serve. The danger now is, of knowing and doing too much. It 
 is generally known, and proclaimed from the house-top, who are 
 converted, with every shade of difference, from those just begin- 
 ning to be awakened to those who are sanctified and confirmed 
 beyond the possibility of falling from grace. In modern revivals, 
 saints and sinners have in some places particular seats assigned
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 51 
 
 them at public meetings, and these are addressed, both in prayer 
 and exhortation, according to the different degrees of anxiety or 
 peace with which they may be visited, and sometimes in prayer 
 are called by name. 
 
 It is announced, also, when God is " on his way " to a particular 
 place, to " revive his work " ; when he has arrived ; and how long 
 he will stay ; what will provoke him to leave ; and the probability, 
 if he leave, that he will not soon return, if ever ; all antagonistic 
 to the great idea of the omnipresence of our Heavenly Father, 
 and his readiness to be found of them that call upon him. 
 
 For all these and the like extravagances there is a remedy ; 
 and our ministers and' their churches are becoming more and 
 more sensible of it. Hence the importance of light and grace 
 and truth by Jesus Christ. Under their influence it is, that we are 
 hoping for a more general and thorough reformation, under a truly 
 Evangelical theology. United in the faith and fellowship of the 
 Gospel, might we not hope to become familiar with revivals more 
 unalloyed by pride and party, and more enduring? Too often 
 have our revivals been but of short continuance. To wear well, 
 they need thorough examination. To be perfect, they must be 
 pure and perpetual. To this end our prayer must be, " Lord, re- 
 vive thy work." " Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth 
 as it is done in heaven." Having this kingdom in our hearts and 
 homes, we have a delightful prelibation of what we hope to know 
 more of, hereafter, under the reign of " peace on earth, and good- 
 will to men." 
 
 It is at the same time to be remembered, that pure religion does 
 not depend upon revivals. There are several things that are de- 
 cidedly and flagrantly exceptionable, both in their instrumentalities 
 and in their results. The Divine and the human are both visible 
 in them, as in other important events : and to judge of them aright, 
 it is essential to discriminate. They have their mission. It is not 
 too much to say the hand of God is in them, and that there is some- 
 thing to be learned by them. 
 
 Revivals and awakenings are sent; so are the anomalies and 
 irregularities that follow in their train. Great revivals, and those 
 that have given to me the best evidences of genuineness, are those 
 that have followed seasons of the greatest indifference and stupidity, 
 from which it seemed, at the time, that nothing could arouse the 
 people but the mighty power of God, in a revival. It was emi-
 
 52 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 nently so in Litchfield, Conn., the place already mentioned, where 
 I was first a minister. This town was originally among the num- 
 ber of those decidedly opposed to the movements of former re- 
 vivalists ; and went so far, in a regular church meeting called 
 expressly for the purpose under the ministry of the venerable 
 Mr. Rollins, as to let them know, by a unanimous vote, that they 
 did not wish to see them. The effect was, they did not come. 
 The report circulated, that Litchfield had " voted Christ out of their 
 borders." It was noticed by some of the older people, that the 
 death of the last person then a member of the Church was a short 
 time before the commencement of our revival. It was well remem- 
 bered, and spoken of as somewhat remarkable, and not without its 
 effect. An account of this may be found in the Connecticut Relig- 
 ious Magazine of about 1813. Excepting in a few families, there 
 was but little visible of the power of religion ; and practical piety 
 was at a low ebb. For two or three years after my settlement, 
 but few additions were made to the Church ; and very rarely were 
 revivals spoken of as desirable. In neighboring towns, they were 
 common ; and respectable missionaries visited us, for whom it was 
 not judged proper to appoint lectures. All this indifference not- 
 withstanding, it was still, in social circles, the subject of prayer. 
 And in answer to prayer, apparently, at length the blessing came. 
 It was the still, small voice, and but little was said about it for a 
 time. The first visible manifestation any way general was in the 
 house of God, on Sabbath morning. The chapter read at the com- 
 mencement of the service was expressive of the long-suffering 
 tenderness of our Heavenly Father toward his ungrateful and back- 
 sliding children, as in the eleventh chapter of Hosea : " How shall 
 I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I make thee as Admah? 
 How shall I set thee as Zeboim ? My heart is turned within me, 
 my repentings are kindled together." The hymn followed, in the 
 same strain of tender remonstrance. It was a barbed arrow, deeply 
 felt A large choir of young people rose to sing. The aching 
 heart, the trembling lip, and the bedimmed eye forbade them 
 to proceed. Two or three made a faint attempt to sing, but in a 
 few moments every mouth was shut, and, one after another, all 
 were soon in their seats. The silence of death seemed to pervade 
 the assembly. In the language of the passage just read, their re- 
 pentings were kindled together, subsiding, at length, at different 
 seasons, into that peace and joy with which the stranger inter-
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 53 
 
 meddleth not : a visitation of Divine Providence in which the differ- 
 ent denominations were sharers, felt doubtless, in that community, 
 with fervent gratitude to the present hour, and which probably 
 never will be forgotten. 
 
 I have said enough, my dear children, to give you my ideas of 
 revivals. 
 
 I return to the narrative of my own personal history. I never 
 was personally, that I know, the subject of a revival experience. 
 
 From the time I was speaking of, I continued at home, work- 
 ing on the farm, and at school, intermediately, till I became a 
 member of Yale College; habitually serious-minded, though not 
 a professor, and having constantly in view, as the pole-star of 
 professional life, the Gospel ministry. 
 
 The College at that time was at its lowest ebb, as to good litera- 
 ture, morals, and religion. The excellent President was in his 
 dotage. The venerable Professor Wales was disabled by disease. 
 Good order and discipline were, of course, prostrate. Those in 
 highest repute for talent and scholarship were generally tainted 
 with a shallow, flippant Tom Paine infidelity. Almost imper- 
 ceptibly, I found myself early tinctured with scepticism. A 
 young friend, a relative in a class above me, not a model, however, 
 of Christian excellence himself, perceiving my danger, kindly took 
 me aside, asked me what I was doing, and what I supposed my 
 father would say, and how he would feel, if he knew that I was 
 becoming a deist. Though it came from a person not professing 
 religion or seriousness, it was from a cousin, and a word in season. 
 This, I believe, is the first and the last of my doubting as to the 
 authenticity and credibility of the sacred volume. There was a 
 meeting of a few young men, of the upper classes, in College, on 
 Saturday evenings, for prayer and conference, which President 
 Stiles used to speak of as the gold-dust of College, to which I 
 attached myself, in which I found a sustaining and healthful 
 influence. 
 
 I think of nothing worthy of any particular notice, during my 
 College life, excepting a wish to sustain a good standing for scholar- 
 ship and character. It was uppermost in my mind, to obtain suita- 
 ble evidence of the good hope of the Gospel, which I did, so far as 
 to partake, on a credible profession, in the communion of the Lord's 
 Supper, for the first time, in Suffield, where I was teaching a school, 
 just about the time of graduating. Our class dined together, at the
 
 54 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 examination for a degree, where I was called upon to lead in the 
 religious exercises at the table : the first time I ever opened my 
 mouth, publicly, in a religious service. At the Commencement, I 
 accepted an invitation to a tutorship in Williams College, (then 
 quite in its infancy,) for two years, where I boarded with President 
 Fitch, and under his tuition had a favorable opportunity for occa- 
 sional discussion of topics that had a bearing upon my intended 
 profession. 
 
 Toward the close of this engagement, I was invited to a similar 
 station in Yale, under the Presidency of Doctor Dwight. During 
 the summer, before leaving Williamstown, Mr. Swift, the minister, 
 invited me to attend Association, with him, then about to sit, at 
 Tyringham, saying to me, " If you have a sermon, put it in your 
 pocket ; perhaps we may do something for you that you will not 
 be sorry for." I wanted the exercise, and accepted the invitation. 
 I found myself, on arrival, in company with two young gentlemen 
 before the Association, where, after reading each his sermon, and 
 answering a few theological questions, we were all presented with 
 a license, as candidates for the ministry. There was, at that time, 
 very little ceremony in admitting a young man to preach. "Wher- 
 ever the examination sermon went, after this, it had for a time to 
 go alone ; as it did on a Sabbath following, into the desk of Rev. 
 Doctor Swift, of Bennington ; and afterwards, into the desks of 
 several other reverend gentlemen in Berkshire County. 
 
 After going to New Haven, what time I had to spare I contin- 
 ued, under the instruction of Doctor Dwight, to devote to my pro- 
 fession, occasionally writing a sermon or a dissertation. As the 
 door was open, I preached, as a supply, to vacant parishes, in New 
 Haven and neighboring towns. During the first vacation, I spent 
 three weeks in Litchfield ; their minister, Mr. Champion, from the 
 infirmities of age, having suspended his labors. 
 
 After two or three supplies of the same kind, it appeared to be 
 the wish of the people to have me for their minister ; for which, 
 in God's Providence, the way was prepared, after a pleasant ac- 
 quaintance of about two years, I preaching there at times, during 
 vacations. In accepting their call to settle, my own plans were 
 entirely frustrated. Man appoints, God disappoints. The current, 
 about this time, was toward the settlement of the Connecticut Re- 
 serve lands, alias " New Connecticut," alias Ohio ; then a border 
 territory, whither a vast population, from New England, were press-
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 55 
 
 ing onward, and where there are now more than one million of in- 
 habitants. My plan was to go among the crowd ; to plant myself 
 on an elevation, or a gentle declivity well wooded and well watered, 
 there to ensconce myself in a humble home, where improvements 
 could be made, as they were necessary ; where I could read or 
 write, labor in heart, or by hand ; study and preach, as the door 
 might be open ; stationary or missionary there to grow up, and 
 grow old, with the country around, as life might be protracted, and 
 health continued ; or otherwise, at the disposal of Divine Provi- 
 dence. It has been wisely ordered otherwise. 
 
 After the close of my engagement at Yale in September, 1798, 1 
 was ordained, in October, to the work of the ministry in Litchfield. 
 A delightful village, on a fruitful hill, richly endowed with its 
 schools, both professional and scientific, and their accomplished 
 teachers ; with its venerable governors and judges ; with its learned 
 lawyers, and senators, and representatives, both in the national and 
 State departments ; and with a population enlightened and respecta- 
 ble, Litchfield was now in its glory. I came among them without 
 patrimony ; but with their assistance, in a handsome settlement, as 
 it was called, of a thousand dollars, and four hundred salary, I soon 
 found myself in a way to be comfortably at home among them, 
 with a neat domicile of my own. A cage it was, without a bird ; 
 and too frequently was it suggested, by my good parishioners, to be 
 disregarded. There was more to be known, all along, than was 
 told ; I was always the friend of matrimony. The new relation I 
 had now assumed naturally reminded me of another, none the less 
 inviting. 1 Timothy iii. 2. 
 
 Through the friendship of Doctor Dwight, an honor I am always 
 proud to acknowledge, I had the happiness of becoming acquainted 
 with the family which has thus far proved the source and means of 
 my earthly felicity. The romance of the attending circumstances 
 
 including the planting of the bird in its cage, a long journey over 
 frozen ground, through snow-banks, and amid the storms of winter 
 
 will hardly be expected, I think, from an octogenary, writing 
 rather sportively to his children, on a serious subject ; for a serious 
 subject it is after all. On this, as on all other subjects, all is well 
 that ends well. If you would know more about it, my dear chil- 
 dren, try it for yourselves when the time comes. What say you to 
 a courtship of a year or two, without an engagement ? the heart, 
 without the hand ? the apparent affection, but not the promise?
 
 56 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 anterior to the marriage vow ? I could furnish you an example of 
 all this, and it is natural to say, all boasting excluded, as usual, 
 that in this case it turned out well. If mutual, why is it not 
 fair ? Is it any incentive to caprice ? If not, why is it not, on the 
 whole, the safer way ? 
 
 The day of the marriage, here referred to, is the first day of the 
 first week of the first month of the nineteenth century, January 1, 
 A. D. 1801. 
 
 Here I am, then, planted down in social life with a fair prospect 
 for usefulness, in a companionship every way conducive to domes- 
 tic comfort and every earthly enjoyment. Happy, could it have 
 been longer continued. It was ordered otherwise. My dependence 
 for support was the settlement above mentioned, and four hundred 
 dollars salary. The offer was made, before my leaving Xew Ha- 
 ven. My friends there told me I never could live upon it I told 
 them, their promises at Litchfield were fair, in case of insufficiency. 
 Doctor Dwight, I remember, told me a story, as he often did, of a 
 Northampton man, I believe it was a Mr. Lyman. The man had 
 a son much in the same predicament as I was. His father asked 
 him, if he could live upon the salary offered him. He replied, 
 " Father, the people are very able, and very generous ; it is a 
 county town ; thirty or forty professional characters ; schools of 
 every grade ; great geniuses among them ; and they have been in 
 the habit of making liberal presents to their former minister, and 
 doubtless will continue them." His father's reply was, " Bind 'em, 
 John." " They will supply me with firewood, father, as they have 
 always been in the habit of doing for their minister, of course." 
 " Bind 'em, John." " But father, they have to pay their former 
 minister, now worn out with age and faithful services, his whole 
 salary, which was only 100 ($ 333.331), f rom w hich they expect 
 soon to be released, and which, they say, can just as well be added 
 to mine as not if I survive." The reply still was, " Bind 'em, John." 
 How it came out with John, I cannot say. My own case, very sim- 
 ilar, I shall not soon forget ; and it will be well for us all not to 
 forget the old proverb, " A bird in the hand is worth two in the 
 bush " ; and another we all remember, " They that wait for dead 
 men's shoes may go barefoot." 
 
 For years, the support of my family was eked out, by bountiful 
 contributions from abroad, as well as at home, particularly from
 
 AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 57 
 
 Forty Acres.* My wife had parents, blessed be the memory of 
 their generous souls ! who from their abundance would not suffer 
 their daughter for a day to live in want of comforts appropriate to 
 her station, and which they were able to afford her. As the wants 
 of an increasing family required, wagon-loads and sleigh-loads of 
 things necessary to the body were sent us gratuitously, from year 
 to year, above seventy miles. To say nothing of my own feelings, 
 my people seemed too well pleased with it to suit my notion. I 
 have ever felt bound to support my family honorably, and nobody 
 that I ever heard of ever accused us of any extravagance. If they 
 had ever offered me more salary, I should probably have accepted 
 it ; but I did not think proper to ask for it, because I never knew 
 additions thus made to a salary that had a desirable effect. There 
 was apt to be a meddling with motives, accompanied with hard 
 speeches, always ungracious. And when I say this, I would add, 
 that at the time of my dismission I had no prospect for the future, 
 either as to parish, position, or salary, whatever. The proposi- 
 tion for a dismissal was submitted to a mutual council, who reported 
 unanimously in favor of it, upon the condition that, estimating a 
 ministerial life at fourteen or fifteen years, a proportional part of 
 the settlement should be refunded, which was done. 
 
 I am thus particular on this point, because, at a late general 
 meeting of the Consociation at Litchfield, it was observed by one 
 of the speakers, that it was not generally understood what the rea- 
 sons were for my asking for a dismission. It is quite as unaccount- 
 able to me that any brother so near my professional standing 
 should not know those reasons ; though I have not the least suspi- 
 cion of any lack of integrity, or friendship, in him who made the 
 observation. If any are still inclined to doubt, they may find relief 
 in knowing that the parish in Litchfield very soon found the means 
 of giving my immediate successor just double what they gave me 
 as salary ; and that, within eight years, I was obliged to be dis- 
 missed again, from one of the best parishes in Connecticut, because I 
 knew from my journal that my salary of $ 800 then came short of 
 my support, in city life, by a considerable amount. In neither of 
 these cases have I ever had any idea of relinquishing my profes- 
 sion, pay or no pay. I have never refused to preach, as the door 
 was open, and to my dying day I never shall. If I were to live 
 
 * A particular spot in Old Hadley, where I found ray wife.
 
 58 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 my life over again, the work of the Gospel ministry would be that 
 which I should prefer ; not hesitating, at the same time, to proclaim 
 that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. If 
 we have the taste, and the talent, and the inclination, and the edu- 
 cation, and the vocation, to preach, we are entitled to a livelihood 
 from it ; and if not, we may know that preaching is not limited to 
 the sounding-board of a chapel, nor any particular location. "The 
 field is the world." And it is well if we feel that " from the abun- 
 dance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and may speak. In the 
 workshop, on the farm, at the depot, in the academic hall, and 
 especially in the family, is there an inviting field of action for us all, 
 laboring diligently in what the hand findeth to do for the happiness 
 of those around us, " knowing that our labor, in the Lord, shall not 
 be in vain." 
 
 The journey of my life has not been crowded with incidents for 
 your entertainment. Though rather protracted as to its continu- 
 ance, yet as to the distance of its travels it has been limited. The 
 voyage has been rather confined to the quiet shores of the Pacific. 
 Where I have found, here and there, a shoal or a snag, I have 
 planted my buoys, that those who came after might be apprised of 
 the danger. Where I have found a commodious harbor, I have 
 sometimes cast anchor. In the delightful harbor of Litchfield we 
 often had high political winds, but generally so managed as to 
 weather the gale. We had here, on shipboard, a high-toned crew, 
 but they were friends who might be relied on in an emergency. 
 One adventure occurred which I must not omit to relate. 
 
 While there, I became involved in a lawsuit. Party spirit, in 
 politics, was rampant. It was at a time when political gales, Fed- 
 eral and Democrat, were at their height. Though a decided Fed- 
 eralist in politics, I was not apprised of being a zealous partisan. 
 But somehow I said something at the post-oifice. What, I could 
 not now tell, for my life. It was denominated " a lie." It was first 
 observed in The Mercury, the mouth-piece of the Democratic party, 
 printed at Hartford ; and was going, as on the wings of the wind, 
 to the ends of the earth, much to the annoyance of my good friends, 
 the Federalists, and my parishioners. It must be known if the 
 minister of Town Hill was a liar. How ? The editor of the Mer- 
 cury must be prosecuted forthwith. Messrs. David Daggett of 
 New Haven, John Allen and James Gould of Litchfield, as my at- 
 torneys, undertook the business in good earnest. They managed it
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 59 
 
 well. In due time, a verdict of the jury in the Superior Court was 
 obtained, in my favor, with the award of $ 1,000 damages, which 
 was paid. I will dismiss the subject, with an anecdote. One of the 
 attorneys for the defendant was rather a noisy brother, and thought 
 proper to say, in a way of vindication, before the court, that " He 
 did not believe, as some did, that the clergy were a privileged or- 
 der, and that so, when guilty of a crime, they might go unwhipped 
 of justice ; no, far to the contrary. We read of one of the order, 
 in the Bible, so abandoned that the mouth of the dumb ass was 
 opened for his reproof." " Yes, may it please your Honors," said 
 Mr. Daggett, in his turn, after repeating what was said by his 
 brother Smith, " the mouth of the dumb ass was opened, and it 
 was not the last of the species whose mouth had been opened to abuse 
 the clergy." 
 
