r-^v ^ri^'^^.C.^r :^ i^^Tfi^: "V-v* 1 5 > :> > , > 5 ■> 5 1 J ^ 5 J CT DEDICATORY INTRODUCTION. It was my fortune to be born in Massachusetts in 1817, in the days between the old and the new time, — before the coming of the great reforms that have heahhfully shaken the nation in the past fifty years; before the age of modern science and varied industry, and of larger freedom of religious thought and spiritual experience. In my New England childhood Puritanism largely gave its cast and aspect to life, for good and ill; now we breathe a new atmosphere. For a realistic picture of that old time, some autobio- graphic sketch of childhood and youth seemed best. To give an idea of the growth of reforms, and how one led to another, a look at the grand anti-slavery move- ment, in which I was privileged to take part, at its ^^ mighty "winnowing of the nation," and at the upward 'cs^ steps which have followed it, with biographic sketches of ^^ noble and true-hearted men and women whom I have _ ^ known, seemed fit and useful. A look at the ereat religious changes and spiritual experiences of our time, ^ and an outlook forward to coming light and needed V reforms must surely help to inspire us to emulate the courage of those who have done well in the past, and to . take up our needed tasks with a faith even stronger than ^. theirs. >P^ Thus is the aim and scope of this work briefly given. '^ " Some fragmentary sketches of like aim, used here, and changed and added to, met with such favor years ago from good friends that I hope they, and possibly others, may take a cordial interest in this book. To those friends, near and far, it is gratefully dedicated. G. B. a * Detroit, Mich. , Oct. ist, 1890. 402355 ' » , r«- • • * r r # » » c* ' t w * »♦* * - » r » « « CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGB Dedicatory introduction 3 I,— Ancestry — Childhood — Youth. — Birthplace — Spring- field, Mass.— Hatfield— Home Life— Oliver Smith — Sophia Smith— Self- Help 9 II.— Old Time Good and III. — Religious growth — Reforms — Temperance 39 III.— Transcendentalism. — Brook Farm — Hopedale —- North- ampton—Samuel L. Hill— W. E. Channing— Pierpont— Theodore Parker 5^ IV. —Anti-Slavery. — Garrison — " The Fleas of Conventions " — Personal Incidents— H. C. Wright— C. L. Remond — George Thompson— Gerritt Smith— Abby Kelley Foster — Abigail and Lydia Mott— Abigail P. Ela— Josephine S. Griffing 72 V.-— The Friends — Quakerism. — Griffith M. Cooper— John and Hannah Cox— A Golden Wedding — Experiences of Pris- cilla Cadwallader — Lucretia Mott — Isaac T. Hopper — Thomas Garrett — Richard Glazier — Progressive Friends' Meetings 119 VT. — The World's Helpers and Light Bringers. — John D. Zimmerman — W. S. Prentiss — Wm. Denton — E. B. Ward — Emily Ward — Benjamin F. Wade — H. C. Carey — Home Industry— Education, Scientific, Industrial, and Moral — "Religion of the Body" — Jugoi Arinori Mori — Peary Chand Mittra — President Grant and Sojourner Truth- John Brown — Helpful Influences — Great Awakenings .... 151 VII.— Spiritualism— Natural Religion. — Experiences and In- vestigations — Slate Writing — Spirits described — Piano music without hands — A fact beyond mind reading — Lifted in the air — Spirit portraits — A Michigan pioneer's ex- perience — Looking Beyond— Future Life — Natural Me- diumship — Illumination — Blind Inductive Science 221 ji CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE VIII. — Psychic Science. — The Spiritual Body — Painless Sur- gery — Psychometry — Inspired Experiences — George Eliot— Helen Hunt Jackson— Prof. Stowe — Mrs. H. B. Stowe — Savonarola — Rev. H. W. Bellows — Dinah Mulock Craik — A Simple Michigan Maiden — Lizzie Doten — Read- ing German Philosophy — Record of an Hour's Experience. 264 IX.— Religious Outlook— Coming Reforms.— A New Protes- tantism — Woman in the Pulpit — Rev. Horace Bushnell's "Deeper Matters" — Radicalism — Ethical Culture — Liberal Christianity — A Needed Leaven — Two Paths — Futui-e Religion— Coming Ket'orms— Conclusion. ....... 285 Upward Steps of Seventy Years. CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY — CHILDHOOD — YOUTH. «» The home of my childhood ; the haunts of my prime ; All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time, When the feelings were young and the world was new, Like the fresh bowers of Eden unfolding to view." Thomas Pringle. Ancestry is like the roots of a tree. Something- of the fibre and grain of the root crops out in branch and twig-, in flower and fruitage. My maternal grandfather's farm- house still stands in the old town of Hatfield, Massachu- setts, on the western verge of the fertile meadows on the Connecticut river. Its great central chimney (fifteen feet square at the base), its small windows, low-ceiled rooms, solid frame and steep roof, were unchanged a few years ago, but clad in new vesture of clapboards and shingles. Just inside the yard, in front, stood an elm — its trunk five feet through, and its branches reaching over the roof of the house. A century ago, grandfather brought it from the meadow on his shoulder, set it in the ground, and lived to take his noon-day nap on the grass beneath its shade, when almost ninety years old. Fifty years ago the well behind the house was dug out anew. It stocd just outside the barnyard fence, with the log \vatering- lO UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. trough inside, and a spout between. I can see the cattle standing around that trough, sucking up the water as the bucket was emptied into it, waiting for the swift up and down swing of the old well-sweep to bring thenn a fresh supply, and clattering their horns and poking their heads over the fence if the "hired man " failed to ply his task at the well-pole vigorously. When the diggers had reached down twenty feet, they came to the roots of the great tree, filling the earth with a network of tough fibres, which reached under the deep house-cellar, and met in the massive trunk of that tree sixty feet away. I won- dered with the rest, to see huw far and how deep they reached. So our ancestral roots go back to "ye olden time " of simple and God-fearing New England, and even under the ocean to sturdy Saxons and hardy Normans in Eng- land. On my mother's side I can only go back to her father, Ebenezer Fitch. His cousin, John Fitch, built the first steamboat, ran it on the Delaware in 1788 and 1790, had no means to repair its broken machinery, and went to the wild west to die on the Ohio river. He sent a sealed packet to the Franklin library in Philadelphia, to be opened in thirty years, in which he said : "I die un- known and poor, but when this package is opened the whistle of the steamboat will be heard on every navigable stream in this country" — a prophecy born of faith, and fully verified ; for the genius of Fulton, helped by the money of the Livingstones, took up his work and carried it on. My grandfather had some of this inventive genius. I have often heard him tell the story of his millstone in the linseed oil mill, falling into the pit, and how he alone, three miles from any help, lifted the great stone, weigh- ing over a ton, twelve feet upward to its place. I re- member him as a white-haired old man, toward the close of a life of careful thrift, patient industry, and remarkable temperance in all things. '• Leave off eating just a little UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. n hungry," .was his word and practice. His wife, my grand- mother, was a daughter of Deacon Taylor, of Suttield, Ct, — a busy man, with a farm, a blacksmith's shop, and many affairs of church and towia in his trusty hands. He had the old New England habit of vigilant care and early work. Mother used to tell of making long visits at their house, and how the Deacon was up before the dawn in cold winter mornings, built the fire in the great kitchen fire-place, put on the tea-kettle, swept up the hearth, and then would open the chamber door which led up to a hall with sleeping rooms on either side, and call out in quick and clear tones : " Boys ! Gals ! '' and no boy or "gal" waited for a second summons. A quaint story, and true withal, is told of an old-time courtship at his house. My grandfather, in the old revo- lutionary war, paid a substitute to do his fighting against the 'red-coat Britishers," and followed the useful voca- tion of teaming up and down the Connecticut from Hartford to his home. Among his many errands, he had one to Deacon Taylor, and left his team imder the tavern shed one raw November day, and found his way to the house. He went to the kitchen door (in those days front doors were reserved for state occasions), and a blooming maiden opened it, and asked him in. The old folks were away, and she was at the big spinning-wheel, erect, radiant, and busy with her graceful and useful task. Of course she stopped to hear his message, and saw that he looked cold and a little worn. " On hospitable thoughts intent." she asked him to wait and take a lunch ; set up the little square stand by his side, put on a plate, knife and fork, rye bread, a dish of " scraps," fresh and crispy, just from the trying of the lard, with a pumpkin pie, and a mug of cider to help out. He ate and they talked ; he felt refreshed in body and soul. Other errands followed, and in due time a wedding. Sons and daughters blessed the golden hour that led the father to that kitchen, and 12 UPWARD STEPS OP SErEXTV YEARS. prompted the maiden, their dear mother, to set her best pumpkin pie and scraps — before him. I never saw her, but heard much of her tender kindness and thrifty ways, and always thought my mother must be like her. Grandfathernever felt quite sure of his "calling and election," and so never joined the church, but was a con- stant attendant, and kept up family prayers to the last. Often did I, when a child, kneel by my chair on that kitchen floor, and listen to his familiar petitions — always the same words earnestly repeated. It was no idle cere- mony, but his best way to look up for light and strength. Whoever has a better way, let him take it, and waste no time in slighting contempt of "the soul's sincere desire," even if expressed in strange and daily-repeated phrases. ]\Iy paternal grandparents I never saw, butthe Stebbins family — or Stebbing by English spelling — goes dimly back to one Nicholas de Stubbynge, in 1235, with some armorial crest of lion heads and the like, in Essex, and is clearly traced eight generations to one Rowland Stebbins, from England, the ancestor of all the race here. For over two centuries they were mostly farmers in decent con- dition. In 1774-80 the Wilbraham town records (in Mas- sachusetts, father's birthplace) show a score of them as stout soldiers in the war, as refusing to use British goods, and as paying their share of war costs, heavy for those days. The plain names — Noah, IMoses, Calvin, Enos, Aaron, Zadock and Eldad — tell their English lineage and their middling station in life. A sturdy, upright and downright company they were, little given to official honors or to large wealth, branching out sometimes from farm to pulpit, but everywhere inclined to do their own thinking. The women were strong, sensible, and earnest, with a tinge of finer grace in the later generations as I knew them, a rare sweetness tempering their strength. The English blood kept clear of any foreign mixture in a remarkable way ; healthy in body and soul, genuine in UPWARD STEPS OF SEVEXTY YEARS. 13 life and character. There were no mean members, few dull ones, some of marked power and insight ; on the whole, it was good blood because genuine and honest. BIRTHPLACE SPRINGFIELD, MASS. Opposite the north-west corner of Armory Square in Springfield, stood, sixty years ago, a long, one-story house, formerly a soldiers barrack, but neatly fitted up as a cottage for my father, who was paymaster's clerk in the government armory or gun factory. In the centre of that grassy square of twenty acres, a tall flag-staff rose above the trees, and from its top, on all gala days, floated the stars and stripes. Facing the square on its eastern side, and filling a part of its southern space, were the long shops in which hundreds of men worked at making muskets. The level plain dotted with houses, stretched back to low hills eastward with the Wilbraham mount- ains, but a few miles distant. Northward fifteen miles the Holyoke mountain range lifted up its billowy sum- mits against the sky. Just in the rear of the house the ground sloped down a hundred feet to the level of the broad meadows on which the town was mostly built, and its homes, half hid by great elms, the blue Connec- ticut winding through twenty miles of lovely valley, and the towering hills west, were all in sight, — one of the loveliest landscapes in the world, with its soft beauty lifted into grandeur as the eye rested on the mountains along its border. Around that home was the beauty of nature, and within it the diviner beauty of human life, well ordered in its daily doings. Very seldom did I hear a fretful or impatient word from father or mother — fortunate tempera- ment, and the repression and self-control in the very atmosphere of Puritanism wrought this fine result, which lasted through years of invalid life of my father, and the watching night and day of my mother, and kept their 14 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. last years serene and cheerful. An older and only sister never fretted at me or them, but held to her sweet saint- liness and useful cares as maiden, wife, and mother. I look up to these lives ; without them I could not see through the mists to their golden heights. The memory of such a home is a saving grace. Near us was the Arsenal, filled with thousands of muskets stacked upright in burnished order. When I read Longfellow's poem — "This is the Arsenal, from floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise tne burnished arms, But from their silent throats no anthems pealing, Startle the villagers with rude alarms — " I could see it all, as if it were but yesterday that I played as a child among these long corridors of silent weapons. This youth of the spirit tells of immortality, — it pertains to our innermost, where there is no death or decay. In rainy days the long, low garret was a chosen resort. There were piles of the Springfield Republican — of which my father was one of the early friends and founders — in which were charming stories by Rev. W. B. O. Peabody. the Unitarian clergyman of the town. What hours were those ! Lost to all care or thought of other things and living in the scenes of his creation. When I heard that minister read the hymns and preach on Sundays, his tender monotone and the spiritual beauty of his presence, set him apart from earth, and to me he seemed a celestial visitant. Homer's Iliad divided my garret hours with his stories, and I used to feel the wild struggle of the battle, see the c'escending gods, and hear the words of heroes and the pleas of women, until New England was in some dim distance, and old Greece was new and near. Years after in Hatfield, just at an age when a boy devours the books he happens to find, I had access to the town library of UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 15 some five hundred well-selected volumes, and so, fortu- nately, read history and Scott's novels, and was saved from literary trash. In those days we had fewer books, and less unwholesome cramming and mental dyspepsia. Many books bring many dangers to those who have no wit or wisdom to keep clear of mental bogs, quicksands and moral whirlpools. For fair days there was "the dingle," a deep ravine with steep banks just north of the house, where I shared the sport of pushing, tumbling and rolling in the soft sand with other boys, until the master's ferule rapping on the window called us all to the school- house near at hand. Nothing is absolutely forgotten ; every event comes up, again if but rightly evoked. The very bricks in our houses can, perhaps, whisper of what has passed within their walls before our day, were our poor ears fine enough to hear the story. Some things stand out in wonderful clearness the moment the mind turns to them. When I was about six years old the West Point cadets pitched their tents on the green before our house, camped for a week, went through their drills and marched to the sound of their famous band's music. I had seen soldiers and heard bands before, but these I see now, and hear the strains of their music stir and swell in the air. A young woman, a friend of my sister, went to Phila- delphia as teacher in a ladies' private school, and came home on a visit about the time of this cadet encampment. She took me to church with her and seated me by her side. The gracious kindness and sweet refinement of her manners, a certain delicate and noble purity in her very presence, seemed but the signs and proofs of an interior perfectness. The simple elegance of her dress, its soft gray hue tinged with blue, seemed the fit expression of those qualities. I sat in quiet content — a fine aura, luminous to my spirit, but invisible otherwise, radiating from the inner being of that true woman. Such is the 1 6 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. influence of personal presence. Children especially live "not by bread alone." Let all thoughtless people, who would put the little ones among ignorant and uncouth nurses to save themselves trouble, think of this. That Unitarian Church, with its chaste beauty of archi- tecture, its air of quiet refinement, the exalted spirit and tenderness of its minister, the peculiar mellowness of the tone of its Sabbath bell, is a living memory. A few years ago I went to its site, and only fragments of the red stone steps of its porch were left. Up the street stood a costly modern temple, less beautiful to my eyes than the old meeting-house. Our " slip " or common narrow pew, in that church was opposite the stately square pew of Jonathan Dwight, father to Mrs. George Bancroft. The scholar and future historian used to come there with the family, and it was a quiet amusement to me to watch him standing before the window in prayer time, and catching flies on its panes in his total absence of mind. In occasional visits to my cousins in Wilbraham, I would go across the road on Sundays to the Methodist meetings in theoldschoolhouse. The shouts, groans and uncouth ways of preachers and hearers made all seem unlike a Sabbath service ; but one day Rev. Wilbur Fisk — then Principal of the North Wilbraham Academy, a Methodist Bishop since — came to preach, and his quiet manner made me feel that I was again " going to meet- ing." The strong and lively companionship of those cousins, like brothers as they were, was good for mc. After our active sports over the farm, and along the swift Scantic, foaming and rushing out of the mountain gorge. I used to be filled with stranillage dignitaries, and of odd doings in some homelier families. Occasionally another tailoress came, a talking woman, full of news ; and then the children were content to sit in their small chairs and hear of all the strange say- ings and doings and all the grand ways of our neighbors. 24 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. She meant well, and aimed to steer clear of dangerous things, but sometimes she "let the cat out of the bag," and a family secret went on the wings of the wind, and there followed it a stream of wrath, like a tongue of flame smiting her at every step she took. Then she would be quiet, the storm would abate, her spirits would rise agair, and her poor tongue would tell ; and then another tempest from some other quarter would stir the air. A story spread about the town that one man employed the tailoress to turn his coats and remake them wrong side out, and this was a fruitful topic of talk and com- ment, as he was known to be " very forehanded." But when he paid freely for the burial expenses of a worthy laboring man, the gossip toned down a little, and when he was eathered to his fathers, and left a half million or more for wise charities, his thrifty ways were only spoken of to his credit. I have always been glad that I lived in time to see, and be a part of, that old phase of New England life now passing out of sight. Harriet Beechcr Stowe, Oliver Wen- dell Holmes, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are the three writers who have given us the most of the real life of those times. Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" is a psycho- logical study and a revelation of Puritanism, and its char- acters stand in the sombre shadow or the white light of the author's imagination. His " House of Seven Gables " gives quaint pictures of home-life, and new studies of character in milder aspects. Holmes' "Elsie Venner" is a faithful portraiture of old-time ways and thoughts, tinged with the fine hues of the writer's humor, and full of instruction as well as of healthy interest Mrs. Stowe's "Minister's Wooing" is a mirror of those days and places ; her "Old Town Folks " is the veritable life of the Puritans, in its later periods, not only that life on its sur- face, but in its depths. She has clear insight and reverent appreciation of the virtues of Puritanism, and yet is not UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 25 blind to its faults. What was permanent she would uphold ; what was transient she would rate at its fleeting value. Wonderful is her story of the old-time life and habits — full of pathos and humor, its homely traits ver- itable indeed. Sam Lawson I knew for years, with another name. I can see him now, enough like hers to be of near kin ; tall, awkward, loose-jointed, a swift walker, but to no end ; an inveterate do-nothing, guiltless of a day's work for thirty years, — his good wife tried beyond endurance while he ranged the country over his circuit of some ten miles. He never spoke a vulgar or profane word, was temperate in habits, decent in deportment, religious in his odd way, led an aimless life, discussed grave topics in a grave way, yet nobody cared a straw for his opinions ; in short, was a Sam Lawson, a sort of decent vagabond, not possible elsewhere. Deacon Badger, of later date, and with a new name, was our neighbor, — a good Christian, devout, yet cheery ; orthodox, but with a twinkle in his bright eyes as he talked over the Sunday's sermon ; an Arminian slant in his theology ; a human goodness in his soul, tliat made the air around him warm. Miss Mehitable Ros- siter, too, had another name, as I knew her, but was veritably the same person Mrs. Stowe describes. I have been at the old parsonage, sat in the large, low-ceiled library, and listened to her sensible talk. I have seen her come into church on Sundays, and noted the deference people paid her, not only for herself, but because the blood of a race of pious clergymen was in her veins. The verisimilitude of this story gives it a great charm, its comprehension of the deeper issues of life gives it great value. So long as these books last, and they will be classic in coming times, the world will know New Eng- land in its earlier days. To finish my tasks and my lessons was always expected of me, but both were welcome and not heavy, and then came 26 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. my blessed freedom. I could read or play, or wander off alone at my own will for hours, and was not interfered with or hardly questioned. To keep out of poor com- pany, and to tell a frank story, if asked, I knew was expected, and for the rest I felt I was trusted, and would not betray that trust. A great help it is to be trusted ; growth of character comes from it. Rambles along the river side and in the great meadows, watching birds and all manner of wild things in the woods, and looking off at the Tom and Holyoke moun- tain ranges, lifted up so grandly against the sky, were my delight, and a lore not of books came to me. Books I read eagerly, too. Up in an old apple tree in our yard was a nice seat among the branches — back and foot rest, and place for books, all of the curved and twining limbs — and there I would sit for hours, looking up now and then from my reading to the foliage around, or far up into the great bower of the spreading elms near by. A favorite place was that ; it seemed as though one could get more out of the books there than elsewhere. At night, when the house-roof was best shelter, there was kind approval and warning, quiet tenderness with serene wisdom, but never passion or fretfulness. How fresh those winter evening readings of newspapers come to mind ! The modern magazines were not in being then. The North American Review, choice and costly, was read by a limited and select circle, but the people looked up to it as to some unapproachable star. We had the Christian Register, one county paper, and a weekly New York ' sheet, from which we gained knowledge of the great world. Our neighborly uncle or my sister would read, while mother sewed, and father rested in his easy-chair, and I sat on my little stool behind the stove. So we had home politics, English and French affairs, Russian wars across the Balkan, glimpses of Calcutta and Pekin, and events in other lands ; not of yesterday, by telegram, but UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 27 of weeks and months past ; not copious and graphic, as from "our own correspondent," but soHd and without sensationalism. Those evenings were no small part of my education, to which may be added occasional evening' readings of books. Our household talks were in easy simplicity of language, but with no slang. We had pure English undefiled, with an occasional racy provincialism. A move to Wilbraham, east of Springtield a few miles, and a winters stay there at the ample farmhouse of my uncle, Calvin Stebbins, was an event of moment. The house stood on a corner, facing- south and west ; east- ward, the mountains, a thousand feet high, were near at hand,^ — rocky, forest-clad, mysterious; immense then, but sadly dwindled after ten years' absence, and crossing: the AUeghanies. The roar of the swift Scantic, breaking throueh the hills iust south of the farm, could be heard. Westward spread the plains toward the meadows on the Connecticut — not rich soil or rich farmers, but plain livers and diligent workers from necessity. Such a man as Carlyle describes his honored father, was my uncle Calvin, only with larger powers, wider culture and more of what the sects call heresy, which is sometimes, as with him, the deepest religion. He had three boys about my age — from eight to twelve — and for me, with no brother, it was a great treat to be with them. Winter evenings we would all group around the kitchen table with our books — geography, Peter Parley's stories and the like— and the hour or two of reading and talk was a treat we all enjoyed, my uncle being- the informal teacher and guide. Then he would say: "Come, boys, we are a httle tired; now some apples, and then to bed." One of us would go to the cellar and fill a milk pan with apples ; this was put on the table, another turned bottom up by its side, was the place for the tallow candle to stand. The apples were enjf)yed, the parings duly put away, and then we scampered upstairs to our room, jumped 28 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. into the frosty beds, soon made them warm and cozy, and slept fearless of dyspepsia. Two of the brothers are still on earth. If I could call one from his medical practice among- the Alleghany hills of south-western New York, and the other from his study as a California clergyman, I am sure both would say with me, that those evening lessons are not worn out or forgotten. Those evening readings of a few precious books well studied bring to mind the Hatfield Town Library, with its 500 volumes, few but prized, and the corner shelves, or the little cupboard in the wall, in many a farmer's kitchen, in those days, where the Bible and a scanty row of well-thumbed books were seen, — all faithfully and thoughtfully read, until no golden word was lost, no pearl of great price neglected. A change has brought us libraries, and magazines, and great newspapers, with nonsense and sensationalism mixed with matters of mo- ment, and we read as we eat, eagerly and fast, without discrimination, and with a fondness for the high-seasoned and unwholesome. I once knew a stout black boy, just at the hungry age when a lad will eat his weight every day, taken from his home in a southern city where his fare had been plain, and made table-waiter in a home of abundance. A jolly boy he was for a while. Pie and pudding, steak and preserves, and chicken, coffee and cake, tea and toast and ice-cream wore all consumed with eager joy and in goodly quantity, greatly to the amusement of the family; but at last nature rebelled. He lived, for he was tough and hearty, but he learned to choose from the abundance, and we all lost the sport of seeing all sorts of goodies eaten by the plateful, while his eyes were full of greedy glee. There are a good many boys, and girls, too, of all ages and races, who read much as that boy ate. Our abundance of books and journals is good to UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 29 choose from, and a wise choice is sadly needed. With it we can gain the thoughtfuhiess of our good ancestors with a wider range and more light than they had ; with- out it we shall live, for a season, in a world of sky- rockets and mock thunder, all to end in chaos of dust and ashes and void darkness. OLIVER SMITH. SOPHIA SMITH. ELIZA ANN WARNER, ''Though never shown by word or deed, Within us hes some germ of power, As lies un guessed within the seed, The latent flower." A frequent and welcome visitor at our home in Hat- field was Oliver Smith, a single man, about my father's age, simple in habits, social and cheerful. It was my delight to sit in my corner and listen to his talk, for he knew much of men and things, and his genial humor and sagacity attracted and instructed us all. He belonged to a notable family. At one time there were six brothers in the town, the youngest over sixty, the oldest over eighty. His home was with the elder brother, "Squire Ben," near the meeting-house, in a great gambrel-roofed house with imposing dormer windows. Once or twice a year the parlor was opened for some great occasion, the close shutters thrown back, and the sunshine actually let into its stately space. To try to sit in the high-backed, hair-seat chairs, in which none but the watchfully upright could stay, and to look at the rich velvet wall-paper, with its regular rows of shepherdesses and poppies, was a great privilege. The family were above putting on airs. They had a decent sense of good blood and genteel breeding, yet their daily life was unpretending and care- taking. Oliver Smith was the rich man of that region, a banker and a money lender, just and honest, not given to rob- ing the poor, but exact and thorough, and expecting 3 J UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. others to be so. He loaned money at six per cent., spent little, and the surplus grew large. I have known of his rendering men great service. in money matters, in troub- lous times,' on terms not burdensome to them, yet safe to himself, when a hard man would have coined wealth out of their want. He was called penurious, his own ways were so plain, but I knew of his quiet charities, his left hand hardly knowing what the right hand did. For praise or blame in such matters he cared little. On Mondays he rode to Northampton bank, four miles dis- tant, his old gray horse and green wagon familiar to all. It was rumored that he was worth almost half a million, an immense sum then, equal to many millions now. He was, besides my father, the only reader of the Unitarian Christian Register in Hatfield, and this likeness of views probably helped to bring him to us. At last he passed away, an aged man, and then people first knew that he had an aim and purpose, long cherished and inspiring, the secret spring of his cheerfulness. He left the bulk of a half-million dollars in the hands of trustees, to be invested and used according to the terms of a long and carefully written will. Gifts to poor and worthy girls at their marriage ; loans at low interest to young men at their majority, who had some useful trade or industry to pursue, and the education of worthy young people in certain towns, were to be the chief uses of this fund, which was to last for a long time. So far the trustees have done well, and a solid stone building in Northamp- ton, is the office of the Oliver Smith Fund. Seen in the light of this lifelong purpose, his careful savings are no longer the graspings of the miser, but the wealth of the benefactor, sacredly laid aside and dedicated to a good end. Eliza Ann Warner, an adopted child of the Smith family, was for a long time his confidential secretary. An inti- mate friend of my sister, her visits were always welcome. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 31 She was tall and delicate, with high forehead, dark eyes, wonderfully eloquent and tender, finely expressive features and a singular grace and charm of manners. Her intel- lect was superior, her spiritual life tranquil and deep. Her vivid imagination would dwell in a world of romance and delight, yet a strong sense of duty led her never to slight any daily task. She was a rare person, "Who did adorn, The world whereinto she was born." I last saw her, gray-haired and in delicate health. I did not give my name, but she knew me after long years of separation. I found, as I expected, that time had ripened, but not impaired her excellence and the beauty of her character. Another worthy member of this family I knew, Sophia Smith, a niece of Oliver. Her father was a rich farmer, and Austin, Harriet and Sophia — all single — shared his wealth and made their home in the old house. The sisters were reticent and quiet, but once or twice a year they had a great party ; inviting fifty or sixty town-folks, young and old, to tea and an evening. The tall wax candles, the lofty brass andirons, the solid mahogany furniture and elegant tea service, gave us a glimpse of old style gentility, which we prized. Brother, sister, and other kindred passed away, and their money came into Sophia's coffers, making her one of the wealthiest women in the State. She was orthodox in theology, earnest, sin- cere, and conscientious. I remember her mental strength and practical good sense, but she was not known to have any special interest in plans of education or culture of any kind. She kept her own counsels, and so was misjudged during her life. When she passed on it was found that she had left a half-million to build and endow the Smith College for women at Northampton, and seventy-five thousand dollars for a free Academy in her own town. -2 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. For years all this had been in her mind, and she had held private consultations with the best educators and lawyers, that all might be well and securely arranged. The written directions as to these useful institutions gave proofs of marked wisdom on her part. No doubt this lonely woman had many hours of enjoyment in maturing these plans, and thinking of the benefits that others would derive from them after she had gone from the earth — her neigh- bors meanwhile wondering whom she was hoarding her wealth for. That enjoyment would have been greater, and the prospects of lasting success increased, had she started these noble enterprises in her lifetime, and given them the help of her wisdom in their opening days. Peter Cooper was wise in this respect, and his wisdom brought happiness to his last golden hours. Miss Smith was not supposed to have any marked interest in the edu- cation of women, or any advanced views of the matter, but she must have thought much and well on those important subjects ; and while she was musing the sacred fire burned to some purpose. Passing through the College buildings a few years ago, noting the excellent devices and helps for the best education, and looking from the windows over the fine old town, and the lovely meadows and river beyond, it seemed true, as I thought of that prudent woman piling away her large income with no apparent object, and of this use to which it came, that : " It is the unexpected which happens." SELF-HELP. To me the time was coming when I must pay my own expenses, and begin some lasting work, I wanted to do it, for that was the good way for all boys. If a lad, rich or poor, hung around aimless and idle, the saying was : "He won't amount to nothin'." If he went to work it was said : "That boys got grit, he'll make somethin'." I loved books, but did not look toward a college ; farm- UPWARD STEPS OF SEVEXTY YEARS. 3? inof was too heavy for mv strenofth. and so, in mv four- teenth year, I went into the hardware store of Homer Foot & Co., wholesale importers and retail dealers in Springfield, at a salary of S50 a year and my board. After that it was my pride that 1 did not cost my good father a cent, and the fact gave me valuable self-re- liance. My employers always treated me well, and trained me in careful methods of business and prompt doing of my work. I remember their ways to me with grateful pleasure. I had a new enjoyment — the being trusted in matters of importance. I kept books, took charge of money, and the safety of the premises was left to me. I remember coming down one morning from my sleeping room to open the store, and finding that I had left the front door without bolt or bar all night ! Fc-tunately nothing was disturbed, but my carelessness filled me with inexpressible regret. I did not tell of it, but the door was never left unbolted again. Then came years in a country store in Hatfield, as clerk and partner. In long winter evenings, we had all public and private affairs discussed by the men who came in, — for the days of tavern lounging %vere going by, and decent men liked the store better than the bar-room. A curious incident comes to mind. One of the "selectmen " of the town was a Universalist, the only man in the village who avowed the strange heresy that men were not burned forever for their sins. He was so good that one day an orthodox neighbor said to him : "I can't un- derstand how you act so well, I shouldn't, if I believed as you do." A reckless and dissipated man near by was a hard swearer, where profanity was uncommon and dis- tasteful. He swore bitterly and defiantly, and there were murmurs of legal punishment. One day, in the store, he waxed violent in language in the presence of this Uni- versalist otKcial, who soon left, and as he went out there o O 34 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. was a new outbreak of defiant oaths with the spiteful savino-, "I guess none of these town officers can tie my tongue." The selectman soon came in again and quietly handed out a warrant for his arrest. Such a chop-fallen and amazed expression I Across the road came the trial, proof abundant ; five dollars fine, and bonds for good be- havior ; all settled, and the fine paid in an hour. For a month the poor man walked the streets with bowed head, subdued spirit, and sealed lips — humiliated and amazed. Then he partly recovered, a small oath that nobody cared for would slip out sometimes, but the old fire was gone. The amazement grew among pious people how " that Universalist" had courage to do such a good thing, and they all gave him just credit for it. I liked mercantile life well enough, but left it without either large success or disastrous failures. It gave me valuable knowledge of men and things. If a boy is to be educated for ten years, let a part of it be on a farm, or in a mechanic's shop or store, and then good work with his books, and he will have practical sagacity and common-sense, as strong foundations for a broad and true culture. He will be saved from the poor dilettanteism, the affecting to look down on the world's great industries, too common among those called educated men, but who are really only half educated. Changing the old couplet : " All work and no books makes Jack a dull boy, All books and no work makes Jack a mere toy." Much was learned in that Hatfield store from the talk of men and women. Of quaint ways of speech there was ' abundance ; of vulgarity and of slang but little. Their comments on the affairs of Church and State were not flip- pant or shallow. One felt and respected their earnestness, even though they might sometimes be narrow and imper- fect. The village dignitaries had seen life in cities and UFIVAKD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 35 in legislative assemblies, and acted well their part in the larger fields that make thought cosmopolitan. I well re- member the courtly grace of manner and the ease in con- versation of a venerable deacon — a hard-working farmer who could pitch on a load of hay as quick as any man. A few of the most cultivated and charming women I ever knew did their share of housework among that busv people, illustrating the unity of duty and beauty in their admirable lives. There were others, men and women, slaves to farm and kitchen, muckrakes and drudges, poor in spirit. I heard the daily talk of trade and politics, of social and religious life. Material for volumes of tragic and humorous story was in the family secrets that became known to the villao-e merchant. Strange revelations, for instance, touchins- women of respectable and pious families who lived in solid old farmhouses, went out but little, wore an air of toilsome and hopeless endurance, did their duty as wives and mothers, sank into enfeebled gloom, and died with lips sadly sealed ; victims of crushing passion and greed for gain on the part of husbands whom they felt in duty bound to obey in all things. All these were kept inviolate. , My father early said to me: "Never reveal secrets," and his excellent advice was of great service. The village oddities were odd enough. One was a man of middle age, keeping bachelor's hall in his great sham- bling house a century old, who was of very regular habits in one respect : — he drank a quart of rum daily for thirty years, on six days of the week. On Saturday night at sunset he stopped until Sunday at the same hour, and de- voted the totally abstinent hours of the Puritan Sabbath to reading the Bible by course. He visited the store often, coming in with a softly shambling gait to sit down and tell stories and moralize with sage severity. He was not vulgar or profane, but sensible and foolish in well-nieh the same odd sentence ; on the whole not an uninstructive ,6 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEANS. visitor. One quiet Monday morning in the summer he stepped in noiselessly and said: "How still you be! Well, I've just read the old book through the seventeenth time." I asked : "How do you know that.-*" And his answer was : "I make a mark with a pen on the last leaf when I finish, and then I go back and begin at the first Chapter of Genesis, and put in a mark each Sunday night where I stop." Thus he kept his thread of Sabbath Scrip- ture unbroken, and was ready to begin the steady task of the week — a quart of rum a day — on Sunday evening. His early training kept him sober one seventh part of the time, and he had a great facility in quoting Bible texts. Once in five or six months he went to meeting — always dressed carefully in knee-breeches, long coat with brass buttons, an immense bell-crowned white hat, shoes with great silver buckles, and carrying a silver-headed cane. In this garb of a past generation he would walk solemnly into the meeting-house on Sunday morning, gravely re- turn the sober salutations of others, seat himself in some good pew, and listen to the sermon with an aspect of de- vout satisfaction and interest, worthy the oldest deacon of the church. He was a life long Democrat, in old Federal and Demo- cratic days, and has often told me how his persistence carried the State for his party. For seventeen years, Hon. Marcus Morton was the Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts, and was elected, at last, by a majority of one vote. Of course, every man who voted for him could say that he elected him. As this man of steady (drinking) habits told me his story, he said : "The town meetin's used to be held in the old meetin' house, and I began to vote for Marcus, and I stuck to him. I was not ashamed of my politics, and I got a good penman to write my ballot in big letters on a half-sheet of paper. I took my ballot in my hand, walked up the broad aisle with the rest to the ballot box that stood on UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YE A PS. 37 the commuhion table under the pulpit, handed my sheet to the town clerk to put in, so that everybody could see it, and then went down the side aisle and went home ; for I never believe in hangin' round and makin' a noise election days ; tain't right. Seventeen times I voted for Marcus, and I fetched him ! Git a good hold and stick to it, is my way." A strange fascination lingers around these early days, and around the aspects and ways of that old-time life which we love to recall, yet would not live over again. But I do not accept the theory that childhood and youth are the happiest periods of human existence. With wisely decent conduct each period brings its enjoyments, but our own misdeeds and "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," mar all this, and force us back to childhood for some partial compensation. A theology, faithless of man's progress, putting Eden in the world's infancy to be lost ere its prime, tends the same way ; leading us to despair of the deeper enjoyments of our maturer years — those years that should be full of interior light and peace. It is in life as in nature. The spring time is fresh and hope- ful in its glad beauty, but summer has richer wealth; autumn its mellow glory, deeper than any tint of April skies ; and winter its enjoyment of garnered fruits and its sure hope of a new spring. Our later days bring enjoy- ments deeper than youth can know, and foregleams of an immortality glowing with a radiance \vhich makes the light of Eden's garden pale and poor. Youth is the ripple and sparkle of the brook near its source, transparent and fresh ; age is the tranquil flow of the river, broad and deep as it nears the blue ocean. To tell of certain noble reforms of the last half century, and of some excellent persons I have known, is of more 4C2355 3 S UJ'fVA RD S TEPS OF SE VENTY YEA KS. consequence and interest than any continuous autobiog- raphy. So much of personal narration and experience as may add interest to these leading- aims may be allowed, and no more ; therefore this chapter of childhood and youth must close. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 39 CHAPTER II. OLD-TIME GOOD AND ILL — RELIGIOUS GROWTH — REFORMS. "Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old ; ****** The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind. One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost." Emerson. Fifty years ago the old meeting-house stood in the centre of the broad street in Hatfield, It was a "meet- ing-house," not a church, and "to go to meeting" was the old phrase, in which was no tinge of Episcopacy. The high pulpit had steep, winding stairs by which the "sacred desk" was reached — a lofty place from whence the pastor looked down on his flock, his voice reaching them as from the high heavens. Over that pulpit was the great sounding board, theoretically to carry the spoken word out to the pews and walls, but having no effect of that kind, and really serving to set the busy brains of boys and girls thinking what would happen if it fell and crushed the poor minister beneath. Deep and high galleries ran around three sides, reached by two stairways in the corners. High above and built over those stairways, and reached by another flight of steps, were two great, square pews, seen from the whole 40 UPWA/^D STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. gallery and from below. One was the "pauper pew," and the other the "negro pew," and the occupants were these poor pariahs of our Christian civilization, lifted up in these most conspicuous places to be stared at ! For more than a hundred years that was the only place dedi- cated to Sunday meetings. A few Methodists meeting in a poor school-house back in the swamps were tolerated, an occasional Universalist or Unitarian met no rude abuse, but felt a chill m the social air. The faith of the Puritans bore sway, and all else was dangerous heresy. Great changes have taken place. The Westminster Catechism is no longer a household book, and even the most orthodox hardly wish it back again. "The Day of Doom," that poetic description of "The Great and Last Judgment," by Michael Wigglesworth, which was also a household book, in Puritan Massachusetts, two hundred years ago, would not be warmly welcomed in the home of the modern professor of religion. Its author says of that great day : " In vain do they to mountains say, Fall on us, and us hide From Judge's ire, more hot than fire, for who may it abide ? No hiding place can from his face, sinners at all conceal. Whose flaming eye hid things doth spy, and darkest things reveal." Infants are portrayed as having a plea made for them, but the stern answer comes from the Judgment seat : " You sinners are, and such a share as sinners may expect, Such you shall have, for I do save none but mine own elect. **** ****** But unto you I will allow the easiest room in hell." What that is we learn as follows : "The least degree of misery there felt is incomparable; The lightest pain they there sustain is more than intolerable. But God's great power, from hour to hour, upholds them in the fire, That they shall not consume a jot or by its force expire. ********** UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 41 With iron bands they bind their hands and cursed feet to-gether, And cast them all, both great and small, into that lake forever. Where day and night, without respite, they wail and cry and howl, For torturing pain, which they sustain, in body and in soul." These are specimens from the Saurian age of theology, when infant damnation was preached from the pulpits, and all mankind were held totally depraved by nature, and a few only saved by special divine grace. Yet this writer has been called " a man of the beatitudes," and his daily life was kind and genial. In England, Puritan- ism did great service. It was a religious reform helping to break down old tyranny and to rebuke vice in Church and State. In New England it nurtured noble virtues as well as grave errors, and its advocates did a great work, but the world looked for more light, and the light must come. It was my good fortune to live on the border be- tween The Old Time and The New, to know personally something of the Pilgrim life and thought, and to know and feel that " The pure fresh impulse of to-day Which thrills within the human heart, As time-worn errors pass away, Fresh life and vigor shall impart." It is interesting and noteworthy to see how one step opened the way for another, by a moral and spiritual evolution corresponding to the steps of rock and clod along the spiral pathway reaching up to grass and flower and man. The intense earnestness of Puritanism stirred the soul and awakened thought, and the mandate of priest or council seeking to fetter that thought was as futile as an effort "to bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades." Their restraint hindered for a season, but the poor bar- riers broke at last, and each gap gave new vantage ground. Arminian tendencies crept in. The story is told of a coun- cil of ministers examining a young candidate in theology when one of them, suspecting heresy, said sternly; "If 4 2 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. things go in this way I must secede," whereat Dr. Lathrop, of West Springfield, a saintly preacher of generous views, replied : "If our brother secedes we must proceed." But the heresy-hunter was right, for the young candidate was a Unitarian m less than thirty years. Then came John Murray from England, cast on the Long Island coast as a shipwrecked waif, but found by the farmer who had seen him in a dream, and known him as the preacher for whom he had been guided by that vision to build a church, where the love of God sufficient to save all mankind should be proclaimed. Such a conception of the Divine goodness naturally led to a higher ideal of humanity, and William E. Channing, in his Federal Street pulpit in Boston, set forth with golden eloquence the worth, dignity, and capacity for endless culture of man, made in God's image and likeness. Old asperities softened, and the leaven kept working. Should man, heir of such a destiny and child of such a father, be made a slave in this boasted land of liberty ? Surely not. The Quaker element came in to emphasize this demand for freedom, and found voice in Whittier's word : "The one sole sacred thing beneath The cope of heaven is man. ' Political and religious ideas were in unison, and so grew the anti-slavery movement — so small at first, so resistless at last ! The equality of man involved that of woman. A gifted Quaker, Lucretia Mott, went to London in 1840, as delegate to a World's Anti-slavery Convention, and was refused admission because she was a woman, and the injustice of that refusal gave new life and organic shape to woman's rights. Far out in the then distant wilds of Michigan, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler made touching protest against the silence enforced on her sex by old custom and old Bible rendering : UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 43 "Shall we behold unheeding, Life's holiest feelings crushed ? While woman's heart is bleeding, Shall woman's voice be hushed ? " With this discussion came new views of the subjection of woman, pledged religiously to obey her husband as master, to look up to him after the manner of Milton's Eve. Marriage was discussed, much of truth, with some- thing of error, coming up. Theodore Parker said that the errors were "but the dust from the wagon wheels bring- ing home the harvest," and surely higher conceptions of the sanctity of maternity, and of woman as the loving and equal helpmate of man, with the wife's right to her own person and property, have steadily gained ground. In the discussion of these questions many of the clergy held up the Bible as in favor of chattel slavery and woman's subjection, and this opened the way for new doubts as to the infallibility of the book. A popular clergyman in Maine, told his large audience that "it was a great misfortune for a minister to hold up a book as contradicting the holiest feelings of humanity. " Henry C. Wright, with his usual power, put the case in the plain way of the fearless abolitionist: "If my mother was a slave, and I were told the Bible sanctioned her con- dition, I would put the Bible under my feet and make my mother free." Thus did it become possible for Theodore Parker to stand before the largest Protestant audiences in Boston and preach in Music Hall for years, saying frankly and manfully that the Bible was a human book, valuable but fallible — to be judged by our reason, but never set up as authority over us. To-day liberal minis- ters, especially Unitarians, begin to take the same ground, and many of the people are in advance of most of the clergy. Atheism and agnosticism are reactions from the Jewish Jehovah and the dogmas of theology. Modern Spiritualism makes the future life real and near, 44 