 Such was the metal of the times. The charge of the plaintiff 
 was a base slander. The award was no more than a suitable 
 amercement. If it is thought otherwise, and can be shown to be 
 unjust, I hope my heirs may not withhold it when suitably called 
 for. 
 
 Within a year from leaving Litchfield, I was settled in Middle- 
 town, Doctor J. Lyman of Hatfield, Massachusetts, preaching the 
 Installation Sermon. 
 
 To make sure of an honorable living, I opened my house for a 
 boarding-school. It was liberally patronized. My people made no 
 complaint. Still I was not satisfied that this part of my employ- 
 ment was altogether compatible with the duties of my profession. 
 And after trying awhile, without any particular misfortune, I found 
 my income did not meet the expenses of an increasing establish- 
 ment, in the style of a city life. I was discouraged, and withal not 
 in good health, from confinement. I asked, again, for an honorable 
 dismission, which I obtained without difficulty. 
 
 I found a pleasant retreat on the patrimony of my wife, where I 
 now live, a tenant by courtesy, with all that heart may wish. We 
 came to Hadley to reside in 1816. Our mother, Mrs. Phelps, who 
 had been a widow about two years, survived her husband, from this 
 time, about as long. 
 
 There was now a school in Hadley of the higher order, erected 
 on what was called the " Hopkins Fund," consigned originally to 
 the guardianship of a few gentlemen, who were to fill their own 
 vacancies ; and to these funds the town had made a handsome do-
 
 60 SOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 nation, in land, in the north part of Hadley, called School Meadow. 
 Soon after my removal, they erected, upon a lot in the Front Street 
 near the meeting-house, a large three-story brick building, and with 
 the help of half a township of Maine land, presented by the Legis- 
 lature of the State, were organized in due form Trustees of the Hop- 
 Idas Academy. Of this Academy I had the immediate superintend- 
 ence several years. It has been, for the most part, a flourishing 
 institution ; and lately, in concert with the town, the experiment has 
 been on trial of a High, and partially a Free School ; and has been 
 thought favorably of. 
 
 As to the general course of my religious life, it has been essen- 
 tially the same as formerly, excepting that for the last forty years 
 my ministerial services have been those of the evangelist, rather 
 than those of the stated pastor. My training, in early life, was 
 strictly Calvinistic. Where I began my professional studies, and 
 where I was licensed to preach, Hopkins's " Body of Divinity " 
 was the text-book, and generally subscribed to in the county and 
 community. Speculatively, I was thoroughly Hopkinsian. My 
 feelings, so far as I recollect, were, in the best sense, catholic. I 
 could believe my neighbor was a good man, though we might differ 
 in our opinions on important subjects. I had a trial of this at an 
 early period. I had a brother Tutor, at Williamstown, afterwards 
 the minister of Peterborough, New Hampshire, both of us intending 
 to preach, though of different schools. Frequent good-natured dis- 
 cussions brought us no nearer together. To convince me that he 
 was right, he had recourse to a miracle of his own working. He 
 had found out, by his studies, that vinegar was so much of a corro- 
 sive to an egg-shell as to take off the enamel. "Writing a word on 
 the shell with melted tallow, after putting the egg in vinegar, the 
 letters are left entire and prominent, with a beautiful enamel, the 
 other parts of the shell becoming rough and discolored. He wrote 
 upon the egg the sentence, " "Woe to Hopkinsians ! " and put the 
 smaller end of the egg in the socket of the candlestick upon my ta- 
 ble. There it was in the morning, in bold relief, and very legible. 
 My Freshman did not fail to notice it ; and by the time the morning 
 recitation was through, my chamber was full of curious speculators 
 in theology, with their amusing observations. As they were leav- 
 ing the room, one bawled out, in the presence of my brother Tutor, 
 " It was a darned old Arminian hen, I know, that laid that egg " ; 
 and so left the operator to determine who had the best of the joke.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 61 
 
 The anecdote shows that the controversy of our school was not a 
 very bitter one. 
 
 The first sermon I ever wrote, though the offspring of Berkshire 
 County, and written by a disciple of Hopkins, was, I am inclined 
 to think, rather of a liberal character. The doctrine of that sermon 
 was what every man ought to feel and live upon, scil., that our 
 character, in the sight of God, is according to the heart, from the 
 text, " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he " ; not that a person 
 is right because he thinks he is, as it has sometimes been construed, 
 but because the taste, the disposition, the habitual temper of his 
 heart, is right towards God. The other construction would be not 
 properly liberal, but absolutely licentious. 
 
 Several years after, passing through Berkshire, subsequent to a 
 change of some of my views of doctrines, for " strange doctrines," 
 as they are called by some, I suppose, I called upon several gen- 
 tlemen who were among those that gave me license to preach, who 
 I found had not forgotten me. In conversation, afterwards, at his 
 house, with Doctor Hyde of Lee, in allusion to the sermon I read 
 upon that occasion, which was the one just mentioned, he said, 
 " From the sermon you read at your examination, I was always 
 afraid you were not quite right." From this, as well as from other 
 causes, I am disposed to think that, from the outset, I have been 
 inclined to a generous spirit of evangelical liberality. 
 
 On one occasion, however, I found myself publicly on Hopkin- 
 sian ground, at least in the apprehension of a venerable old gentle- 
 man, who heard me preach at Stratford, Connecticut, Mr. Birds- 
 eye, an octogenary, who had formerly been the pastor. I was there, 
 on an exchange with his successor, while supplying a pulpit at New 
 Haven. My text in the afternoon was, "The sacrifice of the 
 wicked is an abomination to the Lord " ; the meaning of which 
 was explained to be, that " the prayers of the impenitent, their 
 best services, could not have in them the elements of genuine pie- 
 ty." In going out of meeting, Mr. Birdseye met me on the step- 
 stone, saying, " Sir, you bring us false doctrine ; you have been 
 telling us that the unregenerate ought not to pray, one of the abom- 
 inable doctrines of Hopkinsianism." We soon had an audience 
 around us, and a conference meeting, the result of which I cannot 
 tell you, excepting I was soon on my way home, without settling 
 the question, and have not been there since. 
 
 Hopkinsianism, thus caricatured in several of its leading dogmas?
 
 62 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 is nothing more nor less than undisguised Calvinism ; and is highly 
 to be respected for its frank, fair, and bold developments, and Chris- 
 tiancandor. 
 
 One reason for supposing my feelings have never been in har- 
 mony with sectarianism is, that, when a candidate for settlement in 
 Litchfield, occasionally coming in contact with some of my brethren 
 there, I thought myself considered, somehow, a " speckled bird." 
 Mr. Griffin was then at New Hartford, with whom I had been 
 somewhat intimately acquainted ; from whom I received a letter, 
 requesting me to define my position with respect to some point of 
 doctrine ; what it was, I do not now recollect ; which introduced a 
 correspondence that at length was closed amicably. 
 
 Riding in company, once, with Rev. Mr. Day, of New Preston, 
 on horseback, I rather inconsiderately asked him if there was any 
 distinction in the Bible between grace and special grace. At first he 
 made me no reply. Being a little ahead of me on the road, he after 
 a while stopped his horse, turned about, and, looking me directly in 
 the face, with a most appalling sternness of countenance, answered 
 me in a tone of voice not to be misunderstood nor forgotten, 
 " Special grace is the grace that makes the difference between the 
 saint and the sinner." Very good. It closed the conference. We 
 were conversing on the subject of unconditional Election. 
 
 As the time drew on for ordination, I had asked Doctor Dwight 
 to preach on the occasion. He had his reasons for declining, at the 
 same time recommending Doctor Dana, of New Haven, who, while 
 I lived there, had always honored me with his friendship. He was 
 first settled in Wallingford, Connecticut, where he had as fellow- 
 laborer in that vineyard, in another society, Mr. Waterman, now 
 belonging to the Consociation in Litchfield County, by whom I was 
 expecting to be ordained. 
 
 These two gentlemen, long before I was born, not in entire con- 
 cinnity, had had their eye upon an " ignis fatuus " in theology, 
 which appeared in a correspondence, at the time attracting much 
 attention in New England ; but the matter had been dead and 
 buried long since, the two gentlemen, in the mean while, quietly 
 pursuing the business of their calling, in their respective spheres of 
 action. 
 
 But this invitation to preach the ordination sermon, what, under 
 the circumstances, could be done with it ? It was proposed by 
 President Dwight, accepted by Doctor Dana, and the tune appoint-
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 63 
 
 ed for ordination was at hand. I was at Litchfield at the time. 
 General Tracy, a parishioner who had been on a tour to visit offi- 
 cially his brigade in the north part of the county, had just returned ; 
 and had held, in his absence, an interview with the aged and rev- 
 erend Mr. Farrand, of New Canaan, Connecticut, who said to him, 
 " And so you are not likely to have an ordination at Litchfield ? " 
 " Why not ? " said the General. " Does your candidate know," 
 said Mr. Farrand, " what he is about ? " telling him at the same 
 time of the old grudge. " Now what will you do ? " " O," said 
 the General, " if it is like to make a difficulty, Doctor Dana will 
 not come, at any rate. We can coax him, I guess, to do what is 
 right." Mr. Farrand, always having a saw at hand suited to the 
 occasion, said : " A tin pedlar, in the spring, when the roads were 
 bad, was unable to make headway, and right before my door fell to 
 belaboring his poor horse, spring poor, unmercifully. I stepped out 
 and begged the man to desist. ' Why, what shall I do ? The crit- 
 ter won't draw.' ' O,' said I, ' coax him.' ' Coax him ? Coax the 
 Devil!'" 
 
 Poor Doctor Dana, probably never hearing Mr. Farrand's argu- 
 ment, came on to the ordination ; preached a good sound Orthodox 
 sermon ; the Consociation were generally together ; and I believe 
 all were well satisfied. The anecdote shows us the peculiarities of 
 the age, and the region round about. 
 
 I am pleading, it will be remembered, for my own Catholicism, 
 in harmony with Orthodoxy. I have evidence of it after removing 
 to Middletown. I did not interfere, there, with the former custom 
 of baptizing the children of those who owned " the covenant," as 
 it was called, but did not see their way clear to the Lord's table. 
 I ought here to say, they had no creed, aside from the covenant. 
 
 The two gentlemen at Middletown who officiated in the deacon's 
 office were supposed to be Unitarians, and if anybody ever under- 
 took to find evidence to the contrary, I did not. There were ex- 
 pressions in their covenant, for the admission of church-members, 
 which were objectionable, in view of some of the best characters 
 among us, which I took pains either to have altered or removed, so 
 that no objection of the kind might remain. A stumbling-block to 
 making a profession of religion was thus removed. 
 
 We were on the great road of travel, and it often so happened 
 that travellers, clergymen among others, were detained on the Sab- 
 bath.
 
 64 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 In several instances, the ministers of Unitarian churches were 
 among the number. I invited ministers of all denominations, regu- 
 larly ordained, to take part in the religious services, and in doing it 
 I found it gave good satisfaction to the congregation. On one oc- 
 casion, Doctor Porter, of Roxbury, Mass., preached for me, and at 
 the communion administered either the bread or the wine at the 
 Lord's table. 
 
 My brethren in the ministry reproved me severely for violating 
 the rules of Christian fellowship, by inviting a Unitarian ; but I 
 could not be convinced I was wrong. 
 
 About this time, on my way to Boston, I called on Doctor Em- 
 mons of Franklin, and stated the case, asking him what he would 
 do, under similar circumstances. " Do ? I would invite them to 
 preach, by all means." " Would you invite them to administer or- 
 dinances ? " " Be sure I would." " And if Unitarians should preach 
 their doctrines to your people, what would you do ? " "I would 
 choose to have them ; and the next Sabbath I would show my peo- 
 ple, if wrong, how easily they might be set right ! " 
 
 Let us be thankful, my dear children, that we may all think and 
 hope for ourselves ; that we may harmlessly extend our hopes into 
 futurity ; and that, among the innumerable worlds that roll in illim- 
 itable space, there may be one world found for us, whose inhabitants 
 love one another, with pure hearts, fervently, and where Faith, 
 Hope, and Charity may have free course for ever.
 
 II. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 
 
 DESIGNED FOR THE USE OP FAMILY FRIENDS, FRIENDS IN HADLET, AND 
 FRIENDS OF EVANGELICAL DISCIPLINE AND ORDER IN THE CHURCH 
 UNIVERSAL. 
 
 I GAVE an intimation, in the First Sermon, that my life, though it 
 has been a happy one, has had its trials. Among these has been a 
 case of church discipline, the subject of the following Note. I 
 have before me a narrative of the whole case in detail, of which 
 these are some of the outlines, as they are given in a Journal 
 of the " Sister " herself. 
 
 In November, 1821, a committee was appointed to visit each 
 member of the Church in Hadley, to inquire into their views and 
 feelings with regard to religion. 
 
 One of the committee called on the sister, and during that visit 
 wished to know of her if she believed in the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. Learning that she did not, at the close of the visit he 
 observed that it had been customary, on such occasions, to unite in 
 prayer ; but as there could be no communion where there was such 
 a difference in opinion, he thought it best to omit it in this case, 
 and accordingly withdrew. 
 
 The result soon reached the ears of the pastor, from whom she 
 was made by epistle to understand that the committee-man had 
 done his duty, and that the Church could not extend their fellow- 
 ship to Unitarians. 
 
 The sister, finding thus, officially, that her presence at the usual 
 place of worship, and especially at the Lord's table, could no 
 longer be desirable, and finding forthwith that the services, when 
 she did attend, became unpleasant, concluded to provide herself 
 with a place of worship elsewhere. 
 
 Accordingly, a dismissal from the Church was soon after re-
 
 66 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 quested in a written form ; which was not granted. Information 
 was given her, that the connection, if she wished it, could be dis- 
 solved ; but that it must be by " excommunication." 
 
 From this time, for about eight or ten years, we hear nothing 
 more of the subject. " The wounded deer had left the herd," but 
 was not forgotten. The ardor of the archer's zeal had probably 
 outrun his skill in the knowledge of spirits and of Gospel disci- 
 pline. 
 
 Several of the most respectable of the fathers of the Church 
 were not prepared for an indorsement, and went so far as to advise 
 the halting sister to take no notice of the hasty determination of 
 the committee-man, but continue to attend the religious services 
 where she belonged. 
 
 A letter from the pastor soon closed every mouth, and prepared 
 the way for implicit submission. The sister under discipline had 
 yet to learn that the Church of God was a snare and a trap, into 
 which she had fallen, and from which she might disenthral herself 
 as she could. Under the former ministry of such men as Russel, 
 Chauncey, Williams, and Hopkins, excommunication for exercising 
 the right of private judgment was unknown. 
 
 A good many conservatives of this old way arc here and there 
 to be found in the Church, not easily roused to action. Nothing 
 will sooner attract their attention than epithets, hard names, and 
 brave speeches, pronounced in their presence, and put into their 
 mouths, as applicable to those who are to be shunned as heterodox, 
 such as Socinians, Apostates, Sabellians, Infidels, and the like. 
 These, and many others, were thoroughly tried, at private lectures, 
 conferences, and funerals ; with what success it is impossible to 
 determine ; yet having so much of the tragi-comical character 
 attached to them, it is difficult to conclude which we ought most 
 earnestly to endeavor to suppress, our indignation or compassion. 
 From one reason and another, some were brought to take different 
 ground in the movement from that on which they formerly stood. 
 In skilful hands it would be strange if some of the projects should 
 not succeed, and " the consummation so devoutly wished " be ac- 
 complished. 
 
 The delinquent and her family show themselves, meanwhile, 
 good members of society, and good Christians, in the different 
 stations they are called to fill in life. They have changed their 
 place of worship, and, considering the sacrifices they must make in
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 67 
 
 getting to it, they are enjoying it under the ministrations of some 
 of the best of men, though in the way that others call heresy. 
 
 That a correct moral deportment is no part of the credible pro- 
 fession of Christianity is with many an insult to common sense. 
 Dictation is unavailable ; and to his own Master each must stand 
 or fall. 
 
 Years elapsed. Two deacons at length were sent to take the 
 first and second steps in reference to excommunication. Their 
 report was made at a meeting of the Church, August 26th, 1828, 
 and a vote of withdrawment was adopted, to be made public on the 
 following Lord's day, September 7th, 1828. 
 
 At the close of the minutes, it is added: 
 
 " We therefore declare her connection with us, as a sister in the 
 Church, to be at an end ; and withdraw from her our watch and 
 fellowship, till such time as she, renouncing her errors, shall return 
 to us by repentance. 
 
 "Attest: JOHN WOODBRIDGE, Pastor." 
 
 The sister, hitherto universally beloved as a Christian, is here 
 left an impenitent sinner. 
 
 It will here be proper to say, then, that the sister thus dealt with 
 was " Elizabeth W., the wife of the Rev. Dan Huntington." 
 
 In a spirit of serious and deliberate inquiry, it is to be asked 
 whether our churches, in the exercise of the authority assumed, 
 are not in the habit of departing widely from the simplicity of the 
 Gospel, in excommunication, the ultimate act of discipline. Can 
 an exemplary Christian, once admitted to the Church, be excom- 
 municated from it, cut off, cast out, no longer to be thought 
 of within the precincts of faith, hope, or charity ? With the Bible 
 before us, this is a serious question. 
 
 Let nothing which has been said, or which may be said, on this 
 subject, be construed to the disparagement of discipline, in all its 
 legal latitude. Discipline is essential to the order of the Church. 
 It is essential to the very existence of all regularly organized 
 bodies. The family, the school, civil society, cannot prosper with- 
 out it. To err is human. Order is Heaven's first law. To correct 
 error, and restore the wandering in the spirit of meekness and love, 
 is beautiful. It may be mistaken in its object, and carried too far. 
 