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. binding it to this by the strong ties of eternal law and undying human love, and gives us a natural religion and a spiritual philosophy, rational, inspiring, and enlarging. It is an outgrowth and complement of New England transcendentahsm, supplementing the intuitive ideas of that remarkable movement with facts and a psychological system which give them clearness and definite meaning. So the world moves, and must move. Trouble may sometimes come from the misuse of freedom of thought, but truth gains and charity grows. When the spring flood comes swelling and sweeping down some mountain stream, it carries along, and tosses up on the hillsides, the fioodwood and wreck that mark its course, and the loosened ice grinds to pieces whatever it strikes ; but the flood subsides, the fertilized fields pay back more than all the losses, and the summer life and autumnal plenty are better than the reign of ice-bound winter. We can see, too, the dawn of the glad day when perse- cution for opinion's sake shall cease ; when mankind shall recognize the benefit of progressive change, and learn " To make the present with the future merge, Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave." Odd enough were some of the old protests against the autocratic authority of the clergy. The story comes down a hundred and fifty years of a Hatfield farmer — an eccen- tric but good man, one of the silent dissenters from orthodoxy, whose very silence brought suspicion — who was walking beside his ox-team and cart up the street, and met the minister. He saluted him with the same friendly respect he would show a neighbor, but the cus- tom was to lift the hat to the preacher, and this he did not do. The demand came: "Take off your hat, sir," to which no attention was paid, when the minister raised his cane and struck the hat off from that rebellious head. The UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 45 wearer quietly took it up and put it on ajrain, stopped his team, set his long gad carefully upright in the grass, and let it go. It fell, pointing southwest, and he picked it up and went quietly on his way, the lookers on wondering what this new oddity meant. In a few months he sold his farm and left for Connecticut ; in a year he came back and said : "When that priest knocked my hat off, I thought I would set up my ox-gad and see which way it fell, and move that way, and I've found a place where 1 don't have to take off my hat to the priest." The parish minister used to be the arbiter as to all public meetings, and his word would open or close the doors to a lecturer on any topic of reform or religion. The anti- slavery movement broke up this, for their lecturers would speak for freedom in every parish, with or without con- sent of clergy. A general meeting of Congregational clergymen was called in West Brookfield, Mass., some fifty years ago to see what could be done. One of those present said : "One of these itinerants came to my parish and advertised to speak. I took my hat and cane and walked up one side of the street and told my people not to tro, and then down the other side in the same way, and nobody went." Others were less fortunate, and what to do was a vexed question. "A pastoral letter" was sent out to the churches, urging action, but it was met by a reaction disastrous to their efforts. Whittier wrote a ringing poem, of which a verse will show the quality : *«So this is all, the utmost reach Of priestly power the mind to fetter, When laymen think, when women preach, A war of words, a pastoral letter ! A " Pastoral Letter," grave and dull- Alas ! in hoofs and horns and features. How different is your Brookfield bull, From him who bellows at St. Peter's." A few years since a young clergyman told me of the 46 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. advice of an old preacher to a group of clerical students. He said : "Young men, never be priests, be ministers ; men helping other men, but not priests." He was wiser than those at West Brookfield. Reverence for sacred places and days was part of the old education, taught but mildly to me, but in the very air. One day, in my boyhood, I went alone to the meet- ing house on an errand, and lingered to walk up the silent aisles. Curiosity led me toward the pulpit, up its steps, inside and to the very desk, where I stood in the minister's place with my hands on the great Bible before me. At once a wave of feeling came over me as though I was a pro- fane trespasser on holy ground, and I ran down the steps and out of the door, fearful and ashamed. At home the Sabbath was free from the solemnity which ruled in many households. It was deemed a good day for rest and thought, beneficial as such, but not holy after the Jewish idea, and was kept quietly but not austerely. A school-master who had boarded with us some time, changed his quarters to another family. On a Saturday morning he came in and said to my mother: " Can I stay here over Sunday } Saturday night all the newspapers and books are put out of sight, and Scott's Bible and the Nciv York Observer are brought out. Nobody can laugh or look cheerful, and I can't live there." He kept his Sunday in our warmer air. An elderly woman whom I knew well, a notable house- keeper, whose work was her life, used to sit by her west window Sunday afternoons, trying to read the Bible, dozing a little, and rousing up to look out and measure the height of the decliningsun. At last she would venture to take down the almanac that hung beside the old clock by the loop of twine through its corner, find the time of sunset, and then look at the clock. When the sun's last rays shone she would give a stretch and a sigh of relief, rise up from her chair, go straight to the kitchen, get on UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. a^n the big- kettle, and have her washing done before bedtime. To put on that kettle five minute? before sunset would have been held a sin. For rest and thought Sunday is good, but all days are sacred, all true work holy in a high sense. I had no doctrinal training, and cannot remember a time when I was ever taught to believe or disbelieve any creed or dogma. I heard the comments in the family, on preaching and church doctrines, which were usually frank but charitable, but was left to frame my own conclusions. I was never taught or influenced to dislike or distrust people for heresy, but rather to respect sincerity in all. My father read a short prayer each morning, and reverence for spiritual ideas was a part of my life. In morals and conduct the standard was high. A lie was terrible, a knavish trick was contemptible, vulgarity was shameful. Clean lips and a pure heart, frank and upright conduct, and a readiness always to bear my share of life's burthens, needed little enforcement by direct precept ; they were in the daily acts and in the very air of our home. To fall below their high requirements was to forfeit the affec- tionate confidence and respect of those most near and dear. For one thing I hold my father in especial reverence. In my youth he said to me : " My son, never fear to hear both sides of all questions fairly, especially in religion. Be careful and thoughtful. Make up your mind without rash haste, but with a clear conscience. When you have decided, hold to your convictions firmly and honestly and without fear." Many times have I blessed his mem- ory for that weighty advice. It stands by me like a rock. At an early day I tested it, and him. I began to doubt eternal punishment, read the Bible, and thought it all over, and scripture and justice were with me. I went to my father and told him of my change of views. He questioned me a little, and then said : "Very well. If it seems right, hold to it like a man ; only be sure it seems right," And so, at twelve years old, a black cloud 48 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. rolled away, and my good father's word was like a strong wind that broke it in pieces. A few years after I was in Boston and saw an ad- vertisement of a meeting of infidels in Chapman Hall, to be addressed by Robert Owen and others. An avowed infidel I had never seen, and the name was as fearful to a New England boy as was that of " the black Douglas " to vScotch babies, whom their nurses frightened with it in bygone days. I found the hall in a labyrinth of crooked streets, fit place, it seemed, for such a meeting, and took a safe seat near the door. The audience was a surprise — intelligent and civil people, as good as the average. Several persons spoke, expressing opinions, wise or otherwise, and, at last, an elderly man — plain, square- built, with large head and kindly shrewd face — rose to his feet, and all listened with great attention. He stood with folded arms, talking rather than speech-making, and with beautiful clearness andsimplicity spoke of the excellence of charity and active benevolence. Every word went home. I thought to myself, Paul wrote well of charity in his Corinthian Epistle, but this infidel Robert Owen is his equal. That hour did not change my religious belief, but it cleared away the mist of prejudice, and gave me new respect for courageous frankness. The fresh thought of my father's good advice sent me there, and I made, lasting record in my memory of another obligation to him. TEMPERANCE. I well remember holding my father's hand when a child, as we walked up the broad street of Hatfield to the meet- ing-house one pleasant summer afternoon more than sixty years ago, to hear a temperance lecture by Dr. Jewett, the first ever given in the town. It made a strong impression on me, because some of the neighbors sneered at my father for going. And no marvel, for drinking distilled spirits was reputable, and the most pious indulged in it UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 49 without rebuke. The old minister and the deacons kept pace with the wicked, and the toper quoted scripture and held up the preacher as his pattern in moderate drinking. A substantial townsman strongly opposed " these new temperance notions," and told me his boyish experience. The minister then had a farm — the parish property, which he worked and used after the old fashion, — and the stout old Squire said to me : "When I was a boy I used to work for the minister sometimes. He drove things sharp, but he used me well. I used to turn his fanning mill while he shoveled in and took away the grain, until my arms ached. But about eleven o'clock he would set down his half-bushel on the barn floor and say : ' Come, Elijah, let us go into the house and take something to comfort our hearts.' I knew what that meant, and was glad to go. I would sit down in the kitchen while he went to the old cupboard to get out the black bottle and the sugar, and mixed a mug of toddy. Then he would say : * Come, my lad, take hold,' and that was good stiff toddy, and plenty of it. I stick to the old way." And stick he did, with the story of the ministers toddy as a stronghold. Cider was freely used. I knew farmers who drank up forty or fifty barrels yearly — reputable citizens, not at all intemperate ! It was hard work to make these men give it up. They would plead against the great waste of apples in their orchards — useless save for cider-makine — and make that waste an argument for their fiery thirst, growing as crabbed as their old cider, if too much urged. But a temperance lecturer reached their hearts by turning their stomachs ! He told them that the nine bushels of poor apples — knotty and wormy — that made a barrel of cider had a good half-peck of worms in them, which were ground and pressed in the pumice, and made about two quarts of worm-juice to give their cider a smart tang ! There was no getting away from this, and it made more impression than all other arguments and appeals. They 4 50 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. had an internal sense of its truth when they heard it ! Years before my parents had taken the old-fashioned square case bottles of liquors — then a part of the outfit of every hospitable family — from their sideboard, and ended the drinking- custom in our home. When we moved to Hatfield it vi'asthe common custom to offer rum to neigh- bors when they called, and our omission was a great rudeness, about as marked as not to invite the caller to sit down. They found that I was plied with rum and sugar in this way, and were obliged to forbid my tasting liquors or cider, which was thought a queer prohibition. But a change came. The young minister was a temperance man. Habits altered, so that the son of an old farmer who had used up a barrel of cider weekly, told me he did not use a barrel a year, with a farm and family larger than his father's. The temperance movement has wrought this change. Its farther progress must be on broader ground and with more knowledge. The idea of self-control, ot the supremacy of will over appetite and passion, of pure life leading, not only in drinking habits but in the use of tobacco, in diet, and in other ways, must be made promi- nent. A study of physiology in schools and homes, in which the ruin of body and mind, wrought by drinking habits and by all violations of physical law, shall be made plain, must be a great help. Parents must teach their children the duty of making the pure body a consecrated temple for the spirit, and the wrong and shameful weak- ness and degradation of being controlled by perverted and abnormal appetite and passion must be emphasized with grave decision. Legislation has its work, but in all and through all, must be the guiding and inspiring idea and aim of a race well born, well bred, and strong in self- government. The word of Buddha, spoken twenty-five hundred years ago, is worthy of all acceptation to-day : " If one man conquer a thousand times ten thousand men in battle, and another man conquer himself, the last is the greatest conqueror." UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 51 CHAPTER III. TRANSCENDENTALISM — BROOK FARM, HOPEDALE, AND NORTHAMP- TON ASSOCIATIONS. •'The good we do lives after us, The evil 'tis that dies!" With the growth of transcendentalism in New England (1836 to 1850) came efforts for associations on the Fourier model, or in societies where families could live together, work in unity as stockholders, do away the jar of selfish competition, help to truer education, and cultivate frater- nal relations. The transcendentalist held intuition and reason as beyond and above books or creeds ; truth in the soul as above all outward authority ; institutions as helps and servants, to be maintained for good order, but never submitted to when they would compel conscience to yield to the wicked law. James Russell Lowell put this in glowing words, applied to the evil demands of the slave-power : " Man is more than Constitutions ; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while doubly false to God." In the presence of their ideas sectarian dogmatism was impossible, for the spirit of man — fluent, penetrative and ever fresh for new discovery — could not stop in the nar- row limits of a creed, whose claims, indeed, violated the inner sanctity, and so were sacrilegious. Inspiration was not a miraculous gift to Jewish prophet or early apostle, but a divine endowment for all who so lived as to win it. Samuel Johnson put this in noble verse : "Never was to chosen race That unstinted tide confined ; Thine is every time and place, fountain sweet of heart and mind ! 52 UFIVAKD UTEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS, Secret of the morning stars, Motion of the oldest hours, Pledge through elemental wars, Of the coming spirit's powers. Rolling planet, flaming sun, Stand in nobler man complete. Prescient laws thine errands run. Frame the shrine for Godhead meet. * * * * In the touch of earth it thrilled ; Down fiom mystic skies it bui-ned : Right obeyed and passion stilled, Its eternal goodness earned. Breathing in the thinker's creed. Pulsing in the hero's blood, Nerving simplest thought and deed. Freshening time with truth and good. * * * * Life of ages, richly poured, Love of God unspent and free; Flow still in the prophet's word, And the people's liberty." Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and a gifted company o't co-workers, were the heralds of these views, and their winged words filled the upper air of New England thought, and went far over mountain range and sea. Theodore Parker's earnestness was lighted up, and his strong soul made cheerful and buoyant, by this flood-tide of spiritual life. Whittier's verse was full of it, for it was close akin and of like origin with his Quaker views. It spread like a contagious healthfulness, uplifting man and woman, enlarging thought, inspiring effort, and melting away the icy barriers of false conservatism. HOPEDALE. A new enthusiasm sprang up for useful and homely work done in fraternal spirit ; for a truer culture and a simpler life ; for a social state with more harmony and less antagonism, and Associations were formed to realize UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 53 these ideals. They did not succeed, yet surely they did not fail, for those who engaged in them testify to enjoy- ment and benefit in an experience that has helped their later life. Hopedale Community in Worcester county was a stock enterprise, with capital and labor paid at adjusted rates. A hundred people or more were there, living in families, working together, with Adin Ballou — a wise and good man, widely known as an abolitionist, a Univer- salist minister and a Spiritualist — as a leading officer and religious teacher, and E. D. Draper and others leading in business and education. They were practical workers on the farm and in mechanic shops, bound together by kindred religious views, and by interest in reforms — non- resistance, anti-slavery, temperance, etc. '^^ The Practical Christian," their neat little weekly journal, had a name telling their ideal. They kept united for years, and won respect by their integrity and fearless fidelity. It was pleasant to enjoy their hospitality and listen to the thought- ful discussions in their meetings. BROOK FARM. Brook Farm, at West Roxbury, was most noted, for there were George Ripley, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and others as gifted but less known. Theodore Parker used to walk over to the farm from his home. Emerson lighted up the old farmhouse with his serene smile, and Boston's transcendental thinkers went out to enjoy the rare society. I was there but once, and my distinct memory of per- sons is meeting George Ripley, just from the plough, with cowhide boots, coarse garments, gold glasses, a stout body equal to farm-work, and a noble head — the ploughman and the scholar oddly put together. This incongruity im- pressed me everywhere. Hoeing corn and reading Plato ; cleaning stables and writing essays ; learned talk and calling haw and gee to the cattle ; milk-pans and artist's easels ; peeling potatoes and conning fine philosophy ; 54 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. making butter and poetry, seemed all in strangely fantas- tic conjunction. The talk and study were admirable, the homely work was awkward, for they were versed in tlie one and not in the other. Its life was not long, but it inspired many noble labors, and left memories full of light and strength. NORTHAMPTON. On the west side of the Connecticut river, just on the verge of the broad meadows, is the town of Northampton county seat of good old Hampshire county, with its great elms, winding streets, ample old mansions, elegant modern dwellings and neat cottage homes. For a hundred and fifty years it has been noted, not only for its beauty, but as the centre of a good deal of influence, the home of men of mark in Church and State, the seat of intelligent conservatism and elegant hospitality. Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher and thinker of his day, there taught the stern doctrine of depravity so total as to consign even the infant, dying "with the fragrance of heaven in its baby breath," to eternal fire. His meeting-house was swept aside to make room for an imposing wood building, a noble specimen of old church architecture, and that has given way to a great stone structure, more costly but less attractive. The creed is the same as in his day, but the old rigidity has weakened, as a little incident will show. A few years ago a friend of mine went to the minister of that church, who was chairman of the town library com- mittee, and asked him to take a copy of my "Chapters from the Bible of the Ages " for the library. Edwards would have looked at its preface, and kept it for his private use or consigned it to the fire, but his successor put it on the library shelves to be read by the people. Ezekiel Pomeroy, a staunch Federalist in Jefferson's da)'', was told the State might change its politics. "Well," said he, "I don't believe it; but if it does, this will be UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 55 the last town to chang-e, and I shall be the last man in it to vote anything but the Federal ticket." Such was the town in those days. Three miles west, on the banks of the swift Licking- Water, stood a three-story brick cotton mill not used ; a saw mill, a small sewing-silk factory and a few dwellings. Along the stream was a belt of valley and meadow, on either side the slope of wooded hills and the spread of level plains — a right pleasant domain, with its paths winding amidst great pines and oaks and birch-trees, and bordered by laurels and wild flowers. Here the North- ampton Association of a hundred and fifty members, found an abiding place, in 1842 I think. It was a joint- stock company, factory and saw-mill and farm were car- ried on under a board of managers. The dwelling-houses were filled. The factory was divided into rooms with board partitions, a common dining-room and kitchen fitted up — all of the plainest. Social life was unconventional and free, going sometimes to the verge of propriety, but not beyond. I did not know, in a year's stay of a single grossly depraved or vicious person, and there were no tragic outbreaks of vice or crime. I never but once knew wine or liquor used on the premises. Vulgarity was less common than in the outer world, and the little swearing one heard was the emphasized indignation against meanness. They were thinking people who had gone out from the old ways. They came with an inspiring purpose — to make education and industry more fraternal in their methods than seemed possible elsewhere. They sought, too, a larger freedom of thought, a place for hearing different views. No unity of opinion was asked or expected. There were anti-slavery " come-outers"from the churches, those who sympathized with the liberal religious views, and a few atheists and materialists. There was a strange charm in the daily contact with 56 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS, persons with whom opinions could be freely exchanged, and no cold wave of self-righteous bigotry be felt. This and the hope for fraternal industry, free from excessive toil, made them cheerful amidst difficulty and discomfort. There were many visitors — eminent persons in thought and literature, intelligent inquirers, and curious spies among these strange fanatics — and meeting them was a constant source of interest and amusement. One day Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, a grave D. D. from Hadley, came to see the silk-worms and their care-takers. He fell in with a young man named Porter, and asked : "What do you do here Sundays.? " The answer was : "We rest ; sometimes do some pressing work ; read, think, hold meetings, visit, amuse ourselves decently, and try to be- have as well as we do Mondays." The preacher asked : "Have you no minister.?" and the reply was : "No. We all speak, if we wish to, women and all. We have no objection to a person speaking to us. You can come and say what you please. We shall treat you well, but we may question you and differ from you." This was strange to a man whose pulpit words had hardly been questioned in his parish for forty years, and he said : "Do you all think alike.? How do you get along when you don't agree ? " The young man picked up a stick and rapped repeatedly on the same spot on a fence rail near them ; then he rapped along the rail so that the sound varied, and said : "You notice when I rap on one spot the sound is monotonous ; when I move my stick it var- ies. Don't you like the variations ? You are not foolish enough to quarrel with my stick, or with the rail because these sounds differ, but you like to hear them and to make up your mind which is best." The puzzled preacher went away, and doubtless had some deep studies over that new lesson in free inquiry. The Sunday meetings were always provocative of thought, usually interesting, but sometimes crude. They UF WARD S TEPS OF SE VENTY YEA RS. 5 7 were held in the factory dining-room, or on the hilltop under the shade of an immense pine. Wm. Lloyd Gar- rison spent some weeks there, and spoke often. The listening group, the speaker in its centre by the great trunk of the tree, his bold yet reverent utterances, the fragrance of the pines, the mountains far down the valley to the south-east, and the blue sky over all, seem like something of yesterday. N. P. Rogers, editor of the Herald of Freedom, used to come from his New Hamp- shire home to visit us, and was warmly welcomed. He spoke with charming simplicity and clearness, uttering the most startling heresies in a bland way, as though they must be as delightful to all others as to himself. Occasionally an orthodox clergyman would put in his word, heard respectfully, but criticised frankly. Women spoke at their pleasure, acceptably and well. A wide range of topics came up — practical, reformatory and religious. The daily work was done under direction of overseers, and here came the difficulty of keeping all up to the mark without the spur of necessity. A woman complained of this to a friend, who humorously said: "Well, in asso- ciation you must learn to work for lazy folks " — a hard lesson which many would not learn, and justice did not demand. For a time all went well, but business troubles and poor management abated the enthusiasm, and a final breaking-up came. I look back with pleasure to that experience, and retain a strong fraternal feeling toward most who shared it. I was not there as a member, but to take lessons of some noted teachers. It was a study of character, as well as of books ; — marked individuality, moral courage, conscientious devotion to right, and warm sympathies abounded. I remember a wedding at the breakfast-table of the factory dining-hall, with no cake or cards, but brown bread and wooden chairs, and a Squire to make all legal. The ripe wisdom and beau- 58 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. tiful tenderness finely set forth in words, or in delicate acts, by those who went from the wedding table to their work in mill or field or kitchen, made some weddings where silks and diamonds and shallow compliments abound poor in comparison. David Ruggles, manager of a successful water cure, sat at that table ; a colored man who, being blind, diagnosed diseased conditions by some fine power of touch, and won great regard from his patients and friends. I owe a great deal to him. William Adam was my principal teacher — a native of Edinburgh, and a graduate of its famed Scotch University. He went to Calcutta as a Baptist missionary, learned the native language of the Hindoo, and the old Sanscrit also, wrought in that field for years, and then became editor of the Calcutta Gazette, the journal of the English people in that far land. Coming to this country he was for a time Sanscrit Professor at Harvard University, and then came to the Association with his wife and family. In Hindo- stan he knew Rammohun Roy well, and helped him select from the New Testament the moral precepts of Jesus, to be translated for his countrymen. This eminent Hindoo, the founder of the Brahmo Somaj, was a Brah- min of high rank, learned and accomplished. He under- stood Greek and Hebrew, but wanted Mr. Adam's aid to make all surely correct. He was an inquirer for truth, an admirer of the New Testament morals and of the char- acter of Christ, but not a believer in Christianity as taught by the missionaries. His Mohammedan lineage on the mother's side made him a Unitarian, a believer in one God, as are all Mohammedans, and he was in unity with Theodore Parker in many respects. Mr. Adam noticed that he did not translate any of the New Testament mir- acles and asked why. The answer was : "That would throw discredit on the whole work, for the Hindoo mir- acles are so much greater than these that our people UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 59 would say that a religion with only such poor wonders to support it must be far below theirs and not worth atten- tion. These precepts of Jesus must reach the Hindoos by their intrinsic merits." He afterwards visited England and was highly esteemed there, his presence impressing many with a higher sense of the courtly grace and wide learning of the upper-class Hindoos. He passed away years ago, greatly honored and revered. Asking Mr. Adam about the Juggernaut festivals, he told me he had attended them several times ; that by some accident pilgrims might be crushed beneath the wheels of the great idol-car as it was drawn by ropes in many hands, but no pilgrim ever threw himself under the car to be crushed. Only flowers and fruits were offered to Tueeernaut. Other festivals had cruel rites, but this never, for this was one of the kindly gods. So the old story in our Missionafy Herald falls to the ground, for other testimony confirms that of Mr. Adam. Doubtless that story is honestly repeated and believed, but it started from the soul of some bigot. SAMUEL L. HILL. *' Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban, More mighty is your simplest word, The free heart of an honest man. Than crosier or the sword." When the Association broke up, its financial affairs were in bad condition. One of its leading members, Samuel L. Hill, felt morally bound to see its debts paid. He was not bound legally, but his name had helped its credit, and he felt that he must make all good. To the creditors he said : "Give me time, and I will pay you all ; if you disturb me I cannot do it." In ten years every dollar was paid, thousands more than he was worth on the start. He was a simple and unpretending man, plain 6o UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. in his ways, of remarkable sagacity and tireless industry, his integrity and sincerity the highest, his moral courage unsurpassed, his kindness and wise benevolence beauti- ful, his sound judgment remarkable. He became the leading owner and manager of the Nonotuck Sewing Silk Company, enlarged their works, filled with finest mechan- ism, and employing over four hundred persons. All that he took part in must be honest and thorough. There was no sham in him, and there should be none in his mills. His word was his bond, his credit undoubted, his promise unfailing. As the village grew the schoolhouse was too small. He said to the town committee : "Give me the old house, and 1 will build a better one." In a year his building was completed, at a cost of $35,000. The upper story of a wing was a neat hall, for the use of the Free Congrega- tional Society, and a library and reading-room free to the factory workers and others, and he paid largely to sustain both. At a later time when all the schoolhouse was wanted, he paid over |20,ooo toward building Cosmian Hall for the Society, and helped to sustain this unsectarian effort for the presentation of different opinions in religion, the advocacy of practical reforms by representative men and women, and the moral instruction and innocent recreation of the young. He also paid $4,000 toward a kindergarten school, open to all children. Other men have paid money freely for public purposes, but few have been so unwearied as he was in well-doing — not known of men — or so fatherly in their constant care for others. If sickness or misfortune came to any, his help lighted their path as quietly and cheerily as the sunshine. If weakness or vice brought the trial, his warning was as faithful as it was kind ; his sage suggestion was help to a better life, and not self-righteous rebuke. He helped the deserving to help themselves, and opened ways upward UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 6 1 for the faithful and capable, instead of usin^ them, and then pushing them down as selfish men often do. He was singularly thoughtful of all that might help the comfort or culture of the people. The factory girl had from him the same quiet respect any lady of the land would have ; boarding houses were planned for comfort and good behavior; the atmosphere was everywhere permeated by a fatherly influence, a sense of protecting kindness. In his good efforts he had the ready help of co-workers of like spirit, his son Arthur, A. T. Lily, man- ager in the mill, and others. The skilled labor needed called for good wages, and this helped to build up a taste- ful village of some 2,500 people, intelligent and well behaved beyond the average. A few years ago a Christmas party was made for him in the Hall. Not far below the village was a large cotton mill, owned by another company on the river, and many Irish Catholics were employed there ; but they had felt a kindly wisdom that knew no limits of creed, and they came to meet Protestants and heretics in all good will. They asked Father Hill to go to the foot of the stairs, and there was a nice sleigh, the gift of warm and honest hearts. He was so quiet and unpretending as not to be appre- ciated by strangers, but his goodness and greatness grew with intimacy. In the "martyr days" of early anti- slavery, he was an abolitionist, with fidelity to conscience as firm as that of any Puritan. Thought of reputation or business prospects never turned his course or sealed his lips, and by his noble integrity he won the respect and confidence of all ; his success a lesson to all time-servers and moral cowards, his bravely persistent industry and couraee a lesson to all weak and aimless souls. He was somewhat above middle-height, with a serviceable body built for useful work, a high and noble head, a serious aspect, plain and kindly manners, and the quiet ways 62 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. that we often see in men of large power. Hours and days at his hospitable home, quiet talks in his last years when illness kept him from active work, are well remembered. MRS. STETSON SELF-CONCEIT ABATED. One of the best things for a young man sometimes is to tind out how little he knows. It takes down his self- conceit and settles him into deeper thinking. At the Association I had that lesson. I was at the age when self- esteem is active, and was looking forward to the study of theology. Of course I felt wise ! A Massachusetts youth who was a Whig, a Unitarian, and a prospective clergyman, would naturally have a fair share of compla- cent self-satisfaction. I had a room in a house partly occupied by Mr. Stetson and his family, from Brook- lyn, Ct. Mrs. Stetson was a superior woman, a personal friend of Samuel J. May, and other early anti-slavery leaders. One evening in their room the talk turned on anti-slavery, and she quoted some Bible texts favoring freedom. Gravely and with oracular aspect I spoke of Paul and Onesimus, and of the apostle sending the slave back to his master. I can see yet the shade of amused pity that spread over her fine face as she heard me through. Then she took up the matter, and expounded the scrip- ture in the light of liberty. As she expounded I became utterly confounded, — perplexed and ashamed at my want of knowledge and moral insight. That I, one of the lords of creation, should be made to feel so small by a woman ! I, who hoped some day, like Scott's Dominie Sampson, " to wag my pow in the pulpit," should be so humiliated by this woman, unlearned, as I supposed, in clerical lore ! She was kind, but that made it all the worse. My conceit was all gone, and there really seemed nothing left of n\e. I could not sleep half the night, thinking of my confusion and chagrin, but at last it dawned on me that it was all right, and the next day I went and heartily thanked her UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 63 for her words. We became cordial friends and, havinj^ come into a teachable mood, I learned a great deal more from her. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. "Thou art not idle; in thy higher sphere, Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks; And strength to perfect what is dreamed of here, Is all the crown and glory that it asks," J. R. Lowell. In 1838, being in Boston over Sunday, a merchant with whom I dealt asked me to sit in his pew in the Federal Street Church, and hear Channing. The simple taste of the old meeting-house, and the fine aspect of a congregation of such people as would be attracted to such a man interested me. Soon the minister came— a man of middle stature and delicate form, drawing a little on one's sympathy by his physical feebleness before he spoke, but lifting all inio a region of higher thought when he was heard. At first his utterance was somewhat faint and low, but soon that sweet, clear voice reached all in full distinctness, its fine cadences rising to earnest warning and entreaty, or falling to tones of tender sympathy, as naturally as the ^Eolian harp varies with the breeze. He seemed inspired by an exalted enthusiasm, looking toward the higher and more perfect life of which he held men capable, and calling others up to the clear height of his own thought. Men and women heard him as though some angel from the upper heaven spoke, and the hour in that church was sacred. Each fit word dropped into its place in the sentence naturally, each period was rounded out in full and fair perfection. The inspiration of his ideas seemed to set each word and phrase in harmony, as that of the musical composer sets note and cleft and bar in the scale to make a perfect and sustained strain of melody. It was a privilege to see and hear him. I could know 64 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. better how his words had such uplifting power, and how it was that those who knew him best loved and rever- enced him most. The great central idea and glowing inspiration of his life was the capacity of man for eternal culture and spiritual growth, and the divine goodness that has made the eternal life, here and hereafter, a tit field for that culture. In the day when New England, weary of the grim despair of total depravity, needed to hear a fresh and living word, he spoke. He was the Apostle to teach and emphasize the dignity of human nature, the capacity of man for spiritual culture, the beauty of that holiness of which we are capable, and the wretchedness of that vice and weakness to which so many descend. JOHN PIERPONT. " Not there ! Where then is he ? The form I used to see Was but the raiment that he us3d to wear. The grave that now doth press, Upon that cast-off dress, Is but his wardrobe locked — he is not there." Pierpont. I first met Pierpont at his home in West Medford, Mass., May 23d, 1 86 1. He told me how a reaction in his favor had taken place, after his long and brave contest with the rum-seUing pew-holders of Hollis Street Church, and how his Lyceum lectures and poems had grown in favor, but when he became a Spiritualist the calls for lectures and poems grew less, and his Unitarian brethren, a majority of them, cool toward him. Of all this he made no com- plaint, but spoke of it with cheerful humor, yet it could not but affect him. This message he gave me, received in New York in i860, from Mrs. Hoy, a stranger : "My Brother : The M'orld is full of signs and tests of spirit power, and we will not allow you to question that UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 65 which meets your outer and inner vision at every turn, for you know the flower-lip speaks it, and the leaf-tongue proclaims it. I have passed away, yet the grave does not contine me. I am where I see more to do, and under more favorable circumstances, than when my soul was obliged to carry the burden of my body. Not that 1 despise the tenement, God forbid ! I parted with it as well-tried friends bid each other a final adieu. I am carry- ing out my intentions, and urging with good faith that freedom in Christ, which shall render man the worthy companion of the angels. Here I see no eye watching with distrust or envy ; no cold reserve and formalities which chill the heart's warm outgushings. . . .but, by the light which surrounds all here, I see man in all his noble- ness and simplicity. Would that more could come into possession of this spiritual sight, which must inevitably raise the fallen — while as a self-adjusting principle, it must make man his own judge and saviour — God being within. It is not new, but the old, revived and relieved of all superfluous garniture which education has heaped upon it. . . . With kindness ever, T. P." He thought the signature a mistake, not knowing who it meant, when the medium again decidedly signed "T. P.," and further thought led him to see it was Theodore Parker, from whom he had messages at other times and places. Years after, wife and myself boarded on the same street, (4 1-2 Street, N. W. ,) and near him, in Washington — he then holding an important place in the Treasury Department, and doing full daily work, although over eighty years of age. We often called on him about five o'clock, or just after his dinner hour when, refreshed by a short sleep and by his meal, he enjoyed a visit. One warm afternoon we went to the door of his room and found all still. Looking in through the half-open door 5 66 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. we saw him asleep on the sofa. Wife slipped in, laid a fresh rose on his breast, and we came away. Next day we met him on the avenue ; he stopped us, laid his hands on her shoulders, and said : "I've caught the sly rogue that slipped into my room when I slept yesterday, and left a rose for me," — all this with the grace and humor of youth. Fifty years before he might have been a hand- some young man, but surely he was handsome as we knew him. Tall, erect, his hair and beard fine and silvery, the fresh glow of health and temperate purity still giving ruddy hue to his cheeks, strangers in the streets stopped to admire him. In his delightful con- versation the culture of a scholar and poet, the brilliancy of a young heart, the courage of a reformer, the wisdom of large experience, and the insight of a spiritual thinker, gave varied charm and instruction. One evening I heard him recite a poem of his own at a temperance meeting. He came before the audience with a weary step, and began his poem in a broken and feeble voice, but a change soon came, and before he was half through his form dilated, his eyes flashed, his voice was deep and full, and the burden of a half century seemed rolled away, leaving him young and glorying in his strength. The conquer- ing spirit had lent the body, for the hour, something of its own immortal youth, so that all were spell-bound in surprised delight. We saw him last one lovely summer morning at the corner of our street, opposite the City Hall, and the statue of Lincoln, waiting for the cars to go to the Treasury building. He spoke cheerily of the beauty of the day ; said he was going to start for New England in the after- noon, and stepped on to the car as it came near, waving his hand and smiling his good-bye. In a few days he was acting as President of a meeting of Spiritualists at Providence, and just afterward passed serenely to that higher life for which he was ripe and fully ready. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 67 THEODORE PARKER. THE PREACHER OF TRANSCENDENTALISM. «'No boundless solitude of space, Shall fill man's conscious soul with awe, But everywhere his eye shall trace, The beauty of eternal law. ****** And he, who through the lapse of years. With aching heart and weary feet. Had sought, from gloomy doubts and fears, A refuge and a safe retreat — Shall find at last an inner shrine. Secure from superstition's ban, Where he shall learn the truth divine, That God dwells evermore in man." Elizabeth Doten. Theodore Parker's earnestness and reverent spirit made all ordinary preaching poor. He emphasized the tran- scendent faculties of the soul, as above book or dogma, and was a moral hero. This heretic and iconoclast was one of the most deeply- religious men in any New England pulpit. He rebuked cant, that sincerity might gain ground ; he broke beloved idols in pieces, yet " ' Twas but the ruin of the bad — The wasting of the wrong and ill ; Whate'er of good the old time had, Was living still." None rejoiced in the life of the old-time good more than he, and few helped it so much — albeit he was held as a reckless destroyer. His natural manner in preaching — that of a man ad- dressing his fellow-men without any affectation in voice or style — impressed me favorably. He had the dignity and feeling fitting high themes discussed, but the "holy tone " of the parish priest was not heard — a happy relief ! The clergy ought to bless his memory for his great help in making pulpit ways natural. His frank and courageous 68 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. speech, not only of Pharisees in Jerusalem but in Boston, of prevalent and popular wrongs in Babylon and New York, was novel and refreshing. Again the clergy should bless his memory for helping to emancipate the pulpit, making it a place for voices not echoes. His theology too had a fresh vitality ; he told of a living and present word of God. Dean Stanley truly said of him : "No man in this century made so deep a mark on our religious thought." Surely no man made so strong and lasting impression on his hearers. His courage and sense of duty always led him to a sincere speaking out of his con- victions, at whatever cost. This sincerity and iidelity gave him a power impossible without them, and made him the great preacher of the century. From 2,500 to 4,000 people were his deeply interested hearers each Sunday in ]\Iusic Hall for ten years. He admitted the worth of Spiritualism as an agent in emancipating the human mind. Frothingham says : " He blamed the scientific men, Agassiz among them, for their unfair methods of investigating the phenomena ; rebuked the prigs who turned up their noses at the idea of investigating the subject at all, and admitted that Spirit- ualism knocks the nonsense of popular theology to pieces, and leads cold, hard materialistic men to a recognition of what is really spiritual in their nature." This I knew from conversation with him on this sub- ject. I have heard him speak in anti-slavery and woman- suffrage meetings — every word a blow, and the mark never missed. Visiting him at his home in Boston, I found this heroic soul tender as well as brave. His domestic life showed that side of his character which was notable too in his public efforts in an undertone of sorrowing pity toward those he rebuked, and in the emotional parts of his relig- ious discourses. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 69 A devoted and true husband, a lover of the society of the best women, greatly fond of children, of whom he once said in a prayer that "the fragrance of heaven was in their baby-breath," his wealth of affection equalled his wealth of intellect. Several times I spent an hour in his study. He was simple and sincere, so eager to learn that you almost for- got how much he knew. The plain ways of his early life on the farm never left him. That room on the fourth floor —the whole floor with its outlook over the city from front and rear windows— was filled with books ; plain shelves on the wails— and in every corner or nook by door or window ; full shelves in racks in the middle of the floor : piles on the floor, shelves along the stairways and in lower halls and closets, an overflow and inundation every- where. To me the most interesting of all was a little bureau — very plain and small — such as a boy might have by the head of his bed in his little chamber in an old farm l^ouse — which stood beneath a window with an old Latin Dictionary on it, and the name, " Theodore Parker, ejus liber" in a boys hand on its blank leaf. That book he bought himself, and paid for it by selling huckleberries picked with his own hands on his fathers farm, which he carried in his little tin pail on foot five miles to Lexington and sold for four cents a quart until he had laid away in that bureau drawer four dollars to pay for that dictionar}'. No wonder such a boy, grown to manhood, conquered dithculties and made that first book the seed-corn from which grew his great library ; and did also much other work, books being only his tools. At the opposite end of the room was his desk, with its busts and statuettes of Jesus, Socrates and Spartacus, its flowers for fresh orna- ment, and its walls of books all about. The same stout and tender heart that led the boy with that litde bureau by his bedside, to pick berries, and help his dear mother in her housework was in the man who wrought at that yo UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. desk. He kept, too, the clean ways of his childhood, and we can say of him, as is said of the good knight, Sir Galahad in the romance of King Arthur : " His strength was as the strength of ten, Because his heart was pure." THOMAS MCCLINTOCK. Going one Sunday to Junius Friends, meeting-house, near Waterloo, New York, I heard Thomas McClintock speak. He was a tall and slender man, with dark hair and eyes, linely expressive features, and an air of refined thought and benignant kindness. His ideas and state- ments impressed me as greatly like those of Theodore Parker, although I learned he had never read the works of that great preacher. Plainly enough he had reached substantially the same conclusions, at quite as early a day. I found he was one of the foremost among Hick- site Friends who publicly advocated and emphasized these views, and he met with an opposition from the more conservative like that which Parker encountered from the same class among the Unitarians. It was very interesting to note the growth and expression of like opinions in distant places and among different classes. Certain eras seem to be ripening seasons for new spiritual harvests. Thoughts pulse through the air with fresh intensity foreshadowing beneficent changes, even as the perfume of the blossom in spring prophesies the autumn's fruitage. The Boston preacher in the Melodeon and the Quaker in that plain meeting-house in Central New York, un- known to each other, had wrought out the same problems, and were possessed by the same ideas. Thomas McClintock was a druggist and bookseller, noted for the perfectness of his chemical preparations, and for his strict integrity. Certain of his townsfolk once came to expostulate with him ; not probably unfriendly in feeling, UP WA RD S TEPS OF SE VENTY YEA RS. 7 1 they had strong dislike of his heresy in theology, and of his anti-slavery position, and wished he might be silent on those topics. So they said, in substance : "We come to you as friends, to warn you that your bold preaching and your open association with these heretics and fana- tics will greatly hurt your business. We have no objection to your having what opinions you please, but your course is very distasteful to many people, and will injure you." He replied : "I thank you for coming, but I was trained up to obey the monitions of the spirit, and be true to my best light. In private and in public I have always expressed my opinions faithfully, without aiming to give undue offence, yet without fear of man, and to do other- wise would be sinful and cowardly. I will bear your words in mind, but I must speak the truth, and abide the consequences." They saw nothing could be done, and left. He went on, treating all with courteous kindness, but not swerving from his straight path of duty. For a time his business did suffer, and he saw why and how, but it made no dif- ference, and then the tide turned, and it more than came back ; prejudice yielded to respect, and that ripened into affection. In a few years he planned to leave and go to his native Pennsylvania with a son in business. Then the town's people came to him, of all sects and parties, urged him to stay, and offered substantial aid to enlarge his business. He thanked them, but felt obliged to leave, and did so, amidst regrets well-nigh universal. Thus upright courage wins at last. His home-life was delightful — a wife of fine culture and character, graceful and dutiful daughters, and their sur- roundings in that pure and quiet taste which gives a charm to the houses of the best Quakers. 72 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. CHAPTER IV. ANTI-SLAVERY — WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. "Champion of those who groan beneath Oppression's iron hand ; In view of penury, hate, and death, I see them fearless stand." Whittier. While at the Northampton Association I first knew William "Lloyd Garrison, and began to understand the anti-slavery movement. There was to be a convention in the old church at Northampton, and notices were sent to the towns near, to be read in the pulpits. This was a good way to test the clergy. The abolitionists said their effort was religious in the deepest sense, their aim "to preach deliverance to the captive," and that the church and clergy were in duty bound to help. If a clergyman read a notice from his pulpit it showed his sympathy ; if not, he was held as blind or time-serving, practically an ally of slavery. They said to the ministers : " If our way does not suit you, show us a better, but do something. Don't be like dumb dogs." In this instance a notice was sent to Hatfield, and I was at home with my father the Sunday it was read in the pulpit. It was handed to the young pastor by one whom he did not like to offend, yet he knew its reading would offend others ; so he coupled it with a warning not to go, as dangerous men and infidels were to be there. This facing both ways suited nobody. Before we were fairly off the steps of the meeting-house, one of the best church members said : " I shall go and hear for myself" The warning v.