 " What shall be done with the offending brother ? " said the good 
 old Deacon, in Vermont, to his neighbor. "Why," said the 
 neighbor, " the rule is to forgive, till seventy times seven." 
 " True," said the Deacon, " but we have used all that up."
 
 68 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 Probably the Deacon was mistaken. There is hope for the 
 backslider, while the day of our probation is continued. It is 
 painful to resort to the rod ; but if it is used, let it be sanative, 
 rather than vindictive ; reformatory, rather than punitive. But 
 once properly used, let it be gone through with. Firmness and 
 consistency in a good cause are always commendable. Guilt and 
 punishment must go together. But if afterward it should appear 
 that the supposed delinquent had suffered wrongfully, let those that 
 did the wrong cheerfully acknowledge it ; and with a disposition in 
 the purport of which they themselves may hope for forgiveness, in 
 the great day of account. Let it never be forgotten, that parental, 
 fraternal, evangelical discipline is one thing ; usurpation, injustice, 
 spiritual pride, sectarian bitterness, under the dictation of tyranny 
 and envy, the injection of the Devil, is another. 
 
 Thus far, my dear children, we find the venerable object of our 
 affections, in the midst of her trials, on high ground. Her char- 
 acter, where she was known from childhood, was without a blot. 
 She joined the Church in her youth, on the ground of a credible 
 profession and self-dedication ; and through evil report and good 
 report maintained that profession till her dying day. 
 
 By self-dedication and a credible profession, she became one with 
 God in Christ, as the Vine and Branch are one. In all humility, 
 she numbered herself with the elect of God, called, and chosen, 
 and faithful, an " heir of God, and joint heir with Christ Jesus, to 
 the heavenly inheritance." Wherever she has been known, she 
 has been regarded as a true-hearted Christian ; a person of uniform, 
 visible, eminent, and consistent piety. 
 
 Of course she maintained her standing in the Church militant, 
 as well after she was recorded no longer a member of the Church 
 of Hadley, as before, and as such was entitled to communion at the 
 Lord's table, and was never elsewhere denied the privilege. This 
 I find in accordance with the sentiments of an Orthodox minister 
 of high standing, in a sermon of his, lately printed, addressed to 
 his Church in Farmington, Ct., where he says : " To have com- 
 munion at the table of the Lord is the privilege of all who have 
 'communion in the body and blood of the Lord,' i. e. of all 
 Christians. To exclude an acknowledged Christian from this ordi- 
 nance is to belie, in act, your own acknowledgment in words. It 
 is virtually to exclude him or her from the household of faith ; to 
 say, in the most emphatic manner possible, that you do not regard
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 69 
 
 him or her as having with you ' communion in the body and blood 
 of the Lord ' ; and it tends to a corresponding separation of feeling 
 and action. This is destructive of all union, harmony, and love 
 among brethren." " It is the command of Christ to every disciple 
 of his, ' This do in remembrance of me.' " " If Christ himself bids 
 you come, who has a right to debar you ? If you are debarred by 
 any Church of Christ, you are denied your rights, and grossly 
 insulted." Thus far Dr. Porter speaks, and speaks the truth. 
 
 We have before us a member of the Church that no brother or 
 sister could ever expect to see excommunicated, any more than 
 they could expect to see the body of their Redeemer dismembered ; 
 who of course never was excommunicated by any Bible rule, and 
 never could be ; and therefore we see that the record made hi the 
 Church at Hadley, of their withdrawment of their watch from her, 
 August 26th, 1828, was a failure and a falsity. The excommuni- 
 cation is announced, but not done with. The minutes must have a 
 more thorough review. 
 
 At the commencement of the session, we took care to let our 
 self-constituted judges know how little respect we had for their 
 adjudications, and that we had not come there because we were 
 " cited " at a certain tune, but, knowing them to be together, we 
 wished to see them on our own concerns, upon the business there 
 referred to. It was not business we did not expect, or which we 
 very much dreaded. 
 
 "We were informed we were there on a complaint, regularly pre- 
 sented by two of their deacons, from which it was set forth that 
 the halting sister had been twice admonished ; I was glad they did 
 not say faithfully and tenderly admonished. I happened to be 
 present, if not at both times, once certainly, and both saw and 
 heard all that was done. I heard no admonitions ; no proposal for 
 prayer ; no charges ; no ratiocinations ; but while in flippant con- 
 versation, upon indifferent subjects, they both appeared more en- 
 gaged in discussing a dish of choice fruit, on the sideboard, than 
 the business on which I supposed they were sent. If it were not 
 too serious a subject, I should say it was all downright insincerity, 
 untruthfulness, and trifling ; that either it was all meant for a sham, 
 or they did not reveal what was in their hearts, or they did not 
 know their mission. 
 
 The subject is indeed a serious one ; but after all there is a good 
 deal in it that is farcical. The system of espionage in churches,
 
 70 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 managed by standing committees, not always men of superior dis- 
 cernment, to look up the delinquencies of others, rather than to 
 examine their own hearts and lives, is no new thing under the sun. 
 A limb of the beast, it has been found a very convenient engine of 
 prelacy in all ages. It was here, as we have seen, the beginning 
 of an outrageous assault. In a free intercourse with our friends, 
 in private circles, the subject was talked over, ever and anon ; and 
 I never could find that there were a half-dozen men, nor half that 
 number of women, in the Church, that ever expressed a wish for 
 excommunication. On the contrary, finding that it was to be tried 
 for, astonishment and sorrow of heart in secret were apparently 
 the prevailing emotions. 
 
 At the last meeting we attended, the number present was very 
 small, and the countenances of those we met at the door, when we 
 entered, left no doubt as to their wishes ; though how to express 
 them seemed to be difficult. In regard to the votes, on the minutes, 
 and the charges there brought forward, it will be observed, that 
 they are all pronounced " unanimous " ! Considering the small 
 number present, there was no need of any mistake on the subject. 
 But why not pursue the course taken in other public bodies, by 
 calling for " contrary minds " ? This, I have been told, was not 
 done ; and that the brother who, respectfully rising, said he doubted 
 the vote, was grossly insulted by being sternly replied to, " It is a 
 vote ; please, sir, to take your seat." Upon the ground of some of the 
 old platforms, I believe the moderator might consider himself one 
 half of the Church ; so that if the moderator should observe one hand 
 raised, though it was the hand of Judas Iscariot, he need look no 
 further for a majority, putting up his own ! I do not know that 
 this was the principle upon which those votes were now pronounced 
 " unanimous." From all I can gather, in conversation with those 
 present, I do not believe there has ever been anything like u una- 
 nimity " on the subject, in the Church or out of it, in the town or 
 in the community at large. And yet there it stands, with an un- 
 blushing front, four or five tunes repeated, on the minutes of the 
 Church, "unanimously." 
 
 "Where is the justice of a forced " unanimity " ? I am aware, 
 that, when harshness and hastiness have been ascribed to the mod- 
 erator, he has taken refuge in the milder term used in the minutes, 
 of the " withdrawment " of the sister from the Church, and of their 
 " withdrawing " their fellowship from her.
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 71 
 
 In this case there was no such distinction. Whatever name they 
 have given it, the act and the instrument are just what they were 
 intended to be from the beginning, and nothing more nor less, 
 and what the sister was then told it must come to. It was placing 
 her, as an impenitent sinner, where in the estimation of her prose- 
 cutors she deserved to be, a culprit, and whence she never could 
 return, but by placing herself before her confessors in the attitude 
 of a repenting suppliant. It was excommunication in the common 
 acceptation of the term. If they gave it a milder name, it was 
 because they probably thought it was as far as they could go safely ; 
 excommunication, as a man of humor expressed it, upon " the low- 
 pressure principle." A crisis this, unexpected and appalling. 
 Sustained, however, as she was, by the light of God's countenance, 
 and conscious integrity, it was met without a murmur or a sigh. 
 The wreck of former friendships and associations is painful, but not 
 always without solace. Call this separation what you will, be the 
 intention and result of the conduct of her persecutors as they may, 
 she did not think of any withdrawment, till told her presence and 
 further communion with her were not desired. 
 
 They thus compelled her to withdraw ; and then made that with- 
 drawment a crime, for which nothing she could do would atone ; and 
 thus it became one of the two charges brought against her. 
 
 The other charge on the minutes is the denial of the doctrine of 
 the Trinity, and the Supreme Deity of our adorable Saviour. 
 
 "What I have just been saying, is to help you, my dear children, 
 to understand more fully, as we have it from the Bible, the theology 
 of excommunications. To impress this upon your minds is my 
 design in what follows. A perfectly fair Christian character is 
 here brought before a self-instituted tribunal. The punishment to 
 be inflicted, capital. The judges, who are also witnesses and exe- 
 cutioners, must be trained with adroitness. Public opinion must 
 be brought up to the work. A failure, in such a case, would be 
 fatal. An offensive war and an eight year's siege were the re- 
 sult. Communion seasons, preparatory lectures, funeral occasions, 
 and conference meetings were found peculiarly favorable to the 
 drill ; where, with the flourish of trumpets and missiles, together 
 with the free use of " damnation," as an embellishment of speech, 
 the commander-in-chief is in his element. In such a state of so- 
 ciety, where is the security, for a moment, for justice, honor, and 
 good brotherhood? A good character grossly scandalized ! A
 
 72 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 professed and exemplary Christian insulted and banished from her 
 mother Church, under the guise of zeal for the glory of God, 
 and by men with the inscription upon their phylacteries, " I am 
 holier than thou!" 
 
 What a specimen this of church government, irresponsible, abso- 
 lute, tyrannical, infallible ! having it well understood, in terrorem, 
 that whatsoever by them is bound on earth is bound in heaven ! 
 What, then, can be here more appropriate than to introduce the 
 character of the one thus assailed, who is now no more with us in 
 the body? 
 
 It is in the words and from the heart of one who knew her well. 
 Out of the abundance of he heart, the mouth speaketh. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF MRS. ELIZABETH WHITING 
 HUNTINGTON. 
 
 Reared among the refined and genial influences of a rural New- 
 England home, her character early exhibited the graces and virtues 
 of such a training. It is the testimony of those who knew her 
 best, that her maidenly life was marked by a goodness that cor- 
 responded with the beauty of her person, by a conscientious 
 attention to her appropriate duties, by filial obedience and venera- 
 tion, joined with great amiability in society, and by an animation 
 that never transgressed the line of feminine delicacy. 
 
 A few years before her marriage, while as yet she was a young 
 woman, her religious experience became clear and decided, and on 
 the day of an annual public Fast, on a written paper, a copy of 
 which still remains in the family, she made a solemn and touching 
 dedication of herself to God, through Christ ; at the same tune 
 connecting herself with a body of communicants in the church at 
 Hadley. 
 
 This sacred covenant it was her practice to renew, in form, with 
 the most thorough examination and fervent prayer, at the recurrence 
 of each anniversary of her first vow, until the day of her death. 
 
 By a very striking coincidence, her death took place on one of 
 those anniversaries ; her spirit left her body, at sunset, on the 
 evening of April 6th, 1847. Thus the terms of an earthly conse- 
 cration were exchanged for the glorious society of Heaven ; on the
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 73 
 
 same day that admitted her to the Body of Christ below, she en- 
 tered the Church of the First-Born, and had open vision for the 
 written word. 
 
 From the date of her spiritual renewal, it was her custom to 
 keep a journal, where she recorded from time to time some of her 
 deepest emotions and holy resolutions. These writings, happily 
 preserved in her family, are fragrant with a pure, simple, and 
 unaffected piety. They reveal no less than her daily life a constant 
 feeling of dependence on the guidance of her Heavenly Father ; a 
 strong and ardent personal affection for her Saviour ; much humility 
 and self-distrust, with an unfailing earnestness in all the practical 
 labors of the Christian disciple. 
 
 She was in the habit of observing all special occasions in her 
 family, like the birthdays of children, their departure from home, 
 their entrance on any new scene or employment, as well as public 
 religious appointments, by peculiar devotional exercises. Not 
 infrequently these were accompanied by fasting. 
 
 (I am happy here to add, what no one else would so well know, 
 that in answering to professional calls, as an Evangelist, and, as the 
 case might be, from home several days at a time, I could be absent 
 without the least anxiety, leaving, as sole head, one so competent 
 to fill her station. The heart of her husband safely trusted in her. 
 She was the best-beloved of her children, the confidante of her 
 domestics, the friend of all. As the sentinel, financier, and steward, 
 with their respective responsibilities, at the head of a numerous 
 family, of almost every age, in minority, she was always pre- 
 cisely in her place, doing good to all, as she had opportunity. 
 Religious order never was suspended or interrupted for the want of 
 one who was able and willing to take the lead. Thus fulfilling the 
 duties of her several relations, it could not be otherwise than that 
 she should be highly respected and beloved by all who knew her. 
 Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but the woman that feareth 
 the Lord, let her works speak for her. But we will follow on, 
 in the words of our biographer.) 
 
 If there was any trait that distinguished her life above all others, 
 it was her frequency at the throne of grace. Her faith in the efficacy 
 of prayer knew no bounds. Every day large portions of her time 
 were set apart for silent communion with God, and nothing was 
 allowed to intrude into the privacy and sanctity of those hours. 
 Rejecting with emphasis the poor notion, that the only benefit of 
 
 10
 
 74 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 our supplication at the throng of grace is its reflex action on the 
 soul, she held the cheerful faith, that whatever we may rightly 
 desire ought to be made the subject of prayer ; and that if we 
 ask believing, we do actually receive from a hearing and answering 
 God. In every respect her religion was of the Scriptural type. 
 The foundation of her hopes was a " Thus saith the Lord." She 
 leaned on the Divine promises. "Whatever she heard or read 
 that had a tendency to detract from the sanctity of Christian insti- 
 tutions, the strict observance of the Sabbath, or doctrines truly 
 evangelical, or a high standard of morals or manners, distressed her 
 exceedingly. 
 
 The ecclesiastical cruelty that pursued her year after year, 
 through aggravated evasions and falsehoods, and that ended at 
 last in her excommunication, she bore with saintly forbearance. 
 Throughout, her Christian character remained unsullied, without a 
 reproach or a shadow. It seemed even to gain strength and beauty 
 by the bitter trial. Subsequently she was in communion with the 
 Unitarian Church at Northampton, till her death. 
 
 The bereavements in the circle of her children began with the 
 death of her youngest daughter, Catherine, August 15th, 1830, at 
 the age of thirteen. This, and the similar sorrows that followed it, 
 in the departure of Whiting, Mary, and Edward, were afflictions 
 that laid a heavy burden on her tender motherly affections. In 
 connection with severe physical illness and prostration, they some- 
 times brought her spirit to a temporary depression, apparently bor- 
 dering on derangement. But no grief ever obscured her trust in 
 the Lord. She knew that, through suffering, the soul is made 
 perfect. The disciple was willing to partake of the Master's cup. 
 She knew in whom she had believed. The clouds were dispersed. 
 No portion of her life was more serene and tranquil, more filled 
 with the peace that passeth understanding, and the joy of be- 
 lieving, than her later years. She often dwelt with lively satisfac- 
 tion and joyful gratitude on the precious fact that, in her lifetime, 
 all the beloved children for whom she had watched and prayed, 
 and whom she had consecrated in baptism, gave reasonable evidence 
 of a distinct and personal adoption of the Christian faith. 
 
 One of the most prominent and impressive traits of her strongly- 
 marked nature was her philanthropy. Hardly one of the great 
 causes of moral reform failed to enlist her cordial interest. Indeed, 
 she commonly espoused their principles, and sought every possible
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 75 
 
 means of studying and impressing them. Her high intellectual 
 power, her moral enthusiasm, and her steady perseverance, uni- 
 formly enabled her to bring over to the side of her convictions those 
 about her. Thus she was one of the pioneers of her neighborhood 
 in the cause of peace, of antislavery, and temperance. Nor was 
 her concern confined to distant and general evils. There was a 
 beautiful consistency in her character. She was continually seek- 
 ing out the poor, the ignorant, the vicious and unhappy in her dis- 
 trict, and devising modest and efficient plans for their good. And 
 these plans she carried out with surprising energy. The latest 
 designs she formed were for the moral and religious instruction of 
 some destitute and colored children ; and the last toil of her enfee- 
 bled hands was spent in preparing some article of comfort for an 
 orphan. 
 
 Her final illness was painful, and continued more than a year. 
 Her confidence in the Father's love was perfectly undisturbed. 
 Her accustomed piety was too deep and too sincere to glimmer into 
 any unnatural transports. She anticipated minutely the circum- 
 stances of her finally falling asleep, with entire composure. When 
 asked for some specific expression of her expectation of heaven, 
 she answered, with characteristic modesty, " It would be unbecom- 
 ing an unworthy disciple, like me, to be quoted hereafter. My hope 
 of heaven is clear, and I thank God that the glories of that state 
 are not more fully revealed ; for then, I fear, I should be only too 
 impatient to be there." 
 
 Her strongest desire to be released from the agony of her disor- 
 der was uttered, after a weary night, in the words of the patriarch, 
 " Let me go, for the day breaketh." Reminded of the loved ones 
 who had gone before her, she replied, " O yes, I shall look them all 
 up." Nothing could be more delightful than her genial and affec- 
 tionate intercourse Avith her family. Home was the chief scene of 
 her joy and activity. Her children will always remember her gen- 
 tle thoughtfulness in their behalf; her tender consideration for their 
 childish or maturer anxieties ; her careful provisions for their com- 
 fort, when they went away ; her cordial welcome, when they came 
 back; her wise and timely counsels, whether by letters or by 
 speech ; above all, the delicate tact and success with which she 
 communicated to them her own finer feelings, and kindled in them 
 nobler aspirations. 
 
 Her mental powers and accomplishments were of a high order.
 
 76 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 She had a rare ability in stamping her ideas on other minds. 
 Through all her busy life, crowded with the cares of training eleven 
 children, besides many voluntary engagements, she maintained a 
 constant daily habit of reading the best books. She sang in an ex- 
 cellent, musical voice, and occasionally accompanied herself on the 
 guitar. One of the great privileges of her children was to gather 
 about her, and hear her sing sacred songs, on Sunday evenings, 
 chief of which was the Bethlehem hymn, beginning, 
 
 " When, marshalled on the nightly plain, 
 The glittering host bestud the sky," &c. 
 