-as an invitation accepted by him and UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 73 others. My father's advice to hear all sides, sent me there, and I found a good audience, whose general intel- ligence and decorum surprised me. Among the group of speakers on the platform in front of the pulpit was one quite bald, with a genial face, strong and hopeful, wear- ing gold spectacles, simply but neatly dressed, of sub- stantial clean-cut form, rather above the average size, — his attractive and inspiring presence giving an impression of a clear-sighted man who would go straight to the mark. This was Garrison, the incendiary traitor of poli- ticians, the arch-infidel of pro-slavery preachers ! He spoke with intense earnestness, and great moral power, but with entire self-poise, and in the best spirit. I thought, "Verily, the devil is not so black as he is painted." But the old prejudice was not gone. The next day my friend, Mrs. Stetson, — my Paul and Onesimus expounder, asked me : "How did you like Mr. Garrison .? " I replied : " He spoke well. I guess he wasn't in one of his black moods." She laughed and said: "You will never see him in a black mood," and I never did. Soon after this came a great convention in Boston, and I wanted to go, but did not wish to ask my father for money to pay my expenses. Fortunately, just in time, a message came to me from the great button-factory store at Haydenville, to come and help them take the yearly account of stock. I went, worked hard a week or more, came away with twenty-five dollars in my pocket, independent as a mil- lionaire, and went to Boston for a week. In the old Marlboro chapel I heard Phillips, Garrison, Abby Kelly, Parker, Pillsbury, Pierpont and others. Such impassioned eloquence ; such moral and spiritual power ; such bold rebuke and warning : such exposure of iniquity in high places ; such tender pleading for the wronged and plun- dered ! I felt that they were right, and went home under conviction. But I thought that possibly this splendid elo- quence had swept me off my feet, and resolved to wait a 74 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. fortnight, think it over quietly, and then decide. The reso- lution was g-ood, but the end of my appointed time found me an avowed abolitionist. This avowal is easy to tell of now, but it was not easy to make then. The rising generation can form but a faint idea of the sway of the slave power, the prejudice against abolitionists, and the contempt and hatred of the negro at that time. The pest reached everywhere, like the frogs of Eg)'pt in the plague of Pharaoh. The majority of the clergy of all sects and sections, from Texas to Maine, held slavery as a divine institution, sanctioned by the Bible. The political parties were its tools. James G. Birney tells of a "Pastoral Letter" of the General Conference of the INIethodist Episcopal Church in 1836, to their churches and ministers, exhorting them : "To abstain from all abolition movements and associa- tions, and to refrain from patronizing any of their publica- tions. . . From every view of the subject which we have been able to take, and from the most calm and dispas- sionate survey of the whole ground, we have come to the conclusion that the only safe, prudent, and scriptural way for us, both as ministers and people, to take, is wholly io refrain from fhis agitating subject." After Daniel Webster made his great speech in favor of the fugitive slave law Whittier said of him : "So fallen, so lost, the light withdrawn, Wliich once he wore ! The glory from his gray hairs gone, Forever more ! Of all we loved and honored, nought Save power remains — A fallen angel's pride of thought. Still strong in chains. All else is gone ; from those great eyes, The soul is fled ; When faith is lost, when honor dies. The man is dead ! " UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YE A PS. 75 Edward Everett, when governor of Massachusetts, rec- ommended the legislature to pass a law against anti- slavery agitation. Grave orthodox doctors of divinity in New England, were the clerical defenders of the slave system, and a Unitarian divine would send his mother (or brother) back into slavery to save the Union. The lesser lights did their part. I remember once giving an anti-slavery talk on a packet boat on the Erie canal, at the request of the passengers, and after its close noticing a serious looking man, with a clerical white neckcloth, talking quietly to single persons, book in hand. A man came to me and said: "That's a preacher defending slavery from the Bible." Of such preachers Whittier said : •'Paid hypocrites, who turn judgment aside. And rob the holy book Of those high words of truth which search and burn, In warning and rebuke. Their glory and their might shall perish. And their very name shall be Vile before all the people, in the light Of a world's liberty." The pioneer abolitionists were devoted, plain in speech, uncompromising and stern in rebuke. To make our judgment of them complete, to discern clearly the spirit and temper of the early anti-slavery advocates, whether Garrisonians or liberty-party men, we must put in con- nection with these stern rebukes of wrong something to show their feeling toward the wrong-doer, — a feeling void of all vengeance or hatred, and ready to overcome evil with good. Here Garrison's words are in place. He said : "The slave-holders have impeached our motives, libeled our characters, and threatened our lives. No in- dignity is too great to be heaped upon us ; no outrage too shocking to be perpetrated on our persons or property. 76 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. And now we will have our revenge ! God helping us we will continue to use all lawful and Christian means for the overthrow of their suicidal slave system. Ours is the agitation of humanity in view of cruelly, of virtue in opposition to pollution, of holiness against impiety. It is the agitation of thunder and lightning to purify a corrupt atmosphere, of the storm to give new vigor and freshness to field and forest. Ours is the incendiary spirit of truth, that burns up error, of freedom that melts the fetters of the bondman, of impartial love that warms every breast with the sacred fire of heaven. Could any men but those of extraordinary moral courage and endurance, sustain unflinchingly a contest which requires such loss of reputation, and such hazard of property and life.? They are the winnowing of the nation. When that slave-sys- tem falls — as fall it must — we will repay them with rich blessings. We will remove from them all source of alarm, and the cause of all insurrection ; increase the value of their estates tenfold ; give an Eden-like fertility to their perishing soil ; build up the old waste places and repair all breaches ; make their laborers contented, grateful and happy ; wake up the entombed genius of invention, and the dormant spirit of enterprise ; open to them new sources of affluence ; multiply their branches of industry ; erect manufactories, build railways, dig canals ; establish schools, academies, colleges and all beneficent institu- tions ; extend their commerce to the ends of the earth, and to an unimagined amount ; turn the tide of Western adventure and Northern capital into Southern channels ; unite the North and the South by indissoluble ties ; change the entire moral aspect of society ; cause pure and un- deliled religion to flourish ; avert impending judgments, and secure heavenly blessings, and fill the land with peace, prosperity and happiness ! Thus, and thus only, will we be revenged upon them — for all the evil they UrWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 77 are now doing-, or may hereafter do to us — past, present and to come I " It would hardly be possible to put in language a better statement of the benefits already beginning to be realized in the new South — benefits hailed and helped in fraternal spirit by the North. In the support of slavery all sections of our country had their share of guilt and blindness, and all can now join in repentance and reconciliation, — in the up-building of right and freedom. "Wisdom is justified of her children," and the good which we begin to realize from the downfall of chattel-slavery shows that the abolitionists were right and wise. That downfall came by a terrible civil conflict, because the people paid no timely heed to the noble company of men and women fitly called " the winnowing of the nation." It is mainly of Garrison as a beloved friend that I would speak. His remarkable history, from being mobbed in Boston, imprisoned in Baltimore jail, and called by all manner of evil names, to walking daily in the very streets where the mob sought his life, as an honored citizen, and being seen and heard everywhere with marked respect and reverence, is written elsewhere. I met him first at the Northampton Association, and his buoyant happiness surprised and delighted me. He had the heroic cheerfulness that comes from unwavering faith in the conquering power of truth, and from devotedness to a high purpose. Good health, a happy temperament, and a well-ordered home, full of sympathy and affection, helped this unfailing joy of the spirit, which grew brighter amidst trial and abuse, and became a flame of heroism in hours of danger. The play of a fine humor, the bright- ness of a sunny heart, and the strength of a great soul, gave varied interest to his conversation. He used to speak of owing much to his mother, who was turned out of doors by her Episcopalian parents in New Brunswick, because she joined the unpopular Baptist Church, in obe- 78 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. dience to her own convictions. To know that anything was right was to be sure of its triumph in fit time, and to be ready to nidorse it. To find an error, no matter how sacredly revered, was to know that it must die, and to bear testimony against it at whatever cost. All this w^as without empty boast or vain scoff, but with self-poised assurance, taking no council of "the fear of man which brin0 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. frank sincerity and wide knowledge of men and things gave his private talk a wonderful charm. The Career of Theodore Parker interested him much ; the cordial friend- ship with Lucretia Mott, George Truman and others in Philadelphia was kept up ; he had a warm side toward Spiritualism. There was hospitality for more light in that house, and wife and sons and daughter had like views. Their kind and sincere friendship are gratefully remem- bered. At last absence interrupted those visits, and word came that our dear friend had passed peacefully away. Wife and children, too, have all, save one, gone to that bourne from whence travellers sometimes return. JOHN AND H.\NNAH COX A GOLDEN WEDDING. A few miles north of Kennett Square, Chester County, Pa., stands the solid brick farm-house where John and Hannah Cox spent more than fifty years together. That homestead had an air of comfort and abundance. All around were the well-tilled fields and sunny hill slopes of the farm, with the armple old barns and out-houses near at hand by the road side. A grassy yard, with its roses and shrubbery and great overshadowing trees and old- fashioned brown picket fence : the old orchard ; the gar- den with its medicinal herbs, its small fruits, its vegetables and blooming flowers near the bee-hives, fitly surrounded the dwelling. The house — with its narrow and irregular passage ways ; steep staircases ; cozy rooms — low-ceiled and with small windows ; cheery dining-room, with the old-fashioned blue figured ware on the table ; great kitchen ; odd nooks and corners ; furniture of old style and home-like plainness ; pictures, old and quaint, and of later and finer style ; mementoes of affection and friendship, and books from George Fox's ybz/rw^?/ to Parker and Emerson — was full of attractive interest, and was verily a home. There had sons and daughters been UP WA RD S TEPS OF SE VEXTY YEA PS. 131 born, from thence had some of them gone out to marry and settle near, while others remained — but this was the centre, the place of heart- warmth and welcome and refuge to all. John Cox was one of the steadfast men, indus- trious, of few words, of sound judgment, wise in advice when urged to give it, but never offering it unasked — one of those whose worth and weight grow on acquaintance- His plain yet attractive features and solid frame typified his character. Hannah Cox, as I first knew her at sixty, and up to over eighty years old, had grown large in per- son, and had open and animated features full of life and intelligence, finely expressive eyes, and an air of large motherliness. She was a mother indeed to the sick and distressed in the neighborhood. I remember well how she used to start out in her Jersey carriage with supplies of food and medicine for their needs. They had many visitors. Sometimes, in the old fugitive slave law days, they entertained slaves who came there in the still watches of the night and were always kept and sent along in safety. It was a saying among a certain sort of persons ; "You might as well look for a needle in a hay mow as for a nigger in Kennett," and John Cox s farm was a hard place to find them— that is, when they were "property" with faces set northward. Sometimes the visitors were of quite different degree. William D. Kelley of Phila- delphia, for instance, and his large-hearted wife, greatly prized their occasional visits. Edmund Quincy, that courteous gentleman of the old school from Boston, found interest and instruction in the talk of the intellis-ent daughters who remained at home, as well as in that of their parents. William Lloyd Garrison was a welcome visitor and correspondent. They had a curious album in the sitting-room — a wax-plant trel- lised up the walls and over the windows, on the leaves of which were pricked the names of their visitors, each making a lasting autograph, and all a long and inter- 132 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YE APS. estinc^ list. In the early autumn of 1875 came their gold- en wedding, fortunately on a lovely day. Tables were spread in the yard under the trees ; seventy-five guests sat down ; speeches were fit and choice ; presents of the best kind — not gaudy tinsel or rich display, but books and pictures, and the fine simplicity of tasteful mementoes. Whittier sent a poem ; Bayard Taylor, their neighbor and friend from his boyhood, a letter and present from Ger- many ; messages came from the South, from Philadelphia, Boston, New York and elsewhere ; and the golden wed- ding testimonials added interest and heart-warmth to the household rooms. The letters and poems were printed in a choice private volume, which I saw at the house soon afterward. But a few months after, Hannah passed away, and her husband soon joined her, over ninety years old, she being about eighty-five. I was there last in 1876, and spent a day with William Lloyd Garrison, in attendance at the Longwood yearly meeting of Progres- sive Friends, where he read a testimonial, prepared at the request of the meeting, touching the life and character of Hannah Cox. I remember how he emphasized the sug- gestion that in all probability she was present in spirit, though unseen by us, as she would feel drawn to visit a place in which she had long taken active interest. This family did their full share of work, in the fields and the household, after the usual farmer fashion, while their social life reached to the most truly cultivated per- sons. High thinking with plain living, give grace and power of character. SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE OF A QUAKER PREACHER. I have heard Priscilla Cadwallader preach in the meet- ings of Hicksite Friends in Rochester, New York. She was a tall, noble-looking woman, with an earnest and inspired manner that carried great weight. An elderly Quaker lady who was often her companion and nurse in sickness, told UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEAKS. 133 me ofsome remarkable experiences in the ministry of that gifted preaciier. In Scipio, near Auburn, N. Y., she was once sick and in danger, and doubted about taking Thomp- sonian medicine, wJien a voice wiiJmi, audible only to her, said, "Take it and thou shalt live." She took it in peace- ful confidence, and was soon better. While at Hamburgh, near Buffalo, her friend saw her standing quiet, and look- ing intently into empty space, and asked, ' ' What does thee see.? " and the answer was, "I see a tattered curtain waving in the wind and falling in pieces. It is the Society of Friends, which will soon decay and something else will come in its place. I can't see what, but something better." One night soon after, her friend woke in the night, and heard her, through the open door of their adjoining rooms, talking pleasantly and laughing at times, for an hour, as though with some imaginary person, and told her in the morning, asking if she had dreamed, when she said in some surprise, "Did thee hear me.?" and it was not again spoken of. She once made a religious tour in Canada with Elihu Coleman, of Rochester, N. Y., and his wife, with his carriage and horses, from one Friends' meeting-house to another. Going over on the steamboat they were directed by a respectable-looking stranger, to stop at a certain hotel, a few miles from their landing place for the night, and did so. It was a lonely place, but 'they were well treated and shown to their rooms for the night, but Mrs. Cadvvallader felt no wish to sleep, found the room of the Colemans, waited quietly in her chair, without fatigue, and three times in the night heard men come softly toward the room, and made some noise each time to show that some one was up at which they turned back. At early dawn she called up her friends, and they left, as she said she felt they must. Breakfasting at another hotel, she felt like telling her story, and was told their escape was fortunate 134 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. from a spot noted for foul play, and to which they were doubtless directed by a confederate on the boat. Ridine soon after from one settlement of Friends to another, they came to a fork in the road, and Coleman was about to turn into the plain way where they had been directed to go, but she laid her hand on his arm, pointed to the other road, and said, " We had better go on that awhile." He always obeyed her directions, and did so then, when they came to a strange house, a mile or more distant, and she said, "Thee will please stop here and I will get out." She found a Quaker woman in the house, held a religious talk of an hour with her, greatly to this lone woman's spiritual help as no Friends' meetings were near, and then went back to the carriage and said, " I think now we had best go back to the other road." Telling my friend, Henry Willis, of these experiences, he said : "In 1832, at the Cherry Street Friend's Meeting- House in Philadelphia, I heard Priscilla preach, and she said, ' A terrible war, one of the most fearful ever known, will rage in this country. I hear the martial music. I see two great hostile armies, both praying the same God for victory. It is fearful, but it will come.' Her hearers thought her M-ild, but it is accomplished. What is all this ? Fine intuition, delicate perception and feeling of danger and violence, subtle drawing toward the spiritual needs of a lonely woman, a stranger in a strange land, that finer foresight which we call prophecy, the real presence of guardian friends in a higher life. As the thoughtful woman who told me most that I have written, said : "Spiritualism is Quakerism enlarged and revised." UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 135 LUCRF.TIA MOTT. •' Whose eighty years but added grace, And saiiither meaning to her face — The look of one who bore away Glad tidings from the hills of day. While all our hearts went forth to meet, The coming of her beautiful feet ! " Twenty years ago Lucretia Mott visited some friends in Washington, and was asked to speak in the Unitarian Church on Sunday morning. It was in the days when Civil Rights and like measures were discussed, call- ing out more moral enthusiasm than usual. It was the old church, in the steeple of which hung the bell given to the society by John Quincy Adams. Wife and myself went a half hour before the time, and found the house well filled. When the hour came it was with great difficulty that Mrs. Mott found her way through the crowded aisles to the pulpit. The house was packed with a remark- able audience — the most thoughtful intelligence from the middle classes, the largest ability and the highest charac- ter from those eminent in official rank. All listened with reverent attention. It was a simple appeal for fidelity in daily life and duty, with little mention of topics in con- troversy ; yetbrief sentences on some great matter seemed like volumes, and an ineffable tenderness melted and subdued all possible prejudice. Before an audience she had an air of commanding dig- nity, softened by womanly grace and sympathy. Her figure was slight and not above middle height, her features sweet, strong and beautiful, her manner of speaking direct and natural, with few gestures. The simplest words had new significance, because they were her words, freighted with something of her own insight and uplifting power. For more than half a century that potent and persuasive voice was heard in many great meetings, pleading for the enslaved negro, for woman's equality, for temperance, J ^6 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. for liberty of conscience in religion and fidelity to the light within. During all that time her social influence was large and delightful, and meanwhile no duty of wife or mother or housekeeper was neglected. Her long wedded life with James Mott — a husband worthy of such a wife — was happy and harmonious. One of the last times we saw her was in the Centennial summer. We rode out on a lovely June day, to the beau- tiful suburbs of Philadelphia, to the home of her daughter Maria Mott Davis and Edward M. Davis. Sitting by an open window in her rocking chair, looking out on the wide space of grass and flowers and sheltering trees, with her work-basket by her side and busy sewing for the chil- dren, was our dear friend. Near her was a roll of hand- some rag carpet, the^material for which she had prepared herself. Then, as in all her life, these household tasks were pleasant, and her industry was constant. Eighty years had begun to tell on the physical frame, yet she was erect as ever, and as clear in mind and spirit. An hour's talk showed the same fresh and lively interest in passing events, the same tender thoughts of friends far and near as in years gone by ; with a word now and then of quiet and serene looking forward to the great change which she knew could not be far away. As we sat in the carriage by the steps of the porch, just ready to leave, she said : "Catharine, let me give thee a copy of my talk on woman, more than thirty years ago, the only word of mine ever put in print, in book or pamphlet," and then turned to- ward the door, tripping across the floor erect and bright as a girl, and soon coming back with the pamphlet. In 1878 shemadethelongjourneyto Rochester, New York, to attend the third decade meeting in commemoration of the first M'oman's suffrage meeting in the country at Seneca Falls, New York, June, 1848, and we met her at a private house several times. She would take her toast and tea, rest in quiet on the sofa a half hour, ask to be called up, come among us UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 137 again fresh and charming- as ever, and go across the yard to the Unitarian church where the Convention met, ready- to bear her testimony to the waiting audience that tilled it. She did a great work in breaking up the narrow way of Friends in " keeping out of the mixture," and not join- ing with "the world's people" outside, in any reform. Her leading idea she made a motto in later years : "Truth for authority, not authority for truth." The breaking up of Quaker exclusiveness and of sectarian prejudice; the advocacy of religious liberty ; noble efforts for reform and impartial freedom ; and the daily doing of kindly and useful deeds, made up her life-work, and strong intellect and perfectness of womanly character made it great and excellent. 138 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. ISAAC T. HOPPER. It was my good fortune to meet Isaac T. Hopper several times — not only one of the best, but one of the hand- somest men I ever saw. His personal resemblance to the great Napoleon was so striking that Joseph Bonaparte, seeing him in the street in New York, exclaimed : " Who is that man ? Dress him in Napoleon's clothes and put him in Paris and he could raise a revolution and be hailed as my brother returned to France." His mental powers had a Napoleonic strength, used in far different ways. His fertility of resources and calm courage in baffling a slave-hunter were like the Emperors planning of a campaign, and he won more surely than the great Frenchman. Lydia Maria Child has told the story of his "True Life." Wife and myself once dined at his table in New York. He seemed like a well-kept man of fifty-five, the gray hardly seen in his dark hair. As we left he sent a message to her father — for they had been members of the same Friends' Society, co-workers in reform, and fast friends. Standing erect and vigorous before us, he gave me his farewell, and then turned to her and said : " Catherine, I want thee to tell thy father — Benjamin Fish — that I am within a few months of sev- enty-six years old, that my eye is not dim nor my natural strength abated, and I am as strong for war as ever." It w^as a good message to carry home. Truth compels me to say that this man was " disowned " by the Hicksite Friends in New York ! The pro-slavery element could not abide his presence, but in trying to humiliate him, they but hurt themselves. To-day that Society would honor rather than disown such a man. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEAKS. 139 THOMAS GARRETT. " Happy he whose inward ear, Angel comfortings can hear, O'er the rabble's laughter ; And, while hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern. Of the good hereafter." Whiteier. To be in the presence of Thomas Garrett was like breathing- fresh and vitalizing air ; to enjoy his hospitality was like sitting "in the shadow of a great rock in a desert land." The memory of visits to his home calls up his large personality and protecting^ care. He was the person from whom Harriet Beecher Stowe pictured Simeon Halliday, the fighting Quaker in Uncle Tom's Cabin. His long life was a lesson, teaching the eminent power of integrity, courage, fidelity to conscience, sagacity, persistent energy, and a most sweet and tender benev- olence. Born and raised at Darby, near Philadelphia, among the f>iends, he was a member of the Hicksite Society, and retained their simplicity of dress and address to the last, although laying small stress on the limitations of discipline or sect. He engaged in trade in Wilmington, Delaware, as a hardware merchant, and was a man of steady industry and careful attention to business details, yet always found time and thought for the affairs of his society, for the reforms in which he was engaged, and for the wants of the poor and the enslaved. He was master of his busi- ness, but never allowed that business to master and enslave him, and thus he reached beyond it and made its success the means to higher and broader ends. He had admirable health, a firm and strong nervous system, great physical strength and endurance ; all well fitted to obey I40 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVEXTY YEARS. the dictates ot a will strong, persistent, and tenacious to a rare degree, yet tempered by a judgment remarkably clear, and made heroic by a religious obedience to con- science, which carried him above all fear, while the noble purity of his life kept him above reproach, save for opin- ion's sake, and for that he cared little. In the midst of a slave-holding community, and in days when abolitionism was heresy and treason of the darkest dye, and the helping of fugitive slaves to escape the worst of crimes, he was an open abolitionist, and the daily helper of fugitives. As a merchant, dependent on such a community, he never sank to that moral cowardice which makes traders barter their opinions to gain custom, or cater to evil prej- udices for material wealth. He never stinted, for he could not, the frankness of his speech or the boldness of his rebuke ; yet his words were never barbed by personal malice or hatred. He would lift the sinner above his sin — that was all. I once asked him, at his home, if slaveholders traded with him. Pointing to a large store near by, he said : " Does thee see that shop } These men know that they can trust me, for I say what I think. They are afraid of the men over there, for they know they don't say what they think, and so they deal with me, yet hate my opin- ions." Although at times he suffered financially, yet he never wavered, and so won at last. His house was a refuge and stopping-place for fugitive slaves, when detection w^ould have been heavy fine and imprisonment, and peril of violent death ; yet his mar- velous skill and vigilance baffled that detection for years. I listened once for a whole dav to his stories of device and adventure, told with a simple straightforwardness that made them doubly wonderful, and regret that they never will be widely known. He never would go out to UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 141 the plantations after slaves, for his royal integrity spurned the false pretenses he thought must be used, and his sagacity showed him a surer way. Through tried and true friends the slave found his way at night to his house, and thence northward, until his list of those who had thus fled " out of the gates of hell " reached over twenty-seven hundred names. At last he was detected. Coming home from a busi- ness trip to lower Delaware, some colored men asked for a ride in his carriage ; asking no questions, he granted it, and brought them a few miles. They got out at a cross- road and he came home. They were slaves, he had "aided and abetted" in their escape, and there was great joy among the baser sort of slave-owners when "old abolition Garrett" was in their hands. He was fined to the full extent — some $3,000. When the judge had closed his long charge on the heinousness of the offense, Garrett said : "Is thee done, friend .!