 She had also an ardent and intelligent admiration of nature, 
 cultivated doubtless by the peculiar richness and beauty of the 
 scenery about her paternal residence. She found a never-failing 
 satisfaction in flowers and birds ; in all the natural changes of the 
 earth and sky, through this lovely valley and over those graceful 
 hills. 
 
 Looking out upon the verdure of June, through the open window 
 of the room, during her last sickness, she repeated the familiar 
 stanza: 
 
 " If God hath made this world so fair 
 
 Where sin and death abound, 
 How beautiful beyond compare 
 Will Paradise be found ! " 
 
 But vigorous and active as her intellect was, her chief glory was 
 her large and holy heart. She loved righteousness and truth bet- 
 ter than any creed or sect. She loved those her Heavenly Father 
 permitted her to call her own, with a constancy and tenderness that 
 no language can represent. She loved the Lord her God with all 
 her soul ; she loved her neighbor as herself. " The souls of the 
 righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch 
 them." 
 
 The scene now changes from earth to heaven. She who has 
 been the persecuted sufferer here has taken her place among the 
 martyrs in glory, who, in white robes, with palms in their hands, 
 constitute that cloud of witnesses, and who at times look down upon 
 us with an influence that is their own, as an " evidence of things 
 unseen," showing us names of redeemed souls, here recorded in
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 77 
 
 dishonor, now written in the Lamb's Book of Life, ministering 
 to them who are heirs of salvation. 
 
 That there should be the intercourse between this and the spirit- 
 ual world that is usual in the present life, is not to be believed or 
 wished for. Still, I believe that something corresponding to this is 
 neither incredible nor undesirable. It is refreshing to believe, that 
 one who has been a co-worker in the labors of a long life of piety, 
 does not forget us in a future state. From the relation sustained 
 the greater part of a long life, how consoling to believe I am not 
 forgotten by her ! We have been companions in tribulation, and 
 partakers in each other's joys. We have been fellow-laborers 
 through grace, and joint heirs of the hopes and consolations of the 
 Gospel. While together, we have often thought and spoken to 
 one another of the future ; and with express reference to an occa- 
 sional intercourse of friends separated by death. " How pleasant," 
 we have said, "if possible, after the inevitable separation, if the one 
 who should go first might, in some way, signify to the one left, 
 that what we read of in the Bible as to a future state is a real- 
 ity ! " We hoped it might be so. 
 
 A year or more had transpired after her departure. One even- 
 ing, in the family circle, we had been conversing on the dear de- 
 parted ones of our number, of their present possible enjoyments and 
 employments ; and, as we were separating for the night, I observed, 
 " Well, however they may be occupied, they do not tell us much 
 about it ; I suspect they are happy enough without us " ; and so 
 retired, thinking no more of what was said. 
 
 That very night, she who was never inattentive to the wants and 
 reasonable requests of her friends was apparently with me in the 
 room where we had so often been together, hi a dress that had 
 been a favorite one with me, and with a familiar countenance. It 
 seemed the morning of a fine summer's day. The doors were shut, 
 and the windows open. Being otherwise busy, I did not notice her 
 entrance. She seemed to have come in at the window, a large and 
 highly ornamented butterfly, a striking emblem, we know, of the 
 resurrection, sweeping in graceful gyrations around her head. We 
 spoke with each other, like old friends, after a long absence. She 
 very soon, and apparently in tears, threw herself on the bed. 
 Taking her by the hand, I asked her what could be the cause of 
 her emotion. She replied, " It grieves me to think you suppose 
 that we who are gone, and no more to return, have forgotten you,
 
 78 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 and that we do not care for you. It is wholly a mistake : and it is 
 m'y desire that you will not another moment indulge the thought." 
 The excitement of the interview awoke me ; and, behold ! it was a 
 dream. Let it pass for what it is. Dreams are sometimes realities. 
 There is a providence in them. They are the subject of revela- 
 tion. " He that hath a dream, let him tell a dream," and if it 
 confirm his faith and enliven his hopes, let him be thankful for it. 
 If I could have had my own choice as to the manner of such an 
 interview, I can think of no other that I could have preferred. 
 
 Hoping that it may have the desired effect, I have no reserve in 
 mentioning another dream of the same kind. Like the former, it 
 was an interview between us, in the same room. A grandchild 
 of ours, an infant, named for her grandmother, who with the rest 
 of the family had spent the summer with us at Hadley, started late 
 in the season for Wisconsin, where the father had an appointment. 
 Being detained by the weather at Buffalo, the family were left 
 there for the winter. The appointment could not be dispensed 
 with. The father made his way as he could. The child died soon 
 after he left Buffalo. At home we had not heard of the death of 
 the child. The dream referred to is this : I had been out of the 
 room at a certain time, and as I returned, at the foot of the bed, I 
 observed a child, as I supposed, asleep in the crib. I thought 
 nothing of it, and passed, without noticing it, and was proceeding 
 to put off my clothes, when the grandmother, who was seemingly 
 in the bed, observed, " You did not notice our little Elizabeth." I 
 looked into the crib, and the child was there, a corpse. The sur- 
 prise awoke me. The grandmother and the child the guardian 
 angel and her charge were no more to be seen. An unusual 
 experience it was to me ; and, as I awoke, I could not conceive 
 who the little Elizabeth could be, and what it meant. As soon as 
 I could realize it was a dream, I fell asleep, not without thinking, 
 however, that the dream had a meaning. It remained to be pon- 
 dered the next day and afterward, till we were informed of the 
 death of the child. Upon comparing dates, we found, as nearly as 
 we could determine, that the two events, the death of the child and 
 the interview mentioned, were contemporaneous. 
 
 The lesson of the dream is, that the dear ones who leave us are 
 not dead, but gone before ; that the higher life commences at the 
 death of the body ; that heaven is a blessed society of intelligent, 
 happy beings, extending how far within the regions of space illimit-
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 79 
 
 able we cannot tell ; including families and associations, adapted in 
 their organizations to the improvement in knowledge and virtue of 
 all, under their different conditions, who belong to them. If so, 
 there is the little one, with kindred friends and relations, restored 
 to the embraces of parents and other dear departed ones. There 
 are the angels of those spoken of by our Saviour, who behold the 
 face of their Father in heaven, and thence derive such communi- 
 cations as are designed for the training of those committed to their 
 care for higher and still higher enjoyments and employments, world 
 without end. I am glad to have the opinion of such a man as the 
 venerable Doctor Lathrop coinciding with my own. 
 
 He says: "There in heaven are such pure and benevolent 
 spirits, who are sent forth, trained to minister to the heirs of salva- 
 tion; who thus may be prepared to become guardian angels of 
 others, as they arrive ; and possibly to be their pioneers, companions, 
 and guides, in a future state." Believing, as we do, that there may 
 be in heaven those who are ministering spirits to those on earth, 
 hi whom they feel interested, why may not our departed friends be 
 of the number ? The belief of such a doctrine is harmless. The 
 hope is transporting. If imagination claim to itself a portion in 
 these our speculations, it shall have from me its credit hi full. By 
 the proper improvement of all the manifestations of a Saviour's 
 love, we may constantly find new motives " to run with patience the 
 race set before us." 
 
 For all this I am indebted, under a kind Providence, to one 
 recorded an excommunicate. It is cited not so much, however, to 
 call your attention to a delightful speculation, possibly too much 
 overlooked as we read the Bible, as to impress upon our minds 
 more forcibly the surprising insensibility of all concerned in their 
 conduct toward one of our number who, to those best acquainted 
 with her, living and dying, has given such shining evidence of 
 Gospel sincerity and peculiar nearness to God. 
 
 In tracing the above narrative, it has perhaps been repeatedly 
 asked by children and grandchildren : " Grandfather, where have 
 you been all this while ? WTiy were not you and our grandmother 
 both entangled in the meshes spread for you in the excommunica- 
 tion ? Were not both equally vulnerable ? " The inquiry is per- 
 tinent. 
 
 We were both equally vulnerable as heretics, but were not both 
 equally at the disposal of the Church in Hadley. She was a mem-
 
 80 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 ber of that Church ; I was not. For that reason, in what I have 
 written, I have confined myself very much to what has been said 
 and done by her and her assailants, in the Church. Not having 
 been a member of the Church to which she belonged, I of course 
 have not shared hi her martyrdom. Our experience was remarka- 
 bly the same, in our enlargement of our views, about the same time, 
 of Divine truth, and she had my entire sympathy in every scene 
 of the tragedy. We were both forbidden to commune in the 
 Church of Hadley, where we resided. 
 
 While Preceptor of Hopkins Academy, I seldom attended Asso- 
 ciations. When I went to attend the one to which I belonged, 
 to request a dismission, I found our moderator at his post, wide 
 awake. He had not wholly forgotten the strays of his flock. As 
 I went in, I found the Association had Brother Bailey of Pelham, 
 under the same condemnation of heresy, on trial. The first thing 
 I had to do was to request them to suspend operations just long 
 enough to put me on trial with him, and, as time was always precious, 
 that it might be done forthwith. My advice was not taken. In 
 due tune, however, I was informed that a committee was appointed 
 to look into the matter. The result, which is on my manuscripts, 
 is not worth transcribing. My correspondence with the committee 
 thus concludes: 
 
 "I shall always be happy to see and to entertain you at my 
 house, and if you and your worthy colleagues think proper to 
 execute your commission, you will commonly find me near home, 
 during the week, and may depend on a civil reception ; though you 
 cannot believe me so destitute of self-respect as to make an ap- 
 pointment with you that will make me in any sense accessory to 
 the views of the Association, in that system of persecution on 
 which they have entered, or amenable to their jurisdiction for my 
 opinions." 
 
 I am always happy to quote the Rev. Dr. Lathrop, who well 
 observes: "There are some that lay great weight upon certain 
 peculiarities which discriminate one sect from another, and de- 
 nounce as hypocrites, fools, and blind all who cannot adopt the same. 
 This illiberal spirit is often more injurious to true religion than the 
 errors which it reprobates. There are errors of opinion that are 
 inconsistent with religion, and we usually see their effects in a 
 licentious and immoral life. Against these we should contend 
 earnestly. But errors which have no tendency to corrupt the
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 81 
 
 heart and vitiate the morals, and which do not appear to have this 
 effect, ought to be treated with tenderness and candor." 
 
 Again, he says : " We may think a brother has imbibed certain 
 errors unfavorable to religion ; what shall we do ? Shall we sep- 
 arate him from our company, and deny him all brotherly and minis- 
 terial intercourse ? No. This will disgust him. This will excite in 
 him a prejudice against us. This will place him at a greater dis- 
 tance from us. Every man loves society ; especially the society of 
 those of the same profession. If he cannot enjoy it in one place, 
 he will seek it in another. And perhaps he will mingle with some 
 who will confirm him in his errors. By our friendly intercourse 
 and united labors we may be fellow-helpers to the truth. But by 
 reciprocal recriminations and reprisals we shall wound the common 
 cause, and give advantage to the common adversary." 
 
 I suppose an excision from the Association followed. I do not 
 recollect receiving any vote of theirs on the subject. 
 
 In the discursive thoughts I have been giving you of the origin 
 and progress of this affair, we have seen, in part, how they stand 
 connected with effects and consequences, of what the Church and 
 pastor in Hadley have done, as to their own individual and social 
 happiness. We have endeavored to show them their faces in facts 
 and anecdotes, and more especially in the " glass of God's word," 
 in the Holy Bible. 
 
 There were many who have been on the stage of action while 
 the events here related were transpiring, who have gone to their 
 great account, who, if still among us, would not here see their 
 faces, standing aloof, at the time, as they did. 
 
 For those that are left, together with those that are coming on 
 to the stage of life among us, I have still a few words to add, as to 
 some of the prominent effects to be expected from such a spirit, 
 thus indulged and cherished in our midst. " This, to show to the 
 house of Jacob the effect of their transgressions," as I am bound to 
 do. The sins of transgressors are sure to find them out, either in 
 this or the world to come. Public bodies, though as such they do 
 not expect to suffer in the life to come, yet as individuals may ; 
 and with all their enormities, they are to know that, " though hand 
 join in hand, the wicked among them shall not go unpunished." 
 
 The chief wrong that yet remains is the retention, on the church- 
 book of the Hadley parish, of an uncancelled record, which is a 
 virtual expulsion of a holy disciple of the Lord Jesus. 
 11
 
 82 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 It would not be profitable to pursue the painful subject into all its 
 disgusting details. What is now before us has been given to exhibit 
 fairly, though faintly, the disinterested spirit of one who deserves 
 to be reckoned among the meek and humble martyrs of a bitter 
 local bigotry, and an unrighteous zeal, under the abused name of 
 religion. The great evil, still abroad in our midst, is the injury in- 
 flicted on the cause of evangelical piety and the reproach to which 
 the Church of Christ is exposed, in the estimation of those who 
 are coming forward to take our places. What remains of the storm 
 that has howled around us is the rumbling of the distant thunder 
 after the tempest. The violence of the tempest has subsided, 
 while those among the living who have been most exposed escape, 
 not only unharmed, but are now enjoying the quiet and refresh- 
 ment of the slumbering infant in the nurse's arms. 
 
 "The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any 
 two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul 
 and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
 heart." It is surprising to see with what exactness the sacred 
 volume portrays the transgressions of individuals and communities. 
 With its appropriate majesty, with its power and purity, adapting 
 itself, as it does, to every condition of life, with its spiritual desti- 
 nies, enjoyments, and hopes, it is what we all want to rouse us to 
 diligence and duty. It affords a copious illustration of character in 
 the case before us. See what it says, Third Epistle of John, 9, 10 : 
 " I wrote unto the Church, but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the 
 pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not ; therefore will I re- 
 member the deeds which he doeth, prating against us with ma- 
 licious words ; and not content therewith, neither doth he himself 
 receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth 
 them out of the Church." 
 
 In the footsteps of the Antichrist of the New Testament, we 
 have a picture of the hateful power to be resisted by every per- 
 secuted follower of the Redeemer. Adam Clarke, in his Commen- 
 tary, says : " Even Protestantism may have its Antichrist, as well 
 as Popery. Every man, every teacher and writer, who, in the 
 exercise of an exclusive, persecuting spirit, opposes the spirit of the 
 Gospel, is a genuine Antichrist, no matter where or among whom 
 he is found." 
 
 On a review of what I have presented, I am persuaded that, if 
 the case of discipline had been postponed any longer, it would have
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL INTOLERANCE. 83 
 
 been forgotten in that abyss of the past, where God kindly hides, 
 in mercy, abominable and offensive things, till they may have a 
 hearing before a tribunal of perfect equity, where all secrets will 
 be laid open and exact justice will be meted out. 
 
 "We may, in the narrative, be taught how our wrong-doing 
 toward others may be followed by being left " to eat of the fruit of 
 our own ways, and being filled with our own devices " ; and that in 
 wronging others we wrong ourselves worse. This is now before 
 all who choose to observe it, in the subsequent history of the 
 parish.
 
 III. 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 
 
 IN Connecticut I became acquainted with a Congregational body 
 of ministers who, before my connection with them, had silenced one 
 of their number for heterodoxy ; a man of high standing in his 
 profession for character, and otherwise eminent. In free conversa- 
 tion with one of his brethren, he was reported to say that Chris- 
 tianity was all a mummery. The report, I found, was generally 
 spoken of in the vicinity, and was confirmed to me by the brethren, 
 as I generally met them. I could not but believe, I thought I 
 must believe, what was thus reported with entire freedom. 
 
 Some time after, the offending brother wrote me, informing me 
 of what he had heard, and wished to know my authority for speak- 
 ing publicly of him as an Infidel. I informed him in answer, as 
 related above. I verily thought that, in doing as I had done, I was 
 doing my duty to God and man. I acted according to the light I 
 then had ; though now I see it was all untruthfulness, not, however, 
 of my own framing. 
 
 "With the convictions I now have, I acted and thought wrongly ; 
 inexperienced, incredulous, and duped as I then was, I was doing 
 my brother an injury unawares. I am thankful my life is spared 
 to see and acknowledge the wrong. Several letters were inter- 
 changed, and I never knew, till lately, the correspondence was in 
 existence, he and I both having left that part of the country about 
 the same tune. 
 
 Quite lately the correspondence was observed, by one of our 
 family, in the Law Library of Harvard College. I was not a little 
 surprised, in being told of it, and sent forthwith for the volume, 
 and, according to my recollection, found all right. 
 
 It retains authenticity, though not the fairness I expected to 
 .see. The aggrieved brother was an injured man ; he knew and
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 85 
 
 felt itjAnff wrote under the influence of it; and at the close, putting 
 on his ^jpndemning cap, he dealt out their sentence, with an un- 
 sparing hand upon all, as he thought they deserved. I was unhap- 
 pily among the number. 
 
 I have no inclination to follow him in his criticisms and animad- 
 versions, many of which are one-sided and severe ; but all which I 
 am willing now to overlook and forget. It is a lesson which many 
 have yet to learn, that the end does not sanctify the means. From 
 suitable inquiry, I have no doubt it may be known, without much 
 trouble, that the persecuted brother lived and died, from thorough 
 conviction, a Christian Unitarian. In speaking of him, at that 
 time, his brethren and contemporaries might have considered them- 
 selves justified in calling him either Apostate, or Unitarian, or 
 Sabellian, or Infidel, using the terms then, as many seem to choose 
 to do now, as interchangeable and synonymous. 
 
 This explanation gives a clew to the mischiefs arising from the 
 bandying of scandals; and the inconveniences resulting from a 
 state of society where, by the confusion of tongues, together with a 
 suitable infusion of wounded pride, a band of brothers may be 
 transmuted to a Babel. 
 
 With high interest I have read, of late, the labors of the antiqua- 
 rians of the East, Layard and others, at work in exhuming the 
 splendid relics of ancient times, with all their wealth and mag- 
 nificence. But ha raking open the cinders of controversy, I con- 
 sider myself as liberating from a confinement of fifty years, as in a 
 Protestant Inquisition, the reputation of a follower of Christ, and 
 fellow-laborer in the ministry of reconciliation. " He is dead, yet 
 speaketh." 
 
 At the late gathering of the Consociation of Litchfield County, 
 I perceive, by their allusions to this brother, in some of their 
 speeches, he was not forgotten. A root of bitterness, here and 
 there, still shows itself, yet, I hope, to be eradicated. It is fervently 
 wished it may soon be plucked up, root and branch, no more to be 
 seen in the garden of our God. 
 
 The foregoing statement I have transcribed, on a few leaves in 
 manuscript, of a suitable size for the volume in which I found the 
 above correspondence, among other pamphlets, bound and labelled 
 " State Papers," in the Law Library of Harvard College.
 
 IV. 
 
 SATAN A PERSON. 
 
 IN the Second Sermon I declared my belief in the existence of 
 a personal Devil. There are in the world incarnate devilish in- 
 fluences, more than enough to be spoken of or thought of with 
 indifference. But they will never hurt those who will not wrong 
 themselves. As to cursing those who are blessed of the Lord, we 
 cannot do it, with all our aspersions and reproaches. " The wise 
 shall inherit glory." " If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thy- 
 self," and "If thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it." 
 
 "We are called upon to " resist the Devil," as a powerful, personal, 
 and successful enemy. As has been already avowed, such a char- 
 acter must be allowed. "We occasionally meet with those who tell 
 us, " they are not ignorant of his devices." I have known of this 
 class some of the purest, most perfect minds I ever knew. And it 
 is necessary, I suppose, to some, in some such way, to know some- 
 thing of the subtlety of the Adversary, that they may prize the love 
 and sufficiency of Hun to whom all devils are subject, " who is the 
 wisdom of God and the power of God to salvation." The Bible is 
 full of the doctrine, from the beginning to the end of it. There is 
 no difficulty, that I can perceive, in subscribing to the existence of 
 such a being, as a personal evil spirit, with the personal influences 
 ascribed to him hi the Bible, as the source of sin in the world, with 
 its attendant evils. Without it, I find it difficult to account for 
 what has been passing in review before us. 
 
 I have only to add my own experience in the earliest stages of 
 moral agency, which is probably the period most favorable to his 
 injections. In that experience, now perfectly distinct, I recol- 
 lect temptations, to which if I had yielded, it would have been my 
 undoing'.
 
 SATAN A PERSON. 87 
 
 Little children are often petulant, peevish, and headstrong in 
 their behavior, manifesting turbulent and wicked passions ; they are 
 undutiful and disobedient, approaching " that rebellion which is as 
 the sin of witchcraft." They are unreasonable, in persisting to ask 
 for things they must not have ; and in expressing wishes that can- 
 not be gratified. In this they must be unfavorably noticed, frowned 
 upon, chastised, and severely so; according as their offences are 
 aggravated. Parents understand this, and, if faithful, will not, 
 from a feigned tenderness, fail to inflict severity. I can remem- 
 ber, perfectly well, when this was my lot; and O the dreadful 
 .thought ! the inveterate hatred, for the time being ! the horrid oaths 
 and imprecations suggested, which I longed to utter, but dared not 
 venture ! 
 
 Again, I remember, when going to school alone, I once clam- 
 bered over the wall into a neighbor's garden, fenced in from the 
 street, and pulled up by the roots a number of fine, flourishing 
 plants. I know not how many, nor for what reason I did it ; a 
 manifest temptation of the Wicked One. It was not premeditated, 
 the perpetration of the act ; it was not accompanied with any sort 
 of gratification ; it was never thought of afterward but with self- 
 condemning disgust. It was very much so, as to following bad 
 examples in school. 
 
 I do not believe I ever uttered swearing, cursing, profane words 
 in my life ; but I remember when I longed to do it. In going 
 home from school, some of the boys, at times, were in high spirits, 
 showed off in the utterance of foul speeches; all indicative of 
 something brave and manly. So it seemed to them, and so it 
 appeared to me. And O how I longed to imitate them ! Nobody 
 can tell the horrid conflict I endured, the effect of a religious 
 education, doubtless, coming in competition with the wiles of the 
 Adversary through the medium of a bad example. Very much 
 the same emotions I had to contend with, reading in the Primer the 
 dialogue of " Christ, Youth, and the Devil." I was for a long 
 time inclined to think, what I knew to be wrong, that the latter 
 had the best of the argument. 
 
 Though often tried in this way, I cannot sufficiently praise that 
 adorable grace, which, in conjunction with the institutions of a 
 Christian education, I hope has led me to say, in some measure, 
 habitually, in the hour of temptation, " Get thee behind me, 
 Satan."
 
 88 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 The Devil is never more at home than he is sometimes in 
 Church discipline and ecclesiastical councils, such as those before 
 which we have been severely tried. He has displayed himself 
 more adroitly in this than in any other field of action that I have 
 been personally acquainted with. His success in Eden was won- 
 derful ; and from that tune has continued to work on, in greater 
 and smaller events, till he drove the swine into the depths of the 
 sea. Therefore, in whatever shape he comes to us, from what- 
 ever quarter, or under whatever disguise, we ought to feel the force 
 of the old motto, Obsta principiis, and to remember that our Father 
 in heaven is a prayer-hearing God. If his emissaries persist in 
 infringing upon our rights and privileges and comforts, we must 
 persist in calling upon them to show their credentials ; if they can- 
 not do this, we must be excused from attempting to show their im- 
 potency and presumption, their usurpation and devilishness. We 
 are not to suffer ourselves to become a prey to the sophistry and 
 sorcery of evil spirits, with our eyes open, without a rebuke. Their 
 stratagems may be baffled, if suitably resisted. 
 
 The Devil may blind the eyes, pamper the pride, and inflate the 
 vanity and selfishness of thousands and tens of thousands, who 
 listen to his enticements. Nevertheless, " The foundation of the 
 Lord standeth sure ; the Lord knoweth them that are his." How ? 
 By their discipleship. Not, you observe, by their " vain babblings," 
 by then: " striving about words to no profit, but to the subverting of 
 the minds of then* hearers " ; not by their professions, their creeds, 
 and their denunciations ; but by their religious experience. " Let 
 every man that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." 
 Moral agents must be known by their character, and by it will stand 
 or fall in the great day of account. " The Lord knoweth them that 
 are his." He knoweth what they have done in the cause of truth, 
 and they never will be forgotten. 
 
 This world in which we live is designed by its Author as a 
 nursery for heaven, an illustrious theatre for the display of his 
 character, in the work of redemption. It is a world of trial, temp- 
 tation, and sin, as it necessarily must be. From everything around 
 us, a voice comes to us, from the beginning, " Look unto me and be 
 ye saved, all the ends of the earth." 
 
 An antagonistic power, the Adversary, in some of his agencies, has 
 always been ready to show himself in his appropriate character, 
 saying, " All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and
 
 SATAN A PERSON. 89 
 
 worship me." With some he has been successful ; with others not. 
 The progenitors of our race, though they yielded to the first assault, 
 were not left to perish in disobedience. In the " Lamb slain from 
 the foundation of the world," they were pointed to a Hope which, 
 " like an anchor to the soul, is both sure and steadfast," and not in 
 vain. 
 
 From the first period, we gather but little information from the 
 sacred records, for many hundred years ; but enough to show that 
 the wickedness of man was great upon the earth. Persecution, 
 with its Satanic cognates, was rife. In the companionship of Abel, 
 and Enoch, and Noah, however, it must be believed that many 
 " walked with God," and many sons and daughters of God " were 
 brought home to glory " ; but not enough to save the world from a 
 general deluge. The builders of Babel were forthwith confounded 
 in their project. From the family of Noah the whole earth was 
 overspread with inhabitants, with whom God renewed his covenant 
 of mercy. In the history of Abraham, the father of the faithful, 
 and of his descendants, the patriarchs and prophets of the chosen 
 people of God and their tribes, we have the history of the Church, 
 and the progress of the work of redemption, to the Christian era. 
 
 There is little to be gathered from the Old Testament on the 
 subject upon which I have been writing to you. The New Testa- 
 ment opens with the birth of Him in whom shadows vanish, cere- 
 monies are done away, and who, by the sacrifice of himself, became 
 the Life of the world, the great Reformer and Redeemer of the 
 world. 
 
 What He and his followers underwent has taught us what Chris- 
 tians of all coming time had reason to expect ; what may be rea- 
 sonably expected of them, in imitation of his example. See 
 Edwards's " History of Redemption." 
 
 We here learn our true position, as candidates for a higher life, in 
 glory, beyond the grave. 
 
 At an early period, under the Christian dispensation, we become 
 familiar with sanhedrim, and sects, and synods, and ecclesiastical 
 associations without number. 
 
 There are bishops and priests, cardinals, presbyters, and deacons, 
 popes and par-popes, ready enough to officiate, as called upon, down 
 to the times and places in which we live, and with whom we are but 
 too well acquainted in our country parishes. I am sorry to have 
 this to say of any of the order of whom I am one ; and who, all of 
 12
 
 90 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 us, ought to be ministers of God for good, in the stations here 
 assumed by us ; in all things approving ourselves, as faithful servants, 
 giving no offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed. 
 
 It is that which, all along, I have been endeavoring to impress 
 upon your minds, my dear children, that Christ and his Gospel have 
 nothing to do with a scene of persecution like that with which we 
 have here been conversant. It belongs to another kingdom, under 
 the " Prince of the power of the air, that worketh in the children of 
 disobedience." I feel a responsibility which I must thus avow and 
 reassert. I know, at the same time, that the hand of God is in it. 
 It is designed for our good. I am thankful for it, not at the hand 
 of a persecuting, anathematizing cabinet. I am bound, in the ful- 
 filment of my mission, thus to bear my testimony. It is no new 
 thing under the sun. It is what Christ and his Apostles have gone 
 through before us. The crime brought against them was, " They 
 transgressed the tradition of the elders." They opened their eyes 
 to see, and read, and think, and judge for themselves, on religious 
 subjects ; we do the same. In this, they were in the minority ; so 
 are we. Their place of worship, at the time, was the upper room, 
 their number being one hundred and twenty. Ours has been often 
 about the same. The instrumentalities of their repeated insults and 
 injuries were " the counsels of men," goaded on by the pride of 
 opinion and power. The same traits may be traced in what we 
 have been made to feel. 
 
 To accomplish the work, usurpation and tyranny must co-operate. 
 It is the union of Pilate and Herod that makes the majorities that 
 give success to the haughty and designing ones of the earth. Thus 
 situated, we know too well what was done in the earlier ages of 
 Christendom, in the union of Pagan and Christian powers, when 
 the crowns and the sceptres of the Caesars were laid at the feet of 
 the Roman Pontiff. The Beast and his image, the Man of sin, 
 Babylon, the mother of harlots, the sea and the waves roaring, 
 men's hearts failing them for fear and expectation of those things 
 that were coming upon the earth, form some of the graphic fea- 
 tures of the Antichrist of Revelation. Church and State united, 
 the powers of heaven were shaken. What was designed to become 
 the kingdom of heaven upon earth became at times the kingdom of 
 the Adversary, the dragon, that old serpent that drew after him 
 the third part of the stars of heaven. " And there was war in 
 heaven; and Michael and his angels fought against the dragon;
 
 SATAN A PERSON. 91 
 
 and the dragon fought, and his angels, till the blood flowed, even to 
 the horse bridles." Thousands of thousands, and ten times thou- 
 sands twice told, would fail to tell the number of the souls of the 
 witnesses slain for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 
 Christ foresaw the whole, and did not fail to speak of it repeatedly 
 to his disciples. " They shall lay their hands on you, and perse- 
 cute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons. 
 Ye shall be betrayed, both by brethren, kinsfolk, and friends." 
 It was prophecy to them; to us it is history. They heard the 
 warning from the mouth of their Master. They soon became the 
 witnesses of the truth he told them. They had trials of cruel 
 mockings and scourgings, moreover of bonds and imprisonments. 
 They were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain 
 with the sword. Stephen was stoned to death, calling on the name 
 of the Lord. The other Apostles followed in quick succession. 
 The blood of the martyrs, however, became the seed of the 
 Church. 
 
 Though, in the conflict of ages, the power of the Beast and his 
 image was often prominent, they were never suffered to prevail. 
 In the darkest night that followed, " He who walketh in the midst 
 of the golden candlesticks, and holdeth the stars in his right hand," 
 was with them as their guardian and their God. In the reforma- 
 tions under Huss, Luther, Melancthon, Wickliffe, and others, fresh 
 tokens of his love were afforded. The discovery and settlement of 
 America becomes an era in the cause of freedom. 
 
 Usurpation and tyranny have taken here a deadly blow. Occa- 
 sionally, the arrogancy and pretension of councils and consociations 
 show themselves among us ; but, in the event, are made to feel 
 their impotency, while those for whom the degradation is intended 
 count it all joy thus to suffer for their Master. 
 
 Sorrowing, indeed, the cup of trembling is put into their hands ; 
 yet, suffused with the balm of Gilead, that cup becomes fragrant with 
 a joy with which the stranger intermeddleth not ; and to the testi- 
 mony of those who have gone before, they are able to add their 
 own, " as sorrowing, yet always rejoicing." 
 
 Such is the picture, in miniature, of a fallen world, fallen, 
 though not forsaken. It has ever been under the inspection and 
 providence of one who, out of every kingdom, and tongue, and 
 nation, has had a people, as " a seal upon his heart, and a seal upon 
 his arm " ; that great multitude which no man can number. " He
 
 92 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 had his way in the sea, his path in the great waters, and his foot- 
 steps are not known." " But the end is not yet." 
 
 What we know not now, as to many of the dispensations of his 
 providence, we shall know hereafter. Probably the Church on 
 earth has seen her darkest day, and the Accuser of the brethren 
 has received his deadly wound.
 
 V. 
 
 CREED. * 
 
 IN connection with the preceding Notes, it may not be thought 
 out of place if I insert a statement of my religious belief, as I have 
 received it from the Word of God. Creeds are capable of great 
 abuse. They may be turned into chains on the human mind, and 
 engines of ecclesiastical persecution. As simple declarations of 
 social or individual faith, they are harmless. 
 
 I. I believe in one God, our Father and our Friend, in heaven 
 and in earth, in this and in all worlds, underived, independent, om- 
 nipotent, omnipresent, holy in all his ways and in all his works, 
 the Holy One, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; whose providence is 
 over all the works of his hands, good and evil ; who will cause the 
 wrath of man and the rage of devils so to praise him as to subserve 
 the purposes of his righteous government ; and will so reward the 
 penitent and humble as that every mouth may be stopped. 
 
 II. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Immanuel, God 
 with us (Matt. i. 23) ; Son of Abraham (Matt, i.) ; Son of David 
 (Matt. i. 1) ; Son of Mary (Matt. i. 25). I believe in the essential 
 glory of Christ : " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
 good-will towards men " ; " the brightness of the Father's glory and 
 the express image of his person." " All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and on earth." 
 
 I believe in the divine mission of Jesus the Son : that he is the 
 plenipotentiary and vicegerent of God on' earth : testifying the truth 
 to us on all important subjects, as to Atonement, Reconciliation, and 
 Redemption brought about by his example, by his holy life, by his 
 sacrificial death, by the fellowship of his sufferings, by the power of 
 his resurrection, agreeably to his own prediction, by his triumphant 
 ascension and prevalent intercessions. I believe that he will be
 
 94 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 our final and impartial Judge, and that for all who receive him in 
 faith there is the blessed hope of a life everlasting. 
 
 HI. I believe in God, the Holy Ghost, the one only Living and 
 True God, the Comforter, Kenewer, and Sanctifier of the souls of 
 believers. 
 
 IV. I believe that God governs the world by agencies and in- 
 strumentalities both good and bad, of all orders and degrees, per- 
 sonal and impersonal, relative and social, ideal and substantial, 
 metaphorical and material, including the Mediator of the New 
 Covenant, Michael anfl. his angels, holy spirits innumerable, the 
 hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from the twelve tribes of 
 Israel, the elders and the living creatures clothed in white robes, 
 with palms in their hands, having the seals of the Living God, 
 the spirits of those who have dwelt with us here in the body, and 
 who have so accomplished the period of the probation here assigned 
 them as to be ministering spirits around the throne of God on high, 
 whose business it may be to minister to those who are heirs of 
 salvation, the Guardian Angels of those destined to a blessed 
 immortality, to welcome them home to a glory that awaits them 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 These on the one hand. On the other, 
 
 V. I believe in the existence of the Devil and his angels, " that 
 old serpent," known since the Fall as the Man of Sin, Antichrist, 
 and the Babylon of the Bible ; and as the Beelzebub, in Pandemo- 
 nium, of Milton, with his " dominations, thrones, princedoms, virtues, 
 and powers," the infidelity of Rome heathen and Rome Christian, 
 the Delusion of the False Prophet in the horrors of Popery, down 
 to the tribunals, and ecclesiastical councils, and Protestant usurpa- 
 tion and tyranny of our own day. Amen.
 
 VI. 
 
 GENEALOGIES. 
 
 " THESE SOUGHT THEIR REGISTER AMONG THOSE THAT WERE RECKONED 
 
 BY GENEALOGY." Nehemiali vii. 64. 
 
 HUNTINGTON. 
 
 I BEGIN with an extract from a letter of Joseph Huntington, D. D., 
 of Coventry, Connecticut, to his brother, Eliphalet Huntington, of 
 Windham. 
 
 " Near the close of the reign and tragical death of Charles the 
 First, king of Great Britain, i. e. near the year 1640, the Original 
 Stock of our family, in America, who was a citizen of Norwich, in 
 England, and a religious Puritan, under persecution (with many 
 others, in those days), with his wife and three sons, embarked for 
 America. His name was Simon Huntington. This good man was 
 grandfather to your grandfather and mine. He was near fifty years 
 of age, and his wife some years younger. Their three sons were 
 in the bloom of youth. Their names were Christopher, Simon, and 
 Samuel. They made their course for the mouth of the Connecticut 
 River.* But our progenitor, being seized with a violent fever and 
 dysentery, died within sight of the shore, whither he was brought, 
 and now lies buried, either in Saybrook or Lyme, as both towns 
 were but one at first. 
 
 " His widow, our grandfather's grandmother, was a lady of good 
 family, piety, and virtue, had a valuable fortune, left her in money, 
 and not long after she married a gentleman in Windsor, which 
 town was settled almost as early as any in Connecticut. His name 
 
 * In some of these particulars, this account differs from that of the care- 
 ful historian of the Huntington Family, Rev. E. B. Huntington of 
 Stamford, Connecticut, whose elaborate work is soon to appear in print.
 