• " and when the judge said " Yes,'' he replied : "I mean no disrespect to thee, for thee is doing the duty of thy office according to thy idea, but I must say that I shall feel in conscience bound to do this same thing again when the way opens." This fine, with other embarrassments, compelled him to suspend his business. After paying his debts he had but little left. And now came the triumph of character ! Bankers and others, slaveholdej^s and active helpers of such, quietly assured him of their credit and means. He thanked them, waited awhile, accepted such help as he needed, and his new business grew far larger than the old. Years before his death he retired on a decent com- petence, and said to a friend : " Thee knows I am a plain man; wife and I had best be simple, and I only want just a penny to give away now and then." His modest penny was a stream of daily benevolence, and frequent generous help to some good enterprise or unpopular reform. His wise kindness knew no limits or 142 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. distinctions of race or sect, and the poor Irish loved him with all the enthusiasm of their impulsive natures. Even their pitiful hatred of the negro, taught them in this country, melted away under his influence, and they were quick and ready to help the fugitive if "Father Garrett" wanted them. I once heard him tell with great glee, for keen and shrewd humor was part of his nature, of the escape of a slave who was closely pressed by her pursuers, darted down an alley in the rear of his house, and was hastily thrust through a gate into his yard by a kindly Irish- man, who only had time to say, "Find Thomas Garrett and you're safe, shure. " It was a dilemma, as his custom was not to take in fugitives unless there had been previous notice and planning to keep the coast clear ; but there the poor creature was at evening, and every policeman then acting with the slave hunters knew she was there. Here was room for a little strategy, and he was equal to the occasion. She was put into an upper room, fed and rested, talked with kindly and made strong in spirit. Some friends were visiting in the parlor below, fronting on the sidewalk, and the grate was made bright and the shutters thrown wide open that all passers by, police and slave hunters included, might look in. Thomas and his wife were cheery with the rest, until she said, "Please excuse me a little while and I'll soon be back," and went upstairs to dress the fugitive in a cloak and bonnet of her own. Soon Thomas goes up and says to the woman : "Thee must take my arm, keep still, walk up like any white lady, don't be afraid, and I'll take thee out safe." Going back to the parlor, hat in hand and overcoat on, he says, "Please excuse me, too, a little while," steps to the stairs and calls : "Is thee ready.?" when the wife stays up, and down comes the fugitive, with Quaker cloak and bonnet, and veil to protect from the chilly air, takes his arm, he opens the front door, and Ur IV A RD S TEPS OF SE VENTY YEA RS. \ 4 3 they step down to the sidewalk, and go quietly past two watchful policemen, Thomas making some witty remark to a passing lad, and saying, "How is thee?" to a policeman whom he knew. They go on a square or two, turn some corners, stop at a colored man's house, some mystic sign is made, and all is safe. He steps out of a back door, goes home another way, enters his rear yard, goes upstairs, and down to the parlor with his wife, and in a few weeks the grateful woman he had thus delivered finds a kind friend in Canada to write back her heartfelt blessings. " And the police all had a better night's sleep than if they had caught the poor creature— and felt better all next day, no doubt," said he with a cheery laugh, as the story was ended. Sometimes he faced danger with a w^ondrous courage. Once he went into a chamber where armed men were guarding a fugitive, bound with ropes. Pistols were aimed and knives drawn upon him, but he had no fear, trusted to no weapons, and subdued and conquered all by the height of his moral courage, the blaze of his righteous indignation, and the marvelous power of his iron will. In sight of their deathly weapons he said: "Put them away, none but cowards use such things," and walked boldly to the slave, cut his cords with a penknife and led him out in safety and peace. Doubtless in such cases the large proportions of his stalwart frame, and the sight of muscles strong as iron, helped him, but the spiritual force of a heroic soul won the victory. I once asked him if he ever laid hands on a man. "No,"said he, " I once said to an impudent constable, 'If thee don't stop, I'll shake thee.'" Did he stop? Tasked. With a quiet but hearty laugh he answered ' ' Yes, he did. " From early life he felt himself especially and divinely called to his anti-slavery work and his help of fugitives, and that the Lord was with him in his efforts. In his religious opinions he took no counsel of man, in 144 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. any servile sense. By Quaker education and deep con- viction he sought ever to be true to the "light within," Reverent in spirit, if the many were with him he was o-lad • if he was well-nigh alone, he held on his way rejoicing. He took great interest in the yearly meeting of Progressive Friends, near Kennett, Pa. I once rode with him, on a June day, through twelve miles of pleasant farms from his home to their Longwood Meeting-House, and greatly enjoyed his wise and witty talk. For years he believed in the presence and communion of the spirits of loved ones, " not lost but only gone before," which is no marvel, as the spirit-world must seem very near to one living in the presence of its great truths, as he did. He always believed and advocated the religious and political equality of woman. His mental vigor and buoyant spirits held on to the end, and he passed peacefully to the higher life early in 1871, aged over seventy. At his funeral, the loving request of the colored people of Wilmington that they might take charge of the simple ceremonies, was fitly granted, and they gathered in large numbers to mingle prayers and tears over all that was mortal of one they had known so long and loved so well. Not only these, but thousands, of all classes and con- ditions, of all sects and opinions, took part by their presence, and testified their respect and reverent affection. He was the American Apostle of courage in daily life and of practical good deeds, and his long career of steadfast bravery, and wise benevolence was his inspired Epistle. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 145 Richard Glazier. "The Quaker of the olden time !^ How calm, and firm and true, Unspotted by its wrong and crime, He walked the dark earth through." In 1858 we found a home for three months with Richard Glazier of Ann Arbor, on his farm among the hills, two miles from town. He was a preacher among Friends, an early pioneer settler, a man of positive will, just and true, and of remarkable personal weight of character. He had a direct and searching way of appealing to the moral intuitions that disarmed all prejudice. I remember his going among merchants and others to get money to help a fugitive slave. He approached a man of well-known proslavery views, and said to him : " I have a black man at my house, who has fled from a bad master and wants his liberty. I am satis- fied his case is genuine. In thy heart thee is not a man who wants any human being oppressed or badly treated. I want thee to help this poor man." The help was readily given, by him and others like him, whom no one else would have thought of asking. I spoke in the Court- house one Sunday, the birthday anniversary of Thomas Paine, and aimed to give a just estimate of his character. I denied the current stories of his dissipated habits and wretched death, but felt that a part of the audience had little faith in my statements. At the close Richard Glazier rose — a familiar figure there, upright in attitude as in spirit, clad in plain Quaker garb, his broad-brimmed white hat on his head, his hands resting on the silver top of his stout cane planted firmly on the floor. Turning to me he asked : "Is there freedom for me to say a few words .' " Of course there was, and all wanted to hear. He said in substance : "I had anear friend, Willett Hicks, a Quaker well-known in New York city as a business man. He had a farm joining that of Paine at New Rochelle, 10 146 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. where he and his family spent their summers. A path led across the fields between their houses, and they passed to and fro as neighbors. He was not a disciple of Paine, but knew him in this way. He has told me that no more liquor was used in Paine's house than in other farmhouses near, and probably not so much ; that he never knew Paine to be filthy or intoxicated, or heard bad language from him, but that he was plain in his ways, civil and well-behaved. During his last sickness some of the family were at the house daily and never saw or heard of any of the strange scenes described. None were there at the hour of his death, but from a reliable person who was there, he was told that he passed away peacefully. " When my friend Glazier sat down, the audience was convinced. They knew him and believed him. Growing feeble in health he moved into the town near the grounds of the State University. He was seventy years old, wasting with consumption, but his mental powers clear as ever. In these last years we were told that he had softened in manners and was less severe in judgment than in middle life, when he was more rigidly sectarian. Professor A. D. White, late Presient of Cornell University at Ithaca, New York, was near by and wanted to see my friend. It was planned that we should go together, and we found him propped up by pillows and able to converse. He asked Mr. White to sit beside him, expressed pleasure at the meeting, and then for a half-hour spoke with a wondrous weight — an authority as of one with long experience, and now so near the world of real life as to utter its higher and larger thought. With no reference to any doctrine or dogma, with no criticism or reflection on the errors of others in belief or practice, he dwelt on the idea of God, the Supreme Spirit in all ; the nearness and naturalness of the life beyond, its sure reality, and the glimpses we get of it ; the priceless worth of fidelity, sincerity, and moral courage, UPWARD STEINS OF SEVENTY YEARS. i^j the sacredness of man's inalienable rights, andthe equality of woman. He said : "lam a Spiritvialist, for God is a Spirit," and then more directly and personally addressed the listener by his side, alluded to his large opportunities, his fine faculties and high responsibilities, and urged him to persistence and growth in his work of education, so that high and broad thinking, steadfast courage, and noble harmony of character in his students, might be the result. We sat in reverent silence and rapt attention, for the impression made on us was deep and peculiar. Such an hour never came to us, never will again probably on earth. It was as though a wise and strong angel had spoken ; and well it might be, for he was very near that life where transfigured human beings are angels. The inspiration of the spirit gave him an understanding won- derful and impressive. A brief and easy conversation followed. He said: " I am too weak to say more ; and we must part," and we clasped hands pleasantly and left. Standing by the gate Mr. White said : " What a loss to me that I never met that man before ! " In a week Richard Glazier passed quietly away, and hundreds gathered reve- rently at the funeral to look on that still face — so calm and strong. YEARLY MEETINGS PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS. " Early hath life's mighty question Thrilled within the heart of youth, With a deep and strong beseeching: What and where is truth ? " Forty years, or more, ago a desire for a larger freedom of discussion of religious progress and practical reforms than the sects or parties gave, led to the calling of yearly meetings, at Longwood, Pennsylvania and Waterloo, and North Collins, New York, the two first under the name of Prosfressive Friends, the last entitled Friends of Human Progress. The Waterloo meeting has ceased, the others 148 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. are still kept up, the attendance large, yet not as great as in their earlier years. This is not from a decrease of interest in their aims, but because more doors are open elsewhere for free thought and speech. These movements started among the Quakers, whose quiet ways saved the free gatherings from turbulent dis- putes, and gave them decorous dignity, as well as liberty. A little later a commodious Free Church was built in Sturgis, Michigan, largely by Spiritualists of the more weighty sort, where for thirty-five years have been held the yearly meetings of the Harmonial Society — still useful and influential as well as interesting. At all these places meetings are held at other times with more or less fre- quency, but the annual gatherings are notable occasions, their general objects the same, the themes discussed vary- ing in different localities. A committee invites speak- ers, and makes the needed arrangements, all can take part in the discussions, and there is little formality of membership. The Longwood meeting-house stands amidst pleasant farms near Kennett, Chester county, the former home of Bayard Taylor at his "Cedarcroft" farm. An ancient Quaker meeting-house near Waterloo was used for that meeting. A large hall in a grove near the railroad is the North Collins gathering place, — hospitable people near, entertaining, doors and hearts open, and the social hours very pleasant. Anti-slavery, temperance, peace, woman-suffrage, religious ideas, Spiritualism, and other living questions were taken up, with earnest utterance of differing opinions, and an avoidance of heated contro- versy. For instance, at Longwood I once heard an ortho- dox cleryman speak in favor of his idea of Christ's atone- ment, and Garrison reply, mutual respect ruling the hour. From a thousand to over four thousand was the usual attendance at the rustic Hemlock Hall at North Collins. There and at other like meetings I have met Oliver John- UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 149 son, Rev. Charles G. Ames, Rev. Samuel J. May, C. C. Burleigh, C. D. B. Mills, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, W. L. Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Parker Pills- bury, George W. Taylor, Henry C. Wright, Sojourner Truth, Selden J. Finney, Mrs. LydiaA. Pearsall and others, and have heard excellent words eloquently spoken. The good order and good conduct at the gatherings was remarkable. In the old anti-slavery days there were angry threats sometimes, but never an outbreak. One morninir I reached Hemlock Hall to attend the North Collins meeting and met my friend Joseph Taylor. He came to the platform just before the meeting opened, and we shook hands. Something in his manner impressed me singularly. His tall and stalwart form seemed stronger than usual, his face had an aspect of quiet resolution, he seemed like a charged battery, and took his seat on the platform, which he usually did not do. The meeting opened with a searching anti-slavery dis- cussion in which I took part, looking occasionally at my friend who sat erect and resolute as though ready to " put ten thousand to flight." All passed along quietly as I supposed it would, and it was some days after, at Joseph Taylor's house, that he solved the riddle forme, "Did you know why I sat on the platform at the hall .?" he asked, and I replied, no. ''Well," said he, "I heard that some fellows were going to fling you off the platform if you made an abolition speech, and I kept close by to have a hand in the business. I thought it was well for "some fellows" that he did not "have a hand in," and my heart went out to my dear brave friend for his watch- fulness. I can see the old meeting-house near Waterloo, brown and bare in Quaker plainness, its grassy yard with the great forest trees, and the fruitful fields and orchards all around, as I saw it one pleasant June Sunday noon, thirty years ago. The shaded yard was full of people. Ijo UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. table-cloths were being spread on the grass, an abund- ance of food coming out of big baskets and piled on these cloths by good women, while the pleasant talk of the waiting groups around cheered their task. In one of these groups was Samuel J. May, the gentle yet heroic soul, of whom Theodore Parker said: " Where brother May is it is perpetual May." He was given a seat on the grass where he could lean against the trunk of a great tree, and when asked what he especially wanted spoke of tea. A fragrant cup of his favorite beverage was brought him, food abundant and delicious came with it, and his aspect of happy and grateful enjoyment is perfect as ever in my mind's eye. Many pleasant remembrances of the goodly companionship of "the thoughtful and the free" come up in connection with these valuable meet- ings. They have served as excellent training-schools, teaching people to speak the truth for truth's sake, not for combat, to hear fairly diverse honest opinions, to dis- tinguish between orderly liberty and disorderly license, to be firm for the right and ready to gain more light. At a later date grove meetings, and great camp meetings of spiritualists and the liberal denominations have been organized, of which the popular newspapers make but slight mention. The total attendance at these meetings may be 250,000, or over. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 151 CHAPTER VI. SOME OF THE WORLD's HELPERS AND LIGHT-BRINGERS. The world's saviours are the best men and women who have lived, and are living on earth. This "house of David " endures. Wise men without guile, holy mothers, useful Marthas and waiting Marys, are here, and will be. Seers and prophets, and leaders of men, dwell along our blue rivers and lakes, as others dwelt by Jordan and Genesaret. Life in Judea was made more divine by the presence of the carpenter's son, and the tishermen and tent makers, of whom the Testament gives brief record. Life in America is made more divine by the presence of our best and truest. Without Garrison and Parker, Abra- ham Lincoln, Lucretia Mott, Peter Cooper, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, our light would be dim. Others, too many to name, have added to our imperishable wealth. Some of these are widely known ; some are unknown. Of the last Carlyle said : "These noble, silent men, scattered here and there, each in his own department ; silently thinking, silently working ; whom no morning newspaper takes notice of; they are the salt of the earth. A country that has none, or few of these, is in a bad way ; like a forest which has no roots ; which has all turned into leaves and boughs ; which must soon wither and be no forest." No land is better rooted than ours, and the strong, deep roots hold the earth together and make our ground solid. There are more of these noble men and women than hopeless pessimists think. Of a few whom I have for- 152 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. tunately known I make brief record. Others as worthy must pass by. "Only remembered by what they have done." It is impossible to write of those yet living among us ; they are too many, and their work here is not done. It would be invidious to select from them, but from such as have passed on we can choose freely, and they will not be troubled, even if they know it, as perchance thty may. JOHN D. ZIMMERMAN — THE MICHIGAN VILLAGE BLACKSMITH AN UNKNOWN GREAT MAN. " No longer with self or with nature at strife, * The soul feels the presence of infinite Life : And the voice of a child or the hum of a bee — The somnolent roll of the deep-heaving sea — The mountains, uprising in grandeur and might— The stars that look forth from the depth of the night — All speak in one language, persuasive and clear. To him who in spirit is waiting to hear. ' ' Lizzie Doten. Thirty years ago or more I left the Michigan Southern Railway at Coldwater, rode north in a stage fourteen miles, crossed the St. Joseph River, and went up the slope on its north side to the high table-land on which stood Union City, then a pleasant village of a thousand people, amidst beautiful farms and groves, now a much larger town. I went to find John D. Zimmerman. Turning east a short distance, his plain story-and-a-half house was in sight, facing south and overlooking the winding stream and the broad meadows. West from the dwelling was an orchard, in front great forest trees, east a grove of noble oaks in the deep yard of a neighbor. A rap at the door called out a strongly-built man, who gave his welcome word in a deep, rich voice, and with a frank simplicity singularly attractive, and the quiet kind- UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 153 ness of his wife made the house a home. We stepped inti) the sunny, low-ceiled southeast room, in which so many pleasant hours were passed in after days, and I noticed a larg-e book-case in the corner, its contents costing more than all the simply comfortable furniture around it. The best books were there — all of Emerson's among them. The kind of books one finds in a house gives some gauge of the range and quality of thought of its inmates. As he sat in his arm-chair waiting for dinner I said : " You read Emerson, I see." His wonderful blue eyes lighted up, and his mellow voice had new musicas he replied : " Of course I do, over and over again." After dinner he said, " I must go to my blacksmith shop," and I soon found him there stoutly swinging his hammer, as he did for forty years. His visible work was forging and shaping iron to useful ends ; this all could appreciate, and it was good and true ; his invisible work was forging and shap- ing thoughts, this but few could so vi'ell appreciate, but it was good and true also. When both these go on together life is noble and commanding, as in his case. At night we went to the plain Congregational Church near by to find a good audience at an anti-slavery meeting. So began one of the most delightful and beneficial friendships of my life, to last for more than twenty years. After coming home that night he told me he had belonged to that church, but had changed his views and was not in unity with their creed. He felt that honesty required that he should state his dissent, and soon a church meeting was called, and one of the deacons asked him to attend. He went, asked if there were any charges against his conduct, and was answered : "None, we hold you in high personal esteem, but our rules require that you should not be a member as you do not accept our doctrines." The usual course in such cases involved a censure for heresy. He said : " I do not, and cannot, believe your creed. You who can, have a right to do so, which I re- 154 LTPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. spect. I offer a resolution, and will go home for you to act as you please," and then read and laid on the table a resolve as follows : Whereas, our brother John D, Zimmer- man has so modified his opinions that he cannot honestly continue to profess belief in our doctrines, therefore, '■'Resolved, That he be allowed to leave our member- ship. " In an hour the good deacon, his next neighbor, came in and said they had passed the resolve unanimously, yet with much regret, and with the feeling that they should continue friends, as they did, without censure or casting reflections on either side. Years before a fugitive slave came to Zimmerman's house, and his claimant came soon after — not his owner, but an agent fit for such base work. Just at night he rode up to the blacksmith shop, sprang from his horse, walked up to its owner, who stood by his anvil, and shook his fist in his face, with threats and oaths. A blow from that stal- wart arm would have felled him to the ground, but Zimmerman said, "This is a case for law, not for a fight ; come with me to a justice." There was a quiet command in voice and eye that sub- dued wrath, and in five minutes they were peacefully on their way together to a law office, and the slave hunter was asked home for the night, but his host said : " I have an- other guest at my house. He shall treat you well, and I expect you to treat him well. He is the man you claim as a slave." The astonished hunter of men did not see the other guest that night. In the morning he was late, being worn out with long riding : his host went to call him and was asked into the chamber. A valise laid open on the bed, evidently to display a pair of fine revolvers and a bowie knife. Picking up a revolver Zimmerman remarked: "These are pretty fair weapons, but we don't think much of them up here ; our rifles are surer and have longer range." They met the slave UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 155 in the breakfast-room, who was greeted with a cool nod by his claimant. They were seated at table on either side of their host, the Southerner conquered his prejudices, and all was quiet. This lasted some days, until one morning the colored man was gone, none knew where. The baffled pursuer swore and raved, but was told, with decided firmness, that such talk could not be allowed in a decent house, and so saddled his steed and went southward. The colored man was heard of a year after, and lived safely a long time in this State. In all the varied annals of underground railroad experiences no like case can be found. It illustrates the majesty of magnetic control and command, the great power of my friend's personal presence — a power which makes such a man, at his anvil and clad in leather apron, more imposing than a king on his throne, tricked out in his royal robes. In 1876 he spent a month in Philadelphia at the Cen- tennial. With a mind large enough to take in and compare its varied aspects, with practical skill in mechanism and a native