 96 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 was Stoughton. There the good lady finished her life, in affluence 
 and comfort. 
 
 " The three sons settled first in Saybrook ; but soon after, the 
 younger, named Samuel, moved into New Jersey, and settled there, 
 in Newark, where there is a respectable family of our name and 
 kindred, though not very numerous in the branches of it. 
 
 " Not long after the settlement of our ancestors at Saybrook, the 
 venerable Mr. Fitch came over, to take the pastoral charge of 
 them. 
 
 " Soon after this, they made the discovery of the township we 
 call Norwich, and which they so named in regard to the city Nor- 
 wich, in England, from which the most respectable part of them 
 came. 
 
 " The people began to emigrate from Saybrook to Norwich, in 
 considerable numbers, and dearly loved their minister. A warm 
 contention arose between the emigrants and those that remained at 
 Saybrook, with regard to their minister, which Mr. Fitch decided 
 very wisely. He told them that he had a dear love for them all ; 
 but that he could do no other than to cleave to the major part, 
 wheresoever their residence might be. Accordingly, as the greater 
 part of his charge soon removed to Norwich, he also settled there ; 
 was the first minister of that town, a faithful and worthy servant of 
 Christ, and a friend to the souls of men. Laboring many years in 
 the sacred work, till old age deprived him of further usefulness, he 
 then removed to Lebanon, and there the good man died. He was 
 the progenitor of all that bore the name in Norwich, and the towns 
 adjacent. 
 
 " But to return to our family. About the time that Samuel, be- 
 fore mentioned, removed to Newark, the other two brethren came 
 to Norwich, Connecticut, namely, Christopher and Simon, and there 
 lived in piety, honor, and prosperity, to a good old age. 
 
 " The sons of Christopher were Christopher, Thomas, and John. 
 The sons of this last-mentioned Christopher were Isaac, Jabez,t 
 Matthew, Hezekiah, John, and Jeremiah. The sons of Thomas 
 were Thomas, Jedediah, Christopher, Eliezer, William, and Simon. 
 John left but one son, bearing his own name. 
 
 " This, you will note, brings the family of our pedigree down, in 
 one branch of it, to a collateral line with your father and mine, i. e. 
 in the branch of Christopher, who was the son of Simon, who was 
 the Original Stock of all who bear the name in this country.
 
 GENEALOGIES. 97 
 
 " I next acquaint you with the other branch, the branch Simon, 
 son of the original Simon, from which you and I have our descent 
 direct. His sons were Simon, Joseph, Samuel,\ Daniel, and James. 
 The sons of the last-mentioned Simon were Simon, Ebenezer, and 
 Joshua. The sons of Joseph were Joseph, Nathaniel, Jonathan, 
 David, and Solomon. The sons of Samuel were Samuel, Caleb, 
 John, and Simon. The sons of Daniel were Daniel, Jonathan, and 
 Benjamin. The sons of James were James, Peter, and Nathaniel. 
 
 " With regard to that branch in New Jersey, descended from 
 Samuel, son of the original Simon, he left one son, Samuel by 
 name, on a collateral line with our grandfather Joseph. This Sam- 
 uel had three sons, Thomas, Simon, and Samuel, which were on a 
 collateral line with your grandfather and mine. This is an account 
 of all the male issue of our family, from the original Simon down 
 to our own immediate parent, and contains a series of about a cen- 
 tury and a half. We have kindred of the same name, now in Eng- 
 land, and among them some very respectable ; as the family was at 
 the time of the emigration of our ancestors. A brother of the 
 original Simon, whose name was Samuel, was Captain of the 
 King's Life-Guard, and much in his favor. With regard to the 
 succeeding branches of our family in this country, they were some- 
 what numerous, though not so much dispersed as some other fam- 
 ilies." 
 
 What follows below consists of remarks and recollections of my 
 own. 
 
 Jabez, with this mark (f), one of the five brothers, sons of the 
 second Christopher, must have been the father, I think, of a distin- 
 guished branch of Jive brothers, General Jedediah Huntington of 
 New London, General Zechariah of Norwich, General Ebenezer, 
 Colonel Joshua, and Andrew, of Norwich. Of these, Jedediah was 
 Surveyor of Customs at New London; his sons, Joshua and 
 Daniel, were distinguished preachers. Ebenezer was a Represent- 
 ative in Congress. Joshua was a Sheriff of the County ; his only 
 child married Hon. Frederick Wolcott of Litchfield. Jabez, son of 
 Zechariah, was United States Senator. One of the daughters of 
 Jabez t married Colonel Chester of Wethersfield ; another mar- 
 ried Rev. Dr. Strong of Norwich, Ct. 
 
 In my own line of ancestors, I now go back to Samuel (marked +). 
 
 He was the father of Samuel, my grandfather, Caleb, Simon, and 
 John ; and of two daughters, one the mother of Dr. John Clark of 
 13
 
 98 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 Lebanon, and of Colonel James Clark, a Revolutionary hero ; the 
 other the mother of Simon Clark of Exeter. 
 
 The children of my grandfather stand thus : Samuel, a preacher ; 
 m. Cowdry, had one son, Samuel. Rev. Eliphalet of Killingworth ; 
 m. Elliot, had one son, Joseph. Oliver ; m. Lynde, had four sons 
 and four daughters. William*, my father, had two sons and 
 four daughters. Jonathan, m. Seldon, had two sons and two 
 daughters ; in old age m. a widow of Fairfield County. Josiah, m. 
 Gilbert, a second wife, had four sons and two daughters. Eleazar, 
 m. Widow Pitkin, had one son and one daughter. Three daughters 
 of Samuel ; one m. Rev. J. Porter of Bridgewater, Mass. ; one m. 
 Rev. Eleazar May of Haddam, had a large family ; one a Harvey 
 of East Haddam, and had several children. 
 
 Mr. Porter had two sons, ministers; Mr. May one, Hezekiah, 
 and three other sons, John, Eleazar, and Huntington, 
 
 These are the family of my father, William* Huntington, and 
 my mother, his wife, Bethia Throop : Mary, who married Rev. 
 Walter Lyon of Pomfret, Ct., Abington Society. Their only child, 
 Huntington (who m. Maria Warner), now deceased, left a son, 
 Samuel, and Eliza Fitch, who m. T. P. Huntington, my fifth son. 
 
 Wealthy, m. S. Fitch, and had four children, Wealthy, Elizabeth, 
 Thomas, Marietta, and Eleazar. William, m. Mary Gray ; had five 
 sons and three daughters. Rhoda, m. Rev. William Lyman, D. D. ; 
 had three sons and five daughters. Eunice, m. Mason ; had six 
 daughters and one sbn, John. Dan, who married Elizabeth Whit- 
 ing Phelps. 
 
 The ancestral line of this, my wife, E. W. P. Huntington, back 
 through the Porters, the Pitkins, the Whitings, to the Gregsons, is 
 very direct. We have in our house a pillow-case, with the initials 
 of John Whiting and Phebe Gregson. They were married at New 
 Haven, 1673. It was her father, Thomas Gregson, who was lost 
 at sea in 1646 or 1647, in the famous ship that was subsequently 
 supposed to be seen in New Haven harbor, after the prayer-meeting 
 held in behalf of the crew. 
 
 The family of D. Huntington and wife are, 
 
 I. Charles Phelps, married Helen Sophia Mills (deceased), and 
 Ellen Greenough. Their children (only those that survive are 
 included) are Helen Frances, Charles Whiting, Elijah Hunt Mill?, 
 Mary Elizabeth, Edward Stanton, by the first marriage ; and Henry 
 Greenough and Laura Curtis, by the second.
 
 GENEALOGIES. 99 
 
 II. Elizabeth Porter, married George Fisher. Their children 
 are Elizabeth Phelps (married John Sessions, and has three little 
 ones*), Frederic Pitkin and Francis Porter, twins (the latter mar- 
 ried Ann Eliza Crane), George Huntington, Catherine "Whiting, 
 and Edward Thornton. 
 
 III. William Pitkin, married Lucy Edwards. Their children 
 are Lucy Bethia, "William Edwards, Helen Maria, Catherine Fran- 
 ces, Frederic Sargent, and Flora. 
 
 IV. Bethia Throop. 
 
 V. Edward P. (deceased), married Helen M. Williams. 
 
 VI. John Whiting (deceased). 
 
 VII. Theophilus Parsons, married Eliza F. Lyon. Their chil- 
 dren are Walter Elliot, Maria Whiting, and Edward Dwight. 
 
 VIII. Theodore Gregson, married Elizabeth Sumner. 
 
 IX. Mary Dwight, deceased. 
 
 X. Catherine Carey, deceased. 
 
 XI. Frederic Dan, married Hannah Dane Sargent, and their 
 children are George Putnam, Arria Sargent, and James Otis Sar- 
 gent. 
 
 THROOP. 
 
 All I know of the family of Throop is from the Regicide for- 
 ward, and is found in a Genealogical Tree, which I have had by 
 me for many years. At the root of that tree stand, or ought to 
 stand, I. Adrian Scrope, Regicide; II. William, his son; III. 
 William, John, and Dan, sons of William. Dan was probably the 
 grandfather of my mother, Bethia Throop. 
 
 There seems to have been a very decided partiality, among my 
 progenitors and contemporaries, for this monosyllable s there being 
 no less than five or six Dans in a direct line ; probably out of re- 
 spect for that one out of the twelve tribes denominated the Lion's 
 Whelp. My grandfather, the third or fourth from the original stock, 
 was from Bristol, R. I., quite early in the eighteenth century. He 
 planted down, on a beautiful eminence in Lebanon, about two miles 
 east from the meeting-house, where there was enough for him and 
 three sons, all of them having large families, and comfortable domi- 
 ciles, and friendly, happy hearts. The number of slaves he brought 
 with him from Bristol was two or three too many. In my child- 
 hood and youth I loved dearly to visit them, and to have their 
 
 * Elizabeth Huntington, Clara Fisher, and Addie.
 
 100 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 visits in return, at my own happy home. (From Bristol also came 
 my grandmother, Susan Carey.) 
 
 In their character, embracing two or three generations, I have 
 found the Throops ingenuous, sincere, and open-hearted. They 
 took everything easily. They were social, gregarious, fond of good 
 humor and good living. In Lebanon they were agriculturists, 
 very much a neighborhood by themselves ; industrious, I believe, 
 but never in a hurry about their business. 
 
 In Litchfield I found a branch of this family that I never heard 
 of before, in a style of life rather clannish. They lived in a remote 
 village, on a fine tract of land; husbandmen, but notoriously 
 hunters ; well equipped, of course, with traps, fowling-pieces, of all 
 sorts, with appropriate ammunition for the game afforded by the 
 country, which at that time was not in great abundance. There 
 was no lack of the canine species, from the terrier to the grey- 
 hound. And though fond of the chase, and probably with aristo- 
 cratic blood in their veins, that blood did not show itself exactly in 
 the style of the Old English nobility. 
 
 It was said of them, that they thus lived together, worked and 
 sported together, property all in common, to the third and fourth 
 generation. It was not uncommon to see a dozen or more of them 
 hoeing a small patch of potatoes, or fencing a haystack. If any 
 game was started, be it what it might, raccoon, woodchuck, squirrel, 
 or rabbit, each would drop his tool, man and boy, join in the chase, 
 and if the game mounted, they were all ready for a shot, or if it 
 betook itself to mother earth for a shelter, neither hoe nor spade 
 was wanting to disinter it ; and if the rest of the day was necessary 
 to accomplish the enterprise, no time was lost, especially if success 
 might be the result. And if, with such habits and propensities, 
 their business did not go ahead, and the community was not affluent, 
 they were easy with the thought that they enjoyed what was given 
 them as they went along, and that they had not the overplus of 
 much property to be plagued with. And I must say, that, when I 
 became acquainted with the establishment, Fourierism among them 
 had rather the outward appearance of dilapidation. I went out, 
 occasionally, for a lecture in their neighborhood ; they gave me a 
 good audience, and good fare, and a hearty farewell. 
 
 The Throops, in their persons, so far as I recollect, have been of 
 a manly stature, well proportioned, comely, and naturally graceful 
 in their bearing. I remember among them an uncommon propor- 
 tion of handsome women, and good singers. One feature, some-
 
 GENEALOGIES. 101 
 
 what striking, was a large, pleasant, prominent blue eye. An anec- 
 dote is handed down, which will help to perpetuate this fact, in 
 regard to the human face divine, among us, as it will also a pro- 
 pensity to a sort of good-natured humor. A certain Dr. Payne, 
 who was also a hunter, and always fond of a joke, and whose mother- 
 wit was seasoned with a jolly stutter, was passing the door of my 
 Uncle Ben, with an owl in his hand, steering homeward. " Ay, 
 Doctor," said Uncle Ben, " you will have a fine dinner of it ; what 
 rare bird have you got there ? " "I d-d-d-don't know," said the 
 Doctor, " but he's got a t-t-t-Throop eye." With this pleasantry, 
 however, they had at times a decided sternness, bordering occasion- 
 ally upon obstinacy. An instance of this I recollect, in another 
 good uncle. A favorite daughter of his, a young widow, and a fine 
 woman, was addressed on the subject of matrimony, by one of the 
 first clergymen in Connecticut, who was some fifteen years the 
 elder, and who had already buried two wives. The father refused 
 consent. The alliance was nevertheless consummated. But the 
 good Doctor was never permitted to accompany his wife to the 
 dwelling of his father-in-law. 
 
 One other sample of this trait, one generation further back. 
 According to the fashion of the day, when, as now, it is said, a 
 common-sized slip in the meeting-house would just conveniently seat 
 three ladies, in full dress, my mother, when a girl, had equipped 
 herself, as was the fashion of the day, with hoops, to ride, on a 
 pillion, behind her father, two miles to meeting. They had not 
 proceeded far on the way, when the old gentleman said mildly, but 
 rather decidedly, to his daughter : " Bethia, what can that be, 
 pounding my backbone, there ? " " If you will just ride back, sir, 
 I will make an alteration in my dress, so that I shall not incom- 
 mode you." " Very well," he said, " I will do it, for I cannot ride so." 
 
 " You may lead a Throop, with a twine thread, anywhere," was 
 an old saw in Lebanon, " but you can never drive one." 
 
 PHELPS. 
 
 Timothy Phelps, born in Windsor, Ct., was one of the first 
 settlers of Northampton, 1655. Nathaniel, his son, married Grace 
 Martin, a young woman recently from England, a woman of great 
 resolution, and a little romantic withal. She has been highly 
 praised by her descendants as having a strong character. She died, 
 a widow, August 7th, 1727. Their children were Nathaniel,
 
 102 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 Samuel, Lydia (married Mark Warner), Grace (married Samuel 
 Marshall), Elizabeth (married John Wright), Timothy, Abigail 
 (married John Langdon), Sarah (married David Burt). This last, 
 Nathaniel, married Abigail Burnham of Connecticut, who died in 
 1724. He married again Catherine, daughter of John King of 
 Northampton, and widow of Mr. Hickok of Durham. By the first 
 wife he had Charles*, Nathaniel, Anna (married Elias Lyman), 
 Martin. By the second, Catherine (married Simon Parsons), 
 Lydia (married Ebenezer Pomeroy), John (lived in Westfield), 
 Mehitable (died young). 
 
 This third Nathaniel died October 14th, 1747. The widow 
 married a third husband, Gideon Lyman. 
 
 The above Charles*, son of the third Nathaniel, married Dorothy 
 Root, daughter of Hezekiah Root, Northampton, April 24th, 1740. 
 He removed to Hadley. His son Charles* was born in North- 
 ampton. He had other children: sons, Solomon and Timothy; 
 daughters, Dorothy (married Warner), Mary (married Cooley, 
 afterwards Dickinson), Abigail (m. Williams of Wethersfield, Vt.). 
 Charles* married Elizabeth Porter. Their children were 'Charles 
 Porter, still living in Hadley, and Elizabeth Whiting, who married 
 Dan Huntington, the present writer. 
 
 PORTEE. 
 
 The Porters have been a numerous family in Hadley, for more 
 than a century and a half. They were among the first proprietors 
 of the town, and have, from the beginning, shared largely in the 
 honors and privileges of its inhabitants. They have furnished 
 wives for a number of such men as Rev. Solomon Williams, Doctor 
 Edwards, Doctor Emmons, Doctor Spring, Doctor Hopkins of 
 Hadley, Doctor Austin of Worcester, and several others. Captain 
 Moses Porter, already spoken of, the ancestor of my children, 
 was the son of the second and the brother of the third Samuel 
 Porter. 
 
 WHITING. 
 
 William Whiting, one of the' first settlers of Hartford, was 
 extensively engaged in trade, and died in 1649. John Whiting, 
 one of the sons of William, graduated at Harvard College, 1G53, 
 and, at first, was minister of the old church in Hartford, with M r. 
 Haynes ; and afterwards, the minister of the South Parish in 
 Hartford. He died in 1689. His first wife was Sibyl Collins,
 
 GENEALOGIES. 103 
 
 of Cambridge ; his second wife was Phebe Gregson, from East 
 Haven. 
 
 His children's names were Sibyl Bryan, William Whiting, Mar- 
 tha Bryan, Sarah Bull, Abigail Russel, Samuel Whiting, Elizabeth 
 Whiting, Joseph Whiting, John Whiting. I believe the last chil- 
 dren only were by Phebe Gregson. The widow Phebe, I suspect, 
 married Rev. John Russell of Hadley, a year or two before his 
 death. His previous wife died in 1G88, and he died in 1692, and 
 left a wife whose name was Phebe. She did not continue in Had- 
 ley, nor did any of Mr. Russell's children. He concealed and en- 
 tertained one or both of the Regicides, Goffe and Whalley. 
 
 PlTKIN. 
 
 William Pitkin, the father of the whole of the name in this 
 country, a distinguished lawyer, settled in Hartford about 1665. 
 He married Hannah Goodwin, and left four sons, Roger, William, 
 Nathaniel, and Ozias. William, son of the above William, was 
 Governor of the State of Connecticut, and had five sons, William, 
 Judge of the Superior Court, Eliphalet, George, Timothy, and Ash- 
 bel. George was Clerk of Circuit Court ; Rev. Timothy, settled at 
 Farmington, was father of Honorable Timothy Pitkin. 
 
 The sister of the first-mentioned William married Simon Wol- 
 cott of Windsor, father of three Governors of that name. A daugh- 
 ter of George W. married a Griswold, from whom have sprung 
 three Governors of the same name. 
 
 Report says the sister of the first William P., living in London, 
 repeatedly solicited her brother to return to England. Not suc- 
 ceeding, she at length visited him. When about to return, a device 
 was adopted to detain her if possible. Several respectable young 
 men of Hartford and the neighboring towns were so much in love 
 with the young lady, that they determined to seek the honor of her 
 hand by the singular process of casting lots. The lot fell upon Mr. 
 Simon Wolcott, the happy man above mentioned. 
 
 This widow Elizabeth died in Hadley, May 8th, 1753, in her 74th 
 year. It was a daughter of hers that married Moses Porter, about 
 1746, of Hadley, who was killed at what was called the morning 
 scout, between Bennington and Saratoga, in the old French war. 
 The only child of Moses Porter and his wife was Elizabeth, who 
 married Charles Phelps ; their only daughter, Elizabeth Whiting, 
 was the wife of D. Huntington, as before. There are now six Eliz- 
 abeths in direct succession.
 
 VII. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 
 
 "I AM COMB UP TO THE SIDES OP LEBANON," " AVHICH CAKKIES ME BACK 
 TO BYGONE DATS." 
 
 MY DEAR CHILDREN: 
 
 Having given you the Genealogy of the Huntingtons, you prob- 
 ably would like to be informed something of the " rock whence they 
 were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence they were digged," at 
 least a part of them. In quoting this passage, you are not to under- 
 stand, for a moment, that I am speaking at random, or that I mean 
 to speak at all to the disparagement either of the town or its inhab- 
 itants. There is not, probably, a finer inland farming territory in 
 the same State, nor, so far as my youthful reminiscences extend, 
 any place more distinguished by a moral and enlightened population, 
 than the good old town of Lebanon, lying on the great road from 
 New London to Hartford, through Norwich, Franklin, Columbia, 
 Andover, and Bolton ; about twenty miles from the Sound, and on 
 the route of the first stage-coach ever driven in New England. 
 The town street is the broadest I ever saw or heard of, three or 
 four miles in length, with gentle elevations and depressions, north 
 and south, sloping a little east and west, with neat door-yard fences, 
 handsome domiciles and home-lots, on both sides, under good im- 
 provement for agriculture and horticulture, with beautiful streams 
 at the bottom of the hill, right and left. And yet the same street, 
 at the time I speak of, excepting a clearage here and there for a 
 church, a school-house, or parade-ground, is deformed with immense 
 craggy rocks, clay-pits, sluggish streams, and frog-ponds, and shape- 
 less, tottering stone-walls, with crooks and angles innumerable every 
 few rods, which rarely fail to attract the notice of the traveller un- 
 pleasantly.
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 105 
 
 Now, if our ancestors, under the full impression that nothing was 
 made in vain, had gone to work in earnest, with a few barrels of 
 powder, with their drills and crow-bars, and sledges and spades, 
 with skilful hands to manage them, all these rocks in a short time 
 might have been made to hide their heads in shame ; quagmires 
 might have been reduced to regular pools, with straight, square- 
 faced, four-feet double walls, and Macadamized roads, on both 
 sides of the street, the whole distance; and thus acres, nobody 
 knows how many, redeemed from waste to a tasteful and well- 
 husbanded common. Recently, this has been undertaken. 
 
 Formerly flocks of sheep, consisting of several hundreds, were 
 pastured during the summer on the common, in different parts of 
 the town. A shepherd, with his little dog and his crook, had the 
 entire command of them during the day ; and they, from one emi- 
 nence to another, as far as they could hear his thundering voice, for 
 nearly a mile, would obey orders ; opening to the right and left, and 
 wheeling instantly, like a well-ordered regiment. During the night 
 they were folded on a fallow lot of plowed ground, to prepare it for 
 a crop of wheat, or any other crop, the ensuing season. The privi- 
 lege of thus folding his flock was sold, every now and then, to the 
 highest bid ; the avails were the shepherd's salary. From what he 
 received from the husbandmen in this way he had a good living. 
 
 The produce of large and well-managed dairies has been, I be- 
 lieve, more the staple of Lebanon, for years, than any other. With 
 thirty or forty cows, it has been a business yielding a sure and 
 handsome profit to the landholder. 
 
 Thus independent, the people have been able to furnish a due pro- 
 portion of educated, professional men, some of whom have been emi- 
 nent. As far back as I can remember, there have been in the town 
 four religious societies, each of which had its territorial parish lim- 
 its, and each parish its pastor, all men eminent in their day. In 
 the old parish was Dr. Solomon Williams ; Mr. Wells, I believe, was 
 the first minister. In Goshen, three miles west, was Mr. Elliot, if 
 not a son, a descendant, of the Apostle so called, and an ancestor of 
 some of your number, one of whom, Walter Elliot Huntington, son 
 of Theophilus P., bears up his name. In Exeter, three miles north 
 of Goshen, was Mr. Gurley, whose son, a Chaplain in Congress, has 
 distinguished himself as an active member of the Colonization 
 Society. In Lebanon Crank, now Columbia, four or five miles 
 northeast, Dr. Wheelock, President and the founder of Dartmouth 
 
 14
 
 106 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 College. These gentlemen, and their successors to the present time, 
 including those educated for the ministry in Lebanon, would amount 
 to between thirty and forty ; beginning at the south end of the 
 town, five for the name of Huntington, one Metcalf, three Wil- 
 liamses, two Elys, two Robinsons, six Lymans, one Rockwell, two 
 Stones, one Waterman, one Hinckley, two Gurleys, one Gillet, one 
 Pineo, one Bartlett, two Brockways, one Fowler, one Caulkins, one 
 Smalley, and one Dutton. 
 
 Among our distinguished civilians, we may mention the names of 
 the three Trumbulls, the father, the son, and the grandson, Govern- 
 ors of the State ; Hon. William Williams, who signed the Act of 
 Independence ; jurists and statesmen, Swift, Mason, Tisdale, Dut- 
 ton, Metcalfs, Dewey, and Wattles ; and among the rest, though last 
 not least, Lebanon has had her poets, and painters, and teachers. 
 
 In the corner of two or three neighboring towns, there was for- 
 merly a constellation of worthies, somewhat remarkable. If you 
 please, suppose a circle, the diameter of which is six miles, to cover 
 an adjacent territory taken from the three towns of Norwich, 
 Franklin, and Lebanon, or rather make the circle into an ellipse ; 
 the circumference might be found to include, if not the birthplace, 
 the residence of several such men as the two Wheelocks, D. D., 
 Azel Backus, D. D., and Eliphalet Nott, D. D., Presidents of Col- 
 leges ; Charles Backus, D. D., and Joseph Lathrop, D. D., chosen 
 Professors of Divinity, Yale College ; and Mr. Kirkland, mission- 
 ary to the Oneidas. 
 
 We will here stop a moment at the grave of Rev. James Fitch, 
 whose name has been mentioned as the venerable pastor of the 
 flock who came among the first settlers of Norwich, a colony from 
 Saybrook, and who died in Lebanon, where he spent the latter part 
 of a long life. As a model of a Right Reverend of the day, as 
 well as a specimen of the good literature of our fathers, I here 
 transcribe an inscription on his monument : 
 
 " In hoc sepulchro, depositor sunt reliquiae viri, vere reverendi, 
 D. Jacobi Fitch ; natus fuit apud Bocking, in comitatu Essexiae, in 
 Anglia: anno Domini, 1622, Decem. 24 : qui postquam linguis li- 
 teratis optime instructus fuisset in Nov. Ang. venit, JEtate 1 6 : et 
 deinde, vitam degit, Hartfordife, per septennium, sub instructione 
 virorum celeberrimorum, D. Hooker, et D. Stone. Postea, munere 
 pastorali functus est, apud Saybrook, per annos 14. Hinc, cum 
 ecclesiae majori parte Norvicum migravit: et ibi, ceteros vitae
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 107 
 
 annos transegit, in opere evangelico. In senectute, vero praj 
 corporis infirmitate, necessarie cessavit ab opero publico ; tan- 
 demque, recessit liberis, apud Lebanon, ubi, semianno fere exacto, 
 obdormivit in Jesu, anno 1702 : Novemb. 18, uEtate 80. 
 
 " Vir, ingenii acumene, pondere judicii, prudentia, charitate, sanc- 
 tis laboribus, et omni modo vitas sanctitate, peretia quoque et vi con- 
 cionandi, nulli secundus." 
 
 Those of the name of Fitch in Windham, Lebanon, Canterbury, 
 Preston, Norwich, Montville, &c., are his descendants. Those in the 
 western part of Connecticut are descended from his brother Thomas, 
 who settled in Norwalk. The venerable subject of the above 
 inscription had nine sons and five daughters. A descendant of his, 
 Simon, portrait-painter, married Wealthy Huntington, my sister. 
 He was employed by a class in Yale College to take the portrait of 
 President Dwight, in which he succeeded well in the main ; but in 
 finishing one of the hands, he could not suit himself; the more he 
 worked upon it, the less was he satisfied, till, in a state of hopeless 
 frenzy, he mounted his horse, and, without being blamed by any one, 
 or mentioning his trouble to others, he set his face homeward. 
 Coming to Durham woods, he heard some one trying his skill upon 
 a tin trumpet. Supposing it was intended for him, he leaped a 
 fence into the forest, where he wandered about till morning, and 
 the next day made his way safely home, but could never be per- 
 suaded to finish the portrait, or meddle in any way with his palette 
 and brush. It must have been a temporary derangement, the 
 effect of a keen sensibility, peculiar to artistic genius. 
 
 Fitch and Trumbull, in their boyhood contemporaries at the 
 Brick School, it was said were at that time nearly upon a par, as 
 competitors in the occasional trials of their skill, in the opinion of 
 good judges ; and at times Trumbull was known to have the gen- 
 erosity to ascribe the palm to his rival. But by improving the 
 superior advantages which he afterwards enjoyed, Trumbull rose to 
 eminence not to be contested. The portrait was hung up, among 
 others, in the College Library, and was thought well of. I remem- 
 ber once standing before it, in company with Dr. Dwight. He 
 spoke of the defect in the hand as hardly worth noticing, and ap- 
 peared to be otherwise satisfied with the performance. 
 
 There were others that distinguished themselves in Lebanon, both 
 as artisans and artists. There were also poets among them. I 
 have before me a Poem, entitled " The Present State of Literature,"
 
 108 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 delivered at New Haven, at the public Commencement of Yale 
 College, September 10th, 1800, by Warren Button (the motto, 
 Quid utile, quid noil), of which I am proud, as coming from an old 
 playfellow. 
 
 An impromptu, from one whose gallantry in assisting a couple of 
 ladies, who had trouble with their horse, had exposed him to some 
 danger and dirt, ran thus : 
 
 " Indeed, 't was neatly done 
 For me t' attempt to guide the chariot of the sun, 
 And then to fall, like Phaeton." 
 
 A lady, mourning the loss of her first-born, received from her 
 sister in Lebanon the following lines : 
 
 " The little babe stepped into life, 
 
 Saw nothing to approve ; 
 As if disgusted, turned away, 
 And fled to realms above." 
 
 I have often thought of the variety of distinguished names, both 
 from our own and our father-land, that, within my recollection, 
 have somehow been congregated within my native town. Some of 
 them I have mentioned. Beginning at the South, I will mention a 
 few others, in the different groups, as we go northward, with such 
 incidents and anecdotes as may occur, illustrative of localities and 
 the state of society. A first group may include the Masons, the 
 Fitches, the "Watermans, the Lathrops, the Hydes, the Littles, the 
 Throops, the Averys, the Paynes, the Sweets, the Mannings. 
 
 The Sweets have been eminent as native surgeons, known ex- 
 tensively from one generation to another. It is a common amuse- 
 ment for the boys of this family to lay pigs and fowls prostrate, by 
 dislocating their bones, and then, by slipping into their places the 
 joints, put them upon their legs again, apparently with the utmost 
 ease. 
 
 Another group, as we advance northward, may consist of our own 
 family, the Huntingtons, a Bacon, a Brewster, a Davenport, an Abel, 
 the Metcalfs, our nearest neighbors. My grandfather, Deacon Sam- 
 uel Huntington, is the oldest I remember among them. He retained 
 great vigor to advanced life ; as did the wife of his youth, Hannah 
 Metcalf. They had among their descendants ministers, ministers' 
 wives, the children of the latter, and their partners, between thirty 
 and forty.
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 109 
 
 In the genealogical list I have said about all I intended to say of 
 our own name. There is one of the sons of my grandfather, how- 
 ever, not to be overlooked. Though an uneducated, unpretending 
 man, my Uncle Oliver was sui generis. In the humble sphere 
 in which he moved, he would not be noticed for anything peculiar 
 other than a cheerful readiness to every good work. It was known 
 to a few that his thoughts were much upon the great concerns of an 
 eventful day to his country ; some would say, upon subjects far be- 
 yond his grasp. 
 
 The time had come for the United States to form a Constitution 
 of government. He had one in readiness, of his own framing, 
 founded upon the Rock, " When the righteous are in authority, the 
 people rejoice," and " They shall prosper that love thee," i. e. Zion, 
 the Church. Let the suffrages of the people, for their rulers, be 
 given for professors of religion, and all the interests of society are 
 as safe as they can be in this imperfect state. This was the theory. 
 Whether the good uncle lived to realize the boon to his satisfac- 
 tion, is more than I can say. I used to transcribe his papers, but 
 was too young to know much of their purport. If he did not ac- 
 complish the great object of his wishes, it was not because his 
 papers were not submitted to individuals and public bodies of the 
 first order. 
 
 Mr. Brewster,* a neighbor of my father, was famous for puzzling 
 college boys with knotty questions, when they were at home, during 
 their vacations. His name was Comfort, but that keen black eye of 
 his, kindled by a self-complacent smile of victory, was anything but 
 Comfort to us, when he got a theorem or conundrum too hard for us. 
 
 The Metcalfs, another name in our group, were a stalwart race, 
 of whom the neighbors used to tell an anecdote, illustrative of their 
 intrepidity as well as their size. A wild animal had broken loose 
 from the stall, and was pursued by his owners, at full speed, on 
 horseback, who, meeting a man on foot, quite unmoved in his man- 
 ner, asked him earnestly, if he had met a wild bull on the road. " A 
 wild bull ? " he replied ; " no, I met a calf, a little back." They 
 rushed on, and soon overtook the animal, in the hands of another 
 man, who, holding him by his horns, had turned his face homeward. 
 
 They both earned a family name, Metcalf and Turnbidl; the 
 latter is generally written Trumbull. The two families, Met- 
 
 * A descendant of the Mayflower Puritan, Elder Brewster.
 
 110 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 calf and Trumbull, have been within a mile of each other in 
 Lebanon for more than a century. A hundred years ago, Mar- 
 chant Metcalf, whose wife was one of the sixty feet of daughters 
 of Rev. Timothy Edwards, East Windsor, was one of the nobility 
 of the town. There were two " Merchant Princes," by the name 
 of Little ; William, of Boston, and Jonathan, of New York, whose 
 mother was one of the Metcalfs, a century since Lebanon men. 
 Within two years, I met with a branch of this family in Western 
 New York, and heard of another in Montpelier, Vermont, and 
 others in other places, all distinguished for longevity and longitude ; 
 for their symmetry and bearing ; for their physiognomy and idiosyn- 
 crasy of character. 
 
 The origin of names brings to my mind an anecdote. 
 
 President Dwight and Judge Trumbull were fellow-Tutors in 
 Yale College. Both, having ready wit at their command, sometimes 
 amused themselves with trying it. They once hit upon their own 
 names, as the subject. Dwight quoted to Trumbull the origin of his 
 name, as above related. In return, Trumbull told Dwight that the 
 word "WIT was an abbreviation of Wight, and that the D was an 
 abbreviation of De, negative, often standing before another word, 
 denoting destitution, so that D-wight meant nothing more nor less 
 than want of wit. 
 
 This takes me back again to my own name. Some of our friends 
 in the group now before us would have it that we were too proud 
 of our name ; it was too long : and, to administer salutary pruning 
 in pronouncing it as it ought to be, they would leave out one of the 
 last syllables, some calling it Hunton and some Hunting. Shall I 
 tell you how this disjointed trisyllable was so put together, as to 
 hold hitherto tolerably well ? 
 
 A young lady, addressed by one of the name not long before she 
 expected to exchange hers for his, had put into her hands by Fa- 
 ther Cleveland, one of our Home Missionaries, as if in her own 
 language, the following stanza : 
 
 " If hunting were now all the ton, 
 
 I never would join in the chase ; 
 But putting both words into one, 
 Be sure, it would alter the case." 
 
 What the case proved to be was made known soon after ; and how 
 far she approved the exchange was shown, asking pardon for this 
 self-glorification about it, in the following acrostic:
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. Ill 
 
 " H ave I a husband, then, whose generous mind 
 U nites the will and power to teach mankind, 
 N ot slack to warn, nor willing to offend, 
 T o serve his God his highest aim and end ? 
 I n such a friend I can and will rejoice, 
 N or fail to raise to heaven my thankful voice. 
 G rant me, kind Father, while I dwell below, 
 T his friend to guide me all my journey through ! 
 O let us live as one, in tender love, 
 N or be disjoined at last, but joined to Thee above! " 
 
 If the authoress of the above is not a native of Lebanon, her 
 husband is, and he will remember with gratitude on this, his eighty- 
 fourth birthday, her kindness in so putting together the two words 
 as to restore the abused name to its pristine dignity. 
 
 We will now proceed to another group of names, in about the 
 same latitude with the former, comprising the names of "West, 
 Pettes, Loomis, Bissel, Buel, Brown, Stone, Ripley, Elliot, Thomas, 
 Palmer, Huntington ; among whom were divines and civilians of 
 the first order. Esquire West was, for many years, more the stated 
 Representative of the town in the General Assembly of the State, 
 I should think, than any other man, and his opinions, expressed 
 with an originality and independence and piquancy peculiar to 
 himself, were universally respected and remembered. Highly in- 
 censed by some resolution adopted by the Assembly which, with all 
 his force, he had opposed in vain, he said that that body were " not 
 fit to carry offal to a bear." Upon being called upon to make an 
 acknowledgment' for the indignity shown to the House, he readily 
 confessed he was wrong ; he had spoken hastily ; he had said that 
 the House were not fit to carry offal meat to a bear ; he would take 
 it back : they were just fit for it. The result I have forgotten. 
 