taste for artistic beauty, the time was full of enjoy- ment and profit. It took a comprehensive range of thought to fully appreciate that Exhibition ; narrow and common- place people were dazed and confusedly pleased, but such a man would be enriched and instructed. While there he stopped at the Atlas Hotel — a vast temporary caravansary near the grounds, holding a thousand guests or more. One Sunday its great central room had a platform and seats extemporized, and some hundreds sat to hear a sermon. He joined the rest, and soon found that the preacher was laying out the " scheme of salvation " in such a way as to send all the race into eternal torment, save a pitiful little company specially elected and saved. He felt indignant and stepped quietly to the platform while a hymn was being sung to ask the privilege of making a few remarks, which was rudely denied. Taking his seat again, he waited until the audience were dismissed, and then rose 156 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. and said : "I have something to say for a few minutes, and will ask such as choose to sit and hear me." The mao-ic of that deep voice and a curious wish to hear, kept most in their places, and he said, in substance: "This Centennial is a sign of the fraternity of mankind. It shows that we are drawing toward the era of peace on earth and good-will among men. Christian and Pagan, all sects and races, come here from the four quarters of the earth in amity and mutual respect. This very room is decked with the flags of many nations, displayed to- gether in token of this unity of spirit We live in the nineteenth century with its broad thought and growing charity, its willingness to search for truth wherever found. This poor man whom you have heard takes us back to the Dark Ages, and tells us of a God cruel and unjust enough to doom to the fiery pit forever almost all the human race. I protest against this Phariseeism, and against this horrible conception of the wrath of God and the wretchedness of man. I ask you to repudiate these degrading errors, to think of man's capacity for eternal progress, to know that good deeds are the sure warrant of salvation before that God who is no respecter of per- sons. How enlarging it is to see good men from every land and of every religion meeting here and learning so much of each other. If you and I live so as to be fit for their society, we shall find them in heaven above." Doubtless he was deeply stirred and inspired. For fifteen minutes the people sat as though entranced, and the preacher was dumb with amazement. The next day many came to express their gratitude, and their unity with his sentiments. A son of John Brown of Harper's Ferry was one of the first to thank him, and for hours others filled the time in like way. His life, as people saw it, was that of a steady work- man, whose work was honest ; of a man whose word was good, whose practical judgment was sound, whose UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 157 presence and manners had a charm and power which was not understood, and who had some strange notions, but who was greatly respected and esteemed. The great wonderland of thought in which he lived few visited with him. He read the best books — the ripest religious and spiritual thought of our day gaining most attention. He did not read too much, and therefore could better inwardly digest his reading. He seldom spoke in public, and wrote little, but the little he said or wrote had singular beauty. No richer thinker or con- versationalist in private did I ever meet. I used to wish, while listening to him as he sat in the winter evening, in his old arm-chair, with his feet before the fire on a stool, that I could transport him to a circle of the best students and thinkers and enjoy their delight in his wise and charming talk. Emerson would have made a pil- grimage to Michigan to meet him had he known of him. His home was the place to know him. There his grace and wealth of life bloomed out in word and deed. To spend a day at that home was a pleasure and a privilege not to be forgotten. Taking no leading part in the affairs of the town, the toil in his shop, the duties and joys of his home, and the golden hours spent in his own inner world divided his time. His knowledge of the great world's wants was wide, he felt the set of its tides, his interest in practical reforms was earnest, his views clear, his literary taste excellent. In conversation his language was singularly choice, yet wholly natural and unaffected. His wonderful eyes were eloquent, his mellow voice thrilled with enthusiasm and its deep tones revealed the power of a great soul. He might well have said with the old poet : "My mind to me a kingdom is." There was a fine courtesy and simplicity in his manner, and a flash of fire and an uprising of power when a wrong 158 UPWARD S TEPS OF S E VENTY YEARS. was to be righted or a meanness rebuked. Of no sect in theoloofy he kept firm hold of the great foundations of religious faith, and felt that he knew of the life beyond and of the gates ajar between that life and ours on earth. The last time that I saw him was on a bright day in Feb- ruary, not long before his departure. His working days were over, his time was full of thought, his spiritual nature ripening, his books opening new mines to be explored, his social faculties illuminated. Coming out of our room in the morning, wife and I found him sitting in his easy-chair, the sun shining into the windows and tinging the clouds with golden light. He rose to greet us with a noble grace, his fine eyes lighted up eloquently, and he said : "What a bright morning ! The air is pure, and the good spirits are numerous, and hospitable, and busy all about us." In September, 1884, I was at Union City, Just at night I walked past the house and was glad to find its appear- ance unchanged. Going beyond it, along the roadside imder the shade of the trees to enjoy the outlook south- ward over the pleasant valley, and winding river, I turned back for one more sight of the home, and saw Mrs. Zimmerman in the yard — a surprise, as I had sup- posed she was absent. Going into the familiar sitting- room I learned from her something of the last hours on earth other beloved husband. His illness was but short and not very painful ; his mind clear, and his command of language perfect to the last. They hardly realized how near the end was, most of the family were with him, and he soon felt that the great change was near. His wife said to me : "It was so wonderful to us all. Much as we loved him, it did not seem like a death-bed, but the whole air seemed full of a glory and beauty which gave us comfort and joy. All felt peace. It was a serene hour. He said to me: 'Tell all my friends that my faith is unchanged, and my views UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 159 of life and immortality the same. As I draw near to the end all is more beautiful and peaceful.' A clergyman, who was with them as a neighbor and friend, said he never saw so beautiful a death-bed. A neighboring woman some hours after, as she stood looking at the face, so noble in its sweet majesty, exclaimed : 'Can this be death !'" The poet's words are indeed true : ' ' The chamber where the good man meets his fate, Is privileged beyond the common walks Of life, quite in the verge of heaven." At the age of sixty-five, he passed away, in May, 1879. Such was John D. Zimmerman, the village blacksmith ; one of the most gifted of the goodly company of unknown great men and women who add far more to the wealth of life and to the peace and safety of the State than we realize. A LESSON IN MANLINESS AND INDUSTRY WILLIAM S. PRENTISS. " Such was our friend, formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man ! His daily prayer, far better understood In acts than words, was simply doing good. So calm, so constant, was his rectitude. That by his loss alone we know his worth, And feel how true a man has walked with us on earth." Whittier. We may well keep in mind the noble qualities of a goodly number of our Western pioneers — the men and women who toiled and delved in the solitude of forest or prairie, fraternally helped each other, met hospitably, and had that large manhood and womanhood which spurns all meanness and keeps home bright and the heart true. We owe them a priceless debt. Not only did they l6o UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. make our external comfort and abundance possible, but from them came some of the noblest and most beautiful elements of our civilization. William S. Prentiss was one of this illustrious company, great in heart and life, but unknown to fame, as are most of them. Abraham Lincoln belonged to the same com- pany, and the virtues of his public life were the virtues of his pioneer life practiced in a wider field. Sixty years ago young Prentiss went from Petersham, Worcester County, Massachusetts, to Cambridge to be a student in Harvard College. His health gave way, and he consulted Dr. John C. V^arren, an eminent and saga- cious physician. The doctor learned his antecedents of parentage and vocation, and then said : "Young man, you can take your choice, keep to your books and die, or fling them away, shoulder an axe, and strike into the woods and live." This was the truth in few words. The books were put aside, the whole current of his life changed, and the autumn of 1832 found him in Michigan with a slender purse but a stout heart, hunting land for a farm. Going to the government land office in White Pigeon, in Southern Michigan, he found what lots were for sale, and struck off on horseback southwest, through oak openings and prairies, with map and compass in pocket and food and clothing in his saddle-bags. After a few days' search, he was riding along a slope of land falling south- west into a valley, and his horse sank deep in the soft ground among the trees where a spring moistened the earth. He got out of the bog with some trouble, found it was near noon, tethered his horse to browse among the twigs and grass, and seated himself on a fallen tree to take a lunch from his saddle-bags. Rested and refreshed his eye ranged over the pleasant valley. He explored hill and dale, found forest and spring, and open meadow and clear stream, good soil and a cheery outlook that gave a sense of heart-warmth. Finding the land unsold UPWARD STEPS OF SEVEN TV YEANS. 16 1 he started back to White Pigeon, entered a half section in LaGrange County, Northern Indiana, on Brushy Prairie, nine miles east of the county seat, and built his log cabin on the slope, just below where he took that memorable lunch — the spring then found giving water to house and barns to this day. In a few years a comforta- ble farmhouse stood in place of the cabin, his patient and sturdy labor had helped to transfigure wild forest and field into blooming orchards and waving harvest fields, and other pioneers had made homes along the pleasant hillside. The year of his arrival he married Jane IMary Clark, a school-teacher from Sheffield, Mass. : sons and daughters grew up to do them dutiful honor, and their wedded life of over forty years was full of cares yet full of cheer. He was grave, earnest, and practical ; she was sparkling, merry, and full of quaint fancies. He was of strong and solid frame, capable of great physical labors ; she was lithe, healthy, and active. That fortunate variety made unity and harmony. Under her sportive gayety, as under his grave sedateness was a vein of clear common-sense, and each bore a lover's share of the other's burdens. Wolves were plenty. Mrs. Prentiss once told me of her first night alone in the cabin. Her husband was away to buy cattle, and not a white person within five miles. The dozen sheep — precious to them when the fleeces, sheared, carded, spun, and woven by their own hands, were their main dependence for clothing — she drove from their pen into the cabin at night. Hungry wolves howled outside, pawed under the door, and pushed their noses through its wide crack above the threshold. "Were you not afraid ? " I asked. " No, the door was strong and I had a good axe. It didn't worry me." Indians were plenty, too, and sometimes a score of them slept on the cabin floor. They were a little troublesome, but 11 l62 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. always friendly, and kept the same good faith that was kept with them. Few men did so much hard work as Mr. Prentiss, and a fair competence honestly won was his reward. Widows and orphans trusted their all to him ; the weak clung- to him as a strong support. He was urged to take public office, but declined, loving home life and the society of neighbor pioneers whose toils he had shared and for whom he had a strong affection. Once only was he almost forced to be County Judge, and the title stuck to him — for titles in our Republican land stick like burs. For thirty years he kepi up a correspondence with his college classmate and room-mate, Rev. Dr. Putnam, Uni- tarian clergyman in Roxbury, Mass., but they never met after he left college. Hon. John B. Howe and his accom- plished wife, and his brother James came early from Boston and settled in the neighboring town of Lima. A cordial friendship grew up between the families, their intimacy giving a glimpse of the cultivated society of days in the East long gone by. James Howe nursed Mr. Prentiss like a beloved brother in his last illness, their attachment being singularly tender. In 1858 I made my first visit at that farmhouse, which became a familiar and homelike place. I can see my friend Prentiss in his stout old arm-chair, by his desk, in the cor- ner of the plain and ample sitting-room, near the open fire, which they always kept up. There he sat and read and talked, his sagacious comments on men and things al- ways worth hearing. His life on that farm for forty years was a gospel of honor, faithfulness, kindness, and industry — such a gospel as our true-hearted pioneers have mnde indeed a divine service, helping us all the better to live. WILLIAM DENTON. In i860, I heard his course of lectures on geology. He stood on the platform, a lithe figure full of life and UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YE APS. 163 endurance, his rich voice rang out, clear and strong-, his eyes lighted up, his features glowing and expressive. On the wall behind hung colored pictures of antediluvian scenery — huge beasts and birds, gigantic ferns, mud, slime, steaming water and veined lightning flashing in the murky air. He was master of his subject, the peer of the best on his great topic. Others equalled him in knowl- edge, but he had the poetic element, giving a charm to his impassioned eloquence. To me he was the first lecturer on geology in America. Yet for years he had little recognition. In the days of contest between geol- ogy and dogmatic theology, men, far his inferiors, spoke to pious and popular audiences, and won cheap fame and poor gold by professing to reconcile Moses and the gospel of the rocks, — a poor effort which hurt Moses, but made not a single scratch on the rocks. Now they are being recon- ciled in a better way, more to the satisfaction of both schools. Meanwhile Denton held on his own brave way and would never let thrift follow fawning. But he won at last, went to Canada and had eulogistic reports of his lectures in the Montreal Gazette, went to New England, settled his family at Wellesley, near Boston, and was con- stantly occupied as a lecturer and writer for years. Born in England, nurtured in poverty, coming here poor in purse, but rich in courage, and rich, too, in the faith and loving heroism of an intelligent wife. An infidel of the old materialistic school, he came into Spiritualism ready in the use of the sledge-hammer, quick to strike hard at a defender of orthodoxy, sure to smite him down if he was a bigot. Time modified this, and made him larger in thought, more constructive in method, less fond of fighting small fry, but stronger than ever to meet an opponent when truth called for the contest. Forty years ago he gave lectures at a town in northern Ohio, and the church-folk went to Hiram College, where James A. Garfield was a teacher, and brought him on to 1 64 CPIVARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. defend the faith against the young evolutionist. I have the story from an Illinois man, then an Ohio boy, at whose father's house Denton stayed. Garfield came, tlie debate began with a crowded house, the first night Denton came home, he said: "I like that man. He is fair, honest and able. He holds out well, and is worth discussing with, which many are not" Several nights the discussion went on, not for victory but for truth. No vote was taken at its close, but each of the oppo- nents bore testimony to the fairness and sincerity of the other, and shook hands in mutual friendship amidst the cheers of the audience. Long after, when Garfield was in Congress, Denton lectured in Washington and the manly Congressman was a constant hearer and met him cordially. " Our Planet,'' '"Hie Soul of Tilings'' (a work made up of valuable psychometric researches) "/esus as he Was, " and a goodly number of pamphlets were written by this constant worker. A few years ago he went to Australia to find a new field for his scientific exploration, found great delight in its strange flora and fauna and rocks, gathered a large collection to send home, went a hundred miles into the wild interior, was smitten by fever, and died in a poor hut in the forest, with none present but natives who could not speak an English word, — his son and nephew in search of him but a dozen miles away. He must be busy among finer strata in the Summer Land. He was brave, and true and pure, — "Without fear and without reproach. " I always felt as though in healthy air when we met. It is note worthy that this man, accurate and scientific in his search for facts, saw, years ago, the imperfectness of Darwin and others, who only looked at the material side of the universe and ignored its spiritual side, the interior life and guiding will. He said: "An infinite and intelligent spirit, in my UPWARD STEPS OF SF.VF.NTY YEARS. 165 opinion, presides over the universe, andnatural laws are its instruments." EBER B. WARD. * ' Cheerily on the ax of labor Let the sunbeams dance, Better than the flash of sabre, Or the gleam of lance ! Strike ! — with every blow is given, Freer earth and sky, And the long-hid earth to heaven Looks with wondering eye ! " — Whittier. In 1863 I went to Detroit, spoke in a Union Club Meet- ing, met Eber B. Ward, who was its president, and spent much time for a year or more in speaking in the State on the great issues involved in the civil war then going on, having his help in this work. At that time there were thousands of confederate soldiers, prisoners of war in Chicago, Johnson's Island, and other places. One day Mr. Ward asked me to call at his office, and said : "I've been thinking of a way to do these men some good. They are on the wrong side, but there are a good many good men among them. In their prison life the)'- have little to occupy their time, and will be willing to hear a man talk to them in a friendly way. If you could get to them, and tell them of the benefits of free labor, of educa- tion, of employment at fair pay. and that, while we don't claim to be perfect, our ways are the best, it would be a good move. You can make them feel that we have no ill-will toward them ; yet we are determined that the rebellion shall be put down, and slavery, its cause ended, so that we can all be on good terms and have lasting peace, and real union. Will you try it if I can open tlie way .? " I said I would. "Well," said he, " I'll write the Secretary of War and we shall soon find out." As he was well known personally by Secretary Stanton and Abraham Lincoln, I had little doubt of the result, but some "red 1 66 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVExYTY YEARS. tape" stood in the way, the plan was given up, and I lost what would have been an interesting experience, and might have been a substantial good to the State. Our acquaintance grew gradually. I liked him from the first, but he was greatly occupied. He asked me to his house, and I went for a night. He said to me in the moning: "When you are in the city, come here without invitation. We have room enough, and if it happens not to be best for you to stay I will say so." After that I would step into the office and say : Shall I go to your house ? and the answer was usually yes — sometimes no — with a reason given if he had time, if not none was given or needed. This frankness I enjoyed, and often wish there was more of it So we became lifelong friends. During the ten years, from 1864 to 1874, he was caring for large iron interests, lumbering, steamboats, and rail- road affairs, keeping six thousand men busy, and helping to competence a goodly number of worthy and diligent persons. Plain in manners, kindly and unpretending, giving ready hearing, yet deciding with a certain weight that closed the case, he was able to accomplish a great deaL Nothing seemed to worry him ; ordinary perplexities, over which a weak man would fret and waste his poor powers, he was too strong to be vexed by. To those in his employ, and near his person, he was cordial and friendly. As one of them said to me : "If you do your duty he's the best man in the world. If there's some mistake he'll always hear you explain it, but if you are lazy or crooked, you ' walk the plank,' and no more said about you." A good friend to honest men, he would help them in trouble and wait for his dues ; but let a man try to cheat and he followed him like an Indian. Late one autumn a steam barge on Lake Superior had two boats in tow, laden with iron ore. Off the Pictured Rocks a snow storm struck them, and all sunk, and eight lives were lost. He found the men were single. [/PPVA KD S TEPS OF SE VENl 'Y YEARS. j 6 7 save the Captain, and that his family was in the city. His trusted sister Emily was asked to see them, and she reported the wife and children in such condition that they could get along- if the mortgage of five hundred dollars was lifted from the house. He drew a check for six hun- dred dollars, his sister took it, paid the mortgage, and gave the rest to the wife to start on. But few knew of this good act or of many others. One day a lame soldier came to the office for help, and showed me his testimonials. His face was his best proof of manliness. Mr. Ward was very busy writing, but said : " I'll see him." As we entered the room its occupant looked up from his work, pushed a chair near the desk and said : " Sit down." The soldier seated himself and handed out his book of pledges, which was looked over for a moment, then came a kindly but searching glance at the man, a dive of the left hand fingers into his vest pocket, and a five dollar bill was laid on the book and handed to its owner, without a word. To his cordial thanks the response was a nod and a smile that seemed to say : "All right, but I'm very busy." As we came out the good-hearted soldier said to me : "I am glad of this help, for I need it, but I like that man better than the money ; his looks meant more than a good many people's talk." In the garden back of his ample and solid house were large glass houses — a thousand feet in total length — where were raised tons of choice grapes, freely given away in their season, and kept fresh all winter in a fruit house. Every morning for some weeks he would bring a basket of fine black Hamburg and white grapes to the office, go from one desk to another and lay out a luscious bunch or two, and set the basket in a corner by his chair to eat and hand out to others through the day. He once said to me : "I understand how workmen feel on this wages question. I am glad that I was once poor, 1 68 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. for it helps me to know what poor people think. But I can't see what I can do better for these men than to hire them, and deal with them as we fairly agree. I must make money, or they would not have work. If I should hand over all the iron mills to them to-morrow, they would run them to ruin in a year or two. Co-operation is the only wise thing ; if wages don't answer. Strikes are folly : labor unions, when used to protect their mem- bers from injustice, are right ; but when they dictate on what wages outsiders shall work they are wrong and tyrannical. No vote of labor unions can decide wages, for the laws of trade are stronger than all such votes." The three hundred Wyandotte mill-men once struck, and sent a committee to him, asking higher pay. He said to them : " You remember that not long ago your wages were raised. I claim no credit for it, but the market was upward, and I thought it fair and safe to do it. Now you want higher wages when prices are falling. That is im- possible. Here is the price-current, and you will see by it that I am right. Go home and tell the men that I always try to do the best I can, in justice to myself and the other owners, and to them, but this I cannot and shall not do." All this was said kindly, but with a decision solid as a rock. They went home, made due report, and the next day all went cheerily back to their work. His solid person, deep chest, plain face, and large head showed power of physical endurance and strong character. Such men have a reserve of vital force and in case of need can put a month's work into a week and hardly feel it. Broad shoulders carry large loads, and large brains put those loads where they will do the most good. Some men get rich by selfish greed, trampling others down as they go up, or by some stroke of stock gambling; Mr. Ward's business success came by dauntless courage, executive force, and immense will-power guided by sagacity and foresight. His best enjoyment was to develop natural UPWARD STEPS OP SEVENTY YEARS. i6q resources ; to add to the common wealth as well as to his own by utilizing forests and mines and farms to employ labor and skill, and open the way to comfort and compe- tence, and a better life for others. He enjoyed success, butthat enjoyment was illumined and humanized by a fine enthusiasm for the common weal, which banished narrow selfishness. If he won wealth, others must be lifted up meanwhile, and the whole land made fairer to dwell in. He foresaw that iron rails must give place to steel, and the first Bessemer steel rails rolled in this country were finished at the North Chicago Rolling Mill — in which he had a leading interest — May 24th, 1865, from ingots made at his Wyandotte mill, near Detroit. He foresaw that iron ships must navigate the lakes, and encouraged the Wyan- dotte ship yard, from which the genius of Kirby has launched steel steamboats staunch and beautiful. His ability to put aside cares and turn to social enjoy- ment and mental culture was proof of health and strength, and helped greatly to preserve them, for change of action is rest. At his tea-table he was full of social warmth, in the evening ready to look at some new book or talk of some new topic, in so fresh and easy a way that one would not dream he had any large affairs to carry along each day. With early schooling in books limited to a few months of the crudest kind, few knew that he was one of the best informed men, and one of the best judges of books in the State — books with thought and purpose that is ; merely fine writing or dilettanteism he cared little for. He would carry home a fresh work, look at its title and contents, turn over its pages and stop to read the main points and put it aside in an hour. I would manage to ask about it and find that the scope and gist of the writer were grasped and clearly held. That was all he wanted — details he would master, or not, as seemed best. It was a constant sur- prise to note how he kept up to the best thought on a wide range of topics, and how alive he was to the great move- lyo UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. ments of the age, all the while keeping in steady motion a hundred engines in many mills and studying metallurgy and engineering to that end. No liquors or wines were ever kept or used as beverages in that house, no tobacco in any form. Hearty eating of healthy and simple food, regular habits, "early to bed and early to rise " made up his household ways. He exer- cised a large and kindly providence for family and friends, and his patient bearing of trial and hopeful cheerfulness were notable. It may be asked : Were there no faults .? Certainly there were faults, marked as the man himself, but the nobler virtues and high qualities towered above and cast them in the shade, so that when he passed away a leading daily newspaper but uttered the feeling of the people in saying: "No death since that of Abraham Lincoln has caused such deep feeling and sincere regret." He was seldom induced to speak in public and had no eloquence of voice or manner, yet had marked power and weight of speech in an emergency, and wrote with terse vigor in strong Saxon. Protection to home industry as opposed to the British free-trade policy, he advocated and helped, with steady persistence and in a large way that made him felt and known all over the land ; his advocacy based on a deep conviction that a fairly protective tariff policy was best for the people. For years he was president of the American Iron and Steel Association and visited its Philadelphia head-quarters when necessary. Often urged to be a candidate for political office he always refused — save in the Presidential campaign of 1868, when he was a State elector on the Republican ticket. In early life he was a skeptic in religious matters, having small faith in dogmas and tending toward mate- rialism ; at a later time he became a Spiritualist, facts he witnessed quickening his thoughts and changing his UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YE APS. 171 views. He once said to me: "I am only a common- sense man, and this is a common-sense religion ; 1 like it."' He was a contributor to the fund for the Index newspaper, and for a time vice-president of the Free Religious Association and also a supporter of Unitarianism. He gave away hundreds of books on religious and reform topics. One evening, at the house, I told him of a plan long in my mind of compiling a work to be made up of chapters from the Sacred Books and best ideas of diffeient religions and peoples, to show the spiritual fraternity of man, the essential unity of religious ideas, Pagan or Christian, the inspirations of many seers and prophets, ancient and modern. After a few inquiries he said : "I like that. Suppose you go to the Post and Tribune, and see what it will cost to get it out." I found that the cost would be over two thousand dollars, and that some valuable books would also be needed. He told me to get duplicate copies of all books wanted and he would pay for all and keep a copy of each, and see the work published. The offer was unexpected as well as generous. I set about my welcome, but arduous, task, and within two years (in 1872) an edition of two thousand copies was out, he advancing the money for a part of it, which he took and gave away, and giving me time to pay for the rest from the sales. Several later editions have gone out, and the "Chapters from the Bible of the Ages " has been a help to many. Its contents not being mine I can commend their value. To be satisfied that anything was right and just was to support it frankly, and so wo man -suffrage won his active support. In i860, Wendell Phillips was to speak in Detroit on anti-slavery. The streets were full of threats, and the trustees of Young Men's Hall dared not open their doors lest the threatened property should be destroyed. Mr. Ward went to them, saying : " Open the Hall, I insure it, go on without fear." They did so, and a large audience 172 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. heard the lecture quietly, the brave and strong will of one man keeping- the peace. When the civil war came his advice and help were prized in Washington and at home. At its close he went South, and met leading men there in friendly spirit, to urge on them the importance of varying their industry and building up manufactories. In 1 87 1 he bought a spacious corner lot, near the City Hall, at a cost of twenty thousand dollars, and planned to erect a large building on it, with a free hall, where lectures on industrial science and like topics could be given, and which should be open for reforms, for liberal religion as well as orthodox, and for Spiritualism. Reading and lecture rooms and a temperance restaurant were also to be in the building. His intent was to spend some $200,000 in this enterprise; the plans for building were begun, but the panic of 1873 came, and he said all must be put aside, for his first aim was to keep his thousands of men employed, if possible, that they might be saved from distress. I sketch his character and aims in his business career, because he was a noble type of a class more numerous than many suppose — men of executive and organizing power, who would work for the common good, as well as for their own. Possibly some of these in the light of his labors, can do better than he did. In days gone by he would have been General in some great army, a dauntless conqueror, a hero in war. In our day he was a great captain of the industrial hosts, a hero of the chivalry of labor. In January, 1875, came the swift stroke of apoplexy — an instant change from vigorous life to bodily death on the sidewalk. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 173 EMILY WARD — A HELPFUL PIONEERS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY. On Saturday afternoon, March i6th, 1889, it was my g^ood fortune to be present on a noteworthy occasion in Detroit, the eightieth birthday of Emily Ward, commem- orated by a goodly company. Not a fashionable party for gifts and display, but a gathering of the early friends of a venerable woman, and of those younger who hold her in loving reverence. "Aunt Emily," to many from Michigan far over the wide land ; "Grandmother" to twenty children and to their children, at her home and far distant, all children of her adoption, some of them of no kinship in blood. She never married, but her mother's death left her, at ten years old, her good father's friend and comforter, the child-mother of a brother and two younger sisters with a mother-heart that in after years, took home their children, and others left orphans, and a loving wisdom that trained them for useful lives and larger responsi- bilities. In a large chair at one end of the roomy parlor of her house, an ample matronly woman, with a plain, strong face made beautiful by its kindly radiance, her brown hair not yet whitened, with flowers and plants in windows and along the wall behind her, and some of her children near at hand, she sat four hours to shake hands and hold cheering talk with some two hundred persons. On the piano stood a vase holding 80 roses, from Chicago, on her table were many heartfelt letters from those, far and near, unable to be present. It was good to be there, for it was a heart-festival. The letters from her proteges were full of grateful affection. One wrote : " My life has widened since those happy days of your early care, but you are among the widening influences that have made me more of a man than I could otherwise have been." Another: "I have known the uplifting influence of 174 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. your strength and courage and nobility of character." Coming to Michigan more than sixty years ago, settling on the St. Clair river, helping school and church in the forest hamlet, nursing the sick, keeping the lighthouse on Bois Blanc island near Mackinaw, dutiful, helpful and fearless amidst the toils and perils of pioneer life, inspir- ing all, especially young men, to true and useful effort, few lives have been so helpful. Her brother used to tell how the little family watched with admiring interest her first effort at bread-making when she was about twelve years old, from which time she managed that high art in the household. From bread-making to fitting up the furniture of a score of great steamboats, and to the building of saw mills and iron mills, her help was ready, her advice always sought by that brother. A dauntless will, a wise head, a heart true and tender, and the magnetic power of a strong personality gave her large influence. At the party she spoke humorously of offers of mar- riage : "There wasn't an old widower for miles around," she said, " whose first or second or third wife had left him with a family of ten or twelve children, and who wanted a woman to be a slave to him and a servant to his pro- geny, but what came over and wanted to marry me. I uniformly declined the honor, however. I didn't have time to get married." Heart and hands were full, with the care of the many children whose destinies were so intimately linked with hers. One of her children, a niece, with a tall daughter stand- ing by her, said : "Aunt Emily's way of bringing up children was a homely old New England way. She believed in making children work, and she didn't believe in what she called 'gadding about,' nor in a good many other things. If UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 175 one of US g-irls would say, 'Can Ada and I, or Laura and I, or somebody else and I, go out for a little walk ? ' her answer wouldn't always be 'yes.' Very often it would be : 'Oh, want exercise, do you?' Well, you go out and weed that onion bed' : or, ' You go out and pick strawberries for supper'; or, 'You go upstairs and sweep.' And if one of the boys wanted to go over to somebody's house and play, it was : • You go out and tackle that woodpile ' ; or, ' You can hoe those potatoes this afternoon.' 'Gadding about,' dancing lessons, balls and parties, and other things which are contrived for the amusement of the little ones now-a-days, had no place in Aunt Emily's scheme of bringing up children. ' You have the most beautiful river in the world at your door,' she would say to us. ' What more do you want.-* ' What more did we want, surely. That was the most beautiful river in the world. Aunt Emily M^as a Puritan in some of her ideas, but motherless children were never happier than we were playing along the river shores, or rowing on its surface, and living all together in one house. Few chil- dren whose mothers are spared to them can be happier." A band of Saginaw Indians, in their war paint, suddenly came into the house one day when every man, save one cripple, in the settlement was gone to a town miles away. They demanded whiskey, then kept in every cabin, even by men like her father who never drank it. She put her hand through the latch of the door where it was kept, armed herself with a broomstick, and struck stoutly all who came near. The chief said, in their tongue which she understood, "Leave her to me. Ell put her to sleep." This she knew meant her death, but she looked him steadily in the eye, stood firm and called to her sister outside : " Go and call the men," which stratagem led the Indians, after brief consultation, to leave in haste. She knew if they found the whiskey that all would be mur- 176 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. dered. That same self-possession led her, in later years, to bleed her brother when he was smitten with apoplexy, and thus save his life for years. Here is a pleasanter story, as told to the children years ago. In another chapter is Reading German Philosophy, an experience of a different kind. "One day in June," said grandma, " as soon as dinner was over, Sallie and a young woman named Margaret, who worked for Uncle Sam, and Uncle Sam's little boy and myself went across the river to the Canada side to gather wild strawberries that grew there in great abun- dance. We crossed in a rov-boat, and when we got on shore we pulled the boat up high enough on the beach to prevent the waves from carrying it off. " We had a gay time filling our pails and baskets with the ripe fruit, and when we got through we were rather tired, and very leisurely took our way to the boat. We did not notice that the small boy had gone ahead of us. When we were nearly to the beach he came running toward us, shouting ; ' Boaty ! Boaty ! ' " I knew in an instant that he had done some mischief, and I set my strawberries down and ran as hard as I could to the river. Sure enough, he had pushed the boat into the water, and it was floating off with the current. I waded into the water clear up to my neck, and as I could not swim I had to wade back. "By this time the girls and the small boy were on the shove, and as I went back they set up a dismal wail, for the boat was gone, and there we four were miles away from any habitation, and with a fine prospect of spending the night in the woods, where wolves still roamed and an occasional Indian. " We sat in a A^ery melancholy plight, the girls crying, the boy looking doleful, and I thinking what to do. There was an island about a mile below, near the Canadian shore, and I thought the current would carry tlic boat to UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 177 that island and strand her on its eastern point. How to get to that point was the question. There were no in- habitants for miles, and the sun was about going down. The only thing to do was to make a raft strong enough to pole down to the island and find the boat. How to make the raft was another question. " I looked around the beach and found there was drift- wood of logs and long poles, such as pioneers use in building mud chimneys, and I thought we could make a raft with these if we only had something to tie them to- gether. But there wasn't a string a yard long in the whole party, except those we used to hold up our stockings, as was the fashion in those days. But strings or no strings, that raft had got to be made, and what were sunbonnets and aprons and dresses and skirts for, if in an emergency they wouldn't tie a raft together } "I told the girls my plan, and they said they didn't believe I ever would get that boat back in any such way. Still they went to work with a will because I wanted them to, and because it seemed to be the only way to get home. We took off some of our clothes and tied the logs together with the different garments. After a good deal of hard work a raft was completed with the aforesaid materials. "Luckily, the fashion of those days provided every woman with a long under-garment that hung down to her ankles and covered us more as to our necks and arms than many a fashionable belle of these times is covered by what she calls full dress. You may be sure such a raft was a frail affair to sail the waters of the great St. Clair river, and Sallie said she knew we would be drowned. It was only large enough for two, and INIargaret and I went, leaving Sallie to the care of the boy. It required a brave heart to go or stay, for in the distance we could hear the occasional howl of a wolf, or a bear, and there was peril also by water. "The plan was that Margaret and I shouM stand and 1 78 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. steer the raft, but as soon as we got away from the shore she was afraid to stand up, so she sat down and cried, and I did the work, steering with aboard. The current helped us a good deal, and after a time we could see the head of the island. There was an encampment of friendly Indians fishing and hunting, but we were not afraid of them. "By this time the full moon was up, and as soon as we could see the island we saw all the Indians on the shore gazing eagerly in our direction. They didn't seem to understand what it was that was going toward them. But as we got nearer and nearer and the bright moon- light shone directly on us, they discovered that it was only two girls with simply one long garment on, and they screamed and shouted with laughter. I didn't care for that, for by this time I could see our boat, stranded about where I thought it would be. The Indians kindly helped us, and we soon reached the boat, untied our garments from the raft, and hastened back to Sallie and the boy. There we put on our wet clothes, placed the berries in the boat, and started for home. We agreed that we would slip into the house by the back way, change our clothes and not tell of our adventure, and we did so. No one knew of it for some time. But Margaret had a beau to whom she told the story after a while, and as it was such a good one, and as he was a man, he told it to several, and so every one knew it in a little time, and we were well laughed at." The incident was utilized as the subject of a picture by John M. Stanley, the artist, who won reputation as a painter of Indian portraits. The picture now hangs in the parlor. It shows the moonlight on the wide, forest- fringed river, the two girls on the frail craft, and the figures of the Indians in the distance. Mr. Stanley pre- sented it to her on her sixtieth birthday. UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 179 This poem, my contribution to the birthday testi- monial, was read to the assembled guests : The reason firm, the conquering will, The generous heart, the patient skill The good child-mother ten years old, Brother and sisters in her fold. The strong-souled nurse, whose words of cheer Gave hope to many a pioneer. When pain and sickness brought sad gloom To the log cabin's plain, bare room. Up the fair Straits of Mackinaw, In years long past the sailor saw On the lone shore, through the dark night, The lighthouse lamp blaze clear and bright. Each day a maid, lithesome and strong, With free step climbed the ladders long To trim that lamp, that its fair light Might guide to safety in the night. Love lent her wings to mount, to fly If need were, up that tower high, While her good father, on the ground. Less fleet of foot sure safety found. The household tasks were fair and free, Her steps had "virgin liberty; " Books few and choice, thoughts large and high. The lake, the trees, the o'erarching sky. The daily tasks, were teachers meet ; The inner hght burned pure and sweet, Its radiance whiter than the glow From that tall tower on earth below. The Indian, fainting at the door, Gained health from herbs in her full store; Each spring with grateful reverence meet, His maple sugar, at the feet x8o UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. Of the " White Squaw " he gladly laid. And went back to his forest shade — Whatever be the outward hue The grateful heart is ever true. Sisters were wedded, babes were born, The mother's hands grew pale and worn; Death came— a sacred sweet release, Sure rest from toil, and God's own peace. One mother-heart had room for all, The orphan kindred could not fall Out of the reach of fostering care. Of home, of comfort, guidance, prayer. The kinship of great souls is wide, Could all hearthunger be denied ? No, others not of kindred race By the broad hearthstone found warm place. Thus twenty children all had share In wise restraint, in fostering care. And their fair babes, in safe delight Beside the St. Clair's waters bright, Filled one dear home with love and light A generous brother, with true heart, In all these cares bore useful part. And ever to his sister brought His plans and aims for her wise thought. And now to this warm ample home, Through hospitable doors we come. Kindred and friends, on this good day Our best and truest word to say — Eighty years oli ! "Aunt Emily," " Grandma," with reverent hearts we see The ripened fruitage of those years; Words are but poor, and our glad tears Must tell how deep our joy, how high Our hope, how strong our sympathy. May every added year on earth be blest And the great years of heavenly work be besto UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. i8i BENJAMIN F, WADE. *' Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban, More mighty is your simplest word; The free heart of an honest man, Than crosier or the sword." Benjamin F. Wade, United States Senator from Ohio, 1 knew well. E. B. Ward and Mr. Wade were warm friends, and no marvel ; for they were alike in contempt of shams, in frankness of speech, in plain manners and large powers, and they held strong- convictions in com- mon. I was often with Mr. Wade. Some persons you see all at once ; after the first interview they grow less rather than larger ; with him it was the opposite, the more I knew him, the more there was of him. His hearty simphcity was always refreshing, his ready humor and quaint speech never failed, and the clearness and vigor of his views of persons and things gave strength and instruction. He was one of the best judges of men I ever met, and would give the measure of the ability and reliability of public men with wonderful correctness. Especially clear-sighted was he as to a man's integrity. Not suspicious, but gifted with intuition, no double dealer could trap him with smooth words, or cheat him by any jugglery or sharp device. He saw the soul beneath, and so the smooth speech and the tricks went for nothing. He liked an open opponent, or a true friend, but a trimmer he despised, a trickster he held in contempt and would scourge stoutly. There was a flavor of healthy and whole- some naturalness in his ways. Once I told him of my long stage ride by the lake shore, from Buffalo to Ash- tabula, before railroads were built, and of the beating of the waves on one side and the roar of the wind in the forest, on the other, in the dark tempestuous night. "I travelled over that road before you, and I took the Apos- tolic way," said he. "What way was that.!"" I asked. l82 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. "Afoot, and without purse or scrip," was the answer. ' ' What ! did you walk ? " " All the way, over a hundred miles, and for a good reason, I had no money to pay for a ride." So he came to Ohio from the poor little farm at Feeding Hills, near Springfield, Massachusetts. I doubt not he was as cheery and hopeful trudging along in that wild region as he was in the senate chamber, for he had a hearty courage that never failed. He told me of going to a dinner at the White House, at which some twenty Senators and diplomats were present, with President Grant as host. Being the oldest person, he was seated by Mrs. Grant, and the talk aroui.d the table turned on the religious views of those present, all speaking freely and without controversy. Mrs. Grant says to him : "Where do you go to church?" and he replied: " I don't go anywhere." She was surprised, and said: "I know you area good man, Mr. Wade, and I supposed, of course, you went to church. Tell me, please, why you don't go." "Well, I don't care anything about most of their preaching. I've been in this city sixteen winters, and I was never in a meeting-house here. It's all right for others to go, if they want to, but this eternal hell and the devil and all that stuff I don't care about, and so I stay away." "Then you don't believe in eternal punishment or in a devil } " asked his earnest questioner. "Why, no, how can I .? "he replied, and she thoughtfully said, " Well, I have doubts myself. " He was charged with intemperance and habitual and vulgar profanity, never paying any heed in a public way to these charges. In 1868 he wrote a private letter to G. G. Washburn, editor Upper Sandusky Republican (Ohio), in answer to one from that gentleman. Mr. Wade's letter was not pubhshed until after his death. He said : "They speak of my profanity, which I utterly deny, to an extent more than is common with men of the world generally, though more, I admit, than can be justified. As to intemperance, it is all false. I do not believe I was UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 183 ever intoxicated in the course of a long life, nor do I be- lieve that in all that time I have ever drank one gallon of spirituous liquors— never had a taste for it, and do not touch it once a year, and never except for medicine. . . Do you believe that if I was the profane, vulgar wretch that they represent me to be, the United States Senate would have made me their presiding otificer, by a vote more than three to one over any and all the competitors for that position ? The Senators knew me well, I had served with them through all our trials and perils for more than sixteen years." In 1878 I wrote a letter to the Detroit Post and Tribune, from which the following is an extract : I have known Mr. Wade for ten years, have sat at the same table with him for months, have been a frequent visitor at his rooms, and a guest at the Ohio home of him- self and his excellent wife, and have spent many hours, long to be remembered, with him. Surely I ought to know something as to what manner of man he was. During all those years there might have been a score of times or less when he broke forth into oaths in my hear- ing. He was too clean-souled a man to be a vulgar or coarse, habitual swearer. In rebuke of meanness, or treason to humanity, the expletives blazed out hot and heavy, as expressions of moral indignation ; but the rare humor, quaint good sense and frank directness of his daily talk, had no such emphasizing. His ways reminded me of a word in a speech of Rev. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, in a campaign in anti-slavery days, while he was a member of Congress. In some criticisms on profanity, Mr. Lovejoy said : "I do not approve of swearing, but o-ive me the man who swears for freedom, rather than the fellow who prays for slavery." I never saw wine or spirits on his table nor at his room ; never saw him go to a bar or saloon to drink, and never was told of his doing so by any one who ever did see him. During a visit at 1 84 UPWARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. his home in Jefferson, Ohio, in the last year of his life on earth, he was laughing- about the stories told of his whiskey drinking and coarse profanity, and said: "I don't think I've drank the amount of a pint of liquor in thirty years ;" and Mrs. Wade, sitting by, said: "That is true." Stopping over Sunday, I spoke in a hall near by, and he went with me in the morning. When evening came, knowing that he seldom attended public meetings of any kind unless obliged to, and the November w^eather being raw and cold, I said to him : "Don't go out, I know you like to stay at home," and he replied in his hearty and humorous way, as he put on his overcoat : '* I'm a-going. You got the brush cleared up this morning, and I want to see which way you strike out of the woods." In Washington he kept the plain and simple ways of his early New England life, was singularly temperate in diet, had " early to bed, early to rise," as his motto and practice, and attributed his tine health largely to these wise habits. From the age of ten years he became a doubter of theological dogmas and authorities, and grew to doubt a future life — fortunately holding with grand fidelity to the practical duties of this. Within a few years he became a Spiritualist, and expressed to me at his home just before his last sickness, his satisfaction in the light his views gave him touching this life and the life beyond. Thus much in justice to the memory of a fearless and true man. HENRY C. CAREY. " Swart smiters of the glowing steel, Dark feeders of the forge's flame. Pale watchers at the loom and wheel, Repeat his honored name." In 1867 I had occasion to write Henry C. Carey, and a ready reply came, in a fine delicate handwriting, beauti- ful, yet not easy to decipher. A few months after I called UriVARD STEPS OF SEVENTY YEARS. 185 at his home in Philadelphia, at his request, and thus bc-