 We will move on to the centre of the town. The centre was 
 then two or three miles only from the southern extremity, but four or 
 five from the northern. It was the centre, not of the town, but the 
 aristocracy, so denominated. It was quite a pleasant elevation, at 
 the crossing of two great roads, east and west, north and south. The 
 Broad Street was very much cleared of rocks, and the rough places 
 were made smooth, for one or two hundred rods. Here stood the 
 meeting-house, the largest I ever saw, filled every Sabbath to over- 
 flowing ; with a porch at each end, the one at the east surrounded 
 by a pavement, sufficiently elevated on three sides for a horse-block,
 
 112 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 very convenient for the multitude that rode on pillions, the day 
 for carriages not having yet arrived. It was a sight worth seeing, 
 at the close of the services, such an assembly mounted in pairs, 
 moving off the green in battalions in different directions home- 
 wards, with half as many colts, perhaps, following and neigh- 
 ing for their dams, and the dams answering in loftier tones. 
 Among them, pre-eminent, I remember, usually to be seen riding 
 to the east, was a very large man, Mr. Sprague, well dressed and 
 well mounted, on a stately sorrel horse, white mane and tail very 
 long. General Washington himself could hardly have been more 
 conspicuous, at the head of his army. Assembling from the differ- 
 ent parts of the town, it was pleasant, when the weather was favor- 
 able, for fellow-worshippers to meet at an early hour, to have a 
 friendly greeting, in front of the church, thus to enjoy a season, 
 before the commencement of the services, for the interchange of 
 thoughts suitable to the occasion, upon the events of the day. Thus 
 the Sabbath was to them a high day, the good influences of which 
 were felt through the week. 
 
 The publishment for marriage in old times was announced at the 
 close of the afternoon services by the town clerk, with an OYES ! 
 twice repeated, at the top of a stentorian vociferation, " Oyes ! 
 Oyes ! " which attracted close attention, and seemed to say to all 
 concerned, Eemember the Law as well as the Gospel. All this 
 might be very excusable, if he would altogether omit an offensive 
 yawning with a hi ho hum, in which he often indulged toward the 
 close of the sermon, especially if it were a long one, hereby intend- 
 ing to hint to the speaker, that the time had arrived for him to 
 come to a close. In the gallery, the wall-pew in front of the pulpit, 
 which was very large, was reserved for newly married couples, and 
 strangers, who, coming in, generally, after the assembly was seated, 
 and with considerable ceremony and thumping in their steps, at- 
 tracted great attention. In other parts of the gallery, males and 
 females had their appropriate seats. In this, the high pew, they 
 sat down together, in full dress, without distinction of sex. For 
 years, I suppose they enjoyed, as a religious society of fellow-wor- 
 shippers, unusual harmony and happiness. It was a good, however, 
 not to be enjoyed without interruption. Independence was declared 
 in the country, and with it the spirit of liberty and centrality began 
 to develop, in the different departments of life. The members of 
 the Old Parish at the north had to travel twice as far to the place
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 113 
 
 of worship as those at the south. They were dissatisfied and re- 
 monstrated, but in vain. 
 
 At a time appointed, a sufficient number were on the ground, 
 with their implements of destruction, and the good old sanctuary, 
 the sanctum sanctorum of hundreds, if not of thousands, was de- 
 molished in a day. Another, of brick, soon went up in its place ; 
 another of wood^ a mile above it; another, a mile farther north. 
 There they stand to the present day ; three meeting-houses, and 
 three denominations, within the sound of each other's bells, and 
 whether with the increase or the lack of Christian brotherhood 
 will be better known at another day. It may be an event yet to 
 be realized, that " the glory of the latter house shall be greater than 
 that of the former " ; though some years after, happening to be 
 there on the Sabbath with my wife, and being invited by the com- 
 mittee of the Society, in the absence of their pastor, to take the 
 pulpit, an event occurred that led me in some measure to doubt it. 
 My wife and I were met, a few rods from the door of the church, by 
 an old acquaintance, who asked me, " Are you going to preach to- 
 day, Mr. Huntington ? " I replied, I had come there for that pur- 
 pose. He replied, he could not hear me, and gave as a reason, that 
 he and I did not worship the same God; referring to a change of 
 opinion in the preacher on the doctrine of the Trinity. I waited, 
 in a pew, till the assembly were generally seated, and then told the 
 assembly why I had not taken the desk. It brought on a few re- 
 marks both pro and con. Reverend John Robinson, then a dis- 
 missed minister, and an inhabitant of the town and a member of the 
 Society, said : " Mr. Huntington, I hope you will pay no attention to 
 what is said by this old Jones (the man who stopped me at the 
 door) ; he does not belong here, but, knowing that you were to be 
 here, came all the way over from Exeter, on foot, on purpose to 
 make this mischief." 
 
 Finding the debate too warm for our edification, my wife and I 
 left the house, and were followed by a respectable portion of the 
 congregation. They wished me to take the lead in worship, in the 
 brick school-house hard by ; which, not having come there to set 
 up altar against altar, I declined. I afterwards received a letter 
 containing a vote of the parish, an apology for the treatment I en- 
 countered. 
 
 But by the Vandalism shown, in the demolition of that vener- 
 able temple, the glory seemed gradually departing. That old 
 
 15
 
 114 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 saying, mentioned of Lebanon children, probably fabulous, who, as 
 you met them in the street, if asked, " Who made you ? " replied, 
 " Governor Trumbull," and who, if asked, "Who redeemed you?" 
 as readily replied, " Doctor Williams," was gradually growing 
 out of date, and a good many better things with it. 
 
 There was no lack of stumbling-blocks, as there was found occa- 
 sion for the halting of a frail brother or sister. There was an in- 
 stance, " in high life," of a match instead of avowed marriage, 
 which was much a matter of speculation among us, and which, for 
 a long time, had no very satisfactory explanation, if it ever had. 
 
 In another odd movement of church discipline, what the offence 
 was I am not able to say. There was a person denied communion 
 at the Lord's table, who brought the elements of the Supper with 
 him, and during the communion partook by himself. This he did 
 habitually, for some time. In such a state of society, what could 
 be the benefit of ordinances ? A Diotrephes, that loveth to have 
 the pre-eminence in the church, and the demagogue out of it, are 
 apt to be the foremost among mischief-makers. For a time there 
 were frequent occurrences of this kind, that showed the importance 
 of able counsellors, and good examples, not now to be found, as 
 formerly. Their loss was sensibly felt. Still there were those 
 coming forward to fill the places their fathers had left, that have 
 continued to sustain in this, among others of our country towns, a 
 high degree of respectability. 
 
 The name of Bacon occurs, and reminds me of a classmate at Yale, 
 who has been eminent hi public life, as a jurist and member of Con- 
 gress ; who, on other occasions, as orator and poet, has stood among 
 the foremost, and whom, within a year, I have seen, at his home in 
 Utica, by the side of one of the loveliest of her sex ; whom I had 
 seen, not far from sixty years ago, with her hand in his as the wife 
 of his youth, and for whom I then had the honor to administer the 
 nuptial vow. And this brings to my mind another classmate and 
 chum, a Lebanon man by descent, and grandson to the Eight Rev- 
 erend Solomon Williams, D. D., who baptized me. There was 
 another in the group. The name was not as illustrious as some of 
 the others ; the title attached to it was more so. Lebanon not only 
 had her three Governors, five or six doctors of divinity, judges, and 
 the like ; she had her King Palmer, as well known by his title and 
 his person, and his character, as most men. As far back as I can 
 recollect, he was far advanced in life ; seldom seen from home ;
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 115 
 
 stately in his appearance ; staid and precise in his demeanor ; said 
 but little, but what he did say was law. His son John, a bachelor, 
 I know more about. He had great literary pride, which showed 
 itself in definitions. He made the dictionary his great study. He 
 had a small one of his own, which he carried in his pocket, always 
 to be appealed to in any emergency. A neighbor had Old Bailey, 
 which in difficult cases he consulted as his oracle. Thus fortified, 
 he prided himself in telling the boys, if they had hard words, to 
 bring them to him. It became fine fun for the rogues, thus to tease 
 " Uncle John." One came in early in the morning when Uncle 
 John was making his fire, asking him what he should do. " Why, 
 what 's the matter ? " " O, I have had such an Incubus all night,. I 
 could not sleep a wink." Telling his neighbor about it, afterwards, 
 Uncle John said, "I made him no answer. I kept on making 
 my fire. He had it over again, and asked me if I ever had that 
 complaint. I said nothing. ' Well,' said he, ' I am going to such a 
 place, and on my return I will call, and you must tell me what to 
 do.' As soon as he was out of the door," said Uncle John, " I 
 struck for Old Bailey, the great dictionary owned by a neigh- 
 bor, across lots, and before the boy returned, I got home, and as 
 quick as he came in, I told him, ' I suppose you thought I did not 
 understand what Incubus meant ; it is the Nightmare ; I have had 
 it myself, and if you don't want to have it again, you must take good 
 care and eat light suppers.' " 
 
 " Uncle John " had sustained his character for dictionary infalli- 
 bility, and had turned it all, as he thought, to good account, by add- 
 ing a little good advice. 
 
 Caasar, the colored man, comes next in our review, and was 
 about as notable for his attainments, in his line, as Uncle John 
 in his. He was fond of figures of speech, and illustrations of his 
 own. In company with those that understood his humor, he had 
 occasion to quote the quaint old saw, " You cannot eat your cake 
 and have your cake." He succeeded very well in the former clause, 
 but in attempting the latter, his assurance failed him, as it had been 
 wont to do in other instances, much to the sport of roguish by- 
 standers. He had got as far as " Do you think a man can eat his 
 cake," and could go no further, hesitated a moment, and with an 
 emphatic look bawled out, at the top of his voice, "The Devil. 
 Do you think a man can eat his cake and his cheese too ? " 
 
 Ccesar was fond of music, and naturally a good fiddler. Meeting
 
 116 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 him on the road, Doctor "Williams said to him, " Caesar, I am told 
 you play your fiddle on the Sabbath : is it so ? " '' Yes, master," 
 he replied, " I do play a little, now and then, just for my own con- 
 
 Giving the Devil his due, 
 Uncle John and Caesar too, 
 We go on with our review. 
 
 There are other notable names in the group before me, not to be 
 commented upon, however, according to their merits : first, the 
 names of Alden, Blackman, Baldwin, Bushnell, Babcock, Bucking- 
 ham, Bennet, Backus, Champion, Chapel, and others. Mr. Chapel 
 was an original. 
 
 " Fortune," he said to his negro man, who was a counterpart to his 
 master, speaking very moderately, and accenting every syllable, 
 " Fortune, you dog, I have got a tusk here that aches confoundedly, 
 and you have got to help me pull it out, without those iron pincers. 
 Here. This cord, tied round my tooth, I 'm going to hook on to 
 that spike yonder, driven into that beam over my head. And now> 
 Fortune, you dog, when I Ve got it fixed, do you take a coal of fire 
 with these tongs, and hold it close to my nose, and when it begins 
 to burn, I shall tell you to take it away ; don't you mind me, you 
 dog ; but be quick about it, and shove the coal right up to my nose, 
 and I '11 risk it." As the story is told, the experiment succeeded. 
 
 " Uncle Josh," as he was called, was a strongly marked character 
 of the day, in similar singular enterprises. But I must go on with 
 the catalogue. Captain Leech I well remember, a large, well-pro- 
 portioned personage, with a frank, expressive countenance, attrac- 
 tive in his manner ; social in his address ; his voice full and silver- 
 toned ; prominent and eloquent in company ; with a number of his 
 neighbors, all working together on the highway. I once saw a let- 
 ter of his. The chirography was beautiful ; the orthography, of a 
 more questionable character. It was notorious for unnecessary 
 letters. Some one rallied him for poor spelling : " Why, what was 
 the matter with it?" The answer was, "It had abundance of let- 
 ters." " Well," he said, " that was just as he meant to have it. The 
 alphabet was free to everybody, and he meant to put in enough 
 letters, for every word, to make out the sound he wished ; and if 
 others did not like his arrangement, they might suit themselves." 
 
 In the medical profession, I would mention the names of Thomas
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 117 
 
 Coleman, Pierce Button, and the two Clarks, all good names of 
 men, to whose fidelity and skill, for many years, we felt indebted 
 for health and happiness. " Grace Greenwood," I suppose, was^a 
 native of Lebanon ; if not, her father, Dr. Thaddeus Clark, was ; 
 and was there till middle-aged, and surrounded by a family, of 
 which Sarah, alias Grace Greenwood, might have been one. Dr. 
 John Clark, her grandfather, one of the higher rank in the group 
 now before me, and my father, were cousins ; of course " Grace " 
 and my children are third-cousins. The tie is strengthened^by the 
 fact, that her grandmother, the wife of the above Dr. John, was a 
 Huntington, from Windham, whose mother was sister to Merchant 
 Metcalf 's wife, one of the sixty feet of daughters (Edwards), "royal 
 blood " again, and on both sides of the house. 
 
 And from this it is natural to turn to another family of Lebanon 
 aristocracy, that of the Robinsons. A sister of the head of this 
 family was wife of the elder Governor Trumbull ; the other was 
 wife of Mr. Elliot, the first minister of Goshen. Mr. Robin- 
 son died when I was young. My mother brought up one of 
 his slaves, Tamar. I remember Mr. Robinson's gray head and 
 venerable appearance, in the corner of the pew of the old church, 
 at the right hand of the front door ; in prayer-time he always 
 stood with the cushion under his elbows. The elder of his two 
 sons, William, was minister of Southington, Conn. He was a 
 favorite in the desk. His outward man every way calculated to 
 attract attention, his sermons delivered memoriter, with great sim- 
 plicity of manner, his eyes and cheeks suffused with tears of ten- 
 derness and love, his voice and manner in keeping with everything 
 persuasive, what he said could not fail to commend itself to 
 every man's conscience. Out of the pulpit, without letting himself 
 down, as to a truly religious character, he showed a readiness and 
 comprehension of mind on common subjects, that made his opinions 
 uncommonly valuable. With the natural gifts of a discerning 
 financier, he became rich upon a moderate salary, and, by those 
 who knew him well, was highly respected and loved, both as a man 
 and a minister. He has a son, a distinguished scholar, traveller, 
 and professor, in New York. 
 
 I have, till lately, supposed the Robinsons of Lebanon were 
 descendants of John Robinson of Leyden, the pastor of the Pil- 
 grims. From thorough inquiry of late, I am persuaded I have 
 been mistaken, and must give it up. They are nearly related;
 
 118 NOTES TO SERMONS. 
 
 probably the descendants of a brother. The sermon of Dr. Lam- 
 son, of Dedham, Mass., on the subject, is well worth reading. 
 
 I go on, now, to the northern extremities of the town, bounded 
 north and west by the bold heights of the Wonnegunset ; by Ob- 
 wibicot, east ; leaving the Crank, now called Columbia, entirely 
 out of view in what I write, from the want of a more thorough 
 acquaintance, writing, as I do, principally from the reminiscences 
 of a youth under the age of twenty. It was at this period of my 
 life, that the institution already mentioned, under the auspices of 
 the TVheelocks, at Columbia, was removed to Hanover, N. H. 
 
 On the southern slopes of these heights, from the TVillimantic, 
 westward for miles, lie ample, well-cultivated farms, of every 
 variety as to surface and tillage, and well husbanded by their in- 
 dependent owners, well defended with stone-walls, and intersected 
 with convenient roads. The inhabitants were principally in three 
 neighborhoods. They had among them the goodly names of Swift, 
 Tilden, Tiffany, Caulkins, Martin, Kewcomb, Baldwin, some of 
 whom led off their colonies to distant and flourishing settlements. 
 One, by the name of Cushman, a professional character, and a 
 seventh son, Polycarpus, went, a pedestrian, with his saddle-bags 
 well stuffed with Materia Medico, swung over his shoulders, and 
 settled down at Bernardston, Mass., and has given to the Common- 
 wealth a Lieutenant-Governor ; with a neighbor at his side, from 
 the same place, who has given to the same several of its jurists 
 and justices, Newcomb by name. 
 
 On " Kick Hill " Lawyer Tisdale and his family were promi- 
 nent ; and from the oldest to the youngest were eminently attrac- 
 tive. Genius seemed to be generally diffused in them with appro- 
 priate benignity and dignity. Farmers, in those days, generally 
 had a trade in connection with a farm. The lawyer's father was, 
 by trade, a tanner, and the two families lived harmoniously together. 
 The lawyer had his share of public business, and was often com- 
 petitor with Colonel "Williams for a seat in the legislature, which 
 then fell to the lot of but a very few. 
 
 Captain Vaughn was more than six feet high, and every way well 
 proportioned. His teeth were like marble, and those in front (how- 
 ever it might have been with the others) were all double, beauti- 
 fully sound and symmetrical. It was currently reported of him, 
 that, taking a hogshead by the bung between his teeth, he could 
 throw it back over his head. C'redat Apetta. He was a ready
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LEBANON. 119 
 
 wit wherever he was, and was sure of having the attention of those 
 around him. In removing his family on runners, too late in the 
 winter for good sledding, to a place at some distance, it was more 
 like him, learning from those he met that there was snow in plenty 
 ahead, to offer half a dollar per bushel to cover the bare ground 
 around him, and take courage, in good spirits, than to stop and turn 
 about, without making the trial. 
 
 Being now in a part of the town remote from my own neighbor- 
 hood, I recollect nothing worthy of particular attention, or if other- 
 wise, there is nothing better than the good old rule, De mortuis, 
 nihil nisi bonum. 
 
 It seems to me a singular fact, from the uncommon number of 
 ancient worthies of the town, that there are so few of their names 
 remaining in the place of their former residence. 
 
 In the right enjoyment of the resources vouchsafed to them by 
 Providence, may those following on, in co-operation with those who 
 have gone before, in the way of well-doing, erect an example that 
 shall be for a name and a praise in all succeeding time. 
 
 And now, commending you to Him who is able to keep you, and 
 to present us all, with the beloved and blessed ones who have gone 
 before, " in his presence with exceeding joy," I am, my dear chil- 
 dren, most affectionately yours, 
 
 DAN HUNTINGTON. 
 
 THE END.
 
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